The Judas Spy Page 8

  The full lips opened, closed. "While you catch up on Tala?"

  "I'll see her."

  "How nice."

  "Perhaps she can help me. Two heads better than one and all that."

  On the drive back to Djakarta Mata was silent. As they neared her home, in the rapidly falling dusk, she said, "Let me try."

  He enclosed her hand. "Please. Loponusias and the others?"

  "Yes. I may be able to learn something."

  In the cool, now familiar tropical living room he mixed whiskies-and-sodas, and when she returned from speaking to the servants he said, "Try now."

  "Now?"

  "There's the telephone. Sweetheart, I'm trusting you. Don't tell me you can't. With your friends and connections…"

  As if mesmerized she sat down and picked up the instrument.

  He had mixed another drink before she concluded a series of calls, with both languid and swift conversations in Indonesian and Dutch, neither of which he could quite follow. When she replaced the telephone and took the refilled glass, she hung her head for a moment and spoke softly. "In four or five days. At the Loponusias. They are all going there, and it can only mean they all must pay."

  "They all? They who?"

  "The Loponusias family. It is large. Rich."

  "Any politicians or generals in it?"

  "No. They are all in business. Big businesses. The generals get money from them."

  "Where?"

  "At the Loponusias' main property, of course. Sumatra."

  "You think Judas must appear?"

  I don't know." She looked up and saw his frown. "Yes, yes, what else could it be?"

  "Judas holds one of their youngsters?"

  "Yes." She swallowed part of her drink.

  "What's his name?"

  "Amir. He was going to school. He disappeared while in Bombay. They made a big mistake. He was traveling under a different name and they had him stop to do some business and then… he vanished until…"

  "Until?"

  She spoke so low he could hardly hear. "Until they were asked for money for him."

  Nick did not point out that she must have known some of this all along. He said, "Were they asked to do other things?"

  "Yes." The swift question caught her. She realized what she had admitted and looked up like a startled fawn.

  "Like what?"

  "I think… they help the Chinese."

  "Not local Chinese…"

  "Some."

  "But others, too. Perhaps in ships? They have docks?"

  "Yes."

  Of course, he reflected, how logical! The Java Sea is big but shallow, a trap for subs now that search devices are accurate. But northern Sumatra? Perfect for surface or undersea craft coming down from the South China Sea.

  He took her in his arms. "Thanks, darling. When you learn more, tell me. It's not for nothing. I'd have to pay someone for information." He embroidered the half-lie. "You might as well collect, and it's really a patriotic thing to do."

  She burst into tears. Ah, women, he mused. Was she crying because he had involved her against her intentions or because he had brought up money? It was too late to retreat. "Three hundred U.S. dollars every two weeks," he said. "They'll let me pay that much for information." He wondered how practical she would become if she knew that he could authorize thirty times that amount in a pinch — more after a talk with Hawk.

  The sobs subsided. He kissed her again, sighed and got up. "I've got to go out for a little while."

  She looked woeful with tears glistening on the high full cheeks; more beautiful than ever in dismay. He added quickly, "Just business. I'll be back about ten. We'll have a late snack."

  Abu drove him to Nordenboss'. Hans and Tala and Gan Bik were seated on cushions around a Japanese cooking stove, Hans jovial in a white apron and tilted chef's hat. He looked like a white-suited Santa Claus. "Hi, Al. Can't stop my cooking. Sit down and get ready for some real food."

  A long low table at Hans' left was crowded with dishes; their contents looked and smelled appetizing. The brown girl brought him a large, deep dish. "Not too much for me," Nick said. "I'm not very hungry."

  "Wait till you taste it," Hans replied, heaping the dish with brown rice. "I combine the best of Indonesian and Oriental cooking."

  The dishes began to circle the table — crab and fish in aromatic sauces, curries, vegetables, spiced fruits. Nick took a small sample of each but the mound of rice was quickly hidden under delicacies.

  Tala said, "I've been waiting a long time to talk to you, Al."

  "About the Loponusias?"

  She looked surprised. "Yes."

  "When is it?"

  "In four days."

