Escape (4 page)

At the castaways’ camp, the gloom had begun the previous nightfall and had settled into despair with every passing hour.

Two facts: One, the smugglers were back; and two, Luke and Charla had gone over to the military installation and had not returned.

Ian mulled over the information every which way, but a single word kept bubbling to the surface:caught . The smugglers had them, and that meant they were probably dead.

He choked on a lump in his throat. Or maybe they were alive, being interrogated about who they were and who was with them.

He felt a surge of pride. Luke was strong; he would never talk! But the feeling evaporated in a second as he recalled a TV documentary on interrogation methods. Luke would talk. Everybody talked. Which meant the smugglers could be coming for them right now.

The night had been terrible. Ian was pretty sure no one had slept, except maybe Will, whose temperature had gone over 101, and who mumbled through fevered dreams. Everybody was sure they should be doing something, but no one could decide what that might be. Though the castaways had no official leader, without Luke they would never agree on a course of action. Luke was the mortar that held them together. And it was beginning to look as if he would never be back.

“Haggerty can’t be dead,” J.J. assured everyone. “He’s too mean to die. And Charla — who could catch her?”

But even he looked worried. And he hid right along with the rest of them when they heard a rustling in the foliage.

Crouched in the underbrush, Ian let his mind run riot. Would the castaways be discovered? How long could they stay hidden? Could Will keep up?

And then a surprised voice asked, “Where’d everybody go?”

“Luke!” cried Will.

It was interesting, Ian reflected during the celebration that followed. Things were not good and getting worse. Yet the glory of little triumphs like this — welcoming two friends back from the brink of death — would surely rank among his greatest memories. You know — if he lived long enough to have memories.

As the castaways shared accounts of the last day and night, they were able to piece together what had happened. During a fistfight over a poker game, the door of the smugglers’ plane had been accidentally knocked open, and a suitcase full of money had dropped out over the jungle. Soon a second group of smugglers would arrive, carrying a shipment of elephant tusks, rhino horns, and other illegal animal parts. They were the sellers; Mr. Big was the customer. He needed the lost money to pay for his goods.

“So we left it where they’re bound to find it,” Charla concluded. “It’s in plain sight in just about the only clear spot over by the air base.”

Lyssa was horrified. “Youhelped them?”

“We helped ourselves/’ Luke amended. “The last thing we need is those guys combing the island.”

Charla shook her head in wonder. “You should have seen it. Millions of dollars just lying there. I swear I was tempted to roll in it.”

“It’s fake,” scoffed JJ.

Charla shot him a resentful look. “Even poor people know what money looks like.”

JJ. was disgusted. “CNC can’t print up a batch of phony bills that look real?”

Luke groaned. “We all know what you think. Let us think what we think.”

Later, Luke, Lyssa, and Ian went through the pillowcase and tried to take stock of the supplies from the dispensary.

Lyssa was dubious. “Is any of this stuff even good after all that time?”

“There’s no way of knowing/’ Ian replied. “I don’t see penicillin, which is what we really need. The rest — ” He shook his head. “I have no idea what most of it is for.”

“This might help.” Luke fished in the case and came up with the medic’s journal. “Maybe it says something about bullet wounds.”

All day and half the night, Ian pored over the fifty-six-year-old diary of Captain Hap Skelly, M.D. He devoured the details of Sergeant Holliday’s fire-ant bites, Colonel Dupont’s gout, and Lieutenant Bosco’s stomach flu, searching for the tiniest hint of anything that might help Will. He skipped lunch and dinner too, reading by flashlight when it got dark. He owed it to Will, sure. But there was another reason.

For weeks, Ian had watched no television, surfed no Internet, and read not a single word. In the anxiety and fear of these terrible weeks, it had never crossed his mind how much he missedinformation .

On the beach of a tiny island in the vast Pacific, Ian felt like Ian again.

Day 19, 9:45 a.m.

Feb.17, 1945. Haying trouble keeping supplies. Who to order from? As far as the army’s concerned, we don’t exist on this tiny island. Can’t even send letters home. Mission is too top secret. Our families must think we’ve vanished off the face of the earth .

Penicillin ran out weeks ago. Have been using an infusion of bitter melon— alocal plant that resembles a small cucumber with acne. Seems to control Holliday’s infection. But am I turning into a witch doctor ?

