The others nodded.
Brooke asked, “How are you going to find out what’s on the other side of the fence?”
David said, “Leave that to me.”
CHAPTER 7
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know… what I was walling in or walling out…
David’s eyes snapped open as his watch alarm went off. It was 4:45 a.m. He kicked his legs over the side of the bed and put on his running gear and sneakers. He needed to hurry. Dawn approached.
A few minutes later he was once again running on the pavement of the island’s lone runway. By his estimate, the sun should rise at 6 a.m. That gave him a good forty-five minutes of darkness.
David tried to scan the starlit runway for signs of other people as he ran. He didn’t see Lena this morning. But that was one of the reasons he was up so early. It was a full hour earlier than he had seen her the last time she was out here. He wanted to avoid being seen by anyone, but especially her. To his knowledge, Lena and he were the only two real runners on the island. A few of the consultants worked out lightly in the afternoon. He had seen them with their trendy workout clothes on, doing push-ups and sit-ups on the beach for a few minutes and calling it a day. But if he even heard footsteps on the tarmac, he had to assume that it was Lena.
David finally arrived at the far end of the runway, about a mile from the barracks, cafeteria, classroom, and Communications building. He walked off the tarmac and towards the shore. The waves were picking up. This must be that weather they were talking about during the morning brief. Not perfect for swimming, but David would manage… as long as there were no sharks out for a morning feed.
He placed his shoes, socks, and shirt behind a small bush fifty yards from the end of the runway and halfway to the fence. It was hidden so that if Lena were running by, she wouldn’t spot the pile.
David waded ankle-deep into the ocean. The salt water was warm against his skin. He walked farther out into the pitch-black water, wondering what was beneath the surface. He could feel the sand packed in soft rolls under his feet. He plowed through the moderate surf. Every once in a while, he would feel something hard touch his toes. Maybe a crab. Hopefully there were no sea urchins under there.
A million magnificent stars lit up the sky, and a sliver of bright moon reflected off the ocean. The water was up to his neck when he started swimming breaststroke, careful to keep an eye on the razor-sharp top of the fence. He had to swim against the waves so that he could get far enough out before he turned left to parallel the shore and start swimming around the island. That way, he wouldn’t get lodged up against the jagged metal spirals of razor wire that followed the fence in a straight line fifty feet out to sea. David swam an extra fifteen feet past the point where the fence sank under the water. He was beyond the breakers, and the waves carried him up and down as he swam. He didn’t want his legs kicking into the razor wire.
Once he was out far enough, he turned ninety degrees away from the base and swam parallel to the shore. He picked up the pace and switched to free-style.
In a way, it felt good to break the rules by swimming out here, past the fence. It was also terrifying. David was vulnerable out here. He didn’t want Lena to catch him, and he wasn’t sure what he would find. He had a hunch that something or someone would be there. Would they have a security guard? Would they be armed?
As he swam, he began to feel the swells of ocean pick up slightly. He realized that there must be stronger winds on one side of the island. Muscles that hadn’t been tested in a few weeks were starting to burn, which felt good and made him push himself harder. His legs fluttered through the water, kicking but trying not to splash and make too much noise. Every few minutes he would take his head up a bit farther when he breathed, to gauge his distance to the shore. He tried to keep the same distance so as not to go too far out and get caught in a current.
He swam for twenty minutes that way, riding the waves up and down, breathing out his left side every few strokes. The waves were bigger than he had anticipated. It was hard work, but he pushed himself onward. Every few minutes he checked his watch, and then the shore.
David stopped and floated, taking a moment to get the salt water out of his eyes so he could clearly see the island. It always frustrated David that he had been medically disqualified for flight training for having bad eyesight. It frustrated him because, while he sometimes had to wear glasses to read, he could see faraway things just fine. The eastern sky was light blue now, and at any moment, the sun would begin to creep over the horizon. While the lightening sky made him nervous since it would be easier for someone to spot him, it also made it easier for him to scan the shore for any sign of suspicious activity
He checked his watch. Damn. This swim was taking too long. He didn’t have much more time. As he pondered turning around and heading back, David realized that he was further out to sea than he had originally intended. He was a good seventy-five yards from the shore; far enough out that he almost missed the dimly lit concrete structures about a half mile further down the island.
His eyes widened when he saw them. He had suspected that he would find something else outside of the fence. Still — it was one thing to suspect it, and another to see it with his own eyes. He swam on to get a closer look.
The buildings looked like they were made with the same solid concrete design as the ones on his side of the island. But these buildings had some type of enormous netting draped over them. The main structure was about the size of a small college dormitory, and it slanted down from the hill toward the beach. Like the Comms building, there were dozens of antennas and satellite dishes on top. Just next to the main building was a large concrete square that looked like it must have been a helipad. David bobbed up and down in the rolling blue waves, studying the structures. There was a line of dim lights at the top of one facing of the building. It looked like a bunker. Lights shined through slits at the top of the bunker, just like the windows in the Comms building. David could just barely make out their glow.
He just floated there for a bit, bobbing in the warm sea. His nervousness told him he should head back, but his curiosity kept him stationary. It didn’t look like there were any roads leading to these buildings from his side of the island. Hell, there weren’t any cars to drive on roads. So who’d built these structures and how were they kept supplied? Who inhabited them? They looked like they could hold a hundred or more people, but he didn’t see anyone. Why would this island have a fenced-in base on one side with these isolated structures on the other?
As the horizon began to turn greyish blue, signaling the coming dawn, he could just make out a small pier near the shoreline, adjacent to the buildings. Two motor boats were tied to the dock. Beyond the building and the pier was a sheer wall of rock rising up from the shoreline. It was at least one hundred feet high, and then gradually turned into the jungle-covered mountain above. The longer David stared at that cliff, the more it looked manmade. It was too perfect to be a natural rock facing. The smooth surface was rounded at the top and he could barely make out a vertical line splitting its center. It looked strangely like a gigantic door of some kind. An enormous closed stone door that opened into the sea. Very curious…
The noise froze him.
It was the high-pitched whine of a boat engine combined with the sound of its hull bouncing up and down on the water. And it was getting louder. Behind him. He swiveled to look… and immediately dove underwater, holding what breath he had.