Now
"You know..." said Priest, his voice muffled by the motorcycle helmet he wore to block the sun, as he walked the sandy beach alongside Mona and Shaun, "This place really makes me miss Gotham."
A day and a half after leaving Liverpool, Captain Barbossa's submarine, the Black Pearl had arrived at the island, the location of which neither Mason nor Barbossa had disclosed. There were no visible buildings or signs of inhabitation, only a thick and green forest. All along the way, there was an atmosphere ot tension aboard the vessel, the Crew didn't seem too excited about the new arrivals. The new arrivals did not take too comfortably to their new surroundings either, even Mona and Priest who had previously spent several weeks aboard Nemo's Yellow Submarine. Gump and Hunting had kept to themselves, Mona, Priest and Shaun stuck together, albeit Shaun was moping for almost the whole time. There was a tall blond woman fleetingly glimpsed by Mona, and then there was O'Brien, a tall thin man who talked with a Boston accent, he seemed to be a very friendly person to the extent of being borderline overbearing.
At the moment, Jenny, Barbossa and Mason walked together at the front, while Mona, Shaun and Priest walked five feet behind them, the blond woman a few feet behind, then Gump and Hunting, then the three Saints, followed by Eel O'Brien at the rear, who was the only remaining member of the Caracas cell.
"It's only a stop, Priest." said Barbossa, "This where we all must gather. This is not our final destination."
"By all do you mean everyone who hasn't been killed?" asked Priest, ineffectively scratching the back of his hand that itched from the leather gloves he wore.
"Yes, precisely... Ah, I see we're not the first ones here." said Barbossa as he pointed on the other side of the island, where there appeared to be people going about, and a black vessel, ostensibly a submarine was surfaced a hundred meters away.
"How many submarines do you people have?" asked Shaun, who was reeling from all the recent sudden changes, finding himself caught in a new life of danger and intrigue, filled with shady characters and independent submarines.
"Just the three." said Barbossa, "That would be the Red October."
"Wait a minute, Yellow Submarine? Black Pearl? Red October? What about you, Mason, why don't you have a submarine called the Pink Phallus or something?"
"I'm an infantry man, Mister Priest," said Mason as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, ignoring the unwarranted insult, "Just like you."
"I'm no infantry man."
"Your files say different."
"That was in a different time, long gone and forever lost. My soldiering days are long dead and buried."
There was a sound of something in the water and all ten looked out to the ocean to see the Yellow Submarine surface, bursting out of the depths like some golden leviathan.
"You know, painting a submarine yellow is one thing," said Mona, "But actually calling it 'The Yellow Submarine' is just silly."
"There they are, George." said Jenny as she and Costas took a brief break from their work to look at Mason, Nemo, Raimus and Barbossa as they stood opposite each other, "The four horsemen of the apocalypse."
The crew of the Red October had nearly finished setting up a camp on the island; a fuel generator was set up but wasn't turned on and wasn't serving a purpose at that point. All non crew members were making themselves comfortable, and so Jimmy decided to enter a tent had selected earlier before going to relax.
"Hey!" said Jimmy as he saw Priest laying face down on the floor of the tent.
"Piss off, I'm sleeping."
"I ain't pissing anywhere! You want to sleep or whatever you go and find your own tent!"
Priest got up and stared Jimmy in the face.
"Do you mind? I have various things to ponder, and I've already taken off my helmet."
Jimmy stared back at Priest, but with recognition.
"Dude, you're supposed to be dead."
"What? Do I know you or something?"
"I saw you get shot in the chest four times in a New York 7-11, about four months ago... I almost slipped on your blood when I left... Your hair was longer then."
"Yeah, I go a hair cut... Anything else?"
"Sure." said Jimmy as he eagerly retreated, "Enjoy the tent."
"The New Yorkers; the Saints have survived," said Mason as the four Captains stood in a square facing each other, "As have Gump and Hunting, who are our code-breakers. Mr. Collier, Mr. Priest and Ms. Sax have also made it."
"Collier?" asked Raimus.
"He ran a pub that we used to stage some meetings and assisted Sands on occasion. The League killed his wife and left him to die. The other two rescued him and insisted on bringing him along."
"I see," said Nemo, "Ms. Lee has also survived, and has managed to successfully fulfill her mission in Japan. My Gotham contact has also survived, since he has remained in contact with only me, I expect he will continue to operate, as long as he only deals with me. I hope you don't mind."
"I'm sure we don't. Only two from the Berlin cell remain," said Barbossa , "Kroenen and Wagner, the psychic. One man of the Paris cell survived, but died after loosing too much blood during his escape, and we couldn't get him to a hospital in time."
"Is Kroenen under control?" asked Mason, "I shudder to think what would happen if he ever wasn't."
"As long as Miss Wagner is alive and well he won't harm us, she has him like a ring around her finger."
"Shouldn't she perhaps remain in the Black Pearl, then? Doesn't she need to be close to him to control him?"
"Her grasp on his will is diminished with distance, yes. But that would take a few days. We're perfectly safe, trust me."
"Only Patrick O'Brien survived of the Caracas cell." said Raimus, "The Cairo cell is intact, though one suffered an injury when they broke MacGuffin out of his prison. MacGuffin himself is denying that he's MacGuffin, insisting he's a retired Scottish electrical engineer named Brian Talbot."
"He must think this is all a trick to get him to admit its really him." said Mason, "Breaking him out of prison, kill a few of his captors in the process then whisking him away to an uninhabited island. It does seem unbelievable"
"Or maybe it really isn't him." said Barbossa.
