Fire And Ice (18 page)

"Go back."

"Walk."

"I tell Moss."

"Please. No."

Ah Lee hurried up the stairs. Sarah ran to the steel hatch that led to the afterdeck. The fog was so thick she couldn't see the bulwark. The raft canister was a nebulous white glow.

"Hurry."

It was lashed down beside a hinged gate in the bulwark. But the gate was frozen with rust. The only way they could launch the raft was lift it over the bulwark, which rose as high as her forehead. She knelt by the canister, feeling for the ropes that lashed it down.

"Get up, Mum. Someone's coming."

Sarah sprang to her feet and was just backing away from the raft when Moss loomed out of the fog. "What the fuck are you two doing out here?" Sarah drew herself up to her full height. "Would you kindly moderate your language around my daughter?"

Moss grabbed her arm, grinding it through the thin windbreaker. "Inside." Moss shoved Sarah into Mr. Jack's sleeping cabin so hard she crashed into the bed. He pushed Ronnie in after her. The old man awakened, groggy. But when he saw the expression on Moss's face, he snapped alert and austere, as if overcoming the sleeping tablet by an act of sheer will. Or was it fear? He looked afraid.

"Wha'd they do? They get off a signal?"

"Caught 'em prowling around the main deck."

Visibly relieved, Mr. Jack struggled to sit up. He shook Sarah off when she went to help him. "What the hell were you doing on the main deck?"

"We went for a walk," said Sarah. Her arm burned where Moss had dragged her, but she refused to give him

the satisfaction of letting him see her rub it. Ronnie's eyes were big as saucers and she was breathing hard. "They was checkin' out a life raft."

"Were not," said Ronnie. "We were taking a walk." Moss said, "It was right after the video picked them up at the accommodations door. Mess boy spotted them heading up, again."

"He scared us," said Ronnie. "And you're scaring me now." Her face crumbled. "Mr. Jack, why—"

"Can it, kid. I seen better acting on a pig." It was the sort of joke line that usually got the old man a laugh from the child. But not when he looked harsher and crueler than Moss.

"Mess boy reported they tried to talk him into helping them launch the inflatable."

"That's a lie! He didn't say that."

"That's what he told me, Mr. Jack."

"That's 'cause you beat him up!" Ronnie shouted. "Shut up."

"He'd say anything so you wouldn't hurt him again." "Both of you, shut up." A steam whistle shrilled across the water.

Sarah whirled to the porthole.

A long, dark hull materialized out of the murk, steaming straight at the Dallas Belle. Then another. And a third. Tugboats, sea-battered and filthy, pluming thick smoke into the fog. Sailors in black crowded their towing decks. Red flags flew with the yellow stars of the People's Republic of China.

She was still praying they meant rescue, when the captain hurried into the cabin.

"Tugs alongside, Mr. Jack."

The old man propped himself up higher on his good elbow, eyes burning.

"Cloud cover holding?"

"As promised. But the fog's lifting. We ain't got much time."

"Hook 'em up. Let's blow this joint— Ronnie, go get some ice cream."

"I don't want any."

"Shut up! Moss, take her down to the galley."

Ronnie looked stricken. He had never yelled at her before. But all Sarah could do was nod, helplessly. "Go ahead, dear. I'll talk to Mr. Jack." Moss jerked a thumb at the door. Ronnie dodged him and ran ahead. Mr. Jack turned a cold eye on Sarah.

"You dumb cunt," he yelled. "Risk your life and your kid's."

"We went for a walk," Sarah said doggedly. "Ah Lee was frightened. He didn't understand. Or, more likely, Moss lied."

"Doc, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'."

"I don't know what you mean. We merely went for a walk."

"Can the lies. You tried to escape."

Sarah started to protest, again, lost heart, and shook her head, bitterly. "We didn't. But wouldn't you?"

"My head feels like mud. You slip me a mickey?" "A mickey?" Sarah asked, though she knew what he meant.

"A pill. Did you drug me?"

"Yes. I gave you a sleeping tablet. You're too active. You refuse to rest."

"No more pills without telling me."

"If you insist," ,she agreed.

The old man sighed. "Doc, you're really pissing me off."

"Mr. Jack, I'm only—"

He cut her off with an angry gesture. "I'm going to give you this one chance. You try one more stunt like that—you disobey me in any way, shape, or form—one step out of line, and you'll be punished."

