Royce drew a burdened breath.
"No. You did. And, you're keeping it. Besides, he's no longer a friend, remember? Don't force me to start questioning your value, as well."
Baker dropped his eyes and voice.
"That's better," said Royce. "Now go on."
Baker again turned for the shore. But a second later, sprang back around. His belt buckle dagger was out and up against Corealis' throat.
"You fool!"
Baker nodded vigorously.
"Yeah, that's me. But now, we're gonna make sure nuthin' happens to Jimbo."
"You've just lost your ticket out!" threatened Royce.
"Uh-huh. And you just might have yours punched. Now, get a move on, Cuz!"
The couple had left the gully's narrow stretch and mounted its steep, wide mouth. Ahead loomed the beautiful lagoon. A breeze continued across it, passed them, and down the cut, out to sea. But it wasn't cool or sweet, just a fetid, sloppy lick.
Then he stepped into view.
It was the same young soldier who'd first guided Trennt to the camp. Now though, his courteous face was hard, his weapon leveled with purpose.
Geri lost her breath at his appearance. But Trennt only regarded what he'd expected all along. He cradled the woman to himself. With a resigned stare, he looked over her head, straight into the calculating hazel eyes of their executioner.
"Shoot straight," was all he said.
The youthful rifleman slowly raised his sights.
"JIMBO! Hold up, Pard! Help's a-comin'!"
The young assassin paused, suddenly uncertain and puzzled by the commotion.
Then there was Baker and his entourage, coming up the draw with all the fanfare of a carnival pulling into town, with Royce Corealis in tow, and the entire landing party circling threateningly about.
He grinned up at Trennt with his typical schoolboy shine.
"Guess I stirred me up another beehive, Pard. Never been much good without yah to keep me in line. Well, your thinkin' was right again. Just never can trust upper management. Lie through their teeth."
They shared that familiar, renewing smile—friends again.
"When you see your chance," ordered Corealis bravely, "shoot him! Shoot them all."
Baker smiled.
"Yeah, boys, you do that. And I guarantee a hole in Mister Cee's neck big 'nuff to spit down."
He frowned at the young assassin.
"Whatcha waitin' for? Toss that piece over. And be quick about it!"
The soldier flung his weapon out as ordered. But the barrel skipped off a rock and the gun twirled just out of Trennt's reach. As Trennt stepped to retrieve it, his weak ankle folded and he went down.
Baker fired a worried glance around his prisoner.
"Pard?"
For a split second the blade loosened.
Corealis jerked aside. A gun exploded.
Baker's grip relaxed and Royce Corealis shoved himself free. The shooter plopped low against the gully wall. The director indignantly brushed himself off and looked over.
"Simple-minded fool."
Giving the prisoners a dismissing glance, he turned back for the boat landing. "Finish it."
Trennt gazed mournfully at his dead colleague. Baker's ultimate, blood-soaked end had long ago been ordained in the stars. But even so, it seemed over too quickly, without the grand flaming finale those knowing him had come to expect. No matter, that chapter was now forever closed, as soon would be the entire book.
The grumbling began. Another brontide. A mild tremor rose expectantly with it, up through the cut of gully walls, then quickly petering out, barely a shudder.
After a moment's pause, the landing party reassembled for their return. The executioner was left to finish his task.
But facing him again, Trennt blinked at something beyond. Out in the lagoon was a motion, a quick surface fizzing about a third of the way across. In moments, it flashed through a simmer and into a furious boil.
Clutching Geri again at his chest, Trennt pressed his mouth to her ear.
"Start breathing hard," he whispered. "Hold your breath, when I say. No matter what, don't let it out!"
Yards ahead, the soldier again focused on the couple. Now though, Trennt gauged his mettle and timed the creep of his trigger finger against a new flatness in the seabound breeze.
Across his sights, a sudden, mystified look came over the young killer.
"Now!" Trennt ordered Geri and chugged a last breath himself.
The soldier's own respiration hiked. His trigger finger flexed and reset. He blinked and drew a fresh bead.
Abruptly, the rifle wavered. It fell away as stunned hands grabbed instead for his throat. The young man toppled, mouth and eyes wide in terror, not comprehending his quick unheralded end.
