The Intruders (37 page)

Incredibly, the wind strengthened and began to rip spindrift from the
swells. Jake reeled in his helmet-it had fallen overboard at some point
during the night–dumped out the water and put it on. He ran the clear
visor down to keep the salt spray out of his eyes.

It worked. Incredibly, his head was also warmer. He should have been
wearing this thing all night!

“Put on your helmet,” he shouted at Flap, who had his tucked under his
thighs.

The clouds were just beginning to show pink when they saw the ship. It
was almost bows on and coming this way.

A little ship, one stack, coming with a bone in its teeth.

Jake pointed.

“Of all the fucking luck!” Flap Le Beau swore.

It was the pirate ship. -THEY’vE SEEN us,” FLAP SHOUTED OVER THE WIND.

“They’re coming this way.”

“Better ditch the guns and radios,” Jake told him. He drew the Colt .45
from its holster under his life jacket and survival vest and slipped it
over the side. In a holster sewn inside a pocket of his survival vest
he had a five-shot Smith & Wesson .38 with a two-inch barrel that he
kept loaded with flares. He ditched that too.

The radio-he held on to the radio for a moment as he watched the bow
wave of the oncoming small ship subside.

They were stopping.

Son of a …

He used his survival knife to cut the parachute shroud line that tied
him to the radio and lowered it to the water, then released it. Out of
the corner of his e e he saw Flap y slip his .45 over the side.

“The knife,” Flap told him. “Dump it too. They’ll just take them away
from us.” Jake opened his hand and the knife made a tiny splash.

The small ship drifted to a stop on the windward side of the two rafts,
about fifteen feet away. Her bulk created a sheltered lee. It was a
nice display of seamanship, but Jake and Flap were in no mood to
appreciate it.

Staring down from the rail were eight brown faces. Malays, from the
look of them. They held assault rifles in their hands.

The sides of this little ship had once been blue, but now the blue was
heavily spotted with rust. Where some of the paint had peeled glimpses
of gray were visible. Apparently she had once been a patrol boat.
Forward of the bow was a gun mount, now empty. That was where they had
had the twenty millimeter. It must be stowed below.

The men on deck lowered a net and made gestures with their rifles. Jake
and Flap slowly paddled over. Flap went up the net first. Jake
followed him. The ship was rocking heavily in the swells. The net was
wet, hard to grasp firmly.

His foot slipped on the wet cordage and he almost went into the sea.
When he was clear of the raft the people on deck began shooting bursts
of fully automatic fire. He looked down. Holes popped everywhere on
the inflated portions of the rafts and spray flew.

By the time he pulled himself up enough to grasp the rail, the rafts
were completely deflated and sinking.

Hands grabbed him and pulled. He scrambled on up the net. As he was
coming over the rail, someone hit him in the helmet with a rifle butt
and he sprawled onto the deck. Flap was already lying there on his back
looking upward.

Most of the crew were barefoot. A couple of them looked like teenagers.
Their clothes were ragged and dirty. There was nothing half-assed about
their weapons however, worn AK-47s without a fleck of rust. Several of
them had pistols stuck into their belts or the tops of their pants.

One of them gestured toward a ladder with the barrel of his weapon. Up.
Jake glanced at Flap. His face was expressionless. Grafton prayed that
he looked at least half that calm.

At the top of the ladder was the bridge.

The man working the helm and engine was a bit larger than medium height,
apparently fit, and had a wicked scar on his chin. The ship was already
gathering speed and heeling m a turn. The captain, if captain he was,
glanced at them, then concentrated on putting the ship on the course he
wanted. When he had the helm amidships and had checked the compass, he
said, “Gentlemen, welcome aboard.”

Jake looked around. Two of the crew were behind them and the rifles
were leveled at his and Flap’s backs. He turned back to the captain.

“Take off all that . . .” He gestured toward their life jackets and
survival vests. “And the helmets. You look very silly in those
helmets.”

Jake and Flap unsnapped their torso harnesses and let them fall into the
puddle that was spreading away from each man. They got rid of the
G-suits and helmets. Jake took off his empty shoulder holster and
dropped it into the pile.

“Where’s the pistol?”

Jake shrugged.

