Zig Zag (63 page)

Victor
was one of the last ones out of the chopper. He followed Elisa to the
steps—both of them bent double to avoid banging their heads on
the roof (he was practically kissing her behind)—and jumped to
the ground, feeling off-kilter from the flight, the sound of the
chopper blades, and the sand. He stepped away from the helicopter
coughing, and, when he took a breath, his lungs filled with several
centimeters of island air. It wasn't as humid as he thought.

"There's
a storm south of here, in the Chagos," Carter shouted from the
helicopter. He had no trouble making himself heard over the noise of
the rotors.

"Is
that bad?" Victor called, raising his voice.

Carter
stared back at him as if he were a larva.

"It's
good. It's dry weather that worries me, and that's what you normally
get this time of year. As long as there are storms, no one will come
close. Here, take this."

He
held out a box with one hand. Victor needed two to even lift it, and
still he had a hard time not dropping the thing. He felt like a
soldier transporting supplies. In fact, it was provisions that Carter
had gotten in Sanaa: canned goods and pasta, several sizes of
batteries for the flashlights and radios, munitions, and bottled
water. The water was vitally important since the warehouse tank had
been destroyed and Carter didn't know if they'd installed another
one. Elisa, Blanes, and Jacqueline wandered over and got the rest of
their baggage.

Victor
was lurching and staggering like a drunkard. The box was
extraordinarily heavy. He saw Elisa and Jacqueline pass him, Elisa
carrying two boxes (no doubt significantly lighter than his, but
still,
two).
He
felt pathetic and useless, and it made him remember how much he'd
hated PE at school, and how humiliated he always felt when girls were
stronger than him. Somehow the idea that a woman—especially one
as attractive as Elisa or Jacqueline—had to be weaker than him
was something still ingrained in the recesses of his mind. It was
silly, he knew, but he couldn't get it out of his head.

As
he struggled to make it to the barracks with his burden, he heard
Carter behind him, shouting good-bye to the pilot. As head of
security on New Nelson, he'd had no problem getting the coast guards
to look the other way. And as he'd explained, there was very little
chance of Eagle getting wind of their presence on the island, since
the guardsmen were trustworthy. But he'd warned them that the
helicopter would take off immediately. He didn't want to risk the
chance of a military plane spotting them on a routine flyover. They
had to be all alone. And as if to emphasize that fact, he heard the
chopper's rotors begin to turn faster and looked up just in time to
see it whir up into the air, sending flashes of the fading sunlight
shooting out from the revolving blades before it faded into the
distance.
All
alone in paradise,
he
thought.

Maybe
that thought flustered him, because suddenly the box slipped from his
hands. He managed to save it before it crashed to the ground, but one
corner of it banged down on his foot. The searing pain smashed any
more thoughts of paradise.

Luckily,
no one had seen. They were all clustered together outside the door to
the third barracks, probably waiting for Carter to let them in.

"Need
some help?" Carter asked, passing him.

"No
thanks, I'm fine..."

Red
as a beet and totally out of breath, Victor limped off across the
sand once more, his legs spread wide. Carter had already caught up to
the others and brandished a bolt cutter as big as his arms. The noise
of it cutting through the chain on the door was like a shot being
fired.

"The
house was empty, and no one came to sweep," he said, as if it
were a song lyric, stopping to kick aside some debris with his boot.

It
was 6:50 in the evening, island time, on Friday, March 13, 2015.

Friday
the thirteenth.
Victor
wondered if that would bring bad luck.

"IT
looks so tiny now," Elisa said.

She
stood in the doorway, sweeping the flashlight beam across what had
been her bedroom on the island.

He
started to think it might be hell after all.

He'd
never seen a more depressing place in his life. The sheet-metal walls
and floor were hot as an oven that had just baked several loaves of
bread. Everything looked utterly dismal, there was no ventilation,
and it stank to high heaven. Oh, and, of course, the barracks were
significantly smaller than Elisa had made them out to be: a pathetic
dining room, a pathetic kitchen, and totally barren rooms. The
bedroom was nothing but naked walls, the bathroom barely had even the
most basic features, and, of course, it was all covered in a thick
layer of dust. Nothing resembling the dreamy facilities that Cheryl
Ross had welcomed Elisa to ten years earlier. Elisa's eyes brimmed
with tears and she smiled, surprised. She'd been sure she would feel
no nostalgia whatsoever. Maybe she was just exhausted from the trip.

Victor
was slightly more impressed with the screening room, though it, too,
was puny and stiflingly hot. Nevertheless, staring at the black
screen, he couldn't help but tremble. Could they really have seen
Jerusalem during Christ's lifetime on that monitor?

The
control room, however, was the place that left him dumbfounded.

