China Jewel (2 page)

“Keep at it,” Cutter said. “We need all the speed we can get.”

At the party one of Bill’s advertising staffers had approached him. She was a twenty-something, dressed in an expensive suit and heels. Her leather computer briefcase hung with a wide strap over her slender shoulder. She laughed with excitement, saying, “Jim, you wouldn’t believe our web site. We’re selling thousands of little plastic boat models and all kinds of black tee shirts with falcons on them. We’re rock star viral on YouTube.”

The highlight was seeing his son with several of his fellow crewmen. The crew dressed, tanned and handsome, in the Peregrine black shirts and white trousers.

“We got the situation well in hand, Sir,” Jamie had said. He was a strong, tall man, with the fresh face of youth. His voice held a trace of the Spanish he had spoken most of his teenage years when living with his Argentine mother in Buenos Aires. His eyes showed respect, but his father could spot no signs of love.

“We’ll beat ‘em all,” a companion had yelled out, his red face contrasting with his long yellow hair as he hoisted his beer. Another crewperson, the ship’s cook, had her music pod booming the US Marine cadence of Christina Aguilera’s “Candyman.”

Below deck Cutter had smelled the new wood, the varnish, and the sweat of the crewmembers. A whale-oil lantern swung from a cross beam casting old-fashioned shadows.

He had moved around the thick mast in the center of the passage, the crew hammocks and storage on each side of him. He stopped and examined the wall planking. He looked closely at the frame timbers holding the planking. He remembered he had been told that the ship needed twice as many; that she was built too light for the pounding of ocean weather.

He remembered the continuous arguments while they were constructing the Peregrine. It was a choice between less weight, more speed, or more safety. The French competitor had more frames but it was a heavier boat.

Jolly had told him, “Don’t forget, the Nineteenth Century crews handled these flimsy hulls and got home.” He remembered though that this was the Twenty-First Century.

He traced a spot over his son’s hammock. That was the location of the waterline. The Peregrine was low in the water for speed. If she swamped with water in a storm, this whole area would flood quickly. His son might be sleeping here.

Above the hammock were pinned the following words:

“Use the wind. Do not let it use you.

Cutter smiled. So the boy remembered after all. He knew where that saying had come from.

Cutter’s mind returned quickly to the morning celebration around him. More music soared over the harbor. The band had shifted to its local version of the Star Spangled Banner, heavy with percussion. A young girl’s voice sang in a variety of keys among the drumbeats. The Flying Tigers serenaded with her. A large American flag which had been hand-sewn in the old manner by a group of women from the refrigerator division of Johnson Company bustled out from its halyard suspended off the massive spanker sail. Following that unfurling, at the mainmast the orange and black flag of Maryland was hoisted and began streaming backward. From the foremast, the triangle pennant of the Nineteenth Century tea company, Williams Trading of New York, now part of Bill’s company, was hauled up into place. The ancient yellow streamer, embossed with a constellation of small blue stars, stretched far out to starboard in the breeze. It had been personally delivered by a lively white-haired descendent, who waved from the pier, cheering like a teenager.

As he scanned the flotilla, Cutter spotted a long green yacht with no one on deck. He motioned to Jolly. “That boat is still here.”

Jolly nodded as his constant grin left his face. They both knew the silent ocean cruiser had been anchored in the harbor for a week.

About the time that yacht arrived, one of Jolly’s workmen had fallen from the Peregrine foremast while doing last minute adjustments. He was killed and police had not ruled out foul play. A bearded stranger seen in the yard was still being sought for questioning.

Cutter yelled in the direction of the yacht, “Your dirty tricks haven’t stopped us yet, you bastard.”

At this moment the horns of the various yachts began a chorus to honor the brig. The sonorous foghorns of the larger ships out in the Bay answered these. The noise deafened, like a Fourth of July but without fireworks.

Jolly said, his voice raised over the din, “Can’t beat the sendoff.”

