Meanwhile, the earth tremors were coming more frequently and I’d never seen the clouds above the island glow like this before. It was becoming more urgent that we release the prisoners under the mountain. If the volcano blew, it might set off the ammunition as well. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Finally it was time to go. Keeping our lights as hidden as we could, we made our way down to the desolate cemetery. I couldn’t help shivering even though the tropical night was warm. ‘Up here,’ I hissed. ‘This is where Ferdinand Longreach is buried.’
Sophie, Zak, Ariel and I clustered around the grave, which was set almost at the edge of the cemetery. All I could see was the mess I’d made earlier two days before, vines and weeds ripped aside. ‘Let’s fan out,’ I said, ‘and see if we can find anyone called Chase nearby.’
We searched and searched. The time ticked long past 2300 hours and I despaired. I’d wasted all this time when I should have been getting into Damien’s office and searching there for the keys that I needed, not stumbling around in the middle of the night in some old graveyard.
‘Anyone found someone called Chase yet?’ I called out in a low voice. Nobody had.
‘We’ve looked at every headstone,’ said Sophie. ‘There’s no-one called Chase.’
Dejected, I went to take one more look at Ferdinand Longreach’s tomb just in case I’d missed something. I knew it was useless and even worse, I tripped and stumbled, badly grazing my shin against a stone. I swore and shone the light onto the cause of my injury. It was a curved stone in the ground on the other side of Ferdinand Longreach’s grave. It was an old headstone that had sunken into the earth, probably due to a century or more of earth tremors. I could just make out a name: Marcus somebody. I rubbed soil away from the name and there it was—Marcus Chase. Excitement thrilled through my veins.
‘Hey, look!’ The others surrounded me while I got to my feet, shining more light onto the cleaned up sunken headstone. ‘A Long reach after dark that will help you Chase your mark!’ Ariel quoted.
‘In between the resting place, part one stares you in the face!’ I finished the second line for her. ‘In between,’ I muttered, as I started pulling vines and weeds away from between the two graves. I didn’t have to dig very deep. A small, plastic-wrapped package lay on the ground. ‘There’s the answer to part one of the riddle,’ I said, grabbing the small package. ‘Not exactly staring me in the face, but here it is!’
Hastily, I unwrapped it. Two keys lay in the package—one an old iron key, the other a more modern style.
‘This one looks like it came out of the Ark,’ said Ariel, picking up the iron key.
‘No prizes for guessing that it opens the underground door that we think the prisoners are behind,’ I said. ‘And this one looks like the modern lock on the bunker cell that holds the unknown prisoner.’ My strength was returning after the deep disappointment I’d felt just a moment ago.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘we’re going to rescue some prisoners!’
DAY 60
31 days to go…
Shadow Island Resort
8:15 am
While the others were still asleep, exhausted from our late night adventure, I crept out of our hiding place and climbed a little higher through the jungle. Down at the resort compound, I could hear Hamish’s voice ringing over the loudspeakers, the sound carrying through the rainforest. ‘Make sure you have all your belongings. We need everyone ready to leave by two o’clock before the bad weather comes in later this evening. The evacuation must be done in an orderly fashion. Please join the others at the beach site to await the arrival of the ferry which will take you to the mainland.’
I got the picture very fast. The evacuation of Shadow Island was about to start! The Paradise People were packing up and leaving.
As if to provide more emphasis, the ground shook beneath my feet. I grabbed at some bushy undergrowth to save myself from falling, very nearly grabbing a handful of Gympie Gympie leaves. The pain in my right palm from the stinging modbot had eased considerably. I didn’t want to injure myself again. I would need all my strength in the rescue mission to get the stranger off the rocky outcrop and the prisoners out of their underground dungeon. Was Damien going to just leave them there? I wondered where he was and why he was leaving the evacuation to his second-in-command.
