Pressure

by Brian Keene

  “I know there was another research vessel—a private craft—one of theirs, that disappeared just after the collapse sped up. They sent it out here to investigate things discreetly. Do you remember Asselin and Edidin from when we worked at the Scripps Institute?”

  “Janelle and Rachel?” Carrie nodded. “Of course I remember them. They were brilliant.”

  “They were both part of the original expedition.”

  Carrie sighed in dismay. “They were a part of this? They knew?”

  “I don’t think they knew, at all,” Paolo said. “But Alpinus hired them to accompany a team out here.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Their boat disappeared. It was never found, nor were any of the crew’s bodies recovered.”

  “The predators?”

  “That’s what I assumed,” Paolo said. “Now, I’m not so sure. Perhaps it was Ochse and his men. There have also been some instances of other people disappearing—a few fishermen, but mostly tourists, and all of those back before the authorities banned people from diving in the waters around the trench. But these disappearances happened over a length of time, so nobody suspected anything like Alpinus could be behind it.”

  “The body count just keeps rising,” Carrie muttered. “You must be very proud of yourself, Paolo. You talk about growing up in the shadow of Pinochet, but that old man had nothing on Alpinus. How could you work with people like that?”

  “I swear, Carrie. I never meant to put you in danger. Need I remind you one of those things nearly killed me, as well?”

  Abhi crumpled the atlas in his fists. “It nearly killed all of us, you little asshole.”

  “So,” Carrie asked, “when you warned me about the Novak being under surveillance—was that just another lie?”

  “No,” Paolo said. “It wasn’t a lie. The ship really was under surveillance. At the time, I just didn’t know it was Ochse and his men. I wasn’t told of their involvement. I thought perhaps it was a competitor—Globe or someone like that. Or maybe one of the journalists, trying to go rogue, and get a deeper story.”

  “You didn’t know about Ochse,” Abhi said, “but were he and his men aware of your involvement?”

  Paolo shrugged. “I’m sure they were.”

  “Why are you telling us now?” Carrie asked.

  She saw him smile in the rearview mirror, his perfect teeth flashing white in the dark.

  “I’m hedging my bets, Carrie. Plain and simple. I think you would agree that my situation has drastically changed?”

  She shrugged.

  “And they lied to me. One of the reasons I was hired was because of our past relationship. I was promised that neither of you would be hurt. That changes things. Even after the United Nations shut everything down, I stayed on because I wanted to keep you safe. I had to answer to them, yes, but you were my number one priority. I couldn’t let you discover the truth, but I couldn’t let anything happen to you, either.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No,” Paolo said. “But it is the truth.”

  “I don’t know what the truth is anymore, Paolo. And you know what’s even worse? I don’t think you do, either.”

  “Carrie … I am truly sorry for everything that has happened.”

  Carrie didn’t respond. As they drove on, Abhi cleared his throat and shifted around in the seat, clearly uncomfortable with the tension in the vehicle. Carrie remained motionless, except for the almost imperceptible turns of the steering wheel. Her thoughts were swirling, chaotic turmoil. She was furious with Paolo, but even more enraged with herself—because, despite everything he’d done, and everything he’d revealed—she was already on her way to forgiving him. And that felt like the worst betrayal of all, because it didn’t come from someone else. It came from inside herself. She stared straight ahead, into the darkness, afraid that if she tried to reply, she’d begin screaming instead.

  * * *

  When they reached Moka, Carrie’s plan of finding a brightly lit area with lots of witnesses fell apart. Apparently, the entire village went to bed after sundown. Her temples still throbbed. Instead of abating, her headache had only grown worse, which just increased her overall tension. She cruised the dark and empty streets, looking for a place to abandon the SUV. Eventually, in a more run-down section of the village, they found a street lined with bars, where people were still awake. A group of young men loitered on the corner outside one particularly seedy-looking establishment. They eyed the black SUV warily as Carrie slowly cruised past them.

  “They don’t look like they’re up to anything good,” Abhi mused.

