The doctor couldn’t think about Alexis Andrews without allowing himself a tiny secret moment as he visualized her slim form and lively eyes. The fact that she was even on the Scorpion was nothing short of a happy miracle. Beautiful Alexis in her cutoff shorts, tank tops, and steel-toed boots, surrounded by engine lubricants and half-disassembled repair projects.
Technically, Jonah and Hassan had inadvertently kidnapped her when they’d stolen the Conqueror under the ruse of a repossession order. Their fates had been linked since finding her stowed away in the super yacht’s engine room the next day. What Alexis had believed would be a short, strange week among well-intentioned outlaws had transformed into a fight for survival. Despite the chaos, the death—or perhaps because of it—Alexis and Hassan had found each other, becoming closer with each passing day. But he couldn’t think about that. Not now.
Stomping rang out from the metal deck of the main corridor, loud enough to make Hassan wince. Somali warlord and former pirate Dalmar Abdi pushed his way through the narrow entrance, rolling in one muscled shoulder after another to squeeze through and into the command compartment. Twin bandoliers crossed his chest like an X, each loaded with large-caliber ammunition. An assault rifle was strapped around his neck, and his belt was loaded with grenades and extra magazines; a small machete and twin pistols were bound to his thighs.
Even after sailing with him for two months, Hassan didn’t quite know what to make of the former pirate king. Dalmar’s past remained shrouded in mystery, even legend. According to some sources, Dalmar was the son of Mohammed Farrah Aidid, Somali warlord and the illegitimate self-declared president at the height of American military involvement in the country. Supposedly, a six-year-old Dalmar Abdi had taken up arms to lead a company of children against an American rescue convoy during the Mogadishu “Black Hawk Down” incident. Another rumor declared that he was the son of a Somali soft drink magnate, educated in Rome before returning as a humanitarian worker. Upon discovering the state of the war-torn country and the vicious campaign against it by Western powers, he rose up and became the most feared buccaneer in the region.
All Dalmar would say about himself was that he was a ‘dread pirate,’ a strange attribution that Hassan strongly suspected came from the 1987 film, The Princess Bride. Hassan was only certain of two things: Dalmar had shown a strange tenderness toward Hassan’s mother, personally saving her from a burial at sea, and he’d risked his life to hijack a massive container ship and slam it into the artificial island city of Anconia Island, saving both Hassan and Jonah. Now there were factions within Western governments, as well as shadowy supranational financial interests, who wouldn’t rest until he’d been caught or killed. Now thought dead, Dalmar’s voyage on the Scorpion bought him the only three things that mattered anymore—distance, time, and anonymity.
“I don’t think you’ll need that much firepower,” Jonah said, pointing at the bandoliers. “We’re having a meeting, not assaulting the beaches of Normandy.”
The pirate crossed his arms and glowered. “I think maybe not so good idea to trust Marissa,” Vitaly said, piping up from his navigations console. “She is ex-girlfriend, no? Woman scorned?”
Hassan had to admit Vitaly had a point about the shipping heiress. Jonah had never ever properly broken things off, instead, he mysteriously disappearing for years before turning up under fire and in desperate need of help. Remarkably, she’d even guided the Scorpion into an abandoned dry-dock in Puget Sound, coordinating the rehabilitation of the submarine after the beating she’d taken in the Indian Ocean.
“See these?” said Jonah, showing Vitaly his bare wrists. “See how I’m not wearing handcuffs right now? We were one phone call away from getting nabbed during the retrofits.”
“Could be part of larger plot,” said Vitaly. “She gains trust and then sends you to excruciating death, maybe by torture. Would be very Russian of her.”
“I like Marissa,” said Dalmar with a massive smile as he let his arms drop. “She told me all about how I am very famous.”
“—terrorist,” added Hassan. “You’re a very famous terrorist.”
“But I have fan pages on the Internet!” insisted Dalmar.
“I still think bad idea.” Vitaly shrugged. “So maybe you come back from meeting. Maybe no. Vitaly will see.”
“I hope we are ambushed,” Dalmar interjected as he inspected his assault rifle. “I have never killed a Japanese before.”
