EDEN (38 page)

‘I have no intention of harming you,’ he said.

‘And I have no intention of letting you rape me,’ Bethany replied.

‘You think that you can stop me?’

‘No,’ Bethany replied, ‘but I have something far more valuable to you, and you’re going to do something for me.’

Sawyer looked at her curiously for a moment and then leaned forward across the desk.

‘And what might that be?’

Bethany spoke quietly, and as she did so Sawyer realised that he would indeed be looking after her and that they would be leaving immediately.

***

Cody sat in the cage and stared into the darkness.

Jake sat in the next cage, likewise alone with his thoughts.

Cody knew that Sawyer would gather his men and make an attempt to board the Phoenix, probably by dawn. That Maria was being held against her will and beyond his reach infected him with fresh anguish that felt almost like a constant companion. It throbbed through his bones as one fear was replaced with another, clogging his arteries and aching in his labouring heart.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Jake’s voice reached out for Cody in the darkness. There was no accusation in the tone, only a plea for understanding.

‘Don’t say that you’d have understood,’ Cody replied. ‘You wouldn’t have.’

‘I’d have listened,’ Jake said. ‘I know you didn’t mean for it to happen, Cody, but you caused Bobby’s death.’

Cody swallowed. ‘I put him out with the morphine too. Beth’ couldn’t bring herself to do it.’

He heard a muffled
Jesus
from the darkness.

‘I can’t change the past,’ Cody said.

‘No,’ Jake agreed. ‘You can’t.’

Cody could not think of anything to say. He sat in silence.

A movement caught his eye. Two of the nearby guards were sleeping as two kept watch. A fifth approached silently from behind them and whispered something. Moments later, the three guards slipped away from the hall and left their sleeping companions behind.

Cody stared curiously at the exit for several long minutes, awaiting the guards’ return and wondering if Sawyer was making his move already. He spotted fresh movement and was about to look away when something caused him to sit up and take notice.

A shadow against shadows at the entrance to the hall. Cody squinted as he searched for the source of the movement and his heart leapt against the wall of his chest as he saw Reece emerge into the flickering firelight and creep toward the sleeping guards.

Cody silently got to his feet and moved to the bars of the cage. Reece had sneaked up alongside the sleeping guards and had reached out for the keys dangling from one of their belts. Cody felt himself tense up as Reece carefully unhooked the keys off the belt and backed away.

Cody watched in fearful amazement, his fingernails digging into his palms as Reece slipped away and then turned to face the cages. Cody waved his arms in silence and Reece hurried silently across to the cage as other prisoners began to wake up and realise what was happening in a rush of whispers.

Reece reached the cage door and fumbled through the keys.

‘How did you get here?’ Cody asked in a whisper.

Reece replied as he shoved a key into the lock. ‘Shot through a window on the west wing.’

The key didn’t fit and he immediately tried another.

‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ Jake said from the next cage.

Reece froze, looking at the old man. ‘What, you don’t want to get out?’

Jake looked at Cody. ‘I don’t know that I want him out of there.’

The prisoners in Cody’s cage gasped and began reaching out of the cage for Reece’s keys as their wary eyes watched the guards sleeping nearby.

‘Why the hell not?’ Reece whispered.

Cody looked at Jake and shook his head, but the old man spoke softly. His words carried softly to Reece, who lowered his hand from the lock as he stared in horror at Cody and began backing away.

‘
You
killed Bobby?’ he uttered. ‘And somebody else too?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Cody pleaded.

‘Unlock this cage,’ Jake ordered Reece. ‘We need to get out of here.’

Reece nodded vacantly, his eyes still fixed on Cody.

‘They’ve got my daughter,’ Cody said to Reece. ‘They’ve got Maria.’

Reece turned for the next cage, hurrying across and testing keys in the lock.

‘Where’s Saunders?’ Jake asked.

‘Injured,’ Reece explained. ‘Back at the boat.’

‘The crew are all here?’ Cody asked, his spirits rising.

Reece answered, but he looked at Jake as he did so. ‘They mutinied. Saunders and I were lucky to get away.’

‘The ship’s gone?’ Jake uttered.

‘No,’ Reece grinned, and Cody watched as he pulled a metal link from his shirt pocket. ‘Rudder’s out, unless they can replace this.’

