“Who shot the rocket at my boat?”
“Jason.”
“Were you with him?”
Silence. Sam reached for the zipper.
“I was.”
“What did Grace Technologies do to Jason’s brain?”
“He had a rare disease and they experimented. I don’t understand it. Something about changing his brain cells. Chellis and his scientists understand it. Chellis knows how to make Jason paranoid so he stays close to home. The massages help his symptoms-it’s the oil, but I don’t know how.”
After a few more questions it became obvious that Roberto didn’t understand the mechanisms involved. They would need to go elsewhere.
Ten people or more had kidnapped Jason. Probably across the island. Sam released Roberto and listened while he cursed.
“Panic is your worst enemy, Roberto. If you don’t tell Chellis, I won’t. Seems to me you ought to be on our side.”
“Fuck you,” Roberto screamed, no doubt imagining the fury of Chellis and the death of his own career. Now that he was up and looking at them, he surely realized that they would have freed him with or without the confession. Humiliation fused with anger made him hateful, and Sam could see it in his eyes.
“Relax. Any one of us could have had your reaction. Once the mind starts flying free you never know where it’s going to come down. You just flew a little further than most.”
“You are despicable,” Anna said to Roberto. T.J. stepped out of the brush and handed Sam a filterless cigarette butt with a small gold insignia stamped on one end.
“Middle Eastern,” Sam said.
“We should chase them in the helicopter,” Roberto said.
“Very handy, a helicopter. A beanie on a coffin. They’ll blow it out of the sky about the way you blew my boat out of the water.”
“Jason did that,” Roberto corrected him.
“While you watched,” Anna said.
“Well, I’m sending the chopper anyway.”
Sam just nodded; he would try to take advantage of the idiocy.
“We’ll need boots, water, warm clothing, preferably wool or moisture-wicking, a lighter, water, knife, and some fully automatic weapons if you have them.”
“We have the weapons.”
“And a rocket launcher?”
“We have one of those as well.”
“Good.” Sam moved off toward the lodge at a jog. “Let’s roll.”
As soon as they started they heard a seaplane circling low and dropping. Sam ran, suspecting that the plane was to pick up the intruders at Lodge Bay. If they had not done so already, at any minute the intruders would discover that their plans were being interrupted. Even as he thought it he heard the approaching plane apply power and fly low over the island. It sounded to Sam like a large twin-engine seaplane. No doubt the intruders had gone back toward the lodge, then turned and gone overland toward the other side of the island.
It took only five minutes to get everything on Sam’s list. They grabbed some food bars for good measure and some of Nutka’s salmon jerky.
“I suppose you want to go with us,” Sam said to Anna.
“I can act the part of a commando. My performance will be convincing.”
Sam allowed his eyes to tell her she was a dope.
“Give her a gun,” Sam said. She snatched an M-16 from T.J. It was made of camouflage-colored plastic and steel.
“Can you use it?”
Anna popped out the clip, pulled back the bolt, and checked the chamber. With a business like ka-chink she replaced the clip.
Sam nodded his approval.
Sam, Anna, the men, and Roberto left the lodge before Sam said what was on his mind.
“I want to have the pilot take us to the far side of the island in the Beaver. Roberto, you can come when your helicopter arrives.
“The Beaver will be there before the overland troops. It will come in fast and low and land. Still, it may get shot up. These kinds of people are going to have a lot of firepower.”
“Okay, I’m going,” Anna said.
“It will hold five. But you really shouldn’t go.”
“Why the hell not?” Anna said.
“Death. Horrible disfigurement. Those good enough reasons?”
“I’ll risk it.”
“What if it increases the risk for the rest of us?” Sam let his serious eyes make his point.
“You can’t make me stay, Sam.”
Sam hesitated, gauging her, then took her aside. “Look, I’ll spend my time worrying about you and I won’t be as effective. Neither will the others. T.J. will be busy trying to save you.”
“Sam, don’t do this to me. I can shoot.”
“I’m not taking you. You’re obsessed with your brother-you don’t think straight.”
“How are you gonna stop me?”
“We’re wasting critical time.” She locked eyes with him and he knew he had a problem. Her hand went into her purse and she came out with a satellite phone. She unfolded the antenna.
“I gotta go,” he said. “Keep the gun. You may need it. Go in the house with the others.”
Anna said nothing, but she knifed him with her look.
Sam turned and trotted to the dock with T.J., who had been a few paces back and was listening.
“What’s she gonna do?” T.J. said.
“I don’t know,” Sam said while he watched her.
“I hate to say it but she looks like a woman who has you by the gonads.”
Even with the distance between them Sam knew she was looking right at him, and he could feel each punch of the dialer as if it were drilling his chest.
“Damn that woman,” Sam said. She was coming back toward them and talking on the phone.
“We should leave now,” T.J. said.
Sam walked up to Anna. “What are you doing now?”
“Just a minute, Harold,” she said before covering the mouthpiece. “I’m on the phone with the New York Times. Harold Butler. I’m going to give him an interview. If you get in that plane without me you’re going to read about yourself in the New York Times. You’re going to read how you left me standing on the dock at the residence of a bunch of criminals. Not only that, you’re going to read your life’s history. I can afford to forfeit the bond. And you can sue me if you want to.”
“But if I take you…”
She indicated the off button on the phone.
Sam was looking at a woman who was crazy with determination.
“This is what I get for saving your life?”
“No. This is what you get for trying to run it. Nowhere in our contract does it say you can make life and death choices for me. I am your equal. Get that through your head.”
“If you come you fight my way.”
“Since I don’t know any other way to fight, I suppose yours is as good as any.”
“You are something else.”
“I’ll grow on you. Let’s go,” she said. “Harold, I’ll call you back later.” They both ran back to the plane.
T.J. looked worried.
As Sam was walking to the plane a bad feeling almost paralyzed him. He tried to shake it off. He considered that the intruders were far ahead, trained and heavily armed, and probably impossible to catch. His small group wasn’t ready for this.
“Come here,” Sam said, pulling T.J. away from Anna.
“What about me?” Anna said.
“Just stand there,” Sam growled, about as mean as he ever sounded.
“I don’t think we should take Anna and I’m afraid this could end in disaster,” Sam said.
“You stay. The boys and I will go. If you sit here she’ll stay and there isn’t a hell of a lot she can do about it.”
“I don’t want you dead, T.J.”
“It’s the job. I wanna go, but I sure as hell don’t wanna take Anna Wade.”
“If you fly right over to the far side you could be flying into automatic weapons fire. If that happens you’ll be dead.”
“We won’t go straight. We’ll come in at the end of the island and go overland.”
“It’s your choice.”
“What are you saying?” Anna walked over to where they were standing.
“You and I are staying here to run the radio,” Sam said.
“No way.”