Page 35 of Murder Island
My lungs were burning, but adrenaline kept me moving. I swam under the speedboat until I reached the inflatable on the other side. All four pirates were aboard the speedboat now. I could hear two of them at the stern, probably checking the engines.
I swam to the front of the good Zodiac and sliced the prow line tying it to the speedboat, then I moved around to the other side, staying out of sight. The inflatable started to drift off. I drifted with it, kicking my feet underwater to speed it along. When I had opened a gap of about ten yards, I pulled myself aboard and flopped onto the deck below the gunwale.
I held my breath.
I heard voices. But no shouts. And no shots.
The engine was still idling. I lay flat on my back and worked by touch. The control grip felt like a recycled bicycle handle. I yanked it. The boat surged forward. I grabbed the bottom curve of the steering wheel and cranked it in the opposite direction of the speedboat—toward open water.
Now I heard shouts. Loud and angry. I was twenty yards away. Then forty. I straightened out and picked up speed. Fifty yards. More shouts. Then whip-crack gunshots. I stayed low. Seventy-five yards!
At about a hundred yards out, I lifted my head above the side and saw the pirates furiously trying to start the speedboat.
“Good luck with that, maties!” I shouted.
I pointed the boat toward the horizon, and cranked the throttle.
I was gone.
CHAPTER 41
Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2 a.m.
KIRA WIPED THE sweat from her forehead.
She was nestled in the brush about twenty yards from the mercenary unit’s command center—a cluster of large military tents and a row of plastic outhouses.
A flag hung on the back wall of an open-sided hut the men used as a bar. It had black and red stripes with a yellow star in the center. Kira had been staring at it for hours, but couldn’t ID it. Maybe the unit’s official banner?
From where she was nestled, Kira could see the glow of distant campfires from the squalid tent city where the workers slept—barelyslept—between shifts.
Kira heard footsteps approaching. Two sets. She leaned back into the shadows and took slow, even breaths.
She’d been waiting all night for this.
Two men were stumbling from the bar toward their quarters on the far side of the compound. Krupen and Horvat. Kira had learned their names by reading lips.They were always posted side by side on the rim of the mine pit, taking frequent potshots at the workers from above—and laughing about it.
Everything about them was predictable.
Every night, they drank themselves into a stupor at the bar. And every night, they took the same path back to their tent. Like rats.
For three nights straight, Kira had watched. And listened.
Krupen was German. Horvat was Croatian. They communicated with each other in a crude pidgin English, with a lot of wild gesturing involved.
Kira peeked through the foliage as Horvat grunted and pointed to his crotch. He unzipped, then took a few steps off the path and into the brush. Kira heard a mild sigh as a hard stream of piss hit the leaves.
Krupen kept heading down the path.
Fine with Kira. She didn’t care which one went first.
Kira heard another zip. Horvat reemerged and stepped back onto the path.
A loud snap sounded from the darkness, then a guttural gasp.
Horvat froze. He pulled out his .45 and moved toward the sound. Kira eased herself out of her hiding spot and crawled in the same direction.
Horvat called out. “Krupen?”