Maggie looked up as she heard a knock on the door. She jammed her handgun into her belt and walked up to the door.
“Who is it?” she asked loudly.
“Miss Ramsey, I’d like to talk to you about a mutual friend of ours,” said a voice muffled by the closed door.
“What mutual friend?” she asked.
“Stephen Hendrick,” said the voice.
Who could this be? She placed her hand on the doorknob and hesitated for a moment. His English was good with a Far Eastern accent, but she wasn’t sure if that put her at ease, or made her more anxious. She patted the weapon she had in the belt of her pants and pulled her blouse material over the gun’s handle to keep it from view. Keeping her right hand free to reach for the gun if needed, she slowly opened the door with her left hand.
The man in the doorway locked eyes with her, and she put a “start talking” expression on her face. He was Japanese, tall and thin with straight black hair. He had a thin scarf covering his face, revealing only dead eyes. Maggie squinted at him, telling him with her eyes to pull down the scarf. He stared at her for a moment, then slowly drew away the scarf, the material conforming to the furrows in his face, making it seem as if he was removing his skin. The scarf fell away. His face was hard and he had a long scar from his left ear to the base of his neck.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said pleasantly. “My name is Masaya Konaka.”
CHAPTER 25
Diamond Strait
TAIWAN STRAIT
Loh Yi-Song searched the horizon with his binoculars for the hundredth time in the last five minutes as the throb of his boat’s twin engines filled the night air around him. Thin fog slid along the top of the water, but it wasn’t enough to totally obscure the light at the top of Niushan Dao, the island which was their destination. Loh watched the double flash, then counted off the seconds. Twelve seconds later the next set of flashes were sent from the lighthouse on Niushan Dao’s peak. Niushan Dao was an island in the Taiwan Strait controlled by the People’s Republic of China, and he knew they wouldn’t like the idea of a Taiwanese and an American approaching their shores. The Communist Chinese could react violently to intrusions into their territory and often did.
Steve Hendrick finished his muted conversation with Joe Malik and arrived quietly at Loh’s side. Loh gave him a status report, then asked a question he had asked several times before. “So, how much is out there?”
“Don’t know. Millions,” came the low reply.
“I would hate to think that I’m risking my life for anything less,” replied Loh with a short glance in Hendrick’s direction.
“All of life is a risk,” said Hendrick. “So, why not make some money out of it?” Hendrick suddenly realized that he had used the same argument on Joe Malik to go after the Awa Maru after his brother was murdered.
“I hope you have better luck recovering the diamonds than you did recovering the gold,” said Loh. “Did you get any of that reward from the Chinese yet?”
“Not yet,” replied Hendrick. “They’re supposed to mail it to my bank in the States any day now.”
“At least with the diamonds you don’t have to share it with anyone,” said Loh. “But me,” he added with a smile.
Hendrick grinned briefly. “Don’t forget Joe and the divers that were with us, but if those diamonds are real, then we don’t have anything to worry about. There’s enough for all of us.”
Loh scanned the water around them with some anxiety. Running at night in fog, even as light as it was, with no running lights and no radar was dangerous. They had attached flat steel panels to the sides of the boat to act as reflectors for any land based radar that looked out into the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. Flat surfaces reflect radar pulses away at angles that insure that the radar receiver won’t receive them, thus achieving some measure of stealth. Hendrick wondered if the panels did any good, perhaps increasing the reflectivity of their craft to the Chinese radar pulses instead of decreasing it, but Loh adamantly claimed that he had done this several times before and it had always worked. The panels had the added “benefit” that oncoming vessels in the strait would not detect them on their radar until possibly it was too late, which further increased Hendrick’s anxiety.
Loh glanced at his GPS receiver whose backlit readout gave off a dull glow. They were about seven miles from Niushan Dao, a little less than twelve miles from the mainland.
“We are inside Chinese territorial waters,” said Loh.
