“Nice to meet you, Kirk.”
Hammett dropped to a knee. Setting the ammo and bags of food she carried on the grass, she held out an open palm. Kirk gave it a sniff and lowered his head to be petted, just as he did with me. Apparently Kirk didn’t discriminate when it came to receiving affection. And here I thought dogs were supposed to have a keen sense about people.
Julie took me aside, whispering in my ear, “Chandler, bringing them here was—”
“I know. We didn’t have a choice, Julie.”
“But—”
A strange sound came from the house: a faint, electronic warble that took me a few seconds to recognize. I shifted the duffel and raised the Skorpion. “The alarm.”
“Alarm?” Hammett echoed. She seemed unduly preoccupied with the canine.
“From the boathouse. Someone’s here. Inside. Everyone. Now.”
Fleming shouldered her shotgun, scanning the fog.
Julie grabbed Hammett’s dropped bags and Kirk’s collar and started pulling him toward the house.
Hammett didn’t move. “Give me a gun. I’ll go down, see what’s up.”
“There’s a camera on the engine house. If they come up the hill, we’ll be able to see who’s there from the main house.”
“If we have to fight, we should take it to them. Up here we have nowhere to run.”
It could be anyone at the pier, some innocent boater seeing our rig at the dock and letting their curiosity get the better of them. Or it could be something more ominous. Either way, I didn’t want Hammett wandering around by herself. I wanted to know where she was and what she was doing. “Get in the house.”
“Damn it, Chandler. Give me the Skorpion.”
“You have that .357 from the safe.”
Her hand moved to the small of her back, where I knew she had the pistol. “I’d like something a little better at a distance.”
“Get in the house. Then we’ll talk about the best use for our weaponry.”
“What, are you afraid I’m going to sell you out to the first bidder?”
She had saved my ass in Milwaukee, so it didn’t seem that was part of her immediate agenda, but since I wasn’t sure what her agenda was, better to be safe than dead.
“If I see you even consider it, I want to be close enough to kill you myself.”
“Love you, too, sis. But you’re making a mistake.”
“Get in the damn house.”
Picking up my bags, she finally started for the porch. Halfway up the steps, Kirk gave a low growl, the fur on his back rising. And then I heard it as well: the rhythmic beat of helicopter blades.
Oh, hell.
“Help Fleming up those steps.”
I scanned the sky, seeing a blanket of gray fog and nothing more. Whoever was flying in this soup had to be doing it under instrument flight rules, or IFR, using their cockpit controls to guide them since the fog had limited visual flight. That left out the majority of helicopters and pilots. This was no innocent flyby. This was a well-trained pilot, here for a reason.
And I’d bet that boat at the dock was no pleasure trip either.
Damn it.
I heard Hammett mount the steps above me, Fleming’s chair thunking up with her. I backed up the steps, sweeping the area with eyes and submachine gun and followed them into the house.
Hammett was waiting for me in the kitchen, hands on her hips. “So you’d rather let everyone get shot than tell me what’s going on?”
I leveled the Skorpion on her. “How did he find us?”
“How should I know?”
“You told him.”
“And how would I have done that? Telepathy?”
The facts seemed obvious. “No one followed us, and now suddenly they’re here.”
Her face was pinched. “What’s wrong with you? It wasn’t me. Maybe they did follow, and you just didn’t see them. God knows you can’t hang that one on me, since you bagged my head for part of the trip.”
I shook off the suggestion, but my stomach gave an uncomfortable roll. Had someone followed us and I missed it? In my need to hide from The Instructor, had I led him to Julie’s door?
I lowered my weapon and scanned the fog outside. I couldn’t see the helicopter, but there was only one place for it to land on the island. Unless it didn’t land. I’d exited many a hovering helicopter, using a zip line or BASE jump chute. I had no way to know how many operatives might be out there, or what direction they would come from.
I checked the security monitor on the countertop next to the microwave. At first, the view down the walkway showed nothing but more gray fog. Then two figures appeared, one male, one female.
The man was Asian, built like Arnold Schwarzenegger before politics made him soft. But this man was a far cry from movie-star pretty. A scar snaked across his throat, gnarled and swollen like an earthworm lying on pavement after a summer storm. He also had several scarred patches on his dome that his crew cut didn’t fill in. Frankenstein’s monster came to mind.
The woman was in her twenties, emaciated looking, wearing a black T-shirt with the arms ripped off. Dark hair draped from a side part over her left eye, the right side short enough to show scalp. But the most striking thing about her were the black lines slashing her pale skin, all the way from her wrists to her upper arms, some kind of artless tattoos.
Both were ready for war, Heckler & Koch UMP submachine guns at the ready, shotgun holsters on their shoulders, flak jackets webbed with ammo clips and grenades.
“Now will you give me the damn Skorpion?” asked Hammett.
Judging from the sound, the helicopter hovered on the opposite side of the house. In this weather and with us sheltered inside, it would have a tough time engaging us from the air, but I doubted that was the plan. There would be more pros, like the two trudging up the hill, and they would be in position soon.
