The Tide: Deadrise (33 page)

Water bloomed once more. A violent boom echoed over the waves.

The cutter continued on, undeterred.

Dom cursed and slammed his palm against the bulkhead. Everything they’d done to get the
Huntress
back, to save his crew, and to carry on with their search for a cure would end now with the Coast Guard tracking their crippled ship. All his careful planning was worthless now. This was it. It was over. Kinsey’s people had bested him.

He’d failed.

Then a second explosion sounded over the water. This time, he heard the screech of metal.

“What in the hell?” Thomas asked. “I didn’t do that.”

“Those were the charges that were supposed to go off in the first place,” Dom said, relief trickling through him. The torpedoes might not have crippled the propellers themselves, but the explosion had been enough to set off the C4 the SCUBA-diving Hunters had planted. The cutter began to slow down. It was carried solely by momentum now. “Cliff, can we get those engines working any harder?”

Cliff glanced at the gauges and computer screens glowing in front of him. “Maybe, Captain. But with the damage from that cutter, we risk losing propulsion if the compressor blows.”

“Only if the compressor’s damaged.”

“Exactly. It might get us out to the open sea, but....”

“Out to sea and stranded is no better than stranded here. Either way, she’ll be our iron coffin unless she’s seaworthy.”

“Aye, sir,” Cliff said, nodding.

“Might as well find out now. Give her everything we’ve got.”

Cliff clenched his jaw as he pushed the throttle forward and entered the engine order to full ahead at max RPM. Dom curled his fingers around the rail at the edge of the pilothouse and stared at the ocean opening up before them. The engine roared. It was no longer the stealthy, barely perceptible hum it once was. Damage to the
Huntress
had compromised its sound-dampening hull. But she was working, and that was all that mattered.

“Captain, we have a problem,” Chao called over the comm link. Dom inhaled sharply, prepared for another surprise blow in this ocean-going chess game. “Don’t know if you’re seeing this on your screens, but we just got line of sight on a UAV.”

“That all?” Dom asked. After what they’d just been through, an unmanned aerial vehicle would be a piece of cake.

“For now.”

“Thomas, you know what to do.”

His second-in-command armed an anti-aircraft missile. Smoke plumed over the deck as the missile launched. It moved slowly at first and then accelerated until it was nothing more than a wink in the dark clouds rolling in the night sky. A burst of fire followed.

“Nice shot,” Chao said unnecessarily as red and gold sparks fell from the clouds. “It’s down.”

The fireworks show was a fitting end to their escape. The
Huntress
glided into the Atlantic under the full camouflage of her anti-sonar and anti-radar outfit. Her engine was a little noisier and her hull worse for the wear, but she was still sailing. For that, Dom was grateful.

“She’s going to need some work,” Cliff said.

“We’ll do it at sea,” Dom said. “Boys, you good up here?”

“Go see Meredith and your girls,” Thomas said, reading Dom’s mind.

Dom hurried down the ladders from the pilothouse and sprinted through the passage to the medical bay. Crewmembers were rushing around, calling to each other as they tried to fix the damage done by the cutter. Dom dodged them, waving off their questions and greetings.

In the med bay, Divya, Peter, and Sean were running a triage to help the injured. The injuries were largely superficial. Most patients needed only a few stitches or a smear of burn gel before getting back to work.

“Lauren!” he called, unable to spot the petite doctor in the chaos of the bay.

She waved to him over the crowd. “No fatalities from the battle, sir. Casualties are less than I expected,” she said as she hurried over to him. Dom nodded, relieved to hear her report. But he wasn’t there for a sitrep from the medical bay. Lauren seemed to understand. “Your girls and Meredith are this way.”

Dom followed her to the back of the medical bay. He found Kara and Sadie, along with Maggie, standing over a bed. He wrapped his arms around both girls. They fell into his hug, burying their faces against his chest. Maggie whined, her tail thumping the air furiously, until he reached down and scratched her head.

Dom felt an intense, bittersweet happiness. He had his daughters and his ship back. But had he lost Meredith instead? Kara let go first, and Sadie reluctantly followed.

Dom had been on more perilous covert ops throughout his career than he could count. He’d faced Skulls, Goliaths, and Droolers. He’d just won a sea battle against three US Coast Guard cutters. But nothing had scared him more than he felt right now. Dom gazed down at Meredith, lying in the bed with her eyes closed and bloody bandages over her head. He held his daughters’ hands as he met Lauren’s gaze and asked, “How is she?”

***

“H
ow is she?”

The words were muddled. Faraway.
Strange
.

The voice was familiar, but who were they talking about?

“Stable,” another voice said. Distinctly feminine. Definitely familiar. “I’ll be honest. She lost a lot of blood.”

More words, a soup of noise. A high-pitched ringing in her head like the whine of a mosquito.

“Permanent damage?”

“Nothing we can do here. I’m sorry.”

The voices were getting clearer, like a radio station being slowly tuned in.

Meredith’s head pounded like the beat of a distant war drum. It didn’t exactly hurt. Why didn’t it hurt? It was as though she existed in a fish bowl. When had she felt like this before?

Ah, yes. After surgery. Painkillers. That’s what it was. It hurt to think, to remember, but she forced herself to do exactly that. She’d been SCUBA diving, then fighting those guards.

She’d heard Dom struggling against the guards, then she’d come up to help him. And he’d been held at gunpoint. She could feel her heart pounding faster now, the memories rushing back in a painful torrent. She’d felt a lancing, white-hot pain across her skull. It hadn’t hurt at first. But when pain struck, it hit like a great white shark appearing out of the depths and crunching down on her with a mouthful of daggers. She’d gone down just as the guard fired on Dom, too. She’d seen him fall, helpless to save him, and then she’d passed out.

