The Sentinel (17 page)

I still can’t speak, so I just nod. It’s so much easier to lie when you don’t have to mask your voice.

Chase hasn’t lost his angry edge despite the power reversal. “Why did you do it?” he shouts at McAfee.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” McAfee says.

“So your intention wasn’t to sink the
Bliksem
?” Chase says.

“What happened to the
Sentinel
was an accident,” McAfee says, standing up. “I never meant to—”

“The
Bliksem
,” Chase growls. “I asked you about the
Bliksem
.”

McAfee is silent for a moment. The expression on his face morphs from guilt to anger. “They had it coming,” he says.

Chase opens his mouth to argue, but McAfee cuts him off. “Whales have as much right to live as people do. They’re intelligent, sentient creatures.”

“They’re…not…people!” Chase shouts.

“Oh, shut-up,” Jackson says and turns the pistol on Chase. And there’s no doubt that he’s going to shoot.

I try to lunge, but I’m still too weak.

“You’re a coward,” Chase says. “Both of you are cowards.”

The gun’s hammer starts to pull back as Jackson pulls the trigger. Chase stares him down, oddly defiant. I would have pictured him begging for his life. But here he his, moments away from taking a bullet to his head, and he’s not backing down.

When McAfee starts to shout, “Look out,” I realize why.

A blur rises up behind Jackson and a blade slides to a stop beneath his chin against the soft skin of his neck. Willem speaks through clenched teeth, “Drop the gun.”

Jackson seems to consider his options. He could still shoot Chase. But then Willem might slice open his neck. Jackson is probably trying to determine whether, unlike me and Chase, Willem has the guts to follow through on the threat.

Jackson suddenly winces. I see a trickle of blood flow from the skin of his neck. He lowers his aim and lets the gun dangle from his finger. “Okay, okay!”

I rush in and snatch the gun away from him. “Thanks, Tito,” I say, aiming the gun at him. “Now, what’s in the bag?”

Jackson is reluctant to give the bag up. His fingers clutch it tightly. But there is no option here. I kick him square in the nuts. The man drops so fast that Willem has to yank his hand away to keep from slicing the man’s throat open.

While Jackson writhes on the ground, I pull the backpack away from him and open it up. What I see inside makes me gasp. There are six bricks of C4, which could easily be mistaken for grey sculpting clay if not for the Ziploc bag of detonators, complete with timers, sitting on top. I place the pack on the ground and take a few steps away. C4 is very stable. You actually could sculpt with it without any fear of an explosion. Hell, you can shoot the stuff and it won’t explode. But being that close to enough explosives capable of turning all of us into pink aerosol, puts me on edge.

“What is it?” Chase asks, as I step away.

“Evidence,” I say.

Chase inspects the pack for himself. When he looks inside, his head snaps back like he’s just been struck by a snake. “You did it. You really did it.”

Poor guy. Some part of him was still clinging to the hope that McAfee had nothing to do with the sinking of two ships, and the deaths of his friends.

While Chase focuses on the tragedies of our recent past, I return to the one lying in a bloody heap at our feet. I turn to McAfee, remove my hood and point the gun at him. “Did you do this to Jenny?”

He looks earnestly shocked by the accusation. “What? No! We found her just a few minutes ago.” He turns to me. “Do you have any food?”

I ignore the request. I might not shoot him, but I’m sure as hell not going to give him rations that could go to someone more deserving. “How have you survived the storms?”

“In caves,” McAfee says. He turns to Chase. “We went back to the cave. You and Eagon weren’t there.”

“Eagon is dead,” Chase says.

“Dead?How?”

Chase looks dazed again, like when we first found him. He motions to Jenny’s body. “Same as this.”

“I don’t understand. What did—”

“You said ‘caves,’” Willem says. “You found more than one?”

“There are caves all over the island,” McAfee says. “They’re natural caves, but they were all walled up. We rode out the storms in two of them. Slept in another. I think we found five in all, including the one with raven carving.”

“And the bodies inside?” Willem asks. “What about them?”

McAfee can’t hide his surprise. “Have you seen them? The Vikings?”

“They’re dead?” Chase asks.

