Adrift 2: Sundown Read Online Free PDF Page B

with the fantasy of running away, it was Jeremy that had dominated his thoughts. The older man would, in all probability, help Herb with the practicalities of fleeing the compound, and then immediately be tasked with hunting him down, and perhaps even killing him. Knowing Jeremy, if Charles Rennick had given such an order, he would have carried it out, friendship or no friendship. What Jeremy would do now —now that the man who had been his personal dictator for decades was dead, Herb had no idea.
    But he was glad that he was the one with the guns.
    Jeremy slumped heavily into the chair opposite Herb’s.
    “Do I have a mutiny on my hands?” Herb smiled thinly and offered the older man the brandy. Jeremy waved the bottle away.
    “ Please ,” he said. “Loyalty isn’t a problem; you know that. At least, not for those people.”
    He gave a knowing stare, and Herb felt his mood darken.
    “He deserved to die.”
    Herb infused those four words with venom; poisonous enough that Jeremy couldn’t possibly miss the fact that his father’s death was not up for debate.
    Jeremy held his calloused hands up in an apologetic gesture.
    “Just saying. These people have been a part of your family for generations. They don’t serve the Order. They serve the Rennicks. You are the Order.”
    Herb grunted, but said nothing.
    After a moment’s pause, Jeremy cleared his throat a little awkwardly.
    “I’m sorry, about your brothers.”
    Herb’s eyes clouded, and he pointed them at the floor.
    “I tried to stop it, right from the start. They wouldn’t listen. Nobody ever listened. Maybe my father had the right idea. Perhaps the only way to make sure your point gets noticed is to underline it with blood.”
    “Yeah, that sounds like something he would have said. Never thought I’d hear it from you, though.”
    Herb shook his head angrily, and for a few moments a dark silence settled on the small room. He wanted desperately to change the subject, but it appeared that all subjects were currently soaked in violence, one way or another.
    “When was the last time you were in contact with the compound?”
    Jeremy’s expression hardened.
    “Not since the Oceanus was sunk. Your father was unwilling to accept his failure, not until he saw it for himself. He wanted to find the container before he called home.”
    “We need to warn them,” Herb replied, “tell them that the rest of the nest may rise.”
    Jeremy shook his head.
    “Impossible.”
    Herb’s eyes narrowed.
    “Why?”
    Jeremy sighed.
    “Your father had the satellite phone in his pocket. I wish you’d checked before you decided to throw him overboard.”
    Herb squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, and silence fell once more. It was Jeremy that broke it.
    “The guy who pulled the trigger, what’s his story?”
    “According to Edgar, he killed two of the Three with a cleaver.”
    Jeremy arched an eyebrow.
    “ That guy?”
    Herb snorted a laugh.
    “I know, right? But Edgar was very definite. He thought Dan Bellamy was important. I imagine, at the end, my father thought so, too.”
    He grimaced.
    “Dan Bellamy,” Jeremy repeated softly, as though the name might mean something to him. Apparently not. “Did he talk, in the container?”
    “He called out for somebody, once. His wife, I think. Don’t think he knew exactly where he was. Once he realised, though? No; not a word. I guess he’s in shock.”
    Jeremy looked dubious.
    “Never seen shock do that to a person before.”
    Herb had no response to that.
    “Did Edgar say anything else?”
    “Just that he had told Dad about the vampires dying, and that Dad’s response was to fucking kill us all.”
    “He hoped to cast this as an accident, I think. Maybe even claim that it was the vampires who caused the explosion and hope that the rest of the nest wouldn’t retaliate. Losing his own sons added a certain…authenticity to his story.”
    Jeremy delivered the words without emotion. Herb tried to receive them