“I didn’t think it would be like this,” Robin said, breaking the dark silence.
He could picture her, lying on her back, staring up, just like him, waiting. “I was just thinking the same thing,” he said.
He could hear her sigh. Ten minutes passed. “What did he tell you?”
“You’ll see him tonight,” Mark said.
“That’s not what I asked. What did he tell you?”
“I’ll let him tell you.”
“Oh shit, Mark,” she said, and the way she said it—another sigh floating in among the words—he could tell she had closed her eyes. “What has he gotten you into?”
He didn’t answer and she didn’t ask again.
***
With a gasp he awoke and jumped out of the bed, his hair brushing against the metal frame of the upper bunk. He had no sense of time, no idea how long he had been asleep. Ten minutes? A couple hours? Damn it, he couldn’t tell. He held an arm out in front and crossed the cabin, feeling for the door. In the darkness he could hear Robin’s steady, even, deep-sleep breathing. He opened the door, slipped out and closed it behind him. The hallway was brightly lit and empty. Barefoot, he ran to the bathroom to check the time, the alarm bypass equipment in the cargo pocket of his shorts bouncing against his thigh. He bumped open the door and looked at the clock.
Two twenty-five.
Shit.
He turned and raced down the hallway toward the open bulkhead door. He had planned on easing his way to the fantail deck, staying in the shadows, disabling the alarm and opening the door on time, avoiding the pirate crew and safeguarding the element of surprise. That plan was gone. He sprinted past the closed doors of the passenger cabins, out into the passageway and down the steep stairway, jumping the last three steps of each short flight.
A minute late, two minutes, that could be expected, anticipated. The Gulf had taught him that. But that was it. Five minutes late and you put a mission at risk. Ten minutes late and it was seriously screwed up.
Anything more than that and you were fucked.
Mark tore down the flights, his hand reaching ahead, grabbing a support pole and spinning as he made each tight turn. He was eight flights down when he saw the crewman in the passageway. He was young, tall and athletic, his eyes bright against his dark Indian features. He held up a hand as if hailing a cab as Mark came down the stairs.
“Excuse me, no passengers allowed—” the man managed to say before Mark swung an elbow up and under the man’s jaw. Blood sprayed from the man’s mouth as he staggered back against the bulkhead and then, with Mark already starting down the last set of stairs, falling face-first onto the floor.
The fantail deck was darker than the others, but there was still enough light for him to see what needed to be done. He dug the plastic-cased meter out of his pocket, snapped the rubber band and unfurled the wires. The bulkhead door that led out to the landing was bigger than he had expected, twice as wide as the other doors he had seen. There was no porthole in the door, just a double-handled lever in the center that was pulled far to the right, swinging the bolts up and wedging them in place. A black rubber seal was squeezed tight around the edge. He was running a hand along the doorframe, tracing the alarm wires from the trip-box above the door, when he saw the lock. With the door secured, two flat bars slid one on top of the other, the thick rounded shackle of a padlock passing through a pair of aligned holes. He looked at it for a second, then tossed the meter onto the floor and hurried back to the coiled fire hose by the stairs.
Shawn had warned him that if he opened the door without the bypass in place he’d alert the bridge. They’d be on him in five minutes; probably less. Much less. That wouldn’t make a difference now. Once he started he’d be lucky to have two minutes. He yanked the long-handled fire ax from its brackets and turned back to the door. The lock was waist high and he came in at it on a run, stepping into the swing, shifting his weight, grunting as the ax clanged against the lock and the door.
Nothing.
He stepped back and hefted the ax to his shoulder, swinging, angling each blow down on the lock. His ears rang as metal bit into metal, and through the din he could hear shouts coming from the decks above. The shackle bent away from the lock and the last blow knocked it free. He dropped the ax and threw his weight onto the lever. The bars shifted and with a dull thump the bolts pulled back. The shouts were getting louder now, more urgent. He braced a foot on the doorframe and pulled. A bell alarm sounded and red lights blinked down the passageway. Mark turned and leaned his shoulder into the door, forcing it all the way open. A block of light spilled out the door and onto the open grating of the narrow platform, five feet above the waterline. On either side of the fantail deck, couch-sized yellow drums held depth-activated life rafts and a pair of orange life preserver rings hung on the railing. Beyond the railing the churning white wake rolled out of the square of light and into the black, empty night.
