The Golden Catch Read online

  “What if they want assurance the missing treasure will be returned?”

  “If you didn’t want to return the treasure, you wouldn’t be calling. They either play along or they’ll never see anything. You’re very generous to return this treasure. Cooperating with you is the least they can do. They’ll never know who you are because the officers of the foundation won’t know who you are. You’ll remain totally anonymous.”

  Frank turned to the assigned frequency on the single-sideband radio and had his call relayed to Dane’s office.

  While Abby spoke to the lawyer, Frank wandered over to the radar screen and quickly lost track of Abby’s conversation.

  The three pips on the radar spoke of trouble. With the lights off, the radar’s rotating azimuth cursor swung its 360-degree arcs in a glowing pool of cathode-green. With each pass the cursor illuminated pips of the following vessels. The digital readout on the color radar unit showed the closest vessel was trailing at 12 miles. The other two boats followed 26 and 31 miles behind. Frank punched a series of buttons establishing an alarm range. If any of the three boats came within five miles, the radar alarm would sound. Probably crab boats, he thought, yet it was a time for caution. He glanced at the anemometer; the wind velocity peg hung at thirty-two knots. He punched a new course into the automatic pilot and let it take over as the Hector moved westward through the Bering Sea.

  Frank was still watching the radar ten minutes later when Abby walked over and stood next to him. “Dane says to call him in a couple of days.”

  Frank looked up from the radar and made an effort to nod appreciatively.

  Abby looked down at the radar, then quickly back up at Frank. The excitement on her face was suddenly gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Driven by her huge twisting single propeller, the blue-hulled cargo ship Pinisha splashed through the rough seas of Unimak Pass along the Great Circle shipping route. Her white bridge and accommodation superstructure rose high above her green decks.

  Leaning over the chart table on the bridge like an eagle peering down upon prey, Shipmaster Chung put a position on the paper map, a standard precaution he took every thirty minutes in case of equipment failure.

  “Shipmaster Chung.”

  Chung flinched and spun around with anger in his eyes. He found himself startled by Soo-man’s intimidating presence. Chung felt like an eagle picking at a deer carcass when the bird was surprised by rouge bear.

  “Knock before you enter the bridge,” Chung said. “I thought that door was locked.”

  “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  Soo-man curled his over-developed arm and looked at his watch. “Our signal is moving.”

  Shipmaster Chung adjusted his captain’s hat. “I know that. Hyun left the receiver here. We’re just keeping our distance and waiting for Mok Don. He’ll arrive in the morning.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were after our signal.”

  “Of course. What the hell do you think we’re doing here? We’re following outside of radar range.”

  Soo-man turned to leave.

  “Hold on,” Chung said. “There’s a problem with your transmitter aboard the other vessel.”

  Soo-man slowly turned back around. His steroid-filled body moved like a side of beef swinging on a hook in a butcher’s cold locker. “A problem? The signal is clear enough, isn’t it? What problem?”

  “Whoever designed these tracking devices never intended them to be used aboard ships.”

  Slowly Soo-man crossed his arms and glared at Shipmaster Chung. “They were designed for auto and ship surveillance. What’s the problem?”

  Chung turned and walked to the helm consul, his spit-shined black shoes clicking on the bridge floor. From his high perch on the bridge, he scanned the forward decks and noted a flock of seagulls circling a floating object in the water off the port bow. He turned back to Soo-man. “What frequency do your receivers operate on?”

  “That’s a stupid question.”

  Chung motioned towards the Loran-C receiver. “They operate at 100 Kilohertz. Look at this.”

  Soo-man joined him in time to see the numbers scramble and then right themselves. “What does this have to do with my receiver?”

  “This is a Loran-C navigator. You’ll find one of these on nearly every large boat in Alaskan waters, including, no doubt, the boat we’re following. It works at 100 Kilohertz. Your transmitter uses the same frequency; and for some reason it’s scrambling our Loran-C every six seconds. It may be doing the same thing to the Loran-C aboard the other boat. They’ll probably try to locate the source of the problem—and they’ll find your transmitter.”

