by Paul Adam
Pulling himself wearily to his feet, he picked his way along the shore, clambering over the slimy green boulders until he came to a low stone wall with a metal guard rail along the top of it. He pulled himself up onto the wall and climbed over the rail. He was on a dirt path that seemed to run along the base of the island, close to the sea. At the point he’d joined it, there was a flight of stone steps leading up the cliff. Max walked up them, shivering in his dripping clothes, the mist swirling around his head.
At the top of the steps, the visibility was better, the mist thinner with the wind blowing it around, tearing it into vaporous strands that straggled over the ground like shredded gauze. Max saw that he was on the edge of a large, flat, open area, its surface bare earth and gravel, mounds of rubble that looked like demolished buildings heaped around the perimeter.
There was no doubt now. He was on Alcatraz. Beyond the open space was another sheer cliff, on the top of which were the lighthouse and a ruined house that had no roof and gaping holes in its walls. Behind the lighthouse, lit up by floodlights, was the massive concrete cellblock, looking sinister and ghostly in the drifting mist. Max shuddered involuntarily, thinking suddenly of the prisoners who’d been locked up for years on this bleak little outcrop of rock, many of them dying here in captivity. Did their tormented spirits still wander the island, looking for peace?
Suddenly Max wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere but here in this creepy, fogbound place that was haunted by memories of dead convicts and murderers, men who’d taken other people’s lives and paid for it with their own. He walked away quickly, glancing around nervously, half expecting to feel a spectral hand reach out and grab him by the throat. His tiredness had gone – fear had seen to that – and he was desperate to get back in the water again.
He knew which way to go now. He could see the lights of San Francisco in the distance, maybe only a mile away. That wasn’t too far to swim, assuming he could deal with the currents, of course. He went downhill along a paved road, wide enough to fit a couple of cars, and around a sharp curve that took him through a short tunnel between two buildings. It was pitch-black here and he had to slow down and almost feel his way along the tunnel.
As he stepped back out into the open, he stopped dead, his heart giving a sudden jolt of terror. A figure was walking up the road towards him, the mist half shrouding his outline. He was wearing a uniform with a peaked cap, a torch in his hand.
Max ducked back into the shadows of the tunnel and pressed himself against the wall, his pulse racing, his legs shaky. It was a ghost: the ghost of one of the guards who’d worked in the prison years ago.
Max heard footsteps, saw the beam of the torch penetrate the tunnel and pulled himself together, getting a grip on his nerves. Ghosts didn’t carry torches, their feet didn’t make a noise on the ground. This wasn’t some phantom guard from the past, it was a modern-day security guard going out on patrol. That made sense. Alcatraz was a protected site. Of course they’d have some kind of security there at night.
Max shrank back as the guard walked past, praying that he wouldn’t examine the sides of the tunnel too closely. And he didn’t. He just kept going, shining his torch straight ahead. Max waited until he could no longer see the beam, then slipped out of the tunnel and padded softly down the hill, alert and watchful now. Would there be just one security guard on the island, or more? Max had to make sure he didn’t accidentally bump into another one.
At the base of the hill was a quayside, with a long, imposing four-storey building along the back of it that looked like a military barracks and a high metal-framed watchtower at one end which Max reckoned would have been manned by armed guards when the island was a prison. There was no one on the tower now, but there was a light burning at the other end of the quay, on the ground floor of the barracks-like building.
Max walked warily across towards it, skirting a much smaller, more modern structure that, from the signs, was obviously a toilet facility for the tourists visiting Alcatraz. The light he’d seen was in a tiny block attached to the base of the barracks. A door plaque identified it as the Golden Gate National Park Rangers’ Office. Max peeped cautiously in through the window and saw a desk and chairs and a kitchen unit with a sink and a coffee maker, an open packet of chocolate cookies placed neatly next to a stack of paper cups. There was no sign of another guard.
