“We’ll be back in a few hours,” I say. “If we don’t come back, take the raft and the engine and head for the mainland.”
Jakob laughs. “If you don’t come back, I will die avenging your deaths.”
I laugh for a moment, too, but then realize the old Viking isn’t joking. “He’s serious?” I say to Willem as we strike out.
“He is,” Willem says.
I like the old man even more because I can picture the Colonel saying, and meaning, the same thing, though I don’t think Dad would have been level-headed enough to let his little girl head out on her own.
A fresh half foot of snow crunches beneath my boots. My cloaks slides across the surface and I occasionally have to shake off little ice balls that cling to it. The fresh coat of white has erased the bloody trail Peach left behind, but I remember where she came from. Where I sent her. Where I sent Jenny. I know there’s no good reason to feel guilty for Jenny’s death—she’d have been dead several times sooner without me—but she could have also survived.
We head up the steep, stone covered hill in silence. It’s funny how introspective people get when they think they might die. Willem is probably thinking about his father, about how it’s much more likely that the old man won’t make it back. Chase is probably thinking about being betrayed and picturing himself exacting his revenge dressed as a ninja, or some level-70 wizard. But neither is more pitiful than me because here I am, facing death, and I’m thinking about what they’re thinking!
Willem interrupts my thoughts about his thoughts. “If we can cross the straight in the morning, I think we stand a chance of surviving. If we hug the coast, we should come across seal, or walrus. So we won’t starve.”
“And if we can keep the tent, and keep dry, we won’t freeze,” Chase adds. “We might also come across a fishing ship along the way.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Willem says.
And now I know just how pitiful I am. While I’m thinking about ridiculous things, these two are busy plotting our escape and survival. They haven’t given up. Which makes me wonder about myself. Have I given up? Is my lack of planning a sign that I’m resigned to death?
“Raven,” Willem says, but the sound of his voice is dulled by the hood over my head, never mind the fact that I’m tuned into my self-loathing and don’t yet recognize the Raven nickname as belonging to me.
“Jane!” Willem hisses. Hearing my own name gets my attention. Willem and Chase have stopped a few feet behind me. Willem points to the ground at my feet. I look down and then jump away. The fresh white snow is dark red. There must have been so much blood here when the storm began that the liquid leached up through the fresh powder and stained the area red. A gust of warmer wind flows over the hill from the southern coast and carries the scent of blood and rot.
But none of it holds my attention like the fresh boot prints surrounding the bloody snow and heading off over the rise. I draw my weapon, all thoughts of Chase and Willem extinguished. I move silently, each step planned ahead and gently placed. Even crunching snow could give me away. I’m happy to see that Willem and Chase understand the need for silence as they follow, placing their feet inside my prints. We reach the crest a moment later. I lie on my stomach and poke my head over the ledge.
Three bodies occupy an outcrop of stone twenty feet below. Only one of them is dead. I can tell by the size and the remnants of a red jacket that the body is Jenny’s. The other two are dressed in similar red snow gear, but have their hoods up. I can’t see their faces from above, but I know who they are: Captain McAfee and Mr. Jackson.
My eyes linger on Jenny’s ruined body. The sight is sickening and I fight the twisting discomfort in my gut. If I hadn’t expected to find something like this, I might have lost control of my body. As it is, I’m only just hanging on. It’s one thing to be killed, but then to be torn apart like this… I remember Jenny’s laugh. Our shared sense of humor. I think, if we both had survived this mess, we could have been friends. My eyes grow wet, blurring my vision. Snap out of it, I think, blinking hard to force away the tears.
“What are we going to do?” Willem whispers to me. I’m so focused on the two men below, and what I feel about them, that his voice is like a gunshot in my ear. I flinch in surprise, and manage to smack the gun against a stone. The metallic clink isn’t very loud, but Jackson cocks his head to the side.
Busted.
