16

TERUMBU ISLAND, LATE JULY

The swim back to the beach was arduous; however, Havok pushed aside the exhaustion, and thought. His brain, acting like an old tape recorder, played back everything that had occurred in the last few hours, while his body mechanically pulled him to an unseen shore.

Before he knew it, his hands scraped against a rock, and he could hear the slow cadence of water as it lapped against smooth sand, then silently crackled in its retreat. He searched the beach to see if an enemy patrol was waiting for him. All he saw was unruffled sand that glistened like newly fallen snow under the light of the now-uncovered moon. He lowered his feet and pulled the rifle slung across his back over his head. He held the M14 in front of him and waded toward the stream that cut through the expanse of clean, undisturbed sand. The moonlight seemed as bright as the sun’s rays, beaming down, exposing him.

Havok remained hunched as he walked upstream and into the jungle. He was about to stand up when he heard a noise that was foreign to the jungle. It was a cough, soft and slight, but still a cough. Quickly but smoothly, he lay facedown in the bed of the flowing stream, with his rifle next to him. With running water splashing against his face, he waited. A few seconds went by before he started to hear mushy footsteps in the jungle mud somewhere off to his left. Hoping he would be mistaken for a rock in the center of the stream, he remained where he was, with his hand under his chest to hide the luminescent dial of his watch. The sound of footsteps turned into a line of camouflaged limbs that filed past him two yards away. The patrol seemed to take forever to pass. Although it seemed like a whole army, he counted only six pairs of legs.

Havok waited a full two minutes after the last man passed, and when he was sure there were no stragglers, he relaxed and moved his hand out from under his chest. The glowing hands of his watch showed it was two fifty a.m. He thought of trailing the patrol in case they ran into Stone, but then thought better of it. He knew Stone, and the smartest thing for him to do was to rest and wait for his friend.

Havok left the stream and crawled up to a group of ferns that crowded the bank. He sat there and shivered, listening to the quiet forest around him. Just after three a.m., a splashing din obliterated the tranquil silence. He craned his head above the broad leaves and looked upstream. A figure was pushing itself to its feet in the shallow stream. Havok sprang from cover and leapt straight at the shadow, landing atop the body and roughly clamping his hand over the man’s mouth. He whispered harshly, “Will you shut up, you hemorrhoid! You’re waking up the neighborhood.”

Stone’s body went limp, and Havok removed his hand from his mouth.

“A patrol came by a few minutes ago,” Havok whispered into his friend’s ear, “and they might head back this way.”

“I know,” retorted Stone quietly. “I followed them. Now get off me. The water’s cold.”

Havok helped his friend up, and together they moved several yards farther inland to talk and share a canteen of water.

“Did you get the layout of the camp?” Havok asked.

“Sure did,” Stone answered, “including the lab. It was big enough to be a storage building and stout enough to be a typhoon shelter. I’m sure it was both. There’s a stack of sealed metal boxes in the middle of the room, with their lids screwed on. There’s also quite a few empty containers stacked on a workbench. They’re like metal Nalgene water bottles. I’ll bet the boxes are full of those things.” He paused to take a gulp of the warm canteen water, then asked, “What the hell is sarin, anyhow?”

“The only thing I know,” Havok said quietly while still looking around them, “is that it’s a man-made nerve agent first manufactured during World War II by both the Japanese and the Germans, and it’s deadly. A drop the size of a pinhead can kill anybody standing within feet of it.”

“What’s next?” Stone asked solemnly.

“Next,” Havok answered, “we go find ourselves a seaplane and a professor, and make plans for stealing both the sarin and the professor.”

The men stood, gathered their dive gear, and started to make their way back to their boat. By the time the tired pair reached the southern shore of the smaller bay, located halfway between the larger bay and the cove hiding their boat, a gray dawn had replaced the cover of night. They stopped where the jungle gave way to the confused mass of mangrove roots bordering the bay. Havok sniffed the air. A slight easterly breeze brought with it just a hint of campfire smoke. Havok knew they were dangerously exhausted, and with daylight approaching, walking around the island became even more risky. But, as tired as he was, Havok could not sleep without knowing all the variables. The men at the camp last night had said the sarin was almost ready for shipment, and he knew the Russians and Kang could only spend so much time on this island before being found out.

