Purge of Babylon (Book 5): The Ashes of Pompeii

by Sisavath, Sam

  Live and learn, pal.

  How good was this guy, anyway? That was the million dollar question. How long would the shooter need to acquire a target and pull the trigger? A second? Half a second? Two? Because that was how long Keo guessed he would need to lift himself up from the floor and expose himself (or, at least, his nice, big juicy head) while he reached for the lever, made sure of his direction, and pointed the boat at the Gulf of Mexico.

  Two seconds.

  Okay, maybe three…or four.

  That was a long time. He had killed men in less time than that, and he was a lousy shot. This guy, on the other hand…

  Four seconds.

  Damn. Stuck between the Gulf of Mexico and a wet grave. What a way to go.

  Keo put the MP5SD down and pushed both palms against the floor and readied to spring himself up. The first motion would get his feet back under him and the second would send him straight up, just far enough to reach the steering wheel and control lever. It wasn’t exactly brain surgery, and all he’d have to do was keep from getting his head blown off in the four seconds he probably had. Probably. Once he made sure the boat was pointed in the right direction and the motor was at full throttle, he could jump back down and only expose his hand. If the sniper managed to shoot off his arm while he was moving at full speed, then more power to him.

  Who needs two arms, anyway?

  Keo sucked in a deep breath. It was slightly stale and smelled of dead sea life, not to mention whatever chemical they had been pumping out of those industrial buildings from the nearby areas.

  Two breaths…three…

  On five, he jumped—got both feet under him, pushed up, twisted to his right, grabbed the rubber-covered steering wheel with one hand and the metal lever with the other and—

  Oh, crap.

  It was a Jeep. About a hundred meters farther up the channel. The vehicle was bright yellow against the brown and green fields, and men were jumping out of the back. He didn’t need binoculars to know they were probably all armed, and from the way they were running toward the shoreline, they knew exactly where he was and what they were going to do when they reached it, and he reached them.

  And then there was the sniper—

  The loud crack! of another gunshot split the air, just before something hit him in the right shoulder and spun him slightly. He fought through the pain, ignoring it (or at least telling himself to) and shoved the throttle all the way back up. The motor roared and instead of holding the steering wheel straight, Keo spun it right until the boat turned away from the swarm of men and he was arcing in a wide U-turn.

  Water churned under him and he ducked just as another shot zipped over his head, right where he had been standing a brief half-second ago. The boat was swinging around in a wide circle—too wide—and he was holding on for dear life. There was a solid thunk! as he broadsided one of the buoys, warning him that he was getting too close to the shallower parts of the channel.

  He waited for the sniper to shoot again, but the man either didn’t have a bead on him or—

  Crack! Another round buzzed past his head just as the boat completed its U-turn, coming dangerously close to ramming into the other side of the channel. He righted the vessel, spinning the wheel back left as the sixteen-footer fought against the surface while tearing up the lake, back in the direction he had come moments ago.

  He expected to hear the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire as the men from the Jeep opened up on him, but to his surprise, they didn’t. Not that he spent more than a few seconds thinking about it. He remained kneeling, steering with one hand, hoping something didn’t pop up in front of him and take him out in a collision.

  Five seconds…ten seconds…

  He had put enough distance between him and the shooter that Keo felt safe enough to stand up. A good thing, too, because he had swerved dangerously too close to the left shore in the last few seconds and had to quickly right the boat again. He slashed underneath the bridge a second time and finally burst back into the wider section of Beaufont Lake.

  Then, and only then, did he let himself glance over his shoulder back into the channel.

  Silhouetted figures, like twigs in the distance, were scrambling around on land. If the sniper was among them, Keo couldn’t tell. Not that he had seen the man during the whole ordeal. But he had to be somewhere in the weeds, close enough to the water that he could see everything in the channel. He knew for a fact the gunshots had all come from ground level. If the guy had been higher up—positioned on one of those cranes, for instance—Keo would have been a dead man.

  The drip-drip of blood on the console reminded him he hadn’t made it out of the channel completely unscathed. The bullet had clipped his right shoulder, taking a quarter inch of flesh for its trouble. He was bleeding, but it looked worse than it really was. A dripping wound was better than a pouring one.

  He didn’t stop the boat until he had gone for a few more minutes. Keo opened the compartment under the console and fished out the first aid kit. It was a dirty white box, but the contents were clean the last time he checked. He rolled up the sleeve and disinfected the wound, then wrapped it up with gauze and taped it into place. The pain was slight and nothing he couldn’t handle. After surviving all those months in the woods with a pair of holes in him, this was more of an inconvenience.

  He hadn’t finished putting the first aid kit back under the console when he heard a second outboard motor filling the air behind him. Keo glanced back just as a fast-moving white boat blasted out of the mouth of the channel. It was pointed straight in his direction and men clung to it. He couldn’t tell how many, or if they were wearing uniforms or not from the distance.

