by Mark Ellis
Before Honoré, Kavanaugh or Crowe could even begin to formulate a response, Mouzi’s head whipped toward the river, her eyes narrowing, body tensing, as if she were a hunting cat that had caught a scent.
“Hear something,” she whispered. “The Keying is coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“About half a mile downriver,” Mouzi said. “Little less, maybe. Not travelin’ fast, about four knots, max.”
No one questioned the quality of Mouzi’s hearing. Crowe swiftly examined the satphone, then pressed the power button with a thumb. With an electronic chirp, the surface of the phone lit up with various icons.
He stood over Belleau and said, “I’m going to hit the redial. I’m betting you’ll be connected right to Jimmy Cao.”
“And if I am?” Belleau’s tone held a hard, defiant edge.
“Then you’ll talk to him and tell him about your situation. But do not tell him where you are.”
Belleau shrugged as best he could. “Fine.”
“Don’t think you can pull something over on us by talking to him in any other language but English.” Crowe smiled menacingly. “I may not look it, but I’m multi-lingual.”
“I would have taken you for a Baptist,” Belleau muttered. “Of course, you realize that Mr. Cao wants both Bai Suzhen and myself. Separately, we are useless to him.”
Kavanaugh made a show of popping the magazine out of the butt of the Bren Ten and sliding it back in. “We realize that, Aubrey. It’s up to you to convince Cao that trading Bai Suzhen for you is an equitable exchange.”
“But it isn’t,” Honoré protested. “Jack, while I certainly can’t blame you for being angry with Aubrey, if this triad fellow went to such violent lengths to bring Bai Suzhen under his direct influence, he won’t agree to give her up.”
“We’ll see.” Crowe touched the redial icon and listened as the call was conveyed to a satellite and then to another telephone unit, less than half a mile away.
A man’s voice, rich with suspicion but also pitched high with anger filled Crowe’s ear. “Belleau, is that you?”
Crowe put the phone to Belleau’s ear, but leaned close so he could listen in. “Hello, James. This is Aubrey Belleau.”
“Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to call you for over three goddamn hours!”
“I am on Big Tamtung. My helicopter flight ended with a bit of a mishap, stranding me here. Where might you be?”
“On my way to pick you up. I was told you were at the Petting Zoo place, is that right?”
Belleau evaded answering the question. “You are on a boat?”
“Yeah, the Keying, that junk of Bai Suzhen’s. We’re already coming down the river. According to her, we’re about five miles from the Petting Zoo. Are we?”
“Is Bai Suzhen with you?”
“Yeah, she’s right here. I’m keeping my eye on her.” The suspicion in Jimmy Cao’s voice acquired a sharper edge. “What about the people with you on the flight? Kavanaugh and Crowe and that scientist bitch you’ve got the hots for?”
“We’re all just waiting to be rescued.”
“Uh huh.” Cao’s tone turned abruptly non-committal. “They’re standing all around you, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They have proven to be the proverbial flies in the buttermilk.”
“What?”
“They have it in their heads that once Bai Suzhen signs over her interests in Cryptozoica Enterprises to me, you’ll kill her and probably them, as well. Therefore, since Madame White Snake can’t sign the paperwork without me, they’re not inclined to allow me to join you.”
Cao didn’t reply a long moment. Then he asked, “That man Kavanaugh—Tombstone Jack—is he there?”
“He is.”
“Let me talk to him.”
Crowe hesitated, then handed the phone over to Kavanaugh. He whispered, “Jimmy wants to speak with you.”
Kavanaugh took the satphone. “This is Kavanaugh.”
“You stupid bastard,” Cao snarled, his voice made so guttural with rage that it was almost unintelligible. “Do you have any idea of who you’re fucking with here? You got a death-wish, putting yourself in the middle of this?”
“What happened to Howard Flitcroft, Jimmy?”
“I killed him. Shot his ass dead and threw him over the side. He sleeps with the fishes, just like you and your friends will if you keep fucking with me.”
Kavanaugh’s hand squeezed the phone so tightly the molded plastic and metal creaked within his grip. “You’re not offering much in the way of inducements to cooperate with you.”
