On Hurricane Island Read online

  Hide where, Gandalf wants to ask, and why don’t you trust me to keep my own phone? But she changes her mind. They must get away from the building quickly; once the eye brings relative calm, people will come looking.

  Austin opens the door. Peering out into the dark, she stands motionless for a moment before waving Norah and Gandalf into the dim hallway.

  “Take a good look and orient yourselves,” Austin whispers, aiming the flashlight down the corridor. “We’re going to have to do this in the dark.”

  Adjusting her backpack, Gandalf follows the flashlight beam and memorizes the corridor. She counts the doors on both sides and notes the stairwell on the left. When Austin switches off the light, the three women huddle together while their eyes readjust. Then Austin takes a step forward and the others follow, shuffling as silently as their oversized boots and crackling oilcloth allow. They aim for the small barred window in the door at the far end of the corridor, a square foot of murky light.

  Gandalf links her elbow through Norah’s. Her right hand skims the cement block wall. She counts a doorway each time her hand bumps over the molding, slides across the heavy wooden door, then climbs back up over the ledge of the doorjamb onto the rough wall again. One, then two, finally five doors, moving towards the cloudy square beacon.

  Ahead on the left, in the shadowy alcove at the bottom of the stairs, a dark shape protrudes from the wall. As they approach, the shape becomes the figure of a person, a man. He steps into the corridor and blocks their way. Norah squeezes Gandalf’s elbow. Austin switches on the flashlight.

  Henry Ames looks awful, his skin a bruised gray. He half-smiles at them. “Going someplace, ladies?”

  38. HENRY, 2:39 P.M.

  He isn’t sure what he expected to accomplish by confronting the women or what he thought he’d feel. A charge of adrenalin, or maybe he even half-hoped to redeem himself as a functioning agent? But when he steps into the hallway, the action evokes more dread than thrill. It might be exhaustion or whatever’s going on in his chest, but looking at the panic on Austin’s face, at Ms. Levinsky’s resignation, at the Cohen woman’s barely suppressed fury, he’s had enough.

  And since he’s being honest with himself, he can admit that he has no desire to stop their escape. In fact, the Coombs girl probably had the right idea about dealing with Tobias.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Austin stammers.

  Henry waves her words away. He doesn’t want her explanations.

  “The other officer,” Gandalf begins.

  Norah interrupts her. “Tobias—”

  “Is out of control,” Henry says. “I know.”

  “He said he’s in charge now.” Austin’s voice seems to beg for his contradiction.

  “That’s true.” Henry puts out his hand to steady himself against the wall. “I’ve been relieved of my command.”

  The three women exchange glances.

  “He assaulted me,” Austin whispers.

  Henry nods. “I taped his interrogation and watched it. You did what you had to.”

  “So what happens now?” Austin asks.

  “Are you going to make us go back?” Norah adds.

  His career is over. Let Tobias deal with it. Besides, he has bigger worries than his job. Cat hating him, for one thing, and Melissa feeling pretty much the same, even without knowing the worst thing. It makes him nauseous to imagine what his daughter will say when Cat tells her. In any case, it’s almost impossible to concentrate. The pain under his breastbone is constant now, and he’s run out of antacids.

  “No,” he says. “I’m not going to do anything.”

  “Are you letting us go?” Gandalf asks.

  Henry nods. “This is the first decision I’ve made in a very long time that feels right. Get out of here while you can.” He leans against the wall. He isn’t actually making a decision; it’s more that his cells have given up, have divested themselves of any residual loyalty to this place.

  “You look awful,” Austin says. “Are you sick?”

  “Just heartburn. You’d better move quickly, before someone finds you.”

  Austin glances at Norah, then Gandalf, raising her eyebrows in a silent question. Both women look puzzled. Austin touches his arm. “You can come with us, if you want.”

  “Thank you.” He shakes his head. “Go.”

