“It’s beautiful.”
“And old. Real gold, too. Ozzie said he got it off a Jap officer. He said the guy claimed he was a prince or something. So that’s called a Tibetan prayer gau. See this little end to the tube here? It slides off and inside are some small scrolls inscribed by monks. They’re prayers, so that’s why they call it a prayer gau. People are supposed to wear these on a chain around the neck to keep the prayers close to the heart.”
“What was a Japanese officer doing with a Tibetan artifact?”
Peewee chuckled. “Listen, sweetheart, the Japs looted every place they went. I saw things you would not believe when I was with the guerrillas.”
“Like what?”
“Let me put it this way. You know how people dream of finding a pirate treasure chest full of gold and jewels? What I saw wasn’t just a chest. It was truck convoys and every truck full of crates.”
“Crates of stuff like this?” She held up the gau.
“That’s right. Anyway, Ozzie’s boy Richie was maybe six years old at the time. Ozzie carried a picture of him he showed to everyone he met. I always meant to go back, find Richie, and tell him his dad was thinking of him right at the end. But the army makes you sign these papers promising never to tell about the secret stuff we did. And you know what they say, Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. Always thought I had time. Never thought I’d outlive the boy.” The old man reached up and dabbed at a moist eye.
“Do you know how my grandfather died?”
He coughed, then glanced behind her, apparently at a new customer who had just entered the stall. He sat up straighter. “Listen, you’ve heard enough of my stories today.” He reached for her hand, placed the silk-wrapped prayer gau in her palm, and then folded her fingers over it, making her hand into a fist. “Ozzie thought there was something special written inside this, and I think you’re a smart enough cookie to figure it out.”
Riley was surprised at how heavy the small gold object was.
“This is the closest I can come to fulfilling that promise I made,” he said quietly.
“Irv, do you know what happened to him or the submarine?”
He wasn’t looking at her. His lips were working his dentures furiously as he watched something over her shoulder and behind her. “Both are listed as missing,” he said quietly.
“What was the name of the sub?”
“The USS Bonefish,” he whispered.
Aboard the USS Bonefish
Sea of Japan
June 18, 1945
Ozzie stared at the man for several seconds. Holy shit, he thought, that’s where I’ve seen that flower before. Then he drew a pencil line in his notebook under the name Lieutenant Colonel Miyata and beneath it wrote “Prince Kaya Masako.”
“So the other men drowned rather than get into a boat with you?”
“That was their duty.”
Ozzie shook his head. “So what should I call you?” He knew a little about diplomacy from the years working for his father at the bank back home in Newport, Rhode Island. The rich were America’s royalty.
“Colonel Miyata is fine.” The man lifted his mug and took a small sip. His lips compressed as he swallowed, then the corners of his mouth turned up in a small smile. “We are not encouraged to reveal our identity to the enemy.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because I think you and I might be able to reach an agreement. You look like a man who has seen much and now is interested in a better life than this.” The prince waved a hand through the air to indicate the submarine.
Ozzie leaned back and stretched his arm out along the back of the chair next to him. He looked from the prince to the boy and back to the prince again. “Are you saying you think I can be bought?”
“Lieutenant, every man has his price. It is no insult to say I will find yours. Japan has been building her empire for more than fifty years. From Korea to China to the countries of Southeast Asia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and yes, the Philippines. We have dealt with many enemies.”
Ozzie noted that this guy’s grasp of English was improving the more he talked. He’d started out playing dumb. Now he had shifted his game.
“Yeah, yeah, but things aren’t going so well for you now. Germany’s surrendered. Won’t be much longer until your cousin’s got to do the same thing.”
The prince’s dark eyes were fixed on Ozzie’s, unblinking behind the round gold-rimmed glass lenses. He continued speaking as though Ozzie hadn’t said a word.
“These countries once had enormous wealth. From the noble citizens to the temples, the banks to the museums, Japan has been acquiring the riches of all she has conquered.”
“We call that looting, Colonel. When you guys surrender, and we march on Tokyo, it will be ours.”
The officer’s mouth stretched wide into a toothy grin. Ozzie could see the high cheekbones, the skull beneath the bald head, and the ridges under the gums that held his teeth in place. He thought of the grinning death heads they painted in Mexico to celebrate the Day of the Dead.
“Not if you can’t find it, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, we’ll find it all right,” Ozzie said.
That grin. Ozzie really wanted to punch him just to make him shut his mouth. That grin was giving him the creeps.
“Not if you’re looking in Japan, you won’t.”
“What do you mean?” Ozzie said.
“Lieutenant, I see from your uniform that you are not a regular American naval officer. May I ask what is your position aboard this ship?”
“I’m asking the questions here, Colonel Miyata.”
“I thought perhaps if you are involved with your intelligence services”—the man paused and lowered his voice—“you might be interested in Operation Golden Lily.”
Ozzie took a drink of his coffee before answering. It was already cold and acidic. Just what he needed. He forced himself to swallow. It pissed him off that the prince had manipulated him like this, but there wasn’t any way of pretending he wasn’t interested. “What is it?”
