Thank God, the ferry had left. If it was still in the bay, crowded as it was with survivors, there was no telling what those evil bastards would do. Pax had said most likely this plane would be merely reconnaissance, but deadlier aircraft could be called in quickly if needed.
Robert hoped the Albino Mer had been able to get far enough away that it wouldn’t be noticed, or, if it hadn’t, that the watchers’ focus would be solely on the island, and they wouldn’t notice anything in the ocean around it.
Which begged the question, how would they react when it appeared no one was on the island?
Wait, he thought. Not no one. Bertrand was sitting on the deck looking very much alive.
He eyed the shore, wondering if he could get there in time and at least lie on the sand and pretend to be dead, but there was no way he could make it in time. His best bet was to keep the boat between him and the plane.
And hope he wasn’t spotted.
Marquez monitored the camera feeds on three separate screens. On the center screen was the view of the island via a high-resolution video camera. Video could go only so far, though. That’s why on the screens to either side were feeds from ultra-high-res digital cameras similar to those used in satellites orbiting the planet. From a paltry five thousand feet up, they could zoom in tight enough to discern the pattern of a butterfly’s wing.
The system was fully automated, so the technician’s job became one of merely looking for anything out of the ordinary. The system was also programmed to note discrepancies, so Marquez took it as a point of pride to try to discover things before the computer did. Since they’d started doing flybys a week earlier, the results had been forty-sixty in the computer’s favor. Given the sophistication of the code, Marquez took that as a win.
“There,” he said, pointing at the center screen a half second before the computer donged, indicating it had also made the discovery. He turned on his mic. “We’ve got a breather.”
“How many?” the pilot asked.
“Only one so far.”
“Bodies?”
Marquez made a quick check of all three screens. “None yet.”
As soon as the plane passed over the rest of the island, he quickly ran through the captured footage again. It was a pretty damn nice resort on a beautiful bay, with a few boats anchored just offshore. It didn’t take an expert to see the boats were all empty so he didn’t bother zooming in on them. Instead, he did so with the man sitting at the table on the hotel deck. The guy did Marquez the favor of looking up at the right moment.
Caucasian. Late twenties. Brown hair and a couple days’ growth of beard. On the table was a square bottle. Looked like a Jack Daniel’s bottle to Marquez, a guess reinforced by the glass in the guy’s hand filled with brown liquid.
The guy didn’t look sick, but he was very much alone.
“Tally?” the pilot asked.
“Just the one breather and no bodies.”
They all knew what that meant. Anytime no bodies were spotted, a second flyover was required to make sure survivors hadn’t decided to hide during the first pass.
“Hang on,” the pilot said, as he began to bring the plane around.
The moment the plane moved beyond the hotel and became hidden behind the palm trees edging the bay, Robert pulled himself into the boat.
He checked the fuel gauge and saw it was sitting a hair below a quarter tank. Better than nothing, but he would have to add to it.
The fuel supply line was over by the dock, so Robert untied the boat from the buoy, started the engine, and raced over. After lashing a line around one of the posts, he jumped up on the dock and retrieved the end of the hose. He hooked it up to the speedboat and flipped the pump switch, hoping there was enough still in the reserve tank so he wouldn’t have to go around siphoning fuel from the scuba boats.
The moment he heard the jet’s engine again, he knew he was screwed. Sure, there was always the chance the people in the plane wouldn’t notice a boat that had been anchored by itself minutes before was now tied to the dock, but really, how would they miss that?
The only thing that might make it worse was if they saw him on the dock, he thought. The boat with no one around? A head scratcher. The boat with him standing beside it? A problem.
He jumped into the water and swam between the hull and the pier. From there, he watched the plane fly overhead once more.
As the cameras started snapping away again, Marquez focused all his attention on the hotel. He figured if people were still around, that’s where they’d be, and given that this was the plane’s second flyby, someone might get curious enough to peek out a window or stick a head out a door. But the only person he saw was the man sitting at the table, his glass still in his hand.
“Anything?” the pilot asked.
“No. Looks like we’re clean.”
“Copy that. What’s next on the list?”
The question was for the copilot, so Marquez took off his headset and put his equipment back in sleep mode. Hopefully, there would be enough time for a little longer nap than the one he’d just had.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It wouldn’t be until he landed back at the base again and was reviewing the footage in preparation for writing his report that he would notice the boat in the bay had moved between passes. He would zoom in on the hi-res image and carefully look for signs of anyone else. He would find none, but would discover that the boat was tied to the dock during the second flyby.
For several minutes he would sit staring at the screen as he contemplated the possibility they had missed something. That he had missed something.
But it was only one small boat, he would tell himself. And after checking the photos again for any changes in the footprints on the beach, he would note there was no evidence of more people moving around.
Despite the fact it would have taken impossibly fast currents to get the vessel around to the far side of the dock, Marquez would convince himself this was exactly what happened, and that the man on the deck had gone down to tie it up before returning to his drink. In his gut, Marquez would know this was a lie, but a minor one. Better this than to admit his mistake and be punished, maybe even with exile.
Robert didn’t want to get fooled again, so he remained in the water for a full fifteen minutes after the plane had flown by the second time. Even then, he worried the plane would fly by a third time and catch him out in the open, but he knew he couldn’t afford to wait any longer. His speed advantage over the ferry was quickly dwindling.
He pulled himself up onto the dock and removed the hose from the fuel tank. At some point during the flyover, the pump had automatically shut off. He hoped it was because it had filled the boat’s tank to the brim, but a check of the gauge showed it was only sixty percent full. That had to mean the reserves were gone. Still, as long as he didn’t go full out the whole way, he probably had enough to get to Limón.
He hesitated as he was about to climb back into the boat, and looked to shore.
Bertrand was still on the deck, drinking his whiskey.
Robert knew he should leave the asshole, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Annoyed, he jogged onto the beach and over to the deck stairway.
“I’m leaving,” he called up.