“Well,” Mohr said, peering through the scope of his sniper rifle, “they’re wearing towels on their heads.”
They weren’t all wearing Keffiyehs around their heads, but many of them were. It was hardly scientific evidence, but they’d made calls like this with less evidence. It wasn’t like they could walk in, ask if the men were with ISIS and if they’d mind holding still while the Predator drone circling above launched a half dozen Hellfires down their throats.
“Works for me.” Rowan toggled his mic. “Hutch, this is Starsky. Party is hopping. Say again, party is hopping. Permission to blow out the candles? Over.”
“Copy that, Starsky. Permission granted. Over.”
Rowan switched on the laser designator attached to his sniper rifle and looked down the scope, the bright green dot as clear to him as the North star above, but invisible to the men sneaking about in the dark. He moved the laser point to the center of the action, held it still, and called it in. “Candles are lit.”
Rowan kept the laser on target and lifted the night vision goggles away from his eyes. In a moment, the view would be transformed into a fireball bright enough to blind anyone watching the scene with light-amplifying eyewear.
“What is that?” Mohr asked.
Rowan glanced at his partner, still wearing his night vision goggles. “Place is about to be lit. Lose the—”
“Shit,” Mohr said. “I’m seeing ACHes with the towels now.”
The ACH, or Advanced Combat Helmet, was a staple of the U.S. military, its distinct shape impossible to mix up with other helmets. Unless the men they were lasing were dealing in stolen U.S. military equipment, which was doubtful, they were looking at another ops group, likely jarheads.
Rowan toggled his mic. “Abort, abort, abort! Friendlies are in the kill zone!” He jerked his rifle to the side, shifting the laser sight guiding the incoming missiles.
The explosions rained down, fifty feet off target, but still close enough to kill. Shrapnel shredded some. Others were melted by the heat. Everyone else was shattered by the four shockwaves that wrenched joints apart, burst lungs, and stopped hearts.
Four seismic booms rolled past, dust swirling around, hot and chemical.
And then the screams began. Distant, from the few survivors. Beside him, Mohr, goggles still lowered, was blind. And in his ears, Hutch wanted answers.
“Hey.”
Rowan sat up so fast, he nearly rolled out of bed. Sweat rolled down his forehead.
Talia took a step back, hands raised. “Whoa.”
Rowan’s breathing slowed as he remembered he was on board the Sea Tiger. He looked down. Saw his clenched fists, fight or flight reflexes ready for the first option. He forced his fingers to unravel, and felt his back loosen in tandem. “Sorry.”
“Bad dream?”
“I wish,” he said. “Hard to tell when it’s a memory.”
“I get it.” She sat on the bed beside him. “Have some of those myself.”
“Are you the villain in yours?”
He regretted saying it when he saw her frown. But then she put her hand on his back. Gentle. Caring. Honest. This was a side of Talia he had yet to see. All the fire extinguished. “We’ve all done bad things.”
“I killed ten men.”
The slow, smooth motion of her hand over his T-shirt came to a stop. “When you were a Ranger?”
He nodded.
“You must have known you would be asked to kill when you joined the Army.”
“I don’t lose sleep over enemy combatants.” Rowan tried to purge the memory of that night from his thoughts, but failed. “I made a mistake. Ten Marines lost their lives because of it. And what did I get? A dishonorable discharge.” He looked her in the eyes. “There was still alcohol in my blood when I returned to FOB. They knew me. Could have tested me. Should have. But didn’t. Heads would have rolled. They chalked it up to human error, which is bad enough in the Rangers, and they sent me home.”
Talia’s hand began making slow circles again. “You don’t believe yourself worthy of redemption? You could honor the loss of their lives by making something of yours.”
“Doing this?” He motioned to the yacht around them.
“There are between one hundred and five hundred people living on North Sentinel Island. Right now, they are at risk of extermination. The Indian military might not land on the island with orders to shoot on sight, but I think we both know what will happen when arrows start flying.”
