Читать книгу Warlord Of The Pit - James Axler - Страница 9

They were small, fierce Malaysians, all of them adorned in little more than rags. They carried a variety of pistols and carbines. The tallest man, who stood five foot eight, stared at Grant and Kane in astonishment.

A purple silk scarf enwrapped the Malaysian’s forehead, and gold earrings glittered in the lobes of both ears. His face and hands were covered by a network of old scar tracings. A scraggly mustache twisted down around the sides of his mouth, which was open in surprise.

For a long moment no one moved or spoke. Then the man in the purple scarf demanded in passably good English, “Where the fuck did you two come from?”

“Montana,” Kane replied, striving to sound nonchalant. “What about you?”

The man ignored Kane’s question. “You’re not part of Captain Saragayn’s crew. I know all of them.”

“Are you one of his crew?” Grant asked.

The man’s face convulsed with anger. “You don’t know who I am?”

“Should we?” Kane inquired.

The man tapped his chest with a thumb. “I’m Mersano.” The little Malaysian said the name as if it would explain everything.

Kane pointed to himself and Grant. “I’m Kane. This is Grant. We’re trying to find a friend of ours. We got separated when the fighting broke out.”

Mersano’s eyebrows rose. “A friend? A woman?”

Before Kane could reply, a grenade exploded with a muffled crump, blowing a blast of muck and rock fragments in through the hole in the wall. A brief burst of gunfire followed the detonation, and a bullet chipped stone out of the wall beside Grant’s right shoulder. Everyone dropped flat to the floor as three more rounds struck the wall and keened away.

“Their grenade fell short but they’ll try again,” Mersano said angrily.

“Who will?” Grant demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”

Mersano gestured toward the gap in the front of the building. “Captain Saragayn’s crew is trying to kill me and my men.”

“Why?” Kane asked.

“Because me and some others tried to boot him out of office,” Mersano answered, raising his head and gazing at the darkness beyond the hole. “I think you two ought to throw in with us.”

“Good call,” Kane commented dryly, turning and aiming his pistol through the gap. He squeezed off a single shot, the Bren Ten slamming like a door.

Immediately a volley of bullets stormed in, ricocheting and chipping out fragments of stone. Kane counted at least four separate muzzle-flashes.

“They’ve got us pinned down,” Grant said. “They’ll chuck in more grens once they can get closer.”

Mersano chuckled, a harsh, bitter sound. He heaved himself to one knee. “Then it’s best not to linger.”

Kane cast him a questioning glance. “Do you know of a way out of here?”

Mersano thumbed back the hammer of the big Casull revolver he carried and spoke to his two men in a dialect that neither Grant nor Kane understood. His men nodded in understanding and readied their carbines. Thunder rolled and lightning flared.

“What’s the escape route?” Grant asked impatiently.

Mersano sprang to his feet. “Through the hole.”

He leaped through the cavity, landing in the mud outside. He crouched, eyes and gun barrel questing for targets. No one shot at him. Over his shoulder, he said quietly, “The captain’s men are circling around behind us. No one is paying much attention to the front.”

“Define ‘much attention,’” Kane demanded.

Mersano’s men jumped through the hole in the wall, joining their chief outside. Kane and Grant exchanged glances of weary resignation and then followed the men. They swept the perimeter with watchful gazes. The rain slackened as the heart of the storm moved farther inland.

Their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and Mersano gestured for everyone to follow him. “Move! Bergerak! Move!”

As the group of men sprinted across an open expanse of ground, a barrage of gunfire blazed from the interior of the hut. Voices rose in cries of outrage. Geysers of mud spewed up around them as bullets plowed into the ground.

Kane half turned to return the fire. Then he glimpsed a small projectile lancing overhead, seemingly propelled by a ribbon of spark-shot smoke. It arrowed through the gap in the wall of the hut. The interior instantly lit up with an orange nova of flame, surrounded by a dark mushroom of muck. The explosion slammed against his eardrums. The roof lifted up and one wall collapsed outward.

Kane returned his focus to running through the rain over uncertain ground.

“Don’t shoot! It’s me!” Mersano shouted.

The group ran into a narrow alley formed by several stacks of shipping crates. A tall figure in a hooded rain cape cradling a short-barreled, big-bored LAW rocket launcher stepped out of the shadows to meet them.

“Clarise!” Mersano shouted, showing his discolored teeth in a grin. “I was getting worried about you.”

“I was delayed,” said a soft female voice touched by a French accent. “A thousand pardons.”

Clarise pulled back the hood, revealing a face of surprisingly exotic beauty. She was a tall woman with skin the color of ivory, deep blue eyes and an athletic body with full, proud breasts and strong hips. Her long blond hair glittered with a patina of raindrops.

Clarise cast her suspicious gaze toward Kane and Grant. They met it with neutral expressions. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said.

