Turcotte gestured for her to continue.
Dr. Boudreau sat up straighter in her chair and gazed at Tori and Gabe. Though still rational and open, her friendliness had vanished. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, so here’s the deal. Captain Rio, those creatures killed your brother and almost your entire crew. They’ve taken away your livelihood. Your life will never be the same. Miss Austin, obviously you have no job to go back to. Both of you are headed for criminal trial, possibly prison. I can offer you something better. Significantly better.”
Tori glanced at Josh, but he looked away. In fact, none of the FBI agents looked happy. That pleased her. Whatever might upset the FBI where this case was concerned had to be good for Tori Austin.
“We’re listening,” she said.
Gabe rocked back in his chair, arms crossed in defiance. “Go ahead.”
Dr. Boudreau nodded, studying them. Sizing them up. “The United States government would like to keep these events, and the operation that is about to commence, a secret. Where the two of you are concerned, there are several ways that can be accomplished. First, they could simply have you killed.”
She said it in such a casual and off-handed fashion that it took Tori a moment to process, then she flinched away from the older woman.
“That’s not funny, I know,” Dr. Boudreau continued. “But I know I have your attention, now. The good news for me is that your criminal endeavors make any such measures unnecessary, even if that were the sort of thing I would ever be a party to, which it isn’t. The bad news for you is that I can arrange to keep these events quiet by making sure you are both incarcerated for life in places where no one would ever believe a wild story such as this one. I would really rather not pursue that option.”
“Then don’t,” Gabe said.
“That, I’m afraid, is entirely up to you.”
Tori gnawed her lower lip. She could sense Gabe’s anger and resistance and did not want to seem too eager, but she had resigned herself to prison or whatever else fate might bring, and the chance to avoid that had her heart soaring.
“What do you want from us?” she asked. Her gaze shifted past the silver-haired woman to Josh. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Beside him, Voss did not seem to notice, focused—as the others in the room were—on Dr. Boudreau.
“I’m capable of giving you a new life,” the older woman said. “I’m offering you a chance to start over anywhere you like with a modest annual stipend and a new name. You only have to do two things for me. First, never speak of this island or the things you call sirens again, and second, come with me out to the island as part of my team.”
Gabe actually laughed. “And why would we do that?”
Tori barely listened. The words were still echoing in her mind. A new start and a new name. She had tried for a fresh beginning in Miami, and that had led her here, and almost to prison. The idea that she might get yet another chance at wiping the slate blank seemed surreal.
Dr. Boudreau gestured toward Agent Turcotte, or, rather, beyond him. Out the window, Tori could see a helicopter in the distance, Coast Guard or Navy personnel landing on the island.
“I want to get this done today—“
“Why?” Gabe asked. “Today, tomorrow, next week, what difference does it make?”
Dr. Boudreau nodded as though in approval of the question, then slid her chair back. She walked over to the window and peered out, standing just a couple of feet away from Turcotte. As she turned to face the card table again, she gave Agent Turcotte a meaningful glance, as though the words to follow were meant for him as well.
“We have encountered these sirens before, but we know very little about them. Right now operation personnel are beginning an observational sweep of the island, but they are amphibious creatures. They will come up on land tonight, or at least they will if any of those people are still on the island come nightfall. I’d rather not begin the job only to have them interfere with it overnight. Beyond that, we cannot be certain how far beyond their main habitat they’ll be willing to stray, so there’s no way to accurately gauge what would be considered a ‘safe distance’ from the island. All in all, the best course is the most expeditious, and that is why I am willing to bring you both into the fold, and reward you afterward with your freedom.
“I’d like you to accompany me to the island and work with my people to point out any and all caves that you recall from your search yesterday--especially what Captain Rio called the ‘kill sites’ in his statement, and what you, Miss Austin, referred to as ‘the grotto.’ The faster we survey the island, the faster we can begin purging the island of these creatures.
“Now,” she added, “time is of the essence. Your decisions?”
