Keo was looking forward when Erin appeared next to him and said, “Move over.”
“The fuck?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the empty helm.
“Relax; it’s on cruise control,” Erin said, laughing behind her ski mask.
“I didn’t know this thing had cruise control,” he said, scooting over on the bench to give her space.
Erin sat down with a heavy sigh. “The girl told me about it before she gave me the keys.”
The girl was Faith, James’s girlfriend. The two made for a nice-looking couple, and Keo found himself wishing them well as he and Erin set off. He was, though, resigned to the realization that he would never find out how they did, because chances were very good he wasn’t going to ever see them again. Not them or Lara or anyone else on the Trident, for that matter.
There you go again being Captain Optimism, pal.
Next to him, Erin closed her eyes and leaned her head against the fiberglass helm. “You know what’s funny?”
“Johnny Carson?”
She ignored him, said, “Despite everything I know, I would have found a way to justify it—what’s happening out there, what we’re doing. It wouldn’t have been easy, and some days would be harder than others, but I think I would have pushed on anyway, lying to myself. And every day the lies would eat at me more and more. It was already bad even before I met you.”
“What would have happened then? When you couldn’t handle it anymore?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll never know now, but probably nothing good.”
“So you’re saying I was your savior?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Sounded like it…”
“What I’m saying is, I think I would have kept on going to the bitter end, and I wouldn’t have been the only one. When I see what Riley’s doing back at the Ocean Star, it just reminds me what cowards the rest of us are. At least he’s doing something.”
“From what I hear, his plans wouldn’t have gotten very far if Lara and the Trident hadn’t shown up.”
“Maybe, but he’s at least doing something. Unlike us. We would have kept telling ourselves about all the things Mercer did for us to justify our cowardice.” She paused for a brief moment before continuing. “Even though we saw the collaborators as enemies, we told ourselves we were doing it for their own good, that we were ultimately saving them. We knew all about the pregnancies, the daily bloodletting. We scouted them months in advance of the attacks.”
“James told me.”
“We knew what was going to happen. What the body count was going to look like. You don’t throw planes and tanks into the mix and not know.”
She went silent and stared forward, and Keo couldn’t tell what she was looking at—or maybe what she was looking for. For all he knew, she could have been staring past the open seas and into the past, wondering how things might have changed if she had acted.
So that’s what guilt looks like on someone else.
“I should have stopped him,” Erin said. “God, we had so many chances.”
“We?”
“Those of us who had doubts. When I think back, I know it wasn’t just me.”
“Like Riley.”
She nodded. “I always knew he wasn’t comfortable with the plan. I could see it on his face, in his eyes whenever we met with Mercer to discuss strategy. He was always so quiet, especially compared to the others.”
“Who else was in the inner circle with Mercer?”
“There was me, Riley, Benford, and Rhett. We were the first four. Later, he added others. Bellamy, Jerkins…”
“And you all had doubts?”
“Not all of us. But it wasn’t just Riley and me, I know that. I don’t know, maybe in some naïve way we—I—were hoping Mercer would move past it. He talked about it on and off, but it just never seemed real until a few months before R-Day officially started.” She sat back and sighed. “We’re civilians, Keo. We’re not like you, bred for this sort of thing. We trusted in Mercer. Trusted in him implicitly.”
“That’s what manipulators do,” Keo said. “They prey on your loyalty.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I just know how hard it was on my own in the early days. When he found me, living became more than just surviving. It became living again.”
“Was that before or after he brought you to Black Tide?”
“Before.”
“How did he know about the island in the first place?”
“He never said, but he’s ex-Army, so that probably has something to do with it. I would never think to look for weapons at an Army base. I wouldn’t even know where to find one off the top of my head. Do you?”
“Ran across some guys who did the same thing in Louisiana.”
“Friend or foe?”
Keo pulled up his balaclava and tapped the scar that ran down the side of his face.
“So that’s what happened there,” Erin said. “What became of them?”
“There was shooting and bad words,” he said. “I don’t play well with ex-Army types. Wannabe joke-spouting ex-Army comedians are the exception.”
“Good to know.”
Keo pulled the mask back down over his face and stared at the nothingness in front of them. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure we’re going in the right direction? Because it’s been a couple of hours, and I still don’t see anything that even looks like an island out there.”
