Hendrick gazed at the rapidly advancing ship and wondered if they would mind dropping him off in Taipei.
CHAPTER 21
Merchandise
TAIPEI, TAIWAN
Hendrick dialed the number from memory and tried to settle himself down as the telephone system hesitated then began to ring the other number. He was suffering the effects from the past month of excitement, anxiety, danger, loss of sleep, and outright fear that was caused by his adventure with the Awa Maru. Recovering one hundred seventy five million dollars of gold and bank notes, then losing it to a combination of pirates and Russian spies wasn’t conducive to calming the nerves. Above all, he had lost Maggie.
The phone stopped ringing and a familiar noisy background came on that told him he had connected to an answering machine. The man spoke a monosyllable or two in Chinese, then seconds later he heard a beep.
“This message is from Maggie Ramsey,” said Hendrick. “There is no time left.” He hesitated then rattled off his phone number into the answering machine. He hung up, feeling a weight had been lifted from him. They - whoever they are - will know what to do. They will help Maggie somehow. He had to believe that; he had to cling to something.
Hendrick ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath to settle down. He eyed the bottle of sour mash whiskey he had ordered a few hours ago and decided one drink would do no harm. He walked over and opened the bottle, put some ice in a glass, and splashed some of the whiskey over the ice. He drank, taking a large gulp and letting the liquor warm his insides.
He thought of the diamonds hidden near the island of Niushan Dao. He still had to mount a recovery attempt for the diamonds located in People’s Republic of China’s territorial waters, a nerve-wracking operation to say the least. How much was there? Should he recover them and use the money to rescue Maggie? He immediately rejected the idea as taking too much time. First he had to know where to look for her before he could rescue her.
Hendrick flopped down on the bed, taking care not to spill his drink and glanced at his watch. Almost three in the afternoon, he mused. Joe Malik was probably being operated on by now. He had gone to a hospital in Taipei to get his leg looked at. The wound wasn’t serious; it was probably the result of a ricochet, but Malik kept saying that he didn’t want to limp for the rest of his life, so he got up some courage and took what he considered to be a chance on foreign doctors. Hendrick figured he’d be in the hospital for a couple of days at least.
A crumpled paper with numbers on it caught his eye. He had thrown it in frustration moments before using the phone. He picked it up and smoothed it out, reading the numbers ten, five, zero, one, one, nine, two, three, the ones told to him by Maggie in Russian. Hendrick opened the drawer in the nightstand and pulled out hotel stationery and a pen. He began to group the numbers together forming subgroups similar to a phone number with the three digit exchange then the four digit remainder.
Maggie had said ten for the first two digits, not one, then zero, but ten. He wrote that down. Then what? All the rest of the numbers were individual digits. He tried grouping them in twos and studied the result. He had four groups of two digits with one digit left over. The first two groups seemed familiar, ten, fifty-two. The other groups were eleven, ninety-two, and three, on which he drew a complete blank. He threw the paper aside in frustration.
Hendrick poured more whiskey and dropped a few more ice cubes into his glass as his mind muddled over trying to decipher the meaning of the numbers. He couldn’t shake the feeling that if he didn’t discover what the numbers represented, he might never see Maggie again. He sat back down on the bed, took another sip of his drink, leaned back and closed his eyes.
Ten fifty-two. Ten fifty-two. The numbers went round and round in his mind. A mental picture of the chart of Itbayat Island came to mind. What were the coordinates of Itbayat? He struggled for a bit then relaxed as they came clear in his memory. Seventeen something or other North Latitude, he thought, and one twenty degrees and something East Longitude.
His eyes flew open before he completely formed the thought. Ten degrees, fifty-two minutes! He leaped across the bed and grabbed the paper once again. One hundred nineteen degrees, twenty-three minutes!
Seconds later, Hendrick was on the phone dialing his Taiwanese friend, Loh Yi-Song who had captained the salvage vessel during their first attempt to recover treasure from the Awa Maru.
