Life is so fragile, so tenuous.
Luckily he had gotten into motion before the surprise wore off the other two.
And the engine room, the horror as that man came around the engine shooting and the bullet struck him. Now the scene ran through his mind over and over, every emotion pungent and powerful, again and again and again.
Finally he let it go.
He felt like he had that sticker of Flap’s stuck in his side right now.
So those other guys died and he and Flap lived. For a few more hours.
It was crazy. Those men, he and Flap — they were like fish in the sea, eating other fish to sustain life before they too were eaten in their turn. Kill, kill, kill.
Man’s plight is a terribly bad joke.
He was dozing when the sound of a motorboat going upriver brought him fully awake. Flap woke up too. They lay listening until the noise dissipated completely.
“Wonder what happened to the pirate ship?”
“Maybe it sank.”
“Maybe.”
* * *
After the sun came up the foliage was so thick that Jake had to keep his hand on Flap’s shoulder so that he wouldn’t lose him. Flap moved slowly, confidently and almost without noise. Without him Jake would have been hopelessly lost in five minutes.
Flap caught a snake an hour or so after dawn and they skinned it and ate it raw. They drank water trapped in fallen leaves if there weren’t too many insects in it. Once they came to a tiny stream and both men lay on their stomachs and drank their fill.
Other than the noises they made, the jungle was silent. If anyone was looking for them, they were being remarkably quiet.
Jake and Flap heard the noises of small engines and voices for a half hour before they reached the village, which as luck would have it, turned out to be on their side of the river. It was about noon as near as they could tell when they hit the village about a hundred yards inland. Thatched huts and kids, a few rusty jeep-type vehicles. They could smell food cooking. The aroma make Jake’s stomach growl. A dog barked somewhere.
They stayed well back and worked their way slowly down to the riverbank to see what boats there might be.
There were several. Two or three boats with outboard engines and one elderly cabin cruiser lay moored to a short pier just a couple of dozen yards from where Jake and Flap crouched in the jungle. Beyond the boats was a much larger pier that jutted almost to midstream. Resting against the T-shaped end of it was the hijacked ship. Above the ship numerous ropes made a latticework from bank to bank. Leafy branches of trees dangled from the ropes — camouflage. The freighter seemed to be held in place against the current mainly by taut hawsers from the bow and stern that stretched across the dark water to the river’s edge, where they were wrapped numerous times around large trees.
From where they lay they could just see the ship’s name and home port: Che Guevara, Habana.
Flap began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Jake whispered.
“A Cuban freighter. We got shot down and almost killed over a Commie freighter. If that doesn’t take the cake!”
“My heart bleeds for Fidel.”
“Ain’t it a shame.”
The ship’s cranes were in motion and at least a dozen men were visible. A large crate was lowered to the pier and six or eight men with axes began chopping it open. Apparently they didn’t have a forklift.
Inside the box were other, smaller boxes. Pairs of men hoisted these and carried them off the pier toward the village.
“Weapons,” Flap said. “They hijacked a ship full of weapons.”
“What do you think was in those little boxes just now?”
“Machine guns, I think. Look, aren’t those ammo boxes?”
“Could be.”
“They are. I’ve seen boxes like that before. One time up on the Cambodian border.”
“Maybe this ship wasn’t hijacked. Maybe those guys met it in midocean to put aboard a pilot.”
“Then why the SOS?”
Jake shrugged, or tried to. The pain in his side was down to a dull throb, as long as he held his shoulder still and didn’t take any deep breaths.
“These dudes are ripping off a Commie weapons shipment,” Flap said slowly. “Maybe one bound for Haiphong. Guns and ammo are worth their weight in gold.”
“That little cabin cruiser is our ticket out of here, if it isn’t a trap.”
“Maybe,” Flap said softly. “We can’t do anything until tonight anyhow, so let’s make ourselves comfortable and see what we can see. I don’t see any floodlights anywhere; these people won’t be working at night. But that little boat is just too good to be true. The captain we met yesterday didn’t impress me as the type of careless soul who would leave a boat where we could swipe it at our convenience.”
After a few minutes Jake muttered, “I haven’t seen the captain yet on the dock.”
“He’s around someplace. You can bet your ass on that.”
“That ship we set fire to isn’t here either.”
“Maybe they abandoned it. But remember that boat that went down the river last night, then came back hours later? It was probably that cruiser there, and it probably rescued everyone left alive. The captain is here. I can feel him.”
“Okay.”
“See that shack just up there on the left? From there a fellow would have a good view of the boat and the dock. Keep your eyes on that. I’m going to slip around and see what they’re doing with all these weapons they’re taking off that ship.”
“Leave me one of your knives.”
“Which one?”
“The sticker.”
Flap drew it from the sheath hanging down his back and handed it to Jake butt-first. Then he took two steps and disappeared into the jungle.
A throwing knife with a needle-sharp point and a slick handle, the weapon was perhaps ten inches long. Jake slipped it into his boot top, leaving just enough of the hilt exposed so that he could get it out quickly. He hadn’t the foggiest idea how to throw it, but he had no qualms about jabbing it into somebody to defend himself. His throbbing side was a constant reminder that these people wanted him dead.
