The Horns of Avalon

19 Keo

Once in the boat and on their way, Keo paid attention to his surroundings for the first ten or so minutes, but after a while his mind started to wander. After all, there were only so many identical stretches of ocean you could stare at until it got old real fast, which in Keo’s case was around the twenty-or-so-minute mark.

Instead, he spent his time observing Erin, Troy, and the other four in the boat with him. The only time they stopped was to pour gas into the boat’s tank from the generous supply they had brought with them. Keo couldn’t begin to guess where they were headed, though he’d never thought of The Ranch as being out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Just the name alone had him envisioning fields of grass and grazing cattle and possibly a horse or two. But no, they were definitely heading farther and farther out to sea.

Maybe The Ranch was a submarine or a ship. Maybe even one of the many Navy destroyers or aircraft carriers that no one had seen since The Purge. What about an adrift oil tanker being commanded by a one-eyed maniac? The possible identity of The Ranch became more elaborate as the sights (What sights?) around him remained the same and boredom set in again.

Keo sat at the stern of the offshore vessel with his hands and legs duct taped, empty red gasoline cans tapping against his boots as the boat moved against the waves. They had restrained his legs only after he had climbed onboard, as if he could escape with his hands bound. He wasn’t even sure he could swim if he fell overboard. How long could he tread water before he succumbed to fatigue and drowned? He was a good swimmer, but he wasn’t that good.

The good news was that he had stopped bleeding and no longer needed a wad of paper stuffed up his nostrils. His exposed forehead and nose had gone mostly numb from the chill of the winds plastering him nonstop. He would have liked a painkiller or two to dull the remaining pain, but that wasn’t one of the options offered up by his captors. Which was to say, they didn’t offer up any options whatsoever.

Troy and Erin sat on both sides of him on raised chairs, while the unnamed two that had come with him from Texas sat on a bench at the front. No one had said a word since they cast off, and the only noise was the wind roaring in Keo’s face. Although they had been traveling for some time, it didn’t look as if they had made any progress. Of course, that could have just been because the damn scenery never seemed to change.

Eventually the never-ending blur of ocean and nothingness took their toll, and Keo stopped fighting the boredom and closed his eyes, only to wake up with a start when a hand pushed at his shoulder. He opened his eyes to the sight of Erin leaning in front of him with what almost looked like a smile.

“What?” he said, shouting over the wind to be heard.

“First and last warning,” she shouted back. “You nod off and fall overboard, and we’re not stopping to fish you out. Without your arms and legs, I’m guessing you’ll sink right to the bottom.”

“Unless the sharks mistake you for snacks first,” Troy said. “Might be the most merciful thing. I hear drowning sucks.”

“Sharks, huh?” Keo said.

“It’s an ocean, numbnuts. There are sharks and a lot of other things out here you don’t wanna come face-to-face with.”

Keo stared at Troy for a moment, wondering if the man actually believed that or if this was just a bad attempt at intimidation. He decided it might have been a little of the former and a lot of the latter.

Troy grinned, proving him correct. “Just fucking with you, Bruce.”

“Bruce?” Keo said.

“He thinks you’re Chinese,” Erin said. “Bruce Lee?”

“I’ve been mistaken for worse.”

“Like what?” Troy asked.

“A guy named Fred who I used to know back in the day.”

“What’s so bad about Fred?”

“That’s what Fred asked himself every day.”

Troy gave him a puzzled look.

Erin flashed Keo another almost smile. “Give him a minute. Troy can be slow on the uptake sometimes.”

“Fuck off,” Troy said, and turned back into the wind.

Keo took a second to scan his surroundings in case things had changed since he last had his eyes open. He shouldn’t have bothered. There was still just water — lots and lots of water — shimmering underneath the afternoon sun.

“Almost there,” Erin said, as if reading his mind.

“The Ranch?” Keo asked.

“Not yet.”

“So, what’s ‘there?’”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”

Keo looked ahead, and he didn’t see anything but an empty horizon and an endless field of blue water. “I don’t see anything…”

“It’s out there.”

“And what’s going to happen when we get there? Are you going to kill me, Erin?”

“That’s not my call.”

“Whose call is it?”

“You’ll find out.”

“When we get there.”

She nodded. “That’s right.”

Keo sat back and checked to make sure his jacket’s zipper was done all the way up to his neck. It might have been his imagination, but he swore it had gotten a lot colder since he was last awake.

“I don’t think Troy likes me,” he shouted to Erin.

This time she came so close to a smile that Keo decided to go ahead and call it one anyway, as she said, “Whatever gave you that idea?”

It was an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Keo had to admit, of all the possible locations for The Ranch he had considered, an oil rig had never occurred to him. Though, as he stared at the gray concrete foundations and yellow stripes crisscrossing the platforms, he thought it made perfect sense. It was isolated and surrounded by water, and even if it ever came under attack by collaborators, you wouldn’t need that many people to defend it. In fact, he counted at least a half dozen locations where snipers could hold off an assault force by inflicting enough damage to dissuade them. The crane sticking out of the side of the massive structure was one of those places.

Keo looked over at Erin. “The Ranch?”

“No. Just the ‘there’ before the real ‘there,’” Erin said. “It’s called the Ocean Star, and it’s just a waypoint station.” She kicked at one of the empty cans near his feet. “We need to refuel.”

“So not The Ranch.”

“I guess you’re not as dumb as you look,” Troy said.

“A lot of people would disagree.”

“I bet.”

“Give it a rest,” Erin said. “You two sound like an old married couple.”

“I call groom,” Keo said.

Erin ignored him and climbed off her raised chair and walked the short distance to the center, where the two men who had picked them up stood at the helm. The rushing wind prevented Keo from hearing what they were saying, not that he needed to know to get the gist of it. They were going to dock underneath the oil rig.

“City on the sea,” Erin said as she walked back to him. “That’s what they call these things. They’ll be here long after we’re gone. Of course, by then the birds will have taken over. At least that way they won’t be a total blight on nature.”

Keo glanced up at a flock of birds flashing by overhead, making a straight line for the metal structure in the near distance.

“How many of these do you guys have out here?” he asked Erin.

“Need-to-know,” Erin said.

“That’s why I asked. I need to know.”

She smirked and grabbed her things off the floor and slung her pack while Troy did the same on Keo’s other side. Neither one looked nearly as impressed as he had been with the rig’s continually growing size, which told him they had been here before. Likewise for the four in front of him as they guided the boat under the Ocean Star and prepared to dock.

“Am I going up there, too?” Keo asked.

“Unless you’d rather wait for us down here,” Erin said.

“The weather’s nice, and maybe I can borrow a fishing pole, get us some chow while you guys go do your thing up there.”

“Kind of you, but I’m going to have to insist you come up with us. Don’t worry; they have a brig where we’ll stow you while we go about our business.”

“Okay, but when we run out of food, remember I offered.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Erin said.

They had to free his legs so he could move on his own power up the stairs, his footsteps, along with Erin in front of him and Troy behind him, clanging with every step. A variety of birds perched along the railings of the structure watched them pass by, seemingly oblivious to human presence. For every one that was awake, he saw two or three that were asleep.

“Who’s up for bird soup tonight?” Keo asked.

“Do you ever shut up?” Erin, walking a few steps in front of him, asked.

“Can’t help it. I tend to talk a lot when I’m being led to an interrogation and possibly death.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“No?”

“You could always join us.”

“I would if you told me who or what you people are.”

“Because you don’t already know,” she said, and though he couldn’t see her face, he imagined her smirking when she said it.

“I get the feeling you don’t believe me, Erin.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Man’s intuition.”

“I’ve never heard of that one before.”

“It’s like woman’s intuition, except manlier.”

“Ah,” she said, and turned a corner and kept ascending.

“What are the chances I’m going to survive The Ranch?” Keo asked, following her around the bend in the stairs.

He was surprised Troy hadn’t intruded on his back-and-forth with Erin yet. As far as he could tell, the man was still back there, close enough that Keo considered spinning around and going for his gun. Worst-case scenario, they’d both go over the railing and into the water, which would undoubtedly spell death for him with his hands still tied. Then again, what did he have to lose?

“That depends on what you say,” Erin was saying in front of him.

“I don’t know anything,” Keo said.

“I didn’t say you did. I said it’s going to depend on what you say when you’re presented with the questions.”

“Well, at least the truth is on my side.”

“Right,” Erin said. “You just keep clinging to that, Keo.”

A man appeared above them — forties, broad-shouldered, with grays in his hair. He wore the same black uniform and tactical vest as the two that had helped them dock below the rig. Keo looked for a name tag but didn’t see one on the newcomer, either.

“Welcome back,” the man said, extending a hand to Erin.

She shook it. “Thanks, Hart. Where’s Riley?”

“He came down with a cold,” the man named Hart said. “Stuck in bed, so I’m running the show until he gets back up on his feet.”

“He okay?”

“It’s a cold. He’ll get over it.”

“You guys have a doctor onboard, right?”

“George. He’s a vet.”

“Same difference,” Troy said, piping up for the first time.

Hart gave a slightly weird smile. “Yeah. George’s come in real handy lately.”

The older man stepped aside to let them up onto the highest deck of the oil rig. The wind picked up noticeably, and the first thing Keo observed as soon as he climbed up was just how bright it was up here, with nothing but open skies above him.

He expected to see people around, but there were only a couple of men with slung rifles standing guard along the edge of the platform to his left. One of them was leaning against a chipped railing and the other one was absently chewing something. They wore the same attire as Hart, which weren’t uniforms exactly, but close enough. Both guards looked oblivious to their arrival.

Machinery outnumbered people on the top deck, with the derrick sticking out from the center in front of them and the even taller crane lording over everything. Keo stared at the towering structure for a moment, trying to spy the lookouts he knew had to be up there. After all, you didn’t take over a place like this and not make use of its best assets.

“You returning to The Ranch?” Hart was asking Erin as he led them across the platform.

“For now,” Erin said. “All the teams will be returning one by one, so you’re going to be pretty busy for a while. Richards and José are downstairs refueling; when they’re done, they’ll be heading back to shore to pick up more people. That means I’m going to need one of your boats to continue on.”

“Sure, no problem. How are you for supplies?”

“We’ll fill up what we need, but it shouldn’t be too much. What about you?”

“The pantry’s fully stocked, so no worries. How’s the war going out there?”

“It’s…going.”

“Is that good or bad?” Hart asked.

“I guess it depends on your perspective,” Erin said.

Hart glanced back at her, apparently not quite sure how to take her response. Keo shared his confusion.

“I guess it depends on your perspective”? Keo thought.

“Casualties?” Hart asked.

“Maybe more than we’d like,” Erin said, and looked over her shoulder at Keo. “You wanna add something?”

“I’m just a tourist,” Keo said. “I don’t know anything.”

“Who is he, anyway?” Hart asked. “Why is he tied up?”

Erin turned back to Hart. “The better question is, where is everyone?”

“Huh?” Hart said.

“The last time I was here, there were kids running around. Where are all the civilian workers, Hart? Don’t tell me they all caught a cold, too.”

She stopped suddenly, and Keo had to do the same or he would have bumped into her. Erin’s right hand drifted uncomfortably close to her holstered sidearm while behind Keo, he heard Troy shuffling his feet and the sound of a safety being clicked off.

Uh oh.

Hart, realizing that the party had stopped, did too, and turned around.

“Well?” Erin said. “Where are all the civilians, Hart?”

The older man looked past Erin and at Keo. No, not at him, but at Troy standing over Keo’s left shoulder. Unlike Erin, whose rifle was slung over her back, Keo knew for a fact that Troy had his cradled in front of him the entire time they’d walked up the stairs.

“They’re inside,” Hart said, shifting his eyes back to Erin. “There’s no work to be done out here right now.”

“You sound a little nervous, Hart,” Erin said. “Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not.”

“Bullshit,” Troy said behind Keo. “You’re definitely nervous.”

Hart shook his head and attempted a smile, but it came out so badly that Keo thought, And things were going so well, too.

“You’re being paranoid,” Hart said. “Relax. There’s nothing going on. Just calm down.”

Hart was still talking when Keo glimpsed black-clad figures moving in the corner of his left eye. It was the same two guards that had greeted them when they first stepped onto the platform. Keo hadn’t noticed before, but the men had been shadowing them this entire time while keeping their distance. They were now moving toward them, and one of them had begun to unsling his rifle.

Oh man, here we go!

Before Keo could do or say anything, things went from bad to absolutely fucked when two shots exploded behind him (Goddammit, Troy, you fucker) and the guard reaching for his rifle stumbled and fell as his partner scrambled to get his own rifle free. The guy was simultaneously too slow and in too much of a hurry, and it was like watching a bad comedy routine as he fumbled with the deadly weapon.

Keo waited for Troy to finish the poor sap off when something slammed into him from the front and knocked him backward. He grunted when his back crashed into the hard steel floor and pain stabbed through him, but it was nothing compared to the heavy weight of another person landing, then moving frantically on top of him.

Who the hell? he thought when a third shot rang out and a body collapsed in a pile next to him.

It was Troy, his rifle somehow still clutched in his hands. Blood gushed out of a hole in his chest where the bullet had exited after it had punched through the back of his throat. The chances were pretty good poor Troy was dead before he even hit the deck.

Keo didn’t have a lot of time to think about Troy’s last seconds of life because the weight on top of him suddenly lifted and he could breathe (and move) again. It was Erin (?), and she had rolled off him and scrambled to her knees as two more men in tactical vests appeared out from behind the machines and surrounded her, their rifles pointing at her head.

“Don’t shoot!” someone shouted.

It was Hart, who for some reason was on the floor too, and was slowly picking himself up. What was Hart doing off his feet in the first place?

It took about two seconds for Keo to gather the evidence and play the scenario out in his head: The body that had knocked him down was Erin’s, and someone had to have done the same to her. That someone was Hart, who had barreled into Erin and drove her into him.

“Don’t fucking shoot!” Hart shouted. He lifted one open palm toward the sky — no, not the sky, but at the towering crane.

I knew there was a sniper up there.

But sniper or not, it didn’t stop Erin from wrapping her fingers around her holstered sidearm. Keo thought about rolling away and getting out of the line of fire, but that might just end up drawing attention to himself. And right now, he didn’t want to make any sudden moves, especially since the two newcomers and the third remaining guard had their rifles pointed at Erin, and all three looked a little nervous.

Oh, who was he kidding? They looked a lot nervous.

Keo sat very still on one knee and barely breathed. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life — unarmed and with his hands bound in front of him, and Troy’s blood, bright under the sun, oozing along the ridges in the floor around him.

What to do, what to do?

“Erin, don’t,” Hart was saying. He was clearly trying his very best to stay calm but was only partially (if Keo was being generous) successful. “Take your hand away from your gun, Erin. Don’t draw that sidearm!”

It was bad enough Keo was helpless and trapped in the midst of a situation that was borderline FUBAR. He also didn’t have a clue what was happening, and that might have been the more aggravating part.

Wasn’t the Ocean Star a part of Mercer’s group? Didn’t Erin say they were coming here to refuel and resupply before continuing on to The Ranch, wherever the hell that place turned out to be? Both she and Troy hadn’t looked nervous at all as they approached the rig, clear signs that they didn’t see this coming, either.

Man, I’m so confused right now.

“Erin!” Hart said — he was almost shouting now for some reason. “Don’t do it! Riley wouldn’t want you to do this!”

“Riley?” Erin said, and though Keo couldn’t see her face because he was behind her, he could hear the confusion in her voice. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Hart said. “But he’s been shot.”

“Shot? By who?”

“It’s a long story,” Hart began to say, when Keo thought, Fuck me, because he could see Erin’s fingers tightening around the gun and saw the slight hitch in her elbow as she began to draw the weapon.

He slammed into her from behind, catching her almost in the small of her back with his shoulder, and knocked her off her knees and threw her back onto the deck. Her hands had abandoned the gun in order to stop her fall and Keo spilled on top of her, hearing her scream as his weight drove her chest-first into the steel floor.

He felt like laughing — wasn’t this what had just happened to him?

One good turn deserves another, pal!

He rolled off Erin’s back and scrambled to his knees but didn’t get any farther because the muzzle of a rifle was pointing right in his face from just a foot away. Worse than that, the eye looking at him from behind the iron sight of the weapon was blinking so rapidly Keo was afraid it might explode at any second.

Keo stared back at the man and said, stretching the words out as far as they would go, “Don’t…pull…that…trigger.”

The man kept blinking and a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead despite the cold wind. But he didn’t shoot.

“Jesus Christ,” Hart said from behind him. When Keo looked over his shoulder at the older man, he said, “You almost got yourself killed, you dumb bastard.”

“Yeah, well, it was either that or let her draw,” Keo said.

Hart turned to Erin as two of his men pulled her up from the deck. Her face was flushed red and she blew hair out of her face while they twisted her arms behind her back and zip-tied them.

She looked away from Hart and at Keo and actually snarled at him. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Hey, I saved your life,” Keo said.

“What?”

“I saved your life.”

“You were saving your own hide!”

“You say tomato, I say potato. Same difference.”

“I should have let Troy throw you overboard like he wanted to.”

Keo glanced back at Troy’s lifeless corpse.

Jesus, what a shot.

He turned back to Erin. “Troy and I were best friends; he’d never do that. But let’s not get bogged down with the past, huh? We’re both alive, and that’s all that counts.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Hart said, staring at Keo.

“Keo.”

“Kay?”

“Keo.”

“What, like the car?”

Keo grinned. “I’ve been called worse.”

20 Lara

“Small world,” Keo said when he saw her walking through the door.

“Getting smaller all the time,” she said. “What happened to your face?”

“Ran into a tree.”

“Why didn’t you go around it?”

“It was a very big tree.”

“I’d ask if you’ve ever been in a jail cell before, but I think I already know the answer.”

He grinned at her from the back of the Ocean Star’s brig. Except for the still-fresh bruising around his nose and forehead, he didn’t look any worse than the last time she had seen him on the beach outside of Sunport. She was surprised, though, that the woman sitting on the bench next to him wasn’t Jordan. There were four other men inside the cell with Keo and the woman, but none of them looked familiar, either.

She looked back at Keo. “Wanna tell me what you’re doing here? Besides causing trouble, I mean?”

Keo got up and walked the short distance over, then leaned against the metal bars in front of her. “You know me. Always popping up where you least expect me.”

“Where’s—”

He shook his head before she could say Jordan’s name.

“Bad?” she finished instead.

The grim look on his face was the only answer she needed. Before she could ask any other stupid questions, he said, “I know what I’m doing here — well, sort of — but what are you doing here? I was told this was enemy territory, but here you are, not even in shackles.”

“Long story,” she said.

“Ah, one of those.”

“When is it never one of those?” She glanced back at one of Riley’s men standing guard at the door behind her. “He’s a friend.”

The man took out a key and walked over. “Back,” he said to Mercer’s men. When they had all retreated to the back, the guard opened the cell door with one hand, the other resting on his holstered sidearm.

Keo stepped outside and the man quickly slammed the door shut, locking it again.

“Free at last, free at last,” Keo said. He looked back into the cell at the woman. “Sorry about Troy.”

The woman glared at him but didn’t reply. Not that she had to. Those eyes pretty much said everything she was thinking.

“Her name’s Erin, and she’s one of Mercer’s top guys,” Hart had said while briefing her on what had happened on the platform earlier. “She and Riley were there in the beginning with Mercer. Only Rhett and Benford have been with him longer.”

“Is that why you were trying so hard to keep Peters from shooting her?” Lara had asked.

“Riley and I know her from way back. There was a time when he actually considered bringing her with us, but she’d gone to Texas before he could make the offer.”

Lara looked in at Erin now. Except for the glare she had shot in Keo’s direction, Lara couldn’t really read anything else of note on Erin’s face. She didn’t look angry, exactly, but she wasn’t fine with her current circumstance, either.

“Riley knows her longer than anyone,” Hart had said. “He really thought she might have come with us if he’d gotten the chance to sell her on the idea.”

Riley thought he knew Andy, too, and how did that turn out?

The woman must have sensed her staring, because she looked away from Keo and over at her.

They exchanged a long, silent look before Lara turned back to Keo. “Come on; let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Are you saying I stink?” Keo asked.

“Are you saying you don’t?”

He sniffed himself, then shrugged. “Fair enough.”

She led him to the door, then out into the corridor. Lights perched along the edges of the oil rig had turned on automatically at dusk and were now visible through the small windows along the walls.

“How’s everyone on the tugboat doing?” Keo asked. He was rubbing his wrists as he walked beside her.

“Complicated,” she said. “But we’re dealing with it. Wanna tell me what you were doing with Erin and the others?”

“As soon as you tell me how you got so chummy with these guys. As far as I know, they’re both Mercer’s crew. Only…not, apparently.”

She told him about Riley, about his attempt to hijack the Trident last night, then his plans to detach himself from Mercer’s war and, finally, their agreement.

“He dead?” Keo asked when she was done.

“He’s in sickbay with Zoe now. Hart’s also there. He wants to talk to you.”

“You trust him?”

“He’s in over his head, but he’s willing to listen. What happened earlier with Erin was my idea; he was just going along with it.”

“No. I meant Riley. You trust him?”

“He hasn’t lied to me yet.”

“As far as you know.”

She nodded. “As far as I know. But he hasn’t done anything to make me believe he can’t be trusted. In fact, he’s probably a little too trusting for my liking.”

