Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2)

by Christine Kling

  If he really felt he had to get back to Theo and his boat immediately, he could just go, as far as she was concerned. Hop a plane and leave her to get her boat there on her own. She’d sailed her boat solo more than halfway around the world. A few hundred miles more wouldn’t make much difference to her at this point. And she wanted to find out the answers to what happened to her grandfather on her own.

  Very slowly she eased back the covers and slipped her legs over the side of the bed as she rose to a sitting position. Other than a little hitch in his breathing, he didn’t react at all. He was deep in sleep.

  It would be easier this way. And at this hour, she hoped Benny would be sleeping out there in his fishing boat, too.

  Her clothes were still damp and it was uncomfortable slipping on the bra and panties as they stuck to her skin. It took some adjusting to get things to fit right. She pulled on her khakis and the polo shirt, collected her backpack, and checked all the surfaces in the room for anything else that belonged to her. She almost missed her phone on the floor. He had plugged it in to charge overnight.

  When she eased open the door, she dangled her backpack from the tips of her fingers. If he woke up, she planned to tell him she had an upset stomach and needed to go to the bathroom. But the opening door didn’t even register. He slept like a man who hadn’t a worry in the world. She paused, wondering if she should leave a note, but decided not to risk it. With her satellite phone she could access the Internet and leave him a message on her blog. She eased the door closed and winced at the light click.

  Her sandals were outside the door, and she picked them up so she could get away without waking any of the other customers as she crossed the creaking wood floors.

  A low light burned in the lobby area, but the grounds were deserted. She stopped in to the downstairs toilet and brushed her teeth, combed her hair. She stared into her own eyes in the mirror above the sink. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? she thought. Feeling unsure of herself was not something she was accustomed to.

  When she crossed the parking lot, she was almost away, but she found a locked, solid wooden gate barred her from getting out onto the street. Riley swore under her breath. The chain was beefy and the padlock was bigger than her fist. But when she pulled on the lock it clicked open.

  There wouldn’t be any way she could replace the padlock once she’d exited. She didn’t want to leave them all vulnerable to thieves. She checked her watch. It was 3:25 a.m. The sun would rise in little more than two hours. She arranged the gate so that it looked like it was still locked on the inside. She hoped that would suffice.

  No one was around on the small side street, but she could see the occasional car passing on the highway beyond. She’d ridden her bicycle this way before. The waterfront was about a mile and a half away. She would need to walk fast to beat the approaching dawn.

  Her dinghy was where she had left it on the beach, upside down on the sand and chained to a coconut tree. The oars were still there, too. Riley trotted over to the building that housed the Yacht Club lockers and restrooms, and she searched the grounds around the dinghies, anchors, and bits of broken gear that decorated the back of the shed. She found what she was looking for attached to a deflated dinghy with a rotted-out transom. She pulled her small Leatherman tool from her backpack and cut away the length of old polypropylene rope that was tied to the towing ring. After wadding up the line and stuffing it in her pack, she headed back to the beach.

  She dragged her boat down to the water’s edge, pushed off, and jumped in. The water was shallow for nearly the first quarter mile, too shallow for sailboat moorings. The night was very dark but a tiny sliver of a moon had just peeked over the island of Ko Lon out in the bay. The moon provided little light but it did make it easier to be certain she was headed in the right direction. Since the wind had chosen this night to quit entirely, she rowed slowly. Sound travels far over the water, especially when it is still.

  After so many months on her mooring out in Ao Chalong Bay, Riley had made friends with most of the boaters around her. She knew the Aussie couple on the big catamaran Incommunigato had flown home for a month of visiting family and no one was aboard their boat. Their mooring was on the opposite side of her boat from where Benny’s boat was anchored. She had been watching his boat as she neared, and so far there had been no sign of movement there. She shipped the oars when she pulled up to the aft swim step on one of the big cat’s hulls, then climbed out and tied up her dinghy. She took off her sandals and put them in the backpack after she pulled out the line she’d collected. She tied the line around her waist so she wouldn’t lose it. She slipped into the water via the ladder off the cat’s swim platform and started swimming a gentle side stroke toward her own boat, holding her backpack above the water and keeping Bonefish between herself and the fishing boat on the other side.

