Samantha’s explanation sounded reasonable. But, as I was to find out later, there was another reason behind Mustafa’s wanting me alive and a prisoner.
"Mustafa took me to his cabin after we came aboard," she continued. “l guess they must have just dumped you down here. I don't know. To tell the truth, I was too busy fighting Mustafa off to notice. He kept trying to make love to me and I kept screaming and clawing him. Finally, he'd had enough and gave up. He called a couple of the Chinese and they dumped me down here."
"Was she here then?" I pointed to the still-sleeping figure of Anna Kirkov.
“Yes. And that beast over there as well. I was very frightened of him. But after a while, exhausted as I was, I managed to forget about him and doze off."
We fell silent for a few moments. There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Then I noticed that Samantha was within easy reach of Anna Kirkov. “Can you reach over and wake her up without disturbing the dog?" I asked.
Looking nervous, Samantha did as I asked. She touched Anna Kirkov gently, then shook her more vigorously. The Russian girl didn’t stir. “She seems to be in a trance, as if she were drugged," Samantha commented.
“She probably is. Might as well let her be."
A long, silent time went by then and the sun rose high in the sky. Its rays were streaming through the porthole when I heard the sound of footsteps above us and then saw a man's figure descending the ladder. The dog whined a greeting, a hand reached out to pet it, the figure turned around, gun in hand, and I saw the suave features of Mustafa Ben Narouz.
“Ahh, Mr. Victor, you are awake."
“If you mean conscious, yes, I am. The question is, what the devil am I doing here?”
“No, Mr. Victor. The question is what the devil were you doing spying on me at the beach-house. But let us not play games. You see, I already know the answer. I received a message just before my departure from the Jayasana house regarding you. The contents of this message were so interesting that I went looking for you at once. You see, the idea of your accompanying me on this voyage was not born on the spur of the moment. Imagine my disappointment when you were nowhere to be found. And imagine my pleasure in finding you awaiting me at the beach."
“What was in the message?” I asked.
“Information about your activities as an American intelligence agent. Observations as to your connections with a certain Victoria Winters of British Intelligence. Suspicions that you may be working with the Russians as well, although it is felt that you may have lost contact with them since the death of one Vladimir Potemchenko. A warning to beware of another agent with whom you are known to work, one Alan Foster. Indeed, Mr. Victor, from the information in that message, I begin to understand some of my own recent difficulties and to see you as the cause of them."
“If all this is true, why didn't you just kill me back there on the beach? Or, if you didn't want my body found, kill me later and dump my body overboard?"
“Yes, Mr. Victor, that would have been simplest. And it may yet prove the most feasible way to dispose of you. However, for now, I have decided against it. You see, as an American agent, I'm sure you have much knowledge which will be of interest to us. Actually, to deliver you to my superiors when we reach our destination will be a double feather in my cap."
The first "feather," I knew without his telling me, was Anna Kirkov. Still, his smugness annoyed me. “In the first place," I told him, “I have absolutely no information that could possibly interest your people. And in the second place, if I did, I wouldn't be likely to divulge it."
“You are naive in thinking I am so naive as to believe your first disclaimer, Mr. Victor. As to the second, all agents refuse to talk—-at first. But we have most effective ways of making them change their minds."
“I’ve heard about those ways. Torture. Brainwashing."
“Don't sound so disapproving, Mr. Victor. Espionage is no place for morality. Our methods work—as you shall find out for yourself—-and that's what counts."
"They won't work on me," I told him flatly, “for the simple reason that I have nothing to tell."
"We shall see if you are as brave as you are clever, Mr. Victor.“
"You're pretty clever yourself." I slung a little of his oil back at him. “But for such a clever man, Ben Narouz, I don't see why you're taking this roundabout route to China. Wouldn't it have been easier to make for Rangoon, or some other spot on the Burma coast, and then go overland to China? Why risk the South China Sea?"
“What makes you think we shall, Mr. Victor?"
“Well, unless my figuring's way off, we're almost to the Straits of Malacca now. Unless you're planning to continue to Indonesia or maybe Australia, we should be altering course after we pass through the Straits and doubling back toward China.“
“You are very observant, Mr. Victor and your surmise is quite close to being correct. However, while China is our destination, we will first make a brief stop near Point Ca Mau in South Vietnam."
“South Vietnam!" He'd meant to startle me and he’d succeeded. “But aren’t you afraid of running head-on into Uncle Sam?”
“Your army -- or your ‘observers,’ as you so hypocritically call them-—never ventures that far south. They are concerned with the Viet Cong in the north and leave the southern peninsula to the Vietnamese. And arrangements have been made to assure that the soldiers in that area will give us no trouble."
“But what about our Seventh Fleet? It’s no secret that they’re patrolling those waters in force."
"It’s no secret, Mr. Victor. However, due to circumstances only faintly related to our mission, your Seventh Fleet will be occupied elsewhere. My information is that even now they are steaming into the Gulf of Tonkin and that they will be kept quite busy there for the next day or two."
And that was the first I heard of the famous Gulf of Tonkin incident which led America and China to the brink of war11 . I'm probably the only American not directly concerned with the action who had some hint of it before it took place. But all it meant to me at that moment was that the Seventh Fleet would be somewhere between the shorelines of China and North Vietnam while Ben Narouz would be up to his dirty work at the southernmost tip of the Vietnam peninsula. I still didn't know just what dirty work it was that he was up to, and, having nothing to lose, I decided to ask him. "Why the stopover?" I put the question to him directly.
I guess he figured he had nothing to lose by telling me. “The reason for detouring to Vietnam," he told me, packed in those sacks upon which you are lying." He bent down, took out a penknife, and cut the corner from one of the sacks. A coarse powder ran into the palm of his hand.
"Opium!" I exclaimed.
“Exactly. You see, Mr. Victor, this boat was bound for Vietnam in the first place. It was detoured off its course by orders from Peking to pick me up. Thus it will make its delivery on the way back to China. This delivery is important, you see, because opium is our greatest ally when it comes to neutralizing the South Vietnamese in their foolish struggle against their Communist brothers. A man with his head full of opium dreams is not apt to be troubled by misguided patriotism. Indeed, not only will the recipients pay highly for our cargo, but they will also be extremely grateful to Mother China for providing it."
“Don't you have any conscience at all, Ben Narouz?" I couldn't help asking him. "After all, you're an Egyptian, not a Chinese."