by Brett Baker
“Floating,” she said.
“We noticed,” the man said. “Why are you floating in the ocean? How did you get there?”
“I fell.”
“Fell from what? A boat, a plane, the sky.”
“I’m not sure,” she lied. “The last thing I remember I was on a beach in Miami, and then when I woke up I was on that life raft. How far away are we from Miami?”
“We’re in the Pacific Ocean, lady,” another guy, much younger than the first guy, said.
Mia looked at the first man and he nodded his head. “Forgive Randy. He’s plainspoken and sometimes that comes off as rude. He’s really a good guy though.” The first man had short brown hair with specks of gray and looked like he hadn’t shaved in three days. He wore cheap sunglasses and a blue tank top. The look he gave Randy implied that Randy shouldn’t open his mouth again.
“It’s fine,” Mia said. “I just don’t know where I am.”
“You’re in the Pacific Ocean. A thousand miles northwest of Hawaii. Now, can you tell me what you’re doing out here?”
“I already told you, I don’t know. I was on a beach in Miami…”
“I know, I know. You already said that. How about this, what’s your name?”
“Mia,” she said. “Mia Mathis.”
“Mia Mathis. So you remember that much. I’m Graham Laughlin. You already know Randy. The other gentleman who helped you up is a guy called Fitz, although I’m not really sure if that’s his first name or his last name. I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“Thanks for saving me. If you hadn’t come along there’s no telling how long I’d be out there. And I can’t imagine the middle of the ocean is a very good place for survival.”
“Not at all,” Graham said. “In your situation—no food, no water, no boat—you’d probably last a day, if that. Dehydration, sharks, storms. There’s any number of things out here that can get you, that’s for sure. So yeah, I’d say you were pretty lucky that we came along.”
“Who are you guys anyway? I mean, why are you out here?”
“Fishing,” Graham said. Mia looked around the deck of the boat and saw no fishing poles. She chose not say anything, but it turned out that she didn’t have to. “Actually, reconnaissance for fishing. We come out here and get the lay of the land, so to speak. Look for schools of fish, larger animals that feed on certain kinds of fish, surface plankton that indicate the presence of fish. Just sort of cruise back and forth until we find what we’re looking for. Cover a few thousand miles, find a dozen or so different places, and then we’ll come back next week with all of our gear and get to work. Cheaper to come out without any gear if we don’t know where we’re going anyway.”
“Well I didn’t see any fish while I was in the water,” Mia said.
“You are the fish,” Graham said. “The catch of the day.” He smiled at her and then stood up. “We’re not going to be back in San Pedro until tomorrow night, so you’re stuck with us bums for a couple of days. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Mia said with a smile.
“Good. Why don’t you go below deck and find some dry clothes to change into? I’ve got a red duffel bag on the floor down there. Grab a pair of shorts and a tank top. You’re tiny so they’ll be a little big, but at least it’ll give us a chance to wash the salt out of the clothes you’ve got on and we can get them in the sun to dry.”
Mia thanked Graham for his hospitality and made her way downstairs.
Below deck there were four cots—two port side, two starboard—all of which had blankets neatly folded at the foot, with a pillow on top. A different colored duffel bag sat below each cot. Mia found the red bag Graham mentioned, kneeled on the floor, and pulled it from under the cot. Inside the bag she grabbed the shorts and tank top as he suggested. She glanced around for a place to change, but the only door she saw, which she assumed lead to the bathroom, was closed, so she undressed and put on Graham’s clothes before anyone could come down.
She was happy to have fresh clothes, and happier to be out of the water. Graham’s friendliness helped put her at ease. Stuck in the middle of the ocean she was at the mercy of the currents, and if a boat hadn’t found her she knew she would have died. Her gratitude for the fishing boat’s generosity in plucking her out of the water had temporarily disarmed her.
But in the safety and solitude of the boat’s crew compartment, Mia began evaluating the situation and forming questions.
All four cots had folded blankets and pillows on top of them, and duffel bags beneath them, but she’d only met three men on the deck. Before she could figure out her next move she had to know who and what she was dealing with.
Mia made her way back to the deck and saw Graham sitting in a wooden chair attached to the portside gunwale. He held a large map in his lap, which he seemed to be scanning with his fingers, as if trying to find a particular place. She saw Fitz inside the wheelhouse, but didn’t see Randy. As she approached Graham he looked up from his map and smiled.
“Clothes aren’t too big,” he observed. “Not ideal, of course, but this is a fishing boat, not a fashion show, so you don’t have to worry about it. We’ve got a wash tub in the bathroom down there. Randy’s our wash expert. He’ll get your clothes so fresh you’ll think they just came back from the cleaners.” Graham nodded as if what he’d just said couldn’t be true without a reaffirming nod.
“Thanks. Those clothes were horrible. They were clinging to me so much I felt like I was suffocating.” Mia didn’t pause to give Graham a chance to speak. Instead she pushed right into her next thought, as if there were no way Graham’s response could have interested her. “I notice four cots down there. Is there someone else here besides you, Randy and Fitz?”
