The Ocean Dark

60

Special Agent Rachael Voss had never been so tired in her life. She’d managed an hour and a half of fitful sleep sometime between three and five a.m., and since then, had been sitting out on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, with no cigarettes, and no cell phone. Voss didn’t feel like talking.

They’d found the lifeboat shortly before eleven p.m. Voss would always remember the way her heart had seized, and the way her breath had caught in her throat, when they had opened the hatch and she’d seen that Josh was aboard. Now he lay in the Coast Guard cutter’s infirmary, unconscious. The other passengers on board the lifeboat had made the whole thing a gruesome puzzle. Angie Tyree, a ship’s engineer, had spoken not a word, staring with blank eyes anytime a question had been posed. Tori Austin, pale despite her tan, hair matted with blood, muttered about sirens.

And Gabe Rio. Gabriel fucking Rio, captain of the Antoinette, told a story that seemed to explain the condition of the lifeboat’s four passengers but could not possibly be true. When Voss had tried to ask the engineer, Tyree, about it, the woman had curled into a fetal ball.

After which Voss had not been allowed to ask any more questions. Josh and Tori Austin were taken to the infirmary for medical attention, and there they remained. The commander of the Coast Guard unit that had been tasked to the mission had been in to see them, and so had Ed Turcotte, but they were shutting Voss out and wouldn’t even let her see her own partner.

Turcotte had figured out the lifeboat’s speed and did the math, based on how much fuel remained in its tank. Some of the Coast Guard people had traced its trajectory backward, adjusted for current and other variables, and come up with a triangle of open sea that they believed contained the origin point for the lifeboat’s launch. But whether or not the Antoinette would still be there when they found it was another question.

So while Josh slipped in and out of consciousness, the little fleet of would-be rescuers that Rachael Voss had gathered continued sailing, searching the area the Coast Guard techs had laid out for them.

An hour before dawn, as the sky had begun to lighten, Turcotte had ordered his chopper into the air, and the helicopter had begun its own search of the arc. But Voss had been up before that, unable to sleep.

Ed Turcotte came out onto the cutter’s deck. He was an interesting-looking man, with his enormous bald spot and square jaw and hangdog face, like some cross between SWAT team leader and certified public accountant. Voss smiled to herself at the aptness of the comparison.

Turcotte didn’t smile, and her own vanished.

“Josh is awake,” Voss said.

“You could say that.”

“What does that mean?”

Turcotte lifted his chin defiantly. He wanted to remind her who was running this mission. At the same time, she thought his eyes looked a bit spooked, and that worried her. What the hell spooked Ed Turcotte?

“It all sounds pretty wild,” he said.

Voss stared at him, head cocked. “You mean he’s confirmed Gabriel Rio’s story?”

“A secret island. Monsters in the water killing everyone. Every detail.”

Voss swallowed, her throat going dry. “So much for our little turf war over this case. It’s about to get much bigger than either of us.”

Turcotte looked away, squinting slightly. “Agreed.”

“Do you believe any of it? Monsters, Ed? I mean, that’s a far cry from Counter-Terrorism, isn’t it?”

Turcotte twitched. One corner of his lip turned upward and she knew the conversation was about to turn ugly. But instead of chastising her, he surprised her by holding out his hand.

“Whatever happened out there, it doesn’t sound like any of us are experts on it. We’ll need to be able to work together.”

Voss saw the grim determination in his eyes. Turcotte was an arrogant prick, but he had earned his position leading the Counter-Terrorism unit. The man knew how to do his job.

She shook his hand, sealing a pact.

A lanky agent — far too awake at this time in the morning, and young enough to be fresh out of Quantico — hurried out on deck. He came to a quick halt and glanced back and forth between them, afraid to interrupt.

“What’ve you got, Lavallee?” Turcotte asked.

“The Antoinette, sir,” the young agent replied. “The chopper just radioed in. She’s moored off a small island, twelve miles north/northeast.”

Turcotte looked at Voss. “I don’t know about you, Rachael, but I’d like to know what the hell went on out here. You ready?”

Voss looked out to the east, where the sun now rose, burning off the halo of night and mist that lingered over the water. Dawn, but it did not feel like a new day to her — not with Josh in the infirmary, and the nightmare he had only barely survived still going on. She looked down at the deep water, at the ocean dark, and it seemed to her as though it went down forever.

“Hell, yeah. Full ahead.”