Terminal Run

Instead of frantically searching for the missiles, the crews had the luxury of arguing over who would get the privilege of shooting them down. In all cases, the squadron commanding officers took their shots. The Mongoose heat-seeking missiles ripped the Javelin IVs to shreds, the plasma warheads shattered and falling to the sea in fragments. As news of the destruction of the Javelins reached the presidential evacuation bunker, the President’s 888 was called in, and the President and staff returned to Andrews Air Force Base. Admiral Patton took a limo to the Pentagon to await news of the Devilfish.

Michael Pacino made his way slowly to the raft and swam to it, approaching it from underwater as he got close. He popped his head up, trying not to make noise with his breathing, and pulled the diver’s knife from its scabbard. He looked up at the bump of the raft occupant’s head, knowing it was Victor Krivak — although in his mind Pacino decided to remember him as Alexi Novskoyy. Pacino took a breath, and shot his arm out of the water and grabbed the man by the throat and pulled him into the water. Just before he fell in, Pacino had a glimpse of a man in his forties, a man as handsome as a movie star, but there was no surgery on earth that would change those ugly eyes, eyes that Pacino had looked into on the Arctic icepack so many years before. These eyes belonged to the man who had torpedoed and destroyed the first Devilfish, and who was now responsible for four cruise missiles being launched at Pacino’s home, who was responsible for the loss of the second Devilfish, and most of all, who had put Pacino’s son at death’s door. It was the last of these that earned him the thrust of the knife deep into the side of his throat as he fell in slow motion into the water, the red spurting blood spraying into Pacino’s eyes.

In the time it took to blink the blood out of his eyes, Novskoyy had knocked the knife from Pacino’s grip with his arm, and had wrenched toward Pacino. Novskoyy was much stronger, and he smashed his fist into Pacino’s face, breaking his nose. Blood sprayed into the water. Pacino reached for Novskoyy just as the war criminal lunged for something in his belt. Pacino connected with Novskoyy’s face in a hard jab, the force of it sending him backward in the water away from the Russian. Pacino struggled to get close again, and suddenly found himself staring into the barrel of the pistol Novskoyy had pulled from his belt. Pacino froze for an instant, then dived into the water, wondering if a gun could fire when it was wet.

Victor Krivak had been napping pleasantly, awaiting rescue, when he was grabbed by the throat and pulled violently into the sea. He barely had a look at the man who had assaulted him, for a moment thinking it was Wang, the thought of the doctor coming back for vengeance filling him with adrenaline. He was trying to punch the man when the knife entered his throat and cut him hard. At first there was no pain, just a dizzying feeling of floating. His blood was everywhere, and it was probably not something he would survive, which made him fight all the harder. He managed to connect with a punch to the intruder’s nose, the man’s face covered in blood both from his broken nose and from the blood he’d drawn from Krivak’s neck. Oddly, the white-haired fiend seemed somehow familiar. Krivak reached down for his belt, hoping the silver plated Colt was there, as the world became dim around the edges. He pulled it out of his belt with his right hand and held it high out of the water. With his left hand he gripped the collar of his unknown attacker, and as he aimed the.45 at the man, he caught a glimpse of his nametag, which read paci no He knew that name was familiar, but he was getting cold and groggy, undoubtedly from the knife wound, and he couldn’t place the name.

He brought the Colt to the man’s face, but the man tried to dive below the waves. Krivak aimed lower and fired off four shots and waited for the man to return to the surface. As the seconds ticked off, the waves and the sky were no longer blue, but like something from an old black-and-white movie. The sound of the waves and the wind was missing, and the sunlight began to fade into dusk, though it had to be much too early for sunset.

He waited for the body to float back to the surface, and finally it did, but the man’s hands clawed at Krivak’s chest, and clutched at the gun, and by this time Krivak was becoming too weak to resist. As the man named Pacino grabbed for the pistol, it went off one last time, and Krivak wondered if he had finally connected and made the kill. He realized slowly that he no longer cared. Oddly, in spite of the adrenaline of the fight, he suddenly felt cold and sleepy.

It must be the darkness, he thought, as he felt the pistol leave his grip.