by Jim Newell
The officers gave the van about a ten-minute head start and then left the store by the front door, locking it behind them. They got into their van and after pausing to jot down the numbers of the three cars they had seen earlier, they drove without lights, slowly following the old road the cube van had taken. Hamlin, behind the wheel, cursed as he hit pot-holes and small drifts of snow as well as unexpected turns in the trail, which was about all anyone could really call this excuse for a road. He was following the tracks of the van ahead of him and that took up his total attention. Constable Meeker kept watch for the van to make sure that they didn’t get too close to it.
After about half an hour, most of it spent in second gear on a bouncing, jolting drive, Meeker called out, “Better stop, Len. He’s just up the road there. He’s stopped.”
Sure enough, just ahead, the cube van, a dark blue one with New Brunswick licence plates, was stopped. It wasn’t lighted, either, but they could see somebody digging in the snow just ahead of it. “Looks like he’s stuck in a snowdrift and he’s shovelling his way out.”
Hamlin halted the 4x4 nd the two officers got out. The startled van driver stopped his shovelling and headed for his van. “Hold it right there,” commanded Hamlin. “Police.”
The man stood still, about five feet from the driver’s door of his van.
“Anyone with you in the van?”
“If there was, he’d be out here shovelling this damn snow with me,” replied the driver with a snarl.
“Okay. Let’s see some ID.” In a quiet aside, Hamlin told his partner, “Harve, check out the van, but be careful.”
Meeker opened the rear door of the van, saw nobody, and moved to the passenger side.
“My ID is in the van. I’ll have to get it.”
“Exactly where in the van is it?”
“In the glove box in my wallet.”
“My partner will check. Look in the glove box, Harve.”
Meeker had jerked open the passenger door, stepping back immediately, and then cautiously peering around the doorframe. He found nobody in the van, as the driver had claimed. Before he could reach the glove box, the driver called, “I’ll get it. I know right where it is”, and started toward the van.
“Stay right where you are,” Hamlin ordered, drawing his gun, but not pointing it. The man saw the gun and stopped, his shoulders dropping in resignation.
“Well, well,” Meeker called. “Look what I found, Len, a handgun, and there’s a rifle like I’ve not seen before on the back seat. Looks like we’ve got an armored car here.”
“Stand against the side of the van with your hands on the roof,” ordered Hamlin, now pointing his gun at the driver. The man hesitated momentarily, then complied.
“Leave the guns there for the moment Harvey, and come pat this guy down while I keep him covered.”
Meeker checked out the driver, finding a knife with a six-inch blade in a sheath strapped to the man’s left leg.
“You’re well armed, aren’t you. Put your hands behind your back—slowly.” He complied slowly. “Cuff him.” Meeker did so. “Get in the back of the police car there while we check this out.”
The driver was safely in the rear seat of the 4x4 with the rear door locked and no inside handle on it or the sliding side doors and a metal grill separating him from the front seats. He had not said a word during the procedure.
The two officers entered the cube van and checked it out carefully. In the cargo compartment they found three large wooden boxes, empty, but obviously meant to be filled with something. The guns were loaded; both had full clips of ammunition, safeties on. The rifle was an AK47, a strange weapon for that part of the country. The only papers were the lease agreement from an auto leasing company in Fredericton and the accompanying insurance form. They confiscated the guns, took the papers and the keys, and returned to their own vehicle.
“What’s your name?” asked Hamlin.
“I’m not saying anything until I have a lawyer present.”
“You can tell us your name.”
“Not until my lawyer is with me.”
“Okay, that’s obstructing police. Who’s your lawyer?
“Haven’t got one.”
The two officers looked at each other but said nothing. Hamlin radioed the station and reported what they had found. “We’ll take him right through to Shelburne and lock him up until we get this checked out. Can you send a tow truck for the cube van? He won’t have any trouble finding it, but he’ll have a helluva job getting it towed back. Right now it’s stuck in a snowdrift. I’m going to have just as big a job getting our van turned around.”
As it turned out, Len Hamlin was correct on both counts. The towing company driver was displeased at being wakened so early, and even more unhappy when told what the call was for.
“Whyntcha leave the thing where it is ’til spring? How’m I s’posed to get down that God-forsaken road to tow out something that big stuck in a snowbank?”
