Hawkins checked the doorway closest to him. The windowless room was dark, but the light coming in through the hallway’s window provided just enough light to see. The large room was divided into ten small cells separated by metal bars. Open metal gates led into each cell. The room smelled of copper, rust, and ammonia. The odor was made bearable thanks to the fresh air pouring through the glassless windows at his back.
Each cell held a wooden pallet that must have served as a bed—a very uncomfortable bed, which might have been the point. A hole had been drilled in the floor of each cell, serving as a drain. For blood? For waste? Maybe Unit 731 hosed down their victims? Hawkins didn’t linger on the drains long enough to decide. Old rusted shackles hung from a few of the bars. Hawkins tried to imagine what it would have been like, chained to these bars, maybe listening to the weeping of your fellow captives, smelling death all around and hearing the splash of bodies being discarded—fed to the crocs. And through it all, knowing your turn would soon arrive, and that no one would come to your rescue. The hopelessness of the place nearly brought tears to his eyes. But the knowledge that someone was still on the island, still maintaining this horror show; that made him angry.
They had missing people. Drake was wounded and ill. But he was beginning to suspect that the island’s demons were still alive and well. And if that were the case, and they found the people responsible—Hawkins gripped the rifle. Howie GoodTracks didn’t believe in the death penalty. He thought people deserved a chance for redemption, a chance to turn their negative contribution to the world into something positive, before they left it for good. It was a little too Zen for Hawkins, and most of the Ute tribe for that matter, but he had experienced GoodTracks’s grace and forgiveness firsthand. It was a powerful thing. Redemption might actually be the right choice, but this…. He looked at the drain again. This was too much. Someone had to pay, now or later.
He scanned the cells one last time. If the operation were as big now as it had been then, they would be outnumbered and outgunned by an enemy with a severely skewed moral compass. They wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Here!” Joliet shouted from the next room over.
Hawkins felt a weight lift as he left the room, but it returned in force when he followed Joliet’s voice into an identical cell. Drake lay on a pallet in the cell nearest the door. Despite the cool respite provided by the thick concrete and the breeze created by the waterfall, sweat covered Drake’s body in a sheen and dripped from his forehead.
Joliet had a hand on Drake’s cheek. “He’s on fire.”
“It’s a bacterial infection,” Bray said, standing behind Hawkins. “I’m telling you. It’s from the croc’s tentacle hooks.”
Hawkins looked at Drake’s leg. Joliet had already bandaged it. “How did the wound look?”
Joliet leaned back on her heels, but stayed next to Drake. “Like it would hurt like hell for a few days. Some of the puncture wounds were deep. Could probably use a stitch or two. But it could have been worse. Squid tentacle clubs aren’t designed to kill. Just grip. I don’t think the wounds are life-threatening. I covered them with Bacitracin.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s in the blood already,” Bray said. “He needs an antibiotic. Like now.”
“We can’t just leave Kam and DeWinter here,” Joliet said.
Bray thrust a finger at the captain. “
“Leave me,” Drake mumbled. He didn’t open his eyes or move, but there was no confusing the voice. “Find the others. Come back for me.”
“Captain,” Bray said. “If you don’t—”
“That’s an order!” Drake tried to sit up as he shouted, but flopped back down on the wood and once again slipped into unconsciousness.
The silence that followed Drake’s command stretched for nearly thirty seconds. Hawkins thought about all the possibilities, but each and every one included someone dying. There was no way out of this. Like Captain Kirk, he was facing the
Joliet stood and leaned against the bars of Drake’s prison cell. “What do we do?”
The answer came from above in the form of running footfalls.
Three heads snapped up.
“What was that?” Bray asked.
“Another rat?” Joliet offered.
“Rats have four feet, not two. And they don’t run on the balls of their feet.” Hawkins took the rifle from his shoulder. “We’re not alone.”
28.
“Stay close. Stay quiet. And Bray”—Hawkins pointed to the fire ax lying on the floor next to Drake—“I don’t think the captain’s going to get much use out of that now.”
Hawkins glanced out into the hall, then shed his backpack. “Where are your packs?”
“First room in the hall,” Joliet said. “With the speargun.”
“Stay here,” Hawkins said. He turned to Bray. “Watch the hall.”
Hawkins tiptoed into the hallway. Bray stood behind him, ax in hand. He passed the first door only after sweeping the room with his rifle. He performed the same check on the room nearest the exit and quickly spotted three backpacks and the speargun piled next to the door. He grabbed everything, then hustled back to Bray. He placed the packs on the floor next to Drake and handed Joliet the speargun. “Stay here.”
He knew Joliet wouldn’t like being told what to do, or being left behind, but it was necessary. Before she could speak, he added, “Someone needs to guard Drake.”
She looked down at the immobile captain and nodded. “Go.”
Hawkins motioned with his head for Bray to follow and crept toward the end of the hall. He quickly checked the last room on the right and found only more barred cells with rotting pallets, disintegrating walls, and a large dark brown stain on the floor that could have only been blood.
At the end of the hall were a staircase leading up and a closed door. Hawkins paused at the stairs. He didn’t want to go up without first knowing if the last room was clear. He turned to Bray, pointed to his eyes, and then to the stairs. Bray nodded, turning his eyes to the top of the staircase and winding up with the ax.
The door creaked when Hawkins pushed it open with the rifle’s barrel. The interior of the room was lit by a single, small window that still held a thick pane of glass. The first items he saw—metal buckets, mops, glass jars, and a variety of rotting containers—mixed with a faint smell of detergent, identified the space as a simple storage closet. But scattered among the common items were more rubber aprons, gloves, and boots, and manacles and chains. Looking closer, he saw that some of the wooden poles he thought were broom handles were actually clubs, many of which held single half-inch-long nails—not long enough to kill, but certainly long enough to add an extra level of agony to each strike.
As disturbing as the room’s contents were, Hawkins felt relief that it wasn’t occupied by anything living. As he turned toward the staircase, that small amount of relief quickly faded. He led the way up, stepping cautiously to avoid the occasional dry leaf. In the silence of what felt like an oversize crypt, the slightest sound could give away their position.
At the top of the stairs, there was another staircase leading up to the third floor, and a hallway that wrapped around the second floor. Hawkins motioned for Bray to once again watch the staircase. There was no way to know if the person they’d heard had headed up, or even if he, or she, were alone. Hawkins would have preferred to have the big man with the ax at his back, but he didn’t want to risk someone getting down to Joliet, and Drake.
The hallway around the corner wasn’t a hallway at all. While the first floor had been divided into a long hall with four rooms on one side, this space was just one large room. Eight metal operating tables stretched down the center of the room. Each table was accompanied by a small, empty supply tray. Hawkins had no trouble imagining the trays’ contents. They were probably very similar to implements used to dissect the loggerhead.
