Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  Shaw took half a second to review his options. The list wasn’t long. Jump in the water and swim away, in which case Kilbane and the rest would be there when he came ashore, wet and cold and tired. Rush past them up the dock or try to board the cruiser behind him and get whipped over the head by a baton or zapped into oblivion before he made it three steps. They were ready for him to rabbit. They’d been ready since before Shaw arrived. They had the air of people happy to see a wait of uncertain length come to an end.

  Or he could fight. They were ready for that, too. Two of them at least as large as Shaw, and Pollan was no twig either. She had the same excited expression as Kilbane. Even discounting her stun gun, those tactical batons could break a skull or an arm as readily as a hammer against a chopstick.

  Surrendering and boarding the boat could be suicide. There were a lot of miles and a lot of water between Briar Bay and the mainland. All too easy to get lost forever.

  “You were warned,” Kilbane said. His tiny smile still fixed in place, as if the internal program that controlled his face had become stuck in a loop. “You can comply and still be able to walk and talk when we put you ashore, or you can spend a month in the hospital after we dump what’s left of you on Neptune Beach. But you’re leaving here tonight. For good.”

  The three took slow steps forward. Shaw drifted back, along the length of the moored cruiser. No one was in a hurry. Shaw would run out of dock soon enough.

  “It’s late,” Kilbane said. “Let’s get to it.”

  Shaw saw Rangi before they did. Emerging from behind the cabin of the cruiser, one foot on the cowling, launching himself into the four-foot drop to the dock. Castelli, closer to the boat, caught the motion in the corner of his eye as Rangi jumped. Too late.

  It was a study in inelastic collision. Three hundred fifty pounds of momentum against two hundred pounds standing static. And unprepared. Rangi hit Castelli square on his right side. A huge huff of impact as Castelli flew like he’d been fired from a cannon, across and off the remaining six feet of dock. He hit the water with an ungainly splash.

  Pollan had sprung away from the surprise attack like a startled cat. She looked at Rangi and raised the Taser.

  Shaw took one big step forward and drove his elbow into the side of Pollan’s head. He’d never fought a woman before; he reflexively pulled the blow. A little. Pollan grunted and collapsed as though her strings had been cut. The stun gun skittered across the planks and into the water, chasing Castelli.

  Kilbane tensed, ready to lash his baton at the first person who came near.

  “This isn’t your fight, Sua,” he said to Rangi while still watching Shaw. Rangi, for his part, had half an eye on Castelli, who coughed and sputtered in the water. The security thug probably wouldn’t drown, but it wasn’t a sure thing. Rangi had knocked the wind out of his lungs even before Castelli had swallowed half the strait.

  “Can’t let you cripple the man,” Rangi said. “You want to fight now, go ahead.”

  Shaw and Kilbane looked at each other. The odds had shifted dramatically in the space of five seconds. Shaw smiled.

  “Here’s my counteroffer,” he said to Kilbane. “I’m going to kick your ass. You can use your fists, in which case I might leave you able to report to work tomorrow. Or”—he pointed to the baton—“you can keep the stick, but then it’s open season. I’ll take it away from you and use it myself. A month in the hospital, you said. That sounds fair.”

  Kilbane looked at him, then glanced at Pollan, who was beginning to stir. “I don’t need them. Or this.”

  Shaw whistled softly. “Prove it.”

  Kilbane spun the baton in his hand and jabbed its tip into the wooden planks, collapsing the baton’s length back into the handle. He pocketed the weapon. He walked to an open area of the dock, away from his fallen partner and from Rangi, to remove his suit jacket. The preparations seemed to restore his confidence.

  He stepped forward with his hands up, crouching, bobbing slightly. His balance good and his shoulders loose.

  Shaw recognized game. Kilbane feinted and threw a heavy right hand. Shaw slipped and moved to the side. Kilbane kicked at Shaw’s knee, and Shaw pivoted, the security man’s foot missing him by an inch. Kilbane was faster than he looked. Shaw moved one way and then the other, never pausing in front of the larger man. The dock was long enough for him to dodge all night. Kilbane knew it, too. Shaw flicked a jab that Kilbane slipped. He moved, feinted. It would be too easy to break his hands on Kilbane’s hard skull.

