Scorpion Strike. John Gilstrap

she dropped her hands and straightened her posture. “I’m fine,” she said. It was time for her to become part of the solution. “What the hell just happened?”

      She’d meant her question to be rhetorical, but he answered it, anyway. “Beyond the obvious, I have no idea,” he said. “It would appear that the resort is under attack.” As he spoke, he stooped to the body closest to the door. He wrapped his left fist around the reinforced tab, which existed on most tactical vests for the very purpose of dragging wounded comrades, and started pulling him back into the room.

      “Oh, my God, what are you doing?” This from Lori, who seemed to be rejoining the real world.

      “They’re sure to realize that they’re missing a couple of operators,” Jonathan said. “Makes no sense to leave them where people can trip over them.” He shot a look back toward the frightened couple. “You’re welcome to help.”

      The couple remained frozen in each other’s arms.

      As Jonathan dragged his guy across the tile floor of the bedroom toward the big bathroom, Gail slid past him and went for the other one.

      By the time she’d made it to the patio and taken a grip on the other corpse, she tossed a glance back inside. She saw that Jonathan was depositing his guy at the base of the ornate claw-foot tub, probably with the intent of closing the door and turning on a light. That’s what she’d do.

      “You okay with that?” Jonathan called back to her.

      She found the tab between the dead guy’s shoulder blades and grunted as she hefted his shoulders. In the moonlight, the massive wound under the attacker’s jaw disgusted her and she looked away. “I’m fine,” she said. “I can drag so long as I don’t have to carry.” She shot a look to Hunter. “No, really,” she said. “I’ve got this.” The irony missed him entirely.

      Several years ago, things had gone terribly wrong for Gail during an op, and she’d spent altogether too long feeling sorry for herself. Under these circumstances, it felt good to know that the strength she’d been working so hard to rebuild had finally returned. She sure as hell had come a long way since throwing away her cane for the last time just a little while ago.

      “Next time you suggest a romantic getaway,” she said, “I believe I’ll think twice.” She looked up and hoped that Jonathan could see that she’d tried to manage a smile.

      He stood over the man he’d killed, straddling him and staring down, his knife still gripped in his fist. “Hey, Dig?” she asked as she pulled.

      He snapped out of wherever he’d been. “Oh, shit, Gail, I’m sorry. Let me help.” He started toward her.

      “No,” she said. For some reason, it was important to her to finish this business of dragging the body. She wasn’t rejecting Digger’s help. She was rejecting anyone’s help. “I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”

      “Not a scratch,” he said.

      “You’re still holding your knife.”

      “These assholes tried to kill us.”

      She was crossing the foot of the bed now. “Technically, I think they were trying to take us hostage.”

      “They pointed a rifle at you.”

      Something in his tone struck an odd chord and she let the dead guy drop as she stood. From here, separated only by inches, she saw something else in Jonathan’s expression that she’d never seen before. Fear.

      * * *

      “But you’re still holding your knife.”

      Truth was, Jonathan knew that the blade and release mechanisms were fouled with gore, and he didn’t want to put that nastiness into his pocket. But he did it, anyway. He thumbed the release button on the locking blade, folded it, and slid the clip back into its designated place.

      When both corpses were in the bathroom, Jonathan closed the door and turned on the shower light. It was the dimmest of the options on the five-switch panel, but it allowed enough light to see what they were doing.

      The dead guys were both nominally white—one might have had some Hispanic blood—and both were in pretty good shape. Too thin and soft to be SEALs or D-Boys, but toned enough to show that they were fit. They wore identical kit, all black, all 5.11 Tactical gear, but that didn’t mean anything. These days, half the young men their age wore tactical pants and shirts as a fashion statement. And let’s be honest. They looked cool and the many pockets came in handy.

      In fact, the pants Jonathan wore at that very moment were the same SKU, but in khaki.

      He also noted that the chest rigs they wore were not plate carriers. They were constructed of a mesh material instead of Kevlar, and he took that as yet more evidence that they did not expect to meet much resistance. They each carried identical M4s and both packed four spare thirty-round magazines of 5.56-millimeter ammo. Their Glock 19 nine-millimeter pistols resided in cross-draw holsters on their chest rigs, a configuration that Jonathan had never liked. He was particularly intrigued by the two-way radios they’d strapped behind their shoulders. He didn’t relish inserting a dead guy’s earpiece into his own ear, but you could learn a lot by eavesdropping on radio traffic.

      “Who would do something like this?” Gail asked. “What could they possibly want?”

      Jonathan didn’t answer because he had no idea. “Here’s what I need you to do,” he said. “Gather up what you need to live in the jungle for a while. Be sure to grab your meds, and pull together anything that can identify us directly.”

      “We’re not here under our real names,” she said.

      “Doesn’t matter. These guys’ friends are going to find them sooner or later, and we don’t need to make it any easier than necessary to find us.” As he spoke, he worked the Velcro tabs that would release the dead guys from their kit. “I’m going to relieve these guys of everything they’ve got, and I want to be clear of here in no more than five minutes. Three is even better.”

      “Where are we going?”

      Jonathan stayed focused on what he was doing. “The first stop is anywhere but here. We’ll refine it later.”

      Four minutes later, he’d transferred every phone, wallet, piece of paper, and bit of lint from the bad guys’ pockets into his own for later examination. With that done, he started to shrug into the first victim’s vest—it had the most blood on it, so he took it as a gesture of chivalry toward Gail—but she stopped him.

      “Wait,” she said.

      “We don’t have time to wait.”

      “We have time for this,” she said. She handed him a wet towel and a dry one. “You’re disgusting. And there’s a golf shirt on the sink for you, too.”

      He looked down at himself, at the blood that had spattered and smeared his skin. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a serial killer. Yeah, they had time for him to towel away some of the foulness.

      As he did, Gail donned the other vest and rifle sling. “I put socks and underwear for both of us into my carry-on backpack. Ditto toothpaste and toothbrushes, meds for me and toilet paper. Phones and laptops, too. Can you think of anything else?” Their clothes and assorted sundries would have to stay behind.

      “The toilet paper is an especially good touch,” Jonathan said. He pulled the forest green golf shirt on over his head and reached for the other chest rig. Then he slung the leftover M4.

      “Time to go,” he said. They just didn’t know where or why or for how long.

      Details.

      Jonathan led the way out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. “We should go out the front door,” he said. “Maybe the bad guys—”

      “Wait!” a voice yelled from beyond the patio.

      Jonathan