Tainted Treasure (China Marine)

by Buzz Harcus

  Karl examined the bullet entry hole, then leaned the man over and felt of his back. The bullet had entered his chest, then lodged just under the surface of the skin at his back. Karl washed Al’s back off with alcohol he’d found in the first aid kit. Wiping the blade of a sharp kitchen knife with alcohol, Karl proceeded to make a small incision in the skin. Ignoring the blood, he cut into the flesh, dug in under the bullet, gave a twist of the knife and eased the bullet out.

  Harry immediately washed the wound with alcohol, then applied a bandage. The two men eased the drunken man flat on his back on the deck so Karl could better examine the entrance wound. “It’s festered,” said Karl. “Clean der vound good mit alcohol.”

  As Harry cleansed the wound, Karl disappeared down into the galley. Several minutes later he came back on deck holding a chef’s cylindrical knife sharpener in his hand, the tip glowing red hot. Before Harry could react to what was happening, Karl jammed the sharpener into the wound cauterizing it. Al gasped, emitting a scream of pain. His body jerked, and then he passed out again.

  “Dat should do der trick,” Karl said, observing his handiwork as he bandaged the wound. As he pulled Al’s shirt closed and buttoned it, Harry decided Captain Andress was definitely back in command.

  In blue shorts, still buttoning up her denim shirt, her hair wrapped in a large bath towel, Judy came rushing up from below at the scream of pain from her husband. There was fire in her eyes, especially at seeing Harry. “You had a lot of nerve barging into my bedroom,” she snapped, then stopped at seeing her un

  conscious husband.

  “What have you done to my husband?” she screamed.

  Rushing to his side, she knelt beside him, pulled his head erect and shook it back and forth. “Al!” she cried slapping his face several times, “Al! Speak to me!” It was at that moment she caught a good whiff of alcohol. “He’s drunk!” she yelled glaring at the two. “You got my husband drunk! What the hell’s going on?”

  “This,” said Harry, holding the spent bullet up before her. “Captain Andress did a little surgery on Al. I think he saved his life.”

  Yanking Al’s shirt open, Judy saw the large bandage and, at the same moment, caught a whiff of burned flesh. Her eyes suddenly rolled upwards as her body slumped backwards coming to rest next to her husband, unconscious.

  “Vomen!” Karl scorned. “Vy do dey faint so easily?”

  This brought a chuckle from Harry as he dashed down to the galley. Grabbing a towel, he wet it, and, returning on deck, put it on the poor woman’s forehead.

  “Ve better get undervay before more of dose heathen show up,” said Karl, rising. “Der engines are running good. Now, I go und check der radar and Loran.”

  The roar of laughter coming from the bridge a couple minutes later startled Harry. Leaving Judy’s side, he dashed up into the small compact bridge. Karl was pointing toward the radar and laughing. “Dose dumb shits!” he exclaimed. “Ven der power und lights vent off der radar und Loran shut down. Dey didn’t have time to destroy anyting!”

  CHAPTER 35

  Learning About Investing

  By mid-afternoon the yacht, Devil May Care, was underway cruising at a comfortable ten knots. From their current Loran position, it was felt by Karl there was no way they could make Sydney. Manila was a better possibility. Harry found a sizeable book of charts, and sifted through the pages until he came to the Philippine Islands. He opened the book, spreading it wide so Karl could determine if Manila was best. It would be at least a four day run. From studying their Loran position, Karl figured they were off the southern coast of Palawan Island. Yes, Manila would be there best bet.

  The two shook their heads in disbelief at checking their position on the chart. Over the last several days they had drifted hundreds of miles into the South China Sea southwest of Palawan in their small raft.

  Judy joined them on the bridge. Sharing the chart, Karl told her Manila would be their best bet rather than Sydney. Judy agreed. Manila it shall be.

  Harry took the controls. Karl sat by his side with a pair of binoculars sweeping the seas about them. The skies were clear, seas calm, an ideal day for yachting. Judy popped up from the galley with a plate full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips and cold beer. Seeing the beer brought a round of laughter from the two.

