Dirty White

by Brian Freemantle

  They emerged onto the fantail of the ship and Lang said, “It would have been better if there’d been no crew.”

  “They’re necessary because of the size,” said Farr. “And the size is essential because we’ve got to go beyond territorial waters to be safe from American arrest.”

  “I accept the reasoning but it’s still unfortunate,” said the lawyer. “What have they been told?”

  “Nothing,” said Farr. “They think it’s fishing, obviously.”

  “I’m glad your people agreed.”

  “They’re not completely happy.”

  “Scarletti and Gomez won’t join here,” announced Lang.

  Farr wondered if Seymour had picked up the names with his extension mike. He said, “How, then?”

  “At sea, from their own boat. They want a wavelength, so they can talk on a radio and fix a rendezvous once both vessels are at sea.”

  “They’re not taking any chances, are they?”

  “No,” said Lang. “None. Will that be acceptable to your side?”

  Farr wasn’t sure but didn’t think it would create any difficulty given the extent of the monitoring facilities Brennan had arranged; and any positional fix could easily be radioed to customs and coastguards, he supposed. He said, “I think they’ll appreciate the security, too.”

  “It’s all going to be worthwhile.”

  “When?” asked Farr.

  “We’re ready.”

  “I’ll need to consult,” said Farr. “There shouldn’t be any delay.”

  “They’re here?” pressed Lang.

  “Available,” said Farr, seeming to avoid a direct answer.

  “There are some other …” Lang stopped short of saying conditions. Instead he finished, “Requests.”

  “What?”

  “Only principals, apart from the crew.”

  “Just Scarletti and Gomez?” clarified Farr for the benefit of the microphone.

  “Yes,” confirmed the lawyer. “And no weapons.”

  “I don’t imagine my people are foolish enough to carry weapons at any time,” said Farr.

  “Just so that everything’s understood. Before they’ll consider boarding they’ll need to see there are only six people aboard: the three crew and the three they’re coming to meet.”

  “I’ll make it clear.”

  “And only one crewman, to maintain a course, while the discussions are taking place: he’s to be at the helm at all times, of course. Nowhere near the saloon.”

  “All right.”

  The humorless smile set in place. “We work hard for our money, don’t we?” said Lang.

  “Let’s hope it’s worthwhile,” said Farr.

  “It’s going to be,” said the lawyer. “I know it’s going to be.”

  The recording was intermittent, because of the gusting wind which frequently blurred the sound, but the photographs were sharp and Farr was able to fill in the gaps during the evening conference at the bungalow. Brennan smiled and said, “Didn’t I tell you that we’d got them!”

  “All we’ve got to do is decide the day,” said Seymour, as excited now as his partner.

  “Sunday,” said Brennan. “We’ll tell them Sunday.”

  “Know something I’m glad about,” said Harriet, when she and Farr were in bed later.

  “What?”

  “The insistence upon only principals,” said the woman. “It means you won’t have to be involved.”

  “Stop worrying!”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  Batty installed a receiver set in the Caymans office, from which they hoped to be able to monitor the radio exchange and get some indication of how the seizure progressed. Brennan and Seymour were to go, as the two supposed Caucasians, Miofori and Tripodi. From the FBI offices in Honolulu the Bureau flew in a staff officer named Aoki Yoshisuke, who was of Japanese parentage: during the short encounter that was intended, Brennan was confident that Gomez and Scarletti wouldn’t question the Asian origin. Batty and Jones acted as supposed victualers, carrying the provisions aboard the boat to deceive any watch Lang might have established, hurriedly adapting the vessel’s existing cassette sound system automatically to record the discussions when the traffickers boarded. They also carried in the food sacks two handguns, short-barreled, six-shot .38 Smith & Wessons, concealing one in a prearranged space beneath the engine cowling lip and the other inside the wheelhouse paneling, within arm’s reach of the helmsman who would be expected to be in position the entire time. Apparently to ensure accuracy—but in reality to establish a verifiable printed record—Farr telexed the proposed radio frequency for contact at sea, requesting for matching accuracy that Lang respond on the same system, which he did. Farr set the Sunday embarking time for 10:00 a.m. and Lang agreed to that as well.

