Defensive Action

by Jenna Kernan

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “And it’s not your fault that your dad died so early. I didn’t know him, but I do know he would not want this for you.”

  “I’m serving my country.”

  “You are taking on the most dangerous missions possible. Tempting fate. You know the ironic part? Even if you do succeed and your death saves thousands of lives, no one will know about it. No one will grieve your passing because you kept everyone at arm’s length. And the world won’t even know your name.”

  That was all true but hearing her say it out loud felt like a blade slicing across his bare stomach. He pressed a palm to his abdomen and sank down beside her, the mattress sagging.

  “There are worse things,” he said. “Like being so careful you miss all the joy.”

  She looked away and he knew he’d scored a hit. Somehow it didn’t make him feel any better.

  “I just want to find somewhere safe,” she whispered.

  “There’s nowhere safe. You just have to go on in spite of that.”

  She lifted her chin and stared up at him, casting a sad smile. “I’m not brave enough to do that.”

  Was that why she hadn’t found a man, married and had a few children? All because her sister’s death stopped her from enjoying anything?

  “What about children?” he asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Do you want them?”

  She rolled her eyes. “They’re a mess.”

  The answer seemed glib.

  “Haley, really?”

  She dropped her affectations and lowered her gaze “It scares me. Having a child seems too dangerous.”

  “Giving birth, you mean?”

  “No. I mean all the terrible things that can go wrong before you give birth and afterwards. Having them is the easy part. Then there’s raising them. Worrying about them. Teaching them to take risks, but not too many risks or the wrong kind. Protecting them and knowing you can never fully protect them. The world is a wide field of land mines of possible catastrophes.”

  He looped an arm around her waist and drew her in. She settled her head against his shoulder.

  “Aren’t we a pair?”

  He tightened his hold, drawing her into a firm embrace. This is what he wanted—to hold her. Her body was as warm as a campfire on a cold night.

  “So is that all that is between us? One night? One mistake?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Time will tell, I suppose.” He was all mixed up inside. The insistent tug of attraction still pulled. Her body tingled as his fingers drew rhythmic circles on her back. Their time together in this little sanctuary was nearly over. They’d already stayed too long. “We need to move on.”

  “Yes, of course. Where will we go?”

  “They’ll have a roadblock barring access to the Northway. Our photos will have been circulated among law enforcement.”

  “Maybe we should just stay here for a while.”

  He knew it was tempting but this place was too close to their near-capture and it did not help him solve the riddle Takashi had left him.

  “They’ll expect us to take a car. So we take a boat.”

  “A motorboat?”

  “No, sheriff will be checking those, too, I’m afraid. We’re taking a small craft.”

  She stiffened. “How small?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Not a kayak,” she whispered.

  “That’s what I was thinking. Why?”

  She groaned. “It’s one of the adventure camp activities. One that I put a line through.”

  He chuckled. “What else did you cross off?”

  “Cliff jumping and zip line.” She dipped her chin. “Everything. I crossed them all off.”

  “Then why did you agree to go?” he asked.

  “Nonrefundable gift.”

  “That’s not why.”

  “My dad wanted me to get out there.” She made a face and then said, “He said that I wasn’t the one who had died.”

  Ryan’s mouth quirked. “I agree with his motives, but tossing you off a cliff, it’s extreme.”

  “He did it out of love.”

  Ryan nodded. “I’ll try to keep us off cliffs.” He drew her to her feet. “Find something you can wear. Nothing too bright or memorable.”

  “The gray man,” she said.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I read it in a magazine article in my dentist’s office. The gray man is not actually gray, just blends into the crowd. Unremarkable.”

  “Exactly. And we’re out for a kayak ride on the lake.”

  “Got it.”

  Ryan disappeared into the bathroom. The door shut behind him. Haley looked in the bureau for something more her size and replaced the things he’d laid out for her in the bottom drawer.

  She came up with a white tankini and a V-neck T-shirt in a dull orange-brown. A windbreaker in forest green that she tied around her hips and a pair of beige capri pants with a canvas belt that kept them up.

  Ryan emerged from the bathroom and nodded his approval before she stepped past him to use the facilities, wash her face and comb her hair. Since she usually wore it down, she opted for a ponytail.

  She folded the towels and stepped out of the bedroom to find the coverlet again neatly draped over the queen-size bed. She returned the towels to the linen closet.

  Ryan stood in the kitchen beside the microwave. The time on the clock flipped from 5:59 to 6:00 a.m. He was in familiar cargo pants. The dark T-shirt fit well. The backpack looped over one shoulder and he wore a ball cap on his head and offered her a similar one. She adjusted the size and slipped it on, pulling her ponytail through the hole in the back.

  “Ready?” he asked, one hand on the door.

  “That way?” she said, surprised they would not go out the fire escape.

  “Low profile. We head out and walk to the docks. Find a kayak and go.”

  “Where?”

  “Out of the village for now, until I figure out that clue Takashi left me.”