“Seriously, lose some of the arsenal,” Jonah said, returning his attention to the periscope as they edged ever closer to the Fukushima docks. “This is a polite meeting among polite company only. No killing.”
“Very well.” Dalmar frowned as he peeled off his layers of firearms, ammunition, and explosives like an ear of corn husking itself. “I will only bring my most polite weapons.”
The Scorpion slid into the Fukushima docks with a long, low groan and shudder, the metal hull of the vessel scraping along the crushed, sunken cars stolen from the town by the retreating tsunami.
“Sorry, Captain,” said Vitaly with a grimace as he brought the submarine to a wince-inducing, grinding halt. “I think we maybe hit something.”
Hassan, Jonah, and Dalmar watched from the concrete docks as the Scorpion slowly backed out to sea, her conning tower and periscope disappearing in a whirlpool of swirling bubbles. Alexis and Vitaly were more than capable of hiding the submarine on the ocean bottom until the party returned, hopefully finding a soft, muddy patch as far from the stricken nuclear power plant as possible.
Jonah turned as he adjusted his thick parka, zipping it up against the creeping cold of the damp January. All three were acclimated to brutal heat, not winter’s chill—Hassan’s life in Morocco, Dalmar’s home in the scrublands of coastal Somalia, Jonah’s long internment in a Saharan prison.
“They’re saying this could be this region’s worst winter in a century,” said Hassan, his breath collecting into a cloud of frost as he spoke. Jonah just nodded.
Silently, the three men followed a single paved road inland. The first few blocks were stripped bare, all structures claimed by the raging ocean. Now, only large patches of dried mud and scrubby brush alongside the cracked, potholed road remained. The eerie moonlit stillness surrounding them gave the entire scene an otherworldly feel.
Next, they came to the true destruction—buildings torn from their foundations, scattered debris swept and bulldozed into tall towers, stacks of rusting, flattened passenger cars. In typical Japanese efficiency, the wreckage had been carefully transported to designated zones; the roads made clear for traffic that would never again return. And then there were the titans, the massive fishing and pleasure boats too large and difficult to tow back to the beach, some partially disassembled by acetylene torches, others simply left to moor in the mud.
Hassan, his captain, and the pirate journeyed up the winding road connecting the docks to the highway. Only nature had withstood the tidal forces—while the landscape between themselves and the sea had been scraped clean, the stark forest on the other side of a low guardrail still rose tall and ancient.
Jonah led, following the bent and rusted street signs to Futaba Park, a small, snowy city tract more than a mile from the docks. Approaching the site in the dark, Hassan could see their hosts had already arrived in a half dozen low-slung American Lincolns and Cadillacs of various vintage. The semicircle of headlights illuminated a set of stairs in the center of the overgrown park, the pavement surrounded by thick tufts of dead brown grass.
Yakuza, thought Hassan. He recognized the dress of the dozen or so Japanese gangsters as they sat on the hoods of their cars and smoked, the tiny cherry red of their cigarettes bright in the deepening darkness. As the trio approached, the doctor could see the mix of ages and ranks, a few older men with close-cropped greying hair and expensive dark woolen coats and slacks, young men with bouffants and long, thick sideburns wearing shiny grey suits. All had tattoos peeking out from beneath their folded white collars and the cuf
fs of their tailored shirts.
Clearing his throat, Jonah waved at the assembled men to get their attention. None so much as looked up. Hassan realized they had all craned their ears towards a loud car radio, over which played a tinny, rapid-fire news broadcast.
“Why are they ignoring us?” whispered Jonah. “I don’t want to sit here getting my balls irradiated any longer than absolutely necessary.”
Hassan always found the American male’s fascination with his testes quite tiring. Still, he had to admit a preoccupation with his own, given the cold temperature and the frighteningly high levels of background radiation. His concern was only increased when the passenger door of the nearest car opened, and a figure in a bulky, white radiation suit awkwardly emerged from within the vehicle before turning to face the trio.
“Marissa?” demanded Hassan in complete disbelief. He thought they’d left the young woman behind in the Puget Sound after repairs to the Scorpion were complete—and yet here she was, standing before them.