  Hans paused with a large silver spoon in the air, then chuckled as he thrust it into red spiced shrimp. "I think Al has a lead on it already."

  "I had an idea," Nick said.

  Gan Bik looked serious and determined. "What can you do? The Loponusias won't welcome you. I don't even go up there without an invitation. Adam was polite because you brought back Tala, but Siauw Loponusias is — well you'd say in English — a tough one."

  "He just won't accept our help, eh?" Nick asked.

  "No. Like all the rest, he has determined to go along. Pay and wait."

  "And help the Chicoms when he has to, eh? Maybe he really is sympathetic to Peking."

  "Oh, no." Gan Bik was emphatic. "He is fabulously wealthy. He has nothing to gain by that. He would lose everything."

  "Rich men have cooperated with the Chicoms before."

  "Not Siauw," Tala said softly. "I know him well."

  Nick looked at Gan Bik. "You want to come with us? It may get rough."

  "If it got so rough we killed all the bandits I would be happy. But I cannot." Gan Bik scowled. "I have done what my father sent me here to do — for business — and he has ordered me to return in the morning."

  "Can't you make an excuse?"

  "You've met my father."

  "Yes. I see what you mean."

  Tala said, "I'll go with you."

  Nick shook his head. "No party for a girl this time."

  "You'll need me. With me you may get into the property. Without me you'll be stopped ten miles away."

  Nick looked at Hans — surprised and questioning. Hans waited until the maid left. "Tala is right. You'll have to push through a private army in unknown territory. And rugged territory."

  "A private army?"

  Hans nodded. "Not in pretty uniforms. The regulars wouldn't like that. But more efficient than the regulars."

  "It's a nice setup. We fight our way through our friends so that we can get at our enemies."

  "Change your mind about taking Tala?"

  Nick nodded, and Tala's pretty features brightened. "Yes — we'll need all the help we can get."

  * * *

  Three hundred miles north-northwest a strange ship sliced smoothly through the long purple swells of the Java Sea. She had two tall masts, with the big mizzenmast set forward of the rudderpost, and both rigged with topsails. Even an old salt would have to take a second look before saying, "Looks schooner-rigged, but that's a Portagee ketch — see?"

  You should forgive the old deepwater man for being half-wrong. The Oporto could pass as a Portagee ketch, a handy trader easily maneuverable in tight quarters; given an hour she could be changed into a high-pooped prau, the Bataka out of Surabaja; and in another thirty minutes you would blink if you raised your binoculars again and saw a high bow and overhanging stem and odd quadrangular sails. Hail her and you would be told she was the junk Butterfly Wind out of Keelung in Taiwan.

  You might be told any of these things, depending on how she was disguised — or you might be blown out of the water by a thunder of unexpected firepower from her 40-millimeter gun and two 20mms. Mounted midships, they had 140-degree fields of fire to either side; on her bow and stern recoilless rifles, the new Russian models with handy homemade mounts, filled in the gaps.

  In any of her sui
ts of sails she handled well — or she could do eleven knots with her unsuspected Swedish diesels. She was an astonishingly fine Q-ship, built in Port Arthur with Chinese funds for the man called Judas. Her construction had been supervised by Heinrich Muller and naval architect Berthold Geitsch, but it was Judas who conned the financing out of Peking.

  A beautiful ship on a peaceful sea — with a devil's disciple as master.

  Under a tan canvas awning on the poop deck lounged the man called Judas, enjoying the gentle cottony breeze with Heinrich Muller, Bert Geitsch, and a strange, bitter-faced young man from Mindanao called Nife. If you saw this group and knew something of their individual histories, you would flee, vomit, or grab a weapon and attack them, depending on circumstances and your own background.

  Lounging in his deck chair, Judas looked healthy and tanned; he wore a leather and nickel hook device in place of a missing hand, scars laced his limbs, and a vicious wound had left one side of his face askew.