Lying under a tangle of vegetation, he rolled on his good side and gingerly unzipped his flight suit. The bandage was encrusted with old blood. Nothing fresh. He zipped the flight suit back up and rolled on his belly. He wormed his way forward until he could just see the shack and the pier beyond, then checked to ensure that he was completely hidden. He decided he was.
* * *
At least two hours had passed when Flap returned. It was hard to judge. Time passed slowly when you were lying in a jungle with bugs crawling around and flying critters gnawing at your hide. If you were short of sleep, so hungry that your stomach seemed knotted, suffering from a raging thirst and had diarrhea, every minute was agony. Jake dared not leave his post, so he shit where he lay.
Once he heard a jet. It was far away, the sound of its engines just a low hum.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Flap whispered when he crawled up beside Jake, startling him half out of his skin. “What died?”
“That’s shit, you bastard. Never smelled it before, huh?”
“For crying out loud, you could at least have dropped your flight suit.”
“There’s someone over there in that shack. He stuck his head out twice and looked around. Seen smoke a couple times too, just a whiff, like he’s standing right inside the door smoking a cigarette.”
“There’s two of them in there. I looked in the back window.”
Jake had kept his eyes glued on that shack and hadn’t once glimpsed Flap. For the first time he realized just how terrifically good Le Beau was in the jungle.
“Here, this is for you.”
Flap passed over an AK-47. “It’s loaded with a full clip. Safety is on.”
“Found this lying around, did you?”
“Relax. They won’t find the guy who had it for quite a while. Maybe never. Gimme m
y sticker back. I feel kinda naked without it.”
Jake got the knife from his boot and handed it over.
“Lotta good that would have done you in your boot. You should have stabbed it into the dirt right by your hand, so you could grab it quick.”
“Next time. Until then I’ll just stick to ol’ Betsy here. Appreciate the gift. So what’s the setup?”
The bad guys were stacking the weapons back in the jungle, out of sight from the air. Most of the stuff was still in crates. “They got a hell of a pile out there but I don’t think they got it all. Certainly not a shipload. There’s no way of telling what’s left on the ship.”
“I’ve been figuring,” Jake said. “Seems to me that the first thing we have to do after dark is take out those two guys in the shack and check out that cabin cruiser.”
“It may be booby trapped.”
“I don’t think so. That was the boat we heard last night. The guys in the shack are supposed to kill us if we try for it.”
“Can’t start the engine here.”
“I know. We’ll have to cast off and drift downriver. We can use one of your knives to cut us some poles to keep it off the banks. Then when we’re a couple miles downriver, we’ll start the engine and motor out to sea.”
“What if the engine won’t start?”
“We just drift on out.”
“They’ll follow.”
“Not if we blow up the ammo dump and sink all these little boats.”
Flap gave a soft whistle of amazement. “You don’t want much, do you?”
“So what’s your plan?” Jake asked.
“Kill the guys in the shack and steal the boat. The Navy can come back any old time and bomb these dudes to hell.”
Jake snorted. “Your faith in the system is truly amazing. Here we are in a foreign county — Indonesia, I think. Whatever. Assuming we manage to get rescued and tell our tale, the only thing the U.S. Navy can do is send a polite note to the State Department. State is going to pass this hot tip to the National Security Council, which will probably staff the shit out of it. The fact that these weapons are going to be sold to revolutionary zealots in Asia, the Mideast or Africa who will use them to cause as much hell as humanly possible and murder everyone who disagrees with them won’t cause one of those comfortable bureaucrats to miss a minute’s sleep. When the nincompoops who brought you Vietnam get through scratching their butts, they’ll give the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia a note to give to whoever is running this country this week. That whoever may or may not do anything. After all, he’s probably getting a cut of this operation. There’s a whale of a lot of money to be made here: your karate expert captain friend is probably smart enough to spread it around a little.”
“A lot of the weapons are still on Fidel’s freighter,” Flap pointed out.
“We’ll have to blow it up too.”
“Just out of curiosity, what little army is going to do all this blowing up you envision?”
“You and me.”
Le Beau rolled over on his back and threw an arm across his face. In a moment he said, “You got gall, Grafton, I’ll give you that. You lay there with a bullet hole in your side, wearing your own shit and tell me that ‘you and me’ are going to blow up a weapons cache and a ship! My ass. They’ll smell you fifty feet away. You want me to go do the hero bit and probably get myself killed.”
“We’ll both go. But this is a volunteer deal. You’re senior to me and we aren’t in the airplane anymore. It’s your call.”
“Thank you from the bottom of my teensy little heart. Ah me…My second command — I used to lead a whole platoon, you know. Now it’s just me and one wounded flyboy with the shits. My military career is going up like a rocket.”
“Oh, cork it. What do you want to do?”
“You think you’re up for this?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you asked for it. Here’s the plan.”
