Chugy on the other hand… Her intentions broadcast every time they made eye contact. While the habits Talia had picked up in the jungle kept most men—and women—at arm’s length, they only seemed to intrigue Chugy. It was cute, for now, but it could become a problem if Chugy decided to act on her desires. Not only was Chugy very young, she was also impressionable and vulnerable. Turning her down could lead to drama, and a distraction like that, in a place like this, could be deadly. So as Talia scanned the room, she avoided Chugy’s eyes, watching her from the lounge that separated the dining room and the saloon, where she lay on a couch.
Sashi had been quiet all day. She seemed indifferent to whether or not they visited the island, and she had stayed in the wheelhouse with Emmei, who was his normal jovial self, despite the weather and the waves—and the dangers presented by both.
The engines reversed direction as they crested a wave. Everyone held on tight, fighting to not be sprawled on the floor. When the wave passed, the Sea Tiger was no longer moving. Talia swiveled around on the dining bench and looked out the rain-spattered window. North Sentinel Island was a mile off the port side.
“Ready?” Rowan asked, closing the laptop and stowing it in his olive drab satchel.
Talia smiled at Rowan. He wasn’t genuinely enthusiastic, but she appreciated his willingness. Rowan could have easily usurped her desires. As the man in charge of safety, there were a dozen reasons he could have pulled the plug on visiting the island in the rain, but he didn’t.
“I’m ready,” Chugy said. The girl’s sudden proximity made Talia flinch. Annoyance flared and she nearly chewed the girl out, but Rowan diffused the situation.
“Sorry, Chugy, but it’s going to be just the two of us for now. Until the weather clears.”
Chugy’s disappointment morphed into a glower directed at Rowan. “Who will pilot the small boat?”
“I can handle it,” Rowan said, staying calm, forcing a grin that almost looked natural. “The more people in the dinghy, the greater the risk of capsizing. In seas this rough, I can’t risk more lives than necessary.”
“Amen to that,” Winston said, performing a mutilated sign of the cross. “Dominus imperium sancti and shit.”
“Is it?” Chugy asked. “Necessary?”
“It’s important that they see us again,” Talia said.
“See you,” Chugy said to Talia.
Talia nodded. It wasn’t necessarily true, but it certainly couldn’t hurt, and it would let the Sentinelese know they weren’t frightened by a little inclement weather. Establishing both their humanity, and their superiority—in a way that didn’t frame them as gods or demons—could lead to a conversation not punctuated by arrows.
“Do you need me to come?” Mahdi asked, looking more nervous than sick.
“You’re fine here,” Winston said from the bar. “They won’t be talking to anyone today.”
Mahdi closed his eyes, sighed, and waited for Talia’s reply.
“He’s right,” she said. “Sorry.”
He gave a nod and said, “I’ll be in my quarters if you need me,” and then he took the stairs below deck.
As though synchronized, Sashi came down the stairs from the wheelhouse at the same time. “Anchor is dropped. We’re a little further out than last time. Because of the waves. Emmei is worried about the reefs.”
Rowan gave a nod and headed for the aft door.
“Are you sure about this?” Sashi asked. She sounded genuinely concerned. “The island will be here tomorrow. The storm might clear.”
Talia had seen the weather reports. Most called for clear skies toward the late afternoon, but meteorology was as unreliable here as it was in most parts of the world. “We’re in the tropics. The storm could be a monsoon by tomorrow. And if that happens…”
She let her words hang. They all knew what it meant. A monsoon could undo their expedition and put the Sentinelese at risk. They needed to do as much as they could, while they could, just in case the chance never returned. As she headed for the door, Talia couldn’t help but feel pursued. Sashi’s worry, Chugy’s jealousy, Winston’s abrasiveness, and Mahdi’s discomfort followed her to the door, but it all stopped at the threshold, held back by the rain.
Rowan was already soaked through. He peeled his T-shirt off and joked, “Mind if I keep my shorts on? I mean, at least until I need to shake my junk at someone.”
