by Mack Maloney
“Not that it makes any difference; the insurance company just writes off the ship as being a loss anyway, as if it had sunk or caught fire or wound up in a boneyard. They don’t have the time or resources to come after us. We are then able to commit the perfect crime.”
But the haki wasn’t really listening to him anymore. He’d caught a glimpse of several of the brothel’s workers in the next room over and was now banging his head against the vestibule wall, trying not to have a drug-induced, involuntary orgasm.
THEIR ERRANDS DONE, they were soon speeding toward yet another destination. This one was not in the Phillip Channel, but was located back within the tangle of islands off Talua. They went under a wooden bridge that seemed a mile high and a mile long; It connected two islands that were homes to many lounges and bars. On a hill on an island nearby, a huge beer bottle was spilling out not magic air but a sea of beer on the trees below. On another island, they saw a wrecked, three-masted ship so old it seemed like something out of an old pirate movie. And while the haki had managed to shake the notion that a monkey was chasing him during all this, he believed now that the fish under their boat were mad at them because they were going too fast.
They soon arrived at yet another island just as the sekoci ran out of gas.
“Happens every time,” Bantang said.
He managed to drift through the island’s expansive lagoon and reach a long, crooked-finger dock sticking out from the beach. It was obvious this island was different from the others they visited this night. It was hidden among a gaggle of other islands probably twenty miles in from the Phillip Channel. It had only one approach, and the water surrounding it was very shallow, especially on the north side, which featured a stout sandbar. There was no way a large vessel, such as a major warship, could ever get anywhere near this place.
Still, it was within sight of the bright lights of Singapore just on the horizon.
“This is where we live,” Bantang told the haki. “Blakam Padam, our little hideaway. The locals call it Pirate Island.”
There were no neon brothels or rowdy saloons here. This place looked like a military camp. There was a barracks, an armory, a mess hall and shops to service the large number of small attack boats. Many men in red bandanas were in evidence here, too: at least eighty or so, maybe more. They were mostly clustered in small groups, sitting around campfires, drinking whiskey and talking loudly.
Most interesting, hidden on a rivulet nearby was a large boat, a seagoing yacht bigger than the one that had taken them to the hijacked tanker. This yacht had been fitted out with many weapons and had extra-large fuel tanks on its rear deck, a most unusual vessel.
Bantang walked the haki around the site, talking as they went.
“You will get your cut of anything we make,” the white-haired pirate was saying. “You are poor, just like us, no? You want your piece of the world, too, right? You want to go to Singapore someday and live like a king? That’s what we all want.
“If we make money, you make money. And not just robbing safes on passing tramp steamers or stealing oil from medium-size fuel ships. We are prepared to take down larger ships here. Super tankers. Container ships. The sky is the limit. And if you should get hurt or even die during an operation, we are good about that. We will send your share to your family, if you have one. Or to your friends. We will take care of you, even after death.”
They walked deeper into the camp. There were many small shacks in a row next to the barracks. They had open walls, and the haki could see boxes containing handheld GPS units, night-vision goggles and old mobile phones. The armory was filled with weapons—M-16s, AK-47s and shotguns, plus many more boxes of ammunition.
Again, many of the pirates were drinking near the camp’s little beach, next to the lagoon. Still tripping and drunk, Bantang and the haki headed back in that direction.
They took their place near a group of pirates and were each handed a bottle of Chinese beer. One pirate started admiring the haki’s wristwatch. The haki pulled it away immediately and with one glance, Bantang told the man to desist, much to the haki’s relief. The last thing he wanted was someone taking a close look at his watch.
Fifty feet up from the beach was a large structure more elaborate than the others. It was built of concrete and steel, not rope and teakwood, and seemed to have a substantial foundation underneath it. It had a wraparound porch and two armed men loitering outside. They were wearing black bandanas, a sign, Bantang explained, that they were part of the Boss’s elite personal bodyguards. The building they were guarding was obviously the camp’s headquarters.
A man stepped out of the building’s front door and onto the porch. That’s when the haki saw Zeek Kurjan for the first time.
Tall, thin, with a cracked nose, dark skin, steely eyes and a long black beard that was tied in braids and held together at the ends by black ribbons, he was wearing a loud purple shirt and purple pants, not jeans, and high black boots over his pant legs. Two long, thick gold chains hung around his neck and reached almost to his belt. The belt itself contained two sheaths that held large combat knives. A black do-rag covered his head. Though Zeek was known to employ doubles for security purposes, stand-ins who dressed and wore their hair and beard like him, the haki was sure this man was the authentic item. He looked as cruel and ruthless as advertised.
Another sekoci arrived shortly thereafter. It tied up to the finger dock and four people got out, two pirates and two men wearing Indonesian military uniforms. They walked past the clusters of pirates and up to the HQ building. They had a brief discussion with Zeek, at which the head pirate let out a great, sinister roar. Whatever news the military men delivered, Zeek was pleased by it.
The Pirate King started barking orders. Two of his bodyguards scrambled out of the HQ and ran to a building at the rear of the camp. They soon returned, dragging a middle-aged man between them.
