Rembrandt's Ghost (23 page)

Without a match or a lighter or a handy-dandy magnifying glass the only way that Finn knew to make fire was the tried-and-true Coke-can-and-chocolate method she’d learned from her friend Tucker Noe in the Bahamas a year or so ago. It was the kind of thing bar bets were made of, but lo and behold the old man’s idiotic method actually worked, and without too much effort at all.

Tucker had used the bottom of a can of Kalik beer and a block of baker’s chocolate, but Coke and a Hershey’s bar would work just fine. Using a smear of chocolate and a piece torn off the bottom of her makeshift pillowcase headpiece, Finn began to polish the slightly concave aluminum underside of the can. After five minutes of a steady circular motion, the fine marks on the base of the tin were beginning to smooth out, and after twenty minutes, the base was as bright and reflective as a mirror.

Finn found a short length of twig, split the end with her thumbnail, and inserted a dusty little wad of the old lichen in the fork. It took a minute or two to find the right angle to hold the can to catch the sun and get the distance right between the improvised “matchstick” and the can, but eventually the tinder smoked, flared, and fired. Finn pushed the flaming tinder into a larger clump of the lichen she’d arranged under a little lean-to of twigs and a few moments later she had a comfortable fire blazing in front of the cave mouth.

Pleased that she’d accomplished this basic survival feat, she spent the rest of the morning exploring the general vicinity around the cave. After a noontime siesta in the cool confines of her new home she spent the afternoon putting together a simple tool chest of a few pieces of stone splintered or “knapped” into cutting knives and axes.

She then used these minimal tools to fashion a fish spear out of a long piece of bamboo, the split end sharpened, then hardened in the fire. As the sun began to set and darkness fell over the island, Finn used the spear as a spit for the foot-long catfishlike creature she’d caught in the stream only a few feet from her new front door. The fish was delicious. She finished off with a dessert of half-melted Hershey’s bar and gave a small sigh of contentment.

Fire, food, abundant fresh water, and shelter. The basics had been taken care of. Tomorrow she’d see if anyone else had been castaway on the island with her, or if she was alone. She piled some more branches on the fire, curled up close to its comforting warmth, and finally let sleep take her, trying hard not to think of her missing friends.

It was still dark when she was wrenched out of sleep by a crashing in the jungle. She barely had time to pick up the fish spear before a rushing pair of immense shadows leapt toward the flames of her hard-won fire and began scooping handfuls of the fine river sand on top of the lowering coals. She pulled herself upright and jumped forward with the spear, but one of the shadows whirled, wrenching the spear from her hands. She started to yell but a broad hand fell across her mouth and gripped hard. Somewhere close by was the foul smell of stinking, rotting meat. There was a fierce whisper in her ear.

“Not a sound or they’ll hear you! We have to get you out of here, fast!” It was Billy Pilgrim.

They slipped into the jungle, Billy leading Finn by the hand, the other figure moving on ahead. Whoever it was had some kind of furry cape around his shoulders and an odd-looking hat. Kong’s sneakers slid around on her feet and she stumbled as they raced along the dark, narrow pathway through the sleeping forest. Some kind of bird screeched loudly and a monkey chattered. The terrible smell seemed to be following them.

“Who’s your new friend?” Finn whispered, struggling along behind Billy. “And why does he smell like a dead goat?”

“Because I am wearing the skin of just such an animal,” said the man without pausing. “I also have acute hearing.” The accent was educated Australian, perhaps even from New Zealand. “My name is Benjamin Winchester. Professor Benjamin Winchester. I was a conservation biologist at the University of Auckland until three years ago.”

“What happened three years ago?” Finn panted.

“A tsunami and a typhoon like the one you just experienced. One caused the other. It is rare but it happens.” He paused, sniffing the air, and then moved forward again. “I was on a French research vessel, the
Tumamotu
. FREMER.”

“Fremer? What’s that?”

“French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Seas. I was on a grant from the University of Toulon. Pteropods. I’m an expert on the subject.”

“Pteropods?” Finn asked.

“It’s a kind of plankton, a flagellate pseudosnail that has little tiny wings. It swims with like a sea-horse, except microscopic. You kill them to find out about the CO
₂
levels in the water they live in. They’re a barometer to the chemistry of entire oceans. Interesting little things. Been slaughtering them for years.”

“So how’s the chemistry of the ocean?” Billy asked.

“Like the air over Manchester or Los Angeles,” said Winchester. “Not healthy.”

Wherever they were going, it was in a steep upward direction. It was getting more and more difficult for Finn to keep her footing. The trail was muddy and seemed to be getting narrower and narrower. After a few minutes Finn was completely soaked by the water dripping from the foliage of the undergrowth on either side of the muddy track. Finally the path leveled out and Finn was vaguely aware that they were on some kind of ridge; she could see a lighter section of night sky against the deeper darkness of the jungle that lay in the bowl of a narrow valley on their right.

“Where are we going?” Finn asked as they suddenly veered downward on the three-foot-wide trail.

“Away,” said the professor. “If we saw your fire, they might have as well.”

“They?”

“Zangs
Shuai-chiao
,” muttered Winchester. “Or maybe the Taisho’s
Itto-Suihei
.”

“Chinese?” Finn said, confused. “Japanese?”

“Both,” answered the man in the goatskins. “In this place it really doesn’t matter. They’ll both hack off your head and stick it on a pole if you give them the slightest opportunity.”

“I don’t understand,” said Finn, her brain whirling.

“You will,” answered Winchester. “Believe you me, young lady, you will.”

They were now walking carefully along a ledge no more than a yard or two wide with a long steep slide down a nearly vertical precipice if they slipped. On the far side of the valley, Finn thought she could see water glistening in the faint light of the stars. There was no moon. Suddenly Winchester stopped, turned, and vanished into thin air. Finn and Billy were alone on the narrow ledge.

