Beyond the Rails 3: Slayer of Darkness

Chapter 9

Aloft south of Mombasa Friday morning

          Kestrel had followed the rail line, more or less, down from Nairobi, and turned to a course of 170° as soon as Mombasa came into view at first light. She crossed the coastline south of the city, then turned south-southwest, as Monroe felt it prudent to hold to the center of Pemba Channel, remaining equally distant from the Tanganyikan mainland to starboard and Pemba Island to port.
          “Top of the morning, Patty,” Smith greeted the pilot, coming up the ladder directly in front of the pilot house. “I’ll relieve you, if you want to get some rest.”
          “Thank you, David, but there’ll be plenty of time to rest after we drop Jinx off.”
          “Figured as much. Let me know if you change your mind.”
          He moved back to the after deck, out of her view, to where Monroe was already inspecting the equipment, looking for that first sign of deterioration that could kill them all. Patience smiled at the kindness of this rustic American, and rolled her shoulders, stretching muscles bunched from long hours of holding a precise course.
          She had brought their altitude down as low as she safely could as soon as there was enough light to see by. This reduced the distance at which they could be seen, but commensurately shortened their horizon as well. Accordingly, they were only a few miles from the small, agile gunboat when she spotted it. It obviously spotted them simultaneously, as its wake cut a U on the deep blue water as it turned directly toward them.
          “Captain,” she called out the door.
          No response. She stepped out to the rail and looked aft.
          “Captain!”
          He looked up from the conversation he was having with David at the winch.
          “Yes, what is it?”
          “We’ve got company.”
          Both men came forward to join her, Monroe squeezing in behind her to get his long glass. As he was studying the boat, Jinx came up to the deck.
          “Anything interesting?” she asked, following his gaze.
          “Prussian patrol boat,” he said, passing the glass to Smith.
          “Dangerous?”
          “Very. They have a small breech-loader on their bow. They could take us down with a single shot should they wish.”
          “Should we avoid them?”
          “Run, you mean? We could easily outrun them. We’ve five times their speed, but if we do, we may as well just hang a sign out that says we’re up to no good. No, we’re just a crew of peace-loving traders.”
          “How do they know that?”
          “They’ll ask us. They’re closing the range to look us over and hail us. You should stay here at the rail, Miss Jenkins, and let your hair fly free. A criminal crew would be less likely to include a woman, and your presence may help convince them. Patty, when they make contact, reduce speed so they can keep pace. David, bring the megaphone.”
          “Aye, Cap’n.”
          It was a matter of another three minutes until the boat was directly under them, and the expected hail came.
          “On ze airship!” came the call from below, “what is your name und registry?”
          “Kestrel, British, bound from Mombasa!” Monroe called back.
          “Und where are you heading?”
          “Kilindoni.”
          “Business?”
          “Trade.”
          “You do not trade in slaves, do you, Captain?”
          “No, sir! My government has forbidden it.”
          “As has mine. What, zen, are you trading?”
          “Spices, wine, a small piece of machinery. Most ordinary cargo, Captain.”
          “Very well, you may carry on. Do not let me find zat you were lying to me.”
          “That would be very foolish indeed. Thank you, Captain, we’ll keep our noses clean. Back to forty knots, Patience,” he said, lowering the megaphone. “He’ll undoubtedly follow, and we need to put some space between us.”
          “Aye, sir,” she replied, pushing the throttles forward.
          “What’s Kilindoni?” Jinx asked as the dry riffle of the airscrews rose dramatically in pitch.
          “A town on an island way down south.”
          “Why’d you tell him that?”
          “I couldn’t very well tell him Zanzibar. He’s certain to check, and if I’d told him that, then he’d expect to find us there. We’ll drop you off, then lay out to sea until whatever rendezvous time you think is appropriate. By the time he gets here, he’ll think we’re miles over the hoizon.”
          “Well, you will be.”
          “Not in the direction he thinks.”
          “And you can find your way back?”
          “Ye of little faith. Patty, if you fly east over the horizon and lay low all day, how difficult would it be to navigate back to Zanzibar?”
          “Not difficult at all. I think we can keep our position pretty stable out there, and we just fly a reciprocal compass course back. If worse comes to worst, we can just go up a few thousand feet until we can see it.”
          “There,” Monroe said. “Satisfied?”
          “It’s difficult to argue with competence. Bad luck running into that boat, though.”
          “But not unexpected. That’s just typical Prussian paranoia. They keep an eye on anything coming down from Kenya. They fear the crown may send spies to them by air or sea.”
          “So, well-founded paranoia, then?”
          Monroe looked at her then, taken off guard by her remark.
          “I’d better have something to eat, and get into my work clothes. I wouldn’t want to hold you up on the delivery. Have a pleasant day at sea, Captain. Maybe you can catch a few fish.”

