“That explains these,” Mildred said, lifting a wooden object into view. Deftly she slid the thing onto the arming bolt of the M-16. It fit perfectly.
“They made the autofire into a bolt action,” Ryan said, studying the contraption. “Set the selector to single shot and just work the bolt every time you want to fire. Slow as hell, but better than a jam every few rounds.”
“This one is full of clothes,” Krysty said, frowning at the contents of another trunk as she lifted out some Navy uniforms. But then added, “And boots!”
“My size?” Jak asked hopefully. His right boot had a small hole in it getting bigger all the time, and the leather patch wasn’t keeping out the water anymore.
She checked the soles for size and passed a pair to the teenager. “These should fit.”
Grinning happily, he yanked off his old boots and tried the new pair. “Just fine,” he declared. “Any socks?”
“Nope.”
“Damn.”
“I’ll take some laces,” Dean said, glancing at the tangle of repaired knots keeping his boots closed.
Krysty tossed him a pair, and he started eagerly undoing the stiff military string. It was the same stuff as on the booby trap, he noted and mentally filed the trick away for his own use in the future.
“How sad,” Doc said, returning a book to the wall shelves. Every volume in the room was destroyed with age, and fat from being waterlogged, the pages expanded to the point the ink was bleached clean and completely unreadable. Even the leather bindings were cracked and crumbling.
“No Caesar, but time burned this library of Alexandria,” the scholar said sadly. “Tempus morta ergo sum est.”
“You have the syntax of a high-school student,” Mildred retorted, looking over the collection. She scowled as she began to browse through the titles. Several books were private printings of experimental research, chemistry, gene splicing, DNA alterations and a lot of coded books with Pentagon and top secret markings.
“There was a biowep research lab on this island,” she commented. “Or rather, wherever these books came from.”
“We saw the spider,” Ryan said, lifting a lump of oily canvas from a trunk full of cables, electronics and circuit boards. They looked like the guts of a computer. Why anybody had saved the stuff he had no idea. Closing the lid, he laid the bundle on top and cut away the stiff string. The unwrapped oily canvas exposed a large blue-steel revolver.
“Webley .44,” he announced, hefting the blaster and breaking the top-loader in two to check the cylinder. There were four rounds inside and two empty shells.
“Even with black powder, this should work fine,” Ryan stated, closing the huge British hand cannon. “Good blaster.”
“I’ll take it,” Krysty said, and tucked the cannon into her belt The S&W was nearly empty and she needed a backup piece badly. The Webley slipped down a bit, and she had to tighten the belt to keep it in place. Now she knew why the sailors wore such wide belts. They used them as holsters.
Going to the largest trunk, off in its own corner, J.B. tricked the lock with a knife blade and forced open the lid.
“Jackpot,” he announced happily. Nestled in plastic foam were rows of military grens. Underneath was another layer, and another, going straight to the bottom of the trunk. “Six layers of twenty grens. Dark night! We could hold off an army with these.”
“If still live,” Jak warned.
With practiced ease, Ryan opened one and checked inside. “Dead,” he cursed, pouring out some white residue. “The plas has dried into dust.”
“If the primers are still good, we could stuff these with black powder,” J.B. suggested. “Not very powerful, but better than nothing.”
“That work?”
“Sure. Did it before.”
Going to the last trunk, Ryan discovered it had no lock or keyhole. There was no keyhole. It had to be one of the Chinese puzzle boxes. Probing carefully, he ran fingers along the seams and found a loose piece of wood that slide aside. As it moved, he jerked back fast as steel needles stabbed out from the trunk, then back in again almost faster than he could see.