She was even more shocked when she was pulled out of her cell on the pirate trawler to find herself looking at the Melody. She saw Pablo, with a gun held on that asshole Remo and the old chauvinist Chiun.
She watched Remo jump to his death.
Chiun was put on the trawler with her, along with the buccaneer named Teach, and half a dozen of his crewmen. The remainder had been left to pilot the Melody, which ran a hundred yards or so behind the pirate craft. The skull-and-crossbones flag no longer flew above the trawler, which for all intents and purposes appeared to be a normal, run-down fishing boat once more-except that it went like a bat out of hell. The hull vibrated, and she could feel the engines straining to maintain the pace.
Stacy and Chiun were housed belowdecks, out of sight and under guard. They didn't have a pirate with them in the tiny cabin they had been assigned-more like a storage closet, Stacy thought, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the squalid room-but Teach had left a man outside the door, and others passed by, talking to him, at sporadic intervals.
She wondered how much time had passed since they were taken prisoner and Remo had gone overboard, but glancing at her wrist reminded Stacy that the pirates had already relieved her of her watch. It was a birthday gift, from Cartier, and while the watch itself was trivial, all things considered, staring at her bare wrist brought fresh tears to Stacy's eyes. She felt so helpless, and it galled her to have come this far, only to have her quest end in failure.
"Not to worry," said Chiun. It was the first time he had spoken since they came aboard the trawler, and his words took Stacy by surprise. "We have them now."
"Excuse me?"
Chiun edged closer so that he could speak without the guard outside their cell hearing his words. "These pirates have big trouble," he declared.
"Uh-huh. Just let me get this straight," she said. "We're trapped in here, but they're in trouble?"
"One man's trap may be another's opportunity," said Chiun.
"Confucius?"
The old Korean scowled. "Chiun!" he answered.
"Sorry."
"I could stop these vermin now, of course," Chiun went on, "but that is not the plan."
"The plan?"
"We must discover where they live and breed," said Chiun. "When Remo joins us, we shall know the time is right."
"Remo? But he ...I mean ...he's gone!"
"Dawdling, probably," Chiun corrected her. "There were sharks in the water when he jumped."
"What?" she gasped, terrified.
"He doubtless deemed it more important to stop to eat one of them before he joined us," Chiun sniffed. "The stink will make you less attracted to him."
Stacy already felt like Alice on the wrong side of the looking glass, but now she was convinced that she had lost her mind. She had heard so many astonishing and insulting statements at one time she didn't know how to sort it all out.
Chiun, she decided, had retreated into fantasy. Poor old man.
"Chiun," she said gently, "Remo is not coming. Remo is dead."
"Oh, no. Although he may try to use that as an excuse for his tardiness-I would not put it past him." Chiun spoke without blinking, his timeless face impassive.
She nodded solemnly. Clearly, the faithful old man had gone into some sort of state of extreme denial. That wasn't going to help them.
"But what if he is dead?" she pressed, but gently.
"Then I will kill them all myself." Chiun shrugged.
Stacy tried to imagine the frail old man in combat, but she couldn't manage it. With Remo, having watched him kill four men, it was a different matter. In Chiun's case, though, it was impossible to picture him engaged in any exercise more strenuous than watching television or preparing rice and fish.
"You let the pirates think that you're Chinese," she said.
Chiun's lips twitched. A grimace or a smile, Stacy could not have said exactly which it was. "Their first mistake," he said.
"Did you know Remo long?" she asked. The question came out of left field, surprising Stacy herself.
"Since he was born again," Chiun replied.
Another riddle. Remo had never impressed her as a religious man, especially after that scene in the alley in Puerta Plata. Still, there were all kinds of true believers, she decided. Pressing her luck, she tried for a follow-up question.
"Was he a fighter when you met him?"
"He was dead before then," the old Korean reminded her.
Stacy tried to find a riddle in his words, but Chiun appeared to mean the statement literally. She didn't pretend to understand what the old Korean meant, but rather tried to change the subject.
