Isle of Dogs

"I swa

"That's silly, " the dentist replied in frustration.

He was hungry, cold, and tired, and he was imagining all of the watermen out in their bateaus, finding the Tory Treasure. He wondered if the Coast Guard had rounded up all of them and placed them under arrest, or if the watermen had found a way to extort cooperation from the authorities. Plain and simple, Dr. Faux didn't know what was going on, but he was spooked and wished he had never been so foolish as to pad his dental bills, lie to Medicaid, take advantage of children, and ruin people's teeth for the sake of profit.

When they eventually reached Fo

"My mama, she should be in thar raisin' a fire and renching the dishes. She never goes out after dark, " Fo

"Stop it, " the dentist insisted. "Nobody's gone up in a cloud, Fo

But the golf cart's battery was dead, and this just increased Fo

"I guess we'll walk, " Dr. Faux decided, turning around and heading in another direction that cut through a marsh. "I will admit this is strange. If everyone's out in the bateaus looking for the treasure, then why did we see so many bateaus at the docks when we got off the mail-boat?"

"Shhhh!" Fo

The dentist strained to listen and detected the distant thud-thudding, and he heard something else, too.

"Singing, " he said. "Do you hear it, Fo

Both of them stopped on the footpath, the brackish air stirring their hair as they listened hard to the faint sound of gospel singing that was carried almost imperceptibly by the wind.

"It's coming from the McMa

Fo

"Hey! Wait for me!" Dr. Faux called after him. "Well, never mind, I'm heading to the airstrip to see if I can fly the hell out of here on one of those helicopters coming in!"

Fo

The singing instantly stopped and Reverend Crockett stepped up to the pulpit. He sca

"Who's playing the juice harp?" he asked.

"I ain't adrift nei-ther more. " Fo

Gasps sounded all around him and voices called out praise Jesus and thank you, Jesus and it's a miracle! Then Fo

"Grasp hands in a mazy dance of praise!" Reverend

Crockett proclaimed. "The Lord is dealing out grace and has blowed the breath of life back into this drownded boy!"

"Praise God!" Fo

"I'm a die if I was dead!" Fo

A rumbling stirred throughout the congregation as helicopters thundered overhead, shaking the roof of the church.

"That's it!" Reverend Crockett boomed in disapproval. "The dentist is back on Tanger?"

"No!" Fo

"Whur's he at?"

"He's follering his way to the airstrip!" Fo

"That bad man from the main, he pulled ever one of my teeth!" Mrs. Pruitt said loud enough for all to hear.

"And mine. "

"And mine. "

"Yass! Mine, too. "

"He must be fixin' to escape on the helichoppers!"

Loud, outraged voices ran together into a deafening rumble before Fo

Soldiers dressed for combat were climbing out of two Black Hawk helicopters when they saw a cloud of small flames floating in their direction. Andy picked up the strange display of light as he thundered fifteen hundred feet overhead at the same moment Unique pushed a button and zipped open the box cutter's blade.

"What's going on down there?" Hammer said before she could restrain herself.

"You better not try anything or all of you are dead!" Smoke threatened as he looked out the window at the moving sea of lights and the big Black Hawk helicopters. "What have you done? What the fuck's happening? Tell me now!"

Possum's attention was riveted to the syringe in Smoke's hand, and he knew Smoke well enough to figure out exactly what would happen next. The instant the helicopter was safely down, Smoke was going to stab Popeye through the flag and inject her full of rat poison, then he would shoot Hammer and Trooper Truth and keep Cuda and Possum as his road dogs on this forsaken island forever. Suddenly, Possum noticed Unique twitch as if she were having a seizure as she unfastened her seat-belt.

"Bye-bye, Popeye!" Smoke said in a mean, mocking tone as he pulled the protective orange tip off the syringe.

"No, Unique!" Possum screamed, and Andy instantly remembered Possum's saying in an e-mail "It was Unique" in reference to whoever cut on Moses, and Moses talking about an angel who promised him a unique experience. Andy yelled, "Mayday!" into the mike as he slowed down, lowered the helicopter's nose, and shoved the cyclic to the right, rolling the 430. For a hair-raising second, they were upside down, then warning alarms went off and emergency lights began to flash and the helicopter suddenly flared like a rampant stallion.