Blood Tide

by Robert F. Jones

  Billy Torres, in the other Thunder, heard them, too. He looked over to Curt and shook his head. A definite no. Billy grabbed a flak jacket from the gunwale and put it on. Then he put on a steel helmet. Then he picked up the rocket launcher. Well, Curt thought, when in Rome. . . . But he couldn’t find his Kevlar vest. Or his hard hat. Or the fucking Redeye missile unit, either—too late now, anyway.

  The jets, two of them, droop-nosed F-4 Phantoms, swept in low from the north in echelon, so low over the backbone of the island that their exhaust swirled in the thorn scrub. They broke right and left and bored in on the Thunders. The cannon flashes started when the jets were still half a mile away. Curt jammed the throttles forward and felt the Thunder leap out, straight toward a column of geysers spouting and collapsing where the cannon shells had hit the water. He spun the wheel hard right and shot inshore, along the reverse line of the cannon fire. He could taste salt spray hanging in the air when he bounced over the seething holes in the water. The jets had passed overhead by now and were sweeping at wave-top level in opposite circles. The Phantoms were painted brown and green, but they bore no numbers or national markings. Their low speed caused them to wallow in the heavy, wet air. They had his range now. . . .

  Out of the corner of his eye, Curt glimpsed a brilliant flash. Billy had the Redeye tube at his shoulder, he saw. Smoke trailed lazily downwind. The Phantom on his left suddenly disappeared in a boil of white light. Bits of it rained down, pocking the sea, and one hunk whined over Curt’s head. Another splatted hard against the gas drums stored aft, but nothing blew up. He ducked, about half an hour too late, as usual. The remaining jet kicked in its afterburners and climbed steeply toward heaven. Curt saw Billy tracking it with the rocket launcher, but he didn’t fire a second round. Maybe better that way: let the survivor go home and think about it. Billy looked over to Curt again and pumped one fist, up and down, rapidly. Make tracks. Then he pointed toward the Ko Kut shore. Follow me.

  They lay inshore among the mangroves until it was dark. The mosquitoes were fierce.”

  “What the fuck was that all about?” Curt asked.

  “Who cares?” Billy said. “Happens sometimes. Always has, always will. Somebody didn’t lay the right number of bahts on the right colonel? Or maybe the wrong general. Or maybe it’s just some old-school Thai who refused to play the game.” He pulled a San Mig from his cooler and popped it, then took a series of long, noisy swallows. “You see that mother go boom, though? I love that, when that happens. Thank Christ these Thais can’t shoot worth shit.”

  Billy finished the beer and threw the bottle over the side. Crabs scuttled in the mangrove roots. He stooped over and lugged something limp up to the gunwale. It was a Tausuq with no head, Billy’s crewman. His T-shirt had said something witty, Curt remembered, but now it was obscured by blood. Billy slipped him over the side. Blood washed away as the body wallowed in the shallows. The T-shirt said, NO PAIN, NO GAIN. Not so witty after all. The crabs hit the water running and headed toward the Tausuq. Chow time.

  “You got a beer to spare?” Curt asked Billy. “I’m fresh out.”

  “Tough luck,” Billy said. He popped himself another and chugged it down. “You shouldn’t drink so much on duty.” He tossed the bottle at the dead Tausuq. It bounced off his chest. Curt’s Tausuq hissed and looked away.

  “Okay,” Billy said. “That’s it. Let’s blow this pop stand.”

  They headed back east toward Lázaro. Curt’s Tausuq was sulking in the rear of the cockpit, squatting back against the reserve gas drums.

  “Easy, Abdul,” Curt told him. “It’s over now.”

  “Never over,” Abdul said. “Always just beginning already.”

  Every week, usually on a Thursday, a Philippine Navy PBM-3 Mariner flew in to Balbal and landed on the water off the lee shore. The commo had another installation there, top secret, with radio masts and concrete bunkers. It was hidden back in the jungle, up a narrow but deep channel through the mangroves. You couldn’t see it from sea or air unless you knew it was there.

