“Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll go and not ever come back?”
“I promise.”
Tim quickly sawed through the ropes that bound Eric’s feet.
Eric felt the blood swimming back into the numb ankles. “Do you have a key for these?” Eric leaned forward to reveal the cuffs;
“No, but I think I can handle them.” He grabbed a pair of aviator sunglasses from Fallows’ bunk, twisted the wire rim, and picked at the lock. In less than a minute he had opened the cuffs.
“Nifty trick,” Eric said, jumping to his feet. “Where’d you learn it?”
“Fallows,” Tim said. “He’s taught me a lot.”
Eric nodded. He peeked out the tent flap and saw Dickens draining the last of his metal cup of beer.
“I go first,” Dickens said, thumping his chest.
“We’ll go watch.”
“No way. I don’t want you perverts grabbing for my cock when you see how big it is.” He laughed and marched toward the tent.
Eric backed away, putting his finger to his lips. Tim nodded. Eric held out his hand for Tim’s knife. Tim handed it to him.
“Thirsty, maggot?” Dickens said as he swaggered into the tent.
Eric slapped his hand over Dickens’ mouth and dragged him the rest of the way into the tent.
“Need any help finding it?” one of the men shouted. The others laughed.
Eric stood behind Dickens, holding his mouth closed. He could smell the beer and fear in Dickens’ sweat. Eric plunged the knife straight into Dickens’ stomach, then pulled the knife quickly upward as if unzipping a jacket. Dickens’ hands went to his stomach as he tried to keep his guts from spilling, but it was like holding the groceries in a torn bag. Eric released him and he fell to the ground in a slushy heap.
Eric looked over at Tim, but there was no expression in his son’s eyes. The boy stood calmly and held out his hand for his knife. Eric gave it to him. Tim pointed toward the back of the tent. “Go. I’ve left your crossbow and quiver outside the camp in the woods.”
“Come on,” Eric said to him.
“No.”
Eric took a step toward him and Tim pointed his knife at his father.
“You promised,” Tim said.
Eric nodded. He started toward the back of the tent. Suddenly he whirled around, brushed aside Tim’s hand with the knife, and punched his son in the neck. Tim’s eyes rolled up as his knees buckled. Eric caught him as he fell, swooped him up in his arms. He grabbed a gun and Tim’s knife and slit open the back of the tent, and carried Tim into the nearby woods.
“You may be full of shit, Dickens,” one of the men yelled, “but ain’t nobody that full of piss. Here we come.”
Eric found the crossbow leaning against a tree. He slung Tim over one shoulder and the crossbow and quiver over the other. Then he ran as fast as he could, the hard metal bow bouncing on one shoulder, the soft unconscious boy bouncing on the other.
And behind them, the angry shouting of men tracking him.
* * *
20
“You lied,” Tim said.
“I’ve done worse.”
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
Eric shook his head. “It’s supposed to sadden you.”
They sat in the back seat of a burned out Volvo in Balboa Park. The park was 1,158 acres that once had been a cultural and recreational center bordering San Diego’s business district. They could see some of the exhibit halls along El Prado that had been built in 1915-16 for the Panama-California International Exposition. Fallows’ men had lost them a couple of miles back and would be returning to camp to tell the colonel. The San Diego Zoo was less than a mile away at the northern end of the park. But the blow to Tim’s neck had put him out longer than Eric had thought and he’d stopped to bring him around. He seemed okay now.
“Fallows would have hurt you for helping me escape,” Eric explained.
“You’ve made things worse.”
“I saved you from him.”
Tim’s face scowled in anger. “He saved me from you. People like you. Sure, he would have punished me, it’s what I deserved. But then it would have been over. Now you’ve compromised me. When he catches me again, he’ll have to start the whole torture process over again. You’ve tainted me. He can’t be sure what you’ve done to my mind.”
“What I’ve done? For God’s sake, Tim, he’s brainwashed you, programmed you away from me, from you, from who you are.”
Tim shrugged. “Who’s to say? He’s just swapped your program for his. How do I know which is right for me until I’ve tried both?”
Eric looked out the smashed window of the Volvo. A battered koala doll lay near the car. One of its eyes was missing. It reminded him of Deena and her band of graverobbers. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Yeah, right. You’ve got no argument, so it’s ‘let’s go’ because you say so. Right?”
Eric looked over at his son, the dark brooding eyes. Taken out of context, it was almost a typical father-teenage son exchange. They might have been talking about the length and color of his hair or his slipping grades. And like most such exchanges, Tim was right. There was no logic that could be explained or understood. It was just might makes right. Eric was bigger, had Tim’s knife and gun. Every action he made was reenforcing Fallows’ teachings. The strong should dominate the weak because they can.
“We’ll talk later,” Eric said, but that sounded lame even to him.
They climbed out of the car and Tim immediately tried to run. Eric grabbed his arm and yanked him to a stop. “Can’t you give me the same chance you gave Fallows?”
“You had me for twelve years. It got me a dead mother, sister, and kidnapped. He’s had me for nine months and I’m part of the most powerful group in the world.”
“This island isn’t the world.”
