Wild Card

EIGHT

Nimec brought the pontooner in toward the mangroves that hemmed the island’s wild northwestern shore, getting it as far under the trees as he could, sliding through their pale web of roots to finally pull beneath their arched, outspread limbs.

He throttled to a complete halt and turned toward Annie. She was knelt over Blake, who had for the past few minutes shown signs of awareness, if not quite consciousness, squeezing his big hand weakly around hers as she held it, once even half opening his eyes to look at her face with seeming recognition.

“You holding up okay?” Nimec said.

“So far,” she said. “There’s nothing to do but try, I suppose.”

He ran a hand across his chin in thought, still looking at her. Unable to guess the severity of Blake’s injury, they had been careful not to move him from where he’d fallen, and done little in the way of treating him other than to pat some of the blood off his head with gauze from the boat’s first-aid kit, then gently ease it from the hard deck onto her folded windbreaker, providing whatever minimal comfort they could.

“Been about fifteen minutes since we radioed base on the mainland,” Nimec said. “The Skyhawks are taking off out of San Fernando, and fast as those birds travel, it’ll be another ten or fifteen before they show.” He paused. “I’m guessing we can buy enough time right here… or at least that right here’s our best chance.”

Annie nodded her understanding. Overhead the sky was almost unseen through the roof of branches, cut into thin slivers of blue that scarcely showed between their interstices. In the Stingrays that patrolled the island, men they could no longer trust — and had every reason to want to elude — might very well be out searching for them. And what blocked their view of the sky would also block any view the chopper crews might have of the pontoon boat from above. That gave Annie some measure of hope. But she had been a pilot most of her life, had flown above the atmosphere in a space shuttle and trained others to do the same, and it had occurred to her there was more to be concerned about than visual observation.

“Pete,” she said, her expression troubled. “If our people can fix on your GPS signal…”

He looked at her, and she let the sentence trail.

“Yeah, Annie,” he said. “We’d have to figure theirs can, too.”

Jarvis Lenard crouched in the shadows of the mangroves and wondered what was going on.

Drawn to the sound of the marine engine, he had picked his way through the undergrowth to investigate, gotten as close as he dared to peer at the approaching vessel from the gloom at the forest’s edge. It was, he saw from his concealed position, a pontoon boat. A pleasure boat. To his knowledge, the Sunglasses would not come out looking for him in such a craft. Not unless they were trying some deception, no… but what would be its logic? The wilderness area was large, and he reasoned that it was unlikely they would stop the boat expecting he would be close enough to hear it, never mind be moved to risk being exposed to those aboard.

Which, Jarvis thought, was of course the very thing he had done. And perhaps that proved the Sunglasses were a step ahead of him, counting on his desperation to do him in, knowing the boat could tempt him to reveal himself this time when caution would have prevailed at another. Perhaps there were ten such boats, a dozen, set out into the marshes as lures.

Perhaps, yes…

And then again, perhaps not.

Jarvis flattened himself almost onto his belly and crawled further toward the shore, slipping among the low foliage and riblike air roots, his already soiled and tattered clothes muddying to stick clammily to his body. Then, a few yards from the boat, he paused again. A man in swim trunks and a jacket was moving from its pilot’s station toward the middle part of the deck and Jarvis realized now that there was a woman with him, kneeling down over something—

His eyes widened.

No, he thought.

Not something.

Someone.

Jarvis inched still closer until he was chin-deep in the mire, hoping the insects and leeches in his company would not make a total feast of him. But on he went anyway — he had to get a better look at the person on that deck. It was a man, he saw now. A large man lying on his back, his head on what might have been a towel or jacket…

Suddenly Jarvis pulled in a breath.

There was blood all around that makeshift pillow. All around it, and all through it, and even smeared on the woman’s swimsuit.

If these were Sunglasses and not people in trouble… maybe even people with trouble akin to his own, for why else would they have sought the forest in a working boat rather than turn southward toward Los Rayos, where the injured passenger could receive medical attention… if these were Sunglasses, then he was a brainless fool for wanting to help them, ah yeh.

An’ help yah’self, ya want’a be honest, he thought. For here might be a way off the island… a way to reach someone of authority on the mainland before he and his knowledge of Udonis’s hidden shipping files were made to disappear off the face of the earth, like the oil shipped to far and unknown places on those barges.

Dripping wet, spattered with muck, Jarvis put aside his fear and weariness, got to his feet, and started toward the boat — but had not taken more than two steps forward when he heard a new sound that momentarily froze him in his tracks.

Standing barely in the shadows of the trees, he craned his head back, looked through the trees into a broken sky, and saw three helicopters out over the water, one on his left, the other two on his right, still the size of wasps to his vision, but belting in with trajectories that would lead them to converge directly over the shore ahead of him.

Annie heard the chop of rotors and looked up, her heart pounding in her chest.

“Pete,” she said, and grabbed hold of his arm. “Pete, those copters—”

Nimec pointed up to their right.

“That one’s theirs, Annie, I can tell from its shape,” he said, and then swept his hand across to the left. “And those two… those two’re ours.”