‘Please remain calm, everyone,’ came Hamish’s voice again, as a small tremor shuddered through the ground. ‘The evacuation is just a temporary safety measure whilst the volcano is a little unstable. We have plenty of time to get everyone off, no-one will be left behind.’
‘They’re planning to evacuate Shadow Island today,’ I said to the others on my return. ‘Hamish is organising it. We’ve got to move fast. Zak, come with me now. We’ll take the smaller key and go out to the outcrop. Sophie, Ariel—take the other key and go to where you think the prisoners are being held. We’ll meet back at the cave. We’ll have to use the raft and the motorboat to get everyone away.’ I thought of the submersible, sleek and fast. If only we could get away on that!
I was very concerned that I’d missed my chance to speak to SI-6 and BB the night before. Sophie, as if reading my thoughts, sidled up beside me and whispered, ‘Cal, I’m worried.’
I reminded her of what Paddy had said, that D’Merrick would be arriving to help us with an extra inflatable boat. ‘Apparently, your dad has been very preoccupied with trying to track down a mole in SI-6. Someone who’s been leaking secret information.’
Sophie frowned. ‘Even something like that wouldn’t make him forget me—forget about us, Cal. Something’s definitely wrong.’
9:03 am
After a hurried breakfast, Zak and I headed back down the coast, leaving the girls to make their way to the iron door deep underground. Zipping the key securely in my jacket, I came through the last of the undergrowth to the beach with Zak close behind me. We crawled as quickly as we could along the rocky shore to the mooring cavern. Inside the cavern, I crouched low, heading for the motorboat. We needed to borrow the oars again. I grabbed them from the rocking boat and hurried back to Zak, who was keeping watch at the cave entrance.
Back on the beach, we were relieved to find the raft just where we’d left it, firmly wedged between two sharp volcanic rocks. We had to kick and push it until at last we were able to move it into the water.
The sea, as if troubled by the upheaval in the ground under the volcano, surged and crashed around us. Grabbing an oar each, and narrowly missing being smashed on a jagged ridge of rock, we finally got the raft safely away from the turbulence and onto the calmer waters of the open ocean.
Delta 11
10:46 am
Fifteen minutes of hard rowing and we were pulling the raft up onto the stony shores of Delta 11 once more. We heaved the raft up well away from the water’s edge and secured it firmly. I shuddered to think what would happen if we lost the raft. I doubted if Damien would come back to save us. I pushed these dark thoughts away as Zak and I headed for the squat cement bunker a little distance from the shore.
‘Hey! We’ve come to get you! I promised you we’d be back. We’re going to free you!’ For a moment I thought there was no-one there—or worse, that he’d died waiting for us.
And then a voice, weak at first, but getting stronger, called out. ‘Is that you, Cal?’
‘Yes. And Zak. We’re going to get you out of there. We’ve got the key!’
I ran to the door and pulled out the small key. I pushed it into the keyhole. I turned it. Nothing.
A second try. And a third. Nothing happened.
‘Are you there, Cal?’ asked the prisoner, anxiously. ‘What’s happening?’
‘It’s the key,’ I said. ‘It seems to be a bit stiff or something.’
I was starting to feel a bit panicky. What if the riddler was a joker and this key had nothing to do with this lock?
‘Let me have a go,’ urged Zak, grabbing the key from my hand. Again, he inserted the key in to the small dark hole a
nd twisted it. Magically, I heard it click and the key turned. Zak and I grinned at each other. We could scarcely believe it.
We pushed the heavy door and it opened wide. The bearded prisoner, who had been at the barred window, swung around, his wild eyes shining.
The small cement room had a narrow bed, a chair, a desk with an old kerosene lamp sitting on it, and in one corner, a ragged curtain that only partly hid an old toilet and a tap in the wall.
‘I can’t believe it!’ he cried, coming towards us, arms stretched out. ‘You came back! You opened the door!’
The three of us stood there in stunned silence for a moment. I could feel a big smile trying to break out on my face, but at the same time, there was a catch in my throat as if I was going to start crying.
