‘Clooney just went on TV to announce they’re coming for the prisoners.’
‘Shit!’
‘Don’t say anything for the moment. I’ll tell the chiefs later. Ohlo’s taped it. We’ll have a look at what Boofhead had to say tomorrow morning when we’re having breakfast.’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Brian.
‘Hey!’ exclaimed Milne, raising his glass. ‘Don’t worry about it. Boofhead’s not going to spoil our night.’
‘Yeah, I suppose we had to expect it. It’s just …’
‘Tomorrow I’m taking you out to the industrial estate, and show you how we turn a dollar here on Lan Laroi. We might even have another look at the ruins.’
‘Okay, Ron,’ said Brian. ‘That sounds good.’
The crowd started drifting off and the place began emptying out the same as last time. Brian said goodnight to all the chiefs and their wives while the girls got ready to gather up their families so they could spend the night at the house. Brian gave Keleu a kiss on the cheek and told her he’d meet her family some other time; his eyes were hanging out and he was talking in Swahili. But he’d see her tomorrow night for sure. After saying goodnight to Airu, Milne was left on his own also. So he and Brian wove drunkenly out into the street, through the door of the Presidential Palace and up the stairs.
‘Are you hungry, mate?’ asked Milne when they got to the landing.
‘No. To be honest, Ron,’ replied Brian, ‘I’m too pissed and out of it to eat. I just want to crash.’
‘Yeah. I’m the same.’ Milne’s face lit up. ‘Shit! It was a good night though.’
‘It sure was,’ agreed Brian. ‘Bad luck about …’
‘Hey. Don’t worry about it. Everything’ll be sweet.’
Brian thought for a moment. ‘Yeah. I’m sure it will.’
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Brian. About eight.’
‘All right, Ron. See you then.’ Brian left the President and went to his room.
On Tiger Island, the conditions in the gaol were sparse but adequate. There were four large unlocked rooms and a kitchen. With help from the local natives, the missionaries built it from stone in 1822 as a quarantine station. The three prisoners were in the kitchen drinking coffee. They’d just turned the TV off.
‘What did I tell you. What did I tell you,’ said Agent Lee Britt. ‘That was the goddamn President. They’re coming in the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Milne was telling the truth,’ said Agent Taggart.
Agent De Andrade rolled her eyes. ‘We are going home. I don’t believe it.’
‘Believe it, all right,’ said Lee Britt.
Taggart shook his head. ‘The President. On TV. Talking about us.’
Lee Britt walked to the door and waved his fist towards Key Harbour. ‘Were you watching that, Milne?’ he yelled. ‘Were you watching? Huh? Shove that jolly jumbuck in your fuckin tuckerbag, you Aussie asshole.’ Lee Britt turned to the others. ‘I’ll give him throw me to the sharks. The sonofabitch.’
Brian stood in the middle of the room and got his bearings. What a bloody night, he thought, as he got out of his clothes. And the date with Keleu tomorrow should be good too. Bad luck about the bloody Yanks, though. Still. It’s not as if Ron wasn’t expecting it. He got down to his jox, cleaned his teeth then got a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and took it out on the balcony. It was a lovely, mild night and a number of people were camped out on the grass across the road. Most of them were asleep, some were sitting staring up at the stars. Brian watched them for a while then went inside. He found a tape, set the ghetto blaster up near the bed again and turned off the light. He hit the pause button and got under the mosquito net. Just as his head touched the pillows, The Whitlams started shuffling their way through ‘Chunky Chunky Air Guitar’. Ohh yeah. Brian sighed to himself. How good’s this. The music enveloped him and his mind drifted off into all sorts of wonderful thoughts. Anything he wanted to imagine he could. He tuned in on the ruins and tried to imagine who built them. He was standing near a canal, watching a high priest moving one of the stone logs with a big magnet when he sensed something wasn’t right. Brian opened his eyes and someone was standing under the mosquito net wearing a yellow top with their face painted.
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Brian. ‘What’s …?’
‘Don’t be alarmed, Takatau. It is only me.’
Brian had a closer look at the yellow top. Printed across the front was WINNER. ‘Pallani’
‘Yes, Takatau. It is me,’ she answered.
Brian looked at her for a second. ‘So what’s the matter, Pallani? Doesn’t the top fit you?’
