Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  Troy looked over the side and froze when he saw a cloud of white powder pour out of a porthole. “I’ll kill those sons of bitches,” he promised.

  “What with?” Nikki asked as she touched his tattoo. She knew what the spider web meant—he had killed somebody, somewhere. The thought of seeing a murder thrilled her.

  “Hey, man!” Ricky shouted. “Help’s on the way.” He pointed to the east. The smudge that Heather had first seen on the horizon had turned into a ramshackle wooden fishing boat that was bearing down on them. He moved over to the hatch and yelled, “We’re gonna nail you assholes now. There’s a boat coming our way.” They moved aside as Mark opened the hatch and climbed out. Troy pushed past him and hurried down to his cabin. Heather followed him, now eager to get out of the hot sun.

  DC climbed on deck and studied the boat. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” Mark answered. “They could be pirates.” He walked aft to the steering post and flipped open the panel to the engine controls. He hit the ventilation fan switch to purge the engine compartment and bilge of any fumes.

  “Pirates, my ass,” Ricky said. “They hung the last pirates two hundred years ago.”

  “Wrongo,” Mark replied. “There were some pretty gruesome stories about Thai pirates a few years back. They preyed on the Vietnamese boat people.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ricky said, interrupting him. He never read newspapers or listened to news on TV. His world was what he made it and he tuned out anything that had to do with reality.

  “I remember that,” DC said. “But didn’t that happen off the coast of Vietnam?” She snatched up the binoculars hanging from the compass and studied the fishing boat. It looked like all the other Asian fishing boats they had seen.

  “We’re at least seven hundred miles from there and in a different sea,” Mark told her. He took the binoculars from DC and studied the boat. “No need to take any chances. I’ll start the auxiliary and we’ll move out of their way.” His fingers stabbed at the switches to start the small diesel engine that could push them at a speed of five knots. The engine coughed to life and he engaged the propeller.

  “Why didn’t you do that sooner?” Nikki asked. “We could have been to Penang by now.”

  “Because I was saving what fuel we had left for an emergency,” Mark replied. “I never had a chance to refuel at Madras. Remember?”

  “Because you can’t do your fuckin’ job,” Ricky snarled.

  “I do my job, you fuckin’ hair farmer,” he shot back, “when I’m not bribing the authorities to keep our asses out of jail and your boat from being confiscated.”

  Troy Spencer came rushing up the ladder out of the cabin. He had pulled on a pair of ripped jeans and was shaking with fury. Heather was right behind him, still naked. “You fuckin’ assholes!” he shouted. “You dumped it all overboard!”

  “Right,” Mark shouted back. “You know what they do in Malaysia to drug smugglers?” He waited for an answer. There wasn’t one. “They hang them.”

  “You believe that shit?” Troy spit at him. His hand reached behind his back and he pulled a .357 Magnum out of his waistband.

  “Yes,” Nikki breathed. She was shaking with anticipation as Troy jabbed the muzzle of the handgun into Mark’s midsection. She could feel the chain swinging between her breasts jiggle.

  “You are one dead mutha—”

  “The fishing boat!” DC shouted, creating a diversion. Troy glanced in the direction of the fishing boat and was surprised to see it so close. He blinked. But Mark had never taken his eyes off Troy and the distraction was enough to allow his hands to flash in a well-coordinated movement. Mark’s right hand grabbed Troy’s wrist, while with his left hand he swept the gun out of Troy’s grasp in a cross-movement. Mark held the gun by its barrel and swung it back into the side of Troy’s head. Then he dropped Troy’s wrist and grabbed a hand full of hair and jerked. Troy simply obeyed one of the laws of physical anatomy and his body followed his head, which was down to the deck.

  “The boat!” DC screamed, terror in her voice.

  “Holy shit!” Ricky shouted. “One of ’em’s got a gun.” The fishing boat was bearing down on a collision course and they could see three men on the forward deck. They were short, dark, and wiry. All were stripped to the waist and wearing cloth headbands. One of them was holding a shotgun.

