was struggling quietly against her restraints. I ran past her to Mike’s side. He’d been punched and kicked, and the bullhook was stuck into the ground, pinning both hands behind his back to hold him in place. It was unbearable — unthinkable, really — to see him incapacitated by this murderous perp.
“You’re mad to come back,” he whispered as I tried to lift the long instrument out of the ground.
“Not a word more,” I said.
I could see Zukov approaching the edge of the dark pit. I removed my flashlight from my pants pocket and knelt beside Mike.
“You got the gun?” he asked.
“Take this,” I said, placing the flashlight in his hands. I knew he’d be furious if I told him about the Glock. “Count to five and turn it on.”
“What will that—”
“I’m still in the driver’s seat. Just listen to me,” I said, my mouth against his ear.
Zukov had turned his back to us as he retied a length of aerial silk to the boulder where it had been earlier. He was preparing to float down into the pit while I slipped across to the corner beyond Chat Grant. He would be looking for me as soon as he alit.
He was halfway through his descent when Mike pushed the button to illuminate the flashlight. Zukov turned his head as the eerie torch suddenly backlighted one of his captives. Neither of us could see much against the blackness of the dirt wall, but Zukov stormed in that direction, assuming that I was holding the torch, trying to set Mike free.
“Where are you?” he shouted to the heavens, unable to see me crouching alongside Chat.
“Shoot, Coop,” Mike yelled as Zukov worked to pull the bullhook out of the ground. “He’s going to use this on one of us. He’s going to kill one of us with it. Shoot, dammit, will you?”
Zukov kicked Mike again and laughed as he pulled his weapon loose and raised it with both arms, over Mike’s chest. “I have not come to bring peace on earth,” he said, “but a sword, like Jesus Christ.”
I lifted the heavy ax from the ground beside Chat’s head and quickly took three or four steps that brought me directly behind the killer. Mike was wide-eyed, shocked out of his poker-faced expression at the sight of my armed advance.
Zukov turned his head to see what had captured Mike’s attention. I swung the ax with all my strength and struck at his outstretched arm.
He fell to his knees, cradling his wounded wrist. I picked up the flashlight and shined it on him as he doubled over in agony, covered in his own blood.
Fyodor Zukov’s scream was louder than any human sound I’d ever heard.
FIFTY-FOUR
I took the gag off Chat Grant’s mouth and untied her hands and feet. She wrapped her arms so tightly around my neck that I thought she’d never let go.
“Don’t try to talk,” I said, stroking her matted hair. “There’s no need to say anything.”
There would be hours and hours of debriefing after she was treated at a hospital.
Mike was limping around the hole, about twenty feet by forty. Zukov seemed to have passed out — maybe his body had gone into shock from the blood loss — and Mike had bound his legs together. He wasn’t going anywhere, but neither were we.
“His arm?…” I started to ask. I had meant to disable the madman, not to sever his hand.
“Don’t go soft on me, blondie. You took a healthy bite out of him, but you didn’t get the whole thing. I don’t think he’ll put the word ‘flying’ in front of his name anymore.”
“Let’s have your jacket,” I said, reaching out for it as Mike removed it.
“How come you didn’t warn me about this place?” he asked.
I wrapped his blazer, with its shredded sleeves, around Chat and we kept her huddled in a corner, trying to warm her up.
“It wasn’t a hole last time I was here. I think it’s the foundation of the old laundry building,” I said.
“But what’s that big old ruin you were describing?”
“I had forgotten all about it. In the 1870s, long before the leper colony was built, a professor from Harvard started an institution here. Built a home and a laboratory and a boathouse. The Anderson School of Natural History. That must have been the ruins of the Anderson mansion — much grander than the leper colony ever was.”
“One of the haunted houses?”
“Exactly. I’m sure my brothers will delight in telling us about it,” I said. “How’s the leg?”
“I’m likely to do a trapeze act before Zukov is.”
Both of us were pacing back and forth — Mike nursing a mild limp — grateful that the fog was lifting and counting on help to get to us soon.
It was about four thirty in the morning when I heard voices. Mike answered first. “Come this way! Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.” I didn’t know who responded, but I was elated that a team was on their way.
Within minutes, four uniformed Coast Guardsmen were standing over us, and beside them was Maggie Rubey Lynch.
“That’s Mike Chapman,” she said with a smile. “And Alex Cooper.”
“You’re a woman of your word, Captain Lynch,” Mike said.
“Well, I promised an armada, but all I came up with was a flotilla. Best I could do on short notice.”
“I’m still buying the drinks if you get us out of here,” Mike said, blowing her a kiss. “Can you get Ms. Grant up first, guys? She needs medical attention.”
“We’ve got four more men on the boat. Two are on their way with a stretcher. Looks like you solved this problem yourselves,” one of them said, pointing at Zukov.
“For the moment, we have. She gets the first stretcher. I’ve got a tourniquet around his arm, but it’s a big bleed.”
“Helicopter’s on the way. We just airlifted the four crewmen from the trawler.”
“So that situation has a happy ending too,” Mike said.
We waited with Chat until the guardsmen lowered a portable ladder into the space of the old foundation. “You think you can climb up that?” one asked. “We’ll ride you the rest of the trip.”
The dazed young woman told them she could, and slowly made her way up the rungs to the top. She collapsed onto the stretcher and two burly guardsmen prepared to carry her off.
I was next up the ladder, with Mike behind me. I took one of Chat’s hands, reminding her that she was going to be fine, and that she needed to concentrate on getting herself better in the next few days. I was sure that Faith would be flown up to her sister’s bedside at Mass General, the Boston hospital that was a short hop from these islands.
She clung to me until we heard the welcome sound of the chopper blades hovering over the island. The sky was lightening, and I could see a grassy field that would make an easy landing pad for the helicopter.
Once Chat Grant was airborne, the crew worked on rigging another stretcher to lift the unconscious Zukov out of the hole in the ground. The second chopper was on its way for him.
“You two ready to head back to the Cape?” Captain Lynch asked.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said to Mike. “Come with me to the Vineyard. It’s what — Saturday morning? Let’s just chill for the weekend.”
“You look more worried about hacking at Zukov than saving Chat’s life. Of course I’ll go with you, just to order your priorities if nothing else. Make sure your head’s on straight.”
“Maggie, will you take us there?”
“Sure. You can explain to all the impatient Vineyarders why the newspapers are coming over so late today.”