“They’re not ignoring you—they’re listening to a news broadcast,” answered the shipping heiress, crossing her arms as she stared from Jonah to Hassan and Dalmar, before looking back to her ex again. Her voice was slightly muffled by the clear plastic face of the blocky hood over her head. “It’s about the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic Ocean. The steering mechanisms of one of their harpoon ships failed. It struck the factory ship and sank them both. No survivors have been located as of yet; the search is ongoing. Also, sorry for the surprise—it’s not like I can just Skype you guys ahead of time.”
Without warning, the mob boss slammed his fist onto the hood of his late model Cadillac sedan and began shouting in rapid-fire Japanese, punctuated by what Hassan assumed were expletives. The short man’s muscles had long turned to fat, but he still stood as uncontested master of the gangsters surrounding him. Hassan cleared his throat quietly and tried not to remind himself he was the only one that jumped at the sudden sound—Jonah, Dalmar, and the tattooed yakuza never so much as blinked.
“Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy to see you and everything,” said Jonah, narrowing his eyes, “but should I be concerned about your friend’s mood right now?”
“He blames the environmentalists for the loss of the whaling ships,” answered Marissa. “Says it has to be sabotage. Been talking about it all night. Calls the activists rich, spoiled children of Western countries. He says Japan used to be strong. He’s asking where the Japanese youth are, and why they’re not fighting for their traditional way of life. Oh great . . . now he’s saying he’d like to have all of the environmentalists killed.”
“Is he quite serious?” asked Hassan, folding his arms as he dropped the question with the drollest tone he could muster.
“Yes and no.” Marissa shook her head. “Livid is kind of his default mood. Tomorrow it’ll be something else ruining Japan, or someone else that needs killing.”
“Help me out here,” Jonah said. “What are you doing with these guys? Didn’t we leave you behind before we sailed for Japan?”
“Unlike you,” said Marissa, sounding out the words as though speaking with a particularly dim child, “I can fly commercial. I’ve been in Tokyo for almost a week. Turns out our friends here did a little asking around about you. Some of their associates lost serious money when Anconia Island went under, and they were seriously considering shooting you on sight if I didn’t show face and make a personal introduction. They gave me the heads-up out of respect for our past business dealings—legitimate dealings, Jonah. Don’t even give me that look. And, you can thank me later, by the way.”
“Pretty remote location for such a flashy crew,” observed Jonah, apparently satisfied by her answer. But Hassan was more than a little concerned with the flippant threat to their lives. “Anything I should know?”
“They have style,” said Dalmar, his eyes widening as he smiled. “I think style is very important for a gangster.”
“It was probably a test,” admitted Marissa. “They wanted to see if you had the cajones to come to the radioactive exclusion zone.”
Jonah just squinted and nodded, waiting for the boss to turn his attention to them. He didn’t have to wait long— the boss reached in through the open window and flipped the radio off. All fell silent, except for the crunching footsteps as he sauntered up to Jonah.
“American cowboy Jonah Blackwell!” said the gangster, speaking broken English through a gregarious, sinister grin. Up close, the man’s sunken eyes and twin scars across his left cheek made for uncomfortable viewing. Even in the darkness, his nicotine-stained fingertips, and a missing pinky on the left hand were obvious.
“I would seriously consider bowing,” hissed Marissa. Jonah snuck a glance at her before giving the boss an obligatory half-bow, just enough to acknowledge his approach. The doctor suspected the sloppy form would have been interpreted as deeply disrespectful if not coming from an outsider.
“Yeah,” said Jonah as he rose from the shallow bow. “I’m your American cowboy.”
“Marissa say many things about you,” said the gangster, tapping Jonah directly in the center of his chest with an outstretched finger. “Some of what she say . . . not so good.”
“We’re getting into business, not into bed,” said Jonah, ignoring Marissa’s annoyed sigh. “So, if she told you anything outside of my abilities as a captain, let’s put those aside here and now.”
The boss frowned at his personal translator, a young man in a slim black suit and thick glasses who went back and forth with him for a moment until he tilted back his head and issued a long, guffawing laugh.