Tori glanced at Gabe, but he had lowered his gaze, staring at the table or perhaps at nothing, eyes haunted and distant. She did not look away and eventually, either noticing her in his peripheral vision or simply aware of the press of her attention, he lifted his chin. For several seconds, they regarded one another, and then Gabe turned toward Turcotte.
“And part of this whole get-out-of-jail-free card, this new life, would be testifying against Viscaya?”
Turcotte gave a curt nod.
Tori saw Josh blink and glance first at Voss and then at Turcotte, and she knew the man was lying. Dr. Boudreau kept her face blank.
“No, Gabe,” Tori said, focusing on the older woman. “They’re going to make the Antoinette disappear, and they’re gonna make us disappear. We don’t have to testify to anything as long as we play along and keep our mouths shut. Isn’t that right, Dr. Boudreau?”
Turcotte glared daggers at the silver-haired woman, but Boudreau clearly had no interest in blowing smoke.
“That’s right,” she said. “No strings except your silence afterward.”
“And what about Angie Tyree?” Gabe asked. “Where does she fit into all of this? ‘Cause I don’t see her in this room.”
Tori felt bad that she hadn’t even thought about Angie. The woman had never been her friend, but she was the only survivor of the Antoinette who had not been brought into this meeting.
Josh stepped closer to the table. His eyes had a glassy sheen from the Vicodin the shipboard doctor had given him.
“Angie’s going to be given the same choice Dr. Boudreau just gave the two of you, but we don’t want her on the island. She had a total mental breakdown last night and I don’t think all the pieces are necessarily back together again. She’d be a liability.”
Gabe kicked back and put his boots up on the table, crossing his arms. Though he spoke to Dr. Boudreau, his gaze rested on Agent Turcotte.
“So Angie gets to choose prison or silence, and we get to pick between prison and fucking suicide?” His brow furrowed deeply and Tori thought he had aged a great deal in the past day.
“You’ll be off the island by nightfall,” Dr. Boudreau said, her impatience growing.
“So you say,” Gabe replied, then shook his head. “But the only way I can guarantee that is to not go at all. I’ve seen those things up close and I think I’ll stay here, thank you.”
Tori stared at him. “Gabe, they’ll put you in prison. This is your chance to—“
His expression stopped her short. His sorrow pained her. He had always been a good man, involved in crimes he had never wished for on behalf of a brother who had never been grateful enough. Now he was paying for his crimes far more on the inside than he ever would in prison.
“Why do I care?” Gabe asked, small crinkles of pain around his eyes. “What can prison take away from me? I’ve got nothing left.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo!” Turcotte snapped. He started toward the table, but Nadeau and Mac immediately stepped in his path. Turcotte rolled his eyes in disgust.
Tori looked around to see that the rest of them were watching her.
“What about you, Miss Austin?” Dr. Boudreau asked.
She felt almost guilty, not standing up to them. But unlike Gabe, she still felt like she had plenty
to lose. Her future. Her freedom. A chance at tomorrow. Twice she’d been spared and, this time, she would not screw it up.
“I’m in,” she said, lifting her chin, looking from Boudreau to Josh and Voss.
Dr. Boudreau thrust out her hand, a look of satisfaction her face. “Thank you, Tori. You won’t regret it.”
The words sounded hollow. When Tori looked at Gabe, he lowered his gaze, either angry with her or just surrendering to his sorrow. He’d been broken up inside, but she was just happy to be alive. And if she did feel pangs of regret already beginning, what did it matter? Provided she survived, she would get over it.
Still, he thought of returning to the island, with its caves and its bones, made her feel sick. “Let’s go before I chicken out.”
And they were all moving, headed for the door. Mac accompanied Gabe, who would be locked up again. But Dr. Boudreau, Josh, and Voss surrounded Tori, hustling her out of the room and down the corridor as though afraid she would change her mind.
“So, Tori,” Dr. Boudreau said, “ever been in a helicopter?”
~69~
Angie sat on the edge of her cot and thought about bees.
