Target Lock

MV Harconan Flores 0721 Hours, Zone Time: August 25, 2008

“Professor Sonoo will be breakfasting with us this morning. I trust you won’t stress the gentleman too greatly this time.”

Harconan sat on the disarranged bunk, already dressed and admiring as Amanda toweled herself dry from her shower. “I had a great deal of difficulty talking the poor man out of his heart palpitations from the last time around.”

“How did you manage that?” Amanda inquired, pressing the water from her hair. “We know him and we know his friends. I can guarantee that Interpol will be waiting for them all when they surface.”

Harconan chuckled softly. “That is the marvelous thing about the world’s judicial systems. They all work on the concept of proof, and proof can be subjective. Between my own organization and Sonoo’s employers, we will be able to provide ample evidence to any police agency in the world that the good professor was nowhere near here nor doing anything in the least bit illegal. As for Sonoo and his colleagues personally, their tongues are bound by the fact that if they ever speak up about what they’ve done, they’re finished professionally.”

“You’re very sure of yourself,” Amanda replied softly. She drew open a cabin drawer and removed a pair of cotton panties, drawing them on unself-consciously. The return of underwear was the latest welcome amenity her captor and lover had provided.

“You have to be sure of yourself when you are attempting great things. He who hesitates is lost. You know that as well as I.”

Amanda sensed him standing behind her and felt his fingertips resting on her shoulders. “That’s why I didn’t hesitate with my plans for you. When I saw you stepping down from your royal barge at my headquarters, I knew that here was a great thing to be done, a great challenge to meet.”

Amanda felt the brush of his lips along her shoulder blade, and the inescapable frisson he could trigger ran through her once more. She forced a hint of scorn into her voice. “Well, you succeeded in bagging me, I’ll give you that. What do I have to look forward to? Are you going to have me stuffed and mounted, or are you content with hanging my head over the fireplace?”

His palms flowed over the curve of her shoulders. “Amanda, I know you are unhappy with this situation. I can’t blame you. But in the face of all things, be just with me. You know why I brought you here. You can feel it, as I can. Be honest with yourself as I am being honest with you.”

She took a shuddering breath. “Makara Harconan, I am a prisoner here, held against my will. There is no justice and no honesty in that.”

His sigh brushed lightly against her bare skin. “Then strive for some honesty within yourself.” His fingers closed over her shoulders more firmly. “Are you really any more of a prisoner now than you have been for the past twenty years of your life?”

“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“How many times have I told you that I have studied you, Amanda?” He spun her around to face him, those gray penetrating eyes drilling into hers at point-blank range. “All of your life you have played by the rules made by someone else. You have worn your uniform and the chains that went along with it, at the beck and call of an ungrateful government and populace.

“I know about the United States, Amanda. In your nation, they pay sports figures who play children’s games in front of television cameras millions; yet, they begrudge you and the other warriors who defend them the pittance you are paid.”

“I was never in it for the money, Makara!”

“Of course you weren’t. But what about respect? What about a degree of honor? Even a simple thank-you for risking of your life? They don’t openly throw dog excrement at you in the streets anymore or scream ‘Baby killer!’ into your face quite so often, but still your media and your citizenry look upon you as either a brass-hatted buffoon or a cold-blooded murderer in a uniform. Where is the justice in that? What do you owe them?”

“I never did it for a thank-you, either.”

“I know you didn’t, Amanda.” His hands slid down her arms and his grip firmed. “You were the bright warrior, the guardian. You wanted to right the wrongs, to protect the helpless. But how many times have you been kept from doing just that? How many times have you seen an evil that needed to be destroyed, that was within your power to destroy, and yet your lords and masters held you back? And why? Because of some popularity poll or the fear of what some political pundit would say or because their particular party hacks disapproved.”

“Too often.” she whispered.

“See?” He released his hold on her and stepped back. “Damn it, Amanda. Don’t you see that I’m not trying to hold you prisoner? I’m trying to set you free! I want you to consider alternatives! I’m not in this for self-aggrandizement or for money, either. If I were, I could sit back in the sun at Pabu Piri, spending my millions on myself. Instead, I’m willing to risk all that I have on a chance to make things right in these islands: not their way with their politicking and corruption and compromise, but my way with one bright, clean slash of the sword!”

The emotion within him was too great for him to keep still. He paced, but his eyes stayed locked with hers. “Amanda, you felt the fire leap between us the first moment we saw each other. That’s why, even as enemies, we can’t help but lie in each other’s arms and build that flame higher. As allies, there is nothing we couldn’t dare, Amanda. As the raja dan ratu samudra, leading the Bugis people not as pirates but as a navy, there is an empire we could build here.”

