Brothers In Arms (Matt Drake 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

protest, but he forced his body to inch its way to the sealed storage bag that nestled in the front of the boat. It would hold tools, an inflator and patches, and also water.
    He lifted his head. Sunlight blasted off the sea, dazzling his eyes and setting off a pounding pain. The marines would have reflectors in their packs.
    Later. For now , he unbuckled the storage bag and opened it. Then he took three bottles of water out and passed them around. Never had water tasted so good.
    Romero fished out the anti-glare glasses, groaning as he moved. “Damnit, man, feel like I went nine rounds with the Hulk.”
    He carefully fixed the glasses around his eyes and gazed out to sea for a while. Judging from the expression on his face , Drake guessed he didn’t see a whole lot.
    “We don’t know where we landed, where we drifted, or where we are.” Smyth was also surveying the area.
    “No, but we do know east and west,” Drake pointed out. “Maybe we didn’t drift so far. And, if we head due north we should hit land.” He didn’t add the requisite eventually.
    “That’s the plan.” Romero said, staying upbeat. Drake thought that being stranded with the marine wasn’t half as stressful as it might have been with Alicia. He sat up, trying to avoid the raging sun and the glaring sea. Salt granules stuck to his skin. Scrapes and bruises stood out harshly on his arms.
    “We need to cover up too ,” Drake said. “You guys have anything we can use?” The question was rhetorical as Drake searched the storage bag and came up empty. “Guess it’ll have to be our vests.”
    Slowly, Drake stripped out of his Kevlar jacket and shirt. He wrapped the v est tightly around his head and tied an end. Makeshift, but effective for now. “So,” he said, “we gonna start paddling?”
    Romero sighed. “Fuck.”
    The trio of battered men unstrapped the paddles and started to dig at the sea. As one they groaned. Due north looked no different than due south, but once they had it pinpointed, they kept the horizon in their sights and put their backs into it.
    After a half hour , Romero spoke up. “You guys think we’ll be rescued?”
    “Bugger all chance of that.” Drake snorted. “Hayden thinks we’re ok. No one else knows we’re here.”
    “Rations are exactly that. Rations.” Smyth shook his webbing, letting the few packets of food rattle. “A day or two tops.”
    The sun beat down. The men grew tired , and rested as the heat passed its midday peak and waned into late afternoon. They drank water and laid back to conserve energy. A couple of rogue waves sent them scaling liquid cliffs again only to plummet once more to impossible depths. Sea creatures bumped the boat, investigating, some just curious, others questing for food. When the dirty white fin of a shark broke the surface, Romero sat up angrily. “Now that’s an ice cold mother of a threat.”
    Smyth stared at the fin as it cut its way back and forth. “We used to take bets back in training as to how we might die. Could’ve got a cool hundred to one on becoming shark food.”
    “But who would’ve collected the winning s?” Drake smirked.
    Smyth shrugged. “Didn’t think that far.”
    They waited until the fin vanished and then started paddling again, but there wasn’t a single pair of eyes that didn’t constantly keep a lookout for that chilling, telltale sign.
    But as night began to encroach, the men became quiet. The ocean grew still. A thin sliver of moon rose steadily, casting its stark glow across the undulating, mirror-like surface of the sea. Drake found himself dwelling on Mai, and the ordeals she might be enduring. He couldn’t bring himself to think she might already have died. Couldn’t even imagine it.
    His heart froze when a shadow loomed ahead, gliding silently toward them across the gentle swells of the sea.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    “The gunman missed Senator Turner,” Hayden said aloud. “But killed his aide—a Miss Audrey Smalls—and two