“I don’t know how I can shoot what I can barely see.”
“Bran’s going to bring it in for you. Start at twenty yards, Bran, straight ahead over the water.”
Doyle stepped behind Sasha. “It’ll recoil, so you need to go with that.” He adjusted her stance, put his hands over hers. “Use the sight, hold it steady. Do you have it?”
“Well, I can see it, in the cross—the crosshairs.”
“Steady,” he said again. “Don’t jerk when you pull the trigger. You want it smooth, building the pressure, like drawing a line. Keep drawing it even after you fire. A slow pull, all the way. Take a breath, hold it, fire.”
She did as he told her, let out an embarrassing squeal when the kick shoved her back against him. “Sorry. And I completely missed.”
“You pulled up and to the right,” Riley told her.
“Steady,” Doyle repeated. “Try again.”
She didn’t squeal this time, but hissed. And by the third time she just dinged the bottom of the globe.
“It won’t be your primary weapon,” Doyle began.
“Thank God.” Happy to relinquish it, she passed it to Doyle.
“But you’ll learn how to handle it, clean it, load it, and use it with accuracy.”
“All right.” She rolled her aggravated shoulder. “I’ll learn.”
“And you.” Doyle gestured to Bran. “Not even close to your primary weapon.”
“And still,” Bran agreed.
They spent twenty minutes destroying target globes before stowing the weapons.
“I’m going to take Anni down, so she can swim. It’ll smooth her out after all the gunfire.”
“Dawn, as usual,” Doyle reminded Sawyer.
“Not likely to forget.”
“I’ve got another hour’s work in me,” Bran decided.
“And I’ll start working on that coat of arms.”
Riley closed the outside door as the others filed out. Doyle stowed the rifles.
“We’ll take my bike tomorrow.”
“Fine with me. With Sawyer bringing everybody to us, we should be able to start diving around nine thirty. Annika’s right about the water temp, so we’ll have to limit underwater time. Maybe do a couple of thirty-minute dives tomorrow, get acclimated.”
Since he made no move to leave, she studied him. “Have you ever dived in the North Atlantic?”
“A few times.”
“You’re not going to tell me you were a Navy SEAL, are you?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Seriously?” A dozen questions popped into her mind, but she shook her head.
“Five years. Any longer than that with one group is risky.”
“I can see that. But right now, we’re not just a group, and we already know who you are. It should make things easier for you.”
“It doesn’t.”
When he walked out on that, Riley let out a sigh. “It should,” she murmured.
• • •
In the morning, after a sweaty hour under Doyle’s training whip, a hot breakfast where they refined and confirmed the diving plan, Riley pulled on a battered leather jacket. As a hopeful sun had broken through the earlier gloom and drizzle, she pushed on her sunglasses.
She had her tank suit for diving under her sweatshirt and cargoes, her gun on her hip under the jacket, and her cell phone secured in the inside pocket.
And considered herself good to go.
She’d been quick, and walked outside at eight twenty-seven. She couldn’t say, exactly, why it irritated her that Doyle waited beside his bike.
He held out a black helmet with a small emblem of the dragon that flew over the side of the bike.
“Why do you even have this?” she wondered. “A fractured skull wouldn’t hold you back for long.”
“It’s the law in a lot of places, and you make fewer ripples if you follow local laws. And a fractured skull wouldn’t kill me, but it fucking hurts.”
She strapped on the helmet. “Haven’t had the experience, but I bet.”
He swung on the bike. “Navigate.”
“You could just let me drive.”
“No. Lay out the route.”
“South on the coast road toward Spanish Point. Should be a sign about a half kilometer this side for Donahue’s Diving. Follow that down to the beach. I’m licensed,” she added, swinging on behind him.
“Nobody drives my bike.”
He kicked it to life. The dragon roar of bikes had always appealed to her, as had the sensation of speed and the freedom of blasting down the road open to the wind.
It all appealed less when riding pillion.
Still, his bike, his rules.
She set her hands on his hips, and imagined she was driving.
Down the bumpy lane, around the curves where Bran had let the hedgerows of fuchsia rise to form borders, and sassy wildflowers poked up to edge the dirt track. Around and beyond the forest where the track turned onto pavement.
While she enjoyed the speed and power, the smell of green still damp from the morning shower, she kept a sharp eye out for any ravens—for anything that struck her as off.
No need for conversation with the roar and buffeting wind, and no need to direct as Doyle wound them to the coast road. She imagined he’d made the journey on horseback or cart more than once.
Had he played on the beach as a boy, splashed in the waves, shouted out laughing as the chilly water rolled over him? Sailed out in a currach, fished the seas?