Josh swam up and checked their direction. The Grimoire was a good seventy-five yards away now, bobbing on the gentle swells. He could see candles being lit in the cabin windows. Josh ducked back down as quickly as he’d come up to avoid detection, but the lights at least told him there were people below decks.
How many, he couldn’t be sure.
A skeleton crew of about five could get the ship to sail in a hamstrung way, but they had repelled a crew of about ten—killing four in the battle at Evergreen—and he couldn’t imagine they would have left the ship unguarded while they’d come onto the island. Especially if they’d seen any of the Sea-Hawk’s rafts washed up on the beach.
He kicked on over the coral as the depth increased with every yard.
If things were going to plan back on the beach, the catapults he had gotten Karel to make would be going into position, with the tree line getting ready for darkness and the full battle about to begin. By then, he and the rest of the swimmers would be in position, ready to board the Grimoire and take the ship. It wasn’t going to be an easy fight, and as a dyed-in-the-wool law enforcement officer, he would have preferred there to be some way that the Harbormen could be captured and imprisoned rather than killed—as the final phase of his plan would entail. But these were desperate times that needed desperate measures. Leaving one Harborman alive would be a risk, and if Gabriel Angel was still on the boat, he would need to be put down like the sick dog he was.
Josh knew this was personal now. Maxine had been right when she’d told him what Halley thought about the mission and the reasons for it. Yes, Josh could dress it up as necessity and logical action to be taken, but there was too much history between him and Gabe now. From the moment he had clashed with him over his treatment of Maxine in a roadhouse parking lot in Raleigh, North Carolina, right on to him hunting down Josh’s family and setting his own son against him—and after what he had done to Maxine when he had drugged her…
The cold clench in his guts stopped the forward momentum in his thoughts. It didn’t bear any more analysis. Gabe had to die, and Josh had to do the killing. It was the only imaginable way to extricate himself from these feelings and to bring on some peace that would allow him to go forward. He hadn’t admitted to Maxine that Halley was right on the button, though. He hadn’t admitted to Maxine that he was experiencing an inkling that he was putting them all in danger for a slice or two of testosterone and pride-induced toxic masculinity.
But there it was.
Two birds to be killed with one stone. The island made safe for them to rest, recuperate, and plan their new future, and Gabriel Angel out of his life forever. And finally, out of Storm’s, too.
Out of the water again—just his face mask. The last rays of the sun were pink on the bottom of the scudding clouds. The Grimoire was etched black against the sky, near enough now for Josh to hear the slap of the waves on the side of its hull.
Each of the divers had their guns and ammunition in 10-liter dry bags hanging from their belts, they had knives in sheaths on their thighs, and in their hands, they carried spearfishing guns, all of which had been found with the scuba equipment back at Bluehills. The spear guns were just the last ingredient in Josh’s plan. If they worked as Josh and Donald hoped they would, he and the others would be on the deck of the Grimoire within the next ten minutes.
If it all went as directed.
22
The first stones began splashing into the water from the three catapults on the shore eight minutes after Josh, Donald, Henry, and Karel had positioned themselves off of the far side of the Grimoire, with the ship between them and the beach. The missiles hit the water with loud sploshes that could be heard from where they were treading water. Frenzied activity on the boat became apparent as the stones whizzed through the air, clattering into the side of the ship with sharp clacks and deep thuds.
The projectiles weren’t going to cause any kind of damage, but that’s not what they were meant for. There were excited shouts sounding out as Harbormen came onto the deck, flooding up from below to see what was going on, and there was a yell as one of them was hit by a lucky blow. This even drew laughter from some of the men, all of it towards their hapless comrade. More importantly, they were proving as complacent as Josh had hoped. He could only imagine them thinking this: They’ve been reduced to throwing stones? Fools!
And now, from what he and the others could ascertain, the Harbormen were all on the other side of the ship from where he and his comrades lay in wait, trying to work out what was happening and exactly who was attacking them—with piddling little stones!
It took another minute or so before the Harbormen started taking potshots at the land with their weapons.
That was the cover Josh and the others needed.
Josh counted down on his fingers to the others in the moonlight, the moon’s heavy glow coming from high above them in the clouds and providing them some light.
Three.
Two.
One.
All four guns shot their spears whispering up and over the Grimoire’s rail. The aluminum barb-tipped shafts trailed monofilament lines which had in turn been spliced to thin, high-tensile climbing ropes bound around improvised grapples, these made once again from boathooks and rowlocks. Neat little constructions which Donald had made from metals ripped from Bluehills’ stock of kayaks. The Harbormen’s gunfire covered the grapples hitting the deck right at the bow of the ship, and after Josh and the others let their tanks, flippers, and face masks go, dropping it all down onto the silent ocean bed yards below them, the four of them began to haul themselves up the ropes in the darkness. Feet digging into the wood, rubber gripped climbing gloves anchoring them securely to the lines as they pulled and strained. Soon, all four were looking through the rails along the ship’s deck.
Josh searched between the slats in the rail. The Harbormen, six of them, were having a rare old time laughing and pointing to the shore as they searched for more targets for them to fire at. Maxine and the others should already have gone to ground behind the rocks so as not to get tagged by errant shots, however. So, they should be quite safe.
