Apocalypse (2 page)

Sears glanced at the mantelpiece, where a row of family photographs stood. Images of happiness. A smiling wife, the daughter at junior high, grandparents, friends. The whole nine yards. All of
them splattered with blood. Sears was about to turn away when one of the frames caught his eye. So thick was the mess upon it that nobody had noticed that the frame was empty. Sears pointed to
it.

‘Fingerprints, right now,’ he snapped. ‘The picture’s missing.’

Rodriquez raised an eyebrow.

‘Good catch, Kyle,’ he said. ‘Trophy killer. You think the husband did it?’

Sears was about to answer when his cellphone rang. He slipped it out of his pocket as he watched the forensics team swarm over the photograph.

‘Sears,’ he answered.

A soft, unassuming voice replied.

‘
Captain, have you found the picture frame yet?
’

Sears almost combusted on the spot as he pointed frantically at his cellphone. Rodriquez instantly got the message and dashed from the lounge to get a trace on the caller.

Sears took a deep breath.

‘Yes, we’ve found the picture frame. You’ve taken the photograph.’

The voice was eerily calm.

‘Yes I have, Captain, and for good reason. I need you to look out of the lounge window.’

‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Charles Purcell.’

Sears managed to keep his voice calm.

‘How did you get my number, Charles?’

‘From the Miami-Dade Police Department website.
’

Sears frowned. ‘But how did you know that I would be the officer attending, or even on duty?’

‘Please, Captain, all will be revealed. The window, if you will.’

Sears turned on the spot to see several officers rush across the lawn outside.

‘I’m looking.’

‘
The third officer on the right will jaywalk and get hit by the white Lexus.
’

Kyle Sears’ train of thought slammed to a halt as he tried to understand what Purcell was telling him. All at once he turned his head and saw a white Lexus moving out of the corner of his
eye. His officers scattering to make calls and get equipment up and running. Sears realized that Purcell, the crazy bastard, must be in the car.

Sears whirled and sprinted from the lounge, down the hall and onto the lawn outside to see the car rolling by. Bobby LeMark, one of the newer guys, dashed out from behind the forensics van
toward his squad car.
Jesus, no.
Sears couldn’t help himself and yelled out.

‘Bobby!’

LeMark turned as he ran, floundered and lost his balance. In a terrible instant, Sears saw the Lexus swerve to avoid him and then the terrible crunch of a fender as it slammed into
LeMark’s legs. The officer crashed down onto the asphalt with a dull thump. Tires screeched as Sears stared in horror.

‘Arrest the driver!’ he bellowed as he staggered down the lawn toward the sidewalk.

A swarm of officers drew their weapons and aimed at the white Lexus as they rushed forward. Sears heard Purcell’s voice in his ear.

‘I’m not in the car, Captain. It will be an old lady of at least sixty. Don’t worry, your man will be fine, nothing more than a twisted ankle. I’d have warned you
earlier if it was going to be anything worse.’

Sears stared in confusion as an elderly and transparently terrified lady was hauled from the Lexus by heavily armed cops. Sears waved them down, watching as LeMark was lifted to his feet by his
comrades, his face pinched with pain as he hobbled awkwardly on his left foot.

‘It’s his right ankle, isn’t it, Kyle?’

Sears stared at LeMark for a moment and then shouted down the phone.

‘Where the goddamned hell are you, Purcell?!’

‘Your partner will work that out in precisely one minute and seventeen seconds. Right now, I need you to listen to me while there is still time.’

Rodriquez rushed to Sears’ side and held up his fingers as he mouthed words silently.
One minute, fifteen seconds.

Confusion whirled through Kyle Sears’ mind as he struggled to comprehend what was happening. Charles Purcell’s voice sounded again in his ear, calm and controlled.

‘Captain, I need you to listen very carefully to what I am going to tell you. It will not make sense but I swear to you that if you do as I say, you’ll understand why it is so
important.’

Fourteen years of training and experience pulled Sears back from the brink of disbelief. He took another deep breath and controlled his thoughts. Keep him talking.
Just keep the bastard
talking.

‘Charles, did you kill your wife and child?’

