The Orpheus Deception (51 page)

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Authors: David Stone

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“They were beating you bloody every day. Like clockwork.”

“Sensible people take great comfort in routine. Phone Information.”

Dalton did.

The operator told him that number was restricted.

“Restricted?” said Dalton. “Restricted to who?”

“Whom,”
said Fyke.

“To people in the Army,” she said, primly.

“Wouldn’t people in the Army already know the number?”

“Yes. They would.”

“Okay. I’m in the Army. You can tell me.”

“If you were in the Army, you’d already know the number. Sir.”

“I forgot it.”

“You have a nice day, sir.”

Dalton flipped the phone shut, gave Fyke an
I told you so
look. Fyke reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a business card, handed it to Dalton.

PINK ELEPHANT TAXI
Tangerine Kwan, Owner
66-38-364-700

“You got her card?”

“We might need a cab again. Anyway, she’s a pretty girl,” said Fyke.

“Ray. She’s what?
Eleven?”

“I’d be like a father to her.”

“Yeah. Father Rasputin.”

Dalton punched in the numbers, waited. The line began to ring. It rang three times and a man answered, a hard, barking phrase in Chinese. It sounded very coplike, and Dalton made the intuitive leap that it probably belonged to a cop.

“I’m looking for Tangerine Kwan.”

“You the American?”

“Yes. I’m the American. Who’s this?”

“You come in the plane last night?”

“Yes. I’m also the man who almost had his head taken off by one of those steroidal assholes you’re passing off as MPs. Who are you?”

“Mikey, you’re a silver-tongued devil, to be sure,” whispered Fyke.

“I am Major Kang Hannko, officer commanding First Brigade, Komando Intai Para Amfibi. You will tell us where you—”

“Major Kang, I’m Captain Micah Dalton, A Team, Fifth Special Forces, United States Army, out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”

A pause.

“You are not a soldier. You show no soldier ID.”

“I think this is all going pretty well, don’t you?” said Fyke, who could hear both ends of the conversation.

“Can you work a phone, Major Kang?”

“Phone?”

“It’s that electrical thingy you have in the hand that doesn’t have your dick in it. The phone is bigger, and it glows in the dark. That’s how you can tell them apart. I want you to call Sembawang Airfield in Singapore—”

Kang was skeptical.

“That is the American Marine Corps base—”

“Yeah. And ask for Major Carson Holliday. Officer commanding.”

Muffled voices in the background at the other end of the line. Then a string of commands in Chinese, and then Major Kang was back on the line.

“You resisted arrest. You injured my men.”

“I put your kid to sleep, Major Kang, because he tried to take my head off with a steel rod. How’s he doing?”

“He’s in the brig. Both in brig.”

“Good. They need to be. Got your—”

“Wait. Don’t hang up.”

“Sure. Got all day.”

More fast Chinese chatter in the background. Three minutes of this, then Kang was back, marginally less irritating.

“We wake him up. He is not very happy. Major Holliday say to ask you if you have any idea where York Hunt is?”

“York Hunt?” said Dalton, trying not to laugh. Fyke, however, was on the floor of the Humvee. “Well, that’s a secret Marine Corps password.”

“He also say you have . . .”

It was clear that Kang was listening to another phone at the same time.

“He say you have a . . . cranio-rectal inversion? What is this?”

“It’s a way of looking at the world. Everything goes really dark.” Muffled talk, then Kang again, a slightly more polite version. “Maybe we need to talk, Captain Dalton.”

“Maybe we do, Major Kang.”

“You will come in. Bring back my Humvee, too, maybe?”

“We can talk just fine here. Why the hard-on last night?”

“Hard-on?”

“Why the aggressive takedown. We flew in from Kuta—filed a flight plan and ID’d ourselves to the TC at Sam Ratulangi. Showed the duty guy our passports and papers—”

“You arrive in an unmarked plane.”

“Yes.”

“We are having some trouble with intruders. Airplanes. Choppers.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Not on this cell phone. You come in. Show me some ID. Then we maybe can talk about this trouble. Where are you?”

“Reasonably close. Why?”

More background chatter, and then Dalton and Fyke could hear a chopper in the distance but getting closer. Kang came back.

“You are maybe in the old copra farm, about ten mile east of highway?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I know the farm. Bats live there. Many bats.”

“Okay.”

“Many bats. They are flying around in cloud right now, thousand bats in a big black cloud. Maybe they do not go back in barn because KIPAM Humvee with two men is already in the barn.”

Dalton and Fyke exchanged glances. Fyke shrugged.

“Maybe you’re right, Major.”

“Yeah. Maybe my dick’s bigger than my phone too.”

V-22 Osprey, airborne over the Celebes Sea

A pale rose fire was lighting up the crest of a large storm front that seemed to take up most of the eastern horizon. Lujac stared at it through the right-side porthole, and shifted in the hard-frame seat. Across the aisle, Sergeant Ong Bo was snoring loud enough to be heard over the hammering drone of the two big props churning away on either side of the fuselage. Up front, the pilot, a taciturn Malay with a tight slit of a mouth and facial scarring that looked tribal, was staring out at the northern horizon and chewing what Kiki thought might be khat or coca leaves to keep him awake. In the rear, beside a large bulky shape wrapped in a tarp, a young Chinese boy in civilian clothes and a very military haircut sat with his back against the weapon, reading a weapons manual by the red glow of a bulkhead lamp. Beyond him, the tail section of the plane, the floor of which could be lowered down as a ramp, rattled and chattered in the wind stream. A few cracks could be seen around the edge of the ramp, letting in a rush of damp, chilly air. The entire craft rose up and shuddered,and settled on the air currents like a tugboat butting through a rolling sea.

