J.M.J.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! Special thanks to those who have written reviews! The next chapter will be up tomorrow! God bless!

June 25 – Sunday

For most of the boys, that night was the most restful they had had on the island yet. The fish had made for a delicious supper, especially when combined with the fresh fruits and vegetables that were plentiful on the island, and they were beginning to recover from their ordeal in arriving on the island. It would still take some time for them to fully recover, but they were in good enough health and spirits to sleep well and think about setting out to explore the island soon.

Most of them were, anyway. Tony lay awake late into the night. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to sleep comfortably in this cabin, with mosquito netting draped over him. The bugs still found their way in, but they weren't the only thing that kept Tony awake. He had voted to stay in the cabin, true. It was the most practical thing. They wouldn't be able to build a cabin that was even decent to stay in, let alone one as good as this. And Tony really wasn't superstitious. There wasn't anything the dead man could do to them. But thinking about him dying in there alone, wracked with pain and fever, and then lying there, unmissed and unattended for all those years until there was nothing left but bones wrapped in a few shreds of clothing and blanket…Well, what chance was there that Tony and his friends wouldn't face the same fate?

He sat up and shivered. No, he wasn't superstitious. Finding a body first thing when they arrived on the island wasn't an omen or a portent. It didn't mean anything, except that someone else had been in the same situation the boys were in now and hadn't survived. But no. It wasn't the exact same situation. It appeared that Eli was alone. Tony had his friends with him. If anything happened to one of them, the others would take care of him.

But what if they couldn't? That was the grim reality they had to face. No matter how hard they tried, there was a strong possibility that they would run into obstacles they couldn't overcome. No, no. That was putting it too euphemistically. The reality was that chances were, some or all of them would die on this island.

Tony got up and went outside. He leaned against the doorway—they still hadn't fixed the door. They would probably do that sometime in the next week. It wasn't as easy here as just running down to the hardware store and getting the materials they'd need.

He rubbed his chin. It was getting stubbly. One thing they hadn't found in Eli's belongings was a razor. It was probably just as well. Using a dead man's razor was a little much. Tony shook his head. Don't think about that. There was a pair of scissors. They could at least trim themselves so they wouldn't wind up looking like cavemen. Not that it would matter if they never got off the island.

He stood up and started walking. Maybe he could get his mind off it. Maybe…He had barely gone a score of paces when he found the wooden cross that Frank and Joe had made to put over Eli's grave. He stared at it as if it had sprouted from the ground just to remind him that he might soon have a cross like that over him. It was such a flimsy marker. It would fall over the first time it was hit by a breath of wind. A grave marker shouldn't be that way. They were meant to last, like the afterlife. They weren't supposed to crumble like the body whose resting place they marked.

Tony heard a rustle behind him and he jumped. He whirled around and took up a defensive position. He relaxed when he saw that it was only Phil.

Phil held his hands up in playful protest. "Hey, it's only me. Who were you expecting?"

Tony let his fist unclench. "I don't know."

"What are you doing?" Phil asked to change the subject. "Planning your sermon?"

"Planning my what?" Tony replied in confusion.

"Your sermon. Remember we put you in charge of church? And tomorrow's Sunday. Or today, if it's after midnight."

Tony groaned. "I don't know why you guys gave me that job. I'm not going to give a sermon."

"How can you have church without a sermon?"

"Well, when you don't have anyone who knows what they're talking about, it's probably for the best."

"Does anyone know what they're talking about?"

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. The moon was bright, so Phil could easily see his face.

"Most people just…" Phil paused and shrugged. "It seems kind of silly when you think about it, to be all like 'Oh, I can't go to the synagogue or church or whatever today. I want to sleep in,' and then the second something bad happens, be all like 'Why would God let this happen to me?' I don't want to be one of those people."

"No," Tony replied and then instantly corrected himself. "I mean, it's not like that. Just because a person didn't pay much attention to God when things are going all right, it doesn't mean they can't pray when things go wrong. It just means that they should try harder to do both." He felt his cheeks grow warm. He didn't know why it always felt so uncomfortable talking about these things with his friends. Even when it was something so basic. Maybe that was the problem. It was too basic and sounded like some corny platitude, didn't it? That was it. He didn't want to sell his whole faith short, but he didn't know how to do it justice. Some part of him tried to tell him that wasn't the reason, but he tried not to listen to it.

