Kong: Skull Island

by Tim Lebbon

  “Says the eager photo-journalist. So who hired you for this?”

  “Nieves. Landsat guy.” She came a step closer and looked him up and down. Examining him with her reporter’s eye. Conrad wondered what she saw, what conclusions she came to.

  “Meet Colonel Packard yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s wound pretty tight.”

  “The man’s a decorated war hero. That’s the package they come in. So, isn’t shooting a mapping mission a step down for you? I get the impression you’re someone who’s seen real action.”

  “I begged for this gig,” she said. “The war’s over but there’s a sudden interest in a remote Pacific island and we’re going in with military choppers, machine guns and explosives? I see dirty Pentagon fingerprints all over this op.”

  “And you want to expose it and win a Pulitzer?”

  “If you’re not there you can’t get the shot,” she said. They were standing closer now, and hidden down in the hold it felt to Conrad like they were having the most important conversation on the ship. “The right photo can alter the course of things. It can shape opinions.”

  “And win you a Pulitzer.”

  She smiled. “So what about you? How did a British Special Forces legend get dragged into this?”

  And there it is, thought Conrad. Of course she knows who I am. He’d suspected it anyway, and she’d probably followed him down here to corner him for this talk. He didn’t like the idea of someone stalking him like this without him knowing, but he guessed he wasn’t the first person she’d followed. She was as serious about her work as he was. He could only respect that. He was also pretty certain that they were on the same side, whatever side that was.

  “You know more about me than I know about you,” he said.

  “I’m a journalist. I ask questions, Captain Conrad.”

  “Just Conrad. I’m retired.”

  “Sure, it looks like it.”

  He shrugged.

  “So when I ask questions, more often than not people give an answer, even if they’re lying.” She waited. Conrad looked around, listened—still alone.

  “They offered me money,” he said.

  “Really? That’s it?”

  “A lot of money.” She raised her eyebrows. Conrad continued, “I don’t get too invested in outcomes.”

  “You don’t strike me as a mercenary,” she said.

  “You don’t strike me as a war photographer.”

  “Anti-war photographer.”

  That surprised him. He’d rarely heard such distinctions from the correspondents he’d encountered, and he was about to ask her more about that when he heard the soft, regular tread of footsteps.

  Conrad and Weaver crouched down between the crates. They were close now, so close that he could smell her subtle perfume and faint perspiration. He sensed that she had plenty of questions for him, and she intrigued him, too. She’d worked hard to get on this expedition, and was already more ahead of the game than him. He’d work hard to catch up.

  Hidden in shadows, Conrad peered around the edge of a crate and watched two soldiers enter the hold. They seemed casual and relaxed, chatting and laughing. One of them picked up a small box, and after a quick look around they left the hold.

  “They gone?” Weaver asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry. We’re just killing time.”

  Weaver smirked and left, stealing away across the hold, through shadows, and out through a different door.

  EIGHT

  “I could so get used to this.”

  It was almost like a holiday. Mills had soaked up plenty of sun during his time in Vietnam, but getting scorched whilst lying next to your chopper, waiting for the call to get skyborne and possibly fly to your death, was far different from this.

  This was almost luxury.

  The Sky Devils were splayed across the Athena’s deck. Mills sat with Cole and Reles, shirts off, playing cards and drinking beer that Slivko seemed to be able to find just about anywhere. Reles was ten bucks down, and Mills knew from experience that playing poker with Cole was never a good idea. The guy probably had a poker face when he was coming. Maybe he’d smiled once, but few of them could recall when, or under what conditions. Mills guessed even his mother would have trouble remembering.

  Weaver was taking photos of the men at play. They all pretended not to notice her, but Mills could see guys drawing in their guts, tensing their muscles, whenever the camera looked their way. She sure was hot. They all agreed on that. Mills also silently suspected that she could take on any one of them in a fight, and probably come out pretty good the other side. A reporter like her didn’t make her way through the war without being hard as nails and twice as sharp. She’d already proven that she took no bullshit.

  He’d noticed how she often sat with the camera close up to her face, even when she didn’t appear to be taking pictures. Weird. Lots of things were weird about this trip.

  “Oh, man!” Reles said when Cole revealed his hand. He’d won with two sevens. He swept the notes into his small pile, face barely changing.

  “Hey, Major!” Mills called. Chapman was leaning back against a pile of kit, writing pad balanced on his knees, pen in one corner of his mouth as he thought about what to write. “Another letter to Billy?”

  “Yeah, Mills. What of it?”

  “Nothing of it, Major,” Mills said. He smiled and stood, hands slapping and drumming his stomach to get everyone’s attention. “Dear Billy!” he said, loud enough for all the guys to hear. A few were already chuckling. “I know I promised you I’d be home by now, but the world is too big, and the smell of sweaty men too damn irresistible.”

  More laughter greeted him, and Chapman offered his usual patient smile. Mills said no more. He left the major to his letter-writing. They knew how important it was to him, and that made it important to them all.

  “Hey, Mills,” Cole said. “Another hand?”

