Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

Frank and Jack took the small skiff to the sandy beach on the western shore, far out of sight of the estate. The storm had picked up, visibility barely reaching the Hatteras one hundred fifty feet away. Jack looked over his shoulder, trying to see the distant shore two miles away where his daughters were sleeping in his parents’ home. He couldn’t suppress the creeping fear that Cristos was so close to them.

Working off of twenty-year-old memories, Jack led the way through the woods, finding the pathway of his youth nonexistent but his direction still accurate as they emerged at the overgrown side yard of the estate.

Staying within the shadows, they worked their way toward the docks, finding two high-speed cigarette boats in the slip. There were no guards walking around, no one in the boats.

Rounding the outer perimeter of light wash, Jack and Frank raced around the grounds to the far eastern edge, where the outbuildings, communication center, and generator were located. Frank examined the thirty-foot-square generator, a ten-ton unit capable of generating power for the house plus enough electricity to power a neighborhood. On the far side, adjacent to a separate deep-water dock, was a 25,000-gallon fuel tank, its meter indicating that it was recently topped off.

“You have no idea where she is in there, do you?”

“No.” Jack shook his head.

“How the hell are we going to find her without getting killed?”

Jack looked around, at the generator, the stone mansion, the stormy ocean, until his eyes were finally distracted by the sweeping light on the north side of the island.

Frank stood on the deck of the first high-speed cigarette boat. He opened the fuel spout on the two-hundred-gallon tank and punctured the line, allowing the gas to pour along the deck, seeping into the forward cabin. He followed suit with the second boat and ran back to the communication house.

Beyond the satellite dishes and centralized communication systems, most of the thousand-square-foot house was for storage of everything from lawn-maintenance equipment to food and supplies offloaded from the nearby deep-water dock. He grabbed several gas jugs and filled them from the 25,000-gallon fuel tank, pouring and scattering them along the concrete floor.

Heading back outside, he returned to the tank and opened the lower fuel drain a quarter of a turn to allow the gas to flow out in small streams toward the main house.

Frank turned to the generator, glanced at his watch, and, laying his hand on the kill switch, watched as Jack arrived at the front door of the mansion.

• • •

Jack stood before the large mahogany door when the lights went out, plunging the entire estate into darkness. Jack looked at his watch; the second hand just swept past 1:30 a.m.

He pounded his fist against the door.

Five seconds later, a young dark-haired man with a bruised and battered face opened the door and pointed his pistol in Jack’s face.

“Bravo,” Cristos said as he stepped into the doorway. “You figured out where I was.”

“Where’s Mia?”

“Where are my father’s possessions?”

“Where is my wife?”

“She’ll be dead in thirty seconds if you don’t give me what is rightfully mine.”

“Then in thirty seconds, you will never see those items again,” Jack said quietly.

“Do you think I’m bluffing?” Cristos stood there defiantly.

“Do you think I am?” Jack said, his eyes on fire. “I want to see my wife. Now.”

Cristos stared back before finally nodding to the man on his left. “I said I wouldn’t hurt her if you did what I asked. And you haven’t done what I asked all day.”

“Your sense of morals and honor is twisted.”

“And you ran off thinking you could, what, trick me? Leave me with an empty box? Don’t talk to me about honor and morals.”

“You killed your father.”

“I had no choice.”

“No choice?”

“I chased him, sought him out, begged him to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“My future.”

“Seriously?” Jack laughed.

Cristos glared at Jack. “A naive man laughs at what he can’t understand. Those two books?”

“Yeah?”

“My father’s is where the future is written. He could remember the future as easily as the past.”

“Really,” Jack said skeptically, although he had seen the fateful drawings of himself and Mia.

“You don’t understand the power of fate.”

“There is no such thing as fate. No one’s future is preordained. You can’t tell me some writing in a book controls destiny.”

“Your mind can’t grasp what it can’t comprehend.”

“Once someone knows their future,” Jack said, “just the fact that they know it could change their actions and thereby change your so called divination.”

“That may be true for some but not for my father’s foresight. He was never wrong.”

“Then why didn’t he use it?”

“He did, foolishly, in the way he saw fit. Do you understand what one could do with that power? The control one could have?”

Jack laughed. “Are you hearing yourself?”

“My father would only write down what he chose to, and he wrote down in the last pages of his book my future. He lured me here with it, back to the United States, in hopes of either bringing me home or having me captured, having me brought to justice for all that I had done. For all of the embarrassment I had caused him.”

“And so you killed him?”

“And got nothing for it, until now,” Cristos said. “Did you look at everything in that box, all of my father’s things?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you understand what it held?”

“Your future,” Jack said, mocking.

Cristos laughed. “Besides that.”

“His books, passport, money, some papers… a prayer necklace-”

“It’s there?”

“Yeah.”

Cristos smiled in satisfaction.

“What is it, a magic necklace?” Jack taunted him.

“Sometimes the simplest of things can hold the greatest power. Like that cross around your neck,” Cristos said as he pointed. “There is no greater power than faith.”

Jack just stared.

“My father, our priests, have the power to heal, the power to keep one alive in ways you couldn’t understand.”

“And a cheap necklace is going to-”

“I can use it to stave off death,” Cristos snapped at Jack. Then he quietly calmed himself. “Use it to save myself from my fate.”

“You said fate can’t be changed,” Jack shot back.

“Right. And you said we control our own destiny.”

Jacob came from the rear of the mansion, holding Mia by the elbow.

Mia stood there, her eyes red from anger and tears. Her dress was torn, wet, and muddy, her sweater buttoned up, pulled tightly around her.

“Are you all right?” Jack asked.

“Don’t worry about me.” Mia nodded, breathing heavily as she fought being overcome with emotion.

“Her condition is not my doing,” Cristos said as he saw Jack’s rising anger. She tried to escape, but I guess she thought twice about taking a swim. Now I would like proof that you have my father’s things.”

Jack reached into his back pocket, pulled out Toulouse’s passport, and tossed it to Cristos.

Cristos flipped through the pages and smiled.

“You haven’t heard my terms yet.”

“There are no terms.” Cristos grabbed Mia by the arm, dragging her with him. “You will take me to my father’s things, now.”

Jack followed them across the foyer and out the front door into the rain. They had stood on the front porch for a moment when an explosion rocked the house. A roar like thunder echoed throughout the island as an orange glow lit up the night, flooding the grounds, pouring through windows as flames licked the sky.