Combat

by Stephen Coonts

  “I gave him a time and place later that day, a coffeehouse in Berkeley every taxi driver knows. I thought he was going to cry with relief, but he went back to the Ras Ormara’s bridge with his jaw set like he was marching toward a firing squad. I went belowdecks.

  “A lot of tramps look pretty trampy, but it actually just means it’s not a regularly scheduled vessel. This one was spitshine spotless, and I found no reason to doubt the manifest or squawk about conditions in the holds.

  “Fast forward to roughly sixteen hundred hours. Park shows at the coffeehouse, jumpy as Kermit, but now he’s full of dire warnings. He doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong about the Ras Ormara, but he knows he’s aboard only for window dressing. The reason he shipped on at Lima was, Park had met the previous third engineer in Lima at a dockside bar, some Chinese who spoke enough English to say he was afraid to go back aboard. Park was on the beach, as they say, and he wangled the job for himself.”

  Quent stopped shoveling spicy sausage in, and asked, “The Chinese was afraid? Of what?”

  “According to Park, the man’s exact English words were ‘Death ship.’ Park thought he had misunderstood at first and put the Chinese engineer’s fear down to superstition. But a day or so en route here, he began to get spooked.”

  “Every culture has its superstitions,” Quent said. “And crew members must pass them on. I’m told an old ship can carry enough legends to sink it.” When Medler frowned, Quent said, “Remember Joseph Conrad’s story, ‘The Brute’? The Apse Family was a death ship. Well, it was just a story,” he said, seeing Dana’s look of abused patience.

  Medler again: “A classic. Who hasn’t read it?” Dana gave a knowing nod. Pissed me off; I hadn’t read it. “But I doubt anyone aboard told sea stories to Park. He implied they all seemed to be appreciating some vast, unspoken serious joke. No one would talk to him at all except for his duties. And he didn’t have a lot to do because the ship was a dream, he said. She had been converted somewhere to cargo from a small fast transport, so the crew accommodations were nifty. She displaces maybe two thousand tons, twenty-four knots. Fast,” he said again. “Originally she must’ve been someone’s decommissioned D.E.—destroyer escort. Not at all like a lot of those rustbuckets in tramp service.”

  Quent toyed with his food. “It’s fairly common, isn’t it, for several conversions to be made over the life of a ship?”

  “Exigencies of trade.” Medler nodded. “Hard to say where it was done, but Pakistan has a shipbreaking industry and rerolling mills in Karachi.” He shook his head and grinned. “I think they could cobble you up a new ship from the stuff they salvage. We’ve refused to allow some old buckets into the bay; they’re rusted out so far, you step in the wrong place on deck and your foot will go right through. But not the Ras Ormara; I’d serve on her myself, if her bottom’s anything like her topside.”

  “I thought you did an, uh, inspection,” said Dana.

  “Walk-through. We didn’t do it as thoroughly as we might if we’d found anything abovedecks. She’s so clean I understand why Park became nervous. Barring the military—one of our cutters, for instance—you just don’t find that kind of sterile environment in maritime service. Not even a converted D.E.”

  “No,” Dana insisted, and made a delicate twirl with her fork. “I meant afterward.”

  Medler blinked. “If you want to talk about it, go ahead. I can’t. You know that.”

  Dana, whom I’d once thought of as a teen mascot, patted his forearm like a den mother. I didn’t know which of them I wanted more to kick under the table. “I go way back with these two, Reuben, and they’re under contract with confidentiality. But this may not be the place.”

  I was already under contract? Well, only if I were working under Quent’s license, and if he’d told her so. Still, I was getting fed up with how little I knew. “For God’s sake,” I said, “just the short form, okay?”

  “For twenty years we’ve had ways to search sea floors for aircraft flight recorders,” Dana told me. “Don’t you think the Coast Guard might have similar gadgets to look at a hull?”

  “For what?”

  “Whatever,” Medler replied, uneasy about it. “I ordered it after the Park interview. When you know how Hughes built the CIA’s Glomar Explorer, you know a ship can have a lot of purposes that aren’t obvious at the waterline. Figure it out for yourself,” he urged.