  Chung shook his head in disgust. He stalked across the bridge, but he hesitated and turned back. “Not to mention we’ll lose our signal. They might even guess what’s happening without locating the transmitter. This puts Initiative Three in jeopardy.” Chung watched him with a look of cold indifference that masked his secret pleasure at this screw up.

  Soo-man stared at the receiver. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he watched the receiver scramble time and time again. Fear crept onto his face and penetrated his eyes. Then he walked out.

  Shipmaster Chung shivered and grinned at the same time. Soo-man gave him the creeps. Chung ran his own show. He didn’t like Soo-man wandering the passageways day and night. Chung was comfortable at sea. He was free to make his deals and sail from one port to another. He didn’t like extra eyes onboard.

  Now he had Hyun aboard, too. With Soo-man it was security, protecting the group. Business was business. But Hyun was demented. And soon his brother Chull-su would be joining him onboard. The sooner this operation was over the better. Then he could get these ghouls off his boat and get back to business. Already he’d postponed a heroine deal when the market in America was booming. Who else would Mok Don bring?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kiska Island

  Karen Nash stepped up on the covered porch and went inside Frank Murdoch’s log home, entering through the front door. She pulled back the blue hood and ran her fingers through her red, curly hair. Earlier, on the single-sideband, Ingrid said to let herself in.

  Ingrid stood near the rock fireplace. She smiled and said, “That’s quite a fog bank moving in.”

  “It’s cold out there,” Karen said. “How are you, darling? You see that red fox down on the beach?”

  “He’s been around the last few days, always at the same time.”

  “We’ve had a few foxes down our way lately. He’s eyeing that emperor goose.”

  Ingrid moved to the window. “There it goes. The fox will have to find his meal somewhere else.”

  “He will. The foxes are eating the newborn lambs before they even shed their afterbirth. Brian is mad.”

  Ingrid put her palms on her cheeks. “It’s a good thing we have the sheep dogs, or the foxes would get all the lambs.”

  “Those dogs may keep the foxes under control, but they scare me. Lately they’ve been hunting foxes in a pack. Brian says if he can’t control those dogs, he’ll have to shoot them and get new ones.” Karen unzipped her jacket and handed Ingrid the saddle bags. “Here’s the powdered milk you wanted.”

  “Oh, yes, thank you, we’re all out until Frank gets back. Luke gets into everything in sight. I can hardly wait until the pantry is full.” Ingrid walked over to the kitchen, where she busied herself with pouring tea. She looked out the window for a spell. “Luke runs off every time I turn around.”

  “I saw him down the beach.”

  Ingrid returned with the tea, setting it down on the table.

  “Thank you,” Karen said. “Any word from Frank?”

  “He said if things go well, he might come back early, but I think it’s too soon.”

  Karen nodded. “Did you see that crab boat out there this morning?”

  Ingrid glanced out toward the water. “They dropped anchor. I saw two men working on deck.”

  “I expect t
hey were doing repairs of some sort. Ingrid darling, you must have second thoughts about working in such an isolated place.”

  “I get lonely sometimes.”

  “So do I, but I have Brian.”

  “I guess I’ll return to Switzerland one day.”

  “Guess?” Karen was watching Ingrid closely. “I just hate to think you’ll be leaving some day. But at your age, you need some excitement in your life and you surely won’t find any around here. Not for a thousand miles. Isn’t that right?”

  Ingrid shrugged. “I think I’d miss Kiska as much as Switzerland.”

  Karen raised her eyebrows. She was quiet for a moment, then she looked out the window at the beach and said, “That boat out in the bay this morning was a Japanese crab boat, wasn’t it?” Karen said.

  “Looked like it.”

  “I didn’t see them dock.”

  “They minded their own business,” Ingrid said. “They didn’t call on the radio, either.”

