David Barclay

The Aeschylus

For Norm,

My first and best critic

Prologue

Stockholm, Sweden:

December, 1938

The concert hall doors swung open, and a cloaked figure came striding into the cold. Scowling, Max watched the newcomer approach, sensing his moment of peace and quiet was at an end.

“Do you have a cigarette?” the man asked.

After a brief internal debate, Max turned and offered one without a word.

The man glanced at the package. “Reemtsma. I've never had these.”

At this, Max could only grunt. He didn't know who the stranger was or what he expected, but he'd find no Gauloises or Marlboros here, no cheap French or American rubbish. These past few months, even something as banal as one's choice in cigarettes could be considered politic.

“My thanks, old-timer.”

Max was an old man, and like most old men, he didn't like being disturbed. He didn't like crowds, or speeches, or the smoky confines of the concert hall. He didn't care for chatter, either. He was about to say something to this effect when applause erupted behind them, and the muffled sounds of the audience came tumbling through the walls. Max opened his mouth and stopped. It was too cold for conversation anyway, too damned cold. He'd been to Stockholm in winter only once, and at the time, he swore he'd never come back. But he found he couldn't say no to the Nobel committee, and Ada had always wanted to see Scandinavia. And so here he was now, stuck beneath the concert hall frieze with a man who didn't know what a German cigarette was.

“I suppose Fermi's speech is over. You know the laureate, don't you? I'd heard you two were friends,” the man said.

“Do I know you?”

“We've never met.”

Max snorted. He should have stayed inside, but old habits died hard. At seven years old, he couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes at a time, and at nearly seventy, it was much the same. “What do you want?”

The figured stepped into the shadow of a nearby column, and Max felt a sudden chill. There was something calculating in the man's eyes, something prescient, and when he gestured to the parking lot with a gloved hand, Max couldn't help but look. A pair of men strolled across the lot in front of them, chatting animatedly in tones too quiet to hear. They walked past the veranda and disappeared into the evening fog.

“You have about nine minutes.”

“Excuse me?”

“They made you, those two in the long coats. They thought no one had seen them, but if you know what to look for, they're almost impossible to miss.”

Max dropped his smoldering butt to the ground. “What do you mean, 'nine minutes?'”

“They're just about to inform their commander you're here at the awards ceremony and that you've been positively identified. They will probably also tell him that you're lingering in the open, here.”

Max tried to laugh but succeeded only in coughing. If this was a joke, it wasn't funny. “Who are you?”

“My name isn't important, but if you like, you can call me Matthew. And I'm afraid this isn't a joke. Those two men are German secret police, and if you don't listen very carefully, they will kill you.” He paused again. “You now have about eight and a half minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“Their commander is in the park across the street. It's about a five minute walk to get there, and I figure it will take them less time to get back.”

“No, I mean… how do you know about… me?”

Matthew shook his head impatiently. “Oh please. You're Max Feldt. Sixty-eight years old. Married to Ada Feldt, maiden name Ada Sokoltzky, for forty-two years. You met on the green lawn at the university in Poznan in 1897. She is a house maid. You are a physicist. You have published thirteen articles, two books, and continue to lecture in spite of your recent retirement. You are a personal friend of tonight's laureate, and you are most famously quoted as saying that, for the first time in history, the new direction of science will lead to more suffering than salvation. And,” he added slowly, “we have a mutual friend, you and I. A friend headed to Monkeberg harbor in two days time.” He held up his hands as if to say, “are you satisfied?”

He was.

“You're… you're sure?”

“Those men will be back. They're young, all of them, and they have guns. The man they're bringing will not give you a chance to go home. Ever.” Max stumbled, but Matthew caught him. “You need to leave now and get to the river. A boat is waiting to take you across, but it won't linger. Do you hear me?”

“Ye… yes.”

“You will walk north through Haymarket until you reach the underground tram. It's under construction and abandoned, for the time being. You will follow the tunnels due east until you reach the first security door, just before the split. You will travel up the stairs. There will be a man at the top who will take you to the boat. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“His name will be Abraham. When he asks you what your name is, you will answer 'Isaac.' Repeat it.”

He did.

“Good. Now go, there's no more time to waste.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

The other smiled, his paper-thin mustache bunching to one side. “Come on, Max. Do I look one of the chosen people to you?”

The older man stared at the other, and finally, he understood. “And Ada?”

For the first time, the calm disappeared from Matthew's face. “I'm sorry, Max. The plan only allows for you. We will look after her here, I promise.”

“I'm not leaving my wife.”

“We had no time. With more preparation, maybe…” He let the sentence hang.

Max took a step back, his mind swirling with a thousand horrible plausibilities. He felt a thump, his old ticker lurching in his chest. For the first time in some years, he felt withered, hoary. “I'm not leaving my wife,” he repeated. He looked over Matthew's shoulder into the fog, and though his eyes had started to fail long ago, he could already see shapes moving in that gray miasma. “You can take your plan and shove it up your ass. There's still time!”

“Max! Max, come back here!”

But the old man was already past him, stumbling through the concert hall doors. The crowd was swelling into the atrium as he entered, dozens of stuffy old bodies flocking into conversation cliques. The ceremony was over now, and that was good. Max might be able to find Ada and slip out in the clamor. When he scanned the crowd, however, he found he couldn't make out a single face. Everyone looked the same. For a terrible moment, he thought they were the same, the black tuxedos and evening gowns transformed into the black, flowing coats of the Gestapo in his mind. Then he took a deep breath, and he saw her.

Ada.

She was there with her friends, the lot of them clustered around the night's second winner, Pearl Buck. Max knew almost nothing of literature and now, wondered if he ever would. He pushed his way to his wife and kissed her, grabbing her about the waist.

One of the women next to them gave a start. “My, my. You are full of surprises tonight, aren't you Max?”

Ada stood back, her face red. The dress she was wearing had not been a good fit, and she had been self-conscious all night. “Well, I guess I just don't know what to say to that. Where have you been?”

Max straightened, then pulled his wife into the ruffles of his coat. “Do you trust me?”

“What is it?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked again.

“Of course I do.”

“Then you need to come with me now.”

“But… now?”

He nodded. “Right now.”

For the first time, Max turned to the onlookers. “Excuse us.”

As he began to lead her away, Ada's friend called after. “Don't you two do anything I wouldn't do, now. You're not as young as you used to be!”

Max pushed into the grain of the crowd, dragging Ada into the open stage auditorium. Cutting past the lingering staff, Max led his wife towards the side door. From there, he knew they could get out quickly.

“Max! Where are you going? Do you know they're about to start the banquet?”

He pushed on.

“Stop it, damn you!” she yelled, finally pulling free. “I am not going another step until you tell me what this is about.”

Max stopped and appraised her, suddenly unsure of what to do. It was the first time he could remember her using such language in front of him. But then, this was turning into a night of firsts all around. He had time only to think they had led such a quiet life. In spite of his traveling, they had dined, and danced, and been to the market near their little house every week for almost forty years. He had bought her shoes and scarves on Saturdays. He had the sinking feeling that was all about to end, now. When his friend had asked for the favor, Max had not believed anyone would really come looking.

“They know about Dominik, Ada.”

“What?”

“I don't know how, but they know. They found out about him and they followed us here, where no one can protect us. We have to get out.”

“How?”

“I met someone we will have to trust.” Then, he added, “And you'll have to trust me.”

She resisted for one moment more, and then she gave herself to the run. They entered the maintenance hall at a gallop. Pipes lay exposed in the walls, huge electrical boxes lining the concrete. A man in gray worker's fatigues looked bewildered as they passed, yelling at them in Swedish. Seconds later, they reached the loading bay door and plunged outside into the cold.

“Max!” Ada cried. “Max, you're hurting me!”

As he looked down, he realized his knuckles were white, the thin sausages of her fingers squished between them. He let go and looked up, and that's when he saw them: three men in suits by the parking area. Their leader was a fat, bald man with a cruel face, his hair receding along the sides of his ears.

Max turned the corner, galloping into the market square with Ada in tow. Not a single other soul lay in sight. When Max pushed aside the wooden signs barring the entrance to the underground tram, no one stopped him.

His wife stumbled, and he had to catch her. “Take off your shoes. God, why didn't you do that before?” He hated the sound of his own voice, but it had to be said. They had to keep running, and fast. When he looked at her again, barefoot and terrified, he was alarmed to see tears in her eyes. He wiped one away and kissed her cheek. “Now is not the time, love.”

Sixty-eight years.

Sixty-eight years of clean living jeopardized for a single decision. Staring into the darkness, holding Ada, he didn't even know if it had been the right one any more.

The room before them was dark, illuminated only by ring lights around the distant train tunnels. The station had only been closed for a few days, but looking through the cold and the darkness, it might have been sealed for centuries. A set of iron fencing had been left open for the construction crews, and Max pulled Ada through, approaching the ledge of the first platform. Tools lay scattered about the edge, and as he helped her down to the tracks, she fell into his arms with a cry.

Behind them, he saw flashlights. Voices spoke hurriedly to each other in German. They had not been seen yet, but they had been heard. Ada had been heard.

Then, Max saw what he was looking for, a service tunnel door with a pale bulb overhead. The door had been left unlocked and cracked. Geysers of relief began to wash over him in great, white waves. No matter what manner of man this Matthew was, he was not a liar. He hoisted his wife through the door and shut it behind them. They were facing a staircase of sorts, this one leading up at a steep, narrow angle. Beyond the shadows at the top, he could see the gray promise of sky.

My name is Isaac, he thought. The man at the top will be Abraham, and I will answer, 'My name is Isaac.'

“What?” Ada asked.

Max realized he had been mumbling. “Nothing! Hurry, love!”

As soon as he turned his head, he heard a wet, clunking sound.

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

Something rolled down the steps and hit his foot. He jumped, his heart hammering. The thing beneath him was a man, or more properly, had been a man. Through the peels of hair, Max could see a piece of skull missing from the back of its head. If he had looked down a moment sooner, before the body rolled, he would have seen the corresponding entrance wound in the man's left eye, but mercifully, he did not.

His feet felt rooted to the spot. His lips could not move to shout. Beside him, Ada froze, her mouth hanging open as if she were an image in a photograph.

The spell did not break when the door opened behind them. It did not even break when the bald, shadowed figure at the top of the stairs began descending towards them.

All at once, Max heard himself speak. “My name is Isaac.”

The figure smashed him on the head with the butt of a light stick, and he toppled downwards, rolling past the Germans and coming to rest directly next to the body at the foot of the stairs.

“That was eins,” the figure said, pointing to the corpse, “and this is zwei,” he said, pointing to Ada. “Are we clear?”

Max nodded, his vision blurring.

“And now you will tell me everything there is to know about Dominik Kaminski and where he is headed.”

“Yes,” the old man said. “I will.”

The answers came tumbling and hurtling from his mouth like vomit. They were the last words he would utter upon this earth.

Chapter 1: Inheritance

Fairfax, Virginia:

Present Day

1

The old man was finally gone.

Kate looked down at her father's headstone, and all she could think about was how disappointed he would have been to know it had cost the state thirteen thousand dollars. It brought a smile to her lips, bitter but welcome. “Never waste a dime on anything that doesn't come back to you, pumpkin,” he had told her on more than one occasion. “Don't end up like your mother, all goosy with the credit cards.” And he had smiled and patted her head, even when she grew up and gained an inch on him, even when her mother was long gone. That was her dad, full of an endearing sort of rage when he thought he knew best. Maybe all dads were like that.

Remembering that was funny now, in a way. But it was better than remembering what he looked like in the last twelve hours, stuck in a hospital bed with tubes running in and out of his body, two dozen idiots crowded around trying to get a word in edgewise.

The press had been kind in the wake of his passing, however, and that was unexpected. The Times was calling him “The Most Powerful Vice President since Dick Cheney,” whatever that meant, but the tone was complimentary. All of his greatest accomplishments had been described in Sunday's edition, complete with dates and photos. Of course, she and her brother were missing from that list. She guessed that when you clawed your way to the top of the political food chain, your family became the equivalent of set dressing: necessary for esthetic appeal, but hardly worth talking about in matters of business.

“You never would have told us that, even if you knew it was true. Right, Dad?”

She blushed when she realized she had spoken aloud. And maybe that wasn't fair. He had always made time for her and Bobby, even after the last election. She supposed some girls would have been thrilled to be a part of it, just to see inside the most famous political building in the world, but Kate had always taken it in stride. It was her brother who had jumped into the life, moving from one high-profile job to the next, ending up as one of the top security analysts in D.C.

Bobby had only been to the hospital once before the old man died. That was typical, though he had loved their father as much as she. He was just unavailable. She was sure he was out about town at this very moment, dealing with things in his own way. With his friends, drinking, probably face down in his favorite Chinatown whorehouse. She wondered if she just didn't understand men.

Her cell phone rang, and she jumped. She thought about ignoring it, but she couldn't hide forever.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Katelyn. Can you talk?”

Out of all the people in the world, her godfather was the only person to call her by her full name. She hated it. “What's up, Godfried?”

“Listen, I just got back into town. There's something we need to talk about. Can you come by?”

She sighed. “Can I ask what it's about?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“You'd rather not say, and I'd rather not listen.”

He paused on the other end, and she could imagine his brow furrowing. “All right, it's about your… let's call it your inheritance. I know this is doesn't seem like the time, but trust me, we should speak today.”

“The reading was two days ago, Godfried. If you forgot something—”

“This is important,” he said, cutting her off. “It wasn't something we could talk about before. This is an addendum for your eyes only.”

“An addendum?”

“Your father added it only a week ago. His instructions were very clear. He said it was only to be shown to you, and only after his burial was complete. Since that was this morning, I figured now would be the best time.” Another pause. “He was very clear.”

She adjusted the left strap on her dress and shivered. Too skimpy for the weather, it was the only black dress she owned. “Only me?”

“It's not for Robert, not for former staff, hell not even for me. But it's important. Can you come?”

“Look, Godfried.” What kind of excuse could she give? She was all out. “Now's not the best time. Can we—”

“I've already sent Lance out with the chopper. He should be at your apartment in a few minutes.”

That was typical. That was, in fact, exactly why he and her dad had gotten along so well: no goddamned patience. “I'm not at the apartment. I'm still at the cemetery.”

“The cemetery? What are you doing there?”

“I don't know, do I have to come now?”

“I'll let Lance know. See you in twenty.”

He hung up.

She thought about skipping town and taking a cab back to the city, but if Lance showed up and she wasn't there, Godfried would have the National Guard in play by nightfall. If she humored him one last time, she might actually get home before dark, and that was a nice thought. The cemetery here was amazingly green, the well-kept lawn broken every twenty feet or so by trees and flowers. The church, an old brick Protestant job on the eastern end, fit perfectly into the rural landscape. You couldn't even hear the highway from the center of the place. Kate missed this kind of scenery; she hadn't lived in Virginia since she was a little girl, not since her mother had been alive.

Five minutes later, the image broke as a helicopter appeared overhead, buzzing and whirring its way onto the field. She walked towards it, pushing into the wind as the rounded metal monstrosity dipped into view. This would mark the eleventh time she'd flown in one. Two of the previous eleven times, she'd thrown up, and she prayed this wouldn't be the third. On a day like today, she just couldn't take any more.

2

When they touched down on the helipad in Alexandria a few minutes later, she couldn't wait to get out. Lance the pilot was one of Godfried's old Naval Academy crewman, aged enough to be her grandfather, but he still kept stealing glances at her legs every chance he got. Most days, Kate didn't know if she was good looking any more, but she thought she kept herself up all right. “You look good enough to eat, honey,” her friend Miranda liked to tell her. “Fuck thirty-seven. You look twenty-seven, and you know it.” Most days, that was well and good, but when you were trapped a thousand feet in the air with an old goat like Lance, that attitude was a curse. At times like those, she'd be perfectly happy being a cow.

As she stepped out onto the lawn, she found herself wishing for the hundredth time that she was in jeans. When she was a kid, the only time she wore anything different was on the grass in a field hockey game. Girls who played hockey were not the pink dress wearing sort. Only the black dress wearing sort, she thought grimly.

The estate — her godfather's place could never be called anything so plebeian as a mansion — had its own helipad, as well as its own Olympic swimming pool, garden, and statuary. It was within walking distance of Belle Haven Country Club, “One of the finest health spas south of D.C., my dear,” if you were impressed by that sort of thing. The house itself was a squat, two-story 19th Century Georgian style manor, but not without charm. She'd spent enough time running around the grounds as a child to know that.

Collin MacNab, the estate's head of security, appeared at the end of the green and waved. He was an old man himself now, but unlike her grody pilot, Collin was charming and, as far as Kate was concerned, harmless. As always, he tried to look the stern security guard, and as always, he couldn't help but slip into a smile.

He nodded. “I thought you might not come.”

“I didn't think I had a choice. You know Godfried when he wants something.”

“There's always a choice, girly,” MacNab said, walking her up the back steps. “There aren't many places to hide when the man comes looking though. I got called back from vacation enough times to know that.”

“I didn't think security guys were allowed vacation, Nabby.”

He reddened a little at the nickname. Always did, even after twenty-five years. “Sometimes Mister Grace felt that way, I think.”

“I could always hide in the hedges.”

“If you're referring to the incident—”

“Where I disappeared?”

“Where we had to send the state police to find you,” he finished, reaching the top and opening the French doors, “I wouldn't recommend it.”

She shrugged. “It worked when I was eleven!”

“And what happened when they found you?”

“Dad grounded me,” she said. “And I got a whipping,” she added miserably.

“Don't think the man is above that now just because your daddy's gone.”

He put a hand on her back and walked her inside. The view from the back door always made her feel like she was entering a library. Not the pleasant kind from your local middle school, but a vast, towering maze from the imagination of Umberto Eco. The lower level glowed with the pulse of an orange fire set back in the den. Spiral stairs with carved handrails led up to the second floor mezzanine on either end of the room. And on all sides, top floor and bottom, were shelves and shelves of books. Most were of the dusty and parched variety only a lawyer could find interesting, and Godfried Grace was a lawyer's lawyer, but there were shelves full of classics too. A fine collector, the good man of the house.

“He's waiting for you in his study,” Collin said.

Kate left him at the foot of the stairs and ascended to the second floor. She was greeted by Chester, her godfather's big golden lab. She gave him a quick pat on the head, and he drooled appreciatively. Chester was twelve now, nearly thirteen, and it showed. He was a little better off than George the dalmatian, however, who was laying grumpily in the corner. When she waved at him, he raised his head and then promptly went back to sleep.

“Well, at least one of you is glad to see me,” she said, finding the hall that led back to the office. Walking through almost made her glad she didn't have much money. Most of her father's inheritance had gone to her brother, and she hadn't made much as an executive assistant, even one who worked for a company as big as Valley Oil. She liked the place enough, but she thought she would go nuts living in it. It was too stale, too empty. And no place for kids, when you got right down to it. But aren't you getting a little old to think about kids, Kate?

She shook her head. What the hell was she thinking? If she had a place like this and didn't like it, she could always sell it and trade it in for something she did like. So yeah, almost glad she didn't own it was about right.

Kate found the door at the end of the hall and knocked.

A muffled voice: “Come in.”

She pushed the door open and entered her godfather's office. As always, it felt more cramped than it really was, in part due to the smells: shoe leather and papyrus and old man musk.

“Hello, Godfried. How was your trip?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Where's your escort?”

Straight to business, that one.

“I sent them away.”

“What?”

Kate stepped inside. “Come on, Godfried. I don't need bodyguards. You and I both know that.”

“I know no such thing.” He shuffled around the desk and gave her a hug. She noticed with some amusement that he was wearing a designer blue bathrobe that looked like it cost more than her dress. Godfried had never shared her father's views on fashion and frugality.

“You don't just send away a security detail, Katelyn. Are they outside? Are they watching?”

“Well, 'sent them away' might be a bit of a stretch. I sort of gave them the slip this afternoon.”

He stared at her, then broke into rattling, old-man laughter. “Gave them the slip? Whatever for?”

“I guess I needed to be alone for a while. It's not like they were looking too hard. I was back at the cemetery for the better part of an hour when you called.”

He shook his head and put one hand on his hip. “Christ Almighty, Katelyn, you are your father's daughter. Gave them the slip, indeed. How many young women do you think could have done that?”

“I don't know. Why don't you tell me?”

“All the wits of a CIA operative, and here you are still working as a secretary.”

“I'm not a secretary, I'm an—”

“Executive assistant, I know,” he finished.

“That's actually not true either now,” she said, looking at him slyly. “I got a new job.”

“Really? Where?”

“Same place. But I'm not an EA any more. I'm a media relations executive, and I have my own assistant. What? You're making fun of me now,” she said, noticing the glimmer in his eyes.

“Yes, I admit, I know all about it. And you've earned it. It doesn't look good to have the smart girl working for the dumb ones, does it?”

“Are you still going to harp on me for not moving up the corporate ladder fast enough?”

“Oh no. But you could have moved faster with my connections, if you weren't so stubborn to ignore them. All of that is meaningless now, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sit down, dear.” He shuffled back behind his desk and took a seat, watching as she grabbed the chair across from him. He smiled. It was a grandfatherly smile, but it was impossible for Godfried not to look crafty when he showed his teeth. He had too much Clint Eastwood in him.

“What's all this about, Godfried?”

The old man reached into a bowl on the side of his desk and took out a peanut. He cracked it in his gnarled hands and nodded. “Tell me what you think of Valley Oil, Katelyn. I'm not interested in the public relations nonsense, mind you. I just want to know what you think of us personally.”

She frowned. Godfried was one of her father's oldest friends, but he was also a significant shareholder. He was also on the board of directors. He had also given her a personal recommendation when more qualified candidates were spilling over the brim.

“I don't know. To tell you the truth, I never really thought about it. I love my job. I'm grateful for it. But the company itself? The most I could tell you is that I'm impressed by them, and that's the truth.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, they have the fourth largest market share of gasoline on the west coast, and they're still growing. They've got the best ad campaign of all the big oil companies right now. Their slogan is catchy,” she said, picturing the green and yellow outline of their stations, the words Drive through the green Valley printed above their pumps. She waited for Godfried to respond, and when he didn't, she picked up a peanut shell and threw it at him. He didn't return her smile this time.

“That's good, dear. Your loyalty is good. Because we have a problem now, and damned if I've ever heard of anything like it.”

“You're killing me,” she said, only half sarcastic. “If you need someone in public relations to—”

“This isn't about our image,” Godfried said. He was angry now, and she withdrew, surprised. “This is something serious, my dear. You'll be hearing the particulars soon enough, but it starts here, with this.” He withdrew a manila envelope out of his desk and passed it across to her. “He wanted you to have this.”

When she took the envelope, her hands were shaking. She didn't know why, but a darkness had descended upon the room. She could feel it in the envelope's weight, in the intensity of her godfather's stare.

She unhinged the clasp, and the contents spilled to the floor. Could there be a letter from him? The news of some scandal, or some heart-felt confession about the company? It turned out to be neither.

“Pictures,” she whispered.

“Satellite images, photographs, blueprints. Do you know what they're from?”

“They're from Aeschylus.”

The Aeschylus Platform had been one of the largest public relations pitches handled by Kate's department in the past two years. She had only been an EA when the campaign was heating up, but information about the project had percolated through the office months in advance. Deep in the south Atlantic, the two-point-two billion dollar platform was Valley Oil's crowning jewel, an engineering marvel made possible by VO's acquisition of several sub-sea drilling companies in the preceding decade. At the time, its construction was a large financial gamble, but The Aeschylus, as well as several smaller platforms to the north, were supposed to escalate VO's yield by three hundred thousand barrels per day. The real problem, however, was that VO had to go to extreme lengths to satisfy the Protocol on Environmental Protection for Antarctica since they were located only a few hundred miles north of solid land. In many respects, the real audience of the marketing campaign had not been the general public, who cared as little about where their oil came from as the cows on their dinner plates, but the U.N. And the U.N. was not a force that could be lobbied, greased, or otherwise moved in the way other businesses could. In the end, Argentina, who would receive a huge economic boost through sub-contracted labor on the platform's construction, helped win international approval, but it took months.

“Have you seen these?” she asked.

“No, but, after hearing the news from my contacts this evening, I'm not surprised.”

“What news? What are you talking about, Godfried?”

“All communication from the platform has ceased. They suspect some kind of terrorist attack, something like that. I don't know the details.”

“Jesus! Is the military—”

“No one knows about this, Katelyn. In fact, not even I'm supposed to know. They're holding an emergency board meeting tomorrow morning, and you're going to be there.”

“Me? Are they looking for a way to spin this?”

“You're not going as an executive, dear.”

“What do you mean, I'm not going as an executive? What are you getting at, old man?”

“Relax, dear. Have a seat.” She hadn't even realized she had gotten to her feet and pushed her butt back down, embarrassed. “You forget the reason I called you here. Your inheritance, remember?”

The reading had been two days ago, and she could barely recall any of it. She vaguely remembered getting the deed to her father's Mercedes, the family china, and a few knick-knacks. Bobby had gotten the condo on Independence Avenue, their summer home in Connecticut, the yacht and the jet skis on the Chesapeake pier, the other cars, and various other items he seemed to appreciate. The liquid cash had all gone to his favorite charities since the family didn't need it, and his positions on various committees and boards were already being filled. Mensa would probably be honoring him with a chess dinner, or whatever those types did.

“I don't care about the assets,” she said.

Her godfather's stony visage cracked, and he looked amused again. “Really?”

“I loved my father, Godfried. I'm not going to squabble over the scraps. And what does all this have to do with an emergency at the platform?”

“You do know your father was a board member, correct? He still had many friends at the company, which is where he came by those images, I'm sure.”

“Oh yes, I remember. I always figured you had the bigger influence, though.”

Godfried chuckled. “He was the largest shareholder in the country, Katelyn. He had twice the pull that I do. I know my position on the board offers me a lot of leverage, but at the end of the day, everyone answers to the shareholders.” Godfried was staring now, his green eyes burrowing into her. “The fact is, your father had a phenomenal stake. The fact is, most of his fortune came from Valley Oil before you and your brother were even born. Did you know that?”

Kate crossed her legs nervously. Her dress was too short, and she had to smooth down the hem with one hand. “And?”

“And he left it to you. His VO stock, I mean. Not to Robert and certainly not to me. To you. All of it.”

It took a moment for it to sink in. Kate stopped fidgeting with her dress and looked across the desk. “What?”

“Three hundred and eighty-three thousand, one hundred seventeen shares. I just looked up the share price while you were on your way in. It's sitting at eighty-four dollars a share. Do the math.”

“What?” she repeated.

And now Godfried really was smiling again, the crafty gunfighter showing through every crevice and age line. “You'll be at that meeting tomorrow not as an executive, but as the biggest oil shareholder in the country. In the meantime, I think it's best you let your security detail resume, don't you?”

“Do I… do I…” Whatever she wanted to know, she couldn't finish. Her whole body was trembling.

Godfried winked. “You're rich, sweetheart.”

3

Twelve hours later, Kate found herself on the top floor of Valley Oil's D.C. corporate offices. Imitation Victorian-era art lined the walls, statues decorated a nearby fountain, the rug beneath her feet probably cost as much as her car. It was oddly quiet, and oddly serene. If she closed her eyes, she could hear the gentle tap of the keyboard from the administrative receptionist, but that was all. The receptionist herself was a sculpted, bronzed figure, probably only a few years out of college. When Kate asked her name, she said, “My name? Oh! That's Merrie, dear. M-E-R-R-I-E, if you're interested,” though Kate wasn't.

She didn't have to wait long. An attractive man in his late forties strode past the reception desk and extended a hand to her just as she was getting comfortable. “Hello, Miss McCreedy. It's good to finally meet you in person.”

“Likewise, Mister Lucian.”

Michael Lucian was Valley Oil's head of international projects. Everything about the man was striking, from the sharp lines of his features to the colors he chose to accent his looks. His suit was a beautiful gray, the blue in his tie perfectly matching the blue in his eyes. The effect was planned but still disarming. Although Godfried had been keen to keep her inheritance a secret, now that the cat was out of the bag, it seemed everyone who was anyone at the company wanted to meet her.

“Please, call me 'Michael.'”

“Okay.”

“I was so sorry to hear about your father. He was a good man, and we'll miss him. It's terrible we have to meet under these circumstances.” He smiled sympathetically at her. It was the kind of smile that could charm investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars and, she reflected, probably had.

As Kate opened her mouth, the television switched on behind her. She hadn't even noticed it was there. CNN flashed a view inside Capitol Hill, a gruff-looking man behind a podium. She recognized him immediately as Jack Fields, an old ex-marine built like a battleship with a voice just as tinny. “It is with great humility, but great honor, that I rescind my position here and rise to aid my commander-in-chief. Though we can never replace a man that was as stalwart and steadfast as—”

“Sorry,” Merrie said behind them, hitting the Mute button on a remote.

Fields went on as the sound cut out, gesticulating in silence. Kate knew what the speech was about, of course. Two days ago, Jack Fields had been Speaker of the House. Today, he was Kate's father's replacement. Or perhaps replacement was a poor word; he was his successor. She had met Jack twice prior to her father's funeral, and the most she could say was that there were worse men for the job.

“My fault,” Merrie said. “I bumped the remote.”

Was that jealousy Kate saw in her eyes? Dream on, honey.

“No problem,” Michael said, unperturbed. Then to Kate, “This way.”

The first stop was his office which, if possible, was even larger and more lavishly decorated than the corporate reception room. Like her godfather, it seemed her newest acquaintance was a collector of books, and he had the shelves to prove it. Kate thought of her own office three floors below — a cluttered mess of stacked folders and field reports that looked more like a college dorm room than a place of employment — and felt a tinge of embarrassment.

He stopped just long enough to pick up the phone at his desk. “Yes, she's here. We're on our way down.”

When he hung up, Kate thought he looked nervous.

“I'm afraid things are a bit of a mess right now. My counterpart in Abu Dhabi wants us to get started immediately, and I don't blame him.”

“Get started?” Godfried had told her about the meeting, but with all the hubbub, it had almost slipped her mind. “Oh, right.”

“Walk with me. I'll try to get you up to speed.”

Michael led her down a stairwell, through another concatenation of expensive-looking offices. “As you can imagine, this could be a public relations nightmare. Not to mention what it's going to do to our stock once this gets out. And we're not going to be able to keep it from getting out much longer.”

Kate was trying to keep up with the details, but it was hard. Production stopped. Personnel missing. Disaster on the newest and most expensive platform ever owned by the company.

“So you coming into the fold is a bit fortuitous. We don't want to break this to our public relations department until later today, but you're of that department. So your insights would be greatly appreciated.”

“Hold on,” Kate said, stopping.

Michael stopped. For a moment — just a moment — his stolid demeanor cracked. “Sure. What's wrong?”

“I just… I want to know what's going on, here.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, moving his hand to her arm. She didn't want to feel comforted by it, but somehow, she did. “I didn't want to put so fine a point on it, Kate, but the truth is, we have a bit of a crisis on our hands. I would love to stop and talk to you about long-term company goals, and maybe we'll get a chance later, but this comes first. I apologize that this is all happening so quickly.”

“All right,” she said.

“Good. Now, we only need to stop at the security desk down here for a moment, then we'll go in.”

“The security desk?” Kate had never been to this floor, and moments later, she found herself face to face with another receptionist with a pen in hand.

Five minutes and three non-disclosure agreements later, Kate walked into a meeting room, this one large enough to accommodate forty people or more. It looked just under half full when she and Michael walked in.

For the umpteenth time that morning, Kate found herself flummoxed. The room was littered with heavy hitters from the company's executive board. Marie Sinclair, the senior vice president of the D.C. office. Larabe Johnson, the director of security. Talia Stroikavich, the reputed computer genius who headed VO's internal engineering department. Several others were clustered around the room's long meeting table, and she noticed that one man in particular didn't look like he belonged. Chiseled and square-jawed, his cut Valentino suit looked more like a disguise than a piece of wardrobe.

Once they were seated, Kate leaned over to Michael. “Who's that?”

“That's Mister Bruhbaker. He's one of the reasons we're here.”

“Does he work for Valley Oil?”

Michael shook his head. “He's from Black Shadow.”

Kate recoiled. Black Shadow was the second largest mercenary group operating in the U.S. With fingers branching into Afghanistan, Iraq, and the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, they were a multimillion dollar firm with a dozen government-sponsored contracts. And who else besides the government could afford a private military group with the best hardware in the world? Big oil, of course.

Her father had supported the private military in his days as a senator, but since the Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad and the reports of civilian casualties in Iraq, he and the president had only used them when absolutely necessary. “It's a sad thing when your own National Guard isn't enough, sweetie,” her father told her when they were watching the Katrina disaster in New Orleans on T.V. “But there's so much red tape. Sometimes it's faster to send in someone from the private sector. And they have skills. As much as I hate to say it, ex-Navy SEALs and Rangers kick the tar out of the weekend warriors we have in the Reserve. But I wouldn't send them anywhere they have to make moral judgments. Some guys would, but not me. Money clouds things, and that's why these guys do what they do: money.”

A skinny man in a white suit jacket pulled down a projector screen at the end of the room and waved his hands at the congregation. “Please. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can take your seats, we can get started.”

Kate watched as the remaining staff found their places at the oval table. She got a few puzzled looks, but no one questioned her. No one, that was, until a female executive sat down next to her. “Who are you?” she asked rudely.

“McCreedy. Katelyn McCreedy.” She realized she had used her proper name and wrinkled her nose.

“Are you new to the company?”

“Why?”

The woman cocked her head. “I'm just not used to seeing junior executives at a board meeting. You must be someone special.”

She was about to say something else when she was interrupted by a laugh.

The big man with the square jaw had taken a seat within earshot and was chuckling to himself. “She's the vice president's daughter, Nina. Don't you recognize her from T.V.?”

The woman looked at the big guy, then back to Kate. “Which vice president? Oh, you mean… oh, well excuse me,” she said. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”

The big man switched to an empty seat directly across from Kate and leaned forward, showing off the size of his arms. Kate put his age somewhere between thirty-five and fifty but couldn't be any more accurate. His beard stubble was gray though, his face carved with wrinkles. “Kate McCreedy,” he said. “I knew your daddy back when the hunt for Bin Laden was still on. Almost found him ourselves a couple of times. Good contracts to be had back in those days. Not so many once he took the high office, but I guess business ain't the same when there's no war on. No official war, anyways.”

“So you're Black Shadow, right?”

“You've heard of us, huh? That's good. I'm glad to know you. I liked your daddy in spite of our differences.”

“Uh-huh. And what might those differences be?”

He smiled. It revealed a scar on his upper lip you couldn't see when his face was composed. “Oh, they're not important now. Bygones are bygones, that's what I say. From the look of you, I reckon you have his brains. Your mom's looks, though.” He paused, giving her a look she found rather disquieting, then said, “I'm Mason Bruhbaker.” He reached across the table and offered to shake.

Kate reached forward, but instead of taking his hand, grabbed a cup of water that had been set out for the meeting attendees and took a drink. The big man smiled and sat back, amused. His jaw worked as if chewing gum, but she was quite sure he didn't have any in his mouth. A big guy like that, he's used to chewing people up and spitting them out, she thought.

“Well, I'm glad to make your acquaintance anyways.”

She nodded. Though she'd only known him for a few minutes, she could not say the same.

“Excuse me, excuse me!” The skinny man was still trying to call the meeting to order. He waited until the murmur quieted, then began again. “Thank you all for coming. I know this is short notice. I know some of you were called in as early as four o'clock this morning, but believe me when I tell you that we have a situation on our hands, and it warrants your full attention.”

“What's all this about, Geoff?” someone asked.

He pulled a remote out of his pocket and flicked a button. Instantly, a satellite image of The Aeschylus shot up on the projector screen. Kate gasped; it was uncannily similar to the ones in her father's envelope.

“As you know, The Aeschylus is the largest of our deep-sea drilling rigs, a spar platform employing two hundred and thirty-eight workers on its present shift. It's been operational for almost five weeks without a hitch. As of yesterday, that all changed.” He looked towards his audience. “Most of you know by now that drilling has ceased entirely. However, most of you don't know why.”

“What, are they striking again?” someone else asked. “Do they have a little first sunset tribal holiday down there we don't know about?” The man did a little chicken dance in his seat, but Mason shot him a look, and the man shut up in a hurry.

“No,” Geoff said cautiously. “They've disappeared.”

Murmurs went around the table. Geoff pushed his glasses up on his nose and put his hands on his hips, waiting for the deluge of questions. Marie Sinclair, the D.C. V.P., was the first to speak.

“I'm sorry, Geoff. You're going to have to explain that.”

The man took a deep breath. “Yesterday morning, The Aeschylus failed to respond to a routine radio probe. Since then, we've been unable to establish any contact with the platform whatsoever. Short and long wave radio transmissions have failed, and satellite images confirm there is no activity on the platform itself.”

“I don't suppose a cell phone signal would work out there?” Sinclair asked.

Geoff nodded. “Yes ma'am, as a matter of fact, it does. During construction, we allocated costs for the installation of sub-sea wireless cell phone repeaters that bolster strength from the Argentinian coastline. They're not a hundred percent reliable that far out at sea, but they're enough to get one or two bars of reception on most days.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Geoff said. “Incoming calls are routed directly to voice mail, or they don't go through at all.”

“What are you telling us here, Geoff? That they abandoned ship? Is that what you're saying?”

“No ma'am,” Geoff said. He looked genuinely scared now, and Kate had the idea it wasn't just because he was giving his superiors bad news. “The Aeschylus had just hit payload and was under careful satellite surveillance. It still is. We've been monitoring any arrivals and departures, coastal activity, anything in and around the area that might be important. The crew's rotation is up, but the boats are still at the docks. So I guess what I'm telling you, is that unless those two hundred and thirty-eight men swam two hundred miles to shore in freezing cold water, that they're simply not there any more.”

Sinclair's face reddened. “So you're telling us we have a two billion dollar piece of equipment sitting abandoned in the middle of the ocean?”

“Yes ma'am. Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you.”

The room went silent. Kate glanced at the faces beside her and saw only puzzlement.

“Hold on a moment. You mean to tell me that Valley Oil has access to its own satellite?” Several seconds passed before Kate realized that the question had come from her.

All heads turned.

Geoff looked surprised but recovered quickly. “We have one on loan,” he said noncommittally. “How we get the updates isn't important.”

“So your eyes and your ears are telling you that almost two hundred and fifty workers vanished? What, were they abducted by aliens?”

Several people chuckled, but Geoff didn't. “We don't know.”

Kate searched her memory banks for everything about the project she'd picked up while working in public relations. She found they were full of information she hadn't even realized she'd known. One of her greatest strengths was thinking on her feet, a trait inherited from her father. “What about the next shift? Have the workers headed out there? Do they have any ideas?”

The firm's head of security, Larabe Johnson, turned to her in his chair. “You're full of questions young lady, aren't you?”

Kate blushed. She couldn't remember the last time someone had called her young lady. It wasn't until much later that she reflected she was probably one of the youngest — if not the absolute youngest — person in the room.

“On my instructions, the next shift is on hold. We're not sending anyone else until we know what the hell is going on. That answer your question?”

Johnson said.

Kate nodded.

“And the families of the workers? Maybe someone got a message,” Sinclair inquired, still talking to Geoff.

“We've contacted a few family members, but it's been difficult.”

“Why's that?”

“Well, we had to find a translator in the middle of the night for one. But so far, the people we've asked haven't offered a damned clue. As far as they know, their husbands and sons and brothers are still working out there without a word to suggest otherwise.”

Kate broke in. “And the Argentinian government? What about them?”

“The problem is,” Johnson said, “is that The Aeschylus is technically in international waters. Involving the Argentinian authorities complicates matters.”

“Not to mention we have proprietary hardware out there,” Sinclair added. “We don't want anyone who hasn't been cleared on that rig.”

Mason Bruhbaker got to his feet. “Excuse me. We're going in circles here, and we're short on time.” He turned to Sinclair. “If I may?”

The woman nodded.

Mason pushed his chair in and stepped over to the projector screen, taking the remote from Geoff. He towered over the guy, a giant next to a stick man.

“Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who know me know I'm not much for long speeches, so let me present the facts as I see them. This image was taken last night at twenty-one hundred hours local time.”

“We're an hour behind, so that would be eight p.m.,” Geoff added, trying to be helpful.

“Satellite photographs confirm that automated light systems were online at the time this image was taken. Now look at the next one.” He flicked the button, and a new picture flashed in front of the screen, this one focused on the northeast corner of the rig. It looked unspectacular until Kate squinted. “It's difficult to see, but if you want proof that something is seriously wrong, I ask you to look no further than this image.”

“One of the cranes is missing,” someone said.

Mason nodded. “That's right. There's smoke coming from the edge of the rig, there.”

Kate saw it was true. It looked like there had been a fire either at the edge of the deck or on the level just below.

“Where's the crane now?” Johnson asked.

“Well, if it was destroyed, it likely fell into the water and sank,” Mason said. “These images are a full hour apart, so we can't know what happened in between.”

Johnson threw up his hands. “So this is all speculation?”

“Yes sir, it is. But if you would let me continue, I will outline the details as I see them.”

The man motioned with his hand.

“Fact one,” Mason said, “is that you are no longer in communication with your platform. Fact two is that any traces, visual or aural, of the two hundred and thirty-eight workers you employ are gone. There is no radio signal. There is no phone communication. There is no visual indication of any life on board.”

Johnson sighed.

“Fact three,” Mason said loudly, “is that there is a clear indication your rig has been damaged, and it could be the result of foul play. Add to these facts that your platform, your multi-billion dollar platform,” he added, “is sitting unguarded in international waters only a few dozen miles from a South American country with tenuous ties to the United States. This is your ass on the line, sir, not mine.”

“All right,” Johnson said. “I get it.”

“What are your theories?” Sinclair asked.

“I'm not paid for theories,” the big man answered, “but if I had to guess, I'd say terrorists.”

“Isn't that a little melodramatic?” Kate demanded. Again, her mouth was moving before her brain could stop it. “You don't even know what happened to the workers and you're jumping to conclusions.”

“We've been tracking a guerrilla cell out of Rio for the past six months. They're industrial terrorists. They've hit factories, mines, electrical substations and the like. It's not too far-fetched to think they might go after an oil platform. It doesn't make the news here, but they've been busy. They're a lot smarter than your average jihadies, and a lot better funded. Word has it they get their dough from the MTP political movement, though that's unconfirmed.”

Kate met Bruhbaker's eyes and saw right through him. Hostile situation or no, the probability the disappearances were due to some radical Shi'ite sect in South America was slim. But with the right buzzwords, you could convince almost anyone they needed hired guns.

“What's your plan?” Johnson asked. “How does Black Shadow intend to help?”

Bruhbaker smiled. “Well, first of all sir, let me assure you Black Shadow is your most expedient option. Dealing with the closest authorities implies a ton of red tape, and as Ms. Sinclair mentioned, this is undesirable for its own reasons. Sending your own personal security staff is also questionable given the legal implications of transporting them out of the country on short notice. On the other hand, Black Shadow is equipped to respond to these kinds of situations with efficiency. We have experience operating in thirty-two foreign countries. Our track record is impeccable, and our involvement will be kept utterly confidential. We will assume all risk, both physical and legal. Not to mention, we can be on site in a matter of hours.

“The plan is to go in, secure the location, and set up a perimeter. Nothing will get in or out. Second priority is to find out what happened to the communications systems. Given what we've seen of the crane, it's possible it could just be a downed com tower. Regardless, our technician should be able to repair the damage. If not, we have the ability to communicate via cell phone. Even if the sub-sea repeaters are down, we can fly over sea until we're within range of the shore.”

“Excellent,” Sinclair said. “And what do you need from us?”

“Aside from money?” Johnson said under his breath.

“We'll need blueprints, layout plans, a structural analysis of the underwater supports in case we have to look for tampering. We'll also need a complete employee roster so we can verify identities if anyone is still there and in hiding. Or if we find any bodies, of course. Oh, and we'll need some basic instructions on the drilling machinery and power circuits in case we have to shut the place down more than it already is.”

Sinclair nodded. “You'll get everything you need.”

“Good. Then I assume we're done?”

Everyone stood up. Kate tried but found her rear end glued to her chair. She felt like she should say something more, should ask something more, but she couldn't. The wheels of the political machine were turning too fast.

Michael grabbed her arm. “Meet me back upstairs.”

4

As the crowd filtered out, Kate pushed into the nearby ladies' room. She looked at herself in the mirror, a question surfacing in her mind. How far are you willing to go, kid? The question had come unbidden, but here it was. The world was spinning around her, and she was caught in the middle. But as to the answer, it was simple: she would do what had to be done. She would go all the way. She would find what her father wanted her to find, because that's what this was about, wasn't it? He had left the envelope for her and her alone.

Several minutes later, she finished washing up and headed out, single-minded as she walked back to Michael's office.

Chapter 2: The End of Romance

Kiel, Germany:

December, 1938

1

Harald glanced up from the picture in his hand and looked out over the ford. The taste of salt brushed his lips, the breeze picking up on the water. He could just make out the train yard across the inlet, the silhouette of Kiel's opera house beyond. He could smell smoke and industry, the exhaust fumes of the harbor ships. It soothed him somehow. His father had been a shipyard worker for most of his life — until he dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty-two — and being here brought memories of the man. When Harald was young, his father would come to the dinner table covered in soot, still dressed in his blue work shirt and brown coveralls. He would bathe after, but never before. It was as if he were afraid his family would go hungry if they didn't eat the moment he walked in. Harald remembered sitting at the table, next to his mother and his younger brother Burt, and smelling the man. It was never strong, never enough to interfere with his appetite, but it was there: the faint odor of smoke and steel. Even back then, Harald remembered thinking it was the smell of what a man should be doing with his life.

“Do you think we're doing the right thing, Jan?” he asked, looking back to his companion.

Jan only grunted.

The other was a tall, wiry soldier in his mid thirties, as blunt and talkative as a stone. Harald could never sense how resentful Jan was that a man ten years his junior was giving the orders, but it didn't matter. Jan was the sort to take a bullet for a superior officer he hated because he believed it was his duty. And he didn't hate Harald.

“I can't believe we'll be away from our homeland for six months. Six months! God's fury, man, I never thought we'd be leaving this soon. I suppose it could be worse. We could be going overseas to Spain or Portugal for a year.”

Jan grunted again, flicking a spent cigarette butt over the railing and lighting another.

Harald smiled at the woman in the picture. The woman smiled back, her blue eyes shining so brightly they almost defied the black-and-white limitations of the photograph. He ran his fingers over the picture, remembering what it was like to run them through her soft brown hair. She was four years younger than him at twenty-three, and at twenty-three, waiting for someone could be difficult.

A cloud of smoke wafted into Harald's face, and he looked up to see Jan standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“You don't make any noise when you walk, Jan.”

“I guess you could say I'm always in character, sir.”

“Is that right?”

Jan grimaced, his beard stubble reflecting in the moonlight.

“Do you think she'll wait for me? She pledged that she would. But do you think women mean it when they say such things?”

“What do you think, sir?”

“She has never known another man besides me. So yes, I think she will. It's only a few months. Isn't that right?”

“Odysseus was away from his wife for twenty years, and she took him back when he returned from war.”

“I never read that one,” Harald said, reflecting on the small pile of books he had kept stashed under his bed as a child. It was one of the few, if tenuous connections he shared with the sergeant. “Did he have to do anything to prove his worth after all that time?”

“He had to murder the hundred and eight sons of bitches who had lined up to fuck her.”

Harald stared at him. “Do you think that was justice, Sergeant Eichmann?”

“Nothing worse than trying to take advantage of a lady, if you ask me.”

It was Harald's turn to grunt; the exchange was more than he'd gotten out of the man in weeks. He opened his mouth to continue, but across the inlet, he saw the beam of a hand torch flash. It was their signal.

He tucked the picture into his uniform and turned, motioning for Jan to follow. They began to walk south towards the highway through the pitch of night. When they reached the road, they only had to wait a few seconds before a black Mercedes 260 rounded the bend and slowed. A young man in uniform stepped out of the driver's side door and saluted. Harald returned the gesture, then climbed in the rear door and settled himself next to the prisoner inside.

“You don't have to be afraid of me, you know. I'm not here to hurt you or your family. In a way, I'm here to help you. You see, your presence here is a matter of national security. It's a matter of patriotism.” He waited. “I've been asked by my superiors to derail you from your current course of action. I am to remind you of your citizenship and obligations to The Republic. You were born a German man in spite of your… other heritage.” Harald turned to look at the prisoner and found him staring back, his eyes shifting uneasily behind his spectacles. His suit was a clean gray, all straight lines and angles. His thin mustache was perfectly even on both sides. Harald thought this was a man obsessed with detail, and perhaps, with appearances. A man such as this would not be difficult to control.

“My… my family,” the other whispered.

“Unhurt for now. They're in the car behind us. Your wife and your daughters will be safe.”

A loud pop came from somewhere outside. The prisoner spun towards the back window, his mouth agape.

“That was a pistol round. I've heard one before, in my youth. That was a gunshot!”

Harald paused. “Your driver. We had no use for him, I'm afraid. You yourself are quite fortunate. Treason is a capital offense, as you well know.”

“You bastard. You care nothing for the courts. Or the law.”

“It is the law that prevents you from leaving the country, Mister Kaminski. The courts are on our side, believe me. In this case, it doesn't matter. We are on a military operation, and I have been instructed to escort you and your family to Monkeberg Harbor.” Seeing the look of surprise on the man's face, he continued. “Yes, we know this is where you were headed, but I'm afraid your final destination has changed. You are no longer on course to Britain. You are coming with us.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“That is confidential, Mister Kaminksi. In fact, I shouldn't be speaking to you at all. I only wanted to introduce myself because I felt it would be beneficial for our relationship. You are not our prisoner; you remain a citizen of The Republic, as I have already said. You will be our mandatory guest for a few months, however.

“But ah! I have not introduced myself. I am Oberleutnant Harald Dietrich, and I am in charge of your transport.”

Kaminski spat in Harald's face, a thin, wet glob landing on the German's cheek.

For a brief moment, Harald considered smashing the man's nose inside out. In spite of his manners, Harald had been raised to discipline, and he knew how to dish it out. A few of his soldiers had learned that the hard way. Instead, he took a deep breath and wiped the spittle off of his face. Perhaps this man would not be so easy to control after all.

“I will let that pass. I understand you have had your plans laid to waste, and you are very upset. All I can promise is that I will try to make your journey as painless as possible. But make no mistake, you are coming with us tonight, and if you resist, your driver will not be the last to die.”

Harald shot a cold look through the rear window, then got out of the car.

2

It was almost midnight. They walked down a wooden pier that extended as far as the eye could see, watching as men loaded and unloaded various pieces of cargo under the glow of orange lamps. Harald saw sacks of grain and spices, metal artillery cannons, men in knee boots and overalls. A few old-timers sat on crates and whistled as they passed. The reek of sweat and poverty percolated the walk like dust. Then just ahead, he saw their ship.

At thirty-five meters, The Adalgisa was small compared to the others at the dock, but she still looked fierce. Narrow and feral, her two masts stood to the sky like fangs. Rust marks cut across her bow like battle scars. She had a single round smokestack, a barrel crow's nest, and a stocky wheelhouse made for equally stocky men. A massive harpoon gun at the bow completed the picture, looking too large for the rest of the ship.

The crew busied themselves carrying supplies below deck. As Harald neared, a man separated from the group and came to greet him. “Dietrich, my friend!”

“That's Lieutenant Dietrich, now. How have you been Heinrich?”

“I've been making a living. In fact, you could say I was just about to go on making one until I heard from your superiors yesterday.”

“Oh? Did you have plans?”

“Yes, I bloody well had plans! My entire crew is exhausted. Now we learn we're going back to sea without leave? I'll be lucky if I don't have a mutiny on my hands by the end of the night. Some of these men haven't seen their families in months.”

Harald grunted. “They're getting paid. And so are you.”

“Some things are better than money.”

“Money can be used to buy a great many more of those things that are better.”

The other softened at this. He tried not to smile. “Aye, the pay helps. This is more money than most of the men have seen at once.”

“I've never know you to turn down easy money. Whaling is a dangerous business, Heinrich. I thought this would be a vacation for the likes of you.”

One corner of the man's mouth moved. Then, without warning, he reached out and embraced the lieutenant in a great bear hug. “You're too smart for your own good, boy.”

Harald coughed, then laughed. It was amazing how quickly Heinrich had grown into the role of a ship captain. His beard was the color of iron now; it stretched over his face and down his neck. The light brown eyes that Harald remembered were much darker, tinged with the weight of a thousand hard decisions. Heinrich covered his thinning hair with a flat cap with a brown leather peak. It looked German at a glance, but Harald thought it more likely an acquisition from the territories. Like the man itself, it looked faded and gaunt.

“How are your men? Are they trustworthy?”

“It's just a skeleton crew to make room for you, but all of the men are loyal.”

“Excellent.”

“And you? It's time you introduced me to our new passengers.”

Dominik Kaminski stood at gunpoint behind them. Behind him, his wife Magdelena and his two daughters, Lucja, and Zofia. Sergeant Eichmann and the Gestapo agent, Boris Seiler, brought up the rear. Harald introduced them one by one.

“So you're the one they told me about,” Heinrich said, looking at Dominik. “I suppose you are what I expected. You can't always say that when you meet a man. Have they told you where we're going?”

“No,” the man croaked.

Heinrich laughed. “Then to Hell it is. We'll be going to the furthest reaches of the earth, my friend. We'll show you the sights of the damned, terrible things which drive strong men to tears and weak men to insanity. Oh yes. We'll show you fire, and terror, and abominations from the lowest depths of the sea.” He threw his hands into the air and drew a few chuckles from the sailors. “They have seen the unspeakable coils of the Kraken and the many-headed Hydras and have lopped flesh and bone from their steaming carcasses before hauling them to shore, victorious! They are the monster slayers of our time, my good man, and you will see such horrors aboard this vessel to make you croon and cry for dry land. Aye?” he shouted towards his men.

“Aye!” a few of them cried.

“Heinrich, please,” Harald said.

The captain looked fairly at ease with himself.

“I demand to know where you are taking us!”

Harald turned to see Maggie as she stepped forward, past the soldier with the gun. He felt himself tense. “That is not—”

“Near to the southern continent, my lady,” Heinrich interrupted. “We are but simple sea-faring men, and those waters are our hunting grounds. We are being paid to take you to a pier of Mister Dietrich's choosing.”

“It is not my choosing, it is the choosing of our superiors,” Harald said irritably.

“Our children are here,” Maggie said. “You cannot force children on board a ship such as this.”

“I'm sorry madame,” Heinrich said. “I do not have a choice in this, same as you.”

“You have a choice!”

“Even if I said no, they would have gotten someone else,” Heinrich said. “Rest assured you will be safe with us. We are not doing any hunting on this trip.”

“You cannot make us leave the country! We have seen no police. We have been to no jail. This is against the law.”

Heinrich belched. “The law has no bearing, here. Now, who all is coming on board?”

“All of us, save for Private Gantte,” Harald said, indicating the young soldier holding the pistol on Dominik.

Heinrich looked past Harald and counted, frowning. “No, no, this isn't right. We were told there would be six new passengers only.”

“I'm sure you'll be able to make room. One of us can sleep in the wheelhouse if we have to.”

“You don't understand,” Heinrich said, putting a hand on Harald's chest. “Our weight and rationing only permits the addition of seven passengers. One is already on board, which leaves six open spots. It is exact.”

“You can't make an exception?”

“The deal I made was for one passenger who arrived yesterday, and six of you today. That's it.”

Harald leaned forward and whispered. “And if we agree to pay you five hundred extra?”

“Don't bullshit me,” Heinrich said. “You can't promise this, and even if you could, I wouldn't take it. It's a matter of safety. The rationing will be too tight. You should know that.” He looked at the others. “Who is staying?”

“Sergeant Eichmann and I have been ordered to accompany the Lieutenant,” Seiler said. “It will have to be one of them.”

All heads turned to Dominik. He looked at his wife and his daughters, feeling the weight of their gaze. On some level, Harald knew, they blamed him for everything that had happened tonight, but the lieutenant could testify to the absurdity of that notion. It was Seiler who had found their friend in Sweden, and it was their friend who had given them up.

“So we can't all fit,” Maggie said. “What does that mean? You'll shoot one of us?”

“Let it be me,” Dominik said. “If it's my fault, take them and let me be the one.”

Harald turned to them. “I'm afraid not. Mister Kaminski is the reason why we are here, so he comes with us. But if the captain says he cannot take one of you, then one of you ladies will have to stay behind. Provided you cooperate, no one will be shot.”

“And the young boy who was with us at the hotel?” Maggie asked, her eyes red and wild. “Did you tell him the same thing?”

Harald shifted uncomfortably. “Well, allow me to say no one else will be shot.”

“Where will we go if we stay?”

“It depends on which one of you it is. One of your girls would be a ward of the state until you all are released. If it were you, Missis Kaminski, you would likely go to Neuengamme until your husband is released.”

Dominik tried to step closer to his wife, but Private Gantte shoved him back with the butt of his pistol. Dominik settled for leaning over the young man instead. “What is Neuengamme?”

Maggie shuddered. “It's a new prison yard, isn't that right? It's where they take communists and homosexuals. You wouldn't take me to a normal prison, is that right Mister Dietrich? Am I such a horrible person that you would take me to a den like Neuengamme instead?”

Harald sighed. “If you were the one to stay, you would not be processed in the usual way, Missis Kaminski. You would be at the government's disposal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm afraid I can't say.”

Anxious to extricate himself, Heinrich caught Harald's attention with a wave. “This is not my affair. I'm headed below deck to finish. Call me when you are ready to leave, aye?”

Harald nodded, and the man bowed himself out.

“Why pick one of us at all?” Maggie demanded. “You can't separate the girls from both of their parents. Why not let us all stay? They… they need me.”

“I can't do that.”

“And the other man on board? What about this other man the captain spoke of? Why not leave him behind? Would you break up a family instead of sending another prisoner off ship?”

“I'm afraid I can't do that either,” Harald said. “Dominik and the other man are very special to this affair. Our orders are to transport Dominik and his family. I am truly sorry the count was wrong for the transportation. I was not involved in that aspect directly.”

He did feel bad about the error, but it was not one he could have foreseen. When he had chosen The Adalgisa, no one had bothered to point out there was a passenger limit. He had simply assumed seven new passengers would not matter. In light of this oversight, he considered what would happen if he did allow all three girls to stay. His contact at Neuengamme would likely accept one new prisoner as a favor, but three? That would certainly be a black mark in his column of favors. And what of leverage? If Mister Kaminski was transported to the base with no family members present, then there would be nothing to guarantee his cooperation. This was a hard conclusion, but Harald had been put in charge to make hard decisions. “One of you stays, the rest go,” he reiterated.

3

Zofia clutched her stuffed bear to her chest and sucked fiercely on one thumb.

Dominik himself was shaking. He couldn't remember a time in his life when something so meticulously planned had gone so far awry. He looked at his wife and his mouth opened, but no words came out.

“You know it has to be me,” she said. “It has to be you or me, and they won't let it be you. They want you for something. Whatever it is, it scares me, Dominik.”

“I'm scared for you,” he managed.

“It will not be as bad for me. I can deal with prison. But I can't bear the thought of Zofia or Lucja being alone. Can you?” She put a hand to his cheek, and welcome as it was, he felt the desperation in her. Not to escape, but a desperation to love and to be loved. The desperation to know that the last twelve years had not been in vain. In that moment, he saw her as he had the first time, the butcher's daughter who used to stare at him from her second story window. She had been so beautiful then, was still so beautiful now.

A dark curl of hair fell in front of her eyes, and he brushed it aside, just as he had done the very first time they kissed. He pulled her close and kissed her then, a dozen years of fire and memory passing between them. When they broke apart, he saw Lucja's cheeks were stained with tears. How very much alike they look, Dominik thought.

“It's his fault you have to go away,” Lucja said. “I'm not staying with him. I'd rather leave than go on this stinking… damnable ship.”

“I don't want to go either,” Zofia said.

“Lucja honey,” Maggie said, bending down, “I want you to listen to me. Your father loves you very much. And you will do what he says. Do you hear me? You are going with him.”

“We're not,” Zofia said, and sniffled.

“Yes you are. I have to go away and it's no one's fault but the men with the guns. Do you hear me? It's no one's fault but theirs. Your father is the head of this family and I want you to listen to him when I'm gone. He will keep you safe. I promise.” She knelt next to Lucja. “You remember when you were just a little girl, and we went to see Grandma? We spent all day riding the bus, and it was dirty and noisy because we couldn't afford anything better. But we got there and you were so happy to see your Grammy. The next day we went to the riverside, and I brought a picnic lunch. Do you remember? You played in the grass and climbed the trees, but you wanted to go swimming. Your father told you no because the water was too cold. You kept looking at the river all day because your little sister was just a baby and you had no one to play with. So you got bored. And what happened?”

“I jumped in the water,” Lucja said.

“You jumped in the water. And it was cold, wasn't it? You splashed and sank. We thought you were still playing with your kite until we heard you scream. Your father jumped in after you, didn't he?”

“He jumped in with all his clothes on,” Lucja said vacantly.

“That's right,” Maggie said. “He jumped in, and five seconds later, he dragged you to the surface and saved your life.”

Zofia listened intently, her thumb still in her mouth. Dominik hadn't seen her with her thumb in her mouth since she was three. Maggie turned and knelt to her as she had done with Lucja. “And you, Zofie. Do you remember when you got sick last year, and you were lying in bed because you couldn't go to school?”

Zofia nodded.

“I wanted to send you back to school the next day, but your papa insisted we take you to the doctor. He heard something funny in your cough. The doctor listened to your chest and examined you. Do you remember?”

“I didn't like it,” Zofia said, taking her thumb out of her mouth and then promptly sticking it back in.

“He found you were really sick. You had to stay home for a long time, and if we hadn't gotten you medicine, you might have died.”

Zofia knew this was all past, of course, but she still looked frightened. “I had no-mona.”

“That's right, you had pneumonia. Your daddy knew there was something wrong with you, and he got the doctor to get you medicine. If it wasn't for him…” She had to catch herself. Dominik moved towards her and stopped, not wanting to break the bond between them.

“The ship is ready,” Harald said from some distance away. “Try to hurry it up. Please,” he added.

Maggie got a hold of herself and looked at her daughters. “So you see, your papa is the best at taking care of you. He was trying to save all of us by bringing us here. He can still save you two, but he might have been… he might just have been a little too late for me.” She pulled the girls close and gripped them to her chest.

Zofia was frightened. “Mama! Mama, you're hurting me.”

Maggie let go and tried to smile. “I'm sorry, baby.”

And then Private Gantte was at her back with the pistol, and it was time to leave. She wheeled on him. “Don't you dare point that at me with my children here!” she screamed at him. “I'll come with you, but you put that thing away. Have you got that?”

The young man was so surprised he took a step back. He did not put the gun away, but he lowered it to his waist and crossed his hands.

Maggie rushed to Dominik and planted one more kiss on his lips. Before he could whisper goodbye, she turned and began to walk away with the young man. Private Gantte gripped her by the elbow but did not point the gun at her again. He stopped once to salute Lieutenant Dietrich on his way out, then turned and walked Maggie away from the pier until they both disappeared into darkness.

4

The Adalgisa left the docks around midnight, skimming into the ford and bellowing black smoke into the sky. Presently, the boat began to pick up speed, bouncing up and down in spite of the calm waters. Dominik observed all this from the foredeck, holding his daughters close and wondering where Magdelena was at that precise moment.

As the buildings on the shoreline diminished, he thought of the home they had left behind. Not the people or the neighborhood, but the physical space itself. He thought about the desk in the corner of his office, a dark mahogany writing table that had been in his family for three generations. He thought of the portrait in the hallway of he and Maggie and Lucja, the one that had been painted when their oldest daughter was just a babe. He thought of the journals where he had published, filed neatly away in the kitchen drawers. Bottles of wine kept on the ground floor dating as far back as 1918. An old grandfather clock in his office with hand-crafted brass gears. All of these things and many more, now gone forever.

Then, he thought again of his wife. He thought of Magdelena with her raven black hair, and her smile, and her laugh that always reminded him of summer rain. Would she be gone forever now, to fade with the memories of his physical things?

No, he thought for the first time. There is no prison, no boat, no man that can hold the likes of my family, not for long.

Chapter 3: Knowing Better

Near Puerto Aisén, Chile:

Present Day

1

“Try it again,” Dutch yelled.

The man turned the key and pushed the button on the control panel. The engine made a thunderous grinding sound, but it didn't start.

“You suck at your job, you know that?”

“Shut up,” the other man said, but he was grinning. It was a good day out, warm sun and no wind. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead and into his eyes, and he blinked, wiping his face with a gloved hand. He was hunched over, still staring into the network of wires and rods that made up the machine's twenty-year-old driver motor.

“You know, you're giving me wood all bent over like that.”

“My hairy ass is better looking than your last girlfriend, Dutch.”

