0692672400 (S) (17 page)

“Hey,” Blaine said.

“Present company excluded, of course.”

“Damn straight.”

Riley, of course, hadn’t heard any of the back and forth, and he said now, “I assume my man told you about what we can offer?”

Lara pressed the transmit button on the mic. “He did.”

“Supplies. Fuel. Guns and ammo too, if you need them, though I get the impression you don’t.”

“Where do you get your fuel from?”

“Does it matter? The important takeaway for you is that we have what you need.”

“Maybe he’s living on a big oil tanker,” Carly said.

“Oil tankers carry crude oil,” Blaine said. “They have to be processed into usable fuel.”

“What are you, an expert on oil now?”

“Hey, I get around.”

Lara said into the radio, “I need to know your location.”

“I’ll be happy to give you the coordinates as soon as you tell me we have a deal,” Riley said.

“That’s the problem. We don’t have a deal. Not until you can convince me I can trust you.”

Riley didn’t answer right away. Next to her, Carly began humming the
Jeopardy
theme song.

“
Can
he convince us of that?” Blaine asked. “After last night?”

“I don’t know,” Lara said, “but I’d like to see him try. Maybe he’ll end up telling me something he doesn’t want us to know.”

“You sly fox,” Carly said.

The speakers squawked again, and Riley finally said, “I think we need to do this face-to-face, Lara. I don’t see how this could work any other way.”

Carly smirked. “If he thinks we’re going to just show up at his front door after what he tried to pull last night, he’s got another thing coming.”

“You have six of my men,” Riley said, almost as if he had heard Carly, “so I’d say you have a pretty big bargaining chip.”

“He’s got a point,” Blaine said.

“What if he doesn’t give a crap about any of them?” Carly asked.

“We might have to take the risk.”

“No, we don’t.”

Blaine sighed. “Yes, we do, Carly.” He glanced at his dashboard’s readings, then back at them. “We’re running out of options here, guys. We need to refuel
soon.
”

Carly sighed and turned to Lara. “What about Danny and Gaby?”

“They’re not due to radio in for another two hours,” Lara said.

“You know Danny can barely tell time.”

Lara gave her friend a half-smile. “You think this is a bad idea.”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Is your definition of
bad
also
terrible?
”

“We have the upper hand. Once he gives us his location, we’ll know where he is. We can show up from any angle and be ready for anything.”

“Bonnie’s awfully good with that M240,” Blaine said.

Lara nodded. “There’s that, too.”

“I still don’t like it,” Carly said.

“We’ll see what they have to offer. If the terms aren’t to our liking, then we’ll leave.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What if they try to stop us? Do I have to keep mentioning last night’s shenanigans? We can’t
trust
these people.”

“They want the
Trident,
” Lara said. “Hart made that pretty clear last night. They’re not going to risk damaging it now. All we have to do is keep our distance.”

Blaine smiled. “I like it. We hold all the cards.”

“They could always change their minds about wanting the boat intact,” Carly said. “Shoot us with a rocket launcher or something. Plenty of those things just lying around.”

“Maybe,” Lara said, “but then why bring us over? If they don’t need the boat anymore, this seems like a lot of effort to go through. Besides, sinking us means sinking six of their own.”

“Again, boss lady,
if
he actually cares about his guys,” Carly said.

Lara nodded. “There’s that…”

H
ART LOOKED
up when she stepped inside the room where they had been keeping him and the other five men below deck. The room was small enough that all six squeezed into the same narrow space made for an uncomfortable night, especially with their hands still bound.

“We need to talk,” she said to Hart.

“Did you call him?” Hart asked.

She nodded, then turned to Benny, who was standing guard outside the door with Carrie. “Any trouble?”

“Nope,” Benny said.

“They haven’t tried anything,” Carrie added.

Lara turned back to Hart. “Let’s go.”

He struggled up from the floor using the wall for support. The other five remained where they were, Benny eyeing them like a hawk with his M4 held at the ready in front of him. Lara stepped aside as Hart exited the room, and they closed the door and padlocked it from the hallway.

