The Heart of a Hero, page 24
He listened, and when he heard nothing, he changed frequencies and tried again.
And again.
On the eighth try, he got a response. The voice cut in and out but he made out a sketchy, “Received . . . nature of your emergency . . .”
He was watching the horizon, the boil of clouds eating away at the blue sky. The ocean had started to chop. “We have eight souls trapped at the Key West medical center. We need transportation immediately.”
Static.
“Come in, base.”
He thought he heard a voice, a snatch of sound, but couldn’t get them back.
The plane began to rock in the waves.
He climbed into the cockpit, repeating his mayday through the channels. Seven hundred and sixty channels. He picked up chatter on a half dozen, giving his location and nature of emergency.
The waves jolted the plane, rocking it from its position.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” he called again, his gaze still on the oncoming storm. The deep panes of blue evidenced rain sheeting across the horizon. “This is Chief Petty Officer Silver—”
“—Officer—”
He stilled, listening. Nothing.
“We are trapped at the medical center in Key West.” He pressed the intercom to his forehead. “Please, come get us.”
Static.
Then, miraculously, “Chief Silver, this is NMA. I hear your distress call. What is your situation?”
A wave slammed into the plane, and Jake braced his hand against the console. The aircraft shuddered, then broke away from shore.
And just like that, the waves took him out to sea.
“We have eight souls stranded at the Key West medical center who need immediate assistance. Please send air evacuation.”
He felt the aircraft tilting, the water filling up in the floats.
“Request confirmed—”
The static resumed and Jake gave them another minute to come back.
Then he hung up the radio and opened the door.
Request confirmed.
He stared at the sky and the roil of clouds. Hopefully soon.
The water crested over the opposite float, driving the near one up, and he stepped out on it, his weight evening the plane out.
His boat had stayed on shore, his knot tethering it to the plane clearly insufficient.
The waves took him farther out. Oh joy, now he got wet—
Shots barked in the air and he stilled.
They came from the west, and he ducked down, searching under the nose of the plane for the source.
A yacht—it looked like the blue one that had been beached in the harbor—floated in the channel between the key and a shallow reef.
Aboard it, Jake made out the gray shirts of his favorite escapees.
Nice. A party boat.
As he watched, however, he spotted one of the men pointing his shotgun at a man seated on one of the couches at the stern of the boat.
He wore a ripped blue uniform and sat as if tied up.
Jake’s gut clenched. The men had found themselves a hostage, and by Jake’s best guess, it was a cop.
He shot a look at his boat, still moored on shore, caught on the rocks, but moving uneasily in the waves. Dive now, and he might catch it before it drifted away.
Or . . .
Another shot cracked the air. Laughter, loud and boisterous.
One of them sat on the bow, drinking out of a bottle, his feet dangling over the front.
Ah, they’d found the liquor supply.
Idiots.
Dangerous, drunk idiots.
And Jake just couldn’t live with himself if he let them kill a cop.
They were too far offshore, however, to make the crossing completely under water. And they’d spot him in a second, one glance at the sea.
Unless.
He dove into the channel and swam hard for his boat, his lungs nearly on fire as he surfaced on the back side of it. He crept along the shoreline, staying low, and emerged behind the cover of seagrass and shrubbery.
Then he hoofed it toward the tower of the dive school.
He just needed a tank, a rebreather, a mask, and fins.
And maybe, if someone had stayed on base, a little assistance.
He found the doors to the tower locked, but he still had his pick set in his pocket.
Inside, the room smelled of seawater, the dank, musty odor of cement, and trapped water.
He found the supply room, with the drying fins, masks and BCDs equipped with rebreathers, and oxygen tanks. Pulling down a tank, he checked the pressure and found it full, 3000 psi. Like Boy Scouts, always prepared.
He tested the tank, confirmed air, then hooked up the rebreather lines and attached the BCD. Then, he carried the entire unit, along with the fins and mask, out to the shoreline. Toed off his shoes and threw them in a nearby boat.
The yacht bobbed in the waves, maybe five hundred yards offshore to the east.
The plane sat half-submerged in the water.
He inflated the BCD, let it carry the tank weight for him, and waded out into the water. Putting on his mask, he then slipped into the vest, adjusted the fit, tested the rig. Air, sweet and cool.
He added his fins and slipped under the water.
The world turned silent as he kicked away from shore, diving down to slide along the bottom.
So he hadn’t entirely thought this through, but if he could get onto the boat, he could disarm one, or more, then use their panic to relieve them of their hostage.
An escape vessel might be helpful, however.
If Ham or North were here, one of them could act as a distraction, bring the boat alongside, posing as rescuers, while the others boarded the vessel.
Aria would kill him if this went south.
The water still hadn’t cleared from the storm, but he’d pulled up the compass on his dive watch, had set a heading before getting into the water and now followed it.
He came up under the boat, twenty feet down, and sat there, thinking.
If this was the same crew as before, there’d be six. Six armed, angry, possibly drunk men.
