Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (29 page)

“Anyway, I spent
the next fifteen years there and saw many amazing advances. I went to
university in Berlin and studied medicine like my adopted father. But I soon
dropped out. I felt there was something missing in my life, and in the
seventies one was encouraged to explore one’s deepest, even most farfetched
dreams as possibilities. The history of my country, as I’m sure you know, is
pocked with lies and reprehensible accusations. We were painted a monster in
the eyes of the world. I knew I’d missed that time—a time that, by my
birthright, was mine to live.”

“Well, trust me,
you do end up living it.”

Sully grinned at
her. “It’s so strange, is it not? You and I, here in the eighteen hundreds. Do
you think your traveling abilities are because of me? That you inherited them?”

“I have no idea.”

“It’s interesting
to speculate.”

“You were telling
me how you ended up in 1825.”

He shrugged. “I’d
read extensively about pirates in the Caribbean and along the African coast. It
occurred to me that I’d been born too late. I thought that a much more viable
supposition considering I’d already jumped several decades in the time
continuum. As for how did I specifically manage to land in the eighteen
hundreds…I suppose I was focused on it the day I ended up here.”

“Another
‘incident?”

“I won’t bore you
with the details, but suffice to say I’ll do what’s necessary
not
to return to 1984. When I landed in
1820, I had several valuable gems with me—and the gun—and wasted no
time in finding a crew and a ship. Unlike with the Navy, being the captain of a
pirate ship has more to do with personality than experience or previous rank.
You don’t earn it, the crew chooses you. It wasn’t difficult at all. In fact,
in many ways it was the most natural thing I’ve ever done.

“But why did you
pick 1820? Piracy is about to be wiped out, I thought.”

 
“It’s true I missed the so-called Golden
Age, as my brethren are wont to refer to it,” Sully said, tossing a stick onto
the fire. “But the trade-off was in a few amenities not available in the
seventeen hundreds that I found difficult to live without.”

“I visited 1620 a
few years ago,” Ella admitted.

“So you know. A
chamber pot, although exceedingly primitive from a nineteen eighties viewpoint,
is a luxury compared to a stall full of straw.”

Ella remembered how
she had lived in 1620 Heidelberg and found herself begrudgingly agreeing with
him.

 
“No,” he continued, “I chose 1820
because
pirates were soon to be
eradicated.” He looked at a nonexistent wristwatch on his arm to illustrate his
point. “In fact, thanks to Commodore Porter it’s due to happen any minute now.
My plan was to ‘go straight,’ as it were.”

 
“So you know how to manage
where
you go and when?”

“Don’t you?”

“Rowan and I use
a talisman or item of intense personal value. Coupled with extreme emotion—usually
fear or longing. But it often happens accidentally.”

“Interesting.”

“It’s not that
way for you?”

“Well, it’s true gems
and gold do seem to be key
and
they
do have a special place in my heart,” he said, shrugging. “Plus they have the
added benefit of enabling me to build a life wherever I land.”

“But you’ve never
talked to anyone like a seer or a guide to enlighten you?”

“Just you, Ella,”
he said, watching her intently. She found it impossible to read his look. She
looked away.

 
“Your necklace,” he said. “I’ll have it,
if you don’t mind.”

Ella snapped her
head back to him and clutched the necklace with her hand. “My necklace? What
are you talking about?”

“Well, it’s
originally mine, is it not? And I’ll need to give it to my future wife.” He
chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it back by the by.”

“I need it to
travel with. To get back to my own time.”

“I thought as
much. It is your ‘item of intense personal value.’ I’m honored.”

“Don’t be. It has
nothing to do with you,” Ella said hotly, feeling her fear return
. If he really wants it, he’ll just take it
from me.
“And I need it. I have a child waiting for me in 1925.”

He stood again and
was staring out through the cave opening. Dawn was coming. Somehow they’d spent
the whole night on the island. Ella watched as the barest hint of the rising
sun materialized as a vague glimmer on the dark horizon. The rain had stopped,
which meant the worst of the storm had passed.

 
“I’ve never felt such a connection with
another living being as I feel with you,” he said, his face intense and
flushed. “We have a chance to be a family, you and I. That’s something I don’t
remember ever having before.”

“Look, Sully,”
Ella said, climbing to her feet, “I’m sorry about that but I can’t be that kind
of family for you. Force me to stay in 1825 and I’ll be the kind that wakes up
in the middle of the night and sets your bed on fire.”

Sully threw back
his head and laughed. “Oh my God, you are
definitely
my granddaughter.”

“Besides,” she
said, “you can’t stay in Key West now. I’m not Adele Morton, remember? You’ll
have a target on your back after this.”

“Who said
anything about Key West? We’ll sail to Cuba. With this diamond, I can create my
own country there. You’ll like Cuba. Great rum, great cigars.”

