The Intruders

21

“They‘ve seen us,” Flap shouted over the wind. “They‘re coming this way.”

“Better ditch the guns and radios,” Jake told him. He drew the Colt .45 from its holster under his life jacket and survival vest and slipped it over the side. In a holster sewn inside a pocket of his survival vest he had a five-shot Smith & Wesson .38 with a two-inch barrel that he kept loaded with flares. He ditched that too.

The radio — he held on to the radio for a moment as he watched the bow wave of the oncoming small ship subside. They were stopping.

Son of a…

He used his survival knife to cut the parachute shroud line that tied him to the radio and lowered it to the water, then released it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Flap slip his .45 over the side.

“The knife,” Flap told him. “Dump it too. They’ll just take them away from us.” Jake opened his hand and the knife made a tiny splash.

The small ship drifted to a stop on the windward side of the two rafts, about fifteen feet away. Her bulk created a sheltered lee. It was a nice display of seamanship, but Jake and Flap were in no mood to appreciate it.

Staring down from the rail were eight brown faces. Malays, from the look of them. They held assault rifles in their hands.

The sides of this little ship had once been blue, but now the blue was heavily spotted with rust. Where some of the paint had peeled glimpses of gray were visible. Apparently she had once been a patrol boat. Forward of the bow was a gun mount, now empty. That was where they had had the twenty millimeter. It must be stowed below.

The men on deck lowered a net and made gestures with their rifles. Jake and Flap slowly paddled over. Flap went up the net first. Jake followed him. The ship was rocking heavily in the swells. The net was wet, hard to grasp firmly. His foot slipped on the wet cordage and he almost went into the sea. When he was clear of the raft the people on deck began shooting bursts of fully automatic fire. He looked down. Holes popped everywhere on the inflated portions of the rafts and spray flew.

By the time he pulled himself up enough to grasp the rail, the rafts were completely deflated and sinking.

Hands grabbed him and pulled. He scrambled on up the net. As he was coming over the rail, someone hit him in the helmet with a rifle butt and he sprawled onto the deck. Flap was already lying there on his back looking upward.

Most of the crew were barefoot. A couple of them looked like teenagers. Their clothes were ragged and dirty. There was nothing half-assed about their weapons however, worn AK-47s without a fleck of rust. Several of them had pistols stuck into their belts or the tops of their pants.

One of them gestured toward a ladder with the barrel of his weapon. Up. Jake glanced at Flap. His face was expressionless. Grafton prayed that he looked at least half that calm.

At the top of the ladder was the bridge.

The man working the helm and engine was a bit larger than medium height, apparently fit, and had a wicked scar on his chin. The ship was already gathering speed and heeling in a turn. The captain, if captain he was, glanced at them, then concentrated on putting the ship on the course he wanted. When he had the helm amidships and had checked the compass, he said, “Gentlemen, welcome aboard.”

Jake looked around. Two of the crew were behind them and the rifles were leveled at his and Flap’s backs. He turned back to the captain.

“Take off all that…” He gestured toward their life jackets and survival vests. “And the helmets. You look very silly in those helmets.”

Jake and Flap unsnapped their torso harnesses and let them fall into the puddle that was spreading away from each man. They got rid of the G-suits and helmets. Jake took off his empty shoulder holster and dropped it into the pile.

“Where’s the pistol?”

Jake shrugged.

The captain took one step and slapped him, quickly and lightly. He stood with his hands on his hips in front of Jake, looking up at him. “I think you will answer my questions. Where is the pistol?”

“In the ocean.”

The captain went back to the wheel and checked the compass. “And your survival radios? Where are they?”

“Same place.”

“Where did you fly from?”

“USS Columbia.”

“Where is she?”

“West of here.” He toyed with the idea of lying for less than a heartbeat. “Maybe two or three hundred miles now.”

“When will the planes come looking for you?”

“Shortly.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Sometime soon. After the sun comes up.”

“My men must learn to shoot better. Now we have this complication.”

“Must be a tough way to make a living.”

The captain continued as if he hadn’t heard. “The question is, do we need you alive? You disposed of your radios so you cannot talk to the airplanes on UHF. You could have warned them that you would die if they attacked us. Alas, we have only a marine band radio. It’s a pity.”

“You speak English pretty well.”

The captain was scanning the ocean and glancing occasionally at the sky. He didn’t bother looking at the two Americans. “But I do not think they will attack. They will look us over and take many pictures. That is all.” His eyes flicked to their faces. “What do you think?”

