by Fritz Galt
Then the ship’s engines gunned to life.
Why were they risking a trip in such fog?
The captain’s mate emerged on deck and cast the mooring line ashore. Then the gangplank slipped away, and the deck hand went below deck.
The Dolphin eased past the dock. The gray mist lifted slightly and he saw May-lin amidships, her hair tangled in her face. Beside her stood the team of frogmen.
Her eyes locked on his. Then the Dolphin’s powerful propellers engaged at full speed and she headed out to the wind-tossed sea. As the stern swept past, once again he heard the beeping noise from the bridge.
He couldn’t believe they were heading out. What was worth the risk?
The ship could probably navigate well at night. That wasn’t the problem. Her radar could pick up coastal areas and metallic objects at sea. The problem was the turbulence. All it took was one big wave.
Footsteps approached from behind Alec. Emerging from the gloom were his colleague in the geology department and an engineer having just stowed the diving gear.
They all bore the same puzzled expression.
“Stupid,” the engineer said. “All my equipment’s on board.”
“Where the hell are they going?” Alec asked.
The geologist shrugged. “Nothing was scheduled.”
“Is there a harbor master?” Alec searched for the Chinese word. “Someone at the port who schedules ships?”
The men looked dubious.
“Let’s go,” Alec said. “I’ll buy you a bowl of noodles.”
The Dolphin headed into the raging blackness guided only by the beep of a homing beacon.
May-lin gripped the captain’s chair and listened to the beep grow louder.
That morning, one member of her diving crew had done more than pinpoint the center of the magma, the weakest point in the tectonic fault. He had left a homing beacon.
She was the first to spot the running lights of a second ship. The stern read “Alabaster, Hong Kong.” The size of the cruiser surprised her. With several illuminated decks of cabins and sizeable fore and aft decks, the yacht could house an entire Triad gang.
It was clear that her project’s benefactor, Johnny Ouyang, had real money.
Just two weeks earlier, Ouyang had called her to ask how the project was going. When she told him that mapping hadn’t yet begun, he grew furious and threatened to withdraw funding.
Like any researcher who had to beg for grants, she had become frantic and promised to speed up the work. She promised to pinpoint the weakest spot along the fault line immediately.
Throwing caution to the wind, she had sped up the project until it nearly spun out of control. Engineers hadn’t finished their tests. The science was flawed.
Desperate, she had turned to Professor Lien. He considered her plight, made a few phone calls and told her to take it up with the American Alec Pierce.
But she was embarrassed to approach him and afraid to destabilize her crew. So she turned to a traditional remedy. She went to the temple. There, she could pray that Alec would notice something wrong. Perhaps he could step in and ease the threat to her funding. However, even a deadly attack by two trained killers didn’t get his attention.
Then that morning, Ouyang had told her to place a military-style homing beacon over the site. Next, someone delivered an anti-contamination suit to her hotel room. At that point, she realized that the project had turned into far more than a scientific enterprise.
What an afternoon it had been. Racing against an approaching typhoon, she had to locate the weakest point in the fault.
She wanted desperately to tell Alec her dilemma, but he wasn’t receptive. And she didn’t want to jeopardize her funding.
A spotlight on the Alabaster was searching the water. In its glare, she saw a taut loading crane. Hanging from a thick chain was a metal device the size and shape of a basketball.
Had Johnny Ouyang developed a sensor of his own? Perhaps he had a different method of measuring the magma or registering seismic activity.
She watched with fascination as the sleek, polished device swung off the end of the deck.
A voice crackled over the radio. It was a woman with a strong French accent.
May-lin didn’t catch all she said, and turned to the captain for clarification.
“She asked how deep the volcanic ridge is below the surface.”
“Fifty meters,” she said under her breath.
The captain transmitted this back to the Alabaster.
“We’re setting the detonator,” the woman said. “When will the typhoon hit the center of Taiwan?”
May-line was confused. “Why would she want to know that?”
“For maximum effect,” the captain said.
At that moment, the entire plan became clear to her. To ensure maximum damage to Taiwan, the woman would detonate a bomb over the fault, thus triggering a volcano, an earthquake and a tsunami, just when the typhoon reached its peak.
She was a terrorist.
The captain lifted the radio to his lips. “Set the timer for fifteen hours from now.”
May-lin shuddered. As rain drummed against the windshield, she saw many of her ship’s divers drop into the water to assist the crew on the other ship.
She needed to find a way out of the situation.
“What exactly does the woman want?” she asked. Maybe she could rustle up enough money to pay the woman off. She had several uncles who owned a dental clinic.
“Forget it,” the captain said. “We do what she says.”
The beeping had reached its loudest. The captain looked to her for confirmation. “Is this the exact spot?”
The sonar scope ping was at fifty meters. She closed her eyes and nodded.
“This is the spot,” the captain reported over the radio. “You may lower the device.”
She tensed against the rolling waves, and her mounting despair.
