The Stone Monkey

Tang told him, the transmission lost in static and the sound of the wind, “they’re on . . .here.I’m listening . . . scanner . . . have to get away. Where . . .”
    The Ghost shouted, “If you see any of the piglets, kill them. Did you hear me? They’re on the shore nearby you. Find them! Kill them!”
    “Kill them? You want—”
    But a wave washed over the side of the raft and drenched him. The phone went silent and the Ghost glanced at the screen. It was dead, shorted out. Disgusted, he flung it to the floor.
    A wall of rock loomed and the Ghost steered around it, making for a broad beach far to the left of the small town. It would take some time to get back to where the piglets had landed but he didn’t want to risk injuring himself on the outcroppings of stone. Still, beaching the raft proved to be harrowing. As he closed in on the sand the small craft rose on the crest of a wave and nearly tipped over but the Ghost throttled back fast and the raft settled onto the water. A wave, though, caught him in the back and knocked him to the floor of the boat, drenching him and spinning the raft sideways. It slammed into the shore in an explosion of surf and tossed its occupant hard onto the beach. The propeller tipped out of the water and the motor screamed as it raced. The Ghost, afraid the sound would give him away, crawled frantically back to the engine and managed to shut it off.
    He saw Jerry Tang, in a silver four-by-four BMW, on a sandy asphalt road about twenty meters from the shore. He rose and jogged toward the vehicle. Fat, unshaven Tang caught sight of him and drove forward. The Ghost leaned down to the window on the driver’s side. “Did you see the others?”
    The nervous man said, “We have to go!” He nodded at a police scanner. “The Coast Guard knows we’re here. They’re sending the police to search.”
    “The others?” the Ghost snapped. “The piglets?”
    “I didn’t see anybody else. But—”
    “I can’t find my bangshou either. I don’t know if he got off the ship.” The Ghost scanned the shoreline.
    “I haven’t seen anyone,” Tang said, his voice high. “But we can’t stay here.”
    From the corner of his eye the Ghost saw motion near the surf: a man in gray cloth was crawling on the rocks away from the water, like an injured animal. The Ghost stepped away from the truck and pulled his gun from his belt. “Wait here.”
    “What are you doing?” Tang asked desperately. “We can’t stay here anymore! They’re coming. They’ll be here in ten minutes. Don’t you understand me?”
    But the Ghost was paying no attention to the thug as he walked back across the road. The piglet looked up and saw the Ghost approaching but the man had apparently broken his leg in the landing and couldn’t even stand, much less flee. He began to crawl desperately back to the water. The Ghost was curious why he was even bothering.
    •   •   •
    Sonny Li opened his eyes and thanked the ten judges of hell—not for surviving the sinking but because for the first time in two weeks, the slippery twist of nausea within his gut was virtually gone.
    When the raft had hit the rocks he and John Sung and the young couple had been thrown into the water and swept away by the strong current. Li had immediately lost sight of the other three and had been dragged down the beach for what seemed like a kilometer until he’d been able to kick his way onto the sand. Then, crawling as far away as he could from the ocean, Li collapsed.
    He’d lain motionless under the pounding rain as the seasickness dissipated and the throbbing in his head lessened.Now, struggling to his feet, Li started slowly toward the road, his skin irritated from the cloth of his jeans and sweatshirt, which were filled with sand and saturated with the pungent residue of salt water. He could see nothing in either direction. He remembered, though, the lights of a small village to his right and it was in that direction that he now began to walk along the sand-swept road.
    Where was the Ghost? Li wondered.
    Then, as if in answer, came a brief pop, which Li recognized immediately as a pistol shot. It reverberated through the dark, wet dawn.
    But was it the Ghost? Or some local resident? (Everyone knew that all Americans carried guns.) Maybe it was a U.S. public security officer.
    Better to be safe. He was eager to find the Ghost quickly but he knew he had to be careful. He stepped off the road into some brush,