“Son of a bitch,” he growled, and stabbing with his knife, tore the lid of the trunk apart, exposing the clockwork mechanism.
“Spring driven,” Ryan announced, snapping off the needles with his gun butt. The steel was smeared with a green substance that he knew to be deadly. Whatever was inside, Langford had prized very highly, more than blasters or grens. Those trunks had simply been locked, not armed.
While the companions took cover, Ryan stepped away from the trunk and carefully lifted the lid with the tip of the Steyr. The broken cover flipped up and flopped over the back. Nothing happened.
“What the hell,” he muttered, glancing inside. A pad of foam cushion covered the contents, but lying prominently in sight was a tiny dead frog, yellow in color, no bigger than his thumb.
Ryan tossed it aside and started to look under the foam, when Mildred screamed as she saw the frog hit the floor.
“Sweet Jesus!” she cried, rushed forward to grab Ryan by the wrist. Slamming his arm to the floor, she drew a blade and raised her hand high.
“Is your hand numb?” Mildred demanded. “Answer me, man, seconds count. Is your hand numb?”
“No,” he stated angrily. “What were you going to do, slice off my hand?”
“To save your life, yes, but it wasn’t necessary.” The physician sighed and dropped the knife. “It was too old, just like the grens. Much too old. You are a very lucky man.”
“You saved him from a dead frog?” J.B. asked.
“Madam, really,” Doc rumbled askance.
Warily Dean went over and stared at the tiny corpse. “Chilled from touching a frog?” the boy demanded skeptically. “Don’t see no quills or teeth.”
“Poison skin?” Jak asked.
She nodded. “It’s called the Golden Arrow Frog. Some of the Amazon natives coat their arrows with the oil on its skin to kill enemies. But they couldn’t eat the creature afterward the poison was so strong. The frog naturally makes a powerful neurotoxin that kills seconds after contact.”
“Liquid nerve gas,” Ryan said thoughtfully, rubbing his wrist. “Good guard. Frogs can live a long time without food or fresh air. Hell, if you’re right, even a dead one would kill for months.”
“Year,” Mildred corrected. “When one of the explorers touched the frog, his hand went numb, then his arm, and seconds later he toppled over dead. Only way to save him was prompt amputation.”
“And here is what it was protecting,” Krysty said, raising a glass bottle into view from the truck. Its silvery label was faded with age, and the writing wasn’t in English, but they all knew what it was.
“Vodka,” Ryan said.
“Plus some whiskey, rum, gin and a whole bunch of wine,” Krysty recited, going through the bottles. “A lot of these are empty, mostly the whiskey and rum. But we got plenty of vodka. Guess Langford didn’t like it.”
“Awful stuff,” Jak agreed. “Got no taste.”
“But it’s our ticket home,” J.B. added. “That will burn in a motor just fine.”
Dean scowled. “Mix gasoline and booze as fuel?”
“Not in a regular engine. But a turbine will burn anything. How many bottles?”
“Six.”
“More than enough,” Ryan said, pleased. “We have the fishing trawlers, and now the fuel we need. Just have to get our backpacks and we’re gone.”
“Let’s move these trunks into the bedroom,” Krysty suggested, grabbing a handle and dragging one across the crunchy carpet. “Don’t want anybody to find this bolt-hole. We may need it.”
“Safer for us, too,” J.B. added, taking the other end. “Not going to night-creep us in your room.”
“Hopefully,” Mildred grunted, taking a hold of the trunk full of blasters. “But I can’t wait to leave these islands.”
IN THE NEXT ROOM, Silver jerked her head away from the spy hole in the wall as the doorknob began to turn. Darting into the hallway, she closed that heavier door and began to listen again at the keyhole. They were discussing their plans in detail now. Taking a small golden frog from her pocket, she bit off the head and sucked out the guts, feeling the deadly toxins tingling down her throat. Then she ate the rest, licking her hands clean with a forked tongue.