The Informant

by James Grippando

  “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “Really? The truth is, if Frank Hannon hadn’t gotten out of prison and murdered ten people, I don’t know if I ever would have told you.”

  He paused for a moment, then reached across the table and touched her hand. “If you had believed our marriage was strong enough to survive it, you would have told me. Keeping the secret isn’t what made our marriage weak. I had a little something to do with that.”

  They exchanged a long, warm look. “Thank you,” she said.

  He nodded, then smiled wryly. “That’s quite a trick—when a guy can get a ‘thank-you’ for screwing up his marriage. I also do lifelong friendships and extended families, if there are any of those you’d like busted up.”

  She threw her wadded napkin at him, smiling as she shook her head. “That’s the problem with you, Posten. You take life too seriously.”

  They talked well past the lunch hour. The phone rang at two-forty-five, just as Mike was loading the dishwasher. He answered in the kitchen.

  “Victoria,” he said, loud enough to let Karen know who it was. She was sponging off the table and stopped in midswipe. “Are you actually making good on your promise to call me before CNN?”

  Her tone was strictly business. “I just wanted to reiterate what I said this morning. Please don’t print anything about Hannon, the serial killings or your informant. It’s extremely important.”

  “You already told me that.”

  “But now it’s more important than ever. We’re in an extremely delicate situation. Anything you write could set Hannon off, jeopardizing the lives of agents and civilians.”

  “If you’re asking me to put public safety over the public right to know, I think I have a right to know what I’m balancing.”

  She sighed, struggling. “I’m sorry, I can’t give specifics. All I can tell you is that Hannon doesn’t know it yet, but we’ve got him cornered. Anything you put in print could tip him off or provoke him.”

  Just then, Mike heard a long, low-pitched background noise over the line, like a bassoon in the distance. He winced with confusion. Where the heck is she calling from?

  Her voice was suddenly nervous. “I have to go. I hope I can count on you.”

  His mind raced as he hung up the phone. Karen stepped quietly into the kitchen. From the look on her face, he could tell she’d overheard the conversation.

  “Something big is going down, isn’t it,” she said.

  He nodded. “They’ve got Hannon cornered.”

  “Where?”

  “She wouldn’t say. But—” He stopped himself in mid-sentence. His expression changed, as if something had just hit him. “It was a ship’s whistle.”

  Her faced scrunched with confusion. “What?”

  “I heard a noise in the background while we were talking. It was faint, in the distance, but it was definitely one of those obnoxious horns from a ship. I think she was calling from a seaport.”

  “So?”

  “So, where do you think they have Mr. Hannon cornered? We know he was in Antigua, because that’s where he killed the guards. He’s eager to get back to the United States, so he can continue his search for the informant. Victoria says they have him cornered, and I just heard a ship’s whistle in the background. Right now, I’ll bet he’s on a ship heading for the States.”

  She shook her head, confused. “Why would he come by ship?”

  “Antigua’s over twelve hundred miles from the United States. It could take a month in a little sailboat, and flying would mean having to deal with airport security.”

  “What kind of ship, though? Freighter? Cruise ship?”

  He stopped to think. “Freighters are slow, and it’s not exactly easy to know where they’re headed. A cruise ship, as we know, is more his style. Some of them hold over two thousand passengers, so it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. And security is nowhere near as tight as it is at the airport. The Tribune did a feature story a couple years ago, on how illegal immigrants come into the United States on cruise ships. One retired customs inspector estimated there were hundreds, every week. And it’s no small wonder. When the ships stop in their ports of call, you don’t even need a ticket to get back on. All it takes is a pass and a hand stamp, which you can get on the black market pretty easily. On some ships, the only passengers who ever got their passports checked were the ones who voluntarily presented themselves at the immigration desk onboard. The INS flat out admitted to us that it didn’t have the resources for full dockside inspections.”

  “You think he jumped a cruise ship in Antigua?”

  “Possibly.” A sly smile came to his face. “If we jump on the Internet, I bet we could even figure out which one.”

