Turtle Island (37 page)

‘Do me.’

‘Dad.’

‘Do me.’ He repeated. Rick engaged drive as he felt his
daughter’s fumbling hands tugging at his zipper.

Rick tried to roll over, he wanted to shut the world out, but
he was a prisoner. He could hear a door close by being opened,
followed by footsteps. Somebody stopped by Rick and crouched down
close to him. Rick’s eyelids were suddenly pulled back, exposing
his eyes to a harsh white light. He couldn’t talk, his tongue
flopped inside his mouth and a grunting noise emanated. As Rick’s
eyes adjusted to the light he began to focus on Prentice Fortune’s
features.

‘Hello, Rick.’ Fortune picked up an object from the tray he
was carrying. It was a staple gun. With great precision, Prentice
Fortune lifted Rick’s eyelids, pulling back on the lashes and
pressed the gun, pinning his eyelids open. The click reverberated
through Rick’s head but the paralysis saved him from the pain,
though not the fear.

Rick made a whining noise.

‘Ssh!’ Fortune placed the stainless steel tray next to
Montoya’s lifeless form. Sitting on the tray was a syringe filled
with a dark yellow, almost burnt amber liquid. ‘You know now that
there is no escape, not for you Rick. No way out.’ Fortune could
barely contain himself. ‘I wanted to set up something really
elaborate. Something big.’ Fortune stood and walked to the end of
the room, out of Rick’s limited field of vision. Another bright
light switched on.

‘Smile Rick…you’re dead.’ Fortune stood behind a video camera.
He zoomed into Rick’s features exposing the grotesque mask of pain
and torture. Fortune walked back to the tray and picked up a pair
of pinking shears. ‘When you want me to stop, just nod. Oh no, you
can’t. Well make that mewing noise and it will all be over with one
little injection. No pain, I promise…just fear.’ Prentice Fortune
opened and closed the pinking shears, the metal rasped together.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.’ He pulled Rick’s top lip and
placed it between the blades of the shears. Rick remembered the
cars pulling away from the traffic lights almost in unison. He
remembered jerking and thrusting, not watching the road and finally
the clash of metal as both cars collided. Rick pulled Jordan’s head
away from him as he fought to regain control of the car. Through
the grinding and crunching of metal he could hear Dorette’s scream
as Prentice Fortune’s car hurtled through Garland Bach’s main
window. The scream was cut short as the car impaled itself into
scaffolding. Rick’s jeep hit the kerb and rolled, following
Fortune’s car through the shop.

Prentice Fortune closed the blades together, slicing through
skin and tissue with ease. Rick mewed.

‘You’re no fun.’ Fortune picked up the syringe. ‘But a promise
is a promise.’ He stuck the needle into Rick’s neck and pushed the
plunger evacuating its contents into Montoya’s bloodstream. ‘Let’s
hope your family is more fun than you.’

Rick felt a surge of warmth.

‘Cos you know what,? I lied. I’m gonna kill them
too.

The last thing Rick felt was fear.

