by Steve Richer
“Point and shoot?” Bill said, handling the gun as if it was an ancient artifact. “Is there a safety switch? Like in the movies?”
“No. This is a Glock. The safety is built into the trigger. You have to pull back straight in the middle for it to work. If you don’t, it won’t fire.”
The big man nodded and extended his arm to get a feel for it. He started to squeeze the trigger, taking out the slack, and then he lowered the gun.
“Got it,” he said. “I don’t want to use it, though.”
“I hope so, too.”
“What now?”
Orland glanced around. What now indeed?
“Let’s go in the house. Maybe Alex is still alive. Maybe we can call for help.”
Without another word, Orland jogged to the front entrance and came in with the carbine at shoulder level. It was dark. He raised his hand, signaling for Bill to stop. Thankfully, he didn’t ask any questions. Orland wanted to give them time for their eyes to adjust.
He scanned the den. It was empty. He led the way to the left where there was some light coming from that direction. They entered the kitchen.
“Oh fuck…” Bill mumbled.
There were two dead women on the floor, bathing in their blood. Immediately, on impulse, Bill lurched to the side and vomited. He hadn’t dared stepping over the corpses to go to the sink. He puked right on the counter.
“Follow me, Bill.”
“Jesus, man. They’re dead! They killed them.”
“Keep your voice down. Stay close.”
Carefully, they left the kitchen and headed to the staircase. They went up slowly. Orland had his finger inside the trigger guard, ready to shoot anything that moved.
When they reached the second floor, he saw Alex’s body up ahead. He hurried to him and fell to his knees. He felt the wrist for his pulse, but found none. He was dead.
It was the same for the second dead body, the attacker they had tried to save Alex from. It was a pity they hadn’t seen the other guy who’d gotten the drop on him. For the first time, Orland noticed something.
On the flap of the guy’s shirt, where the rank insignia would have been on a US Army uniform, was a symbol. It was a fancy letter Z. Come to think of it, the guy he had knocked out outside had also had something there on his chest, a triangle.
Greek letters, he decided. That’s how they identified each other.
There was no sound. Whoever had killed Alex was already gone. Still, Orland wasn’t about to let his guard down and he glanced around, completely silent.
“Oh God.”
It was Bill. Bringing him inside had been a mistake. He couldn’t shut up and would get the both of them killed. Still crouching, he spun toward him.
“Bodies,” he whispered. “Bodies everywhere.”
He pointed into the rooms and retched although nothing came out this time. Orland finally climbed to his feet and went to see what he was looking at. Nearly each room had a corpse inside. The island’s staff had been slaughtered, most of them while they were asleep.
Orland swallowed with difficulty but didn’t speak. What was going on? Why kill all of these people? What kind of monster would do such a thing?
What kind of monster would order such a thing?
Chapter 18
Oliver pulled out his phone and used it as a flashlight. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to illuminate their faces in the dark basement. Clifford produced his own phone, but Paul stopped him.
“No, don’t do it. One is enough.”
“But…”
Gina nodded. “He’s right. If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. We can’t make it easy for them.”
“What now?” Clifford asked.
Before anyone could reply, they heard footsteps and instinctively looked up at the ceiling. Only the sounds weren’t coming from the ceiling. It was like people were coming downstairs. They were coming after them.
Raymond bristled. “I say we wait for them and fight.”
“Fight?” Oliver spat. “I can’t fight. Gina can’t fight. Clifford couldn’t fight a goddamn mosquito.”
“Hey!” Clifford was offended.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“We can stay low and wait for these fuckers. We can ambush them.”
Paul shook his head. “It won’t work. We don’t have any weapons. If we did, it might be different, but we don’t.”
“So what do we do?”
The footsteps grew louder. The attackers were getting closer.
“They killed George,” Clifford said. “If they find us, there’s no doubt they’ll kill us too.”
Oliver tried—and failed—to control his breathing. He ran a hand through his hair and gave up on praying.
He said, “We don’t have a choice but to go back. We have to escape.”
“But we’ll come face to face with these sons of bitches,” Raymond complained. “We don’t stand a chance.”
Gina took a step forward. “Is there another way out?”
Raymond shrugged. “I don’t know. I never come down here.”
“Wait…” Paul said, distant. “Yes, there is an access door leading outside!”
“Where is it?” Oliver asked. “Can we get to it without having to run into these terrorists, or whoever they are?”
Paul was lost in thought for a moment, looking at the floor and trying to figure things out. Then he raised his head.
“Yes, it’s that way. It’s toward the eastern side.”
“Give him your phone,” Gina told Oliver. “And keep it low, pointed at the ground so that the terrorists can’t see us too easily.”
Clifford said. “What if they have night-vision goggles?”
“Then we’re screwed here anyway. We have to go. We have to go now!”
Paul grabbed the phone from Oliver and they hurried away. They didn’t go as fast this time. The last thing they needed was to bump into something, make noise, and give away their position.
Oliver felt a stark lack of control now that he didn’t have his phone-cum-flashlight. He felt useless, powerless. More than anything, he felt vulnerable.
