by R. R. Irvine
“I think it’s time we told them about the small island,” Mrs. Innis said. “Balabat. That’s the place I’m afraid of.”
“Now, Ruth,” the reverend soothed.
“My husband doesn’t like to admit that heathen superstitions continue to exist in the face of Christianity. He takes it as a personal insult.”
The reverend sighed. “I’ve been here a long time and have very little to show for it. I haven’t done a proper job for the Lord.”
“There are times when I love these people,” his wife added, “especially the children. Other times, I don’t understand them at all.”
That made two of them, Nick thought, observing the reverend’s continuing nod.
His wife said, “Even their church is a mockery. Its cross is painted red for John Frum.” She hugged herself. “Sometimes I think it’s red for blood.”
She stood up, beckoning to her husband. “I want to be home before dark.”
“It’s only mid-afternoon,” Nick pointed out.
Mrs. Innis’s only response was to shake her head stubbornly.
Her husband stood up, taking her hand. “We’d like all of you to come to Sunday services,” he said. “Who knows? If you come, Henry Yali might come too. Just follow the Mission Highway. Well, it’s not really a highway, just a trail, but it leads right to our church. We like to think of the highway as a mile-long test of faith.”
“A mile walk to the store to buy beer is more like it,” his wife said.
“That’s no way to speak of the devil,” a voice said out of the rain. A moment later, a man stepped through the downpour sluicing from the roof. His face was hidden beneath a beach umbrella that was at least five feet across.
“Mr. Parker,” Mrs. Innis said, her tone turning his name into an accusation, “have you been spying on us?”
“A man like me doesn’t have the energy for such things. You know that. Besides, there are no secrets on Balesin.”
“This is Todd Parker,” the reverend said.
Parker collapsed his umbrella, then greeted the newcomers one by one, with a handshake and a formal bow. All the while Nick fought to keep a straight face. The man was like a character out of an old Hollywood beachcomber movie. His white baggy shorts were held up by a tie, old-school English by the looks of it; his loose white shirt was a mass of wrinkles worthy of a dieting elephant. And his chin was covered by several days’ growth of beard. A grimy cloth bag that looked more like a pillow slip than anything else was slung over his shoulder.
“To what do we owe the honor?” Mrs. Innis asked, her sarcasm heavy-handed.
“I’ve come on a duty call,” Parker said, bowing before her. “No, I take that back. I’ve come as a Good Samaritan. I’ve brought gifts.” He unslung the bag from his shoulder. “Sandals.”
The reverend laughed, which drew a sour look from his wife.
“It’s true,” Parker went on, pointing at Nick’s feet. “If the young lady isn’t careful, she’s going to come down with a bad case of jungle rot. In this climate, your feet have to breathe.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Parker has a vested interest,” the reverend said. “He’s our only source of supplies.”
“I make the sandals myself,” Parker said proudly.
“Come, dear,” Mrs. Innis said. “I’m sure Mr. Parker is just waiting for us to leave.” She looked at Nick. “Poor George tends to preach when Mr. Parker is around.”
Parker snorted. “Who needs hell and brimstone when you live in a place like this?”
There was no heat to his comment, and judging by the reverend’s lack of reaction, it had been said many times before. Even so, his wife took hold of her husband and led the way into the rain, refusing Parker’s offer of his umbrella.
Parker immediately turned his attention to Nick, openly admiring her figure. “Now what’s it going to be, Miss Scott, Michelin or Goodyear? Personally, I find the Goodyear tread better in the rain.”
“Whatever you say,” she said, anxious to be rid of her soggy desert boots.
He fished a pair of sandals from his bag. “I cut these out myself not an hour ago. They’re not retreads either, but low-mileage tires with a lot of wear left on them.”
Nick was unable to tell whether he was joking or not, but that didn’t stop her from pulling off her desert boots and socks. Her toes were white and puckered.
“I’d say we caught you just in time,” Parker said, going down on one knee like a shoe salesman. The rubber straps, she noticed, were adjustable.
