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  Today might be their final push to reach the Hibernia, but he had heard Byron discussing a storm cell over the radio with other ships.

  “They head south later every year,” Byron mused from the cabin door, and Army looked up in confusion. “The geese. They used to head farther south, and far earlier in the year. Now, any farther than Virginia is the tropics to them.”

  Army asked, “Any of your new buddies know if we should be heading south?”

  “Yep. There’s a hefty dip in the polar vortex that’s likely to make for rough seas tonight. If we’re on our way soon, I think we’ll barely feel a breeze.”

  Nodding, Army began to follow Byron back to the helm, but he halted when another V of geese passed above, lower in altitude.

  “What?” Byron asked when he glanced back and saw Army’s dark eyes burning.

  “That flock was heading north.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “That’s not geese.”

  A sound came from the front of the boat, and they both slowly exited the cabin again and circled to the bow of the vessel. Perched on the deck sat seven huge geese, eerily still in a way that living animals could not be. Their eyes stared unblinking at Army and Byron.

  Byron muttered, “Where’s your gun?”

  “It wouldn’t help,” Army replied. Their heads were equal to a mid-size dog’s, their wingspans likely ten feet. “They’re only surveillance birds.”

  “Well, that’s surprisingly not reassuring,” Byron commented. Army suddenly turned and left Byron alone with them. “Neither is that.”

  A few seconds later, he returned, walking slowly backward. Before Byron could ask what he was doing, Army spun toward the birds, and Byron watched the boat’s old fishing net fly in a perfect cast that billowed out and landed over the birds.

  “Get ready. This ain’t gonna be pretty!” he shouted as he flung it.

  But Byron knew immediately what his job was: to wrap the birds as tightly as he could and either crush them or drown them. When they first began to respond in a mechanical, confused movement—not the panicked flapping a normal bird might show—he grabbed the fishnet’s edges closest to him as Army mirrored him across the deck. They managed to pull the net in just as the drones began to realize they should fight. The first hit he got from the bird nearly knocked Byron on his ass, and he touched his forehead to find it bleeding.

  “Move it, Byron!” Army shouted. Scrambling, Byron grabbed a hooked pole on the deck that they used to catch and pull up crab traps. He shoved it through the pile of birds, hooked the back of the net behind them, and yanked it toward himself.

  The movement of the net, powered by Byron’s hook, knocked a few drones over, giving Army a chance to capture more edges of the net and create a real trap.

  As the deadly animals tried more forcefully to slam their huge beaks into them, Byron scooted away, but with strategic intent. Once on his feet, he sprinted to the back of the boat and turned on the winch to let the anchor out. It slowly, steadily dropped out the anchor and its chain; then he stopped it and grabbed a rope on the stern meant for tying off to docks. He knotted it into the chain.

  “Byron! Where the hell are you?” Army was shouting as he dodged the metal birds and tried to keep them unbalanced. With seven birds, each arguably half his strength, he was outmanned. He’d been hit twice in the thigh, and it had felt like a hammer strike.

  Byron suddenly appeared beside him, wrapping a fist around the net beneath his hands, and he tied it off quickly with a warning shout of, “Let go!”

  Army gave him a questioning look, then felt the pull of the rope and looked around the boat’s cabin quarters to see the anchor was dropping, and the rope Byron had locked to the net was disappearing into the sea.

  “Shit! Help me throw them over!” he exclaimed, quickly calculating that the weight of the birds might damage the walls of the boat, but Byron was already thinking the same. Grabbing the hooked rod again, he snagged a part of the net, and he and Army both lifted the pole to leverage the full net over the edge of the boat and into the water with a hefty splash. They watched the birds flail as they sank. Once they were about thirty feet down, beyond Army and Byron’s ability to see, a series of flashes bright enough to reach the surface confirmed their electronics weren’t meant for submarine use.

  Army looked up to Byron. “Nice work.”

