by Brett Baker
Mia looked around the deck of the boat, hoping that some other option would become clear, but she saw no way to avoid ending up in the water. Just as she opened her mouth to tell Randy they had to jump, the wheelhouse caught her eye. “Over here,” she said.
The two of them went to the wheelhouse and Mia opened the door and began rifling through the tiny room. “What are you looking for? The radio’s below deck.”
“I’m not looking for the radio.” She found a toolbox attached to the sidewall of the wheelhouse. “Here!” she yelled. She pushed Randy out of the way and stepped out of the wheelhouse. She began prying at the hinges of the door, popping out the first one with ease.
“You’re taking off the door?” Randy asked.
“It should help keep us afloat. Much easier to kick toward the trawler if we’ve got something to latch on to.”
Randy nodded, and held the door as Mia removed the pins from the last two hinges. They each grabbed an end and carried it to the ship’s portside.
“Ready?” Mia asked.
“Not really, but I don’t think those flames are going to wait until we’re ready.”
“Once we throw this into the water we have to be ready to jump. We can’t wait or it’ll float away. I’m ready.”
“Let’s do it,” Randy said.
They counted to three and swung the door over the gunwale, and watched it splash down into the water. Mia waited a second to make sure it would float, even though she knew it would. If it didn’t she had no choice to but jump in anyway.
But it did float, so she leapt on top of the gunwale and jumped feet-first into the water, landing within reach of the door. She turned to urge Randy to jump, but saw him coming down toward her. He landed a few feet away and had to kick to reach her, but did so with little effort.
“Use it like a kickboard,” she said.
The two of them held on to the door and began kicking. As expected, the currents pushed them slightly off course, but they corrected themselves by varying the speed of their kicks. When they were a few hundred feet away from Incog, Mia looked back and saw beyond the wall of flames for the first time. The stern of the boat had been completely consumed. Only a charred, smoking skeleton of debris floated on top of the water. Mia kicked a little farther, and when she looked back a few minutes later she saw the boat begin to go under.
Despite their corrections as they kicked, the currents still pushed them off course. They passed fifty feet to the right of the trawler, but with great effort they kicked against the currents and eventually made it to the boat. The escape had taken a physical toll though, and as they used the floating deck lines to pull themselves toward the boat, Mia wondered whether they had the strength to climb aboard. Randy’s injuries made such an effort even more difficult for him.
They both climbed on top of the door and knelt on it as they grabbed the rope hand-over-hand. As they reached the boat, Mia stood on the door, held on to the rope, and leaned back with her weight as her feet ascended the trawler’s hull. The climb required all the upper-body strength she could muster, and she realized that had they swam to the boat without the door, they would have been too drained to climb aboard.
And although she pulled herself up and over onto the deck, she thought that Randy’s injuries might keep him from doing so. She retrieved the other deck line and threw it down to him, and instructed him to tie it around his chest. He did as suggested, and began climbing. Mia pulled him more than he climbed, but he made it up and over.
“Thanks,” Randy said, as he tried to catch his breath.
“Payback for you pulling me out,” Mia said. Randy nodded.
The two of them sat on the deck of the trawler, leaning against the gunwale.
As they tried to catch their breath, Mia glanced around the deck of the boat, developing a plan to disable the boat’s radio. They’d have to rely on themselves to get back to shore. If they called for help, they’d have to tell their story after they were rescued, and eventually they’d get to the part where the Incog plucked her out of the water with no vessel in sight. She didn’t want to have to explain that.
However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the Incog was more than a fishing boat, and that Randy, Graham and Fitz weren’t just scouting waters. Mia knew that the intruders expected to find something or someone on the Incog. They weren’t just pirates on a random mission.
“Randy, I have a question for you, and it might be sort of obvious, but I’m not a sailor, so I don’t know.”
“Shoot,” Randy said, reclining on the boat’s deck with a sigh that seemed to indicate he had no plans to move for quite some time.
“Why were the pirates, who obviously had no interest in fishing, using a fishing boat, but you guys, who claim to be fishermen, weren’t?”
Randy lifted his head and looked at Mia, who looked back at him, waiting for an answer. Instead, he lowered his head back to the deck, stared up at the sky, and said nothing else.
11
Chapter 11
The steel roller door looked like tens of thousands of other doors around Manhattan. Four feet wide, grimy, and spray-painted with five different colored half-moons, almost nothing about the door looked unique. The lone exception to its ubiquitous style lay at the base. Instead of the standard slide lock secured by some sort of padlock, the bottom of this particular door descended below the sidewalk, into a steel channel. Most doors like it are locked from the outside, but the base of the steel channel could only be accessed from within, where a series of brass China rectangle padlocks anchored a steel bar in place and ensured that the door couldn’t be lifted.
Beyond the roller door, a non-descript glass door opened onto a set of stairs that descended below street level after first providing access to the small concrete platform in which the door’s channel had been fixed years before. Unlike most other steel roller doors around the city, which remained open during daylight hours, this roller door rarely opened. Many regular patrons of Po Wing Hong Food Market next door on Elizabeth Street had never seen the roller door open, and those who had seen it open probably also watched it close, as the door never remained open for long.
