Indiana Jones and the Secretof the Sphinx (6 page)

"You there, and you," Musashi called to a pair of the nearest soldiers. "Arrest this woman and her trained monkey. Cut some of that rope and bind their wrists. They will be taken to the provincial prison and charged with helping an Imperial enemy escape."

Mystery held her hands out in front of her, but the soldiers wrenched them behind her and tied them together with a three-foot section of rope.

Mystery giggled.

"That's too loose," she said. "It's going to fall off by itself. You had better make the knots tighter."

The translator, who was still at attention at one side of the stage, translated.

The soldiers showed their disbelief, but remade the knots. Both made ugly faces as they tightened them, and while they congratulated themselves on their strength, Faye slipped her hands inside her voluminous pockets and palmed a pair of smoke bombs in each hand.

The soldiers started toward Faye, but Mystery whistled before they reached her.

"Hey, guys," she said, holding the limp rope in her right hand. "Want to do this again? You just can't do it right. I told you it was about to come undone."

The soldiers grunted and turned angrily back toward Mystery. They didn't need the translator to interpret the mocking tone of her remarks.

Faye threw the smoke bombs.

The stage was enveloped in smoke.

When it cleared, Faye and Mystery were gone. So were the basket of money, the photograph, and most of their props. The only thing they left behind was the oversized magic trunk—and the pair of Japanese soldiers, whose hands were tied together.

Musashi batted smoke from her face. Then she stared at the trunk, held a finger to her lips, and tiptoed over to it. With a two-handed grip on Sokai's sword, she drove the blade down through the lid. When she withdrew it, the blade was smeared with red.

"Ah!" she said.

She ran a thumb along the blade, then tasted the red stuff.

It was sweet and tangy.

She threw open the trunk. It was empty. The sword had pierced a rubber bladder filled with catsup, kept in a pocket in the lid of the trunk, that the Maskelynes used in their human pincushion act.

Musashi cursed in three languages.

While Musashi and the soldiers continued to search the square and the surrounding rooftops, the Maskelynes were boarding a freighter a half-mile away. Indy sagged between them as they struggled up the gangplank.

"What city is this?" Indy asked.

"Luchow," Faye said.

"Port city," Indy said. "Formerly a French colony."

"At least he knows his geography," Mystery said.

"Say good-bye to Luchow, mister," Faye said as they reached the deck of the freighter.

"Where are we going?" Indy asked.

"You should care?" Faye asked.

"Right," Indy mumbled. "Anywhere is better than here."

"He's lost a lot of blood," Faye said to Mystery. "We've got to find him some help."

The captain of the
Divine Wind
was resting his elbows on the rail, smoking a Russian cigarette. He had watched the trio struggle up the gangplank.

"Trouble?" he asked calmly.

"What does it look like to you, Snark?" Faye asked.

"I hope it doesn't follow you here," Snark said.

"You said if we ever needed a favor, we could count on you," Faye said. "Well, we need one tonight. Where is that old drunk you call a ship's doctor?"

"Below," Snark said.

"Pour some coffee down him," Faye said. "We need him."

"If you wish," Snark said. He flicked the cigarette into the water. Then he smiled. "Oh, by the way. No smoking on board this trip."

"I wasn't planning on it," Faye said.

"You know this guy?" Indy asked sluggishly.

"Unfortunately," Faye said. "It's a long story, but Snark won me in a card game at Taipei. Mystery was dealing, and she was supposed to give the winning hand to me. But she had a little counting problem that night."

"Mother,"
Mystery pleaded.

"Snark's a gangster, but it worked out all right," Faye said. "We spent two weeks teaching Snark every card trick in the book, and he spent two weeks telling us which officials to bribe in what towns to search for Kaspar."

"Army trouble?" Snark asked.

"This man escaped from the prison."

"He's a sailor now," Snark said. "Australian, by the name of Smith. Hurt in a bar fight at the Orchid."

"What time do you cast off?" Faye asked.

"With the tide," he said, then looked at his watch. "A couple of hours."

"Can we go now?"

"No," he said. "We've already filed our papers with the harbormaster. It would attract too much attention. Besides, we need high tide to clear those rocks out there. We're riding too low in the water."

"Okay," Faye said.