  “I wish Brian or Clay would have stayed here. It scares me being out here all alone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  North Pacific

  For two nights and days the Hector sailed westward at ten-knots pace along the sweeping arc of islands that stretched a thousand miles, from the Alaska Peninsula to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

  After passing Bogoslof--a volcanic island that had cooled enough so birds, sea lions, and fur seals took to the shores--one of the pursuing boats broke off to the north into the vast Bering Sea. Probably hunting king crab. With that pip off the radarscope, it left two for Frank to watch. Early that morning the two remaining vessels veered south toward Adak Island and also disappeared from radar. Probably hunting brown king crab as Frank often had in Adak’s raging seas and shrieking wind-tunnel passages.

  With the Hector rolling in the cold gray sea and moaning wind, Frank became obsessive in his reading. Twelve hours out of every twenty-four was spent with some philosophical manuscript in hand. He poured over six volumes, finishing with The Confessions of St. Augustine. Frank felt good to think that a sinner like Augustine could change and become a saint, but he was also disappointed. His own sins were worse and his own reality was different. He was no angel and never would be. He had a lot to make up for. His past was complicated, and it would not just go away.

  During a reading break, he stepped across the dark wheelhouse to check the glowing radar. He looked out at the ocean as the Hector’s bow, illuminated by halogen deck lights, scooped up tons of ocean and shed a phosphorescent flood through the scuppers.

  After checking the gyro compass and their position, Frank strolled over to the chart desk, turned on the reading lamp and measured distances with a pair of dividers. He knew the course well, and the autopilot was all right. Things were looking brighter. Perhaps the Hector slipped out of Dutch Harbor undetected. He thought about the weather fax and brought out the log book, noting their position, course, and last barometer reading.

  Brian Nash arrived in the wheelhouse. He walked to the window and said, “I’ll take over for Clay. He’s been out there breaking up deck ice for quite a while now.” Brian laid his gloves on the control consul.

  “Good idea,” Frank said, closing the log book. “A cold Bering Sea pressure system is headed our way. Might bring some of the worst storms in years. The good news is it won’t arrive for three days. We’ll be home by tomorrow.”

  Brian wrapped his scarf around his neck. “No tellin’ when that front might show up. The forecasts are usually wrong. Noticed the barometer’s been dropping. Those boats show up again on radar?”

  “I think we’ve seen the last of them. You find any problems with the Loran-C receiver?”

  Since leaving Dutch Harbor, the Loran-C navigator had been experiencing consistent pulses of static energy. The old Loran-A systems operated near 2 Megahertz, a frequency plagued by atmospheric noise and interference from foreign broadcast stations; Loran-C, however, operated at 100 Kilohertz, where static noise was limited, radio propagation was good, and interference from foreign broadcast stations was virtually non-existent. Frank was perplexed. At first he wrote the interference off as random airwaves of some kind, but it continued for two days in regular, methodical pulses.

  “No problems I could see,” Brian said. “Looked normal.”

  “You sure? It isn’t acting normal.”

  “I know. Bill Gains once told me about a similar problem with the Loran-C on his boat.”

  “What was wrong?”

  Brian shrugged. “An old unit. He got a new one and that was that.”

  Frank nodded. “I thought the Loran-C was malfunctioning, but bearings match the satnav and all functions and interfaces are working properly.”

  “Clay checked it out, but came up empty. As far as I’m concerned, if Clay couldn’t find anything, it’s faulty equipment.”

  Frank nodded, hoping it was that simple. But he wondered if the Koreans might have found his boat. The short guy asking around about him sounded persistent. The woman at Red Claw didn’t say anything about anyone snooping around the Hector. There was no way to know if someone boarded unseen during the night. The alarm didn’t go off. Equipment was always malfunctioning.

  “All right,” Frank said. “Let’s get home, then. We’ll deal with it later. You’re probably right, it’s probably a malfunction, but I’m gonna keep watching this anyway.”

  “So we’re heading straight back to Kiska?”

