Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  “Someone may have boarded the ship and poisoned the crew. The young woman is alive, but only in a manner of speaking. Perhaps you would like to see her? It may help.”

  “Of course.”

  Takamura asked Handel to take his bento box back to the office.

  The trip to the hospital lasted less than three minutes. On the way Cobb asked Meissner what his plans were now.

  “File suit against the Coast Guard for starters,” he said. “We need that ship. She was on her way back to Vancouver for refitting. The French have another bomb test scheduled for month after next, and we wanted to get some new equipment aboard. Ordinarily, we’d go to New Zealand, but this time… Well, anyway, we were going to be on site for it. But this is screwing our schedule royally indeed. That’s about it.”

  Cobb noticed that he pronounced “about” something like “aboot.” “What would you be protesting, after all?” he asked. “The tests are underground, aren’t they?”

  Meissner nodded glumly. “The basalt core of Moruroa is cracking open. Radiation leaking into the South Pacific. We needed new equipment because the health hazards— primarily ciguatera poisoning…”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ciguatera, a dinoflagellate, a deep-ocean algae. Mankind disturbs a reef, say by blowing it up or creating shock waves, these things multiply like crazy and infect fish; it makes them toxic to people who eat them. We needed some biological test equipment.” He shrugged. “It’s evil what they’re doing. The French government has been intractable and should be stopped.”

  Cobb Takamura nodded. “You may be right,” he agreed as they stopped in front of the hospital.

  Their facilities could do little for Tracy Ann Thrasher. She sat in a sunny room, in a comfortable chair covered with blue vinyl. Vincent stooped to look into her dead eyes. She gave no sign she knew he was there. Whatever she could see was not visible. Vincent thought at first it was not real, either.

  Then he was not so sure. Tracy Ann appeared rigid with terror. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, her pulse light and tripping. Vincent recoiled. She seemed to be looking at something beyond death, beyond decay, something from her private nightmares he couldn’t even approach understanding.

  “Jesus. What happened to her?” he murmured.

  Behind Vincent, Takamura stirred. “We don’t know. She doesn’t speak or recognize people. She doesn’t respond. That ship was up to something in Tahiti. Perhaps something got on board down there.”

  Vincent turned swiftly on him. “Don’t be absurd. We’re an international organization, well respected, militant but not stupid. We do not do things to break international law.”

  “Hmm. An interesting thought, but I wasn’t suggesting that, exactly. Perhaps it was something like your ciguatera.”

  Vincent shook his head. “They ate tainted fish? Vomiting, itching, tingling, that sort of thing. Not death. Certainly not… this.”

  Vincent gave Tracy a final look and muttered that he had to get out of there, she was giving him the creeps.

  Out in the hall, Cobb stopped him. “You have no ideas what might have killed your crew? Or who?”

  “You can’t really be serious about that— someone boarding the ship and all that? It’s preposterous. Who would want to do such a thing? Why? People may object to what we’re doing, but they don’t do something like this!”

  “There was an attack on the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand a few years ago.”

  “A fluke. Unauthorized, overzealous agents. They were arrested. No one would try it again. Besides, that was a bomb.”

  “Very good publicity for the organization, though,” Cobb said thoughtfully. “Someone was killed, I believe.”

  Meissner was truly shocked. He turned and stared into the policeman’s expressionless face. “What are you suggesting? You can’t think we would deliberately kill seven of our own people for publicity?”

  Cobb shrugged. “Motives for crimes are obscure, often even to the people who commit them. Could it be possible someone in your own organization saw this as a way to get international headlines? It could have an effect on the French government, couldn’t it?”

  Vincent shook his head. “One,” he ticked off on his pudgy forefinger, “our organization is not so large we can throw away seven members for publicity. Two, we have not gotten any international headlines. Your local paper refers to it as the ‘Death Ship,’ but I haven’t seen much mention of Ocean Mother anywhere else. We’re too far away from Tahiti to get any attention. Forget it.”