Aloft north of Zanzibar 7:30 AM

          Kestrel was approaching the north shore of Zanzibar Island at extremely low altitude, barely twenty feet off the waves, when Jinx came back on deck, and there was a fleeting moment as she climbed the ladder in front of the pilot house that Patience thought they had picked up a stowaway. She wore a white sherwal, the loose, baggy trousers favored by both genders, and a nondescript top of green with a gold-patterned print. The white hijab she had chosen covered her hair, and included a veil that concealed everything but her brown eyes. Sensible sandals completed the illusion of a young Arab woman out for her day’s activities.
          “Holy smokes!” Smith greeted her. “You look like the queen of Persia in that getup.”
          “Let’s hope not,” she replied. “I bought these in Mombasa. I can only hope that Zanzibar is such a melting pot that I don’t stand out too badly.”
          “Outstanding,” Monroe commented, joining them at the rail. “A lot of Arabs have prohibitions against women going about unaccompanied by a male relative. Is that going to be a problem for you?”
          “You can come along with, if you’re worried, papa.”
          “Sorry. My burnoose is in the laundry. Seriously, what’s your plan to deal with that?”
          “Stealth. But I’m hoping that the chaos that is Zanzibar society will allow for every stripe and custom.”
          “How’s your Arab?”
          “Nonexistent.”
          “What will you do if someone speaks to you?”
          “You aren’t making me feel real confident about this, Captain.”
          “It needs to be considered.”
          “Well, Arabs speak a score of languages or more. I can just act like I can’t speak the one that’s being addressed to me, which will be true enough. Or, I’ve heard reticence is a good response from a young woman.”
          “I’d pay to see you pull that off. Patience, reduce speed and start down the west coast. We’ll want to put her down as close to the town as we can without being seen.”
          “Aye, Captain. You know, someone is bound to see us. A shepherd or someone on a boat.”
          “We can’t control that. Just don't get seen from town.”
          “Aye, sir.”
          The nose swung almost imperceptibly to the right to follow the western shore. Twenty minutes passed while Jinx made unaccustomed small talk with Monroe and Smith, a sure sign of her apprehension; if things went wrong, she wouldn't have a friend within fifty miles.
          “Captain,” Patience called through the open windows, “there’s a little cove coming up. Should I have a look?”
          “Yes, go ahead and take us in.”
          She did so, turning, dipping, sniffing and bristling like a nervous cat. Within a few minutes, they had a clear view of the cove and the surrounding area, and to the best that they could tell, no one was around. Jinx stepped onto the cargo platform as Patience brought them as low over the beach as she dared.
          “Are you armed?” Monroe asked her as he stood ready to lower the platform.
          “Always, Captain.”
          “You be careful in there. When should we pick you up?”
          “Let’s say ten o’clock. And Captain, if I’m not here, you owe me nothing. Get on with your lives.”
          “We’ll see. Good luck!”
          The last sight he had as she slipped below the rail was of those intense brown eyes looking back at him from the slit in her hijab, and he wondered if it really would be the last.
          “Patience, get us the hell out of here. East about twenty miles. We’ll lay low and wait.”
          “I suggest we go high, Captain, at least after we get out there. You can’t hide this envelope at the surface, but people only rarely look up.”
          As she spoke, they began to swing around to the north and gather speed.
          “How high, do you think?”
          “Seven thousand feet, maybe eight.”
          “Damn! Are you sure?”
          “Nairobi’s almost six thousand, and we go higher than that to get there.”
          “Sure, but the ground’s only a couple of hundred feet below us.”
          “Why Captain, don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights!”
          “Never mind, you! Just get us out there, set whatever height you want, and do the calculations so David and I can hold her in position while you get some sleep.”
          “I’m not tired—”
          “The devil you aren’t! You’ve been at the helm since last night, and you haven’t slept since the night before that. I need you fresh for the pickup tonight, so just hold the backtalk, Missy! We pick Jinx up at ten, so what time should we wake you?”

