He looked back at Maggie and raised his eyebrows. She caught his meaning and gave the pirates around them a collective, anxious look. He shrugged his shoulders slightly and grimaced.
Chang pulled a walkie-talkie out of his back pocket and had a short conversation with someone on one of the other boats. Seconds later a booming sound rolled over the water from the boat to the left of Chang’s yacht. A small cloud of smoke from the bow of the boat was quickly blown away by the wind. Five seconds later he saw an explosion among the trees on the island. It was ten yards beyond the clearing where the crates of gold were stacked.
The yacht pulled abeam of the boat, and Hendrick saw that they had a large mortar on the foredeck. They proceeded to drop mortar rounds all around the submarine.
Hendrick glanced around quickly and saw that everyone’s attention was on the mortar barrage. Now is my chance, he thought then looked at Maggie. I might get away, but what about her? He hesitated then realized he couldn’t leave without her.
“All right, Chang, let’s work a deal,” said Hendrick. All eyes turned toward him. “I’ll give you the gold for the girl.” He could see Maggie’s hopeful look in his peripheral vision.
Yum screwed up his face as if to say, you’ve got to be kidding. He translated to Chang who gave a snort of dismissal and turned toward the submarine. Yum just looked at Hendrick and shook his head.
“You don’t understand,” said Hendrick. “They have explosives that run along the keel. They’ll sink the sub, if they think you’ll capture it. This is a crack Russian submarine crew we’re talking about here. They’re trained to die rather than be captured.”
“The gold is on the beach, so who needs the sub?” asked Yum.
“The gold on the beach is only one small part of the gold we recovered,” explained Hendrick. “Most of the gold is still on the sub. One hundred sixty-five boxes of gold. Over seven hundred million dollars worth.”
Yum translated for Chang who said something abrupt and dismissed Hendrick again.
“So, what did he say?” asked Hendrick.
Yum smiled. “It literally translates to something like you being steeped in yak dung.”
Hendrick thought furiously. He was making it all up as he went along, and he had to come up with something to keep them talking.
“I can prove it,” said Hendrick quickly. How am I going to prove it? he asked himself desperately.
Yum turned to him and wrinkled his forehead. “How?”
“Let me talk to one of the guys on the sub, and I’ll show you,” replied Hendrick.
Yum hesitated, then told Chang who mulled it over. Chang gestured to one of the men near him, and the man ran over to the ladder to go below. He came back moments later with a bullhorn. Yum took it and held it up to Hendrick.
“Choose your words with care,” threatened Yum.
“What will you do to me? Kill me?” asked Hendrick carelessly.
“We will make your girlfriend watch your prolonged death,” said Yum and jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward Maggie.
Hendrick saw Maggie’s eyes grow wide at the thought of witnessing his torture and death. I’d better be careful, he thought, or else Maggie may pay for it.
Yum handed over the bullhorn, and Hendrick put it up to his mouth.
“Joe, this is Steve Hendrick,” he said wincing at the volume from the bullhorn’s speaker. “Joe, I’m here with the Tiger of the Orient, your friend and mine, Lord Chang.” He studied the pile of gold and saw no one near it. Where was Joe Malik?
After a few seconds he heard Joe’s voice, faint due to the distance. Hendrick thought it was coming from behind the sub’s superstructure.
“What the hell are you doing with them?” Malik asked.
“It’s a long story. I’m here with Maggie also,” said Hendrick. “I’m trying to arrange a trade, the gold for Maggie and me. But they think they can just walk in and take it.” Hendrick glanced around at the pirates who were looking at him expectantly.
“Joe, show them the detonator,” said Hendrick. He held his breath. Would Joe pick up on the scam? There was silence for a few long moments. “Joe, show them the detonator for the explosives to scuttle the sub if we’re attacked.” He started to sweat.
An arm suddenly appeared from behind the sub’s sail and extended out fully. In the hand was a small device the size of a cellular telephone with a short tubular antenna protruding from the top. Yum immediately picked up a pair of binoculars and stared through them at the device in Malik’s hand.
