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“Who do you think they are?” Maddie whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“Can’t be collaborators…”

“Why not?”

“I’ve never known those guys to be this subtle. Remember the last time they assaulted Song Island?”

She nodded. How could she forget? That night still haunted her dreams. The blood, the deaths, the piles of bodies, then later the tide of ghouls…

“Maybe they’re pirates,” Maddie was saying.

“Pirates?”

“Not the Johnny Depp metrosexual type of pirates, but more like those Somali pirates you hear about on the news. They take over boats and hold the crew for ransom.” The smaller Texan shrugged. “But that was back when money was still, well, money.”

“Pirates,” Lara repeated. For some reason, just saying the word made her smile.

“Hey, stranger things have been happening these days. Ghouls, end of the world, blood towns… Why not a little pirate action?”

She looked over the railing at the jon boats again. The six figures inside them still lacked details even though they were closer than before, which probably meant they were all wisely wearing black clothes that helped them blend into their environment.

They had definitely come prepared. The question was: For what?

“
B
LAINE
,” she said into the radio. She wasn’t whispering, but it was close. “Call it.”

“Forty yards,” Blaine said. She couldn’t tell if he had changed his voice to match hers or if it was the result of the lowered volume on the two-way. Whatever the reason, she had to strain more than usual to hear him.

Next to her, Maddie shuffled her feet and there was a sharp
click!
as she thumbed her rifle’s fire selector off the safety position.

“Thirty-five,” Blaine said.

“They’re taking their sweet time,” Maddie whispered. She couldn’t—and maybe wasn’t even trying—to hide the anxiety in her voice.

“Thirty,” Blaine said. “They’re still on course to make contact almost directly below you, Lara.”

“Roger that,” she said into the radio. “Bonnie, anything on the other side?”

“Still nothing,” Bonnie said. She sounded anxious. “Should I go over to Benny’s and back him up?”

“Yes.”

“Moving!”

Thank God for Blaine, hidden on the bridge, observing as the two jon boats slowly crept toward them; she couldn’t see anything now that she was completely hidden behind the thick wall. It went up to three feet along the side of the yacht, and the only way to see over it would be to raise herself and peek. With the men so close, the chances of being spotted were just too good.

Even though she couldn’t see them, she could hear the quiet but persistent
slosh-slosh
of their plastic paddles moving against the water as they neared.

“Bonnie, where are you now?” she said into the radio.

“In position!” Bonnie said, her breathing coming through the radio in labored gasps.

“Twenty-five yards,” Blaine said.

Lara poised her thumb over the radio’s transmit lever and glanced briefly at Maddie. The other woman was watching her back, the M4 rifle gripped tightly in her hands.

“Twenty,” Blaine said.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we,” Maddie said. It may or may not have been a question.

“Fifteen,” Blaine said.

She keyed the radio and hissed into it,
“Now!”
and stood up.

The lights snapped on around her, the sudden switch from darkness to blinding brightness like sharp knives pricking at the corners of her eyes. This despite the fact she was prepared for it, so the effect on the men in the jon boats would have been even more dramatic.

And it was, she saw as she peered through the iron sights of her carbine at the smaller boats in front, and, as Blaine predicted, right below her. They were caught in the water about ten yards off the side of the yacht, both vessels moving side-by-side and close enough that the two men at the bows could have swapped places by jumping over. The four in the back still had their paddles in their hands and were leaning over their respective sides when the lights hit them in mid-row. They were all wearing black clothes like she had guessed, though she didn’t expect their faces to be painted black and green.

The two up front were the real problems, because there was a reason they weren’t rowing. It was why she focused on them first and instantly spotted the rifles in their hands, the weapons dangling off their shoulders by straps. Half of the men had one hand shielding their eyes from the bright lights blasting in their faces, but she knew that sudden disorientation wasn’t going to last forever.

And it didn’t. It took three eternally long seconds for the men to understand what had happened—that they had been caught in an ambush—and for the ones in the back to drop their paddles and reach for their rifles on the floors of the boats. Two of them actually let go of their paddles in mid-row and the plastic devices sank into the water. The two up front were already taking aim, swinging their weapons from side to side and up and down as Lara and Maddie, and Bonnie and Benny above them, then Carrie, Gwen, and Lorelei popped up along the sides of the
Trident
. Lara wondered what they must look like to the men, with the bright spotlights doing a number on their field of vision.

But they had to know, didn’t they? It may have just been six against seven, but it was more than that: They were at a great disadvantage on their small boats adrift in the ocean. They had no cover, no room to maneuver, and they were, for all intents and purposes, sitting ducks.

Sitting ducks with rifles.

“Hold your fire!” Lara shouted. “If you open fire, we will kill you!”

They didn’t react right away, but they also didn’t start shooting, either. Instead, they kept looking left and right, and up and down, maybe counting how many guns were pointed at them, maybe trying to decide if they could make it through this encounter alive. All the lights on the
Trident
weren’t turned on the boats, but there were enough to be hazards, and she could see the way the men below her were blinking, trying to focus on what they were facing.

They had to know they didn’t have any chance, didn’t they?
Didn’t they?

“Put down your weapons!” Lara shouted. “You have ten seconds to comply before we open fire and kill every single one of you!”

Most of the six men began honing in on her voice.

“You now have five seconds!”

They didn’t move. A couple of them exchanged looks, the whites of their eyes visible thanks to the black paint covering their faces.

“Four!”

Before she could get to three, one of the men lowered his rifle and said something to the others. The other five didn’t seem to react until the man tossed his weapon off the side of the jon boat. It
plopped
into the Gulf of Mexico and sank. Maybe it was the noise, but the men suddenly realized what he had done and began looking at one another. If they were talking, she couldn’t hear it over her own racing heartbeat.

