Chapter 8 - Trapped in the Inlet
Victoria’s heart slammed into her ribs as she realized the channel was completely sealed with less than two hundred yards of braking distance remaining.
"Out of my way, you stupid rent-a-cop! Move the boat!" she shrieked hysterically, though her voice was swallowed instantly by the thunder of the engines.
On the deck of the black interceptor, Marcus Cross stood behind the reinforced windshield, wearing dark aviators and a fitted tactical black polo.
Beside him, thirty-five-year-old secondary security officer Leo Diaz stood at the ready, his hands resting calmly on the marine bullhorn controls.
Marcus did not draw a weapon, nor did he make any sudden movements; he simply raised his right hand in an unmistakable, universal signal to cut power.
Victoria looked left toward the shallow reef where breaking waves exposed jagged teeth of limestone coral capable of ripping a hull to shreds in seconds.
She looked right toward the rock jetty where fifty-ton granite boulders formed a vertical wall of certain death at this velocity.
There was no clearance, no alternate route, and no way to outrun the triple supercharged engines waiting calmly in the center of the passage.
In a blind panic, Victoria pulled both throttles violently backward, dumping the engines into full reverse to avoid a catastrophic head-on impact.
The white speedboat's stern dug deep into the green water, throwing a colossal wall of spray forward that completely soaked Victoria from head to toe.
Her platinum hair was instantly plastered against her face, her mascara running in dark streaks down her pale, contorted cheeks like black grease.
The white boat shuddered, groaned under the violent deceleration, and slid to a complete halt barely thirty feet from the black interceptor’s armored side.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the gentle idling hum of the six outboard engines and the hiss of settling white foam.
Victoria stood trembling behind the wheel, her expensive crimson dress ruined and clinging heavily to her body, her gold jewelry suddenly feeling like lead chains.
Leo Diaz raised the loudhailer to his lips, his voice booming across the calm harbor with clinical, unyielding military precision.
"Vessel operator, cut your engines immediately, step away from the helm, and place both hands visibly on the windshield frame."
Victoria stared at the two men, her chest heaving as she looked past their black boat toward the infinite freedom of the open blue horizon beyond.
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It was only fifty yards away, that shimmering line where the ocean met the free world, but it might as well have been on the dark side of the moon.
Her trembling fingers reached down, switched off the twin ignitions, and slowly rose into the humid salt air as the engines died.
