Driftwood

by Harper Fox

  “God almighty. And yet…he came back for you. That part’s true.”

  “Yes. He came back.” Flynn drew a shuddery breath and pressed a little closer to Tom. “I don’t know why he risked it. I’m not sure… I’m not sure my life would have been worth a day’s purchase, if I hadn’t woken up without a single memory in my head from the whole fucking thing, except for the ones he sat by my bed and implanted, day after day. He told me I’d lost control of her. He was kind, when everyone else around me could barely bloody look at me, no matter how hard they tried. Even the doctors. He was there every time I opened my eyes. He said he would look after me.”

  Tom kissed his brow. “All right.” Gently he wiped away the fresh tears with the pad of one thumb. “I’m guessing that’s when he came into his family fortune.”

  “Mm-hm.” Flynn nodded, making a dreadful attempt at a smile. “That’s when four-by-fours and private doctors started to rain down from heaven. I suppose they made it worth his while. He’d never mentioned his family to me before then, but suddenly there they were. Knightsbridge Tremaines, and old money.”

  “Flynn, do you know who he really is? I mean, where he comes from?”

  “Yeah, of course. Just like you did, thirty seconds after you met him. Three people told me he was Bobby Tremaine from the Sankerris council estate during the first week I was here. God, Tom—did he think I was going to judge him? My dad’s an electrician from Derby. I know what it’s like, being officer class in the Navy, if you’re not descended from the bloody admiralty.”

  “Why did you let him carry on lying to you?”

  “I don’t know. He was really cagey about it. I suppose he was worried I’d ask him about the money, but I wasn’t likely to do that, was I? I’d been quietly taking it for far too long. I was ashamed. I even passed his lies on to you, though I was pretty sure you’d recognised him too.”

  “Flynn, love, surely you’ve worked out by now you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of?”

  “I don’t know. When I think about that night off Portsmouth—knowing I didn’t kill all those men, all our friends, by some stupid pilot error—I feel like my heart’s going to explode with relief, even though none of them are any less dead because it wasn’t my fault. And yet when I look back over two whole years, dormant, hypnotised, eating out of Rob’s bloody hand, letting him—own me, screw me… Learning to like getting beaten down and fucked, because that was what I deserved.”

  “Flynn…” Tom shook his head, briefly unable to bear it. He lifted a hand to cover Flynn’s mouth—felt its palm kissed, his wrist seized, as if Flynn too wanted to be silenced. Stopped. They watched one another mutely for a long while. Then Tom said, turning his hold to a caress, fingertips over Flynn’s salt-blistered lips, “He tried it again, didn’t he? Tonight?”

  “How… How could he leave me to think it was my fault?” Flynn whispered. His face was white with anguish, as if he had only just realised for himself the enormity of it. “He must have known I was living in hell.”

  Because he was an evil fuck, Tom thought succinctly, but kept it quiet. Perhaps the loss of him, with all his faults, was too fresh to Flynn for him to be able to withstand much condemnation from anyone else. “I don’t know,” he said. “But—ultimately, everything he did was to keep you close to him. He risked his whole game to spare your life.”

  Flynn snorted. The sound of it warmed Tom’s heart with its vigour, its ordinary derision—told him that Flynn would get over Rob Tremaine, and maybe the process wouldn’t take long. “Not tonight, he bloody didn’t. He shot out my collective. He just went and stood by the hatch and took aim. It was seeing him get up and walk away that finally broke down the memory block. I thought he was gonna put a bullet in me, and…I just didn’t care. Then he jumped.”

  “Charlie Mitchell says you made a textbook job of putting her down.”

  “Mitch said that?” Uncomplicated pleasure lit Flynn’s face, an airman’s pride in his work. “I could, Tom. I could do that, take her down nice, and do my evac like I was in the training pool at Hawke, because I knew, I was fairly sure, that they’d all got out in time. They lived, so I could live too. And—I wanted to. For the first time in years. All I could think about was how much I wanted to see you again.” He shivered, shook his head. “I can’t believe you came out to find me.”

  Tom swallowed hard. “I’ll always find you, love.”

