by Evan Graver
At the last moment, he stepped out from behind the column and swung. The bar caught the biker in the chest and knocked him off the bike, which continued upright as Ryan stepped to the rider and delivered another body-blow with the rebar. He heard the motorcycle flop over and the engine rev while he whacked the rider again. The man lay still as Ryan unbuckled his helmet and wrenched it off before he jerked the guy’s pistol from his waistband.
With the helmet on and the pistol tucked away, Ryan ran to the bike, lifted it onto two wheels, and mounted it. He kicked it into first gear and spun it round, leaving a black rubber streak on the concrete as he headed for the exit. He tucked himself to the gas tank as he raced out of the parking garage, the boom of handguns echoing through the concrete canyons as he slid the bike sideways onto the street and twisted the throttle wide open.
During the week they’d spent trailing Valdez, he’d learned the main routes through town, and his team had an established a plan to drive back to the eastern side of Panama, but as soon as he passed under the Pan-Am Highway and entered the tangle of suburban streets, Ryan was lost. He kept the throttle pinned as he weaved through traffic, always trying to aim north, knowing that eventually he would run into one of the two major arteries that paralleled the canal.
Soon, he had made so many turns he doubted anyone could have followed him. He slowed and pulled into a gas station. After filling the motorcycle’s tank, he moved it to the side of the building, went inside, and purchased a laminated map of the country along with a bottle of water.
Back outside, he sipped water and studied the map. The original plan had been to exfil via Route Nine, but it was a toll road, which was not a problem in the rental van with a clean exit. But the op had gotten sloppy in a hurry, and he wanted to avoid the cameras at the toll booth. That meant taking a longer route, and once he had his bearings, he started the motorcycle and took off.
Chapter Twenty
Route Three meandered through the mountains and villages along the canal. It was slow going. Even with multiple detours and stops to ensure he wasn’t being followed, Ryan still made it to the outskirts of Colón in just under two hours.
When he crossed the newly opened Atlantic Bridge, north of the Gatún Locks and high above the Panama Canal, he knew he was almost home free. Fifteen minutes later, he parked the motorcycle in a thick stand of brush just off the road and walked the rest of the way to Shelter Bay Marina. He was hot and worried about the rest of his team. During the ride, he had stopped several times to call them, but had gotten no answer. He hoped it was because they had ditched their burner phones, and he’d tossed his into the canal as he’d crossed the bridge.
Stepping into the marina’s mini mart, he paused for a moment to take in the air conditioning and realized just how sweaty and tired he was. After purchasing a bottle of water, he walked out into the heat and sat on the concrete steps, sipping the water, and looking at the boats moored in the marina.
Dark Water, Greg Olsen’s blue-and-white Hatteras GT63, rode in her place at the end of one of the docks. Then he saw Mango come out of the salon, and relief swept over him.
After one last scan of the people along the wharf, Ryan walked down the dock.
Mango jumped out of the cockpit and embraced him. “Thank God! I didn’t think you’d make it.”
Ryan patted him on the back, and Mango let go. “Yeah, I’m here, but we need to get going.”
“The boat is fueled and ready. All we need to do is clear Customs and we’re gone.”
While Rick and Mango cast off the lines and motored Dark Water across Limón Bay to Colón, Ryan took a hot shower and changed into clean clothes in the Hatteras’s bunkroom. By the time he walked into the salon, they were pulling into the small marina near the port authority.
Two hours later and many dollars lighter from greasing the palms of slow-moving bureaucrats, they were back on the boat. Rick fired off Dark Water’s twin Caterpillar diesels and let them warm while Ryan and Mango cast off the lines. They eased out of the slip and idled through the maze of freighters anchored in Manzanillo Bay, waiting to transit the canal. When they hit the main channel, Rick threw the throttles forward, and they shot between the twin breakwaters of Limón Bay into the rolling Caribbean.
After passing the twelve-mile limit, Rick turned them on a northwestern heading that would take them directly to El Bluff, a tiny village marking the entrance to Bluefields Bay. At thirty knots, their destination was just nine hours away. In the meantime, Rick and Mango took the first watch on the bridge, and Ryan went below to find Oscar.
The Venezuelan had the file Valdez had given him open on the table in front on him. Ryan fetched them both a cold beer before he sat down across from Oscar. “Find anything interesting?”
“The owner of the account is code named El Armero—The Armorer.” Oscar spun the file toward Ryan.
He read through the paperwork. Under the original account, there was what Paul Langston had called his ‘money tree.’ The lawyer had set up multiple shell corporations and trusts, all owning a bank account in tax havens like Nevis, Malta, the Seychelles, or in the American states of Nevada and Delaware.
“It looks like a dead end,” Oscar said.
Ryan closed the folder and leaned back in the settee, sipping his beer. There had to be a clue to the owner buried in the data, but they would need to dig into each business. Was there a link between the code name and the individual?
He opened his laptop and did an Internet search for the term ‘The Armorer.’ Most of the hits were for a female who played a character of the same name in a hit television series. He tried the Spanish version, and his computer automatically corrected the search to English, changing the meaning to ‘gunsmith.’ The lead article was about the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz stratovolcano in Colombia, near the town of Gunsmith. The heat from the magma had melted the glaciers near the volcano’s peak, sending mudslides and floods down to wipe out the village. None of his searches yielded anything useful regarding the man behind the money.
