“Copy that,” I said. I raised the anchor, started the engine, and turned the wheel so we’d be heading out into deeper water. From there, we could head south and get out of this area before we stopped again and tried to find the location of Bunker 53 in the footlocker. Sergeant Locke had said there was a map, so that should make things easier.
The Big Easy glided out into deeper water and the Lucky Escape sailed alongside her.
After five minutes or so, when the shoreline was far behind us, Sam’s voice came from the radio again. “Look behind us, man. We got out of there just in time.”
I turned around in my chair and squinted as I surveyed the shore. Unable to see anything with the naked eye, I used the binoculars and immediately saw what Sam meant.
The harbour was crawling with soldiers and military vehicles. Some of the soldiers were on the jetty, inspecting the Volvo. As I swept the binoculars over the beach, I thought I saw a familiar figure standing by a Jeep near the water’s edge. Adjusting the wheel on the binoculars, I brought the man’s face into focus.
When I saw the neat, close-cropped grey hair and well-tended moustache, I recognised the man immediately. Brigadier James Gordon. We’d crossed paths before. As far as I was concerned, the man was dangerous.
And right now, he was standing stock still on the beach with his hands behind his back, looking out to sea.
Staring directly at our boats.
8
“It was Brigadier Gordon,” I told the others as we sat around the Big Easy’s dining table later that evening. Night was falling rapidly and the view of the waves beyond the waves was darkening. We’d had a dinner that consisted of pasta and meatballs and now we were talking about our next move.
Lucy had finally emerged from the cabin to eat and had chatted airily for a while but now that we were discussing the matter at hand—Vess’s body and how to get it to Bunker 53—she seemed to have lost interest in our conversation.
She moved away from the table and sat in the easy chair some distance away, listening to Survivor Radio, which was still coming through the speakers.
“I bet he’s the fucker who dug up Vess,” Sam said. “It has to be him.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “The thing is, I’m sure he knows we’re out here on the water. He was watching the boats as we sailed away from the harbour.”
“You sure?” Sam asked.
I remembered Gordon’s face as he stood on the beach, his beady eyes staring in our direction. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Great,” Lucy murmured from the chair.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, turning to face her.
“It means that thanks to your little excursion onto the mainland, we’re not even safe in the boats anymore. They’ve probably got boats of their own and they’re probably out looking for us right now.”
“The sea is a big place,” Tanya said. “They won’t find us out here. It’d be looking for a needle in a haystack. Especially now that it’s getting dark and the navigation lights are switched off.”
“They’ll find us,” Lucy said with a certainty that unnerved me.
“So let’s not hang around for too long, man,” Sam said, taking a handful of papers from the footlocker that now sat on the floor by the table. “Let’s find out where Bunker 53 is and head in that direction.” He distributed papers among himself, Tanya, and me. He offered some to Lucy but she ignored him so he threw them into a pile in the middle of the table.
I looked through the papers in front of me. There was a manila folder containing scientific jargon and chemical equations that meant absolutely nothing to me. From what I could ascertain, this was a report about Patient Zero’s blood.
Putting it aside, I checked the other papers on the table and then rummaged through the remaining contents of the footlocker.
“What are you looking for?” Sam asked.
“A map. Sergeant Locke said there’s a map that shows the bunker’s location. I don’t see it here.”
“Are you sure he said there’s a map?”
“Yeah, I told him I didn’t know where the bunker was and he said there’s a map in the vehicle.” As I spoke the last three words of that sentence, a realisation hit me. “Shit. He didn’t say the map was in this footlocker. He said the map was in the vehicle. This is the stuff Echo Six stole from the military base. There won’t be a map here. It must be in the front of the Land Rover.”
Tanya let her head drop into her hands. “We can’t go back there; the area will be crawling with soldiers.”
“Yeah, man,” Sam said. “And the guys who took Vess and the footlocker out of the Land Rover probably took the map too.”
I shook my head. “No, they didn’t. We killed those guys at the crossroads and took their vehicles. They didn’t have a map. They just took back the items that had been stolen from Camp Victor, which was what they’d been tasked to do. The map is still in Echo Six’s Land Rover.”
Sam frowned. “Dude, I agree with Tanya; that area is too hot. You saw how many soldiers there were at the harbour.”
Tanya and Sam were right; there was no way we could go back to Echo Six’s Land Rover now. It was simply too dangerous.
“So that’s that,” Lucy said. “Your plan to save the world has fallen at the first hurdle. Going ashore was a complete waste of time.”
I wasn’t ready to accept that just yet. Yes, this was a setback but there had to be a way forward. I just couldn’t figure out what that way was right now.
“Maybe I’ll sleep on it,” I said.
“Sounds like a good idea, man,” Sam said. “I’m beat.” He got up and stretched, cracking his back. “You coming, Tanya?”
“Yeah.” She got up and looked at Lucy and me. “Maybe things will look better in the morning.”
“I hope so,” I said.
They went out to the aft deck to take the Zodiac back to the Lucky Escape.
“I don’t envy them,” I told Lucy. “Having to sleep on the Escape with Marcus Vess in the storeroom isn’t a pleasant prospect.”
“Maybe they should sleep here,” she suggested.
That wasn’t such a bad idea. “Hey, guys,” I said, going out onto the aft deck after them. “You can stay here if you like. For the night, I mean. We have a spare cabin.” I realised that I wasn’t exactly sure about Sam and Tanya’s relationship. Did they even sleep together or were they just friends? I’d never asked and they’d never offered to enlighten me regarding their situation.
“Why would we want to do that?” Tanya asked.
I shrugged. “You know, with Patient Zero being on your boat and all. I just thought it might creep you out. It’d creep me out for sure. And we could all do with a good night’s rest. That might be easier to achieve on a zombie-free boat.”
Sam grinned. “Sounds good to me, man.”
Tanya nodded. “Sure, why not?”
They came back into the living area and I closed the door against the night.
Lucy was nowhere to be seen. I assumed she’d gone to bed.
Noticing her absence, Sam said, “Is Lucy okay with this? With us staying over, I mean.”
“Yeah, it was her idea.”
“Okay, cool. See you in the morning then, man.”
“Goodnight, Alex,” Tanya said.
I gave them a little wave as they went through the door that led to the cabins belowdecks. “Goodnight.”
Before I went down myself, I cleared up the dishes and cutlery and threw them in the sink so they could soak overnight. Then I turned off the radio and made sure all the windows were closed and the doors locked.
“Batten down the hatches,” I murmured to myself in a pirate’s voice.
Satisfied that everything was secure, I went downstairs to the cabin Lucy and I shared. When I got there, I found the door closed and locked.