Gates Of Hades lr-3

by Gregg Loomis

  Never had, never would.

  Like all politicians, he was much more interested in the future.

  Specifically, his future.

  “I need your help on this, Sam,” the president said. “As chairman of the Environmental Study Committee, your endorsement of the plan is essential if we’re going to get bipartisan support.”

  Sam chose to ignore the we, which was either the royal plural or included him in a plan he viewed as both deceptive and useless. Neither was a pleasant possibility.

  “What you propose doesn’t need congressional approval, Mr. President,” Sam said noncommittally.

  The president smiled that million-vote grin. “I know, Sam, but your approval would generate support. After all, you’re a very influential man.”

  Sam ignored the flattery. God, but would this, his last term, ever end? Another year and he could retire to his farm in the Appalachian foothills, where a man was as good as his last promise and bullshit was fertilizer, not an art form.

  The president took his silence as acquiescence and plowed ahead. “Having various environmental groups here in Washington next year to discuss a single plan to mitigate global warming, create pure air and water, conserve of the earth’s resources and all that should please the Sierra Clubbers and all the bunny huggers. Ten and a half million votes, I understand. Sam, we’ll even offer to grant amnesty to those radicals who’ve committed crimes in the name of the environment, agree to a halt to drilling in the ANWR in exchange for no more bombing of oil platforms in the Gulf, no more destruction of property. We’ll steal the opposition’s whole Green vote.”

  Appease the advocates of the Key Largo cotton mouse and southern snail darter? Stop development and a slow but steady increase in the job market on behalf of the Virginia wild plum vine? Make peace with fruitcakes who had blown up mining equipment, sabotaged power grids, even killed people in the process?

  “You sure you want to pardon criminals, Mr. President? Most conservationists may be liberals, but they’re law-abiding citizens. I’m not sure the radicals compose that big a bloc of votes.”

  And certainly an even smaller group of contributors.

  The president’s face became serious, that almost-frown he used to stare into the TV cameras when urging his fellow Americans to accept something. “That’s why I need you aboard, Sam. If you endorse the plan, the more conservative members of your committee will go for it. Tell you what.” He looked around the room as though to make sure the two were alone before lowering his voice to a conspiratorial level. “You come out for my conference, you help me, and I think I can get the Defense Department to double that sub base on the Georgia coast. Over a thousand new jobs, Sam; think about it.”

  Sam did think about it, and it made his head hurt. The president wanted the same thing every first-term president wanted: a second term.

  The trouble with appeasement of radicals was that it was like pissing down your leg to keep it warm: it worked only as long as you kept it up.

  Sam glanced around the room, half expecting to see a picture of Neville Chamberlain beside those of Eisenhower and Reagan. Nixon was conspicuously absent. But then, this president had probably never heard of “peace in our time.”

  On the other hand, even if the conference generated only empty promises, the international publicity of hosting those who believed in global warming-that something could be done about it and the world could agree what that was-would generate hours of airtime, which translated into votes in next year’s election, votes from people who, like the president, had no concept of history.

  By the time the conference was fading newsprint and the election safely in the win column, the rich would return to seek wealth wherever it could be found, and the poor would continue to complain about it rather than helping themselves. That was what maintained class status quo.

  Ah, well, Sam would be plain Citizen Sam by then, far from the poisonous political vapors of the Potomac.

  “I’ll give it some thought, Mr. President.”

  The president vaulted to his feet. Sam almost expected him to jump over the desk to shake hands, like the champion tennis player he had been in college. “I knew I could count on you, Sam.”

  Sam left the room with the pleasant thought that his imminent retirement enabled him to be a statesman thinking of the next generation instead of a politician thinking of the next election.

  And being a statesman didn’t include showcase conferences and amnesty solely for the purpose of vote pandering, not with misguided if intellectually honest conservationists, nor with their criminal fellow travelers.

  Chapter Three

  Saint Barthelemy, French Antilles

  Two days later

  Jason Peters navigated the Zodiac across Gustavia Harbor to the public dock at the south end. Tying the small inflatable up to a cleat already crowded with several other hawsers, he climbed up and merged with the winter crowd of visitors shopping along the Rue du Bord de Mer. His white T-shirt and shorts might have led an observer to conclude he was just one more hired crew buying supplies for one of the dozen or so yachts that annually brought the rich, beautiful, and famous to the island’s eight square miles of beaches, Parisian shops, and French cuisine. Ninety-nine meter ships, the largest the tiny inner harbor could accommodate, contained more living space than most people’s homes. And more expensive art and furnishings.

  Like an elite private club, St. Bart’s was desirable more for who was excluded than included. With no chain hotels, high-rises, or mass-market resorts, the island was the playground of the wealthy. With hotel rooms or private villas at well over a thousand dollars a night during season, the average family was likely to look elsewhere for a vacation site. Even the airport catered to the select few. The narrow fifteen-hundred-foot strip required a special logbook endorsement from the French government after demonstration of specific skills. The laws of gravity required only small aircraft with STOL (short takeoff and landing) capabilities. Anything larger would either wind up very wet or part of the permanent scenery among the island’s hills.

