Page 76 of Soul on Fire
She jogged down the stairs with him all the way to the lobby and led him to the rear doors facing the pier. “We have to get five hundred feet to the end of the pier behind this building. I was the Naval Academy’s top sprinter in my class. I set a world record in the four-hundred-meter dash.”
Directly ahead, past the loading equipment and the dockside detritus of the Navy, lay the pier. A line of warships was tied up alongside, giants in the night, shadows rising from the water. Their running lights and bridge lights were on, each hull glowing as waves slapped in slow and steady rhythms against their steel sides.
“Now,” Mallory said, leading him to the center of the pier. “Do you think you can beat me to the end of the pier?”
Eight minutes. “Yes ma’am.”
“Prove it.”
He took off, Mallory right beside him and hauling ass down the center of the midnight pier. Adrenaline flooded his muscles, made him forget his body’s aches, the bruises and tears and broken spots. They ran in and out of the base floodlights, halos and darkness flashing over their bodies. Ships rose and fell like mountains on their right, moving from stern to bow and stern to bow. Mallory kept pace with him the entire way, and then peeled ahead. She made it to the end of the pier ten strides before he did.
She was already on board one of the four RHIBs tied up at the pier when he stopped, doubled over and coughing. He couldn’t breathe, and even though he was standing on dry land, he felt like he was drowning, like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air to breathe and water was filling his lungs. Something wet bubbled up from his throat.
He spat. Crimson blood splashed on the concrete.
“Lieutenant, get in,” Mallory barked.
“Admiral, I’m not getting in there with you—”
“I’ve rigged the RHIB for you and it’s ready to depart. I’ll cast you off. All you have to do is motor through the Khawr al Qulayah channel and point your nose northeast.” Mallory climbed out of the RHIB and kneeled by the bowlines, waiting.
Elliot boarded, setting the warhead on the deck beneath the wheel. His head was about to crack open, the stabbing pain running down his neck and jackhammering his spine. His entire body burned like he’d already been through a nuclear blast. Exhaustion pulled him down, made him want to stop, give up, give in.
Seven minutes on the timer. “Admiral—”
“Save it, Lieutenant. I have final orders for you.”
“Ma’am?”
“Proceed northeast once you clear the channel for three but no more than four minutes. Set your course for the Bahrain Light Buoy and once you’ve achieved more than six and half nautical miles, bail out. With a three kiloton payload and winds to the northeast at twelve knots, the fallout from this blast will be no more than five kilometers at the max. Any lethal effects will be limited to a half-kilometer range.” She quirked a half smile. “I was a nuclear engineer before I was an Admiral.”
“Ma’am… I don’t think I can survive the jump. I can’t swim back, not now.” Before, when he was healthy, he could have. He’d swam that and farther many times. “I’m barely hanging on as it is right now.”
“You will jump overboard, Lieutenant Davis, and that’s an order. You won’t be in the water long. I’ll be behind you in the next RHIB.” She unmoored his RHIB and tossed him the line. “Go. I’m right behind you.”
He pushed the engine to full throttle and spun the wheel, reversing out of the pier and flying on top of the waves rolling through the channel. There were speed advisories here, but he ignored them. The wind blasted his face, salt spray and sea air and the taste of freedom, of open oceans and a wide, blue earth. Manama glittered to his left, a neon wonderland in a flat world rising in the night like it was born from a black mirror, a mirage of a crazed mind.
If only I could have taken Ikolo to the sea.
It was too much whiplash, too much push and pull. From the sea to the jungle to the sea again, a million different experiences that had changed his world in a thousand different ways, all cramped in too short a time. He’d wanted to live in that changed world, feel what life was like when he faced the world with fire consuming his heart and soul. When he lived with Ikolo at his side.
He heard another RHIB’s engines screaming over the sea. Admiral Mallory, following him to save him. She’d put her life on the line to do it, though. How could she pull him out of the sea without risking infection?
Should he even bail out? Or should Elliot save her from his fate?
He made the turn as he cleared the channel, the navigation buoy bells chiming as they rocked on the waves. Straight out into the darkness, in between the shipping lanes and into the dark international waters. He pointed his nose to the Bahrain Light Buoy and watched his GPS calculate the distance. The numbers blurred, became a green glow, and then became nothing at all.
Darkness rushed at him—
He jerked back, almost flipped the RHIB as he came back to himself. He’d blacked out, the pain in his head like a chainsaw cutting him open up his back. He gritted his teeth, screamed, and barreled on. The buoy was ahead, only a little farther… Twinkling lights to his port and starboard were other ships, tankers and shipping vessels and pleasure boats. They would have a fireworks show in a few minutes.
He checked the timer. He’d blacked out longer than he thought.
The timer counted down from thirty seconds.
His radio squawked, Mallory’s stern voice bellowing from the ship’s speaker. “Lieutenant, I thought I ordered you to throw your ass overboard!”
“Yes ma’am. Got a little sidetracked.” Elliot slammed the radio down and set the autopilot coordinates. Straight on for the buoy. In thirty seconds, it would blow as the RHIB came up alongside her. Ships kept clear of it, a minimum safe distance of one-point-six nautical miles. Three kilometers.