“I’ve seen sandals like these in Berkeley,” Nick pointed out.
“Probably imported,” he said, “crap from the Orient produced by cheap labor. Mine are a work of love. Of course, I also have the exclusive franchise here on Balesin.” He grinned, displaying remarkably white teeth, a flaw in his disreputable beachcomber persona. “Come to think of it, I have an exclusive on just about everything of use on this island.”
“What we could use,” Nick said, “is some information about the Cargo Cult’s airplanes.”
“There’s no profit in that,” he said, his fingertips straying along Nick’s ankle. “Besides, franchise or no franchise, I wouldn’t last long on this island if I started poking around in John Frum’s business.”
“You’re not going to last another ten seconds if you don’t keep your hands to yourself.”
Parker pulled back as if scalded. “Sorry. I’ll add you to my list of taboos. Just don’t forget, tell everyone in your party to steer clear of John Frum.”
“We’re all here but my students,” Buettner said.
Parker nodded. “Yeah, I saw them on the way here.”
“And?”
Parker wiggled an eyebrow and leered. “You’re lucky. Most of the sexual taboos here on Balesin belong to the reverend.”
CHAPTER 21
Kobayashi linked with the CIA in Virginia, setting up a three-way conference call via satellite. The transmission, fully encrypted by Fuji mainframe computers in both Tokyo and Langley, was crystal clear.
“Targets marked,” the agent reported.
“What about airplanes?” Farrington asked from Virginia. His question had Kobayashi grinning. What did the CIA man expect, miracles?
“Are you talking about the seaplane?” the agent asked. “Or the crap the natives build?”
“Just tell me what you’ve seen.”
As the agent continued, Kobayashi appreciated how Farrington kept the man in line.
“The seaplane arrived, took off again with the lady archaeologist, circled for a while, then landed again to drop her off, and then left, heading toward Guam.”
“Circling where?” Farrington asked, beating Kobayashi to the question by a split second.
“From where I was located, it looked like a reconnaissance of the old volcano. But it’s only a guess, since they were out of my line of sight most of the time.”
Kobayashi banged himself on the forehead. Satellite photos showed the planes on Mount Nomenuk to look much like the bomber that had started all this. But only if you knew what you were looking for, he consoled himself. An outsider, even an expert like the Scott woman, wouldn’t know where to start.
“Have you seen the native airplanes?” Kobayashi asked.
“Yes. I’m not a hundred yards from the ones nearest the village.”
“And?” Kobayashi asked, knowing full well what they looked like, since he was looking at a blowup of the airfield even as they spoke.
“If you ask me, they look like the models kids build. They’re pretty good but wouldn’t fool anybody.”
“Are you satisfied that you’re ready for all contingencies?” Kobayashi asked.
“Roger that,” the agent answered.
Kobayashi thought all Americans were overconfident. “Very well. I don’t have any more questions for the moment.”
“I’m agreed,” Farrington said from Langley.
“Stand by at the extraction point until we contact you,” Kobayashi said and bro
ke the link to the island. To Farrington he said, “Maybe we’re worrying for nothing. We’ve both been over the photos. What is there to see after so many years? Nothing new, certainly.”
“If there’s nothing to worry about, why didn’t your in-place agent show?”
“Perhaps he couldn’t get away.”
“We have a saying here,” Farrington answered. “Sometimes the mouse may go where the tiger cannot.”
Kobayashi glared at the microphone. What the hell did that mean? Was the man trying to be funny, or was his comment meant as some kind of insult?
“Go on,” Kobayashi probed.
“It all depends on who’s the mouse.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Nick Scott is on the ground. We’re not. There may be more to see there than what our satellites show.”
“We’ve had people on the ground for years,” Kobayashi pointed out. “And nothing has shown up.”
“Are you telling me, you don’t see any risk?”
“It’s minimal,” Kobayashi answered.
“Then you haven’t done your homework on Nick Scott.” Farrington laughed and broke the connection.
