The Pacific Conspiracy Read online

  "Do you really think Nwali would trust you here all alone?" Butch said. "No. While the others went to town and Bob went to check on his helicopter, I stayed here to keep an eye on you, and look what I found. Now move," Butch continued. "Out on deck."

  Frank felt the sharp point of the knife digging into the small of his back as Butch shoved him out of the cabin, which he locked. Frank had to shield his eyes when he went up on deck. The sun was directly overhead and unbelievably bright. He felt the pressure in Butch's knife hand ease up just a fraction. He must have been blinded by the sun, too.

  Frank spun at that moment and grabbed the Assassin's wrist with both hands.

  "You fool," Butch said, straggling to break his grip. "I'll kill you."

  "Why not drop the knife instead?" Frank said. He let go of the Assassin's wrist with his right hand and drove his right fist straight into Butch's stomach. He heard the man gasp and brought his left knee up into Butch's knife hand. The weapon clattered to the deck.

  They dived after it at exactly the same time. Frank got there first, grabbed the knife, and somersaulted away from Butch. When he turned back to face him, Butch was standing motionless, staring at him.

  "You're dead, Hardy," Butch said. "Nwali will kill you when he returns. Or perhaps he'll give you to Boris."

  Frank felt the deck railing at his back. For a second he considered jumping overboard and swimming for shore, but that would mean leaving Joe to these creeps.

  "Why don't you use that knife, boy?" Butch taunted, circling him. "Or don't you know how?"

  "I know how," Frank said, unsure that he could, even if it came down to his life versus Butch's.

  Butch must have read the hesitation in his eyes. The man charged him, ducking under the knife, and tackled him. Frank fell back, crashing into the wooden handrail that circled the ship.

  There was a loud crack. The next second the two of them were hurtling through the air, heading for the ocean below!

  Chapter 3

  Frank felt Butch's grip loosen and fall away. A split second later he slammed into the ocean. At almost the same time he heard Butch hit the water next to him.

  Before he knew what was happening Frank felt the Assassin's hands on his arm. He was trying to get the knife away from Frank.

  "Not so fast," Frank said. He raised his right knee up to his chin and then thrust it forward, catching the man in the chest. The blow caught Butch just right and knocked him back.

  Butch recovered and lunged for him again. This time Frank wasn't quick enough to escape, and Butch forced his head underwater with one "and. He ripped the knife out of Frank's grasp with the other.

  Frank was desperate to free himself - he couldn't breathe. Everything was happening in slow motion. Butch's knife slid through the water next to Frank. Frank kicked away, and the knife missed his shoulder by inches.

  "Hold still!" Butch yelled. He seemed to be moving at half speed, too. Fighting in the water was tiring both of them. The Assassin had the edge, though. He was willing to kill, and Frank wasn't.

  Frank kicked and shot upward so his head could break the surface. Gasping for air, he looked toward the waterfront. It was half a mile away.

  Even though he was exhausted, he forced himself to swim in the direction of the docks. It was his only way out. Ignoring the tightness in his lungs and the pounding of his heart, Frank pulled with all his strength.

  The next thing he knew, he was touching wood. A dock. He broke the surface and looked around. There was the motorboat that had ferried him and Joe to the Hatta that first night. He pulled himself up onto the planking.

  Suddenly agony erupted along the back of his right leg.

  He fell backward into the ocean. Butch, just a few feet behind him, had slashed him with the knife!

  "Let's see you swim now," the Assassin said, his mouth twisted in a cruel imitation of a smile.

  Then all at once Butch screamed.

  Frank didn't know what had happened. Then he saw a flash of gray and black stripes slither past him. Frank shuddered. It was a snake.

  "Help me," Butch cried out. He dropped the knife and turned back toward the dock.

  "Easy," Frank said. He swam up beside him and gave the Assassin a boost up onto the dock. As he did so a thick white plastic card fell out of Butch's pocket. Frank grabbed it and shoved it in his own pocket.

