The Lost Island

50

What the fuck!” Gideon jumped up in time to see the battery go sailing off into blue space. “Are you nuts?”

She stared back at him, her eyes glittering with defiance. “I will not walk away from this. Not now. Not ever.”

Gideon stared at her. He could think of nothing to say. He should never have given her the phone. She was crazy, feverish — not in her right mind.

“Do you really think Glinn will let us finish what we started? No. He’ll put together a new team. The government of Nicaragua will have to be involved, because I’m pretty sure this is part of their territory. It’ll turn into a scientific circus. There won’t be any role for us.”

“You need medical attention. You could die.”

“I’m recovering. We need to see this through.”

He stared at her. She really did seem better. Or maybe it was just the flush of determination.

“We’re almost there,” she said softly. “We need to explore this island, identify the lotus plant — and bring it back. Only then will we be done.” She lay back, gazing at him intently, her face flushed and beaded with sweat, but her eyes clear. She was rational and serious.

Gideon stared back at her. What she said was undoubtedly true — if Glinn pulled them out now, their role would be over. And they were so close. All that remained was finding the plant, and how difficult could that be? He realized that he, too, wanted to see it through. More than that: he wanted to save his own life. How long would it take for the lotus to be developed into a drug and reach the market? The process took years. He didn’t have the luxury of time. It was a long shot, but why not? He had nothing to lose.

“All right.”

She smiled. “I knew you’d come around. You and I — we’re not so different.”

He shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do about finding us some grub. You rest and recover.” He picked up the .45, checked it, then stood up, shoving it into his waistband. He had to grasp a vine while a wave of dizziness washed over him. The top of the island, seen in the dark from below, looked like it might be a few miles across. There seemed to be a lot of wildlife — he could hear birds calling and flitting about in the trees above, along with noises and cries he couldn’t begin to identify.

He picked up an empty drysack, thrust in a canteen and the ammo, and then set off, pushing into the jungle. It was incredibly thick, dense leaves and forest litter underfoot, along with an almost impenetrable understory of big green leafy plants. All around, tall, smooth tree trunks reached upward. And yet, when he looked up, he couldn’t see the sky — just a shifting green dome flecked with gold and brown.

It would be easy to get lost. But as he slashed his way through the jungle with the inadequate knife, he realized he would be able to follow his trail back. Progress was agonizingly slow. He stopped from time to time to scrutinize a plant, pluck a leaf off, and crush it in his hand to check its scent. But there was nothing remotely like the smell of the lotus, either the pod or the root.

Suddenly, as he reached for one odd-looking plant, he felt the ground crumble beneath him and — seizing a nearby branch — just managed to stop himself from sliding into what appeared to be a deep sinkhole or ancient lava tube. After that, he moved much more cautiously. The island, he realized, was riddled with such holes and pits, interspersed with outcroppings of jagged volcanic rock jutting out of the jungle floor, dangerously camouflaged by heavy stands of ferns and undergrowth. At one point he heard a thrashing far above as a troop of monkeys passed over in the treetops, screeching down at him, the invader. He tried to get a bead on one of them with the .45, but the treetops were too dense and the monkeys moving too fast.

Suddenly he came out onto a path — a large-animal trail, beaten down from long use. He looked about for sign or scat, something that would give him a clue as to what kind of animal had made the trail, but could see no telltale sign. This was encouraging — maybe. Whatever it was, it was big. It might be good eating…if he could hit it with a .45.

He continued along the trail, relieved not to have to thrash through the undergrowth and risk falling into another pit. The rising sun beat down on the high treetops, turning the wet jungle into a steaming green oven. He continued to check various plants at random, realizing that finding the lotus might be a bigger challenge than he’d anticipated. At one point, he came to a bush covered with round, burgundy-colored fruits, not unlike small plums. Cautiously tasting one, he found it was deliciously sweet, and he stripped the bush and put the fruit in the drysack.

The trail forked, and he took one branch at random. It wound its way about, passing another bush full of a different but equally delicious fruit. The island was starting to feel like a tropical paradise, a lost world. The plants were almost all unfamiliar — but then again, he’d never been to this part of the planet before. He wished to hell he had spent more time studying the botany books in the boat’s library.

There were all kinds of strange rustlings in the bushes, and once a family of small hairy tusked pigs — javelina, perhaps — burst out of the undergrowth and barreled across the trail to disappear on the other side — again, too fast for him to shoot.

The trail seemed to head toward a lofty volcanic outcropping, and as he approached, he saw that it led straight into a large cave — a lava tube.