The Stingray’s pilot spotted the choppers coming on at breakneck speed from the south and turned toward the man beside him, his eyes surprised and dismayed behind his helmet visor.

“Warn those bloody bastards off, whoever they are,” he said.

Still staring skyward at the choppers, Jarvis filled his lungs with what he thought must have been the deepest breath he’d taken in his entire life… and then prepared to make what he thought might be its greatest decision.

As fate would have it, the people he’d hoped would prove his salvation needed immediate rescuing themselves, needed to get immediately out of sight as well, for it was now beyond question that they too had fallen on the wrong side of the Sunglasses. Fallen in a way comparable to his own in terms of its threat to life and limb, if Jarvis could tell anything from the number of birds in the air.

And having reached these conclusions, how was he to act on them? What new demands of his conscience must he prepare to accept or reject? He exhaled. These were good enough questions in theory, no doubt. But however intimidating it might be, he must deal only with reality, as he had since his cousin was murdered, and then since his own aborted escape attempt on a boat, and all throughout his ordeal afterward. And however many questions he might choose to ask himself, Jarvis knew the choice before him was no different than it had been seconds earlier. He could retreat into the forest and whatever safety it provided, or do what he could for the passengers aboard that boat.

“Lord Almighty, do whatcha can to protect me,” he muttered to himself, and plunged on ahead toward the water.

“You have entered restricted airspace,” the Stingray’s copilot said into his headset’s mouthpiece, his radio tuned to a common frequency. “I repeat, this is a nofly zone. Identify yourself and redirect—”

“We’re UpLink International aircraft out of San Fernando,” the lead Skyhawk’s copilot responded in a calm voice. “And you can redirect your head up your ass, because we’ve got permission to approach from your government and are coming in whether you like it or not.”

Jarvis Lenard emerged from the mangroves in an almost maniacal dash, splashing his bare feet into the open surf.

“Both of ya, come wit’ me ’n’ be quick,” he yelled to the man and woman on the boat, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Getya injured fella int’a raft and come on where I can bring ya into hidin’!”

The Stingray’s copilot looked over at the man flying the aircraft. “You think they’ve really gotten airspace clearance?” he said.

“They haven’t had much time,” the pilot said, his hand on the collective. “But we can’t know for sure.”

“What’s our next move, then?”

The copilot thought, frowned.

“We aren’t going to just let them through,” he said.

“There are two of them—”

“I can count,” said the pilot. “When can we expect some assistance up here?”

The copilot checked his graphic displays.

“It shouldn’t be long,” he said. “Beta-three-zero’s closest, bearing in from the harbor. The others are also on course.”

“Then hail Beauchart and give him the situation as it stands,” the pilot said. “We stay with the intercept unless or until he call us off.”

“Chopper alpha-one-zero reports a pair of UpLink choppers on a heading for the target vessel,” the radioman said, his mouthpiece pulled slightly away from his face as he glanced up from the console. “The intruders claim sanction from the mainland and our crew is asking how to proceed.”

Standing to his right, Henri Beauchart bent his head toward his chest, closed his eyes, and rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger. What was he to do? Contact air traffic authorities in San Fernando to request they verify or deny the UpLink pilot’s assertions? If the clearances proved legitimate, then those who afforded them certainly had been informed that the approaching helicopters were on an emergency rescue operation. How would he explain his position of wanting to turn them back? Even if he were able to come up with something to justify it, whatever he said would be disputed by UpLink. And the one indisputable fact was that Nimec and his wife had been able to send out a call for help. In the end, it wouldn’t matter whether or not official permissions were given. If they were still to disappear, it could not be explained away. Eckers had staked everything on his accident scenario, and he, Beauchart, had been a willing accomplice — and now the scenario was dead. Along, perhaps, with Eckers.

Beauchart produced a long breath, feeling himself physically deflate. None of his options were good. It was all coming down. No matter what action he took, coming down around his head. A confrontation over the helicopters’ right to approach would only help bury him deeper.

He opened his eyes, raised his head from where it had sunk, and turned to the radio operator.

“Order our pilots to disengage,” he said. “The visitors are to be considered friendlies and allowed full entry.”

The lead Skyhawk’s pilot saw the Aug pulling off, turned to his partner, and grinned.

“I win the bet,” he said. “Told you my bullshit story would work.”

The copilot looked at him.

“Suckers,” he said. “You gonna rub it in?”

“Just pay up and get me that date with your knockout cousin,” he said. “I promise not to take too much advantage of her.”

Nimec heard the man in ragged clothes screaming at them from the shore, looked his way, and then turned to Annie. The Stingray had veered off in the northerly direction of its approach, shrinking from sight even as the combined roar of UpLink’s oncoming birds began to drown out whatever the stranger was shouting at the top of his lungs.

“What’s he saying?” Annie said.

Nimec took a glance back over his shoulder as the Skyhawks swept in, then shrugged.

“Don’t know,” he said. “But for some reason or other, I’m sure we’ll find out before too long.”