Fire And Ice Read online

  But diddling little girls was never on the agenda. Your daughter's safe with me."

  "You don't hesitate to hold her life as a threat over me."

  "I need you, Doc. I'll take any leverage I can get. But

  I guarantee I won't pull rank. You keep me strong and

  neither you or your little girl has anything to fear." "Will this policy be observed by Moss as well?" "Moss as well."

  "What if he strikes out on his own?"

  "He won't—unless you give him cause. . . . You planning on giving him cause?"

  "You know perfectly well that I'm in no position to give him cause."

  "Just as long as you know it. . . ." He glared straight into her face. But she could see that he was tired and weak and in pain, and she wondered, with a sudden stab of hope, whether the Stockholm syndrome might run in reverse if the captive was a doctor and the captor her patient. It had always amazed her when she had practiced in London how even the most incompetent doctors commanded irrational loyalty from a suffering patient.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and placed cool fingers against the back of his mutilated hand. Sleep was veiling his eyes. "Tell me," she whispered.

  "Tell you what?" he rallied, galvanized by suspicion. "What you couldn't tell Ronnie. Did your plane make it to China?"

  "Chekiang Province. We ditched in a rice paddy." "You made it."

  "Everyone but the bombardier. He drowned."

  "Was Chekiang Province occupied territory?"

  "Not when we got there. The Nationalists still held it. The village threw us a big party, and then we lit out for Chungking—Chiang Kai-shek's capital."

  "You didn't make it to Chungking, did you?" she asked softly.

  He lay still and silent for so long that Sarah thought he had fallen asleep. Then he spoke:

  "Would you like a manicure?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "That's what the Kempeitai asked me."

  "I'm afraid you've lost me, Mr. Jack."

  "Kempeitai? That's a Japanese word, Mummy. Japanese for secret police. . . ."

  "I see."

  "You see." He flung his hand in her face. "You see? You see what the Kempeitai meant when they asked if I wanted a manicure? But you don't want me to call them Japs."

  "Japan was destroyed at the end of the war, thanks to the bravery of soldiers like you, Mr. Jack. But in defeat, the Japanese people did everything the Allies demanded of them.

  "

  "Am I supposed to forgive them because they lost?" "It would be a Christian act."

  "Yeah? Where the hell was Christ when I was scream ing for Him?"

  Sarah flinched from the hatred boiling in his eyes.

  "Out where my husband and I live, the islanders still call the war The Big Fight. It was a very big fight, Mr. Jack, and cruelty abounded. The point, today, is that the Japanese people have been reborn in the past half century as one of the most pacifist peoples on earth."

  Mr. Jack sneered. "Because they've had the good old U.S. of A. to do their shooting for them, while they plaster

  their goddamned Rising Sun all over everything. Are you blind, Doc? We beat 'em fair and square for raping and murdering half of Asia and the second we turned our back they went on the rampage again. Only this time we supplied the muscle to hold off the communists—who'd have stopped them like they did last time. The Japanese' re dangerous people, Doc. You don't know them like I do."

  "Perhaps I've been more fortunate in my acquaintances, Mr. Jack."

  " 'Perhaps I've been more fortunate in my acquaintances,' " he mimicked with another sneer. "Let me see your mitts, Doc— Yeah, you've' been 'more fortunate.' Lot more fortunate."

  "I don't deny that you've suffered."

  "You think it's just me I'm talking about? Christ, Doc. How about the two hundred and fifty thousand Chinese they killed for the raid? People slaughtered. They're monsters."

  "Their children and their grandchildren are not monsters."

  "Monsters in new faces. They're taking over the world, Doc. And when they're done, they'll take the gloves off . . . and offer manicures to everyone."

  "You can't condemn an entire people for the evil acts of a few."

  He laughed. "You want to hear the funny thing? I ran into the guy."

  "What guy?"

  "The Kempeitai cop."

  "The man who tortured you?"

  "Five-six years ago—damnedest thing. I was holed up in Singapore, negotiating gas leases with the Indonesians and I'm feeling some pressure from the outside—like someone's horning in on the deal. I knew right away it had to be Japs, so I invited them to meet in Hong Kong—neutral turf. They sent some mid-level guys—deliberate insult. So I pulled a few strings to torpedo a joint enterprise scam they had going with Beijing.

