But Hanford was where Shawn had died. It had been long enough that he'd more or less gotten used to the fact his older brother was gone. Even so, there was a twinge.
"No," he said, "Hanford didn't help that feeling, either. Could be that's why it's taken me so long to come around."
"And where are you now?"
"Things aren't fair. It's pretty god damn obvious the world—the universe—the stars and everything in them—don't give a shit about the little puddles of life squirming around in the margins. They don't owe us anything. 'Fair' is nothing more than a word. It only exists in our heads."
He looked up, trying to get a look at the sky, but the leaves were too thick. "Thing is—and this is where Sebastian and the Way come in—the universe might not be fair. It might not care about anything. But we do. If we want to make life less unfair, like by stopping the aliens' second plague, or making penicillin a thing again, we can start right now."
Tristan grinned. Running like that, as light as the breeze, she looked almost too good, like a Roman statue in a tank top. She saw him looking and smirked. Embarrassment spilled down Ness' shoulders, exactly the way it had when he'd tried talking to a pretty girl in high school. He was more than thirty years old. After all he'd been through, you'd think he'd be Super Fonzi.
One of the most frustrating lessons of getting older, though? You could change, but it was more like growing into yourself than becoming something new altogether. An avocado pit might grow up healthy or strong, but it always wound up as an avocado tree.
On top of that, it was far too easy to revert to the little seed you used to be.
"It's funny," Tristan said. "I used to be such a do-gooder. When I was at Berkeley, I thought I was going to change the world. With socially conscious music, ideally, but failing that, with… volunteering, or running a blog, or just being me. Now, though? As far as I'm concerned, the common good can go fuck itself."
"If it could do that, a lot more people would be signing up to help it."
She snorted. "Humanity's had millions of do-gooders over thousands of years, and that was the best we could do? What more proof do you need that there's no point?"
"Could be you're right," Ness said. "But we've already saved the world once ourselves, haven't we? Imagine how shitty things would be without the do-gooders."
The trek to Dr. Gohel's house had taken a few hours, but they'd been moving cautiously then, stopping for every unnatural shuffling of leaves. Jogging back, it was barely forty minutes before Ness and Tristan came to the white cliffs overlooking the pale sands.
The sub was motionless in the mouth of the inlet. Neither Sprite nor Sebastian was up top, but Tristan's walkie talkie was just powerful enough to raise Sprite without the need to descend to the beaches.
"Great," Sprite said. "Yet again, you're chasing down some guy kidnapped by ruthless pirates. Any idea how long it will take this time?"
"The trail won't stay hot for long," Tristan said. "This place is a rainforest. If we don't find him in the next day or two, I doubt we ever will."
"Have fun storming the castle."
Tristan signed off and glanced at Ness. "Didn't you pick him up in Taiwan? How does he know Princess Bride?"
"Macau," Ness said. "And everyone knows Princess Bride. It's like the bible for people our age."
"Given the lack of DVD players, I'm thinking the next generation is going to have to go back to the actual Bible."
"Speaking of electronics, how come these pirates got radios, while we're running marathons to get into walkie talkie range?"
"Because we're idiots." Tristan turned from the cliffs. "Once this is over, we should bump radios to the top of our to-do list."
"And make sure they're waterproof."
They headed back toward the cabin, jogging again. A third of the way through, Ness was sure he'd have to stop, but with Tristan showing no signs of flagging, he pressed on. Somehow, he lasted all the way to the clearing around the cabin. There were times he thought that wearing out wasn't so much about the body getting tired as it was the mind refusing to persevere.
On the trek inland, the mounting weakness in his legs made him question that thought. Sam and Lionel led the way, following the tracks through ferns and grass and pricklers. Now and then, Sam had to stop and hunt around to rediscover the sign, but these occasions were rare.
"The doctor's leaving a trail for us," Sam said. "Either that, or his feet weigh two hundred pounds apiece."
Trees leaned into the sky, towering over the grass, the little yellow flowers. At a creek, a downed trunk spanned the waters, supported on both banks by piles of rocks. Heart racing, Ness forced himself to follow the others across. He didn't know what he was afraid of. The water was only a few feet deep and not that fast. As sweaty as he was, falling into it would probably feel good. He decided that brains were made of all the parts of the body that the other organs had rejected.