“Where to?” Hart asked.

“Follow me,” she said.

“What did Riley say?”

“He confirmed your story.”

She couldn’t tell if Hart had breathed a sigh of relief, because it was so loud below deck and she couldn’t even hear their footsteps as she led him through the engine room, then out and onto the lower deck of the moving yacht.

Hart blinked up at the clear skies and let out an almost blissful sigh (she heard that, that time), holding his bound hands up to shield his eyes from the sun. Above them, Maddie moved along the railing. Higher up, Bonnie was stationed behind the M240 machine gun that she had spent a lot of hours on, back when Keo and Danny were running all the adults (and Dwayne) through weapons training.

“Keep going,” she told Hart, who walked in front of her. She kept just enough distance between them that he couldn’t do something stupid like twist and try to grab her, or, more likely, the Glock in her hip holster.

“So what else did Riley say?” Hart asked.

“He gave us his location. We’re on our way there now.”

“No wonder we’re moving.” He stopped at the back of the boat when they reached the ladder leading down to the swimming platform below and turned around to face her. “So what are we doing out here, Lara?”

“Tell me about last night.”

He pursed his lips at her, and she thought he looked almost embarrassed. Hart didn’t have the face of a cold-blooded killer, but she couldn’t forget that he was the leader of the group that had tried to sneak up on them last night. That, more than anything, made her extremely cautious of him.

“What about last night?” he finally said.

“Riley sent you to board us.”

He nodded. “We couldn’t risk you saying no if we showed up and asked to borrow the
Trident.
”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why do you need the
Trident
so badly?”

“You’ll have to talk to Riley about that.”

She shook her head and drew her Glock, then held the gun nonchalantly at her side. “I want you to tell me now.”

Hart looked immediately down at the gun, then back up to her face. He swallowed, and she saw the fear in his eyes and knew he wasn’t acting.

But he said anyway, “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t. If Riley hadn’t told you already, then he wouldn’t want me to.”

“I need you to tell me right now, Hart.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You just choose not to.”

“You’re right. I choose not to.”

She clenched and unclenched her grip on the gun. “You see my dilemma, don’t you?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“You came here last night to take our boat, and now your Mister Riley is telling me he’d be willing to trade fuel and supplies for you and your five friends. You’ll forgive me for being cynical, but that doesn’t jive.”

“It’s complicated.”

“What isn’t these days?”

He smiled, though it came out just a bit too forced. “You have to trust someone sometime, Lara.”

“I do. I just don’t trust people who try to board my boat in the dead of night.”

Hart looked down at the gun hanging at her side again. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No. I don’t want to die.”

“That’s the most honest thing you’ve told me yet.”

“Not true. I’ve been honest with you since last night. I just haven’t told you everything you asked, but I haven’t lied once.”

“That’s the problem. I have no idea if you’re lying or not because I don’t really know you.”

“That can change. All you have to do is listen to what Riley has to say.”

“He sounds younger than you.”

“That’s because he is.” He glanced down at the gun again. “Are you going to shoot me, Lara? I’d really prefer it if you didn’t.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

I
T JUTTED
out of the ocean like the torso of a mechanical beast, limbs stretching outward in every direction. It was impossible to miss, and she saw it as soon as she stepped back onto the bridge. The
Trident
had powered down, though the waves were still pushing it forward toward the object.

“Holy shit,” Lara said.

When Riley had given her the coordinates and Blaine punched it into the yacht’s computer, they had theorized what Riley’s location could be—an island, a marina, maybe even a fleet of boats—but she had to admit, this was not
one of their guesses.

“That’s exactly what I said,” Carly said. “Blaine was telling me how they got something like that out here in the first place. Educate her, big man.”

“They build it along the coastline, then transport it out here before setting it down,” Blaine said. “They’re essentially self-sustaining cities with a crazy long shelf life. Most of the time they’ll still be sitting out here long after the wells they’re tapping have dried up.”

“Here’s a better look,” Carly said, handing her a pair of binoculars.

