0692672400 (S) (44 page)

“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.

“
H
OW 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

K
EO 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.