She pressed it.
Nothing.
She pressed it again. Multiple times. Still nothing.
Li Na turned to scan the garage behind her. They had to have seen where she’d run to. She slammed her hands desperately against the steering wheel and tried again. There was no response.
She grabbed the keys and began pushing buttons on the remote. The doors locked and the horn immediately began blaring.
Oh God!
With frightened eyes, she looked through the windshield across the glass bridge. She fumbled for the remote and pushed the button again to silence it. But it was too late. The echoing through the garage had to have been loud enough for everyone to hear, including the men chasing her.
She had to find something else. Li Na grabbed the wheel with one hand and opened the door with the other. She slid sideways to leave and had just pushed against the brake pedal on her way out when something happened.
Several lights lit up on the car’s dashboard. She froze and stared, dumbfounded. With her foot still firmly against the brake, she reached forward and pushed the round button again. The engine came to life.
With insurmountable relief, Li Na reached out and slammed the heavy door shut again. She then found the gearshift and pulled it back into reverse before punching the gas pedal.
The gray Jaguar XJ lurched into motion, throwing Li Na hard against the steering wheel. She struggled for control before screeching to a stop. She looked across the glass bridge, which was miraculously still empty.
She took a deep breath and gripped the wheel tightly. Her father had taught her how to drive… once.
Li Na carefully pulled the gearshift back further into drive, this time pressing lighter against the gas pedal. The car surged forward, causing her to quickly steer away, barely missing the other cars.
With a wide, almost uncontrollable turn, she was gone.
43
The plunge into the bright blue waters was a refreshing change from the stifling sun overhead. Even the Bimini top of the aluminum-hulled boat could not protect them from the hot breeze blowing across the ocean’s glimmering surface.
For Alison, getting into the water was a no-brainer.
Hello Alison.
“Hello, Sally,” she replied, breathing calmly through her face mask.
You swim.
She nodded. “I swim.”
Before she could continue, Dirk darted playfully past her, leaving her reaching out too late to touch him. Several more dolphins appeared and followed him, diving down and around a large outcropping of coral.
Who she? One of them whistled, which Alison was surprised to hear from the vest. Lee’s improvements appeared to be working better at separating out different threads of language.
She turned to capture another approaching dolphin with her camera as it sounded off in reply. But She was all Alison heard before IMIS’s familiar error tone returned through her earbuds.
She name Alison, Sally replied, as she circled in tightly around her human friend. Come Alison. Play.
Alison smiled. “Okay, Sally. I’ll play.” She kicked her own fins hard to catch up and grabbed hold of Sally’s powerful dorsal fin. Sally accelerated, causing Alison to quickly grab hold with her other hand as she felt her face mask press harder against her face. Their sleek shape allowed the dolphins to move surprisingly fast through the water, unlike the human figure which added a significant drag to Sally’s effort. Something she hardly ever mentioned. Dirk, on the other hand, always did with a joking tone, calling Alison heavy. It was ironic given Alison’s rather petite frame.
Still, their abilities seemed almost effortless, even with Alison in tow. Sally had carried her to safety once on her back, leaving Alison stunned and appreciative of the amount of innate strength dolphins possessed.
She smiled and gripped her hands tighter around the fin, turning side to side to see other dolphins swimming with them — dozens, all darting back and forth.
“Whoa!” Sally suddenly dove, leaving Alison laughing and clamoring to hang on.
On the surface, Lee Kenwood raised his eyebrows and glanced at John Clay. He leaned forward toward his standing microphone. “You okay, Ali?”
Alison’s voice responded over the speakers as clear as a bell and still chuckling. “Yes! I’m fine!” After a pause, she added, “We’re playing. Wow, you should see this coral. It’s beautiful.”
Clay peered at the speaker curiously and leaned in. “You don’t mean beautiful like Trinidad?”
“No,” Alison shook her head and watched another pod of dolphins skim below them. Like small hills, the coral dipped and rose for as far as she could see. And with life teeming everywhere. “Not like Trinidad. Just… beautiful. Like Costa Rica.” She squealed again as Sally made a sudden turn, rolling up and over above Dirk.
You fun Alison?
“Yes, Sally.” She smiled inside her mask. “Very fun. And beautiful.”
Waves of fish zipped by as the dolphins simultaneously dipped into a large depression. They skimmed along the bottom next, before turning to rocket up over the next rise.
Hold hard Alison.
Alison widened her arms and wrapped herself tighter around the base of Sally’s head. “What are you going to do?”
More hard Alison.
The clicks of the other dolphins echoed in her ear, sounding like laughter. Alison’s eyes grew larger as she saw the bright water of the surface approaching.
“What are you going to do, Sally?!”
More hard.
She gripped Sally with all of her strength just moments before they broke the surface. One after the other, dozens of dolphins all leaped into the air together with Alison, who was hanging on for dear life.
She gasped inside her mask as they became airborne. And just for a moment, time seemed to stand still. At the apex of their leap, everything grew quiet, suspended momentarily over the water before gravity reasserted itself and they plunged smoothly back into the waves.
Alison finally lost her grip and tumbled backward into the turbulence behind them. She allowed herself to relax, twisting with the water before regaining her bearings and floating back to the surface. With her head bobbing above the water, she spun around until she could see the gleaming aluminum boat behind her.
She reached up and pulled off her mask, allowing her to see Clay and Lee watching from the starboard side of the craft. Alison raised her fist and yelled at the top of her lungs, “WHOO HOO!”
Both laughed and Clay clasped Lee’s shoulder zealously. “Yep. She’s definitely okay.”
Lee smiled and waved, then watched Alison wave back. “Good. I think if anyone needs this right now, she does.”
“Agreed.” Clay’s gaze moved to the water and the horizon behind them, where he noted that the island of Saint Lucia had disappeared from sight.
Steadying himself with one hand, he moved closer to the stern of the boat and breathed in deeply. There was something extraordinarily peaceful about seeing nothing but water around him. Something inexplicable. Just the breeze and the lapping of the waves against the hull reminded him there was a certain peace in the world that humans seemed to forget too easily. Nature provided its own pace as a means for nurturing the human soul.