Gone Black (29 page)

“No, it won't. Even if it does, it's better than letting Jaxy get hold of us again. We can't fight them all, Claire. They've got too many men and too much firepower.”

“No, no!” That was Rico, looking horrified at the idea. “I can't swim. I can't swim. Daddy told me about the undertows.”

Claire and Black stared at each other, but Claire already knew they didn't have another choice. Black went down on one knee in front of the child. He took him by the arms again and stared into his eyes. “Rico, do you trust us?”

The boy nodded, but he looked petrified.

“You can jump with me, okay? I'll hold you tight, I promise, and I'll bring you back up to the surface as fast as I can. I won't let the undertow take you out and I won't let you drown. I swear I won't. Do you believe me, Rico?”

The boy didn't look like he believed him. Claire wasn't sure she believed him, either. She moved over to the edge of the precipice and looked down at the sea, boiling and rolling and crashing around far below. If they jumped far enough out, they wouldn't hit any of the jagged rocks, but they'd have to take one hell of a big leap—of distance and of faith. Claire didn't blame the boy. She was scared witless about jumping off that ledge, too. But the men were coming closer all the time. They had already found Barto's dead body in the tunnel, and there was loud shouting and then more running footsteps coming ever closer.

Black was back on his feet and looking at her now. “We don't have a choice, Claire. This is it. They'll kill all three of us this time. What's it gonna be?”

Claire took a deep breath, then another one. “Okay, I guess, let's do it.”

They put down their weapons and the heavy backpacks that Claire wished they could take but knew they couldn't. She did stick her Glock down below the elastic band at the back of her sweatpants. She was not going anywhere unarmed. Even into the ocean. Black slung the strap on Barto's rifle over his head and across his chest and let it hang down his back. He looked down at Claire. “We can do this, sweetheart. Together. We can get to the beach and escape from them. It will buy us time so help can get here.”

“Nothing can be worse than facing Jaxy again.”

Black grinned a little, but not much and not for long. He still looked pretty bad. Dark circles under his eyes, bruises all over his face, thick black beard, and now he was sweating profusely. God only knew if he could do all these things while at the tail end of a bad acid trip, but she and Rico had to buck up and go along for the ride. She watched Black tear some straps off a backpack and put it behind his back. He picked up Rico and told him to lock his legs around his waist and his arms around his neck and not to let go, no matter what. Then Black buckled the straps behind the boy's back and tied him securely to his own chest. He was speaking calmly to Rico all the while, trying to assuage the boy's obvious terror. Rico wasn't saying anything, just holding on for dear life, his face buried in Black's shoulder, his arms clutching Black's neck so hard that Claire was afraid he'd strangle him. But Rico needed to hold tight because that strap probably wouldn't hold, not as hard as they were going to hit that water. She just hoped to God that the little boy wasn't ripped out of Black's grip and pulled under before they could get him back up to the surface.

“It's gonna have to be a running jump,” Black was telling her now. “Come on. We need to go out at the same time so if anything goes wrong, we can get to each other.”

Claire moved back where he was standing, which was as far back from the ledge as he could get. Claire had turned absolutely rigid with fright. More scared than she had ever been in her life. She didn't like heights. Never had. Never felt the urge to take any death-defying leaps into the sea or into oblivion, either. She could swim even better than Black, but she had never jumped from this distance. Never jumped from even half this distance, or a fourth of it. He probably had parachuted while in the Rangers. She knew she had to go in feetfirst, had to pinwheel her arms to keep her body in the right position to do that. She'd seen that on TV. Man, they were gonna die this time. She was pretty damn sure about that.

Black was still talking. Claire started listening again.

“Okay, you gotta calm down, Claire. Listen to me. You've got to run hard and leap as far out from the cliff as you can. This ledge juts out over the water, but you still have to jump as far out as you can, understand? You've got to do that to clear the cliff and the rocks down below. The water's deep enough for us to jump safely, I promise you that. I can tell.”

Claire was quivering all over, couldn't help it. She wondered if he could really tell or if he was just being encouraging. She had a feeling it was the latter. Hell, she wasn't Wonder Woman or Angelina Jolie. Not when it came to jumping off cliffs. “Okay, no problem. Let's just do it.”

Black didn't look convinced as to her true readiness. Probably the way her voice was shaking harder than an 8.0 earthquake. “If we can make this jump, we can make it out of this thing alive. Trust me, Claire? You've got to trust me on this.”

