Escape Read online

  But then she heard Red Hair’s voice. “Chelton! You okay?”

  “I fell in a hole!” came the muffled reply. “A big one. And — hey, there’s something down here!”

  Charla came up a few yards behind Red Hair, who was on his hands and knees searching the jungle floor for the other man. A familiar notch was carved into a palm trunk close to where he knelt. A feeling of deep dread took hold in her gut.

  The smugglers had found the bomb.

  Colonel Dupont stared at Junior, which had been dangling at the end of the defective crane for more than four hours.

  “And that’s the only way to move it?”

  “Ninety-five hundred pounds, Colonel,” re-plied Holliday.

  Lieutenant Bosco, communications officer, ran up. “HQ says the nearest hydraulic is in Tinian. They can get it to us in three days.”

  “Three days!” The colonel regarded the flurry of activity on the runway. There was almost a carnival atmosphere as the men loaded up the plane, looking forward to reunions with wives and families.

  If he gave the order to wait three more days, he’d have a revolution on his hands ….

  The day had started out hopeful for J.J. Lane. It didn’t stay that way.

  His one-of-a-kind sunglasses remained focused on the cloudless sky, now dimming, awaiting the arrival of the plane that would not appear — Charting a New Course, come for Will and, with any luck, the rest of them.

  That had been one flaw in his reasoning — that CNC might try to rescue Will, the sickest, but leave the others to serve out their “sentence” of maturing and learning teamwork and building character —

  And whatever else those professional torturers think we have to do.

  For that reason, he was sticking to Will like glue. It wasn’t exactly hard to do. Will had barely moved all day. He was burning with fever, and J.J. had the feeling the kid wasn’t all there. Oh, he knew when he was hungry, or when he had to set out into the jungle to go to the bathroom. But one time when J.J. was helping Will into the trees, the boy said, “Get out of here, Lyss! I’m going to the can!”

  J.J. was taken aback. “It’s not Lyssa, it’s J.J.”

  Will seemed indignant. “My leg hurts, but I’m not blind,” he muttered.

  “They’re coming to get us today,” J.J. reassured him. “Just hang in there and you’ll be okay.”

  And what was the bleary reply? “I hope Dad takes the tunnel. There’s traffic on the bridge.”

  Two months ago J.J. Lane had been riding down Sunset Boulevard in the passenger seat of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Porsche. Now he was the bathroom monitor on Gilligan’s Island.

  Instantly, he felt guilty for the thought. None of this was Will’s fault.

  J.J. scanned the horizon. Where was CNC? What was taking so long?

  The waiting was hard, but he passed the time by imagining the looks on the others’ faces when they returned to the campsite to see a rescue plane. Especially Haggerty. Luke always acted like he had some special confirmation from God that whatever he did was exactly the right thing.

  A juvenile delinquent from some rusty old mill town who thinks he’s better than me! If CNC comes, I’m going to rub it in Haggerty’s face all the way home.

  If? No, he meant when. CNC was definitely coming. They’d be here soon. Only —

  He checked Ian’s National Geographic Explorer watch — how this cheap piece of junk still worked when J.J.’s Rolex had dropped dead was one of the great mysteries of the planet.

  6:15. Soon it would be too dark to land.

  Maybe they were coming tomorrow.

  But Will’s sick now! For all they know, we’re getting ready to cut him open!

  CNC were jerks, but they wouldn’t let a bunch of kids operate on a real person. It wasn’t just crazy — it was illegal. They could all go to jail for that, couldn’t they?

  It didn’t make sense. The struggle to reason it out felt almost physical — like a wrestling match in J.J.’s head.

  If they knew, then they’d come. Why aren’t they here?

  And finally — the answer …

  Because they don’t know.

  J.J. squeezed his eyes shut as if he could stop his weeping by sealing it inside. But his tears were a flood he couldn’t control any more than he could reverse the explosion of truth in his brain.

  “Quit sniveling, Lyss,” mumbled Will, half asleep on the raft.

