Rembrandt's Ghost (16 page)

The
Black Dragon
rested easily in a narrow inlet at the mouth of the little river estuary. The ghostly gunship was almost invisible in the night and fog. Khan stood on the bow of the
Black Dragon
, listening. He was wearing lightweight jungle camouflage gear stolen from a shipment meant for the Philippine Army. It came with a floppy Tilly hat, which he chose not to wear, preferring the simple black beret of the police commando units. He had a pair of U.S. Navy night-vision binoculars around his neck, but he ignored them. He much preferred his own senses. In the distance he could hear the surf breaking on the narrow line of reefs and closer, the slap of waves against the hull of the
Black Dragon
. He could smell the sick-sweet odor of the mangroves a few yards away and the rotting vegetation swirling among their roots, the stink of dead fish, and faintly the thin scent of gasoline.

“You’re sure?” Khan said to Fu Sheng, standing just behind him on the deck.

“Yes. She draws almost eight feet. They need deep water to moor.”

“Why here?”

“There is a spring half a mile or so upriver. They use their skiff to fetch fresh water.”

“How many?”

“Four. Three men and a woman. Young.”

“Strange that they would be joined by a girl. This kind of thing is hardly woman’s work.”

“They are Americans,” said Fu Sheng with a shrug, as though their nationality explained everything. “The girl is proof, I think.”

“Proof?” Khan queried.

“Their victims think as anyone might. They put her in a bikini, sunbathing on deck. She waves and smiles. What could be wrong? You think.”

“And then they spring their trap and we are blamed.”

Fu Sheng nodded. “That is their method.” A new sound rose above the rhythmic thunder of the surf breaking on the reef. The burbling of an engine. It became louder as it approached. The two men waited, listening. “It is them,” said Fu Sheng quietly. “What is your order,
tuan
?”

“Wait until they drop anchor and set off in the skiff.” Khan paused. “How many will fetch water?”

“Two. The girl remains and one other. We have watched them several times now.”

“Kill the two in the skiff as they approach the shore. We will take
Dragon
and board them before they have a chance to escape.”

“Yes,
tuan
,” said Fu Sheng. He turned away, crossed the deck to the wheelhouse, and went below.

Khan stood in the bow and waited for the boat to sail into the trap that had been laid for it. The boat had been in the area for more than two years now, but he had never seen it. Originally the boat, then named
Quicksilver
, had belonged to a wealthy real estate agent from Vancouver traveling around the world with his wife and eleven-year-old daughter. The husband and wife were both experienced sailors and should have known better, but human nature being what it is, they hadn’t checked the backgrounds of the two young people they picked up hitchhiking through Asia by part-time crewing on pleasure boats. The husband had his throat slit in the middle of the night several days out of Manila, while the daughter and the wife had been kept alive for more than a week and raped repeatedly during that time. Sometime in that week, the
Quicksilver
had rendezvoused with a second boat, the
Artemesia
, piloted by the other two members of the gang. After another gang-rape session lasting two days, the mother and daughter had been set adrift without food or water in the
Artemesia
, which was the smaller of the two vessels. Before being set adrift, the
Artemesia
’s engine was disabled and an ax had been used to hack a gaping hole in her side. The sailboat had foundered but remained afloat and eventually was spotted by a dive boat from the resort at Pulau Tiga, the original
Survivor
island. By the time the dive boat reached
Artemesia
, the child was dead of exposure and internal injuries, but the mother lived long enough to tell the story of what had happened.
Quicksilver
, under several different names, had been sighted as far north as Hawaii and as far south as New Zealand and was thought to be responsible for a number of disappearances. So far there had been no absolute identification of the brutal “pirates,” but one of them was thought to be the “Surfer Dude Bandit,” wanted for several counts of armed robbery in Los Angeles.

