The Cassandra Sanction (35 page)

‘A
hundred
?’ Ben said.

‘Or even less,’ Catalina replied, in absolute earnest. ‘Of course, it wouldn’t happen overnight. It’s not as if we’d all waken up one day to find glaciers popped up in our front gardens, out of nowhere.
The change will be gradual, taking over the planet bit by bit, degree by degree. Winters will start to get longer, summers shorter. There’ll still be sunny days. But slowly, even those will disappear. That’s when the bad times will really begin.’

Nobody spoke.

‘Christ, you’re really serious about this, aren’t you?’ Ben said after a long moment.

‘And I’m not the only one who takes it
seriously,’ Catalina replied. ‘Someone out there knows it’s true and will do anything to stop it getting out.
That’s
why they want to shut me up.
That’s
why they want me dead.’

Chapter Forty-Eight

Later that day, Keller showed Ben and Raul to the guest accommodation on the fifth floor of the lighthouse. The guest floor was partitioned into two compact, self-contained, semi-circular units each consisting of a bedroom, a small living area and an even smaller bathroom. But what they lacked in size, they made up for in modern comforts. Left alone, Ben discovered that
Keller’s men had already brought up his bag and left it neatly on the bed. He wondered if all their abductees got such five-star service.

He tossed the bag aside, stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes for a few minutes. He had a bewildering amount of information to process after listening to Catalina talk. It was going to take some time to sink in fully.

After a long, cool shower,
he returned downstairs. Raul, Catalina and Keller were nowhere about. Ben stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine. He shielded his eyes, squinted up at the sun and thought about what Catalina had said. It seemed strange to imagine its fires slowly dying. He could feel its warmth on his face. One day, people would stand looking at it the way he was now, and feel nothing from it at all. That
was a sad, comfortless thought.

The island was very quiet, just the constant whisper of the surf breaking the silence. Keller’s men were nowhere in sight either; he supposed they must be in their residential block, busy doing whatever they did to bide their time in their boss’s paradise hideaway, or maybe preparing to head back to London to resume the surveillance vigil over Mike McCauley’s
home.

Ben walked over to the row of four Jeep Wranglers parked nearby. All four sets of keys were dangling from their ignitions. He didn’t suppose that car crime was much of an issue on Icthyios. He didn’t suppose anybody would miss one of the Jeeps for a few minutes, either. He climbed behind the wheel of the nearest one and fired up the engine. Nobody came rushing out to stop him, or demand
to know where he was going. Perhaps that was just because there weren’t many places he
could
go.

He followed the twisting, undulating road over the brow of the island and down towards the beach at its low-lying end. Where the road met the airstrip, he pulled up on the asphalt near the hangar in which Keller’s plane was housed. The roll shutter had been left open; he could see the pearly-white
nose of the aircraft inside, and the drums of kerosene and pumping system used for refuelling. Getting out of the Jeep, he looked across the little wooden jetty and saw a lone figure sitting facing away from him at its far end, gazing pensively out to sea.

Catalina.

He walked over the sand to the jetty, stepped onto the weathered planks and approached her. Hearing his footsteps, she turned
and smiled.

‘Hello again,’ she said. ‘Exploring the island?’

‘Actually, I was thinking of going for a run on the beach,’ he said.

‘You look like a runner.’

‘It relaxes me,’ he said.

‘Care to join me for a moment?’ she asked.

‘If I’m not disturbing you.’

‘Be my guest,’ she replied, and motioned at the empty space beside her.

He got the feeling she didn’t want to
speak about the things she’d talked about earlier. As he sat beside her, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the jetty the way hers were, he resolved not to mention any of it. The end of the world couldn’t be a difficult conversational subject to skirt around.

Below their feet, the water swirled and slapped gently around the wooden support posts. ‘Peaceful here,’ he said.

‘I come
down here a lot,’ Catalina said. ‘I’ve covered every inch of this island on foot. This is my favourite spot, where I just sit and gaze out to sea. It’s not as if I have a lot else to do these days,’ she added.

Ben gazed across the Aegean. It was bright and blue, smooth and flat all the way to the horizon. He could see the slightly larger island a few kilometres away.

