But alive or dead?

As the movie ended again, Dad slapped his thighs. “That does it. Time to call 9-1-1.”

“Don’t bother, Dad.”

“Why on earth not?”

Jack pulled the Glock from theSOB holster and checked the magazine: full.

“Because I’m going after her and I don’t want them getting in the way.”

3

Tom could only stare at his son. He’d sensed that the Jack who had gone into Anya’s ruined house was a different Jack from the one who’d come out. But now he’d changed further. His mild brown eyes had turned to stone; he seemed remote, as if he’d left the room without moving his body.

“After her? Are you crazy? We trumped a couple of them once because it was a controlled situation and we had surprise on our side. But all that’s changed now. You can’t expect to stroll in there alone and—”

“Won’t be alone,” Carl said. “I’ll come along.”

Tom noticed Jack’s cold eyes warm briefly at this simple man’s unadorned courage. And in that moment he wished Jack were looking at him like that.

“Not necessary, Carl,” Jack said.

“’Tis. She’s a good lady. Lotsa people look at me funny, some don’t even want me around. But she always smiled at me and when it was hot she gave me lemonade and cookies and stuff like that. My own mother never treated me that good. And besides, the clan ain’t got no right to do that to her. Semelee’s gone crazy. Ever since she come up outta those lights she’s been different. Scary. Who knows what she’s got in mind for Miss Mundy. We gotta get her back.”

“But that’s what we have police for!” Tom cried.

He’d resisted the urge to chime in and say he’d go along too. Anya was a friend, a good one, and his blood curdled at the thought of her in the hands of a bunch of swampland inbreds. But it was just because he cared about her that he had to stop this craziness. Jack’s gung-ho plan might wind up putting Anya in greater danger. Might even get her killed.

“And in case you two would-be vigilantes haven’t noticed,” he added, “there’s a Category-Three hurricane blowing out there.”

“Exactly why we’ve got to take care of this,” Jack said. “Who’re you going to call? The Novaton police? Their whole department, along with every other cop south of Miami, is going to be tied up with the hurricane emergency. They’ll be busy with evacuation, shelters, looting prevention. You know the drill. A missing-person problem will be put on a back burner till the storm’s passed. Hell, we don’t even have proof she was taken.”

“But the movie—”

“—will be great in court. But do you think it will get a bunch of cops running around in boats out in the Everglades looking for a particular hummock in the middle of a hurricane?”

Tom had to admit he doubted it—but only to himself. Under no circumstances did he want Jack going out there—not even with Carl, who Tom couldn’t see as much help.

“Carl,” Jack said, pointing to the screwdriver protruding from his sleeve. “Do me a favor and use that to take the medicine cabinet out of the wall in the bathroom.”

Carl gave him a strange look—imagine that—then shrugged and nodded and said, “Okay.”

“Medicine cabinet?” Tom said. “What—?”

Jack turned his back and headed for the hall closet.

“Look, Dad,” he said as he knelt by the toolbox and began rummaging through its contents. “I don’t know for sure, but I think that taking Anya has something to do with the lights. But the lights only last a couple of days. By tonight or early tomorrow morning they’ll be gone for another six months.”

“What lights?”

“Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot.” He pulled a socket wrench from the toolbox and headed for the dinette table. “You don’t know about the lights.”

“Care to enlight en me?” Tom said, following. “And what do you think you’re going to do with that wrench?”

“You’ll see. As for the lights, forget about them for now. Take too long to explain. What matters is that after the lights go out, Semelee and Company will have no more need to hang around their lagoon. Good chance they’ll be gone by sunup tomorrow.”

“And take Anya with them?”

Jack gave him a stony look before he crouched under the table and began loosening the nuts that fastened it to its support pillar.

“I doubt it. She’s the one whose dog chewed a hole in the side of that big mutant gator, remember? I’m worried they’ll feed her to it before they go—if they haven’t already.”

Tom felt his knees go rubbery. “No…they couldn’t.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“Hey!” Carl called from the bathroom. “They’s only one screw holdin this cabinet in place and that’s only halfway in.”

“I know,” Jack called back. “Just twist it out.”

One screw? Tom brushed aside questions about his medicine cabinet. The thought of Anya being hurt overshadowed all that.

“Jack, we’ve got to call the police. Or the Coast Guard, or the Park Service.”

Jack stuck his head out from under the table and gave him a you’ve got-to-be-kidding look.

“She’s a friend, Dad. A better friend than you know. And I owe her.”

“For what?”

“For you being alive.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s the one who reported your accident to the police twenty minutes before it happened.”

“That’s as crazy as going out in this storm. She told you that?”

“She didn’t. But I’ve no question in my mind that’s what happened. She knows things, Dad. All sorts of things. And now she needs help. When a good friend needs help, you don’t call on somebody else. You go yourself.”

The words struck a chord deep within Tom. Yes, he knew that. He’d been taught that. He’d lived that. But where had Jack come by it?

And yet he couldn’t allow himself to bend here, couldn’t let Jack go out into that storm against twenty men.

“Where’s that written?”

Jack slipped out from under the table and rose to his feet, his face barely a foot away. He tapped a finger on the center of his forehead.

“In here. Right in here.”

Yes…that was where it would be. But not the only place.

He tapped his son’s chest, over the heart. “In there too.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. There too.”

And as they stood staring at each other, Tom flashed back to Korea. That had been the Marine code: Nobody gets left behind. At least nobody still breathing. Sometimes you had to leave your dead, but you never left your living. If someone was stranded, or hurt and unable to get out on his own, you went in and got him.

And you didn’t call on anyone else because there wasn’t anyone better. You were US Marines, the toughest sons of bitches on earth. It was a matter of pride. If you couldn’t do it, no one could.

Back at Chosin, when Tom took that piece of shrapnel in the gut, he’d radioed in that he’d been hit and couldn’t make it out. He’d expected his buddies towant to come and get him, but figured there was no way with all the shit coming down on the Fifth. But damned if three of them hadn’t shown up after dark and carried him out.

“Help me lift off this top,” Jack said.

“What on earth for?”

“Let’s just do it.”

Tom grabbed one side, Jack the other. They lifted it, tilted it, and leaned it against the kitchenette counter. Then Jack reached into the hollow interior of the post and came up with a black plastic bag. Its lumpy contents clunked together as he laid it on the counter.

“What the hell? How’d that get in there?”

“I put it in the other day. Let me tell you, I had one hell of a time maneuvering that tabletop around on my own.”

“But what’ve you got in there?”

Jack reached in and came out with a fist-size lump of metal that he flipped over the counter. Tom caught it, saw what it was—a smooth metal sphere the size of a tennis ball, with a key ring at the top attached to a safety clip—and felt his heart trip over a beat.

“A grenade?”

“M-67s. I had a dozen sent down after seeing that gator.”