Trial by Fire (Caine Riordan Book 2) by Charles E. Gannon

Author:Charles E. Gannon [Gannon, Charles E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781476736648
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2014-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-One

Off Ringit, Pulau Seribu/Thousand Islands, Earth

The gap between the burlap cover and the wicker rim of the basket in which Caine lay provided a clear, if narrow, view of the sleek Arat Kur interceptor as it shot past, heading northwest. Trailing slightly behind, two bulky Hkh’Rkh tilt-rotors, their under-wing pylons bristling with weapons pods, slowed and half transitioned to vertical, turning around the boat in a lazy circle before reangling their props for level flight and roaring after the interceptor.

Caine breathed again, instantly regretted it. The thin littering of fish around him—the false cargo with which he had been told to cover himself—had not been fresh when the boat left Pakis ten hours ago. A day in the hot equatorial sun had not improved their aroma. Or, by dint of close association, his.

The burlap cover came back. A dark, wizened face framed by wispy white hair poked halfway into the basket. At first Caine couldn’t be sure if he was staring back at a man or a woman, but the voice left no doubt. It was—incongruously for Malays and Indonesians—a gravelly bass. “Hai bro’. Lagi ngapain?”1

Caine smiled, was careful to extend his right hand, and replied, “Senang berjumpa dengan anda, Pak.”2

The Indonesian—Javanese by the accent—started back with genuine surprise, but also a smile. A stream of fluid bahasa gushed out of him, half of it aimed at the dozen or so persons sheltering in the shade of the starboard gunwale.

Caine shook his head as several of them murmured polite greetings. “Maafkan saya,”3 he apologized. “English?”

The old man displayed a stained and profoundly incomplete set of teeth. “Sure, sure, I’m speak of English. I name is Sumadi. Hey, bro’, where your coming from?”

“Pakis.”

“No, no, brudda. I mean where your from for real?”

“America.”

“Yah. Thought so. And where your going?”

A new voice spoke from the railing of the top deck of the pilot house. “He’s going over the side.” The English was almost completely unaccented.

The people who had gathered around Caine shrank back from him, opening a path to the unusually tall Indonesian looking down into the afterdeck, his face fully shaded by one of the ubiquitous rural kaping wicker hats that reminded Caine of a pointy upended wok.

The old man raised an imploring hand. “Now, Captain—”

“Do you know what you have there, old man?”

“No, but—”

“That’s your death, standing right beside you. Trust me, those aircraft that just went overhead are looking for him.”

“What? How you know that?”

“I just know. Haven’t seen that kind of activity since they found smugglers working out of Toboali from the other side of the fifty-kilometer limit. My guess is if they even suspect that this bule’s dockside friends smuggled him on board this hull in a basket of fish, it could be the death of us. So over he goes.”

The old man was about to renew his protest. Caine put a hand on his arm, scanned the horizon, saw a number of irregular green bumps scattered in the west. “No, Pak Sumadi: just put me over with one of the wooden cargo plats.

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