Hong Kong

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Callie Grafton awoke with a start. She had been dozing, lost in despair, and suddenly she knew. The knowledge brought her wide awake. She sat up in her bunk.

“He’s coming for me,” she said to Wu, who was also awake. She said it first in English, then had to translate.

“Who is?” Wu asked.

“My husband. He is coming. I know it.”

Wu didn’t believe her, of course, but he had grown to like this strange American woman and her delicious accent.

“Us. He’s coming for us.” The faux pas of excluding Wu occurred to her now, and automatically she spoke again, correcting her error.

“How do you know he is coming?”

“I just know.” She searched for words. “I can feel it. I can feel his presence, the fact that he is thinking of me, the fact that he is coming.”

“Soon?”

“I do not know.”

“Tell me of your husband,” Wu said, to humor her.

Callie looked at him sharply. “You don’t believe me and I don’t expect you to, because I wouldn’t if I were you. But Jake is coming. Perhaps I know it because I know the man.”

She wrapped her arms around her legs. “All this time I have been worried because I didn’t have an escape plan. Ha! I’ve got Jake Grafton.”

“The knight in shining armor,” Wu said.

“Laugh if you like. He’ll come.”

She was still sitting like that when they heard someone outside the door, then a key in the lock. Two men entered with weapons drawn.

“Come with us, Wu. Time to do some more work on your confession.”

They handcuffed his hands behind him and took him away.

Two minutes later the key turned again.

The Russian, Yuri Daniel, stood in the open doorway looking at her. “You too, Mrs. Grafton. Your statement is ready to sign.”

“I gave no statement.”

“That wasn’t a problem. I wrote it for you. Come.”

Since he knew where he was going this time, the helicopter pilot kept the Bell JetRanger low, just above the water. He weaved around several junks and a fishing boat, then flew parallel to the coast for several miles. When he was on the extended centerline of the pier that held the China Rose and Barbary Coast, he turned for it.

“Wind’s out of the north, a bit east,” the pilot told Jake. “I’ll land into the wind on the helo pad on the Coast.”

“Yeah.”

“Guns in or out?” Carmellini wanted to know.

“In the bags, I think. Don’t want to scare ‘em to death. But be ready, just in case.”

The pilot kept the chopper so low that he actually had to climb to land on the Barbary Coast. A night landing on a tiny platform on a small ship, even one tied to a pier, was certainly not routine. The pilot’s expertise was obvious.

As the helicopter settled onto its skids, Jake was looking across the pier at the China Rose. A few lights were on: on the bridge, over the gangway, and in a few of the portholes. The main salon aft was dark.

Safely on deck, the helicopter pilot shut down his engine. Jake and Carmellini got out, bags in hand.

Just in time to meet a man coming out the hatch from the bridge. He was about Jake’s age, tan and graying.

“My name is Jake Grafton. Virgil Cole said you wouldn’t mind if we landed on your boat.”

When he heard Cole’s name, the man extended his hand. “Name’s Schoenauer. How long you going to be with us, Mr. Grafton?”

“Not long, I hope. Let’s get off this weather deck and I’ll explain.”

Nikko Schoenauer led them to the bridge. He poured them coffee while Jake talked. Carmellini went straight to the pier-side corner of the bridge and stood looking at China Rose through binoculars.

“Sonny Wong is rather a nefarious character, but this is the first time I’ve heard he indulged in kidnapping.”

“I heard him ask for the ransom, so there is no doubt he’s in it.”

“I believe you, Mr. Grafton.”

“It’s Admiral Grafton,” Carmellini said without turning around. “I’m just the civilian help.”

Jake reached into his bag for the silenced submachine gun. “We’re going over to get my wife back, if she’s there. If it goes well, we’ll return and ride the chopper off the pier. If it doesn’t, friend Wong may pay you a visit.”

“Hmm,” Schoenauer said, looking at the submachine gun.

“If you have any weapons aboard, you might want to dig them out.”

