Life Goes On , Tayell, Frank [best pdf ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the world that I let you three trek off alone? Again! Captain, that icebreaker works. What kind of range does it have?”

“Twenty to thirty thousand kilometres,” Adams said.

“Loan it to me,” Tess said.

“You’d need a crew,” Adams said. “I won’t give you one if you intend to go to Canada. Not when we know so many bombs were dropped there.”

“Agreed,” Tess said. “Puerto Morelos would still be worth investigating. It’s too close to here for me to hold out much hope of finding people, or a tanker, but we should still look. Same with Savannah. From there, would we have the range to return to Robben Island?”

“You should, but I’ll ask Mr Dickenson to examine the engines and confirm it.”

“Or maybe we return to Dégrad des Cannes and go south, and around the Cape,” Tess said. “But first, we’ll go as far north as we can, and then we’ll turn back. All of us. Including you three. Would that satisfy your conscience?”

Pete opened his mouth, but Olivia beat him to it. “Absolutely,” she said. “But there is one final favour to ask, Captain.”

Epilogue - Do You?

Corn Island

The two cartel-terrorist prisoners had been brought inside the shore-side bar-restaurant. They were seated two metres apart, with their hands cuffed behind their backs, and with three sailors on guard.

“That’s Felipe,” Corrie said, indicating the thirty-year-old with the broken glasses, receding hairline, and mouse-muscle physique. “He had something to do with import and export before the outbreak. It sounded like accounting work, but only in the U.S. I think Mikael knew him in Miami, but they’d met infrequently. I got the impression Felipe would sometimes come to Mikael’s house, but not to meet him.”

“Was he meeting Hernando, or the sisters?” Tess asked.

“I’m not sure,” Corrie said.

“What do you know about her?” Tess asked.

The other prisoner had been knocked unconscious by an explosion at the western dock. She was in her early twenties with the well-defined musculature of someone who’d devoted time to her physique. The placement of her tattoos suggested some of that time had been in prison. Both sides of her scalp were shaved, revealing the ink beneath. On the right was a death’s head. On the left was a single branch from which three roses grew. A cartel tattoo which could be hidden as quickly as it took for the hair to grow out.

“That’s L.C.,” Corrie said. “Lucia Catalina. She was the one who grabbed us up in America. But I think she came from south of the equator. She didn’t like taking orders from Hernando, and really, really didn’t like Mikael.”

“Do either of you want to talk?” Tess asked.

L.C. glared at Tess. Felipe glanced at her, then bowed his head.

“He knows stuff, sure,” Corrie said. “But it’s all about drugs and import and sales. She knows a bit more about the sisters’ plans, but not where they are now. I think she’s just muscle. Another assassin.”

“So he knows where the bodies are buried, and she knows how they died?”

“Pretty much,” Corrie said.

“Do they speak English?”

“Absolutely,” Corrie said.

Tess turned around, checking Zach was pointing the camera the right way. This had to be recorded for posterity, and for public broadcast back in Canberra.

“My name is Commissioner Tess Qwong, and I speak with the authority of the Australian Government and the United Nations. You are being charged with war crimes. Specifically, complicity in genocide and the use of a banned chemical weapon, a substance we believe is VX nerve agent.” She paused, looking between the two prisoners, watching for any reaction. “And you are being charged with crimes against humanity for your involvement in the development and distribution of the virus which caused the outbreak, and for involvement in orchestrating the nuclear war which followed.” Again she paused.

Felipe had hung his head, but L.C. had lifted hers, and was now watching Tess. She appeared calm. Puzzled, perhaps. Amused. But not scared.

“Do either of you have anything you wish to say?” Tess asked. “No? Zach, stop recording. Take the camera outside.”

Felipe looked up. L.C. looked across to Felipe, but she still said nothing, nor did Felipe.

“That was your chance,” Tess said. “Reflect on that in what little time you have left. Take them away.”

Felipe began struggling as the sailors stood him up. L.C. spat at Tess’s feet.

As they were led away, Corrie crossed to the bar, leaning against it. “That wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped for.”

“It never is,” Tess said.

“I was hoping for some weeping or pleading, or something,” Corrie said.

“I hoped for some solid information,” Tess said. “I gathered what I could from Hernando’s place. But I don’t think it will help us, nor would anything those two have to say. The impression I’ve gathered is that they ran the operations in the Caribbean and the Mexican Gulf, yes?”

“Hernando did. But I don’t think even he ran it. He was more of an overseer, or a messenger. He’d take messages from the sisters to the local gang-leaders, and then check in on Mikael, and then go back to the sisters. He was trusted to know their secrets, but not critical to their operation.”

“Since he wouldn’t have had the answers we want, those two certainly won’t,” Tess said. She walked over to the bar, looking at the rows of empty shelves. “Times like this call for a drink.”

“Champagne is traditional,” Corrie said.

“Nicko found a couple of bottles of rum,” Tess said. “That will have to do, but it’s aboard the ship, and we should be getting aboard ourselves.”

Corrie looked at the door through which the two prisoners had left. “It feels so… so unsatisfactory.”

“What would you rather we do?” Tess asked. “What alternative is there? Laws have existed for longer than coppers. The concept of justice has been around since the beginning