“She say you are asshole,” said the boss. “Say we get along very well.”
Jonah smirked in reply.
“And who this kokujin?” asked the gangster, pointing at Dalmar. Behind him, his dozen men had formed a half-circle around Jonah, and the other three, leaning against their cars with their arms crossed, shifted uneasily from foot to foot as they stood.
Dalmar started to speak, but Jonah interrupted him before the Somali could launch into his usual dread-pirate, world-famous-terrorist self-introduction. It’d be best for all involved if the hulking man stayed dead for the time being, at least on paper.
“Oh, he’s our shipboard events coordinator,” said Jonah, pointing at Dalmar. “Shuffleboard, pool parties, bingo, that kind of thing.”
“I make an excellent raspberry daiquiri,” said Dalmar through gritted teeth, only halfway playing along as his eyes shot daggers at Jonah.
The mob boss just nodded and pointed at Hassan.
“Doctor Hassan Nassiri,” the doctor stammered. “Ship’s surgeon.”
Nodding, the mob boss muttered something in Japanese. “He wants to know why you have so many ailments that you require a full-time doctor,” the slim Japanese translator said.
“We get our share of stubbed toes and paper cuts,” Jonah said. “So how about we get down to business? You didn’t bring us all the way out here for introductions and pleasantries.”
The gangster just nodded and gestured to the translator to continue while he leaned against the hood of his car.
“Sorry I couldn’t tell you more before you made the trip, as I didn’t even have all the details myself,” said Marissa. “Apparently they want you as their new cruise line service. Not a lot of foreigners know this, but there’s a long-standing community of Koreans in Japan, some of whom have become quite wealthy. They’re also well represented in gangland, and the yakuza do a fair bit of business with them. When the armistice was signed in 1954, there were many families trapped in North Korea. Even after more than sixty years, family ties remain strong, even stronger now that illegal Chinese cellphones have found their way into the border towns. Families are reconnecting, and there are many who want out at any cost. Japanese Koreans are willing to pay top dollar to make it happen.”
“You’re talking about human smuggling,” Hassan gasped.
“More or less,” said Marissa. “Our f
riends here need a new route and reliable handlers. I told them I didn’t know any reliable handlers, but you were the next best thing.”
“What happened to the last travel agency?” asked Dalmar.
“Last route was overland, through China. North Korean border guards caught on. They say their men were executed on the spot, the escaping families placed in prison camps. If they’re not already dead, they probably wish they were.”
“Mole in the yakuza?” asked Jonah. “I doubt it,” Marissa said. “More likely, just unlucky. But they’re not willing to risk a Chinese route for the foreseeable future, not until they know for certain.”
“So what are we going to be moving? Girls?”
Behind Jonah’s flippant tone, Hassan could detect the real motives. Jonah wasn’t going to accept some bullshit cover for sex trafficking.
“Fuck you for asking.” Marissa’s eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not going to pretend they do this out of the goodness of their hearts—or that they don’t have interests in the red-light districts, for that matter. But they’re not in the business of turning out North Korean girls—and neither am I, that is for goddamned certain.”
“Good.” Jonah glared right back at her. “But you know I had to ask.”
Marissa reached over and pulled a map out of the breast pocket of her jacket before slapping it into Jonah’s chest. “Rendezvous is past the Siberian seamount of the Sea of Japan, near the North Korean port of Rason. Can you accommodate ten families?”
“It’ll be tight quarters, three to a bunk or more,” said Jonah, sticking the map in his back pocket. “But we can do it. I have to ask—why not a ship? Why the Scorpion?”
“The port is completely frozen over this time of year. Can’t get a ship in without an icebreaker. Need something that can punch up through the ice—you think the Scorpion can handle it?”
“Sure,” Jonah said, but Hassan suspected the American hadn’t necessarily considered the logistics of such an operation.
“They’re offering five thousand dollars a head,” said Marissa. “A hundred and fifty large for less than a week’s work. They think there is enough volume to do the run monthly, switch it up to a hidden cove when the ice melts. If things work out, maybe even twice a month.”
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