Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “What? No. I only keep the pistol—”

  “This gun’s not the same one you used to shoot Linda Edgemont, right? You’re a pro. You’d have tossed the murder weapon as soon as possible. But I’m guessing you made this”—Shaw tapped the suppressor with the barrel of his own gun—“the same way. Titanium baffles. The cops will compare the materials. They took flecks of metal off Linda.” Shaw removed the Ruger’s clip and pocketed it before ejecting the round in the chamber and tossing the gun onto the seat behind him.

  “I got the pistol at a swap meet. I don’t know about baffles or anything like that. I haven’t killed anyone, for God’s sake.”

  “Rangi dropped Linda off at home. You knew exactly when. All the Droma executive-transport schedules are linked online,” he said. “Planes and trains and automobiles, so you and Rangi and others can coordinate. Linda got home and you knocked on the sliding glass door in her backyard. She must have been very surprised. Maybe she thought she’d forgotten a plane flight or had left something on board. But she knew you. Trusted you. She opened the door, and that was that.”

  “You’re wrong. Please listen to me.”

  “You had lousy luck. A patrol cop named Beatts happened by after you left the backyard. Maybe later he’d remember you as being on the scene. So you thought fast and went from possible suspect to witness in one go. You flagged his car down and told him about a scarred man coming out of Edgemont’s yard. I don’t know if the plan had been to frame me all along, calling nine-one-one once you were clear, but you grabbed the opportunity and Beatts fell for your story. You had to give him a fake name and address. He’ll remember your face, though.” Shaw took out his phone.

  “You’re crazy. I swear I didn’t kill anybody, Mr. Shaw. I’m just a pilot. Please let me out of here.”

  “Sure thing, Jane.”

  Her face went blank. “Who?”

  Shaw held up the phone, letting her see the photo he’d taken of her personnel file in Chiarra’s office at Paragon.

  “Jane Calloway,” he said. “J.C. C.J. Kind of cute.”

  She said nothing.

  “With Paragon four years. Your job history before that is mostly redacted, so I suppose you’re a graduate of the same spy factory that produced Hargreaves, or whatever his real name is.” Shaw shook his head. “You people have a lock on infiltration, I’ll say that. You came to work for Rohner only a month after Linda Edgemont started selling secrets. Great placement for keeping tabs, being the go-to girl for flying Rohner’s people to and from the island and anywhere else.”

  “What is it you want?” she said. “We can pay you.”

  Her voice was the same, yet completely different. Better enunciation and absent any hint of C.J.’s levity.

  “I want to stay alive,” said Shaw. “Your job description bumps against that. Kelvin Welch was shot in New Orleans a few weeks ago. Suspected mugging. If the cops check the dates, would they coincide with vacation days you took from Droma?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Kill the engine.”

  She flipped switches. The pitch of the whirling prop deepened immediately as it began to coast to a stop.

  Shaw stood and motioned her out of the pilot’s seat. “Move.”

  Her eyes flashed to the useless Ruger as she climbed from the cockpit. Shaw nodded to the rear door.

  “Onto the dock.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Tie off the plane.” Shaw grabbed a twenty-foot coil of chain from the bin in the luggage compartment, hooking it over his shoulder.

  While she moored the aircraft, he gave the surroundings a closer look than the plane’s windows had afforded. Only the shining upper spires of the pavilion could be seen from the dock. The rest of the island seemed even darker than it had from the air. The wind gusted, throwing bits of spray off the choppy waves over his pant legs.

  “I wasn’t lying about the money,” she said. Her hands were shaking, though the night still held on to vestiges of warmth. “There’ll be plenty of it to go around. I can help you.”

  Shaw spun her around and bound her hands behind her with a zip-tie from his pocket.

  “Where are the rest of Hargreaves’s people?” he said.

  “I flew them here. I told you.”

  He hauled her to the end of the dock. To the edge. Shaw held her by the collar at arm’s length, so that she leaned out over the chill water, up on the balls of her feet. He draped the heavy coil of chain over her head.

  Thirty pounds at least. No chance of staying afloat, no matter how hard she kicked.

