Ash Ketchum: Hunt For Jade Dragon

Ch. 13 Castaway

Port of Lima, Peru

   Giovanni and the surviving Galactic board members were about a mile up the Peruvian coast from the Ampere when the Watt exploded. They briefly slowed their raft and watched as a column of thick, black smoke billowed up into the twilight sky.

  "It's the Ampere," Three said.

   Giovanni turned back. "Andiamo, we must keep going. Once they recover from the attack, the whole Galactic guard and the Peruvian military will be looking to find who did that." Ten minutes later there was a second explosion. "What was that?

   Eight asked. "They got a second boat?"

  "Hopefully they'll take out the entire fleet," Nine said.

  "Maybe the first explosion wasn't the Ampere," Eight said.

  "If it wasn't, Cyrus may have gotten out," Giovanni said. He pointed toward the beach. "There. Cut back on power and head to shore."

  "Yes, sir," Four said.

   Giovanni carefully surveyed the beach but saw nothing but sand and a wall of foliage separating the beach from the city. They had to be careful. There were hundreds of Galactic guards around Lima, and six well-dressed foreigners coming ashore in a raft would not go unnoticed. The raft struck sand and the board members quickly climbed out.

  "Send the raft back out," Giovanni said to Four. "If they find it, they might figure out we survived." Giovanni hoped that anyone who knew they had escaped was killed in the explosion of the Ampere, but he couldn't be sure, and a wrong assumption could cost them their lives.

   The other board members turned the raft around; then Four started the engine again and sent it, unmanned, back out to sea. The group took cover in a small grove of palm trees while Giovanni walked to the road alone. After sunrise he flagged down a passing cattle truck.

    Giovanni spoke even better Spanish than he did English, and he bargained with the driver for a ride into downtown Lima, offering the man the only valuable he still carried-his twenty-thousand dollar Rolex watch.

   Giovanni, who was accustomed to elegant yachts and luxury cars, now sat on the alfalfa-and manure-covered floor of the cattle truck for the twenty-minute ride. But the discomfort and humiliation were not the source of his greatest pain. His love, Two, had died after Cyrus had hung her upside down in the Ampere's brig, taking Giovanni's place in death.

   The truck reached downtown Lima a half hour later and Giovanni ordered the driver to stop a half block from the Hilton Hotel. "Wait here," Giovanni said to the driver and the other board members. "I'll be back."

   He brushed himself off, then walked into the hotel and up to the concierge desk. A Peruvian man wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a black suit looked up. "May I help you?"

  "Yes," Giovanni said. "What is your name, please?"

  "I am Victor Perez."

  "Mr. Perez, my name is Sakaki Giovanni. I am the CEO of the Galactic Corporation. I have no identification, but if you need confirmation you can verify my identity on the Internet. My associates and I have been the victims of a crime. We were kidnapped on our way into town. The thieves stole everything and I need your assistance. If I could have access to a telephone, I could wire money to your hotel and book a room. I would like your presidential suite or an equivalent."

   Even though Giovanni's suit was disheveled, Perez recognized it as a twenty-thousand-dollar Ermenegildo Zegna.

  "You are of what citizenship?" Perez asked.