  They drove slowly back into town. Cobb let Vincent off by his car and parked behind the police department. He came around to the front entrance as Chazz drove up in his battered VW van. Patria was bouncing Orli on her knee, and the child was screaming with delight.

  “What is going on here?” Patria asked the child.

  “What do you mean, exactly?” Chazz was rummaging in the glove compartment.

  “What are you looking for in there?”

  “What am I looking for?” He slammed the compartment closed and leaned back, looking at his wife owlishly.

  “There’s a creep loose on this island, isn’t there?”

  “Is that another question?”

  “Don’t be funny, Chazz. I’m serious.”

  “The answer is yes.”

  “There’s a creep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excuse me.” The man behind Chazz had a heavy accent, perhaps French, although there were overtones in it that suggested other, more indefinite parts of the world.

  Chazz turned. “Yes?”

  “I am a … stranger here, maybe you could help me.” He dropped the “h” sound at the beginning of “help.” “I am journaliste, ah, journalist. From Polynésie—Tahiti, you know. Are you with the police?” He shrugged toward the headquarters building.

  Chazz smiled patiently. The man spoke slowly. His English was very rusty, and he was thinking out each sentence before he said it. An odd tattoo writhed on the journalist’s forearm: an elaborate creature that twined around the flesh, blue, shaded with purple and red.

  “No, not exactly,” he answered slowly. “But I work with them from time to time. Why?”

  “A ship came a few days ago. I flew up, you see, because I heard of it. A, how do you say, environmental ship. It had left Tahiti, you know, and I heerd, heard that everyone was dead. Do you know?” He was very careful pronouncing “that.”

  “You should talk to Lieutenant Takamura here.” Patria watched curiously, drawn to his tattoo, his short-cropped black hair, his accent. Her head tilted to one side, regarding him with a quizzical expression as Chazz made the introductions.

  Takamura frowned. “A journalist? I have nothing to say to the press,” he said.

  “But the ship, she did come from Tahiti, yes?”

  “Yes. Something happened there just before Ocean Mother left for Kauai.”

  “Ah! And what was that, please?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say. Do you have any identification?”

  “Ah, I am so sorry. Of course.” The man produced his wallet and passport from a money belt under his T-shirt and handed them over to Cobb.

  “So, Mr. Hobart, you are from Tahiti originally?”

  The man laughed softly. “No, no, not really. I come from France many years ago, just to visit the South Seas, you know. The paradise immortalized by Gauguin. But I did stay, yes.”

  “When did you arrive in Hawaii, may I ask?”

  “When we heard about the ship, you know, because she had left Raïatéa just a few days ago. It is, how do you say, un mystère, a mystery?”

  “Yes,” Takamura said shortly “A mystery. I see you’ve had your visa for some time.”

  “Always I must be prepared. A journalist’s work, non? Soon we will no longer need visas to come to America, as you do not need one to visit the islands.”

  “All right.” Cobb handed his passport back to him. “Look, why don’t you check back in a week or so? Perhaps
I’ll have something then.”

  The journalist was disappointed. “Well, of course, I must wait. I am, what you call free-lance. I cannot afford two trips. You do not mind if I look around while I am here?”

  “No, of course not. Feel free.”

  Hobart gave a little half-salute and left. The back of his shirt advertised Hinano beer, a product of Tahiti.

  Chazz watched him leave, thoughtful. “Just out of curiosity, Cobb,” he said, “what about your other investigation? The woman?”

  Cobb shrugged. “Not my case. Taxeira is handling it. I just help him out occasionally.” He shook his head. “Now he says he doesn’t need my help.” His expression nearly concealed his doubts.

  Chazz didn’t laugh, but he came close. “Okay, Okay. As for Tahiti, you’re going, and I of course am going with you. I want to follow a hunch, and I can get the Center to pay since I can also do a little prospecting while there.” They took the stairs up to Cobb’s office.