A long pause followed, and when Purcell spoke again his voice crackled as though his vocal cords were being torn from his throat.

‘No sir, I did not.’

‘You were seen leaving the scene of the murders, Charles.’

‘By Madeleine, our neighbor,’
Purcell confirmed.
‘She’s with you guys now, holding her dog, right?’

Sears felt a chill lance down his spine as he pivoted on one foot to see Madeleine still watching the forensics team. Slowly he turned full circle, his eyes searching parked cars and the windows
of nearby houses.

‘There’s no sense in hiding, Charles,’ he said. ‘If you’re not guilty, then handing yourself in right now is the best course of action.’

‘I wish that were true, Captain, but my life is already over. Sir, I need you to visit an apartment in Hallandale that you’ve never been to before, and I need you to contact a man
you’ve never met.’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I know you can see me, Charles.’

‘I can’t see you, Captain. But I have watched you.’
Before Sears could respond, Purcell continued, his words charged with a strange timbre, as though he were saying
goodbye to an old friend for the last time.
‘In less than twenty-four hours I will be murdered and I know the man who will kill me. My murderer does not yet know that he will commit the
act.’

Sears’ mind buzzed with disbelief. ‘Then how can you know that he will do it?’

‘You will find that out soon enough,’
Purcell replied,
‘and it cannot be prevented.’

‘Hand yourself in and let us protect you.’

‘If I was to do that, Captain, then the man who murdered my family will never see justice. It has to be this way.’
Purcell paused.
‘The ambulance is coming now,
correct?’

Sears looked up and saw an ambulance turn onto Sistina Avenue, its lights flashing but its sirens silent.

‘Where are you, Charles?’

‘You’ll know in fifteen seconds, Captain. For now, please listen to me. The bullets that killed my family are still in the house. Find them and have them analyzed for a compound
known as Rubidium-82. Then, go to one-one-seven on Sixty-Fourth, Hallandale. When you’re there, you’ll need to contact a man named Ethan Warner.
’

‘What the hell for?’

‘Please, Captain. If you want to bring my family’s killer to justice, do as I say. Time is literally everything. Your colleague will tell you where I am, right about
now.
’

The line went dead in Sears’ ear just as Rodriquez dashed to his side.

‘We’ve got him,’ he announced. ‘He’s at one-one-seven on Sixty-Fourth, Hallandale.’

Sears stared at Rodriquez. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely. We’ve got units on their way already.’

Hallandale was several miles away. Purcell might have installed a camera somewhere close by, but even then, how the hell could he have predicted the accident that twisted LeMark’s
ankle?

Rodriquez gestured to Sears’ cellphone. ‘What did he want?’

Sears looked blankly at his cell and shook his head. He glanced up at the nearby news crew standing around their vehicle setting up to broadcast a report. Whatever the hell was going on here,
Sears wasn’t about to take any chances that Purcell could see what they were doing.

‘We need to get to Hallandale, right now, and get that camera crew out of here. I want the media kept out of the loop until we can figure out what the hell’s going on.’

June 27, 19:24

‘Bimini this is November two-seven-six-four-charlie, airborne and turning two-seven-zero in the climb.’

Captain James MacDonald clicked off the transmit button on his control column as he pulled back on the Grumman Mallard’s controls. The foamy white spray blasting past the windshield and
the rumble of water thundering beneath the fuselage gave way to smooth and subtle gyrations as the aircraft lifted off from the sparkling azure waters of the Florida Straits.

MacDonald turned and looked out of the cockpit windshield at the distant horizon, where the sun was sinking between soaring cumulonimbus clouds that glowed like the wings of giant angels.

‘Always looks good, doesn’t it?’

The voice of MacDonald’s First Officer, Sarah Gleeson, was followed by a bright smile as she gestured with a nod to the sunset as the Grumman climbed upward, its turboprop engines hauling
the vintage airframe ever higher.

‘Sure does,’ MacDonald agreed. He scanned the horizon for other aircraft, then checked his instruments and turned onto a new heading, locking his VOR radio-navigation frequency onto
Miami International Airport. ‘You’ll never get tired of this job.’