“You figure it out yet?”

The man found the last two unconnected wires and jury-rigged them together, then pulled a piece of electrical tape out of his toolbox and sealed them. He stood up and dusted his hands. “That should do it.”

Dutch unscrewed the top on his water thermos and took a drink. He looked put-out just having to stand around and supervise, not that supervising was in any way a part of his job. “You sure?”

“Why don't you make yourself useful and go test it?”

Dutch chuckled. He stepped into the cramped quarters of the operator's cab. “Jesus. It's like a pig farm in here.”

“Yeah. Smells better than your last girlfriend too.”

The man stepped out to the catwalk and looked at the ground, some thirty feet below. A brown wasteland stretched in front of him, a flat expanse of sand and rock with boundaries of piled earth in all directions. He thought about how easy it would be to police the mine properly if anyone cared, but no one did. Not to mention, they were supposed to be security staff, not repairmen. As long as the money kept coming, however, he put up with it.

Most of the morning's shift workers were standing around in red vests, talking. A few were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. No such luck for him; no rest for the wicked.

Dutch turned and pointed. “Hey, do you see that?”

Rising over the crest of the northernmost outcropping, the man saw a helicopter flying in towards them. Flying was the fastest way to get over the mountains, but he hadn't seen a helicopter in months. Even the mine supervisors came in via bus.

“I knew I was going to regret not bringing my rifle this morning.”

“Eh, it was either your toolbox or your rifle. You're a victim of circumstance.”

“That doesn't explain why you didn't bring yours.”

“I didn't want you to feel left out.”

The man checked his pistol — an M1911 tucked into his waistband — then pushed past his friend and slid down the nearby ladder. He jogged across the machine platform, ducked under the huge, diagonal conveyor belt, then hopped over another set of railings. He jumped down onto the machine treads, then another six feet to the ground. Dutch was right behind him. At the bottom, his friend grabbed a case concealed beneath the machinery and popped it open. The man watched, chagrined as Dutch took the long-range PSG-1 out of its case. Within seconds, he had snapped on the stock, connected the wires, and screwed in the bolts that would hold it steady.

“Didn't bring your rifle, huh?”

“Well, I didn't have it up there, did I?”

“How long have we been friends, Dutch?”

Dutch examined the rifle, now fully assembled, then slung it over his shoulder. “Long enough to know it's your turn to take point.”

He slapped his friend on the arm, then began jogging up a nearby hill. The man watched him go, wondering if they were being paranoid. Out here, he knew, there were no police, no government officials, nothing but the law of the Wild West. Better to be paranoid.

The helicopter touched down some thirty yards away, still blowing sand. It was a big sucker, an S-70 long-ranger similar to what the Coast Guard used back in the states. Chances were that this was some special VIP coming in to check out the mine or do a property assessment, but somehow, he didn't think so. Just as he was tensing up, the helicopter door opened, and a woman stepped out. A woman, all alone in this world of men.

The man ran towards the helicopter as it powered down, shielding his eyes from the dust. The woman swayed, then stumbled as she made her way towards him. He ran over to help, but when she saw him, she regained her feet in a hurry.

“You all right, ma'am?”

“Of course I'm all right. I'm sorry, but I don't have much time. I'm looking for your boss, the head of security.”

“My boss?”

“A Mister AJ Trenton. Do you know him?”

He smiled. There was nothing like an American city girl out of her depth. “Well, that would be me, Miss. I'm AJ. And I don't have a boss.”

Something that might have been embarrassment flickered in her eyes, then disappeared. “Great. Then I don't have to look for you.”

Then, she bent over and threw up.

2

The conversation Kate had with Michael that morning had been short, all things considered.

“We need at least one executive to accompany the team, and I'd like it to be someone from your department,” he told her once she had been back in his office. “This could be a public relations nightmare, and we need someone we can trust. On top of that, we need someone who can handle himself. This could be a field trip, but if Mister Bruhbaker is right, it could be like being a combat photographer in Iraq.” He paused, looking at her. “You've been around the block, Kate, and you know everyone in your department. I trust your judgment. Who's going to be up for this?”

She knew what she was going to say before Michael had finished. “I'm going.”

“What?”

“I'm going. If you need an executive down there so you can spin it when the shit hits the fan, it's going to be me.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning, “I don't think that will be necessary. I didn't mean to imply it should be you.” He laughed. “Oh, no.”

“I'm serious.” Was she? The shock of the last twenty-four hours was still sharp in her mind.

“I don't know if that's a good idea. If anything were to happen—”

“Who else are you going to get? Lopez? Grant? You don't need one of those hundred-and-twenty-pound-panty-waists for something like this, Mister Lucian. I don't have much, but I do have guts. And I just inherited fifteen percent of a company I didn't earn. Why don't you let me prove I deserve it? Whatever is down there, I'll find out. I'll make sure my father's company is protected. Our company.”

Michael clasped his hands behind his head, then nodded as if coming to a decision. “All right. I'm sure Smith will be quite glad.”

“Smith?”

“Yes. Mister Geoffery Smith, the man who was giving the presentation downstairs. I was thinking about sending him if no one from your department was willing.”

Kate stared at him.

“Well, he is the most informed about the situation, and he's been with us for over ten years.”

“Oh no,” Kate said. “I'm sure he would have been the right man. Did you tell him?”

“Well, now that you're here, there's no need.”

“You should tell him anyways,” Kate said, putting on her best serious face. “See if he puts up a fight. I don't want to go stepping on anyone's toes.”

Michael looked at her a moment. “You're having me on. Aren't you?”

“I am,” she said, and she smiled. She still felt like she was riding a roller coaster, but she hadn't lost her sense of humor yet.

He shifted the topic back to her, and they chatted for another few minutes, working out the legal implications of Kate's departure. When they were done, she made to leave, knowing she had precious little time before she would be in the air.

“There's just one more thing,” Michael said.

Kate looked back.

“You won't be going directly to the coast. You're making a bit of a detour first.”

“Oh?”

Michael's face soured. It was the first expression she'd seen that made him look unattractive. “There is a man, a Mister AJ Trenton, we would like you to intercept en route. He's an American on a work visa in Chile. Since it won't be more than a few hundred miles off course, it shouldn't be a significant delay, and you can rendezvous with Bruhbaker and his team in Argentina this afternoon. Trenton's a bit of a wild card, really.”

“Let me guess. He's the former head of VO security. Is that right?”

Michael looked astonished. “How did you know that?”

“I have my sources.”

Before Kate left the bathroom, she had heard Johnson talking about him to someone in the men's room. His voice had come drifting in through a vent over one of the toilet stalls. “I don't know what they're thinking, trying to get Angus back on site. The guy's a fuck-up, and he's always been a fuck-up. Yeah, one shouldn't talk about one's predecessor, I know, but come on. What do they think he's going to do?” His conversation partner had theories, but Kate didn't care about those.

The memory made her smile. All of the wits of a CIA operative, and here you are working as a secretary. It was a gross exaggeration, but Kate thought it a nice way to justify standing on a toilet with your ear to the wall.

Michael studied her. “You're right. He was here during the construction of The Aeschylus, and he visited the platform twice while it was being built. He might be the only employee who has any first-hand knowledge of the structure, as unfortunate as that may seem.”

“You mean ex-employee?” Kate inquired.

“Yes, and he didn't leave under the best of circumstances.”

Kate sighed. “So I'll have to convince him to come along for the ride. Is that what you're saying?”

“That's right. I'll send the paperwork with you, but we'd like to gain his expertise as a consultant.”

“This just keeps getting better.”

“If he refuses, you'll accompany the team without him, but for the amount of money we're offering, he shouldn't.”

“I'm sorry for saying this, Michael, but this seems highly unusual.”

“It is. His presence was requested though, and we all have to play our part.” Kate looked at him quizzically, but he didn't elaborate. “If he has terms or conditions, do your best to accommodate him. It was made very clear how valuable he could be. Mister Trenton knows the platform inside and out. He knows the security detail, and he knows safety protocols if anything goes awry.”

“Are you saying I can trust him?”

“Absolutely not. But you can trust his knowledge and his expertise. It's why we agreed to foot the bill for this.”

Michael adjusted his tie. Kate noticed again that it was gorgeous Thai silk, and that it perfectly matched the blue of his eyes. He really was quite handsome. “Are you sure you want to go? If you stay, I could take you to dinner, and we could talk about media strategies.”

Kate smiled, and as charmed as she was, she wasn't a secretary any more. That was last month. “I'll see you when I get back.”

And then, she left.

3

Kate followed the former security chief across the flattened landscape, trying not to focus on the rancid taste in her mouth. Great first impression there, kiddo, she thought. But she didn't have time to apologize; AJ was keeping a fast pace.

They passed under two more mining machines. Kate thought they were the biggest damned things she had ever seen. A few years back, she had gone with her father to Cape Canaveral to witness the final launch of the space shuttle Discovery. The machine transporting the shuttle to the launch site was the size of a small building, a huge, flat tank with twelve treads and four levels. The mining machines here dwarfed even that behemoth. They stood on two enormous sets of treads, spaced far apart, with a bridge-like shaft in between. The heavy end consisted of several engines, an operator's cab, and a huge, round wheel that looked like the world's largest band saw. The wheel had buckets instead of teeth, each caked and chipped with dirt.

“It's called a bucketwheel,” the man said, looking over his shoulder. “World's largest land vehicles. These here are a little bigger than the ones in the states. Not as big as the ones in Germany, though. You ever been to Germany?”

“Yes,” Kate said.

“Really?” He looked surprised. “Yeah, I should guess you'd be well-traveled. I guess you'll be immune to my foreign charms, then.” He smiled at her, showing a row of pearly-whites that could only belong to a well-bred American.

She looked at him sideways. “I think you're about as foreign as I am.”

“Really? Where are you from?”

“Cuántos años ha estado viviendo en Chile, AJ?”

“Uh,” he said, pausing.

“Ningún años. Creo que aproximedente diez meses que han estado aquí. Correcto? Eres un Americano, y un mentiroso pobre.” You've been here ten months. You're an American and a bad liar. She could have said the same thing in English, but somehow, it wouldn't have had the same effect.

“Que coño es esto?” he muttered. What the fuck is this?

“You have an accent,” she said matter-of-factly. “And you look like you'll carry that sunburn for years before you ever tan.”

“Lady, you have one hell of a thing to learn about tact if you're hoping to get something from me.”

“Why would you think I'm trying to get something from you?”

“Why else would you be here?”

He led her up a dirt mound, towards a set of mud-spattered trucks and a mobile office. As they approached, she looked behind her and realized she couldn't see the helicopter any more. She knew her Black Shadow companion had probably gotten out by now, but he was nowhere in sight. Kate felt tension crawl up her back. There was no one else around, no workers, no foreman, no other security agents. The mine was vast, the workers few.

AJ pointed to one of the trailers. “Home base,” he said. “Follow me, Miss.”

“You really don't know who I am, then?”

“Should I?”

“You probably should, but it's good that you don't.”

“Whatever you say, lady.”

He unlocked the door, and she stepped inside. The trailer was small but unremarkable, housing little more than a few desks and computers. It smelled faintly of old sweat. AJ shut the door, and as if on cue, shook out a handful of dust from his hair. He might have been a redhead at one point, but there was too much grunge to tell. He walked over and sat down behind one of the desks, cleaning the inside of one ear with a pinky finger. Kate made a little noise of disgust.

“Now,” AJ said, “are you an assassin, or do you generally need something from me?”

“An assassin? What the hell are you talking about?”

Behind her, Kate heard the sound of a metal click. She'd been to the shooting range enough times in her life to know it couldn't be anything but the sound of a gun.

From the back room, a man came walking towards her, holding both hands in the air. He looked a few years younger than AJ but was wearing the same type of uniform. He had straight brown hair and the kind of easy, unremarkable face that made most middle-aged men look soft, but Kate saw his eyes and knew better. Then her pilot appeared, holding a Beretta to the man's back.

The man in front turned to AJ and shrugged. “He's a sneaky old guy.”

AJ sighed. “Yeah, I can see that. Were you actually dumb enough to get ambushed inside a room this small?”

“Oh no. He caught me sighting you two over by the rocks. I don't know how he found me.”

“Think he saw the scope?”

“Yeah, probably. He's tricky for an old dude.”

“You think?”

And then the man spun, wrapping one arm around the wrist of his assailant and smashing his elbow into the man's face. The twist was like a whirlwind, so exact it looked routine. Two seconds later, he had the gun in hand and the pilot was on the floor, wheezing.

Kate turned back to see AJ holding a pistol on her. He had been easing it out the whole time she had been distracted with him picking his ear. She cursed under her breath.

“You all right, Dutch?” AJ asked.

“Sure,” the man said. “I said 'tricky.' I didn't say 'fast.'”

Kate looked at her pilot and watched as he pushed himself to his knees. His nose was bleeding, but he looked more insulted than hurt.

“You all right, Mister Marten?”

“Yeah. Don't touch me.”

The man called Dutch was looking at her. “Your pilot's good, but he should stick to the wheel. He doesn't have the speed for this.”

“Piss off,” Marten said.

Kate put one hand on her hip. “And I suppose you just let him walk you all the way here with a gun to your head?”

He smiled at her, and in that moment, he looked downright creepy.

“Enough,” AJ said. “Now. You were just about to tell me what it is that you want?”

4

By the time Kate finished, she felt out of breath. She had been talking fast, and she held nothing back.

“Is that all?” AJ asked.

“Yes, now can you put that thing away? Jesus.” It came out sounding braver than she felt.

Dutch glanced at his friend and shrugged, then tucked the gun in his belt. AJ did the same, still regarding her warily.

As soon as they were done, she took a thunderous step towards the desk. “Is that how you treat all your guests? Luring them out here and then pulling a gun? You asshole!” Behind her, Dutch started to laugh, but she spun on him. “Asshole!” she repeated. It was the only word that fit.

“Christ, I'm sorry, lady.” He had an aw, shucks kind of look, as if she were the bad guy in this.

“You have to admit, it looked pretty suspicious,” AJ said. “Your friend there was sneaking around with a gun. He pulled one on Dutch. It's not exactly the best way to start diplomatic relations.”

Greg Marten grunted. “Neither is setting up a sniper a hundred yards from a defenseless woman.”

AJ shrugged. “We didn't know who you were.”

“I'm not helpless,” Kate broke in.

“Clearly not,” Dutch said.

Kate put her hands on her head. “All of you, just shut up.” They did, and for a moment, the room went silent. “Now, can we get down to business or what?” They all nodded. Kate was starting to feel like an elementary school teacher in front of a particularly unruly class, but for now, she had their attention and didn't want to waste it. “I didn't come down here to disrupt anyone's life. I came to offer terms, and that's all. Valley Oil is willing to compensate you for your time. They don't think you'd be gone for more than twenty-four hours. All your transportation is arranged, so all you'd need to do is say yes.”

“How much?”

Kate turned to Dutch.

“How much are they willing to compensate?”

Kate threw up her hands. “They're not willing to compensate you, Mister—”

“Jones. Henry Jones.”

“Right, Mister Jones. And here I thought you were Mister Dutch. How silly of me.”

“That's a nickname,” he said. “You know, like a pseudonym.”

Kate blinked.

“You know, so people don't know who I am,” he said with perfect lucidity.

“I can't tell you how much. The offer is for Mister Trenton.”

“How much?” AJ asked.

She turned to the desk. “Maybe we should speak in private.”

“Nah. How much?”

She looked at Greg Marten, who only shrugged.

When AJ asked again, she told him.

Dutch whistled. “That's pretty good, boss.”

“I'll take it,” AJ said. “But I want the same for Dutch. He's coming with us.”

“I can't authorize that!”

“Geez, lady. No need to shout.”

Kate rubbed her eyes. “Look. I can't authorize what I don't own. I'm not some top level CEO, here. I'm just a grunt, like you. I'm just doing my job, and here you are—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dutch said. “I'm not a grunt, AJ. Are you a grunt?” He looked back to Kate. “I don't think we're grunts.”

“Whatever it is that you are,” she said, speaking over him, “you're not authorized to allocate funds for the mine. I'm not authorized to allocate funds from your former employer.”

Dutch pointed to his companion. “His former employer.”

Kate took the paperwork from out of her hand bag and slammed it onto the desk. The noise made all three men jump. Dutch actually looked scared. Had he really been holding a gun a few minutes ago? She thought right now she could reach out and take it from him like a mother confiscating a toy. She was half tempted to do it.

“This is the contract and liability form. They told me the job was only for Mister Trenton, but seeing as this is my call, I guess I can put up with Mister Jones for the duration. But let me make this clear: there will be no second payment. What you do with the money after it's yours is none of my business. So if you want to split it, I suggest you do it then. Now you can fucking take it, or you can fucking leave it.”

“All right, all right,” AJ said. “No need to get ugly, lady.”

“McCreedy. Kate McCreedy is my name.” She pointed a finger at him as she said it. She felt absurd doing it, just letting it hang out in front of him, but she thought it got the point across.

AJ looked at her finger a moment, then grabbed it with his free hand and shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Kate.”

She yanked her hand back. “Let's stick to 'Ms. McCreedy' for now, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, signing the paper.

“And I guess it's nice to meet you too, Angus.”

Dutch sputtered a laugh. When everybody looked at him, he looked confused. “What? Who?”

“I'm afraid we don't have much time,” Kate said. “I can give you half an hour to get your things together and get your replacements down here, but not much more than that. We've already wasted too much time.”

AJ stood up. “I'll make the call. Stanski and Richards can cover for us if it's only going to be a day.”

Kate couldn't get out of there fast enough, and when AJ picked up the phone, she took it as an excuse to head outside. It was hot, and the wind had picked up, blowing brown dust through the air in translucent waves. Her head still hurt, but one thing was going right: the first part of this was over. She was already tired, and the thought of putting up with the two chuckleheads in the trailer for the rest of the day made her head spin. She'd done her job though, and Michael would be happy. That, at least, was a pleasing thought. With her stake in VO, she wasn't going anywhere even if she failed, but it was nice to succeed anyway. It was nice to make friends, especially friends like—

The door to the trailer clanged open, and Dutch took two steps into the sun. He swiveled his head, finding Kate by the side wall. He frowned.

“Wait. Seriously,” he said. “Is his real name Angus?”

Chapter 4: On The Adalgisa

Kiel, Germany:

December, 1938

1

The young man led them down the catwalk, gesturing as he went. “Down here is the first mate's quarters. Over there is the kitchen. We eat five at a time, in shifts. The trapdoor is there in the corner.” He grabbed the handle and lifted, revealing a ladder. “Creates a hell of a mess when someone comes up during breakfast, but there's another one out on the main deck. Can't use it in heavy weather, though. After you.”

Dominik looked at Zofia. “Can you climb honey?”

She nodded, her thumb still in her mouth. She hadn't given it up since Maggie left.

At the bottom, they found themselves in a hallway with metal walls. Heat emanated from a room ahead, and Dominik quickly found out why. As they walked past, he saw a boy shoveling black dust into an enormous oven.

“That's Gerard,” Karl affirmed. “All that smoke makes him slow in the head, so he doesn't talk much.”

Gerard nodded, grinning at the four of them. Karl kept moving, leading his guests down to the crew's quarters. The men inside were sleeping, playing cards, writing letters. Two of them were even smoking in the corner, clogging the whole room with the stench. Nobody else seemed to notice, but it made Zofia cough. Dominik picked her up and tucked her head into his shoulder.

He saw bananas hanging in clumps, wire bags of peaches and other fruits dangling from hooks. A few sausages hung in one corner, attracting flies. Clothes and other items were also suspended near the beds, the men trying to take up as little space as possible.

“The crew sleeps here, obviously,” the man named Karl said. “Everybody to one room. The hammocks allow everyone their own bed, and that's a good thing. I don't know about you, but I don't abide sleeping in someone else's stink.” He pointed to a pill-shaped metal door that looked sealed with a crank handle. “This leads to the inside of the hull in case we need to make repairs or someone needs to adjust the spring damper for the harpoon. And these,” he said, leading them to two final doors, “are our pantries.” He cracked one of them, revealing a stack of boxes and food goods that looked ready to topple out. He shut it quickly and opened the other door, this time swinging it full. There were no goods inside; where Dominik expected boxes, he saw only a man.

The prisoner stood as the door opened, his overlong hair bouncing backwards. His clothes looked ruffled and dirty, but Dominik thought he must be some kind of intellectual. With his wild hair and glasses, it was the only mold that fit.

“Ari,” the man said, extending a hand. “Ari Quintus.”

Dominik shook it.

“Who are these lovely young ladies?”

“I'm Lucja.”

“Zol-fill-a,” Zofia said with her thumb in her mouth.

“Home, sweet home,” Karl said. “There's no room for a bed, but we got some straw you can share.”

Dominik looked past Ari and surveyed the small space with horror. It was no bigger than the other pantry, with a low ceiling and no windows. There was a straw mat in one corner and a suspicious-looking bucket in the other. Karl couldn't possibly mean for them to stay here.

“Life aboard a ship isn't easy,” the young man said. “We all have it pretty hard. You may have it a little harder than most, but you'll live.”

Dominik couldn't help but think he sounded rather chipper about the whole thing. “You can't be serious.”

At that moment, Lieutenant Dietrich came strutting purposefully towards the pantry. His hands were behind his back, his uniform re-creased in the hour since Dominik had seen him last. How he had managed to do such a thing on a moving ship, Dominik didn't know. Karl took his cue and bowed out. Friendly or not, this was none of his business.

Harald inclined his head towards the room. “Get inside.”

“You can't make us do that.”

“I can, and I will.”

“On whose orders?”

“On my orders, of course. Until we get settled and the men have their routine, you have to stay out of the way.” He paused, thought for a moment, then said, “Also, I don't trust you. You've had a very hard day, and you are not in your right mind.”

Dominik was not a man known for his temper, but he felt it rising. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “A hard day? Do you have any idea what you've done to us? These girls are without their mother, and I am without my wife! You have torn us apart at the seams and you talk about a hard day!”

Harald looked at him with infuriating patience. “Right now your wife is sitting comfortably in the back of a large black car on her way to your home city. You needn't worry about that.”

“And my girls? Should I worry about them crammed inside this box you call a cabin? Without their mother?”

“I could have you stripped and tied to the side of the ship until we reach port, Mister Kaminski. I advise you to lower your voice.”

“I will not!”

Zofia tugged at his sleeve. “Papa,” she said. “Papa, please stop yelling.”

He glanced down. Just seeing the look on her face broke his train of thought.

“I will have food and water brought to you within the hour,” Harald said. “It's the best I can do.”

“Any troubles here, sir?”

The tall soldier Jan stepped from out of the shadows to join his boss. He was predictably hunched over, but menacing enough even at three-quarter's height. Jan's job was to break things, and Dominik wasn't about to test him no matter how ridiculous their fighting quarters.

Sighing, Dominik turned to the other prisoner. “Mister Ari, please let us in.”

The man stepped back. “Lieutenant, sir,” he began, stumbling a little as the Kaminskis climbed past. “I know you want to get back to your duties, but I need to ask a favor. Just a small one, but it's important.”

“I'm not in the business of granting favors, Mister Quintus.”

“Well,” Ari said hurriedly, “I haven't been out of here in a while and… well you see… I have to go to the bathroom.” He lowered his voice. “Just a few minutes. If I could get some privacy—”

“I don't think so, Mister Quintus.”

“Please man, I'm begging you! These people, they're nice people. And he has two girls. I don't want to… you know… do that here with them. Please, I'll only be a moment. I don't even have to use the facilities, I can just go over the rails. You can send a guard to watch! Just don't make me do it here. Please.”

Harald thought, then shook his head. “No, Mister Quintus. You'll just have to hold it.” With all four prisoners inside, Harald moved to shut the door.

“You're a bastard,” Lucja said abruptly. She had held her tongue through the entire conversation, but she had had enough. There was a viciousness in her Dominik had never heard before.

For the first time, Harald looked almost regretful. He pushed the door closed and sealed it with an audible click. Dominik heard a valve spinning outside and knew they weren't getting out. If the ship sank or caught fire, they were doomed. If the rest of the crew died, they would starve. If this Ari fellow was a madman, they would be strangled in their sleep. Yes, this was turning out to be a hard day indeed.

Dominik took two steps to the far wall, letting his back slide down until his butt hit the floor. Zofia huddled on his left side, and Lucja crouched on his right, clinging to him as tightly as her sister.

Ari collapsed on the opposite wall. “I'm sorry about all that. They're not a very understanding people, are they?”

“How long have you been here?” Dominik asked.

“Since this morning. I spent all day yesterday in a car. I was blindfolded, so I can't even tell you where this is.”

“We're in Kiel.”

“Oh, well that certainly explains the weather, doesn't it? The Captain stopped in and introduced himself earlier this afternoon, and that's the only human contact I've had. I suppose I have to apologize. I've a bit of a weak stomach you see, and I've been in here for so long that it's gone all dodgy. I don't like being kept in here.”

“You don't have to apologize. None of us likes being here.”

“I'm hot, Papa,” Zofia said suddenly, pulling off her coat.

Ari tried to smile. “I wish we had a window. I suppose we'd have to deal with sea water splashing in from time to time, but I'd take it.”

Dominik helped Zofia and Lucja get comfortable, then pulled off his own coat and loosened his tie. It really was getting hot. It was a stark contrast to how freezing it had been above deck, but he supposed the proximity of the furnace and the confined space would do that. Zofia coughed once, gently, and he set her down on the straw.

“I don't like that man,” Lucja said.

Dominik nodded. “The army officer?”

“The one I called a bastard. I'm sorry, Papa. I didn't mean to swear.”

“He is a bastard.”

“I miss Mama.”

“I do too, but we can't do anything yet. We have to play his game for now.”

“That's good advice,” Ari said. “I know these people. They have great plans. Great Plans with a capital 'G.' The army was so scattered after the Great War they'll do anything in the name of king and country, now. I feel bad for men like Dietrich, I really do. They don't realize their fathers were listening to the same propaganda twenty years ago.”

“Did you fight?” Dominik asked.

“No, I was married and teaching at the time. I wasn't conscripted, thank God. But I doubt it would have made any difference in where I am right now. I could have given all four limbs to Germany, and if The Führer thought I'd be best served by staying in this pantry, I'd be here.”

“Do you really think he cares about the likes of us?”

Ari thought for a moment. “I can't say. The secret police have been running a strange game these past few years. And to think, the Gestapo didn't exist when I was a boy.”

“The cruelty of ordinary people is monstrous,” Dominik said. “My wife…” He couldn't finish.

“I'm sorry,” Ari said, now looking at the floor.

“I just don't know why it had to be us. I don't know why they put so much effort into our little family. We're nothing, aren't we?”

“I've been trying to figure that out. The men in black coats showed up outside the doors to my lab yesterday, and I was foolish enough to think they were looking for someone else. Someone else! Imagine! Before I knew it, I had a bag over my head and was riding up the highway in the back of a car. I got here with the clothes on my back, and that's all. I'm still waiting for an explanation.”

A sound like thunder reverberated through the walls, and Dominik jumped. He wondered if it had begun to storm outside when Zofia giggled, and he realized that Ari had farted.

“Sorry about that,” Ari said, holding his stomach.

“What is it that you do, Ari?” Dominik asked.

“I'm a statistician. Well, a mathematical physicist,” he corrected. “Officially, I teach at Humboldt University, but since the party took over the school, it hasn't been the same. I've been traveling when I can get away with it. My most recent sabbatical was to Oslo to study linear particle accelerators. But that would probably bore you to death. What do you do? Do you teach? You look like a teacher, if you don't mind me saying.”

“I'm a biochemist.” He continued to stare at Ari. This new bit of information was troubling. It could be a coincidence that the Gestapo happened to capture two analytical scientists within two days of one another, but he doubted it. “I'm interested in what you do. Could you tell me?”

“Absolutely!” The man grinned, but then, his face changed. A gurgling noise came from his nether regions. “Ooo… I don't think I can hold this any more.” He put both hands over his gut and started hobbling towards the bucket, paused for a moment as if not wanting to go, then cried out and forced himself onwards. “I'm so sorry, folks. I can't wait.”

“Um—”

“This is so embarrassing,” Ari said, pulling his pants down in a most unembarrassed kind of way. Before Dominik could grab the girls, Ari's hairy ass was staring him in the face. Lucja was stunned, but Zofia only looked confused.

“Just a minute, Ari,” Dominik said. He grabbed both girls and turned them to face the corner of the room. “Let's be nice and give the man some privacy.”

“That's so gross!” Lucja commented. She looked as if she might be sick.

Zofia whispered as if Ari couldn't hear, which he clearly could. “What's he doing, Papa?”

Ari let out another loud gust, this one propelled down into the bucket. It was accompanied by a soft, moaning noise from the man himself.

Dominik, whose cheeks were barely dry, started to laugh. It was soft at first, and then grew to something louder. “I think, honey… I think he's trying to start a car. One of those old fashioned ones with a crank in the front.”

“Hey now, I'm trying to concentrate,” Ari said. His bowels erupted. There was another loud explosion and a soft thud of wet matter into the bucket.

“I take that back,” Dominik said. “It's more like a plane that's flying by. One that's dropping bombs on us.”

Zofia, who was gripping her father's arm, loosened her hold and started to laugh. It was a completely normal sound, something he hadn't heard in days, and it was catching. Before long, Lucja had started in as well.

“It sounds to me more like a dying hippo,” she said. “One of those big fat ones from the zoo.”

Dominik started to cry anew, this time from laughter. He could barely talk he was laughing so hard. “It's starting to smell like a dead hippo in here, Ari.”

“Oh, stop it!” Ari yelled, though Dominik could hear a ghost of a grin in his voice. A piece of bread hit him in the back. “That's for you to mind your manners!”

Any hope Ari had of convincing them to be quiet, however, was lost in another blast. The three unwilling spectators erupted into fresh gales, and they couldn't stop. “Ari… I never knew… you played the trombone!” Dominik said between bursts.

They were rolling on the ground now, and Dominik had to use his arms to keep the girls from rolling too far. He looked at his daughters and thought maybe, just maybe, they would be all right as long as they stuck together.

2

“You think they want us to build a weapon, don't you?”

That's what Ari asked him when the girls went to sleep. The previous year, Ari had published a theory—the theory — on thermal diffusion as a means of separating irradiated uranium, and Dominik was almost ashamed to admit he hadn't heard of him. He had heard of Ari's teacher, of course, the world-renowned Max Planck. It was clear that Ari was one of the man's proteges.

Dominik sighed. “It doesn't quite fit. My field is biochemistry, not physics. If they wanted to build a bomb, they would have grabbed your teacher, not me.”

“But chemical weaponry? Biological weaponry? What of that?”

He had to admit it was plausible, though he didn't like thinking of such things. It was mere hours since he had lost his wife, and his mind was cluttered with other thoughts.

They were interrupted by Burke the cook, and Dominik was saved the trouble of answering. The big man bustled into the pantry, looking harried and sweaty. Dominik was so surprised that it took him a moment to realize the door to the outside world was left wide open. Then, he realized he was being foolish. Even if they overpowered Burke, where would they go? They were at sea now, prisoners of the ocean as much as The Republic. His heart sank at the notion.

“Zofia. Lucja. Wake up,” he said. “Food.”

Ari asked the man if there was any news, but when Burke answered with a rather rude, “Mind your own fucking business,” Ari shut up. He made a rather distressed little shake, and Dominik smiled to himself. He realized he was coming to like Ari. He was one of those harmless, socially inept pundits who seemed incapable of deception. Dominik figured that was the best type of man to be trapped in a pantry with, if one had to be trapped in a pantry.

“Eat up, Ari.”

By the time they were finished, the hours had already begun to dissolve. They talked some more and then slept. They stretched their legs and took turns walking back and forth, and they slept. They used the bucket, they played word games, and they slept some more. Every so often, Dominik would reach into his pocket for his pocket watch, and then remember that it had been taken when Dietrich and the fat Gestapo agent had found them.

You think they want us to build a weapon, don't you?

In the darkness, Dominik found himself returning to the question. Is this where all his years of knowledge and study had led? As a teacher, he had been removed from such thinking, and he thought the university had as well. Surely if there were a place pure and unblemished by thoughts of war, it was there. But then, he remembered his walk each morning. He remembered that for the past two years, he had passed by the monument to the 76th Army Regiment on his way to work. A huge ugly cube, it jutted from the earth in orthogonal defiance of the peaceful Hamburg campus, some two blocks away. Engravings of soldiers lined the lower perimeter, strutting around the circumference. For all the pride etched onto their faces, the metaphor of men marching in an endless loop seemed lost on the monument's architects.

This is what their country had become.

You think they want—

Something banged on the door, and Dominik jumped, wondering how long he had been sitting mute in the dark.

A moment later, a large silhouette appeared in the entranceway. It gripped both sides of the frame, suggesting a man who was either drunk or seasick, and since all of the men on board were able-bodied, Dominik did not think it was the latter.

“Do you believe this is my ship, boy?” it asked. “Well? I'm talking to you, pantry man.”

“Yes,” Dominik said, confused.

The figure nodded. “Damn right. I am the captain. I am Captain Heinrich von Unger, and this is my ship. Nobody tells me what to do on my ship. Do you believe that?”

“Yes, of course.”

The captain looked at Ari. “And you?”

“Yes,” the man said nervously.

“Very good. Then you gather up your children and you follow me. All of you.”

3

Moments later, Dominik found himself in the open air, face to face with Dietrich once more. Only instead of taking something, the good lieutenant was prepared to give. At the captain's insistence, Dominik and his family would be given a supervised escort to the deck twice daily for exercise. And though Dominik was relieved beyond measure, on some distant, secret level of his mind, he was also mollified.

Which was why the lieutenant had agreed to Heinrich's request in the first place.

A small taste of freedom can dampen — sometimes even extinguish — one's desire for the real thing. At least, for a time.

Chapter 5: A Mouthful of Sand

The Argentinian Coast:

Present Day

1

Mason pushed open the church doors and stepped out onto the dirt. The sun was dipping towards the horizon, an orange giant against a backdrop of distant mountains. The church was more cellar than gathering hall, and the air greeted him like a welcome friend. He was assaulted by the smells of the sea, the sounds of his men playing football over the hill. It was beautiful down here, and unlike the others, he wasn't too dim to notice. Also unlike the others, being here always made him think of retirement. That day was coming, and it wasn't far.

He dropped the duffel bags onto the dirt and stretched, feeling sweat trickle down his bare chest. The guns were heavy, and no one had offered to help him carry them up. That was all right. He liked the time alone. He liked the smell of dirt and gun oil and the feel of the old church over his head.

Footsteps echoed above him, and he turned to see old Padre Manuel coming up on the entrance. He nodded. The padre nodded back.

Old Manuel wasn't here with any real purpose, he was just walking the grounds, just as he always did when Mason was here. Seeing that all was satisfactory, the padre continued up the path to the cemetery and the little flower garden behind the walls. His leg brace, a metal medieval contraption, squeaked as he passed. Some of the padre's history was well-concealed, but some of it — like his mangled kneecap — was not. Mason wondered if that was what was in store for him if he pushed too far into old age and allowed himself to get slow.

His thoughts were interrupted when he looked up the path and saw Reiner coming over the hill. Like Mason, he was shirtless, still sporting a sunburn leftover from their last job in Mexico. He was wearing his cowboy hat and shades, a look that only true rednecks could pull off. And Reiner pulled it off just fine.

“Goddamn, boss. Praise God and pass the ammunition,” he said, sifting through one of the bags with the tip of a steel-toed boot.

“Have a look if you want.”

He did. A moment later, he was holding an AR-15 out in front of him and checking the stock.

Mason wiped the sweat off his brow. “Any complaints?”

“None from me, boss. What else you got in there?” There came out 'nare.

“A couple of Mossbergs, a few forty-fives. Oh, there are two fifty cals. I figure we'll take one per chopper.”

“You think we'll need 'em?”

“Not likely, but you never know. And speaking of shit we don't need, I managed to get a new toy for St. Croix.”

“Oh yeah?” Reiner looked in the bag and found the grenade launcher. “Christ, one of them China jobs? You'll be lucky if that shit don't blow up in his hands.”

Mason laughed. “You know as well as I do that he'll be like a kid at Christmas. If we don't have anything to blow up, he'll find something.”

“Hell yeah, he will. I don't reckon I'll be walking in front of him any time soon.”

“I just want to see that grin of his, the one that makes him look like a monkey.”

Reiner chuckled. “You hate that grin, boss. You know it.”

“You're right, I do. Where's he at, anyways? With the others?”

“Yep,” Reiner said, shifting his hat back. “Want me to get 'em?”

“No, let them have a few minutes. We're still waiting on the civies.” He'd been out of the military for well over a decade now, but some words just stuck. Civies was the only way he could think of the soft-bodied.

“You're wrong about that, boss. They're here. That's why I came to get you. I thought you would have heard the chopper.” Reiner spat into the dirt.

Mason grunted. Had he really been too lost in his own thoughts to hear the thing? It didn't matter; digging up the hole in the cellar was good for him. It was therapeutic.

He looked behind the church and saw the padre up on the hill, watching them. He pointed east towards the beach, looking more scarecrow than man.

“That guy gives me the creeps.”

“Quit it,” Mason said, but he was glad. The fact the cowboy could see old Manuel was somehow reassuring. Had he come to this place alone the first time, Mason would have wondered if the padre was real at all.

“Grab the bags.”

“Am I following you?”

“No. Head on over to the helo and make sure it gets refueled first. I'm going to see about our guests.”

Mason started up the path and crested the hill overlooking the beach. He didn't have far to walk. Most of his own men were still tossing the pigskin, but the new kid, Nicholas, was talking to the civilians. Mason had worked with almost everyone on his team before. He'd known Markus Reiner for six years, Christian Vytalle and Jin Tae for four. Their Alpha pilot, Hal McHalister, he'd flown with on and off for eight. Nicholas Worsch was the only new addition. Black Shadow had put him in at the last minute, and he didn't know everyone yet. That was fine. He'd come around after this job, Mason was sure. As for the others, Mason figured he'd have to reintroduce himself, and that was also fine. Then, he counted and frowned. There was an extra man. The McCreedy woman was only supposed to bring back one. Instead, she brought back two. That was what you'd expect putting a woman in charge, wasn't it? They always overdid it. He started down the hill.

In moments, the man in the center caught sight of him. “Well, sonofabitch. Mister Mason Bruhbaker. I see you're still in the business.”

He nodded. “AJ.”

They embraced, and Mason slapped the other man on the back. “Been a long time.”

Kate stood with her jaw hanging. “You know this guy?”

“Old AJ and I go way back. Ain't that right, AJ?”

“We were in the same unit, once upon a time,” AJ said. “Did a few private sector jobs after, back when I was young. Guess that's ancient history.”

“Hey, did you know his name is 'Angus?'” Dutch said, chiming in.

Mason showed his veneers. “Who are you?”

“Henry Jones,” Kate said, interrupting them. “He and AJ are attached at the ass. It was the only way he would agree to come.”

Mason looked his old friend up and down. “Is that right?”

“When I found out who was footing the bill for this little excursion, I thought it would be better to have backup. All the more so when I learned you were the one in charge on the ground.”

“Bet that was the first thing you asked.”

“You bet. I know the mission always comes first. I've got to look out for my own safety.”

“I see you brought a piece too, huh?” Mason looked at the pistol tucked into his old friend's belt.

“Well, we didn't exactly run through customs on the way in.”

Mason appraised him, and he couldn't quite suppress a smile. AJ was as paranoid as ever. The thing was, he was right to be. “Guess it's obvious I didn't ask for this. The client thought it would be a good idea if their ex-security chief came along for the ride. Don't know why, but it's their money. I suppose if they really valued your opinion, they probably wouldn't have fired you in the first place, right?”

AJ's face tightened.

Mason knew how to get under his skin, and he was glad to know that some things hadn't changed. AJ wasn't a bad guy, but he didn't know his place in the world. When they used to run together, AJ had been a fine soldier. He was a good shot, calm under fire. He could man artillery. He could pilot a tank. But he was a smartass, and Mason had no use for smartasses. It had taken him years to find a team full of players he could trust, and AJ would have never made the cut.

“You know he used to play ball?” Nicholas said.

“Yeah,” Mason said. “Yeah, he did.”

“Who'd you play for?” Nick asked.

“Notre Dame. Third string. I still got a pretty good arm.”

Mason looked at Kate. She was trying to hide it, but she was impressed. Imagine, the things that some women liked. He looked behind him and saw Jin and Peter smashing into one another, wrestling for a fumbled ball like animals. Friendly competition amongst real men… well, it never was.

“Hey Jin!” he called. “Jin Tae!”

His engineer looked over, sweating in the afternoon heat. “Yeah?”

“You want to play a round with another college boy?”

The man waved. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Kate stepped forward. “We don't have much time. We need to get moving.”

“I say when we have to get moving, and I say we have time for a first down play amongst old buddies. What do you say, AJ? You too old to show us what you got?”

AJ looked at Henry, then at Kate. “Like the man said. Whatever you say.”

Mason heard the wind whistle behind him. He may have been lost in his own thoughts in the church, but now, it was game time, and at game time, he could hear a dove taking flight a half a mile away. He turned and caught the football just as it came within reach. It was a catch Jerry Rice would have been proud of, and he barely had to step to grab it.

“I told you. That's five bucks!” St. Croix said.

Jin waved him off, but he looked glad to lose it. Faith in your commander was something that couldn't be underestimated, and Mason always welcomed their little tests. There was a reason he was Black Shadow's best.

He tossed the ball to AJ, and the man coughed as he caught it. “Sure,” the man said, looking at Kate and his loser friend. “Sure, what the hell?”

2

“Do you know what you're doing?” the girl asked. “You know, they're all bigger than you.”

AJ was already headed towards the beach. “I never really know what I'm doing. I just go with it.”

The girl scoffed, and he smiled at her. He liked her, as stiff and stodgy as she was. Of course, being out in the mountains with nothing but dirt and machinery for a year, he'd probably like any girl that walked his way, especially one offering money.

Meanwhile, the men on the beach were looking at him skeptically. Not counting Mason, there were eight altogether. That made sense; Black Shadow assignments were usually divided into two four-man fire teams, and they usually took at least one pilot. Nicholas stepped over to his side, and AJ nodded.

Then, something slapped him on the shoulder, and he spun. He found himself facing another merc. This one happened to be the team medic. “What's up, baby? You AJ?”

“Yeah, that's me.”

“I'm Melvin. You used to play ball, huh?”

“Long time ago.”

“Me too, man. Half-back.” He made a point-and-shoot motion with one hand and blew wind through his teeth. Then, he took off his glasses and tossed them over to Mason, who was now walking up the sidelines. “Heard you were good. I don't trust ya enough to leave those on, though.” The man winked, and AJ sighed. It looked like he was going in with a big target on his back after all.

He tossed Melvin the ball and took his place in position behind him. For now, old Melvin was stuck with center. He didn't know his other teammates, and he didn't know what play they were going to run. But these neanderthals looked like they were just going to run straight through each other, so he didn't guess it mattered.

On the other side of the line, he was facing off against one pilot and three other men. Even four against five, they looked like they outweighed his side two to one.

He could see the sweat dripping down their center's chin. He had a crazy, green look in his eyes. AJ was just about to ask him what his problem was when Melvin hiked the ball. He caught it with an oomph, stepping back out of sheer instinct.

The four men on the left locked up, but Nicholas went long. AJ was just about to toss when Melvin dropped to one knee. The other center launched himself over, planting one boot on Melvin's back as he hurtled towards AJ like a missile. AJ turned just in time to see two hundred and fifty pounds of meat hit him square in the chest. He fell against the sand, nearly blacking out with the impact. It was a good minute before he could push himself up. He thought Melvin would be apologizing, but the man was laughing.

“Oh, shit!” he said, coming over to him. “You okay, man? Holy shit, sorry about that.” And then, another gale took him. “I have to say, that was a nice one, Vy. Damn.”

The other center held out a hand and gave Melvin a high-five.

AJ spit out a mouthful of sand. Looking back, he saw a hand extended to him, this one connected to Nick. He took it but saw even the kid was grinning.

“What the hell are you smiling at?”

“I don't know. I guess I've just never seen an old guy get hit that hard before. You have to admit, it was a pretty good hit.”

AJ waved him off. “Yeah, yeah.”

Further up the beach, he could see the girl with her hands on her hips. She had a look in her eyes like his ex-wife used to get, like she would say something if she thought it would do any good.

“All right, gentlemen,” Mason said, clapping his hands. “I think it's about time we get going. The clock is ticking.”

AJ turned. “No.”

“No?” Mason asked. “I don't think you're in charge here, old buddy.”

“One more play.”

“We don't have time for—”

“Thirty more seconds. Unless your lackies are too afraid I'll shove this ball up their ass now that I know who can and can't block.”

Mason paused, then nodded. “All right. It's your funeral, but make it quick.”

“Last time wasn't fair, anyways.” He looked right at Melvin. “It was five on four last time. One of our team should sit out. What do you say there, chief?”

Melvin looked at the others, then huffed. He strode past AJ and off the playing field, kicking up sand as he went.

AJ turned to Nicholas. He kept his voice low. “Can you throw?”

“What do you have in mind?”

AJ told him. A moment later, they stepped back to the line, this time with a plan. Melvin's buddy was looking at AJ with murder in his eyes, and he wasn't the only one. They didn't have a clue as to what was coming, though. Twenty years wasn't long enough to wash the playbook out of AJ's head.

The kid hiked the ball and then circled around behind him. AJ tossed the ball back to him underhanded, and then cut up the middle. A moment later, Nick threw, arcing the ball up and over the guys on the front line. He wasn't great with a football, but the distance wasn't long, and AJ caught it like it was nothing. He sprinted up the beach, heading towards the piece of driftwood marking the goal line. He could feel himself grinning as he went. There was someone behind him though, and he was gaining.

AJ pushed off of his left leg, intending to jump into goal, but another meat hammer hit him in the back, driving him face down into the dirt. He landed straight on the ball, the pigskin cutting into his chest and knocking the wind out of him a second time. He coughed as he pulled his head out of the earth, tasting grit all of the way in the back of his throat. He looked up and saw the driftwood directly to his right. Behind him, Melvin's buddy was getting off the ground. The guy hadn't been fooled for long; he had good instincts.

Nicholas came running up behind them. “Holy cow, good run. Is it in?”

AJ looked at the driftwood. “Yes.”

“No,” Christian said at the same time.

“It looks good to me,” AJ said.

“No.”

“You want to fight about it?”

Mason came striding over. “All right, it's over, you two. It's time to go.” AJ was about to say something else, but he was cut short. “I said cut the crap. Go find Markus. We move in five minutes.”

With one final glare, Christian started running up the beach.

“Not bad for a man my age,” Mason said. “I don't think he likes you, though.”

“I don't think he's the only one.”

“You never were very good at making friends, Angus.”

AJ nodded. “You never were very good at keeping them.”

He wiped the sand out of his mouth, then headed off without waiting for a response. Nicholas seemed to be the only one pleased with the whole affair, and the kid gave him a thumbs up.

“You done playing games?” Kate asked when he got within earshot.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Now if you don't mind?” She pointed towards the shore.

“Are we flying?”

“Yeah,” Mason said, coming up behind him. “Greg Marten and I are on the Delta chopper. You and the stragglers will be riding with Alpha. They're both fueled and ready to go, so let's get moving.”

Kate groaned. “I thought we'd be taking the boat.”

“Not so lucky,” Mason said. “But we'll get there fast. It should take just under two hours.”

“Why are you two the only ones flying in the first chopper?” she asked.

“It's over three hundred miles out to the platform. On the outside chance their fueling station is incapacitated, we want to make sure at least one bird has the fuel to get back.” Mason smiled. “And it will be a tight thing at that.”

He walked off, and Kate groaned a second time. AJ could almost see the fluids in her stomach churning.

They marched off as a group, following the flux of mercenaries as they headed to the shack serving as a fueling depot. A few of them whooped as they went, slinging their shirts overhead.

“You look grim.”

AJ turned and realized Kate was talking to him. All he could do was nod towards the men. “Bunch of idiots.”

He'd seen the same thing a dozen times — guys getting worked up right before shipping out. He and Mason never did, but then again, he and Mason had been alive longer than all of these yahoos. When the dying started, that cavalier bullshit went fast.

Probably just an accident and a downed radio tower, he thought. Easy clean-up, and easy money. Even if it wasn't, he had nothing to complain about. He was tired of sitting on his ass in the middle of nowhere. When he had first left, he had needed to get away from everyone and everything in his life. That was over a year ago now, and things had changed. And here was this girl offering him… what, a second chance? He didn't believe in second chances, but it was something.

The pilots hit the ignition switches and the choppers roared to life, the blades spinning up from standstill to whirlwind. Mason stood between the two, watching as his men climbed on board. By the time they got in, they were fully outfitted and dressed.

Two hours with Melvin and that cowboy Mason was using as his second in command. AJ couldn't wait.

He lifted one mud-splattered boot and placed it inside. As he climbed in, he looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the priest up the hill. The padre was standing against the sun, skeletal in the afternoon light, watching.

3

On land, Kate considered herself a fairly diplomatic person, but two hours into the flight, she found herself unable to wipe a look of disgust off of her face.

AJ sat strapped into the seat across from her. “Something wrong?”

“I'm just thinking how much I hate the man that got us into this.”

Michael had seemed a little too eager to let her come hadn't he? No… no, she supposed he hadn't. Had, in fact, tried to stop her. Of course, when you find yourself in over your head thanks to your own big mouth, you tend to overlook the niceties.

“Well, you're here now,” AJ said.

Next to him, Dutch looked half asleep. How anyone could sleep with the racket, she didn't know. The chopper blade was spinning with such force that she expected it to fly off at any moment. She put a hand to her mouth and put her head back, trying not to get sick.

“You don't like air travel, huh?”

“What was your first clue?”

“The vomit, probably.”

She flushed. Her mother had always hated air travel, even in a private jet. Kate figured that she must have inherited the same problem, because she got physically ill every time she was airborne. Her father hated showing weakness in front of other people, and she'd inherited that aspect from him. When you put those two traits together, it was bad news.

“It's no big deal. My wife used to get sick, and she loved to fly. Well, at least she loved to go places. She doped up on Dramamine whenever we traveled. You ever take it?”

Kate shook her head.

“She used to say it was a histamine reaction, but I guess that doesn't do you much good now.”

She'd read AJ's file, but she still couldn't picture him married. Bouncing from place to place, living out of the country, working six days a week and sleeping at the job site — those weren't the characteristics that endeared you to a spouse. “You were married?”

“Three years. Gave it up about the time Valley Oil gave up on me.”

“Was it the same cause?” she blurted.

“They didn't like my recommendations. Especially when it came to policing the geography near the drill site. Too expensive. I guess I wouldn't shut up about it.”

“No, I meant your wife.”

“Oh, that.” He gave a wry smile. “Let's just say it ended badly.”

Somehow, Kate wasn't surprised. “I'm sorry I asked. It's none of my business.”

“No harm. Anyways, by the time it was over, I had the offer in Chile. It seemed like a good a time as any to change things up.”

Dutch had come awake when the two of them started to talk, and he patted his buddy on the shoulder. “Check it out, you two.”

Kate turned to the window and saw splash of foam. A school of creatures swam beneath them, darting in and out of the water. She could just make out their black and white bodies as they broached the surface.

“Killer whales?” she asked.

“Hourglass dolphins,” Dutch said. “Rare as shit.”

She looked again. One of them jumped ten feet into the air, spun, and then dove back into the water. She had never been to Sea World as a kid, but she imagined that's what the animals in captivity were trained to do on command. It was strange to see it here in the wild, strange and oddly beautiful.

“We're coming up on the platform,” the pilot called. “Sit tight.”

The S-70 slowed to a halt and hovered in mid-air. Kate looked out the opposite window and saw Mason's chopper doing the same. A few seconds later, she heard a bunch of radio chatter from the cockpit. It all sounded like gibberish.

The team around her, animals on the beach, were now sitting with their equipment in their laps, as docile as sheep. The tension was palpable, and they were all feeling it. Kate herself never did like sitting still when she was anxious. She unbuckled her seat straps and stood up, able to balance more easily now that the chopper was hovering. AJ put a hand on her wrist, but she shook it off and stepped forward, moving between the ceiling handholds. She reached the flight deck and the pilot turned.

“Ma'am?”

She looked past him out of the front windows. “That's it, huh?”

The platform was still two miles out, but she could see it on the horizon, a clenched fist rising from the water. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but she thought anything would have surprised her equally. If its current state held a surprise, it was how normal it looked. There was no smoke rising from the structure, and she could make out at least one crane still intact. There seemed to be something wrong with the bottom of the platform, but at this distance, she couldn't tell what it was.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned, expecting to see AJ, but it was one of the men from the beach.

“It don't look like much, huh?”

She was about to tell him to back off, but instead, she said, “Do you think they're dead?”

“Don't know.”

“What else could it be? I mean, the place doesn't look like it's burning down or anything.”

He shrugged. “Could be nothin' more than a dead com tower and an accident that's got 'em scared. That's what the boss says, anyways.”

“But you don't think so?”

A smile crossed his face, but she didn't like the look of it. “Yeah. Yeah, I reckon we'll find a tomb. Only thing that makes sense, don't it?”

She shivered.

“You stay close to me, baby, you'll be fine.”

“You finish med school, Melvin?” AJ said, coming up behind them.

The other man's grin faltered. “Why? You planning on getting shot out there?”

“That didn't answer my question.”

“Man, you know I'm a field medic. What's the point?”

AJ grabbed a handhold. “I just think if you ain't got a philosophy degree, you should keep your stupid ass opinions to yourself. You're scaring the girl.”

“You want it to be like that, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you do get shot out there, I'll see if I can remember enough training to save you. How about that?”

“How about it?”

Kate sighed. Without even trying, she found herself in the middle of another pissing contest. She didn't know how they found the time to start so many.

“Hey,” the pilot said. “If you two are going to argue, get the hell away from the flight deck.”

“And away from me,” Kate added.

Then, the radio in the cockpit crackled. “That's a negative, Hal. They're still not responding. Let's give them one more try on your end.”

The pilot hit a switch, ignoring the group behind him. “Roger. Trying now.” He hit another button. “Platform Aeschylus, please respond. This is Alpha One-Niner, rescue team inbound on behalf of Valley Oil corporate. Please give us a sit-rep, over.” He waited a few seconds, then tried again, repeating the message.

“Time to go,” Melvin said, pushing past AJ and returning to his seat.

Kate was tempted to do the same but didn't want it to seem like she was following. Instead, she stood her ground, feeling awkward. AJ was looking down at her — staring, really — and she didn't like it.

“Don't do that.”

“Do what?”

“Stare at me.”

“I'm not staring.”

“You're staring,” she said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

He cocked his head. “A lot of things make you uncomfortable, don't they?”

“Yes, and the sound of your voice is one of them.” It was infuriating. Back home, she could have just gotten up and left. Here, she was stuck in metal box with nothing but six feet of space on either side.

In the cockpit, the pilot hit another switch. “That's a negative, boss. No response here.”

The reply came fast. “That's a roger. We're going to have a look.”

The second helicopter roared forward, and out of the window, she saw it thunder towards the platform. They were low enough where the whip of the blades left a wake on the ocean surface. By the time the water settled, the helicopter was a spec on the horizon.

The pilot turned to her. “Have a seat.”

Kate hesitated.

“Move it!”

With a grimace, she turned towards the passenger bay, found her seat, and buckled up. The men were staring at her. The man next to Melvin whispered something to his friend and smiled. She wanted out of the cattle car more than ever.

A moment later, they all heard Mason's voice crackle through the radio. “Alpha come in. Your path is clear. You better come on up, over.”

“What's the situation?” the pilot asked, clicking on the radio.

“The helipad is secure. The rest, you have to see for yourself.”

Then, they were lurching forward, the chopper skimming the top of the water as it blasted towards the metal skeleton ahead.

4

As the S-70 came upon the platform and circled round, Kate looked out the window and found that her first impulse, barely stifled, was to scream.

5

Grotesque, black shapes encircled the bottom of the spar, strangling the base of the platform like vines. They seemed to have grown up out of the water, huge amorphous strands unlike anything she had ever seen. Whether native or allochthonous, the things looked almost like they were a part of a carnivorous plant. It was as if the bottom of The Aeschylus was being swallowed — or cocooned — by a mass of tentacles.

“What the hell is that?” someone moaned.

“Man, I don't like the looks of this,” Melvin answered.

Kate found that her distant impression of the upper Aeschylus wasn't entirely accurate, either. Circling the platform, she saw that while the central derrick was mostly intact, a nearby crane was almost completely severed. It hung over the side of the platform like a dead finger. A communications dish lay crumpled nearby, shattered by the same force that had cracked the crane. And there was more: broken hallways, a collapsed stairwell, debris and broken metal visible on the drilling deck.

None of these things had been visible from the satellite images, and as they rounded the top, Kate realized why. The satellite looked almost straight down. The organic mass, the collapsed catwalks and stairs… none would be visible when looking at the square from above.

And there were no people.

Kate wasn't sure if she found this more upsetting or not. If she had seen corpses piled across the platform, as horrible as that would have been, it would have provided some kind of closure. It would have meant that whatever struggle had taken place here was over. Of course, finding a group of refugees waving a white flag on the main deck would have been the best outcome, but she hadn't been naïve enough to expect that. What she found instead was that the mystery didn't end. If the crew were alive somewhere, if they were hiding, or if they had been swallowed by something in the ocean, there was no way to tell.

The helipad at the top of The Aeschylus was wide enough to accommodate two helicopters, but a burnt shell of a machine occupied one of those spaces. Kate realized it must be the helicopter she had seen from the satellite images in her father's manila envelope.

Kate's pilot, Hal McHalister, touched down next to the old husk, powering off almost as soon as the legs touched. She breathed a sigh of relief when the platform didn't collapse under their weight. Ridiculous maybe, but seeing those things below, they had no idea how much of the undersea structure remained intact.

Next to her, Markus Reiner took off his sunglasses and brushed back his cowboy hat. “Stay here, sweetheart. The rest of y'all know what to do.”

“Where do you want us?” AJ asked, indicating Dutch and himself.

“Right behind us. Take your piece. It looks quiet, but we don't know what's out there. You get it?”

AJ nodded.

The rest of the men filed out, rifles in hand. It happened so fast, Kate blinked, and they were gone. They took position around the square, scanning the area through the sights on their weapons. A few, Melvin included, took position by the burnt chopper, using its walls for cover.

Mason's bird hovered at the edge of the platform, unable to land, and the man himself jumped across the gap onto the concrete. He walked towards the center of the helipad and greeted Reiner in the middle. The two men exchanged words, and then Reiner jogged back towards the hovering helicopter. He stepped off the platform and into its open hatch, fearless of the gap between solid ground and aircraft. He shut the door from the inside, and in seconds, the chopper was gone, flying up and over the water.

Mason motioned towards Kate. “We're all secure here. Come on out.”

It took her a moment to get moving. She was supposed to get up, but it felt strange. She was going out there. Her knees began to shake as she stood.

Kate wasn't afraid of heights, but she felt nothing but vertigo as her feet touched the concrete. The helipad was just an elevated square overlooking the rest of The Aescylus, the highest point save for the crane cabs. Water stretched beyond two of the sides, the steel bones of the rig beneath the other two.

Mason whistled and swirled one arm in the air, his index finger to the sky. Four men broke position and jogged back to the center. She saw that one of them had a grenade launcher, and she shuddered, wondering if that kind of firearm could have caused some of the damage to the upper platform.

“All right, listen up!” Mason said. The men huddled. “High ground is secure. There's nowhere to go but down. We stagger movement and secure this place sector by sector.”

“I never thought I'd be hoping for some jihadies,” the one with the big gun said. “This is some weird shit, man.”

Mason shook his head. “Different shit, same day. In any case, you know the drill. No chances.”

“And what exactly were you told?” Kate asked.

Mason looked at her, his expression unreadable. “We have our mission, and you have yours. When we clean up the mess, you can decide how you want to report it. That is your job, right? Figuring out how to report this to the shareholders?”

Kate put one hand on her hip. “It's a little more complicated than that, thanks.”

“So is our job. And if you don't mind, we'd like to get to it.” He turned to AJ. “Only one stairwell down, is that right?”

AJ nodded. “That's right, it goes right to the main deck. There are three paths down from that point. The northwest end leads to the employee barracks and housing units, the southwest end to the storage tanks. Drilling operation is one level down from there. And the east stairwell goes to security and the generator levels. They all connect at the bottom where the boat deck is. That's a hike no matter which route you take.”

Mason nodded. “Yeah, that gels with the blueprints. You think more than four men are needed to secure the top deck though, huh?”

AJ looked at Dutch and then back. “Considering we don't know what we're dealing with, I'd say so.”

Mason grunted. A moment later, he jogged off, sending the four men ahead of him to the stairwell.

Kate turned and was surprised to see AJ looking hard up. “You all right?”

“Yeah. I guess I didn't think it would matter so much being here.”

“And it does?”

He shrugged. “She's my baby. I didn't build her, but it was my job to make sure she stayed safe.”

“It would have if you were still here, man,” Dutch said.

AJ spat, and Kate winced; it was a vulgar gesture. “Yeah, that's part of what pisses me off.”

Someone cursed below, and then Mason reemerged from the stairwell. “It's blocked from the other side. Onto Plan B.”

“There's no other way down,” AJ said.

Mason chuckled and slapped him on the arm. “That always was your problem old buddy: you don't think outside the box.”

The bigger motioned to his fire team. “Rappel lines. Here and here. Ready?”

The men nodded, drawing nylon rope from pouches on their vests. They were light and thin, each one containing a huge clamp at the end.

“Aren't you too heavy for that?” AJ asked, looking at the hairy guy who'd tackled him on the beach.

The man slapped on a clamp and flashed AJ his teeth. “Your mama,” he said, and hopped over.

It wasn't free fall, but it was a close thing. Each man dropped effortlessly, their feet bouncing against the side wall. They detached and fell the last three feet to the ground, facilely moving to cover. Mason followed, and it didn't look like his age slowed him down one bit.

Kate watched as the team scattered, setting up fire positions around the cargo containers. Their tactics were perfect, each man covering another, the whole unit moving in a wave across the deck. When they got halfway across, they held position, each man surveying the deck with the barrels of his gun.

“Excuse me,” Melvin said, pushing past Kate and Dutch. He was attaching his own rappel line to the railing.

“Just leaving us here, eh?” Dutch asked.

AJ's buddy from the beach, Nicholas, stepped through. “You'll be fine, old pal. Back in no time. Besides, Hal will be here.” He indicated the chopper behind them, where the pilot was smoking a cigarette.

“Nick,” AJ said, his tone serious. “What's down there?”

The boy's smile faded as he strapped on his harness. “You don't want to know.”

He and Melvin dropped out of sight. Kate thought that at the rate the team had been moving, they'd have the whole platform cleared in ten minutes. But it was over an hour before they heard back.

6

Reiner saw the island before his pilot did. He tapped Marten and pointed. “There it is. Hell of a good size.”

The pilot flipped a switch on the console. “Alpha team leader, come in. This is Delta. Target is in sight, over.”

Mason's voice shot back a moment later, permeated with static.

“Say again, team leader?”

This time, nothing but noise.

Marten sighed and looked at Reiner. “Your call.”

“Let's have a look.”

Marten tilted the rotor, and the helicopter began to move, revealing more of the land mass beneath them. Even at their present distance, Reiner could see more of the black tar tendrils twisting and coiling across the landscape. Their Valley Oil representative had thought it was some kind of organism that had emerged from underneath a tectonic plate. A Scotia Plate anomaly. But for all he knew, it could have been caused by a goddamned meteor. Bring up something like that in a room of military grunts, and everyone laughs at you, but he wondered if his teammates were laughing now.

“Now we don't have any notion that this new anomaly, whatever it is, had anything to do with what happened to the crew.” That's what their Valley Oil contact had said. He'd said it with a straight face too, like he really believed it. “For all we know, they could have gotten scared when it started showing up and ran off. You know how superstitious they are down there. Or maybe its appearance caused some kind of dispute and they had a mutiny. Maybe they were hit by terrorists and its appearance is completely coincidental. We just don't know. But the fact is, the site is unsecured. We need it locked down, and we need everyone who's had contact with this new anomaly accounted for. We can send in our analysis teams once that happens, but until it's been declared safe and we get those workers away—”

“If we can find them,” Mason had cut in. “And if they're alive.”

The representative had smiled then. “Yes, of course, but let's not jump to conclusions. We just need you to assess the damage from on site, gather the workforce, and make sure no one else comes near the place. With communications down, this has turned into a bit of a situation.”

Reiner grimaced. A situation. Is that what you called it when you sent in nine men with enough firepower to level a small town? As to the three civilians who had come along for the ride, that was a dirty deal. Reiner had done too many things in his line of work to worry about dirty deals, though. Life was cruel.

