Predator Island

by Douglas Cameron

  The other members of the Bundle applauded Harvey and Gloria.

  “Just to conclude the story of the day,” Horus continued, “Mrs. Mitchell’s son flew down to Belém the next day and escorted her home. The Eurocopter dubbed Surveyor II, refueled and Mr. Gladstone and Senor Garcia flew back to São Rochelle to pick up the rest of the crew and then returned to Caracas where they were reunited with Mr. Kincaid and Mr. Parmalee. The results of the day permitted us to proceed apace with the lease negotiations.”

  Harvey looked at Gloria and thought She didn’t bother to mention that stone she had picked up and held onto so tenaciously. I wonder why not.

  Chapter 4

  “Now that we have the property, we can begin planning the construction phase. The first item on the agenda is to get two construction bulldozers onto the island. With no boat access, they will have to be air dropped.”

  The lease began April 1, and on the evening of March 31, a container ship anchored as close to the shallows as the captain felt it was safe. The ship was loaded with containers, all of which were bound for the island in one way or another. Part of the ship had been made a helicopter landing deck and on it was securely fastened a CH-53E Super Stallion, the U.S. military’s largest helicopter in use. It could carry up to 14.5 tons externally. It was intended to bring containers from the ship to shore and to place them where they are needed.

  These were the ones that were to be used for housing for the construction crews. For now, the containers have food and fuel and appliances and furniture to make the working crews living quarters. One container with fuel would be lifted ashore on the first day. Other containers have to wait until the bulldozer was dropped and prepared the ground for containers in the area where the old village was.

  The Stallion’s first trip was a cargo of men and four dirt bikes. Six of the men were surveyors and would quickly lay out the landing field and mark it with a big plus sign made out of orange nylon. This was the target for the C-17 to drop the bulldozers on. The construction team had decided that things would go faster with two. The people who comprised the construction team were 90% men. A betting poll was already awaiting the drop of the first Caterpillar D9T. Whoever guessed the correct distance from the cab of the bulldozer to the middle of the plus sign – without going under – would be the winner of the pot. Toby Tyler didn’t care if he won or not. He just wanted to survive the drop. He was one of two drivers of the 106,000-pound D9T Caterpillar medium sized bulldozers and by lot he had “won” the right to ride down with the behemoth dozer and release the chutes after the dozer was safely down. His only hope was that he would live to spend the hundred-thousand-dollar bonus for taking the ride. At the time the Stallion landed on São Rochelle the first time, he was sitting at an airport in Belém waiting for word that the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III could leave on its mission.

  The other men in the first group were carrying picks and shovels. Once on the ground they headed for the site chosen for the first two containers. One was fuel. The second (and to the workers definitely important) was the kitchen and mess hall. Its first offering would be lunch and they were bound and determined it would get there on time. The two sites for these containers had been picked earlier. Using a hand-held GPS, Kirk Donahue led six of the men to the site of the island’s first gas station. The area was quickly marked off and the team set to work digging and moving dirt to get a sufficiently level spot. Since the choice of the spot had been made earlier, the ground didn’t need much leveling but did need rocks removed – rocks that would become part of São Rochelle’s pier. The site for the Rochelle Deli was one hundred feet away and another team of six men quickly got busy leveling it. These two sites were at the eastern end of the drop zone and, if all went well, would not be impacted (pun intended) by the landing of the dozers.

  The landing site was ready quickly and word passed to the C-17 crew that all was in readiness, at least on the island. Not as ready was the C-17 because a thunderstorm was temporarily halting its takeoff.

  The gas station’s site was the first ready and the King Stallion headed ashore with the container. It, as all the containers, was specially made. The sides were destined to be walls of the construction office. When the container was in place, workers with battery powered ratchet hammers attacked the outer shell, revealing a 4,000-gallon tank containing diesel fuel weighing 28,000 pounds. As said, the walls and top which had been removed would be used for other buildings.

