His weapon cracked once as Juan continued to lose his balance, falling as if in slow motion. Juan triggered off two rounds as his backside connected with the dock. The first missed but the second impacted center mass. The guard’s gun flew from his lifeless fingers and the case clattered onto the floating pier.

He turned to look at Sloane.

She was on her knees, her hand pressed into her underarm. Her face was a mask of silent agony.

Juan slithered to her side.

“Hold on, Sloane, hold on,” he soothed. “Let me see.”

He gently raised her arm, causing her to suck air through her teeth. Tears leaked from her eyes. Her blood was hot and slick as Juan felt for the wound and when he accidentally touched the torn flesh Sloane cried out.

“Sorry.”

He pulled her blouse away from her skin, wedged his fingers into the rent torn by the bullet, and ripped the fabric apart so he could see the entry point. He used a flap of cloth to softly wipe away some of the blood. The light from the burning yacht was wavering and erratic but he could see that the bullet had gouged a two-inch trench along the rib cage under her arm.

He looked into her eyes. “You’re going to be okay. I don’t think it penetrated. It just grazed you.”

“It hurts, Juan, oh sweet God, it hurts.”

He held her awkwardly, mindful of her wound. “I know it does. I know.”

“I bet you do,” she said, stifling her pain. “I’m crying like baby over this when you had a leg shot off by the Chinese Navy.”

“According to Max, when the shock finally wore off I sounded like a whole nursery full of colicky infants. Wait here for a second.”

“Not like I’m going to go for a swim or anything.”

Juan went back to the yacht. The fire was too advanced for him to recover anything from the cabins but he managed to strip the guard he hadn’t expected of a sports coat. The fact that he was wearing a thousand-dollar Armani blazer told him this guy wasn’t a guard but was most likely the head of this operation. A suspicion confirmed when the briefcase turned out to be a laptop computer.

“If it was important enough to save,” Juan said, holding up the ThinkPad when he returned to Sloane’s side, “it’s important enough to retrieve. We have to put some distance between us and that boat. When its twin exploded against the side of the Oregon she made one hell of a fireworks show.”