Chapter Nineteen

The next day, Seabury sat along the river bank. He was all alone, his body damp and stiff with pain, a kink in his neck from sleeping out all night on the bed of grass and twigs. The sun rose higher. It poked a nose above the eastern horizon. The sky took on a bright blue color. The day was warm and clear. Sunlight slanted through the trees coming off the river. It broke into the clearing. It broke in a wash of pale yellow light over him.

Reaching down into the pocket of his jacket, he came out with the camera. He looked at it and switched it on. The guy’s face popped up on the screen, again. He had no idea who he was. The Indonesian. His voice, tense and audible, barked out a command to commit murder.

Good God, Seabury thought. What have I gotten into? This guy means business. He’s a murder-for-hire-specialist, and I’m caught in his crosshairs.

Seabury studied the face. Lean, suave, and professional looking. The guy didn’t look like the type to put a hit out on someone. A second glance told him otherwise. The guy’s face changed expressions, like a chameleon changed colors. Dark, alert eyes hid in the deep sockets of his lean, angular face. The eyes Seabury saw weren’t wild or excitable like the eyes of a lunatic. Instead, they were sly, shifty, and looked controlling, like a man used to getting his own way. This was what he was up against.

I can’t have them up there searching for gold, the voice said. It’s out of the question. He listened to the tone and the texture. He thought about it long and hard after the tape ended. The voice spoke in the eerily chilling tone of a madman.

He’d thought about the man during the night. He’d seen the ring on his finger in the camera’s clear plastic screen. He knew about the Hexagram and the secret society called the Order of the Eastern Temple. There had to be a connection between the man and his gold ring. It was symbolic of the secret cult that began years ago with the emergence of the Freemasons. There had to be a reason why the guy didn’t want them up there poking around his mine.

Putting the camera back in his pocket, he zipped a zipper over the pocket until the camera was safe and secure. Hidden among the trees, Seabury stared out on the river. The river leveled out before him in a wash of bright light and blue water. He turned and watched the longboat coming his way over the water.

On board, the smaller guide stood in frustration at the back of the boat. He shook his head and cursed out loud as the engine cut out and died on the water. He turned around, pounded the engine with his fist, screamed out loud, and cursed again. Lois turned around, grinning. The theatrical display of emotion brought a faint smile to her lips. Gretchen made a funny face and moved close to Hornsby. She whispered something to him. The professor shrugged and stared away. His brow knitted as a look of bewilderment entered his eyes.

Command performance, Seabury thought. The guy belongs in the movies.

A moment later, oars hit the water, and the river guides powered the boat to shore. The bow nosed between a narrow cleft inside the trees. The boat stopped there with waves splashing up all around it. Seabury piled on as the lead guide swung the boat back away from shore into the middle of the river. Seabury dove to the bottom of the boat and wiggled under a strip of black tarp.

“You okay?” Lois asked him.

“Fine. You got that sandwich?” Lois handed him a ham and cheese sandwich. She heard him devouring it under the tarp.

Gretchen made a funny face and started giggling. “Hey, Seabury…”

Lois’s voice warned her, “Hey, not so loud.”

“Well—” A loud, exasperated sigh filled the air. “I need to tell him something.”

“What?” Hornsby chimed in, amused.

“He owes me five dollars for room service. I made that sandwich. Without me, he doesn’t eat.”

“Bravo.” A peep came up from under the tarp.

Now, the boat drifted back away from shore. Ten yards out, the lead guide leaned back over the engine, twisted the valve a turn to the right. His scrawny helper sat next to him. The guide pulled back on the cord. Nothing. He reached over and adjusted the valve again, pulled the cord, pulled again. Suddenly, the engine roared to life. The guide and his helper clapped hands and high-fived in the air, putting on a good show. Shouts of joy filled the air. The boat turned into the current and headed back up river.

“I hope your little plan worked,” Lois said.

“We’ll know soon enough.” Seabury said.

* * * *

It got hot under the tarp. Seabury tossed it back and poked his face out into the open air. The spray coming over the bow of the boat cooled him, and he felt better.

Far back on shore, in the late afternoon shadows, Hornbills and Red Birds of Paradise trashed on the dark leafy branches of oak and chestnut trees.

Down below, the loud, lumbering noise and the imposing bugle of Asian elephants rolled off the forest floor. The sound rose higher, Seabury noticed, and it mingled with the sharp, mirthful chatter of macaque monkeys higher up inside a canopy of jungle foliage. He listened a while as the bugling continued, rolling back out over the river in a loud, vociferous sound that rocked the air but soon vanished back into the impenetrable silence and depths of the jungle.

Later, as the boat continued upriver, a steady build-up of unanswered questions churned inside Seabury’s head. He saw the gold ring on the man’s finger. It was emblematic of the Society of the Eastern Temple—SET as it was called. Listening, he heard the voice inside his head. The tone reached him with a cold, chilling thud. Kill the big guy…kill all of them. He could barely keep his body from shuddering.

