Robert Jones - Blood Tide

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 Vietnam. 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.