Flood Tide

  "Yes, yes," Qian Miang agreed with an airy wave of his chopsticks before attacking a dish of noodles with scallions and ginger prepared in the authentic manner. "But any influence you had has been drastically diminished. Because of unfortunate events, my dear Qin Shang, you have become a political liability to the People's Republic as well as to the Americans. I'm told there is great activity in the White House to disavow any relationship with you."

  "The influence our government enjoys in Washington was due in a large part to me. I bought and paid for access and favors that benefited the People's Republic."

  "No one denies your contribution," said Qian Miang amicably. "But mistakes were made, disastrous mistakes that must be swept away before irreparable damage is done. You must quietly vanish from America, never to return. Qin Shang Maritime will still have access to all other ports around the world. Your power base with the People's Republic in Hong Kong remains strong. You will survive, Qin Shang, and go on adding to your incalculable assets."

  "And Sungari?" asked Qin Shang, picking at the squab soong with his chopsticks as his appetite rapidly waned. "What of Sungari?"

  Qian Miang shrugged. "You write it off. Most of the money for its construction was subsidized by American business interests and in part by our government. Whatever it cost you, Qin Shang, will be recouped within six months. It is hardly a reverse that will affect your empire."

  "It pains me deeply to simply walk away from it."

  "If you don't, the American Justice Department will see that you go to prison."

  Qin Shang stared at the ambassador. "If I refused to divorce myself from all White House and congressional contacts, you're saying President Lin Loyang would turn his back to me, or perhaps even order my execution?"

  "If it was in the best interests of the country, he would not blink an eye."

  "Is there no way to save Sungari?"

  Qian Miang shook his head. "Your plan to divert the Mississippi River through your port facility on the Gulf was brilliant, but too complex. Better you should have built it on the West Coast."

  "When I originally presented the plan to Yin Tsang, he approved it," Qin Shang protested. "We agreed that there was a dire need for our government to control a shipping port on the Atlantic side of the United States; a terminal to siphon illegal immigrants and goods throughout middle America and the eastern states."

  Qian Miang gazed at Qin Shang queerly. "Unfortunately, Internal Affairs Minister Yin Tsang died an untimely death."

  "A great tragedy," Qin Shang said with a straight face.

  "A new directive has been approved, one that places our priorities along the West Coast for the purchase of existing facilities, such as our acquisitions of the United States naval bases in Seattle and San Diego."

  "The new directive?"

  Qian Miang paused before answering to taste a stew called curried beef. "

  resident Lin Loyang has given Project Pacifica his total blessing," Qian Miang answered.

  "Project Pacifica? I have not been informed of it."

  "Because of your recent difficulties with the Americans, all concerned thought it best if you not be involved."

  "Can you tell me its purpose, or do our nation's leaders feel I am no longer worthy of their trust?"

  "Not at all," replied Qian Miang. "You are still held in high esteem.

  Project Pacifica is a long-range plan to split the United States into three countries."

  Qin Shang looked puzzled. "Forgive me, but I find that nothing more than an outlandish fantasy."

  "Not fantasy, old friend, but a certainty. Pacifica may not become a reality in our lifetimes, but with the migration over the next forty to fifty years of millions of our countrymen, respected geographic scientists are predicting a new Pacific-rim nation stretching from Alaska to San Francisco."

  "The United States went to war in eighteen sixty-one to prevent the Confederacy from secession. They could easily do it again to keep their house united."

  "Not if the central government was struck from two sides instead of one. What may even come earlier than Pacifica," Qian Miang explained, "is Hispania, another new nation of Spanish-speaking people that will spread from Southern California across Arizona, New Mexico and the lower half of Texas."

  "I find it all but impossible to think of the United States divided into three sovereign nations," said Qin Shang.

  "Look how the borders of Europe have changed in the past hundred years. The United States can no more remain united for eternity than the Roman Empire. And the beauty of Project Pacifica is that when it comes to pass, the People's Republic of China will have the power to control the entire economy of the countries surrounding the Pacific Ocean, including Taiwan and Japan."

  "As a loyal citizen of my country," said Qin Shang, "I would like to think I helped in some small way to make it a reality."

  "You have, my friend, you have," Qian Miang assured him. "But first, you must leave the country by no later than two o'clock this afternoon. That's when, according to my sources at the Justice Department, you will be taken into custody."

  "And accused of murder?"

  "No, willful destruction of federal property."

  "It sounds rather mundane."

  "Only the first tier of the government's case. The murder conspiracy at Orion Lake comes later. They also intend to indict you for the smuggling of illegal immigrants, guns and drugs."

  "I imagine the news media must be gathering like locusts."

