Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2)

by Christine Kling

  “And there’s something more.”

  “What?”

  “I did some research into this Lieutenant Colonel Miyata. I checked through the National Archives database of Japanese documents that were collected during the war. I found one document that gave the military names for several members of the royal family. Lieutenant Colonel Miyata was also known as Prince Kaya Masako.”

  “You’re shitting me. The architect of Golden Lily?”

  Theo nodded, his teeth white in a wide grin.

  “How soon can we be ready to go, you think?”

  Theo laughed. “We’ve been looking for more than two years, and that ship’s been down there for almost seventy years. I don’t see what the hurry’s all about.”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you about Peewee.”

  “What?”

  “He knew who I was—not John Paul Jones, but Cole Thatcher. Theo, they know I’m alive.”

  Aboard Bonefish

  Malacca Strait

  November 22, 2012

  The small open fishing boat changed heading and began motoring in her direction on an intersecting course. Riley pulled out the binoculars. Through the glasses, she saw three fishermen. There were no weapons evident but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an arsenal in the boat hidden from view. The word in the sailing community was that ever since the 2004 tsunami, piracy in the straits here had ceased. But Riley wasn’t about to let her guard down.

  The decision as to whether or not to carry a firearm aboard had been a difficult one for her. She often longed for a gun in situations like this one, but most foreign countries had made it extremely difficult for transient yachts to carry firearms. They made the captain surrender the firearm when you entered through customs and they only returned it to you when you got your clearance to leave. And the time you were most likely to need a gun was when you were in port. Yes, there were those yachts that had devised very well-hidden compartments and they never declared their guns. The problem with that was that it left you vulnerable to losing your boat or imprisonment if caught. It was a risk Riley decided she did not want to take.

  So Riley had come up with her own weapons that wouldn’t run her afoul of customs regulations in some third-world country. Her primary weapon was a Barnett Ghost 400 crossbow with an upgraded Nikon 3X scope, which rested on the port settee below cocked and ready to go. In addition, she had her dive knife on the bulkhead next to the binoculars case, the 26.5 millimeter German-made Geco flare gun in the sheet bag, her speargun just inside the seat locker, and several cans of hornet spray (which was far more caustic than pepper spray and would shoot farther) in the galley cabinet.

  It was still a bit early to be attempting this passage, as the southwest monsoon season would not end for another month—when December brought with it the dryer winds of the northeast monsoon. Thus far, she had been lucky with squalls. She’d only been hit by one during the last three days, and though the winds got up to over forty knots, she had seen it in time to take in her sails. Now she was motoring with only her main up and a whisper of wind off her starboard bow. The sea was flat and glassy.

  Riley moved into the companionway as the boat pulled alongside and matched her speed. The biggest man in the group stood up and hollered, “Cigarette? Whiskey?”

  This wasn’t the first time Riley had been approached and asked for these items. It seemed a bit odd coming from a devout Muslim populace, but she supposed the items sold for lots of money because they were scarce. She shook her head and held up empty hands. “No, sorry. No smoke, no drink.”

  The men waved at her and smiled. The helmsman started to turn off, but the big man called out, “You! Where husband?”

  Riley put her hands together and placed them next to her cheek. “Sleeping.” She pointed down into the cabin.

  The big man nodded slowly and as the boat pulled away, he kept staring at her. She didn’t like his look at all. When the boat had receded far enough away, she went below and grabbed her logbook and a pencil from the chart table. She brought them topsides and settled behind the wheel to make her entry.

  She copied the longitude and latitude off the GPS chart plotter mounted in the helm. Then she added boat speed, course, wind speed, and wind direction. Her boat was making just over eight knots now thanks to some push from the tidal currents in the strait, but when the tide turned, her speed would drop considerably. It didn’t matter. She would press on. She didn’t have time to stop and anchor to wait out the unfavorable currents.

  When she’d finished describing the incident with the fishing boat she returned to the cabin to put her logbook away in the chart table. Spread out on the other table in the main salon were many sheets of paper, her iPad, and her laptop. She’d been working on the CAD drawings for the musician’s house in Nashville. He had a guitar collection worth over a million as well as original artworks, a recording studio, and a car collection. It was the biggest job she had ever taken on.

  Before going back to work, though, she connected her satellite phone to her laptop and checked for email. Nothing more since the email last night from Cole. He’d said he would call her on the single-sideband radio this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. her time. She checked her watch. It was later than she thought. Only ten minutes to go.

  She threw the switch on the panel, turned the radio on, and tuned it to 8104 megahertz. She put the volume all the way up so she’d be sure to hear his call over the noise of the engine, then went to the fridge to get a bottle of water.

  “Bonefish, Bonefish, this is Bonhomme Richard.”

  She looked at her watch. Three minutes early. She grabbed the mike. “Bonhomme Richard, this is Bonefish. How do you read?”

  “Loud and clear. And it’s great to hear your voice.”

  “Likewise. It does get a little lonely out here sometimes.”

  “You’ve only got yourself to blame for that.”

  “I seem to remember you wanted me to run off and leave my boat behind.”

  “I was ready to get back to work. How has the trip been so far?”

