Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

It was very difficult to meet that inhuman gaze, not to flinch or turn away, but Zhang held himself in, waited it out, didn’t even show a tremble, and at last Curtis nodded and said, “I know I can count on you.”

“Yes, sir.” Zhang’s mouth and throat were dry, the words came out crumpled.

Curtis patted Zhang’s arm — Zhang didn’t flinch — and twenty minutes later, as he watched the helicopter with Curtis and his guests aboard lift off from Mallory and swing over to look at the muddy blank they’d made of Kanowit Island, that spot on Zhang’s arm still burned.

What am I going to do? Zhang wondered. I am on Kanowit Island, and I’m slowly being sucked under. To do nothing doesn’t save you, you’ll still be sucked under. But what can I do?

Manville was very aware that he was alone on the ship. Once Curtis and his financial people flew off, there was no one on the Mallory that he had ever even had a conversation with, except Captain Zhang, and he expected little comfort from that quarter. The people who’d worked with him on the island, setting the charges and flooding the tunnels and sealing the areas where the explosives would go off, had all flown in from Australia, construction crews of Curtis’s, in two planes that came down on the old Japanese landing strip on the island and then took the crews back home the day before the test.

Usually, Manville didn’t mind being alone. There were always projects he was working on, problems to be solved. But now, for the first time in his life, he was aware of being in personal physical danger, of being threatened by another human being, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t even know how to think about it. He wasn’t a soldier of fortune, a man of action, a man of violence. He was an engineer, he had tools, not weapons, and his primary tool was his brain.

It would help if there were a friendly face on the ship, an ally, someone to discuss the situation with. Because he wasn’t at all sure he was up to this kind of thing. The main point now, he supposed, was to try to protect the girl. Whatever came at him, Zhang or members of the crew, or somebody else entirely when they reached Brisbane, at least he should be with the girl, not leave her exposed and helpless.

He wished he could move her, possibly to his own cabin, but he was afraid to, not knowing exactly what her condition was. She’d been battered by the sea, and though she was surely going to live — if nobody interfered — she might have broken bones or other injuries. So the best thing to do, if he couldn’t move her, was to move himself.

After the helicopter lifted away from the Mallory with an excited flutter of rotor blades, and swung over to take a last look at Kanowit, Manville went on back down to cabin 7 and let himself in again with his equivalence card. Then he propped the door open while he went across to cabin 6 and picked up a pillow and blanket there. Returning to 7, he let the door snick shut and locked, then put the blanket on the floor at the opposite end of the room from the entry, under the porthole. He propped the pillow against the wall there, took his paperback book from his hip pocket, and sat down, back against the pillow against the wall, face toward the door.

The porthole above his head gave plenty of light for reading. His book was a collection of Maugham short stories of the South Seas; a very different place, then, but he supposed the people were much the same. The stories were comforting, because no matter how serious the problem, there was always some sort of acceptable resolution by the end. Reading, he could hope for the same sort of resolution for himself.

Her head on the bunk was just to his right, and after a while he became aware of her breathing. It was less shallow than before, and less rapid, long slow breaths now, regular, without strain. It seemed to Manville that she had undergone a transition, from being unconscious to being asleep. Which meant she might soon wake, and then he’d have somebody to talk it over with. In the meantime, he read.

Kim looked at the ceiling. Daytime. The ship was in motion, and grayish light reflected from the passing ocean came in through the porthole to fidget on the pale ceiling.

She realized she was awake again, and had been awake for... for a while.

She remembered everything this time, and remembered most sharply that her body contained many pockets of pain that would activate if she made any move at all. So she lay still, on her back, and looked at the ceiling, and wondered where she was and what would happen.

A page turned; a faint sound, but clear. Close by, to her left. Cautiously, she turned her head just slightly, waking soreness in her neck and back and shoulders. She looked sidelong, and a man was there, next to her, in profile. He was seated on the floor, head tilted down, legs bent up, reading a paperback book propped against his knees. She had never seen him before in her life.

Slowly she moved her head back to position one, and closed her eyes. He must be a guard of some kind; so she was a prisoner. On Richard Curtis’s yacht? Why a prisoner?

Are they going to arrest me? Is Richard Curtis going to make an example of me, and have me charged with trespassing and endangerment and all sorts of things, and have me thrown in jail? And where? In Australia, or in Singapore?

She found herself afraid of Singapore. It was known to be very stern with lawbreakers, and very accommodating to its businessmen, and Richard Curtis had become one of Singapore’s most significant businessmen since he’d left Hong Kong.

How could she escape? She could feel she was nearly naked, and the wetsuit wasn’t to be seen anywhere in the cabin. Even if her body weren’t so battered, she couldn’t possibly leap from a moving ship in the middle of the ocean.

Jerry will help, she thought. Planetwatch will help, they have lawyers, they can do a lot. Once they find out where I am, and what’s happening to me.

The scratch of a key in a lock made her eyes automatically snap open, and she saw the door start its inward sweep, felt movement to her left as the guard started to get to his feet. They should think I’m still unconscious, she thought, trying to find some advantage for herself somewhere in all this, and shut her eyes.

The newcomer spoke first, sounding surprised: “Mr. Manville!”

“Hello, captain,” her guard said. “Come to see your patient?” He sounded sarcastic, which surprised her.

“Mr. Manville, please,” the captain said, as though he’d been insulted or demeaned in some way. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

“You would have,” the guard said.

“I don’t know.” Now the captain only sounded unhappy, and she recognized his as the voice she’d heard on the Planetwatch III ’s sound system, arguing with Jerry. I am asked to inform you ... Now he said, “I’m not sure what I was going to do, and that’s the truth. Mr. Manville, I’m not a bad man.”

“Richard Curtis is,” the guard said, which surprised Kim a lot. Wasn’t she on Curtis’s ship? Wouldn’t the guard be one of his men? She listened, wondering, and the guard went on, “Captain, don’t do his dirty work.”

“I will not harm her,” the captain said. “I promise you, Mr. Manville. May I look at her now?”

“I’ll stay here.”

“Of course.”

“I’m awake,” Kim said, because they would soon discover that anyway, and opened her eyes, and studied the two men standing there. The captain was Asian, middle-aged and worried-looking, wearing his dark blue uniform and braided cap without pride or distinction. The other man didn’t seem like a guard at all. He was rugged enough, she supposed, but something in his face seemed at once more intelligent and less brutish. And the man had been sitting and reading, after all.