“The getting shot by his own people thing.”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s gotta sting.” Then, “Where is the Trident, anyway? I didn’t see it when we were pulling in.”

“It’s docked on the other side of the Ocean Star and out of view.”

“Smart.”

“We have our moments.”

They walked in silence for a moment, before Keo said, “Should I even ask if the Ranger made it back yet?”

She shook her head and sighed. “It’s complicated…”

“You wanna do what?” Hart asked.

“Kill Mercer,” Keo said.

“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Hart said. Lara couldn’t tell if he was against the idea or just confused by it.

“It’s personal,” Keo said.

Lara stood between the two men near the door, listening to them going back and forth inside the oil rig’s sickbay while watching Zoe check on Riley’s vitals across the room. Both Hart and Keo were talking in low voices — or, at least, they had started that way. If Zoe was bothered by the conversation as it grew in volume, she didn’t stop adjusting the IV drip connected to Riley’s arm to let it be known. Riley was heavily sedated and hadn’t woken since they brought him inside the room hours ago.

“Was that what you were doing out there when you got caught?” Hart asked. “Sneaking around, trying to find Mercer?”

“Something like that,” Keo said. “I didn’t know where he was or even what he looked like, so I had to take more chances than I would have liked.”

“How was getting captured going to help you?”

Keo shrugged. “It wasn’t my first choice, but it worked out. Erin was taking me to him for interrogation.”

“Where?”

“The Ranch.”

“You know about that?”

“It’s been a topic of multiple conversations I’ve had with your fellow Mercerians.”

“‘Mercerians,’” Hart grunted. Lara couldn’t tell if he liked the word or found it insulting. Maybe a little of both. “Why didn’t they just shoot you on the spot?”

“Only Erin can answer that,” Keo said. “She’s the only reason I’m still alive now.”

“Hunh,” Hart said.

“That mean something to you?”

Hart glanced over at her, and Lara could tell he was replaying their last conversation about Erin and Riley. “Maybe,” Hart said.

“Tell Keo what you told me,” Lara said.

Hart nodded and repeated what he had told her about Riley and Erin, how Riley had almost recruited her, but she left for Texas first. Keo listened silently, processing the new information without interrupting.

“The Ranch is an island called Black Tide,” Lara said when Hart was finished. “That’s where they were taking you.”

“So that’s where Mercer will be,” Keo said. “Which leaves the obvious question: How do I get there?”

“Reaching Black Tide isn’t the problem,” Hart said. “I can give you the coordinates, and you could get there by boat with enough fuel reserves.”

“What’s the security like?”

“That’s the good news…”

“Good, I like good news.”

“Right now, Black Tide is at its most vulnerable. You won’t find a better time to assault the place. With the war in full swing, there won’t be enough men left to watch every inch of the place, so you could easily sneak onto it at night.”

“So I could just swim ashore with no one the wiser?”

Hart shrugged. “Theoretically.”

“I’m a very good swimmer.”

“It’s true,” Lara said. “Keo is half dolphin.”

“So about that boat and a map…” Keo said.

“You have your pick of boats; we won’t be needing them anyway, thanks to the Trident,” Hart said. “You can fill it with as much gas and reserves as you need to reach the island. Getting back, well, that’s your problem, because we’re not going to be here when you come back. That’s assuming you make it out of there alive.”

“You let me worry about that.”

“Can I ask why?” Hart said, looking curiously at Keo.

“Why what?”

“Mercer. Why, and what do you hope to achieve by killing him?”

“Some assholes just need killing,” Keo said. “Your Mister Mercer is one such asshole.”

“Jordan,” Lara said.

Keo nodded and leaned against the railing at the top of the stairs, with the submarine door into the oil rig closed behind them.

“He killed her?” Lara asked.

“Not with his own hands, but he may as well have.”

“This war of his…”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Keo. I know you two were close.” She paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “I really liked her, even though we only met for a short time.”

“She was easy to like.”

“When did it happen?”

“After Sunport. We were on our way to T18.”

“And Gillian?”

“I don’t know. We — I never made it to her.”

Keo went quiet and they spent the next few minutes staring silently at the sunless horizon, at the black-and-blue of the ocean sloshing under the full moon. Even the wind seemed to have settled down, and she didn’t have to zip her jacket all the way up unlike the last time she was out here. She focused on the Trident, anchored nearby with just enough of its lights turned on to give its position away.

“What are you going to do after you kill Mercer?” she finally asked.

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

I was afraid of that.

“We could use another able body on the Trident,” she said.

“You got Hart and the other guy.”

“Riley hasn’t told me where I’m supposed to take them. If we don’t like it there, it wouldn’t make sense to stay. This alliance of ours might be very short-lived.”

“Does Hart know the location?”

“I think so, but he won’t tell me without Riley’s permission.”

“Loyal to the end, huh?”

“Loyalty’s a hard thing to find these days.”

“And there’s the kind that convinces you dropping bombs on pregnant women is perfectly A-OK.”

“I didn’t say it was always a good thing.”

She glanced over at him. There was a single light bulb over the door behind her, and it cast a halo around them. She wished she were looking at the face of someone who expected to come back from his “mission” alive, but she knew better.

“I could really use you back on the Trident with me, Keo,” she said.

“My greatness precedes me,” he smiled, though it wasn’t nearly as convincing as his usual smiles.

“It’s well deserved.”

“I knew you secretly liked me.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

He chuckled. “Just sayin’.”

“Come with us.”

“You mean after I finish with Mercer.”

She shook her head and turned around to look at him. “No. I don’t mean that at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget Mercer. Come back to the Trident with me instead.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

“At least tell me you’re hoping to also stop this war by killing him.”

“I could, but it’d be a lie.” He looked off at the darkness around the oil rig and gritted his teeth. “There’s nothing noble about this, Lara. There isn’t a grand plan. There’s just me and him.”

“You just want to kill him, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s it.”

“Jesus, Keo.”

“Yeah…”

She turned away and leaned back against the railing. “Danny’s probably dead,” she said quietly.

“What?” Keo said, looking over at her for the first time since they stepped outside. “I thought you said he was just having a problem getting back. That’s a hell of a long way from ‘probably dead,’ Lara.”

“Carly hasn’t stopped crying since he radioed in hours ago. She doesn’t think he’s going to make it.”

“Jesus. What did he say?”

“It wasn’t what he said; it’s what he didn’t say.”

“What about the girl and her boyfriend?”

“They’re with Danny. If he doesn’t make it, I don’t think they have much of a chance on their own.”

Keo let out a loud, frustrated sigh and laid his forehead against the chipped railing for a moment before lifting it back up, and Lara thought, Goddammit, girl, you are one manipulative bitch, aren’t you?

“You’re putting me in a tough spot,” he said.

“I’m asking you to live.”

“What makes you think I don’t want to live?”

“Cut the crap, Keo. Don’t insult me by lying.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Say yes to coming back with me and forgetting about Mercer.”

“I can’t do that. Jordan’s dead because of him.”

“I’m sorry about Jordan, but there are other people still alive who care for you. Like Carrie. She’s been waiting for you.”

“You told her I was here?”

“Not yet.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

“Why don’t you want her to know?”

“I won’t be staying long anyway. Plus, I’ve never been very good at good-byes.”

“What about Bonnie?”

“What about her?”

“She likes you, too.”

“I don’t blame her. I’m fucking handsome, and there’s not exactly a lot to choose from these days.”

Lara couldn’t help herself and laughed softly.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, feigning hurt.

“Nothing,” she said, and shook her head.

“Besides, you’re a tough kid.”

“I’m twenty-six going on forty-six.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You don’t look a day over thirty-six.”

“I feel it. Every imaginary day of it.”

She sucked in a deep, cool breath and looked over at the Trident nearby. It wasn’t late enough that everyone would be asleep already, so most of the crew were probably gathered in the galley over a late-night dinner and maybe a board game. In her wildest dreams (nightmares?) she would never imagine so many people putting their lives in her hands. And why should they? She was a twenty-something civilian with no military training. What the hell did she know about leading people?

Nothing. Not a damn thing. That was always your job, Will.

“If Danny’s gone, we’re going to need you even more,” she finally said. “I can’t keep doing this by myself. It’s too much.”

“You seemed to be doing all right to me. Look, you’ve even adopted an oil rig.”

“Just the people on it…”

“You stuck your neck out for strangers.”

“They had something I needed…”

“Now who’s bullshitting who?”

The girl’s voice on the radio flashed across her mind again, begging for her help…

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I’m just trying to make up for some bad decisions. So what’s your excuse?”

“I’m just tired.”

“Tired of what?”

“Tired of fucking everything up that I touch. I’m tired of trying, Lara.”

“We’re all tired,” she said. “I’m tired. Carly’s tired. Danny, Gaby, Riley, Hart… We’re all tired, Keo. But we push on, because we don’t give up. You know who gives up?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Assholes,” she said.

He smiled. “Assholes, huh?”

“Don’t be an asshole, Keo. If you won’t stay with us, if you won’t come back to the Trident with me, at least promise me you’re not going out there just to get yourself killed. Tell me you’ll at least try to make it back, and mean it.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You can. You just have to make the choice.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay, what?”

“I’ll do my best. How’s that?”

She nodded. “Good enough.”

“Tough oil rig,” he said.

She reached over and put her hand over his. He pursed his lips and stared off at the darkness and didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry about Jordan,” she said after a while.

“Yeah, me too,” he said softly.

21 Keo

A young blond twenty-something named James led Keo to the Ocean Star’s armory, which took them through the civilian area. Kids peeked out of open doors as they walked through the hallway, and Keo saw people packing up their belongings inside rooms.

“Looks like everyone’s ready to go,” Keo said.

“Never thought it’d happen,” James said. “When Riley asked us to join him, I was pretty sure we’d all end up dying out here.”

“That’s the spirit, kid.”

James grinned nervously at him. “You have no idea how crazy all of this is.”

“Oh, I think I know a little bit.”

“Maybe, but you weren’t there in the early days, back when it was just us and Mercer. He saved our lives. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here. And now we’re betraying him…” He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

I don’t need to understand, kid. I just need a clean shot.

“So make me understand,” Keo said. “Why is everyone leaving if all of you owe Mercer so much?”

“Because of Texas. What’s happening over there.” James actually winced. “I want to have kids one day. Even after everything that’s happened, I want to be a dad and raise a family, and I can’t do that if I’m a part of what’s going on out there.”

Kinda late to be jumping ship, isn’t it, pal? he thought, but of course didn’t say it out loud. Whatever he thought of James or Hart or the rest of Riley’s people, Keo had to admit, it took some guts to go against Mercer.

“Looks like you guys are going to make it out of here just fine,” Keo said.

“I hope so,” James said, “because sooner or later someone’s going to figure out what’s really happening. No one wants what happened this afternoon to happen again.” James gave him a forced grin. “It’s kind of being a chicken shit, I know, just running away…”

“Hey, nothing wrong with running. Done plenty of it myself.”

“The thing is, it’s better than shooting it out with people we’ve been spending the last year of our lives with. A lot of them are still our friends. I get why they’re out there following Mercer. Most of them lost everything, and this is all they have.”

“What about you? What did you lose?” Keo asked as they turned a corner.

Apparently they had also left the civilian population behind, because the hallway was almost empty and the only sounds were their footsteps.

“Friends and family, like everyone else,” James said. “But I was one of the lucky few; I found someone in all this mess. She’s the one who introduced me to Riley, got us here. Faith.”

“Not a lot of that going around these days.”

“No, I mean, her name’s Faith.”

“Ah.” Then, “What changed her mind?”

“I guess it was me. I was one of the people Mercer sent out there to scout the state. That’s how we mapped out the towns for attacks. We knew where they were, got a good idea of their sizes, and even the best attacking options. Me and a lot of other people spent a lot of time out there hiding and reconning.”

“You saw the pregnant women.”

James nodded. “They were one of the first things we noticed. We snapped a lot of pictures, and they were in a lot of them. And that was it.”

“What was it?”

“Faith saw them. The pictures. Everyone did. But it didn’t really register until we got closer to R-Day. When the teams started leaving Black Tide Island one by one, it got real real fast. We couldn’t avoid it anymore.”

“So you joined Riley’s crew.”

“Basically.”

They turned another corner and walked in silence for a while. Keo was thinking the hallway was never going to end until it finally did.

“Here we are,” James said.

“Here?”

“What, you expected Fort Knox?”

“I guess not,” he said.

Keo exchanged a brief nod with the two guys in tactical vests cradling rifles and standing guard in front of a door. There was nothing to indicate there was an armory behind them. The guards stepped aside, and James stuck a key into a padlock and pulled the door open. Keo followed the young man inside.

The armory was a converted storage closet and wasn’t mind-blowingly impressive, but it had a decent selection and there was a lot of everything, more than enough to arm everyone on the rig (including the kids) five to six times over. He wasn’t too surprised by the surplus since guns were easy to find if you knew where to look, and Mercer struck him as the type who would know.

A light bulb flickered on above him while Keo looked over his choices. Racks along the walls held automatic rifles and shotguns and shelves housed handguns and ammo while spare gun belts hung from hooks.

“This everything?” Keo asked.

“What, you want more?” James said.

“I was hoping for a little variety.”

“Like what?”

“You don’t happen to have an MP5SD lying around, would you?”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Heckler & Koch submachine gun.”

“Uh, no. What you see is what you get. Sorry.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” Keo said, and grabbed a Sig Sauer P250 and an M4 off the rack. “Silver bullets?”

“For what?”

“Ghouls.”

James shook his head. “Not here. Would be nice, though, right?”

“But you know about them?”

“Of course we do. We found out even before Lara sent out her first broadcast. Mercer figured it out.”

“So why don’t you have silver bullets?”

“Dude, we’re in the middle of the ocean. What do we need silver bullets for all the way out here?”

Because you might not always be in the middle of the ocean, Keo thought, but decided arguing with James was pointless and turned his attention back to the rifle instead. “This thing come with any accessories?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Maybe something that goes boom, for instance.”

“Hold that thought.” James crouched next to one of the shelves and rummaged through the ammo cans and boxes before straightening up with something in his hand. “This do?”

Keo took the M203, a grenade launcher that could be attached to the bottom of his carbine. “I need you to do something else for me…”

“You want a bazooka, too?”

“If you got it. If not, just tell Hart I need to speak to him.”

“What about?”

“Erin,” Keo said.

He showered in one of the unused crew quarters and didn’t bother to look at himself in the fogged-up mirror when he walked past it. The long scar along his cheek tingled after the hot spray, but his nose and most of his face felt better even though he was pretty sure he looked like a big red mess of bruises.

At least you’re still alive, pal. That means you can still pop Mercer. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to do that with the M203 from a distance.

Lucky, he thought, and couldn’t help but smile to himself. After all he had been through, just thinking that he might get lucky was almost worth a long laugh.

He had black clothes laid out on the small bed, with the rifle he’d taken from the armory leaning against the wall nearby. Keo hadn’t loaded up on weapons because more guns and ammo weren’t going to help him get on Black Tide any easier. Once he accessed the island, he could always acquire more firepower if he needed it.

He had put on the black cargo pants and was pulling on a T-shirt when someone knocked on his door.

“Yeah?” he called.

“It’s me,” a voice said.

“Give me a minute.”

“I’ll wait outside.”

Keo grabbed the gun belt and slipped it on, then picked up the Sig Sauer P250 from the chair nearby and holstered it. He shoved his feet into fresh new socks and boots and left the rifle behind.

At the door, he looked out at James, waiting outside. “Hart’s ready for you,” the younger man said.

“What about Erin?”

“She’s waiting, too.”

Keo nodded and closed the door behind him, then followed James for the second time through the oil rig’s long hallways.

“You think she’ll do it?” James asked.

“I won’t know until I ask,” Keo said. “How well do you know her?”

“There were a lot of people on Black Tide, and we never really crossed paths because of our jobs. Also, she’s higher up than me.”

“I thought you guys don’t use ranks.”

“You don’t need ranks to know who’s out of your league. The people Mercer trusts the most he puts in positions of leadership.”

“Like Riley?”

“I guess even Mercer makes mistakes.”

I’m counting on that.

They entered into the stairwell and made their way up, footsteps clanging against the metal steps.

“You’re really going to do it, huh?” James asked. “Kill Mercer.”

“That’s the plan.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Nothing ever is.”

James pushed through another metal door and led Keo out of the stairwell and into another brightly lit hallway.

“It’s going to be tough,” James said. “Getting on Black Tide is one thing, but getting to Mercer… That’s not going to be easy.”

“That seems to be the going consensus.”

“When I told Faith about what you were planning, she wanted to know if you were crazy.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I wasn’t sure.”

Keo grinned.

As they walked some more, he could sense the kid was holding something back, so he said, “What is it?”

James hesitated, but finally said, “Truth is, I don’t know whether to wish you good luck or not. I mean, what we’re doing here, we’re betraying Mercer’s trust, I know, throwing everything he did for us right back in his face, but still…”

“He saved your life,” Keo said.

“Yeah, he did. Faith’s, too. Everyone’s. If it weren’t for him in the early days, we wouldn’t be here. We owe him everything. In a lot of ways, he’s a good man. Maybe even a great man.”

“Those pregnant civilians he’s murdering out there would disagree with you.”

“I know, I know. Believe me, I know. We all know, that’s why we’re here.” The young man shook his head. “Having said all that, I still don’t know whether to wish you good luck or not. Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it, kid.”

“I’m twenty-three,” James said.

“Good for you,” Keo said.

“I should have let Troy kill you,” Erin said.

Keo smiled at her. “You said that already.”

“It bears repeating.”

“Why don’t you say it one more time so we can put it to bed?”

“I should have let Troy kill you.”

“Happy?”

“No.”

“It’ll have to do.” Keo looked over at Hart, standing on the other side of the open door. “Can we have some alone time?”

“You sure?” the older man asked. He looked exhausted, and sweat matted his hair to his forehead.

“I’m sure,” Keo nodded.

Hart glanced at Erin, sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. Her hands were zip tied at the wrists, but her legs were free. She ignored Hart and concentrated on Keo, and he saw the curiosity in her eyes. She didn’t know what was happening, but she wasn’t afraid, either.

“James will be outside,” Hart said before closing the door behind Keo.

Keo leaned against the wall next to the door and didn’t say anything. Erin watched him back intently, maybe trying to read his face for clues.

Finally, he said, “They told me you and Riley were part of Mercer’s original Four Horsemen.”

“They said that, huh?”

“You and Riley and some guys named Benford and Rhett. At the beginning, they said, there were just the four of you, and you built this army and helped Mercer collect everything he would need to launch this war of his.”

“People here talk too much.”

“James, the kid standing guard outside, said Mercer’s plans didn’t feel real until the day the teams started leaving the island. Then he couldn’t ignore it anymore. The people in the towns, the pregnant women…”

Erin kept quiet.

“Riley told Hart he considered trying to convince Rhett, but he didn’t because he couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure.”

“Apparently, Riley’s one-hundred percent sure isn’t so sure after all,” Erin said.

“You heard about the shooting, huh?”

“Like I said, the people on this rig talk too much.”

“But Riley was pretty sure he could convince you, but before he got the chance, you had already left for Texas.”

“Is that what he said?”

“That’s what he told Hart. Was he right?”

“Riley hasn’t been right about a lot of things.”

“I don’t think he was entirely wrong.”

“No?”

“You know why I think that?”

“Do share.”

“Because you didn’t let Troy kill me,” Keo said. “I think you’re done with it.”

“With what?”

“Everything happening in Texas right now. You saw what’s happening out there up close, and you’re done with it. Men, women, and children being slaughtered just so Mercer could send a message to the collaborators. Maybe, once upon a time, you thought you could do it, go along with his plan. After all, he saved your life. Saved all of your lives, or so everyone keeps telling me. But when you saw the bodies, smelled the charred flesh… The battlefield is never the same in person. It changes you.”

She didn’t say anything for the longest time, and Keo didn’t push her. He watched her instead, observing the way her shoulders tightened, the way she sat straighter as he talked, and could almost time to the exact second when her eyes drifted; he knew she was reliving what she had seen out there. Keo could always tell when the man next to him had lost his nerve; it usually happened long after the bullets stopped flying and they were beyond the battlefield.

He saw the doubt in Erin’s eyes now. It was clear as day. Maybe it had always been there, but it had never clicked for him because he didn’t know to look for it.

Better late than never.

“It’s done,” she said, meeting his eyes again — except this time the hardness was gone. “I was a part of it. Maybe not the ones dropping the bombs or commanding the tanks, but I did my part. I can’t take any of it back. I can’t make it unhappen.”

“What did you do, exactly?”

“I was in charge of Support in one of the FOBs. After we abandoned it, I moved over to coordinating the kill teams outside of Lochlyn.”

“You were heading back to Black Tide Island even before I showed up.”

“The first phase of the operation is ending. By tomorrow morning there’ll be a lot more people moving through here on their way back to The Ranch.”

“You told Hart this?”

“I don’t have to. He already knows.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “So what am I doing here, Keo? What’s your deal?”

“My deal is that I’m going to Black Tide Island to kill Mercer.”

“Oh, is that all?” She half-rolled her eyes at him and sat back in the chair. “Hell, if that’s all you wanted, you should have just let me take you to him.”

“That was the plan. I had nothing to do with what happened on the Ocean Star this afternoon.”

