The Orpheus Deception

by David Stone

  “Oot and aboot, don’t ye mean?” said Fyke, his teeth showing white in the dim light. He checked his watch, read the luminous dial. “Most of them are. But morning’s coming, and they’ll be done for the day. Hearth and home, and a jolly old bang at the missus. You got any smokes, by the way?”

  Dalton pulled out a couple of Mandy’s Sobranies, gave Fyke the pink one—it was hard to tell in the dark—took a blue one himself, lit them up.

  “What do you think got those lads all stirred up?” said Fyke, after a while. A soft-pink light was showing in the rips and cracks of the barn roof, and they could see more and more of the interior of the barn as the morning opened up around them.

  “Well, why don’t we ask them?”

  “If you turn on this comset, it’ll send out a GPS identifier.”

  “Excellent point. How’s your cell phone?”

  “They can triangulate on a cell phone too.”

  “Not as easily. Only to the nearest tower. They already know our general area.”

  Fyke fumbled it out, flipped it open.

  “Deader than Di and Dodi. Yours?”

  Dalton flipped his open.

  “Got a bit.”

  “Did you bring Mandy’s? The one your pal Kiki is tracking?”

  “Yes.”

  “You still got the GPS turned on?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Kiki can sneak up on us and murder us all in our beds, is it?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Well, bringing that darling lad into our sea of troubles strikes me as kind of redundant now, don’t it? I mean, we got an entire regiment of Komando Intai Para Amfibi hunting us down, and, if I recall correctly, you had a glass knife shoved into your gizzard only awhile ago and now you’ve got a spider bite on your hand that’s probably, even as we speak, sending a horrible, incurable poison into your brain, so, any second now, you’re gonna go into agonized convulsions and die screaming out Sassenach gibberish while peeing all over yourself, and I’ve got scorch marks on my balls and broken ribs and a bunch a teeth missing, and Delia says I have a bad ticker and am like to fall down dead at any moment, if the syphilis don’t kill me first. What would you call us, Mikey, giving us all that?”

  “Reminds me of the ad for the lost dog: ‘Missing, one white-and-brown Jack Russell terrier. Three legs. Blind in one eye. Neutered. Got the mange. Right ear bitten off—’ ”

  “ ‘Answers to Lucky’?” said Fyke. “I heard that one.”

  They had a good laugh at that, but Dalton turned the GPS off anyway. On a computer screen in Kotor, Montenegro, Branco Gospic saw the icon blip off and picked up his phone. Larissa answered. She had a short conversation with her father, and then called Kiki Lujac’s cell phone. There was no answer. She left a message. On a screen at Crypto City, in Annapolis Junction, a Monitor picked up the signal and hit RECORD/NOTIFY. Three floors above him, the AD of RA was staring out the window at a grim November evening, thinking about Nikki Turrin and waiting for a phone call from a Major Alessio Brancati in Venice. In Washington, Deacon Cather was out to dinner with an old family friend, one of the Georgetown Harrimans, who had served with Allen Dulles. They were having osso buco—made with cream and not tomato sauce—and a very dry pinot grigio. His beeper went off. He glanced at the screen, saw the notification, and put the machine back in his pocket. The pinot was suspect. Cather thought that it might be corked. He raised his skeletal hand and called for the sommelier. In Kuta, Mandy Pownall was sleeping, sedated, dreaming of Cortona. The night nurse, who believed it was a help against spider bites, brought in a candle scented with eucalyptus oil, lit it, and set it on the bedside table. Delia Lopez thanked her, and went back to watching Mandy’s chest rise and fall and silently chanting the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. In Cortona, where it was raining hard, the ghost of Porter Naumann was sitting at a table in a medieval square near the Via Janelli, watching plumes of black smoke that stank of the grave rise up, hissing, from the ancient cobblestones. A strong wind, carrying the scent of crushed eucalyptus leaves, came rushing over the jagged stone walls and poured down into the square, shredding the plumes into wisps, and in a moment they were gone. In Florence, Cora Vasari opened her eyes and gasped softly. A nurse came into the dim room and put a cool hand on Cora’s forehead, speaking gently, smiling down. “Eucalypto,” said Cora, “fior del finocchio?” The nurse said something soothing and pressed a button on the wall behind Cora’s bed. In the coconut palm jungle six miles northwest of Manado, in the cockpit of a stolen Humvee, Micah Dalton was staring down at Mandy’s cell phone and frowning:

  “You wouldn’t happen to know a phone number for KIPAM?”

  Fyke blew some smoke out and shook his head.

  “Try Information.”

  “You’re kidding. You worked this region for years and you’re telling me to call Information?”

  “Have you got a better idea?”

  “You know, I could have left you in Changi.”

  “Fine with me. I rather liked it there. Three squares. Lots of exercise.”

  “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.”

  39

  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?”

  Ong blinked at Lujac for a while, clearly unwilling to let him in on the larger picture.

  “Yes,” he said, finally. “We know.”

  “Is he close to finding it?”

  “Yes. Very close.”

  “And if he finds it?”

  “It would be bad.”

  Lujac sat back and looked at Ong for a few moments. Ong looked down, so Lujac could not read his expression. Ong knew more about Gospic’s operation than Lujac did, and it was pretty clear that Ong wasn’t going to fill him in. Which meant that Ong figured Lujac didn’t have much of a part left to play in it. Lujac suspected that his usefulness to Ong and to Branco Gospic had come to an end when Dalton shut his GPS indicator off. He still had the stainless Colt pistol. Ong had a large Glock tucked into his belt. The pilot had a Berettastrapped to his thigh. The boy at the back did not appear to be armed. Lujac could not fly an Osprey any better than he could fly a Gulfstream. To summarize, Kiki Lujac was a dead man.