Twenty minutes later, the two men lay prone on the damp jungle floor, observing a different camp from the one they had watched just hours ago. This camp was much smaller than the other one had been and not as shipshape. Empty bottles, opened tin cans, food wrappers, and other trash littered the bare ground, and all but one of the four army tents had wet laundry hanging from the angled anchoring ropes. One man dressed in flight coveralls, a bit paunchy, stood over a dying fire, poking it with a stick. Havok quickly concluded that the personnel here were not like the professionals at the other camp, and to confirm his assumption, other men began to exit the sagging tents dressed in wrinkled green flight coveralls. These men were aviators, not soldiers.

Across from the tents was a large two-engine seaplane painted a mottled yellow-brown. Camouflage netting was draped over the huge airplane and hung down from the wings. The paint job and the netting effectively disguised it from any great distance. Havok recognized the seaplane as a variant of the Russian-made Beriev multipurpose amphibious plane complete with a high-wing and T-tail–engine configuration mounted on a monohull fuselage. The starboard wing of the airplane extended over the ground and into the jungle. Under the wing, Havok could see what looked like a portable workbench with drawers and a large vise mounted to its flat surface. A few feet away, near a thicket of bamboo, an olive-drab rain poncho covered something.

The sun broke free of the horizon’s hold and turned a gray dawn into a brilliant blue sunlit sky, signaling the remainder of the camp’s residents to leave their tents. As men left the tents, they converged on the man at the fire, who got the fire going again and was preparing a large pot of tea. Most of the aviators were trim, but not as physically fit as the Russians at the other camp. They talked quietly, smoked cigarettes, and joked occasionally while watching the man prepare their tea.

After a few minutes, the paunchy fellow turned his head toward the heap under the wing and said something to his companions. They responded with an outburst of laughter. He stepped jauntily toward the covered pile with a smirk on his face, while his comrades catcalled behind him. As the paunchy man bent down to remove the poncho, a figure underneath it sprang up and launched a punch that landed squarely in the man’s crotch. The man howled and doubled over in pain, grabbing at his genitals. The figure on the ground slapped the man’s cheek with an open right hand. The sharp crack of the slap echoed into the jungle, and the luckless man hobbled back to a group of howling spectators.

The figure maintained a defensive stance for a minute longer, then sat down on the raincoat. Havok saw that it was a woman. Her hair, though only shoulder length, was matted and uncombed, and she wore only a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. She drew her legs up against her chest and swiveled around on her butt, turning away from her crowd of tormentors and facing the nearby jungle.

“She must be Professor Bonne-Bouche,” Havok whispered to Stone without looking at him.

“I’ve never met a professor with balls like that before,” Stone said.

“You’ve never met a professor period.”

Stone ignored the remark, and they turned their attention back to the camp. Havok felt sorry for the woman. Please hold on for just one more day, he begged her silently.

A nudge in the rib cage grabbed his attention away from the woman.

“Time for an Irish goodbye,” Stone said. “We’ll come back for her tonight.”

Not ready to leave yet, Havok turned to his friend. “Hold on, I’m going down to say hi.”

Before Stone could protest, Havok slipped the heavy dive gear off his back and disappeared into the surrounding trees.

As Havok circled around the eastern end of the camp, he kept his eyes on the woman. He noticed that under the dirt was the face of a beautiful woman. Though sitting on her haunches, she looked like she would stand just over five feet tall. Other than the gym shorts and tank top, both of which were black with grime, she wore only a pair of leg irons clamped around her dirt-covered ankles. The strain of captivity and being forced to sleep on the ground like a mongrel dog had etched deep lines into her tired face. Still, he could not help but look into her face and gaze at the native beauty that the filth failed to disguise. He admired her beauty and her defiance, both of which probably bugged the hell out of her captors.

But Havok also knew it couldn’t last forever. He thought about recent events and assumed that she had been held captive for about two weeks now. Lost hopes would consume her bravery, eventually forcing her to give in to her tormentors and to death. Separating her from her companions, ill feeding her, and forcing her to sleep on the damp ground were all tools used by experts to break their victims’ spirits.

***

Pilar Bonne-Bouche sat shivering on the hard ground. Even though it was not cold, the little food she had received reduced the ability for her body to warm itself. Her petite body had long ago burned up what fat reserves it had to begin with. Drained of energy, she found it difficult to hold her head up or even concentrate, and that little show she had just put on for her captors had almost killed her. Sitting on the foul poncho with her tired arms wrapped around her dirty, folded legs, she dared not show them her weakness or her misery. Inside, though, she knew the truth. She was weak, scared, lonely, and had no way of knowing if any of her students were alive or dead.