Twenty-five minutes late. Seriously fucked up.
He stepped out onto the platform. His shadow stretched behind the ship, bouncing on the foamy, rabid sea. Below him, the white noise of the wake drowned out the sound of the alarm bell and the shouts from inside. There were no ropes dangling down from the upper decks, and there was no way he was going overboard on his own.
He could go back in, grab the ax and make a stand, take a couple of them out before they overpowered him or shot him. He could see it coming anyway. But then they’d head upstairs and take their revenge on Robin and Pim, the old man and the boy. It was better out here. Not for him, shit no, but maybe for them. He leaned on the railing and looked out into the black night, surprised at how calm he felt. He didn’t even jump when the hand reached up and grabbed his wrist.
“You’re fucking late, you worthless fucking asshole,” Shawn spit out, pulling himself over the railing. “Now get the fuck out of the way.”
Mark started to say something but Shawn shoved past, pausing at the door, pointing the barrel of his Chinese-made assault rifle into the passageway before jumping through. Mark stepped to the side as dark shapes swarmed out from under the platform, tying off their black inflatable rafts and scurrying over and under the railings like a pack of wet rats. They were Thai and Chinese, in tee shirts and nylon shorts, a few in sandals but most barefoot, and all of them shouting now. There were no uniforms, no badges, no two guns alike. He saw several with machetes, the wooden handles wrapped in duct tape. Twenty, thirty men? They were pushing past him so fast he couldn’t tell. Andy Cooper, a cigarette clenched between his teeth, swung a leg over the railing. He smiled at Mark, a wolfish, dirty smile, then pushed his way through the door. From inside the ship Mark heard the rapid reports of machine gun fire and the booms of shotgun blasts and screams that came from deep in the ship. The last shape climbed from the rafts and twisted between the railing—a kid gripping a rusty tire iron.
Twenty seconds after getting the door open they were all aboard, working their way through the ship, and twenty seconds after getting the door open, Mark knew the truth.
He rushed back through the door but already knew it was too late. The smell of cordite hung in the air, and the sound of gunfire, sharp and metallic, echoed down the passageways. He had to get back to the cabins, warn Robin and Pim. He reached for the ax but it was gone, then started back up the stairs. One flight up the man Mark knocked cold with an elbow to the chin still lay face down in the passageway, but now there were three bloody holes in the small of his back, his white tee shirt scorched by the point-blank blasts.
Had he been that stupid? Had he been so desperate to be doing something meaningful that he had fallen for it so easily? Shawn had sold it all the way. If he had been gung-ho and macho, Mark was sure he would have seen through it. But Shawn had played it right, ripping the organization he was pretending to lead with the same kind of complaints Mark had heard from battalion commanders in the C
orps, that same self-mocking tone that separated the pretenders from those who’ve been there. But Shawn had been lying from the start and he’d bought every bit of it, wanting it to be true. It’s a pirate ship, Shawn had said, and Mark knew that now, thanks to him, it was.
Four flights up he found the next body, the big Australian with the squinty eyes and full beard who had caught him sneaking around earlier that evening. His eyes were wide now, wider than the bullet hole in his forehead. In his right hand he still gripped a pipe wrench, the claw end thick with blood. He ran past the body, up the last few flights and out to the passenger cabins. The gunshots had died down, so had the screams, but he could hear a lot of excited shouting and crashing sounds as the pirates claimed their prize. He leapt over the body of one of the Indian passengers that lay sprawled across the floor, ran down the hallway and flung open the door to Pim’s cabin.
