Island 731

12.

Hawkins let the moment drag out for a moment and then smiled. “Don’t worry, any predators on the island would have come with the Japanese, too. Feral cats. Maybe wild dogs. And some bird species, like the seagulls, which seem aggressive enough to handle a rat.”

Joliet’s let out a breath. “Bastard.”

Hawkins chuckled, but it was only partly sincere. The combination of a dead woman, a WWII fortification, and the presence of an active ecosystem that included predatory animals had him on edge. The island appeared to be as close as you could get to a tropical paradise, but the history of the place trumped the environment. And he had no doubt the lush jungle hid more secrets.

But he wasn’t a historian. Nor was he here to speculate on wildlife. He came to the island to find Kam and take him back to the ship. He stepped out of the pillbox and scanned the clearing outside. He’d lost Kam’s trail before they’d reached the switchbacks, but he couldn’t think of a reason the kid would have gone trailblazing. If anything, Kam had cut straight up the hillside, ignoring the switchbacks altogether. He’d hoped to pick up a trail atop the hill, but saw nothing.

Nothing at all. No rocks. No trees. No overgrowth. The clearing around the pillbox entrance looked almost manicured. Grass covered the ground, but it was neatly trimmed.

Not good, he thought, but didn’t voice his fears. Once they had Kam, they could theorize about the island all they wanted. Until then, Hawkins would stay on task.

He spun around, looking at the pillbox again, and noticed that the trees surrounding the building were just barely taller than its domed roof. If he stood atop it, he’d have a good view and might be able to gauge the size of the island.

Joliet stepped outside as he walked to the side of the pillbox and tested the strength of the vines with his hands. They’d make decent handholds, but he wasn’t confident they’d hold his weight. “Give me a boost,” he said.

Joliet looked at him like he was crazy. “You know I’m half your size, right?”

Hawkins found a thick vine high up on the wall and gave it a tug. It would do the trick. “I need to take a look at the island.”

“Why don’t you lift me up, then?”

“The operative word is ‘I,’” Hawkins said. “No offense. But I need to see the island for myself.”

Joliet strode over to him. She linked her fingers together and bent down to take Hawkins’s foot. “You know, Tarzan wouldn’t need Jane’s help.”

Hawkins placed his foot in her hands, held on tight to the vine, and said, “Jane was a helpless damsel in distress.”

Joliet lifted and Hawkins pulled. He rose up the side wall and reached over the top with his free hand. Once he had a grip, he reached his other hand up and pulled. Joliet pushed until his foot rose out of her reach. After swinging a leg up and over the top, Hawkins made short work of the climb. He got to his feet, standing on the flat edge that surrounded the dome. He turned back to Joliet and said, “That was a compliment, you know. The Jane thing.”

Joliet smiled up at him. “I know.”

She stood there for a moment, staring up at him with a smile and squinted eyes. He was frozen in place. His stomach knotted uncomfortably, but his own smile widened. Screw Bray and his curvy women, Hawkins thought, she’s amazing.

Hawkins thought she must have read his thoughts, or at least seen a glimmer of them in his eyes, because she let out a laugh and asked, “What?”

You know what, he thought, but said, “Nothing.”

Hawkins thought he saw her blush, but she turned away and said, “Just take a look, will you? We need to keep moving.”

Over the past month, he and Joliet had formed a bond neither of them would admit to, and thus far it hadn’t included a physical element. But he could sense them growing closer, and the way her sweat-soaked T-shirt clung to her body made him hope things moved forward sooner than later. Before Joliet could catch him staring, Hawkins turned toward the domed roof.

The structure looked sound enough, but it had been exposed to the elements for seventy years. He stood slowly and gave the dome a couple of hard kicks. When nothing gave, he leaned forward and put his weight on it. The dome, known to be a naturally strong shape, held his weight. Moving slowly, he crawled to the top on his hands and feet.

Then he stood.

And gasped.

He could see over the tops of the trees and had a view of the jungle below. The mottled sea of green fell away as the hill descended, stopping at the lagoon. He could see the crescent-shaped beach and a small, moving figure he assumed was Bray. The Magellan lay in the lagoon, silent and motionless. From this point of view, he could see that the entrance to the lagoon was actually a curved channel through the cliffs. From the outside, it would be hard to see.

How the hell did the ship get through there without crashing?

