Dragon Read Free Page B

Lines passenger-cargo liner Narvik and aimed his binoculars at a huge ship wallowing dead in the whitecaps. She was big, a Japanese auto carrier by the look of her. Her upper works stretched from blunt bow to a perfectly squared stern, like a rectangular box laid horizontal. Except for the bridge and the crew’s quarters on the upper deck, there were no ports or windows on her sides.
    She seemed to have a ten-degree permanent list but rolled to twenty as the swells smashed into her exposed port broadside. The only sign of life was a wisp of smoke from her stack. Korvold grimly noted that her lifeboats had been launched, and a sweep of the restless sea failed to find any sign of them. He refocused the binoculars and read the English name spelled out beneath the Japanese characters on the bow.
    She was called the Divine Star .
    Korvold returned to the comfort of the central bridge and leaned into the communications room. “Still no response?”
    The radio operator shook his head. “Nothing. Not a peep wince we sighted her. Her radio must be closed down. Impossible to believe they abandoned ship without a distress call.”
    Korvold stared silently through the bridge windows at the Japanese ship drifting less than a kilometer off his starboard rail. Norwegian by birth, he was a short, distinguished man who never made a hurried gesture. His ice-blue eyes seldom blinked, and his lips beneath the trimmed beard seemed constantly frozen in a slight smile. Twenty-six years at sea, mostly in cruise ships, he had a warm and friendly disposition, respected by his crew and admired by the passengers.
    He tugged at his short graying beard and swore quietly to himself. The tropical storm had unexpectedly swung north onto his course and put him nearly two days behind schedule on his passage from the port of Pusan, Korea, to San Francisco. Korvol had not left the bridge for forty-eight hours and he was exhausted. Just as he was about to take a welcome rest, they sighted the seemingly derelict Divine Star .
    Now he found himself faced with an enigma and a time-consuming search for the Japanese car carrier’s boats. He was also burdened with the responsibility of 130 passengers, most seasick to the gills, who were in no mood for a benevolent rescue operation.
    “Permission to take a boarding crew across, Captain?”
    Korvold looked up into the sculpted Nordic face of Chief Officer Oscar Steep. The eyes that stared back were a darker blue than Korvold’s. The chief officer stood lean and as straight as a light pole, skin tanned and hair bleached blond from exposure to the sun.
    Korvold didn’t immediately answer but walked over to a bridge window and gazed down at the sea separating the two ships. From wave crest to trough the waves were running three to meters. “I’m not of a mind to risk lives, Mr. Steep. Better wait until seas calm a bit.”
    “I’ve taken a boat through worse.”
    “No hurry. She’s a dead ship, dead as a body in the morgue. And from the look of her, her cargo has shifted and she’s taking on water. Better we leave her be and search for her boats.”
    “There may be injured men over there,” Steen persisted.
    Korvold shook his head. “No captain would have abandoned ship and left injured crewmen behind.”
    “No captain in his right senses maybe. But what kind of a man would desert a sound ship and lower boats in the midst of a sixty-five knot gale typhoon without sending a Mayday signal?”
    “A mystery all right,” Korvold agreed.
    “And there’s her cargo to consider,” Steen continued. “Her waterline indicates a full load. She looks capable of transporting over seven thousand automobiles.”
    Korvold gave Steen a shrewd look. “You thinking salvage, Mr. Steen?”
    “Yes, sir, I am. If she’s totally abandoned with a full cargo, and we can sail her into port, our salvage claim should be equal to half her value or better. The company as well as the crew could share in five or six hundred million