Hendrick shifted his weight impatiently from one foot to the other and back again as Loh Yi-Song searched through his extensive set of nautical charts. Loh straightened and lifted a corner of the chart he had pulled out from a large stack to read the title.
“Maybe this one,” he muttered as he walked over to a table and unrolled the chart flat on the surface. Hendrick eagerly crowded next to him to view the map. He blinked at the cryptic Chinese characters that were spread over the chart.
“Southwestern Philippines,” said Loh as he pointed to large characters at the top center of the chart.
“Sulu Sea?” asked Hendrick as he pointed to an area south of a large island that ran southwest to northeast.
“Yes,” replied Loh and nodded. He pointed to the long, thin looking island. “Palawan Island.” Hendrick handed Loh the piece of paper with what he hoped were map coordinates written on it. Loh ran his finger along the edges of the chart to find the desired coordinates and slid his finger over to a place on the northeast coast of Palawan Island.
“Malampaya Inner Sound,” said Loh and looked at Hendrick questioningly. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”
“It would make sense,” mumbled Hendrick to himself. He looked up at Loh. “You know those pirates who shot up your salvage vessel last year and killed one of your guys?” Loh nodded slowly. Hendrick stabbed a finger toward the chart. “That’s their headquarters.”
Loh looked at him with skepticism. “How do you know?”
Hendrick related his misadventure with Chang’s men, and how Maggie told him the map coordinates.
“The People’s Republic has a reward out for anyone who can lead them to Chang’s base,” said Loh. “They’ve been after him for a long time.”
“You have contacts in the PRC, don’t you?” asked Hendrick as an idea blossomed in his mind.
Loh nodded. “What do you have in mind? Going after these guys?”
“Tell your contacts that Chang has seven hundred million dollars in gold from the Awa Maru,” said Hendrick. “I want half to lead them there.”
MALAMPAYA INNER SOUND
Maggie Ramsey cringed before the ring of jeering men. She was up on a platform, chained to a post behind her. The mini theater was where Chang conducted his slave trade. She caught snippets of the bidding, which was conducted mostly in Mandarin, but she knew that it thankfully would not last much longer. Dressed in a diaphanous garment designed to showcase her physical attributes yet hide them at the same time, she was extremely embarrassed to stand before the leering crowd.
A rotund man with dark skin seemed to be getting the upper hand in the bidding war, and his smile increased as the others dropped out one by one. Soon there were only two and Chang’s attention ping-ponged back and forth between the pair as they each tried to outdo the other.
Maggie looked at each of them and nearly gagged at the thought of being “married” to either of them. She prayed that she was at least sterile and unable to conceive any sort of vile offspring that might result from the horror of having sex with either of them. The fat man had put some leeches on his arms for God-only-knows-what reason, and the other man, who was much thinner, had some sort of skin disease, which had turned his skin into the appearance of a washboard. Each had teeth with coloring varying from brown to dark red to black, and both had the tendency to actually drool at times especially when staring at Maggie. Their saliva was the same color as their teeth. The reddish-brown drool was from the betel-palm nut, which the inhabitants of the Sulu Sea sprinkle with lime and wrap in leaves. When eaten, the concoction acted a
s a mild stimulant.
Maggie tilted her head upward to the tropical sky and prayed as she had never prayed before. She promised God anything and everything, including becoming a nun, if only He would relieve her of this trial. She turned her head to the sun and let it broil her face for a moment. Maybe if I have blisters on my face they won’t want me, she thought in a panic.
A shadow passed over her face, and she opened her eyes, expecting to see a bird in the midst of the glaring sun. A faint buzzing sound came to her between the laughter and shouts of the men. She stared at the form in the sky, then looked around at Chang and his men. No one else had seen the small toy-like aircraft. What was it? she asked herself. A remotely piloted vehicle with a camera on board? But who would be using such a craft?
