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Going to the edge, she looked down.
Fifty feet, maybe more, and the sea looked angry, the wind from the storm blowing in against the hull. The banging she heard.
So, not her heartbeat.
She could do this. For freedom she could do this.
Voices. She ducked back and spotted a couple guards with flashlights. But they didn’t venture this direction, the prisoners being held nearer the front of the ship.
But it did give her a view to stairs, behind the superstructure and right in front of the getaway lifeboat, stuck at an angle as if wanting to leap off.
Yeah, get in line.
She scrambled toward the stairs and took them down.
Another level, with an outside walkway.
Closer to the water some twenty feet. From here, a thirty-foot survivable jump.
Cold, but survivable.
“Perestan!” The voice rose, and she looked over to see a guard heading toward her.
She threw her leg over, grabbed the rail.
“Perestan!”
Nope. She put her other leg over. Stood, holding the rail with both hands.
She could do this. She could—
“Stop!” The guard was running full-out now.
Nope. Not going back.
She looked down at the darkness, the thrashing waves, took a breath, and pushed off.
An arm snaked around her waist, catching her, slamming her against his chest. Another clamped over her mouth. And a voice found her ear.
“Gotcha.”
Seven
Asubmarine could drive through the holes in Sasha’s crazy swiss-cheese escape plan.
Ned had sat at the table, eating meat dumplings slathered in mayonnaise, dressed in the fat wool robe, finally warm, listening to Sasha’s big idea…his gut tightening with every word.
Jump into the harbor in a cadaver bag? Fight her way out only to have him rescue her? With what? He didn’t have any swim gear here—no dry suit for the extra cold water, no air tanks—and in the murky dark water, how exactly was he supposed to find her?
And what if she couldn’t cut herself out? Those bags were sturdy, meant to transport the dead.
No, no, no.
Fraser had listened with a grim expression also, his fingers drumming on the table. If Ned looked as ridiculous as Fraser did, probably none of them should have any confidence in this mission. Fraser’s bare legs stuck out from the bathrobe, his feet in a pair of slippers, his dark-blond hair rucked up, and he sported a four-day beard, his eyes a little reddened.
And neither of them had quite finished shivering.
“Zhere is no other vay off zhe ship,” Sasha said, her English surprisingly good. “Zhey block off the stairway at night, and during the day, everyone is counted and recounted. zhey vould know in moments if she had escaped.”