Josh rolled over the rail, onto his knees, and crouched down in the space behind the wheel-house and the rail. Donald, Karel, and Henry followed soon after, taking their guns out of dry bags and waiting for the signal to begin.
“Ready?” Josh whispered as the hoots from the Harbormen’s shooting party and the crackle of gunfire continued.
Donald and the others gave affirmative nods.
Josh released the safety on his AK-47 and stood up. The three others followed suit.
The gunfire blasted across the deck to where the Harbormen had stood focused on the shore and their potshotting. They threw up their arms as the bullets slammed into their sides, heads snapping around with their mouths in wide O’s of shock, their arms splayed out and their legs crumpling.
Two of their number who had been shielded by the bodies of their comrades dove for cover––one ending up in a position behind one of the remaining masts, the other by a louvre-slatted sail store. The rounds from the AKs tore lines across the deck and threw splinters into the air as if whipping tornadoes were crossing the ship.
Fire was returned by the two surviving Harbormen, who were firing a pistol and something that clattered like an Uzi in sending bullets back towards Josh.
Henry pulled Josh backwards and they fell to the deck, bullets fizzing through the space Josh had just been occupying.
Karel was already on her front, crawling around the wheelhouse to the other side of the ship in order to send bullets screaming ankle-high along the expanse of deck, chewing into the sail store by blowing apart the doors and blasting through the top of it. It was no longer going to provide much protection to the Harborman using it for cover, and as Josh got to his knees to risk a look along the deck, he noticed a shadow flitting from behind the store and rolling behind a large wooden lifeboat. This was much sturdier construction than the sail store, and mig
ht provide a little more cover from gunfire.
Donald’s arm arced upward and something flew speedily from his grasp.
“Fire in the hole!” Donald screamed.
Karel covered her head and Josh returned the compliment to their young friend, pulling Henry down as Donald flattened himself on the wood and the grenade he’d thrown detonated twenty yards down the deck.
From his position on his back, with Henry across his knees, Josh could see up to the near empty sky as debris and splinters rained down.
For the first time since darkness had fallen, he could see the full dusting of stars across the spine of the night. The moon, now naked and exposed, was a wide and yellow blazing disc—which had chosen this moment to fall from the clouds into a shimmering pool of deep black sky. And there, edging thirty degrees above the horizon, the Barnard’s Nebula was clear and livid in the swimming, star-encrusted firmament—as if it had come out especially to join the full moon.
The nebula, almost in a direct line between the moon and Cook’s Hump on Dark Point, shone with its own inimitable light. Not as bright as the moon, but up there like a ragged tear in the sky.
It had caused all this—and now it was there, looking down on all of the destruction it had wrought like an accusation… No, Josh corrected himself as the last of the debris from the grenade blast hit the deck, and the sound of it reverberated off the island.
No. A dozen times, no.
The nebula wasn’t an accusation. It was like a sneer on the face of the sky. The rotten, dirt-eating corner of a mouth you just wanted to punch. And keep punching until the body it was attached to stopped moving.
That was the Barnard’s Nebula in that moment, and Josh had never hated it so much as he did now.
And then, Dark Point Island exploded.
The boom of the explosion and the shock of light from the land blanked out the moon and the nebula for more than a couple of seconds as the shadows around them became harshly exposed and the flames from the shore spat their orange tongues up to lap at the clouds.
Josh rolled to the rail, not caring if the surviving Harbormen could get a bead on him. This wasn’t part of the plan; this wasn’t supposed to happen. What was going on back on shore?
“Did you really think we were not defended? That we weren’t ready for you?”
At the question, Josh turned away from the diminishing effects of the explosion on the shore.
“Did you really think that we had not kept watch on the shore closest to the Grimoire, to make sure any plan you put into action couldn’t be countered?”
Gabriel Angel stood behind him along with five other Harbormen, each of whom had a combination of submachine guns––Uzis and MP5s—pointed at Josh and the others. Donald already had his hands raised. Karel was being disarmed even as Henry put down his AK-47 onto the deck.
Gabe was dressed as he had always been, in black. He looked like a hole in the stars. With the nebula at his shoulder, the moon might have been his crown. Josh’s machine gun was pointed at the deck. His finger was next to the trigger guard, but he knew that if he even twitched up the barrel towards Gabe––who in this moment he wanted to shoot more than he had anyone in his life, ever––then he would be dead.
So, he put down his gun and joined Donald in raising his hands.
“Signal from the shore, Your Majesty. The attackers have been taken. Including Standing’s wife and children. We lost two men in the firefight, but all’s well now. Resistance has been suppressed.”
“Any news on Professor Halley?”
“No, sir, but our boys are on their way up to Bluehills now, and it will only be a matter of time before they’re found.”
The words all sounded like they were coming from the wrong end of a dream to Josh.
They were below decks on the Grimoire in a sumptuously laid out lantern and candlelit cabin in the stern. Plush chairs and a heavy mahogany table, on which an open bottle of red wine was breathing before being poured, completed the impression of luxury with which Gabriel Angel liked to surround himself. Gabe leaned back in his chair and dismissed the reporting Harborman with a curt wave of his fingers.
