Shock Wave(48)

Ì admit there were other considerations."

"How did you manage to stay out of my sight during the weeks we were at sea?"

"Would you believe I remained in my cabin with an upset stomach?"

"That's so much rot," snapped Maeve. "You have the constitution of a horse. I've never known you to be sick."



Deirdre looked around for an ashtray, and finding none, opened the cabin door and flipped her cigarette over the railing into the sea. "Aren't you the least bit amazed at my miraculous survival?"

Maeve stared into her eyes, confused and uncertain. "You told everyone you were in the freezer."

"Rather good timing, don't you think?"

"You were incredibly lucky."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Deirdre contradicted. "What about yourself? Didn't it ever occur to you how you came to be in the whaling station caves at exactly the right moment?"

"What are you implying?"

"You don't understand, do you?" Deirdre said as if scolding a naughty child. "Did you think Daddy was going to forgive and forget after you stormed out of his office, swearing never to see any one of us again? He especially went mad when he heard that you had legally changed your name to that of our great-great-great-grandmother. Fletcher, indeed. Since you left, he's had your every movement observed from the time you entered Melbourne University until you were employed by Ruppert & Saunders.

Maeve stared at her with anger and disbelief that faded as something began to dawn slowly in her mind. "He was that afraid that I would talk to the wrong people about his filthy business operations?"

"Whatever unorthodox means Daddy has used to further the family empire was for your benefit as well as Boudicca and myself."

"Boudicca!" Maeve spat. "Our sister, the devil incarnate."

"Think what you may," Deirdre said impassively, "Boudicca has always had your best interests at heart.

"If you believe that, you're a bigger fool than I gave you credit for."

"It was Boudicca who talked Daddy into sparing your life by insisting I go along on the voyage."

"Sparing my life?" Maeve looked lost. "You're not making sense."

"Who do you think arranged for the ship's captain to send you ashore with the first excursion?"

"You?"

"Me.'

"It was my turn to go ashore. The other lecturers and I worked in sequence."

Deirdre shook her head. "If they had stuck to the proper schedule, you'd have been placed in charge of the second shore party that never got off the ship."

"So what was your reasoning?"

"An act of timing," said Deirdre, suddenly turning cold. "Daddy's people calculated that the phenomenon would appear when the first shore party was safe inside the whaling station storage caves."

Maeve felt the deck reeling beneath her feet, and the color drained out of her cheeks. "No way he could have predicted the terrible event," she gasped.

"A smart man, our father," Deirdre said calmly as if she were gossiping with a friend over the telephone. "If not for his advance planning, how do you think I knew when to lock myself in the ship's freezer?"

"How could he possibly know when and where the plague would strike?" she asked skeptically.

"Our father," Deirdre said, baring her teeth in a savage smile, "is not a stupid man."

Maeve's fury seethed throughout her body. "If he had any suspicions, he should have given a warning and averted the slaughter," she snapped.

"Daddy has more important business than to fuss over a boatload of dismal tourists."

"I swear before God I'll see that you all pay for your callousness."

"You'd betray the family?" Deirdre shrugged sarcastically, then answered her own question. "Yes, I believe you would."

Bet on it."

"Never happen, not if you want to see your precious sons again."

"Sean and Michael are where Father will never find them."

"Call in the dogs if you have a mind to, but hiding the twins with that teacher in Perth was not really all that clever."

"You're bluffing."

"Your flesh-and-blood sister, Boudicca, merely persuaded the teacher and his wife, the Hollenders as I recall their name, to allow her to take the twins on a picnic."

Maeve trembled and felt she was going to be sick as the full enormity of the revelation engulfed her.

"You have them?"

"The boys? Of course."

"The Hollenders, if she so much as hurt them--"

"Nothing of the sort."

"Sean and Michael, what have you done with them?"

"Daddy is taking very good care of them on our private island. He's even teaching them the diamond trade. Cheer up. The worst that can happen is that they suffer some type of accident. You know better than anybody the risks children run, playing around mining tunnels. The bright side is that if you stand with the family, your boys will someday become incredibly wealthy and powerful men."