He swam along the bottom, pointing himself in the direction he’d last heard the Germans’ boat. Franks could hold his breath for a very long time. His record was fifty minutes, roughly double that of the human world record holder, but that was only by cheating, holding perfectly still, and selectively shutting down the function of some of his internal organs. Right now Franks was bleeding from multiple wounds and exerting himself, so he’d be lucky to go a quarter of that before having to come up for air.

Franks stopped momentarily, trying to get his bearings in the muddy darkness. He took the opportunity to draw a folding knife, slice through his laces, and kick off his boots. They made swimming too slow. He could not see that much color in the dark, but the water around him would be turning red. It would be ironic if a shark ate him . . . But sharks instinctively knew better than to mess with a superior predator.

There. He felt the boat long before he saw it. Franks swam in that direction. A black shape was bouncing across the surface to the east. As he got closer he could tell it was a rigid hull inflatable boat. The hull was a deep V in the water. It was coasting along now, engine idling, but it would be fast, and Franks liked fast. They would be looking toward shore, so Franks swam beneath it, coming up on the far side.

Breaking the surface, Franks listened, but realized that he still couldn’t hear very well. The explosion had rattled his head. He pulled himself up over the side. There were two Hunters on board. One of them felt the lurch as Franks’ weight rocked the boat, but Franks covered the distance and clubbed him over the head. The other was at a pintle-mounted machine gun at the bow. He turned just in time to catch a fist to the stomach. Franks hurled them both over the side.

Four hundred yards away a Blackhawk was hovering over the burning shipyard, playing its spotlight back and forth. The drone must have lost track of him at some point. STFU was joining the search. The chopper was still moving at least twenty miles an hour, but figures moved to the door and slid down the rope so quickly and with such effortless grace that they could only be Nemesis assets.

The smart thing to do would have been to fire this thing up and run for it. It would take them a minute to realize he’d stolen the boat, and by then he could be back on land and have already stolen a new vehicle and gone after Myers.

But those were Nemesis . . . And that just pissed him off.