Mersano nodded toward the two men. “Grant and Kane. From Montana.”

Clarise’s eyebrows rose. “Ah. The Americans from Cerberus who’ve been trying to unite Roamer, robber, Farer and freebooter against a common foe.”

“Yeah, that sounds like us,” Grant said blandly. “How did you know that?”

“I have my sources,” Clarise replied. “How’s that job working out for you?”

“Not so bad in some places, terrible in others,” Kane answered. “Like Pandakar, for example.”

Clarise laughed, but it sounded forced. “If you’d only delayed your arrival by a day or two, your reception would have been quite different. As it is, your timing for a diplomatic effort could not have been worse if you had planned it that way.”

Grant scowled. “Yeah, we figured that out after it was too late.”

Kane gestured in the direction of the huge treasure ship. “One of our party is aboard the Juabal Hadiah.”

The humor in Clarise’s eyes faded. “Yes, I know. A woman named Baptiste.”

Suspicion raised Kane’s nape hairs and his hand tightened around the grip of his pistol. “How do you know her name?”

“I was introduced to her,” Clarise said curtly. “Until a couple of hours ago, I was Captain Saragayn’s executive officer…and his wife.”

“His wife?” Grant echoed incredulously.

“One of five,” Clarise explained smoothly. “I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn the captain has intentions of trying your friend Baptiste out for the sixth.”

Kane’s shoulders stiffened. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Perhaps we should get out of the rain,” Mersano suggested. “This is only good weather for sitting ducks.”

He laughed shortly at his own joke although no else did.

“Follow me.” Clarise led the men farther down the passageway between the wooden crates. It was extremely dark in the narrow aisle, almost pitch-black.

Far too late, Kane sensed the rush of bodies. He tried to acquire a target for his Bren Ten, but a hard foot whipped out of the gloom and slammed into the pit of his stomach, just above his groin. The air exploded from his lungs, and he folded in the direction of the sickening pain. He staggered, trying to force himself erect, only to feel his shoulders gripped by hands that should have belonged to a great ape.

Kane shook himself violently to break free of the agonizing grasp. In the murk, he heard Grant’s voice blurt a curse, then Clarise shouting in French. A series of smacking, thudding impacts filled the damp, the sound of savage struggle at close quarters.

A man cried out in pain and a white shaft of gunfire blazed in the darkness. A body fell heavily almost at Kane’s feet. His assailant shifted his grip from his upper arms to a bear hug, catching him up in a crushing embrace, pinning his arms against his sides. He thought he heard a rib break, but then realized it was the sound of a bladed weapon chopping into a wooden crate.

Sagging forward, Kane shifted his center of gravity into a dead, unresisting mass. His attacker loosened his grip ever so slightly, trying to pull him upright. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Kane kicked himself backward, smashing the rear of his skull into the nose and mouth of the man standing behind him. He stumbled backward and crashed into a crate. Kane broke free and turned, gasping for air. He glimpsed a shadowy shape rushing toward him, arms outspread, and he squeezed off two shots. He heard a ghastly gurgle and a heavy body toppled nearly at his feet.

Kane leaned against a crate, breathing hard, heart trip-hammering. He heard Grant’s voice, “Kane! Where the hell are you?”

He coughed and replied, “Here. Where the hell are you?”

“Getting the hell out of here. Follow my voice.”

Kane did so, tripping over two bodies before he found his companions clustered at the far end of the aisle formed by the shipping crates. They emerged at the edge of the jungle. The green wall of foliage looked thick enough to be nearly impenetrable, but Clarise found a small path. Everyone fell into step behind her, walking single file. Kane’s mind toyed with images of poisonous snakes coiled to strike, of scorpions clinging to low-hanging branches and worse forms of wildlife. He knew from prior experience that all jungles held nasty surprises.

Clarise led the way with quick confidence despite the dark. The wind died down to no more than an intermittent breeze. The rain ebbed to a drizzle, then only a spritzing. Lightning still arced across the sky, but the heart of the storm was a couple of miles away. Humidity rose, and streamers of mist curled up from the ground. The world was a primeval, menacing green with night-blooming epiphytes and flowering creepers stretching down from the branches overhead.

They roused a family of langurs, monkeys with white eye rings. There was a brief, outraged chittering as they jumped in great arcs between the trees. No one spoke as they marched. There was the constant pelt and drip of water from the canopy of leaves above them. Kane kept checking his bare arms for the giant gray leeches that dropped from the branches and attached themselves to the flesh.

In the darkness, the danger of straying off the path, and becoming lost was a greater hazard than leeches. Even in daylight, enveloped within the suffocating heat and humidity and thick foliage it would have been difficult to find the trail.

Then the overgrowth opened up in a small clearing. In the center rose a mat hut built on rickety, leaning stilts. The tips of the thatched roof dripped incessantly with rainwater.