"What exactly did he do?" she asked.
Chiun considered that before replying. From a slight frown, Stacy watched his face relax into a calm expression of repose. "He is Reigning Master of Sinanju, more or less. Granted, he has much to learn still, but he makes minor progress, here and there."
"I meant to ask, what does he do for Uncle Sam? You know, the government?"
"Ah," Chiun replied, "the Emperor. Such things are not for woman's ears."
Stacy gave up. She couldn't tell the difference between when Chiun was playing games with her and when he was speaking from the wrong side of the dividing line between reality and delusion. Stacy had no idea as to who or what Sinanju might be, but she knew damn well there was no emperor in the United States. In fact, unless Remo had lied to her in Puerta Plata, her own father was instrumental, at least in part, for Remo's being on the case. That told her that he served the Feds in some capacity, whether he was a regular or some kind of independent contractor.
None of this was helping her get a handle on when to expect reinforcements from the U.S. to come barging in.
Chiun's lack of doubt in Remo's survival made her doubt what she knew had to be true. How long could a man survive at sea, without a raft, food, water? If there were sharks-although that may have been a part of Chiun's mental instability-they would have finished him off in minutes. She needed something, some hope to sustain her in her present situation, other than Chiun's assurance that he would eliminate the pirates by himself if called upon to do so. Stacy didn't doubt the old man's good intentions, but she didn't trust him as the last line of her personal defense.
If only she could believe that Remo was alive. If only there was some chance for him to appear and save her, save them both, from her private waking nightmare.
She shook it off. The fantasy was too seductive. She couldn't let herself slip into a fantasy world, too, if she wanted to have any hope of escape.
AN AUDIENCE WAS WAITING on the beach for the Melody when she entered the shaded cove on Ile de Mort. Kidd had refrained from going down himself, with the excuse that he had other business pending, but he really meant to take a smidge of pride away from Teach, before the youngster's britches got too small and Billy Boy got tempted to go shopping for a larger size. Something in captain's colors, for example.
It was trivial, as insults went, but Kidd was hoping he would get his point across. He valued Billy Teach, but not enough to jeopardize his own position as the leader of the pirate clan. Before he would allow a full-scale challenge-one that Kidd wasn't absolutely certain he could win-he would arrange an accident for Billy, maybe have him lost at sea, and choose another second in command while they were mourning the incalculable loss.
The "work" Kidd had to do while Billy brought his prize in was in fact another session with the slender brunette from their last raid, when the boarding party had come back with three girls. Kidd had already tested each of them in turn, as was a captain's right, but there was something in the sultry brunette's attitude, defiance simmering behind a mask of bland submission, that excited him almost as much as spilling blood. She was his favorite, and Kidd regretted that she probably would last a few more weeks at most.
He let the brunette please him, told her what to do, keeping a knife and riding crop within arm's reach, in case she tried to take advantage of her placement, kneeling in the
space between his thighs. A captive woman had gone off on Wink, one time, and nearly ruined him. The twitching of his eye had been dramatically exaggerated after that, and there were some in the community who said that eyelid was the only part of Wink that twitched anymore.
Not this one, though. Kidd was too cautious for her, even in the final moments, when he felt himself begin to reach his peak. Kidd was particularly watchful then, when she would think him helpless. Curiously, vigilance enhanced the moment for him, rather than detracting from it, since his eyes saw every detail of her sweaty face, himself, the place where they were joined.
The wench was finished, slumped back on all fours, when Captain Kidd heard footsteps drawing closer to his quarters. Rising stiffly from his throne chair, one leg half-asleep, he pulled up his baggy trousers and buckled them in place. The cross belt that he wore across his chest was sweat-stained, like his clothing, but the cutlass it supported had been polished till the blade shone like a mirror. It was razor-sharp, that blade, and Kidd would gladly demonstrate on visitors if anyone provoked his wrath.
The kneeling woman scuttled off to one side, crablike, when rough knuckles rapped on Kidd's front door. She found a shady corner, huddled there, as if she somehow hoped to make herself invisible.
