10

PALAWAN ISLAND, PHILIPPINES

MID-JULY

At first he thought he was dreaming, but the knocking was incessant. Finally Havok realized that someone was at the door. With a groan, he rolled his stiff frame off the bed and struggled across the dark room toward the door. He looked at his wristwatch. It was only ten thirty p.m. He had been asleep for an hour. He grabbed the knob and yanked the door open.

“This had better be good!”

Wearing only cotton shorts, Havok faced Xian. For a few seconds, they just stood there looking at each other. While Xian studied Havok, he noticed she wore the same clothes and jewelry from this afternoon.

He broke the silence: “Listen, I don’t know what kind of kicks you and Kang are into, but I don’t need it.”

“Please, do not misunderstand.” Her voice was invitingly subtle and apologetic but strong and confident, which caught Havok off guard.

“OK, what can I do for you?”

“That is much better. For starters, you can let me in.”

He quietly sighed, and stepped aside. With a strong, purposeful stride, she entered the room and casually flung her purse on the ruffled bed as if it were her room and her bed. She stood in the center of the room, and the light from the hallway accentuated the jewelry she wore. After appraising the room, she sat in the only chair and crossed one leg over the other in the dark shadows of the room. The hallway light illuminated her crotch, but Havok did not see panties.

“Are you a fan of Sharon Stone movies?” he asked, still standing next to the open door.

Xian smiled as she leaned back in the chair. “Basic Instinct: a classic murder mystery in which the main suspect uses her physical sexuality to distract the police during questioning and to trick one police officer into being her dupe.”

“Is that what you’re doing to me?” Havok asked.

“Before I came up,” Xian said, ignoring his question, “I took the liberty of ordering tea.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what you need or want.”

Before she could answer, Havok heard somebody approach the doorway. He turned to see a young man holding a brown wooden tray with a sky-blue ceramic teapot and matching cups on it. He accepted the tray, thanked him, and pushed the door shut with his foot. He put the tray on the small table next to Xian and poured two cups, handing one to her. With his own teacup, Havok sat on the bed, reclining against the headboard.

“Again, what do you want?” he asked.

After taking a sip from the cup, she replied to his directness. “After visiting with you this evening, I found you very intriguing. I wanted to find out what kind of man you are.”

“That’s all?”

“That is all. There are no strings attached.”

“I guess I can live with that.”

“So, how is the diving business these days? Do you like your career?”

“It fills my rice bowl.” Havok answered her questions simply, but he could sense she wanted more than his résumé. “So what about Kang? Does he know you’re here?”

“I am what you would call a trophy wife or arm candy. He prefers his pretty boys. He employs me for show, and if he is having a tough time negotiating with a client or somebody, I go in to help secure the deal.”

“So you’re his whore.”

Xian took another sip of tea dismissively. “I view myself as a valuable business asset.”

“Are you here to help persuade me then?” Havok asked. “What do I have to offer Kang?”

“Don’t worry. I’m off the clock. I take care of his special needs, and he allows me to take care of my rather particular needs.”

“I’ve got a feeling when it comes to sex you’re never off the clock,” Havok said. “And what are your particular needs?” Did these two have something to do with the bullet holes in his airplane, or was she just honestly horny? Or both?

“That is not your concern right now, but I would gladly share them with you later. I just want to talk with you for now. Do you have family in Subic Bay?”

“No family. I’m just a loner with a dive shop, a small-time businessman in a small town.”

Havok took another sip of his tea and put the cup on the nightstand next to his cell phone. He’d had enough and stated his ultimatum. After all, he had to get to sleep somehow.

“I’m really tired, so do me a favor and either get in this bed or close the door behind you on your way out.”

Xian placed her cup on the nightstand, stood up, and began to unbutton the front of her pink halter top. She opened the top, allowing it to fall off her shoulders, revealing shapely, tanned breasts. Letting the clothing fall to the floor, she turned around and placed her hands on her shorts, pushing them off her gyrating hips and exposing firm buttocks. She bent at the waist, still facing away from Havok, and pushed her shorts all the way to the floor. After her leg kicked them away, she stepped across the short distance.

***

After a fitful sleep, Havok woke to the warmth of the morning sun shining on him through the window and to the sound of the phone ringing next to his head. He picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” he said before pausing, “Thanks. Please send up some coffee.”

After hanging up he stretched and turned his head toward Xian as she dressed herself next to the bed. “Were you a gymnast in a previous life?”

