Island 731

38.

Hawkins flinched awake, confused and disoriented. His eyes opened, but he couldn’t see. He could hear, but the ambient background noise sounded muffled. He breathed through his nose, but smelled only his own breath. Cool air caressed the bare skin of his arms and legs, but his face felt warm and stuffy.

There’s a hood over my head.

The hood was a mixed blessing. On one hand, he was blind to his surroundings. On the other, his captors wouldn’t know he was awake. He focused on his senses, paying attention to his body first. He lay on his side atop a hard but smooth surface. Wood, he thought. His wrists were bound, but his feet were free, which meant he was most likely in some kind of cell.

He tried listening again, but the only sound he could distinguish was the slight buzz of electricity. Power meant that he was being kept in one of the newer buildings, but that wasn’t exactly helpful information.

Hawkins tried to remember some words of wisdom passed down from Howie GoodTracks, but came up with nothing. The man knew everything about tracking and hunting, but being held captive never came up. Yes, it did, Hawkins thought. Be the more aggressive predator. When the time came, Hawkins would put that advice to good use again. It wouldn’t matter against the monster he’d seen before losing consciousness, but he’d rather die fighting than end up like Jim.

“Hey!” Bray shouted from someplace nearby. He shouted again, more loudly. “Hey! Let me the hell out of here!”

Hawkins wanted to shush the man, but couldn’t without revealing that he, too, was awake.

“Bray, is that you?”

Hawkins recognized the new voice. Jones.

“What about Hawkins? And Drake?” This voice belonged to Blok.

Bennett had been wrong about the entire crew. They’d been taken, but not killed. Not yet, anyway. And Hawkins knew the reason: Why kill a perfectly good test subject?

Hawkins waited, hoping to hear Joliet’s voice, but only heard one other person, Bennett himself, weeping not too far away.

“Where are we?” Bray asked.

“Don’t know,” Blok said. “We’ve been masked the whole time.”

Bray grunted, probably sitting up. “Is Hawkins here?”

“Haven’t heard him,” Jones said. “Did you all see Jackie anywhere?”

“No,” Bray replied. His voice burned with rage. “But we know who brought us here.”

“Was Kam,” Bennett said with something resembling a sob.

“We heard the son of a bitch talking to someone when Bennett was brought in,” Blok said. “Whoever brought you in didn’t say a word,” Blok added.

“It was Kam,” Bray said. “He tranquilized Hawkins and me.”

“Kam carried you?” Blok asked, sounding dubious. “You’re at least twice his size.”

After a few moments of silence, Bray asked, “How sure are you guys that we’re alone?”

Nobody answered.

Hawkins wanted to second Bray’s observation, but remained silent. If they weren’t alone, whoever was listening in would be learning far more about them than vice versa.

“Actually, I’m right here.”

Kam’s voice was so close that Hawkins couldn’t stop himself from flinching and revealing his ruse. Dammit! He felt a tug on his head and the black shroud was yanked away. Brilliant white light forced his eyes shut. He took a slow, squinted look and found Kam squatting beside him, a hood in his hands and a frown on his face. For a moment, he looked like the same sheepish kid Hawkins had come to know aboard the Magellan. He looked almost apologetic. And then he mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Hawkins nearly replied aloud, but when Kam saw this, his expression became pleading. If he’s mouthing the words, Hawkins realized, he doesn’t want someone to hear. Maybe some part of the kid really did regret what he was doing, but it didn’t change the fact that he had captured all of them.

The apologetic expression disappeared as Kam stood up. “You can speak now, Ranger.”

In a flash, Hawkins remembered the last time he’d heard Kam’s voice. Mother. He called the monster “Mother.” Was it just a name, or was that thing somehow Kam’s actual mother?

“Hawkins?” Bray said. “You’re here?”

“Yeah, Eight. I’m here.” Hawkins turned toward Bray’s voice. He was sitting on a metal bench in a cell identical to Hawkins’s—thirty-six square feet surrounded by metal bars. The smooth, gray floor held a drain at the sloped center. The cells were modern, but ultimately not very dissimilar to those of the old laboratory. Beyond Bray, Hawkins saw Jones, Blok, and Bennett, bound with plastic cuffs and sitting in identical cells, each with a hood over their heads.

Kam stepped back, out of the cell, and locked the door. It was a simple sliding lock, like an animal cage. If not for the plastic cuffs, it would be easy to escape. Hawkins strained at his bonds. There would be no breaking them, nor slipping free.

When Kam stepped to Bray’s cell and unlocked the door, Hawkins got a view of the rest of the room. It wasn’t just a holding cell, it was a surgical suite! The bright light filling the room came from an array of floodlights hanging down from the ceiling above a single operating table. The brushed metal surface was clean, but the floor around it was stained red from blood. There had clearly been some effort put into cleaning the mess and keeping the place sanitary, but whatever surgery had taken place here recently had been mopped up hastily. Next to the table were two carts. The first was empty, but no doubt meant for holding tools of the trade. The second was full of monitoring equipment and held a portable defibrillator, just in case the subject tried to go and die before the mutilation was complete.

