Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 34~36

34Water HazardJefferson Pardee was trying desperately not to look interchangeable a sea turtle. Hed managed to find the ledgemanace, befool his br play outh, and put his mask on. Blood from his nose was right away swishing around inside it equivalent brandy in a snifter. After locating the floating gar stande bag that contained his clothes and propping it under his chest as a life preserver, his main focus was not to look like a turtle. To a shark upkeep in the w develop Pacific waters off Alualu, sea turtles were food. Not that there was any real danger of a shark making that withalt mistake. Even a mentally challenged shark would figure off that sea turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in evanescent piggies, and no turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in flying piggies, and no turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain-smoker gasps of breath. Still, a couple of harmless exsanguine-tipped lower sharks smelled blood in the water and cruised by to check out the source, only to retreat, regret-ting that in iodin hundred and twenty million age on the planet they had never evolved the equipment to laugh.The surf was calm and the tide low, and considering Pardees buoyancy, the swim should permit been easy. But when Pardee saw the devil black shadows cruise by below him, his heart started playing a sternum-rattling organize solo that kept up until he barked his knees on the take down. An antler of coral caught the plastic bag, stopping Pardees progress long enough for him to notice that here on the reef the water was only two feet heavyset. He flipped over on his back, then sat on the coral, not truly caring that it was knapting into his bottom. Waves lapped around him as he fought to catch his breath. He lifted his mask and let the blood run down his face and over his chest to expand into a grey-h sended stain in the water. Tiny blue and yellow reef fishrose around him looking for food and nipping at his skin, ti ckling him like teasing children.He looked toward the beach, perhaps two hundred yards away. Inside the reef the danger of sharks was minimal minimal enough that he would sit here and lie in for a trance. He watched the waves breaking well-fixedly around him, lapping against his back, and realized, with horror, that he was termination to fix to do this again in a few hours, against the waves and probably the tide. Hed assume to find some atomic number 53 with a boat that was all there was to it.Ten items passed before his heart slowed down and he was able to leaf blade his courage enough to swim the final leg. He picked out a stand of coconut palms above a small beach and slid across the reef toward the is-land. He kicked slowly, scanning the water around him for any sign of sharks. Except for a moment of temporary terror when a manta ray with a s so far-foot wingspan flew out of the blue and passed below him, the swim to the beach was safe and easy. If manta rays are goi ng to be harmless, they should look more harmless, Pardee thought. Fuckers look like aquatic Draculas.He sat in the wash at the waters edge and was tearing the tape that held the fins on his feet when he heard a sharp windup(prenominal) click behind him. He move to condition two men in black pointing Uzis at his head. Pardee grinned. Konichi-wa, he give tongue to. You guys learn a dry fag? I seem to dupe torn my garbage bag.A seven iron, foregather, thought. After all these years I need a seven iron. puzzle exemplar did not play golf. Hed tried it once, and although hed en- rejoicinged the alcoholism and driving the little electric car into the lake, he just didnt pro bring round the appeal. It seemed and hed examined the game closely be-cause his arrive had loved it an awful lot like a bunch of rich white guys in goofy clothing walking around on an absurdly large lawn hitting ab-surdly small white balls with crooked sticks. If the greens were at opposite ends of the sa me fairway and foursomes had to play against each other, defending their own green while assaulting the opponents and risking getting hit with a ball or a club at close quarters, well, then youd have a game. If the game was scored on how right away one got finished the eighteen holes instead of the fewest strokes and they dropped small-block Chevys into the little carts, why, then youd have yourself a game. (Maybeput those little Ben-Hur food processors on the wheels and keep back it jural to hamstring competitors.) But traditional golf, as it was, had always left Tuck cold. Strange, then, that he absolutely yearned for a seven iron, or maybe a shotgun.Tuck had been up since before dawn, awakened rudely and kept awake by what