by Gregg Loomis
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?"
Pangloss combined the ears of a German shepherd with the long hair of a collie and the size of both. Jason was fairly certain there were other breeds in the animal's uncertain ancestry. Jason began to scratch underneath the pointed jaw. Pangloss was in ecstacy.
"Coulda brought a fookin' cat instead." Paco was headed below. "Cats don' lick your face."
Jason followed, Pangloss on his heels. "Whoever heard of a loyal cat? You think a cat would guard the ship while we're gone?"
"Cat wouldn't shit on the deck. Fookin' cats are clean, man."
Paco opened the small refrigerator in the tiny galley, popped open a bottle of Caribe beer, and offered it to Jason. "You want cover, we shoulda brought a couple of fookin' womens. They could guard the ship and not shit on the deck. An' we could get laid."
Jason sipped on the beer as Paco opened another and folded down the hinged galley table. "We finish here, you'll have all the time you need for women. And money."
Paco became serious. "You get what we need?"
Jason turned off the radio and slipped a CD into the stereo. Brisk but melodic strands of Vivaldi's violins replaced the Latin beat.
Paco shook his massive head. "Man, that moosic sound like a somebody put two cats in th' same sack."
Ignoring the complaint, Jason squeezed past the larger man to reach into the refrigerator and pull out a bit of ground beef. He had Pangloss's undivided attention. The dog sat, salivating.
Jason held out the treat. "Okay!"
The meat disappeared to the accompaniment of a satisfied gulp.
Jason took the paper from his pocket. "I think we have it. She drew a diagram showing the location of the master stateroom. As you know, we're doing a 'rendition,' capturing the guy here and then rendezvousing with the ship at sea to turn him over."
"Then what?"
"Not our business. Once the U.S. Navy has him safely out of somebody's territorial waters, I'd guess there'll be some fairly serious interrogation, something the Geneva Convention doesn't exactly cover."
Rendition was a CIA term for kidnapping someone from a sovereign nation and spiriting them away to where there were no bounds on interrogation methods. Having the actual capture performed by someone unconnected to the government gave at least technical truth to the constant denial of the practice.
Paco turned on a swivel-necked lamp, and both men stared at the paper before Paco said, "You fookin' better
hope she know what she doin', man. Won't be but one chance."
Jason nodded. "One chance, if that."
"Who is this guy, anyway?" Paco wanted to know.
"Aziz Saud Alazar," Jason said. " 'Nother of those Saudi princes who speaks Islam and acts Western. Bad dude, a graduate of Christ College, Oxford, as well as a number of schools for terrorists the Russkies operated in the seventies. Got into the arms-smuggling business just before the Evil Empire fell. Word on the street is he can broker the sale of anything from a slightly used F-14 fighter to a small Pakistani nuclear device. Sells to al-Qaeda, Hamas, Russian separatists, African dictators, anybody in the market for death and destruction. I'd guess someone wants his customer list."
Paco drained his beer and reached for the fridge to replace it. "So, what's one o' them camel fookers doin' here? No mosque widdin a hunnert miles or more."
"Get me one too, will you? Alazar's not like your basic fanatical fundamentalist, more like another Royal House of Saud playboy. His religion apparently doesn't stand in the way of his receiving a nice hunk of change for his efforts. He spends lavishly on the Riviera, the casino in Monte Carlo, or on the slopes at St. Moritz. He was there only until recognized. Then he disappeared minutes ahead of the French security people. Probably returned to safe haven in Syria."
Paco popped the tops and handed one of the frosty bottles to Jason. "Shudda known it'd be somebody causin' shit. You don' do much other 'n spoil somebody else's party, go after the guys dealin' in killin' folks. Almost like you got somethin' personal against ordinary international crooks."
The statement was more astute than Jason would have expected from Paco. He took the beer and put it to his lips before answering. "I just do my job and collect my pay."
It was obvious Paco didn't accept this observation, but he didn't choose to challenge it, either. "Ho-kay. I unnerstan' we bring this one back alive to question."
Jason was on more certain ground. "Like I said, I'd guess our soon-to-be pal Alazar sold some really bad shit to the wrong people. Our customer would like to know what and who. We bring him back alive, turn him over to the spooks. They turn him over to someone who thinks the Geneva Convention is a meeting of watchmakers and chocolate manufacturers. They can make him talk. Some set of bad guys find out their secret isn't so secret anymore."
Paco had already emptied his bottle. He tossed it into the garbage with a wistful look at the refrigerator. "I get it: no more stink like the 'merican press made a few years back about puttin' panties on some fookers' heads, havin' dogs bark at 'em, in that prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib."
Jason shrugged, a signal of indifference. "Suit me fine to punch his ticket right here, but orders are orders. Besides, taking him prisoner we got a real talking point, things don't go so well aboard that boat."
Paco was digging around in the little refrigerator for something to eat. Over his shoulder he asked, "How'd we know th' fooker was here, anyway?"