The bidding war had ended with some kind of rift between Chang and the fat man. Maggie strained her ears and concluded that the fat man wasn’t paying what Chang wanted for her. Good, sell me to somebody else, she thought. Like Hendrick. She grimaced at the thought of him. I thought he was going to come back for me, but he didn’t. That talk about wanting to be lovers was just a lot of bullshit, she concluded. Wait until I get my hands on him. I’ll make him pay for this. I’ll sell him to some warlord’s fat, disgusting daughter who will hopefully give him some rare, exotic, incurable disease that will make all his body parts fall off one by one, starting with his genitals.
The men had quieted down as they witnessed Chang’s growing discontent with the fat man’s bid. The fat man started to point out Maggie’s weaknesses to Chang’s displeasure. Chang jumped to his feet, glared at the fat man, then turned and ran up the platform to stand in front of Maggie.
Uh, oh, she thought. I don’t like the look of this. She braced herself.
Chang reached up and grabbed the front of Maggie’s dress under her neck and turned to look at the fat man. After waiting a few seconds to increase the suspense, Chang ripped the front of Maggie’s garment down to her waist and a little beyond with only her rope belt keeping the dress around her hips. Maggie gasped and tried to turn away but was prevented by the chains that held her to the post.
The men’s eyes grew wide as they took in Maggie’s naked beauty, then a burst of cheering and laughter filled the air swelling to an unbelievable crescendo. The fat man gaped at her then nodded to Chang as the pirate reiterated his monetary demand. Chang smiled wider than she had ever seen him smile before and turned to his men in triumph. They all cheered lustily for him and the half nude Maggie.
Maggie groaned and prayed for a lightning bolt to take her life. Lin who had stood next to her the whole time leering at her, covered her with a thin shawl and unlocked the end of the chains fastened to the post. He roughly dragged her away past the rows of shouting men toward a small ramshackle hut made of weather-worn planks. She avoided looking at the fat man, her new owner, and missed the lust filling his eyes as he watched her being dragged into the hut.
Lin pulled her through the doorway and over to another post that was firmly sunk into the ground and passed the chains through a metal loop that was screwed into the wooden pole. At the last second before Lin closed the padlock, she yanked on the chain with all her strength to jerk the chain free from the powerful Lin, but to no avail. Lin looked at her and laughing locked up the chains. He yanked the shawl away from her and looked her over carefully. Maggie turned her back on him. Lin laughed again then left.
Maggie pulled and jerked the chains until her wrists were raw, but there was no hint of give in the post or the metal eye through which the chains were looped. The chains were set up to give her more play than when she was outside, but she could think of no way to use it to her advantage.
Maybe I can make them kill me, she thought in a panic as she realized what was going to happen in this smelly hut with the dirt floor. She looked out the window and saw the men beginning to drink and eat to celebrate God only knows what. Li Tai Su came through the doorway carrying a wooden bowl with some sort of food in it. Maggie waited until she was in range then viciously kicked the bowl out of her hand.
Li gave her a startled look and stepped back in shock. “Why -” she began.
“Because I hate you and everyone else within a thousand miles!” growled Maggie.
“You Americans!” replied Li. “You think everyone should be free all the time.”
“Yes, free or die,” said Maggie with vehemence.
“That is quite a foreign notion for most of us,” answered Li. “Chang is free, but the rest of us …” Her voice trailed off.
“Do you ever wonder what that would be like?” asked Maggie. “Free to do whatever you want, whenever you want.”
Li gave her a puzzled look as if the thought was too much for her to assimilate.
“You can be free like that,” said Maggie. “Get the key and both of us will get out of here.”
Li Tai Su smiled. “You are in a dream. We would never get away.”
“Sounds like they’re all getting drunk out there. We can sneak away after a while,” said Maggie with pleading in her voice.
Li shook her head, turned abruptly and walked out. Maggie slid to the ground in abject despair, tears filling her eyes. She gritted her teeth, fighting her emotions. She forced her thoughts to go far away in time and space. She had fantasized how sex might be with Hendrick. Soft music, soft lights, and hard muscles under her fingertips had always filled her mind, then sweet surrender with her erotic feelings lingering on for a long time. Instead she would be pawed on a dirt floor by a smelly, drooling, leech-covered fat man who had any number of diseases coursing through his veins.