Xian chuckled quietly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The pair fell back into silence, staring at each other while she finished dressing. Havok saw that Xian had that same look from yesterday: sultry, alluring, yet strong and confident. It was as if she always knew what she was doing and was always one step ahead of everybody. She had the same determined look as Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct. Havok tried not to show it, but he wondered if he’d just become the Michael Douglas character in the movie, a veteran cop seduced and tricked into becoming a puppet for a serial killer. He knew that he would see her and Kang again, but under what circumstances?

Xian approached the bed to give Havok a quick peck on the forehead before leaving the room. She never looked back.

Havok got out of bed and cleaned up while waiting for his coffee. He opened his bag to look for a new shirt. He stopped. For some reason, something seemed different in the bag. He poked around the contents: clothing, a few bottles of water, a first-aid kit, an envelope with more cash, a multipurpose knife, and a few other miscellaneous items. Nothing appeared to be missing, but it looked as if someone had gone through the bag. He looked at the door, thinking about Xian. Did he expect anything else?

After a lukewarm shower and a cup of bitter instant coffee, Havok walked into the hotel lobby, where he saw the taxi driver from the day before waiting by the front desk.

“Good morning, sir. Ready to go to your airplane?”

Fifteen minutes later, the taxi rolled up to Esmeralda, which was waiting patiently in the surf with the bow of its main float resting on the beach. A man, whom Havok assumed was the night watchman, sat on the float and smoked a cigarette. Havok strolled toward the sand, leaving the taxi gasping in its own noxious fumes. Just before he reached the plane, he heard a vehicle drive up behind him. It was the tow truck from yesterday. Victorino parked the truck several feet away and jumped out.

“Finished?” Havok asked.

“Yes, sir,” Victorino answered. “We repaired the oil line and checked out the rest of the engine. Want to test run her?” He handed Havok a clear plastic bag with four bullet slugs in it. “It is all I could find. The rest went straight through.”

Havok accepted the bag and examined the slugs. They were .30-caliber slugs with no identifying marks. However, he could tell, based on the length of the rounds, that they were not pistol rounds or rifle cartridges; they had been fired from a submachine gun or assault rifle of some sort. An image of an AK-47 popped into mind. He placed the rounds into his backpack, stepped onto the main float, and then clamored up the side of the fuselage. After throwing his bag into the rear cockpit, he climbed into the pilot’s cockpit.

The preflight checks were completed, and after Havok fired up the engine, Victorino and the night watchman gave the plane a push off the beach so Havok could give it a test flight. He turned the seaplane toward the mouth of the bay and, when he reached rotation speed, pulled back on the yoke. The plane clawed its way toward the thick blue sky. For ten minutes, he pressed the engine hard, going into stalls and steep climbs. He tortured the aircraft with agonizing cruelty, trying to find its breaking point. The plane absorbed the punishment with no hint of weakness, and the gauges all read normal. He landed the plane back on the water and nosed up to the beach, where he and Victorino gave the engine one last look. Satisfied with the test flight, Havok paid Victorino and climbed back into the airplane for his flight back to Subic Bay.

Once again in the air, he decided to fly over Kang’s yacht. In less than a minute, he approached the vessel at about five hundred feet. It was the most luxurious yacht he had ever seen. Polished brass and chrome fittings reflected the morning sun. Dark-stained wood railings outlined the classic gleaming white hull and the superstructure, which was topped with a pilothouse, an exhaust stack painted a light blue, and a helicopter landing pad. Various antennae poked into the sky above the pilothouse and exhaust stack. The wide array of antennae and electronic dishes indicated worldwide communication capabilities. Under the pilothouse and helo pad, taking up the entire mid level of the superstructure, was a large room enclosed almost completely by tinted glass.

The yacht was definitely capable of sustained ocean transits and looked stable enough to handle even the roughest seas. At first, the ship appeared deserted, but Havok spotted movement as a few men in white uniforms came out the open wings of the pilothouse. He also saw the muscle-bound bodyguard from last night. Chiba wore gym clothes that looked like they were soaked in sweat. The men watched as Havok performed a long, lazy circle above them. After Havok had seen what he needed to see, he banked the airplane toward the South China Sea for his first leg of the flight back to Subic Bay.

As he left Quezon and turned north, Havok casually thought about the bullet holes that punctured the fuselage. After tossing the idea around in his head, he decided to let the holes remain. They would make a good conversation piece, just like the bullet holes in the Outfit. He also tried to remember something Kang had said last night, but he couldn’t nail it down.

