Assignment - Sulu Sea (19 page)

But he could not take Willi into his world; he had to let
her go. She belonged to the sun, the sea, the cobalt sky of the Pacific.
Nothing was inevitable. It was only a dream of two old gentlemen-pirates, who
lived in a world that would never be seen again.

“Willi . . .”

She drew back. Her breath was a rueful whisper. “You don’t
have to say it. It doesn’t work with you, does it? You’re wrong, there is
something between us, but you don‘t feel it.”

He sat up. His voice was fiat. “We can know nothing about
ourselves now, at this moment and in this place.”

A dull explosion in the channel made the darkening sky tremble.

                                                                                     
chapter
sixteen

SOMETHING sleek and dangerous moved out there in the gathering
twilight.

There came another dull crump, a flash of fire,
a dim, ululating scream from far across the green-black water. Willi started to
rise, and Durell. pushed her back. The fiat throb of powerful engines
echoed back from the mangrove banks of the islets opposite them. The thing that
slid out there, as voracious and predatory as a shark, was an armed, black speedboat
of the World War II PT type. It showed no flag. Its victim, devoured by
sudden bursting flames, was a belated fishing boat that had been
heading back for the Malay
kampong
.
The gay sail vanished in a puff of smoke and fire, and small
figures could be seen diving into the dangerous waters. With a growling
throb, the armed speedboat suddenly picked up speed and curved away, leaving a
white wake and a burning prau behind it, as anonymous as a highwayman, as
vicious as a pirate.

“What was it?” Willi whispered. “Those poor men—”

“
Merdeka
,”
Durell said.

“Freedom?”

 
“As Sukarno sees it.”

The last time he had been briefed on the situation in this troubled
corner of the world, he had learned of the “volunteers” from the Indonesian
army drifting across the border in North Borneo to establish small, vital
pockets of guerilla activity in the jungles. In the Malacca Straits, by the
last intelligence count, Indonesian speedboats had seized and fired two-score
Malaysian fishing boats. Potent terror sailed the fishing areas
with the innocent natives in these waters. Ashore, there were reports of highly
trained and expert sabotage teams smuggling arms and explosives into Malaya and
Singapore, and terrorist attacks had been noted all through the area, aimed at
vital economic targets.

Durell’s job was not to make political judgments. But twenty
years ago, such blackmail between nations would not have been tolerated.
Aggression, overt and hidden, was met by teams of negotiators to make legal
what had been seized by force. In Washington, it was always a delicate balance
as to whether a small war might be escalated into a larger conflict. The
overall global problems required remote and puzzling decisions sometimes.

He shook his head angrily. Some of the fishermen who had
jumped from their burning boat were not going to make the shore. The village
down the beach was alive with lights, dim
shoutings
,
the barking of dogs, the screaming of a woman.

He settled back with Willi to wait for darkness, a coldness
in him that defied the stifling and oppressive heat of the tropical
night.

When the enormous, reddish moon lifted over the rim of the
Celebes Sea, Durell picked up the machete and got to his feet. Willi was
instantly beside him. Starlight glimmered on a beach as white as old bone.
Paper lanterns shone in the
kampong
,
which had settled down again. Indeed, a few gaudily painted, ornately bowed
outriggers with off-balance square sails had moved out into the shallow
channel, first searching for survivors of their ill-fated companion, then
searching for octopus, apparently deciding the danger for the night was ended.
They hunted by the light of oil torches that flared red and yellow in
long, smoky ripples over the calm lagoon.

Thunder shook the sky. This time it was genuine. Willi said
quietly: “There were weather warnings from New Guinea this morning. Not a
typhoon yet, but it could be bad. Can you feel it? It’s like electricity
crawling over your skin."

The air held a breathless quality. The stillness was unnatural.
When he looked at the village again, he saw a car’s headlights bouncing along
the beach road. The lights halted on a pier where the fishermen were
setting out. The earthy smells of village and sea crawled through the darkness,
an odor of ancient vegetation, human debris, mussels and mud and half-digested
bits of odorous dead crabs beyond the tidal limit. There was a smell of
charcoal fires and, oddly, the fragrance of tea.