  As he fed bits of banana to the pet chimpanzee attached to his chair by a chain, he looked like a genial veteran of half-forgotten wars, a scarred bulldog still good for the pit in a pinch. Those who knew more about him could correct this opinion. Judas was blessed with a brilliant brain and the psyche of a rabid weasel. His monumental ego was a selfishness so pure that to Judas there was only one person in the world — himself. His tenderness to the chimpanzee would last only as long as he felt self-satisfaction. When the animal ceased to please him he would toss it overboard or cut it in two — and explain his actions with warped logic. His attitude with human beings was the same. Even Muller and Geitsch and Nife did not know the real depths of his evil. They survived because they served.

  Muller and Geitsch were men stuffed with knowledge and lacking intelligence. They had no imagination beyond their own technical specialties — which were immense — and therefore no regard for others. They could not picture any humanity other than their own.

  Nife was a child in a man's body. He killed on command with the empty mind of a baby crowning another with a handy toy to possess a piece of candy. He sat on the deck a few yards forward of the others tossing balanced throwing knives into a foot-square piece of soft wood, hung on a belaying pin twenty feet from him. He threw Spanish overhand, American pioneer undersweep and hand flips from every angle. The blades kachunged into the wood with power and precision, and Nife's white teeth flashed each time with a delighted, babyish chortle.

  Such a pirate ship, with a demon commanding and fiendish mates, might be crewed by gutter savages, but Judas was far too shrewd for that.

  As a recruiter and exploiter of men he had hardly a peer in the world. His fourteen sailors, a mixture of Europeans and Asians and almost all young, were the sweepings from the top of the world's wandering mercenaries. A psychiatrist would have called them insane criminal types, to be locked up for fascinating study. A Mafia capo would have treasured them and blessed the day he found them. Judas organized them naval fashion under Geitsch, and like the Caribbean buccaneers, gave them written articles promising fortunes, women and a form of Satanic democracy. Judas would keep the agreement, of course, as long as it served his purpose. The day it did not, he would kill them all as efficiently as possible.

  Judas tossed a last piece of banana to the monkey, limped to the rail and pressed a red button. Throughout the ship buzzers sounded — not the harsh clatter of a usual ship's battle gongs, rather the alerting vibrato of a cluster of rattlesnakes. The ship sprang to life.

  Geitsch sprang up the ladder to the poop, Muller vanished down a hatch to the engine room. Sailors swept away the awnings, deck chairs, tables and glasses. Wooden falsework along the rails tipped outward and swung down on clattering hinges, a false foredeck house with plastic windows collapsed into a neat square.

  The 20mm. guns gave metallic clangs as they were cocked by powerful heaves on their firing handles. The 40mm. clanked behind its canvas screens, which could be dropped in seconds on command.

  Judas watched a Peruvian sailor secure ventilators and then speed up a ratline to the foretruck lookout. Men lay hidden behind the poop scuppers above him, showing exactly four inches of their recoilless rifles. The diesels growled as they were started and idled.

  Judas checked his watch and waved up to Geitsch. "Very good, Bert. One minute forty-seven seconds I make it."

  "Ja." Geitsch had computed it at a minute fifty-two, but you didn't argue with Judas about trifles.

  "Pass the word. Three bottles of beer for all hands at lunch. Secure." He reached for the red button and caused the rattlesnakes to buzz four times.

  Judas went down a hatch, moving on the ladder with more agility than he did on deck, using his one arm like a monkey. The diesels stopped purring. He met Muller at the ladder to the engine room. "Very good on deck, Hein. Here?"

  "Good. Raeder would approve."

  Judas suppressed a grin. Muller had donned the brilliant coat and fore-and-aft hat of a British line officer of the 19th century. He removed them now and hung them tenderly in a locker inside his cabin door. Judas said, "They put you into the spirit, eh?"

  "Ja. If we had Nelson or they had had a von Moltke or a von Buddenbrock the world would be ours today."

  Judas patted his shoulder. "There is still hope. Save that uniform. Come…" They went forward and down one deck. A sailor wearing a sidearm stood up from a stool in the companionway at the forepeak. Judas gestured at a door. The sailor unlocked it with a key from the bunch that swung on a ring. Judas and Muller looked in; Judas flipped the light switch beside the door.

