The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (27 page)

Keo tracked the voice to the patio, maybe 200 meters from his current position. He fished out his lightweight binoculars from one of his cargo pants pockets and looked through them.

A blonde. About five-five. A taller woman and the large man stood behind her. All three were clearly illuminated by the harsh glare of lights above them, which also allowed him to see their clothes—civilian pants and shirts, but no uniform. Of course, it could just be one big trap to lure him out. After what he had done to them, first at the marina and then later at the shoreline, he wouldn’t be surprised if one of the fake soldiers finally grew a brain.

“I know you can hear me, Keo!” the woman shouted.

She seemed to be looking in his direction, so he guessed she figured out that he didn’t have a whole lot of real estate to hide in after escaping the beach. It made sense. This was their island. They would know every inch of it by now. So why hadn’t they attacked him yet? Either they were risk-averse, or they didn’t want to make this encounter bloody. Of course, he could just be overthinking the whole thing, too.

“This is your chance to keep this from getting out of hand!” she shouted. “Step outside with your hands up!” She paused, probably for effect. “You make us chase you in there, and it’s not going to end well, and neither one of us wants that!”

Speak for yourself. I happen to have a lot of recent experience eluding people with assault rifles in the woods.

Keo turned and hurried back toward the beach. He skirted over familiar terrain that he had memorized before arriving at his destination.

He went into a crouch and listened for signs of armed men trying to outflank him.

Behind him, the woman was still shouting, her voice fading a bit with the distance. But the night was so silent he would have to be deaf not to hear her. “Look, we get it! You had no choice! You couldn’t be sure who we were! I understand that! I would have done the same thing in your shoes!”

Satisfied no one was moving in on him from the beach, Keo got up and jogged through the darkness and back to the other side of the woods. The woman and her companions hadn’t moved from the patio.

He looked to the lighthouse and saw two figures inside now, moving from window to window with binoculars. Searching for him, no doubt. He wondered if they had special binoculars. Night-vision, maybe. That made him take a couple of extra steps backward until he was behind a thick underbrush just in case.

“Keo!” the woman shouted. “Let’s talk this out!”

When he didn’t respond, the woman turned to the others and said something. When she was done, she went back into the hotel with the tall woman, and a few seconds later a second man came out and took up position outside the patio alongside the big guy.

Keo waited again for the attack he knew was coming.

And waited, and waited…but nothing happened.

He sat down on the ground in his still-wet clothes instead.

Who were these people? If they weren’t soldiers, then who were they? Maybe they were even Allie’s survivors. But that didn’t make sense, either. That lighthouse made a hell of a good broadcasting station, especially with the antenna at the top. Wouldn’t they have contacted Allie with it by now? Or broadcasted a “safe and sound” message? They had to know Zachary and the others were waiting to hear back from them. The only reason they hadn’t done that yet in the months since they arrived was because they were
(dead)
in trouble. So was that it—

“Keo!”

It was Carrie’s voice, coming from the hotel patio.

“Keo!” Carrie shouted again. “It’s okay! They haven’t hurt us, and they’re not going to hurt you!”

He moved back toward the tree line and looked out with the binoculars again. Carrie was on the patio with the boss lady and the two men. The sight of her, standing among the islanders, caught him by surprise. He certainly hadn’t expected
this
little development.

“Keo!” Carrie shouted. “They’re not going to hurt you! I’ve been talking to them! That’s all we’ve been doing. Just talking! They know what happened to those seven people you came here looking for! Keo, can you hear me?”

Carrie waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t, she turned back to the woman. They exchanged some brief words, the back and forth almost casual. Then the women went into the hotel, once again leaving the two men outside.

What the hell was that about?

Keo remained where he was, watching them and listening for sounds around him. Any noise at all other than the birds in the trees, the scurrying along branches from his furry buddies. Hints that the attack he knew was coming would finally arrive. They certainly knew where he was—or at least, the general vicinity—so what was keeping them?

He got up and moved back toward the eastern part of the woods. There, he leaned out between two trees and peered at the rocky formations below. There was nothing down there except large rocks. No handholds, either, so climbing without equipment was definitely out of the question.

There was only one path out of the woods that he could see. That was straight across the open grounds, past those two empty swimming pools, the unfinished gazebo, and hope and pray he didn’t get too close to one of the hundred or so lampposts that snaked around the place like someone’s gaudy idea of showing off to the neighbors during the holidays.

Hey. No one told you you had to come here. Remember?

Yeah, yeah…

T
here was
a new figure on the boat shack; he could tell the difference by the height and the man’s outline. There was also someone new in the lighthouse—just one, this time, going from window to window and peering through binoculars and occasionally talking into a radio. The big man was alone at the hotel patio again.

Presenting one lone guard at each position was tempting. Was that the point? Were they trying to lure him out into the open? To make the first move? Was there really just one person at the beach? Or more inside the shack? Another one hiding in the lighthouse? Or waiting behind the front doors into the hotel lobby?

These people clearly weren’t stupid, so anything was possible.

Of course, it could just be his paranoia talking. Or maybe, just maybe, he was giving them too much credit again.

There wasn’t really much of a choice when he got right down to it. Run or fight. Or surrender. That last option wasn’t really an option. Keo had never been good at surrendering. It wasn’t in his DNA. At least he shared that much with his father. Of course, if he had been a better planner, a better tactician, he wouldn’t have found himself in these situations so often. Norris could have told him that. The old-timer was always criticizing his (lack of) ability to strategize.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

After watching the figure in the lighthouse and the one on the patio for an hour and getting their patterns, Keo waited for his opportunity. When he saw the woman in the lighthouse move away from the south window and the one on the patio turn his back briefly to check the other side of the island, Keo jogged out of the woods. He kept low, bent over at the waist, while still managing to sprint.