Durell turned to the silent girl. “Stay here, Willi. I’ll
get some shoes and clothes, and a gun, if I can find one."

“Ch’ing doesn’t allow any weapons in the
kampongs
,” she said. “I won’t hide here
without you, either. I understand what happened earlier between us. Even
without that raiding boat, you wouldn’t have taken me. Maybe I should be outraged;
but I’m grateful. I thought I loved Malachy, and then I thought I was the girl
for you, when you came along, the one who waited for you to come to her from
over the sea, like in the old Polynesian legends. We don‘t know if it’s a dream
or not; but you’re right to wait. But no matter about that. I’m staying with
you, for now.”

He nodded and they set off down the beach. The
kampong
was built of pandanus mat huts,
the thatched roofs closely laid together to resist wind, water and beach rats.
Papaya and frangipani trees flowered above the houses high on their stilts.
There were two wooden Chinese merchant shops with tin roofs, and a teahouse
serving as a focal point near the pier and the beach where the outrigger native
boats unloaded. The survivors of the burned fisherman had long reached shore. A
dog barked, a child cried. The car Durell had seen was parked openly on the
beach. Sheet lightning flickered like lavender curtains on the dark
horizon of the sea.

When they were a hundred yards from the village, he signed
Willi to remain where she was, and brooked no protest. Then he went quickly
toward the parked car.

It was only a rusted Chevrolet, and it was empty. His machete
felt heavy in his grip. He hoped he would not have to use it. From the village
came the sound of soft Malay laughter, except for the persistent weeping of one
woman; the Malays were quick to laugh and quick to die, sometimes, he thought.
He heard a few atonal notes of Chinese music from the teahouse, the squawk of a
Malay rooster. Then the harsh blare of a propaganda broadcast from far-off Djakarta,
vilifying Malaysia, the British, the Americans, the Dusuns who favored
Malaysia, all lumped together as “imperialists,” shattered the dark night. The
voice, speaking in Bahasa, demanded the “return” of Tarakuta to the “motherland”
and drowned out all sounds except for a quick rap of footsteps on the plank
pier returning to the car.

The man who came hurrying from the dock was oddly familiar
in outline against the glare of the octopus hunters’ torches. Durell drew a
slow breath. Now and then, however risks and chances were calculated, computed
and analyzed, Lady Luck came along to tip the applecart, one way or another,
without rhyme or reason. Old Jonathan had taught him this long ago, and he had
learned not to let it surprise him. And now it had happened again.

The man who walked quickly back to the car was Tommy Lee,
the double agent from the Pandakan consulate.

The young Chinese loomed big and solid against the red flares
of the octopus hunters. He walked with his hands clenched at his sides, his
city shoes rapping hard on the planks as he neared the car in the shadows. From
the radio in the
kampong
came another
braying denunciation of Western imperialism and the announcement that
fighters for “
merdeka
”
had landed in the Tarakuta Group to take up the torch for “liberty.” Durell did
not know how much truth was in the report and for the moment, did not care.

Tommy Lee reached the car, and the propaganda from the
Djakarta radio proved useful, after all. It covered the soft movement Durell
made as he came around the car and placed the edge of his machete against the
Chinese diplomat’s throat.

“Hold still, Tommy,” Durell whispered.

Lee froze with his hand on the car door. He wore a pale
sharkskin suit and a white shirt and a dark tie, and he must have been
sweltering in the heavy humidity that flowed like an invisible blanket
from the storm gathering over the sea. He was sensible enough not to turn his
head. But his breath hissed in surprise and he could not prevent a lurch and
tremor of his body.

“Who—what is it?”

“Sam Durell. Surprised?”

“Durell? But how—what are you doing here—?”

“Looking for you, in a way--and for your boss."

‘I don’t understand. Please, remove the knife.”

“Get in the car.”

“Surely. But force is unnecessary. I’m an American citizen, I
can explain what I am doing here—”

“I’m sure you can. I’ll listen with interest. Get in the car
and back it up about a hundred yards and then stop. Leave the headlights on,
but blink them twice, understand? And don’t do anything foolish.”

