by Mack Maloney
He was shaking with anger, too, at what he’d just seen on Sumhai Island. Twitch was a veteran of Delta Force; he’d fought in some of America’s bloodiest if most secret battles. He’d endured the horror of the messy ending at Tora Bora, leaving his leg behind in the bargain. He’d lived through the awfulness and degradation of Walter Reed’s infamous Building 18. The combination of these had affected him so much, he’d almost taken his own life.
But he’d never seen anything like what he’d witnessed on Sumhai.
“Are you OK?” Crash yelled at him over the noise of the helicopter’s spinning rotor. “Talk to me… ”
But Twitch didn’t reply; he couldn’t. Instead he handed his wristwatch to Crash. Within was a tiny camera and a locator-transponder that was activated at the wearer’s discretion. It was Twitch hitting this panic button that led to them picking him up just in time. In fact, the transponder was still beeping faintly.
“I got pictures,” he finally gasped, just barely able to speak. “I got pictures…”
“And I’m asking you if you’re OK,” Crash barked back at him.
But Twitch just fell off the passenger bench.
Crash picked him back up, checked his pulse and flashed a penlight into his eyes. His pupils were dilated and rolling back into his head. His pulse was 200 beats a minute. He was grasping an old empty plastic Coke bottle like it was the most precious thing in the world. When Crash tried to take it from him, Twitch pushed him away.
Crash leaned forward and yelled in Batman’s ear: “We gotta get to where we’re going chop-chop, before he goes into shock.”
Then Crash wrapped a blanket around Twitch, pulled him tight, and tried to get him to stop shaking.
“Those bastards,” Twitch kept mumbling. “Those bastards…”
* * *
The island was known as Mengutuk Hantu Pulau.
Literally, Cursed Ghost Island.
The name was no joke; this place had earned its spooky reputation. It was a narrow, tree-covered piece of rock located at the convergence of where cold water coming down the Malacca Strait collided with warm water flowing out of the Phillip Channel, creating a fog that permanently enshrouded the island.
This made it a virtual graveyard for ships. Vessels losing their way in these strange waters over the centuries, with one wrong turn, were sent crashing against the mountains of jagged rocks that surrounded the atoll, sinking them and washing the victims’ bodies ashore.
Cursed Ghost Island and its fog and its skeleton beaches. The highly superstitious locals avoided coming anywhere near this place or the waters around it, believing them to be haunted. Only the dead lived here.
But anyone looking hard enough this night might have seen the bare outline of a ship anchored in the island’s biggest cove, hiding in the mist. It was Team Whiskey’s boat. Rusty, oily, with a single stack and four cargo masts, technically it was a DUS-7 coastal freighter, a type of vessel used for short trips between islands or up and down coastlines, and not for transocean odysseys. Just a hundred and twenty feet long with a width of twenty-four feet, it looked every bit of its fifty-plus years afloat. It was so battered and unassuming, anyone seeing it washed up on a beach somewhere wouldn’t have given it a second glance.
In the eyes of Team Whiskey, these were all assets. When Kilos offered to provide them a ship from which they could run this, their second paid operation, the vessel the company had in mind was one of its so-called “workboats.” These barely disguised, intentionally misnamed vessels were actually long-range mega-yachts, high on the comfort scale, full of communications equipment and sometimes weapons, and looking like something from a James Bond film. It would have been world class, but for what Whiskey knew they had to do, it would’ve stuck out mightily in a sea full of container ships, super tankers, steamers and fishing boats.
No, the DUS-7 was what they needed, and in the end, it’s what Kilos gave them. Along with the ship, Kilos had also provided a crew of five Senegalese nationals. Widely regarded as excellent sailors, these five longtime employees of Kilos Shipping knew their new jobs were not the same as those of typical seafarers. They were loyal, they could drive the ship in all circumstances, and if needed, they knew their way around combat weaponry as well. But because their names were just about impossible to pronounce, the team just referred to them as the Senegals.