“Oh Jesus, come on, guys, come on,” Maddie whispered next to her.

Lara didn’t take her eyes or her weapon off the small open crafts below her or the men standing unsteadily on them. Maddie, despite her quiet pleading, also didn’t relax, and Lara hoped the rest of her people were equally stout right now. One man throwing his gun away didn’t mean anything when the other five hadn’t followed suit, and so many things could still go so, so wrong in the next few seconds.

“The rest of you!” Lara shouted. “Do it!”

Slowly, one by one, they grudgingly lowered their weapons.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Maddie whispered when the men began tossing their rifles into the ocean and raised their hands into the air.

“Your belts, too!” Lara shouted.

They obeyed, even though she kept waiting for at least one of them to rebel, to take his chances rather than be captured. But none of them did, and slowly as the gun belts slipped into the water, she blinked out the sweat in her eyes despite the cold night air. Her shirt under the assault vest was already drenched, though she hadn’t noticed it until now.

The man who had surrendered his weapon first had moved to the bow of his boat while the others remained in the back with their hands raised. “What now?” he shouted up at them—at her.

“Pick up your paddles and start rowing toward the back!” she shouted down. “Attempt to go in any other direction, and we will open fire! Do you understand?”

The man turned around and nodded at the others, and they sat back down and picked up their paddles. Or the ones that hadn’t dropped theirs into the ocean, anyway.

“Wow,” Maddie said breathlessly next to her. “That was too intense.”

Lara glanced over at Maddie, who was wiping sweat off her forehead with her shirt’s long sleeve. “Head to the back and get them onboard, Maddie.”

Maddie nodded and jogged off.

Alone, Lara lowered her rifle and leaned against the railing and wiped at her own dripping sweat. She sighed and willed her heartbeat to slow down, slow down…

Jesus, Will, how did you do this day in and day out?

Jesus, Jesus…

T
HEY PULLED
both small boats out of the water and left them in the back, and even as the six men were led through the lower deck (she wanted to keep them as far away from the upper decks and the kids as possible), Blaine powered up the
Trident
and got them moving again, just in case the men had friends who might come looking for them. Lara posted additional sentries on both sides of the yacht and equipped everyone with night-vision binoculars.

With their hands bound with duct tape, the captives were led through the lower deck and placed inside a small room where the boat’s crew usually ate their meals. Their ankles were bound, and five of the men sat down while Benny and Maddie stood guard outside the door. The sixth man, the one who had been first to surrender, left with Lara.

She led him, his hands still bound, to one of the crew cabins they had been using as an extra storage room, and closed the door after them. The man sat down on a box of military MREs and looked around him. He was older than the rest—late forties, with gray liberally sprinkled along a military-style haircut. He could have passed for her father, except he was lean and muscular and almost six feet.

It should have been imposing for her to be in a room alone with him, but she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Maybe it was the Glock in her hip holster; or maybe she was just tired of being afraid of people when there were so many other things out there to be scared of.

“You have a name?” she asked.

“Hart,” the man said.

“I’m Lara.”

“Nice to meet you, Lara.”

“Likewise, Hart. How old are you?”

“That’s my line,” he smiled. “What are you, twenty?”

She smiled back but didn’t answer him.

“Twenty-five?” he said.

“You’re getting warmer.”

“Gotta admit, you’re the last person I expected to find in charge of this boat.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Older. More male.”

“Happy to disappoint you.”

He sighed. “I guess we should get on with it, huh? It’s late, and I’m sure we’re both tired. Especially me. These bones aren’t made for sitting on those tiny boats for hours.”

“How long were you guys out there?”

“Long enough.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I can’t tell you that. At least, not yet.”

“‘Not yet?’”

He gave her a noncommittal shrug.

“You wanted the boat,” she said.

He nodded. “We wanted the boat.”

“You’re not even going to try to lie?”

“No point. You got us by the balls. I figure whether we live or die now depends on what I say next.”

“That’s a very astute observation.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“What?”

“Astute.”

“It means you’re right. Whether you live or die depends entirely on what you say now, in here.”

“Ah,” Hart said.

“Were you going to kill us?”

“No.”

“Then how were you going to take the boat from us?”

“Hopefully without bloodshed.”

“You were pretty heavily armed, if that was your hope.”

“The plan was to sneak onboard and take it over with minimal collateral damage. We needed the boat. The weapons were insurance.”

“I could have killed you and your men out there.”

“I know…”

“If one of your guys had opened fire…”

“I know,” Hart said again. “Trust me, I know.”

They let a few seconds of silence fall between them.

Five seconds became ten, then fifteen…

He wasn’t afraid of her, she could tell that much. Mostly he seemed completely resigned to his fate. She told herself not to believe him, that he wasn’t telling her the complete truth, but for whatever reason, she chose to ignore it.

“Where’s your base of operations?” she asked. “I know you didn’t come all the way from shore. We’re too far for that.”

“We didn’t.”

“So where did you come from?”

“I can’t tell you. At least, not yet.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”

“Do you have a pen?”

“What would I need a pen for?”

“I’m going to give you a radio frequency,” Hart said. “The guy you’ll want to talk to will be on the other end.”

“Is he in charge?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I want to talk to him?”

“How long have you been on this boat?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He shrugged slowly, as if just doing that simple move was tiring. “What I’m trying to get at is you’re probably running low on fuel and supplies. Am I right?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Of course I am,” he said. “The collaborators have all the marinas and fueling stations along the coastline on lockdown. The ones they haven’t already destroyed, anyway.”

“You’re not a collaborator…”

“And neither are you, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. I’d be fish food at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Which is why I think we can make a deal.”