The Island (15 page)

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Shaw said. The sight of Lee’s welts made his stomach turn. “I’m not a rapist.”

“Wouldn’t be,” Lee whispered.

“You’re a fucking prisoner,” Shaw said. “What else could it be? Shut up about it.”

And he liked Lee. He liked having him around, even if all he did was sit quietly with his head bowed. Shaw found his presence comforting and suspected it was mutual. He wished he could talk to Lee, to find out what was going on in his head—
“I wouldn’t mind if you fucked me,”
he’d said, like it was something he
wanted
—but it was what it was.

And the worst thing had happened when Shaw had walked out of the bathroom after lunch. He’d left the television on, just for background noise, and there was some stupid American sitcom playing when he’d walked back up the stairs. That’s when he’d seen it: Lee, sitting on the floor looking up at the screen, smiling at some dumb joke. He’d heard Shaw and bowed his head quickly, but it was already too late. Shaw had seen Lee as a human being, a guy who liked dumb jokes, and it was more horrible than he’d imagined. He’d wanted to throw up. His mouth had flooded with saliva, and he’d tasted bile, and it was all he could do not to stumble back down the bathroom steps to the sink.

Oh shit
. The last thing Shaw had needed was to look the real Lee Anderson in the face—the human being instead of the thing—and, now that he had, Shaw couldn’t forget it. The knowledge of it twisted in his guts. It hurt.

On his fifth day on the island, Shaw heard the sound of the choppers approaching in the early afternoon. At least two, he thought, from the noise. He was on the beach at the time, with Lee lying next to him, and the way the kid had lifted his hopeful face to the sky was heartbreaking. Shaw could have told him, just from the way that Vornis’s security guards weren’t worried, that it wasn’t a rescue. Nobody knew he was here except Shaw and Callie, and they were holding those cards very close.

“More guests,” Shaw said in a low voice.

Lee had tears in his eyes. He nodded and rested his chin on his arms again. Shaw watched as he cried silently. Hope was the kid’s worst enemy. It would build him up only to throw him down again. And Shaw hadn’t helped any.

Shaw watched as the choppers came in. Two of them, private charters from Suva. They landed on the far side of the island and left again. Less than an hour later, Vornis was showing his friends around.

Shaw stood as the men emerged from the shaded path onto the beach. Such a peaceful, beautiful setting for a meeting with monsters. He pushed Lee out of his mind. This was what he’d come for. This was everything he’d worked for.

“This is Shaw,” Vornis told them. “A useful man with useful contacts. We have a close association.”

Not as close as Vornis wanted, but Shaw smiled anyway and waited for him to introduce the others. He shook their hands, repeated their names, and ran through what he knew.

Pieter Guterman. The man Shaw had wanted so desperately to meet. He was in his fifties, tall, solid, and physically impressive. A silver fox. He wasn’t unattractive with it.

“Mr. Guterman,” Shaw said, shaking his hand firmly. “Good to meet you.”

“Shaw,” Guterman said, testing the name. “How
succinct
.”

Shaw laughed. “Adam Shaw, Mr. Guterman.”

The next was Sudomo Atmadja. A small man, dark and sharp-eyed. The sponsor, Shaw knew, of several terrorist organizations currently operating out of Indonesia. More dangerous than all his hate-filled clerics combined, because Atmadja had longevity. He’d been in the business for almost thirty years. Martyrs came and went.

“Mr. Atmadja,” Shaw said, shaking his hand.

Shaw hadn’t been expecting the third man, but he wasn’t entirely surprised to find him in this company. Franco Bertoni, mob boss. He was shorter than the others, and rotund. He was sweating in the heat and kept wiping his round face with a handkerchief. He wasn’t a terrorist, but like Vornis and Shaw, he knew where the future lay.

“Mr. Bertoni,” Shaw said, and Bertoni wiped his face and shook his hand.

The fourth man was introduced as Ali Ibn Usayd. Interesting. The last time Shaw had met the man, he had been using a different name. Neither of them showed any recognition as they shook hands. Usayd was tall and swarthy with narrow features.

“Mr. Usayd,” he said.

“Mr. Shaw.” Usayd’s eyes fell to Lee, lying on his stomach on the sand. “And who is your friend?”

Vornis laughed. “Not his friend, Ali! This is my new pet. Shaw was just borrowing him.”

Was
. Shaw tried not to react to the vile implications of word. Of course Vornis would offer Lee to his new guests. They were all more important than Shaw. He looked down at Lee’s scarred back and saw his shoulders stiffen. He was listening.

