Grey Lady

by Paul Kemprecos

  “Of course. How’s Alex doing?”

  “Good. And not so good.”

  It must be a Cretan thing. Life on that rugged island historically had been a combination of disaster amid incredible beauty. Only my mother could put two opposing statements together and have them sound perfectly rational. I cut to the chase.

  “He’s not ill, is he?”

  “No, Aristotle, but he’s got trouble from the old days.”

  Alex was the son of my Uncle Alexander and Aunt Demeter. Both were Type A personalities who had important jobs. When Alex’s sister died at a young age, they threw all their energy into spoiling their only child. He ran away from home and moved in with some drug dealers on Cape Cod. I pulled him out of trouble by the scruff of the neck. He went on to law school, set up a practice and had two kids, a girl named Demeter and a boy named Aristotle. The old days my mother was referring to could only have something to do with his flirtation with cocaine.

  “What’s going on, Ma?”

  “Alex wants to tell you himself.”

  “I’m kinda busy, Ma.” I knew that the second the excuse left my mouth it would be shot down like a blind duck.

  “I know that.” Sigh. “You are too busy with the nice boat that your family bought for you to do something for the family.”

  I knew when I was outgunned. I caved in without a fight under the guilt onslaught.

  “Tell Alex I’ll be glad to see him. Tell him to take the first Hy-Line ferry tomorrow morning and I’ll meet him at the dock.”

  “Efharisto, Aristotle. Thank you. I’ll call him now.”

  She hung up before I could change my mind, even though there was little chance of that with a maternal decree hanging over my head. A family obligation was the last thing I needed. But I tried to be philosophical about it. Compared to my mother, Ivan the Terrible was a pussy cat.

  CHAPTER 16

  The late afternoon sun was sinking toward the horizon when I dropped anchor off the Brant Point Light near the Coast Guard Station. The Pequod II blended into the dozens of power and sailboats swinging at their moorings. I stood in the boat, holding a fishing rod. I heard the yacht’s engines rumble into life. Minutes later, the Volga slowly moved away from the dock.

  I waited until the yacht had cruised past the lighthouse, then I reeled in the line and set the fishing gear aside. I started the twin outboards and pointed the boat out into the channel. I let a couple of boats follow in the yacht’s wake ahead of me. The Volga emerged from the harbor, made a slow turn to the right and picked up speed, following a course along the Coatue barrier beach toward Great Point. The long sliver of land extends northwest from the island like a finger making a rude gesture.

  The waters between the point and Monomoy Island are fishing grounds for striped bass and bluefish, so there were other boats in the general vicinity. Rather than risk arousing suspicions aboard the yacht, I kept well back. The yacht’s size made it easy to keep in sight as it made the turn around the point to the eastern shore of the island.

  Once the sun gets an inch above the ocean horizon it is only a matter of seconds before it disappears completely. The light faded from the western sky and the sea shimmered with the molten afterglow. The ocean was relatively calm with seas no more than a foot high. I kept the running lights off in violation of Coast Guard regulations. After steaming a while, the yacht came to a halt around a mile from shore and I killed the throttle. I peered through my binoculars, and saw people moving around the stern deck in the glow of powerful floodlights.

  I could see a crane lift a large object from the deck and dangle the load off the stern. I cut the distance to a quarter of a mile and stopped again in time to see the object lowered into the sea.

  I had pulled on my windbreaker, but the air temperature was not uncomfortably cool. The relative tranquility lulled me into an impulsive move. I moved to the edge of the zone of light around the Volga and killed the motors.

  Twenty minutes passed with nothing much happening. I reasoned that the most I’d see would be the crane hauling the object back on board. I decided to head back to the harbor before the yacht got underway. I turned the ignition key, pushed on the throttle, and began to follow a course closer in to shore.

