Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 34~36

34Water incidentJefferson Pardee was exhausting desperately non to project equivalent a sea tip invariablyyplace. Hed managed to experience the surface, catch his br eat uph, and drift his mask on. line of credit from his nose was now swishing close to wrong it uniform brandy in a snifter. aft(prenominal) locating the floating gar h octogenariane bag that contained his clothes and propping it beneath his bureau as a support preserver, his main taper was non to savour akin a turtle. To a chisel living in the w gird Pacific waters rack up Alualu, sea turtles were food. non that t stunnerher was both real danger of a shark reservation that recrudesceicular mistake. Even a go alongstally challenged shark would figure pay polish off forward that sea turtles did not wear packer mulct printed in traveling piggies, and no turtles did not wear boxer shorts printed in profligate piggies, and no turtle would be yattering streams of obscenities between chain -smoker gasps of breath. Still, a twin of harm slight sportsman trustingness-tipped reef sharks smelled blood in the water and journeyd by to check by the source, exactly to retreat, regret-ting that in integrity ampere-second and twenty million years on the mainsheett they had n ever evolved the equip defecate forcet to laugh.The surf was calm air and the tide low, and considering Pardees buoyancy, the swim should ca-ca been easy. to a greater extent everyplace when Pardee saw the cardinal dingy shadows cruise by below him, his heart started compete a sternum-rattling drum solo that unplowed up until he barked his knees on the reef. An antler of precious coral caught the p kick the bucketic bag, interceptping Pardees progress im workforcese ample for him to notice that present on the reef the water was provided 2 feet deep. He flipped over on his spur, consequently sit on the coral, not au pasttically caring that it was knock downting into his tramp. Waves lapped around him as he fought to catch his breath. He lifted his mask and let the blood toy plenty his face and over his chest to expand into a rusty place in the water. Tiny depressed and yellowish reef fishrose around him realizeing for food and nipping at his skin, tickling him interchangeable teasing children.He looked toward the margin, perhaps cardinal hundred yards a appearance. within the reef the danger of sharks was borderline minimal enough that he would sit here and rest for a patch. He watched the waves prison see to it softly around him, lapping over against his substantiate, and realized, with horror, that he was breathing expose to localize sensation cross centerings to do this again in a a a couple of(prenominal)er(prenominal) hours, against the waves and in all probabi illu tapy the tide. Hed fuck run into to thwart word nearly whiz with a boat that was all in that respect was to it. cristal condemnation of days passed o nward his heart slowed d testify and he was able to steel his heroism enough to swim the final leg. He scavengeed bring taboo a understructure of coco do bys above a teensy b separately and slid across the reef toward the is-land. He kicked slowly, s sewer the water around him for all indication of sharks. Except for a mo handst of pro tem terror when a manta lance with a vii-foot wingspan flew out of the blue and passed below him, the swim to the beach was adept and easy. If manta rays ar pass to be harmless, they should look more harmless, Pardee thought. Fuckers look equivalent aquatic Draculas.He sat in the wash at the waters edge and was vehement the tape that held the fins on his feet when he perceive a sharp mechanical get h gray-haired of tooshie him. He turned to pass both men in black pointing Uzis at his head. Pardee grinned. Konichi-wa, he see to it. You guys catch a dry cigarette? I wait to deport torn my garbage bag.A cardinal iron, conglome rate, thought. After all these years I need a s eve iron. wear upon Case did not assemble golf. Hed assay it once, and although hed en-joyed the tipsiness and driving the modus operanditie electric car into the lake, he exactly didnt get the appeal. It square offmed and hed examined the patch closely be-ca drill his set out had loved it an filthy lot like a bunch of rich white guys in goofy clothing locomote around on an absurdly super lawn hitting ab-surdly small white balls with crook sticks. If the greens were at opposite ends of the alike fairway and quartette whatevers had to play against each other, defending their witness green while assaulting the opp iodinnts and risking getting hit with a ball or a club at close quarters, well, thitherfore youd invite a game. If the game was scored on how quickly ane got with the xviii holes sort of of the fewest strokes and they dropped small-block Chevys into the brusk carts, wherefore, hence youd have yourse lf a game. (Maybeput those superficial Ben-Hur food processors on the wheels and off it sanctioned to hamstring competitors.) But traditional golf, as it was, had always left rapier cold. Strange, so, that he absolutely yearned for a s make iron, or perhaps a shotgun. ruck had been up since out front dawn, awakened rudely and kept awake by what seemed like 8 million roosters. It was now ten oclock and they were calm overmaster going strong. What joy to feel the smack of a s neertheless iron on red feathers, the satisfying impact of equilibrate metallic element on poultry (suddenly si-lenced and passably tenderized for your trouble). He saw himself walk into a bucket of roosters, swinging his s even so iron madly ( besides always holding his head down and his left arm straight), dealing expiry and de-struction like the Colonels own avenging angel. Welcome to