Before I’ve thought about what I’m doing, I throw myself over the crest and slide down the snow covered incline. They definitely hear me now. Both men jump away. McAfee even lets out a scream. They spin around to face me as I reach the bottom. I land on my feet just a few steps from what remains of Jenny’s blood-soaked corpse. Like Eagon, she looks partially eaten, and she’s missing her head.
I can’t stand the sight of her, so I keep my attention where it belongs—on Jackson. “Don’t fucking move!” I shout, aiming the weapon from one man to the other.
McAfee raises his hands in the air. Jackson glares at me. He’s clutching a backpack in front of his chest.
Chase slides down behind me and steps up next to me.
McAfee must not have recognized me with the hood shadowing my face because his eyes go wide when he sees Chase. He drops his hands and takes a step forward. “Chase!” He says with relief.
“Captain,” Chase says, sounding like the good first mate again, but when McAfee steps closer, Chase lands an impressive right hook that sends McAfee to the ground.
McAfee shakes his head, stunned. He looks up at Chase with wounded eyes. “Chase, what—”
“You killed them,” Chase said. “Your crew. My friends. People we were both responsible for. It was all you.”
“Chase,” Jackson says, the tone of his voice a warning, which pisses me off.
I go from thinking of ways to diffuse this situation to jumping right into the mix. I pull the gun’s hammer back and step toward Jackson. “Shut-up, Tito,” I say. When I was introduced to Mr. Jackson I said, “Mr. Jackson, if you’re nasty,” and did my best Janet Jackson impersonation. His face turned bright red and Chase asked me to apologize, which I did for the sake of my mission. But now the gloves are off and I’m free to mock his name to my heart’s content. “Or is it actually Mrs. Jackson. I always wondered about you.”
I can tell my jabs are having the desired effect. Jackson looks ready to explode.
For several seconds, nothing happens. We’ve reached a stalemate. The two men responsible for killing the crews of the Sentinel and the Bliksem are at our mercy. They deserve to die. They deserve worse. The only problem is that Chase and I aren’t killers—at least not the kind that can kill defenseless men in cold blood.
Mr. Jackson realizes this around the same time I do. He throws his pack at me and I lose sight of him for a moment. When I see him again, he’s beneath me. He must have dived and rolled because he’s moving fast. Too fast for me to stop. The punch to my gut knocks the wind out of me and sends me to my knees. Before I can suck in my first wheezy breath, he snatches the handgun from my hand and turns it on me, saying, “Stupid bitch.”
24
Damn, damn, damn! The Colonel would not be proud if he saw me like this, on my knees at the feet of a mass murderer, gasping for breath. Shut-up, a part of me thinks, he’d be terrified. He was tough, and mean, but you were his girl, and he loved you. But I also know what he’d say to me in this situation. “Go down fighting,” and possibly, “Aim for his boys.” And I might just do that, as soon as I catch my breath.
“Is it just you two?” Jackson asks.
I still can’t speak, so I just nod. It’s so much easier to lie when you don’t have to mask your voice.
Chase hasn’t lost his angry edge despite the power reversal. “Why did you do it?” he shouts at McAfee.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” McAfee says.
“So your intention wasn’t to sink the Bliksem?” Chase says.
“What happened to the Sentinel was an accident,”
McAfee says, standing up. “I never meant to—”
“The Bliksem,” Chase growls. “I asked you about the Bliksem.”
McAfee is silent for a moment. The expression on his face morphs from guilt to anger. “They had it coming,” he says.
Chase opens his mouth to argue, but McAfee cuts him off. “Whales have as much right to live as people do. They’re intelligent, sentient creatures.”
“They’re…not…people!” Chase shouts.
“Oh, shut-up,” Jackson says and turns the pistol on Chase. And there’s no doubt that he’s going to shoot.
I try to lunge, but I’m still too weak.
“You’re a coward,” Chase says. “Both of you are cowards.”
The gun’s hammer starts to pull back as Jackson pulls the trigger. Chase stares him down, oddly defiant. I would have pictured him begging for his life. But here he his, moments away from taking a bullet to his head, and he’s not backing down.
When McAfee starts to shout, “Look out,” I realize why.
