His fingertips had come upon a cheap Bic ballpoint pen. He had gently lifted it and trapped it between the leather cushions two or three inches from his legs. Then he had waited.
After twenty minutes on the highway, Smith and his men had become distracted by the monotony of the open road. Caspian was forgotten for the moment. He wasn’t going anywhere and there was nothing to see. It was still another hour to Armstrong’s island.
Caspian stared at the mirror and watched the driver’s eyes, but once again they were focused on the road ahead. This was his moment. He eased the Bic pen from the leather and clutched it in his fist. He held it there between his thighs and did a three-count. Then he moved like a flash.
Caspian brought his hands up hard and fast and jammed the Bic four inches into Brown’s right eye socket. Brown had let his mind wander, momentarily hypnotized by the rhythm of the road and the rain beating down on the roof. He barely had time to flinch before the pen gouged his eye. He screamed in agony. Both hands immediately went to his face.
Caspian already had his hands on Brown’s gun. Brown had carried it in a nylon holster in the waistband of his pants. In one fluid movement, Caspian pulled the gun and fired two bullets into the back of the driver’s seat. Jones was at the wheel. Both bullets were well placed. They tore through the seat and seared through Jones’s body.
Jones slumped forward onto the wheel.
Smith pulled his gun and turned.
Miller pushed Caspian’s arms down as Caspian managed to pull the trigger again, the bullet spider webbing the windshield.
The reactions of Smith and Miller were not enough. Jones had fallen forward onto the steering wheel jerking it hard to the left as the full weight of his leg jammed the accelerator to the floor.
The engine revved and the Tahoe surged, but the jerked steering wheel caused the weight to shift radically. Rubber shrieked on the wet asphalt and the Tahoe went up on two wheels. Then it pitched over onto its side and flipped end over end three of four times at ninety miles an hour. The Tahoe landed on its roof and slid more than seventy feet before coming to rest with its wheels still spinning.
Rain sizzled on the undercarriage.
Jones was dead.
Smith was momentarily unconscious. His head had taken a blow against his side window. Blood streamed from a gash in his right temple. The second row door on the passenger side had come open as the Tahoe tumbled and Miller had been thrown free.
Brown was moaning, the plastic shaft of the Bic ballpoint still protruding from his ruined eye. His head was bobbing on his shoulders as he tried to gather his thoughts and make sense of what had just happened.
Smith, Caspian, and Brown had been the only three belted in. The three of them hung upside down in their seats. Caspian was disoriented, but instantly reached for the belt release. His hands found the button and he heard the click. He feel to the roof of the Tahoe. His hands were still bound but there wasn’t time to worry about it. He crawled toward Miller’s open door.
Brown clawed at the escaping prisoner, but Caspian kicked his hands away.
“He’s getting away!” Brown yelled.
Smith came to full consciousness abruptly. The blood had flowed to his head and there was blood in his eyes from the open wound. He twisted his neck to try to locate Caspian. Then he slapped at the belt release and tumbled to the roof, legs flailing over his head.
Caspian scrambled onto the highway asphalt on all fours. He was limping heavily from his wounds, but he could smell freedom. He heard car horns and screeching tires coming from behind them and saw Miller’s body back there being pummeled by cars as they attempted to swerve.
Caspian scrambled to his feet and limped around the front end of the Tahoe to the gravel on the shoulder and over onto the grassy median.
Brown was moaning loudly, blood pouring from his eye socket. He looked down toward the open door and watched Smith crawl from the wreckage.
“Help me,” Brown cried.
It was pouring rain now. Smith crawled out and rose to his knees. He heard the chaos of traffic and the sizzle of rain all around. He got to his feet and spotted Caspian scrambling up the steep bank of the highway median. Smith gripped his gun in one hand and used the Tahoe for balance.
Caspian reached the top of the median and heard a gunshot. He turned and saw Smith sliding down the wet grass. Smith aimed and fired again. The bullet whistled past Caspian’s head. Caspian ducked and turned. He ran blindly across the traffic flowing from the opposite direction. He was halfway across the second lane of traffic when he heard a car horn and the sound of screeching brakes. He looked up but it was too late.
The car’s driver tried to swerve. The greasy road surface rendered the anti-lock brakes all but useless. The car made impact at nearly seventy miles an hour. It hit Caspian in the legs and launched him onto the hood. He smashed into the windshield and rode the car through its remaining skid, and then the law of physics finished the job and kicked him off the hood and onto the wet asphalt in front of the car. His body lay motionless in the car’s high beams.
Smith had heard the collision. His heart stopped. He heard more cars skidding. He heard screams and felt his stomach sink. He knew what had just happened without seeing anything, and when he clawed his way to the top of the median, his worst fear was realized. He saw the body and the blood. Caspian’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle. There was nothing more to say or do.
Caspian was dead.
