PULAU MATI

by John L. Evans

  “That’s good. The nut’s self locking.”

  As soon as Dayah’s arm was out, Gray pulled out the panel, dropped it and dipped both hands in the water sloshing in the boat’s bottom. Already the water was receding.

  Gray knelt by Dayah and took her hand in his. “Dayah, we all owe you our lives. And this is not the first time you have come to our rescue. I hope there comes a way we can all repay you.”

  “You crazy. We all saved everyone. All help everyone. I try pay back.”

  “You have paid your share and more, Dayah.”

  “Okay. Stop now.”

  They left the cover off of the engine compartment and checked the plug regularly as well as the other repairs.

  Melanie sat alone in the stern where the least buffeting occurred but she still looked miserable. Anna had been supporting her until needed for help with the repair. Her eyes were closed and her head flopped one way and then the other with every bump. Gray went back and sat by her.

  “Twenty more minutes and we’re off this thing,” he said after wrapping his arms around her and holding her head against his chest.

  “Are we going back to the island of death?”

  “We are. The boat chasing us is flying the flag of Abu Sayyaf, the people the co-pilot said was behind the hijacking of our flight.”

  “Could they be trying to rescue us?”

  “No, Melanie!” Gray said with more force than he intended. “They came after us before we hit the mine.”

  The young woman flinched. “Sorry. I’m not questioning…”

  “It’s alright. I think it is in your nature to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Do you think the mines were theirs?”

  “I’m assuming the mines were laid by the people on that yacht to protect the island where the flight we were on was supposed to land. They have to kill us to keep word of the island from getting out.”

  “God, I’m going to die on one of these damned islands. It’s not any worse than anywhere else but I just wasn’t ready yet.”

  “I’m glad to hear you are not ready yet. It means you are no longer suicidal.”

  “I will be if this pain gets worse.”

  “I brought the IBs. You want a big dose?”

  “I might as well.”

  “Don’t give up hope. We will not be at a big disadvantage on the island. And I think I can speak for all of us, those zealots may have religious fervor on their side but we are getting really pissed off and I have a plan.”

  Anna took over holding her while Gray dug out the painkiller. He brought back a double dose of ibuprofen and a bottle of water. Before he left he said, “Melanie, we are going to move fast when we get to the island. Do you want us to leave you in the jungle or the hut?”

  “The hut. Leave me a rifle. I know how to shoot.”

  “We have a good one for you. If you stay in the hut you will have to hide under blankets until you hear mines go off or shooting starts. Will you agree to that?”

  “Yes. Hiding under blankets sounds awfully good right now.”

  Gray went to Shinobu and told him his plan. The old man growled, “Tell me my part and I will do it.”

  Gray went to each of his companions and told them the plan and their part. The only variables depended upon how far ahead of the yacht they were when the motorboat reached the dock.

  The yacht was perhaps three miles behind when the mouth of the bay appeared a mile ahead. It looked like they were going to beat the yacht by enough margin for their plan to work if nothing slowed them down.

  The concussion of an explosion pounded the hull of the boat as a geyser of water shot into the air behind them. Gray put the glasses on the yacht and tried to move with the bounces enough to see what was causing the explosions. Steady puffs of smoke were flying back from a gun mounted ahead of the bridge.

  “Shinobu! Turn into the bay as soon as possible! They’re firing a cannon at us.”

  Gray guessed it was a small caliber cannon and very close to its effective range but the yacht was getting closer and if they elevated the gun perfectly it could reach them.

  A geyser went up only feet from the port side and shrapnel rattled against the hull but it had traveled through too much water to penetrate. Gray felt the boat turn and now they were almost abeam the yacht making it a deflection shot for the gunner and very difficult. The geysers of water fell behind, never coming any closer than the one that rattled the hull and then the motorboat passed the north point of the bay cutting off sight of the yacht.

