by Fred G Baker
Chapter 14
Monday
Wilson arrived at the car park at 2:30 p.m., fighting through torrential rain the whole way. Pendergast was right—his car could never have made it through the flooded streets, which were now deeper than before. As it was, cars were abandoned along the side of the road, and many people were stranded while trying to get home. He hoped the rental didn’t float away during the storm. A few of the small local buses still bravely plowed through the water, but soon only boats would travel the streets.
Leslie greeted him at the hotel gate. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wilson. We got a righteous storm on us today.” The man wore white rubber Wellington boots and was standing in about seven inches of water.
“No kidding, Leslie. Is the whole property flooded?”
“No, sir,” he said. “The main building area is still dry for now. The storm surge is climbin’ up the beach, and they closing down the beach bar now. They also closing up the seawall as they prepare for Betty.”
“I was meeting someone in the bar.”
“They all moved to the main bar, now. Go see Gordon there. He’s lookin’ for you.”
“OK. Thanks, Leslie. When do you go home?”
“I can’t get home now, so I stay and help the hotel and our guests. You stay safe now, Mr. Wilson.” He waved the truck through to the car park as a delivery van pulled up to the gate.
Wilson decided he would stop at the mall and get a pair of Wellingtons for himself as soon as he could—but the mall would probably close for the storm. Now that Tropical Storm Betty had been announced, there would be a run on food and supplies, although not like in the States where everyone panicked at the mention of bad weather.
He slogged through the water to the main building complex and his room. The rain was still coming down steadily, in sheets like it had at sea. In his room, he stripped off his wet clothing and shoes. He dropped them on the floor and looked out the window. There lay the black freighter, taunting him in its way, still at anchor and still an enigma. She had her mooring lights on even in the daytime. She shifted uneasily in the storm.
He checked the room to be sure everything was the same as when he had left with Vargas in the morning. Nothing looked out of place. Then, he remembered he had left his jamming device running in the briefcase all day. He checked whether it was still operating, but found that the battery had died. He would need new batteries if he planned to bring Vargas up to bed again tonight.
He wondered how her day was going. He hoped they would be able to get together and talk about what lay ahead for her as an agent—and as a friend and lover. Then, he caught himself. None of that, Robert. You have to let that go. Be professional.
He took a quick, hot shower and then dressed in dry clothes. He pulled on an extra shirt. He noted that even in the tropics, it can seem cold once you get used to the daily heat. He left the room and walked to the main bar, where he looked for Gordon. Luckily, Gordon was bartending, so he took a stool and waved to him.
“How are you, Mr. Wilson? I heard you went out early today.” He grinned. “No stay in wid your lady friend?” He winked at Wilson.
“No. That would have been nice, but I had a meeting.” He tried deflecting the subject. “But now that you mention her, have you seen Ms. Vargas today?”
“Not since lunch. We served lunch at the conference room, but there was hardly anyone there. I guess the storm kept dem away,” he said. “They may cancel the rest of the meetings because of Betty.”
“Makes sense to me. If you see her, let her know I asked. OK?”
“I got news on that radio trouble for you.” He leaned across the bar, a sign he had some juicy rumor. “Radio Free Grenada is off the air. No one knows why. One man say the cable supportin’ the antenna was cut during the storm and the whole thing fall into the jungle up there at Grand Etang. Nobody saying otherwise, unless they be more jammin’ and such.”
“You’re kidding. That sounds just crazy.” Wilson wasn’t sure why the station had gone off the air, but it was more likely that the storm had damaged the antenna than sabotage.
“No. You don’t believe me, but it true. RFG is the only independent radio station on this island—in the whole country. All other stations are government stations. They control all airwaves here. If you want to control the island, you must control the media—so you take out the only independent radio.” He shook his head. To him it was obvious that the government had shut down the station.
Wilson suddenly sat upright. Of course, if you were planning a coup, you would need control over the media first. That was how coups were done.
“Hey, let me use the house phone, will you?” He had to talk to Martin. Gordon brought over a phone, and Wilson had the resort operator call Martin’s room. He got him on the line.
“Where you been, Wilson?” Martin was in a pissy mood. “I’ve been working my ass off up here and you didn’t show up and help. What gives?”
“I got stuck on a mission this morning. I’m here now and ready to work all night if necessary, OK?” He felt the tension ease up a bit on Martin’s end of the conversation. “Have you eaten lunch? I was going to grab a sandwich in the bar.”
“No, and I’m famished.” His voice brightened at the prospect of a sandwich and a drink. “I’ll be right down. Main bar, right? They closed the beach bar.”
Martin arrived, and they took a table at the back so that they could talk. They ordered lunch and coffee, then caught up on the financials.
“We definitely have something big here,” Martin whispered, looking around to make sure that no one was listening. “I got hundreds of contributions right at the campaign limit, all deposited in batches to three bank accounts. I can’t get past those accounts, but the numbers are really fishy.” Martin fussed over his morning’s work.
