Chapter 102

CHAPTER 102

I MUST HAVE slept for twenty-four hours. When I blinked awake, the sun was almost in the same place it was when we arrived. I could smell smoke and heard the sizzle of something cooking. Kira was already awake. She poked my arm. "Look," she whispered. "Somebody's here."

I lifted my head off the mattress. Two young kids were peering into the cabin. A boy and a girl, maybe seven or eight years old. Skinny. Barefoot. In shorts and T-shirts. The boy whispered to the girl. She whispered back, then doubled over, laughing.

The woman from yesterday appeared in the doorway and nudged the kids aside.

"What's so funny?" I asked. "What are they saying?"

The woman grinned, showing a bright smile with a gap in the middle. "They say you're a very big fish."

She tossed our clothes onto the blanket. They were clean and dry and warm from the sun. And the holes had all been mended. We got dressed under the covers and then crawled out onto the deck.

The man was busy at the stern baiting hooks. Kira turned to the woman. "You speak English?"

She shrugged. "Mostly Arabic and Somali. But enough English to get by."

The man set his fishing pole in a socket and walked over, sure-footed on the tilting deck. The woman grabbed his sinewy arm. "I am Ayann. This is Dahir, my husband." She pointed at the kids. "Our son, Hani. Our daughter, Halima." They were both standing at the stern with their skinny legs apart, holding long heavy-duty fishing poles.

I rubbed my head. Was I crazy? "The kids," I said. "Where were they yesterday—when you found us?"

"They were hiding in the hold," said Ayann, "until we knew it was safe."

"Want food?" asked Dahir.

"Yes!" said Kira. "Anything."

There was a small propane stove in the middle of the deck with a smoking pan on top. Dahir lifted the lid and reached in with a fork. Ayann pulled two metal plates from a bin. Dahir speared two fillets of fish out of the pan and served them up. Ayann reached into a battered cooler and pulled out two icy bottles of mineral water.

Kira and I sat back against the cabin and wolfed down the fish. It was charred and flaky and delicious. I polished off my water bottle in one long gulp. Ayann handed me another. "Your names?"

I hesitated. Should we make something up? Did we need new identities? Could these people be trusted?

No hesitation from my partner. "I'm Kira," she said. I guess she was tired of hiding.

"Okay then. I'm Doc."

Dahir was wiping the grease from the cooking pan. He stopped and looked over. "You are a doctor?"

I shook my head. "Not the useful kind."

"It's a nickname," said Kira. "Family tradition."

"Samaka! Samaka!" Halima was shouting. Her pole was bent into a steep curve. Kira and I jumped up as the tiny girl leaned back and reeled in a huge silver-green fish. She trapped it with her bare foot as it flopped onto the deck, then pulled out the hook and tossed her catch into a hatch. She reached into a small bucket squirming with live sardines. Within ten seconds, she rebaited the hook and threw her line out again.

"She's very quick," I said.

Dahir grinned as he checked his own line. "Most days, she catches more than me."

Ayann told us that the family came from a small village near Burgabo. For most of the year, they lived and worked on the boat, chasing schools of bonito and Spanish mackerel up and down the coast. It was too dangerous to live inland. For years, rogue militias had been kidnapping children and trafficking them, or turning them into soldiers.

"That was your boat?" Ayann asked. "The one that sank?"

Kira glanced at me. "No, not ours," she said. "We were just… passengers."

The family had seen the explosions, said Ayann. They lit up the sky. First one bang, then an even bigger one.

"Did you see any other survivors?" Kira asked. "Any bodies?"

Ayann shook her head. "Only you two."

I looked at Kira. Cal had wired himself with the first charge, then timed the main charge to follow. He wanted to be sure there was nothing left. We'd been very, very lucky. If Kira and I hadn't been blown off the top deck, we would have gone down with the ship.

Then my mind spun to another outcome.

What if I'd survived without Kira? What if I'd found her dead, instead of alive? For me, life wouldn't have been worth living.

That night, Kira and I watched the stars come out together. We'd given the family back their cabin, which was their bedroom. We were lying on the roof as the boat bobbed gently, anchored somewhere in the middle of the sea.

"I'm sorry for all this," Kira said. "For everything I've put you through."

"It's not your fault," I said.

"It is my fault," she said. "If you'd never met me, you'd still be Professor Brandt Savage, PhD. You'd be back in Chicago teaching anthropology. I should have just left you there—safe and content."

"I might have been safe," I said. "But I wasn't content. I just didn't realize it."

"Are you saying you're really happier like this—as Doc Savage?"

I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow. Kira turned toward me. I brushed her copper hair back from her beautiful face. "I'm saying I wasn't happy until you found me, and I'm willing to accept whatever comes with it. I don't intend to lose you again."

She put her arm around my shoulders and pulled herself onto me. She kissed me. I kissed her back. I could feel the warmth of her skin, the rhythm of her breathing, the pounding of her heart.

I realized that I had no money. No home. No family. But in that moment I realized that there was only one thing I needed.

That would require a single question from me—and the right answer from Kira.

I hoped the answer would be yes.