Robert Jones - Blood Tide

He headed back toward the Sea Witch . She was fully provisioned, he knew, her tanks topped off with diesel and water. This isn’t my fight, he thought. I’m damned well out of it. Pygmies. Buffalo. Screw it. With the wind dying from the northeast, I ought to be able to work well offshore by nightfall. Don’t like that weather to the west, though. Hawk winds? Devil’s drool? Well, it was better than what lay behind him, anyway.

He approached the Sea Witch from her starboard side. She was tugging at her anchor chain on a weak outgoing tide. Good, even a weak tide would help him. He tied off the pump boat and swung aboard. Brillo jumped up after him, stopped for a moment, then gave a yelp and sprang for the companionway. His tail was wagging madly. What?

Curt heard a thump alongside, saw a bowline hitched on the portside rail. He looked over. A Thunder was tied there, empty, bobbing. Where was the M16? He’d left it back at the gully. He heard footsteps on the companionway ladder and turned around.

It was Miranda Culdee.

TWENTY-NINE

No wind now. The air was hot and heavy. All around them the sea rolled slow and clear, thick as molten glass.

Culdee and Sôbô sat in the lee of the deck gun, their backs to the action. Sôbô thought it best that they not disclose themselves just yet. Bullets buzzed overhead now and then, but the fire from Balbal had shifted from the schooner to the pump boats closer inshore. Culdee had watched the pump boats for a while, crouched behind the tarp-shrouded gun. They raced at speed toward the beach, bow on, then cut hard over and ran parallel to the reef, guns blazing. Like Indians attacking a wagon train, he thought. A bullet spanged on the deck gun’s barrel, then rattled around inside the tarp at random, ticking and clanking until it hit the deck. The schooner’s Moros crouched behind bales that lined the gunwales, firing back and whooping as the mood struck them.

Culdee turned and sat down beside Sôbô.

“Nothing much happening,” he said.

“It will, old son,” Sôbô said. “And soon.” He checked his watch. “At 1330 precisely—only five minutes more.” He hummed something tunelike under his breath. “Only five minutes more. Remember the song? Back during the war? Tokyo Rose played it all the time. Good old Rose. I hear she’s alive and well in the United States now.”

“Beats me,” Culdee said. He was watching Suleiman the Eagle, up on the foremast. El Aguila was spotting for the guns on deck. He sat in a tatty-looking crow’s nest atop the mast. It was built of old barrel staves on the outside, but inside was a curved shield of boilerplate that rang like a steel drum when bullets hit it. There were boilerplate shields inside the schooner’s hull as well, clear down to the waterline. Heavy enough to stop machine-gun bullets all right, but how about three-inch shells? They’d soon see.

A tendril of smoke wafted across the deck from the bales. Culdee sniffed at it. A tracer must have set a bale on fire.

“What the hell is that stuff? The bales, I mean.”

“Marijuana, I’m afraid,” Sôbô said. “One of the kumpits from Basilan had a load aboard, and I commandeered it. Adds to the allure, what?”

“Weird-smelling stuff.”

“Don’t inhale too much of it, old man. It’s called Zambo Zowie, and I’m told it’s quite potent.” He sang quietly to himself—“Only two minutes more, only two minutes more.” He laughed. “I loved that old Yankee dance music back then. Great tunes. Hate this music they play nowadays. Beastly stuff. Too loud for these old ears. Rock ’n’ bloody roll.” He sounded a creditable Bronx cheer.

“Miranda loves it,” Culdee said. He wondered how she was faring.

Seamark , once Sea Witch , pounded north into the chop, running on her engine. Kasim followed in the Blue Thunder. Miranda, with a stubby AK cocked on one hip, kept a close eye on Curt where he stood at the helm. Brillo sat at her side, leaning against her legs. Now and then she scratched the dog’s ears and he mumbled. But her eyes didn’t soften.

“This is stupid,” she said harshly. “I really ought to, you know.”

“Ought to what?” Curt asked. His knees were shaking. He was scared. He was more than scared. He was downright fearful for his life. He’d never seen her look like this before.

“Just blast you where you stand, you son of a bitch. If it weren’t for you, none of this would have happened.”

He couldn’t believe it. She’d followed him clear across the Pacific, tracked him down. Vengeance. He hadn’t thought she’d had it in her. “Hey, wait a minute!” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’m on your side. Maybe you don’t know it, but I am.” His mind was working wildly, looking for a story. “Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think I was working for Millikan? It’s not sheer coincidence. . . .” He’d been about to add “baby” but caught it in time. “No way. I’m working for. . . . Well, I can’t tell you, but it’s the good guys.”

“Oh, come off it,” she said. Her eyes were even harder now, and she shifted the gun on her hip, dropped the barrel lower. Toward him. “You must think I’m the most gullible woman walking. Cut the bullshit.”

“Dead straight, Miranda,” he pleaded. “No lie. They sent me here under deep cover to penetrate this outfit. Report back what’s going on down here. And I’ve been doing just that. Hey, it’s not easy, either. I’ve been shot at by pygmies and jets, damn near chopped in half by bolo knives, nearly flattened an hour ago by a herd of stampeding tamaracks. Or whatever they call them. Those black guys with the long horns? Buffalo.”

“Tamaraus,” Miranda said. “And you’re full of it.” Her thumb was on the AK’s safety.

“Millikan’s dead,” he said. His voice cracked this time. He checked it with an effort. “I killed him. Back there in the jungle. Drove him in front of that herd of . . . those things. And they smashed him flat. That’s when I decided to split. Come back to the boat, get across to Mindanao, report the whole damn deal.”

“Ha.”

“But Torres is still alive,” Curt almost yelled. “Millikan’s right-hand man. A mean bastard, worse than Millikan even. They’ve got a big ship back there, behind the beach, up the channel. I know what Torres’s plans are. Just get me to your people, and I’ll tell them how to stop him. I’ll help you beat him.”

Miranda shook her head slowly from side to side. She was smiling, but there was a bitter twist to it. When it came to hogwash, Curt could swill it with the best of them. But there was just enough truth in what he said to make it remotely possible. The gunboat, for instance. And the Negritos, those indigenous freedom fighters Sôbô talked about. She wondered about Millikan, though. If he really was dead, maybe this killing would stop. Without a leader the Tausuqs might fall apart, or even join with the MNLF revolt, which was certainly more in their interests than serving some off-island underling like this Torres. Maybe Sôbô ought to know about this, question Curt himself. Venganza couldn’t be far ahead. She didn’t dare look around to estimate how far, though. The cockpit was small, and Curt could easily jump her. She felt a knot of anger and indecision tighten suddenly in her stomach. She made up her mind.

“Kneel down,” she told Curt. “Behind the wheel. Good. Now lash the wheel on this course. That’s right. Put your hands on top of your head. Okay, now walk forward slowly on your knees, over to the lee gunwale.”

Oh, God, Curt thought. She’s going to do it. His vision started to blur, thin out in quick, white starbursts. He thumped forward on his knees. He heard her walk up behind him, barefoot, the muzzle of the AK cold and round on his neck.