Apocalypse

38

The powerful V-8 engine propelled the airboat across the silky waters, more like an aircraft than a boat, as the huge eight-foot-diameter propeller roared behind Ethan. The simple, square hull contained two rows of seats, a raised pilot’s chair and the engine at the stern. He reveled in the breeze as they soared between enormous sawgrass marshes and reed islands stranded in the endless expanses of cypress swamps, estuarine mangrove forests and pine rockland.

The subtropical wetlands of the Everglades comprised the southern half of a large watershed that was born in the Kissimmee River, which discharged into Lake Okeechobee. Essentially a slow-moving river sixty miles wide and more than a hundred miles long, the system represented the perfect hiding place for a lone fugitive: if they could survive

‘The Native Americans that used to live here called it Pahayokee, the “grassy waters”,’ Lopez said above the roar of the engine. ‘But it only looks pretty. Living here would have been hard at the best of times.’

Ethan scanned the broad waters filled with periphyton, a mossy golden-brown substance that floated on bodies of water throughout the Everglades, and the scattered islands of ubiquitous sawgrass, a sedge with serrated blades so sharp they could cut through clothing.

‘The satellite’s GPS coordinates fixed Charles Purcell’s position five miles to the southwest!’ Ethan shouted up to Scott Bryson, who nodded as he glanced down at a GPS screen next to the airboat’s wheel.

‘Was he alone?’ Bryson called back.

‘Yeah,’ Ethan nodded, ‘or at least he was a couple of hours ago.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Never mind.’

Ethan turned back around in his seat and looked straight at Lopez as she watched Bryson guiding the airboat. She had been able, with her considerable charm, to convince Bryson to continue helping them, with the proviso that no more of his property was exposed to bullets or blades. Considering what they were going up against, it was of considerable interest to Ethan that Bryson had agreed. Then he looked at Lopez again, and guessed that maybe it wasn’t just the captain’s sense of honor that had guided him.

Lopez’s long black hair streamed behind her in the wind as she reached up and pinned it back. Ethan found himself watching her openly as she flicked her head to one side and tied her hair off into a ponytail. The speed of the airboat across the water and the thrill of the wind had touched her face with a bright smile that lit her features like the sunlight on the racing water beneath them. It was something that he saw less and less in her these days.

For a brief moment Ethan forgot where he was and realized that, despite everything, despite the fact that Joanna might yet still be alive somewhere out in the world, Nicola Lopez meant more to him than he was comfortable admitting to himself. Maybe it was a sign of just how big a stick he had up his ass that it had taken him this long to realize it. This realization in turn raised the ugly and unwelcome question of what he was going to do about it. An image of Joanna flickered like a phantom through the darkened vaults of his mind, her long blonde hair, green eyes and quiet confidence contrasting with Lopez’s dark looks and fearsome temper. Somehow, though, as he pictured Joanna in his imagination, the differences weren’t so great after all.

‘You need a photograph?’

Ethan blinked. Joanna vanished and he found himself staring straight at a bemused Lopez. He stopped breathing.

‘Just enjoying the view. You want to get out of the way?’

Lopez laughed out loud. ‘You’re an ass sometimes, Ethan.’

Before Ethan could answer, Bryson’s voice bellowed down at them.

‘I reckon he’s swallowed a love bug, honey!’

Lopez’s laughter turned to a curious smile as she stared at Ethan, who avoided her gaze whilst turning to look at Bryson.

‘You need a wooden leg to go with that eye, skipper?’

Bryson let out a belly laugh but said nothing. Ethan turned back in his seat, not looking at Lopez, but he could see out of the corner of his eye that there was still a smile on her lips. He was trying to come up with something useful to say when the engine note changed as Bryson throttled down. Ethan glanced over his shoulder at the captain, who lowered his voice and gestured ahead of them.

‘The island’s just up there. We’ll coast in the last hundred meters. Get tooled up.’