“You got a contract, Chucky. Better take somebody with you to help. Bring the thing in here to the station. Have fun.” The Duty Officer was grinning as he hung up the phone.
Hamlin was not grinning as he struggled to turn the police van around. After twenty minutes of small turns and back and forth movements, almost getting stuck five times, he was finally headed in the right direction on the road. Reaching Port Saxon was a real relief, and to be able to shift into third gear and two-wheel drive for the half-hour run to Shelburne was almost real joy. There they deposited their prisoner in the county jail, charged him with illegal possession of loaded weapons, obstructing police and operating a motor vehicle without a license, assured the Duty Officer there that somebody would be back later in the day to question him, and went home to bed.
*
Sometime after one-thirty, Allison phoned the number Corporal Brock had given her and after a couple of minutes of waiting, she was transferred to another number where Brock came on the line.
“Jason, it’s Allison. I’ve been picking up some messages on Channel 88 from what sounds like fishy fishing boats if you’ll pardon the pun. I’ve got a tape of the calls.”
“Good work, Allison. We’re just about ready to take off for Rocky Island. What have you got?”
“Apparently three of them calling themselves Fish One, Fish Two and Fish Three. They seem to be hove to and have given each other their lat and long. Fish Three keeps calling Helen of Troy, but he doesn’t get any answer. Fish One just said they should wait another two hours.”
“Great. Just what we want. Give me the lat and long and I’ll pass it on to the sub commander.”
Allison gave him the three different latitude and longitude positions the fishing boats had stated. “I plotted them on the chart. They’re less than ten miles apart,” she said.
“Wonderful. You’ve done a great job. Stay with it. The number you called is the duty desk at Maritime Naval Command headquarters. If you get anything more, ask for Lieutenant Commander Aylwine—that’s A-Y-L-W-I-N-E—and he’ll know what to do with it. How’s Toby doing?”
“Jason, I haven’t seen Toby for hours. He hasn’t slept all night or all day unless he’s been dozing down on the shore. He’ll be frozen.”
“He’s tough, Allison. Don’t worry. We’ll be there in an hour and he can go to bed and sleep the clock around.”
“Not likely. You don’t know my husband.”
Toby had napped off and on, and he was fairly comfortable, out of the wind behind his big boulder. He was actually asleep when he was suddenly jolted awake by the sound of the lifeboat being lowered from the davits once again, only this time he could see what was happening. There was no sign of the submarine. He figured that it must have submerged when the fog began to lift. In the lifeboat he could see a man wearing what appeared to be an officer’s uniform and four rowers. The officer was carrying a rifle. As he watched, they cast off and started rowing in a direction that was going to take them to the west, but then they turned, followi
ng the shore line.
“They’re going around the island,” he thought. When they disappeared from sight, he crawled out of his hiding place and ducking low, he scuttled along the pathway to follow the boat, taking pains to keep out of sight. After an hour of following the lifeboat’s slow progress around to the northwest side of the island, he understood that they were planning to come ashore not far from the house. He left the trail and ran to hide himself in the small shack that housed the Zodiac. He took the safety off the shotgun, checked to make sure there was a shell in the firing chamber, and waited.
*
The instructions the First Mate had received from Captain Braun were to go ashore and see whether anyone lived there and if so, kill him and bring the body to be dumped overboard when the Helen of Troy freed itself from the reef. The Captain was certain in his own mind that such an eventuality would happen. He had no idea that the whereabouts of his ship was known, that a Canadian Naval submarine was within a mile of him or that his vessel was irretrievably grounded on one of the most notorious reefs in the area. He did know that he was on Rocky Island. When the fog lifted and he could see the lighthouse beacon flashing the Morse signal RI, the Second Mate had finally figured out the location.
The First Mate had set off on his manhunt with some misgivings, but he knew better than to disobey Braun’s orders. He finally made out the landing place and instructed his crew to go as quietly as possible into the small cove. There they beached the boat and got out, cautiously looking around. He decided to attack the house, figuring that at such an early hour, anyone there would be sleeping. He had no idea that the whereabouts of the ship were known or that a man with a shotgun was tracking his own location. He carried his rifle in both hands, ready to lift and fire if necessary.
When they had passed the shack, Toby stepped out behind them and in a loud voice commanded, “Drop the gun and raise your hands.”
