“Neither. She was the wife of an old friend.”
“Then you’ve missed something. With her face, a body like that, even at her age she could pass for some Latin American fashion model. A Yank accent, but her people are from the Equator, I’d bet on it. Plus she’s got the most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen. Almost like they’re two different colors.”
No doubt about it now, he’d definitely seen Gail.
Garret said, “The fat man, one night here in the bar, he was offering her out to the street people, the dock hands, whatever. Like he was proving to everybody he was such a big shot that a woman like her meant nothing to him. Sell her like a whore, what did he care? A big joke, but she wasn’t laughin’. Because he meant it, damn right he did. He offered her to Fernando, ten pesos. About seven dollars U.S.
“It had nothin’ to do with money-bastard’s loaded with cash-the fat man’s just an asshole. Vicious. He likes to hurt people, just like his bodyguard… or a boyfriend, whatever the hell he is. Merlot’s giant boy-toy, a fella they call Acky. You know about him?”
“A little.”
“Well, if you’re goin’ after the fat man, you’d better know more than just a little. Acky came close to killin’ one of our local fellas. Got him down out there on the dock. Used his fists and his feet on him, damn near tore the man’s face right off. He’s a guy who likes to fight and likes to see people hurt. That’s one of the reasons I ran them off. The other is, I caught Merlot trying to talk one of the local kids onto his boat. The cook’s son, just a little shaver. And it weren’t to teach the kid how to kick a bloody soccer ball!”
Garret didn’t mind telling me about it. But first he wanted to know if I’d had supper. He was one of those you-have-to-eat-have-to-drink-guys. Probably a good father, a perfect person to own a restaurant.
I told him I had no appetite, not after the stench of being aboard the wind freighter from Istanbul. But maybe a glass of milk and some toast with Vegemite on it. If the kitchen had Vegemite.
That got a laugh.
“An Aussie without Vegemite? Gotta be kiddin’, mate. Ever notice that every country’s got its own perfect food? And it always tastes like shit to outsiders, but the locals are addicted. Colombia? We’ve got Amazona, the perfect pepper sauce. You know, verde. Blokes here eat the stuff on eggs, crackers, everything. It’s gotten so I’m just as bad. I’ll tell Fernando to bring you some toast.”
Listening to Garret was a pleasure after enduring close quarters with the Turk. He wasn’t a fan of either man’s. Said that Merlot and the Turk were birds of a feather. They’d worked out a deal; the Turk had told him all about it. The Turk supplied Gamboa with women and drugs, for which Merlot paid cash, plus marketing rights to Gamboa. What did Panama care about women from Colombia? For Merlot and his new club, Colombian women were cheaper, plus there was less red tape.
It essentially confirmed the story that the Turk had told me.
The Aussie added, “I knew the woman was in trouble when I realized that the Turk was stopping in at least once a month to mail her postcards. Understand what I’m saying? They wanted to give someone back in the States the impression that the lady was still here. There’s our little postbox. I peeked at the cards and I ain’t bloody shy, so I asked him about it. Hah! The Turk, he just puts a finger to his lips and grins. ‘Jealous husband,’ he says, or some bullshit like that.
“The fat man musta had her write the cards out in advance, probably thinking the same thing: Someday someone would come looking for her.”
As the Aussie spoke, I began to feel a nonspecific panic. What the hell had I dropped into?
I knew one thing: I had to find Gail Calloway and I had to find her quickly. From what I’d seen and heard, the woman was already so badly damaged that there might not be any way to save her… or any way to spare her good, good daughter, Amanda the sickening truth: Merlot had now violated and, perhaps, damaged beyond redemption the final two branches of a unit that had once been Bobby Richardson’s family.
I said, “Do you think Merlot is in Panama? In his little village there.”
“I know he is. Or was as of this morning. The Turk called him just before you blokes came in.” The man glanced over his shoulder, “We’ve got a phone log and I make folks use it or kick their asses out. The Turk’s got the federales out there waitin’ on him, so he does what I say.”
