Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (33 page)

“This two-liter tank will give me enough air to swim around to the northern side of the island and get a closer look at that boat.”

“What’s to look at?” he asked. “It’s probably someone delivering a load of crabs.”

“Not this time,” I said, snapping on my hood. “Not this fellow.”

I explained that the boat belonged to Russell Lynch, a man who was connected to Eddie Ray in more ways than one.

“I have to get closer,” I said. “I need to see what he’s doing here.”

“This is so James Bondish,” Kirby said admiringly, helping me on with my tank. I was glad he wasn’t arguing with me about going. He must have realized I knew what I was doing.

“What do I do in the meantime?” he asked.

I slid my cell phone down into my suit where it would stay dry and then carefully put my other clothes into my bag and zipped it shut.

“You keep observing,” I said. “Just watch closely, take note of everything, and stay here till I get back.”

“What if something goes wrong for you?”

“I’ll call you. Turn your phone on, set it to vibrate, and put it in your pocket where you’ll feel it if it goes off.”

“Okay.”

“If I haven’t called or come back in two hours,” I said, “call the coast guard and tell them what’s happened.”

“Do you have that much air?”

“I won’t be underwater the whole time,” I said, double-checking my waterproof watch. “I’m just using the air tank to get there and back.”

“But what about the armed guard?” he asked. “What if he sees you?”

I shrugged.

“I’ll try not to let that happen.”

I put the mask over my eyes, tested the respirator, and then gave Kirby a thumbs-up.

“Is there anything I can do to stop you?” he asked desperately.

I pulled out the respirator and grinned.

“Not unless you want me to flip you again,” I replied.

Thirty-Six

Man, the water was cold! Despite the layer of rubber, I could feel the chill of the mighty Chesapeake. I knew that with the suit I wasn’t in immediate danger of hypothermia, but that still didn’t mean it was comfortable.

I slid into the water from the muddy bank and then dove down about five feet. I didn’t want to go too deep, just deep enough so that I wouldn’t be seen from the shore.

Heart pounding, I set off. I soon discovered I would have to surface frequently because I could see next to nothing in the black water. I had a small diving light built into my hood, but I didn’t dare use it for fear of being seen.

Flippers, also, were a luxury I hadn’t taken advantage of—mostly because I didn’t want to fool with them at the other end. But that made it much slower going. I was an excellent swimmer, but these weren’t exactly ideal conditions.

Still, I eventually got into a rhythm. I would go 15 strokes, surface, and then down for 15 more. In that way I managed to come alongside the island and then moved slowly toward the tip at the far end. As I went, I tried to block all fear from my mind, though it wasn’t easy. Besides the machine guns on the shore, I knew there was also a danger of sharks or stingrays or even snapping turtles in the water.
Not to mention the deadly nutria,
I thought with a smile.

Finally, I paused and floated, gauging my position, trying to get a feel for what was going on. There was a lot to see. Besides Russell’s boat, which was now tied up at the dock, lights illuminated the ramp and the picking house, and I could see a number of Japanese people milling about. They weren’t saying much, but there was an intensity to their actions that seemed deliberate and disturbing. Vaguely, I tried to recall what I had read about the Japanese mafia, and I wondered if this might be somehow connected with that.

I needed to get on that island. I decided my best approach would be to swim along the shoreline until I found the inlet where they stored their own little speedboat. I gave the well-lit dock area a wide berth so as not to be seen, then I fought the current as I swam around the northern tip of the island. Just as I had expected, once I rounded the curve I found that there was a small break in the land that led to the inlet. I floated all the way up the inlet to where the speedboat sat in the water, dark and quiet, securely tied to a wooden stake.

The water was more shallow here, and I found the bottom with my feet. As quietly as possible, I climbed out and stood on the muddy bank, getting my bearings. The port-a-potty was behind me, which meant the picking house and all of the activity must be in front of me. I could detect lights through the trees, so I crept toward them now, keeping my head low, my heart beating wildly in my throat.

I stole toward the back of a gray cinder-block building, wondering if this was the dormitory Murdock had told me about. I wanted to peek in a window, but there were too many people milling around. Instead, I hid behind a nearby tree and examined my options.

A row of garbage cans lined one wall, and finally I sprinted to them and crouched down, using them as my cover. From what I could make out, this whole area was a scene of organized
confusion. Men with guns were barking orders in Japanese—short, clipped commands like “Come here!” “Stand there!” and “Wait!” Other people were basically following those orders in a daze, as if they were being herded like cattle. Directly across from me, a group of women stood in a row against a metal fence as a man sprayed them with a hose. When the hose was shut off, I could see that most of the women were rail thin and sickly, their ribcages poking out through their wet shirts.

Slowly, I began to understand what might be going on.

“Over there! Over there!” a guard yelled suddenly.

Gasping, I ducked down into the shadows behind the trash can, arms wrapped around my head, listening as footsteps crunched in the gravel toward me. The metal lid from one of the cans was lifted, and then trash rattled into the can. One piece missed the can and landed in the darkness at my side. Squinting, I could just make out what it was: a crumpled box of head lice remover.

