“No, Commodore,” Mason calmly contradicted him. “It’s the truth. What’s also the truth is that I wasn’t there for the gunplay. I was in the cargo hold verifying the shipment. By the time I made it topside, the entire crew—your sons included—was already dead.”
“If that’s true, why would you blow up the ship? Unless it wasn’t as you say. Unless it was an unsanctioned massacre and you were trying to conceal—”
“No.” Mason shook his head, figuring he should interrupt before the commodore followed his theory down the rabbit hole. The man was grasping at straws now. “In the confusion, the vessel drifted into Iranian waters. It’s true I was the one to set the charges. My specialty is demolitions. But I didn’t do it to kill your boys. They were already dead. And I didn’t do it to get rid of any evidence. My team gave every last man on board that ship a chance to surrender.”
Bagheri was pacing now. Shaking his head.
Mason pressed on. “I set the charges because our navy has no operational jurisdiction in your sovereign waters. There was no way the destroyers could take the ship. And those of us left on board couldn’t allow the cargo to be reclaimed by our enemies. It was war. It is war, Commodore, even though our two nations will never openly admit it.” Mason specifically used the man’s rank, hoping to cement in Bagheri’s mind that they were both sailors. Cut from the same cloth and bound by the same sorts of oaths.
“You can kill me for taking part in the mission,” he continued quietly. “But I don’t think that, knowing what you know now, my death will taste as sweet. And I know you don’t wanna involve innocent people in something that should remain between us fighting men.”
“Why should I believe you?” The whites of the old man’s eyes were snaked with blood veins that looked black in the moonlight. “Why should I believe a word out of your filthy mouth?”
“’Cause it’s the truth.” And then a thought occurred. “How did you find me? How did you even know I was involved in that mission?”
The commodore turned his head slightly, his mouth curving into a hint of a smile. “I have a man on the inside. An American, like you. Someone with his own ax to grind. It seems you have many enemies.”
Mason racked his brain, wondering who would have a reason to sell him out, and came up empty. As far as he knew, throughout his military career he’d comported himself with honor and dignity. He’d stabbed no one in the back. He’d made no promises he hadn’t kept.
“Enough talk,” Bagheri declared. “Whether you personally killed Arman and Basir matters not. Just as it matters not if you were the one to personally kill Kazem yesterday. The fact remains: you are a cog in the American machine that thinks to impose its will on this world. And you will pay for it.”
Bagheri took a step toward him.
Where are you guys? Mason silently implored his missing friends. Now would be a good time to show your fucking faces!
Bagheri reached behind his back, and Mason fully expected to see the man pull out the weapon that would end his life. Glancing at Alex, he let his eyes tell the truth his lips could not speak.
I love you.
A second later, the air was ripped by the sound of gunfire.
Chapter 27
12:47 a.m.
The awful sound of weapons fire had Alex instinctively covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut.
Mason! Her heart screamed his name even as a great and terrible sob shook her chest. No! No! No!
She couldn’t look. She never wanted to look. As long as she kept her eyes closed, she wouldn’t see him lying lifeless beside her. And surely, any minute now, Bagheri would send a bullet into her and the choice of whether or not to look wouldn’t matter. She’d be dead.
But seconds passed and she experienced no sudden punch of pain. No gruesome-sounding crack as a deadly projectile broke the sound barrier.
In fact, the only noises were coming from Meat and Li’l Bastard. The poor dog was going crazy on the back porch. And the rooster, ever sympathetic to Meat’s emotions, crowed like it was first light on the last day of the world.
Cautiously lifting her head, a quick glance assured her Mason wasn’t on the ground next to her. The wave of relief that washed through her was so enormous, it left her dizzy.
Of course, that relief was instantly replaced by the hot burn of bile when she saw the two men who’d been aiming their weapons at Chrissy and Uncle John lying dead on the ground. The contents of their heads leaked through the fabric of their masks and what remained of their skulls.
“Don’t,” she heard Mason snarl, and lifted her chin to find his arm around the commodore’s chest in a steely grip. The edge of his blade was pressed tight to the old man’s neck. “I swear if you so much as twitch, I’ll slit his throat from three to nine.”
Alex tracked the direction of Mason’s gaze and found the masked man from the hallway was now behind her, the barrel of his weapon a mere inch from her head.
“Same goes for you,” Mason added, and Alex carefully turned her head to discover that the man whose hand Mason had broken with his crazy kung-fu, Jedi, ninja move had transferred his aim to Chrissy and Uncle John.
Holy hell. This is a tinderbox. One wrong move will be the spark that has this whole thing going kaboom!
“Tell whoever is in the trees to come out slowly with their hands up, or we kill your friends,” Hallway Guy hissed.
“Do it!” the commodore shouted. “Kill them all!”
“No!” Mason bellowed. “Haven’t we had enough of that to last us a lifetime? No one else needs to die here today. No one else needs—”
Alex didn’t hear what Mason said next because Broken-Hand Man pulled the butt of his weapon tight against his shoulder. It was a small move, but she recognized his intent. Apparently, the remaining Deep Six guys did too—just two remaining. Oh god. She couldn’t think of that now. She’d have to think of it later.
Before Broken-Hand Man could squeeze off a round, muzzle flashes glowed from the shadows of the mangrove forest. Blood sprayed as bullets slammed into him. He hit the ground, wheezed once, and then made a terrible gurgling sound that had Alex longing to cover her ears again.
“No!” Hallway Guy roared, turning to aim into the trees. He got off a handful of rounds, the bwarrr of his automatic sounding enormous as it echoed over the lagoon.
Something warm and wet sprayed Alex’s face a second before Hallway Guy stumbled. He went down on one knee, a hand pressed to the open wound in his chest. Another crack came from the direction of the forest. And right in front of her eyes, a neat hole opened up in Hallway Guy’s right cheek.