0692672400 (S) (39 page)

“Two kilometers?” he asked.

“Just a bit longer than a mile,” Erin said.

“How wide?”

“Maybe a quarter mile. There’s a landing strip that runs through the middle. The main facilities are joined into one contiguous structure, and it’s ringed by woods and beaches. The first few weeks after we arrived, we were always stepping on empty shell casings that had been left behind. We’re looking at the back of the island now. Boats usually dock on the other side where there are piers and slips. This side is pretty much used for beaching exercises. But since we’re coming from the
Ocean Star
, it makes sense for us to land here.”

“Where there’s less security.”

“Exactly.”

“Hart said the place was primarily used for war games.”

She nodded. “There were stacks of files and old maps detailing various scenarios they had run through this place in the past. I don’t think they spent a lot of time here though, probably as long as it took them to complete whatever games they had in mind. It’s a durable place, but it’s not exactly cozy.”

“So, shitty accommodations?”

“I guess soldiers don’t need more than a cot and a pillow.”

“You guys didn’t find any of them when you showed up?”

“Soldiers? No. It was empty. No ghouls, either.”

“Lucky you.”

“Not luck. Mercer knew it would be empty. That’s why he brought us here.”

Keo sneaked a look at her, sitting next to him. There was something about the way she had said Mercer’s name. He had noticed it twice now: there was a reverence to it, the kind of respect that made him question if she could be trusted when the chips were down and his hide was on the line. Maybe he had made a mistake deciding to trust someone who, less than a day ago, had threatened to kill him more times than he could count.

“You good with this?” he asked.

She looked back at him and saw the way he was eyeing her. She pursed her lips into a forced smile. “No. Not at all.”

“What does that—”

“I mean, I’m not good with what we’re about to do,” she interrupted, “but yeah, I’m good with
this
this.” She faced forward again. “It has to be done. If he’s gone, there’s a chance we can pull the others back and stop this war and save lives.”

“Whose lives?”

“Theirs, ours, all of us.”

Keo nodded. He didn’t want to tell her that the chances of that actually happening were low, that even with Mercer gone there were probably going to be true believers determined to carry on the fight in their dead commander’s memory, or something equally ill-conceived.

But right now Erin didn’t need to know about his doubts. He couldn’t afford for her to start having second
(third?)
thoughts. God knew this was going to be tough enough without having to worry about her, too.

“How are we going to do this?” he asked.

“There’s nothing special about it. I already radioed ahead when we were on the
Ocean Star
and told them we were coming. They’re expecting us”—she glanced at her watch—“about now.”

“That’s the whole procedure? Call ahead and then show up?”

“It’s not
Get Smart,
Keo. There are no hidden doors or passwords to go through. If you found the island, then you were meant to be here.”

“What about defenses?”

“There are guards along the beaches and around the main facility, but that’s about it in terms of potential trouble spots. Everyone who can fight is either in Texas or on their way back.”

“Will they care it’s only the two of us showing up?”

“The guys I made contact with on the radio will, but they won’t be on the beach waiting for us. The guards who will be won’t know any different.”

He nodded and looked up at the sky. Pitch dark, but it wouldn’t stay that way for very long. Not that he needed a lot of time, but darkness was always better for wet work. There wouldn’t be nearly as many people standing guard, and those who were would be staving off fatigue and sleep. In his experience, even the most capable soldier wasn’t at his full alertness in the early morning hours. Best-case? The people here would be used to long, peaceful night sleeps, which would give him even more room to work.

Worse-case? Everything blows up in his face, and he was dead before morning.

Either/or.

“All right,” he said, slipping the balaclava back down over his face. “Let’s get you home.”

T
HERE WERE TWO OF THEM
—men, from the way they stood and the shape of their outlines—and they were waiting on the beach as Erin cut the engine a second time and let the currents push them forward. Keo could make out night-vision goggles over the guards’ faces, which meant they had seen him crouched at the bow of the offshore vessel even better than he could see them.

