The man laughed again. “Is that your attempt to get me to reveal myself, Keo?”
Keo heard a snicker and looked over at Claire. She had figured out the same thing Mr. Mysterious had. Like Mr. Mysterious, Claire didn’t seem too impressed with his attempt.
He shrugged at her.
She rolled her eyes back at him.
Keo shouted out, “Not at all. I was just curious. I like to know who I’m shooting at.”
“I guess you’ll just have to be disappointed tonight,” the man said. “And, oh, Keo?”
“Yeah?”
“This is getting boring.”
“Ouch. That hurts my feelings.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m very sensitive.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever.”
“I was hoping we could have some fun, but I think I’m going to end this now.”
“What’s the hurry? Party’s just getting started.”
“It is for me, but not so much for you,” the man said. “I have things to do, people to kill. Like your precious Black Tide, for instance. I’m not just going to kill them, Keo, I’m going to destroy them. Bury them in a deep hole and piss on them.”
Nice visuals, asshole, Keo thought.
“Unfortunately for you,” the man continued, “you won’t get the chance to say good-bye to your friends. But hey, c’est la vie.”
Shit, Keo thought even as he scrambled up to his feet.
Claire did the same on the other side of the door, but before she could ask the obvious question, “What are we going to do now?”, Keo shouted out, “The balcony!”
“What?” she shouted back.
“The balcony!” he said again, even as he took off across the room.
She followed behind him, even as Keo heard the clank-clank of hard objects bouncing on the hotel suite’s wooden floors.
Clank-clank!
And they were getting louder.
Clank-clank!
And closer.
Grenades. He was sure of it. Mr. Mysterious had either tossed the grenades himself or ordered it. In the back of his mind, Keo wondered if all this conversation had just been to stall him while the man waited for the weapons he needed to finish the job without killing more of his men. Which meant, if true, the guy had played him.
Daebak!
Keo kicked what remained of the French doors open and lunged outside. He grabbed Claire’s right arm by the wrist and dragged her toward the railing. Shards of glass crunched loudly underneath their boots.
Claire let him drag her with him, either because she knew what he was planning, or she was willing to give herself entirely up to him to save their lives. He wanted to tell her that this was the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life, but it wouldn’t have been even close.
Keo had done much, much dumber things.
“Keo!” she shouted at the last instant.
He didn’t answer her. He didn’t have time.
The air rippled behind them as an intense heat wave engulfed the entire bedroom. Flames licked at the walls and destroyed what was left of the French doors on their way out into the balcony.
Luckily, Keo and Claire were already over the railing.
And falling…falling…
Twenty-Four
Once upon a time, Keo hated the water. That seemed like another lifetime ago. He didn’t just dislike it, but despised it. His mother wasn’t a very good swimmer. Keo was pretty sure she didn’t know how to even tread water and didn’t have any desire to learn. He couldn’t recall a time when she got wet whenever they were at the beach.
His eventual embracing of the water had something to do with his father.
Oh, who was he kidding?
It had everything to do with the old man.
Calling the man who’d given him life not the most nurturing creature Keo had ever met was an understatement. The elder Keo—not that that was his name—did everything possible to make Keo uncomfortable. That included the water. Because Keo hated it, the old man made him go into it. Over and over, and over again.
Later in life, Keo would realize the elder Keo simply wanted him to toughen up, to face his fears, just as the old man had while growing up. Keo had never met his paternal grandparents or, indeed, any of his father’s family, so he didn’t know what type of people they were. Hardasses, would have been his guess.
It was different with his mother, which might be why Keo tended to think in Korean when he thought in any language other than English. Not that he ever grasped Hangul completely, but, well, he’d tried.
Kinda.
Keo’s eventual embracing of the water was both out of spite and because of his old man. At one point, his father gave up on him and declared Keo a lost cause when it came to the water. After that, Keo spent every waking second and minute and hour on the beaches of every country they settled in during his father’s deployment. He was determined to prove the old man wrong, and in doing so, learned to love the water.
And he got good at swimming.
Really, really good.
Good enough that Lara once asked him to take over the swimming part of Black Tide’s basic training. He’d done it, mostly to make her happy, but he hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Keo had a natural chemistry with the water, but not so much with students.
But he’d do anything for Lara, even though she hadn’t wanted him to come here. They both wanted to help Danny and Black Tide—Lara owed them and felt guilty about abandoning them to be with Keo—but she was in no shape to do it. So it was up to him. In a way, he was standing in for her in an attempt to lessen her guilt.
The night before he left the base, they’d laid in bed, with Keo spooning her from behind while his hands wrapped around her body, his palms against her growing belly. Her own hands were over his, holding on tighter than usual.
“Don’t go,” she’d said.
“I told him I would,” Keo had answered.
“Tell him you changed your mind.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We came back with him because he needed our help. This was your idea, remember?”
