Second Nature

Chapter 56

56 

A mile from shore, Cade backed the throttle down until the unlighted boat slid through the darkness in a wakeless crawl. "Jimi, take the helm." Cade sat on a storage bench and tugged on his flippers. 

"What the hell are you up to?" Jimi said.  

"I'm going to try to get Lana and Haven out." 

"Are you nuts? Just how do you think you're going to accomplish that?" 

"I don't know. Get creative." Cade fitted his regulator on top of a fresh air tank. "You take the boat over to Taylor's. Better yet, take it to The Palms. It's closer. We'll meet you at the yacht club." 

"No, you listen, Cade. Gen's safe. Eberhard's never going to find her. And what's he going to do to us? See those field hospitals? It's a quarantine operation. Big deal. Don't do something stupid that's going to get you or anybody else shot." 

Cade stopped and stared at him. "We don't know what Eberhard is capable of. The man's a sadist. And all he's got to do is spout the magic words-'national security emergency'-and there's no telling what he can get away with. He's going to try to force Lana and Haven to tell him everything they know, and he's got high rank and military secrecy to cover up anything he does to them." 

"But there are witnesses." 

"Not for long. Eberhard is treating this as a biowarfare contamination site, with soldiers in full biohazard gear. He'll quarantine anybody he finds anywhere near the inn. Get them out of the way, so he can capture Gen." He spit into his dive mask and smeared the puddle around the faceplate, to prevent fogging. "Only thing is, Gen isn't there. So he'll be angry, and desperate to find out where she is. An angry, desperate sadist with too much power-that's a very bad combo." 

Jimi swallowed. "Damn...I see your point." 

Cade clamped the air tank to the back of his BC vest, shrugged on the vest like a backpack, buckled and tightened the straps. Then he pulled on his mask and snorkel with a snap and stepped backward to the side of the boat, sat on the gunwale.  

"Jesus, Cade." 

"I'm Hercules Cade." 

"Just...you be careful." 

Cade grinned. "Nothing can hurt me...well, except kryptonite." 

"Then watch out for the kryptonite, super-bro'. I'll be waiting for you at the yacht club." 

"If we're not there in an hour or so, it means we're in quarantine, getting interrogated by Colonel Asshole." 

Jimi nodded. "I'll keep my cell phone on." 

Cade worked his lips around the rubber mouthpiece of the air hose, pressed his mask onto his face and slipped over the side of the boat without a splash.  

He snorkeled toward the docks at Willingham's Marina in a smooth, fast Australian crawl. A quarter mile from the docks, he submerged and swam the rest of the distance underwater. When the wooden planks appeared over his head, he quietly breached the water's surface only yards from the beach. A dead pompano drifted by on a platter of seagrapes, but all Cade could smell was the oily reek of jet engine fumes. 

A dozen mobile field hospitals parked in the sand, slung under huge Skycrane helicopters. Soldiers in inflated orange spacesuits waited near the hospitals for the first evacuees to arrive for quarantine.  

One Skycrane straddled a stainless steel capsule that Cade didn't recognize. Refrigerator-sized metal cylinders and a clutter of pipes bulged from the curved sides of the unit. Then it dawned on him: the container for transporting Gen. He clenched his jaw and surveyed the nearest soldiers.