Always the pragmatist, Seabury told himself, let’s examine things logically and calmly. SET was a splinter group–with putative roots to the stonemasons of the Temple of Solomon and the Knights Templar–going far back across the ages. He was aware of SET being tied to the broad umbrella of Freemason secret societies; however, SET must have had their own charters, bylaws, and esoteric agendas to fulfill, armed with cult members sworn to secrecy.

He wracked his brain, trying to determine what the group was involved in and what their motive was for wanting to see him dead. He dug deeper, trying to lift the lid off the file box buried deep in his mind.

Why? What for? he asked himself, searching for answers.

All of a sudden, in a burst of insight, he discovered the reason. It was there in the man’s voice…why the Indonesian didn’t want anyone snooping around his mine. It had nothing to do with him personally but everything to do with protecting the company’s interests.

Obsessed with accumulating gold, the Society of the Eastern Temple had issued gold bond certificates backed by the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Borneo during the 1990s. Over the next twenty years, SET had hauled in a sizable amount of gold from China, South Korea, and Japan. The satellite nations of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam soon followed suit, handing over their gold supplies to SET for yearly eye-popping interest rates.

Well into the first decade of the Twenty-First Century, the secret society had cornered the world’s gold market enough to control and manipulated the precious metals market whenever they wanted. Recent price indexes had gone into a tailspin. Greedy commercial investors bailed out as the gold market collapsed around the world. Of course, the market was being manipulated by the secret society, but who could stop them? The market went into panic mode each time SET sneezed or tried to low-ball another foreign government.

China knew it got rolled. So did the other countries. China screamed, “We want our gold back.” SET didn’t budge. Lawsuits filed in International Courts got pigeon-holed and were hardly ever thought of. The right amount of money exchanged hands, and the pressure on SET eventually cooled. China screamed again, appealing to the Court of Public Opinion. Still, nothing happened. “Those bastards aren’t going to give our gold back.” Seabury couldn’t blame the Chinese for screaming.

Now, he had discovered a man. The man wore a golden ring. The ring linked him to SET and the Masons. He wondered who the man was, and then it dawned on him that the man had to be a Magus of some sort—a top official of the SET group operating out of Jakarta. It had to be. There was no other way to explain it. He was getting closer to a name to put with the Indonesian’s face.

A while later, he caught Lois’s attention. He asked casually, “Who runs the local chapter of Society of the Eastern Temple in Jakarta?”

An odd request, Lois’s nose wrinkled. She looked down at him, blinked her eyes, and frowned. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“No. Something’s going on inside that head of yours. I can tell,” she said.

“Name,” Seabury insisted without telling her more.

“It’s Cyril Barat, my ex-boyfriend,” she said finally.

At last, he had a name.

* * * *

“I’m bored,” Gretchen said hours later, looking up from her computer game.

“What else is new?” Gretchen’s incessant whining was starting to annoy Hornsby.

Gretchen flashed a scornful grin at Hornsby, held it, and released it a moment later. She stared back at Lois and said, “I’ve been all over my iPad on the Internet. Did you know that Marilyn Monroe had a one-inch vertical vulva?”

“Watch that mouth, Gretch,” Lois snapped at her. “Or that green dragon cum can clog your drainpipe.”

Hornsby frowned disgustedly and looked back at Lois for help.

“She has this toilet mouth once she gets started.” Lois pointed a finger at Gretchen. “Stop it now. I mean it. We’ve all had enough of you.”

Gretchen smirked. She turned around and glanced to the back of the boat. The driver toiled with a stretch of rapids. The engine whined and howled. The boat rocked from side to side and pitched up and down. Water hurled over the top of the boat and crashed down on them.

Gretchen panicked. “We’re going over. We’re all gonna drown.”

Seabury reached up from the tarp and clasped her hand. “We’ll be okay. Relax. Calm down.”

The driver switched the rudder sharply to the right in time to miss the edge of a gigantic boulder lodged in the middle of the river. Gretchen squeezed Hornsby’s arm, and Lois screamed when another one suddenly appeared. The driver cranked the tiller sharply to his right but too late. The back end of the boat smashed against the edge of the boulder, and the boat canted to one side as if going over.

“No.” Gretchen panicked as Hornsby grabbed and held her. A wave tore under the boat. The powerful surge forced the boat upright, and they were around the boulder, heading for calmer water.

“Wow!” Gretchen shouted, gasping for air. “I thought we’d all drown back there.”

Hornsby exchanged glances with Seabury. At the front of the boat, the taller guide poked his head out from under a slip of black tarp. “Fun. Fun,” he shouted into the air. Everyone laughed, easing the tension.

Now fully recovered, Gretchen stared at the driver in back of the boat. “Too bad his English isn’t very good. If it were, I’d tell him he has a big hug coming. Maybe even a kiss.” She snickered. Dressed in denim shorts and a red halter, she eased a strap away from her left shoulder. She flashed a slender, brown thigh at him, but the guide was too busy to notice.