"That's impossible."
"Because the man who caught him told his location to your man Priest before offing himself? I admit it is rather convincing."
"How can you believe he may be faking it?"
"I'm not saying he's faking it. But would you believe the ramblings of a man who blows his brain out on a whim? Besides... I'm not too comfortable with Priest, I had heard of him once from a fellow pirate called Teague, he said he wasn't as sounds as he appeared."
"Priest's reputation isn't the point," said Mason, "How are we going to get Talbot to open up?"
"One of the Cairo men used to be an interrogator for the Iraqi Republican Guard..." said Raimus before Nemo interrupted him.
"You're not suggesting we torture him, are you?"
"Sayid can be persuasive without resorting to such tactics, however if the need arises, he'll have to do what he has to do. Time of the essence, and we have sacrificed to liberate him, after all."
"Definitely not," said Mason, "He's been tortured for six months, I doubt Sayid could break him in a few days' time."
"Besides, we have a psychic in our ranks." said Barbossa, "Ms. Wager will talk to 'Talbot'."
"Yes, I suppose that would suffice." said Raimus.
"Now let's talk about the intelligence wing." Barbossa said, "Priest said that there was a massacre in Sands' apartment that had been cleaned up, that means they took all the bodies."
"Which means that some of them might still be alive, I know. But we can't do anything for them."
"That's unfortunately correct; however the point is that whoever the treacherous turncoat within our ranks has been feeding the League information is, he could still be within our midst."
"Who do you suspect, Nemo?"
"Everyone outside the four of us."
"What do you mean everyone?" asked Barbossa, "Surely it had to be someone with proper skills to be able to attain Sands' location and records."
"It would seem that way. But it's unlikely for the League to use an informant when they can dispatch one of their own to do the job. It could be a regular crew member on any of our submarines, who is capable to predict when the communications will be unattended which is when he could try and find the location of all others. It could have been any of the cells, using any of the lap tops we issue our signal could be traced... It really could be anyone outside the four of us, perhaps with the exception of Jenny and Mister Collier."
"I don't like it here. I don't trust these people." Aisha said as she sat outside a tent, sharpening her knife as she often did.
"Shocking." quipped Sayid as he sat nearby, stretching his wounded leg, "I don't like it either, I had hoped to never see a beach again in all my life."
"You're both insane." said Almasry, in a rare once-in-a-blue-moon occasion of being in a chatty mood, "It isn't Sharm al-Sheikh, but I like it."
"We had the luck to get out the Cairo while everyone else was getting killed." said Barnes as he lay on his back on a straw mat, enjoying the sun with his eyes closed, "For the first time in the nearly two years we've been working together we have no people to spy on, no codes to break and nothing to shoot. So shut up and enjoy it."
"What about Aladdin?" Sayid asked, "Is he going to stay locked in the Red October for the rest of his life?"
"Raimus told me he'll release him tomorrow at the latest."
Priest stretched on the floor having just woken up, his spine crackled and he grunted contently. The first stretch of sleep he had all week was relaxing, he was invigorated and felt in high spirits, though the craving in him was not gone and seemed accentuated by his rest. He got up to his feet and pulled his shirt off, then stepped out of his tent, nt bothering to put on his boots.
It was well into the night, his innate vampiric sense of night time told him it was close to midnight. The camp had gotten more crowded as crew and operatives alike took to the tents they had been pitching all day along. Many of them were outside, sitting and chatting around bonfires. Aisha, whom Priest had not met, much like he didn't every one else turned to look at him with cold glare. He simply returned the look for a moment till she looked away, scanning his surroundings, he could see Jimmy, the MacManus Brothers and Will Hunting and Forrest Gump Jr., the latter two Priest has fleetingly crossed in the Black Pearl. Their eyes were set on Priest at the moment, Jimmy obviously was telling them about how he had seen him slumped on the ground in a store in Manhattan, dead. He could also see Nemo conversing with Barbossa and Jenny, the three seemed to be greatly at home with each other, as if they were ancient friends. Mona and Shaun were no where to be seen, he conjectured that they were somewhere with that German girl they had met earlier, who seemed to look familiar, though he had not been to Germany in the girl's lifetime.
A few seconds and everyone had lost interest in him. Priest discretely turned around his tent and walked away, into the jungle. Among the thick bushes and tall trees and the pitch black darkness he walked, guided by sense superior to a normal man, finding his way with ease. His way was bound for some territory, any territory would do. Eventually he could hear growls, and heard something big as it flew in the air and managed to duck in the last moment.
The beast landed fifteen feet away and turned to stare at that disrespectful intruder that had just invaded his territory, and the intruder gazed back.
Priest could see that the beast he had managed to anger, a great, mean looking gray wolf, almost four feet in heights, and mad as hell.
"'My grandmother, you're one big fucking wolf!" mumbled Priest as he crouched, bearing his fangs, every inch of him ravenous. Ravenous was Priest, for having not had a drop of blood for an entire week, not having been in a decent scrap since he had left London the first time, which was almost a month ago.
The great wolf charged forward, his eyes glimmering with ferocity in the moonlight. Priest returned the favor.
While Priest dukes it out with the big bad wolf, you can pass the time by reviewing and junk.
Also, I'm writing a film noir kind of story over at the Max Payne section, the story can be accesed through my profile. I'd appreciate it if you could check it out.
Next Chapter: Happiness is a warm Gun. Meet the new M, and bring an apple for Professor Sax.