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I’ll bring along my SRT.”
    She glanced at him for explanation.
    “Special Response Team.” Jack nodded to the white patrol boat moored off the other island. “The Border Patrol’s equivalent of Special Forces.”
    “In other words, Border Patrol commandos?”
    “They’re good men,” he said a bit too defensively, only realizing afterward that she was gently joking with him.
    Flustered, he turned away.
    A flurry of activity was going on across the water. The Fish and Wildlife boat—a foil-supported catamaran—had arrived and anchored offshore. The wardens and border agents were busily ferrying cargo from the trawler’s hold.
    “Let’s get back over there,” Lorna said.
    Jack heard the desire in her voice, plainly anxious to oversee the offloading herself. She had left the jaguar cub on his boat, cradled in an empty fishing tackle box.
    They were wading toward the Zodiac—when the fishing trawler exploded.

Chapter 6
    Knee-deep in water, Lorna watched in horror as the trawler’s hull shattered outward in a blast of fire and smoke. Its wooden fishing booms went sailing high, trailing flaming nets. Debris scattered over the island and out to sea.
    Along with bodies.
    She covered her mouth.
    How many had been aboard the trawler?
    Burning planks and wreckage rained down upon the two anchored patrol boats. Shouts and screams echoed over the water. Smoke roiled high into the blue sky.
    Jack grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the Zodiac.
    They climbed into the pontoon boat and shoved off. Jack yanked on the outboard’s starter, and seconds later, they were flying across the waters. He had the radio to his ear. She listened to his end of the conversation.
    Confusion still reigned, but command filled his voice. “Call back that chopper! Let emergency services know we’re coming in with wounded.”
    Across the way, the broken husk of the trawler smoldered on the beach. The other two boats circled the nearby waters, searching through the floating wreckage and flaming pools of oil. Survivors fished bodies out of the water.
    Jack opened the throttle and shot the Zodiac back to the island.
    Lorna pointed to a figure rising out of the surf. It was one of the Border Patrol agents. He struggled to his knees, cradling one arm. Blood ran down his face from a scalp wound. He looked stunned, in shock.
    “Jack! Over there!”
    He responded and swung the Zodiac in the man’s direction. They sped over and collected the injured man. It was the agent who had passed Jack the flashlight earlier. His arm was broken, clearly a compound fracture from the white bone poking through his sleeve.
    Lorna held a fistful of rags to his forehead, stanching the bleeding.
    “Where’s Tompkins?” the man asked, bleary-eyed. “He . . . he was still on the upper deck.”
    They searched the waters. The wounded agent tried to stand in the Zodiac, but Jack barked for him to stay seated.
    Lorna noted Jack squint toward the beach one last time and away again. Only then did she spot a body sprawled near the tree line. Smoke steamed from his burned clothes. A dark stain flowed into the sand. The body was missing an arm and half its skull.
    Jack met her gaze as he swung around. She read his expression.
    Tompkins .
    Lorna felt tears swelling—not in grief but at the senselessness of it all. “What happened?” she whispered to herself.
    Still, Jack must have heard her as he cut the engine and let the Zodiac drift up against his patrol boat. The pontoons bumped them to a stop. “A dead man’s switch,” he answered cryptically as men scrambled down to help carry the injured agent up to the deck of the boat.
    Another replaced Jack at the rudder of the Zodiac, ready to continue the search for survivors. Jack was needed above, to take command. Lorna followed him up the ladder.
    The open deck had been converted into a triage hospital. The uninjured tended to the wounded. Some sat up; others were flat on their back. She also noted one form covered