by Jerold Last
Obregon smacked his forehead with his open hand. “Hijo de puta!” he exclaimed. He thought for a moment, then pulled his cell phone from a pocket and dialed a number. After the obligatory “Hola”, he spoke softly and rapidly into the phone. There was a long pause while he sipped coffee. Then he was obviously listening to someone on the other end.
He turned back towards me and started to talk in a normal tone. “There’s no record of either Mr. or Mrs. Weaver entering or leaving the United States in the last five years. They’ve been to China, Hong Kong, and Singapore on one trip and to Thailand on another. That’s it for them on travel outside of Australia in the last 5 years. Rita Caldwell has almost certainly travelled quite a bit more, but she has a brand new, just renewed, passport, so we have no information on where she’s been or when she was there. We’ll have to get this information from your State Department or her employers. At a guess, getting this kind of information from your State Department would take at least 5 years or more to get an answer. If we’re lucky.”
He said a few more things into the phone, then closed it and returned the phone to his pocket. “What do you think, Roger? Should we go with the odds and assume Rita Caldwell and the Weavers met for the first time on this trip? If that’s the case, they must have all been in the wrong place at the wrong time and seen or heard something they shouldn’t have. It would be great if you could come up with some ideas of what that might have been and with whom. And now I suspect I should let you go play tourist. Can I assume we’re collaborating now?”
We shook hands and I agreed to work with him then walked over to the ship’s stern and waited for the other Frigate Birds to assemble for our departure. I didn’t have to wait long.
The Frigate Birds showed up individually, gathering in small clusters until the Zodiac took our group to the scheduled white beach landing at Darwin Bay on Darwin Island. Bruce and Robert joined us for this outing, which gave Suzanne a chance to demonstrate all of her training in biology and geology to an appreciative audience. Prior to now, Suzanne had been watching and learning so was a very quiet and unobtrusive member of our group. Today, like it or not, Robert was going to learn some bird biology and a bit of geology.
After a wet landing just off the sandy beach, I carried Robert onto shore while Bruce managed his baby backpack and miscellaneous additional survival gear for a scheduled 3-4 hour outing. Suzanne made sure that Robert saw the fur seals, sea lions, and marine turtles lounging about in the shallows and on the beach. Robert loudly indicated his intentions to pat-pat the seals, wriggling vigorously in Suzanne’s arms until Bruce stepped in and took over. Bruce whirled Robert high up in the air and totally distracted him with one of their flying baby games. So much for Mommy’s slightly overly ambitious early education goals!
We had three hours or so for hiking the island’s irregular lava surface. Suzanne, with a little help from our bird-watching couple the Schultz’s, started pointing at the local birds for Robert to gurgle at. The beach itself, which was about 200 meters of easy walking before we reached the lava, and the skies above it were a rich treasure trove of two species of gulls, Lava and Swallow-Tailed, Great Frigate Birds, and Herons. Robert was fascinated by the ungainly and clumsy looking frigate birds, which he pointed at and tried to talk to as we traversed the beach.
Suzanne, walking beside Robert who perched on a high vantage point atop Bruce’s shoulders, picked up a handful of sand, which she let Robert touch as it dribbled slowly through her fingers. “This is sand, Robert. It used to be big rocks before it got ground down into a powder. Beaches are made of sand. What does it feel like? Does it feel like a rock?”
Robert was contemplating an answer while staring at a pair of frigate birds. I thought I heard him say “frigate”, or maybe “dig it”. I’m sure if he hadn’t been distracted he’d have answered Suzanne’s question correctly.
We quickly reached the lava, with its tougher hiking conditions because of the irregular ropy surface. We rearranged things so I carried Robert, flanked by Bruce with Robert’s survival gear and Suzanne who continued chattering with Robert to the entire group’s amusement. The Schultz’s and Juana helped Suzanne to identify the shore birds on this island for our infant ornithologist—several different species of finch, Masked and Red-Footed Boobies, Swallow-Tailed Gulls, and mockingbirds. Suzanne herself spotted marine iguanas scooting over and around the lava, which she pointed out to a fascinated Robert.
