Flood Rising (A Jenna Flood Thriller) (14 page)

29

3:55 a.m.

Jenna flailed for something to stop her fall, but the only thing within reach was the body of her assailant, and he, too, was falling. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the fall stopped. The damaged rail had given beneath their combined weight, but had not collapsed entirely. It sagged over the alligator pond, groaning as the nails slowly lost the battle to hold the structure together.

The jolt of the sudden stop sent another lance of pain through Jenna’s body, but the hissing and snapping of reptilian jaws scant inches below her was a wonderful anesthetic. Her attacker pushed hard against her. She couldn’t tell if he was attempting to shove her the rest of the way over or simply trying to recover himself. Ultimately, the result was the same. The rail lurched and dropped another foot.

Jenna clutched at her assailant. If she was going in, he was, too. Her body was slanted down, as if she was hanging by her knees from the monkey bars on a playground. She could feel solid ground pressing into the back of her thighs. Too much of her weight was already hanging out over the edge. When the rail gave way, there would be nothing to hold her back.

Something struck the rail beside her head, sending a tremor through the wood. She heard another hiss and splash. One of the gators had made a grab for her, missing by inches. The impact was the last straw for the railing. With one last tortured squeal, the nails pulled free, and the barrier dropped, along with the two bodies sprawled atop it.

Jenna’s attacker scrabbled in vain for a handhold. She felt him scrape past her and then heard a splash and a howl of denial that was abruptly silenced amid a tumult of growls, snapping jaws and the distinctive sound of bones cracking.

Jenna however, didn’t fall. She could still feel the ground beneath her legs, but there was something else there, too. A weight was pressing down on her feet, holding her in place. Then she was pulled, dragged back up onto terra firma.

“Mercy?” she croaked, her throat still on fire from her assailant’s chokehold.

“I’ve got you,” came the reply. Mercy’s voice was taut with effort, but to Jenna it was the most beautiful sound in the world. She reached out and felt a hand close over her own, hauling her away from the precipice.

Jenna savored the feel of solid ground beneath her body, and she even welcomed the throb of pain from injuries old and new. Hurt was a lot better than dead. For a few seconds, they both just lay there, panting from the exertion.

Finally, Mercy spoke again. “So, was that what you had in mind?”

Jenna almost laughed, but the quip reminded her that this minor victory would count for nothing if they didn’t keep moving. “Not quite,” she replied, rolling over and rising to her hands and knees. She had lost both the gun and the phone in the struggle, but her groping hands found the former and something else as well: the man’s night vision device.

She turned it over in her hands, feeling the hard lens at one end and the soft rubber eye cup at the other, and held it up to her eye. Nothing. She continued exploring its exterior until she found a small knob. She twisted it, felt it turn and click, and then there was a flash of green as the device turned on, and the world lit up like the dawn.

That’s more like it
, she thought, as she settled the straps over her head and locked the monocular into place. It was heavier than she expected, but the discomfort was a small price to pay for the ability to see in the darkness. Jenna got to her feet. Her first few steps were halting. The green display played havoc with her depth perception, but she found that her unaided eye, even though virtually night blind, still helped her see the world in three dimensions.

She turned back to Mercy who was gazing up at her, pupils fully dilated and shining like little white buttons. “We can’t stay here.”

As if to underscore the statement, the display grew almost painfully bright as an artificial light source appeared from somewhere down the path that had brought them here.

“Damn it.” She hauled Mercy to her feet. “I thought we’d have more time. Come on.”

“Where…?” Mercy didn’t seem to know how to finish the question.

Jenna steered her back onto the wooden platform that crossed the alligator pond. With the night vision device, she could see everything in stark detail. A writhing mass of alligators was entangled with the collapsed rail section, biting and snapping at each other as they fought over what remained of the man she had shot.

She looked away and focused on what lay at the far end of the platform. Beyond the alligator pool, the platform descended to a wooden dock that ran the length of a narrow canal. A flat bottomed metal boat with something that looked like an enormous fan mounted at its aft end was moored to the dock.

“That,” Jenna said, pointing to the airboat, “is what I had in mind.”

30

4:06 a.m.

Mercy squinted at the airboat. “Do you know how to drive one of these?”

It was the first time Jenna had ever laid eyes on one of the Everglades’ famous flat-bottomed watercraft, but she had grown up on a boat, and she was confident that she could figure it out. She quickly identified the steering lever, a mechanical arm that controlled a set of louvered vanes behind the fan—push the lever and vanes would direct the flow of air one way, pull and they’d go the other. The engine that turned the huge fan was no more complicated than an outboard motor, and it took just a few seconds for her to prime the fuel line and start it up.

She had known about the boat because she had seen it on the satellite map. She had also seen the network of deep canals that marked the designated routes of the rides. The picture was a couple of years old, but she was sure the boat would be there. Airboat rides through wild gator country were all part of the day’s fun at Gator Station.

“Cast off,” Jenna called out, settling into the pilot’s chair on an upraised platform in front of the idling engine. The seat was equipped with a safety belt. Given her inexperience, it seemed prudent to use it. “Then sit down and hang on!”

