Minotaur

41

For a while Chapel could do nothing else. Air hit his lungs with every new breath like a tiny grenade going off in his chest. His vision started to return but only so he could see sparks shooting across his vision in every direction. His whole body prickled with agony as oxygen-rich blood surged back through his blood vessels. His chest heaved and he thought he might throw up.

He rolled over onto his knees. Rubbed at his throat with his hand, feeling the bruises that were already blooming on the skin there. He twisted his head around, trying so see, trying to figure out where Favorov had gone.

Vision returned slowly, and if time had seemed to stretch out before, it sped up now like a rubber band released from tension. Little slices of the world around him were all he could see, and his brain worked feverishly trying to assemble a clear picture out of those little swatches.

It looked like Favorov had staggered backward, hand pressed tight against a wound on the inside of his left thigh. Blood was pouring down his leg and sheeting away across the deck, more blood than a tiny wound like that should have been able to produce.

Chapel knew right away what had happened. What his little knife had achieved.

Favorov’s face had gone white. He was breathing heavily, like a racehorse after the Preakness. He was staring at Chapel in horror. It seemed the Russian knew what had happened as well.

Crawling like an infant, Chapel started moving again. Over to his left. Toward the pistol he’d dropped when Favorov hit him the first time with the boat hook. Favorov saw what he was doing and tried to beat him there, but it looked like the Russian could barely walk. He staggered closer to the gun, ever closer, as he clutched at his wound with one hand and grabbed for any support he could find with the other.

It was the world’s slowest race, and Chapel couldn’t have said for sure which of them was going to win. If Favorov got the pistol first, there was no question he would shoot to kill. Chapel put every ounce of strength he had left into moving faster, bashing his knees against the deck, scrambling for the pistol.

They both reached for it at the same time. Chapel could hear nothing but Favorov’s ragged breathing. And his own. He flung out his hand to get the pistol. Favorov dropped to the deck and grabbed for it simultaneously.

“Wait,” Chapel said.

Surprisingly, the Russian did.