Assignment - Sulu Sea Read online

  “Good,” he said. “Keep it that way.”

  He dialed a number in Honolulu. Downtown, there were offices devoted ostensibly to publishing a trade journal entitled Pearl of the Pacific, which was meant to lure investments in the natural resources and markets of the Island State. A few copies of the magazine were actually in evidence in the anteroom, and there was even a wispy little man with the title of editor. But behind these offices, beyond double-locked doors, were others equipped with radio transmitters, scrambler phones with direct wires to Washington, and teletype machines connected across the Pacific and the continental U.S. to K Section‘s Pacific Island department at No. 20 Annapolis Street. Durell used the private number at the magazine office and got a. man named Jones and gave him Peter Holcomb’s name and asked to be connected on scrambler to General McFee, in Washington.

  It took surprisingly little time. He considered Willi Panapura’s remark about CIA “pinhead capers” in Tarakuta and Pandakan, and reflected that there was a certain advantage in promoting a world image of a vastly inept, bungling organization that was more to be berated than applauded. It might disarm the enemy. Central Intelligence had become a favorite whipping boy for anything that went Wrong anywhere on the globe, and no official objections were raised except for mild protests of innocence from RR. men back home. Any kind of edge, Durell thought, might tip the scale in the right direction. To be held in contempt by the enemy was a definite advantage—except that his real enemies had no illusions about K Section or the field men working in it. Mistakes took a high price in his business. They usually killed you.

  If Dickinson McFee, chief of K Section, had not known Durell as well as he did, he might not have reacted as quickly, although the small gray man who commanded the troubleshooting activities of Durell’s special branch was a cold and calculating presence who never once, in the years Durell had known him, made an error. His voice was crisp and final.

  “I’ll check Navy, Cajun. Can you hang on?”

  “I’m calling from Luakulani Palms apartment. It’s got a nice view and a switchboard in the lobby. I’m scrambled only from the drop in Honolulu.”

  “Can’t be helped. Give me ten minutes. Hang up.”

  Durell’s apartment was one huge room with a bath and a kitchenette off it on the north side, and a vast window wall opening on the lanai. Beyond was a brief lawn with jacaranda and hibiscus, pitching sharply down so you could see over the top of a ten-foot wall to the beach and the surfers out there, dark against the Makapuu headland. But the wall was ten feet high and he had locked his door and there was only a gate in the wall that was also locked; he could see all that from here.

  He turned to regard the girl.

  “How did you get into this place, Willi?”

  “You’re just looking at it. I climbed the wall.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’ve lived all my live on a tramp South Seas schooner, Samuel. I’m not exactly a Dresden doll."

  “No, you’re not, Willi. How did you know where to find me’! Did Holcomb give you this address?"

  “No. But it Wasn’t hard.”

  “Hawaii isn't enormous, but it’s big enough to give you a little trouble. But you don‘t seem to have had any.”

  She shrugged and put the end of her thick, braided hair between her teeth and looked up at him through dark lashes.

  “I knew what you looked like,” she said. “Big, brutal, handsome, and a quiet dresser. Only mistake I made was saying you had a Cajun accent. You must have lost that at Yale."

  He remembered the agonizing language drills at K Section’s Farm, in Maryland, to shake off his bayou identity.

  “Anyway,” the girl added, “I checked into a hotel and got into some comfortable clothes—”

  "I’m glad you brought a dress along. I wondered if you flew the Pacific in those shorts.”

  She smiled. “I just don’t like clothes, Samuel."

  “All right. And then?”

  “I went to the Ale Ale Kai Room where the rich, lonely gals look for cute beach boys, and I struck up some conversation and some of them had noticed you. Then I called the U.S. Navy and a cute lieutenant there kind of recognized Peter Holcomb’s name, though he didn’t really mean to, and checked some papers and said yes, he knew Pete’s friend, Mr. Durell, the address was the Luakulani Palms, and here I am.”

  Durell swore softly. “And did you tell this cute naval officer that Holcomb was dead?”

