"Stand by," Gantzuke whispered into the radio as he crouched behind a large rock near a small wooden boat.His voice made Lemo narrow his eyes at the monitor.The harsh midday sun wasn't helping the thermal imaging, so Lemo switched the drone's lens back to normal mode, zooming in several times.
Through the lens, he spotted a group of armed men huddled together near a mid-sized fishing boat.
...Strange...Lemo frowned when he saw a girl descending the boat's stairway instead of fishermen.She wore short black swim trunks and a cropped orange tank top beneath an open white shirt, exposing her navel.
She looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't immediately place her.
Guns trained on her and the two women and two men following her down.They raised their hands in surrender.None of them wore anything resembling fishing gear.
...I remember now...A chill ran through Lemo.The realization struck him like a slap.
"At your eleven o'clock, about a hundred and fifty meters out," Lemo relayed calmly."Be careful. That girl... she's someone special."
Gantzuke wondered briefly who this "special girl" was, but now wasn't the time for questions.The situation was life or death—for many people, not just himself.
And he could see enough with his own eyes.The distance from his rocky cover to the boat was wide open—an exposed stretch of bare sand with zero cover.Likewise, the path from the nearest pine grove to the boat was just as exposed.There was no way to sneak in unnoticed unless he could somehow dive underground—and that wasn't an option.
While Gantzuke was rapidly calculating his next move—
BANG!
A sudden gunshot cracked out from the boat.Someone had fired a revolver into the crowd below, triggering a chaotic explosion of shouting and gunfire—like firecrackers during Lunar New Year.
Gantzuke instantly dropped lower, pressed flat against the sand.He steadied his rifle against a rocky ledge poking out of the ground, using it for both cover and support.
Through his scope, he spotted the girl in the white shirt sprinting toward him—her legs kicking up plumes of sand.His right eye twitched.
Behind her, two Arab-looking men in half-military gear sprinted after her, AKs slung across their chests, closing the distance fast.
"Die, you—"
Before Gantzuke could squeeze the trigger, something cold grabbed his leg.
"Shit—!"His eyes flew wide open.His heart jerked painfully.
A long, skeletal hand had slithered out from beneath the old wooden boat like the tentacle of a rotting octopus.It clutched at his steel prosthetic leg, trying to drag him under the hull.
"Help! Please!"The girl's scream tore through the air.She had seen Gantzuke now—seen him struggling against something writhing under the rock.