  When she came alongside Bonefish, she tucked her backpack under the swim ladder and then kept swimming even more slowly. Her breathing sounded loud in her ears, but she hoped it was just her imagination.

  The fishing boat’s engine was angled forward so the propeller rested just out of the water at the end of the long shaft. She untied the line around her waist and wrapped it around the prop. She was about to start back to her boat when she looked at the engine. Unlike most marine engines, these were air-cooled automobile engines and she just might be able to reach the air intake manifold. She liked hedging her bets, so she reached around behind her back, under her polo shirt, and undid the clasp on her bra. She threaded the straps around her elbows and the bra floated free. She grabbed the bra and she couldn’t resist running her hand over her breasts. It felt so much better in the water without it.

  At the stern of the wooden boat she placed one hand on the side of the engine well. She knew what came next would rock the boat a bit, but she hoped he wouldn’t notice. She took a deep breath and pulled herself partway out of the water. Just as her hand reached the gaping air intake, she heard a cough from inside the boat. She froze half out of the water and watched for movement at the other end of the boat, where she could just make out the mound of a figure under a tarp. With two fingers, she pushed the bra as far as she could, then lowered herself back into the water. The boat rocked even more as he shifted position and coughed again.

  Riley realized her polo shirt was white and it would glow in the water if he happened to sit up and look. She pulled the shirt over her head and pushed it under his boat. Holding her breath, she started to swim.

  All the way back to her boat, she was expecting a dart to hit her in the back of the neck. But a few minutes later, she was pulling herself up on her swim step and climbing into her cockpit. She unlocked the boat, turned off her alarm, and went below to change into some dry clothes.

  Once dressed she looked around the familiar cabin and thought about putting to sea for such a long voyage. She always carried a good supply of canned and dry goods, so she was fine on food. Her Caliber 40 sailboat had tankage for just over two hundred gallons of diesel fuel, and she liked to keep her tanks topped off so she didn’t have to worry about too much condensation in her fuel. And as for water, her reverse-osmosis water maker could make twenty gallons of fresh water out of salt—per hour. She was ready to go. As always.

  She went through the rest of her pre-departure routine, throwing switches for instruments, autopilot, radar, and radios. While swimming, she had noticed the outgoing tide, and now she reckoned that she could use that current. At the bow, she paused briefly to note the faint light in the eastern sky, then threw off her mooring lines and let her boat drift free. The tide would carry her south past the fishing boat, and once she was far enough away, she could start her engine, set her course for Langkawi in Malaysia. Hopefully, by the time he awoke, she would be out of sight.

  Her plan looked like it was going to work perfectly until she realized that the current was carrying her boat directly toward the eighty-foot-long gleaming navy-blue hull of the Merlin II, the exorbitantly expensive oce
an-racing greyhound that Billy Barber called home. Merlin II was moored about two hundred feet from where Benny had dropped his anchor. She knew what the paint job on that hull cost. Billy had told her. Several times. There was no way she could let her white hull collide with that perfect navy-blue hull. When it was clear that there was no way she could avoid it, she turned the key and fired up her engine.

  Ao Chalong

  Phuket, Thailand

  November 19, 2012

  The noise of an engine starting jolted him awake. Benny threw off the tarp, sat up, and looked for the woman’s boat. The mooring ball was floating alone; the boat was gone. He jumped to his feet and turned. He didn’t expect to see the white sailboat so close to his boat and even closer to the fancy blue one. He heard the engine revs increase as her boat swung away from the blue boat and began to pick up speed. The sky was a bluish gray but there was already enough light for him to see the woman’s face when she turned and stared at him over her shoulder. She wasn’t afraid and that surprised him.

