Crude Carrier

by Rex Burns

  “I’d appreciate your asking if anyone in the crew knew Rossi—and have that person call me collect. His ship owners won’t provide any information about his death.”

  “What company’s that?”

  “Hercules Maritime. Rossi was on one of their tankers—a VLCC.”

  “I’ve heard of Hercules Maritime. I wouldn’t work for them.”

  “Why?”

  “Purser runs their vessels. They buy secondhand ships, hire at minimum wage or less. When the rust bucket starts to cost more than she can make, they have a fire in the hold.” A snort. “And I’ve heard they don’t look too closely at certifications. Which could be the way Rossi did it.”

  “They lost a ship a few months ago. The Golden Dawn.”

  “Was she one of theirs? I’m not surprised. You ought to query the Seafarers International Union, then. If Rossi was a member, they’ll have an investigation into his death. If he really was a third mate, he probably joined the MMP—the Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union.”

  “Will you please call if you hear of anything else that might help? Collect, of course.”

  “Sure.”

  He was logging in the operator’s statement of time and charges when the telephone rang again. But it wasn’t First Officer Steinfurth calling back.

  “Raiford—Ahern here. I was hoping your lovely Amazon of a daughter would answer. What have you two stepped in, my lad?”

  “Your wife will tell you that you’re too old for my lovely Amazon, Perse. And what do you mean ‘stepped in’?”

  “Bert Herberling. I’m in the office of one of New York’s finest who would very much like to become better acquainted with you.”

  “A policeman? Why?”

  “A homicide detective. Somebody killed Herberling.”

  III

  Raiford grunted as he pressed the bar of the weight machine. Beside him, her red Stanford sweat suit streaked dark, Julie bench-pressed her own weight—148 pounds—with a long, steady inhale. Across the gym, a woman in Lycra walked rapidly on a Nordic machine, electric blue legs and arms swinging with the quick rhythm of her bronze-colored ponytail. Friday afternoons were scheduled for heavy workouts, but this time Raiford’s mind was only half concentrated on his reps. He let the weights thud heavily, his eyes resting on the electric blue movement. But his mind wasn’t where his eyes gazed.

  “What exercise are you contemplating now?”

  Julie’s voice brought his thoughts back to the present, and he grinned. “Aesthetic appreciation only.”

  Patting a towel at her face and neck, she studied the woman. “Her hair’s the same shade as mom’s was.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I sometimes glimpse women who remind me of her in some way.”

  He nodded and pushed hard at the weight machine.

  There were times when they could talk of her mother, when they would share memories of her humor, her wisdom, and those family stories and quirks of character that defined her uniqueness. But there were also other times, Julie knew, when a sudden memory could become a sharp pang. Those moments were the isolating ones—the ones that defined loneliness.

  “It’s been a long time, Dad.”

  Raiford understood his daughter’s meaning and shook his head. “It would be hard to find what we lost, Julie.”

  “Mom wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”

  “Being alone isn’t being lonely, sweetheart. Perhaps in time …” He shrugged.

  Which closed that topic almost before it was opened. Julie sighed and turned to the day’s events. “There has to be some kind of tie, Dad.”

  Between Herberling’s death and Rossi’s. His daughter’s mind worked like his own. He nodded as much at that idea as at her comment. The only explanation for the telephone call from the phony cop—possibly Herberling’s murderer himself—was that he was trying to discover what his victim might have told Julie. But though it was a mantra they had chanted over and over, it hadn’t led to much enlightenment.

  “Well, we know Rossi wasn’t a member of any American seafarers’ union.” His name had not been listed in the Masters, Mates, and Pilots roster, nor in that of the National Maritime Union. In fact, the representative of the NMU had very curtly told Raiford that a high rate of deaths and accidents was to be expected when owners refused to hire experienced union labor.

