Stone knew other Palauans, some of equal stature, but none with Salinis's connections to the several worlds of shipping, construction, politics, and Japanese tourism that ruled the Far Pacific.
"Are you hungry? Doctor Mike?"
"Starving."
"Beers and Cokes in back." There was a cooler on the backseat. Stone fished a Coke out of the ice and drained it in one long joyous swallow. "Oh."
"You know you really look terrible."
Stone caught her eye as she stopped for a truck loaded with mangrove logs. "Joanna, I've come to see your dad on business and I'd appreciate—"
"I know. Dad already told me. Keep my mouth shut. I know that, for gosh sakes. I only said you look terrible." She leaned on the horn, blaring until the truck moved, then swung onto a dirt road that climbed a steep hill, and gunned the car over a series of ruts and potholes. "Sorry about the road. Dad says it keeps out strangers."
Stone felt as if his eyes and ears were operating a long beat behind the moment. "What did you mean, your dad told you?"
"He telephoned me and said you had a problem and I was to pick you up quietly and take you away from the airport. He phoned Immigration to let us through."
"How did he know I had a problem? I didn't talk to him."
Joanna gnawed her lip. "There was a funny message on his answering machine the other day. He right away took the tape out."
"A message? From whom?"
"I don't know, Doctor Michael. He thought it was maybe a joke."
"Where is it?"
"Daddy has it."
"When's he coming home?"
"Soon, soon. Don't worry."
Home, a sprawling modern house of teak and glass and
stone floors, was on the side of a steep hill overlooking the Philippine Sea. The humidity had already mildewed the furniture and warped the doors, and the air-conditioning had broken—victim, Joanna explained, of the recurring power outages. But the views were spectacular west to the sea and south to the Rock Islands, which looked like a generous hand had flung emeralds into the lagoon.
"Sat phone?"
"Don't you want a shower first?"
"Where's the phone?"
She led him to a comfortable guest room with a breeze that was better than air-conditioning, and showed him the phone and shower. He waited until she had backed out, then lifted the phone and dialed.
"Kerry McGlynn, please. Doctor Mike calling." McGlynn was at sea, his secretary replied.
"Can you patch me through to him?"
She could not.
"Doesn't he have a sat phone aboard?" Speed and communication were the key to the salvage game.
"I'm afraid he's rather caught up at the moment. One of our repeat customers has discovered another island new to him. May I help you?"
"I'm a friend. I need Kerry's help."
"Why don't I pass your number on when Kerry radios in? Then he can ring you."
Stone gave her the Salinises' number. "Where's Kerry operating?"
"I'm afraid he'll have to tell you that," the secretary answered icily, as if a friend should damned well know that secrecy was another vital ingredient for success in the salvage business.
"Listen to me. This is personal and very urgent. Is there any place I can meet him?"
"I'm afraid—"
"Please. Please. I have nowhere to turn."
"Hold the line, please."
Stone waited, racking his brain for whom else to call. . . . Lydia Chin in Hong Kong, a shipowner. Or maybe someone from his Navy days. Someone who'd
made admiral by now, with the clout to command a search. Someone whom he hadn't seen in twenty-five years? Someone duty-bound to arrest him .. .
"Doctor Mike?"
"Still here."
"I don't know if this helps at all, but it's the best I can do. Before we got this job Kerry had meetings scheduled in Hong Kong. It's possible he will be stopping there in a few days."
"Where's he stay?"
"I can't say."
"Tell him I'll be at the Hong Kong Yacht Club. But if he calls in before, I'll be at this number until tomorrow morning."
He telephoned the yacht club and Lydia Chin. Her office said she was traveling in China, due back tomorrow.
He sat holding the phone, pondering whom else to call. Finally he gave it up and stumbled into the bathroom, where he removed his tattered shirt and shorts. The mirror gave him a shock. He'd lost ten pounds. He could see his ribs, and the bones in his arms showing through a stringy sheath of muscle. His face was dark red, his arms nearly black, his beard hung long from his hollow cheeks, and his eyes, ordinarily dark blue, had the hard silvery sheen of ball bearings.
