Heart in her mouth, Marla ditched the backpack and rushed over to the window.
She saw the black-clad men approaching over the headland like soldier ants.
Fowler’s men.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fowler was livid. His tired heart pounded out a fast drumbeat in his chest, a tribal call to arms, an invitation to fuck with whoever was fucking with him. His duty officer had spotted it, while routinely scanning the monitor screens in The Snug. How he hadn’t noticed it himself was beyond Fowler’s comprehension. Was he losing his touch, finally? Had he been on this godforsaken rock for so long that he’d let his standards slip so badly? No, it wasn’t that. Whoever was responsible for duping him was going to pay, and pay dearly. Their manipulation of the image had been so well executed he could perhaps excuse himself for missing it after all. The subtlety with which the surveillance footage of the Big House had been copied and looped was almost admirable. But the eagle eye of his duty officer had proven more than a match for any such digital trickery. A subtle detail had revealed the ruse for what it was, two long-tailed parakeets, launching their sleek bodies from a branch and across the screen, only to miraculously reappear and repeat the exact same movement some time later. Darkness falling would have alerted them to the deception of course; the Big House stuck in a daylight loop while the rest of the island hunkered down into lengthening shadows. But nightfall was still a ways off, and so Fowler felt grateful for the providence of this head start. Then they’d discovered many more of the camera feeds had been tampered with too. His technicians had traced the source of the bogus camera loops to a networked drive hidden behind a series of firewalls. Someone had actually had the audacity, and hardware, to hack into his security network under his nose. Once he found the hardware, Fowler was sure he’d find the hacker, and his retribution would be swift and merciless. The culprit was certainly tricky and had made it very difficult for his boys to trace then decrypt the source of the network breach. Fowler found it difficult to wait for such tiresome tasks to be completed, urging his men to cut the technobabble crap and give him something he could sniff out and arrest for Christ’s sake.
And eventually, after an agonizing wait that felt like hours, they did. The network breach was sourced at the lighthouse.
The lighthouse. A barnacle on the ordered surface of Fowler’s empire. Home to a useless, senile old busybody who was now proving himself to be a threat—just as he’d predicted. Fowler had requested The Consortium allow him to carry out a termination order but, for reasons unclear to him, they had rejected the request. Never one to question the chain of command, Fowler now felt anger on his very breath. If they’d just allowed him to do his job, to take the old man out of the picture, then this security breach would never have happened. He knew his men had a soft spot for the old man’s stories, for his lies. That’s how he’d compromised the island’s security, right under their noses. The old timer had something to do with Anders’ disappearance and Fowler knew it. He was sure the wrinkly bastard was the one who had broken curfew. How else to explain the unauthorized figure skulking past the security cameras at night? When questioned, the old fool had blinked those narrow bloodshot eyes of his and played the innocent. But he was guilty, and he’d been out wandering despite the rules laid down for him year-in, year-out. It ended here.
Wiping the sweat from his brow Fowler pushed on towards the rocks. He was flanked by his men and had the reassurance of cool gunmetal beneath his fingers. He was an unstoppable force, and the old lighthouse keeper was far from being an immovable object. He’d get to the bottom of all this once they reached the lighthouse, and when he did Vincent would wish he’d drowned himself a long, long time ago.
Looking out across the landscape that had become his world, Vincent was fixated by the long shadows of the approaching men. He’d seen them before in dreams, coming to him en masse like a fleet of black ships with hard uncaring hulls, their only cargo a deep unerring woe.
Pietro’s coughing whimpers of pain caused him to turn from the window, even though he knew the terrible sight that would greet him. Sure enough, rivulets of blood trickled from the boy’s mouth, pooling in the craters formed in his neck by tightened and agonized tendons. Grotesque little bubbles of blood formed around his nostrils, popping wetly. Pietro coughed again and the smell of metallic bile tore away Vincent’s brief olfactory memory of sweet, powdery candy wrappers. Casting a shadow over Pietro’s face as he stood there blankly looking at him, Vincent saw the fear burning in the lad’s eyes. Tears streamed down the injured boy’s face, expressing the intricate, deeper pains that his cries could not find sounds for. His throat sounded like it was splitting as he emitted a single, massive, cracking cough. An eruption of hot blood, like lava from shattered rock, spat from the boy’s lips. Vincent took the spare pillow from his chair, knowing now what he had to do, what he must do.
Pietro struggled at first, but as Vincent pressed the pillow harder and harder into his face he seemed at once to relax into his fate. His arms and legs thrashed and trembled wildly as his windpipe clogged with blood from his ruptured organs. The boy clung to his shoulder with one hand and Vincent pressed with all his might. He was at sea again, in the rage of a storm, clinging to his young son with all his might. As the waves crashed into him over and over until they broke his grip and took his little boy from him again, Vincent let go. Then he realized two things; he’d let go of his hold on the pillow and Pietro was serenely still, and he had a gun pressed to the back of his head.
The men’s voices were just sounds to him. Background noise as if from a television set he’d forgotten was there for all these years. He knew not, nor cared, what the voices were saying. He got the gist soon enough anyhow as they punched and kicked him to the floor. At the sharp impact of a gun butt against his lips, the taste of his own blood was like salt water rushing into his mouth. He savored the flavor of an eternal ocean he was ready to slip into, ready to sleep forever until the waves delivered him to his boy. His child would be waiting for him cold in the currents with his little arms floating limp like a puppet’s awaiting their strings, the strong, comforting arms of his father. He wanted it more than anything, but a dark shape battered against his eyelids. He recognized the shape, spiteful and ugly as a wolf fish—Chief of Security Fowler. The security man was older and heavier, tired somehow. Sure, the hair was thinning and wrinkles were etching their testimony into the flesh around his eyes, but this was unmistakably his jailer. The very same man who had been keeping him prisoner all these years. He heard Fowler’s voice through the fog of violence in his ears, every syllable a month spent in exile, every word a year apart from his beloved Susanna, a year in mourning for his dead son. Fowler barked loudly and a heavy blow knocked him unconscious taking the very light from his eyes.
Questions. So many questions. Vincent had been very confused when he woke from his dream to find himself tied to his chair. It was a lot less comfortable in this position. And with the lumpy old cushion taken away, now it was just a chair. They’d found the American girl’s computer gizmo behind the service hatch below of course, and Fowler was busily rattling off a tedious list of idiotic questions about it. What the hell did he know about computers, an old man like him? They could see he only had books and papers here, and most of those had turned greener than envy. A “canker” Fowler had called it, Jessie’s laptop. A canker in a hedgerow of wires, ready to be pulled out. Vincent laughed and spat saltwater from his teeth and said whatever, I don’t know a damned single thing you’re asking me and probably never will neither. All I have is this godforsaken lighthouse and the ghost ships that circle it. Which is still a darn sight more than you’ll ever have you petrified, grizzled little bastard. At that, Fowler had shrieked like a horse and flew back downstairs to give his men some grief while they toiled over the damn fool computer like it was a hot griddle. Vincent laughed and laughed, then looked down at what they’d done to his fingernails, all peeled back like petals. She loves me, she loves me not. Little petals on the floor. Oh where did you go my sweet, beautiful Susanna. Hot red petals hanging by a thread from his fingertips. Did you see our boy, did he brush pass you in the hallway? Did you feel his seaweed skin? Help me daddy. And then he passed out again with his brain all filled with blood. Help me son.