“You’re a clever man, Jay.”
“Not as clever as you, Philosopher, but I’ve been trying.”
Reeve put down the receiver and pushed his way out of the box.
“Is he coming?” Creech asked.
“He’s coming.”
“When?”
“As long as it takes him. Come on.”
“Where to?”
“The boathouse. I want you to drop me off somewhere.”
“An island?” Creech guessed.
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
So Reeve told him.
TWENTY-FOUR
JAY AND HIS MEN took three cars from London.
They drove steadily, without saying much. The front car had a map. All three cars were equipped with comms: two-way radios, cell phones, beepers.
“And if those don’t work,” one man had said, “we’ll just have to whistle.”
There were ten men altogether. Jay split them as two four-man patrols and one two-man patrol. His was the two-man patrol. His second-in-command was an ex-L.A. cop called Hestler. Hestler was very good; Jay had worked with him before. However, Jay hadn’t been given much notice of the mission, had needed men in a hurry, and a few of the others in the group were unknowns. There were a couple who weren’t much more than street kids, ex-gang members. They looked mean, but looks counted for very little. Reeve could sneak up from behind them and take them out. The first he’d see of their mean looks, their eyes would already be glazed over.
Jay and his squad hadn’t flown direct to Heathrow. He knew Heathrow customs could be tough. They’d flown to Paris instead, and got a French operative to organize cars to take them across the channel by ferry. It was slow, but it meant no one checked the contents of the large metal cases they’d brought with them from the French capital.
The cases were polished aluminum, the sort of rigid carrier camera equipment was often shipped in. There could have been video cameras inside, but there weren’t. Instead, the cases were packed with the same equipment they’d taken on the Villambard mission.
Everyone was tired, Jay knew that. They’d hardly checked into the hotel before Reeve’s phone call had come. Probably Reeve was playing on that factor. He would keep Jay moving, keep him from sleeping. Jay had considered staying put in London, getting some rest and setting off next morning. But he was keen to get this over and done with. He was good and ready. There’d be plenty of time for sleep afterwards.
He knew his own enthusiasm wasn’t shared by everyone. The car passengers were trying to sleep. They’d switch drivers every hour, and stop every two hours for a stretch and some coffee. The map was a Collins road atlas, and it showed them that Mallaig was in the Scottish Highlands, a hell of a way from London but very close to Reeve’s own home. Reeve wanted them on his territory. Mallaig was coastal, not quite wilderness. Jay didn’t mind. When he wasn’t working, he liked to take off east out of L.A. to the forests and mountains of San Gabriel and San Bernardino. There was no terrain he didn’t know. He was an adept skier, climber, and runner. Last fall he’d taken off into the wilds for fifteen days, not coming across another living soul for fourteen of them. He knew Reeve had been running survival courses, but doubted they could be anything near as arduous as his own survivalist training. Plus, of course, Jay had been through the same training as Reeve, the same grueling marches over moor and mountain. He didn’t think the Highlands would faze him.
But that was another thing about his troop—they were city dwellers for the most part, used to street-fighting and gun law. Only two, Jay apart, had served in armed forces. One of these was Hestler, the other was a big but paunchy Native American called Choa whose main line of work these days was as a bouncer at a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. Some actor had died there a while back, but Choa’s name hadn’t been mentioned . . .
Reeve had done all right so far. He’d handled himself pretty well. But he’d been operating swift strikes, vanishing again afterwards. Jay didn’t think he’d cope with confrontation quite so well. The odds still favored Jay, which was the only way he’d play them.
They reached Mallaig at ten in the morning. It had been raining ever since they’d crossed the border. The windshield wipers were on full and still were barely coping. There wasn’t much of a road north out of Mallaig, and the next settlement along, Mallaigvaig, was the end of the line. The only thing you could do when you got there was turn back to Mallaig itself.
But just before they reached Mallaigvaig, they saw the boathouse and the Saab.