‘That’s Sárla,’ she
said, following his eye. ‘Our only near neighbours.’

Ben nodded and spent a few more moments drinking in the view. ‘I love the sea,’ he said. ‘I had a house in Galway, right on the Atlantic coast. Used to spend a lot of time there, just like this, looking out at the ocean.’

‘I’ve never been to Ireland.’

‘It’s beautiful. Wilder than here. This place reminds me of it, even though it’s
so different. I had my own little bit of beach and a big old flat rock I used to sit on. I did an awful lot of thinking on that rock.’

‘Sounds like you miss the place.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I ever left.’

She smiled again, sadly. ‘I know the feeling.’

Ben looked at her, said nothing. Her hair stirred in the breeze. She was pensive for a while, and Ben went back to
gazing out to sea. In the distance, a tiny white dot against the blue water caught the sunlight as a vessel emerged from behind the island of Sárla, trailing an even tinier thread of white wake. He shaded his eyes from the sun to observe it.

‘That’s the closest I normally get these days to seeing a living soul apart from Austin and his men,’ Catalina said, pointing. ‘It’s the ferry from Karpathos.
It goes back and forth, carrying supplies, mail, the occasional party of tourists. We get nothing like that here, of course.’

Ben asked, ‘How many people live on Sárla?’

‘Only a few hundred,’ she replied. ‘Mostly fishermen and their families. So I’m told, that is. I’ve never been there, and I don’t suppose I ever will. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever go anywhere again.’

She bowed
her head, and a moment later Ben realised she was crying softly. ‘I feel so alone,’ she whispered. She sniffed, wiped her eyes and composed herself with a visible effort. ‘Please forgive me. I must look awful.’

‘You look fine,’ Ben said. Which was an understatement. Even streaked with tears, the perfection of her face took his breath away.

‘What must you think of me, crying like a little
girl?’

‘You should see me, sometimes. I get through whole boxes of tissues. That’s before I even get onto the kilo tubs of chocolate ice cream. It’s pathetic.’

She laughed, brightening up, and touched his arm. ‘You’re anything but pathetic.’ She smiled. ‘Thank you for being here, talking to me. I’m sorry for what I said before.’

‘That we’re all going to freeze to death?’

‘No, I
mean, when we first met. I called you an idiot.’

‘You might have been right. First impressions, and all that.’

She chuckled, shook her head.

‘What?’ he said.

‘I was just thinking that this is the first real conversation I’ve had with anybody in months.’

‘You must have conversations with Austin.’

‘We exchange points of view. It’s hardly the same.’ She looked at him, studying
him with a deep gaze. ‘It’s funny; I feel I can really talk to you, even though I don’t know anything about you.’

‘I’m just Ben. That’s all you need to know.’

‘Because you won’t say?’

‘Because there really isn’t all that much
to
say.’

‘I don’t believe that for a moment. Tell me, Just Ben. What kind of man would risk himself to help a perfect stranger find their lost relative?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s what I do, I suppose. Or used to do. Maybe old habits die hard.’

‘Used to? You mean, professionally?’

‘A lot of the time, there was no other option for people in that position.’

‘How did you help them?’ she asked.

‘In whatever way was necessary,’ he replied.

‘Are you a detective? A cop? Or should I say, an ex-cop? I suppose you’d have arrested me otherwise.
I must have broken a hundred laws in doing what I did.’

He had to laugh. ‘A cop is the last thing I am.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re the type,’ she said, studying him. ‘A soldier, maybe. I could see that.’

He gave a shrug. ‘That’s a little closer to the mark. Once upon a time, at least.’

‘And what about now?’

‘Retired.’

Her eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘I understand, old man.
Lots of retired folks go to live in Frigiliana. For the peace and quiet. That’s where you met Raul, isn’t it?’

‘That’s not quite why I was there,’ he replied. ‘I like to travel around. It was just a chance thing.’

‘I’m glad, whatever the reason. I need to thank you again for looking after him. He means the world to me.’

‘Raul’s a good guy,’ Ben said. ‘The best.’

‘Yes, he is,’ Catalina
said, then she smiled. ‘I remember how my mother used to get so worried about him when we were little. She always said that Raul had a devil on his shoulder. I was the quiet one, who never got into any trouble. Look at us now.’

