Thief (8 page)

He zoomed in closer to study the details of their faces when a sudden itch in his shoulder blades told him he wasn’t alone. He turned to find the object of his morning’s study was standing behind him. Studying him as he had her, only doubtless doing it far more efficiently he rued to himself.

Somehow, she had wandered through the carefully concealed door at the dojo, down a two story spiral metal staircase that clattered like a steel works, along a fifty meter passage way heavily infested with sensors and alarms, and then through another code locked sliding metal door that usually squawked like a banshee when the compressed air forced it to open. All without a single noise being made.

But that he sort of understood. According to some of the writings angels never actually touched the ground, walking slightly above it always, and never letting their feet get dirty or make a sound. And as for the doors, many sources claimed that no door could ever be locked to an angel. Of course that just made all his preparations useless. What use he sighed to himself, was a security system with Sherial around?

Still he followed her calmly enough as she left. He guessed it was time for lunch.

Majuro was the eastern part of the inhabited Marshall Islands, an atoll of sixty four islands, and the largest city, though calling it a city was a stretch, of the entire group. And his island, too small to even have a name, was a good twenty miles by boat. Which was why he only made the journey in good weather and when he had to.

A tiny tropical paradise, the Marshall Islands were only eight hours by even his relatively slow plane from everywhere Mikel needed to be, but at the same time, outside the normal zones of U.S. and Interpol regulation. Technically, the U.S. since granting independence to the Islands had negotiated a treaty with them, covering such things as peace and extradition. But the reality was it had never been taken very seriously by either party. If it weren’t for the nearby naval base, the islands would have been left entirely alone by the super powers.

As such it was perfect for him. Remote, secluded and nearly forgotten he could pretty much do what he wanted with impunity. No one would ever know, ever even question his activities. And why should they? Most of the islands considered him a harmless eccentric, a businessman, a neighbour and often, a friend. In short, just one of the folks. He stood out no more than any of the island’s other thousand or so imported eccentrics.

More importantly the island would be a secure bolthole should the crime lords ever come after him. There were no streets let alone street addresses here, and since he had no name; at least not one that anyone would know anyway, there was no way of locating him. Of course he firmly intended that the underworld and the governments never discover him. Anonymity was always a thief’s first and greatest protection.

The people on the islands were a strange and interesting mix and he guessed that more than a few of them had secrets as deep and dark as his own. He wasn’t the only one who’d found the secluded islands a sanctuary from past indiscretions, and for most of the same reasons. Poor security, the ability to become anyone you wanted with a simple forged passport, police who simply weren’t curious, a complete lack of security cameras and for that matter record keeping. A man wanting to live here could simply purchase a house, and provided he paid his taxes and, spent some money in the town would find that no one cared what they had done before. Not even if they had once been Jack the Ripper. If ever a man needed to hide under an assumed name, this was the place to do it.

Some of his neighbours he suspected, were ex-fraudsters, hiding under assumed names like him and hoarding their ill-gotten gains. Others were smugglers, bankrupt businessmen, and washed out hippies.  Some were no doubt running from old charges, others were defectors from various despotic regimes across the world, and some perhaps were even retired spies. Yet that worked for him. Before the authorities came for him, they’d have their hands full with the others.

Fully ninety percent of the thirty thousand or so locals were Micronesians, while the rest were a bizarre mix of English, German and Japanese. Thankfully, nearly everyone spoke English, for which he was eternally grateful, although a lot of Marshallese words had wormed their way in to daily conversation. But they just helped to give the islands their own unique charm.

Primitive, backwards, agricultural and different to anywhere else in the world, the islands possessed a beauty all their own.

Idyllic weather, beautiful beaches, glorious sunsets and peaceful living, the islands had it all. If he avoided town and the tourists he could go weeks without ever seeing another human being or even knowing that they existed, and he liked that. Then, just to add to the wonder of the place, life was cheap there. Many of his neighbours lived in comparative luxury with their previous lives elsewhere. But the island’s greatest asset was the peaceful lifestyle. Life was slow here, backwards even. While TV other than satellite didn’t exist and even electricity was something people had to generate for themselves, at least the crime rate was almost non-existent. A fact attested to by the island having only two cops, both part time.

Since living here Mikel had enjoyed a feeling of peace he’d never really known anywhere else. The island, his home had become a retreat, a place far away from the chaos and pain of the rest of the world. A place where no one could find him, and a place he could retire to when the need arose. Yet now he found he was no longer able to hide from the world in this, his private sanctuary. Somehow, it had found him, even here.

Then again he realized as he saw her waiting for him, Sherial wasn’t really part of the world. Whatever else she might be, she had nothing of violence, deceit and pain about her. She had nothing earthly about her at all.

He sighed and joined her at the table.

Lunch proved to be the most amazing meal of his life, though perhaps not the most calorifically filling as he was forced to fall back on a chopped green salad. Though at least, he later reflected, mayonnaise; quite probably without the egg – it looked slightly thinner than normal, was a permitted food along with dairy products. Salad without it and plenty of cheese would have been unpalatable.