  Shinobu ran the boat aground at the end of the dock to prevent it from filling with water should they need it again. Anna grabbed her rifle and the one Gray had allocated for Melanie and two bandoliers of clips. She helped Melanie to the hut and made her comfortable on a pallet of blankets against the right front wall. She stacked two cots beside Melanie that partially covered her from view if someone came into the hut expecting it to be empty.

  Shinobu, Dayah and Keegan grabbed weapons, Claymore mines, clackers and a spool of wire from the hut and raced for the trail. Gray had told them to set up a mine fifty yards down from the bend in the trail where they had shot the two pirates and another mine twenty five yards before the bend. The spacing allowed for the spreading out of pursuers on the trail. After detonation they were to open fire at will. If they were outnumbered, they were to go to the cave. Otherwise they were to mop up and work their way back to the edge of the clearing. Shinobu was carrying one of the two way radios taken from the pirates. Gray carried the other and said both radios were to be shut off when and if the Abu Sayyaf men started ashore, and kept off until the ambush was sprung. Before leaving the dock, Dayah had asked what if these men did not start up the trail.

  Gray guessed why she was asking and he said, “Yes you can bait them. But please be conservative. Don’t put your life at risk unnecessarily.”

  “Huh, those men risking life… unnecessarily,” she had said, sounding angry.

  Gray gave Melanie some last minute instructions. She was not to initiate a fire fight. They wanted the men that came ashore to go up the trail to the ambush. Anna and Gray would remain at the clearing in case all those that came ashore did not go up the trail.

  Gray set up a mine near the pool facing into the clearing and covering a triangle that included the dock. Anna ran the wire to the cover where they had waited in ambush for Bossman.

  The yacht had already anchored close to the same spot the pirate ship had sat for six days. Using the powerful binoculars from the ship, Gray watched the yacht from cover. If they sent men ashore in a launch, he wanted to know how many men remained aboard the yacht. However, so much of the deck was enclosed and the open end faced north that learning what he wanted to know was not going to be possible. The men on the yacht lowered a motorboat off the stern that looked capable of carrying a dozen or more men. Gray could not get a count before the boat pulled away but he did see one man in a short sleeve white shirt standing on the deck when the boat left. When the boat was clear of the yacht, Gray counted nine men aboard it. These men displayed more military discipline and uniformity than the pirates. Historically the Abu Sayyaf has been a ragtag band of rebels so these men may be a select group and their dark grey shirts may be borrowed military issue. Some of the men carried grenade launchers mounted beneath their M-16s but all the rifles were muzzle up beside each man, four on each side of the boat. A man with the bearing of a leader and wearing aviator style sun glasses and a crème colored kufi stood in the prow of the boat.

  Gray radioed Shinobu that nine men were coming ashore and to turn off the radio.

  The motorboat slid alongside the dock and two men jumped out and secured both ends of the craft. The man wearing the sun glasses and kufi stepped onto the dock and started for the clearing. He was an older man, grey hair showing through the open weave of the kufi.

  Dayah, unarmed and carrying a bag over her shoulder walked off the trail and into the clearing. She shrieked and took off at a
run back up the trail. Before Gray could react, the first two men with rifles that had cleared the dock raised them and fired at the fleeing woman. Gray almost moaned aloud. He considered detonating the Claymore and then opening fire but if Dayah was hit, the damage was already done. It occurred to him that Melanie had not opened fire. Good judgment or she had waited for him and Anna to start firing first. Either way, good girl.

  The leader motioned and seven men took off at a jog toward the trail. If Dayah was not hit, they would never catch her at that pace. The men disappeared up the trail. There were no immediate shots fired and none of the men returned so he had hope Dayah was not hit.

  Gray estimated two to three minutes for the men to cover the 400 yards to the ambush. He regretted giving Melanie a choice of the hut or the jungle. If the two men discovered her they might call back the other seven or she might shoot them if discovered and the shots would bring the other seven back. The leader tilted his head toward the hut and started walking in that direction. The man went to the shade of the porch and sat on its edge and the other man joined him. Gray relaxed a bit and gave the yacht a quick scan with the binoculars. One man wearing a robe that looked gold colored in the slanted sunlight stood on the flying bridge scanning the island with binoculars. That made at least two men remaining on the yacht.

