O’Shea appeared confused but didn’t argue with his superior officer. “Ma’am,” he said as he motioned for Teresa to follow him.
A solitary tear streamed down Teresa’s dirty face as she glanced from Michaelson to Lake and then back to Michael-son again. She awkwardly approached the brutish chief, leaning up to kiss him on his sweaty cheek, before running down the sandy slope to follow O’Shea.
A small smile appeared on Michaelson’s lips as he stared after her, then his eyes met Lake’s again. The two had been at odds for the past three years, and shaking hands would have seemed terribly out of place. Lake gave the chief a simple nod, then followed the others down the slope, leaving him alone on the shady hill with the shore party’s small cache of weapons.
Lake had trouble keeping up with O’Shea and Teresa. His legs were sore from the two days of cross-country travel, and it made running in sand extremely difficult. The two reached the raft well ahead of him. When he finally caught up with them, the two sailors had already started hefting the raft down to the water. Teresa had the paddles in her arms as she encouraged him to hurry. Lake nodded to her after catching a glimpse at Ahmad’s swimming form, far out in the surf, already half the distance to the Mendar.
As the raft splashed down into the water, the two sailors immediately helped Teresa get aboard.
“Get in!” Lake directed them, as he grabbed hold of the raft to hold it steady.
O’Shea and the other sailor dutifully obeyed, throwing their legs over the spongy floatations until they were straddling them with their paddles held at the ready. The weight of the two men quickly bottomed the raft, which was sitting in only a few inches of water. With the dinghy firmly planted in the sand, O’Shea tossed his paddle down and prepared to get out and push, but Lake stopped him.
“Stay in there, damn it!” Lake shouted. “I’ll push you off!”
Lake buried his shoulder into the rubbery stern and pushed with all his might, his feet sliding in the wet sand until he was on his knees. Then a small wave slapped against the shore, raising the water level just enough to make his efforts successful. The raft slid off the sandy bottom and into the deeper water just a few feet beyond.
As Lake picked himself up out of the knee-deep water and stood facing the raft, the two sailors brought the raft under control with their paddles. Teresa and O’Shea frantically motioned for him to jump in, but instead Lake reached out and gave the raft a good push away from the shore.
“Row for the Mendar!” Lake ordered from the shore. “And hurry!”
O’Shea looked confused as he began to paddle, but the gloomy smile on Teresa’s face indicated that she knew all along what Lake was going to do. She knew that he would never leave Michaelson alone on this island, and Lake suddenly thought it funny how after only a few days she knew him better than he knew himself.
Catching one last warm look from Teresa, Lake turned and rushed back up the sandy beach.
“You're a damn fool!” Michaelson muttered as he stacked their few extra magazines on a fallen palm tree frond to keep them out of the sand. “Young and stupid, that’s what you are!”
“I guess that makes you old and stupid, doesn’t it?” Lake said with a grin as he slid to a better position to observe the beach, trying hard to keep the AK-47’s breech away from the fine powdery sand.
In the few moments they had to spare, Lake and Michael-son had taken up position in a thick patch of brush on a small hill overlooking the beach. The voices in the jungle had grown louder, then fainter, and were now growing louder again, and Lake could only assume the terrorists were having problems finding the beach through dense forest. From experience, he knew it afforded few opportunities to collect bearings. He had had the luxury of the GPS unit on the satellite phone. The terrorists probably weren’t as lucky. Regardless of whether they had a GPS or not, they seemed to have finally found the beach. The voices were getting much closer now and were almost upon them.
Lake looked out at the water. A hundred yards away or so, the raft crept along at a snail’s pace, the sailor’s paddles kicking up white splashes as they rowed smartly. They were moving as fast as they could but they were still well within small-arms range. He could see Teresa’s face between the two sailors as she stared back at the island, and he wondered what she was thinking. He had already written off his own chances, but if she made it, that would be enough.
“Keep quiet and follow my lead. Understand?” Michaelson whispered. “I’ve got a little more experience at this kind of thing than you do. So, don’t shoot until I tell you to.”
Lake had no argument since the only time he’d ever fired a gun was during his bi-annual qualification at the weapons range on Oahu. Like most officers, he’d never taken the qualification seriously. As a full-fledged certified navy marksman, Michaelson was by far the better gun expert. With that in mind, Lake nudged the spare Kalashnikov rifle lying between them a little closer to Michaelson, figuring it would be better to have the spare weapon near his hands.
“There!” Michaelson whispered, pointing toward the jungle’s edge.
Down the hill and not thirty yards from where they lay, a dozen heavily armed men emerged from the trees. They wore camouflaged uniforms of various types. Some even wore the traditional red and white Islamic turbans like Lake had seen so many times during Persian Gulf port calls. Many had beards and they all appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. They crept out of the forest at a crouch, holding their weapons close to their chests as if they expected an ambush at any moment. Most likely, they knew what Ahmad was capable of and were proceeding with due caution. But once they sighted Providence’s dinghy bobbing on the waves, any semblance of precaution gave way and a blood-craving frenzy took over. They began yelling in Arabic, raising their weapons above their heads, and running forward to gain better vantage points from which to shoot. They made no attempt to take cover but instead spread out at several-yard intervals along the open beach, some crouching, some standing, each taking aim with whatever weapon he had.
One terrorist stood about ten paces behind the rest. He carried an RPG, which he was in the process of loading when Michaelson pointed him out as their first target. As the other terrorists started shooting to get the range on the defenseless rubber raft, Lake saw the RPG man’s head jerk to the side. The man fell into the sand and rolled limply down the steep slope until his body came to rest in an inch-deep puddle of water. It took Lake a few seconds to realize that Michaelson had shot him. Though the death shot had been fired right beside him, the loud clamor from the various small arms on the beach had masked the AK-47’s report.
Before the other terrorists even noticed their fallen comrade, Michaelson had killed three more. Lake found himself staring in wonder at the chief’s deadly aim, but quickly snapped out of it when Michaelson rapped him in the shoulder with the butt of his rifle.
“Shoot, you asshole!” Michaelson shouted.
Pulling himself together, Lake noticed the two terrorists closest to him leveling their weapons in his direction. He squeezed the AK-47’s trigger and sent several bursts in their direction. His muzzle was so close to the ground that it kicked up sand, which the wind blew right back into his eyes, blinding him momentarily. When he could finally see again, one of his targets lay motionless, apparently dead. The other was crouching and appeared to be wrestling with a jammed weapon. Lake squeezed off another burst. The man took the rounds across the neck in a spatter of blood and then dropped to the ground, vainly reaching for his jugular vein as it emptied the contents of his arteries onto the white sand. He was dead within a minute.