* * * *
Anna was too numb to really feel the fear beating at the back of her mind. She was aware of it on some levels. She could feel it at the back of her mind like a shadow slithering around in the back of a dark cave. And like that unknown ‘something’, she felt as if it might suddenly erupt from the shadows and envelope her in terror, but the numbness was a blessing she was holding on to as tightly as she could. It allowed her some ability to process thoughts. She knew she wasn’t thinking ‘normally’, but she was at least capable of processing, even though it seemed to take a very long time to do it.
Beyond that, it had shielded her enough that Miles Cavendish didn’t seem to realize that she was terrified of him or that she was as completely opposed to everything he stood for as she could possibly be. He didn’t seem to suspect that she was his enemy.
Paul had carried her miles and miles. They’d been in the boat for hours. She was almost certain of that even though she was aware that she didn’t have a firm grasp on time. The trip alone had been one of the most frightening experiences of her life. If there’d been no threat hanging over her at all, she thought she would still have been traumatized by the terrifying speed he’d maintained, by being surrounded by nothing but black, seething water, and by the sight of the enormous waves that looked like they might swallow the boat at any moment.
She’d always enjoyed looking at the sea from a safe distance. She’d never wanted to set off across it, to find herself completely surrounded by it so that she couldn’t get her mind off of the immensity of it, the dark depths waiting to swallow her up.
She’d been so glad when they’d finally arrived, so eager to get off the tiny, bucking boat and feel something solid and reassuring beneath her that Miles Cavendish, who’d come out to greet them, had gotten the entirely false impression that she was thrilled to have been brought to him. It was purely a stroke of luck that he’d misinterpreted her reaction. She couldn’t have pretended even though she knew her life depended on it.
He’d noticed her face immediately. It had been throbbing since Paul had struck her, but she’d been too distracted by everything else too really feel the pain. He’d examined it with concern she didn’t believe and sent Paul a deadly look she hadn’t had any trouble interpreting. “I fell,” she said shakily, not certain why the lie sprang to her lips but almost immediately glad it had. Tit for tat. Paul couldn’t tell her father she’d fought him to keep him from running Simon and Ian down without admitting he’d hit her and she could see he didn’t want to do that.
“You’re frozen!”
Anna nodded jerkily, her teeth chattering too much to attempt to talk if she’d wanted to and she thought she was better off remaining mute.
“Well! We’ll get you inside and get something for that bruise. A hot bath should take the chill off and you can rest. I can see you’re worn out. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but it can wait a few hours.”
Thank you! Thank you! If she could just put off really talking to him for a while, help might come. If it didn’t … well, it still gave her a little time to prepare herself.
She still didn’t like leaving Paul and her father alone. She didn’t think he would tell her father about the incident, but she couldn’t be sure and if he did she wouldn’t be there to try to cover it with lies.
“Did you take care of the house?”
“Yes,” Paul responded. “Whatever the explosion didn’t get rid of I’m sure the fire did.”
“Good! Excellent!”
He glanced at her, seemed to realize that she wasn’t nearly as happy about it as he was. “I hope you didn’t have anything in it that was special to you.”
Just four years of research, she thought glumly, wondering suddenly if Simon or Ian had seen her put the book in the paddler or had the chance to recover it. It might have gone up when the house did. It seemed unlikely, she realized despairingly, that it hadn’t.
“Well! We can replace whatever you lost with better things,” he said cheerfully when she didn’t say anything. “I’ve got an entire wardrobe waiting for you. I never did particularly care for your taste in clothes, pumpkin. You’re too pretty to go around looking like you’re wearing someone else’s castoffs.”
She happened to
like
her clothes! They were practical and comfortable and that was all that was important to her. It wasn’t as if she ever went out!
Her first thought when he showed her the room he’d decided on for her was to wonder if it was bugged like her house had been. Her second, that it looked ostentatious and not the least ‘homey’.
“What do you think?” he asked, beaming at her in obvious expectation that she would be thrilled.
She pasted a smile on and scanned it slowly, searching for any sign of cameras or microphones. “It’s … I’m speechless.”
He chuckled, pulling her close and kissing her forehead. Her skin crawled.
“I’m going to leave you to get cleaned up and settled in. I’ll have a tray brought up for you if you’re hungry. I’m sure the cook could put something together.”
“I’m just cold and tired.” And she wanted to be left alone.
Thankfully, he left and took Paul with him. She still didn’t know if she was being watched, but it didn’t matter at the moment. She had to get warm or her teeth were going to be worn down to nubs and she wasn’t in any shape to consider flight. Any attempt in her current condition was doomed to failure.
Her mind went to her lost research and the bombing of her house while she stood in the shower shivering. Apparently, she thought wryly, she truly was her father’s daughter. She didn’t know how else she might have sensed the need to hide it if she hadn’t had some inkling of the way his mind worked because it certainly wasn’t reasonable or logical.
