The second shotgun followed the first. He saw Jack pull the pistol from his belt, look at it, then tuck it back in.

Tom glanced once more at the carnage on the boat decks, then looked again. Had one of the bodies moved?

“I think someone’s still alive out there.”

“Probably not for long.”

“Do you think we should—?”

Jack turned on him. “You’ve got to be kidding. A few moments ago they were trying to kill us.”

“In the Corps we always treated enemy wounded.”

“This isn’t the Corps, and this isn’t war. This is a street fight that just happened to take place where there aren’t any streets.” His face twisted, almost into a snarl. “What do you think we’re going to do? Paddle a couple of them back and lug them to a hospital? How do you explain their wounds? How do you explain the double-ought buckshot in their hides? In this system, you’ll wind up behind bars while they lounge around a hospital. And when they’re all fixed up, some ambulance chaser will hook up with them and file civil suits to clean you out of everything you own, every penny you’ve saved up your whole life.”

Tom was seeing another side of Jack and wasn’t sure he liked this one.

“But—”

“But nothing!”

He turned and stomped off to one of the old huts and returned a moment later with something dangling from his hand. He stopped before Tom and held it up.

“See this?”

It was rectangular and looked a little like parchment, but it was too supple for that. It was patterned with crisscrossing scars and round, punctate depressions the size of a pencil eraser. When Tom realized what it was he took an involuntary step back.

“Right,” Jack said. “This is all they left of Anya, and then they hung it up to cure. Now tell me how much you want to risk to help one of those bastards.”

Tom felt a rising fury. Anya…what they’d done to Anya…a part of him wanted to paddle out there and finish off any survivors. But he couldn’t allow himself to step over that line.

He shook his head. “Nothing. They’re on they’re own.”

“Damn right.”

Jack stared at the grisly remnant in his hands, then looked around. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He appeared to come to a decision as he rolled up the skin and tucked it inside his shirt.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“It’s all that’s left of her. I think she deserves some sort of burial ceremony, don’t you?”

Here was still another side of Jack. Tom sensed it could be a living nightmare to be his son’s enemy, but a very good thing to be his friend.