A sign outside the neighboring steel door indicated that it provided access to a spa restaurant, but no sign revealed what lay beyond the half-moon door. Those responsible for the treasures beyond probably could have posted a sign on the door stating exactly what was inside, and no one would have tried to open the door, for they wouldn’t have believed it.
Yet for the very few who ever proceeded through the open steel door, a modern engineering marvel awaited them.
The stairs descended sixty-five feet below the street, through a steel-supported, concrete-lined shaft in which levels of the switchback staircase were painted in alternating colors of Chinese red, and stunted gold. Clear industrial light fixtures illuminated the entire depth of the staircase, using electricity pirated from the line feeding the neighboring grocery store. Careful planning ensured that the electricity was fed into the stairwell before the line reached the grocery’s meter, so that it was stolen from the utility, and not from the grocery.
At the base of the stairs, a bank vault door closed off the expansive room beyond. The 22-ton door was two feet thick and contained 24 bolts that locked it in place. Opening the door required knowledge of all three lock systems installed on the door: a dual combination lock, a key lock, and a time-release lock.
Another identical door closed off the entrance at the opposite end of the long, rectangular room. Beyond that door a tunnel of reinforced concrete led beneath Elizabeth Street, to a parking garage. A single winding ramp provided vehicular access from the tunnel to the lowest public floor of the parking garage. The ramp itself was hidden from view by two large concrete doors that swung out into the garage, but blended in with the rest of the dingy, squalid subterranean environment when closed.
Despite the miraculous engineering that created the space below the city, the true treasure remained inside the room.
Although Fabrice Droit had heard about the room, he’d never seen it. And as he and Sheldon Willis stood in the small vestibule at the end of the vehicular tunnel, just next to the vault door, he still doubted whether whatever lay behind the vault could be as fantastic as he’d heard or imagined. He felt sick to his stomach with nervous anticipation at gaining access to the space he’d dreamt about so often. He would have chosen his first visit to occur under alternate circumstances, of course, but now that he stood just outside the door the reason for his visit took a backseat to the fact that he got to visit at all.
“Who’s here?” Fabrice asked.
“Me. You.” Sheldon said. “Neil’s inside. Just the three of us. He conferenced with the others a couple of hours ago.”
“So everyone will have input?”
“They should. If you can’t make your voice heard now then you don’t deserve to be a part of this.”
“What’s your take on it?” Fabrice asked.
“Let’s wait until we get inside.”
Sheldon checked his watch, which he’d set a little more than seventeen minutes earlier, when he activated the time lock. When the prescribed amount of time elapsed, he’d only have ten seconds to enter the eight-digit code for the time lock. If he missed that window they’d have to wait another seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds.
“It’s time,” he said.
“Time for what?”
“The door.” Sheldon punched the first two numbers of the code, then paused and told Fabrice, “Look away. I’m not sure you’re cleared for this.” Fabrice did as instructed and Sheldon completed the code. The bolts released the door, and the two men pulled it open.
Fabrice held his breath as he walked inside, but a wash of disappointment overwhelmed him. Instead of the rows and rows of treasure he expected to see, he saw a stark white room with a small round wooden table, and four chairs. Neil Driscoll leaned back in one chair, his hands clasped behind his head. Two day gates provided an additional barrier, and Neil said nothing as he stood to unlock them.
The three men sat down at the table, and Sheldon asked, “What do we know?”
“Next to nothing. Li was supposed to meet us at Club Quarters last night and he was a no show. I called him all day and he didn’t respond. We sent our Quanzhou messenger to his place and there’s no sign of him.”
“Can we find out if he was on the flight?” Sheldon asked.
“We’re working on that,” Neil said. “But I’m not even sure how helpful that would be. Maybe he came to New York and had cold feet and is wandering around trying to figure out what to do. Maybe he came and has a deal with someone else. Or maybe he took a different flight. Nothing will help until we find him.”
“Can’t we just do this without him?” Fabrice asked. “I mean I know the chances of success are greater with him, but he doesn’t make-or-break it does he? If he can’t get his shit together, or he’s backing out, then I say fuck him. Let’s do it ourselves.”
“Easier said than done,” Neil said. “This doesn’t work without connections within the Chinese market, and the Chinese government. Li has both. Not to mention access to the physical storage facilities necessary.”
“If we’re relying on him so much, what the fuck are we doing? Sounds like he can just do this without us.”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Fabrice,” Sheldon said. “You think there are facilities like this on every block in the city? This isn’t some fly-by-night operation. It’s designed to require cooperation. It’s too big of a job for anyone to do alone.”
“We need Li. End of story,” Neil said.
“So if we don’t have him, we’re just fucked? The whole thing dies?”
“We need Li.”
“What came out of the conference call, anything?” Sheldon asked. “Where do we go from here?”
“Anders is checking with some people he knows in Stockholm. An acquaintance of his is from Quanzhou, so he’ll try to find some resources that way.”