“Dead? Of course they’re dead,” McAfee says like the question is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “Though I don’t think they’ve rotted much over the years. They just looked dried out.”

“You’d make a horrible soldier,” Jackson grumbles from the ground. He’s on his hands and knees now, looking at McAfee like he’s a turncoat.

I shut him up by delivering a quick kick to his gut. He rolls to the ground, holding his stomach. He lets out an angry roar and shouts, “I’m going to kill you!”

“Quiet, Latoya,” I say. I probably shouldn’t be antagonizing the man, but he’s a dick, so, what can I do?

“Where are the caves?” Willem asks.

McAfee glances at Jackson, looking for his disapproval, but Jackson is still curled up in a ball. “All over the island. The one we rode out the last storm in is just around the corner. Maybe two hundred feet from here. I can take you there if you—”

“No,” I say, and I’m surprised by the force of my voice. “We’re not going anywhere near the caves.”

McAfee senses we know more than he does. “Why not?” he asks.

I’m not sure whether or not I want to answer him. He’s the prisoner, not me. As the man responsible for so many deaths, the only thing I want him to know is that if he survives, he’ll be going to jail for the rest of his life—that is, if he’s not put to death.

But I don’t get the chance to tell the man, because he suddenly leaps to his feet, screams and runs away. A white blurs explains everything.

“Polar bear!” Chase shouts, and takes off after McAfee.

As the bear rounds the corner and sets course for Willem, Jackson and me, I level the gun and squeeze off three shots. Each round hits the bear just to the side of its head, biting through skin and muscle.

But the bear doesn’t react.

Even if the shots hit nothing vital, the bear should flinch. A roar. Something. But it stays on course. “Something’s not right,” I say. “Run!”

I take off after Chase with Willem hot on my heels. A moment later, a scream turns me around. I must have injured Jackson because he’s struggling to get up. And he knows he’s about to die. And once again, a death is my fault. I see his backpack still lying where I left it, full of explosives—which would take care of the bear and then some, but there’s no way to reach them now. Jackson is on his own.

But I don’t feel bad when the bear reaches him. Fifty feet away, I turn and watch. The bear smashes into him, never slowing. It’s mouth wraps around his head as he screams down the bear’s throat. The bear thrashes Jackson back and forth and I hear the crunch that silences the man’s voice.

I start to turn away. I have no desire to watch the bear eat him. But Willem grips my arm. “Jane…” His voice is filled with dread.

The bear, which never really stopped moving, drops Jackson. But it doesn’t stop for a meal. Instead, it steps over his body and charges straight toward us. I take aim and fire two more rounds. Once again, both rounds strike the bear, with no result.

Willem tugs my arm. “C’mon!” He bounds down the rocky slope and I follow him. I know that bears can run much faster than people, but I hope that the loose shale sliding under each footstep will be enough to stumble the hulking predator enough for us to find shelter, or lose it in the maze of boulders and stone spires that dot the landscape.

Chase disappears over a ridge. If we can make it there before the bear reaches us, it might not know where we’ve gone. So I steam ahead, not worrying about what might be in front of me, and leap over the ridge with Willem right beside me. We drop six feet, stumble, collide and fall in a tangled mess. But the pain of falling is far less than expected.

I roll over and feel soft earth between my fingers. Sand! We’ve reached the south shore, and a beach. An honest to goodness beach. But it’s not all good news. Chase and McAfee stand just a few feet away, no longer fleeing despite the threat of a killer bear tearing them to pieces. A deep, resonating roar sounds and I glance around the two frozen men.

One hundred or so, 2000-pound giants populate the beach. And not one of them looks happy to see us.

25

The walruses aren’t aware of us until Chase charges through the pack. He moves fast, flying past the great, tan bodies before they can react to him. In thirty seconds, he clears the pack, leaps onto a low ledge and starts climbing. He doesn’t look back once. Chase might not be one of the bad guys, but he’s not a great good guy either. The agitated walruses rear up, flashing their massive tusks, and find Willem, McAfee, and me standing at the fringe of their herd.

“We’ll never make it,” Willem says.

“We can’t go back,” I say. That bear will have no trouble catching and killing all three of us.”

“They’ll let us through,” McAfee says.

