by Tom Clancy
Ricci sat there, his face showing not one iota of concern about the headaches he’d caused them. That irritated Megan, and she hoped the expression on her face made it abundantly clear to him. The schlep she’d mentioned had included following his pickup for nearly an hour as he’d led them to a fish-smelling wholesale seafood market on a wharf at the foot of the peninsula, where they’d had to wait while he’d spent another hour hustling back and forth between one saltbox shed and another, haggling with buyers over the value of several large plastic trays he’d been carrying in the flatbed of the truck… or more accurately the layers of spiny, tennis-ball-sized green sea urchins inside those trays, what he’d earlier referred to as his catch. And all that after she and Nimec had traveled three thousand miles across the country by air and ground, and the unexpected confrontation with the warden and deputy sheriff.
“I suppose,” Ricci said at length, “you’d like me to tell you why those uniformed humps were on my case.”
Megan watched him coolly over the rim of her cup.
“That would be nice,” she said.
Ricci lifted his own coffee to his mouth, sipped, and then set it down on the circular tabletop.
“Either of you know anything about urchin diving?”
Megan shook her head.
“Pete?” Ricci said.
“Only that urchins are a specialty item in foreign seafood markets. I’d assume they can bring good money.”
Ricci nodded.
“Actually it’s the roe that’s valuable. Or can be, anyway. You ever been to a sushi bar, it’s what they call uni on the menu. The bulk of it gets shipped out to Japan, the rest to Japanese communities in this country and Canada,” he said. “Its price depends on availability, the percentage of roe in comparison to its total weight, and the quality of the roe, which has to be a bronzy gold color — kind of like a tangerine — if you want to fetch a premium. Those trays I unloaded had about two and a half bushels of urchins each and were worth almost a grand to me.”
Megan looked at him. “If somebody had told me that when I was ten, I’d be worth millions today. My big brother and I would walk along the beach and collect them off the jetties in our plastic buckets. Then we’d fill the buckets with ocean water and try to convince our parents to let us bring them home as pets. My dad would tell us to get those damned sea porcupines out of the house.”
Ricci smiled faintly.
“People have different nicknames for them around here, but they shared your father’s sentiments till recently, when everybody heard about the Asian demand and got a yen for the yen,” he said. “Before that, they were just considered nuisances. Most of the old-time lobstermen still refer to them as whore’s eggs because they mess up their traps. Clog the vents, eat the bait, even chew through the headings and lathe to get at the bait. The nasty little buggers have some sharp teeth to go with their spines.”
“You gather the urchins yourself?”
“Harvesting’s done in teams of at least one scuba diver and a tender, who waits above in the boat,” Ricci said. “I like to do the underwater work alone. Take a big mesh tote below with me and pick the best-looking urchins. When a bag’s full, I send up a float line so my tender, this guy named Dexter, can spot it and hoist it aboard.”
“Tender?” Megan said. “Define, please.”
“It’s the diver’s equivalent of a golf caddy. He’s supposed to maintain the scuba equipment, look out for the diver’s safety, make sure the catch doesn’t freeze, and if time allows, cull the urchins. Something goes wrong, how he reacts can be critical.” He paused. “That’s why the profits get split down the middle.”
Nimec raised an eyebrow. “I heard you mention a Dex when you were facing off with the deputy….”
“That’s him,” Ricci said.
“Didn’t sound like your partnership’s exactly rock solid.”
Ricci shrugged.
“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “I’ll get to that.”
Megan watched him, warming her hands around her cup. “Is it always your job to bring the catch to market?”
He leaned back slightly in his chair.
“I’m getting around to that too,” he said, and drank more coffee. “The urchins are found in colonies, usually in subtidal kelp beds. Once upon a time they practically carpeted the bottom of the Penobscot from the shoreline on out, so you could scoop them up without dunking your head.” He paused. “Past few years have been slim pickings. Overharvesting’s driven the value of the catch up into the stratosphere, and made people so protective of their zones they’re baring their teeth and beating their chests if you come anywhere close to them.”
“These zones… I presume they’re demarcated by law.”
Ricci nodded.
“There’s a license that costs almost three hundred bucks, and with the conservation restrictions nowadays you have to wait your turn in a lottery to get one. When applying for it, you have to choose the area and season you want to dive in. Wardens inspect it very carefully. Tells them whether you’re legal in black and white.”
“Your trays were packed full,” Nimec said. “Seems to me you’re doing okay.”
Ricci nodded again.
“Also seems to me that would get noticed fast during a period of decline in the overall yield. By other divers, buyers, and the warden if he’s got his eyes open.”
Ricci looked straight at him and nodded a third time. “You won’t find a whole lot of guys who like going out as far, or down as deep as I do… especially not this time of year, when the water temperature can still drop near freezing and the currents are rough. But there are hundreds of tiny islets in the bay, a few of them within my diving area, and I hit on one that’s got a deepwater cove where the urchin count’s wild and wonderful.”
Nimec looked thoughtful.