Unfortunately Jake thought he was right. He tried to keep his face deadpan but his turmoil probably showed. The captain apparently thought so. He said something to the guards and waved his hand. They prodded the aviators in the back and turned them around. As they left the bridge, Jake saw one of the crewmen opening the pockets of the survival vest and dumping the contents on the deck.

They were shoved into a tiny compartment below the main deck. There was a large hasp on the door.

“Can we have some water?” Jake asked the three men who pushed him inside right behind Flap. They ignored him.

The door swung shut and they heard the padlock snapping closed. The compartment was only slightly larger than a bedroom closet and had apparently been used for storage. There was no light and no electrical sockets, although there was one small, filthy porthole that admitted subdued light.

Flap leaned against the door and listened. After a bit he shrugged. “They’ve gone, I think.”

“Maybe there’s a bug.”

“Go ahead and look for it, James Bond.”

Jake sat against a wall and began taking off his boots. He took off his socks and wrung the water out, then put them back on. “They’ll probably shoot us after a while,” he said.

“Probably,” Flap agreed. He also sat. “The captain ain’t sure if he’ll need us or not. The bastard has it figured pretty good. I’ll bet he can get this thing to port before the U.S. Navy can get a surface ship here to board him. He thinks so too. But he’s saving us just in case.”

“What do you think they did with the freighter?”

“Sank her would be my bet. They were probably off-loading high-value items when we showed up.”

“And the crew?”

Flap shrugged.

“Then why in hell did these guys shoot at us?”

“Perhaps someone panicked. Or they didn’t want their picture taken. The airplane overhead was a problem they hadn’t figured on.”

“So you think this is some kind of local industry?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, look at it. Here we are on the southern coast of Sumatra, about the most out-of-the-way corner of the earth it’s possible to imagine. In among these islands we’re well off the shipping lanes, which go through the Sunda Strait or the Strait of Malacca. So these dudes from a local village sail out into the shipping lanes, board a ship — probably at night when only one or two people are on watch on the bridge — then bring it here and loot it. They probably kill everyone aboard and scuttle the ship. The high-value items from the cargo that can’t be traced eventually end up in the bazaars in Singapore or Rangoon or even Mombasa. The ship never shows up at its destination and no one knows what happened to it. Say they knock off one ship a year, or one every two years. Be a nice little racket if they don’t pull it too often and get the insurance companies in a tizzy.”

“But someone got off fifteen seconds of an SOS and we came to look.”

“To look and take pictures. They probably thought they had killed everyone on that ship, then the SOS burned their eardrums. They should have disabled the radio but they didn’t. One mistake led to another. So instead of waiting to loot the ship after dark, they decided to try it in daylight. Then we showed up. You know as well as I do that a good photo interpreter could identify this ship sooner or later. The captain knows that too. So he fired when we gave him a golden opportunity. I’ll bet he was the bastard at the trigger.”

“He’s going to get photographed again today.”

“But the victim isn’t tied up alongside. Now this is just a little ship going about its business in a great big ocean.”

Jake merely grunted. After a bit he said, “It doesn’t figure.”

“What doesn’t?”

“That ship they stopped is an old freighter. Looked to me like a Liberty ship. Eight to ten thousand tons, no more than that. Why didn’t these guys stop a big container ship? All the valuable electronic stuff gets shipped in sealed containers these days.”

“Beats me.” Flap sat and removed his boots and socks. After a while he said, “The bastards could at least have given us water. I’m really thirsty.”

He had his boots back on when he said, “Did you notice the captain’s hands? The calluses on the edges of his palms? He’s a karate expert. If you had even flinched when he slapped you he might have broken your neck.”

“Now you tell me.”

“You did fine. Handled it well. Be submissive and don’t give them the slightest reason to think you might fight back.”

“I’m certainly not going to strap on a karate expert.”

Flap snorted. “They’re the easiest to beat. They’re too self-confident.”

Jake didn’t think that comment worth a reply. He retrieved his cigarettes from his flight suit shoulder pocket and carefully removed each one from the pack, trying not to tear the wet paper. He laid them out to dry. Then he rolled onto his side and tried to stretch out. The compartment was too small. At least his ass wasn’t submerged.

