Chapter 144: Our Cause
“It’s simple,” Lando said. He and Hale had not only loaded some emergency weapons and supplies onto the lifeboat but had also packed another set of emergency supplies in a magnetic box and attached it to the ship’s hull.
“Anyone who can dive two or three meters can easily retrieve the box at low tide.”
Lin Chuanqing laughed. “You’re a cunning one.”
“If I wasn’t cunning, I’d have died many times over. When you’re taking risks, you always need a backup.”
“Well said. Come, let’s toast to the success of our work tomorrow.” Qian Shuiting poured a glass of soda for everyone.
Lando said, “To the price of my ticket.”
The navy’s motorboat chugged along, emitting black smoke, towing a giant, cigar-shaped object covered in various sea creatures. At first glance, it looked like a dying whale or some other sea monster, bobbing in the waves. Rows of yellow oil drums were tied to both sides of this massive object for reserve buoyancy.
Two rowboats, filled with marines and sailors, followed cautiously. Their task was to keep a close watch on the object and prevent any accidents.
This huge object was carefully towed to the shallows, where it ran aground. The sailors jumped out of their boats and pushed the behemoth in the waist-deep water, using derricks and pulleys to haul it onto the tracks on the beach and slowly pull it up to the pier. A curious crowd gathered around.
“Not bad,” Qian Shuiting said, lowering his binoculars and lighting a cigarette. “God knows you dropped a caisson in the open sea off Dongsha Island. Without the coordinates you provided, we would never have found it.”
“The caisson had a buoy attached to it when it was dropped, to mark its position,” Weiss said. “Of course, no buoy can last for three years. We had deviated from our course and ended up near Dongsha Island. We thought we would definitely be inspected by the Taiwan Coast Guard, so we decided to drop it in a hurry.”
“No wonder the stern of your ship was sloped, and you had such a long slipway from the bridge to the stern, with a crane under the gantry mast,” Meng De said. “At first, I thought it was for launching fishing boats. Did you really carry this thing, which is more than half the length of your ship, on board all the time?”
The former mercenary nodded in agreement.
“If you had noticed some of the clues on the Mackerel when you salvaged it, you might have guessed there was something else on board. Of course, without precise coordinates, it’s difficult to salvage anything from the sea.”
Qian Shuiting took a long drag on his cigarette, and the butt flew in an arc from his hand into the sea. “Let’s go, Mr. Weiss, and see what new gifts you’ve brought us.”
The salvaged caisson had been pushed into a newly erected shed, still dripping water. The double-hulled steel caisson was shaped like a long, thick cigar, its surface covered in various attached sea creatures, looking like a strangely shaped reef in the dim light.
The atmosphere inside and outside the shed was electric, just like when Ship A had been brought out of the water. A light ladder was placed against it, and Gao Xiaosong and others climbed to the top of the caisson, using knives to scrape away the attached organisms and waterproof sealant from the cargo hatch. The turntable began to move, and with a few clangs, the cargo hatch slowly opened. The crowd cheered and surged into the shed, eager to get a first look.
Only Weiss sat under a coconut tree outside the shed, calmly smoking a cigarette.
The cargo hold of the caisson was damp, but there was no water inside. “What’s this?” Gao Xiaosong opened a sealed iron box and took out a rectangular object wrapped in a dark green aluminum-plastic film. It looked like a large bar of soap with some English letters on it. He turned on his headlamp and examined it closely.
Zhou Weisen came over. “This is a 1.25-pound block of C4 explosive.” He pulled back the tarpaulin, counted the number of iron boxes, and exclaimed, “My God, there’s so much!”
The mountain of explosive boxes scared away many of the enthusiastic onlookers. Although everyone knew that standard-issue US military explosives were much safer than the homemade dynamite from Lingao, being in the company of a large pile of explosives was still daunting.
When Weiss walked into the shed, Qian Shuiting was waving a strange-looking short gun that had just been taken out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! I thought this caisson was full of tactical nuclear warheads. You were planning to use this stuff to scam the Karen army out of their dollars? You really are a conscienceless arms dealer.”
“It looks like a submachine gun. What model is it?” Gao Xiaosong turned the weapon over and over, examining it. It had a plastic body that looked like a toy, with a folding steel wire stock. There were also several translucent plastic drum magazines in the packing case. Since dealing with the gun-savvy North American contingent, the former coast guard captain had realized his own knowledge of firearms was pitifully small.
