Indiana Jones and the Secretof the Sphinx (7 page)

"Jones," Indy said and held out his hand.

They shook.

"Yes, I know," Bryce said. "I've seen your mug in the newspapers. But a gentleman doesn't comment until the introductions have been made."

Then there was a jolt, and Bryce smiled as he steadied himself against a bulkhead. "Ah, we've cast our moorings. The tugs are taking us out into the harbor. Soon we'll be rid of this stinking piece of real estate."

"What is Snark carrying this trip?"

"He doesn't confide in me," Bryce said.

He knelt on the floor, closed up his bag, then looked at Indy and gave him a glance that was filled with an unspeakable mixture of horror and guilt.

"You know, Jones, it's quite true what I said," he said. "But it's not the whole cloth. While pretending not to see the rape of Manchuria, I fell in love with the concubine of a petty warlord collaborating with the Imperial Army. The girl's name was Si Huang, she was seventeen, and she was the most gentle creature I have ever known. But honor bound her to her station in life; she would not flee to safety with me. The warlord, of course, found out. Do you know what he did?"

Indy closed his eyes.

"He killed her. Then he cut out her heart, cooked it up, and had it mixed into the curried pork I ate for my dinner that night."

The doctor gave a smile that projected no mirth.

"I have never eaten a bit of meat since," he said as he snapped his bag closed. "And just before I nod off to sleep at night—that is, if I'm sober—I will get a little whiff of curry, and the night terrors close behind."

The
Kamikaze Maru
—the
Divine Wind
—had been at sea for nearly ten hours when the pair of Kawasaki Ki-10 biplanes appeared on the horizon over her wake. Indy had heard the drone of the big radial engines, and he knew they could mean nothing but trouble.

He had slept in his clothes, so to finish dressing meant grabbing his hat and jacket on the way out of the cabin. It was dawn now, and the eastern sky was bronzed by the rising sun.

As Indy reached the bridge, the biplanes buzzed the ship.

Snark was on the deck, watching through a pair of binoculars as the planes flared and prepared for another pass. Faye, Mystery, and Bryce were already there.

Even without the binoculars, on the wings of both planes Indy could clearly see the
hinamaru
—the rising red sun of the Japanese empire.

"Dr. Jones," Snark said. "You seem to be more trouble than you're worth. Somebody must have figured out which ship was unlucky enough to have you. Is there anyone back home who would pay good money to have you back safe and sound?"

"Not unless my old friend Marcus Brody can figure a way to make a museum piece out of me," Indy said.

"Too bad," Snark said. "These biplanes, they are too far out to sea now to turn back to Manchuria. They cannot land on the water, and they have barely enough fuel to reach the Japanese coast. Instead of a fuel pod, each carries a torpedo slung beneath her belly."

Snark handed the binoculars to Indy.

"Can you hail them?" Faye asked. "Negotiate, perhaps?"

"There's no radio on the
Divine Wind,"
Snark said.

"I thought that after 1912—," Faye began.

"That's your world," Snark said impatiently. "The
Titanic
did not make a great deal of difference to us. In our world, shipwrecks are fate. For communication, we use signal guns, or flags, or rescue flares, instead of wireless. Unfortunately, that does not allow for two-way communication in this circumstance."

"I think they're about ready to send us a message," Indy said as through the binoculars he watched the biplanes line up on the stern of the
Divine Wind
for their attack. At seventy-five yards, the torpedo fell from the belly of the forward plane.

The mechanical shark left a stream of bubbles as it raced through the green water toward them. Snark turned the ship hard to port, then bellowed orders down the voice tube to evacuate the engine room and close the aft compartments.

"They're trying to sink us," Faye blurted.

"No," Snark said. "But they might manage to. They want to cripple us, to damage the old girl's rudder and screws and prevent us from escaping. If they had wanted to sink us, they would have hit us amidships with both torpedoes. But they don't know what we're carrying in the aft hold.

