'A' for Argonaut

by Michael J. Stedman

  Where will the hellhounds take her?

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Castle Island, South Boston

  “Take the next left,” Maran gasped, his breath quickened.

  He had the receiver in his hand, but there was no signal on it. Amber was too far away for it to register. They would have to circle the area fast in the hopes of picking it up.

  In the ambulance, Sergei spun the steering wheel. The vehicle screeched around the turn. He turned on the siren, hit the accelerator, swerved in time to avoid a traumatized driver in a compact convertible.

  “Go! Go! Straight. Straight ahead. We’ve got to get to her before those…shit!”

  “Keep your tool cool,” Sergei’s words rolled. “You’ll piss your pants, Bra-zzee,” he said in his Russian accent using the tongue-in-cheek Army nickname he reserved for his partner, “Brass Balls,” a testament to Maran’s loyalty to his men in the face of abusive higher officers. He hoped to calm him, flashed the maniacal smile Maran had come to rely on. On the verge of panic, Maran rallied once again. He faced this new peril with resolve. Normally unflappable, the gravity of Amber’s problem weighed heavily on his heart.

  The ambulance accelerated down the painted median strip on Ruggles Street in Roxbury. It swerved in and out of traffic, across the strip into the oncoming lanes, careened up the wrong side of the busy street, and forced a Domino’s Pizza truck up over the curbstone. Sergei managed to maneuver through the traffic without hitting anyone. They didn’t have time for convention as they crisscrossed through the city streets in a pattern of maddeningly wider circles around the MFA.

  No signal!

  Maran teetered on the brink. It was taking all of his resolve to hold it together. Nothing mattered but getting to Amber on time, and time was an enemy as it ticked along mercilessly, ten minutes, twenty, an hour, two. A deadly spirit was up and about in places in the world that had been cursed with a long history of it. Now that darkness had touched down on the United States. It had penetrated deep into their lives. Maran would do anything to snatch Amber in time from the evil that held her in its grip. His brain was numb.

  What can it mean? What is happening? Why?

  The coldly efficient attack team could have been from the Animal’s band of devil-worshipping African terrorists, from the diamond cartel or from the corrupted officers at the head of SAWC or …? Nothing was as it seemed. The promise of life with meaning was disintegrating.

  The time ticked by. It became apparent that they would be unlikely to reach Amber in time to save her from whatever fate the terrorists had in store.

  They circled the streets.

  More than two hours went by. Adding to their anxiety was the fact that they were driving a stolen ambulance. They were pulling off the Fitzgerald Freeway at the Andrew Square exit when the first weak signal slowly materialized.

  The small receiver had picked up her Emergency Locator Beacon.

  The seaport!

  They headed into South Boston. The signal intensity grew. Down through Andrew Square, the route to the maritime unloading docks from the Turnpike or the Freeway. Up Dorchester Avenue, heading for City Point. At Perkins Square, the locator jumped to life.

  Castle Island!

  His younger years flashed in his mind. A mixed blessing. The “Island,” now a peninsula, came with its own twisted history since an 18-year-old Edgar Allen Poe had served there in the Army in 1863. It was that dungeon-like structure that he used in his bizarre story of revenge: “The Cask of Amontillado.”

  An ironic twist on Amber Chu’s plight.

  WHEN MARAN AND SERGEI finally arrived on the scene, the first thing they discovered inside the fortress was the security guard’s mutilated body, staked out in a mock crucifixion. The venerable old fortress was now a shrine to the hideousness man can reach.

  It was Maran who discovered the industrial-sized trash compactor outside the fort.

  He plucked Amber’s bloody bra off the side of the trash compactor. The transmitter was on the ground under it, lying next to a crushed discarded teddy bear. More blood spotted the sides of the steel box in thin, diluted trails. It colored the small rain puddles around him. Panic rose in Maran’s throat. Amber! He almost screamed her name. In the distance, a ship sounded a farewell to the city as it steamed out of the harbor past Boston Light. The moon blinked momentarily through the storm clouds.

