Aboard FV Flying Fish, Peleliu Waters

 

“Something wonky here, Mate.” Josh Watkins pulled back on the throttles keeping just enough turns on the boat’s powerful engines to hold position against the current streaming along the outer edges of Peleliu’s western coral reef. As Mike Stokey joined him beside the wheel in the elevated cockpit, Watkins pointed toward the Camp Beck Docks about five hundred meters off their port beam. “All the local boats are tied up when they should be out here fetching supper.”

Stokey reached for a pair of 7x50 binoculars hanging from a bulkhead hook and swept the dock area. “Not all of them, Chopper. There’s some guy headed our way in an outrigger and it looks like he’s trying to get your attention.”

Watkins took the glasses and focused on the boat. “That’s Des. He’s my local mate and one of the best diving riggers on the island. Not like him to be on the surface of the water this time of day.” Chopper Watkins shifted his scrutiny of the distant shore back to the dock area. “Something definitely out of sorts here, Mike. There’s a black flag flying on the dock. That’s trouble; means no boats to approach closer inshore than the seaward side of the reef.”

“Why?”

“That’s the money question, mate. Only time I’ve seen a black flag flying out here was when the Koror cops shut down the island a couple of years ago. They caught some boat out of Papua fueling up on Peleliu with a load of cocaine in the hold. I reckon Des will give us the gouge when he gets out here.”

Stokey helped Watkins set an anchor aft while they waited for the outrigger to traverse the distance between the docks and their position out beyond the reef. If his instincts were any guide—and they hadn’t failed him in thirty years in and out of dodgy situations—there was something seriously wrong somewhere beyond the idyllic scenery of Peleliu’s beaches.

“Des, old son, what’s up on the island, mate?” Chopper stood in the bow of the Flying Fish ready to heave his friend a mooring line. Des cut power to a clunky outboard and swung his battered boat to bring it alongside when a gout of seawater exploded in his wake. Stokey recognized the situation seconds before he heard the distant report of a rifle. Someone was shooting at their visitor from the high ground beyond the beach. He made a sprint for the binoculars on the bridge but not before he heard a second shot smack into the seasoned wood of the outrigger’s hull. As he climbed the accommodation ladder, he looked over his shoulder to see the islander bail over the side of his boat and disappear underwater. Chopper rushed aft to raise the anchor.

“Pull Des up on the outboard side!” Chopper heaved mightily on the anchor and Stokey felt the boat swing with the current as he jumped down to the deck and scrambled to locate Des and haul him aboard the Flying Fish. Just as he was reaching for the man’s outstretched hand he heard a third shot slap into the superstructure. The shooter on Peleliu was putting in some credible rounds at a range of 500 meters or more so he was no amateur and it wouldn’t be long before he had the range bracketed. They needed to get out of that range in a hurry.

With very little help from Stokey, Des lunged aboard and with a cursory nod to his rescuer rushed to the bridge where Chopper Watkins was already spinning the wheel and jamming the throttles toward warp speed. The Flying Fish squatted as her propellers dug in and then wheeled into a hard right turn taking them seaward of the shooter on Peleliu.

Twenty minutes later they were cruising on a northerly course five nautical miles offshore. It had taken some strong argument to keep Chopper Watkins from reporting the encounter to the Palauan National Police on Koror. In fact, he had the radio tuned and ready to transmit when Stokey finally convinced him that bringing in the local cops would only complicate matters on Peleliu. If the national police hadn’t been notified already by someone on the island, it was best to keep them out of the picture until the situation could be stabilized by real professionals.

Stokey went below to see what he could find out from Des. The native islander was more than a little anxious to tell someone in authority about what was happening. There were four locals and two visiting divers dead on Peleliu and nobody knew why. The islanders were hunkered down in their homes, no one could find the local police chief and the phone lines normally used to communicate with Babelthaup were not working. Des didn’t know if anyone had reported the situation by radio or cellular phone to Koror. He’d heard the deaths had something to do with eating local fish, so he’d personally raised the black flag over the docks.

“You’ve got some people on the island doing science experiments, right?” Stokey handed the islander a cold beer from the reefer in the boat’s tiny kitchen area. “Aren’t they working with fish?”

Des hit on the beer greedily and nodded until he could swallow a mouthful. “Lots of people sayin’ them guys poisoning the fish. My cousin says Keana Sulukep and her girl eating fish from them guys and they dead now. Mister Monoro, the cop…he supposed to shut them guys down but nobody can find him.”

Stokey reached for his satellite phone and checked the power status. “Des, you got any idea who might have been shooting at us?”

The islander drained his beer and shook his head. “Nobody on Peleliu got that kind of gun. I’m thinkin’ it’s the fish guys. Lots of people doin’ day work for ’em say they act like soldiers not scientists. And some kids from up by Ngalkol village say they seen people from the fish farm with army-type guns up in the Umurbrogol. They doin’ the shooting, you ask me.”

Stokey handed Des another beer and stepped out onto the fishing decks with his sat-phone. “Hey, Chopper. Is it worth another full charter fee to get me around the other side of the island and put me ashore after dark?”

When he saw a grin and a thumbs-up from the skipper, Stokey plopped into one of the big fishing chairs and punched numbers into his phone. When Shake Davis came up on the other end of the circuit, Stokey took a deep breath and started the briefing.

“Houston…we’ve got a problem…”

He was blinded by glare from a descending sun and deep into his plan for going ashore on a reconnaissance mission, so Mike Stokey missed the small dot on the southern horizon. It was the Al Calipha plowing through the Pacific chop and headed for Peleliu at top speed under emergency orders from the team leader on the island.