“Word got around,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” Ricci said. “When you’re talking about a stake that’s worth serious cash, and men who are having a hard time feeding their families, it’s a volatile combination. There are resentments toward people from away that go back a long, long time and are maybe even a little justified. Back around the turn of the century, rich out-of-towners started buying up acres and acres of bay-front land around their summer mansions as privacy buffers against the fishermen and clam diggers they thought of as white trash. Stuck ‘No Trespassing’ signs up everywhere, restricting their access to the water that was their livelihood.”
“Somebody twist the locals’ arms to sell?” Megan said.
Ricci gave her a sharp look.
“Either you’ve never been poor, or you’ve forgotten what that can be like,” he said brusquely. “Watch your kids starve through a Maine winter, and you won’t need any other kind of arm-twisting.”
She sat there in the brittle silence that followed, wondering if his reaction had made her feel guiltier about her remark than she should have.
“Dex and the warden cut some kind of deal?” Nimec said. The last thing he wanted was to get sidetracked.
Ricci turned his coffee cup in his hands, seeming to concentrate on the steam wisping up from it.
“Let’s get back to whether it’s usually me who drives the catch to market,” he said at last. “I’ve been working with Dex for over a year and never went there without him before today. Guy likes wheeling and dealing, likes to get the wholesalers bidding. The whole thing from soup to nuts, you know?” He paused. “He also looks forward to having his cash in hand. But this morning he tells me something about needing to rush home to watch his kids after school. Said his wife had to work late and there was nobody else. The minute we pull the boat in, he’s up and away.”
“Happens when you’re a parent,” Nimec said, thinking he could have cited any number of comparable situations from when his own children were young and his wife was not yet his ex-wife.
Ricci shook his head.
“You don’t know Dex,” he said. “Ask him to recommend a local bar, he’ll rattle of
f the names of two dozen watering holes from here to New Brunswick and tell you every kind of beer they have on tap. Ask him his kids’ birthdays, he’d be stumped.”
“So you think he arranged for you to be driving by yourself when you got stopped,” Nimec said.
Ricci turned his coffee cup but said nothing.
Nimec sighed. “Was it the warden who pulled you over?”
“Yeah. Cobbs is one of those down-easters I told you about resents outsiders… and just about everybody and everything else besides, but that’s just his endearing personality. I move here from Boston, earn a decent buck, it’s like I’m taking something away from him. Add that I’m a cop… an ex-cop… and he gets even more bothered.”
“He feels intimidated and threatened by you, and that translates into a sort of competitive hostility,” Nimec said. “Common equation in places where they don’t get much new blood. Especially when it’s coming from the big city.”
Ricci shrugged.
“There’s all that, and with Cobbs it goes even further,” he said. “He’s a weasel and he’s dirty. I’d heard stories about him from divers as well as lobstermen. Give him a skim of your profits, he’ll let you operate without a license or outside your zone, even look the other way if you row out at night and raid somebody’s lobster traps. Up until now, you didn’t play along, he’d hassle you for the slightest infraction of the rules, but wouldn’t actually squeeze anybody outright. The stunt he tried to pull on me takes him to a new level.”
“Claiming he’d seen you dive outside your zone so he could confiscate your entire catch,” Nimec said. “That it?”
Ricci snapped his pointer finger out at him and nodded.
“Like you said, times are rough,” Nimec said. He exhaled, deciding to take another stab at a question Ricci had already angled past twice.“I want to try this with you again… you think Dex and Cobbs have something going?”
Ricci stared at his cup, still turning and turning it in his hands. It was no longer steaming.
“Been trying to work that out in my own mind,” he said in a hesitant tone. “Cobbs and his deputy dog were waiting for me on the road, and I doubt it’s a coincidence that they knew exactly when I’d be driving out to the market, and what route I’d take. Also bothers me that the day they chose to pull me over happened to be the one and only day Dex wasn’t around to keep me company.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better for him if he came along for the ride?” Nimec said. “To act surprised, I mean. The way it went down just makes him look suspicious.”
Ricci moved his shoulders. “Dex is no genius. Assuming the worst about him, could be that he was only worried having to look me in the eye when I drove into their little setup. Or maybe he doesn’t care what I suspect. Maybe with Cobbs he gets a better than even slice of the action, and all that matters to him is running me out of it.”
“And out of town in the process,” Nimec said.
Ricci nodded. “Like I said, assuming the worst-case scenario. But right now that’s all just for argument’s sake.”
They sat in silence for a while. Megan watched them, feeling strangely like an observer. She sensed the easy intersection of their thoughts, the unspoken communication of men who had done police work for much of their lives, and all at once thought she had an inkling why Nimec wanted Ricci for Max’s position.
“Let’s stick to Cobbs for the moment,” Nimec said finally. “He’s not going to just leave things as they are. You know his type. The way you embarrassed him, he’ll be twisting like a corkscrew until he can get back at you. And that’s probably going to happen sooner than later. He’ll lick his wounds, convince himself you got lucky today.”
“I know,” Ricci said.
“Being hooked into the sheriff’s office, he’ll think he can get away with whatever he wants. Your warning about getting in touch with outside agencies won’t stop him. Far as he’s concerned, they’re a world away.”
“I know.”
Nimec looked at him.
“What are you planning to do?” he said.