  That spook ship Hughes’s people built had been designed to be flooded and to float vertically, sticking up from the water like a fisherman’s bobbin. Even the tabloids had exploited it. I thought about secret hatches for underwater demolition teams, torpedo tubes—“Got it,” I said. “Any and every unfriendly use I can dream up. Can I ask what they found?”

  “Not a blessed thing,” said Reuben Medler. “If it weren’t for D—Agent Martin here, I’d be writing reports on why I insisted.”

  “He insisted because the Bureau did,” Dana put in. “We’ve had some vague tips about a major event, planned by nice folks with the same traditions as those who, uh, bugged Tel Aviv.”

  The Tel Aviv Bug had been anthrax. If the woman who’d smuggled it into Israel hadn’t somehow flunked basic hygiene and collapsed with a skinful of the damned bacilli, it would’ve caused more deaths than it did. “So you found nothing, but you want a follow-up with this Park guy. He’s probably catting around and will show up with a hangover when the ship’s ready to sail,” I said. “I thought crew members had to keep in touch with the charter service.”

  “They do,” said Dana. “And with a full complement of two dozen, only a few of the crew went ashore. But Park has vanished. Sonmiani claims they’ll have still another third engineer when the slurry tanks are cleaned and the new cargo’s pumped aboard.”

  “And we’d prefer they didn’t sail before we have another long talk with Park,” Medler said. “I’m told the FBI has equipment like an unobtrusive lie detector.”

  “Voice-stress analyzer,” Dana corrected. “Old hardware, new twists. But chiefly, we’re on edge because Park has dropped out of sight.”

  Quent: “But I thought he told you why.”

  “He told me why he was worried,” Medler agreed. “But he also said the Ras Ormara will be bound for Pusan with California-manufactured industrial chemicals, a nice tractable cargo, to his own homeport. He was determined to stay with it, worried or not. Of course it’s possible he simply changed his mind.”

  “But we’d like to know,” Dana said. “We want to know sufficiently that—well.” She looked past us toward the ceiling as if an idea had just occurred to her. Suuure. “Sometimes things happen. Longshoremen’s strike,—” She saw my sudden glance, and she’d always been alert to nuance. “No, we haven’t, but little unforeseen problems arise. Sonmiani is already dealing with a couple of them. Assuming they don’t have the clout to build a fire under someone at the ambassador level, there could be one or two more if we find a solid reason. Or if you do.”

  “I take it Harve and I can move overtly on this,” Quent said, “so long as we’re not connected to government.”

  Medler looked at Dana, who said, “Exactly. Low-profile, showing your private investigator’s I.D. if necessary. You’re known well enough that anyone checking on you would be satisfied you’re not us. Of course you’ve got to have a client of record, so we’re furnishing one.”

  I noticed that Quent seemed interested in something across the room, but he refocused on Dana Martin. “As licensed privateers, we aren’t required to name a client or divulge any other details of the case. Normally it would be shaving an ethical guideline.”

  “But you wouldn’t be,” Dana said. “You’d be giving up a few details of a cover story. Nothing very dramatic, just imply that our missing man is a prodigal son. Park Soon’s father in Pusan would be unlikely to know he’s put you on retainer.”

  Quent: “Because he can’t afford us?”

  Dana, with the shadow of a smile: “Because he’s been deceased for years. I’ll give you the
details on that tomorrow, Quent. Uhm, Quent?”

  But my pal, whose attention had been wandering again, was now leaning toward me with an unQuentish grin. “Harve,” he said softly, “third counter stool from the front, late twenties, blond curls, Yamaha cycle jacket. Could be packing.”

  “Several guys in here probably are,” I said.

  “But I’m not carrying certified copies of their bail bonds, and I do have one for Robert Rooney, bail jumper. That’s Bobby.”

  Dana and Medler both looked toward the counter, at me, and at Quent, but let their expressions complain.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said.

  “It’s my bleeding job,” said Quent. “Wait outside. I’ll flush him out gently, and if gentle doesn’t work, don’t let him reach into that jacket.”

  I was already standing up. “Back shortly, folks. Don’t forget my pie à la mode.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I heard Medler say as I moved toward the old-fashioned revolving door.