"Welcome aboard," Snark said. "Take the American to the infirmary and I'll have sawbones meet you there. I'll also have the crew get your old cabin ready."

"Right," Faye said.

Indy woke to the smell of antiseptic and gin. The doctor, an alarmingly thin New Zealander with a pint of Gordon's gin stuck into the pocket of his dingy white coat, had finished stitching the wound closed.

"Ah, you're awake," the doctor said when he noticed Indy's eyelids fluttering. "Sorry, but we've got no proper anesthetic. Had to get that bleeding stopped. The slug passed clean through, but it made a nasty hole where it came out the front, beneath your collarbone. You're lucky to be alive, mate."

Indy moaned.

"Oh, I bet it hurts."

"The woman," Indy muttered. "The girl."

"They're safe on board," the doctor said. He tied off the knot, then admired his handiwork and took a slug of gin. "Or, as safe as they can be with Captain Snark in command."

"Are we at sea?"

"We're still in port," the doctor said.

"Where are we bound?" Indy asked.

"Don't you know?" the doctor asked and smiled, revealing a mouthful of neglected teeth. "Japan."

"No—"

The doctor pulled Indy up, then began to wrap a bandage around his chest and shoulder.

"We've got to get off this boat," Indy said.

"Brother," the doctor said, "you and me both."

Indy grimaced.

"I've got to go," Indy said. "The magician and her daughter are safe. I've got other places to go. But I'm so... tired."

"It's the loss of blood, mate."

"Maybe I'll just rest here for a few minutes," Indy said. "You know, gather my strength. Wake me in time to jump ship."

There was a knock on the door of the infirmary.

"Come in," the doctor said. Then, to Indy: "Relax."

Faye and Mystery walked in. Faye was dressed in a black robe tied with a red sash, while Mystery wore the dark blue uniform and cap of a Japanese merchant sailor.

"How is he?" Mystery asked.

"Not bad," the doctor said, "for a sixty-year-old man."

"I turn thirty-five this year," Indy said.

"That's different," the doctor said. "He'll live, but you've got to consider the material I had to work with. This guy's got more holes in him than a screen door."

"Thank you, Albert Schweitzer."

"Who?"

"Never mind," Indy said.

The doctor shrugged as he picked up his tools. "This boat's headed to Japan," Indy said. "I'm leaving, just as soon as I catch my wind. You've got to get off, too."

"We will," Faye said. "At the first opportunity. But we must stay put for now. It will be high tide in an hour, and that's when we're scheduled to sail."

"That's my cue to go," Indy said and struggled up. Then he paused. "What are you dressed up for, a Halloween party?"

"The clothes?" Faye asked. "We thought we'd better change. The only women normally found on freighters like these have been kidnapped into prostitution. Thousands have been taken from across Asia, of all nationalities."

"What's your story?" Indy asked Mystery.

"I always dress as a boy," she said.

"It's safer that way," Faye explained. "At least while she still has the build to get away with it."

Indy nodded.

"Come on," Faye said and helped Indy off the table. "You don't want to go back ashore at Luchow. Let's get you to a bunk, so you can rest. I'll wake you if anything happens."

Indy had just closed his eyes when the door to the cabin burst open, followed by a bayonet with a rifle and a Japanese soldier on the other end.

The soldier spoke loudly and rapidly in Japanese and made rapid, jerking motions with the bayonet. Indy didn't know what he was saying, but it was obvious that he wanted Indy off the bunk.

Indy swung his feet over the edge of the bunk, but his head was spinning so badly that he followed them right to the deck. The doctor appeared in the doorway, slipped past the soldier, and helped Indy back onto the bunk.

"Glug, glug," the doctor said and mimed tipping a bottle.

The soldier laughed.

A sergeant appeared behind the soldier, and he was not amused.

He asked the doctor what was wrong with the American. The doctor told him in Japanese tortured by a New Zealand accent that the sailor was Australian, had gotten blind drunk that night, and had foolishly wound up on the wrong side of a knife fight with a three-hundred-pound Malay.

The sergeant spat.

"All
gaijin
look alike to me," he said as he hitched up his trousers. "Their feet are too big, their voices too loud, and they all smell like rotten hamburger. We have orders to search all of the ships leaving harbor tonight for a big, ugly American with a gunshot wound and a female magician and her apelike assistant."

