King Pirate

by Tom Stern

  “Where do you suggest we start?”

  Chew answered, “I think you’ve already started. By pretending to let yourself be maneuvered, you have, in fact, placed yourself in a position to play both sides against the middle for your own ends.

  “And what is that end, Kelley?” Chew asked. “When you’re finished and King Pirate is dead, are you really going to just quietly go back to the simple life of a free merchant sailor? Will you be the same man when this is done?”

  Chew was coming too close to the heart of Kelley’s thoughts. He said: “Tell me what you want.”

  “Like I said when I called. I want you to have a drink with me.”

  Kelley considered every option.

  He examined every angle.

  And he sat down to make a deal with Chew.

  …

  Kelley left. Chew offered the use of his driver. Kelley refused. He took a cab.

  Kelley watched the city slide by in the night. Feeling like a man on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Kelly dialed Anastasia. He got her voicemail. Even in such a minor, impersonal setting, Kelley loved the sound of this woman’s voice.

  “I’m leaving tonight,” he said. “But I’m coming back. And I want you to be there when I return. The more I think of it, the more I realize…”

  Kelley didn’t finish the sentence. He hung up.

  …

  The next day, Kelley checked the online newspapers.

  Five of Dilip Gaur’s men had died in the night. Cut down in drive-by shootings and walk-in hits. One man, a known hitter for Gaur’s crew, just a block from Batu. Kelley wryly smirked at that. Coincidence? Bullshit. The asshole had followed him to Batu. Waited outside for Kelley to come out the front door. What the asshole didn’t know was that Kelley would go out the side door under armed escort. And he also didn’t know that every thug with a gun in town could make fifty easy grand by shooting his ass.

  Kelley smiled at the screen. Knowing how it must have felt for a Celtic chieftain to watch his warriors come back from a successful raid on the Romans.

  The city was ablaze with fear. By and large, Kuala Lumpur was a peaceful city. The violence of the last few weeks felt like a gang war, a harkening back to wilder days thought left behind. Five hits in one night seemed like the exclamation point at the end of a sentence in a much longer story. It would continue until chaos tore the streets apart.

  The attack on Dao Jia’s bar had let the genie out of the bottle. Kelley answered with blood, plus interest. It would swiftly spiral out of control, until either Kelley or King Pirate was dead. Which is exactly how Kelley wanted it.

  Kelley checked his voice mail. Answered the first call, from Tsung.

  “Seen the news?”

  Kelley chuckled. A dark sound. “Come by the Yurei. I’ll give you the cash to pass along to our gangster friends.”

  “That’s a quarter of a million USD, cash.”

  “I’m good for it,” Kelley said. And bring your shit. Soon as you’re done, we’re pushing off.”

  Cuchulain called the second Kelley hung up with Tsung.

  “Are yeh daft, lad?!”

  “You gave me operating money and a Letter of Marque,” Kelley told him.

  “But nae a bloody license to kill! If I’d known y’were gonna use the intel I gave yeh t’call hits, I’d’ve arrested yeh instead.”

  “I could have sworn you were the guy with the ‘fight fire with fire’ speech.”

  “That’s on the water,” Cuchulain fumed. “In KL, yer askin’ for reprisals that’ll jeopardize everything.”

  Kelley knew Cuchulain was talking about Rasa. “I won’t be around. Keep our cop friend off my ass for just a couple of hours, and I’ll be out of your hair and back to work.”

  “Yer playin’ a dangerous game, lad.”

  “I knew that when this started. Now quit your bitching and get me some info on where Gaur’s tankers are going.”

  “Step careful, boy-o,” Cuchulain breathed. “Y’jest remember. I run you, not the other way around. You are my asset.”

  Again, Kelley heard that ever-so-subtle note of desperation in Cuchulain’s voice. What was that?

  Kelley hung up.

  Time to shove off.

  CHAPTER 6

  On the deck of the Yurei in open sea. They’d passed the three-mile demarcation line into international water with a breath of relief. Rasa didn’t try to stop them at the dock. No Coast Guard cutters waited to pounce.

