“I remember,” says Herman. “Did the sale ever go through?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” said Goudaz. “I take it you’re trying to track a container?”
“It’s possible,” I tell him. “We’re not sure.”
“From Colombia to Balboa?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t want to butt in, but I know somebody who works at Puntarenas, the Pacific port facilities here in Costa Rica. If you want I’ll give him a call and see what I can find out.” Goudaz seems to know everybody everywhere. It’s the nature of his chosen line of work. I am hoping that he doesn’t trip over the news that there’s a warrant out for my arrest floating around Costa Rica.
“It could be a waste of time,” I say.
“That’s what I’m here for,” says Goudaz.
“You are so good,” says Maricela.
“Give me a few minutes.” He disappears back down the hall and into his study.
“How long do you think he was listening?” Maricela says it under her breath.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Long enough to know we were talking about a cargo container.” There are limits to the degree of trust Maricela places in Goudaz. It is one thing to seek shelter in his apartment in an emergency, another to tell him where her father is. Clearly they are both using each other to some degree. The price of friendship for Goudaz is information. The question is, what does he do with it all? The problem Herman and I have is that we cannot check into a hotel without being arrested. So all we can do is make the best of it, and thank Goudaz for his hospitality.
We look down the hall to make sure the door to his study is now closed.
“I don’t want to sound too optimistic,” Herman whispers, “but it is possible that your father’s part in whatever they’re doing down in Colombia is done. Maybe they’re just gonna let him go. It could be that’s the reason he’s going to Panama.”
“Why would they try to kill me and let my father go?” says Maricela.
“Yeah, well, you got a point,” says Herman.
“No. When my father is no longer necessary, they will kill him. If he is going to Panama it is because they are taking him there, and if they are taking him there, it is because they need him. It is how he forced them to let me go. He didn’t tell me, but I knew. If he finds out what they did to Katia and that they tried to kill me, I guarantee you he will no longer help them.”
“We can hold that in reserve,” says Herman. “In the meantime, what do you think it is?” He looks at me.
“What?”
“What it is that’s in the container.”
“All the pieces fit. The special National Security Court, a small group of no names from somewhere in the Middle East, a container that’s ready to move, the FBI throwing open the gate so they could track us through Central America; most of all, the look on Rhytag’s face when I mentioned the name Nitikin. I think we’ve known for a while, we just didn’t want to say it out loud.”
“Yes, but is it chemical, nuclear, or biological?” says Herman. “And is it for real or is it something some amateur cooked up in his kitchen last night?”
“It is painful,” says Maricela, “but still I am grateful, to both of you.”
“For what?” I ask.
“That finally someone else has said what I have been thinking for so long. What I have been afraid to say for so many years. It is like waking up from a nightmare. Do you understand?”
“So you knew?” I say.
“No. But I suspected. How do you share such thoughts with someone else, especially when they involve someone you love? As you have done, I went through all of the other possibilities. I thought maybe he stole a large amount of money. Maybe he killed someone. I thought about drugs. But none of them fit. When he started to work on this thing, when Alim and his men showed up, I think I knew. And to answer your question,” she looks at Herman, “I don’t think it is something, as you say, cooked up in a kitchen last night. I believe it is real, and that my father has had possession of it for many years. I believe it is the reason he has been hiding all this time.”
“What is it?” I say.
“I would only be guessing.”
“So give us your best guess,” says Herman.
“My mother has been dead for many years. She lived much of her life in Costa Rica. But she was born in Cuba. My father, as you know, is Russian.”
The second she says it, I realize that Harry and I had spent our time with Katia asking the wrong questions. We had concentrated our entire focus on her grandfather. We never asked about her grandmother, where she was from.
“When they were married he was already in trouble with his own government, hiding from them. That much I know,” she says.
“Where did they meet?” I ask.
“In Cuba.”
“Your father was with the Soviet military in Cuba?” I say.
“Yes.”
“When was this?”
“The early 1960s.”
The look on Herman’s face says it all. “We can cross off chemical and biological,” he says.
“Did Katia know this?” I ask.
“She doesn’t even know her grandfather is alive. I told her many years ago that he was dead. He wanted it that way.”
We sit there for several seconds in silence. Herman is looking at me. “You’re thinking about calling Rhytag, aren’t you, filling him in? Let’s you and me step outside for a second.” Herman tells Maricela to excuse us for a moment and he and I step out of the apartment to talk in the stairwell outside.
“We’re out of our league,” I tell him. “We’re not equipped to deal with this.”
“Fact is, nothing’s changed,” says Herman. “I’m bettin’ this is the part Rhytag already knows about. It’s what he’s holding back from us, Maricela’s pictures of her father. Give you three guesses as to why.”
“Because the government probably has a history on Nitikin. And you can bet it’s classified. They want to keep it under wraps, find him, find whatever it is he has, and make it all disappear.”
