“You got any flippers?” she joked, half serious.
He gestured for her to follow her inside where he yanked out an old wetsuit and pair of cheap snorkeling fins.
“That’ll work.” she said, bemused.
Soon after dark, the boat headed out to sea. Xue Lin grabbed a bunk and drifted off to sleep, thanks to the effects of the rice wine that was still in her system.
The First Mate woke her to give her some hot food. She’d need the calories for what was to come. As she slurped up her noodles, he sat with her and drew her a map.
“We will drop you exactly here. We use GPS so don’t worry. Captain never misses. Current will be going to the West, so you can relax and enjoy the ride, but the last two hundred meters you will have to swim to land and there might be some waves. When you get to shore, leave the wetsuit and fins on the beach, get dry, get dressed, walk into town. The bus terminal is here, only 5km from the beach on the edge of town. You can get a night bus south to Shanghai tonight. Very easy.”
“Any sharks here?” She asked, dubiously.
“You too skinny. They won’t bother with you.” he replied, smiling.
Xue Lin hated that answer.
Very soon, dressed in the old wetsuit and with the fins on her feet, a couple of crew members lowered her over the side on a single rope swing to the water. Her dry bag against her chest, sealed shut.
The boat’s lights were off so as not to be seen, and she could see the town’s lights on shore, some distance away. It looked close enough. Shouldn’t be a problem.
“OK, go!” said the First Mate.
She slid off the line and dropped a couple of feet into the water with a small splash. She pushed her backpack in front of her on the surface.
“Good luck!” one of the crew yelled.
The captain put the boat in gear and moved off leaving Xue Lin alone in the Sea.
Jimmy found the website where Dr. Wu’s lab posted its job vacancies, and sent the link to Roet immediately. Roet’s specialists were already working on Xue Lin’s job application.
Roet had said to them: “It’s a rush job, but Dr. Wu will be able to detect bullshit if you just make it up, so check your sources, make it as real as you can but do your best to avoid Wu’s likely old acquaintances. Write Xue Lin a brief to prepare her for the interview. Make it as thorough as you can, and… well… if worst come to worst she’ll just have to blow him.”
The young team of Chinese-American specialists looked at Roet with a mixture of condescension and disgust.
“Get to work!” he yelled at them and they all turned back to their screens and started typing.
Roet paused in the doorway on his way out:
“Oh, by the way, she has to be from Beijing. That’s her accent.”
He closed the door behind him.
“Maybe you can blow ME…” muttered one of the girls as she started typing a reference in formal Chinese on a Beijing laboratory’s letterhead.
The water was chilly and Xue Lin had a little adrenaline rush going after her exit from the trawler. The trawler seemed to disappear very quickly behind her. She was quite buoyant in the water as the old wetsuit was thick and her dry-bag worked well as a floatation device. She kicked steadily in the direction of the lights, making sure not to wear herself out. Being this far from shore in an unfamiliar sea, which on this moonless night seemed to be completely black, was quite disconcerting. She had no backup, no chance of rescue, and it could all end right here off the coast of China. She also assumed that there would be sharks, so she kicked gently so as not to create a commotion. Sharks liked to feed at night….
As she grew closer to shore the strange thought occurred to her that she was glad that she had never eaten shark fin soup, as she felt her karma was good and they wouldn’t eat her in return. “Another ridiculous thing that Asians eat…” she thought to herself.
“I wonder what Sam is doing now. Probably worried about me.” She smiled to herself as she began to kick more efficiently.
After a while she started to hear the waves breaking ahead. There was a dim line of white water and it appeared that there was quite a large swell coming in off the East China Sea, enough to cause a bit of surf near shore. She stopped a moment and kicked downward to lift her head vertically out of the water so she could get her bearings. Waves rolling in towards the beach, looked like they were just under two meters high judging from the back. “Quite big” she said out loud.
Back on her stomach she continued forward. She pulled her backpack under her stomach, placing her arms through the straps. ‘Can’t lose the bag under any circumstances. I can’t be walking into town in a wetsuit.’
As the first wave picked her up and passed under her she realized that they were in fact quite powerful and her heart started to beat faster. She turned 180 degrees facing back out to sea to see if there was a lull or at least a smaller set of waves. She waited there for a few minutes watching the waves as they picked her up and passed under her and then soon crashed and rolled roughly towards the beach.