  “I figured you two deserved a cold beer,” Judy grinned. “Australian Stout. Incidentally, I’m also chief cook and bottle washer. Anything else you want, let me know.” She stood on the steps leading down to the galley.

  “How’s Al doing?” asked Harry, glancing down at her.

  “He’s doing just fine, sleeping like a baby. He’ll probably have a hangover and shoulder ache, but he’s doing well. I really appreciate what you’ve done for him. However, as soon as we get to port I want him seen by a doctor.”

  “I double-checked der charts,” Karl said. “I estimate four days to Manila.”

  “That’s good,” Judy replied. “Manila is nice. Al and I visited there once before we settled in Sydney. We even met President Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Very nice couple. Nice city. Nice folks.”

  “Well, it hasn’t been your best anniversary, but it’s one you’ll remember the rest of your life,” quipped Harry.

  “That’s for sure,” she retorted with a shake of her head. “That’s for sure!”

  Harry didn’t realize it but he was staring at her. She was probably around forty. Nice trim figure, easy on the eyes. She had changed outfits again, now wearing a white halter top, white shorts, and faded blue deck shoes. Her long blonde hair was being gently blown about by the wind. Judy caught him looking at her and flushed.

  “Al tells me you’ve been married for ten years,” Harry said, snapping out of his momentary trance.

  “That’s right. Ten years. We knew we were meant for each other. We did the deed after his divorce, and we never looked back. I’m looking forward to forty or fifty years with him.”

  Harry grinned. “That’s nice.”

  “He still dabbles in the stock market.” she said as an afterthought.

  “Yeah. I understand he has a few bucks at his disposal.”

  Judy laughed. “Quite a few. We don’t have to pinch pennies.”

  She had a throaty laugh and an infectious smile that brought a sparkle to the blue of her eyes. Harry turned back to steering the yacht. Judy’s freshness reminded him of Osa. She, too, was a perky, high spirited and witty blue-eyed blonde. He missed her terribly. Thoughts of her flooded his mind. Nobody had better have hurt her. Karl nudged him, it was his time for the wheel. Judy had disappeared below.

  “Two more cold ones,” Judy said reappearing, having stepped to the refrigerator in the galley for cold beer. Both men accepted the offering.

  By late in the day they were still cruising along at a good clip. Harry was once again at the controls. Judy had shown Karl to a bed in the crew’s quarters. In moments he was snoring loudly.

  “Pretty uneventful,” Judy said taking the seat next to Harry.

  “We’re making good time,” he replied with a quick glance at her.

  “Tell me about how you and Karl got thrown into the ocean,” she said. “It sounds like you had a hell of a time out there in that little life raft.”

  “It’s an adventure I’d not care to repeat,” he grinned. “We lost track of the days.” At her urging, he proceeded to tell her of Nurad’s trip from Qingdao, and how the four American sailors they had welcomed aboard were actually pirates, which led to his and the captain’s being thrown overboard.

  Al had stepped in behind Judy catching the last of his story. “I overheard you telling Judy about your getting tossed overboard. Bad thing. But how in the hell did you get your hands on a life raft?”

  “Hey, you’re up!” Harry said at hearing Al’s voice. “How are you doing?”

  “Headache, but I know I’ll get better thanks to you and Karl,” he managed, holding up his arm encased in a sling. “That‘s the most booze I‘ve drank in yea
rs.”

  Chuckling at his remark, Harry proceeded to recount the incident with Peter and the life raft he had stored on the bridge of the Nurad to use as his escape vehicle when the ship went down. “I think Sigmund—First Officer Sigmund Helmstrund—probably saw Captain Andress and myself being thrown overboard. In a man overboard drill you throw anything that floats overboard for the victim to hang onto. In this case I think he saw the raft, grabbed it, and threw it overboard hoping we‘d get it. We were lucky for we did find it and it did save our lives. Our worst fear, though, was running out of food and water—”

  “Food! Dinner!” exclaimed Judy startling them. “I’ve got to fix dinner for us!” and she disappeared into the galley.

  Al eased up onto the newly vacated chair next to Harry. “Judy’s quite a gal,” he said. “I hired her from one of those secretarial schools in New York. Initially, I was going to put her in my secretarial pool, but she was a lot smarter than the average gal in the pool. My secretary was pregnant at the time—her and her husband’s first child—and when she left, she told me she wasn’t coming back, that she was going to be a true stay at home mom.”

