40
Assignment to Danger
“I answered the summons with pleasure because I longed to help those of God’s most unfortunate children whom I had left prisoners behind me.” ~ Nellie Bly
Dee put on a mint green kimono, took the towel from her head and shook down her hair. The last of her rose water bath was trickling through the drain of the oval-shaped, jade green tub, in the luxurious bathroom of an executive suite at the Blue Moon resort.
“I’m back,” Marion called cheerily from outside the door.
“Let me see,” Dee replied.
The door opened and Marion stuck her newly permed head in, with its stylish wave. “It isn’t quite me, but it covers the crack.”
“It isn’t always going to be a crack. Before you know it, you’ll have a barely detectable scar there. Anyway, you look ten years younger, Mare. I think it’s wonderful.”
“Thanks. That’s what the lady at the shop said, but I figured she said that to everybody. Any calls?”
“Only from me to Eddington.”
“Dee, you’ve got to quit bothering the poor man. He said he’d let us know the minute he heard anything. Let’s think of something to do. Go shopping…or out to eat or something.”
“That’s all we’ve been doing for four days. I can’t make myself get interested anymore. Especially when they could call any time now. Two or three days, Eddington said. It’s been four, Marion. Four and a half to be exact. I’m starting to worry.”
“Well, it doesn’t help to—”
The phone rang and Dee ran passed by Marion to snatch up the pearl-white receiver on one of the nightstands. “Hello?” And then less enthusiastically, “Yes…yes, thank you,” before hanging up.
“Not them, I take it.” Marion guessed.
“Not them. The boat’s ready, though, and we can move back aboard anytime. You know, as much as I’ve enjoyed all this pampering, I really can’t wait to get back to it.”
“You’re bitten, Dee Parker.” She picked up a magazine from her own bedside table that was open at a half-finished crossword puzzle. “Bitten with the treasure hunting bug. You’ve got all the signs.”
“Hawkins, now. Remember?”
“It’ll take a while, I still can’t believe it. And I still think he’s bipolar, even if he did do all those glowing things Eddington said. He’s going to hit the roof you know, when he sees what you’ve done to his boat.”
“It’s my boat, too, and I’ve improved it. He can hardly be mad about that.” She took a few tissues from a decorative box and sat at a small table to remove her nail polish and then paint more on.
“What’s a five letter word that means to acquire knowledge?”
“Learn.” Dee rummaged through her make-up bag for the polish.
“Nope, it has a “u” in it. I think we should move back to Pandora today, or we’re going to have to take out a loan to pay the bill on this place. Especially with all the room service we’ve ordered. We’re rich, but we’re not fifteen hundred dollars a day rich. It’s a once in a lifetime fling.”
“At fifteen hundred dollars a day, Marion, we don’t pay for room service. We don’t pay for the sushi or the fruit or anything else we ordered. It’s included in the bill. We even get to keep these kimonos.”
“That’s a relief. At a hundred and twenty dollars a day for snacks, I was starting to worry. How about the word, study…that fits.”
“All compliments of Mr. Yakawa.” She dipped the small brush into the opaque liquid and began to paint. “Including the hotel bill.”
Marion’s mouth dropped open. “You took his offer! I wondered what you two were whispering about when I was looking at the Strassgaard jewels—oh, those jewels!”
“We weren’t whispering. And from now on, I’m steering clear of anything that even comes close to having a curse on it. Believe me. One pass was plenty good enough for me.”
“Well, you really missed something because they were so breathtaking; I could swear they were breathing all by themselves, right there on that pillow.”
“Double shudders. Did you pick them up?”
“Good grief, no. I didn’t want to be some electrical socket for evil.” She plucked a perfectly ripe, red grape from a nearby fruit basket and popped it into her mouth. “I can see right now, though, I should have been listening closer to you two, so I could have jabbed you in the ribs when you agreed to do something like this again.”
