Point of Honor

by Maurice Medland

  “We better get it up here in a hurry,” Alvarez said. “Another wave like that and she’ll rip right off of that bowline.”

  “Nobody goes anywhere.” Blake stood shielding his eyes, staring at the superstructure.

  “But Jesus Christ, sir, she’s going to sink-”

  “What would you plug a submersible pump into?” Blake said. “There’s no power on this ship.”

  Alvarez went to the weather rail and peered down. “Maybe we can bail her out.”

  The others joined him at the rail and watched as the stern of the whaleboat settled down into the black water. Within seconds, only the bow was visible, still tied to the Jacob’s ladder.

  “She’s gone,” Blake said. “Go down and cut her loose.”

  “The old man’s gonna shit,” Alvarez said for the tenth time. He unsheathed his bosun’s knife and eased over the weather rail. He paused and looked up hopefully. “This old tub’s got booms, ain’t it? Maybe we can rig up one of them-”

  “Not without power,” Blake said. “Cut it loose before it pulls the Jacob’s ladder down with it.”

  Alvarez shinnied down the ladder and hung on with one hand as he sliced through the bowline. The whaleboat eased down beneath the waves, rolled over and disappeared into the black depths, sending up a stream of bubbles. He watched until it was out of sight and scampered back up the ladder.

  Blake turned back to the superstructure and squinted into the haze, bothered by something that he couldn’t put his finger on. From the after deck, the ship appeared to be in good order - booms were properly secured to king posts, lines were coiled neatly on deck - but looking forward, something was missing. Suddenly he could see it: The lifeboats and life rafts were gone. All of them.

  He cupped his hands and shouted a couple of “Ahoys” over the howl of the wind. The only other sounds were the whip and snap of the ensign flag and the bell-like clink of the cargo booms.

  “Strange,” Blake said, looking down at the deck.

  “What is?” Chief Kozlewski asked, wiping salt water from his face.

  “A helicopter landing pad on a merchant ship.”

  “What kind of ship is this one, anyway?” Chief Kozlewski asked.

  “A C-2,” Blake said, glancing around. “A C2-S-AJ1.”

  Kozlewski screwed his face up into an incredulous look. “Now, how in the world do you know that?”

  Blake looked at Kozlewski, surprised at how little he knew outside the engine room. After a life at sea, the chief should have been able to recognize a C-2, though he understood that only a ship freak like himself would know which model it was.

  “You can tell by the high, thin funnel,” Blake said, pointing. “Quite a ship in her day. Five cargo holds and staterooms for twelve passengers.”

  “Humongous old bitch.”

  “Not really,” Blake said. “Eight thousand tons gross, maybe 5,000 net. Four hundred and fifty feet or so in length, displacing 14,000 or 15,000 tons. Big compared to a destroyer, but pretty small for a merchant ship. Small by today’s standards anyway. I didn’t know any of these were still around.”

  “Looks like she’s been around.”

  Blake nodded. “She’s old, all right. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid, and they were old then.”

  “Tobin,” Blake shouted. “Step over there and see if you can see any unreeled fire hoses on the starboard side.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Fire hoses?” the chief said. “What’s that all about?”

  “Pirates,” Blake said, watching Tobin.

  “You kidding, sir?”

  “It’s a big problem with merchant ships,” Blake said. “They’re basically unarmed except for a revolver the captain keeps locked in his safe. The only way to repel boarders is to break out the fire hoses.”

  Tobin came back shaking his head. “Nothing over there, sir.”

  “What do you think’s happened?” the chief asked.

  “Hard to say. The lifeboats and life rafts are all gone. My guess is she’s been abandoned.”

  “Christ’s sake, why would they do that?”

  Blake shook his head. “I have no idea.” He glanced at his watch. An hour had passed since they had cast off from the mother ship. “I guess we’d better call home. Skipper’s not going to be too happy about losing a boat.”

  “Serves the bastard right.”

  Blake shot a disapproving look at the chief and looked past him at the Carlyle steaming on the horizon. The ship seemed a world away. Suddenly his mouth fell open.