Hendrick nodded in the darkness and thought that now it would be the Red Chinese coming after them if they were detected. They had a distinct lack of a sense of humor when it came to people invading their territorial waters. Loh backed off on the throttles and the noise from the twin diesels dropped significantly. The journey would be longer, but safer.
Hendrick picked up a set of binoculars and studied the flashing light seemingly suspended above Niushan Dao. He could barely make out the thin shaft of the lighthouse below the pulsing light. More fog rolled between them and the island, reducing the light to a fuzzy glow. Loh kept heading directly for the light, his boat’s engines emitting a low rumble and barely making headway.
After three hours of crawling toward the island, Loh picked up the binoculars and searched the blackness below the light. Off to his right came three flashes of low-level light in quick succession. Loh waited until the third set of flashes then picked up a large flashlight. He turned the light on briefly twice, then waited fifteen seconds and repeated the procedure. The man on shore turned his light on briefly every fifteen seconds as Loh headed the boat straight for him.
Hendrick could feel the fog rather than see it. The moist air slid across his face wetting his skin with tiny droplets. He breathed deeply in the heavy air and searched the darkness ahead for the small pier that Loh swore was there. Loh cut the engines abruptly, allowing the sounds of the water to reach their ears. Hendrick could hear the water slapping against the sides of their boat, and he could also hear the water hitting something else. He stared into the night, shielding his eyes from the lighthouse and saw the outlines of the pier. Loh expertly let the boat drift toward the pier while Malik got ready with the bowline.
When the bow was ten feet from the pier, Malik threw the line to a man who immediately scrambled to pick it up and haul them in toward the pier. After getting the craft next to the pier, the man tied the line up to a small cleat secured to the wooden deck. Hendrick took a quick look around and was startled to see that they were in a cove protected from the sea. He marveled at Loh’s ability to navigate the curved passage using no lights except the one from the man on the pier.
The trio jumped across the small gap between the boat deck and the deck of the pier and immediately went over to the man standing nearby. Loh hugged him, and they exchanged warm greetings in Chinese. Loh turned to Hendrick and Malik who could just make out his face in the darkness.
“Meet my cousin, Wong Po-Rong,” said Loh.
Hendrick gave the shorter man a smile, which he doubted he could see in the dark and shook the man’s hand. Malik murmured a greeting.
“He runs the lighthouse here for the People’s Republic,” explained Loh. He pushed the light button on his digital watch. “Only two hours till sunup. Let’s transfer your equipment to his fishing boat right away.”
Hendrick nodded again then mumbled agreement after realizing that Loh was probably having a hard time seeing his face. The plan was simple: use Wong’s fishing boat for cover while he dove to recover the diamonds from the underwater cave where he had dropped them while maneuvering the ROV on the Russian sub. Any PRC patrols would only see Wong out fishing as they did periodically. They also would camouflage Loh’s boat tonight to escape detection from the air or sea.
The four of them got busy and led by Wong, his flashlight beam diffused to a soft glow in the thickening fog, transferred Hendrick’s tanks and other diving equipment to a dilapidated boat on the other end of the pier. Fog from the sea had follo
wed them inland, and when they were finished their task, the mist swirled thickly around them. The four of them sat in the dark boat waiting for the first rays of light. After a few minutes Wong lit a lantern.
Hendrick got a good look at Wong for the first time and was surprised to see that he was much older than either Loh or himself. In the darkness he had seemed to move like a much younger man. Loh noticed his reaction.
“My cousin has been here since World War Two,” said Loh. “He and his wife will retire soon and move back to the mainland. He had hoped that one of his sons would have taken over from him as he had done from his father, but it was not to be. All of his children have other jobs and moved away long ago.”
Hendrick looked the boat over and noted the aged condition of the wood. A picture in a wooden frame was hung incongruously on one of the bulkheads. It showed what looked to be a family: father, mother, son and daughter along with another man. The family was Chinese; the other man was Caucasian.
