Read Retribution ("M" Mystery) Online
Authors: Kit Crumb
Retribution ("M" Mystery) (18 page)
Jake heard the clatter of the tunnel being sealed, and pressed himself against the wall, a move that saved his life. A sword thrust into the narrow tunnel, retracted and thrust in again. He fired six shots straight out and the sword clattered down the tunnel. With the killer disarmed and possibly wounded, he confidently pushed his head and shoulders out into the vertical tunnel only to be struck repeatedly in the face and dragged out. Peter released his grip on the stone handhold and dropped into a kneeling position using Jake as a cushion. Together they plummeted down the tunnel.
Buck heard the six shots followed by a sword falling to the cave floor. He had waded under the tunnel, peering up, waiting for Jake’s call for lights. Instead, he was forced to dive out of the way to avoid being hit by what he thought was the killer’s body. M hit the switch, illuminating the tunnel and waded through four feet of tidewater to get a look up.
“Jake, Jake are you alright?” she shouted. “Buck, the tunnel’s empty.”
When she turned he was fishing a body from the water.
At the mouth of the cave, Ned was on his feet as soon as he heard the shots. A strong arm restrained him from jumping into chest deep water and barreling into the cave. “Easy Ned, let them handle it. Chances are they’ll be coming out any minute,” Ramos said. He uneasily sat back on the rock, but no one came out of the cave. A minute passed, then two.
“Something’s wrong, we have to act now,” Ned said.
Ramos nodded, turned and shouted at his two officers.
With the cave lit up, M could see that Buck was pulling an unconscious Jake from the water. Her weapon of choice had been a four-foot-long jo. Using it like a cane, she pushed up onto one of the boulders that sat against the wall. “Buck, get out of the water!” she yelled.
Too late, a geyser of water shot up between them. She braced for the attack, one foot against the wall, the other squirming for purchase. Peter knew Buck wouldn’t shoot, not with M in the line of fire. Turning, he charged her position slashing the air with his short sword. Judging the distance, she fired the jo like a pool cue, aimed at Peter’s chest. She heard a lout thud, and he staggered backwards. Like a bull, he charged forward again, head down, short sword held out like a bayonet. M cracked down onto his wrist, then raised the tip to collide with his forehead. Peter went down.
Buck had laid Jake across a boulder then sloshed around trying to get a shot at the rapidly moving figure. “Where?” he shouted.
“Buck, get out of the water,” M shrieked. Buck’s blood curdling howl brought her into the water slamming the jo into the cave floor again and again, as she worked her way to Buck’s side. Grabbing his gun, she emptied the clip into the water in a tight circle around their feet, scanning the water for blood. He had to surface soon.
Using the buoyancy of the water, Buck limped just behind M toward the entrance, leaving a trail of blood. The tide was still coming in, lapping and splashing at the struggling pair. Ned was on his feet and splashing into the rising tide before Ramos could react. At 5’ 2” he was practically swimming. Then Ramos saw them, grabbed his shotgun and sloshed into the water next to Ned, shattered ankle forgotten.
Slowly surfacing, Peter grabbed Buck by the hair, jerking his head back, exposing his carotid artery. M turned in time to see Peter’s right hand snake around to the left side of Buck’s throat.
“NO!”
As if in spasm his arm suddenly straightened, pulling away from Buck. Peter turned to face Jake, and M closed in. She struck at the back of his neck with the jo, and he fell face first into the water. Suddenly, everything seemed to stop, as if the water had ceased its forward march. Jake stepped back. M readied for another strike. Peter didn’t move. Their attention was drawn to a rapidly approaching form, gun drawn.
Shouldering M out of the way, Ramos brought Peter’s arms around behind his back and handcuffed him, then rolled him over. As if on cue, an aluminum boat approached with Ned at the bow. With the help of the two officers in the craft, Ramos hoisted Peter into the boat where his ankles were shackled. A nearly unconscious Buck was next. His Achilles tendon had been severed.
M and Jake staggered back into the cave. Jake’s nose leaked a bloody fluid and one eye was swollen shut. When they reached the rear wall, M collapsed into the three-feet of water; the tide was going out. Moments later, Ramos came limping and slogging to join them. No one spoke.
Epilogue
Buck clumped down the hall
of the Fort Point Police department. His walking cast held his foot at a right angle to his leg. When he reached the end of the hall, a cane pushed open the door. The smiling face of Ocatvio Ramos greeted him.
“Hey, ain’t we a pair?” Buck said, swinging his leg into the room. Ramos let the door shut. “How’s the tendon?”
Buck smiled. “How’s the ankle?”
They both laughed. Buck watched his boss use the cane to maneuver around the desk to the captain’s chair. Buck swung his leg around and sat down hard, then looked across the desk at Ramos. “How’s Lemon, and that kid he saved?”