  “You nerd. I swear I’m gonna get you a pocket protector.” She smiled, then led the way to her office and switched on the computer. They watched as the colorful logo for America Online filled the screen. Karen typed in the keyword CRUISE, which prompted a big color photo of a cruise ship and a menu with several choices. She clicked on CARIBBEAN ITINERARIES.

  “Yikes,” she said. “Look at ’em all.”

  “There can’t be that many departing from Antigua.”

  Karen scrolled down the list. “You’re right. There aren’t any. The only port of origin not on the U.S. mainland is San Juan, Puerto Rico. I see some with Antigua as a port of call, though.”

  “He wouldn’t take any of those. Think about it. Two bank guards are murdered in Saint Johns. Some guy hops ship in the middle of a cruise, going one way, back to the United States. He might as well strap on a lightning rod. If I’m Hannon, I’m looking for a cruise that originates in the Caribbean. That way I can just board right along with two thousand other passengers.”

  “Let’s see, if we eliminate everything out of Miami…Fort Lauderdale…New York.” The list shortened with each click of the mouse. “Still, fourteen ships originate out of San Juan.”

  “I’ll bet most of those just circle the Caribbean. Hannon needs one with at least one port of call on the U.S. mainland.”

  “There can’t be very many of those,” she said, scanning the screen. “Here’s one: Pacific Princess. Originates in San Juan, goes through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles. Thirteen days.”

  “Too long,” said Mike. “Besides, look at the sailing dates. Right now it’s on its way from LA to San Juan. It doesn’t sail back to California for another eleven days. What else is there?”

  She scrolled down further. “Just this one. Roundtrip from San Juan. Sails northwest to the Bahamas, then to Key West, around Cuba to Grand Cayman and Jamaica, then back to San Juan.”

  They looked away from the screen and locked eyes, sharing the same thought. “So Hannon boards a round-trip cruise from San Juan,” he said pensively, “then gets off in Key West and never comes back to the ship.”

  “From there, it’s straight up U.S. 1 to wherever he wants to go.”

  “What’s the name of the ship?”

  With a click of the mouse, Karen brought a close-up image of the ship on the screen. Its name stretched across the stern in bold red letters: MS Fantasy.

  Mike stared at the screen, seeming to imagine the killer somewhere deep inside. “Print it.”

  She pushed a button, and the itinerary printed out, along with the ship’s tonnage, capacity and vital information. Mike read as the paper curled from the printer.

  “Well,” said Karen, “what are you waiting for?”

  He looked up from the printout. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s your story, isn’t it? Don’t you want to be there when they arrest Hannon?”

  His mouth fell open, unsure what to say. Regrets came to mind over the way he’d rushed off to Aaron Field’s house to argue over his probation, the last time he and Karen had seemed to be getting back on track. “I think it’s more important that I stay here.”

  “Please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve been a wonderful husband the last couple of days. Don�
�t spoil it by shooting for sainthood.”

  He smiled. “Okay, if that’s the way you feel about it. But the ship’s in the middle of the Caribbean. How would I even get there?”

  She switched off the computer. “If we’re right, Hannon won’t try to make a run for it until he hits Key West. You could fly to Nassau tonight, maybe try to board when the ship stops there tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s a total long shot. I could get all the way on the ship and be wrong.”

  “Do you think you’re wrong?”

  He thought for a moment. “No. I think he’s on that ship.”

  “Then go.”

  “You really want me to?”

  She nodded. “You earned this exclusive. And there’s not a person on earth who can call it checkbook journalism.”

  His heart swelled, as if he suddenly had something to prove. He did a half-turn, then stopped short and looked back at her. His expression was warm, but serious.

  “I love you.”

  She blinked, a little surprised. “I can’t remember the last time you said that in three words, instead of four.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not usually the one who gets to say, ‘I love you, too.’”

  They exchanged smiles, then he “knocked wood” on his forehead as he headed for the door.

