The raft was guided ashore by swimmers while the skipper stood aboard gesturing and shouting orders in a deep baritone. The passengers on the raft stepped off when the water was knee-deep. The swimmers went back to collect more passengers. This next crowd was a mix of nudists and guys wearing ragged loincloths. These guys dropped a heap of large brown bags onto the deck of the raft. The bags looked like empty leather body bags. They tossed a bundle of wooden staffs atop the pile. One of them issued a shrill whistle, and the swimmers powered them ashore.
Through the camera, Dwayne could see the skipper standing and bossing the gang that dragged the box over the sand. They hauled on lines secured to the net that enshrouded the box. It looked damned heavy, and it was taking twenty of the skinny bastards just to make it budge. The captain shouted and slapped the shoulder of the ax carrier who dropped his ax and joined the gang pulling the box further up onto the beach, leaving a deep furrow in the sand behind them.
The crew with the empty luggage reached the shore and disembarked. They ran poles through loops on the brown bags and lifted them to their shoulders. The bags were animal skins from a big animal. A pig or hog, Dwayne guessed. The skins were tanned and sewn together and now resembled giant deflated footballs more than luggage. What were they for?
The tallest guy had his ax back in his fist and joined the three six-man crews carrying the pig skins. He waved the ax and the two crews marched over the sand toward the base of the peninsula, the empty skins swinging beneath the carrying poles. A few kids ran ahead, laughing and grab-assing the way kids do.
Dwayne glassed the skipper and strongbox with the camera lens. He fingered the dial to max zoom. The skipper was drinking from a bota he had slung from his neck. He didn’t offer any to the dragging crew who were seated and lying on the sand around the big box. The captain replaced the plug on the bota and called to the naked swimmers trudging from the surf. They joined the others, and now more than thirty guys were dragging and pushing the box over the yielding sand toward the rocks.
It looked like it was going to take a while, so Dwayne shifted the camera to follow the pigskin crew. He was surprised to see they were moving across the hump at the base of the spit of sand peninsula and out of sight beneath the rock spire of the hide. They were coming onto the beach of the sheltered cove.
Dwayne realized that the pigskins were water bladders. They were heading for the fresh water at Jimbo’s spring. It wasn’t a game trail the Pima followed to the fresh-water pool. It was a well-worn footpath to a watering hole probably known to all those who sailed the Cyclades.
And the trail would carry the men close past the hide where Caroline was concealed.
32
Prey
Caroline heard voices coming closer. Laughing voices. Young voices. The men who crossed the beach toward the promontory had moved out of her sight below the rock ledge with the kids running before them. They carried water skins. They were climbing the same trail from the beach that she and Dwayne had been using. They would notice the alien sneaker prints pressed fresh in the sand. They would know someone else was on the island.
She looked around in panic at the rifle, the plastic equipment tub, the transmitter, and other electronics. They left anachronistic artifacts behind on their last trip, but this was different. One hundred millennia swallowed up the food wrappers and spent rifle casings and even the heavy machine gun they found along with Renzi’s remains.
But 240 BC was practically the day before yesterday in the age of man. They had written language and the beginnings of science. The twenty-first-century items in the hide would create a disaster if found by these men and taken to learned men in Greece or Persia or Egypt. The technologies and materials would be enough to cause a disruption in the forward march of man’s advancement even if no one in this time could understand what they were looking at. There would still be an impact of some kind on future events that would certainly prove disastrous. The simple concept of a threaded screw could rock this world.
She had to lead them away. She had no idea where Dwayne was or what he would do. Her only thought was the overpowering urge to protect the chronal environment. She pulled her deck shoes and socks off and crawled from under the camo tarp to run up the trail.
A shout rose behind her. The high shrill call of a child. They saw her. She pelted along the trail as it leveled out between low pines. At an opening in the brush, she hooked left and moved at a crouch under the low branches.
She’d been chilled before but now ran with sweat under the BDUs. With a little luck, she would be able to draw the pursuing men far from the hide. After that there were plenty of places, she could conceal herself. If her luck held out, they’d tire of hunting for her and leave without finding the hide or the inflatable boat.
Who was she kidding? They were here to bury a chest of treasure that was still a legend two thousand years from now. They would stay until they’d found Caroline and killed both her and Dwayne even if it took months. It’s not like they had to be anywhere.
Caroline had spent time working up her cardio after the events in Nevada. She spent hours on a treadmill and stair machine and took runs with Dwayne.
