Read Online Dead Sea by Peter Tonkin - Free Book Online Page A

vastness of the North Pacific. Into the deaf man’s playground. And, as with the ridiculous Japanese doctor’s pointless bottle of Cheerio, the women’s vessels were fitted with tracking devices so he would know at any time of the day or night exactly where they were. Exactly where he could get his hands on them, when the desire to do so became too strong to control any longer.
    The phone began to ring but he did not hear it. And such was his concentration on the defenceless bodies frozen on the screen that he did not even see the warning light flashing in time to the urgent sound.
    It was just after three in the morning in Tokyo, but Dr Reona Tanaka still found it impossible to sleep. A man of lifelong abstinence, he was on his third bottle of Sake. A man of strict propriety, he had nevertheless spent an evening of extremely improper, unprofessional abandon in the arms of one of his most beautiful colleagues. A man of almost monastic self-denial, he now found that the sight of his new-found love returning naked from the bathroom of his tiny university flat made him ready for action again – for the fourth time since he had realized the truth.
    Seeing how ready he was once more, Dr Aika Rei stepped delicately astride him and prepared to lower herself. ‘You’re sure?’ she teased again, taking him gently in hand. ‘You’re
certain
?’
    â€˜I have the number written down. There can be no mistake. I have the winning ticket.’
    Satisfied, she settled into place once more and leaned forward until her hair formed a fragrant tent around his face. ‘And where have you put it? Where is the ticket itself?’ she whispered.
    And the realization cut through the euphoria then. Through the euphoria, the sake and the sensuality. He felt himself begin to soften as he looked up at her with simple horror.
    â€˜I put it in the bottle with all the others,’ he whispered soberly. ‘It’s in the good ship
Cheerio
somewhere out in the middle of the ocean. All one-hundred-and-ten-million US dollars’ worth of it.’

Calm
    â€˜L ook,’ shouted Liberty, raising her voice only just above the relentless storm to reach Maya down in the communications and navigation area –
the snug,
as they called it now. Maya, like the rest of them, was dressed in orange oilskins as though they were sailing at the North Pole instead of British Columbia. ‘We just have to stay calm. This won’t last, and at least its swinging us round so we’re almost back on course. Think how far we’ve come already!’
    â€˜Yeah. More than a thousand miles. Mostly in the wrong direction.’
    Liberty closed her eyes for a moment and tried not to get distracted as the wind inflated her hood like a beach ball, almost literally making her light-headed. Thank God she had abandoned the idea of live camera coverage almost immediately, she thought. What they lost in publicity value they would gain by protecting their reputations. ‘Oh, come on, Maya! Where’s the grit you showed in your last scheduled contact with
Katapult
?
Flint
is streets ahead of
her
. All we have to do is stay calm, keep going and try not to weaken.’
    â€˜But three days. Three whole days and then some. We’re coming up for eighty hours! Watch on watch. And for what?!’
    Liberty had split the crew into two watches. It had been the last thing she did on camera. But even that had been a bit of a challenge. Should she keep Maya with her and make it seem like Stanford versus USC? Or should she head one watch and let Maya head the other – as though the Stanford students couldn’t trust the Southern Californians to do it on their own. There was the potential for a downside either way. Especially when time and tiredness took their toll.
    In the end she decided to keep Maya with her because her fellow Stanford student could be so negative, though Liberty had kept this motivation strictly to