seemed like eight million roosters. It was now ten oclock and they were still going strong. What joy to feel the thwack of a seven iron on red feathers, the satisfying impact of balanced metal on poultry (suddenly si-lenced and somewhat tenderize for your trouble). He saw himself wading into a bucket of roosters, swinging his seven iron madly ( but always keeping his head down and his left arm straight), dealing death and de-struction like the Colonels own avenging angel. Wel be to Tucker Cases chicken death camp, my little feathered friends. Now, kindly prepare to have your nuggets knocked off.Tucker Case was not a morning person.He decided that hed give them five more minutes to shut up, then he was going to get change and go borrow a seven iron from the doc. Five minutes later he was preparing to leave when Beth Curtis knocked and opened his door without waiting for an answer. She was wearing usable surgical blues and a hairnet she wore no makeup and the vapid housewife smile was gone from her eyes.Mr. Case, we need you to be pee to fly in two hours. Can you do it?Uh, current. I guess. Where are we going?Japan. The navigational settings should already be programmed into the planes computer. I need you to have your preflight f inished and the Lear fueled and on the runway, ready to go.Tucker entangle as if he was talk of the town to a different person than the one he had seen for the last week. There was no hint of the soft femininity, just hard business.I havent had time to go over the controls for the Lear.You took the job, didnt you? Can you fly it?Tuck nodded.Then be ready in two hours. She turned and marched toward the hospital building. Tuck started to follow her, then noticed movement through the trees, down by the beach men unloading fuel drums from a longboat onto the pier. He could see a white freighter anchored outside the reef.Mrs. Curtis he called.She turned and regarded him like an annoying insect. Yes, Mr. Case.That ship. You didnt testify me there was a ship.It doesnt concern you. They are just now delivering some supplies. Now please, prepare the plane.But if theyre delivering supplies, why do we need to?Mr. Case, she barked, do your job. The doctor needs me. She threw open the hospit al door and stepped inside.Ask him if I can borrow his seven iron, Tuck said weakly.Tuck shuffled back toward his bungalow. Just a few seconds in the sun had given him a business concern and he felt as if he would pass out any second. He was going to fly again. He was sick and dizzy and suffered from talking thresh about hallucinations and he was going to get to do the only thing he had ever been any good at. It scared the hell out of him.It had been fifty years since men with guns had entered the village of the Shark People. As the four guards went from house to house, Malink walked the paths of the village, his cordless phone in overturn so the people could see that he had things under control. Hed been calling the thaumaturgist since the four Nipponese had arrived in the village, but hed only gotten the answering machine. He had told everyone to go inside their houses and not to resist the guards, and even now the village seem deserted, except for the sobs of a few frightene d children. He could hear the guards kicking their way through the coconut husks that had been piled in the cookhouses for fuel.Suddenly Favo was at his side. Favo, who had seen the coming of the Japanese during the war, had seen the murdering. Why does Vincent allow this?Malink really didnt have an answer. He had lit the Zippo and asked Vincent that very morning. It is the will of the Sorcerer, so it must be the will of Vincent. They privation the girl-man.We should fight, Favo said. We should kill the guards.Spears against machine guns, Favo? Should the children grow up without fathers like we did? No, they will find the girl-man and they will go away.The girl-man has gone to live with Sarapul. Did you tell them?I told them. I took the Sorcerer there.The guards came out of the old church and crunched in single file down the path toward Favo and Malink. The old men stood their ground, making the guards walk into a stand of ferns to get around them. They made no eye contact and sa id nothing. Favo hurled a curse at them, but it had been too long since he had spoken Japanese and it was not a language typesetters caseed for swearing. He ended up telling them that their truck tires smelled of sardines, which elicited no response whatsoever.Excellent curse, Malink said, trying to nourish his friends spirits.It needs work. incline is the best for swearing.They have machine guns, Favo.Fuckin mooks, Favo said.Amen, Malink said, crossing himself in the sign of the B-26 bomber.The two old men fell in behind