On Hurricane Island Page 19

  Halfway across, Norah trips and falls hard onto the spiky end of a shattered branch of a downed tree. She cries out and grabs her thigh.

  Austin tries not to look at the bloodied wood, instead puts her arm around Norah and half-carries her across the road. In the dark of the spruce forest, they burrow into a thicket of branches.

  “How bad is it?” Austin hunkers down to examine Norah’s ripped pants.

  “It’s bleeding.”

  Gandalf points to her duffle. “We can make bandages from clothes.”

  “Okay,” Austin says. “You’re the Girl Scout in charge of first aid. But first we have to get to safety. We’re almost there,” she adds, although honestly they aren’t almost anywhere, except in big trouble.

  “And where’s there?” Norah asks. Again.

  “A cave in the cliffs,” Austin says. “The last part of the trail involves walking along the quarry. That’ll be tricky but we can do it.”

  “Can you find it in this mess?” Norah asks.

  “Sure.” Austin peers up into the murky dimness. The wind and rain are less fierce. Could the hurricane eye be approaching?

  Gandalf reads her mind. “Not the eye yet. Some hurricanes are structured like giant pinwheels. Imagine that the arms are swirling bands of energy. This is most likely a break between arms. In addition, here we are protected by the forest canopy.”

  “Okay,” Austin says. “So let’s hurry. We want to be snug in our cave when the eye gets here. That’s when they’ll come looking for us.”

  “And then?” Norah asks.

  “More storm,” Gandalf says. “The eye wall.”

  “I mean, after we’re in the cave.”

  “We rest,” Austin says. “And wait.”

  And maybe—even exhausted—she’ll have a moment to read more of the letters, in the very place Margaret and Angelo used to meet.

  “I don’t know how far I can walk with this.” Norah looks worried, her gaze jumping back and forth between Gandalf and Austin. “You won’t leave me out here, will you, if I can’t keep going?”

  “Of course not.” Gandalf turns to Austin. “How far is it?”

  “Normally? Ten minutes. In this weather it could take an hour.” Austin helps Norah to her feet. She grasps both women’s hands.

  “We’ll carry you if we have to,” Austin says. Lucky she’s so small.

  “We are in this together,” Gandalf adds, though her voice doesn’t sound so sure.

  Sticking together is their best shot. But what chance do they really have, their band of outsiders? A dyke, a commie, and a drop-out abandoned by her mother. No chance at all.

  41. TOBIAS, 3:11 P.M.

  By the time he hears footsteps in the hallway, Tobias has given up struggling against his restraints. He has also stopped feeling grateful that the power loss means no air conditioning. In the dark room, the air has congealed, grown humid and stifling. The gag tight across his mouth makes him want to puke. Finally, the doorknob rattles and turns. At last, someone in this place is doing his job. Heads are going to roll over the abandonment of the routine campus-wide surveillance rounds, and they won’t be his.

  The door opens to Henry’s stooped silhouette in the doorway. Not the person Tobias wants to find him like this.

  Henry stands in the doorway, immobile and mute.

  Tobias grunts through the gag and stomps against the floor for emphasis.

  “So,” Henry says quietly. “How do you like it?”

  Whoa. Tobias stares at his former boss, his mentor. The guy really is losing it. And he looks god-awful, as if all the blood has drained from his body along with his gumption and his manhood, not to mention all the training the Bureau has given him. So maybe this is better than being found in this condition by one of his men. Henry is out of here in any case.

  Tobias tries talking again and gags. Hopefully Henry will get around to unfastening the cuffs before he keels over or totally freaks out.

  Finally, Henry moves. He slices off the plastic cuffs with a pocket knife, then steps back.

  Tobias springs from the chair, ripping off the gag. He rubs his wrists and stamps his stiff legs. “What’s wrong with you, man? What took you so long?”

  Henry just stands there staring at him, as if Tobias is a piece of dog crap in his wife’s precious daylily garden. Not that Catherine invited him to even one of her garden parties after Lois jumped ship. Not even one. The bitch must’ve said something to Catherine. Some damn lie.