"Enter!" Kidd said, his tone imperious, but no more than his rank deserved. The door swung open on its badly rusted hinges. Billy Teach was the first man across the threshold, leading two fresh captives, who immediately seized Kidd's full attention.
The red-haired woman was striking in her own right, slightly older and vastly more attractive than the three young women Teach had found last time, aboard the star-crossed Salome. She was a fullfledged woman, rather than a pretty girl, and Kidd was drawn to her immediately, craving her, despite his just-finished tussle with the slim brunette.
The second prisoner was something else entirely. He was old, for one thing, and an Asian at that, and dressed in a robe that made Kidd's best pirate garb look subdued. Kidd would have been surprised to learn that he weighed ninety pounds. Almost completely bald on top, with yellowing fringes of white hair that hung delicately over his ears. There was something in his eyes that almost bordered on amusement, but he kept the main brunt of his feeling tucked away. At least he wasn't stupid, Kidd decided, or a coward begging for his life.
"Why that one?" Kidd asked Billy Teach, nodding to the old man.
"Guy said he cooks great Chinese food."
"Which guy would that be, Billy?"
"Skipper of the good ship Melody," his second in command fired back, without a moment's hesitation.
"He's no longer with us here, alas. A swimming accident."
Kidd smiled. At least Teach had not brought all three of them back to the camp on Ile de Mort. The woman would be useful in more ways than one, perhaps an item he could sell to the commercial flesh dealers, once he had sampled her himself. As for the ancient Chinaman, if he could cook and clean, so much the better. Captain Kidd would let him live while he was capable of doing women's work, and when his time ran out... well, there were always hungry fish in the lagoon.
"So far, so good," Kidd told his first lieutenant. "How's the tub?"
"A classy one," Teach replied. "Bet her retail value makes her one of our best ever. Don't know what we'll get for her, though. I reckon the Colombians will take it off our hands, but they won't appreciate her fine appointments."
"Let's check it out," the captain said, already moving toward the exit from his quarters, passing close before the redhead and the wizened Asian. "And leave the woman here," he added. "Under guard."
A frown at that from Billy Boy, and that was fine. He didn't have to relish every order from the captain, just as long as they were carried out immediately, to the letter.
And God help him on the day he failed in that.
THE SAILBOAT SLOWED WHEN it spotted him. There was a figure in the bow-a man, bare chested, heavyset-who pointed toward him with one hairy arm and waved the sailboat's skipper onward with the other.
Moments later, Remo's would-be savior plucked a life preserver from the deck, between his feet, and tossed it overboard. The outsized doughnut trailed a nylon line behind it as it splashed down on the surface at about the same moment Remo was hauling himself over the rail and onto the deck.
The hairy lookout was slack jawed for a second, then got his wits together. "Are you all right, pal?"
"Getting better by the second," Remo said. "How long you been swimming around out here?" The spotter's lanky sidekick demanded. "Couple of hours."
"Huh," the taller of the two men said. "You damn lucky we came along. You damn lucky Dink's got good eyes."
The lookout, Dink, was staring hard at Remo. "Two hours?"
"My boat went down," said Remo, improvising on the spot. "Some kind of engine trouble. I don't know exactly what it was. First thing I knew about it was a little smoke, and then the damn thing blew. I swear she went down five minutes flat. I barely got over the side."
"Explosion, huh?" the tall man said, still sounding skeptical. "We didn't hear a thing or see no smoke."
"It was a couple of hours ago, like I said," Remo said. "I'm not sure that I could have lasted if you hadn't come along."
"Nobody lasts out here, without a deck beneath 'em," Dink replied. "What kinda boat was that? What did you call 'er?"
"Trudy," Remo said, answering the final question first. "A cigarette."
"Where from?" the tall man asked.
"St. Croix. Took off this morning, but I must've lost my way."
"Don't read the compass all that well, I take it?" There was clear suspicion in Dink's voice this time.
"Apparently," said Remo. "Maybe there was something wrong with it."