  Fear of failure overcame him. His skin felt like it was going to crawl off his flesh. He started to choke, gasping. His face flamed with hot flashes. His body began to tremor. His chest burned; his heart went on a rampage, pushing him to the edge of sanity. This was too much pain: first, the divorce; then Dennis stricken down; then Cabinda‌—‌and now Amber gone, the one who had so briefly brightened the darkness that blackened his life. Every insecurity that had ever haunted him flooded into his brain.

  Have I now failed her, too?

  He wished he could just lie down, give it all up. That thought immediately gave rise to a kind of fury he never felt before. It had been simmering; now it was about to boil over.

  Hatred.

  Adrenaline surged through his body. The aggression side of his ‘fight or flight’ response took over. He could kill anyone and everyone he could find who had anything remotely related to Amber’s kidnapping…

  …And Cabinda!

  His mind flashed between theologically moral principle and the human drive for retribution. And retribution was winning the battle. He could not; he would never give up. He would uncover his enemies, those behind the plot, whoever they were, whatever it was.

  Nothing could stop him now.

  He dialed into his office information exchange and got the number he needed, the Boston Harbor Telephonic Marine Intelligence Service run by the American Maritime Association. The number gave him instant access to a private telephone line to the unit’s 24-hour Marine Intelligence Center.

  “Top of the morning, buddy. You’re in luck. You’ve reached TIMS, the around-the-clock marine intel, sometimes, service.”

  Maran ignored the greeting. He wasn’t in a joking mood.

  “Look. There’ve been multiple murders out at Castle Island. Please send the police. Alert the morgue to bring some body bags. There’s a ship just going out of the harbor. I can’t make it out. It’s either a freighter with at least two cranes or an oceanographic research vessel fitted out with SatNav Decca Radar and a large bottom-sampling winch aft. I have to find out the name of that ship, its destination.”

  “Just a moment, pal. Let me call the police first. I should have that information right here.” A minute later, he returned to the phone. “You’re good. That could only be the Sevastopol, Russian vessel scheduled for Kinshasa the Congo, but I don’t know why. The police are on the way.”

  The Sevastapol! Boyko’s transport ship.

  “Kinshasa? What’s the ETA for Kinshasa? Who owns the ship?”

  “Monday at 6 A.M. Owner is Npo Samsonypoysk Ltd. Mortgage liens on the vessel are held by a merchant bank group in London. You’ll have to check who they are yourself.”

  He already knew.

  This is not the end. I will avenge you Amber! You will not be forgotten.

  Maran stared at the diminished speck as it receded into the unknown across the sea.

  He had to get to Kinshasa.

  FORTY-NINE

  Luanda, Angola

  Ryan-Colby, President Hope Valentine’s Chief of Staff, called for a meeting with Luis Gomes, Johnson, and Boyko on Gomes’ turf at the Presidential Palace in Luanda, Angola’s capital city of five million. It was known as the “New Dubai,” the most expensive city in the world in spite of its miles and miles of appalling musseques or slums.

  She spoke first.

  “The White House wants to enlighten the American people to your situation here. We’re anxious to support your struggle to combat AIDS, continue your march to democratization, keep your people free in Angola and end the violence caused by Cabindan rebels. The perception has been th
at the illegal sale of blood diamonds, as they call them, has been behind your problems here. Our aim is to inform Congress that that is a misconception and that yours is a noble battle for independence from the shackles imposed by Western Colonialism.”

  “KoeffieBloehm?” Boyko inquired.

  “They will fall into line,” Ishmael Malik Johnson answered.

  “We’ll work with them. The administration is working hard to shape U.S. public opinion in your favor,” Ryan-Colby answered.

  “We have had a team of Harvard and Yale lawyers check Plan A” the woman said. “Not only is it completely legal, if anyone is curious enough to care, there is no way to track the funds through the many private banks that are handling it for all the different charities involved,” Ryan-Colby responded.

  “Then?” Boyko asked.

