geez,” she groaned, gripping the handle and staring at the wide open nothing. “That thing’s not seaworthy, it’s river garbage!”
“It’s floating.”
Max had his back to the river, his Uzi aimed. “ETA less than one minute, guys.”
“Go, Viva.”
“I am, I am. Can’t you see I’m preparing to die?” She took a deep breath, backed up a step, then bolted. When her feet left the edge of the ground, she thought, Life was a lot better before Thailand.
Sam shouted to let go, and she obeyed, dropping into the water like a coin. The impact stung her arms, and she refused to open her eyes until she felt the sun on her head. She broke the surface as Max hit the water.
She headed toward the boat, looking back for Sam. “Where is he? He’s not there!” The whip was gone too.
Max swam past her and climbed into the boat. “Come on, swim, swim!” From the bottom of the boat, he scooped up fallen branches and wet leaves, hurling them into the water.
Self-preservation slammed into her and she swam to the small boat. Max helped her over the side and she instantly sat up, rocking it. Max steered the rowboat away from the bank.
Viva’s attention was on the cliffs. “Why hasn’t he jumped?”
“Outlaw, you there? Outlaw, come in!” Max tapped the thread mike at his ear, then yanked it off, cursing. “It shouldn’t be out of commission, dammit.”
“Try to be upbeat, Max, really.”
The men appeared on the edge, almost falling over it. Viva grabbed the second decaying oar and dug it into the water. Bullets rained, peppering the water like jumping schools of fish. Max returned it in deadly blasts. Viva ducked low, paddling faster, harder. The boat jolted and she stilled, exchanged a glance with Max as something amphibious rolled barely below the surface before it disappeared into the dark water.
“A croc?” she asked and hated the fear in her voice.
“It’s a big one.”
Max cocked the Uzi and aimed. Viva watched the water, poised with the rotten oar like a bat. “If you surface,” she muttered to the bubbling river, “you’re luggage.”
Water fountained, the boat lurched sharply, throwing her back. She yelped, and twisted to strike.
“Whoa, darlin’, take a breather.” Sam hung on the edge of the boat, wiped his face, then threw himself in.
“I ought to hit you with this.” She still brandished the oar.
“Row for a little while first, will you?” Sam lay there, breathing hard, and Viva realized he had to have run a half mile to get this far downriver.
“You okay, pal?” Max said, paddling smoothly and watching the terrain.
Sam waved halfheartedly. Viva sank into the watery bottom, tiny minnows pecking at her knees. “God, I’m really starting to hate you two.”
Sam opened one eye to look at her. “Now there’s a surprise.”
“You owe me an explanation.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Really?” She grabbed his gun, pointed it. “Think again, Outlaw.”
Sam rose up on his elbows to look at her. Covered in muck and a brownish-green cast to her clothes, she was still a gorgeous redhead. “It’s out of ammo.”
She fired. It wasn’t.
Four
The gunshot went past his hip and into the bottom of the boat. Sam was on her, tearing the pistol from her. “Christ, woman!”
“Oh God. You lied! Why would you lie?” She backed away from him. Man, he looked scary right now. “That was really dumb.”
“Don’t point a weapon unless you plan to kill something!”
“From what I’ve witnessed, that’s your job.”
“Do you ever shut up?” He popped in a fresh clip. He’d miscounted, dammit.
Viva reddened with embarrassment; it was a phrase she heard often.
“Guys, we’re sinking.”
A slow fountain of water bubbled in the side of the boat. Viva lurched across and stuck her finger in it.
“Oh, that helps.”
“It stopped, didn’t it? God, you’re such a pessimist.”
Sam rubbed his mouth and looked ahead. “Head there.”
“I see it.”
There was a house on stilts, nearly in the water, its dock half sinking below the surface. Two children fished from the end, sitting more in the water than on the wood. The men rowed toward it and in range, Sam grabbed the post and swung them closer. He leapt from the boat, then reached for her. She was still stretched to keep her finger in the hole, and staring up at him, mutinous.
“Give it up, Viva.”
She climbed out under her own power. “You’re irritating, Sam Wyatt, and not very nice.”
“You shot at me, for crissake.”
“But I missed,” she said as if that made all the difference.
It didn’t. She was an accident waiting to happen, Sam thought, and couldn’t wait to get rid of her and find Riley’s shooter.
“Besides,” she kept on without missing a beat, “after what I’ve seen today, you’re a walking testimony to bad karma all the way around.”
Max stepped onto the dock, and within seconds, the boat went nose up before sinking beneath the surface. Brown-skinned boys on the platform barely noticed them, as if they’d seen men with weapons every day.
Viva knelt near the children, asking if they’d caught anything, how long they’d been out here, did they see any bad men with guns pass through here? The boys answered until the last question, then peered around her at the two men. “I know they look scary, but they won’t hurt you. The train to Bangkok is near?”
The boys answered in rapid, choppy Thai, pointing out directions. All up hill. They spoke for a few more minutes before she slipped them a couple bhat, then straightened.
Sam looked at her like she’d grown another head, or in his case, a new brain. “What?”
“You’re fluent.”
She laughed. “There are about forty dialects. Nobody is fluent in Thai.” She walked off the dock, finger combing her hair. Her boots squished with water, the butt of her shorts sagging. “The road is this way, a few kilometers.