The chopper closed in on the land mass. Marten had to increase their altitude; the center of the island was covered in hills and mountains. Mountains. Even the geography here was alien. The terrain of the island shifted from sand, to grass, to jutting rock, as if God couldn't make up His mind when He was trying to decide what kind of island to make.

“Ain't that something?” Marten asked.

Reiner reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick of gum. He offered Marten a piece, but the pilot shook his head. He pointed down to the buildings on shore. “You recognize 'em?”

The satellite photos had shown as much: concrete walls, metal bunkers, and rotted tarp that had all but disintegrated. Further up the coast, Reiner knew they could expect a group of warehouses and a small factory from an industry long dead. But they weren't going in that direction. They were going towards the… well, towards the source.

The executive said they had detected half a dozen fissures beneath the surface of the water. The largest of the underwater fissures, of course, was directly beneath The Aeschylus. The largest fissure of all — the source—as it had been called, was on the island. Reiner didn't know if that meant that this place was just the biggest, or if it had actually seeded the other spots, and he didn't care. Their job was to have a look, and that's what they were going to do.

As the chopper crested the next set of hills, he saw it.

Marten's mouth hung open. “Good God…”

The thing on the island was not a fissure. Set between the mountains, it looked, at first glance, like a crater. But it was a crater without a bottom. Where the earth should have been, there was only an empty void of black, endless space. It looked like it could very well go to the center of the earth.

“That's not possible,” Marten said. His face was white. “There should be a lake there. That thing descends below sea-level for… who knows how far. It's like the earth just… goes straight down.”

“How far south to solid land?” Reiner asked. He couldn't quite keep the shake out of his voice.

Marten shook his head. “Two hundred miles, maybe. We're close to the coast but this doesn't make any sense.”

As Reiner looked at the edges of the crater, however, he thought maybe it did. There was no rock. Where the hole opened to the mountains, there were only more of those strange, black tentacles. They reached up and over the sides, covering the edges and extending onto the hills beyond. From their current position, they looked enormous.

“A Scotia Plate anomaly,” Reiner said. It sounded even crazier out loud. “Well, shit on toast.”

“What?”

Reiner shook his head. “Never mind. Call the boss, hoss.”

Marten flipped another switch and put the chopper into hover. They were directly over the center of the hole now, the sea barely visible over the tops of the hills. He hit the radio button, but shut it off an instant later. The static that came through the speakers nearly blew their eardrums. He tried again and got the same result.

Reiner yanked his headset off. “Goddammit, boy.”

He noticed something else strange, then. It was very warm inside the chopper. He and Marten were outfitted for freezing weather — it was still only about twenty-five degrees at this latitude, even at the height of the summer season — but he realized he was sweating. It was the air. It was as if the thing below was breathing on them. It sounded absurd, but as he looked at Marten and saw the flush on his face, he knew he wasn't imagining it.

They stared at each other a moment, their minds reaching the same conclusion.

“Let's you and me get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Marten said. “Yeah, I think that's a good idea.”

He flipped the switch to take the chopper out of hover, then pushed down on the foot pedal.

Reiner could hear the blades speeding up. “Come on!”

Marten looked at him. The color had completely drained from his face. “It's not moving.”

Reiner looked out of the window. He could see the blades spinning, could feel the S-70 trying to move, but it wasn't.

A noise came from below them, something like a hiss from the bowels of the earth. And then, the chopper was spinning downwards, spinning and spinning into a vacuum. Reiner screamed.

In seconds, the chopper had descended into the blackness of the pit. Looking at the crater, you would never know it had been there at all.

Chapter 6: Deep Waters

Somewhere Over the Atlantic:

December, 1938

1

“Are you coming?” Jan asked.

He knows, Lucja thought. He knows and that's why he's grinning. For a brief moment, she considered telling him no, to shut the door and lock her family outside. Instead, she got to her feet and bristled.

“Of course I'm coming. I'm just grabbing my coat. It's cold on deck, you oaf.”

She expected a retort, but Jan only looked amused. Not because he was making fun of her, she realized, but because in some way, he understood the frustration of it all.

Ari and her father were well ahead of her by then. She put her head down and slunk after, not wanting them to see her face. If they did, they would want to know what was wrong, and of course, she would tell them. Her father would see it as just another headache, more like than not. Worse, it would give him an excuse to blame her emotions on her woman problems. How could she not be emotional? Things were getting worse by the day. She needed someone to talk to, and the only person she could trust was now in prison on the other side of the ocean.

Once she reached the deck, Jan shut the trap door behind her and went back to doing whatever it was he did down there. The previous night, she had seen him writing a letter. When did he intend to send it? He was a strange man, not that the other soldiers were any better. The fat one — Sealer or Seiler, or whatever his name was — he frightened her. And the lieutenant was… well, he was hard to figure out. She supposed he was the only one with manners though, and that counted for something.

Her father stopped ahead and waited for her. “Lucja, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Stay close tonight. You know, some of the men on this ship haven't been home to their women in a long time. You're getting to the age where…” He paused, looked embarrassed, then said, “Just stay close, all right?”

That was almost funny given the circumstance, but she nodded. If he had meant to tell her that men could not control themselves around pretty young women, he had done a poor job of it. Her mother had put it much more eloquently. “Always be careful when you're alone, darling,” she had said. “A man in the heat of passion has less sense than a dog.”

And what would her father do if she were attacked? Very little, she thought dismally. Looking past him, she caught sight of Ari and Zofia stargazing over the bow.

“You see that constellation up there?” he asked Zofia.

“Where?”

Ari pointed, and Lucja followed his gaze to a cloud of magenta hanging far above.

“It marks the great table constellation, Mensa. You see it? Those stars form the shape of a table cloth. You can always tell where it is thanks to the Magellanic Cloud. A Portuguese poet called it The Spirit of the Cape, Adamastor. It was supposed to be a storm that would destroy any ships venturing too far south. Of course, they never got far enough to see exactly what it was.”

“You talk funny,” Zofia said.

Ari turned red. “Do I? I guess I do. I just think it's funny something so far away could scare people.”

“It is scary.”

“I suppose it scares me too. It's only visible from the southern hemisphere. You know what that means?”

Zofia shook her head, her thumb falling predictably into her mouth.

“It means we're a long way from home.”

Lucja shivered. A long way from home indeed.

When her father moved to join them, she slipped away and climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse. It was cold up top, but the sea was a beautiful thing. As she stepped to the rails, the water below looked almost inviting.

“You want to be careful there. If you fell overboard, you'd freeze to death before we could grab you.”

Startled, Lucja turned to see Lieutenant Dietrich approaching from the wheelhouse door. He removed his hat, revealing a flat, if not unattractive brown military cut. Whether he did this because of the wind or because he was addressing a young lady, she didn't know.

“You startled me.”

“My apologies. It was not my intent.” He put his hands on the rails. “I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to fall. Most people don't realize how dangerous it is up here with the boat rocking.”

“What do you care?”

“I know you'll find this hard to believe, Miss Kaminski, but I would like to see you arrive to our destination intact. It is very important you do.”

“What do you mean 'important?' Why are we so damned important?”

Harald was silent for a long moment, then said, “Your father is a very special man. He was trying to leave the country at a time when he was greatly needed, and that made my superiors angry.”

“He's not special. He hasn't been able to work for three years. When he meets new people, he doesn't even tell them his real name, like he's ashamed of it. You call that 'special?'”

Harald looked at her knuckles, bone-white where they gripped the metal. “None of this was my doing, Miss Kaminski. I suspect that if my superiors knew just how special he was at an earlier time, you would not have been subjected to this. I could be wrong, but I think arrangements would have been made sooner.”

“Arrangements for what?”

“Until we arrive, I'm afraid that's still confidential. But believe me when I tell you that I am sorry for this. As long as your father cooperates, you have nothing to worry about. You, or your mother.”

“And what do you want him to do?”

“There are others like him where we are going, other men with a special kind of knowledge. We think Dominik is the key to uniting their talents. If he does this thing for us, your family will be rewarded. You have my word on that.”

Lucja looked at him uncertainly.

“Life aboard a ship is hard for everyone. The sailors don't have it any better. They are confined to small, cramped spaces to sleep, and when they are not sleeping, they perform dangerous jobs that require back-breaking endurance. Even though you are confined, you are free from such chores.” Harald considered, then reached into his soldier's jacket and withdrew a man's billfold. From it, he took a small photograph and handed it to her.

It was a picture of a young woman, fair-skinned and quite comely. There was an expression of bliss on her face that looked utterly foreign under the present circumstances. Lucja briefly and cruelly thought of tossing it over the railing. Instead, she handed it back. “She's lovely.”

Harald nodded. “Perhaps too lovely. She has many other suitors who would take my place. We'll be apart these months, and like you, I had no choice in the matter. So you see, I'm depending on your father also. Once he is finished, I can get back to my life and my fiance. Until then, we are apart, just as you are from your mother and your friends.”

“Aren't soldiers always moving around?”

“To some extent, yes. But in times of peace, it's much easier to stay in one place. I'm used to traveling by car, but it is still difficult.”

“Can you drive?” Lucja asked. She'd only been in a car a few times in her life, as her parents did not own one.

“No. When you're as important as I am, you have people to do that for you.” He winked at her, then removed his hands from the rail and rubbed them together. “I'm off to my other duties, Miss Kaminski. It was nice to chat. If you need anything, you can let me know.”

She hesitated, then blurted, “You should call me Lucja. There's no need for 'Miss Kaminski.' That's for my mother, not me.”

“All right,” he said, smiling and then turning again.

“Wait!” She grabbed a hold of his sleeve. For a moment, she was wracked with indecision. The lieutenant was not her friend — she wasn't foolish enough to believe that — but if he really did want to show her kindness, the opportunity could not be missed. “I do need something from you. That is, if you're willing to help.”

“Yes?”

“Well,” Lucja said, her facing turning scarlet, “I know I must look very young to you, but I am of age. By that I mean… well this is terribly embarrassing… I have certain needs being on board a ship for an extended period of time. They are of a delicate nature.”

Harald flushed, but in a way, this made her feel better. His reaction was not one of amusement. “Yes?” he said again.

“I'm sure that a ship full of men does not have all the sanitary items a woman needs, but I need something. Tonight,” she added with some force, “and I would beg your discretion. Telling you this is very difficult.” She looked up at the moon, hoping that he would interpret her meaning.

“I understand. I have to apologize, as that's not even something I considered. You're right thinking there are no womanly goods on board. I could likely get you a handful of shirts and cut them into strips. Would that be sufficient?”

“If there's nothing else. It's better than the papers you left in the pantry.”

“Very well. I'll meet you back here before you return to your room. All right?”

She nodded, beginning to feel, for the first time, that the night may not end in disaster. Of all the people on board who could have taken her secret, she would have thought this man one of the least likely.

Harald returned his hat to his head and walked off. Lucja prayed he would be true to his word, and that if he did take a few shirts for her, that he wouldn't be noticed. If she managed to keep her dignity through all this, it would be a miracle. She looked over the railing again, down into the black water lapping at the side of the ship. The water suddenly looked cold and uninviting, and she wanted very badly to get back to the main deck.

2

Dominik observed all this from the bow of the ship, being careful not to stare when he could help it. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he didn't like the tone of the conversation. Dietrich was a dangerous man, and if one of his tricks was to somehow endear himself to his daughters, that would make him all the more so.

“Put me down, Papa!” Zofia cried. He had been holding her up on his shoulders, letting her walk the tightrope. He and Maggie had taken her to see the Sarrasani Circus at the post-Olympics performance in Berlin two years before, and for a time, she had been obsessed. She would pretend to be one of the little tightrope walkers in a pink costume, practicing most sincerely whenever he picked her up. She had given up the fantasy more than a year ago, but here, in the wake of Maggie's disappearance, she had regressed. Dominik wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not.

“Put me down!”

When he did, she kissed him. Young babe or grown woman, she would always be his darling.

“Drink, pantry man?”

Dominik saw the captain approaching, holding out a tarnished silver flask. Although the man didn't appear dangerous, he pushed Zofia behind him out of instinct.

“Go on, take it.”

Reluctantly, Dominik did. He unscrewed the cap and took a swallow, wincing at the acid inside. As soon as he was done, the captain took the flask back and drank with no reaction whatsoever.

“I saw you were admiring my ax earlier.”

“What?”

“My ax,” Heinrich said, pointing to the bow. “You were looking at it.”

Dominik turned and saw the oak handle and huge red blade mounted beneath the rails. Before he had noticed Lucja on the walk, he had indeed been looking at it.

“A smart man like you, I'm sure you've read stories in your monster books.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Oh, come on. You know Poseidon's sea monster of Troy, and The Midgard Serpent, and The Leviathan. All that nonsense, right?”

“I'm sure I've heard of them.”

“I guarantee you, my friend, they're nothing compared to the ones we hunt.”

“Is that right?”

“We go to the coldest waters on earth. They're lined with these little islands that could tear the ship apart. One wrong turn, and we're dead. If a man falls overboard, he's beyond saving. The shock, you see, it makes his body go rigid and sink. If he keeps his head above water, the air is so cold it'll freeze the water in his beard.” He pointed out to sea. “We spot them maybe a hundred meters away, maybe less. Gray mounds that mist ice up into the sky. They're nearly twenty meters long, and they swim in groups. You've lived in a city all your life, boy, you ever imagine a thing like that? If they liked the taste of metal, they could open their mouths wide enough to swallow us. You believe that?”

“Listen,” Dominik said, trying to extricate himself. “I—”

“You'll sit down and listen,” Heinrich said angrily. “You shut up when the captain's talking.”

“Papa,” Zofia said.

“It's all right, honey.” Dominik sat down and pulled her onto his lap. When the captain looked at him, he wasn't sure whether to be enthralled or insulted.

“You know how we control it? We blow it's goddamned guts.” Heinrich pointed to the harpoon gun. “Those crazy goddamned Swedes are the ones who thought of it, putting a grenade on the end of the hooks. We shoot straight into the belly, and poof!”

Dominik wasn't sure, but he thought it was the Norwegians who revolutionized the industry, not the Swedes.

“We don't kill it, mind you, it'll sink. Ever hear the sound of a dozen men screaming as they're dragged down into the water? You don't want to. Anyway, the wound is just enough to make it sick in its guts. Just enough to make it weak. If the harpoon goes too high, it'll bounce off. If it goes too low, it'll shoot right through the tail. Even if it all goes right, sometimes the thing doesn't play along. That's where the ax comes in.”

“You mean you actually… chop it?”

Heinrich laughed. “No, my boy. No! It's for the rope. The harpoon rope! If it swims the wrong way and the rope gets hung up, we cut it. The rope is as thick as your wrist. No butter knife will cut a thing like that. It's the ax. The ax, or the ship gets pulled under by the beast.”

Dominik looked at the massive weapon again. “Tell me about the rope.”

Heinrich passed the bottle. Dominik had another drink.

“The rope starts on the weapon, then goes under the deck here.” The captain pointed to a spot below their feet, then to a hole in the deck where it reemerged. “It comes out there, then goes up to a pulley on the mast. It goes back from that pulley to a winch at the stern of the ship. Do you see it?” The entire rear end of the ship was occluded by the smokestacks and the wheelhouse, but Dominik nodded anyways. “It forms a triangle. Do you get me? The top of the triangle is on the mast. That's the key. The rope connects to a steel cable, the cable connects to another pulley, then runs to a steel accumulator spring below deck.” There was a slur on this last: steel ac-coom-oolater. But Dominik got the idea.

“The mast is the anchor,” Heinrich said. “The force goes down. No matter how hard it pulls, the weight goes down. Without the cable, and without the mast…” He snapped his fingers, letting the image hang. “Crazy goddamned Swedes,” he said again, spitting over the side of the deck.

Dominik, who had only been to the Berlin zoo once as a youth, and who had never seen anything larger than a seal living in the ocean, found the entire idea ludicrous. One thing was for certain, and that was Heinrich didn't just get into the business for profit margins on blubber and ambergris. There was a kind of mania in what he did. It made Dominik think back to the captain's role in their abduction, and he wondered how much of an enemy the man really was.

“How do you feel about all this?”

“What?”

“This,” Dominik said indicating the ship and himself. “They've hijacked your boat.”

The captain shrugged. “It's good money, but I have no love for The Reich, if that's what you mean. I suspect you have even less, even before you ended up here.” He took another drink and laughed.

Dominik shuddered. It wasn't a cruel laugh, but it wasn't a joke he could share, either.

“And what will you do after?”

The captain shrugged again. “Go fishing.”

This struck Dominik cold, and he had the sudden urge to leave. When he stood up, however, his head swam. Whatever was in Heinrich's little flask was strong stuff. He was struck that the other man could still talk, let alone sound coherent.

“You're starting to look pale, my friend. Sit down. Sit with me and have another drink.”

“Why do you drink so much?” Dominik asked.

“There are terrible things out here, my friend. Things no man should have to face sober.”

A little while later, the captain got up to check on his crew, leaving an air of salt and body odor behind. Dominik watched him go, patting Zofia's head with one hand. It was only when Heinrich was out of sight that he realized what else was concealed beneath the walk: a row boat. He had noticed it the night before, but it hadn't really registered. Up until a few minutes ago, he would have thought stealing a rowboat and heading towards land might have been a good idea. But whether or not Heinrich's intent was to scare the shit out of him, that's exactly what he had done.

It was a long time before he got to sleep that night. When he finally did, his dreams were filled with ice and chaos and large, formless things under the sea.

3

The following night, he left the girls with Ari and then waited until no one was watching. He began to walk towards the stern of the ship, passing under the rear stairs and circling behind the smokestacks. He listened, but all was silent save for the lapping of the water and the flap of the ropes leading to the aft mast. Then, he saw it: the only life raft on this God-forsaken ship. The second rowboat, usually found on the port side, had been removed for reasons he didn't know. No prison, no boat, no man can hold us, he thought again.

“It's not much, but it would probably float,” a voice said. Dominik jumped. He peered through the shadows and saw the orange glow of a cigarette. How he hadn't seen it before, he didn't know. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

“The question is, where would you go? You don't have the faintest idea where land is, or how far.” The tall soldier Jan stepped out of the shadows with an eerie silence.

“A man can look, I suppose.”

Jan nodded, turning towards the railing and looking out to the sea. “You have a lot to live for, sir. I wouldn't go getting any ideas.”

Dominik stared at him. He figured the other man would either offer him a smoke or haul him off to the lieutenant for insubordination, but he didn't do either. Instead, Jan flicked his spent butt over the railing and turned to leave.

“I'm off to clean my gun. You better get back to your family before someone finds you here and beats your head in.”

Dominik thought this was good advice.

Chapter 7: Answers

The Aeschylus:

Present Day

1

Two catwalks led into the employee barracks at the northwest end of the platform. Melvin looked at the one that wasn't blown to shit and shook his head. “I don't like this.”

“What do you want to do?” Christian asked.

“Anything on the radio?”

“Just static.”

“Too much ground for just the two of us. You agree?”

His partner looked around, then nodded. “Yeah. I reckon.”

Melvin knew he should be moving, but he felt rooted. The place was so goddamned empty. The last time he remembered feeling this spooked was on his first tour in Kandahar. His unit had been ordered to clear a cave about three miles outside of the city. They didn't find any insurgents, but what they did find was a mass grave: seventeen bodies, mostly local men and teenage boys. Two of them were missing their heads. It was the first time most of the guys in his unit had seen a dead body. Melvin had seen plenty since, but it was the only time he remembered being scared. All those bodies, filed next to each other like old cigars in a cheap box — it made you feel small, like you could be snuffed on a whim. It's how he felt here, now. He felt alone. And he felt the odds of finding another of those mass graves was pretty good, only it would be over two hundred bodies this time instead of seventeen.

Christian pointed. “Hey. Look at this.”

“What is it?”

“We got a body.”

Speak of the devil.

Melvin prepared himself for the worst. When he got close, however, he saw that the thing in front of him didn't even look like a body. It was completely black from head to toe, slimed and overgrown with fungus. It was like the stuff from below deck had grown into him, through him. It gave him the goddamned creeps.

Christian prodded it with a gloved hand. “It's hot.”

“What do you mean, hot?”

“I mean hot.”

“Fever?”

“Don't know.”

Melvin shook his head. Shit was getting weirder by the minute. Dead bodies did not get warmer, even kids knew that. “Get your hand off that thing, man.”

Christian wiped the gunk on his pants. “What about that stuff over there? Looks like crude oil, don't it?”

It did. Ahead, Melvin could see the walls of the employee barracks, and it looked like they'd been splattered with oil.

The radio crackled, making both of them jump. “Anyone there… come in… still… anyone… report… there?” It was hard to make out.

“Sounds like that Trenton prick.”

Melvin nodded.

Christian pressed his earpiece to talk, but then, the static crackled so loudly that he had to take his hand away.

“I'm getting the fuck out of here,” Melvin said. “We're going to need more men.”

2

Kate was pacing, and she knew it. Her father had known something, and she'd spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out what. She still didn't know why he had chosen her, and why he hadn't shared whatever he had known with the intelligence community. Then a horrible thought struck her: what if he had? What if this whole goddamned mess was the result of some CIA experiment gone awry? What if they had murdered all of the witnesses to cover it up? But that was absurd. When she had been younger and her father had first taken office, she had berated him with every conspiracy theory she could think of. What about Roswell? Was there really a secret 9/11 plot? Did Oswald act alone? He was the second most powerful man in the country, and if anyone got a security brief on those types of things, it would be him. Maybe the idea that the Joint Chiefs would sit down their officials and tell them every dirty secret of U.S. intelligence was equally absurd — like they were indoctrinating them into some kind of cult — but Kate couldn't help herself. There were too many things she wanted to know. Old Stan McCreedy had waved her off each time except the last. That last time he had hugged her and chuckled. She had been thirty-one, but he sat her down like she was five, conferring one of life's great secrets. “The government is run by people, darling,” he said. “There are a lot of smart persons in the government. Very smart. But as a rule, people are not smart. In fact, they can be downright dumb. So when you hear that kind of rubbish, just remember that it would have had to be done by people.” It had been disappointing, but she never doubted that he was right. Now? Now she began to wonder. Her father had wanted her to find something by leaving those pictures. The growths beneath the platform were a part of it, but she didn't think they were the only part. Something happened here, was still happening.

“Is there anyone there?” AJ said. Kate looked up to see him over by the helicopter, shouting into the radio mic.

The pilot was sprinting towards him. “Get off that thing! What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Come in, goddammit! We're still here. Can anyone give us a situation report? Anybody hear me out there?”

Hal reached the chopper and grabbed the other man, pushing him to the ground. “I told you the goddamned radio's acting up. Now quit.”

Dutch made a shove off gesture, then picked AJ up.

“I'm fine, I'm fine.” He looked at Kate. “I'm sick of being here. Just what the hell did you get us into?”

“I don't know, I—“

Behind them, Hal was strutting back over. He had one hand out and looked ready to shove the lot of them.

“AJ!” Kate shouted.

Then they heard the shots.

3

They came from the generator room.

Mason felt the air whoosh beside his head before he heard a sound. And then, the air exploded with a thousand firecrackers. Nicholas screamed and dropped to the ground, a piece of his ankle misting into the air.

“Get down!” Jin yelled. “Get the fuck down!”

Mason ducked behind a stack of metal pipes, pulling the kid to safety with him. He looked over the defilade and counted five. Five of them, at least. Two were in the security bunker, and another two stood on either side of the walls. Mason saw the last one lying prone by the stairs.

Another tracer whizzed by his head, and this time, he recognized the sound of M16s. Whoever they were, they were well-armed.

Jin fired back, and Mason joined him, ducking out from behind cover and picking shots. “Air support!” he screamed. “Get the goddamned helo in here!”

Jin pressed his earpiece, but a moment later, he ripped it out and threw it to the ground. “Nothing!”

Ahead, Mason saw two of the shapes move to the left and out of his field of view. “They're flanking. We got to move!”

“What about Nick?”

Mason looked down. “You're gonna have to play dead, kid.”

“Don't leave me!” he yelled. “Don't you dare!”

Mason kicked the boy's hand away. Some guys, they lost their heads when they got shot. If the kid would just shut up and lay still, he'd have a better chance, and he should know it. “Play dead. That's an order. We'll cover you from the wreckage back there.”

“No!”

A round clipped Jin in the shoulder, and the side of his jacket flicked red. The shock on his face wasn't pain; it had come from the wrong direction. There was someone they couldn't see. They were pinned now, men closing in on all sides. If they didn't do something, they would be toast.

Mason changed magazines, and then the wreckage behind them exploded. Two bodies rag-dolled through the air, blasting off of the edge of the platform and into empty space. Mason heard the boom of a shotgun and saw the man by the stairwell collapse. A moment later, one of his friends followed. Melvin came jogging up, carrying his Mossberg. Christian was right behind him. They saw the two hostiles inside the security office and stacked up outside the door. The men inside pulled further back. Melvin pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin, then tossed it in. Seconds before it detonated, both of the attackers came running out, guns lowered. Christian shot them in the back. The grenade went off a second later, shattering the windows and blasting the inside of the security bunker to bits.

One man remained.

He was backing along a catwalk but still firing at them with a pistol. Mason saw Peter St. Croix walking after, reloading his grenade launcher like he didn't have a care in the world. He had that monkey grin on his face, the one that made him look like a serial killer. Today, that grin was like a ray of sunshine.

The would-be assailant dropped his pistol. No, that wasn't right. He threw it down. He began waving his arms, yelling and bucking his feet. The man was acting like a bull. He's going to charge, Mason thought. It was crazy, but that's what it looked like. He looked like he was going to run straight into the barrel of a loaded weapon. Peter saw it too, and his grin faltered.

Then, the man did. He actually charged straight ahead, his head thrashing, his mouth screaming.

“Don't kill him!” Mason yelled, but it was too late.

Peter fired and hit the poor bastard in the stomach. The force of the impact launched the man backwards, flinging him twenty feet into the side of the security bunker. His body exploded in a ball of fire and disgusting black fluid. The spray went further than the flames, spattering Christian with black gore. He opened his palms to Peter. “What the hell, man?”

Peter just shrugged and held up his weapon. “Not bad for a Chinese piece of crap, huh?” The crazy, monkey grin was back on his face.

4

“Step back,” the voice on the other side of the door said. It began to count. “We're live in five, four, three…”

AJ looked at Kate. “You might want to cover your ears.”

“What?” she asked.

The door to the stairwell blasted backwards, flying off its hinges and tumbling over the railing. It clanged over the side and fell, bouncing off every level before ending up in the ocean. And just like that, the doorway to the helipad was open.

AJ took his hands away from his ears.

Kate regarded him with what looked like… contempt? Nah, couldn't be; she liked him. “You asshole! Why did you let me get this close?”

Because you wanted to and wouldn't listen to me, was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't say it. With some girls, it was just damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

“Say something.”

He pointed one finger to his ear and shook his head. “Can't hear,” he mouthed. Then, with what might have been a over-the-top, even for him, “That was loud, wasn't it?”

She made a disgusted noise and went back to the helipad.

“What's up with her?” Dutch asked.

Before he could answer, Mason passed through the doorway and pushed past them, looking around as if he expected trouble. Given what they had just been through, he wasn't surprised. AJ himself wanted answers, but now wasn't the time to press.

Mason looked at Hal. “Any word from Reiner?”

“No. And still not much on the radio, even up here.”

“Cell phones?” Mason asked.

AJ pointed to one of the crumpled towers. “Collapsed. You're not going to get a signal out here.”

“I wasn't talking to you.”

AJ saw the fury in Mason's eyes, reading it for what it was — post-battle stress — and he let it go.

Mason looked back at the pilot, but the man only shook his head. “Like the man says.”

“Get the equipment from the chopper. The fifty caliber, too. Meet us below on Deck Two, and make sure everyone's with you.” He indicated the others.

The stairwell stood open to the air, and AJ peered over the railing to the carnage below. He could see Melvin's bald head leaning over Nick, Christian and St. Croix wrapping up a dead-check. The bodies lay scattered across the deck, crumpled in those poses that didn't quite look like sleep, even from a distance.

When they arrived, he had thought this could have been as simple as a downed communications tower, but he supposed they wouldn't have bothered to track him down if that's what they had expected. They wanted someone who knew the platform in and out. They wanted someone who knew the blueprints by heart, who could make decisions about how to isolate and protect various wings of the facility. They wanted someone who could do a little shooting if he had to.

“You all right, buddy?” Dutch asked. He was behind AJ now, following his gaze.

“Yeah. This is just turning into one fuck of a weird day.”

“You got that right. You ready to head down?”

Once they were below, AJ got a better sense of the damage. It didn't look like any of the Black Shadow team were downed save for Nick, though.

“You missed the fun.”

He turned to see the kid looking at him. Melvin had wrapped his ankle and was busy splinting it with a pair of metal rods. Even from where he was standing, AJ could see that the area above the kid's foot was as soft as putty, the bandages soaked through.

“We got 'em,” he said. “Whoever they were, whatever they did to this place, we got 'em!”

“How about you? How are you doing, kid?”

“Okay, I guess. Doc says I'll never line-dance again.”

“If you dance anything like you play football, that's not necessarily a bad thing.”

Nicholas shot him the bird, but he was smiling. That stopped as soon as Melvin tightened the splint, and the kid hollered.

“What's his status?” Mason asked.

Melvin looked up and shook his head. “He can't stand. We need to sedate him.”

“No!” Nicholas said. He was gritting his teeth. “One shot! Just one. I can take it.”

Melvin looked at Mason, who only shrugged. Reaching into his vest, the medic withdrew a small ampoule and jammed it into Nick's thigh. The kid relaxed, his breath slowing into great, long gasps.

“Okay, that's one. You start to act a fool, I got another one here for you. Got it?”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “Thanks.”

AJ wandered around the circumference of the platform, watching as the others took inventory. The men were maintaining a perimeter, but they were too few to cover every gap.

Dutch, who was trailing a few steps behind, seemed to come to the same conclusion. “I wish I had my rifle with me.”

“Why don't you go help secure the northwest corner? They're light there.”

Dutch, effusive under the most somber circumstances, only nodded. He headed towards the bridge to the barracks, close to where Peter and Christian were keeping watch.

Meanwhile, AJ stuck his head into the destroyed security bunker. There wasn't much left. Any hopes of gathering intel were shot, though he reminded himself that gathering intel was Kate's job, not his. Not that he could do much. Aside from the brief conversation at the top of the helipad, Mason didn't seem interested in taking his advice. He grimaced. At least the girl had a level head. That was good, especially now. He looked around and found her outside the door, bent over one of the new bodies by the bunker.

She looked up as he approached. “Don't touch anything.”

“I wasn't planning on it.”

“Look at this,” she said, pushing the corpse with her foot.

“Wait, why do you get to touch it?”

“Just look.”

AJ squinted. The blood smear behind it was black, almost venal, but it was too black. It wasn't the only weird thing, either. It took him a moment to realize what it was: it was the smell. The body had an odd odor, something like dead flowers.

“It looks almost like… like those things below, doesn't it?”

“I don't like it, whatever it is. And since we're out here playing doctor, you might as well call me AJ.”

“This stuff, it's still growing, AJ. It looks like it's gotten onto the bodies here.”

“You're wrong about that,” he said. “That spatter came from inside his body. If that stuff was growing in him, it was growing in him before he died.”

They looked at each other, and then both took a step backwards. AJ felt his skin crawl. He didn't know a thing about biology, but if this stuff was growing inside of people before they died, he didn't have to.

“There's something else,” Kate said. “Take a look at the uniform. You recognize that symbol?”

The patch on his arm showed a pair of crisscrossed anchors. “Christ.”

“What?”

“Argentinian navy.”

“What?” she repeated, as if she hadn't heard him correctly.

“They're not terrorists, that's for damn sure.”

“So what are you telling me, that they're the good guys?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Melvin asked. He was walking up behind them. Jin Tae, now sporting a bright white bandage around his left arm, was not far behind.

AJ stepped aside. “Have a look.”

Melvin did, but this just seemed to irritate him. “That don't make any goddamned sense.”

Jin shook his head. “So what is this? A bunch of Argentinians just decided to hijack an oil platform?”

Mason, who'd been patrolling the level, finally sensed something amiss. AJ remembered he had a nose for it and wasn't surprised when the big man came striding over. “What's going on here?”

“Why don't you tell us, boss?” Melvin said. “They ain't jihadies. So what the hell were they doing here?”

To his credit, Mason looked believably perplexed. “You got me, son. All I know is that they shot at us first, and they got what was coming.”

“No argument there, sir,” Jin said.

“What are you two doing snooping here, anyways,” Mason asked. Just like that, he shifted the focus to Kate and AJ. Clever.

“You're the one who told me to find something to report to the shareholders,” Kate said. “So that's what I'm trying to do. It looks like you just iced half a dozen navy crewman.”

“Navy, huh?” Mason sounded unconcerned.

Just then, Hal appeared at the top of the stairs. AJ guessed the man had gone down to the boat docks and back. Judging by the sweat on the man's face, that seemed like a pretty good guess.

“The lady is right. There's only one boat down there, and it's marked RDF.”

Kate looked puzzled, so AJ leaned over. “Rapid Deployment Force. They're like the Special Forces of the navy.”

“Like SEALs.”

“Yeah.”

“What about the rest?” Mason asked. “According to the intel, there should be half a dozen transport boats below.”

Hal shook is head. “It's a twister.” By that, he meant a brain-twister. “Ropes are cut. Nothin' on the surface. If you ask me, I'd say they were scuttled.”

“How could that be?”

Hal shrugged. “Those satellite images are twenty-four hours old now. The boats were there, but now they're not.”

A silence fell onto the group. AJ felt his mind spinning. There were a dozen possibilities that could explain the RDF here, and none of them were good. The bigger question was what Mason knew and what he was withholding from the rest of the grunts. And where the hell was The Aeschylus crew? So far as AJ could tell, none of them had been found.

A moment later, the big man broke the silence. “All right, we're not out of the woods yet. Sectors One through Four and Six are secure. The northwest wing is still hot.”

“The barracks?” Hal asked.

“That's affirmative. The north bridge has been destroyed, and the bottom stairwell is barricaded. That means there's only one way in. That right, Calle?”

Melvin nodded. “Yeah, boss. West bridge only.”

“Then it's time to get your heads out of your asses. We've met hostile resistance on the main deck here, and it's entirely possible more of them are ahead. You know what to do. Stay sharp, and stay alert. We move in pairs up the walk. Vy and St. Croix will secure the bridge, then we move in nice and easy. Jin?”

“Yeah?”

“I want that fifty cal set-up on our side, and I want you to be ready for anything. We haven't found the bodies yet.”

5

Bodies.

Kate shuddered. They hadn't expected survivors from the get-go. How could they have known? Somebody wasn't telling her something, and she knew it. She looked down and saw her hands were shaking. A moment later, AJ turned and put a hand over hers. It was warm, and despite what her better judgment was telling her, not entirely unwelcome. Over his shoulder, she watched as Jin mounted the large machine gun to the deck. The other men were taking position around the bridge leading to the barracks, crouching behind crates and checking their weapons.

She came to a realization then, and as she looked into AJ's face, she understood that he knew it too. “We're together in this, aren't we?”

“I guess maybe we are.”

“It's us and them, isn't it? It has been from the start. They know something, don't they?”

He looked at the others and then nodded. “You told me back in Puerto Aisén that nobody knew what was going on here, right? That the workers were missing and that's all you knew?”

“That was the truth. For me, anyways.”

“Doesn't look much like a search and rescue to me. Does it?”

She shook her head.

“Just stay close to me and Dutch.”

She felt a smile work its way onto her face and couldn't help it.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about what I would have said an hour ago if you would have told me the same thing.”

He grinned. “I'm a slow-starter but not a no-starter.”

That didn't make sense, not exactly, but she got it. And maybe he wasn't so bad after all. Even so, she was still shaking. She couldn't remember a time when she had been so scared.

“Just stick close to me,” AJ repeated. “Whatever they find over there, just stay close.”

6

Mason felt a tickle in the back of his mind. Something wasn't right, and he knew it, but that was hard to reconcile with how amped he felt. They'd just taken out an entire squad of hostiles with only one injury, and that was to the newest kid on the team. Mason might be getting old, but he still had it, whatever it was. When he made his bang off of this job and retired, he could do it knowing that it wasn't because he was slowing down. He'd led his team and they had prevailed, same as always. The fact that the hostiles were Argentinian RDF and not an MTP-funded guerrilla cell, that was admittedly troubling. Well, at least they looked like RDF. For all Mason knew, the terrorists could have stolen RDF uniforms. That was a little easier to swallow, but he had cleared three-quarters of the platform and still didn't have any answers. And what if they were the real deal, out here investigating the same thing Black Shadow was sent to do? In that case, they could always dump the bodies, sink their boat, and get Valley Oil to play dumb. Why not? With no evidence, there would be nothing to prove the RDF team made it out here at all. He was sure VO would want it that way. His executive contact had made it clear from the start that they didn't want any outside interference. So he let his mind return to the plan: secure the location, set up a perimeter, reestablish communications.

No problem.

They had one wing left to secure. Inside the barracks, they'd find the survivors or the bodies, and it would be over. And what about the answers?

“Answers,” he said, and laughed.

The McCreedy woman was hell-bent on figuring out what caused the disappearances. Mason himself was curious, but only curious. The reason things went to shit weren't really his concern. He'd seen it a hundred times before in a hundred other places. Sometimes things just went bad. When they went killing bad, that's when Black Shadow went in. The answers, one way or another, never affected their objectives. As for the stuff growing underneath the platform, he'd let the techs figure it out, whenever they arrived. Hell, they could package it up and sell it at McDonald's for all he cared. Whatever made the client happy.

And so he let that tickle, that itch slip from his mind. He had more important things to worry about than answers.

Then, he looked over to Trenton and the McCreedy woman, and he remembered they did have one other unpleasant objective, one that came straight from the old lawyer. Truth be told, it didn't bother him that much. You take the money, you suck the dick. That was just the way of the world.

“Who's taking point, boss?” St. Croix asked.

“You and Vy. Calle and me follow. Jin Tae and Hal will cover us from the main deck. Got it?”

St. Croix nodded, flicking the safety off of his weapon with a large, hairy hand.

They moved slowly across the bridge, watching for any sign of movement. There was only one way over, but the building itself had two entrances. Mason and Melvin took one, Peter and Christian took the other. With a little luck, they'd clear the place and it'd be Miller Time inside of ten minutes.

Mason approached the door, a large metal seal with a crank valve. They were designed to be air tight, like doors on a submarine, not that it mattered. If it was locked, he had enough explosives to blast the whole damned wall apart.

It wasn't.

He turned the crank and then pushed inside. The hall beyond was dark, and he paused long enough to snap a mini flashlight under the barrel of his rifle. The light revealed a break room, just like the blueprints had said. It was trashed. Cabinets hung open, papers and garbage lined the floor. A coffee pot lay shattered in the corner. Mason stepped forward, his feet crunching on glass.

“Anyone here? We're search and rescue on behalf of Valley Oil corporate. If anyone's in here, show yourself.”

When he reached the first doorway, the smell hit him. He wasn't sure how many bodies lay in the hall, but he guessed about twenty, their figures strewn along the length of the passage.

“You seeing what I'm seeing, boss?”

Mason, surging with androgens moments before, felt only confusion. What was this? What the hell was this? A man in the corner had a thumb from another worker buried in his eye. The attacker had his skull split open, his brains leaking onto the floor. At Mason's feet, he saw a dead woman who had died with her mouth clamped on another man's neck. There were others, others much worse. These people — ordinary working people with jobs and responsibility — looked like they had literally torn each other apart.

Melvin walked over to one of the dead men. “Look at this.”

Squinting, Mason saw that there was something growing out of the man's nose and ears. They looked almost like small flowers.

“We in some shit, ain't we?” Melvin whispered.

A shape appeared from nowhere and ran across his field of view. Screaming, Mason fired. A white-hot burst thundered through the hall, ricocheting off of the metal. He stumbled backwards, slipping on blood. “Goddammit!” he yelled. “Secure that sector!”

Melvin was away before he blinked. Mason pushed himself to a squat, wiping his gloves on his pants. He was furious, his heart trip-hammering in his chest. He told himself that it was just nerves, but this was different. It was primal.

Answers, he thought again. Never did care. He laughed crazily, his voice echoing in the dark.

Then, he heard someone else. “North wing is secure. You in here, sir? We heard shots.”

It was St. Croix. He and Christian appeared from the rec room, looking troubled. A moment later, Melvin reappeared from another door at the end of the hall. “No sign of movement.”

“And the intruder?” Mason asked.

Melvin shook his head. “No sign of anyone.”

Mason felt cold. He was sure that he had seen someone. He was sure. The alternative — that he was cracking up in the dark — was unthinkable. “You secure the rest?”

“That's an affirmative,” St. Croix said. “Just stiffs. They're all done up.”

“Everyone?”

Vy nodded.

All three men stared at him, and all three had a look he didn't like. It was the kind of look you got when you were trapped in a building, surrounded by forces that outnumbered you four to one.

“Just what the hell happened here, boss?” Melvin asked.

Mason was about to open his mouth. He was about to tell them that their job wasn't to play detective. Their job wasn't to worry about how the dying started, when it started. Their job was to secure and contain. That's what they did. He figured that if he concentrated, he could even say it without laughing. That's when they heard a bang at the end of the hall.

Turning, Mason saw a heavy hinged door. A chair had been placed beneath the handle, and the door shook as someone tried to get out. A knife blade stuck out from beneath the floor crack, sweeping left and right. He held his breath, ready to squeeze the trigger and put down whoever or whatever lay on the other side.

Chapter 8: Sturm und Drang

Somewhere Over the Atlantic:

January, 1939

1

Harald stood on the deck of The Adalgisa, watching Cape Town edge towards the horizon. The city rested between two mountains, sitting just beyond a shallow bay. It was the warm season here, and the mountains, covered in greenery, would have seemed majestic if it weren't for the garish orange buildings on the inward slopes. Their South African friends had proved reliable though, and that was something he hadn't anticipated. Within an hour of docking, their ship had been outfitted with fresh supplies. Every square of the vessel now had boxes of food and victuals. They even got a crate of rifles. The K98s came with horseshoe hoods clamped to their front iron sights, a prototype modification to reduce glare in the sun. It was a sure sign The Reich had plans for them.

Not all had gone smoothly, though. When Harald had ordered an immediate departure, he'd found himself butting heads with Heinrich again. That seemed to be happening more and more these past few weeks. “Twenty-four hours of shore leave,” that's what he demanded. Harald thought it was mostly for show, more of that “nobody tells my crew what to do” nonsense. He was so frustrated, he wanted to shoot the man. In the end, they reached a compromise: twelve hours of shore leave and no more. With the tip of Africa now fading into the night, Harald was glad it was over and they were back at sea.

“Pretty,” Jan said beside him.

“Are the prisoners up here?”

“As you requested.”

“They are more bloody obedient than Heinrich. How do they look?”

Jan shrugged.

Since Harald's encounter with Lucja, they had been significantly less prone to complaints. That was good. If there was one thing he didn't like, it was complainers.

“That damned captain will be—”

But whatever Heinrich would be, Harald didn't get to say. A floodlight flashed over the water.

“Inbound vessel! Eight o'clock!” someone yelled.

All at once, the deck was alive. Harald ran to the railing and peered out, spotting a fast-moving ship. It was only about half of the size of The Adalgisa, but it was headed straight towards them. He heard Heinrich's voice from the upper walks. “Cecil!”

“Yes, captain?”

“Get me a make and flag on that ship.”

One of the other men had a pair of binoculars and beat him to it. “It's a patrol ship, gas powered… the flag is South African navy, sir.”

Heinrich turned. “All hands below deck! We'll sort this out. Take off your hat,” he said, now looking at Harald.

“What?”

“I said take it off!” The captain grabbed Harald's hat and threw it over the rails. “Button your coat. I don't want them to see your uniform. Let me handle this, do you understand?”

Harald fought the urge to scream. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

“Those aren't navy. Just do as I say, your men too.”

Both men ducked as the sound of machine gun fire clanged through the night. The first few shells hit water, but a second burst slammed into the side of the hull.

“They've got a Schwarzlose!” someone yelled.

The little patrol boat was now almost on them, and Harald could see a heavy, antique machine gun with a wide barrel mounted to the front. Behind it, he could only see an angry pair of eyes. The man on the weapon had skin as black as the night itself.

On The Adalgisa, someone raised a white flag.

“How could you surrender? How could you let them sneak up on us?”

“Shut up,” Heinrich said.

A bullhorn clicked, and an angry voice came resounding through it. He couldn't understand it, but apparently Heinrich did because he stood up and raised his hands. Jan, still hunched, started to reach inside his coat for his pistol, but Harald shook his head. Now was not the time, not when they could be cut down by that mounted gun.

In the silence, he whispered to Seiler, “Get below deck. See if you can find something from the stash.”

“I kill them myself,” the man said, and then crept out of sight.

Harald wasn't sure how closely the men on the other ship were watching him, but he didn't have much time. They began throwing hooked ropes onto the deck of The Adalgisa. Someone slapped a large board down, making a bridge between the ships. Four of them crossed the plank, all carrying weapons that looked cobbled together from The Great War. One of them — a skinny black man wearing a turban — didn't even have a gun, only a vicious machete that dangled from his fist. The leader seemed to be man with a large machine pistol. He stepped to the center of the deck in front of Heinrich and grinned, showing a rack of metal teeth. He spoke a single sentence in a language both languid and menacing. It was almost French, but not quite.

“Get Burke,” Heinrich said to one of his men.

While Metal Mouth waited, the other three Africans busied themselves by smashing into the ship's new crates, tossing supplies about the deck.

“Where is he?” Heinrich yelled.

“Here!” Burke called, stepping through the cabin door.

The man with the metal teeth spoke a few curt phrases, these more angry and impatient than the last.

“He says you picked up a crate of weapons in Cape Town,” Burke began. “He wants to know where they are.”

Suddenly, Harald understood. Heinrich hadn't brought Burke on board because he needed a cook, he brought him on board because he needed a translator. He knew he would have to deal with pirates. He knew!

“Tell him they're in a marked crate below deck,” the captain said. “I can have my men bring it up.”

Burke translated this to the other man, to which the hijacker spat and said, “No!” Then, he spoke quickly again.

“He says he wants no tricks. He says his two men will go down and one of your men will show them where it is.”

“Would one of you kindly show these gentlemen where the crate is? Cecil, how about you?”

“Aye, Captain!”

Harald looked at Jan, alarmed. “He can't do that!” he whispered.

The sergeant, who looked torn between agreement and denial, only frowned.

With alarming speed, the man named Cecil jumped down onto the deck and signaled to the hijackers. He disappeared into a trapdoor below, and two of the men followed. Only their leader and Mister Machete remained. Harald contemplated the odds and found himself unable to find an angle of attack.

He didn't have long to consider. Within half a minute, all three men reappeared, the two Africans carrying the weapon crate. Their skinny arms strained under its weight.

The captain watched with disinterest. “Mister Burke, if you would help them across the plank so that they can be on their way?”

“Uh… yes, Captain.”

The cook waddled to the edge of the ship and put one foot on the wooden plank. The leader was smiling again, showing his teeth to the crew. His Mauser pistol rested across his shoulders, propped behind his neck.

Seiler reemerged a moment later, stepping out of the cabin door as quiet as an assassin. He was carrying a Model-24 grenade, the long stick of the potato masher tucked against his chest. Harald felt sweat begin to bead on his forehead and drip down his face.

The two men carrying the crate slipped just before they reached their own vessel, and the box clanked down onto the plank. Metal Mouth cursed, then shouted across the gap. It was then Harald saw what he was waiting for. The man on the mounted machine gun looked back and forth, realizing their leader was talking to him. He was the closest to the boarding plank, and the crate of weapons threatened to slip overboard. Reluctantly, the man left his post.

Harald stepped forward, drawing his pistol in one smooth motion. “Now!” he yelled.

2

He watched the Model-24 spin up into blackness. It reappeared a moment later, bouncing onto the hijacker's ship between the plank and the mounted gun.

Heinrich lunged towards the railing. “No!”

The grenade detonated with a concussion of smoke and fire. A human shape spiraled into the night, flapping its arms as it burned. Gunshots erupted, the hijackers firing blindly over the deck.

Burke spun a hundred and eighty degrees on the plank and froze. A rifle bullet tore through his side, taking a spray of his guts with it. He collapsed to the floor, screaming.

Two of the hijackers were trying to pull the crate of munitions the rest of the way on board. They gave up when one of them took a bullet. Harald's men were firing full bore. He raised his own Luger and fired eight shots in the general direction of the ship, unaware if he had hit anything or not. It took him a few seconds to realize his magazine was empty. Shaking, he crouched below the crate and ejected it, reaching into his jacket to load another. When he stood up, the last hijacker, Mister Machete, dropped his weapon and decided to run. He clambered onto the wood plank, stumbling in the chaos. Harald raised his gun to the man and fired, and fired, and fired. The third shot hit the hijacker in the heel of the right boot, casting him forward onto the weapon crate. Both tipped over the edge and fell into the water with a splash. Seiler ran to the plank and then kicked it in, removing whatever chance the man had of saving himself.

The other ship roared and began to move. Heinrich, who had been planted belly-first on the deck, jumped to his feet. “The ropes!” he yelled. “Throw the hooks out!”

He made to run but slipped on the blood next to Burke. The cook howled, still clutching at his guts.

“The gun!” Seiler yelled. “They are aiming it!”

Harald squinted through the smoke and saw a man climbing towards the Schwarzlose. He fired his pistol but heard only an empty click. He was out.

The ship lay in the grip of pandemonium. Men rushed in front of him, grabbing the wounded and putting out a fire by the mast. Heinrich regained his footing and busied himself tossing the hooks over the sides. Harald swiveled his head to search for a weapon, his eyes settling on the giant harpoon cannon at the bow.

Across the water, the man on the Schwarzlose pulled back the firing rod, and even through the chaos, Harald heard the clacking sound as it slid into place. Without thinking, he sprinted to the bow of The Adalgisa and dove behind the harpoon gun. Could it be loaded? Of course not; what kind of madman kept his harpoon loaded when he was not hunting? But it was loaded, the end of the giant hook poking straight out of the barrel. Harald aimed the weapon, pointing it straight to the white of his enemy's eyes.

When he pulled the trigger, the harpoon exploded from the barrel, finding its mark like a lightning bolt from the heavens. Harald blinked, and suddenly, the man behind the machine gun was no longer there. The man was pinned to the side of his own ship, the huge rod impaling him through the ribs. For a moment, Harald could do nothing but stare, his mouth agape. Then, he found himself grinning; the pirates were fleeing, their gunner dead. He looked back to the others to ask if they needed help, but he couldn't. He couldn't get the goddamned grin off his face.

“The rope!”

The captain was running towards him, his hand outstretched.

“Cut the rope! Hurry!”

His victory interrupted, Harald looked down. Something moved by his feet, and then, it dawned on him: the rope was still attached to the harpoon.

“It's sinking!” Heinrich yelled. “It'll drag us down!”

The pirate vessel was dropping like a great beast, taking water from an unseen wound. Seiler's grenade had missed the machine gun, but it had done terrible work just the same.

“Heinrich, I—”

And suddenly, the captain was screaming. The rope spun halfway around the mast and pinned his left arm between it and the wood. Until he had heard it, Harald would have never imagined a man like Heinrich would be capable of screaming. But here it was, like an animal crushed beneath a street car.

The lieutenant grabbed at the rope and felt the immense strength under it. He looked towards the crew, but they were struck dumb.

“What do I do?” he shouted.

“Cut… the… rope!” Heinrich cried, grunting each syllable through clenched teeth. “Cut it!”

Harald remembered the ax. The large red ax tucked under the rail, mounted to the spot for this exact purpose. He grinned madly. The night was his, and nothing could stop him. It was his.

As he turned and found the mounting hooks, however, the smile disappeared quite naturally from his face. The ax was gone.

Chapter 9: Carrion

The Aeschylus:

Present Day

1

Gideon awoke in darkness, the reports of gunfire fading from the edge of his senses. Gunshots. Gunshots meant people.

It took him a moment to remember where he was. The kitchen. He was still trapped in the kitchen. His hands traced along the side of his head and felt the lump, the spot where he had been hit with the rifle butt the day before. It still hurt like hell. Frantically, he got up and brushed himself off. He could hear voices now, people somewhere in the barracks. Or at least, what sounded like people.

He found a piece of dry cloth and ripped it in half, then tied the remainder around his head. It didn't look pretty, but he was well beyond the point of looking pretty. He could smell himself in the enclosed space, his clothes now… what? A week old? He counted the days off on his fingers and thought that was about right. He wondered what would happen when the Argentinian rescue unit was reported missing. Someone else would come. Eventually, the crazy Argentinians would be put down. And what then? They'd leave. They'd all leave, even him. The Carrion would make its way back to civilization, and it would spread. It would find that the world beyond the sea was vast indeed.

The sad thing was, he couldn't remember what life had been like outside these walls. He didn't have a wife, didn't have any pets, didn't have a three-story mansion in the suburbs. What he had was a string of experiences, the between, as he thought of it. The vacations, the club life, the girls, and the money… the privileges of being a well-paid specialist with no ties. But his real life was here. Now, his friends were dead. His coworkers were dead. His work — weeks worth of crude analysis and data planning — so much dust in the wind.

He clapped his hands to his head and rocked back forth, waiting for the door to burst open, waiting for gunfire to come blasting into the room and make the decision for him. That, at least, would be quick. It would be quicker than letting his wound fester, letting the stuff seep into it until he was driven mad like the rest. But he found he couldn't sit still. He went to the door and tried it. Still jammed. Looking sideways, he caught sight of himself in a mirror over one of the freezer units. His cheeks were sunken, but maybe the bandage on his head didn't look so bad after all.

“You're still you,” he said to his reflection. “You're still you, and you're still gorgeous, baby.” He smiled his winning smile, the one that had charmed so many young Rio girls out of their panties. All his teeth were still in his head, perfect and white.

No… he was getting distracted. A way out, that's what he needed.

Moving to the cabinets, he began to rummage for matches. He was about to give up when he spied something small and red in one corner. He grabbed it, slapping it like an ape until he found the power switch. The beam flickered to life, the batteries still good. “Yay and verily, the gods do smile upon this mortal.” Stop it, he thought. You're losing it. You're going nuts. He spied himself in the mirror again. “Bonkers!” he declared. “Off your rocker. Completely bat-shit. Totally Section Eight, Leonard!” He tittered, the sound coming from somewhere deep he couldn't control.

Dropping to his stomach, he shined the flashlight underneath the door, spying what looked like four thin columns. At first, he couldn't figure out what it meant, but then, he made the connection: it was a chair. Someone had placed a chair on the other side to block the door. If he had been asked a week ago, he would have thought that trick only worked in the movies, but he guessed now, that would have made him look like a horse's ass. It was blocking him in here as tight as a lock and key.

But maybe not that tight.

He went to the huge row of sinks, thankful he had ended up in a kitchen and not in a bedroom or bathroom. The kitchen was quite large, as it was on most of the newer rigs. It had a walk-in pantry, dishwashers, rows of sinks, shelves of plates… and utensils. Yes, utensils. He spied several massive cutting boards, and above them, a line of butcher's knives. He grabbed the largest handle and unsheathed an instrument fit to remove the head of a pig. Holding it made him wonder if he could bring himself to stick into one of the men who had put him here. He thought so, but he didn't know. Gideon had been in exactly one fight in his entire life, when he was ten, and he had lost. Little Jimmy Taggert had beaten the crap out of him in front of God and everyone, and he'd never had occasion to tangle since. Even so, he was smart, and he had managed to stay alive. Smart guys always won in the long run, didn't they? Shit, his take-home was twice what the drillers made, three times what the roughnecks pulled, and he wasn't afraid to tell anyone who would listen.

On his stomach, he thrust the blade under the door, aiming for the closest chair leg. The problem was, he couldn't see and stab at the same time. He'd have to keep poking until he got it right. But what did he have to lose? He stabbed four times. Five. And then, on the sixth time, the tip hit something solid.

He felt the chair move. “Jackpot!”

After a few moments of wiggling, it didn't topple. It jostled and lay still, jammed with its back beneath the handle.

“Oh, come on. Come on, don't do this to me!” Without an ounce of forethought, Gideon jumped up and kicked the door. “Goddammit, open! Open! I told you to fucking open!”

He heard a bang and stopped. There was something out there. Two seconds later, he grabbed the knife and held it to his chest, waiting. Then he realized what it had been. It was the chair. It must have fallen. It must have!

It was another minute before he could bring himself to try the handle again, but when he did, it turned effortlessly under his grip. The door swung open. On the other side, he could see the corpse of the chair, now fallen on its side. He laughed, and this time, it didn't sound crazy at all.

All at once, a floodlight blasted into his eyes. A form stepped in front of him, a huge, hulking form.

“Stay back!” he yelled, swinging the knife. “Stay back or I'll cut you!”

Something grabbed his wrist and then punched him in the nose. The blade clanked to the floor and he dropped to one knee, bleeding. As the form stepped into the light, he realized it was not one of the Argentinians. The idea that he might live seized him, and he threw both arms into the air. Gideon saw no irony in the fact that this was almost the exact behavior he had exhibited when little Jimmy had beaten him senseless all those years ago.

“Don't,” he cried. “I give up. I give up!”

2

When they arrived back at the center of the platform, Mason looked at the newcomer curiously. A faded gray suit and soggy black hair slapped onto a man too tall for his weight. Mason put him at six feet and a buck fifty — a good size for a boxer maybe, but not for a corporate suit. He was too lanky, all knees and elbows with no substance between. He might have been good-looking in a scrawny kind of way once, but it was hard to tell.

“What's your name, son?”

“Uh, Grey,” he stammered. “Gideon Grey.” And then, “Doctor Gideon Grey.”

“Are you all right?”

The man looked around at the squad of mercenaries surrounding him on the deck. “Yes. Yes, thank you. I think so. But we have to get out of here.”

Mason offered his canteen. “In a bit. Take this.”

“We have to get out of here, now! Now!”

Mason put his hands on the man's shoulders and forced him down onto a crate. He could feel the bones under his fingers and thought how easily he could snap them. Gideon must have felt it too, because he shut his mouth.

“Calle, if you would, please?”

Melvin jabbed a syringe into the man's shoulder. Gideon's demeanor didn't change, but his breathing slowed, and when Mason was sure he wasn't going to get up and run, he took his hands away. When Mason offered the canteen a second time, the man took it.

“Thank you.”

The others were supposed to be maintaining a perimeter around the top deck, but they circled close now, listening. Even Nicholas had gotten up on one leg to have a look.

Answers, Mason thought again, biting his lip. “All right, listen up. Me and the good doctor are going to have a conversation here. But I want the rest of you on mission. We came here to do a job, and we're only half done.”

“What the hell is going on here?” St. Croix asked.

“Yeah, we're in some weird shit, boss,” Calle added, patching up the doctor's arm.

“You have a right to know what the hell is going on, and I'm going to find out. But we need to stay on guard.”

“On guard?” Calle said. “Shit, boss. We don't even know what the hell we're guarding against.”

Hal spat on the deck. “He's right, sir. We don't know what we got here. What we do got is about twenty bodies out of two fifty. I don't know what the hell happened to the rest, but I ain't ever seen anything like it.”

Mason looked at Jin and Christian. They only stared back, a little more disciplined than the rest, but their eyes told the same story.

“So what are we gonna do, Mason?” Melvin asked. “I say we curb stomp this motherfucker until we start getting some goddamn—”

Mason lunged forward, his hand closing around Calle's throat. “That's 'Team Leader Bruhbaker' to you, boy. And the next words out of that stinking rot-gut hole of yours better be 'what are my orders, sir?' Do you get me?”

Melvin struggled for a moment, and Mason squeezed. He could see the man's eyes bulging, his glasses skewing off of one ear.

“Sir,” Melvin said, spittle dripping from his mouth. “What are my orders… sir?”

Mason looked back at the rest of the group, his free hand dropping to the survival knife on his belt of its own accord. Were any of them moving? He thought not. They weren't that far gone. He was their commander, and by Christ, they would listen.

“I know this isn't what we were expecting,” he said, tossing Melvin aside, “but that's all the more reason to hold it together. Now this ain't the worst shit we've been in, and since most of you guys were out east in the sandbox, I know it ain't the worst you've seen either. We're still in the dark, but intelligence isn't part of our job. Securing the platform is our job, and I intend to see that through.” He nodded towards the doctor. “Now, me and the doc here are going to chat, and we may get to the bottom of this yet, but in the meantime, we don't get sloppy. We can't afford to get sloppy. Our lives depend on us working as a unit. Right? Jesus Christ guys, that's been drilled into your head since basic.”

He scanned their faces and saw the words sink in. Some of them even looked embarrassed. That was good. Morale was an engineering marvel, like a bridge. When it held together, it was solid; when one column fell, the whole damned thing might collapse.

He nodded towards Hal. “McHalister!”

“Sir?”

“Get back to the helipad. I want to know what the hell happened to our Delta chopper. Jin Tae?”

“Aye?” Jin said.

“How's your arm?”

The man shrugged. “I'll live.”

“I want you to see if you can get the dish on this goddamned place up and running. We have no radio, no phones, and no way to talk to anyone on the outside. Think you can manage?”

“I'll have a look, but no promises.”

“Vy?”

“Yeah?” Christian said.

“Round up our guests. I want everyone back here in ten minutes, got it?”

The man nodded.

“St. Croix, you're with Jin. Give him what he needs. You got it?”

“Yeah, boss.”

Mason looked at the rest. Nicholas was still resting on his box. He supposed he'd have to stay. That left—

“Where you want me?” Calle asked. The usual laughter had gone out of his voice.

“You stay with me. But your job isn't to flap your mouth, do you get me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now Doc?”

Gideon looked up as if he had been oblivious. “Uh, yes?”

“You better start talking.”

3

When Christian returned with the civilians, they stared at the doctor as if they'd never seen his ilk before. The McCreedy woman looked like she wanted to start running her mouth straight off, but before she could, Gideon started to speak.

“It gets inside your head,” the doc said. “That's the way these things work, isn't it? Like the movies. But this is worse. You can trust me on that.”

“Are you saying this is a virus, Doc? Because if you are—”

The man was shaking his head. “Not a virus. A fungus. A blastocladiomycota. At least, that's what it looks like. It's not like any species I've ever seen. This thing is a work of art. It's a survivor. Like a cockroach of the detritivores. ”

“A what?” Melvin asked.

“A cockroach,” the man said, putting his fingers to his head and making antenna motions. It should have been ridiculous, but Mason felt his skin crawl. He hated bugs, had stomped every goddamned beetle and cockroach he'd seen since he was a kid. Comparing that stuff under The Aeschylus to one… it fit, somehow. The stuff crawled. He didn't know how that was possible since it stayed in one place, but the word fit. It crawled.

“I call it The Carrion,” Gideon said. “That's not right, exactly. It's more like a carrion feeder than a piece of meat, you understand?”

No one said anything.

“It's funny, because if you were to see it under a microscope, it looks crazy inefficient. Its sole purpose is to generate heat. Oh, and I have, by the way. Seen it under a microscope, I mean.”

“What kind of doctor are you?” Mason asked.

“An environmental microbiologist. I study the molecular content of crude. To determine purity and asset use. It's a precursor to the filtration process, the heating and separating of—”

“I get it,” Mason said, “and I don't give a shit. Why don't you tell me what I want to know.” It wasn't a question.

“What?”

“He means that bullshit down there. The Carrion, or whatever it is,” Melvin said.

“How dangerous is it?” the kid asked.

Mason looked at his crew irritatedly, then back at the man. “You managed to survive, Doctor Grey. Why don't you tell us about that?”

“There was a fire about two weeks ago. It was right after Whitman bought the farm. Do you remember?”

Mason's mind drifted back to the briefing reports. Hank Whitman was a rope access technician who had fallen out of his harness while scrubbing the damage ballasts. He had hit his head on the way down, crashed into the water, and drowned. The incident report was labeled as unrelated, but Mason had read it anyways. “I remember.”

“Right. Well, he fell off scrubbing the side of the steel supports on the lower level. What do you think he was scrubbing?”

“You don't mean—”

“It started small, just splotches on the supports. He went down there to get a closer look, and the next thing we knew, he was in the water. We didn't hear a scream. Nothing. Just the bang of him hitting the struts and the splash below. It took four guys to find him and haul him up. It was a hell of a mess.”

Mason looked at him skeptically. “So what are you telling me, Grey? That somehow, a fungus caused this guy to lose his footing? Or worse?”

When the doctor looked up, his eyes were dead. “Oh no, Mister Bruhbaker. Not The Carrion, not that time. It was either an accident, or one of the crew helped him on his way.”

“What?” Melvin asked, piping in again.

“The fire,” Gideon said. “That's what I was trying to tell you. After his body was recovered, someone set a fire in the medical lab. The whole place burned up. I'd say whatever knocked him off was probably of a similar cause. You get me?”

Mason grimaced. “I don't remember reading anything about that.”