He was convinced that if there was a shootout he would be the first one to get hit. It was irrational to think this way, but he couldn’t help it. The only solution was to make it out of this gloomy cellar.
Paul fumbled around, twice heading in the wrong direction. Raymond swore, but the others kept quiet. It made no sense to grumble when Paul was their best chance of escaping. But less than a minute later they reached the exit. There were steps with a door slanted overhead.
There was a padlock.
“The hell?”
Oliver was thinking the same thing. Who puts a padlock inside a door?
“Huh, that’s right,” Paul groaned. “Your father had this put in recently. He thought the maids were stealing his Macallan.”
“You got the key?”
“No. I know George had a key.”
“George is dead,” Clifford said, pointing the obvious.
Oliver rolled his eyes. “And we’ll be dead soon too if we don’t unlock this door.”
“We can break it,” Gina said calmly. “Let’s look for a crowbar or something.”
They each went their separate ways before realizing how futile it was since Paul had the flashlight. They were all scared of pulling out their own phones. If the area became too bright, they would be spotted. And hunted.
Oliver saw shelves on the right and headed that way. He found spare lightbulbs, some batteries, and a can opener. The others were searching elsewhere. The footsteps were still audible. They were quiet, but also closer. It was as if they were taking their time to ferret them out.
Then he saw beams of light.
It was probably those flashlights that were mounted underneath guns. Oliver had seen those in movies. He hadn’t noticed them when the guys had come in upstairs. They most likely had been turned off at the time. Fortunately, the light he saw was just a glow
against the wall. The attackers were elsewhere and it was light diffusion that he made out.
If they made noises, they would turn this way. Oliver willed his heartbeat to slow down, convinced that it could be heard from a hundred feet away. And of course this had the opposite effect. His heart was about to jump out of his chest.
“I got something,” Gina whispered.
They all rushed toward her. She was holding a hammer. It was a new model with a metal handle, not wood. Raymond snatched it from her hands and everyone followed him to the door.
He swiftly inserted the claw into the padlock’s loop shackle, braced against the wall, and applied pressure. There was no other way to do this and Raymond knew it. If he pounded on it, which would have been anybody’s first instinct, it would have attracted too much attention.
Oliver went to him and pushed down on the handle with him. They winced, gritting their teeth, and finally the body of the padlock gave away. It fell to the concrete floor, loudly announcing their presence.
Shit.
There was no time to waste. There was nothing they could do about this because the harm was already done. Raymond opened the door and everyone ran out.
The destination was obvious. Fifty yards away was a garden shed. It didn’t look like a tiny, flimsy box they sold at Home Depot. It was instead large enough to be a small garage, which it was since it probably had lawnmowers and other heavy equipment inside. It was paneled in teak and surrounded by flowerbeds, making it blend in with the lavish surroundings.
They took off in the rain, but Raymond stopped. He said, “I can’t go.”
“What?!” Oliver said with confusion. “Come on, we don’t have much time!”
By now, Paul had stopped and was standing next to them. “What’s happening?”
“My dad is up there. I can’t leave him by himself. They’re gonna kill him.”
Oliver couldn’t believe this. “This is suicide. You can’t go back.”
“And I can’t let these fuckers kill my father. I gotta do this.”
Paul nodded, knowing he couldn’t change the young man’s mind and Oliver was simply dumbstruck. Raymond nodded goodbye and ran back inside. There was nothing left to do so Paul and Oliver took off toward the garden shed and found Clifford and Gina hunkering behind it.
“Where’s Raymond?” Gina asked.
Oliver explained and it sounded better than hearing it the first time. He thought about his son. If it had been Jeremy in the house, he would have risked his life to save him as well, he decided. Family made you do irrational things.
“Who are these guys?” Oliver inquired, staring at Paul.
“I don’t know. The list of our enemies is long. There’s this crew from Boston which has been after us for a long time. It could be them. Frankly, it could be anybody.”
Gina slicked her hair back now that it was dripping wet. “It doesn’t matter who they are and why they’re here. We know what they’re capable of. They killed a man right in front of us. Two men, actually, with the guard outside. We could be next. We have to hide.”
“Yes!” Clifford said, nodding. “That’s a great idea. Let’s hide and wait until they leave.”
“We could…”
“Oh my God!” Gina interrupted.
“What?”
“Look!”
Everyone shuffled toward her and peeked above her head, around the corner of the shed, and turned their attention to their main house. On the third floor balcony was Sabatini. He was lumbering back and forth, looking down and looking up. He was like a tiger in a cage, searching for a way to escape, but finding none.
“We have to help him,” Gina said.
“There’s no way,” Paul said reluctantly. “I wish there was a way, but we can’t get to him. It’s too dangerous.”
Oliver was about to speak, but didn’t think it was wise in front of two of Sabatini’s employees. The man was a criminal and it wouldn’t be a great loss for mankind if he got killed.
