75. Order
"The Boils!" Sally boomed.
Mercer's shadow stopped cold. It gave her the strength to push on.
"The Boils," she repeated. "The old outflow … for coolant water. That's why you needed Reactor Logistics. Why you sent Roarke Rook again and again. Not for a bomb. To plumb the process water to the … Boils!"
Mercer turned slowly. His face was a ghost-like blot in the maelstrom of waves and wind, gray as the grave.
"There's got to be ... a valve, right?" she kept on. "That's where you're going! You trigger that, it'll kill the marsh … as surely as you killed Tom Richter." Her throat was raw from shouting now, her head spun from the effort, but she kept coming.
Mercer raised both hands and began a slow clap. "Very good," came his gravelly voice. "But too late. Say farewell to the marsh, Officer Rogers."
He ran on.
Sally barely had the strength to stand. She had nothing left. There was no way to stop him now. Except…
She laughed. Loud, high and wild.
Mercer paused.
"You just confirmed it," she cried, then dropped her hand to her belt and pulled something up. Small, compact. She tapped the side and pressed it to her ear. It only needed to look like a phone for a few seconds.
"There's no signal out here," Mercer called.
Sally ignored him and shouted into the device. "It's under Reactor A! Pipes from the process water to the Boils outflow, some kind of valve. You need to secure it!"
Mercer's face transformed. "No! There's no signal!"
"Secure it now!"
Then he was coming back to her. Hands raking at the water, arms flailing like a banshee, flickering and shrieking. "You can't do that!"
The distance closed in seconds, ten yards, five.
"Check the signal for yourself." Sally held out her hand like she was showing him her phone's screen. Mercer surged across the gap, his eyes swirling, fingers slashing toward her and–
She squeezed the trigger of the PAVA spray.
Despite the rain and the wind, with Mercer's face barely inches away, the can spewed its synthetic pepper spray directly into his eyes.
He shrieked and pulled back, hands clawing at his face.
Sally wasted no time, drawing the cuffs from her belt and clasping the first firmly around his left wrist. "Jack Mercer, I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm–"
He spun. His left arm bent backward and something cracked, but his right fist caught Sally across the face. Her head slammed sideways, he threw his shoulder against her and she toppled into the surf.
The impact drove the air from her lungs. The second cuff yanked from her grasp. Her head was under, lungs already aching for air, then his weight came above her, the loose cuff cold against her ear. She felt his hands wrap in her hair and drive her face down into the shingle.
The waves rocked them both. Her legs kicked but found no purchase.
The sea filled her eyes and ears as he ground her deeper into the slack tide line.
For one impossible moment she was back in the Mud Beast pipe, blind terror coursing through her body as the first drops of water crept between her lips.
Again.
She bucked with everything she had, but Mercer was heavier. Salt water filled her mouth, foul and cold. She clawed at him and found only his jacket, the fabric slick. Her lungs spasmed. Her left shoulder would not respond. Blackness came in ragged at the edges, ripping consciousness away.
She tried to twist, to snatch for his throat, but caught only air and foam. Already she was dwindling, the walls closing in. She needed to breathe, needed it more than anything, an animal battling blindly for life.
Dr. Knight's words struck her.
But she wasn't only an animal. She wouldn't die like one. With an effort driven by anger, she stamped stillness upon herself. The panic ebbed, the heaving of her lungs stilled, and for moments she thought clearly.
Her position was impossible. Off-balance, drowning, Mercer's greater weight and strength holding her down.
Except…
She shoved off the shingle with both hands; not enough to drive her out of the water, but enough to earn a few inches. Her hand swiped through that open space, once, twice, three times.
Then she snagged the dangling cuff. She locked it in a two-hand grip and pulled down with everything she had.
No longer fighting for the surface or for air, no longer even fighting Jack Mercer; only fighting his one arm with the strongest muscles in her body.
Her arms, her core, her chest, her back.
His grip slipped. She felt her scalp tearing, but she did not stop. She was the barbarian now. She was Richter, Harrow, Cagen, Bledd, all raging against their end. Escaping the body pile. Crawling from the depths of Dark Peak. All her half-mad nights of endless exercise finally coming to a head.
Then Mercer's hand wrenched free. It slashed through the churning water before her, and she locked his wrist in both hands, wrapped his thumb and twisted hard. The pop of breaking bones carried through the water.
He screamed and all resistance disappeared.
Sally's feet found the shingle and she drove herself out of the water. She sucked air so cold it splintered her. Mercer fell under as she rose, his head beneath the surf, and she held him there.
The water would do the work.
The river, the sea, the marsh. Everything he'd worshipped. Everything he'd tried so hard to become, and everything he deserved. Clean. Simple. Poetic.
It would be fair. It would be just.
Then she remembered the wild look in Liam's eyes, the terror. Standing over Gerald Spate, on the edge of doing something he'd regret. Never again, she'd said. Surely that had to go for her, too?
It would be so easy to ignore, though. It would feel right. Like justice served, and nobody need ever know it wasn't just an accident.
But she would know. Was she really just an animal?
One moment longer passed, then she pulled Mercer from the waves. He tried to wrench his ruined hand away, but he was weak. She held both arms, twisted them behind his back and locked on the second cuff.
"You do not have to say anything," she continued, gasping. "But anything you do say may … be given in evidence," she finished. "Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"
"Put me back!" Mercer cried. "Let the river take me!"
"I'll take that as a yes. Now come on."
She dragged him to his feet and started back toward the shore.
Mercer threw his head back and howled. Long, unintelligible, raving. Maybe a curse. Maybe a poem. Maybe nothing at all.
Sally did not care.
Each step took them closer to land. Away from the sea. Out of chaos and toward order.
The storm kept driving overhead. It moved across the beach and the marsh alike in black sheets, beating the shingle flat.
It filled every lull in the tide, turning Dungeness to an endless river.
Somewhere out there Liam was alive. She hoped Mayhew was alive too.
Somewhere her people would be drawing near.
But for now Sally pressed through the wild landscape alone, driving the Cockle-Eye Killer before her.