The Darkening Archipelago (44 page)

The door from the companionway opened and light flooded in, but he remained in shadow. The woman entered the room and went into the tiny galley only a few feet from where he was sitting. She lit the stove and poured water in a kettle for tea.

“Hello, Cassandra,” he said from the darkness.

She screamed and dropped the kettle on the floor. It clattered across the polished wood and spilled its contents.

He was on her in a second, his hands locked on her arms, forcing her into the seat opposite from where he had been sitting, pushing her against the wall and quickly tying her arms to her side with a length of rope. She tried to scream again, but he put his hand on her chin and snapped her jaw shut.

“Don't make this worse than it needs to be, Cassandra,” he hissed in her ear.

She looked at him, her eyes wild, her hair falling in errant strands over her face.

“I've got a roll of duct tape here, which I will use to tape your mouth if you even think of screaming again,” he said slowly, quietly. “Got it?”

Cassandra Petrel nodded.

“Good,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Now, let's have tea, shall we?”

“I wasn't going to kill you,” yelled Darren, his eyes forward, the
Rising Moon
going top speed toward Parish Island and Port Lostcoast.

Cole yelled back, “Look, I'm not a cop, but I've got to tell you that not only do you have the right to silence, I highly recommend it.”

“I just want you to know —”

“Darren, I'm going to hit you on the head with this flashlight again if you don't shut up.”

First Moon looked into the distance, his face a knot of worry. The adrenalin rush that had propelled Cole for the last hour was nearly used up, and he felt weak and dizzy. He sat hunched forward in the chair as the world whipped by.

“Why the axe?” Cole finally yelled at Darren.

“What?”

“Why did you have the axe with you?”

Darren stared ahead. He could see Parish Island hove in view. Another ten minutes and they would be there.

“Darren, why?”

“For Thurlow.”

Grace Ravenwing jumped from the chair at her father's desk when she heard the pounding on the door. She tripped over a stack of papers as she ran to the door and peered through the glass. Nancy was right behind her.

“It's Rupert Wright.”

“Who?”

“The harbour master.” She opened the door.

“Grace,” he said, a little out of breath. “You okay?”

“Fine, why?”

“I got a radio call from your friend, Blackwater —”

“Cole Blackwater,” said Nancy.

“I got a radio call from him. He said that Dr. Thurlow, you know, the scientist from Jeopardy Rock, was on his way here. He said to warn you.”

“Thurlow is coming here?”

“That's what Cole said.”

“Well, he isn't here now,” said Grace, looking around.

“Did you call the RCMP?” asked Nancy.

“Placed the call before coming here. They have a boat about fifteen minutes away. What's going on?”

“Can you come in, sit down? We'll fill you in,” said Grace.

“I should get back to the docks. The RCMP will need some direction.”

“We'll stay here,” said Grace.

“Lock your door,” he said, running back down the path.

“I don't think it has a lock,” said Grace, looking at Nancy. Then she asked, “You think he's coming here? Why?”

Nancy looked around the house. “Maybe he wants to get his hands on that brown envelope. It's pretty incriminating.”

“He's got to know it's just a copy of electronic government files. The deep-throat guy has the originals. Thurlow couldn't hope to accomplish anything by coming here to get them.”

Nancy shook her head. “He's a smart man. I think you're right. He knows he has nothing to gain by doing that.”

“Then what?”

Nancy was silent. Then she opened her eyes wide. “Grace, who — else did Archie confide in?”

“I think we should shed a little light on what you think you know about sea lice, Cassandra. What do you say?”

Thurlow opened the kerosene lantern that hung over Cassandra Petrel's tiny dining table. He took a package of matches from his pocket and struck one. He carefully lit the wick. “I've always loved the light these old lamps put out, don't you? It's so, I don't know, nostalgic.”

He sat down across from Cassandra. Her face was composed, but there was fear in her eyes. Thurlow had tightly bound her arms with rope. A piece of heavy duct tape hung loosely from her cheek across the side of her face. Her mouth was free, but Thurlow could tape it shut in a second.