A path picked up on the other side. They made good time for the remainder of the afternoon. As dusk fell, Sam came to a stop.
"Best set up camp. Another few minutes, and I won't be able to notice if the tracks leave the path."
Through the canopy, gray clouds brought night all the faster. Tristan tipped back her head. "And if it rains overnight?"
Sam shrugged. "Then the trail's gone."
Along with food, they'd liberated camping supplies from Gohel's shack—tarps, blankets, and so on. As they shared sausage, Lionel brought back bunches of purple-red berries that reminded Ness of the coffee plants on Maui. The berries were tart.
"Don't make a face," Lionel said. "Lucky to find these here."
Ness swallowed. "If 'lucky' is what you want to call it."
Night came fast. The air was cool and damp. Bugs chirped and buzzed from the branches. Ness kept his ear open for the patter of rain in the leaves, but drifted off without hearing a drop.
People started to stir around first light. Ness' legs ached. He ejected himself from his bedroll and limped around camp, working out the stiffness. As soon as the sun came up, Sam continued along the path.
The tracks peeled away from it within two miles, heading up a slope beneath towering, tight-leafed trees Lionel insisted were called sassafras. Progress slowed to the point where Ness wasn't sure how they were going to keep pace with the kidnappers, let alone catch up. Then again, they had a captive and were probably porting more gear.
Clouds mounted in the skies. After a few hills, they tramped down a broad decline. There were gaps in the trees and the stomped grass was easy to follow. Ahead, a thicket of shrubs and trees enclosed a swift creek. In many places, the water was ankle-deep, with wide, flat stones protruding from the swirling current. Sam moved down the bank a ways, then back up. She crossed to the other side and repeated her search, then returned to the others, who had been poking around for shoe prints in the mud.
"It's no good," she said. "They must have walked down the creek."
Tristan shifted her rifle on her shoulder. "How would they know we're following them?"
"Could be they're paranoid, which wouldn't be good news for us. Could be they noticed the doctor marking his trail, which wouldn't be good news for him. Either way, if we can't pick up the trail before the rain, it won't matter."
Rocks crowded the banks. It was muddy enough in places, but if the captors were hiding their trail, they wouldn't have been dumb enough to dance through the muck.
"The signs the doctor's been leaving," Ness said. "Is it just footprints?"
Sam nodded. "Mostly. Anything more obvious would be… obvious."
Ness meandered upstream. Could be Sam was right, but between Gohel's copious notes, his ongoing sabotage, and the fact he was a doctor running a post-collapse medical lab, Ness thought the man was too devoted and fastidious to give up so easily.
Rather than searching for any one thing, he kept his eyes open to everything. Anything that wouldn't have a place in an isolated stream deep in a forest. Ahead, a plastic bag hung from a mossy branch, but when
he got up to it, it was tattered, months or years old. Ness walked on. For a few hundred yards, he saw a whole lot of nothing.
Flies lifted from the rocks and buzzed around his face. A drop struck him in the cheek. He jerked back his head and looked up. Rain had begun to speckle the leaves. Within a minute, it was pouring through the branches, darkening the once-dry stones along the banks and pounding the mud into flat, featureless muck.
He hurried on. Back down the creek, Tristan hollered his name. He winced—what if the pirates heard?—but didn't respond or turn back. He jogged ahead, shoes squelching in the grass. And tripped right over the chevron of stones pointing north across the creek.
* * *
Ness waited in the darkness, laser in hand. He was soaked, cold, and miserable, but at the moment, he felt none of that. All he had processing strength for was the tickle of the rain in the leaves.
Sam emerged from the trees not twenty feet away. Ness swore. He gestured to the others, who filtered through the trees to convene on them.
"They're right over the ridge," she murmured. "At least five, plus the doctor. They're just bedding down."
"What's the terrain like?" Tristan said.