Phil put his hands behind his back and tried to assume a nonchalant attitude. "It still seems kind of hypocritical."

"Maybe," Tony admitted. "At least it's something."

Phil gave him a searching look. He would have liked to talk about this with somebody, but not to push it any further. But then, Tony was the one wandering around in the middle of the night. Maybe he had something on his mind. "What were you doing out here anyway?"

"Trying not to think about him, mostly." Tony nodded at the marker.

"You picked a weird spot for that." Phil chuckled incredulously.

"I didn't mean to come here. I was just walking and I wound up here." Tony tried to put on an untroubled smile. "Maybe he's trying to tell me something."

"Like what?"

Tony didn't reply directly as he looked at the grave. "Do you ever think about dying?"

Phil hesitated. "I try not to, to be honest."

"What do you think? Would you rather die suddenly or would you want time to prepare?"

Phil stared at him askance. "Uh, Tony, are you okay?"

Tony looked at him. "Yeah. It's just…You know, most of us never think about these things until we can't help it. Even when we can't help it, we try to think about it as little as possible. But the fact is, it's going to happen to all of us sooner or later. It's not a bad thing to be ready for it."

When he realized how uncomfortable Phil clearly was, Tony tried to muster a grin. "Hey, it's okay. When I say 'sooner or later,' I mean as late as possible."

Phil looked away. "Yeah. Let's keep it that way."

It was one of the unexpected inconveniences of the island that they had no way of telling time during the night. They had found that Eli had had a clock, but the batteries had long since corroded and destroyed it. Their own watches had been taken away from them. Because of that, it was a little surprising when Phil noted a few minutes later that he could see the skyline. Dawn would come soon.

"I guess maybe I'd better make some kind of plan," Tony said. "For the service."

He slipped back into the cabin as quietly as he could so that he wouldn't disturb the others and retrieved the notebook he was using to keep track of the date as well as the Bible, and then he took them both outside. He gathered some firewood and started a fire in the pit they had dug a few days earlier. He could hear Phil in the garden, apparently gathering up vegetables for breakfast. Once the fire was big enough that he could read by it, Tony opened the notebook and wrote down the date and day of the week: Sunday, June 25. In the evening, he would write some notes about the day. He thought that if they ever got off the island, an account of their stay there might be of interest. On the other hand, if they didn't and someone else eventually found the island…Well, there was no point in thinking about that.

Then he opened the Bible. He wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to make it look like he was showing off or make any of his friends uncomfortable or make it seem silly. He took a deep breath. Way overthinking this, Tony, he told himself. He started turning the pages. It would feel the most familiar to him to follow roughly the pattern of Mass. Of course, following it too closely would probably be sacrilegious. He would just follow the basic outline. So they would start with a hymn. He didn't know all that many hymns and he didn't have such a great singing voice. Oh, well, he knew enough. He'd have to get by. And the good thing was that he had such a small repertoire of hymns that all his friends would have them memorized in no time.

After that, they would pray. That would be short. Tony didn't know what to say, so he'd only say what was necessary. After that, he could use some of the prayers from the beginning of Mass, like the Confiteor—a general confession of sins—and the Kyrie—a prayer for mercy. Maybe the others wouldn't be comfortable with that. Oh, he would just do it. The others had put him in charge of this, after all. He began listing the prayers he thought would be suitable for their irregular situation. He also needed to pick some readings from Scripture. He wasn't sure what to do, but he finally picked out several.

When the others had woken up, they had breakfast and then they had the service. Tony felt just as awkward as he had imagined, and he tended to rush through everything. He needn't have worried about what the others would think. They all took part in the service willingly, although Tony noticed that Phil only listened. No one commented afterward. They could see that Tony felt awkward about the whole thing, and they didn't want to accidentally come across as sounding discouraging.

"So, what's on the schedule today?" Joe asked as they sat down in front of the cabin for a small snack of fruit. Having only fish to eat besides fruit and vegetables left them all almost constantly hungry.

Everyone automatically looked at Frank, who wasn't pleased by the gesture. "I'm only supposed to settle disagreements, remember?"

Chet shrugged. "We can't agree on what to do, so…"

"So everyone can do whatever they want," Frank replied firmly.

