Chapter 21

Jane’s dreams were not sweet at all. She slept fitfully, her mind filled with disjointed images of the past few days. She was at an athletic club in Germany. This incredibly handsome, Arian-looking man shouted orders in her face as she tried to keep up with the rest of the women who ran, as if the Hounds of Hell chased them. Through the Alps, up tall mountains, down into beautiful meadows that smelled of wildflowers. Jane wanted to stop and smell the fantastic scent, but the gaggle pushed her on. One petite, and very well-developed woman dragged her by the hand, through a swamp, across a bridge.

“Jump. It will be better,” the sweet brunette shouted midway across the bridge.

“I can’t! My feet are stuck in the cement.” Jane tried to move her feet, consumed in terror.

The sweet brunette frowned, then rounded on Jane and punched her in the head.

Over the bridge Jane went, into a vast blue ocean with an ominous red sky. Her head went below the water and she could not breathe. A multi-colored parrot swam by, its wings propelling it through the water. “Help me, pretty bird.” Jane begged.

“Silly Bird. Silly Bird. Got no rum.” The bird began to swim circles around Jane, squawking and talking.

Jane tried to grasp ahold of the bird, to no avail. Each time she reached out, the bird swam farther away, laughing at her. After several tries Jane was almost out of air and weakening.

“Silly Bird. Rum all gone.” The bird circled close and pecked viciously at Jane’s floating hand.

She woke from the dream with a start. Silly Bird waddled across the ground inside her enclosure, squawking outrageously.

A wind had come up and rain pelted the tiny hut, running through the vines and netting, like a million rivers.

Lightning exploded overhead and Jane jumped. Silly Bird crouched and hopped behind her, burying its head beneath the drenched tarp. Close to her, a tree split and cracked as the electrical charge blew apart the trunk, dissipating into its roots and the surrounding ground.

“Silly Bird need rum. Rum all gone. Get me my rum.” Silly Bird burrowed further beneath the covering.

“Good idea. Silly Bird.” Jane pulled the tarp around her, grabbed Silly Bird, who did not object at all, and ran for the cave. “Let’s go get some rum.”

Silly Bird snuggled its head against Jane’s neck and cooed quietly as Jane struggled for the cave as fast as she could in the wet foliage and mud.

It wasn’t hard to find since lightning strikes lit the way with their brilliance and her previous steps had marked the grass. Silly Bird’s feathers were wet and cold, but the bird remained close, not fighting the human contact. The humidity in the air was overwhelming and the rain came down in buckets as Jane trotted through the weeds and flowers that hung limp in the deluge.

In minutes, the cave entrance appeared, and Jane rushed through the vine doorway she’d made earlier. Inside she put Silly Bird on its perch and poured a little more rum into the dish. “There ya go, Silly Bird. Salute.” She took a gulp of the rum for herself.

As the alcohol burned through her insides, warming her body and easing her pain, it occurred to Jane that she’d left everything at the little hut, including the flint. She reached out and slid her hand across the back of the macaw. “Thank you for waking me, my fine feathered friend.”

The bird didn’t seem to mind her touch. Or it was preoccupied with consuming the rum as fast as its little tongue would slurp! “Stay here, Silly Bird. I need to go secure my equipment.”

Secure my equipment? Who talked like that?

The military!

That’s who.

Was she a soldier then?

That might explain the scary guy with an AR clutched to him, in her flashes of memory.

Or maybe she’d been some kind of prisoner. The drunk fat man flashed before her eyes. He’d given her water. Maybe he was the jailor, or? “Ack!” Jane hit her head with her fist. “Why can’t I remember? Damn it!”

She left the cave and crawled down to her hut. The scarce path was so thick with mud now, the going was rough and sloppy. Retrieving the few items she’d taken from the cave earlier, she was halfway back when a mighty bolt of pure white light hit a tree near the top of the nearest hill with a deafening crack. The rumble that followed had Jane on the run. How she associated the deafening sound with an avalanche, she would never know. But she ran. As fast as she could, away from her little hut, the streambed, and the beach.

