Amaury had to admit he had a point, but he could not back down.
“So what are you telling me? That they will attack us during the night?”
“They might. We don’t know enough about them. They might take the loss of the female in stride. She let her attention drift and paid the price. C’est la guerre. And even if they do mourn her loss, their brains might not be developed enough to grasp the concept of revenge. Let’s hope not. Because we already know they can act in concert, as demonstrated by all those cuts on your face and arms. And that was just harassment to buy time for their captured fellows. I’d hate to be the target of a maim-or-kill assault.”
Amaury shook off a wave of cold dread.
Rick said, “At least let Laura sleep on the boat.”
She gave him a grateful look but shook her head. “Out there alone on the water? I don’t think so. I’ll take my chances here with you folks.”
Rick looked ready to respond but something on the periphery of their camp caught his attention. “Oh, look. It’s the monkey-meat man.”
Bakari had arrived, gnawing on a dapi thigh as he approached. He clutched a variety of roasted limbs in his other hand. He stopped before Razi and handed him the other thigh. Razi asked something in Ronga that Amaury didn’t understand. Bakari shrugged. Razi took a bite, chewed, swallowed, then returned a shrug.
Behind him he heard the woman say, “Ugh!”
Amaury guessed how the exchange went:
How is it?
Not bad.
Bite, chew, swallow.
Yeah, not bad.
Next stop: Amaury. Bakari shoved an arm at him. The scrawny limb had little meat on it, most of it crisped by the fire. It had been skinned down to the wrist but the hand had remained intact, the little fingers curled from the heat.
“I’m not hungry.”
True enough. The sight of that little hand made his gorge rise.
“Eat,” Bakari said, pushing it closer. “Eat and you are with us. Do not eat and you are with them.”
Was that what this was? Some sort of initiation rite to separate us from them? The dark-skinned from the light-skinned? Prove that you are fit to lead us?
Some of the restaurants in Maputo served bushmeat now and then. He’d eaten monkey before, and even snake and aardvark. And boar, of course. So why not dapi?
He shrugged and accepted the arm.
He heard Rick say, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Amaury ignored him and turned the arm back and forth, looking for something edible that wasn’t charred. Finally he took a bite of the biceps.
Ugh. Stringy, tough, overcooked, and completely without seasoning. Tasteless. Like chewing rope. But he managed to swallow.
There. He’d done it.
Bakari grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.
Hourra for me. I’ve joined the club.
Bakari moved onto the others, offering the remaining arm.
The woman turned away, Jeukens shook his head, and Rick said, “Thanks, but I’m cutting back.”
Bakari returned and took another bite of the thigh, indicating that Amaury should partake again.
Amaury pointed to the host of dapis watching in silence from above and quoted Jeukens. “They watch and they learn.”
Bakari grinned. “That is right. And they have learned to fear me. Eat.”
Amaury nibbled on the triceps and forced it down.
Glancing up, he felt the weight of the gazes from the crowded trees and wanted to vomit up the meat. But it stayed down.
He knew he wasn’t going to sleep tonight.
THURSDAY
May 26
1
Marten opened his eyes.
He’d been feigning sleep, watching Laffite’s pup tent through slitted lids. His mind longed for sleep. Pretending to be Keith was exhausting. While he’d watched, his mind ranged across the possible courses of action left open to him. He hadn’t come up with many options.
One decision was irrevocable: He was going to die today.
Not out of any noble impulse, no misguided idea of being a martyr for humanity. As Camus said, “Martyrs have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood—never.”
Marten had no hope of ever being understood.
And besides, he deserved to die.
He had killed the pilot in Maxixe. The man’s blood cried out for justice and retribution. And he would have it.
Marten’s death would mean Keith’s death too, of course. Keith didn’t deserve to die. But Keith needed to die. Keith was the only one who knew the secret of the dapis, the only person, living or dead, who had seen the genome firsthand. With the theocracies waiting in the wings, Keith had to die.
Obviously Laffite and Razi and Bakari had to die as well—especially Bakari. He’d murdered and eaten a dapi. Unforgivable. But even if he hadn’t, he knew of the island. Worse, the unholy trio were engaged in the exotics trade. They’d be shipping dapis back to the mainland and selling them to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet. Only a matter of time before some taxonomist got hold of one and ran its genome. And then … disaster.
He thought of Kahlil, the NYU geneticist rotting in an Iranian jail because his research went against the Quran. After the dapis were seen as instruments of God, church would merge with state and unsanctioned science would start being persecuted in Christian countries as well.
Thinking of dapis raised a question: What were they doing? He’d spent last night under the trees just like this and they’d seemed in constant motion through the branches above. Tonight they were silent. Frightened off by Bakari?
But dapis aside, the big question was what to do about Garrick and Laura. Besides the dapis, they were the only innocent parties on the island. He’d told them the secret of the dapi genome, but that was only hearsay on their part. And they’d both seemed skeptical, which was good.
