by John Molloy
Kerstin was already down on deck - her urgency was palpable. Henry caught up, moved her aside and walked in ahead. The sight before them almost paralyzed them with revulsion. The young girl was bound and naked, spread eagled on the deck of the main cabin. The naked Tukola was taking something out of a small safe. He turned around and the sight of Henry and the almost immediate recognition startled him.
Henry’s voice was hoarse but strong.
“It’s all up at last you evil bastard.”
Tukola put the object he had taken from the safe on a table and Henry recognized it as the snake venom.
“You have no jurisdiction here Carter, or whatever’s your real name. You’re just a washed up detective.”
Henry produced the knife and held it threateningly. In turn, Tukola grabbed a knife from the table and stood watching Henry like a hawk. “You remember the young girl on the Manchester Ship Canal and all the other young girls since? None could compare with the English little tart, your niece Shirley, wasn’t that her name? Yes, she was the sweetest of them all. A virgin too; not easy to get these days. Have to make do with this trash,” he snarled, kicking the poor defenseless girl. “Not much better than a pig.”
As Henry move in, Tukola threw his knife low and it caught Henry deep in the thigh muscle. Henry gasped and bent over. Kerstin saw Tukola open a drawer and she leapt across at him. As he reached for a small hand gun, she struck him as hard as she could across his left wrist with the bar. He roared in agony and the gun went spinning out of his hand. He turned and with his right arm, struck Kerstin hard across the face knocking her sprawling onto a couch. Henry withdrew the knife and blood gushed out of the wound. Tukola saw the wound and even with such excruciating pain in his broken wrist, he managed a glaring look of triumph.
Henry stood and now brandished both knives - one in each hand. He threw Tukola’s knife, but swerving quickly, Tukola dodged the spinning blade and leered mockingly in his direction. Henry moved to prop himself up against the bulkhead and Tukola lunged at him. But in his rush to get at Henry, he tripped over the young girl on the floor and fell forward with arms outstretched. As his damaged arm hit the vial on the table, it shattered and the venom coated glass pierced his skin. Dragging himself up, his face turn to horror as he noticed the small shards of glass sticking out of his bloodied wrist.
Still groggy from the earlier blow, Kerstin managed to stand up, and brandishing the bar, she hit him across the shoulder.
He turned and spat in her face. “You white pig,” he growled.
As he staggered to the door leading onto the deck, he shouted: “Chen, get the engines started.”
“No good shouting at him, he’s indisposed.” Kerstin thought, as she quickly tied a piece of cloth around the wound on Henry’s thigh. Then, equally as quick, she untied the girl and handed her back her clothes.
They crept cautiously out of the cabin. Tukola was on the deck. As he stood holding his wrist he began to wail.
“Get me to a doctor.” he moaned as the first spasm from the venom hit him. Moments later his body stiffened and his head began to shake from side to side, the veins standing on his neck like the roots of a tree. He staggered and fell knocking over a bucket of chum (rotting fish and fish blood) which was ready to attract sharks when the girl’s body was to be thrown over the side. The red slimy liquid spread around the deck, spilling out the scuppers and trailing a thin pink film of blood in the water. He tried to remain upright as the next spasm hit him; he shook and every muscle in his body tightened and he convulsed, he bit his protruding tongue and blood and froth ran down his chin. His good hand grabbed the rail and he pulled himself up leaning over staring into the calm quiet water. Then he roared and squealed like a trapped animal. Tightening his grip on the rail, the convulsions were pulling him over, his broken hand hanging like a dogs paw. His body was draped over the top rail and when a massive convulsion hit him he was thrown into the sea. Kerstin and Henry looked over the side to see his body as it twitched on the surface. The first sharks appeared, their dark fins like two small sail boats, one following the other. They circled menacingly as the scent of the bloody chum was turning them into a frenzy. The next pass hit the body and threw it out of the water, then another appeared and they attacked, tearing limbs, throwing the body up then dragging it down. Several more sharks closed in and the frenzy took on a terrible spectacle as the torn flesh was pulled and scattered in a crimson pool of blood and entrails. Kerstin put her hand to her mouth and gagged, Henry took her arm as he limped inside. Kerstin was trembling with shock. he put his arm around her and tried to comfort her.
The young girl appeared pale and timid her big brown eyes wet and sorrowful like a young deer.
“Oh my God!” Kerstin ran to the child. “What am I doing, come here to me you poor thing” She wrapped her arms around the little waif and hugged her. “Come on and I’ll get you fully dressed.”
Henry poked around until he found the first aid kit and took out what he’d need to stitch his wound. He took a wad of the cotton wool and swabbed the blood from the table where Tukola had cut his wrist. He sealed it in a plastic bag then put it into a paper envelope and placed it in the fridge. This he intended to send this to Scotland Yard as DNA evidence for Shirley’s murder.
Kerstin came back with the young girl. “Her name is Ayola and this is Henry.”
“Henry,” she said in a soft whisper.
Kerstin stitched up the wound on Henry’s leg before wrapping it in a protective bandage.