  “Everything’s good. I’m not happy about burning so much fuel, but I’m hoping to have more wind soon. I imagine you’re chomping at the bit for me to get there so you can do some paperwork.” When she’d made her plan to leave alone, she hadn’t thought about the fact that she was taking the prayer gau with her. Cole would have to wait for her arrival to start work on the other documents.

  “I have plenty to keep me busy,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure what to make of that. He sounded like he didn’t care whether she got there or not. “It’s going to start getting really hairy tonight. There are fish traps in close to shore, but the middle of the channel is for shipping, and the traffic will get heavier as I approach Singapore.”

  “I don’t know how you do it. How you stay awake.”

  “I’ve got alarms on my radar and on my AIS system. And then I just catnap.”

  “Well, listen, you be safe. I’ll call you again on Sunday, same time, okay?”

  “Sounds good,” she said, although she didn’t really want the call to end. “Say hi to Theo for me.”

  “He’s standing right here and he says ditto. You be safe.”

  “Roger that.”

  “This is the Bonhomme Richard, clear.”

  Aboard the USS Bonefish

  A Cave in Luzon

  June 25, 1945

  Ozzie saw comprehension transform the faces of the two Japanese sailors on the stone quay—this was not a Japanese submarine. The two men looked at each other and Ozzie knew they were about to run.

  He cocked his pistol and pressed the barrel to the side of Prince Masako’s head. “Tell those men not to do anything stupid.”

  The prince spoke aloud, but none of them had any idea what he was saying. The two sailors bowed deeply and then each went to stand by a bollard.

  Westbrooke gave the order for the deck crew to proceed with mooring.

  “Skipper, I think we’ll nee
d an armed detail to accompany us ashore.”

  “Right, ExO. Issue the orders to organize a shore party. I’d sure like to know where the rest of the Japs are.”

  As would we both, Ozzie thought.

  The monkey’s fists flew both forward and aft. The Japanese sailors on shore pulled across the heavier hawsers and secured them fore and aft. The winch motor started and slowly the sub narrowed the gap of aqua water until the hull was snug against the big black tires that hung along the rock face.

  The chief of the boat organized a crew of half a dozen men with rifles to stand along the deck. The gunner held his position on the fifty-caliber deck gun as the gangway was being rigged.

  “Listen, Your Highness. I know you don’t think I’m going to shoot you because you are my best bargaining chip. You’re absolutely right. But I won’t hesitate to shoot Ben here.”

  The prince turned and met Ozzie’s gaze with a hard look Ozzie hadn’t seen before. So, there was a warrior under the professor façade. “Lieutenant, you do not have to worry. We are cooperating. We understand each other.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. Tell the men on the dock not to leave.”

  The prince spoke again and the two men stepped back against the far cave wall and stood at attention.

  Up on the bow a sailor rigged another light and more of the cave became visible. The cavern was oblong, stretching back from the opening what looked like a good six to eight hundred feet, while the width was perhaps three hundred feet. The stone quay they had tied to had been carved into the cave wall. On their side of the chamber there were no stalactites, but on the far side of the water the spires stretched down from the ceiling like long dark icicles. Some reached down to the level of the water.

  “What can you tell me about the layout here?” Ozzie pointed to the back of the cave where the light did not penetrate. “How far back does this cave reach?”

  “This is an underground river, Lieutenant. We have followed it back for twelve kilometers.”

  “What? That’s not possible.”

  “Oh, yes, there are many such caves here in Luzon.” The prince smiled. “Trust me, I know.”

  “Where are your men encamped?”

  “After the lake here, the river narrows and so does the passage. But it opens again into several large chambers. When the sea is rough, docking like this is not possible and this whole chamber floods. My men are camped in the third chamber, about one kilometer back.”

  “And what about another opening? Is there another way out back there?”

  “Yes. That is why we camp there. We call it the back door. It is a small opening, not big enough to bring cargo through, and it is far from any road. But the cook’s hut and the latrine are outside through that exit.”

  “Okay. You ready, skipper?”

  “Let’s go,” Westbrooke said.

  They assembled on the dock. One man was left behind on the quay to guard the two Japanese sailors, while Ozzie, Prince Masako, and Ben, flanked by two armed guards, led the way. Westbrooke, the chief, and four more armed sailors followed.

  Two of the sailors carried flashlights, at the front and the rear, as well as both officers, but the ground was wet, slippery, uneven clay, so the going was slow. As the prince told them, the cave grew smaller at the rear and eventually the walls closed in around them. They found themselves in a high-ceilinged tunnel about twenty feet across with a fast-moving stream flowing down the middle of the passage. Overhead, stalactites dripped water on their heads and the passage walls shone with dampness in the light. There was still room on the right-hand stream bank for about three men to walk abreast, but the going was slow as the ground was slick with mud.

  On their side of the passage, wires had been strung, and every twenty feet or so electric lights were affixed to the muddy side wall. Ozzie considered asking the prince how to turn them on but he didn’t want to warn the men ahead.

  The air filled their nostrils with a damp, boggy smell. To Ozzie, it felt like trying to breathe through a muddy kerchief. The temperature was cool enough, but due to the humidity, his shirt was already drenched with sweat and the water that dripped on them from the cave.