Gaining the side of the hill where the cave began, she turned back, just in time to see half of the hill come sliding down in a volley of mud and rock. Trees were swept away, and the landscape turned from a wild Garden of Eden, to a mud slicked barren hillside in seconds. She crouched there in stunned silence. If Silly Bird had not awakened her…

The bird’s slurred squawks pierced the quiet. “Andi, got rum? Rum all gone.”

Andi?

Somehow that name was familiar.

Andi? Was that the previous owner of the bird, and this cave?

It must have been since the bird knew the name.

Andi? Andrew? Angelo? An…

Andi tickled her brain, but no other name seemed to fit.

Jane stood and walked into her new home. There was nothing left of the other. She unloaded the tarp and placed things next to the wall where she would not stumble over them in the dark. The moon had come out with the passing of the storm and the cave glowed with a silvery light that lay in intricate patterns across the cave floor. It was still night and Jane was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She lay down next to the steamer trunk and pulled the tarp around her like a cocoon. Her stomach growled outrageously.

“Good night, Silly Bird.” Tomorrow was another day and another challenge of survival. She said a silent prayer of thanks for her bird’s warning and slipped off to sleep.

In her dreams, the scary man in camo and dark glasses was always behind her. Pushing her to move faster. Poking at her with the barrel of his gun. Yanking her arm when she veered to close to the edge, of what? At one point, he threw her a bulky bag to carry. It was heavy and dirty, having been picked up on the trail to somewhere? Her mind teetered on the brink of remembering. They walked until her feet were raw and bleeding, then continued on even farther. Every once in a while, the fat man would pop up like a practice target in some macabre arcade, drunk in his chair, snoring loudly, but hand extended with a bottle of water. Some bottles she drank. Some she poured on her feet. Still the scary man prodded her on.

As the morning sun shone through the mouth of the cave, Jane slipped into a lighter sleep and a different kind of dream. She sat on an immaculate lawn, her face to the warm morning sun. Children played near the azure pool and a perfect blonde woman served her lovely cucumber and shrimp sandwiches cut into two-inch squares. The children screamed and laughed with abandon.

In a soft, almost undetectable voice, the woman commented, “Andi went away. She is gone forever, I think.” A glistening tear hung, quivering at the tip of full, mascaraed eyelashes. Her crystal blue eyes turned a deep sea-green as the tear cascaded down her powdered cheek, leaving an ugly trail through her flawless makeup. “The children will miss her.” The woman spread her flowery skirt across the green grass and tucked her legs demurely beneath her, as the children, one after the other, came slipping down a bright shiny slide. As they hit the ground, each one lined up behind the other, heads hung low. When the line was complete, the children marched toward the woman on the grass. As they passed her, each one whispered, “I miss Andi.” The woman held the rusty old pot Jane had found in her cave, and each child shed two tears into the pot before moving to the end of the line and repeating the sequence. Soon the pot was overflowing, and so was Jane’s heart. Whoever this Andi was, she was truly loved and cherished by this woman and the children.

In her dream, Jane raised a heavy camera and snapped pictures as the children paid homage to their Andi. Silly Bird flew to the pot and perched on the edge, rocking back and forth precariously.

“Silly Bird. Got no tears.” It ducked its head and drank from the pot, then flew to Jane’s lap and settled close to her belly. There it sat, cooing and gurgling with pleasure.

Jane woke to the sound of her stomach growling amazingly loud. She was weak and tired, and just wanted to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but the dreams were worse than her reality, and she knew she had to find food soon. Her belly told her that. It growled again as if to say “Yep. We’re hungry!”

She unrolled from her tarp cocoon and stretched carefully. Many of her wounds were closing and didn’t seem to be infected. A scab had formed over her eye and was crusty and tender, but not too painful. Jane felt her rib cage and winced. Thanks to the rain deluge the night before, she was not quite as filthy as yesterday, but her hair was still crusted with sand and mud. She finger-combed the worst rat’s nests out and wound it around a stick, then secured it at the back of her neck in an impromptu bun, of sorts.

