“Actually, Captain, there is,” Amanda replied carefully. “You see, my ship and I were not in these waters by coincidence. The decision has been made by higher powers to do something about the pirate threat. We’re going after them, and you and your crew can be of great service to us in this matter.”
Petreskovitch slapped the desktop. “Tell us what to do and it shall be done.”
“Essentially, what we wish you to do is nothing.” Amanda leaned forward in her chair. “Your ship is seaworthy and your crew is intact. We wish for you to get under way and continue on your voyage as if none of this had ever happened. Say nothing to anyone, not even your owners, until after you have returned to your home port. If you are contacted by the authorities concerning the distress call you sent, deny it: Say it was a hoax by someone. If there are problems about your broken cargo seals, have your agents speak with the United States embassy. Beyond that, say nothing to anyone.”
A smile appeared in the midst of Petreskovitch’s beard. “Ah,” he nodded, “a konspiratsia. Russians understand such things, You have my word. We will deny this. It has not happened.”
“Will you make this clear to your crew? Sailors love to talk in port, and our enemies may have ears anywhere.”
“My crew is Russian as well,” Petreskovitch said grimly. “They will know that if one word is said out of place, its speaker will swim back to Vladivostok.”
The freighter skipper reached for the vodka once more. “Another drink, Captain. To seal this pact of silence.”
Amanda managed a polite smile and held up her glass.
Nusa Dua, Island of Bali
1017 Hours, Zone Time: August 11, 2008
Of the tourist and resort complexes that belt the southern coast of Bali, Nusa Dua is the most beautiful, the most upscale, and the most isolated from reality. Located four miles south of the mouth of Benoa Harbor on the Bukit Badung Peninsula, Nusa Dua lacks both the middle-class conviviality of Sanue Beach and the yeasty, surfers’ boisterousness of Kuta Bay. Rather it is a place of peace, dignity, and wealth. Its dozen or so luxury hotels, none built taller than the palm trees that shaded them, as per Balinese custom, faced pristine white sand and glistening azure waters with the hawkers and overt kitsch of Bali’s tourism invasion kept strictly at bay.
Here, too, were the business headquarters of Makara Limited, an ultramodern crescent of golden-tinted glass built on beach frontage worth one million dollars per linear meter. Harconan had little interest in its current worth. His father’s family had purchased the land from the local raja in the sixteenth century for fifty muskets and an Amsterdam music box.
The signing of the Von Falken shipping contracts marched through the series of polite formalities mandated by corporate protocol in the conference room on the upper floor. Introductions were made, hands shaken, and coffee and light refreshments served in the lounge off the master conference room.
Makara Harconan and the Von Falken Far Eastern representatives wore the light, tailored safari outfits that were the uniform of choice for the archipelago businessman. The senior company officials from Hamburg, however, sweated in their conservative banker’s suits, the dark clothing looking hot in the tropic sunlight pouring in through the glass wall that faced the sea.
Harconan aimed a wordless glance at an aide hovering unobtrusively at the perimeter of the meeting. Within moments, powered blinds purred down and angled, blocking the solar glare, and the faint whispering rumble of the air-conditioning deepened.
Polite compliments were offered about the Harconan business complex, and deprecating replies made. Hopes were expressed for a long and profitable joint venture between the two companies, and the thought was mechanically seconded by all present.
Makara Harconan maintained his expression of polite neutrality through it all, speaking the appropriate words, smiling the appropriate smiles, and concealing his boredom. He took no pleasure in these formalities, as ritualized in their way as a Ramayana ballet. This prize had already been pocketed. The challenge had been in seeking out the potentials of the deal and winning them on his terms. The mere documentation was something to be hurried through, freeing him to deal with more critical matters. Tuning out the traveler’s tale being told in labored English by the Von Falken vice president, Harconan’s gaze crept back toward the narrow strips of dazzling blue that peeked through slatted blinds. Within days, the American Sea Fighter Task Force would be standing in to Benoa Harbor, figuratively under the guns of his stronghold, and his greatest challenge to date would begin.
Captain Amanda Lee Garrett of the United States Navy. What might he expect of her?
Over the past week, his corporate intelligence group had collected a dossier on her, a most impressive document that Harconan had studied assiduously.
Amanda Garrett appeared to be the epitome of the modern American “liberated woman,” successfully assaulting a previously all-male bastion while earning the respect of her masculine peers. The daughter of an admiral and the heiress of an old Navy family, she had apparently bred true like an Arabian war mare, earning both her rank and a matching pair of Navy Crosses in combat. An objective assessment of her career indicated she was highly intelligent, extremely adaptive, and somewhat unconventional in her approaches to sea warfare. She was also apparently fearless on both the military and political battlefields.
This woman could be very dangerous, possibly one of the few truly dangerous individuals to challenge Harconan on his own ground in recent times. Was that why he also found the thought of her… stimulating?
Harconan snapped back to the moment and mouthed an appropriate platitude to the Von Falken VP. Detaching himself, he drifted loose across the lounge, desiring only the company of his own thoughts.
And then Mr. Lo appeared in the lounge doorway. He did not seek to speak to Harconan, nor did he send a message. The Straits Chinese merely allowed himself to be seen, then he vanished as silently as he had come.
It was enough. Harconan knew his factotum would not have made an appearance at this time unless some crisis had occurred requiring Harconan’s immediate attention. Keeping his face calm, Harconan made his excuses and retired from the lounge.
Striding down the central corridor past the offices of his personal secretaries, he pressed his hand against the palm scanner that granted access to his private work suite at the southern tip of the building. Lo was the only other person to have his handprint registered with the security system. He waited within.
Harconan’s personal office was a decisive contrast to the stark twenty-first-century Western modernism of the headquarters building. Teak bas-relief wall panels, hand-carved on Bali, flanked the inset bookshelves, and an ages-worn stone lion from the great Buddhist temple at Borobudur stood guard beside an antique dark oak desk brought from Holland some two centuries before.
Lo wasted no time. “We have just received word from Chief Adwar. There has been a catastrophic failure with the Piskov boarding operation.”
The Chinese held in a stiff parade rest, a silhouette against the outer glass wall. For the perennially understated Lo to use a word like catastrophic underlined the urgency of the matter.
“What’s the problem?”
“There rests the problem, sir: We do not know. The interception was made as per the operations plan, and the assault boats were launched. The boarding was apparently made successfully. Shortly thereafter, all communications with the boarding party was lost. The assault boats did not return, any of them. Their fate is not known.”