  He watches the women take the stairs down towards the mess hall, towards the rage of the storm. Maybe he should go help them. Alone they won’t get far in this storm. He hopes they get away. He probably shouldn’t feel that way, but he does. He’d better check in with Bert again. And much as he hates the idea, he should also go untie Tobias because no one should be left like that, not even him. Tobias isn’t really an evil man, down deep. His actions are misguided, certainly, but he and Tobias want the same thing for their country, don’t they? Pushing away from the wall, he turns on his flashlight. Before anything else, he needs antacids.

  The infirmary door opens easily. After this is over, he’ll have to convince the DC guys that installing locks with keys makes much more sense in this storm-magnet place. Or not, because he’ll never have to try to convince those turkeys about anything, ever again. They never listen, anyway. After this is over, he’ll most likely be out of a job, and probably brought up on charges. In the very best scenario, he’ll be pushing papers around the support desk of a podunk local office somewhere. No thank you.

  Sitting on the edge of the sickbay bed, he rummages through the medication box and shoves a handful of antacid tablets into one pocket. He unscrews the top of the bright pink bottle and chugs the disgusting stuff. Dismal Bismol, Melissa called it when she was little. He shoves the box under the bed. Can’t have drugs sitting out in plain sight.

  He checks his cell phone, but service is out. He wishes he still had Dr. Cohen’s phone, wishes he had really talked to her girlfriend, but that chance is gone. He lets his head fall forward into his hands. He should call Bert, who’ll be keeping track of the hurricane, if the dock guardhouse is still standing. It takes two tries to push himself up from the sagging infirmary cot, then a minute to catch his breath. Luckily, the ship-to-shore phone is just down the hall and has battery backup.

  In the duty room, two Army sergeants, Cyrus and the tall guy with the gravelly voice, stand smoking in front of the window, staring out at the spiraling eddy of wind and rain, tree branches and leaves. Henry can never remember the tall guy’s name.

  “Everything okay here, men?” He squints at his nametag. Stanley Mason.

  “You bet,” Mason says, “if you don’t mind this. It’s like being inside my mom’s blender do-hickey.”

  “All our visuals are out, sir,” Cyrus says. “Communications and surveillance.”

  “What about the generator?”

  “Flickering in and out. Could be water in the line.”

  Damn. Henry steps closer to the sergeant. “Hasn’t anyone gone to fix it? The phones and lights are optional, but perimeter security system isn’t.” It’s odd that he still worries about security, but it’s just habit.

  “Tobias said he’d take care of it. We haven’t heard from him in …” He looks at Mason, who shrugs. “Must be over an hour, sir.”

  Henry points to Cyrus. “Gear up and take a look at the generator. And you,” he turns to Mason, “do walking rounds in the Men’s Section.”

  The two sergeants look at each other. Maybe they’ve already heard that he has no authority to give them orders. But no, that’s worry on their faces, not insubordination.

  “Is the staff meeting still on for 1700 hours, sir?” Cyrus asks.

  “Yes,” Henry says. Maybe there’ll be a miracle before then.

  After they leave, Henry opens the ship-to-shore closet, grateful that some areas are considered too marginal in importance to warrant high-tech security.

  “The dock’s still standing,” Bert reports. “You find your people?”

  Henry catches his breath. What does Bert know? “My people?”


  “You said you were looking for two women?”

  “Oh. Yes. Taken care of.” Why lie to Bert? Soon everyone will know he’s been fired. When he walks by, people will snicker, or look away. He shakes those thoughts away; he has work to do now. “What’s the update on the storm?”

  “Last I heard, looked like the eye was heading right for us. That puts us in the quadrant to get the worst of it, right now, over the next hour or two. It’ll let up some when the eye gets here. Then, heavy rain.” Bert pauses. “And flooding.”

  “Thanks. We’ll sit tight,” Henry disconnects. Flooding? He can’t focus on one more potential problem. His heart is still thrashing about the women. It was stupid to mention them to Bert.

  One more call to make. He dials his home number, but Cat doesn’t pick up. Why isn’t she home? Where can she be in the middle of a hurricane? He wants to sob into the answering machine. Instead he controls his voice, forcing steady syllables from his throat. “We need to talk. I love you.”

