The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller (18 page)

     “I am called Rashid,” He smiled at her and touched his hat again in the same way as previously.

     “I’m Diana,” she replied, suddenly having a moment’s insight into something greater and more mysterious and thinking, no I’m not, that’s only part of who I am.

     “Like the Princess of Wales, eh? God bless her! An infidel but I hope she lives forever! I am overjoyed to meet you, Diana. And to answer your question, no. I am afraid there is no news of the ship. She went down with everyone left on board. You were travelling with someone?”

     “Yes,” she replied, “a friend. An Englishman.”

     “Ah!” His eyes appeared to exude sorrow. “Some of the people at the island told me of this man. He helped save many lives. The manner of his death may have earned him redemption.”

     “Redemption?”

     “Even an infidel can die in a way which pleases Allah.” Her new-found companion didn’t add to that remark, nor did he give her a moment longer to compose herself.  “My dear, I would like you not to worry about anything. I can see you have no money. That scum has taken everything. I will escort you to the best hotel on the island. It will be my pleasure. In my country it is traditional that hospitality is shown to strangers who come into one’s life as it were like a bird on the wing.”

     He talked with such an affectation of English culture that Diana supposed he must have come into contact with the English at some stage of his progress through life. “What is your country?” she asked him.

     “Libya,” he replied genially.

     “Libya? But your English is so good.”

     “So it should be. Like Sir Winston Churchill I was educated at Harrow.”

     “Oh, not a poor Libyan then! What do you do for a living out here?”

      “I am a missionary. For Allah, for the Colonel.”

     Some missionary, she thought, as she remembered how he had tamed those pirates and the smoking gun as he had put the terror-victim out of his misery. She pulled herself together and tried to act composed. “What’s a missionary doing out here?”

     “There is a large Muslim community on this island. Unfortunately, you have met some of the worst elements. They are not all like that.”

     Diana was no stranger to the fact that the Mohammedans of these parts had been engaged in a civil war with the Philippine government for generations. “It’s a bit dangerous for a missionary out here, isn’t it? All those bullets flying about?”

      Rashid remained utterly serious, “Wherever God’s work needs to be done, I am the servant of mighty Allah!”

     She needed her wits about her with this one. That impression was confirmed when, after a short journey in Rashid’s powerful motor launch, they arrived at his house, a luxurious villa set on a cliff top in the middle of what looked like impenetrable jungle but there must have been a road in. It overlooked the bay. “I thought you said you were taking me to a hotel?” Diana said suspiciously.

     “I said the best hotel on the island,” Rashid replied suavely. “My home!” If she felt conned she knew she couldn’t show it; she had to act as if she trusted her host implicitly; it was her only hope of salvation. In the meantime he stood with his hands stretched out, inviting her to look round, and it was a stunning sight. Large and airy with a massive swimming pool, it was surrounded by terracotta walls. A watchtower at each corner housed armed guards. Their colleagues prowled around the grounds. The villa had obviously been built by a security conscious millionaire and now it was occupied by another who had turned it into an army base.

      “It’s astonishing!” Diana said incredulously.

      “Of course. A lady of impeccable taste such as you needs her space.”

     She followed Rashid into the house, curiously aware that she was in his hands but somehow trusting his hospitable, Middle Eastern manners. She was amazed when she saw the interior. “Wow!” she said, looking round. Large double doors led from chamber to chamber, each of which was decorated in rich carpets and drapes. The décor resembled a Bedouin tent.

      Rashid watched her reaction with the same genial smile which he had worn all the way back in the boat. “Drink?” he asked, turning to a conveniently placed cocktail cabinet. She looked at him askance, “Ah, Allah makes allowances for some of us, ahead of paradise,” he explained.

      “Kind of one rule for you and one for the others?” But she sipped gratefully at the Armagnac he had poured.

      The Arab ignored her as he carried on: “you have had a terrible ordeal. A beautiful woman like you – what those pirates would have done!”

