Sam Fisher- Duroc's Destruction

  Gun raised, he stepped out.

  The last crewman was crouched beside the engine, hands fumbling inside an access hatch.

  "Stop!" Fisher commanded.

  Fisher fired twice. The man grunted and rolled onto his side. Fisher rushed forward. He kicked the man's gun away. It skittered across the deck. The man, barely conscious, let out a wet, bloody cough and grinned at him. "Too late," he croaked.

  Inside the engine's access hatch, a blue LED readout blinked from 10 to 9, then to 8.

  Fisher turned and ran.

  WITH a countdown running in his head he was up the ladder in two seconds. He turned, charged up the bridge ladder, turned again, and headed for the door.

  Five . . . four . . . three . . .

  He threw open the hatch, rushed through, sprinted toward the railing, vaulted over it. Behind him, somewhere deep within the Duroc, there came a muffled crump. Fisher absently thought, First charge; fuel tanks will follow. . . .

  It took him a split second to orient himself in the air. He looked down. The ocean surface rushed toward him. He curled into a ball, hoping to protect himself from the heat and shrapnel that was coming. Then he was underwater. All went silent.

  Resisting the urge to kick to the surface, he flipped over and kicked hard, arms spread in a wide breaststroke. He heard a whoomp and felt himself shoved from behind as the shock wave hit him. The air was compressed from his lungs. He started rolling.

  When he stopped, he righted himself in the water. Above his head, the surface glowed orange for a few seconds, then faded. Lungs burning, his every instinct screaming for air, he forced himself to stay submerged. The danger now was pools of burning oil and fuel. If he surfaced into one of them, his lungs would be seared.

  His heartbeat pounded behind his eyes and he felt a fuzziness creep into his brain as his body consumed the last molecules of oxygen left in his system.

  Wait, he commanded himself. Wait . . .

  He counted to five, then ten, and then seeing nothing above him, he kicked to the surface. He gulped air until his vision cleared, then looked to where the Duroc had been.

  There was nothing. Chunks of fiberglass and tiny pockets of burning fuel dotted the surface, but the yacht was gone, sinking toward the seafloor.

- Checkmate, Chapter 14