She’d lost her driftwood crutch in the net hut, so she used the steamer trunk to clamber to her feet, then leaned on the wall of the cave as a wave of nausea and dizziness washed across her head and stomach. “Great, vomiting with nothing in your stomach is a totally useless effort.” She chided herself as she held her breath and swallowed the saliva welling in her mouth.

“Number something on the survival list is food. Today it’s number one.” She chanced a step and found the dizziness had dissipated. “Well, Silly Bird, my guardian and savior, I need food.”

The crazy macaw cocked its head. “Rum all gone. Got rum?”

Jane laughed. “Rum is not food. What do you eat when you are not drinking yourself into a stupor?”

To her amazement, Silly Bird flew to the mouth of the cave and looked back at her.

“Okay, I’m coming.” Jane found that her foot was much better and she limped much less. As she followed the waddling macaw through the cave opening, a fantastical scene greeted her. Stunned, Jane gasped.

Half of the hill above her hut had slid into the ocean below, leaving a ginormous scar through the island. Trees and massive amounts of vegetation lay in a jumble at the bottom of the hill. A small trickle of water worked its way down the middle of the mess, to pool above the rubble, already creating the beginnings of a small pond.

The waterfall was gone. Her hut was nowhere to be seen. The trail ended at the mudslide just feet away.

“Looks like we find a different path, Silly Bird.”

The macaw squawked and took to wing.

“Great for you, but I can’t fly!” Jane surveyed the newly formed landscape. To one side lay the impassible slide. To the other, moss covered rocks and bushes hid a very faint pathway she’d not recognized before. “Ah ha!”

Jane worked her way along the path, taking great care to remain upright. There was very little to help her regain her feet if she fell. The path seemed to curve around the side of a rock outcropping, and slowly led toward the beach. Below, Jane could make out another lagoon. Or maybe an extension of the lagoon she’d first seen. The calm turquoise water looked inviting. “Well, I know I can swim just fine.” She hurried toward the water.

The denim shirt she wore was one more enigma that teased her mind. It was all she wore. The sleeves were torn and full of holes. One cuff was missing. It hung to her knees like a billowing dress, but where was everything else? Panties? A bra? Shorts?

She slipped out of the shirt and waded out into the water and slowly submerged herself, letting her dirty hair go free. Saltwater wasn’t necessarily good for a woman’s hair, however; it beat sweat, mud and caked sand. The water restored some of her vigor and she just about gulped a mouthful of saltwater when something hard bumped into her head. She surfaced with a scream, flailing away from whatever had touched her, only to find a brown, hairy coconut floating a few inches away. Silly Bird flew circles above her head, screeching.

Jane looked into the clear blue sky and waved a thanks to the colorful spot above her. “Thanks for the warning, Silly Bird.” She grasped the nut and waded ashore. “Food!”

Smashing the thing against a rock on her third try, Jane picked up a large piece of the husk and chewed the inside white meat away. “Yes! A feast at last!”

Silly Bird alighted next to her and began licking the coconut milk from the rock and chomping small pieces in its hard, sharp bill. “Got rum.” It cooed enthusiastically, white specks of coconut dotting its dark beak.

“Oh yeah. Got rum!” Jane was beginning to speak Silly Bird’s language.

Refreshed from her swim and a breakfast of coconut, Jane sat on the beach watching the ocean as the sunlight played on the water. Across the lagoon, to what she figured was the east, sat the remnants of a small boat. At some point, it had been tied to a tree, an old rope, now green with moss still clung to the trunk. A kind of rough table sat at the bottom of the tree made of lashed sticks. Jane watched the patterns on the water before deciding to swim across and explore the other side of the lagoon. Toward the ocean she could see an opening in the reef where the waves were smaller and did not crash onto coral heads. Farther toward the lagoon’s end near the shore, a small river wound back into the jungle.