  He pulled himself up on the dock and helped Butch lie down. The man was hyperventilating now, and on his right leg a nasty-looking bruise was beginning to swell. Whatever kind of snake had bitten him must have been poisonous.

  "Take it easy," Frank said. "We'll get a doctor."

  Butch convulsed once, then clutched Frank's shirt with a hand. His eyes glazed over. Frank touched the side of his neck. No pulse, nothing. The man was dead.

  "What's happening?"

  Frank turned.

  Joe was standing on the pier above him, looking down. Next to him, eyes fixed on Frank, was Nwali.

  ***

  "You're sure you're okay?" Joe asked.

  "Fine," Frank said, checking the slash on the back of his leg. "The cut's not that deep."

  He and Joe were sitting side by side on their bottom bunk. The bed took up most of their small cabin. The only other furniture was a small built-in dresser with three drawers and a tiny mirror screwed to the wall just above it. It wasn't much but right then Frank felt lucky to have it.

  The alternative would be a spot on the floor of the Assassins' van, where Butch was right now. Boris was taking his fallen comrade's body to be buried. If not for that snake, Frank and Joe would be sharing that spot on the van's floor.

  "I think Nwali bought your explanation," Joe said.

  Frank shook his head. "I'm not so sure." He'd told the Assassins' leader that he and Butch had been roughhousing on deck and fell against the rail, which broke. The two had fallen into the ocean, where Butch had been bitten by a snake. An accident, pure and simple.

  Nwali hadn't asked a single question when Frank finished telling his story. He'd just nodded his head and then had Joe escort Frank back to their cabin.

  "How much worse off could we be, anyway?" Joe asked. "It's not like they tell us what's going on now."

  "That's true," Frank admitted. "We still don't know what we've been waiting for for the past two weeks or who this mysterious Krinski is."

  "I think we'll be finding out soon enough," Joe said.

  "Oh?" Frank turned to Joe, who had a half smile on his face. "And why is that?"

  "Because he's here."

  "What?" Frank asked excitedly. "You saw him?"

  "Take it easy," Joe said. "No, I didn't see him, but Bill said he'd arrived." With that he told Frank everything that had happened to him that day, starting with his run-in with Endang.

  "I almost forgot," Frank said when he finished. He pulled out Butch's thick white plastic card from his pocket and handed it to Joe. "What do you make of this?"

  "It looks like one of those magnetic ID cards," Joe said. He turned it over. Both sides were completely blank. "Where'd you get it?"

  "From Butch, before he died." Frank took the card and slipped it back in his pocket. "Keep an eye out for where we might use it."

  Joe nodded just as the door to their cabin swung open.

  "All right, you two, out on deck," Bill said, stepping inside and focusing on Joe. "You wanted to do something besides carry groceries, here's your chance."

  "Really? What's up?" Joe asked.

  Bill smiled. "Come topside and you'll see."

  They followed him up on deck to find another ship pulled up near them. The newcomer was an unmarked freighter, all rusted metal and peeling gray paint, slightly larger than theirs. A small crane set in the middle of the second ship was lowering crates directly into the Hatta's cargo hold.

  "Break for a minute!" Bill yelled across to the man operating the crane. He turned back to the Hardys. "I want you two to go below and stack those crates. Make sure we're not unbalanced."

  He po
inted to the top of a metal ladder poking out of the hold. "You climb down over there. When you're done give a yell up, and we'll send more crates down."

  "I think we can handle that," Joe said. Without another word he disappeared down the ladder. Frank followed him into the freighter's dim, musty cargo hold.

  "Whoa, it stinks in here," Joe said, holding his nose. "This must be Boris's room."

  "Very funny," Frank said. The hold was only about six feet high, so he knew he'd have to crouch down to move about. As he stepped off the ladder he did bump his head on the single source of light, one bulb dangling from a fraying electric wire. The bouncing bulb cast strange shadows on either side of him, like those from a strobe light.

  Frank quickly counted a half dozen crates scattered about the hold, with "SMCS" stenciled on them in letters about six inches high. Each crate was approximately the size of an old steamer trunk.

