Age of Voodoo (42 page)

All at once a humming filled the chamber—a high-pitched whine that sent a thrill of horror through Lex.

He heard a steady, inexorable ticking that emanated from the bomb. The sound of plastic numerals flipping over. A readout charting the time until detonation. Second after second, passing heavily, remorselessly.

Couleuvre took a step back. He flexed his fingers, limbering up. He began to pray, calling on Baron Samedi, Maman Brigitte, all of the loa, asking them for succour and power. “For Haiti,” he said. “For your people. For justice. I will prevail.”

Lex levered himself away from the hole. “Countdown’s begun. No idea how long we’ve got.”

“Can you shut it down?” Albertine asked.

“How? Nobody ever taught me defusing nukes. This one shouldn’t even be working.”

“Then we have to run.”

“I don’t know what difference it’ll make, but hell yes.”

T
HEY SCRAMBLED UP
out of the pit on all fours. Lex didn’t need to pause and explain to Sampson. One look at their faces and the Thirteener knew the worst.

They made for the stairs, full tilt. On the way they came across Finisterre’s body. It lay half in, half out of the entrance to the laboratories. Finisterre’s head was twisted round on his neck. His tongue bulged between his lips.

“The LT beat his ass,” said Sampson. “Hot damn.”

Then the overhead lights flickered and brightened. The installation seemed to buzz with sudden new life around them. Air conditioning units started up. Static sizzled over a PA system. The low, steady pulse of the geothermal plant could be felt through the soles of their feet.

“And he’s got the power going again. Meaning...”

Lex finished the thought. “The elevator.”

Buckler was waiting for them there. On his zuvembie-blank face there was just a perceptible hint of triumph.

“So we... win.”

“Not quite,” said Lex. “Couleuvre’s about to get his private audience with the Almighty. Couldn’t stop him.”

“Shit. That’s not... going to be... pretty.”

They piled into the elevator and Sampson stabbed the button marked S for Surface. The doors rolled shut, but slowly, so slowly.

Too slowly.

A large hand shot through the opening. It clamped against the rim of one of the doors and began pushing it back. Another hand did the same with the other door.

Finisterre loomed through the gap. His head hung askew, ear touching shoulder. He said nothing—his kinked larynx prevented it—but his intent was clear. No one was escaping, not if he had anything to do with it.

Buckler applied himself to the left-hand door, providing a counterforce. Lex, Sampson and Albertine copied him with the right-hand door. Grunting, shoving, they resisted Finisterre’s efforts. Finisterre silently strained. His head flopped forwards, lolling like a tulip on a broken stem.

Inch by inch, the doors began to creep back together.

Now Finisterre’s knuckles were pressed against his temples. He slid his hands up over his head in an attempt to gain a better purchase.

“Harder,” said Buckler.

One last desperate effort, and...

The doors squeezed Finisterre’s neck. Buckler gave a final, full-zuvembie-strength thrust. They slammed together, decapitating Finisterre.

The head rolled onto the floor of the elevator, landing face up. Blood leaked from its pinched-off stump.

Somehow the sunglasses had stayed fixed in place throughout all of this, and Finisterre’s visible eye glared balefully up at the four passengers as the elevator rose, shuddering and grinding, towards the surface. His mouth moved, as though there was much that he—or Baron Samedi—had to say.

Buckler stamped on the head, smashing it like a Halloween pumpkin.

“That’s quite enough... of that,” he said. “Sport.”

FORTY-ONE

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

T
HEY RACED ACROSS
the beach. Lex and Buckler were bent double, lugging a Zodiac behind them, Buckler doing most of the work. The other Zodiac bobbed out at sea, close to
Puddle Jumper
. A second seaplane sat an anchor a quarter-mile to the west. It was the one Finisterre had charted, a Grumman Albatross, larger than the Turbo Beaver, with a broad flat belly and floats attached to struts beneath the wings.

Everyone scrambled aboard the Zodiac in the shallows. Sampson pulled the starter cord on the outboard. The motor spluttered, died. Sampson tried again. Again no joy.

For Lex, the agony lay in not knowing how long the countdown timer on the nuke was set for. Five minutes? Ten? It would be better if they had a fixed deadline. At least then he might have some idea if they were going to make it. As things stood, the bomb could detonate at any moment. He assumed it had been fitted with a delay fuse long enough to allow for complete evacuation of the installation. But perhaps not. It was possible that, in the days of the Cold War, personnel at Anger Reef were expected to make the ultimate sacrifice if need be—all hands going down as the ship was scuttled.

Sampson cursed the motor after it failed to fire a third time.

Albertine snatched the starter cord out of his hand. “Damballah,” she said, “be with us. Hear my plea.”

She pulled, deftly.

The motor grumbled and then roared.

“All right!” said Sampson, beaming brightly. “Halle-goddamn-luiah.”

He grabbed the tiller and gunned the throttle.

Puddle Jumper
’s turboprops were already turning.

“Can’t be finessing this,” Sampson said as the boat neared Anger Reef’s protective ring of coral. “Just going to have to grit our teeth and go for it.”