The sound of the boat engine grew even louder and Khan lifted the night glasses. The world turned a bilious green and he spotted their quarry almost immediately. The boat was a forty-two-foot Sabre, built in Maine and only five years old. Her mainsail was down and furled. The fifty-horsepower diesel was capable of pushing her along at eight knots, but she was probably doing no more than four against the sweeping, almost invisible current of the muddy river. She wasn’t showing any runninglights. A man with long hair was standing at the wheel, guiding the sailboat upriver. There was a second man, this one in shorts and a baseball cap, standing in the bow. He appeared to have a rifle slung over his shoulder. There was a large parang machete hanging from his belt and a holstered sidearm. Some sort of large revolver.

As Khan watched through the night glasses, the boat slowed and the engine sound faded. The man in the bow knelt, then rose, holding a Fortress claw anchor by its nylon rope. He slid the anchor over the side without a splash, setting it on a short line. He went to the stern, set a second anchor, and then began to haul up the skiff that had been trailing along behind. The skiff was an eight-foot inflatable in jungle camouflage. It looked hard-worn and much older than the Sabre, probably taken from another boat along the way. Pirated from some other poor American fool playing at sailing in monsoon seas. Khan sent up a brief and silent prayer for the soul of the little girl who had died so foully at these men’s hands and watched as they climbed down into the dingy carrying a half dozen five-gallon plastic jugs. The man with the rifle sat in the stern of the little boat and switched on the three-horsepower Briggs and Stratton outboard. A faint whirring sound rose into the still air and the dingy moved off. Out of the corner of his eye Khan caught the small movement of one of his own men. He waited until the dingy was well away from the Sabre before he gave the order.

“Sekarang,”
he said quietly.
Now.
His man triggered a short burst from the bare-bones Type-64 Chinese submachine gun. The weapon had an integral silencer and barely made a sound as it ripped through its thirty-round clip in less than a second. The shells tore the dingy to shreds and a half dozen thumped into the two men. A few banged loudly into the outboard motor housing. The two men, screaming, toppled into the swirling brown water. Still watching through the night glasses, Khan saw a pair of heavy, dark shapes launch themselves out of the mangrove shallows on the far bank and slide toward the thrashing bodies of the wounded men. One of the long-nosed saltwater crocodiles reared up and caught the long-haired man’s head between its jaws. There was a small crunching noise as the skull was crushed and the pale wet brain popped out in several pieces like chunks of rotted fruit. The second man, arms windmilling, tried to get ashore, but the second armor-plated reptile caught him at the belt line and carried him under the surface.

“Lekas!” Quickly.
There was a sudden thunder as the
Black Dragon
’s huge engines burst into life. The throttle was engaged and the fast-attack craft roared out of its narrow hiding place between the mangroves and powered across the river to where the sailboat was anchored. Less than thirty seconds had passed since the first shots were fired. A figure appeared in the cockpit, naked except for a pair of boxer shorts. The figure was carrying a handgun.

“Lampu cari,”
ordered Khan, dropping the night-vision goggles away from his eyes. The searchlight in the cockpit snapped on, bathing the sailboat in a blue-tinged glow. The half-naked man raised a hand to shield his eyes. He was well muscled, tanned, and blond.

“Drop the weapon!” Khan called out loudly.

“Who the hell are you?” shouted the blond man in the sailboat.

“Ke dalam sungai,”
said Khan to the man standing behind him with the Type 64. The man snapped another clip into the submachine gun and aimed into the river beside the boat. He let off a burst of fire and the water by the stern of the sailboat jumped and spattered. “Drop the weapon,” repeated Khan. This time the man in the sailboat did as he was told. The pistol dropped into the water. Fu Sheng reappeared at Khan’s side. He had another Type 64 slung over his shoulder and a twenty-inch bolo in a canvas sheath at his waist.

The
Black Dragon
thumped against the hull of the sailboat. Fu Sheng and the man who had fired on the inflatable took lines from the deck of the gunboat and boarded the other vessel. They used the lines to lash the two boats together. The man in the boxer shorts remained in the cockpit of the sailboat, hands in the air. Khan noticed that the man had a thick, ropy scar that ran from one shoulder halfway across his chest. A knife fight long ago. The kind of raw wound you got in prison. The man’s eyes were hard in the glare from the spotlight. No fear, only anger.

