by Lincoln Matt
His movements were lazy and somewhat stilted, but what really got me was his eyes. They were vacant and almost completely white. I couldn’t see his irises at all.
“Uh, what…?” Holm started to ask, taking a step back in alarm.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Solomon asked, the corner of his mouth ticking upward slightly. “My creation?”
“He’s on that thing?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off of James.
He wasn’t moving anymore. He was just kind of sitting there against the couch, blinking. Almost as if waiting for instruction.
“It’s too bad,” Solomon said quietly. “We gave it to him as punishment for speaking to you, and yet he’s one of the ones that actually survived taking it. And he’s too wounded to strike against you. Life has its ironies, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t know how to respond to this. Luckily, Holm did.
“Which batch was it?” he asked. “The New Orleans one, or one of the others?”
“Oh, we wouldn’t waste the good batch on our own people,” Solomon said with a sardonic laugh as if the very notion was ludicrous. “That goes to your country.”
I felt sick, and not just because I’d had my head knocked around a lot that day.
“So what you told us is true,” I said quietly. “It’s only a five percent mortality rate in New Orleans.”
“Yes,” Solomon said. “Not that you’ll ever be able to report that back to your agency.”
“Oh?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him. “We’ve got you cornered, Solomon—or whatever your real name is. It’s time to give it up.”
I held up my gun again, training it at his head. Holm followed suit.
The little man just sighed in response, seemingly unconcerned.
“What is it they say in English? If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?” he asked airily. He pulled up the sleeve of his bathrobe to reveal a small smartwatch that I hadn’t noticed before. “You know, I really wanted to avoid this. That’s why I had them stop shooting. But I suppose we can always rebuild.”
He pressed the watch, and the ship began to rumble around us, almost like an earthquake.
Holm and I exchanged an alarmed look as we worked to maintain our footing. I slipped and grabbed on to my partner’s arm in order to stay afloat.
Taking advantage of our momentary lapse in attention, Solomon darted out of the room and slammed the door to the cabin shut behind him.
“Have a nice swim!” he called through the door behind him, his voice muffled but still clear. “If you even make it that far.”
And with that, we heard him rush back up the stairs to the main deck, and presumably back across the ramp and on to the dock.
Holm and I rushed across the cabin floor to the door, slipping and sliding all the way since the ship was practically tossing and turning by that point.
Predictably, it was locked.
There was another rumbling and a loud popping sound from down below.
“Dammit, did he blow up the ship?” Holm asked, looking around the cabin wildly for a way out.
“Sounds like it,” I groaned. “And with us on board. Get rid of the enemy, and all the evidence in one blow. It’s smart, really.”
“Smart, the guy’s a damn coward,” Holm spat.
“No argument there,” I agreed.
There was more rumbling, and the two small holes where the bullets had rammed into the wall earlier grew larger and larger until ocean water was spilling into the cabin, coming up to our knees.
James, who was still propped against the couch with a vacant expression on his face, had water up to his chest, the blood from his gunshot wound streaming out to join the water.
On the opposite wall, there was more rumbling, and the distinct smell of smoke filled what air there was left in the cabin.
“Come on,” I said, shaking my head and grabbing Holm by the elbow. “There’s only one way out of here if we don’t want to get blown up.”
I grabbed Holm and then ran back with him to get James. We couldn’t just leave the guy there. It didn’t feel right.
Then together, each holding on to one of James’s arms, Holm and I ran at the water billowing out of the opposite wall, taking a deep breath as we ran straight into the ocean.
CHAPTER 32
Ethan
For a moment there, I actually thought that we might drown. Water crashed against us from the force of the explosion, and it was hard enough for me and Holm to try to keep ourselves afloat without having to worry about James, too.
But finally, we reached the surface. As we swam, we propelled ourselves as far away from the ship as we could, and when we saw the light of day again, we were quite a distance from the shore. I noticed that Solomon must’ve unanchored the ship when he got back on the dock, and what remained of the vessel itself was also quite a ways from the shore.
Just as we were getting our bearings, there was another loud crash and what remained of the ship exploded, sending pieces flying every which way.
Several pieces came at us, and I grabbed James, took a deep breath, and ducked back underwater again. Judging by the tug from James’s other side, Holm did the same.
I opened my eyes underwater and was greeted by the familiar sting of saltwater in my eyes. I glanced up at the surface, rippling up above my head. There were still shards of the ship pelting down, so I stayed underwater.
A strange sense of calm washed over me down there. I felt at home as always in the water, and at least we were away from what was left of that ship. Maybe all the adrenaline had just shocked my system into submission.
I glanced over at Holm, and he was doing the same. He stared back at me, and I could see the combination of relief and adrenaline in his eyes. It was a miracle that we’d lasted this long, given the force of that explosion. Now there was only the question of how the hell we were going to make it through the rest of the day.
When my lungs couldn’t bear it any longer, I pulled myself and James back up to the surface, gasping for air. I noticed the Haitian man breathing as well. He was conscious but not present. Somehow though, he’d been following our lead, swimming and breathing when we did. This drug was really something else.