He stepped into the hot water, cried out as it scalded his sunburn, adjusted to lukewarm, and washed away salt and dried blood with soap and shampoo. When he finally closed the taps, he heard Joanna call, "There's a razor in the medicine cabinet and I'm just reaching in with a robe." A shapely hand and a long arm snaked around the door and hung the cotton robe on the hook.
"There's coffee and Coke and sushi out here when you're ready. Want a beer?"
"Coffee'll be fine."
"Well, that's better," Joanna exclaimed. "But you still need a shave."
"Your dad home yet?"
"Soon."
Stone sat at the coffee table she had spread and stared
at the food, wondering what else he could do, whom else he should call.
"Joanna, what's my quickest way to Hong Kong?" "Air Mike to Manila, Air Philippines to Hong Kong."
She settled cross-legged on a couch across from him. "How about to Tokyo?"
"Air Mike to Guam."
"When's the next Manila flight?" His friend—or rather acquaintance—Patrick was in Manila. A semiretired mercenary, Patrick was connected.
"They fly Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday." "What day is today?"
"What do you mean?"
"What day of the week, for crissake?" Michael paused. "Sorry. I'm a little confused."
"Today is Monday," she said primly. "Eat something. And you better drink. Want a beer?"
"No. Thank you." He should have been starving, but all he could focus on was his next step. His relief at having made land had already worn off, and his panic about Sarah and Ronnie was escalating. Where would the ship have taken them by now? He ate some cut-up mango and sipped the coffee. Hong Kong offered deeper lines into more worlds than Tokyo, where his friends were more conventional businessmen.
A car slid to a noisy halt on the coral drive. A door slammed, shaking the house, and the next instant Marcus Salinis filled the room. He was a stocky five-six, nearly as broad as he was tall, with a brown face split by a gap-toothed smile. A Micronesian beer belly strained the buttons of his flowered shirt; the tight cloth showed the outline of a gun on his hip.
"Doctor Michael! Joanna take care of you okay?" He grasped Stone's hand in both of his as Stone tried to ask about the message, and squeezed hard. "Joanna, bring a couple of Buds. The man's drinking coffee for crissake and the sun's almost down."
Joanna hurried to the kitchen. Salinis said, "You look beat."
"I need help," Michael said plainly.
"Came to the right place. Listen to this." He released Stone's hand and pulled a pocket tape recorder from his shirt. "I pulled the tape out of my answering machine."
Joanna returned with two cans of Budweiser, which were dripping condensation.
Her father enveloped both cans in one hand. "Hon, I bought a nice fish. Why don't you light the grill? We'll give Doctor Mike a cookout."
Joanna left sulkily and Salinis turned on the tape. "I don't know if this is a joke or what, Michael. You tell me."
Stone jumped at the sound of Sarah's voice, tight with tension and frustration:
"Marcus. Marcus. Are you there . . . Bloody hell!—" "The machine picked up," Salinis explained. "I was out fishing."
"Marcus. Marcus, this is Sarah. Please save this message for Michael. . .
Stone felt tears burn his eyes. After all these years, they operated almost as one person.
She knew, come hell or high water, he'd somehow get off the atoll, knew when he did he'
d head for Palau, and knew that in Palau he would head first for Marcus Salinis.
"Listen, Michael. We're at nine degrees north, one hundred and thirty-two east, headed northwest at twenty-three knots. We're all right. I've an elderly patient with a gunshot wound. My best guess is we're headed for Taiwan or Shanghai if we don't change course.
I'm not sure what they'll do when they don't need me anymore. On the other hand, they'll need me for some time, as they refuse to put the old man in hospital. He apparently owns this so-called Dallas Belle, and that is all I can tell you. I frankly don't know who in the world can help us—even if we were free to ask—what navy, what government— They're coming, I'd better ring off. God bless."
A hang-up click; Salinis's answering machine whined the dial tone and fell silent.
Twenty-three knots, 550 miles a day, 2750 miles in five days—Taiwan yesterday; Shanghai tonight. But if the ship had changed course, it could be anywhere from Guam to Australia to Singapore today, and deep in the Indian Ocean tomorrow.