  It looked like a clean getaway. But less than five minutes after I started off there was a sharp rap against the hull, like the noise you hear when a truck kicks up a pebble that smacks your car windshield. I throttled down and stuck my head over one side, then the other. All I could hear was the thrum of the motors. I started off again.

  Seconds later, the rap repeated. Then another quickly followed. This was getting annoying. I stopped the boat. There was no repeat of the odd sound. I got moving, and doubled the boat’s speed. The hull got hit again. Multiple raps, like someone throwing gravel at the boat. I slowed and grabbed a flashlight. Keeping one hand on the wheel, I leaned over the side and pointed the flashlight beam into the darkness.

  I saw nothing close to the boat, but around twenty feet away the water was roiling with a pale blue luminescence.

  As I watched, the patch of frothy water began to move in my direction.

  I clicked off the flashlight and goosed the throttle. The boat surged forward. There was a scatter shot noise under my feet like hail hitting the roof. I gave the motors more power. The propellers bit into the water and the boat angled up on plane. The roar of the motors failed to drown out the rapping, which had grown in volume and seemed to be coming from the bow. Then off to the starboard. Then port. Then from under the deck.

  The starboard motor skipped and coughed. The boat was losing its plane angle when the motor stopped. Then the other motor died. The bow lowered and the boat made headway for a short while on its momentum. Then it came to a wallowing stop. There was brief silence and the hull noises began once more. The rapping grew louder. There was a new sound as the fiberglass hull splintered. I peeled off my windbreaker, grabbed a life jacket and snapped the buckles across my chest.

  The boat settled rapidly. Waves splashed over the gunwales and flooded the deck. The stern tilted down under the weight of the water. The prow stuck up in the air like a big shark’s fin. I rolled into the cold sea, kicked off my boat shoes and swam around under the angled bow. I reached out to fend off the underside of the hull and my hand plunged through a ragged gash in the fiberglass.

  I heard a racket directly overhead and looked up to see the hovering helicopter. Its rotors kicked up the water to a froth and the chopper’s floodlights lit up the boat. I took a deep breath and stuck my head into the hole, hiding from the searching eyes.

  The helicopter moved away. I slid out, gulped a lungful of air, and ducked back into the hole before the chopper made another pass. At the same time, I was worried that the sinking boat would take me to the bottom with it.

  I was about to take my chances in the open when the helicopter moved off again. I came out from under the boat, gasping for breath, and saw the chopper heading back to the yacht. Seconds later, the boat slipped completely below the surface. I swam away from the whirling vortex, pivoted in the waves and saw house lights on land. I had only one choice.

  I kicked off my jeans and started swimming.

  It was difficult to swim wearing a flotation jacket. The added padding prevents you from slipping through the water. Movement is inefficient. Your flailing arms get tired after a few strokes. I came up with a routine. I’d swim for a while, ten strokes for each arm. Then stop for thirty seconds. After three such stops, I’d stop again, float on my back and look at the star-lit sky. Once I caught my breath, I’d begin the routine again.

  Even with the rest stops, my arms were tiring. The chill of the water had penetrated through my soggy sweatshirt to my skin and weakened me further. I tried stroking in rhythm to sea chanteys. I sang them in my head, which limited their effectiveness, but it worked for
a while. Then the stops became more frequent and longer. I had headed instinctively toward shore when the boat was first attacked, but it was hard from sea level to judge how far I was from land.

  I was almost at the end of my rope. I didn’t know if I could swim another stroke. I stopped and sucked in gulps that were half seawater, which is when I felt the change in the motion of the seas. The water was lifting and taking me with it. I was in the grip of rollers, which meant I was close to the beach. I didn’t know whether it was a false hope, but it gave me new energy. I struck out again. A wave lifted me. I swam harder. I could see lines of foam where the rollers were breaking toward shore.