We tread water there for a while. I narrowed my eyes at the dock, which was quite distant now, but I couldn’t make out anyone waiting for us there. If we could just get back to that beat-up old car and make it to the border before running out of gas…
Just as I was thinking this, a roaring sound came up above our heads. I whipped my gaze up to see a helicopter hovering above us.
“What the hell…?” Holm started to ask.
Then, a ladder came spinning down from the helicopter.
“Agents Marston and Holm,” a booming voice called from up above, amplified by a speaker of some kind. “We’re from the Dominican military. Please, come aboard.”
“Thank God,” I sighed, shaking my head in disbelief. It was possible that we would’ve been able to make it back to the Dominican side of the border on our own, but it wasn’t exactly likely.
I reached up for the ladder and used what little strength I had left to make it up to the helicopter, dragging James behind me while Holm propped him up from below.
To his credit, the Haitian man didn’t need much prompting to climb some on his own, though his wounds made this difficult for him. His eyes were still completely white, though they were bloodshot now, as well.
At the top of the ladder, a Dominican man in a camouflage military uniform helped us up. It took me a moment to recognize him.
“Alonso?” I asked when I was sprawled across the helicopter floor, soaking wet.
“Yes,” the man grinned, handing me a towel. “Don’t worry, Martínez has the witch doctor and his grandson, and they’re headed back to Santo Domingo.”
“Please tell us that’s where we’re going too,” Holm groaned as another man in camouflage helped him and James over the edge and into the helicopter.
“It is,” Alonso said. “We’re not going to make you stay over here for one more minute if you don’t want to.”
“We don’t want to,” Holm assured him all too readily.
“Amen,” I murmured. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
“Well, Martínez and I weren’t comfortable leaving you out there in the first place, so when we got back to the border patrol outlet, we called our associates in Santo Domingo. By then, your boss back in Florida had already called them concerned about you as well.”
“Diane,” I chuckled. “I should’ve known.”
“You’d told her roughly where you were going, so we came after you,” Alonso explained as he handed Holm a towel of his own. “It took us a while to locate you exactly, but we did in the end.”
“Right in time, too,” Holm said with a dull laugh. “Well, almost. You couldn’t have shown up, I don’t know, twenty minutes earlier?”
“That would’ve been nice,” Alonso agreed with a chuckle. “But I’m just glad we found you when we did.”
“You and me both,” I said, mopping up my hair with the towel. It came back with some blood in it.
“Here,” Alonso said, narrowing his eyes at me in concern. “I will have a medic take a look at you.”
He motioned for another man in camouflage to come over to us. I noticed that there were several other men in the helicopter in addition to Alonso, Holm, James, myself, and the pilot. They all had weapons.
“You came ready to fight,” I said simply.
Alonso nodded. “We did not know what we would find when we got here.”
“Did you expect this?” Holm asked, gesturing back in the direction of the sunken ship.
“No,” Alonso laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t know if anyone could’ve expected this.”
I let the medic mop up my head wound and then tend to my shoulder where it had been grazed by a bullet the day before. The wound had opened up in all the beating around my body had taken in the last hour.
“Who is this?” Alonso asked, turning his attention to James, who was propped motionless against the now-closed helicopter door.
“He’s one of the men who was loading the ship with drugs for transport,” I explained. “Solomon… that’s the leader of the cartel… got angry with him for talking to us and made him take the drug.”
“He ingested the drug?” Alonso repeated, raising his eyebrows and moving quickly over to James. “He doesn’t look like the other victims I’ve seen.”
“He didn’t have that reaction,” I said, looking at James’s pitiful form. “He reacted the way they want their victims to, by turning into the limp, easily persuadable ‘zombie’ person.”
“So, not everyone reacts this way?” Alonso asked, turning back to me. “Not all of them die.”
I shook my head. “They said that about forty percent of Haitians die. Twenty-five percent of Dominicans.”
“Why the difference?” Alonso asked with some confusion.
“They gave a more refined drug to the Dominican dealers,” I said, wincing as the medic poured alcohol in my shoulder wound. Along with all the saltwater that had gotten in it during our impromptu swim, it hurt like hell.
“Interesting,” Alonso said, running his hands over his stubble as he thought this over. “Very interesting.”
The medic finished with me and moved over to James. He and Alonso went back and forth briefly in Spanish.
“He asks if this wound is from the drug,” Alonso translated, pointing to the gunshot wound in James’s abdomen.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I shot him before they made him take it. It’s a long story.”
I ran a weary hand through my wet hair and slumped back against the wall of the helicopter, the now-damp towel draped around my shoulders.
There were benches lining the other end of the helicopter, and this was where the other Dominicans sat. Holm, Alonso, James, the medic, and I were in a more open area between that and the cockpit.
Alonso and the medic continued to converse in Spanish about James.
“What is wrong with his eyes?” Alonso asked.
“I think that’s from the drug,” Holm said. He sounded tired and beat as hell, and I wondered if I sounded that bad. I probably did.
