Chapter 41

A quick glance down the beach revealed the glow of flashlights playing across the dark sand. The way the light wavered and bounced, Kurt figured the people holding the flashlights were running.

At nearly the same moment, the patrol boat’s engine roared, and the craft began turning back toward the beach.

“Not out of the woods yet,” Joe suggested.

Kurt looked around. The volcanic rubble rose on a jagged incline behind them for about fifty to sixty feet. After that the rainforest took over. “That’s exactly where we should be.”

There was no point trying to hide or bury the inflatable. Kurt shoved it until one of the waves picked it up and pulled it back out into the water. At best it would float down the beach and be thrown back onshore: at worst it would wash back and forth and act as a distraction. In the meantime he and Joe would have to find a route up into the jungle.

They took off, sticking to the rocks and wading through a tidal pool in hopes of hiding their trail and their scent. “We can’t smell that strong,” Kurt said, “we were just in the ocean.”

“Did you forget the twenty minutes of vigorous paddling that brought us ashore?”

Kurt shook his head. Sore arms and shoulders would not let him forget it.

The patrol boat seemed to be heading toward the wrong part of the beach, but the dogs wouldn’t miss them and were coming on hard. Though a different pitch in their howls told Kurt something had changed.

Another tidal pool appeared. Kurt waded down into it and continued ahead, his eyes on the rock and jungle to their left. It was difficult to see much of anything, but all they needed was a crack to sneak through.

Behind them the sound of the dogs changed pitch yet again. They’d been held up. Reined in as their handlers came upon something worth looking at.

“They’ve found the raft,” Joe said.

“Too bad it didn’t get past the breakers,” Kurt replied.

The spotlight from the patrol boat swung across the beach, lighting up the squad of men in the surf and the empty raft. After a few seconds it swung back to the north and along the rock face, heading their way.

“Down,” Kurt said, submerging into the warm shallows of the tidal pool.

Joe dropped silently into the water beside him, and the spotlight passed over them once more, continuing on down the beach. Behind them the dogs and their handlers released the raft and resumed their march.

“Be nice if we could find the cave that Five and his friends came out through,” Joe said.

Kurt was thinking along similar lines, but as they searched for an opening, the disorganized nature of the volcanic rock frustrated their efforts. One opening that looked like a cave turned out to be a crevice in the rock face that closed off several feet back. Another spot was actually narrow and foreboding. Hard to get in and out of, with no idea of how far it might go, but not the kind of opening one could haul a boat through. Nor a place Kurt would want to be trapped and mauled by a pack of angry dogs.

They continued moving in spurts. The sound of the wind and the breakers was occasionally loud enough to make the dogs seem distant, but it was an illusion. If Kurt and Joe stopped, they would be found in sixty seconds. The problem was obvious. Every time they stopped to hide from the spotlight, the dogs and the men holding their leashes closed in.

“We might have to climb,” Joe said.

“Last resort,” Kurt said. “Unless you find a ladder.”

The spotlight swept the beach again. Stopping and then coming back toward them. It spread across the rock behind them, dancing around, but remaining in the same general area. Instead of ducking down completely, Kurt turned toward the rocks as it passed by. As the light painted the rocks he saw what he hoped would be their way out. A zigzag gap from which a small stream of water was emptying onto the sand and trickling down the beach.

“That’s it,” he said. Digging into his backpack he pulled out a small drawstring bag, large enough to hold a pair of boots, but filled with something soft and powdery. “Follow me.”

He left the cover of the pool and made for the trickling stream. Joe followed, crouching low, but the men on the patrol boat saw them go. The spotlight swung fast until it covered them, lighting up the running figures from behind.

“Perfect,” Kurt said. “Keep it steady, please.” He could now see exactly where he needed to go. He raced into the opening as the dogs were let loose. Gunfire rang out and rifle rounds pinged off the rocks around them, blasting jagged little chips into the air. He cut to the left, behind the first jag in the rock.

The spotlight could no longer find them, but the pack of hounds was bounding up the beach. Kurt continued moving. He urged Joe past him as he loosened the strings on the boot-sized bag and began dumping the contents all along the trail.

With the last of the contents gone, he tossed the bag and followed Joe. Heading deeper into the canyon, chased by the snarling, barking dogs.

As the dogs reached the area Kurt had dusted, the barking changed to howling and baying. They yelped in pain, like they’d stepped on dozens of thorns. Kurt continued forward, immensely pleased with himself.

He caught up to Joe and they climbed into the forest. The sound of the dogs and the men dropping behind while the spotlight was filtered and blocked by the foliage and trees.

“What was that?” Joe asked.

“Cayenne pepper mixed with some red habanero. I crushed it up to a fine, fine dust.”

“I thought your eyes looked red when you came back from the commissary.”

Down below, the sound of the animals yowling was pitiful, but still music to Kurt’s and Joe’s ears. The sound of men coughing and spitting and swearing added to the joy.

Kurt found his eyes watering even from the little that must have wafted up toward him and resisted the urge to rub his eyes with hands that were probably dusted with the material.

“I wouldn’t want to breathe that stuff in through a gas mask,” Kurt said. “I’m guessing those dogs won’t be able to smell a thing for days.”

“That should give us time to come up with our next trick,” Joe said. “If you recall, our plan was to land on the island in secret. In case you forgot, that means without anyone knowing we’re here.”

The secrecy of their mission was blown—Kurt couldn’t deny that—but they were on the ground in one piece. That was often the hardest part.

They continued through the woods, putting room between themselves and the beach. As the slope flattened, the trees grew taller. The rainforest-like overhang reminded Kurt of parts of Hawaii, where the lushest foliage imaginable sprouts next to hunks of pitted lava rock.

In this section they came upon a body. Not a tattooed man like Five or one of his brothers, but a uniformed man whose rotting features were hard to look at and whose uniform resembled those worn by the men who had just been chasing them. The dead man had been speared like a fish, with a broken-off shaft still sticking out of his chest.

Kurt crouched in the dark, both surprised and intrigued by the discovery. “Someone got this guy pretty good.”

“Who?”

Kurt wasn’t sure. But the razor-wire-covered wall bisecting the island made a little more sense now.

If the man had possessed a gun, it was nowhere to be seen, though plenty of other items were still attached to his belt and harness. Kurt saw a radio and pulled it free. He handed it to Joe and then pulled two magazines filled with 9mm ammunition.

Joe briefly turned the radio on, then almost instantly switched it off. “It has power.”

That, Kurt thought, could play to their advantage. He reached inside the man’s coat, looking for ID or key cards or even a flashlight. He found nothing, but heard something.

He whipped around just as several men came out of the trees. They looked almost like natives, tanned, scruffy-faced, muscular. But they wore pants and shirts, albeit dirty and ripped ones. They carried spears like the one that had impaled the dead man. And most important, their necks were covered in tattoos.

Four more came from the other direction and, in an instant, Kurt and Joe were surrounded. They raised their hands slowly.

“What do we do?” one of the men asked a fellow with a scarred face and a single arm.

“Kill them!” the man said. “They work for the Overseer.”

“No,” Kurt shouted, ready to deflect any thrusting spear. “We came here to help. The Gray Witch called for us. We’re NUMA.”

A murmur ran through the group. A nervous tension arose.

Kurt was playing the only card he had. If he was wrong, he and Joe would end up rotting on the jungle floor just like the man beside them. But if the story given to Five and his friends had been shared more widely, they just might survive.

The pause held. No one attacked. Then a female voice called from the darkness. “Tie them up,” it commanded. “Bring them to me.”