by Rachel Lee
"You know," he said, "I'm Irish. The Irish have a strong sense of such things, and if you're fey, Markie, I won't hold it against you."
She looked up at him, feeling uncomfortably exposed. "Do you read minds?"
"Sometimes." For an instant there was a devilish twinkle in his blue eyes, but it faded almost as soon as it came. "What are you feeling?"
"Just…uneasiness. Maybe it's my imagination at work. It's like…we're not alone."
He nodded, and nothing in his expression suggested that he thought she was nuts. Instead, he said, "I'm feeling it, too."
A chill poured down her spine, icy and sinister. Goose bumps rose on her arms, despite the morning's warmth. "Not a good place for a picnic, huh?" She tried to laugh, but the sound was pathetic.
"Maybe not. And maybe it's just these old walls remembering." He lifted his head and scanned the area. "There's no one else here. We know that. At least, no living person."
"Right." She said it firmly, but inside, she didn't feel firm at all.
"Let's go take a look at those Quonset huts. Maybe we can shake free of whatever this is."
Immediately she looked around for her wolf. "Kato?" Then she spied him. He was standing before one of the darkened doorways across the parade ground, peering into it with his head lowered between his shoulders. The chill along her spine deepened. "Kato?"
"He sees something," Declan said, following her look. "A rat?"
It was such a prosaic explanation, but it didn't seem to fit the mood. "Maybe." Her lips and tongue felt dry.
"I'll go check. You wait here."
There was nothing there, she told herself as Declan walked toward Kato. Nothing except possibly some poor frightened animal. No one could have approached the fort without being seen or heard. A rat, a mouse. It had to be.
Before Dec reached him, Kato gave a growl that made the hair on the back of Markie's neck rise. She'd never, ever heard such a sound from him. It even froze Dec in his tracks.
Then Kato seeped into the shadows, his hackles raised, and disappeared. They heard no more growling, no howling. Nothing.
* * *
"You go stay in the car," Dec told her.
"No! Kato…" Scared as she was feeling, she couldn't leave her dog behind. No way.
"I'll get him, Markie," Dec promised her. He was dragging her to the car. "I'll get him. But there's no reason to expose both of us to possible danger."
He was making sense, but she didn't want to admit it. "Kato!" She called over her shoulder, hoping desperately that he would suddenly bound out of the shadows and everything would be all right again.
"Come on," Dec said, propelling her steadily toward the Range Rover. Once there, he gave her the keys and told her to lock herself inside with the ignition running. Reluctantly, she obeyed.
Then he headed back into the fort, in the direction Kato had disappeared.
* * *
The sun had risen higher since they arrived. The courtyard was blisteringly bright under the hot tropical sun, but that only served to make the contrast with the passageways even starker. Dec felt as if he had stepped into an inkwell.
The contrast made the air feel cooler, too. Downright icy. Standing in the breezeway, he tried to let his eyes adapt to the pitch-darkness, all the while straining his ears for sounds of Kato.
Nothing. Not the merest whimper, breath sound or clatter of claw. No growling. That was at least some comfort. When Kato growled, as he had just minutes earlier, Declan understood the atavistic human fear of wolves. But where was Kato now?
They had to be alone inside the fort. They'd walked this entire breezeway and peered into every open room. If anyone had come in while they were there, they would have heard something. A car or snippets of conversation. Dec hadn't heard a thing. But something had sure drawn Kato's attention.
Admittedly, he didn't know Kato all that well yet. It was entirely possible the dog had gone haring off after a lizard or something. But somehow, standing in this icy, dank, dim corridor, he didn't believe it.
The medical doctor in Declan registered that he was in fight-or-flight mode, adrenaline coursing, every sense on high alert, as he crept, peering into every corner. The place still seemed every bit as abandoned as it had before. The rational part of his mind knew there was nothing here to fear. But somewhere deep in his cortex, the warning flashed out regardless. Danger.