“I won’t do it.”

“You know I can
just take the necklace from you by force. But if you give it willingly, I’ll let
you keep the lighter so your husband can leave. Can’t be fairer than that.”

“Don’t do this,
Sully,” Ella said, going to him and touching his sleeve. “If you keep me from
my child and my husband I’ll only spend every waking minute trying to get back
to them—when I’m not busy trying to kill you.”

“Well, let’s just
see, shall we?”

26

Bugger.

Rowan bolted out
of his hammock and craned his neck to see out the porthole. He relaxed with
relief. It was still dark. He sat up and swung his legs out of his hammock when
an ice pick of a headache jammed between his eyes and dug in.

Bugger.

It had been a
long night, and with the captain gone and Toad who-knows-where the crew had
fully enjoyed their evening of rum and scary stories told in the clutch of the
storm. Rowan rubbed his eyes and grinned ruefully. The only thing missing had
been the pizza and popcorn.

Gingerly, he
slipped to the floor of the room, careful not to step on sleeping forms or bump
into swaying hammocks with their somnolent, snoring contents. It might be in
the middle of the night or just before dawn and there was no way of knowing. He
pulled on his shoes and paused to make sure he was the only one awake and then
moved to the ladder that led to the main deck.

Up top, he could
see the
Die Hard
had sustained little
to no damage from the storm. All sails were down and tightly tied and wrapped.
Although it was still drizzling, it seemed safe to say the day would break
clear and cool.

Huh. Wonder when I started knowing shit like that?
He moved to the base of the ladder that
led to the quarterdeck. Probably after spending four months at sea seeing every
possible kind of weather, he realized. He couldn’t see the moon, which meant
there were either still too many clouds or it was closer to morning than he
thought.

Didn’t matter.
There wasn’t a soul on board tonight who wasn’t unconscious to the world.

Rowan ran up the
steps to the deserted quarterdeck. He’d expected to have to deal with young
Kip, the sentinel at the door, and found the boy’s absence and the creeping
feeling up the back of his neck cause to hesitate before dashing across the
deck to the captain’s cabin. Even from here he could see the door was open.

He glanced around.
A trap? He eyed a large barrel of now stale water next to the cabin door. It
was an ideal size for that little slime weasel Toad to be crouching behind. He
shook his head. Did that make sense? That Toad would be out here all night
waiting for Rowan to make his move?

Shrugging off the
ill feeling that had come over him since he stepped foot on the quarterdeck,
Rowan strode to the cabin and entered. It was dark, the inhabitant—or
prisoner—clearly gone now. What had happened?

He turned and lit
a lantern on Sully’s table and instantly the gleam of his lighter leapt out to
him from the floor.

Could it really be this easy?

He picked up the
lighter, weighing it in his hand with satisfaction.
His ticket home.
Before he turned to snuff out the light and leave,
he stopped and sucked in a breath. The bed was covered in blood. His fingers went
cold as he looked at the sheets and wondered whose blood it was and if they
could still be alive after having lost so much.

“She’s gone,” a
small voice said from the doorway.

Rowan turned to
see the cabin boy, Kip, standing there, his left eye swollen shut, the other
one blinking forlornly at the interior of the cabin. “Cap’n’ll kill me, most
like,” he said softly.

“What happened to
her?”

Kip’s lips trembled
and he touched his eye. “I’m sworn to secrecy,” he said. “But she’s gone.”

Did the prisoner attack Kip and escape? No, with all that
blood, more like somebody killed her then flung the body overboard.

God what a world.

He clapped a hand
on the boy’s shoulder as he passed through the door, feeling the fragile bones
under his hand. “Scabs’ll be up soon,” he said. “Go get some grub. The cap’n won’t
kill you.”

“Will ye protect
me,
mkubwa
?” the boy said, looking up
at Rowan, “from the cap’n, I mean?”

Rowan hesitated.
He had the lighter. Now all he had to do was get back to Key West and meet up
with Ella at the hotel. This part of his life was over.

“Sure, Kip,” he
said. “Sure, I will.”

***

Ella found it
difficult to talk with Sully on the walk back to the ship. The water had
receded such that although they walked in it up to their ankles, there was no
place that was impassible because of it. She saw a few dead animals that hadn’t
escaped last night’s flooding—snakes, a hedgehog of some kind, even a sea
turtle although that surprised her—but for the most part, the island was
already bouncing back to its original pre-storm state, as it must have done
thousands and thousands of times before.

What could she
say to him? Her demands and then entreaties to keep the necklace had been met
with a pleasant but intractable response. Moments after they’d buried all
traces of the fire and their night spent in the cave, he’d demanded and she had
handed over her mother’s necklace.

