by A D Davies
They didn’t understand. He was clearly in possession of more knowledge than them, yet they still wanted him to fall in line. He knew better. And there was no time to explain it. They just had to follow him, and he’d take care of everything. Regroup later.
It made sense.
It was logical.
Surely they should have learned that by now.
Jules checked how far the cops lagged behind. Fifty feet. The short time he’d been in control of the vessel was enough to discern its turning circle, which he now engaged. He swung in a tight arc away from Dan and Harpal, beckoning at them to follow. It wasn’t until he was facing back toward the harbor’s mouth that he understood what they were doing with the Lady Mel: as the cops closed in, the yacht was attempting to block passage out to sea.
Meaning they definitely had people onshore waiting.
Despite how smart Toby and his group were, they were plainly inexperienced with operating at this level. In these circumstances. Jules had trained specifically to evade the law, to predict their behavior, their traps, their ruses; LORI snuck around war zones, skirted with diplomacy, which annoyed Jules even more.
If they’d listened to him, they wouldn’t be in trouble now.
Sure, they’d come here specifically to rescue him, hoping he would retrieve the bangles, but that did not mean Jules was willing to walk blindly into the same trap.
He pushed the engine to its limit, maximum throttle, fiddling with the now-open bag beside him. Not particularly caring what happened to the manuscript, he slipped on the Aradia bangle for safekeeping. If he went overboard, at least he wouldn’t lose it. As he pulled of the sack, the Ruby Rock bangle came along with it, magnetically attached to the Aradia one by the shorn ends; a figure eight with his wrist through the larger loop.
A figure eight? Or handcuffs made of stone?
He needed both hands on the wheel to evade a police boat coming alongside. One of the overenthusiastic Mumbai cops tried to jump across, but Jules pulled away. The man splashed into the sea.
Seawater sprayed both bangles this time, the green glow expanding and fizzing where the outer surface touched his skin, boiling the water off.
Jules grasped the Ruby Rock bangle and yanked it free, his wet hand setting off its miniature electrical storm again. Jules felt nothing except a tingle that penetrated his muscles and hit his bones. Not in a painful way, no heat, just... awareness.
The Lady Mel now almost barred the harbor entrance. Other vessels blared their disapproval, trying to return to their home port from open water. Valerio wouldn’t care. Whatever he wanted the bangles for was more important than anything else and perhaps even more potent than Jules’s own desire.
And the cops were hurtling toward him, having given up on Dan and Harpal.
Dry land was definitely a trap. And LORI hadn’t planned ahead for it the way Jules would have.
The Aradia bangle had consumed Jules’s entire adult life, and laying his hands on it had only deepened his need to possess it. Yet, now, the way it reacted to water excited him, repelling it without harming him at all, as if opposite poles electrified and crashed together under pressure, releasing it as a physical chain reaction. Molecules were energized, twisted, then forced away at speed.
With the cops now on either side of him and one behind, he couldn’t slip up.
He never attempted things he hadn’t calculated to some degree of probability. He needed at least 75 percent of the factors to be known for an educated guess. Right now, all he had was his speed, the distance between the boats, and his own strength. Little precision on water, no certainty about the bangles’ properties, and absolutely no way of predicting how this would pan out.
All he had left was what he only ever used when left with no other option, something he hated trusting: gut instinct. It was an unknown quantity. But here, with a trap in one direction and a dead end the other, he did it anyway.
He linked the two bangles together, magnetically sealed along their opposite-cut grooves so they bonded to him in that figure eight again, the Ruby Rock empty below the Aradia. Then he used the cut rope to tie off the steering wheel to hold it straight and pushed the throttle lever all the way open. At the edge of the launch, Jules lay on his stomach, held on tight, and—hoping to generate enough of a shockwave to throw the cops off and squeeze through the narrowing passage—he touched the Aradia bangle with his thumb, linked to the Ruby Rock with his fingers, and thrust his forearm into the sea.