“Right,” says Herman. “That way people never find out how close they came to gettin’ their asses flamed.”
“And you’re thinking that if I call Rhytag and tell him what it is we think we know, he’s only going to be bored. Because all he wants to know is where it is.”
“That’s my guess. And when he finds out you don’t know where it is, he’s gonna arrest your ass and turn you over to Templeton. And if you try and tell a jury about any of this, the Dwarf’s gonna tell the judge it’s a fairy tale, that without hard evidence you can’t be allowed to even mention it. And he’s gonna be right, because that’s the way the screwed-up rules of evidence work.” This is coming out of Herman’s mouth, but he has been in court enough times to know that this is how the system works.
“Still, I can’t ask you to get involved in this,” I tell him.
“I shoulda’ left you in the smokehouse yesterday,” says Herman. “I’m already involved. Hear me out. You try to call Rhytag until we know more, I’ll beat you to death with the phone.”
“Right now I’m charged with only two counts of murder. We get in the way and a mushroom cloud goes up and they could end up adding a few more counts.”
“Yeah, but right now we got nothing,” says Herman. “Think about this. If the feds bag Nitikin, Alim, and his followers, say they catch ’em with the goods, unless we’re standing right there to witness it all, we still have nothing. They’ll stamp ‘classified’ on the bomb and throw the national security blanket over everything they find. They’ll cart it all up in boxes and bury it in some vault.
“That means if you and Katia end up getting strapped to gurneys for a ride to the death house, I wouldn’t be holdin’ my breath waiting for somebody in the federal government to step up and raise his hand just ’cause they got a Dumpster full of evidence showing somebody else did it. As far as the government’s concerned, their only
downside is one less sheep to shear come tax time. Katia’s a foreign national. The prisons are full of people who didn’t do the crimes. Every time they do a new DNA test, they empty another cell block. It’s the problem we got, the justice system has absolutely nothin’ to do with justice.”
Herman takes a deep breath.
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” I say. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“Okay, I shot my wad.” He laughs.
“I thought African Americans were supposed to like government?”
“That’s why you never wanna get hooked on stereotypes,” he says. “We better get back inside.”
“Who is this Rhytag?” As soon as we sit down again, Maricela wants to know.
“Later,” says Herman.
So far we have avoided telling her anything about the FBI or the fact that I am charged as a codefendant in Pike’s murder. Herman and I haven’t talked about this, but we seem to have come to a mutual understanding. Neither of us can be sure whether her cooperation will continue once she realizes I’ve been charged along with her daughter.
“Problem is, we’re missing the same piece to the puzzle he is, the location, where it is. So where do we go from here?”
“It sounds to me like we’re going to Panama,” says Herman.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Goudaz comes in behind us holding a notepad in one hand, twirling a pen in the other. He’s picked up only the last bit of the conversation.
It turns out his friend at the docks at Puntarenas is a storehouse of information.
“He has a line on containerized shipping from all over the world,” says Goudaz. “According to him, any container cargo coming out of that area, southwest Colombia on the Pacific side, would ship from a place called Tumaco. His computer shows only one vessel leaving Tumaco bound for Balboa within the next four days, a ship called the Mariah. It left Tumaco this morning and is scheduled to make port in Balboa day after tomorrow.”
“Then that’s it,” says Herman. “That’s gotta be it.”
“There’s one problem,” says the mayor. “The Mariah left Tumaco empty. No cargo. It’s supposed to be taking on cargo in Balboa. It’s not showing any ports of call between Tumaco and Balboa. But here’s the interesting part. The records at the other end in Balboa show preliminary arrangements for transshipment of one cargo container from the Mariah to another vessel. So far, the other vessel is unidentified.”
Maricela is shaking her head, a perplexed look on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re wondering how the Mariah could leave Tumaco empty and arrive in Panama with a container?” says Goudaz.
“Yes.”
“Colombian magic,” he says. “According to the man in Puntarenas, anything is possible in Colombia. A mystery container gets put on at sea, or they make an uncharted stop in some cove along the coast. He tells me it’s also possible the Mariah may never show up in Balboa at all.”
“How is that?” I say.
“He says smugglers often fog the shipping records. They’ll show one destination and sail to another, create false bills of lading for cargo. Sometimes they’ll even change the name of the ship en route. They identify a registered container ship, same size as the one they’re sailing. The other ship could be in dry dock somewhere or in another port halfway around the world. They borrow the ship’s name for a few days. If they plan ahead and create a paper trail and a new destination for the new ship, nobody is going to ask any questions when it arrives on time. And if the paperwork shows the port of origin as a place that’s not known for smuggling, officials at the port of destination probably won’t check the cargo that closely. Customs will collect any duty, and before you know it the container is on the back of a truck headed someplace else.”
