The Golden Catch Page 15

  Luke’s white stocking cap covered most of his brown hair. “Who’s she?” Luke said, staring at Abby. And Frank made introductions.

  “It’ll be good to have another woman on the island,” Ingrid said, her blue eyes sparkling in the dock light. “How long will you be staying?”

  Abby looked up at Frank. “I don’t know yet. But after that boat ride I’m glad to have my feet on solid ground.”

  Frank took her by the arm. “Let’s go on inside.”

  The warmth in the log house was a welcome greeting. Frank was relieved to be home, relieved that everyone was safe. Still, his mind tormented him, and he was filled with turmoil. He could not allow his comfortable life to lull him into complacency. The coffee was already on and Ingrid poured. Frank stoked the wood stove to roaring and stood close by, absorbing the warmth. His trip to Seoul, Korea, already seemed distant, like he’d barely left at all. Except, he did go, and a man was dead to prove it.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Frank said. “Luke, put some wood on that fire.”

  Luke added three logs to the coals in the fireplace. The flames took instantly.

  They talked about the trip for a while. Then Frank said, “Abby’s here to take a look at some artifacts I found. She’s an archaeologist.”

  Ingrid was curled on a chair and she leaned forward.

  Luke looked at Abby as though he couldn’t believe it. “You’re an archaeologist?” Abby confirmed it and Luke said, “Have you ever seen mummies?”

  “I’ve seen them in a few countries,” Abby said, crossing her legs.

  Frank clasped his hands. “Luke, why don’t you go get the wooden box under my bed. Bring the sword, too.”

  Luke got the box and set it down on the coffee table. He held the gold sword and slowly pulled it from the sheath. Frank told Ingrid about the discovery, and her blue eyes opened wide with amazement. They all stared at the sword. Ingrid and Abby’s gaze moved to the box. Abby took a deep breath. Ingrid looked over at Abby.

  Frank said, “Ingrid, Luke . . . nobody off the island can know about the discovery until we take measures to safeguard the treasure. That much gold would put us in great danger if it became known. Mentioning this over the radio would be a death sentence.” Frank paused.

  He reached into the box and removed a gold crown. Seeing the relic again reminded him of crowns he’d seen and read about in Korea. Five columns with onion-dome tops rose like trees with branches from the round band. A dozen green curved jades hung from each column.

  Six pendants dangled along the front of the gold band. The ends of the outer pendants were bullet shaped; green, curved jades fell at the ends of the inner two. The gold crown was glittering and elaborate.

  Abby, who was staring silently, finally drew a breath and said, “This is Three Kingdoms treasure, alright.” She ran her finger up one of the tree-like columns and said, “Notice the embossed dots lining the edges and the intricate gold spangles surrounding the jades.” With her index finger she gently swung one of the pendants. “The pendants are made of spangles attached to twisted gold wires. Fabulous.”

  Ingrid mumbled something in French. And then in English, she said, “It’s beautiful.”

  Abby was wondering at the crown now. “It’s in perfect condition. This is amazing.”

  “That’s a real crown,” Luke said. “I think a queen wore it.” Luke placed the gold sword on the table.

  Abby smiled. “You’re right. What you’re looking at is from the Shilla Dynasty, probably 5th or 6th century. Other crowns like this have been excavated in Korea. The intricacy of detail here is meticulous. The curved jades are splendid, and none missing. The pendants are so delicately crafted, and yet, after all this time, their integrity is uncompromised.”

  Frank set down the crown. He reached into the box and withdrew a gold, dragon-shaped wine ewer. The dragon’s head was the spout. A fin-shaped tail was the cover. Below the cover, large fins reached up and out.

  Abby scrutinized the piece. “I’ve seen something like this from the Koryo Dynasty of the 12th century, but never in gold. What I’ve seen was celadon pottery. Korea is famous for their celadons and bluish-green glazes.” She reached out and accepted the relic for closer inspection. She held the piece up slowly. “The incising of the bones, scales, and wings on the body is wonderful. Look at how Korean artisans utilized twisted gold flower stems reaching across the back to form the handle. And notice how flower pedals in relief form the base. I can’t be sure of the origin.” She passed the gold dragon to Ingrid, who inspected it carefully. “But the piece definitely resembles Koryo.”