Ethan reached down behind his seat to where a canvas sack lay on the deck. He unzipped it and retrieved a pair of M-16s, both fully loaded and with two spare clips each. Ethan handed one to Lopez before picking up the other weapon.

‘Jesus,’ Lopez said as she checked her rifle.

‘We’re not getting caught out again. To hell with the goddamn rules.’

Lopez’s almond eyes watched Ethan for a moment.

‘You’re starting to sound like me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to hear that.’

Ethan looked up at her, one hand on his M-16, and nodded. ‘Just this once,’ he promised. ‘There’s no backup for us out here.’

‘Heads up,’ Bryson said, cutting the engine off as the airboat slid silently across the water toward the shore of a small island of rough sawgrass surrounded by dense tangles of mangroves. With the breeze gone, a heavy blanket of heat settled over them, clinging to Ethan’s shirt as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

Ethan eased his way toward the bow and crouched down with his M-16 held at port-arms as the boat nudged gently up against the thick, twisted mangrove roots. A heron lifted off further down the shoreline, its wings flapping as it climbed away into the distance, but the Everglades remained silent as Ethan watched the waving sawgrass before him, dense thickets of cypress trees listless in the heat.

Bryson vaulted down off the wheel seat and crouched alongside Ethan and Lopez.

‘The GPS coordinates place him about a hundred-fifty yards ahead,’ he whispered. ‘Plenty of cover in there: he could bed down like an Alabama tick and not be seen for weeks.’

Ethan shook his head.

‘He’s not a soldier. Whatever Charles Purcell is up to, this must be his endgame. He’s not running.’

Bryson looked at Ethan. ‘So what’s your plan, boy scout?’

Ethan didn’t take his eyes off the sawgrass.

‘Well, Captain Silver, I’m going to head straight in. Lopez, you cover my left flank. The mangroves on our right aren’t passable, so nobody’s going to come at us from in there.’

Lopez thought for a moment.

‘Maybe, but if they already know we’re coming and where from, there’s not much we can do to defend our position.’

‘Best hope that we got here first, then.’

Without another word, Ethan hopped off the airboat’s bow and moved in a low run through the grass and into the trees. He heard Lopez jump off the boat and head out through the undergrowth to his left.

Ethan was suddenly overwhelmed by the cloying humidity of the forest as he crept forward, clouds of mosquitoes tumbling on the hot air around him as he moved from cover to cover. He kept one eye open for alligators and pythons coiled in the dense undergrowth as he blinked sweat from his eyes.

A thought occurred to Ethan. Why would Purcell have come out here into an entirely unpopulated area beyond the reach of civilization? The ’glades were notoriously difficult to access, and dangerous for the uninitiated. Purcell was an academic who was likely most comfortable in a laboratory, not suffering the hardships of survival in the wilderness. Yet he had purposely placed himself in this particular spot, as though it were somehow his destiny, his endgame — in order to fulfill a prophecy of some kind.

The thought tied in closely with Purcell’s supposed knowledge of the future, but the man himself had said that he would die soon. Why willingly fulfill that particular prophecy? Surely he would serve himself better by getting as far away from the Everglades as he could?

‘Don’t move.’

Ethan froze, and then realized that the whispered voice belonged to Lopez. He turned his head fractionally to his left and saw her crouched with her M-16 tucked into her shoulder and one eye staring like a hawk down the barrel.

‘What have you got?’ Ethan asked.

‘Purcell,’ she replied. ‘I can see him. Dead ahead, thirty yards.’

Ethan squinted through the forest and slowly a human shape resolved itself before him, standing on a narrow spit of land jutting out into the water. Ethan eased his rifle up to his shoulder and looked down the scope.

Charles Purcell stood beside the edge of the shore, the stones with their message beside him on the sand, and then looked at his watch. Slowly he turned to face the forest, and for a moment Ethan was looking straight into his eyes.

Then Purcell called out.

‘Come forward, Mr. Warner. It is time.’