“So what you’re tellin’ us,” says Herman, “is we don’t know where Nitikin is or the container?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say somewhere out on the big blue. That’s the bad news,” says Goudaz. “The good news is, we may know more by tomorrow. If by then the computer shows the name of the other ship, the one that’s supposed to receive the container, and the Mariah actually shows up at Balboa the next day, then the transfer is likely to take place, in which case we should get a final destination.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” says Herman.
“I’d sit tight, have another beer if I were you,” says Goudaz.
“A man after my own heart.” Herman laughs and gets up out of the chair, the whole hulking six foot four of him. He puts his arm around Goudaz’s shoulder, dwarfing the man.
“Just one more thing. I hate to even ask, but we don’t know who else to turn to. And you’re such a helpful guy.” This is Herman in full bullshit mode.
Goudaz laughs. “What do you want?”
“Paul and I are afraid the prosecutor in Katia’s case may have attached a couple of investigators to us when we traveled down here. If we’re going to find information we can use at trial, we need to lose them. We’re not going to be able to do that traveling under our own passports. I’m betting you might know someone in town who could produce a couple of good passports on short notice.”
“U.S. or foreign?” Goudaz doesn’t even miss a beat.
“Too many holograms and threads running through the paper on U.S.,” says Herman. “Let’s say Canadian.”
“When do you need them?”
“Yesterday,” says Herman.
“It’s gonna cost you.”
Herman looks my way for approval.
“Sounds like a business expense to me.”
FORTY-NINE
Alim felt the steel sides of the cargo container shudder as the unremitting chop of the rotors suddenly changed. The noise woke him as his stomach told him they were descending. He checked his watch and then jumped to his feet, grabbed his rifle, and reached into the duffel bag where he found a pocket pouch containing four more loaded clips.
He strapped the pouch over his shoulder and glanced at the bag of grenades in the bottom of the duffel. Alim decided to leave them. He took one last look at Nitikin, on the floor. The Russian hadn’t stirred since they’d checked his eyeballs earlier that day.
Moving quickly around the wooden crate, he stepped over one of his subordinates who was fast asleep, and kicked the other one who was cowering like a whipped dog.
He got down in his face and told the man, “Get a rifle and load it. You are to guard the container and the Russian. If anything happens to either one, I will cut off your head and feed your body to the sharks. Do you understand?”
The man nodded.
“Move,” said Alim.
The man scurried on his hands and knees, around him and toward the duffel bag on the floor.
Alim moved to the two brothers, tapping one of them on the shoulder with the butt of his rifle to wake him. The movement woke the other as well. Afundi gestured for them to stand and join him as he unfolded a sheet of paper and laid it out on top of the wooden crate. He pointed to an area on the drawing and then to one of the two brothers.
The man nodded. He understood what he was supposed to do.
Alim gestured to the other one and pointed to another area on the drawing. The man nodded.
“According to the information there should only be seven targets. But we must get them all. If one of them gets away, there are too many places to hide. If they’re wearing red shirts, don’t shoot. Do you understand?”
Both men nodded.
They had spent two days practicing, but now they were shorthanded. They would simply have to move faster to make up the difference. He reached into the pocket pouch and gave each of the brothers an extra thirty-round clip.
“Use short bursts, and make them count.”
The descent seemed to take forever. At one point they hovered for several minutes, then climbed again, swung out, and circled. Centrifugal force sent the container in a wide arc as the three men grabbed the sides of the wooden crate and struggled to maintain their
footing on the steel floor. It was the reason they were confined in the container. The chopper couldn’t land on board, but the container could be settled on the deck. And once there, their confederates would open the steel door and they could surge out and take control.
They felt the helicopter move forward slowly and then hover as the heavy cargo container swung back and forth like a pendulum from the steel cables.
When they finally touched down, it came with a jarring blow. It knocked one of the brothers off his feet and threw Alim, shoulder first, into the thin lead shield bolted to the side wall of the container. The men quickly recovered and moved toward the door.
They heard the rotors descending as the giant chopper came down close to the roof of the container, men’s voices outside yelling. This was followed by the rasp of metal cables against the outside of the steel container, and a few seconds later the ebbing noise of the rotors as the helicopter pulled skyward.
Alim pulled the bolt back on the assault rifle and let it slam forward, seating the first round in the chamber. The grinding click of metal was followed two more times as the brothers did the same.
They listened as the steel bar on the door was lifted. A second later a blast of cool, damp air rushed into the container.
Alim clicked off the safety and moved the lever down to the middle position, for full automatic fire.
As he did so, a swarthy thin man in a red T-shirt and ragged worn chinos pulled open the heavy steel door, put his shoulder to it, and pushed it wide and out of the way.
For a second the ship’s bright deck lights blinded Alim and his followers as they stood in the darkened cave of the container. Then peripheral movement caught the attention of one of the brothers.
Off to the right a short, stocky man in ragged clothes came running out of the darkness. He was swinging a long-bladed machete high over his head and closing in on the man in the red T-shirt.
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