They’d done well so far. And in five minutes they’d reach the harbor. Hawker hoped the area would be public enough to keep their pursuers at bay. But he wasn’t sure they’d even get there. One hit on either outboard and they’d be finished.
A rifle shot hit the deck a few feet behind him and he heard another zip overhead.
Danielle ducked. “Now would be a good time to do something!” she shouted.
Even as she spoke, Yuri began to mumble something unintelligible and squirm out of Hawker’s grasp. The kid stretched out a hand toward the locker, his eyes wide as if he’d just discovered something new.
“Two,” he said suddenly, then looked at Hawker. “Two.”
Hawker beckoned McCarter, who crawled toward him.
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” Hawker said. “Hold on to him.”
As McCarter grabbed Yuri, Hawker scrambled to the rear of the boat. He dug into the space beneath the seats and pulled out the anchor. They were coming up fast on the shoreline, but if they were going to make it they would need help.
“Hold us steady!” he shouted, sawing through the rope with his knife.
The boat leveled and ran straight and true for a moment. As it did, Hawker swung the thirty-pound anchor like a bolo and flung it into the air.
The anchor and a short section of attached rope trailed out toward their pursuers, but splashed down well short of the target.
“You’re going to have to throw harder than that,” Danielle shouted.
“Thanks,” he said. “I kind of realized that.”
Next he flung out one of the oars, which landed in front of the lead boat, only to be cut in half by the flying keel.
The men on the boats answered with another spread of bullets, and Danielle cut sharply to the right as tracers ripped into the sea all around them. Hawker ducked and spotted a flare gun.
That gave Hawker another idea. He strapped a buoy to one of the spare diving tanks. “One more time!” he shouted.
The turn eased and the wake stretched out behind them in a streaming line. Hawker opened the valves and pushed the tanks overboard. They splashed down and submerged, but the bubbles and the buoy were enough for him to see it by.
He waited.
He fired off a flare.
The crimson charge raced toward the bubbles of venting gas and a wave of flame exploded out of it as the 40 percent oxygen mix ignited.
The lead boat swerved too late and the explosion sent it airborne for just a foot or so. It landed slightly out of alignment, hitting the water and tumbling like a stock car that had blown a tire at Daytona. Debris flew off it in all directions and it came to rest right side up but swamped and still.
“Great shot!” McCarter shouted.
Hawker hoped the men in the second boat would stop to help their comrades. But they swerved around the ruined craft and continued the chase.
And this time when they’d closed in sufficiently, the men on the foredeck opened fire without holding back. Bullets and tracers began ripping into their boat.
Hawker dove to the deck as Danielle guided the speeding boat around the breakwater into the harbor, swerving around anchored sailboats and other craft. Behind him Yuri began to scream. He twisted free of McCarter’s grasp and lunged for the locker that held the stone. “Two!” he yelled, banging his hands on the locker. “Two! Two! Two!”
Arnold Moore shouted to be heard over the radios as they emitted a high-pitched shriek that he could hardly take.
“Get the helicopters down!”
“Why?”
“Get them on the ground now!”
The master sergeant grabbed the radio and tried to relay Moore’s order, yelling to be heard over the feedback and the static. The computers in the back of the truck began to overload. Sparks blasted from the vents of one and an oscilloscope attached to the setup exploded.
“Close it up!” Moore yelled to his men, reaching for the heavy lead hatch on the box containing the stone. “Close it up!”
The radios in the cab wailed and then blew out one after another. The remaining computer shorted. Moore and his scientist raised the heavy lid and began to slam it down but a flash of blinding light came from the stone and a shock wave blasted through the truck and out across the open desert.
“Two, two, two!” Yuri was shouting, and then his eyes went wide. “One.”
A blast ripped through the boat.
Hawker was almost flung overboard and Danielle was knocked forward, tumbling over the driver’s panel and hitting the deck. The engines behind them exploded. Sparks shot from the depth finder and radio transmitter.
Hawker had no idea what had happened. It was like he’d been hit by a pane of glass. His breath was gone, his head ringing. He saw McCarter bent over Yuri, trying to help him. Up ahead Danielle was crawling back to the wheel.
He looked behind. Their own outboards were belching black smoke and the boat that had been chasing them was going off course, flames licking out of its engine compartment. Several of the vessels in the harbor were having similar problems.
Danielle grabbed the wheel and guided them up onto the beach with the momentum they maintained. The boat skidded to a stop.
“What the hell was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Hawker said.
He turned to McCarter, who was holding Yuri as one might hold a sleeping child, cradling his neck and head. He pulled his right hand away; it was soaked with blood, pouring from Yuri’s ear.
“Oh my God,” Danielle said.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Hawker said. “I’ll carry him.”
Hawker took Yuri from McCarter as Danielle pulled the equipment bag with the new stone out of the locker and then hopped over the side of the boat.
She helped McCarter hobble up the beach. As Hawker carried Yuri, a thought flashed through his mind: They’d found the second stone and recovered it, but at what cost?
CHAPTER 35
Danielle burst through the doors to the emergency room. Hawker came behind her carrying Yuri in his arms.
“We need a doctor!” Hawker shouted.
“Necesitamos un médico,” Danielle repeated in Spanish.
She looked around. The room was dark, lit only by the sunlight coming through tinted windows and by a pair of emergency lights in each corner.
“No power,” she said.
The drive to the hospital had been panicked madness. The traffic lights were out, cars stalled in various places. To get them here Danielle had driven on the median and down the sidewalk at one point. But the power loss had preceded them. As had a large number of prospective patients.
Like most ERs in America, this one was overcrowded and understaffed. There were already more patients in the waiting room than the unit could accommodate quickly.
Priority went to those most in need: heart attack victims, those with life-threatening wounds or conditions. For patients who were fortunate enough to have minor traumas and lesser conditions, the wait could be hours.
Danielle was certain that Yuri did not have that kind of time.
A nurse glanced at them from across the room, focused on Yuri’s limp form. A second later she was rushing over, stethoscope in hand.
“Do you speak English?” Danielle asked.
The nurse nodded. “What’s happened to this child,” she asked, putting the stethoscope to his chest.
“He had a seizure,” Danielle replied.
The nurse checked the blood oozing from Yuri’s ear, then lifted one of his eyelids and flashed a light into it. The concern on her face deepened.