Will hated the idea from the start. “What’s an infusion?”

“It’s sort of like making tea out of something,” Ian replied, handing him a steaming cup.

The patient was appalled. “You guys have been plotting against me! I’ve been minding my own business here, and you’ve been picking weird jungle plants so you can poison me!”

“Most medicines come from tropical vegeta-tion/’ Ian explained. “I saw it in a show about saving the rain forest/’

“That World War Two doctor said it was safe/’ added Luke.

“Forget it. I won’t drink it.”

But he did drink it, largely due to his sister’s threat to have it poured down his throat. The complaining was a filibuster. Will never seemed to run out of new ways to describe the taste of bitter-melon tea — skunk juice, crankcase oil, toxic waste, boiled sweat, and Sasquatch drool, to name a few.

It became so entertaining to listen to his graphic descriptions as the day wore on that they almost lost sight of a very serious reality: Will’s fever was still rising.

“It’s not working,” Lyssa whispered nervously. “Isn’t there anything else we can give him? How about that stuff from the dispensary?”

“Well, there is one thing,” Ian ventured reluctantly. “Novocain.”

“Novocain?” laughed JJ. “What are you going to do — drill his teeth?”

Ian flushed. “Today Novocain is mostly used by dentists. But it can actually freeze any part of the body for surgery.”

“You mean surgery on W/7/?” Lyssa was shaken by the sudden realization of what the younger boy was leading up to. “Shoot his leg full of painkiller and try to cut the bullet out?” She turned blazing eyes on him. “Are youcrazy ? It’s only a little fever! He’s not that sick!”

“I agree/’ said Ian. “But if hegets that sick, the bullet has to come out.”

“In a nice clean hospital!” Lyssa added, a shrill edge to her voice. “With a doctor who didn’t learn his job by watching the Surgery Channel!”

“Nobody’s cutting up anybody,” soothed Luke, “lan’s just laying out our options.”

“This isn’t an option,” insisted Lyssa. “Never, never, never!” lan’s expression plainly told her thatnever might come sooner then she thought.

The second group of smugglers arrived the very next afternoon. Will choked on a mouthful of bitter-melon tea when he spotted the aircraft.

Lyssa put her hands on her hips. “Oh, come on. Don’t be such a baby.”

Will kept on gagging and pointing.

“Plane!” shouted J.J.

Luke peered through the binoculars. “Twin-engine floatplane,” he reported in a subdued tone. “It’s them, all right.”

Lyssa’s hope popped before her like a soap bubble. For a few seconds, this plane had carried rescuers and not a fresh set of problems. Oh, God, what if helpnever came? What would happen to Will?

Watching her brother was like observing somebody with a bad flu. But while flu built, peaked, and then went away, this was growing worse with every passing moment.

That evening, Will’s fever went well over 102 degrees. His face was flushed, his eyes were sunken, and he seemed languid and hazy.

In the middle of the night, he woke up the castaways with loud shouting. When Lyssa finally managed to shake him out of his nightmare, he was annoyed with her.

“Come on, Lyss, I’m trying to get some sleep. I’m not feeling so great, you know.”

The next night, he kept everyone up with hours of high-pitched giggling.

“Hey,” muttered J.J., “lose the laugh track.”

But the snickers and guffaws continued until almost dawn. At that point, Will fell silent, dozing on and off all day. At four o’clock, his fever topped 103.

“That’s bad, right?” he asked feebly, “That can’t be good.”

“You’re burning up,” Ian admitted. “We’re go-ing to take you down to the water and cool you off.”

Luke and Ian helped Will into the surf. He was really weak, but once in the ocean he seemed better, with a natural buoyancy that made him comfortable in the water.

Will winced from the pain in his thigh. “Man, that stings!”

“Salt water’s good for the infection,” Ian reminded him. They had been applying compresses to the wound at every bandage change.

With a chest-pounding Tarzan yell, JJ. leaped off the high rocks at the edge of the cove and hit the waves with a drenching splash.

Whataflake , Luke thought in disgust. We’retrying to keep Will from boiling over, and all it means to JJ. is a beach party . Not to mention that it was just plain nuts to make unnecessary noise when the smugglers were on the island. Okay, JJ. made it pretty plain that he believed the whole thing was a CNC hoax. But surely, somewhere in the back of his mind there had to be a sliver of doubt

It had become the castaways’ habit to enter the ocean fully clothed, letting their fatigues wash on their bodies. Then they would undress in the water, throw everything on the rocks, and go for a swim. The tropical sun was so hot that even the thick Gl clothes dried almost instantly.

