THE BANDIT SHOVED me toward the doorway leading into the galley. He stepped back to hide while I opened it and called for Frederick as he’d ordered me to do.
I felt horrible dragging Frederick into this, but I didn’t have a choice. There were three of the pirates aboard already, and they had rifles strapped across their chests. They knew some English, so they had likely done this many times. I could not hope for amateur mistakes. One man had a red bandana tied over his long, matted hair and wore aviator sunglasses so I could not see his eyes. The other two men had shaved heads, with a zigzag pattern left behind in the stubble. It was one of these two that had crept up on me at the railing. He waved for me to step away from the stairway. He grabbed me again, twisting my arm behind my back. It hurt but I stayed silent, my jaw clenched.
“What is it?” Frederick asked as he walked upstairs. Took a look around. “Shit.” He raised his hands over his head.
The other two men grabbed Frederick. They tied us up quickly, each to a mast. The rope dug into my wrists. A machete at my throat now. The man’s face near mine, his square bones sharp under his skin, heavy eyebrows, deep-set black eyes—impossible to read emotion there.
“Where is your money?” said the one in the bandana. The ringleader. A painful light glared off his mirror lenses.
I didn’t answer, my heart racing as I looked straight ahead. Shouldn’t I be doing something brave or clever right now? I should have used my training and fought back when the first one grabbed me. At Camp X, a Shanghai policeman had taught us martial arts. But we’d only practised kung fu for one day. What the hell could I do with that? We’d mostly done close combat drills with weapons, and I didn’t have one now. Only the crooks had weapons.
“Somebody answer me!” the leader yelled.
“There’s a box in the kitchen downstairs,” Frederick said. “Under the seat.”
That was Frederick’s money. He was trying to save mine—five hundred American dollars in my suitcase, in the front cabin. I also had a few Siamese bills sewn into the dress I was wearing, reserved for emergencies on my landing. It looked like there was going to be an emergency. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I squinted from the sting of salt that I couldn’t wipe away.
“Seat flips right up, so no need to wreck it.” Frederick spoke to the back of the man running downstairs. He was admirably calm. Our bank robber days had stayed with him enough to steel his nerves, it seemed. I just felt detached in a way that left me paralyzed. All I could think of was the irony. We, who had robbed so often, were now the victims of robbery. Though of a much baser sort, I thought. The banks were insured, but these thieves would leave us in desperate straits, and they did not care one jot.
Why had I frozen up so badly? I tugged against the ropes.
“Pretty lady,” my captor said. “Why you try to get away? Tired of your African? You will like me much more.”
He caressed my face with his dirty hand, ran rough fingertips down my neck and onto my breast. I spit in his face. He flinched and wiped his eye. He stepped closer to me, his breath hot.
“You regret that,” he said.
I felt something running down my neck, below the machete that pressed against my skin. Was it blood? I wondered distantly, giddy. Would he kill me?
The leader spoke in a language that was abrupt yet musical. It sounded angry, but some languages always sounded angry to the foreign ear. My thoughts were drifting in funny directions but it seemed to take too much effort to rein them in. I thought more about languages, and if there was objective beauty in them? If so, English was partway beautiful, or maybe more like ugly-beautiful. There were people that had these confusing looks, too. They could provoke different feelings depending on the day, or the character of the observer. The Japanese language I had always thought soft and elegant when I was eavesdropping on the pilots earlier in the war. Except when they were shot down. Scattershot and hysterical words, then. It was horrible. But all speech deteriorated in times of panic. I wondered what a scream for mercy in English would sound like to these men’s ears. Beautiful or ugly?
The machete was still at my throat, and I waited for what would come next.
Banging noises came from below as the third bandit did his work. He was obviously not content with the stash that Frederick had admitted to. Frederick sagged against the mast, a picture of hopelessness as he heard the damage being done to his ship. By contrast, the head pirate was cheerful now, while my guard stared at me with barely suppressed lust and rage. I felt sure he would choose between the two as the seconds passed. Neither would be good.
