The Ocean Dark

69

Angie sat on the edge of her cot and thought about bees.

More specifically, she thought about poking a stick into a nest of bees. Why the hell did the Coast Guard and the Navy and this Dr. Boudreau, whoever she was, want to be here in the first place? Angie did not understand why they couldn’t just put a ring of buoys in the water a good distance from the island and mark STAY THE FUCK AWAY on every chart in existence. In ancient times, she knew, cartographers would create maps that illustrated the extent of their knowledge of the world, and in the margins — at the edges of what, to them, represented the unknown — they would write HERE THERE BE DRAGONS.

Same idea, she thought. Stay the fuck away. Succinct and to the point. As a plan, buoys and warnings on maps made a lot more sense to her than going back to the island, no matter what weapons you had.

Granted, there would be dumbasses — mostly rich pricks and skeptical fishermen — who would just have to go past the buoys and ignore the warnings. But if those people ended up eaten, didn’t they have it coming to them?

One thing she knew, without any doubt whatsoever, was that no one should poke a stick into a beehive. Only they were.

Agent Plausky had told her about the offer from Dr. Boudreau — a free pass, as long as she vanished. No jail, and she could go wherever she wanted. They would pay for her to start over again back home in Honduras, or the Caribbean, or Europe, or anywhere in the USA — so long as she stayed out of the state of Florida and did not contact anyone involved with Viscaya Shipping. And as long as she didn’t talk about the sirens.

Plausky, as professional and pleasant as could be, did not manage to be very convincing about that last part, which was how Angie realized that the government did not really care if she talked about the sirens. They were pretty sure nobody would believe her, and Angie figured they were right. The realization troubled her, but only a little. In truth, she wanted to get lost, to forget, and the idea of disappearing into a new life appealed to her. The only thing that appealed to her more — and it amazed her to find this particular truth hidden deep within herself — was the idea of going home.

All her life, Angie had wandered anywhere but home. But now the devil had come up close enough to whisper in her ear, and Angela Tyree did not want to die thousands of miles from home with no one even to grieve at her passing.

Home. She thought about it now as she sat on the cot, legs drawn up to her chest, rocking gently. The position made her a little self-conscious, considering it was the traditional pose of crazy people, but she knew she wasn’t crazy. And anyway, nobody was watching.

When the wind shifted just right, breezing through the window, she felt sure she could smell her aunt Eugenia’s cooking. It brought a smile to her face.

“I’ll do anything you want,” she had told Plausky. “I’ll sign anything, testify to anything, and forget anything, on one condition. You have to get me out of here, away from all of this, today. I want to be on dry land somewhere civilized by the time the sun goes down.”

Plausky had nodded immediately. “Actually, that’s already in motion. The Bureau has a civilian chopper here on loan from St. Croix. It brought Dr. Boudreau out, and it’ll be bringing you back in two, three hours, tops.”

Angie had been euphoric.

Now she could not be sure the conversation had really happened. This, more than anything else, made her wonder just how badly the previous night had tilted her world off its axis. The doctor here on board the Kodiak had given her something last night, but she could not remember what it had been. Xanax, maybe. Something to bring her down from the panic and hyperventilation. This morning she had taken another pill, and now she wondered if her terror had truly begun to abate, or if her emotions were being chemically managed.

Not that she minded; she just wanted to know.

More than anything, she wondered if she would sleep tonight, and if she did, what might visit her dreams. It occurred to her that additional pills might be required.

Continuing her gentle rocking, Angie inhaled deeply. A frown creased her forehead, because instead of Auntie Eugenia’s cooking, the air now smelled of burning. At first she thought it sprang from her imagination, but then the aroma became so powerful that there could be no mistaking it.

Something was on fire.

After a moment’s consideration, Angie rose from the cot and went to the window. The Antoinette still loomed a couple hundred yards away from the Coast Guard ship, and off to the right of her window. But despite the way it floated, deadly and waiting, she barely noticed it.

The derelict ships were on fire. Flames roared up from that graveyard of half-sunken fishing boats and yachts and small freighters. The blaze spread hungrily from vessel to vessel, igniting in gusts and gouts of flame. The Coast Guard — or maybe the Navy — had covered and filled the boats with gasoline or something else that made the fire claw through wood, shatter fiberglass, and blacken steel. The sails and nets that had been stretched like a tall ship’s rigging evaporated like spiderwebs, trailing strings of flame.

A helicopter buzzed past, flying low over the flickering flames and the waves of heat rising off the burning ships. It slowed above a cluster of several ships that had not yet begun to burn. A man hung partway out of the open side door of the helicopter, strapped in to keep him from falling. Angie realized that some of the sailors must have actually lowered themselves down to the boats earlier to plant whatever they were using to accelerate the fire, because now the guy in the chopper dropped a pair of burning flares that hit a fishing boat dead-on — one on the deck and one right into the wheelhouse — and fire blossomed upward even as the helicopter roared away.

It had begun.

The island had its devils, and the Navy had brought its own hell.