  The second trip ashore by the King Stallion was with the Rochelle Deli and when it was set in place, the men cheered, and the cook unlocked the door. The men entered and helped unpack and organize the furniture while the cook got busy preparing lunch, which having been fixed on the ship, required very little preparation.

  The four dirt bikes would be used for a perimeter tour of the island south of the volcano, but it wouldn’t be a fun ride. Their task was to mark the path of the perimeter road. It didn’t have to be fancy, it just had to be feasible for the bulldozers. Two bikes started where the dock was to be constructed and went clockwise ending up where the bulldozer was supposed to land. The other two would start at the same place going counterclockwise and their road was infinitely more important because it was the road which initially would be used to get construction vehicles and materials to the base inside the volcano once the tunnel was dug. Their task was not expected to be completed this day and they would be joined by the two other surveyors when their task was completed.

  One hour after the deli opened for lunch, it was announced that the C-17 was almost to the island. All who could gathered to see the drop and most crossed their fingers, not that they’d win the jackpot – although many had that thought – but that Toby Tyler would land safely.

  Chapter 5

  The big doors of the C-17’s cargo bay opened slowly. From his seat in the dozer, Toby watched the view change from that of gray rain-laden clouds to gorgeous azure blue with patches of fluffy white clouds. To his left stood Jeff Lyons, the cargo master of Super Sue, currently named for the pilot’s wife although rumors had it that status of the marriage was iffy. Jeff was really a U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant, although for this operation an agreement had been reached that the crew of the C-17 would wear civilian clothing. They felt this was better for their work at the airfield they were using as a base for this operation. All Air Force insignia on the plane had been painted over. The only insignia – other than the plane’s number – was the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the tail. That was the logo which had been taken for this project. The Caterpillar wasn’t fast enough to propel itself out like the cars used in The Fate of the Furious, but the idea was the same. The dozer was sitting on a wood pallet to which it was fastened. Lines from sixteen parachutes were fastened to the pallet and the dozer. The fastening cords led to another pallet in front of the dozer on which were the sixteen chutes. In front of that pallet was the drogue chute which was attached to the parachute pallet. At the proper moment, the drogue would be released from the cargo hold. When it deployed, it would pull out the parachute pallet. When the sixteen chutes on that pallet deployed, the combined strength would pull out the pallet on which the dozer sat and in the dozer sat Toby. Toby knew that the scene he was looking at was basically what he would see until he was about to land in the middle of the plus sign on the cultivated land on São Rochelle.

  As he waited for the signal from Jeff Lyons, Toby went over and over the process he had been through twenty times in the simulator. He had some control over the chutes and could do some steering and could see the predicted landing of the dozer on a hand-held tablet about the size of a smartphone. There were five buttons on the touch screen of the device: four buttons that controlled the chutes and one button – green – released the chutes from the dozer when it was firmly in contact with the soil of São Rochelle. In the twenty simulations, the best he had ever done was eighteen inches away from dead center of the plus sign. By watching the altimeter readout on the device, Toby would start the engine of t
he dozer when he was five hundred feet above the ground and could get it moving immediately.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the changing of the red of the ready light to yellow. That meant less than thirty seconds to launch and almost meant that it was too late to call it off. Giving a thumbs up to Jeff, Toby said a silent prayer to his god (or maybe “gods” because he wanted all the help he could get) and turned his attention to the landing device. Then he sensed that the parachute pallet moving and looked up. Somewhere behind the plane, the drogue was deployed and was pulling the parachute pallet out. Even as that thought hit him, he saw the parachute pallet leave the plane and watched as the parachute packets stretched into the distance and then opened and just as suddenly as that happened the dozer was moving. Almost before he knew it, he felt the dozer tip forward and he was falling. There was supposed to be a five second delay from leaving the plane until the dozer had fallen enough for the parachute cords to be extended, the sixteen parachutes open and stop his fall. It would be sudden and almost instantaneous. Mentally counting to five, Toby waited for the jerk that would signal that the dozer pallet was under the parachute umbrella and the 106,000-pound D9T dozer was being lowered safely to São Rochelle. Reaching five, he tensed himself … but there was no jerk. That meant that something had gone wrong and the dozer was plummeting unrestrained toward ... well, it didn’t matter where it was plummeting because upon impact it would be rubble and he would be dead. He had one chance and that was to get out and use his emergency chute before the speed of his fall became such the chute would be ripped to tatters when it opened.

