Forbidden Island

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Talia!” He leaned over the port beam as he ran, looking for motion in the water, but he saw no sign of her. No hint that she’d even fallen in.

  Shouting rose up from inside the ship, angry and confused. He ignored them and hurried to the bow where Talia had stood before the ship ran aground. He leaned over the rail, but saw nothing in the water. What he did see was a loose anchor chain, and below it, a hole where coral had punched through the fiberglass hull. Water chugged in and out of the gap, but it didn’t appear to be flooding the yacht, yet.

  “What happened?” It was Mahdi, shouting to him from the aft deck.

  “Talia fell overboard!” Rowan shouted, fighting his instinct to jump in after her. Without knowing where she was, leaping into water laced with sharp bundles of coral could be suicidal…and he’d left that part of him behind in New Hampshire.

  Emmei stepped out from below decks with murder in his eyes, but when he saw Mahdi and Rowan searching over the side, he hurried to the wheelhouse, digging into his pocket. A moment later, flood lights all around the ship blazed to life. Talia had specifically said the ship should remain dark at night. The halogens would appear unnaturally bright from shore and could be misconstrued as supernatural. She was determined to have the Sentinelese view them as human and nothing more. Rowan understood and respected her position, but not when her life was at risk.

  Shadows fled, giving way to clear water, white sands, multi colored coral and a rainbow star burst of fish fleeing the sudden illumination. But there was no Talia, and Rowan noted, no blood. In these waters, that was a good thing. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been knocked unconscious. She could be beneath the yacht, or drifting further out to sea, beyond the light’s reach, or—

  “Somebody shut those fucking lights off!”

  Rowan rushed to the starboard rail. Talia was twelve feet below, side-stroking toward the dive deck. When she saw him looking down at her, she repeated, “Shut the lights off!”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Damnit, Rowan!”

  She was fine. He could see that for himself, and if he didn’t do as she asked, he would be on the receiving end of all the hellish fury Talia could conjure up. And he had a feeling that could be significant. “Emmei,” he shouted, heading for the wheelhouse stairs. “Turn off the lights.”

  He took the stairs two at a time, and entered the wheelhouse. It was a modern affair with computerized systems and plush accommodations. Emmei was on his hands and knees, looking under a console, whispering to himself.

  “Where’s the switch for the flood lights?” Rowan asked.

  Emmei cursed, but didn’t reply. The man was lost in his own dilemma. Probably trying to keep us from sinking, Rowan decided, and he looked for the light switch on his own. He found six outboard light switches on a well-labeled console and switched them all off with one swipe of his hand. The world outside the wheelhouse went dark again. Adjusted to the light, Rowan was suddenly blinded.

  Emmei cursed again, this time in a language Rowan didn’t recognize. There was a jangling of keys and then light. The small flashlight illuminated the source of Emmei’s frustration; a bundle of wires hung beneath a torn-open console. All of them severed.

  Emmei played the light over the rest of the wheelhouse. While much of it was intact and functional, a few screens had been shattered, and in places, the electronic innards had been exposed and pulled apart.

  “We have been attacked,” Emmei said.

  “Looks more like sabotage,” Rowan noted.

  Emmei looked deeply troubled by this revelation. “Are we sinking?”

  Rowan shook his head. “If we’re taking on water, the coral we’re wedged on is keeping us up. I think we’ll stay above water until help arrives.”

  “There will be no help coming,” Emmei said, angling the light at the first bundle of exposed and ruined wires. “This was communications. Radio. Satellite. Everything. I tell you, this is an attack.”

  The Sentinelese wouldn’t have had any frame of reference for electronics, wireless communication, or even that the wheelhouse was what controlled the ship, let alone that they might understand how to operate the door. Nor did they have the capability to cut the chain-link anchor lines, a fact that Emmei had yet to ask about.

  “Aren’t you curious about why we ran aground?” Rowan asked.

  Emmei shrugged. “Anchors failed. Happens in loose sand sometimes.”

  “In calm seas?” Rowan said. “Both anchors?”

