Deception Island

by Brynn Kelly

  Amina assumed the job of feeding Holly, giving them cover for a whispered conversation. Holly got her new friend to slip the phone into the front of her underwear. With her hands bound, she was unable to pull on the sweater, though that was a relief in the sauna-like heat. The guards changed, and the tension in the room seemed to lighten. Women began to move and whisper to each other.

  “Did you get your text out?” Holly said.

  “Yes. I took a—what do you call it?” She frowned. “A selfie, and texted it to my sister. I told her to send it to my agency’s Twitter account, with the details we have and ask people to retweet it. We have almost 400,000 followers, from all over the world, and many of our sister agencies have ten times that, so...” She shrugged. “It was good you kept the guards busy.”

  “Wow. That was quite a...public thing to do. I thought you’d just text someone in your organization.”

  “That was my first thought, but no. It could take too long. My sister spends all day attached to her phone—she’ll get it sorted out in seconds. Believe me, this way we’ll get more attention, faster. A face is much harder for people to ignore than a name.”

  So right now word could be getting out. That was something. “Could we get the other women to do the same?”

  “These are simple, poor women. Most would not have anyone to contact online. Others would fear putting shame on their families, or forcing harm on them from the traffickers.” Her gaze flicked to the guard. “They would also be putting their own lives in more danger. My agency will help. This could be the breakthrough we and many others like us have been seeking for many years. The authorities cannot turn a blind eye if the pressure comes from the public.”

  “Good. I will need you to do me a favor later. I don’t have your contacts, but there’s someone I need to get a message to.” Not that she had much to report, except that she and Theo were safe—relatively. Rafe would be frustrated enough to try swimming for it, by now. “When I go to the toilet, can you help?” She indicated her bound hands.

  Amina nodded. “I’m sorry, the phone battery is low. I turned it off, to save power.”

  Holly nodded. She just needed enough juice for one email.

  Amina placed her palm in the middle of Holly’s chest, over the amulet, which was tucked into her T-shirt. “You are a brave woman.”

  “Not as brave as you. Do you mind if I ask: What do you think they will do with me, if we don’t get out?” She cringed. How selfish did that sound?

  “Hard to say. I’ve never heard of a white American woman being trafficked in this region, though I do know that white women fetch higher prices. Usually traffickers have a hold over these women—perhaps threats against the family—to keep them compliant as they work in brothels. What do they have on you?”

  “Nothing. I have no family.” She thought of Rafe, of how right it’d felt to be wrapped up together in the hammock. For one of the few times in her life, she’d believed that somebody else gave a damn whether or not she existed. She sure as hell wanted him and Theo to survive this. That was the only thing Gabriel could hold over her—she’d have to be careful to hide it from him.

  “Sometimes the women are sold as slaves to men who keep them locked up at their homes or somewhere nearby. Maybe this is what will happen.” Amina gripped Holly’s knee. “But I am sure you will get out. You have courage. And I will help if I can.”

  The guard shouted. Dinnertime was over.

  Amina ate the last grains of rice off her fingers. “You must tell me your story, later—how you came to be here, so far from your home.”

  The dishes were removed and water was passed around. Amina held a bottle to Holly’s lips so she could drink. A guy sprayed the room, the chemicals itching Holly’s airways.

  “Now?” Amina said, after he left.

  Holly nodded. She cleared her throat and jerked her head toward the bucket. The guard stared at her, unmoved. Damn. What if he just let her pee her pants? He grimaced and jutted his chin in permission. Holly eased out a breath. Amina mimed pulling Holly’s shorts down and gestured to her bound hands. He shrugged dismissively.

  They slipped behind the human bathroom wall. Holly nodded to her pocket. Amina found the knife and sawed through the cable tie.

  “I’ll take the bucket out for you, when you’re done,” Amina whispered.

  She peered out from behind the women before joining their ranks. Holly pulled down her shorts and switched on the phone. She really did have to pee, so she did it as noisily as she could, while she brought up email. The battery icon flashed. It took its time loading. Come on, come on.

