The Orpheus Deception

by David Stone

  12

  The Celebes Sea

  Vigo Majiic, sweat-drenched, reeking of oil and bilgewater, weary beyond belief but unable to sleep with the clamor of the rebuild clanging through the hull, staggered up the gangway and found Emil Tarc out on the open deck beside the gutted bridge of the Mingo Dubai. Dawn was hours away, and the heat under the spreading camouflage tarp was brutal, steamy and close and dense with the stink of paint and welding smoke. Tarc was adding to the choking reek with a foul Russian cigarette and watching the small, wiry brown-skinned workers swarming over the floodlit main deck, painting and polishing and scrubbing. Up at the bow, a crew of welders was replacing one of the hatch covers, and the little knot of men was silhouetted in the blue-white flare of a welder’s torch. To Tarc’s left, a crew of naked, navy-paint-streaked workers was standing on a suspended platform, slathering primer on the side of the hull. Inside the bridge, a team of marine technicians, flown into Sulawesi in a private Lear with the portholes covered and destination unknown, was repairing and replacingthe ship’s antique electronics and updating the steering hardware.

  By Tarc’s own calculations, rebuilding the Mingo Dubai was costing Branco Gospic around six million euros—and that wasn’t covering the cost of bribes to Bittagar Chulalong, the gotch-eyed old villain who was the head of the local chapter of the Babi Rusa Brigade. Tarc turned as Majiic came to the railing, wiping his gaunt face with an oily rag.

  “Vigo, you look like goat shit.”

  “Thank you, Emil. I feel like goat shit. The heat . . . I cannot believe the fucking heat.”

  “It’s not your watch. Go below.”

  “But who can sleep with all . . . this . . . going on.”

  “Do what I do. Sleep onshore. There are girls in the village, pretty ones. I have three.”

  Majiic had gone across to the squalid cantonment of tin huts and prehistoric latrines and wandering livestock that the locals called a village—the young men there had all been forcibly conscripted into the ranks of the Babi Rusa Brigade, and the remaining villagers— leathery old men and women with pinched, hate-filled faces; feral, naked brats, rolling in the muck and the reek; sullen young girls with flat-black eyes—they had not seemed to burn with sexual fire for a scraggy little Serbo-Croatian in dire need of a serious scrubbing. Majiic had once entertained the fantasy of a tropical isle of swaying palms and curling surf and naked Polynesian beauties with laughing eyes and inviting arms. The reality was this stinking atoll and the dwarfish gremlins of this godforsaken island. Majiic had not stayed long enough to exhale twice and was spending all his spare time in the locked steel-walled cabin that had once belonged to Captain Wang. Wang was now lying in three thousand feet of ocean at the outlet of the Strait of Malacca, his skull peeled open like a green banana by three rounds from the Tokarev pistol currently strapped to Emil Tarc’s leg, his body sewed into a canvas duffel bag, along with an ancient Remington typewriter to keep him down. Majiic had no interest at all in risking his manly bits—or his health—in a dubious encounter with one of the village girls.

  “And what do the old men of the village say?”

  Tarc showed his teeth, his leathery skin cracking. Beads of sweat glittered on his unshaven cheeks and his black goatee glistened. The side of his face, lit up by the glare of the welder’s torch, looked like pitted sheet metal. He smacked the pistol strapped to his combat pants.

  “Bugger the old men of the village.”

  “Really? How do you find the time?”

  Tarc’s ratlike face contorted in wary puzzlement and then brightened, as he realized that this sullen young pessimist had actually made a joke.

  “Vigo. You surprise me.”

  “I’m not the only surprise you have coming. Have you been watching that man in the blue head scarf, the one sitting on the anchor by the bow?”

  Tarc shaded his eyes from the glare of the work lights, squinting into the distance. He saw a small figure squatting by the bow, his bony knees as high as his ears, a home-rolled cigarette dangling from his mouth, his tiny black eyes sharp, his gaze flickering around the deck, watching the work closely. He was wearing cut-off blue jean shorts and a GREENPEACE T-shirt. In his callused hands was a shining steel parang.

  Tarc grunted, identifying the man.

