“Flying microbots!” Leila cried, swinging the rail gun toward the amorphous swarm.

“You can’t shoot them down!” Johnny yelled as he watched her power up the weapon. “That’s like trying to machinegun killer bees!”

“Yeah.” Leila didn’t even bother to use the laser sight, but aimed in the general direction of the black cloud. “But if I can set up a shock wave, it’ll tear them apart without having to score direct hits.”

She punched a button. “Cover your ears!”

She switched the rail gun to full auto firing. Every second, eight steel pellets accelerated to nearly ten times the speed of sound. The sonic clap of each shot blurred together into one deafening roar. The blazing trails of ionized, superheated air merged into a single, painfully bright white glare. The cumulative recoil caused the seaplane to pivot about slowly in the water. After two minutes of steady fire, Leila released the trigger.

The air stank of ozone and vaporized salt. Their ears rang with pain. Leila rubbed her aching eyes and stared blinking out the cargo hatch. The cloud of mechanical locusts was gone. A diffuse blanket of particles coated the surface of the water where some of the shattered creatures had fallen, coloring the blue-green water an oily black. Leila turned her gaze toward the rear of the Seamaster.

And stared right into the muzzle brake of a 9mm submachine gun.

The man holding the submachine gun stood in an inflatable boat similar to Cap’s. Mexican, mid-thirties, hr dressed not in islander’s clothes but in brown and beige battle fatigues. A scar on the left side of his head ran raggedly from ear to chin. No mind-numbed zombie, he gazed at the pair steadily, carefully, saying nothing. The weapon in his grip said it all.

Leila deliberated for a swift instant. If she had not had the boy on onboard the plane, she might have taken a calculated dive for cover and gone for the pistol at her thigh. As it was, though, Jonathan stood directly in harm’s way. She raised her hands, an angry smile crossing her lips.

“Flash,” she subvocalized to her earcomm while maintaining her tight-lipped smile. “Lei’s in trouble.”

“What’s wrong?” buzzed the tiny satellite-relayed voice.

She again spoke without moving her lips. “Big man with small gun beat me to the draw.”

“Keep us informed,” Flash said. “Let me know when I can lock the plane.”

“Thanks loads.” Subvocalization carried inflections quite well-hers dripped with sarcasm.

Johnny-unaware of the radio exchange-watched her surrender, then lifted his own arms in defeat. The gunman picked up a walkie-talkie and muttered something into it in Spanish.

“What do we do now?” Johnny asked.

“As little as possible,” Leila replied.

•

Their captor waited until reinforcements arrived on a second boat before he got close enough to the woman and the boy. Three other armed men covered him while he disarmed Leila and forced them into the boat. On her way out of the cargo hatch, Leila stumbled and grasped the side of the hatchway. Her fingers contracted three times, then she stood and lowered herself into the boat, putting her hand out to help Johnny in. The gunman stood over them grinning for a moment, the scar on his jawline puckering with the action. Then he manacled the pair together with rusty handcuffs.

“¿Dónde duermas, chiquita?” he asked, clamping the cuffs on her wrist.

Leila smiled sweetly, tossed her length of ebony hair behind her, and said: “Canaya.”

Her captor stiffened, the smile fading from his face. The crew of the other boat laughed.

“¡Silencio!” he shouted. He gazed up and down at the woman, then smiled again. With mock courtliness, he swept an arm gallantly toward the boat, his other arm still gripping the submachine gun.

“Por favor, señorita,” he said with a curt bow.

“Gracias, Don Pistolero,” she said with equally polite irony.

Jonathan watched the exchange wondering how she could be so cool-almost flippant-in such a dangerous situation. He had never in his life had a gun pointed at him until this week. He tried to be reassured by her calm, but inside he quaked with fear and outrage.

“Are you clear of the plane?” Hoile asked.

“Drop the hatch,” she whispered.

Leila turned to look back at the Seamaster. The crew of the other boat prepared to climb inside when the hatch suddenly whined into life, sliding shut just as one of the men reached to tie a line from the boat to the aircraft. It dropped swiftly down, pinning his arms. The other two struggled to pull him out and eventually succeeded, with no small amount of blood and outcry on the hapless victim’s part. The hatch door sealed and locked.

“Seamaster’s secure, Flash.”

The man piloting the boat saw nothing of the injury. He stared toward the northern island, a brown and green mound thrusting out of the blue Pacific. He guided the boat toward the western end where a sea cave admitted them into the depths of the island.

The hot, dank air inside the cave smelled of iodine and dead fish. The cavern curved sharply, cutting off outside sunlight. Motoring into darkness, the Mexican pulled a remote control unit from his fatigues and pressed one of the rubber buttons.

Lights flicked on along the twisting cavern. He piloted toward a makeshift dock at the far end.

Leila spoke up in a friendly tone, her voice reverberated oddly off the rocky walls.

“Mi nombre es Leila, Señor. ¿Cómo se llama usted?”

The Mexican snorted. “Perez.”

Leila smiled. “¿Habla usted inglés, Perez?”

Perez gave her a quirky sort of smile. It made his scar wrinkle. “Doctor Dandridge no habla español, so he picks people who are at least familiar with English. I speak the best.” He added, “You speak Spanish better than a tourist.”

“Thank you. But this is not my idea of a summer cruise.”

Perez laughed heartily as he brought the boat to a thumping halt by the wooden dock. This far up the inlet, the unbearable stench assaulted their nostrils like a punch to the face. Johnny tried to breath without using his nose. Leila acted as if she were a guest at the Ritz. He could tell that she was trying to butter up their captor.

On the dock stood a small console with a telephone built into it. Perez lifted the receiver and waited a moment. Then he said, “Doctor Dandridge, we have the boy and the woman.” He listened to his instructions, then said, “Yes, yes.” He placed the receiver back into its cradle.

Stepping back into the boat to undo their shackles, he said, “I will not handcuff you for our walk, but I will stay behind you with a gun to the boy’s spine. Please do only what I ask.”

“Certainly,” Leila said as neutrally as possible, communicating neither defiance nor submission, merely agreement.

Johnny, rage building up inside him at the powerless nature of their situation, felt less threatened by the weapon at his back than he felt insulted at being used to keep the woman under control. His ears burned red at the humiliation, as if Perez expected some sort of maternal instinct of Weir’s to prevent her from striking back.

Worse, that was exactly the case.

The trio marched through a dripping wet and twisting cavern aided only by the flashlight in Perez’s left hand.

“You know Dandridge is turning your people into electronic zombies,” she said conversationally.

Perez sneered out a smile. “You think because we are the same race I should feel kinship with them? People are bound together by interest, not race. My interest is in being on the winning side.”

“What does Dandridge want you to do with us?” Johnny asked.

“Oh, just hold on to you. Hostages. He needs that to control your friends.”

Leila shook her head, undulating her jet-black hair. “It won’t work. Captain Anger doesn’t pay blackmail.”