Code of Honor

12

The seventy-meter yacht Torea made an honest fourteen knots under sail. She was heading east, ten miles out of Auckland, on a beam reach with full sails and a bone in her teeth. A tall Asian man with a strong jaw was at the five-foot wooden wheel on the teak of the open foredeck, just forward of a set of large windows. A lively party spilled from the main lounge behind those windows and onto the main deck. A stiff wind tousled the man’s salt-and-pepper hair. Facing away from the sun, he’d hung a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses from the V of his dark blue polo shirt. He wore khaki slacks and Sperry Top-Siders, and would have looked like one of the crew but for the fact that two members of the actual crew, Captain Carey Winterflood and his first officer, both formerly of the Australian Navy, stood at his side in spotless summer whites, explaining the complicated computer navigation and systems used to steer the boat.

As far as the first officer knew, the man wasn’t any sort of notable. He was of Asian descent but carried himself like an American, standing like a derrick with his legs a little more than shoulder width apart. He didn’t look like the Hollywood type — too real for that. Probably some grand pooh-bah from a company the first officer had never heard of. As Winterflood’s friend, he’d been given the mate’s rate, i.e., a free trip by order of the captain. Much to the first officer’s chagrin, the man at the wheel looked as if he was paying no attention at all to the briefing, gawking instead at the forwardmost mast and rigging, as if he’d never seen a foresail before. Worse yet, the captain had turned over control of the boat. Torea was a finicky thing, and it was all too easy to be taken aback without warning, causing the sails to swing wildly. It wasn’t so much dangerous as it was unprofessional, and certainly unseamanlike. The captain knew better. Why the hell was he trusting this novice?

Winterflood, a man with a silver crew cut and perpetually mischievous smile, gave his first officer a wink, then spoke to the man at the wheel. His Australian accent rolled out on a resonant baritone voice.

“What do you think?”

The man shrugged. “She handles well,” he said, still ignoring the computer screens that were set starboard of the wheel.

Behind Torea, the sun was two hours from setting over the city of Auckland, dazzling the indigo water. The high decks made it difficult to see the surface next to the vessel, but someone with good eyes could look out and catch periodic glimpses of flying fish, their pectoral fins jutting out like wings as they sailed across the waves. Gawky frigate birds, done with a day of hunting, winged toward land. Golden plover—torea in the Maori language and the namesake of the vessel — passed periodically, winging north on their eight-thousand-mile migration to Canada or Alaska. These were land birds, flying across oceans but never landing on them. It was the golden plover that had inspired early Polynesians to board their double-hulled canoes and sail north when they saw the birds flying that direction every year and then return some five months later. They needed land, so if they flew north then there had to be land there.

If the definition of ship was a boat that was large enough to carry other boats, this three-masted schooner more than qualified. At seventy meters from bowsprit to stern pulpit, with a beam of more than thirty feet, the sailing ship was longer than the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María set together bow to stern. She had a helipad and a fiberglass runabout capable of launching a parasail, and two sixteen-foot rigid-hull inflatable Zodiacs for taking passengers to and from port, should she have to anchor offshore. She carried a crew of eighteen, including a chef who had only recently been a teacher at Le Cordon Bleu, the world-renowned French culinary school. Her owner, billionaire software developer, race car driver, pilot, and scuba diver Bill Rennie, kept the megayacht’s staterooms full of influential friends and acquaintances, even when he wasn’t aboard. He was particularly fond of Polynesia, and the ship spent most of her time cruising among Tahiti, the northern Cook Islands, the Marquesas, Tonga, and Fiji, heading north to Hawaii at least twice a year. Politicians from the U.S. and Rennie’s native Canada, along with Hollywood notables and professional athletes, made frequent visits during Torea’s many voyages.

The five-hour shakedown cruise from Waitematā Harbor after a major engine overhaul in the Auckland boatyards was as good a reason as any for a party. More than fifty guests milled and chatted around the decks and lounges, drinking Bill Rennie’s alcohol and absorbing the ambiance of his yacht. Most of them pretended they were oh-so-used to this kind of luxury that it was nothing to them.

Captain Winterflood stepped forward and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I think you’ve got this,” he said. “I’m going to step inside for a cup of Earl Grey. Want anything?”

“I’m good,” the man said, both hands on the wheel. He glanced up at the sails, adjusting course a hair — all without looking at any instrument but the compass mounted on the pedestal at the wheel.