  “Don’t,” she said, her feet trying to inch back from the edge.

  “Tucker. Vic. Morton. They’re here. What about the others?”

  “Louis,” she said. “He’s bringing a helicopter. That’s how we’re leaving. You can leave with us.”

  “We?” Shaw shook her.

  “Me and Vic and Tucker and Hargreaves. Maybe Morton, too, I don’t know.”

  “There are more,” he said. “A big shooter with a beard. His partner, a slimy guy with glasses. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “My arm’s getting tired,” said Shaw.

  “I don’t. Hargreaves uses contractors sometimes. If he’s in a hurry or if . . . if he needs specialists, for tough jobs. Please.”

  “Tell me about Nelson Bao.”

  “What?”

  Shaw released his grip, just for an instant. She screamed. As his fist gripped her shirt again, he had to pull back hard to keep her momentum from dragging them both in. She was leaning out over the water now. The toes of her running shoes dripping with sea foam. The chain hanging from her neck swayed side to side.

  “Bao,” he repeated.

  “It . . . it was an accident. Hargreaves told me to try to find the sample. He knew that Rohner had hired you. He wanted us to steal it first. I went through Bao’s room and found a jar of chemical. I thought it must be the sample, and I took it. But he saw me leaving. Chased me down to the beach.”

  “And you beat his head in with a rock.” Shaw let her tilt another inch toward the black water.

  “He grabbed me,” she said, as if the wind had whipped the sound from her. “It was self-defense. Please don’t kill me. I can’t drown. I can’t.” The last words were almost gibberish, choked by sobs and snot.

  Finish the job. That would be Hargreaves’s way, to wipe the slate clean of all potential risks.

  Shaw pulled her back. She collapsed on the dock, the weight of the chain toppling her as the metal links rattled on the planks. He felt a cobweb’s touch of compassion before thinking of Linda Edgemont and Kelvin Welch. Had either of them had an instant’s horrified realization of what was happening before this woman pulled the trigger?

  At the midpoint of the dock was an all-weather storage box, like an oversize footlocker. Shaw flipped open the lid. A pair of moorage lines lay at the bottom, along with clean rags and a single life vest. He grabbed a handful of rags and walked back to where Jane Calloway sat on the dock. He removed the chain from her neck, stuffed a rag in her mouth, and tied two others around her head to hold it in place. Then he hauled her to her feet and over to the storage box.

  “Get in,” he said. She lifted one leg and then the other to climb over the box’s side. Willing to cooperate while it appeared that Shaw might not end her life.

  “If you’re smart,” Shaw said, “you’ll stay very quiet. Hargreaves is planning to kill everyone here, right? You know that’s his MO.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “How long do you think you and the rest of the Paragon hired help will survive after tonight? Hargreaves will be sitting on a trade secret he can sell for ten figures. He’s not going back to bugging telephones and bodyguarding tycoons. Anybody who can place him at the scene is an unacceptable risk.”

  She stared.

  “Lie down. Stay put.”

  She curled up in the bottom of the box. Shaw zip-tied her feet and kn
ees together and closed the lid. As a final assurance, he knotted the chain through the big box’s padlock hasp.

  He returned to the plane and the duffel. He debated taking the Ruger—an extra gun might be useful—but ultimately decided to leave it. Better that the Ruger became evidence, to help ensure that the lethal Jane Calloway didn’t fly free.

  No reason to leave a loaded gun around, however. Or a working plane. Shaw replaced the clip in the Ruger and fired five aimed shots into the instrument panel, blowing apart the compass and the altimeter and airspeed indicator and a few gauges he didn’t know. The pistol’s remaining rounds shattered the plane’s twin yokes beyond repair.

  The woman had known her business, Shaw had to admit. The suppressor worked just fine. Each shot had been barely louder than the click of a metronome.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Shaw walked up the dock and onto the island. He carried the duffel mindfully, keeping the bag from bumping against his leg. No one was in sight. Hargreaves and the rest would have heard the plane landing, but they wouldn’t expect C.J.-slash-Jane to arrive until after she had disposed of Shaw’s corpse.