But they knew the location of the island, and that was a capital offense. If only they hadn’t found it. True, they’d come in good faith, looking for Garrick’s missing brother, but that didn’t change the fact that they could talk about it at any time. They knew the coordinates. They’d already brought a helicopter pilot here. They could bring researchers as well.
Marten sighed. No way around it: Everyone had to die with the dapis.
A glow began within Laffite’s tent. At last!
Marten had given his own pup tent to Laura while he’d leaned his back against a tree perhaps a dozen feet away and pretended to doze. Garrick was also slumped against a tree, but his was right next to Laura’s tent. Bakari and Razi had disappeared into the larger tent they shared.
Marten wondered if anyone had gotten any meaningful sleep tonight. Whether the threat of a dapi attack was real or not, the idea had to be on everyone’s mind. But Marten had stayed awake for another reason.
He’d been waiting for Laffite’s bladder to nudge him from his tent. Bakari and Razi had already been up. Even Garrick had left his post for a few minutes to do his business. Only Laura and Laffite had yet to heed the call. Marten knew it was an inevitable trip for Laffite. The Frenchman had downed one of the bottles of the wine he had brought along. To rinse the taste of roasted dapi from his palate, perhaps?
And there he was. The flaps of his tent parted and Laffite emerged with a penlight. He quick-flashed the beam around the site, confirming that everyone was where they should be, then made his way into the bushes. One of the prime rules of camping: Don’t excrete where you might put your feet.
As soon as Laffite had turned his back, Marten was up and moving. He crawled into the tent and began feeling around. A penlight of his own would have been nice but the tent was so small—
Here—in the far right corner under a backpack: four phones in a pile. They could only be Garrick’s, Laura’s, Keith’s, and Marten’s. In the dark he couldn’t tell which was which and couldn’t spare the time to sort by touch, so he took them all.
As he returned the backpack to its former posi
tion, he realized the fuses for the Sorcière’s fuel pump might be stowed within. Did he dare? No. The temptation to use them for escape might prove too much. He had to die with the others.
As he exited the tent he had an instant of panic when he bumped into a dark figure right outside the flaps. But he was too tall to be Laffite.
“What the hell are you doing?” Garrick whispered.
“Trying to save us all,” he said. “He’ll be back any second. Get back where you were. Trust me.”
Garrick hesitated, then nodded.
Marten stuffed the phones inside his shirt as he returned to his tree. Within seconds everything was as Laffite had left it. When he returned he flashed his light around again, then reentered his tent.
Trying to save us all … trust me …
How easily the fabrications tripped off his lips. Lying was an art which, like any other skill, improved with practice, practice, practice. And Marten had had so much practice lately.
He waited and watched, and soon was rewarded with the sound of snoring from Laffite’s tent. That was his signal. He rose into a crouch and crept off through the underbrush. Garrick undoubtedly witnessed his departure but made no sound. Marten was not worried he’d follow. Garrick was not about to leave Laura unguarded.
Dealing with noble people was always a pleasure: They were reliable and, best of all, predictable.
He took his time, moving carefully. He saw no need to hurry to his own death. Then again, why put off the inevitable?
When he guessed he’d traveled about a hundred yards from the camp, he knelt in the weeds and pulled one of the phones from his shirt. He fumbled with it in the dark until he found the on button. He used the light from the screen to identify his own phone. He’d kept it turned off to preserve the battery. He turned it on.
Please work.… please-please-please.
The screen lit.
Yes!
What am I so relieved about? It means I can die now … as in now.
He pressed and held the 2 button and within seconds the number of one of the trigger phones appeared on the screen.
Now, all he had to do was press talk and a signal would flash up to a satellite over the Indian Ocean and then back down to Earth. The trigger phone would receive the incoming call, sending its vibration rotor into motion, which would complete the circuit to the detonator caps lodged in the block of C-4 taped to its VX canister. The explosion of that block would detonate the second block just inches away. The combined explosions would vaporize fifty gallons of the most potent neurotoxin known to man, sending a toxic cloud sweeping across the caldera. Contact or inhalation would doom any life-form with a nervous system. Those receiving a higher dose would die more quickly than those with a lower dose, but eventually all would die.
The Sorcière des Mers would be the only external evidence of human visitation. Sooner or later one of the many violent storms or typhoons that swept across the channel would tear loose her anchor and she would drift south into the Indian Ocean where she might be discovered as a mysterious ghost ship, or she’d sink to the bottom, lost forever.
With the heat and humidity of the island’s tropical climate, all the bodies, human and dapi, would quickly rot into the soil, leaving no trace as they nourished the plant life in the timeless cycle of death and rebirth. The island would remain toxic for a long, long time, however, and woe be to the unfortunate explorer who stumbled upon her before the VX had been broken down by time and the elements. The central lake would stay toxic the longest.
Marten poised his thumb over the talk button. Did he really want to do this? Wasn’t there another way?
No. Humanity could never deal with the truth about itself, and must never know. He was the custodian of that truth.
He realized he was delaying, subconsciously finding ways to put off the inevitable.
Reminding himself to take a deep inhalation of the vapor cloud as it rushed over him, he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and pressed the button. His bowels clenched as the call went out.
Sweating, shaking, he waited.
No explosion.
What was wrong? His phone was working. Was the satellite out? Unlikely.
He pressed the button again.
And again, nothing. He put the phone to his ear and heard ringing. The other phone was receiving the call.
Not good, but not the end of the world. Well, his world. At least not yet. Murphy’s Law had prevailed: If something can go wrong, it will. But he’d prepared for this eventuality. He had another trigger set up just inches from the first. All hail redundancy.
He hit 3 on his phone and the second trigger’s number appeared on the screen. No drama this time, no hesitation, no tense deep breath. He was too annoyed with his first trigger for any of that. He pressed talk.
And waited.
And nothing.
No. This couldn’t be. Not both of them faulty. Impossible!
Sobbing, he began jamming his thumb against the button again and again. All he’d done to get to this point, all his sins, all his efforts to execute this perfect plan. It had to work, it had to!
But still no explosion.
He took a deep breath and calmed himself. Okay. Be logical. The problem wasn’t the satellite. The problem was here on the island. That meant the solution was here as well. He’d tested all the circuits between both phones and their attached detonator caps, but something might have gone wrong. No, something obviously had gone wrong, something as simple as an alligator clamp falling off.
But on both of them? That wasn’t right. None of the humans of the island had discovered the canisters or they’d have raised a stink. Then what? Something as simple as a falling branch? Or—
Oh, hell. A dapi. A curious dapi investigating something it had never seen before. That had to be it.
When he had enough light he’d find out what had happened and make it right. And then …
An idea occurred to him. If he detonated the C-4 while he was standing there, he wouldn’t have to suffer the agonies of death by a neurotoxin. His end would be instantaneous. Like turning off a light switch.
He smiled. Every cloud did indeed have a silver lining.
2
Rick knew he’d be the first Laffite would question when he realized Keith was gone. And sure enough …
Faint predawn light was filtering through the canopy when the Frenchman crawled out of his tent. He stretched his back, looked around, and stiffened when he noticed someone was missing. He strode straight to where Rick sat with his back against one of the fat tree trunks.
“Where is your brother?” he said, standing over him.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”
“I want an answer.”
Rick rose to face him. “I don’t have one. I saw him walk off into the bushes an hour or two ago. I thought he was going for a leak. He hasn’t come back yet.”
All true. Of course, he’d left out the small detail of the phones Keith had stolen from Laffite’s tent.
“An hour or two?”
Rick shrugged. “I didn’t check my watch, but it seems about that long.”
Laffite turned in a slow circle. “He should be back by now.”
Yeah, he should be, Rick thought.
He’d been wondering what Keith was doing in the bushes with those phones. Calling for help? Not a bad idea. If Laffite knew help was on the way, he’d have to keep the three of them alive.
He’d also wondered if he’d found the fuse Laffite had taken from the boat. If he had, and had slipped back into Marten mode, he might very well have sailed away, leaving them all marooned.
“Maybe the dapis got him.”
“Do not even joke about that.”
“Hey, it’s possible.”
“If you truly believed that, you would be out looking for him.”
Rick shrugged again. “It’s not like he can go far.”
“True, true, but—” Laffite’s eyes widened. Rick had known a certain unpleasant p
ossibility would eventually occur to him. “Merde!”
He whirled and raced back to his tent. Seconds later he emerged with a backpack in one hand and his revolver in another. He stalked toward Rick.
“Where is he?”
“No idea.” He held his ground. “And that’s the truth.”
He gathered that Keith hadn’t taken the fuse, else Laffite would be scrambling up to the rim to make sure his boat was still here.
“Well, then, you will go find him.”
Rick smiled and shook his head, trying to provoke the Frenchman.
“I don’t think so. I’m sure he’s just fine where he is.”
Laffite raised the revolver and shoved the muzzle toward Rick, placing it within easy reach.
Thank you.
“You will go find him now or someone you care about will suffer!”
That did it.
He lashed out with his right hand, grabbing the barrel and giving it a vicious twist as he pushed the gun down and away. It discharged with a loud crack as Laffite’s finger caught inside the trigger guard, firing one round into the ground. Rick wrenched the revolver free and the Frenchman screamed as his finger broke.
“That’s the last time you threaten her,” Rick said.
Bakari and Razi scrambled from their tent and he heard Laura cry out behind him.
“What happened?”
“Nothing important,” Rick said. “Everything’s cool.”
Laffite was bent over, cradling his broken finger.
Rick examined the revolver. Not a Smith after all. A near-antique Llama clone of the Model 10. He found the release and swung the cylinder out. He dumped the rounds, fired and unfired, into his palm, then hurled them into the brush. If he’d had a screwdriver handy he would have removed the cylinder and done the same with it. Instead he left the cylinder out and hammered it against a baobab trunk until it wouldn’t fit back into the frame. Then he tossed the whole thing out of sight.
There. That leveled the playing field. Well, a little. The brothers still had their spears and he presumed Laffite still had the Marlin in his tent. But nobody would be strutting around with firepower tucked in his belt.