Escape Read online

Crawling on all fours, he scrambled to the edge of the hold and prepared to jump.

  Do it! he urged himself. Don’t wait till they see you!

  When he hit the floor of the hangar, he was already running. First he made for the cover of a pile of tires. But excited shouts told him he’d been spotted. He shifted direction for the hangar doors, yelling, “Cop! Cop!”

  Heart sinking, he took in his surroundings. Dense jungle flanked the single runway. This was not a busy airport, but a private landing strip. Which meant there were no police around — only enemies. He was alone and badly outnumbered.

  J.J. was fast, and the electricity of the moment made him even faster. He gave no thought to where he was or where he might go. All his concentration was on escape.

  The jeep came out of nowhere, slicing across the doorway to cut off his exit. J.J. tried to put on the brakes, but he was running too hard. His knees hit metal, and he bounced back, looking around desperately for a clear field.

  There! To the left!

  But just as he sidestepped the jeep, a beefy arm grabbed him around the neck.

  The race was over.

  * * *

  On the same day that J.J. left on the smugglers’ plane, Will Greenfield failed to wake up.

  Lyssa was frantic. She had spent the entire day trying to snap her brother out of his stupor. She used everything from bitter-melon tea dribbled between his lips to pots of seawater splashed in his face. She slapped, pinched, and shook him, but with no result.

  “Is he in a coma?” she asked fearfully.

  Ian just looked bewildered. He loosened the bandage on Will’s leg and lifted it. The wound was an angry red, with threatening lines of lighter red emanating from the center like a sunburst. The skin around it was hot to the touch.

  “He needs a doctor,” said Ian, stating a fact that everyone had known for some time.

  There was almost a click as the castaways made the same connection: a doctor — rescue — J.J.

  “J.J.’s got to be where he’s going by now,” decided Luke. “If Will’s going to get his doctor, we’ll know in the next couple of days.”

  “What if no one comes?” put in Charla.

  Luke took a deep breath. “Well, then we’ll know that J.J.’s — that he didn’t make it.”

  “If that happens, we’ll have to operate,” said Ian. “It’ll be Will’s only chance.”

  Luke went gray in the face. “Before he left, J.J. made me promise we wouldn’t do it.”

  “Let’s pick a deadline,” Lyssa said bravely. “If we don’t hear anything by that time, we’ve got to figure that J.J.’s — not coming. And we do our best to get the bullet out.”

  “I wouldn’t wait too long,” Ian advised nervously.

  Luke thought it over. “Let’s give J.J. a few hours to escape and find help. Then they have to put together a rescue team and come back here to find us.” He did a rapid calculation. “Not tomorrow, but the morning after that.”

  He looked around the circle of faces. Everybody nodded in agreement.

  On his broken piece of raft, Will slumbered on.

  On the island of Taiwan, off mainland China, a small private airstrip was the final destination for the smugglers’ cargo of illegal animal parts.

  In an empty storeroom in back of the hangar, J.J. found himself in a rickety bridge chair, opposite none other than Mr. Big himself.

  The fat man had neither the time nor the desire to be pleasant. “What were you doing on that island?”

  “My boat sank,” J.J. replied earnestly.

  Mr. Big reached out and delivered an open-handed slap right across J.J.’s mouth. “The truth, right now.”

  “Honest!” exclaimed J.J., tasting blood from a cut lip. “I was shipwrecked! I only stowed away with you guys to get out of there.”

  English Accent stepped forward. “Boss, you don’t think he could be off that kids’ boat trip that went down?”

  “That was a month ago,” said the fat man in the soiled green suit. “There’s no way any of those kids could have survived for so long.”

  “It’s amazing what you can pick up from the Discovery Channel,” said J.J.

  Another slap. This one hurt.

  “How can I make you believe me?” J.J. exclaimed. “We left Guam on the Phoenix on July eleventh! Captain Cascadden was the skipper, and the mate was a guy named Radford. The Phoenix sank. I was in the lifeboat for a week, and I’ve been eating bananas and fending off lizards ever since.”

