Unsafe Harbor

by Jessica Speart

  “What? Are you thinking of maybe getting out of this crazy business you’re in and going to work for him?” she suggested.

  “No,” I calmly responded. “It’s just something I don’t know much about and thought would be fun to learn.”

  “Of course he’ll talk to you. I’ll give him a call right now,” she enthusiastically offered.

  I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this immediately. Surely, David would know why certain diamonds were illegal in this country. My pulse began to pound as she dialed his number.

  “David? This is your grandmother. Rachel is here and she’d like to speak with you. It’s something that I think will require the two of you getting together. Call her tonight as soon as you get home,” she instructed and hung up.

  Oy veh. She’d cleverly made it sound as though I were fishing for a date.

  “I left him a message. I’m sure he’ll call you the moment he gets in,” she said, and walked me to her front door.

  “Thanks, Gerda,” I replied and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  My hand reached for the knob when she suddenly grabbed hold of my arm.

  “Oh my God. You aren’t looking for an engagement ring, are you?” she asked with a worried expression.

  “Definitely not,” I assured her.

  “Good. Now go home and rest,” she ordered.

  Funny. That’s exactly what my boss had told me about twelve hours ago.

  Spam and I walked down the hallway and entered my apartment. Though my body was exhausted, my mind wouldn’t stop. To top it off, my nerves were raw and on edge. No way would Jake accept the half-baked story I’d just tried to pawn off on Gerda. I wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming interrogation that I knew was bound to take place.

  I slipped out of my sweatpants and into my pj’s. Then I poured myself a glass of wine, knowing it was the wrong thing to do and doing it anyway. A couple more Motrin and maybe I could knock myself out.

  No such luck. Having run out of options, I turned on the TV. I was still wide awake when Jake came home. The glass of wine must have made me feel brave. I figured that I might as well just face him now and get it over with.

  “Hey, chere. You here?” he called out.

  “Come on, Spam,” I said, hoping he’d accompany me for moral support.

  But the dog refused to leave the bed, like the coward he was. They say animals can predict when a natural disaster is going to happen. Spam must have felt that one was about to erupt in Manhattan. I was left with no other choice but to go it alone.

  “I’m right here,” I said, and walked out the bedroom door.

  Jake’s mouth predictably fell open.

  “Dear Lord. Are you all right?” he asked, and in two quick steps had his arms wrapped around me.

  Maybe it’s going to be okay, after all, I thought, momentarily deluded.

  That illusion was promptly shattered as his hand brushed against the nape of my neck and I flinched. Santou quickly backed away.

  “What in the hell happened to you?” he demanded.

  Heavy bags held reign under his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before, and the lines in his face had grown deeper. No longer were they merely etched with acid, but were now carved in granite. I could feel any wiggle room that there might have been begin to slip away.

  The trouble was, I knew Jake all too well. I couldn’t just tell him the truth. He’d insist I drop an unauthorized case, and that wasn’t about to happen. Instead, I did what came naturally. I fibbed for the greater good.

  “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got mugged,” I boldly lied through my teeth.

  Actually, I thought that sounded darn credible. But Santou wasn’t buying it.

  “You? Miss New York? I sincerely doubt that,” he said, nailing me.

  “I swear it’s the truth. You know how I am on the ice. I hate the stuff. I wasn’t watching where I was going, but kept my eyes on the ground. What can I say? I was the ultimate victim. It was my own damn fault,” I replied, prepared to take all the blame.

  “Did you report the attack to the police?” Jake asked the logical question.

  But right now, logic was simply getting in my way.

  “No. I didn’t bother. It wouldn’t have done any good. They were wearing masks and I couldn’t see either of their faces,” I responded.

  “So then, there were two of them?” Santou continued his interrogation.

  I nodded, my jaw beginning to throb once again.

  “Well, I’m sure you went to the hospital to be treated. They must have had you file a report there,” he insisted.