  “Sure,” Mills said. “I’ve got seventeen dollars you haven’t stripped me of yet.” He sat back down and glanced across at the reporter. She hadn’t moved, and had barely seemed to notice his quick performance. She kept the camera to her face, focused on Chapman where he sat writing. Waiting for the perfect shot.

  Once, he’d spent a couple of days with a sniper from the Marines, a middle-aged guy who’d just volunteered for his third tour. The guy was called Max, and the VC had nicknamed him Viper because of the snakeskin he wore around his hat. With over forty confirmed kills under his belt, and by his own calculation over a hundred unconfirmed, Max had become something of a legend on both sides. Mills had been fascinated, but quickly came to realise that Max was not a well man, nor a happy one. On a mission, with a target in mind, he was utterly focused on everything around him—the sky, the grass, a leaf, a spider, his quarry. Everything came down to the mission. He’d told Mills that the only life he could ever really, truly live was viewed through his scope. Anything else was just waiting.

  On parting company, Mills had been profoundly unsettled. He’d seen the result of war on many men, but never quite like this. Max, the Viper, had lost the ability to see the world through his own eyes.

  Mills wondered just what Weaver saw through her lens.

  * * *

  When the Athena hit the first rough patch of ocean, the mood changed aboard ship. Much of the team became seasick and went below, taking to their bunks, but finding little respite there. Randa was surprised that even some of the Sky Devils turned green and disappeared to puke in private. He’d have thought that helicopter crews would be used to lurching, jumping, and leaping stomachs, but only Packard and Mills seemed immune, standing on deck close to their moored birds and watching the magnificent views.

  Randa loved the sea. He liked it when it was millpond flat, and he loved it even more when waves broke over the bow and smashed against the hull. It gave the ocean character and texture, and was a reminder that humans were only passengers here. He was not superstitious, and did n
ot attribute any real emotion to however the sea was behaving. But he liked when it was rough. It seemed more natural, more honest, like a giant beast writhing to shed parasites from its hide.

  He loved the tumultuous ocean even more from high above.

  The crow’s nest offered fantastic, unhindered views. Down below, the ship rolled and dipped through the waves, bow slicing through the swell and throwing spray back across the foredeck. The sea flexed and shone like the scaled skin of the world, and sometimes that was how Randa thought of it—the Earth itself was a giant beast yet to be discovered. They travelled across its surface, dived beneath to explore its riches, but did not yet fully understand that the ocean was part of a living, breathing thing. This high above it he could look with objective eyes, and what he saw sent shivers of anticipation down his spine.

  Giant beasts had been part of Randa’s imagination since he’d been a child. Growing up, he had started learning more and expecting less from the humanity he was part of.

  Maybe that was why he liked being up in the crow’s nest so much. The ship rocked, the ocean roared, the whole mast shook, and he held in defiance of the planet’s casual fury.

  Randa brought the binoculars up to his eyes again and scanned ahead of them. The seascape close by was ridged with breaking white waves, swells the size of mountains, troughs like bottomless valleys. Further away, the horizon was obscured by vast banks of clouds. They flashed with lightning deep within their mass, too far away to hear. From this distance they resembled a solid wall, but as the Athena drew closer he knew that more details would begin to stand out. Tough, intimidating details. No one had ever said this would be an easy journey.

  He thought of Brooks lying below and spewing up his guts, and smiled. You ain’t seen nothing yet, kid, he thought. The sea right now was a breeze compared to how it would be when they drew closer to the storm.

  He heard a noise from below and glanced down. Conrad was climbing up to join him. Randa was pleased. He’d seen the ex-SAS man quietly and unobtrusively inspecting the whole ship, as well as observing every member of the team and ship’s crew. He might have claimed to be along for the ride, but he was ensuring that the ride was as safe as possible for all involved.

  “Weather’s looking pleasant,” Conrad said, joining him in the crow’s nest and looking ahead to the storm front. He seemed unaffected by the weather, quiet and calm as ever. “How far out are we?”

  Randa handed him the binoculars. “Barometer’s dropping. We’re near the centre of the Ring of Fire.”

  “Skull Island, Ring of Fire. You pick the loveliest vacation spots.”

  “It’s the most volatile geologic region on the planet,” Randa said. “Magnetic anomalies, radio outages, whirlpools. Hundreds of aircraft and ships have vanished here. It’s even more deadly than the Bermuda Triangle, though for some reason far less known. There’s even talk of a movie crew disappearing out here in thirty-three. I’ve been studying it for decades. This must be how Magellan felt!”

  Conrad was staring through the binoculars, scanning the stormy horizon.

  “Magellan was killed before he made it back,” Conrad said. He lowered the binoculars and handed them back to Randa.

  “We’re being watched,” Randa said, smiling at Conrad.

  The ex-soldier didn’t need telling. He glanced back and down at Weaver, who stood against the railing at the ship’s stern aiming a zoom lens up at them.

  “Yeah, well. She’s got a job to do, too.”

  From far ahead came a flash and the first rolling growl of distant thunder.