If they’d been able to extract the lawyer with them, they might have learned more from Valdez, but things had gotten out of hand. During the firefight, there hadn’t been an opportunity to scrutinize the file and ask the lawyer more questions. And then Oscar had shot him in the head.
Closing the computer and leaning back in his chair, Ryan put his hands behind his head. “Each corporation has stockholders, directors—that sort of thing. If we can find one that will talk to us, we’ll go from there.”
“How do we do that?” Oscar asked.
“I think we need to call Barry.”
Oscar rolled his eyes. “He’s not my favorite person, but I wouldn’t mind getting to know his associate.”
“I think she’s out of your league,” Ryan said.
“If you can land Emily, I have a shot at Carmen.”
“Touché, amigo.” Ryan held out his bottle, and Oscar tapped it with his.
After taking a swig of beer, Ryan did some research himself. He woke up the laptop and started with the first Nevada corporation. Its address turned out to be a post office box in an obscure shipping and mailing facility that was nothing more than a storefront with mailboxes on every interior wall. The facility also offered a service where they scanned the mail and forwarded it to an email address, but there was no email address listed on the firm’s incorporation documents. Using street view on a map application, he could virtually stand outside the office and, thanks to customers and the owner posting pictures of the business, he could also view the interior.
None of it gave him a clue as to who he was looking for.
The Delaware corporation was the same dead end. In researching the shell companies, he found that he could start his own company in these corporate, tax-friendly states for less than fifty dollars. Once he paid the money to an incorporation firm, they would assign a board of directors or managing partners, collect the mail, file tax paperwork, and anything else needed to keep the corporati
on current.
His next target was a P.O. box in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. He put the address into the Internet search bar and got eight pages of results, many of them dealing with the leak of the Panama Papers. The law firm Mossack Fonseca had used the Tortola address to establish over six hundred thousand companies. Ryan let out a whistle of surprise and scrolled through the company names. Many were vague, and he wondered whether Mossack Fonseca had a division of people who did nothing but sit around all day and dream up company names. To him, it looked like one giant racket, especially when he saw the names Tea Kettle, Inc., or Harry Potter’s Fortune.
Of all the things that baffled him was the fact that anyone who funneled their wealth through offshore corporations had to have complete trust in the lawyers and bankers that handled their affairs. The owners had to turn over control of the fictional companies to the lawyer, so it appeared that they were not the beneficiary of the houses, apartments, luxury cars, and massive bank accounts they owned.
While Ryan had an account in the Caymans with several million dollars in it, he had never trusted the bankers. He often checked his account balances, calculated the interest, and learned about the investments the bankers made for him. Sometimes, he had them explain an investment in substantial detail, so he understood exactly what was happening, and if it seemed over his head, he refused to let the bankers use his money.
After checking the Valdez file again, Ryan said, “Both the companies I’ve looked into are worth more than a million dollars apiece, and both are controlled by a trust called Rig Management.”
“What does that mean?” Oscar asked.
“It means this is a spiderweb of a freaking mess, and I have no clue how to untangle it. As much as I hate having to go back to Barry, we’re gonna have to.”
Oscar groaned.
“My thoughts exactly.” Ryan rose, went to the coffeemaker, and made a fresh pot before he poured it into a Thermos. “I’m going topside. Feel free to take another crack at it.”
Ryan stepped into the cockpit while Oscar pulled the computer in front of him. On the bridge, he found Mango at the helm and Rick staring through a pair of binoculars.
“What’s up?” Ryan asked.
“Probably nothing.” Rick handed him the binoculars and pointed to a speck on the horizon.
Ryan stared through the binos at another sportfisher, racing along behind them over a mile distant. “How long has it been there?”
“It fell in with us about thirty minutes ago.”
“Do they have AIS?” Ryan asked, meaning the Automatic Identification System used to broadcast a ship’s name, speed, coordinates, and a host of other information via satellite network.
“Negative,” Mango said. “They’re a small vessel like us and not required to have it.”
“Or they turned it off,” Ryan said.
“Maybe.”
Ryan put the binoculars down. “How long do you want to stand watch?”
“I could use a nap.” Rick yawned for emphasis.
“I’ll take the helm,” Ryan said.
“Thanks, man.” Rick slapped Ryan on the shoulder and headed down the ladder to the cockpit.
Ryan watched through the binoculars again. The other boat was still a long way off and he couldn’t make out any details about the vessel or who was aboard it. Where had it come from? Had it been in Colón or had it left from somewhere else? As far as he knew, there weren’t any ports between Shelter Bay and Bocas del Toro, a good 150-mile run up the coast.
Then, as he watched, the fishing boat slowed and dropped away. Ryan checked the radar and saw a few vessels far on the horizon, then he looked at the sonar and saw the long slope of the continental shelf, dropping from six thousand feet to nearly ten. It was the perfect place to catch enormous game fish, and Ryan would stop there if he were a charter guide, too.