  “When I talked to Mrs. Rossi this afternoon, she told me they had no idea he was studying to become a ship’s officer. They had been very surprised when he moved to the Aurora,” she added. “In fact, they didn’t even know he’d left the Helena Georgiou until he called and told them about his promotion and the new ship.”

  It was Raiford’s turn to sigh: time to come clean with Julie. Despite her mental agility, she did not like surprises, especially any that held the odor of subterfuge. Neither, Raiford admitted to himself, did he. But the idea and opportunity had come too quickly to discuss it with her, and both had been busy on the telephones. “While you were talking with Mrs. Rossi, I had a call from Herberling’s partner, Stanley Mack. He’s taken over Herberling’s investigation of Hercules Maritime. He told me that the electronics officer on the Aurora is due for leave, and that its insurance requires a replacement for him while the ship’s under way.”

  “So?”

  “So electronics officers are hard to recruit because VLCCs spend so much time at sea. And a two-week replacement is harder because it doesn’t pay much.”

  “So?”

  “So for short stints they often hire people who might not know much about seamanship but who know electronics.”

  “So?”

  “So … I told Mack about my background in electronics and computer science. He says he has a good chance to put me aboard the Aurora as a supernumerary.”

  “You told me you hate ships!”

  “It’s only two weeks.”

  “You said they’re too cramped for a man your size. They make you claustrophobic.”

  “Two weeks. And Mack’s pretty upset about his partner’s death, partner. He’s sure Marine Carriers will go along with it. They want to pursue the Golden Dawn investigation.”

  “But you would be alone, Dad—no backup, right? And no way off that ship if there’s trouble, right?”

  The cardinal rule of undercover work was to always have a backup and to always have a way out. “It’s expenses and two thousand a week plus the supernumerary pay,” said Raiford, adding, “And Mack is also offering a five percent contingency fee on the Golden Dawn claim if I find anything that he can use in court. That claim, Julie? Remember? Five million dollars?”

  She thought about five million dollars.

  “Five percent is two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  That was the sum her math had reached, too. “Two weeks?”

  “Two weeks’ paid vacation: adventure on the bounding main, the romance of the sea!”

  “You want two weeks of romance on a boat with sailors bounding on the main?”

  “Well, no, that’s not what—”

  “How do the New York cops feel about Mack poking his nose into a murder?”

  Raiford shrugged. “They’re going with the theory that Herberling was killed in the course of a robbery. His wallet and watch were missing; the petty cash box was empty; the desk drawers, safe, and files were rifled.”

  “Mack doesn’t buy that theory?”

  “He says his partner would have handed over his wallet, watch, and anything else the gunman asked for, including the file on the Golden Dawn—which was pretty messed up, by the way. Herberling was a firm believer that things can be replaced but lives can’t.”

  “A messy file and a willing attitude don’t add up to much. Why does he think the death has anything to do with the Golden Dawn?”

  “He thinks the wallet and watch were taken to throw the cops off
. Says Herberling liked to carry his cash in his side pocket—where it was found—and his credit cards haven’t been used. A robber would have cleaned all his pockets and cashed out as many cards as fast as he could. Plus, the only case Herberling was on was the Golden Dawn. Finally, there was that call from the fake cop asking what Herberling told us.”

  “Where’s the Aurora Victorious now?”

  “In the Gulf.”

  “Well, Florida’s not too far …” Something in his expression warned her. “Which gulf?”

  “Persian.”

  “Dad, that’s halfway around the world!”

  “I can bring you back some exotic gifts.”

  “I can get exotic on East Colfax Avenue.”

  “Two weeks, Julie. And it could mean a lot of money.”

  IV

  Including the layover in Frankfort, the Lufthansa flight from Denver to Qatar took twenty hours. Even in the business class seats that Raiford’s long legs demanded, he was cramped and restless. Between meals and movies, his mind drifted in and out of sleep, back and forth from the meeting with Stanley Mack at JFK Airport to that last quiet evening with Julie.

