She flashed the light into his eyes, checking if he had a concussion. She grunted, unsurprised that his pupils reacted normally. “You have a head like a cannonball. How do you feel? Dizzy? Lightheaded? Nauseous?”

“None of the above. It just stings a bit from the salt water.”

“I bet.” Julia knew that like most men, Juan was downplaying the pain. She swabbed out the four-inch-square wound, making sure that the antibacterial made him wince a few times before putting a large sterile dressing over the cut and swathing the top of his head with a gauze wrap. “That should hold you. Sorry, but I’m fresh out of lollipops.”

“Then I guess I should have cried more.” He dry-swallowed the painkillers she’d handed him.

Julia noticed Tory Ballinger standing nearby. “Do I even want to know what you’re doing here?”

“Tory works for Lloyd’s of London,” Juan said, getting to his feet and testing his weight on his artificial limb. While the stump was sore, he had full mobility. “She’s working the same case we are but from the other end.”

“And I thought it was my bedside manner.” The two women shook hands, and Julia asked if Tory needed any medical attention.

Tory was toweling off her hair. “Thanks, Dr. Huxley. I’m fine. Bit shaken maybe, but unharmed.”

“Juan has a good bottle of brandy in his cabin. I’m prescribing at least one snifter.”

“Chairman, you there?” It was Max Hanley over the ship’s intercom. Cabrillo hit the switch mounted to a nearby bulkhead.

“I’m here. What’s the situation?”

“They’re still firing at us from the beach. Just small arms. No RPGs. George Adams has the UAV circling the compound. A few minutes after the ship saw kicked off for the last time, he spotted someone running from the shed. They hopped into a jeep and tore out of the facility headed for a cluster of houses a mile or so up the coast. There’s a chopper on a nearby pad, but so far there’s been no activity around it.”

“What about our bird?”

“Crew has it on ten-minute standby,” Max replied, meaning the four-passenger Robinson helicopter could be in the air in ten minutes.

“Tell George to turn over the UAV to Eric Stone. The kid has enough hours on the Microsoft flight simulator to qualify for his commercial pilot’s license. I want to be airborne as soon as possible. We need Singh alive if we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

“You sure you’re up to this?” Julia asked.