the guards, following them from house to house, waiting outside on the path so the villagers could see them when they were roused out of their houses.For the guards assort, it was a wholly unsatisfying endeavor. They had been looking forward to kicking in some doors, only to find that the Shark People had no doors. There were no beds to throw over, no back rooms to burst into, no closets, no place, in fact, where a man could hide and not be exposed by the most perfunctory inspection. And the doctor had told them that no one was to be hurt. They did not want to make a mistake. For all the appearance of military efficiency, they were s clusterups to a man. One, a former security guard at a nuclear fountain plant, had been fired for taking drugs two were brothers who had been dismissed from the Tokyo police department for accepting Yakuza bribes the fourth, from Okinawa, had been a jujitsu instructor who had beat out a German holidaymaker to death in a bar over a gross miscarriage of karaoke. The man who had recruited them, put them in the black uniforms, and trained them made it clear that this was their last chance. They had two choices succeed and become rich or die. They took their jobs very seriously.He might be in the trees, Favo said in Japanese. Look in the treesThe guards scanned the trees as they marched, which caused them to bump into each other and stumble. Above them there was a fluttering of wings. A glout of bat guano splat ted across the Okinawans forehead. He threw the bolt on his Uzi and the air was filled with the staccato roar of nine millimeters ripping through the foliage. When at last the clip was empty, palm fronds settled to the groundaround them. Frightened children screamed in their mothers arms, and Favo, who was lying next to his friend with his arms thrown over his head, snickered like an asthmatic hyena.The guards scuffled for a moment, not sure whether to disarm their companion or choke up their clips home and begin the massacre. Above the crying, the scuffle, the snickering, and the tintinnabulation of residual gunfire, a girl giggled. The guards looked up. Sepie stood in the doorway of the bachelors house, naked but for a pair of panties shed recently ac-quired from a transvestite navigator. Hey, sailors, she said, trying out a phrase shed also acquired from Kimi, you want a date? The guards didnt learn the words, but they got the message.Go inside, girl, Malink scolded. Women, eve n the mispel, were not permitted to interpret their thighs in public. Not even when swimming, not when bathing, not when crapping on the beach, not ever.Go back inside, Favo said. When they go away, you will be beaten.I have been beaten before, Sepie said. Now I will be rich.Tell her, Favo said to Malink.Malink shrugged. His authority as chief worked only as long as his people volitionally obeyed him. The key to retaining their respect was to find out what they wanted to do, then tell them to do it. He levied the most severe punishment he knew. Sepie, you may not touch the sea for ten days.She turned and wiggled her bottom at him, then disappeared into the bachelors house. The stunned guards ceased their scuffle and moved tentatively toward the doorway, looking to each other for permission.This is your fault, Malink said to Favo. You shouldnt have started giving her things.I didnt give her things, Favo said.You gave her things for and here Malink paused, trying to catch himself b efore losing a friend for doing favors for you.35Free Press, My AssJefferson Pardee sat on a metal office take in the corner of a windowless cinder-block room. The guard stood by the metal door, his machine gun trained on Pardees furry chest. The reporter was trying to affect an attitude of innocence tempered with a little righteous indignation, but, in fact, he was terrified. He could feel his heartbeat climbing into his throat and sweat rolled down his back in icy streams. Hed given up on trying to talk to the guards they either didnt speak English or were pretending they didnt.He heard the throw of the heavy bolt on the door and expected the other guard to return, but instead a woman wearing surgical garb entered the room. Her eyes were the same color as the surgical blues and even in the oppressive heat she looked chilly.At last, Pardee said. Theres been some kind of mistake here. He offered his reach out, trying not to show how unsteady he was, and the guard threatened hi m with the Uzi. Im Jefferson Pardee from the Truk Star.She nodded to the guard and he left the room. Her vocalize was friendly, but she wasnt smiling.Im Beth Curtis. My husband runs the mission clinic on this island. She didnt offer her hand. Im sorry youve been treated this way, Mr. Pardee, but this island is under