  Chapter 48

  at 3:30 that afternoon the sun was shining down brightly on the Miami seaport. From the Pool Deck of the cruise ship MS Rhapsody, the sister ship of the MS Fantasy, Victoria took in the view of the Miami skyline across the bay. Downtown Miami had essentially erupted in new construction since her early childhood memories of “Freedom Tower,” the classic old skyscraper due west of the port that had served as a processing center for Cuban refugees back in the sixties. The tallest buildings were now to the south, at the mouth of the Miami River. From a fifty-five-story glass-and-granite peak, the cityscape sloped steadily downward like a mountainside, as if its most undesirable elements couldn’t help but slide to the crime-ridden areas on the north side of town. From the deck of a cruise ship, however, even the north side looked beautiful, as Victoria’s eyes settled on the imposing waterfront headquarters of the Miami Tribune. The irony of the moment intrigued her. She could practically wave to the reporters rushing around the fifth-floor newsroom, yet none of them had a clue that the biggest story of the year was happening right under their nose. Unless, of course, Mike had figured it out.

  The ship was moored in its usual slot, facing east, toward the Atlantic, directly behind one of Carnival Cruise Line’s floating hotels. The MS Rhapsody had just returned from a nine-day cruise to the Virgin Islands, and up until an hour ago the crew had been preparing for the next voyage. It was deserted now, save for a team of ten FBI agents and forty-eight-year-old Bill Odoms, the cruise line’s director of security.

  Odoms had the look of a tough ex-cop, someone whose first job in “security” had been as a bouncer at a bar in college. He wore a police academy ring on his right hand and a Rotary Club pin on the lapel of his navy blue sport coat. His hair was thin and combed straight back, but when the breeze blew it revealed a sunburned scalp. The tinted lenses in his gold-framed glasses had darkened in the sunlight, obscuring his eyes and a good part of his face. Still, Victoria could sense the intensity of his stare as he spoke to the group of agents.

  “The Rhapsody is virtually a carbon copy of the Fantasy,” he explained. “It’s just two years older, and its home base is Miami, rather than San Juan. At ninety thousand gross registered tons apiece, these two beauties are our megaships. To give you a point of reference, the original Queen Elizabeth went into service in 1940 at eighty-three thousand gross registered tons. Our ships, however, have things you didn’t even see in hotels back in 1940. There’s a seven-story atrium lobby, fourteen passenger elevators, a fiber-optic lighting system and a twelve-thousand-square-foot health club. It has eleven hundred cabins, two double-deck dining rooms with full ocean views, a double-width promenade that completely circles the ship. Almost fifty percent of the seven hundred ocean-view cabins have private verandas with glass balustrades for unobstructed ocean views.”

  “What are the basic dimensions?” asked Shapiro.

  “Nine hundred feet in length, a hundred twenty feet in width. There are twelve teak-planked passenger decks, with the highest at a hundred and forty-five feet above the waterline. The very top of the funnel is two hundred ten feet above the waterline.”

  “What’s the cruising speed?”

  “Twenty-one knots.”

  “Is there any difference in floor plan between the two ships?”

  Odoms shook his head. “Everything you see here this afternoon is exactly the way you’ll see it on the Fantasy. The only difference, of course, is that you’ll have close to two thousand passengers and nine hundred crew aboard. And I want to reemphasize: Their safety is my primary concern—even if it means that your serial killer escapes.”

  Shapiro nodded, as if to reassure. “This is not designed as a Rambo operation. Our goal is simple: identify the suspect, watch him, and then arrest him only when we can get him in an isolated situation. If all goes well, he won’t know what hit him until the cuffs are on his wrists. We’ve kept the team relatively small so as not to tip him off. The last thing we want to do is force him to take a hostage. If something does go wrong, however, we have all the talent and fire-power we need. Victoria spent five years in hostage negotiation before joining our serial killer unit. If it becomes a life-threatening situation, we have some of the finest men from the Hostage Rescue Team—kind of the ultimate SWAT team within the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group.”

  Odoms was deadpan. “I still don’t see why anyone needs to board before it’s in port. The ship arrives in Nassau in twelve hours. Seems to me you could all just board then.”

