Then he went to the ship’s locker and removed two bags of heroin and brought them back to his quarters. The Javanese opened one of them. He took a pinch of the white powder and tasted it. “It looks and tastes like it’s pure stuff, but I don’t know. I’ll have to get a doctor to make a test.”
This precaution seemed reasonable enough to Halvorsen. He handed the two bags to the Javanese, who concealed them under his coat. They returned to the police boat which carried them back to the pier. And then he and Scar Face got into a car and drove to the outskirts of the city, where the car swung into a driveway beside a white frame house.
“This is the doctor’s house,” Scar Face said. “You wait in the car.” He carried the two bags into the house.
In a few minutes Scar Face came back to the car. “The doctor says it will take time to test the heroin. I can’t get the money until he makes the test. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”
With appalling innocence, Halvorsen said, “I guess that’s okay.” And as Scar Face drove him back to the waterfront, they agreed to meet on the pier the following morning.
The next day Halvorsen went ashore to meet Scar Face. He waited at the agreed meeting place for more than two hours. Slowly it dawned on him that he would never see Scar Face again. He had been duped. It was then that young Halvorsen felt more than chagrin. He felt enormously ashamed. He wondered why he had ever permitted himself to become involved in something so dishonorable as smuggling narcotics.
He felt, too, a growing, bitter anger toward the wart-eared tailor and his friends in Hong Kong and the scar-faced Javanese. He wondered how he could atone for this sin. And after a while he decided the best thing to do was to seek advice from someone older.
When the Fernhill reached Singapore, Halvorsen hurried to the home of a Norwegian minister whom he had once met in Baltimore. The youth poured out his story to the churchman. “What shall I do?” he asked.
“It is a bad business, my son,” the minister said. “Let me go to the American Consulate and ask their advice. Perhaps they can help us.” When the minister returned from the Consulate, he shook his head. “They can do nothing,” he said, “because the matter is out of their jurisdiction. They said it would be best if you would take your story to the police agency called the FBI when you reach the United States.”
But when Halvorsen reached his ship, he thought of his friend in New York City, the Rev. Leif Aagaard, pastor of the Norwegian Seamen’s Church, 33 First Place, Brooklyn, in whose home he had spent the previous Christmas. On April 11, 1955, he wrote the Reverend Aagaard a long letter: