by Alex Just
~ Island – pacific ~
Her sleep was far too short, serving only to tire her more. She woke up in the dark to the soft lapping of waves on rocks. It took her a moment to realise where she was and what she was doing. It all came back too quickly as she saw Stan walking towards her, shirt around his neck, hair sopping wet. His torso was well muscled and riddled with scars and burns, each one holding the memories of unimaginable pain.
‘You’re awake. Good. OK, you know what you have to do. I’ll come and meet you in the storage buildings and we’ll get the weapons sorted. I’m going now. I’ll set the timer on the bombs to go off after three hours. That gives you and me about four hours by the time I’ve planted them to get everyone out of the prison.’ His words left her feeling worried.
‘What happens if I’m not ready by the time the bombs go off?’
‘Well if that happens, we’re screwed. So be ready.’ He didn’t waste any more time, two of the bombs strapped to his body, the other two in his hands he headed off in the direction of the complex.
Not feeling reassured what so ever, Julia made her way down to the water. It proved a treacherous climb, for the coast here was strewn with large boulders that had sharp edges and were slippery. As she neared the water, sea spray spewed up over the rocks soaking and blinding her, salt stinging her eyes. She had no sense of time; every minute seemed like it was ten and she couldn’t help the panic that began to trickle into her mind. At the water’s edge, she could make out the spotlight directly in front of her, what seemed eternally distant. She was left with no choice, she morphed and leapt off her rock into the dark water, plunging beneath the surface and powering back up.
Immediately she launched into a steady swim, at first it seemed as if the dammed light was never getting any closer no matter how fast she swam but she didn’t let up her pace for a second, knowing the consequences that would await them if she didn’t make it. After what seemed like hours she could see the jetty. She was about two hundred metres away, lights leapt on at the dock area. She froze. That was it, it was all over. She’d been caught. Strangely enough nothing moved in her direction. Instead the lights illuminated a big ship moored to the jetty.
Walking onto the jetty were long lines of soldiers, all of them with duffel bags slung over their shoulders. As she watched they disappeared into the hold of the boat. This continued for a long time and eventually, after at least two hundred men had boarded, a couple of soldiers that remained cast off heavy mooring lines and the large vessel inched away from the jetty. Turning majestically it increased its speed and motored towards the exit of the bay where it was swallowed up by the night. The men disappeared back into the shadows and the lights were snuffed out throwing the world into dark again.
Straight away she felt comfortable again. Counting slowly to a thousand she resumed the last stretch of her swim coming onto land under the jetty. Tall supports spider webbed their way underneath the structure forming a complex wooden mess. Not wasting any time her lemur form dashed across the sandy ground and darted between plants alongside the path which would lead her to the storage edifices. They loomed large and silent in front of her and only one entrance was guarded but, unlike the prison guards, they were alert and constantly scanning the area for any threats. So no way in from here she figured. Although she’d realised that it wouldn’t be that easy it was still frustrating. The next best thing she could find was the drain pipes on the buildings. There were more spotlights this time, every few seconds one would sweep past the buildings revealing everything in a white glare. Stan would be finding it difficult to plant the bombs with this much security. At least she knew which building was the one with the weapons; the guarded one.
Keeping an ear out the entire time for any sound of gunfire or commotion to indicate that Stan had been spotted she flitted around the other side of the building and discovered windows. They were really high up but unbarred and so would provide her with perfect entry. The height was no barrier for her as she bounded up the wall, diving off a drain pipe straight onto the window sill. She was lucky. The windows had no glass; they were just open slits, not big enough for a human to clamber through but big enough for her. Not knowing how much time remained, she slipped inside and found herself on a scaffolding platform surrounded by a sea of boxes.
Changing back, she walked over to the railing and peered into the gloomy expanse of large piles of boxes and crates and on one side of the wall she saw racks of rifles. This was an impressive arsenal with a gigantic selection of all kinds of explosives and guns. On her platform were boxes labelled “fragmentation.” Not knowing what to expect she opened one of them to find it full to the brim with hand grenades. She smiled. She was sure Stan would like these. The next stack had boxes labelled “smoke.” And sure enough the grenades in here were long cylinders. She carried them over to the window and was suddenly stumped. Dropping them might set them off, it would definitely make a noise, attracting the attention of every guard in the area and the hungry stare of the spotlights. In this huge place there must be some rope.