Talia laughed and stepped into the rain. Like Rowan, her instinct was to shed her clothing, but removing her bikini top and shorts with no anthropological reason would make the others uncomfortable—or interested.
“Hey, you two,” Emmei called down from an open wheelhouse window. His booming voice cut through the hissing rain. “If you run into trouble, there is a flare gun in the first aid kit. We won’t come to rescue you, but there are life preservers and we will know to watch the waters for your swimming return. If you are closer to shore, than the Sea Tiger…well, how you live or die is your choice. These seas, and the creatures that live in them, have killed as many people as the Sentinelese.” He flashed a bright smile. “Happy hunting!”
Rowan raised two thumbs into the air, picked up his backpack and rifle case, and headed to the dive deck. As he began pulling the dinghy through the waves, Talia collected her gear and followed. Climbing into the boat was a challenge, and she nearly fell overboard when the dinghy dropped into a wave trough as she stepped in. Rowan’s quick hands kept her upright, and saved her from looking like a fool.
Talia clung to the dinghy’s bench and wrapped her legs under it. Rowan turned them toward the shore and gunned the engine. As they surged over waves, spending nearly as much time in the air as they did in the water, Talia heard a strange kind of bird call. When she looked for the source, she found Rowan, laughing, having the time of his life.
As they grew closer to the shore, Talia didn’t bother telling Rowan to cut the engine. Rowing in these waves would be impossible. When they were within a hundred feet, she signaled for him to stop. The engine quieted, but didn’t stop.
“Hold on!” Rowan shouted, and before she could tell him she already was, the dinghy made a hard turn to port. A wave caught them on the side, tipping the boat to a forty-degree angle. Talia leaned toward the wave, keeping them from going over. When it passed, she was about to unleash hell on Rowan when she noticed the boat was no longer rocking. She glanced over the side and saw the reef just three feet below. It was a risky move, but while six foot waves surged down the open channel, they broke against the coral a mile out, leaving the waters above the reef relatively calm. They glided over the shallows and into a deeper pool, where the water descended a good twenty feet.
Rowan killed the engine, dropped anchor and looked toward the island. Between sheets of rain and thrashing trees, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. “So,” he said, facing her again. “You want to tell me why we’re really here?”
She didn’t know how to answer. It was a simple question, but loaded with possible answers, all of them partly true.
“And I don’t mean here,” he said, motioning to the small boat. “I mean the island. The expedition.”
She squinted at him, now not understanding the question at all. Their mission was clear: to make peaceful contact with the Sentinelese and bring them into the twenty-first century before they were exterminated for their crimes against idiots who should have known better.
“That’s why you volunteered?” she asked. “To talk to me about why we’re here?”
He stood from the engine and sat beside her so she didn’t have to turn around, and they didn’t have to shout over the rain. “I like Sashi well enough. In a way, she saved my life. But she’s been distant since we came to the island. Uncomfortable around us, the way a commander is before sending men on a shit mission. We both know Winston isn’t a filmmaker. I’ve been digging, but can’t find anything about him online. That means we’re either being lied to by Sashi, or he duped the Indian government. I thought Mahdi could be trusted, but he’s w
ithdrawn.”
“I noticed,” she said. He seemed sick on the boat, but wasn’t his quiet, but confident self at breakfast. He seemed shaken.
“Emmei and Chugs are hired help. I doubt they know much, and I don’t think they’d care, either. They’re here for the money, nothing else.” He smiled. “Well, almost nothing else.”
She chuckled and ribbed him with her elbow. “And me?”
“Lady, you’re certifiable, but I trust you.”
She nodded. “What are you thinking?”
“That we’re screwed.”
Talia glanced up at Rowan, confused by his defeatism, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking toward shore.
Not toward shore, she realized when she followed his gaze, toward them.
