Broken Justice

by Ralph Gibbs

  Broken Justice

  Book I of the Justice Files

  RALPH F. GIBBS

  Book Copyright © 2018 Ralph F. Gibbs

  1st Edition 2018

  2nd Edition 2019

  Cover design by Sanja Gombar.

  www.bookcoverforyou.com

  In the interest of realism, real people and places were used in a fictitious manner as incidental background characters or places. However, the main characters are purely the product of the author’s imagination and as such, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publican may be

  reproduced without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 0692074503

  ISBN-13:978-0692074503

  DEDICATION

  For Trevor,

  Always pushing people to be better.

  CHAPTER 1

  Captain Kyriakos Hatzidakis deftly sliced the dorsal fin from the freshly caught fish and tossed it over his shoulder into the cargo hold. Glancing up, he noticed first mate, Lucas Popoulias, running down the narrow gunwale with an ease that came only with years of experience.

  “What is it?” the captain shouted.

  “Radar contact coming in fast.”

  “How far?”

  “Twenty miles, inbound at sixteen knots. I’m guessing it’s a Turk.” He didn’t need to say warship. Very few fishing vessels were capable of speeds in excess of twelve knots. The captain estimated forty-five minutes before the Turks would be in practical gun range. Technically, they were already in gun range, but they wouldn’t fire until they confirmed it was a Greek fishing ship. And to do that they needed to get within visual range.

  “All right, lets—”

  The ship lurched, throwing everyone to the deck. A crewman screamed in agony as a dorsal fin sliced open his forearm. Lucas’s legs flew out from underneath him, and he would have been tossed out to sea if not for the railing.

  As the ship’s engine screamed, Kyriakos tried to pull himself up but was thrown back to the deck when the ship began to skip back and forth like a dog refusing to give up the chase even though it had reached the limits of its chain.

  “Cut the engine,” Kyriakos shouted as he tried to regain his feet. “Cut the engine!”

  Lucas dashed up to the pilothouse and threw the ship in idle.

  “What happened?” Lucas shouted from the bridge as the ship came to a rest.

  Kyriakos tugged on a cable. “The net’s caught on something. Back her down,” he yelled.

  As Lucas put the ship in reverse, the captain motioned for one of the crew to begin hand-cranking in the cable as it slackened. As the crewman spun the crank, Kyriakos checked on the injured man. Continuing with today’s streak of bad luck, he discovered to his culinary displeasure the wounded crewman was the cook who was on deck picking out tonight’s dinner.

  “That’s far enough,” Kyriakos yelled when the ship reached the area of the snag. Leaning over the stern, he pushed against the cable to keep it from hanging up in the propeller.

  “Captain,” Lucas yelled, pointing over the bow toward the Turkish warship now visible on the horizon. It was getting uncomfortably close.

  “Swing the ship around,” Kyriakos ordered.

  Turning the rudder hard to port, Lucas eased the throttle forward. As he did, the ship pivoted around the cable until the warship was astern.

  “Three knots,” Kyriakos ordered. Straightening the rudder, Lucas throttled up. When nothing happened, he increased speed to five knots and then six. The ship’s engines started to whine, and the bow began slowly snaking back and forth.

  The captain figured it was an even tossup as to what would happen first; either the cable would snap, the engine would burn out, or the ship would pull free. There was also the chance the Turks would blow them into splinters for fishing in their waters. Just as Kyriakos was thinking of shifting the odds by cutting the cable, the ship lurched free nearly knocking everyone off their feet again.

  “Winch, winch, winch,” he yelled to the crew while swinging his arms in a furious circle as if it would help get the net up faster. Not satisfied with the progress, the captain jumped to the wench and helped reel. When the net finally broached the surface, Kyriakos saw the usual array of squid and fish, but there was something else inside.

  Before he could stop them, the crew grabbed the net and pulled the quick release, spilling the contents on the deck. Squid, fish and about two dozen egg-shaped objects dropped out. Three containers shattered, spilling an oily sludge over the catch and into the cargo hold.

  Lucas thrust the throttle forward, maxing out the engines. Checking the radar, he could see that the Turkish ship was still gaining, but now it would be impossible for the warship to catch up to them before they reached the safety of Greek waters.

  The Turkish navy, realizing the futility of the chase, used the bridge-to-bridge radio to order the ship to cut its engine. When Kyriakos ignored their warnings, the warship fired a shot, which landed twenty-five yards off their starboard quarter. Captain Kyriakos, standing at the stern, raised both his arms and returned fire with what one of his American friends once told him was called the bird. The Turks, in turn, radioed an insult but broke off the chase. They would not risk an international incident over one small fishing vessel. As the warship turned away, Lucas slowed the ship, tied off the steering wheel, and joined the captain on the stern. There was a fresh bandage on the captain’s leg.

  “What happened?” Lucas asked.

  “One of those broken pieces hit me in the leg.”

  “Is it bad? Should we head back?

  “No, no,” Kyriakos said, waving his hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a scratch. If we went in every time someone hurt themselves, we’d never untie from the dock. He picked up an egg, and examined it. Throw these back into the sea. They’re dangerous.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lucas said, taking the container from the captain. Lucas examined the object, picked up a handful of the grayish oatmeal-like substance that had leaked out from it, and smiled. “This may be our lucky day.”