“It isn’t just the necklace. Mr. Yakawa is a very persuasive man.”
“Sure he is. Him and Eddington together. But it’s like a vampire curse, all this mystery stuff. Keeps popping up, after you think it’s dead. Look at yourself! Two months ago, you would have been head over heels about a million point five. Not given the time of day to any hoo-doo story of some Ming Dynasty necklace, lost during—”
The phone rang, and Dee leapt for it.
Seascape had finally docked in the seaport town of Akkeshi, on Alsukeshi Bay, at the eastern tip of Japan’s Hokkaido Island. Because of damages, they had been unable to hold their course through the recent storm and had not returned to it until the weather died down.
The two men were exhausted but well and so relieved over the news that Dee and Marion were safe, that they accepted their quarantine from customs with relatively good humor. Since they had arrived without papers, and Seascape—chartered out of San Francisco for a week―was now listed as stolen, they had to remain aboard the yacht until Eddington could fly in and straighten things out. At the same time, the agent was convinced Hawk was going to greet him with a well-deserved punch in the nose, so wisely asked that Dee and Marion go first.
Three hours and twenty minutes after the phone call, Eddington made his appearance at the customs office, while Marion and Dee were shuttled by Harbor Patrol out over a choppy bay to where Seascape was moored.
Other than the jury-rigged, makeshift mast, it seemed none the worse for wear after its hazardous voyage. It looked deserted when the patrol launch pulled up alongside, and Dee, unable to contain herself any longer, was the first to board, and head down the companionway.
Her foot hit something on the way down the ladder, and a coffee pot went clamoring to the floor.
“Sugar? I can’t believe it!”
“Hawk!”
“Come here, baby, come here!” He swept her up and held her tight, as if he might never let go again.
Dee half-laughed and half-cried, ran her hands lovingly over the loose, blonde curls while she kissed and was kissed, letting herself revel in the joy that he was alive and really there. Only Starr’s booming voice as he stumbled in from the forward cabin separated them long enough to exchange hugs all around, before Marion came down, and it started all over again.
“Dee said you fell off the boat into the freezing water, Starr!” Marion looked him over as if he had been raised from the dead. “How ever did you―”
“Down jacket and a hard head, I guess,” he replied. “And it’s a good thing. By the time I got myself aboard the boat, here, she was nearly sunk already. Hawk was locked in the forward cabin…he never would’ve got out in time.”
“You kept the boat from sinking?” this spoken as if he had fought a war singlehanded.
“That wasn’t anything.” Starr avoided the admiring gaze with a self-conscious shrug. “Just went around and closed all the sea cocks, is all. There weren’t any damages below the water line. They meant to sink her. Her, the evidence, and Hawk right along with her.”
“I was fit to be tied when I saw Pandora slip over the horizon, and nothing I could do about it. I actually prayed one of Dee’s prayers.” Hawk tightened his arms around her waist as he talked.
“Which one?” she asked.
“God help us! Figured I needed the big guns. And He did.”
“It worked, too!” Starr laughed. “I put an amen on the end of it and even swore to stop drinking!”
“Starr!” Marion’s voice rang with amazement. “Maybe Dee was right
about—”
“Only in the morning,” he added quickly. “Nothing to get all worked up about. Some things a man has to take on at his own pace, even if he is headed in the right direction. Anyhow, they destroyed all the radio equipment, so we couldn’t put in a mayday. But I sure thought sure you two were goners! Once they found the journal and once Marion cut loose with one of her screams.”
“I’ll have you know I didn’t scream one time. Not until they were tied up.” Marion bent down for the coffee pot that was still on the floor. “Did I, Dee?”
“Not until she realized what it meant for the barometer to be pegged,” Dee replied. “We were so cool and calculating, Eddington said he could probably get us both jobs at the agency.”
“Where is that bum anyway?” Hawk growled. “I’m going to punch him right in the―”
“Hawk, don’t you dare,” she warned. “He saved our lives, for goodness sake. And if it hadn’t been for him, we never would have met Mr. Yakawa.”
