by Joe Hart
“Downstairs in a lounge Tia found. It’s got some beds, so we’re going to take turns sleeping. You need to go lie down.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re exhausted and grieving and in shock.”
“What else is new?” She gives him a wan smile that he returns.
“He’s going to make it.”
“I know he will.” Absently her hand goes to the corner of the painting that’s sticking out of her pocket and her thumb begins flicking it back and forth.
“What is that?” Merrill asks.
She pulls the paper free and unfolds it, showing it to him. “Hiraku was carrying it. I think it might’ve been his family.”
Merrill examines the page, eyes narrowing as the door opens at the far end of the hall and Lyle strides toward them, Seamus at his side. “Newton and I found some fuel in the building across the street. Not sure if the ASV will run on it or not, but it’s worth a shot,” he says, stopping before them.
“Good,” Merrill replies faintly, still looking at the painting.
“I can’t read what’s written on the bottom,” Zoey says, pointing to the obscure text. “And I have no idea what the numbers mean.”
“They’re coordinates,” Merrill says looking up. “Longitude and latitude.”
“They must be for the ARC. The defector gave the location to Hiraku before he died. It makes sense that he kept them with the picture; they were both precious to him,” Zoey says.
Lyle wrinkles his nose and reaches for the paper. “May I?” Merrill hands it to him. The older man’s eyes flick across the painting and down to the numerals at the bottom. He frowns.
“What is it?” Zoey asks.
“The coordinates,” Lyle says.
“What about them?”
He finally looks up from the page, eyes wide and magnified behind his glasses. “When you asked me to destroy the ARC at Riverbend, I had to enter the longitude and latitude for the ARC into the guidance system for the missile. It was one of the requirements to arm it.”
“And?”
Lyle turns the paper around, pointing at the numbers. “These aren’t the coordinates for the ARC. They’re for somewhere else.”
62
They leave the hospital the day after Lyle and Tia locate the United States Geological Survey building at the center of the town.
The US maps Lyle found contained in a water-stained book are complete with topography, ancient earthquake activity, and most importantly, coordinates. The time before they departed had also been spent fixing a midsize car they located in the basement of a nearby parking structure. With the space required for Lee’s transport there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone to ride together.
When they depart, Merrill drives the ASV with Chelsea, Zoey, Sherell, Rita, and Nell riding on the bench seats behind him, Lee strapped securely to a makeshift stretcher at the very rear. They had found two child seats in the hospital for the babies, and both are nestled on the floor below Lee’s seat, their eyes wide as the ASV rumbles out of the hospital’s parking lot and heads due west.
They travel slowly, their progress hindered by washed-out roads as well as the need to keep Lee as still as possible as to not further irritate his injury. He hasn’t woken up or so much as made a sound since their arrival at the hospital even though Zoey has continued to speak to him when they’re alone, always holding one of his hands while she does so. The side of his head that took the brunt of the trauma is swollen and bruised so badly that half of his face is a mottled purple and black. The drain Chelsea inserted into his skull has quit dripping blood and she’s told Zoey that it will have to be removed soon so as not to invite infection, but the chance that his brain might swell again is always there, an unsaid communication in the way Chelsea looks at her each time they discuss his condition.
It is the middle of the night when they reach the turnoff for Ian’s home. Both the babies are sleeping after having eaten nearly a full bottle apiece of warm water and powdered formula Sherell discovered in the maternity ward. Zoey had tried the mixture first even though the expiration date was marked as over a decade before. The milk had tasted fine and after a lack of sickness or ill effects she began feeding it to the girls, who took to it almost at once. The breastfeeding Chelsea had instructed and assisted her with prior to that had been a challenge mostly due to the fact that her milk had been extremely slow to come in no matter how enthusiastically her daughters tried to coax it from her, which had left them increasingly frustrated and Zoey unbelievably sore. For now, the formula would have to be a supplement until her body became adjusted to the demands she was forcing on it, or until they found another acceptable food source.
They park on the road, brilliant moonlight etching the surrounding mountains in stark detail as black teeth rising up into the night sky. Merrill had tried to talk her out of what she’d suggested, but only halfheartedly; she can tell he wants it as much as she does.
It takes them nearly an hour to hike to the clearing near the house, carrying Ian’s tightly wrapped body between them. The home’s quiet solitude breaks something loose inside Zoey, which draws renewed tears from her, and she cries them without shame in the dark as Merrill begins to dig.
They all say something around the grave once it’s completed: some fond memory or favorite quote that they remember Ian saying, but Zoey can’t put into words what he means to her. She can only recall how his face looked as he bent over her the first time they met, her brain fogged with fever. She had thought he was God, and in nursing her to health along with his kindness, he had been in a way. He had saved her more times than she could count, and anything she said would’ve been a pale representation of how she felt.
When they move to leave, Lyle stops them and calls out to Seamus who has lain down beside the cairn. The big dog doesn’t move from the spot, and when Lyle begins to walk toward him, Zoey grabs his arm.
“I think he wants to stay.”
“But—”
“He was wild when Ian found him. He can take care of himself.”
“Doesn’t seem right,” Lyle finally says, allowing her to guide him away.