“You’re a tease,” Seabury’s voice broke out from under the tarp. “Don’t play with fire. Let the man alone.” He meant it. Gretchen giggled, childish and immature. Seabury fidgeted in the heat under the tarp. He wasn’t happy with Gretchen, and he thought she knew it.

His face flushed beet red. His forehead soaked with sweat. He raised a forearm, wiped it back, and stared back down river. Off in the distance, the sound of a chopper caught his attention. It snapped his head back and popped his eyes open. Oh, boy, he thought, afraid the temporary respite from escaping the law had now ended.

The chopper winged up river after them. Thinking quickly, Lois spread their rucksacks out over the tarp. “Sorry, Sam,” she said. “I know it’s uncomfortable down there.”

He said nothing. A few minutes later, the chopper flew directly above the boat. It hung in the air like a black bug, dipped its nose, and started to descend. Seabury stayed quiet. He held his breath, hearing the propellers whirling high above. Lois moved closer, trying to shield him from view. His clothes damp and sticking to his skin, Seabury squirmed uncomfortably.

Above the lining of the tarp, he heard the smaller guide say, “Look like police want stop, search boat.” He spoke English, surprising Gretchen and smiling up at her. “I take that kiss maybe later,” he said.

Blushing, she turned around and dropped her eyes. Lois glared at him, and the guy backed off. A moment later, she jerked her head back and stared straight up with a look of defiance at the cop’s face pushed up to the window.

Forty feet above them now, the chopper’s whirling blades cut deep into the late afternoon sky. The plane rocked slightly in the thermal currents. A side door opened. Binoculars appeared from inside the doorway, and the chopper dropped down another ten feet. The downward blast of the chopper blades flattened the surface of the river. Small waves swept up and rippled back toward the opposite shore. Then all at once, the chopper’s nose shot up higher into the air. The plane reversed direction and flew back down river.

Surprised, Seabury flipped the tarp back once they had gone. Still not believing what had taken place, he said, “I’m amazed, dumbfounded. I thought for sure he’d order the boat to shore and search it. This guy’s a little hard to read right now.”

“Maybe they didn’t see what they wanted to see,” said Lois. “We had you fairly well camouflaged.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Seabury. “I don’t mind dodging another bullet. I’m getting used to it, but I know it’s not going to last forever.”

“Evading the police?” Hornsby chimed in.

Seabury nodded. “Yes, Harlan. I’ve put your lives in jeopardy, and I’m starting to feel guilty about it.”

“Don’t,” Hornsby said. “We know you’re not a killer. I think we’ll all breathe a little easier once we reach Long Apari and get further up into the Muller Mountains.” He started his pipe and gazed into the distance. “I’m absolutely astounded at the vastness of this island. To me, it seems like a place time has forgotten.”

* * * *

Down river, inside the chopper, Rio Reinhart sat up next to the pilot. He fidgeted and yelled into the backseat at Naomi Ellen. “I didn’t notice anything down there, did you?”

For a moment, Naomi said nothing, as if mulling thoughts over in her head. At last, she broke the silence and said, “Not unless you’ve noticed the second boat…the one following the lead boat. There’s something that bothers me about it.”

“And?” Rio gestured with a wave of his hand, waiting for a response.

She said, “It’s traveling too close to the other boat. Have you noticed? It’s like a cat chasing a mouse…close but never quite catching it. We’re still going up to Long Apari, aren’t we? My intuition tells me Seabury will turn up there. It’s the last Dayak village up river.”

“Way ahead of you, Darling,” Rio said with a slight grin. “I’ve phoned the local tribal Head. He’s promised to keep his men on the lookout for any signs of Seabury. Meantime, we go back to Long Begun, gas up, and then come back. This chopper guzzles petrol like a drunk guzzling free beers at a picnic.”

“Like I’ve seen you do at the police officer’s annual picnic.” She cracked a thin, bemused smile.

He ignored the remark and added, “I think we’ll catch the fugitive somewhere up near the Muller Mountains. My guess is he’ll try to get over them and escape into the Malaysian part of the island.”

The chopper buzzed by the trailing boat. On a wooden seat near the front, the Sicilian stared up at the chopper through a pair of high-powered Japanese binoculars.

Rio’s gaze shot down through a band of late afternoon sunlight. The glare from the binocular lenses shot back up at him like the signal from a hand mirror. “Look at that asshole down there, will yah?” Rio raised his voice. “Look at that.”

“Did you see that? He’s staring up at us through a pair of binoculars.” Rio’s eyes grew hot with fire. “I swear, if we weren’t so low on fuel, I’d run his ass to shore and throw the book at him.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Naomi. “That little guy reminds me of those slimy cockroach pickpockets we used to arrest in the shopping mall at Plaza Indonesia.”

She had no idea she was dealing with a paid assassin.