Jason shook his head. "Don't ask me; I just work here, same as you. I do know the boat flies the Cayman flag."
Under the table, where Paco thought it wouldn't be seen, his hand was rubbing Pangloss's long snout. Paco's dislike of the dog was a charade that gave the burly Hispanic something to grouse about. "So does ever' big yacht in the Caribbean. No tellin' where it really came from."
"This one came from over there." He pointed to where the hills of St. Martin were clearly visible less than twenty miles away. "At least, that's where Alazar boarded her."
"Island's half French, half Dutch," Paco said, as though that explained its role as a point of origin.
"Yep," Jason agreed as he slid out a computer keyboard concealed underneath the table. He typed in a brief mes
sage. When he hit enter, the electronics would automatically encode and compress the words into an unintelligible beep of less than a second's time. A satellite overhead would relay what sounded like mere static to equipment that would decode and print the words. The signal would be untraceable and indecipherable.
He finished and pushed the keyboard back in, then lifted the tabletop. He stretched and yawned. "May as well nap. We aren't going to get a
lot of sleep tonight."
Though neither would admit it to the other, both men knew there was no chance the adrenaline pumping through their systems would permit sleep.
By midnight the dark water of the harbor reflected lights from the adjacent bars and restaurants like jewels on black velvet. Music from Escalier, a gathering place for the younger visitors to the island, reverberated across the harbor with enough volume to cover the sounds of the small craft that scooted between entertainment establishments like water spiders. It was because of the activity of the island's nightlife that Jason and Paco had decided to move now, rather than wait for the silence of early morning, when the sound of an outboard might draw attention.
Jason maneuvered the Zodiac into the space between the Fortune and the ship to her port, where both hulls created a shadow on the water as black and viscous as used motor oil. For a full five minutes they listened to the tide sucking at the ship, the anchor chain's metallic groan, the sound of revelry across the harbor. Hair on the back of Jason's neck prickled like tiny antennae anticipating danger signals. It was a familiar experience.
The Zodiac's arrival had not been noted. Jason tied the painter to the anchor chain.
There was a metallic click as Jason checked the nine- millimeter SIG Sauer P228 automatic. Thirteen rounds in the magazine, another in the chamber. Two spare clips in quick-release holders on his belt. A good compromise be-
tween weight and firepower, the Swiss pistol still was hardly a match for the weaponry Alazar was likely to have on board. Jason's plan required a quick in and out, something the weight of heavier equipment would only impede. If Jason and Paco needed superior armament, they would already be in serious trouble. Replacing the pistol in the holster slung over his Kevlar vest, Jason inspected the rest of his gear as best he could in the poor light.
"Ready?"
Paco's silhouette glanced up the anchor chain and shook its head slowly. "A fookin' rat couldn' get though there, man," he whispered.
"A fat rat, you mean." Jason tugged on a pair of work gloves, pulled himself out of the Zodiac by the anchor chain, and began to climb. "You'll have to suck in your gut."
When Jason was halfway up the chain, Paco began his climb. Both men moved slowly, aware that a slip, a mistake, could set the chain into motion, clanging against the steel skin of the ship like an alarm bell.
At the top of the chain Jason stood on the lip of the anchor hatch, holding on to the chain for balance. Darkness prevented him from seeing Paco, but the larger man's grunts marked his progress. When Paco stood panting alongside Jason, Jason took a small flashlight from his pocket and played its narrow beam on the opening where the chain disappeared into the hull.
"No fookin' way, man," Paco whispered. "No way I can squeeze through there."
He was right.
"You'll have to take off your vest," Jason said. "And lay off the beer and chips before the next time."
Headfirst, Jason crawled through the hole into stygian darkness. The flashlight revealed a triangular room of no more than fifty square feet containing coils of rope, a toolbox bolted to the wall, and a motor for the electric winches overhead. The apex of the triangle was the ship's bow; the bulkhead that was its base contained a small door.
Jason tried the door. It refused to yield.
"Fook! I'm stuck!" Paco's head and shoulders filled the opening.
Jason suppressed a grin before he realized his face was in darkness. "Wriggle a little more. You look like somebody's hunting trophy mounted on a wall."
"Real funny, man."
Jason switched off the light and returned his attention to the door, squatting to peer along the edges. There was no watertight seal above the coaming, as there would have been on a military vessel. Through the space between the door and its frame he could make out dim light. He removed a diver's knife from its sheath on his ankle.
A thud beside him announced that Paco had worked his way loose.
Jason ran the knife blade upward along the side of the door until he felt resistance. He increased pressure until there was a click, the sound of a simple bolt sliding from its catch. As he had guessed, there had been no complex locking mechanism. There was no reason to worry about the contents of the anchor locker. He pushed and the door swung an inch or so.
He turned to Paco. "You got that syringe ready?"
Paco held up a SIG Sauer like Jason's. "Yeah, but I'm cocked an' locked."