Suzanne picked up a chunk of lava, carefully oriented it so no sharp edges stuck out, and let Robert feel the surface. He stroked the smooth surface, obviously fascinated by it. “That’s lava, Robert. It’s what comes out of volcanoes. After the lava cools down it makes rocks like this one, which is what the islands are built from.”
Suzanne spotted a new species of bird we hadn’t seen yet as we walked over the lava. “Look over there Robert. That’s a group of nesting gulls. Can you help me with the species, Inge?”
“The obvious answer would be right in this case, Suzanne. Those are Lava Gulls.”
We all gull watched for a while. The birds made a great deal of raucous noise and fussed a lot as the males took turns flying off to catch breakfast for the mother gulls, sitting on the precious eggs they protected from would-be predators. The fishing was good in these cool productive waters. Most of the returning birds had good-sized fish in their beaks, and shared their catch with their mates. Juana pointed out interesting birds, but mostly encouraged us to ask her questions directly when we had them. Otherwise, we were on our own. We had to stay on the trail and remain together loosely with the group, but we could speed up or slow down depending on our level of interest in whatever we were looking at. Everyone had cameras, and the persistent click of shutters told us that a lot of electrons were being tied up in digital photographs for future Facebook fare.
As we trekked over the uneven lava surface of the island we were aware of birds everywhere, nesting, flying, squawking, and fishing just offshore. The island is a small one, with sparse vegetation, so finding and observing the birds, iguanas, and lizards is much easier than on the more heavily vegetated islands. Every species had its place, and they all coexisted in their own ecological niches. Except for the Frigate Birds who stole their meals of fish from the mouths of birds flying back from a successful fishing trip offshore. But, that was their proper niche.
Robert was fascinated by the teeming life and the cacophony of sound. Suzanne continued to point out the things that especially interested her to Robert as we passed them. Nests of Red-footed Boobies rested on the lava, just off the trail. Directly above many of the Red-footed Boobies were nests of Masked Boobies, in the “penthouse suites” formed from bushes, shrubs, and small trees barely eking out an existence on the lava as they sent roots down and out to find the precious water they needed to survive. “Look Robert!” exclaimed Suzanne, “That’s what Charles Darwin saw when he came here. The Red-footed Boobies live in nests on the ground while the Masked Boobies live in their nests in the trees and bushes directly above them. That way they can share the space and both species can live together on a small island like this one. There aren’t any Masked Boobies in the nests on the ground and there aren’t any Red-footed Boobies in the nests in the trees. Look at how they eat separately and share the space. They breed separately and do everything with just their own species.”
The quarter-mile hike over the lava bed passed quickly, and we were back on a different beach looking at packs of fur seals and sea lions sharing the warm sand. Robert gurgled and watched, fascinated, as the ungainly looking mammals staggered along on their flippers to awkwardly walk on the sand. We all just watched. The animals showed no indication of being afraid of us at all, but just went about doing whatever they did as if we weren’t there. “I’m sorry, Robert, but the rules here are look but don’t touch, so all you can do is look at the seals and sea lions.”
In the meantime Bruce had been walking along with Linda and Michael Smart, directly behind us. They hadn’t met p
reviously because of Bruce’s erratic schedule with Robert. I listened in to their conversation, wondering how long it would take for them to find their common background in the U.S. Navy.
Linda started the conversational ball rolling. “This place is amazing, isn’t it?”
Bruce seemed to welcome the opportunity for an adult conversation and jumped right in. “Yeah. The ocean is spectacular and I love the beach. It’s great that I get to tag along while Robert is being culturally enriched.”
Michael seemed to be happy letting Linda do all of the talking. She continued. “The little boy is very cute and seems to be well behaved. How long have you been his nanny?”