  The weekly Mariners had no markings on them, but Curt knew from talking to the flying boat’s crew that they were Flip navy. “You come Davao-side sometime, Joe,” a friendly first-class aviation machinist told him. “I make nice party for you. We got pretty girl Davao-side. We eat kilawin, raw fish with soy sauce put lead in your pencil, drink lotsa tuba wine, fuck them Chinese and Hapon girl plenty. Make ’em go ee-tai, hey? Ouchy-ouchy, hey! You and me, we eat durian for dessert.”

  “What’s durian?”

  “Durian better than Hapon girl for dessert,” the first-class said. “Smells like shit, tastes like heaven.” He stooped back into the plane and threw a mango-like fruit to Curt. “Try it,” he said, “you like it.”

  The first-class was right on all counts.

  After loading their cargo—scag, opium, bricks of Thai hash—the Flips took off and shaped a course to Mindanao. Curt checked their flight log once when the crew was ashore. Davao, all right. Just the facts, ma’am.

  After the first run Billy stayed on the beach. “He’s trigger-happy,” the commodore told Curt. “He thinks ordnance grows on trees. He thinks its like Chinese firecrackers. Redeyes cost money—a fortune! You should be able to dodge those dorks when they shoot at you. This is a high-tech boat, capable of incredibly evasive maneuvers.”

  “How come they shot at us?” Curt asked.

  “Somebody blew it in Bangkok,” the commodore said. He threw a piercing look at Curt. “Why?”

  “You ought to get rid of that Bangkok dude.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “Who was he? Just for my own curiosity.”

  “Yours not to reason why, Cappy,” the commodore said. “Leave that part to me.”

  The Sea Witch was anchored out in the roadstead now. Two or three nights a week Rosalinda came aboard after dark, from a bumboat, and she and Curt made love in the wide bunk in the captain’s cabin. Curt had been right about her. She was hot. She had a mouth on her like sizzling liver. Brillo seemed to like her, too; he always got on well with women. Rosalinda cooked good chow—a hot coconut soup she called binakol; dinengdeng, which she made from eggplant, squash, and the leafy green lettucelike kangkong and splashed heavily with bagoong, a spicy sauce of fish and shrimp fermented in brine; and adobo stews of chicken and pork spiked with vinegar, soy, garlic, chunks of liver, and—sometimes—chilies as hot as anything Curt had blistered his tongue on in Mexico. These fires were duly extinguished with fruit salads chilled in shaved ice—papaya, mango, tart little red bananas, guava, lanzon, chico, rambutan, and—of course—the malodorous, melt-in-your-mouth durian. “We call this halo-halo in Tagalog,” she said as she dished up the salad. “Means ‘mix-mix.’ Good eats, hey?” Curt could only groan and grin. Christ, he was getting fat!

  One night soon after the Phantom attack at Ko Kut the crewman Abdul came alongside in a pump boat. Rosalinda ducked below as he roared in from the dark. The Tausuq tied up and jumped aboard the Sea Witch. He had something wrapped in a hunk of canvas and, he chunked it down on the chart table.

  “You been notice dat bad smell on da Tunder?” he asked. “Gets worse and worse each days. Been making sick, me. I look, I poke, I hunt it down. Find it already back among da gas drums.”

  Curt unwrapped the canvas and the smell hit him hard. It was a human head, rotted from the heat and covered with a writhing mass of red ants and maggots. He quickly covered his mouth and nose with a bandanna and brushed the insects away. A white man’s head—the one remaining eye was blue, the mustache on the ragged upper lip a reddish blond. There was something familiar about the bloated face . . .

  He remembered the Phantom’s blowing up on impact with Billy’s rocket, the bits and pieces whizzing through the air, the thing that splatted against the gas drums but didn’t blow them up. This must have been it. Jet fighter. White man. Then it came to him. Phil Chalmers, Major, U.S. Air Force, currently assigned to Military Air Transport but formerly a fighter jock in V
ietnam. This thing was Phil’s head.

  “Okay, Abdul,” he said. “Well done. It’s probably from the pilot of that plane we blew up last time. Nothing mysterious about it.”

  He chucked the head, canvas and all, over the side.

  “Not show Mr. Billy? Not show commodore?”

  “Not while they’re eating, Abdul,” Curt said. “I’ll tell them in the morning.”

