How best to do so?
That part was simple: Let the task force know where Harconan was and where he was headed.
As she had projected in the wheelhouse, it either had to be for south western New Guinea or maybe the Kai Island group.
Chris had mentioned both areas as prime possible hide sites for the INDASAT. Logic would indicate Harconan was en route to that hide now. Excellent. Now, how to let the task force in on the fact?
Amanda rolled onto her side, exposure to the air generating a transitory burst of coolness down her spine. Given that the task force was operational, logic would indicate that they would be looking for her and Harconan with all resources available. Those resources would be extensive, from recon satellites on down. Camouflaging her as a Bugis woman had been a wise precaution, as Harconan couldn’t be sure what might be looking over his shoulder. How best to deliberately draw the attention of one of those assets?
Radio? She had seen no sign of a ship-to-shore in the schooner’s wheelhouse. Harconan no doubt had brought a very extensive portable communications suite with him. Also, no doubt, it was well secured, with no chance of her getting near any of it.
What about making a simple spark gap with a couple of wires? Something to produce enough coded static to register on a direction-finder array?
Amanda’s eyes sought for the cabin light fixture. She found it, and smiled derisively. There was a lamp bracket on the wall, with a patch of kerosene soot on the overhead above it.
So much for electronics. What about visual scan?
It was highly doubtful that anyone was going to let her stand on deck heliographing to a Global Hawk with the cabin mirror.
Amanda was confronted with the conundrum of drawing attention to herself unobtrusively. She recalled a scene from one of Captain Edward Beach’s excellent submarine warfare novels in which the hero marked his presence as a prisoner aboard an enemy vessel by reaching out of a port hole to paint the name of his own ship on the hostile craft’s side. The flare of the hull prevented the paint from being seen on deck.
Unfortunately, most of the searchers seeking for her would be overhead, and she didn’t have access to a can of paint anyway.
She called up the mental catalog of the possible assets she had seen aboard the Bugis coaster, its outfitting and its cargo both. Using them like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, she tried to fit them together into a coherent pattern.
Wood… canvas… flags… semaphore… stupid! Metal… radar… radar beacon… too big, too passive… Some way to modulate it?… Signal… signal flares… fire… too obvious. Heat… infrared… a thermal pulse of some kind… heat… heat… flame… oil… diesel… oil… oil… oil. What was it about oil?
Amanda’s head lifted abruptly off the pillow.
Oil.
There was one asset that hadn’t been taken from her. Possibly… probably… as an act of kindness by Harconan she still possessed her Naval Academy class ring. Sitting up in the bunk, she tore it from her finger. In a matter of moments she was facing astern in the inner aft corner of the cabin, as close to the keel line of the ship as she could get.
Using her ring as a pendulum, she assembled a crude inclinometer. With a thread unraveled from the hem of her sarung she suspended the ring from one of the clothing-hook nails driven into the bulkhead. Intently she studied the sway of the pendulum to port and starboard, gauging the arc of each sweep as the pinisi gently rolled and pitched in the low swells.
No cargo ship, not even a large, modern freighter with gyro-stablization and computerized ballast tanks could be trimmed to ride perfectly. There would inevitably be at least a slight list to port or starboard. This particular schooner seemed to favor her port side, by a couple of degrees. Not enough to affect her handling or to even be noticeable when one stood on the deck. But the list was definitely there.
Amanda needed to know that. Now she needed something else. The clothing hooks were too obvious. There was too much chance someone would notice one of the nails missing. Instead she began to scour the interior of the cabin, checking out every plank end and joining.
Once, the Bugis pinisi had been built entirely without metal, master shipwrights fitting the sleek craft together with wooden pegs that swelled with exposure to sea water, bonding the rakish schooner together almost into a composite whole. But with the passage of time and the coming of the engine age, the Bugis had yielded to the ease of screws, spikes, and nails.
Amanda found the lifted head of one such nail beneath a deck mat, slightly loosened by the working of the schooner’s hull. Again she used her precious ring as a prying tool, backing the nail out of its hole in the deck, cursing silently at its stubbornness, swearing wordlessly at the tears and gouges in her fingers, dreading the sound of the cabin’s door bolt snapping back.
After a minor eternity she succeeded. It was better than she could have hoped for. The nail was almost ten-penny size. It would work well.
Carefully, Amanda sheathed it in the hem of her garment. Re-donning her scarred ring, she lay down on the bunk once more. Now, to wait for nightfall and to pray that her captor would be amenable to just a little manipulation.
The slant and fade of the light through the wooden-barred port told of the passing of time, as did the odor of cooking within the deckhouse. Harconan himself came with a quiet invitation to the evening meal.
Amanda had been hoping for this, but she strove for a proper balance of hesitation and resignation in her acceptance.
Served in the main cabin, the food was simple: rice, grilled fish, and tea. The only conversational ploy aimed in Amanda’s direction came from Harconan. The other members of the schooner’s taciturn crew, English-speaking or not, either kept their peace or spoke only to their companions in a low murmur, a decided difference from the curious, casual, and friendly extroversion that was the Indonesian norm.
It was readily apparent to Amanda that the hand of the raja samudra hovered over her. She was not to be a matter of consideration by the schooner’s crew.
There was the one exception: the wiry, sun-darkened old sailor who guarded her. He took a seat on a bench diametrically across the cabin from her, his pristine Sterling machine pistol at his side. As he ate, his eyes never left her, monitoring every move she made, every gesture or shift of position, every morsel of food she lifted to her mouth. There was no lust in that gaze, just an intent and wary focus.
No doubt but that her watchdog had been personally selected by Harconan for his diligence and ability. His was the only firearm Amanda had seen overtly carried aboard the schooner.
Possibly Makara was still infatuated with her, but he was no fool. Amanda had no doubt as to what would happen if she made any threatening action against Harconan or the ship. There was also no doubt she would have to carry out her plan under her guard’s unwavering stare.
Amanda ate slowly, drawing out her meal until she, Harconan, and the guard were the only ones remaining at the cabin table and full darkness had settled beyond the ports.
“I’m glad to see you have an appetite tonight,” Harconan commented. “May I assume you are feeling better this evening?”
“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” Amanda replied, wiping her right hand — her eating hand — clean with a moistened cloth. “A little fresh air would be appreciated, though. Would it be possible for me to go out on deck for a while?”