China Sea (19 page)

Dan pulled out his wallet and tried to convert Singapore dollars to U.S. “I was on the east coast then, at the tail end of it. The Atlantic coast.”

“I do recall running ammunition in to Saigon, under a Captain Surtees. Captain Surtees surely loved his whiskey. Sailed with a barricade of crates of it, around his desk. Will never forget old Surtees. So you're here to protect us against the godless communists?”

“Actually, we're supposed to be linking up with an antipirate task force.”

Wedlake beamed, mopping his shining brow with a napkin. “The U.S. Navy, fighting pirates in the China Sea. And about bloody time someone did! I'm headed back to the cow, myself. Care to stop up for a scotch? Maybe I can pass on some information you'd not mind knowing. Since you're new to these waters.”

Dan considered. He was sleepy, but not so far gone he couldn't put it off for another hour. That would still get him in the sack by eight. At last he said, “I'll pass on the whiskey, but I wouldn't mind seeing your ship. I did just want to stop by
Gaddis
for a moment, see if any orders have come through.”

*   *   *

DOOLAN, who had the command duty, said there was no news, no orders, and no one had returned any calls. The duty section was at work, painting over the Pakistani numbers at the bow with haze gray, but they'd discovered they were out of white paint to put their former hull number back on. Dan told Doolan to add it to Zabounian's shopping list ashore, then recrossed the breakbulk and joined Wedlake on the pier.

The rain resumed as they headed up the broad concrete pier toward the
Marker Eagle
. Seen from astern, the roll-on, roll-off looked huge. She was fairly new but less meticulously kept than a warship. Rust streaked bloody tears down from the stern chocks, and her hull paint was pocked with black half-moons where tugs had lipsticked her. Her stern ramp was angled in to serve as a wide gangway. As they reached the shelter of her hull, Wedlake nodded to a black-bearded Sikh in a turban, who sat tilted back in a chair, barely glancing up from a portable TV that was showing a soccer match. His hairy legs bulged from Bermuda shorts; basketball socks sagged above greasy high-tops. An aluminum baseball bat leaned against a sheave. Dan followed the master's vigorous bulk up ladders and through deserted hot passageways painted off-white, then down an access corridor.

A portrait of the Queen hung in a lobby area, above a cap table with a silver dish. Dan eyed the dish with regret. A chance at last to leave his calling card, and he hadn't brought one. A welcome chill met them past a steel door with patches of fresh paint along the hinge area.

Inside the roomy sea cabin an air conditioner hummed its self-absorbed
om
, dispelling the smell of cooked metal. Dan noted carved teak furniture, a large modern-style oil of a harbor by night screwed to the bulkhead, and a side door, no doubt leading to a sleeping area. Wedlake's suede bucks whispered on carpet. He pulled back a curtain to reveal rain trickling down what was very nearly a picture window, protected, outside the glass, by vertical steel bars. Beyond it spread the strait, islands dark on the horizon, passing ships gray shadows in the rain. “Wife will be back shortly,” he said, noticing Dan eyeing a woman's sweater hanging on the back of a chair. “Wanted to get her hair done properly. One thing we can't do aboard, though we had a chap from Thailand who did a decent job. Lost him in Hong Kong, unfortunately. You married, Lenson?” His voice became hollow, and Dan, turning, saw his head ducked into a dry bar, the gleam of glass and chrome.

“Was once. I'm seeing a woman in Washington now.”

“Now, that will be with ice if I'm not mistaken. Don't tell anyone, but I favor Suntory.” He held up a bottle labeled with a bright red flower. “Japanese, but somehow when they make this they give the impression they wear kilts.”

“A Coke would work. Or ginger ale. I've had to taper off on the drinking.” As he always did around Britishers, Dan heard his own diction changing.

A refrigerator door sucked closed; ice shattered. “Takes a wise man to know that. Haven't had that problem myself, but seen it in far too many. At sea and not. Happen to have Schweppes; will that do?… Well then.” Wedlake handed Dan the glass and plumped down on one end of a sofa. “To pirates. You'll have to excuse me; as well as being an old China hand I'm something of a history buff. Have you ever heard of Rear Admiral J. R. Hill? Met him in London. Wonderful man, did a fine book about privateers and pirates. Had an encounter with them myself.”

