Her words drifted out over the waves, which is when she realized she’d basically been turned into a cheerleader, rooting from the safety of the sidelines. And that thought was a shot centered directly in the bull’s-eye of her pride. Missing steel stomach aside, she was a trained agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, for shit’s sake! Even weaponless, she was anasset, not a liability. She was just about to swing back around to thoughts of wrapping her hands around Leo’s stupid, gallant neck when she got distracted by the terrorists’ dinghy quickly changing course, pulling a U-ey and racing back toward the yacht.
And just like that, the game changed. Leo and his men were now the pursuers. Wolf altered course as well, steering their boat in a wide parallel line, no doubt trying to give Bran and Leo an opportunity to see past the great, white plumes of water jettisoning from the terrorists’ outboard so they could get a clear bead on their targets. But the tangos had more horsepower. And they were pulling away fast.
Still, that didn’t stop Leo from taking a shot. His weapon barked, the sound echoing over the water. Once. But that was enough. One shot. One kill. Olivia couldn’t see where he’d hit the terrorist, but the tango toppled overboard, smashing into the water and tumbling in the wake of the whirring engine before his body sank beneath the surface. The absence of gore allowed her to keep her stomach acid where it should be. Inside her stomach.
“And then there were four,” she murmured to herself, paddling against the current that was trying to pull her away from the action. The adrenaline surging through her body heightened all her senses. Her sight—it was like she was watching it all on a movie screen in HD. Her sense of smell—along with the pungent aroma of marine fuel, she would swear she could detect the iron richness of blood. And definitely herterror—Leo and his men were a far cry from being out of danger. And if one of them was killed or injured because of her, because she’d dragged them on this mission, she’d never forgive herself.
With gritted teeth and ragged breaths, she watched the two boats slice and weave. She thought she heard one of the terrorists scream an order in Arabic above the whir of the engines. It sounded likeTurn!But she couldn’t be sure. Of course, when their dinghy spun around in a tight circle a half second later, she knew she’d heard right. The tangos barreled toward Leo and his men like they were playing a watery game of chicken, or else they were friggin’ kamikaze-ing it.
The move caught the SEALs off guard, evidenced by the fact that Wolf didn’t adjust their course quickly enough, and Leo and Bran were forced to dive for cover in the bottom of the dinghy when the front of their rubber boat lit up with enemy fire. A second later, their engine took a round and sputtered and died.
“No!” she yelled, the skin over her entire body tightening until it was a wonder her bones didn’t poke through to the surface. Leo and his men couldn’t lose the boat. They’d be sitting ducks! Cannon fodder for the terrorists who—
What’s he doing? What’s hedoing?
She couldn’t believe her eyes. Or maybe she didn’twantto believe them. Leo was standing up in the middle of the dinghy, roaring like the lion from which he’d taken his nom de guerre and squeezing his trigger until the barrel of his M4 was a nothing but a black blur, orange fire blinking from the end of the muzzle.
The terrorists returned fire, and a hail of rounds bit into the ocean around Leo’s little boat. Then one found its mark in Leo. An ugly spray of red burst from his shoulder.
“No!” she screamed again, just as a wave… a goddamn, mothersuckingwaveobliterated her view for a few interminable seconds. When she floated to the crest, it was to find the terrorists’ dinghy dead in the water, its engine smoking ominously. From the corner of her eye, she sawWayfarer-I’s rudder finally slip beneath the surface, the big ship slowly sinking, leaving nothing but a swirling eddy of water and floating debris to mark its passing. She spared it barely a thought, because Leo and his men… They were nowhere to be seen, their boat completely empty and bobbing gently, silently,eerilywith the current.
She didn’t think. She just started swimming.
* * *
2:35 p.m.…
“You okay, LT?”
Leo glanced down at the rip in his T-shirt sleeve and the deep, bloody furrow cutting through the skin on his right shoulder above his tattoo of the Navy SEAL trident. “Just a scratch,” he told Bran. Though that didn’t mean the thing didn’t still bite like a bag full of alligators. Getting shot was never fun. Getting shot and then immediately dousing the wound in seawater was evenlessof a party.
“We still need to stop the fuckin’ bleeding,” Mason muttered, reaching beneath the surface of the water to dig in the pocket of his cargo shorts. He came up with a sodden red bandana. Grabbing two corners, he twirled the fabric around on itself, then grunted and jerked his chin, which Leo knew to be the nonverbal equivalent ofLiftyourarm.He did as instructed and watched Mason give him a slapdash field dressing.
“Please tell me that thing’s clean,” Leo said, gritting his teeth when Mason tightened the bandana over his wound. “I think I’m due for a tetanus shot.”
“For the most part,” the big Bostonian said, one corner of his mouth curling. “But maybe you should have Doc dose you once we get home. Worst-case scenario and all.”
“Perfect,” Leo grumbled. Of course, right about now thoughts of home were so sweet he would have allowed Doc to make a pin cushion out of him if he could somehow transport them all there. Unfortunately, he wasn’t Captain Kirk and Scotty wasn’t going to beam them anywhere. Which meant they were stuck. Here. Using the only part of the skiff that was still afloat—the back section and the motor—as cover. But that wouldn’t last for long.
The dinghy had a one-way ticket to Davy Jones’s locker, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Luckily, he had managed to take the terrorists’ boat out of action before he and his men were forced to dive overboard. So even if those suckwads weren’t in the drink right now, they would be soon. And that was a good thing. In the water, Leo and his SEALs had all the advantages.
“So what’s the plan?” Bran asked, floating easily beside him.
“We wait until their boat goes under. Then we swim over and take ’em out.” He glanced at his men. “Unless you guys can think of a better idea?”
“Negative.”
“Mmph.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“One tiny little caveat though,” Leo said, pulling the strap of his M4 over his head and twisting the weapon around until it lay flat against his back.
“You mean the fact that our rounds will only travel four feet underwater, and even then they won’t have enough kinetic energy left to do the tangos any real damage?” Wolf lifted a brow.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“So we swim up from underneath them, drag them down, and slit their throats.”