  He chuckled recalling the moment. “Anyways, she suggested Judy as her replacement. I took her in as my secretary. By the end of her first year, she knew the business as well as I did. Smart as a whip! Nothing sexual between us. Mutual respect, I’d call it.

  “Anyways, about this time my wife felt she needed more space. She was always on the go, always spending money like she had a special faucet she could turn on and money just flowed out. We’d been married about twenty years. No kids, too busy. I had always kept my nose to the proverbial grindstone to make a comfortable living for us, and now she decides we’ve nothing in common. For years I had tried to keep some semblance of a home life.

  I was devastated. I knew I was headed for a nervous breakdown. That’s when Judy stepped in and took charge.

  “ She literally, physically put me on a plane to Jamaica for a week’s rest. I told her I couldn’t take that much time off. She ignored me, said she’d handle the situation. At the end of the week Judy came down with all the papers, updates, etc. She was a whiz. I went back to the office feeling refreshed. My wife, in the meantime, was out in Hollywood for the Oscars and had no idea when she‘d be home.

  “Her being away so long was my next stress moment. Between work and wondering where the hell my wife was really stressed me. Once again my dutiful secretary, Judy, came to my rescue. She saw the signs and, just as quickly, put me on a plane to Aruba. I begged her to come down. She was really hesitant, said she didn’t want to get caught up in any kind of scandalous situation and having my wife name her as the other woman in a divorce.

  “Yet, I did convince her to come down toward the end of the week. In fact, we spent two weeks there. It was wonderful. Not only was she loving, but she’s a damned good cook. She can whip up a meal practically out of nothing, said she cooked most of the meals for her family back home when she was growing up. Dad, two sisters and a younger brother.” He chuckled, pausing for several seconds reflecting back.

  “My wife, again on the go, had flown to Paris for the spring fashions, then London for some royal wedding, and on and on. When she got home, I asked for a divorce. She said good; she didn’t want to be married anymore. Six months later we were free of each other. No complicated divorce. None of that she said or he said crap. She wanted out and I gave her out with a hefty settlement. Two months later I asked Judy to marry me. She said yes, and that’s where we are now, ten wonderful years later.”

  “She’s a nice lady,” Harry said. “You’re a lucky man.”

  “I know so. And thanks to you and Karl, I hope to be in good shape in a few days to take care of my husbandry duties.” He laughed. “Life sure gets interesting, doesn’t it.”

  “Yeah,” Harry grinned, “Life is interesting. But you never know when it’ll jump up and bite you in the ass!”

  “Yeah,” Al laughed. “How about you? Are you married?”

  “No. Divorced. Engaged at the moment.” He caught the puzzled look on Al’s face, and quickly explained, “My betrothed is still on board Nurad, and I hope and pray she‘s still alive.”

  “Oh, the ship. I see,” Al said. “Yes, I pray she‘s okay, too.”

  “Karl is her uncle. He said he was going to marry us at sea on the way back to the states, as per her wishes.” He shrugged, “and you know the rest of the story.”

  “Soup’s on!” called Judy. “Come and get it!”

  The foursome sat down to eat. Clam chowder, soda cracker and grilled cheese sandwiches. “It’s the best I could come up with at the moment,” Judy said apologetically. “I threw a lot of the spoiled meats and vegetables overboard.”

  Dusk was fast approaching, the sky turning a dull gray when Karl relieved Harry at the wheel. The silhouette of a large island was visible off the starboard beam. Lights were on in the small villages. Judy joined Karl on the bridge. “I’ll be your lookout,” she teased picking up the binoculars. Al and Harry had retired to the small salon where they sat back, relaxing, Harry sipping a bourbon while Al slowly sipped at a glass of water.

  Harry swished the liquid around in his mouth. With no toothbrush, he hoped the alcohol would kill any germs. Al assured him alcohol would do the trick for the moment.