  Abdul went back ashore, shaking his head gloomily. Rosalinda waited until the sound of his Suzuki 25 faded away completely before she came topside again.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Abdul found a hunk of rotten meat on the Thunder. I deep-sixed it. How come you’re so afraid of him seeing you?”

  “I’d lose face,” she said. “Sleeping with a white man. I’ve got my position to consider, you know.”

  Later, after she’d done the dishes, they made love on the cockpit deck. He saw Brillo watching them from the cabin roof. The dog looked envious. Too bad, old pal. We’ve got her position to consider, you know.

  “See you again tomorrow night?” she said when the bumboat returned for her.

  “Afraid not, Rosa,” Curt said. “We’ve got another run laid on. Duty calls.”

  “Not Ko Kut again?”

  “No,” Curt said. “Too hot there last time. The commo won’t decide on the place till after we’re under way. He’ll radio us at the last minute with the rendezvous coordinates. Less chance for double-crosses that way.”

  Later, when she’d gone, Curt lay topside under the stars and thought about Phil Chalmers. Why in the hell would his old business buddy try to wipe him out? They’d never really been friends, of course. As far as Phil knew, Curt was just another minor-league dope runner, hardly worth killing if to do so required wiping out part of an outfit Phil himself wanted to do business with. But, of course, in the dope trade it always paid off to eliminate anyone who could tie you to the business, and Curt had, after all, made a veiled threat against Phil back in Manila that night. Probably he’d signed on with another of the many organizations in Southeast Asia that were channeling heroin from the Golden Triangle back to the United States. Or maybe Phil wasn’t really as corrupt as he seemed. Maybe, like Curt himself, he was working under cover for some government intelligence outfit. That would really be ironic. Mysterious East, hell. The mysterious West was more like it.

  In the morning, when Abdul brought the Thunder alongside fueled and ready for the run, Curt looked over the side for the head. It rested like a huge sea slug on the coral rubble near the anchor. Already the crabs and reef fish had been at work on it. Parrot fish nibbled at the mustache.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The sun was already on its downward slide when Venganza raised the Flyaways. Miranda, halfway up the ratlines, could see a plume of smoke from a volcanic cone off to the southwest, trailing low and blue under the trades, then the peak of Mount Haplit itself, a broken, lopsided blue-black lump just breaking the horizon’s rim. That was San Lázaro. The Moro lookout in the mainmast’s top shouted something and pointed ahead. She trained the binoculars in the direction he gestured. Low, dirty white waves surged and chopped as far as she could see, and occasional flashes of brown coral or yellow sand showed through the sea spume. Reefs. Lots of them. Coming up fast.

  “Dangerous ground!” yelled the old mundo, whose name was Kasim. He seemed delighted.

  “Strike that mainsail,” she said when she hit the deck. “Scandalize the bastard, fast! The mizzen, too.” Freddie jumped, yelling to the other Moros. “Bring her up into the wind,” she told Culdee at the helm.

  “No, no,” the old mundo said. “I know way in. Take off speed, yes, but no come up to wind. We be fine.” He took the helm from Culdee and yelled something to the lookout. The lookout pointed off the port bow and sinuated his hand like a snake. “Channel lie there,” Kasim said. “We follow.”

  They eased with bare steerageway through the winding channel. Occasional coral heads rose suddenly to within inches of the keel, and twice they scraped them—ugly, hollow, rasping sounds that caused Miranda to bite her lips. She had Culdee light off the engine. That way she could back down fast if they began to run aground. It was the only insurance available, beyond faith.

  “Putas,” Kasim said, frowning. “These rocks, whores? That is how we name them here. What you name them by your homeplace?”

  “Whores,” Culdee said. “At any rate, that’s what they call them on the charts off the Maine coast. Putas.” They laughed. The sea is the same the world over.

  It felt like an hour at least, but by the time they cleared the reefs, Miranda saw that the sun had sunk only an inch or two toward the western horizon. She shook herself to relax as they entered blue water. Her lips were raw and numb. She’d hate to have to run that channel alone. On both sides, all the way through, they had seen what looked like wrecks shifting in the surge. Broken masts and bowsprits, covered with gull guano, protruded into the salt haze over the reefs—like punji stakes, Culdee said. Big, dark, hawklike birds swung, stiff-winged, low over the water as Freddie’s boys bent on more sail. Bird cries cut the wind, at once mournful and contemptuous. “Gallows bird,” Kasim said. “Eat people.”