Pallani smiled. ‘It fits perfectly Takatau,’ she said. ‘On or off.’ Pallani took the top off and slid across the bed alongside Brian. All she was wearing under the top was her mutami and sweet-smelling body oil.
‘That’s a relief,’ said Brian. Well, he thought. Unless this is some other strange island custom, I don’t think Pallani’s here to mime ‘Rapture’. Brian took his jox off and put his arms around Pallani’s warm firm body. Pallani did the same.
Brian kissed her on the lips and Pallani kissed him back. He ran his hands through her hair, kissed her neck and gently rubbed her breasts, feeling the nipples getting hard between his fingers. He kissed her again and Pallani slipped just a smidgen of tongue in. It felt like a hot coal. Brian kissed her neck then ran his tongue over her nipples. He ran it down her stomach and into her navel when she stopped him.
‘Hello,’ said Brian, looking up, his old boy swinging in the air like a third leg. ‘What’s this? Another island custom? Now you leave me dangling like a one-armed trapeze artist?’
‘One moment, Takatau,’ said Pallani. She reached under the bed and got the bottle of strawberry rum she’d won along with the top. She uncorked it, lay back on the bed and poured some over her puss, then put the bottle away. ‘Would you lick the rum from my mwanga?’ she asked.
Brian looked at her beautiful little mwanga and his eyes sparkled. ‘Lick rum off it?’ he said. ‘I’d chew through two inches of blowflies to lick shit off it.’
Brian pushed his face into Pallani’s mwanga and gave her the same treatment he gave the FBI agent in Konipeau. Only ten times better. The strawberry rum got in his eyes and burnt his tongue. Brian sucked it up, got the bottle and poured more on. He licked up that much rum his face started to glow. Pallani was wriggling around on the bed with her hands in Brian’s hair, emptying out into his face like her mwanga was stuck on fully automatic. After a while Brian came up, moved along the bed and put his knob in Pallani’s mouth. Pallini started sucking on it and licking the sides as if it was a big, honey-covered ice-cream. This soon turned into pure torture and Brian had to take it out while he still could. He lay Pallani on her back, got between her legs and eased himself in; a taste at first to make her moan, then the rest to get a few little screams echoing around the room.
Pallani’s mwanga was sensational, tight and warm, and never having made love to an island girl before, it felt better again. Brian stroked away, stoned off his head, imagining he was in some fantasy world of Arabian nights, feeling every centimetre of Pallani’s lovely body. Then Brian felt himself reaching the end of the line, and there wasn’t anything he could do. He lifted Pallani’s legs and started going for it. Pallani started to scream. Brian’s old boy ate off the screams and he went in harder. Finally he arched his back and with an almighty groan emptied out, while stars and rockets exploded inside his head. His face a lather of sweat, Brian slowed down then got off and flopped on the bed. Pallani was making gurgling noises under her blue and red face paint. She came in just to give Takatau a quick thank you for giving her the winner’s top, and ended up getting one of the best porkings of her life. After a while Pallani got up, went to the bathroom and came back with a damp towel. She wiped the sweat from Brian and herself then put her yellow top back on. She looked at Brian, his face still covered in smears of blue paint, and smiled.
‘I mu
st leave now, Takatau,’ she said. ‘But I had to thank you for your generosity.’
Brian was starting to get his breath back. ‘Hey. No problem, Pallani,’ he said. ‘It was my pleasure to see you so happy.’
Pallani kissed him. ‘You truly are Takatau,’ she said. ‘And more.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Brian. ‘I’m like a mushroom with a twelve-inch dick.’
‘What is that?’ asked Pallani. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘A fungi to be with.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Brian put his arm around her. ‘Maybe, Pallani, we could see each other again?’
‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘But you are Takatau. And now I must go.’
‘All right.’ Brian drew Pallani’s face down and kissed her. Long and soft. ‘Good night, Pallani. Thank you for being so nice.’
‘And you are nice, too. Goodnight, Takatau.’ Pallani picked up her bottle of rum and went out the door, closing it behind her.
Brian flopped back on the bed and closed his eyes. Strike me hooray, he thought. All this drinking from the furry cup. What’s going on? I’m turning into a box bandit. Brian chuckled to himself and licked a few remaining traces of strawberry rum from the corners of his mouth. And I want to leave here. If that’s a taste of the local mwanga, Sawi might have a hard time getting rid of me. He yawned happily and scrunched his head into the pillows. There was a rattle of bongo drums and Cheryl Crow started crooning ‘Solidify’. A few minutes later Brian was asleep. Not long after that, the tape cut out.
