“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.”