A bullet in the head or chest wasn’t a cheery prospect. All these months of planning for the future and now it looked as if there would be no future. Strange how life works, how precarious it is. Right now he wanted water, food and a cigarette. If he got those, then he would want a hot bath and dry clothes. Then a bunk. The wants would keep multiplying, and sooner or later he would be staring at a bulkhead and fretting about insubstantial things, like what the next ready room movie was going to be, his brush with death shoved back into some dark corner in the attic of his mind.

He had faced death before in the air and on the ground, so he knew how it worked. If you survived you had to keep on living — that was a law, like gravity. If you died — well, that was that. Those left behind had to keep on living.

Maybe in the great scheme of things it really didn’t matter very much whether these two blobs of living tissue called Jake Grafton and Flap Le Beau died here or someplace else, died today or next week or in thirty or fifty years. The world would keep on turning, life for everyone else would go on, human history would run exactly the same course either way.

It mattered to Jake, of course. He didn’t want to die. Now or any other time. Presumably Flap felt the same way.

Fuck these pirates! Fuck these assholes! Murdering and stealing without a thought or care for anyone else. If they get theirs, life is good.

As he thought about the pirates Jake Grafton was swept by a cold fury that drove the lethargy from him.

He sat up and looked at Flap, who had also curled up on the deck. He wasn’t asleep either. “We gotta figure out a way to screw these guys good.”

Flap didn’t smile. “Any suggestions?”

“Well, if they shoot us, we sure as hell ought to take a couple of them with us. I don’t think they’ll shoot us in here. Blood and bullet holes would be hard to explain if this ship were ever searched. I figure they’ll take us topside, tie a chain around us and put us over the side. Maybe shoot us first.”

“And…?”

“If we could kill a couple of the bastards we ought to give it a try.”

“Why?”

“Don’t give me that shit!”

“What’s a couple more or less?”

“You’d let them shoot you without a struggle?”

“Not if I have a choice. I’m going to take a lot of killing. But if they want us dead we’re going to end up dead, sooner or later.”

“That’s my point. When I go to meet the devil I want to go in a crowd.”

Flap chuckled. It was a chuckle without mirth. “What I can’t figure out, Grafton, is why the hell you joined the Navy instead of the Marines.”

“The Navy is more high-toned.”

They sat talking for most of an hour, trying to plan a course of action that would kill at least one and hopefully two pirates.

Flap could kill two men in two seconds with his bare hands, Jake assumed, so it seemed that the only real chance they had was for him to cause enough commotion to give Flap those two seconds. He didn’t state this premise, however Flap let it go unchallenged. They hadn’t a chance of surviving, not against assault weapons. But if their captors relaxed, if only for an instant…

When they finally ceased talking, both men were so tired they were almost instantly asleep, curled around each other on the deck because there was no room to stretch out and rocked by the motion of the ship.

About an hour later a jet going over woke them. The thunder of the engines faded, then increased in volume. Then it faded completely and they were left with just the sounds of the ship. The plane did not come back.

The pirates came for Flap and Jake after the sun set. Both men stood when they heard the padlock rattle and assumed positions on opposite sides of the door. When the door opened two men were there with their weapons leveled, ready to fire.

One man motioned with the barrel of his rifle.

Jake went first, with Flap behind. They had discussed it and concluded a fight in the confined interior passageways was too risky. They shuffled along with their heads down, going willingly in the direction indicated.

When they came out on deck they saw land close aboard, just visible in the twilight. The shore was rocky, but the dark jungle began just inland from the rocks. Maybe three hundred yards. The water was flat, without swells. The ship was inside the mouth of a river headed upstream.

The two pirates wanted them to go aft. The deck here was probably only six feet wide. Flap was looking scared and had his hands up about head high. Two men stood on the dark fantail watching them come, their rifles cradled in their arms.

“Four,” Jake muttered. “Jesus…”

They had just reached the fantail when they heard a jet running high. They looked up.

“Point,” Flap said, and Jake did, enthusiastically, as Flap shot a quick glance back over his shoulder.

What happened next happened so quickly Jake almost didn’t react. Flap half-turned and his right arm swept down. The blade of a knife buried itself in the solar plexus of the gunman just behind him. This man staggered and looked down in stupefied amazement at the knife handle sticking out of his chest.

The man behind him had been looking up, trying to see the jet. He dropped his gaze in time to see Flap Le Beau hurtling across the ten feet of space that separated them. He swung the rifle, but too late.

With one vicious, backhand swipe, Flap cut his throat from ear to ear. Blood spouted from severed arteries as the man collapsed. In a continuation of his motion, Flap spun and rammed the knife into the left kidney of the first man, who was somehow still on his feet and trying to turn to bring his rifle to bear.

