“Increase the voltage. He said he’d fry her, and he meant it. He was past thinking of the profit he’d get from her.”
“That’s not like him either. Probably bluffing.”
“I don’t think so,” Sawyer told Riley. “I could see Yadin hesitate. He didn’t want the game over so fast, but he’d have done it. I gave him coordinates, since he was focused on getting the Fire Star.”
“What coordinates?” Doyle demanded.
“To this uninhabited island—South Pacific.”
“How did you happen to have those
on you?” Riley wondered.
“It’s where my grandfather took me when he was teaching me. It’s where his dad took him. We camped there for a few nights. I dreamed about it,” he remembered. “When I was out. Anyway, I told them Bran had hidden it there.”
“You kept your wits about you,” Bran commented.
“Wits were about all I had. So I told them part of the truth. How it wouldn’t work until I passed it on, but I embellished that. How I had to take him on the first shift. It couldn’t pass to him without that sort of ritual. I figured my only chance was to get him out of there, get him to travel with me so I could deal with him, get back for Annika. But he wanted a test run, so he picked a Red Shirt.”
“The man with the gun didn’t have a red shirt. It was brown.”
Now Sawyer smiled. “Star Trek. We have to catch you up.”
“It means expendable,” Riley explained. “The crewman in the red shirt going on the mission isn’t going to make it back.”
“Why doesn’t he change his shirt?”
Now Sawyer laughed until the pain bloomed in his side, bringing on a hiss.
“You have pain.”
“It only hurts when I laugh.”
“Don’t laugh.”
He reached for Annika’s hand, squeezed. “Felt good anyway. So he has Yadin unhook the chain I’m hanging by, and has Red Shirt put the gun in my ear, get me in a headlock. He gives me ninety seconds—I said I needed two minutes. I didn’t, but I figured he’d cut that back. If I’m not back in ninety, he takes Anni out—hits her with enough voltage to give her brain damage. He has Yadin give her a couple good jolts, just to prove his point. Then he gave me the compass, and I fed in coordinates.”
“Is Red Shirt wondering what the hell he’s doing on some island in the South Pacific?” Riley wondered.
Sawyer shook his head, picked up the measly half glass of wine. Drank it down in one gulp. “No. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t have taken him out on a one-to-one, and the time . . . So I let him go.”
“Let him go?” Doyle repeated.
“I disconnected. I just let him go. He’s gone.” The color the food had brought back to his face drained again. “You swear never to use the compass to hurt anyone, but I did. It’s one thing to kill in battle, but I just let him go.”
“He had a gun to your head,” Riley reminded him. “And Annika’s life was on the line.”
“I know it. I know that. But—”
“You’re thinking with great power comes great responsibility.”
He nodded at Riley. “Uncle Ben was right.”
“The rice guy?”
Sawyer laughed again until it became a wheeze. “Jesus, Sash, you’re as bad as Anni. Peter Parker’s uncle Ben. Spider-Man. And it’s true, the responsibility. I’ve never killed anyone before they came at us underwater the other day, and that was battle. This was . . .”
“The same. It’s the same,” Doyle insisted. “He had a weapon, as did you. You used what you had to save Annika, and yourself. That, brother, was your responsibility.”