by Dale Mayer
“But we don’t exactly have permission to be here, and it’s for our use, no one else’s,” the second man said. “The mission is compromised and at risk because we’ve been seen.”
“But it’s not worth killing someone,” the first man said. “Just because they saw us shouldn’t matter. Especially if we decide the island won’t work anyway.”
“It won’t work now,” the second man snapped. “Just remember. We took money for this contract, so we still need to find a place to set up a couple repeating stations.”
“I don’t get why it has to be out in the ocean,” he said.
“It’s for smugglers. Remember? It’s not that hard to figure out.”
“Maybe, but they’ve been doing fine without this communication system so far. What the hell difference does it make?”
“It’s a warning system, they said. And I don’t know if I believe that or not, but we were hired to set it up, and that’s what we’ll do.”
“It’s not our kind of gig,” the first man protested. “Nobody said anything about killing.”
“No, but they told us what would happen if anyone found out what we were doing.”
“They didn’t say we’d be killed,” he said.
“No, but maybe I should have made sure it was spelled out a little more plainly for you,” the second man said derisively. After that came an odd silence.
His voice turning snarly, the first guy said, “Don’t you start in on me.”
“Whatever,” the second guy said, his tone off a little. “Let’s go take care of those women.”
“I still don’t like it,” the first guy said.
As they walked past Keane, he considered his options. The second guy would shoot the two women without a thought, whether his no-kill partner wanted to or not. But they didn’t know Lennox was there with the women. Keane had no way to give Lennox any warning though. Keane was desperate to see what they had going on up in the back of this plateau and also where their ship was, but he couldn’t let them fire on the women and Lennox.
Torn, Keane once again checked his phone and his comm system but got nothing. Just as he headed around to get in front of the gunmen, the two had stopped and stood there, arguing.
The first man raised his hands in frustration. “Look. We shouldn’t leave all our stuff alone. I’ll go talk to the woman,” he said. “You go back and take care of the gear. I’d like to get on this ship and out of here overnight.”
“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t gone and cut up their Zodiac, we could have used that to get to our ship.”
“I know,” the first man said. “That was a bad decision. Much better if we had used it for ourselves and just left them here. We wouldn’t have to kill them. They would have died on their own.”
“Sure,” the second guy said, laughing. “Perishing from lack of fresh water and food. That’s a nice way to go.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Look. I’ll go down, like I said. You head back.”
“I’ll head back, but I’ll pack up first and make sure that the ship gets our signal.”
“Right,” the first man said, “but we should change our pickup spot to the new cove down where the women are.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t want anything to go wrong with getting our ship in here.”
“Well, they’ll be pissed that we lost our boat as it is.”
“Yeah, they will,” the second guy said. “Just so you know, I’ll blame you for that one too. We wouldn’t have capsized if you hadn’t been trying to pick up those women.”
“Whatever,” the first man said. “I told you that I couldn’t just do nothing and watch them drown.”
“Well, right now you don’t have much choice,” the second man said. “Go on, and I’ll be down at the base soon enough. And take it easy. We can’t afford any more accidents.” And on that note, they parted.
Stuck, Keane decided to follow the second man, putting his trust in Lennox to handle the first man. These guys were watching and waiting for somebody to come their way. Keane didn’t see a weapon on the first man, but he was probably the one Sandrine saw, and she had confirmed earlier that he was armed. Keane now knew the second one had been the guy who shot Lennox.
Clearly he was the more dangerous of the two, so it would be good if Keane could take him out. He waited until the second guy strode past, muttering all the while about imbeciles, fools and shitty-ass partners. After waiting a safe period of time, Keane crept up behind him through the same crevice walkway to see the guy with several boxes of supplies and his own gear.
He talked on a radio, signaling for the ship. “Change of location. Come in at the cove.”
A voice crackled on the other end. “Storm coming in.”
“Right. Come and get us first.”
“Can’t. Too much turbulence.”
“We don’t want to stay here overnight,” the second man said.
“Can’t come in. You can come out though. We’ll come in as close as we can, and then we’ll pick you up.”
Dropping the microphone, the man swore. Now he had to tell the contact guy that they had lost their boat. Finally, as he sat here scratching his head, the radio crackled.
“Over and out.”
“Boat isn’t seaworthy.”
Silence came first. Then crackle, crackle, crackle.
“I said the boat is no longer seaworthy. We can’t get out to you. We need a pickup.”
“Storm.” Crackle. “No pickup.”
The other guy swore and stomped around. “You fucking have to,” he roared. “I don’t want to stay out here another fucking night.”
This time not even a crackle came from the radio.
Throwing the handset into the pile of gear, the second guy stormed around before stopping and glaring toward the ocean.
Following the direction of the man’s gaze, Keane couldn’t see any boat, but its location was obvious.