Zanzibar 9:00 PM

          Jinx had spent the morning and early afternoon in the foliage north of town, watching what she could see of its patterns and trying to absorb its rhythms, but without much success. Around four o'clock she had gathered some sticks into a firewood bundle and carried it on her head past the Treasure Trove, the waterfront shop owned by A. Reinhard. The names meant nothing to her, not even gender, but she had plans to address that.
          Reaching the southern outskirts, she followed a bend in the road and, finding herself unobserved, slipped into the thick vegetation to assess her findings. They were meager. Reinhard’s shop was on the ground floor of a two story stone building fronting on the road that ran parallel to the beach. The door was solid, windows were at a premium, and she couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, or even whether it was open. She had to find a place of concealment from which to watch the comings and goings, but that wasn’t going to be easy. This Reinhard couldn’t have chosen a place more difficult to reconnoiter.
          Setting herself to be more observant, she started north along the coastal path again, empty handed this time, retracing her steps past Reinhard’s lair. Her attention was now on the surroundings, seeking a wrinkle she could use to disappear into the very fabric of the locale, and she found it in the form of a building, abandoned because of a collapsed wall, some two blocks away. It was on a curve, giving it a view of the front of the Treasure Trove, and she turned into the alley behind it. Once out of sight, it was easy to slip into the unattended shell, and she made her way up to a mezzanine that faced toward the sea, putting it at right angles to Reinhard’s. Moving to the right front corner, it was child’s play for her kris to work an opening in a wooden shutter that overlooked his establishment, and she settled in to wait.
          Dusk was soon falling over the town, and as it did, a tall man in a white suit came out of the Treasure Trove and turned back to lock the door. Reinhard? She had no idea. She did note something odd about his face, a discoloration that couldn’t be explained by a beard.
          But that was of no consequence. She gave it another half hour, waiting to see if he would return. It was fully dark by the time she decided it was safe to move, and slipped out of her hiding place. Regaining the street, she walked past the shop, counting doors as she went, and turned into the first street leading inland. There was, as she hoped, a narrow alley behind the shops, and she walked back toward Reinhard’s, hoping she wouldn’t have to deal with any thugs barring her way. She reached the third building without incident and found it to have a drainpipe from the roof that went past a set of ventilation louvers on the second floor. Deciding that those were a better access option than forcing the back door, which would be discovered immediately, she climbed the pipe and looked in through the slats as best she could. She could see nothing in the pitch black interior, which was a good sign in her estimation; the building, at least that room, was likely deserted.
          Clinging to the pipe with one hand, she tested one of the louvers. As she hoped, it was loose in its frame, having been neglected by everything but time, and she was able to work it free, reach into the room, and place it quietly on the floor. Repeating this with the next two, she soon had a space large enough to accommodate her small frame, and she slipped into what proved to be a store room, boxes of various sizes stacked on floor and shelves. Now, if only it wasn’t locked!
          It wasn’t, and she found herself in a hallway running toward the front of the building, with stairs coming up from the back. If this was my place, she thought, I’d want my office facing the ocean. Moving to the front, she found a small room with a view of the sea, arranged in the typical fashion of a waiting room, and a door in the center wall opposite the hall. Opening that, she found the plain desk, bookshelves, and filing cabinets typical of a secretary’s office, and another door leading further in. The inner sanctum.
          It was locked. Fortunately, it was locked with an old-style lever tumbler lock that this Reinhard hadn’t bothered to replace. Jinx had learned to pick these as a child, and this one fell to two of her bent-metal picks in seconds.
          Closing the door behind her, she let her eyes adjust to the dim light filtering in from the window. His big, ornate desk sat in the center of the room, and this was her target. She closed the shutters, then struck a match and moved to the desk. Lighting the oil lamp she found there, she looked at the items on top first. Most of them were invoices. She found the letter from his “sister,” and quickly discarded it as useless. Another letter from a supplier looked more promising, but she decided against that as well, as any message concealed therein would be too cryptic to be considered intelligence of the sort she needed. Sitting down in his chair, she noted his safe, regretting that she would be able to do nothing with that; safecracking was not among her formidable skill set.
          She opened the first desk drawer.
          “Jesus!” she breathed. A colony of rats couldn’t have made a bigger mess. She lifted out a sheaf of disorganized papers, riffled through them, and as she expected, found nothing that looked important. Opening the second drawer, she repeated the procedure, and replaced them, shoulders slumped in resignation. If there was anything of value hidden in here, she’d need a week to find it. Looking around, mind running through alternatives, her gaze landed on his small waste bin. There atop all of the discarded envelopes was a wadded piece of paper. Retrieving it, she uncrumpled it on the desk. It proved to be a telegraph form.

