It had to be a head shot. Samuel wasn’t very tall, but a center of mass shot on Burns was way too close to Samuel’s head. He already regretted the memory this would make for Samuel. The kid had been through hell. Hopefully, killing the man holding his shoulders wouldn’t make things too much worse. There was no other way. The break he’d hoped for happened. The bald, oriental man bent over to speak to Samuel.

  He centered the reticle on Burns’ forehead. Burns was an experienced operator. He probably felt the cross burning into his forehead. Logan breathed in and slowly started a controlled exhale while squeezing the trigger.

  God got into the action.

  A blinding flash of lightning, one so close the earth-shattering clap was immediate. Burns flinched just as Logan squeezed off the round. The bullet grazed the right side of his head. He lurched to the side, taking Samuel to the ground with him. Lester dropped the oriental security man on the left, then the one on the right, then every trigger squeezed. The staccato voice of havoc filled the night. Logan angled for a shot, trying to find a part of Burns to blow off, but it was no use. Burns hadn’t lived this long by being stupid.

  “Lester, keep’em busy. Burns has Samuel. He’s crawling toward the Suburban. I don’t have a shot.”

  The security men in flak vests set up a perimeter and returned fire in all directions. The suppressed M4 wasn’t totally silent but quiet enough to make it hard to pinpoint with the added security detail returning fire.

  “Simone, get ready to…” She was gone. “Simone!”

  “Sorry.” Simone’s breathless voice came through the earpiece. “Have to… get… Samuel.”

  Logan frantically looked through the night scope, scanning from left to right. He found her, slinking low and circling around toward the Suburban on the far right.

  “Lester, you’re gonna have to get their attention. Simone is trying to flank them. The only chance we’ve got is if they look the opposite way… at you.”

  “Roger that. I think I have just the thing to get their undivided attention.”

  “Lester, keep your head down.” Logan watched the security detail move into position. “They’re going to come back at you, hard.”

  A thunder-booming sound came from the top of the old ammo bunker. Lester’s fifty-caliber incendiary hit the white cylindrical fuel tank. The left side of the depot exploded in flames. Lester fired two more rounds into the melee to make sure the security detail triangulated his position. They viciously returned fire.

  “I think that got their… damn! Bullets flying around like gnats up here.” Lester grunted and huffed as he dragged himself across the concrete roof of the old ammo dump. “Relocating.”

  They had chosen the ammo dump roof for Lester’s position because of the thick concrete walls and protruding roof structures. It was a good sniper hide, but nowhere was good once the other side knew where you were. Logan scooted out of the back of the building and ran to catch Simone. The rain picked up as the next line of thunderstorms pushed inland.

  “Onion head got back in the plane. You want me to take it out?”

  “Negative,” Logan panted. “If they want to leave, that’s less guys with guns we have to deal with. Samuel is not on the plane.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Do you have a shot on Burns?” Logan could only hope.

  “Negative. I lost him. Kinda hard to stick my head up without it getting shot off right now.”

  Logan dropped to one knee and swept the area through the night scope. He couldn’t see Simone. Any closer and the light from the conflagration at the fuel depot would expose him. On the far end of the depot, he could see the front of the van to the right. The Suburban was out of sight on the other side of it. He slinked back into the shadows, taking a long arc to get a view of the Suburban.

  “Logan, over here,” Simone whispered.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “In the ditch. Twenty-three steps to your left.”

  He started to move.

  “Your other left. I mean my left. Oh, just go the other way.”

  Scooting low, he quickly made his way over and slid in the ditch. Simone was a few feet away, peering over the edge with the binoculars. “Burns and Samuel are in the Suburban. His head is bleeding, but it didn’t slow him down.”

  “Dammit, Simone,” Logan growled through clenched teeth. Oh, hell, it wasn’t her fault. It was an easy shot. He missed. “What are the odds that lightning would strike right when I took the shot?”

  “A hundred percent. I told you. God hates me.”

  “Where’s the driver?”

  “He got out and joined the fight. It’s just Burns and Samuel in the vehicle. This ditch will get us pretty close. Will that work?”