“No? You knew that woman in the brig…”

“That had nothing to do with this afternoon. I didn’t know she was going to be here. I would have been happy with letting you take me to Mercer. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

She seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding. “I believe you.”

“You should. It’s the truth.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t instantly believe everything that comes out of your mouth.”

“That’s understandable. But now that I have the upper hand, we can both agree I don’t have any reasons to lie to you.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want from me? All of this”—she looked around the room—“even Hart’s little interrogation, was clearly designed for you and I to have this conversation. You took me out of the brig on purpose so the others wouldn’t hear. So what do you want from me, Keo? I’m tired, it’s been a long day, so please get to the fucking point already.”

He smiled and nodded. “I want you to finish what you started: Take me to Black Tide Island.”

“You don’t need me for that. Hart could tell you where it is.”

“I’ve been told that getting there is the easy part. I might even be able to land in one piece by myself. But all of this would go so much easier — increase my chances of success — if I had someone to help me with the locals. Basically, a guide that everyone knows and respects. One of Mercer’s trusted lieutenants, say. You know someone like that?”

She smirked. “I guess you’re not as dumb as you look.”

“I keep telling people that.” Then, “Are you in?”

“You want me to help you kill Mercer. Is that the ‘in’ you’re talking about?”

“That’s exactly it.”

“Why?”

“Because he needs killing.”

“No, not that. Why would I help you?”

“Because you want to stop what’s happening out there and what will keep happening if he keeps his war going. More towns filled with more people whose only crime is that they can’t fight like us. And because you know that Mercer’s phase two is going to be much, much worse.” He paused to let his words sink in before continuing. “Tell me, Erin, how much sleep have you gotten since all of this started?”

She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t have to. He’d had no trouble seeing the bags under her eyes when he first met her, and now, with the bright ceiling lights in the room, they were even more noticeable. If she had gotten more than a few hours sleep a day all this week, he would be very surprised.

“Enough to get by,” she said.

“Bullshit.”

“You don’t know anything about me, Keo.”

“I know what people have told me about you, and I know that keeping me alive after Lochlyn was a stupid decision, but you reasoned your way into it because you didn’t want more blood on your hands. I told a shitty lie and you went along with it, not because you believed me, but because you just didn’t want one more death on your ledger.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Maybe later,” Keo said. “Right now, you need to take me to Black Tide and get me on that island in one piece so I can do what you and Riley should have done but were too much of fucking cowards to do.”

She clenched her teeth and stared defiantly back at him. If her hands weren’t bound and she had a gun, he wasn’t sure if he would still be alive right now.

“This is your chance to fix your mistake,” he continued. “You won’t be able to bring back all the lives that’ve already been lost, but you can prevent new ones from being snuffed out. Get me on Black Tide Island, and I’ll do the rest.”

Slowly, very slowly, her jaw relaxed, as did the rest of her body. “Can you do it?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

“It won’t be easy.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“And what happens if you succeed? You think it’ll stop all of this?”

“Yes,” he answered, again without hesitation. “From everything I’ve heard about the man, he’s almost single-handedly driving this by the force of his personality. Without him, it would grind to a halt — at least temporarily. But that might be enough time for people like Riley, like James and Hart, to finally feel safe enough to speak up. As long as Mercer’s running the show, they’ll never speak up. It’s too dangerous, and it’s not just their necks on the line. Everyone has friends and loved ones to think about.”

Shit, you almost convinced yourself that time, pal!

Keo didn’t know if he actually believed what he had just told Erin, but he wasn’t going to voice that doubt, and he was hoping it didn’t show on his face.

“He has loyalists,” Erin said. “They’ll keep fighting even after he’s gone.”

“Commanders don’t keep a war going, Erin. Foot soldiers do. Civilians like the ones on the Ocean Star do. Without them, the machine can’t keep going.”

Keo picked up another chair from a corner and walked over, then sat down in front of her. Only a few feet separated them, and he caught her eyes sneaking over to his holstered sidearm as he took out a knife and sliced the zip ties from her hands. When he put the knife away and looked up, her eyes had returned to his face while she rubbed her wrists.

He leaned forward, and if she wanted to, she could have reached over and snatched his pistol out of its holster.

Except she didn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

“I need a guide,” Keo said. “You know the place. I don’t. And I can’t afford to still be running around looking for Mercer when the sun comes up. So I need you, Erin. Are you in or out?”

Her stare never wavered from his face. “You’re either insane or delusional if you think you can pull this off, even with my help.”

“Are those my only two choices?”

“Or suicidal.”

“How about none of the above?”

He smiled at her then leaned in even closer. She would have absolutely no trouble grabbing his gun now.

Except she still didn’t.

“Help me end this madness,” Keo said. “Only one more person needs to die. You know deep down that I’m right, that this is the only course of action left. There’s no other way.”

“On one condition…”

“Name it.”

“Promise me you’ll do everything possible to keep the body count to a minimum.”

“I’ll do the best I can.”

“Promise me.”

“I’ll keep the body count to a minimum,” Keo nodded.

She sat back in her chair and let out a long sigh, as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders. “When do we leave?”

He stood up. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Not since this morning.”

He picked the chair back up and returned it to the corner. “We’ll get something to eat first, then shove off at midnight. It’ll be a nice moonlit boat ride in the dark. Might even be romantic, if you play your cards right.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m single, you’re single…”

“In your dreams.”

“Oh, trust me, we’ve done more than just a moonlit boat ride in my dreams.”

She smirked. Then, as he turned to the door, “Hey.”

Keo stopped and looked back.

“On a scale of one to ten,” she said, “how certain were you I wasn’t going to take your gun and shoot you just now?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he drew the Sig Sauer and tossed it to her.

She caught the gun easily, and by the startled look on her face, he guessed she figured it out pretty fast.

“It’s not loaded,” Erin said, weighing the gun in one hand.

“Not as dumb as I look, remember?”

She sighed and tossed him back the gun. “Dick.”

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called tonight,” Keo said as he holstered the gun.

“You said you needed to get this done before morning.”

He nodded.

“So tell me you have a good plan to make that happen,” Erin said. “Tell me that this isn’t a spray-and-pray suicide run.”

“I have a plan,” Keo said. “Whether it’s a good plan… Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

22 Gaby

“Back at Starch,” Danny said. “It was the same one. I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but I always knew there was something different about that one. It just took me a little time to figure it out.”

“Danny, its eyes look just like all the other blue eyes,” Gaby said. “How can you tell it apart from the ones that attacked us last night?”

“Trust me on this, kid. It’s him.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if?”

Danny shook his head. “I’m not. And I need you to trust that I’m not.”

She didn’t answer him, because she didn’t know how. She was afraid of what would come out if she opened her mouth. Instead, she stared at him across the semidarkness of the hallway and said nothing. Danny was bleeding from a number of cuts along his temple and arms, and despite the stink of smoke, sweat, and blood clinging to every inch of him — and her and Nate, and the entire building, for that matter — he was still in one piece.

Danny was looking at her, but not at her. He was staring at — and through — the closed door behind her. On the other side was the creature that had literally fallen into their laps when the back section of the bank’s roof caved in from the blast. It had been some kind of bomb, and if it had detonated any closer they would all be dead right now instead of just dirty and smelly and bleeding from small cuts.

“Torch it,” Benford had said into the radio. Whoever he had been talking to hadn’t managed to set the town on fire, which she was grateful for, but if the First Gallant Bank was any indication, the lone warplane had left plenty of wreckage behind outside their walls. Thank God there had just been the one plane. If there had been more, with extra munitions available to drop…

She glanced out the hallway at Nate, just to make sure he was still there. He was crouched next to the counter in the lobby and only had eyes for the large pile of rubble that had inadvertently covered up the hole put in the front wall by Benford’s grenade launcher. Slabs of partially intact concrete jutted out of the chaos, the big and small pieces awash in the blue of the moonlight that pooled inside the bank through the large, jagged opening where that section of the roof used to be. Rooftop gravel carpeted almost the entire length of the lobby, with most of it concentrated near the front.

Gaby was just glad she couldn’t see the street outside, because that meant whoever (whatever) was out there couldn’t see in, either. Not that she had any delusions a pile of brick and mortar and concrete was going to keep back the creatures if they wanted to come in. All it would take was a short climb and they would be inside.

Except they didn’t climb over, or do anything to show themselves.

But they were out there. She knew that without having to hear or see them, even if she thought she could smell their stench coming in through the multiple holes that pockmarked the bank’s ceiling. It was also a lot colder now, and she clutched her jacket to her chest while making sure her rifle remained within reach.

She looked back at Danny still staring past her. “What are you going to do with it, Danny?”

He shook his head and didn’t answer right away. She could tell by his expression it was a question he had been asking himself all night.

“If it is Will—” Gaby said, but stopped herself short. Then, “If it was Will, then it would explain a lot.”

“Why it told me to put on the uniform in Starch,” Danny said.

She nodded. “I don’t suppose he told you how he knew that would work?”

“No lips, remember?”

“Right. No lips. You think he can grow them back? The black eyes never could. When they lose something, it seems to be gone for good.”

“He’s not one of them.”

The question is, what is he?

“If that is Will,” she said, “how do you think he did it? How did he save us at the hangar without actually being there?”

“I’ve been thinking about that…”

“And?”

“Willie boy always thought the creatures had a kind of hive-like mind, always connected somehow. He thinks that’s how they know where to swarm when they discover survivors, or how the blue eyes control them.” He tapped his temple. “Think of it like a network of bloodsucking, well, bloodsuckers.”

“Like what, the Internet?”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “Some kind of ESPN shit.”

“You mean ESP.”

“Uh huh. The Worldwide Leader in Bloodsucking.”

Gaby managed a smile. There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t sore and dirty (and smelly, even if that part was harder to confirm), but the upside was that they were all alive. Still wearing bloody dead men’s clothes, yes, but alive nonetheless, and right now that was all that mattered and all she wanted to concentrate on.

After a while, she said, “If it is Will, do you think he was the one the other blue eyes were trying to lure here? Were they using us to get to him?”

Danny, she saw, was grinning stupidly at her.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, annoyed.

“You said he, not it.”

“I did?”

“Uh huh. More than once.”

She sighed. “Give me a break. I’m doing my best to wrap my head around all of this, but it’s not easy. I feel like my head is spinning and I don’t know which direction is up or down.”

Danny chuckled. “Now you know how I’ve been feeling since Starch.”

“What did Danny say?” Nate asked when she crouched next to him beside the island counter, about five feet from where the pool of moonlight ended in front of them.

“He’s not sure yet,” she said, readying her M4 across her knees even though there was nothing to shoot at (Jinx!).

She looked out at the opening where the wall used to meet the ceiling, but there was now just a gaping hole staring out at the moon above them. With so much bright moonlight, it was easy to make out the footprints plastered across the lobby floor, so many that they overlapped each other many times over. When they were retreating, the creatures had taken the bodies of Benford and the dead collaborators that had been assaulting the bank with them.

Wouldn’t want to waste a single drop of that precious blood, right, boys?

The silence inside and outside the bank hung over them like a physical thing, a blanket that could drop at any second and smother them underneath it. The thought made her nervous and Gaby clutched the rifle tighter, if just to give her hands something to do.

“What about you? You really think it’s him?” Nate asked. He glanced briefly backward at the manager’s office.

“Danny seems to think it is.”

“He would know, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“How long have they known one another? If anyone would recognize Will, even under all that, it would be Danny. Who knows him better?”

She nodded. “Once you’ve been in combat with someone, survived the end of the world side-by-side with them… That kind of connection is hard to come by.”

“Like us?”

“We still have a long way to go.”

“But we’ll get there.”

“Maybe, if we can get out of this town alive first.”

“Eh, I don’t know, it’s not that bad. Bullet holes and destroyed buildings notwithstanding, I think it’d make for a pretty good summer vacation spot.”

She smirked. “You’re doing Danny now, is that it?”

“You know what they say, ‘If you can’t beat ’em…’”

“Become as annoying as them?” she finished for him.

“How’d you know?”

“I’ve been around Danny too long.” Her legs were tiring, and she finally gave in and sat down on the floor, but only after brushing small chunks of rooftop gravel away. “How’s your side?”

“Hurts, just like everything else.”

Pain lets you know you’re still alive. Right, Lara?

“I was expecting fire,” Gaby said.

“From the bombing?”

She nodded.

“I guess there isn’t anything left in Gallant that’s flammable,” Nate said. “Or, at least, not enough to start and maintain a fire. We’re lucky that Warthog only had two bombs to drop.”

“Yeah, lucky,” she said quietly. Then, “We have to get back. The Trident. Whatever it takes, we have to get back.”

“We will. Just a few more hours, and it’ll be sunup. Then we’ll go home.”

He put an arm around her, and Gaby leaned against his shoulder, welcoming the warmth of his body to help fight back the cold that swamped the lobby. She wondered if she would ever be able to enjoy moments like these without guns within reach or undead things moving outside her walls. Were those things even possible anymore?

“I was thinking…” Nate said quietly.

“What?”

“That thing in the office. If it really is Will…”

“It’s a big if…”

“I know, but if it really is Will, then it changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“How?”

“He saved our lives at Larkin, then again in Starch. He did that, Gaby. He didn’t have to, but he did. The question is: Why?”

Why? I’ve been asking that question all night, and I’m no closer to the answer.

“If he’s still Will, what else can he do?” Nate continued, though now Gaby wasn’t sure if he was even talking to her anymore or just speaking his thoughts out loud. “What does he know? How long has he been out here? What has he been doing?”

“We think the blue eyes were trying to lure him here, using us as bait.”

“There,” Nate said.

“What?”

“He knows something, Gaby,” he said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “Get it?”

“No…”

“Think about it,” Nate said. “If they’re this desperate to stop him, if they’re going through all this trouble just to bring him here, he must know something they don’t want us to know. The question is: What?”

She fell asleep with Nate’s voice in her head, asking her “Why?” and “What?” over and over again, and opened her heavy eyelids back up to the sight of Danny hovering over her.

“You catching a little nap there, little girl?” he said, grinning down at her.

“Oh, God,” she said, and hurried up to her feet, the sound of loose gravel crunching under her boots. “Nate…”

She didn’t have to look far to see him leaning against the counter where she last saw him, his head lolled slightly forward. He was snoring softly yet somehow still clutching the rifle resting across his lap.

She shook off as much sleep as she could and picked up her rifle from the floor, feeling simultaneously embarrassed and angry with herself. “I’m sorry, Danny. I must be more tired than I thought.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Tex,” Danny said. “No harm, no foul.”

She snapped a quick look at the front wall across the lobby, at the undisturbed barricade and the pools of moonlight coming in from the openings above. Still dark, and nothing had come in while she was asleep.

Stupid. So stupid.

“I’m sorry, Danny,” she said again.

“Stop apologizing,” he said. “Nothing happened. Everything’s hunky dory.” He took out a bottle of water and handed it to her. “Partially my fault. I was too preoccupied in the office, didn’t think to check up on you lovebirds until now.”

She chased away more of the grogginess with the water before handing the bottle back to him. “Any progress?”

“If you call the fact that we had a nice, long chat progress, then yes.”

“He’s talking now?”

“Lips grew back.”

“So they can regenerate flesh.”

“One second he’s mouthless, the next he’s making sounds. Or hissing, anyway. Musto presto, new lips-for-you-to.”

“What did he — it — whatever — say?”

Danny sat down and she did the same, her eyes wandering back to the front wall again.

“It’s him. One hundred and twenty-two percent,” Danny said. “He knew things I never told anyone. About me, about us.”

“Like what?”

“Afghanistan. SWAT. This really hot blonde who I picked up at a bar and was convinced I was going to marry, only to find out — Well, you don’t need to know all the details. Point is, he knew things that only Willie boy would know.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“But what if.”

“We already went over this, kid. You just have to trust me. I’m not wrong.”

“You’re that sure?”

He nodded. “Sure as sure can be. Surest, if you will.”

“That’s pretty sure.”

“You’re damn straight.”

She managed a half-smile. “What is he doing right now?”

“Recuperating. He took a pretty solid beating before he dropped in on us. It was apparently quite the death match on the rooftop, with attempted quartering and such. Real serious shit.”

“So he’s really hurt.”

“On a scale of Ouch and FUBAR, he’s about plus ten beyond FUBAR.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Nope. That’s why I dug him out of the rubble to help him heal faster.”

She must have gasped out loud, because Danny chortled and looked barely able to contain himself.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s free, and as you can see, I’m still in one piece and adorable.”

“You should have waited for us.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know; watch over you in case it tried something?”

“It didn’t.”

“But it could have.”

“But it didn’t,” Danny said. “It’s Willie boy. He’s skinnier — okay, he’s basically skin and bones — and he’s seen better days hair-wise. But you have to admit, he looks pretty snazzy in that trench coat.”

“That’s a trench coat?”

“Well, it was, about a few million pieces ago.”

“Why was it — he — wearing a trench coat?”

Danny shrugged. “Fashion sense?”

She sighed and shook her head with exasperation, not sure if she was angry with Danny or unable to wrap her mind around the fact that there was a loose blue-eyed ghoul behind her right now, with nothing between her and it (him?) but a single door. She had seen what they could do back at the farmhouse and last night. How fast and strong and so goddamn hard to kill they were unless you got them in the head, and that was so, so much easier said than done.

“Did he tell you how it happened?” she asked.

“He said it was Kate’s doing.”

“His Kate?”

“One and only. That night, after we ran the gauntlet from the farmhouse…”

She nodded. How many times had she relived that day? Too many to count.

“She got to him, then,” Gaby said.

“Yeah,” Danny nodded.

He didn’t add anything else and she had difficulty finding the right words, so the two of them sat in silence and listened to Nate snoring lightly next to them while staring at the barricaded wall. She knew Danny was thinking the exact same thing that she was: That day after the farmhouse, when they lost Will to the roadblock…

After what seemed like hours, though it was probably just a few minutes, she said, “So what now?”

“We wait until sunup, then go home,” Danny said.

“What about him?”

“He had a pretty interesting story to tell me. Once a Ranger, always a Ranger, as the saying goes. New Willie has been reconning the enemy, gathering intelligence. Apparently he’s made himself such a nuisance that the enemy cooked up this little scheme and stalked us all the way from Starch just to use us as bait to lure him here.”

She looked over at Danny. “So does he? Know something they don’t want us to know?”

Danny grinned back at her, his blue eyes glinting with mischief — or maybe that was just the moonlight reflecting off them.

“Well?” she said. “Does it — him—Will know something or not?”

“I guess you could say that,” Danny said. “Does knowing a way to save the human race count?”

23 Keo

“This feels familiar,” Erin shouted about two hours into the trip.

She stood behind the helm of the twenty-footer, the balaclava that covered almost her entire face except for her eyes playing tricks with her voice. If he were sitting anywhere on the fast-moving vessel besides a few feet in front of her on a narrow bench, he might not have heard a single word she said.

He pulled his balaclava down slightly to shout back: “Yeah, but this time I’m not in any danger of getting tossed overboard.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

He grinned and pulled the mask back up, leaving the cold wind to smack against the exposed parts of his face.

The offshore boat they were moving in had a T-top, but the canopy was missing. Even so, it was the best and fastest vessel Hart had to offer. If anyone were around to see them, they would spot a long, white object slicing at fast speeds across the wide-open Gulf of Mexico. There was absolutely nothing else around them, the Ocean Star having faded into the distance (Probably for good) a long time ago.

Keo was looking forward when Erin appeared next to him and said, “Move over.”

“The fuck?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the empty helm.

“Relax; it’s on cruise control,” Erin said, laughing behind her ski mask.

“I didn’t know this thing had cruise control,” he said, scooting over on the bench to give her space.

Erin sat down with a heavy sigh. “The girl told me about it before she gave me the keys.”

The girl was Faith, James’s girlfriend. The two made for a nice-looking couple, and Keo found himself wishing them well as he and Erin set off. He was, though, resigned to the realization that he would never find out how they did, because chances were very good he wasn’t going to ever see them again. Not them or Lara or anyone else on the Trident, for that matter.

There you go again being Captain Optimism, pal.

Next to him, Erin closed her eyes and leaned her head against the fiberglass helm. “You know what’s funny?”

“Johnny Carson?”

She ignored him, said, “Despite everything I know, I would have found a way to justify it — what’s happening out there, what we’re doing. It wouldn’t have been easy, and some days would be harder than others, but I think I would have pushed on anyway, lying to myself. And every day the lies would eat at me more and more. It was already bad even before I met you.”

“What would have happened then? When you couldn’t handle it anymore?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll never know now, but probably nothing good.”

“So you’re saying I was your savior?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Sounded like it…”

“What I’m saying is, I think I would have kept on going to the bitter end, and I wouldn’t have been the only one. When I see what Riley’s doing back at the Ocean Star, it just reminds me what cowards the rest of us are. At least he’s doing something.”

“From what I hear, his plans wouldn’t have gotten very far if Lara and the Trident hadn’t shown up.”

“Maybe, but he’s at least doing something. Unlike us. We would have kept telling ourselves about all the things Mercer did for us to justify our cowardice.” She paused for a brief moment before continuing. “Even though we saw the collaborators as enemies, we told ourselves we were doing it for their own good, that we were ultimately saving them. We knew all about the pregnancies, the daily bloodletting. We scouted them months in advance of the attacks.”

“James told me.”

“We knew what was going to happen. What the body count was going to look like. You don’t throw planes and tanks into the mix and not know.”

