The White Tigress

by Todd Merer

  The snack was laced, all right.

  Set me to wondering if Dolores was fueling me to go berserker on whomever our weapons would be pointing at. But then I bipolarized and decided to trust Dolores: she was protecting me; keeping me chill, ready to freestyle. After all, I was a negotiator, not just another killer. Right . . . ?

  The grass shook off all my cares and woes, and I perked up, remembering that I was on one kind of great adventure. Westward, ho! The outside range of the DC-10 would be the Philippines.

  Luzon, Bataan, Mindanao, the Battle of Leyte Gulf . . .

  At age sixteen, my father had enlisted in the marines and fought his way through the Pacific—including a memorable interlude in the Philippines—toward the Japanese homeland. Pa had been a carefree street kid when he’d left Brooklyn but returned a moody vet who kept mum about his war. Yet, despite this, he was an avid fan of war films, getting a kick out of watching Hollywood poseurs who’d avoided the draft and waged phony wars in front of moving-picture cameras.

  Poor Pa. After he’d come marching home, he’d muted his memories for thirty-five years until they caught up with him, and he swan dived off the Brooklyn Bridge. I was only fifteen at the time but street-schooled enough to consider his motives. Was he finally unable to resist going into the nether to rejoin his dead buddies? Had he waited so long to be sure I was wise enough to care for myself?

  Both, I thought. But was I wise enough?

  We were still racing the sun west, but it had gained on us and, now through pink-streaked clouds, it glowed mere inches above the horizon.

  Strange, that. The sunset was off to the left . . . meaning we were not headed west toward the Philippines . . . but northwest into a vastness devoid of airfields—

  Some minutes later, the plane banked and again headed due west.

  I wondered why we’d circled northwest. Perhaps to deceive Manila air control as to our destination. Dolores at work. Again. In any event, now I knew our next destination was indeed the Philippines.

  Bataan, Corregidor, the Battle of Leyte Gulf . . .

  Again, I flashed on Pa—funny, how often I’d been thinking about him lately after rarely thinking about him at all. Him and me seated amid a scattering of Sunday Times sections and Post sports pages, Pa smoking his beloved Old Golds, me spooning pistachio ice cream to sate my weed high, both of us glued to the screen of our ancient Zenith—black and white, but so was the flick we were watching—Wake Island, starring William Bendix as Pvt. Smacksie Randall, son of Brooklyn, wheeling a water-cooled machine gun at strafing Zeros.

  Oh, mein Papa.

  Pa had played his hand to the bitter end. And now, long years later, his prodigal son was headed into the seascape of his old man’s past. A remake?

  Didn’t matter. There was no turning back.

  CHAPTER 52

  Manhattan. The present.

  “Lucky,” said Ming Chan in his gravelly voice.

  “I can hardly wait, yeye,” said Missy Soo.

  Suppressing a sudden stab of pain in his innards, the old man smiled. This granddaughter of his was a true believer. Just as I was, he thought. Once. “Actually, sunnu, I was referring to . . .”

  He pointed at the Air China jet they were about to board, its silver fuselage and nose bright with red swirls.

  Missy nodded understanding. “It’s painted lucky red, as if Lucky himself beckons us.”

  The old man agreed. It was true. The monk who personified good fortune at last was drawing them to him. And he and Missy were obeying the monk’s bidding. Ming believed the day he met the monk might well be his last on earth, for by sheer force of will alone, he’d refused to die until then, although his predicted life span had long since expired.

  They were at a departure gate in San Francisco International Airport. Beyond the window was the red-swirled Air China flight they were about to take to Shanghai. But Ming’s good eye—veined and yellow—was fixed on the craft’s nose. Its swirls seemed to him a mouth and an eye, reminding him of the Flying Tigers . . . and the American who had ruined his life.

  We will die together, my old enemy.