Now, as she
walked and stumbled toward the ship that loomed larger and larger on the
horizon as they approached, she felt a vulnerability she’d never felt before.
Her mother had given her that necklace when Ella was just a child. It was the
only loving or sentimental gesture she ever remembered from her, and until this
morning she had never removed it.

She noticed that
Sully walked with a spring in his step. Somehow, knowing him, he’d walk that
way even if he were approaching the gallows—which he someday would. It
just wasn’t in his nature to brood or take the glass-half-empty approach.

Funny, one doesn’t normally think of cold-blooded Nazi murderers
as being the jolly sort.

The only hopeful
moment of the whole morning was the realization that Rowan was on that ship and
that she was moving ever closer to him. That moment was followed quickly,
however, by the dread of what Rowan would likely do when it became clear that
Sully didn’t intend to let her go.

Would her
grandfather try to murder her husband? What words could she possibly use to
tell Rowan that he would need to go back without her? Would he go? Was their
son destined to be an orphan, as Ella feared?

Once, when she
stumbled over a large mangrove root and fell to her knees, Sully didn’t
hesitate but reversed his steps and scooped her up into his arms. When she
protested, he held her all the tighter.

“You’re
barefooted,” he said simply. “We’ll never get there at this rate and you’ll be
a cripple when we do.”

The relief of not
having to walk without shoes in this rough terrain outweighed her loathing for
him. She decided she could endure his touch until they reached the beach.

“You’re angry
with me,” he said as he stood at the top of a small knoll, the
Die Hard
in the cove below them. There
were two men sitting on the beach.

“Gosh, I wonder
why.”
 

“Mark my words,”
he said, squinting at the men as if trying to identify them. “A year from now,
you’ll thank me for this.”

“Oh, go to hell.
What is that? A welcoming party?”

“I was just
wondering the same thing.”

“They don’t
normally break out the honor guard to herald your return?”

He shifted her
weight in his arms. “No, this is new.”

Ella squirmed to
get a better look. The men had spotted them coming down the incline and they
were standing now. She saw they were armed with pistols.

And the pistols
were in their hands.

“Sully,” she
whispered. “Are you sure about this?”

“They’re my own
men,” he said, but she noticed a brief tic in his temple. When they reached the
beach, he set her on her feet and straightened his coat. She noticed his hand
grazed the butt of his musket, as if to confirm to himself it was there.

“This is a
problem, isn’t it?” she said, eyeing the men who were walking toward them,
their guns hanging at their sides as they came.

“Not at all,”
Sully said. “Just a misunderstanding. Even so, please be so kind as to stand
behind me.”

When the men
reached them, Sully ignored the fact that one of them aimed his gun at him and
said, “Ahoy, men. A welcoming committee was not necessary, but I’ll appreciate
the oarsman back to the ship.”

One of the men
was tall, black and bald. His eyes flicked to Ella and then back to Sully.

“It’s over, Sully,”
he said, his accent thick with the sound of the islands. “We got us a new cap’n.”

“So that’s the
tune, is it? Funny, I don’t remember a vote.”

“We did it while
ye was off with yer whore digging up the Dutchman’s treasure,” the other man, a
short, sallow-faced youth said.

“Well, can’t put
it any more succinctly than that,” Sully said. “I don’t suppose I need to ask
who the new captain is. May I assume you are here to escort me back to the
Die Hard
?”

“We are,” the
bald man said, reaching out and relieving Sully of his pistol. Ella gasped. Up
to then, Sully had been in charge and she had just gotten to the point where
she didn’t think he was going to kill her.

All that was changed
now.

“Lead on, then.”
Sully put his hand in the small of Ella’s back and steered her beside him.

The four climbed
into the beached dinghy. Ella tried to get eye contact with Sully to get some
idea of what he was thinking but his face was implacable.

“You’ve still got
the Glock?” Ella whispered to him.

“I’m afraid in my
enthusiasm with the demonstration…”

“You emptied the
clip.”

The
tension built as no one spoke again during the few minutes it took to row to
the
Die Hard
. Once there, a grim nod
from the short pirate urged Ella to climb up the rope ladder on the side of the
ship, followed by Sully.

She
found her hands were shaking as she gripped the ladder. All she knew for sure
was that the man who had tried to rape her was either still on board—with
a vengeance—or he was dead. Either way, there was going to be hell to
pay, and the one person who might have been able to protect her was now a
prisoner the same as she was.

The
sun was rising over the beach beyond the ship’s rail as Ella pulled herself to
the top of the ladder. For a moment, the light blinded her and she shielded her
eyes until she could see that there was a crowd of men—ragtag, violent
looking men—assembled on deck, and in the center of them all was the one
person she hoped never to see again in her life.

The
quartermaster, Toad, a bloody rag tied around his face and neck and a pistol in
his hand, glared at her with all the hate and intensity of a demented executioner.