     It was an insinuating way of reminding her of her predicament and that he was the only buffer against a potential return from whence she had come and she broke down at that and he came across and put an arm round her shoulder. For the first time and in the hope that it would curry some sympathy, she blurted out her grief over Jack.  “I had no idea,” Rashid replied soothingly, “I did not appreciate that he was more than a friend. You westerners are so reserved when you discuss your emotions. And this Jack, he was a hero. He may be in paradise with the Lord Allah, who has room in his heart even for the infidel who dies with courage. If you are killed in the cause of God, the forgiveness and mercy of God are better than all that you amass in life. No one can die before his appointed time except in accordance with the law of God. It may be that he will lie in the garden of paradise with streams of running water and he will abide there forever.”

      Rashid’s soothing voice somehow made Diana feel better. He had opened the windows so that a cool breeze fanned through his luxurious rooms. But she knew that what was to come was inevitable.

CHAPTER 5

     As Jack’s soundless scream subsided, the backdraft came. It meant certain death to suck in but he had no choice. Thank God! It was air!  He struck the surface. “They’ll not be sending the flowers yet,” he told himself, remembering this pearl of wisdom along the fat lady lines from his old pal, the Border Bandido. Jesus, the land of the Geordies seemed a long way away now. He wondered if he’d ever really been there. Maybe the whole of the past is just an illusion. What does that make the present? Turning back in the direction of the foundered ship, he saw she'd disappeared into the deep. He started to swim away, his head up looking for waves, like a surfer heading out to sea. He surged up on top of rollers and was slammed down the other side until he was exhausted. Then some wreckage floated past and he found a massive spar, big enough to cling to. The storm was abating. He yelled out yet again and this time heard a thin cry to his right. He paddled towards it, hoping it was one of the boats, and saw a woman fighting to stay afloat. He grabbed her by the shoulder. At first she struggled but relaxed as he moved the beam under her body. Gratefully she heaved herself up on to it.

     It was a long night, cold but endurable. The storm passed by and the calm followed. From time to time consciousness all but drifted away. Each time it did Jack awoke with a start. “I am not going to die,” he told himself. The sun rose and, in the swell, flotsam and jetsam rolled by. His lips burned from the salt and sun. He looked in the debris for anything that might make a raft, anything to get their bodies out of the water. They floated like this for a couple of hours. The sun was halfway up the eastern sky and beginning to burn when Jack first saw the fin. His heart lurched and the shark seemed to home in on the fear. It turned and swam in a lazy arc in their direction. The girl saw it and screamed. Jack grabbed hold of a smaller, floating spar, thinking it might help him ward off the predator. There was no way they could get any further up on the beam. Their legs were dangling in the water. It occurred to Jack that the girl was so light, she could probably straddle it herself and the shark might not attack her if it didn’t see her legs flailing like a creature in distress. If she carried on like that it would attack. He contemplated this sacrifice for a moment. He was terrified but there are times when you just have to risk an endgame catastrophe. Going on the attack without the force to back it up is a mistake but ignoring an attack without going on the counter can be fatal. He made a snap decision and eased himself off the beam. He was right. It immediately came higher out of the ocean and the girl was able to get her body a little more up on it. She looked at him, a curious mixture of fear and gratitude in her eyes. The shark began to arrow in, checking them out. Jack had never been so afraid in his life. He'd had a nightmare since childhood of finding himself at the mercy of some ferocious beast in its own element. There was none on earth as fierce as this creature.