“Hestler, with me,” Jay said. At the last service station, they’d opened the metal cases, and when the two men left the front car, each carried a Heckler & Koch MP5 set at three-round burst. They ran to the boathouse door, and Jay banged on it with his shoe. Then they stood to either side of the door, and waited for someone to answer.
When the door started to open, Jay shouldered it inwards, throwing Kenneth Creech onto his back, from which position he peered up into the mouth of the submachine gun.
“Are you Creech?”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Are you Creech?”
Creech eventually managed to nod that he was. Hestler had recced the shed and now said, “All clear,” then went to the door to signal for the others to come in.
“You know someone called Reeve?”
Creech nodded again.
“What did he tell you?”
“He said you’d . . . you’d need a boat.”
“To go where?”
“Skivald. It’s a small island off South Uist.”
Jay turned to Hestler. “Tell one of them to bring the map.” He turned back to Creech. “I notice you’ve wet yourself.” The stain on Kenneth Creech’s trousers was spreading fast. Jay smiled. “I like that. Now, Mr. Creech, how big is Skivald?”
“About a mile and a half by three-quarters of a mile.”
“Small.”
“Aye.” Choa handed the map book to Jay, who put it on the floor and crouched down to flick its pages. The MP5 was still trained on a point between Creech’s eyes. “I don’t see it,” Jay said at last. “Show me.” Creech sat up and looked at the map. He pointed to where Skivald was, north of Loch Eynort.
“There’s nothing there.”
“No,” Creech said, “it’s not marked. You won’t find it on a map.”
Jay narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on, Mr. Creech?” The tip of the gun touched the bridge of Creech’s nose. Creech screwed shut his eyes, which were watering. “Dear me, Mr. Creech, you’re leaking from every orifice.”
The men who had gathered around laughed at this. Creech didn’t feel any better for them being there, but he could hardly feel worse about their massive presence either.
“He’s ugly,” said one of the street-gang youths. He’d been wearing his uniform of sawn-off black T-shirt and sleeveless denim jacket for most of the trip, but had insisted they stop at a service station just south of Carlisle so he could find something warmer to wear. The others had stayed in their cars.
“I doubt the shops here will sell clothes,” Jay had murmured. But the street youth had come out with a wool-lined brown leather jacket. Jay didn’t ask where he had found it. He knew he should be angry; it was a very public announcement of their presence, ripping off someone’s jacket. But he doubted the victim would run to the police, who would have to listen to a story about an American Blood on the loose in Carlisle . . .
“I fucking hate ugly people, man,” said the youth, shuffling his feet.
“Hear that, Mr. Creech?” Jay asked. “He hates you. Maybe you’d better help me pacify him, or you never know what he might do.”
As if in answer, the youth, whose name was Jiminez, expertly flicked open a gold-colored butterfly knife.
“Reeve made me take him to the island,” Creech spluttered.
“Yes? When was this?”
“Last night.”
“Does he have any way off the island?”
Creech shook his head.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. He could always swim, but that’s about it.”
“Anything else, Mr. Creech?”
Creech licked his lips. “No,” he said.
Jay smiled and stood up. “Cut him,” he ordered. Jiminez had been waiting. The knife flashed across Creech’s thigh and he winced, covering it with his hand. Blood squeezed out from between his fingers.
“We can do you a lot of damage, Mr. Creech,” Jay said, walking around the boathouse. “You have some nice tools here, any one of which could be turned on you. All it takes is a little . . . creativity.” He picked up the hot-air gun. “Now, where’s the socket?”
“I swear to God!” Creech said.
“What did he take with him, Mr. Creech?” Jay asked. “You say you took him to this island, you must at least have seen what he took with him.”
“He had a bag, a holdall sort of thing. It looked heavy.”
“And?”
“And he had . . . he had a gun.”
“Like this one?” Jay asked, waving the MP5.
“No, no, just a pistol.”