“OK Guess that kid had the presence of mind to pick up Lemon’s severed hand.”
Buck stared down at his walking cast then up at Ramos. “Will they be able to sew it back on?”
“Too soon to know, but somebody called an ambulance and looks like they got it on ice just in time. What about M?”
Buck looked at his watch, “Should be in San Francisco by now. She’s going to meet with Peter’s sensei.
* * *
M paused outside the door, stepped back and looked up at the building. A twenty-foot rectangle of clean cement indicated where a sign had once hung. The door was unlocked. When she stepped into the training hall the emptiness was overwhelming. Drawing her feet together, she slapped her hands against her sides and bowed deep and slow. A palpable presence emanated from somewhere in the room and she straightened up quickly scanning the empty hall. Slurred speech drew her attention to the top of a staircase.
“Please forgive my rudeness. I’m afraid that these stairs have become my greatest adversary. I would be honored if you would join this old man for tea.”
M bowed again, very low and very slow. “It would be my honor.” She straightened and watched the old man shuffle away. She inhaled through her nose and could only imagine the hundreds of students that had crisscrossed the floor in simulated combat. She took the steps with a measured cadence, and bowed at the entrance to the sensei’s chambers.
The old man was seated in seiza. The table was low, and he indicated her place with the sweep of his good arm. She could smell the pungent aroma of the bitter green tea as she sat.
“When I was at Manzanar I was young, eighteen years old, and confused in my loyalties. The camp was a site of great shame and much unrest. The aged and babies fared the worst. When we arrived the water was contaminated and dysentery swept the camp; everyone lost someone.”
His eyes fixed on a far away time and place, then he shook his head and continued.
“I was helpless and so vowed when the camps were closed, and we were released, that I would never feel that way again. For years I wallowed in a rage I seemed unable to extinguish. But there was a letting go, and with the years the memories began to fade. One day Peter came to my dojo to study and when I asked him why he wanted to learn the way of the sword, he collapsed into his story and my rage was reborn.”
He looked at M and shook his head. “I sent Peter on a mission of Giri for the purpose of Retribution. Shortly after he left I had a stroke and began to believe that I had brought it on myself through a lifetime of hate.”
M held up a hand. “Please, no more.”
He pulled a small square of rice paper from the folds of his karate uniform and placed it in the center of the table. I only wish Peter had discovered the meaning of these words. With trembling hand he raised his cup without drinking. “Please.”
M raised her teacup, and in that moment watched his spirit soar, as in slow motion, he sprawled across the table, dead. M sprang to her feet and ran to the stricken man’s side, but there was no pulse. She reached down for the paper, and read aloud:
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states or between classes, not between political parties, but right through every human heart– and all human hearts.”
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
The Gulag Archipelago, 1974
M placed the delicate paper back on the table, brought her feet together and bowed deep and slow.
Kit Crumb
Kit Crumb
is an author, physical fitness coach, martial arts instructor, former physical therapist and EMT living near Ashland Oregon. Kit can be contacted at [email protected]
Stevie Cutter
Cutter’s legacy
the search for Yamashita’s Gold
C
hapter One
Boka Tara, Ruruto island chain, 1938
A
single bulb a
t the end of a wire illu
minated the rectangular back room of the island bar. The air was thick with smoke and reeked of alcohol. A table lined with seven men, three on either side and one at the end, took up most of the space. Four held cards, the other three, guns. The table’s surface was scarred and stained, and at the center was a small pile of coins and currencies from a variety of countries...and something else. The soldier at the end of the table held a gun on one player’s chest. Unfazed by the implied threat, the cheroot smoking American examined his cards then peered over the loot at the Japanese general and his two aides, who seemed to be holding a conference.
“The rheumy-eyed general stared at a precariously balanced square piece of paper that threatened to slide down the stack of coins. He kept leaning forward, as if to grab it, but the alcohol he’d consumed wouldn’t allow him to hold his cards and reach for the paper at the same time. He was losing, and the only thing he had left to bet against was his precious map, now balanced on those damn coins. He finally gave up trying to take it back. Win or lose, he rationalized, he could wager anything he wanted since he had no intention of letting the other players walk away.
The American shifted the unlit cheroot to the side of his mouth. To his right sat a twenty-two-year-old Frenchman, his wheelchair pulled up tight to the table a bare-chested islander, more boy than man, sat directly on his left and held the fifth hand. The American kept the cards in his right hand while removing the cheroot with his left. “No take-ee, you have to win it back,” he mocked. The unshaven general turned to his aide, spraying him with spittle, as he spoke in an attempt to be understood . Five-card Stud was not his game, but he was determined to beat the American and win back his map.