  That got their attention. They invited me to lunch in Tokyo—sushi lunch. Ever eat sushi?

  "

  "Of course."

  "Live sushi? I don't think so, Doc. These guys—real big shots—they eat baby lobsters alive. The little things are still wiggling when they bust them out of their shells. Horrible sight. Cruelty for the hell of it—bragging they got the power to do it. So anyhow, who's at this lunch? The son of a bitch who tore my fingernails out after he got done shoving bamboo splinters under them. Blue suit, red tie, Mr. Corporation Man."

  "Are you sure it was the same man?"

  "Oh, I was sure. So was he. I was wearing my gloves, but the son of a bitch knew damned well it was me. . . ." Mr. Jack juggled laughter deep in his throat. "His live lobster wasn't going down all that smooth. I let the bastard stew. Didn't say a word the whole time we cut a deal. Till we had an agreement. Then I took my glove off to shake hands."

  The old man tugged at the bedclothes, his bright eyes tracking memories. "Funny thing happened to him. A month later he got kidnapped. Down in Djakarta. Some vicious bunch of Muslim fundamentalists got this crazy idea in their heads that he had access to the Japanese stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium."

  "The Japanese don't stockpile plutonium."

  "Oh yes they do, sweetheart. Enough for an arsenal, in case their peace-loving businessmen run into a market they can't crack with their usual dumping. . . . Anyhow, the kidnappers wanted plutonium—it was all a mix-up. He didn't know the first thing about plutonium—but they'd been misinformed, so they just kept asking him again and again and again until his heart gave out. . . ."

  He looked Sarah full in the face and smiled. "Lasted a couple of weeks."

  It took every muscle in her body to keep from shuddering visibly. And still trying to court his sympathy, she asked, "Were you satisfied?"

  He jerked his hand away with a savage curse and closed his eyes. Then, slowly, he formed a brittle smile. "What do you think?"

  THE AIR PHILIPPINES' AFTERNOON HONG KONG SHUTTLE

  carried stylish women speaking upper-class Spanish. Several cast mildly speculative glances at the haggard American who made his way back to economy, which was crowded with sad-eyed housemaids returning to work from visits home. Stone squeezed into his window seat, exhausted but too anxious to sleep, and pressed his face to the plastic to search the South China Sea for a sand-colored ship.

  He had struck out in Manila—Patrick had disappeared "in country," according to his girlfriend, who had no clue when the mercenary would be back.

  Captain McGlynn still hadn't telephoned when Stone had said good-bye to Marcus at the Koror airport. Nor had Lydia Chin.

  "Watch your back," were Marcus's parting words. "I still don't think that guy was after me." But Stone was sure the guest room had provided the easiest entry to the house, and that Marcus, not he, had been the intruder's target. No one knew he was in Koror.

  He had emptied their Koror safe-deposit box and bought his tickets with cash. Money would be a problem if he had to spend much more on travel and information.

  He hoped there would be messages waiting at the Hong Kong Yacht Club. Somewhere on the maritime grapevine

  the
re had to be word of a missing ship, some hint of what had caused the crew to kidnap a doctor.

  His best speculation was that the gas carrier had been hijacked for its valuable cargo.

  Compressed to a liquid by supercooling, the volume of gas in the vessel was enormous and worth millions. And with corruption a way of life on the South China coast long before the People's Republic of China institutionalized it, the hijackers had probably arranged before the theft to sell the gas to a PRC power plant willing to fence it for half price.

  Marcus Salinis disagreed. Why, he wanted to know, had none of his contacts, who were scattered throughout Micronesia, heard of any hijacking? And why weren't there any rumors on the ham radio network? "You're talking piracy. Where's the crew? Where's the ship that hasn't reported in and is overdue by now? How come nobody knows she's missing?"

  "It's a big ocean."

  "Everybody's expected someplace."

