‘You’ll get paid!’ Ethan called back. ‘We both know that your only real mistress is cash!’
Arnie scowled back at him and vanished from sight into the aircraft, which was moored alongside a large jetty and was attracting glances from passers–by both on foot and aboard vessels in the harbor. A Catalina of this vintage was a rare sight anywhere in the world, although Ethan suspected that many of the dents and marks in her hull had been garnered back in the Second World War and hadn’t changed since.
‘Ethan,’ Lopez said politely as she turned to him, ‘you recall what happened last time we got into an airplane?’
‘Yeah,’ Ethan shrugged, ‘we got out fine.’
‘You landed in a tree.’
‘Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Besides, I won’t be flying the plane this time.’
Arnie Hackett stepped out of the Catalina’s side hatch and onto the jetty. His vibrantly colored shirt and khaki shorts made him look something of a cross between a dazed, sunburned tourist and a badly disguised foreign agent. Two days’ worth of stubble and a crazed light in his eye completed the image of the fearlessly insane pilot for hire.
‘Ethan,’ he said as he shook Ethan’s hand, ‘thought we’d seen the last of you in Antarctica.’
‘Like a bad penny I guess.’
Arnie turned to Lopez and folded her into his arms, lifting her off her feet as he hugged her. ‘Still hanging around with this jerk?’
‘Just about,’ Lopez replied with a smile as she returned the embrace.
Arnie set her down and folded his arms. ‘So, what is it this time? No, wait – let me guess: DIA, no questions asked, money’s in my account, nobody can know.’
‘Perfect,’ Ethan replied, ‘shall we go then?’
Arnie raised a hand to stop Ethan. ‘Go where, my good man? Details first or you can damned well swim wherever the hell it is you’re trying to get to.’
Ethan nodded over Arnie’s shoulder at an island barely a few miles away off the coast. ‘Ilhabela.’
Arnie turned and looked at the island, then back at Ethan. ‘You’re pulling my chain. I could swim that far.’
‘The island is well protected by security personnel,’ Lopez explained. ‘They monitor the beaches and keep an eye on all access routes into the interior of the island to prevent anybody from getting too close.’
Arnie frowned. ‘And you think that me landing this great thing alongside the beach is going to sneak you in without being noticed? Wow guys, you intelligence operatives are really on your game these days.’
‘It’s the distraction we want,’ Ethan said. ‘The Catalina gets attention, and while everybody’s looking at you, including those monitoring any cameras set up on the island, we’ll be making our way up the cliffs out of sight.’
Arnie stared at Ethan. ‘You made me fly a couple of thousand nautical miles to give you a lift to an island a dozen miles away, as a diversion?’
‘Nobody knows how to showboat like you, Arnie,’ Ethan said by way of an explanation. ‘Oh, and by the way, we don’t have passports or visas as technically we both died yesterday in an aviation accident in Madagascar.’
Arnie peered at Lopez, who nodded and shrugged. ‘What happened to the plane?’ he asked.
‘It’s seen better days,’ Lopez replied.
‘Come on,’ Ethan said as he walked past Arnie and clambered through the hatch into the Catalina’s interior. ‘The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can get back to Antigua and watch the sunbathers roast.’
Arnie muttered something under his breath as he followed Ethan into the aircraft and lumbered his way toward the cockpit. Lopez boarded after him, and Ethan untied the aft mooring lines before he hauled the boarding hatch closed. The interior smelled of metal, old leather and grease, the accumulated scents of seventy years of continuous operation. Arnie clambered up onto the Catalina’s nose and untied the bow mooring line, hauling it in before he climbed back into the cockpit in time for Ethan to appear.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Arnie muttered as he began strapping in.
‘You have a bad feeling about everything,’ Ethan replied.
‘Where’s the location on the island you’re trying to get to?’
Ethan handed Arnie a satellite photo of the island, a small white cross demarking the spot where the facility was believed to be located.