  Mr. Big considered this. His piggy eyes got even smaller. “And your fellow survivors?”

  J.J. shook his head. “I was the only one who made it. All the others went down with the ship.”

  The fat man nodded to English Accent. “Naslund.”

  Naslund grabbed J.J.’s arm, forced it behind his back, and yanked it high.

  J.J. gasped. The pain was unbearable. He had taken his share of cuts and bruises in his life, but this was different. This pain was being applied by a professional, who knew exactly what to twist and how hard to twist it. It was cold and calculated, like a chess move.

  “Come on, boy,” Naslund urged. “I don’t want to snap your arm. Just tell us who else is on the island.”

  J.J. fought to reason through the pain. It was something the castaways had never considered in coming up with this plan. They had always known J.J. would be at risk if he got caught, but this scenario had not occurred to them — that he might betray the others, and the smugglers would go back to the island and kill them all.

  “I was alone!” J.J. grunted.

  A quick twist, and the agony was double.

  “You’re breaking my arm!”

  “Who was with you on the island?” insisted Mr. Big.

  J.J. thought of the others. In that instant, he knew that his friends were worth a broken arm. “Nobody!” he gasped.

  Another yank. The jolt cranked up the level of pain higher than he could have imagined. Black inkblots began to stain the edge of his vision. He was going to pass out.

  And then it was over. Naslund released him and he dropped to the floor, sucking air.

  He heard the squeak of a chair as Mr. Big stood up. “Clean up afterward,” he instructed his employee.

  “After what?” From the corner of his eye, J.J. saw Naslund pull a small handgun out of his belt. It was like living a scene straight out of one of his father’s movies. It didn’t seem real. But it was happening right now! This stupid boat trip was costing him his life! He was going to die!

  Die. The word echoed in his head like the tolling of a bell. It was unthinkable! Bad things happened — bad luck — lousy days. But not this!

  He was so shocked and panic-stricken that he almost forgot his trump card.

  “Wait!” he screamed into the gun barrel. “You can’t kill me! I’m worth money! Big money! My father is Jonathan Lane!”

  The two smugglers exchanged a look.

  “It could be true, boss,” said Naslund. “The news said Lane’s kid was on that boat.”

  The gun disappeared from J.J.’s line of vision. He allowed himself to breathe again.

  * * *

  That storeroom became J.J.’s prison cell, where he was held under constant watch. His guards were two Asian men who stayed with him in four-hour shifts. They didn’t speak English, or perhaps they just had nothing to say to him, because he never got a word out of either of them. Privately, he nicknamed them “Mean” and “Meaner.”

  Mean was the thief. He patted J.J. down for valuables and seemed really annoyed when all he got was the designer sunglasses. Meaner was the music lover. He brought along a tinny portable radio, and spent his shifts leaning against the door, listening to a country-and-western station. In between songs by George Strait and Shania Twain, an excited DJ emitted a flood of what sounded like Chinese, addressing his listeners as “pardner.”

  His meals were fast-food packs of odd-tasting instant noodles that came with plastic chopsticks. He had thrown up from his first hel
ping. After the island diet — mostly fruit and taro — the food seemed so rich and heavy that it lay in his stomach like a shotput.

  Mean and Meaner found nothing more hilarious than watching him trying to shovel and slurp his dinner. Finally, Naslund took pity on him and conducted a crash course on eating with chopsticks.

  J.J. was absurdly glad to see the Englishman. The hours and hours of not knowing what was going on were even harder than the number Naslund had done on J.J.’s arm.

  “Did you talk to my dad?” he asked anxiously. “He’s going to pay, right?”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” was the reply. “We’ve got to prove you’re alive first.” He slapped a copy of USA Today into J.J.’s hands. “Hold this up. And watch the birdie.” He raised a Polaroid camera.

  “What’s the newspaper for?” asked J.J.

  “Don’t block the headline,” ordered the smuggler. “You have to be able to tell it’s today.”

  Click. A whirring noise produced the picture, which began to develop.

  “You’re going to mail it? I’ll be stuck here forever!”

