Finn shook all over, his body trembling with the aftershocks of an epic earthquake. He’d poked the bear, all right, and it hadn’t just whacked him back, it had lashed out at him with both paws and ripped the flesh off of him, left him naked and bleeding.
But he was still there.
Still here, Ray.
I’m sorry, Ray.
I’m so sorry.
He had to move.
Breathe.
Still wracked with tremors he couldn’t control, he started across the hangar deck, slipping from craft to craft, reaching out with his ears and instincts far ahead of his feet, moving silently, monitoring in all directions.
The ship was rocking hard now, the storm in full swing. He didn’t care. Didn’t affect him. The police siren was silent now, the dizziness gone.
He was on the stalk.
Fighting to tamp down the full-body shakes, he worked his way aft through hangar bay 2, past the maintenance office and on through hangar bay 3, through the jet engine shops and finally out onto the fantail—
Where Psycho Doc stood off to the port side, back to the rail, struggling to keep his footing on the storm-rocked deck. Leveling his unsteady handgun at Finn.
Every security detail had gone below to join the others in their wild-goose chase. The fantail was empty.
There was no one there but the two of them.
Finn stood in the doorway facing Psycho Doc from about four meters’ distance. Empty-handed.
The wind howled. The sea pitched up fifty-foot waves, some washing up over the rail and sluicing over the deck.
Psycho Doc was having trouble holding his aim. Still, from that distance his chances of a center-mass hit with his first shot were decent. Maybe better than decent.
On the other hand, the first shot could just as easily be a miss—and shot meant recoil, which meant a few precious seconds to retake aim, which upped the odds of Finn successfully rushing him between shot 1 and shot 2.
Finn had played those odds before, and won. But that was no guarantee.
Time slowed to a halt, each man taking the other’s measure.
Both weighing the options, calculating the odds.
Would Psycho Doc shoot Psycho SEAL—or would Psycho SEAL explode into a sudden feint-and-lunge and try to get the jump on Psycho Doc?
Finn would never learn the answer.
Because right at that moment a third possibility presented itself.