Keo grinned back at the soldier. “Hey, I almost had it.”
“Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades, dude,” the man said.
“Tell me about it,” Keo said, and turned around and grabbed the boat’s V-shaped bow and pulled it in.
The guard helped with the other side, but the second one was more concerned about not getting caught in the waves that were washing ashore than lending a hand. As Keo and the Good Samaritan pulled the boat up, Erin walked to the front and picked up the line from the floor.
Keo backpedaled up the beach, his soaked boots squishing under him. Erin tossed him the line, and Keo pulled the boat further in. The guard was too busy talking to Erin and the other guy had wandered off.
Definitely so far, so good.
There was a metal spike to which Keo tied the boat’s line. It wasn’t exactly a sophisticated docking system, but then they were landing on the backside of the island.
“Just you two?” the guard was asking Erin behind him.
“Just us,” Erin said.
“How’s the war going? We don’t get a lot of information. Heard it was going well, though.”
“Yeah, we’re bulldozing through the collaborators,” Erin said. “Pretty soon there’ll just be the monsters to deal with.”
“That’s when all the silver bullets come in, right?”
Erin nodded. “That’s right.”
“Can’t wait for that. I’m tired of playing security guard over here.”
“Don’t worry; you’ll get your chance soon enough.”
“Looking forward to it,” the man said.
As he was tightening the rope around the spike, Keo took a moment to scan the rest of the island. There wasn’t much in the way of defenses that he could see except for the two guards he had already met, though Keo did glimpse two more figures farther up the beach to his right. Still, four people weren’t nearly enough to cover the entire two-kilometer span of the island on this side, but maybe there were more people than he could see with the naked eye. Either that, or Mercer really was stretched thin. Which, if true, meant the man was definitely putting all his eggs on the collaborators turning on their ghoul masters and bulking up his ranks.
Good luck with that, pal.
Erin had walked over to join him, and she handed him his pack and asked, “You ready?”
He nodded and said in a low voice so the closest guard didn’t hear, “You good?”
“Yes,” she said, louder than he would have liked. “Let’s go; I wanna grab some shut-eye before sunup.”
That last part, he guessed, was for the guard’s benefit.
Keo followed her up the beach, sliding the pack’s strap over his left shoulder only in order to keep his right arm free. The M4 with the grenade launcher thumped reassuringly against his back, within easy reach. When he looked back at the water, the guy who had helped him pull the boat up had already returned his NVD over his eyes and was walking off to join his buddy.
“What about the boat?” Keo asked.
“Someone will take care of it later,” Erin said.
They waded through knee-high grass in a field on the other side of the beach. It was easy to pick up the signs that Uncle Sam had been here and had chopped down a lot of the scenery, leaving a mostly unobstructed view of the place. Keo spied the roofs of buildings jutting out of the ground in the distance, and though he expected to see planes taking off and landing, the only sounds came from the crickets in the woods and birds in the trees around him.
“What that guy said about silver bullets,” Keo said.
“What about it?” Erin asked.
“I can understand why people on the Ocean Star weren’t equipped with them, but what about the teams in the fields? The ones in Texas right now?”
“Mercer’s orders.”
“Why?”
“Their job is to strike at the collaborators, not fight ghouls. If they had silver ammo, they’d be tempted to do the very thing he told them not to do. This way, they’re forced to stay on course. Hide at night, fight in the day. And you don’t need silver bullets to do that.”
Four guys in a tank apparently didn’t get that message.
“That’s a pretty hardcore way to ensure your soldiers do exactly what you tell them,” Keo said. “And all the kill teams went along with it?”
“A lot of them protested — I was one of them. But he stuck to his guns and we found ways to be okay with it, like we always do. I heard rumors that some of the teams stole silver bullets from the armory and took them with them. But I never actually met any that did.”
“The funny thing is, I agree with him.”
Erin looked over, surprised. “You do?”
“Not his no-silver policy even if you die because of it part. That’s just stupid. But on the not engaging the ghouls part, yeah, I get that. It’s pointless.”
She nodded. “He said it was a losing battle. There are so many of them, killing a hundred here, a thousand there wouldn’t even make a dent in their number. He said we’d just use up all the silver ammo we spent so much time and sweat making. He wanted to save it for emergencies, but mostly for when we finally took the fight directly to the monsters. That’s why we still have people out there whose only job is to collect silver.”
“He’s playing the long game.”
“Always. From day one, his goal was to first take away the ghoul’s greatest resource — cut their supply line, as he put it.”
“Humans.”
“He’ll kill as many as he needs to get them to turn on their masters.”
“What if he ends up killing everyone instead?”
“That’s why I’m here on Black Tide with you, Keo. To make sure that doesn’t happen.” She ground her teeth together, and he heard the conviction in her voice for the very first time when she added, “There has to be a better way to take the planet back. There has to be.”
Maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t, but Keo wasn’t too concerned with the answer at the moment. Right here and now, he could only concentrate on one thing:
Find Mercer. Kill Mercer.
He replayed the look on Jordan’s face as she bled out in his arms next to the highway; the oddly contented smile she gave him as he held her, forever frozen in his mind’s eye. Days later, and he still didn’t know how he felt about her, but he knew that he liked her and knew exactly how he felt about watching her die.
Somewhere on the other side of the field they were moving through, lights shone from a series of blocky gray buildings. Mercer would be in one of those right now, oblivious to what was coming for him.
Keo glanced down at his watch.
3:36 a.m.
He smiled.
The hour of the wolf…
24
Lara
When Riley opened his eyes, the first thing he said was, “Andy shot me.”
Lara nodded. “Yes, he did.”
“Then someone shot him…”
“Peters.”
“I told you he never misses.”
“So I’ve been told,” Lara smiled.
Riley closed his eyes for a brief few seconds, then opened them again. “You’re still here. How long has it been?”
“I am, and it’s past midnight. You’ve been heavily sedated. I’m surprised you’re already talking.”
He squinted. “Feels like an elephant’s sitting on me.”