Ordinarily, after so many days of being in such close company, they would have all been eager to have some time to themselves, but that would have been back in the inhabited world, where solitude was a luxury that could be brought to an end at any time. Here, apart from each other's company, solitude was something imposed on them, and so it lost all its character of a luxury. It would only open the door for thinking about the desperation of their situation, and so no one was particularly eager to indulge in it. They continued sitting where they were.

"I'm going to keep working on that fishing pole," Joe said finally, getting up to do so.

Chet also got up. "I'd better go with you and use one of the real poles. We'll want fish for lunch, but you'll never catch anything with that thing."

"Your confidence overwhelms me," Joe teased him.

Biff also decided to go with them, since fishing sounded more fun than anything else they would find to do. Tony took out his notebook and worked on writing down the account of how they had gotten on the island, which he hadn't been finished yet. Phil strolled over to the cabin and started looking at the door, making plans for how to fix it. After a few more minutes, Frank went into the cabin and opened the chest with all the books and papers in it. He took out what looked like Eli's earliest journal. Then he settled down to read it and learn who the man was who had lived on the island before them.

HBNDHBNDHB

A light on the eastern horizon gave the first hint that the dawn was soon to be here. Fenton Hardy shifted his position where he was crouching under a low, scrubby bush. If he didn't make his move soon, he would miss his chance. He moved his head so that he could see the dark outline of the truck a little better. Why were they just sitting there? It felt like a trap.

Slowly, he raised his handheld radio to his mouth. The volume was turned way down so that he would have to hold it to his ear to hear it, but those on the other end knew not to call unless he had contacted them first. It was much too risky to have them calling without knowing exactly what situation Fenton was in.

"Esto es de águila a halcón. El paquete está a la vista. La posición no ha cambiado en cuatro horas. Aconsejar," he said softly into the radio.

"¿Hay alguien cerca del paquete?" came the barely audible response.

Fenton already knew the answer, but he looked around anyway. "No he visto a nadie en casi una hora."

"Quédate donde estás. Voy a enviar" the voice began, but Fenton cut it off when he heard a sound with a sharp, "Esperar."

Fenton switched the volume on the radio completely off and watched the outline of the truck intently. One of the rear gates was creaking open. Fenton crouched slightly without taking his eyes off it. There was very little chance whoever was opening it would see him, but Fenton didn't want to do anything to change that. In the dark, he couldn't see much of what was happening in front of the bulk of the truck. Then he saw a figure furtively sneak away from it. It looked smaller than he would have expected and a sudden fear surged up in him. It was a kid.

The figure crept along for about a dozen yards or so. Then there was a shout. The kid—evidently a girl—screamed and started to run. Fenton saw another figure detach itself from the outline of the truck. He wasted no more time. He drew his gun and ran forward to intervene.

"¡Deténgase!" he shouted at the much taller figure.

The taller figure did slow himself, but only to fire a gun in Fenton's direction. Fortunately, the suspect couldn't see any better than Fenton could, and his shot came nowhere near its target. Fenton didn't dare fire back, not knowing exactly where the girl was or whether there were other victims present. Instead, he started running in the direction where he had last seen the girl's outline. One way or another, he had to keep her pursuer from catching her.

The girl must have realized that she needed to hide. She was quiet now and Fenton couldn't see her. He didn't dare call for her—even if the other man hadn't been present, there was no reason why the girl would respond to him. The best he could do was to run silently toward where he had heard her scream. When he was about twenty yards from where he estimated that she had been, he suddenly stumbled over something with an inadvertent grunt as he hit the ground. There was a small feminine whimper, and he turned to look back. Even in the dark, he could see a wide-eyed girl staring at him from where she was lying on her stomach.

"Silencio," he warned her in a whisper.

The girl continued to stare. Then she slowly nodded her head. After all, even if she didn't trust Fenton, she had no one to call to for help. She buried her head in arms once again.

Fenton turned his attention back to looking for the girl's pursuer. The man was quiet now, and Fenton could see no movement anywhere around him. He didn't like that. Chances were good that the man could tell where Fenton had gone. He could sneak up on Fenton and the girl any moment. Fenton bit his lip, weighing his options. If he was going to move, he would have to somehow get the girl to move with him without making any noise. She didn't have any reason to trust him, and there wasn't time to try to explain to her. Besides that, even whispering could be overheard in this dead silence. Then, too, Fenton's mediocre Spanish might only confuse the girl.

