Chapter 66 - The Sirens of Blackwood Sound
I tore the transponder out of the hinge with the tip of my pocketknife. It was no larger than a grain of corn, encased in black resin, warm to the touch.
I didn't throw it into the sea. If the signal dropped into thirty feet of water, they would know they were compromised.
Instead, I took the spare fuel bladder from the Whaler—five gallons of high-octane outboard mix—and carried it through the rotted timber foundation beneath the quarantine shed. The crawlspace was a labyrinth of dry-rotted cedar pilings, cobwebs, and decades of dried cordgrass.
I dumped the fuel across the center piles, soaked an old cotton canvas tarp, and wedged the transponder deep into the center of the soaked timber.
Then I returned to Julian.
"Can you crawl?" I asked, my voice low and urgent.
He opened his eyes, the fever burning behind his pupils, but he saw the look in my face and nodded once. "If I have to."
"You have to."
I got my shoulder under his good arm again, hauling him through the back hatch of the quarantine station into the freezing drizzle. We didn't head toward the water; we headed up the slippery, pine-needle slope toward the granite spine of Sentinel Bluff.
The mud tried to claim us with every step. My boots sank six inches into the black coastal silt, the suction popping like miniature rifle shots as we climbed. Julian’s breath came in ragged, wheezing sobs, his weight pressing down on me until my knees threatened to buckle, but I kept my eyes fixed on the silhouette of an old observation bunker at the summit—a concrete relic left over from the coastal artillery batteries of the Second World War.
Halfway up the ridge, the sound of low-pitch outboards vibrated through the fog.
The Zodiacs had entered the cove.
I pulled Julian down behind a thicket of bayberry bushes, holding my hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing. Below us, through the shifting veils of grey mist, two black rubber raiding craft slid up against the quarantine pier.
Four men in dark tactical gear stepped onto the wood, moving with silent, terrifying efficiency. They carried short-barreled carbines equipped with suppressors, their night-vision goggles glowing faintly green against their helmets.
And behind them, stepping carefully onto the slippery boards with the aid of a walking stick, came Arthur Vance.
Hannah walked beside him, clutching her coat around her shoulders, shivering so violently her teeth were chattering audibly across thirty yards of cold air.
"Search the shed," Arthur commanded, his voice carrying clearly on the damp wind. "The transponder shows the package is stationary under the deck. Grab the ledger, secure Clara, and put a round through Julian’s head. We have forty minutes before the tide turns."
"Grandfather, wait," Hannah whimpered, grabbing his sleeve. "You said... you said you wouldn't hurt her! You said we were just going to make her sign the papers!"
Arthur stopped. He turned slowly, looking down at Hannah with an expression of such clinical disgust that even she took a half-step back, her heels catching on the pier planking.
"Hannah," he said quietly, "you have spent twenty-four years being an exquisite ornament. Your mother spent sixty thousand dollars on your debutante ball, and another hundred thousand on a wedding to a boy who ran off with his paralegal. You have never created a single dollar of value in your life."
Hannah stared at him, her face completely pale. "What... what are you saying?"
"I am saying that Clara was useful," Arthur said coldly, turning his back on her to watch the shed. "Clara had spine. Clara had the intellect of a Vance, even if she had the pathetic moral sentimentality of her mother. You, Hannah, are merely an expense. And now that Clara has forced my hand into the open, expenses must be liquidated."
"Arthur!" she gasped, her voice climbing in pitch. "I'm your granddaughter!"
"And Clara is my granddaughter," he replied without looking back. "Yet here we are."
The tactical team kicked open the rusted door of the quarantine shed, their weapons raised, tactical lights sweeping the interior.
"Clear!" one shouted. "Target not inside! Box is under the decking!"
"Retrieve it," Arthur ordered.
From our hiding spot in the bayberries, sixty feet up the bluff, I pulled the flare gun I had salvaged from the Whaler out of my belt. The heavy brass casing was cold against my palm. I raised it, rested the barrel over a wet granite boulder, and aimed directly at the fuel-soaked pilings beneath the quarantine station floor.
"Happy twenty-fifth birthday to me," I whispered.
May you like
I pulled the trigger.
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