"Punished? How dare you! I saved your life, for God's sake. How dare you threaten me!" He leveled a mutilated finger in her face.

"When Moss has you crawling on the deck, begging for mercy, don't say I didn't warn you. . . . And don't look for mercy from me, because I'm going to be right there, making sure he does you like you'll never forget."

"Considering your state of health, Mr. Jack, it would not be in your best interest to have your physician laid up in sick bay."

"I'm not stupid, Doc. Moss ran whores when he was sixteen years old. He can make a woman hurt like she wants to die. And still put her on the street that same night. . . . You want a little demo when he comes back?"

She dropped her eyes before he could see her rage or her fear.

"Answer me! You want a demo?"

The carpet blurred through her tears. "No."

The telephone rang. Mr. Jack fumbled it off the night table. "What? . . . I'll meet him in the lounge. Send up plenty of strong coffee. I gotta clear my head for this guy." He swung his feet off the bed and let her help him stand and put on his robe. "Don't forget. Last chance." "Where's Ronnie?"

"On her way up."

He shuffled out the door.

Five minutes crawled like days. Ronnie came back, unharmed and still shaken but blessedly distracted by something she had seen.

"Mum, it was the funniest thing. Some Chinese guy came to see Mr. Jack, but he fell overboard."

"Off the ship?"

"No. From the tug, when he tried to board. At the accommodations hatch? He was wearing a suit and the sailors caught him but his pants were soaked right up to his waist. And his shoes were squishing. You should have seen him pouring water out of his briefcase!"

Ronnie started laughing, and then it all caught up with her and she began to cry. Sarah squeezed her and held her tight until she had calmed down. "I think it's nap time, darling.

" By the time she got her into bed, Ronnie was yawning, and her eyes wore the film of sleep.

"Did anyone say who he was?"

"Who?"

"The Chinese guy."

A big yawn turned into a grin. "His name was Ah Wet!"

"Very funny, young lady." Sarah laughed. "All right, now, close your eyes." Sarah sat with Ronnie until her breathing leveled into

sleep. Then she put on her stethoscope and listened through the door. She couldn't hear every word—they must have been on the far side of the room. "Ah Wet" was soft-spoken, while Mr. Jack's voice was slurred from the tablet—but the subject was finance, a highly technical discussion of an ongoing scheme to purchase stock options at markets around the world. She understood little, except that the sums were enormous and the long-term project seemed to be nearing completion. Ronnie slipped behind her. Sarah jumped. She hadn't heard her get out of bed. "Mum, be careful. Moss said he'd beat you up if we tried anything." Sarah drew her close. She had to comfort her child, but she also had to save her life. " Don't worry, dear. Mr. Jack would never allow that. He likes you too much." When Michael Stone went to borrow a dinghy, the lunchtime shooting at the Hilton was the talk of the yacht club bar. The word was Kerry McGlynn had a smashed shoulder. Stone called Matilda Hospital, which confirmed that the tugman was in serious condition.

Children watched Stone curiously from a makeshift raft as he launched the dinghy into the typhoon shelter water and negotiated the maze of narrow channels. Old women darted past in motor sampans, ferrying goods and people to the junks and yachts. Several times while dodging sampans he bumped into anchor lines and caught his oars on jutting hulls. The water was filthy, a dead gray color, and stank even in the coolness of December, home to thousands who were born, lived, and died on their boats. And yet the floating city was a village, rural in character, and he could see that a Triad interloper would instantly be recognized. He drew curious stares as he pulled his oars, then blank faces when they catalogued him: a gweilo, a white ghost person from the West, seeking exercise in what normal people considered work. Eccentric, harmless, and vaguely absurd, though perhaps a source of income.

A sampan hailed him, selling fish balls. He bought a basket of the spicy food and drifted while he ate. The instant he had finished, another sampan materialized to sell him hot tea. And when he finished the tea, yet another boat putted alongside, piloted by a smiling, middle-aged woman who swept an inviting hand toward the mattress under the canvas top and called, "Fuck-fuck?"

