Page 112

Ryker still didn’t see it, there were breaks in the algae all over the place. He squinted his eyes, and then he saw it. Zed had zigzagged. Now that he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it. It was clear that Zed had crossed and ended up behind that giant grouping of mangrove roots.

“How do you want to play this?” Ryker asked in a barely-there whisper.

Jase pulled out his small notebook, identical to Ryker’s. They’d each been using it to keep track of spoor sightings. Jase wrote down what he wanted. He would fall back two hundred yards this side of the swamp, and Ryker would go forward two hundred yards. Then they would each cross over to a point one hundred yards past the mangroves behind Zed’s root system. Jase looked down at his watch and gave them twelve minutes to get into position.

“Then we close in on him.” He grinned. “Got that?”

Ryker knew his grin was even bigger as he nodded.

Jase wrote down something else and handed the notepad to Ryker.

Ryker read:

And don’t fall into any sinkholes.

“We won,” Ryker said for the fourth time as he held out his hand for another bottle of beer.

“The parameters of the bet were that you had to have me bagged and tagged within thirty-six hours. It took thirty-eight,” Zed said patiently.

Ryker impatiently flicked off the top of his beer and took a long pull.

“That’s horseshit. It doesn’t matter when you took off, it matters when we started.”

“You should have clarified that when we made the bet, my young friend,” Zed smiled as he offered Jase a second beer before starting on his first.

“He’s right, McQueen. He took off thirty-eight hours, we took off thirty-five hours ago, and we never clarified if we were starting when he took off or when we started tracking him.”

“Dammit!”

“You’re just sorry because you’re not the one who came up with the idea,” Zed said mildly.

Jase gave Zed a curious look. “That doesn’t seem like you either, whose sneaky idea was it?”

“Dex Evans,” Zed grinned.

“Should have figured,” Ryker rolled his eyes before taking another long pull off his beer.

“Besides beer, what else you got in that backpack?” Jase asked.

“Figured I might as well live large since I was stuck hauling ninety pounds,” Zed said. “So besides adding a backpack cooler, ice, and beer I’ve got cold roast beef sandwiches, sub sandwiches macaroni, and potato salad.”

Jase gave him a long considering look. “You let us find you, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” Zed asked innocently.

“You didn’t want the food to go bad or the beer to get too warm.”

“You’ll never be able to prove it in a court of law,” Zed said as he pulled out his stash of food.

“Zed, tell me you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Drakos, and enjoy the spoils of war,” Ryker interrupted his teammate as he grabbed one of the proffered sandwiches. “Did you bring dessert?” he asked Zed.

“Sure did. I figure we have enough here that we can still skip the MREs for breakfast, then head out to base in the morning.”

Ryker watched as his friend shook his head in disgust.

“Can it, Jase. You taught me a lot, and that was the point of this exercise, plus we have good food and a couple of beers. Not too many that we’ll get eaten by a gator in the middle of the night.”