  “Come on, you shit,” Kilbane said, breath huffing out of his nose. “Fight.”

  He came swinging. A battering ram, little finesse but enough power to flatten Shaw against the side of the boat if he caught him. Shaw slapped Kilbane hard across the cheek with his left palm and spun away from the knee that had been aimed to rupture his kidney.

  Kilbane was fast. Shaw was lightning. He ducked a huge, infuriated haymaker to coil low and explode out, sinking a savage hook into Kilbane’s exposed ribs. The blow made a thud like a sandbag being dropped.

  Nothing hurts quite like a shot to the liver. The pain is delayed for a moment, then comes on like a crosstown express, paralytic and sickening. In those two seconds, Kilbane turned, and Shaw hit him twice more, one flickering right to raise Kilbane’s head and a harder left to the soft side of the throat. Kilbane fell to his hands and knees. Then he slowly curled into fetal position, maybe an involuntary response to the agony in his vitals.

  “He’s gonna die,” Rangi said, with the same tone as if reporting the time.

  “Not today,” said Shaw.

  Kilbane lunged up onto his knees. Fists balled as if still in the fight. A herculean effort that Shaw applauded by backhanding him across the temple. This time the security chief stayed down.

  “Motherfuck.” Rangi frowned.

  As if on cue, Castelli shambled up the dock. Looking like an oversize rat that had become trapped in a washer on spin cycle.

  “How ’bout you?” Shaw said to him. “I’m up for the hat trick tonight.”

  Castelli stopped and raised his hands exhaustedly. “Hey, man. I didn’t want this.”

  “Sure.” Shaw picked up Kilbane’s suit jacket and pocketed the tactical baton.

  “What now?” Castelli said. Pollan was sitting up. Maybe not certain where she was just yet.

  “Now you go away. And stay away. Tonight was sparring for fun. Next time I’ll hurt you and make it permanent. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Say it.”

  “I’ll stay away.”

  Shaw looked at Kilbane. The man’s shirt had come untucked, and two buttons had torn off. A damp patch darkened his trousers on the left thigh. Involuntary voiding of the bladder.

  Undignified. The kind of humiliation that could break a man’s spirit. Or make him insane with rage.

  “Convince your boss,” Shaw said to Castelli, tossing him Kilbane’s suit coat.

  Rangi motioned for Shaw to climb aboard the cruiser. Shaw followed the big man into the cabin.

  The boat was nicely if indifferently appointed. This was not a home like Hollis Brant’s, with books and mementos and half-finished projects lying about. The cruiser was like a themed room at a bed-and-breakfast—Nautical Getaway. A rack in the minuscule galley held a row of coffee mugs in a shade of teal that precisely matched the carpet. The frame around a mirror had little anchors painted on it.

  Outside, Castelli was helping Pollan to her feet. Rangi closed the cabin door.

  “You make a lot of trouble,” he said.

  “That wasn’t my doing.”

  “You coulda gone along with them and called Mr. Rohner later. Instead you forced Kilbane to nut up in front of his people. Way I see it, that’s on you.”

  “But you chose to step in anyway.”

  Rangi grimaced. He wore canvas sweatpants and a green T-shirt that had words in what Shaw guessed were Samoan, over a bright yellow sun. His feet were bare. Shaw could have used either the
pants or the T-shirt as a blanket.

  “Those staff quarters aren’t Plaza suites,” Shaw said. “More elbow room here on the boat?”

  Rangi nodded. “And privacy.”

  “So why didn’t you let Kilbane and the terror twins smash my bones to oatmeal?”

  “Because Mr. Rohner wouldn’t like it. Or me asleep next door and letting it happen. I’m supposed to help keep the peace.”

  “So’s Kilbane. And Anders. This family has more protection than most monarchies.”

  “Kilbane.” Rangi said it in the same way someone might say cockroach. “He creeps around Greta.”