  “A hunch?” Cobb paused at his office door to lift his eyebrow “Well, you’re welcome to come along, of course. I could use your perspective.”

  “What kind of prospecting?” Patria asked. Her eyes twinkled.

  But Chazz was serious. “I know it’s an excuse, really, but there’s a man from Texas in Raïatéa who is trying to develop some local cottage industry with seaweed and vitamin E, and I thought an interview might be productive for this research. Not really my area, but I’m interested, and as an administrator… well, you understand.”

  “And the hunch?” She wouldn’t let him off that easily.

  “I think those people were poisoned. I’ll let you know about it when I know more, but it’s in your field.”

  A small thought niggled at her. An alarm. She started to say something, but Orli threw her arms out and emitted a small sharp cry, and Patria shushed her instead.

  When Orli was smiling again, Cobb asked Patria what she thought of the French journalist.

  “I don’t like him.” She handed a now-sleeping Orli to her husband.

  “Why not?” he asked, taking the child.

  “The way he looked at me.” She saw his look and gave a half-shrug. “Okay, that’s not a reason. Call it intuition. And his French accent was too strong.”

  “His accent was too strong?” Chazz lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “You just don’t like the French.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m an anthropologist, not a chauvinist. His accent sounded forced, unreal. He made me feel a little creepy, that’s all.”

  “You believe he isn’t French?” Takamura’s head was tilted with his quizzical look, and she knew he was processing this possibility.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be, or he could just speak better English than he pretends. And why is he so curious about the Ocean Mother?”

  “It’s probably big news in Tahiti, you know. They’d just visited there and everyone died. They call it the Death Ship, too.” Chazz was not taken in by her suppositions.

  “Well, he gives me the creeps.”

  “But handsome, eh? And did you notice his tattoo? An octopus, like Plato. Rather attractive.” Chazz smiled.

  “Maybe he belonged to a weird cult of some kind.”

  “Ah. Followers of the Octopus Dragon, perhaps?”

  “Very funny, Chazz Koenig, very funny. I wish Orli and I were going with you.”

  The telephone rang. Cobb answered, spoke, listened, murmured something soft and noncommittal.

  “Why do you wish you were going with us?” Chazz asked Patria, even though he knew the answer.

  “Because there’s a creep loose on this island. You said so.”

  “Yes,” Chazz agreed. “But this creep was a journalist, not a killer.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Now I know you’re joking,” Chazz laughed.

  “Another Frenchman,” Cobb announced, hanging up. “A diplomat from San Francisco. Suddenly the French are everywhere.”

  PART TWO

  THE BARREN WOMB

  TEN

  DIPLOMACY

  The consular official liked Americans. He had said so, out loud and in company, on many occasions. The consular official sat across the desk from a bland-faced police official who was a completely incomprehensible and unreadable Oriental man, despite being an American.

  “The situation is unclear,” he repeated for perhaps the fifth or sixth time. “This vessel had an international crew. Two were French citizens. One was Tahitian but a French citizen. We must know what is happening. As far as your investigation is concerned, that is. My superiors…” He shrugged, shifting responsibility to these vague and distant but awesomely powerful entities.

  Cobb Takamura dipped his chin in what might have been assent. After a moment, the consular official nodded, almost to himself, and stood up to go. “I will be staying in Kauai for some days. You will contact me if you have anything to tell the French government.” A heavy emphasis on the last word flattened the question into a statement.

  Cobb nodded and stood. “Certainly. Kauai County Police are eager to help. Where are you staying?”

  The official lifted his hands. “A diplomat can usually find a room at the Hilton.”

  “Let us know,” Cobb said. “I’ll be away for a few days myself, but I’ll instruct Sergeant Handel to call you if anything develops. This is a difficult investigation for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the problem of jurisdiction, Mr…” Cobb looked at the business card on his desk. “Mr. Sangier. The high seas, international waters, that sort of thing.”