“Who’s Mr. Yakawa?” Starr asked.
“The man who has the diamonds,” Marion blurted out. “Brace yourselves, boys…we have all made fools out of ourselves for nothing. The Strassgaard Jewels were recovered in nineteen seventy-three by a pack of seal hunters.”
“What?” Both men spoke the unbelieving word in unison.
“The rest I’ll let Dee explain.”
“Marion…” Dee glanced uncomfortably over at her friend. “I was hoping to put off business details until tomorrow. Or at least until they’ve rested and had a decent meal.”
“Business details…” Hawk looked down at her with a familiar suspicion. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and not explain things. Let’s have it, sugar.”
“Well, I was…a little disappointed about the diamonds.”
“A little,” Starr complained, “I’m downright disgusted. It’s embarrassing! If I’m going to make a fool out of myself, I’d at least like to have something to show for it. What have we got to show for all this?”
“We’ve got each other,” Dee reminded him. “And I’ve never been so happy for anything in my life! We still have Pandora, too. And we have a million dollars.”
“A million dollars!” Starr breathed the words out in near ecstasy.
“A million, point five,” Marion corrected. “Less whatever it cost to have all that high tech equipment installed. And you can bet it cost plenty, too.”
“Marion!” Dee objected again. “You’ve got to quit springing things like―”
“What high tech equipment? On Pandora? Hang it all, Dee, you should have asked me!”
“You weren’t there and I had to make a snap decision.”
“Holy fright, here we go again,” Starr muttered.
“Listen,” Dee tried to explain. “Do you honestly think we could go back to the hum-drum of everyday life, after this kind of experience? We’re not the same people we were when we first started. None of us are.”
“I’ve got to admit,” said Marion, “after I called my kids to make sure everything was OK, the thought of going back to Portland was a bit depressing. What do I have to go back to? I mean, an exciting speaker at writer’s club just isn’t going to do it for me anymore.”
“Try baiting hooks for land duffers,” Starr challenged, “see what that does for you. Especially when most of them have the pukes. Dee’s right. We can’t go back to what we had before. But the diamonds! We’re never gonna get a deal as sweet as that again.”
“Tell them, Dee,” Marion said.
“We have been offered an incredible opportunity,” she began carefully. “To actually be financed for something we probably would have jumped at the chance to do all by ourselves. Mr. Yakawa, has agreed to back us—as a team—to recover a practically priceless necklace, called the Blue Moon.”
“The Blue Moon.” Starr murmured.
“It’s a necklace that was worn by the Empress of China back in…oh…say, fourteen eighty-five,” she went on quickly. “Legend says, a barge that was carrying the famous jewels, went down in the Yangtze River in the year―”
“Dee…” Hawk ‘s voice carried a tone of warning.
“It’s worth a fortune!” she insisted. “And Yakawa is willing to spend one for us, just to find it for him. He’s got this private museum—you should have seen it―and he’s―”
“I’ve heard of Yakawa, sweets. He’s known for backing high risk recovery operations. He’s got a dig going on right now in West Africa that two men died on last year.”
“How do you know all that?” she asked.
“I read an interview of him in a treasure hunting magazine awhile back. We’re not the only ones interested in treasure hunting, sugar, it’s big business. Guys like him get their kicks out of financing life-threatening expeditions.”
“But with a boat like Pandora,” she insisted, “and the right equipment…”
“It’s in China, sweetheart, let’s get serious here. If you think Russia is dangerous, I’ll tell you right now, China is out of the question.”
“But we wouldn’t have to land there, actually. Just go up the river a little ways, and—”
“Out of the question, baby. Did you hear me?”
“If we didn’t actually have to touch down,” Starr reasoned, “Pandora is the sort of boat I’d put my trust in any day. After what we’ve been through in this one, I’m even more convinced.”
