She shook her head as several men climbed up the ladder on the side, and one of them was the pilot. “Here’s our pilot,” she said, and they all cheered.
He hopped into the helicopter as Gregor arrived, and then Troy came up, carrying Jonesy over his shoulder, who was still unconscious or perhaps passed out. Troy laid him down not-so-gently on the deck and disappeared again.
Axel came up, dragging Idiot and Denny.
Denny was shaking. “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” he cried out. “Why would somebody do this?”
She reached out a hand and grabbed his. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “The next place will become home too. You’ll see.”
He looked at her sadly. “No,” he said. “It won’t.”
The pilot started the rotors on the helicopter and began his usual preflight procedures.
The others were gathered to get access to the helicopter, and she realized that there weren’t enough seats. She looked up and swore, then looked at the pilot. “We have too many people.”
“I know,” he said grimly.
Gregor hopped in and said, “Well, this is my helicopter, so you can damn well be sure I’m going in.”
At that, Denny looked over, and Gregor nodded and said, “Denny, get up here. Chucky, Winslow, let’s go.”
It was almost as if he were picking and choosing who he would save. And she knew in her heart of hearts it wouldn’t be her. She hadn’t had anything to do with him all this time that he’d been here. But would he let Mason, Nelson, Axel, and Troy die too?
Just then a big life raft was tossed over the side. She stared at it in shock. As she looked up, Troy and Axel were coming up onto the top deck. Axel picked up Jonesy and tossed him into the life raft and Idiot too, screaming the whole way. “Keep a close watch on those two,” Troy yelled to someone below.
Berkley heard the life raft take off.
As Troy ran over to her, he reached for Gregor and pulled him out of the helicopter. When she turned to look back at Axel in shock, he had somebody in his grasp too. It was Daniel. Lionel still stood beside her.
“Daniel,” he called out, and he raced toward him. Daniel gave him a big hug and then stepped back.
“Go, save yourself,” he said.
Lionel shook his head. “No,” he said. “I need you to come too.”
Daniel gave him a gentle look. “No, buddy. This time you’ll have to take the trip alone.”
“Why?” Lionel cried out, not sure what Daniel was trying to say.
“I’m not coming,” Daniel said.
And then Berkley understood. “It was you, wasn’t it?” she said. “You saw the same pictures that everybody else did, and you found out what they had done to your brother.”
He looked at his brother and nodded. “I didn’t know, buddy. I would have done anything to have stopped it. I’m the one who drugged you and put you in the body bag. I was trying to get you away from those assholes, hopefully off the rig, while I made them pay. The fucking supers were damn easy to take out with an overdose of the same drug they used on the others. But I was looking for an opportunity to get rid of the rest, those sickos who paid for the photos, when these new guys arrived.”
“How did you score the C-4?” Berkley asked, understanding his rage. She’d felt the same over her girlfriend’s rape at the hands of her coworkers but had been helpless to go Daniel’s route. She’d planned to make the men pay through the law.
Daniel looked at Lionel. “I told Jude what happened. He offered to score the C-4 and to bring it to me as he was close by. He wanted to stay and to make the men pay too, but I didn’t want him to know just what I’d done or how far it had gone. He still loves you, kid. He didn’t have any part in this, … but he wanted to protect you.”
Lionel started to cry.
She reached out and held him tight. “So you killed them all?” she asked Daniel. “Even Bruce? Was he involved?”
“No, he wasn’t, but he saw me kill the doc. I had no choice then. I was already too committed. I’m sorry about killing Bruce. … At one time I wondered if I could get off here alive and have them all be fish food. However, with the new arrivals, it was great in one way but not in others. … Besides, my job isn’t quite done,” he said. “I’ve got a beef with one still,” he said. “I just had to wait for him to arrive.” He turned and glared at Gregor, who immediately started screaming.
“You’re fucking nuts,” Gregor said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
Then the rest of it clicked into place for her—why the schedule had seemed so familiar.
“That’s why they were planning the dates,” she said. “I saw the schedule. It was the same dates you were flying in.”
“This was not a scheduled flight,” he said. “What kind of an idiot are you, anyway?”
“No. It was scheduled, but you canceled it, and then, when the blast blew, you came anyway,” she said. “But you were also scheduled to come in for my rape,” she said. “The same as you were here every time they drugged Lionel and before that, with my friend Tabitha.”
He straightened and glared at her. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Do you really think I would have brought these guys in with me if that were the case?”
“Of course,” she said. “It was a perfect cover, wasn’t it?”
“Well, it was,” Daniel said. “Except for one thing that I know. I’ve got the pictures of you doing my brother.”
Gregor’s face twisted with disgust. “I’m not a fucking gay homosexual,” he said.
“No, and that’s why you did it. To put him in his place as, what did you say? The scum and an abhorrence to this world.”
Gregor straightened and said, “You can’t prove a thing,” he said. “You’re full of shit.”
“Actually I can,” he said. “I’ve already given Axel the proof. And what I don’t have, I’m pretty sure Troy and Berkley have already got.” He glanced at the two of them, and they both nodded.
“Yes,” Berkley said. “I can coordinate his schedule with all the rapes. He was part of it right from the beginning.”
“That’s what I thought,” Daniel said. He walked closer to his brother and gave him a big hug.
Troy was hanging on to Gregor, who even now was trying to get back up into the helicopter.
She looked over at Troy and Axel and said, “There’s no room for all of us.”
“I know,” Troy said. “And we don’t have much time now.”
“Shit,” she said. “I don’t have to go into the water, do I?”
“No,” he said, with a gentle smile. “At least I don’t think so.” He said to Lionel, “Come on. Let’s get you up into the helicopter.”
Lionel shook his head. “Not without my brother.”
“No, I’m not going, dude.” He looked over at Lionel, smiled, and said, “Remember, I love you, brother.” He then made a flying tackle at Gregor, the company man. Picking him up over his shoulder, he made a crazy-ass jump and dove off the edge of the rig.