"You shoulda checked it out before you out to sea," the tall man groused. "Damn foolishness to take a chance with your equipment thataway."
"You're right, I guess. Of course, it wasn't really mine. I borrowed Trudy from a friend of mine, back in Miami."
"He'll be tickled pink to hear this news," said Dink.
Remo considered Dr. Harold Smith, then thought of Chiun and Stacy, riding with the pirates toward an unknown destination. "Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised," he said. "Speaking of news, where are we putting in for the report?"
"I reckon Fort-de-France would be the closest," Dink replied. "Right, Titch?"
"That's it," the tall man said, still frowning.
"Fort-de-France it is," Dink said. "We best be haulin' ass."
Chapter 13
Howard Morgan smiled obsequiously, turning on the well-oiled charm for Mr. Burston Sykes, of Bristol, Connecticut, and his young, blond wife. She was so young, in fact, that Morgan would have pegged her as the fat man's daughter if Sykes had not made a point of introducing her otherwise. The wedding ring on Mrs. Sykes's hand was new, the solitaire diamond on her engagement ring an easy four carats.
That spelled money, and Morgan didn't care if Ellie Sykes was Burston's daughter, as long as some of the fat American's dollars found their way into Morgan's pocket. The American was big in textiles, or so he said. Probably meant he ran sweatshops in Third World nations, but the source of his money was likewise a matter of total indifference to Morgan. The travel agent always focused on the bottom line-meaning his bottom line, the profit he could turn from any given deal.
In this case, Burston Sykes and his child bride were talking package tour, the kind of deal that would turn a handsome profit for the owner-operator of Trade Winds Travel. It meant a boat and crew, provisions, berths and tours on sundry islands-all paid in advance, with a sweet commission for Morgan himself.
It was the best deal he had closed that month-the best legitimate transaction, anyway-and Morgan was already calculating how to spend the money as he finished touching up the deal on paper. He was dotting i's and crossing t's while his clients sat beneath the lazy ceiling fan and sweated through their clothes.
"Damn hot in here," Burston Sykes said. "Why don't you spring for air-conditio
ning?" he groused.
"Bit pricey in the islands, don't you know? We have to make ends meet," Morgan said, striving just a little harder to preserve the phony smile. "Trimmin' expenses does the trick, you know?"
"It's still damn hot," Sykes told him. "Keep your patrons sweating, and you won't have much repeat business. You mark my words."
"Yes, sir, I'll keep that fact in mind." The paperwork was done, and Morgan spun the contract deftly, pushing it across the desk toward Burston Sykes, offering his fountain pen. "Now, if you'll just sign here, right at where X marks the spot..."
The textile magnate looked over the contract, pausing here and there to read the fine print in detail, before he signed and dated it, then passed it back to Morgan. "Done," he said.
"I'll get to work immediately," Morgan said, reserving his brightest smile for the fetching Mrs. Sykes, "as soon as you've filled out that check we spoke about...."
Sykes frowned and reached for his hip pocket, bringing out a checkbook that was probably real alligator hide. He used the pen Morgan had handed him, together with the contract. Despite his evident wealth and the relatively small fee involved, Sykes still showed visible reluctance as he filled out the check, looked it over and handed it to Morgan.
"We done here?" the businessman asked.
"Indeed we are, sir," Morgan answered. "All you and your lovely wife must do, from this point on, is pack your bags and find your way to the marina in the morning. Let's say tennish, shall we?"
"Ten o'clock it is," Sykes said.
"Your vessel is the yacht Christina," Morgan said. "She and her crew will be prepared to sail when you arrive."
"I hope so," Sykes informed him, shepherding the missus out of Morgan's office to the street, where afternoon was baking shadows on the sidewalk.
Howard Morgan smiled, folded the check in two and slipped it into his shirt pocket. It was damn good money, and his five percent was still enough to put fresh lobster on his plate for several nights if he was so inclined-or land a fresh piece in his bed, assuming that he felt like shelling out a good deal more.
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