“Fuck cooperation! This isn’t a bargaining table—
“—I beg to differ,” Kavanaugh broke in coldly. “You need both Bai Suzhen and Aubrey Belleau to complete the deal. I have one, you have the other. You really need to start bargaining.”
Cao said nothing for such a protracted length of time, Kavanaugh wondered if he had dropped the call. Then, in a dispassionate voice, he said, “I’m not just going to turn Bai Suzhen over to you.”
“And I’m not just going to turn Belleau over to you. So we’ve got a Shanghai stand-off here.”
“I’m Taiwanese, asshole.”
“Good for you. The best bet all around is for you to back water, reverse course and go back to Little Tamtung. We’ll follow you in a few minutes.”
“Follow me?” Genuine surprise shook Cao’s voice. “How?”
“There’s a boat here at the Petting Zoo. We have it running and we were just waiting to hear from you.”
“So once I get back to Big Tamtung, then what?”
“We meet at the Phoenix of Beauty and have a formal paper-signing ceremony, all neat and legal with armed witnesses to make sure nobody gets out of line.”
“And after that?”
“Everybody goes their separate ways, me included. You and Belleau can spend the next couple of years trying to out swindle and backstab one another.”
“Why would we do that?”
Kavanaugh chuckled patronizingly. “Oh, come on, Jimmy—you know that if Belleau has told you this island is worth a hundred fortunes, you damn well can bet that it’s really worth a couple of thousand fortunes.”
“What do you know about it?” Cao demanded.
“We’ll discuss that later. Do we have an agreement?”
Jimmy Cao’s weary sigh whispered into his ear. “All right. I’ll give the orders to turn us around.”
“One more thing—I want to talk to Bai.”
“No,” Cao snapped.
“You talked to Belleau,” Kavanaugh pointed out reasonably. “It’s only fair. Quid pro quo.”
Cao didn’t reply. Kavanaugh heard a rustle, a muffled voice, then Bai Suzhen said, “Jack?”
“Are you all right?”
“More or less,” she said calmly. “They haven’t hurt me—much. What is going on?”
“Jimmy will fill you in. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve always admired you as a dancer.”
“Thank you,” Bai Suzhen said, sounding only a little puzzled.
“The way you’re able to think fast on your feet, jump and back flip at a moment’s notice is very impressive. That’s true art, you know.”
“Thank you,” she replied again.
Cao’s voice came back on the line. “What a bunch of bullshit. Okay, you talked to the dirty lesbian bitch, now let’s get on with this.”
“See you back on the island, Jimmy.” Kavanaugh clicked off the connection, ending the call, but kept the satphone’s power on.
Honoré asked, “Can’t he use a GPS trace to pinpoint our position?”
“He thinks he can,” Kavanaugh said. “But a GPS lock isn’t as precise as the manufacturers want you to believe. We’re too close to him. All Cao knows is we’re on the island, but not exactly where. I’m hoping he assumes we’re still at the Petting Zoo.”
“What was all that blather about admiring Bai Suzhen’s skills as a dancer?” Belleau demanded.
Without a word, Mouzi took the Kel-Tec SU-16 carbine and cradling it in her arms, crept out along the gunwales to the prow of the boat and stretched out on her stomach. She cycled a round into the breech.
Honoré watched the activity with a tight, strained expression. “Do you really intend to shoot at these triad fellows?”
“They certainly intend to shoot at us,” Kavanaugh replied, flicking off the safety of his autopistol. “They’ll kill us if they can, make no mistake about that. The Ghost Shadow triad has a rep for hiring homicidal maniacs. If we had a peaceful alternative, we’d take it. But since we don’t—
Facing Honoré, McQuay, Belleau and Oakshott, Kavanaugh announced, “Things will become more than a little wild in a few minutes. We can’t afford to have people onboard that we can’t count on. I’m putting Aubrey and Oakshott ashore. Dr. Roxton, McQuay—I’ll give you the option to share the risks.”
The cameraman glanced at the overgrowth beyond the line of pagke trees and swallowed hard. “I think I’ll share your risks.”
