The Island(40)

“We should have put some tracks on the beach,” Olivia whispered.

“We should have. I didn’t think of it,” Heather admitted.

“We tried it your way. It did not work,” Hans said. “We have no alternative but to give ourselves up and make them see reason.”

Heather turned to Petra, who nodded. Petra appeared to be on the side of her husband now. Heather had lost the argument. She looked east. The massive yellow sun was already several degrees above the horizon and beginning to torch the island. It was indeed going to be another searing day. Concealed by the long grass, Heather reached into her pocket and pulled out the penknife. She slid out the short blade.

“I have decided. We are going to go down there and surrender,” Hans said, getting up.

Heather dived on him and pushed the penknife against his throat. “No!” she said.

“You’re going to kill me?” Hans said, apparently unfazed.

“You know how sharp this thing is. You saw what it could do.”

“You’re going to cut my throat?” Hans said.

“Yes. We have to look after the kids.”

But Hans was big and very strong and surprisingly fast. Before Heather had time to react, he grabbed her right wrist and dragged it away from his face. He twisted her arm behind her back and rolled her off him. “Drop it,” he said as he tugged her hand backward. She thought her elbow was going to pop out of its socket. “Drop the knife!” Hans said.

The pain was unbearable. She dropped the knife.

Hans dragged her away from the blade and flopped her onto her back. “I have been very patient with you,” he said. “I thought you were different from the other Americans I have come across, but you are exactly the same. Come, Petra. Let us end this foolishness.”

“No, wait, please,” Heather said. “If you go down there now, they’ll take us too. At least give us fifteen minutes to get away from here.”

Hans shook his head. “You must do what you want. Petra and I have had enough of this.”

“Dat is een vergissing, Hans. Er is niets veranderd sinds gisteravond,” Petra said.

“Everything has changed! We have no water, there is no ferry, there is nothing more we can do,” he insisted.

“They will kill us. You know they will,” Petra said.

“This is a civilized country. We are living in the twenty-first century. This silliness is over,” Hans said.

“Please just let us get away. Five minutes—what difference will it make?” Heather said.

“I have listened to your madness for long enough,” he said and got to his feet.

He walked to the brow of the hill and waved at the O’Neills. “Up here!” he cried.

Heather picked up her penknife, grabbed Owen and Olivia by the hands, and pulled them to their feet, and, not knowing where they were going, they began to run again.





15



The blowfly grass. The bladygrass. The kangaroo grass. The spinifex.

Thistles, divots, clay.

A hawk.

Sun.

Heat.

A rifle shot.

Owen: “I can’t…”

Olivia: “You can.”

Eyes front. That’s the entire world. The one hundred yards in front. Don’t look back.

A little valley sloping down. Another hill going up.

A wail behind them. Yelling. Another rifle shot.

Running through the bladygrass.

Running through your own breath.

Through your own fear.

Thistle spines tearing at their legs. Divots in the red dirt tripping them.

Indigo sky. Cirrus clouds. Crows watching them through two hundred feet of heavy air.

Someone behind them. Hard breathing. Close. Closer. Someone gaining on them.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

Don’t look—

Heather looked.

Petra, red-faced, panting.

No one else on the hill yet.

“Hans?” Heather gasped.

“He went down to them.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“They’ll kill us. I tried to tell him—”

“Did he tell them we were up here?”

“I don’t know. Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

Yet another gunshot and the sound of a car revving its engine. Heather tried to listen as she ran. She’d grown up with vets and their cars on Goose Island. Men who didn’t talk about war or pain or loss talked about cars. She drove a stick. She knew engines. She knew gearboxes. That whining noise was the Toyota Hilux’s 3.0-liter V-6 straining hard as it drove up the slope in first gear.

Hans had told Matt that they were up here, and the O’Neills were coming to find them.

She scanned the terrain for any conceivable bit of cover.

There was nothing.

They were half a mile from what seemed to be mangrove trees to the west and farther than that from a clump of eucalyptus trees to the north. There was nothing around them but featureless heath. No hiding places.

Shit.

That slope had been pretty steep. Maybe the Toyota wasn’t going to make it. She strained to hear. Nope, it was still coming. If they could— Owen tripped and went down face-first into the red dirt. He pulled down Olivia, and Heather fell too.