Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [40]
Feeling something solid beneath my feet after being in the water so long gave me a fresh surge of strength, and right then I knew for a fact that I wasn’t finished, not by a long shot. I sprang to the surface and looked for the shore. It was nothing. A hundred yards at most.
Piece of cake. I could do it. I willed my empty arms and legs to move as though they were a team of recalcitrant mules in the foothills of the Andes. My limbs didn’t really belong to me anymore. I had just borrowed them, and they didn’t like the way I’d treated them, but they, too, must have sensed the nearing shore, because they began to obey me. That’s right, boys, I told them. Don’t fail me now.
I heard the speedboat coming as if from out of a dream you think you’ve already awakened from. It was coming in fast from my left. I stroked harder for the shore. I was sure it was Williams. I turned my head to one side and saw him standing at the helm, bearing down on me fast and hard, his bald head shining in the brittle sunlight like the helmet of a conquistador. I recalled the ears he had used for money back in Vietnam. I should not have been surprised that he’d spent the night looking for me.
It was fear that saved me then, fear that squeezed the last ounce of juice out of my adrenals. Suddenly the unbearable fatigue was gone and I was fresh again. It would not last long. But it might last long enough.
I heard the first shot but felt nothing. I took as deep a breath as I could manage and dove for the bottom and swam underwater. The boat passed over me, blocking the sun, its propellers churning madly. I had passed the sandbar, but the sea was still only about fifteen feet deep. A little farther and Williams would have to take her out again lest he beach her. But I wasn’t Aquaman. He knew where I was. All he would have to do was wait for me to come up.
My lungs were bursting, begging for relief. My only chance was if Williams was looking in the wrong direction when my head broke the surface of the water. There was no other choice. I broke for the surface, knowing that I was heading for either another breath of life or a bullet in the head. I was in the same bad spot I’d been in the night before, only this time there was more light for Williams to see me with.
I decided to come up near the bow of the boat where the curvature of the hull might give me a little cover, but as I began to rise toward the darkened underbelly of the speedboat, it turned abruptly and sped away at top speed. My head broke the surface of the water just in time to see it careening away, heading north, a spray of white foam spewing outward from its wake.
There was a roar of engines behind me. I turned and saw a coast guard cutter splitting the waves and coming in from the east, from the open ocean. It was starting to swing away after Williams when it spotted me and came about. I could see the sailors watching me through their binoculars. I waved at them, and a moment later they sent one of those small, two-man inflatable pontoons out to get me. I reached up, and the two fresh-faced sailors pulled me into the craft.
I asked for water and drank like a bedouin at an oasis. One of the sailors—a young woman—helped me to lie back and put a life jacket under my head. I struggled to sit up, but all at once my body, so long abused, failed me. I tried to speak, but not even my lips would work, so I lay back and breathed hard, and the far sun fell from the sky and crashed into my face like a meteor. After that there was only the darkness, into which I gladly allowed myself to drown.
I woke up in the infirmary at the Krome Detention Center. The sign on the wall told me that much. I was in a large room with lime green walls, barred windows, and a dozen beds, most of which were occupied. Beyond the windows the sun was still high enough