“Of course you don't,” Gideon said. “I bet you also don't remember reading anything about someone sabotaging our communications tower, either. Or wrecking one of our cranes. Or bringing The Carrion into the barracks to make sure every last man on here was infected with it. Do you?”

“Slow down,” Mason said. “You're not making any sense. Your communications has only been down for, what? Thirty-six hours?”

Gideon laughed shrilly. “That's what they told you, is it? I bet they're trying to make this whole thing look like a goddamned accident.”

Melvin looked at Mason in a way he didn't like. He could feel everyone's eyes at his back. “The how and why isn't our concern, here, Doctor. Our mission is to secure the site and prep it for Valley Oil environmental.” So, it's back to that old mantra, is it? It felt like a lie. As much as he wanted it to be the truth, as much as he kept repeating it to himself, it felt like a lie.

“We have to get out of here,” Gideon said, pointing to the bandage on his head. “I can't stay out here. Are you listening?”

“Hold up,” Melvin said. “So you got people sabotaging shit now, huh? Is that what you're saying? That somebody helped this stuff along?”

“That's right,” Gideon said. “That's why they burned the lab. It took us days to realize what was happening. That it wasn't an accident, I mean. By the time we did, it was everywhere. The Carrion had grown up through the water. It was spreading, you see. And besides, a saboteur is the only thing that does make sense. The alternative is even crazier.”

“Oh?” Mason asked.

“The Carrion works by generating heat inside your central nervous system. Don't you get it?” He was near shouting now. “It starts as a fever. And then it spreads, raising your core temperature over a day… or two. Your body sweats. Your brain swells. It doesn't stop you from thinking, but your forebrain… that's the front part of your brain,” he said, tapping a violent finger into his forehead. “It starts to melt. And there's something else. I can't prove it, but I think it… it plants something inside. A message. Like a Trojan, a worm eating its way through your body and spreading to all of your subsystems. It's like… it's like it's looking out for its own survival.” He looked at them. “And so the alternative, gentlemen, is that Whitman was already infected when they brought him back. The alternative is that Whitman waited until they dragged him up into the med lab and zipped him into a body bag. The alternative is that he waited until it was good and quiet in there, climbed out of the bag, and then set the blaze himself. You see, we never found his body after the fire.”

The silence that followed hung in the air like a fog. Mason didn't know whether to laugh or smash the doctor in the mouth. Because they all knew how it sounded. It sounded fucking crazy, just like the doc said.

“He was just the first,” Gideon said. “You see, that's where my theory comes from. As it got more of them, things started to happen. At first, we thought it was just the flu. Guys were coming down with a fever. Their bodies were heating up, you see? One guy registered a body temp of a hundred and eight. A hundred and eight, and he was still walking around! Do you believe that? Because if somebody had told me that, I would have sent him to the goddamned funny farm.”

Mason felt his fists clench. He wanted to shut him up, needed to shut him up, but he couldn't. He was glued to the deck, just like the rest of them.

“They had to reorganize the shift. The men who were sick kept to themselves, but then things got really weird. At first it was just little things. Long-term supplies disappeared. First aid kits went missing. Then, it got worse. The sub-sea repeaters went down, so we had no cell phones.” He laughed again, that giddy, madman's laugh. “You mind telling me how they managed that? And then… then it appeared. It was just a couple of days after the fire.”

“What do you mean, 'it appeared?'” Nicholas asked. He was on his feet now. On his foot, Mason corrected. He was pale, still biting back pain, but he didn't look like the devil himself could keep him away.

“One of the storage tanks burst,” Gideon said. “The fungus had been growing inside the whole time. If I hadn't been so distracted, maybe I would have kept up with the pressure readings and caught it.” He looked to the ground then, his eyes red. “It was too late by then. It was growing out of the water, the tentacles were. They were encircling the supports. They were claiming us.”

They all looked around, feeling the weight of the tendrils somewhere down beneath them. Mason shivered as he pictured the bottom of The Aeschylus, again seeing that stuff crawl as it held together.

“We had a few days left on our rotation,” Gideon said, “but we were done, all of us who weren't sick. We wanted out. We knew, you see. But then the com tower went down.” He made an exploding sound with his mouth, something like a five-year-old kid would do at the dinner table. “Somebody… well, they blew it to pieces. You've seen the wreckage. I know you have. As to how they managed to get demolitions into security like they got here?” He answered his own question with another laugh. “But it went down just the same. I bet they told you it was an accident, didn't they?”

“This is pointless,” Mason said, but he was sweating. He could feel it. This guy was a madman, or he was lying, or both.

“Most of us thought we could wait it out. The next shift should have been coming, and they could have gotten us out. Right? But I guess VO had other plans. I don't know how deep it goes, but somebody knows something. They must have been calling the shots. They must have waited until the rotation was up before declaring an emergency. Am I right? That's when they contacted you, told you some story about a downed com tower and a massive accident, right?” He looked at all of them as if vindicated. “I bet they didn't expect any of us to be alive. They just wanted to send you in to make sure. Right?”

They all just stared at him.

“They were working against us by then. The Carrion was. The crew had turned, you see. It'll grow through you. It'll grow right out of your goddamned skull if you let it.”

“Say what?” Melvin said.

“We holed up in the barracks. They couldn't get to us at first. If you don't believe me, I've got the documentation. I brought everything I could into the kitchen before we walled ourselves up. I've got the field reports, the security assessments, the records of the visitors from Valley Oil. They were here right before Whitman died. Did you know that?”

The woman looked like she was about to speak, but AJ opened his mouth first. “What else did they say?”

Gideon acted like he hadn't heard. “We would have lasted, but someone… they took crude and spattered it over the walls and floors. You see, that's what it needs. It needs dead matter to feed on. With all that steel and concrete, it couldn't reach. But then, they brought it in. They brought it to us. They were all working together then, The Carrion and the men it had taken. We should have been safe, but we were scared. And they didn't know how to protect themselves.”

“You're mumbling,” Nick said.

“We were scared!” Gideon screamed. He was unhinged. “A few people got away. They took one of the boats and headed to the island.”

“What island?” Kate asked. She was looking at him intently. “The place out to the east? That island?”

Mason felt his teeth clench. He was suddenly sure that Reiner was at the island, that his chopper was at the island. They had flown over there and found something. Or something had found them. “What about the rest of you?”

“We got hungry. They went out for food, Adam and Jerry, and they never came back. The Argentinians had showed up by then. When they found me they… they locked me back in the kitchen. They didn't know what they were up against. It infected them just like it infected the others.”

Mason felt his jaw working. He forced it to move. “Enough.”

“I thought you said this wasn't a virus?” Melvin said.

“It's not. Viruses aren't multicellular, you see. The Carrion spores, they're more like a defense mechanism, something it releases when it's threatened. And that's what they did, at first: they threatened it. They tried to cut it down, and it sprayed them. The wounded ones turned first. It gets in easier if you're hurt or sick.” He looked at all of them in turn, his eyes dancing. “Are any of your hurt? Are any of you cut? Tell me!”

Nick smiled uneasily. “Well, I got shot,” he said, pointing to his foot. “You telling me I'm in trouble?”

Gideon looked at the boy as if seeing him for the first time. Hell, maybe he was; he was so bent, he probably didn't notice half of the things right in front of him. “Stay back. You stay the hell away from me! All of you!”

Melvin put a hand on his shoulder, but he was too slow — or too dim. Gideon lashed out, hitting him with a clumsy fist.

It broke the paralysis, and Mason lunged forward. “Goddammit! Get a hold of him.”

“You take a look at him!” the doctor was screaming. “You see if it's black! You see if he has a fever!”

Melvin, who had regained himself, grabbed the skinny man and tossed him to the ground. “Of course he's hot, you dumb motherfucker. Boy only got half a foot left.”

“Don't you—”

But that's as far as he got. Mason slammed his head into the deck. It didn't put him out, but it knocked him stupid, and that's all that mattered.

“What are you doing?” Kate yelled.

“Back off.” Mason looked at each of the others and saw the doubt in their eyes. It wasn't the doubt in the man's story, but doubt in him. Doubt in the mission. He wondered again how something that started so easy could turn into such a mess. “Calle, I want you to see to him.”

“And do what?”

“Sedate him, for Christ's sake.” Jesus, he had to hold everyone's hand today. “We're wrapping this up. I want the site secured. I want communications reestablished. And I want you to find my other goddamned chopper!”

“How are we going to do that?” Nicholas asked.

“You're not doing anything, son. You're quarantined.”

“What?”

“You heard the doctor, and I'm not taking any chances. Since you're broke-dick anyway, I don't expect an objection. Do you get me?”

When the kid held his tongue, Mason nodded, satisfied. He turned to Christian. “Vytalle, I want you to find a spot for the kid.”

“Where?”

“Well, considering how much of this place has been infiltrated, I'd say it's either the med lab or the helipad. And the med lab is burned.”

“I'll take the helipad,” Nick said. “I ain't breathing in burn fumes all day waiting for you guys.”

“Fair enough, but you're making the climb on your own.”'

“I don't like this,” AJ said.

“I don't care what you like.”

The man coughed and muttered something under his breath, but Mason pretended not to hear.

“You want to make yourself useful, AJ, you can tell me if that boat below deck is drivable.”

And now the test: would the man fall in, or would he be a problem? Either way, it wouldn't matter for long.

“Yeah, all right. I'll check it out.”

“I want a full inspection. I want to know if it's drivable, and I want to know if it has enough fuel to make it to the island.”

AJ grunted and began heading towards the stairs. He turned at the last. “I'd say this is turning into a bad luck day pretty fast here, Mason. What do you say?”

“Day's not over,” he answered.

4

It's not your fault son, it's just bad luck. You got a bad luck wound on a bad luck day.

AJ didn't remember the first time he rode with Mason, but he remembered the last. He was twenty-six back then. Too young to know better, too old to play naïve.

They had been escorting a high value target across the Pakistani border, fifty clicks west of the Chapri Forest. The crew was different back then, but the men—the men—were the same. All piss and fire, and not enough brains to power a light bulb between them. AJ hadn't been the only one with a college degree, so they didn't have an excuse. It was just the way it was. Moving from one assignment to the next, big paydays and fast vacations. Blackout drunk in Istanbul, then neck deep in mud in Baghdad. Some leaders brought out the discipline in their crew, and some brought out the beast. Mason brought out the most vicious kind of beast. That he cared for his men, however, was never a question. AJ learned that in the mountains of Behsud when they got ambushed.

The team nabbed their target from a dirty bath house in the wee hours of the morning and escorted him through two miles of back alleys. Then, as they were about to leave the city, three insurgents began shooting from a rock face above them. Not a terribly effective spot, but not easy to pick off, either. Only one person got hit in the initial barrage, and it happened to be their target. It wasn't a fatal wound, but it cracked the man's femur. That meant he couldn't run, and that meant he no longer had any value.

“It's not your fault, son,” Mason said, coming at the man with his knife. “It's just bad luck.”

Their captive wasn't much younger than Mason, but in the morning light, he looked young. He wasn't an old sheik or a cleric with a beard to his waist; he had a modern haircut; he was wearing a business suit. Mason didn't hesitate though. He stuck him like a farmhouse pig and took a finger as proof of the bounty. They ran through the ridge and no one else got hurt, but it was still bad luck.

A bad luck day.

“What are you thinking about?” Mason asked.

AJ thought it over. “Old times.”

The other man stared at him a long while and then nodded. AJ thought he could read a lot in that face. When he had left the team behind a few weeks after the job, he hadn't bothered to say goodbye. That life — the freelance life — it just wasn't for him. Life didn't have to be that hard. Bruhbaker thought AJ had given up on his brothers, but that was foolish. Men like Mason could bear the heat, but they could never turn it off, and they could never get out. They would always be jealous of the men who could.

AJ dusted his hands. “She's in good shape. Still has a little gas, too.”

“Then it's about time we have a look. You should come.”

“I figured you might ask that.”

“You know everything about the area. It's why you're here.”

AJ did. Prior to construction, he and the head geologist had talked about it quite a bit, oh yes. But all the same, he was starting to get a bad feeling about the place. “I'm here because I know The Aeschylus, not because I know anything about the surrounding area.”

“Have you been there?”

“To the island? No. What do you think you'll find, anyways?”

“Survivors,” Mason said. “And my chopper.”

Both of those statements might be true, but AJ thought he heard something else, too. Curiosity? Back in the day, AJ had never known his old commander to question the source of his assignment. But seeing those goddamned growths on The Aeschylus might be enough to jar even that thick skull of his.

Stepping over the side rail, Mason sidled onto the boat next to Christian. When he got there, he turned and looked at AJ expectantly. “Are you coming?”

“Not this time.”

Mason worked his jaw in that unconscious gesture of his, chewing on a response. He didn't look like he was in the mood to take no for an answer.

Then Kate appeared, jogging down the steps and towards the dock. “Hey, where are you going?”

“Step back, Miss McCreedy. You're staying here with my men.”

“Excuse me! You are not in charge of the civilians here, Bruhbaker.”

“Ma'am, I need you to step back away from the dock. This is a safety call, and I'm making it. The island is only a short distance, but we don't know what's out there. I'm responsible for your safety, and I'm not taking a civilian, especially not a Valley Oil employee.”

“The hell you aren't! What about these two?” She indicated AJ and Dutch, who was leaning against a support some distance away.

Mason only grinned. He knew she was still coming, knew that he was only egging her on.

AJ looked at her. “What are you do—”

Before he could finish, she jumped from the platform and landed on the bow of the boat. She barely made it. One leg dangled off, and she started to slide towards the water when Mason caught her by the arm and hauled her all the way in. AJ marveled at how big the man's hand was; it wrapped all of the way around her bicep like an oversized handcuff.

“Thanks,” she said. The strap of her bra had slipped beneath her shirt, and she took a moment to right it.

When she looked up, AJ caught her eyes. What are you doing?

“It's my job,” she called, reading his face. “We have to find them!”

The engine fluttered and then sparked to life as Christian found the ignition switch. He throttled forward, and the three of them drifted beneath a massive tentacle and out into open water.

As they moved further away, Dutch came over to stand by his friend. “Come on, buddy. No hope for it now. It's her choice.”

“I don't trust him. They're up to something.”

“Let it go.”

AJ did, but he still had a bad luck kind of feeling.

Chapter 10: The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone

Somewhere Over the Atlantic:

January, 1939

1

He heard Heinrich's scream and paused with the ax in mid swing.

Ari pulled the girls closer. “Go on, Dominik, again!”

They rocked as the harpoon rope pulled taut, and the ax clanged into the ground, missing Dominik's foot by a hair's breadth. The nets holding the rowboat were half cut, but he was running out of time.

“Go again!” Ari said. “Keep going!”

His companion had taken hours to convince, but here he stood, urging Dominik on like a maniac. Down in the dark, it was easy to eschew danger, but here, with the smell of freedom so close, he was just as intoxicated as the rest of them. Looking at him, you would have never known he had any doubts.

“Try again!”

And then Dominik saw a shape. Through the spray of gloom and sea water, it took him a moment to recognize it as man. A man it was, fat and gray and dressed in the habiliments of the Gestapo.

Boris Seiler crept up the stern of the ship, pistol in hand. The ship rocked and swayed, but he kept pressing forward, eyes piercing the gloom. “You are trying to escape. You cannot escape. The penalty for attempting escape is death.”

Dominik could barely see, but he could swear the man was smiling. He knew Seiler had killed his driver on the bridge in Kiel, and his driver had just been a kid.

With a cry, he lunged, charging the Gestapo agent as fast as he could. He would be damned if anyone was going to die here because of him.

Seiler turned, a look of utter surprise on his face. He raised the gun, and in that instant, Dominik could see his own doom reflected in the black of the chamber. Then the departing vessel dropped lower into the water, and The Adalgisa rolled with it. Seiler hit the side rails, and the gun flew from his hand. A moment later, he tumbled onto his back, flailing as Dominik stepped over him. The would-be prisoner put one foot on the fat man's chest, ready to end him with a single downswing.

“Dominik!” Ari yelled.

He looked back and saw Ari was now face to face with the lieutenant. How Dietrich had managed to get up on them without being noticed was frightening. Before the man could do a thing, Ari grabbed him by the wrists.

Knowing he mustn't hesitate, Dominik raised the ax. With one quick sweep, he could cut Seiler's neck and send him into the sea.

“No!” the man yelled. “No! Don't cut me!”

The ax hesitated. Dominik told his hands to bring it down, but they weren't listening.

“I wasn't going to shoot!” Seiler said. “I only wanted to scare you!”

Dominik had heard a click in the moment before the pistol went overboard, and he wondered if Seiler really had tried to pull the trigger, chancing on a misfire. “We're getting off this boat,” he heard himself say. “Do you hear me?” Why was he talking at all? One cut, and they would be halfway to freedom.

“Kaminski, give me the ax!” Dietrich yelled.

He looked back and saw the lieutenant still locked in a melee with Ari, but he wasn't trying to hurt the man. It looked like he was just trying to push him off.

“We're capsizing!” the man shouted. It was nearly a shriek. “Give it to me! We have to cut the rope! Goddammit, give it to me!”

As if to prove his point, the ship rocked again, and somewhere far away, Dominik heard another scream. It was a man's scream, and it was cold as the waters below. He raised the ax again, but now he was looking towards Harald. Just beyond, he saw the silhouette of his two daughters. They were there in the shadows, watching his every move.

“For God's sake, Dominik, do it if you're going to do it!” Ari yelled.

“Let me cut him free!” Harald shouted. “Let me save the ship!” And then, as if trying to pacify him, “You've done nothing wrong. Just let me save him!”

Dominik imagined the ax coming down. He imagined Seiler putting his hand up to shield his face, the ax cutting through wrist and bone and skull at once. He imagined the spray of blood jetting from the man's head, his severed fingers dropping into the water like tiny fish.

He had but a single moment.

“Papa!” Zofia yelled.

He looked towards her, seeing that she had stepped into the light and was reaching out towards him. She was all of the way back behind Ari, but she was reaching, her tiny hand outstretched. His arms suddenly felt very, very heavy.

Looking into her eyes, he lowered the ax and tossed it to Harald.

2

The lieutenant pushed Ari away and caught the ax by the handle. He considered slamming the wood end into the little shit, but he didn't have time. Instead, he turned and ran up the starboard walk, his feet bending as the ship turned and rolled. Water slapped onto the deck, threatening to suck everyone on board to sea. A large wooden crate tipped over in front of him and smashed to pieces, spraying grain in all directions. Harald leapt over it, hearing Heinrich cry out again. A group of men were clustered around the captain, all trying to pull the rope away from the bollard. One was on the ground, his hands torn open from the effort. “Move!” Harald shouted. “Move, move!” He rushed up the small landing onto the foredeck and swept his hands to clear the crowd. As they parted, he could see the captain's head lolling. How he was conscious, Harald didn't know. His skin was dead white, his face drained. His arm was torn open from elbow to wrist, and it lay bent at a strange angle, bone jutting through skin. He remembered what his old friend had told him: “You have to hit the rope where it meets the wood, or it will bounce off.” It made sense, but it didn't give him much room for error. He wondered what Heinrich would have thought if he would have known his life might depend on that advice.

“Careful!” Karl yelled beside him. “God, don't hit him!”

Harald swung… and hit the rope. It was a good shot, half of the line unraveling in one go. Then, another lurch sent him stumbling back.

“She's tipping!” one of the men yelled.

Harald raised the ax and realized he could no longer swing; the angle of the bow was too steep. Frantically, he brought the ax down and began to give the rope little chops. Seconds passed, but by threads, it started to break.

Several more crates smashed onto the deck. The man clutching his hand was now visibly sliding on his stomach. He managed to grab one of the foredeck stairs before he slid over the deck, his eyes gaping and wide.

Harald hacked at the rope again, listening to the threads strain under the weight of the pull. Heinrich stopped screaming, and Harald was no longer sure if the man was alive or dead.

And then, it snapped.

One last chop and the rope pulled apart. The ship instantly rolled back in the other direction, men and cargo flying to port side.

Harald lost his balance and fell. “You're free!” he shouted. “You're free!”

Heinrich's body flopped across the deck and slid to the wall. It flipped over the railing and disappeared, sinking into the icy waters and out of sight.

“No,” Harald said, a scream rising in his throat. “No!”

Within moments, the ship was calm and quiet, all traces of the captain gone with the enemy ship.

3

The silence following Heinrich's death enveloped the ship like a shroud. The Adalgisa became a mechanical thing, drifting towards the island with ghosts at the helm. In the twelve hours it took to repair the damage, however, there were no more incidents.

For Dominik, the silence had nothing to do with the captain. His family returned to the pantry without protest, awaiting the retribution that would surely follow. The hours in the dark were maddening, for him more than any other. His plan had failed, and because of it, their lives were now suspect. For all of his bluster, he knew they were not as protected as he had made them believe. He had seen how The Reich treated its prisoners. They had sent Maggie away. Maybe they would take Zofia or Lucja now.

In the quiet, he wept.

They came to him then, his girls, and Ari too. They held each other for a time.

Zofia was the only one to speak. “It's all right, Papa,” she said. “We love you.”

She made him laugh, but he still wondered. He wondered what they would think if the lieutenant came back and snatched her. Would they be so forgiving then?

After some time, he slept, and his dreams were filled with despair. He pictured himself standing on the deck, ax in hand. Only instead of Seiler beneath him, it was Zofia. When the boat rocked, she fell over the edge, sinking into the waters below. It was a horrible vision, one that he couldn't shake: little Zofia, drowning.

When he woke some hours later, he found himself alone. The door to the pantry was open. “Ari?” he called. “Zofie?”

Panic washed over him as he scrambled to his feet. Still slumber-drunk, he stumbled into the hall and out into the main barracks. The room held only a few crewmen. They stared at him from their bunks and tables with Aryan eyes.

“Zofia?” Dominik yelled. “Lucja?” He looked around the room, praying he did not see them beneath the bunk — beneath the body — of a dirty ship worker.

A hand gripped his elbow, and he spun, the last vestiges of sleep clearing from his mind. He saw Sergeant Eichmann reclined on a hammock, his long hand outstretched. The man's other hand contained a book, a German translation of The Aeneid. It was difficult to see this, in a way; Dominik preferred to think of his captors as mindless.

“Where's my daughter?” he blurted. He realized how stupid that must have sounded since he was looking for both of his girls, but he let it stand.

By way of reply, Jan released his arm and pointed straight up. Above on the deck.

Dominik ran to the ladder. He was aware how tired he felt doing it. Being in prison for hours at a time saps you in a way he had never imagined. And that led to another thought: would he have let Seiler live had they only been on the ship a day instead of a month? Would he have been so compassionate, or perhaps, so drained of will? He shuddered. Best to bury such ideation before it buried him.

He reached the top deck. “Zofia?”

Then, he saw them there, all three of them, standing together at the rails. If they were being watched by Seiler or the lieutenant, they were nowhere close. Perhaps the failed escape attempt had made them arrogant. And why not? The thought of leaving the ship now brought only sadness and sickness.

The girls turned to look at him as he approached, and they smiled. They looked almost normal there, standing as a makeshift family. Dominik put his arms around them, letting himself comfort and be comforted.

When he released them, Ari pointed. “Look at that. We're here, Dom.”

When Dominik looked, his mouth fell open. The world in front of him did not look like it was of this world at all. The beach just beyond the ship was a sandy brown punctuated by puddles of iridescent blue, small pools of water made bright by the chunks of ice they held, by the sky they reflected. Beyond the beach, Dominik saw black earth which grew into even blacker hills. Beyond those, rocky crags that seemed to spring up from the ground as if pushed, violently, from the very core of the earth. The peeks of the highest number flowed so seamlessly into the clouds that it became impossible to discern where the snow dust ended and the atmospheric clouds began. A more religious man might have thought these peaks had been built by God as a path to heaven, but Dominik thought it more likely these antediluvian crags were forged by God's primitive ancestors, creating pathways to Valhalla or Mount Olympus instead.

The sight of the mountains and the black earth, the flawless beach, and the glowing water formed an image so incongruous with every expectation, that for a moment, he could do nothing but stare. If he was going to die a prisoner, he thought, there wasn't any place on earth more suited to the sacrifice. It took Lucja, a moment later, to bring him out of the trance.

“What?” he asked, realizing she had spoken.

She took his arm in one hand and pointed to the island with the other. He followed her signal, seeing a network of piers, decking, and ramshackle buildings ahead. Though his vision was poor, he saw shapes awaiting them on the docks.

“We're not alone.”

Chapter 11: Ruin

The Aeschylus and The Island:

Present Day

1

Kate stared at the approaching shoreline with a similar awe, but unlike Lucja, she saw no movement on the soft brown sands as the RDF boat advanced.

What did you want me to see, Dad? What did you want me to find?

The island had not been in any of the photographs, but she got a strange sense that it was a part of things somehow. It was the only thing she could think about. Her job, her old life, her godfather and his cryptic urgings — they felt like they were a part of a different world. She hadn't been able to process all of the things Doctor Grey had said yet, so she was doing what she always did when she got piece of information she couldn't handle: she was filing it away. She was letting it cook, letting her subconscious draw its own conclusions. She had a feeling that when it all started to click, she'd be in a bad way. It was impossible to think Valley Oil could be responsible for all of this, but if they had made it worse, if they had made a mistake that had cost a single person their life, she would not stand for it. There would be a hellfire retribution the likes of which not even Godfried could prevent. Because now, she had power. Now, she had a claim. Her father had given her a stake, and she did not intend to waste it, no matter what the business consequences.

But she was getting ahead of herself.

The only things she had to go on were the ramblings of the starving doctor and the strange tentacular entities he had called The Carrion.

“There,” Mason said beside her. “That dock is still intact.”

The craft moved towards the shore with an eerie ease. There were no other sounds. No birds on the waters, no insects buzzing on the wind, nothing ahead but the dead calm of a deserted village and the creak of the abandoned docks.

“Cut the engine,” she said.

Christian looked at her strangely, but he did, and a moment later, they were gliding the last few yards towards the decking.

“You hear that?” she asked.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. “There's nothing here.”

Mason stepped out to the deck, scanning the island with hawk-like eyes. When the ship came within reach of the pier, he paused long enough to throw a rope around a rusted old bollard, and then went back to scanning. Next to her, Christian threw the lever to drop the anchor, and their craft came to a halt.

Mason stuck his head back inside. “Well, no one's firing on us. I'd say that's a start.”

“Clear?” Christian asked.

“No other boats on the dock. No signs of life on the shore.” He shrugged. “I'm not staying here, and neither are you.”

“I'm coming too,” Kate said.

“I figured.”

When they climbed up to the pier, Mason offered his hand to her, but she ignored it. He grunted, giving her that odd smile of his.

They found the place decorated with an odd smattering of metal hooks and poles. Kate thought that it must have been a fishery, but the instruments looked primitive and somehow gruesome to her eyes. Shacks the color of old paper lined the shore, and through the open doors, she saw knives, hammers, and waste receptacles big enough to hold a car. When the wind blew, she heard the rattling of chains brushing together like wind chimes.

Mason motioned for her to stay put, then moved deeper into the zone with his partner in tow. They secured the beach one building at a time, a repeat of The Aeschylus operation in miniature. Kate followed at a distance. The last warehouse held a stench so foul that she couldn't get within fifty paces without gagging. When the two men were done, they both jogged back to the center, covering their noses. Mason said something that Kate couldn't hear, and Christian began to run off towards the hills.

“I told you stay put,” Mason said as Kate approached.

She ignored him. “Are they… are they in there?”

“The workers? No. Whatever is in there has been dead a long time.” He looked around. “Something doesn't feel right, though. You feel it?”

She nodded. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something very wrong with this place. And that was the only way she could describe it: wrongness.

“There are footprints leading up through the village. They're modern shoes, so I'd say that accounts for our survivors. At least, some of them.”

Kate gawped. She had been looking for signs of this exact sort, and she had seen none. Mason had good eyes.

“Where do they go?”

“They go up to the rocks, there. After that, it's anyone's guess. We can track them, though. Don't you worry about that.”

Kate pushed past him and began looking for more clues. She wandered for a few minutes, ending up in one of the shacks with open doors. The interior was as primitive as the exterior: metal walls, rusted shelves, and rotted rubber flooring. A layer of concrete had been lain beneath the rubber, its mix so rough that she could feel the irregularities through her shoes. A lone hook dangled from the ceiling cryptically, its purpose lost in the years. There were no signs of life. Nor were there notes, ledgers, or records from the earlier time. Like the docks, the place was dead.

She was about to head back outside when she spotted a rectangle of cloth on the ground. It had once been red, but had darkened with the passage of years. She picked it up and unfolded it, wishing she had had the foresight to bring gloves. When the flag dropped to its full length, she recoiled. The symbol in the center, as old and decrepit as it was, stirred more emotions in her than she would have thought possible.

“Boss!”

At the sound of the shout, she dropped the flag and rushed outside, her nerves tightening. Looking towards the hills, she saw Christian had returned and was beckoning them from beyond the shacks.

“You find my chopper?” Mason called. He had been doing some exploring of his own, but from the looks of things, he hadn't done any better than she had.

“No sir.”

“Did you find the path?”

“Here,” he said, pointing.

When they saw it, they could only stare. The entry that had once served as a passageway to the other side of the island was overgrown with Carrion tentacles. They had grown so thick as to be impenetrable, dripping moisture onto the soft black earth.

“More of those things from the platform,” Mason said. “Guess we're not getting through this way. Time to head back.”

Kate felt her breath quickening. “No. There's something here.”

“There's nothing here.”

“There is.” She could feel it. The ground here was old, and there had been people in the long ago. Not oil workers and not men from the company, but soldiers of a different age. If they had fallen victim to the same fate as The Aeschylus, she had to find the survivors before it was too late.

Mason looked at the ground. He picked up a rock and hocked it, watching as it hit one of the tentacles and bounced off. “We're too late for this, you know. I think whatever happened has happened already.”

“And the footprints? Your chopper? What about them?”

He only stared.

“I want to know what happened to those people. If you won't take me, then I'm finding a way through myself.”

The look he gave Christian was not one of anger, but amusement. “Well it's your funeral, honey. And I was only kidding anyways.” He checked his weapon. “Your daddy would be proud of you, you know.”

“The next time you have a thought about him, just keep it to yourself.” He was right though, and Kate knew it. She knew it, and she was glad.

“We go around. The water is shallow all around the beach, so we'll use the perimeter.”

Kate girded herself. She wasn't afraid of a little water.

2

There were a lot of days AJ had tried to forget over the years. The last time he had ridden with Black Shadow was one of them. The day he knew his marriage was over was another. But the one he just couldn't shake was the day he got fired from his last real job. That particular affair had sucked out his humanity like snot through a straw. That's when he had started drifting. That's when he had lost his faith in the whole goddamned lot. Now, he was starting to realize just what that day meant, and how wrong he had been to try to push the memory away.

“You got that look in your eye,” Dutch said.

The pair of them were walking through the mid level of the platform, assessing the damage done to the drilling machinery. With Reiner and Marten missing, Mason and Vytalle gone, the Black Shadow team was spread so thin that no one was watching them. Or so he thought.

AJ stopped and looked at the remains of the drill shaft in the center of the walkway. He'd seen it when it was under construction, but out here in the flesh, it was incredible. Protected behind steel girders and mesh, the shaft extended up out of sight to the derrick above, and it dropped all the way down to sea level below. From there, it extended several hundred feet and into the ocean bottom. The crude would be pumped up through a network of piping, and it would end up in storage tanks near the bulkheads at the spar base. “They built this all on land, you know. You ever been out to one of the construction sites? It makes the mining machinery we work with look kids' toys.”

Dutch didn't really look interested. “What's on your mind, buddy?”

“This wouldn't be here right now if I had my way, Dutch. That's why they got rid of me. You remember?”

“I know, you told me once. I remember.”

“It's eating at me, Dutch. I didn't want to show it in front of the girl, but being here and seeing this stuff… it's got me thinking.”

Dutch shifted. “Hold on, friend. No way this business is your fault. You can stop that shit right now, if that's what you're thinking.”

“Nah, it's not what I'm thinking. But that stuff the doctor said makes a weird kind of sense, doesn't it? What if all this goes even further back? What if they never should have put the platform here in the first place?”

Dutch shrugged. “I wasn't there. Can't tell you, good buddy.”

AJ didn't want to repeat the story of his dismissal, but he didn't think he had to. He believed Dutch when he said he remembered.

When The Aeschylus was green lit, it needed sign off from a lot of people: from the board, from the budget committee, from the CEO, from international projects, from engineering, from legal, and from security. Yeah, that last had posed a problem. He had posed a problem. When you allocate two billion dollars to a new facility, you damn well better see it gets built, objections or no objections. The only holdouts were him and the geologists, and the geologists had caved.

In the end, the scientists had agreed the temperature readings of the water were consistent with their predictions of a payload beneath the crust. That was true. But what they didn't push was the fact that the temperature readings were whacked out all around the island as well. What they didn't push was that the temperature of the water between the island and the location of the facility had increased so suddenly over the past ten years that it would point to an entirely different geological phenomenon. AJ thought it might be a shift in the South American tectonic plate. Or the eruption of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. Or some kind of biochemical waste that had made its way from Argentinian power plants into the south sea. Hell, he didn't know. It wasn't his job to know. But when you go sniffing around and you find something out of the ordinary, there is usually a reason. So, he had pushed for a delay. Him. A man with no stake, no claim, and no expertise. To their credit, certain people had marked it as noteworthy, just not two billion dollars noteworthy. In the end, they proceeded anyways, and AJ was let go.

The question that was eating him now, however, wasn't why he had been dismissed. That was clear enough. The question that was really eating him, was why they would bring him back. Because now shit had hit the fan, and he sure as hell wasn't looking at a hydrothermal vent problem.

“You heard the doc say he kept all of the files he could get his hands on, right? I haven't seen anybody go back to the kitchen, have you?”

Dutch didn't say anything, and he didn't have to. AJ watched his eyes flick over their surroundings, watched him count the others. Melvin and the good doctor were on the level above, Jin was working in the communications building below. McHalister and the kid were all the way up on the helipad, and Nick was probably nagging the old guy into telling him stories of the good old days. That left—

“St. Croix. You know where he is?”

“I heard him,” Dutch said. “He was down with Jin, but that was a few minutes ago.”

“So what do you think?”

“You know I'm with you on most things, buddy. But sticking your nose where it doesn't belong — that's the girl's job, not yours. Not mine, either.”

“Yeah.” AJ's mind flicked to Kate, knowing she was alone with the two biggest jugheads on the mission. He hoped she was all right. “She's not here, and we may lose our chance when they get back. Maybe the doc couldn't make sense of those files, but I bet she can. Kate's high enough up the food chain.”

“Might.”

“Yeah, might.”

“And you think you can trust her?”

“She wants to get to the bottom of this, Dutch. I don't know why, but it means something to her. Don't tell me you don't see it.”

His friend paused. “Maybe. You think anyone will try to stop us if we go up there?”

“If Mason were here, yeah.”

“But he's not here.”

“He's not here.” Never mind that AJ was also starting to feel a good deal of personal responsibility in spite of what his friend said. He didn't think he needed to share that, though.

Dutch sighed. “All right, what do you want me to do?”

3

The terrain around the perimeter was rocky and rugged. The trio walked through sand when they could and stepped on protuberant stones when they couldn't. For a short stretch, they marched through the water itself, the face of a cliff cutting their progress on dry land. The water was warm, and its caress more unnatural than Kate would have thought, but neither the man in front nor the one behind seemed to notice.

On their way through the shallows, Kate saw an islet just off the shore. It was covered in greenery and the ancient, white filth of animal droppings. It should have been teeming with birds—or penguins or seals, she thought, remembering how far south they were — but it was as empty as the rest. Nothing stirred along the coast but the lap of the water and the gray, creeping fog rolling in from the east.

“There,” Mason said. He had stopped just in front of her.

At first, she wasn't sure what she was looking at, but the object ahead was too regular to be of the same ilk as the terrain. Then the fog cleared, and she realized it was a wall. It wasn't a single contiguous barrier, but a semicircle of chunks, each rising some fifteen feet and extending maybe twenty or twenty-five feet lengthwise. Fence and barbed wire stretched between the gaps, a razor barrier built to deter what the walls did not. She had never seen anything like it. It was a fortress, but it looked like a fortress made from pre-assembled blocks, a giant's block house made with a giant's constructor set.

When they got close, Mason crouched by one of the gaps and produced his knife, a massive steel tool with a dozen rip teeth. He began rocking the blade, the thin wire of the fence trapped between the serrated edges. Kate could see he had probably not been the first one to get in; the fence was ripped in several places along the base. From the looks of things, something had wanted to get in, and badly.

As the last wire snapped, Mason grabbed the bottom of the fence and stood up, producing a gap just wide enough for a person to slip through. “Ladies first.”

Kate peered through with the same trepidation she had felt along the shoreline. In spite of the gap between the walls, she could not see what was on the other side. She swallowed, telling herself the answers could be on the other side of that fence, the workers could be on the other side of that fence.

“We don't have all day, princess. Vy, you go ahead.”

Without a word, Christian stepped past her and dropped to the ground. He disappeared into the opening, crawling his way through.

Mason smiled at her. He couldn't possibly predict what was on the other side, but it was a knowing smile just the same.

Kate got down on her belly and crawled. It was strange, but the ground was cold. It whispered of winter, as if in the long ago, the island had been a different place altogether. She got to her feet on the other side and found herself slipping through the gap in the concrete walls, into the inner sanctum.

When she turned, what she saw was not a surprise, not really, but it still packed a punch. There were no workers, nor any sign of Mason's missing chopper. The inner workings of the fortress — the bunkers, the towers, the machinery, the very ground itself — was a twisted and terrible ruin.

4

The folders had been stuffed into the kitchen pantry. They were clumped along the shelves, papers leaking out in spots and spilling to the floor. They mixed with the empty cans of food and filth left by the kitchen's last inhabitants. AJ found himself wondering why the staff had kept so many hard copies when he kicked a group of cans and found a stack of hard drives underneath. A fat lot of good they would do him now, but it didn't look like Doctor Grey had taken any chances. The place was an evidence locker.

“I never would have pictured the doc as a hoarder,” Dutch said. He was looking over AJ's shoulder.

“Yeah, me either.”

“Think you'll find what you're looking for?”

AJ looked at the corrugated file folders, the strewn papers, and wondered what other junk might be buried under the trash. “I don't know. I hope so. If all the doc was doing was collecting doughnut receipts, then I'd say he was crazier than he looked.”

“Well, this was your idea.”

“Just keep a lookout. Let me know if any of those idiots start to wander this way.”

“Yeah.”

“And stay out of sight.”

“Yeah.”

“Dutch, you hearing me buddy? No chances.”

His friend looked at him, exasperated. “Yeah,” he said.

As Dutch stepped into the hall, AJ found Gideon's flashlight and turned it on. The place looked small in the darkness and even smaller in the light, but as far as self-made prisons go, it wasn't bad. The pantry didn't look any less a disaster on second glance, but he made his own filtering system. He kept anything that looked useful, and he tossed the rest out of the pantry door.

“Still all clear, Dutch?”

“Yeah. I just poked my head around the corner. Looks like your buddy is coming back down from the helipad.”

“My buddy?”

“Melvin. I've seen the way you two stare into each others' eyes, all dreamy like.”

“Yeah, great. You see St. Croix?”

“No.”

“Keep looking.” And then, as he found payroll receipts, “Hey, you want to know how much a roughneck makes out here for a three week shift?”

“No.”

AJ tossed the file down. “It's a hell of a lot more than you.”

“You're breaking my heart.”

He uncovered accounting information, payroll stubs, insurance claims, sick reports, employee reviews, and everything else he knew existed and hated dealing with at his own job. So far, nothing useful. He tossed more files out the door, then found a couple with banking information he decided to keep. He knew that he and Dutch didn't have a lot of time before Mason came back, but there had to be something in here. Else, why would Gideon keep it all? If the man himself was present, they might have been able to ask him.

When he got to the end of it, he found he had less than a dozen sheets in the keeper pile. Cursing, he swept a line of cans off of a nearby shelf and sent them clanging to the floor.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Dutch called.

“Nothing! Nothing! That's what the hell is going on.”

“Then you and me better split, good buddy. We're not meant to be visitors.”

AJ gave the stack on the floor another go, not really looking. Then he stopped. Dutch had said something there, something about…

Visitors.

The piles of discard lay strewn across the floor, but he began digging through them with renewed fury. He created a new trash pile in the sink, a metal tub filled with dishes and old food that would have attracted a thousand bugs anywhere but here. He tossed in equipment lists, old memos, hand-written notes, and… and he stopped just as he was about to throw in a visitor's report. The Aeschylus was private property, and it was legally hazardous. All visitors were documented, both at the home office, and here at the site. He pulled a sheet from the list. The paper had been filed a week before, showing a chopper that had come in with men from the east coast office. Three men, to be exact. Two of the men were environmental microbiologists like Gideon. They had been given a task to analyze and document the first appearance of the fungus. It looked like much of their report was missing, but it had all been declared “unharmful” and “non-invasive,” and the entire thing had sign-off from the third member of the party: Valley Oil's head of legal council. Head of legal council, here on the platform. The microbiologists had stayed on The Aeschylus, but the third party had departed shortly after.

“Dutch!” he called. “Dutch, get in here!”

But his friend wasn't responding. AJ's voice drifted out into the open air, dying on the high ocean winds.

5

“What is this place?” the girl murmured.

Mason looked at her and then back at the hole. Some kind of basement sprawled beneath him, the earth ripped open at his feet. To his right, one of the base watch towers lay crumpled and burned on the ground. A nearby bunker had its insides blown to the outside. The rest of the base wasn't much better: broken doors, scorched concrete, spent shell casings from another era crusting the earth like seeds. It remained as they had left it, whoever they were. Like the oil platform, however, the inhabitants were gone. Long gone, by the looks of things.

“Whatever it was, it's dead now,” he said.

“Where is everyone?”

“Take a look at this place. You tell me what you think.”

“It doesn't tell us anything about Gideon's friends though, does it?”

Mason turned and saw Christian reemerging from the fence. He was wet, the bottoms of his pants dripping. He gave a single shake of his head, and Mason nodded.

“We're not going any further without taking a swim. Can't skirt around the edge out there any more.”

“So?”

“So this is it.”

“It?”

“Now you're just being dense. I kind of liked that about you when we first met, but now, you're just pissing in my soup.”

“But we haven't found anything!” She looked around stubbornly.

“Why don't you take a look at that gate there and tell me what you see?”

When they had been at the docks, the path leading into the hills had been overgrown with the fungus. But if that had been overgrown, the main gate here was infested. There were more growths than he could count, bent and twisted and gnarled like old oaks.

“More of them,” she said. “There's no way through.”

“That's right.”

She shook her head, taking another walk around. “They have to be here. Gideon said so.”

“Gideon is whacked out of his mind. And if you think we're going to stay here and dig through those things at the gate, so are you.”

The girl might not get it, but he did. This was the end.

El fin.

And a grand end it was. No chopper. No Reiner. No goddamned fucking workers, and no goddamned fucking answers.

He turned to the nearest bunker. Without knowing he was going to do it, he threw down his rifle and kicked the closed door. The metal shuddered under his weight. It didn't solve a goddamned thing, but it felt good. Mason smashed it again, and before he knew it, he was hammering at it with kick after kick, slamming his heel into the door. The metal bent and shuddered, but it didn't give.

He looked back at the woman, and she was scared. She was right to be scared, stupid cow that she was.

Mason turned to Christian and made a give me motion with his fingers.

Christian reached into his pack, pulled out a breach charge, and tossed it to him. Mason caught it with both hands. He slapped it on the remains of the door, pushed the button to arm it, and then rolled around to the side of the bunker. The door blew inwards, sending shrapnel and thunder across the terrain.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Kate yelled.

Mason laughed. She tried to sound angry, but it wasn't working; she was still too scared.

“See if there are any more locked doors here, would you Vy? We'll give them a good once-over for the lady before we head out.”

The woman looked like she was about to say something else, but when Mason bent and picked up his rifle, she paused. “Now, they know we're here,” she said finally. “I bet they heard that all the way back at the platform.”

“Isn't that what you wanted?” Mason asked. “If anybody happens to be alive and wants to be saved, I bet they'll come running, don't you?”

“I don't know.”

“Yeah, well, I do. And we ain't gonna find shit.”

The anger was on him now, fierce and unbidden, but there was nothing to be done for it. He'd just have to ride it out.

And so would she.

He pushed past her into the open doorway. The other side was lined with shelves and boxes and, to his surprise, rifles. It looked like they had stumbled into the middle of a supply bunker.

“Nice,” the girl said, looking at the munitions. “You could have blown us sky high.”

“I didn't, so shut your mouth.”

They stepped past the wreckage of the doorway and into the body of the room. They were greeted by a pair of corpses wrapped arm-in-arm on the floor, almost perfectly preserved. It was an oddly touching sight.

“There you go,” Mason said. “Nothing but bodies.”

“These aren't blackened like the others,” she said. “And I'd say they've been dead a long time. Probably suffocated, if that door was sealed.”

“Well, they didn't die of food shortage,” Mason said, looking at the cans stacked nearby. He couldn't read any of them. Mason could speak Arabic, Farsi, Russian, and a little Spanish, but not German. That was the wrong war.

“What happened here?” she asked.

At one time or another, Mason had been all around the world. He'd been through hellfire and darkness, and he always managed to find his way back. He had a high tolerance for the unexpected, as any team leader did. But his tolerance for the totally fucking strange was just about to hit the red. This place was abandoned except for two stiffs wrapped around each other like a couple of homos, and the only clue they had were more of those goddamned tentacles. Something had torn this place apart, but he was becoming less and less interested in what that something might be.

Christian appeared in the doorway. “Nobody else here, boss.” He noticed the two corpses on the ground but didn't comment.

“Then we're packing up.”

Part of him wanted to scout the whole island. Part of him wanted to bring the other chopper back here and do a full scan, hit every sector, and use thermal vision. But that was wrong, and it wasn't the mission. He had been letting his curiosity get the better of him, and that was dangerous. It was time to cut their losses and go.

The fact that two of his men had disappeared into the void (quite literally) would eat at him, but he'd have plenty of time to think about that later, say… when he was retired, resting in his own little beach house. He'd tell his superiors that Reiner's helo had disappeared and most likely crashed into the ocean. That was the truth. With radio communications down, that was the most likely scenario, and yet…

And yet.

It didn't feel like the truth. It didn't feel right.

“Vy, your radio still shot to shit?”

Christian put a hand to his ear and nodded. Still no ear-to-ear communication, not even short range. It wasn't the platform after all. It's those things, he thought. Here, on the middle of the island, they were still hamstrung.

Totally. Fucking. Strange.

Both Vy and the girl were staring at him, and he realized he'd been zoning. Jesus, it was time to go. He'd brought them all of the way out here with no way to get word back. He'd assumed the radios would start working once they had distanced themselves from The Aeschylus, but that had been a mistake.

“We're leaving.” He looked at Christian. “Did you find somewhere that might be of use?”

“It looks like they kept prisoners here. The prisoners' bunker locks from the outside.”

Mason grinned. Maybe not everything was bad luck.

The girl looked flustered. “So that's it? We're giving up? We're just going back? Sorry guys, we couldn't find your entire staff? You're acting like you don't care. Do you know that?” She was beginning to get that look in her eyes, the one that politicians had when they were listening to every word you said, but it just wasn't getting through. He didn't have to guess where she got it. And that look, as irritating as it was, would make the next five minutes a little easier.

“Just get your ass out the door, honey.”

“We're going to find them. We have to. I'm not giving up on those people.” And then, more quietly, “I'm not giving up on my father.”

When she turned, that's when Mason grabbed her by the hair and yanked back so hard her feet slipped out from under her.

Chapter 12: New Swabia

The Island:

January, 1939

1

As The Adalgisa drifted towards the dock, Harald counted fifteen or twenty workers processing the morning's catch. A host of whale carcasses were being flensed and stripped even as new ones rolled in. A pair of men stood over one of the bodies, drilling into it with an enormous steel instrument. Another pair wheeled a dumpster full of viscera out of a warehouse door and towards the ocean. As if to scare trespassers, the single, enormous head of a sperm whale hung at the foot of the pier like a cannibal's trophy.

He heard a pair of boots and turned to see Jan egress from the wheelhouse. The man stopped next to the lieutenant and gazed over the landscape, as silent as always.

“The infrastructure is already in place,” Harald said. “These men can work here for weeks at a time. It's extraordinary, isn't it?”

The other man wrinkled his nose. “I worked in a slaughterhouse once when I was a teenager. I didn't care for it.”

Harald stared at him a moment, wondering what the hell that had to do with anything, but he let it go. After what he felt was an appropriate pause, he said, “Are the prisoners coming?”

“I can get them.”

“Yes. Yes, why don't you do that?”

Up the pier, he saw two figures appear from a side path and begin walking towards the boat. They were regular German army, and they were a welcome sight. The man in the lead raised a hand to his head in salute. Only, he wasn't a man at all, but a boy. He couldn't be older than eighteen or nineteen, his face covered with pimples. Harald could see the outline of a handmade crucifix hanging on his chest. The cross and the boy both radiated bucolic charm.

“Welcome to the island, sir,” he said.

“It's good to see a friendly face. What's your name, soldier?”

“Metzger, sir. Sergeant Linus Metzger. The man with me here is Doctor Gloeckner. We thought it would be prudent to bring him in case you had any difficulties on the journey. Did you?”

Harald paused, but only for the briefest of moments. “We lost two men en route, including our captain. Both men, I'm afraid, were buried at sea. The rest of us made it safely. I don't think we'll be needing a physician, at least not until we've had a chance to settle in.”

The two newcomers exchanged a glance but didn't offer protest.

“The effort is appreciated, nonetheless. Tell me, who do I have to thank for the reception?”

After a moment, the doctor spoke. Harald saw he was an older gentleman, his skin as cracked and wrinkled as white sandpaper. “Well sir, the S.S. has been put in charge. The commander, he just arrived a few days ahead of you.”

“What's his name, this commander?”

“Haven't you been briefed?”

“My orders were given as need-to-know.” The men looked at one another again, and Harald felt his irritation rise. “For God's sake, man. What's his name?”

At that moment, a third man appeared at the end of the pier. Tall and fit, he was decked from head to toe in Schutzstaffel black, his blond-gray hair slicked back with tonic. He walked towards them with the cold ease of a snake, his boots gliding along the deck. He stopped just in front of Jan. “Your name?”

“It's an honor, sir. My name is Sergeant Ja—”

“You will assume a straight posture when you address me, Sergeant.”

Jan straightened, looking flustered. “Sergeant Jan Eichmann. I am at your service, sir.”

“And you are the new lieutenant?” the man asked, turning.

“Oberleutnant Harald Dietrich, sir.” Harald had so many questions, but they all seemed to tumble up and stick in his throat. It wasn't the time to ask them yet, in any case.

The man continued to stare at the pair of them, giving every mole, every crevice, every line of their faces scrutiny. At last, he nodded as if satisfied. “My name is Höhere S.S. und Polizeiführer Schutzstaffel Commander Cornelius Richter, and I am in charge here. Welcome to the new colony, gentlemen. Welcome to New Swabia.”

2

Dominik huddled next to the girls in the back of the half-track. They were on their way inland now, his thoughts of freedom a distant memory. For all his feelings of helplessness, however, the island was still a wonder. The air carried a thousand bizarre smells. A thick mist hung in the sky, viscous and ethereal. Dominik looked to the ground and saw intermittent growths of saxicolous greenery sprouting from the gravel, as large and strange as everything else. His stomach growled, and he wondered if any of it would be edible. He thought not.

As they passed beyond an outcropping, a trio of dark birds passed overhead. They fluttered over them and landed on the water, squawking and fidgeting in foreign bird tongues. The girls, who had been quiet since their arrival, perked up. Zofia stood and looked over the edge of the truck, gawking at the bright blue eyes and the strange orange markings on their beaks. There should be dozens, Dominik thought, but they are so few. Where are the rest?

“Sit down,” Jan said from across the truck.

Dominik grabbed Zofia around the waist. “Go on, honey. Sit down.”

“But I'm watching.”

“Sit. It's dangerous.”

Lucja sighed. “Are we there yet?”

“Probably not much longer,” Ari said without conviction.

“This driving service is quite the treatment though,” Dominik said, trying to lighten the mood. “Do you think they'll have a feast prepared?”

“I certainly hope so. I could use some tea.”

The half-track turned back towards the center of the island and passed underneath what looked like a rocky bridge. Then, as Dominik stared at it, he realized it was too regular, too fleshy. He traced its origins down the rocks and then stopped, unable to believe what he was seeing.

Ari's mouth hung open. “What the…?”

Zofia threw herself into Dominik's arms. “Papa!”

Over the side of the truck, the road dropped into the largest crater Dominik had ever seen. Its gaping mouth led straight into the bowels of the earth, swallowing the sunlight around it. Out of that blackness he saw, for the first time, the things that would one day devour The Aeschylus. Like Kate, he tried to classify them and found he could only think of them as tentacles. Impossible, he thought, but that was what they were. They stretched and grew from the edges of the hole like fingers, creeping up through the landscape and encircling the mountains beyond. Like the chasm, they were enormous, though he had no grasp of how far they would grow and how dangerous they would one day become. Dominik tried to imagine what could be at the bottom of that hole and couldn't. It might very well go to the core of the earth.

He felt his shirt against his chest and realized he had begun to sweat. Just as he thought he might scream, the path veered away from the crater, and the half-track turned. It bounced happily over a few ruts and then continued through the valley towards their camp, leaving the chasm behind.

As they got closer, he could see that it wasn't a camp they were headed to at all, but a fortress. The walls formed a protective semi-circle around it, metal fence wrapped between. Dominik saw the barbed wire and the watch towers, the men with guns, the jagged rocks that poked and pushed over the barriers on all sides. Just beyond those barriers, he knew there was nothing but the open, unforgiving sea.

The most terrible thing, however, was not the impregnability of their destination, but the fact that the great chasm was within view of the front gate. Whatever he and Ari had imagined as their purpose, they had been wrong. It gave him an awful feeling. It was as if the journey across the Atlantic, as trying as it had been, would be easy compared to what came next.

The half-track stopped at the front gate, and another soldier waved them through.

3

Harald looked over his shoulder and watched Dominik being escorted to his new home. A pair of burly-looking youths had a hold of each arm, practically dragging him across the dirt. That was good; Harald didn't trust Kaminski in the open, not any more. Ari and his daughters weren't far behind, being herded off of the half-track like cattle.

“Walk with me,” Richter said. “I'd like you to meet the other prisoners.”

“Other prisoners?”

“The unskilled labor, as I think of them. This way.”

Harald followed his commander in silence, passing beneath an arch of the monstrous growths Doctor Grey would one day call The Carrion. But where Dominik saw danger, Harald saw only wonderment. This place was unlike anything he had imagined.

“I'd also like to meet the men,” he said. “The soldiers.”

“You know that it's twenty-one thirty?”

Harald looked up, still unused to the perpetuity of gray sunlight. “Ah, excuse me, sir. I'd forgotten. We've been at sea for quite some time.”

“No. By all means, meet with them. We need someone to keep them on their guard. Your predecessor will not be doing it, certainly.”

“My predecessor?”

“Captain Smit,” Richter said, stopping at the edge of the crater. “You did hear what happened to him?”

“No sir, I—”

Richter laughed, and for the first time, Harald felt vaguely unsettled. “You needn't worry about it then, Lieutenant. You'll have enough things to worry about without putting stock in ghost stories.”

“Ghost stories?”

“The men here are a rather superstitious lot. It's nothing you need concern yourself with. So meet them, and see for yourself. Just excuse me if I don't join you. My duties will stretch on into the night.”

A shout echoed from around the corner, and Harald turned to see a gaggle of emaciated figures near the edge of the pit. An S.S. youth stood above them, yelling orders from over top of a rifle. Harald observed with some fascination that the prisoner closest to the drop had a rope tied around his waist, and the others were lowering him into the deep. The spelunker looked half naked and starved.

The commander began walking around the edge towards them, laughing—laughing—as the men strained and heaved with their bony arms. “Lower! Put him lower, you animals!”

The four prisoners, all of whom were seated, barely looked up. It was all they could do to keep the rope in their hands. Richter began to prod one of them with his foot.

“Do you think we should move against Kaminski now?” he called.

It took Harald a moment to realize the question had been directed at him. “Move against him?”

“Yes. Do you think he has the moxie to do the job straight away?”

“What do you mean?”

“You're playing coy with me, Lieutenant. Do you think he can do the job we have set for him without using any leverage?” The man's tone was light, but Harald had no doubt of its sincerity.

“Yes sir, I think he can do it.”

“Very well,” he said noncommittally. “I will trust your judgment, Lieutenant.”

“Yes sir.”

“You don't approve?” Richter asked, reading the other man's expression. “We could always torture him, if his daughters won't do.”

A dozen retorts skipped through his brain, none of which would endear him to his new host. “You know best, sir.”

“That I do, Lieutenant, that I do! The human body is a resilient thing. I've seen it survive many things. You can beat it, burn it, cut off it's limbs… hell, you can cut off its balls and it will find a way to survive.” He stopped then, looking down at the prisoner who was dangling at the end of the rope.

The man had begun to whimper. “Please. Don't lower me any more! There's something down here! I can feel it!”

When Harald looked down, he saw the darkness of the pit had a kind of volume to it. The way the light fell, the shadow became complete just under the man's thighs. He appeared half in, half out of the darkness.

“What's down there?” Richter asked.

“I don't know! I don't know! There's something moving!”

“Well, if you can't tell me what it is, that's no good to us,” the commander said. Then, to the prisoners, “Lower him a little further.”

When they didn't respond, Richter went to the man at the front of the brigade, withdrew a small knife, then pressed it into the man's neck. It was a warning gesture, but it still drew blood. All four prisoners began to lower the rope.

The man on the end cried out, begging them to stop, but by the time they did, he was invisible. The shadows had overtaken him.

“He is very prideful, you know,” Harald said, his voice trailing off as he watched.

“Who?”

“Kaminski. He's very prideful. If we hurt one of his girls, I'm not sure what he would do.”

Richter shrugged. “We did not bring them for nothing, Lieutenant. You'll find that my methods can be quite effective when used properly.”

Harald nodded, beginning to see something very frightening, very unreachable in his new commander. He had never met anyone quite like him in the regular army.

“Lower! Lower, you sonofabitch,” Richter said, kicking one of the prisoners in the ass. “You should get some sleep, Lieutenant. You look tired, and the next few days will be busy. Meet with the men, then have Sergeant Metzger see you to your quarters. I expect full productivity by the end of the week. We should talk about the command structure when you get a chance.”

“Very good, sir.”

Harald continued to stare at the rope. It wasn't moving any more.

“What do you see down there?” Richter called. “I say, what do you see down there?” After a few moments, he turned to the lieutenant. “That's all for now.”

Though he was being dismissed, Harald lingered a moment longer. His eyes were still glued to the rope, still watching it sway down in the dark of the crater. The commander called out several more times, all to no avail. Finally, Richter said, “Bring him up.”

And of course, when the four prisoners lifted the rope, there was nothing on the end. The man had disappeared into the darkness.

As quickly as he could, Harald turned and began walking towards the base. He heard a thump and a cry as Richter kicked another prisoner into the dirt, then hurried along even faster when he heard the caw of the genuine laughter that followed.

4

The fate of Captain Smit, as it turned out, would be discovered by the new prisoners long before the good lieutenant.

As Harald made his way back to the base, Dominik and Ari stood outside of the door to the science laboratory. The term laboratory seemed rather generous considering it looked like every other block of concrete at the base, but that's what they had been told. The two of them had been escorted to the lab by a pair of soldiers they did not recognize, and then the soldiers had walked off as if they were no longer needed. It felt exceedingly odd, though Dominik knew they were not alone. From where they stood, he could see the snipers in the towers, the guard at the gate, the engineers in the vehicle depot.

“You think we should knock?” Ari asked.

“Maybe we should just go in.”

“Wait! Do you hear that?”

Dominik grabbed the door and pulled it open. There was no one on the other side. “You're hearing things, Ari.”

“I'm not.”

“Still expecting that cup of tea then?”

“At this point, I'd settle for a friendly hello. It's awfully dark in there.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“Don't you?”

“We're supposed to go in. They wouldn't have brought us out here otherwise. I thought you were an optimist, Ari?”

The other man scoffed, but he stepped past Dominik into the hall ahead. They were going, like it or not. Dominik, however, wasn't worried. They were off the ship, and he had seen the bunker where the lot of them would sleep. Their room had been unadorned save for two beds, but this in and of itself was a miracle. They had blankets. They had space and food. They had access to a dry toilet, a sight which had made Lucja weep. They would still be under lock and key, but they would not be given so much just to have it stripped. Of course, Dominik was not immune to how manipulative this was, how he felt more servile now than he had during the entire journey. But he had his wits, and he knew he had to keep them if they were going to survive.

“Are you coming?” Ari asked.

Dominik grunted and stepped after him.

Like the other bunkers, the hall in front of them was narrow and anfractuous. Unlike the others, however, it ended in a narrow stairway leading down beneath the ground. Dominik imagined the earth just over them, imagined he and Ari had already walked over this very spot when they had been above. It did much to explain why the vehicles in the compound were limited to the depot near the gate; the ceiling over such a place could not be very sturdy.

They stepped into the room at the bottom like children in a dark wood. Dominik observed the menagerie of items with something like awe. There were tables, tools, instruments and generators, a collection of metallic odds and ends so bizarre Dominik didn't know what purpose they served. At the end of the room, he could see glass terrariums — almost like prison cells — full of the same bizarre tentacles they had seen on the way in. These were smaller, but of the same origin, he had no doubt. They were wrapped around various objects: small trees, metal framework, and in several cases, animal bones. They seemed to pulse in the dim light, their slimy shapes coiled around their perches like serpents.

“Dominik!” Ari said, pointing. “Look at that!”

He turned to find himself face to face with cylindrical machine in the corner. It had a wide metal base with a device in the center that looked almost like an engine. Like a Hamburg steak sandwich, Dominik thought.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Dominik nodded. “Well, we don't know if it works, but it looks a lot like Lawrence's cyclotron to me.”

“Good God. Here? You think they built it?”

“Well, I don't think they stole one, if that's what you're asking.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” Ari said. “You've seen what else they've stolen.”

“Even if they did, they would have had to disassemble it and reassemble it, and that means somebody knows what they're doing. I don't think they would have gone all the way to Berkeley, do you? No, somebody built this one.”

Dominik stepped away from the machine, both drawn and repulsed by what else the lab might contain. That was when he saw the body.

Atop a table near one of the glass cages, he saw the outline of what looked like a human corpse. He froze, wondering if the sight would ever cease to startle. He'd seen enough of the faceless and the dying during the last four years in the gutters of his own neighborhood, to be sure, and yet he still found himself in shock.

“What's wrong with him?” Ari asked.

The skin was blotchy, veins standing out in strange spiderweb patterns, the eyes bulging beneath closed lids as if they had exploded in their sockets. Strange grass-like hairs grew from the nose and ears. The body itself was secured to the table with two leather straps, one over the shoulders, and one over the thighs. Had they done this to him while he was still alive?

Fingers of dread began to creep into Dominik's mind. He heard a voice, but it sounded like it had come from inside a drum. “What?” he asked, realizing it was Ari talking.

“I said, 'Are you all right?' It's terrible, Dominik, but you're acting like… like, I don't know.”

“This must be what they want us to do, Ari,” he croaked. “They must want us create some kind of poison. Have you seen his skin? It's like he's been drowned in some kind of… some kind of—”

“Let's get you out of here.”

Ari threw his arm around his companion and turned them towards the stairwell from whence they'd come. But standing in their path, blocking the light, was a man. Dominik noted with no surprise at all that it was one of the ugliest men he had ever seen.

The figure raised a hand, and with it, the barrel of a pistol. It was pointed straight at them, its metallic glint unmistakable.

A snapping sound came from behind them, and with it, a roar so terrible that it split the two men apart. The thing on the table was alive! It snapped through one of its leather restraints, bolting upwards and clawing. Dominik could hear it hissing and spitting in its blind rage, its mouth chomping and its teeth clacking.

He looked backwards and was suddenly sure of something else: the thing coming at him was no man. Maybe it had been, once. Maybe it had been an animal with a brain and a purpose, but now it was only… it was only a thing. It shrieked at him, the sound conveying a hate so black it matched his skin.

“Dominik!” Ari cried.

The pistol fired. The thing on the table fell backwards with a hole in its head. It lay still, dead for real this time, or so it appeared.

Five long seconds passed. In them, Dominik could feel the weight of an eternity bearing down on the pair of them. When it was over, he squinted towards the stairwell and saw the newcomer standing with the smoking pistol in hand. The man had not been pointing it at the pair of them after all. He tucked the weapon into his holster and sighed noisily. It was an oddly clumsy gesture, and as he began to walk towards them, Dominik could see his gait was just as awkward.