The first officer gasped. “Captain—”

Winterflood waved him off. “He’ll be fine,” he said, and strode aft toward the main saloon in search of his tea.

The first officer took a half-step closer, watching the man in earnest now, ready to spring into action the moment some terrible mistake put the ship in jeopardy. It didn’t take long to realize that though this man glanced periodically at the computer, he was indeed relying on more basic instruments. The arrow windex mounted high on the foremast gave him wind direction. Footlong lengths of light cordage — telltales affixed to the leading edge of the sails — let him know when the ship was trimmed correctly, streaming horizontally if he was in the zone, but sagging or rising if he turned in too tight, or fell too far off the wind.

Mistakes took a while to show up on Torea, but once they happened, events unfolded quickly. She was not a particularly easy vessel to sail if one was not accustomed to her fickle ways, but this guy was, as they said down under, right-as.

“You must spend a good deal of time on the water,” the first officer said, relaxing a notch.

The man tossed a casual glance over his shoulder. “A bit,” he said. “Though rarely on anything this small.”

Winterflood strode up a moment later, a ceramic mug of what was presumably tea in one hand and a Bacardi and Coke in the other. He gave the tumbler to his friend. “Best give us back the helm before young Jaret has a stroke.” The skipper punched a code into the instrument panel to the left of the wheel, engaging the autopilot.

“Jaret,” Winterflood said. “I’d like you to meet Admiral Peter Li of the United States Navy. We sailed together as part of the Joint Antipiracy Task Force 150 off the Somali coast… too many years ago.”

“Admiral,” the first officer said, stepping forward to shake the offered hand.

“Retired,” Li said. “In the private sector now. Please call me Peter.”

Jaret gave a nervous chuckle. “That’s not going to happen… Admiral.”

Li took a sip of his Bacardi and Coke, smelling the sea over the top of his glass. Rum, he thought, was best when consumed near salt water. It put him in mind of sea captains of old, sampling the wares of the rum trade.

Winterflood handed the mug to his first officer. “This is for you.” He turned to Li. “Speaking of your private-sector job, there’s a saucy brunette at the bar who wants to meet you. Says she’s from some online rag I can’t recall. Fiona something. Dundee or Dunford, something like that. I only spoke with her for a moment, but she’s quite engaging. Been around the world so many times, she’s got more culture than a month-old mango. She must have written books, because she’s wearing a silk frock that probably costs more than I make in a month. All the reporters I ever met looked like they got their clothes from the rubbish bin behind a thrift shop.”

Li chuckled. He’d always enjoyed listening to Winterflood’s Aussie accent and colorful turns of phrase.

“I’m not interested in meeting women,” Li said. “Or talking about my work.”

“Too late, mate,” Winterflood said, glancing toward the port-side door to the main saloon.

The skipper had been right. Saucy might have been a sexist term, but it was a good descriptor of this woman. She slinked as much as she walked, giving the impression to anyone looking that she was dancing her way to wherever she happened to be going. The yellow silk sundress clung alluringly to the dips and swells of her body, falling off her right shoulder to expose exquisitely tanned collarbones. The sea breeze had freshened significantly, making the dress not quite enough to keep her warm. Li imagined that would be no problem. Not for long, anyway. Some poor schmuck would offer her a coat. She was the kind of woman that oozed sexuality from every curvaceous pore, the kind who gave the impression she was naked even when fully clothed — the kind who made wives angry.

Her face brightened when she caught Li’s eye.

“Out warning him I’m on the hunt, are you?” she said to Winterflood, the r’s lost in her New Zealand accent. The clingy silk dress left little to the imagination, forcing both men to focus on her eyes or risk getting caught looking somewhere else.

“Not at all, ma’am,” the captain said. “We were, in fact, just talking about you.”

“Yes,” she said, sounding more like yis. She stuck out her hand. There was a gold ring on the thumb, and an AppleWatch with a white leather strap, but no other jewelry that Li could see. “Fiona Dunfee,” she said. “Auckland Mirror. Did the captain tell you what I wanted?”

“We hadn’t gotten there yet,” Li said.

“Might we sit down?” Ms. Dunfee lifted the hem of her dress more than she needed to, drawing his attention to her calves. The white leather of her sandals stood out in stark contrast to bronze legs and bright red toenails. “I wore the wrong shoes for this. My feet are killing me.”

Li motioned toward a large round sun lounge between the wheel and the saloon. A canvas cover blocked the view from party guests who milled on the other side of the windows, but the front was open to the helm.

