Alone (18 page)

Gaia took deep breaths as she ran. They helped to calm her stomach. Too bad they didn't do so much for her head. What had happened to George? Had Loki double-crossed him? Or had he suspected that George was telling Gaia more than he was supposed to?

There were way too many questions and not enough answers. . . and the list of people that might be able to give her some of the answers was getting shorter all the time.

THE SUN HAD BEEN DOWN FOR
nearly an hour, but there was still a blur of deep violet light on the western horizon. The light shimmered across the slowly heaving sea and lit up the breakers as
they smashed against the nearby bluffs. It was a beautiful scene, really. A glorious tropical evening with sea and sand and waves. Only Tom Moore was not in the best of positions to enjoy the view.

He grabbed the bars on his cell window, braced his feet against the stone wall, and pulled. At first, the rusty iron gave a slight, encouraging movement, but then it settled down and refused to move again. Tom pulled until the veins were bulging on his arms and sweat ran down his forehead into his eyes. It was no use. The bars were not going anywhere without a big file or a stick of dynamite.

Tom let go of the bars and brushed the rust flakes off against his torn, dusty pants leg. He wasn't sure how long he had been in this place or how he had gotten here. At first, Loki's forces had held him in another, smaller cell. The last thing he remembered had been an injection, then darkness, and now this place. Since awakening on the creaking metal bunk in the corner of the cell, Tom had not seen any sign of a guard—or of anyone else. He might have been out for days or weeks—or for only minutes. He rubbed his hand across his chin. There was stubble there, but it was not too bad. Days. Call it two days.

He was somewhat surprised at still being held prisoner after this long. Not because he had expected Loki to let him go. Far from it. He was only surprised that he hadn't been killed. With all the rage that his brother
had displayed over the years, Tom had expected no mercy at his hands.

What did Loki hope to gain by keeping Tom prisoner? Was he hoping to extract information? Was he planning some kind of torture? Tom couldn't be sure. He had never understood his brother's twisted desires. He wasn't going to try to understand them now.

The fact that he was alive meant that there was still hope. Hope for himself, but more importantly, hope for Natasha. Natasha had been taken prisoner along with Tom. She had been alive when Tom was moved to this place. If Tom had not been killed, there was every chance that Natasha had also been spared. She might even be being held in the same place where Tom was a prisoner. Wherever that was.

Tom turned away from the window and examined his cell again. The room was small, no more than two steps in either direction. The stone walls had been worn down by time and rain and the salt air, but they were still strong enough to prevent escape. The door was wood, which seemed to offer some chance that it might be broken, but this door was as thick as Tom's fist and so old that the wood seemed almost petrified. When he pounded against it, the sound was muffled and the door shook not at all. Not very promising.

Tom craned his head back and looked up. High above, there was a wide gap in the ceiling of the room. Through it, he could see a spray of stars across the
night sky. If Tom could climb up to the opening, he could easily fit through the space and slip over the walls. Only the ceiling looked to be at least eighteen feet high, and the worn sandstone walls offered little chance for a handhold. Besides, the opening was not against the walls—it was in the middle of the room, with at least a couple of feet of solid roof on all sides.

He scanned the room. There was the cot. Six feet long. Maybe six and a half. There was a metal bucket. Another foot. If Tom were able to stand on top of the whole mess and put his arms overhead, he could reach up. . . maybe fifteen feet. That was five feet short of his goal.

Tom dragged the cot over to the middle of the room and tipped it up on edge. The little bed was made from aluminum tubing, and it looked none too sturdy turned up on end. Still, he grabbed the bucket, clenched the handle between his teeth, and climbed carefully to the top. The cot swayed precariously, and one of the metal tubes buckled slightly under Tom's weight, but it held. He balanced on one foot while he set the bucket on the end of the cot, then held out his arms for balance as he stepped onto the bucket. Finally, he looked up.

He could see the opening, so tantalizingly close, but so painfully far from reach. The distance between Tom's upraised fingertips and the edge of the opening was only three or four feet. From the ground, a standing
jump of that distance would have been extremely tough. From here, perched on a tower of rickety metal, it was nearly impossible. And if he missed, it would be a long, painful drop to the stone floor of the cell.