  “Oh, no. I figured they might put me in jail and hold me up with a. bunch of dumb questions, and I can’t waste that much time here. Grandpa Joseph can’t run the schooner without Simon and me, but he’s apt to try to, anyway, so I’ve got to get back just as soon as ever.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the American consulate in Pandakan to report all this? Why fly one-third of the way around the world to me?”

  “Because,” she said patiently, “Holcomb asked me to tell you, and nobody else; and in the second place, Pandakan isn’t much these days, with the plebiscite coming on and Mr. Kiehle, the U.S. consul, in Singapore, anyway, and nobody else there except the first secretary, a nice Chinese boy named Tommy Lee; but I don’t trust him. Anyway, Malachy -—Dr. McLeod—was named acting consul by Mr. Kiehle so I went to Malachy and he said to fly here as fast as ever, so here I am. But I must tell you that now I’ve done my duty, I’m going right back.”

  “Maybe,” Durell said.

  Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Don't fool me, Samuel. The brass would like to grill me here till kingdom come, but I won’t stand for it. If you try it, I’ll clam up and you’ll Never find that island where we buried Pete Holcomb, understand? Either you let me go and come down, any way you please, or else. Do I make it plain? I left the amphibian at the Palang-Dragh strip—"

  “What amphibian?"

  “My own plane. And I took commercial jets the rest of the way. And that’s how I go back. It‘s fastest, and I don’t think it would be politically wise, anyway, to have a fancy jet touching down at Pandakan these days. It’s pretty touchy right now, Malachy says we can’t even put a dinghy in the harbor flying the American flag, without all the ex-colonials screaming bloody imperialism. So if you come back with me at all, you do it quietly, Malachy says, without a big fuss.”

  He nodded. “You may be right.”

  “I tell you, Samuel, I’ve heard your praises sung all my life, but I only tool: one thing seriously. when our grandpas both agreed in their letters that you were one smart man. If those two rascals respected you like that, I figured I’d better take their opinion at face value. So I came here. It’s costing ‘me time and money, so don’t make me regret it, and don’t try to keep me here longer than this afternoon.”

  The telephone rang. It was Washington, via the magazine offices of Pearl of the Pacific. General McFee’s voice held a strange note.

  “Cajun, have you still got that girl who claims she buried Lieutenant Commander Peter S. Holcomb?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I went to the top for you, and she may be telling the truth. This comes straight from Joint Chiefs. There‘s a quiet but desperate flap in BuOp at Navy that’s gone through Defense right to the President. Your friend Holcomb was aboard the new nuclear attack sub Andrew Jackson as security officer. He ought to be aboard that boat right now somewhere down there. If he isn’t, something is desperately wrong.” General Dickinson McFee paused. “You might say it’s impossible, but ONI thinks the missing nuclear sub might have been pirated.”

  chapter four

  IN DURELL’s world, the impossible happened often enough to seem commonplace. Although forty-eight hours had passed since the Jackson last reported her position, there had not been a press release yet. This was not a Thresher incident, opened at once to world communications. There was no chance that the Jackson had met such a fate. Whatever had happened, it had happened deliberately—and with malice aforethought.

  Durell left Willi Panapura in the Luakulani Palms on Her promise to wait
for him and took a taxi past the Ala Moana Park along the sea, with its tennis courts and Hawaiian Village, into downtown Honolulu. The CIA offices behind the Pearl of the Pacific magazine front were not far from the Iolani Palace. A restaurant on the lower floor sold coral jewelry and fried octopus. From the elevator, he was passed through the double-locked rear doors into the interior rooms where teletypes chattered and several harassed men Worked on scrambler phones. Beyond, there was an office crowded with grim Navy brass from Pearl Harbor. Durell entered, expecting a storm, and got one.

  The highest echelons of the Navy had held in utmost secrecy that unaccountable silence from the Andrew Jackson since its last report from the Sulu Sea, when it was cruising toward the Tarakuta Group. Every radio effort since then had failed. There was no reply to an urgent Code Red call. Seventh Fleet jets had scoured the shallow seas looking for telltale distress buoys, signals, sea dye or wreckage. Nothing had shown up. Absolutely nothing. No dim shadows were sighted on the ocean bottom, no signals, no survivors. The Andrew Jackson had simply vanished. She was gone. Disappeared.

