Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) (21 page)

“It would be a helluva thing to set off a mine with the periscope.”

“Lieutenant Flores will be your assistant officer of the deck. I know you don’t have much experience in submarines.”

“I’ll be fine,” Ozzie said. “Nothing to worry about. Like you said, last time, we didn’t even come close to a mine.”

Westbrooke looked down into his coffee. “I wish I felt as confident as you.”

“Look, man, you can’t let the men see your doubts.”

“I know.” Westbrooke looked up at the overhead, then closed his eyes and rubbed his palm across his mouth. “I just can’t get over my bad luck. I get the chance to serve under one of the best skippers in submarines, and he suddenly dies of a heart attack.”

“Some men would see the opportunity to take command as good luck.”

Westbrooke sat up straighter. “Right.”

Ozzie noted that he didn’t sound convinced.

Westbrooke stood the first watch, so when Ozzie came on at midnight, he walked into a tense conning tower. They’d been traveling at three knots for four hours, knowing that at any moment, the sub could come in contact with a spiked mine. One touch and they would all be dead. The FMS sonar rang out with a bell-like sound every time it made contact with a fish or a rock. Since the transducer was on the bottom of the hull, it made contact with many different objects. While the crew had spent several months training in the use of the equipment, and learning to recognize the difference between the sound and the appearance on screen of mines as opposed to fish, it was still very new and untested equipment. He could tell by looking at the faces of the men in the control room that they had lost their faith in the sonar.

Ozzie remembered how different the situation had been when they had passed through the minefields the first time. For the most part, the men aboard the USS
Bonefish
were, like him, battle-hardened sailors. For months they had lived day to day with the knowledge that each day could be their last. They’d learned not to focus on that—instead they did their duty, knowing that it was out of their hands, and put their trust in their officers. They believed in the sonar because their captain did.

That situation had changed with the loss of their skipper. They didn’t trust Ozzie and Westbrooke the way they had trusted Commander Johnson. Ozzie hoped they could all hold it together long enough to get him to the Philippines—he only wanted this sub for the ride that far. He intended to leave them there, but for now, he had to make sure they arrived.

For the first couple of hours of Ozzie’s watch, they saw nothing. No bells rang out. But just past 0200 hours all that changed. The bell sounded loud in the early-morning quiet. Ozzie glanced at the screen and saw the mine about one point off the port bow.

“Right full rudder!” he said. He kept his voice calm. He didn’t need to shout. The helmsman had plenty of motivation to be quick about it.

Even if Ozzie had not wanted the whole ship to witness this drama, it would not have been possible. It was tradition in submarines to have a talker stationed in the conning tower with a microphone to report to the rest of the ship just exactly what was going on. The talker described the situation.

“The contact on the screen looks like a big blob. The bow is starting to swing away. The blob is out of sight now alongside.”

The men in the forward compartments heard it first. It sounded like a banshee. The loud screech of metal on metal traveled back through the submarine as the anchor cable for the mine they had just seen on screen came in contact with the hull. How far above them was
the mine? They did not know. And there were so many places, from the antennas to the stern planes to the propellers, that could catch and hold onto the cable. If the cable caught on any one of a dozen obstructions on their exterior, it would reel the mine down like a fish on a hook until it touched their hull. The scraping and screeching seemed to go on forever, but Ozzie kept his face expressionless. He knew the men were looking to him for their cues. Ozzie didn’t pray, and he did his best not to look worried. If it happened, it happened. At this moment, there was nothing he could do to change that.

The screeching was past the control room now, growing more and more faint as the cables neared the stern.

And then it stopped.

Ozzie gave orders to resume their course and asked the navigator to plot their current position.

He wasn’t about to let a few Japanese mines come between him and his treasure.

Ao Chalong
Phuket, Thailand

November 18, 2012

The waitress came to their table and asked if they wanted another beer.

“Cole, much as I want to hear about your gold legend, I’m going to fall asleep right here on the table if I have another beer,” she said.

After the waitress was out of earshot, Cole said, “Let’s find someplace safe where you can get some sleep.”

And plan how to get rid of the crazy guy watching my boat
, she thought.

She went to the bathroom while Cole paid the bill. Before returning, she splashed water on her face and examined herself in the mirror. She saw the dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. It had been two nights now with almost no sleep and hundreds of miles of travel. This was not how she imagined it would be when she and Cole took a hotel room together. None of this was playing out how she had imagined. And what was she to make of Cole’s story about how he had come to be in the Philippines? Accepting the existence of an organization like the Patriarchs had required a massive shift in Riley’s pragmatic world
view. Now he was asking her to believe they were but one cell in a massive worldwide organization.

She heard Cole outside. “Are you okay in there?”

“Yeah.” She dried her face, unlocked the door, and opened it. “I’m about to pass out on my feet.”

“I know. I can see that. I had the bartender call us a cab, and then he called ahead to a guest house that belongs to a friend of his. It’s owned by a South African woman who came here on a boat and never left. I’m beginning to see that as a theme in Phuket.”

Riley laughed as he led her through the tables. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that myself.”

The Shanti Lodge was one block off a big urban highway, but once inside the compound, it looked like they’d found a tranquil oasis. The combined dining room and lobby was open on three sides overlooking the swimming pool and the various other buildings surrounding it. Lazy ceiling fans kept the air moving and the tropical plants kept it cool. Comfortable furnishings made it seem more like a home than a commercial establishment. One set of steps led up to a platform where guests could get Thai massages, and the rooms were all dark wood, straw mats and bright fabric. The owner, Kim, showed them how to operate the room key to turn on the lights and ceiling fan, and she pointed out the common toilet and shower area.