The prince grinned again.
Ozzie looked away.
“Operation Golden Lily has been under way for many years. Prince Chichibu was tasked by the emperor himself with collecting the valuables from the countries that have joined our empire. Three years ago, it became more difficult to transport this cargo back to Japan. Several ships carrying Golden Lily cargo were sunk by your submarines.”
The steward stepped into the wardroom and asked if there was anything more they needed. Ozzie asked him for a glass of water, then told him to feel free to go take a smoke topsides. After the man left, the prince continued.
“Since it was no longer safe to transport these goods to Japan, the emperor decided to store them in the Philippines.”
Ozzie removed a small bottle of white powder from his pants pocket and shook some into the water. He noticed Miyata was watching him with a questioning look on his face. “Sodium bicarbonate. It’s for my stomach,” Ozzie said. “Helps with the acid. If this war doesn’t end soon, I’m not going to have a stomach left.”
“You have been fighting a long time, Lieutenant?”
“Since before Pearl.”
“I see. You have seen many terrible things then. Do you think your country is going to appreciate all you have suffered?”
“I’m not the only guy who’s been in this mess a long time. Sometimes, though, it does seem like I’ve outlived most of them.”
“Lieutenant, when this war is over, Japan will surely keep the islands of the Philippines. It has been my job to turn many of the natural caves in those islands into vaults for these valuables. I know all of the Golden Lily locations, Lieutenant.”
“You’re saying you know where all this looted treasure is hidden.”
“I do not like this word loot. The word implies that we are stealing. It is not stealing if we already own it. These countries are Japan’s possessions, part of our empire.”
“Why are y
ou telling me all this?”
“It is no accident that I am here and your ship has picked me up. This was meant to happen.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ben and I would be happy to show you.”
The prince looked at the boy, Ben, and the young man smiled for the first time.
“Show me what? You’re not making sense.”
“Lieutenant, imagine a treasure more vast than anything man has ever assembled in one location. Think about so much gold that it would take a navy of ships to remove it.”
Ozzie didn’t say anything.
“It is imperative that I return to the Philippines.”
Reluctantly, Ozzie forced his mind to turn away from the visions the prince’s words had evoked. “Good luck with that. MacArthur kept his promise and he’s pushing your guys out.”
“You are correct when you say this war will be ending soon.”
“And until that happens, you’re gonna be a guest of Uncle Sam.”
The prince shrugged as if to say, Maybe, or maybe not. “When the war ends, the smart men will be very rich.” He stared into Ozzie’s eyes once again. “Those not so smart will return home to the same lives they had before the war.”
Ozzie felt the burn crawling back up his throat. He thought about the tiny apartment where his wife lived with their son, little Richie, and the job waiting for him working for his father at the bank. He’d watched his father handling the money of the residents of Newport’s mansions all his life, never making enough of his own to be anywhere near in their league. After all Ozzie had done for them in this war, no one was suggesting he’d go home to anything different. He coughed and then swallowed. His gut tensed for the pain he knew was coming.
“I do not have the luxury of time, Lieutenant. I have very important information I need to return to the Philippines.”
Ozzie told himself to snap out of it. This was what he was supposed to be after: information.
“What kind of information?”
The prince lifted both his hands into the air with his fingers spread wide. “Do I have your permission to reach for something in my tunic?”
Ozzie shrugged. He knew the sailors who had brought these prisoners aboard the sub had already patted him down. “Sure. Just take it slow.”
“On my honor, it is not a weapon.”
The prince reached inside his tunic and Ozzie saw him pull apart some small stitches. He reached inside the lining of the upper end of his sleeve and withdrew a small gold cylinder about three inches long. It had caps on both ends. The fine gold filigree work around the tube looked like some sort of Eastern lettering like Hebrew or Arabic. In gold alone, it was worth more than Ozzie made in a year.
So much for the capabilities of the sailors who searched this guy, he thought.
“What is that?”
“It is called a prayer gau, or prayer box. It was made in Tibet more than one hundred years ago. Their monks would use these to carry small prayers close to their hearts.” The prince held up the gau and showed Ozzie that there were tiny scrolls of paper inside.
“So, I take it that this one doesn’t have prayers in it.”
“You are correct.” The prince flashed his creepy grin again.
“So, what is this? Some kind of coded message?”
“It is the key to a map.”
“What sort of map?”
“It is an encrypted map that represents my work over the last three years.”
“You mean this Golden Lily?”
“Yes, the map shows the locations of all the Golden Lily vaults located in the islands of the Philippines. It is located in Luzon and I know where.”
Chatuchak Weekend Market
Bangkok, Thailand
November 17, 2012
Riley couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “The USS Bonefish?” she said, her voice sounding loud after Peewee’s whisper.
Was this one more instance where her father had lied to her? She thought of all the boats he had owned in the many places her family had lived. Whenever the State Department posted him to an embassy close to a body of water, her father always found and purchased some sailing boat and named her Bonefish. And now Riley’s own boat carried the same name. Yet her father always swore that he never knew anything about his own father’s time in the Pacific.