  "Let's stack three on each side," Frank said, taking hold of one crate and sliding it toward him. "Grab the other end."

  "Aren't you forgetting something?" Joe asked. "Don't we want to see what's inside these crates?"

  "Of course," Frank answered quietly. He glanced upward. "But let's make a little noise for our friend up there first. Let him think we're hard at work." He set the crate down and slid it flush against the hold's side, letting it drag against the ground so that it made a huge scraping sound. "What do you think these initials stand for?"

  Joe shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe that's what's in them, something called SMCS. There's only one way to find out for sure, though."

  The lid of the crate was nailed shut. Frank came up with a crowbar discarded in a corner. He jammed it into the space between the lid and the edge of the crate and ran the bar around the edge of the crate several times. He was able to pry the top up gradually without bending the nails, and finally the lid came off.

  To Frank's surprise, the crate was filled with instruction hard hats.

  "I don't get this," Frank said, shoving the lid back on the crate. He and Joe quickly pushed the nails back into place. "Let's try another."

  "Hurry it up down there!" Bill shouted down. "What's taking you so long?"

  "We're almost done!" Frank yelled back.

  Joe had moved to another crate that had red Indonesian writing stenciled across it. He was busy prying off its lid. He was faster at it than Frank had been.

  "Want to bet the lunch pails are in this one?" he asked as the lid lifted up with a screech.

  Frank reached around Joe and dug his hand into the crate. "It's straw," he said, pulling out a handful. "It must be covering something."

  He dug in deeper, and his fingers touched metal. Carefully he pulled out an oblong metal framework about the size of a milk crate.

  "What's this?" Frank asked, holding it up to the light. He spun it around in his hand and studied it from every angle. It looked almost like some sort of helmet, but the space inside was barely big enough for a child's head.

  Then the realization hit him.

  "You look sick," Joe said. "What's the matter?"

  "I feel sick," Frank replied. He held out the lattice of metal for his brother to examine. "You know what this is?"

  Joe shook his head. "From the tone of your voice, I'll bet it's not a lunch pail."

  "You can say that again. What we have here," Frank said quietly, "is part of the reaction chamber for a hydrogen bomb. This" - he pointed to the empty space in the center - "is where the plutonium goes."

  For once Joe was speechless.

  "The Assassins don't plan on selling Stavrogin's formula to anyone," Frank said. "They're going to build a hydrogen bomb themselves."

  Chapter 4

  Joe sat down heavily on top of another crate. Frank's words were spinning in his head - the Assassins were building a hydrogen bomb. "What do you think they plan to do with it?" he asked.

  "What do terrorists do with any weapon?" Frank shook his head. "Kill people." His voice sounded detached, as if he couldn't believe what he was saying.

  Joe couldn't believe it, either. For the first time in his life he felt he was involved in something way over his head. They weren't just solving a simple mystery here. They were dealing with lunatics who would have the means to murder millions of people.

  "We have to get to the Gray Man," Joe said-

  "That's for sure," Frank agreed. "But we've got to finish stacking these crates first."

  Joe got to his feet as his brother replaced the metal framework in the crate. He helped Frank seal it shut.

  "All set down here!" Frank yelled up. While they waited for the crane to send down the rest of the crates he turned back to his brother.

  "Got any ideas on how to contact the Network?" Frank asked. "It's not like these guys are going to let us off the ship."

  Joe thought a minute. "Maybe," he said. "It depends on how culturally deprived our leader is feeling."

  ***

  "It has been fifteen years since I've seen wayang," Nwali said. The Assassin leader paused a moment before dipping a shrimp cracker in the red sauce before him. He used his right hand, of course. He'd told Frank and Joe the left was considered unclean by Indonesians, especially on his home island of Bali. "I fear the art will have decayed in this much time."

  The sauce was sambal, red chili paste - a condiment Indonesians used on their food the way Americans used salt. Frank had tried some earlier, but a pinch of it had taken off the top layer of skin on his tongue.

