by Howard, Bob
“So,” said the Chief. “The Russians have repaired the sandbar, but why?”
Then he answered his own question. “There can only be one reason. They’ve already been around to the mainland side and know there’s a deep body of water where they can hide a ship that size. They know this area must be crawling with US Navy ships, so they need to lay low. My guess is that they think they can go inland from here and find supplies.”
“Boy, are they in for a big surprise,” said Tom. “Those trees are crawling with infected.”
“Chief,” I said, “I’m going to guess you already know what’s going to happen here. I mean you’re the naval expert and all, but am I correct in saying that they’ll check out the bottom of the moat with their sonar?”
“Ed, you’re really coming along as a survivor,” he said. “You’re thinking ahead. They’re going to sweep the bottom with their sonar. First, they’ll see the big cables that hold the nets and wonder what’s down there. Then they’ll see the power cables and decide to investigate. If they send down some divers they might lose a few people to the nasty surprises hanging in the nets, but they’ll eventually figure out that there are power conduits connecting the mainland to the island. When they do, they’ll start looking for whatever those power lines are connected to.”
“Can they get in here?” asked Tom. He looked at me since he knew my uncle had built the shelter.
I said, “As far as I know, Tom, there’s nothing they can do to get in this place, unless of course they have the firepower to blow the front door open.”
As I said it, I looked at the Chief, hoping he would laugh at the idea, but he looked deep in thought. He looked like he was working on a plan, so I waited for him to answer.
The Chief finally looked at us all and said, “We have to leave. Not immediately, but very soon.”
I could see the disappointed looks on Jean and Kathy’s faces. This shelter had been a refuge they could only have hoped for. Even though we had just been planning to fly Tom and Molly home to Alabama, we had planned on returning to our home. It had never occurred to us that we wouldn’t have a place to come back to.
The Chief realized his mistake quickly and said, “Wait, wait. Are you guys thinking I meant that we had to leave permanently? I only meant if we’re going to get a chance to leave, we have to do it now. They can sit there and try to blow a hole in the front door all they want, but I don’t think that little pea shooter on the front of that corvette can do the job. Besides, if they try, they’re going to make a lot of noise, and the Navy will hear them.”
Kathy asked, “Why do we have to leave quickly, Chief?”
The Chief rubbed his hand across his beard and looked for once like he didn’t know where to begin.
“Well, like I said, I think they plan to park the corvette in our moat. When they do, they’re going to drop anchor.”
The Chief just let his last sentence hang in the air for a minute while it sank in. It wasn’t that we were being slow so much as it was that he had been down in the moat. His visibility wasn’t the best, but he could see that there were two nets. One was just a shadow in the distance, but he could tell it was just as effective at catching the infected as the other had been. An anchor dropping in that mess was going to get interesting.
He smiled when he saw the lights start to come on over our heads like mine had when Jean told us she was pregnant.
“If the anchor catches a net, I’m not sure the corvette will be able to raise the anchor without getting totally fouled. It’s either going to pull a net up and break it loose from its moorings, or it’s going to get stuck for good. The other thing that can go wrong is that they will drop anchor right between the nets and catch on the power conduits. Personally, my money is on the nets because they come up closer to the surface. I also prefer the nets for obvious reasons.”
Kathy connected the dots and said, “Either way, they’re going to be stuck in the moat. This is going to get really interesting, Chief. We’re going to have Russians as neighbors. That’s the good news.”
“That’s good news?” I asked. “Please don’t tell me the bad news, Kathy.”
The Chief said, “In the long run, it means we have another buffer from the infected, survivors with bad intentions, and any other nasty thing that comes along. But that’s why we have to leave now. Once they get stuck in the moat, we won’t be able to get to the plane. We need to get it and fly out before they can stop us.”
Tom let out a low whistle. “Any ideas about how to fly the plane out Chief? The water won’t be deep enough at the northern entrance until that sandbar breaks down. We’ll need to power up the plane and drive it the length of the island before we can even take off.”
“Wouldn’t they hear the plane before we can reach the southern exit?” asked Jean.
“They sure would,” said the Chief, “and if they have good detection gear, they would be able to track the engine and shoot us down before we could gain enough altitude.”
I asked. “So, waiting until they enter the moat is out of the question, and driving the plane out of the southern exit is out of the question. What option does that leave us with?”
“We can’t get up enough speed to take off in the moat?” asked Jean.
The Chief shook his head, “No, the moat is too short, and we would lose too much speed in the turn. As soon as we would pop out at the end of the island, they would be tracking us with an anti-aircraft missile. We have to go out quietly.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The Chief has that look he gets when he knows what to do. What are you thinking, you old salt?”
The Chief had a smile he saved for special occasions, and he was putting it on display now.
“How fast can everybody put together emergency gear and supplies for about three or four days?” he asked. “Only what we can each carry.”
“Only one trip to the plane?” asked Jean.