The two men crept up a dimly lit companionway to the middle level of the vessel. At the top of the stairs a door led to a passageway that resembled the hall of a plush apartment building more than anything nautical. Thick carpet covered floors bounded by highly polished teak walls.
"Last door on the left," Jason whispered.
Paco, weapon ready, watched Jason make his way to the end. Jason stood outside the door covering Paco until he, too, stood outside it. Jason held up one finger, then a second. On the third, he opened the door and entered while Paco stood ready to supply covering fire if needed.
The only light in the stateroom seeped through half-curtained portholes from the late-night bars along the dock. Paco slipped inside and softly closed the door. A muffled click announced that he had locked it. Both men flattened themselves against the bulkhead while their eyes became accustomed to what illumination there was. The sound of light snoring came from a bed that was a dark blob to their right. Jason was beside it in two steps, his gun ready when Paco flipped the light switch.
Both occupants of the bed came immediately awake.
Jason jammed the stubby barrel of his gun into the man's gaping mouth. "One sound and your brains'll be all over those silk sheets," he whispered.
Jason saw that the other body was that of a woman, no doubt an advance on Alazar's ration of heavenly virgins. She emitted a squeak of terror as Paco placed his weapon next to her head and made a quiet shushing sound. Her eyes darted from the gun to the syringe he held in his other hand and back again.
Jason gave a quick nod, and Paco pulled the woman from the protection of the bedclothes. She was nude. He roughly shoved her toward the adjacent bath.
"You shut up," Paco cautioned. "I hear anythin' from you, and you dead."
From the expression on her face before Paco closed the door, she believed him.
Jason was counting on the fact that, unlike many of his clients, Alazar had no desire to meet Allah up close and personal just yet.
Alazar lay perfectly still, only a twitch of his eyes betraying his fear. Jason followed the direction in which the arms dealer had glanced. Without removing the gun from the man's mouth, Jason reached under a pillow and held up a .38 Beretta. He jammed it into the waist of his pants.
"Don't even think about it," he said as he held out a hand toward Paco.
Paco slapped the syringe into his palm.
Alazar began to squirm, a series of unintelligible protests
Jason held the needle up, squeezing a few drops from the end to make sure there were no air bubbles.
"Hold still," he hissed. "If I were going to kill you, you'd be dead. You're going for a ride, and we want to make sure you don't become a party pooper on us."
He stuck the syringe into an arm.
Jason had not emptied the needle before Alazar's back arched. Teeth ground against the gun's barrel as the man's face contorted and spasmed. His arms flailed widely; then he moaned and was still. Dropping the syringe, Jason felt the neck for a pulse at the carotid artery. There was none. Blank eyes stared into eternity. As if he needed confirmation of the obvious, there was the smell of the result a re-
"Shit!" Jason spit. "There goes our security blanket. Some asshole overcooked the tranquilizer." He flung the syringe across the room. "Stupid bastards!"
Jason glanced around the stateroom. "Go through the bureau there; see if you can find papers, anything of interest."
As he spoke, Jason snatched a laptop computer from the table beside the bed. "With any luck at all, the recently departed used this for
something other than games and
Paco quickly completed his search of the bureau's drawers. "Nothin', man, nothin' other 'n some 'spensive silk shirts." He held up what looked like the bottom to a woman's bright red bikini. "An' these."
Jason put the computer under his left arm. "We can discuss Alazar's taste in underwear later. Right now, we're history. Make sure the woman isn't getting out in the next few minutes. You can tie the door...."
There was a soft knock at the door to the passageway and muffled words Jason didn't understand.
A quick look around affirmed what he already knew: that door was the only exit from the stateroom. He pointed toward the bath, then the door. Paco understood. As Jason pressed himself against the bulkhead, Paco pulled the woman from the bathroom. Keeping her body and himself concealed behind the door, he opened it, pushing her head around the edge. His weapon rested along the back of her neck.
There was a murmured conversation.
Through the crack between the door and its frame, Jason could see a young man in a white jacket carrying what appeared to be a bottle of champagne like the two on the floor beside the bed. Alazar, it seemed, did not include bubbly in the prophet's injunction against alcohol.
In a single fluid movement, Jason stepped from behind the door, shoved the woman aside, and grabbed the astonished wine server's jacket with one hand while jamming the SIG Sauer between his eyes. The man offered no resistance as Jason snatched him into the room and gently closed the door. The only casualty of the maneuver was the champagne, which toppled from its tray. It had not been opened. Paco stooped.
"Leave it," Jason said. "Off vintage, anyway, I'll bet. The sort of crap the French would sell Arabs."
Paco picked the bottle up and stuffed it neck-first into his pants. "Mebbe off vintage, but th' fookin' price's ho-kay. Whatcha gonna do with 'em?"
The woman's fear-widened eyes were trying to avoid the body sprawled across the bed. The man could not tear his stare away.