Fire And Ice (41 page)

An exquisitely polite gentleman who represented the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency stood like a statue in the living room, explaining with deep respect which failed to mask his utter contempt that every fear she had raised had been investigated. There was a reserve among island peoples—her husband was English—and a dislike of foreigners. She found herself containing her Cantonese ebullience as she would in London—closing her smile, dimming her eyes.

She could not see Tokyo Harbor, but held in memory the sight from the plane: a vast spread of black water that funneled into the heart of the city, sparkling with the running lamps of a thousand ships.

In the business districts, many of the office buildings had lit their windows in the shapes of Western Christmas trees, starry snowflakes, Nordic reindeer, and round snowmen nearly indistinguishable from burly Santa Clauses. Countless lighted windows, and behind each a human being.

"Officials representing the American Mr. Jack Powell confirm he owns a liquefied natural gas carrier called the Amy Bodman. They claimed it was in dry dock in Taiwan. We contacted Taiwanese authorities. They assure us the ship is there."

"What size ship?" asked Lydia.

"Fifty thousand tons."

"Has anyone actually seen Mr. Powell?"

"Mr. Powell is leading a gas exploration expedition in Antarctica. I spoke with him myself by radio. It was a poor connection, but Mr. Powell was very helpful and referred me to several mutual acquaintances in the shipping world. Happily, your claims are refuted. We are, of

course, grateful that you came here all the way from China."

"I came from Hong Kong," Lydia said frostily. "And I thank you for going to so much trouble. Perhaps now you'll have a drink?"

The Japanese bowed his head. "No thank you, I promised my children I'd be home early to wrap Christmas presents."

Lydia rang for the butler to get the gentleman's coat. "May I ask, are you a Christian?"

"Of course not. But it's a jolly celebration." He softened slightly at that. "Do be assured that my agency closely inspects every gas carrier that approaches the port. And in light of your . . . information . . . we will be particularly vigilant for the next several days."

"I was led to believe there was a child aboard. I would hope the inspectors will be careful."

The Japanese turned wintery again. "With gas ships, we are always careful."

`LOOK, KID! No HANDS."

Mr. Jack raised both gloves in the air as the Dallas Belle's helm, a yoke smaller than a car's steering wheel, began to turn. He grinned at her, but Ronnie was sulking in a corner of the bridge, nose in a book. Earlier she'd gone AWOL, wandering the ship for hours until he caught her on the main deck, mooning at the lifeboats. She'd scared the bejesus out of him and he'd yelled at her. So now she was sulking. And he was in the doghouse. It was worse than marriage.

The good news was, he would catch the Japs with their pants down, just like last time. His cover story had held. The clincher was the Antarctica call, relayed courtesy of the sat phone and a radio operator on the Weddell Sea who had earned enough money in one night to send every child she ever spawned to private school.

"Kid! Look! No hands."

The Amy Bodman/Dallas Belle/Asian Princess made fifteen ponderous knots through the Philippine Sea, the Osumi Strait two hundred miles in her wake. The tons of cloaking steel had reduced her speed by a third, and with much of the new weight forward, she was down at the head. When she pitched, she drove her bow deep into the lumpy seas and heaved gigantic wings of spray. But the captain had promised she'd hit Tokyo on schedule, and the computer agreed: twenty-three hours and counting.

"No hands."

"Big deal." She pouted. "We have an autopilot too." "Not like this you don't." Overcome by her natural curiosity, the child got up and crossed the slanting deck to the OMBO monitor. Etched in light was an irregular zigzagged course, with the icon representing the ship. Ronnie's eyes widened. When the icon reached the next zig, the ship began to turn without anyone touching the helm.

"No hands."

Twice more in two miles the ship changed course, heeling tenderly, but conforming precisely as if it were rounding race buoys. And all the while, Mr. Jack grinned like a snake.

"What do you think?"

Ronnie made a face. "It's an OMBO ship."

Mr. Jack looked at her sharply, the snake grin scary. "What do you know about OMBO?"

"One-man-bridge-operated," Ronnie answered. "Daddy says they're the worst thing to hit the ocean since megacarcharodon."

"Mega-what?"

"Megacarcharodon was a giant shark. A hundred feet long. He ate everything, till he became extinct." "Served him right."

"Daddy says they're going to run down sailboats and the boats will never even know they hit them."

