Somewhere in the Shallow Sea

by Dennis Macaraeg

  * * *

  It was past midnight when they reached the fertile grounds to hunt for their prized tunas. Stars twinkled like solitaires around the faint moon. Roger ordered his crew to cut the engine and prepare the fishing nets. Almost immediately, the fishing boat began to undulate with the waves’ up and down motion.

  “Do you have a high powered, two-way radio with auto-patch capability so I could make a phone call?” Danny asked.

  “I have one but we won’t be able to reach the repeater till we’re about five miles from Palawan Island. I usually use it to alert my buyers right before we arrive to tell them how much fish we’ve caught.”

  The crew hit the lights and pointed them down into the water.

  “What’s that for?” Helen asked.

  “They’re trying to draw in the fish,” Danny answered.

  One of the crew members dropped the end of the fishnet with a marker buoy on the end. Roger guided the fishing boat in a circular pattern. After making a complete circle, Roger ordered his men to tie the bottom of the fishnet and pull it up. When the fishnet was hoisted back up, the result was disappointing. The net was barely full, with mostly small fish that wouldn’t command a high-market price.

  “Is that an effective way to catch fish?” Danny asked.

  “Most of the time, yes, but the bright light also invites all kinds of fish. Mostly the ones I don’t care for. We’re not lucky on this spot. I have to go to a different location,” Roger replied, signaling his crew to move on.

  “How do you know where to shine the light where most of the fish are?” Danny asked, trying to change the subject.

  “I use a fish radar, but every time I get near a school they scatter.”

  Danny inspected the incandescent light bulbs used to shine the light on the water. He flicked them on and off and noticed that the lights were too bright.

  “I think that while the tiny fish are attracted to the light, the approaching fish are blinded by it too, and that’s why they disperse. It’s like attracting a moth. As soon as it feels the heat, it flies away. We need to tone it down. Do you have any green plastic sheets?”

  When Roger and one of his assistants returned, they brought a handful of green plastic bags. Danny placed the green bags under different lights.

  “Now turn on the lights,” Danny said.

  Roger observed the activity on the sonar’s monitor screen and steered the boat into the area with the highest fish density.

  “Drop the net.”

  Danny broke a piece of the Cube, placed it inside a small bag with a weight inside and tied it to the end of a 20-foot rope. He watched the sonar’s console indicating where the school of fish was swimming. The way they moved was tricky. It was as if they were dancing in the ocean and not following a particular pattern. Danny had been in the same situation before when he conducted his research. Detecting the school of fish was easy, but the fish usually swam away.

  Danny retrieved a light stick from his knapsack and tossed it in the water. “Turn the lights off, then decrease speed.”

  Roger reached for the throttle and powered down. Danny threw another chunk of the Cube in front of him. Roger’s eyes lit up when he saw that the fish had not scattered. As if the stars revealed the serendipitous moment, Danny realized the mistake he had been making. There was nothing wrong with the Rx-18 compound. It was ineffective because it wasn’t being used properly. He had to conduct his experiments at night.

  After the boat made a full circle, the net was slowly lifted. There were at least ten five-foot-long tunas caught.

  “What did you throw in the ocean?” Roger asked. His voice beamed with delight.

  EIGHT

  The long island of Palawan jutted out of the sea—the biggest island situated south of Luzon and west of the Visayas. Directly in front of the fishing boat, the mountain range stretched across like a wall, covered in its tea green carpet of lush trees. Danny took a deep breath and tasted the fresh, salty sea air on his lips. The morning sun was slowly pushing its way up into the fresh clear sky and the new day’s rays were warming his face. He turned his cell phone on and was glad to see that there was a signal. Immediately, he dialed Melchor’s number.

  “Where are you? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “We’re fine and about two hours away from Palawan. And you?”

  “I’m confined in a hospital here in Manila. The doctors won’t release me as a precaution until they are sure I am free from infections.”

  “What happened to you back in Jolo?”

  “You wouldn’t believe this but after several diagnostic tests, the doctors found that I had had a gallbladder attack. Couldn’t be worse timing for my gallbladder to burst than while being chased by mercenaries, right?”