  The Navy was further disturbed because no one was supposed to know about it—yet. And Durell was aware of the suspicion and hostility with which the CINCPAC officers regarded him. A vice-admiral with the nose of a hawk and the cold eyes of a long-dead fish spoke sharply.

  “We must insist on knowing how you learned of the missing sub, Mr. Durell. It seems impossible for you to have heard about it in any casual manner.”

  Durell thought of Willi in her shorts. “It was casual, gentlemen, but I cannot tell you more about it.”

  “One of these days,” the admiral said icily, “you gumshoe boys will go too far with us and—”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been directed to cooperate with you in every way. In fact, I‘ve been ordered to find your missing submarine as soon as possible."

  The scrambled eggs on the admiral’s cap sizzled. “Find our sub for us? Of all the impudence—!”

  “It’s missing and you can’t locate her, right?”

  “If you fellows don’t make your usual mess out of the affair, we’ll find her, all right.” An aide touched the admiral’s elbow and whispered urgently to him, his eyes suspiciously watching Durell’s tall, quiet figure all the time. The admiral started to protest, and then his angry color faded and s look of resigned desperation took its place. He shook off the aide and turned back to Durell.

  “We understand the political balance in Borneo is extremely delicate just now. And in the independent Sultanate of Pandakan, capital of the Tarakutas and Borneo, it’s even more critical. There is to be a plebiscite for the natives to decide whether they’re to join Indonesia or Malaysia or form an autonomous Republic of Tarakuta. All U.N. members are warned not to interfere, and our Seventh Fleet units are forbidden by Washington to enter the waters off Indonesian Borneo, Sabah or Sarawak.”

  “Yes, sir, that is correct,” Durell said.

  For one of the rare moments in his life, the admiral was helpless. “I protest, of course. If one of my ships is in trouble, I demand the right, by all the laws of decency and common sense, to find that missing ship." The admiral’s aide whispered to him for a moment, his manner urgent. The other officers looked with hostility at Durell, as if their problem were his fault. The admiral grunted. “It will be a day or two before we announce a routine ‘maneuver’ on the fringes of that area, and even that will excite the world press. But it can’t be helped. We cannot sit on our hands when the 727 is missing. And we will send our own people into the Borneo area. So you can cable your boss in Washington that your help is declined, with thanks.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

  “Eh? Why not?”

  “I've already been given the job. I can go into the offshore waters of Borneo without attracting quite as much attention as a Seventh Fleet search flotilla. I understand I have three days to find the 727. After that, a public statement must be issued about her disappearance. But I must say that whether you cooperate or not, gentlemen,” Durell said quietly, “I mean to go ahead with my own assignment.”

  Willi Panapura was not in his apartment when he went back there. But he was not alarmed. He put through a long-distance call to Bayou Peche Rouge, in Louisiana, and while he waited for the mainland connection, he watched the beach and the surfers and marveled at the energy of the half-naked boys and girls battling the Pacific rollers in the sparkling sun. Then, before his connection was made, Willi Panapura returned and he forgot all about the scanty bikinis and the tumbling torsos out there on the beach.

  Willi was not wearing her short shorts now; she was dressed for traveling, and her long. thick hair was coiled in a tight, smart French swirl atop her proud and beautiful head. She wore a white sharkskin traveling suit and French heels that brought her eyes almost to a level with Durell’s.

  Her golden Polynesian skin and blue, wide gaze was effective and dramatic. He thought, with some dismay, that she was the roost beautiful and most unpredictable girl he had ever met.

  His grandfather, Jonathan, lived on the hulk of the old sidewheeler Three Belles, which Durell had called home as a boy, and it took some time to bring the old gentleman to the nearest telephone in town. The old man sounded grave and happy to hear Durell’s voice, and he spoke with the epitome of Southern courtesy, with only a slight quiver to betray his affection.

  “It is good to hear from you, Samuel.”

  “I wouldn’t trouble you, Grandpa," Durell said, “but it’s urgent. I’ve heard from your pal, Joseph Panapura—from his granddaughter, rather.”

