Temporary Retreat

Jack found Colin.

Colin was still curled up in the same spot, exactly as he had been a few hours earlier, his arms wrapped around his knees and broken chains hanging from his wrists to the floor. His head was buried in the crook of his arms, and his shoulders trembled faintly.

Jack walked over, his footsteps echoing through the corridor. Colin looked up. His eyes were swollen and red, tear tracks streaked his face, and the tip of his nose was red from the cold. He looked at Jack and moved his lips, but no sound came out.

Jack crouched, took the ring of keys from his waist, and slipped the smallest one into the shackle on Colin's wrist. The lock had rusted shut; the key would not turn. He gripped the shackle between his fingers and put his hardened knuckles to work. The iron lock split down the middle, and both halves fell to the floor. The chain slid off Colin's wrist with a clatter.

A deep ring of chafing marked Colin's wrist. The skin had rubbed raw and formed a thin scab. He flexed his wrist and winced, but made no sound.

Jack stood and headed toward the communal cages. Colin followed, stepping lightly for fear of being noticed.

Jack took the large ring of keys from his waist and tossed it to Colin. "Here are the keys. Open the doors and let them decide for themselves whether to leave."

Jack had already turned toward the ammunition store.

The ammunition store was on the main building's second basement level.

Its heavy iron door had three interlocking locks. Only the Arena Master and the Vice Warden had keys. The Vice Warden's key ring was on Jack's belt. He took it off and tried the keys one by one. The third slid into the keyhole and turned.

The iron door swung open, releasing a rush of gunpowder and machine oil. The store was small, perhaps twenty square meters. Concrete walls surrounded shelves neatly stacked with wooden crates bearing different markings. Rifle rounds, pistol rounds, shotgun shells, barrels of gunpowder, and several crates of grenades.

Jack went to the back and found the gunpowder barrels. Each wooden barrel stood as tall as a person, with the two large characters for "gunpowder" written on its side and an iron band securing its lid. He lifted a lid. The barrel was full of black, granular powder.

He pulled a coil of fuse from an ammunition shelf. It was a gunpowder fuse as thick as his thumb, wrapped in oiled paper around a powder-filled core. He pushed one end into the barrel and packed the powder around it, then drew the other end to the doorway. From his pocket, he took the lighter he had swiped from the Vice Warden's desk. Its metal case was engraved with a chain pattern.

He crouched at the doorway. The lighter's flame flickered at his fingertips, and he lit the fuse. It hissed as it burned, sparks racing along the oiled paper and giving off a sharp smell of smoke.

Jack stood, turned, and left the ammunition store. He did not close the iron door.

In the corridor, Colin had opened every door in the communal cage area. The slave fighters poured out. Some could barely stand and leaned on the walls as they walked. Some shielded their faces, unable to open their eyes against the lights. Some cried, some laughed, and some dragged their broken chains along with blank faces. The guards had vanished. They had probably heard the commotion from the ammunition store and fled first.

Colin stood in the middle of the corridor, still holding the keys. Each time he opened a cage, he passed the keys to someone inside and told them to open the next one. The ring traveled through the crowd, its jangling rising and falling along the corridor.

Jack came from the far end of the corridor and paused beside Colin. "The North Wing is about to blow. Take the East Staircase, go out through the kitchen's back door, then follow the coast west. There are boats at the dock."

Colin looked at him. "What about you?"

Jack did not answer. He kept walking.

"You... you're not coming with us?"

Jack looked down at Colin's hand. His fingers were as thin as chicken claws, with dirt and blood lodged under the nails. Jack took Colin's hand off his sleeve. "I'll cover the rear."

Colin's eyes reddened again, but this time he did not cry. He let go and followed the crowd toward the East Staircase. After a few steps, he looked back. Jack had already disappeared around the corner.

An explosion sounded from the second basement level.

First came a muffled boom, like thunder. Then a chain of explosions followed. The gunpowder barrels had ignited the ammunition and grenades on the shelves. Bullets popped in the flames, their slugs flying wildly down the corridor and leaving shallow pits in the concrete walls. The grenades exploded with even greater force. The blast tore the iron door from the ammunition store and hurled it down the corridor into the opposite wall, punching a huge hole through it.

Fire surged up the stairs from the second basement level. Thick smoke spread down the corridors and billowed across the fighting arena's ground floor. Guards screamed as they ran outside. Some shouted, "The ammunition store blew up!" Others yelled, "Run!" or "The Arena Master is still upstairs!" Firelight turned the arena stands orange-red. The gamblers were long gone, leaving betting slips and broken bottles scattered across the floor.

Jack climbed the East Staircase to the ground floor and went out through the kitchen's back door. The night wind struck his face, carrying the salt of the sea and the charred stench of the burning Iron Cage City. He glanced back. The main building's North Wing had become a gigantic torch. Flames licked out of the second-floor windows, and glass shattered in the heat, raining shards below. The blaze lit up more than half of Banaro Island and cast a trembling patch of orange across the sea.

