by Dale Mayer
“No,” Brenda whispered. “I just woke up here.”
“Me too,” Sandrine said. She got to her feet and walked to the doors for the umpteenth time. “There’s a double door,” she said, “but I can’t open it.”
“Somebody’s got to open it from the other side,” Brenda said. “Lots of big doors are like that.”
“Which is a stupid system,” Sandrine said caustically, looking around again. “I mean, if you’re inside, how do you get out? Another door should be here too.”
“There could be,” Brenda said. “I’d get up, but, every time I lift my head, the pain is excruciating.”
“Stay still,” Sandrine said, moving beside her friend once more and dropping beside her. “Definitely don’t move. I’ll see if there’s any way out of here.”
“Don’t forget to look up or down,” Brenda muttered, just as her eyes fluttered closed again.
Sandrine sat back on her heels, wishing she at least had blankets to cover Brenda. Her friend would catch a chill lying on the ground like this. It was a warm July day, but, after being in the water, their clothing was still wet, and, with that head injury, Brenda wasn’t likely to handle the additional stressors on her body that well. It was getting light enough now that, with any luck, Sandrine could do a full search. She had tried earlier, but it had been pitch-black. Not much had changed with the lighting right now, but enough sunlight came through the cracks around the doors that she could see better.
She walked to the wall and very carefully moved along, looking and feeling the surface until she came all the way around to the doors again. The problem was, it was all rock. Wherever they were, it was like a rock cave, almost like a ravine with some man-made roof on top. She could see beams closing it off, but the beams rested on the rock walls, so somebody had taken a natural formation and had adapted their needs to the existing rocks. It wasn’t that the ceiling was superhigh either, but Sandrine had nothing to stand on.
When on her tiptoes, Sandrine could reach up and feel the wood, but she couldn’t apply much pressure to lift up a beam. And the wood was covered on top. She didn’t know if it was topped by a mossy or a grassy slope by now or whether more wood or even roofing tiles were purposely laid down.
She returned to the double set of doors that should have opened from the center outward and checked the pins on the sides. The doors were made of wood, not steel, but some crossbar must have been on the other side because she couldn’t see any latch between the two of them but did see a shadow, and she wondered if a two-by-four blocked the doors from opening. Which would make it very hard for her to get out. She didn’t have anything small enough to fit in the crack between the two doors, and yet strong enough to lift the beam on the other side. Somebody had put her and Brenda in here and had secured the doors deliberately.
She hesitated calling out but knew that her friend needed help, plus Sandrine didn’t want to stay locked in here another minute. Taking a deep breath, she placed her mouth close to the crack between the two doors and called out, “Hello? Hello? Can you open this door, please? My friend needs help!”
She wasn’t sure what to expect, but, when no answer came, she returned to her friend and sat down. Brenda was unconscious again, her breathing shallow and low. And, just when Sandrine thought all was lost, she heard footsteps. She raced to the door and waited.
Chapter 3
As Sandrine watched and waited in the shadows, a bar was removed from outside the wooden doors, confirming her suspicion of a two-by-four closure. Then both doors were opened. She stared in shock at the soldier standing slightly above her. She hopped to her feet and ran toward him, climbing out of the enclosure. “Oh, my gosh,” she said. “Thank you for opening the door.”
Then she stopped because the look on his face was anything but nice. “My friend needs help,” she said, motioning toward Brenda. “I think she’s got a concussion.”
“She’ll be fine,” he said. “I have food for you though.”
She brightened at that. “Any chance of blankets?” she asked hopefully. “We need to be dry.”
He shrugged. “What do you expect when you come in out of the ocean?”
“I was hoping for a way to the mainland,” she said, not exactly sure what was going on, but whoever this person was, she doubted he was a soldier, regardless of his attire. At least not one from her country. “Is there any way to get us back?”
He shook his head. “Not right away. And I don’t have any blankets with me.”
At that, her hopes plummeted. “Do you have any spare blankets you can bring later? Or a way to build a fire? We can’t have one in there. Not enough ventilation.” She looked at the ground, fairly sandy with little bits of rocks. “We could build one just outside the doors though,” she said. “That would help.”
He shrugged. “As long as you don’t leave this area, that’s fine,” he said, “but you’ll have to forage for your own wood. And I don’t want you gone for very long.”
She hesitated, not sure exactly what was going on. “That’s fine,” she said. “Do you have any paper or matches?”
He laughed. “If you want a fire, build it yourself,” he said. He turned and picked up a plastic container with a big flat lid. Giving it to her, he said, “This is your food.” Then he turned and walked away. At least he didn’t lock the door. But then she was at the base of a long rock face. The shelter that they were in had a lot more rock above it, and they were nestled in a little sandy cove.
“Wait,” she called, running behind him.
He spun around and glared at her, his hand going to his hip.
That’s when she saw his gun. She swallowed hard. “I get that no wood is here, that I can’t build a fire and that you’re not very willing to help us,” she said, “but I do appreciate what you’ve done so far.”
