Assignment - Sulu Sea (4 page)

Durell swore softly. “And did you tell this cute naval
officer that Holcomb was dead?”

“Oh, no. I figured they might put me in jail and hold
me up with a. bunch of dumb questions, and I can’t waste that much time here.
Grandpa Joseph can’t run the schooner without Simon and me, but he’s apt to try
to, anyway, so I’ve got to get back just as soon as ever.”

“Why didn’t you go to the American consulate in Pandakan to
report all this? Why fly one-third of the way around the world to me?”

“Because,” she said patiently, “Holcomb asked me to tell
you, and nobody else; and in the second place, Pandakan isn’t much these days,
with the plebiscite coming on and Mr. Kiehle, the U.S. consul, in Singapore,
anyway, and nobody else there except the first secretary, a nice Chinese
boy named Tommy Lee; but I don’t trust him. Anyway, Malachy -—Dr. McLeod—was
named acting consul by Mr. Kiehle so I went to Malachy and he said to fly
here as fast as ever, so here I am. But I must tell you that now I’ve done my
duty, I’m going right back.”

“Maybe,” Durell said.

Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Don't fool me, Samuel.
The brass would like to grill me here till kingdom come, but I won’t stand for
it. If you try it, I’ll clam up and you’ll Never find that island where we
buried Pete Holcomb, understand? Either you let me go and come down, any way
you please, or else. Do I make it plain? I left the amphibian at the
Palang-Dragh strip—"

“What amphibian?"

“My own plane. And I took commercial jets the rest of the
way. And that’s how I go back. It‘s fastest, and I don’t think it would be
politically wise, anyway, to have a fancy jet touching down at Pandakan these
days. It’s pretty touchy right now, Malachy says we can’t even put a dinghy in
the harbor flying the American flag, without all the ex-colonials
screaming bloody imperialism. So if you come back with me at all, you do it
quietly, Malachy says, without a big fuss.”

He nodded. “You may be right.”

“I tell you, Samuel, I’ve heard your praises sung all my
life, but I only tool: one thing seriously. when our grandpas both agreed in
their letters that you were one smart man. If those two rascals respected you
like that, I figured I’d better take their opinion at face value. So I
came here. It’s costing ‘me time and money, so don’t make me regret it, and
don’t try to keep me here longer than this afternoon.”

The telephone rang. It was Washington, via the magazine
offices of Pearl of the Pacific. General McFee’s voice held a strange
note.

“Cajun, have you still got that girl who claims she buried
Lieutenant Commander Peter S. Holcomb?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I went to the top for you, and she may be telling the
truth. This comes straight from Joint Chiefs. There‘s a quiet but desperate flap
in BuOp at Navy that’s gone through Defense right to the President. Your friend
Holcomb was aboard the new nuclear attack sub
Andrew Jackson
as security officer. He ought to be aboard that boat
right now somewhere down there. If he isn’t, something is desperately wrong.”
General Dickinson McFee paused. “You might say it’s impossible, but ONI thinks
the missing nuclear sub might have been pirated.”

                                                                            
                  
chapter four

IN DURELL’s world, the impossible happened often enough to
seem commonplace. Although forty-eight hours had passed since the Jackson last
reported her position, there had not been a press release yet. This was not a
Thresher incident, opened at once to world communications. There was no chance
that the Jackson had met such a fate. Whatever had happened, it had happened
deliberately—and with malice aforethought.

Durell left Willi Panapura in the Luakulani Palms on Her
promise to wait for him and took a taxi past the Ala Moana Park along the sea,
with its tennis courts and Hawaiian Village, into downtown Honolulu. The CIA
offices behind the
Pearl of the Pacific
magazine front were not far from the Iolani Palace. A restaurant on the lower floor
sold coral jewelry and fried octopus. From the elevator, he was passed through
the double-locked rear doors into the interior rooms where teletypes chattered
and several harassed men Worked on scrambler phones. Beyond, there was an office
crowded with grim Navy brass from Pearl Harbor. Durell entered, expecting a
storm, and got one.