  The storm was almost spent. Tom, on his knees, held Flynn’s face with desperate tenderness between both his hands—kissed him and kissed him, as the motion of the swell beneath the raft lost its rage, became a rocking. Tears forced themselves from beneath his closed eyelids, stinging the windburn and healing cuts on his face. Flynn’s arms were passionately laced around his neck, his face tipped up as if to the sun. When at last Tom couldn’t breathe and stars were bursting over his dark field of vision, he broke away. “Stop,” he rasped, chuckling. “I have to go check on poor Victor.”

  Flynn nodded. He was smiling dazedly. When Tom let him go, he subsided against the life raft’s hull. “Okay,” he said, putting up a hand to shield an enormous yawn. “If you need me to take a spell at the rudder…”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tom said, leaning over him to check the pulse at his throat. It was strong, but too fast, his system revving in its struggle to evict the deadly cold. Tom wrapped Victor’s waterproof tightly around him. “We’ll be sure to do that. You just stay curled up there. Keep breathing. Try and get some sleep.”

  When Tom stumbled out into the light, he found Victor quietly plying the raft through a new world. The storm, with Cornish thoroughness, had given way to a dawn whose shades of rose and delicate green denied that its fury had ever existed or been unleashed along this coast to the peril of so many lives. Far off to the south, Tom could see the weird architecture of the Morvah cliffs, blades and pinnacles catching the first rays of sun. His watchtower was almost visible from here. He tried to remember when he had left it, and remembered with a shock that it had been a week ago, in another different world.

  “Vic,” he said, and saw Victor, who had tranquilly been watching the skyline, turn and smile at him. “I seem to remember somebody saying you were looking after my dog.”

  “Yeah. You can have her back any time. She eats more than my three kids combined.”

  “I know.” He came to settle cautiously on the gunwale tube, every inch of him protesting. “I’ll settle up with you.”

  “Don’t be daft. I owe you a lot more than a few tins of dog food.” Vic glanced back at the canopy. “How’s your flotsam?”

  “Cold. Shocky. He’ll be okay, though. Can I take this while you rest? With Flynn, if you don’t mind—he needs the hypothermia-hug.”

  “Bloody hell, Doc. I think I’ll leave that kind of thing to you.” Vic’s face lit up with a smile in which there was so much good-natured amusement, and such an absence of malice, that Tom heard himself break into laughter. “Nah, I’m fine here. We’re nearly home. I radioed Porth to see if anyone could come and pick him up, but they’re still pretty busy out there. Lots of damage. No casualties, though, apart from…”

  “Tremaine. Yeah.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Tom released a breath. He could hardly believe himself, in the sweet morning air, the rupture that had racked the night. “Sounds like he was getting paid to stop the ASaC lads from getting to that arms shipment. He brought their Lynx down to make sure.”

  “Christ almighty.” Suddenly Victor raised his head, frowning at the western horizon. Tom followed his gaze. His ears were still ringing with the roar of the storm, but he could discern—faint, growing stronger every second—the song of another boat’s engine. Vic shrugged, shook his head. “Typical, that is. Too little, too late.”

  “Is it the lifeboat?”

  Victor shielded his eyes. “Doesn’t sound like her.” He squinted off across the water. “No, it’s a launch of some kind. Sunseeker, I think. I don’t recognise her. Suppose they might’ve s
ent someone from Hawke.”

  Tom nodded. He was getting a bit sleepy, his body wanting to shut down and attend to its damage. A fast launch from Hawke, or even passing tourists or fishermen, would be good—they could take Flynn off, get him to hospital, not that Tom could imagine letting him out of his sight. “We should signal them.”

  “No need. They’ve seen us. They’re coming about.”

  “Okay.” Tom sat back down. For a moment he watched the hull of the approaching craft. It was catching the light from the east, gleaming like a pearl on the dark waters. He heard in memory his own voice say to Victor, he brought down their Lynx to make sure. It was stupid, really. In the whole of this night, not once had Tom thought beyond that one end of Tremaine’s. To disable the chopper and escape with his life…

  And then what? Cast himself into a heaving waste of sea, lose himself beyond all hope of collecting his reward? What had he done the time before?

  Arranged for his pickup, obviously. Tom frowned into the rapidly diminishing distance between the launch and the raft. Now she was close enough to pick out her lines. She was powerful and sleek, scudding across the grey-green swell. Someone’s private vessel—yes, a Sunseeker. Very expensive.