  “We are not the first to run aground here while anchored.” Emmei paused at this, eyebrows furrowed. He stood and stepped around the wheel, pushing two buttons labeled ‘Anchor 1’ and ‘Anchor 2’. Nothing happened.

  “Don’t bother,” Rowan said. “The anchors are missing.”

  “What?” Emmei’s honest shock propelled him from the wheelhouse.

  Rowan followed him, but he wasn’t interested in the anchors. He’d already seen the loose chains for himself. Back on the aft deck, he was relieved to see Mahdi helping Talia onto the dive deck.

  “What’s happening?” Sashi asked, emerging from below deck. Then she saw Talia, dripping wet and angry. “Is she okay?”

  “It’s not her I’m worried about,” Rowan said. He searched the deck, but saw no sign of Winston or Chugy. “Are you good?” he shouted to Talia, who replied with a thumbs up. Then he turned to Sashi, said, “Stay with them,” and headed inside.

  Once the door was closed behind him, he slipped a hand around his back and drew his pistol. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he wanted to be prepared for anything. Someone had purposefully stranded them on a reef just offshore of the world’s most deadly island, and he had a fairly good idea who.

  After clearing the dining room, lounge, and saloon, he headed for the stairwell that led to the crew quarters. With every step he became more confused. Why would Winston or Chugy strand them here? It wouldn’t be hard to figure out who was to blame, and if the situation became dangerous, they would share in that danger.

  Or would they?

  Rowan hurried, confident he would find the rest of the ship empty. It was difficult picturing Chugy working with Winston to sabotage the ship, but she had been upset earlier. Winston could have used that anger, turned her against the crew. But against her uncle?

  He moved through the ship like a tornado, shoving open doors, scanning rooms and then moving on with military efficiency. He knew Winston’s quarters were closer to the bow, but he didn’t want to risk the man getting around him by skipping right to the end. After clearing every room except for Winston’s, he paused by the door, switched the handgun’s safety off, and slipped his finger around the trigger.

  The door banged open. Rowan entered, gun raised and sweeping for targets, but he found no threat.

  Though he did find Winston.

  The man was sprawled in his bed, partially dressed and unconscious. Blood dripped from a fresh gash on his forehead.

  Knowing he had the wrong man, Rowan checked for a pulse, felt a strong beat, and then moved on. It took him twenty seconds to run up through the decks and back into the open air. His sudden appearance startled Talia, Mahdi, Sashi, and Emmei, who were gathered on the aft deck, arguing amongst themselves.

  “What happened?” Talia asked. “Where are the others?”

  Rowan pushed past Mahdi, took one look over the deck and whirled around on Emmei. “Where is Chugy?”

  Emmei looked confused and then worried. “I haven’t seen her in hours. She was very upset by your…”

  “Does your niece love you?” Rowan asked.

  Worry shifted to anger. “Of course she—”

  “Then why did she strand you at North Fucking Sentinel Island?” Rowan pointed out past the dive deck where the dinghy should have been tied up. The line was there, still tied to the cleat, but the boat was missing. The small craft would have been cramped, but could have taken them back to the resort.

  “Chugy is missing?” Emmei starte
d toward the door.

  “Not missing,” Rowan said. “Gone.”

  “What about Winston?” Sashi asked.

  “Unconscious,” Rowan said. “The wound on his head suggests he was struck. Probably by whoever took the dinghy, and since Chugy is the only one not here…”

  “Could it be that you are wrong?” Mahdi asked.

  “I’m not yet certain that you’re not involved,” Rowan said. Aside from the state of the ship, he had reason to distrust everyone except for Talia and Sashi.

  Mahdi groaned. “I would never—”

  “Rowan,” Talia said. She hadn’t spoken very loudly, but somehow managed to convey a black hole’s worth of gravity to his name, stopping Mahdi mid-thought. Her eyes were on the dive deck and it took Rowan only a moment to spot the abnormality.