  The sight of them set him off. He wasn’t sure if it was annoyance, anger, or maybe a little of both. Probably a lot of both, now that he thought about it. He picked up the M4 from the floor and pulled back the collapsible stock. He flicked the fire selector to semiautomatic, then moved toward the stern and balanced himself for a few seconds before settling in behind the red dot scope. The optic wasn’t anything fancy, but he could see the moving vessel coming easily enough. Three hundred meters, and closing in fast.

  Keo fired, waited, then fired again, then again, and again.

  He didn’t know if he hit anything, but by the way the boat slowed down before breaking off the pursuit entirely, he assumed he had gotten close enough to spook them.

  He lowered the rifle and waited for a response. He didn’t have to wait long. They fired back in his direction a moment later. Two shooters, and they were apparently just as bad at long-distance shooting as he was, because while a couple of rounds landed in the water off his starboard and one sailed harmlessly over his head, most of them didn’t even come close.

  Keo thought about returning fire to let them know he was still standing, but decided they could probably see him just fine. The fact that they hadn’t kept coming was a sign they either weren’t ready to risk their lives chasing him, or they had orders to stay back. He wasn’t keen on either possibilities, but the latter gnawed at him.

  By the time they stopped shooting, it was clear they weren’t going to chase him anymore, but they weren’t moving, either. That meant the channel was blocked off to him. Unless, of course, he was willing to shoot his way through. But even if he could get past these bozos, there was still that sniper out there, lying in wait in the weeds. Keo had a feeling that dickhead wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and he probably hadn’t hopped onto the boat along with these other guys.

  Keo slung the M4 and walked back to the console. He pushed the throttle, and the boat jumped back to life and headed off. He glanced back once, to see if they would pursue, but they were just shifting back and forth against his waves, content to watch him go. Soon, they faded into the background.

  So much for escaping into the Gulf of Mexico. He’d have to find another way to reach Santa Marie Island and Gillian.

  Maybe he could try the roads. That had to be safer, right?

 
*

  The Trident was where he last saw it, next to Song Island, with the long strip of white beaches on the other side. A small boat drifted off the stern next to the swim platform, where the beautiful people gathered to soak in the sun and take a dip when the wind moved them. At the moment, there was just Maddie’s small figure facing him, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. He couldn’t tell if that was a smirk or a grin on her face as she watched him near.

  Keo felt another pair of eyes and looked up at Blaine peering back down at him through his rifle’s optic. He lowered the M4 and waved from the rear of the upper deck, and Keo, feeling like a failed college student returning home to mom and dad, waved back.

  “We figured you had something to do with all that shooting,” Maddie said when Keo sidled his boat alongside the yacht. “What happened? You ran into more old friends?”

  “Not quite.”

  “What happened to your arm?”

  “Mosquito bite.”

  “Must have been a big ass mosquito.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “And my boat?” she frowned. “You putting holes in my boat, Keo?”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.” Then, “Where’s Lara?”

  “Up here,” Blaine called down. “You need a doctor?”

  “No, I just need to talk to her. What’s happening up there?”

  “Lara’s doing what she does,” Maddie said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Keo said.

  “She’s looking for a way for us to survive tonight.”

  “Did the Rangers show up yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When are you expecting them?”

  Maddie looked anxiously down at her watch. “I have no idea, but it shouldn’t be long now.”

  Or maybe they’re already dead. That seems to happen a lot to people out there these days.

  But he said instead, “Yeah, they’ll probably be here soon.” He picked up his line, said, “Heads up,” and tossed it to Maddie.

  *

  He found Lara in the captain’s cabin behind the bridge on the upper deck of the Trident, looking at a large map spread out on a table in the center of the room. Sunlight poured in through two curtainless windows, and she looked up when he knocked on the open door.

  “What happened to the bridge?” Keo asked.

  “We found the eighth guy,” she said. “Or, actually, he found Blaine.”

  “That explains the mess.”

  “Yeah.” Then, “What happened out there?”

  “Soldiers. I guess they weren’t keen on me leaving.”

  She looked from his face to his bandaged shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “How many were there, and where?”

  He walked inside and slumped down on a felt armchair. Clothes were strewn about the floor, others draped off the large queen size bed behind her. The place looked and smelled heavily lived in.

  “A handful of shooters at the channel,” he said. “It doesn’t look like they want anyone leaving this place. You can assume they’ve got people on the roads, too. Maybe even technicals.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “The last thing. Technicals?”

  “Machine gun-mounted vehicles. Usually trucks. I saw a couple of soldiers with machine guns back at the staging area. Along with the M4s, I’m guessing they’re flushed with weapons, probably from one of the state armories in the area.”

  Lara didn’t say anything for a while. He saw that mind of hers turning again, absorbing this new information and slotting them in order of importance. It was kind of impressive to see someone who was obviously smarter than him working in real-time.