“They’ll respond with bullets,” Rowan said.
“And any captured survivors will either die from disease within weeks or be ‘integrated’ into the modern world. Those few who make it, will likely commit suicide or take up a life of crime. The children who survive, and they’re the only ones who really stand a chance, will be raised in orphanages and move through life alone, likely to suffer from depression and poverty. There is no happy ending for these people without us. The Sentinelese are going to be ripped out of paradise and subjected to a ‘humane’ genocide unless we help them. If we can break through and communicate, come to an understanding and broker a peace, they might even be allowed to remain on the island, like the Jarawa on Andaman.”
“I was going to kill myself.” The words came out before Rowan could filter them. His blunt confession stalled Talia’s comforting rub once more.
She had no trouble switching gears back to his narrative. “Why didn’t you?”
Rowan looked toward the ceiling. “Sashi. She found me on the edge of a cliff, bottle in hand. She gave me hope that there might be something more. That life might still have worth. I didn’t really understand what that hope was, until now.”
Talia leaned back, finger waggling back and forth from herself to Rowan, a frantic metronome. “You don’t mean…us? Because I don’t do relationships. Out there, on the dinghy, that was good, but—”
Rowan chuckled. “Not us.”
Talia relaxed.
“What you said, about saving the Sentinelese, about redemption. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for what I did, but...”
Thunk.
They froze at the sound of something solid bumping against the hull. Rowan slid across the tight quarters and peered through the small portal.
“What time is it?” Rowan asked.
“Eleven,” Talia said.
In the moon’s pale light he saw the dinghy slide past, a nervous Mahdi clumsily working the oars, Winston in the prow tossing a line to someone above as they moved toward the Sea Tiger’s stern.
“What is it?” Talia whispered.
Rowan was about to answer when he saw netting resting on the small boat’s aft bench, netting that had once held coconuts and now laid empty. Then the dinghy passed and Rowan’s gaze shifted to the island. His eyes widened, and then compressed under the force of his furrowed brow. He leaped back from the window, retrieved his .45 caliber P320 Compact handgun from his backpack and stormed through the ship.
“What is it?” Talia asked, trying to keep up. “What did you see?”
Rowan didn’t answer as he ran through the dining room and powered through the aft deck door. He stepped into the humid night air, catching Mahdi, Winston, and Emmei off guard. Fueled by his recent commitment to saving the Sentinelese, he raised the pistol toward Winston. “What did you do?”
He stalked toward the dive deck, aim unwavering, Winston’s head framed by one of many bright orange fires raging on the island. “What did you do?”
Talia stumbled to a stop behind him. “Oh my god.”
Rowan chambered a round and aimed again.
“Rowan,” Talia said, but his name and her voice were lost in the fog of his rage.
“You have three seconds,” Rowan said, aiming lower, toward Winston’s leg. “Then you get a permanent limp.” It was extreme, but Rowan wouldn’t let Winston get away with whatever he’d done, not while the island burned.
15
Talia saw the same thing as Rowan: Winston’s indignant gaz
e, Mahdi’s billboard guilt, and the island, glowing with the orange light of several flickering blazes, just behind the tree line. Her anger flared, and nearly vented as a string of curses, but then she saw what Rowan had missed. The flames were contained. Evenly spaced. The jungle, which had been rained on all day, was not burning.
“Rowan.” Talia grabbed his arm as he stopped moving toward the two men now on the dive deck.
He shrugged from her grasp. Stabbed a finger toward the island. “You want this to go unanswered for?”
“It wasn’t them,” she said, voice lowered. The last thing she wanted to do was chide Rowan in front of the others. He had accepted her odd sort of anthropology like no one she’d met before. Even more surprising, he had taken part, improvising in a way that might have opened the doors to communication. He had his flaws, and like her, his demons, but in a very short amount of time, he had also become her friend. And since she didn’t have many friends who wore more than a loin cloth, that was the most surprising thing of all.
