Ambra yanked on her arm and pointed back to the escape trunk. Ambra wanted to get back inside the Siren, probably to distance themselves from the crash, then check the hull for damage. Logical, as far as it went.
But the man and woman had seen the Siren. They couldn’t be allowed to escape. She shook free of Ambra’s grasp and swam down toward the trapped submarine, feeling the rifle bump her spine. She would shoot the man and watch the woman drown. It didn’t much matter what happened to the dog.
Ambra grabbed Laila’s neoprene-covered calf and pulled her up short. Ambra gestured back toward the escape trunk with exaggerated and angry motions. Laila shook her head and pointed to the little sub. She was the captain, and she must be obeyed. She pointed more forcefully.
They could argue about this inside, talk about the terrible accident, how they felt so responsible for the death of the woman and the dog and the tall man. They could do all that after the crew of the unfortunate tiny sub was dead.
Ambra hesitated, then shook her head. She took a dive slate out of a pocket in her buoyancy compensator and wrote, Must go.
Laila rubbed out the words with her neoprene sleeve. Must kill. They saw our sub.
Ambra scowled and wrote her own message underneath. Innocents.
Unfortunate they were innocents, true, and she promised herself she would grieve them later, but for now she had to be firm. The lives of the women under her command rested with her. She wrote, Sad, but necessary.
Ambra cleaned off the slate completely and tried again. We’re not killers. The others will back me up.
Of course they were killers. It was just luck that Nahal had survived. The Chinese commander was probably dead. Her brother was dead. The prince was hopefully dead.
They had taken the submarine to prevent thousands, maybe millions, of deaths. The loss of these few civilians would be regrettable, but was necessary. How could Ambra not understand? She wrote a single phrase, Collateral damage.
She turned back toward the trapped submarine. She didn’t have time to argue. The inhabitants of the submarine might surface at any time and give them away. She couldn’t let them put her entire crew in danger.
Ambra grabbed her leg, and Laila tried to pry Ambra’s fingers off. Ambra dug her nails in deep and dragged her backward. She was strong, Ambra, and she had weight on her side.
Laila kicked out, and a flipper slammed Ambra’s cheek. The rebreather popped out of her mouth. Salt water rushed in to take its place. Ambra fought to keep from coughing and flailed with her arms, trying to get the rebreather back. Even in the faint light, Laila could see Ambra’s wide eyes.
Laila caught Ambra’s rebreather and pushed it back to her. Ambra put it on and drew in a shuddering breath.
Laila patted her cousin on the back. Ambra wasn’t going to give this up. Maybe Ambra was right. They weren’t unfeeling assassins. Nahal always said that if they had to kill, they would, but it would be with a purpose. They had founded this operation on that precept.
Even if the man and woman talked about a giant submarine, it was unlikely anyone would believe them. The prince was dead, and his deadly plan had died with him. She and her crew had accomplished what they set out to do and they could stop.
Ambra touched Laila’s shoulder. She looked calm but determined.
Laila nodded. She’d nearly let her hatred of the prince and her paranoia overwhelm her. Good that Ambra had been there to be a check on her.
Laila pointed toward the escape trunk.
Together, they swam quickly back the way they had come.
Chapter 6
Joe pointed to the red emergency suit under Vivian’s seat, but she gave him a puzzled look. She must not know exactly what he was pointing to. Maybe her head wound was more serious than he’d thought. He pointed again. She followed his gesture and found the suit.
Relief bloomed across her face as she took it out. Clumsily, she began to put it on with her good hand. Not that it would help if he couldn’t get her out of the sub.
He studied his yellow submarine. The bastard piloting the giant sub had crushed his ship into the mud. Hopefully, the door release remained intact.
Blood ran down Vivian’s face and splattered onto the floor. Head wounds always bled a lot, right? It didn’t mean it was serious. Not really.
He anchored himself on the ocean floor and yanked on the hatch. The sub remained as immobile as a building, the weight of the ocean anchoring it. He’d expected that, but he had to try. He couldn’t let Vivian die in the sub. Not on his watch. Not Vivian.
Frantically, Edison dug. The dog couldn’t dig the sub out. He was fouling the water and making it hard to see.
Joe swam over to him, grabbed a handle sewn onto the top of Edison’s BCD and hauled him away. Edison looked at him, brown eyes wide with anxiety.
Joe tugged the dog back to the front of the sub. That was the only part not buried, and the only place they could extricate Vivian. He would figure it out.
She still struggled with her emergency suit. He was glad it was loose-fitting. She’d never be able to get into an ordinary wetsuit with a broken arm. He wished he’d sent her off to get the flag and stayed in the sub himself, but he’d mistakenly thought she would be safer inside than out.
She finished and gave him a thumbs-up sign. In the regular world, that meant you were OK, and in the diving world, it meant you wanted to surface. Both interpretations were accurate.
She pointed up at hairline cracks in the bubble. Water dripped through and pooled on the floor. It wouldn’t be long before the cockpit was full. That would equalize the pressure and make it easier to open.
Vivian wasn’t going to wait that long, and he didn’t know how to tell her to. She lay down on her back, positioned both feet against the bubble and pushed. Fresh blood ran down her face inside her hood. The bubble didn’t budge.
If those jackasses could reverse the big sub, she could get out. How could he tell them? He couldn’t exactly knock on their front door. He didn’t have a radio and, even if he did, he had no idea what their frequency might be, or if they were even listening.
The other sub was, in fact, ominously quiet. It had to be some kind of equipment malfunction. Otherwise, they’d have seen the two tiny subs before they hit them.
Unless it was deliberate.
Dull thuds vibrated below his hands. She was kicking the crap out of the bubble. With the pressure above, she’d never get it open.
He took the dive knife out of his pocket and worked it under the mud into the hatch release. The knife slipped from his numb fingers. He grabbed it with his other hand and accidentally cut a dark line in his palm. He was so deep underwater his blood looked green instead of red, like Vulcan blood.
Her kicks seemed to be losing steam. She must be getting tired. He hoped she wouldn’t wear herself out. She’d need to save something to get to the surface.
But the surface was a long way away.
First, he had to open the hatch release. A thread of blood drifted up from his palm. Hopefully, the great white shark they’d followed earlier had better things to do than circle back and eat him.
He worked the knife blade into the broken hatch release and levered. The hatch moved. He thrust the knife in farther, turned it. The hatch moved again.
She’d stopped kicking.
He slid the blade around and pressed down on the release. The hatch creaked.
He braced his back against the giant submarine’s hull and lifted with his legs. She strained from the other side, bloodied face inches away.