“Thank you Kerstin, now we must investigate what kind of cargo came on board. Follow me.”
He opened the door to the second cabin and there were four large packages wrapped in heavy plastic waterproof material. They were fitted into nets with two eyes of the net meeting together.
Kerstin immediately knew when she saw them. “They’re ready made for shackling down to the anchor blocks at Milligan Cay. It’s probably cocaine. What shall we do, take them to the authorities in Kingstown?”
Henry looked a little askance at the packages. “I think we should carry out the normal procedure and drop them at the Milligan Cay. That way we could get the bastard holed up on the islet who killed Juan’s wife. I’m going up now to interrogate the Chinese man.”
Kerstin went to the chart. “We should be getting underway. I must put a position on the chart and set a course.”
Within minutes the launches engines were started.
Henry brought down Chen and tied his feet together in one of the cabins. “Now if you tell me the whole truth I will go easy on you, but if you get stubborn, you’ll end up the same as Tukola - shark food.”
He raised his head and stared through dark deceiving eyes, “I know nothing.”
“How many young girls did Tukola kill on this launch, and how long have you been working for him?”
“I know nothing.”
“You’ll tell the police back in Kingstown. Now, what do you do with the packages of cocaine you have in the cabin next door?”
“I know nothing.”
Henry left and locked the cabin door, went up to Kerstin at the controls and told her about Chen’s non co-operation.
“Don’t worry, Chen will sing like a bird in about six hours when it’s time for his fix.”
“Good thinking my beauty, how right you are.”
“I know because the young girl came to Tukola asking him to come to the house, Chen Yun was sick - he needed his fix, Tukola used him like a willing slave because he controlled his drug habit.”
“And we can control him the same way by withholding his fix. Then he’ll tell us how to make the drop. He will be so desperate for his fix, he’ll tell us all we want to know.”
“Here Henry take her and I’ll go down to Ayola and prepare some food. She’s steering zero four eight.”
“Zero four eight, skipper.”
Kerstin and Ayola ate lunch and they both came up to the controls to relieve Henry. The young girl was already clinging to K
erstin, who had a few words of Spanish and both were conversing successfully. Henry ate and then went and looked into Chen, he didn’t offer him food or water. He noticed a look of desperation creeping into his dark eyes. Then he went to the safe where Tukola had taken the venom from and found four more vials from different species of snake; he also found a large wad of U.S. dollars. “I know where they are destined for,” he muttered to himself. He also saw Chens little bags of powder - a full box of them.
Chapter Forty-Two
Kerstin kept the engines running at about half speed and she was keeping a good lookout for traffic; she was apprehensive but she didn’t know why. Then she saw a launch appear off the port quarter and it seemed to be closing on them. She got the glasses and saw it was a powerful vessel. “Oh shit! maybe it’s one of the American coast guards disguised as a fishing launch.” She shouted down to Henry, “up here quick,” as she put the engines on full power; the vessel was doing at least thirty knots now.
“What is it?” He was breathing hard. She handed him the binoculars.
“Look there, you see that launch?”
“Yes, she looks something like this one and she seems to be going at speed.”
“You’re right on both counts Henry. I reckon she’s one of those American ‘coast guards’, but really CIA launches, posing as a fishing charter. If they catch us with this haul of drugs we’ll have some explaining to do. We could end up in Guantanamo, a notorious U.S. base in Cuba. It’s unofficially being used for jailing drug smugglers. I’m serious; you don’t know these guys, there’s no law out here. It doesn’t matter how much we try to convince them, they’ll just think you’re a washed up ex-detective trying to make some easy cash for your retirement fund…”
“I suppose that could possibly happen, but whether they believe us or not, we need to shake them off so we can catch Lilja’s killer.”
“You’re right, Henry.”
“Do you think we should get rid of the stuff?”
“We’ll wait and see if we can outrun them, Henry. I think with this launch we just might. Go below and switch on the radar and set it to forty mile range, put the range marker and cursor on the echo and we’ll track them for half an hour.”
“Aye-aye skipper, I’m on my way.”
He switched on the radar and saw the pursuer was twenty miles away. He put the markers on it and went back up to Kerstin.
“Twenty miles distant.”
“Right Henry, we’ll give it half an hour and see if they’re catching up.”
“Take her for a few minutes, I must go below and check something.” She studied the chart and marked in their position and the pursuing launch and wondered if the CIA had been watching the Windsong. The agents ashore could have radioed the launch to intercept them. She scrutinized the chart to see if there was anywhere they could run to. The island of Blanquilla was close and they might be able to shake them off there. The chasers daren’t try too much in Venezuelan territorial waters. Yes, she thought, they hadn’t much options open to them. She went back up to Henry.
He looked anxiously at her. “Any more ideas?”
“We have an option if we can’t outrun them, we can jettison the drugs. But we’ll never catch Juan’s wife’s killer. Or we can dodge them around the island of Blanquilla which is not far away now, it belongs to Venezuela. It’s uninhabited but there’s always a lot of fishing charter vessels about. It’s my guess they won’t want to cause a stir by boarding us if there are too many witnesses.”