  “Did you hit your head?” Kyriakos gestured at the chaos on the deck. “This was anything but a lucky day.”

  “I think this is a Pithos.”

  “What the hell is a Pithos?” the captain asked, sounding annoyed.

  “You should know your Greek history, old man.”

  “I’ll learn history when I retire.”

  “A Pithos is a container the ancient Greeks used to carry cargo.”

  “And . . . this is one of those?” the captain said, looking incredulous. “How do you know this?”

  “I read,” Lucas said, and chuckled. “You should try it. Last year, there was a newspaper article about an Italian fisherman finding a bunch of Roman cargo containers in the Gulf of Toronto. They called them Amphora.”

  “How do you know this isn’t one of those?”

  “The Amphora is longer and thinner. The pictures I found on the Internet of ancient Greek cargo containers looked a lot like these.”

  “So, they’re valuable?” the captain asked, leaning in closer, his interest suddenly piqued.

  “I think I can sell them, yes,” Lucas said.

  “Enough to repair the winch?”

  “There is a real market for historical artifacts,” Lucas said. “I think if we sell it to the right people, we might get enough to buy a new boat.” He suddenly grew serious. “We can’t tell the government. If we do, they’ll confiscate them, and we’ll get nothing.”

  “Screw the government. They’re always looking for ways to take our money. Do you know who to sell them to?”

  “No, but I know some people who do.”

  “Y
ou and your nefarious contacts,” the captain said, standing up straighter. “You should not know those people. They’re trouble.”

  “So, you’ve told me, but those people are going to make us rich, or at least comfortable.”

  “If they don’t kill us and take it all.”

  “They’re not those type of people.”

  “You’re telling me they’re honest criminals?” the captain asked.

  “It would be bad for business to kill their customers. And I have family connections that will keep them honest.” The captain looked doubtful but said nothing. Lucas took the silence as acceptance. “We should go in.”

  “No,” Kyriakos chided. “We’ll stay out until the end of the week. It will raise questions if we return early.”

  “We can just tell them the ship broke; they’ll believe that.”

  “Will it take time to see these people?”

  “A few days, maybe a week.”

  “Meanwhile, I still have to pay the crew. We’ll stay out.”

  Five days later, Kyriakos, feeling under the weather, was met at the dock by the head chef at one of the more prestigious tourist hotels on the bay. On his heels were cooks from the other finer establishments in the area.

  “Captain Hatzidakis, you’re back early,” the head chef said. Kyriakos limped forward favoring his leg, his leg sore for the last several days. The cut was long and deep but didn’t seem serious. As long as no red streaks appeared, he should be fine. Still, he was feeling weak, and it seemed every muscle in his body ached. Even his hair, what little was left, hurt. He thought he was coming down with the flu, but to be safe, he would see a doctor. If what Lucas said was true, he could afford it now. As Kyriakos pulled a rag from his pocket, he noticed a small pimple on his hand. It wasn’t the first discovered today. Popping it, he wiped the pus away with the greasy rag and set the cloth on a crate. One of the crew grabbed it up and wiped sweat from his face.

  “Had a bit of good luck,” Kyriakos said. “I decided to come in and enjoy the weekend.

  “Our supplier is late, so it seems your luck is our luck,” the head chef said.

  “What fish do you have?” another asked.

  “A bit of everything,” he answered, and then began haggling over the price.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sten Olofsson, the sixty-eight-year-old director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control heard the door to his office open. He buried his chin further into his chest and glanced over the top of the small rectangular spectacles perched precariously on the tip of his nose. As Gunilla Billstrom entered his office carrying a silver tray of tea, he cleared a spot on the edge of his cluttered desk.

  “Good morning, Gunilla,” he said, removing his glasses and setting them atop his keyboard. A line of letters raked across the document. “Shit.” He picked up the glasses, put them down next to the keyboard, and smiled up at Gunilla. “I trust you had a good weekend?” Gunilla suffered from chronic migraines, but despite the pain, she never missed a day of work. She kicked the door closed with the heel of her foot and set the tray on the corner of the desk.

  “Well enough,” she said as she poured two cups of tea adding two teaspoons of sugar and a dollop of cream for Sten. She drank hers natural. Handing him his cup, she moved to the sofa. “And you?”

  “It rained, so no golf,” he said as if that was all the answer needed to say his weekend was lousy. To an outsider looking in, Gunilla would seem to be Dr. Olofsson’s private secretary, but she wasn’t. The two were lifelong friends. In graduate school, they were lovers, but that was a lifetime ago. Now they were friends and colleagues. She was also a doctor, scientist, and–Sten would be the first to admit–considerably smarter in both fields. With her credentials, by all rights, she should have been the director of the ECDC, but where she had the intelligence, he had the connections. Once appointed to lead the ECDC, he asked her to come aboard and head the Office of the Chief Scientist. She happily accepted with no ill will.

  Gunilla took a sip of tea. “How are Brigitta and the girls?” she asked as the cup clinked against the saucer.

