“No,” Danny said, and continued. “So the bartender reaches under the counter and pulls out a shotgun…”
CHAPTER 18
KEO
I’m so screwed.
Gillian was so going to kill him. If she was even still alive out there, and if he ever made it to her if she was. There were a lot of maybes. He really was just operating on faith, and had been for some time. Maybe he always knew it, but it took Lara trying to convince him — and herself — that her boyfriend was still alive to bring it home.
She wants to believe it. Badly. Just like I want to believe Gillian’s still out there waiting for me.
We’re both suckers.
Between the two of them, he was definitely the bigger sucker. After all, he was the one stuck on a doomed island. It didn’t get any worse than that. It might have been different if he had a battalion of soldiers fighting with him. Or, hell, he would have settled for some seasoned mercs. But no, just kids and women and…more women. Way too many women. Maybe it was a sign from God that he’d end up surrounded by double X chromosomes. A really sick and perverted sign. He’d be angry about it if he actually believed in a higher power.
So screwed.
He had to admit, when it came to suicidal plans, Lara had him beat by a mile. His friend Norris would have had a heart attack if he’d heard what she was planning. Then again, Keo recognized his own shortcomings when it came to tactical decisions, so what did he know? Maybe this was the only way out. Could he have come up with something better? Probably not. Most of his ideas ended up with him nearly dying anyway.
The lights up and down the beach had buzzed to life by the time darkness enveloped the island in a nice thick blanket, and soon even the quiet hum of the lamps was drowned out by the sloshing of water against the sand. The wind was picking up, and a nice breeze washed over him. He was glad for the long-sleeve wool sweater he’d found at the hotel’s lost-and-found room. Even the lake seemed to know something was about to happen as soon as night fell.
He heard their footsteps against the cobblestone pathway before someone called over, “Shouldn’t you be hiding with the women and children?”
They looked like brother and sister with their blond hair, matching broken noses, and facial scars. The girl, Gaby, was gangly but obviously athletic, and actually looked comfortable with the M4 for a civilian. The gun belt sagged a bit against her narrow hips, mostly thanks to the heavy ammo pouches she was carrying.
“Apparently I’m neither women or children enough,” Keo said.
“Coulda fooled me,” the guy, Danny, said.
Keo smirked.
“See what I mean?” Danny said to the girl. “Mercs have no sense of humor. It’s always shoot this, shoot that, and where’s my money with them.”
“Not all of us get to live off Uncle Sam’s teats,” Keo said. “Some of us actually have to work for a living.”
“You good at keeping the lights on, Kia?”
“I’ve sent a few Army Rangers packing in my time.”
“Oh ho, don’t mess with this guy.”
They walked over and stood next to him, and the three of them stared off at the darkening lake in silence for a moment. It wouldn’t be long now until the shoreline in the distance became indistinguishable from the nothingness gathering beyond the lights of the island.
“Wind’s picking up,” Danny said.
“Is that a good or bad sign?” the girl asked.
“Depends…”
“On?”
“If you believe in good and bad signs. Me, I just pay attention to the ones that say ‘Stop’ and the ones with dresses on the door.”
Gaby was focusing on the white yacht at the end of the piers. It looked like a sleeping whale waiting to be awakened, moving slightly against the waves. “What exactly are we going to do with that thing?”
“Part of Lara’s Plan Z,” Danny said.
“Plan D,” the girl corrected him.
“Plan D?”
“Yeah. She says it sounds better than Plan Z. Less last resort-ish.”
“Sure, if you want to take all the fun out of it.” He looked over at Keo. “What about you, Karaoke, you prefer Plan Z or Plan D?”
“As long as it keeps me alive at the end of the night, I don’t really give a shit,” Keo said.
Danny chuckled. “Listen to this guy,” he said, jerking a thumb at Keo. “He actually thinks we’re going to survive tonight. Looks like someone wants the Captain Optimism title.”
At exactly 7:00 P.M., the earbud in his right ear, connected to the throat mic and Motorola radio clipped to a stripped-down assault vest, clicked, and he heard Lara’s voice. “Stan, come in.”
Stan was the Mexican electrician, who as far as Keo knew was at the power station on the western part of the island. “I’m in position,” Stan said through the radio.
“It’s seven,” Lara said. “Do it.”
“Shutting down the power in five, four, three, two…one.”
Then it got dark.
Really, really dark.
The lamps that lined the beach and stretched out into the lake along with the three piers shut down one by one. Even though they were all solar-powered, the lighting system had a built-in manual power override, or so he’d been told. In a matter of seconds, the white sand and blue water of Beaufont Lake seemed to blink out of existence.
His heartbeat actually accelerated as he sat there in complete darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden shift. It had been so long since he found himself outside and exposed at night that for a very brief moment, Keo remembered what fear was.
It took about thirty seconds, but he’d be damned if it didn’t feel more like thirty minutes before his vision finally adjusted to the new reality, and he could once again make out the waves lapping against the beach in front of him under the moonlight.
“And so it begins,” Danny said in his right ear. Then, “Was that ominous enough?”
“I give it an eight out of ten,” Gaby said through the comm.
“I was going for at least a nine.”
“Better luck next time.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Better Luck Next Time Danny. That’s what they called me in college, you know.”
“What school did you go to?” someone else asked through the radio. A woman. It sounded like either Bonnie’s little sister what’s-her-name or one of the other women whose names he hadn’t bothered to learn yet.
“Um, I don’t know,” Danny said.
“You don’t know?” the woman said, slightly amused.
“Well, no one’s ever had a follow-up question before.”
“Shouldn’t you have thought of one just in case?”
“Everyone’s a critic.”
“Hey, everyone, leave my boyfriend alone,” someone else said. Keo recognized Carly, the redhead. “Don’t listen to them, baby. Your jokes are awesome.”
“Ah, thanks, babe. You’re the bestest. Have I told you lately how much I love you?”
“Not yet, but the night’s still young.”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” Gaby said.
Keo tuned them out, which was difficult because he was connected to the same channel as the entire island. After a while, their playful back and forth faded into the background and he was able to focus on…absolutely nothing.
He was sitting on the ground, his back pressed against a tree. The beach started less than a meter in front of him, and from his position he could see all of the piers, including the Trident, its white paint easily distinguishable in the darkness. Gaby was all the way on the other end of the beach, with the ex-Ranger somewhere in the middle.