  “What is it-” the chief said, swiveling.

  Blake stared at a ball of orange fire rising from the forward stack of the destroyer and flinched at the muffled sound of the blast that reached his ears a split second later. The others wheeled at the sound of the explosion and stared in silence at the cloud of black smoke that covered the center of the ship. A second, deadened explosion from the bowels of the ship was followed by a column of fire that shot out of the after stack. Through the dense black smoke, Blake could see flames lapping at the superstructure. There was total silence for ten seconds - seconds that seemed like minutes - before Blake heard the jarring sound of the klaxon horn and the call to general quarters.

  “No, goddammit, no!” Jorge Cordoba stepped into the Mercedes, jerked his tie loose and sank back into the black leather seat.

  Rafael Ayala elbowed the chauffeur out of the way and scampered into the limousine behind Jorge. He pulled the jump seat down and sat facing him.

  “Just wait a minute, for God’s sake.”

  Jorge stared at the rotund director of security. Perched on the jump seat before him, he looked like a frog on a lily pad, ready to spring.

  “Take your own car. I need time to think.”

  “Please, we need to talk.”

  “Every time I talk to you it ends in disaster.”

  Ayala tugged the door inward.

  The burly chauffeur, who was holding it effortlessly from outside, looked at Jorge. Jorge nodded, and the door clicked shut.

  The black Mercedes pulled away from the Augusto Gallardo Building into thin streams of sunlight breaking through the cluster of high-rises. Jorge opened the bar and poured himself a tumbler of Scotch.

  Ayala took a deep breath. “Look, you’ve got to be the one to tell him.”

  Jorge grimaced at the taste of the whiskey. “You think he doesn’t already know?” He stared out the window, watching the reflection of the limousine ripple across the forest of glass towers. He could see Ayala’s limousine following behind, empty, in the nearly deserted streets.

  Ayala blinked his thick eyelids. “How could he?”

  “He knows, you idiot. You think this meeting is a coincidence?” Jorge could still hear the subdued voice over the white telephone droning in his ears. A meeting of the executive committee had been called for 6:45 a.m. It would be held in the boardroom of Don Gallardo’s estate. The Don would dispatch his own car and driver. No agenda had been given.

  Jorge Cordoba had no doubt about what was on the agenda. He tapped his foot and rubbed his temple. Ayala’s cologne, mixed with the smell of wood, leather, and carpet in the tightly sealed passenger compartment, made his head pound. “Do you have to douse yourself with that gasoline?” He lowered the window a crack and pulled the cool morning air into his lungs as the heavily armored limousine glided onto an expressway and headed east toward Palmira.

  “If you talk to him, explain why we did it-”

  “Why we did it? Let’s get something straight right now. I was against it.”

  “But we talked. You said go ahead.”

  “I said nothing of the kind. What I said was, ‘You’re the director of security.’”

  “Which I took to mean, ‘Go ahead.’”

  “How you took it is no affair of mine.”

  “Please. You’ve got to talk to him. You’re his godson. He’ll listen to you.”

  Through the tinted window separating the passenger comp
artment, Jorge stared at the thick neck and greasy black hair of Raul Francisco, Don Gallardo’s personal bodyguard. His mind flashed on the silver Uzi he’d noticed under Raul’s oversized suit as he’d opened the door, bowing politely.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s been like a father to you since your parents were . . . Since the accident.”

  “I know.” Jorge rubbed his eyes. And I repay him this way. No man alive had done more for him than Don Augusto Gallardo. How could he explain this disaster to his mentor, his padrino, the man to whom he owed everything? He gazed distantly out the window as the limousine sped quietly by red-tiled plantations along the Cauca River. He normally enjoyed seeing these colonial relics, surrounded by green fields of softly rippling sugar cane, but today they were a blur in the distance.

  “Please,” Rafael Ayala said. “You’ve got to talk to him, or I’m a dead man.”

  “You made the decision on your own,” Jorge said. “It will go better for you if you face up to it. Don Gallardo is a fair man.”