The team had nicknamed their new ship, too. They called it the Dustboat, which again was apropos. But it did have another important attribute: While it might not have been as sexy as a Kilos workboat, it was much faster than it looked. This was because it had not one, but two propulsion systems.
Its primary means of motion was a dual diesel-based system that turned twin screws and moved the ship at about eighteen knots in a calm sea. But because the DUS-7 was specially adapted by Kilos for cargos that absolutely had to get there—“sensitive shipments,” in the company’s parlance — the company’s engineers had added a small gas turbine as a second propulsion unit. Hundreds of gallons of seawater sucked into huge tanks in the hold of the ship were condensed and, using power from the spinning turbine, shot out the back of the ship at high velocity in the form of jet sprays. When the ship needed some extra speed and the crew turned on these jets, it was like switching on an afterburner in an F-16. With this added power, the little freighter could top forty knots, faster than some of the U.S. Navy’s speediest warships.
And there was another asset: Because in the freighter’s former life it had transported those highly sensitive cargos to some of Kilos’s shadier customers, the ship also had a so-called Rubber Room hidden deep within its lower decks. It was a compartment where up to ten tons of cargo — usually arms and ammunition — could be carried and sealed off behind false panels that even the most ardent NATO search party would miss.
In this hidden storage cabin now sat Team Whiskey’s small arsenal of weapons, communications equipment and various gadgets of the special operations trade. It was also where they kept the $50,000 that Kilos had paid them for their first job. Or what was left of it.
So this was their ride — this was how they got to the Malacca Strait and its environs.
It was also the same punctual boat Twitch had robbed three times to quickly make his bones.
* * *
Once they’d accepted Kilos’s offer for this second gig, they’d sailed at double power to get here from Aden. But even though they’d reached speeds in excess of forty-two knots, they’d arrived a day too late. Twenty-four hours before getting here, Zeek’s men had murdered the three Kilos crews in Singapore Harbor, his revenge for the killing of his brother Turk off Somalia. The first blood in what would become a nasty little war had been spilled even before Whiskey made it past Sri Lanka.
So, it was not a good start. In fact, the team had learned through Conley, the security guy, that old man Kilos had taken the news of the Singapore murders so hard he had to be hospitalized. But the shipping czar had sent them a message that said, now more than ever, the world had to be rid of Zeek. And this made Whiskey even more determined to do their job well.
But even before the Singapore murders, the team knew that just killing Zeek himself would not be enough. They knew they had to take down his entire organization, too. If they didn’t, then some underling would just take over for the Pirate King and move his operations to East Africa, where they would cause more problems for international commerce and especially Kilos Shipping. As it was, Kilos had stopped all its ships from going anywhere near Singapore.
So, just lopping off the head of the snake was not Whiskey’s goal this time. They had to start cutting at the tail of the vile serpent and work their way up, making sure that when they were done, no part of the creature was left squirming.
The problem was, intelligence on Zeek and his inner circle was virtually nonexistent in these parts, which is what led to Twitch’s undercover mission, the type of assignment he’d done many times in his tenure with Delta Force. Mixing in and keeping his eyes and ears
open had been one of his specialties back in his special ops days, and he was the best of all the team members in doing it.
But now, as the tiny work copter descended through the mist of Cursed Ghost Island, lining up for a landing on the DUS-7, Batman and Crash wondered if they’d asked too much of their colleague this time.
* * *
Batman set the copter down on the makeshift landing pad near the stern of the ship. Nolan and Gunner were already there, waiting.
It took all four of them to get Twitch out of the copter. His body was limp and, judging by his nonstop mumbling, he seemed to be slipping in and out of reality. The plan was to immediately bring him down to the ship’s tiny sick bay and treat him before he briefed them on his last hundred hours.
But though he was still severely under the influence, once below and out of the elements, Twitch insisted he give them his report now: that Zeek and his crew were so evil, time was of the essence. So they led him down to the ship’s galley and pumped him full of aspirin and coffee. Still wrapped in a blanket and clutching his empty Coke bottle, Twitch told them everything.