  He hangs up and surveys the room. Everything looks ordinary, except the whirling, howling mess outside the window. Will he ever return to this room?

  Closing the duty room door behind him, Henry stands in the dark corridor, letting his flashlight beam drift uselessly to the wood plank floor. What should he be doing? For the first time in decades, he doesn’t have orders, doesn’t know what is expected of him. Or what he expects of himself.

  Right now, there’s no choice. He has to deal with Tobias.

  39. RAY, 2:43 P.M.

  The carport offers no protection against the rain and wind.

  “We could wait for the eye,” he says to Catherine. “We’ll get a calmer period then. An hour if we’re lucky before the eye wall hits.”

  “Wait how long?”

  He shrugs. “At least an hour, maybe more. Course the sea won’t be any calmer.”

  Catherine shakes her head. “Let’s just go.”

  Those are her last words, though he wouldn’t be able to hear anything else anyway. “Hang on tight,” he says, maneuvering the boat away from the dock into the narrow sound.

  She grips the rail with both hands, but he can’t pay much mind to her. Furious waves slap the hull, jerking the wheel from his hands. The swells are as big as he’s ever seen in the protected sound, tossing their boat like an angry animal trying to dislodge a predator clawing his back. An angry sea, he thinks, fighting for its life. Like his girl, fighting to get away from the trouble on Hurricane. He remembers something Austin said about seeing the island from a plane on some work-related trip she couldn’t talk about. From above, she said that Hurricane Island looked like a woman pursued and heading furiously out to sea. Austin always did have a good imagination.

  Almost two hours later, his arms shaking with exhaustion, Ray manages to dock the boat next to Bert’s ferry. The rain and wind have calmed, leaving an odd quiet and an ochre glow in the sky. Catherine holds the rope tight while Ray climbs onto the pitching wharf. With several boards missing, the dock has a sad look, like the half-toothless man who sells tickets at the ferry office. Bert sticks his head out the door, gestures Catherine inside, and helps Ray tow the boat around back, out of sight. When the boat is secure, Bert steps aside so Ray can enter the small room.

  “I got a staff meeting up the hill soon,” Bert says, standing in the guard post doorway with his odd head tilt and one-eye squint. “If I don’t go, Tobias will come down here looking for me. Stay inside. Don’t let anyone know you’re here.”

  “What about Henry?” Catherine asks.

  “I’ll try to find out,” Bert says.

  Catherine sits at Bert’s desk, her mouth grim. She crosses her legs and swings her lime-green rainboot back and forth. Ray turns to the window, giving her the only privacy available in the tiny space.

  Using the sleeve of his flannel shirt to wipe a clean circle in the grime, Ray presses his forehead against the thick-smudged glass. The sky has mellowed the metallic yellow glow to pearl and a pencil of sunlight shines through an amoeba-shaped break in the clouds. No matter what your trouble, Nettie always tells him, you’ve got to enjoy the moment. He knows she’s right, but it’s pretty much impossible to concentrate on the storm’s palette at a time like this.

  40. AUSTIN, 2:51 P.M.

  The three women huddle at the door between the empty mess hall and the storm. Water and splintered branches pummel the wire-fortified window.

  “Once we’re outside,” Austin tries to make her voice strong and confident, “it’ll be hard to talk—impossible maybe—so let’s go over the plan again.” Such as it is.

  “Grab onto the guide rope outside this door and follow it due south towards the road.” She tries to remember how far the rope network extends. It was covered in orientation, along with other useless details about the camp layout. Who knew she would ever need that information. She closes her eyes and tries to picture the map—she’s pretty sure the ropes will lead them to the road.

  “Across the road are woods. We’ll be safer there.”

  Of course the east rim cave wasn’t on the orientation map because the Washington suits don’t know it exists. Locals know about it, but probably many of them don’t know exactly where it is and have never seen it. Just like in Margaret and Angelo’s time. The three of them should be safe there, for a while. Tobias is the wild card.

  “Then what?” Norah asks.