  Meaning, if you tell him the truth, he will kill you quickly; if you lie to him, he will kill you slowly. He’d thought it through and knew now what his direction would be. He would distance himself from Rafael Ayala and deny any involvement in this harebrained scheme. No matter what Ayala said to implicate him, his godfather would give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “What do I have to do? Beg you? All right. I’m begging you.”

  Jorge ignored him and looked out the window as the Mercedes slowed and turned off on the farm-to-market road that led to the estate. The limousine crunched on gravel for a short distance and pulled up to a heavy black iron gate mounted between stone columns.

  The gate with no outward markings swung slowly inward, as though by some invisible hand. The limousine pulled forward, revealing a sanctuary that Jorge never tired of seeing. Of all the public gardens in the world, none could equal this one, yet few people would ever see it. The grounds were a tropical paradise, a maze of manicured gardens which housed one of the largest private zoos in the world. Peacocks roamed the grounds at will, while African lions dozed in their compound.

  Jorge stared out the window into the thick foliage. To anyone caught out there, lions would be the least of their worries. There was another kind of animal roaming the estate that was far more deadly. The casual observer wouldn’t see them, wearing Czech-made, Russian AK-47 assault rifles on their shoulders, or their bosses, the security patrones, each assigned to a section of the estate, each wearing an Uzi machine pistol clipped to his belt. Nor would the casual observer hear the occasional crackle of two-way radios over the cacophony of bird and animal sounds. From inside the womb of the limousine’s passenger compartment, Jorge could neither see nor hear them, but he knew they were there.

  “I’m begging you,” the director of security said. “One nod from the Don and they’ll hunt me down like an animal.”

  Jorge glanced at Ayala. He was staring out the opposite window into the dense vegetation, trembling.

  “You’ve trained them well enough.” Jorge hated the security measures - they were a constant reminder of the nature of the business he was in - but it would be a fitting end. It was this rana’s insistence on overzealous security measures that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. Let him stew in his own juice.

  The gate swung inward again, and two more limousines entered, following the pair of Mercedes up the winding drive, throwing up small dust clouds. At the end of a half-mile drive, the convoy came to a stop behind a string of identical vehicles parked in a courtyard surrounding a huge fifteenth-century fountain. The fountain, which had been imported stone by stone from Europe, was dwarfed by the structure it attempted to decorate.

  Raul opened the rear door of the limousine, admitting a cloud of mist from the fountain which helped clear Jorge’s head. He stepped out into the morning sun and walked quickly away from Rafael Ayala.

  The huge oak doors opened wide at his approach. Carlos, the horse-toothed butler who had been with the Gallardo family for decades, bowed as Jorge stepped into the reception area.

  “Good morning, Doctor Cordoba.” Carlos stood looking at him expectantly.

  Jorge raised his arms and Carlos ran his hands down his sides, legs, and crotch. Jorge flinched. It was ludicrous for Don Gallardo’s godson to be patted down like a common thug, but after the last assassination attempt, the Don had made it a hard and fast rule for everyone - no exceptions.

  “Please go directly to the boardroom, Doctor.”

  Jorge smiled at the greeting. He’d always taken the title for granted - it was an honorary one customarily bestowed on all university graduates in Colombia - but his two-year stay with the Norte Americanos, who showed no respect for anyone, had finally made him appreciate it.

  Jorge made his way down the long corridor to the boardroom, with Rafael Ayala panting behind.

  “I have some girls that will make the twins look like hags.” Ayala darted in front of Jorge and placed his arm across the door. “I’ll send them over tonight.”

  Jorge looked down at Ayala’s sweating face. “They weren’t twins.” He moved Ayala’s arm away and opened the door. The security director scurried to the end of the table and took refuge with some cronies. Jorge went straight to Don Gallardo, who was standing near the head of the table.

  “Buenos días, Padrino.” Jorge nodded slightly and extended his hand, cursing his habit of lapsing into Spanish when he was nervous.

  “Ah, Jorge.” Don Gallardo gripped his hand and fixed him with a steady gaze. “It was good of you to come.”

