Fire And Ice (12 page)

My God, thought Sarah. He's jealous of Ronnie.

And Ronnie, with a ten-year-old's intuition for such dynamics, settled back triumphantly on the bed, clearly the winner. "Then what happened, Mr. Jack?"

"Eighteen days out, most of the escort drops back—so we wouldn't be spotted. We kept going, sitting ducks for the enemy. The ocean got rougher and rougher, bow banging up and down like a roller coaster. The orders come down to top off the tanks and check the engines one last time. . . ."

Sarah's heart was pounding so hard she was afraid Mr. Jack would see it fluttering her white coat. Could she and Ronnie steal the Zodiak? Safer than leaping from the main deck, higher risk of being caught. But the Dallas Belle was thinly manned. Only a dozen hands had responded to the gas leak. While the ship was stopped, she could launch it from the accommodations door, just as the captain had. Drift silently out of earshot and, using the GPS to guide them, motor toward the coast.

"All of a sudden, enemy picket ship spotted the carrier. The destroyer and cruiser still with us opened up and blasted them out of the water, but not before the bastards got a signal off. So there we were, about four hundred

miles farther from the target than we should have been. The powers that be ordered us to take off immediately, before the whole Jap navy jumped us.

"We cranked up the engines and the colonel took off first, staggering down that little flight deck trying to time it with the rise of the bow. We all stopped breathing. He hit the air, dropped like a rock, and I swear he got his wheels wet before she started climbing. Meanwhile, the Navy boys are rocking our plane, trying to make a little more room for gas, pouring it in from jerry cans. Second guy takes off and almost crashes. Then the third. Then it was our turn."

"Were you scared?"

"You bet I was scared. . .. If I'd been the pilot I wouldn't have been scared, but sitting on two thousand pounds of bombs and enough aviation fuel to burn down a town, I couldn't do a thing but pray—and I didn't really know how. I swore right then and there if I got out of this alive I would never, ever put my life in someone else's hands again. If I couldn't run it I wouldn't do it. . . . The skipper revs the engines, the whole plane's shaking. Off the brakes, and down the flight deck so goddammed slow it felt like an ox cart. Heavy. And the end of the ship is coming up really fast. We fell off the end. I was in this turret here; looking back, I saw the ship's bow above us. If we hit the water she'd run us over.

"Well, somehow we made it into the air, formed up, wasting fuel waiting for the rest of the planes, and then we headed out, with seven hundred miles of Jap-controlled water ahead of us before we could even reach the target. How long would that take us, Ronnie?

"

"Ummmh. Two and a half hours."

"At three hundred knots, yeah. But we were trying to save fuel, so we throttled back to two twenty-five, just hugging the waves."

"Nearly four hours."

"Caught the Japs with their pants down. They were thinking the Navy planes on the carrier they'd spotted couldn't launch farther out than three hundred miles. So while the bastards were hunting the carrier at the threehundred-mile mark, we were already airborne and coming

in low. Took the Jap ground and air defense completely by surprise. Never laid a glove on us.

"We made landfall and flew over these fishing villages and islands, and then the skipper took us up a few thousand feet. There she was, the target. Our group was supposed to hit some dockyards. They were just where the navigator said they'd be. 'Bombs away.'

"The aircraft jumped." He jerked the model into the air, wincing from the sudden movement. "Jumped. I saw the bombs explode like bloody flowers and the dock flying in pieces. And then, dead ahead, this huge tank farm—gasoline and aviation fuel. If we'd saved our bombs and hit that, the whole city would have burned. It was made of paper in those days."

"What city?", asked Sarah.

"Tokyo! What do you think?"

Sarah was confused. By the end of the war, Tokyo had been nearly obliterated by firebombs.

But Ronnie got it right away. "The Doolittle Raid! Remember, Mum. Right after the sneak attack. Thirty seconds over Tokyo? You did that, Mr. Jack?"

"Me and my buddies," Mr. Jack answered modestly. "Payback for Pearl Harbor. Taught '

em, if you bomb the U.S., you're going to get bombed back. . . . But, goddamn, if we'd hit those tanks we'd have burned 'em to a crisp."

"Wow. How'd you get back?"