More specifically, she thought about poking a stick into a nest of bees. Why the hell did the Coast Guard and the Navy and this Dr. Boudreau, whoever she was, want to be here in the first place? Angie did not understand why they couldn’t just put a ring of buoys in the water a good distance from the island and mark STAY THE FUCK AWAY on every chart in existence. In ancient times, she knew, cartographers would create maps that illustrated the extent of their knowledge of the world, and in the margins—at the edges of what, to them, represented the unknown—they would write HERE THERE BE DRAGONS.
Same idea, she thought. Stay the fuck away. Succinct and to the point. As a plan, buoys and warnings on maps made a lot more sense to her than going back to the island, no matter what weapons you had.
Granted, there would be dumbasses—mostly rich pricks and skeptical fishermen—who would just have to go past the buoys and ignore the warnings. But if those people ended up eaten, didn’t they have it coming to them?
One thing she knew, without any doubt whatsoever, was that no one should poke a stick into a beehive. Only they were.
Agent Plausky had told her about the offer from Dr. Boudreau—a free pass, as long as she vanished. No jail, and she could go wherever she wanted. They would pay for her to start over again back home in Colombia, or in the Caribbean, or Europe, or anywhere in the USA--so long as she stayed out of the state of Florida and did not contact anyone involved with Viscaya Shipping. And as long as she didn’t talk about the sirens.
Plausky, as professional and pleasant as could be, did not manage to be very convincing about that last part, which was how Angie realized that the government did not really care if she talked about the sirens. They were pretty sure nobody would believe her, and Angie figured they were right. The realization troubled her, but only a little. In truth, she wanted to get lost, to forget, and the idea of disappearing into a new life appealed to her. The only thing that appealed to her more—and it amazed her to find this particular truth hidden deep within herself—was the idea of going home.
All her life, Angie had wandered anywhere but home. But now the devil had come up close enough to whisper in her ear, and Angela Tyree did not want to die thousands of miles from home with no one even to grieve at her passing.
Home. She thought about it now as she sat on the cot, legs drawn up to her chest, rocking gently. The position made her a little self-conscious, considering it was the traditional pose of crazy people, but she knew she wasn’t crazy. And anyway, nobody was watching.
When the wind shifted just right, breezing through the window, she felt sure she could smell her Aunt Eugenia’s cooking. It brought a smile to her face.
“I’ll do anything you want,” she had told Plausky. “I’ll sign anything, testify to anything, and forget anything, on one condition. You have to get me out of here, away from all of this, today. I want to be on dry land somewhere civilized by the time the sun goes down.”
Plausky had nodded immediately. “Actually, that’s already in motion. The Bureau has a civilian chopper here on loan from St. Croix. It brought Dr. Boudreau out, and it’ll be bringing you back in two, three hours, tops.”
Angie had been euphoric.
Now she could not be sure the conversation had really happened. This, more than anything else, made her wonder just how badly the previous night had tilted her world off of its axis. The doctor here on board the Kodiak had given her something last night, but she could not remember what it had been. Xanax, maybe. Something to bring her down from the panic and hyperventilation. This morning she had taken another pill, and now she wondered if her terror had truly begun to abate, or if her emotions were being chemically managed.
Not that she minded; she just wanted to know.
More than anything, she wondered if she would sleep tonight, and if she did, what might visit her dreams. It occurred to her that additional pills might be required.
Continuing her gentle rocking, Angie inhaled deeply. A frown creased her forehead, because instead of Auntie Eugenia’s cooking, the air now smelled of burning. At first she thought it sprang from her imagination, but then the aroma became so powerful that there could be no mistaking it.
Something was on fire.
After a moment’s consideration, Angie rose from the cot and went to the window. The Antoinette still loomed a couple hundred yards away from the Coast Guard ship, and off to the right of her window. But despite the way it floated, deadly and waiting, she barely noticed it.
The derelict ships were on fire. Flames roared up from that graveyard of half-sunken fishing boats and yachts and small freighters. The blaze spread hungrily from vessel to vessel, igniting in gusts and gouts of flame. The Coast Guard—or maybe the Navy—had covered and filled the boats with gasoline or something else that made the fire claw through wood, shatter fiberglass, and blacken steel. The sails and nets that had been stretched like a tall ship’s rigging evaporated like spider-webs, trailing strings of flame.