  Frank walked to the radarscope. What was he so worried about? Nobody was following on radar anymore. “May as well. I was thinking of ducking into a cove if necessary, but since those other boats went away, I don’t see any reason to stall, especially with the mother of williwaws bearing down on us.”

  Brian zipped up his jacket and slipped on his gloves. He turned and started out of the wheelhouse. “I agree. I don’t like leaving Karen alone for this long.”

  The Hector plowed through ten-foot swell that sprayed over the bow and froze on deck. In the wheelhouse, warm air circulated. The autopilot clicked two notches to starboard. At the chart desk, Frank booted up the laptop and satellite weather tracker. An image formed on the computer screen of a huge storm, a turning cyclonic mass. Longitude and latitude overlays, coastlines, their current position--it looked closer than three days off.

  He was feeling grungy, so he changed into his other jeans that had dried. Back in the wheelhouse, he ambled over to the view seat and sat down, felt a crunch beneath him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope--the letter from Mr. Lee. Frank had forgotten all about it. He reached up and turned on the overhead reading lamp. He opened the envelope and unfolded the paper.

  Frank:

  My associate dug up a couple extraordinary facts about the lost shipment of treasure. A Captain Yokota and his crew mysteriously disappeared at sea prior to the disappearance of Musashi Maru--the ship carrying the treasure back to Japan from Russia. What’s striking about this is Captain Yokota and his crew were the ones who originally transported the treasure out of Korea. They were due for reassignment to Iwo Jima when they disappeared at sea. There was speculation Yokota and his renegade crew plundered the Musashi Maru and then sailed for Argentina. The entire crew was disgraced by the Japanese Army: they were listed as deserters, but were never seen again. The freighter in question was carrying the missing shipment I told you about.

  My diligent associate’s other discovery is even more striking: a 1,000-pound, golden “turtle-ship replica” was among the cargo!

  Lee

  Frank stared at the letter in amazement. The Korean treasure was pirate treasure.

  He found Abby down in her berth with well-fitting pajamas accentuating her soft feminine figure. She was sitting on her bed Indian-style writing a note.

  Frank stepped inside the cabin and closed the door. He handed her the letter. “It’s from Mr. Lee.”

  And after she read it, she looked at Frank and said, “This is amazing. Is it true? Is the turtle ship really
on Kiska?”

  “I didn’t see it. There was a carving of a ship on the cave wall.”

  “But it might be there?”

  Frank shrugged. “It was dark. I inspected the cave pretty quickly. I suppose it could be buried in the treasure mound.”

  “Really.”

  “We’ll check it out when we get there, but it would’ve been hard to miss something that big.”

  Abby’s smile faded momentarily, but then her face brightened again. “It’s still exciting just to be on the trail of such an amazing artifact. The very existence of something like that would make every Korean dream.” Then her smile faded. “Oh no.”

  “What is it?”

  “This doesn’t help your position at all, Frank. This golden turtle ship would entice a national outcry. It would probably be considered Korea’s single greatest relic. Koreans are very patriotic. And the turtle ship symbolizes what’s probably the most glorious chapter in Korean military history. Its legacy is a source of tremendous pride. Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who created the turtle ships has often been compared to Sir Frances Drake and Lord Nelson of England.”

  “That’s high praise,” Frank said.

  “My father claims Admiral Yi was better. Once after a great naval victory over the Russians, a Japanese admiral said, ‘Compare me with Lord Nelson if you like, but Admiral Yi was too remarkable for anyone.’ The Korean Navy even has a special unit whose sole commission is to search for sunken relics from Admiral Yi’s turtle ship.” Abby handed the letter back to him. “I called Dane back.”

  “And . . .”

  “The Koreans want all the treasure returned, and then they’ll decide on your reward.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I expected. I thought they’d accept my offer.”

  Abby sighed. “You don’t want to go to court, but what else can you do now? I mentioned the United States Code before; it’s really an echo of the Federal Antiquities Act. You didn’t think the President would exercise his privileges under those laws. I still don’t understand why you say that, but I understand there are some things you can’t talk about.”