  Benny reached for his bag. This woman had been too much trouble to him already and now she was disrespecting him. He untied the top of his bag, reached inside for his blowpipe, then stopped. He could kill her easily enough. The distance was not too great, but Hawkes wanted her alive. Where were the other two? If the old man had the artifact now, and he wasn’t aboard, how would he locate him? No, he couldn’t kill the girl, no matter how much he wanted to.

  He stepped to the back of the boat and thought back to the lessons that his cousin had taught him for starting the engine. He went through each step, and he was thankful when the engine roared to life on his first try. It sounded very loud in the still morning air. The next step was to pivot it by lifting the front tiller and then lower the prop into the water. When he bent down he heard the engine noise change. He knew from driving cars that when an engine sounded like it was coughing, it was not good. Then the sound died altogether. He could no longer even hear the sound of the woman’s boat.

  Benny swore. He knew nothing about mechanics. He stepped to the side and looked at all the metal parts and hoses and wires. Then he saw something that looked like white fabric dangling out from a hole. He reached down and grabbed it. When he pulled, it would not come at first. He pulled harder and something tore. It came free. He saw he was holding a white, lacy woman’s bra.

  He saw from the corner of his eye that her boat was widening the gap very quickly. Sailboats were not supposed to be fast, he thought. Benny tried to start the engine again and this time he had the throttle so far open, the engine seemed to scream. He lowered the revs down to idle speed.

  Then he remembered the anchor. He could not put the boat into gear with the anchor on the bottom. He hurried to the front of the boat and pulled the rope in hand over hand. When he got to the chain it was heavy, but there was only about twenty feet of it. He piled it on top of the nets he’d been using as a mattress. The anchor was muddy, but he didn’t have time to clean it.

  Benny ran to the back of the boat, lifted the engine to put the prop in the water, and shifted it into gear. Not more than five seconds after he put it into gear, the engine stopped again. The sun was just peeking over the top of the island. Benny lowered the front end of the engine and the first rays of sunlight lit the ball of bright orange rope wrapped in a tight ball around the propeller.

  The white sailboat had cleared the anchorage, and it was heading for the mouth of Ao Chalong Bay. The woman stepped away from the steering wheel and walked to the side of her boat. He saw her raise a hand and wave.

  Shanti Lodge

  Phuket, Thailand

  November 19, 2012

  Cole wondered what was taking her so long. He guessed by the angle of the sun out the window that it was perhaps 6:30 a.m. When he awoke to find Riley’s side of the bed empty, he assumed she had gone to the head. After all, she had fallen asleep very early the night before.

  He tried to fall back asleep, but once he’d started thinking about her, that was the only thing that filled his mind—and other parts of his body. As he waited for her in all his morning glory, he thought back over the recent hours he had spent with her. He pictured her running down that dock in Bangkok and taking that flying leap onto their boat as it was pulling away from the dock, frowning as she drove the boat, staring out the bus window as they made their way south, and snoring softly as he covered her with a sheet the night before. For more than twenty-four hours he’d been wanting to take her in his arms and kiss every inch of her. This morning, finally he would get that chance.

  If only she would come back from the head. Suddenly, it occurred to him that she might be sick. He threw off the sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He reached for his clothes on the chair next to the bed. That was when he noticed her phone was no longer plugged in where he’d left it the night before. She probably wanted to check her email and had taken it with her. But her backpack and clothes were gone, too. Perhaps she’d wanted to shower. He wanted to believe that but the two towels slung over the other chair back made that difficult.

  Breakfast. That was it. She’d gone down to breakfast without him. He pulled on his clothes. He was in no hurry. For the moment, he could not be sure she had left without saying good-bye. He could believe she was downstairs eating, chatting with Kim, waiting for him to come down. Or try to.

  As he descended the stairs, he could see into the dining room. A slender Thai girl was placing sugar bowls and cream pitchers on the tables. She was the only person he could see.

  “Good morning,” he said. He saw from the clock over the bar that it was actually after 8:00 a.m.