The words, “What are you talking about?” start to come out of my mouth, but then McAfee raises his hands and starts walking toward the herd.

“They know we’re not predators. They have nothing to fear from us. They can sense it.” He’s closer to the herd now and the giant animals back away, shifting their bulbous bodies in great lunges. But their heads are pulled up, tusks at the ready. “We’re friends,” McAfee says, but he’s no longer talking to Willem or me, he’s speaking to the walruses. “You won’t hurt me. I just want to pass by. I protect animals like you. Now you can protect me.”

McAfee continues forward and the sea of giants begins to part. The animals are agitated now, snorting and honking, but they’re not attacking. Willem and I follow, but at a distance.

Twenty feet into the herd, it appears we might make it, but then everything goes to hell. The herd parts, but not for McAfee. A big bull charges out of the pack. He’s no doubt the dominant bull here and whether he senses a rival, or a threat, he’s ready to throw down.

McAfee stops as the giant male lifts his head high and roars. “Whoa,” he says, shaking his open palms at the beast. “It’s okay, we’re friends.

To my surprise, the bull actually lowers its head and stares into McAfee’s eyes, perhaps trying to determine whether this small man is a killer. Unfortunately for McAfee, that’s exactly what he is and the bull must sense it, because it lunges forward, pulls back its head and slams its foot and a half long tusks into McAfee’s chest. The tusks, thrust by thousands of pounds of muscle, tear through McAfee’s bone, muscle and sinew like paper. The twin spears of ivory explode out of his back, cutting off his scream. When the walrus pulls its head back, McAfee’s body sticks and is lifted into the air. Blood drips from the bull’s tusks and McAfee’s dangling arms. The slow tug of gravity pulls the body down with a wet slurp until it falls free with a dull thud as it lands on the sandy shore.

For one still moment, all I can hear is the crashing of nearby waves. Fog rises up as the snow and ice melt in the sun. But as one hundred walrus heads turn toward Willem and me, I don’t think there’s any amount of fog that could hide us from them.

Our only chance is to head back and hope the bear has given up the chase. But that option is erased a moment later as the bear charges over the rise behind us and clumsily tumbles over the five foot drop. The fall slows the bear for only a moment, though. It scrambles up and commences its insane charge.

The walruses react to the presence of the polar bear immediately. The small specimens turn and run. The larger bulls rise up, like warriors defending castle walls, spear-tusks out. They outweigh and outnumber the bear. And the bear should know this. But it shows no sign of slowing. In fact, it looks hungrier and more frantic than ever. I see the five fresh bullet wounds. The red spots are easy to find in all the white fur, but not one of the wounds is bleeding. They’re just small red dots.

“Jane,” Willem hisses.

I turn toward his voice. He’s a few feet away and moving into the herd, which is preoccupied with the bear. I follow him quickly, and together we flee the bear along with half the herd. We move in pace with the giants, careful not to run directly in front of any tusks. A few angry roars chase us, but none of the walruses stops to take a swipe. Instinct pushes us all forward. As we approach the low outcrop of stone that Chase used to escape the beach, we have to leap over the body of a large bull, but by the time he swings around to do something about it, we’re up and out of his reach.

I turn around in time to see the bear reach the noble bull walruses, still standing their ground. And what happens next… Being in the undercover documentary field, I’ve seen just about every nature special ever made, some for information, some shot by acquaintances. So I’ve seen just about every scenario of polar bear versus walrus there is—polar bear kills walrus, walrus kills polar bear, the stalemate and polar bear kills walrus only to be killed by a rival. Most outcomes are violent and bloody, but this…this is something else.

The bear takes on the big bull, which probably outweighs the bear by a thousand pounds. It just charges straight ahead, jaws open wide. It stands about as little chance against the giant as McAfee did. The walrus slams its head down, using its tusks to kill a creature for the second time in a single minute. The bear buckles under the weight of the walrus and for a moment is pinned to the sand.

Job done, the walrus pulls its tusks out and shuffles back.

I actually let out a small shout of surprise when the bear leaps back to its feet and strikes. The walrus matches my shocked cry as the world’s largest land predator wraps its long arms around the walrus. Before the walrus can react, the bear snaps its jaws onto the walrus’s lower neck and bites down hard.