She went silent and stared forward, and Keo couldn’t tell what she was looking at — or maybe what she was looking for. For all he knew, she could have been staring past the open seas and into the past, wondering how things might have changed if she had acted.

So that’s what guilt looks like on someone else.

“I should have stopped him,” Erin said. “God, we had so many chances.”

“We?”

“Those of us who had doubts. When I think back, I know it wasn’t just me.”

“Like Riley.”

She nodded. “I always knew he wasn’t comfortable with the plan. I could see it on his face, in his eyes whenever we met with Mercer to discuss strategy. He was always so quiet, especially compared to the others.”

“Who else was in the inner circle with Mercer?”

“There was me, Riley, Benford, and Rhett. We were the first four. Later, he added others. Bellamy, Jerkins…”

“And you all had doubts?”

“Not all of us. But it wasn’t just Riley and me, I know that. I don’t know, maybe in some naïve way we—I—were hoping Mercer would move past it. He talked about it on and off, but it just never seemed real until a few months before R-Day officially started.” She sat back and sighed. “We’re civilians, Keo. We’re not like you, bred for this sort of thing. We trusted in Mercer. Trusted in him implicitly.”

“That’s what manipulators do,” Keo said. “They prey on your loyalty.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I just know how hard it was on my own in the early days. When he found me, living became more than just surviving. It became living again.”

“Was that before or after he brought you to Black Tide?”

“Before.”

“How did he know about the island in the first place?”

“He never said, but he’s ex-Army, so that probably has something to do with it. I would never think to look for weapons at an Army base. I wouldn’t even know where to find one off the top of my head. Do you?”

“Ran across some guys who did the same thing in Louisiana.”

“Friend or foe?”

Keo pulled up his balaclava and tapped the scar that ran down the side of his face.

“So that’s what happened there,” Erin said. “What became of them?”

“There was shooting and bad words,” he said. “I don’t play well with ex-Army types. Wannabe joke-spouting ex-Army comedians are the exception.”

“Good to know.”

Keo pulled the mask back down over his face and stared at the nothingness in front of them. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure we’re going in the right direction? Because it’s been a couple of hours, and I still don’t see anything that even looks like an island out there.”

“It’s a secret U.S. military base, Keo. They’re not going to make it easy to find. With an ocean this big, you’d have to be either super lucky — or unlucky, depending on how you want to look at it — to just stumble across Black Tide by accident.”

“So what you’re saying is, yes, we’re going in the right direction.”

“Yes, we’re going in the right direction.”

“Okay. Just wanted to make sure.”

“So I’ve been spilling my guts, and I noticed you haven’t reciprocated.”

“What were you hoping to hear?”

“What happened?”

“What happened what?” he asked, even though he knew damn well what she was referring to.

“You know what,” Erin said. “You’re not going there to stop this war by killing Mercer. It’s personal. I can see it on your face when you talk about him. So what happened? What did Mercer do to you?”

“One of your teams killed a friend of mine. I tracked them back to Lochlyn.”

“You thought he would be there?”

“I was hoping he’d be there.”

“What about Davis and Butch? The iPod?”

“I shot Butch and took Davis for questioning.”

“Is he dead? Davis?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked over at him. “Don’t lie to me, Keo.”

“I’m not lying to you. He was still alive when we parted company. I don’t know what happened to him after that. I had other things to worry about.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes.”

She turned away.

“You knew them?” Keo asked.

“Of course I knew them. They were part of my unit.”

“Davis?”

“He was a good friend,” she said, and didn’t say anything else.

“How does an island that small make it through all the tropical storms and hurricanes that whip across the Gulf of Mexico every year?” Keo asked.

“Simple but tough Army engineering would be my guess,” Erin said. “In all the time we’ve been here, we’ve survived over a dozen storms the likes of which I’ve never experienced before. It was terrifying the first few times, but after a while you get used to it, and now you just hunker down until it passes. The place is incredibly sound, and it’s been designed to be used and reused. That includes the airfield, the surrounding woods, and the beaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if braving storms was part of the curriculum.”

They sat on the same bench at the front of the twenty-footer, staring at the first light he had seen since they left the Ocean Star. It wasn’t even that bright, but against the vast emptiness of the sea and the night, it might as well be a lighthouse beacon. With the single engine that had been propelling them for the last few hours turned off, the world was once again dead silent, with just the sloshing of the currents under and around them.

Keo scanned the island from side to side, noting where it began and ended now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. It was about two kilometers long, but he couldn’t tell from his current distance how much of it was covered in vegetation, though there didn’t seem to be a lot of trees. Or, at least, nothing tall enough to stand out against the dark canvas that surrounded the place like a black glove.

“Two kilometers?” he asked.

“Just a bit longer than a mile,” Erin said.

“How wide?”

“Maybe a quarter mile. There’s a landing strip that runs through the middle. The main facilities are joined into one contiguous structure, and it’s ringed by woods and beaches. The first few weeks after we arrived, we were always stepping on empty shell casings that had been left behind. We’re looking at the back of the island now. Boats usually dock on the other side where there are piers and slips. This side is pretty much used for beaching exercises. But since we’re coming from the Ocean Star, it makes sense for us to land here.”

“Where there’s less security.”

“Exactly.”

“Hart said the place was primarily used for war games.”

She nodded. “There were stacks of files and old maps detailing various scenarios they had run through this place in the past. I don’t think they spent a lot of time here though, probably as long as it took them to complete whatever games they had in mind. It’s a durable place, but it’s not exactly cozy.”

“So, shitty accommodations?”

“I guess soldiers don’t need more than a cot and a pillow.”

“You guys didn’t find any of them when you showed up?”

“Soldiers? No. It was empty. No ghouls, either.”

“Lucky you.”

“Not luck. Mercer knew it would be empty. That’s why he brought us here.”

Keo sneaked a look at her, sitting next to him. There was something about the way she had said Mercer’s name. He had noticed it twice now: there was a reverence to it, the kind of respect that made him question if she could be trusted when the chips were down and his hide was on the line. Maybe he had made a mistake deciding to trust someone who, less than a day ago, had threatened to kill him more times than he could count.

“You good with this?” he asked.

She looked back at him and saw the way he was eyeing her. She pursed her lips into a forced smile. “No. Not at all.”

“What does that—”

“I mean, I’m not good with what we’re about to do,” she interrupted, “but yeah, I’m good with this this.” She faced forward again. “It has to be done. If he’s gone, there’s a chance we can pull the others back and stop this war and save lives.”

“Whose lives?”

“Theirs, ours, all of us.”

Keo nodded. He didn’t want to tell her that the chances of that actually happening were low, that even with Mercer gone there were probably going to be true believers determined to carry on the fight in their dead commander’s memory, or something equally ill-conceived.

But right now Erin didn’t need to know about his doubts. He couldn’t afford for her to start having second (third?) thoughts. God knew this was going to be tough enough without having to worry about her, too.

“How are we going to do this?” he asked.

“There’s nothing special about it. I already radioed ahead when we were on the Ocean Star and told them we were coming. They’re expecting us”—she glanced at her watch—“about now.”

“That’s the whole procedure? Call ahead and then show up?”

“It’s not Get Smart, Keo. There are no hidden doors or passwords to go through. If you found the island, then you were meant to be here.”

“What about defenses?”

“There are guards along the beaches and around the main facility, but that’s about it in terms of potential trouble spots. Everyone who can fight is either in Texas or on their way back.”

“Will they care it’s only the two of us showing up?”

“The guys I made contact with on the radio will, but they won’t be on the beach waiting for us. The guards who will be won’t know any different.”

He nodded and looked up at the sky. Pitch dark, but it wouldn’t stay that way for very long. Not that he needed a lot of time, but darkness was always better for wet work. There wouldn’t be nearly as many people standing guard, and those who were would be staving off fatigue and sleep. In his experience, even the most capable soldier wasn’t at his full alertness in the early morning hours. Best-case? The people here would be used to long, peaceful night sleeps, which would give him even more room to work.

Worse-case? Everything blows up in his face, and he was dead before morning.

Either/or.

“All right,” he said, slipping the balaclava back down over his face. “Let’s get you home.”

There were two of them — men, from the way they stood and the shape of their outlines — and they were waiting on the beach as Erin cut the engine a second time and let the currents push them forward. Keo could make out night-vision goggles over the guards’ faces, which meant they had seen him crouched at the bow of the offshore vessel even better than he could see them.

He glanced back at Erin. “Is this going to work?”

She didn’t answer right away, but the obvious concern on her face, lit by the dashboard lights, didn’t exactly give him confidence.

“Yeah, sure,” she said finally.

“You don’t sound very convincing, Erin,” he said, just barely suppressing a laugh. Because what else could he do in this situation but laugh?

“It’ll work,” she said. She followed that up with a nod, though he wasn’t sure if that was for his benefit or hers. Then again, given the way she was staring at the two guards waiting for them (likely armed to the teeth), he could probably figure out the answer.

Keo turned back around to face the beach. He had his rifle slung behind him and still wore his gun belt because it wouldn’t make sense for a Mercer man to return “home” unarmed. Judging by the relaxed posture of the two, it was the right move. The guards stood watching, but he didn’t see anything about their forms to indicate they were anxious or alert, and they certainly weren’t holding the rifles dangling in front of them with anything even close to resembling menace.

So far, so good.

“We won’t be the first one to come back,” Erin said behind him. “They’ll be used to this by now. The fact that there are just two of us may raise some questions later, but not from these two. If your plan works, this will be all over by the time enough people have woken up to start asking those questions.”

They were less than twenty meters from the sand when one of the guards waved, while the second one turned his head to look up the beach as if he found something more interesting up there. That was exactly the reaction Keo was hoping for, and seeing it did more to convince him than Erin’s assurance had a few moments ago.

Keo returned the wave and stood up as the surf carried them closer. He jumped off the boat as soon as he felt the fiberglass hull sliding against soft sand and landed knee-high in freezing cold water.

The guard laughed, night-vision goggle perched on top of his forehead. “Nice jump, Geronimo.”

There wasn’t a lot of light on the beach, at least nothing like he was used to back on Song Island in the old days. The guards were clearly relying mostly on moonlight and their gear to see with, and the closest light emanated from an LED lantern hanging off a tree about thirty meters behind them. It wasn’t nearly enough to reveal the entire stretch of beach, which made Keo think he could have swam to shore just fine under the cover of darkness.

Keo grinned back at the soldier. “Hey, I almost had it.”

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades, dude,” the man said.

“Tell me about it,” Keo said, and turned around and grabbed the boat’s V-shaped bow and pulled it in.

The guard helped with the other side, but the second one was more concerned about not getting caught in the waves that were washing ashore than lending a hand. As Keo and the Good Samaritan pulled the boat up, Erin walked to the front and picked up the line from the floor.

Keo backpedaled up the beach, his soaked boots squishing under him. Erin tossed him the line, and Keo pulled the boat further in. The guard was too busy talking to Erin and the other guy had wandered off.

Definitely so far, so good.

There was a metal spike to which Keo tied the boat’s line. It wasn’t exactly a sophisticated docking system, but then they were landing on the backside of the island.

“Just you two?” the guard was asking Erin behind him.

“Just us,” Erin said.

“How’s the war going? We don’t get a lot of information. Heard it was going well, though.”

“Yeah, we’re bulldozing through the collaborators,” Erin said. “Pretty soon there’ll just be the monsters to deal with.”

“That’s when all the silver bullets come in, right?”

Erin nodded. “That’s right.”

“Can’t wait for that. I’m tired of playing security guard over here.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll get your chance soon enough.”

“Looking forward to it,” the man said.

As he was tightening the rope around the spike, Keo took a moment to scan the rest of the island. There wasn’t much in the way of defenses that he could see except for the two guards he had already met, though Keo did glimpse two more figures farther up the beach to his right. Still, four people weren’t nearly enough to cover the entire two-kilometer span of the island on this side, but maybe there were more people than he could see with the naked eye. Either that, or Mercer really was stretched thin. Which, if true, meant the man was definitely putting all his eggs on the collaborators turning on their ghoul masters and bulking up his ranks.

Good luck with that, pal.

Erin had walked over to join him, and she handed him his pack and asked, “You ready?”

He nodded and said in a low voice so the closest guard didn’t hear, “You good?”

“Yes,” she said, louder than he would have liked. “Let’s go; I wanna grab some shut-eye before sunup.”

That last part, he guessed, was for the guard’s benefit.

Keo followed her up the beach, sliding the pack’s strap over his left shoulder only in order to keep his right arm free. The M4 with the grenade launcher thumped reassuringly against his back, within easy reach. When he looked back at the water, the guy who had helped him pull the boat up had already returned his NVD over his eyes and was walking off to join his buddy.

“What about the boat?” Keo asked.

“Someone will take care of it later,” Erin said.

They waded through knee-high grass in a field on the other side of the beach. It was easy to pick up the signs that Uncle Sam had been here and had chopped down a lot of the scenery, leaving a mostly unobstructed view of the place. Keo spied the roofs of buildings jutting out of the ground in the distance, and though he expected to see planes taking off and landing, the only sounds came from the crickets in the woods and birds in the trees around him.

“What that guy said about silver bullets,” Keo said.

“What about it?” Erin asked.

“I can understand why people on the Ocean Star weren’t equipped with them, but what about the teams in the fields? The ones in Texas right now?”

“Mercer’s orders.”

“Why?”

“Their job is to strike at the collaborators, not fight ghouls. If they had silver ammo, they’d be tempted to do the very thing he told them not to do. This way, they’re forced to stay on course. Hide at night, fight in the day. And you don’t need silver bullets to do that.”

Four guys in a tank apparently didn’t get that message.

“That’s a pretty hardcore way to ensure your soldiers do exactly what you tell them,” Keo said. “And all the kill teams went along with it?”

“A lot of them protested — I was one of them. But he stuck to his guns and we found ways to be okay with it, like we always do. I heard rumors that some of the teams stole silver bullets from the armory and took them with them. But I never actually met any that did.”

“The funny thing is, I agree with him.”

Erin looked over, surprised. “You do?”

“Not his no-silver policy even if you die because of it part. That’s just stupid. But on the not engaging the ghouls part, yeah, I get that. It’s pointless.”

She nodded. “He said it was a losing battle. There are so many of them, killing a hundred here, a thousand there wouldn’t even make a dent in their number. He said we’d just use up all the silver ammo we spent so much time and sweat making. He wanted to save it for emergencies, but mostly for when we finally took the fight directly to the monsters. That’s why we still have people out there whose only job is to collect silver.”

“He’s playing the long game.”

“Always. From day one, his goal was to first take away the ghoul’s greatest resource — cut their supply line, as he put it.”

“Humans.”

“He’ll kill as many as he needs to get them to turn on their masters.”

“What if he ends up killing everyone instead?”

“That’s why I’m here on Black Tide with you, Keo. To make sure that doesn’t happen.” She ground her teeth together, and he heard the conviction in her voice for the very first time when she added, “There has to be a better way to take the planet back. There has to be.”

Maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t, but Keo wasn’t too concerned with the answer at the moment. Right here and now, he could only concentrate on one thing:

Find Mercer. Kill Mercer.

He replayed the look on Jordan’s face as she bled out in his arms next to the highway; the oddly contented smile she gave him as he held her, forever frozen in his mind’s eye. Days later, and he still didn’t know how he felt about her, but he knew that he liked her and knew exactly how he felt about watching her die.

Somewhere on the other side of the field they were moving through, lights shone from a series of blocky gray buildings. Mercer would be in one of those right now, oblivious to what was coming for him.

Keo glanced down at his watch.

3:36 a.m.

He smiled.

The hour of the wolf…

24 Lara

When Riley opened his eyes, the first thing he said was, “Andy shot me.”

Lara nodded. “Yes, he did.”

“Then someone shot him…”

“Peters.”

“I told you he never misses.”

“So I’ve been told,” Lara smiled.

Riley closed his eyes for a brief few seconds, then opened them again. “You’re still here. How long has it been?”

“I am, and it’s past midnight. You’ve been heavily sedated. I’m surprised you’re already talking.”

He squinted. “Feels like an elephant’s sitting on me.”

“But you’re alive.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” Riley looked pale and in pain, but his voice was surprisingly stronger than it should have been for a man who had been shot very recently. “I had a dream…”

“What was it about?”

“The Ocean Star was sinking.”

“Sounds more like a nightmare.”

“I guess it was.” He peeked down at his bandaged side. “Andy shot me,” he said again.

“How much do you remember?”

“I remember that it hurt like hell.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s quiet. Why is it so quiet?”

“It’s one in the morning, Riley.”

“No wonder it’s so quiet.” He turned his head to look at her. “Is everything…okay?”

“You mean has Mercer sent anyone to attack the Ocean Star yet?”

He nodded.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Thank God.” Then, “Did I almost die or something?”

“No,” Lara said, and sat back in her chair while trying to decide how much to tell him.

They were the only two people in sickbay at the moment, and except for Riley’s slightly labored breathing, it was as if the world outside didn’t exist beyond the thick walls. Zoe had returned to the Trident a few hours ago, satisfied that Riley was in good hands with the rig’s vet/doctor, George, taking over. Like everyone onboard the yacht, Zoe had a lot of work ahead of her.

“Hart took charge after you went down,” Lara said.

“Where is he now?”

“Overseeing the transports.”

“Transports?”

“We’re shuttling your people to my boat.”

“In the middle of the night?” he asked, eyebrows rising in either curiosity or alarm, she couldn’t really tell.

“We didn’t think it was prudent to wait any longer, in case more of Mercer’s men showed up on their way back to Black Tide.”

“Something happened, didn’t it? Besides Andy shooting me. What else happened while I was out?”

“Erin’s group came through. Hart did the best he could in your place, but they didn’t buy it. Something about the lack of civilians on the top deck spooked them.”

“Erin noticed,” Riley said. It wasn’t a question.

Lara nodded. “According to Hart, yes.”

“Is she…?”

“No. But you did lose a man, and someone named Troy was killed by Peters.”

“But Erin’s alive?”

“Yes,” she said, noticing the relief on his face. “It was bad, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.”

“Who was it? My guy.”

“I don’t know his name. You’ll have to ask Hart.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” He ran his hands over his face. “I brought them here, Lara. They’re my responsibility. Every single one of them. Even Andy…”

The burden of leadership, Will. How did you ever shoulder it for so long? I’ve been at this for only a few months, and I already feel a million years old.

“Hart handled it,” she said. “He’s not a bad second-in-command.”

“He’d rather be fishing,” Riley said, and smiled. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to convince him to lead the mission to your boat.”

“It’s a good thing you did. If someone else were in charge, that night might have gone differently. We might not be having this talk right now.”

Riley nodded and scooted up to a sitting position, stuffing pillows between him and the wall. He grimaced the entire time but kept at it until it was done. She resisted the instinct to lend him a hand, mostly for his ego’s sake.

After finally settling back down, he said, “How’s it going? Moving everyone over to the Trident?”

“It’s going,” Lara said. “Everyone’s been very cooperative. We should be done by sunup, if not before then. I’m having Hart transfer the rest of the supplies over at the same time on different boats, but they’re going to take much longer than the people. Everyone’s handling the move surprisingly well. You could even say enthusiastically.”

“Must be the idea of cruising around in that sweet ride of yours,” Riley said, looking over at the sickbay’s only window, not that he could see anything but darkness on the other side. “Is there a reason you’re doing this now?”

“Between the time Andy shot you and now, we’ve already gotten five radio calls from Mercer’s people in Texas. The first group is supposed to be here by ten in the morning. There’ll be more by midday.”

“They’re moving much faster than I expected…”

“Is that good or bad?”

“For the war effort, it’s good,” Riley said. “But not for the people caught in the middle. If they’re already starting to return to Black Island en masse, it means they’re having a lot of success in Texas.”

I wonder how Mercer measures “success.” Maybe in body bags.

“Thank you,” Riley said, looking back at her. “I mean it, Lara. You could have bailed, but you didn’t.” He smiled, and it was probably a little too smug for her liking. “I knew the Lara wouldn’t back out of the deal.”

She frowned. “Please stop calling me that.”

“Don’t freak out,” Riley said, and she thought, Too late, “but some of my guys are carrying around iPods with your messages in a loop on them.”

Lara sighed. “I know. Hart told me.”

“I know it’s not something you’re comfortable with, but your messages gave a lot of people hope. To a lot of us, you’re not just Lara, you’re the Lara. You’re famous.”

“Glad to be wanted, I guess,” she said. Then, hoping Riley would take the hint and move on, “Maybe it’s time you filled me in on where I’m taking your people.”

“I guess I should tell you, since we’re in this together now.”

“I think so.”

“Have you ever heard of the Bengal Islands?” he asked.

Lara smiled. “I might have heard a thing or two about it.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“Yeah.”

He broke out into a big, stupid grin. “Maybe I was right the first time.”

“About what?”

“This.”

“What is ‘this?’”

“Fate. You showing up just when we needed you the most. It’s got to be fate, Lara.”

“I don’t believe in fate,” she said, and thought, At least, not anymore. Not after Will didn’t come back to me.

“I do,” he said.

“Then you’re a fool.”

“I’ve been called worse. I know what Mercer’s going to be calling me when he learns about what I’ve done.”

“You think he’ll come after you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t thought about it?”

“I guess I never got that far,” he said, and seemed to drift off.

He looked as if he was thinking very seriously about her question when there was a squawk and she heard Maddie’s voice coming through the radio hanging off her left hip.

