She passed another landing, the door to which was marked Minus One. She used the steel rail to fling herself around the corner. Her legs burned as she took the next flight up, but she didn’t stop. The next door was marked Zero. Jess attacked the wheel lock, spun it as fast as she could. Steel creaked when she shoved it open.
Relief poured through her when cold and rain met her face. All she could think was that she’d made it out of hell. Her relief was short-lived, though, as the beam of a spotlight flashed by. Thrusting herself through the door, Jess looked around and tried to get her bearings. Several spotlights had come on since she and Madrid had gone below deck. Silhouetted against the night sky, she saw the deckhouse and realized she’d somehow run the length of the ship. If she remembered correctly, they had entered near the deckhouse.
To her right, a cable rail denoted the edge of the ship. To her left was a small, lighted structure, one side of which was lined with fifty-gallon drums. Several wooden pallets were stacked neatly along the other side. Planning to use the drums and pallets as cover, Jess left the hatch. Her heart pounded as she crossed an open area. If the spotlight landed on her here, she would be in plain sight.
She barely noticed the rain soaking her as she neared the pallets. She was a few feet away when sudden bright light blinded her. An authoritative male voice penetrated the fog of terror.
“Halt! Put your hands up! Now!”
Instinct kicked in. Jess spun and bolted. She didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was if they caught her, they would kill her.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
The words were punctuated by the thunk, thunk, thunk of gunfire. A pallet less than a foot away from her exploded. Disbelief and terror tore through her.
She crossed the deck at a reckless speed. Rain and wind blinded her, but she didn’t slow down. She could hear the men behind her, their angry shouts rising above the din of rain.
She reached the rail. To her left she saw men racing toward her, flashlight beams bobbing. To her right was another small building, with a closed hatch. Was it locked?
“Put your hands up now!”
Get off the ship any way you can.
Madrid’s words came to her like a beacon out of the darkness. Jess knew what she had to do.
Her legs shook violently as she hauled herself over the rail. More shouting sounded behind her, but she barely heard it over her wildly pounding heart.
She looked into the black abyss of the bay below. It was so dark she couldn’t even tell how far the fall would be. All she could do now was pray it didn’t kill her.
“Stop!”
Closing her eyes, Jess said a silent prayer and flung herself into the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
The water slapped her like a giant icy hand, then swallowed her whole. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs; the cold stole what little she had left.
It was like being sucked into a bottomless, icy abyss. Every sense in her body screamed with shock. She didn’t know how deep she’d gone. Didn’t know what horrors lay above—or below. The only thing she knew for certain at the moment was that she wanted to live.
Jess kicked with all her might, but her clothes and shoes felt like lead weights. She didn’t know if she was making any progress, but the alternative to drowning was too horrendous to contemplate.
She broke the surface a moment later, choking and coughing. Rain and wind buffeted her. A wave swamped her and she swallowed a mouthful of the sea. She tasted saltwater and panic and the hard edge of her own fear. In the back of her mind she wondered if Madrid had gotten off the ship. If he had survived. If she would ever see him again. The thought of him gave her the strength she needed.
Treading water, she looked around and tried to get her bearings. Above her the ship rose out of the water like a steel iceberg. A single spotlight shone down, but it was a good fifty feet away from where she’d fallen. They were looking for her. That meant she didn’t have much time.
Turning, she spotted the concrete pier twenty yards away. Jutting ten feet out of the water, it would be a tough climb. But Jess thought there would probably be places she could get a grip or maybe a dangling rope she could grab.
The swim to the pier seemed to take forever. The cold was quickly zapping her strength. Once the searchlight from the ship came within ten feet of her and she had to duck beneath the surface. She knew sharks were the least of her worries, taking into consideration the men with semiautomatic weapons, but the entire time she couldn’t stop thinking about all the unsavory creatures lurking in the deep.
By the time her hands made contact with the concrete, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to pull herself out of the water. For several seconds she clung to the pier, shaking with cold and exhaustion, gasping for breath. Her teeth chattered as she looked around.