“Since a week or two after he was born. Roger and Suzanne actually hired me a month or so before he was born so we could get to know each other ahead of time. It’s been a good arrangement all around.”
“What did you do before you connected with Robert?”
“Lots of things. I was in the navy, I’ve tried a few civilian jobs, and I went to nanny school. He’s the first infant I’ve actually looked after.”
Bruce had said the magic word that got Michael into the conversation. “We’re both career U.S. Navy. What was your MOS while you were in the service?” he asked.
“I was a SEAL for two tours worth. One was served in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying the ocean so much; I’ve had my fill of sand.”
Michael had definitely perked up and was becoming downright gregarious. “I assume you saw a lot of action as a SEAL. Did you?”
“Yeah. I saw more than enough, both during my first hitch in Iraq and the second in Afghanistan. It’s kind of ironic, joining the U.S. Navy to spend six years in the desert. How ‘bout you two? Where has the U.S. Navy stationed you?”
“We’re currently based on Diego Garcia. Have you ever been there?”
Bruce picked up a small piece of lava and looked at it carefully before returning it to the beach. “Yes and no. I ‘ve been on ships that refueled there a couple of times on the way to the Middle East and back, but they never let us disembark onto the island while we were in port.”
“Yeah,” replied Michael, “That’s part of the deal we have with Great Britain. The whole chain of islands is maintained as a marine reserve with minimal human disturbance allowed in return for letting us use the main island with its big lagoon as a navy base. What rank did you get to?”
Bruce paused before answering. Then he seemed to decide what he wanted to say. “About as far as I could go as an obviously gay enlisted man with just a high school education. And that’s how I decided to try something else. How about you two? Should I be saluting?”
Michael smiled broadly. “Yes, you should. Probably twice.”
Linda decided to rejoin the conversation. “This trip to the Galapagos is our honeymoon, and has been our dream vacation for a long, long time. It’s sort of a busman’s holiday as far as weather and the ocean are concerned. The Galapagos Islands look a lot like Diego Garcia, as you know since you’ve been there. On paper, they should feel about the same, since on paper both have the same temperature, in the 70s and 80s, all year round. But it seems a lot hotter to me on Diego Garcia because of the humidity. They get something like six times as much rain there because of the summer monsoons that come up across the Indian Ocean.
“There are some interesting differences, too. The water temperature is quite a bit warmer in the Indian Ocean than the Pacific, by at least 10 degrees, so it makes for great swimming and snorkeling in the lagoon. They don’t allow Scuba diving or spear fishing in the Lagoon itself since it’s a Marine Reserve, but there’s plenty to see and do in the lagoon.”
Bruce was genuinely curious now. “I assume with all that rain, the trees and plants look different. How about the birds and critters? Do you see the same kind of wildlife there as here?”
Linda thought for a few seconds before coming up with her answer. “Diego Garcia doesn’t have anything like the variety and amount of birds and sea mammals they have here, probably because of that higher water temperature and less food swimming around the islands. And probably because it’s so far from any other land mass, more than a thousand miles. We have plenty of crabs, rats, lizards, geckos, and local bird species there, but none of the seals, sea lions, penguins, or giant tortoises that make the Galapagos so special.”
Michael cleared his throat and jumped back into the conversation. “We’ve both been in the navy for quite a while, 20 years for both of us. We’ve been stationed on Diego Garcia for the last seven years. We spent the five years before Diego Garcia as naval attaches in the U.S. embassies in a couple of small African countries. Before that we were both stationed for five years in Washington, DC, which is where we met. The only shipboard duty either of us had was right out of Annapolis. So we missed Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Linda and I are currently the second and third ranking officers on the base, both Lieutenant Commanders. Getting married means either letting ourselves be split up for our next assignments or retiring from the navy, which is probably what we’ll do next year since we both have our 20 years in. Both of us think it’s time to think about having a family and having a life.”