If his partner hadn’t destroyed Keane’s Zodiac, these two gunmen could have made their way out to their own ship and could have been picked up. If that ship couldn’t get in due to the weather conditions, the coast guard probably couldn’t come in close enough either. The coast guard cutters were something else, and they could run in the open sea in all kinds of weather. However, it would take a small boat to come to the island, so they could get on board and get back out again. And, with the waves coming in as strong as they were, Keane doubted anybody was going anywhere anytime soon.
Just then the guy spun around, as if he had felt Keane’s gaze on him. Keane melted back a little bit farther into the rocks, desperately looking for a place to hide. He could climb up. A couple footholds and handholds were here, and a bit of a ledge was up above. Taking the chance that the scrambling noise he made as he climbed wouldn’t be heard, he made his way up to the small ledge and stopped. The guy was halfway down the path with a handgun drawn as he searched his surroundings.
Keane stayed silent, studying what was in front of him. It looked like electronics and maybe a repeating station, with various parts and pieces. Some of that must have been airlifted in, since no way these two gunmen could have carried all that up the rock cliffs. But, as Keane studied it all again, much of it could be broken down, and, with four or five trips, these men could have done the delivery job easily enough.
Keane wondered if his own phone would work with that station. He pulled out his phone and checked, but he wasn’t getting any signal. He didn’t have the other equipment with him either. He should have brought that too, damn it. Or maybe he could get access to the handset down below and contact the coast guard directly.
He knew the channel they were on. It was a marine radio, and that was the best thing for out here, an equal match to the one he had left with Lennox. If Keane could get his hands on that, it would help considerably. He hunkered lower and waited for the man to come closer. Best thing would be to take out this asshole and to remove him from the game completely. And, if Keane didn’t kill him, the lea
st Keane could do was knock him out and repay the favor for what he did to Lennox. And then the marine radio would be his.
He crouched and waited.
Chapter 7
“What do I hear?” Sandrine murmured from the cave’s doorway, her gaze scaling the rocks. “I thought I heard footsteps.”
Lennox shook his head. “I’m not hearing anything. But an odd stillness is in the air.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that something is stirring.”
She thought about that and realized what an oxymoron it was. How could stirring mean something was still? She shook her head, about to say something, when he grabbed her hand in warning. She saw somebody coming around the corner down at the bottom. “Is it Keane?”
“No,” Lennox said in a harsh whisper. “Get behind that door.”
“What about you?”
“He can’t see me yet.”
But Lennox did shuffle enough that the guy couldn’t see him until he came up to the doors. “I’ll move a little bit too.”
“Unless he followed the footprints,” she said, suddenly pointing to the line of them.
“But it’s also the tracks that Keane made,” he said. “And the two of us.”
She nodded, then looked at the four fish sitting off to the side of her now. “I really wish we could cook them.”
“Once we deal with this guy, we will,” he said.
“And what about Keane?” She’d been asking that same question for the last hour or more. It was almost dark. “This guy coming now is not bringing us food.”
“And he does have a handgun,” Lennox said smoothly.
She studied the man approaching. “It’s the same man from before.”
“Good,” he said. “It would sure be nice if he was the only one.”
“It seems doubtful,” she said, “but I don’t know.”
As the guy walked up, he took a look at the rock cliff, saw the rope coiled at the bottom and frowned, looking around, probably hoping to see Keane’s body.
“Now he knows somebody else is loose,” she murmured.
“Yeah. Now the question he’ll have is whether Keane is here or if he left already.”
At that moment, the guy seemed to realize he could be in danger. He pulled his handgun from his holster and held it against his leg, but his footsteps were loud as he approached. “Hello,” he said.
She poked her head around before Lennox could stop her. “Hello,” she said. “Did you bring a boat this time?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.
“Food?”
He shook his head again.
“Oh,” she whispered. “I was really hoping we could get out of here.”
“Not tonight,” the gunman said. “What happened to the guy who fell?”
She looked where the rope was and shrugged. “Did you see him fall?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I saw him fall, yeah.”
“He got up, and he held his head and moved funny,” she said. “He headed toward the water, and I haven’t seen him since.”
He looked at her, surprised, and looked at the rope. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, some rocks came down on him,” she said. “He looked pretty woozy.”
She could feel the stillness from Lennox beside her and didn’t know why he didn’t just pop this guy one. She quickly surmised that, in these tight quarters, as long as the stranger had a handgun, it would be too dangerous. Oh, for a sharpshooter up in the hills to take him out. She didn’t even know if the gunman was responsible for any of this hell that she was going through, but this guy had obviously cut that rope which tossed Keane to the ground below.
“When are you getting off the island?” she asked.
“Our boat’s damaged,” he said. “So it’ll be a while.”
At the term our, she could feel Lennox stiffening, almost like a caged animal ready to blow beside her. “You mean, you’re not alone?” she asked.