The man was tall and lean, and I guess once he would have been a big man and a whole lot heavier. He was too thin but his eyes now sparkled with life and hope.
‘I said I would come back and get you out of here,’ I told him as he eagerly grasped my outstretched hand with both of his.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who I am but right this minute, I don’t really care!’
‘Come on, sir,’ said Zak, ‘we’ve all got to go right now. We’ve got a boat coming for us from the mainland…’
I couldn’t get over how different he was now. The man I’d spoken to through the bars in his cell had been despairing and lost. This man, although hollowed out by his imprisonment and lack of sunshine, was a changed person, alive and full of hope.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘They’re starting the evacuation of Shadow Island. Everyone will be leaving today.’
The man stopped to gather up a well-used notebook and unhook a very old-fashioned oilskin raincoat from the wall. ‘That’s all I own in the world. I’m ready.’
The prisoner walked steadily with us back to the boat, and I noticed his sinewy leg muscles. He helped us pull the raft down to the stony shore and it was obvious that he’d been exercising and built himself up since we’d last come. He even wanted to take over the rowing. Zak gave him his oar and he began to row with me.
‘You’ve no idea,’ he said, in his still-rusty voice, ‘how marvellous it feels to be out on the open ocean, with my strength returning, rowing away from that terrible place forever.’
I hoped that that his memory might return to him soon, too. We needed to know who he was and why he’d been marooned on that desolate outcrop. As we skimmed across the open sea towards Shadow Island, I asked, ‘Have you remembered anything yet?’
Without pausing in his rowing, the prisoner shook his head. ‘It’s all a jumble in my mind. I remember a man—but I don’t know if it was me or him.’
He wasn’t making much sense to me. As we approached the rocky shore of Shadow Island I tried another tack. ‘Does the name Damien Thoroughgood mean anything to you?’
The rowing halted and the prisoner leaned forward, his face alert and troubled. His eyebrows knit together in a puzzled frown.
‘Thoroughgood. Did you say Damien?’
I nodded. Zak said, ‘He runs Shadow Island—the Paradise People Resort.’
‘Thoroughgood,’ the man muttered, picking up the oars again. ‘Damien Thoroughgood,’ he repeated. ‘Close, very close. Something very like that is true.’
I waited but he said no more. ‘Close to what?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean? What’s true?’
The man shook his head. ‘Sometimes I think I’m dreaming. Landsighting—could that be a dream? I have dreams. But this is real, isn’t it? It feels real.’
‘You bet it is,’ I said, ‘and so are those rocks!’ I steered away from them as strongly as I could, but the waves surged suddenly and it was a battle to edge the width of the raft safely through the craggy sentinels.
Finally, we dragged it out of the surging sea, securing it well out of the water and roping it to the thick trunk of a rainforest tree. I didn’t think there was much chance of anyone searching today, it’d be safe there.
‘OK,’ I said to my companions. ‘Zak, you look after—’ I stopped. ‘We’ve got to give you a name,’ I said to the prisoner. ‘I can’t keep referring to you as “the prisoner”. You’re a free man now. As free as you can be on Shadow Island. But soon we’ll have you back on the mainland where you can get the right sort of medical treatment that will help you bring your memory back again.’
‘I’m a free man. Freeman,’ he said. ‘That’s a good name. Call me Dr Freeman. Once I was a doctor, I know that much. Not a medical man. But I was a doctor. I can remember my graduation day. I think.’
‘That’s a start,’ I decided. ‘I’ll go ahead and make sure it’s safe. Zak, you follow me with Dr Freeman—just in case.’
Just in case, I thought, his newly recovered strength fails him. After all, he’d just been liberated and goodness knows how long he’d been cooped up on Delta 11. It wouldn’t surprise me if it all got too much for him. But so far so good, I thought as I looked back at the two of them making their way along together some distance behind me.