Through the side window, events transpired with a frightening inevitability. Frogmen in black suits bobbed in the water, ready to guide the bomb to its target.
For a moment, her scientific nature gave way to her ancestors’ legacy of fatalism. How could she stop people so determined, an operation that professional?
What kind of bomb was that anyway? It looked so compact, so technologically advanced. Then she remembered with horror the anti-contamination suit hanging in her hotel room.
It was an atomic bomb. A massive earthquake on Taiwan was virtually ensured.
What could possibly defeat that enormous bomb? She glanced around the bridge and spotted a pistol next to the captain’s chair. What a paltry excuse for a weapon. It could only kill one person at a time. But maybe it could stop a bomb that could kill millions.
There was something more gruesome about killing one person than a million. But she would do it.
Alec hunched over a bowl of beef and flat-shaped noodles under the protection of an overhang. Greenish light from fluorescent bulbs illuminated the rain as it began to splatter the dirt road and form muddy puddles against the makeshift restaurant.
Neither of his two buddies at the table knew why May-lin and the captain had taken the Dolphin back out into the storm.
The engineer and geologist looked confused.
“And why did we move up our schedule?” Alec asked.
“Yes, why hurry?” the engineer said. “I haven’t even begun my saltwater tests.”
The geologist also looked worried. “Do you think the results will still be valid?”
“We can’t be absolutely certain,” Alec said. It was all the more reason for caution, as far as he was concerned.
“Dr. Hu May-lin changed the schedule,” the geologist growled, and stirred his bowl with his chopsticks.
“What made her change it?” Alec said.
“Maybe she wanted to beat the storm.”
“If we knew there was a storm coming,” Alec said, “we should never have begun mapping. Man, I thought someone would have consulted a
meteorologist before we began.”
“I knew it was coming,” the engineer said. “But this is typhoon season. I figured we’d ride it out.”
Alec pressed the issue. “What made her change her mind? Were either of you there when she made the decision?”
The two men shook their heads, bowing low over their bowls.
Then the engineer waved his chopsticks in the air. “She did take a call yesterday just after we arrived. The captain came out of the hotel and told her, ‘It’s a call from Hong Kong.’ I didn’t make a connection until just now. Someone might have forced us to start early, because she announced the speedup at lunch break.”
Alec frowned. “Who could force us to do anything so stupid?”
“Probably the man in Hong Kong who’s funding the project,” the engineer offered.
“What man in Hong Kong?” Alec hadn’t focused on the funding before.
“Some millionaire.”
“Why would he have a say in the timing?” Alec said, and swatted at a pesky mosquito.
“It’s essentially his project.”
Alec stared at the engineer. “But is he a scientist?”
“No,” the geologist said with a grunt. “He’s a stock broker.”
“Why on earth would a stock broker bother to fund such a project, much less take a day-to-day interest?”
“No one knows him,” the engineer said. “Until yesterday, I thought he was just an anonymous benefactor.”
Alec stirred his noodles in silence.
The engineer brightened. “Maybe he was worried the volcano might erupt in our faces.”
Alec looked up. Was this guy serious? Then he saw the engineer smirk.
“It won’t erupt in our faces,” the geologist said. “The chances of that happening are infinitesimal.”
“I know. I’m just joking.”
Alec smiled. But the more he thought about it, maybe there was a grain of truth in what the engineer had said. “We did start mapping the most dangerous part of the fault. What did the magnetometer register?”
“Pretty high iron content,” the geologist said. “May-lin plotted it at only fifty meters underwater. It’s definitely a weak spot in the tectonic fault.”
“And who decided that we map that area first?” Alec asked.
The geologist thought for a moment. “It was decided before I even became involved in the project. And I’m glad they picked that spot. Orchid Island is drifting 8.7 centimeters a year toward the south. It has created a spectacular geological formation.”
The captain of the Dolphin cut her engines, and they languished on the high seas thirty meters from the Alabaster.
At last, he donned his raingear and stepped out on deck to watch the Alabaster lower the device into the water.
May-lin took the opportunity to reach for the pistol by his chair. It was heavy and cold. From the raised lettering, she realized that it was a model manufactured by the People’s Liberation Army.
What a traitor.
She stuffed the gun in the rear pocket of her tight shorts and wondered what to do next. If she knew how to operate a ship, she could start the engines and ram the Alabaster.
She looked at a set of brass knobs. Beside them lay an ignition key. Next to that were gauges. It didn’t make sense.
She banged her hands on the helm.
Okay. She’d start with the key. She grabbed it and located the ignition. Beside it was a button labeled “Prime.”
Here went her project.
She turned the key and heard an electrical whir.
No engine sound.
She had smelled diesel fumes earlier. The ship had diesel engines. She pushed the button and heard a coughing chug, but nothing else.
Frantically, she pulled the first brass knob. The engines roared to life. Needles on the gauges swung upward.
A yellow hood appeared just outside. The door began to swing inward. Rain swept onto the bridge.
She charged the door and heaved her weight against it. There was a sickening thud.