Would there be a dangerous current? Could she make it across without a problem? What about that shark?

Jane took a long palm frond and dragged it along the beach closer too the river’s edge. She tossed the frond into the water, much to her rib’s objection, and watched. It moved lazily toward the ocean.

So, there was a current.

The actual river was only about twenty feet across at that point and the spot she wanted to swim toward, was now several yards out toward the ocean. Silly Bird sat on a rock, watching her intently.

“Someone lived here, at least for a while. Was that Andi? Your person?” She queried the macaw.

Silly Bird cocked its head. “Yuck, yuck, yuck. Andi’s here. Andi got rum?”

Jane laughed and then grabbed her rib cage again. It felt wonderful to laugh and painful at the same time, but not half as bad as yesterday. Her foot was so much better, Jane was amazed. And so were the wounds she’d received when-when what?

She pushed the thought of her malfunctioning mind away and waded into the water. The mixture of river and ocean water was a bit of a surprise. Flowing warm, then cold, then warm, Jane swam, prepared to fight any current that might wash her away. In the end she swam and drifted to almost the exact point where she wanted to be. Leveraging herself against the wrecked boat, Jane waded ashore to explore. Silly Bird flew to the old table and sat watching its new friend.

A red bougainvillea wound around the base of the tree where the table leaned, its flowers decorating the small structure, creating the appearance of a delicate hutch. The previous owner had constructed a shelf of long sticks below the tabletop. On the shelf lay a rusty machete with a carved wooden handle.

“Ah hah! One more tool.” Jane reached for the handle only to draw back in a flash.

Silly Bird squawked and took wing. Landing on the prow of the wrecked boat, it screeched. “Watch out! Watch out. Spill the rum. Rum all gone.”

Jane was learning to trust Silly Bird’s warnings. Something moved next to the machete. She peered beneath the tabletop but saw only sticks.

“Spill the rum. Spill the rum. Rum all gone!” Silly Bird continued to squawk, as Jane looked closer. Stretched out like just one more stick, lay a long brown snake. Its black beady eyes watched the newcomer with little interest.

“Well, howdy, Mr. Boa.” She recognized the Cook’s Tree Boa from…from what? “And how do I know who you are, Mr. Boa? How’d you get here anyway?”

More puzzles and no answers. It was becoming a lifestyle.

A fleeting thought wound through her mind; he would make a great photo! She’d name it Boa’s Bed and send it to…

Send a photo?

To somewhere?

Someone?

The thought was gone.

Rummaging through the bushes, Jane found a stick and carefully lifted the small boa off the table and tossed it into the bushes, reminding herself to step more carefully in the future and look before she reached.

“Once again, Silly Bird, I owe you a debt of thanks.” She used the stick to clear away some of the greenery that had overgrown the back of the table. Boas weren’t poisonous, but they had teeth. A heavily accented voice reminded her, anything with teeth can bite!

Heavily accented voice?

Whose voice?

What accent?

She poked and prodded with her stick, finally contacting something hard and solid sounding. Carefully pulling vines and leaves away, she saw a bit of blue. It was a can!

“Oh my God! Spam!” Jane pulled the small square can from the bushes and did a little victory dance. “Look, Silly Bird! It’s Spam. And the key is still there!” The blue can was rusty around the edges, but the big yellow letters were almost clean and clearly spelled out its contents. She turned to her companion, “This stuff lasts forever.” She rubbed the grime from the bottom of the can and searched for an expiration date.

Really? An expiration date?

On a Spam can?

What was she thinking…

She’d seen a lot of Spam cans in her life, and this one was probably older than she was. But as long as the can was intact and not bulging, it was probably okay. Especially if she cooked it. Using the wet sleeve of her shirt, Jane rubbed the can clean of most of the grime and inspected the rims. It looked fine. She set the can on the tabletop and rummaged through the vines again, but all she found was a moldy box of crackers that had already been found by some hungry animal, and a cake of some kind of soap. The wrapper was long gone, and the bar had half melted into the shelf. It was tan and smelled slightly antiseptic.