HOUSE ACQUIRED KISUMU. MEET ME NAIROBI SUNDAY. M.

          Pocketing the paper, she stood to leave when she heard the unmistakable sound of the secretary’s office door opening. Quickly blowing out the lamp, she snatched up a heavy figurine and wedged herself into the darkest corner, pressing herself to the wall behind a tall bookshelf. The door opened, admitting a focused beam of light, a dark-lantern carried by a large man in western garb. She heard him sniff the air; no one could miss the scent of the still-smoking wick.
          “Is someone here?” he called loudly, drawing a pistol with his free hand. "Ni m’tu hapa?”
          Jinx held her silence, and tried to make herself smaller.
          The man approached the desk, and noted the open drawer, touched the lamp, felt the heat. He turned and scanned the room, seeing nothing. He began to check the shadows he couldn’t see into, working his way around the room. Inevitably, he came to Jinx’s nook, and just as his gaze fell on her, the heavy figurine fell on his temple, driving him to his knees. Before he could begin to recover, a second blow drove him into unconsciousness. His lamp fell, spilling its oil and starting a small fire. She grabbed a rolled tapestry from a shelf and smothered it, and made her departure. Carefully, to be sure, for she couldn’t know whether he had a partner, but she encountered no one else, swung down the drainpipe, and was soon jogging toward her rendezvous, for which she was now terribly late.