  “We appreciate your partnership with President Bombe and your support for his cause. We’ll prevail on the U.N. to pull its red notice on you and its investigation of what the warmongers call ‘the terrorist-controlled Blood Diamond Industry’. You will be put in a position to negotiate with KoeffieBloehm for a partnership,” Johnson added. She emphasized the White House’s gratitude for his charitable work against AIDS as head of Hum-Assist International.

  “We need U.S. arms not moral support. Your State Department drags its feet while our people die in the streets. We need concrete results,” Gomes warned. As Angolan Ambassador to the U.S., he had President Bombe’s authorization to speak for the Angolan government.

  Johnson dabbed the sweat on his face with a silk handkerchief. “It was very disturbing,” he said, “to see the villas of the elite in Luanda while the rest of the city dwells in the worst slums imaginable.”

  “We were taken aback,” Ryan-Colby added.

  “We saw a crowd of children, beggars, in fact. They were shrieking down the street, chased by uniformed soldiers with clubs. Children referred to as ‘The Lepers,’ too diseased with HIV/AIDS, dengue, malaria, cholera, dysentery, what-have-you, for anyone to approach or care about. And soldiers attacked them!” Johnson added.

  “Mr. Johnson, AIDS, poverty and maimed children are things we Angolans live with every day of our lives,” Gomes intervened. “Your country has been the recipient of oil profits for too long. It is time to share,” Gomes said.

  He knew the facts. Oil accounted for one half of Angola’s economy and most of that was lost to foreign oil companies like Global Coast and to corruption. The International Monetary Fund had discovered that more than $35 billion worth of oil had disappeared the preceding year alone. That fact didn’t help the other major problem facing the country: 2.5 million cases of HIV/AIDS in Angola and the Congo, a pandemic affecting one in twenty, leading to the deaths of 250,000 people every year and leaving as many orphans to fend for themselves.

  “We’re on it. The millions you’ve donated to Reverend Johnson’s charities have resulted in our ability to begin to convince Congress that your freedom fighters deserve American support,” Ryan-Colby said.

  Gomes picked at his ear. He took over the dialogue.

  “We understand. We are still prepared to help,” he said. “But we need your president’s support for a bilateral trade agreement to help us fight HIV/AIDS and malaria, as well as giving us more arms support. It is time to end the political differences over oil that have delayed a true economic partnership‌—‌even since our pact with Soviet Moscow came to an end.”

  Johnson sniffed, pulled his hankie out again. He intervened, turning to Ryan-Colby. “First, we came through for your election. Now we need to see a full-court press effort on your part to fight disease and bring peace and freedom to Africa.”

  He turned to Gomes.

  “We’re very much behind your cause for a Peoples’ Democracy, freedom from oppression and terrorism. As you know, we operate most effectively behind the scene. We’ll continue to protect your involvement. President Bombe and his Angolan administration is the largest donor to your fine charity here, Hum-Assist International, MAGIC’s greatest benefactor.”

  “It is not our charity,” Gomes clarified. “It’s simply a channel available to us to support your efforts in the United States. Let’s be clear about that.”

  “We’ve not forgotten your influence and help with Plan A, our program to fund member charities as they passed on your millions into President Valentine’s presidential election campaign,” Johnson added.

  THE MEETING BROKE UP with an agreement that the White House would continue to support President Bombe’s administration and that Long Bow would continue to protect the Global Coast oil and mining interests. General Stassinopoulos would maintain his unofficial role beyond reach of the embassy as liaison between the White House and President Bombe. The question of increased revenue streams from Global Coast’s Angolan oil profits was left for a future date. They were already continuing to fill President Valentine’s and her cronies’ campaign coffers.

  Outside, Boyko’s limo waited at the curb. He opened the passenger-side rear door, gave a polite nod to the beautiful Afro-Asian woman who exited the palace with him.

  FIFTY

  Kinshasa

  The chartered plane into Kinshasa’s huge N’Djili International Airport was full. Maran’s flight from Boston through London took twelve hours and thirty minutes. The captain, a former Belgian Air Force pilot, flew at night to avoid detection, lights out. The cargo of arms and consumer goods like French wine, perfume, American soap, canned goods were unloaded in blackness.