“As you say, sir.”

Durell looked at the nearest Malay house on its stilts above
the beach. There were some limp clothes hanging from a line strung from two
poles. Voices came from inside, and the smell of charcoal and fish. But
it was dark and shadowed where the clothing hung. Durell said: “Hold it, Tommy.
We need to repair our wardrobe first."

He urged the young Chinese to the clothes line and pulled down
a pair of dungarees and a woman’s batik dress and found some straw sandals of
various sizes. In the blue flicker of sheet-lightning, Lee’s face shone
with sweat and fright. Durell frisked him briefly, found no weapons, and urged
him back to the car.

“All right. Back up a hundred yards, as I said.”

Willi was looking for the signal. She came running on silent
feet as the car halted just inside the line of jungle. There had been no alarm
from the village. Out in the shallow channel, the fishermen were
beginning their night’s work with harpoon and flare and net. The heat was
stifling. But there was not the slightest stir of wind to relieve the oppression.
It Was as if all the forces of nature were astir.

Tommy Lee was tough and frightened. He thought he saw his
chance when Willi ran up out of the steamy darkness, and he moved fast,
dropping his left shoulder, his head still turned as if watching Willi’s
approach, his right hand on the car door. At the same time his right foot came
up to smash at the blade in Durell’s grip, intending to gain a running start
for the dark jungle growth beside the road.

He was good, but not that good; he was tough, but not that
tough.

Durell caught his ankle with a quick, twisting grip that would
have heaved most men from their feet. But Lee’s grip on the car door saved him
from that disaster. Lee staggered, missed his stroke at the machete, and terror
froze on his broad yellow face. He opened his mouth to cry an alarm and Durell
hit him with the hilt of the knife high on the cheekbone. Lee’s fingers
were torn from the car door, and he went down to one knee in the dark path.

“I owe you something," Durell said quietly. “It’s for Simon
and some good men off the Jackson who are dead.”

“But I couldn’t help—”

“It’s time to collect, Tommy. I
owe you something for your girl-friend, too, who tried to keep you straight.”

“Yoko Hanamutra?”

“Stand up.”

But Lee had not given up hope yet. Enough dim light came
from the flickering torches of the fishermen to see Durell’s
implacable face. Terror
spasmed
and twisted Lee’s mouth,
but it was a controlled fear, giving him speed and strength to try for escape.
His chunky shoulder came up and smashed at Durell’s belly and the driving force
of his tough, sturdy legs carried him up and over as Durell fell back. Durell
rarely permitted himself the luxury of hate or a desire for revenge. His work
was too demanding for that. But traitors were an exception. It was difficult
enough to walk knowingly into the threats from the other side, to maneuver with
all the power of a team of skilled and loyal operatives beside you. To have to
face the added hazard of the double agent, the weakling who yielded up lives
for money or through fear, was beyond his tolerance. He worked on Tommy Lee
with brutal efficiency.

It was not easy. His opponent was young and trained in the
ways of killing with bare hands. And he was desperate. Durell’s main concern
was to raise no alarm in the nearby
kampong
.
Silence and speed were imperative.

He achieved both. The loudest sound was a strangled cough
from his antagonist when Durell chopped the side of his throat. He did not
strike to kill. As Lee staggered and tried to kick again, Durell threw him with
a thud, and as the man, coughing, made an effort to escape, Durell hauled him
to the feet by his shirt front and slapped him again and again until Lee’s eyes
glazed and his weight sagged down.

Willi looked shocked. “Sam, don’t ., .. . he can’t defend himself.
. . .”

“Lucky for us,” Durell breathed harshly. “I may not kill him.
It depends on what he has to say. Do you hear me, Tommy?"

Willi subsided. He glimpsed her face, and her beauty was carved
of stone. He could not read the expression in her eyes. He slammed Tommy Lee
against the side of the car, picked up the machete, and held its razor-sharp
edge against the bubbling throat of the Chinese.

“Which will it be, Tommy? Talk—or die?"