The Last Templar - Страница 68

She wiped the wet hair off her face and glanced up at the ravaged wheelhouse. There was no sign of Vance or of the others. She felt the onset of tears and crumpled herself up into a ball, hanging on for dear life. She looked to where she had last seen the patrol boat, expecting it to be even nearer now, but it was nowhere in sight.

And then she saw it. A huge, sixty-foot wave. So steep it was almost vertical with a massive trough in front of it that seemed to be sucking the Savanna in.

It was bearing down on the stricken ship across its port side.

Tess shut her eyes, tight. Without power, there was no way to turn the dive boat to either face the wave, or run from it—not that there was anyone left at the helm. Either maneuver would have caused the ship to take a big hit and be engulfed by water, but it would have still come out right side up.

This monster was about to slam into them broadside.

And when it did, it lifted the 130-ton steel ship effortlessly and rolled it over like a child's toy.

* * *

Reilly watched the shells erupting across the dive boat's stern and the black smoke spewing out from it and yelled at De Angelis as loudly as he could, but he knew there was no way the monsignor was going to hear him over the screaming wind and the clamor of the gunfire.

He suddenly felt exhausted and totally depleted, and, at that very moment, he realized what he had to do.

Bracing himself against the railing, he pulled out the automatic, steadied its muzzle against the onslaught of the wind as best he could, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Red puffs erupted from the monsignor's back and he arced backward, then fell forward against the machine gun, tilting its barrel toward the angry sky.

Reilly tossed the Glock aside and peered out from the patrol boat's deck. Eyes straining against the squall, he searched for the Savanna, but all he could see through the sheets of rain were rampaging mountains and valleys of foaming, white-streaked water.

The rescue divers had somehow managed to make it back on board with the men they had pulled out of the sea, and Reilly felt the patrol boat turning away from its previous heading, the engines surging in an effort to hasten the turn and limit the time it would sit "beam-to" the waves and be exposed to broaching. A sense of panic gripped him as he realized they were heading back, away from the storm.

Just then, the waves cleared for a few seconds and his eyes rocketed wide at the sight of the capsized dive boat, its filthy hull slipping below die converging waves.

There was no sign of survivors.

He looked back toward the bridge and saw die skipper motioning to him frantically to get back inside. Reilly shielded his face and pointed toward where he'd seen the Savarona, but Karakas waved his hands in a No gesture and pointed away, indicating they had to get out while they still could.

Reilly gripped the railing with white knuckles, his mind feverishly sifting through his options, but there was really only one thing he could contemplate doing.

He scrambled toward the gunboat's rigid inflatable boat, which the divers had left tethered off its starboard side. Dredging everything in his memory that he could recall from a routine FBI training course with the U.S. Coast Guard, he leaped into the motorized lifeboat, pulled the release lever, and, hanging onto its handles, held his breath as it jettisoned off the patrol boat and into the raging sea.

Chapter 78

Reilly managed to fire up the inflatable's motor and, peering into the blinding curtain of rain and spray, he steered toward where he thought he'd last seen the capsized Savarona. He was winging it as best he could in the constantly shifting landscape around him, riding on instinct and on hope, as he'd lost all sense of direction. The water was so frothy and die air so wet that it was almost impossible to tell where the sea ended and the sky began.

The sea rose and fell in vertiginous swells, one wave breaking over him and flooding the small craft just as quickly as another would rock the water out of it. He hung on as it climbed up and down the walls of water, its motor rising to a hellish scream every time it was thrown over a wave and its propeller spun free.

Interminable minutes later, he spotted it, a dark brown angular shape jutting out of a trough that looked like a hole in the sea. Muscles straining, he pointed the small outboard toward it, but kept getting thrown off course by uncooperative, battling waves. He had to constantly adjust his heading as he caught glimpses of the overturned trawler between the mountains of water.

There was still no sign of Tess.