Finding the ladder she clambered down onto the floor of the storage room and began a systematic search of the place for any sign of coiled rope. Just as she was beginning to give up and think of something else she hit the jackpot. Alongside grappling hooks, harnesses and pick axes she found what she was looking for. Coiled up like sleeping snakes was all the rope she’d need. Grabbing two of the coils and curling them around her shoulder she made her way back to the platform by the window and unwound both coils, tying them together. Checking for the lights she flung the extended rope out of the window watching it unfurl lazily and land on the ground. She hauled it back up and attached one end securely to the railing. Returning down to the floor, she quietly made her way to the rifle racks. Each rack held ten rifles. It would take forever to singularly dismantle them. She kept on exploring.
Stumbling upon a small box of handguns, she quickly ferried it up to her small stash. As she returned to her exploration she came across a large shelving structure that had an obvious sign with warning labels depicting explosions. She was about to move on when she stopped and turned around to face the whole thing again a smile on her face. Inside one of the crates were large bricks of some strange plastic-type of material. She had seen this done in movies, you stuck it on a wall or door and lit the fuse and the whole thing blew up. She tipped the crate over and let the bricks spill onto the floor at her feet. She had no idea how long she’d taken so far but decided to risk it. Picking up one of the bricks she discovered bundles of fuse wire.
Quickly she distributed the bricks on all the sides of the shelf, and then the rest she placed inside the crates which contained all sorts of bombs. Returning to the fuses she studied them closely. She’d need more. Opening another crate that’d escaped her attention she found only fuses, really long ones. She spent a good half hour plunging them into all the strange bricks. When it was all finished she had all the fuses combined into one long one which trailed a safe distance away from everything to a corner of the room. She planned to light it and blow the whole thing up. Seeing the explosives had given her an idea about the rifles.
Returning to the racks she inspected the way they’d been attached to the wall. She was glad to see that it was only done by nuts and bolts. She would be able to dismantle them and then lower the whole rack down. Soon she’d removed four racks and added them to her growing pile. As she delivered the fourth one something caught her eye out of the window. It was a quick movement. She moved over slowly to the window and peered out. There it was again. It was Stan. He was crouched in the upper branches of a tree waving to her urgently. He caught sight of her staring and made a gesture with his hands. It was one raised finger. That could only mean one thing. An hour left before they’d all see fireworks. She signalled back at him with thumbs up and gestured for him to get closer to the building. She waved the rope inside the room so he’d understand what she had in mind.
; Seeing it Stan gave a quick nod. He was down the tree so fast she was worried he’d fallen, but then he was sprinting to the wall. Just as he did so a spotlight fired up not five metres from him. He didn’t even look at it, just kept running towards the wall. He reached it and clambered up some of the drain pipe as he waited for the light to pass by underneath. Then he slipped down and looked up at Julia. She was already lowering the first bundle down to him. As soon as it reached his waiting hands he turned and ducked back into the vegetation where he deposited the box, then he returned for the next load and so they continued until only one gun rack remained.
Julia was about to lower it down when she heard the last thing she expected. The sound of boots clunking along the concrete floor of the building. Panic gripped her heart in a vice like hold. Stan saw the rack half hanging out of the window and couldn’t understand why she was hesitating. The same spotlight burst into life as before and began its sweeping journey through the ground on this side of the building. He hurled himself up the drainpipe again and prayed that the spotlight wouldn’t be bright enough to light up the large gun rack dangling out of the window off a rope.
Inside, Julia hunkered down clinging onto the rope for dear life. Petrified, as she watched the sweep of a torch beam slicing through the dusty warehouse. She thanked her lucky stars that she’d hidden all the bolts away so if the guard looked he’d just think it was a plain wall which had never held anything. The fuse! It was in a remote corner of the room yet she imagined that the guard would still check that area. This was enough to shake her out of her frozen terror and start lowering the rack down furiously. The light had passed and Stan was staring up at her impatiently. He picked them off the rope and hid them along with everything else in the bush. Returning again, he glanced up to see Julia flashing him five fingers. He glanced down at a watch on his wrist. Then back up at Julia and signalled ten fingers twice. She nodded and ducked out of sight. She had to hide the fuse. Fear urged her to beat the guard to the fuse. Leaping down the last few rungs of the ladder she landed softly and without pausing skirted around the shelves towards the fuse.
