China Jewel (11 page)

“My friend, it is Etranger. I call because we are beside your brig. Captain Hall wanted me to contact you with a report.”

“What happened, Captain Etranger?”

“The brig has lost the upper sections of its front mast. The foretop has let go from the bottom fore mast and has taken with it the highest mast, the topgallant. The antenna was below and has been destroyed. The transceiver and satellite phone are crushed from the falling gear. We are alongside. We work together with Captain Hall to bring down the remaining yards and rigging.”

Cutter asked, “Can you report on the boat and crew?”

“These two masts, they’re broken badly and will have to be completely replaced.”

Doc Jerry said, “Ocean gusts may be the culprit, Cutter.”

“The ship she is in good shape otherwise. The first mate has a fractured arm. All other crewmen and women are fine.”

Cutter replied grimly, “Maybe it is more than weather.” He could not forget the stranger who had been up in that mast when the workman died.

Doc Jerry went on, as if reading his thoughts, “We checked all that wood before it was installed. Those masts were prime, no cracks, no warping. Must have been a powerful blow with a lot of sail spread.”

Cutter spoke to the French captain. “What is the current status?” he asked his fingers tight on the microphone.

“Others from our crew have volunteered to go aboard the Peregrine to help. They attempt to untangle the lines and spars on the deck.”

“How bad is the man hurt?”

“He will be all right. He has been airlifted to the Chinese ship shadowing us. They will stand by but, by the rules, cannot assist with the repairs. My friend, I tell you, I would be planning to bring out another mast soon.”

Cutter asked, “Captain Etranger, what about my son, Jamie, and the others?”

“They are doing well. Your son is actually performing as the captain’s mate.”

“We’ll be back to you. Thanks.” Doc Jerry signed off.

Stringer burst into the office, door slamming behind him. “What’s happened?” he asked, his voice showing his usual worry. He saw the worried faces of the others and blurted, “I knew something would go wrong. The Peregrine can’t float well in her bow. The hull is too narrow, too sharp. She will dive into waves too easily.”

“It’s nothing to do with her hull design, Stringer,” said Cutter patiently. He and everyone else at headquarters was tired of hearing the Peregrine hull was going to sink because it was narrow and did not float like a basketball. He said, “Her foremast snapped. We’ll need your drawings in making new masts.” Then he explained what had happened.

Stringer’s words came out like emotional stutters, “Carrying too much sail broke the mast.”

“Maybe.”

Stringer picked up a clean pad of engineering paper and began to make some notes. “We’ll have to cut a mast, of course.”

Cutter asked, “Do we have the timber?”

“Jolly and I planned for it. We ordered extra logs for masts. When you process these timbers, you sometimes find flaws. Unfortunately we did not spot this flaw. So, yes, we have timber to shape. It takes time, though. You must understand.”

“We’ll start at once.”

“They have to be authentic. We have to trim the logs by adze first.”

The engineer looked directly at Cutter “Are you aware of the danger of the crew remaining on the Peregrine?” he asked. Cutter knew he would say this and was ready.

“Hall is in charge. Look, if he thinks there’s any real danger to their lives, he’ll get them to dry land immediately,” he said. “Etranger is also beside them with his boat.”

Stringer stood on the balls of his feet, his arms across his chest. “I knew this would happen. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since she left.”

He continued, “The beams of the ship are sized accurately for the early design but they are still half the size for a safe ship.”

Doc Jerry said, “Etranger can stay for a while but we can’t take anything for granted. He’s tells me he is getting is getting some flak from his French managers. The woman owner wants him to leave the Peregrine and go on to the race. Can’t blame her with all the money at stake.”

Cutter could have bet that would be her decision and to hell with saving anyone. He looked at his assistant, “What is the weather?”

Sparkles said, “A storm system above them is slowly moving south. They have a few days.”

“Shouldn’t we bring her into port to repair that mast?” repeated Stringer.

Doc Jerry said, “No, it can be done at sea. Captain Hall knows how to rig a mast.”

Stringer said, pleading in his voice, “We’re going to hear it from the media about sacrificing the ship’s crew to the weather in order to win a race. The risks of loss of life are very high.”