“A pistol? Is that all?”
“It’s all I saw.”
“Mmm. You didn’t see anything else? No traps?”
“Traps?”
“Yes, for catching animals.”
“I didn’t see anything like that.”
Jay had finished his tour of the room. He crouched down again in front of Creech. This was his show. He wasn’t performing so much for Creech—who had been terrified from the outset anyway—as for his own men. He wanted to impress those among them who didn’t know him. He needed their respect, their loyalty, and even a measure of fear. That was how to command.
“Anything else, Mr. Creech?”
He knew if he kept asking Creech would keep telling. He’d tell until he was telling the tiniest details, because he knew if he stopped he might start to bleed all over again.
“Well,” Creech said, “he made some signs.”
“Signs?” Jay frowned. “What sort of signs?”
“He made them so they’d look old. They were danger warnings, warning about the island.”
“Warning of what exactly?”
“That it was out-of-bounds. That it was infected with an-thrax.”
Jay stood up again and laughed. “That’s crazy!” he said. He turned to Hestler, who was smiling without knowing what the joke was. Hestler had cropped black hair, a long black beard, and a face whose blotchiness was disguised by a year-round tan. “You know what he’s doing?” Jay asked. Hestler admitted he didn’t. “He’ll scatter those signs around half-hidden, like he’s pulled them up. When we come across one, we’re supposed to panic. And while we’re panicking, he picks us off with his toy pistol.”
“What’s anthrax?” the other Chicano asked.
“A poison,” Jay explained. “A tenth of a millionth of a gram can kill you. The army did experiment with it in the fifties.” He turned to Creech again. “Isn’t that right?”
Creech nodded. “But the island you’re thinking of is north of here.”
“And not on any map?” Creech nodded again. “Yes, maybe that was his thinking. He chooses an island the map-makers haven’t bothered with and makes it look infected. Too elaborate, Gordon. Way too elaborate.” He turned to Choa. “Take Watts and Schlecht and start bringing the stuff in.” Choa led the two men outside. Watts was tall and as thin as a reed, but deceptively strong. Jay had come up against him in an arm-wrestling contest in the gym, and had bet $300 on himself to win inside half a minute. Watts had beaten him in eleven seconds flat.
Schlecht was someone Watts knew, and that was about as much as Jay knew. He was small, but with massive biceps and a bull neck, an Ollie to Watts’s Stan Laurel. Schlecht even had Hardy’s mustache, but his face was like an animal’s, nicked and scarred and mean.
The other three in the team had been suggested by Hestler, which was good enough for Jay. They were brothers: Hector, Benny, and Carl. For some reason, they didn’t reveal their surname. They looked like the weakest links, wide-eyed during the flight from L.A., amazed to be visiting hotels and Paris and car rental offices, like Europe was one giant theme park. One of them had even brought a camera with him, which Jay had confiscated straight off.
Hestler agreed that they acted like kids, but he’d seen them in fights. Once they got going, he said, they were real bastards. He thought they’d had their whole moral training from video games and spaghetti westerns.
It took a couple of trips to bring all the stuff in. Everyone was damp, and not liking it.
“Start unpacking,” Jay ordered.
Hestler looked at him. “Are we going now?”
“Why not?”
“It’s raining hard!”
“Hestler, we’re going to be in a fucking boat. We’d get wet even if the sky was blue as a South Carolina morning. I bet you’re the sort who runs out of the swimming pool when the rain starts.”
There was more laughter at this. Hestler didn’t appreciate being its butt, but he stopped questioning Jay’s decisions.
Jay turned to Jiminez. “See if you can find any oilskins.”
Jiminez nodded and set to work. Choa, Watts, and Schlecht were handing out armaments. Each man had a submachine gun, either the MP5 or a Cobray M11. They also received a pistol, ammo, and knife. Jiminez refused the knife, preferring his own blade. Hestler and Jay were the only two to be given grenades—Jay’s orders. The other men could be professional baseball pitchers, he still wouldn’t have trusted them with a grenade.