“Not to the plane,” said the Chief. “Everybody get your gear together as fast as you can. When you’re done let’s all meet in the main bedroom where the tunnels lead to the surface. When we make our move, it has to go down like a well-rehearsed fire drill, and we don’t have time for a rehearsal.”
“When are you going to at least let us read the script?” I asked.
“It’s a short plan,” he said, and there was that smile again.
For the next hour we put together emergency packs with food, clothing, camping gear, weapons, and ammunition. The only verbal exchanges we made were when someone would ask if there was room for something else. In no time we were all gathered in the master bedroom with a big pile of backpacks and duffel bags.
When we were all together, the Chief asked if we were ready to go for a trip. Everybody nodded quietly including Molly, and the Chief had to lean over to see under the brim of her new Navy blue ball cap.
“We only have time to go over this once, and I’m going to make it quick,” he said. “It's already starting to get dark outside. There’s no moon, so it’s going to get a lot darker out there. Everyone needs to stay together in case there are any infected dead out on the beach. Hopefully, the Russians did us a favor and cleared them all out, but we can take them on better if we stay in a group. When we get to the end of the tunnel, we need to get the Boston Whaler to the beach as fast as we can. No talking. Sound travels well at night over water. The gear can’t go in the boat until we have it in the water. We don’t want to get stuck in the sand. Everybody with me so far?”
We all nodded again, but this time there was no smile on the Chief’s face. We had all moved into that zone where we were all business.
“Okay,” he said, “once the boat is in the water and loaded with the gear, Ed and Jean will go back down the tunnel. Jean, you go all the way down and hang out with Molly. Not because of your condition, but because Molly needs company. Ed, you stay in the top of the tunnel and watch for us to come back. Kathy and Tom, you’re going to use the long poles in the Whaler to circle the island in the moat.
You can stay close to the oyster beds because the Whaler has a shallow draft and you won’t be moving fast enough to damage the boat if you hit them. While you’re doing that, I’m going down the tunnel and then back out through the front door. I’ll get to the plane ahead of you so I can reconnect the wiring and let the moorings loose. The current will be moving your way, so I may try to drift in your direction. When we meet up, we’re going to use the poles to get back out of the moat, and we'll tow the plane behind us. If we’re lucky at all, we can make it out the exit and drift south far enough to bring the boat to low power and tow the plane faster. They won’t know where the sound is coming from by then. Everybody ready?”
The plan was simple enough, but like the Chief said, we were going to have to do it like a well-rehearsed fire drill. The Chief opened the emergency hatch and disappeared into the tunnel towing a large bag of gear behind him. We each followed quietly. Everything that needed to be said had already been said. If we were going to go, it had to be before the Russian corvette dropped anchor in the moat.
The tunnel was long, but it wasn’t a bad crawl. Uncle Titus had spared no expense when he built the shelter. The surface wasn’t intended for sliding. That would make it easier to go down the tunnel, but it would be tougher to go back up. There was a strip of rubber that ran down the middle about two feet wide and an inch thick. It made climbing out of the tunnel a breeze.
The Chief reached the hatch that came out directly under the Boston Whaler. There was an inner and an outer hatch. He stopped after quietly going through the inner hatch and listened for sounds coming from the other side. It wouldn’t be a good idea to crawl right into the arms of an infected dead or a living Russian. Their cameras had been useful in telling them the Russians were all most likely on board the corvette, but the Chief wanted to be sure. After a few moments of listening, he eased open the outer hatch and took a look around.
When the Chief went through the outer hatch, we all followed with our gear and went straight for the surface. As the Chief had instructed, we stayed together in a tight group and carried our supplies down to the water’s edge where the southern jetty met with the land. In a matter of a few minutes we were back at the place we called the garage and pulled back the camouflage covers.
One of my ideas that I was really proud of was the wooden planks under the wheels. I had suggested the idea back when the Chief and I had built the hiding place for the boat.
It had been a real pain towing the trailer up the beach through the soft sand, so I suggested to the Chief that we should put planks under the wheels in the hiding place and put spare planks under the trailer. We could line the spares up with the planks under the wheels as we rolled forward, retrieving the ones already used and moving them to the front.
Three of us moved the trailer forward while the other two ran back for the next two planks, and it was just like building a wooden road to the beach. We passed over the soft sand quickly without getting stuck even once. The trailer slid down to the beach and into the water. The Chief and I were unstrapping the boat as soon as it was able to float off of the trailer, and the others were tossing the supplies to Jean who had climbed inside.
As soon as the boat was loaded, we reversed our process and hauled the trailer back into its hiding place. We covered it and then went to work hiding our more obvious tracks in the sand. Footprints were no big deal because there were so many infected on the island the previous day.
The Chief dropped back into the tunnel to make his way through to the front door. He took a moment to mess up Molly’s hair as he went by. Jean went back down the tunnel to keep Molly company, and I positioned myself between the inner and outer hatches. I kept the outer hatch open just a crack. With the boat gone from the hidden chamber we had made, I would be able to close the hatch quickly if I had to.