  Naslund shook his head. “We’ve got a friend who’s a whiz with computers. The way he e-mails, it’s like it just pops out of thin air, totally untraceable.”

  “Dad’ll pay up,” J.J. mumbled, mostly to himself. “He has to. He won’t let me die.”

  Naslund chuckled. “You’re a valuable little piece of merchandise, you know that? You might even fetch a better price than that atom bomb.”

  “You’ll never sell that bomb,” J.J. blurted without thinking. “You couldn’t get it off the island. It weighs a million tons!”

  Naslund raised both bushy eyebrows. “So you know about that, do you? Not as sweet and innocent as you’d like us to believe.”

  J.J. reddened and said nothing.

  “Funny thing about that bomb,” the Englishman went on cheerfully. “It’s not the shell that’s valuable; it’s what’s inside. I don’t know how to take that stuff out — but I’ll bet we can find somebody who does.”

  By the time he strolled out of the storeroom, J.J. was almost happy to be left with the country music stylings of Meaner.

  Luke stood at the water’s edge watching the sky lighten as dawn broke. No plane, no boat, no helicopter — no J.J. Time had run out on the boy from California.

  He felt a twinge of guilt for all the times he and J.J. had locked horns. True, the kid was a flake. But a lot of Luke’s resentment had been envy. With Jonathan Lane’s money and connections, Luke would have been acquitted with an apology, not shipped off on Charting a New Course.

  He studied the sand at his feet. There was no reason to be jealous of J.J. now. The poor guy was probably dead.

  A light touch on his elbow. Luke jumped.

  Charla stood beside him, her eyes huge. “Ian’s getting the stuff together.”

  Luke didn’t move. “I can’t shake the feeling that if I stand here longer, I’ll think of something we missed — something that means we don’t have to do this.”

  Soon the instruments were boiling in a pot, and the bandages were rolled and ready.

  Ian presented himself, paper-white. Lyssa was already crying silently. She sat cross-legged beside her unconscious brother, cradling his limp hand in both of hers. The beach was their operating theater; the sun provided their work light.

  First came a shot of fifty-six-year-old Novocain. Even though Will was unconscious, Ian had heard that the trauma of the operation could jolt him awake. That was unthinkable.

  They waited. Five minutes passed to allow the freezing to take effect.

  “Will that stuff even work after so long?” asked Lyssa in a whisper.

  Ian could not answer. It was just more evidence of how little they knew about what they were doing. In any other situation, they would be arrested and locked up for trying this on a living creature. How had things ever gotten to the point where this butchery was the only choice?

  And then it was time.

  Charla held out the tray of sterilized instruments. Ian reached for the scalpel, but couldn’t make his fingers work. His hand started to shake, and when Luke looked at him, he realized that it was the younger boy’s whole body that was trembling.

  Gently, he moved Ian aside. “I’ll do it.”

  When the sharp blade pierced the skin, Luke was amazed at how easy it was. It reminded him of slicing into an orange with an Exacto knife from art class. He looked anxiously at Will, expecting him to jump up screaming. But the patient slumbered on. He cut a neat slit about one inch long right through the center of the bullet hole. For a second he could see the thin red line. Then the blood oozed and spilled over.

  He fought through a moment of light-headedness and scolded himself inwardly. What did he expect — chocolate milk? Of course there was blood.

  Charla did her best to clean off the incision with a sterilized cloth ripped from fifty-six-year-old toweling.

  Luke put the scalpel back on the tray and picked up a pair of surgical tweezers. Grimacing in deep concentration, he inserted the instrument into the slit and began to probe around for the bullet. More blood. And resistance too. Since the tweezers couldn’t cut, moving it around was difficult.

  Panic bubbled up inside Luke. This was crazy! He couldn’t do this! They were nuts even to consider it! He pulled out the probe and dropped it onto the tray.

  “It’s no good,” he managed to rasp. “I don’t feel anything!”

  “We can’t stop now!” sobbed Lyssa.

  “I’m hurting him!” Luke insisted hoarsely. “I don’t know what I’m doing in there! I might as well be using a pickax!”