Cutter said, “We’ll have to take that chance.”

“We will?” asked Stringer.

Doc Jerry said, “If we quit without trying to fix her, we’ll be laughingstocks not to mention having a pretty discouraged crew. We owe it to them and the nation to try to keep our heads and fix this ourselves.”

Cutter agreed. He knew the way the television pundits would portray this, the British boat sailing in spite of the storm, the Americans running for cover.

“You got that right,” Cutter said. “We’ll alert the Coast Guard we might need help but right now we can handle this.”

“You’ve got to promise me,” said Stringer, “you’ll do something if it gets much worse.”

“Yes.”

Stringer tried one more time. “We could get them off, get the boat towed in, if we start now.”

Cutter shook his head.

“Can we count on you to help us with the mast designs?” he said to Stringer, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. Stringer got control of himself. He nodded, even showing a slight and rare smile.

Cutter had a lot of faith in Etranger as well as Hall. He remembered Etranger from when the two of them met on a trip to Lagos, Nigeria, a few years ago. They worked together on a transportation company project. The job entailed setting up a truck route from the southern coast near the old slave and palm oil ports. It traversed to a planned factory area in the northern provinces near the border with Niger. Etranger attended as the representative of the French partner in the deal. Cutter came with the American money. The Frenchman stood short and wiry compared to tall and full built Cutter. Etranger was the kind of man who acted first, talked second. Etranger had the proverbial poker face. While this made him an expert at trading with other businessmen, Cutter never knew for sure what Etranger was thinking. However, he had a reputation for honesty and he was known for backing up his friends right or wrong. If the girl played like her old man, she’d be a winner too, especially in a fight, even a tough eyeball-gouging bloody one.

The humor of their appearance must have given an impression of weakness. Unfortunately they appeared as a couple of naive businessmen just waiting to be taken down. Local kidnappers laid a trap for them. One evening they were riding down the elevator from their rooms on the top floor of the Floridian, the new international hotel in Lagos. Visitors preferred it because it had its own generator, thereby avoiding the Lagos power outages common in those days. Unfortunately it overlooked the section of the beach where the Nigerian Government hanged criminals.

Three Libyan men entered at the sixth floor, eyes covered with mirror sunglasses. They said nothing, just looked at the floor. Cutter immediately paid attention to them. After the elevator door closed, they began to move around to get behind Cutter. He noticed this and nodded to Etranger. Cutter could still not see any change on the facial expressions of the men. The many floors the slow elevator had to traverse did not pass fast enough. Cutter suspected at this or the next floor there would be a sudden move with a knife.

The elevator stopped suddenly between the second and third floor. The machine moved again first up and then down. Cutter waited for the hotel generator to take over from city power.

With the lurch, all of them, Cutter included, lost their balance. First they tumbled back toward the walls of the elevator compartment. One of the Libyans was bigger than his companions and fell against the side of the elevator. His right hand moved quickly down under his shirt. By now the men had moved to cover all sides of Cutter and his friend.

As the elevator began to move, the big man spoke in a soft voice. He said, “Mr. American, you and your companion go together with us at the second floor please.”

The man had drawn a gun, a silver-plated revolver and held it at Cutter’s stomach. Cutter slowly complied by turning toward the door. As he did he glanced at Etranger’s eyes and saw the Frenchman’s determination. A moment later the two of them went into action. Etranger used his old training from serving with the French paratroops in Algeria. Cutter acted with his Vietnam moves. Cutter disarmed the gunman with his up thrust palm into the man’s face, the surprise of which made the man fall back against the wall groaning, blood coming from his broken nose. His pistol clattered to the floor. Etranger twisted the other two, one into the other. Their heads hit with a loud crack and they fell. Cutter calmly picked up the gun. He held in it on the groveling three as the elevator lurched slowly to the lobby.

“Amateurs,” Etranger had grinned, kicking one of the men as he tried to rise.

The door opened to a group of hotel guests, their African garb colorful, their faces suddenly on guard. Cutter signaled to the doorman who immediately brought in the Nigerian guards from the front lobby doorway. Within minutes heavily armed soldiers arrived and took the Libyans away.