93
Smith went down onto both knees and just knelt there in the rain. Cars were stopping, slewing to one side or the other, doors flying open, motorists getting out, pointing frantically at the body on the road. Not all the motorists were able to see the commotion in time to adequately reduce speed. The accidents were piling up. There was wave after wave of vehicles rear-ending prior arrivals.
Smith knelt in the gravel on the shoulder, his gun in one hand, the other hand resting in the wet grit. A car door opened and someone took a step toward him.
“Hey, pal,” the voice called. “You ok, man?”
Smith swung his gaze around and saw rain spinning in the high beams. His short hair was plastered down and blood stung his eyes.
“You’re bleeding, man!” the guy said.
Smith looked past the man to his car, a big Lincoln Navigator, idling, with the door standing open while its owner tried to be a good citizen. Smith stared at the Lincoln a moment, and then his gaze fell back to the driver. The guy was all of five feet away.
Smith stood, using all his strength to get his legs back under him. Then he raised his gun and fired a round into the guy’s chest. The guy took a step back, then folded like a rag doll. The chaos around Smith truly erupted then. People were screaming, taking cover, running madly, with the rain shimmering down on the tops of cars.
Smith limped to the open door of the Lincoln. The key was in the ignition with the engine running. Smith pulled the door closed as he dropped the selector into gear. He punched the accelerator and swerved off onto the shoulder and steered around the excitement. Then he found a reasonably level spot in the median to cut across the grass and turned back into the opposite direction.
It was still too soon to hear sirens. First responders were still long minutes away. Smith would be miles away by then, well on his way to Armstrong’s island.
94
Washington D.C. was nothing but a memory within half an hour. The Cessna was headed back to New York. Coburn put on his aviator glasses and checked his gauges. He was pleased to be back in the air.
Sabrina had rummaged through Coburn’s duffel bag and found a T-shirt. She wrapped her hands in it to stop the bleeding. Crawling through the broken glass in Folston’s office had torn up her hands. She dabbed at the cuts. She winced and glanced over at Coburn.
“You’re still bleeding, too,” she said.
“Worry about yourself for now,” he said. “I tend to heal up pretty quick.”
“Some of those cuts look kinda bad, and t
here must still be pieces of glass in them.”
“Later.”
Coburn had the coordinates from Eva DuPont’s BlackBerry at the front of his mind. He had paged through his flight atlas and found that the longitude-latitude would land them somewhere along the coast of Long Island, New York. He set his heading and studied the horizon and settled in for the flight.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
She leaned over to his seat and kissed his neck.
“I’m glad you didn’t die back there,” she said.
Coburn nodded. “Me too.”
95
Folston was still MIA, and now Smith wasn’t answering his cell either. Armstrong was coming out of his skin. He stood at the broad, tall windows overlooking the expansive patio and watched the ocean boiling with the storm. The helicopter looked like a wounded prehistoric beast crouched high on a cliff. He went to the war room and checked his multiple email accounts. There was no word from anyone. He was desperate to know Caspian’s status. His cell rang. It was Smith.
“We are at the gate.”
“What about Caspian?”
“He’s right here. Open the gate so we can take the boat across.”
Armstrong poured a drink. They would arrive momentarily and he would finally look into the eyes of the man who could deliver the man who murdered his daughter. He closed his eyes, and in his mind, saw her as a small child, dancing in the sand in golden sunlight. His eyes glassed over. She had been his jewel, his precious treasure. Her murderer must be punished. Armstrong’s heart rushed at the thought that vengeance might soon be his.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and he took the elevator up to the next level. He crossed to the other side of the house and went out onto the covered deck. He moved to the edge of the deck and looked out over the rail where he had a clear view of the water between the island and the mainland.
96
Armstrong watched the boat reach the pier and he saw Dean, the pilot, step out from the cabin and moor the rope to a piling. For several long moments, no one else appeared. What was taking them so long? he wondered impatiently. Armstrong suddenly had a very bad feeling. His hands began to tremble. A moment later, he felt immense relief wash over him when Smith appeared from the cabin, came out on deck and crossed the pier to the landing. He spotted Armstrong and waved a hand.
Armstrong waved back and waited for the men to haul Caspian out onto deck where Armstrong would see him in the flesh for the first time. He watched Smith make the trek up to the patio alone, and still he waited for signs of anyone else aboard the boat.
Smith waved again as he got closer. Again, Armstrong returned the gesture.
The rain was carried sideways on the wind. Armstrong used a hand as a visor to shield his face. Smith didn’t seem bothered by the weather at all.
Smith got closer and Armstrong yelled to him over the wind.
“Where is Caspian?”
Smith hadn’t heard him. Armstrong called out again, “Where is Caspian?”
Smith shook his head and gestured at his ear. I can’t hear you.
A minute later, Smith came up the last of the steps and walked right up to Armstrong and aimed a gun directly at his face.