  A message popped up: an open wireless network was in range. Could be a faster connection. Hands shaking, she accessed the settings and turned on Wi-Fi. The search icon spun, round and round, round and round. The low-battery warning flashed again. Just a few more minutes. Her thighs burned from crouching, her knee tight enough to burst. Round and round, round and round. Come on.

  Bingo. The network flashed up—Suaka Surfing Lodge. Her mouth dropped open. Holy shit. She had a location. She could give it to Rafe.

  After forever, she got to the compose screen. She keyed in the address Rafe had set up and swiped quickly, with the name of the lodge, an update on Theo and a brief rundown. Her fingers shook and slid all over the screen. Sweat pricked on her brow. She clicked Send. The screen went black. Her stomach lurched. Oh, God. No. She swiped it. Nothing. She tried the power button. Nothing.

  She screwed up her face, shaking with the urge to throw the thing against the wall. She bit down the frustration, shoved the phone back in her underwear and returned to her spot, pretending her hands were still tied. Amina took care of the bucket, then settled in next to her. Amina’s message had better work—it was all they had.

  The guard was picking at his fingernails with a dirty knife. She leaned right over to Amina’s ear. “Have you heard of a surfing lodge called Suaka?”

  The women shook her head. “Why do you ask?” Her eyes widened. “That’s where we are?”

  “It came up as a Wi-Fi network.”

  “I’ve heard the word before—Suaka. It sounds Malay.” Amina grabbed Holly’s hand. “We can tell my agency. They can find us.”

  Holly winced. “The battery’s dead.”

  Amina slumped. Then her grip tightened. “But you got your message away? I’m so sorry, I hope I didn’t—”

  “It’s fine,” whispered Holly. “The message went.”

  Sometimes there was mercy in a white lie.

  They sat in silence until the guard switched off the light, plunging the room into a deep charcoal. From outside, the door was bolted. The clonk echoed around the room—the sound of hope shriveling. Holly bit her lip to keep from crying out. After six years inside, she’d promised herself she’d never be locked up again. Now, she faced being locked up for the rest of her life.

  No. She wasn’t giving up. Amina’s sister might already have seen her text. Maybe the lobby group could trace it somehow. In the meantime, Holly just needed to stay alive, maybe create a chance to escape and get to Theo. She chewed her lip. What if the post did go viral and word got to Gabriel?

  She lay awake for hours in the increasingly stifling room. Late into the night a thunderstorm hit. The lightning illuminated the women’s faces, many of them equally sleepless. Bolts shook the ground, as if a giant drew ever closer. She willed a bolt to strike the hut. Either she’d die or escape in the chaos. Rain followed, furious but brief, leaving the air washed clean and cooler. The heady jungle fragrance floated in through the window, relieving the stench of stale breath and sweat.

  Had she really been sleeping in Rafe’s arms only twenty-four hours ago? She forced her mind to clear away its fears and create an image of him, lit by the moon, his finely sculpted face sharp with desire. She squeezed her eyes shut. At the very least, she’d
fight for a chance to see that beautiful sight again, no matter how briefly. She imagined the touch of his skin on hers and his deep voice whispering in her ear, in French.

  She wasn’t stupid enough to believe in fantasies in the cold reality of day, but she’d long ago learned to go along with whatever promised to get her through the night. And Rafe... Rafe could get her through anything.

  * * *

  Mr. Buana’s eldest son eased back on the throttle of his fishing boat, leaving it rocking in the swell. Between the boat and a strip of white sand, a dozen wet-suited surfers bobbed on their boards, like seals guarding the beach. “You go now,” he said to Rafe, without turning around.

  “This is Suaka?”

  “Yes. You go.” The man pushed Rafe’s shoulder, his eyes scanning the beach in the gray predawn, as if expecting a dozen men with assault rifles to materialize from its row of shabby huts. His nervousness was a good sign—evidence they weren’t dropping Rafe at any old island just to be rid of him.

