Wednesday, February 4
John almost mounted the curb as he pulled the car up outside the marina entrance.
Dan was already out the car and running into the office. She pulled out her military SIB credentials and flashed them at the receptionist.
The card meant nothing outside a military establishment, but Dan hoped that the woman behind the desk wouldn’t know that.
“Military police,” said Dan, making sure her voice was confident, unquestionable. “I need to know if there’s a yacht here registered to a Sarah Cox, or a member of her family, and where that yacht is now.”
The woman looked stunned, leaned back in her chair, and paused for a second.
Dan was preparing to tell her that the civil police were on their way, but the woman recovered and leaned forward, typing on her keyboard.
“I think Sarah came in to drop some stuff off a little while ago,” said the woman.
Dan turned to John, who was waiting behind her. “Go,” she said.
He moved past her and jumped the turnstile that led into the marina area, jogging out of view.
“She’s on berth seventy-nine,” said the woman.
Dan followed John, stepping out of the reception into the marina. Her view was good, and the level of the jetties was such that few vessels were big enough to obscure her line of sight as she scanned the wharves and walkways.
John had run to the far end of one leg of decked jetty and was looking around.
“Seventy-nine,” called Dan. “John, it’s number seventy-nine.”
She saw him react, looking around for numbers on the planking and starting to make his way back toward her.
Dan looked also; there were numbers on small signs attached to the railings. She headed right, toward the berths numbered fifty and above, jogging along the wooden deck, alternating between searching for numbers and scanning ahead for any motion.
There were slots opening up in front of her, gaps where yachts and sailboats should be but weren’t, and Dan wasn’t able to tell whether Cox’s yacht was still there or not.
She jogged quickly, counting up the numbers, seeing berth seventy-nine and exhaling as she saw a vessel berthed there, recognizing it from the pictures she’d seen in Cox’s office and home.
Dan stopped and looked around, then listened. There was no noise at all, no sign of anyone moving around.
“Sarah Cox! Military Police! Come out now!” shouted Dan as she moved closer to the yacht.
John was behind her now and she turned to look at him, weighing what to do. He nodded toward the yacht, asking whether she wanted him to go on board.
“Go,” said Dan, her voice quiet.
John moved close and jumped across from the berth to the yacht. His weight as he landed made the vessel roll and Dan listened again, wondering if that might have disturbed someone within.
She watched him track along one side, heading aft, and then saw him look down into the living areas below.
He looked up at her, seemed confused, and then stepped down and out of sight.
Dan never saw Cox step out from behind the superstructure of an empty yacht. She only caught a movement from the corner of her eye a second before she was struck hard across the back with something long and hard. The blow drove Dan to her knees and then forward onto all fours, knocking the air out of her, and she knew instantly, instinctively, that she couldn’t stay still. She allowed the momentum of her fall to carry her down onto her belly, where she quickly rolled to one side.
A loud thwack cracked only an inch from her ear as the long wooden boat hook smashed onto the decking where her head had been only a second before.
Dan looked up.
John Granger was there, back out of the yacht and approaching Cox, who turned, swinging the wooden pole hard at John. He tried to step aside and dodge it, raising his arm in a reflexive defense and taking the blow to his elbow with a loud, sickening crack. He yelled in pain, clutching his arm, and staggered back along the walkway.
Dan saw Sarah Cox cock the pole back, ready to swing at John again. She moved quickly, scrambling to her knees and grabbing Cox around the shins, pulling as hard as she could with both her arms to pull Cox’s legs together and then driving her shoulder into the back of Cox’s knees, trying to bring the woman down. Dan’s bastardized rugby tackle worked—Roger would’ve been proud—and Cox toppled forward, dropping the pole and falling in front of Dan.
Dan released Cox’s legs and tried to crawl up the woman’s body, trying to get close to an arm she could lock, or to her torso, so she could hold on and secure Cox until help came, but Cox was stronger, and much bigger, and she was desperate.
Cox lashed out, freeing her legs for an instant and driving her knee up underneath Dan’s chin as she fought to get away.
Dan tasted blood in her mouth. Her vision blurred as tears reflexively welled in her eyes and her head swam. She dropped her head down close to Cox, grabbing at her legs again and tightening her grip around them, just below the thighs. She was glad she did, as she almost instantly felt an elbow land hard against the top of her head.
“Get off!” screamed Cox.
Dan looked up to see John reaching down to grab Cox’s hair. He was using his left arm to force her head facefirst against the decking, his right arm cradled against him.
Dan took advantage of the distraction and crawled quickly up toward Cox’s head, reaching out and grabbing one of her arms.
But Cox wasn’t done. She arched up violently, twisting her whole body around to face John and throwing Dan’s arms loose. Cox grabbed John’s hand as he gripped her hair and twisted his wrist, then, as he dropped down to react, she released her grip and grabbed his right arm with both hands, the arm she’d broken with the wooden pole.
Dan knew it was broken, could see it even now, but she could do nothing to stop Cox from grabbing the injured arm and wrenching it toward her, just as Dan had done to David Simmons only a week or so before.
