Chapter Seventy-One

Isla D’Oro
Sunday, August 29, 2:29 P.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 69 hours, 31 minutes E.S.T.

The chopper from the Ark Royal flew just above the waves and put us down on the far side of the island. We jumped out and faded into the green shadows of the trees until the chopper was far out to sea. We were in full combat rig, with all of the standard equipment plus a few special DMS gizmos. We crouched behind a thick spray of ferns until the jungle settled into stillness. Ambient sounds returned as the birds and bugs shook off their surprise and resumed their perpetual chatter. We waited, ears and eyes open, weapons ready, watching to see if anyone came to investigate.
No one came.
I switched on my PDA and pulled up a satellite image of the island. There was a cluster of buildings on the other side and nothing but dense rain-forest foliage wrapped around a terrain so rough and broken that it looked like an obstacle course designed by a sadist. Gorges, cliffs, broken spikes of old lava rock, ravines, and almost no flatland. All of it sweltering in 102-degree heat and 93 percent humidity. Fun times.
I dialed my radio to the frequency the kid gave us but got nothing but static. Then I tapped my earbud for the TOC channel.
“Cowboy to Dugout, Cowboy to Dugout.”
“Dugout” was the call sign for the TOC. Immediately Church’s voice was in my ear. The fidelity of our equipment was so good it felt like the spooky bastard was right behind me.
“Go for Dugout. Deacon on deck.”
“Down and safe. No signal yet from the Kid.” Not an imaginative call sign for the boy who’d contacted us, but it would do.
“Our friends from abroad wanted me to remind you of their offer of support.”
The Ark Royal and its attendant craft could invade and take a small country, and if we got into a real jam I had no problem calling on them for support.
“Nice to know. Tell them to keep the fires lit, Deacon.”
“Satellite feeds are updated on five-second cycles. Negative on thermal scans. Too much geothermal activity.”
“Copy that. Cowboy out.”
Bunny said, “Wait.. I thought this was a dead volcano.”
“No, I said it hadn’t blown up for a while.”
“Swell.”
We set out, moving in a loose line, mindful of the terrain and wary of booby traps. The rain-forest foliage was incredibly dense, and I could see why it would draw the attention of biologists and whoever wanted to hide from prying eyes. There were hundreds of different kinds of trees and thousands of species of shrubs, and I swear there was a biting bug or stinging insect on every single goddamn leaf. I must have lost half a pound of meat and a quart of blood in the first three miles.
“This is some serious bush,” muttered Bunny. He was the only one of us who hadn’t been jungle trained, and he was streaming with sweat. His entire term of service had been in the Middle East. He was also carrying a lot more mass than Top, who was a lean and hard 170, or me at 210.
I kept my radio tuned to the Kid’s channel, but by the time we were five miles in there was still no answer.
Then suddenly the static changed to a softer hiss and a shaky voice said, “Is this Mr. Deacon?”
“Not exactly, Kid. But I work for him. Who are you?”
“How do I know that you work for him?”
“You don’t, but you dealt the play.”
“Tell me something,” he said.
“You first. Say something to let me know I’m talking to the right person.”
After a moment the Kid said, “Unicorn?”
I muted my mike. “Talk to me, Top.”
He was looking at his scanner. “Definitely originating from the island, Cap’n. Three-point-six klicks from here.” He showed me the compass bearing.
With the mike back on, I said, “Okay, Kid.”
“Now tell me something,” he said. The Kid was a quick study.
“Anyone listening?”
“No.”
“Okay. you sent the hunt video from a cybercafe in São Paolo. Second video was from this island.”
“Um. okay.”
“How do you know Deacon?” I asked.
“I don’t. I just know the name. From an old file I stole a look at. Otto and Alpha really hate that guy, so I figured if they hated him that much then he had to be their enemy.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I suggested.
“Old Arabian saying,” the Kid said without pause. “Though it could be Chinese, too. They say it as ‘it is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand.’ ”
“You know your quotes.”
“I know military history,” the Kid said, and I noted that he changed the phrasing. He didn’t say, “I know my military history,” which would have been the natural comeback. I filed that away for now.
“Where are you?” he asked. “Are you close?”
“Close enough. You got a name, Kid?”
“Eighty-two.”
“What?”