"Do you speak English?" he whispered to her, deciding that it was worth the risk.

The girl made no response.

"¿Habla inglés?" he tried again.

The girl looked up then and shook her head. Oh, well, it didn't matter that much. It wasn't as if they could talk freely at the moment.

There was a footstep somewhere off to the left. Fenton stiffened and held out an arm as if to protect the girl. She whimpered and tried to press herself farther into the ground. Fenton put his hand near the shoulder holster he was wearing.

Then he saw the outline of the suspect approaching. He prayed that the girl would keep silent. The man didn't seem to see them. He was heading a little farther to the right than he would have if he was headed directly toward them. Fenton gripped the handgun in his holster. He hadn't seen anyone else, but that didn't necessarily mean there wasn't anyone else around. There probably were. The girl made it painfully clear how these guys ran their smuggling operation.

The figure came closer. He was less than three yards away. He hadn't looked in their direction yet and he was obviously afraid to use his flashlight and give himself away, but it still seemed impossible that he wouldn't realize that they were there.

Then it happened. The man's head turned toward them and he paused. He had seen them in the darkness. Fenton didn't give him a chance to react. He whipped his handgun from the holster and ordered the other man to freeze. There was no possibility that Fenton would miss if forced to shoot, and the other man could see that. He continued to stand frozen, but he didn't drop his own gun. It was, however, aimed in the wrong direction. He would have to move to fire it, and if he did that, Fenton would have a chance to stop him.

"Dame el arma y no digas una palabra," Fenton warned him in a low voice.

The man seemed to hesitate. Then he began slowly lowering the gun to the ground. Then Fenton told him to step back. He did, giving Fenton a chance to pick up the other man's gun.

While he was bending down, the other man suddenly shouted in Spanish. It startled Fenton, but he kept his wits about him. He grasped the gun hard and then he stood up and kicked the other man to put him off-balance. As the man stumbled backward, Fenton glanced toward the truck. He could see three more men bailing out of it and running toward him. He shoved the extra gun into his belt and then turned to the girl. He scooped her up under his free arm, despite her squeals and kicks of protest.

"Está bien," he tried to reassure her, but she either didn't listen or she didn't believe him. She continued to struggle to get away.

He ran with the girl tucked under his arm. There was some confusion with the smugglers as the one tried to explain to his colleagues what was happening, not that he could possibly understand everything himself. It held the pursuers up enough that Fenton was able to reach a small arroyo. He scrambled to cover behind a scrub bush and did his best to convince the girl to keep quiet. After a few moments, she stopped making noise.

They waited in tense silence. Apparently, the girl had realized that Fenton was trying to help her escape her captors, and that made her trust him. She huddled close to him and hid her face in the crook of his arm.

Fenton didn't let his eyes leave the edge of the arroyo. He didn't see the men appear over it, but he knew that was only a matter of time. He looked around him. There had to be some way out of here without being seen.

"¡Sabemos que estás ahí abajo! ¡Suéltanos a la chica y te dejaremos ir!" The voice came without the men putting in an appearance. They wanted Fenton to give the girl back to them. That wasn't going to happen. Anyway, they were just looking for an easy way to get to him. They had to suspect that he was working with the federal agents, even if the one he had spoken to had picked up on his American accent.

When there was no reply, he saw the men appear over the edge of the arroyo and begin climbing down the side. He felt the girl squeeze his arm tighter. His own heart was pounding. They were as good as trapped down here.

In the intensity of the situation, it was only in the back of Fenton's consciousness that he was aware of the sound of an engine. He couldn't be sure exactly when he first noticed it. It was some time before he was really aware of what it meant. It was coming closer and he suddenly realized that it was a low-flying plane.

A moment later, the plane was so close overhead that it was drowning the sounds on the ground. Fenton grabbed his radio and turned it back on.

"Esto es de águila a Halcón," he began his call.

Halcón's voice came over the radio immediately. Fenton reported the situation and Halcón promised to send help immediately. He then told Fenton to change to a different frequency. Questioning it slightly, Fenton tuned the radio to the requested frequency. A familiar voice was saying, "This is Peregrine calling Eagle. Come in, Eagle."