  The others had been right all along. Charting a New Course was over. It had gone up in a fireball and sunk to the bottom of the Pacific along with the Phoenix and its unfortunate captain. All this — the island, the smugglers, the bomb — was real!

  No one was watching them. No one was protecting them. They were on their own.

  “No,” he breathed. Weeks of desperation and fear crystallized into a single moment of perfect horror. “No!”

  “Shut up, Lyss. I didn’t hit you that hard,” murmured Will.

  J.J.’s heart was pounding like a pile driver in his chest. He had to go somewhere, do something — to move, to act. Otherwise this terrible feeling would destroy him.

  Voices! He jumped at the unexpected sounds. The others!

  Lyssa took in the stricken look on J.J.’s face. “Is my brother okay?”

  “He’s fine,” J.J. said absently. “You know — for him. How did it go with the suitcase?”

  “Good news and bad news,” groaned Luke. “We got the suitcase delivered. But in the process, the smugglers found the bomb.”

  “You’re kidding!” J.J. exclaimed. “So — what does that mean?”

  “It’s impossible to tell,” Ian reasoned. “We can’t even be sure they know what it is.”

  “They’ll figure it out,” Charla said grimly. “We did.”

  Lyssa looked scared. “Men like that — they’ll do anything for money. Can you imagine what an atomic bomb is worth?”

  “We’re not going to give those guys the chance to find out,” Luke said definitely. “They’ve got their money. They’ll be leaving tomorrow. Tonight’s the night I stow away with the cargo.”

  There was a chilling moment that mingled sheer fright with the acceptance that this was their only path.

  Charla spoke first. “I wish there was some other way.”

  “There isn’t,” said Luke bleakly. “We’ve had almost a month to think about getting off this rock. This is the best we can do.”

  “And we have to do it now if we’re going to help Will,” added Lyssa.

  Ian nodded slowly. All eyes turned to J.J.

  “I agree,” said the actor’s son.

  Luke was surprised. “Really?” They had been expecting him to give them a hard time.

  “But with one change of plan,” J.J. went on. “Haggerty doesn’t go. It should be me.”

  “You?” Luke laughed bitterly. “I thought you wanted to be here on the beach to meet the CNC rescue party.”

  “I was wrong about that,” J.J. said seriously. “I’m not wrong about this.”

  Luke glared at him. “You idiot! This isn’t like extreme snowboarding, where you brag to your Hollywood friends about all your bumps and bruises! It could be a suicide mission!”

  “That’s exactly why I have to go,” J.J. argued. “Look — no offense — you’re nobody. If they catch you in the cargo hold, they’ll blow you away without thinking twice about it.”

  Luke was disgusted. “And they won’t shoot you because your dad’s famous?”

  “Not famous,” said J.J. “Rich! They won’t kill me. They’ll try to ransom me off to my old man.” He flashed a crooked grin. “He might even pay too. He’s got to be feeling pretty guilty about sending me on this trip.”

  “Listen to yourself!” Lyssa exclaimed. “Everything’s a joke to you. How can we trust you to take it seriously?”

  Luke was shocked. “Wait a minute — you’re considering this?”

  “J.J.’s right, you know,” came Ian’s thoughtful voice. “That USA Today the smugglers had — the ar
ticle wasn’t about us; it was mostly about Jonathan Lane’s son.”

  “J.J.’s picture was in that paper,” added Charla. “If the smugglers catch him, there’s a chance they might recognize him.”

  “What good is that if he doesn’t get the job done?” Luke exploded. “This isn’t about who’s in better shape if he gets caught! This is about sneaking away and getting us rescued! This guy’ll be on Space Mountain at Disneyland when he’ll suddenly remember, ‘Oops, I forgot to tell the rescuers about Luke, Charla, Lyssa, Will, and Ian.’ ”

  J.J. bit back an angry retort. “Listen, I don’t blame you if maybe you think I’m a bit of a flake — ”

  “A bit of a flake?” raved Luke. “If you look up ‘flake’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of your ugly face! Don’t forget whose fault it was that the captain got killed!”

  “And who was right there with me when it happened?” J.J. shot back.