"Brace for impact
Snark commanded.

Then he closed his eyes.

The torpedo struck slightly off-center, with a dampened
whomp!
that washed the stern with foam and sent a sickening shudder down the ship's keel.

Snark opened his left eye.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Faye said after a moment.

"It's not over," Snark said as he tried the wheel. It was locked hard to port. "We have revolutions on one screw, but all we can do now is sail in a circle."

"What exactly
are
we carrying?" Indy asked.

"Chinese fireworks," Snark said.

"Fireworks?" Indy shot back. "And you call yourself a smuggler?"

"They're illegal," Snark said defensively. "And you know you could lose a finger with some of those things."

Black smoke belched from the stern.

The first mate spun the crank on an ancient mechanical siren to sound fire stations, and the half dozen crewmen who were still below emerged on deck. One of them was struggling with a Browning Automatic Rifle.

"Give me that," Snark said, taking the BAR away. "Do you want to start a war with the entire Imperial Army?"

A grease-stained mechanic burst onto the bridge.

"Anybody hurt?" Snark asked.

"No, Captain," he answered in Japanese.

"Then get down there and douse that fire," he barked.

"We can't, sir," the mechanic said. "The engine room is flooding, and the fuel oil is burning on top of the water."

"Is the aft hold secure?"

"Yes, sir," the mechanic said. "I think."

The shriek of a skyrocket and the machine-gun rattle of firecrackers ended his indecision.

"No, sir, apparently not."

"Damn," Snark said.

The Ki-10 that had released the torpedo had swung around to inspect the damage and was now flying low and slow over the
Divine Wind
—which was, at that moment, exactly the wrong place in the sky to be. A crate of fireworks exploded, engulfing the stern in a fiery blossom of red and green and peppering the wings of the Ki-10 with hundreds of flaming, buckshot-sized pellets. The bottom wing smoldered angrily for a few moments, then burst into flame.

"He's going to have to ditch," Indy said.

Snark cursed elaborately in Japanese.

"We've shot down one of the emperor's planes," he muttered to Indy in English. "With smuggled Chinese fireworks, while harboring a trio of Western fugitives."

"Congratulations," Indy said. "You're moving up in the world."

The pilot of the Ki-10 deftly guided the crippled plane toward the sea. It touched the surface two hundred yards off the starboard bow of the sinking cargo ship, tipping up on its nose in a great spray of water, then settling heavily back down.

Snark calmly gave the first mate the order to abandon ship.

"How much time do we have?" Indy asked.

"Twenty minutes," Snark said. "Half an hour, at most. The water won't douse the fireworks—they are chemically fueled, and they will burn a hole through the bottom of our hull. Then, we'll have flooded four compartments, which is one too many for us to stay afloat."

"How about going after that pilot?" Indy asked.

"He'll drown soon enough," Snark said, then smiled. "Funny, but this old girl had the last laugh, didn't she?"

"No, I mean to rescue."

"Not a bad idea," Snark said. He nodded toward the biplane still in the air. "Make a show of it, maybe save my neck if I ever get back home to Nagasaki. Mr. Bryce, take one of the boats and fish the emperor's chosen out of the sea."

"I'll go with you," Indy said.

"Be quick about it," Snark said. "It looks like the crew have claimed the other two boats. The rest of you, go as well. As captain, it's fitting that I am last off."

"Faye, get your things," Indy said.

Faye nodded. Mystery started to follow her to the cabin, but Faye pushed her back. "Help them launch the boat," she said.

"Just get the picture," Mystery said. "And my bag of tricks."

"Don't let Snark fool you," Bryce told Indy as they released the lifeboat from its blocks. "There isn't a bit of honor about him—he just wants to make sure he cleans out the safe in his cabin before the first mate beats him to it."

"Does he have that much to lose?" Mystery asked.

"It's not much," Bryce said. "At least not by our standards. A few hundred bucks, the price of a new car in the States. But with the ship gone, it's all he's got."