“He is wearing interesting pants,” Usayd said.

It had been the first thing Shaw had noticed as well: the military fatigues. Usayd was clever.

Vornis swaggered over to Lee, standing above him. “American. He and his team attacked my Colombian compound two months ago. This one survived, and I am making sure he is sorry for it.”

Lee flinched as Vornis drove his shoe into his ribs.

Shaw forced a smile as he caught Usayd’s eye. He wondered which of the men would take Lee if Vornis offered. Guterman, probably. He was cut from the same cloth as Vornis. Atmadja, maybe. Shaw didn’t know enough about Bertoni to hazard a guess. And Usayd? Shaw had seen him torture a man before, but he didn’t get off on it. Usayd was all business.

Vornis kicked Lee again, and Lee yelped like a dog. This time they all laughed, except the pale, middle-aged man who was lingering at the back of the group. He looked completely out of his depth in this crowd and couldn’t disguise his horror as his eyes flickered from Vornis to Lee. He blinked rapidly behind his glasses.

“And this is John Gatehouse,” Vornis said, remembering the little man at last. “He is an expert on Cézanne.”

And on nothing else, probably, Shaw thought as he held out his hand. For a moment, he thought Gatehouse would recoil, but self-preservation was a strong motivator. He’d already seen enough to know he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of Vornis’s temper. Had he seen enough to know he was a dead man? He gripped Shaw’s hand at last, nervously, and mumbled something.

“Bring the kid to the house for dinner, Shaw,” Vornis said. “We’ll have some fun then.”

“See you then.” Shaw nodded. He watched the men walk away and sat back down in the sand. There was nothing to say. There never was. He stared out at the endless blue ocean and waited for it to work its magic, and nothing happened.

Great. Now Vornis had stolen that from him as well. And it was no more than he deserved. What the fuck was he doing here? Was it worth it? Shit, he’d worked so hard for this. So many years, and so many sleepless nights. It had to be worth it. He had to keep believing that.

There is nothing you won’t do for this. This is worth any price.

Shaw fixed his eyes on the horizon and ran his hand down Lee’s trembling back.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

And Shaw smiled at his own hateful delusion.

Lee buried his face in the crook of his arm.

* * * *

Sitting on the veranda, Shaw took a swig from a bottle of beer and wondered idly when it had become so fucking easy to compartmentalize. Because at that very moment, Lee was sitting inside on the floor of the bungalow with his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth. He was in shock, maybe. And Shaw had looked at him, helped himself to a beer from the fridge, and gone to sit on the veranda and watch the ocean.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Except, not exactly. He wasn’t thinking of Lee, but he was thinking about his own curious reaction to Lee’s obvious distress. Thinking about, because he didn’t
feel
it. Reason told him that there was more at stake here, there always had been, but it shouldn’t have felt so easy to ignore him, should it?

Shaw drew a hand through his hair. Fuck. Maybe he was just tired of the fucking drama. Shaw wasn’t a knight in shining armor. He didn’t need this shit. This wasn’t his fault. He had more to worry about now.

Guterman
was here. The man Shaw had wanted to meet for years. The rest were just icing on the cake. There wasn’t a thing Shaw wouldn’t do to get into Guterman’s inner circle. His mind drifted back to Lee for a moment. No, not a thing.

Guterman was here. Better than fucking Christmas.

Shaw looked up as a man picked his way slowly along the beach. His trousers were rolled up to his calves, and he was glowering at the ocean as though it had personally offended him. Shaw almost laughed. It was Bertoni. He was out of his element here. He belonged in the concrete jungle.

Shaw slipped back inside for a moment, ignoring Lee as he headed for the fridge. Lee didn’t even look up. He probably didn’t know Shaw was there. Wherever he’d gone now, how far into the dark recesses of his memory, Shaw didn’t need to know. He was quiet. That was enough.

Shaw grabbed another beer and headed back outside.

The sand burned his feet as he made his way down to the water. “Mr. Bertoni, good afternoon. Beer?”

Bertoni wiped his face with a handkerchief and then shoved it back into his pocket. “What sort of fucking place is this anyway? It’s too hot,” he grizzled, taking the beer.

It’s a tropical island, you fucking tool. What did you expect?

Shaw nodded. “I know.”

Bertoni took a long swig from his beer. The back of his shirt and his underarms were stained with sweat. “And what are you doin’ here, Mr. Shaw? Apart from fucking Vornis’s boy.”