  The crew gathered in a semi-circle around Kelley. Focused and resolved. They were a crew forged in danger, friendship and loss. They were out for blood.

  Kelley told them: “The first time we went out, it was to make some money. This time, it’s for Ping and Miyazaki. We’ll get rich. And, along the way, we’re going to make King Pirate pay.”

  The crew nodded. Exactly what they wanted to hear.

  “The tankers are good business,” Kelley continued. “But I have a lead from my inside sources we’d be idiots to ignore.”

  Dao Jia and Tsung exchanged a look. Kelley hadn’t talked to them about this lead.

  Kelley went on: “Dilip Gaur is the man who sent guns after us. We have a price for his head on the street. But that’s not enough for me. Gaur’s moving a very special cargo through the Strait in two days. His men have hijacked a shipment of heavy water. It’s used in nuclear reactors.”

  A former Burmese guerilla asked in Malay, “We’re going after something that’s radioactive?” A murmur zigzagged through the crew.

  Kelley shook his head. “No. It’s not dangerous. But I’ll tell you what heavy water is: very valuable. If we pull this off, it’ll be the score of scores against Gaur. This shipment is worth a hundred oil tankers to him. Losing it will give King Pirate a good reason to get rid of him. We can kill pirates all year and still get only so far. I say, let’s play it smart and let the pirates kill each other. When Gaur’s dead, Ping and Miyazaki can rest easy.”

  The Leung brothers stood as one. Getting behind Kelley’s plan. The rest of the crew came to stand with them. Without hesitation, Tsung and Dao Jia joined them.

  Kelley’s cold blue eyes drifted across his crew. They trusted Kelley with their lives. He hoped he wasn’t throwing either away.

  …

  Staring into the sea at midnight is an exercise in coming to grips with the concept of nothingness. The abyss. An infinite reality unaffected and uncaring about any single human soul.

  Most people are terrified of reality. They drown out the howling emptiness with equally-empty pursuits, busying themselves to keep from looking into the blackness.

  Kelley stared at it head-on.

  His sanity remained intact because he knew there were currents under even the calmest surface. Beneath the impenetrable plane of an undisturbed sea on the blackest night, millions of living things played out life-and-death dramas while dancing to the powerful undersea movements of the planet.

  In emptiness, Kelley found the purest truth.

  The Yurei was speeding towards the coordinates Yap Chew had given Kelley. They stalked the outer fringes of the shipping lanes. Where once Kelley actively hunted for pirates, now he was afraid of running across an attack. That would cost them time they didn’t have. Not if they were going to make this mission happen.

  Kelley dialed the secure satellite phone. Anastasia answered on the third ring. Sleepiness thickened her Russian accent.

  “I knew you would call.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You didn’t finish your message, and you’re not a man who leaves things undone.”

  She knew him too well.

  Anastasia said, “Why didn’t you come to me before you left? I wanted to say good-bye, in a way I think you would have liked.”

  “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I was taking care of myself long before you ever showed up.”

  Kelley grinned into the phone. He liked that wildcat fire in her. He said
, “I’m in the middle of nothing. I need something to come back to.”

  “What will happen when you’re done?”

  It was almost the same question Yap Chew had posed. Two completely different people were reading Kelley’s mind in the same way. Kelley suspected he was wearing his thoughts on his sleeve.

  Kelley heard Dao Jia coming across the deck to join him. “Call you later,” he muttered. Kelley hung up as Dao Jia leaned over the railing next to him.

  She smiled at his abrupt disconnect. “Girlfriend?”

  Kelley just shook his head. Much as he trusted Dao Jia, he didn’t need his privateer crew to know he was sleeping with a pirate-hunting cop.

  She said, “I couldn’t sleep.” Dao Jia stared into the black water with Kelley.

  “Something on your mind?”

  “This heavy water thing. It came as a surprise. I thought you would have talked to me and Tsung first.”

  “I should have,” Kelley admitted. He said, “How bad do you want to take down King Pirate?”

  “I don’t care about King Pirate.”

  “Why are you on this ship, then?”