Amanda found a very honest tear trickling down her cheek. “The king and queen of the sea…. I wish I could say yes. I truly wish l could say yes.”

Harconan stopped his pacing. Turning to face her, he peered into Amanda’s eyes. “Why can’t you? What do I have to change… to do?”

“There’s nothing you can change, Makara, it’s just not the sixteenth century any more. There are no problems left that can be solved with one bright, clean slash of a sword… dammit.”

The taipan tilted his head back toward the overhead, looking both very young and hurt and very old and tired at the same time. Then he turned away for the door of their quarters. “Then I will find a way to turn back time. The guard will bring you down to the main cabin when you are ready.”

The breakfast party at the cabin table consisted of the Flores’s Captain Onderdank, his equally taciturn first officer, Professor Sonoo, Amanda and Harconan. She, the taipan, and the Indian scientist kept to a lighter rice-and-fruit menu while the two Hollanders plowed through their more solid platters of sausage and eggs.

Few words were spoken, save by Sonoo, and his were driven more from nerves than a desire for genuine communication. Amanda kept her own peace and listened to the flow, awaiting developments. They were not long in coming.

“As you have ordered, Mr. Harconan, we have prepared the satellite for transport. This is indicative we will be leaving shortly, to meet with our people?” Sonoo put a hopeful lift in his voice.

“Very soon,” Harconan agreed, spearing a slice of jackfruit on the tines of his fork. “In fact, you may commence loading after breakfast.” He glanced at Onderdank. “We’ll be sailing tonight, after full dark.”

“Aye, we will make ready. No problems. Our destination?”

Harconan’s eyes cut in Amanda’s direction. “We’ll speak of that later, after we’re under way. Needless to say, Professor, your firm and their cohorts in this project have agreed to pay my price for full access to the INDASAT. They have also agreed on a mutually acceptable facility where you will be permitted to continue your research. We will be taking you and the satellite on to a rendezvous with another ship. That vessel will deliver you to the site.”

Sonoo’s head bobbed. “Thank you. You will be most efficient in these matters, I’m sure. But the American military… There will be no… incidents?”

Harconan chewed and swallowed the jackfruit before replying. “None at all. The United States government has agreed to pull their naval forces from this area in return for a guarantee of safety for Captain Garrett. They are withdrawing now. By tonight they will be well clear of our coast. There will be no possibility of their interference.”

Amanda froze her features even as her heart leaped in her chest. That simply could not be right. Not under the Childress administration and not on Eddie Mac Maclntyre’s watch. Either Harconan was lying or he was operating under erroneous information. Which was the more likely?

“They’ll be back just as soon as they realize I haven’t been released,” she said coolly.

Harconan gave a shrug. “No doubt, Amanda. But they have no way of knowing about this base, and the Flores will be on her way. All trace of this operation will have vanished. Even for you, their presence will not matter.”

The muscles in Amanda’s face ached, suppressing the urge to smile and frown both. You believe it, don’t you, Makara? Somebody was selling a package and you bought it.

“What about me?” she probed. “Do I sail with the satellite too?”

“For a way,” he said, studying his empty plate. “There will be another rendezvous with another ship. You will be taken to another place, an island. You will stay there for a time, until certain events have taken place. You will have every comfort. You will lack for nothing. Anything you wish will be provided. When I can, I will come for you.”

“I see.”

There is a certain finality to an island prison. Saint Helena, Alcatraz, Devil’s Island — all proved the point. Glenda, I think I’m ready to go home to Kansas, Amanda thought feverishly. Elliot, Chris, Stone, Ken, somebody! Get me the hell out of here!

With breakfast completed, the cargo handling commenced. Even with nightfall and her departure hours away, the Harconan Flores was stirring, coming awake from her dockside slumber. Engine-testing stirred the waters of the ship pen, and work lights blazed on her weather and vehicle decks.

Harconan went forward to the forepeak of the LSM’s bow. Accompanied by Sonoo and equipped with a civilian shipmaster’s Handie-Talkie, he personally intended to supervise the INDASAT loading operation. He offered no objection and in fact seemed rather pleased when Amanda asked to accompany him. She merely noted that her old friend, the guard from the pinisi, was back, a living shadow following at her heels.

On the forecastle she found yet another impressive example of Harconan’s forethought waiting for her. The inflatable clean room had been collapsed and withdrawn from around INDASAT 06. The access hatches had all been reclosed in its hull, and the massive space platform had been sealed within multiple layers of plastic, neatly packaged for shipment.