The sunlight gradually faded and fires were lit, male voices filling the air with chants interspersed with savage whoops that split the air. The noise, and the flickering light from the fires went on for hours until Maggie thought that she might be left alone that night.
The door suddenly slammed open, and the fat man staggered through the doorway carrying a lantern. He was almost totally naked except for a filthy loincloth around his waist and a large knife in a leather scabbard held by a leather belt. Maggie smiled at him and gave him her sexiest look. He placed the lantern on a rickety table in one corner of the room, then gave her a toothy smile. He took off his knife belt then ripped his loincloth away from him. She rounded her lips as if to say ooohh and tried to put desire on her face. A little closer, asshole, she thought, and I’ll give you a big surprise.
He jolted forward, lust lighting his eyes, his gaze fixed on her breasts. When he got within five feet of her he reached out for her. Maggie brought up her right foot in a vicious kick, aiming at his crotch, but missed, with her foot banging harmlessly into his upper thigh. She stepped forward, surprising him with her freedom of movement, and knocked one of his arms out of the way to close in on him. He staggered as the weight of his arm swayed him to one side just before Maggie hit him as hard as she could in the face with both manacled hands.
He stepped backward, lost his balance and fell heavily on his back. She saw blood running from his nose and was cheered by it. She prepared herself for the next attack. The fat man rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up to his knees. He reached for his belt and pulled out the longest, most wicked-looking knife Maggie had ever seen.
Now what do I do? she asked herself. Surrender, or have myself cut to pieces by this fat slob? I can’t surrender. I’ll have to fight as long as I can, she resolved. He stood and faced her then swung the knife with vicious slashing motions in front of him.
The thunderous report of an explosion pounded their ears and lit the night with the bright glare of temporary daylight. Light bits of straw and wood flew through the window driven by the overpressure from the detonation. When the air calmed down, Maggie could hear excited shouts from the men outside.
Another explosion lit the area, then a third and a fourth. Maggie’s attacker looked around in confusion then went to the doorway and staggered through it, disappearing into the chaos outside. Automatic weapons’ fire started up,
filling the night air with lead.
Who was it? Maggie asked herself excitedly. Anything that kept her revolting attacker from her had to be good.
The door slammed open, startling Maggie and causing her to jump. In the flickering light from the lantern, Maggie was confronted by a man in a black outfit covering everything but his eyes.
He appeared to be a real-life Ninja.
CHAPTER 22
Freedom
MALAMPAYA INNER SOUND
Commander Chen Yanpeng gazed through the binoculars as his boat roared through the water of Palawan Island’s largest bay. There were oil rigs to his right and a tanker used for oil storage that was permanently moored in the sound, all of them right where the charts and overhead photos showed them to be. Nothing had moved - all was quiet on the water, except Chen’s five fast motor boats that made twenty-five knots over the water.
Steve Hendrick tapped the commander on the shoulder and received a cold look from the naval officer of the People’s Republic of China. Chen’s English was atrocious, and Hendrick’s Chinese was nonexistent, so they were reduced to hand signals for communication. The sound was lined with many rivers, and it was anyone’s guess on which river Chang’s headquarters was located.
As they rounded a point of land, Hendrick pointed to a boat that was anchored in deep water just outside the shallow water created by the silt from various rivers that emptied into Malampaya Sound.
Hendrick said the one word he knew Chen would understand. “Chang.” He pointed at the boat. It was one of the boats Chang had used near Itbayat Island. But his yacht was missing.
Chen nodded and pointed the vessel out to his helmsman, giving him orders to enter the river nearest the anchored boat and proceed upstream. The helmsman acknowledged the order and swung their boat around Chang’s boat to line himself up with the river. Chen looked around after the maneuver and noted that one of his boats had slowed and pulled alongside the pirate craft to make sure they would not escape, while the remaining four pounded their way upstream for a rendezvous with Chang and his men.
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