Page 8 of Hell to Pay

“See you on the flip side,” I said as he positioned himself on the edge of the inflated dinghy.

He gave us a thumbs-up and tipped backward into the water with barely a splash, disappearing below the surface like he’d never been there at all.

Jude resumed rowing, the oars slipping soundlessly in and out of the water as we made our way to the stern on the opposite side of the boat from where the guard kept watch. Rafe would be able to scale the bow with the grappling hook in his pack. Jude and I needed the ladder off the back of the yacht so we wouldn’t start off our assault on theArtemiswith soaked clothes.

“You think she’s okay?” Jude asked, his voice low as we rounded the boat.

“She has to be.” It wasn’t a strategic assessment, but it was the only one I dared believe.

Jude stowed the oars and reached into his pack for his weapon, then slung the pack on his back. We were used to humping it with packs. Most of our missions had been in the middle of nowhere. We’d had gear, weapons, ammo. The packs were like a second skin after a while.

We moved easily with them on. Killed easily with them on.

Better to have the extra ammo — and the extra weapons — and not need them than vice versa.

Jude tied the dinghy to the stern — we would need it when we left theArtemiswith Lilah — and we took a couple minutes to gather our gear. I removed my Strider from my pack and slipped it into my vest. It wasn’t the standard-issue knife for the SEALS — that would be the SRK — but the Strider was foldable and easy to release in combat situations.

I glanced at my watch. Assuming Lilah had taken her meds the morning she left, she’d now been without them for almost forty-eight hours. She’d been alive that afternoon — we’d been able to see that from the thermal camera — but I had no idea what kind of condition she was in.

I felt for the prescription bottle I’d stuffed into my pocket before we’d left the house.

“Let’s go,” I said, moving toward the stern’s ladder.

Lilah was close now and I was desperate to lay eyes on her, to see for myself that she was all right.

Jude stood. “Right behind you.”

I moved quickly up the ladder. After watching theArtemis, we knew there was always at least one guard posted at the stern, which was why Jude and I were taking it together while Rafe approached from the front of the craft.

I didn’t have to look to know that Jude was behind me. On a mission, he and Rafe were like appendages: it was a given that they were there.

My weapon was drawn when I lifted my head above deck and spotted the guard, standing halfway between our position and the ladder to the bridge. He was staring into the darkness, his cigarette flaring as he inhaled, unaware that we were behind him, water lapping at the bottom of the boat.

I removed the Striker and flipped it open. Our weapons had silencers, but that didn’t mean they were completely silent. It was better not to make noise until we had to.

“On board,” Rafe murmured in my earpiece. “Dropping my tank.”

I could almost see his movements, the way he’d drop his scuba equipment on the bow, remove his weapon from his pack, creep toward the yacht’s cabin.

We didn’t respond because we couldn’t. We were three feet away from the guard, approaching him from behind.

I moved fast. That had been one of the hardest instincts to overcome in SEALs training: the urge to creep when you didn’t want to be heard. You had to unlearn the instinct. It was the slow, heavy step on an old floorboard that creaked, the careful footfall onto a forest floor that made a snapping twig sound out of place.

It took practice to learn to move quickly when the goal was silence.

I was on the guard in seconds, felt the coil of surprise in his body in the moment before I drew my knife across his throat. I didn’t feel the rush of warm blood thanks to my gloves but I knew it was there when he slumped against me, the cigarette dropping from his hands onto the deck.

Jude stepped on it while I lowered the guard to the deck. I dropped his weapon overboard — we didn’t need it but that didn’t mean I wanted someone else on board to have it — then rolled his body into the water.

The less evidence we left behind the better.

We were moving toward the lights in the cabin — some kind of sitting area from the looks of the sofas and end tables, a floating fucking living room — when Rafe stepped silently onto the deck.

“What took you so long?” Jude asked.

“Fuck off,” Rafe said. He was still in his scuba suit, but he’d removed his fins to reveal his dive boots, lightweight for use in water.

I started toward the cabin. “Let’s get our girl.”

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