At the dock, the slave fighters scrambled for boats. An old fishing boat had been pushed into the water and rocked on the waves. People jumped from the dock; some landed in the boat, while others splashed into the sea and thrashed toward it. Garma sat in the stern with his crutch tucked under one arm, one hand gripping the gunwale and the other directing people to sit down. "Don't crowd! Stop pushing! If the boat capsizes, nobody gets away!"

Colin stood on the dock instead of boarding. He searched the crowd, his gaze moving between firelight and moonlight, but could not find Jack.

Jack emerged from a dark alley beside the dock, his footsteps thudding on the planks. Colin turned and saw him take shape out of the darkness. Ash and sparks clung to Jack's coat, and his hat brim hung low over half his face.

"Get aboard," Jack said.

Colin jumped into the boat, and Jack followed. The moment Jack stepped in, the boat lurched and sank deep into the water. Less than ten centimeters separated the gunwale from the surface. Garma looked at Jack, then at the gunwale. His lips moved, but he said nothing.

Jack went to the stern and picked up an oar. The wooden shaft looked thin in his hardened hand. He braced it against the dock and shoved hard. The boat slid away and headed into the dark sea.

Behind them, Iron Cage City burned.

The flames stained the sky orange-red. Smoke climbed a hundred meters before the night wind carried it east. The main building's North Wing had collapsed completely, and the South Wing was still burning. Flames licked from every window, while roof tiles burst in the heat with sharp cracks. A sea of fire had swallowed the fighting arena's ground floor. Iron cages warped and twisted in the heat, their wire mesh flickering in and out of sight amid the flames.

The slave fighters watched Iron Cage City burn behind them. No one spoke. Some cried silently, their shoulders jerking. Some hugged their knees and buried their faces in their arms, afraid to look. Others stared at the flames without blinking, orange-red fire reflected in their eyes as though they meant to sear the sight into their memories.

Garma sat in the stern with his crutch across his knees and both hands resting on it. He looked toward Iron Cage City, his face calm, as though he were watching a fire that had nothing to do with him. His lips moved. Jack could not hear what he said, but from the shape of his mouth, he seemed to be counting.

Colin huddled in the bow, his coat pulled tight and his chin resting on his knees. His eyes were red, but he was not crying. He watched Jack, who had his back to him as he rowed. Firelight outlined the muscles in Jack's shoulders, and every stroke sent the whole boat surging forward.

Fog began to rise from the sea, gleaming silver-white in the moonlight. The firelight of Iron Cage City grew hazier within it, dwindling from a mass of flames to a halo, then to an orange-red dot, before vanishing into the mist.

The boat entered the fog. Only the waves and the splash of the oar broke the silence. Jack stopped rowing and let the boat drift. He took a stack of letters and several photographs from his pocket.

The letters were handwritten in neat script on paper yellowed at the edges. The first page was addressed to "Mr. Bege" and signed "Arena Master." Jack flipped through them quickly. They covered Iron Cage City's operations, gambling revenue, the Executioner's record, and the distribution of mafia power in West Blue.

His gaze stopped on one passage.

"Twelve families currently operate within the West Blue territory, paying a combined tribute of approximately eighty million Beli per month. The Caroni Family failed to pay last month; Mr. Bege should send someone to deal with them. The Rosario Family's arms supply is stable and can provide two hundred firearms of various types per month. The Moretti Family's human trafficking business has been disrupted by the 16th Branch; recommend increasing payments to the branch."

Jack turned the page. The next sheet held a hand-drawn map showing the territories and main strongholds of West Blue's twelve mafia families. Several names and figures were written in a corner: the exact amount each family paid every month.

The following page was a list titled "Payments to the 16th Branch." It contained more than a dozen names, along with ranks, positions, and monthly payment amounts. At the top was "Colonel Bastian," followed by "Five hundred thousand Beli per month; major operations billed separately."

Jack stared at the name for two seconds. Bastian. Commander of the 16th Branch, a Navy colonel. A branch commander who took mafia money. A soldier who traded civilian blood for cash. Jack folded the list and put it in his pocket.

The photographs were small and black-and-white, showing arms deals and human trafficking transfers. In one, a man in a Navy uniform stood on a dock with a cargo ship behind him. Wooden crates marked as weapons were piled aboard. The uniformed man was shown in profile, but Jack recognized him. Bastian.

The correspondence used Underworld code words, a mix of codenames and veiled phrases. Garma had taught Jack the basics of reading it: "goods" meant weapons, "flock" meant people, "shepherds" meant traffickers, and "fishermen" meant Navy personnel on the take. Jack spent about ten minutes reading the records from start to finish, committing the key names, places, and numbers to memory.

He folded the list, slipped it back into his pocket, and picked up the oar to keep rowing.

The 16th Branch. That was where he needed to go.

To enlist—and to kill.