That blasted drone of motor that she had heard in her cabin! It was the sound of the tender! How foolish of her to miss it for what it had been!
Now she had to face the consequences of that error. She had to escape. The only way out was to jump.
She looked beyond the rail. She threw the gun and it plopped into the black abyss, which was darker than the gloom of the night.
She glued her hands to the rail and climbed up, balancing her weight like an acrobat preparing for a death-defying act, knees pressed to chest.
Hyperventilating, she uncoiled her body and sprang off the rail.
In the weightless euphoria of freedom, she braced herself for impact.
Eyes shut, she wrapped her arms over her head, fingers joined in an arrow shape, taut legs pressed together. Slicing the water like a torpedo, her body burst below in a vortex of bubbles.
When the sea devoured her, it was as though giant fists clapped against her ears as seawater gushed into her head, disorienting.
Undulating in a wave-like motion, she allowed her body’s momentum to carry her as much as possible underwater, but slowing, she felt a downward pull. She arched her back, pointing her hands up, and frog-kicked, heading to the surface. Her lungs pleaded her to find air sooner. She wrestled the mass of water, arms swinging to her sides, her legs kicking — and her head popped over the waterline. She gasped, sucking air, slapped in the face by a passing wave. She brought her arms to the surface now, stroking, breathing.
The lights of Sochi beckoned her.
She worked out a steady pace, letting her legs work up the propulsion, her front-crawl strokes carving the water. She took in air every three strokes, measuring the distance in her mind.
She felt she had cleared a hundred meters — her customary two lengths of a pool lane — when at once, light and darkness, air and sea, became swirling madness.
A roaring tide knocked her legs over, shoving her down, cutting air from her lungs. Its force was pressing her down as she struggled to recover from the abrupt shock.
She bobbed back above the surface, groping for air. Taking in a lungful, she coughed, both from the water in her throat and the thick cloud of black smoke fuming into her face.
The night sky flickered with orange.
She rotated in the water, looking seaward. Distant plumes of black smoke rose from dancing tongues of flame that irradiated the white outline of the Olympia. The megayacht was listing on her port side, sinking with frightening speed, carrying those left aboard to a silt-bottomed grave.
The sound of the explosion was still ringing in Asiyah’s ears when she resumed her effort, doubling it. There was no time to ponder another near brush with death or bereave the lost souls. She was shaken, but she still had to work for survival, and at the moment all she wanted to do was get away from the cursed yacht.
In each three-stroke window she allowed for breathing, Asiyah eyed the faraway lights before burying her face into the salty water, straightening like an arrow. The glowing shore was her beacon, a promise that fed her willpower the way a mirage made a desert wanderer push on, only to creep away from him with every step he made.
At first, the land did not look as if it were drawing any closer, but she knew that her salvation was real, well within her grasp.
Fatigue was seeping through, her motions no longer filled with energy. Her arms and legs felt burdened by extra weight. She tried to concentrate on the challenge of completing each motion. One more stroke… one more…
She was making good progress, she thought, although her marathon had barely started and she was already losing tempo.
Her legs, thrashing like mechanical screws, experienced build-up of lactic acid. Muscles ached. She tried to stow the sensation into the nether corner of her consciousness, but it persisted, smothering her.
It seemed that instead of moving through water, she was resisting the pull of quicksand. The rolling swells were steeper, every meter of the distance tougher to conquer. She had to suck in air every two stokes now, which slowed her pace further. Soon even that wasn’t enough. She leveled her head up to allow steady breathing.
Soreness mounted in her body, but she knew she would be dead the moment she stopped. The pain had to be outraced.
There was no more consideration for her swimming technique — she was paddling in raw, desperate impulses.
Only her sheer will to live made her go on.
The coastal lights had become murky as seawater splashed against her face.
Submission will feel good. Don’t think about it. It will be over quickly.
The voice of her enemy, mocking her, forced her to battle against the sea in a frenzy. If she died, no one would avenge her. She had to make it to the shore. Alive.
She sloshed against the water, inching forward, too weak to even cry.
When her face smacked against a wall of spikes, she was certain that she had drowned, hitting the bottom… or was it hell already…
Then she heard herself squeal. Surely, the sound couldn’t have come from her if she was dead.
She labored to open her eyelids, as something scratched her face… sharp… painful…
Pebbles.
There was solid ground under her. Rock.
The frothing surf prodded her from behind, urging her to crawl inland. She dragged her knees and elbows through the crunching pebbles, feeling crushed by the sea. Her body wobbled like jelly, vision rocking. She was swallowing air in greedy gulps, her heart rattling with the force of a jackhammer.
Feverish, she managed to squirm for a few meters on her elbows before collapsing.
Through the pulsating agony, she would have laughed with relief had she mustered the strength. Lying on the beach, she released emotion weeping in silence, overcome with joy, realizing her freedom to inhale at will.
She was dizzy. The air was making her drunk.
Then she knew it was something else.
Her body gripped with convulsions, she recoiled and retched violently.
With apprehension, in a succession of gut-raking seizures, she felt blood surging inside her head.
7
Located off Garden Ring Road between the Lubyanka and Theatre Square is the headquarters building of EMERCOM, the world’s finest rescue service. Officially known as the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations, it was one of the main agencies in the Russian Government.
It was the only apolitical agency in the Russian Government.
And the only one that wasn’t a reworked Soviet relic.
In 1990, a man named Sergei Shoigu and a handful of enthusiasts formed the Russian Rescue Corps. Shoigu’s team of volunteers soon earned battle-hardened experience as they faced every known cataclysm, both natural and anthropogenic. Earthquakes, fires, floods, NBC threats or military conflicts — they threw themselves head-on into every emergency, launching humanitarian and search-and-rescue operations. In 1994, the agency was given federal status, and from then on EMERCOM evolved further to devise an efficient disaster-prevention and monitoring system, establish nationwide branches and incorporate all Civil Defense and firefighting units. On average, EMERCOM specialists saved 12 lives each day. For that, sometimes they sacrificed their own.
The unsurpassed expertise of Shoigu’s agency was called upon globally by the United Nations and individual countries. From war-torn Yugoslav villages, to tsunami-hit Asian shores, to the streets of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the EMERCOM teams were always there to assist relief efforts, whenever and wherever disaster struck.
The current head of EMERCOM, Daniil Klimov, Minister and General, was a man devoutly dedicated to his job and his country. He could have made a career as a ballet dancer across the street, at the Bolshoi, but in his late teens he had chosen a different path — that of a demolition expert. It was a profession in which he had no equal. Shoigu had personally hand-picked Klimov to join the EMERCOM bomb squad. It was Klimov’s skill, dedication and leadership that eventually led to different posts within the agency — first the bomb squad chief, then the leader of the Extra-Risk Team, and nineteen years after signing up, all the way to Minister.