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Copyright:
Thursday, March 10, 2005 02:38:13 PM
PARADISE
ISLAND
ATLANTIC OCEAN
DAY 4
True to Mulder’s
predictions, the fierce tropical storm blew itself out soon after sunrise. Their
green-hued little island glistened like a precious multifaceted jewel as bright
sunlight poured across the ridge, drying sand and stone and wood in record time.
Penelope was the first to
venture outside, and she came back in pink-cheeked and glowing with excitement.
"Lots of fish got caught in our tidepool, Momma!" she beamed. "Come see! We’ll
have plenty to eat tonight!"
Before Max could find
some excuse to slip away and hide all day, Reuben and Esther briskly organized a
fishing expedition. While the two teenagers baited hooks stripped clean by the
squall, Scully and Mulder helped the spry old woman build a drying rack where
they could store whatever fish they didn’t eat immediately. Then they scooped
out the captive fish and threw them up onto the shore, where Reuben helped her
clean and gut them.
"Hey, Max, look at this!"
Penny stared in fascination as a baby octopus swayed back and forth in the
gentle tide. "It’s kinda cute! Look at all those tiny suction cups on its legs!
I wish we could take it with us, when we go home. I’d name it Murphy!"
Max was lightly poking a
stick at some delicately-hued anemones. "How do you know if it’s a boy or a
girl?" he countered with a sly grin. "But I know what you mean. My mother would
love to add these things to her living room tank. They’d never survive, though."
The baby octopus suddenly
shot across the tidepool, leaving a dark cloud of ink floating in the water, and
settled on another rock. Penny dipped a finger in the water, and curiously
swirled it through the drifting cloud. "I want a saltwater tank someday," she
murmured in a pensive undertone. "I hope Daddy finds us soon."
If Max heard her soft,
plaintive words, he gave no sign. "Now what do you want us to do?" he demanded,
peering back at Reuben over his shoulder.
"Time to make that big
net," the old man decided. "Agent Mulder, can you help me cut down some more
vines? A lot of the ones I’d already prepped got washed away in the storm."
Mulder obligingly rose to
his feet, and followed him into the thick foliage. Shaking branches gave away
their position as they tugged and pulled on the thick woody vines. Scully and
Max dutifully carried their morning’s catch back to the cave, while Penny began
fetching and hauling cut vines down to the tidepool.
"Now," Reuben began when
they’d all regrouped by the surging water. "Stripping vines takes a lot of hard
work, but all working together we can get it done fast. Penny, you work with
Momma, Max can work with me. First you cut the bark right at the top, two or
three inches long on both sides, to give it a good start. Then one person grabs
the vine while the other person grabs the bark. Pull like so," and he
demonstrated with Esther, carefully peeling bark down a foot at a time, "and
that’s how it’s done.
"If the bark keeps
breaking or peeling crooked, just make a cut down the entire length of the
vine," he added. "We want long pieces, but better they’re short and strong than
long and gonna break with the first wave."
Penny gingerly tugged at
a section of her own vine. Brown grime oozed between her small fingers. She made
a disgusted sound, and wiped her hands on a swath of grass. "This is gross," she
complained.
"So’s gutting fish,"
Esther conceded with a wry smile. "But you like to eat. So you put up with the
mess. Same thing here. We want food, we have to make a trap."
"But we have lots
of food!" the girl protested, gesturing in the cave’s general direction. "Look
at all the fish we caught this morning! And we still have all that turtle meat,
and the fresh fruit we gathered yesterday, and..."
"And what happens,"
Reuben grimly countered, "if we get another storm, and this one lasts two days?
Or three? Monsoons can last weeks! We don’t have lots of food stored, we’re
gonna get real hungry.
"Me, I’ve been there." He
thumped gnarled fingers against his bony chest. "Back in the war, our ship got
run aground. We had to survive nearly a month on an island like this. No
supplies, and enemies shooting at us if we poked our heads out. I know
what happens if you don’t gather food while you can!"