“Well, we do keep some old AKs, just in case we run into pirates. Pay off customs with a few bucks and they let us by. They know me, of course.”

“Say, would you have any Vaseline and shoe polish around? Black shoe polish.”

“I buy Vaseline by the quart. Shoe polish is another thing entirely — these days everyone wears tennis shoes — but I’ll check.”

While Schoenauer was gone the lights went out on Barbary Coast, China Rose, and the pier. In fact, the lights went off all along the waterfront.

Jake and Tommy got out their night-vision goggles and studied the Rose. “They had an electric eye rigged at the top of the gangway. Probably have a pressure pad too, so an alarm rings somewhere when you step on it. They’re off until someone starts a generator.”

“How many guys do you think?”

“I saw two before the lights went out. One was on the bridge. One walked along the main deck.”

“I’d bet my pension there’re more than two.”

“Probably closer to twenty.”

“Can we get aboard without using the gangway?”

“How about that stern mooring rope? It’s in shadow. That’ll be about it from the pier.”

“Okay.”

“I got this creepy feeling,” Carmellini said, “that those sons of bitches know we’re coming.”

“Maybe. Just shoot first and it won’t matter.”

Schoenauer returned with two women. Jake couldn’t tell much about them in the dark, but they were definitely Americans. He also had Vaseline and shoe polish. Jake smeared Vaseline over his face, neck, and hands, then applied the black shoe polish.

“Jake Grafton,” one woman said as he smeared away. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Virgil told me about you. He said you were his very best friend on this earth.”

Jake didn’t know quite how to respond to that. “I’m sure he was just being polite.”

“Oh, he didn’t mean that he was your best friend, but that you were his, if that makes sense. He said you saved his life once.”

“Long ago,” Jake muttered, more than a little embarrassed.

“He said that Jake Grafton was the one man on this earth he would trust always to do the right thing, regardless of the stakes or the consequences.”

Cole said all that? The crazy bastard!

“Hurry up,” Jake urged Carmellini, who was also smearing himself with shoe polish. “They’ll start an engine or generator to get power while we’re standing here socializing.”

As they were leaving, Carmellini asked Schoenauer, “You got an address or something where I can write to you?”

“Got a Web site,” Schoenauer replied and told him the name.

“When I get some time off…”

They paused under a sheltered overhang on the main deck and used the night-vision goggles to check out China Rose. The small ship was dark, without a single light. Not even a battle lantern on the bridge. And no one was visible.

Due to the widespread power outage, only a glow of light from the sky enlivened the darkness.

“What if your wife isn’t aboard?” Carmellini asked.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Jake said, trying not to panic. The CIA officer had hit squarely on the problem.

If she wasn’t there, they would probably kill her unless he got to her quickly. And how would he ever find her in this city?

“So what do you want to do?” Carmellini asked.

“What I’d like to do is march straight across the pier and up the gangway and shoot anyone we meet, just go right on through them.”

“Well, hell, why not?”

“Because we don’t know where they are holding Callie or Wu, and Sonny Wong just might have someone guarding them with orders to kill them at the first sign of a commotion.”

“Double ditto for Wu,” Carmellini remarked. “Okay, what’s your second option?”

“Walk down the gangway, turn right, go aft to their stern line, and up it. I’ll climb it while you watch, then I’ll watch while you climb. How’s that?”

“I’ll go first up the rope,” Carmellini said. “I don’t know what they told you about me, but sneaking around is my thing. I’m a burglar by trade.”

“How in the world did you get in the CIA?”

“It was the CIA or prison. I’ll tell you all about it sometime over a beer.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said, and led the way down the gangway.

They walked along the pier, in no apparent haste, their weapons in bags over their shoulders. This was the most difficult part so far, Jake thought, as he willed his feet not to run.

When they reached the stern line bollard, Jake squatted behind it and donned the night-vision goggles. He saw no one on the Rose. Two people were visible on the bridge of the ship moored nose-to-stern of the Rose, but they didn’t seem to be looking this way.