Tom squinted. There was something at the edge of the opening. A broken spike that had once blocked the opening. With the cot and bucket trembling below him, Tom unbuttoned his stained white shirt and held it by the end of one sleeve. He took a deep breath, bent his knees, and leaped.

The cot and the bucket went tumbling away with a clatter of metal. Tom soared toward the opening, his hands coming within a foot of the corroded spike. . . but then he began to fall. At that moment, just as gravity started to drag him down toward the stones, Tom flung the shirt upward. The cloth tangled around the rusty metal, the sleeve whipping around and around.

There was a jerk, a shower of stone chips and rust, and an ominous tearing sound. Then Tom was dangling by one hand from the length of cloth.

He glanced down only for a moment. The floor of the cell was completely invisible in the gloom. He turned his attention upward and climbed hand over hand up the cotton shirt. The broken bit of metal dug into the flesh of Tom's chest as he squeezed past, but there was enough room. After a few anxious seconds, he was standing on the stone roof above his cell. The first stage of his escape had been accomplished.

Now that he was outside, he had a better idea of where he had been taken. The stone cell was just one small part of a rambling, tumbledown construction that covered most of a small island. There were the broken remains of a wall, several small buildings that had collapsed into heaps of worn stone block, and a large, central place that included the cell.

It was a fort of some kind. A hundred—probably hundreds of years old fort. Tom guessed that the building had been constructed by the Spanish or some other old colonial power to defend their holdings and shipping routes in the Caribbean. Whoever had built the place had picked an obscure spot. The island was no more than half a mile across, and as far as Tom could see, there was not another speck of land in sight. There was no clue as to where the island might lie. It could be close to the Caymans, or a thousand miles away. It might be anywhere between Miami and Martinique, Cuba and Caracas.

This was going to add another level of complexity to escaping. Getting out of his cell wasn't going to do much good unless he could also find a way off the island.

Tom walked across the roof. Thirty yards along, he came to another small opening. He went to it slowly and leaned down to look inside. Darkness.

“Natasha?” he called softly. “Natasha, are you down there?” There was no reply.

It was the same at the next opening. At the third opening, Tom heard movement even before he spoke. “Natasha?”

“Tom!” A shadow moved in the darkness. From the shadows below, Tom could see a pale face looking up.

“Are you all right?” She asked.

“I'm fine,” Tom called down. Though he knew Natasha was too far away to see him, Tom couldn't help but smile. Knowing that she was close and uninjured, even if she was still captive, was enough to make him feel happier than he had in days. “Listen,” he said. “I'm going to go and look for some rope or something that I can lower down to you.”

“All right,” said Natasha. “Be careful.”

“Don't worry, we'll be out of here and on our way back to New York in ten minutes.”

Tom stood up and turned around just in time to catch the wooden stock of a Kalashnikov rifle across his face. Then he was falling. Falling deep into blackness.

Gaia
was gone when I woke up this morning. I don't know where she is, but I get the feeling she didn't just go out for a doughnut. Not this time. After what we saw last night, she knows that I was right. She knows that her father's friend was no friend at all.

My mother is not the enemy. She never was. I never doubted it, and now Gaia knows that it is true. I don't know how my mother ever got involved with someone like Gaia's father, but I knew she wasn't doing anything wrong. I knew it.

I only wish I knew where Gaia was right now. I'm really afraid that she's out doing something stupid. Ever since I got to this city, it seems like Gaia has been either doing something stupid or getting ready to do something stupid.

She's actually very smart. I know that. But it's amazing how stupid smart people can be when
they try, and Gaia's really been trying. She's been pushing everyone away at the one time she could use some help. That's pretty stupid. She's been pushing Ed away when he wants so much to love her. That's terribly stupid. I only hope that this time, for once, Gaia is not out there doing something too stupid. I hope that she's not out attacking this Loki or getting in trouble or getting herself killed.

Gaia is smart, and she's strong, and she can fight. If I'm going to get my mother back, I'm going to need Gaia's help. So please, just this once, don't let her be stupid.