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Laughlin and I trudged back through the sand to his cabana. Our path lead us past the marina, where we could see the minisub tied to the dock, and the diving shack where we had rented our faulty equipment. The day was beautiful and calm. It was hard to believe there had been a storm raging here only hours before.
I briefly considered the possibility that Stroeker was planning to use the minisub to move his crates, but I quickly discarded the idea. The sub simply couldn't fit all that much - no more than a dozen people could get on board. In addition, its range was probably quite small, and A'vuo'tutu was five hundred miles from the nearest archipelago.
Laughlin's cabana seemed normal as we approached it. I looked for footprints in the sand outside, figuring the rain should have washed away any that were made prior to this morning, and quickly spotted a set of bare female prints leading from down the beach, to the cabana, and back out. I pointed them out to Laughlin. "You've had a visitor, all right. You know, one option we have is to see where they came from...and where they went."
"Towards the native village, Utelei," Laughlin remarked. "We'll never find who it is there. And we may be in a good deal of trouble. Do you think they'll have used snakes in both places?"
"Depends on how subtle they wanted to be. It might draw some attention for two tourists to die of snake bites at the same time. On the other hand, two tourists dying at the same time would attract attention no matter how they die." I peered in the window, trying to see if I could spot anything unusual, but nothing seemed out of place. And there was no stack of towels.
"I can't do my thing out here," Laughlin noted. "Too many witnesses. You're protected until noon, so I'm afraid you're nominated. I'll keep watch out here."
I felt confused for a moment, until I remembered what he'd done to me earlier. That slightly numb sensation was still there. I nodded, figuring I was better trained for this situation, anyway. "All right. If you'll unlock the door, I'll begin."
He looked around, produced a key and unlocked the door. I stepped in, wary of lurking snakes, but saw nothing unusual. Laughlin's cabana was like that of any wealthy tourist. Expensive clothes in the closet, American passport on the nightstand, etc. A snake could be anywhere, but to be deadly it would have to be somewhere Laughlin would go. I checked the furniture, cabinets, bed, closet, bath, toilet and his clothes. Nothing. I went back to the door, hoping some of the wet sand had been tracked inside. There was a trail, but it quickly petered out after she apparently wiped her feet. It tended toward the bedroom, though, so I concentrated my efforts there. Besides the more mundane types of hazards, I also kept an eye open for any strange-looking symbols or powders, like what we'd found in Stroeker's room. I found nothing until I looked under the bed, where there was some sort of scrawled drawing. I memorized what it looked like, then checked out the other rooms, looking for more of the same. The bedroom drawing appeared to be the only one, however.
With a small feeling of relief, I rejoined Laughlin outside. "Well, the good news is there are no snakes that I could find, nor any suspicious piles of towels." I smiled slightly. "The bad news is that there's a weird symbol drawn underneath your bed." I described it to him as best I could. "Any idea what that means?"
He shook his head. "I'd have to see it to be sure. Polynesian arcana is not my specialty. But I'd hazard a guess that it's a curse. Lucky thing I didn't sleep there. Let me go take a look."
"Do you want me to go in with you, or keep watch out here?"
"Better stay here. If it's a curse, I don't want it affecting you, too."
He went inside and I was left to wonder if I really believed anything he said. So far, nothing he'd done had been unexplainable...although the snakebite would take some serious explaining. I was still trying to find a logical explanation for that. So far, the best I could come up with was that the snake had just grazed me. The whole invisibility incident was pretty hard to explain, too.
After perhaps ten minutes, Laughlin emerged, wearing new clothes, designer sunglasses and sporting a day pack. "It's a summoning," he said. "It's going to be a bad night in there. I've got everything I need and I'm not going back. Where to?"
"It's a summoning? Summoning what? You don't honestly believe some kind of creature from the black lagoon is going to show up under your bed tonight because someone scrawled a weird symbol there, do you?" I didn't sound as completely convinced that this was impossible as I would have liked, though. After all, why would the cultists try to kill him with something that wouldn't work? Possibly they believed it strongly enough to defy logic, much like Haitian voodoo cultists believed in zombies.