Cox swung off John’s arm, twisting and bending it as if she was wringing out a cloth.
The sound of bone and sinew tearing made Dan flinch, but it was soon lost to the animal-like howl that came from John as his legs gave way beneath him.
He swung a punch at Cox with his left hand, connected well, but it was only a mechanism to make her release her grip, and as she did, he collapsed backward onto the wooden walkway.
She knew she couldn’t overpower this woman in a wrestling match, and she knew that to win, she’d need to be willing to escalate the violence quickly. She saw Cox shake off John’s punch and turn toward her. Dan threw a solid punch of her own, aiming for the center of Cox’s face, trying to catch her nose, knowing a good strike there would fill Cox’s eyes with tears, send blood flooding back into her throat, and dizzy her senses.
The punch connected, but not well, glancing off Cox’s forehead as she flinched away.
Dan followed her punch in, using Cox’s own momentum as she flinched to push her back as Dan now drove her elbow toward the side of Cox’s head.
The elbow landed more cleanly, and Cox rolled onto her back.
Dan pressed her advantage, straddling Cox and throwing two more hard punches to her face.
Cox’s arms were up as she tried to defend herself, and Dan grabbed one of them, gripping the forearm and leaning in, trying to bend it so that she could twist it to apply a lock. She leaned forward harder, feeling the arm start to give beneath her.
Then, before she knew what had happened, Cox had twisted onto her side, driven her hips away from Dan, and used the space she’d created to raise her knees and push Dan away with both legs.
Dan rolled across the decking, sensing that she’d lose this battle if she didn’t get some space, but she was fighting a madwoman.
Cox was on her feet in an instant, twice stamping her foot hard onto the walkway, missing Dan’s arm and then her head by only a fraction of an inch.
Dan was still rolling as Cox lunged toward her, swinging a kick that caught Dan in the ribs and doubled her onto her back.
It was sheer luck that Dan’s head lolled back in pain as Cox’s foot swung again, brushing past Dan’s hair and narrowly missing her temple; this woman meant to kill Dan if she could.
Dan was aware of John now.
He was slumped back against one of the posts that supported a rope handrail. He was reaching out, though, with his left arm, grabbing at Cox, gripping the material of her trousers near the thigh and trying to pull her away from Dan.
Cox screamed, a mix of rage and frustration, and turned away from Dan. She clenched her fist like a hammer and swung it down hard, twice, onto John’s forearm, forcing him to release her.
He did, slumping onto his side as she pulled away from him.
Cox watched John fall and Dan saw her tee up John’s head like a footballer about to take a penalty kick, drawing back her foot.
Dan rolled onto her feet and dived forward, driving both of her hands into Cox’s lower back and forcing the woman to lose her balance and stumble forward onto her knees. Dan was lying on the decking now, John next to her, and as she saw Cox look back over her shoulder, Dan knew this was a fight she might not win.
Cox reached out for the long boat hook again, standing up with it and turning toward them.
Dan scrambled to her knees, grabbed John’s torso, and, mustering all her strength, rolled both of their bodies off the walkway and into the water.
The cold hit her hard, but she knew what she had to do. She held on to John, turning him onto his back and dragging him away from where Cox was now standing up, the weapon held tight in her hand as she stared at them in the water, out of her reach.
Dan watched as Cox weighed her options.
She must’ve known that time was limited, that she couldn’t escape by yacht, nor could she deal with Dan and John as she’d have liked. So she stood motionless on the walkway, her eyes boring into Dan’s as she continued to pull John and herself farther away.
Dan wondered what Cox would do now that this route of escape was blocked.
“You okay, John?” Dan whispered.
His breathing was heavy and he didn’t answer.
“She’s got to run now,” said Dan. “She knows she can’t escape on the yacht, not now.”
“Okay,” John said, his voice faint.
Dan was still kicking her legs but was now holding them in the same place in the water between two yachts.
Cox smiled at Dan and walked back to her yacht.
New sounds were making their way into Dan’s consciousness now. Other marina users had seen Dan in the water and were raising the alarm.
Dan watched as Cox disappeared onto her yacht for a few moments and then reemerged.
People were pointing at Dan and John; someone was running down the deck of the nearest vessel to get to them. They spoke to Cox, who pointed at them before walking away calmly, as though nothing had happened.
Dan tried to tell people to stop her, tried to tell the men who were pulling John out of the water that they needed to call security, when she saw the first puffs of smoke rising into the sky.
An older man grabbed her arm, another next to him reaching for her other arm.
Their hands were tanned, the skin rough, but Dan could only watch over her shoulder as she realized what Cox had done.
She pointed to the yacht, made the men look, and then she dragged John behind the cabin of the small leisure cruiser they’d been pulled aboard as a fireball ignited on Cox’s yacht. Dan heard the loud whoomp of petrol catching fire as the pressure rocked every ship in the marina.
The heat distorted the air above the yacht as the flames engulfed it, and people ran with extinguishers to try to fight the blaze.
Dan knew that the dark billowing smoke meant that a lot of petrol had been used in there, that there was no way they’d save the boat, nor whoever may have been on board it.