“They’ll follow us,” Jack objected.
“They’ll try,” Sam admitted. “But they’re insects, not bloodhounds. I doubt they can see tracks at night.”
“He’s not sure,” Toto said.
“No, he’s not,” Sam admitted.
“True,” Toto said. Then, to his imaginary friend, “He’s confusing.”
“Which way do we run?” Dekka asked.
“Drake will expect us to head straight for town. We don’t want to fight him out in the open. So, toward the train.” He nudged Jack. “You want another laptop, right?”
Jack squirmed. “Well, at least some more of the batteries.”
“Okay, then. Into the water. Swim for the marina. If they don’t chase me, I’ll come back before you can reach the dock and we’ll think of some other plan.”
“Could we think of that other plan before this one?” Jack asked.
Caine stood in the bow of Quinn’s boat as it plowed through the very light chop toward Perdido Beach.
Quinn had warned him to sit down, but Caine wasn’t worried about falling in the water: he would not fall. He used his power to support most of his weight so that his feet barely touched the deck.
He was not going to arrive hunched over. He was going to Perdido Beach like George Washington crossing the Delaware: standing tall.
He was floating. Almost flying. Physically, yes, but mentally as well. He was filled with a warm sense of perfect well-being.
They needed him. They had sent for him. They had found they could not survive without him. Him, not Sam. Him.
Penny lay crumpled in blankets in the back of the boat. Diana sat staring at empty space. Bug kept starting to whistle and then stopped himself, only to start all over again.
Quinn was at the tiller, looking at Caine’s back. Caine could feel his eyes boring into him. Quinn’s doubt and worry were written all over his open face.
Diana had been completely silent. Caine figured it was dawning on her that he was still in charge, that she still depended on him. That she still needed him as much as the kids in Perdido Beach needed him.
Well, she would get over it. Diana was a survivor. She would get past her disappointment. And together they would be the first couple of Perdido Beach, like king and queen.
The thought made him smile.
“It’s a pity we don’t have a camera,” Caine said. “I’d love to capture the moment of my return.”
“I’m cold,” Penny moaned.
“You’re just not getting enough exercise,” Caine said, then laughed at his own cruel joke. Penny’s sourness wasn’t going to ruin this for him. Not her sourness or Diana’s sullenness or Quinn’s guilt.
This was Caine’s moment.
Quinn maneuvered the boat expertly alongside the dock. He tied it off and then stood waiting to help them up. Caine refused Quinn’s hand. But looked at him hard. Eye to eye until Quinn had to look away.
“What is it you want, Quinn?” Caine asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What would make you happy, Quinn? What do you want above all else?”
Quinn blinked. Caine thought he might even be blushing. Quinn said, “Me and my crews? We just want to fish.”
Caine put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. Caine looked him in the eye with that simulation of openness and honesty Caine could still manage when the occasion demanded. “Then, Quinn, here’s my first decree: you are free to fish. Keep doing what you’re doing, and nothing else will ever be asked of you.”
Quinn started to say something but stopped in confusion.
Caine spread his arms wide, palms down, and levitated out of the boat and onto the dock. The grandiosity of it made Caine laugh out loud, laugh at his own sheer arrogance.
Behind him, Diana and Bug climbed wearily to the dock. Caine lifted Penny and set her, helpless, on the wooden planks.
“Things will be different this time,” Caine said. “There was too much contention, too much violence the last time. I tried to be a peaceful leader. But things went badly.”
“I wonder why,” Diana muttered.
“These people,” Caine said grandly, sweeping his arm toward the town, “need more than a leader. They need . . . a king.”
It had come to Caine in a flash of insight. Until just a minute earlier the thought had never entered his mind. But with all Diana’s teasing about him being Napoleon, he’d found a screenplay about Napoleon in the mansion’s library and he’d skimmed it.
Napoleon had taken over after the French people had grown disillusioned with a brutal, ineffectual republic. They had accepted Napoleon’s rise to absolute power because they were just tired, burned out. They had wanted and needed someone with a crown on his head. It was only natural, really. It had been that way for most of human history.
Napoleon had named himself emperor. Like Michael Jackson had named himself the King of Pop and Howard Stern called himself the King of All Media. Weird thing was: that’s how you got to be king, by calling yourself one. And getting others to agree.
King.
Caine saw Quinn’s mouth drop open.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a disbelieving smile form on Diana’s face. She shook her head slowly, ruefully, as though finally understanding something that had puzzled her.
“From now on, Quinn, you’ll refer to me as your king. And you and your people will be left alone.”
Caine felt all eyes on him. Penny savagely ready to enforce his will, however much she hated him in her heart. Bug smirking, ever the useful tool. And Diana amazed, and amazed by her own amazement.