“Lara, come in.”

She unclipped the radio, but said to Riley first, “She’s one of my people.”

He nodded, though she wondered if he actually heard her. He looked gone, as if he was still trying to come up with an answer to her question.

She felt like giving him some space and stood up and walked over to the window, where she keyed the radio. “I’m here, Maddie.”

“Uh, there might be a little problem,” Maddie said. “Well, maybe a possible complication.”

Riley, hearing that, glanced over.

“What kind of ‘complication?’” she said into the radio.

“Hart was doing a head count of the Ocean Star folks, and he thinks we might be, uh, missing a few, uh, heads.”

“Be more specific, Maddie.”

“Hart says a couple of the civilians are missing.”

Riley sat up straighter. It was a mistake, and he grimaced with pain from the sudden movement.

“Did he check the entire boat?” Lara said into the radio.

“Twice,” Maddie said. “All the civilians should have been on the Trident by now. The only ones that should still be on the Ocean Star with you are a few of Hart’s soldiers.”

“There’s an armory,” Riley said.

“I know; I had Hart put guards on it after you were shot,” she said. “The guns were the first things I had your people move over to the Trident. I know I said I didn’t need them before, but I didn’t see any point in leaving them behind when we go.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” he nodded.

“What are the chances some of the civilians might have snuck weapons onboard? Like Andy?”

“Pretty good. It wasn’t like we searched everyone. Or anyone, for that matter. There was no reason to.”

“Lara?” Maddie said through the radio.

“I’m here,” she answered. “Where is Hart now?”

“Doing a third head count.”

“That’s a waste of time,” Riley said. “They must have stayed onboard while you guys were shuttling people over. It wouldn’t make sense for them to go along only to sneak back here.”

Lara nodded, then walked over to the door and pushed the lock into place.

“Why did you do that?” Riley asked from behind her.

“Just in case,” she said and walked back to him. Then, into the radio: “Maddie, you said all the civilians except two are onboard?”

“That’s what Hart says,” Maddie said.

“I want you to pull anchor and take the yacht farther out.”

“How much farther?”

“At least another half mile.”

“Should I ask why?”

“Just in case.”

“Gotcha. But you know we’re not done with the supplies, right?”

“Doesn’t matter. We can finish it later. Right now, I want you to put some distance between the yacht and the platform.”

“What about you?”

“When you see Hart again, tell him to radio me on this frequency and we’ll coordinate what to do next. Your job right now — your only job — is to take care of the Trident and everyone onboard, understand?”

“Roger that,” Maddie said.

“Why the second ‘just in case?’” Riley asked when she put the radio away.

“Because I don’t know what those two missing crewmen will do. Best-case scenario is they’ll hide until we leave.”

“And the worst-case?”

“They use whatever guns they snuck onboard and finish what Andy started. And maybe they won’t stop with you. Maybe they’ll decide no one should be able to leave, either.”

Riley shook his head. “If you think they’ll blow up the Trident with all those people onboard, it’s not going to happen. They wouldn’t do that. I know everyone who served onboard the Ocean Star. None of them are capable of something that heinous.”

“You thought you knew Andy, too.”

He flinched. “Below the belt, Lara.”

“But true,” she said, and stared back at him.

“Goddammit, I know you’re right.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward to gather his strength, even though those movements probably cost him more unnecessary pain. “I messed up,” he added quietly.

“Think of it this way,” she said, “you’re three out of forty-six. These days, if you’re batting over.500, I’d say you’re coming up ahead.”

He made an effort to smile, but she could tell he was far from convinced.

“They were in the comm room,” Hart said when Lara opened the sickbay door for him. “But they took off long before we showed up.”

“What were they doing in there?” Riley asked from his bed.

“I don’t know, but they didn’t go in there for their health, I’m guessing.”

“Who was it?”

“Ezekiel and Lang.”

Lara looked back at Riley. “Anything special about them?”

Riley shook his head. “Nothing that I can think of. Ezekiel’s one of the mechanics and Lang helped out in the galley.”

“A mechanic and a cook?”

“Basically.”

Lara turned back to Hart. “Any ideas where they’re hiding now?”

“Not a clue,” Hart said. “It’s a big place with a lot of nooks and crannies to hole up. Frankly, if they are hiding and waiting for us to leave, I’m not sure we should even bother looking for them.”

“I agree,” Lara said.

Riley nodded. He had looked stronger when he first woke up, but the last hour had drained some of that strength, and just sitting on the bed seemed to take a lot out of him. “The only thing to be concerned about is that they might have called for help. Given us away.”

“What’s the status on the supplies?” Lara asked Hart.

“About sixty percent are already onboard the Trident,” Hart said.

“The essentials first?”

“Just like you said.”

“Then that’s going to have to be enough.”

“You mean leave the rest behind?”

She nodded.

“That’s too much to abandon,” Riley said behind her. “We might need everything we can get when we reach the Bengal Islands.”

“I’m thinking about your people, Riley,” Lara said. “There’s a lot of space between the storage area and the top deck. A lot of rooms and doors and corners. Right now we don’t know if Ezekiel and Jones plan on doing anything. If they even have just one gun between them…”

Riley shook his head. He clearly didn’t like it, but he said anyway, “You’re right. It’s not worth risking one more man to this war.” Then to Hart, “We’ll leave the rest behind, like she said.”

“You’re going to have to help him topside,” Lara said to Hart.

Hart nodded and glanced back at two men in black tactical gear, weapons out, standing guard behind the open sickbay door. “Phil, give me a hand.”

One of the men turned around and stepped inside.

Hart walked over to Riley. “It’s going to hurt.”

Riley gritted his teeth. “I’ll try to keep the crying to a minimum.”

Hart chuckled, then with Phil, they flanked Riley and helped him up to his feet. Riley’s face turned red almost right away with the strain.

“We’ll have to move slow,” Lara said. “And give me that,” she added, reaching for Hart’s rifle.

“I’d ask if you knew how to use one, but that would be a stupid question, wouldn’t it?” Hart said.

She gave him a wry look.

“What about the prisoners in the brig below us?” Hart asked. “We never talked about what we were going to do with them.”

“They’re Lang and Ezekiel’s problem now,” Lara said.

Hart and Riley exchanged a look, but neither one protested.

She walked on ahead of them, stepped outside in the hallway, and stopped next to the remaining sentry. “What’s your name?”

“Jolly, ma’am,” the man (boy) said. He may or may not have been out of his teens — and if he was, then it was just barely — though he was at least a foot taller than her and big around the chest and shoulders.

“Jolly?” she smiled.

“It’s a nickname, ma’am,” Jolly said, and actually blushed.

“I’m Lara.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“You can stop calling me ma’am. I’m not that old.”

“Sorry, ma — Lara.”

“Better,” she said, then nodded up the hallway. “We’re going to lead them upside and to the boat, okay, Jolly?”

“Gotcha, Lara.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“They might have called for help. Given us away,” Riley had said.

Lara thought it was a pretty good bet the missing crewmen had done exactly both those things. Why else would they go through the effort of using the comm room? They would know it was empty, with Terry and the others already onboard the Trident.

So the question was: Who did they call for help and give Riley’s plans away to?

The only thing that kept her from panicking even just a little was the knowledge that they weren’t going to be here to wait and find out. She felt a flush of pride at having convinced Hart to start moving his people over to the Trident sooner than he had expected. Not that Hart had really put up much resistance. She hated to admit it, but the older man was somewhat of a pushover.

They made it to the top platform without any problems, even though Lara kept expecting Ezekiel and Lang to pop out from behind every corner they approached. Judging by his awkward steps and bunched shoulders, so did Jolly, who seemed to be alternating between moving beside her and just slightly ahead of her. The young man was, she realized after a while, purposefully making sure he was always first to reach the potentially dangerous points so she wouldn’t have to.

Who says chivalry is dead? she thought, smiling to herself.

They made slow but steady progress, with Hart and Phil trailing behind with Riley between them. She didn’t rush them because they could afford to take their time. Sunup was still far off, and Faith was waiting on the docks below. Two more men were standing guard when they emerged out of the submarine door at the top of the entrance, and the suddenly bigger party moved through the windy top deck.

As well as things were going, Lara kept waiting for the gunshots that never came. Wherever Ezekiel and Lang had escaped to, all signs were pointing to the two men being determined not to reveal themselves. Which was fine with her, and frankly, more than she could have hoped for.

Glancing to her left off the platform, she could see the lights of the Trident standing out against the suffocating blackness of the ocean, still maintaining its safe distance from them.

Lara unclipped her radio and keyed it. “Maddie, we’re on our way now.”

“Roger that,” Maddie answered. “Any trouble?”

“So far, so good. We’ll see you soon.”

“Sarah’s keeping a pot of coffee hot for you.”

“You guys have coffee?” Jolly asked as they rounded a hulking piece of machinery that had conduits sticking out of its sides. Predictably, Jolly had casually hurried ahead before falling back beside her when they were safely around it.

She fought back a smile and said, “Don’t you?”

“No, ma’am. I mean, Lara.”

“The place we were at before had boxes of them. We had to leave most of it behind when we left, but fortunately we brought enough to last for a while.”

“I’d love some coffee. Black. How do you take yours?”

“Same.”

“Awesome,” Jolly said.

Awesome? Lara thought, not quite sure if she was amused because Jolly was so easily impressed or because he sounded very much like a crushing teenage boy. He reminded her a bit of how Benny was around Gaby, though taller and less awkward.

A radio squawked behind her and she heard Hart’s voice. “Status.”

“You guys are in the clear,” a male voice answered through Hart’s radio. “No one’s followed you outside.”

“All right. Chain the door and catch up to us.”

“On our way,” the voice said.

It was another “just in case” plan, though this time Riley had come up with it. If Ezekiel and Lang were indeed hiding below deck, chain-locking the main entrance would keep them pinned inside so they couldn’t come out to freely take potshots at them or the Trident. The last thing she needed right now was someone armed with a grenade launcher lobbying rounds at the yacht. It was a small chance, but she’d rather it be zero instead.

By the time Riley’s other two men caught up to them, they were already moving down the stairs at the edge of the platform. Yet another one of Riley’s men stood below them, waiting with a flashlight.

“Lara?” Jolly said as they went down.

“Yes?” she said.

“Don’t take this the wrong way…”

Oh God, I already don’t like where this is going.

“But I just wanted to say it’s cool finally meeting you,” Jolly said.

Okay, not so bad, she thought, and said, “Likewise, Jolly.”

“Anyways,” the young man continued, “I thought you might get a kick out of knowing that me and some of the other guys carry around iPods with your messages on them.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, fighting back the cringe from showing on her face.

“It’s just the same two broadcasts you put out,” Jolly said. “But — and again, don’t take this the wrong way — but sometimes I pretend you’re saying something else.”

Oh God, someone shoot me now.

“Nothing bad,” Jolly quickly added. “Just stuff like the weather and traffic reports.”

She was so relieved that she didn’t even try to fight back the short laugh. “Traffic reports?”

He grinned, pearly white teeth showing, but if he was slightly embarrassed or blushing again, she couldn’t tell in the semidarkness of the stairs. “You know, like you were doing the newscast? Just to give some variety to the messages and all. Nothing perverted or anything. I hope that’s okay.”

“That’s fine, Jolly,” she said, and made an effort to smile at him.

“Thanks,” he said, before quickly hurrying down the stairs ahead of her just before another turn came up.

“Told you,” Riley said behind her. He wasn’t even trying to suppress a chuckle. “The Lara.”

“Shut up, Riley,” she said.

They loaded Riley onboard Faith’s boat first, settling him down on the front bench, then climbed in after him. Faith powered up the engine and maneuvered them into the water, Riley’s people at the stern standing guard with weapons ready and eyes watching the Ocean Star for signs of Ezekiel and Lang.

But neither men showed up, and before long Faith made another turn and they were on an intercept course with the Trident.

When they had put enough space between them and the oil rig, Lara sat down on the bench next to Riley while Hart and the others remained standing around them. She looked back one last time at the lights blinking on the edges of the massive platform as it began succumbing to the blackness.

“How long will the lights last?” she asked.

“Until the generators run out of fuel,” Riley said. “A day, tops.”

“Communications?”

“Nothing runs without diesel, and we’re taking most of that with us.”

He was referring to the refueling ship, which at the moment was anchored on the other side of the Trident. They would bring the second vessel with them as insurance. It was going to slow them down, but speed wasn’t going to be an issue once they cleared the area, regardless of what Mercer did in response to Riley’s mutiny tomorrow. She didn’t think they would need the old boat anytime soon, but the Bengal Islands were a long way off and they had a detour or two ahead of them.

“Who do you think they radioed?” she asked.

“The comm room can reach anyone, including Black Tide,” Riley said. “If I were them, that’s where I’d direct everything. Texas right now is too unpredictable, and they probably knew they wouldn’t get much assistance from there.”

“If that’s true, then Mercer already knows about the mutiny.”

Riley nodded but didn’t say anything.

“I asked before what he would do when he found out,” Lara said. “Did you come up with an answer yet?”

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Riley said. “I really don’t.”

“Maybe he won’t get the chance to do anything,” Hart said. He was standing next to them, one hand on the railing to steady himself as they moved across the slightly bumpy water. “If Keo gets the job done, I mean.”

She nodded, though she didn’t really like to think about Keo succeeding, because it meant he wasn’t coming back. She remembered watching him leaving with Erin and thinking that she was never going to see him again.

“Who’s Keo?” Riley asked.

Lara told him about Keo and him leaving with Erin.

“Are you surprised she’s helping him?” Lara asked him.

There was almost a ghost of a smile on his lips when he said, “Not at all.”

“What do you think?” Hart asked.

“About what?” Riley said.

“He means Keo killing Mercer,” Lara said. “Is that going to stop the war?”

Riley took a moment to think about it. She couldn’t tell if it was such a foreign concept that he was having trouble grasping the question or if he really was running through all the scenarios before answering.

“Maybe,” he finally said. “There are a lot of people who’ll throw down their guns, but there’s also a lot who won’t.”

“What about Rhett?” Hart asked.

“I think he’ll argue for stopping the bombings, definitely. Bellamy, Jerkins, and Taylor might feel differently.”

“But there is a chance,” Lara said.

He nodded. “If your friend can kill Mercer, then yes, there’s a chance.” He looked over at her. “Can he do it?”

“Keo’s very good.”

“But can he do it?”

“Yes,” she said. “If anyone can do it, it’s Keo.”

Even if it kills him, she thought, but didn’t say that part out loud.

25 Keo

He didn’t know if he should be pleased, disturbed, or slightly annoyed at how easy it was to move around the main building. As with the beach, there weren’t nearly enough people left behind on the island to post on every corner or watch every hallway, and accessing the facility was a simple matter of checking in at the guard station, where Erin did most of the talking; she was, after all, one of Mercer’s easily recognized lieutenants, and that came with a lot of respect.

Once Keo separated from Erin on their way to the communal living quarters for the non-married people, he simply followed the numbers on the walls, which also happened to have helpful arrows pointing the way toward his destination. There wasn’t a single soul in sight to question, much less stop him. There wasn’t even an occasional soldier for him to worry about getting past; everyone who wasn’t sound asleep was already outside standing guard.

“Technically he should be sleeping in the communal area because he’s single, but I guess even he couldn’t bring himself to justify that,” Erin had said before they went their separate ways. “It’s part of the role he’s playing. I recognize that now.”

“The Everyman,” Keo had said.

“Yes.”

“What about guards?”

“What you see is what you get. The rest will be coming back later today or the days after. Like you said, you’ll have to get it done before the sun comes up or it’s going to get a hell of a lot harder.”

“No pressure.”

“I’m serious, Keo,” she had said, stopping at a door marked Quarters and fixing him with a hard stare that was meant to deliver just how serious she was. Then, lowering her voice slightly to an almost whisper, “You were right to come here now, in the middle of the night. Everyone is either asleep or dead on their feet. What did you call it?”

“The hour of the wolf.”

She snapped a quick look past him and up the hallway. “Sooner or later, someone’s going to ask who you are. Mercer’s going to want an after-action report, and I’m going to have to explain what happened to Troy and the others. You understand?”

“Relax,” Keo had said. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“We have to stop him, Keo. I should have done it months ago when I had the chance, but I didn’t. That’s on me, and I’m going to have to live with the consequences for the rest of my life. So please, stop him. Do what I and Riley and everyone else couldn’t bring ourselves to do. End this.”

Keo had nodded. “I will.”

He was thinking of Jordan bleeding to death in his arms when he finally located the room he had been looking for, in the exact part of the building where Erin had told him he’d find it. There were no guards posted outside, or anywhere in this or the previous three hallways he had walked through, and when Keo tried the lever, it moved without resistance.

Too easy. Way too easy.

He put his hand on the Sig Sauer P250 and looked left, then right, then left again. He stood perfectly still and listened for sounds of running feet, shouting voices, and safeties being clicked off. Some indication that his trip from the singles living quarters to Mercer’s room had not gone completely unnoticed.

But there was nothing.

There would be dead silence if not for the hum of lights above him and the vibrations from generators in the background. No one was coming, rushing around the corners, or converging on his position so he couldn’t enter this room and take the life of the man on the other side.

Way, way too easy.

It had to be a trick. Maybe Erin had gotten some of the details wrong, or gotten the hallways mixed up. After all, except for the numbers marking each door, they all looked the same in the last four hallways he had walked down.

“Are you sure?” he had asked her.

“506,” she had said for the second time.

“What if he moved?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“What if he did?”

“Why would he? He’s been in that room since we got to the island. He was there when we left for the mainland, and he’ll be there after returning.”

He was staring at the number now.

It had to be a trick, because this was too easy. It was just too goddamn easy.

He sighed, thought, Fuck it, and pushed the door open and slipped inside, palming and drawing the Sig in one smooth motion as he did so.

Once inside, he stood perfectly still, mostly because he couldn’t see a damn thing. After moving around in the brightly lit corridors the last five minutes, it took Keo a while for his eyes to adjust to near darkness. When he could finally make out gray floors, walls, and the shape of a small (much too small for someone of his position) cot at the back of the room, Keo searched out and found the light switch on the wall behind him and flicked it into the on position.

In the second or two after the light bulb buzzed to life, Keo glimpsed the room’s Spartan design in a glance.

It was essentially a big concrete box — nothing fancy or very big, but perfect for a grunt who needed a place — any place — to rest. There was nothing comfortable about it, but he’d been in worse places during jobs. Besides the cot at the far side, there was a flimsy-looking nightstand in the corner to his right with a canteen and a two-way radio sitting on top of it. A complete wardrobe was folded over the back of a wooden chair at the foot of the bed, with a pair of polished boots next to it. There was a closet carved out of the wall with just enough space for a dozen or so articles of clothing to dangle from hangers. A gun belt hung from a hook next to the bed with a pistol in the holster, but there wasn’t a rifle anywhere in the room that he could see.

The springs on the bed creaked as the body on top of it moved suddenly, and Keo found himself wishing the pistol in his hand had a hammer so he could do the oh-so-dramatic click! like in the movies. He briefly thought about jerking back the gun’s slide to achieve the same drama, but that would have just ejected a perfectly good bullet.

Instead, he had to make do with holding the gun at waist level and aiming forward at the figure sitting up in front of him, whipping a wool blanket sideways. From the looks of it, the man had fallen asleep while still wearing his uniform — the familiar tan color topped with a red collar and the white sun emblems stitched along the sides.

The man swung his legs off the cot and stared across the narrow space at Keo while trying to blink sleep from his eyes. After what seemed like forever, he finally said, “Are you sure you have the right room, son?”

Keo nodded. “Pretty sure.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I have an inside man.”

“Ah.”

Keo didn’t know why he didn’t just pull the trigger right then and there. The man wasn’t even armed, so it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

So do it and get it over with. That’s what you came here to do, isn’t it? So get it over with already. Maybe you can still catch up to Lara and the Trident afterward…

Except he didn’t. Not yet.

The truth was, the whole thing threw him for a loop and Keo had to readjust on the fly. It wasn’t how he had pictured any of this going down at all, not even close. It didn’t help that the man in front of him looked nothing like how Keo had imagined him. For one thing, he was missing horns and hooves and a tail with a long pointy arrow at the end. His skin was more tanned than it was a shade of devil red, and he leaned more toward grandfatherly than mass murderer or war criminal.

The man was in his fifties, with brown hair that looked almost blond against the slightly yellow ceiling light, and looked fit enough to be dangerous. In so many ways, Keo was reminded of Pollard, another ex-military officer who had made Keo’s life difficult. Just thinking about the other man made the scar along the side of Keo’s face tingle.

He didn’t need to see the name Mercer stenciled across the man’s shirt to know who he was pointing a gun at. He was in the right room, all right; there was no question about that. Keo could read every line on the grizzled face, and even heavy with sleep there was intelligence and a certain (madness?) something about the eyes. Keo imagined the cogs spinning behind the worry lines that crisscrossed the man’s forehead, processing information and coming up with and discarding scenarios, even as the man gazed back at him.

“I don’t recognize you,” Mercer finally said.

“You know everyone on the island?” Keo asked.

“Yes.” He stared at the gun in Keo’s hand for a brief second, then perhaps deciding there was nothing he could do about it, refocused on Keo’s face. “At least tell me your name, son.”

I’m not your fucking son, asshole, Keo thought but didn’t say. Even the slightest bit of annoyance might give Mercer something to use against him.