They threw a net over the side and, when Faye returned to the rail, they clambered down it into the sixteen-foot boat. Indy was gasping from the pain in his shoulder by the time they had the oars in the water.

"Let me," Mystery said and took Indy's place at the oar. "Go to the bow; search for the pilot."

"We're lucky," Bryce said. "The sea is calm this morning."

Then they all flinched as another round of pyrotechnics erupted from the hold and shrieked up into the early morning sky.

"Luck," Indy said, "is a relative term."

They rowed toward the oil slick that marked the spot where the plane had gone down. The pilot was resolutely treading water, keeping her mouth just above water.

Indy laughed when he saw the silky mass of dark hair floating around her head.

"Lieutenant Musashi," Indy said. "Why am I not surprised?"

Musashi barked a scathing response in Japanese, then took in water. She coughed and spat, and her head bobbed under once before she could continue. She was obviously tired, near exhaustion, but she managed to add in English: "You are under arrest, Jones."

Mystery recognized the demeanor.

"This is the madwoman who was chasing you at the square?"

"Afraid so," Indy said.

Bryce left his seat to help Indy haul her in.

"Come on," he said as he extended the oar toward her. "Be a good little Imperialist and climb on board."

Above, the lone biplane was circling.

"Go to hell," Musashi said, then swallowed more water.

"Don't be difficult," Indy chided. "You're going to drown yourself if you're not careful. You know, we have every right to leave you out here."

Musashi shook her head.

"All right," Bryce said. "We're all under bloody arrest. Now, get in the boat and make sure your bloodthirsty buddy up there sees it."

Musashi went under again, but grasped the blade of the oar with a trailing hand. Bryce hauled her to the boat, and Indy reached down with his good arm, grasped the fur-lined collar of her flight jacket, and lifted her over the gunwale.

"She weighs a ton in this thing," Indy groaned.

Bryce waved the oar in the air.

The biplane waggled its wings in response and departed toward the southeast.

Then Bryce threw down the oar and jammed his finger into Musashi's mouth to make sure she hadn't swallowed her tongue.

"Is she breathing?" Indy asked.

"I think so," Bryce said as he tipped her head over the rail and slapped her back. Seawater sputtered from her nose and mouth. When Bryce turned her back, she tried to fight him off, but had no strength.

"Help me check her for weapons," Indy said.

"Are you kidding?" Bryce asked. "She's just a kid."

"This 'kid' is the one who put the hole in my shoulder and sank our boat," Indy said. He unzipped her flight jacket, then stopped. "Uh, Mystery. Would you mind?" he asked.

"Love to," Mystery said as she came forward and began to probe unknown pockets. "We've got a can opener, a compass, and some pocket change." She handed the things to Indy and dove into another pocket.

"Pay dirt," she said as she withdrew a .25-caliber automatic.

Bryce took the gun and slipped it into his pocket.

"Keep searching," Indy said.

"Papers," she said. "Looks like a passport and some other official-looking documents. Oh, look at the red ribbon. Isn't that cute?"

"Keep going."

"Okay," Mystery replied and felt down Musashi's pants legs to the tops of her boots. "Oh, you were right. What a wicked-looking little knife."

Indy inspected the switchblade, then threw it overboard.

When they returned to fetch Snark, the rest of the crew had gone and the hulk was dipping alarmingly toward the stern. He was standing casually, smoking a cigarette, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder.

He threw the bag into the boat.

"What took you so long?" he asked as he stepped down from his patch of deck into the lifeboat.

"It was complicated," Indy said.

"When the
Wind
goes under, the pull is likely to take us down with her," Snark said as he took the tiller. "We'd better put some water between us."

Although the
Kamikaze Maru
sank into the Sea of Japan, the water failed to extinguish the fire that had eaten through her belly. It continued to smolder even after the ship was on the bottom, marking her grave with a witch's cauldron of smoke and bubbles.

4
Ty Fung