If they were here to catch us, we wouldn’t make it easy for them. If they were here to kill us, there wasn’t much we could do about it. But at the very least, we could go down swinging.
I handed the machine gun to Hammett. “You need to—”
“I know, I know. If I fuck up, you’ll kill me, blah blah blah.” She checked the weapon, splitting her attention between the security camera and the murk outside. “You’re a goddamn broken record.”
“You need to stay here,” I finished.
Hammett glanced at me, her face twisting up as if she smelled something unpleasant.
“I mean it, Hammett.”
“You want me to hang around and play Alamo? You’re a shitty team leader, you know that?”
But she didn’t move from the door.
Not sure which mistake I was making from this multiple-choice test of screwups, I headed to the back of the house. I found Fleming in the kitchen. She’d upended Julie’s little table and was now hunkered down behind it in her chair, keeping watch through the windows at the back of the house, shotgun ready.
“Side of my chair,” she said, tilting her chin at the second shotgun tucked along her thigh.
I armed myself with a Mossberg and filled her in on the two approaching from the dock.
“I think Hammett gave us away somehow,” I added at the end.
“There are other ways The Instructor could have known about this place.” Fleming gave me a neutral glance. “Could have been you, not Hammett.”
Fleming’s words stung, as if she had taken Hammett’s side over mine. But I was being stupid, and this time I had the grace to know it. Or maybe I just didn’t have time to be petty.
“I know we trust each other, so what are you saying?”
“The Instructor could have been tracking you the night you brought Julie here.”
It only took me a second to see where Fleming was going. “The chip.”
My sisters and I all had tracking chips implanted right below our belly buttons during our training under The Instructor, and none of us had a clue they were there until a week ago. The three of us had remove
d them since and had the still-painful incisions to show for it, but that didn’t change the fact that The Instructor could have noted my unscheduled visits to this remote island.
I felt queasy. “There’s a helicopter on the other side of us.”
She nodded. “Know how many are coming for dinner?”
“No. I only installed the one camera. I figured a sky approach would be obvious. Didn’t take the damn fog into account.”
“At least we have something.”
I knew she was trying to ease my mind, but it didn’t work. I’d screwed up. Shitty team leader, indeed.
I found Julie with Kirk. She was standing ramrod straight in the middle of her bedroom. The closet-size space featured a wide window, putting her in clear view of anyone outside.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” she said, trying to choke back tears. “It’s starting all over again.”
I slipped my free arm around her trembling shoulders. “They aren’t here for you, honey. They want us. Now come away from the window.”
“I just don’t think I can take…”
“Come on, Julie.” I guided her out and down the hall. “You’re going to hide. We’ll take care of this.”
“Chandler, if they shoot me…your sisters…oh God.”
The nightmare scenario flashed through my mind. A stray bullet, Julie’s blood spreading in a pool on the floorboards…
“I’m not going to let that happen. I have a place in mind that’s safe.”
I steered her through the galley-like utility room and into the lighthouse. Once we were inside the stone-and-mortar silo, I coaxed her to the far side of the spiral stairs and lowered her into a crouch on the floor, her back against the curved wall.
“See? Here the bullets can’t reach you.”
She nodded quickly.
“Don’t cry, all right? No crying.”
She nodded again.
I brushed her hair away from her eyes. Remarkably, they were still dry. Good girl. “I’m going to leave now. I want you to stay here, hide here, and don’t come out no matter what happens. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Kirk had followed us, and he spooned his body into Julie and leaned against her leg.
“See? Kirk’s here. You aren’t alone.”
Julie nodded and moved a hand to the dog’s head.
“You’re going to be OK, honey. I promise.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
“The rest of us are old pros at this.” I smiled, forcing confidence I didn’t feel.
Julie didn’t smile back, didn’t answer except for a tremble to her lower lip. She hugged her dog and rocked slightly.
“You shouldn’t have come, Chandler.”
“I’m sorry about this, Julie. I really am.”
“It isn’t you. It’s me. People shouldn’t be around me. I’m poison.”
“Come on, Julie. Don’t say that. I know you. You’re brave. You can do this. You’ve gone through worse.”
I hoped the words conveyed how much I’d come to care for her over the years, and how very impressed I was with how she’d handled all that had happened to her and still managed to stay as sweet as the girl I’d first met.
“I’m trying. I just…”
“I know. I’ll take care of this.”
She nodded.
“Have I ever let you down before?”
“No.”
“And I won’t now. But you need to stay here. Stay hidden. OK?”
“OK.”
“Good girl.” I engulfed her in a quick hug.
“Thanks, Chandler. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Her words burned. Whether The Instructor had followed us today or noted my movements in the past, it didn’t matter. His people were here because of me. And although Julie saw me as her savior, I knew the truth.
By coming here I’d put her in danger.