Max opened the door and slipped quietly into the office. He didn’t like coffee, but he needed something to warm himself up. He poured a cup from the pot on the hotplate and added four sachets of sugar to take away the bitterness. Then he helped himself to three cookies and went back out onto the quayside, hiding out of sight behind the toilet block. He sipped the coffee. Even with the sugar, he still didn’t like the taste, but it went down easily, the liquid warming his throat and stomach, the glow spreading out through his chilled body. He wolfed down the biscuits and started to feel better. He was still cold and tired, but the prospect of another swim didn’t seem so daunting now.
The edge of the quay was only a few metres away. In the light from the rangers’ office, Max could see a floating dock where the tour boats tied up to unload their passengers. Something on the dock caught his eye: a red and white life belt attached to a wooden post.
Finishing his coffee, he dumped the paper cup in a litter bin and went across to the dock. He lifted the life belt down from the post and slipped it over his head and shoulders, holding it in place around his waist. He stepped to the edge of the dock and paused. The mist lifted just enough for him to see the lights of San Francisco. He stared at them, locking the bearing into his brain, then jumped into the water and struck out for the shore.
Without the life belt he would probably not have made it across the strait. The turning tide and the ferocious currents would have swept him west across the bay, maybe sucked him under to his death even before they carried him out into the ocean. But the belt kept him afloat. It allowed him to save his energy and channel it into his swimming. Even so, it was the hardest physical challenge he’d ever faced. A mile and a quarter of open water – cold, choppy water – with the wind and the tide against him. Max was a good swimmer, but nearly all his training had been done in a warm municipal pool. He wasn’t properly prepared for these conditions – a night swim across one of the world’s most dangerous bays, fully clothed and already dog-tired from his previous exertions.
Several times, he almost gave up it was so hard. He stopped swimming, too worn out to continue, and just floated for a few minutes, the life belt holding him up, preventing him sinking straight down to the bottom of the bay. When he’d recovered enough, he swam on for another few hundred metres before pausing again to rest. Only his sheer stubborn determination kept him going. He had to get to the Reunion Star, he had to find his father. Nothing else mattered. Not the pain in his arms and legs, not the biting cold, not the relentless tide. He was going to do it, no matter how difficult.
As he neared the shore, he found encouragement in the lights that were drawing slowly closer. Not far to go now, he told himself. Just a few more strokes. Dip the arms in, pull back, turn to breathe, pull again. Forget the pain, it doesn’t really hurt. You can do it, Max. You can.
He noticed the wind dropping, the surface of the water getting smoother. The undercurrent seemed to slacken. Swimming was easier. He was in the shelter of the wharves that ran along the edge of the city. Almost there. Just the thought gave him the strength to cross that final hundred metres. Then his fingers were touching a rough wooden mooring post on one of the piers jutting out into the bay. His hands gripped a metal ladder and he clung onto it for a long time, panting with exhaustion, until he summoned the energy to discard the life belt and climb up onto the pier.
He was on one of the small commercial wharves to the south of the main tourist centre, a pier still used by fishing and other working boats, though not at this time of night. The area was in darkness, the warehouses all closed up. Max lay on the ground for a while with his eyes closed, letting his
body recover, letting the water trickle out of his clothes. He’d never felt so drained before.
After a few minutes, he sat up and looked around. He could see the lighthouse on Alcatraz poking up through the mist. Had he really swum from there? It didn’t seem possible. There were other lights up the bay, on the tourist piers where there were restaurants and shops, and he could hear the sound of jazz music playing somewhere. He felt too tired to move, but he knew he had to get going. His body was cooling rapidly, and he had to find Pier 80 and the Reunion Star.
He got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled away along the wharf. His legs were heavy, his muscles barely strong enough to hold him upright. On the road at the end of the wharf, he paused. Which way was Pier 80? It had to be south, away from the tourist attractions and deeper into the bay. He turned left and kept walking. He saw cars passing by, but very few pedestrians. It didn’t feel like an area where people went at night.