Meanwhile Jake Grafton had launched himself at the two spectators standing with their rifles cradled in their arms. They too had been looking up, which gave him just the break he needed. He took them both down in a flying tackle.

He got his hands on one of the rifles and used it as a club. He smashed the butt into one man’s Adam’s apple.

The other man had retained his rifle and now it fired, the muzzle just inches from Jake’s ear. Deafened, with the strength born of terror, Jake dropped the weapon in his hands and seized the barrel of the other man’s AK-47 as he drove a punch at his face. The blow glanced off his forehead, but the man struggled to hold on to the rifle, so Jake let fly again. This time his fist connected solidly and the man went to the deck, still holding on to the rifle. Jake ripped it from his hands and slammed the butt down on his throat with all his strength.

With the rifle coming up, he turned in time to see Flap inserting his throwing knife back into the sheath that hung down his back, inside his flight suit. The fighting knife had a triangular blade about four inches long — it went into the sheath worn on his left forearm, under the sleeve of his flight suit.

Le Beau picked up an AK-47, glanced at the action, then fired one round into each of the four men lying on the deck. Then he flashed a grin at Jake. “Still alive, by God!”

Jake grabbed the rifle on the deck at his feet and removed the magazine. He stuck it into a chest pocket of his flight suit. “I thought you ditched your knives.”

“I haven’t been without a knife since I was thirteen.”

“Let’s see if we can get to the bridge.”

“If it gets too hot we’ll go over the side and swim for shore.”

“Okay.”

With his rifle at the ready, Flap went forward on the starboard side. Jake took the port.

The bridge stuck out over the deck. Someone appeared in the window and Jake snapped off a shot. The window shattered and the head disappeared. A miss.

An open hatch revealed a ladder that probably gave access to the engine room. Jake pulled the hatch shut and rotated the lever that dogged it shut. He looked around for something to block the lever so it couldn’t be opened. Nothing.

He came to another open hatchway, a short passageway across the superstructure to the starboard side of the ship.

He paused, trying to decide what to do. Sweat was running into his eyes. And he was thirsty as holy hell. What he wouldn’t give for one drink of water!

Flap’s head popped around the corner on the starboard side. He saw Jake and came his way. “What did ya shoot at?”

“Someone on the bridge.”

“There’s at least five more guys on this tub, probably more.”

“How come they aren’t coming after us?”

“We’re probably pretty near their base. When they pull in, someone on the pier will take care of us.”

“We gotta get off this bucket.”

“They’ll gun us in the water.”

Jake wiped the sweat from his eyes and tried to think. “Somebody is probably in the engine room,” he said. “The ladder down is here on the port side. What say you go up to the bridge and keep them occupied. I’ll go to the engine room and try to disable this tub. Then we go over the side.”

“Which way?”

“Port side. In five minutes.”

“My watch isn’t working.”

“About five minutes. Or if the engines stop.”

“Okay.”

Jake checked to make sure no one was in sight, then he moved back to the engine room hatch, opened it and latched it open. The ladder down was actually a steep stair.

Uh-oh. He wished he hadn’t volunteered to do this.

What the hell! They were dead this morning when this pirate ship came over the horizon.

With the rifle at the ready and the safety off, he eased down the ladder, waiting for the inevitable bullet.

This is like committing suicide slowly.

The area at the bottom of the ladder was shielded by a large condenser. Jake paused behind it, wiped the sweat from his hands and gripped the rifle carefully. He eased his head out, so that he could look with one eye. He was looking aft along a narrow passageway between the ship’s two diesel engines. He saw a leg, the back of a leg. He pulled his head back and turned so he could see forward. Ease the head out and peek. No one.

Okay. Someone aft, no one visible forward. He would step out, shoot the guy aft, then swing so he could shoot forward.

That was a good plan.

He was going to get shot. Sure as shit.

He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. His heart was pounding a mile a minute.

Now!

He leaped out and squeezed the trigger.

The man was using a pipe wrench on a valve. The bullets slammed him down. Jake spun. A man coming through the door shooting as Jake’s bullets caught him, hammered him.

Something slammed into Jake’s side, turning him half around.

He staggered, leaned back against the starboard engine and looked aft.

The man there wasn’t moving. The man forward had taken at least three in the chest.