  “This I do not understand,” the official said softly. “You do not coordinate?” Sangier was aware that he lived in a glass house. Two conflicting coded messages in his pocket reminded him that coordination was a quality not necessarily shared by the French services either.

  Lieutenant Takamura smiled, and the consular official realized with a sinking heart that the American understood only too well that bureaucracies were the same the world over. The left foot did not know where the right foot was going.

  “We do feel there was foul play,” Lieutenant Takamura said suddenly.

  “Ah.” The consular official sat down again.

  “The crew was dead,” Takamura went on. He blew out through his lips, a curiously guileless gesture. The official said nothing.

  “All but one,” Cobb said shortly.

  A silence grew between the two men. The silence took on a shape and form of its own, a life independent of the conversational lapse that engendered it. The consular official began to perceive a subtle hint of accusation, a suggestion of governmental impropriety, but his command of American culture was not adequate for defining it. Cobb shook his head. “Not dead.”

  “I had understood everyone was dead. A sudden disease, poisoning, something of that sort.”

  “I’m afraid not. Not everyone is dead, that is to say. An American girl is still alive. Some elements have aroused curiosity. Perhaps something happened back in Tahiti that might point us in the right direction. At the moment…” Cobb gave a helpless shrug.

  “Did this girl, this American, did she say anything, tell you what happened?”

  “Alas, no. Not yet. But as Detective Chan has said, ‘Always harder to keep murder secret than for egg to bounce on sidewalk.’”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Never mind. What is the French government’s role in this affair, please?”

  “What? What do you mean, Lieutenant?”

  “Excuse me. Perhaps I phrased that wrong. What position does the French government plan to take? There were, as you say, French citizens involved. We are reasonably certain they were killed. Yet the deaths did not happen here, but aboard a ship in international waters. The French government perhaps had reason to take offense at the mission of the Ocean Mother. One cannot help but be reminded of the Rainbow Warrior affair a few years ago. French agents sneak aboard an American vessel at dock in New Zealand and plant a bomb…”r />
  The consular official took it upon himself to stand again. “You cannot be suggesting that the French government would have any part of such a scheme.” His chin trembled, yet it could have been with doubt and not, after all, with indignation.

  Cobb spread his hands out on his blotter. It was green in the few places that remained unsmirched by leaky pens and hastily scrawled notes and telephone numbers. “I merely ask. Police procedure, you see. Ask what the French position is. There were also Canadian and Dutch citizens aboard. And of course American. All dead.”

  “All but one.”

  “Quite.” Takamura looked closely at the official, his eyes bright with open, friendly curiosity.

  Sangier had nothing more to say. He would consult with his superiors. He was interested of course in anything the survivor might say.

  They shook hands. They murmured assurances. Words like “unfortunate,” and, once, “tragic,” moved back and forth in the heavy air. The consular official closed the door behind him, and Cobb Takamura pursed his lips and thought for a moment. Then he called Sergeant Handel into his office and gave him a series of instructions.

  Outside in the sunlight, the consular official blinked. Polished automobiles rushed past in both directions, reflecting from their bumpers and windshields painful stabs of light. He began to perspire in his tweed jacket.

  He consulted his memo book. Names, numbers, places. He shrugged again and went to find a telephone. He would arrange a meeting at the Hilton. There was always a Hilton.

  He walked past the man on his way to his table, walked past him again on his way to the men’s room, and once more on his way back. This time, though, the man raised his eyes and looked into his, and he knew.

  The man picked up his beer and followed him to his table. When they finally spoke, it was in French.

  “Onyx?” the consular official asked, and the other replied, “Phénix,” completing one of the rhymes of a sonnet by Mallarmé. Sangier found all this quite delightful, and showed it by chuckling as he shook the other’s hand. The other man did not smile, and the chuckle died. “I was to contact you,” he began, but the other made a quick gesture that shut him off.