He went past a large stadium that had a sign saying it was the home of the San Francisco Giants. He’d never heard of them, but guessed they had to be a baseball team because there was a statue of a baseball player on the forecourt outside. Soon the landscape gave way to a more industrial zone, a desolate area of parking lots and warehouses. There were even fewer people out here, Max was relieved to discover. He didn’t want anyone to see him, anyone to remember a teenage boy in wet clothes.
It took him almost an hour to reach a crossroads where Cesar Chavez Street turned off to Pier 80. Max went left, walking past a streetcar depot and a truck hire firm. Pier 80 was at the end of the street, a huge floodlit dock area enclosed by a high chain-link fence, with only one entrance – a checkpoint manned by security guards in a cabin. On the other side of the checkpoint was a wide, open concrete apron and a long, windowless building like an aircraft hangar which, presumably, was used for storing freight. Beyond the hangar was a quayside at which a ship was moored, tall gantry cranes loading it with cargo. That had to be the Reunion Star.
Max stayed well away from the entrance to the pier, turning left down a street which took him round to a derelict industrial site at the side of the docks. He walked over to the perimeter fence and felt in his trouser pocket. He still had the tiny nail-cutters he’d been going to use for his stunt off the Golden Gate Bridge. Crouching down, he used the cutters to make a hole in the wire mesh, then crawled through to the other side, pausing only to snip off a ten-centimetre length of wire, which he slipped into his pocket.
The hangar-like warehouse was only thirty metres away. Max flitted across to it and headed down to the quayside, sticking close to the back wall of the building. When he reached the end of the warehouse, he stopped and peered round the corner. It was the early hours of the morning, but the port was bustling with activity, the dock workers hurrying to get the Reunion Star loaded in time for her nine a.m. departure.
The quayside was flooded with light. Forklift trucks were moving in and out of the warehouse carrying crates and boxes, which were stacked on the apron, then lifted up by a crane and lowered into the hold of the ship. A second, larger crane was picking up metal containers the size of caravans and loading them on board too.
Max calculated his chances of getting across the quayside and up the gangplank of the Reunion Star without being spotted. He reckoned they were zero. There were too many people around, the area was too brightly lit. He would have to find another way of getting onto the ship.
Retreating sixty or seventy metres, he paused by a door in the wall of the warehouse. He tried the handle. The door swung open. Max peered cautiously through the gap, then slid inside. The warehouse was enormous, like a football pitch with a roof, and every inch of it was crammed with freight – great stacks of it reaching right up to the ceiling. Max moved off along one of the aisles. This part of the warehouse was quiet. All the activity was down at the far end, nearer the quayside. He moved stealthily, using the towers of boxes and packing cases as cover, keeping a sharp eye out for people.
He noticed that all the crates and cases were labelled with the names of the ships on which they were to be transported. He looked out for ones that said Reunion Star, but didn’t see any until he was approaching the end of the warehouse. There he found a section that contained nothing but cargo for the ship. He sneaked round behind the stacks and inspected the crates. He could hear the forklift trucks moving around, the shouted orders from someone out on the quayside.
Then he heard the ringtone of a mobile phone nearby and froze. There were footsteps on the concrete floor. Max threw himself behind a packing case and lay still as a young man in jeans came past, not five metres away. The young man rummaged in a denim jacket that had been thrown casually over a wooden pallet and pulled out a phone. He had a short conversation, obviously talking to his wife or girlfriend, then replaced the phone and walked away.
Max stayed where he was for half a minute, the phone reminding him suddenly of Consuela and Chris, of the phone call he’d failed to make the night before and how angry Consuela had been with him as a result. She would be distraught now, believing him to be dead. His mum, when she heard the news, would be equally upset and grief-stricken. Could he really leave them in that state? He realized how selfish he was being, how cruel. He couldn’t subject them to that kind of anguish.