“Go,” he whispered to Tommy Carmellini. The CIA officer already had the straps of his weapons bag over his shoulders, so he immediately crouched under the line, which was Manila hemp about three inches in diameter, and launched himself up it hand over hand. He kept his heels hooked over it behind him. In seconds he reached the rat guard, a platelike metal dish that surrounded the line and was supposed to constitute an insurmountable obstacle for rats trying to go up the line from the pier. Hanging on the line with one hand, Carmellini used the other to explore the catch that held the guard on the line, then release it. He dropped the guard in the water and continued up the line to the rail, grabbed it with both hands, swung a heel up, and clambered over.

Jake was taking his goggles off when the China Rose’s lights came on. The pier was still dark, as were the other ships. Someone had started an emergency generator, probably in the Rose’s engine room.

With the goggles back in the bag and the bag looped over his shoulders, Jake Grafton took a deep breath, then grabbed the line and swung out. As he suspected, the physical effort required was very high. Heart thudding, breathing like a racehorse, he was stymied by the rail and probably wouldn’t have gotten over it if Carmellini hadn’t grabbed him with hands like steel bands and literally lifted him over the rail onto the deck of the Rose. It was then Jake realized that Carmellini’s buff physique was indeed rock-solid muscle; the thought had just not occurred to him before.

“You take the port side, work your way forward to the bridge,” Jake whispered as they huddled out of sight under the rail. “I’ll find a way down. Meet me below.”

Carmellini’s head bobbed.

Jake removed the submachine gun from his bag, made sure it was cocked and ready, then took the safety off. He pulled another magazine from the bag and held it against the forearm of the gun with his left hand. Carmellini already had his weapon in his hands. Now he went forward along the port side of the ship.

The little ship seemed deathly quiet. Almost too much so. Jake listened intently and heard the faint sounds of television. At least it sounded like television — a male voice, racing along in the up-and-down lilt of Chinese, allowing no breaks for conversation. He slipped up to the salon entrance and put his ear against the bulkhead.

A slight vibration — perhaps the generator?

He went forward along the starboard rail, walking as quietly as he could.

The first hatch he came to was a ladder down. He could hear television coming up the ladderway.

He looked down as much as he could without sticking his head down the hole. There didn’t seem to be a passageway, so the ladder probably dropped right into a lounge of some kind. And that was where the people were.

Well, he could drop a grenade down the hole — he still had a couple the marines had given him — then go charging down after it went off, but everyone aboard would hear the explosion.

There had to be another way.

He walked on forward, looking for another ladder.

A lit cigarette arced out of the open bridge window toward the pier below. Tommy Carmellini saw it go and knew instantly what it was. The butt hit the concrete pier in a shower of tiny sparks.

He couldn’t see the man who had tossed it. No, wait! He was walking in front of the open door at the top of the ladder. Now he was gone, back toward the helm in the center of the bridge.

Carmellini moved forward, almost a dark shadow.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, silently.

You had to admit, this was living! Others could have the eight-hour days and houses in the suburbs; Carmellini liked living on the edge. He was certainly in his element now, although if he weren’t very careful he could end up a corpse. That didn’t worry him much. In fact, it added to die danger, so it added to the thrill.

He was thinking about the thrill when he got to the bridge ladder. He examined it for alarms, then experimentally put his weight on the lower step. Now the next.

The door at the top of the ladder was open, which Carmellini decided was a lucky break.

Or a trap.

He had had that feeling earlier, that they knew someone was coming. Was that just nerves?

Whatever, there was the open door, the dark bridge, and the man waiting up there.

He thought about sticking his head around the corner, then rejected that. If the man was expecting him, he would be in no position to shoot. He thought about jumping through the door, hoping he was faster on the draw. That option didn’t seem so great, either. If the man was waiting for him he was dead meat.