The people quickly climbed up a bamboo ladder into the interior of the hut. The reed walls exuded a cloying, pungent aroma, and the floor was damp. Neither Kane nor Grant relaxed, keeping their weapons close to hand. Mersano produced a candle from a small box and lit the wick with a wooden match.

In the flickering, yellow illumination, everyone stared at the outlanders with a mixture of bemusement and distrust, but no one spoke. Irritably, Kane asked, “Is anybody going to tell us what’s going on here?”

Clarise’s shoulders lifted in a shrug beneath her rain cape. “Pandakar is a pirate stronghold and has been for the last one hundred years. It’s a family business.”

“Not surprising,” Grant said. “Piracy flourished in this part of the world up until the late twentieth century.”

“The extent of it is becoming a little too broad,” Kane stated. “Trade lanes and shipping routes are closing down. According to our intel, Captain Saragayn’s fleet looted 300 ships last year.”

“More like 310,” Clarise replied. “He tried to expand onto land, setting up an empire along the China coast. He seized territory and villages, but the armies of several warlords united and drove him out.”

“Saragayn suffered major losses,” Mersano interposed smoothly. “He’s weak in terms of manpower and matériel. We thought this would be the optimum time to overthrow him.”

“Apparently you miscalculated,” Kane pointed out dryly.

“Not as much as you might think,” Clarise countered. “We drew most of his forces away from his treasure ship. We’ve got our own people on the inside.”

“Like you?” Grant inquired. He looked toward Mersano. “And you’re one of his rivals?”

An enigmatic smile touched his lips. “You might say that. I’m his son, back from exile. Most of the captain’s inner circle is made up of his bastard spawn who have their own designs on the old man’s fortune.”

Kane gusted out a sigh. “This is starting to sound complicated.”

Clarise chuckled. “We did say it was a family business.”

“I have my own small fleet,” Mersano continued proudly. “My theater of operations is the Sulu Sea. Occasionally we raid along the south China coast, but I prefer the merchant junks. I also run military supplies—guns, food and medicine—to some of the warlords setting up in shop in Indochina. I have my own connections, so I don’t need Saragayn.”

“Then why are you staging this attack?” Grant challenged.

“Saragayn is considered a devil incarnate, even here where life is not held even to the value of a cigar,” Clarise said grimly.

“My father is still ambitious,” Mersano went on, “but his ambitions exist now for their own sake. Wealth is only a means to an end with him. He’ll never be satisfied. And now he’s negotiating with outsiders who’ve promised him support if he stages a new assault on China.”

“These outsiders you mentioned…do they happen to travel under the name of the Millennial Consortium?” Kane intoned quietly.

Clarise’s eyes narrowed, her full lips creasing in a frown. “They do. Is it because of them you are here? To prevent that alliance?”

Kane dug into a pants pocket and produced a small button made of base metal. He flipped it toward Clarise, who snatched it out of the air. Holding it close to the flame of the candle, she examined the image inscribed upon it: the stylized representation of a standing, featureless man holding a cornucopia—a horn of plenty—in his left hand and a sword in his right, both crossed over his chest.

“Have you seen anyone wearing that button?” Kane asked.

Clarise nodded. Tossing aside her rain cloak, she turned out the lapel of her shirt and displayed an identical disk. “This should give you an idea of how deep the infiltration has become. Even Saragayn’s top officers are required to wear those buttons.”

“Who is the consortium emissary?” Grant asked.

“He goes by the name of Mr. Book. Obviously an alias.”

“Obviously,” Grant agreed. “Is he here now?”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know. Perhaps he got wind of the insurrection and fled, with the idea of returning and cutting a deal with the winner.”

Kane smiled without humor. “Yeah, that’s the consortium’s strategy, all right.”

“I placed my men all along the waterfront,” Mersano said. “Even aboard the Juabal Hadiah. Scores of them are masquerading as laborers, fishermen, deckhands. We thought when the time came, we would strike all at once and seize power quickly.”

“We were betrayed,” Clarise said softly, bleakly.

“That’s all very interesting,” Grant stated, “but at this point all we care about is recovering our friend and getting out of here.”

“Captain Saragayn won’t let Baptiste go now,” Clarise replied.

Kane’s jaw muscles tightened into knots. “Why not?”

“For one thing,” Mersano said, “he might suspect she had something to do with the insurrection.”

“Or,” Grant interjected, “if she was spotted by the consortium agent and recognized, she could have been ratted out.”

“Or,” Clarise said, “there could be a simpler explanation—Saragayn wants her for himself. But whatever the reason, if you want Baptiste back, your only option is to ally yourselves with us. I’m sure you’ve heard the old bromide about the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Yeah, we have.” Kane blew out a disgusted breath. “Too many damn times.”