Her heart sank and it was all she could do to keep from swearing aloud. Remnants of black electrical tape made it clear that something had been there, but the PLB was gone. She wondered where it was now. If it had been her, she’d have thrown it into the ocean, let it sink to the bottom. Even if it didn’t short out, no signal would transmit from the depths of the Caribbean. But if there was a chance that the PLB was still on board, she had to find it, which meant searching the whole damn ship.
Or asking Dwyer.
Angie didn’t like either option, but she knew she had to do something. It was too late to hide down here with Pucillo.
29
Gabe stopped about twenty feet up the beach and surveyed the island. From their approach they’d already gauged it at about half a mile wide and three times that in length — not much land, but it could still take all day and more to search if they weren’t smart about it. He tried to think like Ruiz, the captain of the Mariposa. If he’d brought the guns ashore, worried about an attack come nightfall, where would he hole up?
Closest to the sand were towering skeletal palm trees, their heavy fronds barely rustling in the light morning breeze. At the bases of those trees grew a sparse sea grass. Farther inland there were other trees, green and tangled, and prickly-looking underbrush. Gabe didn’t see any obvious footpaths, but there were natural patterns in the growth, almost like coves on the shore, inviting travelers with easier access. Now that he looked more closely, he realized that the island wasn’t as flat as he’d imagined. A ridge of mounds — a sort of spine of natural rises — ran along its length.
“You ever seen breakers like that?” Bone asked, coming up beside Gabe. He wore a light pack and clutched a water bottle. “Black like that, I mean?”
Gabe glanced along the beach at the weird rock formations that jutted into the water. On either side of the cove there were places where jagged shards of the same ebony stone thrust up from the sand or the white foaming surf.
“Something like it,” Gabe replied. “Looks volcanic.”
“You think there’s a volcano here?”
The captain studied the island again. “Hell if I know. I’ve seen a couple of volcanoes, and it doesn’t look anything like that. But I’m not a geologist.”
“It’s weird, though, right?”
Gabe didn’t bother to reply. Bone had answered his own question. He turned toward the others. Tori and Kevonne stood a little farther up the beach, well away from where Pang was helping Boggs and the other two sailors dig anchors into the sand to keep the lifeboats from floating away on the first big wave. They were wasting their time; the tide was as high as it would get. But they were good sailors and had procedures to follow.
“All right, let’s go,” he called.
Boggs reached into one of the lifeboats and pulled out a long vinyl bag, unzipped it, and withdrew the rifle from inside. He loaded it quickly, then slung the weapon over his shoulder.
“Do we really need guns? There’s nobody here,” Bone said, a pleading tone in his voice. Gabe wondered if he’d been this way back in California, if he’d left because he’d been getting on his surfer buddies’ nerves.
“Maybe not. But the guys from the Mariposa are dead.” The captain wore a nine-millimeter pistol in a holster on his right hip. He reached down and popped the snap that kept it in place. “I’d rather be prepared than join them.”
Gabe walked down to meet Boggs and the others, who gathered around him.
Bone hurried to catch up. “Hey, Captain, do you think I could have one, then?”
“When we find our cargo, you can all have guns for all I care. But let’s get to work. Four teams. Kevonne, take Pang and head west along the shore. Look for any sign of the Mariposa’s crew — footprints, guns, breaks in the tree line. Tori and I will head east.”
He turned to Boggs. “The rest of you go with the chief. Head inland maybe a hundred yards, then split up, two in one direction, two in the other. Crisscross that section. They won’t have taken the guns much deeper than that. Don’t waste time with the overgrown areas or the hills.”
“We should go in as far as the bottom of those hills, though, Captain,” Boggs said. “There may be decent defensive positions there. If the Mariposa’s captain wanted a place to hide, or to fight from, he might have gone that far.”
Gabe didn’t like to be contradicted, especially by a man like Boggs, but he couldn’t deny that the chief had a point.
“All right. Go in as far as the hills, but don’t climb. Even if they wanted the high ground, they didn’t lug crates of guns up those hills, and the guns are what we’re looking for. They’re all that matters. Make sure every team has at least one radio. Let me know the second you run across anything that’s even a question mark. I’ll decide for myself what is and isn’t important. Got it?”
The men all began to move out. Tori knelt in the sand, double-checking her pack, making sure they had food and water. When they had first set out on this voyage, Gabe had hated the idea of some office girl coming along, looking over his shoulder, reporting back to Viscaya. Now he was glad to have her along.
Tori had surprised him with her resilience. The typical cubicle slave would be curled up in a weepy fetal ball back in their quarters right now. But Tori had steel in her, a survivor’s edge, and he admired the hell out of that. He had brought her out to the island to make sure that he had a witness that Esper and the rest of his bosses at Viscaya would trust. Gabe would do whatever it took to get those guns, to finish the job, but if they ended up going home empty-handed, he wanted Tori to be able to tell them firsthand that he’d done everything possible.
True, Tori’s eyes had a glint of fear, but they all looked afraid. The difference was that everyone else seemed content to let him lead, while Tori had an air of determination that had nothing to do with Gabe Rio or his orders. Terrified she might be, but she would do whatever it took to get the job done and get home safe. They were in it together, and he liked that.
“Thanks,” she said as she shouldered her pack and they started east along the sand together.
“For what?”
“Not sending me with Boggs.”
Gabe had been starting to search the sand and the tree line, but now he glanced at her. “You honestly think I’d have done that to you?”
“I thought maybe you’d see me as a liability,” Tori said.
The irony of the comment, given what he’d just been thinking, made him shake his head. “I don’t.”
“Glad to hear it.”
They walked near the tree line, where the sand did not give way so readily beneath their feet. Beyond the cove, the black rocks were not so prominent, but there were many places where patches of dark stone were visible under the sand, as though it had been worn away to reveal the rocks beneath, like the beach was only a disguise for the real island under it.
In one spot, they came upon a great hump in the sand, but as they drew closer Gabe saw that it was an old rowboat, overturned and half-buried in the sand, wood bleached white by time and sun. As they stood puzzling it out, Tori tapped his arm and pointed into the trees farther along the beach, where what had once been a small yacht — forty feet or so — lay among the trees and brush, partially overgrown, two downed palms evidence of its violent arrival on shore.
“Must have been a hell of a storm,” Tori said.
“They’re born around here all the time,” Gabe replied, though when he glanced at the blue sky, felt the baking warmth of the sun and the bare whisper of the day’s wind, it was hard to imagine a hurricane striking this tiny island.