I didn’t even have the chance to look back in time to see Kathy and Tom start muscling the Boston Whaler against the current into the moat. Since the water was coming outward, it was easy to coast with it, but they had to put everything they had into going in against it. It would probably become easier once they made it around the corner and started following the coast of the island over the oyster beds.
In the darkness of the moat, Kathy and Tom were struggling with the current but making progress. One of the advantages of the oyster beds was that they gave them something to push their poles against. They had a long way to go, but the Chief had to make his way to the dock and get the plane moving.
The island was about two miles long with the hidden shelter almost at the center, and it seemed like a hundred miles to Kathy and Tom’s burning muscles, but on the other side of the island the Chief was moving quickly and quietly. He had a small bag of extra supplies and tools he would need to get the plane wired up, but he was also well armed. If the Russians had slipped someone onto the dock as a watchman without anyone noticing, the Chief was prepared to make short work of him. If he ran into any infected dead, he would probably run over them before he could stop.
He made it to the plane and didn’t see any signs that someone was inside the houseboat, so he slipped quickly into the cockpit of the plane. Before he started working on the wires, he crawled into the back of the plane and watched the houseboat from the rear window. That was when he saw the faint glow of a cigarette and a shadow pass over a window heading in the direction of the front of the houseboat. It was positioned facing out to sea, and a dark figure walked out onto the sundeck on the bow with a flashlight. He blinked the light a few times in the direction of the corvette, and a few moments later there was a return signal. The Chief counted three flashes from each light.
The Chief checked his watch to see what time it was. If he was right, the Russian would be checking in with his crew on the ship every fifteen or thirty minutes. If he was really lucky, it would be an hour. He decided he would fix the plane first and then deal with the Russian, but he would have to keep an eye out for the next signal so he would know the intervals. He hoped it was at least thirty minutes so they would have time to get the plane most of the way around the island after he disposed of the guard, but thirty minutes would be cutting it really close. He also hoped Tom and Kathy didn’t show up before the next signal was given. If it was an hour between signals, there was at least a chance of that happening.
At fifteen minutes the Chief was in position to see the fore deck of the houseboat again, and no one came outside to give the signal. He quickly crawled back under the controls of the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter and connected the remaining wires. He didn’t need to test them because he knew he had it right. Now he just needed to be in position to take out the Russian as soon as he made the next signal.
With time to spare, the Chief stayed low and slipped from inside the plane down the full length of the dock to the door of the houseboat. He was counting on it being locked, but he had gotten the key from Ed before they started their escape. He eased the key into the lock and turned it just far enough to unlock it without opening the door. If the guard found it was unlocked he would probably think he had just left it like that since it was still shut. At least that’s what he hoped.
At forty-five minutes there was no signal, and the Chief started getting a little nervous. He kept glancing into the darkness of the waterway behind the island hoping he would see Tom and Kathy before the guard saw them. He knew they would stay quiet, but he wanted to be sure. If they saw him down against the side of the houseboat by the door, they were smart enough not to keep coming, but he didn’t know what the guy inside was doing. If he was watching out the back window he still might not be able to see them in the darkness, but if he did see them, it would be a race to get rid of the guard and out to the open water in the plane before the next signal was due.
Just before an hour had passed the Chief felt movement inside the house boat. He had his back firmly against the outside wall, and he felt it shift downward as the guard passed by behind him. There was a very slight sound from the metal joints, but it was barely
audible above the sound of the water lapping against the side of the houseboat and the big twin outboard that was tied up behind the plane.
The Chief moved closer to the door just in case it opened, but the guard kept going toward the bow. He listened carefully for the sound of him reaching the sun deck, then he moved just far enough out from his hiding spot to be able to see the corvette. After several long seconds he saw the corvette flash its light, and he knew the guard would be going back aft again.
He timed it perfectly. As the guard walked by the door, he yanked it open and grabbed the surprised Russian before he could even guess what was happening. Chief Joshua Barnes was a kind and gentle man, but he was also powerful. His massive fist hit the man in his left eye, and he slumped to the floor. He dragged him further inside and used a roll of electrician’s tape to tie him up. He didn’t see the need to kill him because they would be long gone before he came to. As insurance he found the flashlight and took it and the man’s rifle with him as he left the houseboat.
He was back at the plane ready to cast off the moorings when he heard movement out on the water. Tom and Kathy slowly materialized from the darkness, and he gave them just a short flash from the light. The Chief took a long coil of rope and went out onto the open dock in front of the plane. With a slight turn at the waist he heaved the rope through the air and across the Boston Whaler. Kathy grabbed the rope and tied it across two stern cleats. The Chief tied the other end to a towing hook just under the propeller housing and waved for them to reverse direction.
Kathy and Tom put their backs into the hard work of moving the boat back in the other direction, and as soon as the boat began to turn, the Chief gave the plane a hard shove and got it moving away from the dock. He flashed the light at them, and saw both of them look back.
In a low voice he said, “I’m drifting faster than you. Let me catch up.”
The plane glided easily across the surface of the water and caught the current. When he was closer he said, “Trade places with me, Kathy.”