  Ian spoke up in a shaky voice. “I saw a show once where the doctors made a second cut across the first one. Like an X.”

  And because Ian’s TV knowledge had never failed them, Luke picked up the scalpel and tried again. There was a lot more blood this time, enough to scent the humid air. Charla gagged, but kept on mopping.

  Luke felt the difference immediately. The second incision had opened the wound further, and the tweezers moved easily through the torn flesh. Then suddenly he felt it — something small and hard.

  “It’s here!” he breathed. He began to probe more delicately, attempting to maneuver the tweezers around the bullet. Sweat poured off his forehead, stinging his eyes. Time and time again he felt the tines close over the slug only to slide off its awkward shape. A terrible frustration gripped his gut, magnified by the knowledge that every minute this went on could be damaging Will even more.

  He was wallowing in blood now. There was far too much for Charla to sponge away. But Luke didn’t need to see. He had that bullet, knew exactly where it was.

  A wave of nausea washed over him. Don’t stop, he exhorted himself. You just have to find the right angle! A little luck and a little wrist action and —

  “Gotcha!” The tweezers held the slug fast. Without even daring to breathe, he drew the bullet straight up and straight out. It was maddeningly slow, but he couldn’t risk losing his grip. At long last, the tweezers came free. And there was the slug — ugly, misshapen, gory, but out.

  Ian opened one of the old bottles from the dispensary and poured alcohol into the wound. Then another fifty-plus-year-old antiseptic — iodine — painted a bright orange spot on Will’s thigh.

  Luke’s hands, surprisingly steady now, fit together the edges of the incisions and applied pressure. Last came a piece of modern medicine — an adhesive steri-patch from the first-aid kit off the lifeboat. It stuck like a second skin, holding the cut flesh together.

  At last, Luke leaned back. They had done all they could do. The rest was up to Will.

  It was only when Luke got to his feet that he noticed his jaw ached from clenching his teeth. His head was pounding. He took three shaky steps and passed out cold, face-first in the sand.

  J.J. sat on the floor of the storeroom, leaning on one knee. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away, back on the island. It was a dumb thing
to do, but he found himself trying to conjure up a vision of the other five castaways, almost as if thinking hard would patch him into their frequency and give him an update. What were they doing? Was Will all right? What did they figure had happened to J.J.?

  Well, that was an easy one, he reminded himself. He hadn’t sent help, so they assumed he was dead. He and Haggerty had talked about that — rescue would come quickly or not at all.

  Hang in there, he tried to urge the others over all that distance. As soon as Dad coughs up the ransom, I’ll send the cavalry for you.

  What a disaster this mission had turned out to be. In his mind he’d always pictured himself either free or dead. Not locked in a bare room for days, with worry and boredom intermingling in him to form a lethal cocktail of — what? He didn’t know, but it was driving him crazy.

  Especially with that never-ending sound track of twangy music!

  He regarded Meaner, who was draped against the door, chain-smoking. “Could you please change the station?” he asked as politely as he could.

  The guard looked back at him. His expression was so blank that J.J. couldn’t tell if he’d even heard, let alone understood.

  J.J. stood up. “The radio. How about some different music?” He pointed to the small portable and covered his ears.

  He had Meaner’s attention, but the guy still didn’t get it.

  “Here — I’ll do it.” J.J. took a step forward. It was a big mistake.

  Meaner jumped up, pulled out his gun, and pointed it at J.J., screaming in Chinese.

  J.J. raised his hands. “Hold on! Don’t get excited! It’s just the music, okay? The music!”

  The door was flung open, and in burst Naslund. The Englishman yelled back in two languages until finally he began to laugh. He turned to J.J.

  “Don’t like the concert, eh? Can’t say I blame you.”

  “I just wanted to change the station,” J.J. mumbled resentfully.

  “No time for that now,” said Naslund briskly. He grabbed J.J. by the arm. “Let’s have a little chat with your father.”

  J.J. brightened. “He’s here? He paid?”

  “On the phone,” the smuggler amended. “He wants to hear his little boy’s voice before he ponies up the cash.”