He stood up and checked that the young man had gone, then he darted over to the jacket and took out the phone, crouching down with it behind a container. He didn’t dare make an actual call, in case anyone heard him talking, but he sent a short text message to Consuela’s number. Then he deleted it from the sent box, switched off the phone and put it back in the jacket.
His conscience was clearer now: he felt he’d done the right thing. He went back to the stacks and resumed his inspection of the freight, looking for a container big enough to hide in. The cardboard boxes were out of the question. They were too small. Most of the wooden crates were also unsuitable. Their lids were nailed shut and Max had no way of fixing them back in place once he was inside.
Or had he?
He suddenly remembered the three nails taped behind his left ear. He reached up and was astonished to find that they were still there. Somehow they had remained lodged in his hair throughout his two long swims. Going to the nearest crate, he used his cutters to sever the nails in the lid and lift it off. There were polythene bags inside, containing some kind of clothing. Max pushed the bags apart, compressing them to open up a space in the middle of the crate. Then he climbed in, put the lid back on top and used the nails behind his ear to fix it in place, tapping them through into the flange of the lid with the back of the cutters. It was warm and comfortable curled up next to the soft bags of clothing. Max lay back and relaxed, waiting for the crate to be loaded on board the Reunion Star.
It was getting cold on the Golden Gate Bridge. The mist had turned into a thick grey-white fog that clung to the girders and cables and swirled across the freeway, forcing the traffic to slow to almost a crawl.
Chris and Consuela were standing by the guard rail on the eastern side, looking down at the water, at the safety boats that were continuing their search of the area. Splintered pieces of timber, the remains of the wooden crate, had been salvaged from the sea, but there was still no trace of Max – alive or dead.
Consuela was shivering, droplets of water on her bare arms from the moisture in the mist. Chris had tried several times to persuade her to go inside their trailer, or at least to put on his jacket to protect herself from the elements, but she had refused. She was tense, distressed, using all her willpower to hold back her tears.
Chris put his arm around her shoulders and tried again to get her to seek shelter. ‘They’re doing all they can,’ he said gently. ‘Let’s go inside the trailer.’
Consuela shook her head. ‘No, I want to stay here,’ she said stubbornly.
‘You’re freezing. It’s not doing you any good. Come on, I’ll make you a cup of coffee.’
He pulled her away from the guard rail. She put up a token s
how of resistance, but then gave in and let him lead her to the trailer. It was warm inside. Chris got a towel from the bathroom and made her sit down and dry her damp hair while he poured them both cups of hot coffee.
‘I need to be out there,’ Consuela said.
‘Why? If they find anything, you’ll be the first to be told. Let the police do their job. Now drink your coffee.’
Consuela took a sip, then gave a little hiccup and started to cry, the tears pouring down her cheeks. Chris took the cup from her hand and put his arms around her, holding her silently while she wept. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she said eventually, pulling away and wiping her eyes with her hands.
‘You don’t know that,’ Chris replied firmly.
‘It’s been nearly two hours. Where is he? He can’t have survived.’
‘There are strong currents down there. They could have swept him a long way. That’s why the police, the coastguards are still out there looking. They’re doing everything they can.’
‘You think there’s still hope?’
‘Max is a very tough kid, a survivor. Of course there’s still hope,’ Chris said, trying to sound optimistic, though he knew that the longer they waited, the less hope there was. Consuela knew it, too. She found a handkerchief and blew her nose, then drank some coffee.
‘I must let Helen know,’ she said abruptly. ‘Max’s mum. This will be on the news all round the world. I don’t want her to hear it from anyone but me. What time is it in England?’
Chris checked his watch. ‘Just gone eight in the morning.’
‘I’ll call the prison, see if I can speak to her.’
Consuela stood up and went to her handbag, taking out her mobile. She switched it on and stared at it for a moment, frowning. Then she touched the screen with a finger and gave a cry of surprise.