“It wouldn’t be right to make him leave.”
Zoey gives the clearing a last look as they move down the mountain. It is bathed in the moon’s glow, serene and peaceful as the first time she saw it. “Good-bye,” she says, speaking to Seamus, to the meadow and house, to the only real home she’s ever known.
63
The boat leaves the dock and Zoey feels the sea beneath her feet, unsteady and wild as they pull away from the mainland.
Behind her the enormous lodge on the shores of Fidalgo Island recedes into the morning mist. It had taken them a full day to travel from Ian’s home to the northwestern coastline, and this is their second and last morning here. The interior of the huge building had been damp and musty, but overall solid, its grounds littered with the suggested remnants of a settlement long since abandoned. The thirty-foot charter boat had been inside a decaying boathouse, the roof partially fallen on top of the vessel, but when they’d launched it into the curling waves beside the dock, it had floated, merrily bobbing up and down as if pleased to be in its element again.
It had taken Tia and Lyle two long days of work getting the engines running, some of the wiring having been eaten away by rodents, but in the end the diesel motor chugged roughly away, drinking the fuel they’d siphoned from the ASV, which they left beside the lodge like a sentry. Zoey looks at its shape one last time, a pang of nostalgia surprising her as it disappears from sight, as if she is saying good-bye to an old friend.
Ahead dark slopes of land rise up out of the sea like immense aquatic beasts, the isles to the right partially obscuring their destination.
Vancouver Island.
Something about the way the name rolled off her tongue gave her a sense of security. The title had a solidity to it, the way riding in the ASV had felt—as if you were surrounded by armor and as long as y
ou stayed inside you were invulnerable. Not everyone had shared her feelings. The group had been almost perfectly divided: Tia at one pole argued over and over that they knew nothing about the place or what they were walking into, while Zoey had been at the other end, continuing to point out the fact that if Hiraku and his men had set their sights on the island, it must have some significance. Besides, they knew of no other settlements, excluding Seattle, that have the kind of medical care Lee needs.
Because beneath it all, the real truth fueling her reasoning is the seconds ticking away, the feel of Lee’s pulse under her fingers and how each time she reaches for his hand the fear that it will be cold and stiff as stone nearly overwhelms her.
If there is a chance for him and the rest of them, it is on the island.
The waves increase in height the farther out to sea they travel, though Tia stays as close as she dares to the nearing islands, the threat of hidden rocks or wreckage they can impale the craft upon always present. Zoey watches Tia pilot the boat from where she rests beside Lee, their daughters buckled into their seats inside a small inflatable raft she insisted they blow up and place on the vessel’s deck before leaving shore. She knows Tia’s father used to be a dockhand, but now she wonders, after seeing the other woman’s proficiency in all things related to the ocean, if he also had some type of craft they spent time on when Tia was younger. It’s something Zoey intends to ask her when they’re on land again. And at the moment, that point in time can’t come soon enough.
A fist of nausea forms in her stomach, and she fights down the urge to vomit, gripping harder onto her daughters’ seats. Beside her feet is her rifle. She stares at it, imagining having to use it if she’s wrong about the island, if it isn’t what she’s hoping for. And what of her children? If all seems lost and their situation goes from hopeful to hopeless, what will she do then? What terrible choice will she make if forced to?
The large swath of Vancouver Island expands before them, its rocky coastline giving way to serrated tops of coniferous trees, beyond which the suggestion of mountain peaks forming into reality. The map’s representation of the island doesn’t do it justice, and as the land continues to widen, its inlets and bays taking shape in the moist air, she forgets the discomfort in her stomach, a sense of awe settling over her like a heavy blanket.
She’s about to ask Lyle, who’s holding the map, where they’re going to land when she hears Merrill swear. His gaze is focused on the southernmost point of the island and the two boats that have just rounded it toward them.
“Get ready,” he says, tightening his hold on his weapon.
The two boats grow in size quickly, their speed apparent, and soon she sees the designation “boats” should be replaced with “ships.” They are long and elegant in design, steel prows jutting high above the waves, conning towers lined with dark windows and guns. It is only minutes before the vessels are directly before them, the small shapes of men darting back and forth behind looming gunwales.
“Oh, God,” Lyle says, letting the map drop to the deck. “We don’t have a chance.”
Zoey watches the ships. They’ve stopped several hundred yards away, and Tia has stilled their own boat’s movement, though she keeps one hand on the throttle and the other on the steering wheel.
The moment stretches out. Gulls duck and dive overhead, their calls shrill in the midmorning air, the briny smell of the ocean pungent. The mist has lifted and the clarity of the scene is like the edge of broken glass.
Zoey’s heart thuds as she holds tightly to the handles on her daughters’ seats. Both of them have begun to cry, from hunger or the need to be held, she doesn’t know. Now that the time has come, she can’t get herself to decide what she will do if this is the end. Does she have the courage?
“UNIDENTIFIED VESSEL. YOU ARE IN PROTECTED WATERS. DISCARD YOUR WEAPONS OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT.” The male voice, amplified many times over, carries across the water and reverberates in her eardrums.
