Half-Past Dawn

by Richard Doetsch

  She stopped at the top of the stairs and peered down into the foyer. She tuned her ears, listening for any presence, but heard nothing. On silent feet, she crept down the stairs, her pistol waving back and forth, her finger poised on the trigger, ready to shoot.

  As she stepped into the foyer, she was amazed at what she beheld. The house was enormous. To her left was a ballroom-sized living room, replete with antique furniture from a bygone age. To her right was an old-fashioned library, deep cherry paneling, a fireplace you could park a car in, bookshelves covered in never-ending volumes. There were large overstuffed sofas, and high-back wing chairs faced the fireplace.

  But there was a coldness to the place, a foreboding of death and abandonment, despite the furnishings, the pictures that lined the tables. She couldn’t help feeling that the place was haunted. Dated pictures covered the desk and the end tables, images of a forgotten time that was only recalled by the depths of the house

  She cut through the library to a set of French doors and, gently turning the handle, pulled it open. She inhaled the humid summer night air and looked around the well-lit grounds, but again, she saw no one.

  She took a step outside onto a slate terrace adorned with planters filled with withered flowers. Suddenly, the planter beside her exploded, turned to gravel and dust.

  The gunshot came from the house, not behind it, not from above or from the brush. It came from the porch by the front door, where two men were focused on her with guns raised.

  Without thought, Mia ran for cover.

  A hail of bullets erupted, tearing into the ground right behind her, shredding the stone wall to her left. As Mia kept running, she caught sight of two guards racing her way.

  The cascade of gunfire continued without pause. Mia had been an FBI agent for thirteen years, and although she was well trained, her investigations had never brought her into a war zone until now.

  Rounding the house, she saw a blanket of darkness before her, a shroud against the star-filled night sky. The woods were only twenty-five yards away, a momentary place to seek sanctuary, to get lost, to afford her the time to clear her head and save herself. She pushed her legs to the breaking point, the lactic acid pouring over her muscles, urging her to slow, her mind protesting, clinging to the adage, fight or flee. As the gunfire continued, skimming the ground around her, she thought she was about to die when she cut right and into the deep woods.

  The sounds of gunfire soon diminished, echoing behind her, but she didn’t slow. Branches slapped her face, stinging her skin, as she ducked and dodged through the thick nighttime forest, her footing precarious as she sprinted over the uneven forest floor, struggling not to fall as her toes caught on protruding roots and rocks. Putting as much distance between herself and death as possible, she headed deeper into the dark woods, the shadows enveloping her, and finally slowed her pace. Catching her breath, she listened for her pursuers and prayed that they were as lost as she was. She felt like an animal, hunted for sport. She knew there was no surrender, no going back. She was no longer their prisoner, and, as she knew all along, they couldn’t afford for her to live.

  Mia looked around the woods; shadows ran long and deep under the moonlight, its intermittent shafts slicing down through the leafy canopy reflecting off the rocks and fallen, decaying trees scattered on the ground around her. The sounds of the summer night filled the air-insects, birds, nocturnal creatures rustling in the treetops. And although she knew she was awake, she felt as if she had just been thrust into the darkest of nightmares.

  And then, in the distance, like a voice calling to her, she heard the roar of a train, its howling whistle, like a beacon. It filled her with hope. It gave her a desperately needed destination where she knew she could find help.

  She began to walk, gingerly, each footstep on the forest floor taken with care, trying to minimize her footfalls upon the unseen leaves and sticks.

  On the horizon, five miles away, she could see the flashes of lightning, setting enormous thunderhead clouds ablaze. With each successive strike, she could see the enormity of the approaching storm, built up throughout the humid day, ready to unleash its fury on the world below. There was no doubt in Mia’s mind, fate was drawing the storm toward her.

  Up ahead, she saw a clearing, the last bits of moonlight dancing off a white concrete roadway. She stopped, tuning her hearing, listening, reaching out with her mind for a trap. She was so close to escape, her pounding heart racing faster as she knew that it was always when freedom was in view that the gates came crashing down.

  As she stepped from the woods, she nearly collapsed, for what she thought to be a roadway was not. The sound that called to her was not a train. In hindsight, it was like the mythical sirens that called to Odysseus, tempting him with their seductive cries.

  Mia realized that her efforts were to no avail. There would be no finding Jack, no way to get to her children in time. She was truly powerless, trapped…

  For the place where she was held had no escape.

  Mia stood at the edge of the forest and fought the overwhelming urge to give up. She thought herself so smart, so brilliant, in overpowering her captor, in making her escape. She had not only managed to avoid being killed in a hail of gunfire but had successfully eluded her captors.

  But now she knew why they had slowed their pace, why their desperate gunfire had fallen off. They knew she’d never get away. She had nowhere to go.

  Mia looked out over the sandy beach at the great expanse of water before her. Moonlight danced up the crests of the waves, swirling like lights at Christmas. A ship three miles to the north steamed through the ocean waters, its running lights like fireflies in the distance, its low bellowing horn echoed out to sea. Her wishful thinking had morphed its sound into that of a locomotive luring her here where she now stood with her feet in the sand.

