Thresh: Alpha One Security: Book 2 by Jasinda Wilder

Author:Jasinda Wilder [Wilder, Jasinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-30T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

Since it was nearing sundown, Filipo insisted on taking us in himself, and I noticed Lola didn’t argue very much.

The trip was slow, oppressively hot, and stultifying. Bugs bit me nonstop, and every channel looked the same as the last. Oh sure, it was beautiful enough, but not my thing. Give me mountains or white sand beaches and, preferably, the snow bunnies and beach bunnies to go with them. This endless slog through one identical waterway and channel after another, the banks sliding past on either side in sludge-slow increments, the motor buzzing weakly, our bow barely causing a ripple…?

No thanks.

I understood within ten minutes what Lola had meant by having to know exactly where you were going, though, because that’s how fast I was lost. Filipo, however, obviously knew exactly where he was going, because he never hesitated when it came to turning into a minor offshoot, or cutting across a larger bay and into another tiny canal. When we hit larger, more open areas, Filipo would gun the motor a bit, which always caused me relief but, for the most part, he stuck to tiny, narrow channels, meandering our way slowly south and west. At least, that’s how I interpreted our overall vector. It was hard to keep track.

After what I reckoned to be over an hour, and probably closer to two, Filipo slowed to a crawl, scanning the bank on our left side. When I say bank, I mean a wall of mangrove trees, unbroken, thick boughs waving softly in a slow hot breeze, the occasional tree arching out over the water. I don’t know what Filipo was looking for, since there didn’t seem to be anything to find, even as I scanned the same bank, looking for any kind of irregularity. Filipo just trawled along slow enough that I could have gotten out and crawled on my hands and knees faster, bum arm and all.

And then, seemingly at random, he swung the tiller of the boat to angle the bow toward the bank. As we got closer, I saw it: an opening in the trees, so narrow and so well obscured by low-hanging branches that you’d miss it if you weren’t looking for it very carefully, and knew what to look for ahead of time.

As we cut toward the opening, Filipo cut the outboard motor and tilted it up out of the water, and then pulled a long, thick pole from a set of hooks spot-welded to the inside lip of the boat along the right side. The trees concealing the opening were swiftly approaching, despite our slow pace, and it wasn’t until Filipo spoke up that I realized exactly how low those were.

“Best duck, uso,” he called up to me, “or you get a nasty whack on the head.”

I ducked, just in time, and even then the branches scraped and grabbed at my head as we slid under them. Once past, we found ourselves in a tree-shrouded tunnel, the water so shallow it was a wonder we didn’t run aground.

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