“You have?” Dan said, but Wedlake was off.

“Course, there've been pirates in the China Sea for centuries. Most any fisherman will turn pirate, if the opportunity offers. In my view. Plenty of inlets and channels to hide in along the coast. So strong now and again they could dictate terms to the imperial government. We battled them all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One of my forebears was at the Battle of Tylo Bay. Which no doubt you recall.”

“Sorry, can't say I do.”

“Eighteen-fifty-five, and odd you never heard of it; the U.S. Navy was there along with us, USS
Powhatan
.”

Obviously enjoying himself, Wedlake replenished his glass, then launched into a long tale about a punitive expedition in the Zhu Jiang in which the U.S. and Royal Navies had cooperated. One Sir Castlemayne Hellowell had been part of the expedition, which had recaptured several merchant ships, killed one Lee Afye, the pirate chieftain, and dispersed those pirates who had not been shot, blown apart, or drowned in the action. Dan caught himself starting to yawn, disguised it just in time as a cough.

“But now the White Ensign's gone from these seas. More's the pity. I should have been glad to have them about when we were boarded last February.”

“You were boarded? Where?”

But just then heels tapped outside. Wedlake rose as a wan-looking woman in a light cotton dress burst in. She was no longer young but was still striking, with spindly arms and ankles, a pointed chin, a quick sparrow's way of moving, and an expressive, mobile mouth. “I'm back, and they said there wasn't any such thing as a—” Then she saw Dan. “I didn't know you had a guest. A handsome one, too.”

“Darling, this is Captain Lenson, from the destroyer just aft of us. Let me introduce my wife, Bobbie.”

Her hand was cool and firm. “Great haircut,” Dan said. “What do you call that?”

“Why, thanks. This is my street-urchin look, I'm afraid.”

“Midwest?”

“Abilene, Kansas. My grandpa grew up with Ike Eisenhower. You?”

“Pennsylvania, but I've spent life since hopping around from one navy base to another.”

“Bobbie and I met in New York some years ago and kept up our acquaintance. At last I persuaded her to join me.”

“When my former husband decided he preferred the company of men,” Bobbie said. “Though Eric would never reveal anything that personal. He's the quintessential stuffed-shirt Brit. As you already noticed, I bet.”

“Actually, he was holding my interest. Said you'd had a run-in with boarders.”

“You told him about the boarding?”

“Just getting to it, my sweet. Shall I fetch you a gin-and, and let you start?”

“Just a short one—actually, just ice water would be better; it's dreadfully hot out there. The boarding. Eric can tell you exactly where; I just know it was somewhere east of here. The first thing we knew was when they appeared on the bridge. Ugly, jabbering little men with guns. They wanted the safe. Once Eric opened it, they duct-taped him. He was rolling around on the floor. Then they wanted the crew's valuables. Once they had those, off they went.”

“I was under way at about ten knots, slowed for the changeover in the traffic scheme. Obviously they knew that. I remember passing through a group of lights. I thought they were fishermen.”

“They weren't?”

“Rather clever, actually,” said Wedlake. “The way they got aboard. Two small boats, a few hundred yards apart. A floating line from one to the other. I steam between, picking up the line on my stem. The small craft are pulled into my shadow, just below my quarter. From there they reach up with long hooked poles and skinny up them, onto my aft deck.”

Dan said, “In the Strait of Malacca? A ship was out of control there last night. Came across the dividing line and plowed straight through the eastbound traffic.”

“May well have been pirates on the bridge. There are a lot more incidents than get reported. The Russians have it the worst. Their navy has evaporated, and they typically carry plenty of cash. Since no one will take their cheques anymore.… Smaller craft, yachts and fishermen, of course, if they are taken over, one might never know, if the crew's killed and thrown overboard. But to cargo shippers, time is money. We can't linger over to make reports, give evidence, and so forth. The demurrage charges alone would kill us.

“But there's sort of a conspiracy of silence about it. So it's only a matter of time before we have some enormous disaster. A liquid natural gas carrier goes astray and rams a passenger liner and explodes. Then we'll see some frantic finger pointing. Till then, the shipowner buys the drinks, and the crew takes the risks.” Wedlake sucked his cheek for a moment, then picked up Dan's glass. “Refill?”