  Lying on the bunk was the shape of a girl; her head, covered with a colored scarf, was turned to the wall. Judas said, "Everything all right, Tala?"

  "Yes." The reply was short.

  "Would you like to join us on deck?"

  "No."

  Judas chuckled, turned out the light and gestured to the sailor to lock the door. "She takes her exercise once a day, but that's all. She's never desired our company."

  Muller said in a low tone. "Maybe we should drag her out by her hair."

  "All in good time," Judas purred. "And here are the boys. I know you'd rather look at them." He paused before a cabin which had no door, just a grill of blue steel. It contained eight bunks, packed against the bulkhead as in older submarines, and five occupants. Four were Indonesians, one a Chinese. They glowered sullenly at Judas and Muller. A slim youth with alert, rebellious eyes who was playing chess stood up and took the two steps to reach the bars.

  "When do we get out of this hotbox?"

  "The ventilating system is working," Judas replied, his tone emotionless, his words spoken with the slow clarity of one who enjoys demonstrating logic to the less wise. "You are not much warmer than you would be on deck."

  "It's damn hot."

  "You feel that way because of boredom. Frustration. Be patient, Amir. In a few days we will visit your family. Then we will go back to the island again where you can enjoy the freedom of the compound. This will happen if you are good boys. Otherwise…" He shook his head sadly, with the expression of a kindly but strict uncle. "I shall have to turn you over to Heinrich."

  "Please don't do that," the youth called Amir said. The other prisoners were suddenly attentive, like schoolboys anticipating a joke on authority. "You know we've been cooperative."

  Judas was not fooled, but Muller relished what he thought was respect for power. Judas asked softly, "You are cooperative only because we have the guns. But of course we won't harm you unless it is necessary. You are valuable little pawns. And perhaps before long your families will pay enough so that you'll all go home."

  "I hope so," Amir accepted the he blandly. "But remember — not Muller. He'll put on his sailor suit and flog one of us and then go into his cabin and…"

  "Swine!" Muller roared. He cursed and tried to grab the keys from the guard. His oaths were drowned by howls of laughter from the prisoners. Amir fell on a bunk and rolled with glee. Judas gripped Muller's arm. "Come — they
are teasing you."

  They reached the deck and Muller muttered, "Brown monkeys. I'd like to strip the hide off all their backs."

  "Some day… some day," Judas soothed. "You will probably get all of them to dispose of. After we squeeze all we can out of the game. And I'll have some nice farewell parties with Tala." He licked his lips. They had been at sea five days, and these tropics seemed to keep a man's libido up. He could understand how Muller felt, almost.

  "We could start now," Muller suggested. "Tala and one boy wouldn't be missed…"

  "No, no, old friend. Patience. The word might get out somehow. The families pay and do what we say for Peking only because they trust us." He started to laugh, a deep-chested sound full of mockery, a parody of humor. Muller giggled, laughed, then began to slap his thigh in time with the ironic cackles that dropped from his thin lips like spilled cutlery.

  "They trust us. Ah, yes — they trust us!" When they reached the waist where the awning was rigged again, they had to wipe their eyes.

  Judas stretched out in his deck chair with a sigh. "We'll stop at Belen tomorrow. Then on to the Loponusias' place. A profitable voyage."

  "Two hundred and forty thousand U.S." Muller rolled the figure off his tongue as if it had a delicious taste. "On the sixteenth we rendezvous with the corvette and the submarine. How much must we give them this time?"

  "Let us be generous. One full payment. Eighty thousand. If they hear rumors it will fit the amounts."

  "Two for us and one for them." Muller chuckled. "Excellent odds."

  "For now. When the game is near its end, we'll take all."

  "What about the new C.I.A. agent, Bard?"

  "He is still interested in us. We must be his assignment. He has gone from the Machmurs to Nordenboss and Mata Nasut. We will meet him personally at the Loponusias village I am sure."

  "How nice."

  "Yes. And if we can — like the last one — make it look accidental. Logical, you know."

  "Of course, old friend. Accidental."

  They looked at each other fondly and smiled, like experienced cannibals savoring the memories on their palates.