“I’ll go along with anything you say. However, it would be great to go the whole way with the operation and catch the entire gang. But if we dodge them will they be waiting for us when we try to make a run for it?”
“They will. But I have a plan. Take her now for a while and I’ll check if they’re closing on us, we are doing about thirty knots and I don’t think we’d get another one out of her. Look, the revolution counter is just touching the red zone.”
She went below and checked the radar position of their pursuer. She calculated they were catching up at the rate of two knots an hour. This meant they would catch up just as they reached Milligan Cay. So dropping the drugs and catching Juan’s wife’s killer would be out of the question. And going straight into Kingstown where the CIA might have tipped off the customs was also not an option. It seemed a no win situation. However, she had another plan she thought might just work.
Back at the controls she told Henry to head straight for the island. Then she spotted the chasing launch as it altered course to follow them.
The island was looming close and they could see a number of charter launches with tourists snorkeling and fishing on the reefs. “Get us in among them. I must hoist the Venezuelan courtesy flag and our own flag at the stern.”
Henry shut down the engines and let the Windsong drift near to the charter boats - they could do nothing now but wait.
Kerstin took the binoculars and scanned them.
“Looks like they’re going to wait it out.”
“If they stay there what will we do? Follow the chartered boats back to the island of Margarita?”
“No, they could demand the local authorities there do a search of us. If they persist we’ll beach the launch. They won’t follow up on the beach, their boat is U.S. property and they wouldn’t risk getting her impounded by the Venezuelan authorities. We’ll wait, I reckon they’re going to go back out to sea and set a trap for us; they know our original destination and speed so they think they hold all the aces.”
“By the looks of it they not only hold all the aces but the court cards as well. Tell me, if they try to board us and we refuse to stop, would they use force?”
“Yes of course; they’ll have enough weapons on board to start a small war!”
“I don’t want either you or the child to get hurt so we have to rule out doing anything foolish.”
Kerstin looked at her watch; it was four o’clock, she knew the chartered launches would be heading back with their clients soon. Something flashed a reflection of sunlight. “They’re moving out, they’ve decided to trap us out at sea. Henry, please go below and track their course and see if they go past the forty mile range; they know we can track them up to forty miles.”
They held their position as they watched the charter boats power away.
Henry came back up. “They’ve just gone out of the forty mile range.”
“Give her slow ahead and steer three three zero. I’ll be back in a few minutes, I have to check something below.” Going to the chart she penciled their position in and laid out a course to take them north-west and out of range of the CIA launch. She knew they’d wait on their course to Milligan Cay and try to intercept them.
She went back up to Henry.
“Here’s what I intend to do. They know our top speed and have our expected course, so they’ll sit and wait for us to show up and try to forcibly board and arrest us, before probably taking us and the launch to Puerto Rico where I think they’re based. Now we are sure to face the severest rigors of U.S. justice; maybe forty years in jail.”
They stood looking at one another, fear and anxiety etched on their faces.
“Kerstin, we’re going to stop this nonsense. We’ve achieved what we came to do let’s get rid of this stuff and stop putting your future freedom in jeopardy.”
She squeezed his hands and gave a nervous wry smile. “We could tell what we know to the authorities in Kingstown.” She spoke slowly, emphasizing the serious nature of this decision. “Chen would fill in the blanks. But by the time they’ve got the full low-down, they would never catch the people responsible for Lilja’s murder.”
“What do you intend to do?”
She saw the island starting to recede astern as they slowly cruised on their course, “I’m going to take a north-westerly course until we are on the same latitude as St Lucia, then we’ll sail east to the northern tip of the St Vincent and around to the east side down to Milligan Cay. Hopefully, unnoticed by the CIA, who,
if we’re lucky, will be waiting for us on the southern tip of St Vincent.
“It sounds good, but I’ll do something I haven’t done in years.”
“What’s that?” he kissed her on the forehead. I’ll “pray!”
“Give her full ahead, I’m going below to the radar to check are they still out of range.”
Henry felt the boat come to life under him as he opened her up to full speed.
By the evening they had made good progress. Kerstin told Henry not to put on the navigation lights and make sure no cabin lights were showing from the launch. Using the radar to monitor their position, they powered on in darkness. “You go and have your dinner Henry. I left some food to bring to Chen.”
After Henry had eaten, he took water and some sandwiches to Chen. His hands were handcuffed in front of him and his legs and body firmly tied. Henry handed him the water and he gulped it down, but he refused the sandwich. Henry noticed the tremble in his hands and the desperate stare in his eyes. “Get me some stuff.”
“What stuff are you talking about?”
“Mr. Tukola kept it in the safe and gave it to me when I needed it. Get it for me please.”
Henry reached in his pocket. “Is this what you’re talking about?” He held up the plastic bag of white powder.
“Yes, yes, give it to me.”
Henry closed his fist over the bag, moved away and sat on a chair. “Right, start at the beginning and tell me all you know about Tukola.”
Chen’s pleading eyes were opening and closing, his voice a whine. “I know nothing.”