His hand dropped slightly, and he stared at her, assessing her out in the light. “Well, make sure you stay grateful,” he said. “I don’t have to do this.” With that, he turned and left.
She took several deep, calming breaths, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. She wasn’t sure if they were prisoners or whether his words were a veiled threat that more would happen to them if they didn’t behave. But, as she looked around, only sheer rock walls and sand were here. She saw no wood, nothing to burn at all. Only more sand. At least out here it was dry and a lot warmer. If she could get Brenda out here, it would help. Sandrine put down the plastic container and walked back inside, but Brenda was sound asleep. Sandrine frowned at that but took off her shoes and her socks, then laid them outside to dry. If nothing else they needed to get some of these wet layers off.
It took a bit to get Brenda’s T-shirt and pants off. Sandrine wasn’t even sure it was the right thing to do, but wearing soaking wet clothing wouldn’t help her friend either. Sandrine laid them out in the sun as well, then quickly stripped off the outer layer of her own clothing as well. She was hoping the guard wouldn’t come back any time soon, since two women in just their underwear might put ideas into his head that she didn’t want there. She wrung everything out carefully and spread them on the hot sand, hoping they would take no time to dry. Then she went back in and checked on Brenda. Now on the floor without her clothing, Brenda was bound to be that much colder.
Brenda woke up at that point and stared at Sandrine. “We’re still here?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I need you to come outside into the sunlight,” she said. “I don’t know when we’ll have our visitor back, but I want us to get dry and warmed up while we can.”
With a great deal of effort, Sandrine helped Brenda to her feet, and they stumbled slowly out into the sunlight. They had not even a rock to lie on. She helped her friend lie down again and said, “Try to get warmed up, okay?”
“The sun feels really good,” Brenda whispered.
“I know,” Sandrine said. “But listen. At least one man is here, so we can’t stay in just our underwear.”
Brenda opened her eyes and st
ared at Sandrine in shock for a moment. Then she whispered, “I hear you. Let’s get as dry as we can.”
That was the best she could do for the moment, so Sandrine headed to the plastic container and lifted the lid. Inside was a cooked fish and a few biscuits. She swallowed hard because the man gave her no water. And, while she didn’t know what was down in the little corner where the rocks opened up to the ocean, it wouldn’t offer fresh water. She realized she’d come up against another issue, and it wouldn’t be an easy one to remedy. They would need fresh water far more than food.
Sandrine slowly replaced the lid on the container and returned to sit beside Brenda. If nothing else, Sandrine would sit and guard her friend while the two of them warmed up and their clothes dried off. Beyond that Sandrine didn’t know what else she was supposed to do.
The coast guard had laid out the mariner maps for them. Keane and Lennox were already at the initial spot where the women had gone missing. Keane had the transcripts of the coast guard interview with the two men, Scott and Greg, and had heard the guardsmen’s search stories as well. “Any reason to believe the men deep-sixed the women?” Keane asked the captain in a low tone.
The captain looked at him and shrugged. “We’ve seen people do worse.”
“I know it’s pretty easy to get rid of somebody out here, particularly in ugly weather.”
From where they sat, watching the currents, and from the patterns on the map Keane had, it was hard to say where the two women would have ended up. “I understand several islands are around here where the women could have landed.”
“Yes,” the coast guard officer said. “We’ve taken our boats around all of them and found no obvious sign of the two women washed up on shore or even caught up in the shallows.”
“Okay. We’ll take the Zodiac and hit each one of these islands as well,” Keane said.
“The Zodiac is yours to use,” the captain said. “We’ll stay out here for the next twenty-four hours, unless we get called away before that,” he said. “I’m not sure how much longer after that we can wait nearby. Regardless, we will return here as often as possible over the next week. Send a signal for a pickup, and we’ll be there.”
“Good enough,” Keane said. “That’s another potential issue. Maybe another boat picked them up.”
“They could have been taken to all kinds of places, though nobody has contacted the authorities.”
“That’s the best hope we have,” Keane said. “We can certainly hope for something like that.”
But, in his heart of hearts, he didn’t hold out much hope. He studied the map a little bit longer. “I think we’re ready to head out.”
“Good,” the captain said. “Keep in touch. We’ll expect a check-in from you every six hours. If not, we’ll send in the cavalry.”
Keane nodded and headed to the lower deck. Lennox waited for them with scuba gear, in case needed, but asked, “What else do we need in the Zodiac?”
Keane said, “Rescue and tactical gear.” Unbeknownst to the captain, Keane also had his duffel bag with additional firepower, in case they came up against something unexpected. Keane didn’t like to be out in the middle of nowhere unarmed, plus the talk of that installation worried him. As did that distress call from a week earlier. The coast guard had no further light to shed on that phone call either, the officer said, but they had increased their search of the area, yet had never found anything to back it up in those initial days—until they found the couple dead thereafter.
