Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 120

Five minutes earlier.

Koenig hit the water way too hard, way harder than he’d anticipated. The impact sent a shock wave through his entire body. One of his shin bones bent, then snapped. Like a bamboo stick. He felt the jaggy splinters push through ligaments and muscles, flesh and skin. The bone was on the outside of his body now. His ankles felt like they were full of broken glass.

The pain wasn’t bad, but he knew that was because adrenaline had flooded his body. Nature’s anaesthetic. It numbed everything. Made it manageable. It wouldn’t last long. He hung in the water, facedown for a moment. Gathered his thoughts. He resurfaced, spat out some water and took stock of which limbs were working and which weren’t. He didn’t have long; Carlyle would be in the water soon. His arms seemed fine. His legs weren’t. He could feel his feet, so he wasn’t paralysed. He could move his head.

Koenig used small arm movements to turn himself in the water. He’d taken note of where Tas was before he’d jumped, but he needed to reorientate himself, then start shooting. Tas wasn’t hard to find. His boat was the only one on the water. He was about two hundred yards away. Tas was watching him through a pair of binoculars.

Koenig could see the Gulfstream behind Tas. He reached for his SIG. Time to make some noise.

His holster was empty.

He checked it again. Still empty. It hadn’t magically reappeared. The violent impact had torn open the Velcro straps. He could feel them moving in the water. Like kelp. The SIG was at the bottom of Lake Mead now. He groaned. He couldn’t cause a distraction without a distraction-causing weapon.

He reached for his Fairbairn–Sykes. Felt the reassuring bundle Draper had taped to his back. At least the knife had survived the fall. It was better than nothing. Koenig needed to start moving. Bobbing up and down like a rubber duck in the bath made him an easy target. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Something Tas probably did on the weekends. If he could just keep Tas’s attention, Carlyle still had a chance.

There was something else to consider. He was losing blood, but he had no way to tell how much or how fast. He was alert, so he hadn’t ruptured a major artery. But it would get him in the end. While he was in the water, his blood couldn’t clot. His heart would keep pumping it out until there was nothing left. If he didn’t get out of the lake, he would bleed to death.

So Koenig ignored the pain in his legs and, figuratively, kicked off towards the NorseBoat. Breaststroke. Upper body only. No leg propulsion.

Tas watched him with interest. The Gulfstream carried on banking. When it was directly behind Tas, Carlyle jumped out. She entered the water vertically. The splash drew Tas’s attention. It wasn’t supposed to. Koenig was supposed to have his undivided attention by now. Tas turned his back on Koenig and faced Carlyle. Koenig stopped swimming and watched in horror as Tas raised a weapon. He fired a short burst. Two rounds, not three.

After a moment, Tas turned to face Koenig. Which was when he knew Carlyle was dead. She had to be. Tas had shot her in the water. Koenig hoped it was quick.

He wasn’t sure what to do next. It seemed hopeless. Tas had a gun and Koenig had a knife. Tas was on a boat and Koenig was still in the water. Koenig was injured and Tas wasn’t.

‘To hell with this,’ he said.

He started swimming again. Tas lowered his weapon. Koenig quickly realised not securing the SIG hadn’t been his only mistake. He was wearing denim jeans and a thick cotton shirt. Woollen socks and sturdy boots. They were waterlogged and heavy. Dragging. He should have stripped down to his undershorts. Gotten naked even. Each stroke was ten times harder than it ought to have been.

Koenig was naturally wiry. A greyhound, not a mastiff. But he was no endurance athlete. He wasn’t capable of Herculean feats of strength. A two-hundred-yard swim with no legs, low blood pressure and waterlogged clothing was beyond his capabilities.

He kept going anyway, expecting to take a bullet to the head any second. He wondered if he’d just die, or whether there’d be pain first. He got to within a hundred yards before his battery went flat. He was spent. He kept going some more, lungs heaving like bellows. Used reserves he didn’t know he had.

It wasn’t enough.

His head began to drop below the water. For seconds, then bunches of seconds. Soon he couldn’t raise it long enough to draw breath. He swallowed water; then he swallowed some more. There was a burning sensation as it entered his lungs. He coughed and inhaled. Like Nash had when she’d been waterboarded.

He stopped moving. Concentrated on coughing out water. On staying afloat. On staying alive. Until even that became too much effort. It seemed easier to die. His clothes were simply too heavy, like he was wearing a lead overcoat. His arms spasmed, then cramped. Game over for any swimmer.

Koenig closed his eyes and relaxed into death. There was nothing left to do. He wished he could have seen it through until the end, but it wasn’t to be. Tranquillity stole over him like a shot of morphine. He knew it was part of drowning, but he embraced it anyway. He’d done all he could. Left nothing on the playing field. All anyone could have asked of him.

He was vaguely aware of his body going through hypoxia, hypoxemia and anoxia: low oxygen, abnormally low oxygen, then absence of oxygen; the process accelerated because of his injuries and recent exertions.

And then he passed out.