Assignment - Sulu Sea (15 page)

Communications with this class of ship were considered —and
had to be—tamper-proof. Each of her city-busting A-3’s was always
electronically zeroed in on selected targets.

How could the
Jackson
simply disappear?

She might be on the bottom, crushed to rubbish by the awful
pressures of the Pacific deeps, due to some natural calamity. But he did
not think so. He felt sure the
Jackson
was here, within reach, somewhere in this empty, drowned sea of molten lead and
patchy green, labyrinthine island channels. He had to find the
Jackson
, and it had to be done soon.

Willi changed the bandage on the back of his head and took a
breakfast tray from the Malay cook. The eggs were small, the bacon canned, the
coffee flavored with chicory. She looked as if she would have liked to
spoon-feed him, and Malachy glowered in his beard and stared at the horizon.

“You gave us such a fright, Samuel,” Willi murmured. “We
received your message to come into Pandakan Harbor, but then we did not know
what to do. If not for your signal, and a bit of luck, being on hand—” She
paused. “We’ve learned the nurse, Yoko Hanamutra, got safely out of Dendang, by
the way. Malachy used the radio-phone to make inquiries. What I don’t
understand is why you went up against Ch’ing all alone. Not even the police, or
Colonel Mayubashur, challenge that monster’s control over Dendang.”

“Well, someone should. Prince Ch’ing interests me,” Durell
said. He considered the girl and saw no point to keeping his thoughts to
himself. “I have to operate on the assumption that whatever happened to the
missing sub was not a natural accident. Everything points to human interference—otherwise,
how did Pete Holcomb get ashore, and how did he receive his injuries? He was
tortured, you said, and hurt deliberately, by men, not in an accident. And he asked
for me, which meant it fell within the scope of my business. Otherwise, he simply
would have asked for maritime aid, shipping assistance—that sort of thing.” He paused.
“No, we have to assume a human agent in what happened to the submarine.”

“But I still don’t see—” Willi began.

“Why I’m interested in Prince Ch’ing? To hijack an item like
a Polaris sub isn’t a picayune job, Willi. It takes organization and a lot of
men. And Ch‘ing has both. We haven’t really ‘been able to appraise the
political orientation of the Oceanic Chinese people in this area; they might be
loyal to local government, and they might obey Peiping, either out of
conviction or blackmail pressure because of relatives at home. I won’t be
satisfied until we've turned our fat prince inside out and have seen what
makes him tick." Durell finished his coffee. “The girl last
night—Paradise—was a big help. You did say she got safely away? She’s a nice
youngster.”

“Nice? Working for Ch‘ing?” Willi sniffed.

“Your prudery is showing. She saved my life.”

Willi‘s voice had cooled some twenty degrees. “She and Yoko
are both safe, we think. Yoko is still looking for Tommy Lee, who seems to have
vanished completely.”

“I’d like to get my hands on Lee,” Malachy grunted. “Do you
think he sold out, Cajun?"

“It’s a question. He could have been tempted by Colonel Mayubashur,
who seems to want independence for the whole island group. Any of the other
interested parties may have offered him something substantial—Malaysia, or Big
Brother Sukarno, or the Red Chinese. Yes, I think cur Tommy Lee is playing a
double game.”

Malachy tugged at his beard. “Peiping is a long way from here,
though. We’ve got lots of Hakka people in the archipelago—Chinese from
Southwest China, originally—but they’re good, loyal folk, here for generations.
Still, some of their labor trade unions might contain Communist cells. As for
Prince Ch’ing—well, he makes me nervous, Cajun, I must admit. Too rich and too
fat and too immoral, a millionaire gangster Who plays Big Daddy to the locals,
like an old-time ward heeler handing out food baskets to the needy voters. He
owns the House of Pleasure, which you seem to have explored thoroughly.” McLeod
paused and Willi bit her lip. “Ch’ing‘s pretensions as a prince of the Manchus
may be just a vanity, sure, but he owns one of the major islands here, with tin
sluice mines, and has a thousand Hakkas working there in a kampong all his own.
When he isn‘t in that damned pagoda in Dendang, you'll find him watching the
tin ore getting loaded aboard one of the tramp freighters that come by now and
then."

“You make interesting noises, Malachy. So Prince Ch‘ing owns
and operates a loading port?”