I could still hear the distorted broadcast from the other side of the island—just the occasional word. It sounded like the evacuation was gearing up, with Hamish giving further orders to the Paradise People. Good, I thought. That means he won’t be coming after me and my friends just now. I was desperately keen to find out how the girls had gone with the other key. The fate of the prisoners depended on us. Once we had everyone together—Dr Freeman, the rescued prisoners, my gang of Ryan, Sophie, Ariel and Zak—we’d be ready to finally get off Shadow Island. D’Merrick’s inflatable, together with our raft, and possibly the motorboat if we could steal it, would be our little convoy to safety. The Shadow Island mission would be over.
Shadow Island Jungle
1:04 pm
I was winding my way along a natural track made by a dried-up waterway, which was always quicker than trying to force my way through the jungle undergrowth. The climb around to the big cave was difficult enough without making it harder for Dr Freeman and I hoped this would be an easier path for him to follow.
I could hear the others behind me when I took a step and then—whoosh! Something grabbed my right ankle and I was flung way up into the air! What the…?
There was a bone-shaking jerk and I plummeted towards the ground again!
I yelled in terror as the ground rushed towards me. But astonishingly, my head didn’t slam into the earth. Instead, I was jerked back up with a sickening jolt, like coming to the end of a bungy jump. I ended upside down, swinging, caught by one leg, kicking and screaming! I’d been trapped in some snare like a jungle animal. I dangled, thinking of Zak and Dr Freeman, wondering if they would come to help me, or if they’d stay back, fearful of also being caught.
‘OK,’ said a girl’s voice from the nearby undergrowth. ‘You can stay there until you tell me exactly who you are and what you’re doing creeping around in the jungle.’
‘Let me down!’ I yelled. ‘I’m getting dizzy. Cut me loose.’
‘No, you’ll run away,’ she said.
‘I’m already running away,’ I said. ‘Where would I run to now? Who are you? Why are you doing this?’ I hoped to keep her talking long enough for Zak and Dr Freeman to creep up behind this girl who’d trapped me.
‘No,’ she demanded. ‘You first. You tell me who you are and what you think you’re doing.’
She had me. If I wanted to get down, I’d have to agree. The blood was pounding in my head as I hung upside down, painfully caught by my ankle while my other leg feebly waved around. There was nothing I could do except cooperate. Up to a point. ‘OK, OK. My name is Cal. I’ve been living in the jungle for a few weeks because I wasn’t happy here and I wanted to have some time to myself.’ As the girl glared at me, stony-faced, I knew I needed to be more persuasive. ‘I’m a bit suspicious about Damien,’ I added, ‘and worried about others who could still be on the island. If the volcano blows, they might get hurt. Please cut me down!’
‘Listen very carefully. I’m going to cut you down from the snare, which means you’re going to fall. It’s not very far. But you’ve gotta stay down on the ground until I work out what to do with you. Agreed?’
What else could I do but agree? Moments later, I felt a jerk on the narrow rope that had hoisted me up in the air and then suddenly I was free, dropping to the ground, throwing my arms out to break my fall. As soon as I hit the ground, I rolled over—but I stayed down, crouching, ready to spring away if I had to.
The girl was about Sophie’s age, frowning down at me with hard, brown eyes. She looked extremely tough in her khaki shirt, with her black hair pulled back from her pointed face. On her hip was a leather belt and holster, empty now of the knife which she still pointed at me. She gave the impression of being highly trained and athletic. Just under the rolled-up sleeve of her left arm was the Z-shaped tattoo and the small straight scar.
‘You’re one of the Zenith team,’ I said, more as a statement than a question.
‘Yes,’ she said, holstering the knife to my great relief. ‘I’m Georgia Montgomery.’
‘Spidergirl?’
‘How do you know that?’ Her brown eyes frowned with curiosity.
‘I saw you. Inside the mountain training arena. I saw you scaling the walls. Someone mentioned your nickname.’
‘I don’t understand. How could you see me? I didn’t see you.’
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