“Thanks.”

“Since then we've taken a few precautions. When
Marker Eagle
was laid down, no one thought about security. But I've welded steel bars over all the windows and put in extra-heavy doors to the bridge. When we're under way I have cables rigged over cargo hatches and I secure the hinge pins on the weather deck doors. At night a motion sensor turns halogen lights on over the ladders. When we're at anchor, I keep my pumps running to the fire hoses and drill my crew in blasting intruders off the ship with the high-pressure jets. Those will only help if they're unarmed, though.”

“Do you carry arms?”

“The IMO recommends we don't arm our crews.”

“That's not quite a direct answer, Captain.”

“Do you carry nuclear weapons aboard your ship, Captain?”

Dan grinned and said the rote words: “I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard any U.S. warship.”

“So there you have it. What precautions we can take and, as a last resort, a hidey-hole Bobbie can duck into and pull in after herself. I must say it helps me sleep, but it's not a permanent answer.”

“What's the permanent answer?”

“Wiping out the hornets in their nests. As my ancestor did, at Tylo Bay.”

“No, Eric. Not Bishop Hell-o-well again—”

“He only became a bishop much later, pet—”

“He's already told me that story,” Dan assured her. Mrs. Wedlake passed a hand over her hair in mock relief. She had a few years on him, but he still found it hard to take his gaze away from her. With her street-gamine face, erect carriage, and tight-lipped smile, she would have looked perfectly at home on the Champs-Elysées.

“But the Chinese are still the worst threat,” Wedlake continued, boring toward what, apparently, he had been waiting all evening to say. “I can cope with these fellows in the straits, now that I know. Keep my speed up and have the lads ready with fire hoses. What I'm not looking forward to is going into Hong Kong again.”

“Eric is worried about what happened to a friend of his,” Bobbie explained.

“He had the
Hiei Blanco
. Cars, appliances, and manufactured goods, Vietnam to Hong Kong. He was hijacked by men in fatigue uniforms, speaking Chinese. They took her to Kwungtung. Held them for nearly three weeks, without letting them send a letter or make a phone call—like prisoners of war, they were. When they finally let them go, they refused access to the ship. That was six months ago. He still hasn't gotten his ship back, his cargo, even his personal effects.”

Dan said, “You said in
uniform
? Are you saying the Chinese government was behind them?”

Wedlake stroked his beard as if it were a small pet. “I shouldn't want to say exactly that. But I've been sailing these waters for twenty-five years now, and I don't believe these boyos are operating freelance. It will be good to have you out there. May restore some sense there's a bobby on the block.… Have you admired my wife's painting?” Wedlake hoisted himself laboriously, crossing to the oil. “It's Hong Kong, if you're not familiar with the backdrop.”

“Actually, I was looking at it when I came in. You did that?”

“I don't usually do landscapes. I thought it would be fun to try something different.”

“Portraits?”

“No,” she said.

He took the hint. Glanced at the night outside the window, the twinkle of distant running lights out in the strait, and heaved himself up. “Well … thanks for the drink and the talk. It was a nice break. I'd better get back to the ship now, try to catch up on my sleep.”

“Understand perfectly; thought you looked a bit peaked,” said Wedlake at once. “Let me make a call, have the gangway lowered for you. We take it up when the sun goes down. I'll take you down to the debarkation door.”

“An attractive woman. Very bright,” he told the captain on the way down. “You're a lucky man.”

“Don't I know it. Hoping she'll come along from now on. Wouldn't be a problem for her; she paints in one of the spare crew staterooms.” Wedlake blinked, looking puzzled and wary, as if glimpsing something on the horizon he wasn't quite sure of. “There's not so much happiness in life I shouldn't try to grasp what I can. Way I look at it. Well, perhaps we'll see each other again at sea.”

“Perhaps so, sir.” Dan gave him a salute and headed down the gangway.

*   *   *

GETTING back to
Gaddis
, blinking with suddenly insistent fatigue, he found Doolan speaking with a man on the quarterdeck. The weapons officer saluted as Dan stepped aboard. In civvies, Lenson nodded to them both.