  He stopped when he came to the helipad. C.J. had said Louis would be arriving by helo. That could be a problem, especially if the curly-haired killer brought reinforcements. The American flag at the top of the nearby pole lashed to and fro in the wind, as if frantic to escape the coming rainstorm.

  Shaw set the duffel aside and went to take a closer look at the helipad lights. Each squat cylinder in the rough square shone its beam directly upward, every lumen intended for a pilot’s eyes. The string of lights had been set on the earth around the slab of concrete, awaiting the day when they would be bolted permanently in place. Shaw reached down to heft the first light and considered the flat ground surrounding the pad.

  After a few minutes, he continued on his way.

  He walked up the slope and into the patch of forest behind the main house. Thorns clutched at him as he moved slowly through the low brambles and weeds, until he could make out the looming back of the dark house.

  Sheltered behind a gigantic evergreen, he removed Sofia Rohner’s little ivory tablet from his pocket. He’d turned the screen’s brightness down to the minimum. It glowed just enough to reveal its soft image, a simple map of the estate outlined in gold.

  Shaw touched the octagonal outline of the pavilion. The shape expanded to fill the screen. A menu to one side noted options of lights-security-climate-privacy. Shaw tapped security. The shape turned blue, denoting that the pavilion’s alarms were currently off. Each door around the perimeter of the shape was green. Unlocked. He tapped privacy, and a sliding bar appeared at the side with clear at one end and full at the other. He turned off the tablet and slipped it into his pocket.

  There were two items in the duffel. The first was the KRISS submachine gun he’d taken from the bearded killer on the train. Modified for full auto, the KRISS carried more bang than any firearm in Shaw’s eclectic arsenal. And just as important for tonight, the boxy weapon was also the most intimidating.

  He removed the gun and checked to make sure the padding was secure around the duffel’s bulkier contents. It wouldn’t do to have them disturbed before the time came.

  With the open duffel in his left hand and the gun in his right, Shaw walked around the north edge of the house and around the outside of the art gallery, down the slope to the shore. He kept close to the rise, to be under the line of sight from the dark estate. Waves rolled to shore, borne on the powerful current. He heard the sizzling of spray tossed high by the crevices and splashing down onto the rock. Perhaps the same cleft that had held Nelson Bao.

  Near the end of the north wing, the pavilion came dazzlingly into view. It took Shaw’s eyes a moment to adjust after the long minutes in darkness. Some psych game of Anders’s invention, perhaps, turning on every light. In the vast crystalline pavilion, there was nowhere to hide. Maybe Rohner’s guests would feel less inclined to start trouble.

  He walked along the shore until he had neared the tip of the island, then crouched to edge forward, higher up the rise to where he could see the interior. A first tiny droplet of rain touched his cheek.

  The teams had chosen sides of the playing field, with the laboratory table at the center. Hargreaves and Vic and Tucker stood on the southern half, spread out from one another. Closer to Shaw was Sebastien Rohner’s bunch. He saw the backs of Anders’s bald head and Rohner’s silver-blond one. In front of them stood the bodyguards, Kilbane and Castelli. Shaw guessed the female member of their team, Pollan, would be just out of his sight behind the entrance wall. Morton was hard at work at the GPC machine on the table, the lone figure in the center of the room.

  Shaw shouldered his duffel, raised the submachine gun, and walked to the nearest door.

  “Hey,” said Riley into his headset. He watched a dark figure move from the shore toward the pavilion, almost directly ahead of where Riley knelt on the blue metal tiles of the north wing’s roof. “Outside the building, eleven o’clock. Is that Shaw?”

  Taskine responded from his position on the beach, his lowered voice coming through the earpiece in Riley’s left ear. “I don’t see him.”

  “He’s going inside now.”

  “Got him. That’s the fucker. Hargreaves said he’d be taken care of.”

  “Guess ol’ Jimbo was wrong. Not his first mistake this week.”

  Riley debated for a moment whether Taskine should check on the plane and its pilot, then decided it would be pointless. If the stupid bitch was dead or bleeding out, that was on her.

  “This change our priorities?” Taskine said.