“It’s a secret U.S. military base, Keo. They’re not going to make it easy to find. With an ocean this big, you’d have to be either super lucky—or unlucky, depending on how you want to look at it—to just stumble across Black Tide by accident.”
“So what you’re saying is, yes, we’re going in the right direction.”
“Yes, we’re going in the right direction.”
“Okay. Just wanted to make sure.”
“So I’ve been spilling my guts, and I noticed you haven’t reciprocated.”
“What were you hoping to hear?”
“What happened?”
“What happened what?” he asked, even though he knew damn well what she was referring to.
“You know what,” Erin said. “You’re not going there to stop this war by killing Mercer. It’s personal. I can see it on your face when you talk about him. So what happened? What did Mercer do to you?”
“One of your teams killed a friend of mine. I tracked them back to Lochlyn.”
“You thought he would be there?”
“I was hoping he’d be there.”
“What about Davis and Butch? The iPod?”
“I shot Butch and took Davis for questioning.”
“Is he dead? Davis?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked over at him. “Don’t lie to me, Keo.”
“I’m not lying to you. He was still alive when we parted company. I don’t know what happened to him after that. I had other things to worry about.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Yes.”
She turned away.
“You knew them?” Keo asked.
“Of course I knew them. They were part of my unit.”
“Davis?”
“He was a good friend,” she said, and didn’t say anything else.
“How does an island that small make it through all the tropical storms and hurricanes that whip across the Gulf of Mexico every year?” Keo asked.
“Simple but tough Army engineering would be my guess,” Erin said. “In all the time we’ve been here, we’ve survived over a dozen storms the likes of which I’ve never experienced before. It was terrifying the first few times, but after a while you get used to it, and now you just hunker down until it passes. The place is incredibly sound, and it’s been designed to be used and reused. That includes the airfield, the surrounding woods, and the beaches. I wouldn’t be surprised if braving storms was part of the curriculum.”
They sat on the same bench at the front of the twenty-foo
ter, staring at the first light he had seen since they left the Ocean Star. It wasn’t even that bright, but against the vast emptiness of the sea and the night, it might as well be a lighthouse beacon. With the single engine that had been propelling them for the last few hours turned off, the world was once again dead silent, with just the sloshing of the currents under and around them.
Keo scanned the island from side to side, noting where it began and ended now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. It was about two kilometers long, but he couldn’t tell from his current distance how much of it was covered in vegetation, though there didn’t seem to be a lot of trees. Or, at least, nothing tall enough to stand out against the dark canvas that surrounded the place like a black glove.
“Two kilometers?” he asked.
“Just a bit longer than a mile,” Erin said.
“How wide?”
“Maybe a quarter mile. There’s a landing strip that runs through the middle. The main facilities are joined into one contiguous structure, and it’s ringed by woods and beaches. The first few weeks after we arrived, we were always stepping on empty shell casings that had been left behind. We’re looking at the back of the island now. Boats usually dock on the other side where there are piers and slips. This side is pretty much used for beaching exercises. But since we’re coming from the Ocean Star, it makes sense for us to land here.”
“Where there’s less security.”
“Exactly.”
“Hart said the place was primarily used for war games.”
She nodded. “There were stacks of files and old maps detailing various scenarios they had run through this place in the past. I don’t think they spent a lot of time here though, probably as long as it took them to complete whatever games they had in mind. It’s a durable place, but it’s not exactly cozy.”
“So, shitty accommodations?”
“I guess soldiers don’t need more than a cot and a pillow.”
“You guys didn’t find any of them when you showed up?”
“Soldiers? No. It was empty. No ghouls, either.”
“Lucky you.”
“Not luck. Mercer knew it would be empty. That’s why he brought us here.”
Keo sneaked a look at her, sitting next to him. There was something about the way she had said Mercer’s name. He had noticed it twice now: there was a reverence to it, the kind of respect that made him question if she could be trusted when the chips were down and his hide was on the line. Maybe he had made a mistake deciding to trust someone who, less than a day ago, had threatened to kill him more times than he could count.
“You good with this?” he asked.
She looked back at him and saw the way he was eyeing her. She pursed her lips into a forced smile. “No. Not at all.”
