In the middle of the meal, one of Mr. Yip’s men brought in a nautical chart. Mr. Yip spread it out on the table. “This is the Zhujiang Kou estuary,” Mr. Yip explained. “Most foreigners call it the Pearl River. Here is Guangzhou.” He pointed with his chopstick. “And here, above Zhuhai, just north of the special economic zone that the PRC has set up above Macao, are a group of small offshore islands. It is there that Captain Fa-Huang picks up your people. If you go tonight with some of my men you can meet them. You don’t have to wait for them to get back.”

“How do I get there?” Ned asked, looking at the map. He could tell it wasn’t that far: maybe fifty miles.

“We have a special boat coming for you,” Mr. Yip said. “It is what they call a cigarette boat.”

“Wonderful,” Ned said. He knew that cigarette boats were capable of speed in excess of fifty miles per hour.

“There is only one problem,” Mr. Yip said.

“What’s that?” Ned asked.

“I’ll need a bit more squeeze.”

16
April 19, 1990
10:51 P.M.

“Marissa!” Tristan called excitedly. “We’ve made contact. Why don’t you come on deck?”

Marissa sat up in the darkness. She had been lying on a bamboo mat in the storeroom.

It had not been a good evening. An hour and a half out of Aberdeen, after rounding the southern tip of Lantau Island, they had run into a sudden squall. Within a few minutes, the rosy sky was transformed into a black swirling mass of clouds. The slight chop gave way to five-foot swells.

The queasiness Marissa had felt at the start quickly blossomed to full-blown seasickness. Since there were no facilities on board, she could only cling to the poop deck railing and vomit off the back of the boat. When the rain came, she was forced down into the filthy hold.

Tristan had been solicitous, but there was little he could do. He’d stayed with her, but after he’d opened one of the box lunches and started to eat, the sight and smell of the food had made Marissa feel worse. She’d sent him away.

The storm had also hindered their progress. With the gusty high winds, they had been forced to reef the huge butterfly sail that they’d been using up until the storm. Switching to the diesels, the captain merely kept the boat on course. Bentley explained that he wanted to conserve fuel.

Even after the storm had passed and the sail was rehoisted, the traveling had not been pleasant. The wind had all but died, and a dense mist had formed over the water creating a pea-soup fog. On several occasions, huge ships suddenly loomed out of the darkness with foghorns blasting, giving everyone on the small junk a terrible start.