  Byron was still leaned over the edge of the boat, trembling with excitement and strained muscles. “We might need a new anchor.”

  “Oh, we’re not going to be stopping again anytime soon. Cut anchor, we need to move fast.”

  “You think they reported our location?”

  Army said, “I think in less than an hour they’ll have boats deployed on our tail.”

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  Camden, Maine

  By midday, they’d crossed through a couple of towns, found a warm meal, and asked around about boatyards. The largest by far was still miles off, but with Navy’s encouragement and indulgence in an afternoon coffee, they reached it before nightfall and began looking over the pool of vessels from a nearby hill. With the cover of night, Navy expected they could determine the security obstacles to stealing a boat, and perhaps even procure one by morning. He preferred Army’s unique savvy for breaking and entering boats, honed in his youth and further sharpened in the SEALs, but Navy knew enough about hot-wiring vehicles from his own misspent youth that he still had hope.

  From her position on her stomach, Rory checked again that her hair was still tightly under the newsboy cap she’d had on since they set out. Though it itched, it kept her most recognizable feature hidden. Pulling the binoculars up to her eyes, she scanned over the boats: yachts large and small, boats old and new. She knew how to pilot a boat in the shallow waters off Woods Hole, but beyond the sound and the bay, she was out of her league. From her perspective, the most reasonable boat to steal was an older one that was unlikely to be missed.

  “So, Navy SEAL. What’s your training telling you?” she asked him. He’d been silently watching the boatyard like a hawk, and the sun was close to the horizon.

  “That dark green one, third marina row from the south, eighth vessel on the dock. Looks uninhabited but kept clean. And it’s subtle.” Setting down his binoculars, he looked over at her. “You ready?”

  She looked shocked. Sunset was creeping onto night, and she assumed it was bad timing until nightfall. The light would illuminate them fully.

  “Sunset into twilight is when your eyes have the most difficulty with light. Shadows are indistinct, your pupils are trying to decide whether to contract or adapt to darkness and dilate. You can sneak right past people’s vision, and they often aren’t sure what they saw.” Grabbing her hand, he led her down the shadiest edge of the hill and on a circuitous route toward the boats. Soon they were through the gate entrance and at the dark green boat.

  “Looks open,” she whispered as they crouched alongside it.

  He nodded but kept observing. No signs of anyone on the boat, just an open hatch door to the bulkhead. He gave her a shrug, motioned for her to stay put, and launched himself over the keel onto the deck. The boat was less than thirty feet long, so after a quick scan and an unanswered knock on the bulkhead door, he helped her on.

  “I’ll check the engine, you check what supplies they have and dig for a key. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Rory nodded and headed into the darkened lower area of the boat, pulling out her flashlight and trying not to let it hit windows. She saw a small galley, coffee pot temptingly ready to start. Otherwise it seemed tidy and left ready for its next fishing expedition. The head was just past it, and then the door to a sleeping quarters stood ajar. Where would I hide keys? she wondered. As she walked to the sleeping quarters, her light caught the rows of drawers under the bed, and she knelt and dug through them, but found only socks and swim trunks.

  Standing, she ran her light over the bed, and the scene there confused her momentarily as
her brain tried to process it. A dog, old and sweetly gray-faced, lay turned toward her. She jumped when she realized the owner lay behind him, arm draped over his furry neck and head tucked against the dog’s. Then she saw the gun. And then she saw the blood.

  Navy jumped when she ran past him to the stern of the boat and leaned over the rail, making a sound like she was fighting a sob or trying to breathe after a punch.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It can’t be this one. It can’t be this boat.” She said it desperately, then covered her mouth and pointed to the bulkhead. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from him. Navy headed down into it with her flashlight.

  As best Navy could tell, they had only been dead a couple of days or less. The bullet had been aimed for certain death, designed to kill the dog and then its owner in the same second, a shot under the old pup’s jaw through into his master’s forehead. Maybe he had been infected and suspected he wouldn’t survive. But he hadn’t left his canine companion to an uncertain future.