The man helped Ari to his feet, then extended a hand to Dominik. Dominik took it, and the man slapped him on the back.

“Make more like this? Ha! Mister Kaminski, you are most amusing. Of course we would not bring you here to make more like this. More like Captain Smit? The enemy is a different story, but not our own people!” He laughed at his own joke. “I am Doctor Kriege, Mister Kaminski, and I assure you this is not a weapon of our design. We are here simply to study it, to find where it came from, maybe. But as for you, Mister Kaminski, what we want is very simple. What we want is for you to help us destroy it.”

5

At the same time her father was exploring the laboratories, Lucja was being escorted across the grounds by one of the young soldiers. She wanted to tell herself that all the new men looked alike, but she couldn't; she knew his name just as surely as he knew hers, and that made things worse. Putting a human face on them would make her weak. It would make her hesitate, like her father had done on the deck of the ship. And she did not want to be like her father. Their chances of escape were worse than ever, thanks to him. But when you got right down to it, would she have done differently? Would she have really brought the ax down on top of that fat man, as disgusting and inhuman as he was? She didn't know. All she did know was she had been thinking about the moment nonstop since their arrival.

“You all right?” the boy asked.

She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. She could feel one of them had unraveled on the inside, allowing her to touch the shirt beneath. Beneath that, she could feel the bone outline of her ribs. In her other pocket, she could feel the screwdriver she had found in the bunker. It was not a good a weapon as an ax, but it would do. “I'm fine.”

“I don't mean to bother you. You just looked pretty, is all.” He was a strange one, this boy. Hans, she thought. Hans is his name.

His eyes peered at her through glasses too big for his face. His smile seemed genuine enough, but there was something off about it too. Maybe he was just slow.

In the guard tower, she could see the silhouette of the lieutenant standing at the top. Motionless, he blended into the gray light, as unassuming as a predator. Like a lizard, she thought, not quite remembering the word for the reptile that could blend into its surroundings. A lizard is all you are, Dietrich. Maybe he was a nice enough young man, and he hadn't ignored her pleas for help back on The Adalgisa, but she didn't have to like him, not after all that he'd done.

Hans stopped and pointed up the tower, smiling a strange smile.

The prisoners' bunker was hidden from her line of sight now, and it made her uneasy. Zofia was all alone back in the room. Little Zofia, who had managed to hold it together just as well as her. Maybe even better.

“Go on,” the boy said.

She moved one foot up on the ladder, then the other. The young man walked to help, and she suddenly found herself climbing at full speed, anxious to escape before his hands could touch her. Before she knew it, she was at the top. Then, a hand did grab her. She squealed, but Harald held onto her by the scruff of her coat and hauled her the rest of the way up.

“Careful. You almost fell.”

“I'm sorry, I… thank you.”

To her eyes, the lieutenant looked tired. He was wearing a hat — a new one, she supposed — but it seemed to shadow his face more than add to his height. “I'm sorry to bring you up here, but this place has eyes and ears. I suppose I'm not used to it.” He laughed bitterly. “I'm certain no one can hear us up here, though. Maybe we're not free from prying eyes, but this is the best I could do. The fact that others can see us is a good thing, I think. Certainly I am,” he searched for a word, then found it, “professional. Surely you know that.”

When it looked like he was waiting for a response, she nodded.

“I have something to ask you. You asked me for help once, and now I demand,” he stopped himself. “I'm sorry. And now, I'd ask for your help in return. This is very difficult for me, but I'm afraid this is not something I can share with anyone else.” He reached out and handed her what looked like a letter. She took it more out of instinct than anything else.

“With me?”

He pointed, directing her gaze to the text. She read the first line.

I've met someone, I'm sorry.

She looked back at him, and he turned to the edge of the tower, resting his elbows on the rails. Lucja herself had barely noticed how pretty it was up here. But the lieutenant was clearly waiting for her, and so she cast her eyes downward again.

It has been a month now, and I love him. I know how that must sound, and I wanted to tell you. But you were leaving, and I hoped this would be easier for us both.

You said you needed me Harald, but I know that you didn't. You just needed someone, me or someone else. You must think me a monster for having kept this from you, but you don't know how hard I tried. You are not an easy man to lie to, Harald, but you are not easy to be truthful with, either.

Please do not hate me. I wish you all of the success you deserve on your mission, wherever it is that your duties take you.

I tried.

— Mieke

When the lieutenant didn't move, Lucja read the letter a second time. It's meaning was clear enough, but she stood trying to figure out why he would show it to her. Then, she remembered something. “You had a picture of her. You were looking at it on the ship, isn't that right? Do you still have it?”

“I burned it,” he said.

“You burned it?”

“I burned it. Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing, because now, I miss her. I miss looking at her. I was just so angry. Thinking about her writing those things, saying those things when I didn't even know if she meant them. Do you know how hard that was, reading it for the first time? She must have mailed it right after I left. It arrived on a whaler this morning.”

“It did?”

“You women are all the same. I'm sorry, but you are. You get… emotional. Especially Mieke. She's not the kind of girl who can handle being alone.”

“And this girl, this Mieke. She told you that she'd wait for you?”

“Of course she did! She said she would be there when I returned, waiting at the docks. Now, I find this letter waiting for me, with some story about how she met someone before.”

“Maybe she did,” Lucja said cautiously.

“Oh please.” Harald spun, his face red. “She's probably making it up. And even if she's not, I doubt it's more than a passing fancy. I've been with Mieke for two years, and I can tell you she's not a… not a slut.”

Lucja took a step backwards.

“I'm sorry. I don't mean to be crude. But these moods of hers, they're really quite ridiculous. As if I don't have enough to worry about. For God's sake, the weight of The Republic is resting on the army here, and it's resting on me to maintain order until things are finished.”

Taking another step back, she looked at him and judged it best to be silent. The man liked to talk, and the faster he got it out of his system, the faster she would be out of here.

“It's resting on your father, too.”

“What?” Amongst the turmoil, she'd nearly forgotten they were not just being funneled from one point to the next; her father had a purpose, or rather, they had a purpose for him. To hear it stated as plainly as this brought with it more feelings than she was willing to handle: pride, sorrow, fear, resentment. Perhaps this last most of all, though it was even more unwelcome than the rest.

“We need him to help us fight this thing here. Or to control it, I should say. Kriege thinks the stuff might be from another world. Do you believe that?” He laughed, his teeth sticking out like points on a picket fence. Without thinking, she turned to the left and looked over the west wall of the tower. She could see the crater there, those incredible growths reaching up from it.

“In any case, I'm sure he will do his part. The commander here does not like excuses. You should remind him of that.”

“I… I will.”

“Good. It will give us a chance to talk as well. I'd like that. Oh, I know I can talk to the men, but it's not quite the same.”

“But I'm a prisoner.”

“Well, you're a civilian. I know there's some measure of formality, but… it will pass the time.” He was looking at her intently, his eyes tracing the line of her neck, the curve of her nose. Not as one might look at a good meal, thankfully, but as one might look at a painting when one wasn't quite sure what to make of it. “Aside from that, it will give us a chance to talk about Mieke.”

“Mieke?”

He reached down and plucked the paper from her hands. She was gripping it so tightly that a corner of the page tore. For just a moment, the rage crept back onto his face, and then it was gone. “It's all right,” he said. “I shouldn't have snatched it. The letter still makes me angry. I suppose I should store it somewhere I don't have to look at it.”

“We can talk about her, if you like.”

He smiled. “Good. Because I need you to help me win her back.”

“Win her back?”

“This is obviously one of her games to get attention. She's either trying to get me to come back early or trying to make me jealous from afar. Or both. I need help either way. I'm stuck here just the same as you, and I can't have her gallivanting around town with another man, even if it is just for show.”

“If there even is another man.”

“Yes!” he agreed. “If there is, as you say. But, I should tell her I love her, and that I'm not going to play these foolish games with her. Do you agree?”

Lucja nodded. She was beginning to feel like the head of a fishing bobber.

“Very good. Then you can help me write to her.”

“I can?”

“Yes, of course you can. You're of a smart people, and you're obviously a woman. You have insight. I know that just from our short time together. Tell me you agree?”

Lucja said that she did, not sure which of his points she was agreeing to, and not caring. The lieutenant was beginning to get dangerously close to her. She didn't think he was doing it consciously, but he was close enough now where she could feel the heat of his breath.

“I think I have to get home now.”

His expression soured. “Oh, am I boring you?”

“No! No, of course not. But Zofia… she's all by herself. And we're new here. And I… I don't like to leave her alone.”

“Yes. Yes of course, you're right. Your father is not in the bunker, and she is very young. Where are my manners?” He finally seemed to soften. “I think it's going to be a long winter. The sun will be down in a few weeks.” Harald pointed towards the horizon, what was once giant and bright on the mainland now nothing more than a small mound against the mountains. It was as if the sun itself was a prisoner, awaiting its death and burial beneath the line of the sea.

She was afraid for a moment that he was never going to move, but he did, and she realized just how much of a relief it was. It was an odd thing, how close he had been, far too close for a man she didn't like. Even pretending had its limits.

“Goodbye, Lieutenant.”

Mounting the ladder, Harald helped balance her again, and in moments, she was climbing down. Hans was there to meet her at the bottom. The pair of them walked back across the base, a sea of troubled thoughts circling in her mind. By coincidence, she happened to see one of the other men from the ship, Jan, heading towards the vehicle depot. He noticed the pair of them, and he did an odd thing, then. He gave them both a little wave. For no particular reason, Lucja waved back.

She fingered the screwdriver in her pocket, thinking about little Zofia alone in the bunker. Thinking about her mother, alone in a dank cell in Neuengamme. Thinking about her father holding the ax over his head, and what she might do if she were ever in the same position.

Chapter 13: Extreme Prejudice

The Aeschylus and The Island:

Present Day

1

Kate was so stunned that at first, she didn't make a sound. Then the pain hit her, and she shrieked. Mason was dragging her like a sack of grain, pulling her by the hair.

“Let me go!”

He punched her then, a quick, hard shot to the chin. Her head reeled. When she opened her eyes, another building loomed in front of her. She tried to remember something from her youth, a self defense throw, kick, something. But it was happening too fast. He was too goddamned big.

Mason pulled her in front of him. “Vy, get the door, would you?”

There was the sound of metal creaking — a giant hinge on a giant door. Or maybe not so giant, just sinister, just final.

She kicked out hard, slamming her foot into his shin. When it hit, she pulled her hand out of her pocket, her key chain gripped tightly between her fingers. A single key stuck out between her knuckles, and on instinct, she stabbed him with it. She felt the key sink into his arm, hard metal into soft meat. Mason barely grunted. He slammed her into the wall, and she dropped it, her last, pitiful weapon.

“No!” she screamed. “No!”

Mason threw her through the open doorway, her body twisting as it collapsed onto the concrete. She scrambled to her feet, reaching the door just as it slammed in her face. The sound of a lock clicked into place.

“You bastard! Why are you doing this?” It sounded foolish, but to her surprise, she got an answer.

“Because if they found the vice president's daughter full of bullet holes, it would be a hell of a thing to explain, that's why. The odds of anyone finding you are next to nothing, but it's not a chance I'm willing to take. Better you die of natural causes, princess. I thought we might have to drop you off the side of The Aeschylus with an anchor tied to your feet, but this is easier.”

“What are you talking about?” she cried.

“It's much easier to deal with two targets at once than three. And if it wasn't for your stupid indiscretion, we'd only have one. But I guess you passed that sentence this morning, didn't you?”

“What do you mean?” she yelled. “What do you mean?” But that question didn't need answering, because she knew what he meant just fine.

She was a target. They were all targets.

She didn't know how or why, but someone at Valley Oil had had ordered them dead. They were cleaning house upstairs, and that meant cleaning the dirty laundry. AJ knew about the security violations; Kate had insider information from old Stan McCreedy's envelope. Not they needed an extra reason to get rid of her. Nearly four hundred thousand shares of a company that could be running the American oil industry in twenty years? They could have never done it inside the states, not with her political ties, and not with The Service watching. But out here was the law of the jungle, and out here, no one would save her.

“I'm sorry about this Kate, I really am,” Mason said through the door. “I did respect your father, even if I didn't like him. This is just business, if you'll excuse the old expression. If it makes you feel better, you can blame the old man.”

“You leave my father out of this!”

“You'll be dead of dehydration in three or four days. Try to sleep it off, if you can.”

She wanted to scream at him, to tell him that she would find a way out, but she couldn't. In that moment, there was only despair. “You don't have to do this,” she groaned. “Please…”

There was no answer, and as the seconds ticked by, her solitude became a stifling certainty. They were leaving her. They were really leaving.

She crumpled to the floor, her head in hands. Then she wiped her face, wondering how many seconds of life each tear would cost. Without food or water, the clock was ticking.

When she lifted her head, she noticed there was almost no light. There were no windows that she could see, no vents or portholes or fenestrae anywhere around her. Then, she remembered her cell phone. She took it from her pocket, praying she had remembered to charge the battery enough to last the day. When she flicked the button, it came to life, and she saw the readout. “No signal. Of course not,” she said. The phone did emit light, however, and that was something. She held it in front of her like a flashlight. All the wits of a CIA operative, she thought again, and she laughed a little. Maybe she could keep those wits about her.

Maybe.

The light on the phone suddenly cut off, and she cried out, nearly dropping it to the floor. The light came back when she slapped it, though. Just the automatic power saver. She exhaled, remembering she'd have to flick a button every few seconds to keep the light active. The battery showed the phone had close to a full charge, but she knew from experience that it wouldn't last forever.

Cautiously, she began walking the hall, sticking her head into each room along the path. The first two rooms held metal bed frames and a couple of shelves. The third contained a hole with an ancient, fetid smell. The room at the end of the hall was the largest, and it looked the most lived-in. She saw beds and shelves, old blankets, toiletries scattered on the floor. A stuffed bear sat on one of the cots, staring at her with ancient, button eyes. It held the faded, worn look of a child's love, and it looked sad somehow. I'm lonely, its eyes seemed to say. Pick me up and hold me. It's been so long since I've had company. So long.

Kate sat on the cot and squeezed the bear to her chest, its stuffing as soft as old jelly. It was comforting, that bear. It didn't matter that it had been almost thirty years since she'd last had one of her own. When at last she set him down, she saw a glint of something strange on one of the shelves. It looked terribly out of place, and at first, she thought the light was playing tricks on her. When she grabbed it, she couldn't believe it was real.

It was a screwdriver.

2

“Dutch?” AJ called. “Dutch, are you there?”

The room lay still. Outside, the platform groaned as it swayed subtly in the wind.

AJ dropped the file he was holding and pulled the M1911 from his belt. He counted his respiration: one breath, two… and then heard the click of footsteps. Dutch appeared in the doorway ahead of him, but he wasn't alone.

“I'd put that down if I were you, smart boy.”

The man behind his friend was smiling. AJ noted distractedly that he had a huge jaw — worthy of acromegaly, really — and it made him look oddly simian.

Dutch cast his eyes downwards. “I'm sorry, buddy.”

“Guess this one's not as slow as the old guy this morning,” AJ said conversationally.

“I guess not.”

St. Croix had eyes for only AJ. “I told you to put it down.”

“Fuck you, you put it down.”

“You don't put it down, I'll shoot him.”

“You shoot him, I shoot you. And you have a big head for a target.”

“Now, now, here. Why don't everybody just calm down?” Just when AJ didn't think things could get any worse, Melvin appeared. He was pushing Doctor Grey in front of him, one hand on the man's shoulder and one wrapped around the trigger of his shotgun. He shoved the doctor into the room, and Grey tumbled to the floor. He looked only half lucid.

A long kitchen counter separated the standoff, and after Grey was down, Melvin began circling around it. AJ saw him flanking, and without opening fire, he couldn't do a thing to stop it. The odds were dropping fast, and his finger twitched, a hair's breadth from thunder.

Melvin leveled the shotgun. “You want to get messy? You look like you thinkin' 'bout it.”

If this were a movie, AJ could hit St. Croix in the head and drop Melvin before either of them could blink. But this wasn't a movie, and Dutch was the marksman, not him.

He lowered his gun. “Shit.”

“On the floor. Kick it over to me.”

The gun skittered across the tile. “What's your boss going to think when he sees what you kids have been up to?”

“I don't know if you heard the boat, buddy-boy, but he's down below. Guess you ain't as sharp as you used to be, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I would have heard it,” St. Croix said.

Dutch spun before the man's mouth was closed, whipping his arm around to strike, but the ape was too fast. St. Croix smacked his attacker in the head. Dutch stumbled, then Melvin booted him in the ass and knocked him over to his friend. AJ grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.

It took a moment for Melvin's words to sink in, but when they did, he felt his face flush. “If Bruhbaker is below, what about the girl? What's she gonna say about all this?”

At that exact moment, Mason appeared in the doorway, his face grim. “She won't be saying a damned thing.”

“What does that mean?” AJ knew Mason could be cold-blooded, but if something had happened to Kate, it would be a new low, even for him. He told himself Mason couldn't be that brazen. Not an official mission for Black Shadow, not with the girl being who she was.

“I didn't shoot her, but your girlfriend won't be coming back from the island to send any postcards. You can bet on that.”

AJ was about to fire back at him, some pithy comeback that would put the sonofabitch in his place, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. The girl? All of them? This had been one hell of a day, but he had never doubted for a second he would see the end of it. He had never doubted that no matter how bad things got, there could be a way out.

“We go back a long time, Mason,” he said quietly.

“That we do.”

“And I guess you're not going to tell us why you're doing this?”

“You've seen what's going on out there. This thing, whatever it is, it's bigger than you and me. It's bigger than all of us. Somebody at the top wants to make sure they have plausible deniability, and I suppose that means getting rid of the people who knew better.”

“I always was a problem.”

The look Mason gave him was almost compassionate. Almost. “You still are.”

“Why don't you just shoot us?” Dutch yelled.

“Not today.”

Mason motioned to the door. On his way out, Melvin made a little point-and-shoot motion at them with his thumb and forefinger. It made AJ want to rip his hand off and feed it to him.

“Close it,” Mason said.

Seconds later, the door closed, and a welding torch began to seal them in.

3

They stared at each other awkwardly. “I guess we're in this together now, whether we like it or not,” AJ said.

Gideon picked himself up and straightened. He was looking better now, the effects of Melvin's little concoction wearing off. At his full height, he was taller than both of his companions. “Who are you people? And what the hell am I doing here? You know that asshole out there hit me? He actually hit me!” he said, looking around like he expected to find a lawyer hiding behind a cabinet.

“We didn't get a chance to meet yet, Doc. I'm AJ Trenton. This here is my friend, Henry Jones. There was another person with us before, a girl. We were brought here to… well, to consult, you might say.”

“Pleased to meet you, I guess.”

“How are you feeling?”

The man shrugged, his orange coat too big on his shoulders. “Aside from being back in here? How the hell are we going to get out?”

AJ looked at the doctor and then over to his friend. If Dutch was freaked out, he was hiding it well. The situation didn't seem real yet, maybe because it all happened so fast. “Well, this place worked once. I guess they figured it would hold people again. How did you survive, anyway?”

The man giggled. It was a strange sound coming from an adult male. “There's plenty to drink, if that's what you're wondering!”

“Not any more,” Dutch said. He was looking through the refrigerator and through the cabinets. “No more bottles.”

Gideon looked over his shoulder, and his face went ashen. AJ wasn't sure he liked that look any better than hysteria.

“They must have moved everything out. I don't think our imprisonment here is a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. They must have been waiting for an opportunity to get us separated.”

“You think it's true, what they said about Kate?” Dutch asked.

“I don't know. I didn't hear any shots, did you?”

“You didn't even hear the boat.”

“But you must have.”

Dutch settled his butt against the counter. “Yeah I did, and I didn't hear any shots.”

“They must have left her there.”

“Or drowned her. They'd have a hell of a time getting you and me underwater, but her?”

Gideon began to pace back and forth, his hands threatening to rip out chunks of his own hair. “Okay, okay, great! So no shots. No shots! But we're trapped in here. Right back to square one, you might say. Not just a chair this time. Can you build a welder? If not, then we'll be eating each others' corpses within the week.”

AJ actually laughed. The guy was nuts but not humorless. “Can you make a welder?”

“Me? Hell no. I'm just a biologist, for Christ's sake.”

“I'm sure Bruhbaker was counting on that.”

“Bruhbaker?”

“He's the asshole,” Dutch said, “the one who hit you.”

“Oh.”

AJ started around the room. He was scanning his memory, going over every detail he could remember. He wasn't on the engineering team, but he was well-familiar with the blueprints. It had been part of his job to know the place inside and out. The kitchen, of all places. It hadn't exactly been high on the list of security risks.

“Hey Doc,” Dutch said. “Maybe you want to calm down and tell us more about what we're facing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know if you noticed, but it's a freakin' jungle outside. Those Carrion things are everywhere now.”

“They grow fast, don't they?”

“We noticed,” AJ said. He was over in the corner now, looking at one of the big, industrial stoves. Heat was always a concern, so the primary ventilation system ran…

“There are more of them than when I was outside last,” Gideon said. “When I heard the gunfire I expected… I don't know what I expected. I guess I expected hazmat teams and a government quarantine. I should have known VO would be trying to clean up its own mess.”

“With extreme prejudice,” AJ said. He had begun yanking the stove away from the wall. It was heavy, but it had wheels. “Dutch, you got a penny?”

His buddy tossed him a ten-centavos Chilean coin and went back to examining the door. It didn't look like he was having any luck.

“What I don't get is why they didn't shoot us. If they're trying to kill us, I mean,” Gideon said.

AJ knelt down and examined the space behind the stove. He found the screws he was looking for and starting twisting one of them with the coin. “They can't. Sooner or later, there will be hazmat teams and a government investigation. If our bodies are riddled with bullets, there will be too many questions. Mason was right about that. It might be the easy thing, but he cares too much about Black Shadow's reputation to risk it. Ever since Baghdad, the private sector has been very cautious when it comes to bodies. You got to imagine that goes double for the vice president's daughter.”

“What? Who?” Gideon asked.

“The girl,” Dutch said.

“They can deny we were ever a part of the investigation to begin with. They can claim we ended up here of our own accord.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Gideon said.

Dutch shook his head. “My buddy's right. Without hard evidence, who's going to prove otherwise? They could make our contract disappear on a whim.”

AJ picked the heavy metal frame off of the wall and tossed it to the floor. It clanged against the counter, snapping everyone's attention back to him. He looked at them. “There's bad news and worse news.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I found the main ventilation system. It goes out the wall here and through the floor,” he said, pointing. “That's actually good news because it goes out of the building. The bad news is that it'll be a tight fit, if we can squeeze through at all.”

“And the worse news?”

“It's a fifty foot drop to the water. I don't see any rope, do you?”

“What about the windows? Have we tried those yet?”

AJ shook his head. “They're shatterproof. You couldn't break one of those with a sledgehammer.”

“I know, I tried,” Gideon said. “I mean, not that I had a real hammer or anything.”

Dutch let out a breath. “Well, there's no waiting it out, I guess.”

AJ looked at him. “I don't know about you, but I'm not counting on the government moving in for another two or three days. If the Shadow team manages to hold off the authorities, we'll be just as dead. In fact, I think that's their plan. Besides, you heard what Doctor Grey here said about how fast that stuff is growing. I'm not sure I want to wait until it drags the whole damned place down with it.”

“You don't think…” Dutch began.

“I don't think it can move, but it could grow heavy enough to topple the platform. This place may look solid, but you got to remember that it entered the water horizontally and was tipped ninety degrees into place. It could tip back if the supports break.”

They were quiet. Every groan of wind became an unbearable din. They could feel the strain of the place all around them, their prison getting smaller by the moment. No one mentioned the cut on Doctor Grey's head. No one mentioned the fact that — if they stayed — he might be as prone to The Carrion spores as the original crew, and it probably wouldn't take a full three days before something happened.

Dutch bent down and examined the hole in the wall. He threw his jacket down and started taking off his shirt. “Well, now or never.”

“Not yet,” AJ said. He knew what came next, and it wasn't pleasant.

“What are you do—”

AJ grabbed Gideon by the scruff of the neck, bending him backwards over the counter.

Gideon flailed. “What the—”

“If we're going out there, I want you tell me one more thing, Doc. It's something you neglected to mention in your little speech to Bruhbaker and company.”

“What… what's that?”

“I want to know what happened to the crew. You see, I know where they were. They hunted down your friends and kept you inside this room. That's what you said, right? But what I want to know is where they are. Because as you've noticed, it's been awfully quiet, and I have a feeling we're not really alone, are we Doctor?” AJ saw the man's face change, and he suddenly felt a ghost step over his grave. How had Mason not thought to ask him? He had smashed the doc before he had a chance to spill it.

Gideon squirmed.

“You can start talking, or we can toss you down that goddamned vent shaft and let you drown in the water below. What do you say?” AJ released him, and the doctor bounced back to his full height.

“Oh,” the man said, rubbing his throat. “That won't be necessary. Certainly not.”

So, he told them.

4

The gunk oozing from the arm-sized tentacle stank unlike anything Jin had smelled in his life. The closest approximation was Mama's Canh Chua. Jin's best friend in middle school had been this Vietnamese kid named John Choy. He used to invite him over to his house, but on Sundays, his mom made this stew with fish parts and oils that smelled like rotting pussy. John said it was called Canh Chua, but why he insisted on putting Mama's before it, Jin never knew. He did know he never had the stomach to try it, and on some level, it was responsible for why he detested most Vietnamese people on sight now. They were just so goddamned dirty, maybe because they could eat shit like that without flinching. Old Johnny used to just love his Mama's Canh Chua.

“You having fun down there?”

Bending over the railing, Jin looked up and saw Peter gazing down from the level above. Christian stood next to him, and the two of them looked unbearably pleased about something.

Jin held up a plastic bag filled with the fungus. It was a viscous black color, full of chunks where he'd chopped at the thing. It looked like he'd been prospecting for hobo shit. “You want to help?”

By way of reply, Peter scrunched his cheeks and let a gob of spit fall down towards him. It was thick with tobacco juice. Jin dodged, pulling his head in and nearly smashing it on a steel pulley. “Now that's disgusting.” He heard laughter above, stuck his head back out, and shot the pair of them the bird. Then he turned back to his gear, making a mental note to add Italians to his list of inferior dirt eaters. “You're a fucking animal, St. Croix,” he yelled. They absolutely howled.

How they could be laughing, he didn't know. They were in the middle of some weird shit, and they were a long way from out of the woods. He supposed they were gloating now that the security specialist was out of the way. What happened to doing a good day's work and going the fuck home? Jesus, you didn't have to gloat, especially when a man's life was at stake. But whatever. One day, he'd be free of these psychos and be able to open his own consulting firm. This bloody field work had to go.

He threw his baggie to the ground and picked up his tool kit. Good, he thought. Back to my real job. It's not like they couldn't pay some other dipshit to collect the samples they wanted. But of course, it's Jin for the grunt work… again! Always the goddamned Asian guy.

Not that he was complaining. He'd rather spend two hours down here than five minutes with those monkeys up top. As far as repairs went though, things weren't as bad as he had thought. With a little elbow grease, he thought he could repair the antenna and restore the short range radio. Mason said there was some kind of interference going on, but he was on his own for that one. Jin had had just about enough of figuring out other people's problems. At least if he got the radio running, Bruhbaker would be happy. “Well, probably not,” he said to himself. “Jin, fix the derrick while you're it. You got time, right? Oh, and find out what's going on with the cell phones. Just out of curiosity, where are those sub-sea repeaters? Do you think you could get to those? Jesus, you're the smart one. College boy. Hurry it up!” But…

Whatever.

“You need some help down there?”

Jin poked his head back over the rails to see that Peter and Christian had calmed down.

“Seriously,” Peter said. “The place is secure. You don't want to be taking any chances with the ropes.”

“Thanks, but I don't think so.”

“Suit yourself, China-man.”

Jin hated being called China-man, especially since he wasn't Chinese. Not to mention the term was downright racist, and that's not shit you were supposed to say out loud in a professional environment.

“I think I'll be just fine without you two idiots.”

Christian hocked a spit down at him then, the loogie passing considerably closer than Peter's had.

“Piss off!”

The pair of them cackled like old crones and disappeared. He could hear them talking above, but he was too tired to give a shit. “I hope you rot.”

Jin found his backpack and brought out his harness. He would have to do a little rope work to get to the antenna cables, but that was fine. He was a professional goddammit, even if he was surrounded by morons. Peter had saved his bacon earlier, and Jin didn't forget that. As talented as the man was though, he just wasn't firing on all cylinders.

There were already support systems in place for a rope access technician, so Jin had no problems strapping in. He made sure the rope was well-secured, then stepped over the rails and perched his feet on the ledge. One of the huge, black tendrils lay just in front of him, the water fifty feet below. He made sure he had his equipment — tool kit, gloves, wiring — then floated out over empty space. The ropes held fast, but he discovered the cable he wanted was just out of reach; the tentacle was in the way.

It was massive. Jin guessed it could be eight feet wide, and the smell was unbelievable. Mama's fish stew, he thought, reaching into his shirt and pulling up a painter's mask. Oh Johnny, you fucking dirt eater. If this didn't deserve extra hazard pay, he didn't know what did.

The thing in front of him wasn't opaque like the smaller tentacles he'd cut. This one was different, and it looked translucent when he got close. There was a fluid moving inside of it, giving the thing an awful, undulating appearance. There was something else too, some… shape.

He pulled himself closer still, bringing a gloved hand up as if to touch it. There really was something inside, and it was moving. He inched his face closer, wanting to see just what the hell it was.

That's when the thing inside opened its eyes and looked back.

Chapter 14: Purpose

The Island:

February, 1939

1

Beneath the earth, Dominik sat on a cold gray table in the middle of a cold gray room, surrounded by his colleagues. At least, that's how he had begun to think of them. The others each had a purpose, each had their own expertise. When they were down here, they weren't so different from any other research group in the real world, and each day, he clung to that idea to keep himself sane. Just four scientists doing a job, together at the lab.

Beside him, Ari was sitting on the floor with one hand on his knee. The man called Ettore stood across from them, pensive as always, and next to him, the last prisoner, Thomas Frece. Doctor Kriege was not there. It seemed the führer of their little ensemble, like the grand Führer himself, was a late sleeper.

“So we abandon the radiation theory,” Dominik said.

Ari shook his head. “We may have to. I've never seen anything like it.”

“I believe Mister Kaminski is correct. It's the melanin,” Ettore offered. “That would explain the color, in any case. Did you take a look at my temperature measurements?”

Frece took an aggressive step forward. “Excuse me, are you a biologist? Because you're starting to sound like one. There's only one biologist here, and he's not doing a damned thing.”

In fact, Dominik had done plenty. He'd even started keeping a journal at Kriege's request, an old red notebook cataloging their theories and experiences. Arguing wouldn't get him anywhere with Frece though, and he kept silent.

“My measurements indicate that the temperature inside the terrarium increased dramatically after exposure, and the increase was proportionate to the amount of radiation we pumped in,” Ettore said placidly. He indicated a series of charts. “See for yourself.”

The proof was there, and like it or not, Frece was going to have to come around to it. Because the fungus — what Gideon Grey called The Carrion and what the current troupe could only think of as the growths—wouldn't die. When cut, they healed. When chopped into parts, they grew like earthworms. When starved of food and air, they simply waited. Most recently, Frece had tried hitting it with gamma rays, alpha radiation, and exposed it directly to plutonium 239 bombarded with neutrons. Even that had no effect. The growths burned at high temperatures, but a solution like that wouldn't serve The Reich. They wanted something to control it. That was their goal, the four of them: control that which could not be controlled.

Ari sighed. “It's converting all types of ionizing radiation to heat. That's what you're saying, isn't it?”

“It's doing more than that,” Ettore said. “It's growing. Its mass and girth will increase proportional to the amount of gamma rays we pump in. In fact, there doesn't seem to be an upper limit. It's quite extraordinary.”

“Yeah,” Frece said. “Just great.”

“Again, we're back to the melanin. That was your theory, Dominik, and you believe it's true?”

Dominik looked up and saw that they were all watching him. “We've known about certain types of extremophile fungi for a little while: organisms that thrive in extreme temperatures or in extremely low PHP values. We've theorized that some could exist under the effects of ionizing radiation. I've never encountered any myself, though,” he added quickly.

“But it's not mysterious. The conversion of gamma rays to heat energy is chemical?” Ettore said, leading him.

“Oh yes. I'm quite certain it's due to the high concentration of melanin. We know that it can buffer some of the effects of ionizing radiation in mammals. In this case, the organism has a more efficient means of not only absorbing it, but converting it directly into energy.”

“And by 'not mysterious,' you mean it's a perfectly ordinary alien species that just happens to eat gamma rays for lunch?” Frece added. “Christ, Ettore, you're just as weird as those things are.”

The man regarded him down the hook of his brown nose. “Well, we don't know its origins, do we? That certainly isn't part of our job. As for my oddities, I think you should know I have more melanin in my skin than you do.”

Dominik and Ari chuckled, though Frece didn't. The man was a nuclear physicist, one of the only published researchers of his kind. The Reich had plucked him all of the way from Sweden. If he proved useless in their little endeavor, however, his blond hair and blue eyes would not save him. The thought was sobering, and as soon as it entered his head, Dominik stopped laughing.

As a collective, they stood up and went to the glass case where their latest specimen was waiting. It was twice the size since Dominik had seen it last, folded around itself within the air-tight cage.

“It looks like it's going to break through if we don't find it a bigger home,” Ari said.

Ettore's look of curiosity returned. “We'll have to do a vacuum transfer to one of the larger cages and release the air through the vents before we burn it. The air inside this one is toxic now.”

“More of the same?” Dominik asked.

The other man nodded. “Spore count is up with the growth, as is the concentration of carbon monoxide. I found something else in my last effusiometer test as well: traces of arsine gas.”

Dominik grunted, running through his mental encyclopedia of knowledge. When everyone looked at him again, he realized he was mumbling to himself. “Sorry. There are certain types of black molds that do that.”

“Black molds?” Ari asked.

“That's right, some species of the Stachybotrys genus. It's why fungi growing in old houses smell particularly bad. It's the arsine. It's poisonous in high concentrations but just unpleasant in trace amounts. Those fungi, though… well, they're not anything like our boy, here.”

“You stick your head in there, I'd say you'd get more than something unpleasant,” Ari murmured.

The lights flickered, and they all looked up. The door to the room opened, and Doctor Kriege stepped through. It had been weeks, and Dominik still didn't know the man's first name. He knew him well enough to ascertain that Kriege wasn't a bad man, his first encounter was enough to show him that. But he followed the rules like everyone above, and that made him untrustworthy. He followed all the rules, that was, save for rules of punctuality. “Damnable electricity. The flickering keeps me awake at night. But yes, I think Mister Quintus is quite right. Our little pets are very dangerous, are they not? The spores are quite infectious. I will not be surprised if Captain Smit is not the last accident to occur during our development.” He said this casually, as if the man's life had meant nothing. “The question is, why?”

“Why what?” Ari asked.

“Why spores, Mister Quintus! They are not used for reproduction. They are instead unleashing a kind of parasite, are they not?”

The remark caused Dominik to look up. A similar thought had crossed his mind in the preceding week, but it had seemed too far-fetched. “It's a defense mechanism,” he said.

Ettore cocked his head. “If so, the particulars seem rather evolved.”

That was perhaps the greatest understatement Dominik had heard since his arrival.

“So what we're looking at,” Kriege said, “is a creature that borrows particulars from others in the same phylum. And all of these things — the ability to spread rapidly, to convert ionizing radiation into energy, the ability to produce harmful spores — all of these things are suited to protecting itself and spreading as quickly as possible. Yes?”

Another silence followed, and Dominik realized the man was right. These things, these growths… they were a survival machine, more suited to snub any threat, physical or environmental, than the cockroach.

“So, our solution will likely be chemical and not physical. Isn't that right, Mister Frece?” Kriege asked.

The Swede nodded, and Dominik could read the look in his eyes. Great. Perfect. Just tell me I'm useless.

Kriege seemed to sense this as well. “Not to worry. There are plenty of uses for you, still. This will not be the last project we develop here. You needn't worry about that. You are a good man, Doctor Frece, a good man. Very expensive to acquire, I might add.”

“What projects might those be?” Ettore asked with the usual mild curiosity.

“Oh, projects of a more physical nature.” Kriege indicated the cyclotron in the corner. “You do not believe we went to the trouble of constructing a particle accelerator for a one-time use, do you? No, there are many things we can do. Great things. They are things we must do if we are to keep up with the Americans.”

Frece looked pacified, but Dominik could read the subtext. This will not be the last project. He felt a knot hit his stomach, the idea of staying, the idea of watching his daughters age over the months (and years?) sickening beyond words. Would it be a surprise if Dietrich had lied about that, too? Even if the lieutenant believed he were telling the truth, it was ultimately not up to him. It was up to the man's superiors, the ones who would profit from Dominik's results. That, at least, he didn't have to contemplate yet. They had found a thousand things which did not work at controlling their specimens, but nothing yet that did. Nothing that was practical, in any case.

Shortly after, the group broke to conduct further tests. Dominik went to the electron microscope, one of the most powerful in the world, and began looking at new chemical formulae. Ettore and Ari went to measure more of the existing specimens, while Frece, without a single complaint, handled the grunt work of emptying toxins from the central cage and burning the growth inside. Even through the glass of its cage, Dominik could hear the air whistling. Because like any evolved species, he knew it was quite averse to being burned alive.

2

To Lieutenant Harald Dietrich:

I have just received an inquiry from Private Gantte concerning a prisoner transfer from last year. It is with regret I must inform you that no such transfer ever took place. There is no record of a Magdelena Kaminski reaching our camp before the holidays. Our present structure makes it difficult to track the status of individual inmates, though I believe I would remember an outsider amongst the initial Sachsenhausen group.

As I have informed your man, we will not be ready to receive new inmates until later this year, and any transfer requests would not have been approved. I'm afraid we cannot help you. However, as it is my understanding that you are indisposed in one of our great new colonies, I wish to convey holiday wishes, and I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner.

— M. Erikson

Resting his hands on the railing of the tower, Harald forced himself to look towards the sea to calm himself. He had begun to come up here more and more often, volunteering to serve guard duty in short shifts. It wasn't duty fit for a lieutenant, but no one objected, including Richter. Perhaps the man sensed its purpose. Dietrich liked being alone, he liked looking out over the sea. Usually it soothed him, but not today. This new document was the third ill-fated letter he had read in as many weeks. Three letters in three weeks, three pieces of ill news. It was a bad omen. The first was the note from Mieke who, incidentally, he had not heard from since. The second was a notice from the party informing him his stay was to be extended as long as Richter deemed necessary. And here was the third, telling him Kaminski's wife was now missing.

He read the letter again.

For some reason, he began to dwell on that last turn of phrase: I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner. Why had the warden phrased it such? Your missing prisoner. Harald had given a direct order that Magdelena be taken to Neuengamme. If Private Gantte had been unable or unwilling to fulfill that order, Harald had no way of knowing and no way of disciplining him. He was quite confident that if he were back on the mainland, it would take no time at all to track her down, but… he wasn't on the mainland.

Harald tore the letter into pieces and cast it out into empty space. What would he tell Kaminski? Would he lie? Mieke could always tell when he was lying, and that was usually over insignificant things. “Harry, you're blushing!” she'd said the first time he'd made an excuse for being late. “You're cute when you blush, but you can't lie to me. Right?” She'd laughed, and she'd kissed him.

“And so your wife is probably dead,” he said, tasting the way it sounded. “She never made it to the camp, which means she either died in transit, was abused horribly by the soldiers at the dock and discarded, or has become unreachable within the system. How about that?”

Saying it made it sound like hyperbole, even if it wasn't. But in saying it once, he knew he could never say it again. He would avoid the subject if it ever came up, as it surely would if he continued his visits with the man's daughter.

That was another headache. Their meetings were becoming increasingly difficult under the scrutiny of the commander. Why Richter took an interest, he didn't know. It was not as if Harald shared any connection with the girl. It was simply a matter of gathering information, an inside source into—

An explosion rocked his train of thought, and Harald ducked, thinking he was under attack. Then he looked beyond the north wall and spotted the source. The hunting duo were at it again. The slow kid Hans Wägner was drilling holes into patches of ice, and Seiler was dropping a live grenade into each one. They were running like school kids, drunk as lords, laughing as the ice blew to smithereens and an army of dead fish floated to the surface.

For whatever odd reason, the Gestapo agent had latched himself onto the kid. Boredom, perhaps, had become its own devil. The commander certainly had no use for either one of them, and the days here were long. Every so often, the two of them would drink and hunt and use whatever living thing they could find as target practice. Seiler was the brains (God help us, Harald thought), and Hans was the worker. They could spend hours rigging up animal traps or drilling holes in the ice like psychopaths. Maybe that's the attraction, he thought. Sheer psychopathic behavior. Hans, being young and dim-witted, had an excuse. Seiler did not. In the absence of structure and true work — the work that allowed him to hunt people — he needed an outlet.

It was getting worse by the day. Seiler had begun keeping trophies in his room. Trophies of the animals he and the retard had killed. Just in the past week, he had collected the skull of a sea leopard and the beak of a penguin. This latter had been the product of an all-day expedition in which Boris and Hans had replaced one of the bird's eggs with an explosive ordnance. They'd waited hours until the thing returned and settled its belly over it before setting it off. Amidst the pile of guts and parts that followed, the beak was the only thing left intact. Seiler hadn't been able to recount the story without laughing.

Christ. Jan was ready to murder him in his sleep.

Harald himself was sleeping little these days, and when he did, he found himself dreaming of the pit. His dreams were getting worse, and was it any wonder?

It had to stop. Richter was becoming anxious with respect to Kaminski, and a single incident within his unit could set him off.

The pair began to walk back towards the main gates, their hunting done for the day. They began to deviate before they got to the barracks, the kid leading them towards the prisoners' bunker.

“What the hell?” Harald went to the tower ladder and began to descend, sensing someone was about to have a bad day, and it wouldn't be him.

The boy stumbled up to the bunker and unzipped his pants.

“What are you doing?” Seiler asked. The fat man put one hand against the wall for support, but he was clearly amused.

By way of response, Hans began to piss, his yellow stream splashing into the steps beneath the bunker door.

Harald paced towards them. This was too far. Too goddamned far.

The boy sang, “Männer umschwirr'n mich, Wie Motten um das Lich,” but that was as far as he got. Harald grabbed the back of his head and smacked it into the side of the bunker. The kid dropped face down in his own piss, unconscious. Harald hadn't hit him very hard, but Hans was halfway there from the liquor.

“This ends today. No more pranks. No more hunting outside of the walls.”

Seiler stumbled. “We were just having fun, Lieutenant. Fun is allowed.”

“The commander has ordered no more foolishness. If he catches you, he will have both of our heads on a platter. Do you understand me?”

“Yes but… he is not here now.”

“I want everything in top shape. I want this foolishness stopped.”

The fat man pointed. “You… you cannot order me.”

Ah, and finally the predictable defiance. “I give the goddamned orders around here!” Harald shouted. “I will not have the grunts pissing on things! Further, I will not have you wasting explosives on fish. If Richter finds out they are not being used for live drills, there will be repercussions.”

“We can say we needed them for target practice,” Seiler said sulkily, but he looked different. Maybe some of this was getting through.

“Enough. Take him,” Harald said, pointing at the boy. “For God's sake, pull him out of his own piss and get him cleaned up. I don't care what you do until tomorrow morning as long as I don't hear about it, and as long as it doesn't involve our prisoners. Do you understand?”

Seiler nodded. He knelt and began gathering the boy from the ground.

“Good. Make sure he understands when he wakes up.”

He walked off, leaving the pair of them to sort it out amongst themselves. He felt flushed, his heart racing from the confrontation. Harald never questioned himself when dealing with the men though. It was the one time when he allowed his instincts to rule, and so far, they'd served him well.

The only thing left to do was have a word with Kaminski. There would be no more excuses, not from the prisoners, and not from his men. Richter was getting too impatient.

3

When Harald arrived at the laboratory, the men had already gone home for the evening. Is this how they expected to get things done? Perhaps they just needed the proper motivation. That, certainly, would be the attitude of the commander.

Perhaps he was right.

Harald squatted next to the largest cage and looked at the tentacle growing inside. Predictably, it sensed him, and it opened. A small creature climbed out of the folds as if being birthed. The lieutenant took a step back, then found himself leaning closer. The creature was a bird, a tern with a wounded wing Ettore had found on the grounds. It was a small thing, frail and pulsing black.

Then the thing screeched and launched itself at the glass. It smashed into it full force, reset, and then hurled itself again. In moments, the glass was smeared red. When it had crippled itself, the bird thing crawled as close as it could and began snapping its beak. Harald had no doubt that it wouldn't stop until it was dead.

Carefully, he reached up and began to undo the top of the cage. “Methods,” he said to himself. “You want effective methods, Commander? Maybe we should teach Kaminski to stop leaving his things unattended.”

The bird could do no damage by itself, that was clear. Of course, the good lieutenant had no idea the real danger was not in the bird, but in what it carried.

Leaving the top undone, he walked out of the lab and out of the bunker, feeling a little better for the mischief. On the way out, he bumped past Kriege and berated the man to watch where he was going.

4

The boy stumbled into the cave, holding his jaw. He hurt, but he knew that he would be better soon. His Thinking Place always made him feel better.

Always.

He had discovered the place some time ago, and now it was simply his. He had thought about showing his new friend Boris, but he was glad now that he hadn't. Boris had not protected him from the lieutenant. He could still feel the bruise on his forehead. He could still taste the nasty on his lips. The lieutenant had hit him while he was peeing, and that wasn't fair.

Hans liked peeing outside. There had been a time when he had trouble hitting the bowl as a child. “If you don't quit making that mess in here, Hans, I'm going to cut that thing off!” his mother had yelled. That had made him mad. She had no right to make fun of his thing, even if he did miss the bowl. He always cleaned up his mess.

Some time later, he had sneaked into his mother's room while she was away at the night shift and peed in her bed. That had been fun, even if she caught him when he tried it a second time. Even if she burned him down there so he wouldn't do it again.

Maybe that was all right, because when his thing healed, he peed better than ever. He had no problem hitting the bowl. Peeing outside just felt good, so he did it when he could. It was especially good when you were sauced on whiskey or bourbon. He liked to get sauced. It helped pass the time. And passing the time was something he had done a lot of growing up, with his mom gone. On the night shift.

His room at home had been small, but he been able to fashion a Thinking Place in his closet. It was where he kept all of his friends. When he went to the army, he had wrapped the Thinking Place in a sack and buried it outside; he knew his mother would not understand if she found it. When he came back, he would dig it up and have it again. At first, it had been very hard without it, and he had been afraid he would never have another. There was no privacy in the army. Go here with the unit, and go there with the unit, and sleep with the unit in a hundred bunks all side by side.

Then, he had come to the island. His Thinking Place here was even better than the one he had at home. In fact, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to leave it, even if it meant his old sack had to stay buried in his back yard. Even if it meant he wouldn't see his momma again.

Sitting in the middle of the cave, he reached up to pet Hans Junior. Little Hans was his favorite, which is why he had given him his own name. The little guy had stopped moving the day before, which made it all the better to pet him. He had been the biggest of the baby seals Hans had been able to find. It was very difficult getting him onto the stake, but he had managed. Little Hans hadn't liked it when Hans had sawed off his flippers, but it made him easier to pet.

His other friends were dead too, but he didn't think they minded. They were so peaceful here, sitting in the dark, in the Thinking Place. With him.

By now, he had quite a collection. Hans Junior had three companions just like himself: Friedricke, Lucas, and Hellen. Well, maybe Lucas didn't count since he was just a head. And Friedricke, being the oldest, had started to crust and stink. At least there were no flies here. That was another reason this Thinking Place was better than the one at home.

He had birds, a whole row of them on a string. He had penguins, a sea leopard, and a weird-looking starfish he had pulled off of the shore. The centerpiece of the lot — aside from Hans Junior, of course — was a bird that was jet black and nearly featherless. He had found it by the chasm. His Thinking Place was, in fact, right outside the chasm.

The bird had been alive when he'd found it, and he had put it up with the others, driving a nail through its breast. He named it Jesus because it lasted so long. It lasted three days, struggling and screeching there against the rock. Hans had watched it for hours. Unlike the others, it didn't seem to tire and give up. It just beat its little wings and kicked and kicked until the third day, when it finally keeled over and died.

Hans had never been down into the laboratories at the base, but he thought maybe they had more birds like this one. He'd heard the Slimy Things in the crater had something to do with it. A lot of the soldiers were afraid of the Slimy Things, but not him. He'd almost touched one, once. When he first came to the crater, Hans remembered walking beneath one, reaching a finger up to stroke it. The flesh of the thing had parted just beyond the reach of his fingernail, revealing a cleft in the tissue. How strange it was. It looked like a man's thing, but it had parted for him like a woman's. He had yanked his finger away, then. He remembered his mother telling him how dirty women's things were, and that they carried diseases. He wasn't afraid exactly, but he didn't want any diseases.

That cleft had been so strange. He wondered what would happen if he could plant an explosive in one of those things. Not a big boomer like a grenade, but something like a firecracker. He had collected quite a lot of explosives over the past few weeks. He was pretty sure no one would ever find them, either. They were buried beneath a group of loose rocks in the corner. Hans had done similar things when he had lived at home with his mother, and no one had ever found those. The explosives you could get in the army, however, were much better than the ones you could get as a kid. It made him giddy to think how much fun he could have.

Boris didn't know about the stash. Hans had only brought out little bits at a time, like when they'd made that penguin bomb. He was smart enough to know that Boris had certain rules, and stealing from the army might break one of those rules, even if it was in the name of good fun.

So far, he had only had fun with the animals. Maybe he would try people soon.

Yesterday aside, Boris had been a good person friend. Hans didn't have many person friends. Maybe they would pee together outside again, and Boris would let him see his thing. He'd been meaning to ask, but it always seemed to slip his mind. They had been getting sauced a lot.

Hans walked back to the entrance to the cave and stepped out into the open air. It was hard to tell how late it was, but he would have to get back soon.

Stepping up the path, he paused to climb over a hill so that he could see the crater. It never ceased to amaze. He put his toes over the gap and looked down into the darkness. Hans felt no fear. It was actually kind of inviting. Then, he heard a truck start up over by the base, and several men shouted over the whine of the engine. If it was getting busy, Zimmer might be looking for him. He'd have to go back.

Sighing, he removed his feet from the edge. Not today. But soon, maybe he'd find out what was down there. Or somebody would.

Chapter 15: Cold Day in Hell

The Aeschylus:

Present Day

1

“Come in Delta. This is Alpha team leader. Please respond, over.” He paused. “Delta team… goddammit Reiner, where are you?”

Mason was half a second away from ripping the mic out of the console, but he stopped and threw it to the floor of the chopper instead. He thought he had come to terms with Reiner's disappearance on the island, but now back on the rig, the unreality of it hit him again. He'd had men die on him before, but he'd never had one up and disappear. Still, not a single fucking answer to be found.

While he and Vy had been at the island, the rest of the team had rounded up the bodies on the platform. Not counting the Argentinian military, there were sixteen. Sixteen workers out of two hundred and thirty-eight. That didn't jive with what their contact had told him. It didn't jive with the level of damage here. It didn't make any goddamned sense at all.

He swung his feet out onto the helipad and saw it had gotten darker. Another few hours, and the sun would be setting for the first time in months.

Hal was waiting for him outside. “What do you want to do?”

Mason grabbed the man's mouth, fished inside, and pulled out his gum. He threw it to the ground. “Get in the goddamned chopper, McHalister.”

The pilot frowned.

“Now!” Mason screamed.

Hal crawled into the S-70 and took the pilot's seat, knowing better than to speak another word. Mason didn't want to hit him; he wanted to hit Reiner. He'd given the man a simple set of orders: scout the perimeter, investigate the island, return to the platform and offer air support as they secured the upper decks. He'd been dependable for years, and now… now, he was just gone.

Nothing about this mission made a goddamned lick of sense.

“Maybe it's not that bad, sir.” The new kid was hobbling towards him, bent over a crutch Melvin had made him out of scrap metal.

“What's that, Worsch?”

“Maybe it does make sense, and we're just not seeing it.”

Mason grunted. He'd either spoken aloud without realizing it, or the expression on his face said it all. It wasn't like him to start slipping.

“Maybe the workers aren't dead. Maybe they got into the boats, evacuated the facility, and drifted out to sea. I mean, if they're not here and they're not at the island, it's the only thing that makes sense.”

“And Reiner?” Mason asked.

“I don't know. Maybe he landed somewhere you guys couldn't get to on foot. The radios still aren't working.”

“Kid ain't dumb,” Melvin said, coming over to stand by the chopper. “But you ask me, I think it'll be a cold day in hell before we find out what happened to that fool.”

Nick shrugged. “At least we're all secure here. What did you do with our guests, anyways? I haven't seen Kate or our football buddy since you guys came up.”

Mason looked at Melvin, and Melvin shrugged. Did Black Shadow really not tell this twerp their plans when they brought him in? Christ, their leadership was going to Hell in a hand basket.

He was saved an explanation by Hal, who had deemed it safe to speak again. The man returned to the bay of the helicopter. “Well, we got one bird that does work. And if you gentlemen don't mind, I'd like to run a systems check on her before we light out.” Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by the sound of an approaching engine. He stuck his head to the windshield, his eyes fixed on the approaching object. “I'll be goddamned.”

Five seconds later, he was dead.

2

Peter gleeked another strand of tobacco across the drilling equipment, and it landed all of the way on the other side. He grinned. He had, after all, been practicing since he was twelve.

“Got any more of that stuff?” Christian asked.

“No more whacky tobacky, man. But I got something else for you.” He produced a pill, round and orange, and held it up for inspection. “I was saving this for when we had the all clear, but I guess this is as good as it's going to get. You want one?”

The other man shook his head.

Peter shrugged and popped the thing into his mouth. He bit down hard, letting it split down the middle. The sensation hit his teeth first like it always did, running ice across his gums. He swallowed.

Shivered.

Laughed.

“Oh-doggy!” he yelled. The yellow gold was good stuff.

Christian sighed, settling back down on the box he was sitting on. Peter slapped him on the shoulder. He liked Christian. Melvin would have have lectured him, or at the very least given him shit for calling his dip the whacky tobacky. “Whacky tobacky means it has weed in it, motherfucker,” he'd told him. “You as dumb as you look, you know that?” That always made Peter laugh, and it got Melvin madder than hell. But Christian didn't say much. He was laid back. Cool, man.

Now, Peter thought there was something wrong with him. The big guy was huddled up, hunched over like he might hurl. At first, Peter thought he was just coming down off of the battle high, but this was something else. “You don't look so good. You all right? Sure you don't want a little pick-me-up?”

Christian shook his head. Then, he stood up with a sudden force. “You hear that?”

At first Peter could only hear the wind, then he realized his buddy was right. There was something like… like a sucking sound.

And then below them, a bellowing yell. No, not a yell, he thought. A scream.

“Jin!”

They rushed over to the railing, looking down to the level below. Peter's first thought was one of sheer delirium, and his mind jumped to his dealer. He gave me the wrong batch. He gave me the wrong batch. Good God, he gave me the wrong fucking batch!

They were coming from the tentacles. Hideous, blackened shapes were dropping and slithering from the tentacles like roaches. They crawled over the supports, naked and deformed, dropping onto the catwalks in droves. Peter's eyes darted to the left and right hoping — praying — that he taken something that had melted his mind. But that was stupid; nothing worked that fast. Below him, Jin was being pulled into a tentacle and… devoured, Peter thought crazily. He was being sucked inside and eaten by whatever lay within, the ropes hanging off his body like strands of cheese.

The blackened shapes moved across the platform, scurrying and stumbling like animals. But they weren't animals. Those shapes, no matter how twisted and blackened, had once been people.

Peter had a sudden memory then, as clear as anything he had seen in his conscious mind. He was six again, standing with his parents outside of church. “Is there really such as thing as the devil?” he'd asked his mother. She had told him that there was, and that he should always be a good boy, because the devil was watching. But he hadn't been a good boy, had he? Jesus Christ, he killed people for a living. And now, the devil was here.

Christian fired. It snapped him back to reality, the rifle blazing fire beside his head. Vy hit one of the shapes, sending a spray of black blood through the air. They were fast; within moments, he had abandoned the fast-moving targets and was spraying the tentacles, sending streams of black and green fluid raining through the lower levels.

Peter grabbed his grenade launcher and clicked the safety off. By the time he had his head straight, there was no need to look down over the rails. The things were crawling up the stairs. They were crawling up the drill shaft and over the catwalks, and they were running straight for them.

3

Hal's body exploded in a red spray as the bullets tore through the cockpit. The front of the chopper was mangled in an instant, the glass shattered and the metal perforated with holes.

Mason hit the deck before he knew what was happening. The other chopper—his chopper — was hovering thirty feet from the platform. A shape stood at the open bay door, turning the mounted fifty caliber in a deadly arc. Mason stared at it from his back. Up until this morning, he would have believed nothing could surprise him any more, but he was wrong.

Across the pad, Nicholas was yelling something, and he read the kid's lips: “Markus!” he was shouting. “It's Markus!”

At first, it didn't register. The shape in the chopper doorway looked like Reiner, but it was too gaunt, too discolored. And it was wearing a grin, a cutting, eerie rictus unlike anything Mason had seen on the man. That grin bore a hole straight through him. I'm going to cut you in half with this thing, old buddy, that grin seemed to say, and I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy it!

Mason jumped to his feet and tore ass across the helipad, throwing one arm around Nick. A spray of gunfire cut the ground behind them, missing the kid's legs by inches. Mason lugged him into the stairwell and threw him into the corner like a garbage bag. Melvin was already there, staring like a dog in headlights.

“Can you get a shot off?”

Melvin stuck his head up to helipad level and was greeted by another barrage of gunfire. “No!”

Mason slung the AR-15 around his shoulder. He could hear the chopper circling. The Aeschylus was big, but the hostiles could move around the derrick and get a better vantage. Hostiles was the only way he could think of them. Anything else, and he'd have to stop moving and sort the shit in his head out.

Calle looked at him. “What do you want to do, boss?”

“Draw their fire.”

“Say what?”

“Draw their fire!” he barked.

The kid looked at him from the floor, his eyes wet with pain. “Where are you going?”

“To find the other fifty cal. Now get moving and make yourself useful, goddammit!”

Mason jumped down the stairwell, then bounded out the second level and onto the deck. He could see the heavy gun on the crate where they had left it, near the bridge. In the wake of finding Doctor Grey, nobody had bothered to dismantle it.

Then a sound from below: someone else was shooting. He stopped. The Aeschylus suddenly felt too big, a thousand miles separating him and his men. He put his hand to ear and felt his earpiece, forgetting it was inutile until his fingers touched the transceiver. A second later, he ripped it out and threw it to the ground, screaming to the sky.

The fifty cal was waiting for him just across the deck, and he hurled himself at it, sprinting full force until he reached the crate. It was then, in that moment, that he he saw them.

Human shapes were slithering from The Carrion tentacles and crawling up onto the deck. One of them found footing on the barracks bridge not fifteen feet away. It stared at him as it gained its feet, its eyes nothing but milky pits.

Mason stared back. The thing in front of him was… it was a woman. He tried to reconcile her figure with the alien look of her skin and couldn't. It was too freakish, like something at a circus sideshow after dark. She hissed, an awful, animal sound from the back of her throat, and that broke the trance. He squeezed the trigger on the fifty cal, and the top of her head exploded.

Not twenty feet away, St. Croix came hustling up the stairwell with Vy in tow. The man fired a grenade round into the space behind them, shaking the foundations of the platform with fire and dust.

“To me!” Mason yelled. “To me! To me!”

Vy sent two more targets to the ground, then followed Peter to Mason's side. Mason didn't know how many were left, but if he had to guess… well, he'd guess about two hundred. Crazy, he thought, and suddenly realized just how well Doctor Grey had been holding it together.

Mason unscrewed the bolts holding the mounted machine gun and removed the ammo belt. He was about to let it drop into his arms when a human head rose from the railing in front of him. This one was a man, his bald head and mustache covered by black lesions and spider veins. Mason could see a small tentacle growing out of one ear.

His right hand flew to his knife, and he jammed it through the thing's skull, shoving it straight through. It hissed, the blade showing through the back of its mouth. When Mason yanked the knife away, it dropped backwards into empty space.

Another explosion rocked the deck behind him, and he could hear St. Croix cackling in triumph. “Put that thing away, you idiot!”

Before he could say anything, Mason tossed him the machine gun. St. Croix caught it with a huff. He tossed Mason his grenade launcher, then shouldered the fifty. “Where?”

“East side! Tripod it to the deck!”

The three of them ran back across the platform, and St. Croix hit the ground, reassembling the mount before he even stopped moving. The barrel of the gun could shoot just beneath the railing, making the spot an ideal roost.

The shapes were coming up the stairwells now, and Mason counted a dozen more. Three of them toppled as Vy squeezed off a controlled burst. Mason fired and popped two more. The next wave came in a group, and he shot low, taking out their knees. Whatever the hell they were, however they'd been changed, they died just like men. And so Mason shot them just like men, chewing their bodies to bits with his rifle.

He looked around and could see the outline of the chopper through the steel supports on the northeast corner. “It's circling into position!”

St. Croix pulled back the lever on the fifty cal, aiming out through the beams.

“What is that?” Christian yelled.

“Be quiet!”

Mason listened, and he realized he could hear voices.

He jogged back to the railing, and when he reached the side, he saw exactly where the rest of Doctor Grey's Carrion things were. They were clustered around the metal supports beneath the barracks, hissing and spitting and climbing. In the middle, directly beneath the building, he saw Angus dangling from a hole in the roof. AJ was down to his underwear, clutching a rope that looked made of clothes.

One of the shapes leapt from the supports and grabbed at the man, but he swung out of the way. The thing fell, banged into a cross beam, then splashed into the water.

AJ looked up then, his gray eyes blazing. When he caught sight of Mason, he took one hand from the rope and made the little point-and-shoot gesture Melvin had done when they'd locked them in the room.

Spitting fury, Mason leveled his rifle straight at him. At that instant, the chopper rounded the platform behind him, and St. Croix opened fire.

4

AJ prepared to drop. He looked at the makeshift rope above him and calculated its length at about six feet. Well, only a forty-four foot drop instead of a fifty foot drop, he thought insanely. Then a bray of machine gun fire erupted from somewhere in the sky.

Mason lost his bead as bullets clanged off of the ground and ricocheted off of the steel. One of The Carrion shapes near him caught a stray round in the hand and dropped, following his hideous companion to the waters below. AJ could see through to the other side of the platform, the chopper hovering in the distance. Bruhbaker's men fired back in a steady stream.

The makeshift rope shook and tottered. Above him, Gideon's parka had taken a bullet, its orange sleeve sporting a tear the size of a prison snitch's asshole.

“Swing me,” he called upwards.

Gideon's face appeared. “What?”

AJ looked at the top deck where Mason was recovering. “Swing me!” he yelled again. “Get me over there!”

The rope began to sway, two sets of hands attached to the line. AJ tucked his knees to his chest and swung towards the deck, ending up about six feet away. His body rolled back in the other direction, and then he swung again. Four feet.

Mason stumbled to the rails, his AR-15 in hand.

AJ let go of the rope on the up-swing. He flailed through the air and slammed into the side of the deck, grabbing Mason's shirt through the rails. The big man slammed into the side and planted his feet, his rifle dropping somewhere behind him. He closed one hand around the steel bars, the other around his assailant's throat. AJ felt the cartilage in his Adam's apple crunch, the karmic reversal of his bout with Doctor Grey. Then AJ's hand groped something on Mason's belt: his own M1911, dangling loosely in Mason's holster. His thumb slipped upwards, and suddenly, the pistol was his hand. It was so unexpected that the gun went off, firing into Mason's meaty thigh. The shot blew the pistol backwards, and it flew out of his grip, falling into space.

Mason grunted, bringing a hammerfist down like a brick.

AJ dropped into free fall, but his hands shot out and grabbed the edge of the platform, saving him by inches. He let out a gasp, hanging over empty space like a failed rock climber. Mason grinned, raising a boot to mash AJ's fingers to pulp. But then, an object clanged off of a nearby support and hit the big man in the shoulder. It looked like an empty paint bucket. The man stumbled back on his bad thigh and collapsed to the deck.

“Hey monkey man!” It was Dutch, hanging off of the clothes rope behind him.

“Hurry up! I'm slipping!” AJ called.

“Throw me the gun first!”

“What gun?”

“The one you shot him with!”

“I lost it!”

“What?”

“I lost it! Just… swing over here! Hurry!” He could already hear Mason scrambling to his feet.

“Jump!” Dutch yelled.

“I can't make it!”

“I'll catch you! Jump!”

