Beneath Yellow Clay by Robert Mitchell

Author:Robert Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tomb raiding in China, young adult fiction China, smuggling antique treasure, buried treasure Chinese tomb, China action mystery
Publisher: ROBERT MITCHELL
Published: 2019-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

Shanghai was a little easier, although there seemed to be more security inside the terminal; maybe because it was a more important port. It was definitely much larger. I made certain that we took our lanyards with us and put them on again before we arrived back at the ship. I was still nervous, but the dress-rehearsal at Xiamen stood me in good stead and we had no problems. I went first this time, with Benny bringing up the rear. We brought four of the soldiers on board with us, together with the crystal and agate beads, and the finely carved jade beads which had hung around the general’s neck. I had re-strung the jade beads onto a length of nylon fishing line whilst we had been in Shanghai and they looked just like a cheap and gaudy souvenir. We had also brought the pottery figure of the barking dog back to the ship. The aluminium suitcase was filling up.

I had tried to call Benny on reaching the cabin, but there was no reception and I had to hurry out to the promenade deck before he gave me up as a lost cause and took off. I leaned on the rail and could see him standing off to one side of the door at the gangway end of the departure hall, pretending to check through his pockets as though he had lost something. I pressed the speed dial. The phone was up to his ear in a flash.

“What’s wrong?” he burst out, his head flicking from side to side as though half expecting someone to grab him.

“Nothing,” I replied. “There’s no bloody phone reception once you get inside the cabin. Stop looking so damn suspicious!”

“Huh? Where are you?”

“I’m up here leaning on the rail, you dope. Get a bloody move on before they arrest you for loitering.”

He quickly stuffed the phone in his pocket and hurried over to the gangway. I hoped to hell that his nervousness didn’t show on his face as much as it had in his voice.

Once more my heart had begun its relentless pounding and I was beginning to wonder whether it would outlast all the stress I was putting on it.

At Qingdao it was another four of the soldiers, the jade pig and the large greenish-yellow jade disk, a disk which I reckoned was the most valuable item of the lot. Again there were no problems, no-one questioning what we had brought on board and my nerves were finally handling the excitement. We had it all worked out. We had gone off the ship in the early morning and then come back on board for lunch, setting up a pattern, making ourselves known to the staff and to the Chinese security officers on the wharf; and then off once more in the late afternoon and back again with the crowds, and the pieces of treasure. It was getting to be too easy.

Then it was the turn of the port of Dalian. This time we were back with the loot before lunch, changing our pattern in the knowledge that we had it made.

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