  Anticipating the possibility of a Caymans airport check, Brennan, Seymour and Yoshisuke flew in the day before on a New York filed flight-plan in a private Learjet, hired through a New Jersey company in the name of their supposed Caymans corporation. A chauffeured car was waiting for the round-the-island trip to Rum Point. For the benefit of any observation, Farr made as if to meet them in and conducted what appeared to be an intense, limited conversation: at the limousine door there were exaggerated handshakes.

  Farr was already back in the office when the signal bleep came from the Rum Point lagoon on Batty’s monitoring system, alerting them to the limousine’s arrival.

  “Wonder if they’ll be as nervous as I am,” said Farr.

  “They’ll be nervous,” judged Harriet. “You always are, no matter how experienced.”

  At the anchorage, Brennan and Seymour approached the Mary Ann with the curiosity of people seeing it for the first time and went through a charade of greeting the already familiar coastguard crew similar to that at the airport earlier. They lifted anchor at once, setting out slightly before the notified time of ten o’clock. They fixed an immediate southeasterly course, to take them through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. At 10:30 a.m. precisely, Seymour, who was to run the radio, signaled the course and the setting that would take them past the Isle de la Tortue and south of the Turks and Caicos, out toward the Atlantic. There was an immediate acknowledgment from the unknown, unsighted vessel carrying Scarletti and Gomez. The outward transmission—on the known wavelength—was intercepted by the American navy base maintained, by diplomatic quirk, at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba; by the second monitor point at the coastguard center in Miami; and by the already airborne AWAC plane, flying at forty-five thousand feet off the coast of Mexico.

  Brennan, who knew the degree of surveillance, said to Seymour, “Think the acknowledgment would have been sufficient for a positional fix?”

  The bespectacled FBI man shook his head. “Too brief,” he said. “We’ll have to wait.”

  “I hope it’s not for too long: air cover’s easy enough but boats need time to make the distance.”

  “Where will they be?” asked Seymour, consulting the chart which had to remain unmarked, against Gomez or Scarletti looking at it when—hopefully—they boarded.

  Brennan came close to his partner’s shoulder, tracing the map with his finger. “Coastguards are coming south, down the Great Bahama Bank; at ten the fastest cutter should have been somewhere off Jumento Cays. The second is holding back, ready to cut eastward through Crooked Island Passage if the need suddenly arises for any quick sideways movement. It’s all regular patrol areas, so their sighting shouldn’t cause any alarm. Customs are coming in from the Atlantic, as if they were returning from a patrol. Routing here is pretty regular, too.”

  Ahead to the east, Gomez and Scarletti were still ashore, in the shade of the jetty shed against which their hired boat rose and fell gently at its mooring; both men still wore lounge suits, making them appear incongruous in their surroundings. Gomez gave the response signal to the other boat’s course information and Scarletti nodded back toward their craft and to the captain who was preparing it and said, “How long does he s
ay?”

  “No hurry,” said Gomez. “They’re coming straight for us. Difficult to tell the speed, from Lang’s estimate of size, but he says at least an hour. Maybe more.”

  Scarletti was uncomfortable and growing more so. They’d flown the previous day to Caicos and crossed the passage to Turks Island to establish themselves on the most southerly atoll, early that morning. Scarletti was a bad sailor and glad of the landfall, but it was getting hot now and the insects were beginning to swarm and trouble him; the beer had been properly cool when he took it from the freezer pack but it was warm now, hot from his hands. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all,” he said.

  Gomez, who was only slightly less discomforted, said, “It achieves what we want.”

