Chapter Twenty-Five
Ben and Aleksey ran with Emilia and the three dogs down to the dock.
The remains of their boat was slumped dejectedly against the stanchions, tipped to one side and battered beyond use. The waves were now swelling over the surface of the jetty and no beach was visible.
Harry already had the boat backed out of the boatshed. There was no sign of anyone yet in the bay. They lifted Radulf on board, Emilia jumped on with Snodgrass in her arms, and PB followed them all over the side and down into the cabin to join Molly, Miles, Enid and Babushka.
At the last minute, Aleksey dragged his phone and wallet out of his pocket nudged Ben to do the same and they handed them to Squeezy. You didn’t take such items onto a battlefield.
The family didn’t linger more.
Harry and Squeezy were standing at the helm together. The tumult hit them even in the relative shelter of the island, and they both braced at exactly the same time.
Aleksey turned to Ben. ‘They must not get the chimera.’
Ben considered the little blue cylinder. ‘Easy enough to hide.’
Aleksey pursed his lips, thinking. ‘They will be expecting the family to be on the island—Miles and Molly at least. If they find it empty, they may decide they have no choice but to accept the situation and leave.’
‘Okay, good, we just evade them then.’
‘You are missing the point. I do not think they can be allowed to leave.’
Ben nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. Okay. Damn—Rachel. She’s going to be an issue.’
Aleksey made a scoffing sound. ‘She is not the one who will slow you down, if that is what you are thinking.’
Ben just rubbed his hair. ‘Anyone would think you’d just been shot or something the way you fuss.’ He toed the ground for a moment. ‘Lookout point.’
Aleksey nodded, and they slipped into the woods and made their way over to their redoubt. Under the shrub, on their bellies, in the scrape they’d made on their last visit, they had an excellent view of the bay.
The last time they had lain here, they’d been waiting for the family to arrive. Feral, filthy, utterly at peace and happy, they’d felt like true castaways: men thrown from one tumultuous world into a place of greater safety. Now this sanctuary was threatened. Aleksey wished he’d pursued his ridiculous plan to mine the coastline.
He laid his chin on his folded hands and closed his eyes for a moment. Ben’s hand came up onto his back and began to stroke around. When he looked again, the blue cylinder was still sitting where he’d carefully placed it in front of them. He’d hoped the gods of chaos and chance might have gotten over their snit and let him alone for awhile. Apparently not. He gave it a tiny flick with his finger and it nearly went over the edge. Ben lunged and grabbed it. ‘Fuck.’
For once, Aleksey let the swearing go.
Holding it for the first time clearly awed Ben. He turned it around as if it was a grenade with its pin removed, and nothing was consequently unknown about the next few minutes—the only decision he had to make was which way to toss it. Which was exactly the problem, when Aleksey thought about it. ‘I do not know if we should hide it or keep it with us. I do not know if we should just take it to the cliffs and drop it into the deepest part of the ocean.’
‘Maybe Rachel would know.’
‘If we had a couple of hours to spare, I would consult her.’
They saw the boat. At least the men on it had suffered, that much was evident. They’d not had an easy crossing, and one man appeared to be vomiting over the side even as they entered the relative shelter of the bay. But this realisation only turned Aleksey’s thoughts to the little boat now battering its way up the northern coast.
The large motorised yacht powered closer. Clearly they would spot the capsized wreck of the vessel still tied to the dock and the open doors of the empty shed. What they would make of this scenario was anyone’s guess. He suspected they would assume that the smashed boat belonged to the family holidaying on the island, and that they would not have any idea that he and Ben had managed to arrive before them. When Aleksey thought about this, he actually smirked a little. You leave someone shot in the face and locked in a secure armoury, and yet the next time you see him he’s lying in wait for you. He liked this idea and adorned it with some bloodletting and heads rolling as he watched the new arrivals opt for the shelter of the shed.
This was good.
This was very good. ‘They must not leave the island. Whatever happens, it has to start and finish here. So first we scupper their boat.’
Ben nodded. He didn’t need to point out the obvious: by trapping these men, they were trapping themselves.
Aleksey took the chimera from Ben. ‘We’ll hide it here. I don’t know what is best, but we cannot carry it with us—for what we have to do.’
Ben began to scrape out the soft sandy soil until he had a good-sized hole and then laid the blue canister carefully in it. Scooped back, patted down and scattered with some twigs and stones, the place where the Black Death hid was oddly peaceful. Aleksey realised that if he and Ben were both killed, knowledge of the location of this terrible weapon would be lost. But possibly not forever—perhaps in some future time, it would be found and opened. He could not see Hope sitting quietly at the bottom of that Pandora’s Box.
Ben patted the soil one last time. ‘Do you think it will…rust? Leak?’