  The two men sitting on the edge of the porch were almost on a line between Gray and Anna’s position and Melanie which meant he and Anna would have to hold fire when the mines went off. The men would certainly move when the mines did go off and the firing started on the trail. Gray hand signaled Anna of the danger to Melanie and she nodded that she understood. He signaled her to shoot whoever was on her side. She acknowledged that with a single bob of the head.

  Gray was thinking that Melanie was watching the men through the thatched material of the wall and waiting with a sweaty finger on the trigger. He hoped she remembered where he and Anna were hiding. He was easing below the embankment for better cover when the island shook.

  The men jumped off the porch and stepped far enough away from the hut to see the cloud of smoke and debris rising above the jungle and into the blue sky. Melanie rose above the wall of the hut and brought her rifle to bear on the men as Gray and Anna raised their rifles. The leader was bringing a radio to his mouth. A rapid staccato of shots followed and both men crumpled to the ground. Gray glanced back at the yacht, hoping the men were in a blind spot for anyone aboard it. The pops of rifle shots were coming from the trail. They were too few and evenly paced to be a firefight. Melanie’s head was still above the wall of the hut. Gray moved out of the foliage far enough to give her a thumbs up and motion her to duck down. She returned the thumbs up and her head disappeared.

  To Anna he said, “Stay here with the clacker. Use it if you need it but lay flat behind this ridge, we are close to one side of the mine’s coverage. I’m going up the trail to see if there is any sign that Dayah was wounded.” He worked through the foliage to the pool and then across the clearing to the south side of the hut. He told Melanie that Anna was still along the embankment and he was going to go up the trail as soon as he checked on the two men off the corner of the porch. He also told her she had used good judgment by holding fire when the men had shot at Dayah. When he had gone behind the hut and to the other side, an angry voice was coming over a radio on the body of one of the men. He verified that the palms and jungle at the shore blocked the view from the yacht and he scurried out and removed the radio from the leader. He held the talk button down like someone was trying to send a message. After verifying the radio was on a different frequency than his, he turned it off and turned on his own radio.

  “Shinobu, how goes it?” There was no response. He moved into the jungle behind the hut and worked over toward the trail. At a spot in cover where he could see a hundred yards up the trail, he waited. Shinobu may have forgotten to turn on his radio or he had intentionally left it off so it did not give him away if some of the Abu Sayyaf men were still alive. The firing up the trail had stopped minutes ago. He waited with the radio on but ready to turn it off if he saw or heard someone coming down the trail.

  The radio beeped. “How many came up trail?” Shinobu asked, speaking in a whisper.”

  “Seven. Is Dayah hurt? Is anyone hurt?” Gray asked quietly but as distinctly as possible.

  “No one is hurt. We have six bodies. I am shutting off the radio.”

  Gray also turned off his radio and choked back a sob of relief that the young Malay was okay. He moved into the thickest cover he could find, verified a round in the chamber, clicked off the safety of his rifle and listened and waited. He was confident Anna would stay put for a long time and believed Melanie would also stay hunkered down. The lone Abu Sayyaf man was the one who had to move so he was the vulnerable one. Gray and his companions just had to be patient, wait and listen.

  The crunch of a footstep came from somewhere behind and to his left, between him and somewhere west of the hut, and very close. He nearly gasped from the shiver that shot through him. Was he covered adequately from that direction? He had not thought about needing cover from that direction.

