Jason Frost - Warlord 05 - Terminal Island (21 page)

“Visiting hours?” Eric said.

Tim pressed his lips together until they drained white. He kicked at the stakes in Eric’s pants until Eric easily uprooted them. Eric waited for Tim’s next move. Tim seemed just as unsure as to what it would be. Then with a deep breath, he unsheathed the knife at his belt and stooped at Eric’s feet. He looked into Eric’s eyes, but Eric could see little that was familiar in them.

“You must promise first,” Tim said. “You will leave and never come back.”

“I’m taking you with me,” Eric said.

“No. I belong here. We are survivors. We take what we want because we are strong. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Come with me. Explain it to me then.”

Tim hesitated. Eric could see the longing in his son’s eyes. Tim shook his head violently. “No. We aren’t the same anymore. I used to think I wanted to be just like you. Good, fair, compassionate. What good did that do the people you loved, the ones who trusted you? Mom? Jenny? Me? Your way didn’t protect us.”

Each word from Tim was worse than the steel-toed kicks from Dickens. Eric tried to harden himself to them, reminding himself that they were more Fallows’ words than Tim’s. “Cut me loose, Tim.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll go and not ever come back?”

“I promise.”

Tim quickly sawed through the ropes that bound Eric’s feet.

Eric felt the blood swimming back into the numb ankles. “Do you have a key for these?” Eric leaned forward to reveal the cuffs;

“No, but I think I can handle them.” He grabbed a pair of aviator sunglasses from Fallows’ bunk, twisted the wire rim, and picked at the lock. In less than a minute he had opened the cuffs.

“Nifty trick,” Eric said, jumping to his feet. “Where’d you learn it?”

“Fallows,” Tim said. “He’s taught me a lot.”

Eric nodded. He peeked out the tent flap and saw Dickens draining the last of his metal cup of beer.

“I go first,” Dickens said, thumping his chest.

“We’ll go watch.”

“No way. I don’t want you perverts grabbing for my cock when you see how big it is.” He laughed and marched toward the tent.

Eric backed away, putting his finger to his lips. Tim nodded. Eric held out his hand for Tim’s knife. Tim handed it to him.

“Thirsty, maggot?” Dickens said as he swaggered into the tent.

Eric slapped his hand over Dickens’ mouth and dragged him the rest of the way into the tent.

“Need any help finding it?” one of the men shouted. The others laughed.

Eric stood behind Dickens, holding his mouth closed. He could smell the beer and fear in Dickens’ sweat. Eric plunged the knife straight into Dickens’ stomach, then pulled the knife quickly upward as if unzipping a jacket. Dickens’ hands went to his stomach as he tried to keep his guts from spilling, but it was like holding the groceries in a torn bag. Eric released him and he fell to the ground in a slushy heap.

Eric looked over at Tim, but there was no expression in his son’s eyes. The boy stood calmly and held out his hand for his knife. Eric gave it to him. Tim pointed toward the back of the tent. “Go. I’ve left your crossbow and quiver outside the camp in the woods.”

“Come on,” Eric said to him.

“No.”

Eric took a step toward him and Tim pointed his knife at his father.

“You promised,” Tim said.

Eric nodded. He started toward the back of the tent. Suddenly he whirled around, brushed aside Tim’s hand with the knife, and punched his son in the neck. Tim’s eyes rolled up as his knees buckled. Eric caught him as he fell, swooped him up in his arms. He grabbed a gun and Tim’s knife and slit open the back of the tent, and carried Tim into the nearby woods.

“You may be full of shit, Dickens,” one of the men yelled, “but ain’t nobody that full of piss. Here we come.”

Eric found the crossbow leaning against a tree. He slung Tim over one shoulder and the crossbow and quiver over the other. Then he ran as fast as he could, the hard metal bow bouncing on one shoulder, the soft unconscious boy bouncing on the other.

And behind them, the angry shouting of men tracking him.

“You lied,” Tim said.

“I’ve done worse.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

Eric shook his head. “It’s supposed to sadden you.”

They sat in the back seat of a burned out Volvo in Balboa Park. The park was 1,158 acres that once had been a cultural and recreational center bordering San Diego’s business district. They could see some of the exhibit halls along El Prado that had been built in 1915-16 for the Panama-California International Exposition. Fallows’ men had lost them a couple of miles back and would be returning to camp to tell the colonel. The San Diego Zoo was less than a mile away at the northern end of the park. But the blow to Tim’s neck had put him out longer than Eric had thought and he’d stopped to bring him around. He seemed okay now.

“Fallows would have hurt you for helping me escape,” Eric explained.

“You’ve made things worse.”