Lujac was not enjoying the ride, and recent events had given him a great deal to think about, none of it pleasant. He closed his eyes and went wandering off to where it had started, back at Selaparang airstrip.

Sergeant Ong had walked across the tarmac and come to a stop in front of Lujac, who had the little silver pistol in his right hand, hanging down by the side of his leg. Sergeant Ong’s face was slick and wet, and his thick lips were slack, but his eyes were cold and black, and had a tiny yellow glitter in the pupils. The rain was coming down harder, and the rattle of the drops on the tin roof had almost drowned out Sergeant Ong’s words:

“You Mr. Lujac?”

“Yes.”

“I know you.”

“Really? How delightful. I am afraid I can’t say the same.”

“I am Sergeant Ong Bo. Of the Singapore Police Department.”

The Osprey pilot had not shut down its engines. They rumbled and churned in the gathering dusk and blue exhaust fumes rose up into the evening sky and spread out across the jungle canopy.

“You must be so proud. How can I help you?”

“You know a man named Micah Dalton?”

“I know him, yes.”

“Yes. You were in his room at the hotel. You know where he is now?”

“Last time I checked, he was a few miles from here, in Kuta.”

“Yes. His plane there now. We come from Kuta to find you.”

“Find me? Why?”

“You have evidence for us.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Little pistol there in your hand.”

“This?” said Lujac, lifting it up.

“Yes. That belong to Corporal Ahmed.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes. I know that pistol. We found Ahmed. In Changi hotel.”

“Really. By
found him,
you mean he was . . . hiding?”

“No. He was dead. We find him because man who killed him sent digital pictures to Home Ministry to show him. Dirty pictures. Filthy. We figure out where he was from pictures. Changi-Lah Hotel. Top floor.”

“Okay. And this concerns me how . . . ?”

“We have reason believe Mr. Micah Dalton kill him. You have way to follow him. Cell-phone GPS. So you come with me and we go find Mr. Dalton together, and we do justice to him.”

“You think Micah Dalton murdered your Corporal Ahmed?”

Ong smiled, a sight Lujac could have easily forgone.

“At end of day, Mr. Lujac, everybody think so. Ahmed was a criminal. Pervert. No one miss Corporal Ahmed in Singapore. Dalton will be blame. If we have Ahmed’s gun to find. And digital camera to leave.”

Lujac looked at Ong for a while.

“Just how did you know to find me here?”

“You have bags?”

“I have one.”

“You go get.”

Ong bowed, turned toward the idling Osprey, began to walk back across the tarmac. Lujac followed, caught up to him, stopped him with a hand. Ong’s arm was padded with fat, but underneath was real muscle.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Mr. Lujac, we working for the same man.”

“We? Who the hell is
we?”

“You. Me. Mr. Gospic in Kotor. And Minister Chong.”

That shut Kiki up for a moment.

“Chong Kew Sak? The Home Minister? He’s in on this?”

“This is his plane. The Osprey. Belong to Home Ministry.”

“What does Chong get out of this?”

“Same like all. The money.”

The pilot sounded a klaxon horn, and revved the rotors.

Sergeant Ong’s face closed up.

“Enough talking. Time to go.”

They had taken off in a few minutes, banked, and headed north. Hours later, as the dawn was tinting the eastern sky, they were at six thousand feet and following the Sulawesi coastline eastward, passing the clustered lights of Diapati. Manado was about a hundred miles along the coast. Lujac had no idea what Ong and his companions planned to do when they got to Manado, but he figured it had something to do with whatever was under the tarp in the back of the plane. Nobody was talking about it to him, anyway. He flipped open his phone, saw that it had shut itself down when the battery got low. He had a spare battery, switched it out, and turned the phone back on.

Amazingly, he had a signal. And a message notice.

He hit PLAY and heard Larissa’s voice.

“Lujac, this is me. The GPS indicator for the phone got shut off just a few minutes ago. So now we can’t track him. The last indicator put him a few miles northeast of a place called Manado, in Sulawesi. There’s an airport there, called Sam Ratulangi. Call me when you get this message.”

Lujac checked the time the message was sent.

Less than thirty minutes ago. He put the phone away, reached out and tapped Sergeant Ong on the shoulder. Ong came awake immediately, sitting up and blinking, as he tried to recall where he was and why.

“What problem?”

“Dalton’s cell phone. He just switched the GPS off.”

Ong’s face did not change. He stared at Lujac for a full minute, and then he got up and walked through to the cockpit, leaning down to say something to the pilot. The pilot nodded.

Ong came back to his seat, belted himself in. The Osprey banked, and the tone of the props changed, powering up, as the plane turned in to the rising sun. They were obviously now going to someplace other than Manado.

“Where are we going now?”

“We going to overfly airport near Manado. Sam Ratulangi. If the plane is still there, we set down and wait. Sooner or later, he come back.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“He will.”

“Tell me, Sergeant Ong. Why’s Dalton in Manado in the first place?”

“We think he looking for something.”

“Do we know what it is he’s looking for?”