Aloft north of Zanzibar 10:40 PM

          Kestrel lay as low as was possible, given her low-slung airscrews, over the beach in the little cove where they had dropped Jinx that morning, Hobbs making minute adjustments to counter the northern drift. Jinx was over a half-hour late for the rendezvous, and her own instructions had been to leave her. Monroe turned that option over in his mind as he listened to the quiet conversation going on beside him, but figured they had time yet.
          “Are we sure this is the right place?” Bakari inquired of Smith.
          “There’s one thing you learn right away,” Smith informed him. “If Patience says we’re in the right place, we’re in the right place.”
          “I wish I had that confidence,” Bakari said.
          “You should,” Monroe told him. “In a world that shifts like quicksilver, Patty’s navigation is the one thing you can rely on. You’ll learn if you stay with us long enough.”
          “I hope to, Captain.”
          “What I’m more interested in is what Jinx is doing in there. If she weren’t so damned secretive, we’d have a better idea of her chances, and how to help her if need be. As it is, if she doesn’t show up soon, we won’t know whether she’s dead or a prisoner, or where to look for her if she is alive.”
          “She made it clear, Cap’n.” Smith said, “she’s a client. We owe her nothing.”
          “You know that isn’t how we work, David.”
          “I know.”
          “Perhaps I could go to look for her, Captain,” Bakari said. “I speak the language and look like just another laborer.”
          “You’re the engineer, Bakari.”
          “I know that.”
          “The ship doesn’t work without an engineer. Or a pilot, for that matter. You and Patty stay aboard. David and I handle all the ill-advised shenanigans. Anyway, by the time you got to town, you’d be suspicious just by being on the street at such a late hour, and if harm has befallen her, she wouldn’t likely be left on the street for you to find. No, we’ll wait a bit longer. What could she be doing?”
          “She dressed like an Arab,” Smith speculated, “so something she shouldn’t be. Espionage, theft, breaking and entering. All things we wouldn’t want to be associated with. Say, you don’t suppose she’s an assassin, do you? She’s likely facing a firing squad if they caught her up to that.”
          Monroe contemplated that thought in silence. He couldn’t refute it, because the image of her shooting a wounded man as he lay on the floor was as clear in his mind as if it had happened this morning. Whatever else she might be, the girl was a cold and ruthless killer.
          “How do you know this woman, Captain?” Bakari asked, interrupting his reverie
          “Sorry, what?”
          “The woman, Jinx. You say you’ve met her before. When?”
          “The better part of a year ago. We had a noblewoman under our care, a friend of Patty’s, in fact. She was snatched off the deck right under our noses, and spirited to an underground fortress by a madman. Jinx was with a crew of Australian hooligans who found a way in. They’d seen us searching and took us along, and we were able to affect a rescue. Jinx wasn’t in charge, she was muscle. Hmph! Odd thing to say about a slip of a girl like that, but she wasn’t at all shy about shooting people. They never did tell us what their business was in there, either.”
          “So she could be a common criminal, then.”
          “Yes, I suppose she could.”
          “Maybe,” Smith said, “but we never would have gotten into that complex without her and her crew.”
          “Yes, David, and we owe her, but we’re getting awfully close to paying off the debt. If she returns tonight, we’ll give her a ride back to Mombasa, but if she expects to keep us on, we’ll have some answers.”
          She did, in fact, return. It was close to eleven, and she was alternating between a walk and a slow jog, both hampered by a limp caused by one of her shoes coming apart. She appeared to be at the end of her strength when Bakari spotted her. Patience swooped in for the pickup, and Smith rode the lift down, supporting her exhausted frame as the winch pulled them up.
          “You waited,” she gasped, out of breath from the ordeal of trying to get to the rendezvous. “You waited.”
          “Patience, get us out of here.” Monroe turned to Jinx, who David had leaned back against the mess deck wall. “We waited, because that’s what we do. The question now, Miss Jenkins, is what do you do?”
          “I told you, it’s family business.”
          “That is no longer good enough,” Monroe said. “We spent all day hovering over the ocean at an altitude almost too high to breathe, and all evening waiting at this rendezvous, not knowing whether you were in there to kill someone, steal some priceless art, or who knows what. I’ve just been considering the joy of having a price on my head because of something you’ve done.”
          “What’s our destination, Captain?” Hobbs called from the pilot house.
          “Mombasa,” Monroe called back.
          “Nairobi,” Jinx called simultaneously.
          “Mombasa,” Monroe repeated. “Miss Jenkins’ association with us will be ending, and from Mombasa, she will have the best chance of finding new suckers to assist her with her quest, whatever that may be.”
          “Captain,” Jinx protested, “we have a contract.”
          “Do we? I didn’t sign anything. We have an arrangement, which I am terminating.”
          “What do you want, more money?”
          “More information. We put ourselves on the line for you today, including waiting a good hour past the time you told us our obligation to you was over. I’m taking you at your word. We went above and beyond the call to ensure your safety, and now our obligation is over.”
          “Captain, you’re the best crew out here. I need you. What can I do to persuade you?”
          “You could try being honest with us.”
          “I have been!”
          “You’ve honestly told me it’s none of my business. I’m tired of finding my way in the dark. If you don’t feel it possible to trust us, then I don’t feel that I can trust you, either.”
          “All right, Captain. I’m trying to keep this as confidential as possible, understand?”
          “Yes.”
          “My sister went missing here. She was traveling to South Africa to join her fiancé. We received a letter from Bombay saying she was taking the steamer to Mombasa, then, nothing. That was six months ago, and given my experience with that group you met, it was decided that I was the best suited to follow her trail. I’ve traveled by rail across Australia, and steamer around the rim of the Indian Ocean. Every sign in Bombay suggests that she was on the steamer when it left there, but I find no trace of her here other than a visit to a dentist named Farnsworth, and Farnsworth turns out to be a petty criminal.”
          “And what do you think that means?”
          “I don’t know. There has been no ransom demand. It’s possible she was simply killed for the contents of her purse, but that doesn’t bear thinking about. Besides, the trail keeps extending further. I don’t know. Slavers, maybe.”
          “If that’s the case, she’ll already be in Persia or Arabia," Smith said. “Slavers don’t store their captives for long before they move them.”
          “If that’s where the trail leads, that’s where I’ll follow, but right now it leads to Nairobi.” She produced the telegram and handed it to Monroe. “Won’t you at least deliver me there instead of Mombasa?”
          Monroe walked forward to the pilot house to read the paper by the dim lamp that illuminated the instruments.
          “We’ll take her to Nairobi, Patty,” he said with a pointed look at Jinx. “Stop in Mombasa. We’ll top off our coal supply and go on from there.”