I leaned my head back to try to look out of a small window off to my left. There weren’t any other windows that I could see. Blue sky and white fluffy clouds were all that I could make out.
“We’re going to Santo Domingo?” I asked.
“Yes,” Alonso said. “I believe that there is news for you there.”
“Oh!” I cried, remembering for the first time since we’d gotten on that ship that Clyde had left me a message. “Where’s my phone?”
I dug around in my pockets for it, but it was nowhere to be found.
“Dammit!” I exclaimed. “I can’t find it.”
“Must’ve lost it in the ocean,” Holm mumbled, leaning against the side of the helicopter with his eyes closed.
“Shit,” I said, looking through my pockets again. “I lost the drug packet, too.”
“The drug packet?” Holm repeated without opening his eyes. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that.”
“What drug packet?” Alonso asked, looking between us excitedly. “Did you find the drug?”
“We did,” I said, emphasizing the past tense. “But it’s somewhere in the ocean now. There were crates they were preparing to take to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans?” Alonso repeated. “This is a city in America, is it not?”
“Okay, how about we start at the beginning,” I said, and then related the whole story of what Holm and I had been up to since we left Alonso and Martínez with the witch doctor back by the border. It almost felt like a lifetime had passed, though I knew it had only been a few hours.
“Wow,” Alonso gaped at me when I finished my story. “So, this strange little man is the head of the cartel?”
“Apparently,” I shrugged. “You didn’t see him anywhere when you flew out to us, did you?”
“No, we saw no one,” Alonso said, shaking his head. “We saw the ship sinking, and based on what we learned from your boss, we thought you might have been on it, so we went looking for you in the wreckage.”
“And we’re damn glad you did,” Holm muttered. I was surprised he had been listening since he looked like he had fallen asleep a long time ago.
“Interesting,” I murmured. “I’m not sure what to make of that. He was on the ship with us until right before it sank, and there were lots of men on the dock loading the crates of product before we got on. You didn’t see any of them?”
“No,” Alonso confirmed, shaking his head again. “Nothing. It’s strange to me that he sunk his own ship.”
“He wanted to kill us,” I said with a shrug. “And we were winning. And he wanted to destroy all the evidence that was on the ship.”
“Damn lot of evidence, too,” Holm muttered. “All sunk.”
“We’ll come back,” I assured him. “We’ll look through the wreckage and see what we can find. MBLIS will send a whole team out to do it.”
Holm agreed and then nodded off for real this time.
“Did they say anything about what’s waiting for us in Santo Domingo?” I asked Alonso. “Anything at all?” It was killing me not being able to listen to Clyde’s message.
“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Alonso said. “We were more focused on finding you than anything else at the time. They just said there was some news.”
“Well, we’re glad you found us,” I reiterated. “Impeccable timing, really. Thank you, Alonso.”
“Any time, my friend, any time,” Alonso said, crossing over to me and clapping me on the shoulder.
And with that, I leaned my head back again on the towel and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 33
Alejandra
Alejandra checked her phone and listened to a voicemail from Alonso and his team that
they had found Ethan and Robbie and would be arriving in Santo Domingo soon. She breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in her seat on the couch in the hospital room that she had been using as an office.
Soon, there was a knock at the door. It was Officer Díaz, closely followed by Bonnie and Clyde.
“There is word from your father,” Díaz said. “He should be here soon to meet the officers from MBLIS.”
“Good, good,” Alejandra murmured. “Why are we meeting here instead of at the capitol building?”
“Apparently, there are some injuries,” Díaz said. Then, seeing the panicked expression on her face, “But everyone is going to be fine.”
“Oh, okay, good,” Alejandra said, breathing another sigh of relief. Then, turning to Bonnie and Clyde as they sat down in the chairs set up opposite her, “How is your research going?”
“Good,” Clyde said, nodding.
“We’ll be able to work better back home in our own lab,” Bonnie explained. “Now that we have the drug itself, testing it and dissecting it the way we need to will have to wait until we get home.”
“I understand,” Alejandra said.
A buzzing sound came from where Díaz still stood in the doorway.
“Oh,” he said, checking his phone. “They’re here. Should I bring them back here?”
“Only if their medical care can’t wait,” Alejandra said. “Otherwise, we will meet them when the doctors are finished.”
It was a long, agonizing wait until Díaz returned. Alejandra and the lab techs didn’t speak much during that time, and the only sound in the room was the nervous tapping of the toe of her shoe against the tile floor.
Finally, there was another knock at the door.
“Sorry for the wait,” Díaz said, not waiting to be invited back inside. “They had to get patched up, but they’re ready for you now. I’ll take you to them.”
“Thank you,” Alejandra said, standing up a little too quickly. “Everyone is all right?”
“Yes, I think so,” Díaz said. “The agents are, anyway. They just needed some minor wounds patched up, and they were dehydrated. I think one of them has a minor concussion, as well. There was another man with them who was in much worse shape. He looked to be Haitian. They’re working on him now.”