That being the case, she spent the entire time trying to figure out why it had seemed both reasonable and logical to him to destroy it. Her first thought was that it was planned to get rid of evidence, but what evidence, against him, could there possibly be in her house? To her knowledge, he’d never set foot in it. It belonged to the company, so destroying it changed nothing. There would be records that it did.
She decided it had to be her research because there simply wasn’t anything else in the house for them to have any reason at all to destroy but why pay her for four years of research and then destroy it? Especially since she had to suppose he must know she’d finally succeeded?
Was that the key? Had they watched her bounding around like an idiot and realized she’d succeeded and that was what set off the chain of events that had led her here? Wherever here was.
Or was it just coincidental?
She supposed it could have been but it still felt strange that Paul had showed up right after that and she found she couldn’t put it down to circumstance.
Maybe they just thought she’d gone off her rocker?
Unlikely. She’d been so thrilled that she didn’t really recall what she’d done, but she’d rushed to her computer to update her records. Even if they didn’t have the computer itself bugged, they could probably have seen what she was doing or at least guessed.
If she accepted it was the research they’d wanted to destroy, what could be a motive for doing that? Because they didn’t want to stop world hunger?
She hadn’t seriously considered that but as soon as the idea popped into her head, she stopped to think it over. That was what her research meant. Beyond the money that could be made from it, it would’ve at least put an enormous dent in the number of people starving. Why would he not want to prevent starving?
Because he wanted to decrease the surplus population? She wouldn’t put it past him. She wouldn’t put anything past him at this juncture, but there really wasn’t a tremendous surplus—not anymore—too many people to feed and not enough jobs, but one disaster after another in the last hundred years had already cut the world population tremendously.
Hungry people. Unhappy people. Rioting people. It struck her abruptly that that was the perfect atmosphere for hate. People that were suffering wanted somebody to blame and they mostly blamed their government, but they were all too eager to lash out and take out their fear, anger, and frustrations on anything or anyone that became a target.
And Miles Cavendish had given them one—the mutants.
It was almost too diabolical to be believed, but was it possible? The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that that had to be the motive. It wasn’t as farfetched, upon reflection, as she’d initially thought. People were suffering and they were angry about it. Throughout the course of history anyone who became the target of the angry masses, usually the government, would toss out the first likely victim they could find just to get the mob off of themselves. The Romans had thrown the Christians to the lions. The church had thrown the angry mobs ‘witches’ to torture and burn alive.
The Nazis had thrown out the Jews. The industrialists poisoning their environment had thrown out the smokers. That one was easy. Nobody wanted to lose their jobs just because the company they were working for was killing everybody and destroying the planet.
It hadn’t resulted in violence, but then that hadn’t been the objective. The objective had been to divert attention and animosity from themselves and prevent people from demanding they clean up their act.
The list went on and on. All they had to do was pick a victim that people wanted to hate, tell them they were right to hate them, and turn them loose. As long as it was someone they could get to easily, they were too preoccupied with venting their anger on them to notice what else was going on.
The food riots was a prime example of what could happen when the ‘atmosphere’ was already volatile, how easily people could be manipulated and turned into a weapon of mass destruction. And the government had been directly responsible for it. They could deny it all they wanted, but they’d
made it happen. After siphoning people out of their money for years and years, they hadn’t been prepared when disaster struck—due to greed, corruption, and plain out incompetence.
Everyone had been so enraged when they discovered the food and necessities that the government had been supposedly stockpiling wasn’t there when they needed it that they’d been ready to turn on them and tear them to pieces. The government spokesman that had ‘appealed to the people to stop hording food and essentials and share with their neighbors’ had known exactly what he was doing—turning the mob. The media had picked it up, broadcast it everywhere and before anyone could turn around, the mobs had been dragging people out of their cars, homes, and offices and beating them to death—because they weren’t showing the signs of hunger.
It had not only worked to turn the rage on the hapless obese, who were suffering with everybody else, but it had given them an excuse to impose martial law and protect themselves.
Miles Cavendish hadn’t built a global terrorist organization without knowing how to manipulate people. What were they going to do when it was announced that her research would’ve gone a long way toward curing world hunger? Saved hundreds of thousands, maybe millions from starving to death?
That
was what Paul had meant! They already had their story prepared!
Cavendish would have to make them believe it was the mutants that did it and she’d made it easy for them! Simon and Ian had been right there on the scene.
He might also have to get rid of her.
Would he think it worthwhile to try to convert her to his way of thinking before he went to those lengths? Or would he think it just not worth the risk?
He didn’t need to kill her, though, or even convert her. If her research actually was gone, it could take her years to do it again. She couldn’t remember every single thing.
Climbing out of the shower finally, she dried off and headed back into the bedroom, climbing into the bed and pulling the covers up. She didn’t turn off the lights.
