Matt Reilly Stories (25 page)

Within
a minute, he arrived at a little-known entrance to the carrier, one located
fifty feet below the waterline: a submarine docking door.

Designed
to recover long-range reconnaissance troops—read spies—returning to the
Nimitz
via small submarines, for a long time Marines had referred to it as the
spooks’ door. Over time, ‘spook’ had become ‘ghost’ and then ghost had become
‘Casper’, as in the friendly one.

This
was Casper’s door.

Schofield
knocked loudly on it—in Morse code, punching out: ‘Mother. You there?’

At
first there was no reply and Schofield’s heart began to beat a little faster,
before suddenly there came a muffled answering knock from the other side:

‘As
always.’

* * * *

THIRD
ASSAULT

HELL
ISLAND

1745
HOURS

1
AUSUST, 2005

* * * *

XII

Schofield’s
team sat in a grim silent circle beside the airlock that was Casper’s door,
deep within the bowels of the carrier.

There
were only five of them now.

Schofield,
Mother, Sanchez, Bigfoot and Astro.

Schofield
sat on his own a short distance from the other four, head bowed, deep in
thought... and dripping wet. He’d taken his anti-flash glasses off and was
rubbing his scar-cut
eyes.                

‘What
the hell are we gonna do?’ Sanchez moaned. ‘We’re on an island in the middle of
the biggest ocean in the world, with three hundred of those
things
hunting
us down. We’re completely, utterly, abso-fuckin-lutely
screwed.’                               
\

Astro
shook his head. ‘There’s just too many of them. It’s only a matter of time.’

Mother
looked over at Schofield—still sitting with his head bent, thinking.

The
others followed her gaze, as if waiting for him to say something.

Sanchez
misunderstood Schofield’s silence for fear. ‘Aw, great! He’s
frozen up!
Man,
I wish I coulda stayed in the Buck’s unit.’

‘Hey!’
Mother
barked. ‘I’ve had a gutful of your griping, Sanchez. You doubt the Scarecrow
one more time and I’ll perform my own court martial on you right here. That
man’s got the coolest head in the game. Cooler than the fucking Buck and way
cooler than you, that’s for sure. I’ve seen him think his way out of worse
situations than this.’

‘Pancho,’
Bigfoot said softly. ‘She’s right. You shoulda seen him up on the flight deck.
He must have taken out forty of those apes from the Tomcat, and then another
fifty in the chopper that he tossed off the bow. He’s taken care of ninety of
them all by himself. Now, I know you liked serving with the Buck, but you
gotta move on. This guy’s not better or worse than the Buck, he’s just
different. Why don’t you cut him a break.’

This
was a big moment. Bigfoot was Sanchez’s closest friend in the unit, his former
teammate under ‘Buccaneer’ Broyles.

Sanchez
scowled. ‘I got a question then. In R7, in Florida, back in ‘04, the Buck beat
everybody except him.’ He jerked a nod at Schofield. ‘Led by him, you guys
evaded us for forty-one hours, till the exercise was over. How did you guys do
that for so long?’

Mother
indicated Schofield: ‘It was all him, all his doing. He saw a pattern in the
Buck’s moves, and once he found that pattern, he could anticipate every move
you guys made. You had a numerical advantage, but since he could predict your
every next move, it didn’t matter.’

‘What
pattern did he see in our moves?’

‘Scarecrow
realised that the Buck employed the same tactic repeatedly: he’d always use one
sub-team to push his opponent toward a larger, waiting, force. You see, that’s
Scarecrow’s biggest talent. He spots patterns, the enemy’s patterns, their
tactics and strategies ... and then he uses those patterns against them.’

‘But
he didn’t use anything against us in R7,’ Sanchez said. ‘He just avoided us. He
didn’t
hurt
us in any way.’

‘Oh,
yes, he did,’ Mother said. ‘By evading you guys till the end of the ex, he
deprived you of the one thing you wanted most of all: a clear win.’

Sanchez
growled. This was true.

Her
point made, Mother turned to look back at Schofield—

—only
to find him gazing directly back at her, his eyes alive.

She
said, ‘Well, hey there, handsome. What’s up? Whatcha thinking?’

It
was as if a light-bulb had lit up above his head.

‘The
Buck...’ he said.

‘What
about him?’

‘He’s
here. Now. Commanding these ape troops.’

* * * *

XIII

S
chofield
spoke quickly.

‘Think
back. In the observation tower above the indoor battlefield, the apes on the
ceiling drove
us forward,
toward the other force of apes in the forward
hangar. The
larger
force.