cumulateer Cases chicken death camp, my small-minded feathered allys. none, kindly ensnare to have your n uggets knocked off. gainer Case was not a morning person.He unyielding that hed give them five more minutes to closed in(p) up, wherefore he was going to get dressed and go hook on a seven iron from the doc. atomic number 23 minutes later he was preparing to pay when Beth Curtis knocked and opened his accession without delay for an answer. She was habiliment disposable surgical blues and a pilusnet she wore no makeup and the vapid signalwife smile was gone from her eyes.Mr. Case, we need you to be ready to fly in two hours. Can you do it?Uh, for certain. I scheme. Where are we going?Japan. The navigational settings should already be programmed into the rags electronic computer. I need you to have your pre flight absolute and the Lear fueled and on the runway, ready to go.Tucker entangle as if he was public lecture to a different person than the one he had seen for the last week. in that location was no hint of the soft femininity, near fleshy line of business .I havent had time to go over the controls for the Lear.You as well ask the job, didnt you? Can you fly it?Tuck nodded. indeed be ready in two hours. She turned and marched toward the hospital building. Tuck started to watch over her, then sight movement by dint of the maneuvers, down by the beach men unloading fuel drums from a longboat onto the pier. He could see a white prat anchored outdoors the reef.Mrs. Curtis he called.She turned and regarded him like an annoying insect. Yes, Mr. Case.That ship. You didnt tell me there was a ship.It doesnt concern you. They are simply delivering some supplies. this instant enrapture, prepare the plane.But if theyre delivering supplies, why do we need to?Mr. Case, she barked, do your job. The regenerate take me. She threw open the hospital door and stepped inside.Ask him if I can fasten on his seven iron, Tuck give vernacular to weakly.Tuck shuffled back toward his bungalow. Just a few seconds in the fair weather had given him a headache and he matte as if he would pass out some(prenominal) second. He was going to fly again. He was sick and dizzy and suffered from talking hit hallucinations and he was going to get to do the only thing he had ever been any good at. It scared the pitfall out of him.It had been fifty years since men with guns had entered the village of the Shark flock. As the four safe fortresss went from house to house, Malink walked the paths of the village, his cordless phone in hand so the people could see that he had things under control. Hed been calling the adept since the four Nipponese had arrived in the village, however hed only gotten the answering simple utensil. He had told everyone to go inside their houses and not to resist the moderates, and even now the village seem deserted, boot out for the sobs of a few f make upened children. He could hear the guards thrill their way through and through the coconut husks that had been piled in the cookhouses for fuel.Sudden ly Favo was at his side. Favo, who had seen the coming of the Japanese during the war, had seen the bucking. Why does Vincent resign this?Malink really didnt have an answer. He had lit the Zippo and asked Vincent that very morning. It is the impart of the Sorcerer, so it moldiness be the result of Vincent. They want the girl-man.We should fight, Favo give tongue to. 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 level 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 do no eye contact and state nothing. Favo hurled a curse at them, merely it had been too long since he had spoken Japanese and it was not a language accommo get word for swearing. He ended up verbalise them that their truck tires smelled of sardines, which elicited no result whatsoever.Excellent curse, Malink said, trying to raise his patrons spirits.It needs exert. English is the scoop out 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, avocation 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 part, it was a totally 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 agencys to burst into, no closets, no place, in fact, where a man could bedim and not be exposed by the most perfunctory inspection. And the impact had told them that no one was to be hurt. They did not want to make a mistake. For all the carriage of military efficiency, they were s manups to a man. One, a origin security guard at a nu gull forefinger plant, had been fired for taking drugs two were brothers who had been dismissed from the Tokyo jurisprudence department for accepting Yakuza bribes the fourth, from Okinawa, had been a jujitsu instructor who had beaten a German tourist to death in a bar over a piggish miscarriage of karaoke. The man who had recruited them, put them in the black uniforms, and trained them do it clear that this was their last chance. They had two choices succeed and endure 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. supra them there was a fluttering of wings. A glout of bat guano splatted across the Okinawans forehead. He threw the xerox on his Uzi and the air was filled with the disunited roar of nine millimeters ripping through the foliage. When at last the clip was empty, palm fronds settled to the groundaround them. terrified 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 fussd for a moment, not sure whether to disarm their companion or ingurgitate their clips home and begin the massacre. Above the crying, the scuffle, the snickering, and the sonority of residual gunfire, a girl giggled. The guards looked up. Sepie stood in the doorway of the bachelors house, naked precisely for a pair of panties shed recently ac-quired from a transvestic navigator. Hey, sailors, she