Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

Mia spun left a half-second before the gunfire was returned. She raced without direction, tripping, stumbling, her legs weak with fright. She crashed into a broken headstone, her ankle twisting in pain. She hunkered down, enveloped in fear, hiding among the dead.

Mia held her gun as if it would ward off her attackers, ward off evil, blindly pointing it. She never felt so alone, so close to death.

She thought she heard movement again, but this was different. It was a rumble from beneath the ground, as if the souls of the departed had been disturbed.

And then, without warning, Mia was suddenly sucked into the ground.

Cristos stepped from the large speedboat onto the dock, the churned-up ocean waters sending the floating wharf rolling around, the two boats banging against their moorings as the waves washed over everything, trying to drag it all out to sea. Ignoring the growing storm, he stalked up the gangway onto shore, where he was met by Jacob.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Cristos said.

“The woman escaped.” A bruise was welling up on the side of his rain-soaked head. They continued walking up to the estate.

“Off the island?”

“No.”

Walking in silence, they arrived at the front door. Cristos saw the spent bullet casings on the ground and spun around into Jacob’s face.

“They shot at her?” Cristos’s words were measured and angry.

Jacob said nothing.

“If she dies, you all die. Where is everybody?”

“Alex and Rizzoli are out looking for her.

“They can’t find her?”

“They lost her. It was like she just vanished. They said it was as if she had disappeared into thin air.”

Mia was in a full-on panic, scrambling in a pool of water, her gun lost during the fall, her hands scratching the muddy walls for purchase. She could barely see, but then lightning lit up the night, filtering down into her tomb, and she saw flashes of her prison.

She was in a pit, a makeshift crypt, where countless bodies had been thrown one atop the other when space was no longer available in the graveyard, robbing them of the dignity of lying alone in their eternal rest.

About her were shattered skeletons and tattered clothing that tried in vain to hold what were once human bodies together. The heavy rains, along with her weight, had opened the sink hole like a grave where no one had been in decades, where maintenance had stopped in the ’70s.

And although the illumination of lightning was intermittent, she didn’t need to see to know that the four feet of water was quickly rising around her. Between her exhaustion and the freezing water, Mia knew she could only hold out for so long. If she didn’t drown first, the muddy walls would soon collapse, filling in the grave, where she would never be found, where she would die terrified among the already dead.

Jack sat in the teak-appointed salon of the Hatteras. Frank was forward at the helm of the boat as they cut through the choppy seas. Frank had fallen silent since the call from his wife, speaking in short one-word answers. Jack knew he was either pissed, preoccupied, or scared. Jack had picked up on Frank’s mannerisms from the moment they met so many years ago. He hadn’t changed much since. He still had the powerful arms of a fighter, the sharp mind of a soldier, and the temper of a junkyard dog. Jack would hate to be his enemy. There was no one he would rather have at his side, living or dead, as he was about to embark on the fight of his life.

Jack had tucked all of Toulouse’s effects into a knapsack. He and Frank had pored through the two books, but there were still some missing pieces to the puzzle. He understood that the feds were after the book that included the list of assassinations. He felt sure, though, that Cristos had different motives. There was something else there, something he wasn’t seeing.

Jack pulled out Toulouse’s passport. He read through all of the visa stamps, imagining all of the places Toulouse had traveled to in the last month. He flipped back to the front and stared at his picture. There was a slight resemblance to Cristos, but there was something else… He looked at the dagger, at the prayer necklace.

Jack turned his attention to his wrist, the tattoo. He could remember the man writing the words; he could see him kneeling beside him on the riverbank.

Jack closed his eyes, trying to draw up his memory. He could see the swollen river, moonlight shining down upon him…

“Did you give her the necklace, Jack?” the man whispered.

And Jack finally knew who the man was, who had emerged from the woods, who had written on his arm, who had saved him.

And it was impossible…

… for the man died this past week.

Toulouse paused from his writing, finally looking at Jack, staring into his eyes.

“You did not answer me, Jack. Did you give her the necklace?” Toulouse asked.

Something fell on Mia’s shoulder. She flinched and kicked back in the ever-rising water until she heard someone calling her. She reached over to find a rope dropped down in the pit beside her. She could see nothing above but knew that if she didn’t grab hold, she would surely die, and no one would ever find her.

She held tight and was hauled up. It was only ten feet, but it felt like forever; the pit collapsing behind her as her feet dug into its muddy walls.

She finally crested the rim, bloodied, bruised, and covered in mud. Standing there, holding the other end of the rope, was Cristos.

Standing beside him were Jacob and a taller middle-aged man. Jacob’s face was bloodied, his right eye swollen. “If Jacob had carried out his orders, you wouldn’t be here right now,” Cristos said as they began walking back to the estate.

The rain had let up. Lightning still flashed, although its rumble was seconds behind the glow.

“I’m glad you survived,” Cristos said. “Your husband is on his way, and how would it look if you died before he got here?”

Trudeau Islandl oomed on the horizon, intermittently appearing and disappearing behind sheets of rain and drifting fog. The seas were rough as Frank piloted the boat through the six-foot choppy swells.

The storm burst from the dark clouds in five-minute onslaughts of horizontal rain before falling back to a fine mist. Against every regulation, they cut through the waters without running lights, invisible to anyone watching from the island and also to any other approaching vessel. Jack and Frank kept their eyes peeled for on-coming boats and ships, but it was difficult with visibility waxing and waning.

The trip out was nearing an hour when Frank passed the outer edge of the island. The tall white lighthouse on the north ridge came into view, its beam cutting through the stormy night like the sharp blade of a sword. They circled the island twice, confirming that the lights of the mansion were lit and that the estate was occupied.

After quick debate, they approached from the western side and weighed anchor fifty yards from shore.

Within the salon of the boat, Jack checked his gun, ejecting the clip, verifying his bullet count. He cleared his pockets, throwing his money, his wallet, and the envelope with the letter to Cristos-the one he still couldn’t remember writing-onto the table. He opted to hold on to Charlie’s rabbit foot-he chose to believe in every talisman he could at the moment-and the small jewelry box with Mia’s pearl choker inside. It was like having her with him, something he could draw strength from.

Tucking his gun back into his pants, he caught a glimpse of the envelope on the table. There was nothing written on the outside.

Confused, Jack grabbed it, opened it, and withdrew the note. He looked at it, turned it over in his hand three times, and felt his head spin. It was his stationery, no doubt about it. It was the letter he had stuffed into his pocket, the one he had read in Cristos’s Suburban… but it was blank.