  The dinghy was nowhere in sight, but the line tied to the cleat was pulled tight. Something was still attached. Had the dinghy been sunk? Rowan and Talia hopped over the rail, onto the dive deck. Rowan picked up the line and pulled. Whatever was attached was heavy, but not too heavy to reel in. He and Talia pulled together.

  It’s too light to be the boat, Rowan thought. The motor alone would have been heavier than whatever they were pulling in. And if the dinghy had sunk, there would have been debris littering the water. When they’d pulled in ten feet of line, he said, “Almost there.”

  And then the line snapped taut.

  “It’s stuck,” Talia said, looking into the dark water. They could see the line streaking away into the water, but couldn’t see the end in the night’s limited light. “It’s the coral.”

  Rowan felt a vibration on his fingers. Looked down at the line. Saw an inch slide back out of his hand. Then another. “It’s not stuck.” He crouched and tried to tie the reeled-in line to the cleat. Before he could loop it once, the line was yanked through his fingers. Friction-generated heat forced him to drop the line and watch it unspool until it snapped tight again. The rope cut a path through the water, surging back and forth as whatever was tied to the other end tried to swim away.

  A distant grinding sound tickled Rowan’s ears. It was followed by a vibration in his feet. And then, a realization. “It’s pulling us off the reef.”

  “If that happens,” Emmei said. “We will sink.”

  17

  Talia knew she was strange. Unconventional was the description most often used by colleagues she hadn’t seen in years. But for all her eccentricities, she wasn’t crazy. Risking your life was not the same as forfeiting it, a distinction Rowan understood for tragic reasons. If the boat sank, they would all die, either in the water, or on the shore. She slipped her folding knife from her pocket and snapped it open. Then she dropped down onto the dive deck and placed the razor sharp edge against the line.

  “Wait,” Rowan said, his hand on her forearm, his eyes on the water.

  “I don’t see anything.” That wasn’t entirely true. She could see the moon’s bright reflection, the orange stripes created by the Sentinelese fires, and even the variations in brightness just beneath the water, revealing coral, sand, and stones. But she couldn’t see anything worth waiting on.

  The line snapped back and forth, yanked with enough violence to shift the boat again. Water lapped up over the dive deck, tickling Talia’s toes.

  “Smell,” Rowan said, and she did, detecting the fragrant smoke rolling off the island first, and then something else. Something unmistakable.

  Blood.

  It was in the water.

  “Chugy is missing,” Rowan whispered, completing the picture. The young woman, Emmei’s niece, might be tied to the line’s end, a meal for whatever creature was thrashing beneath the water.

  “If she’s out there,” Talia said, “she’s already dead.” She cut through the line with a quick swipe. The boat fell still. There was a single splash and then nothing.

  The Sea Tiger fell silent until Emmei spoke. “Was it her?”

  Talia should have guessed that the experienced captain would understand what had happened—that a large predator had attacked whatever was tied to the end of that line. With Chugy missing, her body was the most likely candidate.

  “We can look in the morning,” Rowan said.

  “There will be nothing left by morning.” Emmei’s efficient truth stung. If Chugy was in the water, being eaten, her body would never be found. Then he squinted at Talia, Rowan, and Mahdi. “You three were on deck when we ran aground.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, but—”

  The captain focused on Talia. “You were in the water.”

  “I was knocked overboard.”

  Emmei turned to Sashi. Motioned toward Talia, Rowan, and Mahdi. “You said they would not be dangerous. That they could be—”

  “Emmei,” Sashi said, her voice raised. “This is not the time.”

  Talia felt like she’d walked into a lecture halfway through, trying to find the context in what was being said with no frame of reference.

  Sashi is trying to say something without saying it.

  Why did she tell Emmei she and Rowan would not be dangerous?

  “My niece is missing,” Emmei shouted. “Probably dead in the water. Winston is unconscious, or so he says.” He pointed at Rowan, who watched the unfolding scene with a keen eye, his right hand inching toward the small of his back. “Or maybe Winston is dead, too. If they found—”

  “Stop it!” Sashi shouted. “They are not murderers. They are good people. All of them. And I cannot say the same about everyone on this ship.”

