The Fifth Profession (16 page)

A hatch opened. Rachel climbed stairs from the underdeck cabin. She wore a yellow slicker. Presumably she'd obeyed Savage and also put on dry clothes. Ignoring his own risk, he'd worried that the cold rain would drain her body heat and put her in danger of hypothermia. Her shoulder-length auburn hair clung drenched to her cheeks.

“I told you to stay below!”

“Shut up and take this!” She handed him a slicker.

In the glow from the instrument panel, Savage saw the determined blaze in her eyes.

“And put on this dry shirt and sweater! You stubborn … ! I know about hypothermia!”

Savage squinted at the clothes and the slicker, then peered up toward her bruised, intense face. “All right, you've got a deal.”

“No argument? What a surprise!”

“Well,
I'm
surprised. By you. Can you take the wheel? Have you piloted a yacht before?”

“Just watch me.” She grabbed the wheel.

He hesitated, but a bone-deep chill forced him to relinquish his grip. “Keep the compass positioned as is. Our bearing's southwest.”

In a corner beneath the overhang, partly sheltered from the rain and the waves, he rushed to change clothes and at once felt new energy, grateful to be warm and dry. Protected by the slicker, he took the wheel and checked the compass.

Directly on course.

Good. He planned to tell her so, but a wave struck the yacht, cascading over them. Rachel started to fall. Savage gripped her arm, supporting her.

She caught her breath. “What did you mean I surprised you?”

“When I work for the rich, they're usually spoiled. They expect me to be a servant. They don't understand …”

“How much their lives depend on you? Hey, my
dignity
depends on you. I'd still be back in that prison, begging my husband not to rape me again. If you hadn't rescued me, I'd still be his punching bag.”

As lightning flashed and Savage again saw the swollen bruises on Rachel's face, he shuddered with rage. “I know it doesn't help to hear it, but I'm sorry for what you've been through.”

“Just get me away from him.”

If I can, Savage thought. He stared toward the convulsing sea.

“My husband's men?”

“I doubt they'll chase us blindly in this storm. In their place, I'd wait till it ended, then use helicopters.”

“Where are we going?”

“Delos or Rhineia. Assuming the compass is accurate. Depending on the current.”

“And where do we go after—?”

“Quiet.”

“What?”

“Let me listen.”

“For
what?
All I hear is thunder.”

“No,” Savage said. “That's not thunder.”

She cocked her head and suddenly moaned. “Oh, Jesus.”

Ahead, something rumbled.

“Waves,” Savage said. “Hitting rocks.”

2

The rumble intensified. Closer and closer. A deafening roar. Savage's hands cramped on the wheel. His eyes ached, straining to penetrate the dark. Assaulted by bomblike concussions, his ears rang. He urged the yacht northward, away from the breakers. But the force of the wind and the waves shoved the yacht sideways, relentlessly toward the continuous
boom
he struggled to escape.

The yacht listed, pushed by the eastward-heaving current, tilting westward. Water gushed onto the deck.

“I'm afraid we'll go over!” Savage said. “Brace yourself!”

But Rachel darted toward the underdeck cabin.

“No!” he said.

“You don't understand! I saw life vests!”

“What?
You should have told me earlier! That's the first thing we should have—!”

Abruptly she emerged from the hatch, handing him a flotation device, strapping on her own.

The yacht tilted sharper, deeper, westward, toward the
boom.
Water cascaded over the portside gunwale, filling the deck, listing it farther westward.

“Hang on to me!” Savage shouted.

The next wave hit like a rocket. Up became down. The yacht went over.

Savage breathed, lost his balance, struck the deck, grabbed Rachel, slid, and tumbled over the side.

A wave engulfed him. He twisted and groaned, gasping water.

Rachel clung to his life vest.

Savage jerked his head up, breathing frantically. “Kick!” he managed to shout before another wave thrust him under.

Have to get away from the yacht. Can't let it slam against us. Can't let it suck us down when it sinks.

“Kick!”

Rachel lost her grip on his arm. He tightened his grasp on her life vest.

Kick! he thought.

He went under again.