  They looked at each other.

  She said: “I need to trust you, Kelley. We all do.”

  Kelley was silent.

  “I would never have been able to buy that bar without your help,” she said. “It’s a dream I’ve always had, and you made it real.

  “Thank you.”

  Kelley could tell those two simple words of vulnerability and gratitude were strange to Dao Jia. She’d been on her own for so long that she’d gotten out of the habit of anybody doing something good for her without a price tag.

  He said, “I want you to have a good life, Dao Jia.”

  “What do you think that is?”

  They looked at each other. The night air was cold. Kelley could feel the warmth from Dao Jia’s copper skin, shining darkly under the ship’s pale runner lights. Dao Jia tilted her head up to look Kelley in the eye. The light shifted. Shadows covered the upper half of her face, leaving only Dao Jia’s full Asian lips perfectly illuminated.

  Years of unrequited sexual tension simmered under this moment. Heat grew in his belly. It spread along his entire body. His clothes pulled tighter across his muscles. His heart thudded. Blood singing. The tips of Kelley’s fingers tingled with a yearning to take her, hold her, cup her breast to his mouth. His big, calloused hands curled of their own accord, shaping themselves to catch up Dao Jia’s ass so Kelley could pull her fiery body against his. The scene flashed through Kelley’s mind, as if it were a memory of the future: taking Dao Jia right here against the railing. Fucking her in crazed animal passion until he was able to fill the empty, dark void with her orgasmic yelps. At long last, scratching an itch for her that had long resided at the base of his cock, impatiently waiting for the right moment. This moment…

  Anastasia.

  Kelley dragged himself away from the railing before anything could happen. He headed back up to the bridge. Kelley felt Dao Jia’s eyes shining on his back.

  …

  Waves rushed across the Yurei’s bow. The sea took them to task for every klick. Sea spray rushed across the bow in stinging clouds, creating rainbows so fleeting that they were memories while they still existed. Dark clouds obscured the weakening afternoon sun, casting the entire world into a shade of gray.

  Kelley bent over the instruments. Checking and rechecking their coordinates. Making sure for the thousandth time that they were where Yap Chew had sent him on this devil’s errand.

  They were in the right place. “But where is the Krait?” Kelley asked the empty room.

  Tsung entered in that moment. Thinking Kelley was asking him, Tsung said, “We should check the maritime chatter. Maybe this weather’s cutting her speed.”

  Kelley squinted out the window at the open sea. “But not this long.”

  “She could’ve gotten a late start. I don’t know. Why are you so nervous?”

  “Fuck nervous, I just want the Goddamn ship!”

  Tsung was right. Even with an experienced captain and crew, ships rarely operated on a strict timetable. The sea offered too many variables.

  But the stakes were high on this take. Kelley couldn’t tell Tsung – or anybody else – that he’d promised the Krait to Yap Chew in exchange for Dilip Gaur’s life. He couldn’t tell them that he knew from IPC briefings that taking down heavy water shipments from the Mariana Trench was typically Yap Chew’s territory, and Kelley was letting him use the Yurei as an instrument of revenge against Gaur for moving in on that piece of Chew’s business. Kelley hadn’t exactly been an open book with his sea wolves. This was a profession in which you had keep a secret. Yet, for the first time, Kelley was unsure about his decision.

  For all that, Kelley had sworn an oath to Brody’s ghost to kill King Pirate. And die the pirate would, no matter what it took. Kelley just hoped he could navigate these new waters.

  The radar blipped. Kelley rushed to it. The unmistakable green dot of an on-coming ship glowed up at him. Kelley allowed himself a fierce smile. The joy of the hunt rose in his heart.

  “There!”

  Tsung joined him. “The Krait?”

  “Better be.”

  Kelley sounded the alarm. His sea wolves hurried to their posts. Though the crew’d been on land for weeks, the motions of a raid quickly came back to them. Kelley could see they shared his joy. These men were born predators.

  “Anything else around?” Kelley asked.

  Tsung ran eyes hard in concentration across the instruments. “Nothing. Just them and us.”

