Minotaur

37

Chapel’s miraculous artificial arm had one major design flaw—it couldn’t be immersed in water. The silicone flesh over the robotics couldn’t be made watertight.

He reached up with his good arm and slipped the catches that released it from his shoulder. Automatically it powered down. He placed it gently on top of an old oil drum and then he dove into the icy water of the slip.

Before he’d lost the arm, Chapel had been an excellent swimmer. Growing up in Florida, he’d spent countless hours in the canals and swimming in the ocean until his mother had joked he was half fish. After he lost his arm in Afghanistan he’d had to learn all over again how to maneuver in the water with an asymmetrical body and only one arm with which to stroke. He would never be as fast as he was when he’d been a kid.

Add to that his recent injuries—the salt water burned his lower chest where he’d been shot, and stung his thigh where Daniel had stabbed him—and fatigue and shock and everything else.

But he would be damned if he wasn’t going to catch the sailboat. He pushed forward as hard as he could, his head breaking the water only so he could make sure he was swimming in the right direction. He felt his earpiece slip away and float off, and knew he’d lost Angel, but he didn’t slow down to try to grab the thing.

Forcing himself through the exhaustion, through the shock of the cold water, through the darkness, he watched as the boat slipped further and further out of reach. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Favorov had heard him thrashing around behind the boat and had come out to shoot him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if his overworked body just gave up, if cramps had seized him and he’d drowned on the spot. But he kept going, even though it seemed he was making no headway at all.

And then the miracle occurred. The one he’d been counting on. His hand brushed against something fibrous and he grabbed at it, praying it was what he thought it was. Instantly he felt himself tugged along, dragged through the water behind the boat. He stopped kicking his legs—he didn’t need to work so hard anymore.

When Favorov had left the slip he hadn’t bothered to stow the painter that had held the boat to the dock. He hadn’t even removed it properly—judging by the frayed end of the line Chapel now held, he’d just cut through the thin cord to save time. Now it was slack in the water, dragged along behind the boat. Now Chapel had it in his hand.

It wasn’t easy to pull himself up that line with just one hand. Chapel tried to get his legs around the thin rope but it was made of slick nylon and he couldn’t get enough purchase. In the end he grabbed it with his teeth. The boat tried to rip his molars out of his head but it let him reach forward and grab another arm’s length of the line and haul himself forward, just a little.

It helped when Favorov cut out the bow thrusters and went to raise his sails. The ship slowed in the water, carried along by nothing but the current, and Chapel was able to pull himself along much easier. Eventually his head hit the stern of the sailboat with a nasty thunk. He was less worried about a new head injury than he was about the noise he’d made. When no one came back to see what had created that noise, much less to shoot at it, Chapel pulled his head fully above the water and just breathed for a moment.

To his left a short ladder hung down from the rail of the boat, put there so that swimmers could climb back on board without help. Chapel swung himself around and kicked until he got a foot in the bottom rung of the ladder. Moving as fast as he could, he dragged himself up and over the rail. No lights showed anywhere on the boat, but he could make out Favorov’s silhouette up on top of the cabin, where the Russian was wrestling with the sails. Chapel froze in place, desperately hoping he hadn’t been seen. He waited a full minute before rolling himself behind a storage locker where he could just rest for a while out of sight.

Overhead a billion stars showed, dancing as Chapel’s heart raced and even his eyeballs seemed to throb with exhaustion. He had very little energy left, very little time before his body was just going to quit in protest. He’d pushed himself too far and adrenaline could only help so much.

He had to keep moving, though. The temptation to just lie there until he had his breath back, until he could recover, was just too great. It was possible he would just fall asleep right there, and not wake up until Favorov discovered him—and then, presumably, he would never wake up at all.