  With the thought came another stab of pain. He wished he could sit but feared he would not be able to get back up. Better to stay hunched over his half-good leg. And a thousand times better than requesting a wheelchair, as so many of these American travelers had. Such a sickly, complacent people, and yet they’d ruled the earth for nearly a century. But now China’s turn was nearing. In his youth, that thought would’ve swollen his chest with pride; but now it was just an observation he cared naught about. Governments were all the same. Ruled by would-be saints quickly becoming drunk with power and morphing into monsters.

  Scum. All of them.

  On a TV screen, a yellow-haired newswoman spoke. Ming had lost much of his English over the years, but he understood most of what was said, the rest clarified by a map behind the newswoman. The news was grave:

  Warships of seven nations were converging in the South China Sea. There were reports of near-collisions and low flybys. A simple miscalculation would set off a war.

  Not to be outdone, the North Koreans were threatening preemptive nuclear strikes to support their own territorial claims of sovereignty over much of the Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan. In response, the United States was reasserting that Japan and South Korea were protected by the American nuclear umbrella.

  Missy spoke into Ming’s good ear. “The North Koreans really are crazy, yeye. As part of the deal for Lucky, we asked them to tone down their rhetoric. Instead, they escalated it.”

  “Not crazy. Smart. They escalate so when the deal is concluded, they can lower the temperature back to where it is now. They please their patron China. China gets something for nothing.”

  “Except losing the twenty-five-million-dollar payment to the American traitor.”

  “No, sunnu. Lucky is sacred. China does not pay for her legacy. Your American will be paid with a bullet.”

  Missy Soo smiled prettily. “I hope to see his face when he learns that. But what if the North Koreans push the Americans too far? What if they go to war?”

  “Then they destroy one another. Leaving the field for China.”

  Missy squeezed his arm. It hurt. She said, “It is our destiny.”

  Oh, my naïve sunnu, he thought. The only destiny is death.

  Their flight was called. He shook off Missy’s helping hand and hobbled aboard. She’d booked a sleeping compartment for him, and he gratefully lay down. The jetliner’s engines came to life, and it left the gate and taxied toward the runway.

  Ming squinted at his watch—getting hard even to see the damned time—and saw that it was six o’clock. The flight would take fourteen hours. It would arrive on September 20. Then two days of travel—not nearly as luxurious—until the matter was concluded . . . on September 22.

  His left lip curled in what for him was a smile.

  September 22 . . . an auspicious day.

  The date Li-ang had left him.

  CHAPTER 53

  I dreamed of my father, Louis Abraham Bluestone, aka Kid Louie when he was a Golden Glover. Ma had told me that, in the Glove quarterfinals, Pa had knocked a kid into a coma he never woke from. The day after the kid passed, Pa had enlisted. At first, I thought enlisting was Pa’s way of doing penance, but I was wrong. Ma said that boxing match was the moment when Pa understood the extent of his anger and figured the best place to let it out was in the service. But my dreams were of Pa’s gentleness, the soft touch of his big hands, those long evenings smoking Old Golds . . . when no war flicks were showing, he read poetry—

  I was jarred awake as the plane touched down. I was still alone in the rear cabin. Beyond the windows an airport was unlit except for a small terminal whose sign said PUERTO PRINCESA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PALAWAN.

  Palawan.

  Pa really was guiding me. The doctors had said otherwise, but I knew Ma had died of a broken heart. In her last days, she’d told me about Pa’s wartime ex
periences. As a hardened veteran of the Pacific Islands campaign, he’d been assigned to the elite unit accompanying MacArthur’s heralded fulfillment of his promise to return to the Philippines. After the Japanese invasion, MacArthur had abandoned his forces and escaped via a PT boat to Australia. When he made his triumphant return, he carefully crafted his image—crumpled campaign hat, dark shades, corncob pipe—heroically wading from a landing craft onto Philippine soil. MacArthur hadn’t been satisfied with the first take, so they’d shot the scene several more times, before each of which Doug had smoothed his comb-over and changed to deliberately rumpled, dry khakis. When Pa couldn’t help but laugh at the travesty, MacArthur had shot him a look. The next day Pa had been transferred to the front line in Palawan. In December ’44, Pa’s unit had been captured. One hundred sixty-one guys herded into a gulley where they were raked by Japanese Nambu machine guns, then set afire. Eleven guys survived. Pa was one of them. At least for the next thirty-five years . . .

