Brigands Key Read online

  Something in her, a dark ambitious thing she had always pretended didn’t exist, surfaced, urging her to succumb, to submit. To say yes. She wavered, faced her fear, her ambition, and seized the thing and ripped it to pieces. Her voice lowered, laced with rage. “Crystal clear! Now you listen to me. Effective immediately, I am no longer an officer of your government. And when I get out of this, I’m going to do everything in my power to bring you down, you contemptible sack of shit.”

  She slammed the phone down. She was trembling.

  “Wow,” Hammond said.

  “Shut up. Rawlings never changes course. He’s certain of the rightness in everything he does. I may have just made the situation worse. A lot worse. The course of the nation is about to be played out at the foot of the Brigands Key bridge.”

  * * *

  On Edge

  I never understood history before today. How passions rule and how events change lives and the future.

  Now I know.

  Shock and rage are sweeping through Brigands Key as I write this. I won’t call my town joke names anymore. This is Brigands Key. This is my town. This is home.

  You’re on the outside watching us and hearing about us. You probably know more of what’s going on than we do, but we have a perspective no one else has. I understand what makes history.

  Three more died a half-hour ago. Not by plague, not by the hurricane that’s about to take the rest of us, but by the hand of our own.

  I knew them.

  They lived a hundred feet from me in our trailer park. Steve and Dottie Walters and their son, Pete. Pete turned six last week. I went to his birthday party. Mrs. Walters was pregnant. If you haven’t seen the news, here you go. The Walters tried to get off the island. The Guard wouldn’t let ’em. Now they’re at the bottom of the channel.

  How did it come to this? Who’s calling the shots? Not us. We have no say in our survival. But we’re not going down that easy.

  If you’re reading this, get off your ass and help us. Call your congressman. Storm the White House. Riot in the streets.

  Get us off this island.

  I’ve got work to do. The weather’s getting worse; I may not get another blog out. I may not be alive in another day. But like I said, we’re not going down that easy.

  Yours, Charley Fawcett

  * * *

  Fluorescent lights flickered and hummed overhead, bathing Kyoko in an unsteady white. She glanced at her watch, stretched, rubbed her eyes. Bad lighting and long hours had left them itchy and bloodshot. Her mind still raced from her little chat with the President of the United States. That was forty minutes ago. She’d had to immerse herself in her work to rein in her anger.

  Ten more minutes, she told herself. Then she’d hurry over to the bridge. She was part of Brigands Key now and would be there when the showdown demanded. They needed her; maybe the Guardsmen would listen to a federal official. They didn’t need to know that she’d just told their commander in chief to go to hell. Or maybe they did. Maybe they’d listen when they found that out. Besides, how much good would she be here? She’d gone over her work again and again, picking it apart, rerunning data. It was wrong. Something was missing, hiding in the numbers, but refused to reveal itself.

  Her stomach twitched, again, and nausea passed through her like a wave. She leaned back, closed her eyes, hoping it would pass. She reached for the aspirin bottle on her desk and took two pills, swallowed them, chased them down with a drink from her water bottle. This was no time to get sick. Too much rode on her figuring this thing out. Yet the illness was almost inevitable. Everyone was feeling it.

  She’d begun taking her own vital signs every twenty minutes since she first felt the nausea two hours ago. She needed the most detailed record of every slight change.

  She expected a fever. Yet there was none.

  She studied the glowing screen of her laptop, toggling the mouse pointer back and forth between tables of raw data and the time graph of incidences. Something was there, begging to be found. But what? What was she missing?

  Geography.

  She’d not given a thought to the geographical distribution of the incidence of disease and death. Brigands Key was so tiny it didn’t seem to matter. A viral plague in such a small, confined area wouldn’t reveal its origins through a plot. That only worked at a regional scale. Didn’t it? By the time anyone contracted an illness on Brigands Key, they’d have traversed the island two dozen times before the next victim showed signs. And she already knew that a bacterial contamination was not to blame. But a point-source of poison just might show up in a spatial analysis.