  Nwali swallowed a teaspoonful with a smile.

  "I hope not," Frank said. "You make it sound interesting."

  Nwali had explained something of the wayang kulit during their meal. It sounded like puppet theater to Frank, only more complicated. The dalang was the puppet master, responsible for the movements and voices of up to hundreds of different puppets. The audience actually saw only the shadow of the puppet. It was projected onto a screen that the dalang sat behind.

  It really did sound interesting, but right then the only thing Frank could think of was the cargo in the Hatta's hold.

  He still didn't know why Nwali had agreed to Joe's suggestion that they see the wayang performance. The Assassin leader had even treated them to a meal in a small restaurant on the outskirts of Djakarta. Maybe he was celebrating the arrival of those crates. Or the mysterious Dr. Krinski. Or maybe, as Joe had suggested, he had gotten tired of nothing but tea and grapefruit.

  Frank wasn't about to complain. The meal was easily the best food he'd had in a month. Nwali had called the food rijstafel, "rice table." The dish got its name from the huge bowl of rice the waiter set in the middle of the table. A half dozen other dishes came with it. Those were on a separate serving platter, each in its own small metal dish.

  "Try this one," Nwali said, pushing the serving platter toward Frank. "Daging bakar pelecing." The dish facing him had pieces of what looked like steak, with little flecks of red pepper on the surface. Frank hoped the flakes weren't as hot as the sambal.

  He cut off a small piece of the meat and popped it in his mouth with some rice.

  "Wow," he said. "That's great."

  Nwali almost smiled. "Some of our traditions, at least, remain unchanged. But the wayang will have decayed," he repeated. "Forty years ago there were thousands of dalangs on Bali. Today there are perhaps a hundred. The influx of Western culture, the lure of money, a faster-paced life-style - all have combined to destroy our traditions. Americans," he said, focusing on Frank, "are mainly to blame."

  The conversation, which had been lively until Nwali's accusation, came to an abrupt halt. The rest of the meal passed in silence. After dessert the three took a taxi to the arts center.

  Stepping out of the cab, Joe got caught up in the middle of a group of tourists lined up to buy snack cakes and drinks outside the center. He stopped for a minute to take a look at the building.

  All concrete and steel, the TIM looked like it could have been plopped down in any city, anywhere in the world. There was nothing Indonesian
about it at all. For a split second Joe sympathized with Nwali's earlier ravings about how native traditions were disappearing. Then he remembered the man was a lunatic.

  Nwali led them inside the auditorium, where several hundred people were milling around, none of whom seemed in a hurry to take their seats. On the stage a transparent white screen about six feet high by twelve feet across had been set up between two metal rods. A light bulb shone through the screen from behind.

  "In front," Nwali said, pointing toward the stage. "We'll get the best view of the dalang from there."

  He led them to the righthand side of the theater. From where they sat Joe could see behind the screen by leaning forward. Several dozen incredibly detailed puppets, made of leather and decorated with jewels, hung from supports on either side of the screen. There was a large cushioned seat directly behind it. For the dalang, he guessed.

  "Joe!"

  He turned. Endang was standing in the aisle next to him, smiling.

  "I'm glad to see you could make it," she said.

  "Who is this, Joseph?" Nwali asked, his eyes never leaving Endang's face.

  "Endang. She's the girl I met at the supermarket, who told me about the wayang." He smiled at her and stood. "This is my brother, Frank, and our host - "

  "Pleased to meet you," Nwali said, interrupting the introduction.

  Endang nodded in greeting. "Do you have a minute?" she asked Joe. "There are some friends I'd like you to meet."

  "Sure," he said. This was a real break. Now he wouldn't even have to make up an excuse to get away. "I'll be right back."

  He followed Endang as she pushed her way through the crowd toward the back of the auditorium.

  "Are these shows always this jammed?" he called after her.

  She turned and nodded. "This way," she said, taking his arm and leading him through an unmarked door. It shut behind him, and suddenly the crowd noise disappeared entirely.