The Deep (25 page)

“We’ll give it our best shot,” I reply.

After the bishop’s men bring us back to the
lower deck and lock us up in our cabin, it seems like an eternity
passes in silence. By the time the sun is dipping below the
horizon, we still haven’t seen any sign of life from William. The
only silver lining in this situation is that at least they all
locked us inside one cabin, so we can talk without continuously
having to knock on the wall.

“Walt,” I say in a small voice.

My boyfriend is sitting on the bed, his gaze
empty.

“I’m sure he’s still alive,” Tony tries to
cheer him up. “Your dad is a good swimmer. The bullet only hit him
in the leg.”

Walt remains silent. He doesn’t look at us.
His hands ball up into fists. When he gets up at last and walks
over to the window, his eyes fixed on the sea, he says between
clenched teeth: “This ship must be destroyed.” He turns around and
the hatred in his eyes makes me cold inside. “By any means
necessary. What they are trying to do to our people – what they’ve
done to my father – that is unforgivable.”

All energy seems to drain away from Tony’s
body. “Yes,” he agrees hoarsely. “I’m so sorry. For all of
this.”

“But what can we do?” I wonder
desperately.

We stand there, in complete silence, until
Tony finally breaks it. “I have a plan.” He lowers his voice. “That
cannon that Aldin used to shoot at the tower? They use explosives
to fire it. The same kind of explosives we use in the coalmines in
Bodmin. If we can get out of this cabin, we need to get to the
arsenal on the starboard side. I worked in the mines for a few
years. I think I might be able to rewire the detonators to a timer
and use the explosives to blow up the entire ship.”

“You mean like the bombs they used in the old
world?” Walt asks breathlessly.

“Yes.” Tony’s mouth is set in a grim line.
“Exactly like that. If Aldin is so hell-bent on death and
destruction, we’ll give him some.”

“Good.” Walt doesn’t even bat an eyelid at
the prospect of blowing up twenty people. “And once we’ve destroyed
this ship, will we be safe?”

Tony hesitates for just a beat too long.

“You think we won’t be,” I conclude.

“President Jacob will do everything in his
power to find this island,” Tony admits. “There aren’t that many
maps with details of this coastline as well as the currents, but I
bet there are some. The safest thing for you to do is leave Tresco,
sail away in your own ships, and start anew somewhere else.”

The thought stabs at my heart. Leaving the
island where my father is buried. Where I met Walt. Where east and
west have reconciled. Where would we go? Back to the frightening
mainland?

Tony seems to guess my worries, since he
gives us both a serious look before continuing: “In North Devon,
there’s a free-thinking region by the name of Exmoor. They’re
different there. Wilder. More like – you. And off the coast of
Exmoor is an uninhabited island called Lundy. The Exmoorers venture
out there sometimes, to hunt puffins. Other than that, they don’t
go there, even though the island does have preserved buildings from
the old world. There are libraries. Temples. I think there’s even a
lighthouse. It’s like Tresco, only smaller. And there is no
Wall.”

I close my eyes and try to imagine what that
could be like. A new home close to a coastal town we could be
friends with. An island without boundaries.

“Leia,” Walt says softly, moving up close and
wiping a tear away from my cheek. “Everything will be all right.
We’ll be fine.”

Just then, someone turns the doorknob. I stop
breathing, my eyes darting from Walt to Tony. This might be our
only chance to get away. They’re coming to bring us food.

When the door opens, everything happens so
fast that it’s almost as if we had time to discuss this and
coordinate our attack. Walt plunges headfirst into the door,
slamming it shut so quickly that the person on the other side cries
out in pain when the door hits him in the face. I yank it open
again, allowing Tony to jump out, drag the guard back in, and knock
him unconscious with a couple of blows to the temple.

Walt dashes into the hallway to pick up the
tray and the dry bread rolls spilled all over the floor. After he
comes back inside and closes the door, we all stand there painting
for breath, looking at each other.

“We tie him up,” Tony says decidedly. “Leia,
you tear one of the sheets into strips. Walt, you search him for
his keys. I’m going back out to get a few guns and syringes.”

Before we can protest, Tony is gone.

“Oh my Goddess,” Walt whispers as we tie up
the guard and gag him with the remaining piece of sheet. “I can’t
believe we just did that.”