  “This is all your fault.” Tobias points his finger, pistol-style, at Henry, then swivels away. He paces a circle around the small room, his voice boiling over with all the things he hasn’t been able to say. Not only while he was gagged, but over the past few months. About surveillance and technology, the mirror frames and camera angles, and all the times Henry ignored him, overlooked him, disrespected him. About watching Henry’s leadership falter and Tobias had to keep saying Yes Sir anyway. Well, those days are over. Finished.

  Henry interrupts his list of grievances. “You found Ms. Cohen’s phone, didn’t you? Called the Regional Chief.”

  “Damn straight,” Tobias shouts. “You screwed up big time with that phone, buddy. Remember a little detail called the chain of evidence?”

  “You complained about my leadership?”

  “What leadership? You think I’m going to let your incompetence destroy this place? Let my country miss out on crucial information because you’ve become a wussy wimp? No way. I’m in charge now, and the staff will be informed of that fact at the staff meeting.” He points his finger at Henry’s face. “Your career is finished.”

  Henry stands up straighter. “I saw what you did in the interrogation room. I watched the tape. If I’m a wimp, you’re a monster. That kind of abuse is not what the Bureau stands for.”

  Whoa, Tobias thinks, what tape? He will certainly have to deal with that.

  “You betrayed me personally, as well as the Bureau,” Henry continues. “You broke into my office. My desk.”

  “Yes, your little secret is out.” Tobias says in a high-pitched voice, “Hen.”

  A week ago Tobias wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Henry looks feeble. He seems to wobble on his legs, as if he is standing up in an unstable boat on a choppy sea. Henry lines up the fingers of both hands along his breastbone, one fingertip next to the other, and pushes. Like his chest is about to burst open, and he has to hold his runaway heart inside. But Tobias doesn’t feel sorry for him, not one bit.

  “You look like shit, Henry. But you deserve it. If those women escape, it’s on your head.”

  Henry doesn’t answer. Damn the guy, won’t he even defend himself verbally?

  “Hen,” Tobias says again. A whisper at first and then the words grow into shouting and it feels fantastic. “Hen, Hen, Hen. HEN.”

  Henry sits down in the chair, collapses into it. He places his left hand over his right, clutching at his shirt. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but doesn’t. He closes his eyes and slumps forward.

  Holy shit. Tobias catches him, breaking his fall. He lowers Henry’s dead weight slowly. It’s just a reflex. Honestly, he doesn’t care if the guy’s face smashes on the cement floor.

  “Can you hear me?” He turns Henry onto his back and digs his knuckle into his sternum, like they did on ER.

  Henry opens his eyes. “Get help.”

  Must be his heart. Henry isn’t that old, only eight or nine years older than Tobias himself, which makes him just short of fifty.

  “Help me,” Henry says again.

  Tobias grabs a towel from a hook on the back of the door. Dingy but not filthy, the best he can do. Folding it, slipping it under Henry’s head, he remembers another towel, bright red and gold stripes. And another Henry, younger and stronger, lying on a towel on a white sand beach. What was it, fifteen years ago? A junket paid for by a surveillance equipment company. Henry rarely took advantage of opportunities, but that one time he went with Tobias, and they had a great time.<
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  For just a moment, staring down at Henry’s face so slack and pale, Tobias has a moment of doubt. Henry was good to him. Mentored him. Can he leave the guy to die alone in an interrogation room?

  He shakes his head. Sure, he feels loyalty to Henry, but his country is more important than any individual. This pathetic guy lying on the floor is what happens when a person doesn’t change with the times. Caribbean junkets are finished now. And so is Henry.

  There’s one more thing to take care of. Tobias opens Henry’s jacket and eases his gun from the holster. When he tries to stick it in the pocket of his fleece jacket, it catches on the silk of Henry’s stupid slip. He waves the black fabric over Henry’s body and tosses it onto his chest. A fair trade for the pistol, and a fitting shroud, he thinks as he closes the door behind him.