  “An invitation to your home is always an honor.” Jorge looked into the eyes of his mentor and tried to read what was there. The blue eyes, as dark as mountain lakes, were as impenetrable as ever.

  “And how is your lovely wife?” Don Gallardo asked.

  “Oh, you know Isabella. Healthy as a horse.”

  “How long has it been now? Three months?”

  “Three wonderful months.”

  Don Gallardo put his hand on Jorge’s arm. “It’s good that you finally got married, Jorge. I want all my senior officers to be married to women from respectable families.”

  Jorge laughed. “A policy I don’t mind complying with, where Isabella is concerned.” He couldn’t remember when he’d seen her last. At his godfather’s urging, he had pursued and married the debutante but only saw her when he needed her for some social occasion.

  “Would you like a cup of tinto?

  “Cafe perico, por favor.” Jorge could see the others out of the corner of his eye, standing around the long conference table, watching enviously as Don Gallardo poured his coffee and added a splash of milk.

  “Grac- Thank you, Godfather.” Jorge took the tiny cup and stood basking in the envy, forgetting for the moment why they were there.

  Carlos entered the room and hovered over the side table, fussing with the food. Trays of arepas stood surrounded by sweating pitchers of orange juice, bowls of fruit, trays of eggs, butter, jam, and pastries. The arepas were a traditional favorite at meetings, little cakes made of ground corn, cheese and eggs, and fried in fat. They looked and smelled fresh, but Jorge noticed none had been touched.

  “Leave us,” Don Gallardo said. Carlos turned and bowed his way out the door.

  With an almost indiscernible gesture, Don Gallardo motioned for Jorge to be seated to his right at the table. It was the seat of honor, traditionally Jorge’s at meetings, and the warm familiarity of it began to relax him. The door closed behind the retreating butler, and the room fell silent. The boardroom was windowless and completely soundproof; the family members of Don Gallardo were carefully insulated from the family business.

  Jorge glanced at the imposing figure taking his seat at the head of the table. Middle-aged and substantial, Don Gallardo walked with the aid of a walking stick, a compensation for the slight limp he’d received in an earlier assassination attempt. The stick had been
a gift from Jorge; a solid silver mallard head formed the handle. On some men, a limp would be a negative, but Don Gallardo’s deft handling of the silver-headed walking stick only seemed to add to his mystique. With his silver hair, ruddy complexion and dark business suit, Jorge thought he could pass for the chairman of a Fortune 100 corporation or the head of a Wall Street investment bank.

  “Thank you for coming on short notice, gentlemen,” Don Gallardo said. “Let us dispense with the usual formalities and get to the main purpose of this meeting. I have been informed that we have lost communication with our shipment to Montevideo.”

  A buzzing sound spun around the room. Don Gallardo lifted the fingers of his hand, and the room fell silent.

  “Perhaps Señor Barranca will be good enough to give us an update.”

  “It would be my pleasure.” The moon-faced director of logistics mopped his face with one hand and reached for the glass of mineral water before him with the other. He took a small sip and swallowed with a grating sound that was audible in the deathly quiet room. “The last communication we received was approximately forty-eight hours ago.” Jorge detected a quaver in his voice.

  “Forty-eight hours.” Don Gallardo looked around the table. “And why were we not notified of this problem before now?”

  “The Command Center failed to report it to me in a timely manner,” Barranca said. A sheen of perspiration appeared on his forehead.

  “Is that intended to be an excuse?”

  “Those responsible have been dealt with,” Barranca said, now sweating profusely. He dabbed at his face.

  “I’m glad to see you bring up the subject of responsibility. Since you have, let us discuss yours.” Don Gallardo’s eyes narrowed. “It is your responsibility as chief transportation officer to ensure safe delivery of each shipment. It is your responsibility to maintain personal contact around the clock with a shipment of this magnitude. It is your responsibility to take care of business instead of cavorting with your puta.” He slammed his open hand down on the table.

  Jorge flinched and shifted in his seat. Don Gallardo had begun his inquisition, and he wouldn’t rest until he had the truth. His probing demeanor was intimidating even to Jorge; he couldn’t blame Gilberto Barranca for looking terrified.