“I saved you from him.”

Tim’s face scowled in anger. “He saved me from you. People like you. Sure, he would have punished me, it’s what I deserved. But then it would have been over. Now you’ve compromised me. When he catches me again, he’ll have to start the whole torture process over again. You’ve tainted me. He can’t be sure what you’ve done to my mind.”

“What I’ve done? For God’s sake, Tim, he’s brainwashed you, programmed you away from me, from you, from who you are.”

Tim shrugged. “Who’s to say? He’s just swapped your program for his. How do I know which is right for me until I’ve tried both?”

Eric looked out the smashed window of the Volvo. A battered koala doll lay near the car. One of its eyes was missing. It reminded him of Deena and her band of graverobbers. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Yeah, right. You’ve got no argument, so it’s ‘let’s go’ because you say so. Right?”

Eric looked over at his son, the dark brooding eyes. Taken out of context, it was almost a typical father-teenage son exchange. They might have been talking about the length and color of his hair or his slipping grades. And like most such exchanges, Tim was right. There was no logic that could be explained or understood. It was just might makes right. Eric was bigger, had Tim’s knife and gun. Every action he made was reenforcing Fallows’ teachings. The strong should dominate the weak because they can.

“We’ll talk later,” Eric said, but that sounded lame even to him.

They climbed out of the car and Tim immediately tried to run. Eric grabbed his arm and yanked him to a stop. “Can’t you give me the same chance you gave Fallows?”

“You had me for twelve years. It got me a dead mother, sister, and kidnapped. He’s had me for nine months and I’m part of the most powerful group in the world.”

“This island isn’t the world.”

“Sure it is. For us. Besides . . .” He stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Eric looked at him, remembering Fallows’ bragging that he could get Tim off the island. “Besides, he can get you out of California and I can’t. Right?”

“Yes.”

“With the Soviets?”

“Yes.”

“How? What’s going on?”

“What’s the difference?”

Eric tightened his grip on Tim’s arm. “Tell me, Tim.”

Tim looked at Eric’s hand on his arm and grinned wryly. “The Russians have come in in a submarine. Somehow they slipped past the blockade outside.”

“Why? What are they doing here?”

“Building a small missile base. One missile is run completely by remote control.”

Eric thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. They’re coming in disguised as U.S. Navy, erecting a missile that will no doubt also have U.S. markings. That way if it’s ever discovered by the outside world, or the people who saw them ever questioned, it will look as if the U.S. used the opportunity to exploit its own people. The adverse publicity will be worth it. If not, they have one more warhead close to the U.S.”

“The colonel heard about them while we were travelling,” Tim said. “He came down here and told them he’d keep the locals off their backs and not hassle them in exchange for some ammunitions and equipment. The Russians didn’t have much time, so they figured it was worth it and agreed.”

“Wisely,” Eric said. “What about the gold?”

“That’s a private deal with the admiral. Fallows offered to buy fare for Nhu, himself, and me. For gold. Lots of gold.”

“And our Admiral Jones, in true capitalist fashion, decided what the motherland didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it. And he and his crew would be richer for the experience.”

“Something like that.”

Eric pulled Tim after him. He was moving quickly now, anxious to get under cover.

“He’ll be coming for me,” Tim said.

“I know.”

“Where will you hide?”

Eric caught the ‘you.’ Tim was telling him that they were not together, reminding him that Fallows would kill Eric, but not Tim. Where to hide? Eric considered heading east, lose them in the desert. He could go north, hide out in the forests and mountains while he deprogrammed Tim.

But even as he considered each option he knew there was only one place he could go. The zoo. Because even if he didn’t go there, Fallows would assume that he had, and he would swoop down on the place and kill D.B. and Wendy. The time it would take to do that could give Eric enough of a headstart. Enough for him and his son to escape. But as Big Bill had said, there was no true escape. Only different captors. And to leave D.B. and Wendy to Fallows would put Eric back on Fallows’ fishline again.

He headed toward the zoo, dragging Tim behind him.

“With Fallows,” Tim said, “I have a chance to get off this island. Isn’t that what you’d want for me?”

Eric said nothing, kept walking.

“If you loved me like you say, wouldn’t you want to give me that chance? I gave you your chance back in the tent.”

Eric had no answer. Maybe Tim was right. Perhaps love did mean giving Tim to Fallows if it meant getting him back to the rest of the world. Maybe back there Tim could see what a mutant someone like Fallows was.

But Eric didn’t want to take that chance. If Tim couldn’t learn that lesson here, then he’d never learn it. In a few hours he would have his chance, because that’s how long Eric figured before Fallows and his men reached the zoo.