This man was obviously a prisoner of the pirates. His clothes were in tatters, and judging by the cuts and bruises on his body, he’d been beaten and mistreated for some time. He was taken into the HQ, after which Zeek’s booming voice could again be heard, along with that of the hapless prisoner pleading for his life.
After a few minutes of this, the man was dragged back out onto the porch of the HQ. A bell was rung three times, ordering the pirates to gather round.
Zeek soon reappeared and addressed his men.
“Our friend here is ready to end his vacation with us,” he said, pointing to the beaten, broken man. “Who wants to help me bring him home?”
The pirates cheered lustily, raising their fists over their heads. All of them wanted to go.
Bantang grabbed the haki’s hand and raised it for him.
“You do not want to miss this, my brother,” Bantang said.
A SMALL FLEET of armed sekocis set out from the pirates’ island. Zeek’s speedboat was in the lead.
The trip to the island of Sumhai took about twenty minutes, winding in and out of the dizzying channels separating hundreds of islands in the Talua region. There were no happy girls with them this time. All of the pirates were drunk and high on drugs, including the haki. But he could see they all had something else in them, too—a look of bloodlust, like men going into a battle that they knew they would win, no matter what.
Sumhai was actually two islands separated by a narrow shallow canal. The larger of the two had a couple of dozen huts, a small sugarcane field and a pen containing a few pigs and goats. The smaller island contained a graveyard: a small hill with one tree and a collection of crude stone markers.
The sekocis’ noisy approach woke up the village’s residents. Soon people were flowing out of their huts, wearing rags for bedclothes. But on seeing the pirates, they went into a panic. Parents hustled children back into their shacks. The pigs and goats were set free, allowed to run into the jungle and hide. The men put on their clothes and grabbed broomsticks as weapons.
The fleet of sekocis landed on the island’s beach. Pirates climbed up
into the village, waving their weapons around and shouting orders. Like clockwork they rounded up the island’s thirty or so residents, forcing them to the water’s edge.
A cheap plastic chair was set up on the beach, and only then did Zeek get out of his speedboat. He sat in the chair and stretched his legs. He looked at the gang of frightened villagers staring back at him and smirked. He signaled his bodyguards, who then dragged the prisoner off his boat.
A gasp went through the villagers when the beaten man was thrown at their feet. A woman and two teenage girls ran to him and helped him to his knees.
They were crying: “Bapak! Bapak!”
Father, father.
Zeek once again signaled his bodyguards. They roughly broke up the reunion, pulling the wife and daughters away from the beaten man.
The wife tried to hit Zeek, but the bodyguards kept her at a safe distance.
“Why are you mad at me?” Zeek asked her, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Even though he still owes me money, I have returned your husband to you. Your daughters now have their father back.”
The woman suddenly looked hopeful.
“But there is a price,” Zeek went on darkly. “In fact, he and I recently negotiated the terms of his release.”
Zeek gave a third signal to his bodyguards. They grabbed the youngest of the daughters and threw her at his feet. The villagers gasped again. Zeek scanned his gang of pirates, selecting one who looked more intoxicated than the rest. He motioned him forward.
Zeek told this man simply: “A present for you.”
The pirate proceeded to brutally rape the girl, while Zeek’s bodyguards forced her mother, sister and father to watch.
It seemed to go on forever. The girl’s father was on the ground weeping uncontrollably, her mother and sister hysterical.
When it was finally over, the mother screamed at Zeek: “God will punish you for this!”
But this only amused the pirate captain further. He grabbed the mother by her hair and brought her face up to his.
“You have it all wrong,” he told her. “You see, I am the punishment of God. That’s why I’ll live forever. If you kill me, I just come alive again. I do not bleed; I can’t be drowned. I am here to do His bidding. And if you had not committed great sins, like those fools on those three ships in Singapore for instance, then God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
With that, Zeek drew out one of his knives and slit the woman’s throat.
“This is the bargain your husband made,” Zeek told her, as the woman began choking on her own blood. “This is the ransom he agreed to pay.”
At that point, the second daughter broke away from the bodyguards and managed to lunge at Zeek. She slapped him hard across the face.
“You are a woman!” she screamed at him. “Your beard is like pigtails on a little girl!”
Zeek froze. He looked at the daughter with an almost befuddled expression, as if even he couldn’t believe what she’d just said. But it was obvious her words had cut him deep.
Still the Pirate King recovered quickly. His face didn’t turn crimson. His cold, dark eyes didn’t bug out, nor did he reach for his knife again. Instead, he turned the hysterical girl around so she was facing the crowd and then he embraced her from behind. He began whispering in her ear, rocking her and stroking her hair, as if he was comforting her.
And she did calm down. For a moment.
But then slowly, Zeek reached down and took the two ends of his gold chains and crossed them. Then he brought them up to the girl’s throat, wrapped them around her neck and suddenly pulled them tight. The girl began choking. The pirates cheered. The girl fought and fought, but Zeek only howled with laughter as he slowly strangled the life out of her.
The villagers started screaming. Even though armed pirates surrounded them, some started throwing rocks at Zeek, others attacking the pirates themselves with broomsticks. Gunfire filled the air.