‘Right about there,’ he said, ‘which means the best place for you to drop us off would be somewhere around here.’
Ethan pointed at the map to a series of cliffs to the south west of the marker.
‘And the small matter of how you’ll be getting out?’ Arnie asked.
Ethan pointed to a low ridge of hills that curved around the southernmost tip of the island, ending in cliffs that soared above the ocean waves.
‘That spot there is a weak point in their defensive line,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s unlikely that they’ll have troubled themselves to install cameras on the cliff face as it would be impossible to mount the cliffs from a boat on the surface, the rollers there are much too rough and dangerous.’
‘But leaping onto a cliff from an airplane sounds fine to you?’
‘We’ll parachute out the hatch and make for the cliff face,’ Ethan explained. ‘The cliffs will shield our jump if you fly low enough, and you’ll pop back into view of the beaches and cameras as though nothing has happened.’
Arnie rubbed his temples with one hand. ‘You’re insane, you know that?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
‘Stay here and get drunk?’
Ethan patted Arnie on the shoulder and made his way back through the airplane as Lopez strapped herself into a seat.
‘We could be dashed against the rocks,’ she complained as Ethan joined her, ‘or washed out to sea.’
‘The wind blows from sea to land during the day,’ Ethan explained, ‘and the greatest turbulence along a cliff will be at the top as that wind is forced up the cliff face and then rolls over in a vortex when it breaks free at the top. We’ll be fine as long as we get a decent foothold on the cliff face. You got the climbing gear?’
Lopez showed him a bag full of lines and metal hooks and braces as Ethan strapped in and the Catalina’s engines burst into life one after the other, the fuselage suddenly alive with noise and vibrations.
‘Then we’re good to go,’ Ethan shouted over the cacophony of roaring cylinders and spinning propellers.
The Catalina turned to face out of the bay and into the wind, the engines roaring as Arnie accelerated the big old airplane and the waves thundered beneath the hull before she lifted off, white vapor billowing from her hull and outriggers as they folded up into place.
Ethan peered out of the large bulbous viewing ports as the bay dropped away from them, Arnie keeping the Catalina low over the waves as they flew out of the bay and toward the hazy looking island crouched low on the ocean horizon. Although the island could be visited by tourists, they were in the off season and there would be few people who would have ventured out so far from the mainland.
The number of yachts and boats dwindled as they flew until there was nothing but the vast expanses of the ocean all around them, a handful of wispy white cumulus clouds reflected on the glassy surface below.
‘We’re coming up on the island,’ Arnie yelled from the cockpit. ‘If you want, I can fly straight at the cliffs when you jump – you’ll stick better that way!’
Ethan grinned tightly and stuck two fingers up at the pilot as he and Lopez unstrapped and made their way across to the Catalina’s side door. Ethan steadied himself and then hauled the door open, a brisk wind buffeting into the aircraft as it descended low over the ocean and the island suddenly swept into view.
The shores were dense jungle, sweeping beaches and a couple of small, crumbled jetties poking out into the crystalline water that rushed by below as Arnie banked the Catalina to the left and followed the shoreline. From the beaches rose cliffs, and as Etha
n watched he saw a series of saw–tooth rocks poking out from the sea near the shore, the perfect marker.
Ethan clipped his cord to a rail line on the fuselage wall, tucked his hands across his chest and prepared himself, Lopez mirroring his actions alongside him.
‘Go, now!’ Arnie yelled.
Ethan took a deep breath and leaped from the Catalina. He tumbled out and the cord yanked his parachute open as he hit the slipstream, the aircraft’s hundred forty knot airspeed opening the chute violently. Ethan was swung high as the chute billowed open with a thunderous crack and he grasped for the control handles as he saw Lopez’s chute blossom open nearby.
The Catalina’s thundering engines faded into the distance to be replaced by the crash of waves on the shoreline below as Ethan turned his parachute toward the cliffs and sought a place to grab hold. The buffeting wind carried him swiftly in, barely fifty feet below the cliff tops, and he swung in toward a broad ledge.
