Page 29 of Murder Island
I grabbed the lip of the stern and let the rope go slack, letting it catch around the propeller shafts. The rope snapped. The engines stalled.
I ducked down again, my cheek pressed against the hull. I heard Vail swearing. The boat rocked as he walked back from the cockpit. I slid to the side. He leaned over and spotted the fouled propellers. My feet were still tied, but I managed to thrust myself up with a dolphin kick, just high enough to wrap my hands around Vail’s neck. I pulled his head down hard on the metal stern rail. He dropped into the water, blood oozing from his scalp. He was out. Maybe dead. I didn’t care.
I ducked under and cleared the propellers, then untied my ankles. I climbed aboard. The cutlass was lying on the deck. The dried blood had washed off in a pool of saltwater and the blade was gleaming again.
I picked up the weapon. Vail’s limp body was floating behind the boat. I was thinking that I could pull himaboard, see if he was still alive. Or I could reach down and administer the coup de grâce.
I looked back toward land. We had rounded a point, out of sight of the tin hut and the rest of the settlement. The bulk of the island was covered in thick green foliage. Not another human anywhere in sight.
Vail was floating away, out of reach. I decided to let the sea take him.
I moved to the front of the boat, turned the engine on, and headed toward the horizon. I poured on the power and felt the prow lift. I was free for the moment, but so what?
I had no idea where I was.
I’d lost Kira.
And I was wanted for murder.
CHAPTER 33
Tanganyika Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
THE SOUND WAS loud. Metallic. Unnatural.
A young woman named Vanda woke up, startled. She lifted her head from her pillow roll and reached for her baby boy, just four months old.
Her tiny village, just a mile from the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, had been carved out of dense foliage, and the jungle constantly threatened to close in again. The villagers constantly hacked at the encroaching vines and bushes with machetes, keeping a clean perimeter around the small collection of huts and gardens.
Vanda stepped outside. Her baby now rested on her back, secured with a long wrap of colorful cloth. The sound was loud and steady. Not like any storm or animal Vanda had ever heard. It came from deep in the trees on the far side of the village.
It was early morning, and the men were already outon a hunt. Vanda looked out and saw trees waving as if moved by a stiff wind. But the air was still.
The roars got louder and louder.
Vanda’s baby started crying. She bent her knees and jostled from side to side to settle him down. Other women were emerging from their huts now, drawn by the sound. Vanda saw skinny boys running toward it, long sticks in their hands, as if ready to do battle. Mothers called them back, but the noise smothered their shouts.
As Vanda watched, the trees nearest the clearing started to tremble and bend. Suddenly, a line of huge yellow machines emerged from the jungle, with massive curved blades forming a solid wall of metal. The trees fell in front of them, landing with hard thuds on the ground.
The boys swarmed the machines, beating on them with their sticks. Mothers screamed and ran after them, waving their hands and leaning their bodies against the giant blades. But the machines kept coming, pushing them back, like ants.
Vanda tightened the wrap around her waist. She grabbed a small sack from her hut and hurried toward the other side of the clearing. She ducked into the underbrush, eyes wide, heart pounding.
The machines pushed through the tree line with growling engines. Vanda thought they would stop there, but they didn’t. They plowed through the huts and gardens one by one, belching smoke from their metal pipes.
Vanda looked on, trembling, as her entire village—herentire world—was leveled, leaving nothing but bare, orange-tinted earth.
Her baby started crying again. She jostled him back to silence and headed off into the jungle. As she ran, she started crying. In her entire eighteen years, she had never once left the place where she’d been born.
But now that place was gone.
And she had nowhere to go.
CHAPTER 34
Ten miles away, later that day
MERCENARY CAPTAIN RUPERT Gurney pulled a large steel locker from under his cot. He dialed the combination on the lock and opened the heavy lid. The locker was packed nearly full with stacks of United States currency, neatly wrapped. From a canvas sack, he added that day’s delivery, adding a few thousand dollars more to the pile—enough to cover salaries for his men and a tidy skim for himself.