come back and meet Fallah at the edge of the beach, there.’
Sahurah pointed to the eastern edge of the protected area. ‘Fallah, you will guard that side, in case they attempt to swim away. You may shoot them, but only if they are more than ten meters from us. Ten meters, you understand?’
‘Of course.’
Adi looked at him expectantly. The motorboat was now approaching, moving toward the beach at a good clip, precisely as planned.
‘You and I will go in the boat,’ Sahurah told the short one. ‘We will have to wade. Make sure the weapon does not get wet. If they do not come easily we will need it.’
Breanna pulled through the water, propelled by her fury. She was angry at Zen for sending her away, angrier still at whomever it was who was trying to kidnap or rob them.
Brunei was a paradise; how could this happen here?
The houses they had seen were no more than a mile away: 1,600 meters. One of her events in high school.
She’d never finished higher than third in it.
Breanna continued her stroke, falling into the rhythm, willing away everything, even her anger, as she plunged through the water.
Zen watched as the boat cut its engines and drifted toward the shore. The thugs on the beach had rolled up their pants and started to wade out. One of them had a largish rifle, possibly a machine-gun like the M249 or Belgium Minimi, a squad-level weapon that fired 5.56-millimeter ammunition from magazines or belts, which could be held in a plastic box-like container clipped beneath the chamber area just ahead of the trigger.
They moved almost lackadaisically, obviously not seeing him as much of a threat. More than likely they didn’t know he had a gun.
The closer they got, the better his chances at hitting them with the pistol. On the other hand, the closer they got, the more difficult it would be to swim away.
But that wasn’t an option. They had a boat. He’d never outswim it in the open water. Nor would there be much chance of surprising them from the sea.
His goal wasn’t to escape. It was to distract them long enough that Breanna could escape. He would let them get close, then take out as many of them as possible. He’d target the man with the machine-gun first.
Sahurah put his hand down on the gunwale of the speedboat as it came next to him in the water, trying to steady it before he pulled himself over the side. His ancestors had been fishermen, but Sahurah himself disliked boats; no matter how big, they seemed flimsy and unprotected against the awful power of the sea.
The two men in the boat looked at him with puzzled expressions, but did not speak. Unlike the others, the men who had been selected from the boat were Indonesians with a limited command of Malaysian and no knowledge of Arabic; he had to use English so they would understand.
‘There has been a change in plans,’ he told them, grabbing onto the back of one of the seats. ‘The people we have come for are there.’
He pointed to the rock. One of the tourists was treading water next to it; the other must have been hiding behind him.
‘There?’ asked the man near the wheel of the boat.
‘Yes,’ said Sahurah. ‘Take us there.’
He took the machine-gun from Adi’s hands, cradling it against his shirt. While it was heavier than the AK47 he had first learned to shoot as a boy, it was surprisingly small for a gun that could fire so rapidly and with so much effect. Sahurah had only a pistol himself, strapped in a holster beneath his shirt.
Adi took the gun back greedily as soon as he was in the boat.
‘We will not shoot them unless it is necessary,’ Sahurah reminded him.
Adi frowned, but then set himself against the side of the boat in a squat, holding the weapon’s barrel upward and protecting it from the spray as they turned and started toward the rock. The helmsman brought the boat around in an arc, circling around from the west.
The man at the wheel cut the engine when they were twenty meters from the rock. Sahurah reached to his shirt for his gun; he would fire a shot and then tell the tourists to surrender. He would use sweet words to make the idiots believe he meant no harm. The Westerners were, without exception, cowards, eager to believe whatever they were told.
Adi tensed beside him. Sahurah knew he was about to fire. He turned to stop him, but it was too late: the gun roared. Sahurah turned and saw Adi falling backward as the machine-gun fired – he thought the little man had been pushed back by its recoil and tried to grab him, but both Adi and the gun fell off into the water. Stunned, Sahurah reached for him when he felt something punch against him, a stone that tore into his rib. He grabbed for his weapon and found himself in the bottom of the boat, finally realizing that the man on the rocks had a gun.
Zen’s first shot missed, but his second and third caught the man with the machine-gun in the head. He fired three more shots; at least one struck the man next to the gunman. The boat jerked to the left and roared away out to sea.
Zen lost his grip on the rock as the wake swelled up. He couldn’t keep the gun above the water, let alone himself – he slid down and then pushed up with his left hand, clambering up on top of the rock.
The boat was headed off. Thank God, he thought to himself. Thank God.
Something ricocheted against one of the rocks about thirty feet from him. Zen threw himself into the waves, still clutching the pistol. He pushed around to the seaward side of the rock then surfaced.
There was a man on shore about fifty yards away with an AK47. Zen went down beneath the waves as the man aimed and fired again. The rocks would make it almost impossible for the gunman to hit him unless he came out on the isthmus. A second gunman stood near the brush on the eastern end of the beach; Zen paddled to his right, finding a spot where he couldn’t be seen from that angle. He was safe, at least for a while.
Then he heard the motor of the speed boat revving in the distance. They were coming back.
When Breanna saw the object in the distance, she thought at first it was a large crocodile. She stopped mid-stroke, frozen by fear.
Then she saw that it was bobbing gently and thought it must be a raft. She started toward it, and in only a few strokes realized it was part of a dock that had been abandoned ages ago and now sat forlornly in the water. Abandoned or not, it was the first sign of civilization she had seen since setting out and she swam with all her energy, kicking and flailing so ferociously that she reached it in only a few seconds. She pulled herself against it to rest. As she did, she saw a small skiff maybe seventy-five yards away, the sort of small boat a fisherman might use to troll a quiet lagoon on a hazy afternoon. An old American-made Evinrude motor, its logo faded, sat at the stern. Breanna threw herself forward, stroking overhand in a sprint to the boat. She got to the side and pulled herself up.
The boat sat about five or six yards offshore, a line at the stern anchoring her. The shore here was lined with trees; Breanna saw a path at the right side, though it wasn’t clear what was beyond it.
‘Hey! Hey!’ she yelled. ‘Help! Help!’
She couldn’t see anyone.