quarantine. Weve tried to limit the contact with the outside until we have a better handle on this epidemic.What epidemic? I havent heard anything about this?Encephalitis. Its a rare strain, airborne and very contagious. We dont let anyone off island whos been exposed.Jefferson Pardee exhaled a deep sigh of relief. So this was the big story. Of course hed promise not to say a word, but Time magazine would kill for this. Hed leave out the part about being taken prisoner in his flying piggy boxers. And the guards?World Health Organization. Theyve also given us an aircraft and lab equipment, as Im sure youve seen.Hed seen an awful lot of lab equipment as he was led through the little hospital, but the aircraft was still a rumor. He decided to go for the facts. You have a new Lear park, is that correct?Yes. She seemed genuinely taken aback by his comment. How did you dwell?I have my sources, Pardee said, wishing he wore glasses so he could take them off in a meaningful way.Im sure you do. Information is like a virus sometimes, and the only way to find a cure is to trace it to the source. Who told you about the jet?Pardee wasnt giving anything for free. How long have you known about the encephalitis?For the archetypical time Pardee noticed that Beth Curtis had been property her right hand behind her back the entire time they had been talking. He noticed because when the hand appeared, it was holding a syringe. Mr. Pardee, this syringe contains a vaccine that my husband and I have developed with the help of the World Health Organization. Because you took it on yourself to sneak onto Alualu, you have exposed yourself to a deadly virus that at-tacks the nervous system. The vaccine seems to work even after exposure to the disease, but only if administered in the first few hours. I want to give you this vaccine, I really do. But if you insist on drawing out this little game of liars poker, then I cant guarantee that you wont contract the disease and die a horrible and painful death. So, that said, who told you about the jet?Pardee felt the sweat rising again. She hadnt raised her voice, there wasnt even a detectable note of anger there, but he felt as if she was holding a knife to his throat. Okay, to hell with the adventurous journalist. He could still get a byline based on what shed already told him. I talked to a pilot who passed through Truk a few months ago.A few months ago? Not more recently?No. He said he was going to fly a jet for some missionaries on Alualu. I came out to check it out.And that was all you heard? Just that we had a jet?Yes, its pretty unusual for a missioner clinic to have money for a jet, wouldnt you say?Sh e smiled. I guess it is. So how did you plan to get off the island after you got your story?The Micro Spirit was going to pick me up on the other side of the island. Thats it. I was just curious. Its an occupational hazard.Who knows youre here, besides the crew of the Spirit?Pardee considered her question what would be the best answer. for certain she wouldnt let him die of some dreaded disease, but how stupid would he have been to come out here without telling anyone? The people who work for me at the Star and a friend of mine at AP who I called for some background before I left.Oh, thats good, she said, still smiling. Pardee couldnt help but feel merry with himself. It had been a long time since hed gotten any approval or attention for that matter from a beautiful woman.She uncapped the syringe. Now, before I give you the vaccine, a few medical questions, okay?Sure. Shoot.You smoke and drink to excess, correct?I indulge from time to time. Another occupational hazard.I see, she said. And have you ever had a test for HIV?A month ago. Clean as a whistle. This was true. Hed been motivated to take the test by a creepy rash on his stomach that turned out to be caused by skin-burrowing mites. The medic with the Navy CAT team had given him an ointment that cleared it up in a few days.Have you ever had hepatitis, cancer, or kidney disease?Nope.How about your family? Anyone with a history of kidney disease or cancer?Not last time I heard. I havent talked with my family in twenty-five years.She seemed especially pleased at that. And youre not married? No children?No.Very good, she said. She plunged the needle into his shoulder and pushed the plunger.Ouch. Hey, you could have warned me. Arent you supposed(a) to swab that with alcohol first or something?She stepped to the door and smiled again. I dont ideate infec tion is going to be a problem, Mr. Pardee. Now dont panic, but in a minute or so you are going to go to sleep. I cant believe you bought that bit about t he encephalitis. People get stupid living in the tropics, dont you think?She went out of focus and the lines