The Lost Island (11 page)

O
H,
SHIT
,” SAID
Gideon. He sawed through the anchor rope as he heard the engines of their own boat fire up. The
Turquesa
leapt forward just as the rope parted, the dual jet drives blasting a huge roll of water behind as the boat surged.

As they roared into the darkness the deck gun erupted behind them with incredible noise, a column of white water stitching toward them. The
Turquesa
veered abruptly, so hard that Gideon was thrown into the rail and almost went into the water, the rounds zipping past their stern, then whipping around again. The boat jerked once more, zigzagging, the hull almost coming clear of the water with each turn, Gideon clinging with both arms to the rail, his legs dangling over the side. There was a sudden eruption of water at the bow and the sound of rounds smacking into fiberglass and Kevlar. But the
Turquesa
was moving fast, and soon the gouts of water kicked up by the gun were going ever more wild.

They surged out of the bay and hit the swells coming around the point—a rough sea that almost swamped them. Amy slowed slightly, to stabilize the vessel, but it was still leaping and pounding through the swells. Gideon managed to climb back through the rail and crawl into the pilothouse.

“Damn,” said Amy, staring at the radar. “They’re coming after us.”

Gideon grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked back. The
Horizonte
, brilliantly lit, was indeed following them. Fast.

Amy reached down and slapped a bunch of circuit breakers with the palm of her hand, dousing all the lights on the boat. A moment later the
Horizonte
also went dark.

“They can’t outrun us,” said Gideon.

Amy stared at the radar. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“That tub?”

“That
tub
is going thirty knots and getting faster. It must have monstrous engines. And it’s a much heavier boat—it can plow this sea better than we can.”

Even in the darkness, Gideon could see blood running down her leg and pooling on the deck. “Amy, you’re hurt. That hook—”

“Superficial. Didn’t pierce the peritoneum.”

“We need to stop the bleeding. It can’t wait.”

“It has to wait. A storm is coming. As the sea gets rougher, they’re going to gain on us.”

“I’ll take the helm while you take care of that wound.”

“No.”

“I insist—”

“
You’ll obey my orders.
” She said it quietly, but with such conviction that Gideon knew it was pointless to argue.

“I’m going to treat you right here, then.”

She didn’t reply. Gideon went into the galley, clinging to everything as the boat lurched through the rough sea. Feeling around in the darkness, he brought up a first-aid kit and some water in a squirt bottle. She didn’t stop him while he opened her pajama top, sponged out the wound and examined it. The hook had made an inch-long cut. He cleaned it with Betadine, spread on some antibiotic ointment, taped the wound shut, and applied a dressing.

The boat continued to leap through the dark sea. He could see nothing around them but darkness, broken only by the faint gray outlines of streaming whitecaps. But the
Horizonte
was visible on radar, a green blob half a nautical mile directly behind them.

“They’re gaining,” said Amy.

“What’s the range of a 50-caliber machine gun?”

“Two thousand yards.”

He peered at the radar screen. “They’re only a thousand yards out already.”

“In a sea like this, both of us moving the way we are, they can’t aim.”

“They’ll put a lot of lead in the air and try to take us down that way. Those rounds’ll go right through our Kevlar hull.”

As if in response, he heard a distant, rapid-fire burst from behind. Fifty yards to port, flashes of white water indicated where the rounds had hit. More fire, more white water, this time to starboard.

The boat thundered on, banging and leaping off the waves. Gideon could hear stuff crashing about in the galley.

Amy changed course. “We’re not going to outrun them,” she said. “Find us a plan B.”

“Plan B?”

“It’s all I can do to drive this boat.”

Gideon’s mind raced through a dozen possibilities, rejecting them all. There was another fusillade of fire from the
Horizonte
.

“Gideon—!”

“Okay, okay. I have an idea. We’ll light up our launch like a Christmas tree, send it off, use it as a decoy while we escape in the darkness.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “They have radar. They can tell the difference between a dinghy and a yacht.”

Gideon fell silent.

And then Amy said: “No, wait. It
could
work.”

“How?”

