The green boat surged forward for a split second, then mysteriously stopped dead in its tracks. The engine continued to scream with a whine, churning at high rpm, but the boat sat drifting lazily. The confused pilot pulled back on the throttle, unsure of what was causing the lack of forward motion.
"Idiot!" Tongju screamed from the deck of the catamaran with uncharacteristic emotion. "Your stern line is caught in the propeller. Put someone over the side to cut it free."
Dirk's handiwork had paid off. Diving under the speedboat, he had tightly wrapped the stern line around the propeller and its exposed shaft, clogging its ability to spin freely. The heavy hand of the pilot on the throttle had only served to wind the line tighter, spinning it up and into the drive shaft coupling in a laborious mess. It would take a diver twenty minutes to cut and yank free the mass of coiled rope embedded in the driveline.
Realizing the speedboat's predicament, Tongju burst into the cabin of the catamaran's pilot.
"Start the engines. Get us under way immediately," he barked. The groggy pilot, clad in a pair of red silk pajamas, nodded sharply and made his way quickly to the wheelhouse.
Three-quarters of a mile away, Dirk grunted as he pulled another stroke of the oars, his heart pounding fiercely. His shoulder and arm muscles began to burn from the strenuous effort to propel the skiff faster, and even his thigh muscles ached from pushing against the oars. His tired body was telling himself to slow the pace but his mental will pushed to keep rowing with all his strength. They had gained a few precious minutes by sabotaging the speedboat, but Kang's men still had two more boats at their disposal.
In the distance, they could hear the deep muffled exhaust of the catamaran as its engines were started and revved. As Dirk rowed in a controlled rhythm, Summer helped guide him through the inlet they approached at the far end of the cove. Kang's compound and boats suddenly drifted from view as they began threading their way through the S-curved inlet.
"We've got maybe five minutes," he exhaled between strokes. "You up for another swim?"
"I can't exactly glide through the water like Esther Williams with these," she said, holding up the two handcuffs that dangled from her
wrists, "but I can certainly do without another dose of Kang's hospitality-" She knew better than to ask whether Dirk was up for a strenuous swim. Despite his exhausted state, she knew her brother was like a fish in the water. Growing up in Hawaii, they swam in the warm surf constantly. Dirk excelled at marathon swimming and routinely swam five-mile ocean legs for pleasure.
"If we can make it to the main channel, we may have a chance," he said.
The inlet grew dark as they made their way past the first bend and the lights of Kang's compound became shielded by the surrounding hills. The otherwise still night was broken only by the faraway sound of the catamaran's four diesel engines, which they could detect were now throttled up. Like a machine himself, Dirk rhythmically tugged at the oars, smoothly dipping the blades in and out of the water in a long, efficient stroke. Summer acted as coxswain, offering subtle course changes to guide them through the channel in the shortest route possible while offering periodic words of encouragement.
"We're coming up on the second bend," she said. "Pull to your right and we should clear the inlet in another thirty meters."
Dirk continued his even stroke, easing off the left oar with every third pull to nose the bow into and through the bend. The beating drone of the catamaran's engines grew louder behind them as the speedy boat ripped across the cove. Though his limbs ached, Dirk seemed to grow stronger with the approach of their adversary, propelling the small boat even faster through the flat water.
The ebony darkness softened around them as they rounded the last bend of the inlet and rowed into the expansive breadth of the Han River. Patches of starry lights twinkled across the horizon, shining from small villages scattered along the river and hillsides. The faint lights were the only clue to the river's width, which stretched nearly five miles across to the opposite shore. In the late hour of the night, traffic on the river was almost nonexistent. Several miles downstream sat a handful of small commercial freighters, moored for the night while
waiting to traverse the Han to Seoul at first daylight. A brightly illuminated dredge ship was slowly making its way upstream nearly across from Dirk and Summer but was still some four miles away. Upriver, a small vessel with an array of multicolored lights appeared to be moving down the center of the river at a slow pace.
