by John Lutz
A wave of weakness and fear swept through Ava. She put the bracelet away and climbed the gangplank. Carlucci fell back to give her room to step aboard. He wasn’t looking at her, but at a young man coming up the walkway. When he reached the yacht he said to Carlucci, “She left her car in a tow-away zone. Put some papers in the glove compartment.”
He was a dark-haired kid with inked forearms, in jeans and T-shirt. She hadn’t noticed him at all. Carlucci opened his palm. “The keys, please, Ms. North.”
She handed them over and he tossed them to the kid. “Put the car in long-term parking. Bring the papers to me,” he said. Then he turned to Ava. “We’re going below.”
He pointed the way and followed her down glass steps between stainless-steel railings. It was a large room that might have been in a house, except for the view out the long windows. It had a teak floor, white sofas with lilac throw pillows, and on the walls, the familiar sepia-tinted photos of old Havana. The galley must have been nearby, because she could smell searing meat and spices.
Morales came around the corner. He was also in shorts and sport shirt. He carried a plate of chicken wings and was eating one of them. “Hey, mio corazon,” he said. “So glad you could join us.”
She flinched as he bent toward her, but it was only to kiss her, leaving a smear of grease on her cheek. “Junior cryptographer in the NSA. How much does it pay?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Morales looked at Carlucci. He said, “Sixty-five thousand.”
“A member of the North family, working a government job for sixty-five thousand a year,” said Morales with disgust. “How’d you know Brydon? Was he your boyfriend?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you were fucking him. I bet you dreamed it up together—this plan to shake me down over that goddamn reef.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He slapped her. The motion caused the tray to tip, spilling chicken wings over one of the white sofas, where they left brown stains. Seeing what had happened, Morales slapped her again.
“Ruy, enough,” said Carlucci, in a tone of mild reproof.
“We’re just getting started. You’re gonna make her talk, right?”
“She wrote a statement and left it in her car. It’ll tell us all we need to know. We already figured out most of it.” Carlucci walked past Morales. At the end of the sofa was a small table, bare except for a smartphone.
“Come here,” Carlucci said to her. “Sit down.”
Ava sensed what was coming. Wished she could stay where she was and let Morales hit her some more. But she obeyed. Her movements were stiff and awkward, and she felt sick to her stomach. Carlucci looked at her and understood.
“You already know, don’t you? You’ve sort of known all along. But you had to come anyway, because you got her into this.” He picked up the phone, touched a few keys, and handed it to her.
On the screen was a photo of the Avanti. Its front end was broken into a V around the trunk of a palm tree. Hubcaps and other pieces lay on the road around it. The windshield was shattered. Carlucci bent over and flicked his finger across the screen, bringing up the next picture.
At least she couldn’t see Tilda’s face. She was bent over the broken steering wheel. There was a lot of blood in her blond hair. Ava tossed the phone away and put her head in her hands.
“For her it was over real quick,” Carlucci said. “My guys were waiting for her outside the hangar. Hit her with a baseball bat, right in the forehead. See, with blunt force trauma, they can’t tell much. They’ll think it was her head hitting the steering wheel that did the damage. There won’t be any problems. That old car didn’t have airbags, and everybody who knew your cousin knew she didn’t bother with seatbelts.”
Ava began to cry. It was Carlucci’s gentle manner that did it. If only he’d been as harsh as Morales, she would’ve been able to take it.
His strong bony hand gripped her arm and pulled her up. He walked her though the room and into a narrow corridor. “You won’t have to feel bad about her for long,” he said. “Just till we get to deep water.”
He opened a low doorway, shifted his hand to the top of her head, bent it forward, and pushed her in. It was a small, empty storage room, triangular in shape because it was in the bow. The door closed behind her. Ava sat on the deck and covered her face with her hands. She wasn’t through weeping.
