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"Mr. Hong, this is Captain Mangyai."
He was answered by the gentle creak of the massive door as it was pulled open. A small moon-faced man with thick-lensed spectacles peered cautiously around the edge. "Ah, yes, Captain. Please come in."
"Can I get you anything, Mr. Hong?"
"No, I'm quite comfortable, thank you."
Hong's idea of comfort was considerably different from Mangyai's.
The onl
y suggestion of human habitation was a suitcase neatly stowed under a canvas folding cot, one blanket, a small electric burner with a pot of tea, and a desk hanging from a bulkhead, its surface hidden under a pile of chemical analysis equipment. The rest of the compartment was packed with wooden crates and gold bars. The gold was stacked thirty high and ten deep in several rows. Some bars were scattered on the deck next to the open crates, the unsanded sides stenciled with the disclosure: MERCURY IN GLASS
SUZAKA CHEMICAL COMPANY KYOTO,JAPAN
"How are you coming?" Mangyai asked.
"I should have it all examined and crated by the time we reach port."
"How many gilded lead bars did the Russians slip in?"
"None," said Hong, shaking his head. "The count tallies, and every bar I've checked so far is pure."
"Strange they were so accommodating. The shipment arrived at the preset hour. Their dockworkers loaded it onboard without incinent.
And we were cleared to depart without the usual administrative hassle.
"I've never experienced such efficiency in any of my previous dealings with Soviet port authorities."
"Perhaps Madame Bougainville has great influence in the Kremlin."
"Perhaps," said Mangyai skeptically. He looked curiously at the piles of gleaming yellow metal. "I wonder what was behind the transaction?"
"I'm not about to ask," said Hong, carefully wrapping a bar in wanding and placing it in a crate.
Before Mangyai could answer, a voice came over the speaker.
"Captain, are you in there?"
He walked over and cracked the heavy door. The ship's communications officer was standing outside in the alleyway.
:'Yes, what is it?"
'I thought you should know, Captain, someone is jamming our communications."
"You know this for a fact?"
"Yes, sir,"' said the young officer. "I managed to get a fix on it.
The source is less than three miles off our port bow."
Mangyai excused himself to Hong and hurried to the bridge.
First Officer Chao was calmly sitting in a high swivel chair studying the instruments on the ship's computerized control panel.
"Do you have any ship contacts in, Mr. Chao?" asked MangyAllf Chao was surprised at the captain's sudden reappearance, he didn't show it. "Nothing visual, nothing on radar, sir."
"What is our depth?"
