Today, however, rationality prevails. For my purposes, a netbook is more appropriate. Besides, I can get four netbooks for the price of one iPad. However, I take no pleasure in paying, and when leaving the store, my eyes are still glued to the showcased iPad.
Back in the hotel, I open a first Lone Star and stretch out on the bed.
Suddenly it occurs to me: I didn’t turn my phone on after landing. I dig it out of the backpack and switch it on. Shortly thereafter, it beeps like crazy.
Steve and the Swiss have repeatedly tried to reach me. For each missed call, there’s a message. The Swiss were instructed to only contact me if something was wrong; those many calls from them and Steve don’t bode well.
I immediately call Steve. Mailbox. No wonder - it’s half past eight here, two-thirty at night on Maui.
When I take the phone away from my ear, it beeps again. A text message from Steve: "Check your emails!"
Excitedly, I turn on the netbook. While powering up, I empty the first beer. I almost forgot how lame these Windows things are: it’s not until the last few drops of my second Lone Star that the computer is finally ready for me.
I log in as [email protected]. In the mailbox are three emails from [email protected]. “Bert” and “Ernie” - I found that kind of funny when I set up the addresses on Maui. “Bert” was already taken, but “Berti” was available. So Steve is “Berti” and I'm “Ernie.”
The first email is from yesterday, the other two from today. We agreed to email each other every night with a recap of the day's events.
Two emails today means something must have happened after Steve sent the first email. Nevertheless, I read the emails chronologically:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Day 1
Sent: October 03, 21:04:57 HST. (HST stands for "Hawaii Standard Time," the official abbreviation for the time zone in Hawaii.)
Hi Ernie,
How the hell did you decide on this stupid name?! Nevermind… you just flew at noon today. I watched Kahoolawe from the lookout on Haleakala all day, and absolutely nothing happened. All in all, a pretty lame day. I changed the battery on the camera we hid in the bush. Tomorrow I’ll check the footage.
Seriously - you in Shanghai, and me sitting with a pair of binoculars on a mountain watching an island - we're crazy!
Good night,
Your Berti
Unspectacular. Off to the next email:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Day 2
Sent: October 04, 19:36:17 HST
Man Ernie,
We planned to check in every night. Now I have to fall asleep for the second night in a row without a love letter from you. Not even a text message! We need to work on our communication, you hear me, my dear?
Yes, this is an unsubtle hint in your direction. Surely you’ve noticed that I’m fulfilling my part of our agreement close to perfection every day.
Now to the official part: armed with binoculars, I almost died of boredom today. In the evening, I changed out the memory card on the bush camera, and – lo and behold – there’s something going on.
At dawn, some kind of towed convoy left the bay we escaped from. Since we filmed the entire island, everything is pretty small and completely out of focus when I zoom in. It looks like a speedboat is pulling the pontoon that the boats were moored to in the bay. There’s something on the pontoon that I can’t clearly make out. It might be a sea container like the ones that get loaded onto cargo ships.
It could also be anything else, but it is rectangular and the dimensions seem to fit those of a sea container. In addition, it would fit on that freighter we heard about.
I can’t quite make sense of it all, but tomorrow I‘ll be back at the lookout at sunrise to see if the party comes back.
Now stop amusing yourself with pretty Asian girls and write about what’s going on over there. Were they waiting for you at the airport? Did you find anything out yet?
Aloha,
Berti
This email has a bit more to offer, but it also raises more questions than answers: Where is this boat convoy heading? Is it really a sea container on the floating pontoon? How does all this fit with Steve's kidnapping? Are they hauling the shipping container away or will it be filled somewhere else?
The third email was sent just two hours and 38 minutes after the previous one, which means something must have happened. The subject does not bode well:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Holy shit!!!
Sent: October 04, 22:14:11 HST
Shit, the Swiss called on the secret phone. On their way home from the beach, they noticed a column of smoke in Haiku. They suspected a fire on the street where I used to live, so they went there. When they arrived, my landlord’s house was already burned to the ground!
I immediately drove there on the motorcycle. The fire fighters were already there, but too late to save anything. The house was already almost gone when they arrived. Apparently, the fire spread rapidly. The neighbors heard a loud bang and, seconds later, the entire house was in flames.
Tom, my landlords are both dead! They found their burned bodies in the house.
The police suspect a gas explosion.
The thing is: when I first got to Maui, my landlords Jason and Sarah told me I had to get along with an electric stove, since they had turned off their gas two years ago. They were afraid of a gas explosion and switched to an electric stove and boiler!
I don’t think this was an accident. There’s no doubt Andrews killed Jason and Sarah in his hunt to find me!
Be careful in Shanghai and please respond to my emails finally!!!
