It takes a few seconds before the call is connected and the ringing begins. Pressing the phone to my ear, I look up and a stalled boat materializes in the dark waters just ahead of me. I swerve to the left to avoid a collision, sending a wave of water cascading into the other boat.
“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, this is Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, responding. Over,” Antonio says, answering the phone.
I struggle to maintain control over the boat with one arm as I turn it around. “Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, this is Alpha-Whiskey-Echo. I need a safe house near Puerto de la Cruz. Over.”
“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, I can confirm a safe house at one-eight-three Calle Verde. Repeat: We have a safe house at one-eight-three Calle Verde, just two clicks south of Puerto de la Cruz. Over.”
I slow my boat down as I approach the other speedboat, aware that this could be a trap. But the closer I get, I see I’ve stumbled upon something much worse. The entire backseat of the boat is covered in blood and Alex is slumped over in the drivers’ seat.
“Foxtrot-Mike-Lima… I need emergency medical dispatched to the safe house. Over.”
“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, emergency medical en route. Foxtrot-Mike-Lima, over and out.”
“Alpha-Whiskey-Echo, over and out.”
I remove my long-sleeved black shirt and use it to tie the two vessels together, then I hop inside the other boat. An older gentleman, probably the boat’s owner, is passed out on the floor of the vessel. I don’t know if he’s injured, but I can’t be bothered to check. I go straight to Alex and lift her into a sitting position.
The fluttering of her eyelids tells me she’s alive. But when her eyes fall closed again, I know I don’t have much time. She’s barely holding on.
My first priority is to get her to the safe house, but I can’t lose my head. I have to cover our tracks. The first thing I do is undress her down to her underwear and toss the clothing overboard. This is to get rid of the bloody evidence, since I have a strong feeling a lot of this is Nick’s blood. Also, if they find her clothes in the water, they’ll assume she went down with Nick.
As soon as I remove her shirt, my heart clenches at the sight of the knife wound in her side, less than an inch from her previous wound. I am not a praying man. I don’t think I’ve uttered a single prayer since I was an altar boy. But I close my eyes and point my face toward the heavens as I pray.
Please, God, don’t take my Alex or my child. I am not a good man. I know I don’t deserve Your mercy. But she does not deserve to suffer. Please don’t take her.
I wipe down Alex’s body to remove most of Nick’s blood. Then I lay her down in the back of the other speedboat. Back in the other boat, the older gentleman begins to stir.
“Desculpa me!”Forgive me, I shout at the man. Then I shoot him in the head and he falls limp on the bloody floor of the boat.
I dig into the right knee-pocket of my cargo pants for a small flash grenade. I untie the two boats and pull my shirt back on. Then I slide into the drivers’ seat and drive away. When I’m about forty meters out, I pull the pin on the grenade and chuck it into the other boat. The explosion sends shrapnel about thirty meters in all directions. I don’t stick around to watch the boat sink.
The speedboat glides like a bullet over the ocean, never slowing until I’m a few meters from the shore. I slow it down a bit as I approach, then I ride a small wave and hit the gas to drive the boat as far up the sandy embankment as possible. A couple sitting on the beach stands as I lift Alex into my arms and jump down into the sand.
They shout at me in Spanish, asking if I need help. I respond with a roaring no. Please don’t try to help me unless you want to get killed. I can’t leave any witnesses, I think to myself.
I carry Alex across the beach and toward a small parking lot where an SUV is pulling out of a parking space with a surfboard tied to the roof. I gently set Alex’s cold, wet body down on the pavement, then I rush the driver’s side door.
I whip my gun out of my waistband and shoot out the window. The SUV screeches to a halt.
“Get out!” I shout at the driver in both Spanish and English.
A guy with wet brown hair pulled back into a ponytail jumps out of the car, holding his hands in the air. I tell him I won’t shoot him if he helps me put Alex in the backseat. Once she’s lying safely in the back, I pistol-whip him across his right temple to keep him from contacting the authorities for at least a few minutes.
I drive the car through the quiet streets until I reach the safe house at 183 Calle Verde. It’s a warehouse. I pull the car next to a truck bay secured with a rolling steel door. Hopping out of the car, I shoot out the lock on the door and force it open.
My heart sinks when I realize no one is here yet. But I need an emergency medical team now. I’ll have to attempt to stop the bleeding and try my best to keep her alive until they arrive.
Motion-activated lights turn on as I pull the SUV into the warehouse. It doesn’t seem as though the building is temperature controlled. The hot air is sticky with humidity and smells of dusty cardboard and rubber. I hop out of the car and close the rolling door behind us. I carry Alex to a steel worktable in the back of the warehouse, tossing aside a desktop computer and stacks of unassembled cardboard boxes to make room for her to lie down.
I press my fingers to her neck and can’t find a pulse. I check the other side of her neck and find it, but it’s faint. She’s fading.
I pull my shirt off and lift her body so I can tie it around her waist, over her wound. Grabbing a steel rod from the floor, I thread it beneath the tied sleeves. Then I twist the rod to tighten the shirt around her. I lay her body down on top of the rod so her weight will hold it in place, then I begin CPR to get more oxygen into her lungs and keep her heart from stopping.
“Please, chérie. Please stay with me.” I brush her hair away from her temple with my lips and plant a soft kiss on her damp skin. “Please don’t leave me, Alex.”
I’ve never been more frightened in my life. When the steel door rolls open, I nearly jump out of my skin as I point my gun at the truck bay. I don’t recognize the elderly gentleman with the bald hair and thick glasses, but I almost fall to my knees with gratitude when I see the medical bag in his hand. Tucking my gun away, I race to him to see if he needs help.
“There’s an I.V. stand and more supplies in the trunk,” he says in Spanish, nodding his head toward the black BMW parked behind him just outside the door.
He hands me the car keys and I retrieve the I.V. stand and the rest of his supplies from the trunk of the car. I meet him inside and find him cutting away the crude tourniquet I made with my shirt and the steel rod. He tosses it to the floor and performs a brief examination of the stab wound.
Once we have a sterile sheet laid beneath Alex’s body and he’s cleaned her up, he hooks her up to a machine that pumps her body with O-negative blood, pain medication, and I.V. fluids. Then he stitches her up.
“When will I know if she’s okay?” I ask, not bothering to hide the desperation in my tone.
He points to the bag of clear I.V. fluids hanging from the stand. “When this is gone in four hours, she’ll wake up. She will think she’s ready to run a marathon, but you must keep her off her feet for at least twenty-four hours. I’ll be back to check on her tomorrow night. Then she should take it easy for a couple of weeks.”
He grabs his bag to leave and I grab his wrist to stop him. “Wait… She’s pregnant. Can you check on the baby?”
His eyes widen in horror and I know what that look means. There’s no way the baby could survive this.
Chapter Six Alex
My eyelids struggle to open. The lashes are sealed together. Blinking furiously, I groan against the stinging pull on the rims of my eyes. Then a new pain comes to me from my left side. Now I remember. I was stabbed. Again.