The islander and the Frenchman showed their cards. The American fanned all five cards face up--full house, kings over tens. “Read ‘em and weep your highness,” he said. The General gulped down another shot of sake, throwing the empty glass to the floor. He stood, knocking away the assistance of his aides, swaying with the effort. One hand on the table for support, he slapped his cards down in a stack, separating them with shaking fingers.
The gunman at the end of the table looked on in confusion as the American swept up the coins and tucked the map in his pocket. His head and the gun turned at the sound of the general’s bellowing, then he turned and pointed the muzzle at the American just as the islander up-ended the table. Spinning the wheelchair around , the American tilted it back onto its huge rear wheels and slammed it through the swinging door, expecting a bullet in the back at any moment. But when he looked over his shoulder, the aides and the gunman were attempting to get the general back on his feet.
Once in the lounge, he ran across the floor, followed by the islander, and out the entrance into the clearing and the heavy tropical air.
“I got it from here boss.”
The American relinquished the wheelchair to the poker playing islander, emptied his pockets of coins and currencies onto the lap of the Frenchman. “Thanks guys, see ya.” He disappeared down the trail that lead to the dock, and the Grumman Goose tethered there.
Chapter Two
Boka Ri, Ruruto island chain, 2007
The fifteen-foot outrigger climbed to the top of a ten-foot swell then shot down the other side. The two paddlers increased their cadence as they neared the “hole in the ocean.”
No one had visited “the hole” in more than a half century. The last amaru meru, or native islander, to visit the forbidden island was now one of the elders on Attu, and claimed he left a small wooden box at the bottom of the cinder cone.
In the bow, hands chapped by salt water, Richard Lynch grimaced with each stroke of the paddle. He’d been at it since dawn. Tye Telophano sat on the low woven seat in the stern. His gaze alternated between the looming visage of Boka Ri, their destination, and the hunched figure of the tourist. “Hold up,” he said.
Lynch gratefully placed the paddle across his knees, as he’d been instructed, not releasing his grip. Tye leaned forward and tapped the small boy huddled in the center of the outrigger and made motions like he was shoveling food into his mouth. “Lunch,” Tye said. Lynch gladly turned around to face the boy.
Anyone not born on a Pacific island was called a “tourist” or “off-islander.” Lynch was actually an investor. He was on the island of Attu to oversee construction of beach condos and the refurbishing of a World War II airstrip. He’d seen Boka Ri on the flight in, and had been trying to find someone to take him there when he was introduced to one of the native islanders employed at the work site.
Tye dropped his paddle in the water periodically, as he ate, to act as a rudder and keep the outrigger turned into the waves.
The halo of clouds that circled the three thousand foot peak of the island misted the outrigger as it neared. “Gotta be extra careful now, Mr. Lynch,” Tye said. “See that froth at the base of the cliff?”
Lynch turned to look then turned back.
“That’s undertow. Fall overboard and you’ll wash up on a beach in the Philippines.”
Lynch washed down his last bite of pickled sea-bass with a gulp of coconut milk. “I thought you said we’d only have a short climb that we’d be back by dark?”
Tye pointed. “Look west. There, no froth.”
Lynch shaded his eyes and followed the cliff where it entered the water. “So?”
Tye looked down at the small boy, rubbed his stomach and smiled, then looked up at Lynch. “Tell him you liked the food.”
The boy looked over his shoulder at Lynch, then back at Tye.
“What’s the boy’s name? Does he sign?”
Tye folded his fingers into various configurations. “He lived in an orphanage on Boka Tara before coming to Attu,” Tye said, and pointed back at Lynch.
The boy turned around and signed his name.
“He says his name is O-I,” Lynch said.
Tye smiled. “That’s Oi.”
The two traded signs until Oi laughed.
“West then north, we’ll pass under the cliff through a lava tube. Could get rough, stay in the boat.”
Lynch turned around and braced his legs against the gunnels. They headed directly into the sun for the better part of an hour, and had just turned north, paddling directly toward the cliff, when the swells turned into breakers and they were being carried at breakneck speed on the crest of a wave. Tye used his paddle like a rudder. “Paddle port,” he yelled. “No, port!”
Lynch was starting to panic, he couldn’t see a lava tube and it looked as though they were about to be smashed against the cliff face. With less than thirty feet to go, the wave broke and they were deposited into calm waters that sucked them into a hole in the rock.
He could feel his entire body sag in the aftermath of an adrenaline rush, and set the paddle across his knees and turned.
“What the hell are you two smiling at?”
Tye waved his hands at the walls. “We found the lava tube.” Lynch’s mouth fell open and he dropped his paddle into the bottom of the boat
“I thought you knew where it was?”
Tye began to paddle in the slow moving water. “Everyone knows. But no one has seen the tunnel in seventy years.”