“You told me everything was going to be all
right, didn’t you?” I tease him in an excited voice. “Are you
telling me those were just big words? Acting tough again, are
you?”

Walt shakes his head wearily. “You never
change, huh?” he mutters.

By the time we’re done, Tony enters the cabin
again, handing us each a gun. He smiles when Walt shows him the
guard’s keyring. “Here’s what we do,” he says. “We leave this man
here and we lock him up. If we’re lucky, no one will come to check
here, and even if they do, they’ll think
we
’re inside,
sleeping. In the meantime, we hide in one of the storage rooms on
the lower deck and wait until Aldin’s men are asleep. And then,
we’ll find the room where they keep those cannons.”

A strange tremor shakes my body at the
thought of this ship being blown to smithereens in one giant
explosion. I am thrilled to know Aldin and his accomplices will die
in the flames, and shocked that this is really how I feel about
causing so many deaths.

I have never hated anyone this intensely, not
even Saul.

Once the
Crusader
is in deep sleep, we
steal out of the storage room we were hiding in. Nobody noticed we
were missing. We haven’t heard any shouts of people looking for us
or checking where that sailor with the food tray went. Tony’s ruse
was successful.

My heart beats in my throat as we tiptoe down
the corridor, Tony at the head. He doesn’t know where those cannons
are any more than we do – we’ll have to make do with trying to
pinpoint the origin of the one shot that was fired and guess where
the sound came from.

After trying more than ten doors on both
sides, we descend to the decks below. I wish we’d brought that
handy flashlight, because I can’t see a thing. My hand is on Walt’s
shoulder, who in his turn is carefully following Tony.

Suddenly, I hear Tony’s voice whispering in
the darkness. “I think it’s behind this door. I can smell the
explosives.”

He opens the door on squeaky hinges. By the
light of the full moon falling through the five portholes in the
room, I see a row of weapons – large, long tubes, their mouths
hungrily aimed at the island. So this is the heart of Aldin’s power
over us. And this throbbing, beating heart will also be his
demise.

Tony immediately walks over to one of the
cannons and opens the back of a tube. He inspects the interior,
then moves over to the next weapon. He remains notably quiet. Walt
and I are just standing there a bit helplessly. When our friend
finally rejoins us in the corner of the room, I ask: “So, can we do
something?”

Tony looks at me. A nervous muscle in his
cheek pulls at one corner of his mouth. “I think you should get on
deck now. Find a place where you can jump overboard without harming
yourself, and drop into the sea. It’s not a very long swim.”

“What about you?” Walt wants to know.

“I have to reconnect the explosives to the
detonator so everything will go off as planned.”

“We can wait for you.”

He slowly shakes his head. “No, you – you
should go now.”

My heart stops. I search Tony’s eyes in the
semi-darkness. He meets my gaze and doesn’t look away, not even
when my eyes fill with tears. “We’ll jump off at the aft end,” I
say unevenly.

“Then that’s where I’ll go, too.” He smiles
sadly and takes a step back. “Now leave. Don’t dawdle. I’ll be
right behind you.”

“You want the keys?” Walt offers. “So you can
lock the door behind you until you’re done. Suppose someone
enters?”

He holds out the key ring and Tony takes it
from him with slightly trembling fingers. “Good idea,” he says.
“Now beat it, you two.”

Blinded by tears, I turn around and stumble
out of the arsenal. Walt follows suit. He grabs my arm and supports
me when I almost trip on the stairs.

“You okay?” he whispers. “No worries, we’ll
make it.”

I just nod dumbly. He doesn’t understand.

We climb up via the stairs and end up at the
spot where Walt’s father disappeared over the railing. From here,
it’s only a short walk to the stern of the ship, but I anxiously
finger the weapon in my pocket when I hear voices.

“Ssh,” Walt whispers. He pulls me behind a
stack of boxes. Not a moment too soon, because the next second, two
sailors pass us by. They don’t see us in the pale moonlight. I
don’t have to use my gun. No one expects to find us here.

After the two men have disappeared from
sight, we stealthily move on. Fortunately, we don’t bump into
anyone else on our way to the rear end of the ship. In the deep
silence of night, we move to the railing and look down, at the
waves crashing into the side of the ship.

“We should go,” I quietly say.

Walt takes my hand. “I want to wait for Tony.
He said he’d be right behind us.”

I swallow hard. “Walt, he’s not coming.”

