Rembrandt's Ghost Part 18

"It's from Homer's Odyssey," the man answered without inflection. "I spent a number of years in boarding school translating huge sections of it as punishment for skipping cla.s.s." He laughed softly. "That particular pa.s.sage refers to Circe and her island. Some scholars believe Homer took his ideas from the eastern epic of Gilgamesh in which the hero escapes from the island by going through a tunnel where the sun comes into the sky."

"So how do you translate it?" Billy said.

"Escape from my hidden island of treasure on winds of music. The word 'ab' means 'from,' not 'to.' " He shrugged. "It would seem to have more relevance."

"He's right, you know," said Winchester. "About the Latin, I mean. Studied Homer myself. 'Virtutem paret doctrina,' and all that. 'Let education make the all round man.' Scot's College."

"I stand corrected," said Billy stiffly.

"Is there a place like that here?" Finn asked, calling forward to Winchester, sitting in the front of the dugout.

"A place like what?" Winchester asked, digging in with his paddle.

"A tunnel where the sun appears. Something to do with wind. Music. I don't know," she said, frustrated. It wasn't much to go on.

Then, suddenly, the fjordlike confines of the keyhole slot leading to the Punchbowl ended and they were swept into the huge, almost perfectly circular lagoon that had once been the raging heart of a volcano.

Winchester spoke. "There was a cave I saw once, during my first year here," he said. "I didn't think much of it at the time. A blowhole, I suppose you'd call it."

"Blowhole?" Run-Run McSeveney muttered. "Sounds like some bowffing cack erse people I've known in the bluidy past." He dug his paddle into the water, scowling as usual.

"A blowhole is a volcanic leftover," explained Winchester. "A vent tunnel." He paused in his paddling, looking upward to the far side of the enormous circular valley, scanning the jungle forests rising from the misty dawn. "I was hunting when I happened to find it," he said. "Quite shocked me actually. At first there was nothing and then it was like standing next to an exploding steam pipe."

"There's a place like that in your South Dakota," said Billy. "My parents took me there when I was young. Wind Cave or something."

"Could you call it music?"

"I suppose," said Winchester, "if you weren't too musical. More like a b.l.o.o.d.y great whistle."

The incoming tide swept them into the Punchbowl's sinister graveyard of hulks, looking even more ghostly in the early morning half-light. They slid silently past the moldering wreck of some ancient ironclad schooner, the masts long rotted, the hull a dark, gap-toothed wreck of barnacles and crusted sea life. The old vessel was anonymous now, the name on her upended transom long since worn away. To the right, rising out of the fog, they could see what was left of the Batavia Queen. Ahead of them were a dozen other wrecks and the shattered remains of the old single-engined aircraft that had returned Pieter Boegart to the island.

"Can you remember where it was?" Finn asked. "Certainly," said Winchester. He stopped paddling for a second and pointed up the side of the steeply sloping caldera. "It's just there, where those two hills thrust up. I call them the lions." Just then the sun rose fractionally higher, throwing the two crouching shapes into sharp relief. Winchester was right. The two hills looked exactly like crouching lions facing each other.

"A tunnel where the sun comes into the sky," said Khan.

"That could be it," said Billy, excitement rising in his voice. "It fits."

"We're going too fast," said Briney Hanson, looking out over the water. There were ripples and eddies everywhere marking unseen hidden obstructions; the remains of vessels captured by the deadly wrecker's island. "We should warp up to the lee side of one of these old wrecks and wait for the tide to slack. It's too dangerous to go on like this. We could hit something."

"Aye, he's right about that," cautioned McSeveney, peering over the side.

"That's ridiculous. I can see perfectly," said Winchester from the bow of the dugout. "It's clear water. I can almost make out the bottom." There was a sudden swirling in the water as the tide pushed them past the listing wreck of the old oil tanker, City of Almaco, the tall, rusted stack over her rear superstructure and the stumps of her derricks all that were visible in the mist. The sheering currents fought against each other for a moment, swinging the canoe around like a swirling leaf in a rushing gutter, and the goatskin-clad professor found himself facing back the way he'd come. Panicking, Winchester clutched the low thwarts and tried to stand.

