They were good men. Hard men. And if they survived this battle, brothers for life.
At last the skies began to lighten to the east, easing their torment if only a little. The great seas quieted, the enormous waves gradually flattening out. An hour passed and the sun began to rise, an orange ball of fire that burned off any last vestiges of the storm. Overcome with exhaustion, the trio fell into a deep sleep, waking later as the sun blasted down from high overhead.
Without a word, Drake unhooked himself from the ropes, every muscle burning, and tried to crawl across the bottom of the boat. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth, his skin burning from exposure to the sun. Every nerve and every sinew screamed in protest, but he forced his body to inch its way to the sealed storage bag that nestled in the front of the boat. It would hold tools, an inflator and patches, and also water.
He lifted his head. Sunlight blasted off the sea, dazzling his eyes and setting off a pounding pain. The marines would have reflectors in their packs.
Later. For now, he unbuckled the storage bag and opened it. Then he took three bottles of water out and passed them around. Never had water tasted so good.
Romero fished out the anti-glare glasses, groaning as he moved. “Damnit, man, feel like I went nine rounds with the Hulk.”
He carefully fixed the glasses around his eyes and gazed out to sea for a while. Judging from the expression on his face, Drake guessed he didn’t see a whole lot.
“We don’t know where we landed, where we drifted, or where we are.” Smyth was also surveying the area.
“No, but we do know east and west,” Drake pointed out. “Maybe we didn’t drift so far. And, if we head due north we should hit land.” He didn’t add the requisite eventually.
“That’s the plan.” Romero said, staying upbeat. Drake thought that being stranded with the marine wasn’t half as stressful as it might have been with Alicia. He sat up, trying to avoid the raging sun and the glaring sea. Salt granules stuck to his skin. Scrapes and bruises stood out harshly on his arms.
“We need to cover up too,” Drake said. “You guys have anything we can use?” The question was rhetorical as Drake searched the storage bag and came up empty. “Guess it’ll have to be our vests.”
Slowly, Drake stripped out of his Kevlar jacket and shirt. He wrapped the vest tightly around his head and tied an end. Makeshift, but effective for now. “So,” he said, “we gonna start paddling?”
Romero sighed. “Fuck.”
The trio of battered men unstrapped the paddles and started to dig at the sea. As one they groaned. Due north looked no different than due south, but once they had it pinpointed, they kept the horizon in their sights and put their backs into it.
After a half hour, Romero spoke up. “You guys think we’ll be rescued?”
“Bugger all chance of that.” Drake snorted. “Hayden thinks we’re ok. No one else knows we’re here.”
“Rations are exactly that. Rations.” Smyth shook his webbing, letting the few packets of food rattle. “A day or two tops.”
The sun beat down. The men grew tired, and rested as the heat passed its midday peak and waned into late afternoon. They drank water and laid back to conserve energy. A couple of rogue waves sent them scaling liquid cliffs again only to plummet once more to impossible depths. Sea creatures bumped the boat, investigating, some just curious, others questing for food. When the dirty white fin of a shark broke the surface, Romero sat up angrily. “Now that’s an ice cold mother of a threat.”
Smyth stared at the fin as it cut its way back and forth. “We used to take bets back in training as to how we might die. Could’ve got a cool hundred to one on becoming shark food.”
“But who would’ve collected the winnings?” Drake smirked.
Smyth shrugged. “Didn’t think that far.”
They waited until the fin vanished and then started paddling again, but there wasn’t a single pair of eyes that didn’t constantly keep a lookout for that chilling, telltale sign.
But as night began to encroach, the men became quiet. The ocean grew still. A thin sliver of moon rose steadily, casting its stark glow across the undulating, mirror-like surface of the sea. Drake found himself dwelling on Mai, and the ordeals she might be enduring. He couldn’t bring himself to think she might already have died. Couldn’t even imagine it.
His heart froze when a shadow loomed ahead, gliding silently toward them across the gentle swells of the sea.
CHAPTER SIX
“The gunman missed Senator Turner,” Hayden said aloud. “But killed his aide — a Miss Audrey Smalls — and two bodyguards.” She hung her head. “Senseless slaughter.”
Ben tapped his monitor. “That woman from the Washington Post has vanished,” he said with some relief. “Finally.”
A reporter from DCs biggest newspaper had been hanging around the new facility for days now, sensing a meaty story, haranguing them every time they stepped out.
“Sarah Moxley?” Hayden said. “Oh, she’ll be back.”
Alicia paced the room. “What do we know? That some all-American kid tried to assassinate a US Senator. That the kid’s being dissected to give us a clue as to why the hell he did it. The video feed—” She paused, glancing again at the TV screen they’d all been watching. “Showed his face. Did he look sane to you?”
In a corner of the room, Gates was attempting to find out what had happened to Drake and Mai. The secretary’s voice rose. Whoever was on the other end of the line wasn’t doing himself any favors. “Then fetch him.” Gates almost yelled. “I’ll wait.”
“We’re contacting all the agencies,” Karin spoke up. “Trying to find a connection between Senator Turner and the Koreans. Failing that…it could be anything.” The blond girl shot a quick glance at Komodo. The big soldier nodded back at her without smiling. Karin knew him well enough by now to see the distress in his eyes. The wait for news was as traumatic as an operation in the Middle East.
Kinimaka moved to Hayden’s side. The big Hawaiian was moving much easier now, the deep bruising caused by gunshot subsiding. “This proves that Mai’s agency friend was on the level, boss.”
“Sure.” Hayden was distracted, studying the video of yesterday’s event yet again. “Look at his eyes, Mano. His eyes.”
Kinimaka looked. He’d already looked a hundred times, but he looked again because Hayden asked him too. The shooter, now identified as Michael Markel, from the DC area, had been a thirty-five-year-old teacher. He was a loner, but nothing about him stood out as wrong. His house had already been turned inside out — but whatever Markel’s reasons were for his act, they still remained a mystery. So far, the man stood out as the perfect citizen.
“Look deeper,” Hayden told both Ben and Karin. “This man has a skeleton hidden away somewhere.”
Hayden felt her thoughts being knocked awry. The new job came with some already deep-rooted problems — one namely Ben Blake. The pair had treated each other cordially so far, but there was no getting away from the coolness that existed. Hayden found herself not wanting to ask too much of her ex-boyfriend, whilst he clearly found it hard acknowledging the new arrangement.
And something had changed Ben back at that third tomb of the gods. When the soldier died in his arms, when Ben’s hands dripped with the man’s blood, a revolution had begun in his brain. Maybe its purpose was to bring out the man and discard the boy forever. Or perhaps it was just another ordeal, a trauma that would twist his psyche.
Hayden knew his pain. She almost wished he had endured an ordeal of that kind before she’d made her decision. The boy needed help, but it wasn’t right for her to step up.