Rick knew he’d be the first Laffite would question when he realized Keith was gone. And sure enough …
Faint predawn light was filtering through the canopy when the Frenchman crawled out of his tent. He stretched his back, looked around, and stiffened when he noticed someone was missing. He strode straight to where Rick sat with his back against one of the fat tree trunks.
“Where is your brother?” he said, standing over him.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”
“I want an answer.”
Rick rose to face him. “I don’t have one. I saw him walk off into the bushes an hour or two ago. I thought he was going for a leak. He hasn’t come back yet.”
All true. Of course, he’d left out the small detail of the phones Keith had stolen from Laffite’s tent.
“An hour or two?”
Rick shrugged. “I didn’t check my watch, but it seems about that long.”
Laffite turned in a slow circle. “He should be back by now.”
Yeah, he should be, Rick thought.
He’d been wondering what Keith was doing in the bushes with those phones. Calling for help? Not a bad idea. If Laffite knew help was on the way, he’d have to keep the three of them alive.
He’d also wondered if he’d found the fuse Laffite had taken from the boat. If he had, and had slipped back into Marten mode, he might very well have sailed away, leaving them all marooned.
“Maybe the dapis got him.”
“Do not even joke about that.”
“Hey, it’s possible.”
“If you truly believed that, you would be out looking for him.”
Rick shrugged again. “It’s not like he can go far.”
“True, true, but—” Laffite’s eyes widened. Rick had known a certain unpleasant possibility would eventually occur to him. “Merde!”
He whirled and raced back to his tent. Seconds later he emerged with a backpack in one hand and his revolver in another. He stalked toward Rick.
“Where is he?”
“No idea.” He held his ground. “And that’s the truth.”
He gathered that Keith hadn’t taken the fuse, else Laffite would be scrambling up to the rim to make sure his boat was still here.
“Well, then, you will go find him.”
Rick smiled and shook his head, trying to provoke the Frenchman.
“I don’t think so. I’m sure he’s just fine where he is.”
Laffite raised the revolver and shoved the muzzle toward Rick, placing it within easy reach.
Thank you.
“You will go find him now or someone you care about will suffer!”
That did it.
He lashed out with his right hand, grabbing the barrel and giving it a vicious twist as he pushed the gun down and away. It discharged with a loud crack as Laffite’s finger caught inside the trigger guard, firing one round into the ground. Rick wrenched the revolver free and the Frenchman screamed as his finger broke.
“That’s the last time you threaten her,” Rick said.
Bakari and Razi scrambled from their tent and he heard Laura cry out behind him.
“What happened?”
“Nothing important,” Rick said. “Everything’s cool.”
Laffite was bent over, cradling his broken finger.
Rick examined the revolver. Not a Smith after all. A near-antique Llama clone of the Model 10. He found the release and swung the cylinder out. He dumped the rounds, fired and unfired, into his palm, then hurled them into the brush. If he’d had a screwdriver handy he would have removed the cylinder and done the same with it. Instead he left the cylinder out and hammered it against a baobab trunk until it wouldn’t fit back into the frame. Then he tossed the whole thing out of sight.
There. That leveled the playing field. Well, a little. The brothers still had their spears and he presumed Laffite still had the Marlin in his tent. But nobody would be strutting around with firepower tucked in his belt.
“You broke my finger!” Laffite said.
“And you threatened Laura again. I don’t call us even, but it’ll do for now.”
More light was filtering through the trees. Laura was out of the tent and looking around.
“You sleep okay?” he said.
She gave him a dumb-question look. “Yeah. I mean, I knew you were out here, so … yeah.”
He loved her for that simple acknowledgment. It made the whole long night worthwhile.
“Where are the dapis?” she said.
“We do not care about the dapis!” Laffite groaned, clutching his injured hand. “We need to find Jeukens!”
“We need to get off this island, is what we need,” Laura said.
“He has all your phones.”
Rick tried to look surprised. “Really? How’d he manage that?”
“He must have sneaked into my tent.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Laffite only glared at him.
“Come on,” Laura said, grabbing the Frenchman’s arm. “Let’s find the first-aid kit and see what we can do for that finger.”
As she led him away, Rick said, “Hey, he just threatened your life again.”
She gave Rick an eye roll. The doctor part of her had taken over and she didn’t take the threats seriously. But she didn’t know about Antso and his helicopter.
On the way to the first-aid kit, Laffite shouted something to the brothers in Portuguese. They took off, in search of Keith, no doubt. Rick was tempted to start his own search, but he wasn’t letting Laura out of his sight.
He looked up at the empty trees.
And yeah, where were the dapis?