The captain took one step and slapped him, quickly and lightly. He
stood with his hands on his hips in front of Jake, looking up at him. “I
think you will answer my questions.

Where is the pistol?”

“In the ocean.”

The captain went back to the wheel and checked the compass. “And your
survival radios? Where are they?”

“Same place.”

“Where did you fly from?”

:’USS Columbia.”

,:Where is she?”

West of here.” He toyed with the idea of lying for less than a
heartbeat. “Maybe two or three hundred miles now.”

:’When will the planes come looking for you?”

“Shortly.”

:’When?”

“I don’t know. Sometime soon. After the sun comes up.”

“My men must learn to shoot better. Now we have this complication.”

“Must be a tough way to make a living.”

The captain continued as if he hadn’t heard. “The question is, do we
need you alive? You disposed of your radios so you cannot talk to the
airplanes on UHF. You could have warned them that you would die if they
attacked us. Alas, we have only a marine band radio. It’s a pity.”

“You speak English pretty well.”

The captain was scanning the ocean and glancing occasionally at the sky.
He didn’t bother looking at the two Americans. “But I do not think they
will attack. They will look us over and take many pictures. That is
all.” His eyes flicked to their faces. “What do you think?”

Unfortunately Jake thought he was right. He tried to keep his face
deadpan but his turmoil probably showed. The captain apparently thought
so. He said something to the guards and waved his hand. They prodded
the aviators in the back and turned them around. As they left the
bridge, Jake saw one of the crewmen opening the pockets of the survival
vest and dumping the contents on the deck.

They were shoved into a tiny compartment below the main deck. There was
a large hasp on the door.

“Can we have some water?” Jake asked the three men who pushed him inside
right behind Flap. They ignored him.

The door swung shut and they heard the padlock snapping closed. The
compartment was only slightly larger than a bedroom closet and had
apparently been used for storage. There was no light and no electrical
sockets, although there was one small, filthy porthole that admitted
subdued light.

Flap leaned against the door and listened. After a bit he shrugged.
“They’ve gone, I think.”

“Maybe there’s a bug.”

“Go ahead and look for it, James Bond.”

Jake sat against a wall and began taking off his boots. He took off his
socks and wrung the water out, then put them back on. “They’ll probably
shoot us after a while,” he said.

“Probably,” Flap agreed. He also sat. “The captain ain’t sm if he’ll
need us or not. The bastard has it figured pretty good. I’ll bet he
can get this thing to port before the U.S. Navy can get a surface ship
here to board him. He thinks so too. But he’s saving us just in case.”

“What do you think they did with the freighter?”

“Sank her would be my bet. They were probably offloading high-value
items when we showed up.”

“And the crew?”‘

Flap shrugged.

“Then why in hell did these guys shoot at us?”

“Perhaps someone panicked. Or they didn’t want their picture taken. The
airplane overhead was a problem they hadn’t figured on.”

:’So you think this is some kind of local industry?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, look at it. Here we are on the southern coast of Sumatra, about
the most out-of-the-way corner of the earth it’s possible to imagine. In
among these islands we’re well off the shipping lanes, which go through
the Sunda Strait or the Strait of Malacca. So these dudes from a local
village sail out into the shipping lanes, board a ship-probably at night
when only one or two people are on watch on the bridge-then bring it
here and loot it. They probably kin everyone aboard and scuttle the
ship. The high-value items from the cargo that can’t be traced
eventually end up in the bazaars in Singapore or Rangoon or even
Mombasa. The ship never shows up at its destination and no one knows
what happened to it. Say they knock off one ship a year, or one every
two years. Be a nice little racket if they don’t pun it too often and
get the insurance companies in a tizzy.”

“But someone got off fifteen seconds of an SOS and we came to look.”

“To look and take pictures. They probably thought they had killed
everyone on that ship, then the SOS burned their eardrums. They should
have disabled the radio but they didn’t. One mistake led to another. So
instead of waiting to loot the ship after dark, they decided to try it
in daylight.

Then we showed up. You know as well as I do that a good photo
interpreter could identify this ship sooner or later.

The captain knows that too. So he fired when we gave him a golden
opportunity. I’ll bet he was the bastard at the trigger.”

“He’s going to get photographed again today.”

“But the victim isn’t tied up alongside. Now this is just a little ship
going about its business in a great big ocean.”