  And then she heard them, getting closer, closing in.

  Jack was at a loss. It was after 1:30 in the morning. He had less than four and a half hours to get to Mia, and yet he had no idea where she was. He was so sure he could get it out of Peter, and that was his only option.

  Jack racked his brain, trying to focus, to see if there was some clue he had missed. He thought he had all of the cards. He had the books that Cristos wanted, he had the passport and the prayer necklace. He examined them, wishing that they would speak to him, give him some direction.

  He looked at the two fateful pictures, of him lying dead along the river…

  And it hit him. It was there all along. He looked closer at the drawing of Mia, at its exacting detail. The drawing of Jack on the riverbank was so precise, down to the wet errant hairs on his head.

  If there was any truth to these drawings, if the drawing of Mia was done to the same standard as Jack’s, then Mia’s depiction was the compass that would lead him to her.

  A momentary blossom of hope welled inside him as he looked at the picture. He knew the area where she lay. He knew the rocks and the trees. He knew the sandy beach like the back of his hand.

  CHAPTER 40

  SATURDAY, 2:00 A.M.

  The white hateras yacht belonged to Jack’s friend, Mitch Schuler. They had graduated from law school at the same time, but Mitch had never been bitten by the justice bug, heading straight into Wall Street and millions. When Jack called in a favor, Mitch never hesitated. And this time, finding out that his friend was still alive, Mitch almost leaped through the phone to hug him. He made sure that his sixty-foot yacht was fueled and stocked and was happy to play the game that Jack was still dead. He told the head of the marina that Frank Archer and a friend would be picking up his boat that night and not to expect it back until the next day.

  They sped into the rain-soaked marina to find the boat already running and the harbor master standing in wait. Frank quickly greeted him, slipped him a hundred, and hopped aboard.

  “Listen,” Jack said to Joy as they got out of Frank’s car, holding an umbrella over her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the cance
r.”

  “So, what’s this mean, you come back from the dead only to have death waiting around the corner? I can’t go through that again. You don’t know what it did to me to hear you and Mia had died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Joy calmed down and wrapped her arms around Jack. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now. I love you, Jack, and I love Mia. And I will go on loving the both of you till the day I die.” Joy wiped away a tear. “Please bring her back safe.”

  Jack handed Joy an umbrella as one of Mitch Schuler’s town cars arrived in the parking lot next to them. She got into the backseat and, without another word, closed the door, and the town car drove away.

  Jack ran through the rain, down the pier, and jumped onto the boat. He quickly released the stern line and ran to the bow.

  Frank was at the wheel, familiarizing himself with the controls, when his cell phone rang. He quickly answered it as he revved the motor. “Yeah?”

  “Frank, it’s Matt Daly.”

  “What’s up?” Frank said, entirely distracted with flipping knobs and levers.

  “You wanted me to call you if we found anything.”

  Frank froze in his tracks. He hadn’t thought about Matt since his last call, forgetting that he was probably still in his dive gear, dragging the river for bodies that weren’t there. Everything had moved so quickly; quite honestly, it didn’t really matter now if the world found out that Jack and Mia weren’t in the river. But there was an urgency in Matt’s tone that unnerved him; he stopped fiddling and focused all attention on the call. “You found something?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a body.”

  Frank spun around and looked at Jack, who was casting off the bow line. “Whose body?”

  “We’re not sure yet. It’s wedged in the spillway. It may take some time to get it out. It’s real tough working underwater at night.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Frank was hardly listening as confusion began to wrap around him. “Do me a favor and call me as soon as you have an ID.”

  “You got it.” And Daly hung up.

  Jack turned toward Frank as he cast off the last line and pulled in the bumpers. “Who’s on the phone?”

  Frank struggled for words. “Just my wife.”

  CHAPTER 41

  SATURDAY, 2:05 A.M.

  As Mia looked out across the water, the slim chance of escape was not what scared her. What tested her mental stability was what she saw across the body of water, two miles away to the west. She understood now where the photo of her daughters at play that Cristos had left her was taken from. It was clear that he had her children under surveillance this whole time. The site she was staring at was the distant beach house where Jack was raised, the house of her in-laws, the place where her daughters now slept.

  While sitting on the sandy beach behind his boyhood home, Jack would tell her tales of his youth, stories of a time before he was born, of the great island across the water, where the abject poor were buried in unmarked graves on the southern side, while for fifty years the opulent estate of Marguerite Trudeau hosted the rich and powerful at her weekly summer parties.

  Mia was two miles from shore, a swim she could easily make, but it would leave her an easy target for the men who were closing in. She could hear the approach of her pursuers, and without another thought, she turned and headed back into the woods.

  She headed in the direction of what she believed was south, away from the mansion, working her way through the woods for five minutes. She could hear her stalkers not far behind, the sound of their footfalls coming from two different directions. Clearly, they had split up and were closing in.