  “No,” Carrie agreed. “They don’t. Which makes them absolutely perfect.”

  “What? Are we going to hire our own mercenaries?”

  Instead of answering him, Carrie turned into a narrow, trash-strewn alley on the other side of the bar. The headlights glanced off a garbage dumpster, atop of which several fat, sleek rats scurried, fleeing in fright at the intrusion. Carrie turned off the headlights and killed the engine. Then they got out of the vehicle. Abhi went around to the back and began to wrestle with Paolo’s wheelchair, but the younger man stopped him.

  “Leave it,” Paolo said. “I think I can walk on my own now.”

  “Are you sure?” Abhi seemed unconvinced. “You’re still recovering from … well, whatever it was that was happening to you.”

  “I’ll be fine. The wheelchair will only slow us down and make us more conspicuous.”

  “Conspicuous?” Abhi scoffed. “Look at how you’re dressed.”

  “It’s better than being naked. Leave the wheelchair.”

  Shrugging, Abhi closed the hatch. Then he turned to Carrie.

  “He says we don’t need the wheelchair. Go ahead and lock it.”

  “I’m not,” she replied. “And I’m leaving the keys in the ignition.”

  “What? Why?”

  Carrie smiled. “Trust me.”

  “You I trust.”

  Abhi made a point of glancing at Paolo as he said it, but if Paolo picked up on Abhi’s implication, he didn’t react. Instead, he pulled his hospital robe tight, and handed Carrie the pistol.

  “Here,” he said. “I don’t really have anywhere to hide this right now.”

  Carrie tucked the handgun beneath her waistband and pulled her shirttail down over it. The metal felt cool against the small of her back. The sensation had a strange, calming effect on her.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “I feel exposed, standing out here.”

  “You feel exposed?” Paolo indicated his hospital gown. “How do you think I feel?”

  They walked down the dark alley and exited onto the sidewalk. When they did, Carrie made a point of not glancing in the direction of the young men who were still hanging out in front of the bar. Their conversation, which was being spoken in a mix of Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri, abruptly ceased as the three of them emerged. Their surly glares turned to gaping surprise when they saw Paolo limping along, still dressed in his hospital gown. He kept one hand pressed to his chest, and the other clutched the string ties on the back of the robe. Trying to appear casual and relaxed, Carrie guided Abhi and Paolo in the opposite direction, and headed down the street.

  “Oh shit,” she exclaimed, raising her voice until it echoed down the street. “I left the keys in the car. Do you think it will be okay?”

  Understanding flickered in Abhi’s expression. Grinning, he played along.

  “It should be fine,” he said, slurring his voice. “As much as we’ve had to drink, we shouldn’t be driving anymore tonight anyway. We’ll come back for it in the morning.”

  They continued up the street, stumbling a bit now, and laughing a little too loudly. Abhi stumbled off the curb and walked into a light pole, then hopped back up on the sidewalk.

  “Don’t overdo it,” Carrie whispered.

  “Nonsense,” he replied. “This is an Oscar-worthy performance. And you are a genius.”

&
nbsp; When they’d gone a full block, Carrie pretended to drop something so that she could risk a glance behind them. She almost cheered when she saw the gang of youths slinking into the alley. She straightened up quick and kept walking.

  “They took the bait,” she said.

  A few minutes later, the SUV roared out of the alley and sped off into the night, tires screeching. The brake lights barely flickered as it rounded a curve and disappeared. The roar of the engine faded.

  “Well done,” Abhi said. “That was genius, Carrie!”

  “It should buy us some time. If you’re right about the GPS, then Alpinus will track the SUV. I’d hate to be those kids when Ochse and the others catch up with them.” She paused, and a deep look of concern crossed her face. “Paolo, you don’t think Ochse would kill them, do you? I mean, they’re not involved. They don’t know anything. All they did was steal a car.”

  “I don’t know,” Paolo admitted.

  “Maybe,” Abhi said, “and maybe not. But he definitely wants to kill us. I suggest we find a taxi.”

