A wave buried them. The drysack was open, full of water. And now, on a rise of wave, Gideon could see a vast band of white surf, with blackness before and beyond.
“Fuck,” he said.
“Just hold on, don’t fight, ride the waves in.”
The waves were looming bigger, terrifyingly steep, smooth and glassy. The roar ahead sounded like a hundred freight trains. Up, up they rose, and a great curl of water loomed above them, over them.
“Hold on!”
Gideon felt himself flipped over, then engulfed in a tremendous, violent, boiling blackness, which instantly ripped the preserver raft out of his hands. He tumbled and thrashed in the darkness, disoriented, with no way of knowing which was up, down, or sideways, the water tugging at his limbs and almost tearing them out of their sockets. His powerlessness in the grip of the sea both terrified and stunned him.
Suddenly — just when he felt his lungs would burst — he broke the surface, gasped, sucked in salt water, and was thrown back into the maelstrom, whirled about, utterly at the mercy of the sea. The faces appeared, now grinning, vomiting over him, and he struggled to thrash free, to no avail…And then a strange peace stole in, slowly, slowly, and the sea and the waves and the faces all vanished into a warm, lovely dark.
33
As consciousness slowly returned, the lovely dark gave way to a sickening, nauseating feeling of pain and exhaustion. Gideon coughed, his chest and lungs feeling like they were on fire. He opened his eyes. There was still the close roar of surf, but he realized he was lying on wet sand. It was still night.
With great effort he managed to get his arms underneath himself and sit up. His skin felt raw and cracked. He was surrounded by a dim, featureless beach, vanishing into darkness in all directions.
“Amy.” His voice came out as the merest croak.
The beach was empty. He struggled to get to his feet, head pounding, and was immediately overwhelmed with dizziness. Falling to his knees, he vomited salt water, again and again and again, until nothing remained but dry heaves. A few deep breaths and he collapsed, falling to the sand, curling into a ball, and losing consciousness once again.
After what seemed like an eternity, he slowly swam back to consciousness. He opened his eyes. Day. Again. A dull, zinc light suffused everything. He looked about through bleary eyes, at the empty beach, the dark gray ocean, the thundering parade of surf, a dark line of limp jungle. How he possibly could have ridden through and survived boggled his mind.
The wind had died away, and the clouds above had taken shape. The storm was clearing. His head was still pounding, but he felt a little better. He rose to his knees, and then lurched to his feet, fighting a wave of nausea and vertigo. In the light of a filthy dawn, he could now see where he was: on a deserted coast, the gray beach stretching in either direction as far as the eye could see, a few tattered palm trees, the land receding into jungle-clad hills. No sign of life; no sign of Amy; no sign of the raft or their drybags of supplies.
A raging thirst had taken hold. His lips were cracked and bleeding. His tongue was swollen. He felt so weak he could barely stand.
He had to find Amy. Or, at least, her body. And he had to find the bundle of life preservers and the drysacks with their water.
It took all his willpower to take a step, and then he fell once again to his knees. Despite every effort, he was unable to get back onto his feet. He continued slowly on, crawling down the hard sand until he could go no farther. He lay down. He wanted badly to sleep — or, perhaps, to die. He closed his eyes.
“Gideon.”
He opened his eyes to find Amy bending over him. She looked awful — pale, thin, wet.
“Amy…thank God…”
“Let me help you up.” She grasped him under the arms, and he rose to his feet even as she staggered with the effort.
“Water…”
A bottle appeared and he fumbled for it, unscrewing the top with trembling hands, jamming it into his mouth and sucking down the liquid so desperately it spilled over his shirt.
“Easy, easy.” She laid a hand on the bottle. “Wait a minute.”
He waited, trembling. He could feel an immediate surge of energy from the water. “More.”
“Pace yourself.”
He drank more, swallowing just a little bit at a time, until the liter bottle was gone.
“More.”
“Sorry, we need to ration.”
It was amazing how quickly the water helped him regain strength and alertness. He looked about, breathing slowly and deeply. There, a few hundred yards down the beach, was the sodden bundle of life preservers. He could see Amy’s footprints in the sand.
His tongue and mouth were becoming rehydrated, and he found he could speak without croaking. “How did you survive?”
“Just as you did, I got washed up on the beach. I don’t quite know how. Karma.”
“Where are we?”
“The Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. I’d guess we’re about twenty miles north of Monkey Point.”
“How far to the nearest settlement?”
“We don’t have a local map. This is one of the loneliest coastlines in the world. Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a little weak myself. Give me your arm.”
They walked down the beach, supporting each other. She led him into a grove of palm trees along the verge of sand. There were the drysacks, with various items laid out and drying on banana leaves — their two weapons, knives, the satellite-phone case, the briefing book with its wet pages laid out, a dozen granola bars, bottled water — and, to Gideon’s surprise, the mysterious computer printout of a Greek manuscript Amy had been looking at on the boat, sealed in a ziplock bag that had nevertheless suffered some leakage. She sat down on the sand, and Gideon collapsed next to her.
Even in his weakened state, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed at the sight of the printout. She must have taken it with her when they abandoned the Turquesa and put it in a drysack at some point while they were on the raft. “Of all the things you could have saved — maps, GPS — you rescued that computer printout? What’s the big deal with it?”
“It’s just something I’ve been working on.”
“What?”
A shake of her head. “Later. We both need to rest. And eat.”
Gideon felt utterly spent, but now a hunger was taking hold. Amy picked up two granola bars and passed one to him.
He lay back, peeling off the wrapper and stuffing the bar into his mouth. The clouds were breaking up, and a single ray of sun came streaming through them, illuminating a spot on the sea. The granola only seemed to make him hungrier, but he could feel his strength returning.
They lay on the beach, barely moving, barely talking, slowly recovering their strength, as the day passed. As the afternoon merged into evening, the last of the clouds cleared away. Gideon now felt nearly himself again, strong and alert, unhurt save for a kind of dull and universal ache — but the passage of time had him confused. How much time had elapsed since their vessel was scuttled? Forty-eight hours? Seventy-two?
“Does the sat phone work?” he asked.
“I think so. Container’s waterproof.”
“Then we’d better call Glinn,” he said.
Amy nodded. She finished her granola bar, then took up the sat-phone container, unlatched the seals, and opened it up. The phone appeared intact. She took it out, turned it on. The LED screen popped to life.
“A miracle,” said Gideon.
“Yeah, but the battery’s run down. We’ve only got five percent juice.”
“Christ.” Gideon shook his head.
She glanced at him. “I’ll do the talking, if you don’t mind.”