The tide had ebbed. The coral was closer to the surface. The Zodiac sped across the effervescent white water, scraping, bumping, bouncing. Rending sounds came from the hull as the speed skags were ripped to shreds.

Then a jutting spike of coral snagged one of the main chambers. There was a hiss of escaping air, and the Zodiac began listing precariously to one side.

Sampson’s response was to pour on more speed.

The boat rode lower in the water. The outboard’s blades screeched as they dug into the coral, churning it to bits.

“We’re not going to—” Sampson began, and then the Zodiac slewed violently and capsized, flinging everyone out.

Bubbles thundered in Lex’s ears. For several moments he had no idea which way was up. He thrashed, fighting turbulence. Abruptly he surfaced. He gasped in a breath, then peered around.

Heads popped up. Buckler. Sampson. Thank God, Albertine. They were all of them safe, treading water. The Zodiac, by contrast, was sinking, a saggy deflated wreck subsiding beneath the waves. As luck would have it, the boat had overturned just at the outer edge of the coral ring, depositing its passengers in open water. Had they been thrown onto the coral, none of them would be in one piece.

Lex turned to see
Puddle Jumper
chugging towards them. Tartaglione was leaning out from the door, one hand extended.

“Swim!” Lex yelled, and they did.

I
N THE SEAPLANE
, dripping wet, Buckler told Wilberforce to fly and not look back. Then he hailed the Albatross on the radio and gave its pilot similar advice.

When the pilot asked why, Buckler simply said that if he didn’t he would die.

Out of the window, Lex saw the seaplane’s propellers whir into life.

Puddle Jumper
jockeyed across the water and finally soared free.

Anger Reef disappeared to the rear, quickly growing small. It looked serene, innocent, the sea lapping its fringes, the palms waving idly in the breeze. Lex found the island’s superficial tranquillity hard to reconcile with the mayhem and murder that had gone on underground. Beneath paradise, hell.

Perhaps the nuke would not detonate. Fifty years old. After all this time, there was every reason to think it had become impotent.

And yet the control panel had lit up, the timer mechanism was still functional...

Anger Reef receded further into the distance. It seemed almost certain the bomb was a dud.

Then the island seemed to give a leap, as though thumped from below.

A heartbeat later, it crumbled into a bowl-shaped depression, imploding in on itself.

A heartbeat after that, the sea erupted in a perfect white dome, engulfing Anger Reef entirely.

It took several seconds for the shockwave from the explosion to reach
Puddle Jumper
. The airframe shook and rattled from end to end. Wilberforce fought with the yoke and pedals to keep the plane stable.
Puddle Jumper
dipped, yawed, then steadied.

“Jesus,” breathed Sampson. “Shit. We’re okay. I thought at the very least the nuke might frazzle the avionics.”

“Underground nuclear explosions... don’t give off... an electromagnetic pulse,” said Buckler. “Only airburst ones... do. Something to do with... triggering changes... in the ionosphere.”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” said Tartaglione.

The dome of water collapsed gracefully, flattening, smoothing. Soon it was just a circular blister in the sea, flecked with roiling debris and glittering dead fish.

A voice came over the radio—the Albatross’s pilot. “Man, what in hell’s name was that?”

“Don’t ask,” said Wilberforce. “Just be glad you got clear in time.”

P
UDDLE
J
UMPER
SAILED
on, and Lex looked across the aisle at Albertine. She smiled wanly. He smiled back. Neither of them spoke. Nothing needed to be said. They were alive. They had survived.

Silence reigned throughout
Puddle Jumper
. Buckler finally broke it.

“Couleuvre... got his wish. He and God... went toe-to-toe. God got in... the knockout punch.”

“Sounds like you mean it, LT,” said Sampson. “Like you’re saying it really was God back there.”

Buckler did a stiff approximation of a shrug. “How else... could a nuke that old... have worked? The Lord moves... in mysterious ways... but He
does
move.”

“Sure does,” said Tartaglione. “He brought you back from the dead, didn’t he? Just when we needed you. Honest-to-gosh miracle.”

Buckler nodded noncommittally. “Still not... sure how I’m... feeling about that,” he said. “Might take a while... to adjust to... how I am now. I’m not what I... used to be... that’s for damn sure. But I may just be... a little bit better. Anyways, don’t... worry your pretty little heads... about me. I can... deal. Pearce? What’s your... status?”

At the back of the plane, an ashen-faced Pearce lofted his hand feebly. “Laughing.”

“Hang in... there. When we’re closer to land... we’ll radio ahead... for an ambulance. Get you seen to... ASAP.”

“Aces.”

“And you, Dove.” Buckler turned his dead, yellow gaze on Lex. “I said... we had to talk. Now’s the... time.”

“What’s there to say?” said Lex.

“Plenty.”

“Can’t the debriefing wait? I’d rather just enjoy the fact that I’m still breathing.”

“This isn’t... a debriefing. So shut up... and listen. You’re not going to... like what you hear... but you need to... hear it.”