MEL

Jake merely grunted. After a bit he said, “It doesn’t figure.”

“What doesn’t?”

“That ship they stopped is an old freighter. Looked to me like a
Liberty ship. Eight to ten thousand tons, no more than that. Why
didn’t these guys stop a big container ship?

All the valuable electronic stuff gets shipped in sealed containers
these days.”

“Beats me.” Flap sat and removed his boots and socks.

After a while he said, “The bastards could at least have given us water.
I’m really thirsty.”

He had his boots back on when he said, “Did you notice the captain’s
hands? The calluses on the edges of his pahns?

He’s a karate expert. If you had even flinched when he slapped you he
might have broken your neck.”

“Now you tell me.”

“You did fine. Handled it well. Be submissive and don’t give them the
slightest reason to think you might fight back.”

“I’m certainly not going to strap on a karate expert”

Flap snorted. “They’re the easiest to beat. They’re too
self-confidenv, Jake didn’t think that comment worth a reply. He
retrieved his cigarettes from his flight suit shoulder pocket and
carefully removed each one from the pack, trying not to tear the wet
paper. He laid them out to dry. Then he rolled onto his side and tried
to stretch out. The compartment was too small. At least his ass wasn’t
submerged.

A bullet in the head or chest wasn’t a cheery prospect All these months
of planning for the future and now it looked as if there would be no
future. Strange how life works, how precarious it is, Right now he
wanted water, food and a cigarette. U he got those, then he would want
a hot bath and dry clothe& Then a bunk. The wants would keep
multiplying, and sooner or later he would be staring at a bulkhead and
fretting about insubstantial things, like what the next ready room movie
was going to be, his brush with death shoved back into some dark corner
in the attic of his mind.

He had faced death before in the air and on the ground, so he knew how
it worked. If you survived you had to keep on living-that was a law,
like gravity. If you died-well, that was that. Those left behind had to
keep on living.

Maybe in the great scheme of things it really didn’t matter very much
whether these two blobs of living tissue called Jake Grafton and Flap Le
Beau died here or someplace else, died today or next week or in thirty
or fifty years. The world would keep on turning, life for everyone else
would go on, human history would run exactly the same course either way.

It mattered to Jake, of course. He didn’t want to die. Now or any
other time. Presumably Flap felt the same way.

Fuck these pirates! Fuck these assholes! Murdering and stealing without
a thought or care for anyone else. If they get theirs, life is good.

As he thought about the pirates Jake Grafton was swept by a cold fury
that drove the lethargy from him.

He sat up and looked at Flap, who had also curled up on the deck. He
wasn’t asleep either. “We gotta figure out a way to screw these guys
good.”

Flap didn’t smile. “Any suggestions?”

“Well, if they shoot us, we sure as hell ought to take a couple of them
with us. I don’t think they’ll shoot us in here. Blood and bullet
holes would be hard to explain if this ship were ever searched. I
figure they’ll take us topside, tie a chain around us and put us over
the side. Maybe shoot us flat.”

“And … ?”

“If we could kill a couple of the bastards we ought to give it a try.”

I&Why?, “Don’t give me that shit!”

“What’s a couple more or less?”

“You’d let them shoot you without a struggle?”

“Not if I have a choice. I’m going to take a lot of killing.

But if they want us dead we’re going to end up dead, sooner or later.”

“Mat’s my point. When I go to meet the devil I want to 90 in a crowd.”

Flap chuckled. It was a chuckle without mirth. “What I can’t figure
out, Grafton, is why the hell you joined the Navy instead of the
Marines.”

“The Navy is more high-toned.”

They sat talking for most of an hour, trying to plan a course of action
that would kW at least one and hopefully two pirates.

Flap could kill two men in two seconds with his bare hands, Jake
assumed, so it seemed that the only real chance they had was for him to
cause enough commotion to give Flap those two seconds. He didn’t state
this premise, however Flap let it go unchallenged. They hadn’t a chance
of surviving, not against assault weapons. But if their captors
relaxed, if only for an instant …

When they finally ceased talking, both men were so tired they were
almost instantly asleep, curled around each other on the deck because
there was no room to stretch out and rocked by the motion of the ship.

