“I’ll leave you these two guns. Personally I doubt that you’ll need them. I suspect Nicole will follow me, and the other boat will know the game’s up. They won’t fight you.”
It took a tired Jackie a moment before she realized that I planned to sail without her. “You don’t want me to come with you?” She asked with a hurt intonation.
“More than anything in the world,” I answered truthfully, “but you’re not coming.”
“Why not?” Her voice was guarded.
“Because Nicole isn’t like the rest of Genesis. She’s not going to collapse at the first hurdle. She’s fighter, and her boat is crewed by the most fanatical of all von Rellsteb’s recruits. I don’t think she’ll give in without a fight.”
“But what does she have to gain by fighting you?” Jackie asked.
“Nothing now,” I said, “because it’s all over, but she may not see it that way. She’s obsessed; she lives in her own world where everyone else is out of step.” I paused. “I hope I’m wrong about her, but she could be a very angry and very lethal young woman right now.”
“So why are you going to find her?” Jackie asked.
“Because she’s my daughter. Because no one else will help her. And because I’ve come all this way to find her, so it seems stupid not to take the last few steps.”
The wind lifted Jackie’s fair hair which was still bleached from the sun and salt of our Atlantic crossing. “I think it’ll be safe for me to come,” she insisted with a gentle defiance. “Nicole must know that the Genesis experiment is finished, and that there’s no point in fighting anymore.” She looked worriedly up at me. “Besides, you can’t sail Stormchild on your own, not in these waters.”
“Of course I can,” I said with a confidence I did not altogether feel, “and David will help me,” and even as I added those words, glorious and sudden, and with her great sails white as innocence, Stormchild appeared in the Desolate Straits.
David, noticing the empty quay, motored Stormchild to the berth vacated by the burnt trawler. He looked exhausted; he was so tired that he could scarce raise the energy to berth the yacht properly. “It’s one thing to sail across an ocean,” he explained to me, “but trying to stay safe off a lee shore is no joke. I’ve hardly slept in two nights or days!” He fastened the last fender to protect Stormchild’s hull from the stone quay, then stumbled ashore. His eyes were red and his face deep-lined.
Berenice Tetterman had already jumped ashore and was running toward her mother, who, in turn, was hurrying toward her daughter. They met, they clasped, they wept, and I felt tears in my own eyes as I realized I would probably never again feel a daughter’s clasp. Lucky Molly, I thought, and I tried not be jealous. Mother and daughter hugged each other, both talking at the same time, neither listening, but both happy and both crying.
David, embarrassed as ever by a display of sentiment, turned to stare at the burned-out trawler, the beached yachts, the flooded fields and the gaping hole in the escarpment’s ridge where once there had been a dam. “What happened here?” he asked at last.
I described the night’s events as we walked toward the house. He grimaced when I told him of Jackie Potten’s return, and seemed to flinch when I told him I hoped to marry her. He sighed when I described my bombs, and shuddered when I claimed to have shot both von Rellsteb and Lisl. I took the blame entirely on myself, so that the authorities would not give Jackie a hard time.
David, suddenly alert, smelt something wrong in my story. “They were both armed?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have shot them otherwise.”
“They were shooting at you?”
I nodded. “Automatic weapons, too, and all I had was the good old Lee-Enfield.”
“So you shot them both from the front?”
It was an odd question, but also a very shrewd one. I hesitated before answering. “No. Well, yes. I shot von Rellsteb in the back, but not the girl.”
“So von Rellsteb wasn’t shooting at you?”
“What are you?” I asked. “Counsel for the prosecution?”
“The police are going to ask a lot of very awkward questions,” David said, “and I just want to make sure you don’t tell them lies.”
“I won’t tell them anything,” I said. “I’m sailing away from here and I don’t intend to summon any help until I’m well offshore.”
David, who had been walking beside me toward the house, suddenly checked. “They’re already on their way, Tim. I called them last night.”
I stared at him in horror. “You did what?”
“I called the Armada last night. Good God, man, what else was I to do? You summoned me here with a radio message that was virtually inaudible! For all I knew, it was a trap! So, of course, I reported the matter to the authorities. The Armada should be here later today.”
“Oh, God!” I blasphemed.
“Does it matter?” David asked.
“Of course it matters!” I retorted angrily. “Because once the authorities are here they’re going to stop everyone leaving. They’re going to want statements and fingerprints and God knows what else. We’re going to be tied up in Chilean red tape and that means I can’t head off Nicole. Not unless I leave now!”
“Where are you going?” David shouted after me. I had begun running back toward the quay.
“I’m going to find Nicole,” I turned and explained to him, “because I want to see her alone before she goes to jail. I haven’t come this far to run away from her, whatever she might be.”
“What do you mean?” David caught up with me.
“I mean,” I said, “that Nicole is a killer. She planted the bomb on Slip-Slider, David, not von Rellsteb. It was always Nicole.”
“Oh, my God.” David was stricken. His face went white.
“So I’m going to find her.” I turned away.
“No!” David pulled me back, then gestured at the flooded fields and at the the scorched facade of the house. “You’ve done enough, Tim. There’s no need to do more. There’s no need to risk more.”
I shook my head with exasperation. “You don’t understand, David. Nicole is in hell, and only one person can go down and save her now. That’s me. I love her, and I can offer her salvation of a kind, but what I can’t do is walk away from her.”
“You’re not God,” David said.
“I have to find her,” I said, “and touch her before they put her in chains. Is that so bloody bad?”
David held my shoulders with his strong hands. “We agreed,” he said urgently, “that if we found evidence of wrongdoing, then we would leave it to the authorities. The Chileans will let you see Nicole. You’ll have your chance with her.”
I shook myself free. “I make my own chances, David.”
“You aren’t thinking straight!” He took hold of me again. “You mustn’t do this, Tim! No good will come of it! Let the competent authorities deal with it!”
“The competent authorities,” I said, “will clap her in jail, and maybe even put her to death. Do they have the death penalty here? I don’t know, but whatever happens to her, I first want to go down to her hell, and take her hand, and bring her back to the light. Doesn’t your faith approve of that? Or don’t you believe in hell anymore?”
“I believe,” David said simply, then frowned at me. “You want me to come with you, don’t you?”
I ignored his question. “Maybe I’ll offer to take her to face British justice,” I said, “instead of Chilean.”