"Getting back turned out to be the hard part. We didn't have enough gas to return to the Hornet—she was running for Pearl at flank speed, goddammed glad to be rid of us. So we kept going, heading for China, hoping to land in some part the Japs didn't occupy. Trouble was, they occupied most of it."

"What happened?"

Mr. Jack thrust the model into Ronnie's hands. "Put it back, kid." Ronnie stood up on the bed and reattached the model to its wire. "So what happened?" Mr. Jack's expression turned bleak. Ronnie observed him solemnly, then knelt beside him and wrapped her arms gently around his shoulders.

"Enough," said Sarah. "Ronnie, go read in the lounge. I've got to examine Mr. Jack." Ronnie looked up defiantly. But when she saw the expression on Sarah's face, she scrambled off the bed and out of the room, pausing in the doorway only to insure that Moss wasn't out there.

Sarah checked too, then closed the door. "Five minutes." Mr. Jack had slumped on his pillows and was staring at his hands, his face dead white. " Jesus, Doc," he rasped. "Kind of overdid it."

"You see why I want you in hospital."

"Why'd you chase Ronnie out?"

"As you said, you overdid it,"

"Bull. Listen, Doc. I've done plenty what you'd call bad. And I've plans for plenty more. But diddling little girls was never on the agenda. Your daughter's safe with me."

"You don't hesitate to hold her life as a threat over me."

"I need you, Doc. I'll take any leverage I can get. But

I guarantee I won't pull rank. You keep me strong and

neither you or your little girl has anything to fear." "Will this policy be observed by Moss as well?" "Moss as well."

"What if he strikes out on his own?"

"He won't—unless you give him cause. . . . You planning on giving him cause?"

"You know perfectly well that I'm in no position to give him cause."

"Just as long as you know it. . . ." He glared straight into her face. But she could see that he was tired and weak and in pain, and she wondered, with a sudden stab of hope, whether the Stockholm syndrome might run in reverse if the captive was a doctor and the captor her patient. It had always amazed her when she had practiced in London how even the most incompetent doctors commanded irrational loyalty from a suffering patient. She sat on the edge of the bed and placed cool fingers against the back of his mutilated hand. Sleep was veiling his eyes. "Tell me," she whispered.

"Tell you what?" he rallied, galvanized by suspicion. "What you couldn't tell Ronnie. Did your plane make it to China?"

"Chekiang Province. We ditched in a rice paddy." "You made it."

"Everyone but the bombardier. He drowned."

"Was Chekiang Province occupied territory?"

"Not when we got there. The Nationalists still held it. The village threw us a big party, and then we lit out for Chungking—Chiang Kai-shek's capital."

"You didn't make it to Chungking, did you?" she asked softly. He lay still and silent for so long that Sarah thought he had fallen asleep. Then he spoke:

"Would you like a manicure?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's what the Kempeitai asked me."

"I'm afraid you've lost me, Mr. Jack."

"Kempeitai? That's a Japanese word, Mummy. Japanese for secret police. . . ."

"I see."

"You see." He flung his hand in her face. "You see? You see what the Kempeitai meant when they asked if I wanted a manicure? But you don't want me to call them Japs."

"Japan was destroyed at the end of the war, thanks to the bravery of soldiers like you, Mr. Jack. But in defeat, the Japanese people did everything the Allies demanded of them.

"

"Am I supposed to forgive them because they lost?" "It would be a Christian act."

"Yeah? Where the hell was Christ when I was scream ing for Him?" Sarah flinched from the hatred boiling in his eyes.

"Out where my husband and I live, the islanders still call the war The Big Fight. It was a very big fight, Mr. Jack, and cruelty abounded. The point, today, is that the Japanese people have been reborn in the past half century as one of the most pacifist peoples on earth."

Mr. Jack sneered. "Because they've had the good old U.S. of A. to do their shooting for them, while they plaster

their goddamned Rising Sun all over everything. Are you blind, Doc? We beat 'em fair and square for raping and murdering half of Asia and the second we turned our back they went on the rampage again. Only this time we supplied the muscle to hold off the communists—who'd have stopped them like they did last time. The Japanese' re dangerous people, Doc. You don't know them like I do."

"Perhaps I've been more fortunate in my acquaintances, Mr. Jack."

" 'Perhaps I've been more fortunate in my acquaintances,' " he mimicked with another sneer. "Let me see your mitts, Doc— Yeah, you've' been 'more fortunate.' Lot more fortunate."