Desperately she longed for the touch of a friendly soul and to be held in the strong arms of a kind human. Barely able to hold back tears of self-pity, she thought of her childhood and her murdered father, a kind and innocent scientist who had been killed in a landslide caused by the greed of a ruthless mining company owner. The owner she had sought was found on this very island. She remembered the years of following her father around the Pacific, living life out of a backpack, and finally taking his position at the university after his murder. Sadly, she thought now, she would give it all up‍―the books, her work, the revenge for her father’s murder‍―just for the garment of humanity to envelope her and take her from this evil place.

As she grew ever more despondent, a slight movement just within her peripheral vision seized her attention. She turned her head. Her eyes widened, and the grit under her heavy eyelids scoured her eyeballs painfully. A face emerged from the foliage four feet from her. The face was streaked with dirt and sweat, and an enormous mustache held tiny bits of grass. His eyes were a welcome sight, though. They were bloodshot and raw, but those large browns twinkled and offered the comfort and peace she most desperately needed.

Silently, the apparition spoke to her. She watched the firm lips form the words “Don’t worry. Help is here.”

Just as quickly as the face had appeared, it melted back into the jungle, leaving Pilar wondering if she had just looked death in the face. She stared blankly for a moment and then realized that the face was not one of death but of life. She lay on her side, wrapped herself in the pungent poncho, and slipped into a deep sleep, a weak smile on her weary face.

***

It was miserably humid by the time Havok and Stone reached the Outfit, and they sweated profusely under the load and the dense canopy that trapped the heat and humidity. Both were thirsty and tired, and their physical condition ordered them to go straight to their boat, but they ignored that order. Instead, they skirted the edge of the small cove, stopping and listening every few feet, until they reached the bush in which Manny was hiding.

“Manny,” Havok whispered loudly.

The old Filipino slowly stood and simply stated, “We had company.”

Havok and Stone dropped their loads where they stood. Havok said, “Really?”

“Yes,” Manny said, turning back to the bush. “Boss, I was sitting down there inside the plant, and a face looked down at me.”

The broad-leaved ferns were a little over four feet tall. Havok stepped inside the circle of plants and saw flattened vegetation where Manny had been sitting. Meanwhile, Stone pointed his weapon in front of him and began to search the nearby jungle.

“It was quiet all night. Didn’t even hear any animals. I was not sure what time because I was tired and fell asleep, but something woke me up. Maybe a sound. I do not know. I opened my eyes and looked up. His face was staring down at me.”

“What’d he look like?” Havok asked.

“He was old with many wrinkles,” Manny explained. “His hair was long and gray, and he had a skinny beard, a begote. He looked Asian.”

“Did he say anything?” Havok asked.

“No,” Manny responded, shaking his head. “He just give me the evil eye, the bad eye.”

Havok stood and joined Manny out in front of the bush. He inspected the ground under their feet, looking for several moments before giving up. The area was carpeted with a bright green plant Havok knew as sleeping grass, which was a kind of Venus flytrap. The blades would close when they sensed pressure, like that of a landing insect or footsteps, then reopen after a few minutes. Many of the blades remained closed because of the three men walking around.

“Don’t worry,” Havok said. “He’s not gonna hurt us. Get us something to eat, then get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

“Do you know who he is?” asked Stone, still panning the muzzle of his weapon in front of him.

Havok replied, “I think I’m too tired to worry about some old Japanese guy.”

“What do you mean, ‘some old Japanese guy’?” Manny asked.

“Just a hunch, really,” Havok said with a tired sigh.

“He’s not part of the Extreme Team over at Cobra Headquarters?” Stone asked.

“If he was,” Havok said, “he would have jumped Manny or waited to ambush us.”

“I’ll buy that,” Stone said, accepting his friend’s explanation about their visitor, “but how did you figure him for a son of Nippon?”

Havok repeated Manny’s description, including the evil eye, which matched the description that Wheatley had given him about his father’s Japanese prison guard back in the war and the officer’s war wounds he had suffered to his face.

Stone accepted Havok’s theory. “From what you say, the man has to be at least a hundred years old. How’s it he gets around so easily?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the island lifestyle agrees with him. It could also be the water,” Havok surmised.

Stone ticked his head to the side slightly. “So what’s our next step?”

“Manny’s making us something to eat, so get our dive gear stowed. Let’s chow down and you two get some sleep. I’ll wake you around noon.”

“You know something?” Stone said dolefully as he turned to board their boat. “With you around, it’s always the same thing: geologists in distress, Russian musclemen chopping off heads, and Japanese hermits. I say, boy, you had better get a life.”