The water boiled and spat. Red and green lightening shot out from the bangles, illuminating the filthy bay. Fish lit up and turned over and died. Clouds of red and green spun like a hurricane viewed from a satellite.
Jules had never experienced such a loss of control, never explored a more idiotic experiment with no backup, no fallback. It terrified him to his very core and thrilled him even more.
Clouds coalesced under the surface, bonded by lightning, a massive cauldron of broiling mist and churning water, the hurricane fed by a cascade of twisting, crackling light emanating from Jules’s wrist.
He steadied his heart rate.
Breathed.
Closed his eyes.
Then whipped this hand from the sea.
The lightning storm spewed forth, geysering twenty feet into the air. A massive ball of energized saltwater gushed out, its power focused sideways but also forward in a mushroom-shaped wave. The police boats sprang into the air and capsized, tipping passengers as they leaped to safety.
But ahead, the wave expanded hard, growing, even as the lights beneath dimmed, until it rose higher than the Lady Mel’s deck.
No. The people...
The wave swamped Valerio’s superyacht, collided side-on with its hull, and rammed the seventy-two-foot vessel against the harbor wall. Metal screeched against brick, and Jules could only watch helplessly.
If he were a religious man, he’d have prayed no one died, but he wasn’t.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jules eased off the throttle until he slowed to a crawl with only the launch’s latent momentum carrying him onward. It bobbed while he watched to see how badly he’d damaged the yacht. Although it hadn’t capsized, it had come close, slammed by a wall of water generated by a power Jules had never heard of. Never dreamed might be possible.
The question of how he did it relegated itself to a secondary concern. If the vessel were to break up and sink, he’d need to fish people out before they got sucked under, rescue any unconscious folks—even Horse or Valerio if it came to it.
All life is precious.
A strength and a weakness, aikido had been the best obsession he ever mastered. Not only the physical side; the salve on his inner turmoil proved essential to usher him to this point. He’d have died many times over, been lost to his demons forever, had he not respected the lives of others.
The Lady Mel rose and fell in the harbor mouth, twisting without power. A route yawned to open water. Cops swam in the harbor, clinging to their upturned crafts as the surface roiled.
Ashore, almost a half mile away, Jules could make out five familiar people on a landing path, now floodlit by two vehicles spilling what seemed to be cops from within.
They’d all come. All five: Toby, Dan, Charlie, Harpal, and Bridget.
Bridget.
Folks who didn’t know him so well thought of him as a cold fish, an emotionless thief interested only in the next score. People who knew him better thought pretty much the same. Occasionally, his lack of outward emotion lost him friends. The one girl who called him a “sociopath” had stuck for longer than he would’ve liked, even though it was just hyperbole.
Yet Bridget had seemed interested in him in more ways than mere curiosity.
Romance?
Maybe, but probably not. He hadn’t worn a mask of normalcy around her the way he did most girls.
Still, he felt he should get to know her too. She was easily his equal intellectually, in many ways superior. He calculated the knowns; she deduced the unknowns. An imag
ination Jules lacked. A compassion he shared.
Now she and the others were under arrest, and he couldn’t see it not sticking this time. Certainly, Dan and Harpal were in serious trouble. Flinging explosives and firing machine guns wasn’t exactly legal in many places around the world. And Jules could help, couldn’t he?
Place the bangles in the water for a shorter time, steam blast the cops, and give LORI a chance to flee?
No—he couldn’t control it. May end up killing police officers or his friends.
Friends.
They’d come for him, trusted he’d escape given the distraction. Yet, when the important time came for them to really, truly place their faith in him, they didn’t. They continued to shore, probably cursing his arrogance, his loner attitude, not even considering he might offer a better way.
He detached the Ruby Rock bangle from the Aradia one, its crimson sparks flickering with his touch until he dropped it into the dry bag with the manuscript.
Ahead, a slim exit window lay open.
Freedom.