"Heavy woods. They're in a draw, but they're up the far side a ways. Wouldn't be surprised if the bottom is flooded. I say we park three people over the ridge, then send two others circling around north to come at them from upslope. If the pirates catch us coming, most likely they'll retreat downhill, across the draw."
Ness rubbed rain from his left eye. "Right into our people on the ridge."
"Exactly. They should have somebody on watch, but if not, we may be able to sneak into camp without any resistance."
"That doesn't add up," Emma said. "There's six of us. You've only got five of us going in."
Sam cocked her head. "I didn't think you'd want in. You haven't been carrying a gun."
"They killed my friends. I can't wait to return the favor."
"Then that answers the question of whether we want to try to take them alive. In that case, the main difficulty will be in making sure no harm comes to the doctor. What's he look like?"
"Indian fellow," Lionel said. "About five-foot-seven. Black hair, short. Sensible guy. Once the shooting starts, I expect he'll keep his head down until the smoke clears."
"Don't count on it. When bullets start flying, the first casualty is good sense." She pointed at Ness. "I want you and Lionel with me on the sweep team. Tristan, you'll anchor the fence with Greg and Emma. Do not reveal yourselves until we've made contact."
To Ness' surprise, Tristan agreed without a single objection. They waited for the night to deepen, huddling under a thick shrub that did its best to divert the rain. While darkness descended, they went over the plan, but Ness didn't see much to talk about. Everything depended on what happened once they started creeping up on the enemy.
Instead, he found himself thinking about whether they should be there at all. For years, it had been about him and Sebastian making sure the Swimmers didn't finish off mankind. Now, he was alone—separated from Sebastian, anyway—chasing after some dude he'd never met to help some people he knew virtually nothing about. Other than that he liked their accents. Suddenly, it seemed idiotic.
One of the advantages to getting older, though: while you might not change all that much, you at least got to know yourself. The real you, minus the bullshit and wishful thinking. He was fully aware that he was prone to doubting and criticizing himself. Sometimes he thought his brain fabricated new anxieties from whole cloth. There wasn't much he could do about any of that, but the simple act of knowing made it easier to withstand.
"It's time," Sam said, breath hanging in the moist air. "Let's move."
Tristan nudged him on the shoulder and winked. "Good luck."
The sweep team went up the hill with the fence team, stopping below the ridgeline while Tristan took Greg and Emma into position on the other side. Three minutes later, with no gunfire or other trouble, Sam cut east through the sopping forest, got down into a draw, and followed it north. Once they were past the pirates' position, she circled back to the west, angling up the backside of the hill protecting them from sight.
The ascent was muddy and slick, but at least the leaves were too soaked to crackle. The rain drowned out any incidental noise. Beneath the canopy, most of the drops weren't hitting the ground. If they had to fire their lasers across an open field, though, it was going to mess with their range.
Near the top of the hill, Sam got down and crawled to the crest, settling in behind a waxy-leafed jackwood tree. She produced binoculars from her hoodie and scanned the draw. There were no fires or lights.
"The camp's just through those trees," Sam whispered, pointing a few hundred feet toward a line of tall, old growths whose canopies blotted out the night sky. "I want the two of you to keep fifteen to twenty feet to either side of me. If we make contact, find cover and hold position. If we reach the camp, locate the doctor, then neutralize his captors."
Ness moved to her right flank, Lionel to her left. She gestured forward and they crept downhill. Ness' heart raced. His eyes darted between his footing and the woods ahead. He tried to keep a tree in front of him at all times. Something he could hide behind as soon as he heard the first shot.
Halfway toward the camp, he stopped cold. Thirty feet ahead, a tree trunk bulged in a way that made his eye frown. He stared as hard as he could, but it was too dark to pierce the shadows. He glanced to his left. Sam had stopped to watch him.
Ahead, a six-foot section of the trunk peeled off and took a step forward, craning into the gloom. Rain gleamed on the barrel of a rifle as it slipped from the man's shoulder.
Ness straightened his arm and pressed the buttons on the handle of his pistol. Blue light flared through the night; the weapon was silent, but the water in the air sizzled and popped. The beam struck the man in the ribs. He tried to scream, but choked on the sound. Ness fired again, sending blue shadows wheeling across the woods, illuminating the heavy drops as they fell from above. He was too blinded by the flash to see where it hit, but the man fell in the muck and stayed there.