Yum lowered the glasses and turned to Hendrick with suspicion on his face. “It looks like a GPS receiver.”
Man, talk about modern day pirates, Hendrick thought. They even know about GPS receivers. “Of course it looks like a GPS receiver. Do you think we want to let the crew know about the explosives?” He held his breath as Yum translated for Chang. The pirate leader grew thoughtful. At least I’ve got this skinny bastard thinking, thought Hendrick.
“I’ll tell the sub crew to back away and let you get the gold if you release me and the girl,” said Hendrick, nodding in Maggie’s direction.
Yum screwed up his face then told Chang.
“Think about it! Over thirteen tons of gold! Seven hundred million U.S. dollars! Just for two lives,” pleaded Hendrick. “How much would you get for the girl? A million? Two million?”
Hendrick looked at Maggie out of the corner of his eye. She waited anxiously for Chang’s answer but managed to look miffed at what she thought was a low price.
Chang asked a question. Yum translated for him. “How do we know the crew will do what you say?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” replied Hendrick. That’s a good question, he thought. The Russians won’t want to let the gold go. How do I get them to let Chang have it? “How do I know you’ll really let us go?”
Yum shrugged and spoke with Chang a bit more. Chang thought for a moment then nodded.
“You have a deal,” said Yum.
Hendrick smiled and glanced at Maggie whose mouth was hanging open with shock and relief. Hendrick turned back to Yum.
“He’ll really let us go?” asked Hendrick.
“Lord Chang has given his word!” shouted Yum who was outraged that anyone would question the integrity of Chang.
Hendrick took a deep breath and raised the bullhorn to his lips once again. He knew he would have to do the sales job of his life.
CHAPTER 19
Treasure Lost
KURCHATOV
Joe Malik couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Hendrick wanted to give the gold - all of it! - to Chang. True, he and Maggie were in a tight spot, but this seemed a bit extreme. Malik painfully climbed a ladder on the far side of the sub’s sail to get to the bridge where Golubev was stationed.
Malik climbed up to the horseshoe shaped dugout in the top of the submarine’s superstructure, enduring shooting pain up his leg from the bullet that was still in his calf. He limped past a half dozen sailors armed with mostly handguns to where Golubev was crouched behind the periscope mast.
“I think your friend is nuts,” said Golubev. “The crew will kill me if I turn over all that gold to these criminals.”
“Yeah, but how are we going to get past the pirates?” asked Malik.
“We will just pull out and submerge as quickly as we can,” replied Golubev. “Bullets will not pierce the hull.”
“How about their mortar? Won’t that be able to punch a hole in the hull?” asked Malik. “They dropped mortar rounds all around us to make a point.”
“Not big enough,” replied Golubev. Malik stared at him, wondering if the old Russian believed that or not. It was impossible to tell. He half stood to talk to Hendrick.
“Steve, Golubev says he’s just going to submerge and run for it,” shouted Malik.
“I was afraid of that,” mumbled Hendrick to himself. Xu walked quickly over to Hendrick and snatched the megaphone from his grasp.
“We have depth charges,”
said Xu to Malik and Golubev, his amplified voice echoing from the sub’s hull. “The submarine will not get far before we sink it.” His tone took on a new belligerence. “The choice is clear: fight and die, and we will get the gold after you are all dead, or back off as Hendrick suggests and let us take the gold, and you will be alive to tell about how you were almost rich.”
Malik turned to Golubev. “What now? They’ll eventually overwhelm us and kill us all. They have much better weapons than we have, and we’re probably outnumbered ten to one. Is the gold worth your life and the lives of everyone else aboard?”
“They will gun us down when we get out in the open,” protested Golubev.
“I’ll take care of that. Anything else?” demanded Malik.
“We will come away from this with nothing,” complained Golubev. “One cannot wave enormous riches in front of the crew, then suddenly take it away. They will be furious.”