“Hmmm, dinner and a wash. My world is looking up.”

Silly Bird watched with mild interest.

Jane took the machete and wacked at some of the clinging vegetation. Not much happened. The edge hadn’t been sharpened in probably a hundred years, and the handle promptly split in two. The blade was rusty and gouged in several places.

After closer inspection, Jane found nothing more of use, so she crawled along the bank of the river into the jungle, using her stick to test the way and keeping the machete close, just in case she needed to beat off a marauding boa or an attacking hutia. The rodents were pervasive in the Caribbean and larger than rats, but generally docile.

Jane laughed at herself. How did she know that?

Was she some kind of biologist?

Or a wildlife specialist?

That could explain her desire to photograph everything.

She was beginning to add up the puzzle pieces, keeping them safe in the back of her mind. If she remembered enough, maybe they’d form her own photo, a picture of who she was. And maybe not. First, she’d have to survive, and now she had two more pieces of that puzzle.

She sat on a rock, cooling her sore feet in the river and watched the water. This place was beautiful, like the real Garden of Eden. It even had a snake!

A small fish jumped near the far shore. That’s when she noticed a kind of path. It led into the jungle and back the way she’d come. Which path to take back to her cave? The beach with its safe scramble over rocks and across sand? Or the more risky road through new and unexplored territory?

She’d already chosen one path in life, and it must not have been a very good one, considering her current circumstances.

Jane headed back to the beach, her Spam can tucked in the big front pocket of her oversized shirt, a dull machete in one hand, a clearing stick in the other.

****

Simon rubbed his eyes. He’d been at his computer all night, searching. It was close to sunrise and Conrad was wearing a path in the floor of Pete’s apartment. The crazed man had been pacing all night, pausing occasionally to lean over Simon’s shoulder and grunt at what he did not understand. Simon briefly considered how many sites he’d been to, that he never should have, and how many federal laws he’d violated in the process of trying to locate Andrea. He’d covered his tracks, but he never knew when he’d come up against a smarter coder, a better hacker. It could happen, he reminded himself.

But not likely.

Evie curled in an overstuffed chair, dosing fitfully, mumbling every once in a while in her light sleep.

Pete and his handball buddy on the police force had returned around 3:00 a.m., and now they sat at the kitchen table across the room, talking quietly, concocting the story that would explain how Henry Mikamoto, Louisiana’s most wanted man, had been efficiently apprehended by the South Padre Island Police department while investigating an anonymous breaking-and-entering complaint. In an attempt to escape, Mikamoto had been injured, but was taken alive and a bit worse for the wear. Mikamoto’s accomplice was a legal alien on a tourist visa. He was immediately arrested and detained for deportation. Apparently, the German tourist had resisted arrest as well, and was being treated at an ICE detention center for his bad behavior.

Simon replaced the headphones he’d been wearing earlier to block out the noise of the others. He liked to work in silence, or while listening to hard rock. It was a curious anomaly in his character, but it worked for him. Before he could tune in to his music channel, a familiar voice came over the headphones.

“Check the weather, boy.”

He jumped at the familiar voice. “Uncle Grady?” Simon whispered.

“Just check the weather and don’t ask a lot of questions, son.”

Uncle Grady was often frustrated with Simon’s thousand-question-games as a child. Sometimes Simon used it as a way to get the older man off task and Simon out of a chore. But sometimes he was just hungry for knowledge, and wanted to know everything about everything. Many a time, his uncle would resort to the very same statement that put a lid on conversation, and got Simon to do what Grady wanted. Simon chuckled. His heart beat with a new warmth. “Roger that, Uncle Grady.” Simon spoke quietly so others would not wonder if he was losing his marbles.

“Gettin’ kinda cocky there, aren’t ya, boy. Check that weather.”

