The Raft

  #

  Rachael awoke in a ten-by-ten gray-walled room. She'd been tossed onto a bare cot, left to bleed quietly on her own. The blood from her mouth had stained through the canvas of the cot, drying and turning brown. Her mouth tasted foul and her head throbbed. She pulled herself up and the room began to spin.

  “Maggie?” Rachael said hoarsely, trying to stand on unsteady legs. She flopped over to the door and tested the handle. It was locked, of course, Rachael had expected no different. But she rattled the iron handle regardless and gave the door a shove with her shoulder anyway. She had to at least check.

  She slid down against the door's cold steel and began to cry. She let a wave of despair wash over her. Gandalf was dead, and for all Rachael knew, Maggie was, too. She hadn't seen her body, but...

  She let her aching head fall into her hands and she sobbed. It was all her fault, there was no one else to blame. She'd been such a fool. She'd come out to the Raft with the express purpose of keeping Maggie safe, and she'd led her straight into danger. She'd taken Maggie's gun from her at the moment when she possibly needed it the most.

  And the Coast Guard, the FBI, had gunned her down.

  Why had Rachael agreed to come back? She'd been safe onshore, there'd been no reason to return. If she'd refused to help Maggie, perhaps she wouldn't have attempted this reckless plan.

  It was all Rachael's fault, she sobbed. She'd killed Maggie, she'd killed Gandalf. The Rafters would have invariably heard the shooting. It was only a matter of time now before they attempted to run the blockade. And it was all Rachael's fault. It would be like the Branch Davidians all over again.

  Rachael took in a deep breath of cold, stale air and tried to get a hold of herself. She was hysterical. It was doing her no good. What had happened had happened, she couldn't change that. She needed to focus, think like Maggie. What would Maggie do in a situation like this? She wouldn't be crying into her hands, Rachael reasoned, not now, not the Maggie who lived aboard the Raft. The old Maggie perhaps would have just quit, but not the new Maggie. No, she'd be planning, plotting some sort of escape. Rachael had to think like that Maggie – the new Maggie. If Maggie could change her stripes, then Rachael could attempt something similar. She just had to toughen up and stop sobbing like a baby. There was no one coming to help her, she had to help herself. That's what Maggie would do. Pull herself up by her bootstraps – or some other folksy piece of wisdom. Rachael pulled herself to her feet and looked over the large, watertight steel door.

  “Hello?” Rachael called out. She rapped hard three times on the door. Her fist falls echoed in the ship beyond. “Hello!” Rachael yelled. “I want to talk to Galahad! Special Agent Galahad! My name is Rachael Bigallo and I'm with the Seattle Times! Do you hear me? Private? Or Corporal? Or whatever you are! Whoever was left to watch the brig! You've locked away a member of the press! You might want to talk to your Captain! This is not going to look good in print in tomorrow's paper!”

  Rachael's voice reverberated off the walls of the small cell, but there was no answer.

  After standing and listening intently for even the slightest sound from outside her cell, Rachael dropped herself heavily back onto her bunk. The pain in her head was overwhelming and she lay back down in her own bloodstain, closing her eyes. If she slept it didn't feel like it, the sound of the water beyond the hull like static in her ears.

  Then, without warning, the ship became alive with noise. Heavy footfalls in the corridor beyond her cell. Low voices, murmuring. Rachael sat up in anticipation. The latches of the heavy hatch turned and the door swung open. Two men in heavy body armor with black rifles slung from their necks stepped into the room.

  “Where's Maggie?” Rachael asked, standing and unconsciously taking a defensive stance.

  The men gave no reply. One took her roughly by the shoulder and pulled her towards the door.

  Rachael pulled her arm angrily from his grasp. “Where's Maggie?” she repeated. “What have you done to her?”

  Both men took a firm hold of her arms and hurried her through the door. She struggled, but there'd be no breaking free from their iron grips. They led her back and forth, down gray corridor after gray corridor, up a flight of steep steps and through a room of heavily armed men milling and talking. At another hatch, identical to the one that had kept Rachael in her cell, the men paused. One opened the latch and swung open the door.

  They pushed Rachael roughly inside, sending her tripping over the threshold of the hatch. “Bastards!” Rachael cursed as she pulled herself to her feet. The door swung closed behind her, slamming with an earsplitting certainty. She flipped the closed door a self-satisfied finger.

  “Rachael?” a relieved voice said behind her.

  Rachael turned and almost leapt free of her own skin. “Maggie!” she screamed and jumped forward.

  She'd never been so happy to see another human being in her life.