What the hell was that place? What made the artifact important enough to Frikkie that he would send his supposed friends to their deaths so that he could get the pieces?
Why? What did he know?
All Manny had been able to tell her was that Paul had said it would change the nature of energy production around the world. Perhaps it could put not just Frikkie but all of OPEC out of business, changing the balance of power around the world practically overnight.
Was that important enough to have her killed?
Obviously, Frik thought so. She had to remember that: he wanted her dead. When he found out she had survived, he’d try again. Which also meant she would have to be prepared to kill to protect herself.
The sunlight disappeared. Looking up, she saw a lone gray cloud, but when she looked east, she saw a dark line following the first, like an army arrayed behind a single scout. How long, she wondered, before the whole battalion reached her? Open ocean in a tiny boat was not a good place to be with a storm coming on.
Behind her, the island of Trinidad was just a memory. If she headed for Tobago, she’d be steering straight into the oncoming storm, but Grenada was a long way away.
A childhood recollection bubbled into her brain. She had been six, spending a week with her grandparents in Carriacou. Her grandfather decided to take her fishing in his little Gouyave sloop, a tiny single-masted sailboat hand-built in Grenada’s famed fishing village.
The day started out sunny and bright. They sailed easily out of Tyrrel Bay and around the southern tip of the island, heading west into the deeper waters on the Atlantic side. As they cruised along, she trailed her fingers in the beautiful blue water. It had felt like magic to her.
Passing the big rock called Saline Island, her grandfather told her to check the gear and bait the hooks on the two fishing rods he’d brought along—a big one for him, a small one for her. She remembered it because it was the first time he had let her ready the lines. From the bucket of small silver fish called jacks she pulled one out, and hooked it just ahead of its dorsal fin, then repeated the process with the other pole.
After her grandfather had brought down the sail, the boat rocked in the current. They cast their lines and, as if God had been smiling on them, were soon catching fish. She remembered that she hadn’t wanted to stop, not even after they had a half dozen in the boat.
“This be plenty,” her grandfather said, chuckling.
She had been so fascinated by the process of casting and reeling and pulling the fish into the boat that she hadn’t noticed how much the little craft had begun to rock. What she recalled most clearly was the feeling when the sun had vanished. It wasn’t like the times when the thin skittering clouds would cut the glare. That time the sun had disappeared and she’d felt the chill of a strong wind on her neck.
“We done with fishing now, little one,” her grandfather had said. She remembered as if the image had been burned into her mind: the way his face looked; the twinkle gone, the fun vanished. “We been too long at sea and Mother getting mad.”
Standing at the wheel of Blaine’s boat, she could remember with her whole body the feel of that little sloop as the growing waves tossed it around.
Her grandfather had struggled with the sail, having to keep it partly furled in the strong wind that had arrived with the clouds. She had wanted to say “Can we go home, Grandpa?” but she sat silently. He obviously wished to get home too.
When the first drop of rain hit her arm, she thought that she had never seen such a large drop of water. It was soon followed by another and another.
As their tiny craft rounded Mushroom Island and her grandfather eased them into a turn toward Southwest Point, they were hit by one large wave that nearly knocked her into the sea. His large hands grabbed her and shoved her into the growing puddle at the bottom of the boat.
She remembered that he’d smiled again. “We be home soon.” His eyes narrowed as another wave broke over the railing, drenching both of their faces. “You not gotta swim for it. You know everything gonna be fine, Peta.”
She had nodded, though she hadn’t known that at all.
“Grandpa—I’m scared.”
The little boat had passed Southwest Point and the rocking eased a little. Her grandfather hugged the coastline to stay in the lee of the island. “I know, little one,” he’d said, leaning forward. “But I tell you, when you not alone, you not ever be afraid, okay?”
In that moment, it hadn’t mattered that the sun was gone, or that their faces were wet with the streaming rainwater, or that the ocean wanted to come into the boat. They were together, and there was nothing to be afraid of.
Alone in Blaine’s boat, Peta looked to the east and saw the line of rain approaching. A bright silver flash in the sky ahead of her heralded the arrival of an airplane at Point Saline Airport.
Today, she would stay ahead of the storm.
She would make it back to St. George’s and watch the storm from the safety of her own home.
The image of the strange mural on the wall of the cavern rose in her mind and she knew there was a much bigger storm brewing than the little squall that was blowing in from the Atlantic.
Who am I kidding? she thought.
Her grandfather had been dead for over twenty years and she still missed him; would always miss him, the way she would always miss her father and Arthur.
No matter how much she missed them, though, they were gone and they weren’t coming back. She was alone now. And she was afraid.
27
Joshua Keene sat up gingerly, as if his body might be rigged to explode. Slowly, he captured a few memories. He recalled flashes: fighting the terrorists onboard theYucatán; seeing Terris McKendry shot in the chest two, maybe three times, impacts that knocked the big man backward, as if missiles had been launched into his body’s core. He saw battered bicycles, heard them clattering to the oil tanker’s deck, felt as much as heard the bamboosnap of a terrorist’s neck under his own grip.
After that, the explosion, fire, his body flung backward as if he had been kicked in the chest by Bruce Lee. He remembered the night and the smoke and the long, long fall to the dark water that cushioned him about as softly as a concrete parking lot. He recalled the water closing over his head, a vision of sharks, and then…nothing.
He tried to focus his eyes to see where he was, but all he could see was the foggy image of a beautiful tanned woman with a haze of red-brown hair that looked like a halo.
An angel, he thought. I’m dead. And passed back into semiconsciousness.
The next time he awoke, his vision was clear. The same woman stood beside him. “I’m Selene Trujold,” she said. She poured a finger of scotch into a white enamel cup and inhaled its aroma. “Here. Drink this and then we’ll talk.”
He took the cup from her, remembering the brief glimpse he had caught of her before all hell broke loose. “How long have I been out? Hours? Days?”
“You’ve been here for a couple of days. I had you fished out of the water after the explosion on the tanker.”
“Why?”
“There were helicopters coming, a lot of chaos. I couldn’t be sure you weren’t one of us.”
“You could have tossed me back to the sharks when you found out that I wasn’t.”
“You’re right. I could have done that. I still can, if you don’t prove useful to us.”
Sheis a piece of work, Keene thought, remembering his assessment of her when he’d first spotted her on theYucatán . “I had a friend with me,” he said. “He was fighting one of your people. Somebody shot him—one of your goons.”
“None of us are goons, Mr. Rip Van Winkle or whoever you are.” Her tone, acrid at first, softened. “But Iam sorry about your friend.” To Keene’s surprise, she sounded sincere. He sipped at the scotch, then drained the glass. The whiskey burned in his chest.