  The almost instantaneous decision made to release the buckle on the safety harness holding him coincided with a loud BAM, temporarily deafening him. The jolt of the dozer’s fall abruptly slowing rattled his senses. He looked at the screen of the landing tablet and saw that his rate of decent was faster that he would have liked but within the parameters that he had been told were his safe landing figures. He knew that it would be several seconds before the computers had a read on his trajectory and breathed a sigh of relief when the numbers flashed onto the screen that they had him just one hundred feet from his target.

  The four control buttons were set in a square around the green button in the center of which was the projected landing spot. The upper left one pulsed meaning that the computer had determined a course correction, and Toby hit it. Then the upper right, and he pressed it. Distance now eight hundred eighty feet. The upper left button pulsed again, and he pressed it. Then the lower left and he pressed it. He had said after his sixth simulation that it was like a game of Twister. His attention to the pulsing was interrupted by a beeping signaling that the dozer was five hundred feet above the ground. He started the dozer’s engine and was thrilled to hear it roar to life. That beeping also signaled that it was too late to make any more changes – the dozer and he would just have to ... BUMP. He was jolted at the sound of the dozer pallet hitting the earth, but he sensed he was still moving. He knew that he was not to hit the green button until he felt his downward trajectory halted – just like you know your car has come to a stop when you can feel your forward trajectory stop after applying the brakes. He sensed that the front of the pallet was still moving down, and, in that instant, it hit the ground with a loud BANG and all sensation of movement stopped.

  Reaction honed by the twenty simulations, he pressed the green button on the landing device, and heard the thunderous POW of the chutes being released from the dozer as he put the machine into first gear and started it forward. As he grinned widely at the sudden thought that he had survived, there was a pounding on the window to his right. He looked and saw his friend Tommy Lee, standing on the dozer and holding onto the door handle, screaming something at him. He listened and heard “DEAD CENTER!”

  Chapter 6

  Although the weather on the island remained perfect, the weather in Belém wasn’t and the second drop was delayed day after day. Jason Beanne, who was to ride the second dozer down, was understandably nervous despite the fact that Toby had made it through. Like Toby, he had made numerous simulations, although not as many as Toby. He was more proficient with the landing tablet and had managed to hit the target within one foot seven out of eighteen times. While waiting for the second drop, Toby had made a rough road from the edge of the landing zone to the pier area and then from the pier area to the village. In the village, he had leveled areas for the buildings which would become home to the workers.

  It was midmorning of the fifth day that the C-17 Globemaster lifted off from Belém and headed for São Rochelle. To say that Jason’s stomach was uneasy would have been putting it mildly. He didn’t have butterflies, he had bats – hundreds of bats … thousands of bats. A Carlsbad Cavern full of bats. He had been walking around the cargo area trying to calm his nerves, but it wasn’t helping. At last the time came, and he climbed into the cab.

  With Jason securely strapped in the cab of the Caterpillar D9T, Jeff plugged in and stood waiting for the command to open the cargo doors. When it came, he pushed the button and the giant doors began opening. He turned his attention to Jason and saw that he was completely calm. Somehow he had gotten hold of himself. When he heard the order to drop the package, he pressed the button starting the conveyer and changing the ready light from red to yellow. He looked, and Jason was giving him a thumbs up and smiling. He’s good to go, Jeff thought. The drogue chute shot out of the cargo bay, deployed with a pop that couldn’t be heard over the roar of the plane’s four engines. With that pop, the connection to the parachute pallet tightened and the pallet raced out of the cargo bay and disappeared. Almost immediately the sixteen parachutes deployed, the connecting line to the D9T pallet tightened and, like the parachute pallet, the Caterpillar pallet raced out of the cargo bay. Jeff breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to his job as the cargo doors started to close. He was glad to have this job over with. In hindsight, he wished he had been able to watch the drop in its entirety.