"This is Eagle," Fenton replied immediately. If it hadn't been for the danger he was in at that exact moment, he would have been more concerned about Sam Radley calling him right now. He was only supposed to get in touch with him in case of emergency.

Sam tersely explained that he and Jack were in a plane…The plane overhead was beginning to fade into the distance.

"Turn around," Fenton told him abruptly. "I'm right behind your position. Could use some help."

"Ten-four," Sam replied.

A moment later, the plane began to bank and head back toward Fenton's position. This seemed to worry the pursuers. They must have guessed this was no random plane, and since they knew it wasn't one of theirs, they must have guessed it was the federal agents'. They turned and began scrambling out of the arroyo.

The plane flew low overhead again and Fenton told Sam what was happening. He saw the plane turn toward the truck. If official law enforcement didn't get there in time, Jack and Sam would follow the truck and make sure it didn't get away.

Fenton turned his attention to the girl. He told her his name and tried to reassure her that everything was all right now. She didn't answer, but she did continue clinging to him. He remained where he was until he was sure the truck had left. Then he picked her up and carried her to where he had parked the car that the border agents had been letting him use. She looked around her uncertainly as she sat in the front seat.

Now that Fenton could see her clearly for the first time in the overhead light in his car, he thought she wasn't more than seven or eight years old. She was skinny and her cheeks were hollow; she hadn't had much to eat in the last few weeks. Her face was smudged with dirt and her long, dark hair was unbrushed and unwashed. She was wearing a t-shirt that was at least three sizes too big for her, and even if the printing on it hadn't been so cracked and faded that it was practically unreadable, it still couldn't have been made out past all the stains in it. Her sweatpants had holes in the knees, and her shoes were practically falling apart at the seams.

Fenton took a small cooler out of the back seat and pulled out several sandwiches. The girl's eyes lit up slightly, but she hesitated when he offered her a sandwich. Fenton took another one and took a few bites to show her that it was okay. Then she started eating with a will. Fenton also gave her some water and she drank the whole bottle in one sitting.

After that, the girl was slightly less taciturn. As he drove, Fenton again told her his name and asked her for hers. She said it was Elena. She couldn't tell him much more about what had happened to her, other than that some men had promised to take her and her mother to the United States, but they were mean and made them ride in the back of the truck with a lot of other people. Sometimes, they had to walk a long way and they didn't have much food or water. Some of the people were sick. Her mother had told her to try to escape.

Fenton could fill in the rest of the details with deductions. He had already had his suspicions, which he had shared with the Mexican federal agents. They were investigating fentanyl smuggling across the Mexican-U.S. border. The agents had reason to suspect that one of the cartels was involved. That made investigating very dangerous, especially since it was suspected that this cartel had bought off some agents. Fenton had worked with the Mexican government on a similar case once, and so he was asked to help once again.

It hadn't taken much imagination to figure out how the cartel was smuggling the deadly drug. They would find people who were desperate to get to America to start a new life but could not afford to enter the country legally. The cartel would offer to get them in and have jobs waiting for them, in return for services rendered. The services were that they would smuggle fentanyl across the border. A few had been caught, but they had refused to talk. It was obvious that they didn't think the cartel's influence would end once they were across the border. Several others had accidentally been exposed to the drug concealed in their belongings, and many of these had died. The ones who did get across found no jobs lined up for them except to continue to serve the cartels in one way or another. They were told that they could have no recourse to the American government, since they were in the country illegally, and returning to Mexico could not help matters at all. They were, in most cases, in a worse position once they made it across the border than whatever situation had caused them to flee in the first place.

When he reached HQ for the operation, he learned from the agents that the three men and the truck had been rounded up, thanks to the assistance from Fenton's friends. Seventeen people, including several children, had been imprisoned in the back of the truck which was hauling them toward the border. Elena's mother was with them, and the two of them would be reunited shortly.

That was good news in itself, but it reminded Fenton of Sam and Jack's unexpected appearance. He learned that they were at the airport and he went straight there to see what had brought them. They met him at a hangar, where Jack was refueling the plane. They both had somber, serious faces.

"The two of you certainly came at just the right moment," Fenton said, trying to speak lightly.

"Fenton…" Sam said.

Fenton dropped all pretenses. "What is it? What happened?"

"It's Frank and Joe," Sam replied. "They've been missing almost a week."