A long dugout canoe slipped through the water twenty feet away, a silent wraith, propelled by a lone Sentinelese man standing in the back, shoving a long pole against the reef. Four warriors sat in the front of the long canoe, armed with multi-pronged spears.
Rowan leaned toward his rifle case.
“Wait,” Talia urged. “They’re not hunting us.”
One of the warriors thrust his spear into the ocean. When he lifted it from the water, a long arched fish was impaled on the end.
Talia and Rowan both looked over the side. The water below teamed with sea life.
“The storm is kicking up nutrients in the water,” Talia said. “Drawing out the fish.”
“Drawing out the Sentinelese,” Rowan finished.
Talia opened her long case, revealing the bow and arrows she had brought. She chose an arrow with a long white line already attached, looping the loose end around her wrist.
“What are you doing?” Rowan asked.
“Relating,” Talia said. “But doing it better.”
“Shouldn’t you, ahh, you know?” He pointed to her clothes.
He was right. It would be better if she was dressed, or not dressed, like one of them, but they had seen her—all of her—the day before. They knew she was human. “There isn’t time.”
As the five Sentinelese men moved past, spearing fish as they went, Talia stood, nocked an arrow, and aimed it at the sea. There were so many fish she didn’t think it was possible to miss, but she didn’t just need to catch a fish, she needed to do it better, and that meant bigger, or multiple fish in one shot. She was capable of both, but luck always played a part.
The Sentinelese men paused their own fishing efforts to watch. Talia followed a large, orange fish, waiting for it to cross paths with another. She loosed the arrow a moment before Rowan shouted, “Wait!”
But it was too late. The arrow punched through the ocean, and instead of striking the two orange fish, it slipped into the flank of a ten foot tiger shark, as it swam in front of her prey. The shark bolted. Talia watched in shock and then remembered she was tied to the line spiraling into the water. Rowan’s wide eyes locked with hers, and then she was yanked off her feet and into the ocean, where predators now lurked, above and below.
12
Rowan had been trained to squelch things like shock and indecision. They were a good soldier’s enemy. Most of the time. There were occasions when a little extra thought went a long way, especially when the mind was impaired. Alcohol and quick thinking were not good bedfellows.
But now, despite being as sober as an Amish funeral, Rowan went rigid with uncertainty.
Talia slipped away through the water like a torpedo, dragged by a tiger shark large enough to bite her in half. At the same time, there was a canoe full of Sentinelese warriors just twenty feet away, their spears now raised toward him. With his rifle still in the case, he wouldn’t be able to retrieve it—and assemble it—without being impaled like a fish.
I should have brought my pistol, he thought, regretting that he’d left it locked up on the Sea Tiger. He hadn’t wanted to get it wet, and never thought they would have a close encounter during a storm, a hundred feet from shore. But even with the pistol, he might only be able to shoot two of them before meeting the same fate as the fish they speared.
He looked down to the water, choppy, windswept, and rain-pelted. It was like looking through hammered glass. If not for Talia’s hot pink bikini strap, he would have never seen her amidst the vibrant mix of fish and coral. She had to be ten feet down, twenty feet out, and still moving.
Why isn’t she letting go? He wondered, and then he remembered how she’d wrapped the line around her arm. When the shark pulled, the line had tightened. She wouldn’t be able to get free until the shark slowed down, and that wasn’t likely to happen while there was an arrow embedded in its side…unless the wound was mortal, or the angered shark turned around to defend itself.
Even without the Sentinelese presence, there wouldn’t be much he could do to help her. This wasn’t a thriller novel. Jumping in with a knife clutched between his teeth would do little good since he couldn’t outswim a shark.
Talia was on her own, and so was he.
The five Sentinelese men stared him down, unwavering, indifferent to the rain and Talia’s disappearance. Rowan stepped to the side, distributing his weight more evenly, keeping the boat level. The men tracked him, but didn’t move.
What are they doing?
