“Guest?” repeated a well-modulated female voice. “I thought I played a more important role in this farce than that.”
A tall woman wearing a pale green blouse, white jeans and western style boots leaped lithely down from the jet, ignoring the set of steps. A straight, thin-bridged nose with bright green eyes on either side of it led to a wide mouth touched with the hint of a challenging smile. Heavy red-gold hair tumbled down both sides of her face.
She wiped at her forehead, smiled and quoted, “ ‘Over the trackless past, somewhere, lie the lost days of our tropic youth’”, then she thrust out her right hand toward the two men. Crowe clasped it first, noting the strength of the grip and the roughness of the palm. Turning to Kavanaugh, she pumped his hand formally.
“Honoré Roxton,” she said. “I heard you introduce yourselves as Augustus Crowe and Jack Kavanaugh”
“We’ve heard of you, Dr. Roxton,” Kavanaugh said releasing her hand.
“Really?” The woman arched an eyebrow. “Even in this very remote corner of the globe? I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” Kavanaugh replied, deadpan. “We first heard about you yesterday when Howie said you were on your way here.”
Honoré Roxton laughed and then gestured toward the edge of the field where Mouzi stood, dripping wet, watching with her hands on her hips. “Who might that nearly naked child be?”
“The chamber of commerce,” Crowe retorted. “We call her Mouzi.”
Kavanaugh beckoned to her with an arm wave. “Come on up and be introduced.”
Mouzi didn’t move or speak. She stared fixedly at Oakshott. The big man glanced her way, then looked in another direction, pointedly ignoring her. Mouzi heeled around and stalked back toward the waterfront so abruptly that Kavanaugh was a little taken aback. Mouzi had never been one for observing formalities, but she was rarely so outright rude to strangers.
Honoré inquired,. “A bit shy, is she?”
“Not really,” Crowe said. “Just sort of surly. She’s the mechanic of Horizons Unlimited.”
“And you are Horizons Unlimited?” The woman gazed at Kavanaugh boldly. He felt suddenly self-conscious; aware she eyed the scar on his face with a clinical interest.
“More or less,” Kavanaugh replied.
“Which is it?’ Honoré demanded. “Are you more or are you less?”
Crowe pointed to himself, then to Kavanaugh. “I’m more and he’s less.”
The woman laughed again and Kavanaugh couldn’t help but grin. He liked the way Honoré Roxton’s smile turned her stern features into something very appealing.
Honoré Roxton started to speak, then she fell silent, staring intently past Crowe and Kavanaugh. They involuntarily glanced over their shoulders at the black and green bulk of Big Tamtung rising from the sea. Masses of mist wreathed the face of the escarpment where it sloped down to meet the jungle. A waterfall glistened like a silver ribbon. The crescent moon of white sand reflected the sunlight so strongly that even at a distance of over a mile it stung the eye.
The woman cupped her hands around her eyes. “So that’s the place…Big Tamtung?”
“Yeah,” Crowe answered tersely. “That’s the place, all right.”
“Steamy, isn’t it?”
“A lot of the time,” agreed Kavanaugh. “Both Big and Little Tamtung are part of the same land mass, most of it submerged. We think the steam comes out of thermal vent, from an underground shield volcano, maybe.”
“That doesn’t make it all that remarkable, you know. Islands formed by volcanic activity are not uncommon in this part of the world. There are still active volcanoes on the Tonga Islands.” Honoré sounded as if she were trying to reassure herself of the island’s ordinariness. “That mesa or escarpment resembles Ball’s Pyramid, off the Australian mainland. It’s the remnant of shield volcano.”
When neither man responded, she lowered her hands and said dryly, “That was a conversational lead-in, gentlemen. You were to remark on how extraordinary Big Tamtung truly is. And, Mr. Kavanaugh, I understand you have your own extraordinary tale to tell about the place, is that right?”
Kavanaugh sidestepped the question by asking one of his own. “Aren’t you supposed have someone else with you?”
“She does, indeed,” announced the bearded man who appeared in the hatchway. He gazed broodily at Crowe and Kavanaugh, then up at the sky, then to Oakshott. His blue eyes shone like the restless water of the bay. His gaze swept his surroundings, photographing every detail, committing them to memory.
Neither Crowe nor Kavanaugh had expected to see a dwarf climb out of the aircraft, but they kept their expressions neutral as he came down the steps, leaning on a walking stick. Dressed in a white shirt and white ducks with a straw Panama hat placed at an angle on his head, he made a memorable impression. With his Van Dyke beard, Kavanaugh was reminded of old photographs he had seen of Buffalo Bill—that is, if Cody had ever worn tropical whites and was the height of a ten year old boy.
His legs were abnormally short. There was something grotesque about his fully developed torso and his diminished lower limbs. He carried a satphone bearing the AceS logo of the Asia Cellular Satellite Company in a vinyl holster at his right hip.