  Another crunch came, still very close but now closer to the clearing. The man was probably focused on the clearing and Gray could risk a slow turn. He pulled enough weight off his right foot to turn it 45 degrees. He did the same with his left foot and slowly allowed his body to turn amongst the leaves of his cover without as much as a rustle. Twice more he repeated the process until he had turned 135 degrees. His breathing was elevated and his heart thumped so hard it seemed anyone within 50 feet could hear it in the quiet of the jungle. The only sounds besides his breathing were far off, the occasional bird and the whisper of the surf. Nothing came from the hut or the embankment, or from the edge of the clearing where he had last heard the crunch. Whoever was out there understood the value of silence and lack of motion. But the man wanted to reach the motorboat and was forced to move. By now he had probably spotted the two dead men lying by the hut and deduced there was an enemy somewhere out there waiting.

  Gray hoped Dayah, Shinobu and Keegan maintained their positions. He believed they would and if they did not they would come through the jungle slowly and with caution so at least there was time to wait out this guy. He could be patient.

  Gray saw a texture and color that was not quite right for the jungle, a tiny fragment of grey shirt between the leaves, no more than 30 feet away. But where on the body was that fragment located? He let his eyes slide up and down and left and right from the spot. There was movement. The grey spot disappeared. He could not fire haphazardly in the general direction because the hut lay on the other side. He thought of his light complexion and the whites of his eyes, seen easily by the man if he were to turn.

  The side of a face and then an ear moved into an opening in the foliage. Slowly Gray raised the rifle, careful not to snag a branch or leaf. Bringing the rifle up shifted enough weight to change the pressure under his left foot. Something made a tiny pop beneath his shoe. The face turned quickly but by then Gray’s rifle was up and he pulled the trigger. The man probably saw the muzzle flash if the message traveled from his eyes to his brain and it registered before he died. There was enough blood and brain splattered on the foliage to assure Gray the man was dead. Despite that, he crawled forward enough to see the man clearly. He was lying face down. The high velocity bullet had entered somewhere in the face and tumbled or expanded and blown out a chunk of the skull above and behind the left ear. He turned on the radio and asked, “Shinobu, are you there?”

  “I heard a shot from the clearing and took the chance of turning on the radio.”

  “The seventh is accounted for, plus two more that stayed at the clearing. Come down the trail but when you get close to the clearing cut through the jungle and meet to the south of the hut. I don’t want whoever is on the yacht to see us.”

  Gray worked back to the side of the hut. “Melanie, every man who came ashore is dead. Just stay there and rest. Do you n
eed anything?”

  “I’m good. Thanks, Gray.”

  “You did a good job. Now we are going to see if we can capture our second ship.” He went behind the hut and then to the Claymore. He deactivated it and signaled for Anna to join him. The sun had dropped to the top of the saddle.

  In a few minutes, Shinobu, Dayah and Keegan came out of the jungle and joined Anna and Gray.

  When they were all close but Melanie, Gray said, “The moon has been coming up later every night. And it is very dark until it comes up. I think tonight we have an hour of only starlight before it comes up. I’m thinking we set the leader upright in the boat and his second at the helm. Fake bind my hands and feet and someone hunched out of sight below the helm steer the motorboat out to the yacht. When we are close I shoot whoever is there to greet us.”

  “They will have a search light on the flying bridge,” Shinobu said. “I am not sure a dead man at the helm will pass inspection.”

  “There’s a current out there. What if weh went around east of the yacht with the pirate boat and drifted en as the other boat approaches?” Keegan asked.

  “I cannot imagine that whoever is on board cannot recognize the difference between the engine notes of the two boats. If they did not turn the searchlight on you and shoot you out of the water with the cannon there would still be the critical timing aspect, knowing where to cut the engine so the current takes the boat to where you want to go.”

  Shinobu said, “I have an idea.” He went behind the hut and around to the two dead men. He removed the leader’s pistol belt, shirt and kufi and donned all of them and came back around to the others.

  “I only saw him wearing sunglasses,” Anna said. “But I think his cheeks were fuller and his neck heavier. And I’m sorry to say Shinobu, the blotches on your face will show up under a strong light.”