“Are you having a brain-out-of-body experience?” Doc called to him. “You might not have a second!”
His only answer as he slogged through the water was to yell over his shoulder, “I secured the life raft to the locking mechanism on the door! Be sure you pull it loose so the Otter doesn’t drag everything and everyone down with her once she goes!”
He thought he heard Doc mutter a curse but couldn’t be sure. The water inside the plane made a loud sloshing sound as it rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the sea.
By the time he’d lurched his way to the pilot’s seat, he was waist deep in the drink, the water weighing down his jeans and tugging at his flip-flops until he had to curl his toes to keep them on.
Anyone else might have experienced a grave sense of panic. But the ocean was a SEAL’s medium, and Romeo’s training had inured him to any fear of it.
Plus, no amount of danger could override his determination to grab the Glock he kept Velcroed beneath his seat. There was something scratching at the back of his brain. Something that told him what happened to his plane hadn’t been accidental.
When he bent to search for his sidearm, the sea water met his chin. It smelled of ocean life and jet fuel and that acrid spent firework aroma that always made him think of a battlefield.
The scratching at the back of his brain became a harsh grating.
Who the hell would want to blow us out of the sky?
Before he finished asking the question, he knew the answer.
Any of more than a dozen players.
He and his Deep Six partners had made quite a few enemies during their time with the Navy. In fact, not too long ago they’d been attacked by an Iranian ex-admiral bent on revenge for an op they’d run more than a decade earlier.
Has another ghost from our past come back to haunt us?
“Gotcha!” He located his trusty weapon. After tucking it into the small of his back, he rummaged around for the granola bars he kept in a pouch on the side of his seat—fresh air and open sky always whetted his appetite.
There were only three. Three measly chocolate and peanut butter granola bars. But three was better than zero.
After stuffing them into his front pockets, he turned to make his way back toward the rear of the aircraft. By the time he was at the exit, he wasn’t walking so much as swimming, so he pulled off his flip-flops and stuffed them into his back pockets.
The main body of the plane was almost fully submerged now. Water trickled in through the open hatchway overhead, and he could see the bright orange of the inflated life raft resting atop the inch or less of fuselage that remained above the surface.
“Hurry!” Doc yelled, still bellied out and clinging to the body of the aircraft.
“Get in the damn raft, Doc!” Romeo bellowed. “I’m right behind you!”
Doc muttered something unkind about Romeo’s parentage but scrambled into the watercraft all the same.
“The plane’s about to go down, Romeo!” he heard Mia scream as he climbed the seats just like the others had. The water coming in through the open hatchway became a waterfall that brutally pummeled his head and shoulders.
Gripping the edges of the exit, he prepared to hoist himself through the opening when the Otter gave one last groan and succumbed to the relentless pull of the ocean’s watery arms. The force of the sea rushing into the body of the plane was impossible to fight.
Once again, time slowed to a crawl.
Unlike when the Otter had cartwheeled, however, when there’d been nothing he could do except ride out his fate, now there were steps to take. A very precise set of steps that came to him automatically.
Step one, drink in the last of the air. Two quick exhales and he’d emptied his chest cavity. One long, deep inhale filled his lungs to capacity.
Step two, get real calm and comfortable as the fuselage filled with water and the Otter sank further into the deep. He blinked as the salt water brushed against his eyeballs, making his vision cloudy. But he could see clearly enough to catch the moment the plastic from the case of water bottles got sucked out through the exit. One of the cushions from a seat in the last row followed the plastic from the plane.
Step three, as soon as the cabin equalized, swim up and out of the aircraft. With a hard kick of his legs, and a mighty pull of his arms, he jettisoned himself through the open door.
SEALs spent months—years—training their bodies to consume less oxygen than the Average Joe. Which meant when the open ocean welcomed him, he didn’t immediately make for clean air.
Instead, he turned and peered down at his beloved plane, letting himself sink right along with her. Letting his blurred eyes rake over her body, searching for any clue that might tell him what had happened to her.
The tail section looked like a banana peel. But the poor Otter was so mangled it was impossible to tell the difference between the damage that’d occurred before the crash and the damage that’d occurred because of the crash.
For a long moment, he followed the old girl on her final journey into Davy Jones’s locker. Paying tribute to her for all the glorious hours of freedom and flight.
You were a good bird, he silently told her, watching more debris float through her exit. I’ll miss you.
The sea was a curious creature. It didn’t cool at a continuous rate. Instead, its temperature dropped at noticeable intervals. It was layered, like one of Bran’s lasagnas. And each of those layers was called a thermoclime.
The instant he hit a new thermoclime, when the warm water nearest the surface gave way to an icy coolness that had goose bumps erupting over his skin, he knew it was time to kick toward the light. He realized he’d sunk farther than he’d planned when he saw the sun rippling on the waves far overhead.
Using his arms and legs in tandem, he propelled his body through the water, his ears attuned to the subtle clicking and popping sounds that could always be heard around the Florida Keys. The sea life was so abundant, the parrotfish, pistol shrimp, and grunts so numerous, that they filled the ocean with their noise until it sounded like swimming through a bowl of Rice Krispies.
He was about halfway to his destination, aiming for a patch of water close to the rectangle of orange drifting overhead, when he saw Doc plunge into the ocean.
The big man was a spectacularly graceful swimmer, his long arms and legs displacing water as easily as a dolphin slicing through the drink. Usually. Doc’s broken arm interfered with his downward strokes, and it was obvious each movement was agony.
Damnit, Doc!
Kicking harder, Romeo met Doc in the water about twenty feet from the surface. Doc grabbed the collar of his T-shirt to haul him up, but then grimaced and let out a lungful of bubbles when the move caused him additional pain.