Ah, I’ve watched too many movies, read too many thrillers. These guys are smugglers, thugs.

He decided to go in the third way, the tried-and-true Tommy Carmellini special way. He would sneak in, glacially slow, his weapon at the ready. And shoot the smuggler dude when he got a shot.

Up the last step, ever so carefully, weight balanced, weapon in left hand, so the barrel went around the edge at the same instant the eye passed it…

There he was, by the navigator’s table on the far side, bent over something…

Slow as melting ice, Tommy Carmellini stepped onto the bridge, the gun leveled, his finger on the trigger. Carefully, purposefully, he scanned his eyes to ensure there was no one else on the bridge.

Just the one man.

Shoot him now or move closer?

Less chance to break a window with the bullets if I get closer.

Step… step…

Close enough. Sorry, pal!

He pulled the trigger. The gun coughed a short burst. Three shots in the lower back, to ensure he didn’t punch one through the bridge window, breaking glass.

The man half turned and fell. Carmellini stepped forward to shoot him again in the head to finish it.

Something smashed him across the arms, ripping the gun from his grasp. His arms were numb! He couldn’t feel his hands.

Another blow, this time across the back. The bag containing the night-vision goggles and spare ammo helped cushion the blow, but still he fell forward, sprawling on the deck. There was a room off the bridge, the captain’s cabin. This guy must have been there!

“That twit!” a man’s voice said conversationally. “I told him you’d be along sooner or later, and the fool wouldn’t listen.” The lights snapped on.

That voice…

“I heard about you, Carmellini. Harold Barnes told me.”

Carson Eisenberg.

Another mighty blow across the shoulders. A pipe or a baseball bat. Eisenberg smashed Tommy across the ribs, over the head, almost broke his arm when he raised it to protect himself.

Carson Eisenberg was going to kill him. He was going to beat him to death with the pipe.

“You… cost… me… my… life… fucker!” Eisenberg accented every word with a blow.

Tommy Carmellini fell to the floor, reached for the gun, but his hands were too numb to hold it.

Whack! “Bastard!”

Desperate, Carmellini lashed out with a foot. And caught Eisenberg on a knee.

The ex-CIA officer lost his balance, and the pipe made a metallic ring as it struck something.

The knife! Carmellini realized he had it on his belt! Could he hold it with his numb hands?

He forced his right hand to curl around the handle. He got it out of the scabbard. And lost it.

Eisenberg was trying to scramble up from the deck. Carmellini kicked him again, this time with more force behind it. And again. Now Carmellini levered himself erect and aimed a kick at the man’s chin.

He caught Eisenberg with his head coming forward and bobbing down as he prepared to shift his weight aft, over his legs. Eisenberg’s head snapped back from the force of the kick. He went over backward and lay still.

Sobbing, Carmellini sank to his knees. His hands… he kneaded one with the other, felt along the forearms where the pipe had struck him. It was a miracle bones weren’t broken. His shoulders, ribs, on fire… Eisenberg had given him a hell of a beating.

Can’t stay here … Gotta get the gun, get the knife, move on. To stay here is to die. Can’t stay, can’t stay, can’t stay.…

He got the gun in both hands, checked it over as well as he could, then picked up the knife.

His forearms felt like they were broken, but they weren’t.

Carson Eisenberg lay absolutely still, the back of his head touching his spine, his eyes open wide.

Carmellini wiped his eyes on his sleeve, smearing shoe polish, Vaseline, and blood, and staggered to the bridge door.

There was a light switch on the bulkhead, and he snapped it off. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the gloom before he stuck his head around the bulkhead and looked at the deck below.

Empty.

Where was Grafton?

The blood flowing from Kerry Kent’s smashed nose gradually slowed to a drip. Her shirt and jeans were covered with it. She was thinking of all the things she would like to do to Jake Grafton when the door opened and one of the Chinese York controllers stuck his head in. He looked the situation over, then stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.

She tried to talk, but all she got past the tape were grunts.