  Instead of entering the chandler’s shop or the grocery store, Jason paused in front of the Hermes window display of handbags bearing the price tags of small automobiles. He shifted position once, twice, until the reflections in the glass satisfied him he was not being followed.

  A block farther he stopped again, this time to admire a young woman, one of those who came from France for a year or two’s work to support their time on beaches where swimwear was optional and tans uniform. On St. Bart’s, as the island was known, clothes were a fashion statement, not a requirement of modesty. Undergarments were virtually unknown.

  His interest was more than returned. A number of these nymphlike creatures turned for a second look at Jason. He was obviously someone who had spent more than ten days or two weeks out-of-doors. His skin was an even copper color, not the red that resulted from an effort to get a tan in a limited time. His hair was sun-streaked and brushed back over the tops of his ears. Muscles stretched the sleeves of his shirt, and his stomach was flat, unlike those swollen by the rich fare for which the island’s restaurants were famous. He was not only a handsome American, but, more important, he might be a rich one.

  At the end of the street, he paused for a moment, watching the crowd in the open yard of La Select, a restaurant noted more as a meeting place for the young than for haute cuisine. The establishment basked in the story that its version of American junk food had inspired Jimmy Buffett’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” In fact, the musician’s voice and the twang of the Coral Reefer Band could be heard on the sound system, but just barely over the jagged shouts of conversation of those occupying the plastic tables and those waiting for room to do so.

  He doglegged left, then right onto Rue de la Republique. There was hardly room for him to squeeze between the slow parade of cars jammed into every available parking space along the street. He stopped in front of Le Comptoir du Cigare, a store that not only sold cigars b
ut liquor, smoking accessories, and Panama hats almost as expensive as the Hermes bags.

  Inside, a woman in her early twenties was seated outside the humidor, listlessly turning the pages of a magazine while her companion, an overweight man in his late forties or early fifties, inspected a Dunhill lighter and haggled with the proprietor in Parisian-accented French.

  Jason made eye contact with a leggy girl whose physical attributes were hardly concealed by her ankle-length cotton dress. Her height was emphasized by the remarkably ugly four-inch rubber platform sandals that had inexplicably become fashionable that season. She followed him into the humidor, a twelve-by-twelve-foot room enclosed in glass. Besides keeping a large stock of Cuban tobacco moist, the glass was soundproof.

  Reaching into one of the open boxes on a shelf, Jason ran a thick Hoyo de Monterrey under his nose and sniffed his satisfaction.

  “May I help you?” she asked in heavily accented English.

  Jason replaced the cigar and grinned as he nodded toward the couple outside. “Touching that a man would bring his daughter to St. Bart’s.”

  She lengthened her face and gave him the shrug that was the unmistakable Gallic display of urbanity. “Cinq a sept.”

  Five to seven, the hours between work and home, the time a Parisian had for his mistress. Disdainful French idiom for such a relationship.

  “You joke,” she continued. “And I think you did not come to chose a cigar.”

  “You’re right. I still have most of the box of Epicure Number Two’s I bought from you yesterday. Besides, that Double Corona is too large to look good in my delicate hands, don’t you think?”

  “Always the joke, Jason. Soon someone else will want to look at the cigars and we cannot talk.”

  His smile vanished. “You’re right. What did you find out?”

  “He is on the Fortune. It has the Cayman flag.”

  Most of the superyachts in the harbor flew Cayman colors. Such conspicuous wealth would draw the unwanted attention of the tax man in other countries. The Caymans allowed anonymity by registering vessels to untraceable corporations.

  “Unimaginative name.” He turned and pretended to read the brightly colored brand names on a stack of cigar boxes. “The ship is the size of your average Holiday Inn. Where is the master stateroom?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “The sternmost stateroom on the second level. Almost directly under the salon. Go…” She. picked up a cigar as the man with the girlfriend came into the humidor. “I believe you will find this one has the taste you describe.”

  The Frenchman surveyed the stock carefully before selecting a box of Partagas. He left to inquire as to price and argue with the store’s proprietor again. Jason assumed the owner had properly inflated the cost. It was anathema to the French to pay the first price asked.

  “Could you draw me a diagram?” Jason asked.

  Turning to the wall so those outside could not see, the girl reached into the front of her dress, stepped back, and brushed against Jason. He felt a thick wad of paper slipped into his hand.

  “It is the best I could do.”

  Jason stuffed the paper into a pocket of his shorts and grinned salaciously. “The best you could do when you were doing something else?”

  She looked as though she might have eaten a bad snail. “Do not overwork your, er, imagination. I delivered a box of cigars the ship’s captain ordered for the crew the day before. Nothing more. Now go.”

  A few doors down the street, an art gallery was late removing the sunscreens in its windows after the afternoon quietus observed by most of the island’s shops. Jason stopped so abruptly the couple behind him had to dodge into the street to avoid a collision on the narrow sidewalk. Jason stood in front of the store, all but oblivious to his surroundings. His attention was on an acrylic painting, a photorealistic depiction of a hummingbird feeding from a hibiscus blossom. The colors were vibrant, almost as though lit from within. Without being conscious of it, he grasped a small gold ring that hung on a chain around his neck.