Graham returned his gaze to the map. “No, just the three of us. Sometimes we’ll bring a fourth, so we keep an extra cot down there. But we don’t expect to find a fourth in the middle of the ocean. Sure am glad we have the extra cot now. You should be, too. Sleeping on that floor is horrendous. I’ve done it before. You’re better off standing up to sleep.”
“That sounds horrible,” Mia said. Graham nodded and then stared out at sea. He looked determined, concerned, focused. Mia tried to follow the vector of his stare to deduce whether he saw something that she didn’t see, but they were surrounded by nothing other than water. Graham stared at something only he could see.
He interrupted his daydream by clapping his hands once and smiling at Mia. “So tell me about yourself, Mia Mathis. What were you doing in that water?” Graham shook his head in obvious disbelief. “Early morning, middle of the ocean, no boat within sight, and we manage to pull a gorgeous woman out of the water. If I wasn’t too damn old and jaded to believe in fairytales I’d swear that you were a mermaid, or maybe a siren.”
Mia shook her head. “I’m neither. I’m just a woman trying to figure out how she got here. You know as much as I do.”
Graham said nothing. He squinted his eyes at Mia, nodded his head, but didn’t speak. He folded his map, stood up from the seat, and leaned against the gunwale. He looked back out to sea for a second, and then at Mia, as if contemplating whether he should say what he wanted to say.
“Mia, I know we just met, and you don’t know me very well, but there’s something you need to know. I don’t like bullshit. These men have been with me for quite a few years and they know I don’t like bullshit, so they don’t feed me bullshit. But you and I just met, so you don’t know my likes and dislikes. So I’m telling you right now, don’t give me any bullshit. I don’t like it, and it pisses me off. Now, with that little tidbit of information, how about you tell me how you ended up in the middle of the ocean?”
“My boyfriend and left our hotel and walked down to South Beach. It wasn’t far, maybe half a mile or so. We brought a bag with a couple of towels, some sunscreen, and a Frisbee, and he carried a little cooler with some beer. We had a couple of beers, messed around in the water for a while, and then we spread out our towels a
nd relaxed in the sand. I had my eyes closed, he was right next to me. That’s the last thing I remember, until this morning when I felt the water brushing against my cheek. I thought I’d fallen asleep on the beach and high tide had come in. But when I woke up and looked around, golly fuck, I freaked out. I didn’t know what was going on. And, frankly, I’m not certain I even believe we’re in the Pacific Ocean right now. What did you say? Near Hawaii? That’s crazy. You can believe me or not. That’s up to you. But even if you find my story unbelievable, I guarantee you that you’re no more skeptical about me than I am about you. At least you know where we are. I have no clue.”
“We’re a thousand miles northwest of Hawaii. I already told you that. You can go ask Fitz to pull up the GPS and he’ll show you our exact coordinates. I can prove it to you. But, Mia, you can’t prove to me that you don’t know how you ended up in the middle of the ocean. And, I think you’re full of shit. What don’t you want me to know?”
“You’re fishing out here?” Mia asked.
Graham nodded as if he understood why Mia changed the subject. He looked out into the ocean and said, “We are. Swordfish. Those bastards migrate all the time. With the beginning of summer they’ll head north to cooler waters. We’re trying to catch them on the way, but we’ve got about another week before we expect to see them. Then we’ll have schools of them passing by. They’ll practically jump into the boat on their own.”
“Schools of them?” I asked.
“Absolutely. You see their wake, and if you can get in front of them, it’s easy fishing. We’ve brought in as many as two-dozen in a long weekend.”
“And you’re going back to San Pedro?”
“We are,” Graham said.
“In California?” Graham nodded. “I’m not the one who’s full of shit,” Mia said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not fishing and you’re not going back to San Pedro. How about you tell me what you’re really doing out here.”
“I don’t have time to play your games, Mia.” Graham took a few steps away from her, and then turned to face her. “Don’t think you can turn this back on me. We aren’t the ones stranded in the middle of the ocean.”
“Maybe not,” Mia said, “but anyone who’s fishing for swordfish knows they don’t travel in schools. They’re too big, too predatory. They’re loners for the most part. You might find another fish forty feet away if you’re lucky, but they don’t school together.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Graham said. “I doubt you’ve spent much time on the seas. I doubt you’ve ever caught a swordfish.”
“No, but I can read. A few months ago I was at the Natural History museum in D.C., and they’ve got a swordfish skeleton on display there. I read all about them. They don’t travel in schools. And if you’d ever caught one, you’d know that.”
Graham waved both hands in disgust at Mia, and then walked away.
“And you’re not going to San Pedro, either.” Graham stopped, turned around, and walked back toward Mia. He looked at Fitz as if to ensure he wasn’t listening to their conversation. Mia didn’t wait for Graham to respond. “A thousand miles northwest of Hawaii, it’d take at least four or five days to get back to San Pedro. You said before that we’d be there tomorrow night. You couldn’t drive on a road from here to there and get there by tomorrow night.”
Graham shook his head and grimaced, as if he couldn’t understand why Mia didn’t believe him.
“Now, how about we start over? You tell me where we are, who you are, and why you’re out here,” Mia said.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re out here?” Graham asked.
“I already told you.”
