Chapter 73 - Debris and Desolation
The twin halogen searchlights tore through the thick bank of smoke, painting harsh white swaths across the burning debris field. Marcus took the wheel, throttling the pursuit boat forward at idle speed, steering carefully through the jagged wreckage of floating deck chairs, splintered teak planks, and scorched life jackets.
Emma refused to leave my side. I wrapped her in an insulated emergency foil blanket from the boat's trauma kit, keeping one arm firmly around her shoulders while I gripped the cabin handrail with the other. My cracked ribs flared with agony every time the hull crested a wave, but the adrenaline burning through my bloodstream drowned out the pain.
"Over there! Ten o'clock!" Marcus shouted, pointing the beam toward a cluster of floating storage bins.
Bobbing in the churning foam was an orange life ring, scorched black along one hemisphere. Clinging to its nylon straps by two white-knuckled hands was a figure, barely keeping her mouth and nose above the freezing waterline.
"Evelyn!" I yelled.
Marcus cut the engine into neutral and bolted toward the starboard side with a gaff hook. Together, we leaned over the rail as the boat drifted alongside her. Her face was bloodied from flying shrapnel, her lips a stark, terrifying shade of lavender from hypothermia. She was barely conscious, her eyes rolling back into her head as her grip began to slip from the ring.
"Grab her wrists!" Marcus barked.
I lunged outward, ignoring the searing pain in my side, and locked my fingers around her forearms. Marcus reached down, hooking his arms under her shoulders, and with one synchronized heave, we dragged her limp body over the gunwale onto the deck.
She landed heavily, coughing up foamy water, her chest heaving in shallow, rapid gasps. Emma gasped and covered her mouth, but she didn't run. Instead, she knelt beside Evelyn, carefully pulling the spare foil blanket over the older woman’s shivering shoulders.
"Evelyn, can you hear me?" I demanded, tapping her cold cheek. "Look at me. Is Harlan in the water?"
Her eyelids fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. Her gaze drifted past my shoulder toward the flaming sea. A broken, rattling whisper escaped her lips: "He went down... with the safe room. He locked the hatch... from the inside."
Marcus cursed softly under his breath. "The bastard scuttled the ship to take everything down with him. The paper trail, the bonds, the offshore identities... he thought he was burying it all."
"He didn't bury everything," I said, reaching into the waterproof thigh pocket of my tactical pants. My fingers closed around the encrypted military-grade hard drive I had ripped from the *Vanguard's* bridge terminal before the explosion. It was wet, but the ruggedized casing was intact, its indicator light still gleaming dull amber.
Suddenly, the radio on the console squawked with sharp static, followed by an automated emergency transponder relay.
May you like
*Mayday, Mayday. All vessels in sector four. Coast Guard cutter Reliance is inbound on intercept vector...*
Marcus snapped the radio off with an aggressive flick of his wrist. "That’s not the Coast Guard," he said quietly, his jaw clenching. "The call signs are wrong. That’s Harlan’s shore contingency. They know the boat went down, and they’re sweeping the coordinates to clean up whatever survived."