  From the air, the Congo River looked like a whip with its handle at the Atlantic and its tributaries as whip lashes at its Kisangani sources. Looking down on the city, Maran could just make out the mace-like lump known as the Malebo Pool, one of the most violent places in the world, a permanent theater of war: smuggling route and center of organized gang competition. Located between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, it is across that pool where most of the area’s illegal diamonds are smuggled.

  Chartered plane was the only way to get contraband in now during these days of civil war‌—‌the only safe way. The DRC still had a number of small companies that would take any passengers and their cargo anywhere there is an airport or even a decent-sized clearing. In a corner of the N’Djili airport sat several Russian M-24 Hind helicopters and two Italian Aermacchi MB-326 light jet attack fighters. The DRC Air Force insignia was emblazoned on their sides.

  A group of soldiers slouched against the terminal walls smoking American cigarettes. Maran walked across the tarmac past troops wearing brand new camouflage uniforms and carrying AK-47 rifles. His escort rushed him past the army guards. He walked through customs without showing a passport or having his baggage inspected after donating three small uncut diamonds to the escort’s cause.

  Like a lesson in irony, the hip-roofed villas of the rich Maran saw as he entered the city stood like protective sentries over the alleys of hovels that crisscrossed the jumble of garbage-strewn streets below. A crowd of children in La Cite’, the old part of Kinshasa, lined the sides of the streets in front of boarded shanties that served food and alcohol from rickety booths. The beat of Congo jazz-rock punctuated the scene. Three-wheeled chain-driven carts zipped in and out of the alleys.

  It was dinner time. A young, elegantly dressed British couple looking for a decent restaurant wove their way through the crowd. They were stopped repeatedly by aggressive beggars and police officers for a handout. The man, tall, in a business suit, spoke into a cell phone. An armored personnel carrier full of soldiers, rifles with bayonets fixed, ran down the curbstone. It smashed the small tricycle-like makeshift vehicles into twisted pieces that blended with the refuse. The crowd of child-beggars shrieked as they struggled to flee the militia. Some ran. Others hobbled. Still others, strapped nearly helpless into low flatbed carts, pushed themselves along the sidewalk. They screamed in Lingala, the prevalent tribal tongue. They were the refuse of the civil wars, “The Lepers of Kin.” The fact that none could move fast made it easy for the soldiers. They beat t
he shrieking youngsters with their rifle butts and bayonets. Blood splattered the sidewalk. The soldiers were recent graduates of the basic training program that whipped a rag-tag bunch of Congolese and Angolan malcontents into a semi-disciplined platoon of uniformed thugs‌—‌Vangaler’s Ninjas‌—‌trained to satisfy Boyko’s whims. There was a lesson to be learned from the “Lepers.” Nothing could condone their treatment at the hands of Boyko’s savage mercenaries. The truth, however, was complicated. As is so typical in that area of the world, the victims themselves were predators. In spite of their youth and their scrawny, failing bodies, they preyed on the elderly residents and the storekeepers of the area by threatening to infect them with their diseases by biting them. They were known to rob a store by simply whirling a blood-filled condom overhead, threatening to spray everyone in sight.

  Protection for the businesses and residents of La Cite’ from the mayhem caused by these unfortunates was just one of many rackets Boyko ran, one that would be considered minor by anyone who knew the extent of his legal and illegal enterprises, but his greed was insatiable. The bizarre foundation of this racket, of course, was the fact that the “Lepers” were themselves also in Boyko’s employ.

  The first thing Maran learned in training about the Congo was that payment for everything, including passes to travel, was best made with diamonds. To himself, he thanked Jacques Levine for the ample supply of gemstones he used to get around.

  MARAN KNEW THE CONGO history. Naked force ruled. Between the rampant crime and corruption and the inhuman violence, the place was hell on earth. As much as he sympathized with those decent human beings victimized by having been born there, only one thing burned in his mind.