the truth after they figured out the password.
âMike,â King said, knowing that he was about to betray his friend by lying, just as he had betrayed his father by believing the email and looking for the iPhone in the tree. âThe email also said your father was part of the stuff happening on the island. If we donât get to the next set of instructions before the deadline, the world would learn about his involvement too.â
CHAPTER 8
Kingâs dad was Mackenzie William KingâMack to everybody, including King, whoâd been calling his dad Mack ever since King could swing a small baseball bat at the lobs that Mack had loved tossing in the backyard of their small home.
Some 20 years earlier, at a friendâs wedding, Mack had met a Canadian girl named Ella Hutchison, a cross-border cousin of the bride. Mack had a reputation then for fighting hard and driving hard, and most people thought it was only a matter of time until his way of living took him into prison. The chance meeting at the wedding had changed things. The instant, utter, crazy, hopeless love at first sight had become family legend. Mack told that to everyone. And after a pause, he added, âShe chased me and chased me until I also fell in love with her.â
Everyone laughed at that. Ella, with her long blonde hair, had a beauty that shone with the faintest curve of a smile. Everyone knew that Mack was the one who fell deep into the pool of love and thrashed like crazy to hold his head above the water until Ella rescued him.
That was part of family history. How Ella had tamed Mackenzie, replacing his wildness with something much more satisfying, a union of souls.
Kingâs birth had, as each of his parents told him constantly, completed their world. All theyâd needed was a small house on an island where the three of them could form a perfect nest of contentment as King grew from toddler to small boy to the man he was becoming.
At Kingâs birth, Ella had suggested they name their son William Mackenzie, a reversal of Mackâs name, Mackenzie William. Naturally,Mack liked the thought of someone in his image but not his clone. Then Ella had pulled a small trick on her adoring and doting husband by suggesting the addition of a second and unique middle name, Lyon. Mack often said the infantâs full name of William Lyon Mackenzie King was almost longer than the baby himself.
With Ellaâs customary sly sense of humor, she didnât ever reveal the reason for suggesting Lyon. No, she waited and fully enjoyed the moment when, years later, someone pointed out a strange coincidence. Just shy of Kingâs ninth birthday, King and Mack finally learned that there had been another William Lyon Mackenzie King. A Canadian, just like his mother Ella. But unlike her, this Canadian was a long-dead prime minister. Ella had found a way to make their family uniquely Canadian while living on the American side of the border.
King, who had looked up photos of the other William Lyon Mackenzie King, had been okay with the Canadian part because he, like everybody, loved Ella. It was the part about sharing the name of an old man with no hair who looked like a bulldog that had no appeal to him.
On the other hand, what was really cool was seeing a movie about King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi and their son Simba. Yes, The Lion King . Or The Lyon King , the movie in his mind, in which he naturally played a center role.
So about the time he learned heâd been saddled with a name to honor a fusty old politician long put into a grave, King rejected his link to a prime minister by pronouncing himself the Lyon King, and he did it with such consistency that others on the island had given up fighting it.
Life as the Lyon King had been wonderful. He and Mack made no secret that they were the two biggest members of the Ella King fan club, and they kept her on a pedestal, where her bright light filled their home.
Then ten days earlier,