Deserter (23 page)

But the drama of Nara and Billy rounding the third pylon was nothing compared to the Sandy and Sam Show. By the time they were done, one was dismasted and the other lay on its side. Kris had spent a bit of time on the water, but she’d have to see the postrace replay to figure out how they managed that.

“Now that we know Billy’s game, we won’t make that mistake again,” Nara called. This leg turned into tack and tack, as each tried to drive the other to the outside. Kris’s one joy was that Billy and Nara were racing Star-2-class boats. On a bigger boat, tacks would mean winding and unwinding ropes as their crews exhausted themselves grinding and grinding on the winches.

Even on a small boat, it wasn’t easy. Kris hopped from one side of the boat to the other, dodging the main boom and carrying the jib. “Bet you’re glad your mom and dad aren’t here.”

“Bet Ann’s glad she’s not here, too. She hates it when I do this. Says we Liberals are way to competitive.”

“She likes losing.”

“Hates it to maxie. Just hates maximost having a good day on the lake wrecked working maximostest.”

I’m only ten years older than Nara. I will not ask her to translate,
Kris swore as she dodged the boom again and switched sides. The tack was close-hauled, the boat leaning with the wind. Kris stretched her six-foot frame as far over the side as she dared and glanced ahead to see how far to the pylon.

A breaking wave drew her eye. The wind was blowing one direction, the waves broke in another. That wave broke wrong for either. The sky was so bright a blue it almost hurt to look at it, giving the water a clean, translucent blue of its own. Yet up ahead, a shadow seemed to hover under the water.

“Nara, look out. I think there’s a sunken log ahead,” Kris called and pointed.

The girl was checking the sails. She stared dead ahead for a second, half getting out of her seat to see the water ahead better. She made no course change.

The darkness was gone. Kris shrugged; maybe it was nothing.

Then the keel rode up. The sails luffed, their pressure not to right or left but off the top. The boat continued at its stately pace, even as it did the most ungraceful thing a sailboat can do: turn onto its side.

Kris went from leaning over the starboard side to clambering on her hands and knees onto the boat’s right side. It lay there, keel bobbing in the water to Kris’s left, the sails bubbling with air to her right. Nara tumbled into the water. She surfaced in a second, laughing and saying things that would get her mouth washed out with soap even if the Senator was a Liberal.

Kris laughed back and told her to be careful.

Then a black-covered hand reached over Nara’s shoulder; another hit the quick release on her life vest. A moment later, the vest floated alone in the water, and only bubbles showed where the girl had been.

Kris screamed Nara’s name twice as her mind struggled to absorb what was happening. Someone had taken the little girl.

Someone was kidnapping Nara right out from under Kris.

Someone had kidnapped Eddie while Kris was away buying ice cream. That ten-year-old girl failed her six-year-old brother.

I’m not ten, and Nara isn’t six,
came cold and deadly.

She hit the quick release on her own life vest, even as she stripped off the sweatshirt. Her left hand fished in her pocket for Jack’s knife as she pumped air into her lungs. Opening the knife, she took two quick steps, clamped the knife in her teeth, and dove into the cold water lapping at the boat’s side.

NELLY, CAN YOU PICK UP ANY SOUNDS?

HIGH-PITCHED SOUNDS, ALSO BUBBLES, DOWN AND TO YOUR RIGHT.

Kris swam, fighting the buoyancy of her own body, pushing herself against fear and screaming lungs, pushing herself for the girl who needed her.

The black mass came at her even as she reached for it—a diver in a wet suit. He was back on to her. Even as Kris reached for him, he struggled to swim back the way he’d come.

In hand-to-hand class, the old Gunny told the OCS cadets the surest way to kill with a knife is at the base of the skull or a stab in the kidneys. “But most humans have a hard time sticking a knife in someone without so much as a word of introduction. Most prefer to draw the knife across the throat. Do it that way, and you may get to know them better than you want.”

For Kris, no kidnapper was human. Jack’s knife was out of her mouth. She grabbed for the rebreather on the man’s back, got a handhold, and used it to drive the blade into his back where his right kidney ought to be. A huge bubble of air shot from the man. Then his body floated loose, withering in pain.