"Sit down!" Hanson bellowed. "You'll tip us over!"

"Ye numpty cludge!" McSeveney yelled, trying to steady the boat. "We're tipping!"

It was too late. Winchester's sudden movement pushed the dugout in another direction. The fighting currents slammed the boat against the side of the old oiler and they spun around a second time, tilting heavily to one side. Winchester lost his paddle, made a desperate grab, and then everyone was in the water.

The full horror came without warning as Finn hit the water and went under. For a moment she didn't know what was happening. Then she was aware of a lashing pain across her cheek and then another stomach whiplash against the bare skin of her where her shirt had pulled up. She gagged at the sudden pain, thrashing to the surface, fighting for air. There were more excruciating lashes to her arms and legs. Through the pain she was faintly aware of Winchester's screams that he couldn't swim. She managed to lift one hand, sweeping whatever it was away from her face, feeling more stinging pain across her palms and cheek. She blinked and saw the horror that lay in front of her.

The water all around her was a solid ma.s.s of bubbling, undulating slime. Attracted by the warm shallow water and the recent rain, a huge, roving colony of box jellyfish had made their way on the incoming tide to the Punchbowl's interior. The mindless nightmare now lay like some obscene, translucently pulsing blanket across the surface of the sea.

Horrified by the sight, Finn thrashed at the water with her arms, trying to beat the pulsing creatures away from her body. A dozen burning filaments dangling beneath the oozing bubbles of jelly stroked the flesh of her legs and she screamed again, rearing up out of the water, trying to do anything in her power to get away.

Spinning in the water, Finn was dimly aware that the colony had formed itself into a giant crescent flowing toward the shallows closer to the beach, the two outer arms of the arc spreading out on either side. Turning, choking, she tried to find the shape of the overturned dugout. She swam toward it, now at least fifty feet away, surrounded by the purple-humped monstrosities. The colony, a hundred fifty yards long and twice as deep, was a death trap, oozing all around her like some grotesque minefield, waiting to entangle her completely.

A small patch of straggling organisms on the forward edge of the swarm lay in her path and she arched her back in a desperate attempt to avoid them. They were small, their slightly squared bubble sails still immature as they pulsed toward her, the strings of sensory eyes around the bubbles, perimeters clearly visible like black specks in the clear mucosa of the body.

Their stingers swept lightly against her and she gasped with the burning pain. She cried out again, batting weakly at the creatures, just managing to keep her head above water, and then the numbing cramps began as the deadly venom reached her bloodstream. She knew that she was weakening and soon she'd be unable to swim.

Dimly, at the edge of her awareness, she thought she heard Billy calling her name, but help was too late in coming now. The jellyfish had completely surrounded her, each gentle motion of the swell and their own pulsing energy bringing the colony close around her so that the feat would be shared equally among the ever hungry creatures. Finn began to sink under the water, the last of her strength draining from her body as their poison took hold.

Eyes open, she saw what lay beneath the surface and recoiled in unholy terror as all hope vanished. In the faint morning light, the hideous flotilla had been terrible enough; beneath the blue-green water, it was a vision straight from h.e.l.l. Millions of tentacles, some light as a human hair, others thick as twisting ropes, dangled from the bellying domes above, an endless hypnotically swaying forest of deadly threads that had already wrapped themselves completely around Ben Winchester's body in a monstrous tangle, slowly but surely pulling him upward into the very center of the swarm, his corpse slowly drained of nutrients until finally everything that had been the man would be absorbed within the colony.

Finn remembered hearing once that drowning had been called the death of dreaming, but this was a death of nightmares everlasting, and even as she sank downward her hands fluttered, some last instinct trying to push her back toward the surface.

She felt a clutching pain deep within her chest as the last of the air exploded from her lungs. Vision blurring as she died, she saw the last of Winchester's pale face in front of her, Medusalike, his hair a ma.s.s of serpent strands like some mythical creature caught within the colony of roving jellyfish. Then the vision faded and darkened. Pain was swept away, she heard her name called one last time, and then there was only darkness and the pounding of her final desperate heartbeats echoing faintly and fading in her ears.