“That’s my name. But Alpha sometimes calls me SAM.”
“SAM’s a name at least.”
“No,” the Kid said, “it’s not. It means something, but I don’t know what. Alpha calls a lot of us ‘SAM.’ ”
“Who’s Alpha?”
“My father, I guess.”
“You’re not sure?”
“No.”
“Is Alpha his first name or last name?”
“It’s just a name. He makes everyone call him that. Or Lord Alpha the Most High. He’s always changing his name.”
“What’s his real name?”
“I don’t know. But he sometimes goes by ‘Cyrus Jakoby.’ I don’t think that’s real, either.”
The name Jakoby rang a faint bell with me, and I signaled Top to confirm that this was all going straight back to Church at the TOC. He gave me a thumbs-up.
“Does Alpha run this place?”
“Him and Otto. But they’re not here right now.”
“Who’s Otto?”
“Otto Wirths is Alpha’s-I don’t know-his manager, I guess. Foreman, whatever. Otto runs all of it for Alpha. The Hive, the Deck. all of it.”
My pulse jumped. Otto Wirths. There had been a reference to a “Herr Wirths” in Mengele’s letter. Could this guy be related? There had to be some connection. We were actually getting somewhere, though I still didn’t know exactly where. Bug kept scanning the woods around us for thermal signatures, and the readings stayed clean.
“How old is this Otto character?”
“I don’t know. Sixty-something.”
Too young to have been at the camps. Son, nephew, whatever.
I glanced at my team. They were all listening in and I saw Bunny mouth the word, Eighty-two.
“Why don’t I just call you Kid for now? A call sign. You know what that is?”
“Yes. That’s okay. I don’t care what people call me.”
“And you’re sure no one else can hear this call?”
“I don’t think so. I made this radio myself. I picked the frequency randomly before I sent that e-mail.”
“Smart,” I said, though in truth anyone with the right kind of scanner could conceivably find the signal. However, they would have to be looking, and in the digital age not as many people scan the radio waves. Even so, I said, “Okay, Kid. Call me Cowboy. No real names from here on out.”
“Okay. Cowboy.”
“Now tell us why we’re here. What’s this all about?”
A beat.
“I already told you-”
“No, Kid, you sent us a video with almost no audible sound. We saw the ‘animal,’ but that’s all we know.”
“Damn!” the Kid said, but he put a lot of meaning in it. “You don’t know about Africa? About Louisiana? About any of it?”
“No, so tell us what you want us to know.”
“There’s not enough time. If you come get me, maybe we can take the hard drives. I’m sure everything’s there. More than the stuff I know about. Maybe all of it.”
“You’re being a bit vague here, Kid. If you want us to help you, then you have to help us out. We know where you’re broadcasting from, but we need some details. Are there guards? If so, how many and how are they armed? Are there guard dogs? Electric fences? Security systems?”
“I. can’t give you all of that from here. I’ll have to sneak into the communications room. I can access the security systems from in there and can watch you on the cameras.”
“Go for it. How long do you need?”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “Once I’m in there I’ll have to lock myself in. They’ll know I’m there. They’ll break in eventually. If you don’t get here by the time they get to me, then I’m dead.”
Kid had a point.
“Terrain’s rough. It’ll take us forty minutes to get to your location safely. How far out are the first cameras?”
“Six hundred yards from the fence.”
Top held out his PDA. He magnified the satellite display of the compound so we could see the thin lines of a double fence.
“Okay, Kid, what’s our best angle of approach? What will keep us safe and give you the most time?”
“I can’t describe it-”
“We’re looking at a satellite image of the compound. Describe a building and I can find it.”
“Oh. Okay, there’s three small buildings together on the top of a hill and a bunch of medium-sized buildings in a kind of zigzag line sloping down toward the main house.”
“Got ’em.”
“That’s all maintenance stuff. Come in on the corner of the fence. The camera sweeps back and forth every ninety-four seconds, with a little twitch when turning back from the left. I think it has a bad bearing. If you wait for it to swing to the left, you should be able to get from the jungle wall to the fence. The camera is angled out, not down.”
“That’s pretty good, Kid. Better get off the line. Contact me again when you’re in place,” I said. “And, Kid. good luck.”
“You, too.” He paused, then added, “Cowboy.”