  “It has to.” Belly-crawling through the four inches of water flowing through the ditch, he reached her. “It would be best if you stayed here, but I know you won’t, so keep your ass down. It’s too cute to get shot off.”

  “Is that humor? Not complaining. I’m just asking. Really?”

  In less than a minute, they were at the end of the ditch. The water flowed down into a concrete culvert and under the gravel road. The Suburban was fifty feet away with no cover between them. He could rush the vehicle, hoping Burns didn’t see him until it was too late. He could try to slither across the ground, hoping Burns didn’t notice. He could stare at the Suburban’s smoked glass windows, hoping Burns would be nice enough to lower the window and stick his head out. There was no scenario where he came out the winner.

  “Hey, it’s getting awful hot up here,” Lester whispered. “I think they flanked me. I’m gettin’ shot at from every direction. If we don’t leave this party soon, I’m gonna be the piñata. Know what I mean?”

  “Get small, Lester,” Logan said. “Get ready to pull out.” The original plan was for Lester to fade back into the woods behind the ammo bunker. He would make his way east away from the skiff, cross the wall, and hike into the dunes and stilted houses of West Beach. It would be easy for a single person to exfiltrate randomly, not needing to rendezvous, just needing to survive. That plan was long gone. They had been forced to create a diversion too soon, and now the security team was triangulating, closing in on Lester’s position.

  “Dad, don’t get killed. We need to talk.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. If they come up here, they gonna find out there’s nothing more dangerous than an angry old man with a bag of grenades.” The way Lester whispered was not reassuring. The bad guys were close. “I saw him. I saw my grandson. Good lookin’ boy. Favors his Grandpaw if you ask me.”

  There wasn’t a solution where somebody didn’t die. If Lester didn’t pull out now, they would surround him, close in step-by-step, and kill him. If Logan rushed the Suburban, he would be shot dead before he got halfway. Dying didn’t bother him as much as the fact that Burns would kill Simone and take Samuel. Lester would still die because he would never leave them. Damn! Checkmate.

  Then it got worse.

  The lights on the Suburban flicked alive as the engine started. The tires spun gravel, pelting the van in a shotgun blast of slag, and the vehicle roared straight for Logan and Simone. Logan grabbed Simone by the nap of the neck and shoved her down in the watery ditch. The Suburban accelerated on the gravel road, sped over the concrete culvert beside them, and bounced north down the rough road.

  “Dammit! They’re headed to the dock.”

  It was a bad plan from the beginning.

  CHAPTER 72

  I thought Logan missed Burns. I tried to stay low like he told me, but the sounds of collective violence lifted me up. I saw the world flowing—as the law of entropy demands—from confusion to chaos. At first, I thought I was dead. Lightning flashed, followed quickly by gut ripping thunder, guns snapped like fireworks. The numbers in my head wound down. The probabilities diminished toward nothingness, my inevitable end. From high above the chaos, I saw the only thing left to do. I floated outside myself, looking down at the withering me, sopping wet and shivering.

  I steeled myself for the short run to the black Suburban. I counted on Burns showing himself to kill me. Logan would kill him and take Samuel away from here. Logan would save his son. Lester would go back to his mushrooms. I lowered myself in the muddy ditch and took a deep breath. The muscles in my legs twitched. I told myself it would be quick. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that God had a different plan.

  When I heard the car engine start, the sound of slung gravel, the urgent splash of tires on the rough road above us, and Logan’s screaming curses, I knew another plan was in the toilet. I looked up in time to see the Suburban’s red taillights bouncing away from us, heading north toward the Mobile Bay side of the fort.

  “Lester, pull out!” Logan radioed. “Head east. Burns is headed to the dock with Samuel.”

  The turboprop spun up to full rpm’s and roared down the runway. At least, Samuel wasn’t in it. “Lester, there’s a world of hurt coming your way. You need to pull out. Acknowledge.”

  After a long silence, Lester replied in a barely audible whisper. “Roger that. It’s too late. They got me boxed in. I’m gonna do something stupid. Y’all get my grandson.”