“We take those three bags with us,” Jay said, pointing to the ones he meant. “If you have dry clothes with you, put them in a backpack.”
Watts and Schlecht handed out the backpacks. They were day-walker spec, big enough for a change of clothes and some provisions. Belts and holsters were next. Creech could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. He didn’t feel so bad now about ratting out Reeve. After all, Reeve hadn’t warned him what he was getting him into.
All Creech hoped now was that he’d get out of this alive. Jiminez had found some waterproof clothing, not quite enough to go around. Jay examined the two boats, only one of which was big enough to accommodate all of them. He decided they should take both: a backup was always useful.
“Are these ready to go?” he asked Creech.
“Might need some fuel,” Creech said, trying to be helpful.
“Do it. Hector, you watch him. Benny and Carl, go move the cars, see if you can get them out of sight.”
The three brothers nodded. Jay still didn’t know which of them was which. He bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. This mission was costing Kosigin dearly; he didn’t want one single fuck-up.
“Hey, Hestler, you ever skippered a boat?”
“Some,” Hestler said. Hestler had done most things in his life, one reason why he was so useful.
“Okay,” Jay said, “you take the motorboat. You can take the three stooges with you. The rest of us will take the bigger boat.” He looked down on Creech, who was carrying a canister of fuel down the short metal ladder that led to both boats. “You’re in charge of the bigger boat, Mr. Creech.”
Creech managed to nod. “Er . . . ,” he said. But then he swallowed. He’d been about to ask about the hire fee, but looking into Jay’s eyes it suddenly didn’t matter anymore.
It was a terrible day to be in a boat. The Minch was notorious anyway, and this was the sort of day which merely added to its reputation. The two boats kept in radio contact, for though they were only thirty feet apart, there was no way a shout could be heard from one to the other, and even hand signals were difficult, since most of the men were holding on with both hands to stop from being pitched over the side.
“I think we should go back!” Jay had heard Hestler say more than once. He’d just shaken his head towards Hestler’s boat, not caring whether Hestler saw him or not. The Chicano whose name Jay had forgotten was
puking over the side, his face close to green. Jiminez didn’t look too good either, but stared ahead, refusing to acknowledge he was having any problem. Watts and Schlecht had sailed before, “but never when we weren’t carrying dope.” Choa was staring at the sea like he could control it with his anger, the way he could control people. He was learning a very old lesson indeed.
“What happens if we capsize?” the Chicano squealed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What happens then?”
Jay said something the youth couldn’t make out. Jiminez repeated it for his friend.
“Fallback.”
“Fallback? What fallback?” The youth turned to spew again, and that ended the argument.
“The wind’s easing,” Creech said. He was pale in the face himself, but not from the weather. “Forecast said it would be better in the afternoon.”
“We should have waited,” growled Choa.
Jay stared at him, then looked at the sea again. It was the same shade of gray they painted navy ships, with great spumes of white where the waves clashed. Yes, he should have waited. This way, they would land on the island less than a hundred percent ready to do battle. He wondered if the Philosopher had worked that out . . .
Hestler wiped stinging water out of his eyes; he was thinking much the same as Jay.
Jiminez and his friend were staring at Jay, not sure what to think. “What the fuck is he doing?” Jiminez’s friend asked.
“He’s singing,” Jiminez told him. Jay was singing “Row, row, row your boat” at the top of his voice.
Nobody joined in.
“There!” Creech said eventually. “There’s the island.” He was as relieved as anybody, though he was filled with a certain dread, too. Hands tightened around guns; eyes peered at the coastline. “There’s only one real place for a landing, that wee bit of beach.”
The beach was a narrow strip of sand so dark it might have been coal dust. The land adjoining it had been worn away, so that there was little more than a steep step up from the beach onto earth and grass.
“What do I do?” Creech asked.