The Island (5 page)

“My feet hurt, Dad. I want to go back.”

Whose stupid idea was it to go camping at the lake anyway? The lake was miles away from the road. There were plenty of good camping spots that were easier to get to. It was going to take hours just to get there, and they’d only have to hike out again in the morning. It was pointless, and it was dumb, and he’d rather be at home playing video games.

“Come on! Keep going!”

He opened his eyes, and wished he could remember his father’s face. It hurt to remember his voice, but it was so important not to forget. He wanted more. He wanted all his memories back. He wanted them to fill his mind and push away all the confusion there. He wanted to know who he was
before
.

“Come on,” he whispered in the darkness. “Keep going.”

One foot in front of the other, all the way to the end.

He ran his fingers across his chest. There was a small scar in the dip of his sternum. One of the earliest.

That one stood for Colombia.

Shit
. He swallowed down the wave of panic that threatened to drown him, and looked his memories in the face.

In the beginning, he’d wanted to leave himself notes so that he didn’t have to go through this every time they drugged him, but they didn’t give him anything to write with. But that scar, he remembered, that one stood for Colombia. The helicopter, the jungle, the mud, and the men who had died there.

He skirted the scar with his fingers, forcing himself to breathe through the sudden nausea. He slipped his fingers up to the whorl on his shoulder. He’d given every scar on his body a story. He’d made them signify. That one was for Vornis, made by the man himself with a fat Cuban cigar.

“Come on. Keep going.” He closed his eyes again and read the scars on his body like Braille.

Colombia, and his team. Vornis, Hanson, and the guards. And, hidden in the curve of his ribs, himself. His mom, his dad, last Christmas at the house he’d grown up in, snow and pine needles.

“Come on,”
his dad had said on the hike to the lake all those years ago.
“If you give up now we’ll never make it.”

He remembered his name. He remembered his family. He remembered everything that had happened to him in Colombia and on this island.

He drew a shaking breath.

There was no scar for the man in the turtle bungalow. Mr. Shaw, Irina had called him. He’d left no scar and no broken skin or throbbing wound that would transform into one and allow him to retain a memory of what had happened in the bungalow once they drugged him again.

He moved his fingers down his body and pressed them against his abdomen where the man had jabbed him. He felt a faint tenderness that probably wouldn’t even translate into a bruise by morning.

Remember him.

The man in the turtle bungalow was the only man since Colombia who had never hurt him. And maybe that was important as well.

Remember him, even if he didn’t leave a scar. Remember him
because
he didn’t leave a scar. This is important.

Chapter Four

Shaw woke. The boy was gone, leaving nothing behind but twisted sheets and Shaw’s lingering sense of worry.

Out of sight, out of mind. You don’t need the fucking distraction.

Shaw scowled at the underside of the thatched roof for a moment and thought hard about not thinking about Green-eyes.

Fuck it.

Shaw rose and checked his e-mail. Callie had been quick to reply:
I will make enquiries. C
. The answer was short, sweet, and to the point, just like Callie. Shaw was the face of the operation, but Callie put everything together behind the scenes. She was his Girl Friday. He’d made the mistake of telling her that once as well, and the only reason she hadn’t ripped his head off for being a chauvinistic prick was because they’d been on different continents at the time.

Shaw closed his laptop and looked out the wide window to the ocean. It was blue today, that brilliant, luminous Pacific blue he’d hoped for the day before. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Surf broke over distant reefs, crowning them in white foam. He let his gaze drift out to the horizon. Shards of sunlight pierced his vision, and Shaw reached for his sunglasses.

Beautiful, Shaw thought as he gazed at the view, and dangerous, and suddenly he was thinking of Green-eyes again. He pulled his thoughts back to the view with difficulty.

It was earlier than he was used to waking. His watch told him it wasn’t even six a.m. Shaw was at nature’s mercy here. He would wake with the sun and sleep with the night. His body clock would set the pace here, not his Tag Heuer. He might have found the thought strangely relaxing if his host wasn’t a monster.

He showered, shaved, and dressed.

