by Dale Mayer
Soon, with ropes, grapples and a small safety kit, the two of them headed out together. They didn’t want to split up at this point in time because too many unknown factors were here. It would have been a normal search-and-rescue scenario but for that distress call a week earlier, followed by two dead bodies. That changed the game completely.
The cliffs rose all along the white beach. One spot had a more accessible cliff, where the climbing was a little bit less onerous, and, as they climbed higher and higher, they realized that the island had multiple levels. It would take forever to search. They started off splitting the island into quadrants and checked out the first quadrant, going as slowly and as carefully as they could. They had to consider the chance that somebody made it onto the beach and then climbed but maybe had gotten pinned or had fallen. From all angles they studied and searched the first quadrant and found nothing.
With that, they headed to the second quadrant, another part of the beach where they landed but off to the east. That search took a little less time as parts of it were sheer cliffs, and no way anybody would come up or down on any of that. They also looked for any sign of the installation or an earthquake-tracking system.
Keane had seen one before, during a previous mission, but it had been buried in the ground. He was looking for any telltale flags or poles to mark it, but, so far, he had found nothing man-made. Just as they headed to the third quadrant, he stopped and pointed—indeed, one of the poles he had expected to see. They took a look and could see a US-government-issued tag on the top. He quickly took several photos and sent it off to Nico. Is this part of the tracking system?
The answer came back almost immediately. Yes. Should be three of those.
Good to go, so they kept on walking. That meant humans had been here at one point in time, but were there still? And who was recording this information? He sent their questions off to Nico, asking for a schedule of who would have come, when they would have been here last, when they were next expected to visit this island and what kind of data they were collecting. And, perhaps most important, was anything else on the island besides these three locations for the research installation itself?
With the one site tagged on his GPS, they moved forward to the back section of this third quarter. They followed a big dip in the plateau here. It rose higher on the right-hand side in the back quarter, but the island itself was at least one mile across, and so it was taking forever. He sent back a note to Nico. We may not finish today.
When Nico’s answer came back as a text with a single question mark, Keane responded. Island huge. Heavy vegetation. Somebody shipwrecked could have made it into some of these spots and collapsed. After a moment of silence, he sent another text. A dog would help.
He got a reply right away. Want one airlifted in?
He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. Everything’s soaking wet, and, while a dog would certainly make it easier, we’ve already come this far, so— He looked at Lennox. “What do you think about bringing in a dog?”
Lennox’s eyebrows shot up. “You know what? That’s not a bad idea.” Yet, as he looked around, he said, “But everything is so wet, it would really play with the dog’s olfactory system. Plus, we don’t have any scent of the women for a dog to search for. It’ll mostly be a case of search and rescue, looking for signs of life.”
“Or signs of death,” Keane said. “A lot of the dogs are quite capable of finding cadavers as well.”
Lennox said, “Let’s give it today, and, if we don’t have any luck, then maybe tomorrow consider the search dog issue.”
“Good enough.” Keane passed that message off to Nico and kept moving.
“I don’t see any footprints,” Lennox noted. “I don’t see much of anything up here.”
“But that heavy rain would have washed so much away.”
“Sadly, that’s very true. And the cliff edges are almost completely impassable,” Lennox nodded, looking around. “I don’t remember this island.”
Keane looked at his partner curiously. “Do you know this area?”
“Part of the family camping trips. But I don’t remember this island.”
“Lots of them are fairly impassable,” Keane said. They kept walking, searching, but found absolutely nothing. They heard only wind and saw the odd bird. As they stood on the edge of what they had deemed the third quadrant, he said, “It feels empty.”
“I know,” Lennox said, “but that doesn’t mean it is.” He lifted his hands, cupping them around his mouth, and screamed, “Hello.” A massive gust of wind seemed to carry his voice forever.
Just when they were about to turn to head in another direction, Keane thought he heard something. He reached out, grabbed Lennox’s shoulder. “Do that again.”
Lennox looked at him, clearly surprised, but he willingly cupped his hands around his mouth and called again. And this time what they heard a response a little clearer. “Is that a person?”
The two men stared at each other and then quickly raced toward the sound. It wasn’t easy to decipher, and neither was it easy to find. They found nothing on this level, so they worked their way toward a lower plateau area.
Keane saw a large grassy spot and was hoping for their sake that the women had made it that far. It took the guys a good hour to make it down to the spot, and, when they arrived, he had Lennox call out again. This time the response was clearer but had an edge to it.
As he came over the top of the grassy area and looked down, he spotted a hollow, where the ocean had carved out a deep, circular area, completely surrounded by sheer cliffs.
Down in the center a woman stood, and, as soon as she saw him, she screamed and waved her arms.
He called out, “We’ll come down.”
She nodded and called back, “We need help. My friend is injured.”
“Radio the coast guard,” Keane said to Lennox. “We should be able to get her out of here.”