Hendrick gestured to the picture on the inside wall of the boat and inquired who the people were. Loh listened to Wong for a moment then turned to Hendrick.
“He says that he is the small boy in the photo along with his parents and sister,” explained Loh. “The other man is an American who he thought had escaped from the Japanese. His name was Robert Lindsey. One day near the end of the war, a boat came and took him away. He never saw him again.”
“This happened during the war?” asked Malik.
Loh asked a question of Wong and listened to the reply.
“Yes. The picture was taken in 1945,” replied Loh.
“Who was he? A pilot who was shot down? Or sailor from a sunken ship?” asked Hendrick. He was intrigued by the event so long ago with only a scrap of film and an old man’s memory of when he was a small boy to mark its occurrence.
Loh asked the questions of Wong, but the old gentleman just shrugged. Hendrick thought for a moment, then on impulse walked over to his bag and pulled out a small camera. He went over to the old photo and snapped a picture, the flash glaring brightly in the dark. Hendrick didn’t know why he wanted a copy of the photo and concluded that he was becoming fascinated with old things and events ever since he had gotten involved with the sinking of the Awa Maru so long ago.
Suddenly a loud noise split the air and made Hendrick, Malik, and Loh jump. They relaxed immediately when they recognized the long, loud, deep sound. The island not only had a lighthouse but a foghorn as well.
Hendrick rolled his eyes. “That’s going to go on all night?”
Loh grinned. “Probably.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small package and held it up for Hendrick’s benefit. “Earplugs. It pays to be prepared.”
Hendrick gave him a sour look and Malik groaned.
Loh pulled out two small packages identical to the first. “How much for these extra earplugs?”
“I’ll throw an extra carat your way,” said Hendrick with feigned surrender in his voice.
“It’s a deal,” replied Loh and gave him and Malik the earplugs.
Wong began to talk softly. He went on for a while then Loh began to translate for Hendrick’s benefit. Wong began to laugh to himself and launched into an incredible story of the so-called psychological warfare that Taiwan had tried on the mainland Chinese. Balloons carrying propaganda and psychological warfare items were launched from the islands to drift toward China. One of the psychological warfare items was see-through underwear. It was felt by Taiwanese officials that this type of undergarment would somehow undermine the morale of the Communist Chinese. The four of them laughed until they cried.
Hendrick’s two Chinese companions lapsed into silence then began to doze. He glanced at Malik who had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly. Hendrick screwed the earplugs into his ears to cut down the noise from the fog horn to a seemingly distant note every few minutes. His thoughts turned into random wanderings, eventually settling on Maggie as they seemed to do every night.
What was her game? he thought. Where would she pop up next? He had the fleeting thought that thinking about Maggie had prevented him from thinking about Frank’s murderer. The horrifying evil face in his dreams had bothered him less since he knew Maggie.
Two hours later, Wong cranked up his single diesel engine and sputtered out to sea. The fog thinned as the sun came up and warmed the air, but the strait was as calm as it ever got with only some small waves to contend with.
Hendrick pulled out his GPS receiver and from memory punched in the coordinates of the underwater cave where the diamonds were hidden. He didn’t trust writing them on a piece of paper - it could fall into the wrong hands. The GPS receiver gave headings to steer from their current position to their destination, which Hendrick called out to Loh who translated to Wong. Malik helped Hendrick put on his wet suit as gradually the distance narrowed, and the numbers representing their current location and the location of the cave merged into one.
Hendrick pulled on his tanks and mask with Malik’s help and picked up a powerful underwater light. He sat on the boat’s gunwale and gave the other three a thumbs up sign. Malik returned the sign.
“Good luck!” shouted Malik as Hendrick rolled backward over the side. After Hendrick reappeared on the surface, Malik threw him a small basket attached to a line, which Loh would use to pull the diamonds to the surface. Hendrick took hold of the basket and attached it to his belt, then waved and disappeared below the waves.