  Like Pa, I had come to distrust authority. Why I became a defense lawyer, I suppose. My proclivity for going all-out fighting the government had introduced me to some strange people and places. Some were good, most were on the bad side, but they all provided what I craved. Action—

  The plane gave a little shudder as it stopped in a far corner of the airport.

  Dolores entered the compartment. Behind her, Younger Brother carried a tray. Coffee, bread, fruit. He set it down and left. I was hungry but too curious to eat just yet.

  “Why Palawan?” I said.

  “A brief pit stop. Food.”

  “More weed?”

  She laughed. “No more weed from now on. The next leg is the second to last to our final destination.”

  “Which is?”

  “A beach.”

  I sighed.

  “I’m not being secretive, Benn. Truth is, I’m not sure what happens next, other than it’s on a beach somewhere. I know what I want to happen then, but it’s your job description. Bullshitting the bullshitters.”

  “Well said. You should’ve been a lawyer.”

  “You shouldn’t have been a lawyer.”

  “I don’t think I am. Not anymore.”

  “Well, maybe once more.”

  From outside came the rhythmic thudding of a helicopter. Then its landing lights appeared—a huge twin-rotor craft—and set down fifty feet from the DC-10.

  Dolores left the compartment.

  Through the window I watched her cross the tarmac to the copter and climb inside. Older Brother leaned from its doorway and motioned for me to follow her.

  It was hot and humid, and I was sweating by the time I reached the copter. Up close, it was even larger than it had seemed. I followed the brothers up its boarding stairs.

  Dolores sat behind the pilots: the two brothers.

  Behind them, the passenger compartment was stacked with gear and duffels, atop which a dozen men sprawled. Filipinos. Reassuring. Ma had said Pa thought the Filipinos were the bravest, toughest soldiers in the war.

  But when I found a seat and my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I realized they weren’t Filipinos. They were a combination of Logui, and—was it possible?—Green Dragons.

  Yes. The one giving me a thumbs-up was Derek Lau.

  I wondered if he was here for Stella or for Uncle. Or both. I wanted to speak to him, but the PA squawked for us to hold on, and the helicopter lurched, then rose. On the eastern horizon was a seam of orange, but then the copter turned west, where only darkness lay ahead. And China—

  “Almost there, Bennjy,” said Dolores.

  Bennjy. Pa called me that.

  CHAPTER 54

  Madame Soo unquestionably was feeble, yet was stronger than she let on. Each day, when alone, she did her own age-limited mix of tai chi and yoga. She was building a reserve of stamina for what she knew would be her final journey. This was one of many secrets she kept from Missy Soo.

  At 2:00 a.m., long after her bedtime, Madame Soo left her bed and dressed in an outfit whose possession was another secret. It was a black jumpsuit. She tried on the accompanying black combat boots, but they were far too heavy. Instead, she improvised a sock-and-sandal foot covering. She caught a fleeting glimpse of herself in a moonlit mirror that had once been in the boudoir of a Ming empress. Madame Soo was not at all vain; yet now she paused before her image.

  I’m dressed the way I was that day. When I last was Kitty.

  Then she unlocked a red-lacquered cabinet. Wincing with the effort, she took out a silk-shrouded box, cradled it like a baby, and carried it out onto the patio. She’d lived in this home for many years and knew its hidden amenities. Behind what appeared to be a rosebush stood a gate.

  Below, the dark sea smashed against rocks, its rhythm repeating itself. She saw things more clearly than she ever had before. Like the relentless waves, her life had been repetitious, a riddle alternating between pure joy and tragic sadness for reasons she did not comprehend. But now the last few pieces of the riddle were revealing themselves, and at last, she visualized the completed puzzle.

  Carefully carrying the silk-wrapped box, she went through the gate and down a narrow stairway cut into the cliff face. The stairway ended at a small stone landing.