Jo-Lynn continued to rub hard with her diamond ring against
the embedded trap door. Slowly it freed itself from its setting,
opening up the possibility of access to the entrance that lay below
the surface of the water. The sudden movement sent her sprawling
backward into the dirty water. Her wedding band flew from her grasp
and landed somewhere nearby under the hundreds of gallons of water.
She briefly submerged, swallowing a small amount of murky brown
liquid, which made her immediately want to vomit. She wasn't
certain, but the level in the room appeared to rising slowly. The
seat of the chair she was sitting on had disappeared under a film
of semi opaque water. Jo-Lynn scurried over to the trap door and
grabbed hold of the lever under the water. Her fingers scrabbled
around for the small metal loop. She pulled hard at the ring hoping
to free the door but the weight of the water made it impossible. It
was then that she noticed the small trickle of water running down
the wall through the air vent. On closer inspection she realised
that it wasn't an air vent but an access point for rain. As she
looked around the room, Jo-Lynn realised that she was being held in
part of a storm drain overflow chamber, probably underneath a
house. The chambers led to the main sewerage system, through the
access door in the centre of the room. Houses that were in prone to
flooding would have a chamber built adjacent to the house on the
vulnerable side. If a river flooded or there was heavier rain than
the normal drain system could cope with, then the owner of the
property would open the chamber and sewer access point allowing
huge volumes of water to cascade into it, before being funnelled
and dissipated through a network of adjoining pipelines leading to
the water processing station or a drainage outlet pipe miles away,
often into the ocean. Jo-Lynn watched the water continue to trickle
out through the grill. As she moved her head, a reflection high up
on the wall caught her eye. Jo-Lynn tilted her head back and saw
the tiny camera lens that recorded her every move. The world
continued to watch her, through satellite, cable and ISDN lines.
The horror of the invasion into her predicament left Jo-Lynn
feeling stunned, followed by a numb disbelief. She moved back to
the dry sanctity of the stairs, defeated. Her hope dissipated, the
feeling of isolation compounded by the echo of water dripping in to
the ever-swelling pool. She was suddenly aware of her virtual
nakedness, wondering who had been watching her attempts to escape,
scrabbling around in the water, naked, trying to keep her only
garment dry. Was it just him or were there others? Her hope of
being rescued was below zero. Jo-Lynn sat down to contemplate her
options, which she knew were limited. The food tray was still
resting on the step where she had left it after finishing her
meagre meal of soup and bread. The bowl was a children’s patterned
variety, made of lightweight plastic. Certainly no weapon, the
spoon was constructed from a lighter grade of plastic. Jo-Lynn
picked the spoon up and snapped the rounded head from it leaving
just the handle with a jagged neck. Was he watching her now,
sitting laughing at her feeble attempts? Jo-Lynn considered the
outlook. She hadn't seen Rick or her son for days, possibly weeks;
she was not sure of the time span that had passed. She was
intelligent enough to know that she part of a bigger plan;
otherwise she would already be dead. Was it simply ransom? She
dismissed kidnapping, knowing that it was rare for entire families
to be taken. Who would pay the ransom? Where was Rick, where was
her son? She had heard Ray laughing. Why didn't he seem concerned?
Jo-Lynn looked at the camera and wondered again if her abductor was
watching. She decided there was one way to find out. She wanted to
gain his attention, and the only way to do that was to put herself
back in control. Jo-Lynn knew she was about to take the biggest
risk of her life and if she miscalculated and he wasn't there
watching her every move, then she would at least be free and in a
way would have won. She stood trembling with fear and cold, though
fear was the overriding emotion. Her stomach lurched like a ship on
rough seas. She walked down to the water, her cracked feet aware
that each step could be her last. The pain from each step a sharp
reminder of life, pain for once assuring her that she was alive.
One way or another she hoped that what she was about to do would
finalise her situation. She looked up at the camera; cold, dirty,
muddy water lapping around her thighs, took a deep breath then
exhaled, inhaled and repeated the process twice more before
plunging head first into the murky pool. Under the water she could
see nothing. She tried not to think about the condition of the
water or whether its rodent inhabitants had returned. Her body sank
down a little way before her natural buoyancy returned her to the
surface, where she remained floating, holding her breath, hoping
that he could see her. If he did not return she had promised
herself that she would let a final breath go before inhaling the
water. She realised that the only power she had left was to deny
him his moment and if the only way she could do that was by
sacrificing her life then she figured that her chosen method of
death would be far more preferable than any nightmare that he might
dream up. Time slowed inexorably to the point where she did not
know how much of its precious gift had elapsed or indeed, how much
remained. Her lungs began to strain under the pressure of the
forced inertia. The water moved around her face, something warm
brushed against the skin of her cheeks but Jo-Lynn's eyes were
shut, unable to greet the rat's return. The presence of her body in
the rat’s domain, a curiosity. She was an oddity to him. A strange
invader. Desperately, she began to exhale the very last breath that
had entered her body. The rat watched her with indifference for
now, the tiny air bubbles that escaped Jo-Lynn's mouth and nose no
more than an amusement, a pre-occupation, very rarely would he
attack 'live' prey for food, live prey normally fought back and he
was in no mood for a scrap. He could wait.