He gazed at the bangle, now a thin dull stone wrapped around his arm, the green flecks not touching his skin.
The Lady Mel sputtered. Grumbled. Its lights flickered in cabins and on deck. The light and noise died again with a cough and a belch of black smoke.
Someone was on board attempting to resurrect it.
Meaning they weren’t dead.
No bodies in the water.
Jules wet his hand and dripped water on the Ruby Rock bangle inside the sack. Nothing. Again, the catalyst appeared to be him.
Yet, what could explain this? No ghosts, no specters bound themselves to him. He’d never done anything remotely “special.” Everything he achieved, he did so through sheer hard work, through practice, through immersing himself completely in whatever he needed. The only thing that facilitated this was his brain, his ability to isolate logic and apply his observations to any given situation.
That wasn’t special.
The red Mary bangle would fetch handsome remuneration from Alfonse, and Jules saw no problem getting out of India with the money he still carried. He would buy Bridget and the others the best lawyer available. Once he reaped the reward.
That was the most he could do for them. No prison break, no sweeping in there with his uncontrolled water storm. He had a chance... a chance to escape. With his mom’s bangle.
The night loomed.
The Lady Mel revved again.
His window was closing.
They would think he was a coward, that he’d betrayed them once more. And yes, he knew inside himself that to run with the bangle meant one thing and one thing only: his life could begin properly.
Beer.
Pizza.
He’d finally discover what the big deal was about Netflix.
Logic left him no other choice.
He ramped up the boat’s power and cut over the still-rough water. Accelerating. Straining to dispel the image of Bridget in handcuffs, staring out at the harbor, watching as he receded with his bounty. Out to the open ocean and away. Away from her, from them.
Abandoning them.
As he neared the yacht, frantic activity dominated the deck, and shouts rang out; they’d spotted him.
So he aimed the launch out past the huge vessel and wound around a waiting ferry and trawler, their passengers and crews watching agog. They must have felt the swell but been sheltered from the worst of it by Valerio’s craft.
Another flagrant example of the consequences of Jules losing control. Another reason he should separate the bangles as soon as possible. Doubting Thomas had the right idea.
The Vatican would be a good place for one; Jules’s home would be the other—wherever he chose to finally settle down.
With the harbor receding now and no sign of pursuit, his mouth watered. He visualized a pizza slice—laden with tuna, red onion, and pepperoni—and his stomach fluttered. A cold beer in his hand, the bottle reminding him of expensive water but tasting so crisp, so refreshing...
Right after earning his reward from Alfonse Luca, paying for a lawyer for his friends—
No, he could not call them friends. Friendship worked two ways. Even if he wanted to be among them, to laugh and eat, to play, to put the world to rights over cocktails or... beer... they would never trust him again. Not after this.
Better he bolted and returned with real help. They could stand a day or two in a jail cell. The British and US embassies would see they were treated fairly, and heck, Bridget’s parents might even use their cash and influence.
Yes, they’d be fine.
The sea was choppier out here, the land already morphed into a dark jagged line against the moonlit sky. He paused to explore the launch.
The fuel gauge remained almost full, but that wasn’t his concern. He located a toolbox and opened the main panel under the steering column. He didn’t find what he was looking for, so he opened the hatch to where the engine idled, chugging quietly. After five minutes’ poking around, he disabled the GPS tracker with a hammer. A nice boat like this would obviously have one, activated automatically as soon as he’d departed the mother ship.
He sat on the pilot’s chair, perched on the edge, letting events wash over him, coming down from a rare high. His fingers trembled in the near silence, the lapping of waves against the hull soothing.
Jules possessed the bangle at last. He was free. A quick cross-country flit over the border, where a friendly contact in Pakistan required only a couple thousand bucks to smuggle him to China. There, he’d pick up one of a dozen go-bags he kept in safety deposit boxes, containing enough ID to return him seamlessly to the States.
