Chapter 75 - Pulled from the Abyss
"I'm going down," I said, unbuckling my harness before Harris could grab my arm.
"Are you insane, Harrington?" Harris roared, lunging to grab my jacket. "You're a civilian! You'll get dragged under by the suction!"
"He’s my brother!" I screamed into the gale. "He’s an arrogant, pathetic coward, but he knows where Amanda went! Lower me or I jump!"
Harris stared at me for half a second, saw the utter lack of fear in my eyes, and cursed violently. "Hook him to the secondary tether! Move! Move!"
The freezing air hit my lungs like a wall of shattered ice the moment my boots cleared the Black Hawk’s skid. The winch unspooled at high speed, dropping me through eighty feet of blinding, salty spray directly toward the pitching, rolling deck of the dying yacht.
A massive swell slammed into the port quarter just as my boots hit the teak decking. The deck was slick as grease. I lost my footing, sliding across the wet wood toward the churning black water, but the steel hoist cable snapped taut, arresting my fall inches from the propeller churn.
I scrambled forward on hands and knees, fighting the unnatural tilt of the sinking vessel, and slammed my shoulder against the wheelhouse hatch.
It was jammed by the water pressure.
Through the salt-streaked glass, Jason saw me. His arrogant, sneering face—the face that had smirked across the Thanksgiving turkey while mocking my cheap suit and calling me a homeless vagrant—was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. He wasn't the Golden Boy anymore. He was a drowning rat.
His lips moved frantically behind the glass: *"Brian! Please! Brian!"*
I drew the heavy steel rescue axe from the harness scabbard at my side and swung with everything I had.
*CRACK!*
The reinforced marine safety glass fractured. I swung again, raining blow after blow until the tempered glass shattered inward. A wall of seawater erupted out of the cabin, hitting me in the chest with bone-chilling force.
I lunged through the broken frame, ignoring the glass ripping through my jacket sleeves, and grabbed Jason by the scruff of his soaked cashmere sweater.
The water was up to his chin. His lips were a ghastly, translucent blue.
"Hold still!" I yelled, reaching beneath the freezing surface with my tactical knife and slicing through the heavy zip-ties binding his ankles to the steel chair frame.
The yacht let out a sickening, metallic groan. The keel snapped beneath our feet with the sound of a thunderclap. The entire stern began its final, rapid descent toward the ocean floor.
"Hoist! Hoist! Hoist!" I screamed into the radio headset strapped to my jaw.
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The winch cable snapped taut with a violent jerk, hauling us upward through the shattered roof just as the Atlantic surged completely over the cabin. Jason clawed at my arms, his fingernails digging into my skin in blind, animalistic panic, his freezing breath hitching in his throat.
"I’ve got you, you arrogant idiot!" I roared, locking my arms around his chest as the winch dragged us through the howling spray, lifting us thirty, fifty, seventy feet above the swirling vortex where the multi-million-dollar yacht disappeared beneath the waves forever.