“What about Buster?” Fabrice asked. “Has anyone talked to him? Li is his guy, so I’d assume he’s in contact with him. And if not, I’m sure he’ll understand the importance of the situation.”
“Buster’s not an option,” Sheldon said. “Li acted without him. Buster wanted to wait three more months, but Li understood we had to move now.”
“Sheldon’s right. Li was ready, and Buster wasn’t. Li’s been trying to convince him, but Buster wouldn’t budge, so he went without him.”
“Fuck. So maybe Buster stopped him?” Fabrice asked.
“No. Li’s not the brightest guy in the world, but he’s not a fucking idiot. He understands that he has to keep Buster on his side. He isn’t telling him that we’re moving forward without him. Buster will find out at the same time as the rest of the world. And by then he will have already missed out.”
“Won’t Buster notice that Li’s not in Quanzhou anymore? It won’t require much imagination to figure out that he came to New York.”
“Like I said, Li’s not an idiot,” Neil said. “I’m sure he knows how to handle Buster.”
“Did Li’s guy receive the first shipment?” Sheldon asked.
“I thought we were sending a crew,” Fabrice added.
“Of course we sent people. Those planes don’t fly themselves. But they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing when they get there. That’s Li’s job.” Sheldon turned from Fabrice and looked at Neil, then shook his head as if tired of having to explain everything to Fabrice. “So what do our people on the ground have to say?”
“We’re still waiting to hear from them,” said Neil. “They should have landed yesterday, and they had orders to report to us, but nothing so far.”
“So let me get this straight, the guy who’s the backbone of the operation is missing, the first shipment and all the people along with it are missing, and we’re hoping a messenger in Quanzhou or a friend of a friend in Stockholm are going to help us figure it out. What the fuck are we doing?”
“First of all, the shipment isn’t missing,” Neil said.
“I thought you said they were supposed to contact you when they landed.”
“They were.”
“And have they?”
“No.”
“Then they’re missing, and if they’re missing, then the shipment is missing as well.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Neil said.
“I’m not jumping to anything. It’s pretty evident that one of two things has happened. Either we’ve got the worst luck in the world, and both Li and the shipment have met unfortunate ends, or we’re being hung out to dry here.”
“I’m confident that no one’s double-crossing us,” Sheldon said. “Agree?” he asked Neil.
“Absolutely. We know these guys. We’ve been working with them. I trust them just as much as I trust you, Fabrice.”
“So if that’s the case, then what do you think is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Neil said. “If Anders can talk to his friend, or if the messenger happens to come across something then maybe we can put some pieces together. Maybe Li’s here and he thinks someone’s on to him so he wants to stay out of sight. I don’t want to speculate as to where he is until we find him.”
“Well if you find him then it’s not speculation,” Fabrice said.
Neil glared at him, but said nothing.
“So we wait and do nothing?” Fabrice asked. “Is that what you and the others decided?”
“There’s not much else to do,” Sheldon said.
“Bullshit,” Fabrice exclaimed, standing up from his chair. “I’m going to Quanzhou. Something’s going on, and the longer we wait, the more we’re fucked. I’m not prepared to just sit back and let this unravel.”
“If you want to go, I don’t think anyone’s going to stop you,” Sheldon said. “I’m not sure how helpful it will be. You don’t know the culture, the language or the city. Seems unlikely you’ll uncover much.”
>
“I’ve got a better chance of getting answers there than I do sitting here,” Fabrice said.
Neil and Sheldon nodded, looked at each other, then back at Fabrice, but said nothing. Fabrice couldn’t do any harm by trying to track down Li, and they were happy to have him out of New York so he’d stop questioning everything they did. Having a reliable contact in Quanzhou would be helpful as well.
“Let us know what you find out,” Neil said.
Fabrice sat back down in his chair and looked toward the unassuming wooden door that led from the small meeting room where they sat, into the large holding room beyond. When Sheldon invited him to meet with Neil, he’d jumped at the chance to visit the Under, as the place had become known. He’d never heard of the smaller room next to it, and he didn’t want to leave before entering the holding room.
“So who’s going to take me in there?” he asked.
“I think it’s best we wrap this up,” Neil said.
“Oh come on, that’s the whole reason I came. Let me see the inside. This place is legendary.”
“It better not be legendary,” Sheldon said. “That implies it’s well-known. You know this doesn’t go outside this circle, right?”
“I’m not a fucking idiot, Sheldon. I know how this works. I also know that there’s no place like this in the world. That’s what I mean by legendary. The secrecy is just as awesome as the size and the contents.”
“Go find Li and you can see anything you want,” Neil said.
Fabrice looked at Neil and then back to Sheldon. “I have a feeling that when I leave this room you’ll never let me back in.”
“That paranoia might serve you well in Quanzhou,” Neil said. “Use it to your advantage.”
“Let’s go,” Sheldon said, standing up and walking toward the day gate. Fabrice nodded and followed Sheldon. The two men left the room without saying anything else to Neil.
On the drive back into the parking garage, Fabrice remained silent. Half his thoughts were in Quanzhou, and the other half were in the Under. Both places seemed impenetrable, but Fabrice knew that both also held answers.
