The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5)

by Sam Sisavath

“You wouldn’t have, because you’re a normal, decent person. The main island is only fifty square miles with about 5,000 locals, and the rest are all tourists and criminals.”

  “You mean tourists or criminals?”

  “No, I mean tourists and criminals. Bengal Island is where you put your money if you want to hide it from Uncle Sam or some other government body. As long as you pay for the privilege, the government there will hold pretty much an unlimited amount of funds for you. That includes your own private villa to live out the rest of your miserable, criminal life.”

  She gave him a curious look.

  “What?” he said.

  “You really know a lot about this place.”

  “I’ve had occasions to go there in my old job. The point is, Little Bengal is a perfect replacement for Song Island. You wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with the main island, and the closest countries are Cuba to the east and Jamaica to the southeast. Both are well over 300 kilometers away with nothing but open Caribbean sea in the middle.”

  “Around 200 miles?”

  “Close enough. But you understand where I’m going with this?”

  “It’s isolated.”

  “Yes. It’s very isolated. Both physically and internationally. That’s what makes it so attractive to the criminal element. You’ll be able to see anyone coming for, literally, miles away.”

  “And all that water…”

  “There’s that, too.”

  Lara pulled out a marker and circled Little Bengal, then drew a line from it to the channel that connected Beaufont Lake with the Gulf of Mexico.

  “How far?” she asked.

  Keo did the numbers in his head. “Less than 2,000 kilometers and more than 1,000 miles?”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  He grunted. “You know there’s a bridge on this boat? In it, there are all kinds of neat computer doodads that you can program to tell you the exact distance of places and such. Just sayin’.”

  She ignored him and continued looking at the map. “I like it.”

  “You should. It’s exactly what you’re looking for. The only thing you have to worry about are the criminal elements that may or may not still be there.”

  “Guys with guns?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Well, then,” she said, “if we actually do go there, it’s a good thing we have plenty of guns of our own.”

  CHAPTER 14

  GABY

  As much as she longed for the white beaches and blue waters of Song Island, she dreaded finally reaching it after being away for so long. It was less about the island and more about who would be waiting for her there.

  Lara. She would be there.

  What am I going to tell her? How am I going to explain Will not being with us?

  “You should smile more,” Nate was saying from across the back of the moving truck.

  She snatched hair out of her face with one hand, the other holding the M4 in her lap. “What did you say?”

  “You don’t smile enough,” he said, shouting a bit to be heard over the roar of the wind. “You should smile more. It brings out the cut on the bridge of your noise.”

  She smirked. “Funny guy.”

  “I try.”

  “Well, stop. This isn’t the time.”

  “So when is the time?”

  “I don’t know. But this isn’t it.”

  “Relax, Gaby. You’re almost home. Look around you. There’s nothing but road and grass and fields out here. I haven’t seen a building in…ten minutes? Twenty?”

  Nate had a point. There was nothing out here except large acres of sun-bleached and overgrown grass to one side and the clear, calm waters of Beaufont Lake on the other. She couldn’t see Song Island yet because they were still too far north, but it wouldn’t be long now. An hour, maybe less, and the first signs of home would appear in the distance. She found herself getting more anxious and at the same time more alert as they got closer.

  How many days and nights now had she been waiting for this moment? It had been too long, and the prospect of finally getting there was overwhelming, both exhilarating and terrifying.

  What am I going to tell Lara?

  “Maybe it won’t be that bad,” Nate said.

  “What’s that?”

  “At the island. Tonight.”

  She looked at him curiously for a moment. Did he actually believe that, or was he trying to make her feel better? Or maybe he was trying to convince himself. Looking at him, she felt guilty all over again. She had to remind herself of all the troubles he had gone through just to find her, and now having done so, she was dragging him straight into another hellish gunfight. Somehow, the fact that he was coming willingly—even anxiously—made it just that little bit worse.

  “Do you really believe that?” she asked.

  “Why not?”

  Because you didn’t see them. Back at the farmhouse. The blue-eyed creatures. This is their world now, Nate. We’re the trespassers. And they might be coming for us tonight. Are you ready for that, because I’m not.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He gave her a confused look. “For what?”

  “Bringing you here.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “They’re going to attack tonight, Nate. Will is certain of it. And he’s rarely wrong.”

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Not this. He was so sure of it he risked his life so we could get through the ambush back at Route 13. And as much as Danny and me wanted to come home—and God, we did, desperately—Will wanted to come home more.”

  He nodded and went quiet for a moment.

  After a while, he said, “I never heard anyone talking about it, you know. Song Island. Back when I was with the others in town. I don’t think most of the soldiers knew it even existed.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back at the town. What did the soldiers talk about?”

  The question had been nagging at her ever since L15. The guards assigned to watch her back then hadn’t been very talkative, and she was confined to a room where she didn’t get to interact with the townspeople. She saw them from her window—the way they lived, went about their lives, and sometimes she could hear the tail end of their chatter—but she never really knew them.

