Gardens of the Queen

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Gardens of the Queen Page 15

by Nicholas Harvey


  AJ passed some gear over to Thomas. “How about we have a little word with Billy once we’re sorted here.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Thomas echoed.

  One of Reg’s boats was tied on the far side of the jetty and when Pearl was done greeting their passengers and squaring away payments, she joined AJ and Thomas, who were unloading empty tanks.

  “Haven’t heard any more from Reg, I think he’s back in the water,” Pearl offered.

  AJ subtly looked over towards Billy’s dive boat that was now docked and unloaded. “That’s the kid I was texting you about over there.”

  Pearl checked him out without being obvious. “Yeah, I know him, nice enough kid but likes his night life a bit too much; Reg passed on hiring him last year.”

  “Let’s see what he has to say about this morning.” She beckoned Thomas along. “Be right back, Pearl.”

  They walked around to the public dock and found Billy loading a couple of tanks into the dive company’s van.

  “Hey Billy, how are you?” AJ asked in a friendly tone.

  Billy stacked the tanks and turned around. “Oh, AJ, how are ya?” Billy looked around; he was jittery and they’d only said hello.

  “I’m good, thanks,” she smiled at him. “Who were your friends this morning, Billy?”

  His face turned ashen and he stumbled, “Who do you mean, I mean, what friends..?”

  AJ stepped a little closer and kept smiling. “You know, the blokes in the car you got into and drove off with. You must remember? You were yelling at them pretty good before that.”

  Billy made to head back to the dock. “I gotta unload the boat…” Thomas stepped in his way and blocked his path. The young Caymanian had the friendliest manner and everyone knew him for his ever-present smile, but when he took on a stern face his tall, broad-shouldered presence could be slightly menacing.

  “What the fuck, guys?” Billy complained. “I don’t know who they are, but they’re mean fuckers and they told me to keep quiet so that’s what I plan to do – I don’t need another beating.”

  “Why would they beat you Billy, what do you have to do with them?” AJ persisted. She was impressing herself with her interrogation skills.

  “Nothing! I don’t know who the hell they are. One of them stole my fucking bike yesterday so I was telling them to give it back! Arseholes told me they’d take me to it but drove me down the road and give me a thumpin’. Threw me some dough for the bike and made me swear not say anything, so I’m not telling you this alright? Or I’ll get beat again. The one guy is big but the other one, fuck me, he’s mean.”

  “But you don’t know who they are? Are they local, foreign, accents, you must have got something, Billy?” AJ softened her voice for some sympathy.

  “I got a long walk back and yelled at by the boss, that’s what I bloody got!” Billy calmed a little. “Yeah, they got accents, eastern European I’d say. But please, I ain’t telling you any of this, alright? Seriously, I don’t want to ever see those blokes again.”

  “Don’t worry, Billy,” AJ assured him, “We won’t ever mention you. We think these guys may be bothering another friend is all. Thanks for the info, take care of yourself.”

  Billy was relieved to carry on with his work and AJ and Thomas ambled back to their boat. Thomas pulled his phone from his pocket. “I missed a call here.” he looked at the number but didn’t recognise it and hit play. “Oh shit boss!” he quickly hit speaker and restarted the message.

  “Hello Thomas, this is Detective Roy Whittaker of the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service. I had some questions about your sister, Regina, I believe she goes by Sydney? If you’d please call me back at your earliest convenience I’d appreciate it.”

  AJ and Thomas stopped in their tracks and looked at each other.

  “Reg said they pulled a bag up, guess they found her passport,” AJ said quietly.

  “Yeah, got a text here too from Reg, says just that,” Thomas added despondently. “Looks like she’s wanted by the Cayman Police and the Russian now. This is crazy.”

  AJ put a hand on his shoulder. “We gotta move them.”