It was now midafternoon, and after a stop for lunch on Mindoro, Havok was on his last leg of the flight. He had been in the air for ten minutes when it suddenly hit him. Last night Kang had said, “Being a pilot is hard work.” How did he know Havok was a pilot? That hadn’t come up in the conversation. Nor had Havok been wearing anything that identified him as a pilot. Havok now thought deeply about Kang and his motives. Kang could have easily questioned the locals back in Quezon. Also, he had only landed at Quezon two hours before meeting Kang, and he didn’t remember seeing Kang’s yacht anchored in the harbor before he landed. There were thousands of people living in that port city, so for Kang to know exactly whom to talk to in such a short time was no coincidence. Perhaps Kang already knew something about him before he arrived in Quezon.

Kang was more than just an innocent corporate executive.

Havok landed back at Subic Bay just before four p.m. Impatiently, he taxied up to his dock, where Manny was waiting. Once the plane was in position, Manny reached out, pulled mooring lines from the compartment in the main float, then secured the plane to the brass cleats bolted to the dock. Havok pulled the throttle back, bringing the engine’s rpm to idle. He twisted the fuel-mixture knob, leaning out the fuel mixture until the engine shuddered to a complete stop. With Kang on his mind, he anxiously pushed the canopy back.

“Hi, Joe. How was your flight?” said Manny.

“Interesting. What are you doing for dinner?”

***

By seven p.m. Manny and Havok were sitting with Kilgore at a table off to a corner in Kilgore’s bar. A Jimmy Buffett song played from speakers in the ceiling. They were drinking margaritas on the rocks while the pilot told his friends everything that had happened in the last two days. After two rounds, Kilgore had two pages of notes jotted down on a pad of yellow legal paper.

Stone walked up to the table and pulled out the last empty chair. “Sounds like you had one hell of a flight.”

Havok could see that his friend didn’t seem that upset about the bullet holes, and was relieved, as he did not want to listen to Stone’s rant. “Checked out Esmeralda?” he asked.

“Yes, I did, and you were in the doghouse for a while. But on the way over here, I had a change of heart,” replied Stone.

“What changed?” Havok asked.

“Well, you know how chicks dig scars, so I thought we could tell our customers that we got them in a running battle with Malayan pirates off the coast of Bora Bora or something. Just like we did with the Outfit.”

“What’s this ‘we’ crap?” Havok said. “Exactly how many times have you been shot at this week?”

“Yeah, well, if it wasn’t for my abilities to keep you in the air and us in business, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to get shot at.”

Mercedes came to the table and smiled at Stone, who winked at her.

“I’ll have an order of Montezuma’s Revenge,” Stone said. “And keep the margaritas coming.”

Mercedes noted the order and walked away while Stone watched her.

Meanwhile, Havok completed his tale of the flight, including a discussion about the disappearance of the Kona Wave and a possible connection. The four of them shared various ideas, along with more margaritas and the cheese-stuffed jalapeño and habanero peppers.

After two hours of conversing and drinking, Kilgore stood. “I’ll contact my brethren in Manila and Vietnam for any intelligence on Terumbu. And I’ll get the lowdown on Kang and his associates as well,” he said.

Manny stood and stretched his arms. “I’ll guess it’s time to get the Outfit ready to go.” He followed Kilgore out of the bar.

Havok and Stone reclined in their chairs, sipping drinks, listening to Kenny Chesney, and mulling over the events of the last two days. Havok looked over to the bar and saw Apple walk in. She sat at the bar and chatted with Mercedes. The two of them were good friends, and Apple often came here after her shift to make sure Havok got home safely.

Lulled by the sights and sounds of the slow night, Havok spoke in a voice that matched the dawdling evening atmosphere: “What do you think, Pete?”

“How much scratch did you say was out there?”

“According to what Wheatley said, I figure it to be at least one hundred thousand.”

“And you didn’t see anybody down on Terumbu?”

“Nope, didn’t see squat.”

“You know that means whoever is down there didn’t want to be seen.”

“Yep.”

“And you know they’re packing some powerful heat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s my guess they even tried to kill you.”

“No shit.”

“This isn’t some small operation. They probably got the backing of a government who’s not too keen on sharing their secrets.”

“Could be.”

“You know we aren’t politicians or soldiers.”

“Yeah.”

“I bet next time you see Boris and Natasha, they won’t be so congenial.”

“Suppose not.”

“Do you think they’re out there digging up the silver?”

“Could be.”

“Or do you think they’re out there for another reason?”

“Sounds possible.”

“They could be waiting for us, you know. Seems like they got a pretty slick communications setup.”

“Seems so.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to talk you out of this?”

Stone received no answer because Havok was lost in thought. Stone turned to see the two women from the bar walk toward them.