The highest echelons of the Navy had held in utmost secrecy
that unaccountable silence from the
Andrew
Jackson
since its last report from the Sulu Sea, when it was cruising
toward the Tarakuta Group. Every radio effort since then had failed. There was
no reply to an urgent Code Red call. Seventh Fleet jets had scoured the shallow
seas looking for telltale distress buoys, signals, sea dye or wreckage. Nothing
had shown up. Absolutely nothing. No dim shadows were sighted on the ocean
bottom, no signals, no survivors. The
Andrew
Jackson
had simply vanished. She was gone. Disappeared.

The Navy was further disturbed because no one was supposed
to know about it—yet. And Durell was aware of the suspicion and hostility with
which the CINCPAC officers regarded him. A vice-admiral with the nose of
a hawk and the cold eyes of a long-dead fish spoke sharply.

“We must insist on knowing how you learned of the missing
sub, Mr. Durell. It seems impossible for you to have heard about it in any
casual manner.”

Durell thought of Willi in her shorts. “It was casual,
gentlemen, but I cannot tell you more about it.”

“One of these days,” the admiral said icily, “you gumshoe
boys will go too far with us and—”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been directed to cooperate with you in
every way. In fact, I‘ve been ordered to find your missing submarine as
soon as possible."

The scrambled eggs on the admiral’s cap sizzled. “Find our
sub for us? Of all the impudence—!”

“It’s missing and you can’t locate her, right?”

“If you fellows don’t make your usual mess out of the
affair, we’ll find her, all right.” An aide touched the admiral’s elbow
and whispered urgently to him, his eyes suspiciously watching Durell’s tall,
quiet figure all the time. The admiral started to protest, and then his
angry color faded and s look of resigned desperation took its place. He shook
off the aide and turned back to Durell.

“We understand the political balance in Borneo is extremely
delicate just now. And in the independent Sultanate of Pandakan, capital of the
Tarakutas
and Borneo, it’s even more critical. There
is to be a plebiscite for the natives to decide whether they’re to join
Indonesia or Malaysia or form an autonomous Republic of Tarakuta. All U.N. members
are warned not to interfere, and our Seventh Fleet units are forbidden by
Washington to enter the waters off Indonesian Borneo, Sabah or Sarawak.”

“Yes, sir, that is correct,” Durell said.

For one of the rare moments in his life, the admiral was
helpless. “I protest, of course. If one of my ships is in trouble, I demand the
right, by all the laws of decency and common sense, to find that missing
ship." The admiral’s aide whispered to him for a moment, his manner
urgent. The other officers looked with hostility at Durell, as if their problem
were his fault. The admiral grunted. “It will be a day or two before we
announce a routine ‘maneuver’ on the fringes of that area, and even that will
excite the world press. But it can’t be helped. We cannot sit on our hands when
the 727 is missing. And we will send our own people into the Borneo area. So
you can cable your boss in Washington that your help is declined, with thanks.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

“Eh? Why not?”

“I've already been given the job. I can go into the offshore
waters of Borneo without attracting quite as much attention as a Seventh Fleet
search flotilla. I understand I have three days to find the 727.
After that, a public statement must be issued about her disappearance. But I
must say that whether you cooperate or not, gentlemen,” Durell said quietly, “I
mean to go ahead with my own assignment.”

Willi Panapura was not in his apartment when he went back
there. But he was not alarmed. He put through a long-distance call to Bayou
Peche Rouge, in Louisiana, and while he waited for the mainland connection, he
watched the beach and the surfers and marveled at the energy of the half-naked
boys and girls battling the Pacific rollers in the sparkling sun. Then,
before his connection was made, Willi Panapura returned and he forgot all about
the scanty bikinis and the tumbling torsos out there on the beach.

Willi was not wearing her short shorts now; she was dressed
for traveling, and her long. thick hair was coiled in a tight, smart French
swirl atop her proud and beautiful head. She wore a white sharkskin traveling
suit and French heels that brought her eyes almost to a level with Durell’s.

Her golden Polynesian skin and blue, wide gaze was effective
and dramatic. He thought, with some dismay, that she was the roost beautiful
and most unpredictable girl he had ever met.

His grandfather, Jonathan, lived on the hulk of the old
sidewheeler
Three Belles
, which
Durell had called home as a boy, and it took some time to bring the old
gentleman to the nearest telephone in town. The old man sounded grave and happy
to hear Durell’s voice, and he spoke with the epitome of Southern courtesy,
with only a slight quiver to betray his affection.

“It is good to hear from you, Samuel.”