The deck began to vibrate as the engine was turned on. The sound of the bow slashing through the water surrounded her as the yacht got under way.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Laker had spent the last several hours in a storage locker that was a great improvement over the first one. It did not smell of disinfectant, there was enough room to sit on the floor, and, best of all, Ramón Milaflores had a key and was able to lock the door, so Laker would not be discovered by chance. Ramón said he and the other crewman, whose name was Joseph, would return when they went off duty.
The Filipinos had explained, while conducting him to his new closet, that the other officers were cooperating with Korzeniowski. The captain had had Ramón and the other sailor who’d put out the rope ladder brought to him and threatened them if they told anyone what they’d seen. He’d made no announcement explaining why he’d bypassed Puerto Chiapas. The crew was nervous.
An hour or so after they left him, Laker felt the ship begin to rock gently again. They’d left the canal for the Caribbean Sea. Not long after that, he heard footfalls. People were passing along the corridor. A lot of people. It seemed like the whole crew. Soon it got very noisy out on deck: shouting and the whine of motors that he guessed were those of the ship’s derrick. Then heavy splashes. Gradually the tumult died down. He heard more passing footfalls as the crew dispersed to their posts or their bunks.
The door opened. It was Joseph. His hands were filthy, his overalls sweat-stained. He held out a set of fresh overalls. Laker put them on. As usual, they were much too small. Joseph motioned for him to follow. They went along the corridor and out on deck.
It was still light, but the sun had set. A strong, warm wind was kicking up whitecaps. The ship’s hull slashing steadily through the water was the only sound. The deck was bare all the way to the bow. Ramón was leaning on the rail. His slender frame sagged with exhaustion. Laker leaned beside him. Now he got the point of the overalls. Anyone who saw them would think they were three crewmen taking a break.
“You’ve been working hard,” Laker said.
Ramón nodded. “The containers we loaded at Vladivostok, that we were supposed to unload at Puerto Chiapas. Captain Korzeniowski said to get rid of them. The ship’s derrick wasn’t meant for such a job. Some of them we had to push overboard.”
Laker looked toward the bow, then up at the monkey deck. He was familiar with the ship’s navigation lights from following it. He said, “You’re running without lights.”
“Yes. Joseph just took coffee to the bridge. Tell him what you saw, Joseph.”
“Transponder off. Radio, too.”
“The captain wants the ship to be invisible,” Laker said.
“Yes,” Ramón said.
“Captain has gun.” Joseph patted his right hip to indicate a holster. “And officers.”
“They’re armed, too? How many of them are there?”
“Three.”
“The captain made an announcement,” Ramón said. “He doesn’t do that very often. But he said we were nearly at our destination, where we’d be paid five times our usual wages and set free.”
“How did the crew take that?”
“They want to believe in five times the usual wage. But by now they should know, Korzeniowski is not to be trusted.”
“Did he explain why he wanted the containers dumped?”
“No.”
Joseph pointed at the deck and said something in his native language. Ramón nodded and said to Laker, “We loaded a container at Magadan. It is o
n top of the stack in the forward hold. With the Vladivostok containers gone, the stevedores will be able to get to it quickly when we reach our destination.”
Laker remembered something Terry had found out from the ship’s agent. “Korzeniowski came aboard with that container, didn’t he?”
“A little before,” Ramón replied. “We had to wait for an icebreaker, to get in to Magadan. The harbor is always frozen till May at least. Korzeniowski was on the icebreaker. He came aboard and took command. Our usual captain left the ship.” Ramón hesitated. His lips tightened. He went on, “Officers generally don’t have much regard for us. But to Korzeniowski, we’re barely human. His first order, once we tied up at the pier, was for all crew to go to quarters and stay there.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Loading and unloading is the stevedores’ job. The crew is generally not confined to quarters, but no one minded. It was snowing hard. And the cold was unbelievable. You thought that wind would kill you if you didn’t get out of it. The only man who disobeyed was Esteban Lamon.”