The key in the door clicked into place and Reece turned it with a smile as he pocketed the rudder link and drew his pistol.

‘Looks like I’m the hero,’ he grinned.

Something flickered through the darkness from behind Reece. Cody shouted a warning but it was too late. A blur of bright light thumped into Reece’s back between his shoulder blades.

Reece slammed against the cage as the huge knife quivered in his back, the grin snatched from his face as he stared wide-eyed at Jake, his fingers gripping the bars. Jake reached out for Reece as he slipped, caught his weight and pinned Reece’s pistol between them as a voice thundered out from across the amphitheatre.

‘Get away from the cage!’

Cody saw the two guards lumbering toward them, awake now and both aiming pistols.

He turned and saw Jake look down at Reece, who glanced down at the pistol between them.

‘Do it,’ Reece rasped, tears filling his eyes as his legs quivered beneath him, ‘before I let go.’

His voice rattled as blood leaked furiously into his lungs and spluttered from his lips as his aorta ruptured somewhere deep within him. Jake reached down and grabbed the pistol as Reece held onto his shirt, his legs bowing as the strength went out of them. Jake turned the pistol, flicked off the safety catch.

‘You’re a hero all right,’ Jake whispered to Reece.

Reece smiled.

Jake whipped the pistol up and aimed it through the bars of the cell at the two hulking men bearing down on them. Patrick and Gus halted as they recognised the old man.

‘Wait,’ Gus said, raised a hand. ‘We’re not…’

Cody felt a pulse of alarm as he saw the grin determination on Jake’s face and he shouted. ‘No! We need them!’

Jake ignored him and fired the pistol.

Cody watched Gus fall, his pistol clattering to the ground and his hands clasped to his chest as blood spilled from his fractured heart. Jake turned and aimed at Patrick, who had realised that with Reece’s inert body blocking his view he could not hit Jake and was turning to run for cover.

The shot hit Patrick in the back and sent him tumbling to his knees. The guard kept scrambling for cover, his legs kicking as he tried to drag himself out of sight. Jake let go of Reece and aimed double handed before firing twice.

Both shots slammed into Patrick’s body just below his neck and he slumped on the marble floor. Jake lowered the smouldering pistol and stared at the two dead men as Reece collapsed to his knees and toppled onto his back at the foot of the cage door.

‘Open your cage!’ Cody yelled at Jake, who was staring at his victims. ‘Quickly!’

‘Open
our
cage!’

The voice came from behind Cody as an emaciated man staggered toward the door.

Jake reached out through the bars and grabbed the keys, fumbling with them as shouts echoed down the corridors outside the amphitheatre, bellicose roars of alarm that became louder with every passing second.

‘They heard the shots!’ another prisoner yelled. ‘You’ll get us all killed!’

Jake fumbled with the keys until suddenly the mechanism clicked and the heavy door swung open. Cody yelled at him.

‘Get the other guns, but don’t shoot!’

Jake burst from the cage and ran at the dead bodies of the guards as from behind him in the cage a flood of prisoners burst shrieking from their incarceration and flooded toward the main exit.

Jake grabbed Gus’s fallen pistol and turned to look at Cody. For a long moment they stared at each other.

‘Throw the keys!’ Cody yelled.

Jake hefted the keys in his hand for a long moment, and then tossed them across to the cage alongside Cody’s. The keys rattled down through the bars as the prisoners within pounced on them, Sauri among them.

‘Find Maria!’ Cody pleaded as Jake fled for the exit.

***

Hank heard the commotion and turned to Sawyer as the leader of the militia tossed him back his crucifix, the golden chain sparkling in the dawn light from the windows.

‘They’re out,’ Sawyer said clairvoyantly. ‘We go now.’

Hank caught the crucifix and fastened it about his thick neck as he looked at Bethany. She stood with a child held close to her hip, an anxious expression painted across her features.

Sawyer stuffed a pair of pistols into his belt and lifted an AR-15 assault rifle to his shoulder. His pockets bulged with ammunition clips. To Hank he looked like some kind of school child festooned with plastic toys. The horror was that the weapons were real.

Sawyer reached into what looked like some kind of military chest and lifted out what Hank recognised as a handful of distress flares.

