Lost Empire

CHAPTER 17

SUKUTI ISLAND

“THERE!” REMI CALLED FROM THE BOW. “ALL STOP! BACK SLOW.”

With his view blocked by the mast, Sam throttled to neutral, let the dhow drift a bit, then reversed and eased backward around the knob of shoreline they’d been following.

“That’s good,” she called. “They’re about a mile ahead of us. Another ten minutes and they’ll make the turn north.”

Forty minutes earlier, after beaching their dhow in the cove, they’d wasted no time in getting under way. Sam and Remi hoped the Rinker was on a route that would take it along Sukuti’s southern coast and back to Okafor’s docks, as their planned approach would take them around the northern side of the island. They were anxious to reach the relative safety of the inlet that separated Little Sukuti from Big Sukuti-providing that, too, wasn’t on the Rinker’s route.

While a straight shot along the southern coast would have been the quickest route to the docks, it would also have left them exposed to any observant eyes and ears. By following the inlet north and shadowing the coast around to the western side, they would be invisible to anyone not standing atop the escarpment.They sat in silence, watching the sun on its slow downward arc to the horizon, until finally Remi checked her watch and said, “Slow ahead.”

Sam started the engines and goosed the dhow’s throttle, easing them from behind cover. On the bow, Remi lay on her belly with the binoculars trained along the coast.

“They’re gone,” she said. “We’re clear.”

Sam shoved the throttle forward, and the dhow surged ahead. Another ten minutes passed. Remi called out: “There it is.”

Sam leaned sideways over the rail until he could see, a couple hundred yards away, the mouth of the inlet. No more than fifty feet wide, the channel looked as much like a tunnel as it did an inlet, its banks overgrown with jungle and trees arcing over the water to form an impenetrable canopy, save a patch of ten-foot-wide sky down the center.Sam eased the dhow’s wheel to starboard. The bow came about.

Remi walked aft, ducked under the boom, and dropped to the deck beside Sam. “Jungle Cruise,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“The inlet. Remember the Disney World Jungle Cruise? That’s what this reminds me of.”

Sam chuckled. “My favorite ride as a kid.”

“Sam, it’s still your favorite ride.”

“True.”

Within minutes they’d closed to within a hundred yards of the inlet’s mouth. They felt the dhow shudder beneath their feet, and it leapt ahead, picking up five knots in as many seconds.“Good call,” Remi said to her husband.

Having already experienced the power of the current off Zanzibar, Sam had earlier worried about similar conditions here. Positioned as it was along the coast, with the tide surging from the south, the mouth of the inlet was a hydraulic vacuum, sucking ocean in from the south and spitting it out to the north.

Sam switched off the engine to save gas and gripped the wheel tighter. He said, “The good news is, we probably don’t have to worry about running aground. This current’s digging a pretty deep trench in there.”

The dhow bucked to the side and the stern slipped sideways. Sam corrected first to starboard, then to port, and the bow realigned on the mouth of the inlet. With both hands clamped on the rail, Remi was leaning over the side, a smile on her face, auburn hair streaming behind her.“How fast are we going?” she called.

“Ten, twelve knots,” Sam replied, laughing. This close to the water’s surface it felt much faster. “Better make your way forward. I’m going to need your eyes.”

“Aye, captain.” She made her way to the bow. “Fifty yards to go,” she called. “Steady on.”

To starboard Sam watched a four-foot wave crash over an exposed sandbar. “Surge coming,” he warned Remi and turned the wheel a few degrees to meet it. The wave hit them on the starboard bow, pushing the dhow sideways. The bow started to swing around off course. Sam muscled the wheel hard to starboard, compensating until the surge passed and the bow found the line again.“Looking good. Steady on,” Remi called. “Twenty yards.”

Sam leaned over the starboard rail and looked down. The indigo water was thirty to forty feet deep, but six feet to the right he could see the white sand bottom through the turquoise water. He leaned to port and saw the same.“We haven’t got much room to spare,” Sam called forward. “How does it look ahead?”

“Narrower still. Want a little drag?”

“Sure.”

Remi shimmied around on her belly, retrieved the Danforth anchor from its mount, tossed it over the bow, and let the line stream between her hands until she felt it skipping along the bottom. She hauled in a few inches of line and secured it to the pulpit rail. The dhow began slowing until they were moving in a jerk-and-surge fashion.“Ten yards,” Remi called.

And then, as if the sun had suddenly been eclipsed, the dhow slipped inside the inlet. To the left and right, walls of green closed in around them; above, a ragged ribbon of blue sky. Sam looked aft and felt a surge of vertigo as the entrance to the inlet seemed to close like an iris door on a spaceship.