He willed himself to stay calm before answering, “Keo.”

“Interesting name.”

“It gets me free drinks in the bars.”

“Does it really?”

“Nah.”

If Mercer was the least bit amused by that, it didn’t show on his face. “So what’s this all about, Keo?”

“Oh, I think you know.”

He sighed tiredly. “Maybe if you gave me some hints. Then again, it is the middle of the night, and I’m not exactly at my best.”

“Your mom ever told you never to sleep in your clothes?”

“Yes, but sleep is a precious commodity these days. You take it when it comes.” He paused, then, “I give up.”

“Already?”

“I’m very tired. Why don’t you just tell me why there’s a stranger with a gun pointed at me in my own quarters, and we’ll move on from there.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Keo said, and pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and crumpled it into a ball before tossing it over.

Mercer caught it and opened it before taking a few seconds to straighten the sheet over one knee, then looked down at it. Keo thought the man might have been stalling for time, but he dismissed it. Mercer was simply letting him know that he would not be rushed, even with a gun pointed at him.

“I hear Texas frowns on littering,” Keo said. “They even have an official motto and everything.”

Mercer ignored him and laid the piece of paper on the cot next to him before looking back at Keo. “I take it you’re not here to enlist.”

“’Fraid not, boss.” Keo gestured with the Sig Sauer. “But I am here to join the bullets in this gun with your brain.”

Mercer’s mouth curved into a slight smile.

“Her name was Jordan,” Keo said.

“Was it?” Mercer said.

“Your men killed her. She died in my arms.”

“She was a collaborator.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. She was fighting them. We both were.”

“Then I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“Yes,” Mercer said. “But mistakes happen in war.”

“Collateral damage?”

“That’s right.” He narrowed his eyes at Keo. “I can tell you know a thing or two about that. But you’re not a soldier.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. I can always tell just by looking at someone if they’re ex-military. It’s in their eyes, on their face, even in the way they stand or hold a gun. You know the Army, but you were never one of us. My guess is, someone you knew was. A parent, maybe. Or siblings. You grew up around the Army and maybe that’s why you steered clear of it, though in many ways you simply joined another Army, one with less strict…guidelines.”

“Keep going…”

“You’re a man of violence, with a long history of blood on his hands.”

“You got all that just from looking at me, huh?”

“I’m a fast study. And I’ve always been good at reading people.”

“What else do you see?”

“I don’t know how you got in here, but you don’t expect to leave alive. Not that you’re too worried about it. In fact, you’ve already accepted that things will end here for you, so long as you can take me with you.”

“Not bad.”

Mercer shrugged. “I have my moments.”

“You should go on the road. Become a carnie.”

“Not quite the future I had in mind,” Mercer said, and stood up.

Keo watched the older man walk the short distance to the canteen sitting on the nightstand. He passed the gun belt hanging on the wall but never looked at it. Mercer opened the cap and took a slow, purposeful drink.

“So this is personal,” Mercer said, lowering the canteen and brushing his lips with the back of a shirt sleeve. “Simple bloodthirsty revenge?”

“Revenge gets a bad rap. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

“I’d rather waste my energy on more productive things.”

Mercer spun the lid back into place before returning to the cot, passing the gun hanging off the wall a second time and sitting back down in almost the exact same spot. The springs creaked under him, the only other noise in the room besides the hum of the single light bulb, the generators in the background, and the sounds of their breathing.

“You want to ask me something,” Mercer said. It wasn’t a question.

“What makes you say that?”

“You haven’t shot me yet, so I assumed you have something else on your mind other than just killing me. Please, do go ahead. I’ll answer, if I’m able.”

“Aren’t you the giving kind.”

“I wouldn’t want you to leave this room feeling unfulfilled. After all, we both know you’re not going to get off the island alive.”

“You’ve said that already.”

“Because it’s true.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty good at this,” he said, gesturing with the Sig again.

“Oh, I don’t have any doubts whatsoever about that, Keo. I know you’re an old hand at this.”

Keo stared at the man. He could see now why people like Erin, Gregson, and even Hart would view Mercer as some kind of potential savior. The man was unsettlingly calm, even with a gun pointed at him. Mercer wasn’t the very least bit scared. He didn’t even seem slightly disturbed by what was happening, as if this was a regular occurrence for him.

So shoot him and get it over with. What the hell are you waiting for?

Because I have to know. I have to know…

“Are you crazy?” Keo asked.

The older man gave Keo a wry (disappointed?) look, as if to say, “That’s it? That’s all you could come up with?”

“No,” Mercer said.

“You must be crazy.”

“Why ‘must’ I be?”

“What you did in Texas, what you’re planning on doing next.”

“Someone has to do something. It might as well be us. I don’t take any of this lightly, but—”

“Someone has to do it,” Keo finished for him.

Mercer nodded. “Yes. Someone had to do it.”

“What happened, did you lose someone? Is that why you’ve gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?”

“Not at all.”

“You didn’t lose anyone?”

“We’ve all lost someone. Even you have, I’m sure. But that’s not anything new. It’s the cycle of life. We’re born and we die, and others are born and take our place. It’s how nature works. But there’s nothing natural about what’s happening in those towns. Man was not born to be enslaved at birth, Keo. We were not created to provide sustenance for monsters that shouldn’t exist. It’s unnatural.”

“Some would say what you’re doing is unnatural.”

“They’d be wrong. I’m trying to bring back the natural order of things. Fate saw fit to appoint that role to me, but I never asked for it.”

“Fate?”

“Fate. Destiny. God. Whatever you want to call what’s behind this.”

“There’s nothing behind this.”

“Of course there is. Just because you can’t grasp it, or see or feel it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“So God’s telling you to do this?”

“Would it make you feel better to think of me as some Bible-thumping nutcase, Keo?”

“Are you?”

“I believe there’s something out there desperately trying to balance the universe. Maybe I’m a part of it; maybe I’m just playing a very minor role. And maybe it sent you here to kill me, to end my command. If that’s the case, then so be it.”

“So you actually think you can win this war by dropping bombs on towns full of kids, old men, and pregnant women?”

“Is it really that farfetched?”

“Have you been out there? Have you seen how many of them there are? All you’re doing is killing a whole lot of people when there aren’t that many of us still left to begin with. You’ll never be able to do enough with the limited resources you have. All you’re doing is giving the nightcrawlers minor headaches. This crusade of yours will never expand past Texas.”

“Headaches can grow into tumors.”

“Good one, but it’s still bullshit. You don’t even have enough men right now to cover half of Texas, and you expect to take the entire state? What about the other forty-nine? Mexico? Canada? However many you think are in Texas, there are millions—billions—more out there.”

Mercer smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Keo asked.

“You seemed to be under the impression I haven’t considered all the possibilities. I have. Every single one.”

“And yet here you are, fighting an impossible war.”

“This was never going to end overnight. This is the fight of our lifetime, Keo. And when we’re gone, our children and their children’s children will still be fighting it. There isn’t any easy way out. No quick victories. The only other option is surrender. Become slaves. I’d rather die on my feet than on my knees.”

“Nice speech. Is that what you used to convince the others?”

“I didn’t need to convince them. They always understood what was at stake.”

Not all of them, Keo thought, and said, “Your own people are already turning on you.”

“Just because you’ve given up doesn’t mean the rest of us will too, Keo.”

“You’ll never be able to hold everyone together when more of your people start coming back home with stories about dead pregnant women and children. You’re massacring civilians, you crazy bastard.”

Mercer frowned. It was the first real emotion the man had surrendered, and Keo felt a rush of triumph.

“And you’re here to murder me for… What was her name?” Mercer asked.

“Jordan.”

“Jordan,” Mercer repeated.

“I don’t like the way you say her name.”

“No?”

“I don’t want you to say her name again.”

“You’re losing your composure, Keo.”

“Fuck my composure, and fuck you,” Keo said, and lifted the gun and pointed it at Mercer, wishing again that the P250 had a hammer for him to dramatically cock back and hear that clicking! sound, but he had to be satisfied with the resigned look on Mercer’s face.

The man wasn’t afraid — if he was even capable of that particular emotion. No. That wasn’t fear staring back at Keo; it was a man who was at peace with his decisions.

He’s either insane, or he just doesn’t give a fuck.

“Shoot true,” Mercer said. “You don’t have a suppressor on the weapon, so the first shot will alert the base and the guards on duty. You’ll want to be out of this room and running as soon as I drop. Given my lack of resources at the moment, my guess is you’ll make it almost to the front doors, but no farther.”

“There’s a rear exit close by. I plan to take it.”

“Your inside man.”

“Uh huh.”

“He or she would have also told you about the sentries in the fields. Even if you managed to elude them, you’d never access the boat yards alone.”

“What makes you think I’ll be alone?”

“An extra gun or two won’t help you very much.” Mercer shrugged. “But that’s all a moot point, since I’ll be dead anyway.”

“You’re not even going to pretend to beg for mercy?”

“Everyone dies, Keo. If fate dictates that I die here, tonight, then so be it. The war will go on. Better men than I will assume leadership roles.”

“Your true believers.”

“No, just loyal men who understand what I’m trying to accomplish.”

“Well, in that case, I might just have to stick around and kill them, too.”

“Ambitious.”

“What the hell, I could always use a hobby. Life’s boring these days without a little Internet porn to pass the time with.”

Keo lined up his shot.

“One thing,” Mercer said.

“Changed your mind about begging?”

“Not at all. I was just going to ask: You don’t know anyone important onboard the Trident, do you?”

Keo jerked his forefinger off the Sig Sauer’s trigger and glared at Mercer. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“We were alerted to Riley’s mutiny a few hours ago. Not everyone on the Ocean Star is a traitor. There is still a patriot or two onboard.”

Sonofabitch, Keo thought, but he forced himself to smile back at Mercer and said, “What makes you think any of this matters to me?”

“Because you didn’t just know where to find Black Tide, you also made it onto the island without anyone stopping you. That means your inside man has to be one of Riley’s people. And because you’re not one of my mine — I would remember a face like yours, especially that scar — that only leaves you as a member of the Trident, the group that Riley struck a deal with. Am I close?”

Close enough.

“What did you do?” Keo asked.

“I dispatched one of our warplanes to intercept them. The pilot has a full tank of fuel and his orders are simple: Find the Trident and sink it. The good news for you is that we haven’t heard back from him yet, which means his mission is still ongoing.”

“It’s a big ocean.”

“It’s not big enough to hide from a plane flying at high altitude and equipped with infrared. Not to mention plenty of fuel to search and our very own inside man to tell us which direction they went. All those warm bodies crammed into one moving boat, out there in the middle of a black sea… You really think they’re going to be able to slip by unnoticed?”

Keo ground his teeth together and glared at the man. “You’re willing to murder your own people just to stop them from leaving your crusade?”

“Not at all,” Mercer said. His face remained stony, his voice even. “I have no idea Riley and the others are onboard the Trident. As far as I know, the yacht is full of enemies — strangers. Sinking it, and unfortunately killing every soul on board, was a terrible accident. Or, at least, that’s what I’m going to tell my people, and that’s exactly what they’ll believe, because I’ve never lied to them before.”

Keo curled his finger back around the pistol’s trigger. It would be so easy. One quick pull and Mercer would no longer exist. Keo could already smell the gunpowder, see the viscera on the concrete wall behind the man’s head, the spray of brain matter that would splash the cot’s bedsheets…

Do it. Do it!

What are you waiting for? Do it!

“Call the plane back,” Keo said.

“I can, but not from in here,” Mercer said. “And not with you pointing that gun at me.”

“I thought you were ready to die.”

“I am, but I’m not interested in becoming a martyr. There’s still too much work left to do. Texas was always just the beginning, and I plan on seeing it through to the very end — or as far as I can take it before my time is up.”

“The very bitter end?”

“Hopefully it won’t be too bitter.”

“There are a lot of innocent people onboard the Trident. A lot of them once believed in you.”

“Casualties of war.”

“You’d sacrifice them…”

“It wouldn’t be a sacrifice, but it would be a tragedy. I don’t know Riley and the others are on that yacht, remember?”

Keo squinted his eyes. If Mercer was feeling triumphant, it didn’t show on his face.

“Where?” Keo asked.

“The Comm Room,” Mercer said, and stood up. “After you give me your gun. This is the only way it’s going to work. The Trident and all the lives onboard it are in your hands. That’s a hefty responsibility. I know a thing or two about that.”

The gun was suddenly very heavy against Keo’s palm, the trigger more resistant than usual against his finger.

He thought of the Trident.

No, not the boat itself, but the people on it.

Lara. Carly. Carrie. Bonnie. The big Mexican and the small Texan. The girl who Lara had adopted and Carly’s little sister. But most of all, he thought of Lara on the Ocean Star, telling him not to be an asshole and to at least try to survive Black Tide Island.

“Clock’s ticking,” Mercer said. “Make your choice, son.”

“I’m not your fucking son,” Keo said through gritted teeth.

Mercer didn’t react at all, but he didn’t sit back down, either.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Keo said.

“I’m listening…”

“Let the Trident go. Tonight. Tomorrow. Just let them go. Don’t look for them again.”

“And in return?”

I’m sorry, Jordan, he thought, and said, “I don’t put a bullet between your eyes. I step out of this door and we never see each other again.”

“I need more than that.”

“I’m all out of candy.”

“You might not care about Riley’s people, but what about your friends?” Mercer asked.

Keo didn’t say anything.

“The only thing left is to ask yourself one question,” Mercer said. He held out his hand with the palm up. “How much of your friends’ lives are you willing to sacrifice to claim my one?”

26 Lara

“There,” Lara said, pointing at the heavily marked map spread out on the table inside her cabin. “The Bengal Islands.”

Riley nodded. “That’s the one. Or ones, to be more specific.”

“And you know what’s there?”

“On the islands?”

She nodded.

“Are you talking about potential survivors?” Riley asked.

“No,” she said, watching him closely across the table.

He was probably leaning too heavily against the wooden edge and putting more of his weight on it than he might normally have if he wasn’t a little drowsy from the meds. Zoe still didn’t want him moving around on his own power even with the crutches, but Riley was right when he said he couldn’t stay bedridden forever, and not with his people crowded onboard the Trident. This was one of those times when they needed to see him, if just to be reassured they hadn’t made the biggest mistake of their lives.

“You know what the islands are mostly used for, right?” she asked him. “Who goes there? And why?”

“It’s a haven for criminals,” Riley nodded.

“So you know.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I guess I am, a little.”

“I was an auditor before all of this. I spent a lot of time freelancing for the U.S. government, looking for places where people hid their money when they thought Uncle Sam had taken enough of it.” He gave her a wry smile. “I know how I know, but how does a third-year medical student know about the Islands’ reputation?”

“Keo told me about it.”

“Him again. Too bad I never got the chance to meet the guy, though Hart had some good things to say. Was he a soldier or something?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what Keo used to be before all of this.”

“You never asked him?”

“He’s never been all that anxious to talk about it.” She shrugged. “Besides, what happened before doesn’t have anything to do with now. And right now, he’s a good friend and someone I wish had come with us.”

“Instead he’s going after Mercer.”

“He has his reasons.”

“A lot of people have reasons to want Mercer dead.”

“He’s done some bad things. They’ve hung men for less.”

Riley nodded, then, “So what else did you want to talk to me about?”

“Your soldiers. How good are they?”

“I wouldn’t really call them soldiers.”

“So what are they really?”

“They’re trained, don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t volunteer to run around Texas creating chaos for a reason. They’re not killers. Aside from skirmishes here and there before R-Day, they haven’t really been in prolonged conflicts. At least, not the kind of gun battles that we might encounter if the aforementioned criminal elements are still hanging around the Islands when we get there.”

“But you trust them to stand up in a firefight?”

Riley seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding — though not quite with enough confidence for her liking. “I don’t think they’ll run from a fight, if that’s what you mean.”

That’s not what I meant at all, but I guess it’s good enough…for now.

“What about your people?” he asked.

“We’ve been surviving out here for the better part of a year. We’re not going to run from anything.”

“You guys have been through a lot.”

“We have.”

“Lost a lot…”

“Everyone’s lost someone, Riley.”

For a moment, his eyes drifted away, as if some long-buried memory was rushing back to him. She knew what it was because she had seen that expression on a lot of faces these days, including her own when she stared in the mirror. She didn’t want to ask him who he’d lost, because eventually the question would get turned back to her.

“And you’re okay with us not going straight to the Islands?” she asked him.

Riley nodded. “In your position, I’d do the same thing. Besides, the Islands aren’t going anywhere. They’ll still be there waiting for us when we reach them tomorrow or next week or next month.”

That’s what I keep telling myself, and maybe that’s why we never seem to get there.

“When do you expect them to radio in?” Riley asked.

“As soon as they’re able.”

“It’ll be nice to have an Army Ranger around.”

“What about those kill teams Mercer has running around Texas?”

“They’re mostly civilians, though Benford was in the National Guard. I’m not sure how long ago, though. He and a couple of ex-Army guys did most of the arms training back in the early days.”

“I take it you didn’t have a lot of weapons training while auditing for the U.S. government?”

“You took it correctly. The first time I ever picked up a weapon was after all of this happened. It was a huge learning curve.”

Lara felt like laughing. If Riley only knew the things she’d had to do, how much she’d had to change since the world ended. They were things no one had ever taught her — not her parents or any of those long and hard years in school. Sometimes when she thought about what she’d been through, she had a difficult time understanding how she was even still alive.

Adapt or perish, right, Will?

“I have a question for you,” she said, looking across at Riley.

“Sure.”

“What if Keo succeeds?”

“I don’t understand…”

“Would you go back?”

“Where?”

“Black Tide Island.”

“Go back, after what I did?”

She nodded. “Think about it: How many other people like Erin are out there running around killing for Mercer right now? How many of them are exactly like her in that they just need someone or something to get them to do the right thing? Mercer’s death could be that catalyst.”

“Go back to Black Tide Island,” Riley said quietly.

“You could make a difference.”

“How?”

“If Mercer’s dead, there’ll be a power vacuum. Someone will have to step in and assume command of all those people, all those guns.” Lara let that sink in before continuing. “I’m willing to bet there are more people like you and Erin than you think.”

“There are,” he nodded. “But why would any of them listen to me? After what I did?”

“Maybe they’ll listen to you because of what you did.”

He stared at her, confused.

“You did what many of them, including Erin, couldn’t — you finally said no to Mercer,” Lara said. “You disobeyed him at great risk. How many of them wanted to, but were too afraid? Maybe that’s why they’ll listen to you.”

“Or maybe they’ll just shoot me as soon as I step onto the island.”

Lara gave him a wry smile. “Or that.”

He chuckled. “That’s not very reassuring, Lara.”

“Sorry. Anyway, I was just thinking out loud.”

“Your friend would have to succeed first for any of this thinking out loud to matter,” Riley said.

He was looking at her, but not really at her. She could tell that she had planted a seed in his head and it had taken root.

“There’s that,” she nodded, remembering the last time she saw Keo, and their last conversation on the Ocean Star.

“Don’t be an asshole, Keo,” she had told him. “If you won’t stay with us, if you won’t come back to the Trident with me, at least promise me you’re not going out there just to get yourself killed. Tell me you’ll at least try to make it back, and mean it.”

“What if I can’t?” he had answered.

“You can. You just have to make the choice.”

“I’ll do my best,” he had finally relented.

Do your best, Keo, she thought now. You better do your goddamnest best, or I’m going to find you and kick your ass.

“How goes it?” Maddie asked when Lara stepped onto the bridge.

“You tell me,” she said.

“We’re on course. The question is: How long do we wait for them?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Does Riley know that?”

“He knows.”

“And he was good with it?”

“I didn’t give him a choice.”

“That’s my girl,” Maddie said.

The small Texan was planted behind the helm where Blaine usually was and looked just as comfortable, even if she didn’t quite fill out the room the way Blaine did. If it were anyone else but Maddie guiding them across the endless expanse of the Gulf of Mexico right now, Lara might have been worried, but next to Blaine, there was no one else who knew more about the Trident.

“Any word from them yet?” Lara asked after a while.

Maddie glanced at the dashboard. “Nothing yet, but we’re not expecting them so soon, right?”

“No…”

“You worried?”

“I’m always worried.”

“I mean, more worried than usual?”

“No. They know better than to do something stupid while it’s still dark out there.” She leaned toward the wraparound front windshield, as if she could see her friends out there, hiding among the thick blackness that covered the ocean. “They should be hanging out in the water right now, far from land, waiting for sunup to go ashore.”

“Still feels weird with everyone separated like this.”

“You want me to ask someone to keep you company?”

“No, I’m good,” Maddie said. “I’ve been spelling Blaine all this time, so I’m used to being all by my lonesome up here. Anyway, I like it; gives me time to reflect.”

“On what?”

“Life and other stuff.”

“Sounds deep.”

“Oh yeah, it gives me headaches, too.”

“Did you ever come up with something insightful? I could use a little good advice right about now.”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing, boss lady.”

That’s what I was afraid you’d say.

“That’s it?” Lara said.

“You’re doing all right in my book. Anyone who says differently doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I guess I’ll take that. Thanks.”

“No prob.”

“Any complaints so far about Riley’s people crowding the boat?”

“No one’s said anything to me yet. Besides, it’s nice to have more people around. Was starting to get tired of staring at Blaine’s ugly mug all the time. There’s a couple of cute guys in the bunch, too.”