The room was empty. One of the bunk beds was toppled over and bed sheets and blankets were tossed on the floor. Across the hall, Robin was gone too, but their cabin seemed undisturbed. He checked the communal bathroom but it was empty, and then headed for the stairs that Mr. Singh led them up when they had first come aboard. Voices drifted up the stairs and, mixed in with the high-pitched Thai and revved up Chinese, Mark could hear Andy’s fuck-laced commands.
“You go, you go,” a voice shouted behind him, and Mark turned to see a pair of scrawny Thais running down the hall at him, each waving a bloody machete. He continued down the stairs, staying ahead of the blades. At the foot of the stairs he followed the voices through a bulkhead door and out onto a deck the size and shape of a tennis court, a string of floodlights illuminating the center. The confusion made it appear crowded, the pirates running out of the shadows, shoving crewmembers and passengers from one group to another, telling them to sit, then making them stand only to knock them back down again. He saw Mr. Singh, his Miami Heat tee shirt held tight against the stump where the fingers of his left hand had been, and he saw the captain, face bloodied, sitting cross-legged on the deck, a nervous gunman behind him with a vintage M16. Pim and her grandfather stood off near the shadows, Pim with her arms to her sides, eyes straight ahead; the old man, arms waving, yelling at the pirates as they went by, his tone defiant and parental. The boy was nowhere to be seen. A pistol popped twice and Mark saw a crewmember drop, the others cowering back as the shooter, arm straight out, pistol held sideways like some street-wise action hero, waited for the next person to try something stupid. Mark felt the flat of the machete blade slap his back, and he stumbled forward into the light and onto his knees.
“Well, look who decided to show up.”
Mark raised his head. Shawn was dressed in the same tee shirt and shorts he had worn that first night in Koh Lanta, the wooden stock of the assault rifle balanced on his hip. Mark moved to stand, but Shawn held out his hand and shook his head. “Take a seat, Mark. You’ve had a busy night. Relax for a while. Just try not to fall asleep on us.”
Mark continued to stand, then went down hard when a rifle butt clipped the back of his head. “Right. He said down,” Andy said, aiming a kick at Mark’s groin but hitting his thigh instead.
Mark didn’t move. Eyes closed, he fought to clear his head, to calm his breathing. Around him the shouting continued but there was less of it. A crewman moaned and somewhere behind him one of the pirates was laughing. After a minute he leaned up to a sitting position. They were all sitting now—the real crew and the passengers—with a half dozen pirates standing guard. He could hear the other pirates in distant parts of the ship, looking for stragglers. He looked across the deck and tried to make eye contact with Pim, but she sat with her head bowed, her grandfather at her side, ramrod straight, eyes glaring at Shawn, who roamed the deck, a cell phone to his ear. Shawn said a few things Mark couldn’t hear and snapped the phone closed. He walked over and squatted down far enough to keep Mark from trying anything.
“It seems I owe you a bit of an apology. You’re not a worthless fucking asshole after all. In fact, if it wasn’t for you, we would have never pulled this off, right Andy?”
Andy came and stood next to Shawn. “Fuckin’ Man of the Match.”
“They heard you coming,” Mark said. “The door alarm went off and then they heard the shots. They would have radioed for help.”
“Yeah, you’d think,” Shawn said, shrugging. “But just so happens we had a frequency jammer with us out there, all alone, waiting in the dark. And, gee, right at two a.m. their radio went dead. By the time they figured out that it wasn’t working the party had already started. No, Mark, nobody knows we’re here.”
Mark kept his eyes on Shawn. “Where’s Robin?”
Shawn smiled. “Oh, you’re gonna like this.” He stood and shouted over his shoulder. “Hey sis, come here a second.”
A trio of grinning pirates stepped aside and Robin walked out from the shadows and into the lighted area. She was wearing the khakis and polo shirt she had worn as she lay on the bunk, her hair loose around her shoulders; and as she walked closer Mark saw a coldness in her eyes she had not shown before. She didn’t smile, she didn’t say anything, she just walked over and put an arm around Shawn’s waist. Shawn shifted the assault rifle, held it by the wooden pistol grip, put his free hand on Robin’s back, pulled her in and kissed her hard on the mouth, his hand sliding down her back, ending the kiss with a sharp slap on her ass.