  “Then we’ll hide out. Ready?”

  Is she? She wishes Pops were here, to tell her what to expect from this storm. Or maybe not, because if he said to wait inside, she would not—could not—follow his advice. They’ve got to get away from this building, and fast, just like Gandalf says.

  It takes the weight and strength of the three of them—leaning and shoving against the door—to overpower the wind and push themselves outside. The door slams shut behind them. Austin gasps. She grabs the rope and Gandalf. She has been in gale force wind before, but this one knocks her breath from her chest. It slams into both ears and forces its way into her brain, banishing all other sound. It tears at her skin, wraps itself around her throat, kicks against the backs of her knees.

  Stunned by the racket, they huddle close for a moment, sheltering their faces in the flapping tents of their raincoat hoods. Then—gripping the rope with both hands—Austin steps out into the dreadful spiraling air and starts across the yard. Gandalf and Norah follow. Austin leads, but she can’t see more than a foot of rope in front of her hands. The air spins around her, swirling a vortex of leaves. Rain slashes sideways against her body, explodes craters into the gravel path. Branches—splintered and ripped apart—fly through the sky, bounce along the ground, crash into her legs.

  Despite the chaos of the storm, she quickly falls into a rhythm with the rope. Gripping it with her left hand, reaching forward with her right as far as she can, then pulling herself two steps forward. She feels the tug of Gandalf’s hand on her shoulder, then gripping her elbow. Within minutes, her hands are raw. The rain carries the salt of the sea and it stings the broken skin. It burns her eyes too, but she keeps walking, wrapped in the blast of the wind. How long can they do this? How long have they been going? There’s something timeless about the cadence of it: Reach. Pull. Step. Step. Breathe.

  Good thing the rope network is there, even if it was built for rich brats whose parents paid thousands of dollars so their troubled kids could straighten out under the supervision of Mother Nature. Austin used to scorn the outdoor adventure program. She joined in scoffing at the longhaired and multiply-pierced teenagers who occasionally came into town looking for beer or joints. She is briefly contrite for her part in the ridicule. Your ropes might just save our butts, she sends silent thanks to the kids she once mocked.

  She reaches, steps, and stumbles on a split-trunk tree, falling hard against it. Stooping down to rub her shin, squinting into the dark current of rain and leaves and chunks of tree, she catches a glimpse of the edge of a building. White paint, so they’re almost at the guard tower. If she re
members correctly, the rope will end soon and they’ll be at the gravel road that bisects the island from the wharf uphill to the airstrip.

  Grip. Reach. Pull. Step. Five more times until Austin clutches the thick eye-ring screwed into the white wall and tries to catch her breath. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, but the oilcloth smears the wet across her face.

  Turning back to Norah and Gandalf, she shouts above the fierce sibilance of the storm. “The rope ends here. We’ll cross the road and head into the woods.”

  The wind whips the words from her mouth and flings them into the roar, a faint harmony to the deep rumble of thunder. By the confused expressions on their faces, Gandalf and Norah don’t understand her. The wind will consume the three of them too if they aren’t careful, will hurl them into the fury, leaving behind no trace except the assault of rain on storm hats. She pantomimes her hands holding tight, hoping Gandalf and Norah understand the importance of holding onto each other. It would be so easy to get separated out here.

  Once they get into the woods, walking will be easier. But first there’s the road and if the tower guards have any visibility at all, that’s where they’ll be searching. There’s no other way to get to the quarry. Austin peers up at the tower, but she can’t see any evidence of the observation windows. With any luck, the guard up there—if anyone is on duty in this mess—can’t see them either. Except they’ve got all this specialized equipment, high tech surveillance scopes that can see in the dark and who knows what else. She pushes the image of Tobias in infrared goggles from her mind.

  Stepping away from the wall, she tightens her grip on Norah and Gandalf’s hands, and pulls them forward. Holding their hands high, she shouts—one, two, three, go. They clamber over a split tree trunk, lightning gashed and charred, then push against the wind into the debris-strewn road.