“Fuck that,” Tia says, glancing at Merrill. “Should we run?”
“No. They’d blow us out of the water before we could turn around.”
“Then what do we do?”
Merrill looks at Zoey and she swallows, her throat tightened to less than a needlepoint. After a beat she nods, only in that second truly deciding what has to be done.
“Throw the guns over,” Merrill says, motioning to everyone as he casts his rifle into the churning ocean.
“Are you crazy?” Tia asks, gaping at him. “They’re going to kill us!”
“They can do that now if they want,” he says. Zoey is next to discard her weapon. It splashes into the water, slipping away in an instant as the others who are armed follow suit. Tia curses and shakes her head, but unholsters the pistol on her hip and throws it overboard.
“BRING YOUR SPEED UP TO TEN KNOTS. IF YOU HAVE NOT FULLY COMPLIED WITH DISARMING YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.”
Merrill taps Tia on the shoulder as she pushes the throttle forward. She stares back at him defiantly for a long time before rolling her eyes and reaching behind her to pull out the small handgun concealed in the waistband of her pants. She tosses it over the side and says something about Merrill’s mother that he ignores.
The two ships turn with their passing, flanking them to either side. The large-caliber machine guns mounted to the decks follow them closely, the men manning them mostly hidden behind their bulk.
After rounding the point, the ships guide them into a large inlet that gradually takes shape. The land transitions from rocky and tree encrusted to the first impressions of human habitation. A long concrete seawall branches out from the island, a tall lighthouse at its end. As the lighthouse gets closer, Zoey sees that its top has been removed, leaving it open to the weather, and what at first she thinks are some type of communication antennas branching from its sides and top are in fact gun barrels that follow their progress past. Men move along the seawall behind low concrete barricades, several of them stopping to watch them cruise by.
Farther into the port are massive piers extending into the water, each of them complete with reinforced battlements, the outline of what appears to be a tank situated where the docks meet the shore.
“MAKE PORT AT THE LAST DOCKING AREA AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED. ANY AND ALL RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE.”
“Well that’s comforting,” Tia says, guiding their boat to the last pier. A dozen men wait for them as they pull even with it, all of them armed and wearing vests and helmets. Beyond them Zoey spots a sniper’s nest higher on the shore above a tall concrete barricade, the flash of the riflescope bright and fleeting.
A rope is thrown down to them from above and the closest man sweeps his rifle across their number. “Tie off and climb up. Slowly.” Merrill secures the boat and glances at them all before moving to the steel ladder attached to the pier’s side. Tia is next, followed by Newton. Zoey picks up the older of her two daughters from her seat. She’s come to think of her only as older because she’s the first of the two she saw as well as being larger. Zoey holds the crying child to her chest as Chelsea picks up her other daughter. When the man covering them with his weapon sees the two babies, his expression changes and he blinks, his rifle lowering slightly.
“Get a ramp,” he yells over one shoulder, and a minute later a wide steel ramp is lowered and secured over the side of the pier, extending to the deck of their boat. Zoey walks up it on unsteady feet, the unmoving quality of the ramp throwing her off after the jostling of the boat. Two soldiers pass her and move toward Lee where he lies on his stretcher.
“Be careful, his head is injured,” she says to them as they check Lee for weapons before picking up the stretcher. Zoey steps onto the pier and sees everyone is being patted down, their clothing searched by two men and . . .
She does a double take.
Two of the people searching the rest of the group are men, but the other two are women: one of them dark haired with hazel eyes, the other with short lengths of blond hair e
xtending from beneath her flak helmet.
“Ma’am, please step over here,” the soldier who called for the ramp says. And it’s then that she realizes she’s given him the correct title. He is a soldier along with the rest of them. They move with a militaristic fluidity and positioning that is both familiar and strangely different than any other organized force she’s witnessed. They are stoic and calmly authoritative but the threat she felt when first seeing the ships approaching them is gone.
She moves to the place the man indicates, and the blonde female soldier approaches her, the woman openly startled as she takes in the youth of Zoey’s face as well as the crying child in her arms. She is perhaps forty years of age, maybe younger, with clear blue eyes. She hesitates only another instant before patting Zoey down, guiding her hands over any place a weapon could be concealed.
“They’re all clean,” the female soldier says to the man who seems to be in charge. He steps forward, running his gaze across them all, hovering longest on Rita, Sherell, and Zoey.
“Where did you come from?” he asks, directing the question at all of them. None of them.
Merrill clears his throat. “Washington. The Cascades.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We came for safety and medical attention. Our friend needs help.” He motions to Lee. “We heard this is a safe haven.”
“Heard from whom?” The soldier’s voice hardens.
“It’s complicated. But we’re alone. It’s just us.”
The soldier says nothing, and Zoey sees him calculating what Merrill’s said. She imagines him nodding to the rest of the men and women and watching their weapons come up. Imagines the feeling of bullets ripping through her, the weightless fall back toward the boat. Instead he simply nods.
“Follow me.”
They form a line behind him as he walks up the pier and passes through several concrete barriers. Soldiers silently watch them move by their posts, the only sound beyond the sea wind the constant shriek of gulls.