Joseph smiled and said something to Ramón, who smiled back. “It was Esteban’s first voyage,” he told Laker. “He was always curious, always getting into trouble. He came back and told us there was only one train car on the pier. We’d cut our way into Magadan to pick up one container. There were soldiers all around it. The captain was on deck, standing by the open hatch, signaling the crane operator where to load it.”
“You must have wondered what was inside.”
“Everybody had an idea. Gold. Drugs. Esteban thought it was the car of some Siberian oligarch. A Bugatti or McLaren. He named brands I never heard of.” Ramón sighed. “I didn’t dream the foolish kid would go into the hold and try to open the container.”
“Is that difficult?”
“Yes. And dangerous. That is why everybody believed the announcement that he’d been killed in an accident. He fell. It’s a long way from the top container in a stack to the deck of the hold.”
Joseph spoke again and Ramón shook his head.
“You didn’t believe the announcement,” Laker said.
“I think an investigation would have showed that Korzeniowski caught him in the hold and murdered him.”
“You took a chance, sending that message to his family.”
“We’re not allowed to have cell phones. I had to steal one from an officer’s cabin. I got it back before he noticed.”
“Ramón,” Laker said. “I have to see what’s in the container.”
Joseph spoke to Ramón. Laker picked up the fear in his voice. Ramón nodded to him and said to Laker, “It’s too dangerous.”
“I understand. But Esteban is not the only one who’s died because of that container.” He told them about Home Port, and about his long pursuit of the Comercio Marinero. When he was finished, Ramón and Joseph had a conversation in Tagalog in vehement whispers. Then Ramón said to Laker, “We need to get hold of some tools and line. We’ll hide you meantime.”
They headed forward. Laker tripped over something and nearly fell. He looked down to see that it was a hatch coaming, outlining a hatch cover broad as the side of a barn. It was for unloading. They weren’t going to have to open it. Joseph was already down on his knees, loosening the dogs on a smaller hatch. He lifted the cover and motioned Laker below. “You wait here,” he said as he closed the hatch.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The low door opened. Ava could see Carlucci’s thin, hairy legs up to the knees. His hand appeared. The fingers curled, beckoning her out. She had to crawl on hands and knees. She rose to find that he’d put on a ball cap and sunglasses. His hands were empty.
He smiled, and she realized he’d guessed her thoughts again. “What are you gonna do? Hit me and run, jump over the side? It’s no good. We’re miles from shore. But I’m impressed you got your spirits back. You think you’re not done yet.”
He gripped her arm and steered her along the corridor. “You are, though. Try to give up. It’ll be easier.”
A young man in a crew uniform of white shirt, shorts, and cap came around a turn. She stepped in front of him. “You’ve got to help me! They’re going to kill me!”
He looked embarrassed and annoyed, as if she’d asked him for spare change. Stepping around her he walked on.
“I hired the crew,” Carlucci said. “Made the conditions of their employment crystal clear to them. They handle the boat pretty well, considering they’re deaf and blind.”
He guided her up the steps, into the glaring sunlight. It was as he said, the blue horizon was empty. The sun had just set. They walked toward the bow. Carlucci gestured through the front window at a uniformed man on the bridge. He cut the engines and turned away, disappearing from view. The bow settled. There was silence except for the lapping of waves against the hull and the wind. It snatched Carlucci’s cap off his head. He deftly caught it and shoved it in his pocket. His hair was blown back. So it was true. He had only half an ear, topped by hard, pallid scar tissue.
There was no safety rail along the bow. By the starboard side lay four cinder blocks roped together, with additional loops of rope beside them. Carlucci pushed her down to her knees. Told her to lie on her stomach. He pulled her hands beside her and began to tie her wrists.
“You know what this rope is made of? Kevlar. Like for body armor. Sailors use it for mooring line ’cause it’s so strong.” Apparently he was the kind of man who liked to talk while he worked. Her dentist was like that. “I’m tying your hands mostly for your sake. You don’t want to be clawing at the water, trying to get back to the surface. Soon as you go under, breathe in. Breathe deep. It’ll be over in no time. Shit—you can bust a gut trying to cut this goddamn Kevlar. I shoulda brought shears.”