The props of the massive engine were damaged—the boat wasn’t going anywhere but where the waves blew it. Which made these chumps even more stupid. However, it did host an inflatable rescue dinghy, if Jake remembered correctly.
He could pull a dinghy from under the water, if he got the cop off the boat.
But first, he needed a distraction.
Or better yet . . .
He could sink the yacht.
Yes, this could work. He slid his fins off and attached them to his BCD by the straps. Then he unclipped his BCD. It would float in the water until he needed it again.
The Glock was still lodged in his belt. And he’d found a dive knife in one of the BCD pockets.
He hovered just below the boat, visualizing his attack.
Then, as he watched, feet appeared on the dive platform at the stern of the yacht.
He didn’t have to wonder what a drunk guy might be doing off the back of a boat.
But, one target down. He kicked to the surface, held on to the ledge, and grabbed the man’s leg.
Yanked.
His target fell into the water and Jake pushed him away from the boat. He didn’t need him dead, and drunk was disabled.
Jake swung himself up and aboard before the man could surface and alert his buddies.
On his way up, however, he released the life raft, letting it explode out of its case on the back into the water, inflating as it went.
It made a racket, but Jake was already on board.
“Hey!”
He really needed two hands, and his bandage was soggy anyway, so he switched his knife into his left hand, palmed the Glock from his belt with the other, and squeezed off a shot toward the man emerging from the captain’s desk. Purposely didn’t hit him, but it shaved off decking and sent the man scrambling.
He’d reached the cop. “Gimme your hands.”
They were duct-taped, and Jake slid his blade through them, barely looking at the man or the mess of his face.
Instead he sheathed the knife, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him off the back of the boat. “Swim for your life!”
He didn’t look to see where the man landed.
A shot pinged the boat right next to his leg and it shook him.
Thank you, God, that they were drunk.
He turned then and fired a shot into the deck of the ship, right into the fuel tank.
Another shot from behind him, and this time it shattered the light at the back of the boat.
He looked up and spotted a man with a darkly bruised face.
Oh, hi.
The man swore and raised his shotgun.
Jake had the sense he wasn’t going to miss.
Well, okay then. He raced for the back of the boat and leaped off, turning in the air. He caught his inflated BCD, barely submerged, came up fast.
A bullet skipped off the water beside him.
Please, let this work.
He aimed for the back fuel tank, the one that he’d shot through the deck and let seep long enough for fumes to gather.
Kicking hard away from the boat, he pulled the trigger.
The boat exploded. A mushroom cloud of fuel and flame and destruction.
He clipped on the BCD and dove, letting out his air. At the bottom, he slipped on his fins and searched for a swimmer.
He spied the cop struggling, twenty feet from the boat, swimming hard for the dinghy.
Good man.
Jake kicked hard, caught up, and grabbed the lead line of the dinghy. Then he emerged and grabbed the cop, towing him toward the raft.
He practically pushed the man into the boat, dove again, and like a dolphin, towed him into shore.
The flames from the yacht lit up the water.
And that’s how it was done.
Hooyah.
He surfaced as he came closer to the beach, spitting out his regulator and propping himself on the edge of the raft.
“You okay?” he asked.
The man looked familiar. Short dark hair, a scattering of dark whiskers across his square jawline. The build of a linebacker.
The cop who’d let him onto the island.
“Yeah,” the cop said. Except he didn’t look okay. He’d been worked over, his eye swollen, a welt on his jaw, and he held his side from where a wound bled into the standing water of the raft.
He’d been stabbed.
Jake took off his fins, threw them into the raft, and towed it to shore, wishing he’d grabbed booties in his haste to get in the water. But he slipped his feet into his shoes, then reached for the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Wade. Wade Donovan. With the Key West Police.”
Jake saw the confirmation printed on his shirt. He helped Wade out of the raft, then shucked off the equipment and left it in the raft, keeping the dive knife. “Let’s get you some medical attention.”
Wade had crumpled onto shore, his face twisted. “I should have been paying attention, but they got the jump on me.”
“It happens. Let’s go.” Jake grabbed him by the waist and helped him up. He spotted a jet ski amid the scattered boats, grabbed the dive knife from the vest, and headed for it.
“What are you—”
“Scoring us a ride.” Jake grabbed the two wires protruding from the handlebar attached to the ignition box, cut them with his knife, then peeled away the rubber insulation, exposing the wires.
He tied them together. Then he climbed on and pressed the ignition button.
And voilà, God was suddenly on his side because the machine turned over.
Hooyah.
He revved it and it hummed to life.
“Get on,” he said to Wade, who was leaning over, clutching his knees. He hobbled over to Jake and eased his leg over the back, groaning. “Who are you? Some kind of criminal?”
And right then, Jake heard Aria’s voice, bright and solid in his head. “It’s in your DNA to find trouble and fix it. That makes you the good guy, not a villain.”
Jake pulled out, toward the inlet leading to the hospital. “Just a guy trying to help. Hold on, because my guess is that there’s more than just those guys on this island. And if I don’t get back, the woman I love is going to kill me.”