His vigorous tirade
shocked Penny into momentary silence. "How did you escape?" she finally ventured
in a hesitant whisper.
A fierce light glittered
in the old man’s dark eyes. "We killed every single one of those yellow
bastards," he boasted. "Spear pits, bow and arrows, sneak attacks. Because we
couldn’t use our guns, you see, without telling ’em just where we were hiding.
Last batch we caught in a big rockslide! There was this narrow gully, see, with
loose rock in it, and we suckered them inside, then..."
Esther touched his arm,
and firmly shook her head. "Hush, Poppa," she chided. "Don’t go into details,
they won’t be able to sleep tonight."
"I don’t care!" Max
exclaimed, his blue eyes bright with interest. "I want to know how you did it!
Will you tell me later, when the girls aren’t around?" And he turned to
sneer in Penny’s direction.
Reuben weighed the risks
of angering his formidable wife against the benefits of easing Max’s hostility,
and slyly winked at the boy. "You behave yourself today, you can go up on the
ridge with me tomorrow and watch for ships."
"Cool!" Energized, Max
grabbed an end of the nearest vine and began to tug. Then he scowled. "You made
it look easy!" he accused.
The old man chuckled.
"Try cutting it first," he advised, and demonstrated. "Now let’s see how many we
can get done before noon!"• • • • • •
By
lunchtime, they’d amassed a large mound of bark peelings. Stripped vines were
laid in another pile, where they gleamed pale white in the high overhead sun.
The salty air was ripe with fresh woody scents. Scully wasn’t the only one
relieved when the tireless retirees finally called a halt; they were all
ravenous and exhausted from the long morning’s work.
Reuben’s tortoise stew
tasted like ambrosia, and they washed it down with huge amounts of cool
sparkling water from the cave’s hidden pool. Then, curiously revitalized, they
meandered back down to the beach to start constructing the proposed net.
It was Mulder who first
noticed the broken saplings where they’d tied their emergency raft before the
storm. The beach was swept so clean, he almost didn’t recognize the spot. Even
the last traces of their original campfire had completely vanished.
So had the big orange
raft.
Sick dread pooled in his
stomach. They were undeniably safer here than out drifting in the vast
ocean--but at least they’d had the option of leaving. Now they had nothing.
Whatever happened to them, they were stuck here just as surely as Reuben’s
long-ago submarine crew had been stranded in the South Pacific.
"He’s coming here."
His own enigmatic words
echoed hauntingly in his troubled mind. Who was coming? And why did he
feel such a dark sense of impending danger? Unless...
"Mulder, what’s wrong?"
Scully touched his arm,
and the grim presentiment faded. He didn’t try to wrestle it back into focus.
The warning had been given, and understood. Forewarned was forearmed.
Frowning, he silently
directed her attention to the broken saplings. Her soft dismayed gasp was barely
audible over the rolling surf. "Oh, no! Mulder, now what’re we going to do?"
He took a deep breath,
and straightened his shoulders. "Exactly what we were already doing. Surviving."
A bleak smile curved his lips. "Come on, they’re waiting for us."
Scully fell into step
beside him, but her anxious expression reflected her concern. "I don’t think we
should tell them," she murmured. "Knowing we’re completely stranded here
will only upset them."
This time the smile
reached his eyes, and they sparkled with a trace of his normal ironic humor.
"Tell them what?"
• • • • • •
Esther
had already begun laying out the net’s basic pattern when they arrived. The long
white, stripped vines were crisscrossed in the sand like a giant chess board.
"Now we can all take turns with this," she instructed, "but one person will
weave bark strips diagonally through these squares while four people hold the
vines in place. The sixth person can spread out the other bark strips in neat
lines, so they’re ready to use."
Once they all understood
which vines to hold steady, work progressed quickly. Esther and Reuben traded
off looping the bark strips diagonally around each intersecting square. When
they’d finished with the first half, they switched directions and concentrated
on the other diagonal.