“I don’t want to whinge,” Ms. Dunfee said. “But I was thinking out of the wind. Maybe someplace more private… where you’d feel free to talk.”

“And just what is it you want to talk about?”

“You, Dr. Li,” she said, as if it were obvious. He didn’t follow, so she gave up going inside and sat on the lounge, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She looked up at him, batting her eyes. “The work you’re doing. Sources tell me it’s cutting-edge communications tech. The so-called Internet of Things — you know, the future of mankind. That kind of stuff. I don’t want you to talk about anything top-secret, of course — unless you want to, which I’d be fine with — but anything you could give me that could be open-source.” She patted the cushion beside her, beckoning him to sit down.

He remained standing. “A lot of top-secret stuff is open-source, if you know where to look.”

“True.” She made like she was pulling up the shoulder of her dress, but ended up toying with it for a moment and leaving it where it was, low, cutting a diagonal line from the bottom of her deltoid across the swell of her breast. “My source says your team has developed some remarkable communications systems between Wi-Fi-compatible devices.”

“If that is true,” Li said, “your source is telling you a lot more than I ever would. Who is it you’re talking to, exactly?”

“Nice try, Dr. Li,” Ms. Dunfee said, eyes sparkling in the sunlight as she looked him up and down. A stray lock of dark hair blew across her face. She left it there, as if she’d planned it that way all along. Her lips blossomed into a pout, which, in her case, was even more alluring than the smile. “How about you give me something on background so I can corroborate the things I already know?”

“Afraid not,” Li said, hackles up. She could very well be a journalist in search of a scoop, but she could also be working for the endless list of foreign intelligence services pecking away at the United States — China, Russia, North Korea, Iran… Hell, even Israel wouldn’t let a little thing like friendship get in the way of spying to learn what Li knew.

“Come on…” the woman whined — whinging, she called it — then suddenly brightened as if a novel idea had just popped into her head. “I can make it worth your while.”

Li laughed out loud at the audacity of that. “Are you actually offering me money?”

“I can pay,” Ms. Dunfee said. She was leaning back now, on both arms, knees swaying under the thin silk. “But it doesn’t have to be money.”

“Let me ask you something,” Li said.

“Yay, dialogue.” She clapped her hands. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

“Does this ever work?”

Dunfee raised a wary brow. “Does what work?”

“The Betty Boop shtick,” Li said. “I mean, I’m as red-blooded as the next guy, but I’m also smart enough to know I’m a little old for you.”

Dunfee shrugged, sticking out her bottom lip and tilting her head to look at him for a long moment. At length, she said, “You know what they say, sixty percent of the time, it works every time.”

“It’s been interesting talking to you, Ms. Dunfee,” Li said.

“Fiona, please,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not in a million years.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

A whole load of heartache and a case of the clap, Li thought. He said, “Oh, I’m sure I do. Good evening to you, Ms. Dunfee.” He turned to rejoin Winterflood at the helm.

He’s not interested,” Fiona Dunfee whispered to the Asian man beside her at the fantail bar twenty minutes later.

“Maybe you’re losing your touch,” the man said. He was a member of the Chinese delegation to New Zealand, an economic adviser on paper. Off paper, he was an undeclared intelligence officer. The shoulder of Fiona’s yellow sundress was up now, still indecent, but not deliberately so.

“Come on,” she said. “Would you say no if I offered myself to you?”

The man looked around at the other guests milling on the deck, then leaned in shoulder to shoulder. “Are you offering?”

She didn’t answer, taking a long drink of vodka instead.

The man sat up straight again, apparently abandoning the idea of a fling. “Perhaps you came on a little too strong?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” She lit a cigarette and watched the smoke blow away on the wind. “That one is an oak. He’s an old man, but he has the look of a newlywed in his eyes.”

“Very well,” her handler said, his voice far away. “I do not trust our other option. That person is, what is the word you use… odd… weird…?”

Elbows on the bar, Fiona turned just her head to stare at him. “Flaky?”

“That’s it,” the Chinese man said. “We will have to use the flaky asset, though this way would have been much cleaner.”

Fiona laughed out loud, swirling the ice in her glass. “You think photos of this geezer naked on top of me would be clean?”

“I said cleaner.” Her handler shrugged. “The other way will surely be messy, especially for Dr. Li.”

“I hope so,” Fiona muttered into her glass. “I don’t trust a man who won’t look at my tits.”