  A Zodiac bobbed there. Two men inside. Both were lean and dark, but she didn’t think they were local Mexicans, who did most everything the neighborhood’s .01 percenters were too busy golfing and drinking to do. One man offered his hand and assisted her into the boat. Solicitously, he helped her sit and fastened a seat belt around her. Then the two men paddled from the landing. Some distance from shore, they started an outboard, and the craft bounced over the chop. Madame Soo wasn’t afraid; to the contrary, she laughed like a little girl on a carnival ride.

  She knew it was almost over.

  PART FIVE:

  TRIAL

  CHAPTER 55

  By midmorning, the helicopter cabin was stifling. The big machine droned deeper into the South China Sea. I’d have thought that, given the naval presences below, we’d be skimming the deck, staying beneath radar. Instead, we were a mile high, well within radar range of missile-bearing ships of half a dozen nations, all on high alert. Dolores unfolded a map. Here and there, clusters of small islands sprinkled the blue sea.

  Dolores pointed to the northwest quadrant.

  “This is where we are now,” she said.

  I peered at the map. Saw nothing but ocean. Her finger moved northwest to nameless reefs and tiny atolls.

  She said, “This is where we’re going.”

  I raised a questioning brow. Why were we going to such a remote destination? More important, the route brought us near the Spratlys, an archipelago in which the Chinese had already created artificial islands large enough for airstrips, declaring sovereignty over all of them.

  Dolores picked up on my thoughts. “They won’t bother us. This helicopter is owned by an exploration firm contracted to Chinese oil companies.”

  “I thought the Chinese were the other side.”

  Dolores smiled. “They are.”

  The reefs and atolls she’d pointed out were easily several hundred miles past the Spratlys. Even if we were equipped with supplementary fuel tanks, our destination seemed well beyond the copter’s range.

  Again, reading my thought, Dolores said, “We’ll make it.”

  I felt a familiar sense of anticipation. I was again tiptoeing atop the razor’s edge, and it felt good. And I knew why.

  Dolores. She Who Knows Most of All. She, who as a child had copied my ways, and now was my copilot on the route less traveled, she who disregarded the journey and focused on the future, she whose blood, like mine, sang when there was action.

  Below was another cluster of atolls: broken strands of white and black pearls amid turquoise lagoons, much like thousands of other atolls scattered across sixty million square miles of water.

  Still again, I thought of Pa. This was his hallowed place. Somewhere over the horizon was Tarawa, where a major Wor
ld War II SNAFU had deposited the invading Second Marines on a tidal reef hundreds of yards from the beach, forcing gyrenes loaded with sixty-pound rucksacks to wade through chest-high water while Japanese 99s spat green tracers that blotched the turquoise water with American blood. Pa had survived that day physically but left his spirit floating among his dead comrades.

  I didn’t want to end like Pa.

  “Iron Bottom Sound,” I said aloud.

  “Translate, please,” said Dolores.

  Without realizing it, I’d muttered the name of another Pacific slugfest that had left a hundred warships, Japanese and Allied alike, forever rusting on the bottom of Tulagi Harbor. Dead men floating.

  Like the dead marines by the reefs of Tarawa.

  Like the drug runners in the icy Bering Sea.

  I said, “Seventy-five years ago, we fought the Japanese here. Now we’re on the verge of war with the Chinese here. The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

  Dolores didn’t reply. She knew I wasn’t finished.

  I said, “It was you who sank the fishing fleet.”

  For a moment, she seemed disinclined to answer, but she changed her mind. “My role was to convince the cartels to send the load. Richard and his people did the wet work. But since you mention it, yes, I’m responsible for killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. I thought you were over it.”

  “Not quite. Not until Richard’s dead.”

  Dolores smiled. “My man emerges.”

  Below was a large container ship. And then another and another, and oil tankers and cargo vessels and tramp steamers. From above, they looked like a vast convoy of water beetles, all headed southeast.

  “The shipping lanes,” said Dolores. “From here, they’re funneled through the Strait of Malacca. Whoever controls the strait controls a third of the world’s trade.”

  Among the ships, smaller, sleeker vessels left white wakes.