The man squatted in front of her and ripped the tape from her mouth. She almost screamed.

“Wow,” the man said, staring at her nose and the blood.

“Cut me loose, goddamn it. Hurry.”

As the controller slashed with a penknife at the tape that held her to the chair, she demanded, “Where in hell have you been? Why did you leave me sitting here bleeding?”

“Cole just stepped out to the porta-potty. He’s been in front of the monitors continuously.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“In my pocket.”

“Hurry. Before he decides to ask more questions.”

The controller jerked the tape away in great wads. Everywhere it touched her skin it tore the tiny hairs out. She bit her lip until it bled.

“What did you tell them?” the controller asked.

“Nothing. I told them nothing. They knew a lot without a word from me.”

When the last of the tape came clear, she stood. There was not a rag in the room, nothing made of cloth. She pulled off her shirt and used it to wipe the worst of the blood from her face, then threw it on the floor.

“Give me the gun.” She held out a bloodstained hand.

The controller passed it over. It was a 9-millimeter automatic, a fairly small one.

Kent checked the chamber to ensure it had a cartridge in it, then let the slide close. She pointed it up and thumbed off the safety.

“We’re leaving,” she said and jerked open the door.

Cole had just reentered the trailer and was standing ten feet away in front of the master York console when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the office door fly open and Kerry Kent come boiling out. When he saw she had a pistol he dove behind the only desk in the place, so Kent’s shot at him missed.

She knew that everyone in the place was armed. A shootout in here could end only one way, and Kerry Kent had no intention of dying for anybody’s cause except her own. She ran. As she charged past the York control equipment she snapped off a shot into the main monitor and saw glass shatter, then she was flying out the door as fast as her legs would take her, the controller right behind.

One of the guards with an assault rifle tried to block her exit. She shot him in the chest and ran into the crowd before anyone else could get off a shot.

The main ladder to the belowdeck spaces in China Rose was in a thwartship passageway abeam the gangway. It was more of a staircase than a ladder. Jake Grafton eased himself down to the deck and looked as far as he could along the passageway. There were lights on down there and he could hear that television coming up the stairwell. It seemed to him probable that this passageway ran aft to the lounge where the television was located. Stateroom doors opened off both sides.

On the other side of the thwartship passageway was a closed hatch with a porthole in it. That probably was a ladder that led belowdeck to the crew’s quarters and engine room spaces.

Okay.

He stood, grasped the long handle that rotated the dogs of the forward hatch, and put pressure on it.

The dogs rotated and the hatch came loose, ready to open.

As carefully and quietly as he could, he opened it, took it to its full one hundred and eighty degrees of travel, and hooked it over the latch that held it open. Yes, there was a regular ladder down.

He listened.

Voices.

And he was going to have to go down this damn ladder feet first!

He grasped the submachine gun with sweaty hands.

Maybe he should do the other side first.

Come on, decide, goddamn it! Callie is on this boat and her life — and yours — is on the line.

Forward. Then aft.

He stepped in, put his right foot on the first rung of the ladder.

The good news was that he had climbed ships’ ladders all his adult life.

With his heart in his mouth, he went down as quickly as he could, swinging the gun barrel as he dropped below the overhead.

A short passageway with two doors off it, one port, one starboard, then another ladder down, and a door leading forward. He went to the open hatch and looked. Lights. Voices. The engine room spaces.

But first these compartments. Callie just might be in one of them.

The port door opened as he twisted the knob. A small stateroom, empty. The door to a tiny head stood open and he could see in. Also empty.

He tried the starboard door.

Locked.

He put the silencer right against the doorknob and pulled the trigger once. A ripping sound as the bullet smashed through the innards of the door lock.

He twisted the knob savagely, and it opened.

Another empty compartment. But wait!

The bunks were made up in this one.

He went back to the port compartment. Two messy bunks, wadded-up blankets… blood!

Had they held Callie here?

