“You broke my finger!” Laffite said.
“And you threatened Laura again. I don’t call us even, but it’ll do for now.”
More light was filtering through the trees. Laura was out of the tent and looking around.
“You sleep okay?” he said.
She gave him a dumb-question look. “Yeah. I mean, I knew you were out here, so … yeah.”
He loved her for that simple acknowledgment. It made the whole long night worthwhile.
“Where are the dapis?” she said.
“We do not care about the dapis!” Laffite groaned, clutching his injured hand. “We need to find Jeukens!”
“We need to get off this island, is what we need,” Laura said.
“He has all your phones.”
Rick tried to look surprised. “Really? How’d he manage that?”
“He must have sneaked into my tent.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Laffite only glared at him.
“Come on,” Laura said, grabbing the Frenchman’s arm. “Let’s find the first-aid kit and see what we can do for that finger.”
As she led him away, Rick said, “Hey, he just threatened your life again.”
She gave Rick an eye roll. The doctor part of her had taken over and she didn’t take the threats seriously. But she didn’t know about Antso and his helicopter.
On the way to the first-aid kit, Laffite shouted something to the brothers in Portuguese. They took off, in search of Keith, no doubt. Rick was tempted to start his own search, but he wasn’t letting Laura out of his sight.
He looked up at the empty trees.
And yeah, where were the dapis?
3
Marten was lost. His own damn fault for trying to find the canisters before sunrise oriented him. But what little he could see of the sky showed a lid of clouds. With no firm idea of east, he’d have to guess about north. Because north was where he’d left the canisters.
He hadn’t seen a dapi since dark had fallen. No reflective eyes watching from the trees, no chatter. Almost as if they’d deserted the island. The overcast would prevent the sun from cresting the rim. Would that mean no ceremony this morning?
At last he located the canisters hidden in the underbrush as he’d left them. And immediately he saw the reason the detonation had failed.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Four of the alligator connectors—two from each board—were missing. The black wires were still there, but the reds were gone.
Just as he’d suspected: dapis … had to be the dapis. But why? Were they attracted to red? What the hell was he going to do now?
Movement behind him made him turn. A dapi male hung from a low branch, staring at him. And around his neck … four red wires. He’d learned how to work the alligator clips and made a necklace for himself.
Slowly, avoiding any sudden moves, Keith checked his pockets on the off chance he had a protein bar somewhere on his person. But no. Nothing. He needed something to entice the dapi closer … close enough to grab those connectors. All he had were phones.
During his train and bus trips up and down the Mozambique coast he’d downloaded an app or two to help pass the time. He had the old standby, Tetris. He’d heard about Angry Birds and tried it but found it ridiculous. Same with Candy Crush—mindless. He couldn’t believe people actually spent hours with—
Wait … didn’t Angry Birds feature a red bird?
Maybe … just maybe …
He began searching through his apps, praying he hadn’t dragged it to the trash can.
4
Without an X-ray, Laura couldn’t tell if Laffite’s right index finger was broken or merely badly sprained. Either way, it needed immobilization. She could try a tongue depressor as a splint, but decided instead on simple buddy taping: She used strips of adhesive bandage to strap the injured index to the healthy middle finger.
“Tu es une belle femme,” he said as she worked. “Un homme peut se noyer dans vos yeux.”
She shook her head. He had to be kidding. Coming on to her in French so a certain someone wouldn’t understand?
“Il est une brute,” he continued. “Repartir avec moi.”
“Tell him you’ll go only if he promises to take you to the Casbah,” Rick said from a dozen feet away.
Laura laughed. “Since when do you speak French?”
“I don’t, but when someone like him goes all Pepé Le Pew, I can suss out the gist of what he’s laying down. The Casbah or nothing.”
Laffite looked puzzled as he replied in English. “The Casbah? In Algiers?”
Lauren played along. “Of course. Is there another?”
“I would not take such a beautiful woman to such a terrible place.” Then he shrugged. “But of course, if you wish—”
A man started screaming somewhere out in the woods. She glanced at Rick who looked like a panther ready to spring.
“Keith?” she said.
He shook his head. “One of the brothers.”
Laffite agreed. “It sounds like Razi.”
His cries were agonized.
“He’s hurt,” Laura said. “How—?”
Laffite rose to his feet. “We should go see.”
“Be my guest,” Rick said.
“You are afraid?”
“Terrified,” he said casually. “Laura and I will stay put. But you feel free to go.”
Laura doubted Laffite was going anywhere.
And then the cries choked off.
All around … silence.
Laura had to ask: “Has anyone seen a dapi this morning?”
Rick shook his head. “Not a one. Although I wonder … I mean, I hope it’s not true, but I’m wondering if Razi just found them.”
They all waited in silence. Her patch-up job done, Laura left Laffite and gravitated to Rick’s side.
“Do you really think it was the dapis?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. I saw my first living dapi less than twenty-four hours ago, so I have no idea what they’re capable of. But from the sound of it, something bad happened to Razi out there, and I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Keith.”
Something was plunging toward them through the brush.
She grabbed his arm. “Hear that?”