“I’m wondering if I shouldn’t go back to the Zodiac,” Lennox said, studying the lay of the land, as Keane brought out his ropes and grappling hooks.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Keane said. “Leave me the first aid kit, and, if you want, head back, grab the Zodiac and come around to this bay. I’ll make my way down and take a closer look. Then we’ll decide if the water exit is best and easiest.”
With that decision made, he hooked up his ropes, and slowly, while Lennox stood at the top, Keane made his way down the sharp cliff face. When he was almost down, Lennox called out that he was leaving. Keane gave his partner a thumbs-up signal and watched as his friend disappeared from the top of the cliff. Down below, maybe thirty more feet, he could see the woman still standing there, waiting for him to land. “I’m coming,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I was afraid we’d been deserted again.”
He heard the word again but would clarify that with her later. And it was hardly the time to ask. Some of the rocks were coming loose as he descended. He stared up where he’d come from, and he could see rocks crumbling down over his head. As several bounced off his helmet, he swore, then ducked against the cliff wall.
She cried out and quickly ran, backing away from the rocks.
What was going on up there above him? Unless Lennox’s movement caused rocks to shift, Keane wasn’t too happy about it either.
Keane clung to the cliff and waited until the rocks stopped moving. When it finally appeared to be safer, he let himself swing back out and quickly descended. As he got down within the last ten or fifteen feet, he felt his rope jerking. He looked up to see his rope cut loose. He fell the last few feet, rolling clear of the rocks. As soon as he could, he picked himself up and raced back against the cliff’s edge. He motioned for her to run toward him.
She stared at him in shock but quickly joined him underneath a little dip where the rocks could continue to fall without hitting them. But the rockslide stopped.
“Who the hell is on this island with you?” he asked in a harsh voice. His mind
raced with possibilities.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she whispered. “A man dropped off a container with a fish and a couple biscuits, but he wouldn’t give us any blankets or towels, and he wouldn’t help us get off the island. He just left us.”
Keane stared at her, shocked at the turn of events, but no doubt she was telling the truth. She had her arms wrapped around her chest and held her shoulder, which even now oozed blood. He leaned over to check it.
“I got hit by some of the falling rocks,” she said and reached up to touch her head.
He checked out both injuries. “At least they’re superficial. What I need to know is whether we’re facing one man or a dozen.”
“I don’t know,” she said, her teeth starting to chatter.
He wrapped his arm around her and tucked her up close. “Look. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you,” he said, “but my rope was cut.” He pointed at the rope that now lay like a coiled snake on the sand amid the rocks beside him.
Her hand clapped over her mouth as she stared at it; and she just burrowed in closer.
He waited for a long moment and then said, “I need you to get ahold of yourself.”
She nodded. “I know. I know,” she said. “It’s been two very long days.”
“Start at the beginning, and tell me what happened,” he said, as he studied the area around him. “Tell me what you’ve seen. Like, where did you see this man?”
“He—well, we were locked inside that little space up there,” she said, pointing. “A two-by-four closes the doors. When I called for help, I heard footsteps, and somebody came and took the bar off, opening those doors. He brought us food, but he didn’t give us any water, and then he left. He walked down to the opening there to the ocean.”
“Did you hear a boat? Did you hear him leave at all?”
She shook her head. “I did see stairs going to a flatter spot up there, but I don’t know where else he could have gone. And he hasn’t come back. I looked all around at the top of this plateau, but I didn’t find anything.”
“Do you need water?” he asked, unclipping a bottle from his belt.
“We collected rainwater,” she said, “but, yes, if you don’t mind.”
He quickly popped the top and gave it to her and watched as she drank thirstily. He waited until she was done and then sagged back in place.
“My friend is hurt,” she said. “She’s got a head injury, and she’s delirious. I don’t know what to do for her.”
“Not a whole lot we can do except get her to medical help,” he said, looking around. “I want to make it to where your friend is, but, if somebody is watching us, we don’t want him to know that we’re alive. Especially me.”
“You’re hoping he’ll think you died in the fall?”
He nodded. “Yes, but I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to come down and check on me.”
“Oh, God. I don’t know,” she said. “We can walk around this corner, but, at one point, it’s exposed. And, if he’s watching us, we can’t stop him from seeing you.”
“So we’ll stand here for a moment and make sure he’s gone,” he said. “He could be on his way down, and, if that’s the case, I’ll have to find a way to capture him before he tries to hurt us again.”
“If it wasn’t for the cut rope,” she said slowly, staring at him, “I wouldn’t think that he was trying to hurt us at all. He did bring us food.”
“I get that,” he said. “Can you tell me what happened? Like, who you are, and why you’re here? Let me start, I’m Keane Lytton and I’m here on behalf of the coast guard.”
She smiled. “My name is Sandrine Coulter,” she said, “and I was out sailing with my friends. My girlfriend, Brenda, is hurt. We were out in her boyfriend’s catamaran. We’ve gone sailing with them several times before but never this long or this far away.”
“And what happened? How did you end up in the water and wind up here?”