The door leading forward, this had to lead to the owner’s stateroom. Please God, let Sonny Wong be there right this very second.

Grafton put his ear to the door and heard nothing.

Now he turned the doorknob.

Locked.

He used the gun on the lock. Instead of one shot, he accidentally triggered three.

This was the master stateroom, all right, complete with four portholes — two on each side of the ship — a king-sized bed, and Jacuzzi, but the stateroom and adjoining bathroom were empty.

Goddamn these sons of bitches.

He sensed that time was running out.

Hurrying, he descended the waiting ladder into the engine room.

Two men were fifteen feet aft, and they turned their heads as he came down the ladder. He hosed half a magazine at them, dropping them both.

Turning, going forward, hustling along, through a door into the accessories compartment.

Empty!

Aft again, running, checking for people…

There were another two men working on something on a workbench between the large diesel engines in the extreme after end of the ship. They saw him running toward them between the fuel tanks. One dove sideways to cover and the other pulled a pistol.

Jake managed to drop the gunman before he pulled the trigger.

A burst of Chinese came from the alcove where the other man had taken shelter.

Grafton didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t leave people alive behind him, or he and Callie and Wu and Carmellini would not leave this ship alive. He squirted a burst into the alcove as he ran by, then stopped and fired again, emptying the magazine in the gun.

Changing the magazine, he stalked forward, back through the engine room, past the bodies of the first two men he had killed. Even though he didn’t want to, he looked to ensure they were dead. His stomach churned as if he were going to vomit.

Up the ladder he went, gun at the ready.

Jake Grafton saw the shadowy figure in the thwartship passageway as he climbed the ladder and almost shot him. At the last second he realized he was looking at Carmellini, who was swaying as if he were drunk.

“What happened?”

“Ran into an old colleague. He damn near killed me.”

Blood was running down Carmellini’s blackened face from a cut on his scalp.

“I’ve been forward and into the engineering spaces,” Jake whispered. “Callie has got to be aft, down this staircase.”

Carmellini wiped at the blood flowing from his scalp, then used a bloody hand against a bulkhead to steady himself. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

They descended the staircase together. The passageway at the bottom led aft to a swinging door, two actually, hinged on each side, with windows in each. There were doors — probably to staterooms or storage compartments — on each side of the passageway.

Motioning for Carmellini to hold his position, Jake walked the length of the passageway and peered through the window. He was looking into the dining facility. Four men sat there over bowls of Chinese food, smoking and watching a television mounted high in one corner. Beside Jake was a door to a refrigerated compartment. On the aft end of the dining hall was the door to the galley.

She had to be in one of these rooms off this passageway. Jake turned, went to the first stateroom door, and put his ear to it.

Nothing.

Voices at the next one, speaking in Chinese, it sounded like.

The next one nothing.

Carmellini motioned to him. He was checking the starboard doors. He was pointing to one. He came to Jake, whispered right in his ear. “English, a woman’s voice.”

“Chinese in this one,” Jake said and pointed.

He went to the door Carmellini pointed out, and Carmellini took the door with the Chinese speaker. They looked at each other, then both turned the knobs at the same time and opened the doors.

The first thing Jake saw was Callie, facing him across a table. A man sat facing her with his back to the door. Otherwise the room was empty.

He couldn’t shoot the man in the back because he might hit Callie.

The look on her face galvanized Yuri Daniel into action. He rose, spinning, reaching for a pistol in his belt, all at the same time. And found himself staring into Jake Grafton’s face.

The Russian got the pistol clear of his belt when a burst from the submachine gun caught him under his chin and knocked him backward. Another burst, this time full in the chest, caused Yuri Daniel to collapse across the table.

“Oh, Jake, thank God! They have Wu in the—”

He had her then, jerking her through the door into the passageway, in time to see Tommy Carmellini empty a magazine through the open doorway of his compartment.

Carmellini charged through the doorway. Jake pushed Callie forward toward the staircase and ran aft, toward the dining hall, the gun leveled at his waist.