  “Someone had to stop you!” Luke raged.

  “And you sure did a great job of it!”

  There was a rustling sound and Will turned over on the raft. “We’re not fighting, Mom,” he mumbled. “Honest.”

  Luke folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not putting my life in your hands,” he said in a lower tone.

  J.J. looked him squarely in the eye. “You think I like it that it has to be me? I’ve spent fourteen years doing things the easy way. That’s my style — coasting. Nothing would thrill me more than hanging out here while you risk your neck. But this has to work, and I’m our best shot.”

  The flashlight beam cast a dim glow over the lagoon where the two floatplanes were beached. The rear of the twin-engine craft bobbed in the shallow water. The other — with a single engine — sat heavy in the sand, fully loaded.

  “That’s the one,” whispered J.J. “Fatso’s plane.”

  Luke grimaced. Now that they were faced with it, the plan seemed totally insane.

  The good-byes back at the camp had been shattering. Charla, Lyssa, and Ian had cried openly. Even Will, drifting in and out of delirium, had picked up on the mood of distress. It was clear that the castaways thought they were sending a friend to his death.

  If it wasn’t so awful, it would be interesting, Luke thought. Had the six gone to the same school, they probably wouldn’t even have noticed one another. Will and Lyssa, the only two who had known each other before CNC, had been lifelong enemies. Yet the terrible and tragic events of the past weeks had bonded the group into a unit so close that to tear one away — even J.J. — left a painful, gaping wound.

  Luke and J.J. crept out of the brush and made their way furtively down the coral slope to the beach.

  The cargo hold was in the underbelly of the single-engine plane. Luke lowered the hatch cover, and they shone the beam inside. There were three large wooden crates that the smugglers used to transport elephant tusks. Smaller squarer boxes contained rhino horns. There were also two refrigerated units whose humming batteries confirmed they were in operation. These held vital organs and other body parts harvested from endangered species.

  J.J. opened one of the ivory crates. Inside, wrapped in soft blankets, were two tusks, each about six feet long.

  “No room,” Luke whispered.

  They moved on to the second crate. The tusks were shorter but fatter, so it was also full. They turned to the third box. Inside were two four-foot tusks, one of them broken.

  “It’ll be tight,” said Luke.

  J.J. shrugged. “Good thing I’ve been on the banana diet for the past month.” He swung a leg into the crate.

  Luke put a hand on J.J.’s shoulder. “It’s not too late, you know. I can still do this.”

  J.J. clambered inside and lay down flat. From the pocket of his fatigues, he pulled out his sunglasses and popped them onto his nose. “How do I look?”

  Any reply stuck fast in Luke’s throat. The truth was that J.J. looked exactly like a dead body in a coffin. Finally, he managed, “You remember the location of the island, right? Our latitude and longitude?”

  “Oh, sure,” J.J. said, grinning. “First you go to Hawaii, then you hang a left — ”

  “J.J. — ” Could this kid ever be serious, even in a moment like this?

  “I remember,” the actor’s son insisted. “I’ll be back soon, okay? Don’t operate on Will.”

  Luke felt himself starting to lose it. “For God’s sake, be careful. Think before you act. There are no do-overs now!”

  J.J. nodded. “You’d better get going.” He helped Luke maneuver the lid into place.

  Luke secured the box. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. “You can breathe, right?”

  J.J.’s voice was muffled. “If you make it home and I don’t, tell my dad I’m sorry I never grew up.”

  As Luke headed back into the jungle on shaky legs, he noted that the kid had it wrong. J.J. had grown up — more in the last few hours than in fourteen years.

  * * *

  Both planes took off at six-thirty that morning. The twin-engine, carrying Red Hair and the money, turned east into the rising sun. The single engine, with Mr. Big, the cargo, and J.J., banked southwest toward Asia.

  Crouched in a finger of jungle that extended out over the beach, a bleary-eyed Luke followed the progress of J.J.’s plane until it had disappeared into the distant haze.

  “Good luck, J.J.,” he whispered aloud.