AJ did. He threw one foot up and kicked off of the platform, using every last bit of strength he had. Their bodies snapped together, Dutch throwing his free arm under AJ's armpit. AJ grabbed at him, expecting to fall straight after impact.

But he didn't.

“Nice one! Now for Christ's sake man, get your hand off my dick.”

AJ looked down. “Sorry.” He shifted.

“Get to the rope beneath me. You're on point, Ace.”

AJ looked back at the platform. It seemed a hundred yards from where he was holding on, and he couldn't believe that he had made it.

Mason was leaning over the rails, now without a rifle and without a pistol. He was staring, that look of rage etched onto his face. With a final glare, he turned and disappeared from sight.

“Hey!” Gideon shouted from above. “You okay?”

AJ squirmed. “We're a little busy!”

Dutch tapped him on the head and pointed. “Think if we jump over to those crossbeams, you can climb down?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You can stay and die, I guess.”

AJ let himself down to the end of the rope. He could hear the fabric around Gideon's coat tearing bit by bit.

The crossbeam supports were closer than the platform though, and he grabbed onto one easily. He was completely below the body of the platform now, nothing but empty air and steel beneath him. And the tentacles, of course. Before he could start climbing, he found himself face to face with a large one, almost close enough to touch. Like Jin, he could see the hideous shapes trapped inside of it, but unlike Jin, he knew the thing for what it was. Gideon had made sure to tell them exactly where his crew had gone.

“Uh, Dutch…”

The thing inside the tentacle moved and a slit appeared, the flesh parting like vulva. The thing beyond — not five feet from him — stirred and squirmed.

“Dutch!” he yelled.

A pair of arms shot from the inside of the tentacle, swiping the air in front of his face.

“Go! Go, go!”

Dutch got moving, and AJ followed, wrapping his arms around the steel supports and climbing down one section at a time.

“This is a bad idea,” he whispered, feeling the ocean winds whipping at his back. “Oh yeah. Definitely a bad idea.”

He heard a squeal from above and saw Gideon climbing down their makeshift rope, his face scrunched in terror. They were all on borrowed time. If Mason found a gun or grabbed one of his men, the three of them would be nothing but big, barely moving targets. That wasn't even the worst of it: the chopper was coming around.

“Nobody told me I would be climbing things,” Gideon yelled. “I hate heights!”

“Don't think about it!” AJ said, panting now. “The height's not a problem!”

“Yeah,” Dutch said. “It's more the falling, really.”

“Just hurry up!”

The sound of the helicopter got louder. The S-70 circled around to their side of the platform, sputtering and coughing smoke. It was chewed to bits, metal and shrapnel dangling in pieces from the hull. There was blood spatter near the open door, the gunner—the cowboy, AJ thought — long departed.

“Oh shit…”

The chopper wobbled as it flew, bending and then twisting on a path straight towards them.

“Guys!” Dutch yelled.

“Move your ass!” AJ finished. He climbed down to the next girder and dropped the last few feet to the boat deck. “Jesus, it's going to crash! Hold onto something!”

A final bray of gunfire echoed from somewhere on deck, and then the chopper spiraled into the center of The Aeschylus, metal tearing and splitting with a deafening crack. One of The Carrion shapes was chopped in half right before the rotor hit a beam and sheered off. Something caught fire and exploded. Whether it was the chopper's fuel tank or something on deck, AJ didn't know.

They held on for dear life, the world around them quaking on a biblical scale. Something big splashed into the ocean behind AJ, and he heard someone scream. Looking up, he realized the clothes rope had torn.

5

AJ saw Gideon dangling from one of the support beams above him. Whatever had splashed into the water was long gone.

Beside him, Dutch cupped his hands to his mouth. “Get your feet back! You can do it!”

The surviving Carrion shapes were coming, and Gideon didn't have much time. Slowly, he swung his feet to a support beam and began shuffling down, his dirty boxers blowing in the wind. AJ was almost sure that he would slip, but he didn't. The doc's arms wrapped tightly around one beam, then the next.

A wave of heat drifted down the shaft, and AJ wondered how much time they had left before the whole thing collapsed. Not much, by the looks of things.

A moment later, the doc was hovering over the boat deck, scared to drop the last few feet.

“Come on!” AJ barked. “Drop!”

Gideon looked down, then clutched the beam even tighter. “I can't!”

“Yes, you can!”

“No!”

The Carrion were slithering down the shaft behind him.

“Come on, you idiot!” Dutch yelled. He reached up and grabbed the doc by the foot.

“Dutch, you better get that boat moving, buddy,” AJ said.

When Dutch saw the things coming, he gave up on the good doctor and started sprinting towards the boat.

Gideon cried out again. One of the blackened figures was pawing at his chest hair.

“Drop,” AJ said. “I'll catch you!”

“I hate heights!” Gideon repeated.

“Goddammit, Doc! If you don't let go, that thing is going to rip your bloody arm off!”

Gideon let go.

He fell with no coordination at all, like the blind partner in a trust exercise. For a moment, AJ thought the doc was going to fall wide, but he took a step forward and caught him like a cheerleader on a pyramid jump. If Gideon had been any heavier than a cheerleader, he reflected, the two of them would have toppled into the water. AJ turned and ran with the doctor still in his arms, peddling across the deck to the boat.

Dutch was pulling the ropes in. “You ready for the honeymoon cruise?”

“Shut up,” AJ said dropping Gideon into the boat. “I told you to get this thing started!” He scanned the upper decks for signs of Black Shadow survivors, but the smoke was too thick. High above them, a piece of the oil derrick suddenly collapsed and banged down the opposite side of The Aeschylus. The cacophony was immense. It created a terrific splash when it hit the water, sending a spray of ocean all of the way to the boat and beyond. Gideon put his hands to his ears and shuddered uncontrollably.

AJ shielded his eyes. “Dutch, get us the hell out of here!”

The boat's engine sputtered up, and suddenly they were lurching forward, the motor kicking into high gear.

“Hold onto your butt!”

They blasted through the support columns and into open water. AJ thought they were free and then heard a series of firecracker pops coming from the decks above. Two splashes, and then the shots were on the boat, kicking up sparks and splinters by his feet.

“Jesus!” Gideon yelled.

“Can't this piece of crap go any faster?”

“No, I figured I'd take things leisurely! You know, see the sights!” Dutch yelled.

AJ pushed him aside and took the wheel. Another spray of pops came from The Aeschylus, but the boat was too far now, and they didn't come close. The platform began to shrink, the boat heading further into the blue.

“We're not going west,” Dutch said. It was a statement, but AJ read the question in his eyes.

“You know why.”

“You think she's still alive?”

He looked at the hull, then back to his friend. “Doesn't matter. We'll never make it back to the mainland like this.”

Dutch nodded. He put a hand on AJ's shoulder, then went to see the doc. AJ heard him yelling at the guy to get off of the floor and make himself useful. Dutch was maybe the only real friend he'd ever had, but if they made it through this, he thought he might have two. Even three, if they were lucky.

If.

Either way, his days of living with regrets were over.

Chapter 16: Fulcrum

The Island:

February, 1939

1

Richter stood gazing down at the path around the chasm. There were so many outcroppings, so many caves around its edge, he feared they would never be able to search them all.

“There's no sign of him, sir,” the young sergeant said. “Looks like he vanished.”

“Vanished? Oh no, I think he is here somewhere, Sergeant. The question is, where?”

The light was not making things any easier. It had been growing steadily darker these past few days, and inside of a week, the sky would be as black as the pit.

“My men have all checked in. They have nothing new to report, sir. The prisoners aren't talking either.”

Richter chewed on this. He refused to be a man who saw bad luck at every turn. Those who knew of the disappearance were already distraught, already blaming the things growing out of the deep. But if played correctly, perhaps this could be turned to opportunity.

The man who had disappeared had not been able to produce results, and so perhaps it was time to use a bit of leverage. His hand was being forced, true, but that might not be such a bad thing. He had warned Dietrich that efficiency was of prime concern. Richter himself did not intend to be on the island forever.

Best to make the cut and be done with it.

“Bring me the lieutenant.”

2

Harald was dreaming of the man who would kill him.

He lay rigid on the bunk, sweating. The green army blanket which had been wrapped about him lay discarded on the floor. His eyelids twitched, his mind seeing beyond the room, into…

…into the chasm.

He stood above it, suspended over the void. The blackness spread beneath him, as familiar as an old lover. The rocks around the edges were the same, but the things around them were not. They grew a little more every time Harald dreamed, as if time were passing within his subconscious.

Shapes began to climb over the rocks then, and within seconds, he could see that each shape was — had been — a person. Like the tendrils, they were red instead of black, exposed muscle tissue visible as they crawled to the edge. Even without their skin, he could see faces he knew. He saw his men, his soldiers. He saw his brother Burt and his father. He saw Heinrich, his dead friend from The Adalgisa. The captain looked up at Harald as he crested the edge, and he smiled. It was ghastly: a ghoul's grin to match a ghoul's figure. And then, he pitched himself over. They all pitched themselves over, dropping like rain into the blackness. Their screams thundered through the air, spiraling down into the nothing.

Suddenly they were gone, and Harald was alone over the pit. The quiet was worse than the din.

One more figure appeared then, striding to the lip of the void. When he came to rest, Harald could see that he was whole, not peeled bloody fruit like the others. Then, Harald remembered: it was him, the one who had been haunting his nightmares.

The figure reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol. As the figure began to raise his arm, Harald tried to swim through the air. He moved by slow degrees, his arms feeling as if they were mired in fluid. He would never reach the figure in time.

A woman's voice came to him, trickling down from the heavens. She whispered something inaudible, and he yelled back. But she spoke in that same soothing tone, taunting him. She said…

She said…

“What are you doing in my room?”

Harald shot up, nearly knocking Lucja with his head. “Wh… what?”

She stepped back, alarmed.

The lieutenant looked about at his surroundings and then remembered. He had been… had been… “I was looking for your father.”

“Our father?” Lucja asked. Little Zofia stood just behind her, and it was clear she was offering herself as a shield.

“What I mean to say is that your father was not at his post in the laboratory. I came here, thinking he had come home early. When he was not here, I must have dozed.”

“You're just looking for him?”

He stood up and straightened himself, feeling a strand of sleep-strewn hair on his forehead and correcting it. Had he really been so tired as to nod off here in the prisoners' bunker and leave himself so vulnerable? Richter would have his balls if he found out.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I don't know what your father is doing, but he is running out of time. Do you hear me? He is running out of time! You tell him to come see me. It's important.”

Flustered, he brushed past the girls and burst out of the room.

Why did the figure in his dream keep returning, and why did it leave him so distraught? He must have looked a fool. For a time, he had thought that it was Richter who had been haunting his subconscious, and that it was simply his own insecurities getting the best of him. Now, he was not so sure. Admittedly, the figure in the dream looked a lot like the commander, especially the uniform. The the hair was wrong, though. The man in his dream had hair the color of blood.

“Ah, there you are,” Linus Metzger said as Harald walked out of the bunker. “Commander Richter would like to speak with you.”

3

Harald approached the shoreline, his eyes focused on the solitary figure at its edge. He had shaken off the remnants of sleep, but the bad feeling had yet to leave him. There was something portentous in the air, and he couldn't shake the idea that each step was bringing him closer to a terrible end.

Richter stood facing the water, his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed lost to his own thoughts, and he didn't turn as the lieutenant approached.

“I've been persuading people a long time,” he said. “You might say I enjoy it. There is a great deal of satisfaction in making a man see your point of view. In this case, we're not even really dealing with men, are we?”

“Sir?”

“Kriege is missing,” the commander said simply. “I have learned that one of the cages in the laboratory was left open. Kaminski believes it possible that he has become, what is the word? Infected with the stuff.”

Harald felt himself flush. Surely nothing had been alive in that cage to do any harm.

“The spores of the fungus are quite contagious, I'm told. While it is possible the man has fled, I deem it unlikely. Kriege is a civilian, but he is of good German stock, and I don't believe he would abandon his duties. I'm inclined to believe Kaminski's theory instead.”

“His theory?”

“He believes that Kriege has become like Smit: that he is no longer thinking as a man thinks.”

“Kaminski doesn't know what the hell he's talking about!”

“Doesn't he?” Richter returned his gaze to the water, following the small chunks of ice floating on the surface. In spite of the heat emanating from the tentacles, winter was almost upon them, and the water was getting colder. “Regardless of what has happened, we no longer have civilian oversight into the laboratory. The time to persuade Kaminski is now. Do you agree?”

“Yes, of course,” Harald heard himself say.

Silence again. Harald found it maddening, which was why, no doubt, the commander employed it.

“Have you read John Watson's theories on behavioral psychology, by chance?”

“Should I have?” Psychology had never been within the realm of his tastes.

“Most of our countrymen prefer Freud, but I don't think we should discount the American psychologists just because they're American. Watson is a white man, if a bit misguided by the misfortune of his birth place. His ideas are quite interesting. He believes that to the true psychologist, one's thoughts, feelings, and emotions are irrelevant. These are things we cannot observe or influence directly. What we can observe, however, is behavior. And so our goal, as men of science, is the prediction and control of behavior. Do you see what I'm getting at, Lieutenant?”

Harald nodded that he did.

“I don't care one bit for Kaminski's feelings, or his happiness, or what he says. What I do care about are his results. I care about his behavior. In order to alter those things, we have to be willing to take the appropriate measures. When we get right down to it, the success of this operation depends on him.”

Behind them, several sets of footsteps came crunching along the rock. Harald turned to see Boris Seiler, Hans Wägner, and a small entourage of soldiers around them. In front, he saw Lucja and Zofia.

Lucja stared at him with fear and sadness and loathing in her eyes. He had tried to warn her though, indeed he had. This was her father's fault. Kaminski was just taking too goddamned long, and now it was too late.

4

Zofia looked at the Bad Man and shivered as he smiled at her. She didn't know how a smile could look scary, but his did.

Beside her, Lucja was running her hands through her hair, trying to keep calm. Her sister had said the Bad Man was just another army man like Mister Dietrich, but Zofia knew better. It was Mister Dietrich who had brought them here, but he was not a Bad Man, not like the other one.

“I understand you all like to go ice fishing,” the man said, talking to the fat soldier and the boy with the glasses. “I thought we could try something like that today. What do you think?”

The boy looked uncertain. “Yes. All right! Commander, sir.”

Seiler, on the other hand, looked withdrawn. She searched for a word and remembered it as humble. He looked humbled, though Zofia didn't know why. Maybe he had done something bad.

“Dig a hole in that ice, there.”

Hans moved to the ice, then pulled a knife and began chipping into it with enthusiasm, his hands practiced and even. As the chips began to fly, Zofia thought about how cold it was, and not for the first time. It was drafty in the bunkers, and they had little in the way of blankets. Their mittens had become worn and ragged, their coats frail. She always got sick in the cold, and without her mother here to make her soup and keep her warm…

“All done,” Hans said, sheathing his knife.

The Bad Man turned to the others. “I'd like one of you to get Doctor Gloeckner and bring him out here. The walk is a little further than I expected. I think we might need a trauma surgeon close at hand.”

Zofia didn't know what a troma surgen was, but it didn't sound good. She remembered the doctor from their arrival, and she didn't like him. He wasn't nice like her doctor back home. He looked like the kind of doctor who would give you foul-tasting medicine and stick you with needles. The thought made her shiver again.

“Zofia! Lucja!”

She looked over her shoulder and saw her papa coming through the gates. He was walking quickly, but when he saw the group, he began to run. Her heart leapt. Her papa would protect her like he always did.

“Now, let's do some ice fishing! Do you have the Model-24 I requested? I would like you to drop it in, please.”

“Sir?” Metzger asked. He had remained quiet during the exchange, but he stepped forward presently, head cocked.

“Stand down, Sergeant,” the Bad Man said.

“But this behavior—”

“This behavior was not kept in check. Since it is here, we might as well take advantage of it. I'm not asking him to do anything that has not been done before. Now stand down.”

The young man spread his arms and air-pushed the small crowd back. The boy with the glasses reached into his coat and pulled out a long wooden stick with a ball on the end. Zofia had seen one before and knew they were dangerous. Very dangerous.

“Oh my god,” Lucja whispered.

Hans twisted the ball, then yanked the string beneath. Satisfied that he was in the right, he dropped the thing into the hole and backed away.

“Lucja!” her papa yelled. “Zofia!” He was close now, tripping over the rocks and stumbling.

Then suddenly, the grenade went off, showering the group with freezing ice shrapnel and cold, liquid mist. Lucja squeezed Zofia's face into her chest, stifling her. Had she been able to see the result, however, she would have seen a hole in the ice the size of a bathtub.

The Bad Man clapped, laughing that horrible laugh of his. “Quickly. Bring her to me.”

“Her?” the boy asked.

“Yes! Give her to me. Give her to me now!”

Before Zofia could look up, a pair of hands yanked her away from her sister and hoisted her into the air. As if in a nightmare, she felt herself being raised up, fingernails scraping and chewing into her skin. She was so stunned, so deafened, that she didn't even think to cry out. She could only flail. She had a sudden image of her father holding her as she walked the tightrope. In that instant, she suddenly understood she wasn't a real circus performer. In that instant, she knew it was her father who held in her place, and it was her father who kept her safe. Without him, she would fall.

“Zofia!” he screamed.

“Go ahead,” Richter said.

And then, the boy tossed her into the water, her head smacking into the ice chunks left in the wake of the explosion. The last thing she heard before going under was the sound of her sister screaming, and Mister Lieutenant saying, quite calmly, “Good God, man, is that necessary?”

5

“Strip her out of those clothes,” Doctor Gloeckner said.

Dominik looked at him, feeling tears run down his cheeks, but he did as he was bidden. She was inside now, next to the heat stove in the prisoners' bunker, and she was conscious. But just barely.

“Papa,” she whispered.

“Be quiet now, darling. Don't speak.”

He pulled off her sweater and shirt, then her pants and undergarments, and covered her with a towel and a blanket. He squeezed the water out of her hair, knowing that it hurt her and being unable to help it. She was freezing in his hands, her skin blue. Lucja was kneeling at his side and had a hold of her arms, rubbing them.

“We need to warm her!” Dominik shouted. “We need fire!”

Gloeckner only looked at him. “You don't want to warm her too quickly. Keep the blanket on her. Lay beside her if you wish, but don't bring her any closer to the stove. Trust me.”

“Trust you?”

And suddenly, Dominik was on his feet, grabbing the other man around the throat. He slammed the little man into the concrete wall. “You bastard! Do you know what you've done? All of you!”

The doctor's eyes bulged. Dominik's only thought was to choke the life from all of them, starting with the idiot doctor.

“Papa!” Lucja yelled.

Another man appeared behind him, pulling his arms away.

“Take it easy,” Jan said. “See to the girl.”

The tall man released Dominik's arms, and he felt a sob escape his throat, bursting from him like a sneeze. He snorted, choking it back before it could overpower him.

“I brought more blankets.” Ari stepped into the room, his eyes puffy and his hair in tangles. When Dominik had brought his little girl in, Ari had been the first to act. He was more in his right mind than Dominik, but he was just as distressed. They'd been together for months now (had it been months?), and Zofia had started to call him Uncle Ari. Imagine that. “Ettore gave me these.”

“Check the stove, Gloeckner,” Dominik growled. “Make sure it's as hot as it can get.”

Warily, but without delay, Gloeckner did.

“What about me?” Lucja asked.

“Just help me keep her warm.”

Wrapping her arms about the pile of blankets, Lucja laid on the bed next to her sister. Dominik could see she had her own bruises peppering her arms. He had seen how violently Zofia had been yanked from her, how violently they restrained her as she tried to stop them.

For the first time since they had arrived, Dominik felt his mind begin to fray. They had taken his wife from him. Now, they had almost taken his daughter. If they succeeded, what would he do? What would he do?

He had wanted to trust Dietrich, as foolish as that sounded. He had wanted to trust the mission. He had wanted to believe that eventually, they would be freed. In such a wondrous place, so far from civilization, so far from the madness strangling his home, he had wanted to believe they could survive. But even the lieutenant was powerless to stop his superiors. He was merely the mouthpiece, and men like Richter were the mind.

Curling up beside his girls, Dominik laid on the bed. He waited, hoping and praying Zofia would be all right.

6

Several hours later, Dominik found himself staring at the laboratory cages. Even with his daughter, they had made him come. “Just for an hour,” Richter's man had said. “Try to do something useful.”

An hour away from his little girl… as if he could even begin to think of anything else.

“Useful,” he whispered. “I will show you something useful.”

And before he knew it, he was smashing the glass, shattering cage after cage with a wrench. Let them free, he thought. You want something useful? Let's see how useful you find this.

He didn't know how long it would take for the tentacles to grow out into the lab. He didn't know how long before the place was ruined. But he knew one thing, and that was he never wanted to do anything for his captors again. If they had hoped to motivate him, they had failed. He would destroy this place, because it was the only thing he could do.

Moments later, he dropped the wrench, unable to finish the job. The world about him felt unbearably heavy, and he could do nothing for a time but close his eyes. When he opened them, Ari was there. The man had come to the lab looking for his friend, and here he was. Dominik threw his arms around him, and for a long moment, they comforted one another.

At last, Dominik looked up. “We're never getting out of here, Ari. I was wrong to say we should play along. I was wrong to think they would ever honor what they told us. God help me Ari, I was wrong.”

“You did what you thought was right. So did I. The question is, what are we going to do now?”

As Dominik looked up, he saw something on the other man's face he'd never seen before, not in all the time he'd known him. He saw Ari's tears were not those of sadness, but of anger.

“We have to get out,” his friend whispered.

“We have to get out.”

“How?”

There were no windows in the laboratory, but Dominik could feel his gaze being pulled in the direction of the crater. He could feel it calling to him, its voice whispering in his mind.

A way to control it. That's what they wanted.

“Well,” he said to Ari. “I say we give them what they want.”

7

The twilight grew deeper as Zofia progressed further and further down. Lucja passed out next to her sister, her sleep filled with restless dreams. Zofia herself slept in silence. She remembered nothing of the morning, knowing only that she was prey and all the world around her was her predator. She didn't recognize who it was that held onto her skin or the voices of the men coming in and out of the room. She only knew she wanted to sleep, and when she slept, she wanted to remember her mother. Magdelena had always told her sleep was the magic cure, and that when she woke, she would feel better. But that was not true this day. Each time Zofia wakened, the pain in her head was worse. At one point, she thought she heard her father's voice and lifted the blankets to see if it was him. But she saw only monsters in the room and descended back under the covers, sobbing. When the monsters were gone, she slept again. Even in sleep, she could feel the pain in her chest, the raggedness of her breath. That made her dream of a rhyme she used to say playing Klasy when she was a kid. That had been two years ago. Throw the rock, jump the stone, fall on your bottom, the next one goes! She was not good at jumping on one leg like the other kids, but she'd made it through the game once, jumping on all the squares on one foot and laughing when her friends applauded. The game had been fun even if she wasn't good at it, even if she had been out of breath at the end. Her mother had been so proud of her when she did. She wished she could go back and try it again. She wished her mother were here now to hold her and sing to her and to tell her everything was all right. At least she felt warm in the bed now, just like when her mother used to pick her up from the crib and hold her. She still remembered that. Why didn't more kids remember that? That had been the best, safest feeling in the world, being carried in those arms. Under the blankets, she crawled until she found a shape and pretended it was her mother. She curled up to it, letting one thumb slip into her mouth. She didn't suck her thumb any more, not really (that was for babies), but it felt good to do. She let herself curl up and squeeze that shape, remembering the soft features of her mother and what it felt like to be snuggled around her.

It was there that she died, squeezing her sister's arm, oblivious to the tears of her father and the men clustered around him in the confines of the bunker. It was some hours later, in the middle of the night, before they discovered she had stopped breathing.

Chapter 17: Inferno

The Aeschylus and The Island:

Present Day

1

The discharge from the barrel of the rifle drifted up, mixing with the black smoke around him. Everything was burning now: the oil tanks, the buildings, even The Carrion. The tentacles shriveled in the heat, emitting soft, shrieking sounds as they withered and bled. It wouldn't be long before they were all smoldering, just like them.

Mason lowered the rifle and watched the boat disappear across the horizon. There was nothing else to be done. With both helicopters destroyed, his old compadre had just taken the only means of escape, and he managed to do it with all of his idiot friends in tow. Civies, no less, every goddamned one.

He heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to see Melvin limping across the deck. His pants were torn, a piece of shrapnel embedded in one thigh. “They get away?”

Mason nodded. “Yeah.”

“You hit 'em?”

“I hit the boat. It's damaged, but not enough to stop them.”

“So they got away.” It sounded like a resignation.

“They're going to the island.” How Mason knew, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was the way the boat had turned before he had lost sight of it. Maybe it was the fact that it was damaged and was probably low on fuel. But he thought it was probably the girl. They'd have a fat chance in hell of finding her, but he didn't think AJ could resist being the hero. So he was going to try, and drag the rest of his new friends down with him.

Mason tossed the rifle to his medic. All he had now was the knife, not that it mattered. He had a feeling they'd all be in the water within an hour or two, and the time they had left would not be pleasant. They were asphyxiating. The smoke was roiling in great, black waves from the lower decks, its taste thick and greasy in his mouth.

Two more pairs of boots came thudding across the walk. Peter and Christian stepped from behind the haze, both looking haggard and disjointed. The side of Christian's face was streaming blood, a thousand minute cuts from glass debris stitched across his hairline. Peter was covered in soot. He looked tired, an old man in a young man's body.

“Jin's dead,” he said.

Did those things get him? It was on Mason's lips, but he bit it back. Of course they got him. It was a stupid question, and they didn't have breath to waste on stupid questions. With Jin gone, they had no engineer. No engineer, no pilot, no second in command, and no goddamned way out. CATFUed.

Something cried out from the northwest stairwell. Mason braced himself to put down another blackened figure, but it was only the new kid. He came hopping up the stairs like a madman, the lower half of his body blazing fire. “Help me!” he yelled. “For God's sake, help me!”

Peter and Christian ran to him, the former stripping off his jacket in mid-stride.

“Leave him,” Mason said. He knew how this was going to end, he just had the gift.

“Agh!”

Peter tossed the jacket over Nick and then hammered at the fire with his feet. Christian joined in, both of them stomping furiously. From a distance, they looked like a couple of droogs kicking the shit out of a homeless man. Melvin made a move to help, but Mason snatched his arm. No, he needed Calle right where he was.

At last, the fire dissipated.

Nicholas rolled in pain, and Mason was pretty sure a few of those tolchocks had caught him in the ankle. Doped up or no, those had to hurt like hell. He was a tough kid, Mason would give him that.

When he was finally able to sit up, Christian put one arm under his shoulder and helped him to his feet. To his foot, Mason corrected, not for the first time. The kid was in agony. His face was red, his eyes streaming tears. Mason wondered if it was from the pain or if his body had tried to put itself out when it realized it was on fire. The human body did such odd things in extreme stress.

Then Mason saw there was something wrong with him. The veins on his neck were standing out. His eyes had taken a decidedly milky tone, and his movements… they were strange in some way he couldn't describe. Nicholas, after all, had been wounded before any of the rest of them, hadn't he? And so Doctor Grey had been right: The Carrion were claiming him.

With Christian's help, the boy hobbled over to stand in front of his commander. “What the hell is going on here, sir? I was up there, and… and you shot at them. You shot at Gideon and the others. You're trying to kill them, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Mason said. He had no more use for lies.

“I won't be a part of this! I—”

But that was as far as he got. Mason's knife was suddenly in his stomach, the blade buried to the hilt. A lot of guys preferred the armpit or tried to go through the chest wall, but that was too difficult. As for the throat, that was too messy. The gut was soft and pliant. It was intimate. A placed cut to the abdominal artery would kill you just as quick if done right, and Mason knew just the spot.

The kid's mouth opened in an O, and then his body slid to the floor.

“I told you to leave him.”

Mason wiped the knife on his jacket, then turned back to the rails, not waiting to see the reaction from the others. His men were either with him, or they weren't, and if they weren't, then they'd all die out here. Maybe it didn't matter and they would die anyway. They were only four now.

Four of nine.

They were battered and torn. Mason himself was shot in the leg. They had no food, no water, and no way off of the platform. Nothing but the will to survive. Beyond that, Mason hadn't been oblivious to what the good doctor had told them; he knew what being wounded meant, even if they did manage to survive the fire. The Carrion had an in now, didn't it? It was reproducing itself at this very moment, the spores climbing through the holes in their bodies, through the cuts on their skin. Christ. Since this morning, things had developed a habit of going downhill, and the worst was yet to come. They'd all be like the RDF soon, skin blackening, body temperature escalating until the mind was in permanent fever dream.

Mason wondered if he had made the decision to kill the kid because he was infected, or because he was about to become insubordinate. Because right now, insubordination didn't count for a whole hell of a lot. As for the other reason… well, that would mean Mason was the biggest hypocrite in the world, wouldn't it? He could feel The Carrion moving through his own bloodstream, pushing its way through his circulatory system like a rude guest.

“What now?” Christian asked. He was calm, eerily calm. They all were. They weren't docile. No, that wasn't right. There was something bubbling beneath the surface in them, something like pale fire, just as it was with him. They'd watched him kill Nicholas without the slightest protest or the slightest surprise, and he could sense they wanted more. At the end of the day, there wasn't any better way to shrug off defeat than bloodshed, was there?

“The primary objective is lost due to circumstances beyond our control.” He spoke without turning to them, still staring at the sea. “But we still have our secondary objective, don't we?”

“Sir?”

“They're going to the island, like I said. I for one am not going out without making sure they're buried there. The Marine Corps didn't raise me to be a quitter. The same with you, Vy. And the same goes for the army for you, St. Croix.” He did turn around then, sensing the need in them and feeding off of it. “No one's coming out here for us. I think we all know that by now. At least, not by the time this place collapses. So if we have any chance at all, it will be getting to the island, and getting that goddamned boat back. If we can't do that, then we can at least track down the ones responsible for this. I want to watch what happens when we wipe that fucking smile off of their faces. Because believe me, they are smiling. They're smiling because they think they've won.” He looked at them in turn, seeing the hunger and hate in their eyes and loving it. Hunger and hate would keep you alive.

“How we gonna get there, Boss?” Melvin asked.

“I don't know, but I'll think of something,” Mason said, and he would. In spite of the terrible pain in his leg, he was feeling… well, he was feeling good. Or perhaps energized was the better word. He thought he could run a hundred miles, even on an injured leg. Hell, he could run on the surface of the water if he had to. Bullet or no, infection or no, he wouldn't be stopped, not before he had his say. No goddamned tentacle or spore or creature from the black lagoon was going to keep him from paying his old pal AJ one last visit. AJ might think he could run, but the island wasn't far enough, not nearly far enough.

For the first time since that morning, Mason found himself thinking inexplicably of his retirement. He thought of the countryside, an old church, and an old groundskeeper who would tend the garden and plant the flowers. It had been a nice dream, as foolish as it was, as soft as it was. No, this is where he belonged. He belonged here in the shit, fighting for every last inch, fighting for every last breath before the darkness closed in. He wanted to stay alive just long enough to wipe the smile off of AJ's face. And to find a cure, if there was one. Ha! Now there was a laugh.

No more use for lies, he thought again.

The only thing that might hold him back was his leg. In spite of how good the rest of him was feeling, the sonofabitch still hurt. It was a weird thing, but as he gazed down to the surviving tentacles, he thought about how soothing they looked, how good it would feel to just settle down and stick his leg into one. He was quite sure it would feel warm, like draping your thigh in a hot tub.

Then, he pushed the notion away. It was a strange, strange thought. And even if he had nothing to lose, the idea was still pretty goddamned weird.

Around him, The Aeschylus creaked and groaned as the fires raged. Like Mason, it seemed to know that its end was coming.

2

The walls emerged from the mist like enceintes on a castle, barring entry from the sea as surely as any mountain or reef. When AJ saw them, he half-expected to be fired upon, as if there might be a legion of soldiers hiding inside. That was foolish, of course. He had seen maps of the island and knew it was full of dead men. Its purpose had long since departed, its inhabitants swallowed by an age long gone.

Hadn't they?

“I found a hole as big as my dick in the back wall,” Dutch said, wiping his grease-smeared hands on his shirt. “We're leaking.” He looked tuckered out. They all looked tuckered out. AJ knew it had been less than twenty-four hours since he'd slept, but it felt like days. The constant, gray sun made the twilight seem endless.

“I guess we should be glad we're not headed towards the mainland.”

“Think we'll make it to the docks? I'd say we have five minutes before we're dead in the water.”

AJ looked at the coastline and tried to gauge the strength of the motor. “We'll have to ground her. If we're lucky, she'll hold together and we can repair the leak on dry land.”

“Where do you plan on getting the tools?”

AJ shook his head. “Don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“No, Dutch, I don't know! All I know is, this piece of crap won't make it much further. If we make it to the island, maybe there will be something we can use.”

“Like what?”

“I remember there's an abandoned camp there. Two camps, actually. Maybe one of them will have something. Right, Doc?” AJ said, looking at Gideon.

The doc sat curled on the floor, his bony knees tucked to his chest. Appearances could be deceiving, though. Gideon had a strong survival instinct, and if the boat really started sinking, AJ thought the man would shake off the catatonia real fast.

The floor of the deck was littered with garbage, and Dutch began to dig through it, looking for anything they could use. He found two extra containers of gas — small, but full — and set them in plain view. If by some miracle they managed to repair the leak, fuel wouldn't be a problem after all. The RDF team had come prepared. When Dutch dug further, he didn't come up with any weapons or tools, but he did find a flare gun, and he brought it back to show the others.

“How many flares?” AJ asked.

“Four, I think. I found a box.”

“Good. You ready for impact?”

“What?”

AJ pointed to the approaching shallows. “You better brace yourself.”

When Dutch looked out of the cabin, his face went pale. “You're not kidding.”

“Hold on.”

The craft bumped over the rocks and came to a grinding halt, its bow lurching upwards. AJ came to a rest with his toes pointing ten degrees higher.

“Everybody okay?”

His companions nodded, shaken but unhurt. Dutch actually laughed a little. “You're nuts.”

“Yeah. Find me a rope, would you? If there's a high tide, it could wash this thing back out to sea.”

“All right, but I didn't see one before.”

It didn't seem likely, but AJ needed a minute to himself. His hands were shaking. How long had it been since someone had shot at him? Not long enough, was the only answer.

Gripping the steering wheel, he sucked in a deep breath and waited. The images of The Aeschylus flashed through his mind. He was dangling over the sea. He was up in Mason's face, the man's hand around his throat. He was climbing down the girders, watching a pair of inhuman claws reach for his eyes. Let it go, he thought. Let it go, because there will plenty of time to dwell on it later.

The engine was still running, and realizing this, AJ flipped the ignition switch to the off position. When it was quiet, he looked back at his hands; they were no longer shaking.

“Where are we?” Gideon asked. His face had the glazed, semi-vacant look of an Alzheimer's patient, and AJ wondered if he'd been wrong in his assessment. But then, Gideon found his voice. “The island. We're really here!”

“Yeah, Doc. Easy now.” AJ took him by the arm and helped him out to the bow.

Dutch had managed to find a rope after all, and he had knotted it in the shape of a lasso. When he saw the pair of them coming, he licked his thumbs and smoothed his eyebrows.

“What are you doing?”

Without turning, Dutch twirled the rope and tossed it straight over a rock. The rope cinched, and he pulled it tight.

“One shot,” AJ said. “I still don't know how the hell you do that.”

“They did used to call me 'Rodeo Jones.'”

The water was only calf-deep at the point of impact, and when Dutch jumped out, he had no problem wading to shore. AJ followed with Gideon, still leading him by the arm. They rendezvoused near an outcropping at the end of the island, a cliff face cutting them off from the land.

“East or west?” Dutch asked.

“I think we should split up.”

“Yeah?”

“I don't know why, but I've been getting this feeling that we don't want to be here long.”

“We don't want to be here at all,” Gideon said.

“Right.”

“You know the layout of this place?” Dutch asked.

“The docks and the old whale farm are west. That's our best bet of finding tools or a boat.”

“And east?”

“The old ruins.”

The three of them looked towards the walls, standing silent in the mist. Above them, the silhouettes of the dark tendrils curled about the hills.

Gideon's mouth dropped when he saw them. “Jesus, they're everywhere!”

“That's exactly why we need to find a way off this dump. Dutch?”

“I'll take the west.”

He made to leave, but AJ stopped him. “If you're going that way, take the doc. And take one of the gas cans with you.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, just a feeling. If we can't repair this piece of crap, we'll need another boat.”

“Even if we found one, it would be an antique.”

AJ looked at Gideon, hoping for input.

Gideon only shrugged.

“Just take one. Meet me back at the base when you're done. It's closer, but I don't want to lose sight of the boat.”

“All right.”

“And Kate. We have to find her, Dutch. It might be too late already.”

“If Mason and the others were out there, I'll see their tracks. I'll check everywhere.”

“Be careful.”

“You too. Come on, Doc.”

They broke apart, each man jogging across the water of the alien landscape.

As AJ approached the fence, he thought he saw something moving above him. But when he looked up to the rocks, there was nothing but sky.

3

When the light went out, Kate dropped the screwdriver. It clanged against the vent and rolled to the ground in the dark. She fumbled with her phone, hitting the button five or six times before giving up. The battery was finally dead.

She had been working the vent for almost two hours now, and she swallowed hard, her tongue between her teeth. The screws were rusted and stripped, though she had managed to get all but one. Fitting into the vent shaft would be another matter. It was carved directly into the concrete, a narrow slit leading into the unknown. She could smell fresh air though, and she knew it had to lead outside somehow, some way. After combing through every inch of the place, it was the one and only chance she had. She couldn't afford to lose the screwdriver now, not when she was so close, not when she had no other options.

Her hands traced along the ground. At first, she felt nothing, and she wanted to scream. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to remain calm, sweeping her arms over the floor in ever-increasing patterns. At last, her hand closed on the round metal handle, and she had it.

She felt her way back to the vent, then slipped the screwdriver back into the bolt. She twisted and felt it spinning aimlessly in the wall. Like the others, she was going to have to pop it out. Carefully, she wiggled the tip beneath the flat head, careful not to damage her target or the tool itself. When it was in place, she began to shimmy the thing back and forth. Her technique was good now, much better for having done the other bolts first. A few minutes later, she felt it pop.

“Yes! You're mine now, you little sucker!”

After laying the screwdriver against the wall, she reached up and grabbed the bolt, pulling it out with one hand. The vent almost fell on top of her, but she caught it. It was much heavier than she expected, but she thought she could have lifted a truck if it meant getting out of this place. Once she put the thing down, she stuck her head inside the hole. The air was fresh, all right. She tried to climb in, but her head hit something hard. She backed out, letting her hands do the work for her. They felt the hole, yes, but it narrowed behind the vent and then… it fed into a pipe no bigger than her hand.

“No. No, this can't be.”

She leaned forward and felt everywhere against the back wall and up through the shaft. It all funneled to that pipe, as tiny as a car exhaust.

“No! No, goddamn you! You can't be the only way out! You can't!”

All at once something banged into the door behind her.

She yelped, her hands shooting up to cover her mouth. She pushed herself back a pace. It sounded like… like one of the Black Shadow team, throwing himself at the metal.

Seconds ticked by in the blackness.

And then it came again, louder this time. Something large and powerful slammed into the door, something that wanted in. Scrambling along the ground, Kate found the screwdriver again. She knocked it away with a brush of her hands and then chased it down, her knees scabbing against the concrete.

Hands threw the lock on the other side of the door and then cast it open. The metal banged against the outside of the bunker, letting in the last rays of daylight. Though it was gray and miserable, she was still blinded by the sun.

A figure loomed in the passage, hulking and silent. In those first seconds, Kate thought it was Bruhbaker back to finish her off.

Then it spoke, and its voice sounded just like AJ. “There you are,” it said. “I thought I'd lost you.”

4

“How did you find me?”

AJ noticed she was clutching at him like a security blanket, and he pulled her close. “I heard a noise. I thought it might be one of those things, but when you screamed, I knew I had you.”

“I didn't scream. You just startled me. But anyway, that's not what I meant. How did you get here to the island?”

As they walked across the grounds, AJ recounted their run-in with the Black Shadow team and their escape down the platform. It all sounded improbable to his own ears, but he didn't leave anything out. He couldn't afford to leave anything out, not if they were going to get through this. She had to know everything.

When the tale was done, her eyes darted to the mass of tendrils beyond the gate. There was no doubt in her eyes. “So that's where they went… all of them, even the ones who were here before.”

“That's a good guess.”

Her mouth quivered. “That means they're gone. Over two hundred men and women… nobody survived.”

“Just Gideon.”

“Just Gideon,” she said. Her eyes were brimming. “We have to destroy these things, whatever they are, wherever they came from. You know that, don't you?”

“Somebody does. But I think I'm going to need some pants, first.”

She looked down and laughed. It was good to hear that laugh. How strong she was, this girl.

What he said was funny, but it was also true. They needed supplies, and not just clothes. Protection would have to come first, food and water second.

“Kate, before we get into this, I want to show you something.” He reached into one of his boots and pulled out the paperwork from the platform. Keeping it had seemed like an unnecessary gesture at the time, but he was glad of it now. “You said your job was how to report this to the shareholders, and earlier, I bet you were questioning the board, wondering if they were the ones responsible for this.”

“I don't know what to think. I must have been alone in the dark there for hours. I kept trying to turn it around in my head, and I couldn't. I couldn't see how the company could do this to another human being. And not just me, but all of the people here, they…” She shook her head, unable to finish.

“I don't think it was the board. They certainly didn't create those things, whatever they are. Anyway, I think it was a handful of people who thought they could use it. I don't know what for.” He held out the paper, and she took it.

“You doing my job for me?”

“You hired me for my expertise. I guess I always was good at sticking my nose where it didn't belong.”

She stared at the folded piece of paper as if it were a puzzle, and she didn't know how to open it. At last, she tucked it into her jeans. “Now's not the time, Angus. I don't know what this shows, but I can't imagine any of them will get away with it.”

AJ shrugged. “Arrogance. Know anybody like that?”

“Many someones.”

“That may be true, but I have a feeling this paper will mean more to you than it does to me. As for their motive, I can't answer. I've seen a lot of strange things in a lot of strange places, but I've never seen anything to make me think growing tentacles that eat people would be a good idea.”

Dutch would have laughed at that, but she didn't. AJ didn't either.

“Then, I guess we'll need to protect ourselves.”

“You guess right.”

She pointed to a bunker in the center of the compound with an open door. AJ remembered poking his head in earlier and seeing a pair of corpses, but the shelves and boxed goods hadn't registered; he had been too preoccupied with finding her at the time.

“I know a place with guns,” she said. “A lot of guns.”

5

Less than an hour later, the fires on the platform finally achieved a temperature hot enough to ignite the unprocessed crude in the storage tanks. The remaining canisters burst like balloons, spattering flame and debris a hundred feet into the air. It was the final stage in the destruction of the platform.

The last crane collapsed when the tanks burst, annihilating the top level and wreaking destruction through the other floors as it fell. The helipad toppled. The catwalks buckled. All that was left was a smoking ruin, a skeleton of a metal titan on the water. The Carrion, what was left of them, burned with it. They melted and fell into the sea, dropping like insects in a forest fire.

Kate and her new friends were resting when it happened, she herself nearly collapsed from exhaustion. They did not see the great monument fall into the water. They did not see the four shapes dive from the lowest level just before the last of it disintegrated.

Chapter 18: Aphelion

The Island:

February, 1939

1

Dominik stopped just outside of the laboratory bunker, unable to walk through. Jan and Gloeckner came to a halt behind him.

“We've done everything we could, Mister Kaminski,” the doctor said. “She's resting now.”

She was down there beyond the door, his little girl. Dominik remembered they had ripped her body from his arms the day before, and now she was here. Here, of all places. It was fitting somehow, the consequences of his failure ending in the place it had begun. There were logical reasons for her to be in the lab, of course. The medical equipment was there, and it was one of the only rooms that could be called private, at least from a soldier's eyes. But as much as he wanted to see her again, to hold her, he didn't know what he would find. The cages were broken, and those things from the crater had been given free reign. They may not have grown far when her body was carried below, but now, a day later…

“We will give you leave to bury her tonight,” Gloeckner said. He had mentioned this on the walk over but repeated it now. “You can sit with her as long as you like until then. She was quite far along by the time she was taken from you, Mister Kaminski. The smell was… well, it was not very good. She has been embalmed.”

“Embalmed?”

“Yes. We do have the means to give our dead a proper burial here. The Führer saw to that. Our burial practices really aren't so different, your people and mine. Are they?”

Dominik had a vision of the chasm, thinking of the stories Ari had been telling him about their new commander. He wondered if the other prisoners would be afforded such a proper burial. But no, he was different from them; he was special. And so Zofia had been a punishment, swift and merciless, and then they would all be friends again. Like chopping off a limb and then cauterizing it so the victim would not die.

Embalmed.

He mouthed the word, and he was hit with another image. This one depicted the doctor himself stripping her down, cutting her open, pumping her full of chemicals. It was frightening, seeing him alone with her body, his gloved hands doing their blood work.

Dominik lunged at Gloeckner, his hands clawing and grabbing. At the same time, he felt his mind splitting. It was as if his body had flown off the handle but a separate part of himself was left perfectly sane. It asked him, why oh why am I hitting this man? He is not the real enemy, he is not the cause. So why? To this, he had no answer. He only knew that he needed to strike, and strike he would.

Before he could do so much as land a blow, however, Jan stepped between them. The sergeant grabbed the doctor by the scruff of the neck and tossed him back towards the path. Gloeckner stumbled and fell, barely catching himself before toppling into dirt. He pushed himself up, looking shocked and indignant. Jan held up a finger as if to warn him from saying anything further, then turned to Dominik. “Go,” he said. “Be with her. It's the only mercy you'll get in this place, and it's not much.” His eyes seemed to glow. Dominik could see pain in them and thought there was something more, perhaps compassion. Then, Jan took a step forward. “Get down there before I throw you down.”

Maybe not.

Dominik found himself stepping into the bunker before he had time to think. The door slammed behind him, squeezing his vision of the two men as if he were closing them out of his world. For all intents and purposes, he was. It was completely black, the generators not yet on for the day. He wondered if this is what the universe felt like before Creation: this feeling of nothing, and loneliness.

After a moment — or an eternity, Dominik didn't know — the lights flickered on. The universe reappeared, and he was standing in the familiar concrete labyrinth marking the place of his pseudo-employment. As he moved to the stairs and began to descend to the lab proper, he felt the weight of Zofia's loss grow heavier. There was no one here to save him, now.

When he pushed the door open, he knew what he should see. He should see… he should see Zofia on a table, the light of the heavens shining down, her form surrounded by angels. That's what he should see, even if he expected the growths to have done their horrible work. It was his fault, after all. He had failed to control them. He had broken the glass and set them free.

But as he stepped inside, he stopped and stared in astonishment. Zofia lay in the center of the room, lifeless, but as beautiful as she had ever been, as pure as she had ever been. What he saw around her was wondrous. It was not an entourage of angels, but it was truly wondrous just the same.

2

Lucja snapped out of bed when she heard her father come in. A moment earlier, she had been dead to the world, but the sound of him brought her out of sleep quicker than the ringing of any alarm.

“Father,” she whispered.

Removing his coat with the deliberation of an old, old man, Dominik came to her side. He carried a canteen with him, an odd adornment for the circumstance, but he didn't speak of what was inside it, not right away.

“You're awake.”

“I couldn't sleep. Could you?”

He hugged her, and for a moment, they did nothing but cling to each other in the darkness. When he finally pulled his head up, she could see how haggard he was. He looked shrunken, like a flower that had withered in the cold.

“I need to speak to Ari.”

“I'm here.” He was looking at them from the doorway. Though he had tried to give them some space, he had never been far. Lucja didn't think he would ever be far now, given what had happened.

Her father stood with that same, awkward slowness, then crossed the small space to his friend. He reached into his pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. He looked at it a moment as if contemplating whether or not to hand it over. Then he did, his face looking to all the world as if the note were a written confession of murder.

Reaching for his spectacles with one hand, Ari took the paper and flipped it open with the other. He squinted at the writing.

“I want you to acquire these for me. Aside from Kriege, there shouldn't be anyone who will know what we can do with them,” Dominik said.

“Industrial steel tubing, silver, methanol… are you serious?”

Though Lucja was looking at the back of her father's head, she knew the expression on his face. Her father had a plan; it was the same look of intensity he had worn in the dark of The Adalgisa.

No, not like that, she corrected. He was different now. This would not be an ideation, not a gentle what if escape scenario. This would be iron clad. Because her father, like her, was now as cold and hard as the steel of his machines. This time, he would not freeze with the ax.

When he made a twirling motion with one finger, Ari turned the paper. Over her father's shoulder, Lucja could see a drawing of a strange machine. She could see vats and filters and tubes, all with arrows and diagrams and intricate labels. The design, no doubt, was a part of his plan.

“It works?” Ari asked. “Are you sure?”

“The substance works,” her father said. “I've seen it for myself. As to the production of it, that's what the machine and the chemicals are for.”

“But there's something else?”

“Oh yes.”

“And it works?” Ari asked again, as if not believing his partner had finally found a solution to the problem that had ailed them for so long.

“If only I'd found it sooner.” Even though she could still not see his face, Lucja knew the pain upon it. This thing, whatever it was, might have saved her sister.

“But… it's because of her,” Ari said.

“It was her gift to me. The funny thing is, when we have it, we're not going to use it on the fungus, not all of it.”

“We're not?”

“There's more, Ari. More that I would not care to write down.”

“Oh?”

And then, her father told them his plan.

When he had finished, they sat in silence for a long while. Lucja had been right in every assumption, and it terrified her.

“When it's done, I can't say for sure how we're going to get off of the island,” her father said. “The vehicles will be inoperable, so we'll have to hike to the shipyard. When we get there, we'll have to find a way to steal on board a ship. Most of the whalers will be faithful to the army, but some won't. Who knows, maybe we can bribe the others.” He shrugged. “It's a chance.”

Lucja nodded, and for the first time in months, she began to feel hope.

That night, under the watchful eyes of the guards, they buried Zofia in an unmarked grave outside of the walls, the three of them pondering the terrible things they were about to do.

3

Across the encampment, another figure jilted awake in the darkness. He hit his head on a shelf next to the bed and swore. He could not believe his clumsiness, even in a place so unfamiliar. But his hands had done their work; his Walther PPK pistol was in his grip before he was fully conscious.

Richter sat up and stared through the dark. The room was small and clearly empty, but he felt something, a lingering presence.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw immediately what it was. The door to the room was ajar. He had shut it and locked it before retiring as he always did. The fact that he could see a sliver of light from the hallway startled him. Throughout all of his years in the army, with the countless enemies he'd made, no one had ever gotten the drop on him. He was a man of good habits; he was a man who checked beneath the bed and in the closets and who always locked the door when he went to bed, even in friendly territory, even when the nearest enemy was a thousand kilometers away. And so to see the door open now, even a crack, gave him pause. Someone had opened it, and they'd done it quietly.

More than likely, it was a young schütze. In spite of his confidence, the commander wasn't blind to the way some of the soldiers looked at him. It took guts to be a commander of men. It was not a job for the ordinary, but then, the Schutzstaffel was not an ordinary division of soldiers. The Führer had great plans for Germany — for all of Europe — and ordinary soldiers would not get the job done. Richter's transfer from the regular army had been one of the great honors of his life, and it was not done without envy from his peers. Envy, and to some extent, fear. The Schutzstaffel were the elite. They were the ones who would stand at the front lines when The Führer unleashed his plans to the world. And it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both, he thought, quoting Machiavelli. The Führer understood this, and it was one of the reasons why Richter loved him so dearly.

So was it possible that a lesser man had come to spy on him? To harm him? The commander intended to find out. If there was one thing he was good at, it was finding the truth. He enjoyed finding it in one of the myriad texts he studied each night before bed, but he enjoyed finding it more in men. Opening them up and reading them was so much more gratifying than what he found in books.

He approached the door like a hunter and thrust it open, but the hallway greeted him with stillness. Then, he looked up and saw the bunker exit door was also ajar. Whomever had slipped away had retraced his steps right out the front. There was supposed to be a sentry standing outside, but he saw no one.

The smells of cold earth and stale concrete wafted into his nostrils, but he could also smell something pungent beneath, something like old flowers. His jaw tensed. Cornelius Richter feared no man, but this… this was fear of the unknown. The oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. Lovecraft, wasn't it? What would such an ass of an American writer have known about real fear?

Brazenly, the commander stepped into the cold, his pistol raised. The expanse of the base opened before him, as quiet and docile as he had ever seen it. The sentries stood in their towers. The generators hummed pleasantly behind the barracks.

Perhaps the the stress was getting to him. Perhaps, in his foolishness, he had left the door to his room unlocked, or even open. It was not often he admitted to himself that his job was taxing in the extreme, that it took a heavy toll on his psyche, but in the deep recesses of his mind, Richter knew these things.

When he looked at the ground, however, he saw a spatter of black. It was not much, barely more than what you'd see from the start of a nosebleed, but it was enough. The guard to the front door of the barracks was missing, and now, there was blood.

Feeling his eyes drawn, the commander looked towards the gate. In the dying light of the sun, he saw a face. The wrinkled visage stared back at him through eyes as gray and dead as the sky. Then, just like that, the face was gone. The form slipped out beyond the gate and into the wilderness, vanishing into the dusk.

Richter looked up at the guard towers. “Alarm!” he shouted. “Alarm! Alarm!”

4

“The commander says it was Kriege,” Metzger said, walking beside the lieutenant.

“He's sure about what he saw?”

“Can you imagine the commander being unsure of anything?”

Harald could not, and so decided to keep his mouth shut from then on. He trudged to the gate overlooking the chasm, and he could see bedlam below. Pockets of orange light danced around the perimeter, men searching the area with torches. Not electric flashlights or lanterns, but torches. The commander had his men searching the grounds like witch hunters from the dark ages.

“He's here somewhere,” he heard Richter yell. “He's here! Find him! I want every nook searched. Unless he dropped into the pit, he's hiding in the rocks.”

Harald could see most of the staff about, including Jan and Seiler. The Gestapo agent, in particular, looked even more displeased about the affair than Harald was himself. He was standing by an outcropping with Hans, the two of them talking amongst themselves.

The lieutenant broke off from Metzger's trail. “Boris! What the hell is going on?”

“They have not found him yet,” Seiler said moodily. “But the commander is certain he is here.”

“I hope they catch him,” Hans said.

“Do you think he's here?”

Seiler shrugged and ignored the question. “I do not like this. I have a bad feeling.”

Before he could say anything else, Richter spied the group and made to join them. “Lieutenant! I'm glad you're here.”

Walking stiffly up the path, the man looked at Harald's brow as he came to a halt. The lieutenant realized it was because he was wearing a new hat. It was indistinguishable from any other officer's hat, though Harald had been told this particular model had belonged to his island predecessor.

“Any luck?”

Richter shook his head. “Not yet, but we have the perimeter covered. It won't be long.”

“Commander,” Harald said, at once unsure why he had begun to speak. Then, “Are you sure about what you saw? The men say he is like Smit.”

“I am sure. Until he is found, we're on high alert. This is why it is so imperative we act quickly. Surely you understand that?”

“Of course.” Harald looked around at the men, saw how efficiently they were sweeping the grounds. If the doctor was here, they'd find him. “I hear Kaminski has made a discovery,” he ventured, changing the subject. “If so, it will help prevent these kinds of incidents, I would hope.” And this was true: the lab was positively beaming with the news. Even Thomas Frece, one of the most curmudgeonly men Harald had ever met, seemed upbeat. Of course, this was all hearsay. Harald had been meaning to talk to Kriege to find out the details. Now, that might never happen. He'd have to get the word from Kaminski himself.

“Even if it's true, it would have been nice to have an answer a little sooner, yes?” Richter said. “Kriege was one of us. I hate to lose him.”

“We haven't lost him yet.”

Richter's gaze was all that was needed to prevent the lieutenant from offering any more opinions. Before he could respond to defend himself, he heard a shout from one of the men. It came from Fähnrich Immanuel Zimmer, the ensign just beneath Harald in rank.

“Commander! We've found something!”

Richter walked to meet the man, his coat billowing behind him. The other men followed, climbing down the path a few paces at the rear.

“What is it?”

“It looks like he's been here. We found a cave, of sorts.”

“But he's not here now?”

“No, Commander. But the inside… well, you have to see this for yourself. If he's sick, then… well, I'd say he's beyond recovery.”

“What do you mean? Explain yourself.”

“There are things inside,” Zimmer said. He looked ashen. “There are bodies. Animal bodies. They're mutilated.”

“Then, perhaps Kriege is further along than we thought. I would not expect anyone who was as far gone as your Captain Smit to be worth saving. We don't know what kinds of things they're capable of. It's why we must all be careful, yes?”

The man looked at him and stuttered, but only for a moment. “Yes, Commander. Of course.”

Ahead of him, Harald watched as the pair made their way to the edge of the mountains and paused at the rocks. It was difficult to see, but as his eyes adjusted, he could make out a hole in the side of the rock face. It was more than big enough for a man.

Taking a torch from one of his men, Richter ducked inside. Behind him, Metzger and Seiler held back, undecided. No one noticed that the last member of their group, young Hans, had disappeared.

5

From the shadows, the boy watched as they wandered through the Thinking Place. He wanted to shout at them, to scream at them, to make them leave, but he couldn't. He had to hide.

“My God,” said the lieutenant. “What the hell is this place?”

They were sifting through his things with looks disgust. They didn't understand, and he couldn't make them.

Ensign Zimmer stopped in front of Hans Junior. He grabbed the seal around the midsection and tried to lift, but little Hans wouldn't budge. His insides were dry now, gluing him to the pole. After a few seconds, the man let him go, and Junior slipped back down onto the anus spike.

On the other side of the cavern, Dietrich was going over his collection of bird parts. The lieutenant pulled one off of its string and tossed it into a corner, revolted. Hans shook with rage; it had taken him hours to string up the heads and the beaks, and here this man was, tearing one down just because he could.

Next to Dietrich, however, was none other than Boris. He had never showed Boris his Thinking Place and wondered what he would do. At least he was being respectful. Not like Dietrich. Not like the others.

The Gestapo agent made his way to the wall of birds, and a look of recognition dawned on his face. He saw the orange beak and knew it for what it was. He and Hans had spent all day laying a trap for that penguin, and when it had blown, he had been the one to pick the beak out of the pile of guts. When the commander started doing inspections, Boris had given it back to Hans for safe keeping, and now, here it was.

It was almost a shame, really. The beak didn't have a name (it was just a beak, after all), and Boris seemed oblivious to the real personalities in the room. Lucas and Friedricke sat patiently while Boris ignored them. He even ignored Jesus, the black bird that Hans had found amongst the Slimy Things. Jesus was still pinned to the wall, one of Hans's prize trophies. Most of his other friends were just animals, but Jesus was… well, he was black, wasn't he?

A black Jesus, Hans thought, and had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing. As he moved, he felt the weight of the package in his coat. It was annoying to have, but too late to put it back. Dietrich looked over his shoulder, and Hans tensed and quieted. His mother had never found his Thinking Place at home, and even though his new mothers and fathers had found this one, he had no intention of being discovered along with it.

“How many do you think he's killed?” Metzger asked.

“Dozens,” the lieutenant said. “Maybe a hundred, I don't know. What do you think, Seiler?”

Boris shrugged. He was beginning to look a little green in the face.

Hans wondered what this could mean. Certainly, Boris wasn't having the best reaction. The best reaction (and one Hans often had himself), was to feel your thing get stiff in your pants, and to feel yourself want to smile. Boris didn't look like either one of those things was happening. He looked, if anything, like he didn't want to be here.

“I'd say at least a hundred,” Zimmer said, looking around. “I never would have known the old guy had it in him. He must have been busy.”

“He's not himself,” the lieutenant retorted.

“I'll say.”

“And we would be wise not to forget it.”

All four men spun as a pair of hands clapped the air. It was Commander Richter, circling back around after doing his own inspection.

“You actually believe Kriege did this?”

“What?”

“I wouldn't expect you two louts to figure it out, but you, Lieutenant. I'm disappointed in you.”

Dietrich's back was to Hans, but the boy could feel the man's unease. Hans wondered if he would hit the commander, the way he had done to Hans when he was peeing on the bunker. But no, he remembered you were only supposed to hit soldiers underneath of you. Not commanders, and especially not the Schutzstaffel.

“What?” the lieutenant asked.

The commander pointed to Lucas. “That head has been here at least a week. So have most of these specimens. Given the stains on the walls, I'd say we have a collector here who has been at it for quite some time.”

Zimmer looked around, confused. “You mean Kriege was infected a week ago?”

“No, you fool,” Dietrich snapped. “He's saying Kriege didn't do it all.” His voice had a newfound certainty in it. He was looking at Boris, and Boris's face said everything. For being good at his job and all that, his friend wasn't good at keeping secrets himself. Hans didn't blame him; he wasn't good at it either.

“All this time,” Richter said, “we had a little freelance artist. We had someone who thought he could go into restricted space, right in the danger zone of the crater, and have some fun. Now I have a pretty good idea of who that someone could be, don't you, Lieutenant?”

Could he mean Hans? The boy shivered. He did not like the commander, not one bit.

“Yes sir,” Dietrich said quietly.

“And you had no idea this was happening?”

“None.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Richter knocked the hat off of the lieutenant's head. “I was considering promoting you, of letting you grow into that hat, Lieutenant. Now, I'm thinking of busting you down to head cook. For all your talents, you're blind to the things right under your nose.”

From the shadows, Hans could feel the rage seeping off of the lieutenant. He could feel the redness and shame on his face. And though he was scared now, scared of what their words could mean, this gave him some pleasure. Not the same kind of pleasure he got from making friends, but a mean kind of pleasure.

Zimmer shifted. “What now?”

The commander took one more stroll around the room. When he got to the wall of birdies, he ripped one of the heads off and stared at it. Hans prayed for his friend — James was his name, little James — to be friendly to the commander. He should be friendly to save himself, but he wasn't. He must have looked at the commander with spite, because really, he could only be nice to Hans. Hans was the one who brought him here and friended him and fed him and pet him.

Richter tossed James to the floor. “Burn it. All of it.”

At first, Hans thought he hadn't heard right. Then he gasped, realizing what this meant. His Thinking Place, done for! All of his friends, all of his work. He had been holding out hope that eventually, the men would leave. They would go away and forget about old Hans, and then Hans could come back and sit. And think. And be with his friends again.

Burn it!

They were going to destroy it! And maybe they would destroy Hans, too. Toss him into the fire and watch him burn. Burn him and all of his friends.

He put his hands to his temples, feeling water squeeze out of his eyes. He wanted to shout, but he knew he couldn't. He simply sank to the floor and huddled. The package in his coat clunked heavily against the dirt.

“Lieutenant, you and Zimmer clean this up. Inform me when it's done,” Richter said.

Dietrich and Zimmer went about with their smashing. They tore the animals from their poles, removed the wire from the walls, and gathered the bodies in a pile. It would not be long before it was ash.

Hans couldn't watch. He pulled himself together and snuck out of the cave, slinking through the darkness so as not to be seen. He had always been so careful coming in, and here he was sneaking out for the first time.

And the last time.

That brought more water to his eyes. He didn't want it to be there, it made him feel like a sissy, but it was all he could do to keep from breaking down completely. He could deal with being hit. He could deal with being laughed at. That was all right. He'd been putting up with that since he was a little kid. But not his friends. There was no reason to take James and Lucas and Friedricke and Hans Junior and all of them away. Not when he was the one to blame.

Outside, the night air had never felt so cold. He could see the torches dancing around the perimeter of the crater like fireflies. With all of the hubbub, he wouldn't be missed. He supposed he could find new friends. He could make a new home. It would be hard if he couldn't sleep at the base any more, but maybe he could sneak back and get some of his things. He still had the bulge under his coat too, and that might come in handy. Hans didn't know how he would use it yet, but he knew it wouldn't be on any more penguin experiments.

Maybe he would get revenge. He stopped and thought about it. Yes, revenge! That sounded good.

“Revenge,” he said.

Isn't that what you were supposed to do when someone hurt your friends?

Down below, the torches went on dancing. The men would be out there for hours, still looking for old, crazy Kriege.

They would never find him.

6

With the dirty work done, Harald stepped outside of the cave to get some fresh air. He left the actual fire-building to Zimmer, and he had no desire to stare at the mutilated bodies any longer than necessary. Good God. His urge to return home, usually so distant and abstract, became a thundering, pounding need. He was disgusted, both with the men, and with himself for being so bloody ignorant. So let Zimmer deal with the blood.

Though he didn't yet know it, this was to be his saving grace.

A minute after Immanuel Zimmer doused the corpses and threw a match, the heat became so intense that it spread to the corners of the room. While the ensign was smart enough to stay out of the smoke and the heat, the remaining explosives Private Wägner kept buried in the cave, having no sentience or mind of their own, were not. The explosive ordnance, the gunpowder, and the collection of Model-24 grenades heated. And sparked. And blew.