As he padded silently along the breezeway, the chill deepened. It seemed physically impossible that, with eighty-degree temperatures outside, it could feel almost like a refrigerator inches away. But there was no mistaking the iciness of the air.
Suddenly the steady breeze—born of the temperature gradient between the dark, cool interior and the sun-baked courtyard—simply stopped. Declan froze in his tracks, wondering what the hell was going on. It was as if the chill had solidified the air, holding the molecules in place. But he was still breathing. For some strange reason, he needed to remind himself of that. If he could breathe, the air was still moving. The beads of sweat that trickled down his back felt like icicles.
Cautiously, he moved toward the end of the breezeway, where it turned at a right angle. As he passed each alcove or room, he paused to look and listen. He began to wonder if his nerves were misleading him or if the shadows in the corners really were reaching out to him. He shook himself. He wasn't the kind of person to get scared of shadows, but even that didn't ease the tingling at the base of his neck.
When he turned the corner, he at last heard Kato. The faintest hint of a claw scraping stone. Worried that the dog had somehow been hurt, he hurried his pace, not caring any longer if he was silent.
Glancing into a dim side room, a deep one with a sloping roof, he thought he saw an inkblot.
Halting, he peered closer.
There was Kato, all but invisible given his black coat, six feet from the back corner, rigidly alert.
"Kato?"
Dec thought he saw Kato's ear flick, but the animal didn't move. What the hell was in that corner?
Dec stepped into the room, expecting to find a lizard, a rat or even one of the notorious but rare island insects that could reach nearly a foot in length. Even paradise had its glitches.
Instead, ice slammed him in the face. The temperature dropped at least thirty degrees as he took a step forward. He stopped, shocked and…unnerved. This simply could not be happening.
"Kato!"
The wolf answered with the briefest of whimpers, then again let out that ugly, deep, I'm going to tear out your throat growl. Once again, campfire stories told for millennia flashed through Declan's mind in an instant. Wolf! Run!
But he knew Kato wasn't growling at him and forced himself to move through the frigid air to the wolf's side. Peering into the corner, he couldn't see a damn thing. He fought the urge to rub his arms briskly against the cold.
Then the darkness moved.
It wasn't physical movement but rather a shifting in attention, laying open every feeling in the darkest niches of Declan's heart. Examining. Evaluating.
Then, as suddenly as if a light switch had been thrown, it was gone.
The air stirred and warmed. Kato whined once, then sat on his haunches and looked up at Dec with golden glow-in-the-dark eyes. Bit by bit, his hackles were lowering.
And Dec wondered what the hell he had just seen.
* * *
The reunion at the car was a joyous one, Kato licking Markie's face all over until she finally, laughingly, begged him to stop. "What got into him?" she asked Dec.
The wolf was standing on his rear legs, forelegs planted on Markie's shoulders while she rubbed his scruff and ears. Quite a sight.
"I don't know," Dec answered truthfully. That was all he wanted to say. He wasn't prepared to tell anyone that he'd walked into a cold spot and found a dog ready to kill a shadow, a shadow that had peered into the depths of his soul.
In fact, he was already coming up with logical explanations. Some draft through a hole in the stones wa
s colder than the rest of the air. Kato had chased something into the corner, and it had vanished into a crack. The dog had remained, waiting for it to emerge again.
Yeah, that was possible.
But the back of his neck didn't believe it.
"He chased something," he told Markie. "I guess it darted into a crack in the wall."
"That's so unlike you," she said to the dog, grabbing his head in both hands and shaking him gently. Kato grinned with absolute delight.
She looked at Dec. "He's acting so weird lately."
"The whole town is going to start acting weird if we don't find some answers soon. I'm gonna go check out the Quonset huts."
"Okay. We'll come with you."
Part of him was still concerned enough to want her to wait in the safety of the car. Part of him wanted a reliable witness if anything weird happened again. A sanity check, at the very least.
But Markie forestalled his answer. "I'm going," she said, her chin thrusting forward just a bit. "I'm going with you. We both are."
He noted, however, that this time she attached Kato's leash.
