wasn’t possible.
“Why aren’t we going to the Big Island?” she demanded, shouting to make herself heard over the din of the rotor.
Rob cupped his hand over his ear, as if he hadn’t been able to hear her. But he must have heard! How could he not have? Furious now, she jabbed her finger toward the compass, then the island beyond. “That’s not the Big Island, God damn you! You lied to me! You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?” As Rob’s eyes widened in the face of her fury, she shouted at him again. “Why? Why are you doing this?” Suddenly it all made sense: of course she’d managed to pull off the escape—they’d always intended for her to! And they’d timed it perfectly:
The man from the laboratory appearing in the hallway just seconds too late to prevent her from using the elevator.
The alarms going off just seconds too late for the guards to prevent her from getting to the helicopter.
Even the arrival of the helicopter itself, unchallenged, its searchlight blinding her, confusing her, scaring her into shoving Michael into it with no questions at all.
An idiot! She’d been a complete idiot! Her frustration and fury overwhelming her, she lunged at Rob, wanting to smash him even harder than she’d smashed the guard with the fossilized bone half an hour ago. She wanted to hit him, to strangle him, to shove him out the door of the helicopter. “Damn you!” she screamed. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!”
Rob’s hands instinctively came up to defend himself, then his fingers closed on her wrists, holding her arms immobile. “What are you talking about, Katharine?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” she screamed. “For God’s sake, Rob! How stupid do you think I am? Don’t you think I’ve figured out why you told me Michael was only going to need to breathe for—what did you say? Ten to fifteen minutes, wasn’t it?”
“Kath—”
“I should have known then, shouldn’t I? I should have been able to figure out there was no way to get to the Big Island in that short a time. But I thought you had a plan! I trusted you, God damn it! I trusted you!”
“Stop it!” Rob shouted, so loudly his voice carried over the roar of the rotor even without the help of the headsets. “Will you tell me what the hell you think is going on?”
“I don’t think!” Katharine bellowed back. “I know!” She jerked her head toward the vista beyond the bubblelike cabin. They had crossed the coastline now, and the helicopter was speeding low over the water, directly toward the small island she had seen. “That’s not the Big Island, Rob. What is it? Does Yoshihara have another lab down there? Or are you just going to dump us into the ocean?”
Michael, his complexion going ashen in the face of his mother’s fury, loosed his grip on the neck of the plastic bag, and the cabin began to fill with choking fumes.
Instantly, one of Rob’s hands released Katharine’s arm and closed around the bag. “Careful with that!” he yelled. “You need that for about five more minutes. Don’t let it escape.”
As Michael, almost hesitantly, took the half-deflated bag back from him, Rob swung around to face Katharine again. “It’s the wind!” he shouted. “We can’t go directly to the Big Island—Michael would never make it! But the wind’s carrying fumes from the eruption almost due west, so we should be able to catch the worst of them just on the other side of Koho’olawe. Then we can turn and fly due east, right into the fumes. It might be rough for the rest of us, but Michael should be able to breathe on his own. It’s longer, but at least he has a chance!”
Katharine’s eyes bored into his, trying to read the truth.
And what she saw was love.
Love, and the agony that her doubt had caused him.
Then, as if what she saw in his eyes might not be enough to convince her, she felt a shift in the attitude of the helicopter and heard the pilot’s voice coming through the headset.
“Someone open a window. Let’s see if our boy can breathe.”
His hands dropping away from Katharine, Rob twisted around and slid his window open. Instead of the fresh sea air Katharine would have expected, the air that filled the cabin was so laden with volcanic fumes that her eyes immediately began stinging.
“Bingo!” the pilot yelled. “Don’t you love that vog?”
As the helicopter finished its swing, Katharine searched for