of agreement.
Lazovic spoke: “Whatever we are, the patient doesn’t deserve to die. If you kill us, you’ll kill him.”
Lazovic’s hands were still buried in the chest, but he inclined his head, nodding toward the head of the unconscious patient.
“You can see, his life is in our hands,” Lazovic continued. “Not just at this moment or for the next hour. He’ll need our care for at least the next couple of weeks before he can leave the island.”
“I don’t give a shit about him,” Favor said. “He’s as evil as any of you.”
“Is he?” Lazovic said. “He wanted to live. That’s his great sin. He used what he had, just to buy a few years. Can you really say you wouldn’t do the same?”
Favor didn’t answer. He was looking at Stickney. Favor thought of him picking up the rifle, raising it to protect his friends. What that must have required. He thought of Stickney throwing away the rifle.
Stickney looked inexpressibly sad.
Favor looked down at the patient, distantly noting the sunken cheek, the eye askew. He was unconscious, suspended between life and death, fragile. Completely vulnerable.
“We did what we came here for,” Stickney said. “This place is done.”
“Of course it is,” Lazovic said. “We can’t possibly continue.”
“Shut up,” Favor said. He pointed to Ronnie’s body, the retractor in his chest. “Take that thing out. Clean him up. Wrap him in a sheet. I’m bringing him back to his mother.”
He walked out, through a door and into the hallway where Mendonza was holding the shotgun on two Russians, one badly wounded, the other badly scared. Favor felt suddenly detached, drained. He looked curiously at the wounded man. He leaned in closer to examine the man’s wound, and from the way he reached up to fend Favor off—one arm and leg moving while the other lay still—Favor saw that he was paralyzed.
Favor said, “Who did this?”
Mendonza said, “Not me. I guess it was you.”
Favor stared at the injured man on the floor, his eyes darting, wild. He was finished, Favor thought, no future but a lingering death. Favor took out the balisong and opened it. It would be easy: slit the jugular and the carotid, finish what he had done. It would almost be a kindness.
Favor folded the knife and put it away.
Stickney came through the doors at the head of the corridor. He was holding the body, wrapped in a surgical sheet.
Favor said, “You got him, Stick?”
“I’ve got him,” Stickney said.
They walked down the hill together, Mendonza following a few steps behind, holding the AK, checking back every few seconds.
Nobody followed.
Marivic was waiting with Arielle at the dock. She shrieked when she saw what Stickney was carrying. She knew. She followed, wailing, as Stickney carried the body down to the cabin and laid it out on the floor.
Mendonza climbed into the boat, and Favor was about to do the same when Arielle put out a hand, touched his arm.
She made a vague gesture to Favor, hands and face.
He understood.
He sat at the edge of the dock and lowered himself into the water, in over his head. He came up and rubbed his face and his arms, wiping off the blood. It made dark clouds in the water. He kept splashing and rubbing his exposed skin until he was clean, the water around him clear.
Then he climbed up on the boat, and Mendonza backed it away from the dock and pointed the nose to the north.
They reached Zamboanga around mid-morning. While Mendonza refueled, Favor called Lorna Valencia. He told her briefly what had happened before he handed the phone to Marivic.
From Zamboanga, Mendonza chose a route that ran along the north coast of Mindanao, through the Surigao Strait, and into Leyte Gulf. Marivic stayed in the cabin with the body, but Arielle went down in the late afternoon and brought her up as the dark green hills of Leyte slid by on the port side.
Mendonza slowed and brought Banshee in toward shore. Ahead they could make out the highway and the rutted road up to the village and, through the trees, the huddled huts and houses of San Felipe. Dozens of people were standing on the shore. As the boat got closer, Favor could make out Lorna Valencia among them, looking out, waves lapping at her feet.
Mendonza brought the boat in very slowly and let it run aground gently on the soft mud and sand of the beach.
Arielle brought Marivic to the side, but Marivic wouldn’t leave until she saw Favor coming up with