“What do you mean by fishy?”
“The ledger shows some twelve-thousand donations from individuals on the island. All those donations are for the maximum individual amount allowed, one thousand Eastern Caribbean dollars, about four-hundred-and-fifty US dollars. But if you look at the income of the entire population of Grenada—a total of about one-hundred-and-seven-thousand people—there aren’t that many people on the island who could make that kind of donation.” He raised his eyebrows and stared at Wilson for effect. “And then there are donations from people outside the country. There are many citizens living in Miami, Toronto, and Britain. They can all still vote and contribute, right?”
“OK,” Wilson agreed. “So, they send money home to the party of their choice, too.”
Their food arrived and they dove into it. They were both ravenous.
“Right,” Martin said, “but the records show more contributions coming in from overseas than there are citizens overseas—and all those donations are at the limit too . . . I mean, they can’t all be voting for the GPC and no one voting for the NSP, can they?”
“You’re really on to something.” Wilson whistled softly. “But where is the money coming from?”
“Three accounts so far, but I can’t tell where from.”
“Let’s finish up here and get started on the data,” Wilson said. “Let me make a call, then I’m free.” He stepped away from the table and dialed Madeline. She answered on the third ring. “Hey, it’s me. I have a lot of news to share with you,” he said.
“Me too—but not on an open line,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the hotel meeting with Martin about some financial info he has. I’m going to be tied up all afternoon and probably into the night.” He hesitated. “Can you come out here and talk? The water in the street is pretty deep, though.”
“I can make it, but I’ll need an hour or so. I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Good.”
Martin and Wilson finished their meals and walked to Martin’s room with their coffee cups, ready for a long afternoon. When they arrived, Wilson saw sheets of paper with dense rows of numbers covering the bed, the dresser, and
all the other surfaces. Martin had them organized by month and account, but he had only just started on tracking the payments. They set about doing just that.
Wilson began by identifying the bank routing codes and transfer numbers that occurred most frequently in the listings. He realized that in order to do that efficiently, he needed his laptop from the warehouse. He called Madeline and asked her to bring it with her to the hotel. Until she arrived, he used pen and paper to write down lists of numbers for correlation.
Madeline arrived after 4:00 p.m. and dropped off the computer. Then she stepped aside with Wilson and discussed what she had found on the thumb drive they had obtained from Tori Vargas. They stood outside Martin’s room in the corridor, just out of the rain, and talked when no one came by.
“That woman gave you some great shit,” Madeline said appreciatively. “We have the personnel files on every person who is attending the conference—and more. It’s a great insight into the Department of Social Information, their organization, and many of their projects. It also gives us the structure diagram of the file management system, should we want to hack into it at some time, along with some passwords.”
“She said it included useful files,” he said. “What else? Anything we can use right now?”
“Yes. It has the name and assignments of the teams that are here for the conference. They’re not just here attending meetings.” She raised an eyebrow for effect. “They have a plan for reorganizing the government here—as directed by someone referred to only as MHS.”
“MHS? Minister Hjarad Senjai?”
“Your guess is as good as mine—but I think that makes the most logical sense.”
“So, they stage a government takeover according to some plan.” He stopped and thought about it. What did that mean? How would they take over the government?
“The problem is her files cover only seventy-three individuals, and there were more people than that at the sports facility the other night. I think these are just the ones who received a cover story related to the conference—the ones in the other hotel and here. But some of them used falsified names and passports to enter the country.”
“Was she or Cortez mentioned in those files?” he asked, curious.
“She was. She is what she said she is—a glorified secretary and pleasure-provider for important members of the Maduro government.” Madeline showed a new level of understanding for Vargas and her role. “Imagine the conversations she must have overheard.”
“She doesn’t like her job. She said she’s been forced into it, or her family will suffer.”
“This seems to confirm much of what she told you. I’m sorry, Robert. I thought she was just a whore.”
“She’s not like that,” he said stiffly.
“Robert, be careful. It’s just a job.” She put her hand on his arm. “Just be careful. OK? Don’t get too involved with her.”
Wilson changed the subject back to the men who were not covered by the files. “What does the file say about Cortez?”
“He’s a Cuban national who has taken on an important role in the Venezuelan intelligence service. We already know that many of the people in controlling positions in the Maduro government are really Cubans. Cortez is one of the top dogs there.”
“What does Lightchurch think about this stuff?”
“He’s already planned to bring it up with the Grenada PM at a meeting today. He thinks there’s enough here for immediate action. He wants to let the PM know there may be a coup.”
“That will go over well on the eve of the national election.” Wilson spoke softly, his face slack as he thought.
“What have you learned today from this paper chase?” Madeline stepped closer.
Wilson told her what they had found so far, and indicated where they needed help. Madeline said she had a contact in the banking industry who could find out about bank account numbers in the country. He said he would contact Langley about the offshore accounts and transfers. The agency worked with the Treasury Department to track laundered money overseas. They could probably find the source in short order.
