When The Storm Passes

Chapter 1 The Island

The Island

Isle of Ons. January, present day.

The dock emerged gradually into view.

It was a long, pitifully narrow concrete breakwater, battered by the waves, some of which would wash over the top and sweep across its entire surface.

Struggling toward the dock was a potbellied fishing vessel, rocking from side to side each time the waves lifted it up like a child’s toy, the paint flaking from its hull.

The Punta Suido, its name painted in red letters on a bronze plaque attached to the front of the cabin, had clearly seen better days.

Hunched in the bow, the sole passenger contemplated the rugged silhouette of the island, dominated by a hill with a towering white lighthouse perched on top.

Just to the south of the main island lay the smaller, inaccessible islet of Onza, inhabited only by seabirds and surrounded by a tumult of roaring foam that broke against its cliffs.

Whenever a wave shook the boat, the man’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the gunwale.

Although Roberto Lobeira was hardly the type to flee danger, he loathed the sea with every fiber of his being. And yet here he was. Because he had to reach the island.

Roberto registered the intense concentration of the skipper—a sinewy man with a thin beard and a hard expression, wearing a yellow oilskin—as he maneuvered the boat, applying careful bursts of the throttle and pulling hard on the wheel.

Upon leaving Bueu, Roberto had been told that in these conditions, there was no question of docking and that the best they could do was to bring the boat in close to the breakwater and for him to jump.

When they were just a few yards from the dock, he broke into a sweat. The tension was palpable as the crew slung tires over the edge of the boat. The conditions had grown markedly worse during the crossing, and the vessel reared and plunged like a wildly bucking horse.

“Everyone, get ready!” shouted the skipper, leaning out of the side of the cabin. “We only have one shot at this!”

The engine roared as a particularly strong wave buffeted the boat, and the Punta Suido came within inches of striking the cracked concrete of the breakwater.

One of the tires hanging over the side screeched as it scraped against the concrete, leaving a long scar of black rubber, which the water immediately swept clean.

“Now!” cried the skipper. “Jump onto the dock! Jump!”

Roberto eyed the gap. Those few feet might as well have been a million miles.

A narrow strip of black water foamed furiously between the side of the fishing boat and the concrete, gaping like a hungry mouth.

It shrank and expanded as each wave hit.

If he fell in, he’d be crushed like a grape in a winepress.

“I’m not sure about this!” he shouted, turning his head. “I think we’re going to—”

“Stop messing around!” the skipper yelled, spittle flying. “Just fucking jump!”

Roberto didn’t wait to be told again. He tossed his baggage off the boat and leaped after it just as the tires along the hull jammed against the dock with a long, ominous creak. His feet hit the concrete as a wave crashed against the dock and transformed into a cascade of icy water.

Before he could wipe the salt water from his eyes, the fishing boat had pulled away with a powerful burst of its engines and was spinning around so that its bow was pointed toward the horizon.

“See you in a month’s time. Take care!” shouted the skipper from the stern, before adding something that puzzled Roberto. “And stay out of trouble!”

Another surge of seawater brought him back to the task at hand. A wave-battered dock was hardly the most sensible place to hang around. He dragged his bags to the end of the breakwater and paused to consider his next step.

He looked around. Behind him, the visitor reception booth—where in the summer there would have been a line of hundreds of tourists—was boarded up until next season.

Welcome to paradise, he thought to himself.

The Isle of Ons was part of a national park, and visits were strictly regulated.

Even so, during the summer months, it was busy with day-trippers and vacationers who rented houses or flocked to a campsite on one of the few flat areas of land that the island had to offer.

Ferries arrived every few hours, unloading hordes of travelers and then returning to gather them up at the end of the day, sunburned and revitalized by this rugged getaway just an hour from the mainland.

In the fall and winter, things were very different.

When October arrived, the flow of travelers came to a halt, and the island was left deserted and silent. The tourist ferries were laid up in port, waiting for the following summer, and the rocky, windblown den of Ons went into hibernation.

Hence having to hire a fishing boat to get here. Ons would be completely cut off until the good weather returned.