"I'm not going to argue." He managed a smile he was far from feeling. "That dog spooks me sometimes."
She nodded. "All dogs do, at times. But lately…" She shook her head. "Lately, it's getting out of hand."
He glanced back toward the interior of the fort and wondered if those shadows were darkening again. Then he realized he didn't want to know.
15
The huts weren't that far away, although forty years of undergrowth and tree growth had chewed up the pavement that led to them. They had stepped into triple-canopy jungle, dense and dark, which had swallowed even the Quonset huts themselves.
They were huge buildings, showing rust wherever the paint had flaked away, which was nearly everywhere. Not even galvanized steel could stand up to this climate. All were locked; only one had windows. Markie watched as Dec worked his way toward a window, and rubbed away years of salt and grime to peer inside. "Offices," he said.
Markie leaned forward and was surprised to see that the room inside was still furnished. "They didn't take this stuff away?"
"Maybe they planned to come back. Maybe it was too expensive to remove."
"Or maybe they left in a hurry," she said.
Creepers had found their way up the sides of the buildings, clinging to small crevices that defied ordinary vision. They worked their way through the vines and other undergrowth to the front of the building. There a rusty combination lock was visible beside the door.
"I wonder," Dec said, "what happens if I smash that thing?"
"As rusty as this building is, you might be able to punch a hole anywhere."
Dec gave the lock a hard jerk and it snapped open. Rusted through. He flexed his arm at Markie. "That's me, Superman."
She let out a brief, nervous laugh, but the sound was deadened. It was like being in another world. She looked around. They were alone. Or whatever presence she had felt earlier was hiding.
The heavy steel door opened with a groan. Behind it was a wooden door, covered with the signs of termites. One gentle shove from Dec caused it to collapse into a pile of dust.
"Busy little buggers," he remarked.
The termites had long since moved on to a better smorgasbord.
Markie followed Dec into the dimly lit space. They were in an anteroom occupied by a steel desk and a row of steel chairs for waiting. A phone, one of the old black dial varieties, still sat on the desk. Barely visible on it was the warning: This line is not secure. Do not discuss classified information.
Posters, nearly rotted through and mildewed black, still drooped on walls. Markie figured if she touched them they would turn to dust just as the door had.
Dec pulled open the desk drawers. A handful of black, government-issue pens rattled in the bottom of one. A spool of typewriter ribbon. A paperclip bound a stack of yellowed pages with delicate, feminine writing.
"Love letters," Markie said, glancing through them as Declan searched the other drawers.
"They probably took all the official paperwork with them when they left."
Markie nodded. "I'd be surprised if they didn't. God, this place feels like a mausoleum."
"Yeah."
Dust layered the floor, and every step they took disturbed it. In the next room, Kato sniffed at a small plate, then sneezed. Whatever had been on that plate was long since food for insects and the elements. Only a few crumbs remained. Once again, Markie was left with the sense of an abrupt departure.
"Nobody's used this building in recent memory," she said. "So…no weapons test."
"I still want to check everything out."
She shrugged. "I guess."
The rest of the building was the same. Offices, desks and filing cabinets stripped of official paperwork, yet casually littered with personal effects. A makeup compact and a pair of earrings. A coffee cup. Black shoelaces. A diary. A plastic comb. Half-used erasers. A wooden ruler with a peace symbol carved on the back.
"It doesn't make sense," Markie said. "Sure, people leave stuff behind in the corners of drawers when they move on. But earrings? Love letters from a girlfriend?"
The rest of the buildings, when they broke in, were more of the same. No documents. Not even the slightest hint of activity. But an old sock lay beneath a rotting bunk. Above another, faded family photos, held in place by once-transparent tape, which had since degraded to deep amber.
The post was well and truly abandoned. And either these had been the most slovenly and forgetful soldiers ever to wear a uniform, or they had been too rushed to gather up the bits and pieces of their lives.
"We're not going to find any answers here," Declan said, indicating that he'd seen enough.
Markie agreed. "No. Only more questions."