Kobayashi felt the beginnings of a pain in his chest and willed himself to relax. He turned his gaze toward the Tang horse as he often did in moments of stress and admired the delicate molding of the saddle. The statue had endured for centuries. He too could endure.
CHAPTER 22
Nick joined Lily in the communal kitchen as soon as she could get away from Parker. The woman was perched on a stool with half a dozen children gathered around her, sitting cross-legged on the floor. They were staring up at her in awe, while she read from a Superman comic book.
At Nick’s approach, Lily closed the book and nodded at the children, who immediately scampered out the door and into the sunset, visible now that the rain had stopped.
“I need your help,” Nick said, having decided on a straightforward approach.
“I know. You want to see the airplanes. Sooner or later, everyone who comes here does.”
“I’m no tourist, Lily. Airplanes are part of my work. I’ve written articles about the lost planes I’ve found.”
“Not Henry’s kind of planes, surely.”
“Not until now, I admit.”
“What kind of planes have you found?”
“World War Two planes, mostly. B-17s, B-24s, and a B-26.”
“I was a young girl during the war. We had your kind of planes here then.” Her eyes closed as if she were re-living the memory. “When they first came, we thought it wonderful, but the Japanese were very brutal. Many of our men were imprisoned or killed. We were not sorry to see them take their planes and leave.”
“Did Henry model his planes after the Japanese planes he saw?”
“I can’t speak for Henry.”
“Then I’ll have to ask him,” Nick said in frustration.
Lily smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll speak with Henry tonight. I’m sure he’ll agree to a tour. Meet us in the square first thing tomorrow morning. The two of us will escort you to the old Japanese landing strip, which is now John Frum’s.”
Before Nick could thank her, a metallic clang sounded in the distance.
“Henry has kept his promise,” Lily said as she took Nick by the hand and led her out the kitchen door and across the square to the newly constructed house. Elliot and Buettner had already inspected the place, she was told, and were even now fetching gear from the radio tent, with Tracy and Axelrad.
The house was a mixture of traditional building materials and what looked like salvage from World War Two. The roof was thatched and steeply pitched, the walls an interlacing of bamboo and closely woven reeds. Inside, the floor was constructed of overlapping sheets of corrugated metal siding, scavenged from old Quonset huts, Nick guessed. Walking on it would have been precarious if it hadn’t been for her new Goodyear footwear.
A series of rolled rattan mats hung from the cross-beams, held in place by sash cords. Like blinds, the mats could be lowered to partition the single room into private cubicles.
There were no furnishings at all.
“I apologize for the state of this place,” Lily said. “With a big storm coming we had to cut corners to get the work done quickly. Otherwise, you would have been washed away.”
Nick blinked in surprise and turned to peer back the way they’d come. Through the open doorway she could see the red sky.
“Don’t be fooled,” Lily said. “That wasn’t the real storm. It was just a squall running before it. When John Frum sends a great storm, everything runs before it.”
“But this isn’t the cyclone season.”
Lily smiled, as if to say John Frum’s storms paid no attention to seasons.
“How soon will the storm be here?” Nick asked, thinking that once it arrived, she’d be unable to trek into the jungle. Coltrane would be grounded too.
“Henry says two days, no more.”
“And you, Lily? What do you say?”
“It will be here with or without Henry’s approval, but there will be enough time tomorrow for what you want.”
As if emphasizing Lily’s comment, the light changed abruptly, the muted twilight giving way to darkness without transition.
“It’s time,” Lily said, grasping Nick’s hand.
As Nick and Lily stepped onto the porch, torches flared to life, a semicircle of them surrounding the front of the house. In the flickering light, Nick saw that the villagers had gathered together outside without making so much as a sound. They stood in ranks, facing the house like an audience, and for a moment Nick felt as if the porch had become a stage and she an actor expected to perform.
She looked at Lily, who reassured her with a smile and a whisper. “Sit and watch while John Frum blesses your house.”