Kris put the knife back in her teeth, ignoring the faint taste of iron. With her right hand, she popped the quick release on his weights; with her left, she stripped off his mask and its attached rebreather. Maybe there was still sight in the man’s eyes as his body floated toward the surface.

Kris had no time for him. It was his victim she lived for.

Breather in her mouth and a blessed breath of air in her lungs, Kris wrapped the weights around her waist, then tried to dump some of the water from the mask. NELLY, DIRECTIONS.

DOWN AND TO THE RIGHT.

Kris started swimming, even though her mask was still half filled with water. Now she spotted the bubbles of the struggle going on below her. A second diver was trying to force a rebreather into Nara’s mouth. The girl fought her for all she was worth. Maybe she didn’t recognize the breathing apparatus being offered. Maybe she wasn’t willing to take anything from her captors. Whatever the case, Nara was running out of time.

Then the diver spotted Kris. She, yes, the second kidnapper was a woman, put the still-struggling Nara under one arm and reached for a spear gun with the other. Kris recognized it; it gave any monster of the deep that man had encountered among the stars enough of an electrical charge to stun or kill it.

Kris reached for her automatic, hoping an air powered dart thrower worked under water. She was bringing it up as the swimmer leveled her spear gun at Kris. The swimmer might have beaten Kris to the trigger, but Nara chose that moment to bite down hard on the arm holding her. The spear went wild.

Kris squeezed off three rounds. The darts hit, leaving small pinpricks in the front of the swimmer’s suit. The water turned a deeper shade of dark as blood spread from the exit wounds in her back. Dismay in her eyes, the swimmer’s body twitched helplessly as she began a long drop to the bottom.

Kris dropped her weight belt as she kicked for Nara. The little girl, free, thrashed desperately for the light above her. Kris reached Nara . . . and got slugged in the face for her trouble. The kid had been a trooper so far, but the searing pain in her lungs must be driving her mad for air. Kris took the rebreather from her own mouth and shoved it in Nara’s face. The girl ignored it, attention transfixed by the light and its promise of precious air above, even as air trickled from her lips.

Kris jammed the mouthpiece between Nara’s lips. The girl swung at Kris, then stopped another blow in midswing. Now Nara’s eyes met Kris’s. There was terror there, and desperate hunger for air. Kris watched as the girl took one breath, then another, then a tremble went through Nara, and she seemed to collapse into Kris’s waiting arms. Kris held her, needing a breath, but not about to remove the breather from Nara’s mouth. Then the girl offered it to Kris, and the two shared it for the remaining kicks that brought them to the surface.

The sailboat bobbed thirty feet from them. Other boats raced to see who would be the planet’s junior champion. Two women who’d just found out they would live treaded water as they gasped in air. The launch, with Jack on its bow like an angry god, made full speed for them.

Kris waved. That drew Jack’s attention, as well as that of five or six other boats and a pair of helicopters, one marked Rescue, the other Press. Kris made ready to go public, checked herself all over, and was glad Abby had insisted she wear a bra.

The launch was first to them. Klaggath had all his bases covered; a swimmer in a blue-and-yellow wet suit went over the side to help Nara and Kris onto the rigid ladder that appeared on the side of the boat. The press chopper and another boat with an oversize camera crew were alongside as Kris began the climb up.

“Watch your step,” the swimmer told her.

“There’s a body in a black wet suit floating around here somewhere. Are you equipped for recovery?” Kris asked.

“No,” the rescue swimmer said without batting an eyelash. “I’ll call Rescue Five and get the chopper crew looking for it.

“There’s a second swimmer, probably on the bottom,” Kris told him as he started talking into his mike.

“Another assassination attempt?” Jack said, settling a blanket around Kris as she reached the top of the ladder.

“I don’t think so,” Kris said, keeping her voice low among the shutter clicks of cameras from a boat not ten meters away. The Kriefs surrounded their daughter, half hugging, half drying her off, while adding tears of joy to any spot the lake hadn’t gotten damp enough. “Is there anyplace below?”

“This way,” Klaggath said and led them down a short flight of stairs, along a companionway, and into a small forward cabin. In a moment, Penny and Tommy joined them.

“What happened?” Jack demanded.

“You want a drink?” Penny offered, a bottle of brandy appearing in her hands.