“Turn coming up,” Remi called. “Forty-five degrees to starboard.”Sam faced forward again. “Ready when you are.”

“Three . . . two . . . one . . .Turn!”

Sam gave the wheel a quarter spin to port and held it.

“Starboard turn!” Remi shouted.

Sam spun the wheel again.

“Hold it there,” Remi ordered. A few seconds passed. “Okay, start easing back to port. Keep going . . . more . . . Good. Steady on.”

As if on cue, the current died away until the dhow was skimming ahead at a walking pace. The inlet widened out slightly, leaving fifteen feet on both beams.

“Haul anchor,” Sam called. “I think we’re okay.”

Remi retrieved the Danforth and returned to the cockpit. From the banks came the sounds of the jungle easing into twilight: the plaintive squawks of parrots, the croaking of frogs, and the buzz of insects.“It’s so peaceful,” Remi said, looking around. “A little spooky but peaceful.”

Sam grabbed the map from its compartment and unfolded it on the roof of the cabin. Remi clicked on a flashlight. Sam skimmed his index finger around the island. “We need the circumference.”

Remi retrieved the dividers and walked them around the coastline, occasionally marking headlands and landmarks with a pencil. Once done, she scribbled some calculations in the margins, then said, “Big Sukuti is nine miles, give or take. Little Sukuti, about five.”

Sam studied his watch for a moment. “We’ll reach the other mouth in twenty minutes. If that Rinker makes another patrol right away, it’ll be passing the northern side of this inlet about twenty minutes after that. If it doesn’t show up, it probably means no more patrols for the night or they’re only doing them every few hours.”“That’s a big if,” Remi replied. “If the latter, it means we might run into them somewhere along the coastline. We’d better hope we see them before they see us.”

Sam nodded. “Do me a favor. Find every nook and cranny along the coast. We’ll need to be ready to hide on a moment’s notice.”

It took Remi ten minutes to finish the task. She said, “There’re plenty to choose from but no depth markings; I can only be certain of six or seven being deep enough for our draft.”“We’ll have to play it by ear.”

“So, about your master plan . . .”

“Wish I had one,” Sam replied. “There’re too many variables. We have to assume they’ll be moving the bell sooner rather than later-either shipping it somewhere or dumping it somewhere. For that, they have three choices: one of the Rinkers, the Njiwa , or Okafor’s helicopter. We’ll start with the Njiwa. Whatever they do, that’s where the bell will stay until they decide to move it. If they use a Rinker or the Njiwa, I say we put on our pirate hats and stage a hijacking.”“And if it’s the helicopter?”

“Same plan. We just put on our flying scarves.”

“Sam, my dear, you don’t have much time logged on helicopters.”

“I think I can manage the four or five miles to the mainland. We’d be across the channel in six minutes-probably before they could even organize a posse. We find a secluded clearing somewhere, put her down, and-”Remi smiled. “Play it by ear?” Sam shrugged and smiled back. “It’s the best chance we have,” Remi agreed, “but you’ve left out a lot of big, potentially disastrous ifs.”

“I know-”

“For example, what if we’re spotted? We’ll be outgunned and outmanned.”

“I know-”

“And, of course, the biggest if: What if the bell’s already been moved?”

Sam paused. “Then the game’s over. If we don’t intercept it here, it’s gone for good. Remi, we’re a democracy. If it’s not unanimous, we don’t go.”

“I’m in, Sam, you know that. On one condition, though.” “Name it.”

“We take out some insurance.”

THE SUN WAS SETTING by the time the mouth of the inlet came into view: a rough oval of golden orange light at the end of the tunnel. When they were ten feet away, Remi steered the dhow toward the right-hand bank and jostled the throttle until the overhanging limbs draped over them. Standing atop the cabin, Sam manhandled the thicker branches around the mast and boom until the dhow was nestled against the bank. He crawled forward to the pulpit and peeked through the foliage.“Got a perfect view,” he called back.

The sun had dropped behind Big Sukuti, casting the western half of the island, including the inlet, in twilight. Sam added, “If they’re doing another circuit, they’ll be here in fifteen or twenty minutes.”“I’m going to pack our gear and do some scrounging.”

Remi went below. Sam could hear her moving about in the cabin. She returned to the cockpit, sat down, and began humming “Summer Wind” by Frank Sinatra. They got through “Hotel California” by the Eagles, “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett, and were halfway through “Hey Jude” by the Beatles when Sam raised his hand for silence.Ten seconds passed.

“What is it?” Remi asked.

“Nothing, I guess. No, there . . . Hear it?”

