Island of Thieves (11 page)

A large man was standing beside the car, waiting for us. Like all Otto's drivers/bodyguards/thugs, he was wearing the familiar uniform of jeans, cowboy boots, and a leather jacket with a bulge under the left arm.

“This is Arturo,” said Otto. “He is working for me down here.”

Arturo nodded to me and my uncle, shook hands with Miguel, and conferred quietly with Otto. I wished I could understand Spanish. I wanted to know what was going on and what they were planning.

I still had a lot of unanswered questions. About the gold. About us. About Otto's plans. If we found the treasure together, would he give us some? Or keep it all for himself? Was he going to kill us? Or let us go? Had he already decided what to do? If not, when would he make his decision? Should we try to run away tonight? Or take our chance tomorrow? I'd whispered these questions to my uncle in the library, but he'd just shrugged and said he knew nothing more than me.

Once we were in the car, heading for Las Lomas, Otto told us what he had been told by Arturo: “The boat is ready. We can go now, but he say it is better to wait for the morning. I think he is right. We will stay in a hotel and leave one hour before dawn. That way, we are not be seen. We sail to the north. We are tourists trying for fish. We have rods and lines to make it look true. You like fishing, Harvey?”

“To be honest, I've never really seen the point.”

“The point is,” said Otto, “it's fun.”

“I don't like killing things for fun.”

“That's your problem,” said Otto. He turned to me. “How about you, Tom? You like fishing?”

“Actually, I do, yeah. I've only been a few times, though. And never like this. I've only done it in a river, not at sea.”

“The sea is best,” said Otto. “The fish are bigger, you understand? More strong. More fighting. Maybe, after, we catch some fish. You like that?”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Las Lomas was a quiet little town. Dinghies bobbed in the harbor and brightly colored fishing boats were lined along the dock. Old men sat in cafés, sheltering from the weather. The water was as gray as the sky.

“Here it is,” said Otto, pointing out to sea. “Isla de la Frontera.”

I could see a distant silhouette, a dark shape resting on the edge of the horizon.

There it was. The Island of Thieves.

On the other side of the street from the hotel,
there was an Internet café. I saw it when we drove into the parking lot, and again from the window of our room. I thought about sneaking out and sending a message to the U.S. embassy or the CIA, asking for help.
We're trapped in a hotel with Otto Gonzalez,
I could say.
Why don't you come and arrest him? Or has he bribed you too?

In the end, I didn't even get a chance to wander around the hotel on my own, let alone sneak out and use the Internet. Miguel escorted us wherever we went. He took us upstairs to our room—my uncle and I were sharing—and waited in the corridor while we showered and changed. Then he led us back downstairs again for supper.

That night there were five of us sitting around the table in the small restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel: me, my uncle, Otto, Miguel, and Arturo. A few old men made up the rest of the clientele. I don't know if they actually recognised Otto or just got the sense that he was a dangerous customer, but they were careful to sit far enough away that they had no chance of overhearing any of our conversation.

Arturo had brought a large map of Isla de la Frontera, which he unrolled and spread over the table. It was a proper nautical chart, showing the depths of the ocean and the location of navigation buoys and two lighthouses, one at each end of the island.

“This is the prison,” said Otto, pointing at a structure on the eastern side. “This is the harbor. But we go here, yes?” He pointed at the northern tip of the island.

“That's right,” said Uncle Harvey. He turned to me. “Tom, will you do the honors?”

“Which honors?” I said.

“Will you read out our instructions? So we know where we're going.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Sure.” I had copied the relevant sentences onto a sheet of the hotel's notepaper. Now I fished it out of my pocket and read it aloud:
“Our Captayne took the pinnace ashore and I went with him and six men also, who were sworne by God to be secret in al they saw. Here we buried five chests filled with gold and three more chests filled with silver. We placed them at the northern tip of the Islande in a line with the small rocke which lookes likke a fishes head. If anyone comes after us, you must go to the angel. Look to her fifteen feete. Her mouth is black. She has no teethe but she has a deep hart and ther you will find it.”

