Dark River (21 page)

Around midnight he escorted two fashion models to a special bathroom that required a passkey. When he returned to his post, he saw Ricky and a girl wearing a tight green dress heading down the walkway to the private room. Hollis walked over to Boodah and shouted over the noise, “What’s Ricky doing in the room?”

The big man shrugged as if the question barely deserved an answer. “Just another little girly. He’ll give her some coke and she’ll give him the usual.”

Hollis looked down at the dance floor and saw two men wearing athletic jackets entering the club. Instead of checking out the women or buying a drink at the bar, they both looked up at the private room. One mercenary was short and very muscular. His pants looked too long for his fireplug body. The other man was tall and his black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

The two men walked upstairs to the VIP area and the short mercenary slipped several bills into Boodah’s hand. It was enough money to buy immediate respect and entrance past the red velvet rope. Within a few seconds, the men were sitting at a table and staring at the narrow walkway that led to the private room. Ricky was still there with his girlfriend. Hollis swore beneath his breath and remembered Sparrow’s advice: Plan to jump left although you’ll probably go right.

A drunken woman started screaming at her boyfriend and Boodah hurried down the staircase to solve the problem. The moment he left the area, the two mercenaries got up from the table and headed for the private room. The tall man moved slowly down the walkway while his partner stood guard. Lights hanging over the dance floor grew brighter and began flashing in rhythm with the beat. The tall mercenary turned and a sliver of light was reflected off the blade of a knife held tightly in his hand.

Hollis doubted that they had a photograph of Gabriel. Their instructions would be to kill whoever was in the room. Up until that moment, Hollis had started to believe that he could act like Maya and the other Harlequins. But he wasn’t like them. None of the Harlequins would have worried about Ricky and the young woman, but Hollis couldn’t stand back and let it happen. To hell with it, he thought. If those two fools die, their blood stains my hands.

With a courteous smile on his face, he approached the shorter of the two men. “Excuse me, sir. But the private room is occupied.”

“Yeah, it’s a friend of ours. So get the hell out of here.”

Hollis raised his arms as if he were going to embrace the intruder. Then his hands became fists and punched toward each other, striking both sides of the man’s head at the same time. The force of the concussion staggered the little man and he fell backward. The lights and the booming dance music were so overwhelming that no one noticed what had just happened. Hollis stepped over the body and moved forward.

The tall mercenary had his hand on the door handle, but he reacted immediately when he saw Hollis. Hollis knew that anyone holding a knife concentrated too much on the weapon; every particle of death and malevolence was squeezed into the point of the blade.

He reached out as if he were about to grab the mercenary’s hand, then jerked backward as the man slashed out with the knife. Hollis kicked the toe of his shoe into the man’s stomach. When the mercenary bent forward, gasping for breath, Hollis punched upward with all his strength, knocking the man over the railing.

People screamed below, but the music continued playing. Hollis ran down the walkway and forced a passage through the tables. When he reached the back staircase he saw that three other mercenaries were now pushing through the crowd. One of them was an older man with wire-rimmed glasses. Was this Nathan Boone— the man who killed Maya’s father? Maya would have attacked immediately, but Hollis continued moving.

The crowd surged back and forth like a herd of animals terrified by the smell of death. Hollis stepped onto the dance floor and pushed forward, shoving people out of the way. He reached the back hallway that led to the kitchen and restrooms. A group of young women were laughing about something while their makeup mirrors reflected the light. Hollis got past them and pushed through a fire door.

Two mercenaries wearing headsets stood in the alleyway. Someone had told them about Hollis and they were waiting. The older man raised a canister and shot chemical spray into Hollis’s eyes.

The pain was incredible. It felt like his eyes were on fire. Hollis couldn’t see— couldn’t defend himself— as someone’s fist shattered his nose. Like a drowning man, he grabbed the attacker in front of him, and then jerked his upper body forward, giving the mercenary a head butt in the face.

The first man fell onto the pavement, but the second man had his arm around Hollis’s neck and began choking him. Hollis bit the man’s hand. When he heard a scream, he grabbed the mercenary’s arm, forcing it downward, and then twisted it until it snapped.

