He eased himself up from the ragged seat, which had felt like a featherbed after a week of sleeping on the ground. He moved toward the door. A sudden banging on the metal threw him back against the seat.
“Hey, Manning!” Martin’s voice pierced the racket he made as he inflicted punishment on the door. “Get yourself out here. I’ve brought Jake, and breakfast won’t wait forever.”
Danny emerged into the daylight in relief. Martin crouched over a cheery fire, where a large rabbit roasted on an improvised spit. On a log, at the edge of the small clearing, sat a small skinny man with long, gray-streaked hair. Judging by his appearance, Danny guessed that he had lived on Death Island a long time, perhaps six or seven years. Maybe he’d even been one of the first to be sent here.
His blue eyes, unexpectedly sharp and clear, fixed on Danny. He nodded. “The would-be escapee,” he said.
Martin glanced at Danny and back toward Jake.
“Jake Butler, world-famous aeronautical designer.”
Jake chuckled. “The gospel according to Martin,” he said. “I worked at Sikorsky, but I worked my way up from the mailroom, in the good old days when you could do that. Went to school at night to get my degree.”
“But you know about planes?”
“Yeah, I worked on the planes, and I know them inside and out, but I sure never designed one from the get-go.” He jerked his chin toward the Cessna. “You think you’re going to fly outta here on that?”
Danny looked hard at the fractured and rusted plane, its crushed nose buried deep in the earth. “I was hoping you could tell me that,” he said.
Jake snorted. “Not much chance of it.”
“How about the engine, or one of them,” Danny persisted. “We could use an engine to—”
“Look,” Jake interrupted, “do we have a hacksaw here? Where’s our blowtorch? How can we tear heavy metal apart with no tools? Even I can’t do that.”
“So much for brilliance,” Martin said with a grin. He looked past Danny at the plane. “Where’s your fat friend? He’d rather sleep than eat?”
Danny said, “He went into the woods to look for dinner, as you suggested, and when he didn’t come back, I went to look for him.” He leveled a hard look at Martin. “Something—or someone—got him by the pond, about half a mile in. He’s dead.”
Martin shook his head. “Not surprised. It happens here, more often than not. You must have had a rough night. You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“You’d better eat something. Breakfast is served.”
Martin handed Danny a steaming hunk of rabbit, using a wide piece of bark for a plate. Danny took it, his stomach already rumbling in anticipation. He watched Martin rip another portion of rabbit from the spit, and present it, with a courtly bow, to Jake like an offering.
Jake grunted his thanks and tore into the meat. The three men fell silent, chewing hungrily. The rabbit was wild and gamey, but moist on the inside, crisp and slightly charred on the outside. Danny’s thoughts flew back to his last dinner with Katie at the Italian restaurant just down the street where they ate at least twice a week, the walk home in the gathering dusk, holding hands. They had passed the church where Paul Adjavon was pastor, and Katie had asked how the kitchen renovations were coming along. Such an ordinary evening, such mundane conversation. What would he have said to his wife if he had known that within twenty-four hours their oh-so-normal lives would be ripped to shreds?
* * * *
Martin’s voice cut through his reverie. “Now all we need is a nice Chianti,” he said.
Danny almost smiled in spite of himself, glad to break the stream of memories. “Where did you learn to cook like this?” he joked, and immediately regretted his choice of words, as Martin laughed.
“Don’t ask,” Jake said.
Danny abruptly changed the subject. “Back to the reason Martin brought you here,” he said. “If we can’t use this plane, could we build something, a glider, maybe?” He turned to Jake, who flipped his piece of bark into the fire and wiped his greasy hands on his shorts.
“Hey, those are my best dishes!” Martin protested.
Ignoring him, Danny persisted. “You know, Jake, those balsa wood kits we all had as kids, putting together planes with rubber bands and glue …”
Danny watched the excitement light up Jake’s pale face, as he drew in his breath sharply and jumped to his feet.
“Yes! That might be doable!” he exclaimed.
Martin leaned against a tree, picking his perfect teeth with a twig. “What’s doable?” he asked, squinting at them. “You guys want to make model planes now?”
“No!” Jake yelled. “I think we could make a man-sized model plane, a glider, maybe.” He hopped around on his spindly legs, thin strands of sandy gray hair fluttering as he moved. “We’ll make it out of the smaller trees, lashed together with vines. Pitch from the pine trees will keep it all together and waterproof it!” His tinny voice cracked as his excitement built.
Danny was reminded of pictures he had seen of Albert Einstein. He wondered if all geniuses had that same kind of frenetic energy that fed their minds but ate away at their flesh, leaving them skin and bones.
Danny turned at Martin’s snort. “What are you going to cut the trees down with? You bring your axe, Danny?”
Fury washed over him like a tsunami, and before he knew what he was doing, Danny yanked the knife from his pocket and lunged at Martin. “That’s the second time you’ve brought that up! You bloody bastard, I didn’t kill them!”
The knife slammed into the tree. Martin was gone.
Breathing heavily, Danny leaned into the trunk, glad to feel the rough bark against his face. He forced himself to calm down. He couldn’t remember the last time he had lost control like that.