In contrast, Oliver needed the money. If Sabatini made it out alive, he would undoubtedly be very generous with the person who’d saved him. On top of that, maybe he’d know how to fight against these attackers. This was worth the risk.
“Stay put,” he said. “I’ll go get him.”
Oliver straightened up and took off toward the house.
Chapter 19
There was a stench of death in the air, Orland thought. It wasn’t implausible either. Given the heat and humidity of this island, maybe bodies decomposed faster. Maybe it was all in his head. Either could be true. It was hard to think rationally at the moment, the staff house filled with corpses.
He reached for his phone and, just like with Alex earlier, there was no signal. He turned to Bill.
“Does your phone work?”
Bill checked his iPhone and shook his head. “No signal.”
Orland entered one of the bedrooms when he saw a telephone on the nightstand. He picked it up. There was no dial tone. Common sense told him that it was most likely an island-wide issue, but he went into the next room anyway to check. It didn’t work either.
“Shit.”
“What?” Bill asked.
Instead of replying, he hurried to Alex and reached for his walkie-talkie.
“Hello? Does anyone copy?”
There was no answer. Did that mean that all the security guards had been killed?
He turned to the dead commando—Zeta. The man also had a radio clipped to his gear. This one was much fancier. Worst of all, it was password-protected and encrypted. It was useless.
“We can’t call anyone?” Bill observed, worry transparent in his voice. “What do we do?”
“We get the hell out of here before they come back.”
“And then what?”
“We hide.”
Orland led the way as they returned downstairs. The house was still deserted, but it was no cause for carelessness. They went outside where the rain fell harder.
The Jeep was still there. Good. Now it was just a matter of getting in and driving away.
“Come on,” he told Bill who was already winded from climbing down the stairs.
As they left the porch and approached the car, they encountered something that made the both of them stop in their tracks. The guy he had knocked out—Delta—was sitting up. Kneeling next to him was another man in military gear. He was inspecting the gash on his forehead. There was a K on his shirt. Kappa.
They both turned toward the finance guys. Fuck.
Kappa lifted his M4 carbine first and started shooting.
“Get back!” Orland shouted before he could return fire.
He grabbed Bill by his shirt and dragged him back toward the staff house. There was nowhere else to go. If they tried to get in the Jeep, they would be dead before being halfway to it. If they paused to shoot back, they would be stationary long enough to be killed.
Between life and death, the choice was easy. They went back into the house before they were fully pinned down.
“Shit!” Bill screamed. “What’s happening?!”
Orland pushed Bill inside and slammed the door shut behind them. It had been a futile gesture since it blew open in a million splinters as the two terrorists fired at them. Even though they had stolen Delta’s weapons, Orland figured Kappa had given his pistol to his colleague.
“Maybe we can talk to them,” Bill said, calmer than he’d been for a while. “Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. Yes, that’s it! I’ll wave a white flag and go explain to them that we don’t have anything to do with any of this.”
Orland was barely listening. He turned back and looked at the gaping hole in the front door and side windows. It could be a good opportunity to dish out some vengeance. He could have him and Bill shoot out from these holes and perhaps ambush these guys.
But just as he was mulling this over, an object came flying in through one of the broken windows. It was about the size of a baseball.
“Come on!” Or
land shouted, realizing what it was.
The device only bounced a little as it fell forcefully on the laminated floor. Then it rolled toward the two men.
Orland didn’t see the point in clarifying to the heavyset lawyer that it was a grenade and that he should move his fat ass if he wanted to stay alive. Instead, he gripped his forearm and made him run faster.
They turned the corner and entered the kitchen just as the grenade exploded!
Orland instinctively threw himself to the side, further behind the wall, but the blast did the rest. It sent him crashing against the cupboards. The metal door handles dug into his arms and shoulders, causing fierce pain he hadn’t felt in ages.
He lifted his head and discovered that the rifle had been knocked out of his hands. It was sitting in the other corner, near the fridge. Then he looked at Bill. He was wondering if he was dead when he heard him groan.
He was lying on top of one of the dead maids. As the shock of the detonation wore off, Bill figured out where he was exactly. He was agape.
“Oh shit, oh Jesus, oh fuck!”
“Bill, quiet.”
“I’m covered in blood. A dead woman’s blood!”
Orland whispered louder. “Shut up.”
“But…”
“They’re gonna come back to finish us, Bill.”
“No…”
“I have a plan, okay? But you have to do exactly as I say. Most of all, you have to stay where you are.”
Bill opened his mouth to complain, tears already streaking his cheeks, but he pointed a finger at him, hoping he would understand that his very life depended on what he would do right now.
The plan took twenty seconds to implement and it was just in time, too. No sooner were the two men in position that Delta and Kappa entered the house.
They walked through the smoke. One of the drapes was on fire in the living room, but besides that the damage was limited to the furniture which was beyond repair. At long last, they went into the kitchen.
Orland was spread on the floor, on his front. His face was pressed into a combination of broken glass, chicken fat, and blood. His eyes were closed, but he could hear the two terrorists coming closer.
“Lookee here, Kappa. Looks like the fat one is dead.”