Something heavy, too heavy for a dapi.
And then Bakari, his face a mask of grief and fright, burst into their little clearing carrying Razi across his back in a sort of fireman’s carry. He knelt and eased his brother to the ground.
A yelp of shock escaped Laura when she saw the prone figure.
“Putain!” Laffite cried.
Rick said, “What the fuck?”
Miniature spears, each about a foot long, jutted from each eye socket and each ear canal, two had been jammed into Razi’s blood-filled mouth, and another poked skyward from his larynx.
Bakari, distressed to the point of panic, raised his bloody fists and howled at the trees in helpless rage.
Laura felt as if her feet had grown roots. She stood frozen, unable to move as the implications washed over her, then she broke free and knelt beside the fallen brother.
She felt Razi’s throat for a pulse, but his carotid was still. She pulled open his bloody shirt and pressed her ear to his chest to check for a heartbeat. Nothing. She straightened up and looked at his blood-filled mouth, the spear in his larynx. It looked like he’d choked to death on his own blood. Still, there might be a chance …
She eased the stick from his throat. No spearhead atop the shaft—little more than a sharpened stick. She tossed it aside. No air gushed from the hole, but no blood either. The spear had performed a crude tracheotomy. With an airway established, if she could kick-start the heart into beating again, he might survive.
Laura started hand-on-hand compressions of Razi’s chest, timing them to the recommended tempo of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive.” But after fewer than a half dozen, she saw blood clots blocking the hole. And then Bakari pushed her away with a growl.
“Hey, asshole!” Rick said. “She’s only trying to help!”
“He doesn’t understand,” Laffite said. “And it doesn’t look like there’s anything to save here.” He made a face. “Look what they did to his eyes.”
Rick had picked up the mini-spear and was examining it. “Looks like it’s been chewed to a point.” He looked around. “This must be what they spent the whole night doing.”
“‘They watch and they learn,’” Laura said, quoting Keith as she stared down at Razi’s pierced eyes and throat. “And this is the result of their latest lesson.”
Rick threw the little spear at Bakari. “This is your doing, fucktard! They’d never seen a spear until you demonstrated how useful they are!” He pointed to Razi. “Happy? Happy?”
Bakari jumped to his feet, looking confused and angry, but ready to fight.
“Easy, Rick,” Laura said. “You’re talking too fast for him. He doesn’t understand you.”
“He understands just fine.” He took a breath and turned away. “Sorry, Laura. It’s just that the profound stupidity of all this makes me … makes me crazy.”
Laura understood. Bakari’s actions had turned a gentle community of tree hoppers into a murderous army of warriors. And now the humans were the enemy. She wanted to scream at him herself.
She lowered her voice. “But why Razi? I’d’ve thought—”
“Was wondering the same myself. Maybe they thought it was Bakari. They’re brothers, after all.” Rick turned to Laffite. “Hey, ask your pal here what happened out there.”
Laffite spoke to Bakari in Portuguese and received an elaborate reply accompanied by a series of hand and arm gestures.
When he was done, Laffite said, “They were searching for your brother, walking maybe one hundred feet apart, when a dozen dapis jumped on Razi and began stabbing him with their sticks. By the time Bakari arrived to help, they were done and gone.”
Laura studied the fallen Razi. The dapis had struck at his most vulnerable parts, and ones most crucial for defense. Humans were so much bigger and stronger, but the dapis didn’t have to be seasoned warriors to realize that their target, no matter what the physical advantages, didn’t stand a chance once deprived of sight and sound. They were smaller, so they’d swarmed, much like Paleolithic humans did to bring down mastodons.
“So what next?” Rick added, wandering aimlessly about. “They decapitate us and dismember us and cook us up for dinner? I mean, that’s what they saw this cretin do! He set the example.”
Laura couldn’t see the dapis taking matters to that extreme, but …
“They’ve become dangerous,” she said.
“They may have been dangerous all along but never had a reason to show it until we provoked them.”
Laura could see only one course of action. “Which means now, more than ever, we need to get off this island.”
“I agree,” Laffite said. “We will leave all the equipment—it will be fine until I return. We will head for the boat immediately.”
“What about Keith?”
“He is welcome to come along, but we cannot risk searching for him. Look what happened to Razi.”
“I traveled all this distance to find him,” Rick said. “I’m not leaving without him.”
Uh-oh.
“I think he’s made his choice,” Laura said.
“When I hear that from him, fine. Then it’s full speed ahead away from here. But until then…”
“Okay. Where do we start looking for him?”
He shook his head. “Not ‘we.’ You’re getting on the boat.”
“And leave you here on your own?” Her turn to shake her head. “Not happening.”
“Look, be reasonable. I’ll be able to move faster without you.”
She stamped her foot. She was trying to break herself of that habit but not having a lot of success.
“First off, not true. I can move just as fast as you—maybe not in an open field, but in all this jungle, we’re even. Second, two pairs of eyes are better than one. And last, we’re a team, damn it! We came here together, we’ll leave together.”