“Me, too,” said Honoré.
Belleau’s face twisted in a mask of revulsion. “You can’t be serious! Just leave us here to our fates? You can’t do that!”
“Sure we can,” Crowe said casually. “But don’t worry—we’ll untie you first.”
Belleau cast a beseeching glance at Honoré. “You can’t let them do this—
“—She has nothing to say about it,” broke in Crowe harshly.
Honoré said, “Aubrey, I don’t pretend to understand what you really had planned here on Big Tamtung, but I know one thing—you’ve played me false from the beginning.”
“And on that note,” Kavanaugh said breezily, hauling Belleau and Oakshott to their feet by the collars of their shirts.
With Mouzi’s butterfly knife, Crowe cut through the ropes binding their wrists and then pushed Oakshott toward the railing. “Over the side.”
The big man gingerly threw one leg over the edge of the boat, then slowly slid overboard. The river barely reached his waist. He said, “It’s fine, doctor.”
Belleau stepped to the side and gestured to the journal. “Please look after that.”
Honoré nodded. “I will.”
Aubrey Belleau awkwardly climbed over the side, into Oakshott’s waiting arms. “The water is quite warm,” the big Englishman said soothingly.
“And therefore the perfect breeding ground for parasites and bacteria,” Belleau said bitterly.
Carrying Belleau like a child, Oakshott waded to the riverbank, grasping a root as a handhold to pull himself onto a hummock of grass and reeds.
Putting the journal back into the metal case and securing the clasp, Honoré said, “I’m sure it must have occurred to you that they may be no safer there than here.”
“It’s not their safety I care much about,” rasped Crowe, turning the cruiser’s ignition key
The engine purred to life, the props slowly churning the water. Kavanaugh stared at the GPS tracking screen on the satphone. “No change in their position,” he said, “Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“We’ll hold position here until we have a visual,” Crowe said, removing a compact set of binoculars from a drawer beneath the console.
Squinting downriver through the eyepieces, Crowe noted how the mist thickened, floating above the water, wreathing the surface with vapor. The fog felt like the touch of a clammy hand on his skin. A distant sound floated to him, vague and watery.
Out of the vapor a shadow appeared. Crowe stiffened, squinting as the shadow shape resolved into a looming, elongated outline. At the edges of his hearing he heard a distant, rhythmic throb, which he recognized as the growls of twin diesel engines.
“There’s the Keying,” Crowe said, pushing the throttle forward.
The Alley Oop slowly eased from beneath the page tree and into the river. Despite the scraps of fog, Crowe’s eyes still probed ahead. The cruiser hugged the bank for fifty yards, reeds whispering along the hull. The thudding of the Keying’s pistons grew loud, far louder than the drone of the Nautique’s engine.
Lying among the leaves and twigs on the cruiser’s prow, Mouzi sighted down the length of the carbine at a dark silent figure standing on the deck of the junk. She figured he was a lookout, but not doing a very good job of it. He wore a black-and-white headband. She lined him up between the front and rear sights of her rifle, waiting for the man to spot the boat sliding almost soundlessly through the mist.
Suddenly, he leaned forward, stared and whirled around, mouth opening to voice a warning. Mouzi squeezed the trigger. She leaned into the recoil, letting the hollow of her shoulder absorb it. The shot sounded lackluster, like the breaking of a twig. There was nothing lackluster about the man’s reaction to the impact of the bullet punching him between the shoulder blades. Throwing up both arms, he screamed loudly and fell forward, out of sight.
Crowe slammed the throttle to full and the cruiser’s engine bellowed. The boat lunged toward the Keying, its prow rising like the snout of a killer whale diving toward helpless prey.
TWENTY-FOUR
Guns crashed with deafening echoes from the mist. A bullet tore splinters from the railing to Bai Suzhen’s right. Jimmy Cao screamed orders in Cantonese and Mandarin. The Keying’s crewmen dropped flat to the deck while the Ghost Shadows came racing from all directions. The man in the pilot house wrestled with the wheel, turning the junk to starboard. He was not as experienced a pilot as Bai’s man and had difficulty steering the boat.