Remi listened for a few moments, then there it was, the faint rumble of a marine engine. “The pitch sounds right,” she said.

“It’s coming from the northwest. Our guest may be en route.”

Of the scenarios they’d considered-a delayed second patrol, meeting the Rinker along the northern coast, or an immediate patrol that would pass before they headed out from the inlet-the third was ideal. By knowing the Rinker’s route and its average speed, they could be reasonably sure of their foe’s location at any given time. Barring the unforeseen, they would reach the docks long before the Rinker did.

Lying on his belly, binoculars raised, Sam kept his eyes focused on the headland a quarter mile away. The grumble of the engine grew in intensity until finally the Rinker’s bow appeared. As expected, it was occupied by a driver and a spotter; also as expected, the boat turned southeast, following the coastline.A spotlight glowed to life.

“We’re okay,” he said, half to himself, half to Remi. “They won’t see us unless they’re on top of us.”

“Odds?”

“Ninety-five percent. Maybe ninety.”

“Sam . . .”

“We’re okay. Keep your head down and cross your fingers.”

The Rinker kept coming. It was now a hundred yards from the inlet and heading straight for them, the spotlight skimming along the bank and over the trees.

“Anytime, boys,” Sam muttered. “Nothing to see here . . . Move along . . .”

The Rinker closed the gap to fifty yards.

Forty yards.

Thirty yards.

Sam took one hand off the binoculars, slowly reached backward, and grabbed the H amp;K from the thigh pocket of his cargo shorts. He brought the gun up and laid it on the deck beneath his shoulder. He flicked off the safety.The Rinker was twenty yards away.

Sam whispered, “Remi, you better get below.”

“Sam-”

“Please, Remi.”

He felt the dhow rock slightly as she crept down the ladder.

Sam lowered the binoculars. He wiped his right palm on his pant leg, then grabbed the H amp;K, extended it through the branches, and took aim on the shadowed form behind the Rinker’s wheel. Sam let the scenario play in his head: driver first, then the spotlight, then the second man before he had a chance to take cover or return fire. Two shots for each, then pause and wait for signs of life.The Rinker kept coming.

Sam took a deep breath.

Suddenly the Rinker’s engine revved up. The bow rose up and pivoted to port, and within five seconds the boat disappeared from view.

Sam exhaled. He knocked twice on the cabin’s roof. A few seconds later Remi whispered, “Clear?”

“Clear. Check the map. How long until they clear the northern tip of Little Sukuti?”

There came the crinkle of paper in the darkness, followed by the scratching of a pencil. Remi said, “It’s a little over a mile. Twenty-five minutes and we should be okay.”

FOR SAFE MEASURE, they let thirty minutes pass before shoving off and motoring out of the inlet. For the next forty minutes they glided along the northern shoreline, never straying more than fifty feet from the beach and never exceeding a quiet but frustrating three miles per hour.

Leaning over the map on the deck, penlight clamped between her teeth, Remi was walking the dividers. She looked up, took the penlight out of her mouth. “The Rinker should be reaching the southern tip of Little Sukuti. We’ve got at least twenty minutes on them.”They reached Big Sukuti’s northern tip, paused there for a binocular scan of the coastline ahead, then set out again.

“The docks are less than a mile away,” Remi told Sam.

“What do you think? Stop at half a mile?”

“Sounds good.”

They covered the distance in twelve minutes. To port, the island’s sloped moonscape rose from the beach to meet the rain forest. Sam slowed the dhow as Remi scanned the shoreline.

“This looks good here,” she said, then scrambled to the bow.Sam turned to port, aimed the bow at the beach, and followed Remi’s curt directions until she called, “All stop.”

Sam throttled down, then collected their packs from the deck and met Remi at the pulpit. She lowered herself over the side, then Sam grabbed her wrists and lowered her the rest of the way. The water was waist-high. He handed down their packs.“Come here,” Remi said.

“What?”

“Come here, I said.”

He smiled, then leaned his head over the side until she could crane her neck and kiss him on the cheek. She said, “Be safe. No drowning allowed.”

“Noted. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

THE NEXT PART of their plan turned out to be anticlimactic. Sam reversed the engines, brought the bow around, and took the dhow a few hundred yards off the coast, then turned off the engine and dropped anchor. He estimated there was fifty feet of water beneath the keel. He went below and opened each of the dhow’s five scuttle valves. When the water reached his calves, he went topside and dove over the side and began swimming. Five minutes later he stood up in the shallows and waded ashore to where Remi was waiting.Together they watched the dhow settle into the water and sink from view.

Sam gave it a salute, then said, “Ready?”

Remi nodded. “Lead on.”