  For Lester P. Dancing to think an idea was stupid, it had to be big. Before I could protest, Logan had me by the arm, pulling me out of the ditch. We ran down the road in the rain. I wanted to call out to my father, tell him to run. Words and numbers fought in the halls of my mind, bursting through the doors where my memories hid, spilling all my glass jars of logic like a million marbles on a hardwood floor. My mouth moved, but nothing emerged. Logan gripped my arm like a vise. The pain helped me focus. Through the earpiece, then through the air, the sound of grenades detonating boomed across the airstrip. A frantic volley of automatic weapon fire followed.

  Silence.

  “Dad!” I croaked as I ran. “Dad, can you hear me?” Silence. “Oh, please, Daddy, what did you do?” Through the radio, two pops from a handgun smudged my ear. It was over.

  An animal moan rose in my chest. Black rage engulfed me. Acid hot blood sped through my veins. Muscles swelled until my skin stretched taut. I snatched my arm from Logan’s grip and ran hard, charging to the docks to kill Sheldon Burns. My eyes bounced in their sockets, each stride jarring my view. I ran with the dark singularity of my diminishing world heavy on my back. I planned to tear Burns’ throat with my teeth, pull his lungs out with my claws, and tear the bastard to pieces for hurting my son and killing my father.

  The Suburban was at the dock, doors open, engine running. On the ground lay the two security guards with neat bullet holes in their foreheads. A lit cigarette still hung from the mouth of one of them.

  “One of the boats is missing,” Logan said. “We saw two when we came in.”

  “Listen,” I said, cupping my ear, “A boat engine.”

  “I can’t hear it.” Logan ran onto the dock and jumped into the center console Zodiac. He fumbled at the controls. He found what he was looking for and fired up the engines. “Our skiff is about a hundred yards to the east on the other side of those jetties,” he yelled over the noise. “Get to it and head back to the boat launch!”

  I untied the bowline and jumped in the Zodiac. “There’s no time. Go!” I knew he would not argue, and it did not matter if he did. I was swollen with murderous rage. Lightning had gathered inside me, and I needed to strike. God must feel this way when he looks down on the terrible things we do and what we carry in our hearts. My wrath was coming. There was no stopping it.

  Logan aimed toward the end of the dock. In the pink glow of the mercury lamps, a frothy line stretched into the blackness of Mobile Bay, the remnants of another boat’s wake.

  “What’s that light?” Logan pointed through the sheets of rain.

  “Middle Bay Lighthouse. You think that’s where he’s going?”

  “I sure as hell hope so. He’s running without lights. I can’t see anything else.”

  Occasionally airborne, the Zodiac skipped over the three-foot chop, as Logan pressed full throttle toward the lighthouse. Brackish spray stung my face as the twin engines whined with murderous intent. After ten bone-jarring minutes, the outline of the old lighthouse came into view. A pulsing light atop a thirty-foot pole illuminated the decrepit structure. It wasn’t a classic lighthouse with a cylindrical tower atop a lantern room. The structure in Mobile Bay was a six-sided, two-story, wooden house on stilts. The lantern room on top of the old house was replaced years ago by the long metal pole with a light on top. The only thing that kept it from being replaced by a buoy was its listing on the historical register. My father taught me a great deal through the shared misery of my childhood. I pushed thoughts of his death to the back of my mind: he deserved better than to die alone in the rain atop the old bunker. As the waves bounced me hard on the jump seat, I slipped off the ALICE pack and felt around until I found the cold steel of the gun. I tucked it into the small of my back, the way Logan did. It felt hard and painful, perfect.

  Logan pulled back the throttle, and the boat settled into the storm-chopped waters. The heavy rain blurred my vision and left the old lighthouse pulsing gray and methodical under the light, an impressionist adaptation of reality. “Looks like Burns tied off to the support structure,” Logan pointed through the rain. “Seaplane tied off on the other side. He must be meeting someone here. That can’t be good.”

