Katale smiled back. “Hello.”
His eyes darted toward the entrance.
The tide had well and truly now come in, and the tunnels inside were being quickly flooded. They were now trapped on the inside of the hong — safe until the tide fell — whereupon his enemies would now have him trapped.
He swallowed hard at the thought.
But he didn’t have to wait. Instead, a man surfaced five or so feet away from him.
The man, noticing the two strangers enjoying their tranquility at the center of the hong, shot at them.
The shots sprayed the shallow water.
And both the girl and man dived out of the way, their heads disappearing into the shallow water.
Their attacker turned and spotted Katale, firing the last of his rounds at him. He dived under the water and tried to swim across the hong, taking refuge on the opposite side.
Katale stared at his attacker, who loaded another magazine into his weapon.
Where did the two strangers go?
Had they been shot dead?
Katale’s eyes darted across the water, searching for a place to hide or take refuge. His attacker cocked his submachinegun, drawing the first round from his magazine.
Katale held his breath, waiting for the first shot to pierce his flesh.
His attacker pulled the trigger.
Katale heard the loud report of the shot as it echoed through the surrounding cliffs.
And the big guy emerged from beneath the shallow water, lifting the man up by his feet. The attacker fell backward. He yanked at the submachinegun’s trigger, sending a sharp burst of shots scattering across the white limestone walls.
A moment later, the woman appeared behind the attacker. She moved with a warrior’s speed, and the precision of an athlete, as she sliced a small razorblade across their attacker’s throat.
The weapon fell, and the man tried desperately to stem the bleeding with both his hands. But it was a losing battle. His carotid artery had been severed in one clean slice. The man’s eyes widened in terror, before rolling in the back of his head.
The woman waited a full minute, and then discarded the dead body.
She turned to face Katale. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The life-giving humidity of the tropics allowed plants to take hold and thrive in any horizontal, and many vertical, surfaces. As this dense vegetation inevitably dies and rots, it forms more soil on which new life flourishes. Rainwater percolates through the slowly building soil and through the limestone, creating holes as it reaches sea level. Eventually, the soil becomes too heavy for the pitted rock, and sinkholes come crashing through to form a hong — a lost world, within a limestone mountain, a secret lagoon.
The walled lagoon was covered by the most brilliant greenery, where monkeys had played on the vines that ran hundreds of feet into the air, and birds had chirped, insects thrummed, and small fish splashed in the shallow water.
There was only silence after the gunfire.
Tom glanced at their attacker, lying dead in the water, surrounded by an expanding pool of blood. He didn’t need to get any closer to make certain the threat had been eliminated. Genevieve didn’t make mistakes. She didn’t care who their attacker was, where he’d come from, or who he was with. The man had shot at them, and therefore needed to be taken out. Other questions could be asked and answered later.
Tom’s eyes darted toward the small, dark-skinned boy, whose face was set aghast, in abject horror, his hands shaking uncontrollably. “You okay, kid?”
The kid nodded. His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. Instead the kid’s eyes kept flicking between the dead man and the flooded entrance to the now submerged passageway.
“What is it?” Tom asked, his eyes narrowing. “Are there more people coming for you?”
The kid nodded.
“How many?”
“I don’t know,” the kid replied. “They came on a big power boat. There might have been three… maybe four men.”
“Were they all carrying weapons,” Genevieve asked, her mind racing toward the practicality of shutting down any immediate threat.
“I don’t know. They all kept shooting at me.”
Genevieve picked up the man’s weapon. “It’s a Russian Vityaz closed-bolt submachinegun.” Her lips formed into a broad grin, as she casually examined the weapon, as an art-dealer might examine a rare painting. “My father trained me on the very same type of weapon when I was a child.”
Tom made a half-grin. “Of course he did, darling. What more could the head of the Russian Mafia want for his daughter?”
She raised her trimmed eyebrows. “What indeed?”
Genevieve unclipped the magazine. It was empty. She searched the man’s body for another magazine, but came up short. “We’re out of luck.”
Tom turned to the young boy, who seemed more frightened now having watched Genevieve work the submachinegun like a deadly mercenary, than he had a minute ago.
Tom said, “I’m Tom and you have Genevieve over there to thank for saving your life.”
The kid’s eyes darted from Genevieve to Tom, tracing the white cliffs of the surrounding lagoon, before landing back reluctantly on Tom. “My name’s Katale. Thank you both for saving my life.”
Tom said, “You’re welcome.”
“Any time,” Genevieve said, as she cleaned her razor blade on the dead man’s jacket shirt. “Why were they chasing you?”
“I don’t know…”
Genevieve looked incredulous. “Four men nearly drowned trying to kill you, and you have no idea why?”
“No. Not really…” Katale paused, swallowing hard. “I think I might know what this is all about, but none of it makes sense. You will definitely think I’m crazy.”
“Try us,” Tom suggested.
“Two weeks ago, I was diving on an outer reef near Horse Shoe Island, looking for lobster for my flotilla.”
A grin formed on Tom’s mouth. “You’re Moken?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think Moken had anything to do with outsiders?” Tom said. “You speak English very well.”
“Thank you. Most Moken are traditionalists. We live as hunter gatherers, and believe the bountiful sea will provide for us. But times are changing whether we like it or not. The Thai and Myanmar governments are encroaching on our fishing waters, and have taken to constricting our movement on islands that have traditionally been used by my people. Two years ago, much to my father’s displeasure, I took a job guiding tourists through our islands, villages, and flotillas. In that time I soon discovered that the world is a much bigger place than I could have ever imagined.”
Tom said, “Welcome to the bigger world. Is that how you ended tied up with… what? The Russian mafia?”
“I don’t know. Like I said before, I don’t really understand what’s happened, and I very much doubt you’ll believe me when I tell you.”
Tom said, “Try us. Take us back to two weeks ago, when you were diving for lobster.”
Katale closed his eyes, thinking about the past. “Okay. The fishing was poor. Something had spooked the fish, causing them to disappear. It happens. Not often, but it does. The good news is, when the fish disappear, the crayfish come out of their hiding places from beneath the rocky reef, to go in search of food.”
“So you went crayfish gathering instead?”
“Yeah.” Katale nodded. “Only I didn’t find any crayfish either. So I kept going farther out. I was just about to turn back when I spotted it.”
“What?”
“Some sort of glittering light, reflecting off the seafloor. I thought it was gold.”