  One of the sailors at the rear of the patrol slipped and went down hard. He cursed and Westbrooke shushed him even more loudly. Ozzie halted the group while one of the other sailors helped the man who had fallen. It appeared only his pride had been injured. Ozzie waved them onward. The prince stepped along the passage with confidence, not even looking at the ground. Of course, he knew what was ahead. That was what worried Ozzie most.

  Because they had been watching the ground, they came on the second chamber without warning. The lead man’s flashlight lit up the wood of an enormous crate. They were all marked “UO2.” The man shifted the light and there was another and another. They all had Japanese writing on them in addition to the symbol.

  “What does that say?” Ozzie whispered. He pointed at the writing on one of the crates.

  “It’s the name of the ship,” the prince said. “It says Teiyō Maru.”

  The lead sailor took another step and shone the light up into another huge chamber with fantastic dripping spires reaching down at them. But what made Ozzie gasp out loud was the sight of an enormous golden dragon perched on top of a huge pile of gold bullion, the front end of his serpentine body raised into the air as though he were just about to take flight. As the others caught up to them and the beams of the two flashlights danced around the cave, they saw dozens of wooden crates and barrels covering almost every bit of the space in the chamber that must have been one hundred feet across. Prince Masako walked over to one of the barrels and lifted the lid. The flashlight beams glinted off the mound of colorful gems inside.

  “Welcome to Golden Lily,” the prince said.

  Sukhumvit Cryonics Lab

  Bangkok, Thailand

  November 23, 2012

  In the end, the old man made it easy.

  Benny’s contact at the Enterprise had access to all sorts of electronic information. A world-class hacker, he could provide anything from bank statements to satellite photos. Benny had used him many times before.

  The old man Irv had worked for the Enterprise for years, so they had all his information on file. It took all of two days before his name popped up. He probably thought he was being cool by not using credit cards, but this outfit where he had his appointment today had run a credit check on him. Once his name popped, Benny’s contact had hacked into this company’s computers. Benny got the call the night before, reporting that the old man had an appointment at 9:00 a.m. at the Sukhumvit Cryonics Lab.

  Benny sat inside an Au Bon Pain café across the street from the lab. A bottle of water and an uneaten pastry sat on the table in front of him. Very few people passed through the doors he watched. He was not surprised.

  He had visited the place earlier that morning. When he’d first gone inside, he had no idea what cryonics was. He just wanted to check the place out to make sure that there wasn’t a back entrance that the old man could use to slip out. Benny pretended he was a lost tourist, and he asked for directions to the Terminal 21 mall. The woman behind the desk was very patient with him. He asked more questions, and then she had explained to him what their business was.

  Freezing people. Benny had never heard anything like it. These people believed that by freezing themselves now, someday in the future there would be technology that would cure their bodies of old age and they would live on. Benny thought it was crazy and unnatural. And expensive.

  So that was what was going on. The old man had sold the goods to the woman on the sailboat so he could get enough money to freeze himself. Benny shook his head. He’d heard of some weird things in his life, but this one topped them all.

  The old man’s military side cap was always a giveaway. It made him easy to spot. The medals glinted in the sunlight. He came from the direction of the Chidlom SkyTrain station and walked more slowly than the upscale Thai crowd on this street. Benn
y checked his watch. The old guy was right on time.

  Benny slid back his chair and threw some bills on the table. He figured Irv would be in there for a while, but getting across Sukhumvit wasn’t easy, so he wasn’t going to wait.

  Once across the busy street, he positioned himself in a doorway next to the lab. Irv would probably return to the same SkyTrain station. Benny didn’t need a gun to coerce him. He didn’t need any weapon other than his bare hands with such a weak old man. He could simply threaten to break one or two of his old bones.

  The old man walked out sooner than Benny had expected, but then he turned right instead of left as Benny had assumed. He was so short he disappeared into the crowd in an instant.

  Benny darted onto the sidewalk and began pushing his way forward. Several women shrieked when he pushed them. He didn’t care. If the old man heard him, it wasn’t like he could run faster.

  Where was he? He should have caught up to him by now. That was when he saw the old man climbing onto the back of a motorcycle taxi. The driver wore the required bright pink vest and a black ski mask. He pulled on a full face-covering helmet and kick-started the bike as the old man gripped his waist.

  Benny saw that he wasn’t going to make it, so he jumped on the nearest unattended bike and fired it up. The drivers were standing on the sidewalk smoking and one of them yelled as Benny shoved it into gear and took off in pursuit.

  The motorcycle taxi driver darted and dodged through the traffic like a bat in the treetops. The driver had disappeared from sight when traffic came to a halt at a red light. Benny worked his way to the front of the pack and found the old man sitting on the back of the motorbike. He didn’t turn around when Benny pulled up.

  When the light turned green, they were off again and Benny found his navigation through the traffic was improving. He was able to keep the motorbike in sight this time. In about a mile, the bike pulled over and the old man slid off. While he was paying the driver, Benny parked the bike he was riding on the sidewalk and walked up behind the old man as he was positioning his garrison cap on his head.