The helicopter turned north, passing over the nearest island. Thorne glimpsed rugged, volcanic terrain, overgrown with dense jungle. There was no sign of life, or of human habitation.
“To the local people, these islands are not happy places,” the pilot said. “They say, no good comes from here.” He smiled. “But they do not know. They are superstitious Indians.”
Now they were over open water, with Isla Sorna directly ahead. It was clearly an old volcanic crater: bare, reddish-gray rock walls, an eroded cone.
“Where do the boats land?”
The pilot pointed to where the sea surged and crashed against the cliffs. “On the east side of this island, there are many caves, made by the waves. Some of the local people call this Isla Gemido. It means ‘groan’, from the sound of the waves inside the caves. Some of the caves go all the way through to the interior, and a boat can pass through at certain times. But not in weather as you see it now.”
Thorne thought of Sarah Harding. If she was coming, she would land later today. “I have a colleague who may be arriving this afternoon said. “Can you bring her out?”
“I am sorry the pilot said. “We have a job in Golfo Juan. We will not be back until tonight.”
“What can she do?”
The pilot squinted at the sea, “Perhaps she can come by boat. The sea changes by the hour. She might have luck.”
“And you will come back for us tomorrow?”
“Yes, Señor Thorne. We will come in the early morning. It is the best time, for the winds.”
The helicopter approached from the west, rising several hundred feet, moving over the rocky cliffs to reveal the interior of Isla Gemido. It appeared just like the others: volcanic ridges and ravines, heavily overgrown with dense jungle. It was beautiful from the air, but Thorne knew it would be dauntingly difficult to move through that terrain. He stared down, looking for roads.
The helicopter thumped lower, circling the central area of the island. Thorne saw no buildings, no roads. The helicopter descended toward the jungle. The pilot said, “Because of the cliffs, the winds here are very bad. Many gusts and updrafts. There is only one place on the island where it is safe to land.” He peered out the window. “Ah. Yes. There.”
Thorne saw an open clearing, overgrown with tall grass.
“We land there,” the pilot said.
Isla Sorna
Eddie Carr stood in the tail grass of the clearing, turned away from the flying dust as the two helicopters lifted off the ground and rose into the sky. In a few moments they were small specks, their sound fading. Eddie shaded his eyes as he looked upward. In a forlorn voice he said, “When’re they coming back?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Thorne said. “We’ll have found Levine by then.”
“At least, we’d better,” Malcolm said.
And then the helicopters were gone, disappearing over the high rim of the crater. Carr stood with Thorne and Malcolm in the clearing, enveloped in morning heat, and deep silence on the island.
“Kind of creepy here,” Eddie said, pulling his baseball cap down lower over his eyes.
Eddie Carr was twenty-four years old, raised in Daly City. Physically, he was dark-haired, compact and strong. His body was thick, the muscles bunched, but his hands were elegant, the fingers long and tapered. Eddie had a talent – Thorne would have said, a genius – for mechanical things. Eddie could build anything, and fix anything. He could see how things worked, just by looking at them. Thorne had hired him three years earlier, his first job out of community college. It was supposed to be a temporary job, earning money so he could go back to school and get an advanced degree. But Thorne had long since become dependent on Eddie. And Eddie, for his part, wasn’t much interested in going back to the books.
At the same time, he hadn’t counted on anything like this, he thought, looking around him at the clearing. Eddie was an urban kid, accustomed to the action of the city, the honk of horns and the rush of traffic. This desolate silence made him uneasy.