  “That’s Gango. He’s Bittagar’s enforcer.”

  “Yes. I know. Do you know what he’s doing?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “He’s counting. Counting our men. Counting the days.”

  “I know. Bittagar thinks he may take the ship.”

  “That’s what I think too.”

  “It will be ready in a week. So we have some time.”

  “Time? Time to do what, Emil? Write our wills? Bugger the village elders? There are exactly six of us here, and maybe two of us can use a weapon. Bittagar has sixty men, sitting around in the town and on the hillside up there, smoking bhang and drinking piss-warm Singha and watching the ship. When the ship is ready, Bittagar’s men will come down on us like . . .”

  “A wolf on the fold?”

  Majiic looked at Tarc, who showed his teeth again.

  “I went to school, Vigo. I know some poems. Want to hear another one? It will make you feel better, maybe put some lead in your pencil. It runs . . . let me see . . .

  “ ‘I saw a man this morning

  Who did not wish to die;

  I ask, and cannot answer,

  If otherwise wish I.’

  “I can’t remember the middle lines, but the rest runs something like

  “ ‘But other shells are waiting,

  Across the Aegean Sea;

  Shrapnel and high explosive,

  Shells and hells for me.

  “ ‘I will go back this morning

  From Imbros ov’r the sea.

  Stand in the trench, Achilles,

  Flame-capped, and shout for me.’ ”

  Tarc said these lines in a kind of sacred chant, his eyes closed and his expression as serene as if neither of them were standing on the bridge of a hijacked gypsy tanker surrounded by a jungle filled with pitiless cannibal killers. When he finished, Tarc opened his eyes and smiled at Majiic, who stared back, silenced, his mouth open.

  “There. Now you feel better, eh, Vigo?”

  The moment had created a cone of airless silence around them. Now the hammer and clang and boom of the rebuilding of the Mingo Dubai came surging back, redoubled, an assault on all the senses.

  “No,” said Majiic, shaking his head. “No, I don’t.”

  Tarc looked disappointed; his face resumed its iron look.

  “Okay. Well, how about this? Every one of these stinking ditch niggers we’re looking at right now will be rotting in a pit in three days. And we’ll mark the grave with Bittagar’s head stuck on a stick. Okay?”

  13

  Changi Airport, Singapore

  Singapore—in particular, the city itself—is a lunatic blend of Mao Tse-tung and Dale Carnegie; a broad, steaming sandbar, as flat as a sewage spill, on which the tyrannical, puritanical government of Lee Kwan Yew, known inside the Agency as “Uncle Harry,” has brought forth by sheer force of totalitarian will a postmodern powerhouse of shimmering economic cathedrals and towering spires. These pinnacles rise up out of a hundred little cantonments, teeming with millions upon millions of buzzing little worker bees, all maniacally dedicated to the three First Principles that have always guided the Asiatic mind: never look a cop in the eye; if it slithers you should eat it; and money is the root of all evil only if you don’t have any.

  The brand-new airport at Changi was conceived as a top-of-the-lungs statement about the New Singapore—acres of gleaming glass and marble, concourses large enough to house the Super Bowl, lounges and bars and shops to rival Rodeo Drive, and enough squintyeyed,flat-faced, cold-assed little soldier-bots slinging MP5s scattered about the premises to keep Al Gore away from a ham sandwich.

  The Terminal 2 concourse was crowded with European and North American backpacker
s, wearing the trademark uniform of backpackers everywhere: baggy camo shorts; lots of metal bits, sticking out of their lips and eyebrows and noses and chins; butt-stupid, self-inflicted body hair; tattoos; complicated rubber sandals as ugly as cow flaps; and, of course, the inevitable dung-colored hemp T-shirt carrying some vapid political piety—ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), TREES ARE NOT TERRORISTS, FREE TIBET, and Dalton’s favorite, for sheer moronic redundancy, WARS KILL PEOPLE AND OTHER LIVING THINGS.

  Yes. Wars stopped slavery in America and liberated Europe and put an end to Japanese imperialism and killed Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot and Che Guevara and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That’s why we have them.

