The Fires of Atlantis (Purge of Babylon, Book 4) (33 page)

If they were still alive in a week from now, anyway. A lot of things could happen in a few days. All she had to do was look at the last couple of weeks for evidence of that.

“I know what you’re doing,” Carly said.

“What’s that?”

“Giving him a tour of the hotel, then showing him everyone eating breakfast together in the dining room. And now showing him the garden, with Kendra and the kids. Danny told me about this. The Army calls it psy ops. Psychological warfare. Hearts and minds, right? You’re trying to convince him without actually saying a word that the island is worth saving by showing him the people on it. I mean, the kids, Lara. Who could resist Elise and Vera covered in dirt? You’d need a heart of stone, and I don’t think Keo has one. At least, not the Keo that Carrie and Lorelei told us about.”

“You give me way too much credit, Carly,” Lara said before she smiled to herself, hoping that Carly hadn’t caught it.

“Slick,” Carly said, grinning at her. “Real slick, boss. I always knew you had it in you.”

S
he stood
with Keo on the beach. He had taken off his boots and was enjoying the sensation of bare feet soaked in the cool and clear Beaufont Lake water. Elise, Vera, and Jenny, fresh from helping Kendra with loosening dirt for the garden, were fighting against the waves in front of them, cleaning off the dirt and grime of their hard work. The girls hadn’t bothered to change into bathing suits given how everything on them was dirty. She guessed this way they were hoping to kill two birds with one stone—clean up themselves, and their clothes, too.

Blaine’s silhouetted form on top of the boat shack watched them carefully; he was there just in case Keo decided he wanted the boat and supplies minus the whole risking his life part. That was why she only wore her Glock in a hip holster. Worst-case scenario, Keo would be armed with a handgun while Blaine had the M4. Maddie was also watching them from the Tower with the ACOG-equipped rifle while Roy and Carly were on alert back at the hotel.

She hadn’t counted on the girls showing up suddenly on the beach, though. If things did go bad and he grabbed one of them…

Please, God, don’t let me be wrong about Keo.

“If you were me, how would you do it?” she asked. “Delay the attack.”

“You seemed to be awfully sure there’s going to
be
an attack.”

“You saw it yourself. The staging area with the soldiers.”

“But that’s not all. You have inside information.”

That’s one way to put it,
she thought, and said, “I know it’s coming, yes.”

“Okay.” He seemed to think about her question for a moment. Then, “It’s been a whole day, so by now they would have gotten reinforcements. Men to replace the ones I took out yesterday. You’re looking at a dozen assaulters at least. Two, maybe three dozen, if you’re really SOL.”

“What else?”

“The fact that they’re willing to commit to assaulting the island at all, given how isolated you people are, tells me you’ve pissed either them or their ghoul masters off. I’m guessing that radio broadcast of yours had a little something to do with it.”

She smiled. After Carrie and Lorelei mentioned he knew of her broadcast, she had been waiting for him to put two and two together. “Finally figured it out, huh?”

He chuckled. “I know I look it, but I’m not that dense. But yeah, it took a while.”

“What finally gave me away?”

“Your voice sounds more echoey on the radio.”

“I recorded it in the Tower. It’s an enclosed space.”

“How’d you find out about the silver?”

“Trial and error.”

She sneaked a look at him. He was watching the girls frolicking against the waves. She couldn’t quite read his reaction. Maybe he was marveling at the sight…or was it complete indifference?

I can’t read this man. I’m about to put the lives of everyone on this island into the hands of a stranger whose face I can’t read with any certainty.

“Will you help us, Keo?”

He looked over at the boats docked along the pier. One of them was a sailboat—small enough to be handled by one person, with a powerful outboard motor that would have had no problems taking him south and to the coast of Texas. The boat Carrie and Lorelei had come in sat among them, looking almost quaint next to the more travel-ready vessels.

This is it. This is where he proves me right or wrong.

She didn’t realize it, but her hand had moved closer toward her sidearm. She shifted her eyes slightly to the right and saw Blaine watching them closely, his rifle gripped in front of him at the ready.