“Then that’s where I’m going. Gamboa. I’ll pay, I’ve got cash.”
Garret looked at his restaurant-not too busy, everything going smoothly. Then he looked at the clock behind the bar. It’d just turned 7:00 P.M. A nice night with stars, the light of a quarter moon already showing on Cartagena Bay. He thought for a moment before saying, “You can’t drive to Panama, I hope you’re not planning on that.”
No, I knew better. Not on the front end of the rainy season, anyway, which is precisely what April is. The jungled path between Colombia and Panama is an old silver transport foot route called the Darien Trail. This time of year, it would be all mud. There was no road.
“What is today, Friday? Saturdays, the first commercial flight doesn’t leave till one tomorrow, get you into Panama City about one-thirty. Is that quick enough for you?”
“No. Not if I have a better choice.”
“Well… there’s one other way.” His expression asked: Interested?
I nodded. Damn right I was interested.
He said, “I don’t suppose you know how to fly a Cessna? Nice one, a one-eighty-two.”
“Not well enough to make that trip, no. Not alone anyway.”
“But you know how to steer? If I dozed off, got some shut-eye on the way, you’d know how to steer a course, do all the basics? I’m tired as hell. I was up all night last night.”
I tried to remember if I’d ever met an Australian man who didn’t know how to fly a small plane.
I said, “Sure, I can steer. They made us log enough air time to get a private license, but I’ve never really used it”
“I can have you at Paitilla Airport, classiest little airport in Panama, in just under two hours. There’s a landing strip at Gamboa, but no lights. Can’t land there at night.”
“Panama City, that’ll be okay.”
“If you’ve got friends in the City, they can bring you a rental car or drive you, whatever. Gamboa’s only half an hour away. I’ll have to cut you loose, though, and fly back.” He smiled. “My wife and son miss me if I’m gone too long.”
I got the impression that Garret just wanted to get up in the air, get away from the lunacy of running a marina, dealing with the public. Maybe have the chance to talk about things he didn’t normally get a chance to talk about.
As the man had said: We knew some of the same people.
Surprise, surprise: I watched Tucker Gatrell lurch into the bar as I told the Aussie, “You finish up what you need to do. I’ve got to make some phone calls.”
The man looked terrible. He’d lost his cowboy hat. His white sports coat had some kind of purple stain down the front, he’d apparently been sick.
I watched Tucker stumble and knock most the drinks off a nearby table, as I added, “The calls are long distance, but I’ll use a charge card, if that’s okay. The Vegemite, I’ll take it with me. And I need to change clothes.”
I had a light, long-sleeved black turtleneck and jeans that seemed like the thing to wear. I would, after all, be roaming around Gamboa at night. I might even compromise Merlot’s house if I got the chance.
I watched Tucker turn, staggering, as if to acknowledge the mess he’d made, but his boot caught on the leg of one of the tables and he fell backwards, landing hard on his butt. It was pathetic to watch: a bowlegged caricature of an old-time Florida cowboy totally lost and out of control. I said, “And Garret? You mind if the old man bunks here? I’ll pay cash in advance for any damage he does. And for his rack, his drinks, whatever he needs. I just don’t want him with me.”
Garret had watched the exhibition along with the rest of t
he bar. “Can’t say as I blame you, mate.”
I’d been keeping track of the digital glow of the GPS, hoping Garret would wake up. Had a private little debate about it: Let the man sleep until we were closer to Panama City? Or make him take over the controls now?
Thoughtfulness won out. Let the man sleep. Yeah, I was paying him, but he was still doing me a gigantic favor. Plus, he’d be flying back to Cartagena alone and he’d need all the rest he could get.
I checked the GPS once again before I adjusted my headset, touched the transmit button and said, “Colon tower, this is Skylane four hundred Delta Hotel… I’m ten miles south-southeast at two-point-five with information Bravo.”