  Chapter 47

  The flat barge slowly motored its way back through the cut into the North Sound with its cargo of broken seaplane parts. Reg and George had helped them winch up the two pontoons separately and then took a third dive to recover some smaller debris and sweep one more time for useful evidence. Still moored on Pinnacle Reef, the two divers now packed their gear and turned their attention to Detective Whittaker, curious if they were still needed.

  “What do you think Roy, we diving some more today?” George quizzed.

  Roy stepped from behind the small wheelhouse where he’d been conversing with the boat captain.

  “Hear me out fellas, see if you think I’m figuring this correctly.” He rested one foot on a bench and pointed out across the North Wall. “Weather came out of the north the other night, plane was slammed up against the reef, a few smaller pieces made it over into the sound, right?”

  The two men nodded their agreement and Roy continued, “So, anything or anyone going in the water that night would end up here against the reef or make it over the top and be inside the sound, am I still making sense?”

  More nods.

  “Puts our missing pair, as we now must assume there was two aboard when she went in –” he held up two fingers “– puts our missing pair inside the sound, because we’ve searched the whole stretch outside the reef and there’s no bodies. Still good?”

  “They gotta be inside the sound,” George agreed.

  “Well, we’ve had six boats, between the marine units and some borrowed craft, combing the shoreline and found nothing. We’ve performed a search pattern with the same boats and canvassed the whole sound and seen no bodies.” He ran his hand across the horizon of the North Sound. “Be floating by now too. See bodies, they sink when they drown as the water fills the lungs and replaces the air so they’re now heavier than water and down they go. But especially in this shallow, warm water, decomposition starts pretty fast and the body emits gases inside and pop, up they come again. A day or at most two and they’re bobbing on the surface. It’s been two and a half days and the boat’s just finished another full sweep of the shoreline and the whole sound with nothing.”

  Reg knew where Roy was heading but stayed quiet, letting George do the talking.

  “If I follow what you’re saying then maybe they did survive the crash and made it out,” George surmised.

  Reg saw an opening. “You think they may have survived the plane crash, okay, that could have happened, the fuselage was fairly well intact. But then to make it to shore in the middle of a tropical storm from out here on the North Wall that seems like a stretch to me.”

  Roy nodded. “You’re right there, no question, they’d have dodged death twice. Seems rather implausible I have to agree.”

  Reg breathed a sigh of relief; maybe he’d got Roy doubting again.

  “Unless someone helped them,” Roy offered.

  Reg was mortified. He felt like a kid caught with his first girlie magazine; he was sure he was flushed red and had big shiny ‘guilty’ signs pointing at him.

  “Who would be crazy enough to come out here in the middle of that storm, and besides, how would they even find them?” George asked doubtfully.

  “Another good point,” Roy responded, “But what if it was all arranged?”

  He let that sit with the two men a moment and shouted towards the boat captain, “Call them all in, we’re done looking out here.” Turning back to Reg and George, he said, “Those two were picked up by someone out here, crazy as that sounds, and then they scuttled the plane to hide it. Hiding from the Russian too; there’s got to be a reason they ran here but haven’t turned themselves in for the lad to seek asylum. I don’t have all the pieces put together by a long shot but I’m pretty damn sure those two are on dry land, and alive.”

  Reg couldn’t believe his friend was figu
ring this out so quickly – he had some details wrong but he sure was on the right track.

  “Who from here could be involved in all this? Be quite the conspiracy wouldn’t it?” George chuckled.

  Roy seemed to look squarely at Reg. “Hard knowing, but someone on this island knows more than what they’re telling.”

  Reg visualised the shiny signs starting to blink in bright neon like a Vegas Strip wedding chapel. He looked down and needlessly fussed with his gear bag to avoid any more eye contact with Roy.

  “Heading in then?” George confirmed.

  “Yes sir,” Roy answered. “While I’m waiting for young Thomas to call me back I believe I’ll wander over and see his mama; lovely lady, haven’t seen her in a while, be nice to catch up. Reckon I’ll ask her about her daughter while I’m there.”

