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Pulau, Southeast Asia
Friday, May 17, 2013
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It was smoggy and stinky as hell, but Pinocchio hankered for a cigarette: this blue, comforting poison. He was standing on a deserted part of the Disraeli river’s shoreline, with Peel Quay’s vigorous lights barely visible a hundred feet off, through the haze.
His handlers had said they couldn’t risk picking him up there, at the Quay, because of CCTV. And how on earth could he even argue with that?
Hugging himself as though in a blizzard, he paced the haunted shore, coughing. And suddenly, he stopped and listened. The boat was drawing near. He knew that by the droning sound it made. It came from the opposite side of Peel Quay, from the South China Sea. Soon, it glided into view and swayed to a stop on the haze-covered water.
It was a small patrol cruiser carrying the unique flag of the nation of Pulau, the mermaid goddess. Pinocchio vaguely recognized the two men on the boat. Both were Chinese and wearing the pervasive N-95 mask.
“Sir, come, fast!” cried the tubbier of the two, gesticulating wildly with his arms.
“Is he on board?” Pinocchio shouted.
“You’re in big danger!”
You don’t say, Pinocchio thought querulously.
“You Borat friend, right?” asked the other sailor.
Nearly twenty meters stood between the shore and the boat. Pinocchio took off his shoes and socks and silently waded into the river, gnashing his left foot only three steps in. It was painful, but he kept going. The coast was steeper than he was expecting. He had to swim half the distance to get to the starboard, the Chinese having tossed down their Jacobs ladder for him.
They helped him aboard, and he jerked himself free from their grips. “You don’t happen to carry cigarettes around here, do you?” he asked.
“Not healthy.”
Pinocchio shook his head and proceeded to the taffrail, dropping there to examine his injured sole. The wound was deep and it looked hideous. “Is he gone already?” he said.
No reply.
He raised his eyes and saw the tubby sailor holding a gun, his hands trembling. “Sorry,” the sailor said, “this is my first time.”
He shot him in the stomach. Pinocchio yelped and tried to pull himself up using the taffrail. The sailor jerked the slide and reshot him, six times in the chest and back, until Pinocchio dropped and stopped moving.
“See?” the other sailor said. “This is why they should do it. Their spies are like cats.”
They dumped his body on their way back to the South China Sea.
PART ONE