This was his chance to make a break for it. Wedging the door barely open with one of his socks — so he could rush back in if he felt the need — he turned right down the hallway. When he reached the end, there was a metal door on the left.
Again with great caution, he shoved it open. It was a narrow staircase that only led up. McRae climbed the stairs to the top, where there was a small landing and another door.
But this one had a window.
It was the first time in a month that McRae had been able to look at the world outside his confines, and he could barely believe the view.
It was water. He was at sea. This was a boat. An enormous boat.
It all suddenly made sense: the motion he sometimes felt was from the waves, but only at the rare times when they got large enough to actually rock a boat that size; the rumble of the engine, which he thought was some kind of generator, had actually been powering the boat on its journey.
He opened the door and stepped out onto a narrow corridor that ran along the outer part of the deck. On one side was the ship’s superstructure. On the other side were the waves, which were getting to be of the size that rocked the ship. He peered over the edge. It was a significant drop into the water, even though this was one of the lowest decks. He had half a thought to simply jump into the water. He was reasonably sure he could survive the fall.
But then what? He didn’t know where they were. Even though the air felt warm, the water could be cold. Even relatively warm ocean water could cause hypothermia within a few hours. He could see land, but only barely. It had to be at least ten miles away. He wasn’t that good a swimmer. Plus, there was that storm coming, the one he felt in his bones. He’d never last.
Maybe he could find a lifeboat. Or a smaller vessel attached to this boat — didn’t super-yachts have stuff like that? Maybe then he’d have a chance.
Or maybe he’d have to recognize he was a prisoner on this boat until someone decided to let him go. Or, more likely, kill him.
McRae scampered along the corridor until he reached another door. He turned in. This hallway was very different from the one he had been in before. His hallway, the one he had seen every day for a month now, was very plain, almost institutional for its lack of decoration. This one was lavishly adorned. There were paintings every few feet, little end tables with jewel-covered lamps, elaborate woodwork, gilded trim.
He turned blindly into one of the doors off the hallway. It was a guest room — one of many, given the size of this boat. He was about to turn out of the room and leave it when he spied an old-fashioned, rotary-style telephone, sitting on one of the desks.
Was it just another decoration or…
One way to find out. He picked it up. Sure enough, it had a dial tone. He stuck his finger in the 0 — the first number in the 011 he’d need to start an international call — and cranked it all the way around to the STOP. Remarkably, it returned not a series of clicks, like a rotary phone, but a beeping sound. Like a normal, modern touch-tone phone.
He kept dialing, getting almost feverish in his haste to complete the number. It was one he knew by heart, one he had dialed countless thousands of times, one that led him to a voice that was, to him, the sweetest in all the world.
The line went silent as faraway computers started making their efforts to connect two phone lines that were even more distant. After what felt like an infinite stretching of time, he heard a ringing.
“Hello?” said that dulcet voice. It was Alida. He was so choked with emotion, he could barely make himself reply.
“Honey, it’s me.”
“Billy?!?” she said, her volume rising. “Billy?!? Is that you? Oh my God, oh my God!”
She was crying. He was, too. They had, during their forty-five years of marriage, never gone a day without talking. Now, after a month of not communicating, neither could push out a single syllable.
Finally, William overcame the lump with a torrent of words: “I love you. I’ve missed you so much and no matter what happens, I want you to know you were the most wonderful part of my life. Being married to you has been the best thing I’ve ever done. And if I don’t make it back, I want you to know that I loved you right until the very last breath I took. And if there is something after that, the first thing I’ll do when I get there is to start loving you all over again, you hear? Do you hear me Alida May McRae? I love you.”
She was sobbing now. Whatever effort she was making at a reply wasn’t coming out as words.
“Also, I want you to remarry. I don’t want you to be some sad widow who lives the rest of her life alone. Keep my picture somewhere and look at it every now and then. But not on your nightstand, you hear? I don’t want you to be pining away for ol’ Billy McRae. I’ve had a great life with you, and that’s enough. But even if mine ends, yours has to go on. You’ve got a lot of good years left. I want you to find a new guy who treats you really well and takes care of you the way I should have. I’m so sorry, Alida May. I’m so sorry this happened. I miss you so much. And the thought that I’ll never get to see you again is—”
“Billy, stop with that talk,” Alida said, now that she had finally been able to control her breathing. “Where are you? We’re going to get you out of there.”
“I don’t know. I’m on a boat somewhere. It’s a very large boat, like a cruise ship but without other passengers. Listen, that doesn’t matter. I’ve got something else to say that’s very important. You have to get out of the house. These men who have kidnapped me, they’re watching you all the time. They’re taking pictures of you. They say they’re going to hurt you if I don’t do exactly as they say. So you have to run. Go to the police station or the FBI or whatever. Just make sure you’ve gone somewhere safe and that no one is following you, you hear?”
“I will, Billy, I will. But now you listen to me. A man came asking about you. His name was Derrick Storm. He called himself a contractor for the government, but I got the sense he was…something more than that. He promised me he’d find you. Just tell me where you are and I’ll let him know. He’ll rescue you.”
“You don’t understand,” William said. “They snatched me while I was jogging and then they drugged me and took me somewhere. They’ve been keeping me in rooms without windows. I managed to escape my room, but…I didn’t even know I was on a boat until just now. So I’m on a boat in a body of water, but I can’t even tell you what body of water.”
“Please, Billy. You have to try. Can you see land? Is there a city with a skyline you recognize or maybe some kind of landmark or something?”
William looked out the window, his eyes scanning the distant shoreline. It was so far away, he couldn’t really see any of the structures. There were some cliffs. Some other spots were treelined. He more just had a sense that land was there. But it could be California or England or…
“Wait!” he said, having to suppress the urge to shout. “Yes, yes I see something, it’s…My God, I think that’s the Rock of Gibraltar. Yes, yes, it is. I swear, that’s it. We’re in the Mediterranean, in the Strait of Gibraltar, maybe ten miles from the coast. South of the Rock of Gibraltar. Does that help?”
“Yes, it does. Oh, Billy, we’re going to get you home. And when we do, I’m going to hold you forever and never let you—”
“Someone’s coming,” he cut her off. “I love you.”
And then he hung up. He ran through the bedroom, into the bathroom. But he could already hear the bedroom door opening. Out of the scores of rooms on this boat, how did they know he was in this one?
The cameras. They must have seen him on one of the monitors in the hallway and known exactly where to look. He just hoped that they didn’t know he had used his time in the room to call Alida. He didn’t want to put her in any more jeopardy than she was already in.