“And you’ll give me one of those boats, plus fuel and supplies?” he asked. “Everything I need to make it to the Texas coast?”

“Yes,” she said, and hoped her voice wasn’t nearly as anxious as it had sounded to her own ears.

She waited for his answer, but he surprised her by chuckling softly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“A year ago, you wouldn’t have liked me.” He was watching Elise and Vera building castles in the sand while Jenny, Sarah’s daughter, did backstrokes nearby. “In fact, you would have hated me, and justifiably so. I’ve done things you couldn’t imagine.”

“I’m sure you had good reasons.”

“No,” he said, and laughed, though it was devoid of humor. “Not really.”

“You’ve changed. We all have. Adapt or perish.”

“I’ve gone soft is really what’s happened.” He sighed. “The organization would have put me out of my misery months ago.”

“‘Organization’?”

“The people I used to work for.”

“They don’t sound like very nice people.”

“Nope. They were most definitely not.” He looked over at her. “I’m not promising anything, you understand? I’ll do what I can, but it might still not be enough. But maybe it’ll buy your boyfriend time to get back here and put up a proper defense.”

“I’m willing to take that chance.”

“First things first,” he said. “I’ll need guns, ammo, explosives, and at least one person to lend a hand. So, I asked you the question before, and I’ll ask it again: Are you really willing to put your life, and the lives of everyone on this island, into the hands of a stranger with a gun?”

O
ver the months
, Danny had organized the subterranean space under the Tower into a makeshift armory. Lara had been surprised when she first saw it, but Danny had single-handedly done a magnificent job. He had halved the basement, with emergency supplies like rations, crates of MREs, cases of small bottled water and five-gallon coolers—half of them unopened, the other half refilled with tap water—and equipment up front. The back contained the weapons, ammo, and silver that hadn’t been melted down yet. There were green ammo cans filled with silver rounds stacked high in one corner and even more housed in regular moving boxes. The rest of the non-essentials, like clothes and personal items, had been transferred over to the hotel and put in a “lost and found room” in the back where anyone could take what they needed.

As a result, the basement looked bigger than when she was last down here two months ago. The room was longer than it was wide, extending away from the northeast cliff. Lara had never measured the space, but she guessed it was ten yards at its widest and at least twenty at its longest. LED lights, powered by the solar cells around the island, lined the ceiling, with battery backups hanging from wall hooks.

“When do you expect your boyfriend back?” Keo asked. He was standing in front of the racks of rifles. She couldn’t tell if he was impressed or indifferent by the selection Will and Danny had collected over the months.

“Best-case scenario is later tonight,” Lara said. “Worst-case scenario is…God knows.”

“So I’m a stopgap, is that it?”

“You said it, not me.”

His laugh echoed slightly in the contained room. “At least you’re honest about it.” He pulled an M16 from the rack. “You got rounds for the M203?”

The M203 was the grenade launcher attached under the barrel of the rifle. It was the same type of weapon that had almost ended her life when Kate’s people last assaulted the island.

She gestured at the crates around them. “Be my guest.”

“I’ll also need my guns back.”

“They’re in the hotel.”

He nodded. “So. Where are my volunteers?”

B
laine and Bonnie
had joined her and Keo on the third floor of the Tower. She expected to see Blaine there. He had volunteered almost as soon as she brought it up earlier, but Bonnie’s presence was a surprise.

“How’s this going to work?” Blaine asked.

Keo leaned against one of the windows, looking over his submachine gun. He looked overly well-armed with the addition of the M16. “I just need you to do the driving.”

“What about me?” Bonnie asked.

He shrugged. “I guess you’ll be there in case he gets shot.”

Bonnie and Blaine exchanged a worried look.

“Just you against that army out there?” Blaine said.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Keo said. “Even with reinforcements, it’s still a makeshift group of assholes in homemade uniforms. And besides, numbers isn’t going to play a part in this.”

That didn’t seem to really reassure either Blaine or Bonnie, and Keo didn’t look like he cared too much about their reactions.

“You guys don’t have to go,” Lara said. “I can ask for other volunteers.”

