“Agreed.”
Maddock slid the box out from the plants while Bones took the poles and acted as lookout. After establishing that it was clear, they placed the strongbox on the poles and took up their positions at either end. They set out back the way they had come, but the going was much slower carrying the heavy box in an awkward crouch position to lower their profiles.
They forged on, though, stopping every so often to take a break where they sat low on the ground, watching and listening. On one of these breaks, they heard footsteps approaching them. A Mizuhi crewman wielding a machete hacked his way through some brush as he approached Maddock and Bones’ position. Whether he was looking for them specifically, or the crates, or was simply scouting out the island, they didn’t know. But they knew one thing: they had to take him out before he saw them and radioed a report.
Bones unsheathed his dive knife while Maddock slid one of the poles out from under the crate to use as a martial arts-style weapon, although it was somewhat too long. Bones stayed with the crate, guarding it, while Maddock advanced toward the approaching threat. He twirled the pole a couple of times, testing his balance with it, but decided just to go with a simple jabbing motion.
The interloper spotted him when they were about eight feet apart. He reached for his radio and raised his machete simultaneously. Maddock, in contrast, was of single-minded purpose. He thrust the pole into his opponent’s abdomen. The wind left the crewman in a rush and both his radio and machete dropped to the ground.
“Bones: vines!” Bones used his knife to cut some nearby vines they could use to tie the man up. They trussed his arms and legs into a crude hog-tie. Maddock patted the man down but he carried no firearm. Then they gagged him with more vines and left him on the ground, Maddock appropriating both his machete and the radio. He made sure to turn down the volume of the radio to avoid the risk of radio chatter giving away their position as they advanced toward the beach.
With the crate loaded up again, they moved out once more, now more cautious than ever after their encounter. They pushed and pulled the crate forward on its pole system, keeping their heads down. After two more rest stops they could see the final stretch to the lagoon-front beach. It was a long haul, trundling the crate to the beach, but they made it without further incident. When they knelt on a small berm on the edge of the sand, Bones left Maddock behind with the crate to get a good look down the beach. He returned after a couple of minutes.
“Still looks about the same. Our boat-plane is still there, and the group is still hanging out on the center of the beach.”
They took up the poles again, knowing that they would make a very conspicuous profile once they ventured out onto the sand where the Mizuhi group could see them.
Maddock pointed. “Let’s move out along the berm until we’re even with the plane, that way we’ll be on the sand as little as possible.”
Bones agreed and they headed off toward the plane just above the beach. They were weary from lifting the crate by now, but knew they would need one more burst of energy to make their escape. When they were looking straight across the beach at the plane, they set the poles down. Maddock addressed Bones solemnly.
“They’re going to start shooting at us as soon as they see us.”
“At least it’s still dark out.”
“Not for long.” Maddock inclined his head toward the east, where the first traces of light crept over the horizon. “For this final dash I say we forget the poles, just double-carry the box to the plane, get it into the cockpit, then shove off.”
“Roger that.” Bones flexed his hands in preparation. The pair of SEALs hefted the crate of deadly bio-agents and tested their grip. Then it was time to go. Maddock counted them off.
“On three, two, one…now!”
They jogged off across the sand, each on one side of the weighty box, moving like a four-legged spider, turning this way and that to compensate for dips in the beach. They had just reached the plane, water lapping around their ankles, when they heard the first shouts.
“They spotted us, Bones. We better load this puppy and get while the getting’s good.”
A four-rung ladder led up to the cockpit. Bones, already familiar with it, climbed three steps up and turned around. Maddock pushed the deadly crate up into his outstretched arms. The weight of the crate almost pulled Bones off the ladder but Maddock shoved upward on the box and the big Indian was able to grip the edge of the cockpit and regain his balance.
“Go, Bones!” Maddock pushed on his legs to propel him over the lip of the cockpit.
Bones nearly fell into the plane, doing his level best to control the crate’s descent. It landed with a thud on the bottom of the cockpit, but upright and not too hard. But there was no time to check on it now.
Someone called something in Japanese to them, followed by an English sentence: “Hey! Stop right there!”
Maddock dropped back into the shallow water and began to push the big model out into the lagoon. Just when it started to move he heard the heartbreaking sound of metal sliding on sand as the plane’s landing gear caught on the bottom.
Someone yelled in Japanese.
The plane lurched sideways with the sudden shift in momentum. “What’s up?” Bones called down from the cockpit. Maddock wrenched the plane free by holding onto a strut and pulling as hard as he’d ever pulled anything in his life, hoping the piece of metal didn’t break free of its rivets. But it held and then the life-size model was floating free, bobbing in the gentle waves close to shore. He gave it a few more forceful shoves, and on the last one pushed off the bottom onto the ladder.
Angry yells, also in Japanese, followed, and then, as Maddock dropped into the cockpit next to Bones, the first shots came.
“Paddle, Bones. Paddle!”
They each stuck one of the handmade raft paddles over the side of the cockpit and into the water. They started to paddle, quickly falling into a familiar rhythm.
“This remind you of BUDS training or what!” Maddock looked over at Bones, who almost looked as though he were having a good time. But then a bullet pinged off of the plane, sending a spark through the darkness in front of them, and Bones grew sober, paddling even harder.
Maddock looked back and saw an angry mob standing on the beach, yelling and shaking their fists at them. He took consolation in the fact that they had no watercraft whatsoever — no lifeboats, tender vessels, not even a raft, with which to give chase. He wondered if one or some of them might try to swim after them, since they couldn’t paddle faster than a good swimmer, but so far no one did. Maddock supposed he could beat them down from the boarding ladder with the paddle if they tried, but for now it seemed they were content to take potshots at them from the comfort of the beach.
A round penetrated the fuselage, luckily above the waterline, but Maddock knew that they needed to put more distance between themselves and the island. He paddled harder than he ever had in his life, even in the grueling SEAL training exercises they’d been put through in San Diego, eyes fixed on the line of frothing water that marked the outer edge of the lagoon.
They passed over the sunken ship, its gloomy form now a permanent fixture of the underwater landscape. Random floating objects still trickling out of the wreck bobbed in their wake as they rowed hard for the outer reef. One more shot zinged against the plane’s tail fin, and after that the shots petered out, the men on the beach realizing that the impromptu rowboat was too far away to hit.
Then a new problem presented itself: maneuvering through the narrow cut in the reef out to the open ocean. But it was one they much preferred to being shot at. Still, they both knew that should they miscalculate and wind up on the shallow rocks, their fragile craft would be dashed apart, and they would have no choice but to return to the atoll like a pair of wet dogs climbing out of a pool.