by Mark Ellis
“Why do you care if they are?”
“Because—“ He faltered for the proper reason to give, then said in a rush, “Because no matter what happened to Cryptozoica Enterprises and to us, to our personal relationship, I do care about you. More than that, I respect you.”
Bai Suzhen laughed briefly, bitterly. “Is that why you never asked me to marry you?”
“I never asked because I knew you’d turn me down…especially after—”
He compressed his lips on whatever else he intended to say.
“Especially after your unfortunate accident?” Bai inquired with a mock innocence.
“Yeah.”
“I know those raptors didn’t bite off your cock, Jack. The girls here have informed me of that much.”
Automatically, Kavanaugh cast a glance at Qui who steadfastly kept her gaze fastened on the ice bucket.
“So,” Bai continued, “what do you want me to do?”
Kavanaugh turned away, stalking toward the back door of the Phoenix of Beauty. He placed the glass of tea down on a wicker table. “I want you to do whatever you think is best for you, Bai. Me, Gus and Mouzi can manage.”
“Very thoughtful. Why are you being so noble?”
Kavanaugh froze in place, then spun back around, glaring angrily at the woman in the tub. He took a deep breath as if fortifying himself, then stated matter-of-factly, “I let you down, Bai. I never should’ve flown those three assholes to Big Tamtung, no matter what they threatened or offered. Greed got the better of me. So three men died, I was clawed up, chewed on and spit out and you lost your life savings and your triad’s position with United Bamboo. It was all my fault. How could I ask you to marry me, after I’d done all of that?”
Bai Suzhen studied him silently through the veil of her long eyelashes. Softly, she said, “You could have still asked. I would have said no, but you could have still asked.”
Effortlessly, she stood up. Water and ice cascaded down her body, streaming over every curve. The bright sunlight struck sparkles from the droplets. Standing in the tub, she was almost the same height as Kavanaugh, a work of feminine sculpture crafted in warm flesh tones.
The glistening serpent tattoo writhed up her right leg and over her torso, slithering between her firm breasts.
For a moment, Kavanaugh was mesmerized by her beauty, a pulse throbbing at his temples and his groin. He instantly and in total detail recalled the first time he had seen Bai Suzhen in the White Snake Club, wearing the glittering costume of a Siamese temple dancer. He remembered how entranced he had been when the dreamlike movements of the traditional Naga dance escalated into a blur of flashing arms, thrusting pelvis and the way the serpent tattoo between her breasts seemed to be endowed with a separate life, undulating in rhythm to the wild music. Then, as now, Bai Suzhen’s sensuality seemed all encompassing.
Then he remembered another time, shortly after his guts had been sewn up and he came back to consciousness to see Bai leaning over him, her hair unbrushed and wearing no make-up. She looked exhausted but still beautiful and she smiled when his eyes opened. She had whispered, “You are a crazy man…you fight everybody, everything. Even death.”
Bai Suzhen stepped out of the tub with a casual, relaxed grace. She drew on a sky-blue silk kimino with a heron embroidered on the left breast in red thread. Judging by the faint smile touching the corners of her mouth, Kavanaugh guessed the woman was very aware of her impact on him.
In a curt, businesslike tone, Bai said, “I haven’t made up my mind what I’m going to do. Howard Flitcroft insists on talking to me before I reach a decision. He definitely does not want to find himself in partnership with Aubrey Belleau…which is no doubt what Belleau is counting on, to leverage owning my assets into a complete buyout of all outstanding shares.”
“Belleau wants me to fly him and some people over Big Tamtung later today,” Kavanaugh said. “I’ll swing him by the Petting Zoo, then back here. That should give you a little breathing room.”
“By that time, I’ll have talked to Howard and made my choice.” She stared at him expectantly. “Anything else?”
He shook his head. “Not at the moment. But with Jimmy Cao around, watch your back.”
“That’s why I have Ghee Hin soldiers to protect me.”.
Kavanaugh turned away. “Okay, then.”
“Jack—
He cast her an over-the-shoulder glance. “What?”
Bai Suzhen smiled at him with genuine affection. “For what it’s worth, I have a feeling that I, the white serpent of good fortune, will soon prosper.”