  The streets remained mostly deserted. A few cars drove by, but none of them were taxicabs. They found a bus stop, but according to the sign mounted on a pole, public transportation had stopped running several hours before and wouldn’t resume until morning. Eventually, after growing increasingly frustrated, Carrie led them into a bar.

  “What are we doing?” Abhi had to shout over the cheers of rowdy patrons and a live band who were playing French covers of heavy metal songs from the eighties. “And do I have time to get a drink?”

  Carrie leaned over and put her mouth against his ear. Tiny hairs tickled her upper lip.

  “You two wait by the door,” she said. “I’m going to ask the bartender to call us a cab. Keep an eye on Paolo.”

  Abhi nodded his understanding. Then he tugged on Paolo’s arm and positioned them in a dark corner near the door, where they hopefully wouldn’t attract attention.

  Carrie elbowed her way through the throng of drunken, rowdy people as the band segued from Guns n’ Roses “Reckless Life” to a song by The Bullet Boys, the title of which she couldn’t remember. The crowd sounded marginally better—and louder—than the band, and the clamor did nothing to ease her headache. Each throb of the bass guitar and every cymbal clash was like a spike being driven through her temples. Finally, she made it up to the bar and got the bartender’s attention. She quickly pleaded her situation—telling him that her friends were too drunk to drive, and they had no cell phone with which to call a taxi service. She was relieved when the bartender agreed to help them. Carrie thanked him, wishing she had money to tip him.

  Then they went back outside and waited, glancing around nervously, expecting at any moment for a horde of Alpinus security agents to burst from the shadows and descend upon them. Paolo fidgeted with his hospital gown, repeatedly tugging on it and making sure it stayed tied, but also pulling it away from his chest, as if the fabric were too constricting. The behavior seemed odd, but Carrie chalked it up to tension and anxiety.

  She glanced at Abhi, and was alarmed to see just how old and tired he suddenly looked, as if the events of the past few days had aged him. A deep sadness welled up inside of her. In a way, Carrie felt responsible for his plight. If she had never recruited him to help her, none of this would have happened to him.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Abhi turned to her and smiled. “So, this is fun, isn’t it?”

  “You look like shit.”

  “It’s the lighting out here. And you’re not exactly catching me on my best day.”

  Despite everything, Carrie laughed.

  “You sound just like her,” Abhi said.

  “Just like who?”

  “Marissa. When you laugh like that, you sound just like Marissa used to sound. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always liked you.”

  Carrie’s voice softened. “You never did finish telling me about her.”

  “Aye, I didn’t. Marissa was the one who got away. That may sound cliché, but there is often a lot of truth in those old clichés, no? If there is such a thing as a soul mate then she was mine.”

  “What happened?”

  “I happened.” He stared down at the pavement. “She was completely unlike any other woman I’ve ever known. She understood me—I mean really understood me, the good and the bad. And she didn’t judge. I never understood the concept of unconditional love until Marissa. That makes what happened even worse.”

  Carrie smiled in sympathy.

  “One night, I ran across an old girlfriend. Not one I loved in the same way I loved Marissa, but one for whom I cared very deeply still. You understand?”

  Carrie had to restrain herself from glancing at Paolo.

  “We were both drunk, and when the bar closed, she invited me back to her place. I genuinely had intended to sleep on the couch. It was nice, being with her. Sharing old laughs, but I had no plans to sleep with this woman.”

  “But you did?”

  “Aye. We drank some more at her apartment, and caught up on things. Talked about old times. Old friends. We laughed a lot. It was … nice. But it was also nothing like what I had with Marissa. When it came time to go to sleep, she brought me a blanket and a pillow for the couch. I noticed that she was wincing, so I asked what was wrong. She said her back hurt. I offered to rub it. One thing led to another.”

  He paused, but Carrie didn’t respond.