"Daddy tell you why we make OMBO ships?"

"So you don't have to pay people to stand watch."

"Yeah. Well, this is a really special OMBO. Third generation. Even your smart daddy never heard of this one."

She stared at their reflections in the windows. The new superstructure blocked the gloomy view ahead. All she could see of the sea was out the side windows. Mr. Jack glided up behind her. "Hold on," he warned, pointing at the monitor. "Crash turn."

It was a ninety-degree turn. A siren shrilled a warning, and the gas carrier slammed to starboard. Ronnie grabbed the rail that rimmed the windshield. Mr. Jack did too, but he used his injured arm and cried out in pain. She tried to save him, but her own grip was broken from the rail and they tumbled to the deck.

Slowly, hesitantly, the ship straightened up.

"Are you okay, Mr. Jack?"

"Yeah, yeah." He was white. Ronnie sprang up and offered a hand, as the captain charged onto the bridge. "What the hell—"

"Just demonstrating the system," Mr. Jack said.

"You're going to demonstrate us into a capsize," the captain yelled. "We're carrying enough weight topside to turn turtle."

For once, Mr. Jack apologized. He was almost meek. "Sorry. Just wanted to show the kid what she could do. Don't worry, Cap. Won't happen again."

Ronnie stared at the floor while the captain grumbled. Finally, he left.

"Jeez," whispered Mr. Jack with a conspiratorial wink. "We almost got in a lot of trouble."

"You almost got in a lot of trouble. I didn't do anything."

"Captain thinks you did it and I was just covering for you." He grinned, sly but not snakelike, and Ronnie, caught up in the game, said, "No way! Mr. Jack." Mr. Jack patted the monitor. "So what do you think?"

"Great," said Ronnie. But in her mind she vaulted a half mile ahead of the ship, saw it pawing an angry white course through the waves—the mask, turning where it wanted to. She shivered.

"You look like you seen a ghost," said Mr. Jack.

She could almost see the eyes behind the mask. Almost. "Is Moss coming back?"

"Don't look that way," Mr. Jack replied lightly. But his face had turned to stone, and she shivered again. She was scared. She had never been alone before. But she was alone now. Moss had made her feel so little when he hit her—blew her off like a mosquito. Mr. Jack wasn't as big as Moss, but he was still a lot bigger than she. And for such a bag of bones, he was mighty strong.

"Can I radio Mummy?"

"'Fraid not, kid."

"Mr. Jack?"

"What?"

"Where's Ah Lee?"

"Jumped ship in Shanghai."

"He didn't tell me he wasn't coming."

"When a sailor jumps ship, he doesn't advertise it or he'd get caught."

"Where is everybody?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I went for a walk—"

"Any more walks, young lady, we're going to war." "Yeah, but I didn't see anybody."

"The crew's busy doing what I pay 'em to do. Or they're sleeping."

"I didn't see anybody—except that Japanese guy, and he was drunk. Who is he? I never saw him before we left Shanghai."

Mr. Jack did one of his dumb "Jap" imitations, bowing over his folded hands. " Honorable pilot-sm."

"Who?"

"Captain Yakamoto is a Tokyo Harbor and Uraga Channel pilot."

"But he's drunk!"

"Got a little problem with the sauce," Mr. Jack admitted cheerfully. "Don't worry, OMBO will-cover for him."

Ronnie shrugged, pretending she didn't care, and offered to take Mr. Jack down to the infirmary to change his bandage.

She knew the ship was deserted.

In her search for a place to hide when the ship got close enough to radio Mummy and Daddy, she had wandered further than the main deck. She had gone into the shell of the superstructure, which was like being inside a gigantic igloo, it was so cold. And she had ridden the elevator down to the bottom of the ship, where huge steel beams and pillars were coated with thick paint. The engine room was the loudest place she had ever heard in her life, hotter than Palau at noon. She had visited the crew lounge, which was plastered with Marlboro posters. But the only people she had seen were the drunken Japanese pilot and the captain arid Mr. Jack.

The galley was empty; since Shanghai they had been eating frozen stuff cooked in the microwave. The engine room was empty. Even the engine computer room in the air-conditioned house in the middle of the roaring heat was empty. The ship was just sailing along all by itself.

Mr. Jack was so bony it was like bandaging a skeleton. He winced as she removed the old dressing.

"Does it hurt?"