He closed his eyes, held himself in the moment, absorbing the splashes, the birdcalls, the chug-chug-chug. He was cold with only his tux jacket for warmth.
As he emerged from the mindful moment, he figured he should give the whole boat another once-over in case any backup devices gave away his location before pushing on.
A warbling noise burst through the night.
Jules turned in a full circle, checked every angle for attack. Found nothing.
It was in his pocket.
Valerio’s phone.
Must have dropped it in there on instinct as he would have with his own when the first explosion hit the Lady Mel.
He fished it out, and the screen read, “Minion Number 1.”
Horse’s phone no doubt.
He declined the call and dropped it back in his pocket, then resumed his course north.
Free and clear.
If Valerio was calling him, it likely meant their only other method of keeping tabs died with the GPS unit.
Free...
The phone bonged once.
They could track him with that, of course, not just with the lifeboat’s GPS. A little more work unless it was already set up, which—being Valerio’s personal phone—Jules doubted. Valerio was a recluse. He valued his anonymity.
Jules lifted it out and prepared to toss it when he glimpsed part of the text message:
What can it hurt?
They hadn’t found him yet, so he left it for a whole minute, plowing farther out to execute his planned right turn to the north.
Screw it.
He read the whole message:
What can it hurt? Please call back. I just want to say one more thing.
As if on cue, another text bonged onto the home screen:
I can give you the peace you crave.
Followed immediately by another:
Go on. It’ll be worth it, I promise.
The man was a psychopath. Although “psychopath” was not an official medical term, it was something easy to categorize in layman’s speech. “Antisocial personality disorder” was such a mouthful, but it perfectly described Valerio Conchin.
He certainly demonstrated complete disregard for the rights of others and showed no willingness to conform to the norms of society, preferring to hide his actions rather than adjust them. And he
would think nothing of lying to get his way.
Meaning Jules had no reason to listen. No reason to let him in. The Aradia bangle was his, and the plans he made to disappear from the grid were tight. Valerio wouldn’t find him.
Bong.
Aren’t you curious about what happened in the marina? I have answers.
It was stupid. But he had to decide before he was out of range. And he decided to call.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Without stopping, Jules told Valerio he’d listen only until the cell phone coverage blinked out. Valerio accepted.
“I can’t stop you. You’ve made it your life’s work to go unnoticed. We can hardly find anything on you beyond your juvenile mishaps. A couple of suspicious events, but nothing ever sticks, does it? Not a complete ghost, just very, very good work staying under the radar. But you’ll surface one day.”
“Sure,” Jules said, “but your disease’ll have finished you off by then. That’s why the urgency. Your yellow skin, your meds, your temper tantrums. You’re dying. And soon.”
“Yes.” Something caught in Valerio’s throat. He coughed it out and said, “My dying wish is to see the tomb of the first priest, to pray with him. Is that too much to ask?”
“Umm, yeah, it is. You murdered to get there. And don’t give me that spiritual bucket-list crap. You ain’t been aching to get there just to go sightseeing. You think there’s power waiting for you. You wanna heal or some idiot idea like that. And you think I’m part of it, part of the solution. Tell me I’m wrong.”
A lightness filtered through Valerio’s tone. “You’re not wrong, Jules. And I think someone as insightful as you must keep an open mind. Did you see what you did? You were like... Poseidon back there! Commanding the latent energies in the water. The hydrogen atoms bursting but still bonded to the oxygen ones, the sodium giving it real heft and mass... Jules, you commanded the opposite energies in the bangles to create the most stable unstable mass ever. And no one else could do it. You need to face up to that.”
Jules held his course steady. “A genetic quirk. Melanin maybe.”
“Oh, Jules, I’m an equal opportunity employer. Do you think I have no black people on my staff? I already thought of that. No, it’s unique to you. And it’s linked to Saint Thomas’s journey. He discovered what they did, why they were special. It’s the same reason why you’re special. This is your destiny, Jules.”