Flood Tide, стр. 81

The stoves and the boiling pots and woks that were vigorously stirred soon turned the galley into a steam bath. Julia could not remember when she had sweat rivers. She drank glass after glass of water to maintain her bodily liquids. She gave a little prayer of thanks at watching the assistant cook take the initiative and prepare the watercress soup and the shredded chicken with bean sprouts. Julia gave a worthy performance of making the roast pork and noodles and the shrimp fried rice.

Captain Hung-chang wandered into the galley briefly for a quick snack of sesame-seed puffs after the Sung Lien Star was safely moored to the dock at Sungari. Then he returned to the bridge to receive the American customs and immigration officials. Fie looked Julia square in the face, but his eyes betrayed no sign other than simple recognition of who he thought was Lin Wan Chu.

Julia joined the rest of the crew as they lined up and produced then- passports to the immigration official who came on board. Ordinarily, the captain would present the documents so the crew could go about their duties, but the INS was particularly strict with vessels entering the port owned by Qin Shang Maritime. The official examined Lin Wan Chu's passport, which Julia had uncovered in the cook's cabin, without looking up at her. All neat and very professional, she thought. By looking her in the face, the official might have made an expression of recognition no matter how inconsequential.

Once the crew cleared immigration, they came down for their evening meal. The galley was located between the officer's wardroom and the crew's mess. As chief cook, Julia served the ship's officers while her assistants ladled out food to the crew. She was anxious to roam about the ship, but until the crew was fed she had to play out her role to avoid suspicion.

Julia remained quiet throughout the meal, scurrying about the galley, occasionally flashing a smile at a crewman as they complimented her on the food and asked for seconds. She did not merely act like Lin Wan Chu; to everyone on board she was Lin Wan Chu. There was no scrutiny, no incredulity. No one took notice of the negligible differences in mannerisms, appearance or speech. To them, she was the same cook who prepared their meals on board the Sung Lien Star since the night they cast off in Qingdao.

Item by item, she went over her mission in her mind. So far things had gone smoothly, but there was a major hang-up. If three hundred illegal immigrants were on board the ship, how were they being fed? Certainly not out of her galley. According to Lin Wan Chu's menu and recipe entries, she only prepared food for thirty crewmen. It didn't make sense for mere to be another shipboard galley to feed passengers. She checked out the storage compartment and lockers, finding the correct amount of food supplies to feed the Sung Lien Star's crew for the voyage from China to Sungari. She began to wonder if Peter Harper's CIA source in Qingdao had been mistaken and somehow gotten the name of the ship confused with another.

Calmly, she sat in Lin Wan Chu's little office and acted as if she was working on the menu for the following day. Out of the corner of one eye she watched as her assistant put away the leftover food in the locker and the cleanup man wiped off the tables before attacking the dirty dishes, pots and pans.

Casually, she left the office and walked through the officer's wardroom and into the passageway, pleased that the two galley men took no notice of her leaving. She climbed a companion-way and stepped out onto the deck below the wheelhouse and bridge wings. Already the big cranes on the dock were swinging into position to unload the containers stacked on the cargo decks.

She looked over the side and watched as a towboat pushed a barge alongside the hull of the ship. The crew looked to be Chinese. Two of them began throwing plastic bags bloated with trash through a cargo hatch into the barge. The procedure was conducted under the scrutiny of a drug-enforcement agent who probed and examined each sack before it was dropped overboard.

The entire dockyard scene appeared completely innocent of any illegitimate activity. Julia could see nothing that raised questions. The ship had been searched by the Coast Guard, customs and immigration officials for illegal aliens and drugs, and nothing illicit had been found. The containers were filled with manufactured trade goods, including clothing, rubber and plastic shoes, children's toys and games, radios and television sets, all produced by cheap Red Chinese labor to the detriment of thousands of American workers who had lost their jobs.

She returned to the galley and filled a bucket with the sesame-seed puffs (scallions and sesame seeds in a dough wrapper) that she knew were a favorite of Captain Hung-chang.

Then she began moving through the bowels of the ship, checking out the compartments below the waterline. Most of the crew were working above, unloading the ship's cargo containers. The few who remained below appeared pleased when she wandered past and offered them a snack from her bucket. She skirted the engine room, reasonably assured no immigrants were hidden there. No chief engineer worth his salt would have permitted passengers near his precious engines.

The only sickening moment of panic occurred when she became lost in the long compartment that held the ship's fuel tanks. She was startled by a crewman who came up behind her and demanded to know what she was doing there. Julia smiled, offered him her sesame-seed puffs and told him that it was the captain's birthday and he wanted everyone to celebrate. The ordinary seaman, having no reason to suspect the ship's cook, gratefully accepted a handful of puffs and smiled happily.

After a fruitless search looking into any compartment of the Sung Lien Star capable of holding and feeding scores of passengers and finding nothing suspicious, she made her way back to the open starboard deck. Standing at the railing as if she was idly wishing she could go ashore, and making certain no one was within earshot, she inserted a small receiver in her ear and began talking into the transmitter between her breasts.

“I regret saying this, but the ship appears clean. I searched every deck and found no indication of illegal immigrants.”

Captain Lewis on board the Weehawken replied without hesitation. “Are you secure?”

“Yes, I was accepted without reservation.”

“Do you wish to disembark?”

“Not yet. I'd like to hang around a bit longer.”

“Please keep me advised,” said Lewis, “and be careful.”

Lewis's parting words came muffled, as the air trembled suddenly with a thumping sound followed by the exhaust roar of the Weehawken's helicopter sweeping over the dock. Julia suppressed an urge to wave. She remained leisurely hunched over the railing, gazing at the aircraft with detached curiosity. She felt a wave of pleasure just knowing that she was watched over by a pair of U.S. coast guardsmen who were acting as her angels.

She was relieved that her job was done and angered that she had failed to discover any criminal activity. From the looks of it, Qin Shang had outsmarted everyone once again. If her mind

ran in a practical vein, she could call Lewis to come get her or simply jump ship into the arms of the nearest immigration agent. But she could not bring herself to quit by default. There had to be an answer, and Julia was determined to find it.

She moved around the stern to the lower portside deck until she could look directly down into the barge that was now half filled with plastic trash bags. She stood at the railing for a long minute, studying the barge and the towboat as its captain engaged the powerful engines to pull away from the Sung Lien Star. The wash from the twin propellers began beating the calm brownish water into foam.

Julia was seized with frustration. There was no crowd of immigrants huddled in sordid conditions on board the Sung Lien Star. Of that she was positive. Nor did she truly doubt the CIA agent's veracity who reported from Qingdao. Qin Shang was a shrewd customer. He must have devised a method that had fooled the best government investigators in the business.