Ben knew he must be shouting, but he couldn't hear the man's voice above the storm.
'We've got to get him!' Angelo roared, but Ben was already on it. Still holding on firmly to the side of the dangerously swaying boat, he edged towards the back end of it. There was an intricate-looking motor there. Ben struggled to find the starting cord; when he finally did, he gave it a good yank.
Nothing but an unimpressive-sounding splutter.
He looked over his shoulder — they were moving alarmingly quickly away from where Danny was struggling in the water. From that distance they couldn't see the alligators, but they couldn't have gone far.
He pulled the starting cord again. Still nothing. Only on the third time did the motor kick into life and start turning over.
'We've got power!' Ben shouted. His voice was hoarse now from all the screaming, but he only had to yell louder now that he had to make himself heard above the growling motor as well as the wind.
Angelo didn't reply. He was too busy holding grimly onto the side of the boat, his skin a sickly shade of white. Ben clambered to the front, his body clattering uncomfortably against the hard benches in the middle of the hull as he did so. He cursed as he felt his body bruising with the impact, but finally he grabbed hold of the boat's steering wheel and knocked the throttle stick forward.
All of a sudden, the boat surged ahead. In the split second it took for a huge wave to come crashing over the boat, Ben realized he had moved far too quickly and in the wrong direction. Now his eyes were full of water, his clothes soaked. He felt the boat tip dangerously to one side before it righted itself. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Angelo had been thrown into the centre of the boat, which had filled with a good few inches of water.
'Hold on!' he shouted. 'I'm heading for the shore.'
The second time he surged forward, he moved much more slowly. Even then it was difficult as the wind was squally and gusty. It kept coming at them from different directions, which made it incredibly hard to steer the vessel; and waves continued to splash over the side from different, unexpected directions.
They made painfully slow progress towards Danny, who kept disappearing below the random surges of the water. Ben didn't have the sensation that it was particularly deep where they were, but that didn't make it any less dangerous. For some reason he heard his mum's voice sounding in his head. 'A baby can drown in an inch of bath water, you know.' Yeah, thought Ben grimly. And a fully grown man can drown in the Everglade marshes in the middle of a hurricane, no problem at all.
Ben couldn't have said how long it took to get near to the spluttering Danny, but by the time they did his muscles were in agony. He could see now why the older man had stayed in the water: the alligators had left the pier and were now at the water's edge. They seemed reluctant to enter the turbulent marshes, although a couple of them seemed to be becoming braver and had started to slide their bodies closer to Danny.
When the boat was only a few metres away, Ben killed their speed. He pointed to a safety ring that was tied to the side of the boat and shouted at Angelo. 'Throw him the ring! I'll try and keep the boat steady.'
It wasn't easy. Buffeted by the wind and the waves, the boat seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Ben struggled to stop it turning of its own accord and drifting away from Danny as Angelo untied the ring.
'Quickly, Angelo,' Ben shouted. 'The alligators — they're slipping into the water.' He had just seen one of the scaly beasts disappear into the marsh despite the conditions. That must mean it was hungry enough to risk the dangers of the water in its search for food. And if it was food the gator wanted, Danny would be first choice from the menu.
Angelo stood up in the boat, steadied himself and hurled the ring overboard.
It landed close to Danny, but not quite close enough. The older man had to struggle through the water to grab it. 'Pull me in!' he shouted just as his fingers clutched the edge of the ring. There was panic in his voice. Angelo pulled, heaving on the rope like it was a tug o' war. It was obviously a struggle for him, so Ben left the steering wheel and went to help him. They stayed standing with difficulty, but gradually managed to pull him towards them.
Danny stretched out and grabbed the side of the boat. It wasn't a big vessel, and as he pulled himself up, it tilted sharply.
'Alligator!' Ben screamed. Only metres behind Danny he had caught a glimpse of the reptile surging through the water. He and Angelo grabbed Danny's arms and pulled him on board.
Not a moment too soon.
The alligator emerged from the water with terrifying swiftness. Its jaws snapped in the air, but they caught nothing.
Danny was on board. Soaked, breathless and white with fear. But safe.
For now, at least.
Chapter Ten
At the South Miami Oil Refinery, it was panic stations.
Nobody there knew about the plane. Nobody knew how close they had come to disaster. And nobody cared. They had other things to worry about. The hurricane was on its way, and the whole place was being shut down. All non-essential staff had already been evacuated from the premises. The final hangers-on — a few management and some security guards — would be out of there within half an hour. They all knew that an oil refinery was the last place you wanted to be in conditions like this.
In the chaos and the confusion, however, one man had managed to slip in unobserved.
He was a good-looking person, tall and with chiselled features. He hadn't shaved for a day or two, but somehow that only made him look more distinguished. More trustworthy. And he liked it that way. His black jeans fitted him well, as did his black jacket; and as he approached the oil refinery he had a small but heavy black rucksack slung over his right shoulder.
The winds were already strong here — not as strong as they were going to get, he knew, but fierce enough to make the high, wire-mesh fences that cordoned off the boundary to the refinery rattle in the breeze.
He was approaching from the south side. His car had been dumped at a nearby parking lot, and he had crossed a highway to get here. The road had been full of traffic — everyone was fleeing the area — and as he crouched by the wire fence he knew that although people could see him from the highway, none of them would be paying him any attention.
The fence was shaking violently. He pulled a pair of wire-cutters from his bag, then held the rattling fence in one hand and started to snip away at the mesh. It was difficult, and he was glad of the black leather gloves he was wearing. But before long he had cut a hole big enough for him to crawl through.
He skirted round the edge of the boundary towards the western entrance. There was an entry checkpoint here, but now he was inside the oil refinery's boundary fence he didn't need to be bothered by that. Hidden by a long line of low, breeze-block buildings, he walked towards the edges of the refinery itself.
It was like a small city. Huge, metallic, industrial-looking towers stretched up into the sky. Some of them had flames coming out of the top that licked into the sky; others were billowing smoke that was hardly any different to the grey clouds scudding overhead. A number of the towers had metal ladders fixed to their sides, but of course no one was using them now. Hardly anybody was on the site, in any case. There were enormous containers the size of several houses — these too had ladders on them — and everywhere there were more of the little breeze-block office buildings that he was using to hide behind. A main road led up into the centre of the refinery, and lines of lorries were parked along it in neat little groups. He supposed that ordinarily there were fewer trucks here, but no one was going to be delivering oil at the moment. Not until the storm had passed.