Don Pendleton - The Hostaged Island

Thinking first of the electronics inside the kayak, Gadgets checked the plastic and elastic seal closing the gap between the hole in the kayak's deck and his body. It was tight. He gave his black plastic rain slicker a quick tuck into the elastic seal, then stroked hard and fast with the paddles, spray flying behind him. His only hope was to be ahead of the wave when the top came down.

Feeling the wave lift him, he knew he'd lost the race. The kayak stood vertical on the wave face for an instant, then, as the wave curled over him, blocking out the sky, at the moment he expected to be thrown into the churning vortex, the kayak slipped down the wave, accelerating.

He hurtled through darkness and the roar of the wave around him overwhelmed his thoughts, and for a moment his fear too. Instinctively, he leaned toward the light beyond the curl. The roar became so loud he seemed to be flying through silence.

Light circled by a vast, spinning vortex rushed toward him, and then he burst out. Salvation. But above him still, the wave's face towered, a wall of water defying gravity and overhanging him.

Keeping the paddle out of the water that blurred beneath him, Gadgets leaned forward until his arms and chest rested on the deck of the kayak. Whether from reduced wind resistance or improved hydrodynamics or both, he gained speed, leaving the roaring curl behind him. Soon he skipped far ahead of the critical section and into almost flat water. Still moving fast, he sat up and looked for shore.

Rocks! A previous wave's backwash rolled toward him, the kayak bouncing, then the wave behind him leaped up and crashed, and the white water engulfed him. He dug in with the paddle, trying to slow his rush onto the rocks.

Fiberglass shrieked. He felt several quick lurches, then the foam drove him onto a pebbled beach. As the backwash tried to tug him back, he jammed the paddle into the pebbles and jumped from the kayak. He quickly pulled the craft above the waterline.

He sat on a rock shaking, trying to calm his heart-beat. He took long, slow breaths. He could not remember being so scared in a long, long while.

He noticed some small rocks in a circle, scorched by campfire, and a discarded sandal, and some beer cans. Spray-painted across one large rock were the words: "Surfers Rule."

Here he was shaking, and teenagers did it for thrills.

Gadgets went to work. He glanced every few seconds to the hillsides above him as he stripped the plastic bag from his Uzi, snapped in a magazine, and chambered a round.

He examined the kayak and realized it would not float again. Long rips had broken open the fiberglass bottom. Near the nose, a snapped flap of fiberglass exposed the plywood frame. He unloaded his equipment and other weapons and pushed the kayak back into the water. The wash pulled it out to the shore break, and the first wave sank it.

He assembled his electronics. First, the scanner/auto-recorder. The LAPD file on the Outlaws had noted the theft of a case of high-quality walkie-talkies. If the Outlaws were using those radios, Gadgets' scanner could monitor and record the conversation automatically.

Then he extended the antenna of his hand-radio and keyed a click-code. Two beeps for onshore and safe, three beeps to identify himself. His scanner/auto-recorder picked up the beeps, recorded the signal on the cassette.

Voices came on. "This is Chief, this is Chief."

"Horse here. What?"

"We cleaned up Little Harbor. Had to kill a Park Ranger. We're sending back a couple of families we found at the campground. Couple of good-looking women in the crowd. We took turns on one, saved the other one for you if you're interested."

"Don't waste your time on that, you're on patrol."

"Sorry, it just sorta happened."

"You watching the ocean? Any ships, boats?"

"Use the radar. There's too much fog here."

"Okay, but keep patrolling the beaches the best you can. Over and out."

Gadgets hurried through the assembly of the rest of his equipment: the long-range directional microphone, the radio-triggered detonators. After what he had heard, he understood that every minute of delay meant death and degradation for the people of the island. As he shouldered his backpack, another voice came from the scanner, on a different frequency: "Horse, this is your friend. Answer."

"Yes, sir! This is Horse. Is there anything you need?"

"No, everything's fine. I'm quite comfortable. Brief me. Is the seizure of the island complete?"

"Oh, yeah. No problems. Some shooting. Had to kill some heroes."

"What about the conversations with the Governor?"

"Nothing else with the Governor. They said they'd be sending the submarine. They put a negotiator on the line, but I just hung up."

"Good. Follow the plan. Soon we will be very wealthy men."

"Yessir! That's what I want." Then there was static.

Who was that man? He called himself a "friend" of these biker sadists? The man with the calm, educated voice was a co-conspirator with Horse. Who was he?

Gadgets' thoughts were interrupted by clicks on the radio. Two clicks, then two more. Blancanales.

Another set of clicks answered. Two clicks, then one. Lyons. Gadgets keyed his hand-radio as he went up the hillside toward the rendezvous.

On shore and ready, Able Team were moving into action.

Striding through the sagebrush, Blancanales listened for voices or motorcycles. He had heard large-caliber rifle fire only seconds after reaching shore, but Lyons' and Gadgets' click-code replies calmed his fears. The rifle fire had not been aimed at them. Now his concern was to avoid it being aimed at him.

He glanced at his compass and the plastic-covered topographical map, then surveyed what terrain he could see for landmarks. Light fog still shrouded the hillsides. Continuing due south, he followed a cattle trail through the low brush, inspecting it for foot or tire tracks.

Below him he heard surf. Then when a canyon's breeze carried away the fog for a moment, he saw the rocky shoreline. Above him the sun rose from behind the unseen peaks; it became a gray disk. Soon the sun would burn away the fog. He hurried his pace, counting cadence to himself.

Footprints appeared on the cow trail. Blancanales stopped for a second to check the tracks. Jogging shoes, yesterday, maybe the day before. Cow hooves had crossed the shoe tracks. There was a dry cow-paddy over one of the prints. Going on, he saw more and more footprints — jogging shoes, hiking boots, sandals, even a high-heel shoe — and some cow tracks. Bubble gum wrappers, cigarette butts and drink cans indicated frequent visitors.

He checked the map again. He knew the Little Harbor campground was only a few hundred yards farther. He cut due east, staying in the narrow creek bed of a small canyon. The tangled brush and loose rocks slowed him to a hand-over-hand climb, but the steep sides of the gully and the overhanging branches protected him from being observed.

A retaining wall of sheer concrete blocked his progress. He saw the guardrail of a road above him. Not wanting to chance the road, he paralleled it, staying close to the hillside as he followed animal and foot trails.

At first, he thought the sounds were gull-cries from the ocean. He listened harder. It was laughter, coarse laughter, coming from the campground.

Unsnapping the flap of his Browning Double-Action's holster, he slipped out the pistol. Then he changed his mind. Always use the proper technology, Konzaki had said. Blancanales found the Beretta 93R in his backpack, slapped in a magazine and snapped back the slide.

He hid the backpack. Soft-footing it along the trail, crouching below the level of the brush, he could hear screams, more laughter, voices. He continued another hundred yards and came to some sort of fire road. He couldn't go any farther without losing cover. But another scream told him he was already there.