The little man grimaced as he kick-stepped in a circle. Leather sandals shod his tiny feet. “All of those hours in flight…my legs feel atrophied.”
“If you go to Big Tamtung,” Kavanaugh said flatly, “I can guarantee you a loosening up you won’t forget.”
The little man swung his head up and around, staring directly into his face. “Who are you again?”
Kavanaugh put out his hand. “Jack Kavanaugh.”
“You may call me Dr. Belleau,” the bearded man said, making no effort to take his hand. “You may address my guest as Dr. Roxton.”
Honoré’s shoulders stiffened. “I’ll decide how I’ll be addressed, Aubrey.”
Belleau did not respond. He maintained his unblinking gaze on Kavanaugh. “You are employees of Mr. Flitcroft, are you not?”
Kavanaugh tamped down a sudden surge of anger. “Not exactly.”
“No? Then exactly what are you? Why exactly are you out here? What exact purpose do you serve for this undertaking?”
“That has yet to be determined,” Kavanaugh said quietly. “When it has been, you’ll be one of the first to know…Aubrey.”
Belleau continued to stare at him. “I shall hold you to that…Tombstone Jack, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes.” Kavanaugh kept his own gaze fixed on Belleau’s eyes.
He realized that the little man possessed a mind like a computer constructed for a single purpose, a cold and analytical brain that sought opportunities first, last and always, whether they were personal or business. That computer had identified and categorized him as a rival, as a threat to the seizing of opportunities.
“Oakshott,” Belleau intoned, not taking his eyes from Kavanaugh’s face.
The big man stepped up beside him. “Sir?”
“Inform the pilots to disembark. Find some men to unload the plane. I’m sure we shall be here for quite some time.”
By late afternoon it was too hot to work on the pump out on the deck and so hot Crowe could no longer think straight. Even down in the
Krakatoa
’s bilge he sweated so much that it practically added another couple of quarts to the foul-smelling liquid swirling around his feet.
Working alone added to the strain and contributed to the volume of sweat flowing out of him. Mouzi hadn’t returned to the boat after stalking away from the airfield and Crowe hadn’t been inclined to look for her.
Jack was no help since he accompanied the little Belleau man and the Roxton woman to Flitcroft’s office. Rather than stand around the jet and try to make conversation with Oakshott, who did not give the impression of being much of an idle talker, Crowe went back to the trimaran.
He noticed during the afternoon that Chou Lai put his prized samlaw to work, hauling boxes of equipment out of the jet’s cargo hold and ferrying them over to the office and hotel. The motorized rickshaw with the rackety lawn-mower engine and striped canopy made at least six back-and-forth trips and Crowe wondered if Chou charged a flat fee or by the individual run.
Climbing out onto the deck a few minutes shy of sunset, Crowe sat down beneath the overhang of the cockpit’s housing that had a little shade to it. Lifting the lid of a Styrofoam cooler, he found of a bottle of tepid Yinjang beer and twisted off the cap. He took a long swallow and shuddered at the bitter taste. After a moment of groping behind him on the console, he found the package of Golden Duck cheroots that had been shipped in from Rangoon the month before. He removed the last one and put it in the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t light it. Looking for matches would require him to stand up, and he just didn’t have the strength or the inclination at the moment.
Gazing toward the hotel, he watched Tinh Bien finish the detail work on the Z in Cryptozoica, adding a fancy drop-shadow. All Crowe originally wanted lettered on the building was the name of their travel bureau, Horizons Unlimited, but Jack fancied himself a wordsmith and considered just the two words decidedly unexotic.
After a couple of days of drinking and thinking it over, Jack had presented him with a square of cardboard on which the words Cryptozoica Enterprises were rendered in bright purple and yellow, the colors exuberantly applied by felt-tipped pens, the “t” turned into a stylized palm tree.
“What the hell is a Cryptozoica and what’s so enterprising about it?” Crowe demanded.
Jack pointed to Big Tamtung, then to himself and Crowe, announcing matter-of-factly, “That’s Cryptozoica, and we’re the enterprisers.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Well, it’s kind of a play on a couple of words…the place is cryptic and has cryptozoological animals running around, right? So if you sort of graft it onto Paleozoic and put an ‘a’ on the end, then you have Cryptozoica.”
“It’s a made-up word,” Crowe said impatiently. “Why not something that nobody has to think about, like Monster Land or Dino Island?”
Jack gave him a pitying, patronizing look. “This isn’t a goddamn gator-wrestling tourist trap on the way to Disneyworld, you know.”
“It’s not a goddamn tomb tour, either. Cryptozoica, my ass. We need to discuss this and come up with something everybody likes and agrees on.”
Jack snatched back his square of cardboard and stomped off. A couple of days later, he saw Tinh Bien adding Cryptozoica Enterprises to the façade of the hotel, and Crowe just let it go.
