Douglas Preston - Impact

"Watch out for the riptide running along the western side," said Jackie. "It's pretty vicious. The best approach is from the south-southwest at a bearing of twenty degrees."

"All right." Abbey turned the wheel, altering their course to approach the island from the far end. They halted about a hundred feet offshore and anchored. The stars were coming out. Dousing the anchor lights and electronics, she left the boat dark, while Jackie stuffed a small backpack with the essentials: Jim Beam in a metal flask, scuba knife, binoculars, canteen, matches, flashlights, batteries, and a can of Mace.

They climbed in the dinghy. The water lay glossy and dark, the island looming ahead, swallowed in blackness. Abbey rowed toward shore, feathering her oars to reduce the splash of water. The boat crunched on the sand and they hopped out. Through the trees Abbey could just see the glimmer of light from the house.

"Now what?" Jackie whispered.

"Follow me." Abbey took a heading with her compass, crossed the beach, and bulled her way through a thicket of beach roses, finally breaking into the forest. She could hear Jackie's breathing behind her. In the trees it was as black as a cave. Turning on her flashlight, she kept it hooded with her hand as they moved through the mossy woods, casting right and left with the light, looking for a crater. Once in a while Abbey stopped to check their bearing on the compass.

Ten minutes passed but they found nothing. Toward the far end of the island, they slogged through a swamp and waded across a sluggish stream, water up to their chests, Abbey holding the backpack over her head. The swamp gave way to an open field. Crouching in the trees, Abbey scouted it with the binoculars while Jackie took off her shoes and dumped out muddy water.

"I'm freezing."

The field sloped up a hill to a manicured lawn and tennis court, beyond which stood the giant house. She saw a movement in one of the windows: a moving shadow.

"We've got to cross that field," whispered Abbey. "Could be a crater there."

"Maybe we should go around."

"No way. We do this right."

Neither one moved.

Abbey nudged her. "Scared?"

"Yes. And wet."

Abbey slipped the hip flask out of her pack and handed it to her friend. Jackie took a shot and Abbey followed with a slug of her own.

"Fortified?"

"No."

"Let's get this over with." Abbey could feel the warmth creeping through her belly and she headed into the field. The glow from the house was all the light they needed and she shoved her flashlight into the backpack. Moving slowly on hands and knees, keeping low, they crept across the dead, matted grass.

About halfway across, a dog barked in the distance. They both instinctively flattened themselves in the grass. The faint sound of Frank Sinatra came from the house and then faded--someone had opened and closed a door. They waited.

Another distant yelp. Abbey could feel icy water trickling down her back and she shivered.

"Abbey, please. Let's get out of here."

"Shhh."

As Abbey was about to rise, she saw two fleet shadows come tearing around the corner of the house and hurtling across the top of the lawn, weaving back and forth, noses down.

"Dogs," she said.

"Jesus, no."

"We gotta get the fuck out of here. On three, we break for the stream."

Jackie whimpered.

"One, two, three ." Abbey leapt up and tore across the field, Jackie following. A furious barking erupted behind them. They dove into the stream, the sluggish but powerful current pulling them along, swirling them toward the woods. Abbey immersed all but her face, trying to breathe through her pursed lips. The barking got closer, and now she could see flashlights bobbing at the top of the hill, two men running down the field toward them.

More barking sounded, now upstream, where they'd entered the water. Shouts from the approaching men, a gunshot.

The dark trees closed around her as the current swept her into the forest. She tried to look for Jackie but it was too dark. The current was getting swifter as the water ran between polished boulders and thick-rooted spruce trees. She heard a sound--the roar of water--as the current sucked her along, ever faster.

Waterfall . She struck out for shore, grasped a boulder, but it was slippery with algae and she was pulled away. The roar got louder. Looking downstream, she saw a thin white line in the darkness. Scrabbling at another rock, she clung for a moment, but the current swung her body around and it, too, was torn from her grasp.

"Jackie!" she spluttered, and felt a sucking current, a sudden weightlessness, a white roar all about her, and then a sudden plunge into cold, tumbling darkness. For a moment she didn't know which way was up, and she swam wildly, kicking and stroking, trying to establish equilibrium--and then her head broke the surface. Gasping for breath, flailing and trying to keep her head above the pounding rush of water, she cast around, stroked away from the turbulence, and a moment later found herself in a calm, sluggish pool. The night sky, the ocean--she was at the margin of the shore. The current carried her between bars of gravel and she kicked for the embankment, her feet digging into the loose shingle below. Hauling herself up the gravel bar, she coughed and spat water. She looked around but all was quiet. The men and dogs were nowhere to be seen.

"Jackie?" she hissed.

A moment later Jackie heaved herself out of the water, rising to her knees, spluttering.

"Jackie? You okay?"

After a moment a hoarse voice answered, "Fuck yeah."

Keeping to the edge of the trees, they followed the shore around to the dinghy, hauled it down to the waterline, climbed in, and pushed off. A moment later they were back on the Marea. After a brief silence, they both dissolved into raucous laughter.

"All right," said Abbey, recovering her breath. "Let's haul anchor and get the hell out of here, before they come looking for us in that big yacht of theirs."

They both stripped off their wet clothes and hung them on the rails. Buck naked, they drove the boat off into the ocean night, swapping a pint of Jim Beam.

20

Ford considered himself a fast hiker, but the Buddhist monk moved through the forest with the swiftness of a bat, swooping along the trails in his flip-flops, his saffron robes flapping behind him. For hours they walked in silence without resting, until they came to a boulder at the mouth of a steep ravine. Here the monk stopped abruptly and, with a flouncing of his robes, seated himself, bowing his head in prayer.

After a silence he looked up and pointed up the gorge. "Six kilometers. Follow the main canyon to the hill, and climb it. You'll find yourself above the mine, looking down into the valley. But watch out--there's a patrol that passes along the flanks of that hill."

Khon put his hands together and bowed in thanks.

"Bless the Buddha on the trail," said the monk. "Now go."

Khon bowed again.

They left him there, sitting on the rock, head bowed in meditation. Ford led the way up the gorge, threading between many huge boulders rolled and polished by ancient floods. As the canyon narrowed into a ravine, the trees on the steep hillsides leaned over them, forming a tunnel. Insects droned in the heavy air and the air smelled of sweet-fern.

"Awfully quiet around here," said Ford, huffing.

Khon wagged his round head.

Here and there, Ford noticed Buddhist prayers carved into the boulders, the script almost obliterated by time. At one point they passed an entire reclining Buddha, forty feet long, carved from a natural outcrop in the side of the canyon. Khon paused to make a silent offering, casting flowers on it.

At the head of the ravine a trail began to climb a steep hill. As they neared the top, sunlight loomed up through the trees. A broken wall encircled the summit, and through its ramparts Ford could see the ruins of a modest temple rising from the tangling vines. A burned and twisted antiaircraft gun, dating back to the Vietnam War, occupied one end of the temple, a second gun emplacement at the other.