  Mandy, who was watching Dalton watch the kids, tapped him on the shoulder and said:

  “You can’t shoot them all, Micah, so we might as well get a drink.”

  “What if I only shoot one?”

  “No. You can’t fix stupid. Let’s go.”

  They crossed what felt like an acre of polished tile, dragging their baggage behind them, bone-weary, jet-lagged, and dangerously cranky. A wall of green glass hissed out of their way, and they walked out of the air-conditioned chill of the terminal into the staggering steam heat of a Singapore noon. The muted roar of the city closed in on them and a furnace of heat rose up from the pavement as they reached a rank of long white Cadillac limousines. Dalton saw the one with the Intercontinental logo and was reaching for the handle when two obvious plainclothes cops in shiny, wrinkled black silk suits materializedon either side. Dalton gave Mandy a look and then stepped away from the limo, clearing some room to maneuver if a maneuver was called for. One of them, the older, a frog-faced man with the air of a sleepy lizard, held up his hand and stepped into Dalton’s face.

  “You are Bulk and Singer?”

  Dalton nodded, sizing the guy up; maybe two hundred, and his hands had the callused look of a street fighter. The smaller man, a Malay, went one-sixty, and rode on the balls of his feet.

  He looked pale and twitchy, and his eyes were too wide.

  “Yes. Burke and Single. What can we do for you?”

  Frog Face glared at Dalton, apparently for having the effrontery to answer his question without genuflecting, or perhaps because he had a face made for glaring and he just liked to use it.

  “You are wanted.”

  “Peachy,” said Dalton. “Always nice to be appreciated.”

  Frog Face worked it out, slowly, and then frowned, not a pretty thing to watch after you’ve been in transit for twenty hours and can’t have a cigarette until this butt-ugly mutt gets the hell out of your face. Dalton was aware of Mandy’s presence; still, calm, wary, without fear.

  “I mean, my boss wants to see you. Both of you.”

  “Thrilled to hear it. Have him call me. We’re at the Intercontinental.”

  The short one seemed to feel the need to put his oar in.

  “You come now.”

  Mandy sighed and reached around him to open the car door. The little Malay cop decided to reach out and grab her arm. Mandy did something very quick with her left hand; there was a muffled, cork-popping sound, and the short man was down on one knee, holding his right hand. His index finger was pointing in an impossible direction, and his face was very pale. His eyes now looked sewn shut. Frog Face looked down at his partner and then back at Dalton. The little man began to make a noise like air hissing out of a tire. Everyone was happy to ignore him. Mandy opened the limo door and threw her carry-on into the cool dark of the interior. The driver had the trunk open and was loading in their bags. Frog Face spent a few seconds in quiet contemplation of Dalton’s bland, smiling face. Then he bowed.

  “I am sorry for this fool,” he said, in perfect, British-accented English. “May we begin again?”

  “No,” said Dalton. “We may not. We’re at the Intercontinental—”

  “The Presidential Suite,” said Frog Face, with a broad smile.

  “Exactly. Who wants to see us, anyway?”

  “You are Mr. Micah Dalton, of the English banking firm?”

  “I am Mr. Micah Dalton, of the desperately-needing-a-cold-drink firm. If you haven’t got a chilled flute of Bolly in your back pocket, I advise you to get the hell out of my way.”

  “My boss is Minister Dak Chansong. Of the Home Ministry. The Minister very much wishes to speak with you both. At your convenience, of course, but as soon as possible. We will send a car?”

  Dalton looked at Mandy, who shrugged and climbed into the limo, showing a flash of milky white thigh as she did so. When he looked back at Frog Face, the man was literally licking his lips. Perhaps he had just swallowed a fly.

  “We’ll be ready at three,” he said, disliking the man very much. As the limo pulled away, Frog Face dragged his associate to his feet and subjected him to what looked like a vicious harangue that culminated in a hard backhand across the little man’s face.

  Mandy, who had found the minibar, had a heavy crystal tumbler in her left hand and an unopened bottle of Bombay Sapphire in her right, gave him an eyebrow lift and a wry smile.

  “First find the ice,” she said, lifting the glass. “And then the lemons.”