  The girl placed her hands together almost as though she were praying. “Sawadee ka,” she said in a lovely singsong voice.

  Cole nodded in return. “Have you seen an American woman with brownish-blond hair to here?” He touched his own shoulder to indicate the length of her hair.

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  Cole gave her an order for his breakfast and said he would be back downstairs in about ten minutes. He returned to the room and went to the bed stand where he had emptied his pockets the night before. The cheap little Thai phone he had bought on arrival in the country was there. He picked it up and dialed.

  “Hey. It’s me,” he said.

  “So,” Theo said, “did she rock your world?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Say what?”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Cole said. The truth was he didn’t want to.

  “She didn’t like leave a note or anything?”

  “No. I woke up and she was gone.”

  “Mon, what did you say to her?”

  “Me? Why is everything always my fault?”

  “Because you’re the crazy one, that’s why.”

  “Are you checking her website? I don’t have any way to get on the Internet here.”

  “Of course I am. As we speak. And yes, there is something there. Listen—”

  A robotic voice came through the cell phone: “Dear Cole, I’m sorry to leave in the night like this without waking you, but I didn’t want to argue with you. I can’t leave my boat. It’s my home and office. So I’m on my way—just south of Ao Chalong Bay. I took care of Benny. Suffice to say he should not be a problem for me now. You need to keep your eyes open for him, though. He wants the Tibetan prayer gau (and its contents), and he doesn’t know who has it. He will go after you if necessary.

  “I plan to sail to the Philippines direct. No stopping. It will be roughly eighteen hundred miles. I hope to do it in two to three weeks. I have my single-sideband radio and satellite phone. I’ll be in touch.”

  “That’s it? That’s all she wrote?”

  “Yeah, mon. That’s it. Well, at least you got to spend one night together.”

  “We slept together.”

  “You dog, you. Was it as good as you remembered? I mean, you’ve been fixated on getting this woman back into your life all these years.”

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sp; “You didn’t hear me. I said we slept. That’s all we did. Sleep.”

  “Oh no you didn’t.”

  “She hadn’t slept in two nights. She ate and she virtually passed out. Listen, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, what now? Are you going after her?”

  “No. I’m not going where I’m not wanted. I’m going to catch the first plane I can find back to the Philippines.”

  “We do have our work cut out for us now.”

  “Did you get the other two documents I sent last night?”

  “You sent? I thought Riley sent them.”

  “Well, when she fell asleep, I kinda used her phone to take snapshots and send them on to you. She doesn’t have to know.”

  “Did you erase them from her sent mail?”

  “What?”

  “Listen, you need to leave the tech stuff to me. She’s going to know. Do you think she’ll be okay with you taking copies without her permission? Does she even have any idea what it is she has—how valuable those documents are?”

  “You mean how valuable the documents we have are? No, this is Riley we’re talking about. She won’t mind.”

  “Okay,” Theo said. “So says the man who slept with her last night.”

  Aboard the USS Bonefish

  South China Sea

  June 25, 1945

  They’d been lucky so far. Ozzie knew he couldn’t count on that luck continuing, but so far, the lady had favored him. They had not encountered a single other warship on their entire trek across the South China Sea.

  SubComPac would soon declare the USS Bonefish missing in action since she had not shown up for her rendezvous with the rest of the Hellcats on June 24. Ozzie had told the sub’s radio operator to expect this—that it was all part of their orders for their whereabouts to remain unknown. If any other US ship saw them and identified them, they’d send out a search party the likes of which he did not want to deal with. Ozzie had a plan, and being missing in action suited him just fine. He intended to send the boys on the USS Bonefish off to make their reappearance later. For now, he needed the ride to the Philippines for himself and Prince Masako. If the treasure really was as vast as the prince claimed, it would not be possible for one man to handle tons of material. He knew there were plenty of his OSS mates on the ground in Luzon, and once he had located the treasure sites, he reckoned he could call on them to overpower the few Japs who remained.