I click "reply":
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Holy shit!!!
Sent: October 04, 21:38:47 CST
Hi,
Sorry, I forgot to turn on the phone after landing. I’m fine!
That’s horrible about your landlord! It might be time to call the police?
Actually, somebody was waiting for me at the airport, and I was able to follow the guy up into an office building. The address is Baiyang Road 348. The China Construction Bank is located on the ground floor. Our man got out of the elevator on the twenty-fourth floor. There are six offices on this floor:
1. Accrasoft - software development
2. Pacific Prime - insurance
3. Texchina - textile sales
In the elevator, three more names are listed for this floor: SHRMMS, Zhang and Evans.
I was able to throw a look into the first three offices - and throw myself into the fourth - but I'll tell you more about that later. I just googled these last three names: "SHRMMS" is a calendar publisher. "Zhang" seems to be a surname; "Evans" too. These last two doors didn’t have any signboards, which fits the profile. Likely, they don’t belong to offices, but to private apartments. The businesses have nothing to do with cargo ships, so I'm going to focus on Zhang and Evans.
I'll give you a call you tomorrow.
Cheers,
Ernie
For the next two hours, I try to find a link between either of the names and a shipping company or any kind of cargo transportation - without any success.
The moment I decide to give up for the day, I remember someone who could possibly help. My old friend Alex comes from a traditional Hamburg ship-owner family and now runs his own shipping company. In Germany it’s 6 p.m. now. I pick up the phone and dial Alex’s number.
"Aloha Tom!" It sounds after a short dial tone.
"Alex?! How did you..."
"I see ‘001’ - the US prefix and 808 - the area code for Hawaii on my display. Since I don’t know too many people privileged enough to spend their vacation on Maui, I assumed it was you."
"Oh, right, I am using a prepaid phone. However, I’m actually in Shanghai right now, not Maui. It’s a long
story. Right now I need your expertise… does the name "Zhang" or "Evans" ring a bell in connection with seafaring?"
"What's going on - am I your phone-a-friend on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’?"
"No. You know, I'm pretty tired. I'll explain it to you later, okay?"
"Well, neither of those names sound familiar, but I can ask around a little. First, I’d need to at least have some idea what this is all about."
"Well, I was hoping you could tell me that. I’m fishing in some pretty troubled waters. Anyway, we suspect that one of those two people has enormous skeletons in his closet. There must be a link between Zhang or Evans and a freighter serving a route from Shanghai to Hawaii."
"Shanghai - Honolulu isn’t a busy route. I should be able to find out something. What do you mean by "skeletons in the closet"?
"To make a long story short: Steve was kidnapped on Maui. I almost got killed, but was able to find him and free him a few days later. While Steve was being held captive, he heard something about a freighter coming from Shanghai. However, Steve got captured on Kahoolawe; I don’t know if the freighter’s destination is actually Honolulu. We only know that it was leaving from Shanghai and Steve was supposed to have been put on it. Meanwhile, Steve's landlord’s house got burned down, with its owners still inside. Steve’s now hiding on Maui and I’m trying to find out what the hell is going on here in Shanghai."
Silence.
"Are you still there, Alex?"
"Yeah, yeah. I was just wondering if you were just fucking with me, but the story is so whacked out, you couldn’t possibly have made it up."
"You insult my imagination, but you’re right."
"I’ll listen around carefully. It’s probably better if Mr. Zhang or Mr. Evans don’t get alarmed if they hear I’ve been asking questions about them at the branch. I'll call you tomorrow. Just try not to get hurt in the meantime. Maybe it's a good idea if you write everything down in an email to me. If anything happens to you or Steve, I can call the police and have evidence of what you guys got caught up in.”
"Good idea, Alex! Steve and I email each other every night with a recap of the day’s events. This way we’re up to date on what the other is doing. I'll forward you the ones we already sent and then CC you on all future ones."
We say goodbye, and I, with the help of one last delicious Lone Star, develop a plan for tomorrow.
I don’t need an alarm clock; the jet lag wakes me at 5:30 a.m. Even before breakfast, I spend two hours on the Internet and on the phone with Steve. The online research provides nothing new, and still no info on Zhang or Evans. The phone call with Steve also doesn’t provide any new conclusions. He tells me about the fire and his landlords. He even drove to my apartment last night and removed all my belongings. Andrews might have found a reference to me in Steve’s room. If that were the case, he would find out where I live and send his gorillas there. Thanks to Steve, my apartment now looks like I left the island. Steve also found a note from my landlord at my balcony door letting me know that he went to the mainland for a couple of days. This is good news: even if Andrews finds out where I live, at least he can‘t harm my landlord.