‘He kept on believing he’d find you, even when everything seemed to go against him. Even when everyone thought he was crazy. That kind of faith and devotion are rare.’

‘What about you, Ben? Did you think he was crazy, too?’

‘The thought occurred to me a few times,’ Ben admitted. ‘But I was wrong to think it. You’re very lucky to have a brother like him.’

‘I know I am. Where is he now?’

‘Catching up on lost sleep,’ Ben said, backpointing in the direction of the lighthouse with his thumb. ‘I don’t think he’s had much peace of mind in the last three
months.’

‘My fault,’ she said. ‘A lot of things are my fault.’

‘You were only trying to do the right thing.’

‘And now it’s over.’

He looked at her. ‘What will you do?’

‘Do?’ She shrugged. ‘What else is there for me to do but stay here? Like an exile. Stuck in a cage.’

‘A gilded cage,’ he said.

‘Still a cage.’

‘There are worse ways to spend your life,’ he said. ‘Napoleon
lived in grand luxury when they exiled him on Elba in 1814. Household staff, personal guard a thousand strong, fine wine, beautiful residence.’

‘And then he escaped.’

‘Yes, he did. It must have felt good, to be free again. But it only lasted for a hundred days, before they flattened him at Waterloo.’

‘You’re saying he should have stayed on Elba.’

‘Better than where he ended up,
made an example of and living in a crummy shack on St Helena, wishing they’d just put a musket ball in him and be done with it.’

She smiled. ‘You know your history.’

‘Some. What’s that saying? Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’

‘Would you choose a cage?’ she asked after a beat.

Ben shook his head. ‘Not me. I would have done exactly what he did, busted
out of house arrest and taken my chances at Waterloo.’

‘Death or glory.’

‘Then again, I’m not that smart.’

‘I think you are,’ she said. ‘Among other things.’

‘That just proves it. You don’t know me.’

Catalina shook her head. ‘I can tell a lot about people. You’re a decent man. You risked yourself for my brother, and for me. You’re obviously educated, sensitive. A little sad,
maybe. Are you lonely? Is there anyone?’

He looked at her. ‘You mean, as in, “anyone special”?’

She smiled. ‘It’s a very horrible expression, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is,’ he said, smiling too. ‘No, there isn’t anyone special. There was, but that was over a long time ago.’

‘Nor me,’ she said.

‘What about Austin? He seems very fond of you.’

‘Austin least of all,’ she said.
‘What did Raul tell you about that?’

‘He told me that you broke up because Austin wanted you to live the same kind of life he does. I understand he’s a very private person. This island says it all.’

‘A little too private. No, I never wanted that life. And now I’ve been forced into it, by my own actions.’ She sighed. ‘Austin is a good person, he really is. I know he still loves me, or at
least thinks he does. But things can’t ever be that way again between us.’

She fell silent again for a while, and the two of them sat quietly, gazing out to sea for several minutes without either feeling the need to break the silence. Ben hadn’t met many people in his life with whom he could share a moment like that, let alone a stranger.

But when he looked at her again, he could see that
hers wasn’t a tranquil quietness. A deep frown was corrugating the perfect smoothness of her forehead. Her eyes seemed to be moving from side to side without seeing, the way people sometimes unconsciously do when lost in internal reflections. Finally she said, ‘When you were a soldier, did you kill people?’

The question took him aback. ‘What kind of thing is that to ask?’ he said.

‘What’s
it like, to kill a person?’

The way she said it, she clearly wasn’t getting any kind of thrill or ghoulish kick out of it. She was asking the question as though it were a matter of dispassionate, scholarly curiosity. Informing herself. The facts, and only the facts. It struck Ben as odd, but then he already knew very well that Catalina Fuentes was someone who was hungry for knowledge. All
kinds of knowledge, the bad along with the good.

Ben didn’t reply right away. ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world,’ he said. ‘It takes very little effort to end a life. Humans aren’t hard to kill. We’re soft-skinned, relatively defenceless, really quite vulnerable. That’s why a predator like a tiger or leopard that’s too old or sick to hunt its normal prey will often turn man-eater. Easy
meat, literally.’