Salinis was staring at Michael. "Reason I figured it's a joke, she sounds so cool."
"When the shrapnel's flying," said Stone, "she's cool."
"What the hell is going on?"
"We were down in Pulo Helena last week. A big gas carrier radioed for medical help, said the captain hurt himself falling down. Sarah and Ronnie went aboard. I stayed on the atoll where an old fisherman was dying. Next thing I knew they'd hoisted the Swan on deck and steamed off."
"Leaving you alone?"
"Except for some poor guy dead on the beach. Shot." "That's crazy."
"Just like I said it. I couldn't believe it. . . ." "How'd you get to Angaur?"
"Fisherman's canoe."
"From Helena? You some sailorman, Michael.'?
His head was reeling, his eyes heavy. "I gotta find the ship."
"Only problem is," said Salinis, walking to the window to make sure they were still alone, "why did Sarah say `free to ask'?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Sarah calls me instead of sending a distress signal. And now you're holed up in my house instead of at the U.S. Consulate screaming for the Navy."
Stone hesitated.
Marcus probed. "I always figured you were on the lam. Plenty of Americans out here are.
But how bad? Sarah got an angry husband looking for you?"
"Bad," said Stone.
"Wha'd you kill somebody?"
"No .. . but I am wanted for murder. Among other things."
"You didn't do it?"
"I didn't kill anybody."
"What were the 'other things'? Drugs?"
"Not drugs."
"So what's left?"
"What if I told you piracy?"
Marcus Salinis looked annoyed, which in a Palauan was
a menacing sight. His fleshy face closed up, erased his smile, and gathered heavily around his eyes, which were suddenly small and brittle. "Okay, Doc. None of my business. And fuck you too."
Stone said, "It happened long ago in another ocean."
"Long ago in another ocean? Sounds like the beginning of Star Wars. Can you be a little more specific?"
"Forget the details, but I've got a lot of people gunning for me."
"Who? What people?"
"I can't tell you that. I can't tell anybody."
"If you can't tell me, man, maybe it didn't happen." The politician looked him hard in the face. Stone stared
back, and Salinis recoiled from the bleakness in his eyes. "I lost someone I loved then almost as much as I love
Sarah now. . . . That's all I can tell you, my friend." "And you want my help?"
"I need your help."
Marcus spread his hands. "Sorry, Doc. If I don't know what you're running from, how can I help you?" "It has nothing to do with this."
"It has everything to do with this if it keeps you from getting normal help."
"I can't tell you."
"Give me a general idea. I don't need the names, but what am I dealing with here?—
Come on, Mike, you're in bigger trouble now than you've ever been. You've got to trust somebody or you can kiss your wife and daughter good-bye."
Stone hung his head, silent, wishing he were alone and back at sea, back on the boat, where he never doubted his next move. Here, afraid to say anything that might risk his future with Sarah and Ronnie, he felt paralyzed by indecision.
"Who the hell are you?" Marcus demanded. "Where do you come from? What have you done?"
"Why are you suddenly asking me this?" said Stone.
"Why are you so paranoid? I'm only asking you what everyone's going to ask soon as you say you can't just go to the cops. What's standing between you and picking up that phone and yelling `Help!'?"
"No names," said Stone. "No details you can trace. Fair enough?"
"I'll judge what's fair after you spill it."
Again Stone hung his head. "Years ago I sailed into the middle of a political squabble; the murder was a frame-up. I had to steal a ship to get away. Hence the piracy . . . Okay?
"
Salinis said, "So who's after you?"
"Two governments and the CIA," Stone answered, wishing immediately that he hadn't.
"How'd you piss off the CIA?"
"It was their ship."
Stone waited anxiously while Marcus digested his story. He knew a dozen men like Marcus around the Pacific, movers and shakers in societies where both moving and shaking were considered peculiar if not suspect. It was a lonely existence for people who'
d seen something of the larger world in business travels to Japan and the United States, and one fraught with conflict as they struggled to build miniature versions of superpowers in a region that most outsiders and many locals already thought was paradise.