Gideon crept warily up to the entrance. Clearly it was some kind of lair. But for what animal? Bison didn’t live in caves, but bears did. Jaguars? He ventured to the opening and stepped inside. There was an animal smell, a smell of dung and wet fur. It didn’t seem like a good idea to keep going.

He looked around the floor of the cave for tracks. And there, in the dry sand, he found a confusion of them. They belonged to an odd-toed ungulate, probably a tapir. Their library on the boat also had a section on the mammals of Central America, and he vaguely remembered the animal’s odd hoofprint and the fact that tapirs were nocturnal and created trails in the jungle. And that they were prized by the locals as good eating.

He now had a goodly amount of fruit, and so he decided to head back to camp. Amiko was still lying where he had left her, sleeping. She looked so pale, so sick, his spirits sank.

Rekindling the fire, he made some more tea. She woke up and drank the tea. He asked how she felt and got an annoyed look in return.

“I’m going to rig up a shelter in case it rains again.” She started to rise.

“Damn it, you stay put,” said Gideon. “You need to get better.”

Laboriously, Gideon cut some stiff poles with the knife, and used them to create an improvised lean-to, lashing them together with creepers. A set of thin sucker rods made the skeleton of a roof, and this he covered with huge leaves. He paved the floor with more of the same. He helped Amiko in, and she lay down on a bed of leaves. He placed the sack of fruit next to her.

“I’m sorry I’m so useless,” she said.

“While you rest, I’m going to do a more systematic exploration of the island.”

She staggered to her feet. “I’m coming.”

“No, you’re not.”

“To hell with you.” She got up but swayed on her feet.

“You can hardly stand up.”

“A little moving around will help.”

Gideon felt a wave of anger with this impossible woman. “Listen. You trashed our sat phone — your last chance of getting medical help. So you owe it to me to get better. That means staying right here.”

She stared at him, the old defiance glowing in her eyes. But after a moment she faltered. “All right. But look for the lotus.”

“I wish to hell I knew what to look for.”

She eased herself down, wincing. “And shoot us some meat, will you? I could use a steak.”

Gideon outfitted a drysack for his jaunt, taking some extra ammo, water, and a headlamp. Maybe later, he thought, he’d go back to the cave and try to ambush a sleeping tapir.

He followed his old route to the tapir trail and took it in the opposite direction. This time he moved more slowly, making mental notes, observing the plant life, occasionally crushing a leaf or pod to check the scent. The forest trails forked again and again, in seemingly random directions, but using the position of the sun he maintained a westward-trending route that, in about forty-five minutes, brought him to the other side of the island. He could see light through the trees — and then, suddenly, he found himself on the edge of a precipice, looking out toward the horizon of the open ocean. It was a magnificent view, the sun-dappled water far below, puffy white clouds sailing along, the faint sound of surf. The cliff was just as sheer as the one they had climbed up. Gideon wondered how, when the time came, they were going to get off this fortress of an island.

The trail continued along, close to the cliff’s edge. The surrounding jungle appeared to be full of strange and exotic creatures: brilliantly colored spiders (which he hoped weren’t poisonous), odd crested lizards scurrying away, and multicolored birds crying raucously in the trees. Another monkey troop approached with a huge amount of noise, different from the first. He quickly stepped off the trail into dense vegetation, ready to take a shot. These monkeys had white heads, and he recollected from the briefing book that they must be white-headed capuchins. But he didn’t recall the streak of yellow on the hind legs, like stockings.

Hoping that they weren’t rare and exotic, apologizing to the gods, he waited silently, 45 at the ready, as the troop worked through the treetops closer to him. They were feeding with great gusto on fruits, the discarded pits dropping down around him. Slowly, he took a bead on the biggest monkey and aimed. It was a tough shot, over a hundred feet. He let his breath run out, then squeezed the trigger.

A loud explosion. The monkeys erupted in a deafening screeching, the trees thrashing as they raced off, including the monkey he had tried to shoot, with a large amount of loose dung falling around him as a sort of good-bye gesture.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself, tucking the .45 back into his waistband, flicking a piece of monkey shit off his shoulder, the foul stench rising up around him. He moved carefully back to the open trail.

Behind him, he heard a sound, a rushing — and then a terrifying roar. He spun around, fumbling his pistol out, but before he could raise it a hideous, terrifying creature came charging down the trail, its pink mouth open and bellowing. It was gigantic, humanoid, with a massive oversize head in which stood one huge, glistening, yellow, saucer-like eye.

A huge hairy arm swept out and Gideon felt a bone-breaking blow to his side, knocking him a good ten feet into the violent embrace of the jungle. He lay dazed and in excruciating pain as the furious creature, with another grotesque and spine-freezing roar, bore down on him with a slab-like hand, and struck another mighty blow…