“Of course he’s coming,” Walt says
stubbornly.

I look him in the eye and slowly shake my
head.

His blue eyes fill with a dull pain.

“He has to set off those cannons,” I whisper.
“I don’t think he knows how to rewire a detonator or connect it to
a timer. He’s no Henry. I could see it in his eyes. If this ship is
going to blow, he has to do it manually.”

The blood drains from Walt’s face. “I told
him we should destroy this ship at any cost,” he says, his voice
cracking on the last word.

“And we will,” I reply gently, but clearly.
“He will. He’ll save us. We really need to go, Walt. Or we’ll be
killed together with Aldin and his men.”

He shakes his head one more time, staring
unseeingly into the distance. Now he understands why Tony sent us
away. Why he told us that story about Lundy Island before we left
to find the cannons. He wants to give us a chance, now that he’s
irrevocably changed our world, incapable of turning back time.

“You’re right,” he says with difficulty.
“Let’s go.”

Without saying another word, we climb over
the barrier, hold hands, and drop down into the deep, dark
waters.

The force with which I hit the water knocks
the air out of my lungs. My head goes under and I wildly start to
tread water to get back to the surface. Walt’s hand slips out of
mine, but I can feel him swimming next to me. When I resurface, I
look around in the cold moonlight to get my bearings.

There. Far away, I see the winking light of
the lighthouse that is still intact. We must be at least a mile
out, and for a split second I feel disheartened at the distance
between us and the safe shores of Tresco. But that won’t help us. I
kick off my shoes and swim over to Walt with a few long strokes.
“Are you ready?” I pant.

“Yeah, let’s go,” he mumbles, wiping the
seawater from his eyes. Or maybe they’re tears.

Although I make every effort to swim as fast
as I can, it’s as if the coast stays out of reach. It doesn’t seem
to get any closer. When I look over my shoulder, I see we’ve left
the
Crusader
far behind, though.

Walt slows down and swims next to me. “How
are you holding up?”

“I’m all right.” I take a deep breath. “I
wish we could rest for a while.”

“I thought I just saw a boat in the water,”
he says, a frown creasing his forehead. “It might be a sloop that
was cast adrift by the storm. Can you see it too?”

I narrow my eyes to slits and peer out,
holding my breath in anticipation. Walt is right – I do see a boat
in the distance. And it’s not empty – there are people on board.
“Someone’s coming!” I say excitedly.

With renewed vigor, I start to swim in the
direction of the vessel. Walt is right beside me. When we come
closer, I can make out a young, blonde woman at the helm.

“Alisa!” Walt cries out at that moment.
“We’re here!” He frantically waves his arms.

“Walt?” Alisa’s voice echoes off the water.
“Is that you?”

“Leia’s with me,” he hollers back.

Only a few more yards to get to the boat. My
heart freezes when I spot Ben and Saul sitting behind Alisa,
pulling at the oars. What the blazes are
they
doing
here?

“Did you escape by yourselves?” Alisa
inquires, relief evident in her voice. She helps us both into the
boat and embraces Walt and me in turns. “Oh, thank Goddess. I have
no idea how to get on board. William told us there’s an aft ladder,
but…”

“William?” Walt grabs Alisa’s hand. “My dad
is still alive?”

“Yeah, he washed up earlier today,” Saul
replies in his dark, gravelly voice. “He’s in the hospital, but
he’s doing reasonably well.” His eyes dart to me. “Hey,” he greets
me, suddenly sounding awkward.

“Hey back,” I reply a bit sourly. “You team
up with Fools these days?”

He looks away. “Yeah. Something like that.
Where’s Tony, by the way?” His gaze scans the water.

I choke up. “On the
Crusader
.”

“We have to go get him,” Ben says.

“Nee.” Walt shakes his head. “He stayed
behind on purpose. Tony is going to destroy the ship.”

“What?” Saul’s voice shoots up. “But…”

He doesn’t get the chance to argue with us.
At that moment, a deafening, roaring bang stirs the air, chasing
the sound of thunder across the waves, scorching the hair on our
arms with searing heat. Behind us, the
Crusader
is swallowed
up by a giant, all-consuming ball of fire. To my left and right, I
hear metal debris from the explosion zipping through the air and
splashing into the water. Instinctively, I duck for cover, though I
know that won’t help one bit if I am really hit by one of those
things. My heart hammers wildly in my chest.