Camacho was fast, but the Athanatoi was faster, pulling his gun and bringing it into the aim right in the CIA man’s face. “Up.”
A crestfallen Camacho wiped the grease and soot from his face and moved slowly to his feet, raising his arms above his hands. “Take it easy with that thing, would ya? I got kids.”
The man waved the pistol toward the door and Camacho heaved a sigh of disappointment as he knew he was out of the fight. Then they were both gone, in the same direction as the man who had dragged Lea out of sight.
Hawke’s attention was brought back to his own struggle when the crew on the M2 and their grenade-launching support amped things up another notch, working the weapons with terrific efficiency, and seconds later grenades were exploding all around them. Hawke knew this was one fight they had no chance of winning. They were outmanned, outgunned and playing on the enemy’s home turf. There was only one play, and he had to give the order.
“Jump!”
And with that, the ECHO team leaped from the platform and tumbled through the howling storm toward the icy, black ocean a hundred feet below.
Smashing through the surface from this distance was almost like hitting concrete and the experience was made ten times worse by the freezing temperature of the water which enveloped him as he plunged deep into the sea. Every time he did this he got the memory of basic Commando training in Devon when they seemed to spend a lot of their time in freezing cold water and mud. The SBS selection process was even less merciful when it came to sorting the wheat from the chaff, and he knew many of his team had no such training or experience.
The storm meant almost zero visibility so he gave up any notions of looking for the others and made his way to the surface as fast as possible. He broke through moments later and was greeted by a sharp smack of sea spray on his face. He gasped for air as he struggled to find his buoyancy and after sweeping his hair out of his face he scanned the horizon for the others.
It was a vision of hell — a dark, freezing cold sea heaving up and down in response to the storm swirling around the Seastead — and for a few seconds he was totally alone. He couldn’t see or hear any of his friends. The storm had scattered them like dead leaves across the raging ocean and staring up at the Seastead’s grim, industrial substructure so high above him he wondered how the hell they would ever get back up there.
He refocussed his attention on the surface of the sea. Somewhere out here his friends needed his help, and in conditions like this time was of the essence. Not only was the icy temperature a serious consideration, but the prospect of getting sucked out to sea by the powerful currents was all too real. It would be a lonely, painful and terrifying death.
He saw Maria first, trying to orientate herself in the storm while the waves sucked her up and down like a toy boat. Behind her, Ryan emerged from the water and gasped for air. He turned to see Lexi Zhang clambering up the first few rungs of a scaffolding ladder running up the eastern edge of one of the stabilizer columns, but a second later a wave swept her away as if she weighed nothing and pushed her further under the immense substructure.
As he desperately searched for the others, Hawke now realized they were coming under fire. All around him he saw the telltale splashed of bullets as they ripped through the surface of the water and drilled into the black ocean.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Dive!” he yelled, his voice almost inaudible in the howling storm. “Incoming!”
His training kicked in and he dived, pushing through the water with a powerful breaststroke until he was beneath the substructure and he resurfaced to see that this time Lexi was halfway up the northeast scaffolding with Scarlet and Ryan a few rungs beneath her, but then another wave blasted them all off once again. Reaper was making his way to one of the support columns.
It was chaos, but they worked hard and pulled together. They knew now was the time to take the fight to the Oracle, who he knew in his heart was on the Seastead, high above him now like a god. He gripped the rungs on the southeast column a few hundred yards away from where Scarlet was now helping Ryan out of the water and trying to move up the scaffolding to safety yet again.
Lexi broke the surface a few yards from him and immediately swam over to the scaffolding. Hawke reached out his hand and pulled her up out of the stormy sea and told her to go up the ladder while he searched for Maria. It was getting dangerous but they had come so far in this hunt they could never give up now, no matter how hard it got, and the vision of Lea and Camacho as hostages added more fuel to the fire burning inside him to make things right again.
“And be careful!” he shouted. “It won’t be long before those bastards realize where we’ve gone and come after us.”
She nodded, swept her wet hair out of her face and began to scramble up the slippery scaffold toward the bottom of the Seastead. That was when Hawke saw Maria out in the sea. She had drifted further out in the swell and was now nothing more than target practice for the goons above. They shot at her as if she was a cork bobbing about in a barrel. The rage rose inside him when he heard a roar of laughter from the platform above. This wasn’t just a matter of Seastead security to them — they were enjoying it.
He leaped from the scaffolding and crashed back into the white, foamy sea as it lashed against the column. After the initial dive he came back to the surface for a few moments where he made a judgement about Maria’s location and after calculating wind direction and drift he took the deepest breath of his life and went back under.
It seemed to last forever but he knew he was getting close when he saw the familiar white streaks of the underwater bullet trails. She must be close, he thought, and then he saw her legs kicking a few feet above him. She was back on the surface again, and risking a direct shot to the head or upper body. He knew he had to act fast and reached up to her legs.
A bullet trail slashed through the water in between the two of them but he never flinched. This wasn’t a mission he could give up. Grabbing her left ankle he pulled her hard under the water.
She didn’t know what had happened and lashed out but he was ready, and then a moment later they were face to face in the dark, violent sea, surrounded by bullet trails. He reached his arm around her upper body and began powering the two of them through the water with one arm. Maria was strong but she was light, and that meant he was able to get her back to safety.
Pulling her up the scaffolding was a tough job. His fingers slipped on the wet rungs and the waves were almost irresistible, but when she was above the surface she was able to help herself and soon they were both climbing up out of the sea to join the others.
Hawke gripped hold of the ladder and started to make his way toward the first platform of the Seastead. The storm was high now and whipped up a tremendous sheet of sea spray, soaking him. A second later it was followed by an immense wave that smashed into the rigging beneath the platform and nearly wiped him off the ladder.
He clung on for his life, spitting seawater out of his mouth and trying to get his breath back. Looking down, he saw the storm throwing the large yacht around as if it were a rubber dingy in a wave machine. Down there, below him on the ladder, he saw the desperate faces of his friends as they willed him on up the ladder.
He made another seven rungs before another massive wave smashed into him once again. This one was heavier and faster, and the violence of the blow almost tore him and everyone else off the ladder yet again. This time he held his breath as the freezing water crashed into him, but he knew he couldn’t withstand many of these waves. He craned his neck up and saw he was only a few yards from the top. If he could just get to the top of the scaffolding and through the hole in the substructure, he could rescue Lea and Camacho.