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A flash, not of superheated gas driving a bullet down the barrel of the rifle and into Maddock’s face, but of a lightning bolt striking somewhere just past the lighthouse on the breakwater, lit up the world. TBH’s eyes shifted to the side, his attention diverted just for an instant.
Maddock was similarly distracted by the flash, but knew better than to let this momentary reprieve slip away. He put all thought of his foe’s seemingly miraculous recovery out of his head, along with the man’s cryptic pronouncement—ask my brother—and jerked his head to the side, just enough to removed himself from the direct line of fire. In the same motion, he reached up with his right hand to grasp the barrel, shoving it in the opposite direction.
The metal was suddenly hot in his grip and he felt the concussive force of an impact slam into his palm as the weapon discharged, sending a 5.56 round sizzling harmlessly past him, into the sea. Maddock felt like his hand had been slapped with Thor’s hammer, but he did not let go of the barrel. Instead, he twisted his body sideways, pulling the rifle toward him. TBH, with his hand still curled around the pistol grip did not let go either, and because he had nothing to brace himself against, toppled forward, over the transom and into the water.
Maddock, still hanging onto the rifle, let go of the boat and threw his left arm around the Prometheus leader in a hug that pinned the man’s arms to his side, even as both of them plunged beneath the surface. Maddock felt the other man’s struggles growing more frantic and squeezed even tighter.
Weighed down by his heavy tactical gear, spare magazines and the seven-pound rifle, TBH sank like a stone, taking Maddock with him. As they descended, Maddock began counting the seconds. He could gauge their depth by the growing pressure against his eardrums. At ten feet, it was merely uncomfortable. At twenty it was actually painful. He began working his jaw and blowing through his nose to pop his ears and equalize the pressure. That brought only a few seconds of comfort, a few more vertical feet of descent.
Ten Mississippi... Eleven Mississippi....
TBH was thrashing now, desperately trying to squirm free, but Maddock did not let go. Abruptly, the descent stopped. With all the squirming, Maddock had not even felt the soft touch of the seafloor beneath him.
Sometime after his fortieth Mississippi, TBH’s spasms became even more violent. He went as rigid as a flagpole, and then stopped moving completely. Maddock’s own lungs were starting to burn with the need to breathe, but he held on a little longer just to be sure. He was pretty sure the man was dead, but he had thought that after their encounter at the Outpost as well.
You’re dead... It didn’t take... Ask my brother.
My brother.
When he got to sixty, Maddock disentangled, shoved the unmoving form of his would-be killer away, and began swimming for the surface. He hoped Bones had been luckier than he, hoped also that Jade, Rose and Kismet had survived their encounter with the rest of the Prometheus strike team. The strange electrical discharge might have just been a lightning strike, but Maddock’s gut told him it was nothing so mundane.
The climb back to the surface took another thirty seconds, taxing the limits of even Maddock’s extraordinary lung capacity, and by the time he finally broke through, the only thing he cared about was breathing fresh air. He gasped in several breaths, coughing out the seawater that had insinuated itself into his mouth and nose, and began searching for the RIB.
A light flashed in his eyes. He blinked and looked away, just as something struck him in the head. The blow wasn’t hard enough to cause real pain; it felt almost like a jab from someone wearing boxing gloves. A moment later, he felt the object bump into him again, and realized what it was: A ring-shaped foam life preserver.
“You going to grab that?” Bones called out to him. “Just pretend it’s your junk, because I’m not coming in after you.”