As if realizing the slip of his tongue, he shrugged and said, “No. I got a buddy here with me.”
“How come he hasn’t come down here?” she asked, curious.
“He’s not feeling too good,” the guy said.
Hesitantly, as if offering an olive branch, she said, “My name is Sandrine.”
“Nice to meet you, Sandrine,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I plucked you out of the ocean,” he said. “You nearly drowned, you know.”
She brightened. “Was that you?”
“Yes,” he said. “It was me. What about your friend. How is she?”
She looked down at her feet and said, “She’s not great. I can’t wake her up anymore.”
Immediately he frowned. “I’m sorry. That’s got to be tough.”
“Well, if you had a boat, I could get her off the island,” she said hopefully.
“Not happening,” he said. “At least not while the storm is going on. Maybe tomorrow.”
“So, another night here? It’s pretty damn unpleasant,” she whispered. “Especially with no food or fire.”
“I told you to light a fire,” he said, returning to the caustic tone he had used earlier.
“Remember that part about no matches and no dry wood?” she reminded him, even though she knew that they had stacks of sticks inside now, something Lennox had insisted on.
“I got a few matches here,” he said, “but I don’t have any paper for you.” He took a pack of matches from this pocket, and, walking closer, he tossed it to her.
She stepped out and caught them. “Well, I guess I’ll take what I can get,” she said, “but it won’t help much.”
He shrugged and said, “If you’ve got a guy hidden in there,” he said, “you need to tell him to come out gently with his hands up.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What guy?”
“The guy who fell when I chopped off the rope,” he said, his tone turning mean. “I really won’t take it kindly if I have to come in there and shoot him.”
She gasped in fear. “You cut his rope to kill him, didn’t you?”
“We don’t like intruders,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do the hard things.”
“And what hard things are you talking about now?” she asked.
He lifted the handgun and said, “My buddy doesn’t think you should stay alive.”
She cried out and immediately stepped back. “Why would you do that?” she whispered. “Obviously you saved our lives. Why would you not do everything you could to keep us alive now?”
“He says you’re a problem and that you need to be taken care of.”
“I promise I won’t be a problem,” she said.
“You already are, apparently,” he said heavily. “I’m sorry. I should have just let you drown in the first place.” When he lifted the handgun, as if to shoot her, she gasped and dashed under cover again, and one shot rang out. He’d hit the wood beside her face. She cried out and whispered, “Please don’t,” she said. “Even if you leave us here, we’ll still die. You don’t have to shoot us.”
“I told him that,” the guy said, “but he didn’t seem to like the idea.”
“Doesn’t matter what he says though, does it?” she asked. “Aren’t you the boss?”
He laughed. “I’d like to think so, but I don’t see myself keeping that title.”
“But it is your deal here, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m the one who made the deal,” he said, “but somehow my buddy has gotten a little bit more assertive than I expected. There wasn’t supposed to be any killing.”
“Well, if you’re planning on shooting me,” she said, “can’t you at least explain why?”
“It’s got to do with smuggling,” he said, “but that’s about all I can tell you.”
“Shit,” she whispered under her breath. Her eyes grew hard as she imagined just how much could be smuggled through this area. From drugs to sex trafficking. “This is a deserted island. It doesn
’t make any sense that this has got anything to do with us.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you,” he said. “It’s literally a case of you being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But then so are we,” he said. “I wasn’t exactly planning on having to kill you.”
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “We’ve already survived a pretty horrific ordeal. Can’t you at least just let nature take its course?”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” he said. “But my buddy—”
She heard him coming closer and closer. She grabbed a chunk of Lennox’s hair. He nodded ever-so-slightly. “Please,” she said, “I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”
“It won’t do any good,” he said. “If I don’t kill you, my buddy will,” he said. Another shot rang out. “Come on back out.”
“So you can shoot me?” she cried out.
“Well, I’ll shoot you whether you come out or not.”
“Then you’ll have to come get me,” she said. “You’ll have to come in here and shoot a woman who’s already dying. And you’ll have to shoot me.”
“Nah, I won’t shoot her,” he said. “You’re right. She is already dying.”
“Then leave me with her,” she cried out passionately. Even though she knew Lennox was here, it was just all too real of a possibility that this guy would come in and shoot her between the eyes. “You know there’s no way for us to get off the island, so we’ll be dead soon enough anyway.”
She could feel him hesitate. “Please,” she said. She peered through the cracks and watched as he lowered the gun.
He took a few steps back and said, “If he finds out I didn’t kill you—”
“I promise I won’t say anything to him. I’ll stay inside and make sure he doesn’t see us,” she said.
“I don’t know if that’ll work though,” he said. “He’s pretty tricky.”
“I really don’t want to die this way,” she said.
“Okay, but you’re not allowed to sit there and blame me,” he said.