  “You’re right about that,” Danny said.

  “I was rushed to the operating room and the doctors took it out.”

  “I’m so pissed that our rendezvous with Kulog ng Timog got all screwed up. I thought we’d never get back.”

  “You must get to Puerto Princesa airport immediately and I’ll send the plane to fly you to Manila. I’m on heavy pain medications and due for the next dose. I’ll text you Commander Berto’s go-between’s number. Can you introduce yourself and see if there’s something you can do?”

  * * *

  The fishing boat had anchored at the town of Narra. Rows of coconut trees lined the beach like rows of soldiers defending the island. As Danny jumped onto the fine textured sand, he was glad that he and Helen were back in civilization.

  “Where do we go from here?” Danny asked, turning back to Roger.

  “Keep going that way,” Roger said, pointing in the direction of a trail leading to a dirt road. “You’ll see people waiting on the side of the road for a bus going to Puerto Princesa, next to a sari-sari store.”

  “Thank you very much for the ride,” Helen said.

  Roger smiled at them and said nothing. Just as Danny was about to disappear into the thick vegetation, he turned back and waved goodbye to Roger, grateful that he had not left them for dead on the atoll.

  * * *

  When Danny and Helen arrived, the red, white and blue bus was being loaded up with goods, and the passengers were already lined up to get on board at the side of the road. Some of the passengers were climbing on the roof to find a seat between sacks of rice in brown burlap bags.

  “We’re not going to sit on the roof, are we?” Helen asked.

  “Hope not,” Danny replied, hurrying to the bus.

  They carefully muscled their way through the passengers crowding the aisle. Swiveling his neck left and right in hope of an empty spot, he felt Helen tap his shoulder and point to a seat in the back with enough space for two people. Thrilled with her find, Danny turned his body sideways and squeezed himself between two men putting their belongings on the overhead racks. Breathing a sigh of relief, he extended his knees in the aisle and put his arm around Helen.

  “I need a drink and something to eat,” Helen said, pointing to the adolescent vendors carrying baskets of hard-boiled eggs, pork rinds, boiled peanuts and corn on the cob. Danny waved to a boy lugging a cooler. The kid pulled out an ice-cold soda, popped off the cap, and poured it into a clear plastic bag with a straw.

  “I’ve never been served soda in a plastic bag,” Helen said.

  “That’s because bottles here are treated like gold.”

  The driver started the engine and switched gears the second the bus was full. Almost immediately, the nauseating smell of diesel fume drifted inside the passenger compartment. Passengers who were lucky enough to have found vacant spots were crammed in their seats. Lost in thought, they balanced themselves by holding onto the bar attached on the ceiling, staring out into space with tired expressions on their faces. Danny pulled out his phone and quickly texted a message to the number Melchor had given him. “This is Danny. I have the Cube with me. Where can I meet you?”

  He slouched in his seat and hoped that Commander Berto would so
on receive his urgent request. Soon they were flying down the dirt road, a trail of dust billowing behind them.

  * * *

  After a grueling hour of traveling in the crowded bus, Danny was glad when they arrived at the city of Puerto Princesa. They followed the passengers, eager to get off. As he was extending the handle on the rollaway to pull it behind him, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He quickly checked it, glad to see it was a message from the go-between’s number. “Meet me in Cebu City. No police.”

  “Read this,” Danny said, showing his phone to Helen.

  “We better get going.”

  “I’ll tell the pilot to take us there right away when we see him.”

  While it was a relief to see so many tourists from around the world loitering around the Puerto Princesa Airport, excited to get on with their vacations to the white sands of El Nido and the crystal-clear waters of Coron—Australians, Japanese, Koreans, Germans, Canadians, Americans and locals from Manila—Danny felt a sense of melancholy. As Danny walked through the airport, he couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t be here, but instead be walking out of the San Diego International Airport with Blake beside him. He pictured the balloons and big signs that would be waiting at the terminal from friends and co-workers, welcoming Blake home with open arms. Instead, days had already gone by since the crisis began and Blake’s rescue was still nowhere to be seen on the horizon. The burden of making contact with Kulog ng Timog hung heavy over his head.