“Sure. Not so sure about trusting that undertow, though.”

“The undertow's our friend. It's gonna take us away from the rocks and then all we have to do is swim across it and let the waves wash us up to the beach. Trust me, baby. I know what I'm talking about. I know how to survive in the ocean.”

“Okay, sure. Let's do it.”

The men were getting close now. They had found the two bodies and were yelling. Angry. It was time. The die was cast. She figured they had about a fifty-fifty chance, maybe. Or less. Probably less. Probably no chance at all actually.

“Okay, Claire. On three, we run and jump. Rico, don't you dare let go of me, you hear me, son, no matter what happens or how bad it is. You just hold on tight and hold your breath until I get you back to the surface. Understand me? It's going to be hard, and we're gonna get tossed all around under the water, jerked all over the place, and it's gonna be violent. But that's just the waves comin' in and the undertow goin' out. Claire, you've got to jump out as far as you possibly can and try to stay upright in the air. Try not to hit the water on your back or go in headfirst. You cannot do that, understand me? Feetfirst, arms down to your side when you hit the surface. Got that, Claire? Put your arms down before you hit the water, or it's gonna hurt like hell. We can do this. We have to do this.”

“No problem.”

Her voice was still so weak and shaking so much that Black actually grinned at her pseudo-bravery that wasn't coming off at all. But that brief little hint of amusement fled quickly. “And don't look down, whatever you do. Keep your eyes focused out on the horizon. Don't worry, you'll know when you get close to the water. Don't panic when the waves and the undertow start pulling you up and down and throwing you around under the water. Okay? It'll seem like you're under the water for hours but it'll only be a matter of seconds. I promise you that. Just seconds and then you can surface just fine. Just find the light and swim hard up to it. That's gonna be the surface. Go to the light. Claire? Are you listening to me? Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

She nodded, but she was still pretty much petrified out of her freakin' mind.

“I've done this before, sweetheart, lots of times. I know what I'm talking about.”

“Right.”

“You're making me nervous, Claire.”

“Right.”

Black held out his hand. Claire took it.

“Okay, Claire, we'll go on three. Ready?”

Claire had never been this terrified, never, ever in her life. Never so sure that she was breathing her last few moments alive on earth.

“Okay, let's just do it. One . . . two . . . three. Go!”

They took off running together, trying to gain as much speed as they could, and then they were there at the edge of the cliff and taking flying giant leaps out into midair, side by side, wind buffeting them in the face, and Rico was screaming his head off against Black's neck. She felt Black jerk her out farther from the cliff with his own momentum, and then they were absolutely plummeting down through empty air, both pinwheeling their arms and trying desperately to right themselves and hoping to God they weren't swallowed up by the sea and flung by the huge waves onto the sharp rocks below.

Gripping the starboard rail with both hands, Will Novak stood in the prow of the Sicilian fishing boat that they'd rented to take them across the water to the remote island where they now believed Claire and Black were being held. They had landed in Marsala on the northwest coast of Sicily and finally triangulated exactly where Claire's call had initiated. It was from a privately owned island, not far from Lipari. All of the islands in the area were part of the Aeolian Islands, most of which were sparsely inhabited with only a few fishing villages here and there and some touristy sites for beachcombers who like ultimate privacy.

Impatient to reach shore and get going, he waited for the horizon of the island to appear. The Soquets had held Claire and Black captive for a long time now. Novak had spent the hour-long flight reading over Nick Black's psychiatric files on the family of assassins again, more thoroughly this time, and some of the stuff he read made his blood run cold. These were murderous psychos that they were dealing with all right. People who had wreaked havoc on hundreds of people with their bomb making and grenade vests and assassinations and abductions. Claire had read the same dossiers, and still had gone in alone. She was just unbelievable, and she must love Nick Black one helluva lot to find the gumption to do something like that. He hoped to God that she was still alive.

Marcel Soquet needed to be taken out. It should have been done years ago, right when he first got started with his nefarious career. Maybe when he killed his own beloved wife in front of his children out of jealousy and revenge and misplaced personal honor. Somebody should have taken him out then. Somehow. Some way. If Novak could end the reign of blood and violence and gore that Marcel had been initiating and perpetrating for years, he wanted to be the one to do it. He just wanted to do it before his two friends were tortured to death in the most barbaric of ways.