Breakfast awaited him on the table on the bungalow’s veranda. Fruit, toast, and cereal, and a fresh pot of coffee. The service here was better than at any resort. There was even a newspaper beside the tray, the
New York Times
. It was only a day old.

Shaw flicked through it without really reading it. It spoke again of Vornis’s sense of luxury. Vornis didn’t care about the cost of getting the
New York Times
to an isolated Fijian island every day. It didn’t matter that Shaw had a smartphone and a laptop and news at the touch of a button. It was all about appearances for men like Vornis. The newspaper was a symbol of wealth and power for his guests, and Shaw respected that.

There was a card on the table as well.
Come up to the main house when you’re ready to talk business.

Shaw swallowed down the last of the coffee. Showtime.

He returned inside and checked his outfit. Chinos, a linen shirt, and canvas shoes. Island chic. He’d rather be in board shorts and bare feet, but this was Vornis’s tropical paradise, not Shaw’s. Shaw thought of the
New York Times
. Appearances were everything.

He checked the lock on his laptop case, knowing it was secure. Even if someone broke into the bag, and he didn’t doubt they would, the laptop was protected with so many levels of encryption that it would take months to get anything off it. Callie had set that up for him as well.

Shaw moved on to his suitcase, turning it upside down and opening it to access the false panel. It wasn’t exactly creative, but it had served his purpose. Customs agents were looking for drugs and explosives, not paintings. A piece of rolled-up canvas didn’t attract their attention at all. The sniffer dogs went right past it.

Shaw drew the painting out and tucked it under his arm. He locked his suitcase again and headed outside.

A pair of security guards stood on the beach. Muscles, dark uniforms, sunglasses, and sidearms. Shaw forced himself to see security guards, not mercenaries. Men, not atrocities. They looked at Shaw as he left the bungalow, and he nodded a greeting at them.

“Beautiful day.” He smiled, and they nodded and smiled back at him.

Out of sight, out of mind. Don’t think about what they’ve done to Green-eyes.

Don’t think about what they’re going to do to him.

Jesus, don’t give him a fucking name either.

Focus. Just focus.

The main house was only a few minutes away, and it was a pleasant walk along a meandering path shaded by palms and bordered by lush ferns. The sand crunched under his shoes as he walked. So beautiful here, Shaw thought, so peaceful.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Shaw recognized duality. He worked with it every day. He could still differentiate between hypocrisy and necessity, couldn’t he?

Game on.

Intersecting sharp angles of steel and glass came together under a brilliant sky to make up the main house. The structure glittered in the sun, and Shaw was glad he’d remembered his sunglasses. This was what he’d expected from Vornis all along, a show of decadence and wealth.

Shaw was admitted by the same woman who’d brought him dinner the night before.

“Mr. Vornis is in his study,” she said, nodding up the stairs. “Please go ahead.”

“Thank you,” said Shaw, looking at her questioningly.

She pursed her lips, but a slight flush darkened her cheeks. “Irina.”

“Thank you, Irina,” Shaw said with a smile, heading up the stairs. Charm the women, befriend the men, and debase the toys. Shaw knew exactly how to do business with men like Vornis.

Vornis was waiting for him, and Shaw didn’t waste any time. He crossed to the desk and placed the painting down. Vornis came to stand beside him.

“
Jeune garçon au gilet rouge
.” Shaw unrolled the canvas. “
The Boy in the Red Vest
, by Paul Cézanne. Painted in 1895.”

Vornis rubbed his chin with his fingertips. “And stolen in 2008.”

Shaw shrugged.

Shaw didn’t know a lot about the painting’s providence. He didn’t have to. What did it matter to him if the painting had gone through a lot of different hands in the years between 1939 and 1945? Something about
Jeune garçon au gilet rouge
would always stink of the death camps to Shaw. He was just the last in a very long line of profiteers.

The painting wasn’t to Shaw’s taste. A boy in a red vest sat at a table with his face cupped in his hand. His white shirt wasn’t white at all. It was green and brown and purple and yellow, but all of those colors together gave the idea of light and shadow caught on a white shirt. The boy’s face was the same. A palate of different colors made up the planes of his face. It was almost messy, almost splotchy, Shaw thought, until he took a step back and brought it into perspective again. Like one of those Magic Eye pictures that suddenly coalesced into something recognizable.