  “I expect you have,” old Jonathan said gravely. “I received a cable from Joseph this morning, saying he had sent his lovely granddaughter to meet you. Isn‘t she all I said she was.”

  “And more,” Durell said, eyeing Willi’s tall beauty with appreciation. “What I want to know is whether you can give me anything to identify Joseph Panapura without question or doubt.”

  “I can, Samuel. I assume you are going to Pandakan. Will you give Joseph my warmest personal regards?” The old gentleman proceeded to describe an old knife scar engraved on Joseph Panapura’s hide during a riot aboard the Three Belles after an unusual poker game in ’07. The scar was unusual enough so it could not be duplicated. Durell would have no doubt of old Joseph’s identity if he found it. Jonathan went on: “Take care of yourself, Samuel. I trust you and Wilhelmina get on well.”

  “I’ll let you know, Grandpa,” he said.

  They flew from Honolulu to Manila, via Pan Am jet, and from Manila they took a wildcat airline that ran DC-3’s south over the myriad green islands of the archipelago, above Panay and Iloilo, island hopping with cargos that varied from people to chickens, from plastic pipe to fishhooks. Their goal was a small airstrip on the southernmost tip of Mindanao of the Moro Gulf at Palang-Dragh. It was a long, hot, tiring flight, but Willi Panapura had the knack of sleeping like a lithe, sleek cat, and for many tedious hours she simply ignored Durell and allowed the time to pass with a kind of South Seas fatalism. She was beautiful, he thought, awake or asleep, hostile or friendly. She seemed undecided between the two attitudes. Long irritation from childhood tales about Durell had given her thought-habits about him that were difficult to break. For his part, he thought wryly, he should have listened to old Jonathan long ago, instead of avoiding this long-legged, incredible flower of the Southern Pacific. He hadn’t believed that Wilhelmina Panapura could be all that the old gentleman claimed for her; but she was. And more.

  During the flight, she said: “My mother was Flemish, you know, from Antwerp, and she married old Joseph’s son during the heyday of Dutch colonial power down here. I guess that’s where my blonde hair came from. Anyway, I was named Wilhelmina, but I’m just Willi to everybody in the Tarakuta Islands.”

  “That must cover a lot of territory,” he said.

  She was defensive. “That sounds like a nasty remark.”

  “Not at all. You cover a lot of islands in your grandfath
er’s trading schooner, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I go along to collect my specimens, and I’ve got a good business going there, with clients over the world, including some big Swiss research laboratories. Malachy McLeod put me onto them through his medical connections. She regarded him with grave blue eyes. “You said you know Malachy, but it’s funny, he never mentioned you.”

  “No reason why he should. We never met in person. We just communicated, on occasion, one way or another.”

  “How?” she asked suspiciously. “And why?”

  “He’s done a few errands for us, now and then.”

  She was indignant. “But Malachy never told me he did espionage work for you people.”

  “Do you think he should have?” Durell asked drily.

  “Well, for a man who claims to be dying of love for me, how could he keep such a secret from me?”

  Durell felt the oddest twinge of jealousy. “It wasn’t that important. Are you going to marry Malachy McLeod?”

  She settled back sulkily. “I don’t know. I thought so.”

  “Have you changed your mind?”

  "Yes? Just lately.” Then she looked him in the eye and said: “For the past hour, Samuel, I’ve been thinking of marrying you.”

  The DC-3 from Manila had a bumpy flight, dodging towering cumulus that hovered over the green, jungly islands of the southern Philippines. During the trip of over sic! hundred miles, they took on half a dozen passengers who included planters and businessmen and two elderly Chinese gentlemen who did not exchange one word with each other, although they sat together in the uncomfortable bucket seats of the rickety plane. Willi seemed absorbed in her own thoughts when the pilot suddenly put the ship into a steep dive, swooped under a thunderhead shot through with the livid colors of a rainbow, and seemed to pluck a landing field out of nowhere from among the patterns of plantation and teak forest and pale green seacoast below. The wheels touched down as lightly as a pair of feathers.