  She opened the aerial photo, with superimposed street names, on her screen. She highlighted the list of address and dragged them into the aerial and hit enter. The addresses blinked out, replaced by glowing red dots scattered across the aerial, across the island, but clustered ever tighter in one small place.

  She stared, dumbstruck. How could she have been so stupid?

  There it was, the obvious.

  She counted off the symptoms she and Hammond had observed. They all pointed to a virus of unknown type and origin but in her heart, she knew it wasn’t a virus. The symptoms hinted at another possibility, one of mind-boggling remoteness. But only partly; her new theory couldn’t be right if the symptoms didn’t all line up like they should. She shook her head, angry, frustrated.

  Unless...

  She reached for the phone and began dialing Hammond’s number.

  “I wouldn’t,” a low voice behind her said. She spun around and an instant of recognition flashed in her mind before a gloved fist slammed into the side of her face. Her head snapped sideways from the blow and she crashed against the lab table, scattering microscope, racks of slides, and papers everywhere.

  Sparks filled her vision and the world tilted crazily. She caught herself and tried to pull herself up.

  Her assailant rushed her, knocked her to the floor, and fell upon her. She lashed out, striking the assailant in the mouth.

  “Bitch,” her assailant hissed. The fist struck her twice more, sparks and thunder, and grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. The other arm encircled her neck. Pain shot through her neck and throat and her head was forced ever backward. The pressure at the base of her neck ratcheted higher.

  My neck is breaking.

  She kicked and fought, desperation giving her renewed strength.

  The arm tightened around her neck, squeezing her trachea shut, cutting off her breathing. Panic, the panic of airlessness, of suffocation, exploded in her mind.

  She heard a distant sharp click. Something glinted in the light. She caught a glimpse of a shiny knife blade near her face. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. The knife inched closer and dipped toward her throat. It delicately pressed into her neck. She felt a drop of blood trickle down.

  “Don’t fight it,” a voice whispered. “I could miss.”

  The knife blade withdrew from her throat and traced a line over her chin and across her cheek. It came to rest behind her ear and lingered there for an impossibly long moment. Then it bit in. Pain overwhelmed her and she struggled, helpless, feeling the razor-sharp blade sink in, feeling it sawing downward through her ear, hearing it, feeling it crunch through cartilage, the sickening sound reverberating in her skull. Warm wetness splashed onto her shoulder and ran onto her breast.

  The world became only screaming pain and terror. Darkening, receding, shrinking, dissolving, an old movie fading to black.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Grant studied the scene building around him. A mob gathered at the foot of the bridge on the island side, its fury building by the minute, Julie Denton and Chief Sanborn pacing at the forefront.

  Denton shouted above the raised voices. “We’ve collided with judgment hour. Brigands Key perches at the edge of its own death.”

  Grant spotted Charley with a young girl. The girl spoke loudly into a cell phone, gesturing futilely. Her eyes shone with tears.

&nbs
p; Grant went to them. Charley looked at him fearfully. “We’re in some shit, Doc.”

  “Tell me about it. Trouble follows me.” Grant nodded to the girl. “Who’s this?”

  “Callie. I met her a couple days ago. She’s from Milwaukee, came here to hunt vampires. Now she’s trapped and she’s telling her folks she loves them, in spite of everything.” Charley looked into Grant’s eyes. Gut-kick pain haunted the kid’s face. “I’ve fallen for her,” he whispered. “And she came here because of nonsense I spewed on the Internet. The kid she came here with died an hour ago. Because of me. Now she’s going to die here because of me. I already buried my Dad. I’ll probably bury my Mom. I finally found someone to love and I’ll be burying her too.” His eyes glistened and he wiped them with the back of his hand.

  “It’ll work out,” Grant said, not believing it. “Look at Denton and Sanborn; they’re a pair, working the crowd. They’re working an angle that’ll get us out.”

  “I won’t let her die on my account. I’m taking her out of here.”