The best he could come up with was they wanted to see how Talia’s fate played out. If she could escape from, or maybe even kill, the shark, perhaps that would be their golden ticket to whatever screwed up chocolate factory the natives had hidden in the jungle.
During the thirty seconds it took for Talia to surface, the warriors didn’t move. Then a loud gasp pulled their attention back to the water, thirty feet away, where Talia sucked in a breath before being pulled back under.
Well, he thought, she’s still alive, so that’s something.
And then the Sentinelese turned back to him, their eyes projecting more menace than their spear tips. Talia’s appearance seemed to have shifted something. But will they attack?
A moment later, he had his answer: no. But when they started thrusting their genitals at him, he almost wished they would just kill him and be done with it. Seeing it from a distance was strange enough, but up close it was disturbing. When he’d first heard of the Sentinelese’s more unusual tactics for repelling newcomers, he’d gotten a good laugh over it. But now, seeing it for himself, he wanted nothing more than to leave. But he couldn’t leave Talia, not while she was still fighting for her life, and not without recovering her body if she didn’t make it.
C’mon Talia, he thought. Fight.
Rowan winced at the sound of fwapping nut sacks. Then the thrusting turned to hopping, all five men perfectly balanced in the canoe. They waved their arms, snarled, hissed, slapped their hands, and then stopped. It was practiced. A routine of intimidation.
They stared at him again.
They’re waiting, he thought, but for what?
What would Talia do?
Rowan knew the answer, but he didn’t like it. Not at all. But he also thought he understood Talia’s methods for the first time.
He glanced down at his shorts, then out toward the Sea Tiger. He could barely see the ship through the rain. Aside from the five men in the canoe, and Talia fighting for her life beneath the waves, he was unobserved.
Damnit, he thought, and he undid his belt. He dropped his shorts, and feeling very naked, considered his options. He thought about trying to repeat their routine, but didn’t think that would be enough. Talia would mimic their behavior, but improve it. But how do you improve on genital thrusting?
Then it came to him. The Sentinelese had developed an advanced form of psychological warfare, able to repel visitors without wasting arrows. But when it came to intimidation through physical routine, nothing beat the ancient Māori war dance known in New Zealand as the ‘haka.’ A month-long training with New Zealand’s Special Operations Forces had led to friendships and a competition where the NZSOF Kiwis showed off against the US Army Rangers, both sides performing the haka. While the Rangers were better
on the real battlefield, no one could perform the haka like an honest to goodness New Zealander—man or woman. But Rowan had learned the routine, and though he didn’t remember all of it now, he threw himself into the act with gusto.
With every slap of his chest, hiss, stomp, and tongue extension, he lost himself a little more to the dance. He didn’t understand the words, but didn’t think it mattered, the combination of gestures and shouts was easy enough to understand: I will fuck you up.
When the haka was finished, he unleashed a long hiss, tongue extended.
Then the civilized Rowan returned and he met the Sentinelese warriors’ gaze, one at time. They appeared unmoved and unshaken, but then the man with the pole raised his hand and pointed out to sea. “Lazoaf.” He shoved the pole against the coral below, and the canoe slid through the water headed back to shore.
Rowan watched them leave and then flinched when the water beside the boat erupted. Talia rose from the sea, her gasp for air sounding more like an ancient beast. Her arms clutched the side of the dinghy, her sudden weight throwing Rowan off balance. He caught himself on the side and then grasped Talia’s arm, lifting her from the water and depositing her back on her seat.
Water-thinned blood coursed down her arm.
Rowan crouched, inspecting the arm. “Are you okay?”
Talia took a few more deep breaths and then looked at her arm. “It looks worse than it is.”
“Were you bitten?”
“If I’d been bitten, it would be worse than it looks.” She wiped her hand over the wound. “This was from coral. It’s how I cut the line.”
She looked around, indifferent to the still-bleeding wound. Stopped when she saw the Sentinelese men headed back to shore. “They left? What happened?”
Forbidden Island Page 9