  Stone suspected a sophisticated paper shuffle. Ships and leases and petroleum cargoes were sold and exchanged routinely. They'd have covered their trail with forgeries documenting false sales, resales, and registrations and backed it all up with phony radio reports. A captain looking down the barrel of an assault weapon would radio exactly what he was told to radio. Just as a doctor with a child would do exactly as she was told.

  Clinging to his theory, embellishing it on the Air Mike flight to Manila, he had speculated that the injured "old man"—the captain, in marine parlance—had actually been the hijackers' leader, wounded in the takeover. As they couldn't put into port for medical attention, they had seized Sarah to doctor him until they sold the gas and abandoned ship.

  Here, his thinking turned fuzzy. And frightening.

  How would they escape after they got their money? They could not leave the ship moored to the pierhead of the power plant that had paid them. Nor could they sell it.

  Which meant that they would have to scuttle her—open her sea cocks to sink her out beyond the fifty-fathom line.

  But what would they do with Sarah and Ronnie?

  The jetliner commenced its descent to Hong Kong. This was his first arrival by air.

  Twenty-five years ago he had steamed into Hong Kong, a young Navy doctor interning aboard a warship. All his subsequent visits had been with Sarah on Veronica.

  A dark haze on the horizon finned up as the blue hills of Guangdong Province rolling northward into the continent. The city's peaks and islands spilled into the sea, dominating an otherwise undistinguished coast. He oriented himself by the hills of High Island and the deep incision of Tai Pang Bay, and on final approach from the southeast saw the jam-packed typhoon shelter at Causeway Bay, its surface carpeted thickly with junks and sampans; the Hong Kong Yacht Club occupied the west end.

  Cheklapkok terminal was a madhouse. Neither of the flights nor the quick stop at Manila had prepared him for the crush of people or the noise, to which he was extremely sensitive after weeks at sea. Funneled toward Immigration and Customs, he fingered his passport with a queasy sensation of running naked through enemy territory.

  This was Stone's first visit since China had taken over the former British Crown Colony.

  The communists had promised to allow capitalism to flourish in the quintessentially capitalist city for the next fifty years, but the People's Republic was a dictatorship, and God knew what new computerization the Beijing rulers had added to the British immigration controls, or how thoroughly they would scrutinize his papers.

  He caught his reflection in a glass partition. He looked harmless enough. Joanna Salinis had offered him a haircut, and he had trimmed his beard, while a castaway's sunburn wasn't much different from a tourist's sunburn. She had found him fresh clothes, too—khaki pants, a short-sleeved shirt, and an expensive looking oiled-cotton windbreaker that she claimed someone had forgotten in the Paradise Hotel, but which he suspected she had bought. December in Hong Kong, he'd be glad of it.

  His worn backpack looked a little off the image of "Physician, retired," which he had entered after occupation on the landing entry card. He shrugged out of it and carried it by the handstrap. Hong Kong welcomed all, but it was essentially a business city where a blue suit and a tie commanded respect. Under purpose of visit, he had written, "Joining yacht."

  He had debated which passport to present. His US. document was an excellent forgery, but he hated to use it where a sophisticated system might challenge the false number. It was safer in the remote islands, where he and Sarah were usually greeted as honored guests, and officials were fortunate to possess a working ballpoint pen.

  He decided instead to present a somewhat genuine Republic of Palau passport which Marcus had arranged four or five years ago, and which supported the general cover of an American doctor retired to paradise. The Chinese immigration officer scrutinized it and his landing card, on which Stone had given the Hong Kong Yacht Club as his local address, and waved him through.

  He removed his U.S. passport from its hidden compartment in the knapsack and stuffed it in his pocket in case Customs searched the bag. But he was passed through without a search, and was carried on a tide of shoppers, housemaids, tourists, and Asian business travelers into a chaotic arrival hall, where greeters from the five-star hotels directed guests to their limousines. A mainland farmer with a cardboard suitcase bumped into Stone, apologizing frantically. A Beijing bureaucrat shoved between them. Stone disentangled himself from both of them and headed for the doors.

  "Would you step this way, sir?"

  The voice came from behind him, crisp with authority. He turned to see two uniformed police, a tall blond Brit backed up by a Chinese.

  THE BRIT WAS TALLER THAN STONE, HIS GRIP FIRM AS HE

  took his elbow to guide him through the crowd, which parted before the uniforms.