He stopped and waited for an explanation.
“The fires are evenly spaced. The jungle is saturated. They could have set a fire with gasoline, but it would have gone out when the fuel was burned up.”
“Then…”
She nodded. “The Sentinelese set those fires.”
“Is it a message?” he asked, and he tucked the gun into the back of his shorts.
“Could be.” She looked out at the seven bright spots. The orange light gave the jungle a hellish glow. It would be impossible to spot people amidst the dancing shadows, but they were there, doing God knew what, perhaps waiting for guests, or setting a trap. They had to know the Sea Tiger hadn’t left, but were the fires for them, or part of a nightly ritual?
“How do we answer it?” he asked, his mind on the mission, once again revealing why they were becoming fast friends…with benefits.
“Short of setting the ship on fire, I’m not sure we can.” She turned to Mahdi, who had boarded the Sea Tiger again, nervous and watching the fires burn. “When did they start?”
“On our way back,” he said, and he clenched his eyes shut. Mahdi was conflicted, fighting his honest nature. “Five minutes ago.”
“What were you doing?” she asked him.
“Fishing,” Winston said.
Rowan leaned close to her and whispered. “The net.”
She saw it immediately, bundled up in Winston’s hand, the thin green lines unmistakable. She’d seen the netting before, holding fresh coconuts that she had specifically told him not to bring to the island. Winston handed the net to Emmei, who headed inside with a quick, “Excuse me.”
Talia couldn’t figure out the dynamic. Mahdi wasn’t acting like himself, which told her he was recently recruited, and somehow against his will. Emmei seemed subservient to Winston, doing his bidding despite being the ship’s captain. And then there was awkward, incompetent Winston, who normally came off as a little conniving, but now had a predator’s glimmer in his eyes. The only thing she felt certain of was that the truth would not be uncovered through confrontation.
“I asked you not to give them the coconuts,” she said, doing her best to sound mildly irritated instead of ready to castrate someone.
Winston gave a ‘who gives a shit’ shrug. “We were spreading good will.”
“Is that what you were doing, Mahdi?” Rowan asked. “Spreading good will?”
“Seemed like a better idea than spreading our legs for all the world to—” Winston began.
Rowan stalked toward the man, fist clenched and pulled back.
“Rowan!” Talia stood between the men. As much as she would like to see the former Ranger drop Winston to the deck, it would result in his removal from the expedition, and she needed him to stay. With Mahdi’s betrayal, he was the only person on the Sea Tiger she really trusted. “Don’t.”
Winston didn’t flinch. He said nothing, either. Just stood his ground.
Mahdi looked about ready to jump overboard. “I am sorry. I was…pressured.”
“Pressured.” Winston chuckled as he stepped around Talia and headed for the door. “You all enjoy the bonfires. I’m going to get some shuteye. You can thank me in the morning when the natives are happy.” He paused in the doorway. “Mahdi.” He waited for Mahdi to look at him. “Keep on keepin’ on, capisce?”
When Mahdi said nothing, Winston repeated himself using the tone of a too strict mother. “Capisce?”
Mahdi gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
“Good.” Winston stepped inside and let the door close slowly behind him as his heavy feet thumped through the boat. When he was gone, Talia and Rowan both turned on Mahdi.
“What the hell, Mahdi?” Talia said.
The man shrunk. “I am sorry. I had no choice.”
“Bullshit,” Rowan said. “How long have you and Winston been friends? From the start? Before we picked you up in London?”
“I do not know the man,” Mahdi said, growing angry. “I do not like the man. And I am not his friend.”
“Not really our friend, either,” Rowan said. “Are you?”
Mahdi said nothing, just kept his eyes on the water past the stern deck. The orange firelight’s motion mixed with the undulating waves was entrancing.
Talia turned from the waves, trying a different tack than Rowan’s. “You can trust us, Mahdi. Whatever he’s done or threatened you with, we can help you.”
When Mahdi looked up, she was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “I am helping you.”