  Jason was elated as he watched the parachute pallet exit the cargo bay. He saw the sixteen chutes open and before he knew it he was out of the cargo bay and falling earthward. He didn’t even have time to start counting when he felt the jerk as the chutes took control of the heavy dozer’s pallet. “Yippee ki yay,” he yelled in his best imitation of Bruce Willis and bent his head to look at the landing tablet. He was happy to note that unlike Toby’s drop, his descent speed was well within predicted limits and he was ready to make adjustments, at which he was good. He had figured out the maneuvering the first time in the simulator and after seeing the first two adjustments made by the computer was able to adjust on his own. Well, at least he was on the simulator. When the first adjustments came, he used them and when he saw how the landing spot had moved, he predicted the next adjustments and was correct. Okay, I’m on it now, he thought. But I’d better wait. No, he had been correct in the next prediction too.

  The landing spot was steadily advancing toward “ground zero” as the center of the plus sign was called. What he failed to notice was that the last adjustment had not moved things as much as before. Unknown to him, there was a wind current near the ground that was affecting his drift. Therefore, when he put in what he felt were the next changes, the effect was drastic, and the landing site jumped halfway to the river. Originally the site was a quarter mile from the river and now it was an eighth of a mile. Holy shit, he thought, I’m going to get wet. And he was correct. Even using the corrections as given by the computer, he drifted steadily toward the river.

  On the ground, the reception committee was in a panic. No one knew anything about the river except that one spot where the dirt bikes had crossed it was fairly shallow and that was closer to the pool for which the dozer was headed. Plans were to build a bridge, but the bridge would not support the weight of one of the Caterpillar D9T bulldozers. As the computer tablet held by Toby Tyler indicated, the landing spot was at least a hundred yards from the crossing.

  “The best he can hope for is to land
as close to the southern side as he can,” Toby said. He typed a message into the tablet knowing that Jason would see it.

  “SHOOT FOR THE SOUTH SIDE” was what Jason read. The altimeter was saying he was under a thousand feet and he didn’t have far to go before further adjustments would be futile, so he punched two buttons and there was a slight shudder in the dozer. On the ground they saw that whatever Jason had done had semi-collapsed one of the outside chutes causing the dozer to drift toward the pool at the bottom of the water wall.

  “CHUTE FAILURE HEADED FOR FALLS POOL” was sent by Toby. Both men could see that the rate of decent had picked up.

  “TRYING SOMETHING” was what Jason sent. The dozer canopy of sixteen chutes seemed to dip on the falls side of the canopy and almost instantaneously the partially collapsed chute filled again. Jason felt the shake and noticed an immediate decrease in the rate of descent and the movement toward the falls seemed to hesitate.

  “Passing five hundred feet,” Toby intoned, and everyone knew that the die had been cast.

  Everyone except for Jason it seemed, because there was a sudden movement of the chute canopy and the dozer seemed to be more aligned across the river. At the same time, the roar of the diesel reached them and with that the crowd broke and headed for the river, watching as they ran.

  In the dozer’s cabin, Jason had the cabin door ajar because if the dozer went down in deep water he was getting out. He also had pulled his hunting knife from its sheaf to cut parachute cords if necessary. He was as prepared as he could be. Now all that was needed was the green button to release the chutes. He would know almost immediately when the dozer hit the water whether there was bottom because the speed of the dozer and its weight could sink it quickly and that waterfall pool was reported to be deep. It was eerily quiet except for the roar of the waterfall.