  Alone in the hallway, Tobias tries to strategize. Leaving nature to run its course might be the best solution all around. If Henry dies from a heart attack, the Bureau will avoid potential charges of incompetence, the potential scandal, reporters and all that. It makes no difference to him, personally, how the top job becomes available. Who cares if it’s by firing or death, as long as the job is his. Too bad to miss the opportunity to say “I told you so” to the old pervert. Tranny. He still doesn’t get what is so exciting about the black slip without a girl in it, but no matter.

  He secures Henry’s gun in his own empty holster and walks slowly down the hall, trying to figure out how much time he has until someone discovers the body. The surveillance system isn’t fully operational on the emergency generator. But when the power grid is back, the monitors will show the contents of Interrogation Room D. By then, he has to have a watertight story and his ship in order. He isn’t quite sure how to go about organizing that. Henry usually does the squishy-soft work, wording the reports just so, making nice to the higher-ups. No problem though. Tobias can do all that.

  But the first item of business is to catch those two bitches.

  42. GANDALF, 3:45 P.M.

  Gandalf teeters on the ledge, pounded by wind and rain and dreadfully aware of the invisible water below. She shuffles sideways along the cliff face, hugging the wall so closely her cheek scrapes rock. Her body shakes with chill and wet. The rain splatters against her raincoat, down her neck, into her boots. The eye, the calm, should be here by now. And the sky; how can the sky be both dark and yellow at the same time? She wonders how Norah and Austin are doing. They are shadows known only by the grasp of their hands. No one has spoken in eons. Gandalf has no sense of time or distance; the dark is profound and all around them, stretching some unknown distance into forever.

  She stumbles, catches herself, and moans. She must rest. She slumps, leaning the full length of her body against the stone, forehead to boot tips.

  “You okay?” Austin shouts into her ear. “We’re getting close.”

  Gandalf nods even though no one can see the gesture. She cannot remember ever feeling so totally spent, so almost gone. It is obvious that Austin is lying so that they will not give up, will not let the hurricane win, will not let themselves be tossed into the wild green depths of the quarry. They will never get to the cave, if it even exists. She closes her eyes and listens to the rain slam against her hood and against the water surface below, whipping it into ocean waves. She is intensely alone, separated from the world by mist and rain and exhaustion and the eerie yellow darkness of the storm. Still, better to die out here than in that awful room.

  There’s something satisfying, although in a perverted sort of way, about experiencing this phenomenon she has spent her life studying. Living inside the raw and real power of it after knowing its abstraction and its equations. And it is possible, unlikely but conceivable, that her knowledge of wind circulation and storm patterns will help them survive.

  A hand touches her face, and she opens her eyes. Norah leans close. Rain drips off her nose, and her breath is warm on Gandalf’s cheek. “We’ll make it,” she shouts above the screaming of the wind and the rapid-fire assault of rain on stone. “Don’t give up.”

  If Norah can walk with a gouged thigh, Gandalf can keep going too. She nods again, and they inch forward along the ledge. They move together, almost blindly, squeezing each other’s hands every few steps for comfort.

  Just as Gandalf starts to notice a slowing of the rhythm and the muscle of the rain, just as she begins to hope that the storm is losing power, Austin yells something and stops, throwing her arm out to halt their progress. The wind steals the words but Gandalf catches the excitement in her voice. The women crowd close together as Austin points to a shadow in the vertical cliff wall. Twisting her body sideways, Austin disappears into the impossibly thin slash in the rock face.

  “We’re here.” Austin’s shout from inside is barely audible. She sticks her head out and grabs Norah’s hand, and Gandalf’s. “Look at this,” Austin says, guiding their finger to shapes on the wet granite wall.

  Gandalf rubs the mix of tears and rainwater from her eyes. She tries to decipher the stone characters, which stand out as if the rock around them has been chipped away. They feel like letters, Gandalf thinks, or possibly numbers, inside some kind of circle.

  “I can’t see them,” she tells Austin.

  “Just for a minute.” Austin shines the flashlight onto the crevasse wall. “Tobias could be watching for lights.”

  MEC + AF. 1914. The initials and date are handsomely carved inside a circle of intertwined branches and leaves, intact except for a small broken area in the leaves. But why is Austin wasting their time with artwork when they are fighting for their lives?