He made it to one of the swimming pools less than ten seconds later. He slid along the tall grass and fell off the smooth concrete edge and into the empty and slightly curved hole in the ground. It took him a moment to realize the thing was shaped into a pear and that he had landed somewhere in the shallow section. Which was lucky. If he had chosen the wrong spot, he would have had a pretty long plummet into the deep end.

He moved toward the other side of the pool and didn’t have to stand up to scan the lighthouse on one side and the patio on the other. It was two in the morning and he could tell both guards were tired. It was in their sluggish back and forth, the way they held their weapons.

Keo waited for the double turn again, and when it came, he climbed up and darted across the grounds, sticking to the patches of darkness and skirting around the haloed LED lampposts. The damn things were ridiculously bright up close and he had to blink away temporary blindness a couple of times. There were a couple of damaged lights here and there that allowed him to go in a straight line every now and then.

He finally slipped behind a large palm tree
(Where the hell did they even get palm trees in Louisiana?)
and glimpsed the lighthouse to his right, the patio to his left, and the side of the hotel—wicked bright floodlights and all—directly in front.

And there, one of the side doors stared invitingly back at him.

Keo waited again.

One minute. Two…then three…

The double turn.

He dashed through the lights and made the side door fourteen seconds later. He reached for the lever and cranked it and slipped inside, his MP5SD moving up into firing position—

Keo froze.

There was a police Remington pump-action shotgun pointed at his face from one meter away.

“You took your sweet time,” the redhead standing behind the shotgun said. “We thought you might have decided to swim back to the shore or something.”

Keo’s mind raced.

The redhead noticed and grinned. “Yeah, go for it. Three feet? I’m sure there’s a chance I could miss. Probably.”

“
W
hat happened to your face
?” the pretty blonde asked.

“Birthmark,” Keo said. “It was a very painful birth.”

“I’m sorry for her.”

“So am I.”

“Is that why your mom named you Keo? As punishment?”

“She wanted to call me Harry, but it was already taken.”

“Really.”

“True story.”

“I’m sure it is.” She paused for a moment, watching him intently. “The plan didn’t quite work out, huh?”

He shrugged. “I’ve always been more of a doer than a planner.”

“It would appear so.”

The blonde was the clear leader. If he had any doubts before, he didn’t anymore. She looked convincing in cargo pants with a Glock in a hip holster. Late twenties (though it was hard to tell these days), watching him with crystal-blue eyes. The redhead, leaning against the wall behind her, looked even younger. She might have been twenty, maybe twenty-one.

They were both staring at him. Really,
really
staring at him.

After the incident at the side door, they had led him to a small room at the back of the building. Some kind of supply closet, with concrete walls and floor. He sat on an uncomfortable metal chair now, hands zip tied behind his back and ankles similarly restrained. The three of them were inside the room, but he could hear a fourth person—a man by the heavy back-and-forth footsteps—in the hallway.

How exactly had he ended up being held prisoner on an island run by two kids?

This is fucking embarrassing.

“We talked to Carrie,” the blonde was saying. “You’re looking for seven of your friends.”

Friends of friends, actually,
he thought, but said instead, “What happened to them?”

“They were responding to a message on the radio?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

He recalled his conversation with Allie. “A while back.”

The blonde nodded. “They’re dead.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill them?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“The people who had this island before us.”

“And what happened to them?”

The blonde didn’t answer, and neither did the redhead. Their silence was all the answer he needed.

“Ah,” Keo said. “This is one dangerous island.”

“It can be,” the blonde said.

“So what happens now?”

The blonde gave him a long look before glancing back at the redhead. “Do you see it?”

The redhead shook her head. “Nah.”

“You sure?”

“Looks okay to me.”

“Maybe I can help you ladies out if you’ll tell me what you’re looking for,” Keo said.

“We wanted to make sure you didn’t have squirrelly eyes,” the blonde said.

“I have no idea what that means,” Keo said, looking from the blonde to the redhead and back again.

“No, I don’t suppose you do.”

“He looks like one of those K-pop guys,” the redhead said. “Except for the scar. That’s butt ugly.”

“Now that’s just mean,” Keo said.

“K-what?” the blonde said.

“Those Korean boy bands I told you about.”

The blonde shook her head. “You do know that I only pay attention to you half the time, and almost never when it involves pop culture?”

The redhead smirked. “Now you tell me.” She looked over at him. “Your English is pretty good, K-pop.”

“I was born on an American base in San Diego,” Keo said.

“Well, that explains it.”

The blonde stood up and walked to the door. “Get some sleep and we’ll talk again tomorrow morning,” she said to him.

“Sleep?” Keo said. “It’s going to be hard getting any sleep like this.”

“He’s right,” the redhead said. “The poor guy.”

She walked over, stopped beside him, then lifted her foot and kicked the chair over. Keo landed on the hard concrete floor on his side with an
oomph.

“There,” the redhead said. “That’s for making us stay up past midnight chasing after your dumb ass. Do you have any idea how much beauty sleep I need per day?”

“Not much, I’m sure,” Keo said.

“Flattery will get you pancakes in the morning.”

“You have pancakes?”

“Oh yeah, we have a lot of things. There’s a big ol’ freezer with all kinds of goodies. Be a good boy and don’t try anything funny, and we might share some of it with you tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

The blonde was waiting at the door. “Sit tight.”

“Some way to welcome a guest,” Keo said.

“You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you on sight after the month we’ve been having.”

The two women left, slamming the metal door shut after them. Keo heard a lock turning, then saw the big man from earlier look in at him through the security glass, before he, too, vanished. He didn’t go very far, though, because Keo could still see his shadow just under the door.