GPS meaning Global Positioning System. Information Bravo meaning I’d just checked the weather, was completely under control. At least, that was the impression I wanted to give them.
I waited for what seemed a long time before I repeated my previous transmission, adding, “Copy, Colon tower? Do you read?”
Nope, apparently not. Garret had set the radio frequency, but I checked it again: 122.8. That seemed about right. Checked the GPS again. Yep, now nine miles out of Colon and closing.
I touched the transmit button once more and said for anyone to hear, “This is Skylane four hundred Delta Hotel and I’ll be passing Colon to the south, bound for Panama City at two-point-five but climbing to four-point-five when I reach the mouth of the canal.” Said it more for any other aircraft in the area rather than the sleeping tower in the nasty little port town of Colon. Felt like adding that everyone should stay the hell out of my way, because I wasn’t much of a pilot and we were roaring into Panamanian airspace at 160 knots but at varying altitudes, and on a course that had more in common with a roller-coaster than with the normal patterns of a plane flown by someone who knew what he was doing.
Years ago, after my first required solo, our instructor had described my touchdown as, “More like a midair collision with earth than what you’d call a landing.”
But I could steer okay. In fact, I was enjoying it, because it took my mind off things I preferred not to think about.
What I preferred not to think about was becoming quite a long list…
Things I preferred not to think about: hearing Amanda’s voice through the telephone, but seeing her as a child again in that heartbreaking photo as she told me that the medical examiner had decided Frank had probably died from a heart attack that may have been catalyzed by slipping in the kitchen, cracking his head open on the counter.
Skipper, the young widow, was taking it pretty well. Maybe not so surprisingly well. She’d lost a soul mate, but gained three maybe four million in assets, not counting her beachfront home in Boca Grande.
Funeral was set for Monday.
Apparently, Frank had sprinted from the pool into the house-knocked the sliding door off its tracks, that’s how fast he’d been going. Maybe hurrying to answer the phone, she guessed. But that didn’t make sense because there was a phone near the pool. It was almost like he was in a panic. Running after something or running from something. How else could he generate that kind of force?
Part of what she said struck a chord: In a panic, running from something.
Scared to death, that’s what the medical examiner was suggesting. But by what?
I asked, “There were two weird red lines on Frank’s neck. Did the medical examiner say anything about that?”
No-and I could tell that Amanda did not enjoy having to again visualize her stepfather lying dead on the floor.
Something else was, she had a call in to the investigator Frank had hired, but no luck yet. She’d left a message.
I told her not to worry about it. I didn’t need the information anymore. Told her that I had a good lead on her mom and that what she’d probably better do was call the airlines as soon as we hung up and book a flight for tomorrow morning. The earlier she could get here, the better.
That got her excited. “You’re kidding me! Already? My dad was right, you really do have special talents.”
I wondered if my lighthearted enthusiasm sounded as contrived as it felt. “We’ll see,” I told her, and that as soon as I knew more, I’d call. Sometime late tonight, probably.
Just before we hung up, she’d said in a shy voice, “I miss you.”
A nice thing to hear, but she said it in a voice that told me she hoped to be more than a friend… which is probably why it hurt me so much.
Something else I preferred not to think about was Tuck. He’d made a big scene at Club Nautico when I told him I was leaving him behind. So drunk and drugged up that he could hardly speak, but still coherent enough to make himself the center of attention.
I’d told him that he’d find a way to embarrass me, and he had. Stood in the doorway of the marina weaving, trying to form words, and then-I couldn’t believe it-he began to weep.
I’d never even heard the man’s voice break before, but there he was sobbing, people in the bar hearing it all, but not understanding, when he yelled at me, “Why won’t you give me a chance to make it up to you! You don’t think it’s damn near drove me crazy all these years? She was my sister, goddamn it! My only sister!”
It was the first time he’d ever mentioned the death of my mother or had even acknowledged that it had happened. That’s how stoned he was. That’s how old and broken, filled with regret, he’d become.
