Greg Iles - True Evil

"Let's talk!" shouted Tarver. "We don't have much time."

As she moved back to the bow, a memory flashed into Alex's head. She saw Bill Fennell on the Fourth of July, yanking up a seat cushion to get at some tools. She stopped, tucked her fingers under that same seat, and pulled. The seat cushion popped free. In the small compartment below, she saw a screwdriver, a roll of electrical tape, a set of Allen wrenches, and some copper wire. No knife. No flare gun. Shit -

"What are you doing?" shouted Tarver. "I want to make a deal."

"I'm hurt!" Alex yelled back. "Bleeding bad…hang on."

She pulled off her soaked shirt and wrapped it tightly around her mangled wrist. Then she took the screwdriver from the compartment and slid it underneath the makeshift bandage.

"I want the boat!" Tarver shouted.

Alex looked up. The boat had drifted closer to the doctor. She ducked below the gunwale. "I want Jamie!"

Tarver stroked nearer, holding Jamie's head above the water. "Then I'd say we have a deal."

She shook her head. "You have a gun. I know you do."

"I lost it in the crash."

Alex shook her head again. "No gun, no boat!"

Dr. Tarver's right hand stopped treading water, dipped under the surface, then reappeared holding an automatic.

"Throw it away!" Alex yelled.

She saw rage in his eyes, but he threw the gun into the waves.

"Get out of the boat!" he bellowed. "I have the key. When you're out, I'll swim to the transom and get in."

"No!" cried Alex. "Swim away from Jamie first."

"He'll sink."

She turned and snatched up a life ring, one of the few things Tarver had left in the boat. She tossed it to him. "Put that under his arms, then swim away."

Seeing no alternative, Dr. Tarver struggled to push Jamie's body into the life ring. As he worked, Alex saw that the dark purple mark on the left side of his face was not his deformity as she had thought, but the livid swelling of a snakebite.

"All right!" Dr. Tarver shouted.

"Swim away!"

Obviously reluctant to give up his leverage, Dr. Tarver released Jamie and swam quickly toward the stern of the boat.

"Jump out!" he shouted.

Still suspicious, Alex pulled off her shoes and stripped off her jeans. Wet jeans could quickly drown you in water like this. She climbed onto the gunwale and dropped into the cold water. As she breaststroked toward Jamie, she sensed movement to her left. Dr. Tarver had not climbed into the boat. He was kicking toward Jamie again. She started to swim freestyle, but Tarver still got there first. As Alex stared in disbelief, he put his big hand on top of Jamie's head and shoved him right through the life ring, deep under the water.

"Save him now," he snarled.

Alex couldn't see Jamie, but he didn't appear to be struggling. Dr. Tarver held him under as easily as he might an infant. She thought of pulling out the screwdriver, but that was no solution. She'd never overpower Tarver face-to-face.

The answer struck her with the force of revelation. As she dove beneath the waves, her father's voice echoed in her head: When your back's against the wall, do the unexpected. That's how you stay alive. She kicked deeper, deeper, until she was fifteen feet below the surface. Then she opened her eyes and looked up. All she could make out was a dark blur against the gray surface. As she floated slowly upward, a tentacle of darkness swept past her eyes. She grabbed it.

It was an ankle-the smooth ankle of a boy.

Knowing that Tarver was braced for a fight, she expelled all the air from her lungs and jerked the ankle straight down, then swam toward the bottom with all her strength. With a rush of joy, she felt Jamie's body come with her. After a few seconds of kicking, she started trying to tow him laterally, but her oxygen was disappearing fast. She had to surface.

As she kicked upward, she saw a splash above, then a black shape sweeping down toward her, trailing bubbles. Switching Jamie's ankle to her left hand, she drew the screwdriver from her "bandage" and waited. When the shadow reached for her, she kicked upward and stabbed with savage force.

The tool struck something, but the shadow didn't stop. A powerful hand seized her throat. Alex flung her arm wide and stabbed from the side. An explosion of bubbles enveloped her. Tarver's big body thrashed like a wounded shark's, and then his hand let go. Hope surged through her, urging her to a final blow. She yanked back on the handle of her weapon, but the screwdriver wouldn't pull free.

Terrified that she'd lose Jamie, she released the tool and tried to swim clear, but now her air was truly gone. Lungs burning, she grabbed Jamie beneath both arms and kicked for the gray light above.

She broke through the waves and saw the boat bobbing fifteen meters away. She was shifting Jamie to a lifeguard's carry when Dr. Tarver surfaced directly in front of her. His eyes shone like those of a man in the grip of a religious vision, but something about his mouth was wrong. It sagged the way Grace's had after her stroke. Alex had no idea how to keep hold of Jamie and fight Tarver in the waves, nor had she the strength to do it. But when Tarver's hand rose from the water, it did not reach for her. The hand was open, and it moved to the side of his head, as though searching for a wound. Alex and the doctor understood the horror of his plight at the same moment: the handle of the screwdriver protruded from Tarver's left ear, where the metal shaft had been buried to the hilt.

Tarver's eyes widened as his hand closed around the handle. He seemed about to jerk the screwdriver free, but then some flicker of knowledge overrode his instinct. His hand dropped into the water, and he looked over his shoulder. With a last wild look into Alex's eyes, he turned and began swimming awkwardly toward the boat.

Alex turned in the water and started kicking toward the island. It appeared to be fifty or sixty meters away, not a difficult swim under normal conditions, but now potentially lethal. Her burning lungs and blurred vision told her she'd lost more blood than she knew. Still, she kicked on through the battering waves. Forty meters. Thirty. Her leaden limbs began to sink. Jamie's face was blue, but she could no longer kick. She knew then that they might die within a few meters of the shore.

An image of Grace rose into her mind, and then her father. Then her mother lying unconscious in the hospital. We're the last, she thought helplessly. Jamie and me. She tried to kick, but there was nothing left. She kissed Jamie's cheek and prayed for the strength to hold his head above the surface while she drowned.

Her mouth was full of water when she heard a male voice barking orders. Kaiser? She shoved Jamie higher, trying to kick with dead legs. Then a powerful arm swept around her, propelling them both toward shore. Someone dragged Jamie from her arms. She was dimly aware of someone counting chest compressions. A blessedly warm hand touched her face, and she opened her eyes. John Kaiser knelt above her, looking anxiously into her face.

"Can you hear me, Alex?"

She nodded.

"Is there anyone else in the boat?"

She shook her head. "Jamie," she gasped. "Is he alive?"

As if in answer, there was a fit of coughing beside her, then the sound of a boy crying.

"Disable the boat!" shouted Kaiser, getting to his feet. "Fire at the engine!"

"No," Alex cried, remembering the disconnected fuel line, which from the roar of the engines, Tarver must have reconnected.

Her cry was drowned by the crack of rifle fire.

She rose onto her elbow and tried to shout. "Stop…the fuel-"

"What?" called Kaiser, moving back to her.

But the rifle cracked again, and the stern of the fleeing Carrera erupted into flame. A figure leaped onto the starboard gunwale, but before it could jump clear, the speedboat blew apart.