Fu Sheng and the man with the gun moved into the cockpit. The man with the gun stayed on deck while Fu Sheng went below. Fu Sheng reappeared a few moments later, pushing the naked figure of a young woman up on deck ahead of him. She tried to cover herself with her hands. She was pale skinned and dark haired, not very pretty but with large breasts and long legs. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was very frightened. In the harsh light Khan could see the slight puckering of the flesh of her thighs. The tears had made her makeup run. She was older than she had first appeared. In a bikini, from a distance, it wouldn’t matter. He wondered what kind of woman wore makeup in the middle of the ocean. The kind of woman who would make herself naked for a man like the one with the scar. The man and the woman reminded him of the flat-headed water snakes he sometimes saw in the swamps. People without souls.

“Awak boleh berbahasa Inggeris?”
the man with the scar asked. His pronunciation was terrible.

“Yes,” said Khan. “I speak English.”

“Why are you doing this? We’ve done nothing to harm you.”

“This is my territory,” answered Khan. “You have no business here.”

“Then let us go.”

“Perhaps. Not yet.”

“You killed Hank and Jimmy!” This from the naked girl. “You bastards!”

“What is her name?” Khan asked the man with the scar.

“Her name’s Bonnie.”

“Tell Bonnie that if she doesn’t keep quiet I will cut out her tongue and throw it to the
buaya
she saw eat her friends in the river.”

“Don’t you dare touch me!” screamed Bonnie, jerking in Fu Sheng’s grip. “I’m an American citizen, goddamn you!” She jerked again. Fu Sheng used his free hand to punch her directly in the face as hard as he could. Several teeth broke and so did her nose. Blood spurted and streamed, covering her chin. Screaming wetly she fell to her knees. Fu Sheng let her go. She curled up in a ball on the deck of the cockpit and moaned loudly. The man with the scar never took his eyes off Khan.

The pirate turned, handing his night glasses to the man standing at the wheel of the
Black Dragon
. He stepped to the gunwale and dropped down onto the deck of the sailboat. He went to the cockpit, stepped over the bleeding woman, and ducked his head, going down three steps into the main salon.

“Membawa mereka,”
said Khan, without turning.
Bring them
.

He looked around the salon. It was quite luxurious, although it had clearly not been cleaned in a long time. The headliner was cork inset with pot lights in strategic points. Everything else was done in some pale exotic wood. There was an efficient-looking galley on the right complete with gas stove, refrigerator, and an inset microwave. Opposite the galley was an impressively equipped navigation station. A narrow passage led back from the navigation station into what was presumably the master cabin, below the cockpit. Ahead of the galley and the navigation station was the salon proper. There was a settee on the right that looked as though it converted into a single berth and an eating nook on the left in a boothlike configuration. The upholstery of the settee and the benches in the booth were done in a rich sea green. There were several lozenge-shaped portholes on either side. In the morning light, it would be bright and inviting. There was another narrow passage leading forward to a bulkhead door. Probably a pair of berths set into the bow.

The galley was filthy and there were dirty dishes on the table in the booth. The whole belowdecks area smelled of body odor and alcohol. Khan knelt and pulled open a drawer built in below the settee. It was neatly packed with expensive-looking foul-weather gear. Gill Ocean Racer in bright blues and red and yellow. Expensive. The previous owner had been careful and meticulous. The people who came after had been pigs. But that was over now. There would be balance.

Fu Sheng brought the half-naked man stumbling down the short companionway into the salon. The other soldier brought the girl. The girl dropped down onto the settee and curled up, sniveling through the blood bubbling out of her torn mouth and the crushed remains of her nose. Fu Sheng pushed the man in the boxer shorts onto the bench in the breakfast nook. Khan sat down across from him. The man looked frightened now, something scurrying behind the small blue eyes.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Khan said.

“You’re Khan, the pirate
bokap
.”

“And you’re the Surfer Dude Bandit.”

“Is that what they call me?” The man gave a sour little smile.

“You robbed convenience stores.”

“Yeah, I did that.”

“And then you came here.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You think you’re a funny man.”

“Sometimes.”

“But not now,” said Khan. “This is not a joke.”

“No, I guess not.”