Chapter 15

Charlie looked from Ana to Sayid repeatedly, and he was about to ask just what the bloody hell was going on when a masculine voice came from somewhere behind the trees. It uttered something in a foreign language, and Charlie's eyes widened in shock. He twisted his bottom lip and bit into it, and then he nervously shoved his hands in his pockets. "Hey!" he called. "We don't speak Ger--"

Ana silenced him with a finger to her lips and a sharp glare, while Sayid removed the handgun from where it had been lodged against the small of his back. He racked the slide, and the noise resounded in the suddenly silent jungle.

"Lay down your firearm," came another male voice, this time speaking in heavily accented English. "We are all armed."

Charlie glanced furtively at Sayid, but the Iraqi made no move to disarm himself. "Sayid," Charlie hissed with a jerk of his head.

Sayid looked not to Charlie but to Ana. Her eyes were searching the jungle beyond the protective canopy of the balloon, but she wasn't seeing anything through the rain. Ana looked at the Iraqi and nodded slowly, and Sayid lowered his handgun to the floor of the jungle, stood straight again, and held out his empty hands while moving in a circle and surveying the expressionless trees.

There came from the distance an exchange of dialogue which none of them could decipher, but Sayid could distinguish three separate voices, two male and one female. There was a movement of leaves, and then the voice that had spoken English spoke again. "Are you with them?"

"With whom?" replied Sayid.

"Them."

"We're survivors of Oceanic Flight 815," cried Charlie loudly and excitedly. "We're not with the Others."

The hidden figures again engaged in a scramble of dialogue, their voices rising and falling as though they were arguing fiercely with one another, and then there was silence followed by the rustling of earthly debris.

The three waited in silence, but they heard nothing further. Finally, Sayid squatted slowly and cautiously to the ground and reclaimed the handgun. He motioned to Ana to stay with Charlie, and then he ran off in the direction of the voices.

He returned fifteen minutes later shaking his head. "No tracks at all," he said.

"They were speaking German," Charlie said with assurance and a note of self-satisfaction. His tongue flitted out between his lips as he nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure of it. German."

"Well they're gone now," said Ana, turning back to look at the balloon and then taking a few steps further beneath its center to where a grave stood. "And I don't think they were with the Others or Dharma or whatever you want to call them. Not if they didn't take us."

Charlie sneered. "Maybe we weren't on the list."

Ana was now kneeling at the grave and pressing her fingers against the earth. "This was dug within the last month," she said. "Gale was telling the truth."

Sayid squatted down on the other side of the grave. He toyed with one of the rocks that marked the mound. He looked over at Ana with pronounced annoyance. "Do not presume his wife's body rests in this grave."

Ana rolled her eyes with exasperation and looked to the ground. She kept her gaze there for awhile before turning back to Sayid and saying in a thinly controlled voice, "So what? He planned his entire story from the beginning? He planted this grave and this balloon just in case he happened to get captured by us, and then, even though he had this all lain out here, he strung you on for two days before drawing a map?"

Sayid looked callously back at the ex-cop. "Perhaps you are familiar with the term alibi."

Ana snorted and stood up. She looked at Charlie, who simply shrugged. And then she saw the musician's face flinch with surprise, and she followed his gaze back to Sayid. The Iraqi was raking the dirt from the grave with his hands.

"Christ, Sayid!" Ana exclaimed. "Are you insane?"

"Jeez..." agreed Charlie, turning his face away from the spectacle in disgust. "Didn't you say he claimed he buried her a couple of weeks ago? That thing is going to raise one hell of a stink."

"Get me a stick," Sayid ordered Charlie, "that I may use as a shovel. Obtain one for yourself as well."

Charlie crinkled his nose in repulsion, but he wandered off to follow Sayid's command, and he returned with the requested implements. Ana refused to participate, but once the body was exposed, she saw a self-righteous, half-smile creep across Sayid's features as he nodded with satisfaction. Curious, she inched toward the edge of the grave and looked down at the body within. "I'll be damned," she murmured.

Charlie's light eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "His wife was a man?" he asked.

Sayid fell back into a sitting position and draped his arms on his knees. "As I expected," he said to Ana.

"You expected a big black man?" Charlie asked, his voice rising higher with each word.

"I did not expect to find a body at all," replied Sayid. "Which is to say, I expected Gale's story to be disproved. And…" He motioned toward the body below. "…Clearly it has been."

Ana, who had previously been repulsed by Sayid's insistence on digging up the grave, now evidenced no qualms about falling to her knees and rummaging through the victim's clothes. She pulled out a driver's license.

"What is it?" Charlie asked, seeing her laugh lightly and bitterly.

But Ana did not answer Charlie. Instead, she reached across the grave and handed the license to Sayid. She knew he was going to smirk when he saw the name, and so she looked aside at Charlie instead and told the Englishman, "This…this man is Henry Gale."

Charlie walked over behind Sayid and examined the license over his shoulder. "How incredibly stupid," he said with disbelief. "Why…why would he take the name of this guy? Why would he send us to his grave knowing he was buried with his driver's license?"

Ana shrugged nonchalantly. "Criminals are usually stupid," she said. "They don't operate the way you see on television. They don't plot well, they don't hide well, and they don't kill mostly rich white people. Seventy percent of the time, you pick 'em up at their girlfriend's house."

"But this man," insisted Sayid, "this man plotted well. It is a valid question, Charlie."

Charlie hmphfed in Ana's direction and gave a cocky shake of his head. "Yeah," he said. "A brilliant question." And then, looking back to Sayid with bewilderment, he asked, "But what's the answer?"

"Perhaps he wanted us to find this license," Sayid suggested. "Perhaps he wanted us to disbelieve his story. Perhaps he allowed Rousseau to capture him."

"Why?" asked Charlie.

For this Sayid had no answer, but Ana responded, "They're screwing with our minds, just like Libby said."

"Regardless of the reason for his actions," said Sayid, "the fact remains that he is one of them. And we must deal with him accordingly."

To this neither Charlie nor Ana made reply, but the trio soon agreed to head back to the beach camp. Charlie wanted to reach home by nightfall. God, home, the musician thought as he trailed after Ana and Sayid. I didn't just think that word, did I?