Beyond the cliffs, the endless blue Pacific Ocean stretched to the horizon. With his eyes on the outer fringe of the island, he made a slow turn, taking in every detail. His wonderment over the view quickly turned to dread. The island was large. The far end was perhaps three miles away, easy to cover in a day, but he figured there were at least nine square miles of land—nearly six thousand acres—to cover. And that wasn’t including the many hills he could see. There was enough land to stay lost in for a long time.

Toward the far end of the island, between a pair of hills, he saw the sparkle of water, behind which lay more land. A lake, he thought. People were invariably drawn to fresh water. If Kam keeps moving until he finds the lake, he might stay there. And if we’re stuck here… Hawkins pushed that thought aside. Focus. Between the distant hills and the lake sat a lighter patch of green. He couldn’t see exactly what it was—there was too little to make out—but it looked like a large clearing.

Maybe an old airfield, he thought. “The island is volcanic,” he said, noting the raised perimeter. Like most islands in the Pacific, this one had once been the top of a very large, active volcano.

“You don’t see any steam, do you?” Joliet asked as she explored the fringe of the clearing.

“No, it’s dormant. Probably been for a long time. There’re a couple of tall hills, a lake—probably at the island’s lowest point—and a large, flat clearing, but all of it is inside a very large crater.”

“Probably multiple craters,” Joliet said. “Volcanic cones tend to shift in the ocean.”

Hawkins heard the sound of shifting vegetation.

“Hey, I found the path,” Joliet said from below.

Hawkins looked down. Joliet stood on the far side of the small clearing, holding a large-leafed plant aside.

“I think I see footprints, too.”

Something about the word “footprints” triggered a new question. “Why is Kam barefoot?”

Joliet just stared up at him.

“Did you ever see him go barefoot on the ship?”

She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “He wore sandals all the time.”

“So why is he barefoot now?”

“Maybe they fell off in the water.”

That made sense, but still felt wrong. They were missing something. “Maybe.”

What the hell aren’t we thinking of?

“Hey, look at this,” Joliet said. She held the plant up in the air. The large leaves were bound together at the bottom. “The leaves were staked into the ground. He covered the path on purpose. Why would Kam do that?”

The mental floodgates opened.

Kam wouldn’t.

“We need to go back to the ship,” he said, sliding down the dome to the edge of the pillbox roof.

“Why? It will still be daylight for a few more hours. We can—”

“It’s not Kam,” he said, lowering himself over the front end of the pillbox. He held on to a vine for support.

Joliet rushed up and put her hands under Hawkins’s foot, supporting some of his weight. “What do you mean, it’s not Kam?”

“Why would Kam—”

The vine supporting most of Hawkins’s weight tore free from the concrete above the pillbox entryway. Taking the vine with him, Hawkins fell. He and Joliet spilled onto the grass in a heap.

Hawkins pulled his legs off of Joliet and got to his feet. He helped her up and as they both brushed off their damp clothes, he continued. “Why would Kam swim to shore, run straight to a path in the jungle, come all the way up here, and then conceal his tracks?”

She had no answer.

“Exactly,” he said. “Kam wouldn’t. Someone was already here.”

“But Kam is missing,” she said.

“He might have been lost in the storm with Cahill.”

“Or he was taken,” she said.

Hawkins didn’t think so. The footprints weren’t deep enough to suggest someone was being carried, but he couldn’t discount the theory, either. Kam wasn’t very big.

“Either way, we need to get back to the ship. The island is too big to search on our own, and the presence of an unknown person… or people, changes things. We need help.” As Hawkins turned toward the path leading back down to the cover, he glanced at the pillbox and noticed something different. Something was painted above the doorway, where the vine had been.

He brushed away the moss and vine bits still clinging to the wall and looked at the writing.

“Is that Japanese?” Joliet asked.

“That’d be my guess, but I have no idea what it means.” He looked at each character individually, trying to remember them, but stopped when he heard a faint scratching sound behind him.

“Got it,” Joliet said, capping a pen and slipping a small notebook into her cargo shorts pocket. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”

As Joliet started down the switchback path, Hawkins took one last look around the small clearing. When thinking about dogs and cats being left behind on the island, he made the logical leap to the idea that they’d be feral after seventy years of breeding, hunting, and surviving on an island. But now he had to consider another possibility.

What would people be like if they’d been left here, cut off from the rest of the world, for seventy years?