Havok chuckled and turned for the group of ferns, leaving his friend to tend to the dive gear. He sat down on the hard, wet ground and immediately regretted it, as his body started to stiffen. His legs were sore from the miles walked and swam, and his shoulders ached from the massive load they had carried. Although racked with pain, exhaustion, hunger, and thirst, he struggled to remain alert enough to stand guard.

Havok waited for Manny to bring him something to eat, and he didn’t have to wait long.

Manny hurriedly pulled himself up the line from the boat with a yellow net bag dangling from his belt. He appeared to be excited.

“Look what I found.” Manny plopped the bag on the ground in front of Havok. Without waiting for an answer, he squatted and pulled the drawstring apart.

Havok looked into the net bag while pulling the coin he had found on the dive last night from his shirt pocket. He estimated it contained about a hundred blackened silver pesos. He bent to select one of them and compared it to the one he’d pulled from his shirt pocket.

“I found this too,” Manny said, handing a folded piece of paper to Havok.

The white sheet of paper looked like it had come from the notepad on their chart table. Havok unfolded the paper and read the few English words.

“What does it say?” asked Manny.

“‘Take the money. Leave my home. The other white men will kill you.’”

“That’s it!” Stone said angrily.

Havok looked up from the note to see Stone joining them.

Stone looked into the bag. “Listen, that thieving filcher took a dive bag, a can of coffee grounds, a notebook, a carton of cigarettes, and two bottles of scotch, and that”‍—he kicked the dive bag scornfully‍—“is a pretty paltry sum for the smokes and the booze. There isn’t a store within a hundred miles of here. What are we going to drink when the beer runs out?”

Havok had long ago stopped wondering about Stone’s inconsistencies, and answered, “Don’t worry about the liquor or smokes. By this time tomorrow, we’ll be on our way out of here, and with an extra mouth to feed.”

Stone stood with his hands on his hips, seething over the theft. “Has that plan of yours come together yet?”

“Yeah.” Havok paused. “But in the meantime, I’ll keep guard and you guys get all the food and sleep you can. Again, I’ll wake you around noon, Stone.”

Obediently, Manny picked up the bag, and both he and Stone turned to make their way back to the boat for food and sleep. In a few minutes, Manny returned with a Tupperware container filled with two scoops of cold rice, canned sardines in mustard sauce, and a warm Coke. Havok accepted the bland food and selected a spot about forty yards away from Manny’s guard post. He sat down and shoveled the food into his mouth with a plastic fork while keeping a sharp lookout.

The minutes ticked by painfully slowly. The food had filled his shriveled stomach and, combined with the mounting heat, aggravated the agonizingly slow passage of time. Every second seemed to last a minute. Finally, the hands on his watch struck noon, signaling the end of his watch. He stood and his thighs screamed in protest, barely allowing him to walk stiffly back to the boat. His fatigues seemed to have formed their own exoskeleton, as the dried, salt-encrusted material crackled when he moved.

It had been a quiet watch, and Havok hoped it would remain that way so he could get some sleep. He reached the embankment, slung his weapon over his head, jumped for the monkey line, and pulled himself to his floating home. Stepping into the pilothouse, he placed his pistol, rifle, and web gear on the chart table before going down the narrow ladder into the dark forward cabin. Stone was sleeping on the port bunk with his submachine gun in the crook of his bent arm. He still wore the filthy fatigues from the night before. Manny was in the starboard bunk.

“Stone, it’s time,” Havok said, roughly shaking his shoulder.

Stone’s eyes snapped open, and he tightened his grip on his weapon, but once he recognized Havok, he closed them. After a couple of seconds, he swung his feet off the mattress and slowly sat up, grimacing. He let the weapon rest in his lap while he placed his face into cupped hands massaging his eyeballs. “Anything happening?”

“No, all quiet.”

“Good,” Stone said with his face in his hands, muffling his voice. “Do you have a plan?”

Havok quickly answered, “Whatever we do will tell our friends we’re here. And don’t forget there’s another boatload of Russians with more hostages out there. Sooner or later, if we don’t do anything, they are going to figure out where we ain’t. So our first move has to be smart. It’s got to give us the upper hand. And it’s got to happen tonight.”

Stone nodded his tired head and stood. “Here, have a piece of bunk.”

Havok sat on the soggy mattress. “Give me about four hours of sack time, and then have Manny relieve you so we can get things moving.”

The exhausted men switched places, and as Havok’s head sank toward oblivion, he asked himself one question: Where did the Japanese man get those pesos?