  “You know, I’m beginning to feel pretty tired. Maybe I should just go to bed,” I said, and began to turn around.

  “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that you didn’t go to the emergency room after this happened?”

  Those damn eyes of his were as intense as two lasers. The man could see clear through to my soul.

  “No, I didn’t,” I admitted.

  Right then and there, I knew that he had me.

  “What are you, crazy? Who knows what kind of damage they might have done to you?” he asked, beginning to fume.

  “I’m just badly bruised, is all. Gerda checked me out,” I informed him.

  “Oh, well as long as Gerda says you’re all right, then I suppose everything’s okay,” he retorted in exasperation. “For chrissakes, chere. What are you trying to do? Scare the hell out of me? I’m concerned. Don’t you get it?”

  That did it. He knew exactly what buttons to press so that my defenses instantly crumbled. He touched my face and my eyes welled up with tears. Not because it hurt, but because I couldn’t imagine ever being without him.

  “Where were you when this happened?” he inquired, his tone beginning to soften.

  “I was on Eighth and Fortieth Street, not far from Times Square.”

  “What were you doing there?” he asked in surprise.

  “It involves a case I’m working on,” I revealed, knowing there was little choice but to tell him.

  “I thought Hogan wouldn’t let you do anything other than paperwork. When did he give you a case?”

  “He didn’t,” I admitted. “It’s something I started on my own. Remember I told you this morning that Magda had been burned in her truck?”

  “Yeah. Go ahead,” Jake said with a nod.

  “Well, she had another connection to Bitsy von Falken besides witnessing her body being dumped. Magda stole a shawl off her corpse before calling the police. The wool is from an endangered antelope. It’s called shahtoosh and the shawls are illegal. I’ve been gathering leads on it ever since. Apparently, there’s a booming black market for them here in the city,” I disclosed.

  “So what are you saying? There’s a ring of shahtoosh smugglers working out of Times Square, and they beat you up as a warning?” he cynically questioned.

  The phone rang before I had a chance to respond, and Santou quickly answered it.

  “Hello? No, I’m afraid Rachel will have to call you back. This isn’t a good time for her,” he said into the receiver.

  “Wait! Who is it?” I asked, before he could hang up.

  Jake covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s David. You know, Gerda’s grandson.”

  “Let me speak to him,” I replied.

  But Jake kept tight hold of the phone. “Don’t be crazy. Whatever he wants can wait until tomorrow.”

  “No, it can’t. I need to speak to him right now,” I insisted.

  Santou reluctantly loosened his grip, and I wrestled the phone from him.

  “David, thanks for calling,” I said upon gaining control.

  I turned my back to indicate it was a private conversation. But Jake stubbornly refused to leave the room.

  Fine, I thought. Santou now knows that I’m working on a case. Maybe he’ll agree to help me with it.

  “I have some questions concerning the diamond trade,” I continued. “I was wondering if we might meet and I could
possibly pick your brain?”

  “That would be fine,” David said on the other end of the line. “Why don’t you come by my office in the morning and we can discuss it then? Let me give you the address.”

  His office was on Forty-seventh Street, in the heart of the Diamond District. I couldn’t have asked for a better location.

  “Great. I’ll bring the coffee. See you around ten,” I said in lieu of good-bye.

  “You’re meeting him tomorrow to talk about diamonds?” Santou asked, without missing a beat, as I hung up.

  “Yes. It might have something to do with this case I’m working on, though I don’t know for sure yet. I’m just following all leads,” I replied, knowing that Jake would do no less.

  “I don’t get the tie-in,” he said.

  “Neither do I. All I know is that it’s getting more complicated and is beginning to take some strange twists and turns,” I admitted. “It started off with shahtoosh, expanded into ivory, and now seems to involve diamonds.”

  “Explain this to me. How did diamonds come to be in the mix?” Jake questioned, sounding genuinely intrigued.

  “Well, it all began with an anonymous call I received about Bitsy von Falken’s shawl. I tracked down the informant only to learn that her motives weren’t quite so noble,” I said.

