Page 55 of Casualties of War
Did the Insurrectos have a spy inside the US government?
* * * * *
They stayedblack and still for twenty minutes, just to be sure. Joaquim wouldn’t let them smoke, for the flame of a match would be enough to show up on a heat-signature lens. Any light at all, on a black ocean, would be a neon arrow pointing at them.
Was this how they had slid into Acapulco undetected? It seemed likely.
Joaquim let Monty get the boat going again. The roar and slap of the hull on the wateronly lasted for another fifteen minutes, when someone said, “Look! Lights! On the horizon!”
“Damn, Joaquim. You’d’man!”
“Wait,” Joaquim said. “Let’s figure out where we are, first.”
They lapsed back into another silence, watching.
“There are not enough lights,” one said.
“Yeah, the yacht club and the marina should be lit up like a Christmas tree,” Monty said. “It’s not there.”
“We’re toofar north,” Joaquim said. “That cliff over to the right, that’s the Seal Cliff.”
“You mean, we’re up by Pascuallita?”
Even farther north than there,Adán thought. The Seal Cliffs made up the northern tip of the island. It was the only part of the island not flooded by the tsunami that washed across the northern tip, twenty years ago.
“You went too far fucking north, idiot.”
“We’ll have toland,” Joaquim said.
“Can’t we just turn and run down the coast?”
“Not enough fuel,” Joaquim said. “We can find a village and a phone that works and call for a ride. Then we don’t have to carry the bastard.”
“We could drag him,” someone suggested.
Adán held his breath.
“Wake him up. He should have come round by now. Throw water in his face. He can do his own walking,” Joaquim said. “Finda beach, Monty.”
A handful of seawater splashed against his face. Adán pretended to stir. He groaned. The groan wasn’t faked. He ached from lying in the same position for so long.
“He’s not so tough,” Monty said, laughing. “Some Smokey Silva….”
“He’s an actor. They’re all limp wristed.”
A foot connected with the back of his thigh, not gently.
Adán hissed.
The boat slowed. “There?” Montysaid.
“That works,” Joaquim decided. “Run right onto the beach.”
“Got it.” The boat picked up speed again.
Adán braced himself as he felt the surge of a wave pick up the boat and thrust it forward. The others bounced about.
The hull ground against the beach and the motor whined as the propeller bit into sand.