  Riley looked through his telescopic sight at Shaw. At this range, barely a hundred yards through the pavilion’s glass wall, the Leupold scope showed Shaw’s entire chest and neck. As good as point-blank.

  Both Riley and Taskine had been given M2010 sniper rifles, courtesy of one of Hargreaves’s shadowy friends. Riley figured the friend must have connections in the military. Both rifles showed signs of regular use, scratches on the stocks and wear on the grips. The weapons were probably due to be sold off to some mudhole nation’s token defense force before Hargreaves made an offer.

  Neither Taskine nor Riley was a trained sniper. But they could both zero a scope, and they’d had three full hours alone on the island to work with the rifles before the seaplane had arrived with Rohner and the whole party. The guns had been fitted with suppressors that extended their total lengths over four feet. Awkward, especially when it came time for Riley to climb up onto the roof, but at least the sound of their practice shots hadn’t carried to some asshole sailing past on his yacht.

  No night optics, though. And no jacketed slugs either. The thick panes of the pavilion walls would deflect the .300 Magnum rounds at least a couple degrees. Couldn’t be helped. In the end it would make no difference. He and Taskine had the place as bottled up as cheap beer.

  They’d ranked their targets in order of potential threat. Rohner’s bodyguards first. Taskine would go west to east and Riley east to west, firing until each hostile was down. Then the tall, bald cock who seemed to be around to make sure Rohner didn’t have to do any heavy lifting for himself. Between Riley and Taskine outside and Tucker and the others inside, the rich prick’s team would be dead before they cleared their holsters.

  Shaw, though. Easily the most dangerous. But he was alone, and a wild card. When Hargreaves gave them the signal and the shooting started, which team would Shaw be aiming at? Riley didn’t give a crap if Vic or Tucker caught a bullet, but Hargreaves had to be alive to pay them.

  “Stick with Rohner’s crew first,” Riley said. “Then Shaw. Then the bald butler dude.”

  “Copy that. Rain’s coming in.”

  “Yeah.” Riley pulled his cap a little lower. Sometimes he hated wearing glasses. Being out in the rain was for shit. He watched the people inside, everybody’s attention on Shaw after the dude’s surprise entrance.

  “Hey,” said Riley as a smil
e creased his face. “Shaw’s got your machine gun.”

  There was a pause. Riley knew Taskine was finding Shaw in his own scope. He imagined his partner’s face on seeing the KRISS in Shaw’s hand and grinned even wider.

  “That motherfucker,” Taskine said, his voice thick. “Stuff priority. This goes down, I’m going to blow that shitbird’s spine apart, first thing.”

  “He’s all yours, brother,” said Riley.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Rohner and Anders and the rest turned quickly at the sound of Shaw opening the door. Kilbane and Castelli both reached for their hips.

  “Everybody stay cool,” said Shaw.

  Kilbane moved to put his bosses behind him. His hand still on his holstered pistol.

  “Drop the gun,” Kilbane said.

  “You have to be kidding,” said Shaw.

  Anders raised a hand. “It’s all right. Let him in.”

  Pointless, as Shaw was already inside. He moved around the inside of the transparent wall, to where he could keep both teams in view.

  “Do you have the sample?” said Rohner.

  Shaw set the duffel on the floor and unzipped it without taking his eyes from the room. No one had a gun in his hand, but so far as he could tell, only Rohner and Morton weren’t packing. Even Anders had a pistol on his belt.

  By feel he unwrapped the last item in the duffel and gripped the handle to hold it up.

  A clear gallon jug filled with yellowish gel. Black shrink-wrapped packets had been taped around the jug’s middle, like a winter coat for the thick soup within. Wires connected each brick-shaped packet to the next.

  “Damn me,” said Tucker from across the room. The others were already edging back, seeking what shelter was offered by the planter troughs.

  “Insurance,” said Shaw. “White phosphorus plus some accelerant, just to be nasty. Bad enough for anyone in here, even worse for your miracle goop.”

  He flipped a toggle switch taped to its surface. A light atop one of the packets of phosphorus glowed red. Unnecessary for the bomb’s function, but an effective visual reminder of its menace.