A blur rises up behind Jackson and a blade slides to a stop beneath his chin against the soft skin of his neck. Willem speaks through clenched teeth, “Drop the gun.”
Jackson seems to consider his options. He could still shoot Chase. But then Willem might slice open his neck. Jackson is probably trying to determine whether, unlike me and Chase, Willem has the guts to follow through on the threat.
Jackson suddenly winces. I see a trickle of blood flow from the skin of his neck. He lowers his aim and lets the gun dangle from his finger. “Okay, okay!”
I rush in and snatch the gun away from him. “Thanks, Tito,” I say, aiming the gun at him. “Now, what’s in the bag?”
Jackson is reluctant to give the bag up. His fingers clutch it tightly. But there is no option here. I kick him square in the nuts. The man drops so fast that Willem has to yank his hand away to keep from slicing the man’s throat open.
While Jackson writhes on the ground, I pull the backpack away from him and open it up. What I see inside makes me gasp. There are six bricks of C4, which could easily be mistaken for grey sculpting clay if not for the Ziploc bag of detonators, complete with timers, sitting on top. I place the pack on the ground and take a few steps away. C4 is very stable. You actually could sculpt with it without any fear of an explosion. Hell, you can shoot the stuff and it won’t explode. But being that close to enough explosives capable of turning all of us into pink aerosol, puts me on edge.
“What is it?” Chase asks, as I step away.
“Evidence,” I say.
Chase inspects the pack for himself. When he looks inside, his head snaps back like he’s just been struck by a snake. “You did it. You really did it.”
Poor guy. Some part of him was still clinging to the hope that McAfee had nothing to do with the sinking of two ships, and the deaths of his friends.
While Chase focuses on the tragedies of our recent past, I return to the one lying in a bloody heap at our feet. I turn to McAfee, remove my hood and point the gun at him. “Did you do this to Jenny?”
He looks earnestly shocked by the accusation. “What? No! We found her just a few minutes ago.” He turns to me. “Do you have any food?”
I ignore the request. I might not shoot him, but I’m sure as hell not going to give him rations that could go to someone more deserving. “How have you survived the storms?”
“In caves,” McAfee says. He turns to Chase. “We went back to the cave. You and Eagon weren’t there.”
“Eagon is dead,” Chase says.
“Dead?How?”
Chase looks dazed again, like when we first found him. He motions to Jenny’s body. “Same as this.”
“I don’t understand. What did—”
“You said ‘caves,’” Willem says. “You found more than one?”
“There are caves all over the island,” McAfee says. “They’re natural caves, but they were all walled up. We rode out the storms in two of them. Slept in another. I think we found five in all, including the one with raven carving.”
“And the bodies inside?” Willem asks. “What about them?”
McAfee can’t hide his surprise. “Have you seen them? The Vikings?”
“They’re dead?” Chase asks.
“Dead? Of course they’re dead,” McAfee says like the question is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “Though I don’t think they’ve rotted much over the years. They just looked dried out.”
“You’d make a horrible soldier,” Jackson grumbles from the ground. He’s on his hands and knees now, looking at McAfee like he’s a turncoat.
I shut him up by delivering a quick kick to his gut. He rolls to the ground, holding his stomach. He lets out an angry roar and shouts, “I’m going to kill you!”
“Quiet, Latoya,” I say. I probably shouldn’t be antagonizing the man, but he’s a dick, so, what can I do?
“Where are the caves?” Willem asks.
McAfee glances at Jackson, looking for his disapproval, but Jackson is still curled up in a ball. “All over the island. The one we rode out the last storm in is just around the corner. Maybe two hundred feet from here. I can take you there if you—”
“No,” I say, and I’m surprised by the force of my voice. “We’re not going anywhere near the caves.”
McAfee senses we know more than he does. “Why not?” he asks.
I’m not sure whether or not I want to answer him. He’s the prisoner, not me. As the man responsible for so many deaths, the only thing I want him to know is that if he survives, he’ll be going to jail for the rest of his life—that is, if he’s not put to death.