“Yes, sir.” Simon pulled up the latest NOAA map of the Texas coastline out to Cuba. “Holy crap!”

Evie stirred and Conrad was at his shoulder in less than a heartbeat. “What? What’s happening?”

“Simon, you find something?” Evie uncurled and leaned over the chair arm.

“I hope our girl’s not on that island chain. Take a look at the weather.” He pointed to a tiny island chain and a massive storm that swirled white and gray over the area. “These islands are right in the eye of the storm.” He didn’t want to finish the rest. He was waiting for a particular and very secret satellite, to reach the perfect place in its geosynchronous orbit. Then it could spy on the island he figured Andrea might have swum to, given a very sophisticated algorithm he’d developed to analyze the wind, currents, ocean traffic and garbage barge pattern of dumps. The combined data should pinpoint which tiny speck in the Caribbean would be the target island to search. Otherwise, they could spend a lifetime searching the area and never find Conrad’s wife. The satellite would be in perfect position in three hours, forty-five minutes and six seconds. The countdown timer ticked down the seconds in the upper right corner of his screen.

“The storm hasn’t been rated as a hurricane, yet. But look at the development. If it gathers more power and speed, it won’t be long until we have a full-blown hurricane in our search area.” Simon confirmed aloud what he saw on the screen.

Conrad looked desperately at the rest of the group.

Officer Billings and Pete grouped around Simon. “Shit.” Pete patted Conrad’s shoulder like a brother consoling his sibling on the receipt of bad news.

“Good thing about this,” Officer Billings pointed to the storm’s eye. “It’s moving north and east. It’ll crawl up the coast and lose power quickly. Louisiana doesn’t need another Katrina.” He hitched up his britches and utility belt. “Guess we’re done here, Pete. See you Thursday afternoon? I gotta get some of my money back.” He turned to Conrad, hand extended. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. McIntyre, wish it was under better circumstances. We’ll take care of your little problem for you.” He winked at Conrad. “See you at the Policemen’s Ball next month? It’s a fundraiser. Pete never misses it.” With another wink, Officer Billings headed for the stairs. Apparently, he’d done the elevator once, and thought the better of the stairs.

“Wait.” Simon yelled after the officer. He rummaged around in his computer case and grabbed a CD. “Here, give this to that guy who plays Ghost Wars.” Simon scribbled his name across the front of the case. “Tell him thanks for helping me and my girlfriend.”

“I’m sure he’ll have a heart attack when I hand it to him! Signed and everything. Thanks, Mr. O’Sullivan.”

As Officer Billings took the stairs, Simon swore he could hear Bull murmur relationshipee, when the door closed on the retreating officer.

Simon turned to Conrad. “My eyes in the sky will be over the islands in about three hours. Then we should be able to see something, provided the cloud cover doesn’t block the view.” He pointed to the timer.

“What kind of eyes in the sky? A satellite? Plane?” Simon was sure Conrad hadn’t slept for two days and his mind was fuzzy at best.

“Ah? Well, I guess you could call it a satellite.” Simon’s fingers twitched. He smiled sheepishly. “It’s classified, sort of. If I tell ya, I have to shoot ya.” He resorted to the famous saying that ended any more questions.

“Boss, you gonna get us arrested?” Bull had joined the group and hovered over Simon.

“Nope. They’ll never find my IP address.” Simon took his chair and put the headphones on.

****

“Famous last words.” Pete shook his head. “Evie, how many people in the world can do what your friend here is doing?”

“Five.” Evie curled up and closed her eyes.

“They’ll find him…us.” Conrad returned to his pacing and Pete wandered toward his bed on a raised platform across the room. Before collapsing onto the comforter, Pete queried his partner. “You want me to call the office and let Rose know we won’t be in?”

