The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (42 page)

“And everything’s ready just in case it didn’t?” Will asked.

“Plan Z…”

“Yes.”

“Everyone knows their roles,” Lara said. “I just hope we don’t have to use it.” She paused for a moment, then, “I knew you weren’t going to make it back today, Will. That’s why I made the choices I did.”

“You did the right thing, Lara.”

“Did I? Maybe I just made things worse.”

“Things can’t get any worse, babe. Besides, the island’s still there, isn’t it? You’re still safe. And the others, too.”

“Yes…”

“So you made the right choices.”

“I wasn’t sure…”

“Don’t doubt yourself. You’re smarter than me. Always have been.”

“You’re the one who kept us alive all these months.”

“Not by myself.”

“You and Danny…”

“Danny’s just a dumbass with a gun.”

“Hey,” Danny said. He was sitting on the big mattress behind them, cleaning his rifle. “Leave me out of this.”

Will ignored him and said into the mic, “We’ll be back tomorrow. Gaby, Danny, and me. And some other people, too.”

“You keep picking up strays,” she said. “Looks like we have that in common.”

He smiled. “I guess we just can’t help ourselves.”

He looked outside at the falling night again, at the soldiers milling about on both sides of the highway. The trucks had turned on their headlights. Waiting, just waiting, because they had all the time in the world.

They do, but we don’t.

And it seems to get shorter every day…

Will turned back to the radio. “It’s getting dark, and we both have a long night ahead of us.”

“Be careful,” Lara said. “You too, Gaby. I don’t want to lose you guys again.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Danny said behind them.

Will held the mic toward Gaby, who said into it, “Get a glass of cold water ready for me, Lara. I also wouldn’t mind if someone went into my room and made the bed. I might have left it a little messy.”

Lara laughed. “Your highness’s wishes are my command.”

Gaby nodded at Will, then stood up and walked over to where Danny was, her way of giving Will some privacy with the radio.

“We’ll be home tomorrow,” he said into the mic. “Wait for me, okay?”

“Someone recently told me that home isn’t where I’m staying, but where the person I love is,” Lara said. “Come back to me, Will.”

“Tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow,” she repeated.

“
Y
ou think it worked
?” Blaine asked. “Earlier today?”

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “Maybe.”

“We should have blown up that house. Or taken out one of those docks and the boats. Maybe if we’d stayed longer instead of running so quickly…”

“Then all three of us would be dead right now.” Keo shrugged. “We did what we could. If they’re smart, they’ll accept today’s losses and regroup.”

“And if they’re not that smart?”

“Look around you, Blaine. These people took over the planet. I’m not talking about the human puppets. I’m talking about the ones pulling the strings. The creatures that Lara called ghouls. They’re not stupid.”

Blaine nodded. “You’re right. Anyway, if they want this island, they’re going to have to take it over our dead bodies.”

That’s what I’m afraid of,
Keo thought, but said instead, “That seems to be the consensus with everyone here.”

“Lara’s a smart woman. She’ll get us through this.”

Keo didn’t doubt that the blonde was smart, but sometimes it took more than smarts to survive an unwinnable situation. Sometimes you just have to accept that you can’t win and move on. Or run. He had done plenty of both in his life.

And that’s what I should have done earlier today, too. Run the hell away from here and these people as fast as I could.

So why the hell am I playing guard duty?

Isn’t it obvious? Because you’re the dumbest man alive.

Keo sighed to himself.

From up here, he had a view of every inch of the island with the exception of the forested western half. He could see why Lara had someone up here twenty-four seven. It was a hell of an overwatch. Armed with the ACOG-mounted M4, a good shooter could pick off targets on the beach or boaters coming from the shorelines almost at will. Not him, of course. His skills were more close and personal-based.

“I was here when the island came under attack the first time,” Blaine was saying. “It was a hell of a night. Bullets everywhere. People dying.”

“They attacked the place before?”

“Over three months ago. Will and Danny were here that time.”

“You guys made it through okay, apparently.”

“Barely.” He lowered the binoculars and glanced up at the skylight above them. “They almost took down the Tower with one of those grenade launchers you used back at the staging area.”

Keo peered up at the full moon. It was a cloudless night, which was good for them because it extended their coverage of the surrounding lake.

He looked down at his watch: 8:16 p.m.

“Are you staying?” Blaine asked after a while.

“No,” Keo said. “I’ll help out as much as I can until I leave tomorrow.”

“Thanks for that.”

Keo chuckled. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Blaine. I’m stuck here for now, so if they attack, my ass is on the line, too.”

“Hunh. Good point.”

They didn’t say much after that, and Keo was glad Blaine wasn’t the type who felt the need to fill every second with noise. Shorty had been one of those.