Cutter nodded. The brig rounded the last point of the harbor heading south into the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic. Soon over the far dark ridges of loblolly pine trees appeared only the flags and pennant at the tips of the raked masts. He snapped a former Ranger salute to his son, Jamie, and to his son’s young and enthusiastic shipmates. He hoped the Peregrine and its crew found the luck they needed. He prayed he’d meet all hands in China, still fresh and proud.

“Come on,” said Jolly. “New York called again. The jet is warming at the town airport.”

Chapter 2

May 20, 4 PM

New York City

Cutter stepped out from the creaking elevator into the paneled hallway. Old leather from the chairs along the wooden walls gave a historic aroma. A model ship as tall as Cutter greeted him from its protective glass and mahogany case. Scroll letters and numbers on a brass plaque stated this was the original Clipper Brig Peregrine, 1831-1840.

He looked closer. Beside the ship was a small pewter tea caddy with a Chinese pagoda motif on its round cap. A label stated the etching represented the ancient Temple of the Six Banyan Trees in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China. The faded metal container had six sides in a mysterious shape that seemed designed to hold not only tea but other small secrets.

The portrait of Captain Richard Tolchester, the brig’s commander, hung on the panel to the right. Tolchester’s face reminded Cutter of the skipper he had selected for the new Peregrine, Captain Hall. The artist had painted a clean-shaven man, with a shock of black hair and a blue captain’s jacket stretched tautly up around his neck. A laced shirt with a ribbon tie covered his chest. The strong face, similar to Hall's, had intense eyes, capable of terrifying a sailor. Cutter also spotted a flicker of humor in the man’s lips, a sign of amusement with the life around him. This man was an ocean god of his floating island, of its wood, cloth, and human sinew.

He noticed scorch marks on the edges of the old portrait’s oil paint surface. The large frame, garish in the early Victorian style, partially hid other burn marks. Another brass plate similar to the one on the ship and located underneath read,

Captain Richard Tolchester, of the Clipper Brig Peregrine. Record crossing of the Pacific from Callao Peru to Canton China 1837, 56 days 4 hours. Painting rescued from the burned-out office of the company’s Canton tea agent Fusang following the departure of the Peregrine in 1840. Ship lost in hurricane with all hands October 10 of that same year.

In the conference room several nineteenth-century casement windows oversaw the harbor, their wooden muntins separating its blue water into small frames of sparkle. Inside, executives sat around an old mahogany table of the kind that had once sent clipper ships to China a century ago. They represented the teams of the four competitor yachts. Cutter knew some of them. The light from outdoors played over their faces and showed temerity, an awareness that sizable amounts of money were at stake. Ironically they, like their antique racing boats, were more similar than not to the old tea traders in New York that had bet their livelihood on that former China trade. They shared and rekindled these challenges from an ancient enemy, the sea. They feared back-stabbing treachery. They worried about the danger to the boats. These modern businessmen also worried about losing customers from bad public relations if their crews fared badly in the television coverage.

Bill Johnson appeared fit and tanned as he sipped his well-spiked coffee. He enjoyed the risk. He always had as long as Cutter had worked for him. He smiled, but it was part of an iron stare, like a clever poker player bluffing with a poor hand. He waved Cutter to the chair next to him. On his other side sat Bill’s assistant. Bill had long ago nicknamed her Monroe. She was a long-haired pretty woman. Her beauty warmed the chill atmosphere of the room.

As he sat down, Cutter said, “Missus Emma Williams, your trustee, joined us at the sailing this morning.”

Bill said, “I asked her to be there.” He had purchased the Williams Company after Emma Williams’s husband died. Her son had a successful electronics business in California and was not interested in the family firm. She therefore sold it to Bill’s corporation but remained as a trustee to insure, as she said, respect for her husband’s memory. When Bill called her with the news of the race, she immediately contributed a large portion of her personal fortune to outfit the boat.

“Your son still sailing in the Peregrine crew?” asked Bill.

“Yes. He’s independent, I don’t see him much,” Cutter replied.

“Like his father?” Bill added, with a smile. “You’re lucky. Any of my relatives just come for money.”

Behind him the official photographs of all the competitor brigs decorated the wall. To the left posed his ship with its low and black privateer character. The Louis 14, the French entry, was elegant with its blue hull. Then came the other American boat, Strand’s America, green with a yellow stripe down its side. Finally he saw the white British racer, the Willow.