  The chartered airplane was already waiting when Danny and Helen walked out onto the tarmac. The same pilot who flew them to Jolo was standing outside with a worried look on his face.

  “I’m glad you made it out without getting hurt,” he said, assisting Helen up the stairs.

  “It was a close call,” Helen said, entering the cabin.

  “Change of plans. We’re going to Cebu City,” Danny said, climbing onboard.

  As soon as their belongings were secured, the two pilots wasted no time taxing onto the runway and passing the parked, wide-bodied jets. Without further ado, their plane took off, headed in Cebu City’s direction.

  Looking down from the window, Danny saw the tiny islands dotting the clear blue sea. He wondered if Blake was on one of them and looking up at the belly of the aircraft, helpless to get off and Danny helpless to pluck him out of his misery. It was strange to think how two people were in the same place at the same time yet their paths would never intersect.

  About an hour and a half later, the pilot pointed the nose down, punched through the clouds, and then leveled the airplane’s wings at around a thousand feet as it approached the central part of the island of Bohol. Danny and Helen looked out the window as the famous Chocolate Hills came into view. Covered with parched cocoa grass, they looked as if a giant had come in the middle of the night and poured lumps of brown rice across the flatland. The airplane flew closer to the ground. Danny could almost reach out the window and touch the treetops swaying with the wind. The parade of hills came into view and seemed to go on for miles. The plane banked toward Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

  NINE

  Danny and Helen waited nervously at the base of the Magellan’s Cross. Hexagonal with a red tile roof, the building housed a replica of the wooden cross erected by the Spaniards when they first landed in the country.

  “How will the guide know that we’re already here?” Helen asked.

  “He’s supposed to be here already and probably watching us to make sure that the police aren’t with us,” Danny replied.

  The mural on the ceiling depicted scenes of the Spaniards planting a flag—their first encounter with the native people. A Spanish priest was busy converting the island’s inhabitants to Christianity.

  Danny imagined that momentous March day back in 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan, while searching for the Spice Islands, landed in the island nation and proved that the world wasn’t flat after all. He wondered what it would have been like for his ancestors to see the sight of Magellan’s fleet getting closer on the horizon, in their modern ships with their heavy firepower. Did they ever think that the paradise they were living in for thousands of years would be corrupted by the arrival of the Europeans? He thought of Magellan and his soldiers’ demise. Though protected in their helmets and armor, their battle against Lapu-Lapu, the local chieftain, and his men was lost, defeated by only spears and long blades on the shallow beach. Though the native inhabitants’ victory was sweet, enjoying its rewards was short lived. Several decades later, the Spanish came back with a vengeance. An armada with King Philip II’s blessing—from which the country got its name—sent an expeditionary force with ships equipped with cannons and muskets all the way to Manila to divide and conquer the territory by siding with one tribe and defeating the other. The nation succumbed to the invaders, thus beginning what would be more than three hundred years of Spanish rule.

  * * *

  An incoming text message beep from Melchor interrupted Danny’s trance. “GET OUT OF THERE NOW! IT’S A TRAP!”

  The message sent tremors of fear throughout his brain. Realizing the immediate danger, he grabbed Helen by the arm.

  “We need to go now!” Danny said, hurrying for the exit.

  A sudden jolt of panic shook Danny when he saw Dr. Klein standing just several feet away with two burly men. One of the men had curly hair and a massive body size, ominously smiling as he lifted his shirt to reveal his holstered gun. The other was bald with large muscular arms. The curly-haired man’s large hand gripped his shoulder and the hard metal tip of a pistol pressed against his back.

  “Don’t run or we will shoot you and your girlfriend,” Dr. Klein said, approaching the couple.

  The bald man maneuvered behind Helen and wrapped his arm around her neck. She placed both hands on his arms and tried to wiggle away from his anaconda of an arm, but it was no use. Her thin slender arms were no match for his brute strength. Fearing he might meet his death on this island just like Magellan, Danny raised his hands up in the air.