And completely cut off was precisely what Roberto needed to be.

Disconcerted, he looked around for some indication of where to go. To his right, a path led uphill to a cluster of houses, the nearest thing to a village to be found on the island.

With freezing hands, he took his permit from his pocket.

Somebody should have been there to meet him, to check that everything was in order, and to give him the keys to his rental cottage.

But there wasn’t a soul to be seen, and the only sounds were those of the breaking waves, the whistling wind, and the cry of seagulls overhead.

He was gripped by the disturbing thought that he would have to spend the next month alone, like some modern-day Robinson Crusoe, but checked himself. There had to be somebody around.

Just then, he heard voices coming from up the hill.

He made as if to shoulder his heavy backpack but put it down again.

The one thing he could be sure of was that nobody was going to steal his baggage in this desolate place.

Halfway up the hill, he realized he had made the right choice.

Roberto kept himself fit, but by the time he reached the top, he was completely out of breath.

Now he discovered the source of the voices.

Two figures stood in the middle of the road, oblivious to his presence.

One of them was a tall, well-built man in his forties. Wearing a black raincoat, waterproof pants, and thick rubber boots, he had a round face and a bushy, white-flecked beard. The other was a boy of about fourteen, with pale skin, tousled blond hair, and green eyes that sparkled with anger.

The man was holding a cardboard box above his head, out of reach of the boy, who was jumping up and trying to grab the box. Every time he did so, the man just took a step back.

“Give them to me!” The boy was clearly upset. “They’re mine!”

“You want them?” said the man. “Here you are!”

He reached inside the box and threw something at the boy’s feet. When the boy bent down to pick it up, the man gave him a shove, sending him sprawling to the ground. The boy got up, covered in mud, his face red, and started jumping up again in a vain attempt to grab the box from the man’s hands.

“Go on, then, you little prick,” he mocked. “Pick them up; pick them up.”

Without stopping to think, Roberto strode over to them.

He’d never been able to stand bullies. Perhaps in other circumstances, he would just have remonstrated with the man or threatened to call the police, but the nearest police officer was on the mainland, more than an hour away.

Roberto’s whole body ached; he was tired, wet, and in a rotten mood—a bad combination that set him off like flames beneath a bubbling cauldron.

Some people can keep their calm in any situation, whatever happens.

Others have outbursts of temper that rage like a fire, short but intense.

And then there are people like Roberto who generally belong to the first group but who, on occasion, lose their cool.

He didn’t like it when that happened because then things got out of control.

But he couldn’t help himself.

A couple of years earlier, he’d gotten into trouble when sharing a trench with a unit of soldiers in a desolate corner of the Balkans while writing a series of articles on the sufferings of war. On another occasion, he’d almost ended up dead in a ditch while researching Mexico’s Gulf Cartel.

Nobody could say that Roberto Lobeira was a coward.

Before he’d had time to think, he charged up to the man and shoved him in the back. Caught unawares, the bully staggered, eyes wide in surprise. The box was jolted through the air and hit the ground, its contents spilling. Thor and Iron Man looked up at him from where they lay in the mud.

It’s a bunch of toys, Roberto noted in some part of his brain that seemed to be dispassionately observing events. It’s a load of superhero figures.

“What the fuck?” the other man shouted. “Who are you?”

“Leave the kid alone.” Roberto’s voice sounded as if it belonged to somebody else.

“This freak?” The man glanced at the boy, who was scrabbling about, picking up the figures scattered on the ground, oblivious to the altercation. “Who’s going to make me? You?”

“If I have to.”

The man glared at him, smiling derisively.

Roberto could imagine what the man saw—a skinny stranger, five feet ten, his black hair plastered to his head, a tired expression on his angular face.

The man was at least four inches taller than Roberto and must have outweighed him by a good thirty pounds.

Beneath the man’s raincoat, Roberto could make out the bulging muscles that were the product of a lifetime of working on boats.

From the man’s expression, it was clear he had made the same calculation and reached a similar conclusion. But it was already too late.