About an hour later a jet going over woke them. The thunder of the
engines faded, then increased in volume.

Then it faded completely and they were left with just the sounds of the
ship. The plane did not come back.

The pirates came for Flap and Jake after the sun set. Both men stood
when they heard the padlock rattle and assumed positions on opposite
sides of the door. When the door opened two men were there with their
weapons leveled, ready to fire.

One man motioned with the barrel of his rifle.

Jake went first, with Flap behind. They had discussed it and concluded
a fight in the confined interior passageways was too risky. They
shuffled along with their heads down, going willingly in the direction
indicated.

When they came out on deck they saw land close aboard, just visible in
the twilight. The shore was rocky, but the dark jungle began just
inland from the rocks. Maybe three hundred yards. The water was flat,
without swells. The ship was inside the mouth of a river headed
upstream.

two pirates wanted them to go aft. The deck here was probably only six
feet wide. Flap was looking scared and had his hands up about head
high. Two men stood on the dark fantail watching them come, their
rifles cradled in their arms.

“Four,” Jake muttered. “Jesus They had just reached the fantail when
they heard a jet running high. They looked up.

“Point,” Flap said, and Jake did, enthusiastically, as nap shot a quick
glance back over his shoulder.

What happened next happened so quickly Jake almost didn’t react. Flap
half-turned and his right arm swept down.

The blade of a knife buried itself in the solar plexus of the gunman
just behind him. This man staggered and looked down in stupefied
amazement at the knife handle sticking out of his chest.

The man behind him had been looking up, trying to see the jet. He
dropped his gaze in time to see Flap Le Beau hurtling across the ten
feet of space that separated them.

He swung the rifle, but too late.

With one vicious, backhand swipe, Flap cut his throat from ear to ear.
Blood spouted from severed arteries as the man collapsed. In a
continuation of his motion, Flap spun and rammed the knife into the left
kidney of the first man, who was somehow still on his feet and trying to
turn to bring his rifle to bear.

Meanwhile Jake Grafton had launched himself at the two spectators
standing with their rifles cradled in their arms.

They too had been looking up, which.gave him just the break he needed.
He took them both down in a flying tackle.

He got his hands on one of the rifles and used it as a club. He smashed
the butt into one man’s Adam’s apple.

The other man had retained his rifle and now it fired, the muzzle just
inches from Jake’s ear. Deafened, with the strength born of terror,
Jake dropped the weapon in his hands and seized the barrel of the other
man’s A-K47 as he drove a punch at his face. The blow glanced off his
forehead, but the man struggled to hold on to the rifle, so Jake let fly
again. This time his fist connected solidly and the man went to the
deck, still holding on to the rifle. Jake ripped it from his hands and
slammed the butt down on his throat with all his strength.

With the rifle coming up, he turned in time to see Flap inserting his
throwing knife back into the sheath that hung down his back, inside his
flight suit. The fighting knife had a triangular blade about four
inches long-it went into the sheath worn on his left forearm, under the
sleeve of his flight suit.

Le Beau picked up an AK-47, glanced at the action, then fired one round
into each of the four men lying on the deck.

Then he flashed a grin at Jake. “Still alive, by God!”

Jake grabbed the rifle on the deck at his feet and removed the magazine.
He stuck it into a chest pocket of his flight suit. “I thought you
ditched your knives.”

“I haven’t been without a knife since I was thh-teen.”

“Let’s see if we can get to the bridge.”

“If it gets too hot we’ll go over the side and swim for shore.,’

“Okay.,’

With his rifle at the ready, Flap went forward on the starboard side.
Jake took the port.

The bridge stuck out over the deck. Someone appeared in the window and
Jake snapped off a shot. The window shattered and the head disappeared.
A miss.

An open hatch revealed a ladder that probably gave access to the engine
room. Jake pulled the hatch shut and rotated the lever that dogged it
shut. He looked around for something to block the lever so it couldn’t
be opened.

Nothing.

He came to another open hatchway, a short passageway across the
superstructure to the starboard side of the ship.

He paused, trying to decide what to do. Sweat was running into his
eyes. And he was thirsty as holy hell. What he wouldn’t give for one
drink of water!

Flap’s head popped around the corner on the starboard side. He saw Jake
and came his way. “What did ya shoot at?”