Zeek let the dead girl fall to the ground, then roared: “Give them all a bath! They need to be cleaned.”
That’s when the slaughter began.
Some villagers were shot at random. Others were forced to the ground, the pirates holding them down so Zeek’s bodyguards could shoot them in the head. Some villagers managed to break free and run, but armed pirates chased them into the woods or the water and hacked them to death with machetes. Others were simply stomped to death where they lay.
The haki was anxiously fingering his wristwatch during all this. Between the drugs and the alcohol, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Everywhere he looked he saw unspeakable horror. Not ten feet away from him, an elderly woman was being raped. Over there, a man was being beaten with nailed sticks; behind him, three children put inside sacks and stomped to death. Over there, an old man killed by scalding hot water.
Some villagers were tied to trees and savagely kicked until dead. Others were impaled on their own farm tools. Children were thrown into barrels of boiling cooking oil. Others were held under water on the beach until drowned.
It lasted only about ten minutes. But by the time the pirates were through, all of the villagers were dead.
When it was over, Zeek, who had watched it all approvingly from his cheap plastic chair, screamed to his men: “No one can beat us because we have the courage of lions, the cunning of foxes, the long-sightedness of ravens, and the wildness of wolves!”
His men cheered and some tried to repeat his words. But exhausted by the rampage, many of the pirates simply collapsed to the ground. They were all covered with blood, like hyenas after a feeding. Those few still on their feet looted the meager belongings of the poor village residents, then burned down their huts. Bodies were left where they fell. Already, buzzards were circling the island, awoken and drawn here by the scent of blood.
Finally, the pirates prepared to leave—and that’s when the strangest thing of all happened.
Returning to their boats on the beach, some pirates fired off a few rounds from their weapons, one last gesture of the defiance.
Bantang came up to the haki. The white-haired pirate was also covered in blood. He looked at the haki and sensed his shock. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”
They stumbled down to the beach, intent on getting back to the sekoci they’d come in on. They were about to climb into the boat when a booming voice behind them yelled, “Stop!”
The haki froze. So did Bantang.
They both turned to see Zeek, standing twenty feet away, pointing at them. The pirate boss snapped his fingers and two of his bodyguards ran up to where the haki and Bantang were standing. They ripped the weapons from their hands and dragged them over to Zeek. In seconds the haki was facing the Pirate King himself. He’d yet to be this close to him and he realized now that his face was ravaged by scars and burns. And his eyes were indeed completely black.
“You—the new one,” Zeek harshly said to him. “What’s the matter with you?”
The haki tried to stay cool. He just shook his head.
Zeek laughed evilly. “But look at you,” he said.
A small crowd of bodyguards and pirates had closed in now.
The haki looked himself up and down, but didn’t know what Zeek was talking about. But the others nearby knew.
“He is too clean!” one cried.
Zeek gave this pirate a playful slap on the cheek.
“Yes—exactly,” Zeek said. “He is too clean.”
He raised his hands as if to indicate the rest of his gang. “Look at my sons,” he said. “They are dirty. They are sweaty. They wear the blood of others on them.”
Then brushed his hand against the haki’s chest.
“But you, my friend,” he said. “You are clean. Too clean.”
The haki froze. Zeek was right.
“You did not participate,” Zeek told him, his mock humor fading with every word. “You drank my whiskey. You took my Ecstasy. You handled my girls. Yet, now, when everyone else joined in, you hold bac
k. You remain clean. Why?”
The haki opened his mouth and tried to say something, anything. But nothing would come out. There was nothing to say. He had stood and watched the bloody rampage, but he had not taken part in the savagery.
Suddenly, Zeek was right in his face.
“That means you are either a woman or a spy,” he said, so close his rancid breath was almost suffocating. “And I don’t have the time right now to find out which one it is.”
Zeek called over two of his biggest bodyguards.
“We don’t need his kind in our family,” he said. “Take him—and make it hurt. And leave him among the stones as an example.”
The bodyguards immediately grabbed the haki and dragged him across the shallow, narrow channel that led to Sumhai’s second island. The one with the graveyard.
Zeek then turned his attention to Bantang. “Where was your judgment—letting this person get so close to us?” he asked the white-haired pirate.
Bantang could not answer. He was too scared to even talk.
“We will bring up this matter back at the base,” Zeek said.
Bantang was tied up and thrown into a boat. With that, the rest of the pirate band jumped into their sekocis, and together they all disappeared into the night, Zeek included.
Meanwhile, the haki was forced up to the second island’s only tree, the bodyguards punching and kicking him the whole way. Once there, one bodyguard threw a rope over the tree’s limb and fashioned a crude noose on one end. The other bodyguard took out his machete. It was clear that hanging wasn’t the only thing they had planned for him.
One bodyguard took off the haki’s wristwatch, looked at it, then tossed it away like a piece of trash. Then both bodyguards started dancing and performing martial arts moves around him, drunkenly flailing at him with the tips of their machetes.
They were cutting him with each turn—laughing anytime they hit him. But they tired of this quickly.