  "Make no mistake," said Qian Miang, "the fallout will be great. But if you quietly disappear and keep a low profile while conducting business from your offices in Hong Kong, I believe we can weather the storm. Congress and the White House are not about to throw a shroud over relations between our two governments because of the acts of one man. We will, of course, deny all knowledge of your activities while our Information Ministry creates a flood of misleading information by throwing all blame on Taiwanese capitalists."

  "Then I am not to be thrown to the dogs."

  "You will be protected. The Justice Department and State Department will demand your extradition, but you can rest assured it will never happen, certainly not to a man of your wealth and power. You have many years of service to the People's Republic left. I speak for our countrymen when I say that we do not want to lose you."

  "I am honored," Qin Shang said solemnly. "Then this is good-bye."

  "Until we meet in our homeland," said Qian Miang. "By the way, how did you find the date pancakes?"

  "Please tell the chef that he should use sweet rice flour instead of comstarch."

  The Boeing 737 soared through a cloudless sapphire sky and made a sweeping bank to the west as it passed over the Mississippi Delta. The pilot glanced out his side window and down at the marshlands of Plaquemines Parish. Five short minutes later, the aircraft crossed over the green-brown waters of the Mississippi River at the little town of Myrtle Grove. At the instructions of his employer, the pilot had flown in a southwesterly direction from Washington to Louisiana before turning due west on a course that would take the plane over Sungari.

  Qin Shang sat in a comfortable chair in his luxurious private jet and stared through the view port as the golden pyramids of his dockside warehouses and administration buildings grew on the horizon. The afternoon sun's rays flashed off the gold galvanized walls with blinding intensity, causing the precise effect Qin Shang had demanded from his architects and construction company.

  At first, he tried to put the port from his mind. It was, after all, merely an investment gone bad. But Qin Shang had poured too much of himself into the project. The finest, most modern and efficient shipping port in the world, lying desolate and seemingly abandoned, haunted him. He gazed down and saw no ships at the docks. All Qin Shang Maritime ships arriving in the Gulf from overseas had been diverted to Tampico, Mexico.

  He picked up the phone to the cockpit and ordered the pilot to make a circle over the port. He pressed his face against the window as the pilot b
anked to give him a good view. After a few moments Qin Shang's mind began to drift, and he gazed without really seeing the empty docks, the big, deserted cargo-loading cranes and the vacant buildings. That he had come within the snap of a finger from pulling off the greatest enterprise in history and achieving what no man had ever attempted before gave him little satisfaction. He was not a man who could block failure from his mind and go on to the next project without a backward glance.

  "You will be back," came the musically soothing voice of his private secretary, Su Zhong.

  The beginnings of anger stirred inside Qin Shang. "Not any time soon. If I so much as step foot on American shores again, I will be thrown into one of their federal prisons."

  "Nothing is forever. American governments change with every election. Politicians come and go like migrating lemmings. New ones will have no personal memories of your affairs. Time will soften all condemnation. You will see, Qin Shang."

  "You are good to say so, Su Zhong."

  "Do you wish me to hire a crew to maintain the facility?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said with a curt nod. "When I return in ten or twenty years from now, I want to see Sungari looking exactly as it does now."

  "I am worried, Qin Shang."

  He looked at her. "Why?"

  "I do not trust the men in Beijing. There are many who have an envious hatred of you. I fear they may use your misfortune to take advantage."

  "Like an excuse to assassinate me?" he said with a thin smile.

  She dropped her head, unable to gaze into his eyes. "I ask forgiveness for my unseemly thoughts."

  Qin Shang rose from his chair and took Su Zhong by the hand. "Do not worry, my little swallow. I have already conceived a plan to make me indispensable to the Chinese people. I shall give them a gift that will last two thousand years." Then he led her into the spacious bedroom in the aft section of the aircraft. "Now," he said softly, "you can help me forget my ill fortune."

  47

  AFTER HIS MEETING with Dirk and Julia, St. Julien Perlmutter rolled up his sleeves and went to work. Once he walked the trail leading to a lost ship, he became obsessed. No lead, no rumor, no matter how seemingly insignificant, was left unexplored. Though his diligence and persistence had paid off in ferreting out any number of answers and solutions that led searchers to successful shipwreck discoveries, he failed more often than he succeeded. Most ships that vanished into thin air left no thread to follow. They were simply swallowed up by the infinite sea that very rarely gave up her secrets.

  On the surface, the Princess Don Wan looked to be simply another one of the many dead ends Perlmutter had experienced during his decades as a marine historian. He launched the search by scouring his own immense collection of sea lore before expanding into the many marine archives around the United States and the rest of the world.

  The more impossible the project, the more he tackled it with inflexible tenacity, laboring all hours of the day or night. He began by assembling every shred of known historical information concerning the Princess Dou Wan, from the time her keel was laid until she went missing. He obtained and studied plans and designs of her construction, including engine specifications, equipment, dimensions and deck plans. One particularly interesting bit of data he gleaned from the records was a description of her sailing qualities. She was revealed as a very stable ship, having survived the worst storms during her time in service that the seas around Asia could throw at her.