27.

She awoke in paradise. Directly above her head the dappled sun sparkled through bright green leaves and there was the flush, rich scent of something spicy and exotic in her nostrils.

"Mijn kind." The words were spoken softly, gently. She let her head fall to one side and saw the red-bearded face of Pieter Boegart. He was kneeling beside her. They were in a large clearing almost at the summit of the Punchbowl, a sloping meadow of gently waving gra.s.ses surrounded by a ring of flowering trees.

"Mijn kind," he said again. There were tears in his eyes and she tried to smile, but the dull pain took her for a moment and she gasped with the intensity of it. "You've been sleeping," said the red-bearded man. She turned her head slowly in the other direction.

She was lying with her head in Billy Pilgrim's lap. He was sitting beneath a tall upas tree at the edge of the clearing. Far below, through the seething jungle, she could see the bright blue-green circle of the deadly lagoon. "They gave you medicine. Sweet cane vinegar to ease the pain. You almost died."

"How did I get here?" She blinked.

"We carried you," said Billy, smiling down at her. There were a half dozen cruel red welts across his face where he'd been stung by the lethal jellyfish. Finn saw now that the others were nearby, looking exhausted, along with several of the locals who were bathing their they were ladling from stings with something rattan-wrapped pottery urns. None of them seemed to be armed. Two were women, their jet-black hair tied back with elaborate leather thongs. Everyone from the dugout was there. Everyone except Winchester.

She shivered, remembering her last sight of him. "Where are we?"

"Winchester's 'lions,' " said Billy. He stroked a strand of hair back out of her eyes. "Can you stand up or do you want to rest a little longer?"

"I'm okay," she said. "I think." She tried to stand up with Boegart's and Billy's help. She staggered to her feet, felt faint, and leaned on Billy. Boegart kept a careful eye on her condition. Of the others Khan was the only one who rose to his feet. Because his arms and legs had been bare when he'd gone into the water, he seemed to have received the worst of the stings.

"He's the one who got you out of the water," said Billy. "He saved your life actually."

"You would have died," said Khan simply. "The jellies were young, most of them, but you were the smallest and they would have killed you as they did your friend in the goatskin. I could not let that happen."

"Thank you," said Finn. There was nothing else to say.

"And you?" Finn asked, turning to Pieter Boegart, not sure what to think of this strange, redbearded man who might or might not be her natural father. "Why are you here?"

"One of our scouts saw the jellyfish. I knew you'd be in danger." He paused. "I wasn't sure if your Latin was good enough to translate Grootvater Willem's instructions."

"Mine wasn't," laughed Billy.

"Come," said Pieter, gently taking Finn by the arm. "I have something I must show the two of you." They walked across the clearing and along a sloping path that wound up through the jungle for a hundred yards, bringing them out to a small rock outcropping that overlooked the entire caldera.

At the far end of the outcrop was an almost invisible opening in the rock.

"Step through," he said.

She twisted sideways and slid through the narrow pa.s.sage into a wider area beyond. It was a small, bare cave with a shadowed area of darkness on the left that marked an exit to another cave and an almost perfectly circular pa.s.sage that opened at the far end of the chamber. She could hear a faint sighing sound and felt a soft, salt breeze against her face.

"As the tide falls, the sound recedes," explained Pieter Boegart. "When the tide comes in, the air pressure builds and the whole cave resonates, sometimes very loudly."

"Escape from my hidden island of treasure on winds of music," said Finn. "The tunnel leads down to the sea?"

"And another cavern. You'll find a boat there. Not large, but large enough to take you all. She is old, the boat, but seaworthy." He laughed. "Not so old as the one Grootvater Willem must have built for himself, mind you!" He twinkled. "The cave can't really be seen from the sea unless you're looking for it. There's no real foresh.o.r.e to land on, but the way is clear. There are no rocks or reefs or anything to hinder you." He turned to Billy. "I heard you were a sailor. Can you navigate with the stars, young fellow?"

"Yes." Billy nodded.

