Wilbanks nodded, measured the distance and direction on the computer, and moved the Divercity, dragging the MiniRover until it was sitting atop the detached stern section. Then Hall deftly steered the ROV past the ship's propellers, whose upper blades rose from the silt. The huge rudder was still set on a direct course ahead. The lettering across the stern could be distinctly seen to identify the vessel's home port as Shanghai. The story was the same-the bent and shredded hull plates, the disemboweled engines, the scattered art treasures.
Midnight came and went as the first humans to lay eyes on the Princess Dou Wan in fifty-two years studied the two broken hulks and their priceless cargo from every angle. When they finally decided that there was no more to see, Hall began reeling in the MiniRover.
No one tore his gaze away from the screen until long after the MiniRover ascended toward the surface and the Princess Dou Wan was lost to view in the black void. The ship was once again alone on the bottom of the lake, her only companion an unknown sailing ship that rested only a mile away. But the solitude was temporary. Soon men, ships and equipment would be probing her bones and removing the precious cargo she had carried so far across the world and jealously guarded through the years since she steamed from Shanghai.
The ill-fated voyage of the Princess Dou Wan had not ended, not quite yet. Her epilogue was still to be written.
51
HISTORIAN ZHU KWAN sat at a desk on a stage in the middle of a huge office and studied reports gathered by an international army of researchers hired by Qin Shang. The Princess Dou Wan project took up half of one floor in the Qin Shang Maritime office building in Hong Kong. No expense was spared. And yet, despite the massive effort, nothing of substance had been found. To Zhu Kwan, the loss of the ship remained a mystery.
Zhu Kwan and his team scouted every maritime source for leads while Qin Shang's survey-and-salvage ship kept up its search of the waters off the coast of Chile for the elusive passenger liner. Built in his Hong Kong shipyard, the vessel was a marvel of undersea technology and the envy of every maritime nation's oceanographic science and research institutions. Named the Jade Adventurer rather than a Chinese name to make documentation simpler when operating in foreign waters, the ship and its crew had previously discovered the wreck of a sixteenth-century junk in the China Sea and salvaged its cargo of Ming-dynasty porcelain.
Zhu Kwan examined a description of works of art from a private collection of Chinese art owned by a wealthy merchant in Peking that had disappeared in 1948. The merchant had been murdered, and Zhu Kwan had tracked down his heirs in what turned out to be a successful hunt for an inventory of the lost art. He was studying a drawing of a rare wine vessel when his assistant's voice came over the speakerphone.
"Sir, you have a call from the United States. A Mr. St. Julien Perlmutter."
Zhu Kwan laid aside the drawing. "
lease put him on."
"Hello, Zhu Kwan, are you there?" came the jovial voice of Perlmutter.
"St. Julien. What an unexpected surprise. I am honored to hear from my old friend and colleague."
"You'll be more than honored when you hear what I have to tell you."
The Chinese historian was bewildered. "I am always happy to hear of your archival discoveries."
"Tell me, Zhu Kwan, are you still interested in finding a ship called the Princess Dou Wan?"
Zhu Kwan sucked in his breath, a fear rising inside him. "You are also searching for her?"
"Oh, no, no, no," Perlmutter said carelessly. "I have no interest in the ship whatsoever. But while researching another lost ship, a missing Great Lakes car ferry, I ran across a document by a ship's engineer, since deceased, that told of a harrowing experience while he served on board the Princess Dou Wan."
"You found a survivor?" asked Zhu Kwan, unable to believe his luck.
"His name is Ian Gallagher. His friends called him 'Hong Kong.' He was the chief engineer on the Princess when she went down."
"Yes, yes, I have a file on him."
"Gallagher was the only survivor. He never went back to China for obvious reasons and dropped out of sight in the United States."
"The Princess," gasped Zhu Kwan, unable to contain his growing expectation. "Did Gallagher give an approximate position off Chile where the ship sank?"
"Brace yourself, my Oriental friend," said Perlmutter. "The Princess Dou Wan did not go to the bottom of the South Pacific."
"But her final distress call?" muttered a confused Zhu Kwan.
"She lies under Lake Michigan in North America."
"Impossible!" Zhu Kwan gasped.
"Believe me, it's true. The distress signal was a fake. The captain and crew, under the direction of a General Kung Hui, altered the name to that of her sister ship, the Princess Yung T'ai. Then they sailed through the Panama Canal up the East Coast of the United States and down the St. Lawrence River into the Great Lakes. She was overtaken by a horrendous storm and went down two hundred miles north of Chicago, her ultimate destination."
"This is incredible. Are you sure of your facts?"
"I'll fax you Gallagher's report of the voyage and sinking."