  Tom glanced at Vic, and saw him seeing it too. Completing the same thought. Their eyes met. Victor said softly, “If we needed to outrun that thing…”

  “We couldn’t. Could we?”

  “No. And I’m sure there’s no call to, but…have you still got my Browning?”

  Tom started. It felt like a century ago that he had stood in the Porth Bay boathouse and taken Victor’s service gun from him. He had tucked it into an inner pocket of his jacket. “Yeah, I do. I think Flynn’s probably sleeping on it. Hang on a minute.”

  Flynn was curled on his side against the hull, a motionless, abandoned shape among the coats Tom had bundled round him. Tom ran a hand over his hair, murmured his name, but he didn’t respond. Carefully Tom shifted him far enough to extract the revolver from his damp coat, then straightened back up into the daylight. Victor was waiting for him, one hand outstretched.

  “What?” Tom asked him, smiling wryly. “You think I wouldn’t use it, if… I’m as much a soldier as you are, Vic.”

  Victor nodded. “Probably more so. But you got paid to fix the bullet holes, Doc. I got paid to put them in.”

  Tom thought about it. The Sunseeker was only a couple of hundred yards out from them now. It jarred his instincts, to relinquish any possibility of guarding Flynn. But he knew that Vic would be the better shot, and after a moment he handed the weapon over. “Well, like you say. I’m sure there’s no call. But…”

  “If there is, I’ll make ’em count.” He tucked the Browning under the belt of his jeans, untucking his shirt to conceal it. “No sense in coming on all lairy if it’s just a friendly passing millionaire, now, is there?”

  It was not. The launch accelerated violently on its approach, then at the last moment cut its engines, slewing silently round the raft’s stern. Tom was reminded of a cat’s final circling move in pursuit of its prey, to cut off an exit route, to display itself and its powers for the sheer joy of it. He saw Vic’s move for the gun—saw him abort it, as he understood, in the growing dawn light, that the two men at the rail were holding enough firepower in their hands to cut him and Tom in half in one burst of semiautomatic fire.

  The men were strangers. Whoever they had expected to find on the downed helicopter’s raft, it was probably not the village doctor and a boatbuilder. That, and the deep sleep he’d just seen Flynn at last surrendered to, barely visible under the raft’s canopy, gave Tom cause to hope. We just came out to help. No, we didn’t find anyone.

  Then the launch drifted to a halt. Through the wheelhouse glass, Tom saw a low ray of sunlight catch on red hair. A strapping six-foot Bronze Age Celt unfolded himself from the pilot’s seat and came to stand at the rail between his colleagues. “Well, freeze my piss if it’s not Dr. Tom,” Rob Tremaine boomed, grinning broadly. “My personal bad bloody penny. I have no idea what the fuck you’re doing out here, but I’m willing to bet you’ve got something I want.” And Tom heard a rustling of fabric from the canopy behind him, and a small, gut-punched moan as Flynn staggered out and dropped to his knees on the raft’s deck behind him, and all hope died.

  Rob Tremaine surveyed them. He didn’t seem the worse for his ditch into the sea. His expression was genial, and although his hair was still damp, he had on a fresh white shirt. Aside from his two flanking gunmen, he looked like a wealthy yacht captain about to extend the hospitality of his boat. His gaze fastened on Flynn. “Ah, there you are,” he said pleasantly. “Nice run, Flynnie. Nice try. But now come here.”

  Tom supposed that, to Flynn, it was like a corpse sitting up on its slab—like a fresh grave mound stirring and vomiting back its dead. He was too far away from Flynn to extend a hand, to do more than whisper his name as he struggled upright. “Flynn. No…”

  Flynn glanced at him. Tom could see no light in his eyes. His blue-tinged lips parted as if he was about to speak, but then he turned away—allowed one of Tremaine’s fellow smugglers to reach over and half-lift, half-haul him off the raft and across the rail onto the Sunseeker.

  He stood in front of Tremaine. His back was straight, his hands by his sides. Tremaine examined him bleakly for a few moments. Flynn remained passive under the inspection, looking at the deck. Then Tremaine, without a shift of his vulpine mask, drew back a hand and cuffed him so hard round the side of the head that Flynn dropped like a stone.

  Tom hauled a helpless breath. “Flynn!” he yelled. “Christ, Tremaine, stop!”