‘Then
in the aft hangar, they let us try for the port-side elevator but then removed
it, knowing we’d have to come
back
through their larger force. They were
always driving us toward the larger numbers. It would also explain why the
Corps disbanded the Buck’s unit a few months ago—he was being assigned to a
special mission. This one.’

Astro
said, ‘But that scientist, Pennebaker, said the exercise had gone pear-shaped.
If the Buck was here, he’d be dead, too, killed by the gorillas.’

‘And
where’s Pennebaker now?’ Schofield asked. ‘He was last seen ditching us in the
aft hangar, during the gorillas’ main assault. Either he felt he was safer on
his own—unlikely—or he was part of something bigger, a messenger sent to give
us information. Mother, gentlemen, I’m not convinced the “exercise” here at
Hell Island went pear-shaped at all. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if it’s
still going…and we’re a part of it.’

There
was a silence.

Sanchez
said, ‘Okay. So if the Buck’s here, where is he?’

‘Somewhere
on the boat?’ Astro suggested.

‘No,
I don’t think so,’ Schofield swapped a look with Mother. ‘The power drain.’

Mother
nodded. ‘Concur.’

‘What
are you two talking about?’ Sanchez asked.

Schofield
said, ‘Back on the bridge, we detected a power drain going off the ship and
onto the island. The Buck—and whoever else is controlling this ape army—is
somewhere on Hell Island.’

He
stood, putting his silver anti-flash glasses back on, now looking more lethal
than ever.

‘Knowledge
is a wonderful thing. Now that we’ve figured some of this out, it’s time to
turn the tables.’

* * * *

XIV

Schofield
waited till dusk to leave the
Nimitz.

If
he was going to take on the island, the cover of darkness would be necessary.
It also gave him a chance to do some research.

He
dispatched Mother and Astro to find any maps of Hell Island. They found some in
a stateroom, ever aware of the howls of the gorillas searching the ship for
them.

When
they returned, Schofield and his team pored over the maps. The most helpful one
showed a network of underground tunnels running throughout the island:

‘This
used to be called Grant Island,’ Schofield said. ‘Until we stormed it in 1943
and removed it from all maps, so it could be used as a secret staging post.
The fighting here was some of the fiercest of the war, almost as bad as Okinawa
and Iwo Jima. Two thousand Japanese defenders fought to the very end on Grant,
not giving a single inch—not wanting to give up its airfield. We lost eight
hundred Marines taking it. Thing was, we almost lost a lot more.’

‘What
do you mean?’ Mother asked.

‘Like
Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Hell Island was honeycombed with tunnels—concrete tunnels
that the Japanese built over two years, connecting all its gun emplacements,
pillboxes, and ammo dumps. The Japanese could move around the island unseen,
popping up from hidden holes and firing at point-blank range before
disappearing again.

‘But
the tunnels on Hell Island had one extra purpose. They had a feature not seen
anywhere else in the Pacific war: a flooding valve system.’

‘What
was that?’

‘It
was the ultimate suicide ploy. If the island was taken, the last remaining
Japanese officers were to retreat to the lowest underground ammunition
chamber—presumably followed by the American forces. From that chamber, the
Japanese could seal off the entire tunnel system and then open two huge ocean
gates—floodgates built into the walls of the system that could let the ocean
in. The system would flood, killing both the Japanese and all the Americans now
trapped inside. Kind of like a final “Screw you” to the victorious American
force.’

‘Did
the Japs use those gates in ‘43?’ Sanchez asked.

‘They
did. But a small team of special-mission Marines braved the rising waters and
using primitive breathing apparatus managed to close the ocean gates, saving
five hundred Marines.’

‘How
do you know this?’ Bigfoot asked.

Schofield
smiled weakly. ‘My grandfather was a member of that special team. His name was
Lieutenant Michael Schofield. He led the team that held back the ocean.’

* *

Schofield
leaned back, staring at the map.

‘The
ammunition chambers ...’ he said. ‘If they’re like other World War II-era
chambers, they’re big, hall-sized caverns. If we could lure the apes into one
of them, we could seal them
all
inside and—hmmm ...’

‘What
about finding the Buck and whoever else is behind this?’ Sanchez said.

‘Too
risky. They could be anywhere on the island. They
are
also currently
trying to kill us. No. We’ve been on the back foot all day. It’s time we got
proactive, it’s time
we
set the agenda. And the way I see it, if we can
pull this off,’ Schofield said, ‘maybe they’ll find us. So what do you say,
folks. Want to become gorilla bait?’