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.