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  The two joked and spoke fondly of the Big Apple, and Micko was genuinely impressed with her knowledge of New York sports teams.

  Finally, one of the revelers yelled down the bar, “Hey, Chrissy! Have you forgotten about us?”

  “Sorry, Stan. What do you guys need?”

  “We need you to stay away from the confused guy with the South American shirt and the Australian pants.”

  It wasn’t long before Micko joined Stan’s crew and some friendly chatter erupted. He was having a pleasant time when he suddenly noticed Buddy walk into the bar. He nearly collapsed with laughter as he pointed to Buddy’s overly colorful Hawaiian shirt.

  “I don’t think the guns on the USS Missouri were ever as loud as that shirt,” he squealed between peals of laughter. His laugh must have been infectious because Chrissy, Stan, and the rest of the bar gang broke out in laughter as well.

  Poor Buddy’s sweaty face turned beet red; but fortunately, he had a good sense of humor. “You’re just jealous because I bought the last one,” he murmured as he approached.

  This brought more roars of laughter, and immediately Buddy was accepted into this beach bar tribe. Before long, Buddy was backed up several drinks as he led a chorus of Beach Boys’ surfer songs.

  Suddenly, the entire beach bar took a moment of silence as they viewed a spectacular sunset. Then, just as if a movie had ended, everyone up and left the bar. In retrospect, Micko realized it was a good thing because he had an early flight the next morning.

  While Micko and Buddy were alone in the bar, Buddy’s tone became serious. “I gotta be honest with you, pal. I’m not really a manure salesman. That’s only a cover. I’m actually a Fed.” He produced a shield and ID card, and Micko looked it over carefully.

  “What’s this all about?” Micko inquired, rather startled.

  “Everyone knows you’re a cop, so I guess I can trust you. I’m investigating an intricate money laundering scam involving the Russian Mafia in Brooklyn siphoning money to the West Coast. It leaves the country dirty but comes back clean. We don’t know how the illegal funds get clean, but by the time we pick up the money train back in California, it’s legit. I’m here in Hawaii attempting to see if the money gets laundered through the islands. Take one of my business cards. My cell phone number is on it.” He paused and leaned forward for effect. “You said that you are traveling to Micronesia, so keep your eyes and ears open. Believe me when I say that I need all the help I can get.”

  Micko took the card and asked slowly, “What about Japan? Couldn’t they launder the money through Japan and then recirculate it though legitimate businesses in the States?”

  “We’ve already looked into that, and we can’t find any businesses that the Russians and the Japanese share in common. Besides, the two crime organizations don’t get along.”

  The two cops talked about their work for another hour before saying their goodbyes. Micko’s final words were, “This is not my line of work, Buddy, but it’s been nice to meet you. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.”

  He felt sorry for Buddy. The poor guy was at a dead end in his investigation, and the FBI did not accept excuses from overworked agents.

  ***

  The shuttle bus was on time the next morning, and Micko made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. His travel itinerary called for an island hopper flight to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, with an overnight stay in an Outrigger Hotel. When his flight was called, Micko was pleasantly surprised that the aircraft was roomy and comfortable, and the flight was enjoyable for a small jet. The flight was not overcrowded, but it was nearly full. The other passengers appeared to be Marshall Islands natives and scuba diving tourists.

  He was a bit tired from his raucous night, so he kept to himself during the flight and caught up on his sleep. Luckily, the seat beside him was empty. He dreamed of carefree diving through huge underwater shipwreck graveyards with friendly fish trailing his every move.

  Suddenly, the plane banked a hard right, and Micko gently awoke from his soothing dream. He looked out the window and saw the magnificent Marshall Islands below. They were much smaller than he had imagined, but the white sand and green seas cornered by deep blue water were impressive nonetheless. Micko pulled the video camera out of his knapsack and filmed the beauty of these South Pacific islands.

  Soon he was reunited with his luggage and boarding the Outrigger Hotel shuttle. The tourists got a good view of local life en route to the hotel. Small villages of nondescript hovels lined the island amongst rows of coconut trees, and livestock appeared to run wild along the country roads.