‘They’ll tear us apart if they find us,’ Bethany urged.

‘We’re going,’ Sawyer replied. ‘I’ll lead the way.’

Sawyer stepped out of the governor’s office and into the hallway outside. They turned right as Sawyer jogged down the thickly carpeted hall. Light from outside now illuminated the corridors, which remained virtually pristine in condition. Only thick dust on ornaments and picture frames betrayed the lack of human attention.

Sawyer slowed at the end of the corridor and peeked around to the left. The main hall led to the grand staircase. Sporadic screams and the sound of gunfire echoed up from the senate chamber as though from the gates of hell itself.

‘The guards will be overrun,’ Hank pointed out.

‘They’ll hold them for as long as they can near the great hall,’ Sawyer replied. ‘We’ll move past behind them and make for the main doors and out of here. We’ll lock them behind us if we can, buy some time.’

Sawyer crossed to the galleries that overlooked the senate chamber, where the sound of screaming prisoners and guards filled the air. Sawyer yanked the caps off two of the distress flares, the brilliant flares blazing into life amid a cloud of sparks and blue smoke as Sawyer tossed them down into the amphitheatre below.

From his vantage point, Hank saw the flares catch on the ornate furniture and velvet fittings, flames and smoke billowing into the air to a fresh cacophony of alarmed screams.

Sawyer turned away and led the way to the grand staircase. They jogged down them two at a time, circling around to the second floor. The sound of fighting leaped in volume, amplified by the confined corridors into deafening staccato gunshots and the shrieks and cries of human beings locked in mortal combat.

Hank saw two of Sawyer’s men retreating down the hall, firing bursts as they went.

‘Hold them off!’ Sawyer yelled. ‘I’ve got your backs!’

Sawyer brandished his assault rifle as he ran down the steps. The two guards, both of them injured, saw him coming and held their positions. Sawyer leaped to the bottom of the staircase and retreated away from the Great Hall.

Hank ducked as gunfire shattered chips of marble and stone from the walls and floor around him.

‘The prisoners are armed!’ he yelled in surprise.

Hank grabbed Bethany and the child and pushed them behind him, shielding them with his body as they retreated toward the Doric Hall and the main doors. The prisoners were firing wild bursts at the guards in their way and forcing Hank and Sawyer to duck into cover behind the rows of columns lining the route.

‘Open the doors!’ one of the guards bellowed to Sawyer above the din.

Sawyer was already there. He yanked a large table out of the way of the doors, presumably some kind of barricade in case the locks failed. Hank watched from behind a pillar as Sawyer shoved a key into each of the three locks on the door and turned them before reaching down to release the catch and throwing the doors open.

Light burst into the building and illuminated the seething mass of prisoners at the far end of the Nurse’s Hall. They saw the light as one and a great scream filled the hall as they suddenly broke cover beneath the weight of those pushing from behind and thundered toward the main doors.

‘Go, now!’ Sawyer yelled.

Hank pushed Bethany in the direction of the doors and then ran behind her and hurled himself through as Sawyer let three of his men through the doors and then whirled to fire a prolonged burst of automatic rounds into the building. Hank turned to see bullets tear into the charging crowd. Sawyer kept his finger on the trigger, the chattering assault rifle spitting flame and smoke as the lethal hail scythed into the mass of humanity. Bodies twitched and jerked as they were hit, those behind tumbling over the falling corpses as though the crowd were some massive, dirty brown wave crashing through the hall.

‘Fall back!’ Hank yelled.

Hank saw Bethany shielding the child from the carnage as Sawyer kept his grip on the rifle until suddenly it stopped firing, the clip emptied in a matter of seconds.

Sawyer dropped the rifle and heaved against the doors. Hank leaped up and pushed with him as the huge doors closed on the charging mass of humanity, a flood of gaping mouths and flying limbs. Hank heaved harder and the doors slammed with a great boom that echoed through the building within.

Sawyer turned one key in one lock, fumbled for the next and got the lock turned as the prisoners plunged en masse into the other side, the heavy doors shuddering.

‘That’s enough,’ Hank breathed. ‘But they’ll use the windows to get out, let’s move.’

Sawyer jumped back from the rattling door, his features flushed with blood and his eyes jerking back and forth between the rifle at his feet and the door.