“Radar reflectors. In the rear storage chest.”

“Radar reflectors?”

“Metal objects you hang from the mast in a fog to make yourself more visible to ship’s radar.”

“That would make the launch look as big as the
Turquesa
?”

“Yes. Hang them on the launch as high as possible.”

“Got it.”

Gideon exited the pilothouse, staggering, holding on to whatever he could find. The wind roared around his ears, the boat shuddering and slamming through the sea. He unlatched the storage chest and there—between coiled ropes and other assorted equipment—were two round metal objects with crosspieces inside them, attached to wires. As he pulled them out, he heard another burst of machine-gun fire. Gouts of water swung past the stern.

The
Turquesa
’s launch, an eleven-foot Zodiac, was hanging on davits at the stern, swinging violently. There was nothing sticking up he could hang the reflectors on…and then he noticed the rod mounts on either side.

Deep-sea fishing rods…

Lurching down into the cluttered galley, Gideon threw open the rod cabinets, quickly assembling the two biggest marlin rods he could find, tying the radar reflectors onto their ends. Back on deck, he climbed into the Zodiac, which was pitching madly, and managed to insert the rods into the mounts, securing the handles in place with duct tape from the storage chest. He set one hurricane lamp in the bow and another in the stern. Then, after a moment’s thought, he pulled the extra gas tank from its berth and hauled it into the Zodiac as well.

More gunfire from astern.

Now he had to lower the Zodiac into the water, with the boat going thirty-five knots in a heavy sea. This was going to be fun.

Climbing out of the launch, he rummaged in a rear cargo box, finding a long towrope. He fixed it to the front bow eye of the Zodiac and wrapped the other end around a rear cleat on the
Turquesa
. Slowly—stabilizing himself as best he could to ensure he wasn’t jolted overboard by the heavy swells—he switched on the hurricane lamps and then lowered the boat from the davits. But when it hit the water, it spun off the davits like a leaf and almost flipped over, saved only when Gideon released a good ten feet of rope.

The Zodiac stabilized and was now planing behind the yacht, riding its wake. Slowly, carefully, he let out more rope, until it found a stable place in the wake about fifty feet back. Then he tied it off and went into the pilothouse.

“Everything’s set,” he said.

“When you release the launch, I’ll execute an immediate escape maneuver—a course change.”

“We need to go the way they’d least expect,” he said.

“Leave it to me.”

Another burst. A couple of rounds clipped through the side of the pilothouse at an angle, showering them with splinters of fiberglass.

“Son of a
bitch
!” Without hesitating Gideon scrambled back to the stern, reached out, and cut the towrope. “Done!” he called out.

The Zodiac skipped and slowed, and almost immediately dwindled to a tiny speck of light in the murk. There was more gunfire. Amy did not change course.

“I said,
done
!” Gideon cried, hurrying back into the pilothouse. “Change course!”

She shook her head. “The
least
obvious move is
not
to change course.”

That made sense. “It won’t be long before they realize they were duped,” he said.

“It only needs to work long enough for us to get out of radar range. We’re in a big sea—that’s a lot of sea return for radar—and this boat has a low profile. I think three thousand yards should do it.”

Gideon stared at the radar screen. He could see the green blob that was their Zodiac, apparently motionless. The blob that was the
Horizonte
was approaching, slowing, turning.

Once again, the sound of gunfire, burst after burst. Staring astern, he saw the dim light suddenly brighten. The Zodiac, no doubt, set afire. There was a puff and a ball of flame as the gas tank in the craft went up. The report of the explosion came rumbling toward them across the water. Another burst of automatic weapons fire, another ball of flame: the spare tank.

Every second was precious, taking them farther away from the
Horizonte
, farther into the radar wilderness of sea and wind.

“They’re on to us!” called Amy. “They’re coming!”

On the radar screen, the faint green blob that was the much larger
Horizonte
was peeling away, moving faster, gaining speed. The Zodiac had disappeared from the screen—sunk. There was still a flickering light aft from the burning slick of gasoline.