Bai stood with Jimmy Cao on the foredeck. Despite the bore of the Casull revolver the man pressed against her ribs, she kept her face completely expressionless, except for an anticipatory glitter in her dark eyes. She instantly grasped Kavanaugh and Crowe’s strategy—with their boat almost hull to hull with the Keying, the Ghost Shadows would have no choice but to expose themselves in order to effectively exchange shots with their attackers.
A bullet fired from a Ghost Shadow thumped the air between she and Cao. The man instinctively ducked, relaxing his grip on her arm. She exploded into motion.
She yanked free of his fingers, her right hand stabbing out and securing a handful of greasy black hair. Jimmy Cao’s mouth opened but before he could scream or curse, she kicked upward, her left foot chunking solidly between his legs. Convulsively, he plucked at his crotch. She released his hair and he fell to his knees. At the same time, she grabbed his wrist, twisted and pulled the big Casull revolver from his grasp.
A man reached for her from behind, but she spun on her toes, the edge of her left hand chopping at his throat. The Ghost Shadow staggered away, trying to bring up the jian sword he had stolen from Pai Chu. She squeezed the trigger of the pistol and shot him in the chest, the heavy round bowling him off his feet. As the sword fell from his fingers, Bai snatched it from the air and whirled on the four men converging around her. She swung out with the jian, her arm curving up, then crossways across a man’s torso. Blood sprayed as the Ghost Shadow lurched backward, careening into two his comrades.
Bai Suzhen moved with the deadly speed and grace of a cobra. She swept the blade at the three other men, spattering them with crimson droplets. They backed away. Anger possessed her, but not to the point where she became careless. The Ghost Shadows sidled around her, circling, their attention torn between the gunfire erupting from the cabin cruiser and the pistol in her hand.
The Keying surged at an angle across the river, the bow turning to starboard. Vines and low-hanging branches snagged in the masts, saplings snapped against the junk’s bulwarks. There came a grinding, sucking sound as the vessel’s flat bottom dragged in the mud of the shallows. The junk ran aground on her starboard side. The deck shuddered underfoot and men staggered, stumbled and fell.
Bai managed to stay on her feet. With a running leap, she gained the top of the portside railing. She paused for an instant, standing tall and strai
ght, her taunting smile much like the enigmatic smile of the Naga princesses on display in her quarters.
Struggling to his feet, one hand cupping his testicles, Jimmy Cao screamed, “Kill the bitch!”
A subgun rattled as a Ghost Shadow panicked and fired a burst at nothing at all. Bai jumped from the Keying and landed on the leaf-shrouded prow of the Alley Oop a little less than six feet directly below her. She bent her knees to absorb the impact and threw herself forward, but the heavy revolver in her hand skewed her balance and she slid to the right.
Mouzi steadied her with a hand to her wrist.
“Thank you,” breathed Bai.
The girl flashed an appreciative smile and went back to squeezing off shots with the carbine. A Ghost Shadow who ran along the railing slapped at his left leg, staggered and pitched headfirst into the water only a few yards away.
The man’s arms flailed as he reached out for the hull of the Keying. A great sheet of foam-crowned water flew upward behind him. He abruptly vanished, snatched beneath the surface.
A heartbeat later, he reappeared, rising from the river, red water pouring from his open mouth. A pair of giant, fang-filled jaws clutched him at the hips. The Sarcosuchus lifted the screaming, writhing man high above the surface. His legs kicked in a futile spasm as the muscles at the hinges of the creature’s jaws flexed. The huge fangs sheared through the man’s flesh, crunching against, then pulverizing his pelvic bones. The upper half of his body splashed down into the river. The lower half slid down the monster’s gullet, swallowed in two snapping gulps.
Mouzi cried out in wordless fear at the sight of the huge Sarcosuchus and adjusted the aim of her carbine, centering the sights on what she could see of its head, but she hesitated to fire. Once blood spread through the water, predators who hunted along the riverbanks would be drawn to their position.
The men crowding at the Keying’s rail howled with terror and directed their gunfire at the enormous crocodilian. It submerged quickly amid a flurry of bullet-driven waterspouts.