The silence was finally broken by their radios squawking, and they heard Lara’s voice. “Keo, Blaine.”

Blaine answered his radio first. “What’s up?”

“Anything?” Lara asked.

“Nothing yet.” He glanced over at Keo for confirmation. Keo shook his head. “All quiet up here.”

“If you see anything, I want to hear about it. Anything at all.”

“Roger that.”

Keo moved to the south window and looked off at the stretch of white sands along the beach. There was a figure standing guard on top of the boat shack. Either Bonnie or Roy, though Keo hadn’t completely memorized their guard shift yet. A second figure walked in and out of the dozen or so halos along one of the piers. Tall and slender, so that was probably Bonnie. He turned a bit to the right and looked over the roof of the hotel and spotted two more figures, one crouching, the other standing. There were supposed to be three people up there tonight.

“Doesn’t she ever sleep?” Keo asked. “Lara.”

“A few hours here and there since Will left the island,” Blaine said. “I don’t know how she does it. She must drink two or three cups of coffee every morning.”

“Where do you guys get coffee anyway?”

“We got stacks of the stuff in freeze dried form. Sarah says those things last anywhere from two to twenty years in the pantry, and indefinitely in the freezer. You don’t know how much you miss coffee until you’ve smelled it in the morning.”

A flicker of movement against the moonlight caught his attention just before their radios squawked again. This time it was an excited female voice. Not Bonnie, but one of the other women. Maybe the short one?

“I see something on the water! I think it’s coming toward us!”

Keo adjusted his binoculars and picked up multiple white lights skirting across the lake at a snail’s pace, moving gradually in their direction. The object was too far away and too hidden by darkness to make out any details, but Keo had seen enough of them to know what the lights belonged to.

“I see it,” Keo said into his radio. “It’s a boat.”

“What kind of boat?” Lara said through the radio. Her voice was shaky and she was breathing hard.

Keo turned the binoculars downward and saw a figure racing toward the beach. Damn. How’d she gotten out of the hotel so fast? The woman really didn’t sleep.

“It’s still too far away to tell,” Keo said. “But it’s moving slow, which means it’s big.”

“Or it could be trying to sneak up on us,” Carly said through the radio.

“No. It’s got its lights on.”

“Keo,” Lara said, “I need you on the beach with me. Maddie, head to the Tower and take his place.”

“I’m on my way,” Maddie said.

Keo nodded at Blaine, then slipped through the door in the floor.

He saw Maddie racing in and out of the lampposts that dotted the hotel grounds as he exited the lighthouse/radio tower. They exchanged a brief nod and he jogged off as she darted into the building behind him, slamming the door after her.

Keo glimpsed dark figures moving around on the hotel rooftop as he ran past. Three up there at the moment, including the twelve-year-old, what’s-his-name. Civilians were usually queasy about kids and guns, but Lara had put the tall kid up there anyway.

She’s ballsy, all right. Gotta give her that.

He made the beach a few minutes later. The short woman with the impressive rack, Gwen, was on top of the supply building to his right, while Bonnie, the tall ex-model, was at the other end of the beach to his left. He wondered if their placements were on purpose, because that was how he had sneaked onto the beach last night. The result of Lara adapting?

He found her at the end of the middle pier, standing underneath one of the bright LED lampposts that lined the walkway.

“What’s out there, guys?” Carly asked through the radio. She sounded anxious.

“It’s definitely a boat,” Lara said. “And it’s headed toward us.”

“Hard to miss the island. We are lit up like a Christmas tree, remember?”

“It’s a yacht,” Keo said. He had been thinking about it during the walk over. “It’s the right size. Two, probably three decks from the position of the lights.”

Lara glanced back at him. “You’ve seen yachts at night before?”

“I’ve boarded one or two in my time.”

“At night?” she said doubtfully.

“Hard to board a boat in the day when they can you see you coming.”

He stopped beside her and peered through his own binoculars. The boat was really moving slowly, as if it was in trouble. Was it leaking? Damaged? Still, he could just make out a bit more detail now. From the front, it was difficult to tell how many decks the vessel had, but its sleek white paint job was clear enough against the blackness.

“How many people does something like that hold?” Lara asked.

“I’m guessing anywhere from five to ten cabins. So two, maybe three per would be comfortable. But you could squeeze in more if you had to. You’d need at least five crewmen to keep something like that running, with eight to ten being preferable.”

“It looks pretty big.”

“The beam can be anywhere from five to ten meters.”

“What’s a beam?”

“The width of the boat.”

“Oh.”

“Something that wide is probably thirty to fifty meters long.”

“Is that big?”

“For a yacht? That’s luxury yacht territory. It’s a moving bed-and-breakfast, basically. Can you hear its engines?”

