Fullepub 
Chapter 52
52
Cabrillo’s bare skin numbed in the cold seawater, but his sinuses, like his eyes, burned with salt. Stripped down to his waist, his long arms churned through the high tide crashing beneath the island’s broken-down pier. The Vendor had placed a flag at the very end of it beneath a blazing blue sky—daring someone to capture it.
Juan knew that anyone foolish enough to run the length of the pier would be seen instantly and gunned down or blown up before they got a quarter way to the target. So he did the only logical thing—he dove into the water and used the pier to shield himself from overhead surveillance. The penalty for staying beneath the pier was getting slammed into the concrete pylons by the surging waves that rose and fell like a Dollywood roller coaster.
He loved swimming in open water, but with the high tide crashing into the eroding pier he suddenly understood that it was the raging sea and not just shoddy construction that had nearly wrecked the structure. Cabrillo’s long, powerful strokes clawed through the swelling waves rising eight feet and higher. Lactic acid burned though his body from his broad shoulders and down his back to his meaty thighs. In the Oregon’s Olympic-sized pool he would have been making record time, but out here he had only been inching forward. After what seemed like a month of swimming he was finally within eyesight of the rusted ladder at the end of the pier.
★High on a bluff and hidden in a patch of thick foliage, Linc was keeping overwatch for Juan through the spotting scope. He tracked the Chairman’s slow methodical progress while scanning the skies for danger.
All clear.
★Juan couldn’t afford to waste a single, exhausting stroke.
He kept his eyes shut against the burning seawater, opening them at intervals to aid in navigation. The crashing waves roaring beneath the concrete pier robbed him of the ability to hear.
Focused on the ladder and partially deaf, Cabrillo didn’t pick up on the high-speed whine of the eight-motored octocopter and its mini gun patrolling on the far side of the pier, opposite the bluff where Linc was keeping overwatch.
★The drone’s algorithm was designed to spot human movement—walking, running, and even swimming. At first, the shadowed underbelly of the pier, the surging waves, and the thick pylons obscured the octocopter’s vision sensors. But a thorough, preprogrammed scanning picked up telltale signs of rhythmic splashing and Cabrillo’s windmilling arms finally triggered an alert.
The optical targeting reticle tried to hold on to Cabrillo’s form, but was too often blocked by the pylons. Likewise, the infrared targeting system detected but couldn’t lock on to Juan’s heat signature. His body was mostly underwater and the exposed skin was nearly the same temperature as the cold sea.
The AI navigator opted to send the octocopter into the pier to get closer and acquire a target lock. Now the machine faced the same challenges as Cabrillo, except that it couldn’t swim. Using its LIDAR sensors, the machine deftly avoided both the pylons and the high-rolling waves. Each maneuver robbed it of the chance to find and lock target onto Cabrillo, but it was gaining ground rapidly.
★Linc swore he heard the sound of high-pitched motors in the distance, but the spotting scope hadn’t revealed anything. He dropped the spotting scope and settled in behind his rifle and tracked the Chairman in his crosshairs.
★Cabrillo heard a gunshot behind him. The sting of concrete chips splattering from the nearby pylons and hitting his face told him that whoever had taken the shot had missed—barely.
Almost subconsciously he calculated the geometry between the sound of the gun blast behind him and the shattering pylon, locating the origin of the shot. He quickly angled away from that line of fire toward the far side of the next pylon, hoping to block the next bullet.
Utterly exhausted from his long swim, the emergency adrenaline dump gave him an incredible boost of energy and he surged ahead.
★The octocopter’s optical targeting system finally locked onto the human figure in the water. The software made the necessary calculations and fired a single shot at Cabrillo’s skull.
The Chairman should have been killed, but the wave he’d been cresting suddenly dropped and the bullet missed him by just a few inches.
Just as the octocopter was preparing to take the next shot, another roller zoomed into the drone’s sensor area. It was forced to navigate away before the wave could crash into it, allowing Cabrillo a few extra moments to swim left to a new position, which once again blocked the drone’s vision.
The octocopter maneuvered right and surged forward, anticipating Cabrillo’s next position, hoping to acquire his form in the targeting reticle once again. Another wave rose up on its watery haunches and surged at the vehicle, forcing it farther right until it was now just beyond the outer pylon. Though it had no conception whatsoever of either kismet or dumb luck, the drone found itself perfectly positioned to acquire its target and laid its reticle squarely in the center of Juan’s broad back.
★The first shot from the octocopter jolted through Linc’s central nervous system like an electrical surge, putting all his senses on high alert.
More importantly, the sound of the blast helped him locate the drone, which now angled out from beneath the pier, its engines frothing up the water as it turned to fire.
Linc pulled the trigger and the big Barrett jumped on its tripod, sending a massive .50-caliber armor-piercing bullet downrange. Designed in the 1920s as an anti-vehicle and anti-aircraft round, the “Ma Deuce” easily pierced the octocopter’s aluminum body, smashing its computer brain and scattering its wreckage into the sea.
★Cabrillo turned around in the water toward the whining pitch of the octocopter’s motors just in time to see it shattered by Linc’s shot.
Ten minutes later, he scampered up the rusted ladder and swiped his watch across the flag to capture it. He then turned and dove off the pier, heading for the rendezvous point he and Linc had picked out on the beach.
★Thirty minutes later, Cabrillo crawled up onto the sandbank and jogged inside the dry cave. It was located far below the bluff above and out of sight of any overhead surveillance drones. He was out of breath and bent over, and holding himself up by bracing against his knees.
Linc was already inside, a wide grin on his face, his big Barrett rifle slung across his back. Cabrillo’s gear was stacked nearby. He held out a water canteen. Having survived Hell Week at BUD/S, Linc knew that hours of hard swimming in cold water generated a powerful thirst.
“You were making some serious Aquaman moves out there.”
“Heck…of a…shot,” Cabrillo said between great gulps of air. “Thanks.” He took a long swig of water.
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
Cabrillo wiped his mouth. “Might even get a Christmas bonus for that one.”
Juan stretched out his aching muscles. It had been a marathon swim session for sure, made even harder by the fact he was weighted down with waterlogged combat pants and heavy boots. Now that he was out of the cold water he was beginning to warm up.
Cabrillo’s face suddenly narrowed as if in pain. He dropped his pants.
“What’s wrong?” Linc asked.
Cabrillo opened up his combat leg. He pulled out his sat phone.
It was vibrating.
