Noble Lies (21 page)

Chapter Twenty nine

  

He had been on scores of tramp steamers and island ferries and everything from cruise liners to air cushioned landing craft, but this was the first time Mark had seen a cargo ship's bridge. He knew not to expect a tall, oaken-spoked wheel or a double-handled engine control with words like Full Ahead framed in brass but he was still surprised by how bland it all was, starting with a bank of windows that slanted in on a long counter that looked like the soundboard for a stadium-sized concert. There was one man at the controls, a shaggy-haired Thai in a black Tupac tee shirt that he remembered seeing climbing over the rail of the fantail deck.

The man sat in one of the two captains' chairs, his thumb and forefinger resting on the edge of a small steering wheel that seemed right off a video game console. There were display screens all along the counter, most of them dark, the others filled with computer-generated dials and columns of numbers. Behind the captains' chairs was a raised platform with a second counter, this one covered in unfurled maps and stacks of manila folders and a few empty beer cans. Curled up on the desk chair, one of the young pirates, open-mouthed and drooling, caught a quick nap, cuddled up to the shotgun he cradled in his arms. A second guard, this one wide-awake and jittery, watched as Robin led the way through the bridge, down a short flight of stairs and into a lobby-sized sitting room.

It was a handsome room, lined with bookshelves and ringed with built-in couches, filled out with brown leather furniture and a flat-screen TV. There were ten men in the room, maybe more. Pirates sprawled out on recliners or slept on the carpeted floor. On one of the sofas, the captain, his wavy steel-gray hair matted down on one side with dried blood, sat next to the other officer Mark had seen, the slight man in the baseball cap. The cap was missing, along with his shirt. He looked tired but unhurt. They hid their fear well but there was no mistaking the look they gave him as he walked into the room. Cigarette drooping off his lower lip, Andy Cooper sat at the edge of an easy chair, clearing a space on a coffee table to field strip his assault rifle.

“Where's Shawn?” Robin said.

Head down, Andy raised his eyes and looked at her. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked the ash onto the carpet, set it back on his lip and returned to his weapon.

“I said where's Shawn,” she repeated, trying to sound tough, but failing.

“Right behind you, babe,” Shawn said, coming in through the bridge, a pistol in one hand, a beer in the other. He waved the gun at an empty sofa as he walked past. “Have a seat.”

Shawn set his pistol on a corner of the coffee table Andy had cleared, collapsing into a leather recliner. “What a night, huh? Overall, I'd say it went rather well. But you're the military man there, Mark, what do you think?”

“Not counting the civilian casualties?” Mark said, looking straight at Shawn as he spoke but thinking about the pistol that was two steps too far away.

“Actually, we planned for worse, so in that respect, we did better than expected.”

“You didn't have to kill Pim's grandfather,” Robin said, and Mark was surprised by the anger in her voice.

“That one I'm laying on you,” Shawn said, pointing a finger at her. “What the hell you bringing an old man with you for? I'd expect that shit from Pim, but you? Oh, boy, here we go,” he said as Robin dropped her head into her hands, her shoulders bouncing with every silent sob. He smiled at Mark. “She's good, isn't she? She can turn on the tears just like that.” He snapped his fingers to make his point. “I don't suppose she told you the whole story.”

Mark shrugged a bored shrug. “She told me a story.”

“Yeah, the one with the long-lost brother. Which I still can't believe you bought.”

Mark gave a slow nod. “Why don't you tell me one?”

“Nah, mine won't be as good. I'd stick to the boring facts, like how Robin here was running a high-end car boosting ring when I met her, and how it was her idea to finance my little Thai adventure. Oh, and those emails where she told me that I should try to work out some sort of deal with the Phuket mob. Bet she left that out.”

“You're an asshole,” Robin said.

“If I know our Robin,” Shawn continued, “she figured I hit a big score and just decided to cut her out, which, in fairness would have been true if the tsunami didn't wash it all away; so she decided to come here and find me and see if she could get her share, one way or the other.”

She turned to look at Mark but avoided his eyes. “Don't believe him. He's a fucking liar.”

“We must forgive her, Mark,” Shawn said, eyes skyward in mock solemnity. “She knows she has only her looks and bedroom talents to get her through this cruel world and, well, those won't last forever, will they? And I bet she's still a bit upset about that little marriage thing. Robin darling, if it's any consolation, I married the bitch as a cover. And for the access to the old man's pharmacy.”

“And the sex,” Andy said, giggling. He peered down the barrel of his weapon, then set it on the table and pushed the takedown pins into place, lifting off the lower portion of the rifle by the plastic pistol grip.

“Is that an SA 80?” Mark said, pointing to the rifle.

Andy kept his eyes down, working a screwdriver back and forth.

“If that's an SA 80,” Mark said, “you're gonna wanna put your hand over the end of that receiver.”

“Piss off,” Andy said, looking up at Mark as he pulled out the rear takedown pin, launching the spring-loaded recoil assembly across the cabin.

“Told you,” Mark said, turning back to Shawn. “So, how much of what you told me was true?”

Shawn stifled a laugh as Andy, fucking this and fucking that, retrieved the scattered rifle parts. “The truth, huh? Well obviously there's no double secret UN police force. Well, there probably is, but I'm not in it. I do have a lot of connections with the Thai police, though. The ones I could buy off cheap, anyway.”

Mark thought about the cop in the parking lot with his mirrored sunglasses and thousand-yard stare. At the time he had thought the cop was one of the good guys, the kind that earned the trust of higher-ups looking to clean house, the kind that did their jobs because it was the right thing to do. But he was wrong, the man was no better than the pirates and maybe worse. It was the first cop he had trusted in years and look where it got him.