“Yeah, I have that same feeling…for what it’s worth.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A few minutes shy of high noon, everyone making the flight to Big Tamtung assembled at the concrete helipad at the rear of Kavanaugh’s house. He and Mouzi had spent two hours disconnecting the guy wires from the ASTAR B3-27 and running a complete diagnostic on the electrical and electronic systems. Almost as important were performing idiot checks on the fuel lines and oil well. The ASTAR B3-27 was considered the Cadillac of tour helicopters and although Kavanaugh hadn’t flown it any further than in a big circle around Little Tamtung in the last eighteen months, he kept the machine’s monthly maintenance up to date.
Honoré Roxton and Aubrey Belleau showed up wearing what Kavanaugh assumed was “explorer chic”, lightweight khaki and denim clothes as well as durable off-trail hiking boots. Although Belleau had exchanged his straw Panama hat for an Indiana Jones style felt Fedora, Honoré wore a battered white Stetson, an accessory that should have made her look a trifle ridiculous but for some reason did not. A Nikon digital camera hung from a strap around her neck.
Belleau carried an old-fashioned black satchel, clutching it possessively with under his left arm rather than carrying it by the handle. Oakshott wore much the same tropical ensemble as he had upon arriving, but if anything his face and limbs seemed even paler than they had when he climbed out of the jet the day before. The only spots of color on his body were the red-blue bruises on his face, the mementoes of Kavanaugh’s fist.
Crowe and Mouzi joined them. Crowe wore camo pants and an olive drab T-shirt bearing the Horizons Ultd logo. Mouzi was dressed in a pair of high-cut khaki shorts that showed off her gamine-slim legs to good advantage and high-topped, thick-soled combat boots. Her red halter-top also carried the logo of Horizons Utld.
The ASTAR’s passenger compartment consisted of six burgundy-colored leather seats complete with safety harnesses. Kavanaugh removed the Plexiglas partition between the cockpit and the compartment to allow Chet McQuay to shoot through the forward nose ports without obstruction.
The blond-haired cameraman was stocky, under medium height and wore tan cargo pants with voluminous pockets. A silver stud in the shape of a Jesus fish glinted in the lobe of his left ear. Flitcroft had hired him based on a recommendation from the UCLA film school and McQuay balanced his mannerism of laid-back confident competence with thinly veiled contempt. His general attitude was as if he only endured the assignment and the uncomfortable environment for as long as it suited him and he would quit without a second’s notice if work more to his taste came along. He handled his bulky Sony ENG camcorder with far less care than Belleau carried his satchel.
If Aubrey Belleau objected to Mouzi and Crowe coming along on the flight, he said nothing, certainly not after Crowe took up the co-pilot’s position in the cockpit. Although Mouzi had been introduced to everyone the night before, Kavanaugh explained that it was always a sound safety measure to bring a mechanic aloft if at all possible.
In truth, Kavanaugh didn’t worry about mechanical problems so much as having witnesses on his side in case he ran into difficulties with the passengers, particularly Oakshott. His shirttail covered the Bren Ten pistol holstered at his hip.
Once everyone climbed aboard and seated themselves, Crowe made sure that they were securely strapped in. He showed them how to operate their Bose headsets so they could communicate with one ano
ther. He shut and latched the side hatch and took his co-pilot’s chair.
Kavanaugh settled the earpiece of his own headset, put on aviator’s sunglasses and announced over the comm system, “Hands and feet inside, kids,” then turned the ASTAR’s ignition key. The powerful Turbomeca Arriel 2B engine caught immediately and the rotor vanes began to rotate, the steady swishing swiftly becoming a thumping purr. Placing the cyclic stick in the neutral position, Kavanaugh smoothly increased the throttle until he obtained the proper RPM, then carefully pulled back on the stick until the helicopter’s skids arose from the concrete pad.
Under the bright noonday sun, the helicopter lifted into the sky and inscribed a wide circle as Kavanaugh played with the torque, allowing the nose to swing to the right. Pressing the anti-torque pedal, he achieved a stable attitude even as the chopper continued to climb. At three hundred feet, Kavanaugh made an adjustment in the collective controls and the ASTAR lanced out over the dark waters of the bay. He noted how Den Lai’s sampan, propelled by the outboard motor, cut a foaming path toward Bai Suzhen’s junk, the Keying. Howard Flitcroft sat in the prow, barely under the canvas shelter. He waved up at them with a perfunctory, almost dismissive “off with you” gesture.