  “Let’s get out of the rain. I don’t care about an old carving.” Norah takes the flashlight from Austin. “I’ve got to sit down.”

  After the ferocious howl of the wind, the silence in the cave pulsates in her ears. Gandalf drops the duffle, dark with rain, and helps Norah sit. While Norah holds the flashlight, Gandalf peels the wet fabric of Norah’s pants and examines her thigh.

  “How bad does it look?” Norah asks, biting her lip.

  Gandalf wishes she knew more about first aid. The cut gapes open, moderately deep and oozing. But worrying will not help the situation.

  “Not terrible,” Gandalf says. She pulls a cotton tee shirt from the duffle and wraps it snugly around Norah’s leg, fastening the makeshift bandage with a knot.

  “Austin,” Norah calls. “What are you doing out there?”

  “Just making sure we weren’t followed.” Austin joins them and sits cross-legged on the ground. She leans over to look at Norah’s leg. “You okay?”

  Norah nods. “It doesn’t hurt much. Mostly, I’m exhausted.” She looks at Gandalf. “You?”

  “I cannot get warm,” Gandalf says, “Or oriented. How long have I been here? What is today?”

  “Saturday,” Austin says. “You came on Thursday.”

  Is that possible? Could that horror in the airport have been just two days ago?

  Austin rummages in the backpack, brings out two thick candles and a matchbook. “We’d better save our batteries.” She lights the candles and drips wax onto the rock floor, then holds the candles upright while the wax hardens.

  “Speaking of batteries,” Gandalf says, “May I have my phone back?”

  Austin digs her hand in her trouser pocket and hands the phone to Gandalf with the power pack.

  Gandalf presses the device to her chest, then to her lips. She can call Jess and let her know she is alive. Jess will have a plan. Jess can organize anything, a truly amazing quality for an English professor. Gandalf lets herself relax for a moment. She imagines herself wrapped in Jess’s arms in their queen-sized bed with matching reading pillows, denim ones with pockets for their books and reading glasses. Don’t go there, she warns herself. You are not home free yet. She turns on the phone.

  No service. Nothing. She lets her head thud back against the cave wall. They are marginally better off away from the detention center, but without communication or transportation, the whole
island is a prison.

  The candle flames flicker against the stone.

  “So tell me.” Norah breaks the silence. “What happened with Tobias?”

  “Austin was a hero,” Gandalf says. “She grabbed his gun and slugged him with it. Then she tied him up and stuffed a gag in his mouth.”

  “You did that?” Norah holds out her hand to Austin for a high-five.

  Austin keeps her hands rooted in her lap. “Tobias had to be stopped,” she says after a moment. “Call it self-defense.”

  Gandalf studies Austin’s face; she is young to hide so much. She pictures Ferret’s hand shoved down Austin’s trousers, his tongue against her breast. “It was more than self-defense.” She shivers. “Group defense, maybe. Who knows what he would have done to any of us.”

  Austin’s gaze is heavy on her face. “What did you write in that email? To Ahmed?” She turns to Norah. “That’s Gandalf’s friend, who they think is a terrorist.”

  Why must she keep explaining? “Ahmed is not exactly a friend, more of a long-distance colleague,” Gandalf says. “We work together. I haven’t actually seen him in years.” Thirteen years, to be precise.

  “Tobias made you email him?” Norah takes three power bars from the backpack, hands one each to Gandalf and Austin. She tears the wrapping open with her teeth.

  Gandalf nods. “By threatening to rape Austin. And he insisted I include something personal in the email, so Ahmed would know it was me writing.” She unwraps the bar and takes a bite. “In grad school, Ahmed and I adopted kittens from the same litter, named them Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.” She pauses to swallow. “So I asked how Cassidy was doing.”

  Austin nods. “We saw the photos of Sundance on your laptop. Weren’t you nervous that Ahmed would know it was you and give them information?”

  “Not at all.” Gandalf half-smiles. “Cassidy was run over the day after graduation.”

  “Smart,” Norah says. She changes her position and grimaces.