For now, the threat had disappeared. He knew there was still plenty of action ahead of them as they searched for the man who’d given the kill orders for Oscar’s team, but he didn’t know if he could truly relax until this business was behind them.
They’d stirred the hornet’s nest in Panama and attracted The Armorer’s attention. Someone was willing to do whatever it took to keep their secrets, and now that Ryan had the bit between his teeth, he was more than willing to hunt them down.
Chapter Twenty-One
During the run to Bluefields, Ryan had Oscar scan the documents they’d retrieved from Valdez’s safe deposit box into the computer. Scott had left his Trident document kit with Ryan when he’d gotten off the plane in Texas City. Using the hand scanner, it only took a matter of minutes to run the device down one page after another and to have it appear as a PDF file on the computer. The technology impressed Oscar, and he said he had to use an ancient scanner-printer combination in his commander’s office, which would have taken him hours to upload everything.
When Oscar finished, he called Ryan down from the bridge. Ryan encrypted the email and sent it to Barry Thatcher. A few minutes later, he received one from Barry, which included an outlandish price.
After reading it, Ryan whistled. “Oscar, how do you feel about parting with some of that cash you stole?”
“If it means that I find the killer, then yes.”
“Well, it’s going to cost a bundle.”
With a shake of his head, Oscar said, “Your friend Barry is not cheap.”
“No, he’s not, but it will be worth it.” Ryan went back to the bridge and sat behind the wheel, his feet up on the dash. They were miles from anywhere, and the vast Caribbean Sea rolled out to the horizon in every direction. He sipped coffee and thought about their next course of action.
Several hours later, Rick came up to the bridge to take the next watch. Ryan called Emily to give her an update on their location but told her little about what had happened in Panama, only that they were wading through the information they’d retrieved from the bank.
“When will you be back?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. We’ll spend the night in Nicaragua and go from there. Barry is working on our file.”
“Well, hurry back, sailor. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, babe. I gotta go. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she replied.
Ryan hung up the phone and sat at the table, staring out the window at the setting sun. While it was nice to have someone waiting for him to return, but he couldn’t afford to get sentimental or let his guard down when he was operational.
It could only spell disaster for him and his team.
It was late when Rick dropped anchor off Bluefields’ municipal docks. The sportfisher they had seen earlier had not shown up again, nor had they observed any other vessels following them. All four men sacked out in Dark Water’s berthing compartments.
When Ryan awoke, it was broad daylight. After a shower, he climbed up to the salon. Rick and Oscar were already sitting at the galley island, eating bacon, eggs, and toast. Ryan poured himself a cup of coffee and scooped food onto a plate. Mango joined them, and when they finished breakfast, they unloaded the RIB from the Dark Water’s bow and headed for shore.
Not much had changed since the last time Ryan had been to Bluefields, and he doubted much would change even when they built the new port. The people wore either colorful clothes or blue jeans. Women carried their babes in wraps, and salesmen pushed carts loaded with fish, juices, and a variety of meats, vegetables, and fruits through the crowd while other vendors sold hot meals. As they walked up the street to the Oasis Casino and Hotel where Greg Olsen had ensconced himself in the top-floor suite, Ryan and Oscar each bought a freshly squeezed juice combination.
They found Greg Olsen, Shelly Hughes—Greg’s girlfriend and chief operations officer for Dark Water Research—and a group of engineers pouring over site surveys, location reports, and other data needed to make a comprehensive bid for building the new seaport.
Greg wheeled away from the table in his custom TiLite wheelc
hair and motioned them to join him in his other office, the master bedroom. Mango closed the door once everyone was inside, and they gave Greg a rundown of the last week’s events in Panama.
“And you didn’t get what you went for?” Greg asked when the story ended.
“We got a paper trail that stretches across the globe,” Ryan explained. “I’ve got Barry Thatcher going through the docs.”
“In the meantime, you also took a bunch of other files, right?”
“Yes,” Ryan replied.
“What are your plans for them?” Greg asked.
“Nothing,” Ryan said.
“Let’s turn them over to Landis and Homeland,” Greg said. “I’m sure they would love to get their hands on them.”
“What about releasing them to the press?” Mango asked.
“Do you know a reputable reporter? Because I sure don’t,” Greg said.
“We could send them to the same reporters who handled the Panama Papers,” Mango said.
“Let’s let Landis handle it,” Greg countered. “The government has been cracking down on money laundering and shell corporations for a while now.”
“I’ll pass them on,” Ryan said.
“Give the hard copies to Landis,” Greg ordered.
“Okay,” Ryan agreed, not able to come up with a better idea.
“Now that I have you here, do you want to do some diving?” Greg asked. “I could use an extra hand for a few days.”
“I don’t have any of my gear, and we’re in the middle of an operation.”
“Your stuff is sitting over there in the corner.” Greg pointed to a pile of dive gear. “They needed the room on Peggy Lynn for a new diver. Besides, it’ll take some time for Barry to track down your shell corporations.”
Ryan sat down on the bed beside Mango. “What do you guys want to do?”
“I do not want to stop this search,” Oscar said. “This is my mission, and I will continue no matter what you do.”