Swallowing the thick feeling in my throat, I returned to the living room. It was a charming room, just like the rest of the keeper’s house. Wood floors, crown molding, and furnished with an eclectic jumble of pieces ranging from valuable antiques to pressboard. Throughout the years, I’d brought Julie items to spruce up the place: a hand-woven rug, throw pillows, paint. But the special touches, she’d done herself. Charcoal sketches in weathered wood frames on the walls, vases of dried flowers, a mosaic of seashells made into a side table.
She’d put a lot of time into the place, but then, she had nothing but time. Solitary, lonely time. I’d been feeling bad about that while coming in on the boat, but now I wished more than anything that we’d stayed away. Time alone reading books and making crafts was safer than houseguests like us.
Hammett was still positioned near the door, and I was somewhat surprised to see her there.
“How far have they gotten?”
“They stopped at the top of the hill, next to the camera. They’re communicating with someone. Too bad your camera doesn’t have audio.”
“But lucky that you know how to read lips.”
Hammett shot me a sly smile, then mouthed, “Damn right, fearless leader.”
“What did they say?”
“Nightfall. I assume that refers to when they’ll storm the house.”
Logical assumption. “What else?”
“I caught names. Someone named Scarlett is calling the shots, it seems. Rhett, Earnshaw, and Heathcliff are in play.”
“Characters from classic novels?” I had an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t nail down.
“I could be off.”
She could. A lot of phonemes share the same facial and mouth position. It’s up to the soft palate and tongue to differentiate those sounds, and of course their positions can’t be seen. But coming up with four names that all adhered to a common theme was too much of a coincidence.
“Codenames.”
“No shit. I get where Scarlett and Rhett come from. I saw the movie. But you got me on the others. I never read any of that gothic crap when I was a kid.”
As minor as it was, I enjoyed knowing something Hammett didn’t. “In Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff’s love is Catherine Earnshaw.”
“How about the name Tristan? That’s what the emo chick is calling Mr. Behemoth.”
I shook my head. It had been a while.
“Tristan and Isolde were tragic lovers,” Fleming shouted from the kitchen.
Hammett nodded. “That was it. Izzy. It looked like he called her Izzy.”
Something still nagged at me, just out of reach. “So we have a bunch of fictional tragic lovers after us.”
“At least you have something in common with them.” Hammett grinned.
I ignored her. I had it, the elusive connection. “Remember the Jamaican guy at the ammo plant in Wisconsin?”
Hammett nodded. “The Instructor brought him in, didn’t tell me.”
I’d killed him, cut his throat with his own razor blade. “His name was Rochester.”
Hammett stared at me blankly.
“Rochester and Jane are from the novel Jane Eyre. But their story wasn’t tragic. They got together at the end.”
Hammett rolled her eyes. “Now you ruined it for me. Ever heard of issuing a spoiler alert?”
“At least in this world, Rochester came to a tragic end.”
“Did you see Sixth Sense? Bruce Willis?”
“No. Why?”
“He died at the beginning. He’s a ghost the whole movie.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“And Darth Vader is Luke’s father. Spoilers suck, don’t they?”
“Whatever.”
“And Soylent Green is people.”
I knew Hammett was talking out of nervous bravado, so I didn’t mind much. In pressure situations, everyone had their own quirks.
I had a thought. “Did anyone mention Jane?”
“Not that I caught.”
“So there are six. Seven including Rochester.”
“Seven,” Hammett said. “We were seven, too.”
She was right. My sisters and I totaled seven. We’d been trained separately at Hydra, and training had taken a long time. But Rochester had also been trained by The Instructor, after my sisters and me. If he was part of another group of seven…
“We’re in trouble,” I said.
“No shit. If they have anything close to our training, it’s six against two and a half.”
“I heard that,” Fleming called to us.
“I was counting Chandler as half, sis, since she’s only got half a brain.”
I ignored the jab. “Plus they have a chopper and who knows what weapons, and all we’ve got is a few shotguns and half a magazine left for the Skorpion.”
We watched the security monitor for a few more seconds, but Tristan and Isolde weren’t moving, weren’t talking.
“Is that all they said?”
“All I could say for sure. Helicopter is still circling. They’re planning to strike back, front, and lighthouse on Scarlett’s signal.”
Nice of them to tell us. “At least we have a little time to prepare. I assume you can shoot.”
“Better than you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t want to waste time arguing. “Take the Skorpion and go to the lighthouse. It’ll give you a 360 view of the island.”
She glanced back at the screen, and I saw something cross her face.
“Or do you have other plans?” I asked.
“Of course not.” Hammett trotted off the way I’d come. “I live to follow your dumbass orders.”
I peered at the duo on the monitor, then out into the fog, wondering why she’d hesitated and what she might have seen and decided not to share.
Hammett
“Sometimes lying is not a wise course of action,” The Instructor said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to reveal one hundred percent of the truth.”
Use the time to prepare? Hammett was born prepared. And she damn well didn’t intend to use the time to sit around and wait for a group of tragic lovers to wipe them out. Especially if they’d been trained by The Instructor. Offense was more her style. With Chandler’s eyes on the front door and monitor and Fleming watching the back of the house, Hammett should be able to slip out with neither being the wiser.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 63