  “That makes sense. You know how these informants work. They’re always in it either for revenge or monetary gain,” Jake retorted.

  “You’re right. Turns out my informant has been trying to sell shahtoosh shawls herself.”

  “Naturally.” Jake chuckled.

  “Anyway, one thing led to another and soon I flipped a fashion designer who’s been selling not only shahtoosh, but also elephant ivory. The next thing I know, he’s fingered my original informant as also being knee-deep in dirty dealings,” I explained.

  “What else is new?” Jake observed wryly.

  “He suggested I talk to her former boss to get the lowdown. So, I went to speak with him this afternoon. I learned that Tiffany is now dealing in some kind of illegal diamonds. That’s what I want to talk to David about,” I revealed. “I’m trying to figure out what shahtoosh, ivory, and diamonds all have in common. There’s got to be a correlation between the three. I just have to connect the dots.”

  “Tiffany, huh? That sounds like a stripper’s name,” Santou commented.

  “Good guess,” I said, wondering whether to be impressed, or worried that Jake might be spending his off-hours at T-and-A clubs.

  “So what’s her last name? Bling?”

  “It should be, with all the jewelry she owns. She used to go by Tiffany LaLue, but her married name is Stewart,” I disclosed.

  Jake’s demeanor instantly changed from that of genial to Arctic cold.

  “I want you to back off this case immediately,” he ordered, no longer the sympathetic listener.

  “What are you talking about? Why should I?” I challenged, wondering what the hell was going on.

  It had been a long time since Santou had tried to pull rank and we’d come to blows. Truth be told, I’d thought we were over this problem. Yet here we were again, bumping heads over cases and territory. Even so, I couldn’t imagine what had possibly sparked his change of attitude. What was his stake in all of this, anyway? For a moment, I didn’t think he was even going to give me an answer.

  “You’d better have a damn good reason for asking this,” I warned, not in the mood to quibble.

  Santou shot me an angry look as he shook his head, jammed his hands in his pockets, and began to rock back and forth.

  “And just barking that you want me to back off isn’t going to cut it either,” I added, egged on by the increasing pain in my jaw.

  “The reason is confidential,” Jake retorted, clearly torn by whether or not to tell me.

  “As if my cases aren’t?” I brusquely replied.

  “You’re really going to push this thing, aren’t you, Rachel? I guess my asking you to do so isn’t good enough,” he responded, cleverly allowing a note of hurt to creep into his voice.

  “Put yourself in my place. If I simply ordered you to, would you drop a case that you were working on?” I archly questioned and crossed my arms, indicating that I wasn’t about to budge.

  Santou fidgeted in place, as if he were going to burst.

  “For chrissakes, all right. But you obviously can’t reveal what I’m about to tell you. Tiffany Stewart is one of my informants,” he finally blurted out.

  “What!” I exclaimed, my mind beginning to reel.

  How was that possible? And then I remembered something that Sy Abrams had told me. Tiffany had stayed out of trouble ever since hooking up with a law enforcement agent down South. Most likely, whoever it was still had to occasionally bail her out.

  I stared dumbfounded at the man before me. Could it be that that person was actually Jake Santou? If so, he’d clearly kept her on his payroll even after moving over to the FBI. No wonder Tiffany had bragged about knowing ‘someone on the job.’

  “She provides information for ongoing cases, one of which I’m working on right now. Some of them involve national security,” Jake related. “That’s why you’ve got to stop whatever it is that you’re doing.”

  I started to laugh. “Tiffany Stewart helping out with this country’s national security? You’ve got to be kidding. This is some kind of joke, right?”

  “No, I’m absolutely serious,” he replied.

  I thought back again to the woman I’d met, bedecked in heavy-duty baubles, bangles, and beads, and still couldn’t believe that Santou was actually on the level.

  “What kind of information is Tiffany Stewart possibly providing?” I questioned, wanting some hard-core proof.

