Lena waved at him. No smile. A guarded, half-amused look. Like she knew something that he didn’t. Like she was trying to figure out whether he was a threat. He gave her an awkward head nod, and it took everything in his power not to look after her as she passed. The patter of her footsteps faded into the ever-present sound of crashing waves along the shore.
A few minutes later, David’s jog turned into a walk as he approached the cluster of buildings at his end of the runway. Gravel and sand crunched beneath his feet as he walked down the narrow path past the buildings and onto the beach near his barracks. The sun was fully above the horizon now. David stretched his muscles and waited for his breathing to slow. Sweat dripped from his forehead to his nose and onto the dark sand below.
He wondered why the sand here had such a dark grey-black color. He didn’t think the island’s lone mountain looked volcanic. Maybe one of the scientists in the group would know.
A few moments went by as he stretched and tried to meditate. He controlled his breathing and did his best to let go of the stress that filled him. The magnificent view helped. Even with everything that was going on, he could still take comfort in the solace of an empty tropical beach after a long morning run.
“Mind if I join you?”
He hadn’t heard her approach. Could she really have run all the way to the end of the runway and back that quickly?
“Good morning, Lena.”
“I didn’t know you were a runner. How far did you go?” she asked.
He checked his watch. “Fifty minutes.”
He was still breathing hard. Try as he might, he could not think of a single uncontroversial thing to say to her.
She sat down next to him in the sand, extending one of her legs and leaning toward her foot.
She said, “Beautiful morning to run, don’t you think?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I used to run a lot more than I do lately. Work has kept me busy.”
He didn’t reply.
She said, “But I couldn’t resist a good beach run. I ran track in college. Middle distance. You?”
He said, “In college? I was on the sailing team.”
“I see. What kind of boats? The little single-seaters? Or the larger ones?”
David said, “They were forty-four-footers.”
“Ah. I see. And you would travel far from the shore on those?”
David looked at her, puzzled. Why the chit chat? Where was she going with this? “Um, yes. Of course.”
Her eyes were cool. She said, “David, I’m going to give you some advice. Please imagine that this island is like one of your boats from your college days. It is a vessel, sailing away from the shore. It has just sailed into a squall. Everyone on board is part of a team, right? Everyone on board has a specific job to do. If the team doesn’t work well together, it could be very dangerous for the others. And it is quite possible for anyone on board to fall off and be consumed by the sea.”
He looked at her in silence.
She said, “But if everyone does what he or she is supposed to do, your boat will return safe and sound. Clear?”
He nodded. “Yes. I follow.” His face was involuntarily turning red.
“Splendid.” She held a stoic gaze.
He looked around and then at his wristwatch. He cleared his throat and said, “Well… I better head back. I’ll see you later.”
She smiled and said, “I look forward to it.” She stared straight into his eyes as she spoke. Then she continued to stretch.
He didn’t say anything else, just got up and left.
Lena watched him walk away, thinking of another run by the water she’d taken years ago.
Thirty minutes later David was showered and dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. He saw Natesh walking toward the cafeteria and paired up with him.
“Good morning, David. You heading to eat?”
“Hi, Natesh. I am.”
Natesh looked at the sweat on David’s forehead. “You look like you just got done working out.”
“Oh. Yes. I ran this morning. Sometimes it takes a while for my heart to stop pumping. Especially in this heat. Let’s get in the air-conditioning of this cafeteria. That should help.”
They began walking along the gravel pathway toward the dining hall. David smelled sausage and cafeteria food in the air.
Moments later they joined Henry Glickstein at a cafeteria table. Glickstein seemed to be one of the few people on the island who were enjoying themselves. Everyone else was complaining about the lack of Internet or TV. They missed their families and the creature comforts of home. But here was Glickstein, joking and trying to get people to join a late-night poker game he had started. These classes were ending at 10 or 11 p.m. David didn’t really want to play cards after a day of meetings. And he wasn’t in the mood for joking, with what he had seen. He just wanted to sleep. And escape. Still, Henry seemed like a good guy. At least he wasn’t trying to kill anyone.
Henry said, “Yeah, so not everyone’s got money to pay right now, but we’re keeping a very detailed set of IOUs to make sure that everyone knows how much they owe me when we get back to the States.”
David smiled. This was a small but welcome distraction from worrying about Lena and her plans.
Natesh said, “Oh, no, thank you. I don’t think I would be so good. I actually don’t know how to play.”
Henry said, “Are you kidding? Usually those are the best kind of poker players! And definitely the kind of people I enjoy playing with the most. If you’re afraid of gambling your own money away, I’ll spot you twenty dollars with only fifty percent interest. So even before I take your money, you’ll already owe me. It’ll be great. It’s like I tell the kids that I sell cigarettes to… first one’s always on the house.”
David said, “Who had the deck of cards?”
Henry said, “Actually, we had to make them with pen and scrap paper from the classroom. Most of the hearts and face cards have dog-ears from that cheating swindler Brooke. Don’t trust her. I think she may be part Canadian. Anyway, you guys should come. It’ll be great. We’ll plan World War Three by day and then blow off steam and play cards at night. We have room for two more. What do you say?”
Natesh laughed and held up his hands. “I give up. I’ll come for a few minutes. It may be a good release.”
David was going to decline, but then thought better of it. If he spent a little extra time with a few of the people here, he could possibly gain insight into who he could trust. And a closed-door card game might be a good pretense for gathering together a few allies.
David said, “Sure. I’ll be there.”
Henry said, “Wonderful. So, Natesh, what’s on the meeting agenda today?”
“Well, I think we’re at the next stage of planning. Today we should be starting to prioritize targets, align on methodology, and link up activities among different teams.”
“How do we do that?” David asked.
Natesh said, “Sure. So let’s say one of the objectives of our team was to shut down the Internet, for instance. We had discussed cutting submarine cables going across the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as cutting power sources inside the United States. I will try to mesh our objectives with those of the other teams. If multiple teams want to kill power sources, for example, we should focus our energy on that — no pun intended. Kill two birds with one stone, that type of thing. If we have a choice between cutting power and cutting the cables, we need to decide the priority. The point is that we want to maximize efficiency. Complete the highest-priority objectives with the least work and least complexity.”