A
cement-walled chamber almost a hundred feet wide and 120 feet long,
it was the biggest, coolest room at the station. There were still no
lights (Carter had gone to check out the generators), but Victor
could make out, through the dusky light coming through the windows,
the shiny backside of SUSAN, and he was spellbound. He was a
physicist, and nothing he'd seen or heard in his entire life could
possibly compare with that piece of equipment. He felt like a hunter
who, having heard stories of amazing kills, was finally seeing the
gun that had fired the shots and could no longer doubt the rest.

Then,
startled, he jumped. The fluorescent lights flickered on above him
and everyone blinked. Victor looked at the others as if for the first
time, and suddenly realized he was going to live with these people.
But he didn't mind, especially not about Elisa and Jacqueline. Blanes
wasn't bad company, either. It was only Carter, who just then
appeared through a small door to the right of the accelerator, who
had no place in his world.

"Well,
you'll have power so you can play with your computers and heat up
food." He'd taken off his jacket and some random gray chest
hairs peeked out over the top of his shirt. His biceps bulged, too
large for his sleeves. "The problem is that there's no water.
And we can't use the air-conditioning if we want anything else to
work. I don't trust the backup generator, and the other one is still
busted. And that means it's going to be hot," he added, smiling.
There was not a drop of sweat on him, though, and Victor realized
that the rest of them were drenched from head to toe. Listening to
him talk, he never knew if Carter was mocking them or if he actually
wanted to help them.
Maybe
both,
he
decided.

"There's
another reason to save electricity, too," Blanes said. "Up
until now we've always done the opposite: avoid the darkness at all
costs. But it's obvious that Zig Zag
consumes
all
the energy he can find. Lights, appliances, computers that are on ...
that's all food to him."

"And
you want him to starve," said Carter.

"I
don't know how much it'll help. He uses varying amounts of
electricity. In Silberg's plane, for example, all he had to do was
burn out the cabin lights. But I think it's best not to give him too
much to choose from."

"That
can be arranged. We'll disconnect the overall power supply and use
only computers and the microwave to heat up food. We've got more than
enough flashlights."

"Well,
let's get going." Blanes turned to the others. "I'd like us
all to work together. We can use this room as our base. There are
enough tables and it's plenty big. We'll split up the tasks. Elisa,
Victor: we need to find the speed at which the attacks occur. Why
does Zig Zag act over several continuous days and then 'rest' for a
few years? Is it related to the amount of energy consumed? Is there a
concrete pattern? Carter will give you detailed reports on the
murders. I'll work with Reinhard's conclusions and Marini's files.
Jacqueline, you can help me sort through the files..."

While
they were all nodding, something happened.

They
were tired, or maybe it happened too fast for anyone to react. One
second, Carter was on Blanes's right, rubbing his hands together, and
the next he'd jumped to the computer chair and was stamping the
ground beneath the table. Then he puffed out his chest and looked at
them all like a ticket taker interrupting the first-class passengers'
conversation.

"Well,
Professor, looks like even bad students have their uses. At least
they can clean the erasers after class." With dramatic flourish,
he bent down and picked up a squashed snake. "I'm guessing his
family is close by. It might not look like it, but we
are
in
the jungle and little creatures often come inside in search of food."

"It's
not poisonous," said Jacqueline, unflustered, taking it from
him. "Looks like a simple green swamp snake."

"Still
disgusting, though, isn't it?" Carter snatched it back, walked
over to a metal trash can and dropped the coiled snake in, its guts
spilling out. "Evidently, we need more than brains here. We need
a little brawn, too. And that reminds me, I need some help, too.
Someone to deal with our provisions, cooking, organizing, taking
turns on guard duty, maybe cleaning a little... You know, all of
life's unpleasant details."

"I'll
do it," said Victor immediately, glancing at Elisa. "You
can take care of the calculations yourself." She saw Carter
smile, as though he found Victor's offer amusing.

"Good,"
said Blanes. "Let's get moving. How much time do you think we
have, Carter?"

"You
mean before Eagle sends in the cavalry? Two, three days, tops, and
that's presuming they buy the story I told in Yemen."

"That's
not long."

"Well,
that's the optimistic view, Professor," Carter replied.
"Harrison's smart as a fox, and I seriously doubt he'll buy it."

THE
good
thing about people who are sad all the time is that when things take
a turn for the worse, they seem to brighten a little. As though
realizing they had nothing to complain about to begin with. And
that's exactly what happened to Victor. He couldn't say he was
happy,
exactly,
but he did feel sort of exalted, like he had a renewed zest for life.
His days of aeroponic plants and reading philosophy were long gone.
This was a savage world he was living in, one that made new demands
on him by the minute. And he liked feeling useful. He'd always felt
that no skill is worth much if it doesn't help others, and now was
the time to put that belief into practice. All afternoon he opened
boxes, swept, and cleaned, following Carter's orders. He was
exhausted, true, but he'd discovered that fatigue could be addictive,
like a drug.