  What was the painting doing here? It had been sold to a wealthy developer in the Bahamas over five years ago. What were the odds of it being for sale again here in St. Bart’s?

  According to the date above the signature, it had been completed weeks before the artist’s life had turned upside down.

  Jason knew.

  His name was on the canvas.

  He shook his head as though to dispel the thoughts, the recollections. He would never be free of the memories; nor would he want to be. He reminded himself that he was here to get a job done, not reflect on the cruelties and uncertainties of life. He turned and walked back the way he had come. He forced himself to think of what had to be done, to exclude what had been.

  On his way back to the Zodiac, Jason joined five or six people gathered around the stern of one of the yachts. Through the thick glass doors of the salon an American movie star whose name Jason could not recall could be seen having tea. Jason melted into the group, but his attention was directed toward the vessel moored to port, the Fortune.

  Two large men stood at the head of the extended gangplank. Had their arms not been crossed, they might have been at attention. Their faces were impassive behind the shield of reflective sunglasses. In spite of the eighty-plus temperature, each wore a loose-fitting nylon jacket bearing the logo of a National League baseball team. Neither seemed bothered by the heat, not a drop of sweat between them.

  The fame or notoriety of many of the occupants of the yachts necessitated posting a crew member or two to keep uninvited guests off the ship. Jason wondered if any other than those on the Fortune were armed.

  Back in the Zodiac, Jason followed the contours of the harbor, gaping appropriately at the ships docked there. He was careful to spend no more time observing the Fortune than looking at vessels of similar size. The tinted glass of the bridge concealed the men Jason was certain were keeping watch on the forward part of the ship. He could see lights mounted halfway up the superstructure. No doubt they would illuminate the foredeck as bright as day should hidden electric beams be broken. Or perhaps they were wired to weight sensors. In any event, entry to the Fortune wasn’t likely to be gained by climbing over the bow. Besides, the deck was, what, ten or fifteen feet above his head? One small noise, one bump against the ship’s hull from the wake of a passing craft… Jason discarded the idea.

  As the Zodiac continued its slow circuit, Jason noticed the twin anchors hanging from hatches that opened just above the waterline. The hatches were designed to close once the anchors were retrieved so that a streamlined surface would be presented to the sea when the vessel was under way. One end of the anchor chains disappeared into the water, the other into a port in the hull. Would it be possible…?

  Jason lazily turned to retrace his course and pass the line of yachts again. This time he stopped under the bow of the Fortune, the one place he could not be observed by anyone on board. He surveyed the anchor hatch carefully, mentally measuring the openings through which the anchor lines passed into the ship. He shook his head. Tight but unguarded.

  He turned the Zodiac’s bow toward the harbor’s mouth and sped toward the roads.

  Minutes later he pulled abeam of a small sloop that bobbed gently at its anchor buoy. A United States flag hung limply from the rigging of the single mast, along with shirts, swimsuits, and other drying laundry. Canvas was draped over the mainsail’s boom to shelter the cockpit from the afternoon sun. Salsa music, probably radio from Puerto Rico, filled the air. Its appearance was similar to the number of small craft gently rolling in the swells nearby, one more indistinguishable small American boat making a stop at St. Bart’s in view of the town surrounded by verdant hills.

  Carefully balancing against the motion of the Zodiac, he stood and rapped loudly on the fiberglass hull. “Paco, Paco, wake up!”

  The reaction was immediate.

  Joyous barking was followed by the scratch of paws on the deck. A shaggy canine head was f
ollowed by a thick brown body that vibrated with a furiously wagging tail. Deep brown eyes regarded Jason with what in a woman could have been described as lust.

  The dog’s appearance finally pushed the melancholy of the painting from Jason’s mind like a breeze clearing away clouds. He couldn’t have suppressed a smile had he wanted to. “Miss me, did you, Pangloss? Go get Paco.”

  The dog turned in a complete circle.

  “Paco, wake Paco. There’s a hamburger in it for you,” Jason coaxed.

  The dog disappeared. Seconds later there was an explosion of Spanish invective as the boat rocked from shifting weight. A man came into view, bare to the waist. Jason could see the network of pink scars across his chest, souvenirs of torture during captivity by Colombia’s ruthless and brutal rebels, FARC. Rumor said every man who had so much as nicked Paco took days to die once he got free and turned on his captors. Large, with hair tousled from sleep, he was wiping a hand the size of a bear’s paw across his dark face.

  “Fookin’ dog! He lick my face, mon. I hate bein’ licked in th’ face!”

  “Lucky he didn’t piss on you to get you awake.” Jason tossed the Zodiac’ s painter aboard the sloop. “How ‘bout tying me off?”

  Still grumbling, Paco made his way to the stern to secure the rubber craft, and Jason scrambled aboard.

  “Don’ know why you hadda bring th’ fookin’ dog.” Paco was still griping as he made his way forward.

  “Consider Pangloss cover.” Jason was scratching between the animal’s pointed ears. “Who would think a boat with a dog on board was on anything but a pleasure cruise?”