Mercy unwound the rope that held the boat in place, and stepped aboard, shoving off with one foot. As soon as she was seated, Jenna engaged the fan. The engine itself wasn’t much louder than a car’s motor, but the rush of air being pulled through the spinning blades sounded like a Category Four hurricane. As the craft began to pick up speed, it felt like one, too.

Jenna quickly got the hang of using the rudder lever to change course, and in moments they had left the Gator Station complex behind and were racing through the marsh. The boat drew only a few inches of water, and skimmed over the surface, almost hydroplaning, effortlessly floating over patches of grass and reeds. She resisted the urge to go full throttle—any faster and the slightest bump might launch the boat into the air.

Her memory of the satellite map was of little use here, where the landscape changed almost as quickly as the weather. But her newly acquired night vision monocular allowed her to navigate around sunken tree boughs and other obstacles that might have stopped the nimble airboat.

After a few minutes, the initial thrill and novelty of the experience wore off, and Jenna remembered the reason she had chosen this form of travel. She glanced over one shoulder, peering through the blurry disc of the spinning fan blades, looking for any sign of pursuit. What she saw made her let off the throttle. The boat coasted forward a few yards until it scraped to a halt atop a patch of reeds.

“What’s wrong?” Mercy asked, evidently sensing Jenna’s sudden anxiety.

Jenna unbuckled her belt and stood up. She turned a slow circle, scanning the horizon. In every direction as far as she could see, the landscape was a flat, featureless tableau, randomly dotted with clumps of vegetation and a few trees. “It all looks the same.”

Mercy tried to peer into the darkness, but without light, she had even less with which to judge their position than Jenna did. “Can’t you use the GPS on your phone?”

“I lost it.” She hadn’t been able to find the phone again after the narrow escape from the alligator pond. It had probably fallen in.

“Well…if we keep going in a straight line, we’re bound to come across something familiar, right?”

“If we
can
go in a straight line.”

Maintaining a linear course would be almost impossible in the airboat. They would have to steer around large obstacles, and without anything to use as a handrail, there would be no way to make sure that they got back on the same azimuth. The wind and irregularities in the surface might also alter their course without her even realizing it. Minor changes could add up, causing them to meander in circles until their fuel ran out.

Jenna turned her eyes skyward, searching for some celestial clue. The overcast sky hid the stars, and the sun would not appear in the east for a few more hours. The moon, though mostly hidden behind the clouds, gave enough light that she could fix its location, but the moon was not as reliable a navigation aid, especially not when moving at high speed.

There was also the unanswered question of where exactly she wanted to go next. The boat could take them almost anywhere—to the outskirts of Homestead, or even to the coast. If she kept the moon at her back, that would take her in a generally eastward direction. That would put her closer to Miami, and closer to Bill Cort, the man who might be able to tell her the truth about her parents and explain why people were trying to kill her.

East it is
.

She sat down, strapped in and pulled the lever back. The boat swung around in what she hoped was the right direction. As it did, she spied movement off to her left. It was just a spot, probably a mile away, but because it was taller than anything else in the landscape, it was readily visible and readily identifiable.

Another airboat.

While there was no way to make out its occupants, the fact that it was running without lights was proof enough that the hunters had not given up.

Jenna pressed the throttle pedal and held the rudder stick on course. She was going as fast as she dared, and for the men in the other boat to have even a chance of catching her, they would have to run at a dangerously high speed. Unfortunately, the men hunting them didn’t need to catch them on the water. All they had to do was follow and stay close. When Jenna and Mercy made landfall, the men would be only a couple of minutes behind.

Not much time to escape, but maybe enough to set an ambush.

Movement, straight ahead and just above the horizon, caught her attention. Not another boat, but something moving above the marsh, flying. There was no mistaking the profile—a solid body in the middle, thinner wings stretching out to either side. It was an aircraft, but much smaller than the Villegas brothers’ plane.

The drone
, she thought. But why was it flying so low? The whole point of the UAV was discreet surveillance. It almost seemed like the remote operator didn’t care if she spotted it. As it got closer, cruising just a few feet above the surface, right in the boat’s path, she realized the action was intentional. She was
meant
to see it.

With each passing second, it became more and more evident that the UAV was not going to veer off or ascend. It was on a collision course.

It’s a bluff
, she thought.
They wouldn’t destroy a million dollar drone just to kill me, would they?

Because she wasn’t sure, Jenna let off the throttle and steered right. The boat’s forward momentum kept it moving forward. Instead of carving a precise turn, the boat slid forward and started to spin. Jenna momentarily forgot about the game of chicken with the drone. She eased off the rudder and nudged the accelerator, regaining control. At that instant, the unmanned aircraft shot past, its wing tip clearing the airboat’s fan by mere inches. There was a strident whine as the drone’s propeller noise reached a climax and then was drowned out by the boat’s engine.

“What was that?” Mercy shouted.

“The drone just buzzed us.” Jenna saw that the aircraft was climbing back into the sky and circling around for another run. She knew why, too. Dodging the drone had cost her several seconds, and the pursuing airboat was now much closer.