Damn it, kick!
He forced his head up, inhaled, swallowed water, and coughed convulsively. The darkness around him was absolute, a nightmare of black, raging madness.

Lightning blazed, searing his eyes. In the agonizing brilliance, he saw towering waves that threatened to crush him, and beyond them even taller waves, impossibly huge.

No! he suddenly realized.

Those massive shapes weren't waves!

They were hills!

Clutching Rachel harder, he felt his stomach drop as a wave scooped him up, and at the crest, an instant before the lightning died, he saw boulders at the base of the hills, waves exploding over them.

Darkness blinded him again. The storm gathered force and catapulted him toward the breakers.

Rachel screamed. As Savage slammed past a rock, he started to scream as well, but water strangled him.

He sank.

It seemed he was back at the Harrisburg hospital, enveloped by the darkness of Demerol.

It seemed he was back at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat, collapsing into darkness after repeated impacts from Japanese wooden swords.

He saw a gleaming steel sword, a razor-edged samurai
katana,
slice Akira's neck.

Saw blood spurt.

Saw Akira's head thunk onto the floor.

Saw it roll and stop upright, eyes blinking.

“Savage?”

“Akira?”

Madness!

Chaos!

The breakers engulfed him.

3

“Hush,” Savage whispered. “Quiet.”

But Rachel continued moaning.

He pressed a hand across her mouth. She jerked awake, shoving at his hand, her eyes wild as if she feared he was Papadropolis come to beat her again.

Then recognition replaced her terror. She sighed. Stopped struggling. Relaxed.

He took his hand from her mouth but continued to cradle her against his chest. They were slumped against the back wall of a shallow indentation in a cliff. Boulders rimmed the opening. The morning sun was high enough to shine past the boulders, warming Savage, drying his clothes. The sky was almost cloudless. A gentle breeze drifted over them.

“You were having a nightmare,” he continued to whisper.

“You started to scream. I had to stop you, couldn't let them hear you.”

“Them?”

He pointed through a gap in the boulders. A hundred yards down a steep granite slope, waves continued to crash on the shore. The storm had thrown the yacht onto rocks, breaking it apart. Large fragments lay along the waterline. Two burly men—Greeks, wearing fishermen's clothes—stood above the waves, their hands on their hips, scanning the wreckage.

“Jesus, from my husband?”

“I don't think so. The fact that they're dressed as fishermen means nothing, of course. Your husband's men might decide to put on clothes that help them blend with the local population. But I don't see any guns, and just as important, they don't have walkie-talkies to report what they've found.” Savage thought about it. “It's never wrong to be cautious. Until I decide what to do, I don't want to advertise ourselves.”

“Where are we?”

“No way to tell. A wave pushed us over the rocks. When we hit the shore, you passed out.” Savage had fought to keep his grip on her life vest, knowing he'd never find her in the storm if they were separated. The undertow had tried to suck him back. He'd managed to stand. The waves had slammed his hips. He'd lost his balance, gone under, stood again, and struggled, dragging her from the water. “I carried you up here and found this shelter. The storm didn't end till sunrise. You had me worried. I wasn't sure you'd ever wake up.”

She raised her head from his chest, tried to sit straight, and groaned.

“Where do you hurt?”

“The question is, what
doesn't
hurt?”

“I checked your arms and legs. I don't think they're broken.”

She moved them gently and winced. “They're stiff. But at least they work.”

Savage raised a finger and shifted it back and forth, then up and down, in front of her eyes.

Her vision followed his movement.

He held up three fingers. “How many?”

She told him correctly.

“Now
how many?”

“One.”

“Are you sick to your stomach?”

Rachel shook her head. “I don't feel the best, but it's not like I'm going to vomit.”

“If you do get sick or your vision starts to blur, tell me at once.”

“You're afraid I might have a concussion?”

“You've got one for sure. Otherwise you wouldn't have lost consciousness for so long. We just have to hope it isn't serious.”

And that your skull isn't fractured, he thought.

“They're doing something down there,” Rachel said.

Savage stared through the gap in the boulders.

The two men were wading into the waves toward a large chunk of wreckage wedged between rocks. But the waves kept forcing them back. The men turned to each other, talking quickly, emphasizing their words with gestures.

