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Since our official duties wouldn’t start until Bostwick arrived, I’d decided that the risk of the discovery of our weapons outweighed the negligible reward we’d get by carrying them around, so we were both unarmed, our Staccatos locked in a Pelican case with Veep in the TOC.

I turned to the cut, racing to the wooden bridge over it, Jennifer to my right farther down. On the net, I said, “Veep, alert the hotel, Blood/Knuckles, get your ass to the drainage ditch.”

I heard Knuckles say, “On the way,” just as a man came over the top of the canal directly in front of Jennifer. He had a strange-looking pistol in his right hand, his face registering absolute shock upon seeing Jennifer in front of him. She slapped her hands onto his shirt at thechest and dropped backwards, planting her foot into his stomach and flinging him over her head.

A second man scrambled up the side of the cut, this time in front of me, and surprise registered on his face upon seeing me no more than a foot away. He swung his pistol toward my head and I immediately trapped his wrist with my left hand. Before he could react, I rotated my body until my back was to his chest and wrapped my right arm over his shoulder, sliding my right leg past his. I whipped my body downward, flinging him over my back to the ground and landing hard on his chest.

I felt his ribs crack, the blow causing him to drop his pistol. I rolled off him, snatched it and spun around, praying the thing was loaded. I put the front sight on his skull and broke the trigger, the gun making a muted spit, but the damage to his head was viscerally apparent. I heard another suppressed round and saw the first man shooting at Jennifer as she dove behind the old stone chapel for cover.

I snapped a bullet his way, missed, then heard the boom of an unsuppressed weapon, seeing his body flung backward from the impact. Two people came running around the side of the chapel, one with a pistol out searching for a target. I dropped my weapon and raised my arms. The barrel came my way and I shouted, “No, no!”

The pistol spit fire and I felt the crack of the round break the sound barrier right next to my head. I heard someone behind me scream and dropped to the earth, my arms out, shouting, “American! American!”

The two came running toward me, the one with the pistol still firing into the drainage cut. It was Nadia, Knuckles right behind her. I heard what sounded like a stampede of kangaroos running back to the beach, and then it grew quiet.

I rolled over and shouted, “Jennifer!”

Knuckles said, “She’s okay.”

I heard, “Here!” and she came around the corner of the chapel,looking no worse for wear. I looked up at Nadia and said, “Did you learn how to shoot while exploring old churches by yourself?”

Knuckles hoisted me to my feet, and she said, “I could ask you people the same thing.”

***

Riding back to the mother ship, Kamal couldn’t believe the debacle that had just occurred. Everything had gone perfectly, right up until they’d passed through the old iron grate on the beach.

Kamal had snaked behind the two hired guns, trying to remain quiet, third in the line of men. He’d felt confident. In charge. The grate had fallen just like he’d said it would. It had taken less than four seconds for them to cut the links in the chain, and then another minute to break the grate from the rust that had set in, the only concern being the groan the grate let out at being opened after a long rest.

Once it was freed, the five of them squeezed through, then squatted for a moment on the other side, waiting to see if anyone at the resort had noticed. The walls of the cut were only about three feet at the entrance but grew larger the farther it went in, until it was about seven feet at the buildings themselves. The trick was to go deep enough in to get past the outer edge of the guard force, but not go so far that they’d have to use each other to get on the grounds.

In a crouch, he said, “Okay, let’s go. The Thugees lead. When we get to the first bridge, we go up.”

Varsha said, “What did you just call me?”

Kamal slapped him on the shoulder and said, “It’s a compliment. You guys lead and we’ll follow. Get up top and run to the pavilion. We’ll be right behind you. You kill any security in the way, and we’ll get Thakkar.”

Mollified, Varsha looked at the other hired muscle and said, “Let’s go.”

They jogged, crouched over, waiting until the walls gave them enough height to avoid discovery, and reached the first bridge.

Kamal stopped them and said, “This is it. You ready?”

Varsha brandished his integrally suppressed Makarov and said, “Yes. You’d better be right behind me.”

“We will be. Go.”

Varsha and his friend turned, grabbed some foliage on the edge of the cut, and hoisted themselves onto the grounds of the resort. Kamal looked at his men and said, “This is it. No backing out now. No surrender.”

Randeep and Agam nodded, and Kamal turned to the wall of the cut, starting to climb out. Kamal heard a suppressed round and immediately thought,We’re shooting already?

He heard a grunt, some shouting, then an unsuppressed round splitting the night. He reached the top of the cut and saw one man on the ground and another rushing to him. He grabbed a thatch of vines and hoisted himself to the edge of the lawn, then saw a shadow aiming a pistol. It spit fire, tearing into his left ear and splitting apart their entire assault.

He screamed and fell into the drainage ditch, but the bullets kept coming, peppering the far wall of the cut. He shouted, “Back! Back!” and they all began running the way they had come, to the grate on the beach.

They went through it, with Kamal calling Manjit just offshore, screaming into the small handset, “Come now! Come now! We’re on the run!”

They raced down the beach until they reached the dock, hearing a guard shout at them from above. Kamal ignored him, saying, “Get to the end of the dock, right now.”