“What does that—”
“I mean, I’m not good with what we’re about to do,” she interrupted, “but yeah, I’m good with this this.” She faced forward again. “It has to be done. If he’s gone, there’s a chance we can pull the others back and stop this war and save lives.”
“Whose lives?”
“Theirs, ours, all of us.”
Keo nodded. He didn’t want to tell her that the chances of that actually happening were low, that even with Mercer gone there were probably going to be true believers determined to carry on the fight in their dead commander’s memory, or something equally ill-conceived.
But right now Erin didn’t need to know about his doubts. He couldn’t afford for her to start having second (third?) thoughts. God knew this was going to be tough enough without having to worry about her, too.
“How are we going to do this?” he asked.
“There’s nothing special about it. I already radioed ahead when we were on the Ocean Star and told them we were coming. They’re expecting us”—she glanced at her watch—“about now.”
“That’s the whole procedure? Call ahead and then show up?”
“It’s not Get Smart, Keo. There are no hidden doors or passwords to go through. If you found the island, then you were meant to be here.”
“What about defenses?”
“There are guards along the beaches and around the main facility, but that’s about it in terms of potential trouble spots. Everyone who can fight is either in Texas or on their way back.”
“Will they care it’s only the two of us showing up?”
“The guys I made contact with on the radio will, but they won’t be on the beach waiting for us. The guards who will be won’t know any different.”
He nodded and looked up at the sky. Pitch dark, but it wouldn’t stay that way for very long. Not that he needed a lot of time, but darkness was always better for wet work. There wouldn’t be nearly as many people standing guard, and those who were would be staving off fatigue and sleep. In his experience, even the most capable soldier wasn’t at his full alertness in the early morning hours. Best-case? The people here would be used to long, peaceful night sleeps, which would give him even more room to work.
Worst case? Everything blows up in his face, and he was dead before morning.
Either/or.
“All right,” he said, slipping the balaclava back down over his face. “Let’s get you home.”
There were two of them—men, from the way they stood and the shape of their outlines—and they were waiting on the beach as Erin cut the engine a second time and let the currents push them forward. Keo could make out night-vision goggles over the guards’ faces, which meant they had seen him crouched at the bow of the offshore vessel even better than he could see them.
He glanced back at Erin. “Is this going to work?”
She didn’t answer right away, but the obvious concern on her face, lit by the dashboard lights, didn’t exactly give him confidence.
“Yeah, sure,” she said finally.
“You don’t sound very convincing, Erin,” he said, just barely suppressing a laugh. Because what else could he do in this situation but laugh?
“It’ll work,” she said. She followed that up with a nod, though he wasn’t sure if that was for his benefit or hers. Then again, given the way she was staring at the two guards waiting for them (likely armed to the teeth), he could probably figure out the answer.
Keo turned back around to face the beach. He had his rifle slung behind him and still wore his gun belt because it wouldn’t make sense for a Mercer man to return “home” unarmed. Judging by the relaxed posture of the two, it was the right move. The guards stood watching, but he didn’t see anything about their forms to indicate they were anxious or alert, and they certainly weren’t holding the rifles dangling in front of them with anything even close to resembling menace.
So far, so good.
“We won’t be the first one to come back,” Erin said behind him. “They’ll be used to this by now. The fact that there are just two of us may raise some questions later, but not from these two. If your plan works, this will be all over by the time enough people have woken up to start asking those questions.”
They were less than twenty meters from the sand when one of the guards waved, while the second one turned his head to look up the beach as if he found something more interesting up there. That was exactly the reaction Keo was hoping for, and seeing it did more to convince him than Erin’s assurance had a few moments ago.
Keo returned the wave and stood up as the surf carried them closer. He jumped off the boat as soon as he felt the fiberglass hull sliding against soft sand and landed knee-high in freezing cold water.
The guard laughed, night-vision goggle perched on top of his forehead. “Nice jump, Geronimo.”
There wasn’t a lot of light on the beach, at least nothing like he was used to back on Song Island in the old days. The guards were clearly relying mostly on moonlight and their gear to see with, and the closest light emanated from an LED lantern hanging off a tree about thirty meters behind them. It wasn’t nearly enough to reveal the entire stretch of beach, which made Keo think he could have swam t
o shore just fine under the cover of darkness.
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.
The Purge of Babylon Series Box Set, Vol. 3 | Books 7-9 Page 67
