Island 731 Read Online Free PDF Page A

have died.”
    “I didn’t,” Hawkins said.
    Bray grinned fiendishly. “You did it for her, didn’t you?”
    Hawkins applied a liberal amount of deodorant. It would be a week before his next shower. “You’ve already determined the turtle was a female?”
    “Joliet, asshole. She’s a little too flat for me, but—”
    Hawkins raised an eyebrow. “Flat?”
    “Kind of boyish. I prefer something to hold on to.”
    “I can’t believe the next generation is going to be taught by you,” Hawkins said.
    “Men have a natural proclivity toward women with wide hips and large breasts. Child-bearing hips. This is like Biology 101 here. The real weirdos are guys like you, who prefer boyish waifs like Joliet. Makes me wonder if you’re not, you know—” Bray raised his eyebrows a few times and gave him a wink.
    “Hey, I’m not the one keeping a half-naked man from leaving the bathroom, am I?”
    Bray quickly lowered his arms and backed out of the doorway. He was a big man, standing six-five, and while not completely out of shape, he sported a belly he called a “keg-pack.” His short-cut black hair and round cheeks gave him the look of an oversize dwarf, a fact that had earned him the nickname “Eight,” as in Snow White’s eighth dwarf. “You’re not half naked. You’re wearing a T-shirt. Why do you do that, anyway? I’ve never seen you without a shirt on.”
    Hawkins slipped past Bray and entered their small room. “Gotta give you something to fantasize about. Keep the mystery alive.”
    Bray grunted and turned away when Hawkins dropped his towel, but he didn’t leave. “So are you in the shitter with Drake, or what?”
    “Not sure,” Hawkins said, pulling up his boxers.
    “He looked pissed.”
    “You’re not helping.”
    “If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”
    Hawkins quickly put on a pair of cargo shorts. “You’re a man of wisdom if ever there was one.”
    “That’s Nichee or something.”
    “Nietzsche, and it wasn’t.” Hawkins slipped into a pair of boat shoes. He’d gone barefoot a lot lately, but felt he should dress up for the meeting with Drake. “I thought you were a history buff?”
    “ Scientific history,” Bray corrected. “I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur of philosophy.”
    Hawkins smiled. “By the way, that wasn’t philosophy. You were quoting Sun Tzu’s Art of War .”
    “Really? Awesome.”
    “Just awesome? Not ‘wicked awesome’?” Hawkins quickly rubbed the towel over his short brown hair and hung it over the end of his top bunk.
    “Funny. Hey, I’ll be in the biolab when you’re done getting verbally spanked. Your boy toy—Joliet, sorry—asked me to prep the loggerhead for dissection. You coming, Ranger?”
    Hawkins smiled at the nickname. It had been five years since he was a ranger at Yellowstone Park, but once the crew found out, it stuck. “I’ll be there, Eight.”
    Bray opened the room’s door to leave and stumbled back. Joliet stood there, her face serious.
    “Shit, ahh, you couldn’t hear us, right?” Bray wrapped on the door with his knuckles. It bonged loudly. “We were having a private talk. Guy stuff.”
    Joliet, who was nearly two feet shorter than Bray, leaned her head around his chest. “Coming?”
    “You heard, didn’t you?” Bray said, backing slowly out the door. “I’m going to go now.” He hustled away, glancing over his shoulder twice like Joliet might pounce on him, then disappeared around the staircase.
    “You didn’t hear a thing,” Hawkins said, “did you?”
    “Not a word. Should I be upset?”
    “Only if you take him seriously.” Hawkins stepped around Joliet and entered the hallway. “C’mon, let’s get this over with.”
    *   *   *
    Hawkins stepped into the Magellan ’s pilot house three minutes later. Captain Drake stood at the room’s core, looking out the windows, which offered a full three-hundred-sixty-five-degree panorama.