"Afraid I don't see any passing water taxis," Summer said, scanning the dark horizons.
As Dirk tried to row toward the center of the river, he could feel the current pushing them downstream. The river's flow was aided by an outgoing tide that pulled at the remains of the Han River as it dispersed into the dusky waters of the Yellow Sea. He eased off the oars for a moment to survey their options. The dredge ship looked appealing, but they would have to fight the crosscurrent to reach it, which would be near impossible once they took to the water. Peering downriver, he spotted a small cluster of yellow lights on the opposite shore twinkling fuzzily through the damp air.
"Let's try for the village there," he said, pointing an oar in the direction of the lights, which were about two miles downstream. "If we swim directly across the river, the current should carry us pretty close." "Whatever entails the least swimming."
Unbeknownst to both was the fact that the Korean demarcation line ran through this section of the Han River delta. The twinkling lights downriver were not a village at all but a heavily garrisoned North Korean military patrol boat base.
Any further contingency planning was suddenly dashed by the abrupt roar of the high-speed catamaran as it burst out of the inlet. A pair of bright spotlights flared from beside the wheelhouse, sweeping back and forth rapidly across the water. It would be only seconds before one of the beams fell on the small white skiff heading across the river.
"Time to exit stage right," Dirk said, swinging the boat around so that the bow pointed downstream. Summer quickly slipped over the
side followed by Dirk, who hesitated a moment, flinging a pair of life jackets out away from the boat before he rolled into the water.
"Let's angle across and slightly upriver to put as much distance as possible between us and the drifting boat," he said.
"Right. We'll surface for air at the count of thirty."
The clatter of machine-gun fire suddenly tore through the night air while a seam like spray of bullets slapped into the water a few yards in front of them. One of the spotlights had found the skiff and a guard opened fire as the catamaran raced toward it.
In unison, Dirk and Summer ducked under the water, kicking down to a depth of four feet before angling into the current. The powerful flow of the river made them feel like they were swimming in place as they inched their way toward mid-river Gaining ground upriver was hopeless as the current overpowered them, but it pushed them downstream at a much slower pace than the drifting skiff.
The deep pulsations of the catamaran's diesel engines resonated through the water and they could feel the boat as it approached the skiff. Counting time with each breaststroke, Dirk hoped that Summer would not get separated from him in the darkness. Swimming at night in the black water, their only indication of direction was the tug of the river's current. As he approached the count of thirty, he eased slowly to the surface, breaking the water with barely a ripple.
Just ten feet away, Summer's face emerged from the water and Dirk could hear her breathing deeply. Glancing briefly at each other, then back toward the skiff, they quickly gulped a deep swallow of fresh air and resubmerged, kicking back into the river current for another count of thirty.
The quick glimpse Dirk made toward the skiff was a reassuring one. Kang's catamaran had barreled in on the skiff from upriver with guns blazing and was now creeping up close to assess the damage. No one on board had bothered to look across the river, assuming that Dirk and Summer were still in the boat. In their brief time in the water, they
had already established a separation of nearly a hundred meters from the skiff.
As the catamaran approached the drifting boat, Tongju ordered his gunmen to cease firing. There was no sign of the two escapees, whom Tongju expected to find sprawled dead in the bottom of the bullet-ridden boat. Looking down from the upper deck of the catamaran, Tongju cursed to himself as they pulled alongside and shined a light into the skiff. The small boat was completely empty.
"Search the surrounding water and shoreline," he ordered crisply. The catamaran circled around the skiff while the spotlights were splayed across the water, all eyes peering intently into the darkness. Suddenly, a gunman on the bow of the catamaran yelled out.
"There, in the water ... two objects!" he cried, pointing an arm off the port bow.
Tongju nodded at the words. This time they are finished, he thought with ruthless satisfaction.
After their fourth submerged interval, Dirk and Summer reunited on the surface and took a moment to rest. Fighting their way across the current, they had distanced themselves from the skiff by almost four hundred meters.