  But Jake shook his head. “You know better than to ask me that. I’ve already told you more than I should. But what I’m saying is the truth.”

  “Fine. Then how long have you known her?” I shot back, surprised to find myself wracked by more than a tinge of jealousy.

  “For years. In fact, probably longer than you and I have been together. I met her down in New Orleans. She’d gotten herself into trouble at a bar run by the Mob on the strip, and faced either doing jail time or cooperating with me. Tiffany wisely chose the latter,” Santou said, with the hint of a smirk. “She’s a high-maintenance informant, but well worth it.”

  “Does Tiffany know about us?” I questioned, unable to shake this feeling of irrational jealousy.

  “Of course not,” Santou replied. “Why? Would you prefer that she did?”

  Half of me wanted to scream, Yes!

  “So if she’s got you in her back pocket, then why would she bother to call me?” I angrily asked.

  “You answered that yourself,” Santou responded. “She probably wanted to knock off some shahtoosh competition. Knowing Tiffany, she thought that was as far as it would ever go. For chrissakes, chere. You’re a Fish and Wildlife agent. Why would she think any differently?”

  Just the way he said that rankled me. True, he was with the FBI. But I was still a federal law enforcement agent authorized to use all the power that the title implied.

  Most likely, that’s why she’d called the Newark office rather than New York. She figured I’d be happy to nab a few shahtoosh shawls at the seaport and not take it any further. I’d be damned if I’d be cowed by Santou, or played for a fool by Tiffany Stewart, with all her jewels and overdeveloped cleavage.

  “By the way, I want you to call David back right now and cancel the appointment you made with him for tomorrow morning,” Jake instructed.

  “And why would I do that? Is it somehow going to effect national security as well?” I sarcastically inquired.

  “As a matter of fact, it might. You’re stepping on another agency’s territory. That’s all you need to know,” Santou tersely informed me. “I don’t want to call your boss, but I will if necessary.”

  “And what territory would that be, Jake? The Diamond District, or all of New York City?” I
countered. “What is this? Some sort of punishment you’ve decided to mete out because I haven’t played by the rules?”

  “For chrissakes, Rachel. You have absolutely no idea of what you’re stepping into,” he responded. “How much do you even know about the seaport? Do you realize that it’s a potential powder keg? Right now, that place is the number-one target on the terrorists’ hit list. Think of what could happen if you go mucking around in things that you don’t understand.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course I know the seaport. After all, that’s my territory,” I possessively fought back.

  “Oh yeah? Then I suppose you also realize just how easy it is to sneak highly enriched uranium through there,” Jake replied.

  He had me on that one. I didn’t know a thing about it.

  “Should I tell you why?” Santou asked.

  I wordlessly nodded.

  “Uranium can easily be shielded with less than a quarter inch of lead, making it likely to escape detection by passive radiation monitors. Just so you know, that’s exactly what you have at the seaport. Those monitors can’t distinguish between naturally occurring radiation, found in everyday items like ceramic tile, and something as dangerous as enriched uranium. Because of that, the devices sound so many false alarms that their sensitivity has been turned down. Naturally, that makes them even less effective,” Santou explained.

  I kept my mouth shut, not having been aware of this.

  “Think that’s bad? It gets even worse. None of the cargo that leaves the port by rail or barge is ever inspected for radiation. Which means that someone could transport a nuclear bomb right through there,” he disclosed.

  Terrific. How nice to know.

  “But shipping containers aren’t the only thing I have to worry about,” Jake continued. “There are also trucks, planes, ferries, vans, tunnels, bridges, underground garages, high-rise buildings, anthrax, nerve gas, ammonium nitrate, chemical plants, nuclear reactors, subways, and railroads, just to name a few.”

  I now began to understand why Jake always seemed so preoccupied of late.

  “Just make the call, chere. I have enough to worry about. I don’t need to add you to the list,” he said, his voice soft and low.