  “Mostly about everyday things,” Nate said. “What they used to do before, that sort of thing. They weren’t all bad, you know.”

  “The soldiers…”

  “Yeah.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. “Some of them were in it for the power trip, but most of them…” He shook his head, then pursed his lips into a forced smile. “There were a couple of good guys back there.”

  She didn’t ask him if one of those “good guys” had been back at the highway because she decided she’d rather not know. They’d all had to do things these days that they weren’t completely proud of. Gaby didn’t regret very many things, but sometimes the more violent situations stuck with her for days afterward. Every now and then when she closed her eyes, she still remembered Mercy Hospital back in Lafayette, and the blood and the screams and the gunshots…

  This is our existence. Surviving from day to day. Night to night.

  Everyone dies, sooner or later. Everyone.

  “Gaby,” Nate said, smiling across the back of the moving truck at her. “We’ll make it through tonight. We’ll be around to see tomorrow, and the day after that. We have to, otherwise I won’t be able to convince you what a charming devil I am.”

  She smiled back at him.

  Or tried to, anyway. It may or may not have been all that believable, but at the moment it was all she could manage, and he looked like he desperately needed to see it.

  *

  Her watch had just ticked to four in the afternoon when Danny finally slowed down and stopped the Chevy in the middle of the two-lane highway. The heavy vehicle creaked as Danny turned off the eng
ine and climbed out.

  “Stretch ’em if you got ’em,” he shouted.

  The girls climbed out, and Gaby hopped out of the back with her M4. She exchanged a brief grin with Claire, who had also come out of the Silverado, still clutching onto her FNH shotgun, ready for battle.

  “Are we almost there?” the thirteen-year-old asked.

  “Almost,” Gaby said.

  She glanced around at their surroundings. Every inch of grass looked like the last few thousand they had passed. The same went for the water on the other side. The truth was, without Song Island anywhere in the distance, she had no idea where they were. This side of the lake was all new to her.

  Danny had placed the portable ham radio on the hood of the truck and was fiddling with the buttons and dials.

  She walked over. “Where are we exactly?”

  “We should be directly beside the island if my internal GPS is correct.”

  “Internal GPS?” she said doubtfully.

  “By which I mean, the map.”

  She looked back at the lake, but despite her best efforts, she couldn’t make out any signs of the island in the distance. “There’s nothing out there, Danny.”

  “It’s there. Just too far to see from this side of the lake.”

  “So why did we stop here?”

  He showed her his watch. “We don’t have time to circle all the way around to the marina. Besides, we’re running low on gas.”

  “How low?”

  “I’ve-been-driving-on-fumes-for-the-last-thirty-minutes low.”

  Nate had walked over. “We’re out of gas?”

  “Unless you have a secret stash hidden somewhere, Famous Nathan, that’s an affirmative.”

  “I still don’t know what that means.”

  “That’s what ESPN’s for,” Danny said. He turned back to the radio and pressed the lever and spoke into the microphone. “Song Island, come in. Roger if you roger me, roger.”

  A male voice answered almost immediately. “Danny? Is that you?”

  “It ain’t Danny Elfman. Although I was known to play a pretty mean Casio keyboard back in college.”

  “Holy shit, you’re alive,” the man said.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Yeah, well, you know…” The man disappeared from the line for a moment before returning about ten seconds later. “I just told Lara over the two-way. She’s still on the yacht.”

  “Who is that?” Gaby asked. “I don’t recognize the voice.”

  “That’s Roy,” Danny said. “He came over with a handful of people after you left on your helicopter adventure.”

  “Danny?” a female voice said through the radio, sounding slightly out of breath. This one Gaby recognized instantly. Carly. “You asshole. You had me worried.”

  Danny smiled. “Sorry, babe. You know I love you. Girls have been throwing themselves at me, but I told them to back off because there’s only one redhead for me.”

  “I want names,” Carly said.

  Gaby nodded at Nate, and they drifted to the back of the truck to give Danny some privacy. That, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be around when someone on the island got to asking about Will, which they would, eventually.

  The girls were skipping rocks across the calm lake on the other side of the truck while Annie watched them. The sight of the girls being so carefree for the first time in such a long time made Gaby smile.

  “They look happy,” Nate said next to her. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen kids that happy.”

  “What about back at L17? Did you have kids there?”

  “A lot of kids. Most of them were happy to be there. Not all of them, but most. Did both girls come from L15?”

  “Just Milly,” Gaby said.

  She thought about Peter, the man whom Milly had treated like a brother. Peter was gone, and in so many ways Annie had taken his place. That was how it worked these days. You needed someone to cling to, because the emotional loneliness was sometimes worse than the physical isolation.

  Gaby glanced back as Danny walked over to them.

  “Are we at the right spot?” she asked him.

  “Close enough,” Danny said. “Looks like running out of gas might have saved our lives.”

  “How’s that?” Nate asked.

