Page 1 of Murder Island

PROLOGUE

The Bahamas, 1902

IN THE THICK of a midnight squall, a piercing scream burst from the cabin of the tiny schooner. It sounded as if a woman were being murdered. TheOrionwas tucked into a shallow cove, but there was no shelter from the blasting rain. Wind rocked the hull, and lightning struck so close it threatened to split the mast.

Belowdecks, a young woman was lying on a thinly padded cot. Her knees were bent up and spread wide. Her hair was lank with sweat, and her lips were pinched tight with pain. A sturdy brown-skinned midwife leaned over the woman’s bulging belly.

“Push!” she shouted. And again:“Push!”

The expectant father stood against the opposite wall of the cabin, his head brushing the ceiling beams. He was a physician, but he had assisted in only a few births during his training, and that was years ago. Better to let the island woman take charge. She had delivered hundreds.

The boat creaked, and saltwater spit through the seams around the portholes. “Look at me!” the midwife commanded the expectant mother. “One more push! Do it now!”

The father steadied himself and moved across the tiny cabin. He could see the curve of the midwife’s back and, above it, his wife’s face, sweaty, eyes squeezed shut. And then he heard a small whimper, followed by a lusty cry. The father stepped to the side of the cot. Between his wife’s legs, the midwife cradled a bloody pink baby.

“It’s a boy!” she proclaimed.

The midwife sliced the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors and laid the squirming bundle between his mother’s breasts. The young woman kissed her child on the head, just once, before his father took him.

Holding the slippery infant tightly in both arms, the father walked up the short staircase onto the pitching deck. The pelting rain washed the baby clean. The father steadied himself. Then he marched to the opposite rail—and dropped his son into the roiling water.

The baby disappeared beneath the waves. A few seconds later, he bobbed up again, arms and legs churning in the foam. The father tipped his head back and howled with pride. At one minute old, his son was already a swimmer! He reached down and scooped up the dripping infant, then turned back toward the glow of the staircase.

Suddenly, there was a lull in the howl of the wind.Another cry burst from the cabin below. The father gripped his son tight and hurried back down the staircase. His wife’s head was tipped back in exhaustion. The midwife grinned as she held up another squirming bundle.

A second baby.

The swimmer had an unexpected brother.

CHAPTER 1

Chicago, not long ago

THE AIR IN the tunnel was fetid and stale. I felt like I was suffocating with every step. Just five minutes earlier, I’d been walking with Kira in the fresh autumn air. Now we were both underground, running for our lives.

If we hadn’t been together, I would have been chased down already. Kira knew the city tunnel system by heart—every entrance, every exit, every turn. She knew me inside out, too. After all, she was the one who trained me. She pulled me to a stop and listened. Slimy wastewater rose up to our calves. I could hear the trickle of fresh runoff from the streets above. And then—the splash of footsteps behind us.

“They’re still coming,” I whispered.

“No shit,” Kira whispered back. “It’s what they do.”

We both understood who was chasing us. They were operatives from a Russian school for killers—the same school Kira had escaped as a girl. That made her a prime target.

So far, our maneuvers hadn’t shaken our pursuers. We’d just managed to outpace them. Now we were in a section where the overhead work lights were off. The dark made for good cover, but I could barely see the curve of the tunnel ahead.

“There should be a branch about thirty yards up,” Kira said. She pulled me along by my sleeve. “C’mon, Doc.Move!”

The nickname still jarred me. I still thought of myself as Brandt. But to Kira and the people trying to kill us, I was now Doc.

Doc Savage.

The name alone made me a wanted man.

The splashing behind us was getting louder. We’d seen a pack of ten or twelve up top. Clean-cut. Young. Like a bunch of college students out for a walk. Except for their sick little smiles. It was a trademark they all seemed to share. When they came for us on the street, we had to move fast. We dodged traffic all the way south from Hyde Park. At first, I thought we’d lost them at the tunnel entrance. I didn’t think they saw us go down. I was wrong.

And now I was mad.

I grabbed Kira by the arm and turned her around to face me. “Hold on!” I said. “Maybe we should stand and fight. Get this over with once and for all. We can take them. You and me. Right?”

---