  Majuro was a city of roughly thirty thousand inhabitants. Three of the islands—Delap, Uliga, and Darrit—combined to form the nation’s capital, and were known as D-U-D. It was the most modern place on all the islands, with a museum, a copra processing plant, and a shockingly modernistic capital building. The best beaches and scuba diving were located on the west side of the island at Laura, about thirty miles west of Delap.

  Micko and about a dozen tourists exited the shuttle and gathered their gear together. A guide appeared and did an informal roll call, advising the passengers of their room numbers. Several valets appeared to handle the suitcases and scuba gear. It seemed that the other tourists were in a group that was part of an organized dive trip. Micko was the lone wolf.

  The valet led Micko to room 24B. Once inside, the enthusiastic valet opened the curtains and turned on the A/C, stating that dinner would be served at seven o’clock sharp. Micko tipped the young man and unpacked his toiletries, as well as his other one-night essentials. Once that small chore was accomplished, Micko had about three hours of free time before dinner, so he decided to explore this part of the island.

  He walked down a short path to the sandy beach. There he saw a handful of surfers gliding about the turquoise waves while several swimmers played heartily in the refreshing surf. The beach was a clean white plate of sand as far the eye could see.

  Micko turned back to look at the hotel, a small two-story structure with a white stucco exterior. Each second story room’s balcony was neatly painted blue. The hotel was rudimentary, but clean and fresh in a land of long-forgotten innocence.

  Back in his room, he put on his bathing suit and was soon splashing about in cool waves. He heard the other bathers talking in European tongues. These were not the same tourists who had been on the island hopper plane and shuttle bus with him.

  After his refreshing swim, Micko decided to take a walk and dry off. He was walking through the hotel lobby when a young boy rushed up to him.

  “Towel, Mister?” he asked in broken English. “I have towel!”

  “Sure, I’ll take one,” Micko said.

  The boy handed him a clean blue and white striped towel and asked, “Room number?”

  “Twenty-four-B.”

  “Okay, I get back later.”

  Micko walked with the towel toward a small village down the road. The village was quiet until he walked in. Suddenly, people popped up from their unseen siestas and tried to sell him everything from a hand-carved knife to a pygmy pig. The villagers were friendly, but just as pushy as those Penn Station beggars that annoy commuters.

  Micko noticed a small refreshment stand and decided to buy a fresh-squeezed fruit drink. The girl at the stand smiled at him with a mouth full of missing teeth, but she spoke English quite well.

  “You American. I like American. No like others. They mean and cheap. They come all year and disrespect us. They almost as bad as Japanese.”

  Drinking his juice, Micko asked the girl why she disliked the Japanese so much. He knew that the arrogance of wealthy Europeans was legendary, but he was curious about the dislike of the Japanese. The girl went on and on about how historically the islanders had always hated the Japanese—and it had become worse after World War II.

  Thanking the girl for the juice and the history lesson, Micko walked away with the juice and tossed it as soon as he found a proper receptacl
e. It was too sweet, and he worried that he, too, would start losing his teeth. Back in his room he took a shower, but the water pressure was so low that the water barely trickled over his slightly sunburned body. Well, that didn’t take long, he thought. Sun block from now on.

  Dinner was served in a colorful dining room from a “help yourself” smorgasbord. Because Micko had a table to himself since all the others were in groups, he had time to eat and people-watch. A waiter named Albert served his coffee and asked if he was alone. Micko quickly explained that he was going to scuba dive in Bikini Atoll. Albert loved to gossip, so Micko picked his brain and found out that the Europeans came from many different countries to vacation all over the South Pacific. The cost was cheap, the resorts were never crowded, and the beaches were always in pristine condition.

  The American divers, Albert said, were from California, and they were on a scuba shop run dive trip, also going to Bikini. Albert said that it was the first time this particular scuba shop had run a trip to Bikini, and he thought the divers were all wealthy, judging from their watches and shoes. Micko smiled and thought this guy would have made a good detective.