  “DC,” Mark shouted as he spun the wheel to break out of their path. “Get on the radio and send an SOS. Get ’em all below.” A shot rang out from the fishing boat and a hole appeared in the flapping mainsail. Heather, Nikki, and Ricky disappeared down the ladder after DC. But Troy shook his head, still groggy from the blow, and crawled toward Mark who was crouched low in the cockpit well.

  “We gotta do this together,” he told Mark. “Gimme the gun, man.” Unlike Ricky, Troy Spencer did not suffer from the same drug-induced mental burnout. He had deliberately turned his back on the wealthy and privileged world offered by his parents and sought out the dangerous, seamy side of life. There, he found a natural outlet for his violent nature. But he had learned his lessons well, and knew they were now fighting for their lives.

  “No way,” Mark growled. “You steer if you want to help.” Troy nodded and took over the wheel. “You got more ammo for this?” Mark asked.

  “In my cabin,” Troy said. “Heather knows where it is.”

  Mark bobbed his head up to check on the fishing boat. It was getting closer. He scrambled forward and dropped down the companionway. DC was sitting at the radio. “I’m in contact with Thai customs authorities,” she shouted.

  “Stay in contact and tell them everything that’s happening,” Mark said. “Heather, get the extra bullets for the Magnum. And put something on.” The girl nodded dumbly and went into her and Troy’s stateroom. She came back out with a box of ammunition and wearing a T-shirt. Mark grabbed the shells and ran for the ladder. “Everyone stay below,” he yelled, disappearing out the hatch.

  “They’re getting closer,” Troy yelled at him. Mark chanced a quick look and dropped back onto the deck. Then he bobbed back up and emptied the .357’s chamber at the fishing boat. A series of barked commands in a language they did not recognize were followed by two shotgun blasts. “They’re getting closer!” Troy shouted.

  Mark reloaded and fired. He gauged the fishing boat was less than fifty yards away. “Turn!” he shouted. Troy spun the wheel and the sailboat heeled over. But it gained them nothing as the fishing boat was slightly faster and could turn more sharply. The distance separating them was now less than twenty-five yards. Mark worked his way back to Troy and handed him the gun. “It looks like they’re going to ram us,” he said. “Fall off at the last moment and start shooting to keep their heads down. I’ll try to push them off with a boat hook. Got it.”

  “Let’s do it, man,” Troy said. Mark worked his way forward and crawled along the protected side to the cabin to unlash the boat hook. Now they could hear a series of yelps from the fishing boat as it closed on them. Mark crawled back to the cockpit and waited.

  “Here they come!” Troy shouted. The high bow of the fishing boat loomed over them. Troy spun the wheel and cut loose with a wild barrage. Splinters flew off the fishing boat as the shells tore into it. They could hear more shouting but didn’t see anyone. Mark stood up to push the fishing boat away and the shotgun roared. Mark fell back into the cockpit, his face and chest a bloody, pulpy mass. Troy fumbled as he reloaded and a man jumped off the fishing boat and clubbed him to the deck.

  Heather had heard the gunshots and shouting and had cowered in a tight ball on the cabin’s settee. When the fishing boat crashed into them she had shut her eyes while Nikki and Ricky ran forward to hide in their stateroom. DC had stayed at the radio, still transmitting. Then a dark figure appeared over Heather, grabbed her hair and jerked her off the settee. Heather’s anger momentarily flared as she struggled to her feet, glaring at the hard, wiry little man who was shorter than her. He slapped her hard across the fac
e. Then a harder slap followed, knocking her back to the deck. Heather lay there, stunned. She had never been hit that hard, not even at the girls school in Colorado. Such pure physical violence was new in her life, something that only happened to other people or in the movies. The pirate’s brown face split into a nasty grin, showing his yellowed, snaggled teeth. He barked commands in a language she had never heard before.

  Another pirate pushed Ricky and Nikki into the cabin from their stateroom. Tears streamed down Nikki’s face and she was shaking from fear. A third man had twisted DC’s arm behind her and was holding her head down on the table in front of the radio. The men pushed the four Americans together onto the settee and exchanged a few words. It sounded like a babbling gibberish to Heather. She noticed that none of them had a gun but all were carrying wicked-looking knives. One man went back on deck while the remaining two jabbered at each other, ignoring them.