She had hit the captain, and his body plummeted into the sea.
She stared at the yellow coat in the dark waves. The ship still wasn’t moving. The captain’s mate clambered up the ladder toward her.
She slammed the door shut and reached to bolt it. There was no lock.
She clawed wet hair out of her eyes and tried to drive the boat forward. There was a second throttle. She pulled it. The boat moved forward slowly. Gripping the handle more tightly, she pulled with all her might.
The cabin door flew open.
She looked around for help. She could reach for the pistol, or she could ram the Alabaster.
She had time for neither. So she unzipped her pants.
Chapter 17
Mick watched Natalie wipe the perspiration off her face. Then she sank, exhausted, to the apartment floor.
She had peeled every last bit of carpet off the floor to protect it from potential flooding.
“Not the way I wanted to spend my weekend,” she said, leaning back against the stereo cabinet.
“Tell me about it.” Mick tossed a roll of Rayon tape onto an armchair after having taped huge X’s across all their windows.
He turned on the radio and tuned it to ICRT.
The U.S. Army had leased the radio facility in perpetuity to a station called the International Community Radio of Taiwan which, in addition to playing imported pop rock and teaching English to the island’s inhabitants, also put out up-to-the-minute weather reports.
Mick lay down beside his wife on the cold floor and waited for the report.
According to the broadcasters, the island of Taiwan and all its outlying islands were in a “Condition Twelve,” meaning that destructive winds would reach the eastern shore in the following twelve hours. Sea warnings were being issued at that very hour.
They estimated the leading edge of the storm was fifty kilometers southeast of the town of Taitung on the otherwise sparsely populated east coast. The eye of the storm was traveling north by northwest at 12 kilometers per hour.
In the meantime, Taiwan’s weather was overcast, but otherwise normal. The island continued to operate its airports, train lines, buses, schools and businesses as usual.
Since it was the second typhoon that season, Mick and Natalie were already well stocked with food.
And that evening, they had added the finishing touches to their decor. Flashlights sat ready with spare batteries. Candles and matches were spread out on various tables. Tape stretched across windows. All bath towels waited in neat stacks by each window, the balcony door, and the hallway door.
After his golf outing, Mick had topped off the car’s gas tank since once the power failed, gas stations would be unable to pump gas.
That evening, he had pulled desks, computer equipment, the television set, couches, beds, artwork and stereo components away from all windows and doors. He had lugged each plant off the outside balcony and into the building’s inner stairwell. He had stacked up the balcony furniture and found a place for it in a closet.
In addition to rolling back the carpets in each room, Natalie had tied each curtain back to protect the fabric from dirty rainwater. She had opened the faucets full blast and filled both bathtubs with potential drinking, cooking and bathing water. She had also spun the refrigerator and freezer dials to their maximum power.
The last step before the storm struck would be to unplug all appliances in case of power surges.
She looked at him. “Let’s try Alec again. He hasn’t called back.”
Just then Mick remembered Sean Petit’s list of contributors to Alec’s project. He pulled the printout out of his pocket. “First let’s examine this list. I haven’t studied the names yet.”
He read the names aloud. The information included seven contributors and their nationalities. He stopped after each name and studied his wife’s reaction. Each time, she shook her head. Contributions came from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia. By far, the
largest contribution came from a man named Johnny Ouyang of Hong Kong. Neither could place the name.
“Let’s do this,” he suggested. “Tomorrow morning at the office, I’ll cable Hong Kong for a background check on Ouyang.”
Natalie closed her eyes, undoubtedly too tired to respond.
He began to review in his mind all the things he needed to accomplish before the typhoon struck the next day. Maybe he could combine a few activities. He could bring the defense attaché Steve Novak up to speed on the Peitou murder while he drove to Mucha for the temple dedication.
Just then the telephone rang.
Natalie sprang to her feet and reached for the handset. Then she instantly pulled it away from her ear.
From that far away, Mick could hear gusts of wind howling on the other end of the line.
Then there was relative silence. “Mick? Natalie?” they heard.
“Alec,” she shouted with relief. “Thank God it’s you.”
Mick trotted into the bedroom and picked up the extension. “Sounds like the typhoon’s already hit.”
“Yeah. I only just learned that this is going to be a typhoon.”
“Where are you?” Natalie asked.
“I’m calling from a phone booth in the little town here on Orchid Island.” Alec sounded calm despite the racket on the phone.
“Why aren’t you inside?” Mick asked.
“This is inside, if you call a phone booth next to a noodle stall inside.”
“We’re worried about your safety, but we’re even more worried about your personal security,” Natalie said. “Professor Lien just warned me that the man who attacked you was from the mainland.”
Alec didn’t respond at once.
“Yes, I heard about the attack,” she said. “You’re lucky you survived it. But Lien wants you to watch your back and thinks you should investigate who’s behind your project.”
“I’m already busy on that front,” Alec said.
“Lien says the funding is from dubious sources,” Mick added.
“I’ve been talking about the money with several team members.”