  I unsnapped the life jacket and slipped it off along with my sweatshirt. I held onto the flotation vest until a wave lifted me, then threw out one arm after another and rode the foaming crest of the breaking wave. I repeated the exercise again and again until I was only yards from the shore where the waves were breaking. I flailed with my last ounce of strength and my bare feet felt the gravelly bottom. The wave receded, leaving me on the wet sand. I crawled slowly up the slope until I had escaped the grip of the sea completely.

  I lay on my belly, panting for breath like a beached flounder. Cold had seeped to every part of my body. I was shivering uncontrollably and my teeth clacked. Stripped to only my shorts and T-shirt, I could die of hypothermia if I didn’t keep moving. I got up on my hands and knees, then pushed myself to a standing position. The time in the water had affected my equilibrium. I swayed dizzily for a minute or two before my head cleared. I struck inland, staggering drunkenly in the soft sand, which eventually gave way to beach grass. I discovered a path cutting through the dunes.

  The path led through a strip of woods, then around a low, brush-covered hill, that rose from the scrub oak and pitch pine. I kept moving until I came to the edge of a lawn. I was happy to be walking on the clipped carpet of grass. Eventually, I came to the edge of a patio and saw the dark mass of a house. I could make out the outline of a tall rotunda against the starry sky. Small world. I was at Ramsey’s McMansion.

  I moved along the sea-facing side of the house, then around the end of one wing, toward the garage. I found a locked door that had glass panels. I picked up a flagstone from a walkway and broke a pane, then reached through to open the door. I thought I heard a footfall on the gravel drive, but when I listened, all was silent.

  Three vehicles were parked inside. There was a Mercedes SUV, a Mercedes sedan and a Bentley. In all three cars, the keys were in the ignition. I picked the Bentley.

  I got behind the wheel, started the engine and punched the open button on the car’s remote. As the door lifted above the hood, I hit the gas. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two shadows swiftly moving in my direction. I nailed the accelerator and the car took off with spinning tires. I covered the ground to the entrance in seconds, clicked the remote control again and the gate swung open.

  I turned the heater on full blast. My shivering subsided to a tremble, but reality set in.

  I was driving a hot Bentley, I was barefoot and down to my underwear. I drove into town and parked the car on a quiet side street. I left the keys under the seat and made my way back to the MG using a roundabout route. I encountered a group of college kids, but they were so drunk they hardly noticed the half-naked guy trotting past them. I had learned the hard way never to take car keys out on a boat. The MG’s keys were where I left them on top of the front right tire. The MG felt tiny after the Bentley, and the heater was puny, but I would have driven a roller skate at that point.

  I climbed the stairs to my apartment fifteen minutes later. I peeled off my underwear and got under the hottest shower I could stand without blistering my skin. Then I changed into shorts and T-shirt and went out on the deck with an ale. As I reviewed my nautical adventures, I knew three things I didn’t know before. That I was lucky to be alive. That whatever it was that sank my boat had something to do with Ramsey and Ivan. And that in my clumsy dumb way, I had stumbled into something very, very big.

  CHAPTER 17

  My chirpy new friends Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal woke me from a dead sleep around six o’clock the next morning. I had dined on warmed-up pasta from the night before, crawled under the sheets and fallen instantly into an exhausted sleep. After eight hours in the sack, I awoke rested and slightly less water-logged. My arms and legs ached, but my thoughts were more ordered. I brewed a pot of coffee and tried to figure out what I had accomplished besides sinking a nice boat and taking an unauthorized spin in a nice car.

  Chernko and Ramsey were up to something nasty. That something had chased the boat down and attacked it, probing for soft spots until it found one. I remembered Sutcliffe’s description about the whale attack against the Moshup. How the whale kept banging away until it broke the bow. This thing, whatever it was, had the same destructive mindset.

  With the Pequod II on the bottom, at least there was no connection to me. Then the mental clouds parted and I let out a groan. The registration number on the upturned bow would have been clearly visible to eyes in the hovering chopper. With that number, the boat could be traced to Daggett. I was worried about Lisa if Chernko thought she was in the loop.