"Just a little sore," he said, but she could tell he was lying.

"Mr. Jack?"

"What?"

"Can I radio Mummy?"

"I told you, no! Hey, cheer up. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve." She turned away so he wouldn't See her press her fist to her lips to stop their trembling. Moss's fist had been big as a coconut. Hers was like a lemon. She closed her eyes and tried to form a picture of her knuckles balled tight and shooting like an X ray through Mr. Jack's shirt and bandage and skin and right through the muscle Mummy had sewn. But her stupid fingers kept dissolving like Jell-O.

Midmorning, Christmas Eve Day found Stone and Sarah deep within the Sagami Sea. Still no word from Ronnie, though they were only ten miles from Uraga-Suido, the channel to Tokyo Bay.

The chart showed land ahead and on each side, and the volcanic island 0-shima far astern, but a thin December fog shrouded the vast gulf, which resounded with horns and whistles.

The VHF was alive with ship talk. They stayed tuned to channel five. Stone had raised their radar reflector and was trying to skirt the inbound separation lanes. He had a fair idea where they were—he had eyeballed the triple thirty-second flasher on 0-shima. Ahead lay water nearly a mile deep. But they both stayed in the cockpit to watch for ships, which were everywhere, rumbling and hooting in the fog. He brought the Sailing Directions up and reviewed the Tokyo approaches until the print swam before his tired eyes.

Suddenly he snapped awake, his brain churning. The fog had thinned, revealing distant hills that appeared to float in front of a range of steep mountains. A couple of miles astern, he noticed a massive passenger liner knife through the haze. Black hull, white superstructure. Looked like the old QE-2 on a winter around-theworld cruise.

"We're missing something," he told Sarah. "There's no way he can sneak a gas ship into the harbor. It's impossible. There's something in the Sailing Directions." He thumbed through the blue-jacketed book. "Here! 'Regulations: Tankers must enter port at dead slow speed preceded by a patrol boat, with one tug on each side of the vessel and followed by a patrol boat.'

"That's after picking up the Uraga-Suido Channel pilot and then the Tokyo Harbor pilot. So it isn't exactly a situation where he could just deliver a gas ship primed to explode at four o'clock Christmas Eve. . . . Now here, look at the harbor chart. Here's some gas wharves by these power plants across from Takeshiba Pier. But they wouldn't take a ship that size. They probably restrict them to ten-thousand-ton coasters damned well

should. Ship the size of the Dallas Belle a mile from the center of the city would be insane. . . . He could make a run at Yokohama. Look at this. Whip out of the fairway here and fifteen minutes later, 'Hello Yokohama'—boom!"

"No—that's not his way."

"What do you mean?"

"If Mr. Jack intends to destroy Tokyo, he will not settle for Yokohama."It's only fifteen miles from Tokyo and it's a very important city."

"He told me that after they had dropped their bombs, his plane spotted a fuel depot and if they had bombed that instead, the explosion would have burned the entire city."

"Well, then, he's got a problem. Tokyo's to hell and gone up the bay and there's a gauntlet of pilots and observatories and patrol boats and a naval base. Forget it, Mr. Jack. You're not even allowed in without specific permission from the port director, and to get that you've got to

make all kinds of applications, and you know damned well you're going to be boarded out here" —he pointed at a quarantine area before Tokyo Light—"for a major safety inspection. Even before us and Lydia, he couldn't get the ship into the harbor. They've got thirty miles from the first pilot to stop him."

Sarah shook her head. "Michael. Put yourself in his shoes. How would you get that ship into Tokyo Harbor?" "Hire an escort from the Third Fleet."

"Pretend Katherine's life hangs in the balance."

"I'll just think about Ronnie," he said with a bleak look.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That was terrible of me. I didn't mean that. I was just trying—"

"Forget it. He's making us all crazy. You're right, though. He may be crazy, but he's not a fool. So how would I get the gas ship into Tokyo? . . . Make it look like something else?

Cover the gas piping, make it look like a bulk carrier— Jesus, in the breaker's yard they were draping canvas over the main deck."

He recalled how he'd assumed the canvas was fire retardant for the acetylene torches dismantling the cruise ship. Then he remembered the cranes—the heavy lift cranes surrounding the slip.

"He had a brochure for a cruise liner to dock at Takeshiba Pier," Sarah said. "He said he owned it."