“You didn’t learn as much about me as you thought,” Kris said and took the hot chocolate Tommy offered.

“Kris! What happened?” Jack snarled through clenched teeth.

“When we went over, a diver grabbed Nara and dragged her under,” Kris said, holding the cup to warm her hands. “There was a second one, but I don’t think they were expecting a second person in the boat, at least not one that hated kidnappers like I do,” she said with a nod to Penny.

“Oh my God,” the intelligence officer gasped. “Someone tried to kidnap that girl out from under you!”

“You almost feel sorry for them.” Kris sighed as she took a sip of her chocolate. It was hot. Around her, people waited, Jack and Klaggath professionally, Penny and Tom uneasily. Kris went on. “One’s floating out there somewhere. I borrowed his weights. The other has three bullet holes in her. You know, Jack, these air guns work nice under water,” Kris said, pulling the weapon from her belt.

Klaggath took it from her cold fingers, uncocked it, and put the safety back on. “Sorry,” Kris said. “I was rather busy.”

“Understandable,” the Inspector said, talking to his wrist.

“And check the keel of that boat. It came up like there was something under it. A floatation device of some kind.”

“Already checking it.”

“Other than that, it was a great day to be on the water, Kris said. “Tom, you have more of that nice hot chocolate?”

He refilled her cup. Kris yawned. “Good Lord, I’m tired.”

“You should be,” Klaggath said. “You’ve had a workout.”

Kris shook her head. “I was hyped after we rescued that kidnapped girl on Harmony. What a rush. I was wiped that day on Olympia, but I’d fought two battles. Still, I couldn’t sleep. Whole day just kept replaying in my mind.” She yawned again.

“Every time’s different,” Klaggath said, getting a dry blanket and edging Kris toward a bed that stretched along the hull of the boat. “But worse, you do it often enough, and it becomes routine. That’s when you’re in trouble.”

Kris let herself be backed onto the bed. She traded her wet blanket and mug for a dry one and lay down. “I’ll only rest for a few minutes, until you figure out how things are,” she said.

“I’m sure we can keep everything under control for that short while,” Klaggath said, ushering the others from the room. Jack made to stay behind, but the Inspector put an elbow into the agent’s ribs as he turned the light off with his other hand.

“I ought to get out of my wet clothes,” Kris said as her head nuzzled the pillow. A quick survey showed her heart was already slowing to sleep. Kris’s last thought was on how normal she felt.
I shouldn’t feel this way
.

12

Kris came awake slowly, her heart pounding as she raced through a swamp. No, leaped from star to star. A girl, no, her brother Eddy, hung precariously from her shoulders. She raced in slow motion through water and mud. Behind her, a howling mob of ghosts or swans or men in wet suits chased her. Then Eddy turned into . . . something. She sat up with a start.

“You all right?” Jack asked. He stood by the light switch, as far from her as the small cabin allowed. “You were moaning in your sleep. Shouting a bit, too.”

“I hate kidnappers,” Kris said, leaving it at that.

“You ready to come up on deck? They’ve got the sailboat out of the water.”

“They found the swimmers?” Kris said, making a face as she sat up in her still wet and now very cold shorts.

“Yes.”

“I guess I should identify the bodies. You have anything for me to wear? My clothes are kind of wet.”

Jack tossed her a set of gray sweats. “Compliments of the Heidelburg P.D.” Kris shook out a gray sweatshirt prominently marked Property of HPD. “Klaggath says you’ve earned it. His job’s gotten a whole lot easier since you’ve been around.”

“First security type ever to tell me that.”

“I said he might change his mind if you hung around longer.”

“Shame on you, giving away Wardhaven state secrets,” Kris said as she got up.

“I’ll wait outside.”

“Please, just turn around. I never knew how lonely deep water was.”

“You were swimming for deeper, trying to reach someone,” Jack said, his back to her. “That’s a lonely business.”

“Didn’t seem so at the time,” Kris said, pulling on the top.

“We do what we have to ‘at the time.’ It’s only later we figure out how to live with it. Assuming we live.”

“I’m alive, and two kidnappers aren’t,” Kris said, adjusting the pants. Her bra and panties were still wet, but that would have to do. “You can turn around now.”