“I change my mind.”
“Since when?”
“Since now. Someone else can do it. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“It’s not exactly something anyone can do, baby.”
“What makes you so special?”
“I’m Keo.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I do things people can’t.”
She’d smirked. Or he thought she did, though of course he couldn’t be sure from behind her. “You think too highly of yourself.”
“I’m just being realistic.”
“Whatever. I don’t care. I don’t want you going there.”
“I already said yes.”
“Tell him you changed your mind.”
“I can’t.”
“Keo…”
“Lara…”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t. I’ll come back when it’s over.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me.”
“I already did.”
“Say the words.”
“I’ll come back when it’s over.”
“Do whatever it takes. Say it.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes, and I’ll come back when it’s over.”
“Good,” she’d said. “Now go to sleep. You have a long day ahead.”
She wasn’t wrong. It’d been a long morning and an even longer day.
Then an excruciating two months, and then some.
“You should have seen me when I saw you in town, Keo,” Mr. Mysterious had said. “Would have done a spit take if I had water in my mouth.”
So why am I still alive?
It was a good question. He shouldn’t have been alive. If the man knew who he was, what he was capable of, and had some k
ind of bitter history with him (and from everything Mr. Mysterious had said, that was the case), then why hadn’t the guy pulled the trigger? He could have done it at any time, and Keo wouldn’t have seen it coming. In all the days since he’d arrived in Shaker Town, Keo never had any ideas someone already knew his true identity.
And if they knew who he was, then they also knew who had sent him, and why.
So why am I still alive?
The answer to that riddle would have to wait, because at the moment Keo was too busy contorting his body into a missile so that when he splashed down in the (sure to be) cold water, he wouldn’t go splat. Most people didn’t understand just how dangerous water was if you entered it at the wrong angles. Keo did.
He just hoped that Claire, falling out of the sky next to him, understood the same thing. Otherwise…
Captain Optimism, remember? It’s time for some Captain Optimism right about now!
Captain Optimism may or may not have shown up as requested, but its presence (or lack thereof) wasn’t going to stop gravity from doing its work.
And right now, gravity was large and most definitely in charge.
He wasn’t too worried about dying from the fall. They were jumping from only four stories. Five, technically, but given that he’d jumped from the balcony of the fifth floor, it was mostly four stories. Not nearly enough to cost him his life if he did this right. Which was the operative phrase. If he did this right.
So do it right, pal! Do it right, or break a leg!
Or two!
He didn’t break a leg, or two, as he went into the water feetfirst (Nailed it!), both legs tightly against the other. He skewered the plane of water like a knife and went down, hands clutching the MP5SD to his chest. The last thing he wanted was to lose the submachine gun.
That would be bad. It would be very, very bad.
Fortunately, he clung to the H&K as he went into the water, and it was still pressed tightly against his chest when he reversed course and went back up, breaking through the water’s surface.
Keo sucked in a deep breath and glanced frantically around for Claire.
He couldn’t find her.
Where was Claire?
Where’d she—
The woman burst out of the water, gasping for breath as she did so.
Oh. There she was.
Keo swam the short distance over to her, fighting against the currents as he did so.
Currents.
The river was washing them downstream. Keo had expected stronger than usual currents when he saw the water from land, but was still surprised by the violence of it. He was thrashed around, and it took him longer than expected to get his bearings.
Fortunately, the rough currents also provided the advantage Keo was hoping for: Both he and Claire were being pushed away from the bad guys. Keo looked toward the shoreline as men scrambled out of the five-star hotel and rushed down to the beach. The building itself was behind him now and getting farther back.
That was the good news.
“Keo!”
Claire. Where was Claire?
He’d lost sight of her in the brief second or two he’d taken his eyes off her to look toward the shoreline.
Where was—
There. There she was.
She was struggling, fighting the pressure sending them downstream. She kept disappearing back into the water as Keo swam toward her. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten so far from him that it took him more than a few strokes to reach her. Thank God he was a good swimmer. Claire, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten any better since the last time he saw her.
“Keo!” she shouted.
“I’m here!” he shouted back.
“I’m drowning!”
“No, you’re not!”
“I’m drowning, Keo!”
“Calm down, kid, calm down!” Keo shouted even as he grabbed for her—Got her!—and pulled her to him, her back against his chest and his hands underneath her flailing arms. “Jesus, kid, relax! Just relax!”
“I’m drowning!” she shouted. “This is your fault! This is all your fault!”
Or that was what he assumed she was saying. Most of it was lost to garble when she started swallowing water and spitting them out. She was trying to breathe in-between those two actions and failing badly.
This’ll teach her not to take swimming lessons.
“Relax!” he shouted. “Just relax!”
Claire continued to cough and spit out water, but she must have heard him through her dramatic life-and-death situation, because she did, in fact, calm down. She didn’t entirely relax, but he didn’t blame her too much for that. Drowning was probably one of the biggest phobias for a lot of people. It’d been for Keo too, once upon a time.