  Tremaine raised his head. Tom realised what had set the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes—the raw panic in his own voice. It would do Flynn no good to show his captor the depth of their bond now, and he shut himself up, muscles setting fiercely. Flynn had pushed up off the deck, but only as far as his knees. His head was down. Once he was sure he could do it, Tom said his name again—again, over and over, but only calmly. A lifeline, an invisible touch extended to him across the water.

  Flynn blinked and seemed to shudder back to life. He raised his head. When he spoke, he sounded pretty calm too. “It’s okay, Tom. Please don’t get yourself killed over this. Over me. I’ll be okay.”

  No, not calm. Resigned, as if fate had extended its fist from the ocean and seized him. Tom lurched forward. The gunman at the rail snapped up his rifle, and he felt Vic’s restraining hand at the back of his shirt. “Flynn…”

  “Oh, he’s right,” Tremaine said, dropping one big hand down onto the crown of Flynn’s head, his fingers entangling brutally tight in his hair. “He’s actually not worth you dying for. I had you checked out, you know, Dr. Tom, when I saw how Flynnie was looking at you. You’re a good man. Decorated three times for pulling injured soldiers off the battlefield. I bet you never told this worthless little piece of shit about that.”

  Flynn shivered. He fixed Tom with a look of pure love. “No,” he said faintly. “He didn’t.”

  “So despite the massive inconvenience you’ve caused me—and yourself, because if you hadn’t seen me in the Penzance casualty, I’d never have had to take out an expensive and apparently nonrefundable hit on you—you’re getting a second chance, Tom.” He gave Flynn’s hair one brutal twist, then reached down to his collar and jerked him upright. “Go home.” He shook his head, and Tom saw a sadness gather on his harsh-boned face. Tom could have pitied him, in another world. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve learned to value men. Two years ago, I came back for Flynn because I loved him. This time he’s just my hostage.”

  He nodded to one of his companions, who ducked inside the cabin and started the Sunseeker’s engines. The second man remained where he was, semiautomatic trained on the raft. The larger vessel began to move, setting up a ripple in the water, a deep throbbing vibe in the air. Peripherally, Tom saw Flynn begin to struggle, and knew that he should watch—that it was his last chance to see, before Rob Tremaine pi
nched out all the light and the heat that had returned to his world.

  But Tom looked at Victor instead. They both were soldiers. It was one glance—bright, vital, electric. Not your fight, Vic, but… Victor nodded minutely. The launch drew alongside, her pilot beginning his manoeuvre away. There was a moment.

  Victor used the raft’s gunwale tube as a springboard and grabbed the rail of the launch. He was not fast, but the sight of him in sudden, unlikely motion was impressive, twelve stone of British ex-military on the move, purposeful, heedless of consequence. It startled Tremaine’s gunman so much that he could not snap the rifle’s safety off before Vic was on top of him, shoving the gun muzzle up. Vic felled him with a sledgehammer punch that sent him and the rifle straight over the rail into the water. Then he turned—it was the last possible second, the boats moving apart—and grabbed Tom’s outstretched hands, hauling him onto the launch.

  Tom made a bad scramble of it. He lurched over the top of the rail and hit the Sunseeker’s deck with a thud that knocked the breath from him. He was running on love and adrenaline, and almost empty. The only advantage of his uncontrolled leap was the place where it ended—at Rob Tremaine’s feet, causing him to start back with a muffled curse. To loosen, for an instant, his grip on Flynn, who didn’t need a second invitation.

  On his feet again, clinging to the rail, Tom watched matters conclude themselves. The Sunseeker’s pilot, slowly coming up to speed, had snapped off the engine and exited the wheelhouse, rifle in hand, but too late. Vic, planted casually in her prow, had the Browning cocked and ready in an easy two-handed grip, covering her whole deck. “Drop it,” he advised, and the pilot obeyed, then followed Vic’s gestured order that he should kick the weapon over to Tom.

  Tom reached down for it blindly. He could not look away from the scene unfolding in the stern. Flynn, who five minutes before had been sleeping like a displaced angel on the raft, was straddled over Rob Tremaine, whom he had felled with an elbow to the gut and a haymaker as soon as Tremaine was off balance. His face was blank as a mountain lion’s, and he was in the process of beating his captor unconscious.