Later on, I got Bruce off to the side to ask him about his quick take on the Smarts. “What do you think, Bruce? Are they who they say they are?”
He replied immediately. “There’s something hinky about both of them. In fact, there’s a lot hinky about them. They’ve had a strange career trajectory, especially Michael. He’s a 20-year officer in the regular US Navy. That spans two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. The navy has been engaged in all of them, both for transport and combat operations. He should have spent a lot more time on ships and he should have seen some combat. Neither seems to have happened, at least in the story he’s telling. He and Linda are both Lieutenant Commanders. He just got promoted to that rank. That’s awfully slow for anybody to have advanced in twenty years, and they’re both Annapolis graduates. Diego Garcia is hardly what I’d call a plum assignment for an up-and-coming navy officer. It’s a backwater assignment for losers.”
I thought about what Bruce had just told me. “They don’t act or sound like losers. Of course I haven’t seen what they can do as officers leading groups of sailors or in command of a ship. What do you think could account for what you’re calling a strange career trajectory?”
“What are the possible reasons for ending up where they are now at lower rank than they might be? First, and most likely, possibility: Both of them screwed up big time early in their careers, and they’re together because misery loves company. They’ve reached the end of the line professionally and are just working on getting their pensions before they retire. Second, and less likely: They have some real clout at the pentagon and somebody is keeping them safe and out of danger. I doubt it, unless that time at the embassies means they’re spooks with cover identities as navy officers. Not very likely and sort of weird, but a distinct possibility until you can rule it out. My best guess is the right answer lies behind door number one.”
Chapter12. Bruce does some snooping
Darwin: I have been speculating last night what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things; and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever - much cleverer than the discoverers - never originate anything.
The logistics were easy. Just about all of the passengers would be off the M/S Santa Cruz visiting Genovesa Island under the supervision of our guides. Robert was visiting with Sophia that afternoon to take a properly supervised nap with a “grandmother’s” unique touch. It was the ideal opportunity for Bruce to visit a passenger’s cabin to do some genteel unobserved snooping. And it seemed like an excellent time to get to know a few of our fellow passengers better. At a minimum, Bruce would stop by the Schultz’s, the Smart’s, the Kaufman sisters, and Raul Vonhorst’s cabins for a thorough search of each. Time permitting he’d add the three murder victims’ cabins to the list. Getting in and out of the cab
ins wasn’t much of a challenge. Bruce could pick a cabin door lock in less than ten seconds using a small tool he’d made for himself out of some thick wire he’d found on the ship, as he demonstrated to a skeptical Suzanne with both of our cabins.
“Is there anything special I should be looking for?” Bruce asked as we prepared to join the rest of the Frigate Birds for our trip to this afternoon’s island.
Suzanne looked at me. “Can I answer that, Roger? Feel free to jump in and add whatever you think of, but I have a logical approach to suggest.”
I’d thought about this a lot since we had the idea for Bruce to search the cabins. I didn’t ask for permission from Obregon, because he had all of the usual police concerns about needing warrants to randomly search traveller’s cabins on the ship. There was no way he’d be able to get a warrant without probable cause, and at this point he didn’t have any cause, probable or improbable. “Any suggestions you make will be useful, Suzanne. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t the slightest idea what Bruce might look for that would be incriminating except the obvious thing, a 9mm pistol. Or maybe bloodstains or other forensic evidence that Rita was killed in one of the cabins he searches.”
Suzanne paused thoughtfully before speaking. “What do we know at this point? Eduardo told us there’d been some illegal activity in the Galapagos Reserve before any of us arrived here. At least one boat that shouldn’t have been here in the islands was spotted by satellite. And at least one park ranger was killed. Let’s assume for the moment Raul Vonhorst’s assurances to Roger that this isn’t about drug smuggling or drug dealing can be taken at face value. I can’t think of any reason he’d lie about it, and he’d have by far the best information among all of us about any drug deals around here. So if the murders aren’t about drugs, what could they be about?”