I felt some sympathy, but not enough to take him along.
Something I didn’t mind remembering, though, was telephoning computer whiz Bernie Yager, timing it lucky enough so that he was at home.
After explaining to him where and what and why, I gave him the Internet address for Club Gamboa’s Web page. I’d copied it onto a little piece of paper before I left the Turk’s boat. To Bernie, I said, “I’ll be forever in your debt if you destroy the son-of-a-bitch. The sooner the better.”
Bernie had an evil little grin in his voice when he replied, “This whole terrible thing with Commander Richardson’s wife, it’s got the entire community talking.”
“It does?”
“They’re burning up the phone lines. Take it from me. And your fat friend? An hour from now, there won’t be a data bit left standing of his Web page. All that money he paid? Down the drain. And every time he rebuilds it, I’ll do it all over again.”
Yeah, I was enjoying the flight, feeling the little plane beneath me. Concentrate: light touch of the wheel, foot-rudder controls and a nicety of trim all keyed to engine speed. Kept my eyes moving from horizon to altimeter, checking over and over to make certain that all gauges were in the green.
We’d been at forty-five hundred feet when Garret dozed off, but I’d dropped down to the deck, twenty-five hundred, to get a better view.
What I saw beyond the flare of my own running lights was the Caribbean Sea glittering in the moonlight. Off to the left was a black hedge of coastline, no lights, no life at all. Mangroves. Had to be mangroves. I repeated my transmission twice more, no reply. Had the feeling that I was alone in the world, suspended in darkness above a revolving earth.
What worried me was, I knew there were military bases nearby. The Jungle Operations Training Base at Fort Sherman was still operating. I’d done some training there years ago: tropical billets on a 30,000-acre preserve of untouched rain forest. Magnificent. There were Forts Gulick and Davis, too, but they’d already been turned over to the Panamanians. I remembered enough from my flight training that such bases generally have restricted areas associated with them called MOAs, or Military Operation Areas.
You can’t fly through a restricted area without prior permission. To get that, I’d have to call the base’s approach frequency before entering… a frequency I did not know. So, if I screwed up, I could expect to soon see a couple of Tomcats, war lights strobing, insisting that I land so that I could have a little talk with base security.
It’s the sort of thing that inexperienced pilots want to avoid…
Ahead now I could see an iridescent mushroom t
hat had to be the big city glow of Colon. Separated from Colon by a panel of darkness was a galaxy of anchor lights at the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal. Lots of freighters and cruise ships waiting to transit.
It was still difficult for me to accept the reality that the Panamanian government had chosen the power brokers of Taiwan and Hong Kong as the canal’s major concessionaires.
China?
It gave me something new to think about. Something to take my mind off the picture that kept re-forming behind my eyes…
Axiom: Whoever controls the ports of Panama controls the Panama Canal. Accept the premise and you have to also accept the fact that, as of December 1999, it will be China. To be exact: Panama Ports Corporation, subsidiary of a major Hong Kong conglomerate.
At first, I was shocked… but then, as I flew along gazing at the lights of ships at anchor, it began to make some sense… then it made perfect sense.
It wasn’t just business, pure and simple; it was business and the politics of the coming millennium.
Most believe that the United Nations will provide scaffolding for the emerging “World Government” or “New World Order.” That’s what right-wing conspiracy kooks and leftist dilettantes preach, anyway.
Both are wrong. Unnoticed by the working public, a world government has been emerging strongly, steadily, for the last decade, and it is not the United Nations. It is a government made up of international conglomerates. These conglomerates have become the behind-the-scenes arbiters of power worldwide. Toughened by the economic expedient, they have become efficient and mobile administrators of legislation and policy. They have their own legislative and executive branches; they have their own sophisticated intelligence-gathering capabilities and their own loyal citizenry. Microsoft, British Petroleum, NEC, Canon, Toyota, Dow Chemical, Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting-of the world’s largest one hundred economies, more than half of them are not countries, they are corporations.
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