Laughlin began walking, apparently anxious to put some distance between himself and the cabana. "Do you want to sleep there and find out?" he asked. "Or have you forgotten the footprint in Stroeker's room?"
I didn't answer, since I had forgotten that particular detail.
"So what are our goals here?" Laughlin continued. "You still want Stroeker, and I want to know who wants those artifacts. Where does that leave us?"
"You left one goal out. I want to find out who's trying to kill us. Although I suspect we'll know that if we achieve our other goals. Why don't we start with what we know?" I began ticking off points on my fingers. "We know Stroeker was planning to smuggle the cult artifacts off of the island. We know that someone tried to kill us when they found out we'd be going near the island. We know that the cultists tried to kill Stroeker when they discovered what he was up to. We know that someone...or something trashed Stroeker's hotel room last night. We know that someone tried to kill us again this morning, most likely the cultists. Did I leave anything out, or shall I get on to what we don't know?"
"We know Stroeker has to have a boat. We know the artifacts are still on the islet. We know that Stroeker escaped the cult's attempt to kill him."
I shook my head. "We don't know any of that, actually. We know the artifacts were on the island last night...they could have been moved by now. We are assuming Stroeker has to have a boat, since that's the most logical way of moving them off of the island. We don't know that for sure, though. And while we know that Stroeker appears to have survived the cult's initial attempt to kill him, there may have been later, successful attempts. They haven't given up on us, after all." I paused. "Sorry, I don't want to sound picky, it's just easy to make assumptions about things sometimes, and the wrong assumption can get you killed. Still, all three things that you mentioned are likely true."
I paused briefly to think about the next question. "So, what don't we know? We don't know why that man was being held prisoner on the island. We don't know why the cultists are trying to kill us - do they think we're working with Stroeker, or is it merely for venturing onto their island? Did we see something significant there and not realize it? It wouldn't surprise me, from the look of that altar room we found, if they were engaging in some sort of ritual sacrifices there. Perhaps that's what the prisoner was intended for. We don't know if the entire native population is part of this cult, or just a subset. We don't know who or what trashed Stroeker's room. We don't know where the vehicle is that Stroeker was going to use in getting the artifacts out of here. We don't know where Stroeker's holed up. We don't know if he has any accomplices here. We don't know who he was going to sell those artifacts to - I imagine it's a rather specialized market. And we don't know if that luggage switch at the airport ties into any of this, or the man who approached you there." I sighed. "Did I miss anything?"
"That would seem to cover it," Laughlin agreed.
"Actually, I left one thing out," I realized. "We don't know why being near the island made Theresa collapse. All right, that leaves things we can pursue. We could go to the hospital and see if the prisoner survived. The problem with that is, even if he did, we have no way to understand him. We can check out Stroeker's cabana and see if there are any clues there, although the cultists may be watching it. We can wander around the island looking for a boat. We could ask Brian if there are any boats expected in soon. We could go to the hospital and see if Theresa can tell us anything. As a long shot, we could see if that book you copied makes any reference to the kinds of symbols and artifacts that we've been seeing recently."
"That is a long shot. Plato was a Greek. Theresa might help. As for a boat, it'd have to be fairly large. I still think radar is our best shot."
"I don't think there are any radar facilities on this island, certainly none that we'd have access to."
"The airfield has one. And I'll just bet they'd show it off to a wealthy American interested in investing."
American? Now that was a twist. Since he had British citizenship, and grew up there, I'd assumed he was British. I made a mental note to ask him about that later. Whatever his citizenship, though, he had a point, and I felt a slow smile stretch across my face. "I'll bet they would. Good idea. Shall we talk to Theresa first, and then hit the airfield?"
"Let's," Laughlin agreed.
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Last modified on November 12, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.