Amanda sensed it was because her captor was truly himself now, at ease in what he must feel was his own environment. In spite of everything that had happened, Amanda felt her body stir in response.
He looked back at her and smiled. It seemed a genuine smile of greeting and pleasure at seeing her. “Good morning. I hope you’re feeling well.”
“A little hung over but good enough,” she replied coolly. Ignoring the guard who had trailed her to the bridge, she moved forward to peer ahead off the bow. “Where are we?”
He issued a good-humored challenge: “You tell me.”
She glanced around the half circle of horizon visible from the wheel house. There was nothing to be seen but a slow, rolling sea reflecting a piercing sun. The sky was sun-washed pale azure, with only a single mound of cloud off to the south. No other sea or air traffic was visible nor a solitary point of land.
“The Banda Sea,” she said after a minute. “Given the lack of other shipping, it’s the eastern Banda.”
She pointed to the cloud mass to the south. “Off to starboard there is the Tayandu group. As we’re standing on east-northeast, I’d say we’re bound either for the Kai Island group or the western coast of New Guinea.”
“Indeed, and why couldn’t we be in the Arafura, standing on for Torres Strait, with Jervis Island to starboard?”
Amanda shrugged. “The wave action is wrong. The Arafura is open westward to the Indian Ocean and you get the longer, slower deepwater rollers there. We’re still inside the archipelago. Besides, you wouldn’t risk running the Torres Strait with me aboard. No doubt you know about the Australian navy corvette usually on station there.”
Harconan threw his head back and laughed. “Ha! I knew you had to be a real sailor and not just a button-pusher. I’d give you one of my schooners to command any day.”
“There’s only one problem with that, Makara. I’m on the other side.”
“I see.” He grimaced slightly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I suppose it is time we drop the sophistry. Our game of mutually pretended ignorance has worn a little thin. I trust, Amanda, you’ll agree that a little honesty between us might be pleasant.”
“I don’t find any of this pleasant. Why am I being held prisoner?”
“Amanda, don’t talk foolishness. Of course you know why you are here. You’re a prisoner of war, taken honorably in combat. And while I confess that Makara Limited is not a signatory of the Geneva Convention, I can promise that you will be well treated. There is no reason for you to be afraid. No harm will come to you if you act reasonably.”
“And what’s the definition of ‘reasonably’?”
Harconan nodded toward the guard, who stood at the rear of the wheelhouse. “Ask him.”
Amanda noted that the old Bugis raider always stayed back a step or two, keeping himself more than a grab away and unobtrusively positioning so Harconan was out of his line of fire but she was not. The inference was plain.
“I see,” she said.
“I’m glad you do, Amanda.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know that your instinct will be to attempt something heroic. Please don’t. It won’t succeed and I genuinely don’t want you hurt or killed.”
She jerked away angrily. “That doesn’t ring particularly true, Makara. If I’m a prisoner of war, then we are at war and you’re the one aiming the gun at my back, even if one of your hired hands pulls the trigger!”
“Amanda, you’re talking foolishness again. You know I don’t want to harm you and why.”
She lifted her head defiantly. “Because of what happened on your island? That was just a mutual reconnaissance mission and you know it.”
“No!” His hand slashed the air saberlike in a gesture of denial. “Because of who we are and what we are, we have lied to each other since the first moment we met. I suspect we will continue to lie to each other for a long time to come. But we have had one moment of truth together, there on my beach at Palau Piri. You cannot deny that anymore than I can. Let’s at least acknowledge that. Maybe we can use it to find other truths.”
He turned to stare back out to sea, a silence following as might have existed between two lovers in a quarrel — which, Amanda mused, was exactly what they were.
She looked forward over the tarped ranks of oil drums that constituted the coaster’s deck cargo and on past the upcurved bow to where the flying fish skittered and gleamed as they fled the cutwater.
“Why did you have my hair dyed black?” she asked eventually.
“Oh, that? Call it protective coloration. I’m fully cognizant of the capabilities of your reconnaissance satellites and remotely piloted vehicles. There are few redheads riding about on Bugis pinisi. It was either make you look like one of us or keep you confined belowdecks until we reached our destination. That would have made it more… unpleasant for you.”
“I see. Thank you. Where are we heading, anyway?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” He turned back to her with a tentative smile. “Our dress suits you well. You look lovely in it.”
Now, lower the eyes, Amanda, and smile, just a little. “Thank you, it’s very comfortable…. Makara, may I ask you something? And please, could we find some of that truth we were talking about?”
“Possibly.”
“How badly did you hurt us last night? How many of my people were killed? Please tell me.”
He sighed and paused before answering. “You cut us to pieces. You were waiting for us and I can see now it was madness even to try. But I took you as a prize and so I consider it a victory.”
And so the task force was still in the fight. “I see. I appreciate you telling me, Makara. Now, may I go back to my cabin for a while? I’d like to lie down again.”
Amanda stared at the plank overhead of the tiny cabin, but not seeing it, just as she did not hear the rumble of the diesel or the creak and give of its hull, or feel the perspiration prickle at her skin.
She was focused totally inward, assessing and reviewing her situation and seeking to develop a valid plan of action. Recriminations for allowing herself to be trapped like this were dismissed instantly as a critical waste of time and energy, What was done was done and only what came next mattered.
Amanda had always recognized that the risk of becoming a prisoner of war was inherent in her chosen profession. As such, she had prepared for it by taking part in a number of interservice POW and escape-and-evasion training courses, including the grueling and frighteningly realistic Mustang E&E program run by the U.S. Army’s Special Forces.
The first rule all of these programs had taught was “Do something immediately.” The sooner one could escape, the better.
But did she necessarily want to escape?
Abstractly assessing her situation as she might any other tactical problem, Amanda began to recognize potential. Gradually it occurred to her that at the moment she was perhaps at the best place she could possibly be, at the heart of the piracy cartel and in a position to collect intelligence on the organization. Also possibly to influence and affect its leader.
By no means did she consider herself indispensable to the Sea Fighter Task Force. There was any number of capable officers, from Admiral MacIntyre on down, who could take her place there. There was no one who could take her place here.
With that realization, Amanda ceased thinking of herself as a prisoner, jettisoning the last of the emotional shackles that went with the title. Likewise abandoned was any thought of escape. Replacing it was the concept of attack.
To win in any kind of military conflict, one had to attack. It was irrelevant if one was mistress of a multibillion-dollar ultratech warship or if one commanded nothing but a loaned cotton sarung; you used the assets available to do the maximum damage possible to your enemy.