Pete’s executive secretary was Miss Efficiency and would usually send a text if Pete was not at his desk by nine in the morning. She had been with GST for about a year and was originally hired for her high-tech skills and expressed loyalty. She had a habit of tracking Pete like a dog, but made his life easy in so many unexpected ways. She’d even done background checks on his various liaisons. The ones she knew about. Just in case there was an implied threat to the company’s lucrative government contracts. Rose Mayfield was also a stunning woman who always looked smart and classy. Everything matched from her shoes to her earrings, like she bounced off a fashion magazine ad every day.

“Nah. You’ll get fifty questions. I’ll call Rita and ask her to pass on a discreet word. She’s the best, and can handle anything that comes up.” Conrad ceased his pacing and whipped out his phone.

“What are you gonna tell her?” Pete came down the three steps from his bedroom area. His place had very few walls and he liked it that way. He could see what was coming and who was around at all times. Even his master bath had a glazed glass door.

“That I have a family problem and you are helping me deal with it. She won’t ask a personal question, so we’re safe.” Conrad stared at his phone for a second, then hit the autodial number for his office. “Although I don’t know why it matters now.”

Pete spun and returned to his bed, flopping on the mattress and kicking off his shoes. “Let me know when you have something.” In seconds, a soft snore came from the bedroom area.

****

“Good morning Rita. Pete and I won’t be in this morning. We’re dealing with a family issue.”

“Of course, sir. Is there anything I can help with?” The concern was immediately apparent in Rita’s voice.

“No, but thank you for asking. I’ll let you know how the day goes. Could you let Rose know without a lot of questions? Pete doesn’t need a million text messages.”

“My pleasure, sir.” Rita was good at keeping things to herself and thoroughly disliked Rose’s intrusions into Pete’s life. She knew her job and did it with grace and efficiency. That’s what Conrad appreciated about his administrative assistant.

“Thanks.” Conrad hung up and stared at the walls. Evie had gone back to sleep in her ball in the chair. Simon was in the zone. Conrad could hear something from the Rock of Ages album playing faintly as he skirted the wiz at his computer. Bull was slumped on the kitchen chair, head hanging over a cup of very black coffee. Conrad resumed pacing. The amount of nervous energy coiled inside him precluded any sleep he might have tried to get.

Conrad poured himself his fifth cup of coffee.

Two hours and fifty-five minutes…

****

Evie twitched in her sleep. Something was eating at her pleasant dream. She was wandering through the jungle with a bird. It kept talking about rum. Pretty soon, she came upon a lagoon where a man was fishing with a kind of throwing net. His clothing was tattered, and he looked like he hadn’t eaten a solid meal in months. In the distance Evie could see half of a small ship sitting above the coral reef. So, he was a castaway!

“Captain’s got rum. Give me my rum. Captain Bob got rum.” The bird continued to chatter.

In the distance Evie could hear a woman’s voice. “Silly Bird, where are you? I have your rum.”

Evie jerked awake.

It was Andrea’s voice!

“Find Captain Bob and his bird and you’ll find Andrea.” Amee whispered to Evie over the various snores in the room.

Jumping out of the chair, a little too fast, Evie swayed as a wave of dizziness washed over her. She grabbed the arm of the chair. “Simon?”

Simon was truly in his zone, as music blasted over his headphones and his fingers flew over his keyboard. The newest revisions to Ghost Wars was under development while everyone waited for the satellite to move into place. Evie recognized the program immediately. She could hear the thump of the bass music Simon was listening to.

She stumbled to her boyfriend’s side and tapped him on the shoulder. Her legs had gone to sleep, as she herself, slept in a ball.

Simon almost jumped out of his skin. “Evie, say something before you scare the living daylights out of me!” Simon removed his headphones and Evie could still hear the music.

“You’re gonna go deaf with that volume up so high.” She’d said it more than once and got the typical response she expected.

“Huh?” Simon teased.

“Right. Simon, would you look up, and I know this sounds crazy, but can you find anything on a Captain Bob who may have been wrecked on one of the islands we are looking at?”

“A castaway? Named Bob? Could you be a little more specific?” Simon looked at her as if she were out of her mind.

“Not really. But there has to be something.” She leaned close to Simon’s ear. “Amee said to find Captain Bob and we’d find Andrea.”