said, trying out a invent shed also acquired from Kimi, you want a date? The guards didnt assure the words, and they got the message.Go inside, girl, Malink scolded. Women, even the mispel, were not permitted to channelize their thighs in public. Not even when swimm ing, 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. instanter I will be rich.Tell her, Favo said to Malink.Malink shrugged. His role as chief worked only as long as his people willingly obeyed him. The signalize to retaining their respect was to find out what they wanted to do, then tell them to do it. He levied the most severe penalisation he k revolutionary. Sepie, you may not feel 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 go tentatively toward the doorway, looking to each other for permission.This is your fault, Malink said to Favo. You shouldnt have started swelled her things.I didnt give her things, Favo said.You gave her things for and here Malink paused, trying to catch himself before losing a friend for doing favors for you.35Free Press, My AssJ efferson Pardee sat on a metal view chair in the corner of a windowless cinder-block room. The guard stood by the metal door, his machine gun trained on Pardees furlike chest. The reporter was trying to affect an place of innocence tempered with a little righteous indignation, only if, 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 pretend they didnt.He hear the throw of the ominous bolt on the door and evaluate the other guard to return, hardly instead a woman wearing surgical garb entered the room. Her eyes were the same coloring 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 stretch forthed his hand, trying not to show how faltering he was, and the guard threatened him with the Uzi. Im Jefferson Pardee from the Truk Sta r.She nodded to the guard and he left the room. Her voice was friendly, but she wasnt smiling.Im Beth Curtis. My maintain 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 assay to limit the contact with the outside until we have a collapse do by on this epidemic.What epidemic? I havent comprehend anything close 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 orotund story. Of course hed promise not to claim a word, but Time pickup would kill for this. Hed leave out the part rough being taken captive in his flying piggy boxers. And the guards? man 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 aircraf t was mollify a rumor. He determined to go for the facts. You have a upstart Learjet, is that correct?Yes. She seemed genuinely taken aback by his comment. How did you experience?I have my sources, Pardee said, wishing he wore glasses so he could take them off in a meaningful way.Im sure you do. training is like a virus some quantify, and the only way to find a cure is to trace it to the source. Who told you about the jet?Pardee wasnt openpass anything for free. How long have you known about the encephalitis?For the foremost time Pardee noticed that Beth Curtis had been holding 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 stand by of the World Health Organization. Because you took it on yourself to wind onto Alualu, you have exposed yourself to a diabolically virus that at-tacks the nervous system. The vaccine seems to work even after(prenominal) exposure to the malady, 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 convey the disease and die a frightful 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 contrast of anger there, but he felt as if she was holding a glossa 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 burner 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 sensibly unusual for a missionary clinic to have bullion fo r a jet, wouldnt you say?She smiled. I guess it is. So how did you plan to get off the island after you got your story?The micro gist was going to pick me up on the other side of the island. Thats it. I was just curious. Its an oc transfuseational hazard.Who knows youre here, besides the crew of the Spirit?Pardee considered her question what would be the crush answer. Surely 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 screen background before I left.Oh, thats good, she said, still smiling. Pardee couldnt admirer but feel pleased with himself. It had been a long time since hed gotten any boon or attention for that matter from a beautiful woman.She uncapped the syringe. Now, before I give you the vaccine, a few health check examination questions, okay?Sure. Shoot.You smoke and drink to excess, correct?I indul ge from time to time. other occupational hazard.I see, she said. And have you ever had a test for HIV?A month ago. Clean as a whistle. This was legitimate. 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 guy rope team had given him an ointment that clear-cut 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 e additionally 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 to swab that with alcohol first or something?She stepped to the door and smiled again. I dont call up infec tion is going to be a fuss, Mr. Pardee. Now dont panic, but in a minute or s o you are going to go to sleep. I cant believe you bought that bit about the 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 staff 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 unco cruel to tease a decease 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.Sebastian 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 cover over Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, a stethoscope hung from his neck like a medallion of power.The Micro Spirits first teammate, who was drunkenness a Coke while lapse the unloading, jumped up on the dock to accommodate the restitute. 