The Lamplighters

Chapter Nineteen

Brett was below decks when he heard the commotion. Excited voices were raised above the sound of the onboard motors and the ceaseless splashing of the waves against the hull of the vessel. He’d been soul-searching down in the galley and had decided he had no choice but to try and make the best of things, stuck as he was on the yacht. Maybe Scott had been right, they were crewmembers like the next man, and they had to do their bit. No point pining for the mainland while he was out there on the waves. He liked Scott, even though he bugged the shit out of him all too often, they were still mates since college and that had to stand for something. Brett was mentally preparing a little speech intended to placate Scott and smooth things over with him, when he heard the voices and the noise above reach new levels. The engine noise had dipped and the movement of the yacht slowed suddenly. Putting aside all thoughts of his peacemaking with Scott for a moment, Brett seized the rails of the metal steps leading up to the deck above and began to climb. He peered out over the hatch, watching animated yachters darting to the port side of the vessel. One of them, a girl, cried out, “Over there! Over there!” and all eyes followed the tip of her finger out across the waves to the distant shape of a landmass. Brett was up on deck now, walking over to join the others by the observation deck. Where the hell had they ended up, back at the mainland? Maybe someone had made a navigational error. No such luck he discovered, realizing the landmass was an island out in the middle of nowhere. Ocean still surrounded them as far as the eye could see. He looked over to the control room where The Skip (still an asshole, for the record) was talking rapidly over and over into the handset of a radio. His First Mate (less of an asshole, but still high in the charts) was muttering something about the island and how could there be an island out here, GPS was showing a whole bunch of nothing. The Skip looked puzzled at this, but kept on repeating his transmission into the little radio handset, working its coiled wire around his fingers as he spoke.

“There in the water! In the water!”

The same girl was shouting again and more deckhands rushed to her side of the yacht to see what she was caterwauling about. Brett went with the flow and joined the group, peering out over the surf in the vague direction the girl was looking. Then he saw it—a small, powerful figure ploughing through the waves with swimming strokes as regular and machinelike as an automaton’s. The swimmer was heading straight for the yacht, his arms rising and cutting into the water like twin metronomes keeping a beat. Brett could almost feel the sheer physical effort of the swimmer. If he’d come from that island, he’d swum one heck of a long way already.

“Someone get him a life preserver!”

The cry echoed Brett’s thoughts. He looked up at the girl who’d shouted and found himself staring into Idoya’s eyes. He began to blush, remembering how his lower decks had betrayed him when he looked at her earlier. But her eyes were urgent and she seemed to have forgotten the incident for now. Something rose inside Brett’s chest—it was purpose. This might be his chance to do his bit, to make a difference, to be accepted as a bona fide member of the crew. He fixed the Ibizan beauty with a serious gaze, nodded his head as if to say I’m on it, then turned and dashed off to find a life preserver.

There. The life preserver’s bright circle was a beacon glowing striped orange at him from its mount next to the cabin entrance. He reached out for it, hearing Idoya calling for him to hurry up somewhere behind him. But he did not hurry. In fact, he stood frozen to the spot as a new shape entered his field of vision. He moved to the other side of the boat now, ignoring the life preserver, and looked out over the rail. A huge, sleek black boat was gunning through the ocean towards them. He could see black-clad figures on deck, holding onto the safety rails as their mighty boat powered through the waves, spewing spray in huge arcs from beneath its nose.

“Help him on board! Someone help him up!”

His crewmembers’ cries were muffled static to Brett. All he could look at was the black boat, and the men onboard who were armed to the teeth. All his brain could process was the speed of the vessel and the fact that those who piloted it were pointing something decidedly large and weapon-like right at the yacht. There was a flash, a spark of flame and a sound like the world ending. Fear clutched at every tendon in Brett’s legs as he launched himself arms, hands, head first over the safety rail and into the ocean. Submerged, his whole world went silent for a few seconds as he swam down beneath the waves, powered on by the force of his dive. Then there was a sound like a house collapsing in on itself and Brett felt the aftershock of the explosion above him as it ripped the boat, and all of his crewmembers, to pieces. He opened his mouth in shock as he neared the surface, gagging on salt water as something heavy plummeted from the sky and struck him between his shoulders. He blacked out.

“What just happened?”

Marla struggled to keep herself from vomiting, retching at the acid tang of stomach bile hitting the back of her throat. She leaned against the cool damp surface of the cave wall and shivered, her body all at once aroused by the adrenaline rush of the frantic run and shaken to its core by fear. Jessie stood nearby, panting heavily from her exertion and rummaging through a small tie-dyed cotton shoulder bag.

Blind panic had driven them both into the cave, all the way round to the dark passageway where Marla had given up on her search for the young boy earlier. She was no longer afraid of its coal blackness, now more wary of Fowler’s men in their boat outside. Her heartbeat quickened as she pictured them dropping the Sentry Maiden’s anchor and storming the beach like a SWAT team in a movie.

“We should be safe in here, although I have no idea where this tunnel leads I’m afraid,” Jessie said as she pulled an object from her bag. “Though last time I was in here I didn’t have this.”

Triumphantly, she twisted the head of a small metallic Maglite flashlight and pointed its beam down the passageway—it stretched on way past the extent of the beam, myriad tiny droplets of cave water cutting through the light like summer rain.