"Keep Ursa Minor at your back and Sirius and Ca.n.u.s Major ahead on the horizon. Sail four days and you'll reach the coast of Sandakan, and safety. Grootvater Willem did it and so did I." The redbearded man paused. "I need your trust," he said at last. "What you see can go no farther than this, the two of you." He gestured, then stepped toward the dark shadows to the left. Finn and Billy followed. The shadows formed into a dark pa.s.sage that led into yet another cave, this one much larger than the first. A crack in the spiny rock above let in a single bright beam of midday sun. It was enough.

The golden treasure was piled everywhere. Suits of ancient armor made from thin gold plates threaded with gold wire clothed life-sized figures carved from jade. Ingots were piled to the ceiling; golden plates and drinking vessels were stacked in rows. A hundred steel chests, each one the size of an old-fashioned steamer trunk, stood with their lids thrown open, gold coins and wafers piled to the rim.

Ebony figures of forgotten African kings, a crystal elephant the size of a watermelon that crackled and glowed with diamond brilliance in the faint light. A line of crystal skulls, a pile of javelinlength golden spears, a huge coffin sheathed in thin sheets of the gleaming metal. Twinkling emeralds and sapphires and rubies in golden eyes. Tall silver heads tattooed in chased gold. Inlaid plaques and small ceremonial tables of fantastic beauty.

A perfect human hand, three times normal size, held in a two-fingered sign of prayer. A strange, bearded figure of a standing bull with human eyes, carved from lapis lazuli and clothed in golden robes. Africa, India, and everywhere in between, pearls diamonds, ivory, and still more gold. The room was endless.

"The treasures of an empire," said Pieter Boegart. "Willem's legacy."

"Legacy for who?" Billy said, his words choked, his eyes wide with the terrible beauty of the hidden room. "This is like searching for the Maltese Falcon, then finding out it's real. This is too much to deal with."

"This is death to the people who live here," said Pieter. "It marks them as certainly as though they were a target in a shooting gallery. The contents of that j.a.panese submarine are almost as bad. Three tons of bullion bound for the n.a.z.i coffers in the Reichsbank in Berlin or, worse, to secret vaults in Berne and Geneva for the future. There is enough treasure here to drive men mad. Who claims this place? Borneo, Malaysia, the Philippines? Muslims, Christians, your companion out there with the Dyak haircut and hard features?" He paused again. "Do you know who he is?"

"The man behind the people who tried to kidnap us in London. The people who blew up my boat." Finn paused. "The man who came here hoping to find this."

"His name is Khan. El Piligroso, Tim-timan, the Faithful One, the Philippinos call him. The next Fidel Castro or Che Guevara. A man of principle whose only way of doing good is committing violence. An honest fanatic. An insane seeker for truth. With this wealth he would start a war, and perhaps win it."

Pieter spread his arms and slowly turned around. "And in the process the people on this island would all die, either sacrificed to his cause, or to other people's greed. Subject for a reality television show or a National Geographic special. A ride at Euro Disney."

"Then why are you showing us this?" asked Billy. "Why are you telling us these things?"

"So you will know the consequences of telling anyone of its existence. So you will not be tempted to return to search for it." He gave Finn with a look of excruciating finality. "So you will never come back."

"We've lost everything," said Billy. "The Batavia Queen, my boat . . ." The young man's eyes trailed across the immense heaps of glittering treasure.

Pieter Boegart smiled. "You still have my house on the Herengracht," he said. "Willem's cabinet of curiosities. There's more than enough there for everyone." His smile broadened. "You said it yourself, my boy: like the Maltese Falcon, only real. It is an apt comparison, I think."

From outside the cave there was a sudden, strange thundering sound, a familiar beating at the air that Finn recognized instantly.

"That's a helicopter!"

The three people rushed out of the cave and out onto the little rocky outcropping. The helicopter was clearly visible, arcing in across the breadth of the Punchbowl, coming directly toward the plateau where the others were gathered. It flew without any hesitating motion in a perfectly straight line, losing alt.i.tude steadily as though it knew exactly where to look.

