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the U.S. gulf coastline. It isn’t going to take them long to figure out we changed course regardless, so this is our best bet for now. We’re going to have to split up if we don’t want to make it easy for them. We’ll drop the first group here, the next here, the next here, and the final group will ditch the boat and come ashore here.
    “There isn’t much in the way of supplies on the boat. We’ll divide them up, but we’re going to need to scavenge. Just be damned careful how you go about it. We don’t want to leave a trail and that means taking a little here and there that won’t be noticed, which also means it’ll take a while.”
    “What’ll we do about witnesses?”
    Mac stared at the man, trying to remember his name. “Leaving bodies to be found isn’t my idea of keeping a low profile,” he responded tartly. “Make sure nobody sees you—none of us, with the possible exception of Hernandez and Gomez, are likely to pass for natives—and neither one of them can speak Spanish worth a shit. If you screw up and have to take any witnesses out, just make damned sure it looks like a local crime—not a military hit.”
    Several of the men chuckled at his remark about Hernandez and Gomez, who both grinned and shrugged good-naturedly, but they turned serious again with the next question.
    “What if … what if the change comes over us?” Cooper asked uneasily.
    Mac felt his belly tighten. “Control it,” he responded tightly.
    “But …. Never mind,” Sawyer muttered.
    “We can’t afford to linger in a populated area long,” Mac said pointedly. “Grab what you can as quickly as you can and head into the jungle. If you pick up a tail, make damned sure you put them down again before you head for the rendezvous. We’ll meet here,” he pointed to a spot on the map, “in, say, ten days. We’ll wait one day for any late 20
    arrivals. If, for any reason, any of you can’t make it, we’ll rendezvous here ten days from the first.”
    “What then?” Cavanaugh growled. “We just gonna ramble around in the fucking jungle forever?”
    Mac fixed him with a hard look. “I don’t have the answers. Once we’ve thrown off the hunters and have a little breathing room, we’ll see what we can come up with.”
    “What about those fuckers that have been torturing the fuck out of us?” Hawk said. “If anybody knows anything about this, it would be them.”
    Mac shrugged despite his irritation with Hawk’s suggestion. “Maybe. And maybe they weren’t focused on curing it any of the time? Still, it’s a possibility. When we rendezvous, we’ll discuss whether we want to break back in to the fucking prison we just broke out of.”
    “Why not just head home? We can hide in the swamp as easily as the jungle and at least we might have a chance of seeing some of our families.”
    Mac pinned the man with a hard, uncompromising look. “ Mostly because of those families,” he growled. “You want to expose them to this? Risk passing it to them and god knows how many others? And say we can’t pass it, just how good are you at controlling the change? You want to risk a transition where you could be a threat to your family? You want to take the chance that you’ll have enough awareness to refrain from tearing them apart if you should change?”
    He waited until that sank in, studying the faces of each of the men to be sure they were on the same page, looking for any sign that there were any among them willing to risk everybody else just to get what they wanted. He was slightly reassured when he saw they seemed to have taken it to heart, but not much. If they continued to slide toward monsters, none of them were going to be able to count on retaining enough humanity to consider the rest of humanity—even their loved ones.
    “Aside from that, we’ve got a better chance in the jungles down here—way more territory that isn’t inhabited, way more places to hide. For now, it’s our best bet. I’m no crazier