  “Charley, listen. We’re in lockdown here. The National Guard and the Coast Guard have both been ordered to use whatever force it takes to enforce the quarantine. They won’t let you off the island. The government has panicked and now we’ve got a governor and a president in a pissing contest. We’re stuck.”

  “I won’t let her die, Doc.”

  Grant’s phone chirped. He glanced at the LED screen, saw that he was receiving a text message. Kyoko’s name. He pressed a button to accept the message.

  Go 2 lab. Urgent. K.

  Grant snapped the phone shut. “Charley, I’ve got to run. Sit tight until I get back. Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

  Charley gave a weak nod. “Least ’til you get back.”

  Grant looked at Callie. Beneath the black paint and silver studs, she was a frightened child. He put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him. A tear slid down her cheek. “It’ll be okay, Callie,” he said. “Charley’s strong and what's more, he’s in love with you.” She glanced at Charley and nodded, forcing a weak, hopeful smile.

  Charley blushed.

  * * *

  Warm yellow light shone through the frosted glass in the door of the lab. Grant rapped on the door. “Got your message,” he called, giving her a moment.

  No answer.

  He pushed the door open and entered.

  Papers were scattered on the desk and floor. A waste can lay on its side, its contents spilled across the floor. A desk chair was toppled.

  He scanned the room, his heart suddenly thudding. “Kyoko!” The room was empty. The floor was streaked and etched with footprints in red wetness. A bloody handprint smeared the desktop.

  He turned and his blood froze.

  Stuck into the oak paneling of the rear wall was a human ear, impaled on an ice pick. A tiny drop of blood gathered and suspended on the earlobe, fell, and splashed onto the floor.

  Dangling from the ear was an earring of pale green glass.

  Kyoko…

  Grant rushed out into the hallway, looking in all directions, and out of the building. “Kyoko!”

  He raced around the building, a complete circuit. It was no use. There was no one in sight.

  He ran back into the room. Crime scene purity be damned. He pulled the ice pick out of the wall and cradled the ear, and set it gently upon the desk. He turned on the tap, rinsed the ear off. He tore a handful of paper towels from a dispenser and wrapped the ear and placed it in the specimen refrigerator.

  His cell phone rang. He answered.

  “Scary, isn’t it?” a voice whispered.

  “Who is this? Where’s Kyoko?”

  “Listen and don’t speak. You know what I want. You know where to find it. Get it and leave it on the dock. You have until one in the morning. Four hours. That gives you time, but not time to screw with me and get cute. Four hours. Not a minute before, not a minute later. Then drive away. Signal with a boat flare into the sky from the high school and go inside the gym. Succeed and you get your girl, mostly in one piece. Fail and you’ll receive another little something to remember her by. Maybe her other ear, maybe her nose. Haven’t decided yet. And more pieces for each half-hour you’re late until there are no more pieces. Tell Sanborn and she dies.”

  “I don’t know what it is you want!”

  “You’re a smart guy, Doc. You just need a little motivation.”

  The phone went dark and silent.

  Grant felt as if his guts had been torn from his body. He slowly closed his cell phone with trembling fingers. He had no idea what to do, what to think.

  And he had just four hours.

  * * *

  The crowd stood at two hundred. And growing. Each passing minute brought more from their homes to see what was brewing. No one wore surgical masks any longer.

  Sanborn watched Julie with admiration that approached awe. She’d always had a gift for words but he’d thought it was limited to the written word. She wasn’t a particularly gabby person, preferring, like the best journalists, to listen and take notes.

  Not this time.

  Her thin voice rose angrily above the din and commanded attention. “We’re hostages, all of us,” she cried. “Hostages to politics, hostages to stupidity, hostages to overblown egos. Well, Brigands Key is well named. We are the blood of ne’er-do-wells, of fishermen, of pirates. We are not of the blood of people that would be hostages. Our parents, our grandparents, wouldn’t accept it then and by God we’re not going to accept it now!”

  Shouts of approval and anger burst from the crowd.

  Mayor Johnson ambled up, sweating, his face red. He paused, catching his breath, worked up a broad grin and reached for the microphone.