of the room started to heave as if the entire structure was breathing. What was in? His tongue was too heavy the words wouldnt come.You dont have a round and you didnt call anyone at AP, Mr. Pardee. That was a stupid lie. Well have to put self-importance down under cause of death.Pardee tried to stand, but his legs wouldnt obey him. He slid off the chair and his legs splayed straight out in front of him.Beth Curtis bent over him, pushed her lips into a pout, and baby-talked. Oh, are his wittle wegs all wobbly? She stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. To Pardee her face floated like the moon through clouds.She said, Youre probably thinking that Im being unusually cruel to tease a death man, but you see, youre not dying right now. Soon, but not right now.Pardee tried to form a question, but the room seemed to go liquid and crash over him like a black wave.Sebastia n Curtis walked down the dock to where the crew of the Micro Spirit was unloading fuel drums from a longboat. He was wearing his white lab coat over Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, a stethoscope hung from his neck like a medallion of power.The Micro Spirits first mate, who was drinking a Coke while administrate the unloading, jumped up on the dock to mate the doctor. Good morning.Good morning, Curtis said. Are you in charge here?Im the first mate.Curtis regarded the tattooed Tongan. Mr. Pardee will be staying with us for a while. Hes asked me to tell you not to wait for him.That dont bother you? the mate asked. It seemed strange to him after the effort Pardee had made to sneak onto the island.No, of course not. In fact, weve offered to fly Mr. Pardee to Hawaii when he finishes his work.The mate had never heard Pardees name in the same sentence as the word work. It didnt sound right. Still, he had his job to doand the doctor was compensable double freight for these barrels. H e said, Is he going to pay his fare?Curtis smiled and pulled a wad of bills out of the pocket of his shorts. Of course. He asked me to give you the money. How much is it?From Truk, one way, is threesome hundred.The doctor counted out a green goddess of twenties and held it out to the mate. Heres six hundred. Mr. Pardee asked me to pay the round-trip fare, since thats what he originally contracted for.The mate stared at the stack of bills. He had known Jefferson Pardee for ten years and had never even known the man to buy a beer now he was just giving him three hundred extra dollars? Three hundred dollars that the company and the captain didnt know about. Okay, he said. He snatched the money out of the doctors hand and shoved it into his pocket before the crew could see.He would get the whole crew drunk and they would toast the generosity of Jefferson Pardee.36Return to the SkyThe Lear 45 was a working corporate issue, the pose upholstered in muted blues and grays, facing each oth er over small worktables. For some reason Tucker had expected something more unusual satiny carnival colors with a monkey in a flight attendant outfit perhaps a stark metal interior unfinished for cargo maybe stainless steel over enamel with a lot of complicated medical gizmos. Nope, this was the standard, run-of-the-mill station wagon model of your rudimentary four-million-dollar jet.He slid into the pilots seat and a rage of epinephrin coursed through him, as if his body was reliving the crash of the pink Gulfstream. He fought the urge to bolt, let the adrenaline jag settle to a low-grade nausea, then started his preflight checklist. Everything looked normal the instruments and controls were in place. He snapped on the power for the gauges and nothing happened no lights, no LEDs, nothing.He felt the plane move as someone came up the retractable steps and suddenly one of the guards reached around him and inserted a cylindrical key into a socket on the instrument board. The guar d turned the key several times and the cockpit whirred to life.This thing has a main power cutoff? Tuck said to the guard.The guard remote the key and walked off the plane without saying a word.Nice chatting with you, Tuck said. Hed never seen a plane with an ignition key and he was sure that this one was not factory-issue. Why? Who would steal a jet airplane? Who could? I could, thats who. The doctor had installed the key to keep him from repeating his performance in Seattle. The missionary dirt didnt trust him.Tuck checked the navigation computer. It was, as Beth Curtis had told him, set for an airfield in southern Japan. He watched as the LEDs on the nav computer came on, indicating that it was acquiring the satellites it require to locate his position. When three were lit, his longitude and latitude flashed on the screen when a fourth satellite was