“Barely,” she said, straining to hear.

“That means it’s got a really quiet engine. Whisper quiet, they call it.”

“You know your yachts.”

“Like I said, I’ve had to board one once or twice in my old job. Of course, that just means I know my own limitations. You need to take something like that, I’m your man. You need someone to keep it afloat? That’s not me.”

Lara hadn’t said anything in a while, so he glanced over. He could see her mind working, processing the information.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“What?” she said. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know that look.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t need to know you to know
that
look.”

She smiled almost sheepishly. “I was just thinking…”

“Of course you were…”

“…that it might be nice to have a moving bed-and-breakfast on hand.”

Keo had to laugh. “You’re seriously thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to have something like that around just in case. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, as Will would say. Besides, wouldn’t you like to ride something like that to the Texas coast?”

“I’ll make do with a sailboat.”

“Think about it,” she said. Then, into her radio, “Tower, I need you to keep an eye on the rest of the lake in case this is some kind of distraction. I don’t want someone sneaking up on us again.”

“Roger that,” Blaine said through the radio. “What about the boat?”

“Let’s wait and see what they want. They’re not trying to hide their approach, so that’s a positive sign.” She said to Keo, “Can they turn off those lights manually?”

He nodded. “They’re letting us see them on purpose.” Then, “We should probably step back.”

“Why?”

“In case they have snipers onboard.”

“You think…?”

“Can’t be too sure, right? You saw the boat and you’re already making plans to acquire it. And they’ve seen what you have on this island. Even from a distance—”

“The power,” Lara said. “They know we have power.”

“And lots of it,” he nodded.

She turned and headed back down the pier, lifting the radio to her lips again. “Gwen, make yourself as small as possible back there. Bonnie, head back toward the tree lines for now.”

At the end of the pier, Gwen went into a crouch on top of the boat shack and Bonnie retreated up the beach toward the woods.

“Are we expecting trouble?” Roy asked through the radio.

“No,” Lara said. “Just in case.”

Just in case,
Keo thought. Apparently that was the island’s motto.

“What now?” he asked her.

“I don’t know.” He thought he might have heard the first sign of a strain in her voice. “I wish Will was here. He’d know what to do.”

“You’re doing pretty well on your own.”

“For now,” she said. They stopped at the end of the pier and looked back at the approaching lights. “You said a boat that size had to have a big crew.”

“At minimum, five people just to keep it running.”

“They can’t be Kate’s soldiers. It’s too obvious.”

“Who’s Kate?”

“This bitch we used to know,” Lara said, but she didn’t elaborate. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and said, “If they’re hostile, it might be too late to do anything about it once they’re closer.” She paused for a moment, and he could almost see that mind of hers spinning again. “Can you sink something like that? I mean, by shooting it?”

“You can sink anything if you shoot it enough,” Keo said.

She continued staring at the approaching lights, her lips twisting, face contorting with indecision. He felt almost sorry for her. It wasn’t just her life at stake here. It was the others, too. Blaine, Maddie, the girl with the big rack behind them.

And the kids. He didn’t even know their names. One of them was Ellie or something. Janet? Wang?

You don’t even know their names. So what’s the point?

Because they’re kids.

Goddamn it, because they’re kids…

“There’s a way to find out if they’re friendlies,” Keo said.

“How?” Lara said, looking at him.

“It’s your island, and it’s your people. If you tell me to go ahead with this, you could be putting them all in unnecessary danger. Or you might be saving their lives. But ultimately, you’re going to have to decide, because once I start, I can’t stop. And whatever happens because of it will be on you. You understand?”

She stared at him, clearly confused. But that confusion quickly gave way to understanding, and she nodded. “Thank you, Keo.”

He sighed. “Don’t thank me yet. This is either going to work out and everyone will live happily ever after, or it’s going to blow up in both of our faces and everyone’s going to end up dead.”

T
wo nights on this island
, and I’m soaked from head to toe…again.

He slipped into the water from the eastern half of the island and swam in the darkness laterally—not toward the approaching yacht, but where he expected it to be at a certain point. His biggest advantage was that he could see the boat just fine to his left along with the island to his right.

Keo swam at a leisurely pace, slowing down and treading water only when he could feel the waves pressing against him more urgently than before. The vessel, bright white against the black canvas, glided in front of him, its half-dozen floodlights on full blast. They definitely weren’t trying to hide themselves. Either they actually did come in peace, or they really,
really
wanted the island to think that.

From his angle, he was able to count all three decks on the boat, with the highest one also the smallest. He eyeballed the length of the craft at just over forty meters, so he wasn’t too far off when he had guessed from the pier. Keo let it glide smoothly across the water in front of him and read the name written along the side:
Trident.