He was waiting at the dock when Kimi returned in the skiff, his wig tied down with a red chiffon scarf. Roberto wore a smaller scarf with holes cut for his ears. Strangely, the scarf, in conjunction with the sunglasses, made Roberto look a little like Diana Ross. They say there is a finite number of faces in the world…
Tucker threw the heavy pack into the front of the boat, then climbed in and sat down in front of the enormous gas tank. Kimi threw the transmis-sion lever on the motor, twisted the hand grip, and piloted the skiff out into the harbor toward the reef.
Kimi steered the boat out of the deep green of the harbor to the turquoise water of the channel. Tuck could see the reef, tan and red coral, just a few feet below the surface at the edge of the channel. He spotted small fish darting around great heads of brain coral. They were more like streaks of color than animals, and as one disappeared another appeared in the line of sight. A few long, slender trumpet fish, looking as if they had been forged from silver, swam adjacent to the boat, then turned and cruised into the reef.
They passed the edge of the reef and into the open sea with only a slight bump into the first few swells. Kimi cranked up the motor and the skiff lifted and rode across the tops of the waves, bucking and dropping a gentle six inches, thumping out a drumbeat as counterpoint to the whining out-board. Tucker relaxed and leaned back as Kimi skirted the reef, traveling toward the setting sun until he cleared the island and could make the turn north to Alualu.
For the first time since the crash, Tucker felt good, felt as if he was on his way to something better. He’d made a decision and acted on it and in eighteen hours he would be ready to start his new job. He’d be a pilot again, making good money, flying a great aircraft. And with some healing, he’d be a man again too.
A quarter mile from Yap, Kimi made a gradual turn that put the sun at their left shoulders. Tuck watched the sun bubble into the ocean. Columns of vertical cumulus clouds turned to cones of pink cotton candy, then as the sun became a red wafer on the horizon, they turned candy-apple red, with purple rays reaching out of them
like searchlights. The water was neon over wet asphalt, blood-spattered gunmetal—colors from the cover of a detective novel where heroes drink hard and beauty is always treacherous.
Tucker searched the sky for cumulus clouds that looked like they might have aspirations to become thunderheads. How in the hell were you supposed to see weather from sea level?
Just then a swell lifted the front of the boat and slammed it down. Tuck felt his tailbone bark on the edge of the seat and was just bracing himself when another swell bucked him to the floor of the boat and a sudden gust of wind soaked him with spray.
16
And Now, the Weather Report
The High Priestess sat on the lanai watching the sunset, taking sips from a glass of chilled vodka between bites of a banana. The intercom beeped inside the house and she cocked an ear to the open window.
“Beth, can you come down to my office? This is important.” The Sorcerer was in a panic.
He’s always in a panic, she thought. She put her vodka down on the bamboo table and tossed the banana out into the sand. She padded across the teak deck, through the french doors to the intercom, and laid an elegant finger on the talk button.
“I’m on my way,” she said.
She started toward the back door of the house—a two-room bungalow fashioned from bamboo, teak, and thatch—and caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror. “Shit.” She was naked, of course, and she’d have to cut across the compound to get to the Sorcerer’s office. Life had become a lot more complicated since they had hired the guards.
She stormed into the bedroom and grabbed an oversized 49ers jersey with the sleeves cut off out of her closet, then stepped into some sandals and headed out the back door. She wasn’t really dressed, but it might keep the Sorcerer off her back and the ninjas off her front.
The compound consisted of half a dozen buildings spread over a three-acre clearing covered with white coral gravel and concrete and surrounded by a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. At the front of the compound was a pier and a small beach that led to the only channel through the reef. At the back a new
Learjet sat on a concrete pad, just inside the fence. Outside of the fence, the concrete runway bisected the island. Past the runway lay the jungles, the taro patches, the villages, and the beaches of the Shark People.
The office was a low concrete building with steel doors and a roof covered in solar electric panels that shone red in the setting sunlight. She nodded to the guard by the door, who didn’t move until she passed, then tried to get a glimpse in the side of her jersey. She slammed the door behind her.
“What’s up? You almost done with the satellite dish? My shows are coming on.”
He turned from a computer screen, a piece of fax paper crumpled in his hand. “We’ve hired an idiot.”
“Do you want to be specific or should I assume that one of the ninjas has distinguished himself above the others?”
“The pilot, Beth. He missed the Micro Trader on Yap.”
“Shit!”
“It’s worse.” He held out the fax to her. “It’s from him. He’s chartered a small boat. He says he’ll be here tomorrow.”
She looked over the fax, confused. “That’s sooner than he was going to get here. What’s the problem?”
“This.” The Sorcerer pushed back in his chair and pointed to the computer screen. The image looked like a blender full of green and black paint.
“It looks like a blender full of green paint,” she said. “What is it?”
“That, my dear, is Marie.”
“Sebastian, you’ve been out here too long. I know you like abstract art and all…”
“It’s a satellite picture of typhoon Marie. And she’s a big one.” He pointed to a dot to one side of the screen. “That’s Alualu.”
“So it’s going to miss us.”
“We’ll catch the edge of it. We’ll have to put the jet in the hangar, tie everything down, but it shouldn’t be too bad. The problem is that the eye will pass right over where our pilot is going to be. I can’t believe he went to sea without checking the weather.”
She shrugged. “So we have to get a new pilot. Tucker Case, meet Marie.” She smiled and her eyes shone like desolate stars. Too bad, she thought. The pilot would have been fun.
17
Foul-Weather Friend
Tuck was amazed by what the human body could achieve when pressed to its limits: lift tractors, trek a hundred miles through the tundra after being partially eviscerated by a Kodiak bear, live for months on grubs and water sucked from soak holes, and in this particular case, vomit for two hours straight after having ingested nothing but alcohol and airline peanuts for two days. The stuff coming out of him was pure bile, burning acrid and sour, and with the bull rider pitching of the boat, half of it always ended up down the front of him. And between heaves there was no respite, just constant motion and soaking spray. His stomach muscles twisted into knots.
It started with the swells rising, first a few feet, then to ten. Kimi piloted the boat up the face of each as if climbing a hill; they were dashed by the whitecap, then a sled ride down into a trough where they were faced with the next black wall of water. Roberto climbed down into Kimi’s dress and clung there like a furry tumor. The navigator cried out each time the spray washed over him as Roberto’s wing claws dug into his ribs.
“Tie down you pack. Tie you belt to the boat,” Kimi shouted.