Blind. He was blind. Touching the rough brick wall beside him, he ran through his own darkness.

** CHAPTER 19

Around ten o’clock in the morning, Maya and the others passed through the city of Limerick. Gabriel drove slowly through the central shopping area, trying not to break any traffic laws. His cautiousness disappeared the moment they reached the countryside, and he stomped on the gas pedal. Their little blue car roared down a two-lane road, heading toward the west coast and the island of Skellig Columba.

Normally Maya would have sat beside Gabriel so she could look down the road and anticipate any problems. But she didn’t want Gabriel glancing at her and interpreting the different expressions that passed across her face. During her brief attempt to live a normal life in London, the women in her office had often complained that their boyfriends never seemed to recognize their changing moods. Now she was dealing with a man who could do just that— and she was cautious of his power.

For the trip across Ireland, Vicki sat in the front passenger seat. Alice and Maya were in back, separated by a shopping bag filled with crackers and bottled water. The bag was a necessary barrier. Ever since they had arrived in Ireland, Alice had wanted to sit close to Maya. Once she had extended her fingers and touched the outline of the throwing knife that Maya wore beneath her sweater. It was all too intimate, too close, and Maya preferred to keep her distance.

Linden had leased the car with a credit card from one of his shell corporations registered in Luxembourg. He had purchased a cheap digital camera and plastic travel bags that read MONARCH TOURS— WE SEE THE WORLD. All these objects were props to make them look like tourists, but Vicki enjoyed having the camera. She kept saying, “Hollis would like this,” as she rolled down the window to take another picture.

After stopping for gasoline in the town of Adare, they left the green farmland and followed a narrow road over the mountains. The treeless landscape reminded Maya of the Scottish Highlands; they passed rocks and brush and heather, a dash of purple rhododendrons growing near a drainage pipe.

As they came over a ridge, they saw the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. “He’s there,” Gabriel whispered. “I know he’s there.” No one dared challenge him.

MAYA HAD BEEN guarding Gabriel for several days, but they had both avoided an intimate conversation. She was surprised by the short haircut Gabriel had received in London. His shaved head made him look intense— almost severe— and she wondered if he was beginning to increase his powers as a Traveler. From the start, Gabriel seemed obsessed by the framed photograph he had seen at Tyburn Convent. He had insisted on going to Skellig Columba as soon as possible, and Linden could barely conceal his annoyance. The French Harlequin kept glancing at Maya as if she were a mother who had raised an unruly child.

Gabriel had made a second demand once they began to organize a trip to Ireland. For the last two weeks, he had been living with some Free Runners on the South Bank, and he wanted to say goodbye to his new friends. “Maya can come in with me, but you stay away,” he told Linden. “You look like you’re going to kill somebody.”

“If I have to,” Linden said. But he remained in the van when they reached Bonnington Square.

The old house smelled like fried bacon and boiled potatoes. Three young men and a tough-looking teenage girl with short hair were eating supper in the front room. Gabriel introduced the Free Runners to Maya and she nodded to Jugger, Sebastian, Roland, and Ice. He told them that Maya was his friend and that they were both going to leave the city that evening.

“You okay?” Jugger asked. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Some people might come around asking about me. Tell them I met a girl and we’re going to the South of France.”

“Right. Got that. Remember, you always got friends here.”

Carrying his belongings in a cardboard box, Gabriel followed Maya back out to the van. They spent two days at a safe house near Stratford while Linden tried to get information about Skellig Columba. All he could learn on the Internet was that the island was originally the site of a sixth-century monastery founded by Saint Columba. The Irish saint, also known as Colum Cille, was an apostle to the pagan tribes in Scotland. In the early 1900s, the ruined buildings had been restored by an order of nuns called the Poor Clares. There was no ferry service to the island and the nuns did not welcome visitors.

THEY CAME OUT of the mountains onto a coastal road that ran between a limestone cliff and the ocean. Gradually, the landscape widened out to a marshland. Peat cutters worked in a distant bog, digging out bricks of compressed grass and clover grown during the Ice Age.