  Haley drew a breath and held it. When she nodded, he opened the door. She released her breath with a prayer that they would make it safely away.

  The stairway let them out into an alley beside the building. The sky was lightening, a sign of the approaching sunrise. They reached the street and Ryan paused.

  Haley watched a woman sifting through a large recycle bin, extracting the cans. Ryan nodded and they headed down the street at a pace she found far too slow. Her heart raced as her feet sauntered. They passed the woman, who glanced up at them and then returned to her work.

  A single car approached, the headlights blinding. Ryan slowed.

  “Hey! Stop right there!”

  Haley jumped at the male voice shouting. A police officer stepped from his unit, standing in the space between the open door and his vehicle. For just a moment she thought it was the same officer as the day before. He started toward them.

  Ryan gripped her trembling hand, staying her just as she turned to run.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ryan hauled her to a stop as the police officer stepped past them.

  “That’s village property,” said the officer to the woman scavenging cans.

  Haley did not hear her words but the tone was antagonistic. Ryan set them in motion as Haley stumbled along. Her ears were ringing as if she’d suffered a head injury.

  She glanced back to see the officer had collected the woman’s booty and was waving her off. Inadvertently, the woman had provided them with a diversion. Ryan picked up their pace as they left the main drag and headed toward the lakeshore.

  They were not the first to arrive. Several sailboats were already out on the water and the slips that held the fishing charters were empty.

  The kayak
rental stand was shut up, the kayaks stacked on racks and chained together. Also there were no paddles or life vests in sight.

  The wind off the lake was chilly and Haley took a moment to slip into her new stolen windbreaker.

  Ryan headed them toward the marina docks.

  “Kayaks are that way,” she whispered.

  He ignored her and led them to the metal dock, which clanged with their footsteps as they moved along. He waved at a boater in his sailboat, fiddling with a coiled rope.

  “Beautiful day,” called the man.

  “Just lovely,” Haley said and continued on, to where, she was not sure. He stopped at the eight-foot-tall metal gate upon which hung a sign that read Private Dock. The wire-mesh-and-aluminum fencing jutted out on each side of the dock to prevent people like them from continuing on.

  She glanced through the metal bars at the object of his desire, a huge boat, a ship perhaps, that held a Jet Ski on the back and four kayaks anchored to the top platform.

  He tried the handle to the door and found it locked.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She was about to object but he climbed up the door, doing a rolling thing over the top to land on the deck in a crouch. That move really belonged in a superhero movie. He grinned back at her from the opposite side.

  The other side of the door was unlocked and so, a moment later, she stepped onto the private dock. He strolled before her like the captain of a vessel, passing the one with the Jet Ski in favor of one that she had not seen from the dock. Perhaps, she thought, that was the exact reason he picked it.

  There was a gangplank to the dock, making boarding the vessel ridiculously easy.

  “You’re officially a pirate now,” he told her.

  She followed him to the front—the aft, she recalled—of the vessel. He did not try to break into the cabin or the captain’s area up the ladder. Instead, he focused on untying a lime-green kayak. It was only when he began untying the royal blue one that she realized that kayaks, or perhaps just these particular kayaks, were one-person vessels.

  “I can’t row that,” she said.

  “Paddle,” he said. “Up to you. But I’m sure your chances are better if you try.”

  “I won’t be able to keep up with you.”

  “We are just going a few miles. Leisurely, like tourists. We’ll find an empty cabin.”

  “On the week of July Fourth? You won’t. I know this place. It is absolutely packed over this holiday. It’s why we only made day trips until the fall. Prices go sky-high, tourists everywhere.”

  “Easier to blend in.” He tipped the kayak onto his head and walked past her. She watched him go. If he thought she could lift the other one onto her head and walk, he’d lost his mind.

  When he disappeared over the stern of the boat, she hurried after him, but once she reached the wide white plastic stairs at the stern, he was on his way back. He stepped past her and she glanced to the flat platform at the bottom of the stairs. It was like a connected dock for launching rafts and kayaks, apparently. She spun to watch his return, curious now as to how he got that sixteen-foot kayak soundlessly down a flight of stairs.

  The answer was simpler than she expected. He simply lowered the boat to the top of the stairs and used the towline, which was connected to the loop at the front of the craft, to ease it down the stairs.

  “What about paddles?” she asked.

  In answer, he threw down two flotation vests and then descended the stairs, gripping the paddles in one hand.

  He explained how to use the paddle, whose blades were offset in a way that made the paddling seem complicated, with a turn of the wrist and a pull and lift and...he clipped her into her vest, which was sunshine yellow.

  He dropped the bag of gear into the blue kayak. Then he turned to her.

  “Have a seat and I’ll launch you.”

  “Like hell,” she said.

  “Really. You sit and I slide you in like I did on the stairs. Look.”

  He pointed to a ramp on the deck that she hadn’t noticed.

  “I’ll tip over.”

  “Don’t pull too hard when you paddle. Don’t lean, either. The farther you lean the better the chance you’ll tip.”