He glanced back at Erin. “Is this going to work?”

She didn’t answer right away, but the obvious concern on her face, lit by the dashboard lights, didn’t exactly give him confidence.

“Yeah, sure,” she said finally.

“You don’t sound very convincing, Erin,” he said, just barely suppressing a laugh. Because what else could he do in this situation but
laugh?

“It’ll work,” she said. She followed that up with a nod, though he wasn’t sure if that was for his benefit or hers. Then again, given the way she was staring at the two guards waiting for them (likely armed to the teeth), he could probably figure out the answer.

Keo turned back around to face the beach. He had his rifle slung behind him and still wore his gun belt because it wouldn’t make sense for a Mercer man to return “home” unarmed. Judging by the relaxed posture of the two, it was the right move. The guards stood watching, but he didn’t see anything about their forms to indicate they were anxious or alert, and they certainly weren’t holding the rifles dangling in front of them with anything even close to resembling menace.

So far, so good.

“We won’t be the first one to come back,” Erin said behind him. “They’ll be used to this by now. The fact that there are just two of us may raise some questions later, but not from these two. If your plan works, this will be all over by the time enough people have woken up to start asking those questions.”

They were less than twenty meters from the sand when one of the guards waved, while the second one turned his head to look up the beach as if he found something more interesting up there. That was exactly the reaction Keo was hoping for, and seeing it did more to convince him than Erin’s assurance had a few moments ago.

Keo returned the wave and stood up as the surf carried them closer. He jumped off the boat as soon as he felt the fiberglass hull sliding against soft sand and landed knee-high in freezing cold water.

The guard laughed, night-vision goggle perched on top of his forehead. “Nice jump, Geronimo.”

There wasn’t a lot of light on the beach, at least nothing like he was used to back on Song Island in the old days. The guards were clearly relying mostly on moonlight and their gear to see with, and the closest light emanated from an LED lantern hanging off a tree about thirty meters behind them. It wasn’t nearly enough to reveal the entire stretch of beach, which made Keo think he could have swam to shore just fine under the cover of darkness.

Keo grinned back at the soldier. “Hey, I almost had it.”

“Almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades, dude,” the man said.

“Tell me about it,” Keo said, and turned around and grabbed the boat’s V-shaped bow and pulled it in.

The guard helped with the other side, but the second one was more concerned about not getting caught in the waves that were washing ashore than lending a hand. As Keo and the Good Samaritan pulled the boat up, Erin walked to the front and picked up the line from the floor.

Keo backpedaled up the beach, his soaked boots
squishing
under him. Erin tossed him the line, and Keo pulled the boat further in. The guard was too busy talking to Erin and the other guy had wandered off.

Definitely so far, so good.

There was a metal spike to which Keo tied the boat’s line. It wasn’t exactly a sophisticated docking system, but then they were landing on the backside of the island.

“Just you two?” the guard was asking Erin behind him.

“Just us,” Erin said.

“How’s the war going? We don’t get a lot of information. Heard it was going well, though.”

“Yeah, we’re bulldozing through the collaborators,” Erin said. “Pretty soon there’ll just be the monsters to deal with.”

“That’s when all the silver bullets come in, right?”

Erin nodded. “That’s right.”

“Can’t wait for that. I’m tired of playing security guard over here.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll get your chance soon enough.”

“Looking forward to it,” the man said.

As he was tightening the rope around the spike, Keo took a moment to scan the rest of the island. There wasn’t much in the way of defenses that he could see except for the two guards he had already met, though Keo did glimpse two more figures farther up the beach to his right. Still, four people weren’t nearly enough to cover the entire two-kilometer span of the island on this side, but maybe there were more people than he could see with the naked eye. Either that, or Mercer really was stretched thin. Which, if true, meant the man was definitely putting all his eggs on the collaborators turning on their ghoul masters and bulking up his ranks.