  Despite the tattered, flapping awning on the remote slip, Scarletti had to use his hand to shield his eyes against the glare off the water as he stared toward the open sea. “There seems to be a lot of ships around,” he said.

  Gomez indicated their own cruiser. “I asked about it. He says it’s always like this.” If it had been possible, Gomez would have taken a line or two of coke; it would have been unthinkable to risk traveling with the drug or to use it in front of Scarletti.

  “Still busy,” insisted the American.

  “Just pleasure craft.”

  “An hour?” queried Scarletti.

  “At least,” repeated Gomez.

  “Who the hell wants to hang around a dump like this for an hour!”

  Gomez frowned at the other man’s irritability. “I’d have preferred somewhere else, but this’ll do,” he said.

  Scarletti threw away his half-drunk warm beer disgustedly and took a cold one from the pack. “It had just better be worth it, that’s all,” he said. “It had better be worth it.”

  Their man straightened from the boat, stepped ashore and walked back to the awning. He was a Cuban who called himself Orleppo, which no one supposed was his real name, and who had made six unimpeded runs for Gomez across the Caribbean. The Colombian had chosen the man because of his track record. He helped himself uninvited to a beer from the pack and said, “Sea’s slack; they should make good time.”

  “Tell me again what we’ve got,” ordered Scarletti.

  “Pump-action shotgun, beneath the wheelhouse ledge,” recited the Cuban patiently. “Two grenades in the binocular box: two handguns behind the cushions of the first seat on the left as you enter the cabin.”

  “Think they’ll be carrying?” asked Gomez.

  “Of course they will,” said Scarletti, still irritable. “Ridiculous for them not to.”

  On the Mary Ann the helmsman gestured to port and said, “Guantanamo current’s with us: we’re doing good.”

  Seymour said, “Shouldn’t we make contact with the coastguards or someone? Let them know what’s happening?”

  “Nothing is happening, not yet,” said the other FBI man. “We’re under AWAC surveillance all the time. We’re not breaking radio silence, not even when we rendezvous. These bastards have got equipment that could reach the moon and back. And they know how to use it, to search our frequencies.”

  “Anyone want anything to eat or drink?” invited another of the coastguard men from the saloon entrance, off which was the galley area.

  All three FBI men shook their heads. Yoshisuke said, “I should have been playing golf this weekend.”

  “Play two rounds next weekend,” suggested Seymour.

  “It was a tournament.”

  “It’s a shitty life,” said Brennan unsympathetically.

  “We’re clear,” said the helmsman. “Which way now?”

  “Straight on, I guess,” said Brennan, looking down at the chart. “We’ve got to clear international boundaries, to get beyond any jurisdiction.”

  Seymour dialed the wavelength, sending out course and direction, and this time he extended the transmission, requesting confirmation that they could make a meeting and asking what vessel they should look out for.

  Still from the mooring, Orleppo responded to the course and confirmed the meeting. Contact established, Seymour said they intended maintaining their setting and aimed to sea-anchor in a further hour: the timing, at their current speed, would put them five miles beyond any international limit. Orleppo said that he understood and closed down at once.

  “Should have managed some sort of directional fix that time,” said Brennan. “That took a little over three minutes in total.”

  On the empty jetty, Orleppo said, “They’ve dictated the bearing: that OK with you?”

  Gomez, the supplier who had to know about such things and who therefore understood the question better than Scarletti, said, “No. Let them get there and give them some time.”

  “What’s the point?” demanded Scarletti.

  “Not getting trapped, that’s the point,” said the Colombian.

  “I’m pissed off with all this waiting!” complained Scarletti. “It’s been hours.”

  Gomez insisted upon their waiting a further two, until one hour after the next transmission from the Mary Ann, saying that they were in position and waiting, dead in the water. As Orleppo finally took their cruiser away from the jetty, Scarletti said, “OK, so what’s that all about?”