A glance through the door — three of the men were still watching television, though one was looking toward Jake. Perhaps he heard something.

Jake dug in his pocket, pulled out a grenade. He pulled the pin and let the lever fly off. He pushed the swinging door open a couple of inches and tossed the grenade.

The explosion made the doors swing on their hinges.

Then Jake stepped in and emptied the magazine at the men sprawled amid the tables.

As he changed magazines, the cook came running from the kitchen, shooting with a pistol.

The first shot thudded into the bulkhead as Jake was going down, the second hit a chair while he struggled to get the Colt .45 out of his shoulder holster.

Before the cook could fire a third shot, Tommy Carmellini killed him with a burst of submachine gun fire.

“Let’s go, Admiral,” he roared from the doorway. “We got ’em. Let’s get outta here.”

Jake finished changing magazines, then scrambled up. “Go, go, go!” he yelled.

Tommy Carmellini led the way with Callie and Wu right behind. Jake Grafton followed.

Jake called to Tommy, “Get them aboard the other ship and warm up the chopper. I’ll be right along.”

He ran up the nearest ladder to the topmost deck, above the salon, and went to the lifeboat, which had a canvas cover protecting it. Jake used his knife on the cover.

Sure enough, in the bottom of the boat was a can of gasoline that might contain two or three gallons. He shook it. Full, or nearly so.

Jake went to the hatch that led down to the engine room and emptied the gasoline can into the compartment.

From the foot of the ladder leading topside, he tossed a grenade, then scrambled upward.

He was nearly up when a jet of hot gases tore at him, almost causing him to lose his grip, as the explosion shook the ship.

Trying not to breathe the flames that singed his feet and hands, Jake scrambled for the gangway.

He was across the pier and up the gangway on the Barbary Coast when another explosion tore through the China Rose and flames jetted from her hatches.

“Are you all right?” Jake demanded of Callie.

“Yes, yes! Are you all right?”

Before he could answer the adrenaline aftershock hit him like a hammer and he vomited. He leaned against the passageway bulkhead aboard Barbary Coast and whispered, “Sorry about that,” to Nikko Schoenauer, who was standing guard with an AK-47.

“Hey, forget it,” said Nikko, who had overdosed on adrenaline a few times himself.

“Oh, Jake, I love you.” Callie hugged him as tightly as she could while staying away from the shoe polish. She drew back. “You look like the wrath of God.”

He took a good look at Callie under the Barbary Coasts lights, which were brilliantly lit by the ship’s emergency generator. “They really pounded on you,” he said bitterly.

“It’s over. Get me to a hot bath.”

Wu and Schoenauer had a short conversation in Chinese. “Why not take a bath here?” Schoenauer asked the Graftons. “The helicopter can take these two—” he jerked a thumb at Wu and Carmellini—”to the Central District and come back for you in an hour.” He turned to Carmellini and examined the cut on his head. “You need to have that stitched up.”

Jake nodded his agreement.

Wu paused and rested a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Your wife save my life, maybe,” he said in heavily-accented English. “She very strong woman.”

He smiled at Callie and nodded once, then turned to follow Tommy Carmellini.

When Callie was up to her neck in bathwater, Jake told her, “For a while there I thought I might never see you again. When I saw the blood smears in that stateroom, I thought I was too late.”

“I knew you’d come, Jacob Lee. I’ve never been so happy in my life as I was when that door flew open and I realized that terrible blackface apparition standing there was you.”

While the Graftons cleaned up in Barbary Coast’s owner’s stateroom, China Rose burned at the pier. No one came to fight the fire, although the crews of nearby ships gathered on deck to watch her burn.

Flames gradually spread throughout the ship. Finally the aftermost line securing her to the pier burned through, and wave action and the tide swung the stern well away from the pier.

When she sank an hour later in a welter of steam there wasn’t a whole lot left. The black water of the harbor extinguished the last of the flames.