They released Kato to roam ahead and made their way back to the car, the return path somewhat easier because they could follow the track they'd already beaten down.
Kato seemed determined to lead the way, advancing a dozen paces, then looking back as he waited for them to catch up. He didn't detour once, Markie noted. He didn't want to linger. Neither did she.
"What happened back in 1969?" she asked, as they settled into the car and headed back to the main road.
"Joe Namath won the Super Bowl in Miami," Dec answered. "Richard Nixon was inaugurated in Washington. Ted Kennedy had a car wreck at Chappaquiddick. Neil Armstrong took a walk on the moon. Jimi Hendrix played the national anthem at Woodstock. And a bunch of guys died in Vietnam."
"Thank you, Mr. History-in-a-nutshell," Markie said, laughing. Then her face darkened. "But what happened here in 1969?"
His eyes mirrored her own. "That I can't answer. Maybe it's time to hit the library."
* * *
Senator Mark Maxwell leaned back in his chair, making no attempt to conceal the look of disgust on his face. "We need to do something!"
Maxwell was perhaps the only senator who was truly in a position to challenge Abel Roth on any issue, despite his diminutive size and soft blue eyes. The others were either members of the three blue-blood clans—Edward Perlman Roth, Alex Morgan and Steve Chase—or were handpicked toadies. Joe McGinley ran a fleet of eight commercial marlin boats and represented the interests of the harbor industries, but the profitability of those industries was based largely on the Roth-Chase-Morgan development cartel. Kevin Cathan was the token island-boy-made-good, a cum laude graduate of Yale Law, former clerk for the Ninth Federal Circuit in Atlanta, and rumored to be short-listed to replace the aging Gladys Shack-mon as Santz Martina's lone Federal judge. Of course, Cathan would only remain on that short list, assuming he was truly on it, if he remained in Abel Roth's good graces.
That left Maxwell, whose membership on the Senate was owed to his position with the island's coffee growers. And while his candidacy had been vetted by Roth, Santz Martina's Fire Mountain coffee was coming to rival Jamaican blends in trendy New York, L.A. and European bistros. It was the only i
ndustry on the island that could and likely would continue to make money independent of the Roth-Chase-Morgan empire. That single fact gave Mark Maxwell the chops to rock the boat. And rock the boat he was.
"The people of Santz Martina are expecting a response," he said. "If we sit on our hands while people die, if we're afraid to lift a finger without permission from a bunch of mainland doctors, we may as well surrender any pretense of independent territorial rule."
"Those 'mainland doctors' are experts from the most respected epidemiological institution in the world," Cathan said. "When the World Health Organization handles a viral outbreak in Africa, it calls on doctors from the CDC. I'd say we're damn lucky to have them."
"I've no argument there," Maxwell said, holding up a hand. "They're good. The best. But three people are dead and who knows how many others infected. And those are our neighbors. They shop in the same stores we do. Their kids go to the same schools. They go to the same churches and walk their dogs in the same streets. And fifteen thousand other people on this island know that, and they expect—and they have a right to expect—their elected officials to take some action to protect them."
"And you think those people will sit still for an internal quarantine?" Abel asked, leaning forward. He rapped the bowl of his pipe on the table. "No. I can tell you how they'll see that. They'll see that as the rich folks up north trying to wall themselves off while the people who do the real work—the folks who live here in town—are left to die. And I won't have it."
"But—" Maxwell began, but Abel cut him off.
"You had your say, Mark. Now it's my turn. This island works, and all of us have our fancy titles and make our fortunes, for one reason: the people who've sat around this table have always taken care of the people out there. It's as old as the Romans. Bread and circuses. Every time it's come down to an extra five points a share versus building a park or a community swimming pool, improving a road or building a modern hospital, we've made the smart choice. And y'know what? We've gotten rich anyway."
"And I'm saying we should take care of them," Maxwell said. "We need to close the schools and nonessential businesses. Impose a curfew. Take reasonable steps to limit the contagion."