  The Americans and Europeans mingled at the small lounge after dinner, but Micko felt a bit tired with a slight sunburn adding some discomfort, so he headed for bed. He then had a restless night, dreaming of toothless Japanese tourists who spoke in various European accents.

  After showering and packing the next morning, he went down for breakfast at seven o’clock. When he entered the lounge, one of the Californians waved to him. “Come over here and sit with us,” he offered.

  Micko noticed that there were only two people at the table, so he walked over and sat down. “Hi, guys. I’m Mick O’Shaughnessy.”

  “We know. You’re the New York policeman. I’m Eddie Dolan and this is Tom Monahan.”

  Micko raised his eyes to the ceiling and asked, “Is there anyone for ten thousand miles who doesn’t know I’m a cop?” He smiled as he heartily shook each man’s hand and sat down.

  “We know you’re a policeman on holiday recovering from a gunshot wound,” Tom quipped. “You’re all we talked about at the bar last night.”

  “I’m glad I went to bed early,” Micko said with a laugh. He could only guess that when Sharon made all the bookings, she let it be known that an injured cop was her client. Of course, she had meant well, and the notoriety did usually provide extra attention and benefits.

  “So, how did it happen, Officer?” Eddie inquired. “Are you all right?”

  Micko gave a dismissive laugh. “I’m fine, and I would rather not bore you with the details. Instead, I’d like to discuss our upcoming diving adventure.”

  “Fine, Detective. Diving it shall be,” Tom declared.

  Eddie asked, “Are you staying at the Bikini hotel?”

  “No, I’ve been booked at the Majestic.”

  “Our group and another dive club are booked at the Bikini resort,” Tom stated.

  The three divers spoke excitedly about their expectations while Albert served them a light breakfast of tropical fruit and croissants.

  “This coffee is exquisite,” Eddie commented.

  “Have you ever been to the South Pacific before?” Tom inquired.

  “Yes, this coffee and this island remind me of a trip I took to Papua, New Guinea,” Micko started. “I was diving with a pretty diverse group of thirteen divers, and we stopped at a beautiful grotto. Our ship’s captain told us that his good friend Dickie Boyle was the owner of a coconut plantation and a copra factory on the island. The captain sounded his horn, and shortly thereafter a couple of natives pulled up in dugout canoes. One by one, they transported us to shore, and Dickie gave us a tour first of his plantation and then of his lovely home. He had it built on a bluff overlooking the gorgeous bay.”

  Micko was warming up to his storytelling. “Now, Dickie was a bit of a character. He was a short, slender fellow with flaming red hair and freckles on every exposed part of his body. He had a quick wit and loved to cuss. He served us delicious coffee while amusing us with enchanting tales of how he came to be in this exotic land. He told us the charming story of his island lovers, his prosperity, and his loneliness. After we remarked about how splendid his coffee was, he told us he had a special treat for us.

  “It was about this time that I realized that almost all the younger workers on the plantation and in the house had slightly lighter skin tones than the other natives, and their hair had a reddish tint to it. I was about to ask Dickie about this when we were served a sweet smelling grog that Dickie declared was a local drink to consummate new friendships. With that introduction, we all drank deeply. Dickie forgot to mention, however, that the herbs and roots that were ingredients of the friendship grog caused hallucinations. None of us remembered getting back onboard the ship that night, but I remember that I dreamed I was a tap dancing walrus. The rest of the divers adamantly refused to tell me what they did or did not remember about that night.”

  Eddie and Tom laughed hysterically and promised not to drink any unsolicited intoxicants while in Bikini or anywhere else in the South Pacific.

  Soon the shuttle bus hustled everyone aboard for the final leg of the journey. This time, Eddie introduced Micko to each of the members of his group, and they all had a vivacious chat about past dive trips and the one on which they would soon embark.

  As the bus pulled up to a small terminal, the divers unloaded their gear and went to the check-in line. Micko was surprised to see that there was a group ahead of them, a dozen of the rowdiest divers he had ever seen. They looked like members of a motorcycle gang—and they even wore colors. Looking more closely, he could see that each member was wearing something that indicated he or she was a member of the Renegades Dive Club of Sydney, Australia.