The lid slammed down, and then I heard the same footsteps marching away. I took a chance and peeked out between the cans, watching the man hike back toward the dock. Just as he was passing the group of women against the fence, one of them crumpled to the ground. The man stopped to help, kneeling down and using a hand to lift her head off the ground.

“
Daijyoubu?
” he asked.
(Are you okay?)

She answered him, but not in Japanese. Her words tumbled out in some other tongue, and by her gestures it seemed as if she were asking for food or water. The man produced what looked like a strip of beef jerky from his pocket, which he then gave to her. Between bites, she continued talking, though I doubted he could understand her any better than I could. Straining to listen, at first I thought she might be using some odd sort of Japanese dialect, but finally I decided that she was speaking Chinese.

I looked around, realizing suddenly that although the guards were Japanese, all of the people who were being herded around, who were being hosed down, were Chinese.

That confirmed my suspicions, telling me what I needed to know.

Silently, I crawled backward to the relative safety of the trees, taking one last look at the people before I turned and quietly sprinted away. I kept going until I reached the inlet. Gasping from the cold, I slid down into the black liquid and started swimming. I knew I needed to hurry. I had to get on board Russell’s boat before it sailed away.

I swam back around the tip of the island and made my way to the boat. Once there, I stopped and floated in the shadows behind it, listening, trying to decide if there was anyone else still on board. I could hear voices on land, in the distance, but it didn’t sound as if anyone were nearby. Finally, taking a chance, I swam around to the back, gritted my teeth, and pulled myself up by the built-in ladder.

Water dripped loudly from my dry suit and I held my breath, waiting for someone to come running. When no one did, I climbed the rest of the way up and then flattened myself against the back deck of the boat.

For now, at least, I had been lucky: The boat was empty, and no one on shore seemed to have heard me come aboard.

Gathering my nerve, I crawled over a little dinghy and stepped onto the main deck, heading for the big black box that filled the wide surface. It was a hard fiberglass-looking structure, about ten feet wide, thirty feet long, and maybe six feet high. I stood and ran my hands along it, feeling slit-like holes that had been drilled through the side. At the front, I found a jagged sort of door that had been cut into the fiberglass. I pulled, trying to peel it back noiselessly so that I could peek inside.

I had it open perhaps an inch when I was hit by the smell—a smell so nasty and overpowering that bile surged in my throat and filled my mouth. The odor was like a sewer, a mix of feces and urine and vomit. I let go of the box and stepped to the rail, leaning over as I tried to quell my own heaves. I still was there a moment
later, gulping deep breaths, when I heard men’s voices, very nearby.

I needed to hide. Frantically, I looked around the boat, but except for the big container, the deck was clear. I knew I’d never make it up front to the bathroom or the closet without being seen, but I also knew there was no way I could force myself to climb inside the container and hide there.

“…packing ’em in too tight,” I heard Russell say angrily. “If I end up with any casualties, it’s on your head.”

“We got one more shipment tomorrow. What’s the difference how tightly they’re packed?”

“I just don’t need any dead bodies to deal with.”

“What’re you gonna do, Lynch? Call the police?”

“Shut up, Shin. And get my bumpers.”

A man laughed, and then the boat lurched slightly in the water as it was boarded.

Heart pounding, I inched my way along the container until I was at the very back. I could hear Russell fiddling near the wheelhouse, up front, and once the ropes were tossed on board and Shin barked out the “all clear” from the shore, I waited a minute and then took a chance and darted through the shadows to the end of the boat. I climbed down onto the diving platform and lowered myself into the little dinghy that was strapped there.

The engine roared to life near my head. I shut my eyes, gripped some straps inside the dinghy, and prayed—that I wouldn’t be caught, that I wouldn’t be killed. I wasn’t sure if Russell would have any reason to come back here or not, but I knew that if he did, I was nothing more than a sitting duck.

Having second thoughts—but helpless to change my situation at this point—I laid there in the dinghy on the diving platform as I felt the boat pull away from the dock and slowly edge its way into the bay. After a few minutes, I dared to take a peek over the edge of the dinghy at what we had left behind. I could see Manno Island clearly, all but deserted now, with only a single light shining at the end of the dock. As I watched, the light went out, and then all was dark.

Thirty-Seven

Wham!

The boat hit a giant wave and nearly flung me into the air.
It must be another ship’s wake,
I realized, as I gripped onto my little dinghy for dear life. I counted the stomach-churning leaps—two, three, four…and then it was back to smooth sailing.

I laced my hands more tightly through rope handles on the dinghy and held on, praying we wouldn’t hit any more wakes before we reached our destination. I needed to call Kirby to give him an update, but I didn’t have a hand to spare. According to my watch, we had been apart for more than an hour; I knew I had until the two-hour mark before he would be calling the coast guard.

“Not yet, Kirby,” I whispered into the darkness. “Not yet.”

We drove up the Chesapeake, continuing on for half an hour or so. In that time we hit four more ship wakes, the last of which very nearly did me in. Besides the jostling, I was also freezing to death, my dry suit scant protection for a nighttime boat ride in these temperatures. At least I was out of most of the wind since I was at the back of the boat and not the front.

Just when I thought I couldn’t last much longer, the noise of the motor changed, and I realized we were slowing down and turning in toward shore.