The landforms, she went on, would shunt the currents aside, creating stronger and faster movement of water, that would stay parallel to shallows. Dane cut the engines and allowed the boat to drift, while watching the horizon in every direction for any sign of land. Soon, he spied the froth of waves breaking on a reef, but a closer inspection revealed a patch of ground about the size of a baseball infield — and just as flat and featureless, too — poking above the waves.
If Trevor Hancock had washed up on that beach fifty years earlier, he would just as surely have been washed away with the next tide. They kept looking.
Twenty minutes later, Bones’ voice boomed like thunder across the decks. “Land, ho!”
Dane trained his binoculars in the direction Bones was pointing and saw another reef, this one only slightly larger and more pronounced than the first one they had seen, but nevertheless worth investigating.
When the Jacinta was safely anchored outside the surf zone, they all boarded the Zodiac that Scalpel’s team had left behind. Bones skillfully navigated through the crashing breakers and into a small lagoon on the islet where Dane hopped out to drag the craft up above the tide line.
Alex clambered over the side to stand with him in the ankle deep surf. “Doesn’t look like much.”
“Maybe not to us,” Dane agreed, “but try looking at it from the eyes of man who’s been floating in the sea for two days, menaced by sharks. Probably looked like paradise.”
Bones cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted, “Yo, Ginger! Mary Ann! Pina Coladas, right here!”
Paradise, Dane had to admit, was a bit of an overstatement. The island was little more than an hourglass shaped sandbar that had accumulated around a pair of craggy rocks, the tallest of which was shorter than Alex. There was hardly any shade, absolutely no vegetation and no evident sources of fresh water. Dane understood now why the Spratly Islands were mostly uninhabited. This was not the idyllic paradise of Gilligan’s Island or Swiss Family Robinson; this was the last rest area on the way to Hell.
“Let’s spread out. Look for anything that looks…well, interesting.”
“That won’t take long,” muttered Bones, but no sooner had he spoken the last word when his voice changed. “Wait a sec. I think that qualifies.”
He was pointing to one of the tall rocks, or more specifically to what looked at a distance like a nub of rock extending out on the sheltered side of the crag. As they got closer, Dane saw that it wasn’t rock at all, but a waist-high heap of driftwood pieces, ranging in size from tree boughs four feet long to chunks no bigger than Dane’s thumb, all of them worn smooth by persistent wave action.
“How did those get there?” Gabby wondered aloud.
The rock was too far from the beach and the pile too neat to be the work of nature. The answer was obvious.
“Someone put them there.” Dane raced over for a closer look, confirming that inescapable conclusion. The driftwood was not merely heaped up, but placed carefully to minimize gaps and prevent shifting. It reminded him of something….
“It’s a cairn,” said Alex. “Like a burial mound.”
If Dane had any doubts about that, they were cleared away when he spied something carved into a large chunk of wood at the base of the mound; a word, made up of straight lines that had been scratched repeatedly in the dense surface.
ARCHIE
“It’s not him,” said Alex, dejectedly.
“It’s someone.” Dane inspected the marker more carefully and saw that something had been wedged into a crack in the wood. It was a circular red identification tag, stamped with letters and numbers. “‘Bailey, A.’ This is a Royal Army dog tag. The kind they used throughout World War II. Archie Bailey may have been a survivor from the Nagata Maru.”
“But not the one we were looking for.”
Bones chuckled. “You don’t think he buried himself, do you?”
“There was another survivor here.” Alex stepped away from the pile. “Look for another cairn.”
“Alex, there wouldn’t be anyone left to bury the last man.” Dane stared at the driftwood marker. “This took a lot of time and effort. Days maybe.”
“What are you saying?”
“Our castaway found a way to survive. At least long enough to bury one of his mates.” Dane took Alex’s hand and drew her along as he explored the second crag, situated at the far end of the hourglass. There was another arrangement of driftwood there, but this time instead of a large mound, the pieces were all about the same size, laid out one the ground, side by side, like a deck.
“Is it a raft?”
Dane shook his head. “No. Or if it was meant to be, he never finished it. There’s nothing to hold the logs together.”
He knelt down and lifted one of the logs, revealing a shallow depression underneath. “It’s a roof! He built a shelter.”
He pulled more of the logs aside, revealing a space easily large enough for a man to lie, protected from the elements. There was other evidence of habitation — brittle fragments of what could only be fabric, and a small heap of seashells.
The others joined them a moment later and Bones gave a low whistle of appreciation. “That’s a pretty nice lodge. I’ll bet he had Indian blood.”
Dane probed at the debris and uncovered a small red tag, just like the one on the grave marker. He rubbed the dust away and read the letters stamped there. “Hancock, T. I think that’s a negative on the Indian blood.”
“He was here,” Alex gasped. “But where did he go?”
She turned in a circle, looking for some other subtle indication of a human presence on the island.
“Maybe he swam away again,” ventured Bones. “I would.”
“You’re a real ray of sunshine,” said Dane.
“Just keeping it real.” Bones turned to Gabby. “Let’s head back to Jacinta and get Baby’s metal detector. If our guy is here somewhere, then that plate in his skull is probably the only thing made of metal anywhere on the island.”
Dane, surprised at Bones’ quick thinking, nodded his approval. As the oddly-matched pair marched back to the Zodiac, Dane tried once more to think like the castaway.
“Okay, let’s be logical. You’re stuck here. You’ve got nothing. Even the clothes you’re wearing are rags. What do you do?”
Alex pointed to the driftwood deck. “Basic needs. Shelter. And of course, food and water.”
Dane snapped his fingers. “Yes. Where do you find food and water in a place like this?”
“Fish?”
“Maybe. He doesn’t have any tools, but maybe he can fashion something out of driftwood. A club, maybe even a spear. And there are dozens of tide pools around here. He could collect mollusks, maybe even fish that get trapped when the tide goes out. That takes care of food, but water’s the real problem.”
“It’s the tropics. Rain?”
“He would have to store it somehow; a catch basin or a cistern.” Dane felt like the answer had to be right in front of him; he just needed a new perspective. He scrambled onto the tall rock next the shelter. It was a change of only about four feet, but now he could see dozens of depressions pockmarking the island, any one of which might have served to catch rainwater.
Then he saw something else.
Bones kept his gaze on the Jacinta, nudging the tiller to stay on course as the little inflatable boat charged headlong into the surf. He eased off the throttle, allowing the craft to coast — or more accurately to drift backward, caught in the rush of a wave that had already broken — and then twisted the outboard engine’s throttle wide open. The burst of speed caught Gabby unprepared and she tumbled off her seat and landed half on his lap. Bones didn’t let the mishap distract him from the task at hand; with the engine at full power, he drove the boat directly at the rising face of an incoming breaker. The bow end tilted up as the craft started climbing the hill made of water, and then just when it seemed the wave would curl over, capsize the boat and slam them down into the sea once more, they broke through the crest and were rocketing down the backside of the wave.