  Is she talking about Emmei, or Winston? Talia wondered.

  Emmei grimaced. “We are stranded within reach of the Sentinelese. Our communications have been sabotaged. The dinghy is missing, along with my niece, who would not abandon me. Someone on my yacht did all this, and the people you brought on board were the only ones on deck when all this happened.”

  “We were alone for just a few minutes,” Rowan pointed out.

  “And my bow was on that dinghy,” Talia grumbled.

  “We didn’t have time to sabotage communications, cut the anchor chains, and set the dinghy loose. We were below deck until Mahdi and Winston returned.” He looked at Emmei. “Where were you?” Then Sashi. “Where were both of you?”

  No one spoke.

  “And if we’re being honest, Chugy was angry. She knows the ship well enough to sabotage the right systems, and she had the time. She could have done the work, slipped into the water, and taken the boat after Winston and Mahdi returned. She could have been tangled in the line and—”

  “Enough,” Emmei growled, but he didn’t argue the points.

  On the surface, it made sense, but it didn’t feel right. And there was a glaring inconsistency. “If she was in the water, and left in the dinghy while we were on deck talking, who knocked out Winston?”

  Talia, Rowan, and Mahdi looked at Emmei and Sashi.

  Sashi was barely over five feet tall, and didn’t look strong enough to knock a man out with a baseball bat. That left one suspect—the uncle of their other suspect—a conclusion that Rowan came to as well. He pulled the pistol out from behind his back and aimed it at Emmei.

  “You see?” Emmei said to Sashi while thrusting his hands at Rowan. “This is the kind of people you brought on my ship.”

  Emmei’s genuine outrage confused Talia. He was a ship captain at a small Andaman Island resort, not an Academy Award winning actor. No way he was faking such raw emotion. But someone had disabled the yacht and set the dinghy loose. Chugy still seemed like the most likely culprit, but Talia didn’t think Emmei was involved. But could Chugy have done all that by herself?

  Flickering orange drew her eyes back to the island. Were the Sentinelese watching them from the dancing shadows? Would they remain on shore, or attack the stranded Sea Tiger? If that happened, she had no illusions. Without a meaningful social breakthrough, the crew was in very real danger. Rowan was armed, but she doubted he’d brought enough ammunition to ki
ll all the Sentinelese, and she wasn’t about to let herself be a martyr for those who wanted to purge the island of its native inhabitants.

  The idea of a purge became bottled in her mind, fermented for a moment, and then, when one of the fires on the island went dark, drained away. She watched the island, ignoring the others as they continued to argue and place blame.

  A second fire, on the opposite end of the island, extinguished.

  How did they coordinate that? she wondered. From her viewpoint in the water, she could see from one end of the island to the other, but anyone on the island would have their view blocked. The island sloped gently, but rose to four hundred feet at the core. That, and the towering trees covering every inch of land aside from the sand and coral, made it impossible for any kind of line-of-sight communication. She listened, but she heard no shouting voices. No drums, no horns, no noise at all.

  A third fire went out and she realized they were perfectly timed. Synchronized. Practiced.

  They’ve done this before.

  Was it a message? Some form of communication meant for the Sea Tiger’s crew? A warning? An invitation? Or perhaps it was a tribal ritual that had nothing to do with them, performed for so many generations that the timing was instinctual? Too many questions, and she doubted the answers would increase their odds of survival.

  Another fire went out, right on time.

  How are they putting the fires out so quickly? One moment they were blazing infernos lighting up a portion of the jungle’s interior. The next, they were gone, no lingering flames or hint of hot embers.

  “You can put that down.”

  Talia’s attention swiveled away from the fires at the sound of Winston’s voice. He stood in the doorway, a washcloth held to his bloody head. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, listening, but apparently it was enough to know they were arguing about who wrecked the ship and bludgeoned him.

  “I wasn’t attacked,” Winston said. “I was changing my clothes when we struck…whatever it was we struck. I remember falling, hitting my head, and that’s it.” He raised his chin toward Rowan. “Thanks, by the way, for leaving me to bleed all over myself.”