"It looks just like a
real fisherman’s net!" Penny exclaimed when they’d finished. "Only a lot bigger!
But won’t it all unravel when we pick it up?"
"That’s why now we tie
all the loose ends to the outside rows," Reuben nodded. "That way it’ll stay
nice and sturdy, even after we tie it up between those two big rocks." And he
pointed toward the massive boulders bordering their overflowing tidepools.
"Gotta hurry, tide’s coming in."
The gritty sand felt warm
and oddly soothing as they knelt to finish. Then Max leaned back with a gusty
sigh, and flexed his aching fingers. "I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel
totally filthy. Look at us!"
Suddenly self-conscious,
they all glanced around, then began to chuckle. Three long, hot days in the
wilderness had definitely taken their toll. Max and Penny’s once-white tennis
outfits were streaked with mud and grime. Scully had a four-inch rip in her
favorite blouse; Mulder had torn out both knees in his new jeans. Esther’s long
skirt was sprinkled in places with prickly burrs. Reuben’s short gray hair was
smudged with soot from cooking. And both men needed to shave.
"I’d give anything for a
nice long bubble bath right now!" Penny sighed, wistfully closing her eyes.
Esther mustered an
encouraging smile. "With fresh, fluffy towels!"
Scully brushed a tangled
lock of hair off her sunburned forehead. "Piping hot coffee!" she suggested.
Mulder was next in line.
He deliberately hesitated, heightening the suspense, then whimsically rolled his
eyes. "Toilet paper!" he exclaimed.
Even Max had laugh at his
comical expression. Reuben clapped the tall FBI agent on the shoulder. "I don’t
think any of us will take that for granted again!" he quipped.
"What about you, Maxie?"
Penelope urged, her blue eyes dancing. "What do you miss most of all?"
Max hesitated, then
grinned. "My video games," he confessed.
"Reuben?" Scully
prompted, realizing that the old man hadn’t added his own suggestion yet. "Your
turn!"
The old man stared
thoughtfully at the rough-woven net they’d just spent all day constructing, then
a curious smile creased his wrinkled face. "I miss our family," he admitted.
"But eh, we’ve got it good. Esther and I are together, we’re safe and healthy,
and frankly I haven’t felt this good in years!"
Esther’s eyes misted, and
she gently touched her husband’s weathered hand. "As long as we’re together,
life is good," she agreed. Then she mischievously winked at Penelope. "But a hot
shower would be nice!"
"I think the best we can
manage right now is a long soak in the bay," Scully suggested. "But the water’s
warm, and we can scrub our clothes clean with sand. Just don’t step on any sea
urchins, our medkit’s not equipped for toxin poisoning."
She wearily gathered up a
handful of woven vines. "Let’s go hang this thing, then take a break for a few
hours. We’ve all earned it!"
Penelope’s eyes gleamed
with excitement. "I’m sure I saw some dolphins out in the bay earlier!" she
exclaimed. "Maybe they’ll come play with us!"
"Better hope they weren’t
sharks!" Max retorted. "Even you aren’t that fast a swimmer!" Then
he blinked in surprise as everyone turned to scowl at him. "What? I meant
it as a compliment!"
Reuben snorted and shook
his head. "Remind me to have a long talk with you later!" he scoffed.
Scully’s lips twitched
with barely-suppressed laughter. "There are hits, Max, and there are misses,"
she agreed, eyes dancing as she tried to maintain a sober facade. "And then,
there are real misses!"
Esther chuckled at the
boy’s bewildered expression. "Never mind, Max," she advised. "It’ll all make
sense eventually."
She struggled to her feet
and stretched aching muscles, then hefted her corner of the big net. It was
heaver than it looked, and took all their efforts to slowly wrestled it into the
surging waves. Then the agile teenagers clambered up each boulder, and looped
long trailers around each one to hold it in place.
When they were done, the
net sagged in the middle--but Esther was blithely confident that it would work
perfectly. "This way," she assured Mulder, "it will bend as the tide comes in,
and fish will slide right over the top. If it’s drawn too tight, they’ll just
bounce against it and swim away again!"