Peewee leaned in close, focused his eyes on hers, and said, “Shhhh.” He inclined his head toward the customer over her left shoulder and folded both his hands over hers. “Keep this safe. There are others who want it.”
She started to turn her head, but he made that shushing noise again. Then she felt his hot breath on her ear, and she barely heard him when he said, “Meet me at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in three hours. When I say so, you run.”
Peewee leaned back in his chair, still watching the customer behind her. Riley wrapped the handkerchief around the heavy metal object and slowly slid it through the zipper on the side of her backpack.
“So how long have you been in Thailand, miss?” Peewee asked in a loud voice.
She slid her right arm through one of the straps. “A little over a month,” she said. “But this is my first trip to Bangkok.”
Peewee stood. “I see. Well, I think it’s time for you to go. Now.”
When Riley bolted out of the chair, she turned just enough to get a look at the man who had walked into the stall behind her. The Fu Manchu mustache and gray-streaked hair of the Asian man from the train station coffee shop.
Peewee was surprisingly fast for such an old man.
When the stranger lunged for her, somehow Peewee kicked her empty chair into his path and the mustache man disappeared behind the pile of merchandise in the center of the store. The last she saw of him, Peewee had darted around the fallen man and was headed for the curtain at the back of the shop.
Riley took off, her sandals slapping the asphalt as she dodged around all the shoppers. The crowd seemed to have multiplied threefold in the time she had been talking to Peewee. Her backpack bounced against her side, and she slowed for a moment to get her other arm through its strap. She didn’t have a chance to see whether the strange man had followed her or Peewee, but soon she heard footsteps and people crying out as her pursuer shoved them aside in the aisles behind her.
She was headed back the way she had come, following Soi 3 out to the perimeter Main Road, when she decided it would be smarter to stay inside the crowded market for cover. She darted to her right and followed an aisle lined with clothing boutiques. She pushed her way through throngs of Thai teenagers clad in skintight jeans and wearing huge sunglasses on the tops of their heads. They were giggling and pushing one another and blocking the aisle.
Riley dropped down onto her hands and knees and dove between the hems of a rack of hanging sundresses. The cloth brushed aside and she emerged on the other side of the rack with a clear space ahead of her. She leapt up and heard a scream. A quick glance over her shoulder showed a young girl, her head hanging forward, glasses gone, dark hair covering her face. The stranger had his arm raised to strike again, and in his hand she saw what looked like a thin yellow stick or bamboo pipe. The other terrified teens were running and screaming, scrambling to get out of his way.
She turned right again at the next intersection and was now heading for the center of the building. At the end of the long aisle, she saw sacks of grain, herbs, and dried fish. She smelled the hot grease and pungent spices and saw the yellow heat lights. Food stalls. Behind her, more screams. She didn’t dare take the time to look.
Going left this time, she found herself among mountains of shiny aluminum pots and tier after tier of plastic bowls and boxes with bright-colored plastic lids. She swerved to avoid a stroller and ran into a tightly balanced display of huge cook pots. The pile caved in and crashed to the ground. An old Thai man wearing a Notre Dame Irish T-shirt came running out yelling at her.
Ahead was another restaurant stall with a cooking island out front and
a man in a bloody apron hacking at what looked like a chicken carcass with a meat cleaver. Riley dodged around the man and cut through the tables packed with diners. There was a swinging saloon-style door at the back of the stall, and she was certain there had to be a back door. Through the swinging door, she found herself in a packed room with a stove on one side and a dishwashing sink on the other. In between, seven or eight startled people stared at her.
“Out?” she said.
A woman pointed to the curtain that covered the back wall. Riley swept it aside and found herself in a small passageway behind the stalls. When the curtain dropped it was dark back there. The hard concrete wall to her left must be the building exterior. The various booths on her right used this space for storage and to dump their garbage during the day. She felt her way forward. She heard a man shouting behind her, back in the kitchen. She was moving away from the sound, carefully stepping over cardboard boxes and pieces of cellophane packaging, trying not to make any noise yet trying to cover as much ground as possible. Water on the ground soaked her feet, and her toes slid around in her sandals as she climbed over the piles of trash. Her nose told her she was moving away from the cooking stalls.
Then she heard noises behind her. Someone else moving down the passage. She heard crashing and what sounded like cursing as he kicked at the trash blocking his route.
Riley’s eyes were getting more accustomed to the darkness. Her arms reached out in front of her, feeling for obstructions. Pushing aside a bucket and mop, she turned to look over her left shoulder. Her back was to the booths on her right, and it was then she felt arms close around her. There was cloth between her and the person, as well as her backpack. A flap of the heavy fabric fell over her head, blinding her.
The arms yanked her out of the alley into a stall. She coughed and choked on the odor of wet wool. Even through the blanket, she heard the sound change. More noise, distant music. She squirmed and struggled against that strong grip. Swinging her head, she tried to throw off the heavy fabric. Her feet kicked at the ground as she tried to get purchase. It grew harder to breathe and her heart hammered as she beat with all her fury at the body pressed against hers.
Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) Page 6
