Wake of the Hornet

by R. R. Irvine

  “This is an open line,” he immediately warned his superior.

  “Unwise.” The single word was spoken without emotion, but to Ohmura it might just as well have been the voice of doom.

  “There’s been a complication,” Ohmura hurriedly added, desperately feeling the need to justify his security lapse.

  There was no reply, but then he hadn’t expected one. He plunged ahead. “The travelers are on their way as expected.” He checked his watch. “They should be arriving anytime now, but there is, as I said, a complication.”

  Again, there was silence.

  “Someone else went before them. Someone unexpected.”

  “Are you saying there’s an unaccounted visitor to the island?” The tone was a definite rebuke.

  Ohmura, used to deference and respect, felt as if the word fool had been painted on his back for the entire world to see. He stared wildly about him, but no one was looking. He forced himself to reply calmly. “Yes, as far as I know.”

  “Who are we talking about?” The voice now took on a definite edge.

  He hesitated. Hadn’t he just said that this was an open line? “We’re . . . we’re . . . ,” he stammered, “. . . not on a safe line.”

  “I repeat, who?” the voice demanded.

  Security was being thrown to the wind. Ohmura shuddered and wished now that he had never called. “Another anthropologist, a crackpot really. He’s the student of the man I told you about, the one with the crazy theory. What can be the harm in that?”

  “If there’s no harm, why are you calling? You are due here in a few hours,” the voice reminded.

  One must be prepared for all contingencies, Ohmura thought, but didn’t say so. “The unexpected visitor is Walt Duncan. His file is included with the others.” He hoped his foresight would be appreciated.

  All hopes were dashed as the voice said coldly, “When did he arrive?”

  “Evidently, a week or so ago.”

  “You are a fool.”

  Ohmura sucked in his breath. Never before had he been spoken to like that. Again, he looked around on the off-chance that someone else might have heard.

  “You are to report to me without delay,” the voice continued.

  “Yes, sir,” Ohmura replied to an already dead line. Something in his childhood training made him bow in abject humiliation to an uncaring presence a thousand miles away. A presence whose name he dared not speak aloud in public, Kobayashi.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Wake up!” Elliot shouted.

  Nick gritted her teeth. “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “You could have fooled me, daughter.”

  Nick realized that she felt stiff and ached all over. Perhaps she had been asleep. To think I used to enjoy flying, she thought to herself. But that was before she’d encountered the copilot’s seat in the Widgeon, technically a Grumman G44, but a twin- engine relic just the same.

  But nothing seemed to have fazed her father, nor his boyhood friend, Curt Buettner, both of whom were seated directly behind her. Both were gnawing on drumsticks and drinking beer. The greasy smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken filled the seaplane’s small cabin.

  “Couldn’t you two have brought something other than the worst excesses of American culture?”

  “We had no time left after we ran into Sam Ohmura.”

  Nick shook her head. “You spend half a day talking to a man you ordinarily see every day?”

  “I don’t get to see my department head that much,” Buettner replied. “It was sheer luck that we ran into him. He was on his way to a conference in Tokyo.”

  Lee Coltrane, their pilot, was seated to her left. He hadn’t shaved in days, and had that kind of gleam in his blue eyes that Nick’s mother had warned her about. He glanced her way and smiled.

  “You look a little green around the gills,” he told her. “You should have eaten before takeoff.”

  “And whose fault was that?” she snapped back. “I seem to remember half the engine lying in pieces all over the dock when I arrived. I also seem to remember you pleading for someone to give you a hand. On top of that, I had to make two trips to the airport to look for my lost luggage.”

  “Peace, Doc. We’ll be in the air two hours more at least, even if the winds are with us. If not, it will be closer to three. I’ll tell you what. You can dip into my emergency rations.”

  With a sigh she realized that he was right. She was starting to feel sick to her stomach. She had trouble extracting the waterproof cooler without groping Coltrane’s thigh. She felt certain that the bush pilot was getting a lot of fun out of her difficulties.