“So, you and Archie figured out that I was preparing a little evolutionary surprise for the salmon. It was only a matter of time, you know, before the sea lice did it themselves. I was only helping them along. They're such active little creatures.”

“What do you want, Darvin?” said Petrel.

“Cassandra, Cassandra, Cassandra,” he said, shaking his head. “You were always the greatest pain in the ass to me. Always the one who was pandering to the environmentalists. Always the one who was talking to the press. The great Dr. Cassandra Petrel, the caring, personable scientist, the face of scientific reason to the public. But it was such a load of bullshit, Cassandra. It was just you inflating your own ego. I was happy when you finally left. When you decided that the university had become too confining for your personal vendetta against businesses who are just trying to feed hungry people. But then …” Thurlow shook his head. “But then you had to go and stick your nose into my work again.”

“Darvin,” she said, watching his face in the dim light of the lantern. “I don't know what you think I know, but I can assure you, if I've figured it out, lots of other people will, too.”

“It's not so much what you know, Cassandra, as what you'll be willing to say. When this whole thing becomes public.” He shook his head. “Which seems likely now. Cassandra Petrel, friend of the environment, will once again triumph over the evil Dr. Thurlow, proponent of big agri-business. I'm tired of it, Cassandra. That's not going to be the story this time.”

She looked at him. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, — over her eyebrow and into her eye. “So now what?” she said.

He smiled. “Lights out.”

Darren First Moon kept the boat at full throttle as he approached the breakwater. Cole was standing now, his fingers curled tightly over the windshield, his eyes focused on the bluff where Archie Ravenwing's house stood. He wasn't certain what he hoped to see, but he looked nevertheless.

“Hold on!” said Darren as he powered back and turned the wheel to cut into the breakwater. Cole bent his knees but kept his face turned toward town. Movement caught his eye where the dirt road from the bluff met the street where the general store and The Strait sat squat against the harbour. He saw two figures running. Toward the dock.

“That's Nancy and Grace!” he shouted and pointed. He could see both women running hard along the dock. “Move it!” he yelled, and Darren throttled up, ploughing a dangerous wake toward the moored boats. They still had five hundred metres to travel to reach the docks, and Cole could see Nancy and Grace or — bearing straight for the end of the pier, running hard away from, maybe toward, something unseen.

Grace yelled, “Last boat on the centre pier!”

Nancy didn't reply. She had no breath to waste on words. God, how she wished she had got that last workout in. Her legs felt like rubber, her lungs screamed. But the adrenalin that coursed through every cell in her body kept her moving. Just another hundred feet. Eighty feet. Sixty feet. Almost there. What she would do when she reached the boat, she had no idea.

“I won't say a thing, I swear it,” said Petrel.

“No, you won't,” said Darvin Thurlow. “Because you won't have a chance, after a very unfortunate accident,” he said, standing.

She screamed and he reached across the table and hit her in the mouth. Petrel's head bounced off the wood-panelled backing to the galley booth. Her eyes glazed over momentarily, and then he was beside her, taping her mouth and, grabbing the roll from the bench seat, adding another layer over the one already there.

Thurlow bent and reached under the Force 10 stove and found what he was looking for. He watched Petrel while he fiddled with something beneath the stove. “Looks like you forgot to hook up the gas when you did some work on the stove, Cassandra. That's very unfortunate. Such a tragedy.”

He stood and said, “Nice working with you, Dr. Petrel.” He reached over the table to take the lamp, and Cassandra saw her opening; she lurched toward him. Arms still tied at her sides, she drove her head into his ribs. He stumbled backwards into the stove and managed to bring his right knee up, driving it into her chest, knocking Petrel to the ground. The smell of gas was thick in the room. She lay on the floor, sucking air and gas through her nose, and blacked out. Thurlow regained his composure, straightened his coat, and stepped to the door. He put a hand on of — the railing that led to the companionway and the centre cockpit the boat and raised the lit lantern over his head.