  Despite their attempts to be upbeat and businesslike, the farewell dinner at Barolo’s had been subdued. Though they both accepted the dangers of investigating people who did not want to be noticed, their talk kept drifting from the items she would cover in his absence to silences that hinted at the risks Raiford could face. The appeal of danger, Raiford had once told his daughter, was one of the reasons for creating Touchstone Agency. It had brought him out of a dark period in his life.

  Five years ago, Raiford had found his thoughts still dominated by memories of his dead wife as he stared at the snowy mountains beyond the window. The contract he was supposed to be drafting lay on his desk, and the feeling that he was deeply tired of practicing law, tired of paperwork, tired of doing what he had been doing while his wife gradually weakened and finally died in sedated numbness from pain, emanated from it. So tired, in fact, that he had been careless in drafting the contract and his client had suffered damages. Raiford had been given his choice of retiring from practice or being fired and embarrassing himself and, more importantly, the firm. He quit and spent a month immersing himself in search of some work that might take his mind off the past and focus his days and thoughts on the present. What he found took him back to his interest before law school: electronics and their use in industrial security. The Touchstone Agency was born and Raiford’s new career brought him back to life. In time, it also offered focus for his daughter, whose marriage and newspaper job had both failed in the turbulent collapse of the economy.

  This sea adventure, however, was a new and large step—isolating Raiford among potential enemies—and despite efforts at lightheartedness as Raiford and Julie dined, their conversation kept turning to the murder of Bert Herberling and to grim stories told by other detectives who had lost friends.

  No such sentiment had pervaded Raiford’s meeting with Herberling’s partner, Stanley Mack. “I’ve told the chief executive of Marine Carriers what we want to do, Mr. Raiford. He does not want any ties between you and Marine.” Mack, a short, nondescript man with thinning mousy hair, asked, “You all right with that?”

  Raiford assured Mack that was the case.

  “Okay. There’s nothing unusual in undercover work aboard ship. In fact, a lot of owners hire a spy among the officers to report back on how a captain runs their vessel. So don’t be surprised if people are a bit suspicious of you. You’ll be a fifteen-day replacement for the electronics officer, a third mate by the name of Reginald Pierce.” He laid out papers to be signed. “Here’s your contract.”

  Some paperwork that was only slightly shifty, a crimp—a recruiting agent—who, surprise, surprise, was willing to take an extra fee for a discreet service, and Raiford became the temporary employee of convenience. The first contract authorized a hefty percentage of Raiford’s pay to be deducted from his first, and only, paycheck for something called Insurance and Personnel Investment Costs. The second was almost identical with the one signed by Rossi, except that none of the paragraphs had been lined out. Apparently, electronics personnel rated more TLC than the navigation ranks. Raiford was named supernumerary with a rank equivalent to third officer (Electronics), and appointed on a fifteen-day contract.

  Mack explained that Raiford would not be required to sign the Ship’s Articles; cadets and supernumeraries were excused from that ritual because of the special nature of their duties. The Ship’s Articles, which superseded a seaman’s general contract, only applied to regular hands. They spelled out what a crewman’s workload would be, the watches he would stand, the deductions for clothing, special services, and commissary items to be drawn from his pay. The use of Ship’s Articles was, Mack told Raiford, the standard way crews of convenience were hired, and was necessary because each ship had differing requirements and offered differing amenities. It also saved time in labor negotiations since a sailor could not sign the Articles until he was aboard ship—and usually under way and out of sight of land. The term “shanghai” wasn’t used, Mack said, but the result could be the same.

  “It all depends on how much freedom the owners give the shipmaster to deal with his personnel, and how willing the master is to give benefits to his crew.”

  “What about the master of the Aurora Victorious?”

  “Boggs? I haven’t heard much about him. The directory lists his master’s ticket as awarded by the Pacific and Orient line in 1990. He’s generally qualified for any type and all sizes of vessels, with additional qualifications to command vessels that haul hazardous cargo.”

  “That’s good?”

