The Ocean Dark

53

Josh opened his eyes, unsure at first what had woken him. He’d been out for a few minutes, maybe longer. Not asleep, but unconscious. That didn’t bode well. With Angie’s help he had torn up his shirt and bound the gunshot wound in his shoulder, but whenever he moved he paid for it with searing pain that brought beads of sweat out on his forehead.

Now he looked down, saw that blood had soaked through the shirt, but when he touched the cloth with his good hand it felt tacky, like it had begun to dry. The bleeding seemed to have slowed or stopped. He might not die from the gunshot after all — the bullet had passed all the way through, and that was a plus — but infection could still get him.

Off to his left, in the dimming light inside the wheelhouse, someone shifted. He glanced over and saw Angie unclip a heavy duty emergency flashlight from the charger where it was mounted near the port side door. She moved casually, but with purpose, walking toward Suarez, who sat by the wheel, watching the progress Miguel and the others were making with the crane.

Suarez sensed her coming and turned, starting to frown, perhaps to chastise her. A flicker of alarm crossed his features as Angie came too close and his hand began to move toward the gun in his waistband.

Angie struck him with the heavy flashlight, right across the bridge of his nose. Suarez let out a grunt as blood gushed from his nostrils. Angie kept moving, driving him into the control panel and the wheel. She let the flashlight drop from her grip and it shattered as it hit the ground, and then they were grappling together, both of them reaching for his gun. Angie got it first, pulling it out, raising the barrel, but Suarez slapped it out of her hand and it skittered across the floor toward the back of the wheelhouse.

They went down, grunting, hands tangled in hair or closing around throats.

“Stupid woman. What the hell you think you—”

“I don’t want to die, you asshole!” Angie screamed in Suarez’s face.

He tried to reason with her as they continued grappling. Suarez slipped her grasp and crawled toward the gun, but Angie grabbed him by the belt and drove her fist into his crotch. With a cry of pain, Suarez doubled up. Angie tried to get past him, but despite his pain he got his fingers wrapped in her hair again and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

Josh forced himself to stand, sliding up the wall. Pain set off fireworks in his head and he swayed, breathing through his teeth, nearly collapsing again. Then he staggered across the wheelhouse to the two chairs that were affixed to the floor in front of the wheel. He snatched the PLB from the console, but his left arm hung useless and he could not slide it from its rubber holster.

As Angie and Suarez fought, he set the PLB back on the console, rested his hand on it, and managed to slip it out of the holster. He flipped open the faceplate, blinking back the pain, and pressed the two blue buttons there simultaneously, holding them down until the little gadget issued a long beep.

“You can stop now,” he said.

Suarez and Angie had barely noticed him moving, but now they dragged themselves away from each other, scratched and bloody and wearing foolish expressions. Then Angie grinned.

“You set it off?” she asked.

Josh nodded, staring at Suarez. “No point in shooting anyone now, Mr. Suarez. The signal is sent. My people will follow the beacon. They’ll be coming.”

Suarez seemed to deflate. He knelt on the floor, looking somehow much older than he had before, and then slumped back to sit, legs sprawled in front of him, as though in surrender.

Then he looked up at Josh and said, “Thank God.”