Assignment - Sulu Sea (14 page)

It was not easy to orient himself. Voices called, echoing with
subtle distortions in this world of half water, half air, roofed with a sky of
scabrous moss and barnacled under-floors. Among the people who lived and ate
and slept and made love down here, nothing could be normal. The shouting came
nearer, preceded by a bobbing lamp that approached with appalling speed. This
whole area was webbed with plank walks almost submerged at the water level
under the sea village. Whether the men approaching were Ch’ing’s men or not,
they would be ready to rob and kill.

Durell took the girl’s hand and they ran along the slippery
planks, ducking their heads to clear the supporting timbers above, clambering
over struts and props, stumbling and sometimes losing the direct way to
find themselves in sudden cul-de-sacs. The pursuit was relentless, led by
a growing number of bobbing flares, with a vanguard of threatening shouts
and ululating cries. The girl slid and fell from the slimy walk with a cry of
distress, splashing into the water. Durell hauled her out swiftly. She trembled
with fatigue, and obviously could not go on much longer. Equally

obvious, their pursuers knew their way through this watery, ghoulish
labyrinth so expertly that in another few moments they would be surrounded by
gleaming, murderous faces above equally gleaming, murderous knives.

His only hope was to locate and reach the Tarakuta, out in
the harbor somewhere. Which meant they had to come to the surface, to the
crowded world of canals, walks and houses, whatever the risk from Ch‘ing‘s men.

“Just a little longer, Paradise,” he promised.

He half carried her toward an area of saffron light that filtered
down between the buildings ahead. If they could mingle with the crowds in the
canals, in the marketplaces and teahouses and street stalls, until he reached
the harbor edge and perhaps signaled to the schooner—

He found a ladder, and beyond it an open canal, and at once
he knew his sense of direction had not failed him. No boats were visible except
a modern dinghy with an outboard motor on it. There was no name on the dinghy,
but the little boat gave him both hope and suspicion. They had reached the
outskirts of Fishtown to face the open harbor. He felt a quick satisfaction in
viewing the darkness beyond, the distant flicker and flare of
colored boat lights. One of them was the
Tarakuta
,
which he had sent for, offering help and safety.

If he could reach it in time.

He spared a hasty moment to search the dinghy and came up
with a three-cell flashlight from under the stem thwart. The air felt
clean and fresh here. He helped Paradise up the crude ladder of bamboo slats
and followed quickly. Their pursuers were close behind—too close for comfort.
He scrambled up hastily, searching beyond a rickety platform above the dinghy
for a sign of the schooner which must, by now, be moored somewhere nearby.

He spotted it after a moment, her sleek white hull a few hundred
yards to the south of the canal end where he stood with the girl. He squeezed
the flashlight button rapidly in a Morse signal for Malachy McLeod or
Willi, praying one or both might still be aboard.

There was no reply.

He wondered if his beam could be seen easily, and in his
haste to move farther along the rickety platform, he ignored his habitual
caution and did not pause before turning the proverbial corner.

It was a moment of dismay and disaster.

He heard Paradise scream, a quick, shrill yip of fear, and
he heard the quick step behind him and then the whistle of a sap descending on
the back of his head. Pain was expertly detonated behind his red ear, and red
flares filled the universe and then faded to soft darkness as he
pitched forward into emptiness.

                                     
                                               
chapter thirteen

THE sea whispered seductively, and there was the brightness
of an intolerable, tropic dawn in his eyes. The world lifted and fell, carrying
him forward on the surges of global tides, with soft susurrations of sound and
a clear whimpering of wind and the occasional slap and rattle of canvas and
blocks. He gritted his teeth to hold on to his stomach, thanks to a pulsing
headache and the queasy movement under him. He felt about cautiously. He was in
a narrow hammock, and only inches below his swinging rump was a polished plank
deck, already hot to the touch. He opened his eyes and stared straight into an
enormous, blazing white sun, and shut them again.

“You crazy Cajun,” someone said.

The world tilted far over and someone called a soft order and
blocks and sails rattled and slatted and he knew he was on a boat, and a
sailing boat at that, under full way, racing the dawn breeze. He opened his
eyes and turned his head aside and looked up, into Malachy McLeod’s red beard.

“Nice to have you return from the land of Nod, Sam’l me
boy,” said Malachy. “Are you surprised at seeing it is me?”

“Was it you who slugged me?”

