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Étienne kept up his usual stream of lighthearted chatter, which is to say
sneering silence. Twenty minutes after casting off we were out of sight of land. I remembered a phrase I’d read in an old book about the British Navy: We had “sunk the land.” I thought that was right on the money, because the odds were pretty good that I was sunk. But there was still the endgame. It had to play out, and this was the last quiet time before it started. So I decided to put a little space between me and Étienne’s endless good cheer.
I stepped back to the rear end of the boat and watched the waves. They were a whole lot more fun than chatting with Étienne, but aside from that they were not the most interesting scenery I’d ever seen. In fact, they were pretty damn dull. They didn’t have any tricks, they didn’t change color—nothing. They just sort of rolled around. Under other circumstances it might have been dreary.
Not this time. Even dull scenery gets a little more interesting when you think it might be the last time you see it.
* * *
—
Benny was nervous. This was not a usual condition for him. A hard life, filled with hard deeds, had cured him of feeling antsy most of the time. This was different.
In the first place, he had been here, inside the rock, for too long. As much as he liked working for Mr. Boniface, he just as much did not like his employer’s choice of residence. If Benny was there longer than a few days, he could feel the walls closing in. Not claustrophobia exactly; it just started getting to him. Stuck inside a big fucking rock, for Christ’s sake. In the middle of the ocean, two thousand miles from everything.
On top of that, there was Bernadette. Being around that fucking horror show was definitely hard on the nerves. Not just the face, which was bad enough. It looked like it had caught on fire and somebody tried to put it out with a chain saw. But the eyes were a hell of a lot worse than the face. Those eyes of hers looked like she could see inside you, and like she thought she might like to rearrange you so everybody else could see your insides, too. If it was up to him, Bernadette would be chained to a fucking wall in the goddamn basement and fed chunks of raw meat. Or better yet, tie an anchor to her neck and chuck her into the fucking ocean.
Of course, it wasn’t up to him. It was up to Mr. Boniface, and Mr. Boniface fucking liked Bernadette, so that was that.
All that was enough to make anybody a little antsy. But now, all kinds of shit was about to hit the fan. Mr. Boniface said it was all under control, and Mr. Boniface was always right, but what the fuck, this was complicated. And Benny did not at all trust this Riley Wolfe character. From what Benny knew, and from what he’d seen, the guy was way too fucking slick for his own good, and he always had some kind of bullshit move coming at you from out of nowhere, and Benny was pretty sure this time was no exception.
But what the hell, it wasn’t up to him. Mr. Boniface did the thinking, and he said this part would be smooth and easy. And Mr. Boniface gave the orders, and his orders were to meet the boat and make sure everything happened the way it should. That’s what he would do.
The boat came chugging into the tunnel right when it should. It was kind of dark in there, before the tunnel opened up into the area by the dock, but Benny could see Étienne sitting there at the wheel. So far, so good. All perfectly normal.
The boat slid into place at the dock, and two of the mercs waiting with him grabbed the lines and tied up. Then Riley Wolfe stepped out on deck and Benny tensed up. No matter what Mr. Boniface said, this guy was just too damn slick, and Benny had thought that if something funny was going to happen, it would be now, while they were unloading. But Riley just nodded at him and said, “It’s heavy as hell,” and Benny motioned to the other waiting mercs to help out. Benny stepped to the side and watched, his hand resting near the Glock he had tucked into his waistband.
Nothing happened, except that they got the crate up onto the dock and onto a big handcart, and then Étienne cast off and chugged away while Benny, Riley, and the mercs wheeled the crate down the corridor.
* * *
—
I could feel it coming. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was bad, and it had my name on it, and it was coming. No reason to think so, but that didn’t matter. I knew.
I don’t claim it’s a superpower, and I am not the only guy in the world who feels like this sometimes. If you talk to professional soldiers, or anybody who lives on the edge of adrenaline, they’ll tell you the same thing. Sometimes you just know. It’s a kind of a mental radar system. And like I’ve said before, I’ve got it, too. It tells me when somebody’s loading up shit and aiming for the fan, and it’s usually right. You can call it ESP, or gut feeling, or instinct, whatever you want. The name doesn’t matter. It’s real. And if you want to keep breathing, you listen to it when it talks to you.
It was screaming at me now.
Why? Who the fuck knows. Everything looked fine and dandy. We were just a couple of happy guys and six heavily armed professional killers out for a stroll along a stone corridor with a big crate. What could be more innocent? All we needed was a puppy and a kite and it would’ve been a perfect picture of a happy day at the park.
But it was wrong. It was all dead wrong, and about to go wronger, and I knew it. This was not one of those times when my gut was whispering, Careful, watch it, something just might happen. Nope; this was a two-hundred-decibel full-throat screaming chorus screeching out a warning that a full-bore, flat-out no-kidding-run-for-your-fucking-life-as-fast-as-you-can-right-now-or-you-are-totally-fucking-dead was right around the corner.
I didn’t know what set it off. Maybe it was Benny, who seemed a little nervous. Maybe it was just being here, in a truly awful and dangerous place with no way out. And maybe it was being on the edge of a series of events that would leave a big pile of dead bodies behind, with no guarantee I wouldn’t be one of them.
Usually that slippery turf on the edge of death gives me a lift, makes me feel more alive, right at home.
Not this time. This was something else, something sticking up just ahead, poking up out of the darkness like a tombstone with my name on it. It was right there, just out of sight, and it was pouring out a warning. It flooded over me, this great big wave of dread and nausea, and it made me break out in a cold sweat. I felt my heart start to hammer and my hands get greasy and I was breathing too hard and there was not a single goddamn thing I could do except keep walking toward whatever it was and get ready for something I just knew was going to be final.
And all I could do was go straight at it.
It got worse.
We got to the end of the corridor, to Boniface’s huge art gallery. Benny opened the big double door, the mercs rolled the crate in, and Benny motioned me to follow. I stepped through the doorway, and Boniface was waiting. And right behind him, with a look on her face like a rabid leopard that hasn’t been fed, was Bernadette.
This was it. This was what my radar had been screaming about. I knew that as sure as if it was written on a big white banner in red letters and hung from the ceiling. Her face said it all, just as if she was hung with a sign saying, “HERE I AM! RILEY’S HORRIBLE DEATH!”
I looked around for some way out, which was pretty stupid. There wasn’t any way out and I knew it. I was in a fortress hollowed out of a rock on an island that was the most isolated spot on the planet. I was here until Boniface wanted to let me go. And he didn’t say anything about that, but I knew he was not going to say it. He was going to give me to Bernadette.