I'd pored over those words again and again till I almost knew them by heart, but they still filled me with a sense of foreboding and excitement. They made me imagine John Drake sitting in the cabin of the
Golden Hind,
hunched over his desk, scrawling notes, remembering where he'd just been, what he'd just seen. And they put an image in my mind: a vision of gold nuggets and silver coins spilling out of wooden crates, a fortune waiting to be found.

While I was reading, Miguel and Arturo looked thoroughly bored—which was fair enough because they couldn't understand a word I was saying—while Otto listened with an expression of intense seriousness.

“It makes no sense,” he said as soon as I finished. “I can tell you, there is no angels on Isla de la Frontera. Devils, maybe. But angels? Oh, no.”

“It's probably not a real angel,” said my uncle.

“You trying to be funny?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I'm just saying—”

“I know what you're saying, Harvey. I'm not an idiot. It just don't make no sense to me.”

“It doesn't make much sense to me, either,” said my uncle. “But I'm sure everything will become clear as soon as we get to the island.”

“I hope so,” said Otto.

Further discussion was prevented by the arrival of the waitress with five plates of chicken and fries.

Supper was quick and quiet. While we were eating, no one said much, and we mostly watched a big TV in the corner of the room, which was showing a soccer match. The teams were Brazilian and Argentinean, my uncle told me, and they were playing in the Copa Libertadores, the biggest tournament in South American soccer. By the end of the first half, the Brazilians were leading two to one. We didn't see the second half. After supper, my uncle pushed back his chair and stood up. “I'd like an early night,” he said. “It's going to be a big day tomorrow. Sleep well, Otto. You too, guys.”

“Good night,” said Otto. “Sweet dreams.” He gave a quick order in Spanish to Miguel, who got up too and nodded for us to follow him. In the lobby, Miguel stood aside to let us go upstairs first, then followed close behind. I wondered what he would have done if we'd tried to run away. Pulled out a gun and shot us, probably.

On the stairs, my uncle turned to me. “How did you like the guinea pig?”

“You mean the chicken?”

“That was guinea pig, Tom.”

“Oh, ha, ha. Very funny.”

“No joke, Tom. You've just eaten your first guinea pig. Did you like it?”

I thought back to supper. The chicken bones had seemed unusually small. At the time, I hadn't taken any notice. Just gulped it down.
That poor guinea pig,
I thought.
It should have been someone's pet, not my dinner.
Maybe it
was
someone's pet till it became my dinner.

“Don't worry about it,” said my uncle, as if he could read my thoughts. “You'd eat a bacon sandwich, wouldn't you? Or a slice of ham? Or a pork chop? Well, then. If you don't mind eating a pig, what's wrong with eating a guinea pig?”

Miguel escorted us upstairs to our room and locked us inside.
What if there's a fire?
I wanted to say.
Are we supposed to jump out the window?
I had a look, just in case, but didn't like what I saw: a long drop down to the street.

I said, “Aren't hotels supposed to have fire escapes?”

“Why are you worried about the fire escape?” replied my uncle.

“In case there's a fire.”

“That's the least of our problems. What about the international criminal who wants to kill us? Or the psychopath sitting outside our door?”

“How do you know he's a psychopath?”

“I can see it in his eyes.”

“See what, exactly?”

“His psychopathic tendencies.”

“But what can you actually—?”

“Stop it, Tom.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop being difficult. I don't want to argue about the precise definition of the word
psychopath.
We've got more important things to talk about. Come here. Sit down.”

We sat on our beds, facing each other.

“I've been thinking,” said my uncle. “I've decided you shouldn't come to the island. It's simply too dangerous. I'm going to tell Otto to let you stay here. We'll get you on a bus back to Lima. When you get there, check in to a hotel and—”

“No way,” I said. “Not when we're this close.”