“It was. A regrettable error."

“And the girl? Is she—?"

“Safe and sound, and as pretty
a piece
as I’ve seen in a long time. You have a sure affinity for lovely females, Samuel,
that never seems to desert you.”

“Shut the blathering,” Durell said.

“ 'Tis deserving you are of every ache and pain you suffer,
for trying what you did last night. But I take off me hat, figuratively
speaking, for that in which you succeeded.”

“I succeeded in little, Malachy.” '

“You may decide differently. A bit of coffee, with rum in
it?”

“Yes, please."

He could see clearly now. First there was the boat, a lovely,
clean-lined, clipper-bowed schooner that seemed to belong to the Maine coast,
in another age. The taut, gaff-rigged canvas was bleached a blinding white by
the equatorial suns and rains of fifty years, and her tall pine masts towered
skyward against a heathenish heaven of brass. The scrubbed deck was as white as
her canvas, and the teak railings were polished the color of very old honey. He
turned his head, and pain thrust at the back of his skull. An old man who
looked much like his grandpa Jonathan, except for the unmistakable Polynesian
cocoa of his skin, held the wheel, serenely guiding the ship as she heeled through
greenish, milky seas. Several Malay boys served as crew, on deck and in the
rigging. The wind blew with a hard freshness, considering the white clarity of
the sky and the enormous heat of the morning sun. Beyond the port rails were a
hundred islands of mangrove and swamp, slowly gliding by. The channel looked
narrow and devious. No other vessels or humans were in sight, ashore or on the empty
sea.

He returned his gaze to Dr. Malachy McLeod.

The bearded Malachy had a vast mane of red hair blowing in
tangles in the dawn wind. He had a chest as solid as a keg of Irish whiskey,
and a face that, bewhiskered or not, was as taut as a poet's and as competent
as the ship. Malachy spoke with a deliberately exaggerated brogue.

“Sure, and you can guess this is the
Tarakuta
, Samuel —the finest trading schooner in the Celebes
and Sulu Seas. ’Twas I who coshed you, thinkin’ you was some heathen devil
chasm‘ after the poor girl named Paradise. We were lookin’ for you, having
received your message from the consulate, and figurin’ you wanted the
ship in the harbor. Where? says I. Off Dendang, says Willi. So then we saw the Morse
code, and we were already ashore, worryin’ for fear you were foolhardy enough
to seek to slay the monster, our own Prince Ch’ing, in the very heart of his
evil den. ‘Twas sore worried Willi was, indeed, and I admit to instant jealousy,
me Cajun boy. Willi herself interpreted your message as to where you might be
needin’ us.”

“And where is Willi now?" Durell smiled.

“Behind ye, lad, and don’t stare too hard.”

She came carrying coffee like an island goddess risen from
the sea, bearing in her hands an amphora of sacred oils. Willi Panapura in her
shorts, in the Luakulani Palms on Oahu, had been something to study. Here on
the White, scrubbed deck of the Tarakuta, in the swaying shadows of the
sun-bleached sails, and wearing her diving bikini and an air of feminine pride
and mystery, and little else, Willi was beyond words.

She smiled and knelt gracefully beside Durell’s hammock and
handed him the coffee mug like an offering made by a Polynesian goddess. Her
eyes locked with his, then disengaged and searched upward for Dr. McLeod. “Has Malachy
been using the brogue he learned when he played in
The Informer
at the Yale Drama School, ages ago? And is he still
playing at being a spy?”

Durell said: “In self-defense, it wasn’t so long ago. We were
doing postgraduate work then. The critics ignored him, but he himself decided
he was grand. And still thinks so.”

“Malachy, I apologize," Willi said contritely. “But
please drop the phony brogue instantly. The Irishisms affect my stomach like a
following sea.“

McLeod laughed and spoke in a normal American accent.
“Sorry, darling. Being an extracurricular agent involves some histrionics, as I
see it. I get carried away.”