  Julie shoved his hand away.

  A murmur ran through the crowd. Power had shifted in Brigands Key.

  “Step aside, Ralph,” someone cried. “You got us into this mess.” Sanborn turned to the voice. It was Frank Walters. Steve Walters’s father, the father of the young man killed by the National Guard. His eyes were red and drawn, his face lined in grief.

  Johnson raised his palms in a conciliatory, understanding gesture. “Now calm down, Frank. You’ve suffered mightily today, but you know I’m doing everything I can. My staff has been working long hours toward resolution. We’re not giving in.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. I lost a son, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson today. My guts have been kicked in and I got no family left on this planet. Nothing’s going to change under your watch. Nothing has ever changed, long as you been mayor, and nothing ever will. As for the morons you call a staff, the hell are they now that we need them? Answer me that. Where’s that worthless Clay Abbott? Hiding under his bed?” He paused, and a sob shook his body. He wiped his eyes and looked at Sanborn.

  Johnson glanced about, confused. “Clay will be here. You can count on it.” He grinned sheepishly, trying to look like he was in charge, failing miserably. Johnson leaned closer to Sanborn. “Get Clay on the damn phone,” he whispered.

  Walters said, “Yeah, Sanborn, get Clay on the phone. You ain’t gonna do anything else here. Only one here with a backbone is Julie.”

  “Frank,” Sanborn said, “I won’t pretend to understand the depth of your pain but we’ve got to go carefully here. We’re not holding any cards. Why don’t you head home for now. Anything good happens here, we’ll come get you.”

  “I ain’t going nowhere and you ain’t taking me nowhere.”

  Sanborn shook his head, flipped open his phone, and dialed Abbott’s cell phone. After a half-dozen rings, he got a message that the customer was unavailable. “Not answering,” he said.

  Johnson swore under his breath.

  Principal Chancy arrived, pushing his way to the front of the crowd, with a couple of students in tow, lugging a pair of floodlights and a video camera. A third kid, Tyler Fulton, lugged a gas-powered generator. “Right there,” Chancy said, pointing.

  Fulton nodded and went to work. The ki
d’s face was slick with sweat, clearly pale even in the dim light. He positioned the generator and turned the ignition key. The generator roared to life and the lights were plugged in, the area bathed in yellow-white.

  Fulton slumped heavily to the grass and hung his head, disinterested in the commotion swirling all around.

  Sanborn went and knelt beside him. “You okay, Tyler?”

  The kid nodded slightly. “Just a little tired from dragging all this junk around.”

  “I’ve got the CNN uplink, Julie,” Chancy said. “They’re ready when you are.”

  * * *

  Grant raced across town, cutting across lawns, leaping fences, toward the mob assembled at the bridge. He arrived, gasping for breath.

  Things were ratcheting up quickly. Julie Denton held everyone's riveted attention, and shouted an angry broadside into the camera and mike held by Chancy. Johnson stood impotently by, opening and closing his mouth silently, as if hoping to get his two cents in.

  Denton had the crowd in her hand. Probably had the whole nation in her hand.

  Brigands Key was exploding and Grant didn’t give a damn. All he could think about was Kyoko Nakamura. He cast about, frantically scanning the crowd. Sanborn hovered near Denton, preoccupied with her and the stirring crowd. Hammond milled about nearby, nodding and shaking hands. Grant collared him. “Doc, I need your help. Now. Don’t ask questions. Where’s Charley?” Hammond had a quizzical look, but nodded and pointed. Grant followed Hammond’s finger and spotted the kid talking animatedly with his mother and the girl, Callie.

  “Follow me,” Grant said.

  He hurried over to Charley, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him a few feet away. “Kyoko’s in trouble. She’s been kidnapped.” He quickly explained what had happened, what he’d found. Charley turned pale.

  “Good God,” Hammond said. “We just saw her less than an hour ago.”

  “I need your help, Charley,” Grant said, peeking at his watch. “In three hours and fifty-two minutes, some goon will start slicing her up and express-mailing her to me in pieces.”