  The plastic cooler wasn’t much bigger than a lunch box. One half held ice, the other was crammed with candy bars and packets of high-energy trail mix.

  Nick hoped that eating something would make her feel better. She took a small, tentative bite of one of the candy bars and realized that she was starving. Quickly, she finished the bar and unwrapped a second.

  “1 owe you one,” she told Coltrane.

  “I’ll remember that, Doc,” he replied with a suggestive leer.

  You’d be surprised what kind of payment I had in mind, she thought, and leaned back to enjoy the view. She had worked in New Guinea two years ago, but they were traveling to a spot well north of that jungle hell. She hoped it would be cooler and drier. Especially since most of her gear had been put on a plane to Tokyo by mistake.

  As if reading her mind, Coltrane took down a map clipped to the sun visor and handed it to her. “I thought you might like to see where we’re going, Doc.” Balesin Island was circled in Day-Glo orange. She wasn’t certain of the map’s scale, but the island’s nearest neighbor of any size looked to be hundreds of miles away.

  He tapped the glass covering the compass. “You don’t really need this baby much anymore, not with the satellites tracking you. They say those birds can locate you within twelve feet.”

  “Where are we, then?” she asked.

  Coltrane shrugged. “Out here nothing looks familiar until you hit land.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “So far, so good, Doc. Hell, if I’d ever missed my mark you wouldn’t be sitting here with me, now would you?” He chuckled.

  “How many times have you flown to Balesin?”

  “This makes three, or is it four, in the last week. Before your father flew in to join Mr. Buettner, I landed that guy Duncan on the island.”

  “So I heard.”

  “He was very secretive about it. He had me land him well away from the village.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No. He said he was a doctor, too, like you. A doctor of anthropology.”

  “Did you call him Doc?” Nick couldn’t miss the opportunity to take a little jab.

  Coltrane smiled. “Before that, I’d only made one trip to Balesin in four years.”

  “That’s what’s so great about Balesin,” Buettner said from behind her. “There’s virtually no tourist trade. We’re heading for virgin territory, Nick, or practically, anyway.”

  Coltrane nodded. “Balesin’s off the beaten path, all right. It’s small, too. If it were much bigger it would have Hyatts and Outrigger Hotels like every place else. Or maybe a Club Med.” He grimaced at the thought.

  Buettner leaned forward so he was closer to Nick’s ear, though he still had to speak up over the engines’ roar. “What Lee’s saying is true. And thank God. Otherwise we’d be out of luck. Where there are tourists there’s no real native culture left, only the shows they put on for the paying guests. Besides being too small to support much of a population, Balesin is out of the trade winds. As a result, the climate isn’t as temperate as most of the islands.”

  Nick’s research had been perfunctory at best. After Elliot’s telephoned summons, she had barely an hour at the Bancroft Library to ferret out information on the Caroline Islands. What she’d come up with had made no reference to Balesin, with one exception. Buettner’s department head, the man they’d run into at
the airport, had written a book twenty years ago on Cargo Cults and one chapter was devoted to the island. She’d nearly forgotten about Cargo Cults, since the phenomenon was considered more of an oddity than a proper subject of study in graduate school. What she remembered was sketchy at best. The worship of cargo had spread throughout much of the Pacific during the nineteenth century but only came to prominence after World War Two, when GIs brought home tales of fake airfields built to lure unwary aircraft. Those aircraft, the cult believed, carried cargo from the gods.

  Coltrane nudged her. “It ain’t the heat, Doc, that keeps people away. It’s the island’s reputation.”

  “The Balesin islanders massacred the first sailors to land, back in the seventeenth century,” Buettner explained.

  “And they’ve been killing people ever since,” Coltrane added. “Regular headhunters.”

  Nick rolled her eyes.

  “It’s the truth, Doc. One expedition up and disappeared completely.”

  “I’ve heard that story already. It happened fifty years ago, if I remember correctly.”

  “Eaten by cannibals. That’s what I heard.”