Taking the Ecstasy, darting back and forth between islands, his trip to the Red Skull Bar, to Brothel Beach, to the hijacked ship, to the Great Fortune Lounge, to the pirates’ hidden base — he admitted he couldn’t remember exactly what happened when and in what order. He’d skipped around to so many islands at such high speed, under the influence of such potent drugs, it was hard for him to keep it all straight, especially the locations of those various islands. His last real lucid thought, he said, was when he robbed the Dustboat for the third time on his way to proving he had the beans to be a pirate. After the twins waking him the next night, most everything was a blur.
Except one thing. What was crystal clear was the massacre he’d just witnessed on Sumhai Island. As proof, he’d taken many pictures of the atrocity, and with a USB hookup and the push of a button, these pictures were soon being displayed on Batman’s laptop.
The first few photos showed some of the locations Twitch had visited earlier in the night. Undercover photos of the Great Fortune Lounge, the Red Skull Bar and Brothel Beach. A few shots from the hijacked tanker. Even a couple from the drug-fueled party on the yacht.
But it was the photos of Sumhai Island that sickened the other members of the hard-bitten team. The pictures were disturbing and graphic. Kids, mothers, fathers, the elderly, all sadistically murdered, their bodies treated like trash. There was some disappointment that the team hadn’t been able to pick up Twitch sooner; that they might have prevented the slaughter on the island. Once again, they’d arrived too late to prevent a mass killing.
But the plan had been that Twitch would hit his panic button only as a last ditch effort, and that’s exactly what he did. And looking at the gruesome pictures just made the team even more determined to find Zeek and give him the same medicine they’d doled out to his brother.
* * *
After they viewed the photographs, Twitch ended by telling them how he was able to get the drop on his two would-be executioners and finally make his escape. Then, with his debriefing complete, he put his head in his hands and fell silent again.
Crash brought him down to the ship’s tiny sick bay, checked his vitals, gave him a sedative, and waited for him to drift off to sleep. Meanwhile, the other team members remained in the galley, gathered around a map of their operations area.
It was time to plan their next move.
“Did he ever say anything about the twelve grand?” Batman asked Crash when he returned.
Crash shook his head no. “Not unless he’s talking about it in his sleep,” he said.
The money the team used to help Twitch make his bones had come from the stash Kilos had given them as payment for their first job. They’d looked on it as a reasonable investment or an acceptable loss, depending on the eventual outcome of the mission. But it was still their money, and they had to assume most of it was blown to the four winds by now. But as Batman kept reminding them, it would be nice to somehow recoup the loss. No matter what the situation, he was always the team’s “money man.”
They knew some of what Twitch told them sounded more like Alice in Wonderland than solid intelligence. The drugs he’d ingested in order to maintain his cover had been some kick-ass stuff and the team was amazed he’d held it together long enough to get away.
The problem now was finding the pirates again. The team knew some of the locations of Twitch’s recon mission, because every time he took a picture with his wristwatch, the time stamp also contained his transponder location. But just about the only place he didn’t take a picture was the most important place of all: the pirates’ hidden camp. So the team would have to look for it.
Problem number two was the size of Zeek’s gang. From what Twitch told them, and what they’d seen in the photographs, the ruthless pirate controlled what amounted to a small army of at least eighty men, many more than the couple dozen the team had been expecting. Even worse, as the recruitment of Twitch had shown, Zeek was looking for even more thugs to join his murderous crew. The numbers were definitely in Zeek’s favor.
“But we got the air asset, and that’s a plus,” Nolan said, addressing the issue. “And we got some firepower at the bottom of this ship. Plus, up until a few hours ago, Zeek had no idea that someone was in the area looking to fry his ass. When he finds his two boyfriends out on that island full of pinholes, he’ll know something is up. His MO is to create fear — and then milk it. But still, he might freak out a little, which will be good for us.”