“Someone on the bridge.”

“There’s at least five more guys on this tub, probably more.”

“How come they aren’t coming after us?”

“We’re probably pretty near their base. When they pull in, someone on
the pier will take care of us.”

“We gotta get off this bucket.”

“They’ll gun us in the water.”

Jake wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried to think.

“Somebody is probably in the engine room,” he said. “The ladder down is
here on the port side. What say you go up to the bridge and keep them
occupied. I’ll go to the engine room and try to disable this tub. Then
we go over the side.”

“Which way?”

“Port side. In five minutes.”

“My watch isn’t working.”

“About five minutes. Or if the engines stop.”

“Okay.”

Jake checked to make sure no one was in sight, then he moved back to the
engine room hatch, opened it and latched it open. The ladder down was
actually a steep stair.

Uh-oh. He wished he hadn’t volunteered to do this.

What the hell! They were dead this morning when this pirate ship came
over the horizon.

With the rifle at the ready and the safety off, he eased down the
ladder, waiting for the inevitable bullet.

This is like commuting suicide slowly.

The area at the bottom of the ladder was shielded by a large condenser.
Jake paused behind it, wiped the sweat from his hands and gripped the
rifle carefully. He eased his head out, so that he could look with one
eye. He was looking aft along a narrow passageway between the ship’s
two diesel engines. He saw a leg, the back of a leg. He pulled his
head back and turned so he could see forward. Ease the head out and
peek. No one.

Okay. Someone aft, no one visible forward. He would step out, shoot
the guy aft, then swing so he could shoot forward.

That was a good plan.

He was going to get shot. Sure as shit.

He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. His heart was pounding a
mile a minute.

Now!

He leaped out and squeezed the trigger.

The man was using a pipe wrench on a valve. The bullets slammed him
down. Jake spun. A man coming through the door shooting as Jake’s
bullets caught him, hammered him.

Something slammed into Jake’s side, turning him half around.

He staggered, leaned back against the starboard engine and looked aft.

The man there wasn’t moving. The man forward had taken at least three
in the chest.

Jake dug the extra magazine out of his chest and substituted it for the
magazine in his weapon. His left side was numb. Shock. He staggered
aft. The magazine of the AK-47 on the floor looked like it still held
ten shells or so.

He pocketed it.

Now he heard a racket from topside that he knew were shots. Flap. He
peered through the open hatch that led forward.

Fuel valves. This guy had been opening or closing these valves. The
main tank must be on the other side of this bulkhead.

Which ones were the feed lines? He picked two that looked like they
went up over the engines to the fuel injectors. Holding the rifle in
his left hand, he began screwing the starboard engine valve shut. Then
he closed the one to the port engine.

The engines would take a minute or so to die. If he had picked the
right valves.

Unwilling to wait, he spied a large red valve at the bottom of the
bulkhead with a pipe that wasn’t connected to anything. The valve had a
rusty padlock on it. Must be the tank drain valve. He put one bullet
into the lock. The lock broke, and diesel fuel began running out of the
bullet hole.

Jake twisted the valve. It was rusty.

Desperate to be out of here, he laid down the rifle and used both hands.
It opened. Fuel began running out, at first a trickle, then a steady
stream. He kept twisting.

The steady throb of the diesels took on a new note. Several cylinders
missed. The starboard engine died. By the time the port engine stopped
he had the drain valve full open. He was getting splashed with diesel
fuel.

The lights died to a dim glow when the port engine quit.

With the generators off, the lights were using battery juice.

He grabbed the rifle and started aft through the engine room for the
ladder. He heard more shots, quite clearly now that the engines were
silent.

His left side was pretty bloody and the pain was fierce.

Well, if he was going to fuck these guys, he should do the job right. He
went back to the second man he shot and ripped his shirt off. It was
cotton. He went back to the drain valve and let some diesel fuel run
onto the shirt. He squeezed the shirt to get rid of the excess and dug
his lighter out of his pocket.

The plastic butane piece of shit refused to light. He blew several
times on the flint wheel. Come on, goddamnit!

There. He held the flame under a corner of the shirt. It took. He
waited until the shirt was going pretty well, then dropped it into the
gap between the catwalk and one engine.