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That’s the last thing I remember.
CHAPTER 75
THE FREEZING COLD brought me back. Or maybe the pain in my head. I woke up floating in black water with a sharp stabbing sensation over my left eye. When I touched my forehead, I felt a long gash. My fingers came away covered in watery blood. My legs were numb, but I could move them. They were all that was keeping me from going under. I had no memory of the crash, no idea how long I’d been out.
I twisted around, looking for Kira. Or wreckage. Or land. But there was nothing. The night was so dark that the sky blended with the water.
“Kira!”
I shouted her name, over and over. It felt like hours. Until my voice gave out and I couldn’t shout anymore. My body was getting stiff. My brain was starting to shut down. As I stared into the darkness, small waves started to look like fins. I just hung there, trying not to thrash around. I knew there was blood in the water. It was mine.
I squinted to sharpen my vision. My heart started to pound, and I got a jolt in my gut. There was a small lump floating in the distance, maybe fifty yards away. Was it human??Please, God!
“Kira!”I shouted again. By now, my voice was barely a squawk. I started swimming as hard as I could. The lump, whatever it was, kept disappearing behind the waves and popping up again.
When I was about twenty yards off, I took a deep breath and did a surface dive. I knew I could move faster underwater. Just as my breath ran out, I stretched my arms forward and grabbed. I was praying that it was Kira, and that she was alive. Instead, I felt a small bundle of leather and cloth.
My heart dropped. It was my backpack.
It was floating because of a small inflated sack in the lining. A Doc Savage invention, no doubt. I opened the flap and looked inside.
I saw some rope. A coil of thin wire. A pair of goggles. A bunch of loose buttons. A small water bottle. One energy bar in a foil wrapper. But no life vest. No signal flares. And no mini underwater breathing device. I should have known we’d used up the last two in existence.
I reached into the bottom of the bag and felt hard metal. The pistol.
I pulled the gun out and pointed it into the sky. Three shots meant SOS. Kira didn’t teach me that. I learned it in the Boy Scouts. I squeezed the trigger. There was nothing but a loud click. The shell casings were soaked and useless. At that point, the gun was just deadweight. And it felt like the worst kind of bad luck. I dropped it into the water and watched it sink.
I was shivering all over. My lips were trembling. I tried to blink the salt out of my eyes. Then I saw something new in the distance. At first, I thought it was just another line of whitecaps. But it wasn’t moving. It just sat there. I couldn’t tell how far away it was. I had no reference point. A mile maybe?
I wasn’t sure I could make it that far. Then I thought about the ice bath. The swimming pool. The plunge into Lake Michigan. In my head, I could hear Kira yelling at me, pushing me,shamingme. I felt fresh energy flowing into my limbs, and my mind started to clear. I realized that the old Doctor Brandt Savage would have been dead already—broken to pieces or drowned. But somehow, I was still here.
I wrapped the backpack strap around my shoulder and started kicking like a porpoise toward the white something in the distance. I thought it might be a mirage, just my mind giving me false hope. But I kept going. What else could I do?
It was the only hope I had.
CHAPTER 76
Eastern Russia
AT THAT HOUR, the school was mostly dark. But underground, the warm nursery ward still glowed. A long row of rocking chairs lined one whole wall. Seated in each rocker was a stone-faced woman with a baby at her breast. The wet nurses were stout, red-faced Slavs, but the babies were of every race and complexion. It was a multinational feeding station.
The woman at the end of the row sat alone, rocking more slowly than the others. The door from the corridor opened. The nurse looked up. A female attendant walked in, carrying an infant wrapped in two blankets.
“Two-day trip from Africa,” said the attendant. “She’s weak.”
The nurse reached up and took the small bundle into her arms. She peeled back the blanket to expose the baby’s face. Dark brown skin. Huge brown eyes. Tiny puckered mouth. The baby mewed softly, not enough strength to cry. The nurse looked up at the hovering attendant.
“Get out,” she said bluntly. “Let her feed.”
The attendant turned and walked back into the corridor. The nurse opened one side of her blouse to expose a large, elongated breast. She teased her nipple around the baby’s lips until the little girl latched on.
As the infant suckled, the wet nurse started to rock in sync with the rest of the row. When she looked up again, there was another figure in the doorway.
It was the headmaster.
Kamenev caught the nurse’s eye and nodded approvingly. Odd, thought the nurse. It was unusual for Kamenev to check on a new arrival. He obviously had high hopes for this one.
CHAPTER 77