Ten feet the below surface the visibility went to zero, and Hendrick was forced to switch on his light. The beam cut through the murky water, and at a depth of twenty feet Hendrick found some underwater caves which all seemed to look like the one he was searching for. He let out a sigh of frustration, which sent a cloud of bubbles to the surface and got to work methodically searching each cave for his cache of diamonds.
The diving took most of the day with Hendrick periodically coming to the surface for a rest and new tanks. He had naively expected that with the GPS coordinates, which gave location within about thirty feet or so, he would make short work of locating the cave, but that was not to be.
In the seventh cave he saw the mud-covered edge of what appeared to be a thin rope. He waved at the mud with his hand, sending up a cloud of silt in the water, and continued waving to get some clear water over the object on the floor of the cave. He made a joyful noise in his mouthpiece as he recognized the net sack that he had suspended under the ROV.
Hendrick pulled out a knife and quickly cut the net open, then reached down into the mud to find the drawers that were filled with precious stones. His hands closed swiftly around one, and he yanked it free. The familiar oblong box greeted his eyes. He wanted to pry the cover open but it was locked with a padlock and he hadn’t thought to bring along lock cutters. Just as well, he thought. I’m so excited I’d probably spill diamonds all over the seabed. He got two more drawers free and put them in the basket. He gave three hard tugs on the rope and felt Loh begin to reel in the basket, which rode along the anchor line that ran from the sea bed to the boat.
Hendrick went back inside the cave and dug the other drawers free, pulling on the net sack to get the remaining drawers out of the mud. After several trips of the basket to the surface, he placed the last two drawers into the basket and yanked on the rope, watching them make their short journey twenty feet to the surface.
Hendrick took one last look around and noticed one more object in the net. He quickly pulled it free from the mud and saw that it was the cylinder he had found in the Awa Maru’s stateroom. He looked again at the Cyrillic characters on the outside surface. A curious item on a Japanese ship during World War Two, he thought. Hendrick jammed the object into his belt bag and swam for the surface.
Once on board, Malik immediately led him to the cabin and showed him the table with the drawers piled on top of it. Hendrick went over to the pile and absentmindedly pulled the cylinder out of his belt and placed it on the table. The tube rolled to the edge of the table and fell unhee
ded on the floor, rolling across the deck to the side of the cabin.
Hendrick pulled out the drawer that he had cut open when they had initially found the diamonds in the Awa Maru’s safe. He pulled out his knife and cut the rope they had tied around it. Hendrick lifted the lid while Malik, Loh, and Wong crowded around him.
Mud had covered part of the jewels, but the rest near the back were untouched. They gleamed even in the dull daylight. Loh and Wong let out Chinese epithets of amazement.
“Gawd!” said Malik.
“Of such things, dreams are made,” said Hendrick under his breath as his head swam with the value of just the diamonds in the open drawer in front of him. They all stared at the dazzling array of multisized diamonds.
“There must be hundreds of diamonds in each box,” said Loh in amazement.
“Yeah, and you guys get one drawer each for helping me,” said Hendrick magnanimously. He grinned at the shocked look on his friend’s face, then grimaced at Malik’s disapproving look.
Loh translated for Wong, and the old lighthouse keeper gaped at Hendrick in amazement for a moment, then he hugged Hendrick with all his strength. Loh exploded with laughter, and they all wound up singing and dancing around the table with the staggering fortune in diamonds on it. Loh and Wong sang a particularly bawdy song in Chinese, and Hendrick and Malik gave out a bellowing rendition of God Bless America.
After five minutes of hooting and hollering, they calmed down enough to get Wong back on the wheel to steer them on a return course to shore. Hendrick, Malik, and Loh hovered over the diamonds.
“Do you think all the drawers have diamonds in them?” asked Loh breathlessly.
“We’ll open all of them when we get to shore,” said Hendrick. He could hardly contain his own curiosity at what the other drawers held. There were other precious stones known to be on the Awa Maru when it went down, among them rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. All were valuable, but none had the value per weight that a diamond had.
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