Those few seconds taking in the enormity of the workings were the last moments he was spared the depravity of his captors. He and the others that had followed the snake with him from Shanghai were ordered into a line. An Indonesian guard locked a small chain around his neck. From it dangled a tag stamped with an identification number. Another guard noted the number in a ledger book, and the batch of them were led off to one of the derelict cruise liners. They were assigned unheated cabins. While the ship had never been luxurious by any standard, the rooms were crowded with bunk beds so ten men occupied a room designed for two. From the stench it was clear the ship’s plumbing no longer functioned, and even this deep into the vessel Eddie could see his own breath. Each bunk had a single mud-caked blanket, and the mattresses were soaked through and molding. There was no place for the workers to dry themselves, so at the end of their shifts they merely collapsed into their beds, wet and covered in slime.

A guard prodded him on. He and the others were shown where they ate. It had once been the cruise ship’s main dining room. All the furniture was long gone, and any ornamentation had been stripped from the walls. The floor was bare metal, and that was where the workers took their meals. The group was ordered into a line, and each took a filthy metal bowl from a pile. A Chinese man with his arm in a sling used his free hand to scoop a palm full of rice into the bowl. Next to him another disabled worker ladled in a grayish pink slop from a huge drum.

The concoction retained just a trace of warmth and was barely fit for human consumption. Eddie would later learn that the operators of the mine sent out a pair of fishing boats to drag the oceans. Anything and everything that got caught up in their nets was fed into a giant shredder to rip apart the bigger chunks and was then liquefied.

Five minutes after finding a place on the floor to choke down the sickening gruel, their guard cocked his weapon and shouted, “On your feet.”

Knowing he’d need to keep his strength, Eddie tipped the remainder of the bowl into his mouth, wolfing down the rank paste as well as his own bile. Bits of fish scale scraped at the back of his throat.

“You were fed now because you are newly arrived,” the guard continued. “From now on you only get food at the end of your shift.”