  “If this were a setup, everyone would be getting into position now,” said Orleppo. “By waiting the extra hour, we’ll make them overshoot themselves: get too close so that we’ll be able to see them when we get near. This is a big flat sea and we’ve got visibility of at least five miles today. If I see a piece of driftwood that I don’t like the look of, then I’m not going anywhere near a sixty-foot cruiser called the Mary Ann.”

  Scarletti smiled, a rare expression for the day. “That’s clever,” he said admiringly.

  That was also the judgment aboard the Mary Ann from the helmsman, who guessed the strategy. Brennan said, “Bastards!”

  “We could break silence,” suggested Seymour. “Warn them to keep off.”

  “No,” said Brennan. “If they are trying to do what we think, then they’d be moving over the transmission wavelengths, too. Just waiting for us to give the warning.”

  “Everyone’s listening to us—coastguards, navy, air force, right?” said Yoshisuke.

  “Right,” agreed Brennan.

  “So transmit to Gomez and Scarletti again. Say we’ve waited beyond the time and we’re considering withdrawing, because they haven’t showed. None of our guys will be able to misunderstand that.”

  “Sure glad you’re not playing golf,” said Seymour, moving the dial. He waited until Orleppo responded and repeated the message twice.

  On the approaching cruiser, Orleppo said to Gomez, “So—what now?”

  The Colombian was wedged with his arms against the wheelhouse ledge for support, scanning ahead with binoculars. “Few ships,” he said, glasses still to his eyes. “All look like fishermen.” He handed the glasses sideways to the Cuban and said, “What do you think?”

  Orleppo went back and forth across the area directly in front of them, not speaking for several moments. He said, “I think I don’t like making meetings like this at sea. But that from what’s out there at the moment, I can’t see anything that looks wrong.”

  “You can see the Mary Ann?” demanded Scarletti from behind.

  Gomez indicated a faint black blur practically on the horizon. “That would be the fixing. There’s something else, just to starboard, but it’s pretty small. I think that’s the ship.”

  Orleppo took his cruiser closer, rods splayed either side of the main housing, a typical fishing boat seeking a shoal.

  The helmsman aboard the Mary Ann sighted the approaching fishing boat and gave surreptitious warning. Brennan came further out on deck and stared hard across the water. From his own wheelhouse, Orleppo reported the direct attention.

  “Let’s get alongside,” said Gomez.

  Orleppo swung the wheel, bringing his ship about so that he approached from the stern. He hove to, with about ten yards separating th
em. Seymour and Yoshisuke joined Brennan on the Mary Ann, and Gomez and Scarletti emerged from the cabin and confronted the strangers across the intervening water.

  “We’ve waited too long,” shouted Brennan. “What the hell!”

  Gomez gestured to Orleppo to take the boat closer, his hand against the binocular box containing the grenades. Aboard the Mary Ann, the helmsman kept the boat steady and the two other crewmen went fore and aft, dropping fenders for the linkup. Orleppo brought his boat expertly alongside, taking back his engine so that the last moment the swell completed the maneuver.

  “Like I said, we’ve been waiting,” repeated Brennan.

  “We wanted to be sure,” said Scarletti.

  “So?” said Brennan.

  “OK,” said Gomez.

  “Why don’t we stop wasting time?” said Seymour.

  Gomez crossed first in a fluid, agile movement. Scarletti followed, more awkwardly. The aft area was briefly crowded and Gomez said, “There was an agreement.”

  “I know,” said Brennan, nodding to the two crewmen fore and aft. Both stepped easily into the smaller vessel, head-jerking to Orleppo. The Cuban made a gesture in response, his hand close to the shelf edge beneath which the shotgun was clipped out of sight.

  On the Mary Ann, Brennan led the way to the cabin. There was the briefest hesitation and Gomez and Scarletti followed, then Seymour and Yoshisuke.

  “Tripodi,” said Brennan, in self-introduction. He nodded toward his partner and the Japanese. “Miofori and Thieu.”