The way Malachy’s eyes dwelt on Willi's golden image made it
plain he was hopelessly in love with her. But Durell was not sure that Willi
responded. He could sense that Willi was intrigued by his own appearance, after
all the years of their childhood antagonisms. All the flattering little
signs were there. But he was not happy about it. His work was lonely and
dangerous, most often performed in squalor, with too many moments of despair
and terror. Willi did not belong in that world. Nor could she ever belong to
him. Yet he was aware of temptation. Did his work demand that he give up all
hope of someone like Willi? He did not approve of emotion mixed with his work.
It slowed the reflexes, distracted the eye from the shadow that might be fatal,
the hinted image of a lurking assassin. Love was a luxury he had been forced to
deny too long. Was it too late to turn back, to ask for what Willi might offer?
Durell would have shrugged off any suggestion that he was a patriot, totally
dedicated to his work. But each time his annual contract with K Section came up
for appraisal and evaluation, he knew an agony that was eased only when the issue
was settled for another year. His work was more than his business, simply. It
demanded a complete integration of what he was and what he must make of himself
in order to survive and function usefully.

He pushed aside the thought of any romantic idylls with Willi.
It was too late for that, yes. He even regretted the tension that existed
already, this triangular tautness between himself, Malachy and the girl, that
could be so dangerous to their success, to their continued lives. Malachy had
become moodily withdrawn as Willi knelt beside the hammock and handed him the
rum-laced coffee.

“Does your head still hurt?” she asked.

“Malachy is enthusiastic and accurate.” Durell winced and
gasped at the sixty percent rum in the coffee. He stood up, and the deck tilted
one Way and he tilted another. He sat down and then tried again. This time he
managed to keep on his feet while the horizon swam about. The sky was cobalt,
the sea a lime green, the islands a darker, ominous green, implying fetid
swamps and desperate shadows. He steadied his gaze on the horizon. After a time
the coffee and rum stopped sloshing about and performed its designed function.
He felt better. He said: “Are we sailing anywhere in particular?”

“I thought we should wait for you,” Malachy said. He spoke
tersely. “You're in charge of the apparatus and the operation—such as it is.”

“I’d like to see where Willi found Commander Holcomb’s body,"
Durell said.

Willi suggested: “That was on the east shore of Bangka, as I
told you. About two hours’ sail from here."

“Good enough.” He waited while she called to the man at the
schooner’s wheel and the course was changed. Then he waved toward the mangrove
islets. “Who lives over there?”

“Just some Dusuns who work at lumbering. We just passed one
of their logging ponds. Very decent people, really.”

Durell looked at Malachy. “But no sign of the Jackson?”

“Nothing. No wreckage, no rumors of survivors."

“Did you check the
kampongs
?”

“Everything, Sam. Nobody has heard a thing.”

As if to mock Malachy, a dim howling came from the cobalt
sky. It was an unnatural interruption to the sounds of wind and sail and sea,
and it wove like a surgeon’s scalpel through the hiss of the bow wave. Durell
looked at the faint vapor trail in the sky to the north. The howling grew
louder momentarily, then faded.

“One of ours?” Malachy asked.

Durell shook his head. He knew the sound of the new Soviet
MIGs, and this was one of them. The Seventh Fleet units outside Tarakuta
territorial waters would he out searching, too, but the howl of evil up there
had come either from Indonesia or from the Malaysia Federation. They were all involved
in a giant chess game, he thought, in which pieces were released to control
certain areas of the global chessboard. Neither side dared to begin an
exchange, since the end result was beyond calculation. No one could foresee which
might be the deciding, surviving piece of artillery. That howling plane up
there might be one of Sukarno’s, or from Malaya, and it might meet with one
from the Seventh Fleet. He shook his head slightly.

“What is it?” Malachy asked.

“It seems to me that the former colonies here are infected
with a neo-imperialism of their own, now that they are independent. The world
is full of ironies.” He looked at the bearded man. “And plenty full of sad,
Irish philosophers, Malachy.”

Somewhere in this tangle of sea and island, Durell thought, there
was one reality, and that was a submarine, huge and black, the most modern,
lethal fighting engine yet devised, with a crew of brave men, a nuclear
engine of the latest design, and sixteen A-3 Polaris missiles that packed a
devastating wallop. The A-3 was a ninety percent new missile ranking with the
best of the land-based rockets, its payload a one megaton-warhead that could
fly 2,875 miles from sub to target. Unlike the early “mud-sucker” Polaris
subs that had to operate close to shore because their A-1 missile range was
only 1,300 miles, the
Jackson’s
flexibility was enormous. Her submerged displacement of 8,000 tons
compared to that of a pocket battleship, and from hundreds of miles offshore, she
could strike Peiping from the Arctic or wipe out the Siberian industrial
complex of Irkutsk while submerged in the China Sea off Shanghai.