Danny was wearing his old special forces comm gear, with the throat mic and earbud, so she knew she was safe to ask her next question: “Can we trust them?”
“I don’t see why not.” Danny had walked away from the others so they couldn’t hear him. “Of the five hombres, only three are really worth being concerned over. One looks too friendly to have shot anyone, and the other two — well, I can keep an eye on them. Then there’s a teenager and a kid who looks about ten.”
“Will they let us frisk them?”
“That’s a no-brainer.”
“Okay, Danny. If you think we can trust them…”
“I don’t think we can trust them,” Danny said. “But I think we can manage them. The old woman and the girls look innocent enough. Tired and hungry. And like I said — there are only two guys I would have to keep an eye on.”
“Can we leave those two behind?” Carly asked.
“That’s not going to happen,” Danny said. “They’ve survived together for a while. They won’t abandon each other now.”
“Just like we wouldn’t abandon Danny, despite his god-awful jokes,” Lara said.
“Oh, that’s funny,” Danny said.
Lara smiled. “It’s your call, Danny.”
“They won’t be left behind, but maybe they’re willing to part ways temporarily.”
“You think they’ll go for that?”
“Wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Okay. Do it.”
She watched Danny walk back to the group. She could only imagine what he was saying to them: “Good news and bad news! The good news is, we’re going to let you guys on the island. The bad news is, we’re going to have to give you a cavity search first.”
Knowing Danny, she was probably close.
Lara waited for Blaine to show up before she headed down the Tower, because someone always had to be on the third floor at all times. More standard operating procedure that Will had drilled into their heads.
When the big man finally arrived, Lara hurried over to the beach to join Carly, who was waiting on the roof of the boat shack with her Benelli shotgun slung over her back. Lara had her own Remington 870 with her. Like Carly, she was trained on the rifles, but being trained on them wasn’t the same as actually hitting something with them. The shotguns, on the other hand, were harder to miss with.
Carly glanced down at her. “Hey, boss lady.”
“Stop calling me that, please.”
“What? You don’t like it?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. With Will gone, you’re our new fearless leader. Accept it.”
Lara frowned. “When did you and Danny come to that conclusion?”
“Last night. We were hoping Will’s leadership abilities had seeped into you by osmosis. You know, on account of how you guys have hot sex every night.”
Lara smiled. “Is that what you think Will and I do every night? Have hot sex?”
“Just a little bit?”
“Maybe a tad.”
She climbed up to the roof using a ladder in the back. The shack was a smooth concrete block, completely unappealing to the eyes, and used purely to store supplies and fuel. Even a hurricane probably wouldn’t be able to lift the ugly thing, which was the size of a four-car garage.
Carly handed her the binoculars. “They’re on their way back. I can’t believe they agreed to bringing just the women and children first.”
“They’re desperate,” Lara said. “You remember what it was like for us out there. I just hope we didn’t make a really big mistake.”
“I trust you.”
Why? I don’t even trust myself.
Lara walked up the middle pier to meet the pontoon boat as it slowed, then drifted toward her. Danny stood at the front with his M4A1 rifle slung over his back. The carbine had been damaged during the attack on the island, but Danny had gutted parts from a couple of M4 rifles Tom had stored under the Tower to fix it.
Maddie was in the center of the pontoon, looking even smaller behind the big steering wheel. The boat was not built for speed, but it had plenty of space for the eight people crammed into it at the moment.
The fact that half of them were children, and the adults looked thin, helped to calm her nerves. Besides backpacks, the newcomers carried only luggage with them. Lara wondered if she had looked that way — somewhere between hopeful and very afraid it might all be too good to be true — when they first arrived on Song Island.
And did I ever look that thin?
Danny tossed a rope over to her, and Lara tied it around a metal anchor while Danny pulled the pontoon in by hand, stopping only when they were alongside. He quickly hopped out and wrapped the rest of the rope’s length around the anchor before cinching it.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Danny announced, “welcome to Song Island. Pictures are five dollars apiece and can be purchased at that delightful little concrete block at the end of the pier.”
The newcomers consisted of four women, one elderly woman, and three children — two girls in their early teens and a boy. They stared at the island and its white beaches with a mixture of awe and barely-contained joy. The women looked on the verge of tears.
Please God, let this be the right decision.
One of the women was striking and tall, with auburn hair that looked red under the sun. She helped the older woman out of the boat. “Easy, Mae, don’t rush it.”
Mae looked to be in her sixties, brushing frizzled gray hair out of her face as she reached up and took the attractive woman’s hand to be pulled up. Danny and another woman, a short blonde in her twenties wearing a slightly dirty sweater and cargo pants, also lent a hand. Lara was afraid the older woman might break under the three people pulling at her slim figure all at once, but she somehow got onto the pier in one piece.
“Just luggage?” Lara asked.
“The rest are back with the men,” the tall woman said. She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Bonnie.” She pointed at the others. “This is Mae. That’s Gwen and Jo, and the kids are Lucy, Kylie, and Logan. Thank you for letting us come here. We’ve been…looking for it for a long time.”
Lara managed a smile back. “You guys must be hungry.”
“Starving,” a young woman with ash blonde hair, Gwen, said. She was short and barely went up to Bonnie’s chest, but she made up for that with breasts that were twice the size of Bonnie’s.
“Come on, we have some food at the hotel,” Lara said.
“You have a hotel?” the younger brunette, Jo, said. Lara guessed Jo and Bonnie were related. They had similar prominent cheekbones and hazel eyes. Jo looked barely out of her teens but was already taller than Lara.
The women and the boy exchanged excited looks at the mention of “hotel.”
She had to smile at that. “When was the last time you guys had cold water? Or ice in your soft drinks?”
“I…” Bonnie began to say, but couldn’t get it out.
Jo laughed. “I think what Bonnie’s trying to say is, it’s been so long, we can’t remember.”
Lara and Danny watched the women and the boy feast on plates of fried, boiled, and baked fish in the big dining room next to the lobby. The unfinished room was massive, with a large marble table that seated twenty. The new arrivals didn’t seemed to notice the lack of proper flooring or walls — or ceiling, for that matter — when the food was served.
Sarah and Carly brought out the dishes and the newcomers devoured everything put in front of them, probably a combination of real hunger and having to eat out of cans and bags for the last eleven months.