  “Santa Clara County Jail is on Hedding, less than a mile from here. We’ll be back before you know it,” Quent soothed, still seated, giving me time to evaporate.

  I saw the bail-jumper watching me in a window reflection, but I gave him no reason to jump. I would soon learn he was just naturally jumpy, pun intended. Can’t say it was really that long a fight, though. I pushed through the door and into the San Jose night, realizing we could jam Rooney in it if he tried to run out. And have him start shooting through heavy glass partitions, maybe; sometimes my first impulses are subject to modest criticism.

  Outside near the entrance, melding with evening shadow, I listened to the buzz and snap of Joe’s old neon sign. I could still see our quarry, and now Quent was strolling behind diners at the counter, apparently intent on watching the chef toss a blazing skilletful of mushrooms. Quent reached inside his coat; brought out a folded paper, his face innocent of stress. Then he said something to the seated Rooney.

  Rooney turned only his head, very slowly, nodded, shrugged, and let his stool swivel to face Quent. He grinned.

  It’s not easy to get leverage with only your buns against a low seat back, but Rooney managed it, lashing both feet out to Quent’s legs, his arms windmilling as he bulled past my pal. I heard a shout, then a clamor of voices as Quent staggered against a woman seated at the nearest table. I stepped farther out of sight as Bobby Rooney hurled himself against the inertia of that big revolving door.

  He used both hands, and he was sturdier than he had looked, bursting outside an arm’s length from me. Exactly an arm’s length, because without moving my feet, just as one Irishman to another I clotheslined him under the chin. He went down absolutely horizontal, his head making a nice bonk on the sidewalk, and if he’d had any brains they would’ve rattled like castanets. He didn’t even pause, bringing up both legs, then doing a gymnast’s kick so that he was suddenly on his feet in a squat, one arm flailing at me. The other hand snaked into his jacket pocket before I could close on him.

  What came out of his right-hand pocket was very small, but it had twin barrels on one end and as he leaped up, Rooney’s arm swung toward me. Meanwhile I’d taken two steps forward, and I snatched at his wrist. I caught only his sleeve, but when I heaved upward on it, his hand and the little derringer pocketgun disappeared into the sleeve. A derringer is double-barreled, the barrel’s so short its muzzle blast is considerable, and confined in that sleeve it flash-burnt his hand while muffling the sound. The slug headed skyward. Bobby Rooney headed down San Carlos Avenue, hopping along crabwise because I had held on to that sleeve long enough that when he jerked away, his elbow was caught halfway out.

  I’m not much of a distance runner, but for fifty meters I can move out at what I imagined was a brisk pace. Why Bobby didn’t just stop and fire point-blank through that sleeve I don’t know; I kept waiting for it, and one thing I never learned to do was make myself a small target. Half a block later he was still flailing his arm to dislodge the sleeve, and I was still three long steps behind, and that’s when a conservative dress suit passed me. Quentin Kim was wearing it at the time, outpacing me despite that limp. He simply spun Bobby Rooney down, standing on his jacket which pinned him down on his back at the mouth of an alley.

  I grabbed a handful of blond curls, knelt on Bobby’s right sleeve because his gun hand was still in it, and made the back of his head tap the sidewalk. “Harder every time,” I said, blowing like a whale. “How many times—before you relax?” Another tap. “Take your time. I can do this—for hours.”

  As quickly as Bobby Rooney had decided to fight, he reconsidered, his whole body going limp, eyes closed.

  “Get that little shooter—out of his sleeve,” I said to Quent, who wasn’t even winded but rubbed his upper thigh, muttering to himself.

  Quent took the derringer, flicked his key-ring Maglite, then brought that wrinkled paper out of his inside coat pocket and shook it open. “Robert Rooney,” he intoned.

  Still holding on to Rooney’s hair, I gazed up. “What the hell? Is this some kind of new Miranda bullshit, Quent?”

  “No, it’s not required. It’s just something I do that clarifies a relationship.”

  “Relationship? This isn’t a relationship, this is a war.”