“How?” she asked.
“It is not important.”
“It damn well is,” Rowan said.
Talia put a calming hand on Rowan and leaned on the stern rail so she could see Mahdi’s downturned face. “Are you helping them?” She pointed to the island.
Mahdi’s face froze like a child self-aware enough to realize that anything he said would sound like a lie. His stillness spoke volumes. Winston’s delivery of coconuts was not intended to be helpful. But what could it be, unless… “Did you leave anything aside from coconuts?”
Mahdi, still expressionless, whispered, “Just coconuts.”
Talia was about to question him some more when emotion worked its way through the rigid muscles of his face, contorting from confusion to fear.
Rowan saw it, too. “What’s wrong?”
“Down there,” Mahdi said, eyes still on the water beside the ship. “There’s something in the water.”
Talia looked but saw only the fire light reflecting off the rippling waves. She was about to say as much when her nose picked up the smell of smoke, and something else. It was foreign, but at the same time it brought back memories of the marijuana and incense that permeated her college dorm.
“You smell that?” Rowan asked, watching the island. “Could that be part of the message? Could they communicate using fragrance? Like, what’s it called? With animals?”
“Pheromones,” Talia said, impressed with Rowan’s theory, mostly because it wasn’t really outlandish, and because she wasn’t sure she’d have thought of it.
“Right, but with smoke? Is that a thing?”
She had no answer for that, but maybe Mahdi… He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t acknowledged the smell. His gaze remained fixated on the water behind the boat. She tried once again to spot anything other than darkness and orange light, but she saw nothing.
And then she did. A subtle shift of darkness and light.
Rowan saw it, too, flinching back. “The hell is that?”
The darkness slid past, a massive living thing that created no wake. Talia’s heart, which remained steady while facing down angry tribes and wild animals, thumped with urgency. Fear like she hadn’t felt since childhood began to prickle her arms.
And then she saw it for what it was, and she wished it had been a sea creature. “We’re drifting!”
The shadow below was a patch of coral, darker than the surrounding sand, sliding harmlessly beneath them as the boat slipped through the w
ater. That she could see it meant they were moving into the shallows, and that the coral wouldn’t remain harmless for long.
Rowan launched himself up the stairs to the wheelhouse. “Check the anchor!”
Check the anchor? How am I supposed to do that?
The Sea Tiger had two anchors—one on each side of the bow. They were massive things dropped by controls in the wheelhouse, their chains and winches contained inside the ship’s body. Despite not knowing enough about ships to evaluate the state of an anchor, she hurried around the port side of the yacht, one hand on the rail to keep from falling over. As she ran, she shouted to Mahdi just as Rowan had shouted to her. “Mahdi! Go get Emmei!” When he didn’t move, she shouted again. “Mahdi!”
The linguist snapped from his trance, seemed to slowly comprehend the situation, and then headed for the dining room entrance.
Talia toppled deck chairs, shouting in pain as they whacked against her shins, and then she was at the bow, leaning over the rail, trying not to fall overboard.
Rowan’s muffled voice boomed in the wheelhouse. She guessed the string of curses meant something had gone wrong. She heard a window open, and then his voice became clear. “No keys! What about the anchor?”
Talia strained to see over the side. The angled hull made it difficult. She could hear the anchor chain rattling and thumping against the hull. That’s not good, she thought, and then she saw it. The chain hung in the water, dancing around. She moved to the other side and caught sight of the second chain, just as loose as the first, neither of them dragging weight.
“They’re gone!” she shouted. “The anchors are gone!”
And then the Sea Tiger plowed into the reef.
Momentum carried Talia forward, up, and over the rail, and into the shadowy water below.
16
Rowan stood dumbfounded for a three count. For the second time in less than twenty four hours he’d watched Talia sprawl over the side of a boat and into the sea. When his shock wore off, he charged out of the useless wheelhouse and vaulted down the steps to the main deck.
Forbidden Island Page 11
