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main deck below. They were finishing the last remnants of their evening meal by lantern light. Soon they would be bedding down for the night, their din would subside, and he could listen to the quiet of the night.
This evening, while the passengers and most of the crew slept, Kei would guide the Medong Sui through the narrow Balabac Straits, into the Sulu Sea. Tomorrow night, the Medong Sui would arrive, only a few hours late, at Isabella, on Basilan Island in the southern Philippines.
The freighter was four days out of Nakhon Pathom, Thailand. It carried a manifest proclaiming that the Medong Sui was hauling a cargo of foodstuffs for delivery to a wholesaler in Isabella and a supercargo of Buddhist pilgrims returning home from a pilgrimage to Doi Suthep, one of the faith’s most revered shrines.
Kei would be happy when he could offload the fifty peasants who were making the passage. He would be even happier to rid himself of the other cargo the ship carried down in its hold. The manifest did not lie. It was just incomplete. It wasn’t the bags of rice and the dried fish that made Kei so nervous. It was the ton of pure heroin hidden underneath the rice and fish that scared him. The value of that cargo represented more money than he and his family could ever earn, not in a hundred lifetimes. He also knew that Sui Kia Shun would hold him personally responsible for every baht’s worth if it should somehow be lost, whether it was his fault or not.
Sui, the powerful Chinese drug lord, expected his servants to perform their duties unfailingly. There was no margin for error. Kei’s duty was to deliver the heroin to a waiting freighter in Isabella. Barring catastrophe, he would do just that, then accept his small compensation and wait for Sui to call upon him again someday.
Kei had traveled this passage, and most every other one in the South China Sea, countless times. Medong Sui was almost new when, as a young man, he first set sail. Now both he and his ship were well past their prime, worn and tired. Now that they were once again near their destination, he would soon breathe easier again.
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Kei inhaled the last bitter tendrils of smoke, held it in as long as he could, and then exhaled as he tossed the tiny butt over the side. The embers at its tip died in the damp air.
It was time to enjoy the solitude of the night. A million stars would keep him company on what was left of this moonless voyage.
Manju Shehab sat low in the black inflatable boat. Like the men behind him and those in the other two boats on either side of his, he was dressed all in black. The boats were running without any lights, invisible to anyone traveling these waters on such a dark night. Even with very sensitive radar, it would be almost impossible to detect the trio of boats, each with its own well-armed five-man team crouching inside.
But they knew their quarry tonight wouldn’t have sensitive radar. Most ships transiting these waters were lucky to have engines that worked, much less electronics.
The rusty old freighter they were awaiting was a few hours late but that was to be expected. Shehab’s instructions were to remain in this spot until it came, no matter how long it took. If Sabul u Nurizam, Allah praise his blessed leader’s name, said they were to wait until the stars fell from the heavens, Shehab would do so.
Finally, near midnight, Shehab saw the freighter’s running lights on the horizon. There was no mistaking the old coaster. He let it chug a mile past them before he signaled his men to start their engines. The powerful, expensive outboard motors could jet the rigid-hulled, inflatable boats across the water at better than forty knots, yet they were quiet enough that they were almost inaudible above the wave slap.
The old freighter was easy to track. The three boats followed the glimmering phosphorescent wake that trailed out far behind the ship.
Within minutes they had caught her and were hidden beneath the overhang of the high, sloping sides of the old vessel. Shehab moved his boat up along the starboard side and kept pace while he