“I’m sure Blaine will appreciate hearing that.”

“Eh, he knows he’s ugly. God knows why Sarah doesn’t think so.”

Her radio — and Maddie’s, perched on the dashboard — squawked, and they both heard Benny’s voice. He sounded noticeably anxious as he said, “Lara, come in, please.”

Lara keyed her two-way. “What’s up, Benny?”

“I’m at the back of the upper deck right now and saw something that… Well, I’m not sure. I could use a second pair of eyes.”

“I’m on my way.” Lara glanced at Maddie. “You sure you don’t want some company up here? How about one of those cute guys?”

“Maybe you can ask Hart to come up here.”

“Hart’s old enough to be your father.”

“What can I say, I like ’em gray,” Maddie smiled. “They know how to appreciate a woman.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She hurried out of the bridge and through the hallway, then across the upper deck. She could already hear the din of people moving around and talking in nervous but excited voices from the entertainment area beyond the narrow corridor. She walked through the group of people, exchanging nods with a few of the men, though she didn’t spot Hart anywhere.

To keep any one area of the yacht from becoming too congested with bodies, they had spread out Riley’s people across all three decks, with the majority in the lower and main floors. The Trident wasn’t the Ocean Star and it didn’t have the space to accommodate all forty-something of Riley’s people comfortably, but everyone seemed to be making the best of the situation as far as she could tell.

But she had to keep reminding herself they were just a few hours into their arrangement. It was going to take time — maybe a few days — before restlessness set in and people began to notice the lack of freedom to move around. When that happened, she was going to need Riley and Hart to help her deal with it. The good news was that she was sure she could rely on both of them.

Lara maneuvered her way to the back of the floor and pushed out of the door and found Benny bracing against the railing, peering up at the sky with binoculars. There wasn’t a whole lot of moonlight tonight, and all she could see with the naked eye was a darkened sea of nothing, which was appropriate since it correctly mirrored the ocean around them at the moment.

“Benny,” she said, closing the door behind her.

He lowered the binoculars and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know for sure, but there was something up there.”

“What was it?”

“It looked like…”

“What was it, Benny?”

“I thought it might have been a plane, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s gone.”

“When did you first see it?” she asked, taking the binoculars from him.

“About five minutes ago,” Benny said. “Then it just disappeared. It looked like a black dot up there, but it’s so dark it’s hard to be sure.”

She wanted to ask the teenager if he might have imagined it, but she didn’t want to undermine his already fragile confidence. Lara peered through the binoculars instead. It was equipped with night-vision and rendered the world in a sea of green. There were barely any clouds above them, but she spotted a few in the distance.

She scanned left, then right, but there was nothing up there.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, and turned around in case whatever the “something” Benny had seen (or thought he had seen) was now behind them.

“False alarm, I guess,” Benny said. “Maybe I’m just a little paranoid?”

“You okay?”

“Maybe it’s all the new people on the boat. Feels weird having so many people suddenly around.”

“I know how you feel.”

“Yeah?”

She looked back at him and nodded. “We’ve been out here by ourselves for so long. Suddenly adding a bunch of new faces can be disconcerting.”

“That must be it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said and handed the glasses back to him. “I’d rather you stay a little paranoid than sleep on the job. I need everyone as alert as possible until we’re in the clear, which won’t be for a while.”

“We’re not leaving the others behind, are we?” he asked, though she knew what he really wanted to say was, “We’re not going to leave before we pick Gaby up, are we?”

“We’re not leaving anyone behind,” she said, and thought, Not again. Never, ever again. She smiled at the young man and gave him a pat on the shoulder, feeling more than a little weird doing it since they weren’t that far apart in age. “I promise.”

He looked relieved and went back to scanning the horizon. Lara watched him for a moment, feeling as sorry for Benny as she did for herself when she finally accepted that Will wasn’t coming back, that he was gone for good.

At least Gaby’s still around to be seen, Benny. So there’s that.

Lara didn’t have the urge to face the crowd inside the floor again so soon, so she walked over to the side railing. She hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps when a speck of something black and nearly indistinguishable against the darkened sky flickered across her vision. It might have been completely invisible if it hadn’t been moving across a stream of white clouds when she looked up.

“Benny,” she said. “Binoculars!”

He must have heard the urgency in her voice (she was pretty sure she might have screamed) and quickly shoved the glasses into her extended hand. Lara held them up and focused on the clouds, but the object was gone. Or was it?

“What is it?” Benny asked. “Did you see something?”

“Give me a second.”

She tried to picture where the object had been when she last saw it, then attempted to track its trajectory from left to right—

There!

“Oh, dammit,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Benny said behind her. “What do you see, Lara?”

It wasn’t actually black, she realized now that she was able to focus on it for more than a few seconds — maybe more of a grayer color, possibly even white, against the dark sky backdrop.

“Lara?” Benny said. “What is it? What do you see?”

She kept moving along the deck in order to keep it in view, and when she saw what it was in the process of doing, her heart might have stopped beating entirely.

It was a plane, and it was turning back toward them…

27 Keo

Keo was used to having guns pointed at him. Two guns, three guns. Four? Why not. It could be fifty, for all he cared, because all it took was one guy and one shot to do the job.

Of course, Mercer’s men didn’t see it that way, and there were already two of them in the hallway when he began marching their leader from his quarters to the Comm Room on the other side of the main building. Just his luck the men would turn the corner as soon as he stepped out of the room with Mercer.

It took a lot of effort to make sure the men never got behind him, and each time one of them drifted too far back, Keo had to stop and pull Mercer against him, with his back against the wall, and order them back in front of him. He thought about using the M4 he still had slung, but while the firepower was a major plus, the weapon’s length made it untenable for quick close-quarter action. Even so, he was tempted to lob a grenade round or two to wake the whole place up, maybe give Erin a heads up that the shit had, indeed, hit the fan.

Two guns became four when they rounded the second corner, because the first two had radioed for reinforcements. Keo recalled the two new arrivals (Two more makes four, unless my math is off) as being the same two from the front doors when he first entered the facility with Erin. Four later became five when they took the final turn, because there was another man standing outside the Comm Room.

There would probably have been more if the island wasn’t already pressed for bodies and if Mercer hadn’t ordered the rest to stay at their positions.

“Send them away,” Keo said as they approached the Comm Room.

“No,” Mercer said.

“You do remember that I have a gun pointed at your head, right?”

“And the answer’s still no.”

“You’re pushing your luck, pal.”

“So are you.”

So what else is new, Keo thought as he backed his way to the door, reached over and found the lever, then pushed it down. With Mercer between him and the soldiers as a shield, he bent slightly at the knees and turned his head and peeked into the room, noticing a lone figure sitting on the far side, oblivious to what was happening outside in the hallway.

Keo tightened his grip around Mercer’s arm and backtracked into the Comm Room, then moved quickly over to the wall where he once again put Mercer between him and the soldiers as they rushed inside after him. It took a while, but the woman sitting in front of the row of communications gear finally sensed that someone else — a lot of someone elses — were in the room with her and turned around. Keo saw why she was so clueless when she did — she was wearing a headset with thick earpieces.

The woman shot up from her chair and stared wide-eyed at Keo and Mercer, then (hands shaking) removed her headset and said, “Sir, what’s going on?”

“It’s fine, Jane,” Mercer said in that impossibly calm voice of his. “Please sit back down.”

But Jane remained a statue, seemingly incapable of moving.

“It’s all right,” Mercer said, and nodded.

His calmness had an effect on Jane and she finally sat back down, then oddly rested her hands in her lap like she was back in school. Unlike Mercer and the men pointing their weapons at Keo, her uniform collar was white.

The room wasn’t particularly large, and with all the electronics equipment hugging the back wall, it didn’t leave a lot of space for Keo and Mercer and all five soldiers to breathe. It was suddenly so quiet that Keo thought he could hear all eight heartbeats beating at the same time, but that might have just been his and Mercer’s. Or his, anyway, because he swore Mercer was as relaxed as any man could be with a gun jammed up his chin.

Guy’s got the emotions of a robot.

“Send them out,” Keo said.

He kept his head hidden behind Mercer’s, leaning out only far enough to see just in case one of the soldiers decided to risk a shot from close-range.

“We already went over this,” Mercer said. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Look around you, pal. You really think six people with guns drawn in a room this small is a good idea? All it takes is one Nervous Nelly and we’re all dead.”

Mercer didn’t take long to think about it, and maybe the sight of his men fidgeting nervously in front of him sealed the deal. “Not all of them,” he said.

“Three,” Keo said.

“Two.”

“Deal.”

Mercer nodded at two of the men — the first two that had intercepted them on the way over here. “You and you. Wait outside.”

The men pulled up their rifles and backed away without a word before slipping outside the open door. They weren’t even trying to hide their relief as they left.

“Sir,” Jane said, her voice trembling slightly. “What’s happening?”

“Everything’s fine, Jane,” Mercer said. “Has Cole radioed in yet?”

“Ten minutes ago, sir.”

“Contact him for me, please.”

“Yes, sir,” Jane said and swiveled around in her chair, though she glanced back at Keo and Mercer one more time before getting to work. “Cole, this is Black Tide Island. Please come in. Cole, this is Black Tide Island. Please come in.”

“Relax,” Keo said to the three men in front of him.

The three didn’t respond. At least, not verbally. One of them shuffled his feet (Olsen was scribbled across his name tag) and another (Travis) wrinkled his nose like he had an annoying itch he couldn’t get to. The third man, the biggest of the bunch, didn’t move a muscle, and dark brown eyes remained laser focused on Keo. Jasper was stenciled across one side of his chest.

“Tell your men to relax, Mercer,” Keo said.

“Relax, men,” Mercer said. “Everything is under control.”

Jane turned around and slipped off her headset again. “Sir, I have Cole on the radio.”

“Put him on the speakers,” Keo said.

Jane looked to Mercer for approval, and he nodded. She hit a switch and Keo heard a deep male voice coming through the walls around him: “Waiting for further instructions, Black Tide.”

“The microphone, Jane,” Mercer said, holding out his hand.

Jane picked up the mic and walked the short distance over.

“She can go, too,” Keo said.

“Agreed,” Mercer said, and nodded at Jane.

Like the other two, Jane didn’t argue and hurried past them and out the door, moving as fast as her feet would carry her.

Everyone’s getting out alive except me. Just my luck.

“Just the five of us, boys,” Keo said, forcing his best devil-may-care smile at the three soldiers standing across from him. “You guys fans of the show Full House?”

No response.

“Guess not,” Keo said.

Mercer had pressed the transmit button on the microphone and was saying into it, “Cole, this is Mercer. Come in.”

“Yes sir, I read you loud and clear,” the pilot answered. “Didn’t think you’d still be awake, sir.”

“Neither did I.”

“This isn’t a fucking date,” Keo said. “Get to the fucking point.”

“What’s your situation, Cole?” Mercer said into the microphone.

“Spotted that white whale I was looking for,” Cole said.

White whale? Keo thought, then, Right. The Trident. Clever, jackass.

“Can’t tell how many people are onboard,” the pilot continued, his voice coming loud and clear through the speakers along the walls. “It’s currently heading southwest.”

“Southwest?” Mercer said.

“Looks like it might be angling back toward the Texas shore.”

“Interesting,” Mercer said, but he hadn’t keyed the mic when he said that last part, so Keo assumed it was meant for him. “Why are they heading back to Texas?”

Good question, Keo thought, but he said, “Tell him to back off and return to the island.”

“I can’t do that.”

Keo jammed the gun harder against Mercer’s chin, and the man grunted. Travis and Olsen reflexively took a single step forward, fingers tightening around their weapons’ triggers. Jasper, on the other hand, remained where he was.

Mercer held up a hand. “It’s all right, men. Back up.”

Travis and Olsen obeyed instantly, stepping back until they were standing side-by-side with Jasper again. The big man had never taken his eyes off Keo, and his rifle hadn’t wavered even an inch.

Keo turned his focus back on Mercer, but not before slipping just a little bit farther behind his human shield. “Tell the pilot to back off now.”

“And I told you, I can’t do that,” Mercer said. “You know how this has to work, Keo. Your life for the Trident. There is no other way this can end. I told you there was going to be a price to pay.”

“What guarantees do I have that you’ll keep your word?”

“You have just that. My word.”

“I don’t trust the word of a madman.”

“Says the man who snuck onto an island with the sole purpose of murdering someone he’s never met.”

“You don’t have to have met someone to know they need killing.”

“You’ve done it before, I take it.”

“More times than you can count, pal.”

“I don’t know, Keo; I can count pretty high.”

“Sir?” Cole said through the speakers. “What are your orders?”

“Good question,” Mercer said. “What are my orders, Keo? Or let’s put it this way: If Cole doesn’t get any response from me in the next few minutes, will he follow through with my initial orders or completely disregard them and return home? Before you answer, keep in mind that he doesn’t know who is onboard the Trident at this moment. As far as he’s concerned, it’s an enemy boat, and I’ve already given him authority to shoot it out of the water.”

Keo listened to Mercer’s heartbeat — not hard to do with the man pressed up tightly against him, their bodies touching back to front — and waited to hear the slight increase. Except there was none. It was perfectly flatlined. If Mercer was even a little bit anxious or scared, Keo couldn’t detect it, which was a hell of a feat because he was almost certain he could hear one of the soldiers in front of him actually hyperventilating.

“Sir,” Cole said through the speakers, sounding slightly concerned by the lack of response, “do I proceed with the initial orders?”

“The man is getting anxious, Keo,” Mercer said. “What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to turn back,” Keo said.

“Give me one good reason why I should.”

Lara, Keo thought as he let the gun swivel against his trigger finger until the muzzle was pointed away from Mercer. He released his grip on the older man and Mercer stepped forward, then calmly turned around and took the Sig Sauer before removing the M4 slung over Keo’s back.

The soldiers in the room with them relaxed and lowered their weapons slightly, but not entirely.

“The pilot,” Keo said. “Turn him around.”

Mercer put Keo’s handgun into his front waistband and handed the carbine over to Jasper, then keyed the microphone. “Cole, turn around and come back to the island.”

“Sir?” Cole said, confused.

“Mission’s over. Come home.”

“Roger that, sir.”

“So I was right,” Mercer said, this time to Keo. “You’re part of the Trident’s crew.”

“Would you have let him do it?” Keo asked.

Mercer didn’t answer him right away. Instead, he walked over to the row of communications gear and put the microphone back down in its reserved slot, then calmly swiped at a small film of dust on one of the screens.

Finally, he looked back at Keo and said, “It’s hard to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

“Collateral damage,” Keo said.

“Collateral damage,” Mercer nodded.

“And now?”

“And now, nothing. If Riley wants to take his people and leave, then good riddance. I need men and women who are dedicated to the cause. Bringing them back would just infect the others.”

“You’re going to let them go. Just like that.”

“I’ll keep my word. I’m not going to pursue them. But if they should cross my path again, then that goes beyond the perimeters of our agreement, do you agree?”

Keo nodded. “I do.”

“Good.” Mercer looked over at his soldiers. “It’s been a long night, and we’re all tired. Take Keo to the beach and shoot him in the head and give him to the ocean.” He focused on Jasper when he added, “I want it to be fast and painless.”

“Yes, sir,” Jasper nodded back.

Olsen and Travis grabbed Keo from behind while Jasper drew his sidearm and held it at his side.

“A bullet to the head, huh?” Keo said to Mercer.

“You surrendered your mission to save your friends,” Mercer said. “I respect a man with that kind of conviction.”

“That makes one of us.”

Mercer ignored the insult and nodded at his men then turned around, effectively dismissing all four of them.

“You can’t win,” Keo said. “You’ll just end up killing a lot of people, but you’ll never be able to win. Not this way.”

“We’ll see,” Mercer said without bothering to turn around.

Olsen and Travis tightened their hold around Keo’s arms, and one of them (maybe Olsen) grunted, “Come on, man, make it easy. It’s over.”

“Who’s fighting?” Keo said, and relaxed his arms against their grips.

He caught the two of them exchanging a surprised, then suspicious glance when he didn’t fight back. He could have told them he had no intentions of resisting, that he had already decided there was no point. It wasn’t like he had any places to escape to even if he could get out of the Comm Room in one piece. There were two more waiting outside (and the unarmed woman), and as soon as someone fired a shot, the entire island would be on high alert. Not just the ones already awake, but everyone.

Besides, Mercer had, against all odds (because Keo was ninety percent sure the man was lying through his teeth) kept his word and let the Trident go. And if he was to be believed, he would continue doing so unless some bad stroke of luck had Lara and the others crossing his path again.

In many ways (maybe in all the ways that mattered), the night hadn’t ended so badly after all. Sure, he’d come here to kill Mercer and avenge Jordan and failed at both, but he had ended up saving Lara and the others onboard the Trident instead. They were his friends. He’d spent a lot of time with them, long enough to know that he liked them. So, in terms of accomplishments, he had to admit he was definitely coming out ahead.

He must have been smiling as they led him to the door, because Olsen, to his right, said, “You look pleased with yourself.”

“Going for a swim, boys. I’ve always loved the water,” Keo said, and smiled even wider.

“Guy’s crazy,” Travis said from his left.

“Keep him moving,” Jasper said, his footsteps heavy behind them—

Bang! Bang!

Gunshots. Two of them, coming one after another, and less than a second apart.

Then someone screamed. A woman. Followed by footsteps fading fast.

Keo couldn’t see how Jasper reacted behind him, but he saw Olsen releasing his arm as the man scrambled for his rifle while Travis was less decisive and continued clinging to Keo. Even as Keo tried to figure out what was happening, the words Drop! Drop! Drop! flashed across his mind.

He did exactly that, letting both legs turn to jelly and dropping like a sinking rock. In the process, he dragged Travis down with him. His knees had just slammed into the floor, sending stabs of pain through him, when a familiar figure appeared in the open doorway in front of him.

Erin.

She had a gun in one hand, and if she saw him she didn’t give any indication of it. Instead, she fired again, the gunshot a thunderous boom! in the small communications room. She had fired high, which meant she wasn’t aiming at him, so it was either Olsen to his right or Jasper somewhere behind him. Keo hoped it was Jasper because he had a feeling the big man was going to be the hardest one to take down.

Two shots responded from behind him and from such close proximity that they might as well be nukes going off, and Keo wondered if he might not have gone deaf as a result. In front of him, Erin seemed to take a staggering step back before collapsing, having made it only a couple of steps into the room, while her gun fell out of her numbed right hand and clattered to the floor.

But it wasn’t Erin’s falling gun or Erin herself that Keo found himself staring at. No, it was the instantly recognizable oblong-shaped green object rolling out of her left palm when the back of her hand slapped the floor and the fingers unfurled and—

Uh oh, Keo thought as he spun at the waist while a pair of hands tried desperately to keep his left arm in place. Travis, unwilling to let go despite everything happening around them. But Travis wasn’t fast or strong enough, and Keo twisted free and turned around and looked up at—

Jasper, staring back at him, even as he started to lower the Smith & Wesson in his right hand to aim at Keo’s head, when someone shouted, “Grenade!”

The shout froze Jasper in place — at least, for just a second — but it was enough time for Keo to launch himself and grab Jasper’s arm and jerk back down with everything he had. The loud crack! as Jasper’s arm snapped at the elbow was only drowned out by Jasper’s screams, but Keo was beyond caring. He wrested the gun out of the man’s suddenly pliant hand and spun back to the door.

Travis was on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the grenade that had rolled out of Erin’s left hand. Except Travis didn’t see what Keo had spotted earlier—the pin was still intact. Erin might have come here with the intention of taking all of them (Mercer) out with the grenade if she couldn’t do it with the pistol, but somewhere between shooting the two outside and stepping into the Comm Room, she had never armed the frag device.

But Travis didn’t know that and kept trying to get up, draw his gun, and keep his balance at the same time, and failing at all three. Next to Travis, Olsen lay on his back on the floor with blood pumping out of his chest.

Keo was still taking stock of the action behind him (a second? Half a second, if that?) when a fist landed against the back of his head. But the blow, while catching him by surprise, wasn’t nearly as strong as it could have been if it had been delivered by someone who didn’t have a broken arm and was relying on his weak hand. Still, it staggered Keo just enough while Jasper followed, useless right hand dangling at his side like a stump while his left cocked back for another strike—

Keo shot the man in the stomach at almost point-blank range. At the exact same time, he glimpsed Mercer in the back of the room taking aim with the Sig Sauer he had taken from Keo earlier.

“Keo!” Mercer shouted.

Fuck you! Keo wanted to shout back, but he was too busy ducking as Mercer fired and Jasper’s body twitched against the impact above him.

He grabbed the big man by the shirt collar and hid in front of him, using him as a shield the way he had done Mercer earlier. Except Jasper was much heavier (and dead?), and it took all of Keo’s strength to keep him propped up on his feet. Keo stuck his gun between Jasper’s side and left arm and squeezed off two rounds in Mercer’s direction.

The first shot missed completely and hit a radio receiver, but the second struck Mercer in the left thigh and the man stumbled, his gun hand wavering for just a heartbeat before he raised it again and fired a second time, then a third—

Keo shoved his shoulder into Jasper’s limp body and ran it forward, using the man as a moving battering ram. He only caught a blur of Mercer before he had crossed the remaining space between them and slammed the soldier into his superior and knocked all three of them down like stray bowling pins. It would have been comical if Keo weren’t so close to death that all he could think was move, move, move!

