Free Ocean: The Sea Warriors by Brian Herbert, Jan Herbert Page B

the patients who were out now. Gwyneth counted six other patients, plus herself. It was a bit warmer today than it had been recently, and the fog had cleared enough that the sun was shining through. It felt good on her face and hands.
    She kicked a rubber ball around and chased it by herself, as she often did, but this time she remained as close as possible to the door that the delivery man used. At 10:20 she saw him enter, pushing a hand truck of boxes along an outside corridor. Glancing around as she leaned down to pick up the ball, she saw Beavan make eye contact with her and then fall suddenly to his knees, crying out in discomfort. Obviously he was feigning something in order to create a distraction for her. Somehow he knew she had a desperate need to escape this time. He’d told her he was observant, and maybe he’d heard something said about her, perhaps a couple of hospital officials discussing the Sea Warrior list and the letter she had received.
    Her pulse jumped when she saw both attendants hurrying over to help him. The delivery man was out of sight, having gone into the adjacent cafeteria. Gwyneth darted into the corridor, opened the blocked door and ran outside onto the sidewalk. She ran to the right for a short distance, turned down an alleyway, and then kept changing streets and alleys as she continued rushing downhill, in the direction of the seashore and the public dock.
    She kept expecting to hear someone behind her shouting a command to stop, but that didn’t happen. Wearing jeans and an Irish sweater, the petite young woman ran past startled villagers. She saw the dock now, and an old fisherman in a pea coat and cap standing at the end of it, looking out to sea.

    Dripping wet, wearing a black, one-piece swimsuit, Alicia climbed a wooden ladder up to the deck of the weathered structure. As she reached the top, she didn’t see anyone except the old man.
    “I’ve been watching you come in from way out there.” A smile creased his aged, ruddy face. “It almost looked like you were floating in from across the ocean.”
    “I like to swim,” she said, glancing at her watch. If the volunteer didn’t show up in eighteen minutes, she would have to move on.
    But at that moment she saw a small figure running toward her on the dock, looking back frantically, running as fast as she could. A policeman was running behind her, shouting for her to stop.
    The girl’s eyes were desperate when she reached the end of the dock. She had trouble catching her breath.
    “Are you Gwyneth McDevitt?” Alicia asked the tiny, elfin girl, who looked exactly as Kimo had described her from his dreams. Initially, they’d gotten her surname wrong.
    The girl nodded, looked nervously over her shoulder at the oncoming, shouting officer. She had bright blue eyes.
    Without another word, Alicia pushed her into the water and jumped in after her. The girl cried out, and coughed as she swallowed seawater. Then, holding the diminutive teenager around the waist, Alicia generated a wave, and stood up with her on top of it. They rode it out to sea, with the shouts of the cop fading behind them….
    ***

Chapter 10
    After picking up the McDevitt girl, Alicia and Kimo had made a stop-off on the Irish coast for a recruit, followed by a detour to northern Scotland for two more, and then the two last stops—in Florida, and in Panama on the way through the canal. During the trip back, Gwyneth McDevitt had spoken very little, but she had provided her own explanation (albeit ungrammatical), which she wrote on a piece of paper and handed to Alicia: “I am autism.”
    In response, Alicia had smiled and said it didn’t matter to her, but privately she found the girl peculiar, very much different from any of the other volunteers, and extremely unskilled at communication because of her ailment. She had an agitated, pained expression on her gamine face, which only added to her oddness.
    Thinking about this now as the jetfish pod sped across the