The torch beam cut out of an isle she’d just ducked past. A few seconds later and she would’ve been caught. Adrenaline pumped through her like an angry bull. The footsteps were coming closer and stealthily she put on a burst of extra speed and made it to the tangle of fuses. Gripping the long fuse in one hand she started to climb up the shelf to the middle. Here she hugged a support pole with one arm locked around it and retrieved the fuse. As it slithered along the ground it made a hushed rattle. The footsteps paused. She waited with baited breath.
They resumed again only this time the steps were faster. The noise of the boots covered the remaining slither of the fuse. Safely nestled up in the shelf she dropped down, rolling to absorb the impact and made her way over to the end of the aisle. Just as her foot pulled around the corner the torch beam carved an illuminated path, missing her by centimetres. Not wanting to wait and see if the guard would shine his torch up at the shelf and see all the fuses hanging there she scrabbled to her platform as fast as she could without being noisy. Gripping the rope she tested its hold on the railing and dropped down to Stan. Neither spoke as they hurried to the stash of arms, not wanting to risk being heard. Once there, Julia explained the explosives to Stan. For the first time since she’d met him she saw a genuine smile breach his features.
‘I have no way to light the thing,’ Julia cursed in irritation as she thought about the fuse. ‘I’m such an idiot.’
‘You did well. Don’t worry about lighting it. If there are smoke grenades you’ll find incendiary ones too. Just wrap the fuse around it and pull the pin. Then get out of there as fast as you can. Now we have to get all of this to a place near the prison. Let’s go.’
They had only 40 minutes left before the fireworks began. They spent ten minutes ducking and weaving through the bushes carrying the weapons and dodging spotlights. Stan had thought of the perfect place to hide them, opposite the front entrance, across the road in the jungle. Finally they had all their weapons and ammo in one pile in the right location.
‘I’m going to talk to Tom through the window while you go back and light the fuse. I want everyone to know exactly where the weapons are and how to get them. When you’re done I need you to come back here as quickly as possible. The two guards will hopefully have been taken care of by then’ he said grimly.
‘Have you got, you know, a tactical plan of attack or something?’ Julia asked.
‘More or less. Look go now, quick, you’re wasting time.’
‘There’s something I thought you might want to know. On my way in I saw a lot of soldiers leaving the island on a large ship.’
‘What?’ his tone was sharp and his mind was going into overdrive. ‘That means he’s going to launch his rockets at the satellites tonight.’
‘I think I might know where the entrance to the rocket control area is… when I get back I can show you the way. We need to stop them.’ Then he realised why that one jeep had sped off towards the mountains as he was planting his bombs. They’d gone to prep the rockets.
‘OK, OK, just get back here as quickly as you can. Now GO.’
Glad he hadn’t said he didn’t have a plan out right, Julia sped off. As soon as she was out of his sight she changed into her lemur form and made it back to her waiting rope. She clambered up and onto the platform where she came face to face with the guard.
He gaped at her open mouthed and was about to shout, when without thinking Julia morphed into a human and smashed her fist into his face as hard as she could. The man didn’t stand a chance. He was out cold before he hit the ground. She’d never hit a person before that, and she had to admit, it felt really good. She looked down at the guard with disdain and dragged him over closer to the rope where she tied him up securely. Then she searched around for the incendiary grenades. Finding them she grabbed one and, aware of the clock ticking, she removed the fuse from its hiding place, uncurling it all the way back. She wrapped the last little bit around it and pulled the pin. It popped out with a loud metallic click echoing hollowly in the silence.
She glanced down into the room from the platform, and heard a whoosh as she witnessed flames bursting into life. A bright flare screamed along the ground between the shelves. Looking at the guard tied up and unable to move she felt pity for him but there was nothing she could do. She morphed back into a lemur and leapt out of the window. She’d just reached the bushes when a large trembling shook the earth, followed by an ear-splitting explosion. One side of the building seemed to bulge outwards slowly and fall off completely as flaming debris was flung across the complex. All spotlights immediately zeroed in on the burning building from which more explosions could be heard as gun powder exploded from the flames and heat. She didn’t bother watching, but made straight for the prison complex.
***
44