“Yeah, all right. I'll check it out.”
“I want a full inspection. I want to know if it's drivable, and I want to know if it has enough fuel to make it to the island.”
AJ grunted and began heading towards the stairs. He turned at the last. “I'd say this is turning into a bad luck day pretty fast here, Mason. What do you say?”
“Day's not over,” he answered.
4
It's not your fault son, it's just bad luck. You got a bad luck wound on a bad luck day.
AJ didn't remember the first time he rode with Mason, but he remembered the last. He was twenty-six back then. Too young to know better, too old to play naïve.
They had been escorting a high value target across the Pakistani border, fifty clicks west of the Chapri Forest. The crew was different back then, but the men—the men—were the same. All piss and fire, and not enough brains to power a light bulb between them. AJ hadn't been the only one with a college degree, so they didn't have an excuse. It was just the way it was. Moving from one assignment to the next, big paydays and fast vacations. Blackout drunk in Istanbul, then neck deep in mud in Baghdad. Some leaders brought out the discipline in their crew, and some brought out the beast. Mason brought out the most vicious kind of beast. That he cared for his men, however, was never a question. AJ learned that in the mountains of Behsud when they got ambushed.
The team nabbed their target from a dirty bath house in the wee hours of the morning and escorted him through two miles of back alleys. Then, as they were about to leave the city, three insurgents began shooting from a rock face above them. Not a terribly effective spot, but not easy to pick off, either. Only one person got hit in the initial barrage, and it happened to be their target. It wasn't a fatal wound, but it cracked the man's femur. That meant he couldn't run, and that meant he no longer had any value.
“It's not your fault, son,” Mason said, coming at the man with his knife. “It's just bad luck.”
Their captive wasn't much younger than Mason, but in the morning light, he looked young. He wasn't an old sheik or a cleric with a beard to his waist; he had a modern haircut; he was wearing a business suit. Mason didn't hesitate though. He stuck him like a farmhouse pig and took a finger as proof of the bounty. They ran through the ridge and no one else got hurt, but it was still bad luck.
A bad luck day.
“What are you thinking about?” Mason asked.
AJ thought it over. “Old times.”
The other man stared at him a long while and then nodded. AJ thought he could read a lot in that face. When he had left the team behind a few weeks after the job, he hadn't bothered to say goodbye. That life — the freelance life — it just wasn't for him. Life didn't have to be that hard. Bruhbaker thought AJ had given up on his brothers, but that was foolish. Men like Mason could bear the heat, but they could never turn it off, and they could never get out. They would always be jealous of the men who could.
AJ dusted his hands. “She's in good shape. Still has a little gas, too.”
“Then it's about time we have a look. You should come.”
“I figured you might ask that.”
“You know everything about the area. It's why you're here.”
AJ did. Prior to construction, he and the head geologist had talked about it quite a bit, oh yes. But all the same, he was starting to get a bad feeling about the place. “I'm here because I know The Aeschylus, not because I know anything about the surrounding area.”
“Have you been there?”
“To the island? No. What do you think you'll find, anyways?”
“Survivors,” Mason said. “And my chopper.”
Both of those statements might be true, but AJ thought he heard something else, too. Curiosity? Back in the day, AJ had never known his old commander to question the source of his assignment. But seeing those goddamned growths on The Aeschylus might be enough to jar even that thick skull of his.
Stepping over the side rail, Mason sidled onto the boat next to Christian. When he got there, he turned and looked at AJ expectantly. “Are you coming?”
“Not this time.”
Mason worked his jaw in that unconscious gesture of his, chewing on a response. He didn't look like he was in the mood to take no for an answer.
Then Kate appeared, jogging down the steps and towards the dock. “Hey, where are you going?”
“Step back, Miss McCreedy. You're staying here with my men.”
“Excuse me! You are not in charge of the civilians here, Bruhbaker.”
“Ma'am, I need you to step back away from the dock. This is a safety call, and I'm making it. The island is only a short distance, but we don't know what's out there. I'm responsible for your safety, and I'm not taking a civilian, especially not a Valley Oil employee.”
“The hell you aren't! What about these two?” She indicated AJ and Dutch, who was leaning against a support some distance away.
Mason only grinned. He knew she was still coming, knew that he was only egging her on.
AJ looked at her. “What are you do—”
Before he could finish, she jumped from the platform and landed on the bow of the boat. She barely made it. One leg dangled off, and she started to slide towards the water when Mason caught her by the arm and hauled her all the way in. AJ marveled at how big the man's hand was; it wrapped all of the way around her bicep like an oversized handcuff.
“Thanks,” she said. The strap of her bra had slipped beneath her shirt, and she took a moment to right it.
When she looked up, AJ caught her eyes. What are you doing?
“It's my job,” she called, reading his face. “We have to find them!”
The engine fluttered and then sparked to life as Christian found the ignition switch. He throttled forward, and the three of them drifted beneath a massive tentacle and out into open water.
As they moved further away, Dutch came over to stand by his friend. “Come on, buddy. No hope for it now. It's her choice.”
“I don't trust him. They're up to something.”
“Let it go.”
AJ did, but he still had a bad luck kind of feeling.
Chapter 10: The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone
1
He heard Heinrich's scream and paused with the ax in mid swing.
Ari pulled the girls closer. “Go on, Dominik, again!”
They rocked as the harpoon rope pulled taut, and the ax clanged into the ground, missing Dominik's foot by a hair's breadth. The nets holding the rowboat were half cut, but he was running out of time.
“Go again!” Ari said. “Keep going!”
His companion had taken hours to convince, but here he stood, urging Dominik on like a maniac. Down in the dark, it was easy to eschew danger, but here, with the smell of freedom so close, he was just as intoxicated as the rest of them. Looking at him, you would have never known he had any doubts.
“Try again!”
And then Dominik saw a shape. Through the spray of gloom and sea water, it took him a moment to recognize it as man. A man it was, fat and gray and dressed in the habiliments of the Gestapo.
Boris Seiler crept up the stern of the ship, pistol in hand. The ship rocked and swayed, but he kept pressing forward, eyes piercing the gloom. “You are trying to escape. You cannot escape. The penalty for attempting escape is death.”
Dominik could barely see, but he could swear the man was smiling. He knew Seiler had killed his driver on the bridge in Kiel, and his driver had just been a kid.