As Jake Grafton listened the thought occurred to him that Flap Le Beau had been thinking about screwing these pirates all afternoon. He got a warm feeling. Flap had let him suggest it. Flap Le Beau was one hell of a good guy.
* * *
“Not right after dark,” Flap said. “They’ll expect us then. After midnight, in the wee hours.”
“The moon will be up sometime after midnight,” Jake pointed out. “The clouds will probably obscure it though.”
“It would be good if the clouds let the moonlight through. They’ll relax and maybe sleep.”
They pulled back into the jungle to a small stream. Jake undressed and sat in it. The diarrhea was drying up, a little anyway, leaving him very thirsty. He drank and drank from the stream. Then he washed out his flight suit and underwear and put them back on.
Finally he and Flap stretched out in the damp, rotting leaves. The bugs were bad, but they were very tired and the muffled noise from the village and the pier lulled them to sleep. They were both emotionally wrung out from their experiences of the last two days and nights, so their sleep was dreamless. When they awoke the light was fading rapidly and the noise from the ship had ceased. They drank again from the stream, Jake relieved himself, then they crawled back to the vantage point where they could see the shack and the small boats.
The waiting was hard.
When you have finally crossed the threshold, left behind good meals, a comfortable bed, clean clothes and the relaxed company of friends, life becomes a mere battle for survival. The nonessential sinks out of sight.
They lay in the foliage, one man on his stomach watching, the other on his side or back napping. Fortunately there was a small electric light mounted on a pole near the boat dock.
The hours dragged. With nothing to look forward to but battle, and perhaps death, delay was painful. Yet they waited.
The guards in the shack were changed several hours into the night. Two new men came, the two inside left. All of them carried rifles.
No one approached the boats. Even when the rain came. At first it was gentle, then it increased in intensity. Still no one came to cover the boats or check their moorings.
All activity on the dark freighter ceased. From their vantage point the watchers caught occasional glimpses of cigarettes flaring, but the ship was just a blacker spot in the black night.
Finally activity in the village ceased.
The rain continued to fall.
Jake slept again.
When Flap shook him awake, the rain had slowed to a drizzle.
“Look,” he whispered so softly that at first Jake didn’t understand. He had to inch around to see what Flap was pointing at. After several seconds he realized he was looking at two men standing by the boat dock smoking. They were away from the light, but there they were, quite plain.
“They came out of the shack. I’m going now.”
“Okay.” Jake fumbled with the AK-47, made sure the action was clear of leaves, then eased it through the foliage in front of him and spread his feet. Only then did he realize Flap had disappeared.
Minutes passed as he watched the figures by the boat dock. He could hear the murmur of voices. They stood smoking and talking.
Jake waited. If Flap were discovered now, they had no choice but to try for the cabin cruiser.
Finally the men turned and ambled uphill for the shack. One of them paused while the other went on ahead. He was facing in this direction. Only when he turned toward the shack did Jake realize that he was zipping up his pants. He had relieved himself.
The first man was already inside. The second man paused in the doorway. Flap was inside. Jake stopped breathing and blinked rapidly, trying to see in the almost nonexistent light. If the man shouted or fired his weapon…
Then he turned for the door and merged with another shadow coming out. Now he disappeared within.
In less than a minute Flap Le Beau came across the open ground toward Jake’s position. He was walking calmly, with a rifle in each hand. When he approached Jake’s position he said softly, “Co
me on. Let’s look at the boat.”
Jake wormed his way straight ahead out of the brush, then struggled to his feet. Flap was already at the boat dock. Jake followed along, trying to look as nonchalant as the two guards had.
Flap got into the cabin cruiser. “The battery works,” he reported.
“Any fuel?”
“There’s a can here. Let me see.” A half minute passed. “Well, it’s gasoline. A couple of gallons. I’m going to pour it into the tank.”
This cabin cruiser — what if it were sabotaged? Maybe they should take one of the little boats. Jake looked in them for oars. Each of them had a set. They had outboard engines too, but the presence of oars seemed to indicate that the owners of the boats weren’t brimming with confidence over the reliability of those engines. Or maybe they were just careful.
It was going to be a big gamble.
Jake turned his back on the cabin cruiser and stood looking at the village. A faint glow from three or four lights showed through the foliage.
Flap joined him on the dock. “Decision time, shipmate. We can untie this scow and get out of here right now with a chance and maybe a future. They won’t know this tub’s gone until morning.”
“You’re senior,” Jake told him. “You make the decision and you live with it.”
“I’m giving you a choice.”
“This is ridiculous.” They couldn’t stand here in plain sight arguing like two New York bankers waiting for a taxi. “Lead the way, Le Beau. I’ll be right behind you.”
Flap took one of the AKs and lowered it into the water, then released it. With the other rifle in his left hand, he turned and walked off the dock. Jake followed him.
They circled the village through the jungle. The weapons cache was on the side away from the sea, a hundred yards from the long pier. At least two guards were on duty.
Flap picked a vantage point and watched for a while with Jake beside him. The guards walked the perimeter alertly. After the second one passed, Flap told Jake, “They’re too alert. They know something’s up.”
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