  “Apparently there is a very strong possibility of bad guys with big guns lying in wait at the bridge up the road. So instead of us braving that snake pit, the kids from Song Island will be coming here to pick us up. It’ll take longer, but it’ll keep us from being dead, and gosh darn it, that’s a good thing.”

  “How long before they get here?” Gaby asked.

  “Long enough. So I need you and the Natester to pull security until they arrive.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  Danny shook his head. She didn’t have to say who “her” was; he already knew. “She was busy on the yacht.” He pointed down the road. “Former bad guy, you take that side. Gaby, the other one. Stay within shouting distance in case you see or hear anything that isn’t us or the fishies.”

  Nate gave her an exasperated look before heading off to take up position farther down the road. She did the same thing in the opposite direction, with Danny falling in beside her. Gaby made a concerted effort to walk slower to accommodate his limping pace.

  “What are you going to tell her when we get back?” she asked.

  “I’ll think of something between now and then.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “No,” Danny said. “She deserves to hear it from me.”

  She nodded. As much as coming back home without Will pained her, she knew it was nothing compared to what Danny was going through.

  “Keep an eye out, kid,” Danny said. “We’ll be back at Song Island and drinking ice cold water before you know it.”

  He turned around and limped off.

  “Hey,” she said after him.

  He stopped and glanced back. “What’s up?”

  “We made it. I didn’t think we’d ever see Song Island again, but we made it.”

  “We’re not there yet.”

  “Close enough.”

  “It’s never close enough until you’re chewing on the cheese.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense, Danny.”

  “Of course it does,” Danny said, turning and walking back to the truck. “Think about it.”

  “Yeah, no,” Gaby said after him.

  *

  After sitting in the back of the Chevy with the wind pounding against her face for most of the day, standing in the middle of the road under the sun was a nice change of pace. The combination of warm and cool air was almost enough to lull her into a sense of calm, and for a moment, just a moment, she almost forgot that they were cutting it too close, that it would be dark soon.

  Always running from the night. Always running. How long before I get tired of it? How long before I just lie down and decide not to do it anymore?

  She pushed those thoughts away. They were defeatist, a lingering part of her old self that refused to completely go away no matter how hard she tried, because she knew the old Gaby could never survive in today’s world.

  Claire, a reminder of how much times had changed, appeared next to her. The girl cradled the heavy shotgun across her arms and squinted down the barren road. “Do they take the dead, Gaby?”

  The question caught her off guard, and it took her a moment to answer.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  It was the truth. She really didn’t know, and it was one of those nagging questions that she tried not to think too much about it because there didn’t seem to be any point.

  “Will had some theories about that,” she added, “but we don’t know for sure. Why?”

  “We haven’t seen any bodies. I’m just wondering where they all went.”

  “I’m sorry, Claire, I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay.” She kept staring down the road, as if she expected to see something (
or someone) coming down it anytime now. “I miss Donna.”

  “I know.” Gaby put her arm around Claire, who leaned against her. “Donna’s in a better place now.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, wondering what kind of special hell was waiting for her for lying to a thirteen-year-old. “You still have me, and if you want, I can make fun of how you stink.”

  “I stink?” Claire said.

  “Oh yeah.” She sniffed for effect. “The BO’s so bad I’m about to barf.”

  Claire laughed. “You’re such a liar.”

  “Maybe.”

  They exchanged a brief smile.

  “Do I get my own room and bed on the island?” Claire asked.

  “Yup.”

  “I’ve never had one before.”

  “Well, first time for—”

  “Incoming!” Nate screamed behind her.

  She turned around in time to see sunlight glinting off the hood of a vehicle driving up the road toward them. It was coming from the southern part of the lake and looked like a Jeep, its bright yellow color making it obvious against the gray of the road and the brown and green of the surrounding fields.

  “Into the truck!” Gaby shouted.

  Claire took off without a word, and Gaby actually had to run just to catch up to her. The girl was deceptively fast, even hauling that huge shotgun around.

  Danny was climbing out of the Silverado, still moving gingerly on his bad leg. “How many?” he called back to Nate.

  “Just that big ugly mustard thing coming at us,” Nate said, peering through his binoculars.

  Gaby also pulled out hers and looked through it. The Jeep was still too far off to make out a lot of details. A mile, she guessed, maybe two. But it was bearing down at them at full speed and they could already hear the sound of its engines despite the distance.

  “Gaby,” Danny said. “Keep an eye on your side.”

  She nodded. Danny was worried about a two-prong attack, and so was she. They had been here long enough for the enemy to set up some kind of coherent plan. Of course, these men weren’t exactly seasoned tacticians, but it didn’t take a combat veteran to know that attacking from two directions was better than one.

  Claire, Annie, and Milly had already disappeared back into the truck, and Danny slammed his door shut and unslung his M4A1. “Kid, in the truck,” Danny shouted at Nate. “Man Big Bertha.”