  “I think you broke that poor little man’s finger,” said Dalton, pulling open the ice chest drawer, where he found six perfect lemon slices lying in a silver bowl on top of a mountain of crushed ice. Mandy accepted the ice and the lemon slice, and slowly stirred the mixture with her index finger until it looked right to her. She lifted the finger and traced a cold line across Dalton’s sweaty forehead.

  “I certainly hope so,” she purred, leaning back into the leather, crossing her long legs to great advantage and smiling at Dalton over the top of her glass.

  “How did you know there’d be lemons?”

  “Micah. I handled the hotel bookings. We’re at the Intercontinental. It’s the finest hotel in Singapore. There damn well better be lemons.”

  The crowded neighborhoods of eastern Singapore rolled by outside the tinted windows, like a tourist travelogue running with the sound off. Dalton leaned back into the cushioned banquette opposite Mandy and tried not to stare at her thighs. After a while, he gave that up and simply enjoyed the view. A few minutes passed in pleasant contemplation of her stockings and the way her calves were shaped. Mandy leaned forward and set her glass down on the rosewood bar.

  “Tell me, Micah, if you can tear your mind away from my legs, why do you think Minister Dak Chansong of the Home Ministry is so anxious to meet with two lowly officials from Burke and Single?”

  “Maybe somebody at London Station has been indiscreet.”

  “No. Nobody’s weak at London Station. Remind me, who the hell is Dak Chansong, anyway?”

  “Never heard the name. Not in any of the cheat sheets?”

  Dalton reached for one of Mandy’s cigarettes.

  “Not that I read. Perhaps just a polite hello from an overreaching underling, then?”

  Mandy lit his cigarette, drew out a turquoise Sobranie for herself, got it going, and huffed at him through the smoke.

  “Hah! Not in bloody Singapore.”

  “I suppose not. I guess we’ll hear directly,” said Dalton, suppressing a yawn. “Damn, I was hoping to get into bed for a couple of hours.”

  Mandy inhaled, a red spark flaring in the dim light of the limo. She exhaled slowly, savoring the smoke, and sent him her trademark look.

  “If you think you have a couple of hours in you, I’m ready to assist.”

  “Mandy. Behave. Porter’s only been dead a month. Shouldn’t you be in mourning?”

  “A true gentleman would wish to console the grieving widow.”

  “Now I’m a gentleman?”

  “So this is . . . what? ‘Dover Beach’? ‘Ah, love, let us be true/to one another’!”

  Dalton grinned, trying to look all sappy mystical as he did so.

  “ ‘For we are here as on a duckling plain.’ ”

  “I think that’s darkling plain.”

 
Dalton lifted his eyebrows, looked blank.

  “Really? Not duckling?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  They traveled for a time, enjoying the cocoonlike silence of the car.

  Mandy had been giving the matter of fidelity some thought.

  “Tell me, honestly, Micah, do you seriously intend to be utterly faithful to this . . . Vasari . . . creature?”

  “I intend to do my utterly best.”

  “You do, do you?”

  Mandy leaned back again, artfully recrossing her legs, looked to her left and smiled at her own reflection in the glass.

  “Dear boy. Good luck with that.”

  14

  Gulfstream A990, thirty thousand feet

  As the jet banked for the final approach to Changi Airport, the sun struck her port side, and six glowing yellow ovals slipped across the damask walls of the passenger cabin. One of the bright ovals slid across Lujac’s face as he lay asleep, dreaming of the look in Saskia’s eyes as she died. What had she seen, in those last moments? What had she felt?

  Lujac had spent most of his life trying to understand what it meant to feel something. He had often stood in front of a mirror, trying to re-create the expressions he would see on the faces of mourners at funerals, on the faces of the mortally sick as they lay dying, but, no matter how he tried, he had never known a true feeling. He spent his entire professional life—the famous part—looking into another person’s face and trying to understand what it felt like to be other, to be someone who had the great misfortune to not be Kiki Lujac. The light crossed his eyes again, and he came out of the dream. Something was buzzing in his lap, a burring vibration.

  He sat up, fully awake, and picked up the phone.