China Sea (21 page)

“It doesn't make a lot of impression on Pistolesi.”

Dan sighed, trying to distinguish between unleashing his frustration and trying to motivate the man who stood perfectly willing to obey, but without force, resource, determination, or impetus of his own. Attempting to get anything done through Juskoviac was like trying to throw feathers over a wall. “What do you want me to do about it, XO? You want me to talk to him? Then why are we paying the chiefs and division officers and you? Why don't we just fire all the in-betweens and let me do everything?” Juskoviac started to pout, and Dan gave up. “OK, let me see him. I don't want a mast situation, though. Just have him come up.” He reached for the squealer as the exec left.

As Dan finished snapping his cap cover on a few minutes later Pistolesi came in. Sullenness and resistance were plain in the set of his shoulders, the way he came to a halt on the carpet, hat in his hands.

“Pistolesi. How's it going down in the spaces?”

“Shitty, sir. Nobody likes not getting paid.”

“Not getting paid? That's the first I've heard of it. You sure of that?”

“We checked our accounts at an ATM when we went ashore yesterday.”

“I'll have Mr. Zabounian look into it. Now, how about last night? I heard you hit a cop.”

“These little assholes ain't going to tell me what to do. I threw a cigarette butt in a ash can. Only I missed by a couple feet. And then they started hassling me.”

“You were warned what kind of place Singapore was. What I heard was that you fit the profile of a drug trafficker.”

“Sir, to them that means I needed a haircut. Anyway, everybody there was chewing gum and smoking and spitting. These little prick cops, they pick on me because I'm white—”

“All I want to know is two things. One: did the exec pull your liberty?”

“Yessir, but if he thinks he can—”

“Two: Are you staying aboard tonight, in compliance with that order?”

“No fucking way. I ain't going to—”

“Then I'm confining you until we get under way again.” Dan crossed to the door and jerked it open. Chief Mellows filled the corridor, beefy arms crossed, handcuffs glittering on his belt. His two assistants stood behind him. “Marsh, take him down to the supply office.”

“You got it, sir. Let's go, Pistol. You and me got a date with Mr. Zabounian, see if he's got an empty stores cage.”

Pistolesi looked surprised. “Wait a minute. You got to give me a hearing—”

“That was it. But I didn't hear what I wanted to hear.”

“You oughta think about this, Captain. There's other people aboard you and Godzilla Boy here need to keep your eye on. Not me.”

“What's that mean, Pistolesi?”

The fireman hesitated. Finally he muttered, “Nothing.”

“Let's go, man,” said Mellows, coming into the room. Dropping his arms, letting the other measure his chances. Dan waited.

Finally Pistolesi shook his head. “All right, you win, Chief. I stay aboard,” he said to Mellows. But his look at Dan as he left conveyed his defiance just as clearly as words could have.

*   *   *

THE boat crew was waiting when he got down to the quarterdeck, they were running behind schedule, and he had to skip calling Blair. The RHIB was open, unlike a gig, and that made it much wetter as it bounced across the choppy waters of the anchorage. That, combined with the dirt that had accumulated on it, made him wish for the old days. The crew steered between the rain patches as Dan, Doolan, and Colosimo clung to hand lines, discussing rebelting CIWS rounds for
Gaddis
's twenty-millimeters and trying not to wipe out their whites as the silhouette of a warship emerged from the anchored merchants.

He'd seen HMAS
Darwin
coming in, thought for a moment he was looking at a U.S. fast frigate. And in fact it had been built in Seattle, a Perry-class, just like the ship he'd lost in the Gulf. It felt creepy climbing a familiar-looking accommodation ladder, stepping aboard a familiar-looking quarterdeck, then saluting the Southern Cross. The Aussies were welcoming, though. He and Doolan constructed a deal with the captain whereby
Gaddis
traded away most of her helicopter support spares for enough 20mm and 50-caliber ammunition that Dan felt comfortable in a small-craft board-and-search situation. The 20mm was uranium-cored, not explosive, but it would go through an engine block without stopping, and he felt much better getting it aboard.