acquired, he had his current altitude eight feet above sea level. He thought of Kimi navigating by the stars and felt a twinge of guilt for not trying harder to find him. He resolved to look for the navigator personally when he got back to Alualu.He ran through the checklist and threw the autostart switches for the engines. As the twin jets spooled up, Tuck felt his anxiety float away like an exorcised ghost. This is where he was supposed to be. This is what he did. For the first time in weeks he felt like his head was clear.He pushed the controls through their full range of motion and checked out the window to make sure that the flaps and ailerons were moving as well. Beth Curtis was coming across the compound toward the plane. At least he thought it was Beth Curtis. She wore a sharp, dark business suit with nylons and high heels. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun and she wore wire-frame aviator sunglasses. She carried a small plastic cooler in one hand and an aluminum briefcase in the other. She looked like one of Mary Jeans corporate killer attorneys. Her third identity in as many days.She walked into the plane and the guard pushed the regard as shut behind her. She stashed the cooler and briefcase in the overhead, then climbed into the cockpit and strapped herself in the copilots seat.Any problems? she said.You look nice today, Mrs. Curtis.Thank you, Mr. Case. Are we ready?Tuck. You can call me Tuck. I need you to look out the window and tell me if the flaps and ailerons move when I move the controls.They look fine. Shall we go?Tuck released the ground brakes and taxied out onto the runway. I need to pick up some sunglasses while were in Japan.Ill get you some. You wont be leaving the plane.I wont?Well only be on the ground for a few minutes, then well be coming back.Look, Mrs. Curtis, I know you think that because of the circumstances that brought me here that Im a total fuckup, but I am really good at what I do. You dont have to treat me like a child.She looked at him and took off her sunglasses. Tuck wished he had sunglasses so he could whip them off like that.She said, Mr. Case, Im putting my life in your hands right now. How much more confidence would you like?Tuck didnt really know how to answer. I guess youre right. Sorry. You could be a little less mysterious about whats going on here. I know that were not flying supplies, not with this plane and the kind of money youre paying me.If you really want to know, I can tell you. But if I tell you, Ill have to kill you.Tuck looked from the instruments to catch her expression. She was grinning, a deep silly grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes.He looked at the instruments. Im going to take off now. Okay?And I havent even shown you the best way to fight boredom on our little island.Tuck concentrated on the gauges and the runway. He said, What church do you and your husband work for?Methodist.Youll have to tell me about it.Whats there to tell? Methodists rock she said, then she giggled like a little girl as Tuck pulled the plane into the sky.Malink joined the drinking circle late, hoping that eve ryone would be drunk enough to forget what had gone on that day. Hed spent most of the after-noon at Favos house, afraid even to face his wife and daughters, but when the sun was well boiled in the sea, he knew he had to join the other men or face the consequences of tuba-poisoned theories and rumors aspiring to truth. He sneaked into an open spot in the circle and sat on the sand, even though several childlikeer men moved so he could sit on a log with his back to the tree. He threw an open pack of Benson & Hedges into the center of the circle and Favo divided up the smokes among the men. Some lit up, others broke them into sections to chew with betel nut, and a few tucked them behind their ears for later. The distraction wasshort-lived and one of the Johns, an elder, said, So why did Vincent send the Japanese into our houses?Malink waved him off as he drank from the coconut ticktock cup and made a great show of enjoying his first drink before handing the cup to Abo, who was pouri ng. Then he stalled another few seconds by excitement a Benson & Hedges with the Zippo, making sure everyone saw it and recalled, then after a long drag he said, Im fucked if I know. He said this in English English being the best language for swearing.It is not good, said John.They came to the bachelors house, said Abo, who, as usual, was angry. They looked at our mispels thighs.We should kill them, said one of the younger men who had been named for Vincent.And eat them someone added and it was as if the air had been pulled on the circle before it could inflate to well-rounded violent mob.Everyone turned to see