Pandora's curse

bet Rath’s already here and has isolated the ship.”

“I would if I were him,” Ira said. “Who were you going to call?”

“I wanted to reach Dick Henna, the head of the FBI. We’ve been friends for years.”

“No kidding?”

“It’s a long story.” Next, Mercer phoned the purser’s office and asked to be connected to Father Anatoly Vatutin’s room. A moment later, a shipboard operator said that no one was answering. “Could you give me his room number? It’s important that I find him.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the tired operator said. “We aren’t allowed to give out cabin numbers. It’s company policy.”

Mercer hung up the phone. “Damn it. They won’t give me Vatutin’s room number either.” He crossed to the closet and opened the door. Hanging inside were three saffron robes of Buddhist monks and rattan sandals. The idea that flashed in Mercer’s head was a desperate one. He called to Anika, who was in the bathroom. “Are there any razors in there?”

“A couple of them.”

Mercer snapped open the longest blade on his pocket knife.

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“You know any monks with hair, Ira? Besides, what do you care? You’re already bald.”

“What are you doing?” Marty asked.

“We can’t stay here because the monks will eventually return, and as you pointed out we can’t walk around the ship dressed as refugees. So a couple of us are converting to Buddhism. One of the men will have to remain hidden in the boat garage with the women.”

“I’ll stay with them,” Marty volunteered quickly and then added to defuse the tension he’d caused unnecessarily, “At my age, I can’t risk cutting off all my hair. It may not come back.”

“Okay.” Mercer began hacking at his hair with the knife. “If you’re up to this, Erwin, you’re next.”

“I’ll be okay.” He fingered the fringes around his head. “And like Ira, I won’t be losing much.”

Twenty minutes later, Ira, Mercer, and Erwin Puhl had the robes draped over their regular clothes, sleeves hiked to their elbows and pants carefully folded so their bare legs and sandled feet were exposed. Each was freshly shaved and their bald heads gleamed.

“I look like an orange bowling pin,” Mercer told his reflection in the bathroom.

“I think you look handsome,” Anika said. “Like Yul Brynner in The King and I.”

Ira rubbed Mercer’s naked skull. “If I was a phrenologist, I’d say you thrive on danger and alcohol, have impure thoughts about farm animals, and probably wet the bed.”

Mercer chuckled. “Remember, my hair will come back.”

“Touche.”

Back in the little office in the garage, Mercer handed the Schmeisser to Marty, keeping the broom-handle Mauser for himself. “Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. If you get caught, Rath won’t execute you until he has all of us. He’ll lock you up instead and we’ll find you.”

“I understand.” Bishop took the weapon. “Sorry about what I said earlier. It’s just that I, ah, I’m…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m scared too. Once we link up with Vatutin, we’ll be safe in his cabin until we can figure out what to do next.”

“Before you guys go out, I have something for you.” Anika removed a tube of lotion from the sundries rack near the office counter. “Suntan lotion with bronzer. It’ll darken your complexion a bit. Make you look more… I don’t know… Tibetan.”

They smeared their hands, faces, and heads with the darkening cream. All things considered, their disguises weren’t too bad.

“We should be back in a half hour.”

“This ship is enormous. How are you going to find Vatutin so quickly?”

“It’s nearly twelve,” Mercer replied. “Cruise-ship tradition is the midnight buffet. Where else could he be? We’ll even bring back some food.”

In a tight bunch, the three men left the boat garage and started down the carpeted corridor. At a bank of elevators, their costumes were given their first scrutiny by a pair of French-speaking priests. The clerics eyed the makeshift sling Anika had made for Erwin but otherwise ignored the fake monks. Mercer exchanged relieved glances with Ira and Erwin. They rose seven decks in silence, following the priests when they exited. Eavesdropping on their conversation, Mercer understood they were headed for the buffet in the main dining room. He walked slowly, letting the Frenchmen draw out of earshot. “So far so good.”

“What happens when we run into some real Buddhists?”

“Pray they think we’ve taken vows of silence.”

They reached one of the ship’s two cavernous atriums and crossed on a bridge next to a waterfall, glancing down to see a group of rabbis chatting in a piano bar surrounded by a riot of jungle vegetation. Above them, the aurora borealis washed through the skylights and cast wavering slashes of color on every surface it touched. Particularly brilliant flashes brought appropriate gasps from the people loitering at the railings of the multilevel atrium.

The crowds thickened as Mercer and the others approached the dining room in the center part of the Sea Empress. The noise of conversations grew. Most people ignored them, but a pair of sharp-eyed Sikhs stared as they walked into the huge room. Mercer didn’t know if it was cultural animosity or if their disguises didn’t fool the turbaned men. He submissively bowed his head as he shuffled past. And stumbled into a man dressed in black, like a priest.

The man turned and snapped something in angry German.

Falling back into Ira, Mercer couldn’t suppress the recognition. The German was from Geo-Research! He wasn’t wearing a priestly suit. He wore a uniform. The man said something again, jabbing a finger into Mercer’s chest.

“Ungalabu,” Mercer said quickly, casting his eyes down in apology. “Ee ala haboba.”

Rath’s guard continued to glare, but Mercer refused to meet his eyes. A trickle of sweat ran like a finger down his ribs. Sneering, the German turned to his compatriot next to him, said something derogatory, and laughed. He hadn’t recognized Mercer with his orange robes and shorn pate.

Before joining the buffet line, they waited until the guards were a dozen places in front of them. “How do you know Tibetan?” Ira whispered.

“I don’t.” Mercer grinned. “And neither did he. We’ll get a table near them so Erwin can listen to their conversation.”

“I don’t see Vatutin anywhere,” Erwin said after a quick search of the room.

“When we grab a seat, you walk around and look more carefully. If he’s not here we can maybe try out on deck.”

With his stomach straining to get at the magnificent displays of food ringing the room, Mercer placed just a few vegetables and some rice on his plate in keeping with Buddhist practice. Yet when he reached the deli station, he made two foot-long sandwiches and slid them into the pockets of the robe. The chef shot him an odd look, but he had seen a number of dietary taboos broken on this trip.

There were only two people at the ten-place table closest to where the Germans sat: a man and a woman unlike any Mercer had seen outside of a Hollywood stereotype. The man sported a shimmering blue sharkskin suit with a shirt and tie of the same color. His toupee looked like a dead animal perched on his head. The woman had poured herself into a silver dress that showed silicone cleavage to an inch above her nipples. Her big hair was bottle blond and styled into a towering cone. Her makeup would have been comical if it wasn’t so appropriate to her overlifted face. Each individual eyelash seemed as long and thick as a baby’s pinky.

With his eyes, Mercer asked permission to sit.

“Absolutely,” the man slurred. In front of him were three empty glasses and a full one. “I’m Tommy Joe Farquar and this is my wife, Lorna. We’re from the U.S. of A.”

“Gosh,” Lorna squeaked in a voice shrill enough to shatter crystal. “It’s good to have some company. For some reason no one wants to sit with us no more.”

Mercer made a sympathetic gesture and shoveled rice into his mouth to keep from laughing.