  “The guilt was instantaneous,” he continued. “It hit me even before we’d finished. I couldn’t handle it. And it came back to me every time I was with Marissa—and I don’t mean just intimately—it haunted me when we did anything together. Watching a movie or having dinner or just walking down the street holding hands. I couldn’t take knowing that I’d cheated on her, and so I began to find reasons to break up with her. I nitpicked our perfect relationship apart, until finally, it didn’t exist anymore.”

  “Oh, Abhi…”

  “I know. I know. It was a cowardly, stupid act—the behavior of a boy, not a man. A cruel and thoughtless boy. I tell myself that I was younger then. We all do things we are ashamed of when we are young. But that doesn’t make it right. Rather than telling her the truth, rather than working through it, I chose the coward’s way out. And Marissa never knew the real reason why. She still doesn’t, to this day. I heard from friends later that it nearly destroyed her. She blamed herself, but the truth is, the blame was all on me.”

  “Why didn’t you ever try again? Why not reach out to her?”

  Abhi sighed. “I almost did. I guess it was about fifteen years ago, now. I tracked her down, and found out she was married to a man who worked as a welder in a shipyard in Naples. They had three children together. After learning that, how could I? She was happy.”

  “Is she still married?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should find out, Abhi. And you should still tell her.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “Well, I’m not telling you to go break up her marriage, but at the very least, she still deserves to know the truth. You owe her that. And I think you owe yourself that, as well. You’ve been carrying this for a long time.”

  “It has been a long time,” he agreed. “Perhaps I will try, if we make it out of this alive.”

  His words seemed to hang in the air, and they fell silent again.

  The taxi arrived about ten minutes later. Carrie felt a surge of elation as it pulled up to the curb. The driver eyed them warily. His gaze lingered on Paolo’s attire. The three of them climbed into the back, and asked the driver to take them to the American embassy in Port Louis. He refused at first, hesitant to make the drive over the mountains in the dark, but Carrie turned on the charm and finally convinced him.

  Once the cab was on its way, she sank back into the seat and relaxed, breathing a deep sigh of relief. She couldn’t completely relax, however. Her nerves were wound too tightly. It also didn’t help that the handgun was pressing into her back. She shifted
around, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  Paolo and Abhi were both quiet, seemingly lost in their own thoughts. The driver apparently wasn’t the chatty type, preferring instead to listen to an audiobook. He kept the volume low, for which Carrie—whose headache still hadn’t abated—was grateful.

  “You should rest, Gatito,” Paolo murmured.

  Nodding, Carrie decided to close her eyes for a minute and do just that, in the hopes that her headache would subside.

  * * *

  “Carrie. Paolo. Wake up. We’re here.”

  Carrie blinked, unsure what was happening. When she opened her eyes and saw Abhi rousting Paolo, she realized that she had fallen asleep in the back of the cab.

  “Come on,” Abhi urged again. “We’re pulling up now. Time to rise and shine.”

  The taxi slowed as the driver approached the guardhouse outside the American embassy. Carrie’s hopes surged. An American flag fluttered above the building, illuminated by two bright spotlights. Two U.S. Marines stood outside the gate, checking the identification of a vehicle in front of them. A black Jeep was parked nearby.

  “We made it,” she said, ecstatic. “Oh my God, we made—”

  The exclamation died in her throat as she caught sight of a familiar face. Maberry, the hulking and laconic Alpinus security agent, stood next to the guardhouse, conferring with a third Marine over a handful of paperwork. Carrie had no doubt that their names and photographs were on the papers. Then she realized that the black Jeep probably belonged to him. She’d seen another like it in the parking garage at the Alpinus facility. Or perhaps this was the same one. If so, that meant Ochse and Legerski were surely free.

  “Keep going,” she shouted, slapping the back of the driver’s seat with her hand. “Don’t stop here!”

  The driver checked the rearview mirror in confusion. “Lady, you said take you to the American embassy. This is the American embassy.”

  Abhi looked at her in concern. “Carrie, what’s wrong?”

  “I see it,” Paolo said, pointing. “Over there. One of Ochse’s men.”

  Abhi’s shoulders slumped. “Well, shit. What do we do?”