First rule of combat. Take out the motherfuckers who know what they’re doing.
“You ready?” Wolf yelled.
Mason’s grip on the stock of his M4 tightened. The metal of his trigger was worn smooth by years of action and the thousands of rounds it’d sent downrange. His reply was a curt nod of his head.
“On the count of three! One! Two! Three!” Wolf roared and…Bam!…Mason squeezed off a shot, barely feeling the impact of the Colt’s recoil. He was too busy watching his target through his scope.
There was a sweet spot at the base of the skull called an “apricot.” Snipers aimed for it because it meant instant lights-out.
Mason wasn’t sure he’d hit his target’s apricot, but he’d scored a head shot. Pink blood sprayed from Red Shirt’s cranium a second before the man tumbled backward into the bottom of the speedboat.
Later, Mason would find a quiet spot to consider the weight of having snuffed out another life, but right then he didn’t give it a rat’s ass of a second thought. He immediately turned his weapon on the douche canoe from the hotel.
Unfortunately, before he could line up a shot, a bullet found one of the inboard engines. The catamaran let loose with a mighty groan, and the deck shuddered beneath them. Black, acrid smoke poured from the back of the boat, burning Mason’s throat and stinging his eyes. It effectively ruined any chance he had of getting a clear bead on the speedboat.
Without the aid of both engines, the catamaran veered off course. Waves splashed over the swim deck, dousing everything in fuel-tinged water. Up in the pilothouse, Chrissy quickly adjusted to the new normal, wrestling the boat back on track until the twins bows once again matched the direction of the following seas.
Good girl, Mason thought at the same time Wolf used a hand signal to indicate they should make for the portside. The wind pushed the smoke starboard. So the left side of the catamaran was the last/best option for finding a bettering firing position.
“Mine’s down!” he yelled to Wolf as they crouch-ran across the deck. “Yours?”
“Dunno!” Wolf blinked back tears brought on by the foul smoke. “Engine blew before I could confirm and… Damn it! Starboard! Starboard!”
Mason swung his Colt around in time to see the nose of the speedboat edging past the back end of the catamaran. The blown engine meant they’d lost speed quickly. Their pursuers had overtaken them.
Mason only had time to squeeze off one round before…Bwaaaarrr!…a barrage of bullets blasted across the boat. He and Wolf were forced to hit the deck.
Fuck!was his first thought as he pancaked. His second thought wasFuck, fuck,fuck!Because the door to the pilothouse burst open, and a tiny white hand holding a big black gun appeared in the void.
“Alex, no!” he bellowed, wondering if was possible to shit his own heart. But he was too late. She got off a shot, and immediately the bastards in the speedboat turned their fire her way.Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!Mason watched in horror as the pilothouse took on the look of a cheese grater.
“No!” he yelled again, but he couldn’t afford to waste time on having the stroke he so richly deserved. He had to take advantage of the opening Alex had given him.
Wolf didn’t hesitate either. He jumped to his feet, lifted his Colt, and beat Mason in getting off a round. Fire blinked from the end of his rifle, and Mason saw a hole open up in the side of the speedboat pilot’s face a split second before the man went flying overboard.
Two down, he thought grimly, turning to aim at Hotel Guy, the last man standing.
Mason took his shot, but he couldn’t be sure he hit his mark. The pilotless speedboat was on a collision course with the crippled catamaran, and he had to spin toward the pilothouse and bellow, “Bang a U-ey!” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realized Chrissy probably didn’t speak Bostonese. “Port! Turn to port!”
The catamaran banked hard left, and Wolf slammed into him, taking them both to the deck. Mason’s knees hit the teakwood hard, but he barely felt it. He was too busy scrambling back to his feet and yelling Alex’s name.
He wasn’t a praying man, but he found himself silently imploring,Please, God. Let her be okay and I promise I’ll—That’s all he managed before the uncaptained speedboat blazed by them with a deafening roar, narrowly missing the limping catamaran and dousing the deck with a deluge of seawater.
Mason squeegeed the saltiness from his eyes in time to see Hotel Guy fall overboard, narrowly missing the speedboat’s screaming engines as it careened wildly across the water, heading for the horizon.
“Alex!” Mason yelled, his chest caught in a vise of fear so tight no oxygen entered his lungs. He couldn’t feel his bare feet slamming across the decking as he made a beeline for the steps to the pilothouse.
The last engine on the catamaran chose that moment to give up the ghost. It sputtered and died, leaving an eerie silence behind that made Mason’s quickly indrawn breath of relief sound as loud as a cannon shot when Alex’s red head appeared in the open doorway.
Her voice sounded like it had been put through a paper shredder, but it was still the sweetest noise he’d ever heard. “I’m okay.” She waved a shaky hand.
He’d never had his legs give out on him before. Not when they’d busted ass over the Ogo Mountains in Somalia, outrunning an entire army of al-Shabaab militants. Not even when their transport chopper crash-landed them in the middle of a Taliban-operated opium field on the edge of the Registan Desert. So he was more than a little surprised when he had to take a knee on the second-to-last tread.
“Chrissy?” Wolf’s cry was a bullhorn in his ear. His old swim partner was right on his ass.
“She’s fine too,” Alex assured them.
When Wolf grabbed the handrail and leaned heavily against it, Mason could sympathize. He couldn’t remember having been in any gun battle he would call easy. But this one felt like it had been worse than most.