Jake dug the extra magazine out of his chest pocket and substituted it for the magazine in his weapon. His left side was numb. Shock. He staggered aft. The magazine of the AK-47 on the floor looked like it still held ten shells or so. He pocketed it.

Now he heard a racket from topside that he knew were shots. Flap. He peered through the open hatch that led forward.

Fuel valves. This guy had been opening or closing these valves. The main tank must be on the other side of this bulkhead.

Which ones were the feed lines? He picked two that looked like they went up over the engines to the fuel injectors. Holding the rifle in his left hand, he began screwing the starboard engine valve shut. Then he closed the one to the port engine.

The engines would take a minute or so to die. If he had picked the right valves.

Unwilling to wait, he spied a large red valve at the bottom of the bulkhead with a pipe that wasn’t connected to anything. The valve had a rusty padlock on it. Must be the tank drain valve. He put one bullet into the lock. The lock broke, and diesel fuel began running out of the bullet hole.

Jake twisted the valve. It was rusty.

Desperate to be out of here, he laid down the rifle and used both hands. It opened. Fuel began running out, at first a trickle, then a steady stream. He kept twisting.

The steady throb of the diesels took on a new note. Several cylinders missed. The starboard engine died. By the time the port engine stopped he had the drain valve full open. He was getting splashed with diesel fuel.

The lights died to a dim glow when the port engine quit. With the generators off, the lights were using battery juice.

He grabbed the rifle and started aft through the engine room for the ladder. He heard more shots, quite clearly now that the engines were silent.

His left side was pretty bloody and the pain was fierce.

Well, if he was going to fuck these guys, he should do the job right. He went back to the second man he shot and ripped his shirt off. It was cotton. He went back to the drain valve and let some diesel fuel run onto the shirt. He squeezed the shirt to get rid of the excess and dug his lighter out of his pocket.

The plastic butane piece of shit refused to light. He blew several times on the flint wheel. Come on, goddamnit!

There. He held the flame under a corner of the shirt. It took. He waited until the shirt was going pretty well, then dropped it into the gap between the catwalk and one engine. The diesel fuel was running into the bilges there.

The fire lit with a whoof.

Jake eased his head around the corner of the ladder, and jerked it back just in time. Bullets spanged into the condenser.

The fire was spreading in the bilges. Already the smoke was dense, the lights barely visible.

This couldn’t be the only ladder topside. The other ladder must be on the starboard side. Trying not to breathe the smoke, he hurried that way.

Coughing and gagging, he found the ladder.

Was there someone up here waiting for him?

“Come on, Jake.” Flap’s voice.

He was having trouble breathing and his feet were getting damned hot. Somehow he lost the rifle. He scrambled up the ladder on all fours, slipped and slammed his head against a step and slid a couple steps before he caught himself.

Hands grabbed him and pulled. He kept scrambling and somehow they made the deck.

“I’ve been shot.”

“Let’s get over the side or you’ll get shot again. There’s at least four of them forward.”

“Where?”

“We go off the fantail. Ship’s sideways in the river.”

They went that way, Jake barely able to walk. He took deep breaths, trying to get enough oxygen. Spots swam before his eyes. “They’ll shoot us in the water.”

“It’s our only chance. Come on.”

Flap tossed his AK-47 into the water, then jumped after it. Jake followed.

The darkness was almost total now. Jake was only able to swim with his right arm. His left side felt like it was on fire. Several times he got mouthfuls of water, so he swallowed them. It tasted good.

He was struggling. More water in his mouth and nose. He gagged.

“Just float. I’ve got you.” And Flap did have him, by the collar of his flight suit.

Jake concentrated on staying afloat and breathing against the pain in his side.

Flap was pulling him backward, so he could see the foreshortened outline of the ship, and smoke black as coal oozing out amidships. He could also see the glow of fire coming from a ladder well, apparently the one on the port side, since he could now see the tip of the bow. All this registered without his thinking about it, which was good, since he needed desperately to concentrate on breathing and keeping his head above water.

They were maybe fifty yards from the ship when he saw muzzle flashes from the bow.

“They’re shooting,” he tried to say, but he swallowed more water.

“Relax,” Flap whispered. “Quit trying to help. Let me do this.”

Somehow they must have swum out of the main channel, Jake realized, because the ship was pulling away from them. The current must be taking her downstream.

The current and the darkness saved them. When the twenty-millimeter cannon on the bow opened up, the bullets hit downstream, abeam the ship. Bursts split the night for almost a minute, but none of the shells even came close.