  “Okay, I give up. Please don’t hurt her,” Danny pleaded.

  “Do you know how hard it was tracking your ass down?” Dr. Klein said.

  “Did you hire that gang of kidnappers to get your hands on the Cube?” Danny asked.

  “Now that you mention it, I wish I hadn’t so I wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble. I just want the compound and then you’ll never see me anymore. Capisce?”

  “I need it to get Blake back.”

  “Do you think I give a damn about him? I don’t care if he dies. Tell me where the compound is or I will order my men to party with your girlfriend before they kill her. So what’s it gonna be, Einstein?”

  Seeing that he had no other choice, Danny complied.

  “Okay, okay. The compound is on the plane at the airport.”

  “See, it’s not that hard to cooperate after all. Now here’s the plan: We’re going to the van that’s waiting for us. Once we pick up the Cube, I promise I’ll let you and your sweetie go,” Dr. Klein said.

  “How did you end up getting mixed up with a terrorist group?”

  “Those motherfucking Kulog ng Timog hooligans are not the terrorists they claim to be. They’re nothing but garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, everyday thugs for hire.”

  “Why were you trying to kill them?”

  “That shit-face Commander Berto double-crossed me. I contacted that country bumpkin and proposed to kidnap Blake while conducting research in the Sulu Sea, giving him Blake’s precise location and time of arrival. I need the Cube and that’s why I concocted this ingenious plan to get it out of your lab. I figured if Blake was kidnapped and the ransom needed for his release was the Cube, you wouldn’t hesitate to take it out from its secret location and bring it down here. Commander Berto was to pass it on to me and I was to pay him half a million dollars for his services, but the fucker got greedy. He contacted the NBH Fishing Industries—a Far East Asian company that owns several commercial fishing boats—and ar
ranged to sell the Cube for half the price of what I had agreed to. Hell, he even had the audacity to demand an additional one million dollars in ransom from Blake’s family. We had an agreement to lure you to an undisclosed beach on Basilan Island. It’s only by dumb luck and through a network of paid informants that I found out his plans. That’s when I realized that he had no intention of honoring our arrangement.”

  “Why do you want the Cube so bad? You know how to make one and you must have already realized by now that it does not work,” Danny said.

  “Not for your plans to save the world’s fish population. When one of your lab assistants that I had carefully planted showed me a sample, I knew you were on to something good. You just didn’t realize that your formula could also be used by the commercial fishing companies to catch more fish.”

  “That’s the very reason why I invented the Cube! To stop the world’s oceans from being depleted of its fish population.

  “Enough of your idealistic view of the world. I want the Cube and I want my six million that I’ll be paid for your invention. Now take me there.”

  * * *

  While passing by a large crowd of people gathered in the vicinity, Danny assessed the area around him searching for an escape. Dr. Klein was walking in front of them leading the group, followed by Helen and the bald man with his arm now around her waist. Danny was behind them with the curly haired man closely following him with the tip of the gun pointed to his spine. Even if he were able to run, Helen was still trapped in the bodyguard’s vise-like grip. His eyes darted from side to side desperately looking for a way out for both of them.

  He spotted a van that Dr. Klein had mentioned earlier parked on the street with the engine running. Just as they were about to pass a vendor stall, he made a swift pivot to the right, bent forward, grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it, and slammed the blade of his right hand on his captor’s hand knocking the gun out. Danny followed up with a staccato of two quick, karate-style punches, landing hard blows to the man’s throat and nose. The man fell down to his knees grasping his windpipe and struggling to breathe. The gun tumbled under a souvenir stall. He quickly searched for it but could not find it—precious seconds were being wasted. He did the second best thing and devised a weapon. Danny saw the three-foot sticks that served as the legs on the vendor’s makeshift table on the sidewalk. He broke them off as its wooden toys and souvenirs crashed to the ground. Wanting to make sure that the curly-haired man was disabled, he whacked the man on the shoulders. The man rolled on the ground in agony.