Stryker flailed, and found he could not move his arms or his legs properly. He was bound. An orange life jacket kept his head above the water.
“We’re going to have a conversation,” Henry said, “about your bosses.”
“I don’t know anything,” Stryker said.
“Let me tell you something,” Henry replied reasonably, as if he were discussing the weather. “Old Man McCloud was a friend of mine. He’s an odd bird. Was. One of his eccentricities being his taste in pets.”
“What are you talking about?”
“See, McCloud’s been out here for about thirty years. He got lonely. He had one friend here, though, by the name of Rocky Balboa.”
“I told you I don’t know anything. They used cutouts. Encrypted comms. There’s nothing I can say you don’t already know.”
“Rocky is a fourteen-foot alligator,” Henry went on. “McCloud fed him. The gator kept the sharks out of the channel, kept other gators away. It was like they had some kind of unspoken agreement. I’ve never seen anything like it. I passed old Rocky on the way in.”
“You’re going to kill me either way,” Stryker said.
“True,” Henry said, nodding down at him. “But there’s dying and then there’s dying.”
Stryker floated in the water, trying to think past the pain devouring him. He was done. “Screw you,” he gasped.
“See, what gators do is they bite you and roll you under the water. Then they carry you around for a while until you get soft and ripe.”
Stryker slow blinked and clenched his jaw. “You’ll make it quick?”
“Yes.”
“In my ruck,” he said. “An envelope. Numbers. I don’t know what they mean. I took ’em from that guy. Oh fuck this hurts. Blackaby. One of them. In Houston.”
“Good dog,” Henry said, turning away.
“Wait! Shoot me. One soldier to another. You gave your word.”
“It might be quick,” Henry said. “Depends on how hungry Rocky is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Deeper Kind of Darkness
“Got it,” Wallace said from inside the shack, holding up an envelope. “A little water damage, but not much. A page full of random numbers. I’m uploading it now.”
“Any way we can get through to Colonel Bragg?” Henry said. “No. They’re dark. We’re on our own. That’s all right.”
“Let’s move out, then,” Henry said.
“Why the rush?” McCoy said, slapping a mosquito. “It’s getting to be dark.”
“Maybe,” Henry said. “But if Stryker was able to hack my friend’s GPS system and figure out where we were going, so could the Directors. They might be coming for him.”
McCoy arched his eyebrows. “Ah.” “Let’s get squared away.”
Henry wanted to be able to talk to Suzanne and relax. To say things that needed to be said. There wasn’t any time, and he had that hunted feeling in him he’d come to know well.
Henry took whatever fuel he could find from the skiff and the boat Suzanne had used to get to McCloud’s camp.
The bodies of his friends were still sprawled on the deck of the boat, Beowulf too. He focused on the tanks, promising to come back to this spot when it was all over and say some words and prayers.
“We’ve got a lot of weight in the boat,” Henry said, backing out of the inlet. “There’s going to be some pushing.”
Wallace smiled grimly. “Through the blood and the mud and the crud.”
Henry was more concerned with a drone strike than anything else. With the armistice in place and the unraveling conspiracy public, he hoped the Directors would have limited resources now. If they came, knowing where to look, there would be no escape. Thermal imaging would reveal heat signatures through any canopy of leaves or cover of darkness.
When he heard the whine of boat motors, he was tense. Either help was on the way, or they were in for a hell of a fight.
“I hear it too,” Carlos said. “What do you think?”
“Suzanne, take Taylor. Now. Head back to the shack. Grab that scuba gear and get under water, deep as you can. Stay down.”
“They’re coming right for us,” Wallace said. “More than one boat.”
“Let them come. Set up an ambush. I’m going to block this channel with the boat.”
Suzanne and Taylor splashed over the side.
“You want me to set up the SAW at the shack?” McCoy said. “Direct line of fire. I can light them up when they push through.”
“No. If they’ve got RPGs they’ll hit the shack first. Let’s stick to the mangroves and keep our heads down. We put them in a kill zone when they come all the way through. They can’t know how many of us there are.”
“Roger that,” McCoy said.
“Were you serious about that alligator?” Wallace said.
“Yeah. I didn’t really see him around, though.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Least of our worries. I’m thinking he’ll snack on Frosty before he comes after one of us, though.”
Henry pushed the boat so that it blocked the channel. The tide was slack, but it would turn soon. They split up, each soldier selecting a spot far underneath the hanging branches. Henry scooped up muck and smeared it over his face.
As he looked around the pond, he could not see his comrades.
Suzanne and Taylor were out of sight as well.
The sound of the engines ceased.
The boat eased back from the narrow mouth, slowly enough that it might have been pushed by the wind. Henry knew otherwise.
Henry could see two commandos at the stern of the craft. More coming behind them.
The soldiers waded ahead, weapons above the water. Henry put his sights on the nearest one, waiting. He thumbed the firing selector to semiautomatic. A fight, then.
He counted six men.
They crossed the pond, communicating with hand signals. They were spreading out.
Squeeze.
The stock of the assault rifle bucked against his shoulder. He put two rounds into the head of a man less than fifty feet away. A cloud of pink mist in the air, and a wash of blood on the side of the boat.
Gunfire erupted from the perimeter as Carlos, McCoy, and Wallace found targets.
McCoy, on the M249, cut a swath through the mangroves, branches and leaves falling under the torrent of hot metal.
The gunfire ceased. Blue smoke hung over the water and there was the smell of battle. Henry saw three bodies floating facedown.
He headed into the deeper water of the channel until it became too shallow to swim. He eased forward, digging in with his knees. He was exposed. He crawled ahead through the slime, his movements slow and deliberate to reduce the splashes, his elbows deep in the mud.
He did not see the boats the attackers used right away. They’d stowed a pair of inflatable Zodiacs under the canopy.
Two boats. Four men to a boat, most likely.
He scanned the shadows for movement.
Behind him urgent gunfire erupted again. He focused on what was in front of him.
A brief flash of metal caught the sun. Henry zeroed in, firing three rapid shots.
Pain rippled through his right arm and he heard another shot, close and off to the side. A round punched through his bicep and slapped the stock of his weapon, tearing it from his grasp.
Henry pushed himself backwards, reaching for the assault rifle. Another round sent up a geyser of water inches from his face.
He wished he had a grenade. He kept backing up, searching the swamp for the enemy. His right arm was on fire and his hand and forearm were slick with blood. He sought his weapon with shaking, urgent hands. There.