“Change course,” said Gideon. “Not much, say twenty degrees. Just to test if they can see us or not.”

A hesitation. “Okay.”

Amy changed course. They waited for the
Horizonte
to alter course accordingly. It didn’t. The faint green blob continued straight, and then, having clearly lost them on radar, made a course change. A guess. A wrong guess.

They were out of range.

A minute later, the image of the
Horizonte
had dropped off their own radar.

“You realize,” Gideon said, “that the wife, instead of taking her husband for medical help, came after us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he bleeds to death.”

Amy shook her head. “Treasure hunters—I’ve had experience with them. Crazy people. We haven’t seen the last of her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s going to be waiting for us at Cayo Jeyupsi. With a dead husband.
Pissed
.”

B
ROCK ENTERED THE
EES lab, pausing in the doorway. It was seven
AM
, and these early-morning calls were getting more than irritating. Glinn’s attitude seemed to be,
If I don’t sleep, why should you?

Two technicians and Garza were bent over a large, obscure machine, cabled to a flat panel that displayed digital photographic strips covered with fuzzy lines. Glinn was behind them, half in shadow, silently observing the proceedings from his wheelchair.

“Thank you for coming, Dr. Brock,” said Glinn, turning. To Brock’s surprise, he looked almost flustered, unusual for a man of preternatural coolness.

Brock nodded.

“Please,” said Glinn, recovering. “Sit down. Coffee?”

“Thank you. Black, no sugar.”

Brock took a chair in the little conference area of the lab. Garza and the two scientists paused in their work and swiveled their chairs around to join the meeting.

“So,” said Brock, “did you figure out what animal it came from?”

“That’s a difficult problem,” said Garza. “To be sure, we need to do a DNA analysis. But first, some questions have arisen about the making of vellum that we hope you can answer. It’s our understanding that three types of animal skins were normally used in fashioning vellum—sheep, calf, and goat. What about other animals?”

“Well,” said Brock, always happy to deliver a lecture, “in the Levant, many Persian and Arabic manuscripts used a type of vellum made from camel skin.”

“Interesting. Anything else?”

“Very rarely, the skin of pig, deer, horse, or donkey was used. There are instances where cat skin was used in repairs.”

“No others?” Garza asked.

“Not that we know of.”

There was a pause.

“By the way,” Brock said with a sniff, turning to Glinn, “I must say that this idea of yours strikes me as a dead end. I don’t see how the vellum
itself
could be the answer to the riddle.”

“Consider the quotation, Doctor.
Respondeo ad quaestionem, ipsa pergamena
. ‘I respond to the question, the page itself.’ You pointed out that
pergamena
also meant ‘parchment’ or ‘vellum.’” His eyes flickered as he said this. “Think of the sentence another way: the
parchment
itself is the response, the
answer
, to the riddle.”

“We’ve run Eli’s conjecture through the language analysis routines of our computer,” Garza said. “They predict the likelihood of it being correct at over ninety percent.”

That a computer program could interpret medieval Latin struck Brock as preposterous, but he let it pass. “How could the vellum itself possibly be the answer to the riddle of this map?”

“To know that, we need to discover what kind of animal it came from.” Glinn turned to the technicians. “What next?”

Weaver—the lead DNA technician—spoke up. “The only way to solve this question is through DNA analysis. To do that we have to find a clean source of genetic material—ideally from inside a hair follicle. The trouble is, the parchment has been thoroughly scraped and washed.”

Brock sighed. “If hair is what you’re after, may I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” said Garza.

“You know that all pieces of vellum have two sides, a ‘flesh’ side and a ‘hair’ side. The hair side is darker and coarser, with occasional traces of hair follicles. The follicles themselves, of course, will have been destroyed during the initial preparation. However, you might take a close look at the binding edge of the page. The margins of the skins were sometimes less scraped and cleaned than the rest, and often they left a little extra thickness there to hold the binding. You may find an
intact
hair follicle in that area.”

“Excellent,” Glinn said. “Thank you, Dr. Brock. You are certainly worth your keep.”

Brock flushed at the compliment despite himself.