The Collected

CHAPTER 44

It was even worse than Nate thought.

As he set out from the fort, he hoped to find a small village or, at the very least, some facility that might have a means for him to get a message out. But the journey to the far side of the island took only forty minutes, and in that time, the only man-made thing he came across was an empty blacktopped landing strip.

He circled around the beach, thinking there might be a fishing hut or a dock, but it was clear that with the exception of the fort, the island was deserted.

What made it even more frustrating was the glow on the horizon. It was too big to be a ship, so it must have been from a city, meaning there was another island-a bigger one-out there.

Nate stared across the water. It couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty miles away. But since he had no way to get there, it might as well have been a thousand.

He allowed himself a moment to sit and rest. Calling for help was apparently not an option. Neither was escaping the island. As soon as the other prisoners were roused from their cells and it was discovered he was gone, Harris’s men would come looking for him. There wasn’t far he could go, after all.

He knew he had only one course of action open to him. Do whatever he could to save the others. There was a good chance he’d be killed in the process, but he couldn’t just hide away while they were being tortured to death.

He pushed himself to his feet and turned back to the jungle.

First order of business: Get a better idea of the fort’s layout, and try to gauge how many soldiers Harris and the old man commanded.

After that…

Well, one step at a time.