Malik shook his head in frustration. “Steve, Golubev wants something out of this. He’s afraid of the crew. How about leaving us something for our trouble?”
Hendrick glanced at Xu and Yum who both shook their heads vehemently. They were dealing from a position of strength, and they knew it. Hendrick held out his manacled hands for Xu to give him the bullhorn.
Xu gave the device back to Hendrick with a hissed warning. “Convince them in the next minute, or no deal.”
Hendrick held up the megaphone. “Joe, they want all the gold. You have to get them to agree to this. Use anything you can think of to divert them from fighting it out.” He prayed Malik would remember the morning’s conversation.
The word divert hit Malik like a cannon shell. He and Hendrick had talked about a diversion so that they could get the bank notes out of the decompression chamber that was attached to the exterior hull of the sub. Hendrick was clearly giving Malik the green light to tell Golubev about the bank notes. With any luck the pirates would not notice or inspect the chamber. Even if the pirates did find the bank notes, Golubev and his crew would be out of the way by then and could do nothing to stop them.
Malik told Golubev about the bank notes in the chamber to the old Russian’s surprise. Golubev went through disbelief, then indignation at their duplicity, then grudging acceptance.
“How much is in there?” asked Golubev.
“We didn’t stop to count it,” said Malik. “But it’s gotta be millions.”
Golubev picked up a phone and gave the Russian equivalent of all hands on deck while Malik held up the GPS receiver once again.
“Remember, if you open fire, we’ll blow the bottom out of the sub, and you’ll have to negotiate with the fish for the gold!” he shouted.
Hendrick glanced at Xu and Yum who nodded casually.
“Okay, Joe, they agree. See you in a little while,” said Hendrick. He watched solemnly as the sub crew, after some excited explanations from Golubev, slowly filed out of the submarine.
Hendrick held his breath, wondering if the pirates would open fire on the crew anyway, but the Russians, divers, Howard, and Malik ran down the pier and disappeared unhurt into the jungle.
Xu picked up the megaphone from Hendrick and raised it in front of him. “To make sure you will not detonate your explosives, you will now throw the detonator out into the open where we can see it.”
Ten seconds later the GPS receiver flew out from the dense foliage and fell to the ground ten yards in front of the pile of gold that Hendrick, Malik and the rest of the divers had stacked there earlier in the day. Chang said something into his walkie-talkie, then they all looked at the large boat to the right of the yacht. The boat inched forward and tied up next to the submarine on its outboard side. Minutes later several planks were thrown down to span the gap between the pirate boat’s deck and the deck of the submarine. Chang’s men began to move across in a continuous line.
Hendrick watched them for a while amazed at the number of people that were on the boat. Xu shouted orders to them and supervisors among them quickly had them organized into groups, one of which went below to gather the gold and get it to the deck below the forward hatch. Another group worked the chain hoist that was still over the hatch, and still another lined up along the deck to carry the gold back to their boat. Within minutes they had a steady stream of boxes being transported into the pirate ship.
Hendrick shook his head at the sight and felt sick to his stomach at the thought of all that gold going into the hands of his enemy. He and the rest of them worked and fought to recover the gold, then Chang took it away at the last moment. He eyed the decompression chamber on the deck aft of the sail. The pirates were walking around it without looking at it closely. His improvised plan was working. The pirates would take the gold and leave the bank notes in the chamber.
His eyes wandered over to Maggie who was staring at him with a worried look on her face. She brightened up when she caught his eye. Her eyes darted over to Chang, then she questioned Hendrick with her eyes. He knew what she was trying to ask: are they really going to let us go? He shook his head slowly. She gave him a depressed look and jerked the chain that kept her tied to the railing. Her face showed a sudden thought.
“Could I see?” she asked innocently. Yum turned to look at her. “I’ve never seen that much gold before.” Yum said something to Chang who nodded. Miraculously Yum ordered Lin to remove the shackle from her ankle. Lin complied then stood next to her to keep her from getting next to Hendrick.