“I’m convinced Pandora is a boat with a destiny,” Marion said dreamily. “Guided by the angels to do good things in the world.”
“You know, Marion,” Starr turned to her. “I thought that stuff was a bunch of junk when we first started out. But for you two to be alive…well, there’s no way to deny something bigger than all of us took a hand.”
“Yes, and it was angels. Wasn’t it, Dee? She ought to know, her father is a pastor.”
“I agree, but not for that reason. But the boat with a destiny part is the most lovely idea.” she agreed.
“But even with angels, sneaking into communist China is not a lovely idea,” Hawk argued. “Like I said before, there are hundreds of other treasures to go after, if you want to keep doing it. Sunken ships and all that. And as long as you didn’t put anything in writing for this Yakawa character, then we’re not legally―”
He stopped mid-sentence when he caught the look on Dee’s face. “You didn’t.”
“I did it mostly for you, Hawk. I thought you’d jump at an opportunity like this. And to get the kind of glimpse into China no one has seen for generations. It’s the assignment of a lifetime! Gosh—I can see the headline now: Treasure Hunters Topple Kidnapping Ring While Recovering Ming Dynasty Necklace. I could maybe win the Pulitzer!”
“Kidnapping ring!” Hawk ran a hand through his hair and then smoothed down his mustache in a gesture Dee had come to realize was an expression of total frustration. “Don’t even tell me whose idea that was.”
“But with what Yakawa is going to pay us for it, I could add two more buildings and a hundred more kids to Dan’s orphanage! And as far as the danger, Hawk, Eddington assured me that as long as we were determined to go anyway, he could back us up with―”
“If Eddington thinks we’re going to run point for him on another one of his cases again, I’m going to punch that—”
“Hawk…”
She looked up at him in a way that was so appealing it sent a wave of emotion all through him.
“You wouldn’t believe who those criminals took hostage.” Dee said.
He knew right then he would give in to her.
But he took her by the arm anyway and ushered her toward the aft cabin. “Step into my office a minute, sugar.” But it was only a halfhearted pretense at standing firm. He already knew he would give her whatever she wanted. He’d give her the moon if she asked for it like that.
Even if it was blue.
****
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip o
ff every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
Hebrews 12:1
(New Living Translation)
Invincible Nellie Bly
(1864-1922)
Nellie Bly is America’s pioneer female journalist, best remembered for two extraordinary things. Being incarcerated into Blackwell’s Island notorious institution for the insane (or, “the madhouse” as it was called back then), in order to get the true story of how patients were treated there; and a race around the world to beat Jules Verne’s fictional character, Phineas Fogg’s record of eighty days. Both of these fantastic feats of “stunt journalism” (a phrase coined by the many strange methods she used to get her stories) not only brought her fame in her own day, but a lasting name in history, as well. What was different about her?
Nellie Bly lived during an era when many amazing things were being tried and accomplished, by heroic, exceptional people. A time when there seems to have been more discoveries, more inventions, and more events that would ultimately shape our lives today. She was not born wealthy or famous to begin with. Her father died when she was six, leaving the large family destitute. She began her unusual journalistic career at the age of seventeen and when she died forty years later, her name was not only known around the world, she had been influential in social changes, business practices, and charity projects with arms that reached worldwide. Yet, the words most commonly referred to her, today, are “daredevil” and “feminist.”
In my own acquaintance (research derived strictly from what has been written or documented by the subject, themselves) I found Nellie Bly to be another wonderful combination of adventure and Christian character that had (like all good things) such far-reaching effects on society, we can still hear their echoes. One of those special few whose compassion for others drives them to literally “move things” rather than just being moved by those things themselves. Her responses to human suffering, such as, “I longed to help those of God’s most unfortunate children,” or, “My heart ached to see the sick grow sicker,” are the true reasons Nellie Bly did those brave things she later became famous for.
The Pandora Box Page 26