  Ingrid put the wine ewer on the table and glanced over at Frank.

  Frank reached in the box and pulled out a gold ostrich egg, a gold turtle, a gold cup with an openwork stem and seven spangles dangling below the rim. Each piece was crafted in intricate detail. These he set on the coffee table.

  Then he reached in the box and withdrew a gold necklace of exquisite intricacy and beauty which he handed to Abby. She was silent at first, examining it seriously. Then she began talking: “This is amazing. Hundreds of granulated gold-leaf and teardrop spangles soldered to twisted gold wire.” She swung it around slowly. “The detail is like a Hawaiian lei dipped in liquid gold. And, of course, the green curved jade at its lower extremity is the only non-gold link. You really save the best for last, don’t you? I mean best from the perspective of painstaking craftsmanship, anyway. The attention to detail is divine.”

  “Ever seen anything like it?” Frank asked.

  “I have and it was 6th-century Shilla. Frank, do you mind if I take some photographs?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Abby got her camera and shot two rolls.

  “Save some film,” Frank said. “This is only a sample of what’s to come.”

  After she put her camera away, Abby pulled the pencil out of her bun, and her hair tumbled down. She took careful notes on a pad.

  The night was growing late. Ingrid, looking rather tired, excused herself for the evening, and left like a floating feather.

  Luke said, “What are you gonna do with all the treasure, Dad?”

  Frank was quiet for a moment. “There are some things I should have taken care of years ago. Maybe now is the time.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, I want to help some people with it.”

  “Like who?”

  “I’m thinking about widows in North Korea.”

  “Why do you want to help widows, Dad?”

  “Somebody’s got to.” He didn’t like being evasive with his son, but he knew how to evade like some people knew how to breathe. This was not the time to explain that he had personally created many widows in North Korea. It was not the time to explain that he carried guilt. He hoped the right time for that discussion would never come.

  “Are we gonna keep any?” Luke said.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve decided that you can keep the gold sword.”

  Luke sat up in his chair. He looked at Frank curiously. So did Abby.

  Frank told Luke about the disappearance of the renegade crew of Japanese sailors in World War Two and the subsequent disappearance of the Musashi Maru.

  “You mean it’s pirates’ gold?” Luke asked.

  “My guess is a lot of people have died over that treasure. I also plan to renovate the old Russian Orthodox Church in Dutch Harbor.”

  Luke sighed.

  “Frank, what about those men who attacked me?” Abby said. “What if they find out where you live?”

  “Only a few people in Dutch Harbor know I live on Kiska. Others think I live in Seattle. If these Koreans try finding us in Seattle, say through the phone book or tax records, they’ll come up empty-handed. The island’s under a land trust and they’ll never trace it back to me.”

  Despite their anonymity on the remote island, Frank locked the doors that night.

  He dreamt about the little brown seed. He planted the seed and the seed
grew into a great tree. And Frank was the tree, and the tree was good. But then the old man came and hewed the tree down.

  Frank awoke and walked to the window. In the darkness, he stared out across the water and listened to the waves breaking on beach. The rumbling was getting louder. The storm was coming . . . but it would wait until tomorrow.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  December 5th

  Frank woke Abby at 5 a.m. and built a fire. Abby came out wearing a sweater and riding pants. The riding pants reminded Frank of his wife, and he remembered the happiness of taking trail rides with her long ago. For years now since her tragic death, Frank rose and had coffee alone. He tried to put it all out of his mind.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Abby, I really am.”

  “Me too, I’m excited. When are we leaving?”

  “Soon.” His wife always liked to go riding early in the morning.

  They drank a cup of coffee together and walked through the early morning’s calm chill to the Hector. In the glowing wheelhouse, Frank read the latest hour-by-hour meteorological report from the automated data system. He sat at the computer and brought up the satellite weather tracker’s on-screen image: a turning cyclonic storm advancing with a violent front. It seemed to breathe and gyrate.