The recent events on Maui are not very reassuring. Although Andrews neither knows who or where I am, we do know that he’s looking for us. For safety's sake, I grab the netbook, cash and both of my passports and put everything into my backpack. Now I can disappear at a moment’s notice, without having to return to the hotel.
Down on the street, I buy a new t-shirt. I immediately put it on and give my old one to a young beggar. In Shanghai you can get a new shirt for less than three dollars, so it’s not worth doing laundry. It’s easier to travel without luggage, and it’s always better to give my worn clothes to the poor than throw them away.
I'm waiting for Alex's call. If his search on Zhang and Evans doesn’t reveal anything, I’ll have to return to their office building. I'm not exactly keen on returning to floor twenty-four, so my hopes are with Alex.
To pass the time, I decide to explore the harbor. Looking around for a tuk-tuk, I discover a small shop selling camouflage clothing, knives and other army supplies. Without thinking about it, I turn around and walk into the store.
After the events on Maui, a light armament for defensive purposes might be appropriate. The small shop leaves little to be desired. Apart from sharp weapons, there’s everything that would get the heart of an Army fan racing: knives and brass knuckles have their place alongside binoculars, jerry cans, water bottles and olive camouflage make-up for combat purposes. I walk uninterested through the section with camouflage and camping utensils. In the knife department are light weapons and some tear gas. A little further on, I even find burglar alarm pistols. But since I’m already walking around a socialist country with two different Western passports in my bag, I don’t want to add in firearms, even if they don’t really shoot. If I ever get pulled aside, it’ll be hard enough to explain the two passports.
I turn away from the display case with the burglar alarm pistols and start heading for the knife section, when the merchant intercepts me.
He asks whether I’m on my way to the women's section, nodding slyly towards the knives.
I fire back by asking him whether he finds alarm pistols particularly male.
Apparently, this injures his pride. He hems and haws, then rambles on about his back room or something, and the special services he offers for his special customers.
That’s just about the last thing I need: an illegal gun! If I got caught with one of those, I’d be better off using it on myself, rather than getting convicted as a Western terrorist and spending the rest of my life in a Chinese prison or getting hung.
No thanks - I prefer fulfilling my female shopping desires in the women’s section and buying one or two fashionable knifes that fit well with my shoes and make my calves look slim.
Shortly after, I leave the store with a plastic bag, in which a switchblade and a butterfly knife share space with a can of tear gas.
During the tuk-tuk ride to the harbor, I flash back to my aerobatics experience with Bob. Although the tricycle can only move in two dimensions and not up or down, I feel dizzier than I did in the biplane last week.
Once at the destination, I buy a ticket for a harbor cruise. In the waiting room for the ferry, I take a close look at the ticket and read: "Admire three of the five old docks in Shanghai from a boat’s view..."
Hey, stop. Why "old" port facilities? And why only three out of five?
Basically, I don’t know what to expect from the tour. It’s unlikely to reveal any clues, but it should at least provide a good overview of the harbor. But, of course, it would be better to see the entire harbor, not just three fifths of it.
A look into my tourist’s guide sheds some light: In 2005, a new deep-water port was put into operation about 60 miles south of Shanghai. Altogether, the port of Shanghai consists of ten plants: five in the new harbor and five here in the city.
The tour begins at the Yangtze River mouth. Here the Yangtze spills into the East China Sea. The tour then continues upstream to the point where the Huangpu flows into the Yangtze. Even further upstream are the remaining two old docks. Who cares?! I'm really only doing this tour to kill time until Alex calls.
I would classify our ship as somewhere between "sketchy" and "sinking coffin.” Its name "Harbour Explorer IV" inevitably raises the question of whether its three predecessors retired, are in service elsewhere or simply sunk. I definitely would not want to cross the Atlantic with it. To be honest, I’d be reluctant to sail from Kahului to Honolulu with it. Well, for a harbor cruise, it’ll be good enough.
On board, I sit back, order a Lone Star and read further in the tourists guide.
"In 2006, the ports of Shanghai reached a turnover of 537 million tonnes and first attained the status of the world's busiest port."
Aha.
"The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and, after the Nile and Amazon, the third largest in the world."<
br />
See, you never stop learning.
"It divides the country into north and south China and carries an annual average flow of 31,900 cubic meters of water per second."
Will you look at that! As if anyone would be able to visualize anything by this number...
“The river has many gorges; the most famous ones are Qutang, Wuxia and Xiling, between the cities of Chongqing and Yichang, which are now flooded by the controversial construction of another large power plant, known as ‘the Three Gorges Dam.’ This project flooded an area of 370 miles. The water level is at an average of 525 feet above sea level."
Half way to Hawaii Page 13