“That’s just Martin,” Jake said in a quiet voice. “You know he’s nuts. He’ll say or do anything. You need to be on your guard around him.”
Danny moved back toward Jake. “Sorry. I don’t know what got into me.” He dropped the knife back into his pocket. “Actually, I owe Martin a lot.” He gazed off into the woods. “Will he come back?”
“Oh, he will,” Jake assured him. “He’s out there somewhere laughing his fool head off. He’ll come back when he thinks you’ve cooled off. He was never in danger from you, and he knows it.”
“Unfortunately, I know it, too,” Danny agreed.
A mechanical rumbling over the forest caught their attention, and they turned, Danny following Jake’s lead, as their eyes searched the sky. A silver helicopter fluttered into view, crossing the patch of sky over the clearing.
“New recruits,” Jake said grimly.
Danny watched it. Shock and despair rose up in him, bitter as the taste of bile in his throat. How in the world had he ever ended up here? What cruel twist of fate dictated this? What incomprehensible joke was God—if He existed—playing on him?
He felt the older man’s hand on his arm. “Come on, man,” he said. “It gets to all of us. Sorry about the loss of your friend.”
Danny turned. “The bastards who flew us here said he wouldn’t last a week,” he said bleakly. “They were right.” He looked around, feeling the despair and anger rise again. “How do they have the right to do this to people? Nobody deserves this.” He rammed his fist into the tree and groaned in pain.
“Well, that won’t help,” Jake said, ‘but the physical pain takes your mind off the emotional pain. In the meantime, let’s do something more productive.” He bent down and picked up a six-inch twig from the ground. “Start collecting some small straight sticks, like this one.” He held it up. “We’re going to act like kids again and build us some model planes.”
Chapter Ten
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Jake cracked dryly. He sat back on his haunches and surveyed the array of model aircraft before them. They had built a half-dozen planes and a couple of gliders using twigs tied together with strands of tough, stringy grass. Danny followed
Jake’s instructions to the letter, and become so engrossed he had almost forgotten where they were.
Flying the model planes was another story, however. Several of them broke when they hit the ground. A couple simply refused to fly at all and fell to the earth like stones. Two of the models imitated the Cessna and crashed, driving their noses into the dirt.
“Damn it! Why don’t they fly?” Danny felt the frustration gnawing at him.
“We’ll hit on it, sooner or later,” Jake replied. His voice held a bit of an edge. “Be patient.”
“Well, do you know what you’re doing, or not? I don’t have forever to fool around with this!”
“You don’t?” Jake cocked a quizzical eye at Danny. “You not only have forever, Danny, you’ll probably be here forever. What’s your big hurry?”
“I refuse to spend my life here!” Danny said, gritting his teeth. “I have to get back to the States and prove my innocence.”
Jake spat in the dirt and chuckled. “You’re naïve, Manning. It’ll never happen.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Danny asked. “Why are you helping me at all?”
The older man fixed him with a beady eye and a slight smile. “Because I do have forever, and this is something to eat up the time, sort of a challenge. And Martin asked me to.” He tied more twigs together. “Let’s try a different design.”
The afternoon wore on. Danny, disheartened, watched as one model after another refused to take to the air. Finally Jake built a glider thinner in the middle with wider wings. He added a higher, pointed tail section, and carefully tapered the nose to a point.
“Here goes!” He said, and with a smooth, practiced motion, aimed the plane into the air. It caught the wind and sailed, gracefully, straight and true as an arrow, then sloped gently to the ground.
Danny leapt to his feet, beside himself with excitement. “It flies! Jake, you’re a genius!”
“So I’ve been told.” Jake looked pleased with himself. “Just a matter of getting the weight and proportions right. It’s a little tougher out here with twigs and grass than it was in a stainless steel environment with unlimited materials and a hundred engineers to crank out calculations for you.”
Danny ran to pick up the glider and brought it back, examining it with a critical eye. He handed it back to Jake. “Will it fly large-scale, do you think?”
“It should,” Jake shrugged. “We just have to make it larger and keep the proportions the same.” He glanced up at the graying sky. “It won’t be light much longer. Let’s finish up the rabbit and call it a day.”
Danny jerked his shoulder toward the plane. “Want to bunk with me?”
Jake shook his head. “That too claustrophobic for me,” he said. “I’ll be fine in the woods. Used to it, you know.”
Danny looked off into the forest. “Martin hasn’t come back,” he said. “You don’t think something’s happened to him?”
“Not a chance!” Jake grinned. “I don’t know anyone who’s got it in for Martin, except maybe Javonne, who hasn’t the brains of a worm. If it moves, Javonne will kill it.”
“Do you think Martin killed Tom?”
Jake’s leathery face became thoughtful. “He might have. I wouldn’t bet against it. Martin kills because he feels like it, when he feels like it, or just because. But he’s not like Javonne. Martin’s brilliant in his own twisted way.”
Danny drew a sharp breath. “Where do you think he is now?”
“Probably checking out the new guys,” Jake said. He looked at Danny. “You’ll be safe in the plane. I’ll find a spot in the woods. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll get started on this sucker in the morning.” He stood up, jiggling on his skinny legs.