Madeline left the resort, and Wilson sent off a request to his control about the account numbers. Then, he set about making a simple spreadsheet of the major transactions they could follow. In all, millions of foreign dollars had been funneled into the GPC campaign—but the question remained: Who had made the donations and why?
They worked until 8:00 p.m., manipulating the numbers as much as they could without knowing who owned the bank accounts and who had donated the money. They went to dinner in the dining room and watched the rainfall sweep in off the ocean in dense sheets. Wilson called Vargas’s room several times, but received no answer. He asked for her at the front desk, but no one had seen her since the conference lunch.
There was little to do after that besides continue working on the financial transactions. They decided to begin writing an article for the Miami Observer based on what they knew so far. They would fill in the blanks later and make any changes necessary. At least they would be closer to finishing with a draft article in hand.
Madeline called in at 10:00 p.m. and said that she and Nash had located the Best Beach Hotel where the other Venezuelans were staying, and verified that there were fifty-five there and fifteen at the Hempstead, including Vargas. Only some of the people were in their rooms at that time of night, but it was still early.
She also said that Lightchurch had set up a meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Churchill for later that evening. The PM was preoccupied on the campaign trail, as it was the last night before the election, and had no spare time until then. Lightchurch would inform him of the Venezuelans and the fact that they were there under false pretenses—not for a conference, but for a coup d’état. Madeline would be at the meeting to present the information they had already gathered.
Wilson took a break from writing and walked to Vargas’s room. He knocked on the door but got no reply. He wondered if she was working late, especially because the rest of the conference may have been canceled. He dashed over to the conference center, but found no one there. He saw some literature about the conference on a table by the entryway, but no people. There was no notice that tomorrow’s meetings were canceled, so he decided he would check with the front desk about what was planned for the next day.
The man at the desk was new to Wilson. He said he had no new information about the conference, but he had been told the decision about whether to cancel would be made the next day. He did not know anything beyond that.
Wilson went back to Martin’s room, where they continued to slave away on the article. Just before midnight, Madeline called in again.
“The meeting with the PM went well enough. He was too preoccupied to focus on the news. All he could talk about was a new poll that showed that he and Senjai were nearly tied. He was beside himself.” She went on. “When Lightchurch brought up the Venezuelans, he said he thought there must be some mistake. The Venezuelan government had been very supportive of his administration—but he was concerned that so many men had come into the country, and were here under assumed names. He said he would discuss it with the minister of justice in the morning.”
“Did Lightchurch bring up the arms we found on the Wong site?”
“No.” She paused. “He decided the PM was too preoccupied to deal with something that dramatic. He didn’t seem to believe anything could be happening.”
“But that’s an even more important issue,” Wilson said.
“He waited to pull the chief of police aside and then told him that he had seen a report that there were shipments of arms appearing on the island,” she said. “The man immediately wanted to know who the source of what he called a ‘rumor’ was. That set Lightchurch back at the start. Then, he was concerned that the police may have been compromised—so he dropped the topic.”
“Interesting.” Wilson contemplated these facts. Could the Venezuelans have part of the police force involved in a coup? That would make it hard
to resist a takeover.
Madeline realized he was deep in thought. She asked, “What are you thinking, Robert?” When he didn’t reply quickly, she said, “Say, I have that information about local banks for you. Should I text it over?”
“Yeah, please do. We’re writing up a storm over here, and it makes a good story—but we must know who is who in order to make sense of it all.” Wilson rubbed his eyes. “I can’t keep this up too much longer. I need some sleep.”
“I’ll send it shortly.” She ended the call.
He worked for another thirty minutes—and then his phone rattled that he had a text. He looked at the numbers and names and told Martin to read over his shoulder. He started writing the information down.
“So, the money came from three different accounts, as we thought,” he said. “One is from an account controlled by the GPC to its main contributions account.”
“OK, let’s see.” Martin looked at some papers and marked several transactions with a yellow marker. “OK, that checks out.”
“Here is another account we’ve seen a lot,” Wilson said. “It’s from Commerce Bank and is for many donations. I remember this routing number. Somebody sent money to the campaign, but as we can see here, under a variety of names. But the one account was involved in all the transactions . . . Well, I’ll be damned. It’s from an account registered to Grenada Construction Company.”
“Who are they?”
Wilson moved on, ignoring the question. “And the last number belongs to Melbourne Consulting. I’ve never heard of them, but they did the same thing as Wong—lots of contributions that I bet we find come from lots of different names on the ledger books.”
“At least we can write that many illegal donations have been made to the GPC party—and I bet we can find that many of the people who donated funds are not real. But we need a lot more research to prove that.”
“We won’t know more until we get info on the overseas routing numbers,” Wilson said, thinking of what they should do next. “Shit. I thought we could wrap this up tonight.”
“Me too, but I’m beat. Let’s call it a night.” Martin began clearing a few papers off his bed. “Maybe a nightcap?”