“Amee talked to you?” Simon smiled and shook his head. “Uncle Grady’s been bugging me too.” He took his relationshipee in his arms and hugged her tightly. After a close moment, Simon turned to his computer. “Let’s see what we can find out about Captain Bob.”

Typing in all kinds of related data, Simon initiated his own special search engine and sat back. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, where’s Captain Bob after all?”

Evie giggled until the computer chimed with a list of topics. Scrolling through, Simon clicked the pages until he paused at the fifth one. “Hello! I think we have it!” He clicked on the title; Captain Bob Fisher Found Alive After Seven Years on Pretoria Atoll. A picture of a skinny, bearded man in tattered clothing, fishing with a net, opened.

“That’s him!” Evie almost yelled in Simon’s ear. “That’s who Amee was talking about. Captain Bob!” She leaned down and gave Simon a noisy wet kiss. “You, my love, are the Bomb!”

“What? What’s going on?” Conrad was behind them in a flash and Bull sat up straight at the noise.

“I think we may have the name of the island where Andrea is.” Evie was so excited, all weariness had fled.

“The satellite?” Conrad was hopeful.

“Well, no. Not really.” How would she and Simon explain the heavenly help they’d been receiving? Ghostly messages in their sleep? Conversations with dead people?

Suddenly, the female character from Ghost Wars popped onto Simon’s screen and Amee, in her black leather uniform, waved, then faded just as quickly.

Simon waved back like a child saying goodbye to his favorite cartoon character as the TV program ended. “Got it, Amee. Thanks.”

“He calls his computer Amee?” Conrad was totally confused.

Simon looked at Evie, who looked back with a curious expression

Bull smiled from his seat at the table. “Best not ask, Mr. McIntyre. Best not ask.” The big man leveraged himself up and grabbed someone’s cup from the table, filled it with black tar-like coffee and joined the group. “The man always comes through.”

“The man?” Conrad was losing it. “Are you guys talking in some kind of code, or something?”

“Simon, find Pretoria Atoll, would you?” Evie was so excited she was hopping from one foot to the next and blazed right over Conrad’s questions.

Simon pulled up Google Earth and proceeded to find the tiny atoll called Pretoria, almost a hundred miles east-south-east of their location. “And there ya go, my sweet Evie.” He pointed to one of the larger shapes in a chain of tiny islands. “The leading edge of the storm has just passed this island’s location and the eye sits right here.” He pointed to the atoll. “If this is where Andrea is, she has beautiful weather, for the moment.”

The eye of the storm was very well defined and clear. About sixty miles across, the clouds swirled around the island like a giant fence, encapsulating the speck of land.

Conrad had his phone out and was dialing Carl Morehead before anyone realized what he was about to do. “Carl? Yeah, sorry for the early morning call. Do you have any ships that can brave a tropical storm? I think we found my wife’s location.”

Evie motioned to Conrad to look at the screen’s map. “Yes, I can give you coordinates.” After a few moments, Conrad ended the call and turned to the rest of the group. “He’ll have a ‘substantial’ ship ready at the Sea Ranch in two hours.”

“All right!” Bull patted Conrad on the back, knocking the man a couple feet forward with the strength of his excitement. “Now we’re cookin’ with gas. I need me some friends like that.”

“Look, you guys have been awesome, but I can’t ask you to risk your lives like this.” He pointed to the weather map. “I got it from here. This could turn into a goat fuck, or I could find my wife and bring her home.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Evie looked at her friend. “We’re a team. It’s a big island, even though it looks tiny. We have limited time. Cut the crap and let’s get on it.”

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Bull held out his fist for a bump from Evie.

“I’m in.” Pete had heard the commotion and joined the group.

Simon dug in his briefcase and came up with a small device that looked like a thumb drive with a stout antenna. “Have hot spot, will travel. The Bomb is ready.” Simon took a deep breath. “Anybody got some Dramamine?”