  “I saw Greta this morning, while Anders was giving me the tour. You and she going together?”

  Rangi’s morose expression brightened a lumen or two. “Yeah. I’d crush Kilbane’s head myself, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “So when he came after me tonight, you hoped I would knock him down a peg. Without creating a problem for whatever HR department you all share at Droma.”

  “Might be.”

  “And if I lost . . . no harm, no foul.”

  “I didn’t think you’d lose. Not without the others backing him up. Kilbane’s a mean shit and he spends a lot of time working the iron, but you got that look I seen on other guys in the Army. Spec Ops, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Rangers. What was home for you?” Shaw asked.

  “7th Transportation Group. Me and half my high-school class in Pago Pago enlisted at the same time. About the only jobs around, you know?”

  “That’s what got me to sign, too. Three hots and a cot. Ten years later I couldn’t remember what it was like to be a civilian. Shit, I’m still figuring that part out.”

  “I did six,” Rangi said. “They taught me to drive trucks and boats and everything else. It made sense to keep driving once I was out. People like a chauffeur with some size. Makes them feel high-status.”

  “And now you’re here.”

  “It’s a good gig. Don’t fuck it up for me, man.”

  Shaw nodded. “I wouldn’t. Even if I didn’t owe you for the assist. Thanks.” He glanced around the cabin. “You brought the boat in this morning, right?”

  “The Vóllmond.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Vóllmond. That’s her name. ‘Full Moon,’ in German.”

  “Got it. Do you know what was in the black crates you brought to the island?”

  “Kitchen equipment,” Rangi said. “Mr. Anders had them ordered for this week.”

  “Where’d you pick them up?”

  “A freight company delivered them to the marina. What this about?”

  “My job. I’m the facilities manager. Crates are in the facility.”

  Rangi glowered. “You already see what curiosity got you, dude. Now go and let me crash.”

  Shaw walked out of the cabin and stepped down to the dock. Against the far lights of the estate, three figures made their way up the hill from the shore, their shadows trailing far behind. Castelli and Pollan and Kilbane. Moving slow and careful, like children walking with bare feet on sharp gravel.

  “You were just sparring, huh?” Rangi said.

  Shaw smiled grimly. “I spread the bullshit a little thick. Might give them second thoughts about trying again.”

  “It might.” Rangi shook his head. “Were me, I wouldn’t go to sleep till the door was locked, you know? Locked and barricaded and one hand on my baseball bat.”

  SIXTEEN

  Despite Rangi’s fears, the rest of Shaw’s night passed without further havoc. He returned to the gallery to find it still occupied. Anders and the chemists, hard at work on whatever had prompted their late-night meeting. It would be dawn in another three hours. Shaw determined to get what rest he could before the day began and retreated to his room.

  He woke before the alarm rang. The room was stale and overheated, though the morning sun had barely touched the curtains. He splashed cold water on his face and drank a few mouthfuls before spending half an hour doing body-weight exercises with no pause between sets. After years of Ranger PT and countless recreation hours in fighting gyms, not to mention Wren teaching him yoga poses that were at least twice as hard as they looked, Shaw had a repertoire of drills large enough to keep him moving until the next century. By the time he finished a set of handstand push-ups with his heels against the wallpaper and its repeating design of tangled grapevines, sweat was dripping from his hair onto the bath towel he’d laid down.

  Part of his energy came from anger, he knew. At android Kilbane and at condescending Anders. And at himself, for taking such a freaky job. It was time to corner Sebastien Rohner for a direct conversation. To hell with whether he roused the rich man from his sleep.

  He showered and shaved. Hair didn’t grow from the scarred tissue on his face. After a decade he could shave around the pattern of the furrows without needing a mirror, retracing the old wound every day.

  Outside, the courtyard was bright with promise in the new day. Even the barren rosebushes seemed lush from the dew glistening on their thorns. Shaw walked to the main house and up onto the wide veranda to ring the bell.