In the meadow below, Khan watched the approaching aircraft. It was a Westland Gazelle with its familiar elongated teardrop fuselage and enclosed "fin-in-the-fan" tail rotor. It was painted in the blue and gold of the Singapore Air Force, complete with the big gold lion's head on the side, but Khan knew the livery of the approaching chopper was a lie. The helicopter could hold four or five heavily armed troops and carried everything from miniguns to HOT missiles and twentymillimeter cannons. They were tank killers and sub chasers and they were deadly.

"Aragas," said the dark-haired freighter captain who'd been a prisoner with him in the village.

"You know him?" said Khan, keeping his eyes on the helicopter. Less than five hundred yards and closing steadily. If they were going to run it had to be now. The middle-aged ship captain didn't move.

"He followed me here," said Hanson. "Looking for you."

"For me?"

The ship captain nodded absently, watching the helicopter approach. The others had struggled to their feet and were watching as well. The natives had melted into the surrounding forest. "He gave me a satellite phone. Blackmailed me. It's somewhere on the wreck of my ship. No doubt it was fitted with a GPS transponder and led them right to us. I'm sorry."

"I'm not," said Khan. "In fact I'm thankful for the confrontation. It's been a long time coming. I'll be glad to see it over."

Hanson looked at him. Or glad to die? he thought. Not that it mattered to him now anyway. With the Batavia Queen gone, he had nothing and not much reason to do more than survive. And he was d.a.m.ned if he was going to run from a s.a.d.i.s.tic little maniac like Senor Lazlo Aragas, the chubby policeman with the Dracula smile.

"Is it really you he's coming for?"

"Me, and the gold he thinks is here. There's always been a rumor of a j.a.panese submarine full of bullion that disappeared in this area."

"I wouldn't be surprised," said Hanson. "Look at that lagoon down there. It's possible."

"It's a dream," said Khan. "A fool's dream. A dreamer's dream. The Isle of Storms."

As the helicopter roared overhead, it made a swinging turn to land upwind, the rotors chewing up the air in angry jet-fueled screams, flattening the jungle canopy as it slid to earth like some enormous bubble-headed insect. Finn, Billy, and the red-haired native leader appeared along the track leading from above. The helicopter finally dropped its skids to the ground and the rotors began to slow. The big Turbomeca turbine wound down in a noisy blur of sound.

For a moment nothing moved as the rotors whickered slowly to a stop. The side hatch in the canopy opened and Aragas appeared in his white suit and sungla.s.ses, his Borsalino hat gripped in one hand. He looked wildly out of place in the jungle clearing. Behind him four men slid out of the helicopter in the black suit and full-face-mask balaclava uniforms of the Singapore Special Tactics and Rescue, or STAR, Team. Each of the four men carried either an SAR21 a.s.sault Rifle or an MP5 machine gun. On their belts they wore Glock 17 automatics in quick-release holsters.

"So nice of all of you to come out to greet me," said the dapper man in his blindingly white suit. As the rotor came to a complete stop, Aragas dropped the Borsalino onto his head.

"You would be Miss Ryan," he said, bowing slightly as he stopped in front of her. He held out a well-manicured forefinger and waved it in the direction of her cheek. "Not pleasant," he murmured solicitously. "Most painful by all appearances."

"Who are you?" Finn asked.

"A thug," said Hanson. "A blackmailer."

"You know him?" Billy asked, turning to Hanson.

"We've met once or twice."

"A Judas should be more ingratiating to his new master," said Aragas. He made a little noise under his breath. "I'll have to teach you manners." He moved slowly along the line and stopped in front of Pieter Boegart.

"Ah," said Aragas. "The proverbial prodigal son. The heir to a fortune living like some sort of new white rajah in the back of beyond." Aragas shook his head. "The colonial mind never ceases to amaze me." He paused, reaching out with one hand, trailing his fingers across Pieter's ancient, padded armor. "An interesting costume." He smiled. "I'd like to see the treasure that goes with it."

"Zwijn," said Pieter.

Aragas let out a little hoot of delight. "You call me a pig? I'll have you know I'm a devout Muslim. I pray six times a day."