CHAPTER 13
ARIA JUST KNEW THAT JAKE had something to do with that ball of flame on the horizon, the cloud of black smoke, the thunderous explosion that reverberated through the blue sky.
Aria stood at the window in the hallway, watching as the smoke rose in a fat column toward the heavens, her arms wrapped around her waist.
“Hope your boy wasn’t on that boat,” said Hagan from behind her. He’d risen early and she’d found the remainder of the protein bar wrappers next to his mattress along with three juices.
Which left two for the rest of them, along with another can of Spam.
She didn’t say anything. Frankly, despite her words of defense about Hagan, he lifted the tiny hairs along her neck with the way he looked at her.
The way he looked at Yola.
Even his gaze on Angel.
She was probably just edgy and tired, having sat up much of the night with Parker. He’d fallen into a deep, much-needed sleep shortly before Jake left for the plane.
She’d wanted to sleep too, but she couldn’t get her mind off Jake and the group of angry escapees he’d described meeting earlier.
Please, God, protect him.
She didn’t know why, but talking to God seemed to get easier with every plea, starting with the moment Jake nearly died under her hands.
And then there was Mimi and her simple, easy conversation about God and his love, his protection. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”
“Oh my, is that a fire?”
Aria turned to find Mimi walking out of the staff room, Yola by her side. “Good heavens, what happened?”
“Jake blew a boat up,” Hagan said.
“You don’t know that,” Aria said. She turned to Mimi. “You should be in bed.”
“I can’t sit in bed one more minute. Not when the sun is finally shining.”
Aria didn’t mention the new storm gathering behind them, on the eastern horizon. And it was probably good for Mimi to walk around. She looped her arm through Mimi’s, Yola on the other side.
“Look at that view,” Mimi said. “We came down here for the first time in ’68, and Rollo took one look at that view and said he’d found home. He died free diving when he was fifty-seven, twenty long years ago. Loved what he did so much, it killed him.”
Aria looked at her, searching for the bitterness in her voice, finding none.
Mimi must have sensed it. “Oh, I was angry at him, that’s for sure. I couldn’t believe he left me. And for a long time, I let that anger protect me. It kept me from having to feel the real grief of his loss. See, I let my heart turn to stone and thought that was the best thing for it.” She patted Yola’s hand.
“I locked the grief inside, scared to feel the pain. But in doing so, I didn’t allow myself to live, either. I was a hard, angry woman.”
She looked at Yola. “Thankfully, God says he can remove our hearts of stone and turn them to flesh. That he’ll give us a new spirit. Replant what was once desolate and give us fruit. Blessings.” She kissed Yola’s cheek.
“I realized that I didn’t want my old, broken heart, but the heart that Jesus wanted to give me. So . . . I let him give me a heart transplant.” She looked at Aria and winked. “I let myself feel the pain of Rollo’s loss, and in it, I remembered the great love we had. See, our pain is the residue of love. And that’s when I realized God could take the hard memories and diminish them, replace them with good. In his hands, my heart is safe. He protects it. Heals it. I can trust him, because even when life hurts, he is good. And he is sovereign.”
“Is he though?” Aria let her words drift into the morning. “I mean, from my point of view, it doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“All of it. But, mostly—”
“Why someone you loved had to die for you to live?”
Yeah, that.
“That’s a hard conundrum. How can God be good and sovereign when something terrible happens? Either he’s good—and has no control. Or he’s sovereign and causes bad to happen, right? Panic comes when we stop believing that God is good. Or, that God is sovereign. But he is both, and that is the key to peace, even in the midst of the grief, or fear. Whatever storm life brings.”
“I’d really love to believe that,” she said softly.
Mimi made a humming sound. “Of course, that would mean that you aren’t responsible for the fact that your sister died, and you lived. You might even stop believing that God took the wrong twin.”
Aria stilled at the words.
Mimi looked at her. “I have old ears, but they still work.”
Aria stared out into the horizon. “I was the one born with the bad heart. I was the one who was supposed to die.”
“So, God made a mistake? And of course it’s your job to fix it.”
She didn’t want to nod, but . . .
Yes.
The smoke was dissipating, turning a pewter gray, as if the fire might be dying.
“Stop fighting the new heart God gave you and embrace it, Doc,” Mimi said. “You don’t have to be afraid when your heart is in his hands.”
Behind her, Ringo started to bark, high yips that made them turn. Bailey had been wrestling with the pup and now let it go, and Ringo disappeared out the door.
Angel appeared in the doorway. “Jake’s back. I saw him pull up on a jet ski. He’s got someone with him.”
Aria arrived in the doorway just as Jake was struggling up the stairway with a man in tow, his arm over his shoulder.
Beaten and bloody, his shirt saturated and shiny, he appeared pale and dire. Dark hair, a thick shadow of whiskers, and he wore the blue shirt of the local police force. “What happened?”
“I found him being held captive by a bunch of convicts,” Jake said.
Aria came up on the other side of the man, helping him down the hallway toward another patient room.
