She nodded at his shoulder. “What are you going to do, hold it one-handed?” She picked up one of the dead guards’ pistols and handed it to him.
MacD took it and sighed. “Ah guess this is better than nothing.” Eddie and Linda entered behind her, and Raven gave back Eddie’s throwing knife. “Nice to see y’all here. Wherever here is.”
“Marwood Island,” Linda said, “near the Great Barrier Reef.”
“Are you all right?” Eddie asked, eyeing his wound.
“Ah could use some water,” MacD said.
Linda gave him her canteen. He drank half its contents in two gulps while Eddie and Raven pulled the drugged guards into the room.
“How’s the arm?” Linda asked.
“Ah’m not going to be swinging a golf club anytime soon, but it’s not too bad considering Ah got shot. Did everyone else make it off Christmas Island?”
Raven nodded and locked the door behind them. “No casualties besides you. I think you just wanted to play the damsel in distress.”
“Not likely. Next time Ah’ll be sure to duck.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Eddie said, leading them up the stairs. “Are you up to taking a hike with us?”
“Absolutely. Ah could use the fresh air.”
At the top of the stairs, Linc was keeping watch. He glanced at MacD and said, “Nice to see they decided not to mess up that pretty face.”
MacD smiled at him. “Not this silver-tongued devil.”
“We’ll go out the back door,” Eddie said.
They went low to avoid being seen from the harbor through the windows. At the rear of the building, Eddie eased the door open and looked out.
As he did so, someone cried out in Mandarin from a few buildings away.
Eddie shook his head and looked at the rest of them. “I don’t think you need a translation to know someone found the dead—”
Before he could finish, bullets ripped into the door above his head. They all dived to the floor as a klaxon began to wail.
SIXTY
Where’s that gunfire coming from?” Jin demanded.
“From the main building,” said the Marauder XO, who was on the phone. “One man reported dead, another incapacitated.”
“They’re here.”
“Who?”
“Juan Cabrillo’s people. Send everyone available to track them down and kill them.”
If they had gotten this far into her base, then his ship must be close by.
“Relay that order,” she said. “Throw off the moorings. Now.”
While the XO went out onto the bridge wing to give the command to cast off, she took the phone and called the leader of her guard unit. She had to know if the harbor exit was clear before walking into an ambush.
“Get someone on an ATV and send them to the end of the runway. Make sure he has a phone so he can make a video call. I want to see what he’s seeing.”
“Yes, Captain.”