While Brian was sleeping, the helicopter carrier USS Clarke, under the command of Captain Gower K. Hurrell, was stationed one hundred and fifty kilometres to the east of Lan Laroi, well outside the island’s territorial waters. On the flight deck, three Blackhawk helicopters, their rotor blades thumping noisily in the inky pre-dawn darkness, were impatiently waiting on the signal from the Flight Deck officer to lift off. Designated Moray One, Two and Three, the helicopters were under the command of chisel chinned Lieutenant Einer Rutkonski and formed the initial strikeforce of Operation Jaws. Two Blackhawks were crammed with US Special Forces holding M16s and a Stoner 63 LMG. The other was filled with French Legionnaires cradling FA MAS assault rifles and an NF-I LPMG. The pilots and navigators were all Americans. Lieutenant Rutkonski’s orders were to free the hostages and bring them back safely to the USS Clarke. His party was not to engage the Lan Laroian military in Key Harbour. However, if they were fired upon, they could retaliate with any deadly force necessary. As Lieutenant Rutkonski informed the men under his command, at this point in time they were to get in, get the hostages, and get out. They’d go back later. The Flight Deck Officer was concentrating on the second hand ticking round on his watch. Shaven haired, Captain Hurrell was standing on a walkway outside the bridge looking down. Alongside him was his second in command, tall, thin Lieutenant Commander Melvin Kresevic, Jnr. The Flight Deck Officer checked his watch, nodded to the walkway and waved the first helicopter off. Captain Hurrell waited till the last Blackhawk disappeared over the ocean then turned to his second in command.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘They’re away. Let’s get some coffee.’
‘Yessir.’
Halfway into the flight, traces of pink and gold were starting to split the cobalt sky over the Pacific. One by one the stars were fading and now the ocean was clearly visible beneath the speeding helicopters. The sun wasn’t up yet. But like Operation Jaws, it was right on schedule. Sitting inside the throbbing belly of Moray One, Lieutenant Rutkonski checked the time and went up to the navigator, who was discussing something with the pilot.
‘I make it twenty-eight minutes,’ said Lieutenant Rutkonski, tapping his watch dial.
‘Roger that, lieutenant,’ replied the navigator, pointing to the ocean. ‘Twenty-eight minutes west of that long sandbar below.’
Back on the USS Clarke, Captain Hurrell had managed to grab a good half hour’s sleep. Now he was lying on his bunk with his eyes closed, resting. As far as he and everybody else in the chain of command was concerned, Operation Jaws was a crock. But the Clarke had done its part. The rescue mission got away exactly as ordered, they should be back in roughly an hour, then the Clarke could steam back to Guam and its excellent golf courses. Unexpectedly, there was a brisk knock on his cabin door. Captain Hurrell opened it to find a very worried midshipman.
The midshipman snapped a quick salute. ‘Sir. Lieutenant Commander Kresevic requests you come to the bridge, sir. Urgently, sir.’
‘Thank you, sailor.’
An emphatic sense of urgency was apparent the moment Captain Hurrell walked onto the bridge. Sailors were barking into radios, anxiously staring up at TV monitors or huddled over computer screens. Standing in the middle of all this was Lieutenant Commander Kresevic.
‘Melvin. What’s …?’ asked Captain Hurrell.
‘Sir. We’ve lost the away team.’
‘You’ve what …?’
‘Sir. I think you should listen to this. It’s our last radio contact.’
An ensign pushed a button on a cassette. There was muffled static for a few moments and the faint drone of an engine, then urgent voices broke in from everywhere.
‘Moray One. This is Moray Two. We’ve just hit some …’
‘This is Moray One. Shit …’
‘This is Moray Three. What the fuck …?’
‘Jesus Christ! I can’t …’
‘Give it more power.’
‘I’m giving it …’
‘Moray One. This is Moray Two. Something’s …’
‘Ohh shit! The controls are on …’
‘That’s not fuckin fire.’
‘Jesus. The whole wing’s …’
‘Give it more fuckin …’
‘What’s hit us? Jesus!’