“I wouldn’t trouble you, Grandpa," Durell said, “but
it’s urgent. I’ve heard from your pal, Joseph Panapura—from his granddaughter,
rather.”

“I expect you have,” old Jonathan said gravely. “I received
a cable from Joseph this morning, saying he had sent his lovely granddaughter
to meet you. Isn‘t she all I said she was.”

“And more,” Durell said, eyeing Willi’s tall beauty with
appreciation. “What I want to know is whether you can give me anything to
identify Joseph Panapura without question or doubt.”

“I can, Samuel. I assume you are going to Pandakan. Will you
give Joseph my warmest personal regards?” The old gentleman proceeded to
describe an old knife scar engraved on Joseph Panapura’s hide during a riot
aboard the
Three Belles
after an
unusual poker game in ’07. The scar was unusual enough so it could not be
duplicated. Durell would have no doubt of old Joseph’s identity if he found it.
Jonathan went on: “Take care of yourself, Samuel. I trust you and Wilhelmina
get on well.”

“I’ll let you know, Grandpa,” he said.

They flew from Honolulu to Manila, via Pan Am jet, and
from Manila they took a wildcat airline that ran DC-3’s south over the myriad
green islands of the archipelago, above Panay and Iloilo, island hopping with
cargos that varied from people to chickens, from plastic pipe to fishhooks.
Their goal was a small airstrip on the southernmost tip of Mindanao of the Moro
Gulf at Palang-Dragh. It was a long, hot, tiring flight, but Willi
Panapura had the knack of sleeping like a lithe, sleek cat, and for many
tedious hours she simply ignored Durell and allowed the time to pass with a
kind of South Seas fatalism. She was beautiful, he thought, awake or asleep,
hostile or friendly. She seemed undecided between the two attitudes. Long
irritation from childhood tales about Durell had given her thought-habits about
him that were difficult to break. For his part, he thought wryly, he should
have listened to old Jonathan long ago, instead of avoiding this long-legged,
incredible flower of the Southern Pacific. He hadn’t believed that
Wilhelmina Panapura could be all that the old gentleman claimed for her; but
she was. And more.

During the flight, she said: “My mother was Flemish,
you know, from Antwerp, and she married old Joseph’s son during the heyday of
Dutch colonial power down here. I guess that’s where my blonde hair came from.
Anyway, I was named Wilhelmina, but I’m just Willi to everybody in the Tarakuta
Islands.”

“That must cover a lot of territory,” he said.

She was defensive. “That sounds like a nasty remark.”

“Not at all. You cover a lot of islands in your
grandfather’s trading schooner, don’t you?”

“Yes, I go along to collect my specimens, and I’ve got a
good business going there, with clients
 
over the world, including some big Swiss research laboratories. Malachy
McLeod put me onto them through his medical connections. She regarded him with
grave blue eyes. “You said you know Malachy, but it’s funny, he never mentioned
you.”

“No reason why he should. We never met in person. We just
communicated, on occasion, one way or another.”

“How?” she asked suspiciously. “And why?”

“He’s done a few errands for us, now and then.”

She was indignant. “But Malachy never told me he did
espionage work for you people.”

“Do you think he should have?” Durell asked drily.

“Well, for a man who claims to be dying of love for me, how
could he keep such a secret from me?”

Durell felt the oddest twinge of jealousy. “It wasn’t that
important. Are you going to marry Malachy McLeod?”

She settled back sulkily. “I don’t know. I thought so.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

"Yes? Just lately.” Then she looked him in the eye and
said: “For the past hour, Samuel, I’ve been thinking of marrying
you.
”

The DC-3 from Manila had a bumpy flight, dodging
towering cumulus that hovered over the green, jungly islands of the southern
Philippines. During the trip of over sic! hundred miles, they took on half a
dozen passengers who included planters and businessmen and two elderly Chinese
gentlemen who did not exchange one word with each other, although they sat
together in the uncomfortable bucket seats of the rickety plane. Willi seemed
absorbed in her own thoughts when the pilot suddenly put the ship into a steep
dive, swooped under a thunderhead shot through with the livid colors of a
rainbow, and seemed to pluck a landing field out of nowhere from among
the patterns of plantation and teak forest and pale green seacoast below. The
wheels touched down as lightly as a pair of feathers.