  Rafe fit the mask over his eyes, plugged his mouth with the regulator and took a slow draw of air. Shielded from the beach by the small boat’s cabin, he sat on the bulwark, gave a thumbs-up and rolled backward into the water. He sank like a rock, watching his bubbles dissipate in the wake of the departing boat.

  At ten feet, he gained neutral buoyancy, taking stock of the crappy rig Buana had sold him. The buoyancy compensator could be a Jacques Cousteau relic, but at least the getup wasn’t leaking air—yet.

  The villagers might be taking a risk in helping him, but they’d also taken everything but the eyes from his head for it. Damn PayPal. They’d even forced him to buy their entire catch that morning, which they would attempt to sell to the lodge as cover while he slipped in.

  But, hell, money was easier for him to come by than it was for a village of poor fishermen. He’d made only a token effort at bartering. He’d have handed them his life savings if it meant rescuing Theo and Holly. They’d better be on that island. After his near-disaster with the Windsurfer, he didn’t want to risk stealing another one.

  He kicked hard against the buffeting current. The strap on one of his fins was loose—he’d be lucky if it survived the swim. As he dropped deeper, his left ear refused to equalize, aggravating the headache that hadn’t left him in twelve hours. At least he’d eaten and slept, though it’d been torture to wait until nearly dawn to set out, when the winds had settled and the tides were right.

  The words of Holly’s email played over and over in his head. “Theo’s okay, physically,” she’d written, the inference clear. And she was to be sold into slavery. She’d obviously had a hand in the photo of the Australian woman that had gone viral on the internet overnight, but he doubted it would do Gabriel’s captives any favors in the short term. He’d just get rid of them quicker—kill them, if necessary. It might already be too late.

  Rafe had never felt as tense as he had last night, waiting for his email to load over Buana’s agonizingly slow connection. He’d told himself not to expect word from Holly—even if she’d remained alive, the Lost Boys could have confiscated the iPhone. But there it was: a short, clipped email, sent just a few minutes earlier. The relief had been so powerful it’d nearly broken him.

  He’d managed to catch Flynn on live chat an hour ago. The lieutenant had landed in Bali with a plan, having caught up with the overnight explosion on social media. With the added intel from Holly, he had something concrete to work with—and he’d work it, all right. Flynn was like Rafe—never happy resting. That was when the demons caught up. But his plan would take time to arrange—several more hours, best case. And Gabriel would know by now his operation was compromised. Going on previous form, Les Pirates Fantômes were about to vanish, leaving nothing but bodies. This time, Rafe would not be too late.

  After several minutes of kicking, the hazy outline of the drop-off appeared, growing more distinct as he neared. A coral plateau. Fish swarmed and darted around him, some peeking out from anemones. They reminded him of children in war zones, their fear battling their curiosity as giant armed intruders rolled past.

  The current rose and fell. The crackling of a thousand tiny teeth on the coral mixed with the saw of his breath through the reg. The dark shape of a surfboard passed overhead. He kicked in the opposite direction from the jetty to which the boat had headed, aiming for a rocky outcrop between two white buoys he’d spotted earlier. It would screen his arrival and allow him to scout out the island.

  Mr. Buana had doubted Rafe’s assertion that this private island, with its simple surfing lodge and untamed jungle, could be the hideout for Gabriel’s militia. The word Suaka, meaning “sanctuary,” was used in the names of dozens of lodges. But this one had an airstrip and was within the helicopter’s range. The sat map had shown little more than the row of beachfront huts, but it was several years out of date.

  Rafe’s gut call better be right. Otherwise he’d have to find a way to cross another forty kilometers of open ocean to the next most likely island. Knowing Gabriel, Rafe wouldn’t have time for a leisurely tour of the archipelago before Holly was sold off or killed, and Theo was pushed beyond salvation.

  * * *

  Shouts outside tore Holly from sleep. She bolted upright, panting, seized with the instinct to run. Next to her, Amina sat up. No doubt sensing the same danger, Amina backed up against the wall, staring at the door. The lock clonked. The guard on the chair—Bandanna Guy again—scrambled to pull it open.

  Crap, Holly was supposed to be still shackled. Behind her back, she wrapped the cut cable around her wrists, holding the severed ends in her palms.