‘Ohh my God. I’ve never …’
‘Where in the fuck did that …?’
‘Oh God. This can’t …’
After that there was nothing but static. All the men on the bridge, including the commanding officers, stared blankly at each other. Captain Hurrell ordered the ensign to play the tape again. When it finished for the second time he turned, grim-faced, to Lieutenant Commander Kresevic.
‘Send in a rescue team.’
‘Yessir.’
‘Ensign. Patch me through to Guam.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
In Washington DC, President Clooney was sitting alone in the Oval Office with his feet up on the desk. He was wearing a single-breasted grey suit and happily lassoing the toe of one of his cowboy boots with a piece of cord. It was still early in the evening Washington time, and the President was waiting patiently to hear from the commander of Operation Jaws then talk to the three prisoners. A video camera was set up in the Oval Office and a photographer was waiting outside. They were behind schedule, but the President had been told to expect that. CC had just hooked the toe of his boot for the fifteenth time when there was a knock on the door. A secret service man opened it and the Secretary for Defense, accompanied by the Director of the CIA, entered.
CC left the piece of cord and clapped his hands. ‘Okay boys. What’s the story? Are they on the Clarke? Where’s the photographer? Where’s the cameraman? Well, come on, boys. Patch them through.’
The Secretary for Defense spoke first. ‘Sir. We have a problem.’
‘A problem?’ frowned the President. ‘What do you mean — a problem?’
‘Sir,’ said the Director of the CIA. ‘It appears we’ve lost the rescue mission.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘Mr President. We’ve lost contact with Moray One and the other two helicopters,’ said the Secretary for Defense, tentatively.
‘Lost contact? We’ve got billions of dollars’ worth of communications centres all over the world, and satellites up our ass, how the fuck can you lose contact?’
‘Sir. I think you’d best listen to this.’
The Director of the CIA
placed a cassette recorder on the President’s desk and played the same message received on the Clarke. They played it again and the President stared at them blankly.
‘So what did the Clarke do?’ he asked.
‘Captain Hurrell ordered a rescue mission,’ said the Secretary for Defense.
‘And?’
‘Sir. It appears we’ve lost the rescue mission also.’
President Clooney closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. ‘Let me get this straight. The Clarke sent in a rescue mission. And we’ve lost the rescue mission sent in to rescue the rescue mission?’
‘At this point in time, sir. Yes, sir,’ said the Secretary for Defense.
‘Holy fuckin shit! I don’t believe it. They were three Blackhawks.’ President Clooney pointed an accusing finger at the Secretary for Defense. ‘I knew this would happen. Didn’t I say this would happen? It’s friggin Iran all over again.’
‘Sir,’ said the Director of the CIA, ‘I know this may sound strange, possibly cynical. But operations-wise, this could work to our advantage.’
‘Advantage?’ howled the President. ‘Fuckin how, for chrissake? We’ve just lost over thirty men. Wait till the fuckin French find out about this. Not to mention the media.’
The Director of the CIA tried to look reassuring. ‘Sir. On that tape. One of the pilots says, “What hit us?” Another says, “Where in the fuck did that —” He never got time to say, “come from”.’
‘So?’
‘Sir. We believe the Lan Laroians were waiting for the helicopters, with surface to air missiles.’
‘SAMs?’ said the President. ‘Where in the fuck would they get them from?’
‘Sir,’ replied the Director of the CIA. ‘North Korea.’
‘North fuckin Korea.’ Clooney’s eyes narrowed. ‘Can you prove this?’
‘Mr President. We’re the CIA. We can prove anything. What we now propose, sir, is this.’
Brian woke up the next morning a little after six-thirty, feeling good. He smiled at the memory of the previous night, then got out of bed and walked over to the balcony. It had rained again through the night and there were still a lot of clouds around indicating it would probably rain again. Most of the people camping out across the road had gone. But there were still a few left, plus several kids laughing and playing around the jetty. The water in the harbour again looked blue and inviting. Brian came inside, had a drink of mineral water and went to the bathroom. He gave a double blink when he saw himself in the mirror, then started laughing. His face and hair were smeared with blue paint and you could bet there’d be blue all over the bed sheets as well. Brian cleaned his teeth and wiped most of the paint from his face, then got into his Speedos, grabbed a towel and headed for the harbour.
The Ultimate Aphrodisiac Page 17