The first pop-pop-pop! came from the shoreline to Keo’s right. Bullets zip-zip-zipped around them, more than a few of them going into the water.
Shakers, running toward the water, firing as they did so. As if Keo thought they were going to just let them get away. Of course not. For some reason, the ones on the rooftop weren’t shooting, but that wasn’t stopping the boys on land. But running and shooting wasn’t exactly ideal for accuracy, and Keo thanked God for that.
None of the first volley had come close, but it was only a matter of time. He had the MP5SD slung over his shoulder, his hands full of a still-struggling Claire, so he couldn’t return fire. Not that he thought it would have done any good. The German submachine gun was a tough cookie, but he didn’t feel like testing it after submerging it completely in water. Besides, it was a little hard to swim and shoot at the same time.
“Relax!” Keo shouted at Claire. “I got you! I got you!”
After what seemed like an hour or so of fighting her, but was probably less than a few seconds, Claire’s body finally went slack against Keo’s arms. As in, completely limp. That wasn’t quite what Keo had in mind. Then again, none of tonight was.
Harvey, you lying piece of shit!
Keo held onto the kid (No, not a kid anymore; he had to stop thinking of her as that) as they were pushed downstream by the river’s currents. Keo spent just as much time trying to cling to Claire as he did keeping the two of them afloat. He would have preferred to have gone under the surface to avoid some of the gunshots—the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire was unrelenting—but he didn’t have that luxury. Claire was unconscious.
Keo moved them farther away from the shoreline and more toward the middle of the rushing water. The bank on the other side was all woods beyond the 20 or so meters of overgrown grass fields. But Keo didn’t swim for it, only toward it. There was no reason to stop now—and crawling back onto land would be doing exactly that—while they were still so close to the hotel.
So he kept moving, putting more distance between them and the Shakers, even as he struggled to cling to Claire and all the while not drown himself. Because, obviously, that would be bad. Drowning now would be very bad for both him and Claire.
Yeah, don’t wanna drown, pal. Don’t wanna drown! If you drown now, then how are you gonna make Harvey pay?
He glimpsed silhouetted black shapes racing across the landscape in front of him, too far away now for him to make out who they were or if they’d been pursuing him since the hotel. Walls of trees were starting to appear in his peripheral vision, which meant he had put even more distance from the hotel. It helped that all he really had to do was keep from drowning and the river’s currents did all the work for him.
He wasn’t too worried about getting shot. The bullets were still coming, but he could barely make them out over the roar of the water in his ears. The only evidence he had that people were still shooting at them were the muzzle flashes that dotted the dwindling darkness.
…the dwindling darkness…
Keo didn’t have to check his watch to know they were coming up on morning. They’d been pretty close before he and Claire took the leap off the balcony. Even now, Keo could already see the first rays of sunlight in the distance, poking through
the tree lines.
Around him, the water didn’t stop moving, and neither did they. So he hung on to Claire and continued kicking, keeping both of their heads above water.
He hung on and treaded even after his arms grew tired and his legs became jelly.
Then he hung on and kicked some more, because the only other alternative was to let the both of them drown.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
No way he was going to die here in Shaker Town.
No fucking way.
Twenty-Five
They washed up onto the beach about, from what Keo could tell, a good mile or so from where they’d splashed into the river. The currents had been strong enough (Thank God) that there wasn’t a Shaker in sight when Keo climbed up the sand on his hands and knees, pulling Claire behind him with one hand. She was on her back and unconscious.
Or he hoped she was unconscious. She could have been dead for all he knew, but he didn’t have time to find out for sure one way or another. He was too busy getting both of them off the narrow beach that was already awash in morning sunlight and into the tree lines where they would have some cover.
It was only then—about twenty or so meters from the nearest particle of sand—that Keo took the time to check on Claire.
She was alive. That was good. Now if only she’d wake up so he didn’t have to carry her everywhere. He wasn’t looking forward to that one bit.
He wanted to produce a radio out of thin air and call Black Tide to get him evac’ed out of there, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not only didn’t he have a radio that could reach the nearest Black Tide base, he still hadn’t finished the job yet.
Did he really want to complete the mission? No, not really. But he couldn’t leave just yet. It wasn’t just the mission, but the presence of Mr. Mysterious. The man had recognized him, but Keo hadn’t been able to return the favor.
“You don’t recognize my voice?” Mr. Mysterious had said. He’d clearly expected Keo to say yes, and when he didn’t, “Aw, man, I’m hurt.”
Keo didn’t believe that for a second.
“So just tell me your name already,” Keo had said to the man.
“Nah, I don’t think I will,” Mr. Mysterious had replied. “I’ll just leave it to you to figure it out.”
Road To Babylon | Book 10 | 100 Deep Page 19
