Chapter 14: The Fish Carrier

Viola's POV

Ettore found the boat in four minutes.

"Every boat in this bay has a habit," he said, with the binoculars at his eyes. "That fish carrier has run its generator all night with no lights."

It sat low under the point, a rusty hull with one man smoking on the stern.

We came up on its blind side with the dive boat's engine barely turning.

Ettore handed me a diving knife, handle first.

"Stay behind me."

"No. He is my father."

He looked at me for one second, and then he went over the rail.

The man on the stern never saw him.

Ettore hit him once, and the cigarette dropped into the sea.

A second man came out of the wheelhouse with a pistol.

Ettore knocked the barrel toward the sky and drove his forehead into the man's nose.

I ran past them both to the hatch.

The hold was dark, and the water was already over my knees.

They had opened the sea valves early.

My father lay strapped to a stretcher on a pallet, and the water was touching the edge of the canvas.

His eyes found me.

"I am here, Papa."

I cut the first strap, then the second, and the water climbed to his ribs.

I got one arm under his head to keep his face clear, and I cut the last strap with the other hand.

His left hand squeezed mine three times, hard and fast.

I am here, and you are safe.

"Ettore!"

He dropped down the ladder, took my father in his arms, and lifted him out of the water.

At the top, a third man was waiting with a boat hook.

He swung it, and Ettore turned his shoulder into it and took the point in his forearm.

Blood ran down to his wrist.

He did not put my father down.

He kicked the man off the ladder, climbed over him, and carried my father across the tilting deck to the dive boat.

I cut the lines, and the fish carrier groaned and went down stern first with its lights still burning.

The three men swam for the rocks, and nobody went after them.

My father lay under Ettore's jacket, breathing, with his good hand on my hair while I cried.

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