Setting the example, Lily sat on the top step, beckoning Nick down beside her. Even as Nick was settling onto the step, Buettner and her father arrived, escorted by Henry Yali and the chief. Axelrad and Tracy trailed behind. With precise ceremony, all were seated, Buettner and Elliot one step below Nick and Lily, and the students at the bottom.
The ranking reinforced Nick’s initial impression that Lily held the true power on Balesin. Yet it was Yali who raised a hand, a signal for a rhythmic clapping to begin. It was only then that Nick saw an American flag painted on the shaman’s bare chest.
As one the crowd parted, forming an aisle down which ran half a dozen young boys. Cardboard wings had been attached to their arms, which they held out as they pretended to be airplanes. The wings were painted with five-pointed stars, the insignia of the American Air Force.
Nick groaned silently, thinking of the monumental task ahead of her, sorting one cultural influence from another.
As the boys drew closer, she saw that white circles had been painted around their eyes, probably representing goggles. Their torsos were painted in a mottled camouflage design, similar to that used on airplanes during World War Two.
The boys held spinning pinwheels in each hand as they wheeled and maneuvered into a V-shaped formation directly in front of the porch. One by one they came to a stop, their propellers still, and dropped their arms to their sides.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nick saw Yali nod his head. The boys responded immediately, raising their hands to their hearts like soldiers pledging allegiance.
At a second signal from Yali, the boys extended their arms toward Nick in a precise salute, or maybe the salute was directed at the house, she couldn’t be certain. Whatever the intention, Nick felt confident that it was a gesture of welcome.
She longed to whip out her camera but was afraid of giving offense. There was nothing like a photograph to lend credibility to a theory, no matter how crackpot. Though as yet, she reminded herself, she had no right to any kind of theory. So far, the only Cargo Cult planes she’d seen had been glimpsed from the air, and at a considerable distance.
The boys swept their hands away from their h
earts to point at the sky, then repeated the gesture, heart to sky and back again.
It was a supplication to the gods, Nick felt certain. Probably they were asking John Frum to bless the new house. Or maybe they were beckoning to his spirit to descend, to come in for a landing and join them. She clenched her teeth in frustration. She wished she were more of an anthropologist instead of an archaeologist, but her expertise lay in objects rather than people.
As if reading her mind, Elliot leaned back to whisper, “Propellers in each hand. What do you make of that?”
Nick glanced at Lily, checking her response to Elliot’s whisper. Lily nodded as if encouraging Nick to arrive at an answer that was probably an open secret among the islanders. Nick was feeling particularly dense. She replied, “Twin-engine planes like all the rest.”
“Like the Widgeon, you mean?”
Nick sighed. Her father had put his finger on the problem. Which came first, the Widgeon or the egg? Logic said the twin-engine phenomena dated from the war. The most likely model was the medium-range Japanese bomber known as the Betty. But the markings on the young boys’ “wings” had been American. Had the American symbol of power been superimposed on the Japanese plane or was the Widgeon the original model? It, too, had twin engines and offered a perfectly good template for the mock-ups Nick had seen. Certainly, she couldn’t ignore the Widgeon as a possible corrupting influence if she eventually published anything on Balesin’s Cargo Cult.
At Yali’s command, the boys ran off, pretending to be airplanes once again. Yali followed in their wake. His departure triggered an exodus of villagers. The torch-bearers remained.
Nick turned to Lily, hoping for help.
Lily said, “Mr. Parker at the store ordered the pinwheels for us, though Henry is working on his own version, with bigger propeller blades. He says we must be inventive like Americans.” She smiled mischievously.
“Sometimes I think he forgets that America imports many of its goods.”
“One thing America doesn’t import is airplanes. We sell them to everyone else,” Nick said.
Lily nodded. “Henry often talks about that. He dreams of the day when we will be rich enough to buy such wonders from America. Until then, he’ll have to be content with his own designs. And the boys don’t mind.”