A wall-size Chinese-made electronic console showed a digital world chart from the North Atlantic start to the China finish. It indicated positions, using colorful boat avatars, and the weather they faced at those locations. Managers like Cutter had a matching display in their own offices for competitor boat operations. All computers connected to a satellite reporting system tied into the on-board safety systems. These devices were the only modern equipment allowed by the Chinese race rules. Otherwise, the boats competed with completely antique material. This digital network provided daily data. Each day control teams received one private update with boat captains by satellite phone.

Each racer had its own map symbol. He noted the blue king's crown avatar for the French and the white flower for the British. Strand International sported a green eagle while the Peregrine had its black falcon. Reports on each competitor’s sailing tack, current, wind, and weather printed out on the big console in digital boxes.

Cutter read Peregrine’s data. She was flying down the Chesapeake close hauled in sunlight with current and breeze speeding her along. Her sharp hull allowed her to point closer to the wind. He’d ask the team when he got back to River Sunday but he’d bet she was doing close to ten knots.

He muttered to Bill about the green yacht in the harbor at River Sunday. “Strand,” said Bill. They both looked across the table at the little man and his large assistant.

Strand and Angel Slidell stared back at Cutter from their seats. Slidell finally said, with his “gotcha” grin, “Cutter, heard you and your boss had some trouble. Maybe a man got himself killed.” Bill put his hand on Cutter’s arm to keep him from answering.

The two men would have been comical if Cutter had not known about their vicious natures. Strand himself was a tiny man with a squeak of a voice and a strong evil mind. His head was oversize for the rest of him. He had a team of killers working for him, men and women who had no loyalty except to the money Strand paid them. Cutter knew all too well how efficient these people were from conflict with them around the world. It was a world of private armies and bribes and Cutter knew his business. Strand, however, took delight in killing to get his way.

Slidell had poor features, his pointed head lightly covered with tan strands of hair, his skin a lifeless white. He wore the same oversize and dark wraparound sunglasses that overpowered his ghostly face. The pallor gave him a nickname, “Angel,” that he was called, mostly behind his back, as long as Cutter had known him. He carried both a knife and a gun and knew how to use them when no one was a witness. Over in Africa his pale appearance had made the native black women point at him in fear or perhaps amusement. Angel meant the same as “trickster” to them, short for someone to be feared and not trusted.

Strand looked up from reading his Wall Street Journal and was smiling at Slidell’s remark. His eyes penetrated the air like spears. He said to Bill, “Our captain tells me his crew will give you a good run. You haven’t had another sailor die, I assume.”

Barlow, the round-faced British competitor, spoke up. “I told you, Johnson, you bet on the wrong horse. We’ll take you like we did two centuries ago.” Barlow purchased a whole boatyard in Liverpool to build his entry. Bill’s spy reports had predicted that the new Willow was too heavy to beat the Peregrine.

“Peregrine’s timber is not waterlogged this time, Barlow. You won’t have such an easy time of it,” answered Bill.

A tall woman sat next to the Brit. Cutter knew the type, statuesque and competent, like a pirate captain, one who took no prisoners. The woman looked away from him and spoke quickly in French to her younger assistant. Papers exchanged between them. The older woman gazed through them, nodded, and smiled. It was the kind of smile that Cutter knew all too well. He suspected she’d come up with some treachery to hurt his boat at sea.

Cutter noticed the handout material in front of him. He’d seen it before, a copy of the official Chinese invitation to the race. He looked through the decorative red paper, reading the yellow type.

Drawing on the Nineteenth Century tradition of clipper ship racing, the government of the People’s Republic of China is proud to announce the Great China Sail Race, a challenge to pay special tribute and celebration of centuries of international trade specifically with its European and American neighbors. It offers the winner a gold cup and a prize of ten million dollars. Entrants are limited to any foreign corporation presently doing business in China. That firm must have an exemplary history of early China commerce. It will construct a replica cargo brig to duplicate the historic ship it owned before.