     Dredging from memory what he'd read in books he slipped his hand off the beam and dived down in the direction of the attacker, the broken spar pointing his way like the torpedo of some unusual submarine. He had a lung full of air and he swam forward, trying not to flail the water but remaining as streamlined as possible. He hurled himself towards the creature and saw a shadow moving swiftly in his direction. He began to blow out bubbles as he surged through the water, knowing the shark would hear the noise as if it were thunder and that he'd appear as an unusual shape. The question was, how hungry was it? Or, put another way, did he feel lucky? It kept coming and it was the devil of a job to hold the line but he went on to the attack. Its cold white eye stared straight at him. At the last moment it rolled sideways. Momentarily Jack had sight of its open mouth, rows of teeth beneath the evil eye. It was as if it snarled, its head arching slightly back, and then it turned left, cutting through the water without resistance. Jack surfaced, spluttering, and saw the shark's fin receding, an arrow-like wake behind it. He returned to the young woman on her makeshift raft. "It go," she said, "it go," and she pointed in the direction of the fading fin. Jack nodded reassuringly, but he knew that if the creature didn't find an alternative food supply soon, hunger would drive it back.

     They carried on like this for some hours as the sun arced through the southern sky. Jack had just about given up all hope when he heard something which made him strain his ears. “Hey!” It sounded like a shout on the wind as the beam rose and fell with the swell. The shout came again and then, above the waves, Jack saw a sail. He began to shout, slapping the water. Moments later a yacht hove into view. A blond-haired man stood at the prow. He held a boathook in his hand. “G’ day mate,” an Australian voice called. “Bit far out for a bathe, ain’t it?”

    Jack had never been more pleased to hear an Aussie accent. “Get the girl first,” he shouted.

    “Got you, mate,” the Australian replied and expertly he hooked the girl off the makeshift raft. She didn’t weigh seven stone and he lifted her aboard. She lay spluttering on the deck as he turned his attentions to her companion. “Ian Chandler, Fremantle. pleased to meet you, mate.” The yachtsman held out his hand. “You off the ferry that went down? Picked it up on the radio. Any other survivors about?”

    “The only one I found was the girl,” Jack said, indicating the Filipina, who sat up and looked at both men shyly. “The boats got away though.”

     “Nearly didn’t come,” the Aussie said, apparently ignoring Jack’s remark. “Too many pirates this close in. They’d be on to this like a dingo on a lame lamb. Sometimes rich pickings in shipwrecks.” The sailor squatted on his haunches. He was short and lean. Thirty something, his face was burned black from long exposure to an unrelenting sun. “Dangerous waters, these,” he added. He went on to explain that he was headed for Singapore, whereas Jack needed to get to Zamboanaga. “Tell you what I’ll do, mate,” the Aussie added after some deliberation, “I’ll take you in to the island but it’ll be the other side. Not Zamboanaga, okay? I’ll drop you ashore.”

     “No problem.” Jack realised with an insight honed by years of forensic training that the Australian probably had reasons of his own to avoid the city.

     “You hungry?”

     “Clamming.”

     His host looked at him closely. “What kind of Pom are you?” he asked, breaking out a loaf and some tinned tuna.

     “The northern variety. Tyneside.”

     “Yeah, what y’ do for a living when you’re not swimming the Sulu?”

     “Lawyer.”

     “I did the sharks a favour then!”

     “Just as well I didn’t mention it when I first saw you.”

     The Aussie grinned. “You’re right! Mind, I’d still have rescued the sheila.”

     It was nearing evening when they spotted the silhouette of land to starboard. “Don’t get yourself excited,” the Aussie said, “it’s just an island. We should be able to get some fresh water there. This desalinated stuff’s getting on my tits.” He didn’t drop the sail as the yacht tacked in. “Don’t want to start the engine in case there’s pirates here.”

     If Jack was inclined to dismiss the antipodean mariner’s fears as exaggerated, he changed his tune after they landed. The girl was the one who found the scene of the slaughter. Her piercing scream had the nervous Australian running towards her to shut her up. When he got there, he took one look and collapsed on the sand next to her. Moments later he was hugging the sobbing girl to him. Jack, oblivious to the discovery, sauntered over. “What’s going on?” he asked then he nearly gagged as he saw the bodies strewn about the beach. “Oh my God!” He was suddenly afraid for Diana but a search among the corpses failed to reveal any clue. “Maybe it’s not the survivors of the shipwreck?”

     “Oh no,” the Australian replied. “Come and look at this.”