A helicopter buzzed past, flying low over the flickering flames and the waves of heat rising off of the burning ships. It slowed above a cluster of several ships that had not yet begun to burn. A man hung partway out of the open side door of the helicopter, strapped in to keep him from falling. Angie realized that some of the sailors must have actually lowered themselves down to the boats earlier to plant whatever they were using to accelerate the fire, because now the guy in the chopper dropped a pair of burning flares that hit a fishing boat dead on—one on the deck and one right into the wheelhouse—and fire blossomed upward even as the helicopter roared away.
It had begun.
The island had its devils, and the Navy had brought its own Hell.
~70~
Josh sat on a table in the Kodiak’s sick bay with his shirt off. His sling hung from a chair, but he kept his left arm pressed to his body. Dr. Dwyer changed the dressing on his wound.
“You’re lucky the weapon was small caliber,” the doctor said as he examined the back of Josh’s shoulder. “Clean entry and exit, probably struck bone, but doesn’t appear to have broken anything. Very lucky.”
Josh grunted as the doctor gently touched the swollen skin around the wound, then pressed a fresh bandage over it. The one good thing he could say about the pain from that wound was that it had nearly obliterated the sting and ache left over from the beating Boggs had given him. Shifting his arm even a couple of inches made him forget all about bruised ribs.
“How is getting shot lucky, exactly?” he asked.
Dr. Dwyer came around the front of the table, staring at him. “You’re still breathing, Agent Hart. As I understand it, the man who shot you is dead. Who’s luckier, would you say?”
Josh had not seen Miguel Rio die, but he knew the sirens had gotten him. And admittedly, the bullet wound seemed like a fair price to pay for not getting ripped
apart by those things.
“Point taken,” he said, sliding off the table. He reached for his shirt and gingerly slid his left arm into it. Pain erupted his wound and radiated across his chest and up his arm.
Dr. Dwyer saw him grimace. “I’m sure there’s no point in my saying so, but you really shouldn’t be going anywhere. You need rest to heal.”
“I just need to get through today,” Josh told him. “Four hours, maybe five. Then I can crash. Think you can pack me a picnic lunch for my trip ashore?”
Dwyer’s blue eyes were dark with disapproval. “You took some Vicodin less than three hours ago.”
“Some,” Josh agreed. “How about all of it?”
“Not funny,” the doctor said. “Vicodin is powerful stuff, Agent Hart. Take enough of it, and you’ll be able to function. Take too much, and you’ll be less than useless to yourself and to everyone else. You’re really better off staying on board.”
“For a dozen reasons, at least,” Josh admitted. Then his good humor vanished and he fixed Dr. Dwyer with a look of such gravity that the man actually recoiled. “But I can’t stay here while my squad is out there. None of them gave up on me, doc. How can I do any less? They don’t even know what they’re facing.”
Normally, Josh kept such feelings to himself, but the Vicodin made it seem entirely reasonable to say what was really on his mind.
Dr. Dwyer studied him. “You think you need more Vicodin? That it isn’t helping?”
“I’m not stupid, doc. I know it’s helping, but after the first couple of hours the pain starts coming back, deep down at first and then spreading, like a bomb exploding in slow motion.”
“Pain is good,” the doctor said. “It makes you careful, keeps you from doing anything really stupid. Pain reminds you to rest the arm so the wound can start to knit—“
“That’s what the sling is for.”
“It’s not the same thing, and you know that,” the doctor chided.
Josh sighed, regarding him grimly. “Look, doc, I don’t love the Vicodin. Seriously. Sure, part of it is wonderful. It’s like I’m a fish in a bowl, swimming around all content, and the things going on outside the bowl don’t seem to matter that much. But the thing is, I’ve got some control issues, and when I manage to think about how much I’m liking my fishbowl…it worries me. So, like I said, I don’t love the Vicodin. But right now, Dr. Dwyer, it’s my best damn friend in the world.”
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