Cole set his duffel bag down on one of the chairs in their room. “I’ll go down and get us registered. Mr. and Mrs. John Jones.”

“I’m headed straight to the shower,” Riley said as she grabbed one of the towels off the bed.

She stood under the hot water for a good ten minutes. There wasn’t much water pressure, but slowly she felt the knots of tension around her neck, back, and shoulders start to untie themselves. When she turned off the water and opened the shower curtain, she saw herself in
the full-length mirror.
Not bad for thirty-six years old
, she thought. Her belly was flat and she could see the muscles in her arms and legs. There were mornings she didn’t feel like rolling out of her bunk before daylight to exercise before the heat made it impossible, but she followed her exercise routine with twenty laps around her boat. The discipline paid off. Fitness to Riley was less about appearances than it was about a Marine Corps mindset. She had to be prepared for whatever came her way.

She frowned at the mirror when she pivoted around on one foot and examined the scar tissue that reached from the top of her shoulder to halfway down her back. It was difficult to believe it had been six, almost seven years now since that day the bomb went off in the Marine House in Lima. The scarring didn’t look as fresh as it had the first time Cole had seen it, but it hadn’t exactly gone away, either. And never would.

Unwilling to put on her sweaty, salty, filthy clothes, she rinsed them out in the sink, then wrapped herself in her towel and returned to their room. Cole hadn’t returned yet. She hung her damp clothes across the chair backs, then discovered that the light cotton bedspread worked as a sarong with a long end to throw over her shoulder. She was standing in front of the mirror examining herself when Cole came through the door carrying a big tray with food, two more cold beers, and a bottle of water.

“Anybody hungry?” he asked.

“That smells fantastic.”

Cole set the tray down on the big bed and Riley joined him. “I got us three different dishes to try,” he said. “That’s cashew chicken, shrimp fried rice, and green curry fish. Those are the names Kim told me, anyway. I couldn’t pronounce the Thai names.” He handed her a lovely pottery bowl and a fork. “Dig in.”

“Is this your first time in Thailand?”

He nodded as he mounded rice in his bowl.

“But on that recording you made for me, you specifically mentioned Thailand. That’s the reason I’m here.”

He handed her the spoon for the rice. “Those were early days in our research. Everything changed when we learned about Yamashita’s Gold.”

“Okay, so what is it?”

“Hmm.” He finished chewing and swallowed. “That green curry sauce is unbelievable.”

“Cole!”

He grinned and for the first time she felt the intervening years fall away. The beard and awkwardness didn’t matter in the least. He was still the crazy man with whom she had fallen in love.

“You do understand you are asking me, I might even say begging me, to explain a conspiracy theory to you.”

“And you understand that I’ve been trained to kill men twice my own size with my bare hands?”

He took a big bite of his food and then stared at her as he chewed. He swallowed finally. “You have no idea how sexy you are when you talk like that.”

She started to put her bowl aside.

“Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands, one holding his fork over his head. “I surrender. I’ll tell you everything.” He took a deep breath, shoveled another bite into his mouth, and began talking as he chewed. “The theory is that the Japanese amassed tons of loot both before and during World War II by systematically plundering all the countries they conquered. We’re talking robbing temples, museums, the wealthy families’ homes of paintings, statues, jewelry, gold bullion, you name it. Once the Americans took control of the waters around Japan, the Japanese began hiding their stolen treasure in Luzon in the Philippines, deep in caves and the many additional tunnels they dug. The Japanese called it Operation Golden Lily. General Yamashita was in charge of the land-based forces in the Philippines. When the war
ended, some OSS guys under General Douglas MacArthur tortured Yamashita’s driver until he spilled what he knew.”

“OSS?”

“Yeah, it’s—”

“I know what it is. It’s just that I’ve heard some of this recently, too.”

“Yeah? That’s probably not good. But let me get to a stopping place: The short version of the rest of the story is that when the driver broke, he told them of the sites he had driven the general to, and these guys dug up tons of gold and priceless artifacts. The ‘them’ we’re talking about here were the OSS guys, some of whom became CIA while others formed the Enterprise. They’ve kept the stash a secret—off the books—deposited in offshore banks under something called the Black Eagle Trust. They’ve been melting down these national treasures and the proceeds have been used to finance black ops ever since.”

“Cole, don’t tell me you’re looking for the rest of this mythical treasure.”

He grabbed a napkin off the tray and wiped the sauce off his mouth. “Not
exactly
. There’s more to it. But before I go any further, why don’t you tell me what you’ve been hearing about Corregidor and the OSS.”

She told him the story about how she got the letter and what Peewee had told her about her grandfather. When she’d finished, she retrieved her backpack from where she’d set it on the floor, and she pulled out the bundle of wrapped silk. She sat back down on the bed and folded back the corners of the cloth to reveal the gold artifact.

“This is what Peewee gave me.” She held it out to him.

Cole picked it up and turned it around, looking at the fancy filigree writing. “Amazing workmanship.”

“Peewee said it’s called a Tibetan prayer gau and he said my grandfather, who was OSS, got it from a Japanese prince.”

At the word
prince
, Cole’s head jerked up and he looked at her, his eyes wide with surprise.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s just that Operation Golden Lily was overseen by several Japanese princes.”

“According to Peewee, my grandfather had made him promise to give this prayer gau to his son, my dad. But, as you know, my dad’s dead, so he was giving it to me.”

“Is it okay if I open it?” he asked.