“Sure it is. For us. Besides . . .” He stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Eric looked at him, remembering Fallows’ bragging that he could get Tim off the island. “Besides, he can get you out of California and I can’t. Right?”
“Yes.”
“With the Soviets?”
“Yes.”
“How? What’s going on?”
“What’s the difference?”
Eric tightened his grip on Tim’s arm. “Tell me, Tim.”
Tim looked at Eric’s hand on his arm and grinned wryly. “The Russians have come in in a submarine. Somehow they slipped past the blockade outside.”
“Why? What are they doing here?”
“Building a small missile base. One missile is run completely by remote control.”
Eric thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. They’re coming in disguised as U.S. Navy, erecting a missile that will no doubt also have U.S. markings. That way if it’s ever discovered by the outside world, or the people who saw them ever questioned, it will look as if the U.S. used the opportunity to exploit its own people. The adverse publicity will be worth it. If not, they have one more warhead close to the U.S.”
“The colonel heard about them while we were travelling,” Tim said. “He came down here and told them he’d keep the locals off their backs and not hassle them in exchange for some ammunitions and equipment. The Russians didn’t have much time, so they figured it was worth it and agreed.”
“Wisely,” Eric said. “What about the gold?”
“That’s a private deal with the admiral. Fallows offered to buy fare for Nhu, himself, and me. For gold. Lots of gold.”
“And our Admiral Jones, in true capitalist fashion, decided what the motherland didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it. And he and his crew would be richer for the experience.”
“Something like that.”
Eric pulled Tim after him. He was moving quickly now, anxious to get under cover.
“He’ll be coming for me,” Tim said.
“I know.”
“Where wil
l you hide?”
Eric caught the ‘you.’ Tim was telling him that they were not together, reminding him that Fallows would kill Eric, but not Tim. Where to hide? Eric considered heading east, lose them in the desert. He could go north, hide out in the forests and mountains while he deprogrammed Tim.
But even as he considered each option he knew there was only one place he could go. The zoo. Because even if he didn’t go there, Fallows would assume that he had, and he would swoop down on the place and kill D.B. and Wendy. The time it would take to do that could give Eric enough of a headstart. Enough for him and his son to escape. But as Big Bill had said, there was no true escape. Only different captors. And to leave D.B. and Wendy to Fallows would put Eric back on Fallows’ fishline again.
He headed toward the zoo, dragging Tim behind him.
“With Fallows,” Tim said, “I have a chance to get off this island. Isn’t that what you’d want for me?”
Eric said nothing, kept walking.
“If you loved me like you say, wouldn’t you want to give me that chance? I gave you your chance back in the tent.”
Eric had no answer. Maybe Tim was right. Perhaps love did mean giving Tim to Fallows if it meant getting him back to the rest of the world. Maybe back there Tim could see what a mutant someone like Fallows was.
But Eric didn’t want to take that chance. If Tim couldn’t learn that lesson here, then he’d never learn it. In a few hours he would have his chance, because that’s how long Eric figured before Fallows and his men reached the zoo.
* * *
21
Eric straddled the barbed wire atop the zoo wall. He draped his shirt over the wire where he stood so Tim could step over it. Eric need not have been so cautious. The gangly, slightly clumsy child he remembered was now long-legged and agile. Tim stood on the narrow ledge of the wall with perfect balance and no fear.
The transition had been just as sudden for Eric when he had been Tim’s age. Like Tim, Eric at twelve had excelled at the more cerebral pursuits: crossword puzzles, chess, drawing. On the playground or while visiting the Hopis with his father, Eric’s play with the other children had always made him feel inept. Balls did not naturally take to his hands, no matter the shape or goal. Throwing, kicking, dribbling, all were equally mysterious.
Then at thirteen, a sudden growth spurt shot him up and then his body could whip around the other children with such ease he had to laugh. Balls became allies. They flew like trained falcons wherever he sent them. It was as if the first twelve years his body had been tied, bound tight like the feet of young Chinese girls. Then suddenly the ropes had been cut and there wasn’t any physical challenge he couldn’t master.
Eric watched Tim stand with easy grace on the narrow wall and remembered the little boy who had come home from school crying because he was always the last one chosen for kickball. Eric had hugged him, told him his body was resting, like in a cocoon, giving him a chance to develop his brain. That the other kids who were already athletic, might always rely on their bodies and never get the chance to train their minds. This was Timmy’s “brain time.” The rest would come later, he promised. Timmy accepted his father’s word and took to books and chemistry sets and piano and writing poetry. School tests placed him in the genius percentile. Teachers and counselors suggested special schools for the gifted. Eric and Annie had refused. They kept Timmy in public school among his friends and tutored him themselves, allowing him to flourish in any direction he wanted.
They had tried to be the best parents possible. Now as Eric looked at Tim’s tall frame, black marble eyes, he wondered if maybe Tim wasn’t right after all. Perhaps Eric had let him down, screwed up royally. Made the kind of mistakes every parent swears they won’t make. Maybe he babied him, or didn’t baby him. Gave him too much or too little love. Surely the lessons he’d spent twelve years teaching his son couldn’t be so easily replaced. Not if Eric had done his job properly.
