Carter began to swim as fast and hard as he could. He could feel the pull of a strong current and knew that he would need all his strength to make progress against it for even the short distance to the helicopter. Kicking with everything he had, he reached the peak of a swell and used to the opportunity to check the water around him. He spotted Jayden’s black-haired head beneath the chopper. Carter’s heart sank as he realized just how precarious their situation was. This helicopter was not some coast guard chopper equipped with a winch and rescue basket, much less a crew separate crew to handle those things. It was fast and light, designed for transport over relatively long distances for a ‘copter. But this meant the pilot would face the Herculean task of lowering the chopper close enough to the water for them to be able to grab hold of the skids, while avoiding the unpredictable rogue swells that cropped up all around them. And the enemy gunfire.
Carter bodysurfed down the face of the swell he was on and kicked hard until he felt himself rising up the next one. At its crest, he used the viewpoint to look back toward their abandoned and ruined inflatable boat. He was beyond surprised to see a man swimming only ten feet behind him, coming right towards him with a powerful crawl stroke. At first he thought his adrenaline-riddled mind might be playing tricks on him, that it was Jayden and that he had somehow gotten disoriented and turned everything around in his mind. But a quick 180 and visual check of the helicopter, where Jayden’s arm was swiping unsuccessfully for the skid, told him that no, it was someone else.
He realized with a start that it was the pilot of the Zodiac he had grappled overboard with the anchor. Coming after him in the water to exact his revenge? It seemed absurd, but Carter knew he didn’t have time to tread water and think about it. He kicked off toward the helicopter once again, hoping that at least Jayden would be aboard before he got there so he would be able to help pull him up and in.
But when he felt the rotor-driven spray on his face, he looked up to see that Jayden was, in fact, still in the water. The problem was that the chopper pilot was too scared get low enough for a person treading water to grab hold of the skids. Carter couldn’t blame him. It was possible for the entire aircraft to be engulfed and pulled underwater once the skids were submerged. But meanwhile the savage in the water behind him was gaining, and to make matters even worse, Carter spotted the lights of his boat drawing nearer.
The pilot lowered the helicopter once again, doing his best to time the swells. He lowered the craft into a trough, but had to pull up as a swell approached before Jayden was able to grab the skid. It was close, though, and Jayden gave him a hand signal that indicated he should try the maneuver again.
Carter called over to Jayden to let him know he was here. “Keep trying to get in, I’ll fight this guy off.” The enemy combatant swimmer reached them too, and the battle was on. Carter made a mental note to find out more about Daedalus ’ employee motivation program, because he couldn’t help but think that these guys were non-stop go-getters. Surely, they could have driven back to the ship after picking up their man overboard, and the boat chase, and no one would have said anything about a lack of effort. But here this killer was, swimming through a tempest beneath a helicopter to get at an ex-Navy man who had ripped him off of a boat after being shot at.
Was it the power of the ark? The strange thought sprouted in Carter’s historian brain even as his primal systems readied themselves to brawl. Carter wasn’t worried too much about the fight. Though Jayden had been the SEAL and not him, he was still extremely comfortable in the water and a trained fighter as well. He took a deep breath as the peak of a swell was about to reach him and ducked below the water. Opening his eyes despite the cold sting, he locked onto the blurry form of his adversary and angled up toward him from below. Like a shark, Carter thought. From below and behind. Take him out…
But as Carter’s right hand reached out to drag his opponent beneath the waves, the foe was suddenly yanked up and out of the water. No way could he propel himself like that, Carter thought. So, what….he surfaced in time to see the undercarriage of their helicopter — its engine roaring in his ears with the close proximity — lifting away…
… with Jayden gripping onto the skid with both hands — and Daedalus ’ thug holding onto his ankles, also being lifted into the stormy sky.
“Jayden, kick! It’s not me!” Carter screamed, in case Jayden wasn’t aware who it was that was holding onto him. He saw the former Naval warrior glance down, and a bolt of lightning illuminating his shocked face told Carter that his message had not been in vain. In a feat of sheer strength befitting an ex-SEAL, Jayden raised his knees until the adversary latched onto his ankles was within striking distance. Holding onto the skid with only his left hand, Jayden clocked the thug in the jaw with a powerful right, knocking him back into the water. He landed right next to Carter, nearly on top of him.
In a lucky break for the hired goon, his Zodiac pulled up next to him at that moment. Carter had been listening to Jayden scream something at the helicopter pilot, but the engine droned out the words, as well as the sound of the small boat’s motor, which was why he didn’t hear it approach. Carter felt his stomach leap into his heart as he turned around and saw the rubber tubes of the inflatable mere feet from his face. The attacker who had just fallen from the helo was being dragged aboard by his associates-the two, that is, who were not either driving the boat or pointing the gun at Carter.
He whirled right, knowing his movements were slowed in water but needing to get out of the gun’s sights. He barely heard the pop of the pistol over the chopper engine noise, which grew louder as the ‘copter lowered itself over the boat. Carter saw his chance and took it. He was a sitting duck in the water. He ducked underwater to cloak himself while moving to another part of the boat, forward of where his adversary was being pulled back in following his ordeal. He scissor-kicked up to launch himself from the water and took hold the grab line that was strung around the boat’s sides. Using this he was able to swing his right leg up and over the tube and roll into the boat even before his adversary was helped aboard.
Even so, he knew he had all of about a single second in which to act before he was gunned down and tossed back overboard. The chopper was so close he instinctively brought up an elbow to shield his face when he looked at it, but then he realized this was Jayden’s doing. His friend was now standing on the skid, one hand gripping the door frame, waving Carter up, mouthing the word Jump!
Carter took the not-so-subtle-suggestion and, with a running start, bounded off the pontoons at the bow of the small craft, basically trampolining himself up toward the hovering helicopter. His jump was a good one, and he was able to wrap both hands around the skid. As soon as he did that, he looked up and saw Jayden, head turned toward the pilot, waving at him to move.
In the boat, his takes-a-licking-but-keeps-on-ticking attacker was somehow back on his feet and rampaging toward Carter once more. Carter saw him by looking down through his legs, but was much more concerned about the crewman standing in the rear of the boat aiming the gun at him. There wasn’t much he could do about that, and he now felt terribly exposed due to his elevation above the other people on the raft. But a rolling wave crested beneath the boat at that moment, and as luck would have it, tipped the boat enough to throw off the shooter’s aim, causing him to miss all three rapid-fire shots.