  We were no more than fifty yards from the structure, but at first, I didn’t see the boat or the plane through the sheeting rain. Through the pilings and the crisscross of supports under the house, I finally found the outline of the other Zodiac. Stairs led up to the main structure. A railed deck went all the way around the first floor. On the second floor, a faint light shone through the dormers. Someone was inside.

  “Do you think he knows we followed him?”

  Logan shut down the idling engines and reached for the long paddle. “I doubt it. He’d be shooting at us.” Logan went to the stern and began sculling the black Zodiac, careful not to splash as he pushed silently toward the lighthouse.

  When we reached the dock, Logan crept to the bow, grabbed a cross member, and pulled the boat underneath the deck. He nodded toward the stern line. I tied off the boat on the backside of the small dock. The seaplane rocked in the waves, tied to a longer dock that protruded on the opposite side of the lighthouse. I took out the pistol and carefully chambered a round.

  Logan touched the mic on his throat. “Can you hear me?” he whispered. I nodded. “When we go up the stairs, I go right. You go left. Shoot anyone who is not Samuel.”

  “Logan, tell Samuel I love him, and I’m sorry.”

  Logan’s eyes burned through the darkness. The timing was bad, but my father just died with so much left unsaid between us. “Tell himself yourself,” he said.

  This would end soon. “Logan, I love you, too.” He was halfway up the stairs and didn’t look back.

  There were seventeen steps to the deck. A nice prime number. Logan paused by a large shuttered window and peered between the slats. “The first floor looks clear,” he whispered. “We check the deck for guards, then find the door.”

  Logan went right. I went left. I wondered if he remembered I preferred turning left. Maybe he preferred going right. Weird that my mind found that question remotely relevant at a time like this. I found no guards on my side, but I did find an unlocked door. I opened it. The storm blew rain inside and me as well. Logic said wait for Logan, or at least whisper my intent, but the numbers in my head had stopped. No more calculations. Black silence. My abandonment complete.

  The inside of the room smelled of permanent dampness. Dingy yellow light spilled out from the half-opened door at the top of the stairs. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the first floor was divided into at least two rooms. Logan must be on the other side of the wall. There was silence in my earpiece. It was just as well. I didn’t have anything to say.

  At the top of the stairs, I realized I did not count the steps to the second level. I took a deep breath, readied the gun, shoved the door open, and bolted inside. Crouching, I swept the gun across the expanse of the room, which occupied the entire second floor. I expected to be shot, but the room was empty. I heard a click behind me. There was no point in raising my hands. Surrender wasn’t an option. My heart pounded against my throat but I was not afraid. The clarity of one about to die was comfortable. I spun around, stepped to the side, and crouched in one quick move, like my father taught me in survivalist camp. I hoped to get off a shot or cause my opponent to miss. There was no opponent. The door had closed thanks to the pneumatic door closer at the top of it.

  I lowered the gun and turned back to the room. The yellow light came from a raw bulb hanging over a rickety table in the middle of the room. A laptop was on the table, my missing laptop to be precise. The Lyapunov fractal was working on the screen. It was no longer beautiful. It was pointless.

  “I should kill you right now.”

  I crouched, gun drawn. Logan had found Burns.

  CHAPTER 73

  By the time Logan made it around the outer deck, Burns had started down the opposite dock to the seaplane. He moved quickly and silently down the stairway to the larger dock, but he was a step too late to take the shot. Holding Samuel close to his side, Burns was about to board the plane. He had to change the game.

  “I should kill you right now.”

  Burns—agile and strong despite his years—wheeled around with his, gun pointed at Samuel’s head. He gave Logan a baffled smile and shook his head. “Well, I’ll be damned. Logan Ranes. You are one hard son of a bitch to kill. You’re supposed to be in Germany.” His eyes darted from Logan to the lighthouse, checking for Logan’s back up. Blood ran from the wound on his head.

  “I got a ride. The real question is why you’re here, with a gun to my son’s head?”

  “The only reason you don’t kill me is because I do have a gun to his head.” Burns quickly surveyed the darkness, searching for danger. “Let’s cut the crap. You think you have it all figured out, but you don’t. This whole thing is way above both our pay grades.”

 

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