  “In twelve hours Hannon could spook and get off for good in the Bahamas. With seven hundred islands in an area roughly the size of Connecticut, he could disappear forever. We can’t take that chance. Only five of us are boarding at sea; the rest will board in port. Believe me, we’ll do it in a way that won’t raise an ounce of suspicion.”

  “Just bear in mind that gunfire isn’t good for business.”

  “Ninety-nine percent of what we do, let alone talk about, is purely precautionary. But if we do reach a worst-case scenario, I need to know the best place on the ship to place my sharpshooters. If he’s running down the hall from point A to point B, my team needs to know how to get there before he does. So—if you will, please: Let the tour begin.”

  Odoms sighed, seemingly uncomfortable. “Follow me.”

  He led them past the pool, speaking to Shapiro. The rest followed behind in groups of two and three. Kevin McCabe, a sharpshooter and HRT squad leader, ambled up alongside Victoria. She vaguely remembered him from years ago, at the Miami office. He’d distinguished himself in the drug enforcement squad, with a bumper sticker on his desk that read SO MANY COLOMBIANS, SO LITTLE TIME. He was about her age, the thick-necked and square-jawed type that didn’t appeal to her. He was smiling and chewing gum with his mouth open.

  “So,” he said with a cocky toss of the head, “I hear you and Mr. Hannon had an interesting little anatomy lesson at the airport.”

  A look of concern crossed her face. It hadn’t taken long for the “penis” talk to circulate. “What about it?” she said flatly.

  “Nothing,” he said, still smirking. “I just thought that, under the circumstances, I should get your permission before going for a head shot.”

  “No problem. If you want to shoot yourself in the head, women everywhere will be rejoicing.”

  Two men behind them chuckled at the rejoinder. McCabe’s face reddened with anger.

  “Very funny,” he snapped. “But when this creep puts a steak knife to some babe in a bathing suit, you’re gonna beg me to lead the charge.”

  “Easy, McCabe. You’re just backup. No one takes out Hannon unless we have to.”


  His stare tightened with intensity, and his tone was deadly serious. “Got news for you, sister, this animal isn’t about to walk peacefully off the Love Boat. He’s smart and, remember, he’s got nothing to lose.”

  She blinked hard as he walked ahead, but her gut wrenched with a sinking realization that McCabe was absolutely right. A hostage negotiator’s book of “favorite phrases” wasn’t going to bring in Hannon. Only force was likely to do that.

  Chapter 49

  from an altitude of eleven hundred feet, the MS Fantasy looked like a toy boat cutting across a beautiful blue carpet. Peering down from the Coast Guard HH-60J Jayhawk helicopter, Victoria could see why its sister ship was nicknamed “Rhapsody on Blue.”

  Victoria was strapped in the rescue swimmer EMT’s jump seat in the rear compartment with McCabe, who was posing as flight mechanic, and two other members of the Hostage Rescue Team. David Shapiro was in the cockpit beside the Coast Guard pilot. The five agents were dressed exactly alike in dark blue jumpsuits, flight boots and metallic blue helmets. An embroidered patch stitched on their right arm identified them as members of EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES—AIR LIFT. On the floor behind Victoria lay a gurney cart covered with white sheets and blankets. Beside it was a red-and-white cooler marked HUMAN BLOOD, a silver tank marked OXYGEN, and a small red “crash cart” for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which looked like a tool chest rigged with an IV pole and a Hewlett-Packard cardiac defibrillator.

  Shapiro glanced back over his shoulder to catch her eye. He gave her a “thumbs-up” as the helicopter eased back on its cruising speed of 160 knots and began its descent.

  The pilot’s monotone suddenly crackled over the radio implanted in her flight helmet. “Coast Guard HH-60 Rescue 37 with five crew from OPBAT ready to rendezvous with MS Fantasy for medevac.”

  As the ship grew larger, Victoria noticed scores of passengers on the decks looking up and pointing at them. She checked her watch. Right about now, she figured, a message was being broadcast throughout the ship, assuring passengers not to be alarmed about the “medical emergency.”