The rock face loomed up and Ethan hauled down on his handles, bringing the parachute almost to a halt before the cliffs. The updrafts hauled him upward for several seconds until the parachute caught on the cliffs and the lift spilled from it as Ethan’s boots touched down on the slim ledge, barely twelve inches deep but running for tens of yards across the cliff face.
Ethan released the handles and grabbed for a climbing pick on his belt, swung it over and slammed it into the rock face as with his other hand he released his parachute. The chute rumbled as the wind carried it away and it spiralled down toward the ocean below.
He saw Lopez clambering onto the same ledge fifty yards away and a little higher, and her own chute spilled away toward the waves crashing into the rocks far below.
Satisfied that she was safe, Ethan grabbed hold of the nearest secure rock, tested it, and then pulled his pick from the rock and swung it higher as he began scaling the cliff while forcing himself not to look down.
***
XXXVI
The dense jungle was a far harsher environment than Ethan could possibly have imagined, even the undergrowth so deeply entwined that progress was almost impossible. Swamps to the left and ahead prevented any passage to the south or west, forcing him to hack his way through the jungle on a north–easterly course in the hopes of intercepting one of the game trails that led toward the facility.
‘Hot enough for you now?’
Lopez was just behind him, her olive skin sheened with sweat, her shirt damp and her thick black hair laced with fallen leaves and pollen. She looked for all the world like a sunburned Lara Croft.
‘I take it back,’ Ethan admitted as he searched for a clearer path through the jungle.
They had scaled the cliffs only minutes before, and immediately found themselves in this harsh and unforgiving jungle. His best estimate at their position suggested they were within about a half mile of Garrett’s facility, but that distance could take hours to cross if they were unable to break free from the deep jungle. Ethan could appreciate now why Garrett had chosen this Godforsaken island to host his facility, one with an interior so totally inhospitable to humankind that only the insane or the desperate would make any attempt to infiltrate it.
‘Only thing we can be sure of,’ Lopez went on, ‘is that nobody knows we’re here yet. They couldn’t have placed any surveillance in here.’
Ethan nodded. ‘Even if they had it wouldn’t be able to see very far. We’ll have to be careful though – if we blunder directly onto a game trail we might be spotted.’
Lopez was about to reply when she hesitated. Ethan caught the tension in her frame and saw the expression on her features, that of a person listening intently. He said nothing as she remained frozen in place for a moment, and then she looked at him.
‘A ship of some kind,’ she said finally, ‘maybe that yacht of Garrett’s.’
Ethan could hear nothing above the hissing of the jungle heat and the incessant whispering of insects crawling in their billions through the undergrowth. Mosquitoes buzzed in dense clouds, the entire chorus deadening all sound to him. Lopez, a few years younger, seemed to possess keener senses that he.
‘Maybe we’re not the only visitors that Garrett’s getting today,’ Ethan suggested as he tried to listen.
Lopez turned her head this way and that. ‘It’s passing us by, heading east around the island. Maybe Majestic Twelve are coming here after all.’
‘If Mitchell’s given them the frights, then maybe this is the safest place for them to be,’ Ethan replied. ‘They’ll think that nobody can get to them here.’
Lopez’s features split into a grin that was almost cruel. ‘Let’s ruin their day then.’
Ethan pushed on through the jungle for another hour before he reached an area of the terrain where the arm–thick creepers and vines began to thin out and he realized that he could see a faint passage through the forest running west to east. He raised a clenched fist to halt Lopez as he surveyed the trail before he reached into his satchel and retrieved a small electronic device that he switched on and aimed at the trail.
The device was designed to detect electromagnetic radiation, a signature of modern electronics. He slowly scanned the forest ahead, ignoring the buzzing insects and the intense heat as he searched for any sign of surveillance equipment within the device’s range.