“Brenda fell overboard,” Sandrine explained, her voice gritty. “We caught up to her in the water, and I threw her a lifebuoy, but she seemed unable to grab it, so I jumped into the water after her.”
He raised his eyebrows and stared at her.
She nodded. “I know, not exactly the smartest thing to do. But I couldn’t do any less.”
Chapter 5
“Honestly, we’ve been friends since forever, and I wouldn’t let her drown.”
“Understood,” he said. “What about the men on the sailboat with you?”
“It’s all a bit fuzzy,” she admitted. “I was screaming for help and trying to get Brenda to the buoy, so at least she’d have something to hang on to. But it got sent off in another direction, and the waves crashed over us,” she said. “I remember keeping the two of us afloat, but I completely lost track of where the catamaran went. I don’t even know if the guys are alive.”
“They are. They got the boat back safely and contacted the coast guard, saying that you two were missing.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said. “I was so worried about them.”
“And you ended up here, washed up on the beach or what?”
“I think so,” she said, “but honestly that is where it gets very blurry. Because I woke up inside that little sheltered area. The thing is, we woke up behind the doors, and they were closed, locked, so we couldn’t get out. Now a really cold wind can pass through the island, and maybe the man thought that we’d be delirious and get hurt or something. I don’t know. Because, once the man opened the doors and brought the food, he left the doors open.”
“As if he wasn’t too worried that you could go anywhere,” he said sardonically.
“I hate to admit it, but the thought did cross my mind that he had no need to keep us locked up because we couldn’t escape the island anyway.”
“Which is possible,” he said. “It is a fairly big island though, and I have searched three-fourths of it. Still don’t know what’s even here.”
“It’s not very easy to climb anyway,” she said. “We’ve been sitting here, waiting for somebody to come, and nobody but that one man has.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said, frowning as he studied her closely. “Brenda’s father got me and my buddy in here to search all the islands. The coast guard hasn’t given up, but, with the bad weather, they’ve gone off to rescue other people. They’ve searched the nearby islands from the coastlines and then walked the islands themselves and found nothing.” He said, “We’ve searched seven islands nearby, before landing here.”
“We’ve been here one night that I’m aware of,” she said. “With the heavy rain, I managed to fill the food container he gave us with water, so we’ve been subsisting on that. But he hasn’t come back.”
“Well, I’d say he’s back now,” Keane said, pointing to the cut rope.
She nodded. “And that scares the crap out of me,” she said, “because either he doesn’t want us to be rescued or he doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t care, but he wanted you to join us down here.”
“Or he was hoping I’d die on the way down,” Keane said. “It wasn’t exactly a friendly welcome.”
“What about your friend?”
Keane’s face turned grim. “Lennox is a hell of a fighter and a good man. I’ll put my money on him that he makes it back to the boat.”
“Boat?” She brightened at that.
“We have a Zodiac on the other side,” he said.
She studied his face, then whispered, “Do you think it’s safe to return to Brenda now? I don’t like leaving her alone for long.”
“She’s probably better off alone over there than she is with us,” he said, his voice harsh.
Sandrine winced at that. “How long before your friend gets here with the boat?”
At that, Keane’s face narrowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “It depends. If it’s a clean trip, he’ll be at least two hours getting back to the boat. Another hour maybe coming around. If he’s been injur
ed or worse and can’t get to the boat, it’s a whole different story.”
She stared at him in shock. “That sounds terrible.”
“It’s realistic,” he said. “Either way, if he can get to us, Lennox will do it. He also has some communication gear with him, so he’ll send out a message to the coast guard as soon as he can.”
“Can messages get out from here?” she asked.
“Down here, not likely,” Keane said. “But up top we should connect via satellite.”
She breathed a deep and slow breath. “That all sounds so doable,” she said. “I’m really, really glad that you’re here.”
He gave a clipped nod. “I am too. It sounds like you’ve been through the wringer already.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said.
He looked at her curiously, as if she wasn’t sure if she should tell him something. He clearly read her face and gave her a hard look. “If you haven’t told me everything, this would be a really good time to share. I need all the help I can get, figuring out what we’re dealing with here.”
“Look. I can’t prove it,” she said, “but, when I was screaming at Brenda to grab the lifebuoy, just before I went in, I’m almost sure I felt a push between my shoulder blades.”
He stared at her, shocked for a moment. “Meaning, you didn’t jump in after your friend? You were pushed?”
“I was planning on going in anyway,” she said, “so I don’t know if he made that decision for me or what. I just can’t say. Such chaos was happening at the time.”
“And which one of the men was it?”
“Scott,” she said sadly. “My ex-boyfriend.”
“And have the two of you had any problems lately?”
“We broke up a couple months ago,” she said. “Before that, we had been fighting lots, and I found out he’d been with another woman, so I broke it off.”
“And yet, you still went sailing with him?”
She winced. “It’s a little hard to explain, but I had told Brenda about what happened. Except the part about me seeing him, she didn’t believe it, and her partner swore that Scott hadn’t been unfaithful. So the trip was a setup to try and get me back together with him.”