He put his name on the unfamiliar supply documentation with the same uneasy feeling he'd had endorsing a rubber check to Mr. See. The words
inspector general
and
audit
did not figure well in any fitness report. He wasn't happy with the way things were going with the crew, either. The problems with pay and funding and communications … He shook the sense of impending doom off as he said his farewells. He had a presail conference to attend.

*   *   *

THE lofty lobby of the Singapore Hyatt, with Doolan and Colosimo trailing Dan in out of the rain. He stopped to strip off his rain gear, noting a sign announcing that the International Maritime Organization meeting was in the Sir Henry Keppel Room.

Then his ear played back the last sentence that had come over the television, and he wheeled to stare at the screen as a still of a pretty Asian girl came up, apparently a snapshot, because it was blurry and a little off-color.

“… The latest news from Television Corporation of Singapore.

“Authorities today report the body found last night was that of Ms. Nguyen Minh Dung, a Vietnamese immigrant who had been employed as a waitress in an establishment on Stamford Road. Ms. Dung was last seen in the company of several of her friends. Authorities are disturbed at the condition of the body. The murderer obviously had spent some time with the victim before leaving the scene of the crime. The investigation is proceeding, but pending its resolution females are warned not to proceed alone after dark in the China Town area.

“A major traffic pileup on the Pan Island Expressway this morning. A live report from our traffic correspondent…”

He stood watching the program for a moment more. Remembering a murder in Philadelphia, another in Staten Island, recalling the faxed face of an Azorean woman.

Could it be that this horror was following
Gaddis
from port to port, halfway around the world? And if it was, mightn't that mean—

“You OK, sir?”

“Yeah … yeah.” He shook himself back into the moment. “Come on; let's find this thing.”

Two military policemen stood guard in British-style uniforms, revolvers on their hips, just outside the meeting room. One examined Dan's ID, then waved them in. As the doors closed, Colosimo did a quick scan of the group around the continental breakfast, then tapped his shoulder. “Sir, a couple of folks you ought to meet.”

A diminutive, leathery-faced character in a civilian suit looked up from a Danish. “U.S. Navy?” he said, examining Dan's uniform.

“That's correct, sir.
Oliver C. Gaddis
.” They shook hands.

“Admiral Suriadiredja, Republic of Indonesia Navy. Pleased to meet you, Captain Gaddis. I will be very glad to have you with our force.”

Before Dan had time to straighten that one out, Colosimo introduced him to the Singaporean armed forces chief of staff. Then someone tapped on a water glass. The three Americans followed other officers in varied uniforms to seats. At the head of the table a slim, fortyish Chinese woman was dressed very soberly in a suit coat with felted lapels and a matching skirt. In a voice combining Mandarin and Oxbridge, she called the meeting to order.

“Good morning. General Lee, Minister Tong, Admiral Suriadiredja, other distinguished officers, jurists, ministers, businessmen, and guests. I am Dr. S. Mei Guo, from the International Maritime Bureau, London. To open this morning, I would like to share with you several case histories.

“The first concerns a ship called the
Maria Katogiritis
, Cypriot flag, Greek owner, Serbian captain, and a mixed crew. She loaded sugar in Hawaii for transport to India. As she crossed the China Sea headed west, she was boarded by pirates in balaclava helmets. They boarded from a fast boat after shooting up the radio room. They took all jewelry, money, and watches and locked the crew below.

“When the crew was permitted topside once more, three days later, they found themselves off the coast of Vietnam. The pirates forced them overboard, onto two painter's floats, without food or water. They then fired automatic weapons over their heads, to encourage them to paddle off. One float promptly overturned in the shark-infested water. The captain and first mate were not seen again after that. Those men on the other float were picked up four days later by fishermen from Hong Kong, but only three members of the crew survived.

“The vessel next surfaced in Bei Hei, China, as the
Corral Sea
. Note the misspelling. Her cargo manifest showed 250,000 bags of ‘grade A sugar,' although sugar is not graded. A year later, the ship is still at anchor in Bei Hei, the cargo has disappeared, and no action has been taken as far as charging those responsible.

