“So who wants to go first?” he asked.
If Liz rushed him, he’d shoot her before she could get the gun away from him. What had she told Maggie O’Dell? It wasn’t about being brave; it was about surviving. Fighting against crushing waves or dangling from a cable didn’t scare her. Even when survivors challenged her, she’d count on her training, redirect her adrenaline. Maybe she could talk this guy off his ledge.
Joe Black pointed the gun at Liz as though he could hear her thoughts.
“A cutter’s on its way,” she lied. “The helicopter probably had it in sight. That’s why they left.”
She saw him consider it. Something crashed above again, and his eyes shot up but only briefly. Another wave slammed the boat. There was a high-pitched screech of something skidding across the deck.
“The boat’s being ripped apart,” the old woman yelled.
“Shut the hell up,” Black screamed at her, repositioning himself in the stairway and taking aim.
“NO.” She heard her dad yell, followed by the blast of a gunshot.
Liz closed her eyes against the pain, but there was no pain. When her eyes flew open she saw Joe Black fall forward, grabbing at his leg with one hand, the gun still in his other.
There was a shout from the top of the stairs. “FBI. Drop it. Now.”
He hesitated.
Another shot chewed up the carpet next to him.
He threw the gun aside.
Liz stood paralyzed as Maggie climbed down the steps, her gun still pointed at Black.
“Liz, grab his weapon.”
She obeyed.
“Is he the only one?” Her eyes darted around the cabin and quickly returned to Black. When she glanced up for an answer, all Liz could manage was a nod.
“Everybody okay?” Maggie finally asked.
Liz heard the helicopter returning. All eyes lifted to the ceiling, again.
“How did you—”
But Maggie interrupted her. “We have to do this quickly.” Then to Liz she said, “Wilson’s in a pissy mood.”
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
CHAPTER 66
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
Liz woke up as the last stream of sunset lit the room. She had slept hard. Her mouth was dry, her eyelids still heavy. It took a few seconds to remember where she was. Second floor. Her dad’s house. Her old room had been made into a guest bedroom but there were still remnants of her childhood—a porcelain doll on the dresser, the embroidered pillow shams—and reminders of her mother.
She could hear chain saws down below despite the hum of the window air conditioner. Her dad had set up the unit especially for her, dropping a bright-orange electrical cord out her window, stringing it down the side of the house and along the backyard to the garage where he had it plugged into one of his generators. A definite luxury, since the window air conditioner took almost as many watts as one of his refrigerators.
“You deserve to sleep,” he had told her when she came home for the first time around noon. It was already in her bedroom window. She hadn’t asked how he’d managed to put it there with only one hand, his left one wrapped in a soft cast that made it look like he was wearing an oven mitt.
In the last two days Liz had napped for only a few hours at a time, rotating in barracks set up for them at NAS. The hurricane had lost some of its steam, winds dropping to 135 miles per hour as it made landfall. Its path had slipped to the east, sparing Pensacola the brunt of the storm. By the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a cat 4 meant “devastating damage” but not “catastrophic damage” like a cat 5.
Liz and her aircrew had rescued dozens of people from their flooded homes. Some still refused to leave, insisting they needed to stay and protect what belongings remained from looters. One man argued with Liz, refusing to leave his roof unless she allowed him to take four suitcases he had stuffed with valuables. By the end of the first day, Wilson no longer complained about sharing cabin space with an assortment of cats and dogs that accompanied their injured owners. And after having a madman almost shoot her, everything else seemed tame. But she’d bagged too many hours and now she was grounded.