“And there’s something else we can key in on,” Batman said. He pulled a small stapled booklet from his pocket, titled Super stitions of Indonesia.
“I downloaded this earlier,” he said. “And there’s some interesting reading here. I quote: While it might be called culture, tradition, religion or superstition, a lot of Indonesian customs add up to the same thing: an attempt by Indonesians to influence future events by small, seemingly unrelated actions.”
He passed the book around for the others to peruse.
“Translation: They’re superstitious as hell,” Batman went on. “We already know they believe in magic. And we know Zeek thinks of himself as lucky, or blessed by God, the fucking egomaniac. But if we can get him thinking that things aren’t so overall rosy for him and his gang, that might have a detrimental effect on him, too.”
“Well, we have to find him first,” Crash said.
* * *
They spent the next hour trying to plot Twitch’s stops on their map. It took some doing, but eventually they were able to match most of the photos with most of the locations their colleague had visited during those last few hellish hours.
From there, they developed their war plan. In the old days, they would have had all the resources of the CIA, NSA, the FBI, spy planes, spy satellites, listening stations — you name it — at their disposal. But now it was just them and their wits. Which meant they had to go with their intuition and gut instincts, just the sort of thing that got them in trouble back at Tora Bora. But they didn’t know any other way.
At the end of it, Nolan said: “I know we figured the way to beat these guys was either quickly or quietly. I think this time, we do it quickly rather than quietly.”
Batman was nodding. “You read my mind. One, two, three. A kick in the nuts. A punch in the face.”
He slammed his fist on the table.
“Then… a knife in the heart.”
The others grunted their approval.
“And that way,” Batman added, “maybe we can still get some of our money back.”
10
Skull Island
The monkey at the Red Skull had been sick all day.
The night before, while lapping up spilled beer from the bar as he always did, he’d ingested a substantial amount of methamphetamine, which had been spilled by an intoxicated patron, along with a half of Rohypnol pill, also known as the date-rape drug.
The monkey spent
the rest of the night and most of the next day hanging by his tail above the rickety piano, urinating on himself.
The owner of the bar, Miss Aloo, took this as a very bad sign. The monkey never got sick. But business had been slow the whole day as word of the macaque’s malady spread. Neighboring businesses up and down the street even burned incense to keep the monkey’s bad spirits away. The whole island felt uneasy.
But as soon as the sun went down and the small navy of boats belonging to the smugglers and the drug dealers and the pirates and happy girls began tying up at the Skull’s docks, the bar filled up as usual, reassuring Miss Aloo that the danger had passed and it would be just another typical Friday night. The monkey, though, stayed in his perch, angrily gnawing on the paper napkin that served as an ill-fitting diaper.
By 11 P.M., the bar was as smoky and crowded and rowdy and dangerous as always. Besides the pissing monkey, the talk was about the murder of two of Zeek’s bodyguards the night before on the small island off Sumhai. That thirty villagers had also been killed wasn’t as much on the patrons’ minds as Zeek’s men getting cut up. Everyone knew who slaughtered the villagers and why — no one crossed the most powerful pirate in Indonesia and got away with it. But who had the balls to kill two of his right-hand men?
The words on everyone’s lips were: Ku-sang do-tang.
Roughly translated: “Wait for the next shoe to drop.”
* * *
That came at precisely eleven-thirty.
Every Friday night, Zeek had three Chinese money-counters go to the Red Skull and tally his week’s take. They had an electric-powered bill counter, carried a set of books, and prepared payments for people in Zeek’s employ, including his army of pirates.
But Zeek’s money-counters were having an off night as well. They had all of the pirate’s operating cash out of the hidden vault and laid out on one of the kitchen’s cutting tables as always. But their bill-counting machine had been breaking down ever since they’d arrived. The island’s notoriously unreliable electricity had been working intermittently, stopping the machine cold and losing the totals, meaning the counters had to start all over again.