  “You think the Trident’s appearance had something to do with why they’re cutting off the Gulf?” she finally asked.

  “They probably heard the commotion from last night and realized there was a possibility you might take off in that direction.”

  Which means if I had left when I was supposed to, I would be at Santa Marie Island right now, on the beach with Gillian.

  He sighed, and added, “Of course, they probably had no idea you were going to fight to the death to keep the island.”

  “I don’t have a death wish, Keo,” she said, sounding slightly annoyed with him.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I’m not the one with a bleeding shoulder.”

  “It’s just a flesh wound.”

  “Go let Zoe fix it up anyway. You’re no good to me bleeding to death. Flesh wound or not.”

  “You assume I’ll still be here by nightfall.”

  She was already looking back at the map. “Call me Captain Optimism.”

  “Maybe we should get you a captain’s hat, too.”

  “Go, Keo, before you bleed to death on my fancy new boat.”

  He got up, but instead of leaving, he walked over to her. “Maddie says you’re looking for a way to save everyone.”

  “She’s being overly dramatic.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “Looking for a way to save everyone.”

  He chuckled. “What’ve you come up with so far?”

  He looked down at the map. It was spread out with the Gulf of Mexico and its surrounding areas, including the southern United States, with Mexico to one side and the Caribbean Islands on the other.

  “Are you staying?” she asked, not looking up at him.

  “It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice. At least, not today.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “It’s a choke point, Lara. The channel’s wide and deep enough for a large boat like this, but it’s tight enough that a half dozen men with assault rifles could make it difficult for anyone attempting to run through it.”

  She didn’t respond; her mind churned silently next to him.

  He nodded at the map. “So, what’re you looking for specifically? Maybe I can help.”

  “Maybe you can. I’m guessing you’ve traveled more than me.”

  “Other people go out of the country for vacation, but I go in country for mine. That should tell you something.”

  “You’re an odd one, Keo.” Then, “I’m looking for someplace to take everyone just in case we have no choice but to abandon Song Island. God willing, we won’t need it.”

  “I didn’t know you believed in God.”

  “I don’t.” She hesitated, then, “At least, I didn’t use to.”

  “But you do now.”

  “Maybe.”

  “‘Maybe’?” He smiled. “You either believe or you don’t, Lara.”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it all out. Anyway, you have any ideas?”

  “When was the last time you left the States?”

  “I went to Paris when I was twenty-one for summer vacation with my roommate.”

  He was going to ask, “What happened to your roommate?” but of course he already knew the answer, so he kept his mouth shut about that and said instead, “You thinking about sailing this thing to Gay Paree?”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  He scanned the map, noticing just how close the Texas coastline was to his current location. He could easily have reached it by boat. So easily…except for those soldiers waiting to pick him off in the channel.

  So close, yet so far.

  He looked past the Gulf and moved into the Caribbean Sea. There was Cuba and Jamaica, and nearby, a familiar spot of land that he recognized. It was hard to forget one of the few places where he almost died.

  “There,” he said, pointing at a tiny dot. It was so insignificant compared to everything else on the map that it didn’t even have a name. “Bengal Island.”

  “Bengal Island?”

  “It’s actually two islands. Grand Bengal and Little Bengal. The one that shows up on the map is Grand Bengal, but there’s a smaller companion island—”

  “Let me guess. Little Benga
l?”

  “That third-year medical school education is finally paying off.”

  She snorted.

  “Here,” he said, putting his finger over an empty spot on the map.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s a good-size island, about 160 kilometers—”

  “I still get my kilometers and miles mixed up. What’s that in miles?”

  “About 100, give or take.”

  “Okay. Go on…”

  “It’s about 100 miles—”

  “Give or take.”

  “Can I finish?”

  She smiled. “Sorry.”

  “I was saying, it’s about 100 miles from its big brother, Grand Bengal, and is about ten kilometers in length and one-point-six in width, though the middle is more like two-point-four.”

  “So, about six miles long?”

  “Yeah, about ten times the length of Song Island. Big enough for an airfield on the east section and a hotel resort on the west, with the two sides linked by roads. There’s a strand of white beaches in front of the hotels where the rich and infamous bunk. The water is blue and everything is expensive, but depending on the state of the island, you may or may not have to fight for a spot in one of those suites.”

  “You’ve been there before.”

  “I almost died there.”

  “Which Bengal?”

  “Both.”

  “Hunh.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, the place used to be a notorious pirate den until the British Empire took it over in the seventeenth century. You know the Brits. Law and order and Queen and Country, and all that good stuff. These days, it’s treated as a British Overseas Territory.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s technically a part of the old British Empire, because apparently they enjoy the prestige of being linked to an old carcass, but for all intents and purposes, it’s entirely self-governed.”

  “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “You wouldn’t have, because you’re a normal, decent person. The main island is only fifty square miles with about 5,000 locals, and the rest are all tourists and criminals.”