Bones shook his head. “Now what? We’ve got no ride coming. Everybody left on this island wants to kill us. We don’t even have the stuff for our objective,” he finished, referencing the smallpox crate that they’d left behind in the bushes.
Maddock took off his soaked backpack and set it on the sand beside him, patting it. “At least I’ve still got the film. Good thing we put it in those Ziploc bags before putting it in here, though.”
“So what do we do with it?”
Maddock looked out to the lagoon, where shipwreck survivors still swam ashore, then around the beach. He noted the raft they’d made, now broken apart. But it gave him an idea.
“We’ve got to just leave this island. However we can. On a raft, something. Anything.”
Bones laughed, tossing a pebble into the water. “Even if we had something, where would we go?”
“There’s an island with a resort that I saw during our flight in.”
“Ronga Vanua? That’s far, Maddock. We’re talking,” Bones stared out to sea as he considered it. “more like days instead of hours.”
Maddock shrugged. “We could try to stay alive here for a few more hours until some media or authorities from the outside arrive today…if they do…but that could also end up compromising our cover. We’d be on the news, possibly detained as witnesses to what went on here. If we can leave while it’s still dark.”
“I guess.” Bones seemed less than convinced. “But how could we leave anyway? The raft is smashed. All of the lifeboats from the ship either went down with it, never released, or they floated out to sea.”
Maddock nodded. “I’m pretty sure they were never even used. But look. There’s something that still floats.” He pointed out into the lagoon, not far from the beach and a little to their right.
“Hey! What do you know? It’s metal and it floats.” Mizuhi’s model Electra floated serenely on the placid water.
“It’s got no engine in it weighing it down, so the sheet metal should float, especially if it’s intact.”
“Looks like it’s going to wash right up on the beach.”
They watched as it did just that, scraping across the coarse sand as it drifted onto the atoll. The two SEALs ran to it.
“Let’s test it out.” Maddock pushed it into knee-deep water and then hopped into the cockpit. Bones stood there and observed, watching for any signs that the craft was less than seaworthy. It seemed stable.
“Hop on in.” Maddock waved an arm for him to join him in the cockpit. Bones jumped up and into the plane.
“I have to say, I’ve already spent quite enough time in here and wasn’t really looking forward to hanging out here even more.”
“What do you think? I don’t see any leaks. Don’t hear any water seeping in, either, do you?”
At length, Bones shook his head. “It’s about as seaworthy as the old aluminum bass boat my uncle taught me to fish from on the lake. It floats, sure, but if we got into any kind of weather…” He left that unpleasant scenario unfinished before continuing on a new tack. “And there’s no outboard motor on this thing. We’d have to paddle it, but it doesn’t come with those, either.”
“Let’s get back to the beach. Maybe the raft paddles are still good.”
They hopped out of the model plane and dragged it up onto the beach.
“We better hurry up and do this if we’re going to,” Bones said, eyeballing the growing cluster of people assembling some distance away on the beach. “At some point they might come to check out their model.”
Maddock jogged over to the smashed up raft. He rummaged around in the sand for a bit and then came away with the two makeshift paddles. “At least these are intact.”
Bones took them and placed them inside the model airplane. He saw a large cluster of coconuts on the ground and picked them up. “Drinking water and food.” He tossed them into the cockpit as well.
“It’s time to make a run for our crate.” Maddock looked down the beach.
“You still have your K5?”
Maddock shook his head.
“Me neither. Got my coconut opener though.” Bones patted his trusty dive knife, still sheathed on his calf.
“I lost that, too.” Maddock stared ruefully at his bare leg.
“One knife between us to make this happen.”
“We’ll need to be stealthy.”
“Not much jungle left to go through, either. It’s either been burned down or still on fire.”
“Hopefully those bushes where we stashed the crate haven’t been burnt to a crisp. At least with the ship sinking, Mizuhi will be dealing with that instead of combing the island. Let’s skirt the perimeter, this way—” Maddock pointed to their right, away from the crowd on the beach.
Bones nodded and they set out around the atoll.
Chapter 33
It didn’t take them long to skirt the island until they approached the side where the camp was. Most of the activity was now centered on the beach, where the Mizuhi and EARHART teams alike avoided the burning jungle and discussed the aftermath of the sunken ship. When Maddock could see the camp in the distance, he pointed in the direction of the clump of vegetation where they’d hidden the crate.
“It won’t be long before they organize enough to notice that we’re both missing, and that a bomb ruptured the hull that caused the ship to sink, and put two and two together.”
“As if they weren’t looking for us already.” Bones hunkered lower against the sand.
Maddock nodded. “We have got to get out of here. Let’s move. We’ll get that crate and come back around the same way.”
He and Bones crouched low as they ran, maintaining as low a profile as possible while still being able to move fast. When they rounded the end of the island that the camp was on, they transitioned to a low-crawl, moving on their bellies across the sandy soil toward the demolished radio tent. Bones let out a muffled curse as his elbow ground into a smoldering ember.
After some more excruciating progress, Maddock scoped out the surroundings and then risked standing up for a better vantage point. He looked around quickly and then lay back down. He pointed off to their left. “Looks like our plants are still there.”
“Hopefully the crate is, too.”
“Let’s go find out.”
The two special warfare operators resumed their rapid low-crawl toward the objective. They had to skirt around a remaining pocket of wildfire that threatened to overtake their hiding place. When they rounded it, they saw no other people and had a clear path to the stand of foliage. They low-crawled the entire way, taking no chances. Smoke filled the air, lowering visibility, but down low to the ground they found it easier to breathe. They crawled directly into the grouping of plants without standing up, Maddock in the lead.
“It’s here!” Maddock reached the crate and jostled it slightly, testing its weight. “Still heavy.”
“We should probably open it to make sure they’re still in there.”
“You mean in case someone found it and took out the smallpox containers and replaced them with rocks?”
“Yeah. I’d hate to carry a box of rocks all the way back to the Commander after everything we’ve been through, wouldn’t you?”
Maddock pulled the lid off the box and peered inside. “Still there.” He replaced the lid.
“I’ll get the poles.” Bones slunk off deeper into the remaining greenery and came back with the two cut logs they’d used to transport the crate.
“If we use those we’ll have to stand, or at least crouch,” Maddock pointed out.
“We can crouch. Let’s just get out of here. I’d rather be cooped up in that model airplane again with a box full of smallpox than hang around here.”