A second trailer had been rolled out of the vehicle deck of the Flores and parked directly behind the one that cradled the INDASAT. This trailer, a squat industrial lowboy, carried a huge stainless-steel tank. Slightly larger than the satellite in all dimensions, its end cap was missing. Hazmat warnings in several languages and the international chemical hazard symbol were painted on its silver sides.

As Amanda looked on in grudging admiration, the INDASAT was jackassed slowly back into the empty tank over a set of transfer tracks.

“The consummate smuggler,” she said. “I am impressed, Makara. You’re leaving nothing to chance.”

“Chance is a poor ally, Amanda. I rarely depend on her. Should the Flores be intercepted at sea and boarded, the boarders will find her transporting a shipment of toxic waste from a chemical company in the Philippines to an industrial incinerator operation in Malaya. Her captain will have full and legal documentation for the cargo and sworn testimony available at the source and destination to back up the documentation. Should anyone want to open an inspection hatch or a test cock, they will find a rather nasty acid compound that no one in their right mind would want to fool with excessively.”

“The old rum in the double-headed vinegar cask ploy.”

Harconan chuckled. “For all of the world’s technological sophistication, the old ploys still work best.” Lifting the Handie-Talkie to his lips, the taipan gave a sharp command in Bahasa.

“I have to ask, Makara: How much?”

“All total?” He scratched the underside of his chin with the Handie Talkie antenna. “Oh, I’d daresay the gross is about forty-one million U.S. dollars. After expenses, we’ll clear about thirty million in profit.” He glanced at her. “A share of it, ten per cent, is yours to do with as you will.”

“I won’t count it yet, Makara. Elliot MacIntyre knows all the old ploys too.”

“Ah, but then that’s another advantage of transporting toxic waste. This particular compound is very volatile — just the kind of thing that might burst into flames at an inopportune moment, say, as an American man-of war looms over the horizon. The crew abandons ship, there is a terrific explosion, and the ship sinks, taking its cargo into the deeps with it.”

Amanda lifted an eyebrow. “And since the Flores was transporting hazmat, you naturally took out extensive insurance on the ship?”

“Naturally.”

“But the satellite, Mr. Harconan,” Sonoo bleated. “Should this happen, what of the money my company has paid for this technology? We were promised delivery!”

Harconan leaned on the rail, as content as a lolling tiger. “Refer to your contract, Professor, the ‘Acts of Man and God’ clause. No refunds, so sorry.”

Amanda couldn’t stop her smile, nor could she stop her hand from lightly touching that broad back. Could there be more than one such corsair left in the world?

“Mr. Harconan!”

There was urgency in the call over the low-powered hand radio. It was Captain Onderdank’s voice, and the Dutch officer sounded perturbed.

“What is it, Captain?” Harconan demanded, straightening.

“I am here at the fantail lookout. The surface sentries have reported an Indonesian patrol frigate standing in close to the cape. It looks like a routine coastal sweep, but the latest set of deployment updates from Admiral Lukisan’s headquarters indicates that there shouldn’t be any major Indonesian fleet units in this area. The closest frigate should be the one shadowing the American task force, and its last position report puts it four hundred miles to the southwest.”

Harconan’s first instinct was to look toward Amanda. She held her face immobile, suppressing all emotion.

“Captain, get down to the bow and expedite the loading!” Harconan barked into the radio. “Get the satellite aboard the ship now! Sonoo, you stay with me, and you, too, Amanda!”

Harconan hastened aft, snapping out additional commands in Indonesian, both into the radio and in shouts down to the pier side. Sonoo and Amanda were herded along behind him. Amanda wondered if Sonoo had noted that “her” guard had suddenly become “their” guard.

The camouflage curtain across the mouth of the cavern just barely cleared the fantail of the moored LSM. A lookout point had been established there with an observation slit cut through the heavy plasticized nylon. By leaning outboard and releasing the industrial Velcro closing strips, the flap covering the slit could be dropped, permitting a view down the inlet from the ship’s deck.

A Parchim-class patrol frigate could indeed be seen emerging from behind the left-hand cliffside, the ship running perhaps a mile off the tip of the cape. Harconan snatched a pair of binoculars out of a rack on the rear bulkhead of the superstructure, leveling them at the passing vessel.

There was a second set of binoculars in the rack. The guard took no action when Amanda lifted them to her own eyes.

There was no doubt that it was an Indonesian Parchim, and yes, those were the hull numbers of her old friend the Sutanto. She was riding light, though, very light, with a broad strip of red lead showing along her waterline. There wasn’t a soul on deck, either.

Amanda lowered the glasses and dared to wonder.