Ness blinked at the afterimage, scanning the camp ahead. Sam broke cover and slunk forward. She kneeled by the body and felt its neck. Without looking back, she gestured Ness on. He moved to the next tree, paused to listen, then walked on, Sam advancing to his left.
He and Sam reached the camp at the same time. The pirates had strung tarps between branches, slanting them so the rain rolled downhill. They'd dug a small trench on the uphill side, allowing them to sleep on relatively dry ground. Five men lay tucked into blankets. It was so dark Ness wasn't sure he'd be able to recognize the doctor, but only one of the men had his hands bound with rubber tubing.
Sam gestured to Ness, then the doctor. As she pointed her rifle at one of the sleeping men, a pistol blasted from the far side of the camp.
Ness flung himself to the ground. Forty feet away, the gunman burst from his blankets, yelling at his friends while emptying his pistol at Sam. As Ness leveled his laser and squeezed the buttons, one of the other men stumbled to his feet, shedding blankets. The beam caught him in the gut. He screamed and reeled downhill, blanket flapping behind him.
Lionel's rifle went off. To Ness' left, Sam had rolled behind a bush and was firing at the first man, who was splashing downhill, a shadow among the trunks. Lionel fired again, sending one of the waking men spinning back to the dirt. Dr. Gohel was awake, too, and was worming his way downhill, rocking on his elbows. The final pirate in camp stood and ran past him, firing backwards. Ness' laser sliced past him. Before he could take another shot, Sam hammered him down.
"Get the doctor," she said. "I'll go after the runner."
She dashed downhill after the lone escapee. Beneath the tarp, Gohel had rolled on his side and was grabbing the pistol from the hands of one of the dead men.
"Dr. Gohel!" Lionel said. "Sandeep, it's me—Lionel Fairview!"
The doctor sat up abruptly,
mouth half open. "Lionel?" He had a ruddy Australian accent. "Find my signs, did you?"
"Sure did. How did you know I was coming?"
"What do you mean? You were scheduled to arrive today."
Lionel laughed. "The last few days have been so crazy I'd forgotten all about that. Come on and let's get those ropes off you."
While Lionel worked on the doctor's wrists, Ness sawed at the tubes securing his ankles. Up the opposite slope, gunfire rattled through the trees. A man screamed. As the noise faded, a second man screamed instead, the plaintive notes drifting through the thick, moist air.
"Oh hell," Lionel croaked. "That's Greg."
Gohel stood, rubbing his wrists. "Then we'd best see to him."
Before leaving camp, Ness administered a coup de grace to the fallen men, reassuring himself that a) they were already dead, so shooting them was no different from shooting a target, or a side of beef, and b) if they weren't dead, putting them down was best for all concerned.
That done, he hustled to catch up. The shooting had quit and Tristan called out all clear, her voice spectral in the rainy night. Ness found her crouched over Greg, pressing her hands to a bloody wound to the left of his breastbone. Gohel stripped away Greg's shirt, but by the time he wiped away the blood and got a look at things, Greg had quit breathing.
"I'm sorry." He sat back, rain washing the blood from his hands. "He's gone."
Lionel sank down. Emma moved behind him and put a hand on his back. Ness stood watching, feeling like he ought to say something conciliatory, but he figured it was more honest to say nothing.
"He shouldn't have died for me," Gohel said. "This is such a waste."
Lionel wiped his palm down his teary face. "It's not your fault. He knew the risks."
"None of this would have happened if we hadn't been coming to you," Emma said. "The men who captured you only knew about you because their friends beat it out of us."
"Besides, he knew your life was worth more than his. Deny it if you like, but that's what he believed."
It was just a body, but they insisted on using the shovel from the pirates' camp to bury him in the soft earth above the draw. By the time they finished, everyone was filthy and exhausted, but nobody was real big on spending the night in a dead man's camp. Ness pulled down the tarps and they set up shelter over the hill to the east.
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 14