Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

She whirled around in the water, stroking as she scanned the blackness. The surface was still churning, wavelets slapping her face, and she was struggling to see through the sting of salt in her eyes.

She heard a soft splash and a head popped out of the brine a few feet away. Treading water, Katzka glanced in her direction, and saw that she was holding her own. Then he looked up, at the sound of more voices — from the ship?There were two men, maybe three, their footsteps thudding up and down the pier. They were yelling to each other, but their shouts seemed garbled and unintelligible.

Not English, thought Abby, but she could not identify the language.

Overhead a light appeared, the beam cutting through the mist and slowly skimming the water.

Katzka dove. So did Abby. She swam as far as her breath would carry her, away from the pier, towards the blackness of open water. Again and again she came up, gasped in a breath, then dove again. When she resurfaced a fifth time, she was treading in darkness.

There were now two lights moving on the pier, the beams scanning the mist like a pair of relentless eyes. She heard the splash of water somewhere close, and then a quick intake of breath, and

she knew Katzka had surfaced nearby. "Lost my gun," he panted. "What the hell's going on?"

"Just keep swimming. The next pier."

The night suddenly lit up with shocking brilliance. The freighter had turned on its deck lights, illuminating every detail on the pier. There was one man on the gangplank, and one crouching at the pier's edge with a searchlight. Towering beside them was a third man, his rifle aimed at the water.

"Go," said Katzka.

Abby dove, clawing her way through liquid blackness. She'd never been a good swimmer. Deep water scared her. Now she was swimming through water so dark it might as well be bottomless. She came up for another breath, but could not seem to get enough air, no matter how deeply she gasped.

"Abby, keep moving!" urged Katzka. "Just get to that next pier!" Abby glanced back towards the freighter. She saw that the searchlights were tracing an ever-larger circle on the water. That the beam was flitting towards them.

She slipped, once again, underwater.

By the time she and Katzka finally clambered out onto land, Abby could barely move her limbs. She crawled up rocks slippery with oil and seaweed. Crouching in the darkness, the barnacles biting into her knees, she vomited into the water.

Katzka took her arm, steadied her. She was shaking so hard from exertion she thought she might shatter were it not for his grip.

At last there was nothing left in her stomach. Weakly she raised her head.

"Better?" he whispered.

"I'm freezing."

"Then let's get someplace warm." He glanced up at the pier, looming above them. "I think we can make it up those pilings. Come on."

Together they scrambled up the rocks, slipping and sliding on moss and seaweed. Katzka made it up onto the pier first, then he reached down and hauled her up after him. They rose to a crouch.

The searchlight sliced through the mist, trapping them in its glare.

A bullet ricocheted off the concrete right behind Abby. "Move!" said Katzka.

They sprinted away. The searchlight pursued them, the beam zigzagging through the darkness. They were off the concrete pier now, running towards the container yard. Bullets spat up gravel all around them. Ahead loomed the containers, stacked up in a giant maze of shadows. They ducked down the nearest row, heard bullets pinging on metal. Then the gunfire ceased.

Abby slowed down to catch her breath. She was still exhausted from the swim, still weak from retching up seawater. And now she was shaking so hard her feet were stumbling.

Voices drew near. They seemed to come from two directions at once.

Katzka grabbed her hand and pulled her deeper into the maze of containers.

They ran to the end of the row, turned left, and kept running. Then both of them halted.

At the far end of the row, a light winked.

They're in front of us/

Katzka veered right, turned down another row. Stacked containers towered on both sides of them like the walls of a chasm. They heard voices and corrected course again. By now they'd made so many turns, Abby couldn't tell if they were moving in circles, couldn't tell if they'd fled this way seconds earlier.

A light danced ahead of them.

They halted, spun around to retrace their steps. And saw another flashlight beam winking. It swept back and forth, moving towards them.

They're ahead of us. And behind us.

In panic she stumbled backwards. Reaching out to steady herself, she felt the cleft between two containers. The gap was barely wide enough to fit into.

The flashlight beam winked closer.

Grabbing Katzka's arm, she squeezed into the opening, pulling him after her. Deeper and deeper she wormed, through a filigree of cobwebs, until she bumped up against the wall of an adjacent container. No way forward.They were trapped here, wedged tightly into a space narrower than a coif'to.

The crunch of footsteps on gravel approached.

Katzka's hand reached out to grip hers, but his touch did nothing to ease her panic. Her heart was slamming against her chest. The footsteps drew closer.

She heard voices, now — one man hailing another, then a second man answering in some unrecognizable tongue. Or was it the blood roaring through her ears that made their words seem garbled beyond comprehension?

A light danced past the cleft opening. The two men were standing close by, conversing in puzzled tones. They had only to shine their flashlights into the gap, and they'd spot their prey in the crevice. Someone kicked at the ground and gravel skittered and clanged against the container.

Abby closed her eyes, too terrified to look. She didn't want to be watching when that beam of light flooded into their hiding place. Katzka's grip tightened around her hand. Her limbs were rigid with tension, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. She heard another scrape of shoes across the ground, another skittering of gravel.

Then the footsteps moved away.

Abby didn't dare move. She wasn't sure she could move; her legs felt locked in position. Years from now, she thought, they'll find me standing here, my skelewn frozen stiff in terror.

It was Katzka who made the first move. He eased towards the opening and was about to poke his head out for a look when they heard a soft whick. A light flared and went out. Someone had lit a match. Katzka went dead still. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted through the darkness.

Somewhere, faintly, a man was calling.

The cigarette smoker grunted out a reply, and then his footsteps faded away.

Katzka didn't move.

They remained frozen, hands clasped together, neither one daring to whisper a word. Twice they heard their pursuers pass by; both times, the men moved on.

There was a distant rumble, like the growl of thunder somewhere over the horizon.

Then, for a long time, they heard nothing.

It was hours later when they finally emerged from their hiding place. They crept down the row of containers and stopped to scan the waterfront. The night had turned unnervingly silent. The mist had lifted, and overhead, stars twinkled faintly in a sky washed by city lights.

The next pier was dark. They saw no men, no lights, not even the glow of a porthole. There was only the long low silhouette of the concrete pier jutting out, and the sparkle of moonlight on the water.

The freighter was gone.

The alarm on the heart monitor was going crazy, squealing as the line traced a chaotic dance of death across the screen.

"Mr Voss." A nurse grasped Victor's arm, tried to pull him away from Nina's bed. "The doctors need room to work."