People like Salinis had always regarded him and Sarah and their work with puzzlement, clearly wondering what they wanted in return in a world where good works were expected of missionaries who burned to convert the natives and Peace Corps types who moved on after a short time. Stone could only hope that piracy in another ocean had no bearing on the power plays and land feuds that kept the blood pumping on Salinis's islands.
The former president gave a deep chuckle. "Yeah, I always figured Sarah had a pissed-off husband looking for you. Any couple that hot had to have run off. . . . Well, seems to me like your situation kind of limits your options. The States sent us a new consulate asshole worse than the last. I'll talk to him if you want. But he'll just pass you along, and you'll be wearing handcuffs before they start looking for that ship, because he's not going to give a damn what happened to your wife. . . . Things are getting kind of heavy around here, in case you hadn't noticed."
"I notice you got a gun under your shirt."
"Another under the car seat. And a pump twelve-gauge in the bedroom. Somebody's following me. Phones are tapped. House, office, even the sat phone. I don't know what the hell they're after. I already lost the election."
"Where's Amelia?" His wife, the chief's daughter.
"Took the kids to her father's till this blows over."
"What's Joanna doing here?"
"I just can't tell with that girl. She's either too dumb to realize what's going on or so damned smart I want her by my side. Probably no big deal. It's been a while since we actually killed someone for politics, not counting 'suicides' and botched car bombings. . .
. Come here, look at this." He led Stone onto the terrace and indicated a tarnished brass telescope mounted on a tripod. "Take a look."
Stone bent over the eyepiece. A seventy-foot motor yacht leapt into view, anchored in the still water below the hill. It had a satellite dome. Two couples were drinking cocktails in the stern. They looked young and prosperous, the women in bikini tops, gold jewelry, and br
ight lavalavas at their waists, the men in loose white shirts and bermuda shorts. A steward came up with a tray of canapes. Clearly vacationers, changed for dinner after a day of diving.
"Been sitting there three days," said Marcus. "Watch the blond guy with the binoculars."
Stone couldn't quite see his face, but the man Marcus indicated had the rugged looks of the summer diver and winter skier. A diamond or gold earring glinted as he casually scanned the sea and the hills between sips from a champagne glass. He swung the binoculars toward the land and raised them to the top of Marcus's hill. For an instant the binoculars locked on the telescope.
The blond man waved.
Stone shrugged. He was so tired, he could barely stand. "Somehow," he said to Marcus, "
I've got to track the Dallas Belle."
Marcus shook his head. " 'Fraid not. I already asked around. There's a Dallas Belle chemical carrier operating in the Gulf of Mexico, where's she's been for years. Looks like Sarah's right about false registry."
"I'm going to Hong Kong," said Stone. "Take my chances with the American consulate, if I have to." "How are they going to track a ship?"
"The Navy used to have a worldwide acoustical tracking system to keep tabs on the Soviets during the Cold War—hydrophone buoys and subs and satellites to record ship noise. Prop wash and engine and driveshaft noise is unique to each vessel, and everything they recorded was stored in a library. Like a fingerprint file. Supposedly, they can call up the files for a ship heard that day in the vicinity of Pulo Helena. Cross-referencing that, the computer will identify who she is. And the files for the days since will tell us where she's gone."
"Assuming the system is still working," said Marcus, "and assuming they don't toss you in the hoosegow for piracy."
"My friend Captain McGlynn's got a brother in the Australian Navy. Stands to reason the navies share data. Maybe he'll help. McGlynn's always had a thing for Sarah."
"Imagine that." Marcus smiled.
"So maybe he'll help, if I can just get ahold of him. Meantime, I've got shipowner friends in Hong Kong, too. Either way, Hong Kong's my best bet. . . . And there's a guy I can see in Manila."
Stone rewound the tape and played it again. He drifted on Sarah's voice, the cool, strong sound and the dispassionate language: These are the facts. This is what I know. All else is empty speculation. . . . He shivered. It was no news to him that his wife was a strong woman, but this was proof of a strength that frightened him, a bloodless quality that he deliberately avoided acknowledging. If she ever decided that he was not for her anymore, she would cast him adrift and never look back.
Fire And Ice Page 8
