62

Like Clockwork Spies

Malink found the old cannibal in a small clearing in the jungle, urinating on a young banana tree. “I brought you food.” Malink dropped the basket and sat down under a tree. Sarapul seemed to be taking a long time at his task.

“Sometimes it’s hard,” Malink said.

“Sometimes I can’t go at all,” Sarapul said. “It hurts.” He shuddered and turned around with a grin, smoothing down his thu. “But not today.” He sat down next to Malink and reached into the basket for a hunk of fish.

“I heard the music last night,” Sarapul said. “The white bitch comes more often now.” He offered Malink a piece of fish and the chief took it.

“There are three chosen in only ten days. I think they won’t come back sometimes. Vincent says that she is not the Sky Priestess. The pilot said she will kill us.”

“Then we must fight.”

“Knives against guns? You remember the war.”

“I remember. Come.” He got up and led Malink through the underbrush to a hollow log. He reached in and pulled out a long bundle wrapped in oiled sharkskin. “A man must take the strength of his enemies. If he cannot eat him and take his strength, he must take his weapon.”

Sarapul unwrapped the bundle to reveal a World War II vintage Japanese bolt-action rifle. He had obviously been visiting this spot because the rifle was covered with a thin coat of fish oil and gleamed like new. “I cut off his head and took his gun.”

Malink remembered the wrath of the Japanese on his people after the solider disappeared. “You did that? You were the one?”

“It was a long time ago,” Sarapul said. He reached into the bundle again and pulled out three shining cartridges. “But I saved these.”

“They have machine guns,” Malink said.

“She doesn’t.”

The call came a little after midnight. Tuck had slept since he got to the hotel, stuffing toilet paper in his ears to block out the noise of the television and Sepie talking back to it.

“Take a cab to general aviation at the airport,” Jake said. “The hangar you want says Island Adventures on the side. I’ll be waiting.”

Tuck climbed out of bed and turned off the television.

“Hey,” Sepie said. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor about a foot from the screen. Tuck crouched and took her face in his hands. “Tomorrow at six you take the tickets and go downstairs. Tell the man at the desk you want to go to the airport. The bus will take you.”

“I know this,” she said.

“Just listen. A tall man with long hair will be there.”

“Right. Jake,” Sepie said. “I know this.”

“If he’s not there, go to one of the men in the blue hats and tell him you need help getting on your plane. He’ll help you. When you get to Houston, go into the airport and call this number. Tell the woman who answers that I told you to call. She’ll help you.”

“And you will come and get me soon, right?”

“I’ll try.”

“What about Roberto?”

They hadn’t seen the fruit bat since the mascara bombing. “Roberto will be fine. He’ll live here, but I have to go.” He kissed her on the forehead and before he could pull away she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips so hard he thought he might have cut his lip.

“You come get me.”

“I will.”

He stood and went out the door. A few seconds later he heard Sepie call to him from down the hall. “Hey!”

Tuck turned.

“How come you don’t try to sex me?”

“I will.”

“Okay,” she said, and she went back into the room.

Jake was waiting for him at the Island Adventures hangar. A Hughes 500 helicopter with its doors removed sat on a pad by the hangar. “I rented it for an hour. I fuck it up and we owe Mary Jean five grand for the deposit.”

Tuck looked at the helicopter sitting on the pad like a huge black dragonfly and he began to get a very bad feeling. “You don’t want me to do what I think you want me to do, do you?”

“I’ll put the skid right over the hatch. You just step out of one aircraft onto another. No problem. It can’t be half as bad as what I had to do to get the hatch left open.”

Tuck began to protest, but Jake was already walking to the helicopter. Tuck climbed into the helicopter and slipped on the headset. Jake threw the switches and the turbine began to whine. In a few seconds the blades slowly began to rotate.

Tuck keyed the intercom mike on his headset so Jake could hear him over the blades. “You’ll never get past the tower.”

“I’ve done it before,” Jake said. “I had to repo a Jet Ranger for a guy once.”

“They’ll never clear you.”

“There’s no traffic. Besides, you think they’re going to clear you? It’s Captain Midnight’s rock ‘n’ roll express from here on out, big guy.”

Jake pulled the collective lever by the side of his seat and the helicopter lifted into the air. Within seconds, Tuck heard the tower jabbering over the radio, warning the Hughes 500 to wait for clearance. Jake brought the helicopter up just high enough to clear the top of the hangar and flew in a low wide circle around the airport, then began his own jabber.

“Honolulu Tower, this is Helicopter One, approaching from the west on Runway Two. I have a problem with my tail rotor. Requesting emergency landing.”

The tower came back: “Helicopter One, didn’t you just take off without clearance?”

“Negative, Tower. I’m in from Maui. Request emergency clearance.”

Of course, Tuck thought. Jake flew the circle below the radar and without the running lights. They have no idea whether this is the same helicopter that just took off.

Jake sent the helicopter into a horizontal spin that moved it closer to the planes by the hangars with every rotation, just as it moved Tuck closer to throwing up. Jake stopped the spin for a second and nodded toward a United 747. “That’s your baby. Get out of your harness and get ready. They won’t know you’re there. Get inside and wait two hours before you start your taxi. I don’t want them to connect the helicopter with the jet. By the way, how’re you going to get your natives on board?”

“They’ve got ladders,” Tuck said. “I hope.” Tuck hung his headset behind the seat and unsnapped his harness just as Jake resumed his spin. Tuck grabbed on to the seat to keep from being thrown out the open door. What looked like an out-of-control aircraft was, in fact, a pretty elementary move called a pedal turn. Tuck found no comfort in that knowledge as he watched the tarmac spin below.

Jake pulled the helicopter up just in time to miss the tail of the 747, then leveled it off and crept forward along the length of the huge aircraft. The tail would obscure the view from the tower. “You ready?” he shouted.

Tuck shook his head violently. He could see the line of the hatch he was supposed to go through. He stepped out on the skid. Jake brought the helicopter down and the skid touched the top of the jet. “Now!”

Tuck stepped off onto the plane and ducked instinctively below the blades. He looked back at Jake, shrugged, and shouted, “That was easy.”

“I told you,” Jake shouted. He pulled the helicopter into the sky and started his spin toward the Island Adventures pad.

Tuck got on his knees, dug his fingers into the seal around the hatch, and pulled it open. He jumped into the dark plane, sealed the hatch behind him, then sat in the pilot’s seat and began to study the controls. He clicked on the nav computer and punched in the longitude and latitude for Alualu, which he knew by heart, then pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and put in the coordinates for his second destination. He put on a headset and turned on the radios. The frequency was already set for the Honolulu tower. Jake was receiving the official FAA ass-chewing of the century, but there wasn’t a word about anyone dropping to the top of a United jet. He had just taken off the headset to settle down for the wait when he heard a scratching sound outside the escape hatch. He opened it and Roberto plopped inside.