“I came here to sell a painting,” Shaw told him evenly. “Fucking Vornis’s boy is just a sweet bonus.”

Bertoni curled his lip in disgust. Not at Shaw’s admission of rape, of course, but at the admission he’d liked fucking a boy.

“What are you?” Bertoni growled. “Some kind of faggot?”

Shaw stood his ground. “There’s only one kind, Mr. Bertoni, as far as I’m aware.”

Bertoni’s sneer was caught somewhere between disgust and respect, and it hovered there uncertainly for a while before he finally shrugged it away. “Yeah, Vornis said you had balls, Shaw.”

Shaw smiled at that.

Bertoni glared out at the ocean. “So, you sell paintings?”

“No,” Shaw told him. “I’m a facilitator. I put buyers and sellers in touch with one another, for a percentage. I can find whatever it is you need.”

Bertoni narrowed his eyes. “I don’t outsource.”

Bullshit he didn’t.

Shaw shrugged. “Your presence here suggests to me that you’re in the process of expanding your operations. It’s a new world, Mr. Bertoni, with new challenges. Your former business associates might not be up to the task.”

“What do you mean?” Bertoni asked. “You mean like weapons? Because I can get fucking weapons!”

Trust a mob boss to get straight to the point.

“Weapons, absolutely,” Shaw said. “Or maybe certain chemical compounds.”

Bertoni narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t just deal in art, Mr. Bertoni. I deal in
anything
. And my reputation speaks for itself.”

“Yeah, well,” Bertoni snorted, “I’m not looking to build a fucking biological weapon or nothin’, you understand? That’s more Usayd’s style, the fucking rag head.”

“Of course it is,” Shaw agreed. “It was just an example. I can get you whatever you want.”

Bertoni scowled at that. He turned his red face to Shaw’s and sneered. “And how the fuck do you know what I want?”

Shaw allowed himself a smile. “I got you that beer, didn’t I?”

For a moment, it could have gone either way, and then Bertoni laughed. It was a big, deep laugh that rose above the gentle roar of the ocean, boomed out across the beach, and startled a solitary seagull into flight.

Shaw’s smile grew.

He could do this. He could actually pull this off.

* * * *

And now, Shaw thought, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…

Breathe, Shaw. Just breathe.

Pieter Guterman was walking up toward the bungalow.

Guterman was a good-looking man. He wasn’t young, but he wore his age well. He was still in good shape, and his graying hair made him look distinguished. He had a strong jaw, a wide mouth, and eyes that shone with cleverness. He exuded authority. He looked like the poster-boy CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Trust me
, his handsome face said, but Shaw knew better. Guterman was as much a monster as Vornis. He just wore a more attractive mask.

Guterman looked just as comfortable in chinos and a casual shirt as he would in a suit and tie. He didn’t have to dress to impress. He would have looked impressive in anything. Self-confidence rolled off him in waves.

“Shaw,” he said when he walked up the steps. His eyes crinkled as he reached out his hand.

“Mr. Guterman,” Shaw said. Guterman had a strong, firm handshake. Shaw wouldn’t have expected anything less. “Come in, please.”

Lee was still sitting on the floor, exactly where Shaw had left him. He’d stopped rocking, at least. The lack of movement made it easier for Shaw to ignore him.

“I do love Fiji,” Guterman said as he sat down at the table. “So far removed from the real world, don’t you find?”

No, Shaw thought. The Pacific had always felt like home to him.

“It’s certainly remote,” he said instead. “Drink?”

“Gin and tonic.”

Shaw moved over to the bench, aware that Guterman’s gaze was on him. And that was okay. That was exactly where it should be.

Nothing he wouldn’t do.

Shaw had waited a long time for this, and he’d run through every scenario he could imagine, just to see how far he’d really go. Just so he wouldn’t be surprised. And, in every one, he’d do whatever Guterman asked. Shaw knew enough about Guterman to know there probably wasn’t much off the table. Shaw was good-looking, and Guterman was responding to that. Guterman was a good-looking man as well. Not Shaw’s usual type—he preferred guys who weren’t old enough to have been voting when Shaw was still in kindergarten—but that was a small concession to make. Shaw didn’t have daddy issues or daddy fantasies either, but if Guterman wanted to play that game, Shaw would make an exception. Because Guterman was rich and powerful, and governments rose and fell because he made it happen. And Shaw wanted in. He wanted to be in Guterman’s inner circle; he needed to be there. He burned for it. And there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make it happen.