"We can swim on the surface for the time being," Dirk said between deep breaths. "Give us a chance to see what our friends are up to."
Summer followed her brother's lead and rolled onto her back, kicking into a backstroke that allowed them to watch the distant catamaran as they moved farther across the river. Kang's boat was idling near the skiff, its spotlights circling the immediate area around them. Shouting erupted from the catamaran and the boat suddenly raced downriver a short distance. Gunfire exploded again for a moment, then ceased as the boat stopped in the water.
Tongju had raced the catamaran toward the two objects spotted floating on the water and watched with disdain as his gunmen blasted away at the empty life vests that Dirk had tossed into the water. The
boat idled around the life jackets for several minutes, waiting for the two escapees to surface in case they were hiding submerged nearby, before resuming the search. Dirk and Summer struggled toward midriver as they watched the catamaran begin making a wide-circle search around the skiff and life jackets. With each loop around the still-drifting skiff, the catamaran's pilot enlarged the circle in an ever-expanding spiral.
"Won't be too many more minutes before they work their way up and out our direction," Summer lamented.
Dirk scanned the watery horizon. They had worked their way about a mile into the river but were still barely a quarter of the way across the vast waterway. They could turn back and try for the nearest shoreline, but that would entail crossing the path of the advancing catamaran. Or they could continue with their original plan of traversing the river toward the lights on the opposite shore. But fatigue was beginning to creep up on them, hastened by their long immersion in the cool water. Another three-mile swim would be a tall order, made more difficult by the repeated submergings they would have to perform to avoid Kang's boat. Whether they could in fact survive the game of cat and mouse with Tongju and his gunmen would be uncertain at best.
But there was a third option. The small vessel with the colored lights that they had earlier noticed upriver was approaching on a nearby path about a half mile away. In the darkness, Dirk had trouble identifying the boat, but it appeared to be a wooden sailing vessel of some kind. A small red sail, revealed under the white mast light to be square shaped in dimension, was raised near the bow, but the boat didn't appear to be moving much faster than the current.
Dirk gauged the path of the boat and swam another hundred yards toward the center of the river, then stopped. Summer swam past before realizing her brother had halted.
"What gives? We need to keep going," she whispered after swimming back to him.
Dirk nodded downriver toward the catamaran. The sleek vessel had
arced well out into the river as it circled downstream. He mentally calculated the trajectory of the yacht if it held its current circular course.
"They'll be within sight of us on the next upriver pass," he said quietly.
Summer could see he was right. The bright beams of the searchlights would shine upon their position on the next loop. They would have to remain submerged for several minutes to guarantee their concealment.
Dirk took a quick glance upriver. "Sister, I think it's time for Plan
B."
"Plan B?" she asked.
"Yes, Plan B. Stick out your thumb and start hitchhiking."
The large wooden sailboat creaked lazily down the river, its foremast sail and a small auxiliary motor pushing it along just 3 knots faster than the current. As the vessel crept closer, Dirk could see that it was a three-masted Chinese junk of about twenty-five meters in length. Unlike most dilapidated sailing boats in this part of the world, the junk appeared to be maintained in pristine condition. A string of multicolored Chinese lanterns hung gaily from bow to stern, lending a party like atmosphere to the boat. Constructed entirely of rich teak-wood, the highly varnished surfaces seemed to glisten under the swaying overhead lamps. Somewhere belowdecks, a pair of stereo speakers blared out an orchestral tune, which Dirk recognized as a Gershwin melody. Yet despite the festive atmosphere, there was not a soul to be seen on deck.
"Ahoy! We're in the water. Can you help?"
Dirk's muted shout went unanswered as the junk approached. He repeated the call, careful not to draw attention from the catamaran, which had completed a downstream turn and was now headed upriver. Swimming closer to the moving junk, Dirk thought he detected a shadowy movement on the stern, but, again, there was no response to his call for help. He tried a third time, failing to notice as he spoke that the muffled drone of the junk's motor audibly raised a note.
