Chapter 19: Across the Lake

We went out on the lake at dusk, because the old Don had said to.

Remo took the wheel of the lead patrol boat, and I stood beside him in the orange jacket with my name on the back.

The deckhand with the gray beard and two of the crew sat in the stern.

The second boat ran a hundred yards behind us, with its lights off.

The water was black and flat, and the north shore was a low line of pines.

"Tell me what you're looking for," I said.

"Nothing yet." His eyes didn't leave the dark. "That's how they'll come."

I put my hand on his arm.

I felt the muscle under the sleeve go hard and then ease.

"Stay by me," he said.

"I'm standing right here."

The engine of the boat behind us coughed, and then the radio crackled.

"Contact," said the voice on it. "Fast. No lights. Coming across from the Delmonte point, two o'clock."

Remo swore and threw the wheel hard over.

The white launch came out of the dark with its engines screaming and no lights at all.

It hit us on the port side.

I heard the hull split and felt the deck leave my feet.

Then I was in the air, and then the lake closed over my head.

It was cold, and it filled my mouth and my nose.

For a moment I was nine years old at a funeral, with the water slapping the pier.

The jacket hauled me up.

I broke the surface choking, and the orange collar pressed under my chin, and the whole lake was ringing with engines and shouting.

"Silvia!"

It was the deckhand, from somewhere above me.

"The captain's in the water!"

I turned in the jacket.

Twenty yards away, in the wash of the launch, a dark shape rolled face down on the surface.

I did not count.

I did not think about the lake, or the cold, or my father, or that I could not swim.

I kicked.

I went across the black water in the jacket with my arms clawing and my mouth full of lake.

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