Ben had to ask, “Wade Joyce wouldn’t put in his deadrise? She’s quick.”
Dyze huffed, like he was secretly nostalgic for ye olde close-hauled action under full sail. “Don’t need no go-fast boat for this.”
“Uh, yeah we do. Right now. We need to get to Deep Banks quick as we can. If we don’t deal with that bomb, we lose everything.”
At this, Dyze relented. Disappointed, he reached for his rain gear. “Ellis and I’ll talk to Wade.” Then Dyze gave Ben a pitying look. “Ye best step upstairs. LuAnna’s took a turn.”
Fear clawed Ben’s gut. Dyze did not need to tack on the bless her heart that always followed mention of the feeble-minded or desperately sick. Ben took the steep stairs three at a time. His ribs seared like a brand.
LuAnna lay on his bed more in a state of utter collapse than rest. Mary Joyce, Julie Nuttle, and Kimba Mosby applied cool rags to her head. Ben knelt, caressed her brow. She was burning up. Hypothermia one minute, raging fever the next. Her teeth chattered. She was enduring a medieval trial by ordeal, and she was innocent.
Mary Joyce said, “She had that gash in her hip. I cleaned it best I could. Sewed them good with fresh cleaned Dyneema fishing line. You’d figure in November that the bugs in the water wouldn’t be so bad, but she got herself something nasty. Might be pneumonia, too.” Bless her heart.
Ben noticed the bedside table was covered in white capped amber pill bottles. Looking closer he saw that each bottle had a different patient’s name on the label. The women had collected all the unfinished antibiotic prescriptions from neighbors around the island for LuAnna.
Kimba Mosby said, “Don’t worry, Ben. We’re dosing her good. This’ll break quick.”
Ben stroked LuAnna’s damp hair back from her face. “She needs a hospital.”
Julie Nuttle shook her head. “She needs quiet. A fast ride over the sound in this chop might be too much for her. We’re giving her everything she needs here, Ben. Count on that. And she’s tough.”
For a moment, Ben considered calling in the Medevac he had been so ready to summon for Charlene Harris. He knew Charlene was right. This business was his to finish. No authorities. As Lorton Dyze said, this weather would keep a helicopter grounded anyway.
Ben felt disingenuous even as he vented his frustration at Julie. “You don’t need to tell me she’s tough. Truth is, you don’t want anybody from off-island interfering in this business.”
The three nurses would not meet Ben’s eyes.
He said, “LuAnna? Can you hear me?”
LuAnna opened her eyes. “Of course ya big bully. I’m sick, not deaf. Quit hassling the girls. I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.”
Ben told the women, “She’s pregnant. She needs a hospital.”
Kimba Mosby, the Reverend’s wife, took Ben by the elbow. Gently led him out into the small landing between the bedrooms.
She patted Ben’s arm. “LuAnna’s been through so much today. She’ll be fine. She’s young. So are you. Thing is, Ben, she’s not pregnant now. Not n’mare. She didn’t want us to tell you. Wanted to break it to you herself later. Right now she feels terrible. Like she let you down. Right now she needs to know you still love her.”
Ben felt a small explosion in his chest. The thump of an incendiary bomb burning white-hot inside him like phosphorus. He was not angry at LuAnna. He wept inside for her. Ben’s rage was for Maynard Chalk and company. They were slaughtering innocents. Not only had they marauded too close to home, they had now penetrated his heart. Lining these men up against a wall, gunning them down into an open cesspit was too good for them. Cleaving to his original plan for handling this crisis would require a Zen master’s detachment and a fencer’s finesse. Ben knew this fury had no place here today. It would ruin everything. Still it boiled inside him.
He sat softly on the bed next to LuAnna, and took her hand. Kissed her brow. Julie and Mary stepped out onto the landing with Kimba.
He said “It’s okay, honey.”
LuAnna opened her eyes again. Shivered. She looked so small. “Did the girls feed you that bull about us being young?”
Ben nodded. “It’s true. There’ll be plenty time again.”
“Ben, I was already loving this one. Whoever she was.” Tears glistened in with the fever’s sheen on her face. “Couldn’t help it, coming from you like she did.”
“You think she was a she?”
“Oh hell yes. I prayed so, anyway. Lord knows I’d need back-up in the house with you on a rampage.” She caught her breath. “You still like me?”
“Always will. Any kid of ours is going to have to understand that, and get used to it. You’re my A-number-one Sally crab.”
“You’ll accept no substitutes?”
“How could I when there aren’t any? Not even close.” He kissed her cheek. “You better rest up. Seeing you all sweaty and helpless is making me hot.”
LuAnna laughed softly. Weak as her voice sounded, it rang inside Ben like the most beautiful music.
She squeezed his hand, whispered. “Please go kill them. For us. For her.”
Ben smiled down at her. “I love you, too.” If she lived through this, they’d weather anything together.
CHAPTER 46
Chalk fixed Tahereh’s brown almondine eyes with his piggy slits. Even in the low light of the Palestrina’s cabin, she was a beauty. He asked, “What are your people going to use it for?”
Tahereh was quiet. Then she answered, “You still actually plan to hand it over to me?”
“Of course!” Chalk sounded righteous, like a paragon of integrity slandered. “I did want to discuss another possibility with you.”
Tahereh got angry. “I’m already a dead woman! I’ve known men like you.”
“And you lived to tell the tale, didn’t you, spitfire?” Chalk was quieter, less blustery. He was going Senator Lily Morgan one better, laying out a little Fifth-Generation Warfare of his own tonight. “No. You’ve never known a man like me.”
Tahereh sneered. “You’re all alike. You all think you’re special. You listen to your mothers too closely.”
Again Chalk did his best to look offended. “Tahereh honey, I think you’ve got me all wrong. I’m suggesting an alliance. You and I working together long-term. When I hand you the dirty bomb, your folks are just going to nuke some fleabag Third World country, right? Take out an embassy full of ass-kissers? Microwave an American city? Is that the big plan? Is that all you got? Is this all we’ve got to look forward to, you and I? Does this have to be the end, is all I’m asking.”
Tahereh all but guffawed. “You want to entertain me with a fantasy in my last hours? Go ahead. I’m curious.”
Chalk spoke as if he were confiding state secrets. “In a little while, you’ll have a device you can call your own. You can go set it off someplace, and have your moment in the sun. And though the history books might record the deed, the cold hard fact you have to face is that the visceral effect, the terror of that event, will quickly fade away. Sorry to break it to you, but we must face facts.”
Chalk was giving it his best, but Tahereh’s laughter dripped with derision. He soldiered on. “You said you’d hear me out. Listen, do you think anybody honestly gives a crap about Hiroshima? Or Nagasaki? Sure, there are some monuments here and there. Bleeding-heart liberals will point and shed a tear at Man’s Inhumanity to Man when the round-number anniversaries come along. Fine. What do we know? Today those cities are booming in a whole new way. They were annihilated, but today they’re making money. America did its worst, but today the Japs go to work, come home, fuck, eat, piss, shit and breathe just like they always did for thousands of years.