Novak swallowed hard, thinking of the two people now in Soquet's hands. He glanced back at Booker and Holliday. Booker was at the helm, steering the boat straight for the island, pushing it as hard as it would go. Jack was already armed for bear and also staring ahead over the water, searching for the first sign of the island. Both of their faces looked as determined as his probably did. They all knew they had screwed up royally by following the false GPS signal to that French chateau. They had all been played for fools, and all of them were way too savvy and well-trained and experienced to have been that gullible. It should never have happened. It was a humiliating mistake to have to stomach, and it could very well lead to the deaths of two people they all cared about.

At that moment, his jaw clenched hard with regret and anxiety, and he vowed internally that if Claire and Black were dead, if they died by Soquet's hand in some terrible way, Novak would hunt down and kill every last person on that island who had been involved in their deaths. He would make them pay for any suffering they had delivered, a hundred times over. He would watch each and every one of them breathe their last breath with sublime pleasure. But even acts of violent revenge could not bring Claire and Black back. It wouldn't do them one bit of good, except it would send the Soquets and their men straight to hell where they couldn't hurt anybody else. But that kind of vengeance was good enough for Novak. If it had to be that way. He just prayed to God that it didn't have to be that way.

When he saw the dark shadow rising up against the blue sky and the island finally loomed up in the distance, he turned and went below with the others. They gathered their guns and grenades and rifles and ammunition, put on their Kevlar vests and helmets and goggles and all the protective gear they'd brought along. They were going up against a much superior force, no doubt about it. But they were all three dead set on storming the place and taking out as many enemies as they could put down. Novak looked forward to it. All of them looked forward to it.

Inside her mind, Claire was screaming bloody murder, but she did manage to hit the surface of the water feetfirst and arms down. She went in very hard and straight, but it felt as if she had been dropped off the Golden Gate Bridge and drilled into a concrete parking lot. She plummeted down into the water, hard and fast, down, down, down, so deep that she thought she'd never have the strength to fight her way back up to the surface. All around her was a dark, violent, and cold maelstrom of bubbles and strange subterranean echoes and filtered light from the surface and confusion and loud muffled noises inside her ears.

When she finally stopped going down and started her desperate fight back to the surface and blessed air, she still hadn't touched bottom. She lifted her face and could see the light was above her, far, far above her, it seemed. Her eyes burned in the salt water, but she used every ounce of strength left in her arms to fight her way back up. It was hard to do, and she immediately was tossed backward, head over heels, by a strong current, back down, deeper and deeper, disorienting her perceptions again. But she fought for her life, knew she had to and tried to gain her direction back up, but it seemed the top of the water was getting farther away instead of closer. Another massive wave came down on her, spun her around wildly in the other direction, and after what seemed like forever, her body hit the undertow and it took her body down again and farther out to sea.

Her brain went upside down, too, and she couldn't think, couldn't quite think what she should do, where the surface was or how to get there. She was hanging in a limbo of water and darkness and being pushed around and was getting close to complete panic. Her lungs seemed close to bursting, although she knew it had only been seconds, like Black had said, but it seemed like more than that, like hours. She let herself be swept along with the strong surge of cold water and somehow remembered to try to fight her way up as she was carried out to sea. She couldn't hold her breath much longer, couldn't fight the strength of the relentless undertow. But she had to. She had to do it. She had to find out if Black and Rico had made it. If they needed her to help them.

Claire struggled desperately, taking great swipes downward through the water with her arms, injured hand forgotten, angled straight up, her lungs nearly bursting for want of air. Then she felt as if she couldn't do it, couldn't get there in time, that she was going to swallow water and drown, and that she was going to die today, after all. That it was all over. Her life was over.

But then, when she thought she couldn't last another second, she shot up and broke through the surface of the battering sea, gasping for air, pulling in a lungful of air before the next incoming wave hit her and knocked her back under the water and she was spiraled brutally downward again. She fought upward again with both arms, kicking her feet as hard as she could. She broke the surface again and this time was propelled upward on a cresting wave and taken under again. But she got another deep breath, and she remembered what Black had said, remembered how the undertows off the beaches in Tahiti were and how to get out of them. She turned under the water and swam adjacent to where she believed the shore to be and as hard as she could.