  Gabriel charged in, followed by five men. He shouted a command and the overhead light buzzed and clicked on, bleaching the room white. Holly blinked, resisting the urge to bring her hands to her eyes. Birds squawked in the trees. It had to be near dawn.

  Gabriel held a smartphone and was looking from it to the women, searching for something—someone. As he turned his back to her, Holly caught a glimpse of the screen—a close-up of Amina’s face. Holly stopped breathing. As Amina shrank into the wall, Holly shuffled in front of her, wishing she could make her disappear.

  He grabbed a woman sitting along the far wall, yanking her hair to force her face up, compared her with the photo and shoved her aside. One of the men called out from the back of the room, pulling another woman to her feet. He hauled her forward. Like Amina, she had shoulder-length black hair and wore a dirty yellow dress.

  Gabriel pointed at the phone. “You?”

  She shrank back, but the goon clamped a hand on the back of her neck, forcing her face to within inches of Gabriel’s. Gabriel spoke to his men. Two looked from the screen to the woman’s terrified face. They grunted in agreement. Gabriel fisted her hair and hauled her across the floor. Her legs bumped over the other women as they scrambled aside. Her scream echoed off the walls.

  Holly sensed movement behind her. She grabbed for Amina. Too late.

  “It is me you look for,” Amina said, standing, her chest heaving against her dress.

  “No!” Holly shouted, as three men descended on Amina. Gabriel let the other woman go, and shook tufts of her hair from his hands. He spat an order, his face contorted. Holly stood, awkwardly, clutching her hands behind her. “I did it. I took her photo. She didn’t know.”

  Gabriel advanced and gripped Holly’s neck, crunching her head against the wall. She jabbed at him, but her fist glanced off his stomach. He shoulder-charged her. Boof. As her lungs sucked in air, he punched her in the gut. Red-hot pain shuddered through her torso. She retched and vomit surged into her mouth. She let it go, channeling it into his face.

  He released her. As she slumped to the floor, he staggered out the door, spitting out her stomach contents. Hate filled her chest. If that was the last thing she saw, she’d die satisfied.

  Two men grabbed Holly’s feet—one each—an
d dragged her out. Her spine bounced down the hut’s concrete steps. She drew her arms over her head to protect her skull. No use pretending her hands were still tied. Her shaky vision relayed that they were doing the same to Amina behind her.

  They shoved Holly onto a patch of wet grass, a boot shooting flames into her ribs. Amina skidded to a halt beside her. A dozen armed men closed in around them. Chamuel sliced a machete through the air in figure eights. Holly swallowed. Through the men’s legs, she spotted folded white plastic, lit by a beam of light from the veranda. Another body bag.

  Chapter 24

  Holly grabbed Amina’s shoulders. “You know what this means,” she whispered. “Your message got out. Help is on the way.”

  Amina circled trembling arms around Holly. “Yes, this is good,” she squeaked. “This is very good. Excellent.”

  An arm closed around Holly’s neck and wrenched her back. Amina’s wide, wet eyes locked onto Holly’s as Bandanna Guy hooked back the woman’s arms, pinning her. Holly felt the same happening to her. For Amina’s benefit, she didn’t waver her focus. She sensed the circle of men parting to let someone through—Gabriel, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

  “Yes, you watch, American,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “You did this.”

  “People are looking for her.”

  “That is why she must die. Followed by you.”

  One of the men closed in on Amina. Holly smelled Chamuel’s fish-oil breath.

  “No! It was me who took the photo and posted it. She didn’t know.” Holly tried to twist out of her captor’s grip, but he jerked her back.

  “Then her death is on your conscience.”

  “Don’t do this, you sicko!”

  A tear slipped down Amina’s cheek, but her lips set in a firm line. Holly’s eyes watered as she thrashed. “No!” Through blurred vision she watched Chamuel lift the steel blade and slice Amina’s neck. Oh, God. The woman whimpered briefly, then gurgled. Bandanna Guy released her, and her hands flailed at her neck.