Ricci grunted indeterminately. He took a drink of coffee, frowned, and set the cup down on the table.
“Flat,” he said, and pushed it away from him.
More silence.
Megan’s gaze wandered briefly down to the bay. The sunlight was fading, and white patches of sea smoke had begun rising from the water as dusk’s cold breezes slipped over its warmer surface. The birds had returned with the eagle’s departure, bearing out Ricci’s prediction. She could see rafts of ducks near the shoreline almost straight below, and further off, gulls descending through the mist to alight on shoals exposed by the receding tide. Broad-chested and gray-patched, they seemed instantly to enter a state of repose, puffing out their feathers against the dropping temperature.
Suddenly it seemed very late in the day.
“We should talk about why Pete and I came to see you,” she said. “You still haven’t given us your feelings about it.”
Ricci looked at her. “Now that you mention it, why did the two of you come?”
Megan blinked.
“You don’t know,” she said. It was a statement rather than a question.
He shook his head.
She turned to Nimec. “You didn’t tell him?”
Nimec shook his head. “I thought we’d wait until we got here,” he said without explanation. “Discuss it face-to-face.”
She rubbed her eyebrows with her thumb and forefinger, shook her head a little, and sighed resignedly.
“We’d better go inside after all,” she said. “Seems this is going to take longer than I expected.”
* * *
A little past five-thirty in the afternoon P.D.T., two urgent calls were placed from the Brazilian space station facility to UpLink’s corporate headquarters in San Jose.
The first was to Roger Gordian.
Standing near his office window, looking out at the rain that had just started pouring down on Rosita Avenue, Gordian was about to leave for the day when his desk phone chirruped. He stared at it a moment, tempted to let it remain on the hook, one arm halfway inside his trench coat. Whoever it was could leave a message.
Chree-eep!
Ignore it, he urged himself. Ashley. Dinner. Home.
The phone rang a third time. On the fourth, the caller would be automatically transferred to Gordian’s voice mail.
Shrugging out of his coat, he frowned in acquiescence and grabbed the receiver.
“Yes?” he said.
The man at the other end identified himself as Mason Cody from the Sword operational center, Mato Grasso do Sul. His voice seemed to come out of an odd, tunneling silence that put Gordian in mind of what it was like holding a conch shell up against his ear — listening to the ocean, they’d called it when he was young.
He sat behind his desk, realizing immediately that he was on a secure digital line. And that the call was therefore anything but routine.
“Sir, there’s been an incident,” Cody said in a tone that made his back stiffen.
Gordian listened quietly as the violent events at the ISS compound were outlined for him in a rapid but collected manner, his hand tensing around the receiver at the news of injuries and fatalities.
“The wounded men,” he said. “How are they doing?”
“They’ve all been medevaced from the scene,” Cody said. “Most are in fair shape or better.”
“What about Rollie Thibodeau? You said he’d been pretty badly hurt.”
“He’s still in surgery.” A pause. “No word on his condition.”
Gordian willed himself to be calm.
“Has Pete Nimec been told about this?” he asked.
“My feeling was that I should brief you first, Mr. Gordian. I plan to call him the moment we sign off.”
Gordian rotated his chair toward the window, thinking about what he’d just been told. It was all so difficult to absorb.
“Is there anything else?” he said. �
��Any idea who was behind the raid?”
“I wish I could tell you we know, sir,” Cody said. “Maybe we’ll get something out of the prisoners, though right now I’m not even sure how long we can hold onto them.”
Gordian inhaled, exhaled. Cody’s meaning was clear. As members of a private security force that operated internationally, Sword personnel were obliged to abide by stringent rules of conduct, some of them preconditions set by host governments, some internal guidelines, occasionally complicated formulations premised on the simple reality that they were guests on foreign soil. While adjustments for different cultural and political circumstances were built into their procedural framework, it would be pushing beyond acceptable bounds to interrogate the captured attackers even if the on-site capabilities to detain them existed — which was doubtful. Moreover, an incident on the scale he’d been told about would have to be reported to the Brazilians, assuming they hadn’t already learned of it through their own domestic intelligence apparatus. Once the prisoners were in their custody, it was impossible to guess whether Brazilian law enforcement would share any information obtained from them. The politics of the situation were going to be touchy, and the last thing Gordian wanted was to start stepping on toes.
“Have you been in contact with the local authorities?”
“Not yet,” Cody said. “Thought I ought to hold off, see how you wanted that handled. Hope that was the right thing.”
“It was exactly right,” Gordian said. “I suspect they’ll be showing up without word from us, but notify them as soon as possible anyway. Tell them that we mean to provide our absolute cooperation in terms of whatever questions they have. And that we’re confident they’ll reciprocate. It’s in our common interest to get to the bottom of this.” I assume, he thought, but did not add. “You have my home telephone number on file?”
Gordian heard the tapping of computer keys.
“Yes, it’s right up in front of me.”
“Okay. Keep me posted on any developments. Doesn’t matter what hour it is.”
“Understood,” Cody said.
Gordian took another breath.
“I suppose that’s it,” he said. “Hang tight, I know you’ve got hell on your hands.”