Project Perses: Redemption

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The commercial fishing trawler has almost capsized twice already in these rough waters.  It’s been a long four months at sea.  The only land we have seen as we made our way northward along the Pacific Rim has been the few ports we have actually made it to, and even then there was little time to get off and explore.

Not that I wanted to.

The men around me are all working hard, guiding the nets up from the churning sea, sweeping any fish that happen to fall outside of the nets on to the deck into the hold below.  It’s bitterly cold here, the seas off of the China coast reflecting the winter season, even though no snow has fallen in days.  During our last stay in a US port, I had managed to make it off this rusting tin can.  That field trip used what little cash I had already earned taking menial jobs to buy some cold weather gear. 

It just so happened that there had been a Wal-Mart in Kodiak that had everything I needed. 

“Get that hook! Pull in the net.”  Zhao Dong, the man next to me, yells in Mandarin.  I nod and grab the long metal hook, reaching out then and dragging in the end of the nets that still hang over the side.  “Laowai, don’t be so sloppy!  Drag it in all the way!”  He yells again, waving at me to hurry up.

‘Laowai’, in Chinese it refers to a westerner, a foreigner.  An alien. 

How fitting.

Once the nets are in, I’m tasked with sweeping off the decks, mucking away the ocean water, fish scales and whatever else that came up from the bottom.  The men here don’t trust me, and I don’t blame them.  I had joined their crew in Seattle after offering up my services to the captain as cheap labor in exchange for undocumented transport to Hong Kong. 

They weren’t shy in telling me, quite often, what they thought of me.  It hadn’t been the best of experiences but frankly I didn’t care. I had a purpose and this was a means to an end.

What this experience did do was teach me Mandarin, even if it was the guttural version, in record time. Finishing up my work, I grab a bowl of soup from the pathetic excuse for a kitchen on board and retire to my sleeping quarters. 

I didn’t even have the luxury of a bunk, instead sleeping in the storage area where they keep the nets.  Even though night is fast approaching, it doesn’t look like anyone would be getting any sleep tonight with these rocky seas.  We are only one day out from the Chinese mainland and I am chafing at the bit to get there.

I’ve only got one objective, to find the Foreign Ministry.  If that was their base of communications, then I’d be going there first. Once I gathered any Intel I could from there, I would identify my next target.  I would dismantle their organization, piece by piece.  I didn’t like to think about it, but it was like going after the Twelve all over again, only this time, I didn’t have a list of names to help me, or Teddy.

We are going to port in Ningbo first; unloading a third of our catch, and then it would be on to Hong Kong, the end of the line.  I plan on gauging my reception in Ningbo.  If anything seems off or suspicious, I’d disappear there.  Not that I would look forward to traveling over land in winter.  I would stick out like a sore thumb.