A lone figure, clearly not part of the invading horde, had appeared on the other side of the open ground. Keo was still trying to figure who it was (it had to be one of Lara’s islanders, given how the man was trying to stay hidden), when the guy decided to ruin Keo’s night by opening fire. Two men running full speed toward the woods fell instantly.
The man kept firing, but was smart enough to start moving sideways at the same time. He darted behind trees only to pop out on the other side and shoot again.
Keo ran through the island’s inventory of men in his head. He discounted Danny because the man had come from the wrong direction. Stan the electrician would be near the hotel with Lara and Sarah, the cook. Roy would also be there with them. Benny, the other gimpy guy on the island, would be in the Tower with the redhead — or was, since Lara had given the abandon ship signal. Blaine, the big Mexican, had the important job of keeping Gage and the Trident in play.
So who did that leave?
The shooter had the right height for the kid Dwayne, but it was stretching it to think a twelve-year-old had the tactical ability he was witnessing now. No, that was a full-grown man out there who had just moved behind cover as the invaders returned fire on him.
Keo would have preferred to stay out of it, let the whole group pass him by before he made his way to his own exit point. That, unfortunately, was on the other side of the open clearing. The only other way to get to the yacht was to go around the power station using the western cliff, then circle over to the north side.
He would have liked to use the more direct approach because it was much, much faster, but as he observed the men in black starting to diverge toward the north and at the lone defender, his choices became very limited.
Remember when you were on your way to Gillian at Santa Marie Island?
Yeah. Live and learn, pal.
Keo ripped the NVD off and let it hang around his neck, then lifted the submachine gun and flicked the fire selector to full auto. He was more than a hundred meters from the closest assaulter when he stood up and unleashed all thirty rounds across the open field.
To his surprise, one of the men actually stumbled and fell to the ground, even though Keo had just fired randomly into the jagged line of attackers hoping to draw their attention away from the islander. They didn’t hear his gunshots with the attached suppressor, but they either saw one of their own going down or they recognized someone was shooting at them from behind. Half of them turned around, night-vision goggles seeking him out in the darkness.
Keo spun and ran back into the tree line as they opened up on him, the loud clatter of a dozen or so assault rifles firing at the same time crackling across the air. They were armed with M4s and firing on three-round bursts. Unlike the carbines the islanders were using, the soldiers’ weapons hadn’t been converted to full-auto, it seemed. The difference between having a pair of Rangers on hand who knew their guns…and not, he guessed.
The problem was that those M4s, fully auto or not, still had the long-distance shooting ability that his MP5SD didn’t. Fortunately for him, he was moving before they started shooting, though that didn’t stop bullets from slamming into trees and snapping branches and kicking at the ground around him as he dived the last few meters into the sanctuary of the woods.
Daebak!
He scrambled to his feet, turned right, and ran as hard as he could. The air was filled with buzzing and gunfire, branches being reduced to splints all around him. Either they knew the direction he was taking or they were shooting at everything. Not that it mattered. He was still in one piece with no extra holes in him, which was good enough.
He didn’t slow down until he could hear the lapping of the lake against the rocks at the bottom of the western cliff. Cool air floated through the trees and he stopped to catch his breath, then slipped the night-vision goggles back on. Running through a sea of trees with something blocking your vision, even if it gave you artificial night vision, wasn’t a good idea. He had learned that the hard way outside of Caracas a few years back—
BOOM!
Keo turned back around. He knew instinctively the explosion had come from the hotel even before he glimpsed the gray-white plume of smoke rising lazily into the air. It sounded like a grenade.
This night just keeps getting better and better. Now aren’t you glad you stayed?
So the bad guys had grenades, too. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. They had blown up the brick wall around the shack with something pretty strong. Maybe C4 or Semtex. Probably C4, since he was on American soil. Uncle Sam’s boys in uniform hoarded those things in bunches.
The rattle of gunfire had picked up again, but this time not directed at him, thank God. He listened and judged their distance.
The hotel.
That was a bad sign, because Lara and the others were at the hotel. Or would have to go through it in order to reach their exit point as fast as possible. So he was right. More soldiers had come out of the shack before he even got there. He knew the sound of a ferocious firefight when he heard one, and he was listening to that right now.
He turned around and pushed north, even as the fight back at the hotel continued, the gunfire crashing like rolling thunder from one side of the island to the other. It was much louder than it really should have been, given the distance.
Beaufont Lake grew in volume to his left, but it wasn’t enough to replace the clatter of another running gunfight ahead of him along the northern side. That would be where the Trident was waiting. How long before Blaine decided to take off? That would probably depend on how much fire he was taking. With his luck—
His right ear clicked and he heard someone screaming through the comm, “We’re pinned!” Lara. “Blaine, take off now!”
Oh, hell no.
“What?” Blaine shouted back. “We’re not leaving without you! Get over here!”
Good call. Just wait a little longer until I get there, Blaine ol’ buddy.
“We’re not going to make it!” Lara said.
“Then we’ll come back to you!” Blaine said.
“Don’t be stupid!”
No, Blaine. Be stupid. Be really stupid.
He picked up his pace just in case tonight was the night Blaine decided to start being smart.
“Lara!” Blaine shouted.
“That’s an order, Blaine!” Lara said, most of her words drowned out by gunfire on her end. “Move your ass now, or I’m sending Danny over there to kick it!”
“Yeah, what she said!” Danny chimed in.
Then Carly said something before another BOOM! cut her off.
Keo stopped moving and glanced back toward the hotel. Another plume of smoke was rising into the air, wisps of it like a dragon’s breath.
Well, that’s not good.
He gripped the MP5SD and looked north, then east. The Trident was north. If he didn’t get there soon, Blaine was going to obey Lara’s orders and take off without him onboard. But Lara and Danny were pinned in the hotel. The bad guys also had grenades. They had made use of it twice now. What kind of chance did they have against that kind of firepower? What kind of chance did he have?
He looked north again.
I’m the dumbest man alive.
He sighed and took a step back toward the hotel, but he hadn’t completely stepped out of the tree lines when a new round of gunfire ripped across the air nearby. He dropped to the ground reflexively, expecting the trees around him to be sliced in half by the rapid brap-brap-brap of a machine gun blasting away.