The junk's golden teak hull began gliding past Dirk and Summer, an ornately carved dragon on the prow eyeing them maliciously in the water less than ten feet from the starboard beam. Like a phantom in the night, the junk slipped by strangely impervious to the voices calling from the water. As the stern and rudderpost floated past, Dirk abandoned hope of rescue from the junk and angrily wondered whether the pilot was asleep, drunk, or both.
Peering toward the slowly approaching catamaran, he was startled by a sudden splash in the water near his head. It was an orange plastic float tied to a coil of rope, trailing back to the stern of the junk.
"Grab hold and hang on tight," he instructed his sister, making sure Summer had a strong grip on the line before grasping it himself. As the line quickly drew taut, the force of the junk sailing faster than the river momentarily jerked them underwater. With a face full of water, they were dragged along the river's surface like a fallen water-skier who forgot to let go of the towline. Dirk slowly began pulling himself up the line hand over hand as his legs flailed out behind him. Reaching the high, blunt stern of the junk, he shimmied up the rope almost vertically until reaching the stern railing. A pair of hands emerged from the darkness, grabbing about his lapels and forcefully yanking him over the railing and onto the deck.
"Thanks," Dirk muttered, paying little heed to a tall figure in the shadows. "My sister is still on the line," he gasped, standing and grabbing the line at the stern rail and pulling at it. The tall man stepped up behind him and clasped the line, throwing his weight into it with Dirk. Together, they hoisted Summer up the railing like a gigged flounder until she flopped over the railing and onto the deck in a soggy heap. A high-pitched bark erupted from across the deck and, in an instant, a small black-and-tan dachshund raced over to Summer and began licking her face.
"Dark night for a swim, don't you think?" the stranger said in English.
"You're American," Dirk stated with surprise.
"Ever since being born in the Land of Lincoln," came the reply.
Dirk studied the man beside him for the first time. He stood six-foot-three, nearly matching his own height, though he carried a good twenty pounds more heft. A wave of unruly white hair and a matching goatee indicated that he was at least forty years his senior. The man's blue-green eyes, which seemed to twi
nkle with mischief under the hanging lights, touched a nerve with him. He felt as if he was looking at an older version of his own father, he finally decided.
"We're in great danger," Summer injected, rising to her feet. She scooped up the small dog as she stood and rubbed its ears briskly, which produced a sharp wag of its tail. "Our research vessel was sunk by these murderers and they mean to kill us," she said, nodding downriver toward the catamaran that was circling slowly in their direction.
"I heard the machine-gun fire," the man replied.
"They intend to make another deadly attack. We need to alert the authorities," she pleaded.
"Thousands of additional lives are at risk," Dirk added somberly.
The white-haired man perused the odd pair up and down. Summer, soaked but elegant still in her ripped silk cocktail dress, appeared an unusual companion for Dirk, who was battered and bruised in a shredded blue jumpsuit. Neither attempted to conceal the handcuff shackles that dangled from their wrists.
A slight grin fell across the man's lips. "I guess I'll buy it. We better hide you belowdecks until we get past that cat. You can stay in Mauser's cabin."
"Mauser? How many people are aboard?" Dirk asked.
"Just me and that fellow who's kissing your sister," he replied. Dirk turned to see the small dachshund happily licking the water off Summer's face.
The junk's owner quickly led them through a bulkhead door and down a flight of steps that led to a tastefully decorated stateroom.
"There's towels in the bath and dry clothes in the closet. And here, this will warm you up." He grabbed a bottle sitting on a side table and poured them each a glass of the clear fluid. Dirk downed a shot quickly, tasting a bitter flavor from the smooth liquor that clearly packed a high alcohol content.
"Soju," the man said. "A local rice brew. Help yourself while I try to get us past your friends in the cat."
"Thank you for helping us," Summer replied appreciatively. "By the way, my name is Summer Pitt, and this is my brother, Dirk."