  The rain began to fall in large, soaking drops. Mia was drenched in thirty seconds. The thunder was close enough to shake the ground she ran on, the deep, engulfing rumble startling her with every strike.

  Before she knew it, she was in the overgrown potter’s field, a world of the dead, countless souls buried beneath her feet, forgotten to the world. Brush had overtaken the footstones, and trees had sprouted long ago, their roots digging down deep into death, carrying it out of the earth, and filling the woods with an ominous cloud of foreboding.

  With the storm’s full force nearly upon her, the dark clouds blotted out the moonlight, plunging her into near-total darkness. She stumbled, falling hard to the ground, scrambling through the mud to regain her footing. With the sounds of the driving rain, of the constant thunder, she could no longer hear her pursuers. She spun around the potter’s field as a terrible fear crept up within her, as though she was on the edge of death. She waited for the bullet to strike.

  And through the sounds of the storm, she once again heard them, less than ten yards away. She froze in place, holding her gun high, her finger on the trigger. Waiting for death.

  Thunder exploded, the flash of lightning briefly illuminating the darkness around her: shattered foot-and headstones, felled trees, overgrown bramble. The brief bolt left her eyes momentarily scarred with spots, inhibiting what little sight she had.

  Another sound, this one just feet away. She pulled the trigger in the direction of the sound, and her gun exploded, the flash lighting her surroundings for the briefest of seconds. She saw them, two of them, rain running down their angry faces, their hair plastered to their heads. They both spun and began rapid-firing in the direction of her shot.

  Mia spun left a half-second before the gunfire was returned. She raced without direction, tripping, stumbling, her legs weak with fright. She crashed into a broken headstone, her ankle twisting in pain. She hunkered down, enveloped in fear, hiding among the dead.

  Mia held her gun as if it would ward off her attackers, ward off evil, blindly pointing it. She never felt so alone, so close to death.

  She thought she heard movement again, but this was different. It was a rumble from beneath the ground, as if the souls of the departed had been disturbed.

  And then, without warning, Mia was suddenly sucked into the ground.

  Cristos stepped from the large speedboat onto the dock, the churned-up ocean waters sending the floating wharf rolling around, the two boats banging against their moorings as the waves washed over everything, trying to drag it all out to sea. Ignoring the growing storm, he stalked up the gangway onto shore, where he was met by Jacob.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” Cristos said.

  “The woman escaped.” A bruise was welling up on the side of his rain-soaked head. They continued walking up to the estate.

  “Off the island?”

  “No.”

  Walking in silence, they arrived at the front door. Cristos saw the spent bullet casings on the ground and spun around into Jacob’s face.

  “They shot at her?” Cristos’s words were measured and angry.

  Jacob said nothing.

  “If she dies, you all die. Where is everybody?”

  “Alex and Rizzoli are out looking for her.

  “They can’t find her?”

  “They lost her. It was like she just vanished. They said it was as if she had disappeared into thin air.”

  Mia was in a full-on panic, scrambling in a pool of water, her gun lost during the fall, her hands scratching the muddy walls for purchase. She could barely see, but then lightning lit up the night, filtering down into her tomb, and she saw flashes of her prison.

  She was in a pit, a makeshift crypt, where countless bodies had been thrown one atop the other when space was no longer available in the graveyard, robbing them of the dignity of lying alone in their eternal rest.

  About her were shattered skeletons and tattered clothing that tried in vain to hold what were once human bodies together. The heavy rains, along with her weight, had opened the sink hole like a grave where no one had been in decades, where maintenance had stopped in the ’70s.

  And although the illumination of lightning was intermittent, she didn’t need to see to know that the four feet of water was quickly rising around her. Between he
r exhaustion and the freezing water, Mia knew she could only hold out for so long. If she didn’t drown first, the muddy walls would soon collapse, filling in the grave, where she would never be found, where she would die terrified among the already dead.

  Jack sat in the teak-appointed salon of the Hatteras. Frank was forward at the helm of the boat as they cut through the choppy seas. Frank had fallen silent since the call from his wife, speaking in short one-word answers. Jack knew he was either pissed, preoccupied, or scared. Jack had picked up on Frank’s mannerisms from the moment they met so many years ago. He hadn’t changed much since. He still had the powerful arms of a fighter, the sharp mind of a soldier, and the temper of a junkyard dog. Jack would hate to be his enemy. There was no one he would rather have at his side, living or dead, as he was about to embark on the fight of his life.

  Jack had tucked all of Toulouse’s effects into a knapsack. He and Frank had pored through the two books, but there were still some missing pieces to the puzzle. He understood that the feds were after the book that included the list of assassinations. He felt sure, though, that Cristos had different motives. There was something else there, something he wasn’t seeing.

  Jack pulled out Toulouse’s passport. He read through all of the visa stamps, imagining all of the places Toulouse had traveled to in the last month. He flipped back to the front and stared at his picture. There was a slight resemblance to Cristos, but there was something else… He looked at the dagger, at the prayer necklace.

  Jack turned his attention to his wrist, the tattoo. He could remember the man writing the words; he could see him kneeling beside him on the riverbank.