But I don’t get the chance to tell the man, because he suddenly leaps to his feet, screams and runs away. A white blurs explains everything.
“Polar bear!” Chase shouts, and takes off after McAfee.
As the bear rounds the corner and sets course for Willem, Jackson and me, I level the gun and squeeze off three shots. Each round hits the bear just to the side of its head, biting through skin and muscle.
But the bear doesn’t react.
Even if the shots hit nothing vital, the bear should flinch. A roar. Something. But it stays on course. “Something’s not right,” I say. “Run!”
I take off after Chase with Willem hot on my heels. A moment later, a scream turns me around. I must have injured Jackson because he’s struggling to get up. And he knows he’s about to die. And once again, a death is my fault. I see his backpack still lying where I left it, full of explosives—which would take care of the bear and then some, but there’s no way to reach them now. Jackson is on his own.
But I don’t feel bad when the bear reaches him. Fifty feet away, I turn and watch. The bear smashes into him, never slowing. It’s mouth wraps around his head as he screams down the bear’s throat. The bear thrashes Jackson back and forth and I hear the crunch that silences the man’s voice.
I start to turn away. I have no desire to watch the bear eat him. But Willem grips my arm. “Jane…” His voice is filled with dread.
The bear, which never really stopped moving, drops Jackson. But it doesn’t stop for a meal. Instead, it steps over his body and charges straight toward us. I take aim and fire two more rounds. Once again, both rounds strike the bear, with no result.
Willem tugs my arm. “C’mon!” He bounds down the rocky slope and I follow him. I know that bears can run much faster than people, but I hope that the loose shale sliding under each footstep will be enough to stumble the hulking predator enough for us to find shelter, or lose it in the maze of boulders and stone spires that dot the landscape.
Chase disappears over a ridge. If we can make it there before the bear reaches us, it might not know where we’ve gone. So I steam ahead, not worrying about what might be in front of me, and leap over the ridge with Willem right beside me. We drop six feet, stumble, collide and fall in a tangled mess. But the pain of falling is far less than expected.
I roll over and feel soft earth betwee
n my fingers. Sand! We’ve reached the south shore, and a beach. An honest to goodness beach. But it’s not all good news. Chase and McAfee stand just a few feet away, no longer fleeing despite the threat of a killer bear tearing them to pieces. A deep, resonating roar sounds and I glance around the two frozen men.
One hundred or so, 2000-pound giants populate the beach. And not one of them looks happy to see us.
25
The walruses aren’t aware of us until Chase charges through the pack. He moves fast, flying past the great, tan bodies before they can react to him. In thirty seconds, he clears the pack, leaps onto a low ledge and starts climbing. He doesn’t look back once. Chase might not be one of the bad guys, but he’s not a great good guy either. The agitated walruses rear up, flashing their massive tusks, and find Willem, McAfee, and me standing at the fringe of their herd.
“We’ll never make it,” Willem says.
“We can’t go back,” I say. That bear will have no trouble catching and killing all three of us.”
“They’ll let us through,” McAfee says.
The words, “What are you talking about?” start to come out of my mouth, but then McAfee raises his hands and starts walking toward the herd.
“They know we’re not predators. They have nothing to fear from us. They can sense it.” He’s closer to the herd now and the giant animals back away, shifting their bulbous bodies in great lunges. But their heads are pulled up, tusks at the ready. “We’re friends,” McAfee says, but he’s no longer talking to Willem or me, he’s speaking to the walruses. “You won’t hurt me. I just want to pass by. I protect animals like you. Now you can protect me.”
McAfee continues forward and the sea of giants begins to part. The animals are agitated now, snorting and honking, but they’re not attacking. Willem and I follow, but at a distance.
Twenty feet into the herd, it appears we might make it, but then everything goes to hell. The herd parts, but not for McAfee. A big bull charges out of the pack. He’s no doubt the dominant bull here and whether he senses a rival, or a threat, he’s ready to throw down.
THE SENTINEL (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) Page 13