With no warning whatsoever, the cave behind Lieutenant Harald Dietrich erupted in a ball of thunder. Harald was blown to the edge of the crater, rock shrapnel raining down behind him. The entire cave collapsed in a mass of dust and debris. Zimmer — along with Friedricke, Lucas, Hans Junior, and Jesus — was simply obliterated.

Chapter 19: Nightfall

The Island:

Present Day

1

The four figures rose from the water in the light of the dying sun. Mason knew its passage marked the birth of the winter season, but none of them would live to see it. He crawled up the beach like a spider, only regaining his full height when his boots hit solid ground. He felt taller somehow, leaner. It was as if every part of him that was not muscle and bone was being burned away.

“To me,” he said. Even his voice had changed. It was slick, serpentine.

His men slipped quietly from the water and came to stand beside him on the beach. Their skin had become splotchy, covered in those bruises that were not quite bruises. He could see the stuff had webbed through his own forearms, lacing up his skin with a varicose intensity.

Of course it had.

They had stood on the deck of The Aeschylus and inhaled the spores of the burning Carrion for the better part of an hour. Every one of them had been wounded, and so every one of them was changing. That didn't matter now, because that same damnation had saved them. It had saved them from the waters, and it had given them strength.

In some strange way, he felt he had come home. The tentacles curled about the hills above them, whispering to him in the back of his mind.

He turned to his men. There would be no speeches this time, no final words of do or die. They were here for one purpose, and it would be foremost in their minds until their minds were no more. They would need to get a lay of the land first. He thought they would start at the docks. AJ would have landed there, and they would be searching for the McCreedy woman. His old pal surely could not know she lay safely tucked behind a locked door at the base. After he took care of his old understudy, Mason thought he might have another go at her. There was no point in keeping her locked away now. They could all have fun with her, if they wanted. It was a nice thought, if it was to be their final act. Her cries would be a welcome and lustful thing.

All of this, he sensed, his men understood.

Without a word, he began walking up the shore. They would take the high ground, and they would search.

They would seek.

And they would kill.

2

When AJ stepped from the bunker, he was decked out in full black, his pants buttoned and his shirt tucked. A pair of jackboots had replaced his shit-kickers, a gun belt looped around his waist. He adjusted his cuffs and ran a hand through his damp hair, now returned to its normal fiery hue. “What do you think? Handsome?”

Kate was sitting on the ground, Indian-style. “No, creepy.”

“They had a choice of regular army or S.S. I figured I'd go all out.”

“How does it fit?”

“A little tight in the shoulders, but I'll manage.”

“I found something while you were in there.”

“Oh yeah? Just a sec.” He ducked back inside and returned with a pair of infantry rifles. He placed them on the ground, then checked the gun in his belt. Kate didn't remember the name for it, but it was one of those German war pistols you always saw in movies, the ones with the skinny barrels.

“Hurry up,” she said.

The two bodies in the supply bunker were not the only ones unaffected by the fungus. Kate had discovered a third man, this one crushed under the weight of the ceiling inside of the collapsed basement. Knowing that The Carrion hadn't wanted them after they had expired was comforting, in a way, but she was never going to get used to the sight of someone who had died in agony.

“Grisly,” AJ said when he saw it. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“No, look at this.”

The fallen supports had created a ramp, and Kate navigated down them, balancing herself with her hands. If the man in the hole had still been alive, she would have been adding to his misery. At the bottom, she jumped to the floor and walked over to a huge, metal cylinder. It spanned the height of the basement, touching what remained of the ceiling in the corner. Half a dozen tubes and ducts ran off of it, most of them broken. She pointed to a stain on the floor, a large splotch where one of the tubes had been shorn off.

“What is that?”

“You can't see it, but there are cages here. There's glass. It's weird, but I think they were using this stuff to kill it.”

“The Carrion?”

“The tentacles. I know how it sounds, but I just have a feeling.”

“If these things have been here for that long, I wouldn't be surprised. You think it's acid?”

“I don't know, but I bet he does.” She pointed to the skeleton on the ground. Its skin was yellow, preserved in the cold but sallowed by the years.

“Do you want to ask him?”

She picked a red notebook off of a nearby table.

“What is that?”

“A diary. It's in German, but—”

“But you can read it,” he finished.

“Yeah.”

“I knew that privileged upbringing of yours would come in handy.”

“Don't be an asshole. It might tell us something.”

“All right, bring it up. I want to show you something.”

When she had started exploring the basement, she thought he'd be a bit more respectful. There was a past here, a history. It meant something, and not just because The Carrion had claimed them.

She was about to go back up when she remembered one more thing. She picked it up off the ground and slung it over her shoulder, treading more carefully up the ramp. AJ grabbed her at the top and helped her over the final step.

“What is that, a coat?”

“You said you wanted to go all out.”

He held it out in front of him, looked at her uncertainly, then slipped one arm into a sleeve. She helped him with the other, getting the thing all of the way around his shoulders. Somehow, it seemed like it belonged.

“How do I look?”

“Significantly less prole-ish.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Good. Now what did you want to show me?”

He walked back over to the supply bunker and grabbed one of the rifles off of the ground. “I want to teach you to shoot one of these.”

“Those things? You can't be serious.”

He looked at her, his eyes grim. “If we have any more trouble, we may have to use them. I don't know if I'd trust Gideon with one, but I'd trust you. Will you take it?”

“Do you know how old these are? You don't even know if they'll shoot.”

“They need to be cleaned, that's for sure. But there's some solvent back there, and I found some cloth. I'll need a screwdriver to remove the trigger guard, but I know you have one of those. It can be done.”

It took some time, but eventually, she agreed. They had nothing else to do until Dutch got back. And so, they sat outside in the dirt, AJ working feverishly to get the guns in shape. She caught him stealing glances at her, but she brushed it off, smiling to herself while they worked.

It took them half an hour to finish. When they were done, AJ went back inside and grabbed a few cans of food. She couldn't imagine eating anything that had been stuck in a can for more than half a century, but when he handed one to her, her stomach rumbled audibly. “Will they make us sick?”

“Not if the seals are intact. They've probably lost their Vitamin A and C, but they'll have the same calorie content as when they were packed.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He opened one with a can opener from his key chain and took a swallow, then smacked his lips distastefully. “Mushy.”

They could only stomach two cans apiece, but it felt good to eat. Kate hadn't realized how hungry she had been.

When they were finished, he took the empty cans and set up a pyramid in the dirt. Then, he showed her everything about a Mauser Karabiner 98 that she could possibly need to know: how to reload, how to hold the butt against her shoulder, how to properly line up the iron sights. She'd shot plenty of pistols, but never a rifle.

When she stepped into place and fired for the first time, her shot went wide by a good two feet.

“Not bad,” he said.

The second shot was a little closer. The third shot was an utter failure, flying high and ricocheting off of a metal door behind the target. They both ducked, hearing the bullet whiz off somewhere into the sky. The fourth shot nicked the topmost can and sent it spiraling to the ground. AJ seemed impressed.

“Pretty good.”

“Pretty good yourself. I didn't know you had it in you to stay in one place and watch someone for more than five minutes.”

He smiled, but it was a painful smile. “I don't know when I started drifting, to tell you the truth. The obvious answer is when my wife left me, but I think it really started earlier, at least mentally.”

“You can't stay in one place.”

“I don't like to, no. Dutch and I have a good thing going in Puerto Aisén, but I don't know if it'll last.”

“You don't want to try settling down again? Starting a family?”

“I don't know. That kind of life… it always seems to happen to somebody else. I tried it once, and I wasn't very good at it.”

“You have to stop some time.”

He aimed his own rifle at the cans. “If it's just the same to you, I'd prefer not to stop today.”

“You know what I mean.”

He lowered the rifle. “I came back for you, didn't I?”

As she looked into his face, his eyes sparkled. She saw the man he could have been, then — the man untarnished by war, by divorce, by years of hard life in the third world. He could have been something else entirely. “Are you hitting on me ex-Security Chief Trenton?”

“No ma'am. I don't hit anything that doesn't hit back.” He raised the gun and fired, sending one of the remaining cans into the air. “Except for those cans, anyways.”

The next few shots were not as accurate, but he hit two more before the magazine expired.

“A little sloppy,” she observed.

“Dutch would have hit them all, but that's Dutch. Anyways, you're the one who needs some work.”

In spite of the terrible stress — maybe because of the terrible stress — she had a sudden devious impulse, and she took it. She leaned into him, putting her hand on his belt, letting her face slip close to his. When he tried to lean into her, she slipped the pistol out of his holster and stepped backwards. He chuckled.

Private lessons at the shooting range were a long ways behind her, but some things you never forget. And even if she couldn't fire a rifle to save her life, she damn well knew how to hold a handgun. She fired three rounds, hitting an overturned can with each shot.

AJ stared. “Huh.”

“We're not so different, Dutch and me. Maybe we'll have a little competition when he gets back.” It wasn't the time to mess with him, but she needed to laugh. Not to mention, Dutch might be more inclined to hurry if he heard the shots. Because the only thing in the back of her mind was how scared she still was, and how much she wanted to get the hell out of this place.

The shots did have an effect, but not on Dutch.

The figures in the hills took them to mean that the two men down at the whaling docks were quite a long ways from their friends. It was the only signal they needed to move in.

3

Dutch threw open the door to the machine shop and coughed, inhaling fumes of rust and old oil. Shafts of gray streamed in from high windows, colored by years of dust and disuse. He and Gideon had been about to give up when they'd found the place, but he had a feeling about it. As soon as he had seen the sliding garage door and the ramp leading out into the ocean, he had known there would be something inside.

When his eyes adjusted, he stopped dead in his tracks. In the middle of the warehouse, suspended perfectly on an elevated ramp, was a ship. It was no whale catcher, but a pre-war fish tugger with a glass bottom and a gasoline-powered motor. No lead acid battery either, but a full on pull-starter with a rope as thick as his thumb. His nautical history was next to nothing, but he would have guessed it was brand new for the time, and he would have been right. He was so surprised that he felt his mouth hanging open. He shut it.

“Hey Doc! Doc!” he yelled. “Get in here!”

Silence hung in the air, and he called again. When nothing happened, Dutch felt his fingers tightening around the flare gun, but then, Gideon appeared in the doorway, carrying an old gas can. It was faded and red, shaped vaguely like a kettlebell.

“What, man?”

“Come over here. Look at this.”

“It's a boat.”

“It's a boat that could get us out of here.”

“Oh,” Gideon said, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. “Well, I found some more gas. It's got to be eighty years old.”

“No shit?”

“Give me a lighter.”

Dutch tossed him one. The doc tipped the can, and a thick sludge the color of old coffee spattered onto the cement. He flicked lighter on and held it to the puddle.

“No, don't!” Dutch yelled.

But Gideon gave him a toothy grin and lowered the flame. Nothing happened. For all of its practical uses, the stuff might as well be old coffee.

“You crazy sonofabitch,” Dutch said.

“Bet I can fix it.”

“Why?”

Gideon pondered, and for a moment, he looked almost sane. “Well, there was no such thing as unleaded gas when that engine was built. I don't think it will matter, but I'm going to mix our gas with some of this stuff just to be sure. I got to filter the old shit first. Well, obviously, right?”

Dutch looked at him warily. “As long as you know what you're doing, Doc.”

“Assuming the gas works, can you fix the rest? I mean, it looks corpsed.”

Dutch was no deft hand with engines, but he knew a little, and even if he couldn't fix it, AJ could. “Is a frog's ass watertight?”

“Yes, it actually holds its sphincter closed, or it wouldn't be able to float.” Gideon didn't laugh, but he was wearing another goofy face that made him look soft in the head.

“Get the hell out of here. Find me a wrench.”

The man returned with one a few minutes later, and Dutch began taking the old engine apart. It turned out to be a lot easier than he thought. When he had been a teenager — in the long ago of Arizona, this had been — he had liked to work on old cars. He had never been very good at it, but the basics were still bumping around in his skull. He flushed the fuel lines, cleaned the spark plugs, and drained the oil.

As he worked, Gideon found a handful of unused engine filters and went about setting up a filtration process for the old sludge. After a few passes, the gas looked almost clear, and Gideon ran another flame test on a small puddle. It was slow to catch, but it burned, all right. He added some of the new gas to the kettlebell, then handed the container up.

Dutch filled the motor. “Time for the real test. I'd step away from the propeller, if I were you.”

The blade lay suspended above the ramp, the engine tilted at forty-five degrees. Gideon actually poked it, giving it a spin with one hand, then trotted off to have a piss. Dutch hoped he would have the decency to find some clothes while he was outside, but he didn't think he'd be that lucky. Dutch himself had picked up an old trench coat from the docks. He felt like a Central Park flasher with just his tighties underneath, but it was better than nothing.

He climbed up to the deck, grabbed the starter, and pulled it. The engine coughed. He pulled again, hearing the starter flub and whistle without turning over. He found the primer button and pumped it, pushing gas into the engine, then tried the pull again. Nothing. Nothing for the next six tries, either. He gave it a rest, his arm aching.

“Doc, give me a hand with this!” Where was Gideon this time?

He greased his palms and gave it one more go. The engine turned over with a belch and a roar, coughing up clouds of black smoke. The sound was immense, at least three times louder than any boat he'd been on.

“Hot damn!” he shouted. “The Dutch boy comes through again! Gideon, where you at?”

If the man said anything in reply, he didn't hear it. The noise was too goddamned loud. He figured he'd let it run for a few minutes and then cut it. Now, if they couldn't patch the other boat, they'd have a Plan B. AJ would be proud.

Dutch squinted over the top of the boat to the open door, oblivious to the figure creeping onto the platform behind him.

4

Mason crept along the deck, as silent as the dark. He paused just long enough to pull his knife out of its sheath. No guns had survived the journey through the water, but his blade had made the trip just fine.

“Gideon! Where are you?” the man called.

He could taste the sweat on the air, could feel the other man's heart beating in his chest. His own chest felt as if it were on fire, burning with the need to strike.

“Doc! You're making me nervous, Doc!” Dutch bent and grabbed something off of the floor. It looked like a flare gun, but that couldn't save him now.

“Help me!” Gideon's form came hurtling through the open doorway. His body hit the ground and rolled, coming to rest in front of the spinning rotor of the engine. A metal container clanged next to him, spilling from his hand in the tumble.

The game was up.

“Gideon!” Dutch called.

Mason slid in behind and thrust with his knife. Dutch spun at the last moment, but it was too late. Too late!

But it wasn't.

Instead of hitting the man's kidney, the blade sliced between his ribs. Dutch rolled with the cut, and Mason felt something smack into his head. He reeled. Dutch slammed his wrist and then kicked him in the thigh. One-two. The knife clattered to the ground, gliding further down the deck and out of reach.

Quick! He was quick!

With a cry, Mason lunged, tackling Dutch and driving him to the ground. He put a knee on the man's chest, then smashed him with his fists. He pounded his face, his skull, and when he covered up, Mason hit him in the ribs.

He chanced a glance over the rails and saw St. Croix stalking Gideon, grinning like a monkey. He picked the skinny man up and embraced him just beneath the boat, biting at his neck.

Then something heavy and metallic slammed into the side of Mason's head. He stumbled, looking down towards Dutch and seeing the man had picked up a wrench. A goddamned wrench!

“Gideon! Hold on!”

Dutch kicked the engine, dropping the propeller parallel to the floor. He didn't know it would work, he couldn't know that it would work… but suddenly St. Croix was howling, his skull shredding and crunching in the tilt-a-whirl of the blade.

Mason roared. “No!”

His two other men emerged from the shadows and ran at the doctor. Gideon was still holding Peter in a weird embrace, shrieking vengeance as the blade chopped through his head.

Vy grabbed Gideon and slammed him onto the ground, ignoring St. Croix's body and the spinning blade behind it. Melvin jumped after, and then the two of them were digging into the doctor with their fingernails, hacking at him with their teeth. Gideon screamed as his body shook, blood pooling beneath him.

Mason jumped towards Dutch, driving his knee into the man's groin. The man dropped to the deck, and Mason kicked the wrench away. Before Dutch could escape, Mason grabbed him and hauled him over his head like a power-lifter. A fresh gout of blood drained from his bullet wound, but he felt alive! Alive!

He tossed the puny man over the rails, and Dutch hit the concrete with a thud. Mason wondered how long this guy—this fucking tough guy—would survive when he fed him feet first to that propeller.

Beneath him, Gideon had managed to crawl to the object he had been carrying.

“Finish him,” Mason yelled. “Finish him now!”

Gideon unscrewed the cap on the gas can. Even with the weight of two men on top of him, he was able to tip it over. The liquid splashed out onto his thighs, onto his stomach, onto the two men who were hacking and biting him. The man was crying, laughing, howling as he did it. In another life, it would have been a sight to fuel Mason's nightmares, even with all he had seen.

The sound of a metal click snapped his attention back to the other man. On the ground, Dutch had uncurled.

He was holding the flare gun.

5

“Do it!” Gideon yelled. “Do it!” He was laughing as he yelled it, laughing as they tore him apart.

Dutch didn't know which gas Gideon had been carrying: the good stuff, or the inert sludge. If it was the latter, he was dead.

It wasn't.

A red ball shot from the tube and hit Gideon in the leg, the flame catching before it even made contact. A ball of orange fire engulfed the entourage, spreading up and over the ground.

Mason leapt from the deck of the ship and grabbed Melvin, pushing him out of the way as the fireball exploded. Christian was not as lucky. He was at the nexus when it hit, the fireball washing over him in a giant puff. He stood as a flaming pillar, then lumbered towards the exit, his arms thrashing like a B-movie caricature.

On the floor next to him, Gideon's body burned without a sound, and Dutch knew he was dead.

Poor Gideon.

He found his feet and ran, following Christian's howling figure out the door. The burning man made it to the beach and fell into the water, dousing himself with a terrible hiss. Later, Dutch would ask himself why he hadn't finished Christian right there and then as the man lay helpless, but that was no mystery. Henry Jones, elite sniper and security guard, was scared. He was scared out of his mind, and he was hurt. Blood still flowed from between his ribs, the spot where the knife had cut him. He needed to find help, and fast.

Behind him, Mason was stripping off his clothes, peeling burnt cloth and skin from his back in layers. When he tried to run after, he stumbled, his wounded leg finally giving out beneath him. He howled with rage, staring at the fleeing man with hatred in his eyes.

Dutch didn't look back. He ran on, his mind reeling with terror and confusion.

How? How, how had they survived?

But he knew the answer. They were them now, their skin blackened and their minds twisted. Now, they would stop at nothing.

As he made his way along the beach, jogging up the coast towards the fortress, he looked up to the sky and saw the sun had finally fallen below the horizon.

Chapter 20: Fire Telephone to God

The Island:

February, 1939

1

At the door to the lab, Dominik watched his own sun slip below the water. The lights around the base began to flicker, casting an ugly yellow glow across the grounds. Even with all that had happened, even with Kriege missing and Zimmer dead, the commander's schedule was flawless.

And that meant he would be coming.

Richter had been so pleased with their progress that he wanted to see the solution for himself. So he would, but not in the way he expected. Dominik had managed to delay him until this evening, and that was all the better. The night of the first sunset happened to coincide with the day before Lent, and the men had taken this as an excuse to throw a party. In a few hours, every watchman on the island would be stone drunk inside the officer's bunker, and the commander would be in the lab. It was almost too good to be true.

The other prisoners were waiting for him in the basement when he arrived.

“We're here,” Ari said.

Ettore wiped his brow. “It's just you. Good.”

Dominik didn't think he'd ever seen the man so nervous. It had been a risk bringing him into the fold, but he and Ari decided it had been a necessary risk. Counting Lucja, they were now four. Four souls resolved to violence and escape. The only man not aware was Thomas Frece. Frece was as scared as the rest of them, but he was a coward, and cowards were unpredictable. When the time came, however, he would stand with them… or he wouldn't. Dominik saw him studying charts in the corner and hoped it would be the former.

Ettore sidled over and held up a small vial. “The chloroform you wanted.”

Dominik nodded.

They'd had to manufacture it themselves by sneaking in acetone, ethanol, and bleach, but it was used by surgeons the world over, and the risk was worth the gain.

“You ready?”

Ettore nodded. “I'm sure it will work. I've never seen this used on a person before, only on pigs and dogs.”

“You are using it on a pig,” Ari said.

Dominik took the jar and unscrewed the lid. “We can do this. Never doubt it.”

“It will be different than on the boat. Richter is a killer. You know that, don't you, Dom?”

“I do. And in some ways, it makes things easier. It takes choice out of the equation. We have to do it for real this time, Ari. For me, and for you, and for Lucja.”

Lucja was another matter, and Dominik said a silent prayer to keep her safe. She would be on her way to the vehicle depot soon, ready to sabotage any chance of vehicle pursuit. He had wanted to send Ari with her, but there wasn't any way for the man to get close without arousing suspicion. She had to go it alone.

The day before, they had decided Ettore would be the one to wield the cloth. Richter always kept a close eye on Dominik and Ari, but he seemed to ignore their stoic companion. After some argument, Ettore had agreed, at last giving in to cold logic, as Dominik knew he would. Cold or not though, the man was sweating now.

There were so many things that could go wrong. The search party hadn't found Doctor Kriege. They had no idea where he was or how dangerous he had become. The search had wreaked havoc on the base patrols, all of which were now unpredictable. And as for the commander… what if he showed up with other soldiers?

Nonsense, Dominik thought. Richter was too proud for bodyguards.

The door above the stairs swung open, and all four men froze, listening. Dominik counted the footsteps, trying to ascertain who was coming. Then, he knew: there was only one pair of boots. As he turned towards the doorway, he saw the commander pacing towards them, and his heart gave a jolt. Luck, he thought. Luck is with us!

Richter entered the laboratory with the air of one bestowing a great favor upon an unworthy underling. “So,” he began, looking directly at Dominik. “Tell me about your results, Mister Kaminski. Tell me what it is that you have discovered.”

A drop of sweat fell off of Dominik's eyebrow and plunked onto his lip. It almost made him blabber, but he forced himself to speak calmly. “As you've heard, Commander, the key is formaldehyde. At room temperature, pure formaldehyde is a gas, but when distilled into a liquid form or a mist, it becomes extremely effective at containing the growths.”

“Go on.”

“We've known that the growths borrow characteristics from multiple phyla, but at their core, they're a fungus like any other. Their individual traits are traceable to any number of other species. And formaldehyde, well it's been proven to be an especially effective fungicide, especially against black mold. Our friends share quite a few characteristics with black mold, as you know. The chemical causes the cells to disintegrate, but not in a way that's going to implode the whole structure or cause them to release their spores. The spore sacs themselves wither and die when hit. I think what we have here… it's exactly the tool you've been searching for.”

Richter began inspecting the vats for himself. “You are confident this is the solution? That we need not pursue other avenues of control?”

“No sir,” Dominik said. “Fire to destroy, formaldehyde to contain. I think you have your answer.”

Though he should have been pleased, the commander only grunted, still looking at the vats. Dominik glanced over his shoulder at Ettore, who had begun to slip closer. The man looked patently guilty, but the commander wasn't paying attention.

“And the method of dispersal?”

Dominik gritted his teeth. Revealing this bit of information would reveal a bit about their plan, but then, he thought Richter would soon not be in a position to disseminate the information to anyone. “It can be released as a gas, either as a bomb or with something like a crop-dusting plane. The effects on people in the containment area will not be pleasant, but it will leave buildings and infrastructure intact.”

He chanced another glance at Ettore and saw the man's hands clasped in front of him. Dominik wondered if he was up to the task after all. Worse, he wondered how much Frece suspected. The man was starting to look unnerved himself. Fortunately, he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut while Richter was talking.

The commander tapped on one of the metal cylinders. “If you are so confident now, then why, may I ask, did you not come upon this solution quicker?”

“The effects of formaldehyde are not well known. It's toxic, and not an ordinary way to deal with fungus. On top of that, as you know, the lieutenant's policies made it impossible for us to import dangerous chemicals. We talked about trying a series of aldehyde chains at one point, but when we couldn't gain access to them, we gave up.” Actually, it had been Smit's rule about allowing prisoners access to dangerous chemicals and the lieutenant had only upheld it, but condemning Dietrich sounded better.

The commander's eyes darted momentarily to Ettore, then flicked back to Dominik. “So if you were not given access to these chemicals, how did you come upon the solution?”

Dominik's mind flashed back on the night when he had come upon Zofia in the lab. The tentacles had grown to every corner of the room, twisting and bending around her. They had stopped at Zofia, curling up from her body as if repelled. Strangely, Dominik had known, somehow known, it was because of what was inside her. The primary chemical in embalming fluid was formaldehyde, and the things in the room were avoiding it like a cellar mushroom avoids sunlight. Once he had deduced this, it hadn't taken him long to isolate the chemical and test it. Before any soldiers could find what had happened, he and Ari had returned with masks and eradicated the tendrils growing through the room. They had cleaned the broken glass and disposed of the evidence, burning it all in the laboratory's incinerator.

With a terrible smile, Dominik forced himself to speak. “Well, I'd say that was thanks to you, Commander. It was my daughter who showed us the way. Now, we wanted you to see it for yourself.”

It was the signal Ettore had been waiting for, and he rushed forward with the cloth in hand.

Like a snake, Richter's hand shot out and grabbed the man by the wrist. “What?” he barked. “What are you doing?”

Dominik stared, dumbfounded as Ettore grappled with the commander. Then, he shook his head and rushed, throwing his arms around Richter to try and restrain him. It was like grabbing a tree trunk. Richter's body was thick, his arms as powerful as a machine.

The commander shrugged Dominik off and pushed Ettore downwards, bending his hand back towards his own face. Ettore struggled, but he was no match; the cloth clamped over his nose, and within seconds, he went limp.

Ari was still standing a few paces away, flabbergasted.

“Ari! Do something!”

When Dominik rushed again, Richter shoved him into his friend, and their heads collided with a crack. The older man's glasses fell to the floor, and Ari dropped to one knee, his hands clutching his mouth.

Richter's face darkened in triumph. “Now,” he said, reaching for Dominik, “now that we have the answer, we don't need you any more. We're going to have fun with you lot. Oh yes, we're going to—”

Something swooshed through the air. An earthquake rocked Richter's body, and then the commander slumped towards him, as limp as a corpse. Dominik stumbled sideways, struggling to see what happened.

Thomas Frece was standing behind him, a metal chair in his hands. In all of the confusion, Dominik had lost track of him.

“I told you,” he said, out of breath. “I told you I was still useful.”

2

Harald was swimming over the chasm.

The man with red hair was there again, standing at the brink. He was waiting for him where the rocks began, the S.S. uniform blowing in the wind. Harald was close now, far closer than he had ever been, and he reached out. He didn't have fingernails, but claws. It was like this every time, but every time it shocked him, as if this body distortion was too terrible to remember. It slowed him, and he watched helplessly as the man raised the gun.

The woman's voice called out again, only this time, he could hear the words. “They're coming!” she screamed. “What do I do?”

And suddenly…

Suddenly.

The lieutenant woke in his own bed, sweating. The dream was getting longer. It was the seventh or eighth time he'd had it, and every time, it continued further. It was approaching an end, but what end, he didn't know. Sometimes, the man was ready to shoot him, and sometimes, Harald thought he could reach him first.

He looked at his watch and saw that it was after seventeen hundred hours. He'd gotten exactly four hours of sleep after being awake all of the previous day, continuing the search for Kriege. Richter would be with Kaminski and the others by now, having a look at the man's miracle solution. Harald got dressed and left the barracks, mumbling to himself as he went. Even from a distance, he could hear the party in full swing at the office bunker. He told himself he should join the men, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Zofia's death weighed on his mind. Lucja wouldn't want anything to do with him now, thanks to Richter. In spite of everything, he found he still wanted to talk to her. He needed to explain himself to her, to tell her that none of this was his doing. It was the only way to make things right.

His feet began to move, and before he knew it, he was standing in front of the prisoners' bunker. Someone had left the door unlatched, giving its occupants free reign. He supposed that was all right given that Kaminski was in the lab, but it was a little unusual. As he reached for the handle, the door swung open, and Lucja herself nearly barreled into him.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she said. “You scared me!”

I scared you? My goodness! The door almost knocked me out!

The words were almost out of his mouth when he surprised himself by saying, “Where are you going?”

She smiled, but it didn't look like she had an answer.

“I asked you a question, girl. Where are you going?” Why was his tone so gruff? Was he trying to make her hate him?

“I was just going for a walk.” She pointed vaguely. “I'm tired of staying in there by myself.”

“It's not the night to be going for a walk, Lucja. Surely you know that.”

“I wasn't going far. And I like to walk when my father is away.”

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. She was alone in the room and wanted some fresh air. What could be more natural than that, especially given what she had been through? When he searched her face, however, he could swear he saw something guilty in it.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

“It's all right, Lieutenant.”

“Harald.”

“Harald,” she said, assenting to the use of his first name for the twentieth time. She blushed in that way of hers that made her look younger. But looking at her here, without her sister next to her, she could have been Mieke's age.

“I was hoping I could talk to you.”

She paused. “Maybe we could talk later. I'm not really feeling up to it right now.”

“I'll probably be needed later. And I don't want this to wait. I… I've missed our talks. I have something I'd like to say.”

“Are you commanding me?”

“That's an odd question. No, I'm not commanding you. I just want to talk for a moment. As… as acquaintances, I suppose.” He could not quite bring himself to use the word friend. Surely, she was not that. Still, he wasn't commanding her, he was quite sure. “Well?”

“I don't like being in there,” she said quietly. “Zofia was in there. I still feel her.”

Debating how to respond, he thought he could only be honest. He could only tell her what he'd been waiting to tell her. “I want to tell you how sorry I am. This was never my intention. I'd never met Richter before coming here, but I'd heard of him back on the mainland. He has a reputation for being uncompromising. From the first moment, I was afraid something might happen. But make no mistake: what happened on the ice was on him and him alone.”

She scoffed. It was an oddly petulant gesture, one that put him out of sorts.

“Surely, you don't blame me.”

“No,” she said, but her eyes told a different story. Her eyes said she blamed him full and proper. It may have been his orders, but you helped, Harald. You helped.

It hurt him to see that look, especially given how far he'd gone out of his way to help her in the past. In spite of his need, he thought about just leaving her. As much as he wanted to talk to someone—anyone—he didn't think he would be able to do much good.

When neither one spoke, the girl made to move past him, to go on with her walk. But then, he blurted, “In a way, maybe it was my fault. It was my job to motivate your father, you know. He had it in him, as he's proven, but he wasn't… he wasn't fast enough for the commander. Maybe I just needed to be more strict with him. Men like your father, they need discipline, Lucja, and men like Richter don't like excuses. So maybe it is my fault.”

You're goddamned right it's your fault, her eyes seemed to scream. You're goddamned right!

As she brushed past him, their shoulders collided, and a water canteen fell out of her coat. It was an odd thing to be carrying on a short walk. Harald didn't remember ever giving Kaminski one to begin with. When she reached to grab it, his hand was already there. The lieutenant stood back to his full height and looked down at her curiously. The canteen felt full in his hand.

The oddly guilty look crept back onto her face. “Are you trying to escape?” he asked. He could hear the menace in his own voice.

“Of course not.” Pausing for an instant, she said, “I would never leave my father.”

Harald brought the the flask to his face and unscrewed the cap. He was thirsty, and she had no business with it. But just as he raised it to drink, Lucja's hand shot out and grabbed it, her face white with panic. The liquid splashed out and grazed his face, stinging like turpentine.

Kaminski! What in God's name is this?

She was caught. She was caught, and she knew it.

Lucja turned and ran towards the gate, kicking up dust as she went.

Harald ran after.

3

When Richter woke up, he couldn't move. His hands were bound behind his back, his ass planted in one of the laboratory chairs. They had roped him in a sitting position, the cord wrapping around his waist and arms. He blinked, seeing the outline of the same room and the same silhouettes standing within it. He was dazed, but not out, not any more.

“He's awake!”

He turned his head and saw Ari Quintus pointing his own service pistol at him. Or rather, in his general direction; the man didn't look like he'd ever held a gun before, and the barrel was pointed more towards the floor than at its target. It would be a mistake to underestimate him though. Together, the four prisoners had gotten the drop on him, and that wouldn't happen again.

“I don't know what you hope to accomplish, but I'd appreciate if you could get on with it. As soon as you're done, I can go about the business of making sure you all die a horrible death.”

“Shut up!” Quintus said. “You be quiet!”

A scraping noise came from Richter's right, and he realized the architect of this little scheme had yet to present himself. Though the man's back was to him, he could tell by the way he was inspecting the equipment that he was still in charge. It looked like he had rigged half a dozen flumes out of the vats, each connecting with the ceiling.

“We don't have enough,” Kaminski said. “This one doesn't reach.”

“Then plug it,” Frece said. He was pacing through the room, clearly on edge. “For God's sake, make sure it doesn't leak.”

The vats housed formaldehyde, and without Kriege here to monitor the day-to-day operations, the quartet had been producing as much as they could. As Kaminski went about making the repair, Richter realized with no little fascination what they were planning: they were going to pump it into the base. Kaminski had told him in plain language that the gas could be dangerous to humans as well as the fungus, and now, he had rigged the flumes through holes in the ceiling, ready to deliver the poison. Above, Richter could hear the muffled singing and thudding of the party, and he instantly understood their target. The sheer ruthlessness of it gave him a delightful shiver.

“Did you know I was in Ypres when they first used gas against the French and Algerians? The gas was chlorine in those days. Nothing sophisticated, but it was deadly enough. We waited until we had the wind on our side, and then we bombarded the enemy encampment with chlorine shells. The French, in their eagerness, thought it was just a diversion. They ordered their men out of the trench and up to the fire line, directly in the path of the green cloud. When it hit them, the confusion and terror it wrought opened a gap in their lines as far as the eye could see. Of course, our commanders were so surprised by the effectiveness of the attack they didn't lead us forward. Our enemy was able to reform and recover. It was a pity, really. I hope you all don't make the same mistake.”

“Shut up,” Quintus said.

“I can tell you: it sure was something to see so many men die at the hands of our invention. Have you ever seen a man die of gas poisoning?”

It was Frece's turn to yell obscenities, but Richter paid him no mind. The Swede looked positively green himself.

“It's awful,” Richter continued. “Mustard gas is the worst. Men will bleed and burn, but the real horror is watching their eyes. The men will eventually asphyxiate, but what it does to the eyes is just unforgettable. Chlorine is quicker but still no way I'd want to die. I have no idea what your clever formaldehyde does, but,” he paused. “But I think I should like to see it.”

“Be quiet, or you'll be the first,” Frece said.

Richter laughed. “I think if you were going to do that, you'd have done it already.”

“Maybe we should just kill him,” the olive-skinned man said.

Richter stopped laughing. This one was as calm as he could be.

“Ettore's right, he's dangerous,” Quintus said. The Walther PPK continued to point every which way in his hands. “I told him to shut up, and he won't.”

Ettore, that's right. It was so hard to keep them straight.

Kaminski paused to wiped his hands and walked over to stand next to the commander. His gaze wasn't the usual flighty thing Richter had seen before: it was impetuous. It was far too impetuous for his liking. “We're not killing anyone if we don't have to. Not even a sadistic madman like the commander, here. If we do that, we're no better than he is. If that's a cliché, I don't care. It's true.”

The Swede scoffed. “Yeah, right. And those above?”

“If they're smart, they'll run out of the building before they choke to death. They'll be damaged but not dead.”

Richter heard the lie in the man's voice and smiled to himself. The question was, was Kaminski only lying to his friends, or was he lying to himself?

“And if it doesn't work? Or they have masks?” Frece demanded.

Ettore walked over and put a hand on the man's shoulder. “We've been through all this. It will work.”

“Because it has to,” Kaminski said.

“Aye, because it has to,” Ettore confirmed.

Frece nodded, pacified if only for the moment.

It was then the commander saw the four of them shared a connection. They were convinced they were going to get away with this. They were actually convinced.

“Where do you think she is, Dom?” Quintus asked.

Kaminski shook his head.

When Richter figured out who he meant, he snarled. He didn't know how, but he would kill all of them. Even the girl.

4

The gate was open, and she ran through it.

“Stop!” Harald yelled. “I demand you stop!”

Ahead of her, she saw a single headlight cutting its way through the darkness. Someone had taken the base's motorcycle out on patrol, and it was headed towards the both of them. Behind her, Harald was closing in. The two would squeeze her along the path until they met, and she would be caught.

Stopping, she looked at what lay around her. She had never been so close to the crater before, had never felt its breath rising on the wind as she did now. A new scent hit her nostrils, something charred and burnt. She had heard about the explosion in the nearby cave, and she saw a number of loose rocks that had been blasted away from the hillside. The cave itself was filled with rubble, but the rubble had created a few new ruts and crevices. She contemplated only for a moment, then crawled under one. It wouldn't be a perfect hiding spot in broad daylight, but it wasn't bad in the dark. As she lowered her head to the ground, Harald passed just beyond her spot, then stopped.

“No one has to know,” he called. “I understand, Lucja. You may not think I do, but I do. This place is enough to drive anyone away. But this isn't helping anyone. Your father isn't helping anyone either if he's trying to escape again. I told you the commander doesn't like excuses, Lucja, and I meant it. If he catches you or your papa, you know what he'll do. If you come to me now, we can talk this through. We might even be able to forget it happened. Just tell me where you are and what your father is planning. If you hurry, we can still save him.” He waited, his hands on his hips. “Goddammit girl, where are you? You think this is easy for me, putting my reputation on the line? Given all I've done, you'd think you would owe me a little gratitude. But no! No, you're going to do what you're going to do. Is that right?” He was furious now, spitting the words at her. How quickly he could change when he didn't get his way. “I know you're here. Get out here! I order you to get out here! I order you!”

In the dark, Lucja waited, still holding her breath. He was close, so close.

After a moment, his footsteps trailed off. She could hear him heading around the edge of the crater, calling her name every now and again. The motorcycle drew nearer, and somewhere above, she could hear the engine shut off. It meant there were now two soldiers in the area instead of one. Whomever had been out on patrol had probably heard Harald's shouts.

The vehicle depot lay well behind her, and she had to find a way back. Ari and her father were counting on her, and if she wasn't there, she didn't know what they would do.

After a time, she resolved to have a peek over the rocks. She hadn't heard anything for a good long while, so she stuck her head up. The silence was so complete that she was almost confident.

In that moment, Harald reached down and dragged her out by the hair. “I've got you,” he said.

5

Moses had spoken to God through a burning bush. And so fire, in a way, was like God. It had the power to give life or take it. It had the power to warm you or steal the skin off of your back. Hans wondered if the god of fire would save him now, or if it would kill him. The room was small. And the fire would be big.

Or maybe the fire Moses saw wasn't really like God. Maybe it was more like a telephone, and God was on the other end of it. It was a question he had never asked his mother.

The Republic's three half-tracks sat in the hangar, lined up like ducks along the wall. Hans knew the exact specs for each. “Production year 1938,” he whispered. “Six cylinders. A hundred horsepower. Weight, seven thousand kilograms. Fuel tank, one hundred ten liters. Maybe full,” he said, lying on his back underneath of one of the vehicles and tapping the metal box over his head. Then, hearing the result, “Maybe not.”

They said he was dumb, but he wasn't. He knew things. He knew the exact specs on all the Kdfz models, their engine and towing capabilities. He knew the exact location of their fuel tanks. He knew the army only had these half-tracks and one motorcycle — conspicuously absent from the garage tonight — and that they were being kept in storage while the hunt for Kriege was still on. He knew the guard who was usually here in the evening, a man named Jonas, was excused for the celebration. He knew he was here alone.

Hans had always been good with his hands. He was good at making tools and fixing things. He wasn't school smart, though (“Oh my boy, er tickt nicht richtig,” his mother used to say whenever he showed her his marks. Hans had no idea what she meant, but he supposed it meant he wasn't school smart, which he wasn't.). So the army had put him in with the grunts.

Sliding out from underneath of the truck, Hans got up and brushed himself off. The fire would be big, but he wasn't scared. He had brought Milo along.

Milo had once been a dog that belonged to one of the whalers on the shore. The man probably didn't like Milo, because he locked him out of his cabin while he slept. Milo had spent his nights wandering up the cliffs in search of food. He had such pretty white and gray fur, like a sled dog. But Hans didn't want Milo to pull a sled. He treated all of his friends like equals.

The doggy was slow to come around, but when he got his leg stuck in a seal trap, Hans knew what to do. Milo didn't need his rear leg. In fact, he was too heavy, period. So once Hans had tied a rope around his snout (for Milo's own safety, really), the boy had sawed him in half at the waist. It made a terrible mess, but it made Milo a lot lighter and a lot friendlier to take around.

Since he was Hans's newest and best friend, the boy decided to take him along to the garage. It was dangerous, but so was leaving Milo alone in the cliffs. That's what his old owner had done, and Hans didn't want to be like him. They'd be friends, and he would just tell Milo to be quiet so no one would hear them. Of course, Milo didn't complain.

The doggie was sitting on the concrete lip behind the half-tracks with his tongue hanging out. Hans went over and pet him on the head. Milo fell over, something rotten spilling out of his torso. But Hans brushed the piece away and set him upright. He was a good doggie, he was.

He missed Boris, his person friend, but Milo would do for now. They would pee together outside, like he and Boris used to do. Or maybe he would pee and Milo would watch since the dog didn't have a lower half any more. Hans grabbed the lump of a package he had placed on the ground next to his friend. As he did, he saw Milo was staring. “Don't look at me like that,” he said. “It makes me feel funny. I don't like feeling funny.” He did have a plan, kind of. Once the base was gone, they would head to the other end of the island. When the time was right, he could ride one of those big fishy ships back home. Maybe he could sneak on. Or maybe he would find a new person friend like Boris who would let him on. And he could be a real sailor and join the navy. Maybe one day, he would forget about the army and get a place of his own.

And a new Thinking Place. Yes, that would be fine.

It wasn't his only dream, either. He dreamed of replacing all of his friends from the cave. He dreamed of playing on the commander with a knife and one of his saw tools. Yes, he would play on him really good and bloody. And maybe pee on him.

With his thing.

But first, he had to be like Moses.

Hans climbed into the back of one of the half-tracks and searched under the seats. He found the hidden storage compartment, the one right above the engine. He still had the lump under his coat, and he pulled it out, careful not to detonate it too soon.

6

One of the towers appeared deserted, the other held a single guard. Dominik could see little else, save for a few souls scattered near the office bunker where the party was being held. Using the dark to his advantage, he ducked inside the prisoners' bunker and searched it quickly. “Lucja?” he called. “Are you here?”

The rooms were exactly as he had left them, and there was no sign of her. Zofia's bear stared at him from the middle of the bed, its button eyes hollow and dark.

“Ettore,” he whispered. The two of them had split up, Dominik going to the prisoners' bunker, Ettore heading to the vehicle depot. The man could have intercepted her by now. Dominik ran out the door, throwing caution to the wind. Zofia was gone, and he could not lose Lucja too. It had been foolish to let her go alone.

He passed in front of the office bunker and then threw himself into shadow as two German soldiers stumbled outside. From the open door, he could hear music playing, could smell sweet tobacco wafting from within.

“A good night for a walk,” one of the men said, lighting a cigarette.

“Bah, tell it to your girl,” said the other, lighting his own. “I'm not holding your hand.”

“How about I tell it to your girl?”

“Go ahead. She'll hold more than your hand, that one.”

They both laughed crazy, drunken laughter.

“I'm going to check on Linus,” the first one said. He started walking in the direction of the occupied tower.

The other one waved him off, leaning against the bunker and smoking. Dominik waited, cursing every lost second. A minute later, the wandering soldier came back.

“What did he say?” the other man asked.

“He said the lieutenant was shouting about something. Running around like a fool. Suppose he won't be joining us.”

“And Linus isn't coming either?”

“Nah. He's got orders.”

They opened the door, and the pair of them began stumbling back inside.

“Guess we'll have to drink enough for him too, then.”

They laughed, and the door shut. Dominik was alone once more.

Running across the camp, he managed to reach the depot without being seen. At least, he didn't think he was seen, either by the man in the watch tower, or any stragglers on the grounds. Strangely, he saw that the door to the place was ajar when he arrived, the light from the inside spilling out. If his daughter was here, why had she left it open?

Then he saw a figure outside the door, hiding at the corner. The figure turned and looked right at him. Dominik froze, a rabbit caught in the sights of a hunter. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw it was only Ettore. Of course it was Ettore. What soldier would hide in the shadows of his own base? The man motioned him over.

As Dominik approached, he was about to ask him what he had seen, but Ettore put a finger to his lips, silencing him. He pointed to the open door. Adjusting his position, Dominik saw there were two figures inside.

But neither one was his daughter.

7

Several minutes earlier, Boris Seiler wandered from the party to take a piss. He got ten steps outside and realized he wasn't going to make it to the bathroom. The bottle he had in his hand dropped to the ground, and he spun towards the bunker wall. His flow had already begun when he realized he should be on the lookout for the lieutenant. The cocksucker was wound tighter than a clock spring, and Seiler had no intention of getting his head smashed. Maybe the lieutenant just didn't take to the assignment. The key to taking any assignment you didn't like, Seiler knew, was finding ways to cope. He and Hans had found ways to cope, even if the kid was soft in the head. Boris wasn't overly bothered though; the lieutenant was off somewhere, probably talking to that Kaminski girl. The man had certainly spent enough time with her, as clever as he thought he was. Ha! And they thought Hans was sick.

Seiler wondered where the boy was now. He'd run off, and he hadn't been seen since. Seiler understood why, of course, but for God's sake, they were just animals. Zimmer's death was another story, but even that was an accident.

His stream dissipated and Seiler buckled his pants, eager to get back to the party. But suddenly, he heard shouts, and even through the liquor haze, they gave him pause: “Stop! I demand you stop!”

It was the lieutenant's voice, and it was coming from somewhere close.

Seiler drew his pistol. Two pairs of footsteps sounded off and then faded. He stumbled after them, his gun poised. He found that once he was in the open, however, he couldn't see much of anything. Whomever had been there was gone. Then, he noticed an unusual light coming from beneath the door at the vehicle depot. He had seen Jonas at the party earlier, and he knew the depot was supposed to be locked and sealed. Something was amiss.

The door offered no resistance as he thrust it open, ready to confront the lieutenant in a tryst with the Kaminski girl. Instead, he found the last person he expected to see.

“Hello Boris,” Hans said.

“What?”

The Gestapo agent couldn't believe it. Moments before, he had been thinking of the boy, and here he was, standing before him with what looked like a wired remote control in his hand. Seiler's gaze moved to the line of trucks against the wall, the tools scattered on the ground, the dog Hans had cut in half. When his gaze returned to the remote, the pieces began to fall together. It all made sense now. The trap they had set for the penguin, the explosion at the crater, the dead ensign who had been buried under the rubble in the cave… the boy had been stealing explosives. Here in the vehicle depot, he had set one mother lode of a goddamned bomb.

“What are you doing?”

“It's time for us to get out of here,” Hans said.

“No… no, you cannot do this!” He lunged forward, but he was too slow. The damned drink!

“You and me, Boris! We'll get out of here! We'll get on a boat! We'll be ship captains!”

“Give me that, boy!”

“No!” Hans shouted.

The boy tried to pull the box away, but Seiler was dragging him to the ground, his weight bearing down on top of him.

“I'll push it! I will!”

With dismay, Seiler saw the kid was crying. He was actually crying.

“I want to be like Moses,” Hans said. “You and me, Boris. You, and me, and Milo.” His thumb clicked over the large green button at the top of the device.

The last thing Seiler saw was the image of two prisoners standing outside the depot door, looking stunned. Then, the fire took him.

Chapter 21: The Colony

The Island:

Present Day

1

“They came with the dark,” Kate said. She set Dominik's diary on the ground beside her and looked at the darkening sky. It was almost too black to see now. The moon lay at the edge of the horizon, giant and red. It cast no light upon the fortress.

“Just a minute.” AJ had fashioned a dozen torches out of wood and old rags, and he was in the process of placing them around the camp. When he finished, he set them ablaze, one by one. “We should be able to see now, at least. What were you saying?”

“I said they came with the dark. When the sun set, that's when… that's when it happened.”

“When this place was destroyed.”

“Yes. When they came and took this place for their own.”

AJ cast a glance to the gate and beyond, looking at the fleshy shapes overhanging the hills. He studied them a long moment. “What else did it say?”

“They were prisoners here, that man and his family. The Carrion were smaller then, but they were studying it.” She paused and then clarified: “They were studying how to kill it.”

“And that stuff down in the tank, it does that?”

She nodded. “Better than acid.”

“Better than acid,” he whispered, looking back in the direction of The Aeschylus. “They've been here a long time. The Carrion, I mean. They've been here a long time.”

“Oh yes.”

“What do you think they are? I mean really. You read the book, Kate, what do you think? What did they think?”

At first, she was taken aback; she hadn't had a moment's breath to think about their situation. But when she stopped, she realized that wasn't quite true. She had been thinking about it, if only in the back of her mind.

“I think they're colonizing us.”

“Who? The Carrion?”

“No. Whoever sent them. Whoever put them here. You know about global warming, right?”

“Sure. The average temperature around the globe is heating up. Too many people, too much pollution.”

“No,” she said. “That might be the general belief, but it's not true. Global temperatures have changed only a fraction of a degree. Some parts of the globe have even gotten cooler within the last hundred years. But some areas have gotten warmer, a lot warmer. That's how both sides manipulate the data. It's because the data changes depending on what region you're talking about. The thing is, it's getting warmer in the places that matter. Places like the polar ice caps. Places like the south pole. The ice shelves are melting.”

A smile played across his lips. “The place you're going is a little far-fetched.”

“No!” She found her voice was emphatic and couldn't quite control it. “You heard Gideon. The sole purpose of those things is to generate heat. They're not trying to change things all over the earth, because they don't have to! They're changing things in the only places that matter. When the ice caps are gone, and the ice shelves melt—”

“Parts of the earth will flood,” he said. His voice was lower now, contemplative.

“Yes! And without the glaciers, the climate will change. It will change on a global scale, and not by a fraction of a degree, either. We're talking floods. Storms. Humidity and pressure changes. All of it! It all starts by affecting a few small areas, areas where no humans are supposed to be.” Her mind harkened back to all those months she had spent at Valley Oil, analyzing data for her job. Every time there was an outcry for green energy, for cutting reliance on gas-powered engines, every time the liberals protested drilling in a natural habitat, it was her job — and the job of her superiors — to sway the public. She knew the facts and figures of global temperature change all too well. The clean-energy representatives could never prove traditional fuel sources were to blame for isolated climate changes in other parts of the world. All the while, Kate had questioned whether or not she would live to regret her chosen profession, if maybe, just maybe, she had been wrong to write the things she did. Sitting here now, for the first time, she was afraid she might have been right. Because if there really was some other force, some other worldly thing responsible for warming the oceans at the ends of the earth, the worst was yet to come.

The whole purpose of creating a colony was to occupy it.

“Kate? You look like you spaced out, there.”

“Sorry. I just… I'm thinking, that's all.”

He did something she didn't expect, then: he pulled her close and hugged her. At first, she didn't know how to react, and then she threw her arms around him. How long had it been since she had really held someone? She couldn't remember.

They stood for a long moment, gripping each other in the primeval glow of the torches. When they broke apart, it was AJ who spoke.

“Dark or no, we don't have much time. If you're good here, I'm going to take a look at the boat and see if I can patch those holes. I'd just assume be ready to go when Dutch gets back.”

“Did you find something to patch them with?”

“Yeah. There are all kinds of goodies around here.”

“The Carrion don't take loot.”

He chuckled humorlessly. “No. No, they don't.”

With a rifle in hand, he was about to turn towards the hole in the fence. Then Kate spun with a sharp intake of breath. An approaching figure stumbled and then fell, clutching a wound in its side. Kate tried to shout, but no words escaped her lips. Dutch, she mouthed. Oh God, Dutch!

2

The cleft in the tentacle opened as Mason ran a finger down it. He put his hand inside, feeling the warmth like a man returning to the womb. I can heal in there, he thought. I can heal and be strong again.

His leg was broken. When he had jumped from the top of the boat, he had landed wrong, and the bone had given out around the bullet wound. AJ and the smart boy would be leaving, and a broken leg wouldn't get him there in time. He needed help. Help, from his new friends. The fact that he was still standing at all was a testament to the energy running through his veins. Now, he had an army with that kind of power at his fingertips.

“Boss,” Christian said. “What you do… Boss…”

The others were standing behind him, watching. He didn't know what he had expected. Well, maybe that wasn't true. He expected the tentacles to part, to move for him like The Red Sea before Moses. Moses… and The Red Sea… and The Exodus… and The Fire Telephone. He expected to walk right up the path, beyond the crater, to the front gates of the fortress. He expected to march inside and strangle AJ and the smart boy with him. The Carrion didn't work like that though, didn't move like that.

No matter. Path or no path, he would have his army. He and his men could take the long way around.

His men.

That turn-of-phrase meant little, now. The group was down to three. Peter was a rotting corpse, his brains scattered on the floor of the machine shop like candy. Christian was alive but of little use. The man had made it to the water in time to put himself out, but not before his brain cooked. He was naked now, the flesh melted around his chest and around his hips. His penis was a ruined, withered thing; it had fused with the side of his thigh in the heat. Even with The Carrion running through him, he could barely stand for the pain. Melvin was all right, but even he had taken shrapnel on the deck of The Aeschylus.

Foolish, they had been, all of them. Spoiled. Trained to rely upon a predictable enemy with predictable tactics. And that business in the machine shop with Dutch and Gideon, well, that had just been bad luck.

A bad luck day.

“Boss,” Christian insisted.

Mason reached out and steadied him. Soon, they would be through with this terrible place, and they would sleep. They were in this together.

To the end.

The tentacle stood before him, still oozing, still calling to him with its soft, inaudible whisper. He pulled the knife from his belt. They came to protect themselves, wasn't that right? They had come when Whitman's friends had tried to scrub them off of the ballasts. They had come when Jin had sliced one on the lower decks. They had come and taken the people in the long ago when an explosion had destroyed their kind.

Certainly, they would come now.

He cut sideways, creating a wound as long as his arm. A cloud of brown spores wafted into the air, a black tar ooze dribbling onto his boots. Seconds passed. And then, he felt it: a trembling, an anticipation. The whole of the island began to shudder and waken.

3

AJ came bustling out of the supply bunker door and dumped the leavings of his final haul to the ground: an old flame thrower, several boxes of ammo, and an MP38. The submachine gun looked like it had never been fired, and it probably hadn't. The rest looked in almost as good a shape, but it would be impossible to tell whether or not any of them would work until they were put to the test. All in all though, it was a damned good stash.

In the bunker next door, Kate was cleaning Dutch's wound with a bottle of alcohol. Like the guns, the bottle had probably never been used, but unlike the guns, it was probably useless, long since turned to water. Still, it was better than nothing. Dutch's wound looked bad.

Kate prodded him with a piece of cotton. “How could this happen? Where did they come from?”

“Out of nowhere,” Dutch said. “I didn't hear them.”

They both looked up as AJ waltzed in, grabbing a seat on a cot opposite.

“Are they like the others?” he asked. “They are, aren't they? It's the only way they could have survived.”

His friend blinked and then nodded.

AJ checked the pistol in his belt, then picked up a Karabiner rifle he had left on the floor. The flare gun Dutch brought was already tied to his waist. “I'm going to check the boat. Clean that gun there, and check the thrower. Make sure it works.”

“There's no fuel for it,” Kate said.

“Forget it, then.” He pointed to his friend. “Listen, he's in no condition to go back to the docks on foot, even if we help him. Maybe I can fix the RDF boat enough to get us there, though. If Dutch is right about that dory in the machine shop, we'll make the switch when we get there. All right?”

Before she could say anything else, he turned and headed out the door.

Once he reached the open air, he threw the rifle to the ground and barely stopped himself from slamming his fist into the bunker. But he didn't need a broken hand, not now, not with them counting on him. He settled for stomping the ground instead, kicking up earth hard enough to feel the pain in his feet.

I think we should split up.

He had known it would be dangerous. He had known there were risks. Dutch could always handle himself, but if there was one thing they had never expected, it was this.

Mason.

The sonofabitch was still alive, and he had waited for them to break apart. Bruhbaker might be changing, but he wasn't far gone enough to forget how to divide and conquer. Because of that, Gideon was gone, Dutch was wounded, and now, they needed him. In a million years, he would never have wanted this. He would never have wanted the weight of another person's life on his shoulders again. It's why he left his old life to begin with. It's why he put as much distance between himself and his military buddies. It's why he had spent so much time…

Drifting.

That's what Kate had called it. He had blown her off, but thinking about it now gave him pause. The truth was, he wasn't really good at anything he'd tried in the last fifteen years. Sure, he could work with his hands, he could guard an empty stretch of mine up in the shit-ass Andes. None of those things were him, though. AJ knew he wasn't put on this earth to fix things, to run an office job, or even to run security. What he was good at was fighting. What he was good at was survival. Maybe he didn't want to be responsible for anyone else, but his friends were counting on him, and so he would get them out, and he would help them survive. That's what he was put here to do. Maybe it was the only thing he could do.

Spitting bitterly on the ground, he picked up his gun and began heading towards the shore. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

4

Kate was a quick learner. She'd never picked up a submachine gun before in her life, but with Dutch's help, she had the thing disassembled and cleaned in minutes. She wondered if she should be doing something more for him— sewing his wound, for instance — but without a needle and thread, he would have to survive with a tight wrap and disinfectant.

As for Dutch himself, he hadn't given up. While she worked, he began loading rounds into the spare magazines. He had a handful packed and ready by the time she finished. Kate thought she had finally begun to see that flippant shell of his for what it was, though. It was armor. Not because he was sensitive, but because Dutch had seen some seriously scary shit in his day, and the flippant side was just his way of coping. He wasn't using that armor now; it looked like that armor was all used up.

She was about to go to him, to comfort him, when Dutch looked up with something like alarm. He turned towards the door and sniffed the air. “Oh no.”

5

The boat was on fire. AJ stood on the beach and watched it burn, the smoke disappearing into the dark. They were already here. As soon as he saw the flames, he knew. Worse, he knew the chances they had done something similar to the boat in the machine shop were good. But like it or not, they had to chance it. They had no choice now, no way out.

It felt too quiet. He thought he could see movement out along the edge of the sea, and he reached for the flare gun at his waist. Popping a round into the chamber, he looked up and down the beach. “Fuck it,” he said, and fired a round over the sands.

What he saw in the glow, some thirty feet away, was not a shape or an animal or a single member of the Black Shadow team. What he saw was an army of Carrion, a swarm of blackened figures, all padding up the shore as if some greater intelligence had commanded them not to be heard. The one in the lead was not Mason, but a disfigured, burned man AJ barely recognized. His skin was blotchy-black, his stomach cut and distended as if with child. The figure opened its mouth and shrieked.

And then they were all sprinting up the shore, tumbling and spitting and hissing as they ran towards him.

6

His body fell in a mass of arms and legs, rolling into the sand. Then all at once he was up, dashing towards the hole in the fence. He could hear their horrible footsteps behind him, splashing through the water as they ran up the beach. His mind flashed to Kate, to Dutch, to what he could do to protect them. What could he do with those things coming? He found himself screaming their names, calling to them as his feet pounded dirt. He stopped and fired a round from his rifle into the oncoming crowd, but it had no effect. They kept coming, sprinting and hurtling and charging up the beach.

Before he had time to breathe, he threw himself onto his back and pushed himself through the hole. Kate was standing on the other side, holding the submachine gun like she didn't know what to do with it.

“Can you fire that thing?”

She nodded, her eyes wide and blank.

Dutch stumbled from the prisoners' bunker carrying one of the Karabiners. AJ saw his friend had outfitted it with a German sniper scope and was about to ask him what the hell he was doing, when Dutch raised the rifle and fired. The first figure to make it through the hole fell at AJ's feet. Half a dozen more were crawling over his body before anyone could blink.

“Kate!” he yelled.

She pulled the trigger of her weapon, but there was only a click.

“Pull the lever!” he yelled. “Pull it!”

She fumbled with the cocking handle, her hands shaking so badly she couldn't get her fingers on it. AJ fired his rifle, taking one of the figures in the shoulder. Another leapt through the fence and charged straight for him. AJ cried out, but his voice was drowned in a hail of gunfire. The MP38 roared to life, slamming his attacker backwards and then chewing a line through the oncoming horde. They dropped like cattle, falling to the ground in a spray of black blood. A few of them kept coming on their bellies, crawling with their arms outstretched. Recovering, AJ walked over and shot the closest one in the head, then did the same to the next figure, and the next. When he was sure they weren't getting up, he grabbed Kate by the arm.

“You okay?”

She nodded, her eyes still swimming. Her left hand reached to touch the muzzle of the gun, as if she couldn't believe what she had done. She yanked her fingers back; the metal burned hot. “I've never shot anyone before.”

“You still haven't. Those things aren't people. Now, I want you to reload. Don't panic, all right? Think.”

“I don't know if I can—”

“Reload!”

As soon as she was finished, a bizarre look crossed her face. She looked back and forth, then dropped the gun and began jogging towards the other end of the base. Dutch shot AJ a glance, and both of them were about to start yelling when they saw what she was doing.

At the gaps in the walls, the Germans had placed strategic artillery cannons, 10.5cm Howitzers, the kinds with the long barrels on two wheels. They could have been used to repel a naval attack, had anyone cared enough to take the island by sea. Guess the joke's on them, AJ thought, wondering how surprised they must have been when Carrion ran through the inside gates.

“Help me!” Kate said. She had begun trying to pick up one the rear beams. The cannons could be pushed like a wheelbarrow, but only if you had four strong men… or a truck. When AJ looked at her, her eyes narrowed. “You told me to think, so I'm thinking! We have to plug that hole or they'll overwhelm us. Now help me!”

AJ lifted one of the legs, but the thing wouldn't budge. It was like pushing a semi. Then, Dutch was there. He grabbed the spare support, and by inches, the thing began to move. It went slowly at first, and then it began to pick up speed. The three of them jogged towards the hole, backs straining and legs heaving. AJ wondered if the women who lifted wrecked cars off of their babies felt the same kind of adrenaline.

Just as they reached the hole, the naked thing emerged from it, the thing that had once been Christian. It whooped a single, bone-chilling howl.

“Keep going!” AJ yelled. “Run through it!”

They barreled into the man-thing, and it fell backwards, the cannon toppling after. One wheel crushed the body where its testicles should have been, and it hissed at them, its tongue black and vermicular.

AJ approached the hole with his gun in hand, intending to finish it off. Then, he saw what was really in its stomach. Mason, who had known the man was useless, had stuffed him full of grenades.

“Get back!” he yelled. “Get back!”

The powder caught less than a second later. AJ felt his feet leave the ground, his body hurtling upwards and then slamming into dirt. When he looked up, he saw his two friends were kneeling next to a bunker unharmed. The walls near the fence, however, were blasted to chunks. So was Christian, who by all accounts, was now liquid at room temperature.

AJ stood and coughed. The fence was in ruin, the metal melted and the barbed wire in disarray. The wire would keep the three of them from getting out, but he had a feeling it wouldn't do much to keep The Carrion from getting in.

“We're trapped,” he said. “Mason just sacrificed his best man to keep us trapped in here.”

His hands fell to his knees, and he bent to catch his breath. He felt anger and despair tugging at him and refused to give in. When he looked up, he saw Kate had another one of those bizarre smiles. She was looking at the front gate, the place clogged and overgrown with black tendrils. He could see the calculation in her eyes. Before he could ask her what she was thinking, an ear-splitting cry thundered across the landscape. It was as if a thousand inhuman voices had sensed the time of the blitzkrieg was at hand.

Chapter 22: Hope and Horror

The Island:

February, 1939

1

The cry echoing across the landscape stopped Harald cold. There had been an explosion, and then… then a vast and terrible shriek unlike anything he had ever heard.

“Let me go!” Lucja screamed. He still had a hold of her hair.

“Shut up.”

He looked beyond the girl to the vast expanse of the pit. The explosion had been behind them, but the cry — that horrible, shrieking sound — that had come from crater. His mind flashed upon the instant when Richter had lowered his prisoner into the darkness, and how when he pulled the rope back, there was nothing there. The pit had claimed him as a sacrifice, but sacrifice or not, whatever unholy gods lay at the bottom were no longer satisfied.

As he peered over the edge, he saw something move. The shape that came crawling up looked like an abstraction of man rather than a man itself, as if it had been splattered onto canvas with a broken pen. He watched as it worked its way up the incline, its fingernails breaking against the crater's face. When Lucja saw it, she stopped struggling, her mouth agape.

Harald shot the figure in the head, and when it didn't fall, he shot it again. He emptied his clip, watching the thing stumble backwards and topple over the edge from whence it had come.

When it was gone, the girl struck him. “Bastard! Let me go!”

