Virginia allowed her legs to bunch up and she came to a crouch on the roof, turning to be head upward. The ambulance suddenly dipped as the heavier engine end sucked the van downward from the hood, causing her to lose balance again.
She stepped off the slippery wet dashboard and climbed vertically into the rear of the ambulance as water completely flooded the driver’s cabin. The airtight seals on the rear compartment were slowing the progress of the water, but not by much. She guessed she had around thirty or forty seconds before she was completely swamped.
She stood on the seat backs and concentrated on a solution to overcome the next two equal priorities — she needed to get out of the ambulance without getting killed by whoever attacked her in the first place.
There was no doubt in her mind that whoever was driving that garbage truck was probably watching to make sure she sank with the car, and she was determined not to disappoint them. After all, it’s much harder to murder someone who’s supposed to be already dead.
Virginia reached down into the side locker and grabbed the mobile oxy-viva kit they used on jobs, and a three-foot oxygen tube from the shelf next to her. She unzipped the kit and connected the hose to the spigot, starting the flow at six liters per minute. With fifty liters compressed into the bottle, she could relax a little. She had what she needed — some time, and probable survivability.
She held the backpack in front of her like a life-jacket and waited as the freezing water climbed up to her chest. She breathed air for as long as she could until the icy waters finally flooded the entire ambulance. With her face now fully submerged, she placed the oxygen tube into her mouth and started to take slow, full breaths.
Virginia closed her eyes and waited.
The ambulance remained partially afloat for nearly another two full minutes, before finally becoming negatively buoyant and sinking.
It moved quickly, and she had to swallow to try to equalize the pressure in her middle ear, but still her ears felt like they were being crushed. There was nothing she could do about it. The ambulance was going to sink at whatever rate it was going to sink at and there was nothing she could do about it. In her head, she counted the seconds, trying to guess how deep Newtown Creek was.
In the back of her mind, she recalled something she’d once read during her initial training, regarding diving physiology and hyperbaric treatments. What she remembered, now terrified her.
Symptoms of central nervous system oxygen toxicity, which include seizures, neurological deficits, and death, may occur after short exposures to partial pressures of oxygen greater than 1.3 atmospheres.
In simple terms, death may occur in divers breathing pure oxygen at just ten feet of seawater.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Virginia didn’t wait for the ambulance to sink any farther.
She reached up over her head and unlatched one of the rear barn doors with her right hand. The cabin was filled with floating debris consisting of packaged medical items and bandages. It was strangely quiet in there, just the sound of sucking swirling water, and the creaking of the ambulance chassis. Virginia took fast deep breaths as the truck gathered speed, starting its inevitable descent. She let the last of the air in the cabin shove the back door ajar as the ambulance slipped under the surface, and she made her way through the opening with the kit held at her chest. The ambulance slipped past her, down into the murky depths below.
Navy flight training kicked in as she steadied her nerves. She stayed below the surface and bit gently on the hose between her teeth from the oxygen bottle. She was sinking with the weight of the kit, and from the downward eddy caused by the car. She needed to lose her tactical boots to swim, so she shouldered the backpack straps of the oxy-viva and secured the waist belt.
She unzipped the sides of her boots and pulled them loose, discarding them and her socks. It was very dark now, so she figured she must be either deep, or in the progressively thickening sludge that no doubt lined the bottom of the creek.
Virginia traced the path of the bubbles, until she was confident which way was up and which way was down. She kicked her legs, and fought her way toward the surface. The visibility was less than a few feet. After about fifteen seconds, the water above turned sepia.
She stopped a few feet shy of the surface and continued to swim toward the opposite side of the creek, hoping that the murky waters might still keep her hidden from her attacker.
In her helicopter training, she had been made to swim a length of 100 feet underwater after escaping the Dilbert Dunker submersion simulator. The concept was that immediate surfacing would place you at risk of being burned by the giant puddle of fuel at a crash site. During training, early surfacing resulted in a sharp stab from the drill Sargent’s stick as he prowled the side of the lane next to the escape swim path. This was the first time she’d truly appreciated the wisdom of the training.
Virginia continued to swim underwater until the C-sized oxygen cylinder finally ran out. She held her breath just that little bit longer, and then slowly surfaced with her eyes and mouth just above the waterline.
She glanced around. She was now more than a hundred yards from where her ambulance had been knocked into the Newtown Creek. There was no longer any sign of anyone watching her from the opposite end of the bank.
Virginia turned and faced the Queens side of the creek. She swam quickly until she reached the stone embankment along the wall. Detritus a foot thick, made of trash and rotting shards of timber, blanketed her as she raised up. Looking back across to the Brooklyn side there was no sign of anyone watching. Virginia could see the damage to the fence on the lead in to the hundred-year old swing bridge, but no garbage truck, no emergency responders, nothing. They thought she was gone, and that worked for her just fine.
She climbed out onto the bank of the creek.
Virginia had no shoes and her paramedic’s uniform was soaking wet. None of the eight cars that passed her on 46th, 47th and 48th streets seemed to notice her trudging along the sidewalk. She pulled out her smartphone from her left cargo pocket and glanced at the screen. It still worked. What do you know, the waterproofing on these modern smartphones must be improving? She scrolled through until she found the name she was after, and pressed call.
The answer came halfway through the second ring as she knew it would, from the familiar voice. “Virginia Beaumont!”
Virginia smiled. “Sam Reilly, I need your help.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sam Reilly pulled his rental into the open space beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Express overpass. It was a white Toyota sedan, the most invisible car he could find. He turned the car so that he could see the Newtown Creek and the adjoining roads. His eyes raked the surroundings for any sign of trouble. There were none that he could see. Some kids were playing street baseball in the flattish land that ran between the two, but apart from that, the place appeared completely devoid of people.
He set the handbrake, but left the engine running.
Sam reached down to his left boot holster and withdrew his concealed carry weapon, a Bersa Thunder 380 CC. With it he carried the required documents, obtained throughout his classified employment to the Secretary of Defense, that allowed him to legally carry the weapon in New York.
He removed the magazine and checked it. There wasn’t anything to do to it, Sam kept the weapon clean and well oiled, ready in case he ever needed to use it. He chambered the first round, cocking the slide to double action for the first two cartridges. The pistol mimicked the concept of the Walther PPK made famous by the original James Bond movies, but this piece was eight ounces lighter and had a polymer grip making it preferable to Sam for concealment. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:05.