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Back Deception Cove Save as PDF
Chapters (78)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-One
  48. Forty-Two
  49. Forty-Three
  50. Forty-Four
  51. Forty-Five
  52. Forty-Six
  53. Forty-Seven
  54. Forty-Eight
  55. Forty-Nine
  56. Fifty
  57. Fifty-One
  58. Fifty-Two
  59. Fifty-Three
  60. Fifty-Four
  61. Fifty-Five
  62. Fifty-Six
  63. Fifty-Seven
  64. Fifty-Eight
  65. Fifty-Nine
  66. Sixty
  67. Sixty-One
  68. Sixty-Two
  69. Sixty-Three
  70. Sixty-Four
  71. Sixty-Five
  72. Sixty-Six
  73. Sixty-Seven
  74. Sixty-Eight
  75. Acknowledgments
  76. Discover More
  77. About the Author
  78. Also by Owen Laukkanen

“Yeah, I can handle this,” Mason said, and he dug into his pocket, found another treat, a piece of the dried beef liver he’d noticed was Lucy’s favorite. “You don’t have to worry about us.”

It was a Wednesday morning when Mason boarded his first bus. On Friday night the sixth bus turned off of state Route 112 and pulled to a stop in an empty ARCO parking lot, and the driver opened the door and stood and called “Deception Cove” back to the half dozen passengers still on board.

Mason was the only one to get off the bus. He thanked the driver and stood in the cold drizzle, watching the bus pull away, listened to the sound of its engine until the taillights disappeared around a bend in the road and the sound diminished to nothing, until the only thing he could hear was the buzzing of the lights above on the ARCO canopy and, somewhere in the distance, the sound of the surf.

Mason stood there and thought for a while. He wanted to talk to the sheriff, the deputy in question, see if he could tease out the real story. See if there was any way the local law enforcement could be swayed to break toward leniency. At the very least, figure out what had happened and why.

But it was too late at night to start anything now. From the looks of the town, anyone with any sense had already gone to bed. Mason drew his coat tighter, squared his shoulders. Set out into the rain down the highway, the way the bus had come in, remembered seeing a motel a ways back, a bright VACANCY sign. Figured it would do to get out of the rain, get some sleep. First thing tomorrow he’d have to buy some dry clothes.

Five

Five

Looking back, Jess realized the whole op had felt wrong—or maybe that was just hindsight. In her dreams, anyway, she could think of a million reasons why she and Afia should have just walked away.

They figured out pretty quick that the preliminary intelligence was wrong, or at least wildly optimistic, as they walked down from the forward outpost and south into the narrow, high-walled valley, that place of shale and pine they’d been fighting Haji over for the better part of their deployment, and seemingly every marine deployment before that, back to the dawn of the corps itself. The sun was baking hot, as usual, and it glared down from on high like an insurgent sniper, another malevolent force in that hostile land.