  Being inquisitive by nature, Harry asked Al how he got involved in the stock market, which brought a chuckle. “When I was a kid I wanted to be an airline pilot,” Al said. “I studied hard, was damned good at math, trig, algebra, the whole kit and kaboodle. I applied for the Air Force Academy. I wanted to be one of those hot-shot fighter plane jet jockey’s, or maybe pilot one of those huge cargo transport jets. Then, later, like a lot of military pilots, I could become an airline pilot. Good money in flying. But I was turned down. Eye problems. With eye problems you can’t fly a jet.

  “I went on to college, got into business administration and found out I was really good at finance. I went on and got an MBA in business. I started out in Chicago as a stock broker, wet my whiskers there, proved myself capable, and moved on to New York. I got on an upwards ladder to success with a fast track record. I soon opened my own office, and the world, as they say, was my oyster.”

  “And you made good money, obviously, because you gave your wife—how much? Four hundred million in your divorce settlement!”

  “Yes,” Al laughed. “And at current market value, unless the stock market has collapsed in the last few weeks, I’m still just a tad over a billion dollars.”

  Harry almost choked on his bourbon. “B-as in Billion?” he ventured. Al grinned, and nodded yes. “B-as in billion.”

  He reached over and poured more bourbon in Harry’s glass. “I still put my pants on every day the same as you, one foot at a time. I’m not a workaholic anymore thanks to Judy. She does allow me to keep tabs on the New York Stock Exchange, though.”

  He laughed. “She’d rather go on a picnic at a park, or walk along the beach hand in hand. She’s an old fashioned girl, the kind your mother wanted you to meet and marry. My mom was pleased as punch when I introduced her to Judy. Now there’s a nice girl, she said.”

  Harry sat back thinking. With his two million he and Osa could get married and settle down, invest the money, and lead a nice comfortable life—but where? Saginaw? Stockholm?

  “This old world is changing, Harry,” Al continued. “In ten or twenty years, say by the year 2000, for example, you’ll see some tremendous changes in this old world. It used to be a big vast world but now it’s getting smaller all the time.

  “Countries are changing, leaders are changing, new partnerships are formed. The rich want to get richer, the middle class want to just live a good life, have a home, raise a family and have a good retirement benefit. And the poor, I’m sorry to say, will still continue to get the shaft.

  “If you’ve got any money to invest, I would recommend you invest in oil, natural gas, other forms of energy, Coke and Pepsi, as they’re goi
ng global, and I read about this kid, Bill Gates. He’s got some new business dealing with electronics, something to do with computers, says all businesses and homes will have computers one day. Telecommunications will be the big picture.”

  He laughed at the look on Harry’s face. “You don’t know what it is, but I guarantee if you invest in his business, or any electronics business, you’ll get rich. Electronics is the wave of the future. I’m serious when I say to invest every cent you can now and you’ll reap rich rewards.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Pirate Boat at Starboard

  ”Ve haf a boat appearing on der radar,” called Karl. “Coming up astern.”

  “Oh my God!” Judy gasped. She swung the binoculars around staring astern. “I don’t like the looks of it.” There was a tremor of fear in her voice. “Small boat,” she said. “I have this weird feeling about that boat coming out at us.”

  Harry took the glasses from her. He observed the boat for a couple of minutes. “Fast boat. I see a lot of guys on board.”

  “That pirate boat the other night was fast like that,” Al said. He took the glasses from Harry and studied the boat. “I don’t like the looks of them.”

  Harry took the glasses back. “Well they don’t look like they want to sell us souvenirs,” he quipped. “Where’s that automatic rifle you had, Judy?”

  “I’ll get it.” She flitted down below to the main stateroom, emerging shortly with the gun in hand. Harry looked it over. An AK-47. He popped the clip. Half full. “Any other weapons on board?”

  “The pirate leaders automatic,” said Al. He scratched at his head. “Let me look in the crew’s quarters. The captain said they had weapons on board.” He disappeared below returning in about five minutes with another hand gun and two World War Two vintage M-1 rifles. “This is it,” Al said.

  Harry groaned. Not the greatest firepower. He checked the rifles. Clean. “Any ammo?” he asked. “I think I know where they might have kept the ammo,” Judy called over her shoulder as she hurried below. In less than two minutes she returned carrying two ammo belts.