  Chapter 48

  AJ paddled the kayak towards the dock from where she’d left the Newton tied to its mooring, away from the shore. At the end of each day and to begin each new day, either she or Thomas would paddle the two hundred yards to or from the mooring as they couldn’t keep the boat tied to the dock overnight. Sometimes she chose to swim and get the extra exercise. AJ enjoyed the few minutes of peace it allowed her to prepare for the day ahead or process the morning and organise her thoughts for the afternoon. Normally that meant arranging the tasks in her mind and running through a daily mental checklist of jobs to ready herself for the next day of diving. Today her mind was speeding like a racing car, bouncing around the chaos happening since Thomas had received a call from his sister two nights ago.

  She was convinced Billy’s friends were the Russian Reg had met and a crony. That meant the dock was being watched, which meant the Russians, or Cubans, knew Sydney was on the plane and were watching her brother to see if he’d lead them to her, and subsequently Carlos. The question was how long had they been watching? Had they already followed them? If they had then they probably knew Carlos and Sydney were at Reg’s house. A wave of terror coursed through her as she realised they may have found them already, perhaps this morning while no one was with them. She shook off the thought and focused on next moves; she had to assume they were still safe in the house. She tried to convince herself of that but she felt a tug of urgency to get over there and make sure.

  Reaching the dock she hauled the kayak up and dragged it to the little storage building where she met Pearl finishing up her paperwork. Thomas closed the van doors, having finished loading the empty tanks, and joined them.

  “I think we have to move them to a safer spot and do it now, don’t you agree?” AJ started, getting straight to business.

  “Agreed,” Pearl concurred. “Reg texted; Whittaker’s called off the search out north. He’s figured out they were picked up and had help, so now we’ve got the police hunting for them too. When do you think Sea Sentry will get here?”

  AJ shrugged. “I’m not completely sure, sounded like tonight some time. They still don’t have Internet on their boat so we won’t hear anything more until they arrive. Jackson’s email just said we have to keep them hidden until tomorrow, they’re setting up a press conference for then.”

  Pearl turned to Thomas. “Whittaker was heading to your place to speak to your mum and dad by the sound of it, should we warn them?”

  Thomas shook his head, troubled his mother would be bothered again. “Best to not say anything; I don’t want to lie to her any more and she doesn’t know anything so she can’t tell him anything useful. She’ll say Sydney’s in Florida, ’cos that’s where she thinks she is. Pops is likely still on the water or at the market selling his fish.”

  “So where are we going to move them to that’s better than our house?” Pearl asked.

  “I’ve been going crazy thinking about that,” AJ said, concerned. “I figured my place, but if the Russian arsehole is following us around he may end up tailing me home. Besides, we don’t know how many of them there are; their boat is still moored outside the harbour, they could have brought half an army on that thing. Maybe they have a tail on each of us and it’s not like we have safe houses lined up around the island.”

  “All this is way out of our league, man,” Thomas sighed. “I feel really bad we’ve got all of you involved.”

  Pearl put her arm around him. “Livened up our week I’d say. We’ll figure it out, don’t fret about it lad, we’re all in it together when it’s family.”

  AJ punched Thomas softly on the arm. “It’s not like I’ve ever dragged you into anything crazy before,” she laughed. “Now what the hell are we going to do with those two?”

  They all thought for a moment until Thomas jumped. “What about the ‘Rum Runner’?”

  AJ and Pearl looked at each other. “Perfect,” AJ blurted.

  “Agree,” Pearl added.

  “I really shouldn’t involve the Flemings but I’d say these are special circumstances, and it’s only one night, right?” said AJ.

  She hesitated a moment, thinking about the couple who owned the house her apartment belonged to. They’d been so good to her and their forty-one-foot Bertram deep-sea fishing yacht was his pride and joy. One night, she thought, they’ll crash there for one night and no one will be the wiser.

  “Good thinking Thomas, it’s perfect.”

  She lowered her voice a little. “I need to take our tanks to get filled, but first, let’s get Reg on the phone, I have a plan.”