Danny watched Jake tear a large chunk of rabbit from the carcass. He nodded as the older man gestured toward the remains and then moved with jerky steps toward the woods.
“Hey, Jake!” Danny called.
Jake stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“So—what’d you do?” Danny asked. “Why are you here?”
He watched as Jake’s features froze into a plastic mask. “Screw you,” he said coldly. “I never talk about that.” He turned and vanished into the tangle of green.
* * * *
Fitful and shivering—the door once more barricaded with rocks and debris—Danny managed a few hours sleep.
Again the dreams came. He and Katie, on their last walk together, passing the church where Paul Adjavon was pastor.
“Diana Wilmot invited us to come with her and Jim some Sunday,” Katie said, gazing up at him with her big blue eyes. “Let’s try it out sometime, okay?”
“Well, I’m not much for church,” he answered.
“It won’t hurt you,” Katie said. “If we have children, I’d like them to have some sort of religious background.”
“Are we having children?” he asked, in a playful tone.
“Well, not yet,” she said, laughing.
Abruptly he was standing in the church kitchen. “Of course I’m not the one you have to please,” Paul said with his engaging grin. “It’s Norma Harris, President of the Women’s Association, who has to okay the job.” Paul turned and yanked open the door to the microwave. With oven mitts made out of leaves, he removed a silver Communion plate, holding a large roasted rabbit. “Share my lunch with me,” he said.
Then he was in the hardware store, chatting with Paul’s wife Charlie, and waiting for his axe to be sharpened. She looked up at him, laughing as Katie had done, and then Danny was yelling and waving his arms as Jake ran toward them swinging the axe, his face twisted with fury.
“No! No!” Danny roared. The terror he felt and the need to protect Charlie were as real in the dream as they would have been in real life. In desperation, he threw himself at Jake, but the little man swung the axe, and Charlie’s pretty head flew from her body and thumped to the floor. Blood spurted everywhere, over everything, and Danny, yelling aloud, jerked himself awake.
Thunder boomed, and Danny realized from the sounds of the wind and rain outside that something must have blown against the plane, a branch perhaps, or one of those rounded fruits. He lay awake for a long time, reliving the dream. What did it mean, if anything, and why had Jake entered his unconscious world as an axe-swinging murderer? He was more than a little grateful when the first light crept into the sky and the sounds of the forest announced the new day.
* * * *
Danny could hardly look at Jake the next day. In his mind, he kept seeing the little man charging toward him with the axe, swinging it at Charlie, severing her head.
“What’s the problem, guy?” Jake asked. He had brought fruit, something foreign and yellow, out of the forest, and sat on a log, munching on it. He picked up one of the melon-sized spheres and offered it to Danny. “Want this?”
Danny shook his head. “Bad dreams. I’m not hungry.”
“It’ll keep,” Jake said. “Are you ready to work?”
“Yeah,” Danny replied. “Tell me what to do.”
As the day wore on, Danny succeeded in wiping the nightmare images of Jake from his mind. Soon he was drenched in sweat; he located the slim branches Jake required and—using the knife he had taken from Martin—cut, twisted and broke them from the trees and carried them back to the clearing. He watched in awe as Jake laced them together, forming a twelve foot beam for the center of the glider. The vines he used for lacing were as strong a nautical rope and nearly as thick. Jake left a rectangular slot, three inches high and six feet long, through the midsection of the beam, which—he explained, as per the successful model—would hold the wings of the glider. Another slot toward the rear was for the tail piece.
“It’s going to take a while,” Jake sighed, as the afternoon wore on. “We need to take a break.”
Danny, exhausted to the bone, was forced to agree.
Chapter Eleven
“What makes Danny think that thing is going to hold him up?”
Mindy asked. She pushed back her pale blond hair and folded her legs beneath her as she snuggled into the corner of Charlie’s blue leather sofa.
Sarah shook her head in bewilderment. “Just because Jake tested out the model by tying stones on it, doesn’t mean the large one will hold a man’s weight, does it?”
Diana had already started on the chips and dip just a few minutes into the program. She halted a loaded chip halfway to her mouth. “Well, Jake’s an engineer, isn’t he? He told Danny he had calculated the approximate weight of the stone on the model glider and how large the actual glider would have to be to hold a grown man.”
“What do you think, Charlie?” Sarah asked, turning toward her hostess.
Charlie said, as if she hadn’t heard Sarah’s question, “Danny looks thinner, doesn’t he, already? He’s losing weight and he’s so … drawn. He looks so tormented. I’m worried about him.”
“Well, Charlie, he’s actually not on vacation!” cracked Sarah. “And he has plenty to feel tormented about—murdering those women.”
Charlie threw her an impatient look. “I don’t believe he did it. I just have a feeling. I know he didn’t do it.”
The picture of Danny and Jake working on the glider in the sunlit clearing, surrounded by lush green jungle, faded from the screen. Pierre LeGrande, as if speaking directly to Charlie, intoned, “Our email is running ten to one in favor of Danny Manning’s innocence of the horrific crimes of which he is accused.”
Death Island Page 8