  I told myself to settle down and get to work. I poured myself another cup of coffee and retrieved Flagg’s folder from the top of the refrigerator. Inside was a packet of stapled pages. The cover page was labeled: “Forensic Report on Volgatechnologi.” Volgatech for short. The next page described Volgatech as a state-owned holding company tied to military contracting and manufacturing. It owned dozens of groups formed to conduct applied research in science and technology. The holdings were worth billions.

  The general director of Volgatech was Ivan Chernko. The report said that five years before he slipped into the director’s chair, he allegedly was connected to the KGB, Russia’s notorious intelligence service. It said, without explanation, that during this time he got his nickname, Ivan the Terrible. I tried not to think of the type of work he would have had to do to earn that honor in a hard-assed outfit like the KGB.

  Earlier in his career, he had been the director of a number of arcane organizations that the report described as classic KGB covers. Volgatech sounded like a Russian version of venture capitalism. Like Ramsey, Chernko’s outfit took over companies that were on the ropes and used them to expand his corporate reach.

  Volgatech had been at the center of dozens of legal challenges, accusations of corruption and misappropriation of funds, patent infringement, and illegal transfer of state property. The report also said that Chernko had built a financial house of cards. Many of his investors were KGB fronts. But even with all the investments, a good percentage of the companies he supervised were on the verge of bankruptcy.

  I finished the report and checked the time. Cousin Alex would arrive soon on the ferry. Before leaving for town, I gathered the notes from the conversation at Coffin’s shop and tracked down the name of the scrimshaw dealer he had been talking to. I found his number through directory assistance and gave him a call. I told him I was a private investigator working on the Coffin case and said I’d like to talk to him about the scrimshaw collection Ab Coffin wanted to acquire for the museum. Mr. Mandel said he would be glad to meet with me. He gave me his New Bedford address and we agreed on a time later that day.

  I thought about my conversation with Tanya. Using directory assistance again, I dialed the public affairs office of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Tanya thought she overheard Chernko mention the name Max. The nice young lady on the other end of the line looked through her directory, but couldn’t find any scientist with that name. I got one of those rare brainstorms that somehow find their way between my ears.

  “Do you have a corporate directory?” I said.

  “Yes. Would that help?

  “Maybe. Could you look under M and see if anything sounds like Max?”

  “Be g
lad to. Just a sec. Hmm. I think I found it! Marine Autonomous Corporation.”

  MAC.

  “Anything remotely similar in the listings?”

  She went through the rest of the Ms. “No. Could the one I found be what you’re looking for?”

  Tanya’s accent had thrown me off. “I’ll give it a try. Do you have an address and phone number?”

  I jotted the information down in my note pad and left the apartment. Lisa must have gotten a ride to the Serengeti to fetch her Jeep because it was in the driveway. It would be hard to look her in the eye at breakfast, knowing that I had scuttled her grandfather’s boat. I left a note on the Jeep’s steering wheel saying I had to tend to family business and would be off-island most of the day. As I was walking to the MG, Dr. Rosen came jogging down the driveway.

  “Nice run?” I said, friendly-like.

  He stopped and jogged in place. “Yeah.” Puff. “Thanks.” Puff.

  “How’s the captain doing? Find that white whale yet?”

  “Soon.” Puff. He put his legs into gear and jogged off around the house.

  I decided to check on Ahab when I got back.

  On the drive into town, I wondered what kind of trouble Cousin Alex had gotten into. As a kid, Alex had chosen me as a surrogate for the big brother he never had. At weddings and funerals or other family gatherings, he followed me around like a puppy dog. Unlike his parents, I gave the obnoxious little brat a hard time when he screwed up. He admired my unconventional lifestyle, especially the private eye part, and the fact that I had broken away from our tight family circle. My mother had asked me to talk to him after he had run away from home when he was in his teens. She hoped I could make him what the Greeks call ezginis, which means civilized and well-mannered.