The Harborman left the cabin, leaving Josh, the three who had come to the ship with him, three Harborman guards, and Gabe. The self-styled King of America studied Josh with his blue eyes. The blue eyes that proved, according to Halley, that Storm was not his son, but that was news which Gabriel needed to be brought up to speed on.
“You took my son.”
Josh said nothing. He just looked back at Gabe with the same contempt the other man held for him. His hands were tied behind his back and he was on his knees like the others, but this wasn’t the time to show how scared he was feeling on the inside. This was not the time to give Gabriel Angel any of the wins he wanted before dispatching Josh.
Josh knew he was going to die, and that certainty brought fear, but it also brought resolution. Why give Gabe anything now? Why give him anything that he hadn’t already taken?
“You burned my home.”
Josh stared.
“You tried to sink my ship.”
Nothing.
“You came here to kill me.”
Josh was not rising to it. The room was shrinking to just a tunnel of hot air drilled between the eyes of the two men and everything else was fading into the background. Josh could hear the breathing of the others, but that was all. It was just him and Gabe.
The way it was always going to end.
“I have more than enough reason to kill you where you kneel, you insect. Don’t think by giving me the silent treatment that you’re going to force me into a rage where I’m going to kill you quickly and cleanly, Josh. Not a chance of it. Just one of the crimes you have committed against me and my kingdom should see the pestilences of hell visited upon your body for all eternity. Combine them all, and your death will come down a well-worn line a long, long time from now.”
Gabe leaned forward in his chair, resting an elbow on the table, his index finger playing idly along the length of the scar on the side of his face. “You won’t just beg for death at the end, Joshua Standing, you will embrace it like a lover.”
This was not the Gabriel Angel from Josh’s teenage years—the charismatic jock who everyone had loved and who the awkward Josh had, for a time, even admired, looked up to, and called a friend. That Gabe was gone. He’d gone at the very moment he’d treated Maxine so appallingly in that Raleigh parking lot. When Josh had intervened, whupped him, and left him embarrassed and with a foundry-hot anger burning in his heart.
That Gabe had been replaced by this… creature. He’d obviously gone and gotten himself an education––or perhaps his rich father, a successful import and an export businessman, had bought him one. Because where before Gabe had been a simple and popular boy, Gabe the man was a scheming, ambitious, and dangerous enemy to everything Josh had stood for. Even before the Barnard’s event, he had tricked and drugged Maxine in a squalid act of revenge––which Maxine had spared Josh from finding out about for many years––but the supernova effects had supercharged a deep and abiding psychopathy in the man, who was now living out his twisted fantasies. Being a king. Being the one in power. Being the man who held the life or death of anyone he chose in his hands. Without the Barnard’s event, Josh considered, Gabriel Angel would have been a rich fool, a golf-club bore with a trophy wife and children who hated him. But since the Barnard’s event, he’d found the motivation to grasp power, and the ability to take people with him in building an empire on fear and pain.
“You know what I did when I found out you’d been in Parkopolis, Josh?”
Parkopolis was the embryonic town––little more than a colonial ranch house surrounded by tents on the outskirts of Thunderbolt, Georgia––which had been created by Gabriel Angel’s outlying underlings and the near equally psychopathic Trace Parker. Josh had fallen into his clutches after making it back to the U.S. on the Sea-Hawk.
“You know what I did?” Gabe repe
ated.
Josh didn’t even give him the satisfaction of a blink.
Gabe rolled his eyes, and then he whispered, “Pearls before swine,” with an empty snorting laugh to himself, next announcing, “I did a little dance. That’s what I did. I did a little dance. Me! Can you believe it? Here I was building my own castle, reaching out across the land to control and build the Harbormaster’s empire, and I was getting a second bite of the cherry. I was getting the chance to finish what I’d started with you.”
Josh kept his eyes on Gabe. There was nowhere else to pin his concentration now, and if he had to listen to this dreck before he died, then he’d listen to it. It wouldn’t make any difference to the situation to hear it, and he would not show that it was affecting him––because that’s what Gabe wanted. And you didn’t give Gabe what he wanted. So, he listened. Face blank. Eyes hard.
“So, I sent out my people to find you. I knew there was a good chance you, Maxine, and your brat of a daughter might take my son to Donald’s pathetic little house on the prairie. So that’s where I sent my men. There was some chance you might go home to the Carolinas, too, so I sent men there, as well––they burned your home. I thought that was a nice touch.”
The pang in Josh’s heart over his home in Morehead City didn’t reach his face, not even creasing his eyes.
“I’ve been dogging you at every step, Josh. From Georgia, to West Virginia, to Castle Jaxport, to Dark Point Island––I have been on your trail. You might have gotten yourself some breathing space here and there, but admit it, boy, I’ve had you at every turn. When we saw the washed-up life rafts and we encountered you when you attacked my boat upriver, I knew that you would try to come for me. How could you not? I was your son’s father, after all. How could you not extinguish that burning agony in your soul by leaving me and my men to their own devices?”
Supernova EMP Seriries (Book 4): Final End Page 21