Shifting position, Crowe watched the six people who had flown in with Flitcroft on his DHC-6 Otter walking down the footpath toward the Phoenix of Beauty, some of them lugging camera and recording equipment. Although his experience with a film production crew was limited, he hadn’t been impressed with the men Flitcroft had introduced as the technical staff, particularly after he identified Pendlebury as the director. The concept seemed so ridiculous, neither Crowe nor Kavanaugh knew whether to believe the claim or not..
Still, Crowe reflected that there were more new people on Little Tamtung at the moment than had been in the last year and a half. For the first time, he began seriously considering Flitcroft’s television series idea.
The man had never shown much interest in science before, mainly because it didn’t pay as well as entertainment. But if anyone could figure out a way to profitably blend the two, it would be Howard Philips Flitcroft.
Crowe knew more than a little about marine biology, but he rarely had the opportunity to come up with ways to make his knowledge pay off, except through fishing excursions. He had studied oceanography at the US Naval Academy with an eye toward making that a career but events and fate pushed him in a different direction.
His Annapolis education had overlaid his Louisiana accent with unidentifiable regional tone. Like Jack Kavanaugh, he spoke a number of Asian languages, even the Lao and Meo dialects of Thai. Unlike Jack, he envied the simplicity of the people who managed to eke out livings on Little Tamtung either by fishing or farming.
As Crowe took another sip of the Yinjang beer, he saw Mouzi sauntering along the pier toward him. She wore a Horizons Ultd T-shirt over her leotard. Lithely, she jumped from the dock onto the portside hull.
When she stepped onto the deck of the
Krakatoa
, Crowe said gruffly, “You’re fired.”
“I quit,” Mouzi countered, undisturbed by the man’s hostile tone.
“In that case.” Crowe took another bottle of beer from the cooler and tossed it in her general direction.
Effortlessly, Mouzi snatched it out of the air and unscrewed the cap. “Thanks.”
“You seen Jack?” Crowe asked.
Mouzi took a long swallow of the Yinjang before replying, “Last I saw, he was over in Howie’s office with the rest of them pommie bastards.”
“Why’d you walk off like that? That was pretty damn rude, even for you.”
Mouzi’s lips pursed. In a soft, almost hesitant voice she said, “Seen that big-arse bloke before.”
Crowe frowned. “Where?”
“In Bangkok, long about five years ago. ‘Member me tellin’ you about Nikolai?”
“Yeah.”
“He used to take me to a private fight club… that Oakshott hoon worked for one of the local triad bosses. He’d get in the ring and kill them poor slopes he was matched up against, just twist their heads off like they was chooks.”
Crowe eyed her skeptically. “Are you sure it was him?”
“Ain’t like he’s easy to mistake for somebody else.” Mouzi touched her right forearm. “He had another name then, but I recognized his tat. Him all right.”
Crowe tried to think about the implications, despite his heat-fogged mind. He mentally replayed the image of the tattoo. He shrugged. “Lots of people in this part of the world have connections with the triads. And they have tats. You included.”
Mouzi’s dark eyes flashed with annoyance. “What’s a pommie professor doing with a professional killer as a valet? Don’t that strike you as a mite unusual?”
Crowe nodded reluctantly. “A mite. But it’s not like the unusual is unusual around here. Let’s just stay out of his way.”
Tilting her head back, Mouzi gulped down the rest of the bottle’s contents, then uttered a deep, earnest belch. “That won’t be easy.”
“Why won’t it be?”
“I heard ‘em talkin’….we’re gonna have a reception over in the Phoenix tonight, so everybody can get acquainted.”
Crowe frowned. “A meet and greet?”
The corners of Mouzi’s lips quirked in a grim smile. “Everybody gettin’ to know everybody. Won’t that be nice. Attendance as in mandatory.”
Crowe pointed the neck of his beer bottle in her direction. “That means you too.”
Mouzi shook her head. “You just done fired me.”
“Well, I just done
un
fired you. If I have to go, so do you.”
Turning a grunt of exertion into a sigh of ennui, Crowe heaved himself off the deck. Assailed by momentary vertigo, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw Mouzi staring at him curiously.
“You okay?”
Crowe didn’t answer at first. He gazed around the harbor-front, appreciating the calm seas but also sensing a storm. The day died slowly, the peach and pink afterglow stretching upward in the soft sky above the island.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he muttered, stepping onto the dock.
The water of the bay glimmered with the color of burnished aquamarine. He took a quick, almost apprehensive glance over his shoulder at Big Tamtung. The cliff-face was a rich bluish-purple in the fading light, the hue of a bruise. The setting sun looked like a ball of molten wax, burning into his eyes, filling his senses.
The air was still hot and steamy, so there was no reason for Crowe to feel cold, but he did.