“I’m good,” Blaine said without hesitation.

“Me too,” Bonnie said, though not nearly as quickly. She scrutinized Keo across the room. “Tell me one thing: You’re not going there just to get yourself killed, right? You
want
to come back here?”

“That’s a dumb question,” Keo said, looking almost offended by the mere suggestion. “I don’t have a death wish. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think I could walk away from it. I just wanted to make sure you know what you’re getting into, that’s all. People are going to die. Maybe the two of you will be among them. You need to understand the risks. But trust me when I tell you, I’m not going there to get killed. I got places to go and people to see.”

That seemed to reassure them somewhat.

“Last chance,” Lara said. “Speak up now—”

“I’m good,” Blaine said again.

“Yeah, me too,” Bonnie nodded, and this time she said it quicker and with more conviction.

Lara wanted to tell them something reassuring, make a speech that would ease their minds. She tried to come up with words that Will would say to rally the troops as they prepared to go into battle.

Instead, the only thing she could think of to do was glance down at her watch. “Let’s get something to eat before you guys go.”

“Maddie’s relieving me in a few hours,” Blaine said.

“Okay, I’ll send her over earlier.”

If having someone in the Tower twenty-four hours a day was important before, it was imperative now. So she, Keo, and Bonnie walked down using the spiraling cast-iron staircase while Blaine stayed behind.

Keo wandered ahead, and Lara used the moment to walk beside Bonnie.

“I’m volunteering because I want to, Lara,” Bonnie said before Lara could ask the question that had been on her mind since she saw Bonnie waiting for them on the third floor.

“Can I ask why?”

“You don’t know?”

“Should I?”

“Because someone had to, or else you would have volunteered. And we couldn’t allow that.”

“‘We’?”

“Carly, me, Benny, Roy… Everyone.”

The ‘we’ strikes again
.

This wasn’t the first time the island had made a decision for her because they believed it was for her own good. It was ironic because she was supposedly running the place in Will’s absence. And yet, whenever they felt like it, the others always got together and discussed what was best for her. She should have been angry about it, even pissed off, but she couldn’t, really, because they were almost always right.

“One of us had to go with Blaine and Keo,” Bonnie continued. “Carly wanted to. So did Maddie. And Benny and Roy, and even Jo and Gwen. But in the end, we decided I was the best choice.”

“Why you?”

Bonnie laughed. “You sound so surprised.”

“I…” Lara began, but didn’t finish because everything she would have said would have come out as an insult to Bonnie.

“I know,” Bonnie said with a grin. “The ex-model? I don’t blame you. All I can say is, you have to trust me, because compared to the rest, I’m the best choice. I was always athletic as a kid. I played basketball when I was in high school and I’ve stayed pretty active over the years. It was either stay skinny by sweating your ass off or throw up everything you ate, and I was never good at chucking food.”

Lara smiled.

“So yeah, between everyone, I’m the obvious choice,” Bonnie said.

“All of this, so I wouldn’t volunteer myself?”

“Yes.” Bonnie gave her an earnest look. “You’re important to the island, Lara. More than the rest of us.”

“I don’t know what to say, Bonnie.”

And she didn’t. She had no idea whatsoever. Because Bonnie was right. She would have gone with Keo and Blaine if no one else had stepped forward. Keo had made it clear—he could have done with one, but he preferred two. Three people gave them the best chance at success, and right now, they needed success in the worse way until Will and Danny could come home.

“Thank you,” Lara said. It was the only thing she could think of to say, and it felt too simple and unworthy of Bonnie’s sacrifice.

She wondered if Bonnie had even heard her, though, because the other woman looked preoccupied with Keo, who was walking ahead of them. “You really think he’s as good as he thinks he is?” she asked.

“From what Carrie and Lorelei told me, he’s pretty damn good,” Lara said.

“And you think this could work?”

“I hope this works.”

“What happens after that? I know you just want to delay them for a few days until Will and Danny can get here. But what happens
after
that?”

“I don’t know,” Lara said quietly. “I’m just trying to get us to tomorrow first…”