Nancy heard a scream from Cassandra Petrel's boat, muffled by the sound of the harbour, the whine of an inboard motor revved to capacity, and her own heart pounding in her ears.

Petrel's boat was twenty feet away. Nancy's legs pounded on the planks of the dock. She was aware of Grace somewhere behind her. She reached the centre cockpit of the boat and slowed and jumped onto the deck, landing hard, skidding on her side and colliding with the hatch to the rear state room. She righted herself and made for the companionway hatch behind the cockpit seat. As she did, the hatch flew open, smashing her arm against her chest and knocking her backwards. A blast of heat jumped from the hatch. A man, backlit by flames, stood in the companionway. She stumbled to her feet and without thinking leaped at him. She connected with his body at the chest, both of them careening off the narrow hatch and landing side by side on the hard floor of the cabin.

“Who the fuck are
you?
” Nancy heard him hiss as he punched and kicked at her. She locked her arms around him as tightly as she could to restrict his movement. She looked wildly around. A woman was tied up on the floor a few feet away. The space was hot and smelled like gas, and a lantern was smashed on the floor just a few feet from her face and was burning, the flames fuelled by the air that was being sucked into the cabin through the open gangway hatch.

Thurlow connected a jab to her stomach and Nancy gasped for air. It tasted like gas. Then she bit down on any part of him she could reach, his nose as it turned out. He hollered and thrashed his head, but she didn't let go. Nancy Webber tasted hot, salty blood on her tongue. Finally he ripped himself free, blood splashing on Nancy's face, and drove his fist into the side of her head. The world went dark.

The boat hadn't stopped when Cole jumped, life jacket still snug on his body, onto the foot of the pier adjacent to Cassandra Petrel's boat. He stumbled and almost ran off the side of the dock and into the harbour, but managed to right himself in time to see Darvin Thurlow burst from the cabin of the boat, knocking a bewildered Grace Ravenwing to the deck. The distance between them was no more than thirty feet, and Cole lunged at Thurlow as he made the dock and started to run for the village.

“Cole, Nancy!” came Grace Ravenwing's desperate cry from where she lay on the deck of the boat.

Cole skidded to a stop. “Where is she?”

“In the boat!”

He watched as Thurlow made for the end of the dock. He felt Darren First Moon running past him, too. Both men about to escape, Cole jumped onto the boat and ripped the companionway door open. A billow of smoke and heat flashed in Cole's face. He put his nose and mouth in the crook of his arm and jumped down the stairs into the dark belly of the burning boat. He nearly tripped over Nancy, who was coughing on the floor. He grabbed her under her arms and hoisted her up the steep steps to the deck of the boat. A stabbing pain ripped through his body where his ribs were cracked. He managed to push Nancy up and out of the galley and onto the deck, where Grace took over, dragging Nancy over the gunwales and onto the dock.

“Where's Cassandra?” he shouted at Nancy. Her face was red and her mouth had blood running from the corner. Her eyes were bleary, but she managed to point toward the hatch.

“Below.”

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbled. Then he yelled, “Get her out of here,” to Grace, and plunged back into the darkness.

The cabin was filled with blue-black smoke and he could taste the gas. He pressed his face into the crook of his arm and tried not to breathe. Seconds, he thought. Mere seconds. That's all I've got. In a couple of seconds the bell will ring and the final round will end.

He went down on his hands and knees, remembering fire safety lessons from first grade, and made his way through the galley and toward the hall that connected with the head and the state room. Dark-coloured flames licked at the walls and surged back toward the stove with its ruptured gas line. He could see better from the floor but gagged on the smoke. He found her on the floor that led to the sleeping quarters, her hands tied, her mouth taped shut. She was unconscious. He took her arms and hoisted her onto his back. Stumbling to his knees, he made for the direction of the hatch. The heat of the flames and the noxious smoke made his ears burn and he thought he might collapse from lack of air.