Luke had just pulled off his shirt when Will disappeared. One second he was bobbing like a cork; the next he had sunk out of sight, leaving barely a ripple.

Day 22, 4:40 p.m.

JJ. got there first, slapping at the waves, hollering, “Will!”

Luke grabbed his arms. “Cut it out! I can’t see anything!” He stuck his face under and forced his eyes open, ignoring the stinging of the salt.

There was Will, curled up peacefully as if he had suddenlydecided to go to sleep on the ocean floor.

Luke grabbed him under the arms and yanked his head up to the air. JJ. and Ian were right there, and they hustled Will, coughing and spitting, onto the beach.

The girls were already pounding across the sand, Charla out front with Lyssa hot on her heels.

I’m okay!” Will tried to call, only to come up choking again.

“What happened?” gasped Lyssa.

“I don’t know,” Will wheezed. “I was swimming, and then — ” He shrugged. ‘Then I was here.”

“You blacked out,” Luke informed him.

“But I feel better,” Will insisted weakly. “In the water, it was like I was waking up for the first time all day.”

Lyssa squeezed his hand.

“I’m losing it, Lyss/’ he confessed fearfully. “Even I can tell, and I’m the one who’s losing it.”

Lyssa swallowed a lump in her throat. “Ian had an idea — “

J.J. stared at her. “Thatidea? The operation? A few days ago you almost strangled the kid for mentioning it!”

There were tears in her eyes. “Things weren’t so bad then.”

“I’m always the last to know everything/’ Will complained. “What are you talking about? What operation?”

Luke filled him in on lan’s idea of using Novocain and surgical instruments to remove the bullet.

Will was round-eyed. “And I’d get better?”

Ian shuffled uncomfortably. “It’s very risky.”

Will spoke once more. “Riskier than doing nothing?”

His voice was quiet, but the logic of his words resounded like a cannon shot. Yes, if they botched this operation, Will would probably die. But if they just left him

“Wait a minute.” JJ. looked from face to face.

“You’reserious ? You sayI’m crazy, and you want to cut someone open?”

“But if there’s no other choice — ” Will began.

“There’s the choice ofnot doing it’t” the actor’s son exclaimed hotly.

“We have to help Will/’ Charla insisted.

“Don’t let them!” JJ. pleaded with Will. “They’ll mess you up real bad, and by the time CNC gets here to rescue us, it’ll be too late!”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Lyssa said scornfully. “Who does less around here than you, JJ. Lane? We break our backs, and you treat this like some kind of tropical vacation! And now, suddenly, you’re so concerned about Will? What a crock!”

JJ. took a step back, shocked and hurt. All at once, he wheeled and ran up the beach. “Hey, you!” he shouted at the trees. “Whoever’s out there! It’s over! You’ve got to come get us!”

“Whoa!” Luke exclaimed angrily. “We’re not alone on this rock, remember?”

But JJ. was pleading with the hidden cameras and microphones he was sure were all over the jungle. “Hurry! They’re gonna cut him! They’re gonnacut him!”

Charla started after him. “Stop it, JJ.! There arekillers on this island!”

With a furious look back at her, JJ. ran into the trees. Charla moved to pursue.

“Let him go,” ordered Luke.

“But the smugglers — ” she protested.

“They’re too far away. They won’t hear anything.” ‘

The group straggled back to their camp. Lyssa helped her brother resettle himself on the raft.

“Captain!” JJ.‘s voice carried from the jungle. “Mr. Radford! Whoever you are!”

Lyssa was nervous. “He’ll come back, right?”

Luke nodded absently. “He always does. Listen, we need to talk. I’ve got an idea. And to be honest, it’s scaring the daylights out of me.” He took a deep breath. “But if it works out, nobody’s going to have to operate on anyone.”

Silence fell. Luke had everybody’s attention. Ian leaned forward eagerly.

Even as Luke spoke the words, a part of him hung back, detached, amazed that it had come to this. Five months ago he had trusted a “friend” with his locker combination. A random inspection, a thirty-two-caliber pistol in Luke’s rolled-up backpack