  “Not mutually exclusive. You’ve never been married, have you,” Quent said. He began again: “Robert Rooney, acting as agent for the hereafter-named person putting up bail …”

  I squatted there until Quent had finished explaining that Rooney was, by God, the property of the bondsman named and could be pursued even into his own toilet without a warrant, and that his physical condition upon delivery to the appropriate county jail depended entirely on his temperament. When Quent was done I said, “He may not even hear you.”

  “He probably does, but it doesn’t matter. I hear me,” Quent said mildly. A bounty hunter with liberal scruples was one for the books, but I guess Quent wrote his own book.

  “How far is your car?”

  “Two blocks. Here,” Quent said, and handed me the derringer with one unfired chamber. I knew what he said next was for Rooney’s ears more than mine. “You can shoot him, just try not to kill him right away. That’s only if he tries to run again.”

  “If he does,” I said, “I’ll still have his scalp for an elephant’s merkin.”

  Quent laughed as he hurried away, not even limping. “Now there’s an image I won’t visit twice,” he said.

  Twenty minutes later we returned from the county lockup with a receipt, and to this day I don’t know what Bobby Rooney’s voice sounds like. The reason why those kicks hadn’t ruined Quent’s legs were that, under his suit pants, my pal wore soccer pro FlexArmor over his knees and shins for bounty hunting. He’d suggested Original Joe’s to Dana because, among other good reasons, Rooney’s ex-girlfriend claimed he hung out there a lot. Since Rooney was dumb as an ax handle, Quent figured the chances of a connection were good. He could combine business with pleasure, and show a pair of Feds how efficient we were. Matter of fact, I was so efficient I wound up with a derringer in my pocket. Fortunes of war, not that I was going to brag about it to the Feds.

  Dana and Reuben Medler were still holding down the booth when we returned, Medler half-resigned, half-amused. Dana was neither. “I hope your victim got away,” she said. If she’d been a cat, her fur would’ve been standing on end.

  Quent flashed our receipt for Rooney’s delivery and eased into the booth. “A simple commercial transaction, Agent Martin,” he said, ignoring her hostility. “My apologies.”

  She wasn’t quite satisfied. “Can I expect this to happen again?”

  “Not tonight,” Quent said equably.

  It must’ve been that smile of his that disarmed her because Dana subsided over coffee and dessert. When it became clear that Quent would take the San Francisco side—it has a sizable Korean population—while I worked the Oakland side of the bay, Reuben Medler told me where I’d find the Ras Ormara, moored on the edge of Richmond near a
gaggle of chemical production facilities.

  Eventually Dana handed Quent a list of the crew with temporary addresses for the few who went ashore. “Sonmiani’s California rep keeps tabs on their crews,” she explained. “I got this from Customs.”

  Medler put in, “Customs has a standard excuse for wanting the documentation; cargo manifest, tonnage certificate, stowage plan, and other records.”

  “But not you,” I said to Dana.

  She shook her head. “Even if we did, the Bureau wouldn’t step forward to Sonmiani. We leave that to you, although Sonmiani’s man in Oakland, ah, Norman Goldman by name, has a clean sheet and appears to be clean. We feel direct contacts of that sort should be made as—what did you call it, Quentin? A simple commercial transaction. Civilians like to talk. If Goldman happened to mention us to the wrong person, the ship’s captain for example, someone might abort whatever they’re up to. If they see you rooting around, they’ll assume it’s just part of a routine private investigation.”

  Maybe I was still pissed that our teen mascot had become our boss. “Implying sloth and incompetence,” I murmured.

  “You said it, not I,” she replied sweetly. “At least Mr. Goldman seems well enough educated that he would never mistake you for an agent.”

  “You’ve run a check on him, then,” said Quent.

  “Of course. Majored in business at Michigan, early promotion, young man on the way up. And I suspect Sonmiani’s Islamic crew members will watch their steps around a bright Jewish guy,” she added, looking over the check.

  Quent drained his teacup. “We’ll try to keep it simple; Park Soon could show up tomorrow. Then we’ll see whether we need to talk with this Goldman. Is that suitable?”

  Quent asked with genuine deference, and Dana paused before she nodded. It struck me then that Quent was making a point of showing obedience to his boss. And his quick glance at me suggested that I might try it sometime.