It was Bray who answered. “I’ll tell you why.” He stood off his bench and stepped closer to the bars, staring at Kam. “And please, correct me if I’m wrong.”
With no reply forthcoming, Bray continued. “During World War Two, Unit Seven thirty-one set up shop on this island. The first location in mainland China worked out well for chemical and germ warfare development. Lots of people for experiments. Flea bombs with bubonic plague. Family pets given cholera. Poisoned water supplies. Sick shit. But nowhere as sick as what you boys dreamed up for this island. You’d have thought vivisection was bad enough, but Unit Seven thirty-one wanted to fuck with nature. Make living weapons. Down and dirty biological weapons. Screw microbiology. They wanted macroweapons. So you came here, where you thought you’d never be discovered. You buried the bodies in the sand. Or dumped them into the river. And over the past seventy years, the island became populated with the freak show Unit Seven thirty-one dreamed up. But test subjects are harder to come by, right? So you hijack ships, maybe lure in others with distress calls, or maybe go the old-fashioned pirate route. However you get them here, once they’re in that cove, they never leave. How close am I?”
Kam stood still.
Pulse.
Hawkins flinched, expecting some kind of attack to follow the barely audible sound.
“You are correct,” Kam said. “On all counts.”
“But it doesn’t explain you, Kam,” Bray said. “You’re, what? Twenty?”
Pulse.
“Twenty-three,” Kam said, stepping closer to Bray, but not yet looking at him. “My father was Kamato Shimura Senior. My father was twenty-five when he led the research here.”
“You were born when your father was seventy?” Bray said, sounding incredulous.
“My … mother was not so old,” Kam said. “I was born on Island Seven thirty-one. I didn’t leave here until four years ago when—”
Pulse, pulse.
Kam stammered, glancing up, first at Bray and then Bennett, and then back to his feet. “It doesn’t matter.”
Someone’s definitely directing Kam’s answers, Hawkins decided. One pulse for an affirmative answer, two for negative. He couldn’t fully trust Kam. He doubted he could trust him ever again. But the apology might have been genuine. And that meant they might have a chance. So how can I out Kam and find out who’s really in charge without revealing his apology?
“Since my father’s death ten years ago,” Kam said, “his work has continued.”
Hawkins stood. “But not by you.”
Kam looked thrown by the statement. “What?”
During his college years, Hawkins, like all college boys, did stupid things. He didn’t go streaking or binge drink, but he’d been placed in the “nerd dorm” and the game of choice involved learning silly phrases in foreign languages and saying them to people on camera. Hawkins played along, finding it mildly humorous, until he used his Japanese phrase on a woman who spoke the language. She’d been more surprised than anything, and answered his question kindly, pointing down the hall toward the men’s room. He repeated the phrase now, “Benjo wa doko desu ka?”
Where’s the toilet?
When Kam didn’t reply, Hawkins repeated the phrase more forcefully. “Benjo wa doko desu ka!”
Kam began to fidget.
“You can’t speak a word of Japanese, can you, kid?”
Pulse, pulse.
“Ignore whoever is sending you the signals,” Hawkins shouted, “and answer my damn question for yourself!”
The response was laughter. But it didn’t come from Kam. It came from one of Hawkins’s cellmates.
39.
Hawkins nearly fell over when he spun toward the source of the laughter. At first he couldn’t believe the man had anything to do with this island. It seemed absurd. Even when the soft chuckle turned into a maniacal cackle, he thought maybe the kid had finally just cracked. It wasn’t until Bennett slipped easily out of his plastic cuffs and unlocked his cell door that Hawkins knew, without a doubt, that Bennett—the terrified, bumbling kid—had taken them all for suckers.
Bennett laughed and laughed, for nearly a minute. He tried to control himself a few times, but whenever he looked up at the prisoners’ shocked faces, he howled with renewed vigor. He held on to the operating table while the last remnants of his laughter worked their way out of his body. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Ohh, that was good. Haven’t laughed that hard since— You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed that hard.”
Bennett looked at Jones and nearly started laughing again. “Oh, Harry. You look so wounded.” He suddenly changed his body language to that of a young, scared man. “Yes … yes, sir.” The reenactment of his feigned fear aboard the Magellan was perfect. He straightened back up. All of the fear and timidity disappeared.
“We trusted you,” Jones said, holding on to one of the cell bars. “My daughter trusted you.”
Bennett flashed a wicked grin. “Oh, she did more than that.”