  “Brigitta’s fine,” Sten said. “I haven’t heard from either in two weeks. Little Brigitta is too busy with her children, and little Gunilla is having too much fun visiting the Grand Canyon. Or is it Mammoth Cave this week? I forget, probably both. My guess, she doesn’t want to listen to her mother ask if she’s met any nice American men.” Sten suddenly chuckled. “I swear Gunilla if I hadn’t seen my wife give birth to that girl, I’d swear she was your child. She’s built just like you and has your keen mind. She’ll never settle down, either. I should have known better than to name her after you. The Americans say names has power. A girl named Bertha is destined to be large, a girl named Candy a stripper, and a girl named Gunilla, wild.”

  “I don’t think Bertha is a good example. Most Americans eventually grow to be fat,” she said, smiling. Gunilla put down her cup and turned serious. “She may be more like me than you realize.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said his smile vanishing.

  “Oh really,” Gunilla said, arching her eyebrow.

  “You know I don’t mean it like that,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “A parent always worries about their child. This world isn’t kind to anyone different. You of all people should know that. You lived a lie most of your life. You even had a relationship with me.”

  “I never regretted our time together,” Gunilla said.

  “Nor I, but I could always tell something was missing in our relationship. Who knew it was another woman?” Sten leaned back in his chair and laughed. “If only I knew then what I know now. I could have had what every young man fantasizes about.”

  “Get that visual out of your head, you dirty old coot,” Gunilla said but laughed with him.

  “Too late,” he said, his smile widening. “That girl is twenty-six years old, and as far as I know, never been in a relationship. I don’t want my daughter to go through what you went through. I don’t want her to live a lie. I want her to be happy. If she’s different, be open about it and to hell with everyone else.”

  “If only my father would have been as understanding as you,” Gunilla said, “I might have been at his side when he died.” Despite Sweden being one of the most progressive nations regarding homosexuality, having been legalized in 1944 and declassified as a mental disorder in 1972, there was still a stigma associated with being gay. Gunilla’s father never adjusted to her sexuality. It was one reason Gunilla hid it for so long. It would also have cost her job opportunities in other countries. When she finally had enough of the lie and opened up to her family about it, her father told her not to step through his doorway again until she decided not to be lesbian.

  “Has she ever talked with you about it?” Sten asked.

  “Having known the girl all her life, it could be she’s likely to be just as embarrassed to talk with me about her sexuality as you, but if you like, when she gets back I’ll have ‘the talk,’” she said using air quotes.

  “That would be great,” Sten said relaxing. “You must think me a coward.”

  Now it was Gunilla’s turn to wave her hand dismissively. “I’ve always known that about you, Sten. Now, if the morning pleasantries are over with, I think there is something in today’s report you should read.”

  Sten picked up his glasses and flipped open the folder.

  “This doesn’t sound right,” he said a few minutes into the report. He looked up. “Doctor Reinfeldt and his team are calling this an outbreak of the chickenpox?”

  “Initially. He argued last week that it has all the characteristics of chickenpox. Now, he’s not so sure. He’s sticking with the story to keep down panic.”

  “Well, it certainly resembles chickenpox, but . . .” Sten said as he flipped back to the first page. “Sixty-eight deaths in a week seems excessive. What are the historical numbers? I know it can’t be anything near this.”

  “According to the
WHO and our database, annual fatality rates are around five hundred. It’s estimated another five hundred occur in remote areas and thus remain unreported, but those are based on computer modeling and aren’t verifiable.”

  “And here we’re seeing sixty-eight in a week?” Sten said. “Something doesn’t add up.”

  “Doctor Reinfeldt’s secondary report is added as an enclosure on page fifty-seven,” Gunilla said.

  Sten flipped to the appropriate page, glanced at the page, and then looked up at Gunilla. “Summarize it for me.”

  “Reinfeldt believes initial tier two exposure happened at several upscale establishments in Piraeus just over two weeks ago. All of those infected have either moved on to other destinations or gone home. It’s hard to know how many were exposed, initially, but rough estimates indicate several hundred.”

  “Who by now have infected several hundred thousand, thanks to modern transportation,” Sten said.

  “As of today, we have reported cases in twelve major cities in Europe and at least two cities in China. It’s only a matter of time before it spreads further. News organizations are just now starting to look into this.”

  “Goddammit, how did we drop the ball on this? This is the whole reason for our existence. Our organization was established to get ahead of outbreaks like this.”

  “Most of the doctors treating this thought it was just a simple case of chickenpox,” Gunilla said. “An outbreak of chickenpox isn’t rare, so it wasn’t given the priority it should have. Even our computers didn’t raise red flags until nearly two dozen deaths.”

  “We’ll need to change our programming,” Sten said while reading the symptoms report. “. . . Followed by pustule rash, delirium, diarrhea, and most often, death.” His head snapped up. “That does not sound like chickenpox. That sounds more like typhus or smallpox. Has the lab run tests?”

  “I received the lab report before I came in. The lab techs said it has both typhus and smallpox-like characteristics, but it’s neither. They believe it’s something new.”