“You two are welcome to continue arguing,” Laffite said, “but Bakari and I are heading for the safety of the boat. I will wait an hour. If you are not on the shore by then…” He smiled and waved. “Bon voyage.”
A cold lump grew in the pit of Laura’s stomach. She had a feeling he wouldn’t wait a single minute.
“You can’t maroon us here,” Rick said.
Laffite shrugged. “Face it, monsieur. Your brother has either decided to stay with his beloved dapis, or he has already suffered Razi’s fate. Either way, you are wasting your time—and mine.”
He said something in Portuguese and gestured toward Razi. But as Bakari bent to lift his brother’s body, he cried out, reaching around for a short, slender spear lodged in the back of his right shoulder.
The trees above and around erupted in a cacophony of screeches—war cries? Victory cries? Laura couldn’t tell.
As Bakari clawed at his back to remove the spear, more wooden missiles darted from the trees. Most of them missed or landed sideways and bounced off without causing harm. But one did manage to pierce the skin of Laffite’s forearm.
“Run!” he cried.
He spun and made a dash toward the area where the ladder leaned against the inner wall, but ran into a hail of little spears. Crossing his arms before his face, he reversed and charged past Laura and Rick.
“We can’t stay here,” Rick said.
He grabbed Laura’s arm and pulled her into a crouching run.
She looked back to see Bakari bringing up the rear. Behind him, a horde of dapis swarmed to the ground where they retrieved their fallen spears and leaped back into the trees.
“Lucky for us they haven’t had enough time to figure out how to throw those things,” Rick said as they followed Laffite, dodging past slender saplings and monolithic baobabs.
“We appear to be on their learning curve,” she said. “As targets.”
“Once they figure out you hold a spear at its balance point, we’re in trouble.”
“And you know about spear balance points because—oh, never mind.” She could guess his answer and she wanted to save her wind.
As the last in their running procession, Bakari was taking the brunt of the attack—which, as far as Laura was concerned, he fully deserved. The dapis had a justified beef with him. But did he deserve the same fate as Razi? Did anyone?
Gradually the attack eased off until the four of them were simply running. Laura was about to call a halt so they could reorient themselves, when the spears started flying at Laffite from straight ahead. He didn’t hesitate: He made a sharp turn and disappeared off to the right. The dapis in the trees followed.
When Laura and Rick and Bakari reached his turning point, the dapis were moving away, leaping and flying through the trees as they chased Laffite.
Laura stopped. “Listen,” she said, panting. “If they’re going that way, let’s go back the way we came.”
“Great idea,” Rick said. “Which way is that?”
Bakari, his shirt bloodied by a few superficial spear wounds, paused for only a few seconds, then started running again, continuing in the same direction they’d been headed.
“Let him go,” Rick said. “Back is better.”
She led the way, keeping a wary watch on the trees for spear-wielding dapis.
“You sure this is the way?” Rick said after a while. “Because none of this stuff looks trampled.”
True enough. She’d thought it would be simple to retrace their steps, but had no idea where they were.
“I think we’re lost,” she said.
And when she spotted the central lake through the vegetation ahead, she knew it for sure.
5
Marten held the cell phone out to the dapi. He wished for one of those large-screen phablet models, but he’d have to work with what he had.
“See the birds???
? he said, easing it forward as he repeatedly pressed the touchscreen to keep things moving. He hoped the red one was in motion.
The dapi seemed interested, cocking his head this way and that as he stared at the screen, but always glancing warily at Marten to see what he was up to.
Just a little closer … a little closer. Even if he couldn’t grab the dapi itself, simply getting a finger hooked inside the red-wire necklace would be enough.
Just a little bit closer …
Now!
He dropped the phone as he lunged with both hands, but the dapi was too skittish and too fast. At the first sign of motion he screeched and leaped and was gone. Well, not quite gone. He stopped on a branch, looked back at Marten, and gave what sounded for all the world like a Bronx cheer.
Marten picked up the fallen phone and ended goddamn stupid Angry Birds. He wanted to hurl it into the trees but he still might need it. He stalked back to the canisters and stared at his trigger boards. How could he jury-rig the setup to—?
And then he saw it, staring him straight in the face. The dapi had taken the four red wires but left him the two blacks. But he didn’t need any wires except the pair that sprouted from each detonator cap.
If this had been a chemical formula or an amino-acid sequence, he’d have solved any problem immediately. But something as simple as this … the solution had been so obvious he’d looked right past it.
He simply had to touch one of the detonator wires to the positive snap-connector terminal on the battery box and the other to the negative. Boom. Mission accomplished. And he’d never know what hit him.
He was reaching for the wires when he heard someone approaching from the jungle. Coming fast.
6
Laura’s first thought upon seeing the lake was how thoroughly lost they were. The second, inanely, was how badly she needed a good scrubbing.
“This is not the way I thought we were going,” Rick said. “Where the hell are we?”
“Well, the lake’s in the center so—”
“Right, but are we on the north shore, the west shore, what? Damn, my sense of direction’s usually pretty good. What is it about this place?”
Laura knew what he meant. “Yeah. Sound is strange here, so’s the light. It’s hard to keep your bearings.”