With the gear secured in the Zodiac, Lennox hit the throttle, and he and Keane headed toward the first of many islands they needed to check, although one of the four largest were the estimated locations most likely to find the women. To start with, the men did a very slow pass around the first one, coming up along the shoreline as close as Lennox could, checking in the shallows and moving around each and every one.
As soon as they circled back to their beginning point on this island, Lennox put in at a small landing. It wasn’t exactly a beach, but they could disembark and beach the Zodiac. Then the two of them crisscrossed the small island, looking for any sign of human inhabitants, but found no sign of anything, other than a few seagulls.
With the first island under their belt, they hopped back into the Zodiac and went on to the next one and did the same thing. They discounted the small islands first, and, when they came to the second largest, Lennox pulled onto a small beach with steep rock cliffs all around. After they landed and disembarked, pulling the Zodiac up onto the beach far enough that they wouldn’t have to worry about it floating away with the tide, Keane and Lennox then stopped and searched the area.
“Interesting formations here,” Keane murmured.
“I don’t see any other way to search the top, except by air.”
“And, if somebody is up there, how the hell did they get there?” he asked, studying what appeared to be really steep elevated sides to this island.
“I don’t know,” Lennox said, “but we have to check.”
They had brought climbing gear with them and would need every bit of it, and they were both decent free-climbers too. They quickly scrambled their way up to the top and realized they only had to scale the first twenty or so feet, and then it was a much more gradual ascent. As they climbed, they widened the distance between them so they could keep an eye on the whole area around them. By the time they made it to the top, Keane noted a large plateau of a decent size. It made for a very unique island. They walked around at the top, searching along the perimeter, but found no signs of anybody.
“Looks like we’re zero for three,” Lennox said, “out of the four most likely islands.”
“Unless they’re dead or have been picked up by somebody else,” Keane said.
Lennox just nodded. “I sure wish we had better intel.”
“We have satellite images downloaded, but they don’t show movement on any of these islands.”
“Well, since we’re here, let’s take care of these little ones off to the right, and then we’ll tackle the bigger one on our list,” Lennox suggested.
“Good enough,” Keane agreed. They were already well past midday and heading into early evening. “If we can get these little ones checked over today before sunset,” he said, “I suggest we park for the night on the bigger island nearby.”
“That makes sense. Otherwise, we can go back to the cruiser if need be.”
Just then a crackle came on Keane’s comm unit. He tapped it to hear the captain saying they’d been pulled away to work a rescue mission. “We’re fine,” Keane responded, “at least for the moment. We’ve checked three islands of the four on our list, plus we’ve got four smaller ones to cover that we sighted nearby. Then we’ve got plans to park on the big one overnight.”
“Good enough,” the captain said. “Keep in touch, and we’ll expect your next check-in at six hours from now.”
“We’ll let you know when we hit the big island.”
With that, they boarded the Zodiac and kept working through their plan. The smaller islands were really small, but that didn’t mean a body wasn’t caught in the shallower waters between them. It was fairly slow and tedious work because they had to keep checking the ocean below as well, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was almost dark when they finally made their way to the largest of the islands. They pulled the Zodiac up onto a small beach.
“What do you say we make camp right here?”
“I agree,” Lennox said, and, hopping out, he stretched and rotated his shoulders. “You forget what looking over the edge of that boat does to the back of your neck and shoulders,” he muttered.
“This island will take a whole lot longer to search too,” Keane said, staring up at the various its layers. “It would be quite easy for somebody to get up the sides most anywhere here.”
“We’ll spend one day here, I imagine,” Lennox said. “Look. It’s almost dark. We may as well call it quits and start early in the morning.”
“Sounds go
od.”
The two of them built a small fire and laid out the bunk rolls they had brought with them. They didn’t need much, since it was a summer day. Just to crash for a few hours so they could rest. Keane figured it would be daybreak by at least five, possibly four-thirty a.m. Once they had enough light to search the island, they’d be good to go.
Keane sat here under the stars, listening to the waves crashing on the beach around them. “It’s pretty special out here,” he said.
“It is,” Lennox said. “But that’s because we’re both healthy, and our bellies are full, and we’re not injured,” he said. “Unlike these two women.”
“And those first two people who disappeared, then were found dead. Out of all this, the damn distress call is worrisome.”
“Right. That’s a whole different story. Like you said earlier, we don’t know of pirates in the area. So what gives?”
“Exactly. That’s the part of this that makes me uneasy,” Keane said. “The part that made me bring our duffel bag,” he said, with half a smile.
“So far our search to date rules out any real chance for the women to be anywhere but this larger island—or another one of the other ones, farther out. And, of course, if this one’s got decent camouflage, no way we’ll find any research installation here.”
“It’s on this island though, isn’t it?” Lennox asked, confirming.
“Yes, but, without the satellite imagery, I couldn’t see anything. Could you?”
The two exchanged hard glances.
Keane shook his head. “I didn’t,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not here. How big is it anyway? Is it just something in the ground, tracking tremors, or is it something much worse, much bigger?”