97
Coburn checked his calculations again. The coordinates had put them directly over water. That didn’t seem right. He looked at his atlas again. Surely he’d misread something but the numbers didn’t lie, so the coordinates had to be wrong.
“Are we lost?” Sabrina asked.
“That’s one way of looking at it. I prefer to say I don’t know where the hell I am.”
The Cessna skimmed low over the water so Coburn and Sabrina could get a look at the territory passing rapidly below the plane. The water was slate gray and choppy. The storm seemed to be getting worse. Fog was making their task even more difficult. Rain drummed on the windscreen. Coburn frowned. He had flown in worse conditions, but it was never fun. Too many things could go wrong. It had been so many years since he’d been in the Cessna that he didn’t exactly feel in top form.
He stared down at the water below and saw the shadow of the plane moving across the waves. They made a second pass along the shoreline, both of them straining to see anything below.
“Is that an island?” she asked.
“Where?”
“Over there,” she said, pointing.
Coburn followed her gaze, looking out her window to the east. He saw what looked like a landmass visible through the gloom.
“Let’s find out,” he said.
They buzzed over what was indeed an island and Coburn nodded.
“Sure enough,” he said.
Then he glanced at the coordinates again.
“And supposedly that is where Smith is headed.”
98
The beach around the perimeter of the island didn’t offer nearly enough room for a landing. They would have to find another place to put the Cessna down, then they would have to address the task of finding a way across the water to the island.
The mainland was thick with forest. Coburn scoped the terrain for breaks in the trees. They were limited to narrow roads and small clearings where homes had been built. He worried about making a landing somewhere unpaved, especially under these conditions.
He flew several miles inland, then turned north before circling around to the east. If he got too far away, they’d have to waste a lot of time getting back to the island. And if the island turned out to be the wrong place, they’d have to get back in the plane and start the process over from scratch. After about twenty-five minutes he still hadn’t spotted any viable options. So he turned south, and very quickly found what he was looking for.
“See that field?” he asked.
Sabrina strained to see, then nodded.
“That’s where I’m going to put it down.”
“Is that safe?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said.
The field bordered a dirt road that emerged from the forest for perhaps a quarter of a mile. It ran parallel to the water for a distance of what looked like about a mile and a half. It was not a bad walking distance, even in heavy rain. The field, rough as it might be, was a piece of very good luck. He hoped their landing would go as well.
“Hold onto something,” he said on approach.
He brought the bird in level and low over the treetops and frowned at the texture of the grassy strip he was eyeballing. The shadow of the plane lengthened out before him.
“Hold on,” he said again.
The landing rattled them. They sat for a minute, letting their racing hearts slow down to normal speed.
Coburn killed the engine and propped open his door against the storm.
“Sorry, no umbrella,” he said.
“Nice.”
Coburn nodded, grinned.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said.
It was almost two full miles to the water. They cut straight through the trees. When they reached the shoreline, they stood and looked out across the water. The island was barely a dark shape in the distance.
She looked at him. “What now?”
There were homes along the shoreline, set back among the pines. They hiked south about two hundred yards to a house with cedar shingles and siding bleached nearly silver from the salt in the ocean air. A big deck extended out just shy of the beach, and beyond the deck was a pier that jutted out into the water. A flat-bottom aluminum boat was moored to one of the vertical posts that supported the pier. The boat was fitted with a modest outboard motor.
Coburn helped her into the boat and checked for fuel. There was gasoline in a red plastic can. He sloshed it around and could see the shadow of the fuel inside. He figured there was a gallon and a half left. Maybe it would be enough to get them out and back.
Sabrina took a seat on the metal bench at the front of the boat. The rain was loud as it hammered the aluminum. The bottom of the boat was slow
ly beginning to fill with rainwater. Coburn gave the starter a yank. The motor sputtered. He put a bit more muscle behind it on the second effort and the spark plugs fired. He gave it a little gas and exhaust smoke curled out and drifted away with the wind.
Coburn untied the rope and shoved away from the pier. He got the boat turned and he gunned the throttle, hoping to get out of sight before someone in the house heard the sound of the motor and came to see who was stealing the boat. The outboard boiled the water and the nose of the boat rose gracefully a few inches above the chop.
He steered straight toward the island. He could barely see it through the gloom.
99
“What do you mean Caspian is dead?”
“Exactly that,” Smith said.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” The blood had drained abruptly from Armstrong’s face.
“This is what happens when people like you get impatient and flex your ego. We had this operation under control, but you got impatient and starting making demands.”
Armstrong took a step backward and put out a hand for balance. Smith still had the gun in his face. But suddenly the gun and the threat of being shot seemed a distant secondary concern to what he was hearing.
“Tell me what happened,” he demanded.
“Doesn’t matter,” Smith said, water pooling at his feet. It looked like he’d been swimming laps. “What matters is the money.”
“What?”
“You owe us money.”
“The money was only upon delivery of Caspian.”
“We delivered. Then you screwed up and now he’s dead.”
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