  “Mr. Shaw?” Sofia Rohner, leaning to look around the north corner of the house.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I’d like to see Mr. Rohner before the conference gets started today.”

  “About your altercation with Warren Kilbane last evening, I assume.”

  Shaw blinked. “Word gets around fast.”

  “Rangi sent me a message last night. I happened to be awake and phoned him back. Are you injured?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I’m very relieved to hear it.” She motioned for Shaw to join her. He walked past picture windows and half a dozen porch chairs made of varnished teak to the side of the house.

  The veranda looked down on the art gallery and the beach beyond. Sofia was ready for the day’s meetings, dressed in a pale pink business suit with her ice-blond hair in a bun. She carried a tablet computer. Shaw noted that the tablet had the same sleek ivory cover as the one he’d seen Anders holding when the crates were being loaded into the gallery.

  Sofia nodded to him. “After discussing with Rangi what had happened, I went to see Warren to get his side of the story. I was not satisfied with his answers. He overstepped his instructions from Olen by a considerable degree. I’m terribly upset.”

  She didn’t look upset, but maybe that was European reserve.

  “What exactly were Anders’s instructions to Kilbane?” Shaw said.

  “As I understand it, simply to make certain that the guests were undisturbed. That any concerns you had should be brought to him. Warren told me that you were out of your room last night. All night, was the way he put it.”

  “Sounds like the only person that disturbed was Warren.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I told him that he and his team would have to leave the island for the duration of the conference. Clearly we can’t have you all in close quarters, and you shouldn’t be punished for their poor judgment. Please accept my apologies.”

  “So they’re leaving?”

  “I expect they already have. Rangi arranged for them to take the small boat.”

  “Decisive,” said Shaw. “What was Anders’s reaction?”

  “I didn’t bother to wake Olen. I’m confident he’ll be as appalled as I am. We’ll have a formal review of Warren’s actions once time allows. He did seem suitably chastened.”

  Shaw almost replied that he had done the chastening himself but held his tongue.

  “Is it true that you remained out of your room all night?” Sofia asked.

  “I’m used to late hours.” He nodded to the gallery. “Were you checking on your collection just now?”

  “No. In fact, I can’t get the door to unlock.”

  “Using one of the silver wands?”

  “Nor with this.” She held up the tablet. “Administrative software for the estate. Climate and security and the rest. This should open any door.”


  “I saw Anders with one of those yesterday. Or is that the same one?”

  Sofia touched a fingertip to the pad. “This is my own copy. I prefer direct control.”

  And now that control was denied. Shaw realized he wasn’t the only one looking for answers.

  “I think you and I need to show our cards,” he said. “Can we talk inside?”

  She looked at him quizzically. “Certainly.”

  Sofia led him back to the main entrance. They stepped inside, into a stone-walled foyer with an alcove for coats and boots. A marble center table held a vase with a bouquet of fresh flowers nearly the size of one of the rosebushes in the courtyard.

  On their right was a large sitting room with a tan leather couch and chairs arranged around a fireplace. Like the exterior of the house, the decor inside was a classic Craftsman style, blown out of proportion. The fireplace was large enough to roast a full-grown sheep. Air swirled in the room, perhaps automated climate adjustments cued by Sofia’s wand. She set her tablet on a table with a chessboard made of inlaid wood. A screen on the wall, barely thicker than a matchbox, softly lightened into the image of a Chagall painting with angels seated around a table. Such high resolution that one could almost see the brushstrokes.

  She motioned to the chair opposite. “Please sit.”

  Shaw did. “Your father hired me because he suspects that a thief will attempt to steal one or more pieces from your collection this week. I’ve been hired to prevent that.”

  Sofia stared at him. “A thief?”

  “He says that this is part of some ongoing challenge between him and Chen and Flynn and some other masters of the universe. That they have a game of stealing one another’s valuables, or desired items, before the other can acquire them.”

  “That’s . . . I’ve never heard anything about this.”

  “He says that one of them stole or arranged to have stolen a wristwatch that had belonged to your grandfather.”

  She thought for a moment. “You don’t believe him.”