“No, no, that’s it, that’s all of it,” Curtis said, and shook his head, and left the bridge, and Zhang, alone, dropped heavily into his chair at the chart-table and wiped the perspiration streaming down his face.
But of course, that wasn’t all of it. Curtis spent much of the morning on the telephone in his cabin, and Zhang suspected he was making other plans, dealing with people far better at this sort of thing than Zhang could ever be, and that was confirmed just after lunch, while the other guests were in their cabins,
packing for the helicopter trip back to Australia. That was when Curtis came up again to talk with Zhang on the bridge. Zhang saw him coming, and waited, polite on the outside, trembling within.
As usual, Curtis wasted no time on pleasantries. Coming onto the bridge, he said, “Captain Zhang, you intend to dock tomorrow night around seven, early evening, am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re going to change that,” Curtis told him. “Without being obvious about it, don’t make your best pace. I don’t want you to round Moreton before one in the morning.”
Moreton was the island that ran along the seaward side of Moreton Bay, with Brisbane at the inner end of the bay. Zhang could make that adjustment, of course, he could travel just a bit more slowly, take a slightly more curved route. A few of the more experienced crewmen might be aware of the difference, but no one else. Certainly not the engineer, Manville, and Zhang was sure the engineer was the reason for this change.
Which Curtis confirmed by what he said next: “I’ll want you to take the bridge tomorrow night, by yourself. No one else has to be up and around at that hour.”
“No, sir.”
“And if it happens,” Curtis said, “that a boat comes alongside, even grapples on, you don’t have to pay attention.”
“No, sir.”
“Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Zhang said.
Curtis looked keenly at him, and Zhang felt he had to meet the man’s eyes. Curtis’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were icy cold, very hard. Zhang thought, I don’t know if he’s crazy or just brutal, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, I don’t want him to think I’m one of his enemies.
It was very difficult to meet that inhuman gaze, not to flinch or turn away, but Zhang held himself in, waited it out, didn’t even show a tremble, and at last Curtis nodded and said, “I know I can count on you.”
“Yes, sir.” Zhang’s mouth and throat were dry, the words came out crumpled.
Curtis patted Zhang’s arm — Zhang didn’t flinch — and twenty minutes later, as he watched the helicopter with Curtis and his guests aboard lift off from Mallory and swing over to look at the muddy blank they’d made of Kanowit Island, that spot on Zhang’s arm still burned.
What am I going to do? Zhang wondered. I am on Kanowit Island, and I’m slowly being sucked under. To do nothing doesn’t save you, you’ll still be sucked under. But what can I do?
20
Manville was very aware that he was alone on the ship. Once Curtis and his financial people flew off, there was no one on the Mallory that he had ever even had a conversation with, except Captain Zhang, and he expected little comfort from that quarter. The people who’d worked with him on the island, setting the charges and flooding the tunnels and sealing the areas where the explosives would go off, had all flown in from Australia, construction crews of Curtis’s, in two planes that came down on the old Japanese landing strip on the island and then took the crews back home the day before the test.
Usually, Manville didn’t mind being alone. There were always projects he was working on, problems to be solved. But now, for the first time in his life, he was aware of being in personal physical danger, of being threatened by another human being, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t even know how to think about it. He wasn’t a soldier of fortune, a man of action, a man of violence. He was an engineer, he had tools, not weapons, and his primary tool was his brain.
It would help if there were a friendly face on the ship, an ally, someone to discuss the situation with. Because he wasn’t at all sure he was up to this kind of thing. The main point now, he supposed, was to try to protect the girl. Whatever came at him, Zhang or members of the crew, or somebody else entirely when they reached Brisbane, at least he should be with the girl, not leave her exposed and helpless.
He wished he could move her, possibly to his own cabin, but he was afraid to, not knowing exactly what her condition was. She’d been battered by the sea, and though she was surely going to live — if nobody interfered — she might have broken bones or other injuries. So the best thing to do, if he couldn’t move her, was to move himself.
After the helicopter lifted away from the Mallory with an excited flutter of rotor blades, and swung over to take a last look at Kanowit, Manville went on back down to cabin 7 and let himself in again with his equivalence card. Then he propped the door open while he went across to cabin 6 and picked up a pillow and blanket there. Returning to 7, he let the door snick shut and locked, then put the blanket on the floor at the opposite end of the room from the entry, under the porthole. He propped the pillow against the wall there, took his paperback book from his hip pocket, and sat down, back against the pillow against the wall, face toward the door.
The porthole above his head gave plenty of light for reading. His book was a collection of Maugham short stories of the South Seas; a very different place, then, but he supposed the people were much the same. The stories were comforting, because no matter how serious the problem, there was always some sort of acceptable resolution by the end. Reading, he could hope for the same sort of resolution for himself.
Her head on the bunk was just to his right, and after a while he became aware of her breathing. It was less shallow than before, and less rapid, long slow breaths now, regular, without strain. It seemed to Manville that she had undergone a transition, from being unconscious to being asleep. Which meant she might soon wake, and then he’d have somebody to talk it over with. In the meantime, he read.
21
Kim looked at the ceiling. Daytime. The ship was in motion, and grayish light reflected from the passing ocean came in through the porthole to fidget on the pale ceiling.
She realized she was awake again, and had been awake for... for a while.
She remembered everything this time, and remembered most sharply that her body contained many pockets of pain that would activate if she made any move at all. So she lay still, on her back, and looked at the ceiling, and wondered where she was and what would happen.
A page turned; a faint sound, but clear. Close by, to her left. Cautiously, she turned her head just slightly, waking soreness in her neck and back and shoulders. She looked sidelong, and a man was there, next to her, in profile. He was seated on the floor, head tilted down, legs bent up, reading a paperback book propped against his knees. She had never seen him before in her life.
Slowly she moved her head back to position one, and closed her eyes. He must be a guard of some kind; so she was a prisoner. On Richard Curtis’s yacht? Why a prisoner?
Are they going to arrest me? Is Richard Curtis going to make an example of me, and have me charged with trespassing and endangerment and all sorts of things, and have me thrown in jail? And where? In Australia, or in Singapore?
She found herself afraid of Singapore. It was known to be very stern with lawbreakers, and very accommodating to its businessmen, and Richard Curtis had become one of Singapore’s most significant businessmen since he’d left Hong Kong.