  “Come on,” Nick chided.

  “I never believe rumors. I only repeat them.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Like I said, Doc, I don’t believe most things I hear.”

  Before Nick could respond, Buettner spoke up. “We shouldn’t dismiss folk tales too quickly. There’s usually a few kernels of truth buried in there somewhere. Things were chaotic as hell out here after the war. When that expedition went missing in early forty-seven, we were still rooting out a few Japanese soldiers who’d refused to surrender. Of course, Balesin wasn’t invaded by our forces initially. The island wasn’t important enough, so we bypassed it on the way to more lucrative targets. Hell, all the Japanese had on the island were a few planes, a couple of tanks, and a lighthouse they built to warn their ships about the vicious reefs that surround the place.”

  “Folk tales are one thing,” Nick said, “old wives’ quite another.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not buying cannibalism and the like. But many an eighteenth-century explorer ended up dead on these islands. The Marshall Islanders were particularly savage, if you’ll remember.”

  Nick glanced at her father, half-suspecting that he was behind such tall tales. But he looked innocent enough. Of course, Nick’s mother liked to say that Elliot had the look of a cherub and the heart of a demon.

  “The way I heard it, Doc,” Coltrane went on, “that missing expedition was delicious.”

  From the rear seat, Elliot snorted. “How about some chicken, Nick? It’s finger- lickin’ good.”

  “No you don’t,” she said. “I’ve done some reading on this area of the Pacific. After the war, all these islands became American possessions. Nowadays, even the schools out here teach English.”

  The pilot shrugged. “Sure, they speak American. They drink Coke, too, when they can get it. But there’s always a gleam in their eyes as if they’re measuring you for the pot. Besides, I like my passengers to know what they’re getting into. Better safe than sorry, Doc.”

  “I’m not a tourist.”

  “Hell, Doc, most tourists are too smart to come to a place like Balesin.”

  “I’d rather you call me Nick.”

  “Don’t confuse me when I’m flying, Doc. I might make a mistake and get us lost.”

  She craned her neck to see what her father had to say for himself. But his only answer was to cup a hand to his ear and shake his head, pretending he couldn’t hear the pilot’s last remarks. It was just as well, she thought, since she was growing hoarse from shouting over the engine noise. Sighing, she settled back and scanned the horizon, which now looked hazy compared to the dazzling sunlight glaring off the ocean around them. She squinted. The haze took shape.

  “Are those clouds ahead?”

  “Probably,” Coltrane said. “It rains damn near all the time out here.”

  “How big is our island?”

  “Fifteen miles long and maybe eight across.”

  Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She didn’t relish the idea of flying through cloud cover in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, no matter how accurate Coltrane’s satellite navigational system was.

  “Don’t worry, Doc,” he said as if reading her mind, “this time of year it’s mostly squalls. Later on though, you get typhoons out here. When that happens, everything’s grounded.”

  “What was it like the last time you were here?”

  “Not bad, but it was raining like hell when I dropped off Doctor Duncan. The swells were bad, too. I had a hell of a time taking off. After that, the clouds bounced me around good. I damn near upchucked myself.”

  Nick groaned.

  “I thought you liked airplanes,” Coltrane said. “At least that’s what your father told me.”

  “As an archaeologist, I prefer them on the ground and in pieces.”

  “I know what you mean, Doc. Every time I work on the Widgeon here, I have pieces left over.” He snorted. “One day, I figure, I’ll have enough left over to build me a whole second plane.”

  No you don’t, Nick thought. He wasn’t getting her to bite on that one.

  She changed the subject. “Have you been on the island yourself?”

  “Nah. So far, I’ve only done flyovers and float around offshore.”

  “What about Sam Ohmura? Have you ever taken him to Balesin?” Coltrane shook his head. “I don’t know the man.”

  “Sam hasn’t been on Balesin in years,” Buettner answered. “But he did remember the local shaman, a man named Yali. Your father and I met him briefly on our first trip, so he’s expecting us back.”