‘It’s clear,’ he whispered as he slipped the device back into his satchel and they moved forward together onto the trail.
The island was host to many species, but none of them were much larger than a dog. The trail was faint but discernible beneath the dense foliage, and it carved an unerring path to the east through the ancient jungle.
‘Why is it that you think a trail like this will lead us directly to the facility?’ Lopez asked as they walked slowly along the trail, relieved to be free of the denser jungle surrounding them.
Ethan replied quietly, his voice a whisper as they moved.
‘Trash. Wherever you find people you’ll find their rubbish, and scavenging animals will always make a beeline for what we leave behind. Garrett’s facility is legal and doesn’t need to be concealed, so he won’t have to worry about burning waste here. My guess is that it’s compacted and shipped out on a regular basis. Follow a game trail headed east, and we should end up finding the facility.’
‘And all the other trash,’ Lopez replied. ‘Not bad, for an old timer.’
‘Cut it out, I still give you a run for your money on a daily basis.’
‘More of a jog, really.’
‘There’s something up ahead.’
Ethan crouched down in the jungle and noted from hanging leaves that they were downwind of the facility, which could by now only be a few hundred yards away at the most. Something had moved against the deep greenery of the forest, something that to his eye didn’t quite belong there.
Lopez moved alongside him, instinctively detecting his own caution as they crouched together and waited in silence. Ethan had done this many times before during his training with the Marines, waiting out for another person, perhaps a potential target, to get bored first and move, thus exposing their position. Given enough time, any human being would throw caution to the wind unless specifically trained to do otherwise, even if their lives depended upon it. Ethan had shot and killed at least three Taliban insurgents during his time with the Marine Corps as a result of their lack of patience and training to…
Something moved ever so slightly ahead of them in the jungle. Ethan squinted, unable to pick out its lines against the backdrop of the jungle. It was well camouflaged, perfectly almost, the dappled light reaching the jungle floor merging with black and gold fur, and suddenly Ethan’s brain resolved the scene before him and he gasped softly.
The leopard paced silently away from them through the jungle, the fortuitous direction of the wind preventing the predator from detecting their scent and the easier passage on the game trail having silenced their approach.
‘Did I just see that?’ Lopez whispered.
Ethan nodded slo
wly. ‘What’s Garrett doing out here on this island?’
‘More to the point,’ Lopez replied as she looked over her shoulder into the jungle behind them, ‘what the hell else does he have wandering around out here?’
Ethan moved cautiously forward as he replied.
‘It’s no wonder people won’t come to the island. Anybody who did might not have made it back. Whatever he’s hiding out here, it’s not good.’
Ethan slowed as he saw more objects before him in the jungle, and this time he caught a glimpse of what could have been geometric stone, stark in contrast to the elegant sculpturing of nature’s freehand. He slowed again, crouched down as Lopez joined him and they finally got their first look at Garrett’s facility.
The entrance had the appearance of a bunker not dissimilar to the one they had visited in Norway, a large angular concrete entrance protected by large blast doors and a couple of smaller access doors to either side. Surrounding the entire entrance were ranks of razor wire fence, and Ethan could see cameras mounted on posts inside the fences, too far away to be tampered with, as well as ranks of powerful lights that he presumed would illuminate anything detected moving close to the entrance.
A single dirt road led to the security fences, where the double rows were fitted with sliding sections to allow vehicles in and out.
‘No easy way in or out of there,’ Lopez observed. ‘My guess is that’s the only door. Odd that there are no guards, though.’
‘There won’t be a rear section,’ Ethan agreed as he looked at the structure of the entrance building. ‘It looks like it descends downward, so most of what he’s got in there is probably underground.’
‘So, how do we do it?’
Ethan smiled at her casual assumption that, one way or another, they’d find a way in. However he did not have the slightest idea how they could possibly sneak past the cameras, fences, light sensors and whatever else Garrett might have set up to deter intruders. He was only certain of one thing.
The Extinction Code Page 24