The shouting downstairs got louder, and both men fixed their attention on it. They watched keenly while the flunky emerged onto the deck. He smirked and held up the small wooden box with Frederick’s money, as well as my drawstring purse with the roll of US bills. My mission was unravelling before it even began. My landing would be much more difficult with no cash.
That was assuming they would let us live.
A shiver ran over my body. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I had too much left to do. I tried to remember if I had heard of any murders of foreigners in these parts. No, I had not, but news agencies were not exactly thick on the ground here, either. It was a blank spot in the Western consciousness. Until I learned Link was here, I’d never heard anything about Siam.
I watched their faces for a clue to their thoughts. Yes, they were jolly. I thought if they planned murder they would look serious, with such business left to do. Then I remembered the boys’ excitement when we were chased by the police and they fired at our pursuers. That was different, I told myself. That was the thrill of the chase, while Frederick and I were trussed up like farm animals. There was no sport in that. Even criminals differentiated, didn’t they?
Oh God, I didn’t know what would happen to me now. I felt faint.
The pirates moved their lips, whispering a greedy novena as they counted out the bills. When they were done, the man who had captured me shoved the money into a pouch at the waist of his sarong.
“The police will not help you,” the leader said.
My heart lifted: he was imagining our future. We would not die here. I would wake up another morning, in this muggy heat and hot sun, and the thought was glorious.
The three bandits turned their backs as they laid down a board to breach the gap between our ships. Frederick was suddenly moving quickly and quietly across the deck to the lifejacket box, free from his bonds. He had the cold, bloodless look that I remembered from our heists, and I realized I hadn’t seen it since then. He pulled out a lever-action rifle and as he cocked it, the pirates froze in place. The leader screamed, jerked back, and fell off the edge of the boat. In the same split second I heard a shot. There was a splash, then silence. The two men remaining looked stunned.
“Put all the money back in the purse and lay it on the deck,” Frederick said, the gun trained on them. “No funny business.”
Frederick’s former captor stared overboard and looked back at him with fear. “You kill him,” he said.
Frederick did not answer. He kept his gun aimed, unwavering. Would he kill them too? On the run, Frederick had fired in defence, but I’d never seen him kill coldly. He might well have—he had a history of crime before I knew him. Even after all my target shooting in Alaska, I did not know if I could have pulled the trigger to kill a man the way Frederick had. The real thing was very different.
The bandits did not appear to doubt Frederick’s intention. Their hands shaking, the men took the money out of their waist pouches. Hands in the air, my captor shoved the purse toward us with a filthy toe. I couldn’t help but think I would never want to use that purse again.
Frederick pulled back the lever action, clack ka-clack. The sound of death. My captor squeezed shut his eyes and suddenly looked very young. The other one’s hands dangled helplessly at his sides. They were lost now that they had no leader and were faced with superior firepower.
The hard look fled from Frederick’s eyes, and I saw doubt flash.
“Just get out of here,” he said. “Mend your ways, boys.”
After a startled pause, they stared at each other and jumped into action. They threw down their plank and ran onto their boat. As they yanked back their escape route, the Quarlo rocked gently. How could their evil presence have been so light? They fired up their motor, deafening, and it spewed black smoke as they departed northward.
I tugged against the ropes around my wrists.
“Stay still, Lena. I’ll get you.”
Frederick laid his gun down on the lifejacket box and pulled a small knife from a sheath around his calf. That must be how he had got loose. When I thought he had given in to despair about his boat, he had reached down for the knife when he sagged against the mast. He had cut his ropes when the bandits were distracted by counting our money. He had been prepared, and I needed to be more like that.
By the time the boat disappeared around the point, Frederick had freed my hands. Swaying a little, I leaned forward and a drop of blood fell onto the deck. Then another.
“Hang on to the mast. Just one more minute.” He whipped off his shirt. “Now press this tight on your neck,” he said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
I laughed. I sounded a little hysterical, I thought. But I couldn’t see my neck—how could I see how bad it looked?
The boat started spinning around me.