  “Maybe a day off,” Frank said. “There’ll be hurricane force winds.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Abby said. “It’s been blowing since we got to Dutch Harbor.”

  “Welcome to the Aleutians. These islands have been called cradle of the storms. Sometimes we get this pacific stillness with dense fog. But there’s always another bluster moving in.”

  Frank kneeled down and opened up the cabinet under the chart desk. Two pages lay in front of the fax machine. He read the first one and handed it to Abby. “Looks like your lawyer friend Dane Leisbeth came through for us. The Korea National Museum has agreed to our terms.”

  Abby looked at the fax carefully and smiled. “That’s wonderful.”

  Frank gave her a hug. “Thank you.”

  “I’m eager to see the treasure and begin the recovery project.” She smoothed her hair back. “I can think of half a dozen magazines that’ll be fighting for first publication rights of both the story and the photographs.”

  “There’ll be a lot of interest. Revenues from the exhibit should be substantial.” Frank was looking off to nowhere, envisioning a better future. He suddenly glanced down at the other page.

  “This is from Mr. Lee. Says to call immediately.”

  Frank placed a ship-to-shore call to Seoul.

  “I’ve got information about Mok Don,” Mr. Lee said. “He’s a famous man in Korea. A powerful man.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “Do you recall my telling you about comfort women?”

  “They were the women who the Japanese rounded up and forced into prostitution during World War Two.”

  “Yes, that is right.” Mr. Lee was silent for a while. “My mother was a comfort woman. They ruined her life. I’ve been in politics for three decades trying to combat the wrongs done to her during the war. It’s been difficult. Certain Japanese politicians are patiently waiting for the comfort women to die of old age and take their shame and accusations with them to the grave.”

  Frank was silent. He waited for Mr. Lee to continue.

  “During World War Two, Mok Don’s father worked with the Japanese. He delivered Korean women to Japanese brothels. He provided other services for the Japanese, as well. He was an enemy of the people, a traitor; and Mok Don surpassed his example, darkly overshadowing him. You asked me to look into Mok Don’s ties to Russia. Mok Don is known to have business ties with Surikov.”

  “Felix Surikov?”

  “Yes, a famous man, but he’s not in politics anymore. He and Mok Don make a bad pair. In one of their joint ventures, they smuggled Russian women into Korea with promises of high-paying jobs, then sold them into prostitution. We know this goes on, but ties to Mok Don cannot be proven.

  “He and Surikov have publicized a joint venture shipping reindeer antlers and Alaskan bear parts to South Korea, where they are valued for medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities.

  “Mok Don’s most recent venture is marketing discount food. After many children in India developed tumors and a monstrous list of side effects, accusations were waged that the food was treated with nuclear waste, a process called food irradiation, which kills microorganisms and extends shelf life. Mok Don swore in public he hasn’t irradiated Korean food, but admits to using the process in India. Either way, we suspect he and Surikov have been involved in nuclear proliferation.

  “Mok Don made his fortune selling heroin. He organized his cronies into a crime family based on Confucian principles. He’s founder of the DowKai group, one of Korea’s largest and most respected multinational conglomerates.”

  “You say he sold heroine?”

  “That’s how it all started. Raw materials and cheap labor made China the natural place to manufacture the drugs; then the product was shipped to either Korea, Vietnam, or Japan. Today, America is his biggest market. Back in 1991, North Korean elite began the cultivation of opium poppy in a bid to earn foreign currency. Mok Don was their biggest customer. The Korean Peninsula is flanked by 3,400 islands. Meetings took place on these islands between DowKai people and North Korean Mafia. Contacts were made using civilian pleasure boats and luxury yachts.

  “Drugs were only the beginning for Mok Don. Later he bought into different branches of the transportation business that he needed for his smuggling operations: fishing boats, trucks, small airplanes. As his business expanded, he moved into black market arms trading and cargo ships.

