Pandemic Page 72

In front and behind, towering ship hulls rose up like smooth, impenetrable castle walls. Swells lifted her and dropped her.

She felt that numbing cold, that clutching snake wrapping around her feet — water pouring in through the tear in her suit, filling up her boots.

Margaret turned sharply, trying to lift her left shoulder out of the water. She dipped into a deep trough. From her right came a new roar as a black monster tore free from the top of the wave, kicking out a spray of water that sparkled orange from the reflected fire above. The black shape crested, almost flew, then came down hard in another splash of molten orange.

Not a monster: a black boat, a raft, packed with men who looked like robots, dark bulky shapes and smooth helmets and huge guns mounted to the raft itself.

A line of splashes burst up in front of her face. Bullets, someone shooting at her from up on the Brashear or the Pinckney. As one, the boat’s gunners aimed up: the black monster breathed fire.

The boat rapidly slowed to a stop near her, its bow wave pushing her back. A black man — no, a man wearing blackface — pointed a black rifle at her, screaming to be heard over the gunfire. “Identify yourself!”

“Muh … muh …” Her jaw chattered so hard it hurt her teeth.

“Identify yourself!”

“Muh … Margaret … Montoya!”

The point of the rifle lifted. The man leaned forward and reached, grabbed her life jacket and pulled her toward the boat.

“I’m Commander Klimas,” he said as he yanked her up. “Stay down and don’t move.”

She felt a strong hand push her, not to harm her but rather to hold her still. Margaret found herself in the bottom of the raft, lying against a soaked and shivering Tim Feely. Most of his suit had been cut away. A black blanket covered his shoulders. His b.l.o.o.d.y scrubs clung to his body. He clutched the container of yeast tight to his chest.

The deafening guns continued to roar, to spit tongues of flame up at the sky. Sh.e.l.l casings rained down, bouncing off her visor, landing in the boat or hitting the surrounding water where they vanished with an audible tsst.

She saw a knife move near her face, then a rapid tugging on her suit as someone cut it away in long shreds. A long, heavy blanket was thrown on top of her, tucked around her shoulders.

The boat shot forward, smashing against the tall waves, rolling her against black-booted feet. She sat up, knees to her chest, pulling the blanket close to try to fight off the cold that rattled her body.

“Where is Clarence?” She screamed to no one, to everyone. One of these men had to know. “Agent Otto, where is he?”

The unmistakable plunk-plunk-plunk of bullets smacking into the boat.

Something hammered into her right thigh, made the muscles numb — she was trying to get her bearings when the numbness quickly faded, replaced by a branding-iron pain that seemed to singe her femur.

Wincing, fearing the worst, she opened the blanket to look at her leg. Blood poured from the wound, hot against her ice-cold skin, matting her scrubs to her thigh. She grabbed the thin fabric of her pants and ripped — a long gash ran from a few inches below her hip down to midthigh. The bullet hadn’t penetrated, only grazed her.

A man landed hard in front of her, black face tight in a grimace of agony, left arm across his chest, left hand clutching at the back of his neck. Blood poured out from between his fingers, looking just as black as everything else.

She forgot about her leg, lurched forward to help the soldier.

“Tim! Come here!”

Tim stuffed the yeast canister into his scrub top, then leaned over the wounded man, trying to keep his balance as the boat rose up and smashed down again and again and again. Tim’s hands probed the back of the man’s neck.

Margaret wiped her cold, b.l.o.o.d.y fingers against her soaked scrub top, then slid them along the man’s throat, looking for additional wounds.

“Clear and breathing,” she said. “How bad is the wound?”

“The bullet took out most of the posterior musculature on the right,” Tim said. “The jugular and carotid were spared, but he has significant hemorrhaging from the wound. I think the brachial nerve plexus is gone.” Tim sounded calm, of all things. Margaret briefly wondered why he’d gone into research — the man had been born for this.

Gunfire roared around her. She sat up higher, hands searching the man’s combat webbing for something that felt like a flashlight.

Again a hand came down from above, grabbed the back of her neck, tried to force her flat. Her palms pressed against the bottom of the boat.

“Stay down!”

The boat hit hard against a wave: it felt like driving a car into a wall. The hand came off her for a second. She pushed up and swung her right elbow back as hard as she could, felt it clonk into something both hard and soft.

“I’m a doctor, G.o.ddamit, let me work! And give me a f.u.c.king light!”

Plunk-plunk-plunk, another string of bullets st.i.tched across the small boat.

She felt the hand reach down again, but this time it pressed something against her chest: a small flashlight. Margaret flicked it on and scanned the man’s body; he might have other wounds that were even worse.

The boat hammered across the waves, repeatedly rising up hard then dropping to smash against the concrete surface.

She found nothing.

“No additional wounds,” she said, then handed the light to Tim.

That strong hand on her yet again, on her shoulder this time. Klimas, the SEAL who had pulled her in, knelt next to her.