The Trident.
Danny had brought the M240 with him and it was now perched along the rails of the yacht, with either Blaine or one of the islanders behind it firing away. He was trying to pinpoint the location of the machine-gun fire when it started to get louder.
Oh, for the love of God.
Keo remained pressed against the cold ground, stretching out the MP5SD in front of him, when he heard the heavy crunching of combat boots tramping grass with wild abandon as they came toward him. They were shooting as they ran, the zing-zing-zing! of bullets stripping away leaves and branches as they attempted to hit—
The yacht, its stark white color like a metallic beast swinging around the curvature of the island. He glimpsed the staccato effect of the M240 firing away from the upper deck railing, the light show blinking in and out as the boat moved across the row of trees between him and the cliff. Keo imagined the stream of empty brass casings falling into the ocean as the MG razed the column of woods as it passed.
Two men, both clad in black, burst through a pair of trees in front of him. They were somehow moving while crouched and trying to get a shot on the Trident’s machine gunner through the trees. They were ten meters away and closing in when Keo dropped both of them with a squeeze of the trigger. Rifles clattered to the ground just before a third man, out of breath, slid to a stop at the sight of his dead comrades.
Keo shot him twice in the chest, then scanned the woods, waiting for more pursuers.
The yacht had continued on behind him, its weapon still firing nonstop into a section of the woods in front of Keo. He stayed low against the ground as 7.62mm rounds, coming at 700 to 900 rounds per minute (give or take), sheared the trees around him like axes chopping down branches and reducing bark into clouds that stung his eyes.
Keo didn’t move his head for fear of getting it shot off. He didn’t breathe or move at all until the brap-brap-brap finally faded and a large branch plopped down in front of him. The smell of burnt wood filled his nostrils, and he had to switch to breathing through his mouth.
Only then did he allow himself to hop back up to his feet.
He glanced back and saw the white of the Trident fading through the trees. Keo ran after it, moving closer toward the edge as he went, but not so close that he’d run right off the cliff with one false move. He could already feel the cool swirls from the lake brushing against his face as he neared the end of the woods.
There. The yacht, like a white missile, gliding across the calm lake water and getting smaller as it went. The damn thing was picking up speed and it wasn’t going to stop for him. Nosirree. He thought about shouting after it, maybe tell it to Get the hell back here, but decided that probably wasn’t going to work. The boat was too far away and besides, shouting might bring more men in black uniforms after him.
Not daebak. This is definitely not daebak.
He headed back to where he had left the three bodies. He slung his MP5SD and snatched up one of the M4s, knowing the magazine was almost empty by how light the rifle was. He searched the bodies and found two spares, pocketing what he could. You could never have too many bullets, especially on a night like this. He was about to swap in a full mag when—
“Hey!” a voice shouted from behind him.
A man. It didn’t sound familiar, but it was close.
Keo stiffened, kept his back to the man, and didn’t move. Unfortunately for him, he was still holding the rifle at hip level.
“Terry?” the man asked.
The crunch crunch of boots on grass as the man neared. The name was clearly accompanied by a question, so the guy wasn’t certain who Keo was. Then again, he was surrounded by shadows and trees. In here, the moonlight picked and chose what it wanted to reveal, and at this very moment he was standing in one of those patches of darkness and wearing black.
“Yeah, what?” Keo said, keeping his voice as level as possible. He just hoped “Terry” didn’t have a deep voice. Or a feminine one. Hell, for all he knew, “Terry” could have been a girl.
But apparently not, because the guy said, “Where is everyone?” and the crunch crunch of grass got louder as the man got closer.
“I don’t know,” Keo said, spinning around.
He fired the carbine without lifting it first, just in case the guy had a rifle pointed at him. The first three-round burst knocked a man in a black uniform to the ground…and revealed four more standing about twenty meters behind him.
Keo pulled the trigger again but only got a click!
He turned and ran as all four opened fire at the same time.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running, but sometime between either the third or fourth time he bent down to keep his head from getting blown off, he collided with a large tree that popped out of nowhere. Well, that wasn’t true. The tree was always there, but he hadn’t seen it because he was essentially running blind through the woods, too afraid to put on the night-vision goggles for fear of limiting what little vision he had.
Southeast.
That was all he knew; he was heading back toward the beach.
Then the tree said “Hi” and Keo bounced off it, but the impact knocked the radio loose from his hip and it went flying. He thought about trying to find it — for a brief nanosecond, anyway — but when the crack! of rifles sounded behind him, he decided he didn’t really need it and kept running instead.
With the radio now lying in some bushes behind him, Keo ripped out the earbud and throat mic and tossed them. He had also dropped the M4 to further lighten his load, because he needed the extra speed more than he needed firepower at the moment.
The four chasing him were fast and relentless, and they apparently had plenty of ammo, because they kept shooting. A couple of rounds came dangerously close to detaching his head from his shoulders, but he credited that more to dumb luck than skill. It was hard enough hitting a running man, but it was next to impossible to hit him while you were running, too.
He did manage to lengthen his lead by turning suddenly left, which threw them off a bit. About half a minute later, he righted his direction until he was running toward the beach again.
He could almost feel the lake water somewhere up ahead. Almost there. All he had to do was reach one of the boats and get the hell off this island and forget this night ever happened. Or the last few nights. Dammit, where would he be now if he hadn’t picked up Carrie and Lorelei? Probably on his way to Gillian. Or maybe already there, drinking piña colada. Did they have piña coladas on Santa Marie Island? He preferred to think they did.
To get off the island, he had to traverse about fifty meters of open beach while being shot at, which was why he was sticking to the woods for as long as possible. It had been a while since a bullet buzzed near his head, though he could still hear his pursuers crashing through branches and stomping the ground with their heavy boots behind him.
He couldn’t hear the loud mechanical roar of boat motors anymore, but that wasn’t surprising. After a while, the motors would turn off by themselves. As long as there was enough fuel left in one of the tanks, he could always turn them back on. There would be keys in the ignitions still. He didn’t remember any of the soldiers taking the time to pocket those before leaping off the beached vessels.