  These words inspired no confidence as he took her by the waist and propelled her from behind toward the green kayak. She was barely seated when the kayak moved.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “Hands on the gunnels.”

  “What if I tip over?”

  “Then you’ll have to drag yourself back into your craft.”

  “I can’t even do one pull-up,” she said as the plastic scraped on the ramp and then she was floating, holding the paddle above her head as if in surrender.

  Holy heck!

  She still had the paddle over her head, trying not to move for fear of tipping, when she heard the scrape of the second kayak and turned.

  Ryan had a look of pure exhilaration on his face as he swooshed into the water and began paddling to where she had drifted.

  “What a rush,” he said, grinning like a boy.

  “Which? The stealing or the getaway?”

  “We aren’t away yet. Try your paddle. I can tow you, but it will draw notice.”

  Haley lowered her paddle across the kayak.

  “Like this.” He demonstrated, making the act of paddling look graceful and efficient.

  For a moment she just enjoyed the pleasure of watching him. And as she gazed at him, his muscles bulging and relaxing in a rhythmic motion, she forgot she was bobbing along like a cork.

  “You try.”

  She remembered, glanced back to the launch site and realizing she was drifting toward the dock. Her paddle tipped into the water and dragged along.

  “Good,” he encouraged, but his gaze was not on her but on the dock and the platform that was lifting up and rocking down with the motion of the water. “A little faster.”

  Haley had a perfect premonition of tipping, falling and then being sucked under the boat.

  She set the paddle in the water and pulled. The kayak jettisoned forward. Haley gasped. Then she rocked the handle and tried the opposite side. She grinned. The kayak was reasonably stable and high enough in the water that paddling was easy, so much more easy than the canoe.

  Ryan glided up beside her. He indicated his destination.

  “Hug the shore, but not so tight that you could speak to anyone onshore. You set the pace.”

  She got to lead. The exhilaration and delight filled her up as she set off parallel to the shore and was nearly run down by a sailboat.

  “Starboard, you idiot,” called the woman at the back as she glided past under the power of only one small sail.

  Haley smiled and waved. “You have a great boat.”

  The women flipped her the bird.

  “Stay to the right of any vessel you see,” said Ryan.

  She needed that information about a minute earlier, she thought but said nothing as she concentrated on establishing a rhythm. They passed the swimming area in time to see the lifeguards taking their morning training swim en masse, around the swimming dock.

  Ryan now traveled beside her.

  “I used to swim to that,” she said to him. “My sister and I would race.” She smiled at the memory.

  “We’d take a boat ride in the morning on the Minne-Ha-Ha and then swim in the afternoon. In the evening, we’d get hot dogs at the mini golf place and have ice cream when we reached the London Bridge.”

  She stopped paddling.

  “What’s wrong?” Ryan asked. His hand snaked out and grasped the edge of her seating compartment. “Haley?”

  “I know what he meant.”

  “Who?”

  “Takashi. Travel to Mexico. Man-made shade.”

  Chapter Seventeen

 
“You can retrieve the flash drive now. Complete your mission,” said Haley.

  Ryan gripped the side of her kayak. It was clear from her expression that she was excited and had reached some sort of epiphany.

  “What are you talking about, Haley?”

  “Man-made shade. It’s a sombrero. Travel around the world. It’s the mini golf course. There’s one in Lake George. There are nine holes themed after attractions in the USA and the other nine are all international. One is Mexico! That’s what he meant. Travel to Mexico. It’s one of the holes on the mini golf course.”

  Ryan’s eyes widened. She could be right. It made sense. After Ryan had provided Takashi with cover, he had escaped. They were in the vicinity of Lake George Village. He would have been looking for a place that was easy to find but also easily missed. Somewhere safe that he could tuck the flash drive where it would not be discovered by the wrong person. Clearly, he did not think the village of Lake George and their prearranged drop was safe.

  “The mini golf course. Yes. I know where that is.” Ryan glanced back to the public beach. Beyond was the bathhouse and just up the road was the miniature golf course and the hole called Mexico. He could be there and back in less than an hour. But he couldn’t with Haley along.

  He reviewed his directive. Complete the mission. Deliver the intelligence.

  “Ryan?”

  He hadn’t realized that he had released her kayak and was drifting toward the swimming area. Then he noticed what she had been pointing at because two men on two Jet Skis were racing toward them.

  “They’re coming right at us,” she said, clutching her paddle.

  “Separate.” Force them to choose a target, he thought.

  They did. One man aimed a pistol at Haley. He heard the shot at the same time he saw her go over sideways in her kayak.

  Their attacker kept coming, making right for him, pistol raised. But he didn’t fire. His partner slowed to an idle and the shooter followed his lead. They wanted him, at least, alive.

  Ryan’s instinct was to dive in after Haley. He scanned the water but could see nothing but her upturned kayak. Her vest should bring her to the surface even if she was...

  And then he saw the flash of pale legs kicking. She was under her kayak. He knew the plastic covering offered no protection from bullets but the approaching figure now had his attention fully on Ryan.