“I said what just happened?” Marla repeated, trying to make out Jessie’s face beyond the flashlight’s glare.

“Plenty of time to talk about that while we find out where this goes,” Jessie replied. “If it goes anywhere, that is.”

From somewhere behind them in the main body of the cave, they heard a sharp chink-chink sound. Marla’s nerves, such as they were, drove her back further into the dark passageway. Jessie nodded grimly and started walking too, keeping the flashlight beam low in front of her.

They walked for several minutes in strained silence. Every drip-drip of water, every chink-chink of stone, set their teeth on edge and renewed the fear they’d both felt when running from the aftermath of the explosion. Only when they’d followed a series of sharp turns in the tunnel did Marla dare speak again, in a hushed whisper, as the atmosphere transformed into quiet stillness far away from the entrance to the echoing cave chamber.

“I wish you’d tell me what the bloody hell is going on…”

“Okay, toots, don’t freak out. I just wanted to put some distance between Fowler’s cronies and us first. I hope to god they didn’t see us run in here. Chances are they didn’t, what with the smoke and all. But we can’t be too sure…”

“Who was on that boat? Friends of yours, you said?”

“Just a figure of speech, girlfriend. I honestly don’t know who was on that boat—and I guess we’ll never find out now will we?”

“But you said you’d invited them to the island. How is that even possible? I mean there’s no way of communicating with the outside world is there?”

“That’s what I thought, at first. Look, I’m pretty good with computers, so it didn’t take me long to figure out a way of hacking into the island’s comms network. After that it was just a case of pushing the right buttons, if you get my meaning. I used the uplink to put out a digitally cloaked beacon. Only problem is I had to include a subroutine to keep randomizing the target range of the beacon to help disguise it for longer. So I had no idea if anyone would actually pick it up, it might just seem like background noise, radar interference. I think those poor bastards on that boat must’ve stumbled across it for sure and come for a look-see. But Fowler’s gooks got to them before I could.”

“But how did you…” Marla voiced her confusion. “You were doing all this while I was…”

“Creating a diversion, yeah.”

“Thanks a bunch. Why did you lie to me?”

“I’m sorry I lied, really I am. But I had to make sure, damn sure, you weren’t a plant.”

“A plant? What the hell do you mean by that?”

Jessie stopped walking and moved closer to Marla, hushing her voice until it was barely audible even in the womblike silence of the tunnel.

“Listen, this island is fucked up, Marla. Something very bad is going down here and I’m scared. I’ve been scared for a very long time now.”

The urgency in Jessie’s eyes told Marla she was being honest.

“Go on.”

“Before you came here, there was another Lamplighter. German girl, name of Vera. She was going stir crazy, seeing things at night and not sleeping, all that jazz. Anyhow, she straightened herself out gradually with the help of some yoga and a little smoke, but she was desperate to have some contact with the outside world.”

Jessie paused, guilt flooding her eyes.

“I’d gotten friendly with Adam and he managed to smuggle a decommissioned laptop out to me. My first experiment was to get the uplink working and I needed to test it out, so I arranged a three-minute window for poor Vera to make a quick phone call. Took a few attempts to get it right but it worked. She made a couple more calls, but I never even got the chance to find out who she’d called because after the last one she was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean gone! Just disappeared. I told Pietro but he was too pussy to do anything about it…so I went to see Fowler myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me Vera’s contract had been terminated. When I asked why, he said she’d breached the rules of the island and that if I asked any more questions, I’d be next.”

“Jesus, you were lucky. At least he didn’t find out you were hacking in, or whatever it was you said you were doing?”

“Oh yeah, I’m so goddamned lucky.” Jessie had to fight to keep her voice down. She trembled with frustration and a tear fell from her eye.

“Why do you want to get off the island so bad, Jessie? I mean, don’t you care about the money? Once your contract is done?”

Jessie took deep breaths, fighting back tears with sheer effort of will.

“Why are you so afraid?” Marla asked. She was beginning to feel very afraid herself, standing in a tiny pool of light partway down a tunnel to god only knew where.

“I’ll tell you why I’m so afraid,” Jessie spat wetly. “I’ve already worked my contract and there’s no cash payout, nothing. It’s all B.S.”

Marla’s ears did not want to believe.

“How long did they tell you that you had to work here, Marla?”

“Um, twelve months.”

“Here’s a newsflash. I’ve been here for a year and a half. No payment, nothing.”

Marla’s head swam. “You’re kidding me?”

“It gets worse, Marla, so buckle up.”

The look in Jessie’s eyes was the most disturbing thing Marla had ever seen.

“I think there’s someone else on the island with us. I think whoever they are, they killed Vera and I’m pretty damn sure that we’re next.”

“Hey, that’s enough, you’re scaring me now.”

“Good. You should be scared. Who knows you’re here Marla?”

Jessie’s words chilled like ice.

“On the island—who knows you’re even here?”

Marla felt so cold. The truth was no one knew she’d come here, no one at all.

“Thought so,” said Jessie darkly.

Marla shivered, remembering broken glass and the acid taste of fear in her mouth. Hollow eyes, watching from the trees.