  * * *

  A little over an hour later, Randa was on the bridge along with Nieves, Packard, and Chapman. The Athena’s Norwegian captain had already talked about turning around, and Randa would not, could not allow that. They had come too far, and not just on this boat. The voyage was the culmination of years of research and planning, and…

  And it’s important! he thought. None of them knows how much. Not yet.

  “That storm does look a lot nastier in person,” Nieves said. Randa threw him a withering look. The captain didn’t need any more excuses to turn his ship and flee from the beast before them.

  “How far are we from the island?” Packard asked.

  “Fifty miles, maybe more,” the captain replied. “Can’t get exact bearings on a place that doesn’t exist.”

  “Take us closer,” Randa said, tired of the captain’s bullshit.

  “Nei, not this ship! You want to launch, you do it from here. I’ll hold position, but I’m going no closer to that.”

  Randa pursed his lips and stared at the captain, but the Norwegian wasn’t backing down. It was not cowardice, Randa knew. He’d been a captain for over thirty years, and he knew what his ship could and could not handle.

  He’d also heard stories about this place, as had any captain who sailed this part of the Pacific. So no, not cowardice, but fear.

  “Can you punch through that, Colonel?” Randa asked Packard.

  “Those thunderheads must top twenty-thousand feet,” Chapman protested.

  “I’m aware of the storm, Major, but our window is now,” Randa said.

  “What about that opening?” Packard asked.

  Chapman grunted and shook his head, tapping a small storm-eye on one of the satellite photos splayed out before them.

  “It’s a rare low-pressure pocket,” Randa said. “Part of a pattern in the weather here. I’ve been studying it for years, employing climatologists to give me their predictions, building data models of the whole area.”

  “And we all know how much we trust the weathermen,” Chapman said.

  Randa fisted his hand, breathing heavily, calming down. If he lost his temper now it would achieve nothing. “The hole is there now,” he said. “And we will have another opening to fly back out in three days. After that, the gales will force this ship out of the area.”

  “We knew this was a possibility,” Nieves said. “The window is too tight.”

  “Nonsense!” Randa said.

  “I appreciate your passion, Randa,” Nieves said. “But as field supervisor of the controlling agency, I say we abort.”

  “Wise call,” Randa said. He faced up to Nieves. “I’m sure the Landsat director will be inspired by your courage.”

  “This is just a map survey!”

  “To one of the last uncharted areas on earth!” Randa felt the last few years falling away, leaving nothing in their wake but broken dreams. He couldn’t afford that. Not after so long, and so much work. So much dreaming. “Do you really want to call it off on account of rain? Stay on the boat if you want.”

  He turned to Packard who was watching quietly, expressionless. “I was told your unit was capable of handling inclement weather, Colonel.” He didn’t think Packard was a man open to such a blatant challenge, but it was worth a try.

  Packard stood even taller and straighter than before.

  “That storm’s a cool breeze compared to what we’re used to. Isn’t that right, Chapman?”

  After a slight pause Chapman said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s spin ’em up,” Packard said.

  Randa closed his eyes briefly, then looked at Nieves and the ship’s captain. Their concern was still evident. “We’re good,” Randa said. He smiled. “We’re good.”

  NINE

  As Cole called out the pre-flight safety procedures, Mills performed the checks. He was excited and a little nervous. They were all surprised that the old man had agreed to take the birds up in this weather, but they’d flown in worse. Just about. Although right then, he couldn’t quite remember when.

  “Battery. Generator. Cold start.”

  Cole was their pilot. The word ‘Outcast’ was stencilled on his helmet, and Mills didn’t think anything could be more appropriate.

  His own nickname was Love Child. It was probably less apt, from what little he could remember of his parents. When they weren’t fighting they were fall-down drunk, and often both at the sa
me time. This was his real family, here and now, and he had never belonged anywhere more fully.

  The turbines powered up, and Mills peered out at the storm still battering the ship. “What’d the old man get us into this time?”

  “Nothing he wouldn’t do himself,” Cole said, nodding to their left. Packard was pacing around and performing pre-flight visual checks on his own Huey, helmet already on and ready to fly.

  “Yeah, well,” Mills said, “there’s probably a lot of stuff that man would do I want no part of.”

  Mills watched deckhands loading the final crates and supplies onto the choppers, then retreating from the flight deck. Most of the crew were already strapped into their allocated aircraft, and Randa sat behind them, their only passenger. He nursed a film camera in his lap. He seemed excited, and had already filmed the men going through their flight preparations. He said very little.

  Packard was the last of the Sky Devils to board his bird.

  “Ship’s turning into the wind,” Cole said. Waves smashed against the ship’s starboard side, then slowly started breaking straight over the bow as the captain turned the vessel to face the storm. Each wave impact shuddered through the ship, and they could even feel the judders on board the choppers.

  “We’re really doing this,” Mills said.

  “It’s easy,” Cole said. Mills thought he was probably trying to reassure himself.

  * * *

  Randa strolled quickly towards his waiting helicopter, Brooks on his heel. This was it. Against all the odds, this expedition was about to lift off, and once they’d punched through the clouds to the island there would be no turning back. It felt like all his life had come down to this.