Luckily for Keo, he ended up on top of Jasper, whose back had collided with Mercer and now pinned the man to the floor under them. Mercer glared up at him, but his gun was somewhere trapped underneath Jasper’s heavier body, along with his entire right arm. For the very first time since he met the man, Keo saw real concern flashing across Mercer’s face.

So he is a real boy after all!

Keo might have laughed out loud if he wasn’t too busy checking on Travis, who had finally managed to gather enough of his senses (and had realized the grenade wasn’t live) to stand up and turn around.

He shot Travis in the hip — it was his best angle while still perched on top of the unmoving Jasper — as the soldier was turning, gun in his hand. Travis let out a startled grunt and dropped the pistol, then stumbled to the door and leaned against it while grabbing at his wound. He still had his rifle slung over his shoulder, but he might not have remembered as he hobbled outside into the hallway.

He’s got the right idea, Keo thought as he looked back at Mercer, still struggling underneath Jasper. The only thing Keo cared about was that the older man’s right hand — and the gun in it — was still absent.

He could already hear pounding footsteps behind him coming from outside the Comm Room. In a minute — maybe half that time, but even that was being overly generous — there would be enough guns here to keep him from doing what he needed to do, what he had come here to do in the first place.

After all the struggling hadn’t done him any good, Mercer finally ceased all movement and seemed to lie back and stare up at Keo. “Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?” Keo said.

“The war,” Mercer said. “Someone has to do it. If not me, then who?”

“Fuck your war,” Keo said, and shot Mercer between the eyes.

He was rewarded with a fresh coat of red paint on the floor.

28 Gaby

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

She hated the sound of his voice and the stupid cavalier attitude he was trying to project through the radio. She would have turned the two-way off if she could, but there was no upside to that and plenty of downside. As long as he was talking, he was giving her valuable information even if he didn’t know it. She couldn’t decide if he was stupid or if he just didn’t care.

“We can play this game forever. I got all the time in the world, sweetheart. Don’t know about you, though.”

I’m not your sweetheart, asshole.

She would have said it out loud if she weren’t afraid he might hear the pain in her voice. At least this way he didn’t know if she was even still alive, and that, hopefully, would deter him from coming in because she wasn’t entirely certain she could take Mason and however many men he had out there with him if they did.

She had to be satisfied with peering out from behind the corner of the large countertop because the last time she poked her head up over it, someone nearly took it off with a bullet that was still lodged somewhere in the wall behind her. She looked past the broken curtain glass wall that separated the diner and the empty street beyond. There were no signs of a shooter out there, not that they would have made it that easy for her to spot them, because they were definitely out there somewhere.

The diner was a placed called “Tobey”-something; the rest of the name was buried with the debris that covered large sections of the streets outside. And this was one of the few parts of Gallant that was still (mostly) intact. The rest, particularly around the middle section, was almost complete rubble. She hadn’t realized the full extent of damage Mercer’s warplane had inflicted on the abandoned town until she, Danny, and Nate stepped out of what was left of the bank and into the morning sunlight.

The carnage was everywhere they looked. Shards in big chunks and small pebble sizes had carpeted everything, and walking over them was like trying to tiptoe through one of those mailing foam bubble wraps where every step produced a sharp crunching noise. Despite all that, Tobey-whatever was strangely in one piece — or its interior, anyway, which was why she had stopped to search it for supplies, and maybe a forgotten bottle of water or two.

“Now you’re just being rude, Gaby.” Mason again, his annoying voice still coming through the radio sitting on the floor behind her. He was either having the best time of his life or he wanted her to think so. “If you’re waiting for your boy toys to come to the rescue, you’re gonna have a long wait ahead of you, sweetheart. They got problems of their own right now.”

As if on cue, a series of pop-pop-pop cracked across the Gallant morning skyline. They originated from her left, farther up the street…which was the direction where she had last seen Danny and Nate.

“Speaking of the devils,” Mason said.

She pulled her head back and scooted away from the counter until she was leaning against the back wall with the kitchen window above her. She was still facing the street, even though she couldn’t see very much of it. She laid her rifle across her knees and opened the pouch around her waist and pulled out the field first-aid kit.

There was a hole in her left shoulder, the bullet that had caused it wedged somewhere just under the clavicle. The shot had come from across the street and sailed undeterred through the already-broken front windows. Sooner or later, she was going to have to dig the bullet out. Or have someone do it for her, more likely. Either way, it was going to hurt even more than it was hurting now, and it was hurting now plenty.

She gritted her teeth and fought back a scream the entire time she treated the wound, the silence around her only broken by the pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire continuing to roll back and forth from up the street. Danny and Nate were out there, either together or separately, and making their way toward her. She could tell from the way the gunshots continued to get closer with each new volley. More importantly, she knew they wouldn’t abandon her, just as she would never abandon either one of them.

Gaby swallowed the pain and didn’t stop working until she was done. She breathed in a deep breath and blinked away the tears, then tossed the remains of the kit and picked her rifle back up and crawled to the other side of the counter, toward the blasted front doors. To get to the other end, she had to maneuver around the fresh trail of her own blood. There was surprisingly very little, which she guessed was a good thing.

“Gaby, you still there?” Mason was saying through the radio behind her. For all she knew, he could have been talking this entire time, but she just hadn’t noticed because she was so focused on treating the wound. “I’m starting to think you don’t like me. After all we’ve been through. Remember Louisiana? Those were good times, huh?” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Remember Josh?”

She ignored him (The past is the past. Concentrate on the now!) and kept going until she reached her destination and looked out from behind the counter. She scanned the street and the buildings on the other side.

A thrift shop and a donut place were flanked by a couple of storefronts whose signs had come down last night, their windows blown out and contents scattered. Mason and whoever else was out there with him had to be in one of those places, she was sure of it. How else could they have seen her going into the diner earlier, and then later, taken that second shot at her?

“That kid,” Mason was saying, undeterred by her silence, “I swear he had it bad for you. Even when he had you locked up in that town, he was convinced you’d see the light. You know teenagers in love, runaway hormones and all that good stuff.” Mason paused for a moment before continuing. “I guess he was wrong.”

She wasn’t sure if he was trying to goad her into answering or if he really was just reminiscing. And he had to know that the longer he toyed with her, the more time he was giving Danny and Nate to reach her. Or was that the point, she wondered, even as the pop-pop-pop continued unabated outside, getting closer…

Is that it? Is he using me as bait to lure Danny and Nate here?

That, more than anything, pissed her off. Gaby had stopped thinking of herself as a damsel-in-distress a long time ago, and to be used as one now…

She leaned against the counter and rested for a moment. The crawling from one side to the other had tired her out more than she wanted to admit. Her shoulder continued to throb underneath the bandage, as if the entire arm was going to fall off at any moment.

Maybe that would have been best; maybe the pain wouldn’t be so unbearable if the arm just plopped right off…

No!

She opened her eyes.

When had she closed them?

She blinked against the sweat and wiped dirt from her face, then painfully picked herself up from the floor and searched frantically for — there, her rifle. She grabbed it with her good hand.

How long had she been out? Worse, she had laid her head down on the floor just beyond the edge of the counter’s protection, and it was a miracle Mason or whoever was out there with him hadn’t spotted her and ended everything right then.

Stupid. Don’t ever do something stupid like that again!

She pulled farther back from the edge and sat up, using the wall as support, and tried to calm down her breathing. Her left shoulder pulsed with every breath she took, and the pain was still as awful as anything she had experienced. What she wouldn’t do for some painkillers, or maybe just a little bit of morphine. They still had some from when they treated Nate—

Wait, something’s wrong.

She didn’t know what it was — what grabbed her and refused to let go — for the first couple of seconds, but then it came to her.

It was quiet around her.

The shooting had stopped!

Glancing down at her watch did her no good because she had no frame of reference. They had climbed out of the rubble around the bank as soon as the sun washed over the town, and it had taken her maybe an hour to walk the length of the street, maneuvering around the destruction, all the while looking for danger. No one had wanted to separate, but they had no choice. They weren’t going to get anywhere on foot with their cargo.

They needed a vehicle. A working vehicle. And that meant spreading out to cover as much ground as possible. It was a calculated risk, especially with Nate still hobbling around moving almost entirely on pain meds.

“Gaby?” Mason’s voice again, coming from the other side of the counter. She looked over at the radio, still sitting where she had left it. “I feel like I’m talking to myself here. Won’t you say something?”

He doesn’t know.

She could hear it in his voice: Mason had no idea she had lost consciousness for…however long it had been. Maybe it was just a few seconds, after all, because he sounded more bored than anything.

“It’s not too late, you know,” Mason said. “With Mercer’s people out there, we can always use more volunteers. You’d fit right in, and you can count on me to keep quiet about what you’ve been up to out here. We’ll just pretend it never happened. Clean slate and all that. What do you say?” When she didn’t respond, “I bet all the boys would go crazy trying to get into your — Uh, I mean, be all friendly like with you.”

This time she didn’t stop herself from crawling back down the length of the counter and snatching up the radio and keying it. “That ship sailed when you tried to kill me, you piece of shit.”

“She lives!” Mason laughed. “Sorry about that. I thought you were someone else.”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, okay, I admit it, I knew it was you. Can you blame me? These last few days have been a real pain for both of us.”

“Go to hell,” she said, and lowered the radio back to the floor. Just holding it to her lips was tiring, and with her useless left arm it meant she had to rely on her right, and she preferred to be holding the M4 instead.

“That’s not very ladylike, is it?”

She lifted the radio back up with some effort. “Fuck off.”

“You kiss Nate with that mouth?”

“I do more than that.”

Mason laughed again. It was loud and booming, and she tilted her head to see if she could hear it outside the diner, but she couldn’t. Wherever he was, he was well hidden enough that his voice didn’t travel. At least she had the satisfaction of knowing that with everything reduced to rubble around her, he couldn’t have been all that comfortable out there.

“By the way, you hear that?” Mason asked. When she didn’t respond, he said, “Shooting’s stopped. You know what that means, don’t you? The rescue has, alas, been canceled. You’re all by yourself, Gaby. There’s just you and me now. Somehow, I always knew it’d end up this way.”

She glanced to her left, where all the shooting had come from before the silence. What were the chances Mason was telling the truth, that Danny and Nate had been stopped on their way to her?

No. He’s lying. That’s what he does. He lies.

She looked back at the radio. Mason was in a mood to talk, so who was she to keep him from flapping his gums? The more attention he paid to her, the less he was looking for Danny and Nate, because she didn’t believe for a second they were both dead, and death was the only thing that was going to keep them from coming to her.

She picked the radio up. “Last night…”

“What about it?” Mason said.

“You attacked us.”

“So?”

“You weren’t supposed to do that. But you did.”

“That’s what’s on your mind? Now? With Danny and Nate dead, and you in that diner all by your little lonesome, surrounded by my guys?”

She ignored him and said, “Why did you attack last night?”

“Because I could,” Mason said. “Because the person our mutual friends were luring to Gallant had arrived, and they gave me the go-ahead to finish you off. I know, I could have sat back and let the little beasts finish the job without ever having to get my hands dirty, but I really wanted the satisfaction of shooting Danny in the face. It must be the Army Ranger thing. I don’t have a lot of ambitions in life — survival’s always been the number-one goal — but to take out a Ranger… Well, I couldn’t resist.”

Danny’s going to love hearing that…because he’s not dead.

God, please, don’t be dead, Danny. Don’t be dead.

“I met your friend, you know,” Mason said.

Friend?

“Will,” Mason said. “The other Ranger. Back in Louisiana, outside of Dunbar. That was me. I put that together. Well, most of it. See, we’ve been connected for a while now, only you never knew it.” He chuckled, clearly satisfied with himself. “You don’t know how many times I wanted to let that slip while you were dragging me around Texas.”

“You were there…”

“Not just there. I was the one who handed him over to them. To her.”

Her?

Gaby stared at the radio, not quite sure what she was feeling. Anger? Hatred? Guilt?

There had always been a large hole in her knowledge about what had happened to Will that day and the days after. The not knowing had affected Lara the most as she waited for him, but it hadn’t been easy on her and Danny either because they were the last two to see him alive, and it weighed heavily on them that they had left him out there, alone.

Maybe, she thought, that was why it was so hard for her to believe that the thing from last night was Will, because admitting it was also accepting that Will hadn’t managed a miraculous escape, a fairy tale she continued to cling to all the way up to last night. In so many ways, accepting that the blue-eyed creature that had shadowed them from Larkin and Starch and now Gallant was, in fact, a transformed Will was the same as coming face-to-face with her failure.

“Hey, you still there?” Mason was saying. “You didn’t fall asleep on me, did you?”

She didn’t bother answering him. Her shoulder hurt and her left arm had grown three (five?) times its normal weight, and it was difficult just to lift it an inch off the dirty diner floor. Besides, Mason’s voice was starting to give her a headache.

“Sweetheart?”

Don’t call me sweetheart, you sonofabitch, she thought, but didn’t have the strength to say into the radio.

“I guess this is goodbye—”

She was so numb and tired and ready to just close her eyes and go to sleep that she almost didn’t react when a hellacious series of gunfire crackled through the radio and cut Mason off in mid-sentence. At first Gaby thought it was all taking place on Mason’s side of the radio, but no, she could actually hear it outside in the street, too.

Crunch! as something broke underneath a heavy boot to her left.

Gaby turned her head — at this point it was the easiest part of her to move without sending jolts of pain through her body — as a man in a black uniform stepped out from a back hallway. The man had frozen in place when his boot came down on a piece of fallen plaster, the crunch that she had heard earlier. He was cradling a rifle and looking forward, searching for (her) something when she saw him.

Almost as if in slow motion, the man turned his head in her direction, and for the briefest of heartbeats they stared silently across the length of the counter at one another. The gunfire from across the street continued, but neither one of them heard it at the moment. For a second — maybe two — there were just the two of them in Tobey-something, staring at one another, both shocked to see the other there.

Mason?

No, not Mason.

She hadn’t needed to see his face to know the man wasn’t Mason because he was too tall and too skinny. He was holding his rifle in front of his chest, the muzzle pointed slightly forward and down, so when he reacted he had to lift the weapon and turn at the same time. She didn’t have to do anything because her M4 was already flat in her lap, the muzzle pointed right at him.

She simply squeezed the trigger and the carbine jumped slightly without the benefit of a second hand to steady it, but she unleashed enough rounds — and, more importantly, in the right direction — that the man screamed as bullets chopped into his legs just around the kneecaps. Many more rounds missed him and slammed into the far wall — and he collapsed to the debris-strewn floor, his body jerking uncontrollably the entire way down.

Gaby didn’t stop firing until she had emptied the entire magazine. She quickly pulled out a fresh mag from her pouch with her good hand and reloaded the rifle, her eyes glued on the twitching form the entire time. The collaborator had landed on his back with both legs still attached, but enough blood had gushed out of his destroyed limbs that they blanketed the area under and around him in no time. A thick stream was already flowing in her direction, and Gaby found herself fascinated by it even as she jerked back the charging handle, doing the whole thing without having to look down at the rifle once.

She couldn’t see the dead man’s head or face because of the angle he had landed, but she could hear him gulping for air just fine. Because of the way his hands were positioned, she had no fears that he was going to reach for the fallen rifle or his holstered sidearm anytime soon.

“Did you get her?” a voice asked. It was Mason, and it was coming from another two-way, this one still clipped to the (dying) dead man’s waist. Mason sounded out of breath, as if he had been running. “Carter, did you get her?”

No, Carter didn’t get me, you shit.

Gaby scanned the diner while doing her very best to ignore the new stabs of pain that seemed to be coming from everywhere. If one of Mason’s goons had managed to sneak into the building unnoticed, a second — even a third — could have done the exact same thing.

So where were they? Because she was ready. Or she was as ready as she was going to be, anyway.

After about five seconds without an answer from Carter, the radio on the floor next to her squawked, and Mason said, “I guess it’s true what they say: If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.” He sighed, sounding exasperated but resigned. “Maybe next time, sweetheart. Until then, don’t forget me, huh?”

Go to hell, she thought. Go to hell…

Sometime between when Mason signed off and she was telling him to go to hell while staring at the unmoving body at the other end of the counter, she closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until a voice said, “Hey-o, what have we here?”

She snapped awake and turned her head because the voice had come from right next to her—

“Relax, it’s me,” Danny said.

She let out a relieved sigh and forced her finger off the trigger. “Jesus, Danny…”

“No, just Danny, but you’re not the first person to confuse me with a higher power.”

He was crouched next to her, looking past her at the dead body on the other end. She choked back tears at the sight of him. She didn’t know how he was still alive or how he had gotten here, and she didn’t care, either.

“You made a hell of a mess there, kid,” Danny was saying. “Remind me never to invite you to Danny’s Game Nights in the future.”

“I’d kick your ass,” she said.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” he said, and grinned at her through a face full of scratches and bandages. Gaby didn’t even want to think about what kind of work Zoe was going to have to do on all three of them when they made it back to the Trident.

All three of us…

“Nate?” she said, almost too afraid to see the response on his face.

Except he smirked, which was a good sign.

“Limping around somewhere outside, but otherwise still in one piece,” Danny said. “Well, mostly. I had to leave him behind so I could take care of the dudes hiding in the donut shop.”

“What happened?”

“There were guys. I killed them. No big whoop.”

“Did you get him? Mason?”

Danny shook his head. “Sneaky little bugger must’ve snuck out before I showed up and ventilated the place.”

“He’s really good at that…”

“His luck’s going to run out sooner or later.”

“Hopefully sooner…”

Danny nodded when suddenly he jerked his head toward the street and lifted his M4 from the floor.

“What is it?” she asked, because she hadn’t heard anything.

“Cars,” Danny said.

“I don’t hear—”

“Stay here,” he said before she could finish.

“Danny, wait—”

But he was already on his feet and rounding the counter.

She sighed and tried to get up, but the pain was too much and she had to sit back down. With the carbine still across her lap, she waited to hear gunshots, but there was just the silence and…

She gave up and closed her eyes.

“Hey,” Nate said as he hovered over her.

“Hey,” she said, smiling up at him. “You’re alive.”

“I am. And you are, too. You did a pretty good job with that shoulder. Good thing you’ve had a lot of experience lately.”

“You really okay?”

“Stop worrying about me.”

“I can’t help it.”

He smiled. “Okay, if you insist.”

He reached down and stroked her cheek, and she leaned against the familiar and welcoming feel of his hand as she tried to figure out where she was.

She was lying down, she knew that much, but where? It wasn’t the diner’s hard-tiled floor under her, but it wasn’t quite a mattress, either. Maybe one of the booths? It was definitely something soft, and she never wanted to get up.

“It’s a van,” Nate said, seeing the look on her face.

“A van?”

“They found it near the shoreline. I don’t think they had any idea how handy it’s going to be, with you and the chest and all.”

“They?”

“I’ve been called worse,” a familiar voice said.

Gaby turned her head and saw Carly leaning over the front passenger seat of the vehicle. She had a ball cap on, long red hair spilling out along the sides, and she had a contagious grin on her face as she looked back at Gaby and Nate.

“And yes, in case you were wondering, I was totally eavesdropping on all the lovey-dovey talk,” Carly said.

“Thank God you’re here,” Gaby said. “I’m getting so sick and tired of staring at these two guys all the time.”

“You’re just saying that because I brought a van to pick you up.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“Now that we’re all caught up, what’s in the chest?”

“The chest?”

“The chest,” Nate said. “Remember?”

Oh. Right. The chest.

It was an old-fashioned wooden treasure hope chest, to be specific. They had found it in an antique shop next to the bank. The building had almost completely collapsed in on itself from the bombing, but the chest, all thirty-by-eighteen-by-twenty inches of it, stood out from the destruction anyway, heavily chipped by falling debris but intact. They had covered up all the edges where even the littlest bit of sunlight could possibly penetrate with duct tape and ended up using three full rolls just to be absolutely certain.

“So what’s in the chest?” Carly asked again, looking from Nate to Gaby.

“You didn’t ask Danny?” Nate said.

“He wouldn’t tell me. Kept saying it was a surprise.”

“Oh, it’s a surprise, all right.”

Carly sighed. “See, this is why I could only get Blaine and Bonnie to come with me to rescue you guys. Because you guys suck. Even Lara turned me down.”

“Liar,” Danny said as he leaned into the front passenger-side door and kissed Carly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in tight. After a while, Gaby wondered if the two of them even remembered that she and Nate were still back here doing their best not to notice, which was difficult since they were just a few feet away.

After a while, Nate cleared his throat. “Come on, guys, do you really have to do that in front of us? It’s kinda gross.”

Danny stopped sucking face with Carly just long enough to grunt out, “Shaddup, Nate-o-meter.”

“Yeah, shaddup,” Carly said before dragging Danny’s mouth back onto hers.

Nate sighed and looked back at Gaby. “It’s going to be a long car ride.”

“We’re going home?” she asked.

“Bonnie already radioed the Trident. They’ll be waiting for us at the shoreline, and this time they’re not going anywhere until we’re back onboard. Lara’s supposed to be sending some people to meet us halfway as insurance.”

“People? We have ‘people’ now?”

Nate shrugged. “She didn’t elaborate, but apparently a lot’s happened on their end while we’ve been running around out here.”

“More surprises,” Gaby said. Then she smiled up at Nate again. “What the hell. I like surprises…”