Engines.
Keo was about to climb over the boat’s fender when the noise cut through the silence of the city. It was impossible to miss. Sound already traveled long distances these days, but mechanical noise was like shouting through a bullhorn.
Car engines.
He finished the climb and dropped down, flattening himself against the sun-bleached white deck. He unslung the pack and slid it in front of him, then laid the MP5SD on top of the nylon fabric. He pulled the zipper and took out the small binoculars and peered through it, past the railing in front of him.
He tracked two vehicles moving fast down Sunset Deluca Drive.
Trucks.
A sleek black GMC Sierra and a white Honda Ridgeline. They were staying close together, clearly moving in tandem. He waited for both vehicles to flash by and keep going, but instead they began to slow down—
Crap.
— before stopping completely in front of the parking lot and behind the three white trucks.
And my luck keeps getting better and better.
Two men, wearing clothes Keo didn’t think he’d ever see again, climbed out of the GMC in camo uniforms and combat boots, with sidearms and ammo pouches attached to web belts. They looked like soldiers, but Keo knew better. There were no American soldiers anymore. You would need an American government to still be around for that. Besides, these guys didn’t actually look like servicemen. Keo had been around guys in uniform almost his entire life, and these jokers looked more like civilians dressing up for Halloween. Even the shade of their camo was wrong.
One of the men reached into the large GMC and pulled out a tan-colored FN SCAR assault rifle. The second, bigger one had an M4. He was wearing some kind of an assault vest with a radio in a pouch, which the man pressed now. A loud squawk, then muffled voices, but they were too far away for Keo to eavesdrop.
He was caught in no man’s land. Escaping into the cabin behind him was a non-starter. He had only two real options at this point — fight or flee. He couldn’t flee. There was nowhere to go unless he wanted to go for a swim.
Which left fight.
Because there was no way these men were going to leave now. Even if they didn’t know the boat existed before showing up, they would have to be blind not to spot the white-painted forty-meter mast sticking up into the air like a beacon. If these bozos came any closer and looked for more than a few seconds, it would be impossible to miss the only boat in the entire marina.
So he wasn’t terribly surprised when the fat man began walking up the middle dock toward him.
If it weren’t for shitty luck…
He watched Fatty turn sideways to move between two of the trucks in the parking lot, barely making the tight squeeze. His eyes, predictably, saw the docked sailboat right away as soon as he was through.
Keo slipped the binoculars back into the pack and picked up the submachine gun. He pressed as much of his body against the deck as he could in order to lower his profile even further. The railing would hide him somewhat, but if the man came any closer…
He flicked the fire selector on the MP5SD from fully automatic to semi-auto. The sound suppressor would do a lot to hide the gunshot, but the other guy standing outside the Ridgeline would notice pretty quickly when Fatso fell down.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…
He couldn’t see up the dock anymore, so he had to rely on his ears. Heavy footsteps approached him at a slow pace. Keo didn’t think the man could hurry if he wanted to because of the girth he was carrying.
How do you stay fat at the end of the world? Now, that’s a nice trick.
“—see the boat, but I don’t see anyone,” the man was saying.
“Well, someone’s gotta have sailed that thing here,” a voice said through a radio. “The kid said it wasn’t here a month ago when he last came by.”
“Maybe he got it wrong.”
“Kid swears by it.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll check it out.”
“Careful you don’t slip and fall into the water,” the other man said, chuckling. “I’m not jumping in there after your fat ass.”
“Har har,” the fat man said. “You’re a funny guy.”
Keo had been counting the man’s loud footsteps, and when he got the right number, he rose up on the deck of the boat with the MP5SD in his hands.
The man was halfway up the dock when he froze at the sight of Keo.
A painful second, then two, ticked by.
The man groped for the radio and tried to lift it to his lips when Keo shot him once in the chest. He watched the man stagger for a moment, a shocked expression spreading across his generous face. Keo shot him again between the eyes, and the big man dropped to the wooden boards, his bulk making a loud thump!
Keo quickly threw himself over the boat’s fender and onto the dock. He raced back toward the parking lot with the MP5SD in front of him.
The man with the SCAR was running up the parking lot when he spotted Keo and slid to a stop.
Keo squeezed the trigger twice, putting both rounds into the man’s chest. The “soldier” stumbled but didn’t go down. Instead, the man actually put a hand back against one of the white trucks to steady himself.
Bulletproof vest? Cheater!
Keo put the third bullet in the man’s face, the silver 9mm round obliterating the nose in a shower of blood and bone. This time, the man dropped.
He reached the end of the marina and pushed on, passing the second dead man, whose radio squawked, a voice shouting through, “Milton? What’s going on out there? Milton?”
He slipped around one of the trucks instead of going between them. He flicked the fire selector to fully automatic as soon as he reached the parking lot and came up on the Ridgeline just as both front doors opened and two more uniformed men clambered outside. The passenger was trying desperately to unsling an M4 carbine, while the driver had managed to get a silver Colt 1911 automatic out of its holster and was aiming it over the hood of the truck.
Keo shot the passenger first because he was the closer target, stitching the moving man with a quick burst and catching him in the chest with three rounds. His fourth, fifth, and sixth bullets shattered the Ridgeline’s window and Keo glimpsed faces inside the truck, in the back, and heard screams.
Female screams.
The driver fired over the hood of the truck. Too fast and his hands were shaking, throwing his aim off. Barely. Keo still heard the zip! as the bullet nearly took his head off anyway.
He went into a crouch and lost sight of the driver on the other side of the truck momentarily. Not that that seemed to stop the man from shooting. He fired off two more shots, then a fourth one, the clink-clink of his bullet casings landing on the ground.
Keo stayed low and crab-walked sideways when the driver appeared from around the hood. Keo shot his legs out from under him, and the driver screamed as he slammed into the parking lot.
He got up and rushed over, kicking the fancy Colt under the Ridgeline. He ignored the driver’s screams and circled the truck before leaning into the open driver-side door and looking into the backseat.
Two faces, both draped with long hair, peered back out at him.
One of the women, a brunette, held out her hands — showing scarred palms — as if to let him know she wasn’t armed. The other one had dirty-blonde hair and seemed to be trying to disappear into the floor of the truck.