Lynch gritted his teeth. “If no-one’s seen it, how in the hell could everyone know where it is?”
“Wave action,” Tye said.
In frustration Lynch turned around, scooped up his paddle and thrashed the water with each stroke. Just as it looked as though they might have to use the torch, a brilliant dot of light appeared.
“I see the opening,” Lynch said, and began paddling with a renewed confidence, forgetting his chapped hands and aching back. They exited the lava tube and drifted across the calm waters that surrounded the cinder cone like a doughnut.
“Paddle port, we’ll pull up by that out cropping.”
Again using his paddle like a rudder, Tye turned the boat sideways to what looked like a beach. Oi climbed out on the arm of the outrigger and jumped to shore. Grabbing the rope Tye threw, he wrapped it around a small boulder.
Boca Ri was a visual contrast. The caldera rose five hundred feet, lush and green. The cinder cone was a black mass of volcanic sand and rock. The three climbed the steep cone, bending at the waist while making their own trail, feet sliding with every step. Tye tossed a small rock so it arched over Lynch’s head to hit Oi in the back.
When Oi turned, Lynch stopped, grateful for a break in the pace. Tye walked his fingers along the top of his arm, Oi nodded. Then he made a drinking motion.
Lynch sat without a second step, and looked up at the crest. He was reminded of a trek he’d taken up Mt. Whitney, in the Sierra Nevada, where the top of the mountain seemed to retreat with each step. The constant mist from the clouds left everything shiny, wet, and slippery.
“There it is,” Tye said, looking down the two hundred foot slope, “but there’ll be no descent today without a rope.”
Lynch marched back and forth like a general assessing a battlefield. “C’mon, I see a trail and a lot of vines we can use as hand holds.”
Tye just shook his head. “We eat and head back.”
Lynch looked at his chapped and split hands “No way. You can stay and watch, but I’m headed down.” He removed tiny binoculars from his butt pack. “This game of give something and take something you talked about, what’d you call it? Kureru toreru?Aren’t you curious about what the last player left?”
Tye walked up next to Lynch. “Sure I am, but the last player was here before the war. He’s on the elder council now.”
Lynch scanned the bottom of the cone. “Hey, I see something.”
Tye held out a hand for the binoculars. “Impossible.”
Oi finished the last of the sea bass and walked over to see what his friend was looking at.
“See,” Lynch said, “it looks like a grid, maybe what’s left of a shelter.”
Tye handed back the binoculars. “It looks man-made, but it wasn’t built by a player. This volcano is called Boka Ri on a map. Seventy years ago locals called it the ‘hole in the ocean,’ some still do.”
Oi tugged on Lynch’s shorts. When he looked down the boy made a circle around each eye with a thumb and index finger. Lynch smiled as he handed over the binoculars.
“Kureru toreru was about coming of age,” Tye said. “The council picked the challenge and looked in the log so the player would know what to look for. In turn the player had to declare what he would leave. It was of him, but never of value. The value was that he met the challenge and returned with the proof.”
Oi looked at Tye, holding up the binoculars. He held his hand to his chest and pointed down, then emphatically shook his head.
“Oi says he won’t go, and I won’t leave him. We go back.”
Lynch took a step to the edge. “I hired you as a guide and you’ve done your job. Your services are no longer needed.” Without a backwards glance he stepped over a vine and began a gradual descent, moving diagonally until he ran out of handholds and was forced to change directions.
Tye signed Oi to wait, not to follow under any circumstances.
The farther Lynch went, the less the vegetation, until he was leaning into the slope relying on loose rock outcroppings. He twisted sideways at the sound of sliding rock in order to look up the slope, and lost his footing. As he began to slide, he turned onto his stomach thinking it might slow his descent. He lost hope when the island guide shot past him on his back, knees tucked against his chest, hands flailing for purchase.
Lynch glanced up but he couldn’t see the boy. Fingers raw from clawing, a scream erupted when he hit bottom. He felt his ankle fracture first, then his knee and hip dislocate. Still, he was relieved to have stopped. When he rolled onto his good hip he came nose to nose with Tye sprawled out like a discarded rag doll amidst a tangle of vines. Reflexively, he turned away and promptly lost consciousness from a jolt of pain.
The boy sat back on his haunches. Like a silent movie, he’d watched his friend and the big American tourist slip and slide to the overgrown center of the volcanic cone. Any attempt to help would result in the same fate. Besides, they weren’t moving. Shivering with cold, he stiffly unfolded his legs and with a final look, hoping to see his friend get up and wave, he paused, then scrambled back up over the scree and vines toward the lip of the extinct volcano and down the way they’d come. He spent the night in the outrigger covered with a straw mat. He had little hope of paddling against the tide, back across open ocean to Attu.
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