  Rory had already controlled her tears when he folded her into his arms and held her for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry, Rory. I’m sorry you found that instead of me.”

  “It’s okay.” With a deep breath, she whispered, “It’s awful and yet somehow . . . beautiful at the same time.” He tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear and under the cap.

  “You’ve got your dad’s sensitive heart. Okay, now it’s your turn to pick a boat.” Navy knew the best way to recover from a death scene was humor.

  “What? I’m only an amateur boat thief. I have no opinion.”

  “Sure you do. If not, you need to.”

  She sent him an arch look.

  “I mean it,” he pressed. “Byron should have taught you more. You should know how to use a gun, and how to steal a boat won’t be a bad skill either.” Rory searched his amber eyes but saw only the hard-assed Navy who seemed to live to challenge her.

  Turning her gaze around the dark boatyard, she scanned it hopefully. “All right. What about the one under tarps over there? It’s low to the water, like it might be a catamaran. Those are stable, right? It isn’t huge, but if it has a decent engine it would get us there safely.”

  He looked surprised. “Good reasoning. I wondered the same. The tarp tells me it’s also probably very, very valuable. Meaning it would be quickly missed by the boatyard manager.” Looking at the covered boat, he added, “But if it’s valuable, it’s fast.”

  In a few moments they had moved quietly over to the other boat, and Navy began removing the huge tarp. She observed the way he detached it at each cleat and began to copy him on the sides she could reach, but she froze when she heard a distant tick and a buzzing noise. On the far end of the docks, the darkest spot of the large marina, lights were clicking on. They were slowly lighting up in succession, a wave of artificial light moving toward them. And following that wave, a night watchman had appeared from the manager’s shed, performing his nightly round. He was listening to music on earbuds, but they would soon be unable to miss when the lights reached them.

  “Damn,” she cursed. “It must be on a sensor.” She glanced at Navy, who only tried to work faster. Thinking quickly, she dug deep into her pack and pulled out a small handgun. Kneeling behind a low pier post along the dock, she steadied her arms on the post and fired the quiet weapon with a soft pop. The light nearest them cracked, rendering the still-dark light useless. She worked toward the night watchman, shooting out each light with the small pistol. Navy paused to observe, amazed, as the watchman stopped and examined each light turning off with a tempo that hinted at an electrical problem. He grumbled curses and then headed back to the manager’s office.

  Rory shifted on her heels and straightened into Navy’s chest.

  “What was that?” He was grinning.

  She could feel herself blush in the dark. “It’s a BB gun. I use it to get quail sometimes. I didn’t want you to make fun of me.”

  Navy grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her once, hot and hard.

  “C’mon. I’m going to tow her out to the edge of the marina and shove off. Then you’re going to learn how to hot-wire a boat. You won’t believe this boat.”

  Rory followed him to where he’d peeled back half of the boat cover to reveal black, glassy panels with recognizable grid patterns covering every horizontal surface. The name on the rear center of the catamaran was in a modern script: Solar Stealth.

  She looked up at him in amazement. “It’s a solar-powered cat?”

  Nodding, he threw an arm around her shoulder and hugged her close. “Nice choice, babe.”

  Navy managed to hot-wire the engine and get the auxiliary hydrofuel cell motor running. They headed north along the coastline, staying a couple miles off the coast, while Rory explored the boat. Meant for only two to four travelers, it had a tiny bed tucked into the bow and a convertible table-to-bed in the galley. It was stocked with some canned and dry foods and had a small but useful galley that yielded a pot of coffee to warm them while they tried to determine where the heaters turned on.

  “Hot coffee. I saw supplies for fishing and crabbing, plus a saltwater-to-drinking-water converter in some cabinets.”