  Chapter 49

  A small convoy of vehicles pulled into the car park of the Instituto de Estudios Geológicos in Jucaro, joining Silvio’s beaten-up old Lada and Julio’s equally decrepit MZ motorcycle. The procession was led by a military lorry with two rows of armed soldiers lining the benches in the back, who quickly disembarked and formed a perimeter around the car park. A slightly overweight, well-dressed man with a substantial moustache stepped from an air-conditioned Mercedes and stretched for a moment, easing the tension built over the six-hour journey from Havana. He’d already made a phone call with regard to road improvements needed in the Jucaro region for tankers to travel to and from the town.

  Salvador Barrios was second in command at the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines, reporting directly and exclusively to the minister himself. A subordinate hurried around and unlocked the front door of the building, turned off the alarm and held the door for Barrios. Behind him men stepped out from four unmarked vans and began unloading gear. The first items carefully stacked by each van were large metal crates. Each crate was clearly marked with red explosive warning labels.

  Barrios took a quick tour of the offices while his assistant preceded him, turning lights on and opening doors. Stepping out the back door onto the dock they were greeted by the imposing mass of a large military boat moored in the inlet. Sailors could be seen on deck and several stopped to look down at the two men. They immediately snapped to attention and saluted. Barrios nodded in their direction before returning inside the building and making his way to the nicest office he’d seen.

  “Have them load the explosives and other gear, but take it around the outside, I don’t want them traipsing through here.” He barked at the other man who scuttled away to bark at the next man down the food chain.

  Barrios took out his mobile phone and dialled a number, waiting while it rang.

  “Señor Barrios, how are you today?” came the gruff voice, the voice of the man Mikhail had spoken with.

  Barrios raised one eyebrow. “I’m in Jucaro, where I see your man is not. You told us this business would be resolved, where is he?”

  The man at the other end took a moment in replying, “I indeed told you it would be resolved and so it will be. Gurov knows what he’s doing and he’s aware of the timing. He’ll make this whole problem go away, don’t worry.”

  Barrios scoffed, “This whole problem began under Gurov, forgive me if I doubt the man.”

  The Russian fired back without pause, “This problem began with a Cuban national who was placed under my man, by your people, and now Gurov is forced to clean up t
he mess. If there’s a publicity problem over this it’s Cuba’s problem. We don’t give a shit what an American paper says, we just want the oil, and we expect you to start construction on Monday.”

  Barrios leaned back in his chair and chewed his lip. “We don’t care about the press either, but we do care about our partners in the northern oil fields, and they care about bad press regarding their suppliers when their markets are effected by it.” He relaxed his tone a step. “We have everything here in Jucaro, ready to begin on time, don’t worry. Please, let’s just get this problem resolved today so we can move on.”

  “It will be,” the Russian retorted. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  Chapter 50

  Detective Roy Whittaker strode up the path and rapped firmly on the front door of the West Bay bungalow. It took Wilma Bodden a few moments to set down her sewing project and make her way through the house to answer the door, but she beamed when she saw Roy on her doorstep.

  “Roy Whittaker, well aren’t you a welcome sight, been a while eh? Probably nearly a year since I sewed some curtains for Rosie,” she babbled excitedly, waving him into the house. “How is your lovely wife, Roy? She still keeping the postal service running? I guess so, get my post everyday rain or shine.”

  They made it all the way to the living room before she drew breath and Roy got a word in.

  “She’s doing well Wilma, thank you.”

  “Well sit down Roy, sit down, I’ll fetch some ice tea, you like ice tea don’t you?”

  She was already in the kitchen and pouring before he could answer, “I’ll take a glass, that would be fine, thank you.”

  She bustled back in and set a glass brimming with ice tea in front of him. “What brings you by in the middle of the day, Roy?” The notion struck her that a policeman visiting may not mean good news and a moment of panic struck her. “It’s not Jeremiah is it? Is he okay? Has something happened, Roy?”

 

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