It wasn’t the nicest painting Shaw had ever seen, but that didn’t matter to him. It didn’t even matter to Vornis, he suspected, who was only interested in buying a name. The painting was a symbol of wealth and power to Vornis. He wouldn’t appreciate it purely as a thing of beauty. In a museum, he wouldn’t even glance at it. Vornis needed to
own
things.
The Boy in the Red Vest
, mute and pretty, was not that different from Vornis’s other nameless boy.

“At the time of its theft, it was valued at ninety-one million.” Shaw let his hands linger on the edges of the canvas. Funny that a little bit of paint could be worth that much. “I wonder if it’s worth even more now.”

Vornis laughed at that and moved to stand beside the desk. He drew his bushy brows together as he studied the painting, and Shaw wondered for a fleeting moment if he’d misjudged Vornis. Maybe he saw the painting after all, not just the price tag.

“You liked my little present last night?” Vornis inquired as he gazed at the painting.

Shaw stepped back to give him space and light. “Very generous, thank you. Nothing like a good fuck to get over jetlag.”

“I have always found it so,” Vornis said.

Shaw wondered what Vornis thought of him now. It shouldn’t have rankled if Vornis thought they were the same. That had been the point of the charade, after all. But Shaw had always tried to believe he was better than his clients. He needed to.

Shaw looked out the window. From here he could see the rooftop of his guest bungalow down on the beach. He could see palm trees and shaded paths, sand so white that it almost blinded him—none of Cézanne’s ambiguity there—and the endless brilliance of the Pacific. It was beautiful here. Spoils to the victor, he supposed. You don’t get a private island in the Pacific by playing fair.

Vornis saw him looking.

“This view,” Shaw said, shaking his head. “It’s better than a Cézanne any day.”

“You’re not an art lover, then, Shaw?”

“I like a good painting as much as the next man,” Shaw said, seeing an opportunity and taking it with a teasing smile. “I just don’t see how a bit of paint on canvas is worth ninety-
five
million.”

“Inflation these days.” Vornis shrugged. “Blink and it’s gone through the roof! A drink, Shaw?”

They sat in leather armchairs totally unsuited to the climate. The main house, modern and hermetically sealed, hummed as cool air whispered through the vents. The leather armchairs were cool to the touch, almost chill, but Shaw preferred the bungalow. He could see the ocean from here, but he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t smell it.

Shaw wondered if Vornis ever swam in the ocean or if the Pacific was like another expensive painting to him: something to look at to make himself feel rich and powerful. What a waste. Shaw couldn’t wait to get into the ocean. There were no stingers here, and the reef sharks were small and generally shy. The only real predator on the island was Vornis.

“Thank you.” Shaw took the drink Vornis handed him.

Vornis eased himself down in the opposite chair. He seemed almost relaxed today, more relaxed than Shaw had ever known him, but Shaw knew his generous mood could change in a heartbeat. He’d seen it happen before. And every time he’d seen it, Shaw had wondered if one day he’d be on the receiving end. He wasn’t afraid of Vornis, not exactly, but he was always wary.

“Extraordinary,” Vornis murmured, his gaze settling on the painting.

Drugs were only the thin edge of the wedge with Vornis, Shaw knew. Vornis had married into the trade. The plantation in Colombia had been his father-in-law’s. Vornis himself favored money laundering and organized crime, trafficking over production, or at least he had until he’d stepped on too many toes in America. He’d disappeared from the radar for a while, appearing several years later with some new associates. There was big money in terrorism. It had more links with the corporate world than it did with the scrawny, impoverished kids who were convinced to strap bombs onto their bodies. Men like Vornis were in it for the money, not the ideology. And there was a lot of money to go around.

Shaw wasn’t really here for the Cézanne. He was here to make valuable new contacts, and Vornis was the best way. This was the opportunity of his career.

“I will pay you ninety-five,” Vornis said, “if I can bring in an expert to verify the Cézanne is genuine.”