  “Today his businesses include accounting, construction, and electronics manufacturing. Publicly, he’s known for his legitimate business interests. There is no proof of his illegal activities. Mok Don is careful. And he’s a powerful man. His businesses flourish in large part through contracts and favors from high ranking officials in the Korean government. His bribes to ex-general presidents bought him military contracts and protection. He’s someone I would stay far away from.”

  “Thanks for the information. He won’t find me. I’m invisible to the world and plan to keep it that way.”

  After Frank hung up the mike, he and Abby went to the barn and saddled the horses. He helped Abby up into her saddle and gave her the reins. “He’s an easy horse. You shouldn’t have any trouble with him.”

  “You’re sure he isn’t one of those wild horses you have on the island?”

  “He was once, but he’s tame now. Come on, we have a long ride ahead of us.”

  The high trail took them above the ocean along the steep and rocky shoreline. They rode in and out of dense fog banks for over two miles.

  “I hear something,” Abby said at a wide spot in the trail. She rode up next to Frank and grabbed his sleeve. “That sound. What on earth is it?”

  “Nothing to worry about, “ Frank said. “You’ll see for yourself a ways up the trail.” They rode for another half a mile until the sounds were loud and fiendish.

  Frank smiled at Abby and said, “A stellar sea lion rookery site. You’re hearing the wail of 2,000-pound bulls. There’s another rookery several miles north of here at Lief Cove. I’ll show you another time. We have to keep moving.”

  From the rookery at Cape St. Stephen they rode for hours through the tundra and muskeg bogs of the bleak tablelands. They stopped at Gertrude Cove and admired the Borneo Maru, one of the Japanese shipwrecks.

  “The tsunami moved her fifty yards inland,” Frank said.

  “You’re kidding,” Abby said. “That’s a big ship.”

  “There’s lots of shipwrecks on Kiska,” Frank said. “Mostly from World War Two.”

  They rode past Kiska Harbor, the streams, the lakes, the airfield built by the Japanese in World War Two. They rode by Musashi Inlet and up the Volcano Tundra Trail.

  Along the way Frank did some hard thinking about Mok Don. What kind
of man committed such horrible crimes against humanity? He closed his eyes and shook his head. The truth never went away. Hadn’t he himself killed for money? What kind of a man did that?

  When the legal process of extradition and trial were impotent--Frank was not. He showed no tolerance for foreign obstructionism. When terrorists blew up women and children and brazenly took credit for it, he went in and saw to justice.

  He specialized in intercepting and neutralizing terrorist gunrunners and drug smugglers on the high seas. Terrorists played with death for money, and Frank’s team crushed them on that basis. He gave no more consideration to their phony causes than they did.

  In addition to the millions he accumulated in fees for assassinations, the profits he garnered selling confiscated vessels proved equally lucrative. After the crew was neutralized, the predetermined buyers dropped a new crew by helicopter. All the details and doctored paperwork were handled in advance right down to the time and position when the vessel would be under control.

  Frank charged a $200,000 retainer plus expenses, all paid by direct transfer into one of his Cayman Island accounts. At the briefing, if he decided to go ahead with a job, a full fee was agreed upon, described as a consulting fee.

  Elite government operatives in foreign countries moved money through their bureaucracies using dummy corporations and bogus contracts. Frank was paid a consulting fee for deep-sea salvage operations or whatever was appropriate. Large sums of money were laundered through such shrouded government manipulations.

  A day came when huge fees blinded his judgment on which contracts to turn down. He became a pawn, manipulated by powerful forces to questionable ends. And he made a decisive hit on a terrorist cell that sparked retaliation. More innocent women and children lost their lives when terrorists detonated a car bomb in a crowded Tel Aviv shopping district. Frank sometimes counted himself indirectly responsible through cause and effect. In his gut he knew it wasn’t his fault, but nothing was clear anymore.

  He thought back. Like yesterday . . . Frank and Melody were riding horses on the Big Island of Hawaii, following a dirt road down a long gradual slope to the ocean. He could almost reach out and touch her soft warm shoulder. He could almost lean over and kiss her. “Hey you,” he said with a smile.