Sarah Gleeson had joined Bimini Wings just six months before, fresh out of getting her Commercial Pilot’s License and her water-plane qualification on the Grumman Mallard. MacDonald had
been tasked with seeing her through her first year of flying with the company, a task that he had undertaken happily. After thirty-four years of service he enjoyed seeing the next generation of
pilots coming up through the ranks.

He settled back into his seat, placed his flight notes in his lap and let Sarah handle the climb out and cruise. Miami was just sixty nautical miles away across the Florida Straits on their
westerly heading. Sitting behind them in the passenger cabin were a dozen scientists returning home after some kind of fieldwork exercise out on the coral reefs near Bimini, probably
conservationists or some such.

‘Last chartered trip of the afternoon,’ Sarah said. ‘You got anything planned?’

MacDonald shook his head. ‘Back home and a long shower.’

Sarah leveled the Grumman Mallard off at six thousand feet, MacDonald taking quiet pride in the fact that she ignored the autopilot and flew the aircraft by hand. A real pilot, not some overpaid
geek trained to press buttons. He ensured that she trimmed the aircraft perfectly, then looked out over the ocean to watch the scattered clouds floating serenely past below, casting blue shadows on
the crystalline ocean. Even after so many years flying in the Bahamas he still reveled in the unparalleled purity of the environment, especially on a day like today, with perfect conditions: CAVU,
as they called it. Clear Air, Visibility Unlimited. Damn, even the thermal currents rising off the warm water were gentle, just swaying the wings in a—

The aircraft lurched to the right with a violent shudder as though something had slammed into the tail. Sarah instinctively kicked hard at the left rudder as MacDonald grabbed the throttles in
anticipation of a sudden updraft or downdraft.

‘The hell was that?’ Sarah uttered as the aircraft settled again.

MacDonald scanned the instruments with practiced eyes, but saw nothing amiss.

‘Damned if I know.’

They both looked instinctively out of the windows. With Bimini far behind and Miami just over the horizon in the glowing golden haze ahead, they may as well have been a thousand miles from
anywhere.

MacDonald held the controls with a light touch and felt the tension slip from his body as he relaxed again.

‘Probably just a hole in the air, happens from time to time.’

MacDonald knew that aircraft had been known to plummet hundreds or even thousands of feet without warning when the lift beneath their wings was snatched away by invisible pockets of low
pressure. Even the giant Boeing 747s weren’t immune to such volatile events . . .

MacDonald’s train of thought slowed as he glanced at the magnetic compass on the instrument panel before him. Moments before it had been pointing rock steady at two-seven-zero degrees,
dead west. Now, it was swinging gently between two-five-zero and three-zero-zero, as though unsure of itself.

‘You got a heading?’ he asked Sarah.

She glanced at her own instruments and shook her head. ‘Damn, no. Gyro’s out.’

‘Mine too.’

MacDonald glanced at the GPS screen used by pilots as a backup to traditional compasses, useful when dealing with multiple issues and in need of a quick position fix. But this time there was
nothing to see. The screen was blank but for the No Signal message blinking urgently at them.

‘The hell’s going on?’ Sarah muttered, tapping the screen and pressing the reset button. The screen remained blank.

MacDonald keyed his radio-transmit button.

‘Bimini, November two-seven-six-four-charlie, radio check.’

A dull hiss of static hummed in their earphones as they exchanged a glance.

‘Switch to Miami Approach,’ MacDonald instructed Sarah, who dialed in the international airport’s radio frequency.

MacDonald tried again, twice, but heard only static in response.

‘This isn’t good,’ Sarah murmured, looking at her instruments.

‘We’re not in trouble yet,’ MacDonald soothed her. He gestured ahead out of the windscreen toward the sun hovering low over the horizon. ‘Keep the sun on the nose. That
way we’ll still be heading due west and should pick up the coast soon enough.’

Sarah offered him an embarrassed smile.

‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘I should have thought of that.’

MacDonald didn’t reply, instead watching as his magnetic compass began spinning ever more wildly. The secondary instruments were also beginning to lose cohesion as though tugged by unseen
forces. A dread began to settle on his shoulders.

‘What was our last known position fix?’ he asked.