“Where did he go?” Finn asked.

“Here,” said Winchester’s voice, echoing.

“Where?” Finn asked, frustrated, peering into the darkness. All she could see was jungle foliage and the steep wall beside her. Billy was right behind her.

“Turn to your left and take a step forward,” the voice instructed. Finn did as she was told. The foliage parted and she suddenly found herself standing in the narrow cleft of a high-ceilinged cave.

Unlike the ledge outside, the floor of the cave was perfectly dry, made out of some kind of limestone. There was a small flare of light and suddenly Winchester was visible, a grinning apparition in the light from a flickering lamp made out of a deep bowllike shell and a cotton wick. From the smell Finn knew he was using fish oil for fuel.

“This way,” he said, grinning. He turned and headed deeper into the cave. Finn followed the wavering light as it reflected off the smooth stone walls for another hundred feet or so. Suddenly the passage ended and she found herself in an immense cavern at least the length of a football field and half as wide. The roof spiraled up at least fifty feet above her head, long spikes of stalactites flowing down like hundreds of organ pipes in some incredible underground cathedral. There was just enough light from the flickering oil lamp to make out something that looked like a dark, narrow ribbon of oil at the far end of the cavern.

“A river?”

Winchester laughed, a strange, dry, rasping sound like a rusty hinge that reverberated and echoed through the giant chamber. “A stream. Pure, cold water. My own river Styx. It flows out of here and down into the valley.” He led Finn and Billy across the cave and up to a small stone plateau that rose against the far wall, close to the quietly flowing stream.

Here Winchester had made himself a neat little home, although even in the huge cave the smell of rotten meat, rotten fish, and rank body odor was almost suffocating. There was a hearth made from a large flat rock and a circle of smaller stones, and something that might have been an oven made out of gray, natural clay and an assortment of tools and weapons.

Some were homemade, like the blowpipes and the bamboo spears tipped with sharpened stones that lay in a pile on the far side of the hearth, and some that looked like they’d come from a museum, including an ornate sword with a carved bone handle and a large, roughly made iron ax that had obviously been hand-forged and hammered, but still looked dangerously sharp.

There were also several entirely modern rock hammers, a few rusty screwdrivers, a pipe wrench, and hanging from a makeshift bamboo spit were at least fifty hot-water bottles in a variety of colors. Ranged on a shelflike ledge were a number of amateurishly constructed wicker storage baskets, a wooden crate with the sticker from a pineapple plantation on the side, and an economy-sized red plastic jug of Tide laundry detergent. There appeared to be a pair of brass-cased old-fashioned binoculars hanging by a leather strap from a spiky rock outcropping. Hanging above this assortment of domestic treasures was a large naval pennant, orange on white of an idealized sun with odd-looking rays.

“It’s a Japanese Naval Command flag from World War Two,” said Winchester, noticing the direction of Finn’s gaze. He set the lamp down on the ledge, picked up a small tin box, and carried it to the hearth. There was a fire already laid.

He opened the box and took out a small sliver of dark rock and what looked like a broken piece from a carpenter’s plane. He struck the flint and steel together expertly and sparks flew, igniting the wad of tinder in the center of the pile of kindling. Within seconds the tinder had caught and a moment later a small fire was going. Finn found a flat area beside the fire and sat down. Billy joined her. Finn got her first good look at Winchester in the flush of light from the fire as he busied himself with a tin can kettle and something that could have passed for tea leaves.

The marooned university professor looked like something from a nightmare. He appeared to be in his fifties or early sixties, and was on the short side, but stocky and obviously in good health. The hat on his head was made out of a roughly cured triangular piece of skin from a wild pig, bristles out, but grotesque or not it seemed to be waterproof with a large hanging flap at the back like a Foreign Legion kepi to keep water from running down his neck.

Beneath the cap, which Winchester tossed unceremoniously aside as he wedged the tin can kettle in the fire, the man’s hair was a long, tangled, gray-blond mess, which he’d obviously tried to trim unsuccessfully. His skin, wherever it was exposed, was darkly tanned, burned almost black, his lips dry and cracked.

Bright blue eyes, half mad, peered startlingly above a thatch of beard that covered the lower half of his face completely. The clothes were a combination of goatskin, pieces of old nylon sail, and something that might have once been part of a rubberized tarpaulin or army surplus ground cloth—all of it held together by strips of leather, twigs twisted through roughly gouged holes, several lengths of copper wire and a heavy belt cinching the whole thing together in a horrible looking kilt and tunic combination.

The belt was the only thing that seemed solid in the entire, extraordinary patchwork ensemble. The belt buckle was brass, circular, lovingly polished, and had the same insignia as the naval pennant: a slightly eccentric version of the Japanese rising sun. What had she stumbled into?

Winchester squatted down in front of the fire and stared into the flames, a lost, yearning look in his eyes. Regardless of the state of his clothing, the professor seemed remarkably fit for a man tossed up on a desert island with nothing but a few odd tools, some bamboo spears, and amateurishly constructed blowguns to provide for his livelihood. It was an impressive feat and Finn told him so.

“I’d advise you to strip off your jeans,” he replied mildly.

“I beg your pardon?” Finn said, startled.

“You’ve just spent half an hour walking through the jungle on an island in the Sulu Sea,” he said, with that terrible, slightly maniacal laugh. “Leeches. Great big ones. You’ve probably been feeding a dozen of the fat buggers without noticing it.”

Finn stared, wondering for an instant if he was joking, then saw that he wasn’t trying to be funny at all. She struggled to her feet, unbuttoning and unzipping as she did so. Beside her Billy was going through the same routine. Winchester smiled, a bemused expression on his face.