He was finished with her hands. Shifting positions he began to tie her ankles together. Abruptly he laughed. “So Ruy was wrong. As usual. Your statement said Brydon was just a colleague. You hardly knew him. Trying to shake us down was all his idea.”
“Did you kill him yourself ?”
“Yeah. You guessed right about that. I hadn’t worked with the stiletto in a long time, but I did well by him, I thought. One deep, clean thrust. In fact most of your guesses were right. You should’ve quit while you were ahead.”
“Do you always have this much to say to people you’re about to kill?”
“They’re the only people I can trust.”
She could hear him grunting as he struggled to cut the rope. Then a clunk as one of the cinder blocks fell on its side. He was tying them to the line that bound her ankles. The last step.
“You’re lucky in one way,” he went on. “Fucking Ruy isn’t here. He wanted to gloat over you, wave bye-bye as you went over the side. But he got a call on the radio. Gonçalves, I think. We’ll be done before he is.”
“You don’t much like Morales.”
“Total pain in the ass. He’s ruthless, but he’s stupid. He’s gonna be worth the trouble, though, to my organization. Yemayá’s just the start. Ruy will develop more Cuban properties. We’ll provide financing. In return he’ll deal with us exclusively. To provide the finer things in life to his guests.”
“You mean drugs, gambling, prostitution.”
“Yeah. It’ll be like old Havana, or Vegas in its prime. The Cuban government is weak. You saw how easy it was for Ruy to push fuckin’ Gonçalves around.”
His work done, he straightened up. She saw his shadow move as he bent over the cinder blocks. “Remember,” he said. “Breathe deep.”
Abruptly the engine roared to life. The bow rose. Carlucci fell on his ass.
“Arturo!” It was Morales’s voice, shouting over the engine.
“Ruy, what the fuck?”
She twisted her head to see that a glass panel in the cabin behind them was open. Morales was leaning out. His eyes were wide with excitement.
“The cross!” he shouted.
“What?” said Carlucci.
“My family’s silver crucifix.”<
br />
“What about it?”
“They found it.”
“You shittin’ me?”
“No. Gonçalves said they’d been looking since he got back from Miami. Lot of problems. But they have it now for me.”
“So?”
“So we’re going to Havana. Now.”
“Well, okay. But I got to take care of her first. Stop the boat.”
“Hey, pal, I’m not stopping for anything.”
“It’ll only take—”
“I don’t care. Understand? We’re going to Havana.”
He pulled his head back in. Perhaps he took the wheel himself, because the yacht leaned into a sharp turn as it continued to speed up. Reaching for handholds that weren’t there, Carlucci pitched sideways, ending up next to Ava on deck. They lay like two lovers in bed, in a gruesome parody of intimacy. She looked at Carlucci’s lined face, sunglasses askew, hair blown back from his mangled ear.
“Now the thing’s gonna be dragged out, I don’t know how long. Sorry,” he shouted over the bow’s crashing through the waves.
Ava turned her face away. She didn’t want him to read her thoughts again, the way he had when he’d said, You think you’re not through yet.
Because that was still how she felt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The hatch opened and Ramón waved down at him. The wait probably hadn’t been as long as it had seemed to Laker. He’d spent it clinging to a ladder fastened to the bulkhead, which descended into the vast darkness, stinking of rust and chemicals, of the cargo hold. He had to hold tight to the rungs. The ship’s motions felt more extreme here. The ladder was dancing, up and down, side to side. A stronger wave made the ship pitch violently, and he swung away from the ladder to the full stretch of his arms. This was alarming; his own weight almost broke his grip. Eventually he figured out how to bend his elbows around the ladder’s uprights and lock his hands together. He couldn’t see the containers, but he heard them. The racket was complex and ceaseless, groaning, squeaking, screeching, booming.