Mercer wondered grimly how many hapless victims remained near enough to the doomed ship to be sucked under when she vanished beneath the waves.
Tisa cried out and lunged at a toggle switch on the dash that had broken away, allowing water to dribble in around the cracked plastic. She held her hand over the weeping gash. The blankets at Mercer’s feet were sodden. As the truck floated up from the bow, there was just enough light penetrating the dark waters for Mercer to count the support girders lining the wall. He estimated the stern door was at least seventy feet above them. Water found more openings into the cab.
“Are we going to—”
“It’ll be close,” he answered, not needing her to finish the question.
The ship continued to fill with water. The auto deck wasn’t the only space flooding. Her bilges and upper decks too were drowning, a few passengers too slow or too disoriented to escape after the initial explosion dying silently in the black water. The ferry was actually lower in the water than Mercer thought, and sinking faster than he believed possible. The truck was fifty feet from hitting the stern door when her stern rail vanished under the waves, leaving the sea littered with hastily launched lifeboats and hundreds of wailing passengers.
The water in the inverted cab was up to Mercer’s knees. Tisa braced her feet against the dash to keep them dry. The truck sloshed across the hold because the ferry corkscrewed as she sank. Mercer couldn’t tell how far they were from hitting the door.
“Tighten your lap belt,” he said unnecessarily. He and Tisa were buckled as tight at they could be. “Get into the crash position they teach you on airplanes. It’ll protect you from whiplash.”
They ducked down, holding their chests to their knees. The position was uncomfortable for Mercer, but he lacked a tenth of Tisa’s flexibility.
Outside the ferry, water pressure exploited the smallest entrances into the ship, forcing air from any voids with increasing fury. The last and greatest empty chamber on the ship was the car deck. Air trapped at the still-sealed stern had formed a taut bubble that needed just a tiny more impetus to blow open the eight-ton ramp. The gasoline tank was made of heavy-gauge noncorrosive steel and hit the door at nearly seventeen miles per hour. The truck’s upward rush ended in a savage impact that whipped Mercer and Tisa brutally, though none of the windows cracked.
“What happened? Are we free?”
Mercer didn’t say anything for a moment, his optimism fading with each passing second. The ramp hadn’t been blown open. “No, damn it. We’re not light enough to force open the door. We’re trapped.”
Water continued to pour into the cab. It was up to Mercer’s waist and climbing. He could feel pressure building in his ears. They were probably forty feet below the surface by now and falling by the second. He knew there were two choices: wait for the water to slowly fill the cab or simply break a window and end it quick.
There was no light for him to see Tisa, but he could feel her hand in his. She gave him a squeeze. She also understood their options.
“Just do it,” she whispered with eerie calm, as if she’d known it would come to this all along.
“I’m sorry, Tisa.”
“It’s not your fault. You did everything you could.”
“No, I mean I can’t do it.” His voice was fierce, unbending. “I’m not giving in, not until I can’t hold my breath for one second longer.”
Like a piece of flotsam, the tank truck rolled along the door, edging away from the stout hinges at the base.
Water continued to pour into the cab, covering Mercer and Tisa, forcing them to unsnap their belts and struggle to find the diminishing air pocket. Tisa came up sputtering, her hair plastered against her head. Her arms went around Mercer.
“I don’t want to die, Mercer. Oh my God, I really don’t want to die.” She sounded surprised to realize she had a survival instinct.
The truck rolled once again, tumbling the pair as though they were caught in a washing machine. They had to fight to find air.
The tanker came to rest at the very top of the door, pushed there by the streams of bubbles still rising from deeper in the hold. The added force of buoyancy was just enough to crack the door open a fraction of an inch. Air gushed through the opening, forced through by the tremendous pressure. The heavy door was pushed farther back on its hinges. The truck rolled again in the surge of air and suddenly it was scraping across the threshold. It hung suspended, half in and half out of the plummeting ferry, gripped tight by the heavy door.
Mercer held his face pressed tight to the top of the cab, taking shallow sips of air, allowing Tisa the lion’s share of the few remaining breaths. They’d been in the water ten minutes, not nearly enough for the cold to affect them, but still both trembled as if suffering hypothermia.
“Mercer. I—” A wave forced water down Tisa’s throat. She spat and gagged to clear her lungs. “I want you to know—”
Like a cork from a shaken bottle of champagne, the pressure of air in the big tank wouldn’t be held any longer. Shoving aside the door the ten-ton truck popped free and rocketed toward the surface amid a fountain of bubbles.
The motion was so violent that Mercer’s last breath left his mouth half filled with foul water. His lungs burned and he felt the muscles of his diaphragm convulsing to draw air. Tisa couldn’t be faring any better, he thought, as the truck spiraled upward.
From a depth of sixty feet, the trip to the surface took just seconds. The tanker exploded from under the waves like a breaching whale, slamming back to the sea with a splash that nearly capsized a nearby lifeboat. Several survivors struggling in the water were almost crushed when the heavy vehicle spun to find its equilibrium.
Mercer was thrown into the windshield when the tanker broached, shattering the glass and what felt like his skull. He kicked free from the cab, reached back for Tisa and dragged her through the opening. Holding her limp body in one arm, he stroked for the surface, his lungs screaming.
He surfaced next to the bobbing truck and sucked in great drafts of air. Crisscrossing searchlights mounted on a dozen lifeboats cut the dark night. The only sounds were boat motors and pleas for help. The sea was littered with the dead and dying.
The front half of the tanker was underwater, allowing Mercer to wedge himself into the rear wheel well. Tisa wasn’t breathing. He held her to his chest and was able to pinch off her nostrils and begin to breathe air into her lungs.
Tears mingled with the salt water stinging his eyes. “Come on, come on,” he called softly, his mouth inches from hers, his senses alert for the slightest sign of life. He continued CPR, trying to massage her chest to keep her heart going. His precarious position on the tanker made his efforts extremely awkward. He gently blew more air into her body, feeling her lungs expand with each cycle. Tisa remained inert.
And then she coughed up a mouthful of bile and water. Mercer didn’t care that he took most of it in his face. Tisa coughed again, a deep retching that seemed to rip the delicate tissues in her chest. Mercer turned her in his arms so it was easier for her to clear her lungs, all the while rubbing her back and murmuring reassurances.
It took her several minutes to regain her breath enough to speak, and even then Mercer urged her to stay quiet. In that time a dozen stranded passengers had floundered their way to the tottering truck, clinging to precarious handholds wherever they could find them. One man tried to climb the tank, but Mercer reached out a hand to prevent him from upsetting the vehicle’s delicate balance.