  “That’s good. If the sun comes up and skies are clear, maybe we can avoid stopping.” Navy sipped the coffee she’d made and settled into the pilot’s chair of the cat while she found a bench seat folded against the wall opposite the helm. As she held her coffee over bent knees, her hands shook so hard that the coffee sloshed out. He took her mug and set it aside, squeezing both her hands in one of his. “It’s the adrenaline wearing off. You reacted really well in a crisis, Rory.” He squeezed her hands again, then let go, and Rory felt her stomach do the seesaw it did whenever he veered back into keeping a cool distance from her.

  She let out a chuff of a laugh. “Many generations will tell the tale of the BB gun that saved a SEAL.”

  He sent her a warm smile that had tingles replacing the shakes in her hands. Seesaw, she thought.

  “You’re a damn fine shot. I’ll show you how to use my gun if we ever get a chance to stop swimming and just tread water.”

  Rory watched him scanning the moonlit horizon, the fancy boat’s complex displays, at complete ease while at complete attention. She tipped her head. “What’s your real name?”

  “Nathaniel Adrien Vercoeur.”

  She put it together far faster than he expected. “N.A.V.”

  He shot her an impressed glance. “We had another Nate in my platoon, last name Victor. His last name made for problematic communications, so he got the nickname Nav and I got Navy.” He adjusted speed as the waves got rougher and sent her a glance. “You thought I would lie to you.”

  “I thought you would avoid me,” she said after a hesitation.

  “I have never avoided you, Rory.”

  Faced with that cryptic and warmly delivered insight, Rory decided she was too tired to try to figure him out. “I’m going to try to scrape together a meal in the galley.” As she headed back, he grabbed her hand.

  “Wait. Rory, I . . .” but Navy couldn’t finish it as he wanted. I’m crazy about you and I can’t seem to tell you. I am hiding things from you, but it’s for your own good. I hate keeping anything from you, and I crave every question you ask.

  Instead he said, “I need your help here. This weather radar, can you read it? I know what it’s hinting at, but I can’t tell how bad that storm is.”

  Rory leaned in, and the smell of her hair made his hand clench tightly against the need to touch her. Much more time in these close quarters, and the heat between them was going to make up for the lack of a heater onboard.

  Scanning the areas of low pressure and cold air flowing down from the Pole, Rory recalled mnemonics and lessons Byron had tried to impart.

  “That’s not good. Especially considering last night. This is probably a dip in the polar vortex. It’s not unusual for this time of year or this area, but the pressur
e differential could mean rough seas and really high winds. If I were you, I’d want to tuck into a cove and drop anchor for the night, but can we?” She raised blue-green eyes to his and suddenly lost her breath at how close they were, at the hunger in his eyes.

  His mind got lost in her nearness, so he reverted to training, turned off that part of his brain, and focused on the screen. He weighed the risk, how far they’d traveled from the marina, the nearest coves on the map, and their relative safety. Then he estimated the amount of battery they had before the sun reached their solar cells. He considered stopping now, the worst-case scenarios. In them, Rory ended up in the hands of TEAR. It was an unacceptable possibility.

  “We need to get as far as possible before the sun is up. Do you think that storm is headed out to sea or sweeping back north?”

  Rory flinched at his sudden switch to cold, calculating soldier. Looking back to the computer, she studied it again and tried to find more info on other screens, but ultimately she was forced to guess. “Out. But even if it heads north, if we head for that bay, we should be sheltered.”

  “Bay of Fundy,” Navy pointed to the body of water between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. “That’s where I first learned to pilot a boat.”

  Washington, DC, TEAR Headquarters

  Kessler sat behind his desk, tapping a vintage Montblanc against his desktop in a steady, slow rhythm that tested the nerves of his officers in the room. They were waiting—had been waiting—for an update from the analysts since before sunset. Finally a wrist phone pinged, and they all check theirs. Both the officers turned their wrists up, and the screen illuminated on their forearms. They glanced at one another in hesitation.

  “Oh, just tell me what the fuck is going on,” Kessler barked. “Have they found them?”