  At the castaways’ camp, all activity ceased at the first sound of the propellers’ buzz. The fire was smothered, the stills were kicked down and buried in sand, and the raft where Will lay was pushed under cover of the trees. All watched in silence as the aircraft carried their friend and their hopes far away.

  “Lousy lawnmower,” muttered Will. “Can’t ever get any sleep around here.”

  * * *

  Remarkably, J.J. slept away the hours before takeoff — concluding that he was either very cool or very tired. He was not cool, however, when the motor roared to life. He practically jumped out of his skin, smashing his head on the lid of the crate. The noise was unbelievable, and the vibration was making his bones come unglued. It was like front-row seats at a Metallica concert (courtesy of Dad) times a thousand.

  He was aware of the bobbing of the craft as it moved out from the beach. Then a brief but powerful acceleration, and they were airborne.

  It’s really happening, he thought. The train had left the station, and it was too late to get off. He couldn’t escape the impression that his life had changed so completely that he was now somebody he barely knew. It was terrifying, no doubt about it. But he also felt very alive and excited. Whatever happened, he was sure that it was better than rotting away on that island.

  He eased open the lid of the crate and looked around. There were no windows, but some light was sneaking in through the door seal, making it possible to examine his surroundings. He squeezed himself out of the box, keeping low to avoid hitting his head. It was even louder out here, and he could see why. The front of the cargo hold opened into the engine housing. He tried to climb into it, but the heat of the roaring motor drove him back.

  When they came to unload the cargo, he’d better not be here ….

  J.J. had never been good with boredom. In his world, a whole lot of people and money had always been devoted to the entertainment of J.J. Lane. But even a week adrift on the lifeboat and almost a month stranded on the island hadn’t prepared him for this plane trip.

  It was long — hour after hour, cooped up in a cargo hold where he couldn’t even stand. Not a window to look out of. And through it all, a teeth-rattling, never-ending roar that drowned out all thought.

  Where were they going? Mars?

  Wherever it is, let’s just get there.

  Then he felt it — the beginnings of descent. A wild panic knifed through him. They’d be on the ground soon. And then what?

  The turmoil in his head threatened to tear him in two, a wrestling match between a craving for excitement and a dark voice repeating, You could be dead so
on.

  It was a smooth landing, but to J.J. it was jarring and unexpected. As they taxied, jouncing along a bumpy runway, he silently went over the details of his plan. It would work. It had to. His life depended on it — his and the lives of Will and the others.

  The plane came to a halt, and the engine shut down. The sudden absence of all that noise was like falling off the edge of the earth.

  There were voices outside and the slamming of a door. The time was now.

  Taking a deep breath, J.J. rolled over to the engine opening, clamped his hands on a metal bar, and hoisted himself inside. It was still painfully hot, but bearable now that the motor was off. His elbow brushed against the engine block, and a searing pain caused him to snatch his arm back. There, on the sleeve of his fatigues, was a small brown scorch mark.

  The curse was halfway out of his mouth when he heard someone fumbling with the catch of the cargo bay. Scrambling with his heels, he backed into a corner and tried to be very, very small.

  Light flooded the hold. One by one, the crates were hauled out by men speaking a language that could have been almost anything. Then a voice with an English accent: “Yeah, we had a spot of misery on that ruddy island. Don’t even ask why. Got a mosquito bite for every minute I spent there.”

  J.J. huddled in the shadows, hardly daring to breathe. And then it was over. The plane was unloaded; the voices grew more distant.

  He felt a great surge of relief and triumph. He’d pulled it off! Now all he had to do was lie low until the men went home. Then he could sneak out and find the nearest policeman.

  Suddenly, without warning, the engine roared to life again. A blast of heat hit J.J. in the face, and he lost his grip on the bar. He dropped like a stone to the floor of the empty cargo bay.

  Frantically, he looked out the open hatch. The plane was swinging around to park inside a large aircraft hangar. It was like being on display on a rotating dessert rack at a diner. There was no place to hide.

  The element of surprise was his only weapon. He had to make a break for it.