  A team of fellow researchers was hired to dig through archives in England and Southeast Asia. By using the expertise of other marine historians, he saved himself considerable time and expense.

  Perlmutter sorely wished he could consult his old friend and fellow marine historian Zhu Kwan in China, but it was his understanding that Pitt wanted no revelations making their way back to Qin Shang. He did, however, contact personal friends on Taiwan for leads to still living comrades of Chiang Kai-shek who might shed some light on the missing treasure trove.

  In the early hours of the morning, when most of the world was asleep, he stared into a computer monitor the size of a home-entertainment video screen and analyzed the data as it accumulated. He peered at one of the six known photographs of the Princess Dou Wan. She was a stately-looking ship, he thought. Her superstructure was set far aft of the bow and appeared small in relation to her hull. He studied the colored image of her, magnifying the white band in the center of the green funnel, focusing on the emblem of the Canton Lines, a golden lion with its left paw raised. Her maze of loading cranes suggested a ship that could carry a substantial cargo besides her passengers.

  He also found photos of her sister ship, the Princess Yung T'ai, which was launched and entered service the year after the Princess Dou Wan. According to the records the Princess Yung T'ai was broken up six months before the Princess Dou Wan was scheduled to be scrapped.

  A tired old liner doomed for the scrappers at Singapore would not have made an ideal transport to move China's national treasures to a secret location, he thought. She was beyond her time and hardly in prime condition to weather heavy seas on an extended voyage across the Pacific. It also seemed to Perlmutter that Taiwan was the more sensible destination since it was where Chiang Kai-shek eventually set up the Chinese Nationalist government. It was not conceivable the last known report of the ship had come from a naval radio operator in Valparaiso, Chile. What possible purpose could the Princess Dou Wan have for being over six hundred miles south of the Tropic of Capricorn in an area of the Pacific Ocean far off the traditional shipping lanes?

  Even if the liner was on a clandestine mission to hide China's art treasures somewhere on the other side of the world in either Europe or Africa, why go across the vast, empty region of the South Pacific and through the Strait of Magellan when it was shorter to steer west across the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope? Was secrecy so consuming that captain and crew could not risk going through the Panama Canal, or did Chiang Kai-shek have an unknown cavern or man-made structure hidden in the Andes to conceal the immense treasure, if indeed it could be proven the ship was carrying China's national historic wealth?

  Perlmutter was a pragmatic man. He took nothing for granted. He went back to square one and restudied the photos of the ship. As he examined her outline, a vague notion began to form in his mind. He called a nautical archivist friend in Panama, waking him from a sound sleep, and charmed him into going through the records of ships passing west to east through the Canal between November 28 and December 5, 1948.

  With that lead being pursued, he began reading through a list of names of the ship's officers last known to have sailed on the Princess. All were Chinese except for Captain Leigh Hunt and Chief Engineer Ian Gallagher.

  He felt as if he was throwing chips on every number of a roulette table. What are the odds of losing? he mused. Thirty-six out of thirty-six? But then he had to consider the zero and double zero. Perlmutter was no old fool. He covered every bet, firmly believing that if only one number paid off, he'd win.

  He punched the buttons on his speakerphone and waited for a sleepy voice to answer. "Hello, this better be good."

  "Hiram, it's St. Julien Perlmutter."

  "Julien, why in God's name are you calling me at four in the morning?" Hiram Yaeger's voice sounded as if he was talking through a pillow.

  "I'm in the middle of a research project for Dirk, and I need your help."

  Yaeger became marginally alert. "Anything for Dirk, but does it have to be four in the morning?"

  "The data is important, and we need it as quickly as possible."

  "What do you want me to investigate?"

  Perlmutter sighed with relief, knowing from experience that the NUMA computer genius had never let anyone down. "Got a pencil and paper? I'm going to give you some names."

  "Then what?" asked Yaeger, yawning.

  "I'd like you to hack your way through government census, IRS and Social Security records for a match. Also, check them out through your vast file of mari
time records."

  "You don't want much."

  "And while you're at it..." said Perlmutter, forging onward.

  "Does it never end?"

  "I also have a ship for you to trace."

  "So?"

  "If my intuition is working, I'd like you to find what port it arrived at between November twenty-eighth and December tenth, nineteen forty-eight."

  "What's her name and owner?"

  "The Canton Lines' Princess Dou Wan," he replied, spelling it out.

  "Okay, I'll start first thing after I arrive at NUMA headquarters."

  "Leave for work now," urged Perlmutter. "Time is vital."

  "You sure you're doing this for Dirk?" demanded Yaeger.