“MGV-176, a Yugoslavian copy of the American-180 submachine gun,” Qian Shuiting said. “Police equipment. This gun is decent enough. It has a high rate of fire and good accuracy in full-auto. The only problem is that the .22 caliber bullet it uses is too weak.”
“Why worry about a few submachine guns?” the former mercenary and smuggler said, his arms crossed, leaning against a pillar of the shed. “If you need them, your factories can mass-produce Stens or M3 Grease Guns. It’s not like you’re short on ammunition.”
“We are short on ammunition. If we could mass-produce ammunition, we might have started making AKs long ago.”
The guns were taken out of the cargo hold and counted one by one. Besides the unpopular MGV-176, the rest of the haul was quite satisfactory. More than twenty brand-new M240B machine guns were lined up on the ground, their barrels and parts still coated with a thin layer of rust-proof oil. There were 316 FAL automatic rifles, including standard models with fixed stocks and bipods, and carbine models with folding stocks and short barrels, all wrapped in shrink wrap. The middle of the cargo hold was filled with cases of ammunition. Besides the .22LR rounds for the MGV-176 submachine guns, the rest were 7.62x51mm NATO rounds, sealed in special polyester packing cases. Zhou Weisen, Gao Xiaosong, and the representative from the Planning Commission, Sun Xiao, climbed up and down, counting with a few men. There were over a hundred cases.
“Enough to start a small war,” Qian Shuiting said to Weiss. “If you hadn’t run into us, you would have made a fortune from this deal.” The latter just nodded. “Keep looking. The treasures of King Solomon are more than this.”
“Are you referring to this?” Lin Chuanqing pointed to the boxes that had been moved from the rear of the cargo hold, and a device that looked like a rocket launcher. Old Di was shocked when he saw it. “Anti-tank missiles, Red Arrow 73!”
“You know how to use this thing?”
“No, but I’ve seen it in military exercises. This thing isn’t just for hitting tanks; it’s also great for hitting landing craft, speedboats, and bunkers.”
“This isn’t a domestic Red Arrow 73, but it’s definitely an AT-3 series anti-tank missile,” Gao Xiaosong said. “There’s writing on the packaging, ‘Yugoimport-SDPR’. Is that the manufacturer’s name?”
“Yugoimport-SDPR is a Serbian state-owned arms company. No, you’d better wait until you get back to the lab at the base before you mess with it,” Weiss said, stopping Lin Chuanqing from trying to open the hermetically sealed packing case.
“24 missiles, with both HEAT and thermobaric warheads. Alright, that’s everything. Count it slowly, and don’t miss anything.”
“The question is, who are we planning to use this stuff on?”
Like the disposable rocket launchers salvaged from the ship’s hold, this was another difficult question.
The 8154 cruiser sounded its horn and escorted the small fleet away from Dongsha Island. Jiang Shan found Weiss on the aft deck. He was leaning against the railing, gazing at the white wake churned up by the propellers.
Jiang Shan introduced himself simply. The former mercenary shook his head slightly. “I saw you that night, in the interrogation room.”
“A telegram just came in,” Jiang Shan said, pulling out a piece of teletype paper. “A congratulatory message from Chairman Wen to the entire search and salvage team. He even mentioned your name specifically.”
Weiss glanced at it and handed it back. “I can’t read Chinese.”
“You’d better learn.”
“Chinese is too difficult,” Lando said, spitting his cigarette butt into the sea. “But I’ll try to learn to speak it—it’s the language of the Transmigrators.”
“What do you plan to do next?”
“Do?” Weiss squinted at the waves. “I’m very poor right now, so I want to go back to Macao and get my six hundred silver pesos.”
“Li Siya won’t pay you for nothing,” Jiang Shan reminded him. “What are you going to give her in return for that money?”
“That depends on what you want her to know, or what you want the Dutch to know. I’m more than happy to be of service in that regard.” Weiss guessed that the head of the Chinese intelligence agency was satisfied with his answer, because he called over a navy steward with a tray. On the tray was a bottle of rum and two glasses.
“Let’s have a drink,” he said.
Weiss didn’t take the glass but pulled out a carved silver cup from his pocket, something he had won from a rich but foolish Spanish gambler. When he was in Macao, he often showed off this beautiful cup to back up his fabricated story of being an Italian nobleman. Now, he filled the silver cup with rum. “So, what are we drinking to?”
“To our cause,” Jiang Shan said.
“To our cause,” Weiss murmured. He tilted his head back and drained the cup, then with a flick of his wrist, he threw the exquisite silver cup into the sea.