The closer he got to it, the more horrific the sight became. Debris was scattered around the hull, floating alongside it in an eerily synchronized dance of death. The aft section of the ship was now completely submerged, and its prow, pointing out of the sea like an angled iceberg, was slowly sliding beneath the waves that washed over it.

Desperately, he searched for survivors and for Tess, his hope fading, then surging when, to the far side of the hull, he spotted her, bobbing in an orange life jacket, thrashing her arms wildly.

Steering the inflatable toward her, he maneuvered around the massive, barnacle-encrusted hull and edged closer to her, his eyes darting from her to the treacherous waves that were hammering them without remorse. When he was near enough, he reached out with one hand and grabbed at her outstretched arm, missed, then desperately reached out again, and this time, their fingers locked and he managed to hang on.

Dragging her into the boat, a faint, desperate smile crept across his face and he saw her face light up with relief that, suddenly, turned to fear. She was looking behind him. He spun around, just in time to see a large chunk of debris from the Savarona being hurled by a breaking wave and heading straight for him.

And then his world went black.

Disoriented and utterly bewildered, Tess was certain that she was going to die and could hardly believe her eyes when she saw Reilly coming toward her in the inflatable lifeboat.

Using every ounce of strength she had left, she managed to grab his outstretched hand and lift herself half into the tiny craft when she saw the piece of wooden planking spinning over a wave and smashing into him. It struck him squarely on the head and sent him flying off the edge of the lifeboat.

She slid back into the water and reached out and grabbed him, hanging onto him while struggling to keep her other hand gripped on one of the inflatable's handles. Through the thrashing water, she saw that his eyelids were shut, his head bouncing listlessly against the neck support of the life jacket.

Blood streaked from a big gash across his forehead, disappearing and reappearing as each surge of water washed over the wound.

She tried to push him into the lifeboat but quickly realized that it was an impossible task. Worse, it was sapping the little energy she had left. The lifeboat was becoming more of a liability than a lifesaver, filling with water and threatening to ram into them with every resurgence of the swell.

With a heavy heart, she let go of the handle to which she was clinging and seized hold of Reilly instead.

Watching as the inflatable was swept away, she struggled to keep Reilly's head above the surface.

For what felt like forever, it took all of her determination just to stay conscious. The storm showed no signs of abating, and Tess knew that she had to stay alert, but it was a losing battle. Her strength was quickly fading.

That was when she saw a large piece of timber, a hatch cover of some sort, she guessed.

Desperately, she struck out toward it, one arm clasping Reilly to her until, at last, she managed to reach out with her other arm and grasp a rope trailing from it. Laboriously, painfully, she dragged herself and Reilly onto the flat platform, then used the rope to tie them both to it as best she could.

She also hooked the belts of her life jacket into his. Whatever else happened, they wouldn't be separated. In some strange way, that thought triggered a small stirring of hope inside her.

As the storm continued to explode its might around her, Tess closed her eyes and sucked long draws of air into her lungs, trying to calm her fears. Whatever else, she could not afford to panic. She had to find the strength she would need to keep herself and Reilly from losing their tenuous grip on this frail scrap of timber. Other than that, she was helpless. All she could do was lie back and let the elements take them wherever they wanted them to go.

The makeshift raft seemed to settle for a moment, and Tess opened her eyes, wondering if the respite was a sign of better things to come. She couldn't have been further from the truth. Towering over them was a gargantuan wave, one that completely dwarfed the one that had capsized the Savarona. It appeared to hang there, motionless, almost taunting her.

Holding desperately onto Reilly, Tess shut her eyes and awaited the onslaught, and then it came, smashing down on them like a falling cliff and swallowing them up as effortlessly as if they were dead leaves.

Chapter 79

Tuscany—January 1293

His back to the bitter wind that swept down from the north, Martin of Carmaux crouched low by the small fire. The howling of the wind was compounded by the roar from a waterfall that plunged down into the shadowy depths of a narrow ravine. Beside Martin, wrapped in the tattered remnants of a cloak taken many months ago from one of the Mamelukes slain at Beer el Sifsaaf Hugh moaned softly in a fitful sleep.