For once she didn’t care how much energy was wasted. The cavernous room gave her the creeps. She didn’t want to lay in it in the dark.
So, assuming she was right, her father had allowed her to spend four years of her life trying to create something he never intended to market even if she was successful.
Maybe he hadn’t expected her to succeed? It was good PR just having her work on it. It was a great motivator for the hungry if she did succeed and then mutant terrorists destroyed it. He couldn’t lose. He would have droves of people joining his organization and those who couldn’t afford the price would still be backing him, cheering him on.
The realization made her cold, chilled her too deeply to shake it off.
Someone had to stop Miles Cavendish, somehow.
* * * *
Simon paused in the shadow of a large rock, resisting the urge to adjust the gear he was wearing. The body armor and the assortment of weapons he’d donned for the assault had made swimming hellish, but it was even worse once he got out of the water, awkward and miserably uncomfortable. It would’ve been suicidal to go in without it, though. The volcanic rock Miles Cavendish had chosen for his lair was like a fortress and surrounded by a fairly impressive army.
It was a ‘new’ island, hadn’t even been in existence long enough to make it on to any maps, not surprising since it had been formed in an eruption less than fifty years earlier and wasn’t much more than a rock now. The vegetation was sparse and he was willing to bet there wasn’t much in the way of fresh water—maybe none. The vegetation might rely entirely on rain—which made the island less than desirable for settlers looking for land.
He doubted Miles Cavendish had any neighbors they needed to worry about—just the army of guards bristling with weapons. By his guess, they were outnumbered and he wasn’t anywhere near the mansion yet. He was hoping most of the guards were patrolling the beach and the outer perimeter and not within the high walls surrounding Cavendish’s mansion, but he already had doubts those hopes would be realized.
He just hoped they could get to Anna and get her out in one piece. He’d made himself a promise that he’d stay out of her life if he could just get her out of the mess he’d gotten her in to, see to it that she was safe.
When he was certain there was no one within hearing distance, he activated his communicator. “I count four on the beach—automatics. Five in the rocks between the beach and the mansion—three have sniper rifles, two with automatics.”
“Two snipers on the beach make six,” Caleb reported after a moment’s silence, “… four in the rocks on my side, two snipers, two automatics.”
Several minutes passed. Simon was preparing to move forward when Ian reported in. “We’re in position. I spotted two.”
“Two more on the south east corner,” Joshua reported.
“Base?” Simon asked, hoping the rocks hadn’t interfered with the transmission.
The response was so weak he cupped his hand over the earpiece and still didn’t catch it all. “Repeat!” To his relief, they seemed to be receiving better than sending.
“Should I send someone to take out the snipers?”
Simon considered it. “Get them into position, but tell them to hold either for a verbal command or first shots fired. Got that?”
He scanned the area and began moving again the moment he had confirmation.
He wanted to get Anna to a safe distance before there were any shots fired, but failing that, he didn’t want to be cut off and possibly pinned down without reinforcements. He’d left the standing order to launch the attack immediately if there was an exchange of gunfire whether they’d had time to clear the mansion or not. He didn’t want the men cut down by snipers, though, and figured getting men in place to take them out was the best he could do to protect both Anna and his men. He just hoped nobody screwed up, because if at least one of them hadn’t managed to locate Anna before the shooting started …. Well, it wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
He found an observation post just outside the wall about twenty minutes later and settled to watching the grounds and the roofs for movement. He wasn’t happy to discover he’d been right about Cavendish. There were more men inside the damned compound than outside. He spotted six on the roof and four more in the two towers on either end, east and west, of the compound, and another six on the grounds. With Ian’s, Joshua’s, and Caleb’s counts they had twenty-two inside the compound and possibly more inside the mansion itself.
He settled to considering the situation. They could pull back and try to come up with a plan and risk another approach or make a try for it tonight. They’d managed to get all the way to the compound without incident—once—though. The chances of managing it a second time with so many men seemed remote. Anna’s situation also became more dangerous the longer she was inside.
They were going to have to do something about the men in sniper positions, though. There was no way, he decided, to take them all out quietly. There were too damned many of them and most of them were in sight of each other, which meant it didn’t matter when they tried an entry insofar as they were concerned.
Coming to a decision, he contacted base and ordered four more men up to try to get into a position to take out the men on the roof before they could do too much damage and gave Ian, Joshua, and Caleb a green to go as soon as they found a hole.
He ran into trouble the instant he went over the wall. One of the guards had moved into the brush near the wall to take a piss. Fortunately, the man was intent on getting his zipper up. Simon whipped his knife from his belt and lunged, driving the six inch blade through his breastbone and into his heart. The man coughed as the blade knocked the breath from him, but Simon managed to get his hand over his mouth before he could utter a cry of alarm.
Uttering a mental chant of curses, he dragged the man into the brush and disabled his weapon. He was more cautious as he moved on, but he moved quickly. They could discover they were missing a man any moment.