Stone shook his head silently, trusting neither his survival Cantonese nor Tanka to make a refusal clear or polite, and rowed on, working his way eastward through the moorings, past the junks into the slightly less chaotic area where the sailing yachts clustered. He was struck by the extraordinary number of superb sea boats—big, modern, high-tech cruisers and racers that could sail circles around his old Swan. Most reflected the spit and polish of the professional live-aboard crew, and everywhere he looked, boatboys in black pajamas were cleaning, fitting, and overhauling. There were easily a hundred boats ready to sail to the Philippines on an hour's notice. He rested on his oars, pretending to admire a big Baltic sloop so he could take his first good look at Tin Hau moored at the end of the next row. The Baltic's boatboy came up immediately from the cabin and eyed Stone quizzically.

"Help, sir?"

"Handsome boat," said Stone, dipping his oars and moving on to another vantage. Tin Hau, glimpsed through a forest of aluminum and carbon-fiber masts, appeared to be the archetype for the phrase "floating gin palace." The bulkiness of its navy blue hull was cleverly disguised by a smooth, ultramodern superstructure, which, while quite high, was made to look sleek by long strips of black-tinted glass. She looked, Stone thought, like Italians had designed a shopping mall for speed.

As he rowed closer, a flimsy-looking helicopter buzzed in across the harbor and fluttered onto her afterdeck. Two boatboys came running and helped the pilot tie the aircraft down and unload cases of liquor. Stone rowed the length of her, spotted the accommodations door midships in her side, and kept going toward the passage in the rock breakwater that led to the harbor. He paused there while a sampan picked up the helicopter pilot at the accommodations door, and studied her mooring.

No anchor, thank God. Both anchors were secured

within the bow, and the yacht was tied to a permanent mooring. He rowed back along her length. Her stern was tied to another permanent buoy; better and better. But when he looked between her and her smaller neighbor, he noticed they'd exchanged lines fore and aft.

He imagined a sequence: when the tide flooded the passage, he would cast off the side lines first, then the stern line. Then start the engines. Race forward and cut the bow line. Run back to the bridge and try to slip away without waking up half the typhoon shelter. But he still had to get aboard and he still had to deal with the boatboys, who were total innocents. And possibly armed. Guns were restricted in Hong Kong, but who knew on a big private yacht? For that matter, a rigging knife in the hands of a fit twenty year old would be weapon enough, particularly at two against one.

He thought of rowing out again, at night, and climbing up the stern line. But then he'd have to search a yacht he didn't know, to find the crew. He dipped his oars again and started slowly back to the yacht club.

Night was falling, and the hillsides were lighting up. A cool wet wind came in from the east. Despite the exercise at the oars, Stone closed his windbreaker. A floating restaurant sampan came along, with a European tourist couple reclining on cushions in the stern, while an old Chinese woman served them dinner. Another sampan came by with an off-key string trio playing "Moon River."

Rowing slowly, Stone backed water to allow the restaurant sampan to cross ahead of him. It pulled alongside a big motor yacht. The cook rapped on the hull. A boatboy appeared and lowered an accommodations ladder for the woman.

Stone let the dinghy drift. In a few minutes she came back, slipped the boatboy some money, and stepped down to the floating restaurant. "You should have seen it," she told her date. "It had a bidet. Marble. With gold faucets." Half an hour later he was back in the hotel room with a cup of tea in his hand and Ronald at his side, staring down at the typhoon shelter.

Stone waited, silent, and finally the Triad man asked, "

"Okay?

"Tell me about this ECM."

Ronald shrugged. "All I know is I push a button and the water cops' radar goes bye-bye."

"You're going to operate it?"

"No. I got a kid—engineer kid. I tell him when he pushes button. Hey, relax. Comes straight from the People's Liberation Army."

"Where are you going to operate it from?"

"No more questions." He took a pair of VHF radio handsets from a leather case and gave one to Stone. "I guarantee, you radio me to jam the radar, I blind water cops."

"They can hear us on this."

"Hey, you think we amateurs? Scrambled. Nobody. hears but you and me. Any more problems?"

Stone studied the chart for a few minutes. Then he went to the window and gazed down at the shelter. "I'll need a woman."

"You got her."

"Not a hooker. Just an ordinary-looking Westerner. Preferably blonde." Ronald thought for a moment. "No problem."

"She's going to need a gun and know how to handle it:"

"No problem."

"We'll need handcuffs for the boatboys."

"Already got 'em."