  The rabble was arguing with the clerk about their flight to Eneu. From what Micko could overhear, it sounded like the Renegades had arrived early and wanted to take this immediate flight. The clerk told them that this flight was already booked and that they would have to be patient and wait for their scheduled flight in another three hours. The clerk pointed to Micko and the Californians, and told the Renegades, “This is their flight, gentlemen.”

  A Neanderthal-looking fellow approached Eddie with an evil look in his eye. It was the man’s fearless gait that concerned Micko, so he stepped in between them.

  “How do you do, big guy? I loved diving on the Great Barrier Reef and in Sydney Harbor. Damn, you fellas have some great diving in Australia. Lucky we got here on time. We’ll take off quick and send the plane right back to get you guys.” Micko smiled and held the man’s eyes with his as he made an attempt to distract him.

  “You did some dives in Australia, mate?” the big man queried with a sense of doubt in his voice.

  “I sure did. Couldn’t see shit in the harbor, but I dove off the Tusa dive boat at Cod Hole and had a blast. I also paddled a sea kayak to Fitzroy Island, went skydiving in Cairns, and went white water rafting down the Tully River. Hell, I even climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge,” Micko boasted.

  The man hollered back to his band, “Hey, gang, this mate’s all right!”

  With the ruffian’s subdued, Micko asked Eddie to check in his gear while he reminisced about his adventures down under with the Aussies. He soon found out that these guys looked much more intimidating than they actually were. They seemed to be a nice bunch of hooligans who enjoyed the sport of scuba diving, preferring extreme diving. They told Micko of their wild plans at the Bikini resort.

  The big fellow’s club name was Rat. He told Micko that fellow club members Bill and Bob Barrett had been at the Majestic for a week doing some reconnaissance dives so that when the rest of the club arrived, they would only dive the best wrecks and not waste time on the boring shallow dives.

  He pulled Micko aside and said, “Can you keep a secret, mate?”

  Micko raised his eyebrows. “Of course, I can.”

  “My mates set up a scavenger hunt inside the USS
Saratoga. See our bandanas? The Barrett brothers are going to hide dozens of them in the wreck.”

  “Whoa! That’s kind of dangerous.”

  “Not for us,” Rat replied with a grin. “We love extreme diving, and that’s why we’re going to Bikini. We also intend to rape, pillage, and plunder the wrecks like pirates.”

  “You may get artifacts out of the ships, but you’ll never get them home. The dive masters will report you and the customs people will stop you,” Micko warned him.

  “We have our tricks.”

  Micko decided to change the subject. “I’m staying across the atoll from the Bikini resort at Shark Alley Island, and I’d love to meet up with you guys at night for a few drinks.”

  “Sure thing, mate. They must have a ferry or tender that goes between the islands. I’ll buy the first round for you and the sissy Californians,” he said with a laugh.

  ***

  The plane flew low over the clean tropical waters until the island of Eneu came into view. The airport was very small, and as the plane landed, it taxied past the terminal to the end of the short runway. Several airport employees were then dispatched to grab the tail of the plane to help it turn around so that it could taxi back to the terminal so the passengers could disembark. This would have been comical if it hadn’t been so scary.

  Micko had been to several small third world countries where this practice at modest airports was common. The runways were very short and were usually cut from dense forests. The Bikini Atoll was shaped like a horseshoe, with the island of Eneu located at the lower right corner. Planes approached the airport from a southerly direction, and the runway led straight into dense brush at the northern edge. The passengers gripped their armrests tightly as a quiet cloud nestled about the nervous divers. Micko sat calmly, enjoying the ride, aware of his apprehensive cabin mates. He filmed the landing and mechanically put the camera into his knapsack before it was his turn to exit the craft.

  Once through the short customs line, he gathered his gear and luggage and met the Majuro Majestic liaison, a shapely raven-haired beauty with porcelain skin. “Tanya” was embossed on the nametag she wore. The business suit that draped her could not hide her curves, but her demeanor was completely professional and she even seemed a bit curt with her answers.