  Surprised to see a Western officer, Stone put on the brakes.

  "Who are you?"

  "Window dressing," the Brit answered easily. "The Chinese kept some of us on—demoted to sergeant—as the sight of smiling bobbies is supposed to make Western businessmen more comfortable with Hong Kong's new government. Now if you'll just step this way . ."

  "What's the problem?" asked Stone.

  "Just a formality, sir. We'll have you on your way in a moment, I'm sure."

  "Wait a minute. What formality? I've just been through Immigration."

  "So they reported." His grip tightened and the Chinese cop moved in closer.

  "Ease up," said Stone. "I'm not going anywhere. I just asked you what the problem is."

  He tried to slow their progress, but the Chinese cop took his other arm and now the crowd began to stare at what looked like an arrest. Two cops at the terminal exit saw them coming and held the door open, saluting the tall Brit as they marched Stone out to an unmarked Rover at the curb.

  "Wait a minute. What is this?"

  Without letting go of his arm, the Chinese cop opened the rear door and the sergeant said, "Let's not make the situation worse, sir. Get in quietly and we'll take this up at headquarters."

  Stone stood his ground. "I'm asking you to tell me what the hell is going on."

  The sergeant stared hard. "As soon as we get to headquarters you may ring the American consulate. Unless you oblige me to summon assistance." He nodded toward the cops who had held the door. "In which event, sir, I promise you'll first spend an unpleasant night in a filthy cell. Now—if we understand each other—get in the car."

  The last thing Stone could afford was delay. If this was routine, his Palauan passport was good. It had already passed muster at Immigration, and Senator—ex-President—Salinis could confirm it by phone. He had friends at the yacht club. And he could call on Lydia Chin's lawyers.

  "All right."

  The sergeant climbed in beside him. The silent Chinese cop drove out of the airport, over the Kowloon Bridge and into narrow streets, grinning whenever he whooped the siren.

  Stone was lost immediately, as they inched past factories and tenements and down twisty lanes o
verhung with clothing-draped fire escapes and stacked red neon signs. But he had the impression they were heading inland up the Kowloon Peninsula rather than down toward the harbor.

  "Corporal Fong," said the sergeant, "ease off on the hooter. It's not like we've caught the Great Train Robbers." He gave Stone an ironic wink, as if to say, Natives will be natives.

  But instead of reassuring Stone, something he had said earlier at the terminal, which had been nagging at him, now traveled like ice down his spine.

  "Do you really think I'll need the American consul?" "I shouldn't think so," the sergeant replied casually. "Still, good to know they're there. What?"

  "It would be," said Stone, "if I were an American citizen."

  "I beg your pardon?" The sergeant turned to face him, his eyes glittery.

  "Immigration should have told you."

  "Told me what?"

  "That I'm from Palau."

  Corporal Fong glanced in the rearview mirror, then stepped hard on the gas, and as the sergeant reached inside his tunic, Stone tumbled belatedly to the realization that he had not been arrested but kidnapped.

  "Who the hell—" he demanded, shock exploding into rage. He'd sailed the canoe two hundred and fifty miles across the open Pacific to find Sarah and nearly died on the Angaur reef. He'd be goddammed if his search would end in a Mong Kok alley.

  Stone jammed his shoulders against the seat back, levered both legs with all his strength, and kicked the driver, bracketing the man's ear with his heels. Thrown hard against the window, Corporal Fong's eyes rolled back in his head. The Rover sideswiped a truck and skidded across the street and into a fish stall, scattering shoppers and crushing plastic tubs of live carp.

  When it hit the solid brick wall behind the flimsy stall, the car's air bag exploded in Corporal Fong's face, and the sergeant was thrown to the floor. He kicked Stone. Stone punched wildly with one fist and dove into the man's tunic with the other. The sergeant kneed him, knocking the wind from his lungs, but Stone probed deeper, fighting for the gun. A powerful hand closed around his throat. He tucked his chin, found hard metal, and yanked. It was a small .22 caliber automatic—an assassin's weapon. He pushed the barrel into the sergeant's throat. The man let go of him.