“What if something happens to you tomorrow?”

“What if something happens to
you?
”

“That's my problem.”

“And this is my problem. I don't want to get a bus to Lima, or anywhere else. I want to go to the island. And that's that.”

“It's different, Tom.”

“Why?”

“Because you're still a child. You're not old enough to make these kind of decisions for yourself.”

“Yes, I am!”

“I appreciate that this must all sound very annoying, even patronizing, but I'm afraid it's still true. What will your parents say? Your father will kill me. I'll probably be dead already, of course, but if not, he'll definitely kill me.”

“I'll tell him it's my fault.”

“That's very nice of you, Tom. Particularly since it
is
really your fault. But I don't think he'll believe you. Even if he does, he's not going to care. I'm an adult and you're a boy. I should be more responsible. More sensible. It's my duty to look after you and make sure you don't come to any harm. That's what he'll say, and he'll be right. Here, I want you to have some money.” He opened his wallet and divided his remaining cash between us, giving me a mixture of dollars and soles. “Take your passport, too. Keep it somewhere safe. Down your pants or tucked into your back pocket. I'll give you your ticket. Tomorrow, when you get to Lima, I want you to find a hotel. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. Somewhere anonymous. Can you do that?”

“I suppose so.”

“Send me an e-mail,” he said. “My address is very simple. Harvey dot Trelawney at gmail dot com. Can you repeat that back to me?”

I did.

“If I get your message in time, I'll come and find you. If I don't, just get on the plane and go home.”

“But I don't want to—”

“Don't argue with me,” said Uncle Harvey. “Not this time. There's no point. I've messed up once already. I'm not going to do it again.”

When my uncle's alarm went off at five thirty,
he slapped it with his hand and pulled a pillow over his head—whereas I sprang out of bed, full of energy, and yanked back the curtains. We might have the same last name and the same nose and even lots of the same genes, but we have a very different attitude toward mornings.

The sun hadn't risen yet. The sky was still dark. The sea was even darker. But I could see the first faint glimmers of light in the clouds. Out there, waiting for us, was the island. I was determined to get there today. Whatever Uncle Harvey might have said, he wasn't going to leave me behind. Not when I was this close.

I turned back to the lump in the bed. “Wakey-wakey,” I said.

“Go away.”

“Come on, Uncle Harvey. Time to get up.”

“If you call me that once more, I swear I'll kill you.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But you really should get up.”

“Give me two more minutes.”

I pulled on my clothes and packed my bag, then glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Three minutes had passed, but there was still no sign of life from my uncle. I shook his shoulder. “We have to go.”

He groaned again. “One more minute,” he mumbled.

“Come on, Unc— Come on, Harvey, we have to go.”

“Whatever.” He rolled out of bed, pushed me aside, and stomped into the bathroom. I heard him splashing water over his face and then cursing at its coldness.

When he was dressed he packed his bag, then wrapped up the manuscript in one of his shirts. He handed it to me. “That goes in your bag.”

“I'm not going to get a bus. I'm not leaving you here. I'm just not.”

“One of us has to get John Drake's journal back to England.”

“Then you do it.”

“I don't think Otto would agree to that.”

“Who cares?”

“He will. And so do I. When you get back to New York, get in touch with Theo. You know who he is, don't you?”

“Your friend.”

“Exactly. He's easy to find. Look him up. Professor Theo Parker at Edinburgh University. Give him a call. Tell him who you are. He'll help you authenticate the manuscript. And find a buyer. You can trust him. Tell him everything. And, um . . . tell him what happened to me.”

“You'll be there too,” I said. “We're going home together, remember?”

“Let's see.”

I sighed, took the manuscript, and put it in my bag. I didn't know what else to do. I had hoped that he would have forgotten his whole “saving Tom” plan during the night. Or changed his mind. And, for all my determination, I couldn't actually think of any way to stay with him and go to the island.