One man nodded and ran to the right along the shore. He soon disappeared past a curve in the slope. The remaining man studied the wreckage again, glanced to the left along the shore, then pivoted toward the slope.

“He wonders if there were survivors,” Savage said. “Assuming I guessed correctly and they don't work for your husband, the other man probably went to the local village for help. The largest chunk of the yacht is too far out for them to reach by themselves. But it's tempting salvage. Who knows? Maybe they think they'll find a safe full of money and jewels.”

“But if the man who left comes back with help—”

“They'll search the area.” Savage's pulse quickened. “We have to get out of here.”

He rose to a crouch. Rachel winced and knelt beside him.

“Are you sure you can manage?” Savage asked.

“Just tell me what to do.”

“As soon as he stops looking in this direction, follow me. Keep your head down. Don't just crawl. Pretend you're a snake.”

“I'll imitate everything you do.”

“Move slowly. Blend with the slope.”

Rachel pointed. “He's turning toward the wreckage.”

“Now.” Savage sank to the cave's floor and squeezed out between the boulders.

Rachel followed.

“Don't look toward him,” Savage whispered. “People can sometimes feel they're being watched.”

“The only person I'm watching is
you.
“

Savage squirmed up the slope. An inch. Then another. With painful care.

Though the sun warmed his back, his spine felt cold. With every moment, he expected to hear a shout from the man on the shore.

But seconds turned to minutes, and no shout made him cringe. At his feet, he felt Rachel's hands gripping rocks. He crested the slope, slid into a hollow, waited till she crawled beside him, then turned his face to the sky and exhaled in relief.

He allowed himself only a moment's rest. At once he wiped sweat from his eyes and turned toward the ridge, slowly raising his head. Surveying the shore, he heard voices. The man who'd rushed away was hurrying back, followed by women, children, and other fishermen.

They studied the wreckage with a mixture of awe and excitement. While the children scurried to examine shattered boards thrown up on the shore, the women chattered. Several men had brought ropes and poles. Tying the ropes around their waists, they waded into the surf, shoving the poles at chunks of the yacht to try to free them from the rocks, while others held the opposite end of the ropes, prepared to pull their companions back to shore if the waves knocked them underwater.

The man who'd stayed while his partner went for help gave orders to the women and children, pointing toward the slope behind him. The women and children quickly spread out, searched behind boulders, and climbed.

“They'll soon find where we were hiding.”

Squirming backward, Savage suddenly stopped.

“What's wrong?” Rachel asked.

Savage pointed across the water. From the limited perspective of the cave, he hadn't been able to see the full horizon. Now, from the crest of the hill, he saw a small island a quarter-mile to the east. “I know where we are now. Rhineia. Just to the west of Delos.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“There's a helicopter on Delos. I hired it to pick us up if we couldn't leave Mykonos by boat. The storm was too severe for it to take off. If we can cross the channel …”

“But suppose the pilot doesn't wait.”

“His orders were to stay on Delos for forty-eight hours, in case I had trouble getting in contact. I lost my equipment on the yacht. I can't radio to tell him we're coming. But we have to get over there by tomorrow.”

“How?”

“The only way we can. Delos is too far to swim. We have to steal a boat.”

Again, as he squirmed back from the crest, something stopped him.

A far-off drone.

Savage winced.

The drone became louder. He concentrated, trying to determine which direction the sound was coming from. It increased to a
whump-whump-whumping
roar. A speck appeared above the water, grew rapidly, and assumed the shape of a grotesque dragonfly. Sunlight glinted off spinning rotors.

The helicopter swooped toward the island.

“We don't need to wonder who
that
is,” Savage said.

“They'll check the coastline. When they see all those people … When they find the wreckage …
Hurry.”

They crawled away, standing to run only when the crest of the hill prevented the chopper from seeing them. The island was almost barren. Except for occasional stretches of scrub grass and stunted flowers, Savage saw only eroded ridges of granite. Scrambling over rocks, he strained to recall his research, but his information was limited. Mykonos had been his target, after all, its neighboring islands of secondary importance.