"Knife, not gunshot," the doctor said. "Besides, his name is Smith and I was at the Orchid when the fight started. If I had not been, he wouldn't have been around to cuss me in the morning."

The sergeant reached beneath Indy's unbuttoned shirt and was about to lift the dressing when another soldier carried Faye down the corridor and into the room. Captain Snark was on their heels.

"Bring her back," Snark ordered.

"No," Faye shrieked. "Get me off this boat. This pirate has kidnapped me and intends to sell me into prosti—"

The sergeant backhanded Faye, hard enough that it split her lower lip. For a moment, she swayed, the silk gown began to slip from her shoulders, and Indy thought she would pass out. Then she gathered herself, wiped the blood from her mouth, and gave the sergeant a cold smile.

"I was hoping you were here to rescue me," she said.

"Shut up, please," he said in thick English. "You make good comfort woman. No take you away."

"Domo arrigato,"
Snark said, and allowed the sergeant a slight, nearly imperceptible bow.

The sergeant grabbed Indy's jaw in his beefy hand and turned his chin to the left, and then to the right, while he inspected the cuts and bruises. Indy refused to focus on his piglike eyes, but he was not spared the sergeant's stinking breath.

"This is not the
gaijin
we are looking for," the sergeant said in Japanese. "This one stinks of gin and is obviously too stupid to have escaped the provincial jail."

Then he shoved Indy back down on the bunk, turned toward the door, and with a wave of his hand ordered the soldiers after him. Suddenly he stopped, grasped Faye by the waist, and pulled her roughly toward him. He give her an exaggerated kiss on the lips, then released her and slapped her bottom.

Indy was off the bunk and halfway across the cabin when the doctor grabbed him. "This fight is not worth dying for, mate," the doctor whispered as their footsteps echoed down the hall. "Let them leave. When that bloke is dying in some trench at the hands of a bloodthirsty Chinese warlord, or blind from syphilis at having taken comfort once too often at a well poisoned by his comrades, we'll be having a drink to his stinking memory at the International Hotel in Tokyo. Do you know the place?"

"I know it," Indy said.

"Across the street is the white-walled castle of the emperor," the doctor said. "Ducks and geese swimming peacefully in the moat. Every once in a blue moon you can get a glimpse of the Hirohito himself, a small man in a great hat and tails who, I think, would rather be a gardener. Not too ambitious for a living god, eh?"

Indy looked at the doctor in admiration of his ability to soothe with his voice and his appreciation for the beautiful amid the chaotic.

"Surprised? I wasn't always a wreck with ruined teeth and cyanotic hide," he continued as he turned to Faye and inspected her bleeding lip. "I've had a succession of careers—journalist, lawyer, doctor. Well, not really a doctor, but I will pass for one in these latitudes. I used to sit at the bar at the International Hotel, drinking saki from those little ceramic cups, congratulating myself on my civility and watching the world slip away. A little like the emperor."

"How so?"

"Japan is such a damned fine island, and look at the wretched hands it is in now. But we did it to ourselves, didn't we? You know, the Japanese even gave up the gun once, after the Portuguese brought it four hundred years ago. But Nippon has managed to become just as modern and bloodthirsty as the rest of us. The world is at war again, but most folks don't know it yet—it began here, two years ago, and nobody cares. Well, mate, they will."

He produced some swabs and antiseptic from his medical bag.

"This is going to hurt, but I wouldn't want to chance where that brute's knuckles have been today," he said as he dabbed at Faye's lip.

"What happened to you?" Indy asked.

"I woke up," he said. "And I couldn't stand it. I know what is coming, because I learned this business of patching people up as a corpsman during the Great War. So I became a drunk, and now I pass my time pretending to practice medicine on a rusting hulk captained by a Japanese smuggler. Tending war orphans in Manchuria while Snark is out gathering whatever illicit cargo he can find."

"Pretending?" Indy asked and felt his wound. "Now you tell me."

"Well, most of it came back to me," he admitted as he finished ministering to Faye's bottom lip, now stained with iodine.

"What's your name?" Indy asked.

"Bryce." When he spoke the name, he seemed to grow a little taller. "Montgomery Bryce, Oxford, class of 1923."