He smiled at the memory and then heard again the dim growl of the air conditioners in his race command center. The mechanical battle against nature seemed insufficient to truly affect the River Sunday heat. Cutter felt the sweat running down his cheeks.

Doc Jerry said, “We have to get started whatever we’re going to do. She’ll need a replacement radio too.” His voice was sudden and sharp.

Sparkles brought out more ocean maps. She checked again the latest location of the Peregrine. Her fingers quickly moved rulers and navigation tools across the paper. She looked up, her face grim.

“It would take two days to tow the Peregrine into a harbor,” she said.

“We have two or three days before the storm hits and two days from now to get a safe harbor. On the other hand if we fly there in two days with a new mast, we just have time.”

She nodded. “More or less.”

Cutter said, “You‘re weakening, thinking we’ll have to bring the crew off and leave her. Stringer’s getting to you.”

“You can make it, boss. Don’t get me wrong.”

Stringer shuffled his feet, but didn’t say any more.

Cutter leaned back in his chair. He stretched his arms above his head and stared up at the old cracked plaster of the control room ceiling. He had a feeling of being trapped in something he could not stop. It was like when he was hit by a round from one of General Dela’s soldiers in Vietnam. He heard Bill Johnson’s mantra to him every time over the years that danger had come across the desk. “If you retreat, everyone is happy that your men come home without wounds. If you stand and fight and win, they like it much better even if your guys get shot up some. If you stand and lose, everyone will remember the risk you took and blame you. You have to find a way to go ahead but also to win. That’s what I pay you for and, Jimmy, you have always been good at winning.”

This time, though, Cutter knew deep down that he was matching his son’s life up against his duty to win for Bill. He didn’t like it. It was the same decision he had made years ago in Africa. He had lost his son and his wife that time. His enemies like Strand and white-haired Slidell expected him to take the risk. Only, they bet on him to fail. They planned to hit him hard with another risk further out in the race. He had to be ready for that. The competition would not stop.

“Have the police found that bearded guy?” he suddenly asked.

“Nothing yet,” answered Doc Jerry.

“Bill will for sure encourage the FBI office to examine the mast for sabotage. He’ll want a report of anything that has been done beyond the River Sunday police department investigation.”

Doc Jerry said again, “The only way we can build this mast is to start right away and work until it is finished. Everybody works.”

“You’ll have to let the paint dry,” said Stringer, looking up from his notes.

Cutter said, “We won’t paint. Let them do that at sea when the wind isn’t blowing, like the old clipper ship crews did. They can fix up any rigging they don’t get time to do now. If we get the mast out there and the spars mounted, she’ll hold wind. Then she can sail from the bad weather. The rest can wait.”

“Boss, there‘s a call from the Baltimore television station,” called Laura. “The evening anchor wants to report on what we will do.”

Cutter asked Doc Jerry, “They have the story already?”

“Hey, the boats are always surrounded with helicopters taking pictures. I’m sure we’re on French broadcasts by now, maybe CNN.”

“OK,” Cutter said. He sat forward. He was in control once again. He accepted all of the risk. It had to be done. He reached for his phone and punched in Jolly’s number at the boatyard.

Chapter 9

June 24, 4 PM

River Sunday

Jolly picked up the desk phone at his office in the boatyard. He said, “I’ve been expecting your call.”

“I need your help,” said Cutter. As he spoke, Cutter watched the large screen television near his desk. The Brazilians and French were sending in video.

“I guess you do,” said Jolly.

“You watching the television?”

“I see Peregrine lost the upper two sections of her forward mast. Are you going to bring her in?”

“I don’t want to. You know as well as I do, we pull into a Brazilian port, the second guessing on the boat’s safety will keep us there for days.”

“Figured that’s the way you’d go. I’ve sent for Big Smithy.”

“Yes. Good move. Better get all the people back to the shed. We’ve got to turn this one around fast.” Smithy was the adze craftsman who had cut out the timbers for the masts. He was one of the few black craftsmen who had volunteered to work on the brig. He said he owed Jolly because the two of them had served together in Vietnam.