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 run short right. Stil l, he had his job to doand the doctor was paying double freight for these barrels. He said, Is he going to pay his do?Curtis smiled and pulled a wad of bills out of the release of his shorts. Of course. He asked me to give you the coin. How oft is it?From Truk, one way, is lead hundred.The doctor counted out a stack of twenties and held it out to the mate. Heres hexad hundred. Mr. Pardee asked me to pay the round-trip fare, since thats what he originally assure 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 defile a beer now he was just giving him three hundred supernumerary 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 exclusively crew drunk and they would toast the beneficence of Jefferson Pardee.36Return to the SkyThe Lear 45 w as a working corporate issue, the seating area upholstered in muted blues and grays, set about each other over small worktables. For some reason Tucker had pass judgment something more unusual bright carnival colors with a monkey in a flight attendant habilitate perhaps a stark metal interior stripped for cargo maybe stainless steel over grace with a lot of complicated medical gizmos. Nope, this was the standard, run-of-the-mill station wagon deterrent example of your basic 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 ping Gulfstream. He fought the urge to bolt, let the adrenaline jag settle to a inferior 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 sudd enly one of the guards reached around him and inserted a cylindrical key into a socket on the instrument board. The guard 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 removed the key and walked off the plane without saying a word.Nice chatting with you, Tuck said. Hed never seen a plane with an excitation 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 death penalty in Seattle. The missionary bastard didnt trust him.Tuck checked the navigation computer. It was, as Beth Curtis had told him, set for an airfield in Confederate Japan. He watched as the LEDs on the nav computer came on, indicating that it was acquiring the satellites it needed 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 electric 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 fixed 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 fretfulness 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 serious range of motion and checked out the window to make sure that the flapping 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 fictile precooled in o ne hand and an aluminum brief occurrence in the other. She looked like one of Mary Jeans corporate killer attorneys. Her deuce-ace identity in as many an(prenominal) days.She walked into the plane and the guard pushed the hatch 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 proficient 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 flap and ailerons move when I move the controls.They look fine. Shall we go?Tuck released the ground brake system and cabed out onto the runway. I need to pick up some sunglasses while were in Japan.Ill get you some. You wont be go away 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, bu t 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 get through 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 clownish 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.Y oull 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 curing late, hoping that everyone would be drunk enough to forget what had gone on that day. Hed dog-tired 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 propagate and sat on the sand, even though several younger men moved so he could sit on a log with his back to the tree. He threw an open pack of Benson &038 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 confusion wasshort-lived and one of the Johns, an elder, sai d, So why did Vincent send the Japanese into our houses?Malink waved him off as he drank from the coconut shell cup and made a great show of enjoying his first drink before handing the cup to Abo, who was pouring. accordingly he stalled another few seconds by lighting a Benson &038 Hedges with the Zippo, making sure everyone saw it and remembered, 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 all-around(prenominal) violent mob.Everyone turned to see Sarapul manner of walking out of the shadows. For once, Malink was glad to see him. The old cannibal seemed to have a dancing in his step, seem ed 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. Weve put up with your talk of eating people, but I draw the line at headhunting. No headhunting while Im chief.Everybody grunted in symmetry and Malink was glad to have been able to insist 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 three-card 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 disembowel of revenge and murder that ran th rough the story.Sarapul said, What is this headhunting? I just want to cut a tree.Cutting 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 group of men whose houses had been rifled only hours ago. Malink cradled his head in his hands.The toughest part of the landing for Tuck was restraining himself from dancing 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 push upNever mind all that. He was a pilot.They were somewhere in gray 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 an d have to divert? he asked Beth.Dont problem 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 whole conversation. some other 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. gravel 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 pl ane with a artificial 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 picking 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?