Good luck with that, pal.

Erin had walked over to join him, and she handed him his pack and asked, “You ready?”

He nodded and said in a low voice so the closest guard didn’t hear, “You good?”

“Yes,” she said, louder than he would have liked. “Let’s go; I wanna grab some shut-eye before sunup.”

That last part, he guessed, was for the guard’s benefit.

Keo followed her up the beach, sliding the pack’s strap over his left shoulder only in order to keep his right arm free. The M4 with the grenade launcher thumped reassuringly against his back, within easy reach. When he looked back at the water, the guy who had helped him pull the boat up had already returned his NVD over his eyes and was walking off to join his buddy.

“What about the boat?” Keo asked.

“Someone will take care of it later,” Erin said.

They waded through knee-high grass in a field on the other side of the beach. It was easy to pick up the signs that Uncle Sam had been here and had chopped down a lot of the scenery, leaving a mostly unobstructed view of the place. Keo spied the roofs of buildings jutting out of the ground in the distance, and though he expected to see planes taking off and landing, the only sounds came from the crickets in the woods and birds in the trees around him.

“What that guy said about silver bullets,” Keo said.

“What about it?” Erin asked.

“I can understand why people on the
Ocean Star
weren’t equipped with them, but what about the teams in the fields? The ones in Texas right now?”

“Mercer’s orders.”

“Why?”

“Their job is to strike at the collaborators, not fight ghouls. If they had silver ammo, they’d be tempted to do the very thing he told them not to do. This way, they’re forced to stay on course. Hide at night, fight in the day. And you don’t need silver bullets to do that.”

Four guys in a tank apparently didn’t get that message.

“That’s a pretty hardcore way to ensure your soldiers do exactly what you tell them,” Keo said. “And all the kill teams went along with it?”

“A lot of them protested—I was one of them. But he stuck to his guns and we found ways to be okay with it, like we always do. I heard rumors that some of the teams stole silver bullets from the armory and took them with them. But I never actually met any that did.”

“The funny thing is, I agree with him.”

Erin looked over, surprised. “You do?”

“Not his no-silver policy even if you die because of it part. That’s just stupid. But on the not engaging the ghouls part, yeah, I get that. It’s pointless.”

She nodded. “He said it was a losing battle. There are so many of them, killing a hundred here, a thousand there wouldn’t even make a dent in their number. He said we’d just use up all the silver ammo we spent so much time and sweat making. He wanted to save it for emergencies, but mostly for when we finally took the fight directly to the monsters. That’s why we still have people out there whose only job is to collect silver.”

“He’s playing the long game.”

“Always. From day one, his goal was to first take away the ghoul’s greatest resource—cut their supply line, as he put it.”

“Humans.”

“He’ll kill as many as he needs to get them to turn on their masters.”

“What if he ends up killing everyone instead?”

“That’s why I’m here on Black Tide with you, Keo. To make sure that doesn’t happen.” She ground her teeth together, and he heard the conviction in her voice for the very first time when she added, “There has to be a better way to take the planet back. There
has
to be.”

Maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t, but Keo wasn’t too concerned with the answer at the moment. Right here and now, he could only concentrate on one thing:

Find Mercer. Kill Mercer.

He replayed the look on Jordan’s face as she bled out in his arms next to the highway; the oddly contented smile she gave him as he held her, forever frozen in his mind’s eye. Days later, and he still didn’t know how he felt about her, but he knew that he liked her and knew exactly how he felt about watching her die.

Somewhere on the other side of the field they were moving through, lights shone from a series of blocky gray buildings. Mercer would be in one of those right now, oblivious to what was coming for him.

Keo glanced down at his watch.

3:36 a.m.

He smiled.

The hour of the wolf…

24

LARA

W
HEN
R
ILEY OPENED HIS EYES
, the first thing he said was, “Andy shot me.”