For a moment, Kavanaugh wondered why Bai had scheduled her meeting with Flitcroft aboard the Keying, but then figured she chose the junk to minimize outside distractions—not mention that the air conditioner in her cabin worked whereas the one in Phoenix of Beauty did not.
Turning the helicopter to starboard, Kavanaugh flew over the sailing yacht, at anchor on the far side of the bay. He saw only a handful of men milling about on deck, but they didn’t look like sailors to him. He figured they were Ghost Shadow soldiers, more comfortable spilling blood than swabbing it up.
A flotilla of fishing boats, most of them skiff-like sampans, were tied up along the shore near the yacht, but no one seemed to be manning them.
“Captain Kavanaugh,” Belleau said with feigned weariness. “What are we doing and why?”
“I’m just getting the feel of the old girl,” Kavanaugh said in a neutral tone. “Again.”
He glanced over at Crowe and their eyes met in a silent, wry acknowledgement of the question and their low opinion of the man who had asked it. Kavanaugh increased the chopper’s airspeed and sent it across the whitecapped waters of the Celebes sea in the direction of the jumbled green, white and black mass of Big Tamtung. As the ASTAR crossed over the outer reef, the laurabada trade wind of the South China seas pushed down from above. Except for dark clouds far on the horizon, the sky was like a vast blue bowl inverted over their part of the Earth.
Dredging up fragments of the tour guide patter he had memorized years ago, Kavanaugh said into the mouthpiece of his headset, “Little and Big Tamtung are part of the same landmass, but the connecting strait is submerged under about a hundred feet of water. Little Tamtung is approximately five miles in length and seven miles at its widest point. Its highest point above sea level is about ninety feet. The interior is mangrove swamp and jungle. There’s a river and a waterfall, which is used to generate electricity for the village by a small microplant of the kind used in China.”
The green-blue tapestry of the ocean below blurred by so quickly that waves and whitecaps became mere patterns of contrasting texture and color. Through the forward nose port, everyone watched as the black pillar of basaltic stone loomed ever larger in the forward windshield, rising high above the emerald sprawl of Big Tamtung.
“As you can probably guess,” Kavanaugh continued, “Big Tamtung is considerably larger.”
“Hence its name, I presume.” commented Honoré, her amused voice filtering into his right ear.
Kavanaugh did not respond as the foliage cloaking the escarpment of schist, shale and basalt turned dark green as the sun touched the eastern slopes. Planes of mist floated around its base, the haze lying close to the treetops.
“It’s almost always foggy around the bottom of the cliff face,” Crowe said. “We’re not sure why.”
“Probably a vent blowing out cool air from an underground spring or aquifer,” Belleau said negligently. “In this climate, it takes a temperature only a few degrees cooler than the air to form a cloud.”
Kavanaugh pulled back on the cyclic stick, slowing the ASTAR’s airspeed as they approached the crescent of white sand beach, bracketed by stunted nipa palms and flowering tropical ferns of red and yellow. The foam of the surf spread wide at the shoreline. He circled slowly. “We planned on building cabanas complete with a wet bar down there.”
“Very nice,” Belleau drawled. “If we were here to play volleyball or to have one your bloody barbeques, I’d be very impressed.”
Although he felt an internal quiver of dread, Kavanaugh turned the chopper’s nose inland, cruising over a seemingly limitless panorama of forested hills and wooded valleys. From the air, Big Tamtung Island looked like something out of a travelogue designed by either a liar or an expert at CGI. The billowed treetops were woven together like green fabric, with splashes of color made by the occasional orchid or bromeliad.
Bathed in the sunshine, suffused by the streamers of mist curling up from the treeline, the rain forest evoked a Garden of Eden sense of awe and peace. But he knew the jungle held murderous surprises and his belly turned a cold flip-flop. He struggled to tamp down his rising fear. “Big Tamtung is shaped like an ellipse,” Kavanaugh stated levelly “With an area of 550 square miles, it’s about the same size as the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The highest point is the escarpment there, rising three hundred feet and six feet. We think it’s what is left of a volcanic cone.”