Doing his best to ignore her, he ejected the clip from his pistol and searched his jacket for another. With Lucja yanking on him, he couldn't seem to find one. Or maybe in the struggle, it had fallen out.

Had he ever thought she was pretty? By God, she looked like a mad woman.

Harald brought the butt of his gun down upon her head, and she stopped struggling, her face slackening in bovine anguish. Then, her eyes cleared, and she was clawing at him again. She yanked against his hand, threatening to rip her own hair out to be free. Months of meager rations were no match for Harald's well-fed muscles though, and he held her fast.

“Stop it.”

“Let me go!”

“First, you will stop thrashing like a fool. You are mine, do you hear me? You will stay with me.”

“Let me go!”

He thought about calling her a Judas, a terrible inbred traitor, but he didn't. Instead, he simply said, “No.”

And then, she started to cry. Large, angry tears welling up in those hazel eyes. Those mongrel's eyes.

Harald used his gun to raise her chin. “I told you to stop it.” He hoped to see some kind of shame in that face, some kind of regret, but he didn't. He saw only rage.

“Help me!” she called up the hill. “I'm down here! Somebody help me!”

Following her gaze, he saw the motorcycle parked up the main path. Its rider was somewhere close.

“Hello up there!” he called. “We have a prisoner trying to escape!” When he got no reply, he pulled the girl towards it.

They were halfway there when he stepped into a rut and lost his balance. Lucja tried to pull away but succeeded only in pulling him down on top of her. They fell in a heap, the back of her head striking the ground. He tried to pull her up, but she was dazed. Was it a trick? He wouldn't have believed her capable of such a thing the day before, but Richter would have warned him better. If he hadn't been so alone, if he hadn't been so weakened by the loss of Mieke, maybe he could have seen it.

The girl went to bite Harald's hand, but her strength gave out, and the hand dropped to her breast. He wondered if, on a subconscious level, this was what she wanted. She had been away from home for months now, and that was good time spent away from all the schoolboys she could have been tempting with her filthy, sideways cunny.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, mashing her nipple. “Is it?”

She cried out, another fake tear dribbling down her cheek.

He squeezed again, and she cried harder. It was cold out here, but her breath was hot. The space between her legs was hot. He could feel it, even through his leather gloves.

How was this girl, this filthy mongrel of a girl having this effect on him? He could feel his cock jutting into his pants, so stiff it was painful. It was drowning his every sensation, even the fear of what was surely coming from the pit.

He slapped the girl again and felt another dizzying throb, almost losing himself.

“Don't,” she whispered.

Something clunked up by the motorcycle, and it was enough to bring him back to his senses. He pushed himself off of the girl and began searching his coat for the spare magazine again. He found it this time, sighing as he pulled it out and slapped it into the gun. As he turned, Lucja reared back on her hind quarters and kicked him straight in the balls.

“This is for my mother, you sonofabitch!” she screamed. “And for all the things you'd do to me! Do you hear me?”

The blow landed full-force, not even a flinch to break the impact. The pistol went off, kicking up dust next to her head.

A third figure came striding down the incline towards them, its silhouette tall and gangly. The outline of a Luger was visible in the shadow. “You've done enough,” it said. “Get away from her.”

Harald squinted through the darkness. Around him, he could hear hissing and scuttling as more of the creatures began to crawl up from out of the darkness. “She's mine!” he called. “Who are you?”

“Odysseus.” The figure paused a moment, then shot Harald in the leg, just above the knee.

Blood splashed across his hips, and he dropped his pistol, forgetting all about the pain in his crotch.

“Goodbye, Lieutenant.”

The figure offered a hand to the girl, and she took it. Together, they began running up the hill, back towards the bike.

As they reached the crest, Harald tried to push himself to his feet and couldn't. “No!” he yelled. “You won't leave me like this! Come back! Come back you filthy Mongoloid inbreds!”

The sound of the slithering army grew louder. There were more figures like the one Harald shot, a lot more. They were emerging at the corners of his vision, still slimed from the bowels of the earth.

“Come back! Goddamn you!”

He felt something grab his uninjured leg and begin to tug. Thrashing, he spun and searched the ground for his pistol, but it was lost in the dirt. The thing behind him began to tug harder.

No, he thought. I deserve a better end than this!

A terrible gurgling sound emerged from somewhere deep in his throat. He kept yelling as they dragged him all the way down to the edge of the pit and into the blackness beyond.

2

Linus Metzger was dozing on guard duty when the explosion rocketed through the garage doors and tore the tower supports out of the ground beneath him. He had enough time to wonder if he was still asleep — having one of those falling dreams — when the tower smashed into the ground, and he was flung through the inside like a top. His arm collided with the wall (ceiling), and he heard something snap. In his mind, it was almost as loud as the explosion.

He blacked out but came to a moment later when a gunshot echoed somewhere outside the base. Forcing himself to sit up, he took stock of his surroundings. The tower wasn't destroyed, but the top half was overturned, resting sideways on the ground. Linus managed to push himself out through one of the side walls feeling, by all accounts, like the world was crumbling around him. His arm lay bent at the wrong angle, though he felt no pain. He was vaguely aware that his ears were ringing.

When he peered across the landscape, he was greeted by the caliginous terrain, the world beyond the walls disappearing into space. Then, on the horizon, he saw a headlight. That light had to be Eichmann coming back from his patrol of the perimeter. But there was something wrong. It was moving too fast, and… and there was something chasing it.

Feeling his skin grow cold, Linus could see there was not one thing chasing it, but many. The shapes that loped and trundled behind it were vast and terrible. There were so many, they could not be counted. And without having seen the effects of The Carrion, without having known the corpse of Captain Smit, he somehow recognized them for what they were.

They were the damned. They were legion.

With his good hand, Linus grabbed the cross around his neck and prepared for their coming.

3

Ari dusted the detritus out of his hair and picked himself off of the floor. Someone was yelling, and he couldn't figure out who. His first thought was that he needed to wash the dust from his eyes. The second was that he had dropped Richter's gun.

The ceiling had fallen, the wooden rafters collapsed through the middle of the room. He should be able to see the sky above him, but he couldn't. The dust was too thick. The air had a vaguely pungent smell, and he realized the situation was moving from bad to worse. One of the formaldehyde cylinders stood upright, exactly where they had left it, but the other had fallen to the floor. It hadn't burst, but as Ari got closer, he could hear a hissing sound. The thing was leaking.

As the dust began to clear, he saw Frece lying face down beside him. He grabbed him by one arm. “Thomas. Thomas, wake up!”

“Huh?” The man started awake. “What's happened?”

“There's been an explosion.”

“An explosion?” He looked around. “Where's Richter?”

In the tumult, Ari hadn't even thought to check. Panic seized him when he saw the chair was not where it should be, the bound man gone from the center of the room. Then Frece grabbed him and pointed to a spot beneath the rafters. The commander lay crushed under three of the ceiling beams, the wood planted heavily in his stomach. The compression was such that it had broken the chair, the wood and rope strewn about the ground.

“Done for,” Frece said. “Thank God.”

“We have to find Dominik. He was out there when the blast went off.”

“He was out there? Then he's dead, man! We need to get out of here!”

“We are not leaving Dominik! Or Lucja! We're going to find them. We're going to find them, do you hear me?”

Frece looked at him like he was crazy, but Ari didn't care. Dominik and Lucja were his only family now. He'd thought about that a lot over the past month. Wife gone, no children, no reason to keep going, day after day. But they had given him one; he was Uncle Ari now, and he had a purpose.

“We're going after them.”

“With those things out there? There's more of them, more like Smit. Aren't they?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“I don't know because I was down here with you, in case you forgot. Now, I'm going up there to look for them. Are you coming?”

Frece seemed to hover. “We need a gun.”

Ari felt a fresh wave of anger, this time at himself. “I dropped it.”

“I saw it, though! It's under the rafters!”

Richter's Walther PPK was lying in the corner beneath the debris. Ari could just make it out through the dust. He coughed again, the smell of the formaldehyde growing stronger. “Leave it. If I stay much longer, I'm going to pass out.”

“I'm not leaving it!”

Before Ari could stop him, Frece dropped to his stomach and began crawling through the wreckage. Ari debated chasing after. The thought of Frece with the gun was all kinds of bad.

The man moved along the ground, climbing over the wrecked pieces of the chair. He passed Richter. And Richter woke up.

The commander came to life with a howl, his arms flailing towards the sky. He was crushed, the lower half of his body pinned, but he sat up just the same.

He grabbed Frece's legs. “Where are you going?”

The other man yelled, trying to kick him off.

Richter's free hand fumbled along the ground, finding a piece of a shattered beaker. He shoved it into Frece's spine, and the blond man yelped, still groping towards the gun.

“You may wear a white man's skin,” Richter said, “but you're a mongrel lover. Aren't you? You just had to interfere.” He slashed him again. “We never”—slash—“should have”—slash—“kept you”—slash—“alive!”

Thomas tried to pull away, but his legs had given up, red soaking through his back. Richter dropped the glass and began to bite the man. In seconds, he was clawing and grabbing and sinking his teeth into the man's neck and head.

The sight finally broke Ari's paralysis. He leapt forward, oblivious to the shape now coming down the stairs behind him.

4

Dominik's first impression was that Richter had been infected with the black fungus, but when he saw the truth, it was somehow worse. Richter had never looked more human in his life. More human, and more monstrous.

The commander wiped his mouth, the body flopping off of him bonelessly. When he looked up, Ari stopped cold.

“So close, isn't it? The desire to be a hero.” Richter pulled himself an arm's length closer to the gun without taking his eyes away. “You should know better by now.”

“What are you doing?” Ari whispered.

“Maybe you should run while you have the chance.”

“I… no…”

Richter pulled himself again. Dominik didn't know how he was doing it. Surely, his insides could be no more than jelly.

“After more than half a century on this miserable planet, I think you should know you're no hero.”

“I know who I am,” Ari said, yet he didn't move. He was mesmerized by the force of that bloody smile.

And then, Dominik realized it was having the same effect on him. He wanted to rush in and kick Richter in the teeth, to stomp him, to break him, but he couldn't. The man was crippled at the waist, and yet Dominik stood paralyzed. He searched for a sign. He looked for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. His eyes settled on the metal shelf in the corner. All of the beakers had fallen on the floor and broken, all but one. It was resting on the edge, the top plugged tight.

Throwing himself across the room, Dominik grabbed the glass in one quick motion. Richter's eyes darted to him, his face black with hate, but he couldn't stop him. Dominik tossed the glass to the ground, and it shattered. The formaldehyde sprayed out in a whoosh, splashing Richter's face and mouth. It began to vaporize, transforming his head into a bubbling mass as he turned into the light.

Then Dominik heard something he never thought he would hear: he heard the commander wail. His limbs thrashed. His spine twisted. Foam began to run from his mouth, his cries becoming babble.

A moment later, Ari grabbed his friend around the arm. “Thank you, Dominik. Oh heaven, thank you.” He paused. “Ettore?”

Dominik shook his head.

“Then it's just you and me. We have to go, Dom. We have to go!”

Dominik let himself be led, knowing he had to get away from that thrashing form as fast as he could. Then as they passed the surviving tank, he stopped. “Wait.”

The lever on the tank hung in the air, beckoning. A single pull of that lever would open the valves, releasing the formaldehyde through the vents and up into the world above. That had been the plan: release the gas and choke them all, escape in the aftermath.

“I… I can't do it. I can't do it to all of them, Ari. I…” His voice broke. “I don't want to damn my soul.”

The other man hugged him, a gesture both incredibly welcome and incredibly out of place. When Dominik looked up, he saw Ari's eyes were gleaming. “No more,” he said. “I'm tired of being their plaything, Dominik. I don't care if they all end up like Richter. I don't care.”

Dominik shook his head.

“You know they'd do the same to us. What if we had a chance to end it right here and now, to save all the people who will come after us?”

“I don't know, Ari.”

“Well I do. I'm not leaving it to chance. You and Lucja are getting out alive. Me too, if I can, but I'm not risking your lives. Even if you don't want me to do it for you, let me do it for her. Her life is worth a thousand Richters. It's worth more than a thousand of any of them. Now step aside, and I'm going to pull that handle.”

They stared at each other, their friendship as deep as years and decades and millennia.

At last, Dominik nodded. “Together,” he said. “We'll do it together.”

He undid the safety catch, each of them placing a hand on the grip. When Dominik looked into his friend's eyes again, he knew it was time. They yanked the lever down as one, awaiting the hiss that would spell doom for the men they had known and despised for all of these terrible, long weeks.

But no sound came.

5

They breached the door and stepped into the yard, the plan forgotten. Frece was gone. Ettore was gone. Lucja had disappeared, and the tanks had failed when they had needed them most.

Outside, the soldiers stumbled about desultorily. The young ones scrambled for weapons. The older ones seemed to be looking for officers. But they were all lost, wandering through the explosion smoke as if they didn't know where they were.

“Where are you going?” someone shouted.

Dominik looked over and saw Doctor Gloeckner, the idiot physician. He and Ari kept walking. “Lucja!” Dominik called. “Lucja, where are you?”

The doctor came up behind them. “Take me with you! Take me with you if you're getting out of here!”

Dominik pushed him away. “Get off me!”

The man fell backwards, looking hurt and dazed. “You… you can't leave me here!”

“Get away from us!”

Gloeckner ran, stopping another soldier a few seconds later and getting similar treatment.

Something was wrong here, something far worse than the explosion. No one was stopping them. No one was even paying attention.

They walked all of the way to the gate, Dominik's anxiety growing with each second. Two soldiers already stood at the fence, both of them staring into the great beyond.

“My God,” one of them said.

Half a kilometer away, Dominik saw an overturned motorcycle, its headlamp still shining. It had been carrying two riders, but both of them were laying on the dirt face down. He thought they were dead until one of them began to get up. Seeing long hair drop from beneath the helmet, Dominik felt his mouth sag.

“Lucja!” he cried.

He began to move and then stopped. Over the ridge, he could suddenly see what was coming. The hordes were tumbling upwards from the abyss, rushing towards the base. Men and birds and beasts alike, black as pitch and violent as a hurricane. They spilled over one another, sprinting and running and tearing up the dirt with claws outstretched. Their shrieks rolled towards him like thunder.

Ari and the soldiers disappeared from his view. He was staring only at his daughter, his eyes wide. “I have to get her.”

He ran towards the oncoming horde. He ran towards Lucja.

6

Lucja pulled her helmet off, her head feeling like it had been sloshed inside of a water tank. “What was that?” She didn't know if Jan was hurt or even alive, but when the man didn't respond, she asked again. “What was that?”

Jan pushed himself slowly upwards. “We hit something.”

“Did you see it?”

Instead of responding, Jan nodded towards a shape on the ground. It lay crushed beneath the sidecar, as black as the things that had grabbed Harald. Her father had told her about them, but she hadn't believed. How could she, without seeing one with her own eyes?

As for the sidecar, it had detached from the bike during the fall. The attachment bar lay bent out of proportion, one wheel strewn some distance away. That didn't bode well for the bike if they hoped to ride it again.

She clutched at Jan's arm without thinking. She didn't know why, but it felt safe. Staring at the thing on the ground, she needed to feel safe. His body grew rigid in her hands, but he wasn't looking at her — he was looking towards the crater.

An army of shapes was rushing towards the base, crying and screeching and clawing their way forwards. Jan shoved her aside, a gun suddenly in his grip. For a brief moment, she thought she had felt some warmth in him, but now, she saw him as he truly was. Jan was a weapon. If she were to clutch him again, she'd feel the same comfort she would feel clutching a very large, very well-trained attack dog.

Two stragglers broke off from the pack and charged them. Jan aimed the gun and fired. It took all eight shots to bring them both down.

Lucja ran back to the bike. The wreck had been terrible, but up close, it looked all right.

Reaching beneath the seat, she touched the engine and burned her hands. “Aa!”

Jan looked over but didn't comment. He ejected a clip from his gun and thrust in another. More shapes were coming up the path.

Lucja reached under the bike again, being careful to keep her hands off of the metal, and she tried to lift it. She couldn't. The thing felt like it weighed a ton. A few meters away, Jan began firing again. When he was empty, he turned. “If you're going to get that bike up, I suggest you hurry. I'm almost out of shots.”

And then another voice, this one behind them: “Lucja! Lucja!”

As she saw her father running down the path, she was hit with a moment of terrible déjà vu, her mind returning to the shore, to the moment when Hans tore her sister away.

He tackled her. “I love you, darling! I love you. I love you!” Her face was thick with grime, and still, he covered her with kisses. “I'm sorry. I never should have let you go alone!”

“It's all right, but help me. Help me, Papa!”

When she bent down, he bent with her, and together, they put their hands under the bike. They lifted as one, her father's face growing purple with effort. He was never a strong man, her father, but he was strong today. Yes he was.

“There!” he said, laughing.

The motorcycle stood upright once more. She wasn't sure if it would work, but it wasn't leaking any fuel, and the wheels didn't look bent.

We're going to be all right, she thought. We're going to be all right, all of us!

“Step away from the bike.”

When she looked at her new companion, she saw that Jan was not the savior she thought him to be after all. He was pointing the gun at her father.

“What are you doing?” she barked. “Jan, what the hell are you doing?”

His eyes were brimming in the dim light, but they were resolute. “That bike only holds two.”

“What?”

“We're not going back to the base. It's too late for that, now. I think I can get us to the shore if I cut through the hills, but only two of us are going to make it.”

“We'll fit three. We have to! I don't weigh very much, I—”

“No,” Jan said.

She looked at the man, and then she looked at her father. For the past week, he had been a man possessed. He had plans within plans, he had a will as hard as stone. Whenever she and Ari had faltered, he had been there to pull them out of the rut. So when she saw him there, his expression low and knowing, she didn't understand.

“Can you drive a motorcycle?” Jan asked.

Her father shook his head.

Jan lowered his weapon. “Then it's decided.”

Lucja was sure her father would pounce on the man. He would wrestle him to the ground and take his weapon. Or he would pull out some magic powder and blow it in the man's face, blinding him. And she would help him. She would be right there by his side to make a daring escape, maybe circling back around once for Ari. Because as grateful as she was to Jan, if she had to choose sides… well, there was no choice to be had.

As the seconds ticked by, it became clear her father wasn't going to do any of those things. Instead, he took a step back, letting Lucja hold the bike alone. It was not heavy once it was upright, but holding it meant she could not step away.

Jan threw a leg over the seat. It was only then, in that gesture, that Lucja realized the gravity of what was happening.

“No. No! You can't do this!”

“I love you,” her father said. “And you have to go.”

“Not without you!”

Dominik stepped to her and put his hands on her cheeks. “The man is right. I can't drive a bike. So it can't be me who saves you this time. I'm too late, Lucja. I'm always too late.”

“Then I'm not going.”

“Yes you are!”

When he looked at Jan, the man grabbed Lucja by the scruff and hoisted her onto the bike behind him. For some reason, she didn't fight. She felt paralyzed from the neck down.

“I'll be all right,” her father said. “Now go!”

There was so much she wanted to say, so many reasons why it couldn't happen like this. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was for being angry, for doubting him, for blaming him for what had happened to her mother, Magdelena. She wanted to tell him that what happened to Zofia wasn't his fault. When she opened her mouth, however, nothing came out.

One of the forms broke ahead of the pack. It was targeting them, leaping over rocks and bounding up the dirt.

Jan removed a knife from his belt and tossed it to her father. Dominik caught it, then took his glasses off and folded them neatly into his pocket. He looked so different without them, so much younger.

The bike engine came to life beneath the toes of Jan's boot. Lucja thought it would be just in time; the thing on the path was almost upon them.

“See you,” her father said. He kissed two of his fingers and held them in the air.

She reached for his hand, but then, the bike lunged forward and she was grabbing at Jan's waist, doing everything in her power to keep from falling off. It sped across the landscape, the two of them flying at break-neck speed.

Jan leaned to the left and guided the bike past a new group, a hair-raising stunt that brought their knees within touching distance of the ground. Then, he righted the bike and continued weaving through the masses. When the area opened to its widest, Jan cut diagonally across the path, leaving the crater behind and heading towards the hills as promised.

It was only then Lucja felt safe enough to look back. Mere seconds had passed since they had left her father in the dust, and she didn't know what to expect, braced herself for the worst, in fact. What she did see filled her with equal parts hope and horror. When she turned, her father was simply gone.

Chapter 23: Siege

The Island:

Present Day

1

The last buckle of the harness clicked into place around her waist. It was tight enough all right, but it was a weapon that had never been designed for the likes of her.

“I figure that's eighty pounds. Can you stand?”

She nodded.

“Can you walk?” When AJ took his hand away, she almost fell. He was smiling a little.

Kate took two steps and nodded again. The bigger question was whether or not she could run, and the answer to that was a resounding no. Kate remembered that she'd tried jogging with five-pound ankle weights once and found it too painful. Either way, there was no turning back. She could hear the chemical splashing around the tanks at her back, could smell the vaguely unpleasant odor of the formaldehyde around the hose. Dominik's solution had not saved him in the long ago, but maybe, just maybe, it would save them now. It was as if it were meant to be.

The snap of a rifle bolt clacked behind them, and Kate looked over her shoulder to see Dutch standing with his K98, his chest crisscrossed with ammo belts. He was white as a ghost, his new soldier's shirt stained where the bandage had leaked through. AJ rushed over to steady him. He wasn't smiling any more. “You all right?”

“Go on,” Dutch rasped. “I'll cover you.”

Ten minutes before, he'd seemed fine, but Kate didn't like the sound of his voice. She didn't like it one bit.

“We'll be back.” AJ grabbed the other man and embraced him.

Dutch coughed, pushing him off of his wound. “You're more hurt than help, you know that?”

“I'm sorry, buddy. I'm sorry I ever got you into this.”

“You couldn't have kept me away, not even if you cut me yourself.”

Kate felt herself tearing up. She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and then nearly fell, the weight on her back throwing her off balance. Both men caught her, and she laughed, grateful to be held again, if only for a moment.

She wiped her eyes and settled for putting a hand on Dutch's cheek. “See you.”

“I still expect to get paid. Now, both of you go on and get out of here before you kill me with this sappy crap.” Turning, he began to climb the ladder to the one surviving guard tower. “I can do it, dammit.”

AJ, who'd been helping him, held his hands up in surrender. He stooped and grabbed his own two Karabiner rifles, slinging them around his shoulder, then settled for the MP38 submachine gun in his hands.

“Meet you at the front.”

After toppling the Howitzer into dirt, they'd brought out one more cannon and pointed it at the gate. Kate wondered at the toll this had taken on their wounded friend, but they had no choice; they needed all of the firepower they could get. It stood as a sentry guarding the front gate now, waiting for them. Kate walked beyond the barrel and stared upwards, the enormous black growths twisting through the space in front of her. If the entire path was like this, they'd never make it, but she didn't think it was. The space beyond look mostly open, and if they had to wipe out two or three more tangles along the way, they could do it. The docks were only a mile through the hills, maybe less. The beach route seemed to take forever, but the path across the island looked almost like a straight shot.

The reek of her own sweat assaulted her. It had soaked through her clothes, making her hands slick. She could remember running on the hottest days in DC, and she couldn't think of a single time she'd been this disgusting.

“Do it!” AJ yelled.

Her finger squeezed the trigger, and a jet of clear liquid burst from the nozzle. A soft screech came from the tentacles, the sound of air hissing and gurgling, but they didn't melt. They didn't collapse. They didn't do anything but color and tarnish under the power of the liquid.

Kate stared, feeling her breath become ragged. This wasn't what the book had said! The effect should be more dramatic, it should… it should be killing them.

It is killing them, she thought. She could see it in the way that the skin began to shrivel, the way the tentacles began to droop. It wasn't dissolving them, however, and that was a problem.

“What are you doing?” AJ yelled.

She couldn't answer. She had never prepared for the possibility that her plan wouldn't work. Her plans always worked, even from the time she was a child. But maybe that's what they were when you got down to it: child's play. She'd never needed a plan like this. Now, with her foolishness, she may have doomed them all.

A gunshot snapped her attention to the tower. She whipped her head around, seeing the gleam of Dutch's sniper scope. He was shooting at something beyond the walls.

Somewhere high up in the hills, another shriek came on the wind. It was closer than the last. Kate had a crazy memory of her father's first senatorial debate, and a word his opponent had used in his opening statement. It sounded multitudinous. Like a thousand voices joined as one.

“Flame on!” AJ yelled. “Use the flames!”

Kate looked down at her hands. The solution was so obvious, that at first, it didn't register. Had she really expected this thing to work as an eighty-pound water cannon? No, she had read the journal too literally. The things in front of her were evil, and every good conservative from the days of Isaiah to the days of the present knew what you did with evil.

You killed it with fire.

2

A jet of yellow and green flame burst from the tube as Kate pressed the igniter. AJ watched the tentacles boil and melt, pieces of flesh dropping to the ground in chunks.

He got behind the cannon, making sure a live shell was loaded and the safety valve was tight. “Fire in the hole!”

Kate sidestepped, and he yanked the firing lever.

The Howitzer thundered, the crack of the explosion so loud he thought his ears had blown. The round hit dead center, disintegrating the flaming tendrils into black mist. Shards of earth and dead meat fell from the sky. The spent artillery shell clunked to the ground behind him.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye and saw humanoid shapes clambering between the walls, storming the mutilated fence behind them. The first ones got stuck on the barbed wire, but the ones after stepped on their shoulders. They came spilling over, tumbling and rolling into the base. He counted four, then six. Half as many were stuck beneath the wire, tearing themselves apart to get free.

They were almost on him when he fired, taking them down in a single burst from the MP38. One more broke free of the fence and charged. Dutch caught it below the chin, its head coming halfway off as its body dropped.

The K98 was in AJ's hands a moment later, the submachine gun dropping to the ground. He fired all five shots, taking the remaining two shapes stuck beneath the wire.

At the gate, Kate let loose another jet of flame, and a moment later, a figure came tearing through the entrance. Its head was spouting fire, its skull smoldering and popping as it charged. AJ dropped one rifle and grabbed the other. He could barely see for the tunnel-vision, fear and ice running through his veins. He had the rifle cocked when Dutch fired again, and the figure's flaming skull exploded.

AJ spun in a circle, scanning for any signs of movement, but there were none. The MP38 beckoned, and he picked it up, spending precious seconds to eject the magazine and slap in a spare. He didn't have time to reload the second Karabiner, so he took the loaded one and started for the gate. Kate was jogging ahead of him, but he passed her at the fence, stepping under the canopy of melting fungus. “Stay with me!”

The darkness swallowed them as they moved up the path, the torchlight dying behind. Above, AJ could see the moonlight glinting off of tentacles as large as redwoods.

There were two flares left, and he decided to use one. He grabbed the gun off of his waist and shot a round upwards, barely slowing. All at once, he came to a screeching halt. Kate, who was moving slower, almost knocked him over.

“Why are you stopping?” she panted. Then, she saw.

The crater loomed before them, its vast reaches dropping into the earth. They had almost tumbled straight in.

“Back up,” he said. “Slowly.”

She did. A moment later, they discovered the path around it and found another overgrowth of tentacles.

Kate squeezed the trigger again, her sweat shining in the light of the flare. She cut a path through them, disintegrating each one in turn. AJ watched as two human shapes fell from within one of the tentacles, hissing as they melted. He waited for more to drop, called by the pain and the heat of their brethren.

Kate spun. “AJ, behind you!”

They were not coming from the tentacles; they were coming from the pit. A dozen huddled shapes came slithering over the stones, crawling up the sides of the crater like bugs. He pulled the trigger of the MP38 and heard only a dry click.

It was jammed!

He was knocked to the ground before he knew what was happening, but not by The Carrion. Kate pushed past him, thrusting the hose of the flamethrower in front. A wave of emerald fire flashed from the hose, coating the shapes rising from the dark. The figures seemed to twist in slow motion, falling back into the abyss in a viridian agony. One of them almost made it, but AJ regained his feet and smashed it with the butt of his gun, sending it toppling into the pit.

When he was sure they were gone, he took the clip out of the MP38 and tested the cocking handle. He pulled it back, then forwards, clearing the jam. Then, he put the clip back in and fired a test shot.

“Fixed?” Kate asked.

He nodded. “Thanks for that.”

“Are they gone?”

He walked along the side of the crater, looking for signs. The edges were glowing, the flames sticking to the rocks. They flickered eerily in the dark, portending shadows of things that were not really there. There was something else in the darkness though, something he couldn't see. It had come from the base, following their trail through the gloom.

3

Their stench was ripe. The man's sweat had a rancid-sick aroma, but the girl… the girl was sweet. His nostrils flared with the scent, taking her in as he followed the trail. He could almost remember what she looked like.

The air was too hot, and he felt dry. He felt withered. He could still make it to them and cut them off though, and then, he could rest. The way he felt now, he could use a rest. It felt like he had been up for days… had it been days?

He had left his other at the tower, and he'd sacrificed a good man to keep all three of them there. But they had been just too clever. They.

Them.

Who was he talking about?

He caught her scent again and loped forward, limping on his bad leg. The fire around her was burning yellow and green.

Green.

Surely, he must be imagining that.

He saw the man walking around the edge of the dark. He could push him in, and then, he would be alone with the girl. His tongue pushed out of his mouth, and he tasted the damp air, savoring the sweetness of her fear. He imagined how soft her skin must be, how easily it would collapse under his claws. Under his bite. He would bathe in her. Gods, how he was dry!

A muscle twitched in the upper corner of one eye, and he swatted it. His head was pounding, his skin hot. But just a little longer, just a little further, and he would rest.

He crept behind the rocks at the edge of the crater, knowing the bitch would be his.

4

The figure leapt at AJ from the blackness, massive and wolf-like. It kicked Kate in the chest, sending her spinning through the air. AJ watched her tumble to the ground, her backpack clanging off of a nearby rock. He waited for the whole thing to blow, but it didn't.

Mason spun towards him, his mouth frothing. AJ looked down at his own hands and the MP38 went off of its own accord, aiming itself towards his attacker. Mason was on him in two strides, taking the lead to the stomach. The burst should have bowled him backwards, but it didn't. He kept coming. He kept coming straight through it.

In one swift stroke, Mason swatted the gun, knocking it away like a toy. He grabbed AJ by the wrist and twisted, forcing the man back. AJ punched him in the balls, but there was nothing. No response save for a cold, dead-eyed stare. Mason brought him to his knees, laughing silent, gruesome laughter.

Behind him, Kate was getting to her feet, but she couldn't use the thrower, not unless she wanted to kill them both.

Mason pulled out his knife, a long steel blade streaked with gore. AJ caught his hand as he brought it down, but he was outmatched.

“Now,” the Mason-thing said. “Now, you seeeeeee!”

There was movement all around them as a fresh wave of Carrion shapes rose from the pit. There had to be at least twenty, all moving with feral ease. The figures began to fan out at the top, not attacking, but moving to surround.

“They're coming,” Kate called. “What do I do? AJ, what do I do?”

He felt his knees buckle, the knife inching towards his face. “Wait!” he coughed.

“They're getting closer!”

“Wait!” he choked.

Mason brought him down to the ground, pushing the knife lower… and lower. It was an inch from his eye.

And then behind him, AJ saw a new figure rise from the darkness. It stood tall, the insignia of an army lieutenant etched on its chest. Without warning, it pounced, leaping onto Mason's back. It began to tear at him, and in seconds, the other Carrion joined it. They were pulling at the big man, yanking him off of his target.

“Mineeee!” the thing screeched. “My dreaaaammmmm!”

“Get off me!” Mason yelled. “Get off of me, you fools!” He slashed with the knife and cut two of them deep, but the one on his back kept on. It was clawing at Mason's neck, digging with fingernails as long as daggers. With one final grunt, Mason threw the thing off of him, sending it crunching onto a pile of rocks. He looked back at AJ and snarled, his face covered in blood.

AJ's legs wobbled and then slipped, his feet sliding on slime. As he hit the ground, something flickered far back in the guard tower… then a thunder crack echoed through the air, and all of a sudden, Mason's shoulder snapped backwards, the knife flying from his hand. When he turned back, he had a hole above his heart the size of a ping-pong ball. AJ could see green flame on the other side of it. Bringing his hands to his chest, Mason pawed at the hole in disbelief. He took one stutter-step forwards and then toppled back into empty space. Where there should have been earth, there was only the void.

His body fell with no sound.

AJ looked towards the base — towards Dutch — and then back to the pit. “Bad luck day for you, my friend.”

The surviving Carrion figure got back to its feet, and AJ stared at it. It was an old, old thing. He fumbled for his backup pistol.

“Watch out!” Kate yelled.

The thing leapt… and AJ fired. He sidestepped, watching its limbs go dead in mid-jump. It hit the ground and twitched, its body thudding onto the hard earth. He stood up and shot it again, blasting its brain into oblivion. Whatever it had seen in him, whatever it had hoped to accomplish was gone in the span of a gunshot.

Kate looked at him, her face pallid.

“Now!” AJ yelled. “Whatever you got, burn them to Hell!”

5

Through the scope, Dutch watched the conflagration, dozens of them screaming and falling as Kate hosed them down. He watched AJ open fire, cutting through mob after mob. But for every dead Carrion, two more rose from the pit. Or dropped from the tentacles. Or slithered from the dark.

The flames burned them to nothing, and they came. The submachine gun cut them to pieces, and they came. Dutch shot them one after another, reloading an endless stream of cartridges, and still they came.

He shot one in the chest, cutting its heart in two. He shot another in the leg, blasting it off at the kneecap. He shot one in the stomach and another in the back, watching as they twisted and fell.

And yet still, they came.

His fingertips began to sizzle, reloading round after round into the hot steel of his rifle. His side was dripping now, a distant pitter-patter of drops on his boots. Every shot was a meat tenderizer, the rifle opening the slash in his side. His head began to swim. He had no idea how long this had been going on or how long it would last. The world beyond the gates began to shrink and grow in the dark.

When his head cleared, he realized his last two shots were dry-fires. He reached down and groped at the ammo box. Then the tower began to shake, and he stumbled. A few of the figures had broken from the group and begun to jump on the lower supports. He'd kicked the ladder down and shot a few stragglers, but they were getting bolder.

By the pit, he could see AJ and Kate fighting back to back, inching along the path. He'd never been much for praying, but he prayed now. Just a little faster. Hurry up and get back here so we can get the hell out—

Something grabbed his foot, something that had climbed up the supports.

“Get off me!” He turned the rifle and fired, fully expecting the thing's head to explode, but he hadn't reloaded. He hadn't reloaded!

Fingernails tore into his calf, and he toppled to the floor. The thing at his feet laughed dark hysterical laughter, and instantly, he knew who it was. It was Melvin, come back to drag him into the great beyond. The thing's head was distorted, its skin blotched with pond-water stains, but there was no mistake: it was him.

Dutch stumbled backwards, and the Melvin-thing pulled himself through the trap door. It was on Dutch in a second, thrashing, clawing, biting. Dutch grabbed it around the throat and held it back, but when he looked at the trapdoor, he saw they were no longer alone. Melvin had broken the dam. There were four or five of them scrambling up the sides now, all clambering towards him with that crazed, insatiable anger.

Feeling his strength give out, his arm sunk beneath the drive and adrenaline of his attacker. His side was fully split now, his blood running thin. He tried to throw Melvin over the tower, but the thing smashed him in the side of the head, and Dutch collapsed. His face landed next to the ammo box, and he looked at the shells mournfully. But the box wasn't only full of bullets.

He reached inside and grabbed an oblong shape just before Melvin turned him over, and the other figures crested the top of the tower. They did not wait on ceremony. He felt four new mouths attach to his clothes, ripping and tearing the cloth.

“You think you got the Dutch boy?” he screamed. “I got you! I got you!”

He twisted the top of the object, and the cord dropped. He pulled it just before Melvin tore his hand away and bit off two of his fingers.

Dutch remembered how Gideon had sounded in the machine shop at the docks. He remembered how horrifying his screams were, how he couldn't imagine what his death could have felt like.

Then they bit through his clothes, and he understood.

6

The tower exploded in a white flash, discharging a lightning-quick blast of sunlight over the wastes. It revealed the shadows of dozens more figures, rising and crawling over the mass of corpses. Kate looked at AJ and saw his face was stone, his eyes shining in the light of the fire. Then a shadow played across his features, and she saw how porcelain-thin that mask was.

“There!” she yelled. “There's the entrance to the docks!”

She pulled him after her, knocking another one of the Carrion figures into the pit. If they had a chance, it was now.

A mass of tentacles twined over the exit, blocking it as they had blocked the base entrance. The two of them came to halt directly in front, the fisheries now visible through the cracks.

AJ tossed the smoking MP38 to the ground, but his face had cleared. “I'm out. Do your thing, honey. Melt them down.”

When she squeezed the trigger, the nozzle produced a dry coughing sound. “Empty!”

“What?”

The weight of the canisters was still obscene, and suddenly, she was very anxious to get them off. Dropping the hose, she unbuckled her waist straps and wriggled free of the harness. The backpack clanged angrily to the ground.

“I can't see. Where are they?”

AJ fired the last flare into the sky, and suddenly the hordes were there, sprinting from the edge where the two of them had been only moments before.

He tossed her a pistol.

“What are we going to do?”

“Shoot as many as we can.”

“Don't you have a grenade?”

AJ started to open his mouth, but she reached into his overcoat before he could speak and pulled out a Model-24, the same beast Dutch had used, the same Seiler had tossed onto the pirate vessel in the long ago. To her surprise, he produced a second grenade and handed it to her. “This is all I got! Make it count!”

She yanked the cords and tossed them both beneath the mass of tentacles, praying they would do the job. They had no room for error.

“Did you—” AJ asked, but that was as far as he got.

The earth detonated behind them, showering dirt and fungus in all directions. AJ dove over her, using the trench coat as a shield for the debris. A second after it was over, he was yanking her up and sloughing off the coat.

“Run!” he yelled. “Run like the wind!”

They passed through the gate and into the heart of the docks, the army of shapes mere seconds behind. Kate's eyes scanned the warehouses, searching for the one Dutch had described. Then, she saw. Down by the water stood a metal shack with signs of the recent fire. It hadn't burned, but there were scorch marks around the roof and the side door. Again she thought of the odds of the boat being incinerated, and again, she closed her mind to it.

The horde was gaining on them, pacing up the shore as if they knew what the two of them were planning. AJ fired one more round over his shoulder and then chucked the rifle, catching up to Kate and then surpassing her. He plowed through the door to the machine shop, and when she followed, he slammed the door behind her. His hands fumbled around the entrance until he found the wooden bar serving as the lock. He threw it into place, sealing them from the outside.

A second later, something large and heavy slammed against it, rattling the thin metal walls. Kate could hear them pawing and humping at the door, screaming to get in. She and AJ didn't have long. The boat bay was open to the water, and as soon as those things figured that out, they'd forget the door, circle the exterior, and get inside.

The ceiling was full of skylights, but without the sun, it was almost too dark to see. The moon illuminated two or three dim patches of room, and they were small.

“Where's the boat?”

A flame flickered to life as AJ produced his lighter. She breathed a sigh of relief; the boat was there, and it looked intact.

Something slammed into him in the dark, and AJ was suddenly flying into the floor. Kate heard his back crack into the concrete and winced. The figure on top of him hissed, its hands tearing at him with lawnmower speed.

“Your gun!” he called. “Kate, shoot this fucking thing!”

She reached into her waist band and hoisted the Luger. “You have to get it off of you!” she cried. “Get it off!”

AJ looked at her, then planted a boot in the thing's chest and pushed, sending it flying across the room. It landed almost perfectly in a square of moonlight.

“Shoot it!”

She fired, the gun thundering in her hands not once, but three times. All three shots connected, the blackened thing twisting and spinning under the force of the shots. It slumped to the ground, either dead or dying.

AJ jumped to his feet and began running to the boat. There was no time for thanks. She heard splashes in the water and knew the horde was moving towards the bay doors.

“Come on!” he yelled.

But she found her mind wasn't totally numb yet. “The water! We have to lower it into the water!”

“Find the release!”

He ran to the engine and thumbed the engine primer, five presses inside a second. After giving the rest a quick look, he pulled the rope. The engine shuddered but didn't start.

Kate shuffled around the perimeter, searching for something that might look like a switch or a hoist. “I can't find it!”

AJ pulled the starter one more time. “Look! You're probably looking for a rod or something mechanical.”

She saw it then, a thin, brown shaft sticking out of a pulley mechanism. She ran to it and pulled. At first, it didn't give, but when she put all of her weight against it, the thing creaked and slid downwards. The boat dropped with a sudden ferocity, slamming into the water at full tilt. AJ lost his footing and fell, the lighter going dead. I've knocked him out, she thought crazily. I've knocked him out, and in so doing, killed us both!

But then, he was standing up with the lighter in hand, giving her a look that was two parts gratitude and one part exasperation.

“Help me!” she said, trying to get across the gap.

“Help yourself, or we're not going to make it!”

Something splashed in the water not ten feet from the bay doors. She took his advice and jumped, landing just inside the walls of the boat.

AJ pulled the starter and the engine turned over, the propeller spinning up to full speed. He slammed the engine throttle down, and before she could sit up, the boat was flying forwards. It clunked against something soft and organic, and then suddenly, they were in open water. The machine shop was disappearing behind them, the island looming behind it. She watched as the blackened hordes swarmed after them, but it was too late. They were away.

They were far away.

Chapter 24: Cheruta

The Island:

February, 1939

1

They arrived to pandemonium. Doctor Grey's Carrion had come, and the whalers did not stand a chance.

Lucja's companion pulled the bike up to the wooden docks, hoping to get them close to the nearest departing ship. As they dismounted, she saw they had come too late. The ship was overloaded with seven or eight blackened figures, all clutching and climbing from the water. It began to sink under their weight, and in seconds, the men on board were torn apart.

“Over here!”

She looked further up the walk and saw a man standing outside one of the warehouses, beckoning.

“The last ship is over there! If we hurry, we can—”

A shape pounced off of a nearby roof and landed on top of him. Lucja thought it had once been a dog. It tore off the man's face in two quick bites.

Jan drew his pistol and fired his last three shots, then tossed the gun into the water and began to run, dragging Lucja behind him. The dog-thing, hurt but not dead, started limping after them.

Dead littered the walk. The ships had gone, leaving the stragglers to fend for themselves against the oncoming horrors. She could hear screaming as men were dragged from their hiding spots into the dark. The wood beneath her feet lay stained with blood.

“Keep going!” Jan said. “With me!” He was breathing hard but still outpacing her.

Several men clung to life at the edges of the docks, reaching towards the sea and the brothers who had left them behind. One such man grabbed a bone saw to defend himself but could do nothing against the horde, and soon found himself pinned to a deck bollard, his legs disappearing in a whirl of claws and teeth. He looked at Lucja, his eyes glazing over, then used the saw to cut his own throat.

“It's too late!” she cried, hot tears running down her face. “They're going to get us!”

“They're not going to get us! Look!”

Lucja saw one more boat, and it was a big one, a catcher ship. It had left the pier but was drifting slowly from the shore. It looked just like The Adalgisa, and for a moment, she thought it was The Adalgisa, but that couldn't be.

As they turned onto the final deck, the last straight line to the water, Lucja heard footfalls. She looked over her shoulder and saw three humanoid shapes running after them. They had caught their scent and were tearing up the deck.

“Jump!” Jan yelled. “Into the water!”

They leapt from the end of the pier, flying into the murky dark. An instant before she hit, Lucja remembered her sister and what the water had done to her. And then the cold washed over her, freezing her bones solid. Against all odds, she kept her mouth closed, willing herself not to drown. An instant later, she was swimming. Jan had never asked if she could swim, but it wouldn't have mattered; it was swim or die.

A moment later, she felt her arms grow sluggish, the cold overwhelming her. She wanted to cough but knew if she did, she wouldn't be able to stop. She kept going, focusing on the back of the ship and the name etched into the metal: The Cheruta.

Hands were suddenly around her waist, and before she knew what was happening, she was being hoisted into the air. A man from the ship had grabbed her and was now lifting her on board. The man set her feet down to the wood, and before she could blink, she was safe… safe!

The man went back to the rails and reached down for Jan. “Give me your hand! Come on, reach!”

But Jan was too far away; the cold had almost taken him.

On the side wall, she saw a lifebuoy tied to a rope. No one else had thought to grab it, so she did, taking the heavy object in her hand. She moved to the side of the ship, and the men parted for her.

“Let her pass!” one of them said.

“Toss it to him!” yelled another. “Before it's too late!”

As Lucja looked over the side, Jan stopped struggling. He saw her there, standing with the thing in her hands, and waited. His eyes seemed to know what she was picturing. She was seeing Jan as he really was. Not just her savior, but the man who had helped take her mother, the man who had kept her father imprisoned, the man who had stood by when her sister was killed. She was seeing the man who had pushed her father away when only two of them could fit on the motorcycle.

For the thousandth time, Lucja thought about the way Dominik had looked on the deck of The Adalgisa, the ax raised over his head. She thought about what she had seen in his face. She thought about what it was like to hold the power of life and death in your hands and the choices that would stay with you forever.

The moment passed.

She tossed the lifebuoy over the side, and Jan caught it. In seconds, the others were helping him onto the deck, and the island was disappearing behind them.

When he was up, he stooped and put a hand on her head, still breathing hard. “I will help you find your mother,” he said. “I promise you.”

She nodded, his hand like ice on her cheek. But just then, she wasn't thinking about her mother. She was still thinking about her father, and all the things he had done to make sure that she — Lucja — was the one standing on the deck of this ship.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, her voice dying in the wind. “Goodbye, Father.”

2

As Dominik passed through the gate, The Carrion ignored him, focused on the ones with the guns. The soldiers had yet to grasp they didn't have enough bullets. Eventually, they would all be dragged from the base. They would go screaming or they would go unconscious, but they would all go on their backs, their bodies instruments of some terrible new purpose.

Ari was standing where Dominik had left him, his hands huddled by his face. “There's nowhere to go! They're everywhere, Dom!”

“We'll find you somewhere safe.”

“There's nowhere safe!”

“There is. I promise.” His voice sounded strangely calm to his own ears. He supposed he knew why. Lucja was safe — or would be soon — and in a way, nothing else mattered. “Trust me, Ari.”

Dominik led his friend across the grounds, avoiding the hole leading to the lab. He could smell formaldehyde drifting up from the leaking tank and thought that it might be hours before it petered out. He stepped over a body by the hole, then another. To his left, he saw the remains of young Sergeant Metzger. The boy's head was missing, torn off at the neck, but Dominik could still see the silver cross on his chest. He saw Gloeckner and half a dozen others he recognized nearby, all of them silent and still.

In the thick of it all, they found the only building with its door still intact, and Dominik guided his friend to the entrance. Just before they stepped through, one of the blackened shapes leapt from the inside, stopping to shriek directly into their faces. Then it bounded off into the night, leaving them unharmed. A moment later, the generator lights cut out, and the sphere of night closed tightly around them.

Ari was near collapse. “I… I don't think I can—”

“Don't quit on me now, Ari!”

They stepped inside, and Dominik shut the door, sealing them into the supply bunker. They were alone.

“We have to be quiet.”

“All right,” the other man said. “I can do quiet. I can do that.”

Dominik felt his way past the shelves and the various crates and sacks scattered about the place, Ari's hand still clasped in his own. The place was sealed tight, and it was incredibly stuffy inside. Dominik wondered if the place was air-tight, but even if it was, they didn't have a choice. They were staying.

“Over here.”

The two of them sat against the wall at the back of the bunker, their arms wrapped about one another. The walls were thick, but they could hear shouts and thumps outside of the place. Ari was particularly affected, mumbling and whispering every time he heard something in spite of his promise. But after some time, the noises stopped.

In the dark, Ari began to weep. “We should have known,” he said. “We should have done something.”

“He who learns must suffer; and even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God.”

Ari sniffed, and Dominik heard him laugh a little. “What is that, a poem? It's beautiful.”

He smiled painfully in the dark, thinking back to his days at the university, a time when such a thing might have mattered. “I can't remember.”

“Then let's just stay here for a while. Will you hold me?”

“I will, Ari.”

Side by side, they slept, holding one another to stave off the dark. It was there they would stay, arm-in-arm, until eternity claimed them.

Chapter 25: The Way Home

The Argentinian Coast:

Present Day

1

They ran out of gas about thirty miles off shore. The boat had two oars, one of which was badly chipped and cracked, but the paddles saved their lives. It took them almost a full day to reach the mainland once the engine died, but arrive they did. By that time, they were both on the verge of collapse. They were exhausted, sunburned, dehydrated, starving. But alive.

There was no coast guard to bring them in, no rescue tankers, no cruise ships, no children playing on the beach. They arrived to a stretch of coast as ancient and deserted as the dead shores of the whaling docks. The white sand could have been beautiful once, but at present, it only looked dirty, littered with driftwood and the bones of dead fish.

None of this mattered.

When the boat finally washed up onto the beach, Kate rolled off its side and screamed with joy. For a long time, she could do nothing but grab handfuls of the muddy earth and let it slip between her fingers. AJ laughed hysterically as he dropped to the sand and then joined her, throwing his arms about her waist. He held her until they had both decided it was time to move on. It seemed like hours before it did.

AJ took out his key chain; his key chain had a compass. They had traveled northwest towards the coast, and though they didn't know it, they had traveled into the light. Darkness still enveloped the island, but the night had already come and gone on the mainland. They arrived at dawn, the sun greeting them like an old friend.

With some measure of serendipity, the boat landed less than ten miles from the place they originally departed. Having no knowledge of the land nor its people, they decided they should walk north to the old church while they still had the strength. When they arrived — around midday this was — they found it deserted. The old padre had gone, if he had ever been there at all.

They spent the next hour exploring, looking over the grounds, into the bunk house, into the chapel. This latter still had a hole in the floor, exposing the basement Mason had toiled so hard to uncover. When Kate went down, she found the cellar was devoid of Black Shadow's guns, but it was stocked with food and bottled water. She didn't know if it had been put there in preparation for Mason's return or if the old father was preparing a fallout shelter, but she didn't care. The food would keep them alive.

They feasted on Evian, canned beans, crackers, dried fruit, and jerky. AJ found a case of Coke, which he opened with another knickknack from his key chain. Kate thought it was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted.

When they were finished, they slept for an hour inside the cellar. It was cool down there, but when the stone became too uncomfortable, they moved to the bunk house and collapsed into the pastor's bed. Some hours later, they made love. Not for the joy of the act, but because for a time, they could do nothing but clutch at life as if they were drowning, and because it killed thoughts of everything else. Kate was the one who prompted it, starting by touching AJ's face, and then his neck, and then pulling him to her like he was the last man on earth. For all they had seen along coast, perhaps he was. They tore at each other, rolling backwards and forwards, sweating and clawing and biting in the heat. Someone watching might have thought the behavior oddly imitative, though thoughts of this nature never entered either of their minds.

When it was over, AJ sat on the edge of the bed, and Kate ran a hand over his shoulders. She had left claw marks along his back, red and angry on his pale skin. She thought she might have the same. She might have bruises along her throat, the spot where he had squeezed her as he climaxed.

“We can't stay here,” he said finally.

“I know.”

“When we flew in the first time, I think I saw a village further up. If we can make it there, someone is bound to have a phone.”

It sounded like the right thing, but neither one of them moved for a long time. She continued stroking his back, rubbing those angry spots where her nails had left marks.

“Kate?” He turned to her, and she marveled at how normal the moment seemed. If she could, she thought she would hold onto it forever.

“Yes?”

“When you go back. I'm going with you.”

“You are?”

“No one should have to face them alone. Valley Oil, I mean. So I'm going whether you want me to or not. And I have a feeling that if I don't, no one will believe what happened here.”

And then she did move, rising up out of the bed and throwing her arms around him. She didn't know if this thing they had meant anything, or even if she would have been able to stand him in her normal life, but for now, it was real. She needed something real if she was going to go back to that other world. She thought they both did.

2

It was raining as the old man got out of the car, the estate grounds drenched in shades of gray. He was tired to the very core, his old bones creaking in the wet weather. His valet Andrew opened the door for him, and he stepped out, waiting for the younger man to unfurl his umbrella. When he didn't, Godfried asked where it was.

“I didn't bring it today, sir. I'm sorry. The forecast didn't call for it.”

“Damn the bloody forecast,” he said, hobbling to the walk. “I'm calling the company tomorrow. You'll be out of a job by morning, you bleeding sot.”

The man flushed, staring after him as he made his way to the house. Godfried almost regretted saying it, but then thought, the hell with it. He didn't like the kid, and the rain was making him feel rotten.

Ahead, he saw that the porch light was on, but the walk was deserted. Where was the door man? He opened the doors himself.

“Martha? MacNab?” He smelled a roast cooking and thought maybe they were in the kitchen. Still feeling too surly for company, he went to the stairs, thinking he'd go to his office first and have a drink. It wouldn't be long before he'd need an elevator to get to the second level, but he thought he'd drown himself before he allowed that to happen. For now, he was hale and healthy for a man going on eighty, and he intended to keep it that way.

“Martha?” he called again. She wasn't much good any more, but he did like looking at her ass, even if she was going on middle-aged.

Instead, it was Chester who came to say hello. The retriever paused to lick the old man's hand, then went on downstairs. Just passing through, don't mind me. “You're as bloody useless as the rest of them,” he said, but he didn't mean it. His dogs were the only loyal servants he had in this place.

When he got to his office, he flicked the light switch, but no light came on. A manila envelope dropped onto his desk, and he spun, seeing a shadowed figure standing behind it.

“Your reflexes are pretty good for an old man, Godfried.”

“Who's there?” he demanded.

She stepped forward then, allowing the light from the hall to graze her face. It was sharp, that face, a lot harder than the last time he had seen it.

“My father never gave you this, did he?”

Godfried felt himself smile. He had thought someone might have broken in, but it was just this girl, and hardened or not, she was still his goddaughter. “Did I ever tell you that he did? I mean explicitly tell you?”

She grunted. “A lawyer's answer. You let me believe it.”

“You drew your own conclusions.”

“You deceived me.”

“You let yourself be deceived.”

She rounded the desk, but he stood firm. Old or not, he would not be pushed around by this girl, and deep down, she knew he was right. Had he forged anything in Stan McCreedy's name? Faked his signature? No, of course not. He had given her a few photographs and made some vague references. Her mind had done the rest.

“You were there, weren't you?” she asked. “You had just gotten back from out of the country the last time I saw you. You were there.”

“That's company business, Katelyn.”

“That's my business!” she yelled.

“You always did have a temper,” he said, cocking his head into his patented gunslinger stare. It was enough to shut most people up, if they knew better

“You saw the fungus on The Aeschylus, and you had your own team of researchers analyze it. You kept the results hidden from the company.”

“How do you know that?”

“The guest log on the platform intimates as much.”

He paused. The documents were supposed to have burned in the fire after the accident, but he supposed anything was possible. He had signed them, after all.

“So what?”

“So what?” she bellowed. “Do you know what's happened? Do you have any idea?”

“I know we have a hell of an insurance claim to file, if the newest satellite images can be trusted. And unfortunately, we have ended our business relationship with Black Shadow. They wouldn't issue us a refund, being the hooligans they are. It's quite a mess out there, from what I'm told.”

Kicking the desk aside, she came to stand two inches from his face. She wouldn't touch him though, she couldn't possibly be that dumb.

“Two hundred and fifty people are dead, Godfried, including friends of mine, and you could have stopped the whole thing.”

“I did what was best for the company. Shutting down that operation would have caused a catastrophe. For what, a fungus? A growth on the beams? You've got to be joshing.”

“That story would almost make sense, if you hadn't had your own biologists analyze it.”

He paused, hearing the voracity in her words. Maybe he would have to do a little negotiating after all. “Look, dear.”

“Don't you dare call me that!”

“Katelyn, darling,” he said. “There are some risks you have to take. The oil reserves won't be around forever. The fact we're drilling at the ends of the earth should be enough to tell you that. When the wells do run dry, what do you think is going to happen? Other companies are investigating alternative energy sources, and so are we. Maybe it was a bit rash making a judgment call like that, but imagine if it worked! Imagine if we did find an organism that could literally replace crude as a form of energy. Think about it!”

“It wasn't up to you!”

“What the board doesn't know won't hurt them. As far as they know, the place fell victim to an oil fire. That's certainly what it looks like from the satellite photos, and now that the pre-fire investigation has been botched, they might never know. Isn't that right?”

“And me?” she asked. “And me, Godfried? What were you going to do with me?”

“I'm sorry. I protect the company, Katelyn, that's what I do.”

“And my four hundred thousand shares couldn't hurt, could they? Because in the event of my death, I'm sure my father would have willed them to you.”

Well, there it was: the ugly truth. Now, when it came to bending truth, Godfried was a world-class athlete. With just the two of them here, however, what was the point? “As you say.”

“As you say,” she mimicked, her eyes narrowing. But he thought he saw something in those eyes, something he didn't like. “They'll know.”

She stepped away from him then, taking out her phone and pressing a button on the interface. It took him a moment to realize she had been using it as a recording device. He would have expected a tape recorder, but maybe he was just old-fashioned.

“Katelyn, honey. You know that's not admissible. And you know I'm going to get it from you before you leave the room.”

“It may not be admissible on its own,” she said, “but eyewitness testimony is.”

“What?”

From out of nowhere, five other figures stepped out from behind the curtains, from behind the shelves, from inside the closet. Godfried looked around, confused.

“What?” he seethed. “In my house?”

As the figures came forward, they began to take shape. They looked like his security. Only they weren't his security per se. They were Valley Oil's security, and they did not look happy.

He stared at MacNab, who had stepped in front of the rest. The man had his service revolver by his side. “Take him,” he said.

“Collin! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?”

A guard walked towards him brandishing handcuffs.

At the same time, his goddaughter sidled up next to MacNab and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Nabby.”

“It's the right thing.”

“You're a good man.”

“I know,” he said, smiling.

Another man stepped in behind her, and she turned to throw her arms around him. This was a different sort of embrace, one far more intimate. Godfried saw that the man had flaming red hair.

“You!” he yelled. “I know you! We fired you! We fired you! You're supposed to be dead, do you know that?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Funny, but I think the shoe is on the other foot, now.”

“Goddamn you!” Godfried screamed. “You're not getting away with this… any of you!”

He suddenly felt very dizzy. What a mess this was. What a mess this ungrateful girl had brought down upon his head.

Security dragged him through the hall, down the stairs, and out the back door. They had a car waiting, all gassed up and ready to go. As they passed under the awning, they entered the open air, and Godfried was covered in the freezing rain he hated so much.

Katelyn would have her way after all. She would blow this thing wide open.

Katelyn.

Her father's daughter.

Epilogue

Mason.

Mason, wake up.

His eyes opened, sticky with gunk he could not blink away. He tried to get a bead on where the voice was coming from and thought it must be inside his head. That was crazy, but no news there. Less than an hour ago, he'd killed with his bare hands, and he'd enjoyed it.

Look, Mason.

Look at what lies beneath you.

He wiped at his eyes, trying to get a sense of where he was and why he was still alive. If he was still alive.

And then, he shuddered. The great black expanse of the chasm opened beneath him. Featureless. Bottomless. Opening to the very center of the earth, as far as he could tell.

He tried to twist and found something gripping his back. It felt like a large, metal claw. It encircled his waist, perfectly supporting him over the void. There was something else, as well: a metal arm was behind his head and… and something was in his brain. A metal rod with a pencil-thick needle had been jabbed into the back of his skull, holding his head straight.

He coughed something inarticulate. Saliva fell from his mouth, and he watched it trail down into the darkness and disappear.

Would you like to see?

The claw twisted, and he felt himself roll a hundred and eighty degrees. A moment later, he was looking straight up, a half moon shining a sinister light down upon him. He had fallen five hundred feet and something… something had snatched him out of the air. He remembered it, now. He remembered falling and then, very distinctly, he remembered something grabbing him. Something else occurred to him as well: he was thinking clearly. His memory of the fall itself was clouded with blood-lust and animal rage, but now… now, he could think.

Looking at his arms and hands, he saw they were still splotched, and that meant he had not imagined his time with The Carrion. His body shook with frustration.

You hate them.

They took your mind.

They took your body.

It is right to hate them.

They tried to take us.

Our people.

As they took you.

Above him, he could see a labyrinth of tentacles, massive and hive-like. They obscured the opening above, growing out the cavern walls and twisting into one another. Humanoid figures crawled along them, inserting themselves back inside at intervals. They would sleep now, for a time. They would sleep until The Carrion needed to defend itself again. If his old pal got away, he imagined that would be soon. The image brought back the idea of their resemblance to bugs, and he was reminded of how much that disgusted him. He was turning into one of them for fuck's sake.

We can stop that.

“Stop what?” he asked. Was he talking to himself, or was that voice real?

We can stop the turning.

Mason laughed, then. It was thunderous, that laugh, echoing inside the chasm and down into the abyss.

We can.

We can do the stopping.

Make you stronger.

“Why would you?” he asked. He was surely dead now. This was all a dream, a temporary distraction on his way to the afterlife, but he would play along. There are times when you might as well go the whole hog, as Reiner used to say.

Because of who you are.

“And who am I? Some kind of chosen?” he asked, still laughing.

No.

The claw tightened, spinning him again. This time it was painful, the metal crunching bone. Mason coughed and spat a wad of blood. It spun him around to face the cavern wall, to face the entities he was addressing. They wanted his full attention, and crazy or not, they had it. Because now, he hurt. Now, they were pissing him off.

We could have let you drop.

We let the others drop.

But not you.

Do we have your attention?

We have your eyes.

We want your attention.

“Ye… yes,” he said.

The rock in front of him was broken. It looked as if there was a hole, and something had crashed into it. In the darkness, he couldn't see, but it was something metal, something old. It might have been a ship.

We will do the stopping.

Then you will destroy them.

For us.

The Carrion.

What you call them.

Mason squinted, but the darkness was still too thick. “That's what you want, huh?”

First, you will rest.

You will rest a long time.

Your friends will die.

Your loved ones will die.

The world as you know it will die.

He could only stare at this.

It will be painful.

The needle in the back of his head turned, and something in his skull popped. He ground his teeth, the muscles in his body tightening.

“Why me?” he whispered. He wasn't sure if sound actually escaped his lips, but the things in the wall seemed to hear him just the same.

You are the best statistical choice.

Not special.

The best of a bad lot, as you say.

Mason tried to laugh again, but it was too painful. His shoulder ached. His ribs felt crushed, and he knew he had been shot in at least three places. Instead, he grinned, his lip bloody with teeth marks.

It will be painful, the voice in his head repeated. Will you scream?

“Fuck you,” Mason said.

Will you scream? it asked, its voice implacable.

“No.”

Screaming will violate the terms of our arrangement.

“Arrangement? Get this crap out of me, then we'll talk about our little arrangement. Capisce?”

No. You will sleep.

“Your mother's a whore.”

Will you scream? it asked a third time.

“Fuck you, no!” But he wasn't so sure any more. He was starting to think this wasn't a dream. If it wasn't, and this thing was real, he couldn't make promises. Because he knew at some point, no matter how strong you were, you just lost control of your body, and your body would scream all on its own. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was afraid.

Let us begin.

“Why?” Mason asked.

The enemy of my enemy, it said.

It dragged him in.

And when the scalpels and joint splitters went to work, Mason tried very hard not to scream.

Acknowledgments

This novel would not have been possible without the loving support of friends and family, especially my wife Kristen, who did more for this book than I can describe. A special thanks also goes to Dave Johnson for his invaluable first draft notes, to Writer's Carnival for their support, and to Matthew Gomez for generally helping to improve my writing.

About the Author

David Barclay is the author of The Aeschylus and the forthcoming novella, The Maker's Box. He lives in the greater San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Kristen.

Website: www.david-barclay.com

Twitter: @David_R_Barclay

Wattpad: The_Raen

Content

David Barclay
The Aeschylus

Prologue

Chapter 1: Inheritance

1

2

3

4

Chapter 2: The End of Romance

1

2

3

4

Chapter 3: Knowing Better

1

2

3

4

Chapter 4: On The Adalgisa

1

2

3

Chapter 5: A Mouthful of Sand

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 6: Deep Waters

1

2

3

Chapter 7: Answers

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 8: Sturm und Drang

1

2

Chapter 9: Carrion

1

2

3

4

Chapter 10: The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone

1

2

3

Chapter 11: Ruin

1

2

3

4

5

Chapter 12: New Swabia

1

2

3

4

5

Chapter 13: Extreme Prejudice

1

2

3

4

Chapter 14: Purpose

1

2

3

4

Chapter 15: Cold Day in Hell

1

2

3

4

5

Chapter 16: Fulcrum

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Chapter 17: Inferno

1

2

3

4

5

Chapter 18: Aphelion

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 19: Nightfall

1

2

3

4

5

Chapter 20: Fire Telephone to God

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Chapter 21: The Colony

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 22: Hope and Horror

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 23: Siege

1

2

3

4

5

6

Chapter 24: Cheruta

1

2

Chapter 25: The Way Home

1

2

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author