Her eyes opened to a world filled with intense, burning light. She blinked to clear her vision.

“Meredith!” A chorus of voices called her name, one bass deep, the others feminine sopranos. A hand wrapped around hers. Strong and warm. Lips pressed against her cheek. She felt hot tears splash on her skin and didn’t know if they were hers or his.

“Meredith, I’m so sorry. I let you down.”

She squeezed Dom’s hand. “You’re alive. I didn’t know what happened to you.”

“To me?” he asked with a laugh. “You were worried about me?”

She gazed up at Dom’s bright-blue eyes, noting the grey-shot auburn stubble on his strong jaw. “You were shot,” she said.

“The rounds just hit body armor,” he said. “I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

Dom’s cheerful expression faded. She figured it was serious. She tried moving her fingers, her toes. She thought it was working, but everything still felt awash in that strange stupor of painkillers and anesthetics.

“How bad am I?” she asked, unable to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

Lauren Winters locked eyes with her. She wore that sympathetic look doctors seemed to put on like a mask when delivering bad news. “You lost your right ear, Meredith. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all?” Now Meredith laughed. She couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the drugs.

“And a fair amount of blood,” Lauren added.

“But I’m alive.” She glanced at Dom and batted her eyes playfully. A silly gesture to be sure. Definitely the drugs. She didn’t care. “You still think I’m pretty even with one ear?”

“Always, Meredith. Always.”

She squeezed her fingers tighter around his. “Don’t let this convince you to take me out of the fight, Captain.”

“You say that as if I have a choice.”

“I like to make you feel important.”

“I appreciate that.”

The ebb and flow of voices around them moved like the waves gently rocking the
Huntress
. She could hear its engines working. They seemed louder than usual. “Where are we going?”

“Far away,” Dom said. “We’re headed to the open sea.”

“That’s good. Better than trying to take her through the desert or something.” Meredith giggled again. Then a beam of lucid thought broke through the fog of the drugs. It cracked the façade of momentary happiness she’d found waking up, alive, next to Dom. She remembered everything they’d lost. The support of the military. The United States. Adam. They’d paid a heavy toll to make it this far, and she feared their journey had only just begun. Sure, they now had a potential vaccine for the Oni Agent. But it hadn’t been tested, much less manufactured. They had a ship full of advanced technology, but even to Meredith’s untrained ears, it sounded damaged. They had a crew that was loyal and determined to a fault—and every mission seemed to cost them a life or two.

Her smile evaporated. “What next, Dom?”

Dom let out a slow breath. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I don’t know, Mere.”

She saw a shade of despair in those steely eyes. She wished she could do something to change that. But then the darkness in his eyes flickered out to be replaced by anger.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do now,” Dom said, his voice rising. “But rest assured, whatever we do, we will stop the Oni Agent. We
will
find those responsible, and we
will
make them pay for everything they’ve done.”

––––––––

The End of Book 4

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T
hank you for reading The Tide: Deadrise. If you enjoyed this book, would you please
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?

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Tide
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N
eed something to read while you wait for the next
Tide
book? What follows is an excerpt from
Malignant
, the second book in the
Black Market DNA
series. The book can be read in series or as a stand-alone.

Baltimore, MD

June 4, 2059

––––––––

C
hristopher Morgan’s comm card projected a red flash of light, alerting him to an incoming call. He scooped up the card from his coffee table on the way out of his Baltimore condo.

“Veronica?”

“Hi,” she said.

He stepped out of his condo and tugged the door tight behind him. The lock engaged automatically, but he checked it every time he left. It was impossible to shake the feeling someone might still be after him, someone might still want him dead. Instinctively, he massaged the thick scar tissue on his sides. Each sliver of stiff white skin reminded him of how close to death he had come in the Fulton State Penitentiary when he’d found himself on a hit list. “What’s up?”

“Just calling to say hello.”

“You’ve been calling just to say ‘hello’ quite a bit,” Chris said. “I can’t say I’m entirely disappointed to hear from you, but if I recall correctly, you agreed we couldn’t make it work again.” She had disappeared shortly after the break-in at her apartment, and he hadn’t heard a word from her for weeks until she showed up at his place unannounced. And when she left him that day, he was certain he’d never see her again. Probably the last time he would ever speak to her. He didn’t blame her. His involvement in the enhancement trade had led to her torture and near-death experience.

“I’m not trying to get back together with you,” she said. “Besides, that joke’s getting old.”

Chris bounded down the stairs. The leather shoulder bag he carried bounced against his side. “All right. But it’s seven in the morning, and I’m on my way to work. You’re going to have to give me a good reason why I’m talking to you right now.”

“I couldn’t sleep again.”

His heart sank. He knew what that meant. She’d been plagued by the nightmares again, the visions of the men storming into her apartment. “I’m sorry.” Saying it sounded weak and insufficient.

“You’re the only one I can talk to. No one else understands.”

“I know.” He paced in the small lobby of his building. The morning sun beat through the expansive windows and provided him a sample of the summer heat he’d face outside. “I’m sorry, Vee.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She said that same thing every time. And then he’d tell her it
was
his fault. He was an idiot to ever think he and everyone he knew would emerge unscathed from the world of crazed enhancers and the enigmatic organizations providing them their genetic delicacies. “I wish I could help,” he said. He held the comm card away from his face to check the time. “But Jordan and I have a meeting.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t want to be the one to keep you from making your company a success,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“A rep from Caninex is coming to discuss purchasing our technology.” He sighed and stepped outside. As he sucked in the thick air, beads of perspiration formed across his forehead. He didn’t want to ignore her by switching their conversation’s focus to his work. “Look, aren’t there any support groups, anyone that can help you? Hell, couldn’t you use a neuromod therapy to forget about it? A quick pill and all that can be a thing of the past.”

“Not an option,” she said.