A huge rock pelted the wall near Eric’s feet, bounced off and fell into the brush at the foot of the wall. “Halt! Who goes there?” D.B. said, stepping out from behind a tree. Her makeshift slingshot dangled from her hand. “I heard that line in some old war movie. How’s it sound?”
“Like an old war movie,” Eric said, hopping down from the wall. Tim jumped next to him, landing with such grace that Eric couldn’t help feeling a little pride in front of D.B. Silly, he knew, but the feeling was there anyway. They’d been apart so long. He wanted to take Tim in his arms and hold him tight, hug him the way he used to after those bad playground experiences. No good. The look in Tim’s eyes forbade any contact yet. Eric was pained that the only physical contact they’d had since their reunion was Eric knocking him out and carrying him away. Not unlike the way Fallows had taken him in the first place. Eric could find water in a hundred miles of desert, find food in five feet of snow. But could he find his son in the boy/man standing next to him now?
“Tim?” D.B. asked, obviously surprised by his appearance.
“Tim, this is D.B.” Eric said. “A friend.”
Tim looked at D.B., but gave no acknowledgement. Then to Eric, said, “What kind of friend?”
“A friend,” D.B. said. “As in ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’ You know, ‘You just call out my name.’ That sort.”
“James Taylor,” Tim said.
“Carol King wrote it.”
Eric listened to them, thinking how much they sounded like Tim and his sister, Jenny. The two of them bantering, arguing, complaining about each other until their voices sometimes formed a background music around the house. “Yuppie Muzak,” Annie had called it.
“Where’s Wendy?” Eric asked.
“Back at the lab doing her mad scientist routine.”
Eric started jogging toward the lab, Tim and D.B. in tow. “We haven’t much time. Hurry.”
D.B. snorted. “I heard that line in the same war movie.” As they ran, she reached out and pulled Tim closer to her. “Stay on this path, Tim. There are crawly slimy things with teeth and nails.”
“I’m not scared.”
“I am. That’s why I want you close.”
Tim stayed close to D.B. as they ran.
How easily she did that, Eric marvelled. The most convincing argument he’d given the boy was a right cross to the neck.
The sun had faded out behind the Halo. There were no more sunsets or sunrises. Just a leaking away of light followed by a sort of darkness that wasn’t quite black, more like a gray fuzziness. It was getting that way now.
Eric pointed to the bruise on D.B.’s forearm. “Racquetball?”
“Elephant. Named Dizzy. Whacked me with his trunk while Wendy was checking his teeth. Had a cavity the size of a golf ball.”
In the lab they found Wendy writing. When she looked up Eric could see the relief on her face, though she immediately forced it off.
“I told you he’d be back,” D.B. said.
“Like a bad penny,” Wendy joked. She stood up and Eric wanted to hug her but he felt uncomfortable with Tim watching.
“Tim, this is Dr. Chen.”
“Wendy,” she said, offering her hand.
Tim shook. “Another friend?” he said archly. “Like in the song?”
“Pardon?” Wendy said.
“Never mind,” Eric said. “We have only a few hours, so let me give you your options now.”
“Options?” Wendy asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Time. We don’t have much of it. Fallows and his men will be here soon. That gives us only two options: stay and fight or run and hide.”
Wendy bristled. “I’m not leaving. This is my work, my life. If I leave, every animal in this zoo will be butchered and eaten within days. Or they’ll kill each other.”
“If you stay,” Eric said, “Fallows will butcher you.”
“This is a big zoo, Eric. There are many dangerous animals loose. Many places to hide.”
“Not from the colonel,” Tim said, with a slight smile.
“I’ve seen death before. I’m not afraid.”
“Jeez,” D.B. said. “You’re not afraid, the kid’s not afraid, Doc Rock’s not afraid. Am I the only one around here who’s scared of these creeps? I say we grab Spock and take off.”
“Spock?” Tim said.
“Yeah, Spock. Cutest gorilla you’ll ever chat with. You’ll see.”
Eric shook his head. “We can’t take Spock. Just the four of us.”
“Oh shit. A moral dilemma. I was hoping to make it through without one.”
“What’s the problem?” Tim said to his father. “If they want to stay, let them. You don’t have to.”
Wendy looked at Tim, then at Eric. “He’s right, Eric. You found what you came for. There’s no reason to stay.”
Eric knew she wasn’t playing the martyr. He could see the compassion in her eyes. She saw that Tim was not as Eric had described him, saw the agony Eric felt for his son’s condition.
“D.B.?” he asked.
“Christ, you don’t give a girl much time for moral dilemmas. I’m not too good at this.”
“Why don’t you just clobber them and haul them away like you did me?” Tim said.
D.B. spun toward him. “Why don’t you quit sassing your dad or I’ll clobber you myself.” She looked at Eric. “If we stay, what are our chances?”
“There are things we can do. Precautions. Traps. Warning systems. It’s not hopeless.”
“You really know how to whip up troop morale,” D.B. laughed. “Anyway, let’s give it a shot. I always wondered what Davy Crockett felt like at the Alamo.”
“Dead,” Tim said.
“We’re going to have to free the animals,” Eric said.
Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island Page 14