The spark roared across the waters, dipping, swinging, spiralling.
It met the bloom of flame on the pontoon and burst.
The explosion seemed not to start; she thought she must have blinked, and missed the start. It was suddenly there; white, yellow; a jagged splayed froth of incandescence, already falling, collapsing, dimming through orange and red. The noise came through the ringing in her ears, and was followed by its echo, once sharply, then more muffled versions, fading and disappearing.
'Jeje! she heard through the radio. Then Allá!
The water jumped around the Gemini. The inflatable shuddered as she threw the SAM launcher away and saw the flickering light of gunfire over to her right. The Gemini shook again, and she heard a hissing noise. Sparks struck off the engine, and the dying, zinging noise of ricochets filled the air above as more white fountains leapt into the air in front of her. The Gemini bucked under her and the engine stopped suddenly. She had one hand on the side of the inflatable, and felt it go soft under her fingers. The flickering light went on; three or four ragged points of fire.
She threw herself backwards out of the boat, into the water.
11: Oneiric
The water was strange and cloying, insinuating through the fabric of the fatigues, slicking the material against her skin. She took a deep breath, sounded, struggling through the black water away from the Gemini. The bullets hitting the water made deep thrumming noises, starting loud and violent, quickly fading. The high whine of the other inflatable's outboard drilled through the water under the percussive bullet beats.
The boots were holding her back and dragging her down. She came up for air, twisting her head to look back at the inflatable; still dishearteningly close. She brought one foot then the other up, hauling the loose boots off. She hyperventilated as she watched; the other boat was hidden by the one she'd just jumped from, but the noise of the firing swarmed. through the air above her. Water burst whitely around the Gemini. She tore the remaining grenade from her breast and unbuckled the belt as she turned, took a last deep breath and dived again, heading away. Grenade and belt sank from her fingers into the dark lake.
She swam under water until she thought her mouth was about to open of its own accord and the darkness in front of her eyes had turned to a dreamy; pulsing purple, then she came up, surfacing as quietly as she could. Still no sign of the other boat, but the firing was much louder, and the Gemini she'd been on was half-collapsed in the water, shaking and bouncing as shots tore into it; sparks flew from the outboard casing, and as she watched, fire burst from the inflatable; at the stern first as the outboard's fuel tank finally gave way, then along the length of the craft; the jerry can must have ruptured. She didn't know if the plastique would explode or not. She gulped air, sounded, and angled away, hearing and feeling a last few shots thump into the water. Then the firing stopped. The note of the outboard was deepening, slowing. She waited for the blast and shock of the explosion, but it didn't come then. Her lungs burned and she surfaced once again, carefully. She looked back.
The second inflatable was silhouetted against the end-to-end flames of her Gemini; three or four men. The outboard revved, and the Gemini curved away from the burning inflatable, heading in the direction she'd swum at first. She went under, just as the ammunition on the burning Gemini started to detonate. It made a series of frenzied, booming bursts of noise, all but obliterating the sound of the outboard.
She swam until she thought she was about to black out, heading almost at right angles to the direction she'd taken initially. The outboard, when she could hear it, sounded distant. The next time she looked the ammunition in the burning. boat had reached the finale; tracer erupted into the night sky like fireworks. There was no sign of the other Gemini. She took another deep breath. An explosion kicked her, and she thought the plastique had blown, but then another came, and another, and the outboard noise whined closer. She wriggled away, changing course, realising they were using grenades.
When she had to come up, she tried not to make any noise.
The Gemini was twenty metres away; lit by flames. Four men. One with what looked like a set of stubby; large-lensed binoculars. Another threw something ahead and to port; something splashed into the water ten or fifteen metres away from her. She wanted to dive then, but didn't. She watched the man with the nightscope swing round towards her.
The grenade blew, pounding her, squeezing her. She heard herself gasp with the pain of it, though the noise was hidden in the roar of the water bursting and fluting out above the grenade. Just as the man scanning the waves came round to face her, she sounded, slipping under the surface. The out board grumbled and spat, this time close. Then it whined again, roared past her. Another grenade; close enough to hammer her ears but not as painful as the one before.
When she next surfaced they were a hundred metres away. The light from the burning Gemini was waning; she heard the sound of the fire through the ringing that had reestablished itself in her ears like an old friend.
After a few more grenades, the four men in the inflatable broke off and went to look at what was left of the Nadia's pontoon.
They cruised up and down that part of the ship's hull, tiny voices calling, Jefe! Jefe! Señor Dandridge!
She swam a little closer, wanting to see for herself. The Nadia's own lights and the dregs of the flames licking round the gutted Gemini shone upon the pontoon where Dandridge had been. A small fire burned there still, in the ripped fragments of the pontoon's wooden planks and empty oil drums. One of the men in the boat was scanning the water with the nightscope; another shone a torch. The Nadia's dark hull rose behind them like a cliff, glistening in the dying orange light of the foundering Gemini.
They called Dandridge's name a few more times, then one of them pointed at the water and shouted. The outboard was silent, but the boat surged forward, white under the bow, then fell and slowed again. One of the men pulled something out of the water. They shone a torch on it. Whatever it was it wasn't very big, and none of them said anything. It splashed when they threw it back. The black Gemini creased white from the surface of the lake, curving round and taking them back to the pontoon; two of them picked their way across the wreckage and went up the steps. Hisako looked back at the burning Gemini. Lit by the flames on what was left of its own crumpled bows, it slipped stern-first into the waves.
She trod water, moving a little all she time, letting the waves break over her, ducking her head under the water now and again. Torchlight swung haphazardly about the black Gemini waiting at the ruined pontoon.
The men on the ship were gone some time.
Once she sat in a train beneath the bottom of the sea.
The line from Honshu to Hokkaido had long since been completed; the tunnel ran under the waters of the Tsugarukaikyo for thirty kilometres, beneath the autumn fogs and the winter storms, from one island to the other. She took the train rather than the ferry between late autumn and spring, and whenever the weather forecast was bad. One December day her train broke down, ten kilometres from land, under a raging sea.
People talked nervously. They'd been told over the intercom a relief engine was on its way; there was no danger. The guard came down the carriages, reassuring people personally. Conversations started between strangers. Children played in the aisle, but she still sat looking out of the window, into the stony darkness. It had been black while they were moving; it was black now they'd stopped. She found you could ignore the reflections as long as nobody moved. The Strad occupied the seat next to her.