Glass cabinets lined the walls. They were packed with medical supplies, lines of orange plastic pill containers, thick brown glass bottles, and an array of well-organized cleaning supplies. Bright blue rubber aprons hung by the exit. Matching gloves and boots rested on a bench below. On the wall opposite the supplies was a pegboard similar to the one in the barn’s slaughter shed, and some of the tools hanging from the pegs looked similar—hacksaws, scalpels, scoops, forceps, clamps, retractors, scissors, and drills. Below the wall of tools was a countertop. It held a small refrigerator, two microscopes, rows of tubes, syringes, and other nonsurgical tools. A flat-screen monitor on a swiveling arm was mounted above the microscopes.

This is Charles Manson’s dream come true, Hawkins thought.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Bray said. His hood had been removed and he was looking over the room.

Kam moved from cell to cell, removing hoods and relocking doors. He waited in silence as each man expressed his revolt at their surroundings. He was never rough. Never cruel. Almost polite. This was not the kind of man who kidnaps his friends. So who is pulling his strings? Maybe no one. The apology could have been a deception, like everything else on this island.

“Is this where you did it?” Bray asked. “Where you operated on Jim?”

“What happened to Jim?” Bennett asked, eyes wide. The kid was in shock. Hawkins didn’t know how Bennett ended up here, but guessed he’d been plucked from his hiding spot by the big chimera. That encounter probably did a number on his psyche.

“He was mutilated,” Hawkins said. “Blades attached to his wrists. Eyes removed. Ears replaced with some kind of devices. And he’d been lobotomized.” Hawkins knew the news wouldn’t be received well by his cellmates, but he wanted to see Kam’s reaction. He had none, aside from a slight frown.

“What about Ray?” Bennett asked. “Where is he?”

Hawkins turned to Bennett. He looked like a shell-shocked POW, but still had the presence of mind to ask all the right questions.

Jones stood and kicked the bars of his cell. “And Jackie! Where the hell is my daughter!”

“Ray did not survive his alterations,” Kam said after a moment. “Jackie is… alive.” He turned to Hawkins. “As is Joliet.”

“‘Alive’ isn’t exactly the same as okay,” Hawkins said. “Is it?”

Kam turned away.

“Why are you doing this?” Jones shouted. “Tell me, you son of a bitch!”

Kam stood still, head nodded toward the floor. Hawkins couldn’t tell if he felt bad, was deep in thought, or indifferent to the questions.

It was Bray who answered. “I’ll tell you why.” He stood off his bench and stepped closer to the bars, staring at Kam. “And please, correct me if I’m wrong.”

With no reply forthcoming, Bray continued. “During World War Two, Unit Seven thirty-one set up shop on this island. The first location in mainland China worked out well for chemical and germ warfare development. Lots of people for experiments. Flea bombs with bubonic plague. Family pets given cholera. Poisoned water supplies. Sick shit. But nowhere as sick as what you boys dreamed up for this island. You’d have thought vivisection was bad enough, but Unit Seven thirty-one wanted to fuck with nature. Make living weapons. Down and dirty biological weapons. Screw microbiology. They wanted macroweapons. So you came here, where you thought you’d never be discovered. You buried the bodies in the sand. Or dumped them into the river. And over the past seventy years, the island became populated with the freak show Unit Seven thirty-one dreamed up. But test subjects are harder to come by, right? So you hijack ships, maybe lure in others with distress calls, or maybe go the old-fashioned pirate route. However you get them here, once they’re in that cove, they never leave. How close am I?”

Kam stood still.

Pulse.

Hawkins flinched, expecting some kind of attack to follow the barely audible sound.

“You are correct,” Kam said. “On all counts.”

“But it doesn’t explain you, Kam,” Bray said. “You’re, what? Twenty?”

Pulse.

“Twenty-three,” Kam said, stepping closer to Bray, but not yet looking at him. “My father was Kamato Shimura Senior. My father was twenty-five when he led the research here.”

“You were born when your father was seventy?” Bray said, sounding incredulous.

“My… mother was not so old,” Kam said. “I was born on Island Seven thirty-one. I didn’t leave here until four years ago when—”

Pulse, pulse.

Kam stammered, glancing up, first at Bray and then Bennett, and then back to his feet. “It doesn’t matter.”

Someone’s definitely directing Kam’s answers, Hawkins decided. One pulse for an affirmative answer, two for negative. He couldn’t fully trust Kam. He doubted he could trust him ever again. But the apology might have been genuine. And that meant they might have a chance. So how can I out Kam and find out who’s really in charge without revealing his apology?

“Since my father’s death ten years ago,” Kam said, “his work has continued.”

Hawkins stood. “But not by you.”

Kam looked thrown by the statement. “What?”

During his college years, Hawkins, like all college boys, did stupid things. He didn’t go streaking or binge drink, but he’d been placed in the “nerd dorm” and the game of choice involved learning silly phrases in foreign languages and saying them to people on camera. Hawkins played along, finding it mildly humorous, until he used his Japanese phrase on a woman who spoke the language. She’d been more surprised than anything, and answered his question kindly, pointing down the hall toward the men’s room. He repeated the phrase now, “Benjo wa doko desu ka?”

Where’s the toilet?

When Kam didn’t reply, Hawkins repeated the phrase more forcefully. “Benjo wa doko desu ka!”

Kam began to fidget.

“You can’t speak a word of Japanese, can you, kid?”

Pulse, pulse.

“Ignore whoever is sending you the signals,” Hawkins shouted, “and answer my damn question for yourself!”

The response was laughter. But it didn’t come from Kam. It came from one of Hawkins’s cellmates.