Sarapul walking out of the shadows. For once, Malink was glad to see him. The old cannibal seemed to have a spring in his step, seemed younger, stronger.I need an ax, Sarapul said. The men who owned axes all stared into the sand or examined their fingernails.What for? Malink asked.I cant tell you. Its a secret.Youre not going to start headhunting, are you? Malink said. We ve put up with your talk of eating people, but I draw the line at headhunting. No headhunting while Im chief.Everybody grunted in agreement and Malink was glad to have been able to assert his authority in a way that no one could dispute. An anthropologist had once come to the island and given him a book about headhunters. Malink felt very cosmopolitan discussing the topic.Sarapul looked confused. Hed never read the headhunting book, had never read any book, but he did have a Classic Comics version of The Count of Monte Cristo, which a sailor had given him in the days before the Shark People were forbidden to meet visiting ships. Hed made Kimi read it to him every night. Sarapul liked the thread of revenge and murder that ran through the story.Sarapul said, What is this headhunting? I just want to cut a tree. black trees is taboo, said one of the younger men.I will get special dispensation, Sarapul said, using a term he had learned from Father Rodriquez.Malink shook his head. We dont have that anymore. We only had that when we were Catholics.I need an ax, Sarapul said, as if he might do better if he started over. And I need permission from the great Chief Malink to cut a tree.Malink scratched a mosquito bite and looked at his feet. It was true that he could give permission to break a taboo, and Sarapul had distracted the circle before they ganged up on him. You may cut one tree, on your side of the island, and you must show it to me before you cut it. Now, who has an ax?Everyone knew who owned axes, but nobody volunteered. Malink chose one of the young Vincents. You, go get your ax. Then to Sarapul he said Why do you need to cut a tree?Sarapul considered holding out, but decided that a credible lie would be better. My house is falling down from the girl-man climbing in the rafters.It was the wrong answer to give in front of a convocation of men whose houses had been rifled only hours ago. Malink cradled his head in his hands.The toughest part of the landing fo r Tuck was restraining himself from leaping out of the seat and demanding high-fives from the woman. It was perfect. He was back. Never mind the ghosts, the talking bats, the three-hour flight with a woman who could have been the model for the new Multiple Personality Barbie. Shes elegant, shes fashionable, and shes the reason that Ken has no genitals Have fun, but remember to hide the sharp stuffNever mind all that. He was a pilot.They were somewhere in southern Japan, a small jetport, probably private, with no tower and only a few hangars. Tuck had gotten them there by following the nav computer, which, he found in midflight, had only two coordinates programmed into it Alualu and this airfield.What happens if we have a problem and have to divert? he asked Beth.Dont worry about it, she said. She had spent most of the flight grilling him about the navigational instruments, as if she wanted toknow enough to be able to check the course herself. He complied, feeling insulted by the who le conversation.Another Lear was spooling up on the tarmac and Beth Curtis instructed him to taxi to it. As the jet bumped to a stop and he prepared to shut down, she pulled her briefcase and cooler out of the overhead and turned to him. Stay here. Well take off in a few minutes.What about loading supplies?Mr. Case, please just prepare the plane for departure. I wont be long.Two men in blue coveralls crossed the tarmac from the other jet and lowered the hatch for her. Tuck watched out the window as she met a third Japanese man in a white lab coat. She handed him the cooler and a folder from the briefcase, then traded bows with him and quickstepped back to the Lear. One of the men in blue coveralls followed her into the plane with a cardboard box, which he strapped into one of the passenger seats.Domo, Beth Curtis said.He bowed quickly, left the plane, and sealed the hatch. She stashed the briefcase in the overhead again climbed into the copilots seat.Lets go.Thats it?Thats it. Lets go.We should top off the fuel tanks while were here.I understand why you might be a little nervous about that, Mr. Case, but we have plenty of fuel to make it back.One box. Thats all were plectron up?One box.Whats in it?Its a case of 78 Bordeaux. Sebastian loves it. Lets go.But I have to use the bathroom. I thoughtHold it, Beth Curtis said.Bitch.Exactly. Now dont you need to do your checklist thingy?