  “As a pilot,” Nick said to Coltrane, “what do you think of the airplane mock-ups on Balesin?”

  Instead of responding, he tilted his head to one side as if listening to the starboard engine. After a moment, he nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever had caught his attention, and said, “On a foggy day, I might be fooled. But close up?” He shook his head. “Those people are nuts if they think their decoys are good enough to fool experienced pilots.”

  “It’s the cargo they’re after, not the pilots. That’s why they call it the Cargo Cult.”

  “I don’t see how you can get one without the other, Doc. If me and the Widgeon go down, it’ll be on water, not one of their fake airfields.” Coltrane jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You see that yellow case just behind me?”

  Nick swiveled her head. Lashed to the bulkhead was a case the size of a footlocker. It was made of heavy-duty plastic and had floats attached to its sides.

  “That’s my survival kit,” Coltrane went. “It’s Navy issue, the same kind of gear they drop to downed pilots at sea. It’s tough enough to make it through damn near anything, even a crash.”

  There were two more similar cases farther back in the cargo area, she noticed. Both were the same bright yellow and both had parachutes and rigging attached.

  “And the other two?” she asked.

  “Out here, Doc, everything has to be protected against the climate. What the dampness doesn’t rot, the bugs get. That’s why I check my survival kit more often than I do my engines. If you want to last out here, you don’t fly anywhere without your kit. I’ve got MREs in it, water, a life raft, a radio, and a rifle. That’s the minimum you need for survival. I also carry a .45.” He tapped the bottom of his seat. “So if anybody tries luring me and my cargo, Doc, they’re in for trouble.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Buettner said. “We aren’t going to need guns to survive on Balesin.”

  “That guy Duncan said the same thing,” Coltrane said.

  “He was right.”

  “Maybe,” Coltrane conceded. “But he was smart enough to land on the far side of the island, well away from the village.”

  Sighing, Nick closed her eyes and feigned sleep.

  “You ain’t fooling me, Doc. And don’t
say I didn’t warn you about this part of the Pacific.”

  CHAPTER 5

  In Tokyo, Akiro Kobayashi sat back and stared at the Tang Dynasty figure gracing the teak credenza that faced his desk. The light softly caressed the finely crackled glaze of rich amber brown. Only one pottery piece in ten of this period was glazed and, of those, few were so rich a color. Usually the sight of the saddled Sancai horse calmed him, reminding him of family and continuity. The figure had been a trophy of war brought home by his grandfather following the great Nanking victory in 1937. A figure much like it had brought forty thousand dollars at Sotheby’s only last year, but he would never sell it. The serene beauty of the piece had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. The eyes of the horse were flecked with a deeper brown that held depths of knowledge that Kobayashi could only dream of. It had survived for over a thousand years and reminded him that even fragile things sometimes withstood the onslaught of time. At the moment, though, the Sancai was a reminder that old sins cast long shadows. His grandfather had bequeathed something else to Kobayashi besides the horse.

  To some, Kobayashi, a small-boned, slender man, looked too young to be a vice president at Tokyo’s prestigious Nomoto Bank. He was thirty-two and a brilliant economist with advanced degrees from both Tokyo University and Harvard, the latter earned when he was only twenty-one years of age. It was rumored that he would be president of the bank before his thirty-third birthday.

  If the rumor came true, it would have nothing to do with his financial expertise, but rather his position in military intelligence, a branch that no longer existed, at least on paper, and hadn’t since the Second World War. It had been outlawed by General MacArthur, only to be reinstated secretly—with full funding—by the CIA.

  “Old sins,” Kobayashi murmured, staring at the phone which linked him, via scrambled satellite transmission, to his counterpart at CIA headquarters in Langley. If he picked it up, Ohmura’s failure, which more than likely would have amounted to nothing in the end, would now take on a life of its own. But if Kobayashi didn’t pick up the phone, and the old sins came out of the shadows without warning, his thirty-third birthday would find him out of work, or worse.