Page 24 of Wired Courage

Sophie put it into the water, tying it to the Chris-Craft with a built-in cord. She loaded the heavy backpack into the raft. The lifeboat bobbed and tipped alarmingly, even in the gentle waves lapping their hidden berth.

Sophie frowned. Paddling that thing against wind and waves was going to be challenging if she couldn’t find a way to hook up the small electric motor to the boat’s squishy stern. And what if she lost sight of the land? She was no sailor; this whole thing was a steep learning curve.

Perhaps getting a look at her destination would help with her nerves.

Sophie made sure everything was secure and then jumped onto the boulder she’d tied the speedboat to. A pair of binoculars and the handheld GPS tucked in her pockets, Sophie clambered up the steep side of the atoll to get a look at the shore. The exertion of climbing, grasping the weathered rock and hauling herself ever higher, calmed her down. By the time she reached the stone atoll’s apex, she was flushed with exercise and ready for anything.

Sophie took another heading from the peak, clinging to a scruffy, salt-burned bush, and locked in the coordinates. Even if she lost sight of the horizon, she just needed to keep going toward the direction she’d chosen.

Resolved, Sophie clambered back down.

She got into the life raft, just to get a feel for it. Yes, it was tippy, but if she sat in the middle and kept weight in the center, it settled. She wrestled the electric motor and its battery over the side and into the raft, and spent another half hour messing with it until she’d pinched enough of the rubber body into the motor’s clamp to secure it to the raft’s stern.

She closed and locked the Chris-Craft and hid the key, tying it in a sealed plastic bag to the rubber bumper against the hull—she couldn’t take the chance of losing it before she was able to return.

And then, her heart drumming in her chest and her palms damp with sweat, Sophie slipped on a lifejacket, climbed carefully into the dinghy, and cast off.

Chapter Nineteen

Day Twenty-Five

“Stop! Let him go!” Connor thrashed against his bonds, screaming, as he watched the torturer and his ninjas drown Jake in a tub of water. “I told you I’d tell you what you want!” His own heart seemed about to burst from the stress of watching Jake’s dying struggle.

Pim Wat, standing to one side with her arms crossed, lifted her chin.

The ninjas hoisted Jake’s upper body out of the tub and tossed him off the chair. Jake landed with a wet thump on the stones, falling onto his side.

Jake’s face was blue, his eyes were closed, and water dribbled out of his slack mouth.

He wasn’t moving at all.

“If he’s dead I’m not telling you shit,” Connor choked. “Not one fucking word.”

“Oh, you’ll tell me whatever I want to know. And a lot more besides, Mr. Hamilton.” Pim Wat smiled. “I don’t need Jake when I’ve got you.”

“Resuscitate him, you bitch,” Connor ground out. He crawled forward on his knees, tugging at the shackles on his arms reflexively, frantic to reach his friend. Because that’s what they’d become in this test of every human limit:friends.Brothers, who loved the same woman and were united in one purpose: keeping her safe, finding her baby, and surviving this impossible situation.Maybe he could do mouth to mouth. “You want me to talk? Help him. I’ll die before I tell you anything if he’s gone.”

“What is this, Beautiful One?” A dark and silky voice, speaking in Thai, came from the door.

“Master.” Pim Wat started and spun to face the room’s opening. “Master, I am getting these men to give us the information we want.”

Connor finally reached Jake. Using his head, he pushed Jake onto his back and leaned over to press his mouth against Jake’s, blowing into his friend’s cold lips. He emptied his lungs, then moved to the man’s chest and banged his head down on it, ignoring the pain in his forehead as he counted out loud: “One, two, three, four, five.”

He sidled back up to Jake’s face, heedless of his bleeding knees. Foamy liquid frothed out of Jake’s mouth—was that good?Maybe the water was coming out. He blew into Jake’s mouth again with determination, emptying his lungs.

Rapid Thai flew over his head between Pim Wat and the Master, too quick for Connor’s limited language skills to follow—an argument, to judge by the tone.

Pim Wat huffed angrily and left the room. Connor felt rather than saw her go, darkness lifting from the area as if a carrion bird left a carcass.

Someone was beside him, barking orders. The man Pim Wat called Master turned Jake on his side again, thumping his back hard. Water gushed from Jake’s mouth. The Master lowered him down and began doing chest compressions. He and Connor counted aloud, synchronizing their efforts; between compressions, Connor breathed into Jake’s foamy mouth. The Master lifted and turned him; more water flowed out as the Master hit Jake’s back with heavy, open-handed blows.

Ninjas ran in with an external defibrillator and pulled Jake up and away from the puddle of water surrounding his body. The Master gestured for Connor to retreat. Connor shuffled out of the way as they applied the paddles to Jake’s massive chest.

His friend’s big body arched up, thumped down.

They did it again. Arch and thump.

“Come on Jake, come on, come on,” Connor muttered. “Come back, dammit, we need you.She needs you.”

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