Hendrick’s mind raced. One obstacle down and one to go. She was free, and he had a plan to escape. Pull the railing apart, grab Maggie and jump overboard. Only she had to get a lot closer.
The boxes of gold flowed endlessly from the submarine. Once in a while a box would fall apart, spilling the gold ingots onto the deck along with the mud that had seeped through the cracks in the case. The pirates got excited seeing the shining yellow metal among the brown streaks of sea bottom. Chang, Xu, Yum, and the rest on the yacht became ecstatic as Xu counted the number of cases of gold out loud. They began to laugh and slap each other on the shoulders, including Chang whose smile seemed so wide as to have the corners of his mouth meet somewhere at the back of his head.
They would laugh like hell if the top of Chang’s head fell off, thought Hendrick. “Yeah, it’s nice to be rich, isn’t it? You’re welcome. Too bad you have to give all that gold to Konaka.”
At the mention of Konaka’s name Yum, Xu, and Chang looked up at him. Yum translated for Chang, and three of them began laughing.
“Konaka who?” asked Yum facetiously. Xu laughed harder.
“So, you’re going to cut Konaka out of the deal,” said Hendrick. “I’d love to stick around to watch the terrorist-pirate war, but I’ll be going now.”
Yum’s laughter abated leaving him smiling. “We will not release you, Hendrick. You will die as I have described and as my Lord Chang has ordered.”
“Tiger of the Orient, huh? More like Shithead of the Orient,” said Hendrick who wasn’t surprised at the duplicity of the pirates.
“I thought Lord Chang had given his word,” protested Maggie.
“You don’t understand,” said Yum pleasantly. “My Lord Chang’s word isn’t worth a shit.”
Maggie looked at Hendrick who was shaking his head in disgust. “Well, at least you saved the sub crew’s lives.”
Hendrick nodded and pressed his lips together. One of the crewmembers from the other boat came aboard and brought one of the gold ingots up to Chang and his men. They all crowded around the yellow bar and touched it, emitting sounds of awe and delight. Hendrick again shook his head in disgust. He glanced at Maggie and saw a devious look come over her.
“You said you know Russian?” asked Maggie.
Hendrick looked at her intently. “Yes,” he replied.
“I know how to count to ten in Russian,” she said. Maggie was nervous, and Hendrick wondered why she was telling him this now.
“I’d love to hear you count to ten in Russian,” said Hendrick slowly, not knowing
what to expect. He eyed the pirates whose attention was totally taken up by the gold flow and the ingot handled by Chang.
“Desyat, pyat, nool, odin, odin, devyat, dva, tri,” she said in a wavering voice.
Hendrick stared at her. She hadn’t counted to ten, but had started out with ten then jumped to five and rattled off some other numbers seemingly at random. What on earth was she trying to tell him? And why was she so nervous about it?
“That’s, uh, nice,” said Hendrick with a puzzled look on his face. She repeated it, and he compared the numbers with the telephone number she had given him before. They weren’t even close. He shook his head to tell her he didn’t get it.
Maggie turned and boldly walked in Hendrick’s direction. An arm as large as a tree trunk reached out and grabbed her, stopping her dead in her tracks.
“Ow! You big jerk!” she shouted at Lin. “Leggo of me! All I want to do is look out the other side.”
Xu glanced over his shoulder in the middle of sharing a big laugh with Chang. He mumbled something to Lin who immediately released Maggie’s arm. She resumed her walk toward him.
She’s making her move, he thought excitedly. I’ve got to get ready. He leaned over the railing as if in sadness, allowing his arms to straddle the railing. The chain between the handcuffs hung down almost to the deck. Hendrick took a deep breath. When she was five feet away, he suddenly brought up his arms in an explosive motion, simultaneously pushing up with his feet. The chain between the two handcuffs slammed into the railing, ripping out the screws that held the stanchion to the deck. Maggie cringed then started to run toward him.
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