Belleau muttered, “When will you Yanks join the rest of the world and adopt the metric system?”
Kavanaugh affected not to have heard the question, assuming it was rhetorical as well as snide. However, he jerked the stick to port a few degrees and as the helicopter canted sharply to the left, he smiled when he heard the startled cry from Belleau.
“Gee, are you all right back there, Aubrey?” Kavanaugh asked, voice full of mock worry.
“Steady as she goes, Captain,” Honoré said, laughter lurking at the back of her throat.
“Don’t worry about it, Doctor,” said Oakshott. “Everything is fine.”
Kavanaugh kept the helicopter’s air speed throttled down as he skimmed five hundred feet above jagged, razor-backed ridges that gradually rose up to blend with the escarpment. A flock of white-feathered birds, disturbed by the chopper’s passage took flight, winging away in all directions. The cabin grew uncomfortably warm and Crowe notched up the air conditioner, with no change in the steady drone of power from the engines. A broad river meandered through the valley below. It curved, twisted and turned, eventually meeting the sea in a little rock-sheltered cove on the far side of the island.
Peering out the window, Honoré said, “There appears to be a variety of topographies on Big Tamtung.”
Crowe said, “It’s mainly rain forest, but there are savannas and lowland swamps, too.”
“In which case,” Belleau said, “the different habitats should lessen the competition for food.”
“Yeah,” said Mouzi confidently. “That’s what we figured.”
Belleau snorted disdainfully.
McQuay spoke for the first time, in a laconic rasp. “Dude, I’m not seeing much worth taping. If you want me to get some usable footage, we need to fly lower or go somewhere these so-called prehistoric monsters can actually be seen.”
“It’s the heat of the day,” Crowe said impatiently, hitching around in his seat to glare at the cameraman. “Most of the larger animals, the so-called prehistoric monsters included, are taking a siesta in the shade.”
“I’ll swing us over the grasslands,” Kavanaugh said. “Maybe we’ll see a few snufflegalumpus grazing.”
“Snufflegalumpus?” echoed Honoré. “Oh, that’s what you named a species of ornithopod?”
“That’s what I named ‘em,” Mouzi announced proudly, tapping her
chest with a thumb.
“They’re a small version of Hadrosaur and Parasaurolophus,” said Crowe. “We might see a couple of the larger sauropods, an Apatasaurous or two.”
“Which is what? Worth photographing?” McQuay asked, checking the lens of his camcorder.
“It’s what used to be called a brontosaurus,” answered Mouzi promptly.
In response to the questioning glances turned toward her by Honoré and Belleau, she said defensively, “Hey, you can’t live here as long as I have and not pick up a few things.”
“I can imagine.” Belleau chuckled. “Like a criminal record...or an STD.”
Kavanaugh nosed the chopper in a climbing turn, awakening a sinking sensation in everyone’s stomach. Below them, twisted ridges and deep gorges yielded to an expanse of open tableland, a vast green carpet folded in jumbled waves. The sunlight glinted from a narrow strip of metal that stretched across the savanna.
“What’s that down there, dude?” McQuay asked, bracing his camera against his right shoulder and squinting through the eyepiece.
“A monorail track,” Crowe answered. “It was built to ferry nature photographers and such across a couple of the habitats. Flitcroft got the idea from Busch Gardens, in Florida.”
“Where do you board the train itself?” Honoré inquired.
Kavanaugh notched back the speed and arced the ASTAR in a sweeping semi-circle. “A place we called the Petting Zoo.”
“Pardon?” Honoré sounded incredulous and dubious.
Kavanaugh grinned at her tone. “We came up with three ways to tour Cryptozoica and three different prices. The most expensive is by air, the way we’re doing it now. A thousand dollars for a full three hours, on top of the fifty thousand dollar three day entrance fee.”
“Ridiculous,” grunted Belleau. “Outrageous.”
“Or,” interjected Crowe as if he hadn’t heard, “by tour boat, down the picturesque Thunder Lizard River. That was only a thousand dollars for six hours.”