"That makes sense,"
Scully conceded with an admiring smile. "We’ll find out tomorrow if it works as
advertised. Now let’s go get clean!"
Max and Penny needed no
further urging. Laughing, they dashed back toward the bay, and threw themselves
headlong into the warm water. "Come on, Momma! This is wonderful!" Penny called,
then squealed in delight when a heavy wave splashed over her sunburned fair
skin.
Mulder hesitated when
they drew abreast of the broken saplings again, and his gaze was inexorably
drawn up the shadowed mountainside. "We need to find out where our water source
is originating," he murmured. "That tingling sensation still worries me. I
should know, if only I could remember!"
Physical touch always
soothed him, so she gently stroked his muscular arm. "If it’s buried in the
hillside, we may never find it," she pointed out. "We’ll look for it, I
promise--but not today. We all need a break. Tomorrow, okay? After we’ve rested
and eaten breakfast.
"Right now," she added
with a wicked grin, "I need a bath. And you need to shave! Maybe Reuben will
loan you his pocketknife, if you’ll promise not to slit your throat trying!"
Mulder thoughtfully
rubbed his roughened cheek, then curled long fingers through her tousled hair.
"I’ll risk it, if you’ll let me scrub your back," he slyly offered.
Penelope’s bubbling
laughter suddenly reached them. They turned just in time to see her splashing at
Max, then merrily dodging aside. "I think she’s forgiven him for that backhanded
compliment," Scully chuckled. "Shall we join them?"
Mulder playfully grabbed
her hand, and tugged her into the rolling surf. "Last one in’s a rotten egg!"
• • • • • •
FBI HEADQUARTERS
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MID-AFTERNOON - DAY 4
It was
amazing, Skinner reflected with a rueful smile, what money and power could
accomplish where common sense and decency failed.
Only moments after
Alistair Smythe stealthily left his office, Senator Kensington and Alexander
Stanwick arrived. It was the first time Skinner had met the influential
millionaire in person, and he was pleasantly surprised.
Stanwick neither flaunted
nor capitalized on his considerable fortune, like so many of Washington’s
nouveau-riche. He was a dignified man, taller even than Kensington, who wore
his authority with quiet grace. The faintest trace of a British accent colored
his precise speech, prompting Skinner to inquire about his background as they
politely shook hands.
"I was born in England,"
Stanwick told him, and settled into a nearby chair. "My father and I had a
falling out many years ago, so I came to the States to make my own fortune. I’ve
lived here ever since."
"My office is doing
everything within its power to rescue your son and Senator Kensington’s
daughter," Skinner assured him. He waved Kensington into the other chair, and
settled behind his desk again. "We now have two possible locations where we
believe they may be found."
Stanwick’s eyes widened
in disbelief as he showed them the Well-Manicured Man’s detailed map. "I can’t
yet explain how the rafts were transported over such a tremendous distance,"
Skinner hedged, "but we do have reason to believe that these are their
eventual destinations." And he pointed at the Santa Luzia island chain, then at
the vast empty space east of the Virgin Islands.
"It’s the Bermuda
Triangle," Kensington grated, shaking his head in disgust. "That says it all."
Stanwick ignored the
Senator’s grim interjection, and bent to study the map more closely. "We will
certainly search both locations," he decided. "But is there any way of knowing
beforehand where Max and Penelope might be?"
"Nothing but a strong
hunch," Skinner admitted. "Our experts have analyzed the passengers’ personality
profiles, and prepared a full report." He’d already scanned the thick multi-page
memo, and felt it best to tactfully paraphrase its contents. Some parents could
be overprotective, and he had no desire to alienate either man with an
unflattering evaluation of their children’s less appealing personality traits.
"Whenever possible," he
explained, "people in crisis tend to ‘buddy’ with the person most familiar to
them. So it seems likely that the flight crew would have remained together. And
the three roommates on that plane reportedly have a high respect for visible
authority, so our analysts feel that they would have chosen the same raft.