“Right. But the sub isn’t there. We flew over it, Willi and I,
and looked. So did the Seventh Fleet jets. There’s only a small merchantman
there now, loading. Nothing else.”

Durell’s face was suddenly quiet, attentive. “Let me guess, Malachy.
This island that Ch’ing owns, where this tin-loading port is-it’s the same
island where you found and buried Commander Pete Holcomb, right?”

Malachy McLeod nodded shortly. “Aye, it is.”

The old man at the schooner’s wheel was like an antique stone
image carved on a lost Pacific atoll. His face, burned a dark mahogany,
was shaped geometrically into rugged, hewn lines. Durell was not surprised that
this aged whip of a man, with his snowy hair blowing in the sea wind, reminded
him strongly of the courtesy and strength of his own grandpa Jonathan. Those
two old men had remained friends even when half the world and half a century
separated them. He felt like a boy again, standing cap in hand before this
gaunt old islander.

Joseph Panapura spoke quietly. “You look like he once was,
son.”

“I could ask for no more.”

“Remains to be seen if you’re even part the man Jonathan was,
and is.” Old Joseph’s voice could carry easily above the sough of the wind and
the murmur of the sea. His long white hair blew across craggy brows and jutting
cheekbones. “You were reckless, Samuel, even if you don’t complain of an aching
head. Prince Ch’ing really runs these islands.”

“Getting a few lumps made what I learned cheap at the price.”
Durell smiled. “I wasn’t killed. The dice fell right.”

The mahogany mouth twitched. Durell felt as if he were addressing
some pagan island deity. The old man was part of the vessel, joined to it by
big gnarled hands on the wheel, his feet planted on the canted deck, by his
eyes flicking to the taut curve of the sail and the shifting colors of
the sea. Another jet chased its thunder along the ocean’s horizon. The absence
of other shipping in this shallow ocean was startling. No native junks,
outriggers, fishing sampans or rusty freighters. One would not guess this
was the wide Pacific, considering the countless green islands that
floated like uncertain mirages on every quarter. The violence of the sun made
the colors of the sea change from moment to moment. Obviously, no one but old
Joseph could be trusted to guide the hissing keel of the
Tarakuta
through these shoal channels; and even his skill was more
mystical than scientific. This was a world of tortuous inlets and seaways
bounded by volcanic rock, coral, and shifting mangrove swamps and shoals. Now
and then, when it seemed the schooner must surely go aground, the old man
touched the wheel and the sharp clipper bow swerved to find a new opening
in the channel, glimmering a green-black or perhaps a pale, churned milk. The
Malay crew responded alertly to invisible signals from the old man at the
wheel.

“We’ll help you do your job,” Joseph said bluntly. “Maybe we’re
the only people who can help, politics here being What they are. Maybe the
Tarakuta
is all you can count on. You
understand me? I hate to think of all those fine men and young boys lost
somewhere in these islands.”

“Then you agree the submarine is here, somewhere? Do you
think we can find it?”

“We’ll need some luck. But every gambler needs luck. Only
thing, you must never count on it.” The old man’s carved, mahogany face was still.
“I am concerned about Wilhelmina, however. Have you lost your sight,
Samuel?"

“Hardly, but—"

“Or your masculine instincts? She grew up impatient at the
sound of your name. Now she has met you, and she has changed. It worries me. It
troubles me, because you will be here only a short time, and then you will go
away again, Samuel.”

“Yes, that’s so,” Durell said.

“And will you take Willi with you?"

“No. I couldn’t."

“She belongs here. She is happy here. She is smart and quick
at her work. The islands are her home, and I’m old and won’t last forever. She
thinks I will, but I won’t. When she is alone, she‘ll have my house and the
copra plantation and the boat. And all I could teach her. She’s quite a woman,
Samuel.”

“Yes, I can see that.” .

“Malachy loves her and would keep her safe and happy.”

“But does Willi love him?” Durell asked.

“She is confused, now she has met you. I must ask you not to
encourage her, Samuel." The old man’s face seemed hewn from darkness.
“Once, Jonathan and I dreamed our children might marry, but it didn’t come to
pass. Then we dreamed of Willi and you. Now I’ve seen you, I know it was not a
foolish dream. You may be worthy of her. But don’t thank me, because you will
not have her.”

