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He came to a stop at the blind curve on the wooden walkway, steadied Becca and strained with every sensory organ for information about what was around that bend in the dusk-shrouded forest. The vibration that had alerted him resolved into actual noise. The frantic speed of the guy’s thudding bootsteps told him they’d been made. No point in not using his piece then.
The tall blond guy came barreling round the corner, talking softly into his comm. There was just time for his eyes to widen beforethhhtp, the bullet from Nick’s silenced SIG 229 drilled him in the forehead. The guy’s head snapped back and he ran on out from under himself, thudded heavily down and slid, half-on, half-off the boardwalk.
Easy. He dragged her past the corpse. Four down in less than five minutes. Not bad, for toast. Becca was starting to stumble, legs shaking beneath her. Going into shock, probably. The joke would be on him.
It was a miracle they’d gotten this far. He’d worked out the formula for this opportunity in his head. Several separate windows of opportunity had to line up perfectly long enough for him to jump through them and bring Becca with him.
He couldn’t take out seven armed guards at once. It had to be when Zhoglo and his new associate were distracted by their dinner and Becca’s tits. Guarding them would occupy Pavel. It had to be at the change of the boat guard, so that one man would be patrolling the front approach, not two. It had to be in careful sequence—front deck, corridor, kitchen—and done in dead silence, no gasps, shrieks, grunts or gunshots. It had to happen in quick succession. And finally, Becca had to appear at the right moment, keep her mouth shut and her shit together. Which she had. So far.
At this point, it broke down to running fast and hoping hard. Hoping the Vor’s manpower was reduced enough so that he would cut his losses and let them go for now. Hoping that he wouldn’t want his men to race after them with the boat, leaving him stranded and vulnerable on the island. Lots of hopes. Hope was a bitch. Nick mistrusted it bitterly. It set a guy up for disappointment every time.
He jerked her to a stop. She stumbled onto her knees. He leaped off the walkway, and plunged into the foliage, dragging her behind him. She made noise as the thorns and rocks tore up her bare feet.
Tough shit. Feet healed. Dead didn’t.
He pushed on, shoving through branches, abandoning stealth. It was all about speed now. And he had speed hidden down there in the water, if they could get to it before they got drilled.
He’d thought long and hard about providing himself with this bolthole, as if the implied lack of total commitment could jinx him.
Lo and behold, it had. He should have managed himself like the commanders of armies in ancient times had managed their soldiers. Lighting fires behind the troops. No retreat possible.
His last chance to find out Sveti’s fate was gone. He’d have given up everything he had, every last drop of his own heart’s blood, for that.
But he hadn’t been able to give up Becca’s.
The horizon opened up before them at the water’s edge, with the last of the sunset staining the sky, the fishy, weedy smell and gurgling of water all around them. There was no beach, no dock, just white roots sticking out over the dark water like bones, the water heaving and sucking and lapping beneath them.
He let himself noiselessly down into it, and grabbed Becca’s waist, expecting her to shift her weight for him. She went rigid, clinging to a tree, shaking. Seconds ticked away, lost forever.
He lifted his hands, rage pricking at his calm. “You’ve got two seconds to decide,” he said. “Come with me, right now, or go back to him. Try apologizing. Smile pretty. See where it gets you.”
She laid her shaking hands on his shoulders. He lifted her down.
She sucked in a sharp breath at the water’s icy bite and slogged clumsily after him, stumbling over boulders in the dark water.
She tripped, would have gone under if he hadn’t grabbed her. As it was, she was soaked up to her armpits now, teeth chattering.
Great. If she hadn’t been going into shock already, this would do the trick. He ducked under the low cave formed by a couple of dead trees that had fallen into the water, unmoored the camouflaged Zodiac inflatable that he’d borrowed from Seth Mackey. He dragged it out.
An excellent toy. He had to get one of these for himself, if he survived. Powerful outboard motor. Speed tubes with hydrodynamic lift to zoom over the surface of the water. He heaved Becca into it. She rolled in like a sack of potatoes. He clambered in after her, braced for the slice of lights through the trees, gunshots.
Nothing yet. Too good to be true.
The motor hummed smoothly to life. He moved out to deeper water, trying to hug the shore until they rounded the curve, and then he let out the throttle.
Becca had never been so cold. She’d never imagined such cold. Every muscle of her body convulsed individually as they tried to heat her up. She dragged herself slowly up from her huddled position.
The wind slapped her, whipped at her wet hair, dragging tears from her eyes. She noticed in an emotionless way that her blouse had been torn from her shoulder on that rampage through the forest. It dangled in a sodden swag, completely exposing one goose-pimpled boob.
She barely noticed.
He was saying something. She leaned forward, struggled to hear over the roar of the wind in her ears. “Huh?”
“Thermal blanket,” he said, pitching his voice just loud enough to reach her ears and pointing. “There. Get it before you freeze.”
Her numb fingers were about as responsive as a bunch of stiff dead fish, but she finally found the thing, and clawed open the waterproof plastic packing. She wrapped it gratefully around herself.
She peered at Mr. Big as he gazed ahead. Hair flying back off his face, eyes narrowed against the wind, the image of stony concentration.
