It didn't take long to locate the Radiant Grappler II.
The Earthpeace vessel was berthed alongside a flat expanse of concrete. Its huge steel hull loomed high above them. The shadow cast by the Grappler was enormous, stretching across dozens of smaller ships docked nearby.
A single stenciled word on the prow of the ship identified her as the Mykonos.
"If they were trying to disguise it, they should've picked up a couple hundred crates of Renuzit," Remo commented. "The crate stinks like a floating bong."
They took the long gangplank up to the deck. "Blood," Chiun said, the instant his sandals touched metal plating.
Remo was already sniffing the air like a dog on a scent. "This way," he announced.
Taking the lead, Remo stepped across the deck. The two men slipped through an open door that led into a narrow passageway.
The air conditioning was off. In the merciless Lebanon sun, it hadn't taken long for the interior of the boat to become oppressively hot. The warm-blood scent grew stronger the deeper they traveled inside the ship. A spiral staircase at the end of one hall led down another level. Both Masters of Sinanju climbed down to the lower deck.
The blood stench was thick here, intermixed with the stale sweat of old fear.
"It is coming from the hold," Chiun commented gravely.
Remo nodded, his face etched in lines of deep concern.
During their journey through the Grappler's bowels, neither man had sensed even a single, faint human life sign.
After a few labyrinthine turns in the corridors, a final straight passageway brought them to the hold. They spied the bodies from the catwalk.
The Earthpeace crew had been shot. Coagulating blood-a blackish-purple after so many hours-clung to tie-dyed clothes and torn jeans. The human corpses had been dumped onto a pathetically small pile of rotting tuna.
Adding a surreal edge to the grisly tableau, a few of the Earthpeacers had apparently surrendered their hammocks to the largest tuna. The fish swayed ever-so-gently in their final resting places, pennies over their dead eyes.
Remo ignored the bizarre scene. His worried eyes had alighted on the steel zoo cage in the center of the hold.
They took a ladder to the floor.
The stench was powerful. They picked their way past Earthpeace corpses and rotting fish to the solid-metal cage. When he nudged the door open, Remo wasn't sure if he should be relieved or even more concerned.
The cage was empty. Just a few handfuls of hay tossed on the rusting floor.
"Looks like someone else has him," Remo commented, looking up from the empty cage.
Chiun didn't respond. Bent at the waist, he was examining the cage door. Remo was about to ask him what he was looking at when he was distracted by a sound behind them.
A cough. Wet and feeble.
Turning from both Chiun and the cage, he trained his senses on the field of Earthpeace dead, quickly isolating a single, thready heartbeat. Hurrying over, Remo found one of the men near the base of the tuna pile still clinging to life.
Lying in Remo's shadow, Bright Sunshiny Ralph's lip twitched. His eyes fluttered beneath ashen lids. Blood gurgled from a sticky wound in his abdomen.
Remo stooped next to the dying Earthpeacer. "Who did this?" Remo pressed.
Sunshiny's eyes rolled open. They were distant, unfocused.
"Murderers," he gasped. Fresh pain made him wince.
"I gathered," Remo said, with arid urgency. "Who? Who's the murderer?"
Sunshiny sniffed blood. "Us," he wheezed. "All these fish. Our ocean brothers. We murdered them in cold blood." His eyes grew teary. "And even worse, I participated in dolphinicide. I killed Flipper," he wailed.
His life signs were ebbing.
"Who shot you?" Remo insisted.
"Oh. Nossur Aruch," Sunshiny wheezed. "His PIO soldiers." He was fading fast. A final thought seemed to come to him. "Are there dolphins in heaven?" he asked.
Remo nodded tightly. "Three meals a day," he replied.
Sunshiny Ralph carried the look of horror that blossomed on his face over to the afterlife.
Remo left the body, returning to Chiun's side. "Looks like Nossur Aruch's our party crasher," Remo commented to the Master of Sinanju.
"I heard," Chiun replied. He had completed his examination of the cage. His wrinkled face was gathered into a frowning mass.
Remo knew the old man's expression could bode no good.
"Okay, what's the latest bad news?" he asked. "The man imprisoned in this cage has been attempting to escape." He extended a long nail to the side of the door near Remo.
Following Chiun's finger, Remo felt his stomach clench. There were fresh silvery scratch marks all around the lock. Someone had been trying to pick it. The heavy hinges bore similar marks, as if the prisoner had tried to pry the fused bolt. Dumbfounded, Remo stared at the scratches.
"They cracked him over the head," he insisted. "And doped him up."
"He is stronger than his enemies suspected," the Master of Sinanju replied gravely. "He has recovered."
As Remo stared at the empty cage, a creeping realization slowly replaced the numbness of discovery.
The kidnapped President had been taken hostage by yet another group, this one more radical than the first. And the veil of safety afforded them by unconsciousness had been lifted. When he spoke, Remo's voice echoed hollow off the faraway walls. "I better make that call to Smith."
Chapter 23
The former President of the United States had to admit it. The past couple days had sure been a mixed blessing. That was perhaps too genial a thought for a man who was bouncing in the back of a terrorist truck along some pothole-filled Lebanese road.
They'd dropped him to the floor, which was coated with a thin film of desert sand. Something cool and metallic pressed against his right cheek.
All around was joyful shouting.
The President was a prize. A spoil of war. Something to be waved over their heads like a captured flag.
As the whoops of joy fill the old President's ears, there came another, displeased shout. A sharp burst of angry Arabic. Afterward, the men grew silent.