“The terrorists wanting this ship,” Shawn continued, “that's true. The cash payment, true—and let me tell you, a million bucks goes a long way out here. Oil slick, yeah, probably, but you never know when you're dealing with lunatics. What am I leaving off?”

“What's going to happen to Pim?”

Shawn smiled. “Atta boy, Mark. True to form. Here we're about to turn over a floating bomb to some crazy bastards and you want to know what's going to happen to the whore.” He shook his head and laughed. “Well it just so happens that it all depends on you.”

“Really? How's that?” Mark said.

Shawn finished the can of beer and tossed it onto the carpet. “There's like, what, thirty people on this boat—passengers and crew?”

“Still alive?” Mark said. “That's about right.”

“Clever, Mark, clever. Anyway, we're gonna let them all go down to the rooms, get some sleep, hell, shower up if they want. Then tomorrow, after we hand the boat over and get our cash, we're gonna load ya all up in the rafts and take you in to Phuket. We're gonna be just outside the shipping lanes, a couple miles offshore, so it's no long ride. We'll drop you off on some deserted beach—there're a lot of those up in the north. It'll take some time but you'll get back to the main drag and by then we'll be long gone.”

“How's all this depend on me?”

“Because, Mister Rohr, if you cause any disturbance, if you try anything stupid—which you seem to have a habit of doing—we'll lock the doors and leave you all right here, let the bogeymen deal with you.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Mark said.

“Hello? Haven't you been paying attention? You can't trust me. But it's the only option you've got. Look,” Shawn said, leaning forward. “A few people got killed. All right, it happened, but it's over. Most of these guys are simple fishermen.” He waved a hand around the room, taking in the snoring pirates. “They got caught up in the moment, but they're not killers. And, despite what you may think, neither am I.”

Robin glared at him over the top of her sunglasses.

“Okay, so maybe I am. You'll just have to trust me on this one, Mark. I don't want to kill anybody else. It'll just get these guys all riled up and I might get hurt in the crossfire. If I have to, I'll kill somebody. Probably you. But it's just as easy to take you all with us. Besides, I feel like I owe you,” he said standing, tucking the pistol in his belt. “After all, you made this whole thing possible.”

 

***

 

There was a light tap on the metal door that echoed through the room. Pim eased herself off the bed, careful not to disturb Ngern. She stood and looked down at the boy, his eyes closed but puffy from crying. One way or the other, it would be over soon.

She crossed the room and opened the door just as Robin was reaching to knock again.

“How's he doing?” Robin said, looking past Pim to the bed.

Pim smiled. “He is sleeping now. He will feel better when he wakes up. Please, come in.”

“I don't want to wake him.”

“He is a good sleeper. Please.” She stepped aside and gave a slight head bow as Robin entered.

Pim had straightened up, righting the bunk beds, folding the blankets, putting their belongings back in the small bag she carried. A pair of old sandals, too big to be Pim's or the boy's, still lay tucked under a bunk. On the deck, two men had pulled her away from the body of her grandfather and had brought her here, her shirt covered with the old man's blood. Robin had followed them into the room, yelling at the men, telling them to get out, knowing what they had in mind. They had listened to her and left but only because they feared what Shawn might do if they didn't. Sobbing, Pim had told Robin what had happened, adding that Ngern was missing, begging Robin to look for him. Eight hours later the door had opened and Ngern had walked in, alone and unharmed. Pim had told him everything and at first he tried not to cry because that was what his great-grandfather would have wanted, but it had come and now, a few hours past sunset, he slept a dreamless, cried-out sleep.

Robin sat on one of the beds at the far corner of the room. She patted a spot next to her on the bed, and Pim sat down.

“Did you get anything to eat? I can go up to the kitchen and look around,” Robin asked.

Pim shook her head. “I am not hungry but thank you.”

Robin looked over to where Ngern lay sleeping. “He's a tough kid.”

“Yes. I wish he did not have to be, but he is.”

They said nothing for several minutes, listening to Ngern's steady breathing, then Robin said, “I'm sorry about your grandfather,” her voice cracking just once as she said it.

“I told him not to say anything to Shawn but he would not listen. He was very stubborn and foolish.”

“No he wasn't,” Robin said, reaching out and taking Pim's tiny hand in hers. “He was a brave man and he loved you very much.”

Pim raised her head and looked into Robin's eyes. “You are a good woman, Miss Robin.”

Robin gave a short laugh. “No, Pim. I'm a dumb blonde who fell for a load of shit because I was stupid enough to think some guy actually liked me for who I am, not how I look.”

“You have also described me,” Pim said. She gave a weak smile and added, “Except for my hair.”

“I'm so pissed right now,” Robin said, fighting to keep her voice low. “And I hate myself for what happened. If I wasn't so stupid. What the hell's wrong with me?”

“There is nothing wrong with either of us. We believed because we loved. We did not betray love, he did.”

“Yeah, yeah, I've seen Oprah too.”

Pim tilted her head and looked at her.

“Never mind,” Robin said, and slouched back against the wall. “The kid tell you where he was all day?”

Pim gave a few quick nods that made her hair bounce. “He said a man hid him near the engines and that from there he could watch the sà-lât—the sea robbers—but they could not see him. He said he heard them talking. Most are men from Ranong and Chumpon, north of Phuket. Many are Chinese. He can tell by the way they speak, their accent,” Pim said, her voice rising, unsure of the word.

“Did they say anything about us, the passengers? What they're going to do with us?”

“Oh yes,” Pim said, smiling. “We are quite safe. My nephew said that Shawn came down and spoke to one of the men, and he told the others. Tomorrow morning, very early, the sea robbers will go back to the mainland.”

“And us?”

“That is the good news, Miss,” Pim said. “They are leaving us here.”