She wondered how many men were aboard. Three men had gotten out back at the rocket facility and a fourth had stayed in the car. Subtract the one she had fought with at the alligator pond…three, then? Three trained killers against Mercy and herself. “Do you still have that gun?”

Mercy’s expression knotted with sudden anxiety, but she held up the pistol. “Why?”

Two guns. Not nearly enough to tip the balance in their favor. Besides, as she had learned from the encounter at the alligator pond, sometimes it took a lot more than a single bullet to kill a man. Still, if she did not do something, and soon, the situation would be the same, only their enemies would dictate the terms.

“Get down,” Jenna said, bringing the boat around until the bow pointed toward the approaching watercraft. “Find something to hide behind if you can.”

“What?” Anxiety transformed into panic.

“We have to take the fight to them,” Jenna explained, with more patience than she felt. “Go on the offensive. Otherwise, they’ll just run us down.”

“And just how are we supposed—” Mercy stopped herself in mid-sentence and then continued in a more subdued voice. “I hope you have some kind of plan.”

Jenna did not have a plan, and did not think she could come up with much of one in the thirty seconds it would take for them to close the gap with the other boat. Her only solace was that the killers didn’t know that she didn’t have a plan.

Run toward a gun
. That wisdom had served her well thus far, but always in a literal sense. Now she was going to test it at something a bit faster than running speed.

The distance shrank faster than expected. The boats moved at least as fast as cars on a highway. She could make out the dark outlines of the other boat’s occupants, one man in the pilot’s chair—she thought it might be Zack—the other two hanging onto the passenger seats. All three wore monocular night-vision devices like her own. All three watched her approach with rapt anticipation.

When she was close enough that she could see the look of alarm on the pilot’s face—definitely Zack—Jenna steered to the right, as if to avoid the imminent collision. One of the passengers raised his pistol and started tracking her with the muzzle, anticipating the moment when the two boats would pass.

With just fifty feet separating them, Jenna abruptly steered back to the left, once more on a collision course. Zack reacted just as she hoped he would: instinctively.

Jenna was no expert with the airboat, but her uncanny ability to learn any new skill—physical or mental—had given her a sense of familiarity with how the craft would respond to even the slightest variations of speed and direction. She was still learning, but she was learning a lot faster than the men in the other boat. When she changed course, steering right toward them, Zack jerked his steering lever.

The other boat slewed sideways, out of control, and one of the gunmen was catapulted from his seat like a guided missile. Jenna ducked as the hurtling body sailed through the air toward her. There was a resonant gong as his body hit the fan’s protective wire covering, following by a strident rapid-fire chattering as the bent metal screen struck the whirling blades. The entire boat shook with the impact. A second impact rattled beneath Jenna as the two boats scraped past each other. Amid the chaos, Jenna heard several reports, and she caught a glimpse of Mercy hunched down behind one of the seats, firing into the other boat at almost point blank range.

Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the collision was behind her, and the two boats moved apart. Her boat hadn’t sustained any structural damage, though something was rattling against the fan blades like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle. The noise was an assault on the senses but there was nothing she could do about it. She ground her teeth and steered into a broad turn. Mercy remained crouched down behind a seat back, unhurt.

There was no sign of the man that had been ejected from the boat. He’d been stunned or perhaps even killed by the impact. Either way, the marsh had already claimed him. Zack was just beginning a sluggish turn, and Jenna wondered if one or more of Mercy’s shots had found its mark.

But the battle was not over. She had scored a small victory but if she didn’t press her advantage, she would lose it. She lined up the bow of the little airboat, and opened the throttle once more. The clamor of the fan blades beating against the bent piece of the wire screen reached a fever pitch, climaxing with an eruption of noise and another vibration that shook the entire boat, and then the noise vanished. Jenna glanced back and saw that a portion of the wire screen had broken free, exposing the whirring propeller blades just a couple of feet behind her head.

She felt the boat starting to drift left, and realized that one of the steering louvers behind the fan had been damaged. She tried to correct by turning against the drift, but no matter which way she turned it, the bent vane pushed the boat in the opposite direction. But she did not ease off the throttle. She knew from experience that speed had a way of smoothing out rough seas. She worked the rudder back and forth, keeping the boat on a more or less straight course, and charged the other boat once more.

She couldn’t tell if either man was wounded, but both were preparing for another open water joust. The passenger was concealed behind a seat. Zack did his best to hunker down in place, presenting as small a target as possible. Jenna doubted the men would fall for the same trick, but her experience with sparring had taught her the importance of the feint. She would make them
think
they knew what she was going to do. Then she would do something else. What exactly, she was still trying to work out. Part of her wanted to just ram the other boat, driving over the top of the two killers. While that would be very satisfying, it would also destroy both boats and leave them stranded in the middle of the swamp.

Zack seemed to divine her intent, and as she closed with him, he accelerated, pushing the boat so hard that Jenna thought she could actually see it starting to float above the water’s surface. The move caught her by surprise, and she barely had time to steer away. Mercy attempted to shoot them, but a fusillade of return fire forced her down. Jenna ducked as bullets smacked into hard surfaces all around her.