“I did a lot of odd jobs back when I was younger,” Blaine said. “One of them was construction; got to work on one of these, though that one was a lot smaller. It takes a huge crew to put them together, but the money was really good. Afterward, I applied to come offshore but didn’t get picked.”

“Did you tell them you were totally legal?” Carly asked.

Blaine grunted. “It’s a tough gig to get, that’s all.”

“Sure, sure…”

Lara stared through the binoculars and scanned it up and down. The thing was yellow and gray and rested on four massive columns that looked like meaty stumps sticking out of the water. A giant crane extended out of its right side, gray metal sticking out against the soft blue of the cloudless sky.

It was an offshore oil rig sitting in the middle of the ocean.

“You ever seen one in person all the way out here?” Carly was asking Blaine.

“Nah, but one of my uncles did time out here,” he said. “He would leave, and I wouldn’t see him for months at a time. Most of his work was overseas, but sometimes he’d be sent out to the Gulf.”

Lara lowered the binoculars. “How close are we, Blaine?”

“At least a mile,” Blaine said. “We’re safe. Current’s pushing us closer, but nothing to be concerned about yet.”

“How far were they from our last position?”

“Fifteen miles, give or take.”

“They rowed those pieces-of-shit boats fifteen miles to get to us?” Carly said.

“They probably used the trolling motor for most of the trip,” Blaine said, “then shut them off when they were close enough and rowed the rest of the way. They could afford to take their time. It wasn’t like we were going anywhere.”

“What’s our situation?” Lara asked.

“Everyone’s in position,” Carly said. “Like you said, boss lady, if this Riley guy thinks he’s going to lure us here and try to board us with our pants down a second time, he has another thing coming. The last time I saw her, Bonnie was literally chomping at the bit to let fly with that M240.”

“Champing,” Lara said.

“What?”

“It’s champing at the bit, not chomping. Common mistake.”

Carly sighed. “Have I told you how much I hate you lately?”

Lara smiled, then peered through the binoculars again. She couldn’t detect any signs of movement on the platform or along the raised crane. There was a tall tower-shaped object that was red and yellow at the very center of the rig. She knew it was large even if it looked practically quaint next to the towering crane.

“What is that thing in the middle?” Lara asked.

“That’s the derrick,” Blaine said. “The drill.”

“Can they see us yet?” Carly asked.

“If we can see them, it’s a good bet they can see us,” Blaine said. “Especially if there’s someone hanging off that crane.”

“I don’t see anyone,” Lara said.

“Sneaky people are good at being sneaky, remember?” Carly said.

Lara lowered the binoculars and looked at Blaine. “What do you think?”

He thought about it before answering. “Well, no one’s shot at us yet.”

“Jinx,” Carly said.

Lara glanced back at the rig. It looked empty.
Looked
, anyway. But of course she knew better. Riley wouldn’t have given her coordinates to an abandoned platform. There would be no point if the man was hoping to convince her to hand his men back to him.

A light flickered on the dashboard and Blaine said, “It’s him.”

“I guess they can see us after all,” Carly said.

Lara nodded, and Blaine pressed a button. Riley’s voice echoed through the speakers along the walls of the bridge a second later: “Thanks for coming.”

Lara picked up the microphone and pressed the transmit button. “So how is this going to work?”

“I don’t suppose you’d take my word that I mean you no harm and send my men back to me?”

“Captain Optimism, this guy,” Carly snickered.

Lara said into the microphone, “You supposed correctly.”

“Then I guess there’s nothing left but for us to talk face-to-face,” Riley said.

“Just you and me.”

“Yes.”

“And your men?”

“Since you’re not willing to return them to me yet, the only way I can see this working is for you to hold them onboard while you’re over here. Is that acceptable?”

She exchanged a long look with Carly and Blaine.

“I know I haven’t told you this recently,” Carly said, “but you’re worth more than six of them. Let’s turn around and leave. Danny’s going to radio in at any moment, and we need to be there to pick him up when he does.”