“Another example. On June 11 of last year, MV
Kaituren
sailed from Singapore en route to Osaka with general cargo, including lubricants, bonded goods, and chill stores. She was apparently hijacked east of the Paracels, getting off a fragmentary message before the radio shut down. The owner chartered a small plane to search for it. The aircraft found the
Kaituren
off Hainan Island, alongside a ship resembling a destroyer. The ship has not been heard from since, nor have any of the crew been found. A protest was lodged with the Chinese government, which after three months denied any knowledge of her whereabouts or any involvement in her capture.

“This is a disturbing trend. Ships are disappearing into mainland China with alarming frequency. The cargo vanishes—either confiscated, under a pretext of ‘smuggling,' or else simply vanishing. The ships are either sold back to the owner for cash or else used as transports for illegal immigration—we have reports of several either sinking en route or being intercepted. The IMO is now gathering facts in order to make a representation to the UN and to the Chinese government.”

Dan noticed concern taking the faces of the men around him. They were of different nationalities, wore different uniforms, but they were all seamen.

“The previous examples have all been commercial ships. I would also like to point out a continuing pattern of attacks on small craft in the Gulf of Thailand and the western reaches of the South China Sea, where a nearly continuous flow of refugees attempt to escape conditions in Vietnam. These craft set out overloaded and are usually barely seaworthy to begin with. They are nearly always intercepted by members of a swarm of part-time pirates, part-time fishermen. The typical
modus operandi
is to approach them offering assistance, then threaten them with firearms, board, and begin looting. The engine is removed or stripped of useful parts. The looters strip the boat of personal belongings, fuel, water, and food. They then force the younger women and girls into the fishing craft, where they are repeatedly raped, often mutilated, and then thrown overboard. Upon the looters' leaving, hand grenades are thrown into the derelict, to remove all possibility of witnesses.

“A final example, closer to home for our Singaporean hosts. The night before last, the MV
Grand Gedeh
, laden with 150,000 tons of liquid petroleum gas from Algeria bound to Korea, was boarded by unidentified men in the eastern end of the Strait of Malacca. We still do not have a complete report, but apparently four crewmen were killed with machetes during the robbery. The ship made a complete turn in the strait, causing a major disruption in east–west shipping before the pirates departed and the crew succeeded in regaining control.”

Dr. Guo turned to a screen and put several slides up showing false manifests, forged registries, and altered documentation; rusty, dinged-up “phantom ships” with hastily painted-over names and home ports; dejected, ragged men sitting glumly in what looked like a zoo cage.

“The problem of piracy is not a new one. Historically, it wanes in periods when one power or combination of powers controls the sea and returns when a power vacuum develops. It is also entwined with other criminal or social manifestations; an increasing tendency for cargo to disappear en route, not always without the knowledge of the shipowner; political and economic refugee movements; and the rise of warlordism and separatism in countries passing through phases of weak central government.

“In opening this conference, let me leave you with this thought. This is not the age of sailing ships, when remote islands could serve as havens. All modern pirates are based ultimately on land. That means someone has jurisdiction over them and, if they continue to operate, that ‘someone' must be benefiting in some way from their actions.

“Pirates are rational actors but not moral actors. The core of their activity, as it is of all criminal activity, is to reap benefits themselves while externalizing the costs to others. It's up to us, the maritime community, to ensure piracy is not tolerated. Otherwise, we will continue to pay the price. For example, four years ago the Lykes Lines reported several assaults by pirates off Taiwan. The Taiwanese government sent out fast patrol boats, and the piracy stopped.

“It will never be possible to sweep all pirate operations from the sea forever. Maritime history since Pompey the Great tells us this. The most we can do is apply a deterrent to ensure the continued flow of vital commerce.

“The nations bordering the China Sea pride themselves on emerging from colonialism. More recently, the withdrawal of Russian and, consequently, of most American interest in this area of the world has also reduced the military presence that formerly restrained criminal activity at sea. Unfortunately, the vacuum has not been filled by local law enforcement authorities.