"I don't deny that you've suffered."

"You think it's just me I'm talking about? Christ, Doc. How about the two hundred and fifty thousand Chinese they killed for the raid? People slaughtered. They're monsters."

"Their children and their grandchildren are not monsters."

"Monsters in new faces. They're taking over the world, Doc. And when they're done, they'll take the gloves off . . . and offer manicures to everyone."

"You can't condemn an entire people for the evil acts of a few." He laughed. "You want to hear the funny thing? I ran into the guy."

"What guy?"

"The Kempeitai cop."

"The man who tortured you?"

"Five-six years ago—damnedest thing. I was holed up in Singapore, negotiating gas leases with the Indonesians and I'm feeling some pressure from the outside—like someone's horning in on the deal. I knew right away it had to be Japs, so I invited them to meet in Hong Kong—neutral turf. They sent some mid-level guys—deliberate insult. So I pulled a few strings to torpedo a joint enterprise scam they had going with Beijing. That got their attention. They invited me to lunch in Tokyo—sushi lunch. Ever eat sushi?

"

"Of course."

"Live sushi? I don't think so, Doc. These guys—real big shots—they eat baby lobsters alive. The little things are still wiggling when they bust them out of their shells. Horrible sight. Cruelty for the hell of it—bragging they got the power to do it. So anyhow, who's at this lunch? The son of a bitch who tore my fingernails out after he got done shoving bamboo splinters under them. Blue suit, red tie, Mr. Corporation Man."

"Are you sure it was the same man?"

"Oh, I was sure. So was he. I was wearing my gloves, but the son of a bitch knew damned well it was me. . . ." Mr. Jack juggled laughter deep in his throat. "His live lobster wasn't going down all that smooth. I let the bastard stew. Didn't say a word the whole time we cut a deal. Till we had an agreement. Then I took my glove off to shake hands."

The old man tugged at the bedclothes, his bright eyes tracking memories. "Funny thing happened to him. A month later he got kidnapped. Down in Djakarta. Some vicious bunch of Muslim fundamentalists got this crazy idea in their heads that he had access to the Japanese stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium."

"The Japanese don't stockpile plutonium."

"Oh yes they do, sweetheart. Enough for an arsenal, in case their peace-loving businessmen run into a market they can't crack with their usual dumping. . . . Anyhow, the kidnappers wanted plutonium—it was all a mix-up. He didn't know the first thing about plutonium—but they'd been misinformed, so they just kept asking him again and again and again until his heart gave out. . . ."

He looked Sarah full in the face and smiled. "Lasted a couple of weeks." It took every muscle in her body to keep from shuddering visibly. And still trying to court his sympathy, she asked, "Were you satisfied?"

He jerked his hand away with a savage curse and closed his eyes. Then, slowly, he formed a brittle smile. "What do you think?"

carried stylish women speaking upper-class Spanish. Several cast mildly speculative glances at the haggard American who made his way back to economy, which was crowded with sad-eyed housemaids returning to work from visits home. Stone squeezed into his window seat, exhausted but too anxious to sleep, and pressed his face to the plastic to search the South China Sea for a sand-colored ship.

He had struck out in Manila—Patrick had disappeared "in country," according to his girlfriend, who had no clue when the mercenary would be back.

Captain McGlynn still hadn't telephoned when Stone had said good-bye to Marcus at the Koror airport. Nor had Lydia Chin.

"Watch your back," were Marcus's parting words. "I still don't think that guy was after me." But Stone was sure the guest room had provided the easiest entry to the house, and that Marcus, not he, had been the intruder's target. No one knew he was in Koror. He had emptied their Koror safe-deposit box and bought his tickets with cash. Money would be a problem if he had to spend much more on travel and information. He hoped there would be messages waiting at the Hong Kong Yacht Club. Somewhere on the maritime grapevine

there had to be word of a missing ship, some hint of what had caused the crew to kidnap a doctor.

His best speculation was that the gas carrier had been hijacked for its valuable cargo. Compressed to a liquid by supercooling, the volume of gas in the vessel was enormous and worth millions. And with corruption a way of life on the South China coast long before the People's Republic of China institutionalized it, the hijackers had probably arranged before the theft to sell the gas to a PRC power plant willing to fence it for half price.