  For all his agonized waiting, the set-up couldn’t have been more perfect.

  “Full engine. We’re going in.”

  Kelley vaulted down the railing to join his crew on the deck. They readied the speed boats, preparing the launch the second Kelley gave the word.

  The klicks between the two ships melted away. Thunder rumbled in the uneasy skies overhead. Kelley glassed the other ship. Even with sharp Zeiss lenses, he could barely make out anything about the ship in the murky, gray air. Except her designation, written along the side in massive white letters. It was the Krait.

  They sprinted closer to the Krait. The waves beneath them built in strength, roaring against the Yurei’s steel flanks. White caps chopped the water.

  The dry, hot flavor of adrenaline filled Kelley’s mouth. His heart beat the drums of war. Kelley knew he would soon kill men. And, God help him, Kelley would use their steaming blood to quench his passion for Dao Jia.

  He again raised the binocs to his eyes. Now he could see the Krait’s men rushing about on the deck. Reacting to the Yurei bearing down on them. Kelley wondered if they had heard of his ship.

  Tsung stuck his head out the bridge’s door. “Captain! The Krait’s hailing us!”

  “Ignore it,” Kelley growled.

  Too late, at last realizing their fate, the Krait clumsily turned to flee. The Yurei bounded in pursuit.

  They were close enough to catch details of the other ship with naked eyes. Kelley’s sea wolves curiously regarded their prey.

  Dao Jia finally spoke up, voicing the thought on every man’s mind: “That doesn’t look like a pirate ship.”

  Kelley met her eyes. He said, “My source tells me the pirates hijacked the Krait just outside port. She’s a merchant vessel with a pirate crew, hiding in plain sight.”

  The crew nearby overheard the exchange. Men translated for each other. Heads shook.

  Again, Dao Jia: “They’re not acting like pirates. Why aren’t they shooting?”

  “They probably think we’re another merchant vessel.”

  “You’re saying Gaur’s men haven’t heard of the Yurei by now?”

  Already keyed up for a fight, Kelley struggled to keep his voice even when he said, “I’m saying my source is fucking good. Those are pirates on that ship. We’re going to take her, like we did the rest.”

  Dao Jia’s eyes cooled. “Is that an order, ca
ptain?”

  Where the fuck was this static coming from?

  Kelley instinctively crowded her space. He outweighed her by over fifty pounds of muscle and a hundred tons of vicious crazy. But she stood her ground. In his peripheral vision, Kelley noticed Tsung tense, confused. Saw Tsung asking himself if he would have to come down the stairs to protect his sister from his best friend.

  Kelley glanced down and realized his fists were clenched hard enough for the nails to draw blood from his palms. He told his hands to loosen. They didn’t. He tried again. With an act of will, Kelley’s fists uncurled. Tiny drops of blood clung to his fingertips.

  Kelley wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

  The sea wolves openly stared at this sudden, subtle test of wills between Kelley and Dao Jia. Kelley motioned to the sea wolves. “Do our men care if the Krait’s crewed by Gaur’s pirates or not?”

  “They don’t.”

  “That’s right. We’re taking the ship, one way or the other. Unless now you’re doubting my word.”

  Dao Jia considered Kelley for a long moment. She made a decision and said, “No, Kelley. If you say they’re Gaur’s pirates, they’re Gaur’s pirates. Let’s get ‘em.”

  Kelley slowly nodded. Hoping that put a period at the end of this subject between them, knowing it didn’t.

  He turned to the rest of the crew. “Launch!”

  The sea wolves howled with battle joy. They clambered into the assault craft.

  Kelley moved to jump on the closest speed boat. He paused. Turned back to the bridge.

  “Tsung! Come with me.”

  “You want me on a raid? What about the Yurei?”

  “Dammit! Would you just come?!”

  Tsung – another electric look to his sister. She cocked her head, go with him.

  Because she realized Kelley wasn’t ordering. He was begging. In his own blunt way.

  Dao Jia went up to the bridge as Tsung descended. A touch between them. Be safe. Dao Jia disappeared into the steel room above.