When she came up for air again, she swallowed some salt water and coughed and gagged, but she was out of the undertow. She was still being thrashed around in the wild waves of incoming surf and being pulled back toward the rocks. But then she saw Black about twenty yards out from her, and he still had Rico in his arms. He was trying to get to her, and she turned and dove under the next wave and forced her arms to move some more and propel her in his direction. They met about the time another huge wave crested over their heads, and then Black had a tight hold on the back of her sweatshirt and was towing her out farther into the sea.

Claire just hung there and let him do it for a few moments, trying to catch her breath, get her strength and her shattered nerves under control. After a few moments, she pulled free from him and swam beside him until they were outside the roar of the loud and tumultuous crashing surf and bobbing in the outer swells as they'd done so often when surfing in Tahiti.

“You okay? You hurt?” Black yelled at her over the roar of the ocean.

Claire shook her head, but she probably was hurt and just didn't know it yet. He looked okay. Now Rico was clinging to Black's back, his arms around his neck, no longer strapped to him, his eyes shut tight, his face white with fear, still terrified that he was going to drown.

“We've gotta get in to that beach down there. See the sand? C'mon, we gotta swim for it and then let the waves push us in. Hear me, Claire? Can you make it that far?”

Claire nodded again, but her body felt as if it had been beaten to a pulp for a thousand years. She ached all over, her head pounded, and the gauze had been ripped off her wounded hand. The salt water was burning like fire in the slashed open, gaping wound and hurting her like hell, but she hadn't injured herself so badly that she couldn't function. She wasn't bleeding, except for her hand, which had reopened big-time and was pouring blood. As far as she could tell, neither Black nor Rico were hurt any more than they had been. Okay, she just had to make it to the beach. That's all she had to do, just get to that little stretch of sand way down there, and they'd be free. For a while. Maybe.

It took them a long time to struggle their way down there, just on this side of never, maybe. Claire was so exhausted by then, so wrung out in her head and her body, emotionally and every other way, that she just went limp and let Black drag her in through the shallows by the back of her sweatshirt. Once they reached the soft wet golden sand, they all three just collapsed there facedown. Claire panted hard, her cheek pressed into the soft sand, her fingers digging into solid earth at last, with rippling waves rolling in softly and rhythmically and splashing over her back. But they were safe, for now. They had made it out, and once she could turn over, she was going to be grateful to God that they all were still alive.

Black got up first, on his knees, and peered down the beach at the fortress, where it stood very high on the cliff. Rico got up on his hands and knees and crawled up farther on the narrow strip of beach and just lay down on the warm, dry sand. Claire just lay there in the water, trying to garner up enough strength to move.

“Are you okay, Claire? You sure you're not hurt?”

He turned her over and examined her arms and legs for injuries. Feeling for broken bones. Gently probing her mutilated hand. The doctor in him, she guessed. But he was pretty damn alert now. Maybe plunging off a towering cliff and into the cold, dark depths of the ocean and nearly drowning was a good remedy to put an end to those pesky bad acid trips. Not that anybody would ever choose that remedy over a couple of Valiums. Now her thoughts were getting silly, she thought, strangely outside herself. Maybe she had hit her head, after all, and way too hard. Maybe she was dead. Maybe they were all dead. Maybe that's the way you got into heaven. Maybe you had to crawl through rippling water and over soft warm sand to enter the Pearly Gates.

“Claire, sweetheart, say something. C'mon, can you get up?”

Black was dragging her again now. She tried to sit up at one point, but her arms and legs felt weak and wobbly and weren't quite cooperating yet. So he dragged her up next to Rico, and then he collapsed down on his back beside her. All three of them lay there awhile, their clothes soaking wet and clinging to their skin, catching their breaths, saying nothing. Then Black sat up again and leaned over her. He pushed her wet and sand-clotted hair away and got down close to her face.

“Claire, listen to me. You're safe now. You're gonna be all right. You're just in a little bit of shock. Can you hear me? Can you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yeah.” Little bit of shock? That had to be the understatement of the year. She heaved in some more deep breaths, appreciating oxygen as she had never in her life done before. She finally looked up at him. “Well, that was scary as hell.”

Black smiled a little. “Tell me about it. You did good, babe. Real good.”

She just stared at him. His eyes were all the way blue now, the clear and azure, beautiful blue of the sky behind him. She was very glad to see them come back to life. “You weren't sure we could survive that jump, were you, Black?”

“No, but I was pretty sure we could. And I was positive it was better than any of us being recaptured by Jaxy.”

“Well, a hearty amen to that.”