There were ponds and streams everywhere, and the road followed a winding river that emptied into a little bay. Rolling hills were on the north side of the bay, but they turned south to Portmagee, a fishing village facing a wharf and a low seawall. Two dozen houses were on the other side of the narrow road, and each reminded Maya of a child’s drawing of a face: gray slate hair, two upper windows for eyes, a central red door for a nose, and two lower windows with white flower boxes that resembled a toothy grin.

They stopped at a village pub, and the barman told them that a man named Thomas Foley was the only person who went out to Skellig Columba. Captain Foley rarely answered his telephone, but he was usually home in the evening. Vicki arranged for rooms at the pub while Gabriel and Maya walked down the road. This was the first time they had been alone together since meeting in London. It seemed natural to be with him again, and Maya found herself thinking about the first time they’d met in Los Angeles. Both of them had been wary of each other and uncertain about their new responsibilities as Traveler and Harlequin.

Near the outskirts of the village, they found a crudely drawn sign that announced CAPTAIN T. FOLEY— BOAT TOURS. They walked down a muddy driveway to a whitewashed cottage, and Maya knocked on the door.

“Come in or stop knocking!” a man shouted, and they entered a front room filled with Styrofoam floats, discarded lawn furniture, and an aluminum rowboat on a sawhorse. The cottage appeared to be a sinkhole for all the trash in West Ireland. Gabriel followed Maya down a short hallway lined with stacks of old newspapers and bags filled with aluminum cans. The walls squeezed inward as they reached a second door.

“If that’s you, James Kelly, you can bugger off!” shouted the voice.

Maya pushed the door open and they entered a kitchen. There was an electric stove in one corner and a sink filled with dirty dishes. An old man sat at the center of the room repairing a tear in a fishing net. He smiled, revealing a crooked set of teeth, stained dark yellow by a lifetime of smoking and strong tea.

“And who might you be?”

“I’m Judith Strand and this is my friend Richard. We’re looking for Captain Foley.”

“Well, you found him. What do you want him for?”

“We’d like to charter a boat for four passengers.”

“That’s easy enough to do.” Captain Foley gave Maya an appraising look, gauging the amount of money he could charge. “Half-day trip up the coast is three hundred euros. Full day is five hundred. And you need to pack your own bloody lunch.”

“I’ve seen photographs of an island called Skellig Columba,” Gabriel said. “Think we could go there?”

“I take supplies to the nuns every two weeks.” Foley rummaged through the clutter on the kitchen table until he found a briar pipe. “But you can’t put your foot on that particular island.”

“What’s the problem?” Gabriel asked.

“No problem. Just no visitors.” Captain Foley opened up a cracked sugar bowl, took out a pinch of black tobacco, and stuffed it into his pipe. “The island is owned by the Republic, leased to the Holy Church, and chartered to the Order of the Poor Sisters. One thing they all agree on— government, church, and nuns— is that they don’t want strangers tromping around Skellig Columba. It’s a protected area for seabirds. The Poor Clares don’t bother them because they spend their time praying.”

“Well, perhaps if I just spoke to them and asked for permission to—”

“No one gets on the island without a letter from the bishop, and I don’t see you waving one.” Foley lit the pipe and puffed some sugary smoke at Gabriel. “And that’s the end of the story.”

“Here’s a new story,” Maya said. “I’ll pay you a thousand euros to take us out to the island so that we can talk to the nuns.”

The captain considered her offer. “That might be possible….”

Maya touched Gabriel’s hand and pulled him toward the doorway. “I think we’re going to look for another boat.”

“It’s more than possible,” Foley said quickly. “See you on the wharf at ten tomorrow morning.”

They left the house and walked outside. Maya felt like she’d been trapped in a badger’s den. It was close to nightfall and patches of darkness had appeared— tangled in the bushes and spreading beneath the trees.

The villagers were safe within their homes, watching television and cooking dinner. Lights glowed through lace curtains, and smoke came up from some of the chimneys. Gabriel led Maya across the road to a rusty park bench that overlooked the bay. The tide was out, leaving a strip of dark sand covered with driftwood and dead seaweed. Maya sat on the bench as Gabriel walked to the tide line and gazed out at the western horizon. The setting sun touched the ocean and was transformed into a hazy blob of light that flowed across the water.