“I can’t believe you fell for the sister story,” Shawn said, draping his arm across Robin’s shoulder. Mark felt the blood color his cheeks but said nothing. Robin looked away and with both hands pulled her hair behind her head.
“I don’t know about you, Mark, but I’m impressed. Not with you, with her. I mean, track some missing boyfriend across town, that’s one thing. But halfway around the world?” Shawn hugged Robin to his side while she continued to fuss with her hair. “I must be something special.” He looked down at her and smiled; she looked back and didn’t.
“I’ve got to pee,” she said and turned and walked across the deck and through the open bulkhead door.
Two of the pirates started shouting, crossing the deck as Pim’s grandfather stood up and stepped through the huddle of passengers, Pim jumping up behind him, trying to pull him back. The old man brushed her off and she stumbled backwards over one of the Indian passengers. Head high, he strode toward Shawn. The pirates shoved the old man and he stepped back but didn’t fall, coming forward again.
“Oops. Busted,” Shawn said, winking at Mark as he motioned to the guards to let the man pass.
Kiao pushed past the grinning guards and walked up to Shawn. With a finger in Shawn’s face, the old man started yelling. It was all in Thai, high-pitched and rapid-fire and harsh, but there was no mistaking what he was saying. Pim fought her way past the guards and ran to his side, pulling on his arm and begging him to come away. She yanked on his arm but the old man did not budge, standing taller than Mark had remembered, his words sharp and his eyes filled with hate.
“You got any fucking clue what the coot’s saying?” Shawn said, laughing at Mark.
Mark shifted his weight and got ready to move. “He’s an old man. He’s all she’s got. Let it go, Shawn.”
“In-laws,” Shawn said and laughed, and swung the barrel of the assault rifle up and under the old man’s chin, firing a quick burst that tore off the top of his head.
Mark lunged forward just as Andy brought the butt of the rifle down. The blow was as loud as a shot and Mark dropped hard onto the deck, blood soaking his hair and running into his eyes. He could hear Pim screaming, clear at first, then falling away into the blackness that swallowed him.
Chapter Twenty eight
“Those men with the guns? They’re pirates. You know what pirates are, don’t you?”
Ngern nodded. “Yes,” he said and the man smiled at him. He had a narrow, squished face and he talked funny and his leg bent way out ev
en when he tried to sit, but the man had saved his life and the boy sensed he could trust him.
He had woken up late at night and gone to use the bathroom. The lights were so bright and the air conditioning so cold that he didn’t feel sleepy afterward. His aunt had said they were far out on the ocean and he had wanted to see. Their room didn’t have a window but he remembered seeing many windows in the first hallway they had walked down, the one where he had seen the man his great-grandfather had said was the captain. He went down the stairs and found the windows, but he couldn’t see the ocean because of all the lights on the deck. He had decided to see if there were more windows farther below and he had gone down many stairs when the shooting started.
He had ducked into a corner as the crew ran by. They seemed very scared and this made Ngern scared, too. The shooting became louder and he had crawled under a row of pipes to hide. He watched as the men ran by—they looked like beggars he had seen in Phuket, dirty and wild-eyed. They raced past and didn’t see him, but he knew it was not a good hiding spot and they would see him next time. He could hear more men coming down the stairs right above where he hid; and he was squeezing in tighter when the small metal door behind him opened up and a hand pulled him into the dark space, closing the door behind him. There was just enough light to see the man’s face. The man held a finger up to his lips and Ngern nodded, showing he understood. He led Ngern down the passage, crawling on his hands and knees, his twisted leg bumping against the pipes. In the hallway the shooting had stopped but now he could hear people yelling. They crawled a bit further and then the space got wider and taller and there was a small light bulb hanging from a cord. Between the pipes he could see a big room all lit up, filled with more pipes and big motors. There were walkways in the room, and a table, but he didn’t see any men there.
Noble Lies Page 20