He returned to the monitor, pulling the mask down over his
face as he walked to the seat in front of the three monitors and
separate computer systems. One monitor relayed the live image from
a little further than two hundred yards away. He sat in the seat
and moved the computer mouse, activating the computer from the
screensaver slumber that was on a constant link to his web site.
Then he pressed the refresh button hoping to see an update on the
figures on the counter that invariably was going to lead to an
execution, in a little over five hours. The error message sent the
mouse hurtling toward the screen. He moved across the desk and
lifted the phone to be greeted by a dead line. The system was
crumbling under the strain and interest that he had created. His
finger tapped a Morse rhythm on the receiver button hoping to
re-establish a link, but with no joy. He ripped out the landline
connection and connected the machine's modem to a jack socket on
his cell phone, which linked to a laptop computer. He called up the
network-dialling box and entered his password, Jordan, then once
again tried to establish a connection, hoping that the signal could
establish a link via satellite. While he waited he glanced at the
live feed from the flood chamber. His finger toyed with a small
joystick, moving the camera around the chamber. The all seeing eye
scanned the stairs and moved down them one by one, until it met the
water’s edge. Something semi round came into view, something that
was floating, something that looked like a heel, a bare naked heel.
He pulled back on the joystick allowing the camera to zoom out. As
it did so, the rest of Jo-Lynn's body became visible. Floating,
motionless. The control of the joystick pressed into his skin,
pressing against the soft fleshy part of his palm, making a small
white indentation, until the skin ruptured and the metal rod
entered his body through the fissure. He pulled back sharply,
freeing the foreign body from his hand, then ran from the room,
pulling open the door fiercely, sending it rocking back on its
hinges. The sound reverberated down the long passage. He continued
running down the hall, past three doors to his left and two to his
right. From one of the rooms came the sound of a television, at the
bottom of the corridor was another door, which he opened with equal
force and began descending down a flight of steps. He was feeling a
rush of adrenaline and apprehension. These sensations pumping him
to a new height of frenzy. He reached the steel door, as he pulled
back the bolts that secured the heavy door, a voice from the top of
the stairs jolted him into stasis. He remained motionless, his
heart threatened to leap out from of his chest. A boy's voice
temporarily paralysed him.

‘Daddy?’

‘Get in. This weather's really foul.’ Barbara Dace cursed the
blackening sky.

John Keller lumbered into the waiting helicopter, weighed down
by his camera and enough baggage to suffice a fortnight’s holiday
somewhere drier and sunnier than Turtle Island in the
winter.

The rain was gathering momentum, splashing large droplets
against the windscreen.

‘We're still ahead of the pack.’ She shouted to the pilot over
the whirr of the rotor blades above her head. Within minutes the
Borland Ziborski hovered over the crash scene. Paramedics were
scrambling from another helicopter parked in what appeared to be
the only available gap near the grass verge bordering the tar
macadam surface of the highway. Barbara could clearly see the
jack-knifed lorry and what remained of the vehicles that were
helplessly swept along in its wake. A white car was now blackened
with carbon scorch marks running from the rear of the car to the
driver’s seat. Firemen were attempting to cut away the roof of the
car using hydraulic cutting tools. The clamps being placed through
the broken glass panels so the jaws of the cutters could slowly eat
their way through the blackened twisted hulk.

Barbara tapped John Keller on the shoulder and pointed to the
rescue attempt. From their position it was difficult to tell if
there were any occupants still alive. She guessed, looking at the
other victims in the horrific scene that the rescue team wouldn’t
be wasting their time trying to free the dead.

Each corner of the roof was severed with speed and efficiency,
until the lid of the burnt out can was peeled back like a used
sardine can, ready to be hoisted away.