The wood planks on the porch were rotted through, for the most part, but she discovered a piece of plywood had been placed near the front door.
The front door itself was missing, and the doorway loomed ahead like the entrance to a mine tunnel. She hesitated. She really did not want to go in there. She looked back over her shoulder, but there was only the spidery trace of the trees showing against the night sky. The sound of the rainwater pouring through the holes over the porch obscured all other noises.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped through the doorway, placing her feet carefully, but it felt as if there was more plywood inside the door. The interior of the house smelled of dry rot, insects, and bird dung, in equal proportions. She was in a central hallway. Ahead, to the left a stairway led up-to the second floor, but the stairs themselves had long ago fallen in. Beyond the stairwell the hallway ended in darkness.
Probably a door there.
She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the house, then remembered that she was supposed to close her eyes. She squinted, keeping them open just a crack, dreading another purple flash but not willing just to stand there with her eyes shut. The skin on her back was crawling, and she had to fight back her own imagination as to what might be approaching, or coming behind her. Then she heard a noise ahead-something being opened, a soft clatter of boards and debris, then silence. Then the darkness at the end of the hall dissolved into a grayness. Someone was standing there. She held her breath and kept her eyes just barely cracked open.
Karen-n-n.
She stopped breathing. Him, right in front of her. She surprised herself by wishing she had that big .45 right about now. He must have sensed her thoughts.
Open your coat and show me your hands. That horrible wheezing voice. She did as he asked. The shadow seemed to get smaller, and then she realized he was backing up.
Walk straight ahead. Keep your eyes closed I can see just fine, by the way. But if I see your eyes, I’ll use the disrupter. You remember the disrupter, don’t you?
She nodded wordlessly, remembering very well, the urge to grab the thing in he& pocket almost overwhelming. But he had one, too. She took one step, then another.
Keep coming. Straight ahead. You’re going through a doorway. That’s good. Now stop. Feel behind you. Find the door. Shut it.
Karen felt behind her, encountered what felt like a vertical sheet of plywood, and swung it shut behind her back. The voice moved closer.
Now, step sideways. More. Once more. Good. Stop. Now, there’s a lot of debris in here. I’m going to open a trapdoor.
Keep your eyes shut. Step -carefully. Take two steps forward.
There will be steps going down right in front of you. As you start down the steps, you can open your eyes. There’ll be a strobe light. Go down the stairs andfind von Rensel.
She did as she was told, opening her eyes on the second step down, then immediately squinting again as the red strobe light penetrated. She put up a hand and tried to see into what looked like a large basement, but the dazzling strobe made it very difficult. But she did see Train, hunched against a side wall, and Sherman, sitting down in the middle of the floor. She didn’t see Jack with the gun in his hand until she got to the bottom of the steps. He gestured for her to get over against the wall and move down to where Train stood, looking like an angry bear ready to spring out at something. Not looking back, she moved across the cement floor and took Train’s hand. It was all she could do not to hug him, but the tension in his hand reminded her of where she was. She turned around when the trapdoor banged shut, and the silhouette of Galantz came down the steps, disappearing into the penumbra of the pulsing red light.
Sherman was just sitting there, not looking at anything.
She thought she could smell gunsmoke in the basement. A small generator was putt-putting away inside the remains of an old furnace. Galantz was saying something.
Jack. Come over here, next to me.
Jack obeyed quickly, keeping the gun in his hand pointed out into the middle distance between Sherman and Train.
He moved over to the stairway and stood just below where Galantz was perched above him on the steps.
Hey. Sherman. Look over here. It’s time tofinish this.
Sherman looked up slowly, as if he had been asleep. He turned his head to face the strobe light. “I can’t see,” he said. Karen felt Train tensing up even more. Galantz apparently sensed it, too. She saw the .45 pointed at them in the next flash of red light.
Sit still, von Rensel, and your lady friend there won’t get hurt.
Yourjob here is to listen and watch, nothing more.
“I can’t see,” Sherman said again.
Yes you can. Recognize your son, Jack here, don’t you, Admiral? He sure as hell recognizes you. You do know he’s been helping me all along with this, don’t you? That he hates you just about as much as I do?
Sherman put a hand up to his face to shield his eyes against the light, but he said nothing. The two of them, Galantz and Jack, had merged into a single shadow right next to the pulsing strobe light.
You two over there, listen up. Did Yellowbelly here tell you why I’ve hunted him down?
“Yes,” Train said. “He failed to rrfake a pickup when his boat ran into a mining ambush.” That what he’said? “Failed to make a pickup”?
“You didn’t make the rendezvous, and then they ran into the ambush.”
Oh, but I did make the rendezvous, didn’t I, Sherman? I saw you at the controls, when that mine went off. And you saw me, too, didn’t you?
Didn’t you, Sherman?
The admiral, still squinting into the light, said nothing.
Galantz leaned forward and fired the .45 again, this time down onto the concrete floor an inch from Sherman’s hand.
The admiral yelled and spun sideways as the bullet went spanging around the stone walls. Train pushed Karen down to the floor and tried to cover her from the ricochet round.
Amazingly, through all the noise, she thought she heard Jack laughing.
The pulsing light clearly illuminated the gunsmoke in front of the strobe.
Right, Sherman? Answer me, you yellow bastard!
The admiral was picking himself up off the floor, and then he stood up, his legs obviously shaky.
“Yes,” Sherman whispered.
Yes what? Tell them!
“I did see you. You were there.”
Where did you see me?
“Under a mangrove tree.”
But you ran away, didn’t you? Answer me-goddamn your eyes!
A moment of silence. “Yes.”
Train helped Karen get back up. She tried to control her shaking knees.
Her hand brushed over her pocket, and she slipped it inside.
But that’s not what the final investigation said. It said the SEAL never showed The SEAL never made the rendezvous.
Missing and presumed lost. Isn’t that what it said, Sherman.?
“I did tell them.”
Bullshit! Because if you’d told them that, your precious career would have been down the tubes, wouldn’t it? Panicked underfire and left a guy behind. No starsfor that kind of cowardly shit, are there, Sherman?
“I did tell them. They didn’t want to hear it.”
See, Jack, you were right all along. Your daddy here is not only a coward but a liar, too. Hey, Sherman, know what? Jackie here remembers the night I came to see you.
Used to have bad dreams about it. Because he knew, even as a little kid, that his daddy had done something wrong.
But you didn’t give a shit, because you never liked him very much, did you, Daddykins?