They lay there some more, on their backs, just resting and recovering and staring up at the sky, and that's when Claire realized she still had the gun. It wasn't in her waistband anymore. Now it had been forced down the leg of her pants and caught by the tight elastic at her ankle. She struggled to get it out and when she did, she laid it on the sand beside her good hand. She just hoped it would shoot. After about ten minutes, Black got up to his feet and walked off down over the damp sand, leaving footprints in the foamy waves. He was probably looking up at the cliffs very far above, trying to find a way to get up to the top. Claire wasn't sure she could climb anything now, not even an anthill. Then he looked up and down the beach in both directions. Now the rifle that had been hanging across his back was gripped in his right fist. He looked like Robinson Crusoe—barefoot, bearded, castaway, and marooned in ragged clothes, but armed with a loaded AR rifle and lots of bruises.

That's when Claire managed to sit up under her own power, and she helped the little boy struggle up. He had his eyes open now. Some color had come back into his cheeks. Hers, too, probably.

“I didn't drown, did I? I did good, didn't I?” he said to her, as if very proud of himself.

Claire knew that feeling. “Yes, sir, you did very good. You're free now, Rico. We got away from them.”

The boy nodded but he didn't look convinced about the getting away part. In fact, he looked fearful as he glanced back down the coast to the fortress then back at her. He took her good hand. “Thank you for getting me away from them.”

Claire squeezed his hand. “And thank you for saving me.”

Then they smiled at each other, and Claire hugged his slender shoulders.

A moment later, Black was back, looking like his old, self-assured, take-charge self again. Except for the black beard, sunken black eyes, and cuts and scrapes. “We've got to find some kind of shelter for tonight. They probably won't come down here yet unless there's a cliff path leading down to the beach under that fortress. Is there, Rico?”

“Yes, but the beach is not very long under the tower. They'd have to climb up some pretty high rocks to get over to this side where we are.”

“Okay. Good boy.” Black nodded and smiled a little at Rico. “You did really well, Rico. You're a brave boy. Not many kids would be that brave.”

Rico grinned. He had sand all over his skin and clothes. His curly hair was sticking up and crusted with more sand. Claire knew she probably looked just like that, too. The wet sand felt scratchy and uncomfortable inside her clothes. They needed to get the hell off this awful, godforsaken island, damn it.

Black helped them both stand up. “Let's move back closer to the cliffs. They can probably see us from the ledge where we jumped. But if they can't, maybe they'll think we drowned and won't come looking for us.”

Yeah, right. That was probably for Rico's benefit. But Claire hoped Black was right about that—not likely, but maybe. Right now, a very high cliff towered over them, providing some shade from the broiling Mediterranean summer sun, and Claire couldn't believe they were in Sicily. The ocean stretched out in a vivid azure hue until it hit a strip of dark blue on the horizon far out to sea. They were pretty much trapped on that little strip of beach enclosed by rocky cliffs on all three sides. No water, no food, no way out, no hope, but they did have a couple of guns to kill people with. That was a tiny bit of a consolation. Maybe. If the weapons still worked. But not much.

Once they backed up against the cliff face where they would be harder to see, Rico wanted Claire to hold him. He had been brave enough for one day, she guessed. He was done with any more show of bravado. He wanted to be babied, or mothered, more likely. Claire pulled him onto her lap, and he put his head on her shoulder and wept really hard for a little while, and she rubbed his back and patted him and murmured soothing words the same way she'd done for Black when he was so out of it and crazy on the drugs. After a little while of that gentle reassurance, Rico went to sleep. He felt very little and warm and limp where he lay up against her. He felt like Zachary would have felt, if he'd lived a few years longer.

But she couldn't let herself think about her own little son now, or the way he'd died one night in her arms, or anything else about her sweet, darling baby. She pushed his memory down into that nice safe dark trunk in her heart and slammed the lid down on it. Not now. She couldn't bear to think about him right now. Then she felt the most overwhelming desire to get inside that trunk with his childish mementos and stay there with him, alone together, and forever. She wanted to pretend that Rico was Zachie, still alive and well and clinging to her, but she didn't let herself go any further into that morbidity. She was in bad enough trouble already. Her mind was enough of an emotional wreck. She was still hanging on by a mere thread, her gutsiness shredded pretty damn thin and waterlogged with weariness. She now understood what completely spent really meant.

So Claire just closed her eyes, too. She kept them closed until she heard Black come back from his explorations down the beach. He sat down close beside her and put his hand on her hair.