"Based on this report,
and aerial survey photographs taken in the region during the crash," he added,
choosing his words with extreme care, "we believe that Max and Penelope chose
the second raft."
"And the other
passengers?" Stanwick demanded. "The elderly couple, and your two agents?"
Skinner allowed himself a
thin smile. "Reuben and Esther Schaumberg are both retired. It’s not
likely that they could move fast enough, even in a crisis situation, to reach
the first raft in time. Agent Mulder’s profile shows an extremely high respect
for the elderly, whereas Agent Scully has a marked affinity for children," he
added, masking a warm glow of quiet pride beneath his normal stern demeanor.
"Their first instinct would have been to protect the Schaumbergs and your
teenagers."
Senator Kensington stared
hard at the map. "That’s all fine and dandy," he grumbled, "but it still doesn’t
tell us where they are. You’ve got a hunch, Walter, let’s hear it."
Without hesitation,
Skinner pointed to the southerly location. "Given Agent Mulder’s knack for
accomplishing the impossible, I believe he’ll most likely be found in the
least likely location--down here. It doesn’t show on this map, but I’ve
been told there’s a small island nearby where they may have taken refuge."
Stanwick’s angular face
brightened with relief. "Then we simply fly in and rescue them!" he exclaimed.
"They’ll be safely home by suppertime!"
Skinner raised one hand,
forestalling the millionaire’s quick grab for his phone. "I’m afraid it’s not
that easy, Mr. Stanwick. Where Agent Mulder is concerned," he conceded with a
heavy sigh, "things rarely are."
Briefly he outlined the
island’s known peculiarities, though he prudently avoided any references to
alien involvement. Nor did he mention Alistair Smythe’s belief that a deadly
strike team was being assembled against the charter’s survivors.
Both men listened in
silence, their expressions unreadable.
Finally Stanwick leveled
piercing eyes at Skinner. "Charles has told me about your special agents, and
this X-Files project of yours," he grimly informed the Assistant Director.
"Frankly, I think it all sounds like something from a B-rated horror movie."
"And there have been
times, over the years, when I’d have agreed with you," Skinner readily admitted.
"I’ve witnessed things myself, though, that simply can’t be explained by any
logical, rational means. And I’ve been forced to reevaluate my own beliefs about
what really is possible."
Stanwick frowned, then
slowly shook his head. "What I believe is irrelevant right now," he
sighed. "If Max and Penelope are on that island, we need to find them and bring
them home. How close can we get before resorting to sailing?"
"Approximately thirty
kilometers," Skinner replied, heaving a silent sigh of relief. "I have the
island’s exact coordinates; all we need now is a safe form of transport."
"Let me handle that,"
Stanwick offered. "My private jet is standing by, and I have a racing yacht
moored down in Nassau. We can sail the remaining distance in the Wild Card.
It should take no more than thirty-six hours, at top speed."
If only Captain Worley
had been as cooperative! The newly-recommissioned U.S.S. Kennedy was
currently stationed in the Caribbean, pending its upcoming return to the
Mediterranean Sea. A single order from Captain Worley could have seen them
aboard a high-speed transport within the hour. By nightfall, they could have
been landing on the island itself.
If a Syndicate strike
team was already being assembled, or had already been deployed, a full day’s
delay could mean disaster! How could he shorten the trip without alerting Worley
to their plans?
Stanwick was reaching for
Skinner’s phone again when it suddenly rang. The startled millionaire jerked his
hand back as if he’d been burned. Skinner leaned forward, and impatiently picked
up the receiver.
"Assistant Director
Skinner!" he snapped. If that obnoxious little auditor was calling back to
harass him about his departmental budgetary figures again, he was going to
finish what Mulder had started two years ago, and put the little weasel in the
hospital!
"Sir?" Special Agent John
Doggett’s deep voice echoed through the receiver. "I just received a phone call
that may help us locate Agents Mulder and Scully."
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