  “What are they going to do to us?” Nikki asked, her voice barely audible and quaking.

  “I don’t know,” DC answered, fear in every word, her hands shaking.

  “Did they hurt Troy or Mark?” Heather asked. DC only gave her a worried look in reply. They heard laughter and a loud splash that sounded like someone falling overboard. Then more laughter echoed from outside and they could hear Troy shouting. Suddenly, he was propelled down the companionway, stripped naked. His face was blotched with red marks and his lower lip was bleeding. The two men followed him down.

  “They killed Mark,” he gasped. The three girls stared at him, fully understanding what the splash had been. The oldest of the pirates, who was plainly in charge, grabbed Ricky by his long hair, pulled him over to the dinette table and jammed his face down with a gnarled hand onto the hard surface. He held him there by the hair while he cut his clothes away with a knife. The three other men searched the boat.

  “Are there only four?” Heather asked. She was bitterly aware that she was only wearing a flimsy T-shirt.

  “Yeah,” Troy said. The old man guarding them shouted something and slammed Ricky’s head on the tabletop. He clearly wanted them to be silent.

  Now the three men started to ransack the boat while the old man guarded them. Two men threw everything they could onto the deck while the third ripped out the radios, navigation equipment, and radar set. Their guard let go of Ricky but kept him bent over the table.

  After what seemed an eternity, they were finished in the cabin and three men went up on deck. Then they heard a winch start to creak. It was twilight before the pirates had ripped out the yacht’s auxiliary engine. Finally, they were finished and the three men came back down the companionway ladder and started eating as they talked. The old man gestured at Ricky, who was still bent over the table, and kicked his legs apart. With the blade of his knife, he scraped the open sores that were festering on the inside of Ricky’s thighs. “What’s the matter with Ricky’s legs?” Heather whispered to Nikki. Nikki didn’t answer. The pirates continued to discuss Ricky’s sores. A decision made, they grabbed him, tied his hands behind his back and pushed him up on deck. Then the men came back.

  One of the younger men dropped his trousers and grabbed Troy’s hair. He held a knife at his throat, bent him over the table in the same position as Ricky had been and hunched over him. “You bastard,” Troy groaned. The man slammed his face down onto the table, hard, making his nose bleed. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” Again, the man slammed Troy’s face onto the table as he entered him.

  The three girls tried to turn away, not wanting to watch the rape. But the other men kept slapping their faces, making them watch until it was over. Troy bucked when they tied his hands. Two men punched at his face until he quit struggling. They shoved him into a corner, laughing at his impotent rage.

  The old man’s right hand flashed out and ripped the T-shirt off Heather. He grabbed her by the hair and bent her over the table. “Do you know who I am?” Heather shouted. The men laughed as the old man shed his pants. “My father is a United States senator!” There was no sign that they understood a word she said. “Senator William Douglas Courtland!” she shouted. Again, no sign of comprehension. And then in a low, pleading moan, “He’s going to be President of the United States.”

  The old man paused. “I speak English.” He grinned at the other men and buried a hand in her hair, holding her over the table, while his other hand stroked her bare back. Then he felt lower and spread the cheeks of her rear end. He barked in amazement when he saw Heather’s tattoo and called the other men over to examine it. They were fascinated by the small snake that had been tattooed on the inside of her cheeks, coiled around her anus. The old man raped her while Troy, Nikki, and DC were dragged to the forward staterooms. Heather clenched the far edge of the table, making herself endure the violation. She forced herself to think about surviving and tried to shut out the sounds of the other three being raped. I know how to survive, she kept repeating to herself. I know how to survive….

  Tears streamed down her face. Then the men switched.

  An hour later, the three girls and Troy were thrown naked into the fishing boat next to Ricky. They watched as the beautiful sloop was torched, a beacon lighting the night. A small plane flew over and circled before heading back to land. One of the pirates started the engine and pointed the fishing boat in the same direction.

