It had taken her all of last night to decide whether to take Hart up on his offer. She was still too wary of a possible trick in case Hart and his CO had a backup plan if their boarding went awry and had ordered Blaine to keep moving all night, with a full guard rotation inside and outside the yacht.
“Mighty generous of him,” Carly was saying.
“You don’t believe him?” she asked.
“If being with Danny’s taught me anything, it’s that you can’t trust anyone who tries to sneak up on you in the middle of the night. It always ends badly — and painfully.”
Lara looked to Blaine. “What do you think?”
The big man shook his head. “I guess it depends on what he can offer us in return for sending his guys back. What did Hart say they had over there, wherever there is?”
“Supplies and fuel.”
“Like he knew exactly what we needed,” Carly said.
“He knew about the fueling stations and marinas being manned by collaborators,” Lara said. “They’ve been out there. They know what’s happening back on land.”
The bridge’s speakers squawked, and they heard the man’s voice again: “Are you still there?”
Lara held the microphone up to her lips and clicked the transmit button. “I’m still here.”
“You’re thinking about my offer.”
“We’re talking about it.”
“You’re in charge?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Riley, by the way,” the man said.
“Lara.”
“Nice to meet you, Lara. Wish it was under better circumstances.”
“The man’s a master of understatement,” Carly said. “First he spies on us, then tries to board us, and now he’s acting all ‘Golly gee, I just wanna be friends.’” She rolled her eyes. “Goes to show you guys are as trustworthy as a knife in the back.”
“Hey,” Blaine said.
“Present company excluded, of course.”
“Damn straight.”
Riley, of course, hadn’t heard any of the back and forth, and he said now, “I assume my man told you about what we can offer?”
Lara pressed the transmit button on the mic. “He did.”
“Supplies. Fuel. Guns and ammo too, if you need them, though I get the impression you don’t.”
“Where do you get your fuel from?”
“Does it matter? The important takeaway for you is that we have what you need.”
“Maybe he’s living on a big oil tanker,” Carly said.
“Oil tankers carry crude oil,” Blaine said. “They have to be processed into usable fuel.”
“What are you, an expert on oil now?”
“Hey, I get around.”
Lara said into the radio, “I need to know your location.”
“I’ll be happy to give you the coordinates as soon as you tell me we have a deal,” Riley said.
“That’s the problem. We don’t have a deal. Not until you can convince me I can trust you.”
Riley didn’t answer right away. Next to her, Carly began humming the Jeopardy theme song.
“Can he convince us of that?” Blaine asked. “After last night?”
“I don’t know,” Lara said, “but I’d like to see him try. Maybe he’ll end up telling me something he doesn’t want us to know.”
“You sly fox,” Carly said.
The speakers squawked again, and Riley finally said, “I think we need to do this face-to-face, Lara. I don’t see how this could work any other way.”
Carly smirked. “If he thinks we’re going to just show up at his front door after what he tried to pull last night, he’s got another thing coming.”
“You have six of my men,” Riley said, almost as if he had heard Carly, “so I’d say you have a pretty big bargaining chip.”
“He’s got a point,” Blaine said.
“What if he doesn’t give a crap about any of them?” Carly asked.
“We might have to take the risk.”
“No, we don’t.”
Blaine sighed. “Yes, we do, Carly.” He glanced at his dashboard’s readings, then back at them. “We’re running out of options here, guys. We need to refuel soon.”
Carly sighed and turned to Lara. “What about Danny and Gaby?”
“They’re not due to radio in for another two hours,” Lara said.
“You know Danny can barely tell time.”
Lara gave her friend a half-smile. “You think this is a bad idea.”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Is your definition of bad also terrible?”
“We have the upper hand. Once he gives us his location, we’ll know where he is. We can show up from any angle and be ready for anything.”
“Bonnie’s awfully good with that M240,” Blaine said.
Lara nodded. “There’s that, too.”
“I still don’t like it,” Carly said.
“We’ll see what they have to offer. If the terms aren’t to our liking, then we’ll leave.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“What if they try to stop us? Do I have to keep mentioning last night’s shenanigans? We can’t trust these people.”
“They want the Trident,” Lara said. “Hart made that pretty clear last night. They’re not going to risk damaging it now. All we have to do is keep our distance.”
Blaine smiled. “I like it. We hold all the cards.”
“They could always change their minds about wanting the boat intact,” Carly said. “Shoot us with a rocket launcher or something. Plenty of those things just lying around.”
“Maybe,” Lara said, “but then why bring us over? If they don’t need the boat anymore, this seems like a lot of effort to go through. Besides, sinking us means sinking six of their own.”
“Again, boss lady, if he actually cares about his guys,” Carly said.
Lara nodded. “There’s that…”
Hart looked up when she stepped inside the room where they had been keeping him and the other five men below deck. The room was small enough that all six squeezed into the same narrow space made for an uncomfortable night, especially with their hands still bound.
“We need to talk,” she said to Hart.
“Did you call him?” Hart asked.
She nodded, then turned to Benny, who was standing guard outside the door with Carrie. “Any trouble?”
“Nope,” Benny said.
“They haven’t tried anything,” Carrie added.
Lara turned back to Hart. “Let’s go.”
He struggled up from the floor using the wall for support. The other five remained where they were, Benny eyeing them like a hawk with his M4 held at the ready in front of him. Lara stepped aside as Hart exited the room, and they closed the door and padlocked it from the hallway.
“Where to?” Hart asked.
“Follow me,” she said.
“What did Riley say?”
“He confirmed your story.”
She couldn’t tell if Hart had breathed a sigh of relief, because it was so loud below deck and she couldn’t even hear their footsteps as she led him through the engine room, then out and onto the lower deck of the moving yacht.
Hart blinked up at the clear skies and let out an almost blissful sigh (she heard that, that time), holding his bound hands up to shield his eyes from the sun. Above them, Maddie moved along the railing. Higher up, Bonnie was stationed behind the M240 machine gun that she had spent a lot of hours on, back when Keo and Danny were running all the adults (and Dwayne) through weapons training.