Dragging Geri along, Trennt charged for the ridge. He push-pulled her higher, higher. With his own lungs ablaze, they made the crest and a hopefully, safer level. But he didn't dare test the air, and instead buried her face tight against him.
Below, the lagoon boiled and pitched, rapidly venting its gush of lethal gas into the seaward breeze. The churning also gnawed at the soft loam-filled shore. It surged and rocked, easily sawing a quick, ragged gash at the lower, gully end.
Driven on, the lethal waves themselves burst forth and flooded down the narrow canyon like a miner's sluice; gas and water quick on the heels of the now retreating shore crew. Trying to outrun it, terrified men dropped their weapons, stumbling over the uneven ground, surging rollers, and each other.
But, heavier than the air it displaced and kept in check by the narrow gully walls, the lethal mix of carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia flushed freely among them, asphyxiating man after man in the span of mere steps.
Royce Corealis had enough presence of mind to cut a right angle to the flow and start against it, toward the ridge. His only mistake was in crossing over the dying Ivory Baker.
Baker's eyes reanimated with the director's approach. In a last act of defiance, he grabbed the man's ankle and hung on. Understandably, his grip was weak, and in seconds, Corealis easily stomped and kicked himself free of the gunman.
Yet doing so caused Royce to squander the extra breath he needed to clear the steep gully wall. And halfway up, he rattled with an air-starved hiccup. His esophagus burned and he coughed, sucking in a throatful of gas.
Royce spat it back immediately. But the floodgates to an unstoppable cycle had been sprung and he coughed and breathed again. And again. His chest tightened. His vision blurred. The ridge danced and twirled teasingly just out of reach.
Royce Corealis was angry. All those years of working so hard at staying in shape, only to have his body betray him like this!
He willed it on. Yet his steps became staggered, rubbery. His limbs wouldn't obey. Nor would his foolish lungs be still. Out of control, they pulled madly at the searing witch's brew, cramming more and more poison deep inside.
His grip loosened and the interim president fell away.
In minutes the event was over. The pond had emptied, its water and poisons both flushed out to sea. Trennt and Geri still hugged the ridgetop, nearly unconscious themselves from the effort of holding their breath.
Climbing to their feet, they tested the air with quick gasps and looked about. Below, all signs of the landing party were gone. What the gas had stilled, thousands of tons of water and mud had flushed away. Neither Corealis nor Baker were anywhere to be seen.
In the bay, the jet seaplane still rode at anchor. Roughly jounced about, it now settled back into a lopsided buoyancy, regaining its threatened confidence. But no activity registered aboard it, either. Any crew left there had likely succumbed, as well.
Trennt spied a few inches of metal jabbing rakishly from the heavy sediment. It was the filthy barrel of an M-16, which he rocked free of the dense, foul mud. He also managed a clutch of floating MRE pouches and a few remaining odds and ends.
The couple transferred what little they salvaged to the lone surviving raft and climbed aboard. Trennt fired up the 2-cycle outboard motor and pulled some yards from shore, where he stopped and sat idling.
Here, the breeze was exhilarating. After so many weeks of dirty land travel, the couple lingered gratefully in its welcomed embrace.
Then Geri pointed to something floating further out. Barely breaking the surface, it was green-brown and lacquered to a shine by the waves. At first Trennt thought it a turtle. Drawing up, however, he realized it was the insulated box of catalyst vials.
Trennt gaffed the box with the M-16's flash suppressor and brought it aboard. There at their feet, the amber fluid looked so innocent. There was no indication of all the hard miles it'd traveled. No tally of the lives it had cost, nor the millions more it could prevent from ever beginning. Trennt handed the ampoules to Geri and she quietly finished the task begun by Wayne those days before.
Trennt then idled further into the current. There he realized, for the first time, that he had no new sense of direction. His hand absently worked the tiller, unsure of where to proceed.
Again, it was Geri who had the answer. Reading his mind, she reached for the motor and deftly killed its ignition. They'd let the current decide.
She gently kissed her man on the forehead, then settled to the floor at his feet. He, in turn, set a loving hand to her shoulder.
Slowly, they drifted north, up the coast.