  ONE

  The White House, Washington, D.

  It was the woman’s first solo shift as the night duty officer in the Office of the President and the communications section had hummed with its normal nighttime routine, lulling her into a sense of complacency. The phone call from her counterpart in the State Department had jolted her fully awake. “Sally,” the veteran bureaucrat said, his voice coming through scratchy on the secure line, “a hot one just came in. The Bangkok embassy reports that Senator Courtland’s daughter has been kidnapped.”

  The woman’s fingers flew over the computer keyboard at her desk as she recorded the details of the phone call for future correlation and reference. When the caller had hung up, she replayed the tape, making sure she had all the details correct. Then she told a technician to transcribe the tape immediately into hard copy. Her lips compressed into a narrow line as she stared at the clock: 3:32 A.M. Then she made her decision—they should wake the President of the United States with the news. But she first had to check with her boss, the President’s chief of staff. Leo Cox answered the phone on the second ring, listened without comment and gave her the okay. Her hand was steady when she jabbed at the buttons on her communications panel to call the President’s valet.

  Matthew Zachary Pontowski opened the door that led to the small office off the President’s bedroom and walked in. A simple dark blue robe covered his lanky six feet and he was carrying his glasses. His blue eyes were clear and his full head of silver-gray hair was only slightly ruffled. As usual, he walked with a slight hunch to his shoulders and a definite limp, a legacy from World War II. His prominent, aquiline nose reminded the woman of a hawk but his face was not harsh. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes promised warmth and understanding. He looked and acted ten years younger than seventy-six years of age.

  “Well, Sally,” he began. “Charles says you have something important.”

  She could hear friendliness in his voice and relaxed. “Yes, sir, I think so.” She handed him a transcript of the phone call from the State Department. He sat down at his desk and adjusted his glasses. Zack Pontowski could read at over twelve hundred words a minute, faster than a person could talk. He preferred to read and to ask questions later. It was a well-established routine in the White House.

  “Charles,” he said through the still-open door, “would you please get some coffee.” He reread the transcript and thought about the young woman still standing in front of him. “Please sit down,” he told her, motioning to a comfortable armchair next to him. “What do you think Leo will say when he learns you woke me up so early?” He glanced at a small carriage clock on the desk. Leo Cox, a former general
in the United States Air Force, ran a relaxed but well-controlled office for the President.

  “He’s already said it, Mr. President. I called him before I called Charles to wake you. General Cox should be here in fifteen minutes.” On cue, Charles walked in with a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Was he the only other person you woke?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, now certain she had done the right thing. The gentle warmth in his voice was very reassuring.

  Pontowski smiled, pleased with her. Cox does pick the right people, he thought. She keyed on the political sensitivity of this immediately and wasn’t afraid to get the ball rolling. How much further can she carry it? “What do you recommend I should do first?” he asked, his voice serious.

  “Make a personal phone call to Senator Courtland with the news,” she answered immediately, “and arrange a meeting with him at the first opportunity.”

  Pontowski picked up the phone and spoke to the operator. “Please put me in contact with Senator Courtland immediately.” He hung up. “How do you think the good senator will respond?” he asked.

  “He’ll try to crucify you with it, sir.”

  William Douglas Courtland stretched an arm over the sleeping girl to pick up the telephone. The first insistent ring had woken him and he was fully alert. “Yes,” he said, not letting the touch of hostility he felt at being disturbed show in his voice. “Of course, I’ll take the call.”

  The girl stirred as he sat upright and pulled the covers away. “Oh…what…?” she mumbled. The dewiness of sleep gave her the look of a twelve-year-old nymph.

  Courtland placed a hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver. “It’s Pontowski,” he told her. “I need to take this in private.” She nodded and slipped out of bed. He smiled at her as she disappeared naked into the bathroom. She’s younger-looking than most of them, he thought, but a hell of a lot smarter. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said, his voice now smooth and rich. He listened silently, making the appropriate responses. Then: “Yes, thank you for calling and I’ll be there.” He hung up and sank into the pillows.