“I still don’t see—”

“You will not have her.”

Durell let silence end it.

                                                                                     
chapter fourteen

THE
Tarakuta
slipped her sharp, proud bow through pale green waters where palm fronds
floated in
tideless
channels and vegetable
debris ran hissing along her painted white sides. At times it seemed she must
surely go aground, or tangle her rigging in the ugly, twisted limbs of mangrove
swamps that hemmed her in. Then she was in open water for a spell, and Joseph
turned the wheel over to his Malay mate. The sun was bright, violent,
unnatural. The wind died within half an hour, and the big bleached mainsail was
hauled down and the diesel started. Thereafter, the steady thump and thud of
the cylinders made a hot rhythm in the emptiness of brazen sky and sea.

Twice more they heard jets screaming over the horizon. One
time, traveling faster than the blast of thunder clapping after it, a MIG With
the insigne of Indonesia buzzed the
Tarakuta.
It came like a sudden explosion and screamed away to the south. The calm grew
heavier, and seemed more oppressive afterward.

Durell walked to the bow with Malachy, and watched with the
red-bearded Irishman as the mountainous spine of Bangka lifted around a bend of
small reefs. Malachy had examined Durell’s assorted cuts and bruises with professional
interest and expressed some awe at the scars on Durell’s body.

Durell admitted it was time to get some plastic work done.
He had too many identifying items, if he were picked up by the wrong people
somewhere.

“Such as Colonel Mayubashur?” Malachy asked wryly.

Durell silently and briefly reviewed what he knew of
the colonel. It was part of his job to keep a file of mental dossiers on
people likely to dominate the world’s trouble spots, and what he knew of
Mayubashur reminded him that the colonel was basically just a good cop. It was
a matter of debate, back in Washington, whether Mayubashur enjoyed commanding
from the old Sultan’s palace in Pandakan. At a policy meeting of K Section’s
field chiefs, Durell had maintained, against other arguments, that
Mayubashur would seek to stay in power, it being the nature of such men to continue
in control, once given possession of political as well as military power. McFee
had agreed. But at that time, the matter had not seemed very pressing.

On the other hand, he knew that Mayubashur would pursue a criminal
case honestly and clap the villain in the local Portuguese dungeons. The
colonel would be walking on eggs now, however, since he might find
himself arresting the next premier of Tarakuta, if he guessed wrong.

Durell frowned, annoyed at Malachy’s continued silence. Was
McLeod going to carry a chip on his shoulder throughout the operation, because
of jealousy over Willi? It was something Durell wished to be spared. The
makeshift apparatus already had one potential defector in Tommy Lee. He did not
think Dr. McLeod would deliberately betray the mission; but emotion could cloud
judgment at a critical moment, bringing about a split-second delay that could
make the hairsbreadth difference between success and failure, life and death.

He went on speaking about Colonel Mayubashur.

“The colonel surely knows about every Seventh Fleet jet that’s
crossed the periphery of his precious island territory, Malachy. Djakarta and
the Malay government in Kuala Lumpur know about them, too, by now. Nobody likes
it. And we have reports of guerilla clashes between Indonesian ‘freedom
fighters’ and Malay regulars on the outlying islands off Sabah.“ He
paused as Malachy nodded briefly, curtly, and added: “Everybody shouts ‘
Merdeka
!
’ and wants freedom, so long as the freedom
means that Tarakuta belongs to him. But we’re not concerned with local
politics. Our job is to find that submarine.”

“How can something as big as that get lost?” Malachy sucked
on an empty brier pipe. His bearded face was burned dark by the tropic sun,
which made his pale eyes all the more startling under his bushy red brows. “The
Jackson
might have taken a tragic
dive, Sam, like the
Thresher
. The currents
here are tricky. The sea may seem to be utterly calm, but this whole body of
water is actually moving along at four to six knots. No one but old Joseph and
poor Simon, for instance, could navigate this channel in order to sneak up on
Bangka, over there."

“As far as we know, though, the
Jackson
used regular shipping lanes,” Durell objected. “She was due
in through the Bandjang Passage, and your consulate was notified of that
just before Kiehle Went off to his SEATO meeting. Were you there, then?”