“Of course you did.” Graham turned and walked away from Mia. He headed toward the bow, opened a cooler strapped to the gunwale, and grabbed a bottle of water. As he twisted off the cap, he called over to Mia, “San Pedro tomorrow night.”
5
Chapter 5
East of the city center of Quanzhou, in southeastern China, next to the East China Sea, centuries-old buildings are torn down to make room for new development. High-rise condos mix with new retail space and hotels, all of which intermingle with traditional Chinese structures that have housed citizens of Quanzhou since before humans learned that Earth isn’t flat.
New China and old China converge in the city, and old China loses. Outside investment, forward-thinking businessmen, and a younger generation less tied to, and respectful of, the traditional Chinese way of life are transforming the area into a place unrecognizable when compared to its existence just a couple of decades ago.
It’s among this rapid development and monumental reimagining where Buster Dodge arrived ten years earlier with a plan to conquer China, if not in a literal sense, then in a figurative sense, using the power of the American economy. Fresh from Harvard Business School, and with a vague promise from the wealthy father of a classmate to invest in his new venture if he could prove that he’d turn a profit within two years, Buster moved to China with one suitcase, and a garment bag containing two suits that he’d alternated wearing every time he needed to dress in business attire at Harvard.
He had no plan other than to make money. He knew that more people live in China than in any other country, and that after decades of communism, the Chinese market had opened, so Buster setup shop, even if he had no idea what kind of shop he wanted.
After overhearing two Australian tourists discussing how the plantains that grew in Quanzhou were better eaten raw than cooked, Buster threw himself into the plantain business. He began selling plantains that he peeled, cut, and plated in small plastic bowls to travelers boarding the trains headed toward the interior of Fujian province. As he experimented with different toppings—honey, jams, even fish stock—his sales skyrocketed, and soon he hired his first employee and began selling his plantains among the millions of people who congregated each day in Quanzhou’s business district.
His classmate’s father took quick notice of his success, and within a year of his arrival Buster received his first influx of investment dollars, and moved beyond plantains. Ventures in textiles, footwear, ceramics, and even granite followed, and each business became more successful than the last. Within five years Buster had established a firm hold within the city, and became known as the White Money Man.
Buster had spent the previous five years working on bigger plans though. He understood that a growing economy needed physical space to expand. So he’d transitioned into real estate. He purchased old buildings in run down neighborhoods, tore them down, and replaced them with newer, fancier, state-of-the-art buildings that attracted more investment. He pursued his plan on street after street in Quanzhou. Blocks of the city transformed from rough, decrepit, almost-unlivable space, into brand new, cosmopolitan areas at which investors couldn’t wait to throw their money.
And it was on the thirty-third floor of one of these buildings—an all-glass-exterior structure that looked out over the Luoyang River—where Buster waited for Yuzhan Li to arrive.
Li texted Buster that afternoon and suggested they meet for dinner. Buster, as was almost always the case, already had dinner plans so he suggested a lunch meeting the following day. Li couldn’t wait though, so they arranged to meet in the conference room at Buster’s office.
Buster arrived first, entered the conference room, and sat in the high-back leather chair that he commanded during meetings. The building—which local officials suggested Buster name after himself, but which he instead decided to call Chinchew, Quanzhou’s former name—had opened less than three weeks before, but Buster had already become accustomed to the plush surroundings. When he first arrived in China he conducted business without an office, and when his success demanded a base of operations, he setup in a non-descript building in which the toilets often broke. He built Chinchew with comfort and sophistication in mind though, so after moving into his office space, it didn’t take long for him to get
used to it.
A ding indicated the elevator had arrived on the thirty-third floor, followed by a buzz noting the opening doors. Buster twirled around in his chair and saw Li step off of the elevator. The entire floor was dark except for the light in the conference room, so Li saw Buster sitting at the table as soon as he stepped off of the elevator. Buster motioned for him to come in, and Li nodded and opened the door.
“Have a seat. These are the most comfortable chairs you’ll ever sit in.”
“I don’t have time to sit,” Li said. “I need to make this quick and be on my way.”
“Whatever you say,” Buster said. He stood up, pushed in his chair, and stood behind it, his hands resting on the back. “If you’ve got to be quick we could have just talked on the phone. No need to come down here. I thought you wanted a longer discussion.”
Li shook his head. “You missed that chance. As usual, you were too busy for me. Dinner plans. Who did you meet for dinner? Must be someone important if you skipped a meeting with the man who’s going to make millions of dollars for you. Of course you’re such a big shot these days that maybe you don’t care about millions anymore.”
Buster threw his hands open. “I don’t know what you want from me. We’re meeting now. I’m in business with a lot of people. I can’t just skip dinner plans because you want to meet. Is this why you’re here? To complain that I didn’t go out to dinner with you? Are you my business partner or my girlfriend?” Buster waited for Li to respond, but he stood motionless and stared at him. “Look, if you don’t have anything to say, then I’m leaving. I thought you had business to take care of. I’ve got time for that. I don’t have time for this.”
He walked in Li’s direction, toward the door. “I’m going to New York,” Li said.
Buster stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head to the left, as if to express his disbelief. “What do you mean you’re going to New York?”