They ate in the garden courtyard, a Spanish brick paved area filled with brick columns and surrounded by raised miniature gardens. Overhead, the naked cedar beams provided a strong contrast to the bright blue sky, while hanging plants softened their lines. He was particularly proud of this part of the house. It was one of the first things he had built since moving in, and it served the double purpose of covering his main workshop as well as providing outdoor enjoyment. All of it stood on a twelve inch slap of steel reinforced concrete, and there wasn’t a single thing to suggest anything other than solid earth lay underneath.

Behind them the house stood in all its simple splendour. It was an old farmhouse he’d slowly converted to his needs. Knocking out walls, and extending it back towards the hills and building in endless French doors, it had become a single man’s cottage. Only slightly over two thousand square feet in size it boasted a modest total of six rooms including the bathroom and laundry. Open planning allowed for the lounge, dining and kitchen areas to merge into a seamless whole, while fully half the house was taken up by the single bedroom and large library. From all of them of course, he had extensive views, either of his gardens leading down the gentle slope all the way to the sea, or of the hills behind. In floor plan area the deck, which completely surrounded the house and allowed him to follow the sun all around the house, was actually larger than the house itself. It should be, it had taken him long enough to build. He suspected his home might never make it onto the lifestyles of the rich and famous show, but it was more a home than any dozen mansions he’d ever seen.

Surrounding it were his gardens, extensive lawns, acres of exotic tree plantations, and the beach front where his flying boat was docked. Once this property had been a farm, the owners eking out a bare existence trying to raise sheep on land built of coral. They’d brought in shiploads of soil to help, but it hadn’t been enough. Transport costs to market had left it uneconomic, the grass just wasn’t right, and they’d had to abandon the land. For years then it had lain fallow, commercially worthless, but ideal for his purposes.

When he’d first seen it he’d instantly known that this must become his home. It had felt so completely right to him, a perfect haven and a home. He could have justified living here with any of a dozen reasons, but in truth it was simply the feel of the place that persuaded him.

Immediately he’d moved in and had it renovated all within the space of a few short weeks. That had been the first and last time he’d ever used outside help in building. Thereafter, every change he’d made had been planned and carried out with his own hands. Again it wasn’t just the simple necessity of secrecy. There was something simply right about doing the work himself. Each change he made, each alteration, made him more truly a part of this place, making it more his home.

The initial changes he’d made had been relatively minor, but then again they’d only been a beginning. There after he’d spent years and then decades adding to it, building, decks and pergolas, gardens, garages, a dock and plantations. It was a job that never finished, mainly because he never wanted it to. Each time he completed one project, another called out to him and he’d begin the design process again.

Of course what he’d built on the surface, was as nothing to the construction he’d carried out underneath. A long, slow, and often exhausting job, using machinery mostly only seen in mines, and always in secret. Of course the biggest problem was always digging down into an atoll that stood only four or five feet above sea level. So what he’d really done was lift the house, build underneath it, and then fill up the surrounding land with more soil. But the results were more than worth it. There were two main workshops each with their own hidden access ways to the surface. The major part of his library was also buried there. There were chambers of stored provisions, fuel, food, and clothes. There were some modest living quarters, and advanced air re-circulation systems.

Security had not been overlooked. The bunker also had its own defence systems, ground penetrating anti-radar, electronic camouflage, state of the art communications systems and even anti missile systems. If his house was a security zone, what lay underneath was an invisible fortress. If necessary he could have lived down there for months, perhaps years, with no one ever the wiser.

Except for Sherial.

Mikel had intended to question Sherial anew, even knowing he would likely get little or no useful response as before. He should have known better. Instead he somehow found himself answering her questions, while she studied him closely.

This time at least, he didn’t feel as though he was a bug under a microscope. There was some warmth in her expression as she listened to him, a sense of compassion, and even perhaps some humanity. Maybe that was why he opened up so far with her. Then again maybe it was because she already knew so much about him that there was little else to worry about giving away. If she had wanted him arrested she could have done it the day before, but she wasn’t interested in such things as mere human laws. Whatever she wanted, it wasn’t him in jail, and before she told him her purpose in seeking him out, she wanted to know about him. Surprisingly, he was happy enough to oblige, there were so few secrets he had left anyway.

As he spoke, he studied her, half surprised she ate at all. Surely only a physical being needed to eat, something else in favour of that theory. Far from eating in the angelic, refined manner, he had somehow expected, she ate with gusto, revelling in each mouthful. Milton’s angels, he recalled from his morning’s studies, were noted for their passion in life, drinking, dancing and feasting being the order of the day. Sherial also he noted, ate enough to stop most truck drivers dead in their tracks, and still looked somewhat hungry afterwards. Flying probably took up a lot of energy. The party of animals also lunched with them, though at least they had the decency not to invade the bricked area.

Sherial he suspected, had told them not to.

“I suppose it all began when I was eight.” Supposed nothing, he knew it had. That dark cold day when little Billy had lost his mittens to those bullies. That day had changed his life forever, and yet looking back on it, everything had been so trivial. Far too insignificant for what had followed.

Billy had been his closest friend for as long as he could remember. They’d grown up together, played together, slept in the same room more often than not, and done all the things that young boys do. So it wasn’t surprising that when Billy had been roughed up and his new mittens stolen, Mikel had wanted to do something about it. Of course, Mikel had been Michael then, plain old Michael Jones of Springston, Quebec.