  The lookout yelled again. He pointed to the south, off Venganza’s port beam. Miranda returned to the ratlines with the glasses. At first she saw only the dark bulk of San Lázaro and the lesser dark green of what must be Isla Balbal. Then she spotted two wakes—rooster tails from fast motors—cutting toward them from the south. As they neared, she made out two pump boats bouncing on the chop.

  “Lázareños,” Kasim said. “Mundo. Muy malo.” He yelled again to his men. Weapons suddenly appeared—ugly, wood-stocked guns with long, curved magazines. Even the lookout in the mainmast had one, concealed in a furl of sailcloth.

  “AKs,” Culdee said. “Good medicine.”

  “We cannot let them escape,” Kasim said. “Capitán Katana very strong on that. Sorpresa, how you say, ‘surprise’? Muy importante.”

  “Who’s Capitán Katana?” Miranda asked.

  “Padre’s navy adviser,” Kasim said. “Chinee, I think, him.

  Now the two pump boats lay off, paralleling Venganza’s course out of gunshot range. There were three men in one boat, two in the other. One of the three climbed up on his engine cover to get a better look at them. He danced slightly, as if on coals.

  “Must be scorching his feet,” Culdee said. “They’ve been running wide open.”

  “Tausuq, hard feet,” Kasim said. He slapped his own soles—hard and hollow-sounding, like old leather or horn. “Muy calloso.”

  Culdee slipped below for a moment. When he returned, he had his .30/30 case, with the butt of the oiled walnut stock just showing through the unzipped fleece of the lining.

  “You watch,” Kasim said. “You must look frighten of us.” He widened his eyes and drooped his mouth in mock fear. Then he jumped up onto the cabin roof and waved to the pump boats. He yelled to them in Tausuq. The two boats began to converge on Venganza. But slowly, slowly.

  “They sniff crippled meat,” Kasim said softly. “They would pick the bones.” He waved and yelled some more, laughing happily. He pulled his bolo and gestured fiercely at Miranda and Culdee. They cowered convincingly.

  While the boat with two crewmen lay off, the other came alongside. Two Tausuqs in baseball caps and ripped sarongs swung over the taffrail. They were young and carried bolos. As they steadied on deck, Kasim grabbed one and cut his throat. A Moro rose from beside the mainmast and shot the other as he turned. From the main top, a long clattering burst chopped down the two in the boat lying off before it could get under way. Empty brass clanked down and bounced off the deck.

  The pump boat alongside burst away in a great horrified roar, throwing oily spray across Miranda’s face. She heard a loud, heavy, single bang beside her, and as her eyes cleared, saw Culdee crouched against the taffrail, the .30/30 out and tracking. Another bang. He worked the lever, brass flew. He shot again. She
saw the escaping pump boat suddenly buck and swerve sideways. Its engine died. Pale blue smoke . . . The Tausuq at the tiller—an old man with wild gray hair—tried to leap overboard, diving low toward the outrigger. Culdee fired a fourth shot. The Tausuq disappeared underwater, flailing.

  Culdee was up, levering in his last round. “I don’t know,” he yelled, “did I hit him?” His face was pale under his tan, and his beard blew in the following wind. Kasim yelled up to the lookout. The lookout shouted back, nodding vigorously, his face in a wide, white grin.

  “Sí!” Kasim said. “Suleiman say you kill him. Sharp eyes, Suleiman. El águila. ‘Eagle’? Here.” He poked a hard finger under Culdee’s right armpit, then poked him in the lower left ribs. “Through and through,” he said. “Muerto!”

  Culdee turned and vomited over the side. He retched again and again, emptying his stomach. Then he sat weakly on deck with the rifle across his knees. “Too much adrenaline on an empty stomach,” he said to no one in particular. His smile was weak and shaky, apologetic. Freddie came up to him.

  “They would have done us worse already,” he said in a soft voice. “They would be laughing now. You good man, Culdee.”

  Culdee turned and retched again.