      Jack walked down to the water’s edge to join him and there, beneath the clear grey water of the sea, they could pick out the skeletons of the wrecked lifeboats. Jack looked round him wildly. “My girlfriend was on one of those boats.”

     “Relax. She’ll still be alive,” the sailor replied reassuringly. “She’ll be too valuable. Woo! They’ll haggle over her. Big money for her.” He made a vulgar, unsympathetic fist. Noticing Jack’s horrified expression, he went on, “Forget her, you’ll never see her again. Do you know how many islands there are round these parts? She could be on any of them. They’ll move her as soon as the government comes snooping. There’ll be big demand for a piece of ass like that. Better than being dead though. That’s a long sentence. Phew! I’ll say it is!” Jack cast a stray remark that no doubt there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of the teeth in Perth when the Aussie set sail but the latter’s demeanour didn’t change. “Just speak the truth, mate. Get yourself another woman. They’re all the same. The sheila there, she’ll do.” He pointed at the Filipina who squatted weeping on the sand.

     “She’s in shock,” Jack said scathingly.

      “That what Poms call it? Believe me, it’s not the way she’s thinking. I’ve seen the look in her eye. Ah, well, if you don’t fancy the feel of the velvet eiderdown, don’t mind if I try, do you?”

     “Be my guest,” Jack replied, “as long as you don’t force yourself on her.”

     The Australian looked at the Englishman in disdain, as if to say, what would you do about it, Pom?

     He was hesitant too to get on the radio and advise the Philippines Coastguard of their find but eventually he bowed to Jack’s insistence and reported in the island’s co-ordinates with his thoughts on what had occurred. He added in passing that he had picked up survivors from the shipwreck. Ominously, no others had been reported.

     Jack’s expressions of concern about his host’s designs on the Filipina turned out to be unnecessary. The girl did not seem responsive to his blunt advances and, after gathering fresh water, when they were back out at sea, some whispered, almost angry exchanges took place between them. Jack creased up at the wheel and some time later the Aussie came upstairs. “No go, mate, the yellow velvet doesn’t fancy me for some reason.” Jack was still pissing himself and the Aussie did a double-take, clearly not appreciating that he had overheard the whole conversation below. Then he reached into a compartment and took out a bottle of whisky. He took a swig and held it up to Jack who nodded and took it from him. Letting the fluid warm the back of his throat and tongue for a few moments he then gulped it down and he and the Aussie exchanged the bottle a number of times in silence. “You know how to sail her straight,” he said appreciatively. “Not bad for a Pom.”

     Jack smiled and remembered his tutor, “Strangely enough, the bloke I’m looking for taught me. He’s a compatriot of yours.”

     “Okay, you can talk English now,” the Aussie replied with a grin. They talked for a while. Jack was making polite conversation because his mind was on Diana and what might have happened to her. He needed to get to Zamboanga to raise the hue and cry and the quicker the boat got there the better. He explained that and the Australian said, “Get yourself below and get some sleep. I’ll see us into a safe harbour. Told you, though, she’s a goner, mate!” He made a sign in the air, like a plane disappearing into the clouds.

     Slumbering fitfully, Jack awoke to find something warm and smooth in the bunk with him. Disorientated, he didn’t at first appreciate what was happening, then he realised the Filipina girl was with him. Singing quietly to herself, she cuddled him in. “Whoa!” he whispered softly, feeling the outpouring of her grief and compassion. Safe suddenly, moments later she was fast asleep across his chest. He couldn’t sleep though. He winced as he thought of Diana and then of Amie. He didn’t have much luck with women or, more correctly perhaps, they didn’t have much luck with him. He realized, with a peculiar sensation, that a part of him would immutably always be here, sailing the southern sea with a warm, dark girl, so slender his hands could circumnavigate her waist. What am I doing here, he thought? He’d once had such grand aspirations and now here he was looking for Gerry Montrose instead of the Holy Grail. As he slipped down the long corridors into oblivion it occurred to him, however, that every voyage of discovery has an element of the quest for redemption.