  “Oh, yeah. P&O’s a well-established fleet. Old-time. They don’t give anyone command unless they think he’s thoroughly qualified.”

  “But Boggs left them.”

  “It may not have been his choice. In the nineties, a lot of companies reduced their fleets and cut back on their long-term charters. My guess is Boggs, being junior, lost his ship in that reduction.” He explained, “A big tanker’s going to cost around thirty thousand dollars a day just sitting there, so you don’t want them idle. Many oil companies own about sixty percent of what sea transport they might need at full capacity. When oil demand drops below that sixty percent, companies sell off part of their fleets—usually the older vessels—and lay off crews. When it picks up, they hire from independent fleets until they decide whether to build and crew their own new vessels. In really hard times like the last few years, even the independent fleets like P&O cut back on vessels.” Mack added, “If that’s what happened, Boggs was probably damned happy to find any ship, even one owned by Hercules Maritime.”

  “Did Rossi sign a contract with his recruiter, too?”

  “Probably. And from what you tell me, the crimp probably set him up with his mate’s ticket, as well. For an additional wad of cash, of course.”

  “Any way I can find out who Rossi’s crimp was?”

  “Without his recruiting contract, it’ll be hard. Every port in the world has crimps.” Mack frowned. “Any idea where he boarded the Aurora?”

  “His parents thought it was the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “That might be something—VLCCs can’t call at many ports. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “I’d like you to send copies of everything Herberling had on Hercules Maritime to my daughter, Julie Campbell. She’s covering the office for me while I’m gone: the Golden Dawn files, the Aurora Victorious—whatever. And the name of Herberling’s contact at Marine Carriers.”

  Making a note in a small black book, Mack said, “I’ll FedEx it today.”

  He then gave Raiford a list of the officers on the Aurora Victorious, as well as the ship’s schedule, its primary means of communication—e-mail, fax, and Inmarsat—and the Ocean Region Codes and Ship ID number, promising to include the same i
nformation in the packet to Julie. “If you need to use the ship’s radio, here’s the frequency for Marine Carriers Worldwide. They monitor twenty-four/seven, but call only if necessary.”

  “Cell phones don’t work?”

  “Depends on where you are. Close to shore, they may. Offshore, probably not.” After a pause, Mack added, “If you get in trouble, it could take as much as forty-eight hours to fly someone out to you.” He leaned back on the hard black plastic of the lobby seat and studied Raiford’s face. “Don’t forget what happened to Bert. He was a good man.”

  Raiford nodded. “I’ll try to find out if there’s any connection.”

  “You’re going to be pretty much on your own.”

  That had been his daughter’s comment, too, and he answered it the same way. “I’ve been there before.”

  If Raiford was going to be on his own, it would not be at busy Doha International Airport. Signs in English and Arabic advertised Marriott, Sheraton, Hertz, Alamo, and other familiar names and welcomed English-speaking travelers to the “Gateway to the Arabian Gulf.” Proof of a visa, crew status, and sufficient funds cleared him through immigration. A turbaned Sikh held a card with his name. With a “Welcome, sahib,” he carried Raiford’s bags to a Mercedes-Benz taxi. The temperature, Raiford read, was 40°C and humidity was at 24.1 percent. But the abstract numbers did not prepare him for the impact of the heat. Blinking against the glare, he settled into the air-conditioned taxi as it swung through the busy streets and past the soaring modern office towers of Doha into a countryside of flat, almost treeless sand and rock. To the nasal wails of Middle East music from a CD, the taxi lurched down a strip of glaring, heat-shimmered concrete. Some 40 kilometers later, instead of following the highway toward the commercial port of Mesaieed, the vehicle angled onto a bumpy tarmac road. “Landing boat come here—closer to ship.” A cluster of flat-roofed, concrete block buildings huddled under the sun. Beyond them stretched the silver gleam of the Persian Gulf. The national flag, maroon with a serrated white band, drooped on a flagpole.