“You think this is the government?”
“Let’s just wait to call it in.”
“Smythe was into radical human terrorism. We might be on our way to a psycho splinter group.”
“I’m not sure that would be better.”
“Well, I’m not going in with nobody knowing,” Laughton said. He tapped his phone.
“Betty?” Kir said.
“Mathews. My deputy.” His attention shifted to the phone. “Mathews.”
“Chief,” Mathews said.
“Mathews, listen. Kir and I are on Dewees Island.”
“Is that part of the preserve?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Laughton said. “If you don’t hear from me in…” How big was this island? How long would it take to get a read on the place? “If you don’t hear from me by midnight, call the commissioner and tell him where we are. Only the commissioner. Talk directly to him.”
“Got it. You okay?”
“I’ve got Kir with me,” Laughton said, which wasn’t really the answer to the question.
“Be safe,” Mathews said.
Laughton hung up. “Where to?”
Kir took both phones and tucked them into a pocket.
“Just need to follow the road,” Kir said.
The dock met the island at what must have once been a gravel parking lot, now covered in a scattering of shrubs and grasses. Once on the road, the surrounding trees cut Laughton’s visibility down to almost zero. “I can’t see a fucking thing,” he said.
“Just keep walking straight, and I’ll direct you.”
“Well, is there any chance anyone’s around?”
Kir remained silent for a moment, and then said, “We’re good for now.”
Laughton turned his flashlight back on, and swung it around to get a sense of their surroundings. The trees were spaced out, the ground around them littered with branches and downed trees. What was almost a barricade built from this detritus lined the roadway. Someone was keeping the path clear. “Must get a lot of hurricanes,” Laughton said. There was a flash as the beam of his flashlight caught something reflective. Following it back, he saw an owl on a branch, a large flat face outlined in black, making its eyes seem even larger than they were. It was indifferent to their presence.
He flicked the flash off, and for a moment, he was even blinder than before. He reached in front of him instinctively, even though he had seen only a moment before that there was nothing in his path. When his eyes adjusted, he realized he could see better than he had thought originally, enough to at least see the direction of the road.
They went on in silence. The island was strangely silent as well, no sound of animals or insects. In fact, Laughton realized that he wasn’t being plagued by insects at all, no mosquitos or gnats. At least there was that. His mind turned to alligators then. They stayed near the water, he reassured himself, not knowing if this was true.
The degree of darkness to their left lightened, and soon Laughton could see the outline of the trees against the night sky. “What’s over there?” he said.
“Waterway that cuts through almost half of the island. Marsh all around it. We couldn’t really go that way if we wanted to.”
“It’s quiet out here,” Laughton said.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Get used to life on the preserve.”
“We’re not on the preserve,” Kir said.
They continued down the road. It was hard to gauge how long they’d been walking. In the dark, it felt like miles, but it probably hadn’t even been one mile.
“There,” Kir said.
Laughton squinted as though that would help in the night. “What?”
“A light.”
Laughton saw it a minute later. It was more than just a light. It must have been a whole building of lights. “What is it?” he said.
“Used to be a resort.”
The sight line opened up to their right, and Laughton realized they were only a few hundred feet from the open water. The resort building looked like two enormous houses joined by an enclosed bridge. One of the buildings was dark, but the ground floor of the other showed lights in all of the windows.
They stopped at a cluster of palm trees. “Any hot spots?” Laughton said.
“Can’t tell,” Kir said.
To the right of the building, a large fenced-in area that had once been tennis courts was currently being used as a helicopter landing pad. Laughton pointed. “We better neutralize that before going in.”
Kir agreed by heading in that direction. Laughton jogged a few steps to catch up. He felt exposed in the open, but it didn’t seem like there were any lookouts. Why would there be? The island was about as isolated as you could get. Titanium wouldn’t be expecting visitors.
They circled the tennis courts to the entrance, and crossed to the helicopter. Black tape had been stretched along the helicopter’s side to obscure printed lettering. Chief Laughton picked at the corner of the tape, managing to peel it up with his fingernail. He pulled it off with one long tug to reveal the words “Coast Guard.”
“Coast Guard?” he said.
Kir shook his head and shrugged. “Maybe they’re following the same lead we are.”
“Right,” the chief said with an ironic half smile. “And hiding their identity?”
“But the Coast Guard? Brandis I would have expected.”
Laughton closed his eyes to think. If the Coast Guard was here with Titanium…
He remembered the Sisters said Titanium was moving product through the harbor. The Sisters had the trucking routes under their control, but not the water. If there were patrol boats out…“That’s why Sysigns was the first at the club,” he said. “The Coast Guard is giving Titanium’s shipments protection on the water, probably for a nice percentage.”
“Or Sysigns is Titanium.”
“Or that.”
Kir was silent for a moment as he calculated. “No wonder Sysigns was ready with his blockade.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with Smythe’s murder,” Laughton said. “And McCardy’s, I guess.”
Kir pulled open the pilot’s-side door, and hopped up. There was the sound of metal crunching, and when he hopped back down, he dropped a piece of the control panel on the ground. “No one’s taking that anywhere,” he said.
“And if they are here officially?”
“HHS will pay for it.”
Laughton smirked. Sure they would. “Plan?”
“Lay of the land?”
Laughton pulled out his gun, released the magazine, and switched it out for the electric tips. They’d hurt humans just as much as regular bullets, but if Sysigns was here, he’d need the electric ones too. He left his holster unsnapped. “Let’s do it,” he said.
They approached the building with caution, bent at the knees and hunched over. The first floor of the building was actually one flight up, the whole resort built on stilts, as was necessary on an island that no doubt flooded often. A wide porch ran along the front of the building and along one of the sides. The sound of waves crashing in the distance made Laughton feel very far away from home. When was the last time he’d seen the ocean?