All five whirled in surprise and the Mate lifted the rifle as though to shoot. Toby, already aiming for the man’s legs, pulled the trigger and a load of buckshot tore into the legs of the man with the rifle. He fell hard, screaming, the rifle flying off to one side. Toby pumped the shotgun, ejecting the cartridge and moving another into the chamber.
“Anyone else want a load of buckshot?” he asked in a hard voice.
The four Filipino crewmen stood with their hands in the air, obviously frightened. The First Mate continued to scream in pain.
“Lie down on your faces, hands behind your back,” commanded Toby. “Now! Quick!”
The four responded as fast as they could.
Allison had heard the gunshot and came flying out of the house.
“Toby!” she yelled.
“It’s okay, Allie. One man’s shot, I need some rope to tie up the other four. I’m okay. Can you get some rope, please? Fast?”
Allison was back in about five minutes with a couple of lengths of nylon quarter-inch rope. While Toby held the gun on them, she stood to one side of the men lying on the ground, and tied up their hands. The fifth man was still yelling in pain. Toby walked forward and stood over him.
“Shut up—now—or I’ll make it so you can’t yell.”
That worked.
“Toby honey, I was so scared when I heard that gunshot. The RCMP will be here any minute. An hour ago, Corporal Brock told me they’d be here in about an hour.”
Even as she spoke, the sound of a helicopter could be heard. In a couple of minutes a big Air Force chopper landed on the pad and a dozen Mounties, armed with rifles, jumped from it. The two crewmen wrestled a Zodiac from the side door of the aircraft after the police had exited, and four of them carried it to the water’s edge beside the lifeboat.
Toby quickly briefed Kellerman, in command of the police raiding party, on what had happened. The Staff Sergeant asked Allison if she would phone the Transport Canada office in Yarmouth and ask them to send their helicopter with a doctor and a policeman to take the five men still on the ground back to Yarmouth. She hurried off to the house. Brock replaced the ropes with handcuffs and asked Toby where they could be locked up until the second helicopter arrived. Toby suggested the storage room in the lighthouse, since he had to go there and turn off the light. He volunteered to stand guard.
“Great.” Brock ordered the Filipinos to carry the wounded Mate to the lighthouse, and removed their cuffs while they carried out the operation. When they were safely handcuffed again and locked up, Toby stood guard outside the room while the RCMP went about their business.
“The sub has left to pick up the fishing boats.” Kellerman explained the messages Allison had heard and passed on. “So we’ll be doing the boarding. Can we borrow your Zodiac because ours won’t hold everybody?”
“Be my guest,” replied Toby. “It’s government property. The tide is in and you ought not to have any trouble getting right up to the ship.”
The police were on the water in fifteen minutes, heading back around the island toward the Helen of Troy, Kellerman in charge of the lead boat, Brock in charge of the second.
CHAPTER NINE
In his New York office, Nicolai Antonelli was angrily talking on the telephone to Manfred Koch. “Where the Hell is that damned vessel?”
“I don’t know, Nicolai. In Canadian waters somewhere, due to be at the rendezvous point today or tomorrow as far as I know. Why? Hasn’t he been reporting in?”
“We haven’t heard from him for three days or more. No word. Nothing. What’s the matter with that German you hired for Captain? Is he competent?”
“Very competent. Something must have happened to his radio system.”
“As long as nothing happened to the boat. He’s got a two hundred and fifty million worth of cargo on there. Georgio lost two hundred and fifty million on the last trip. How much can I afford to lose? And there’s another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“How come you didn’t know that Georgio was ripping us off by selling one container on each trip to some creep named Gonzalez operating out of New Brunswick with fake fishing boats from Nova Scotia? How come you didn’t know that? Do I have to find out everything for you? That’s your job. Or are you working with Gonzalez too and getting paid from both of us?”
Antonelli was very angry and without yelling, his tone of voice made his mood very clear to Manfred.
“Gonzalez? Never heard of him. He must be a small time player.”
“A third of fifty million is more than sixteen million, and that isn’t what I would call small time. How come you didn’t realize the full cargo wasn’t getting to Newfoundland? Good thing I have accountants working for me who can keep track of things.”
“Nobody at the Newfoundland end told me they were getting short changed. They probably thought that what they got was all that was available.”
“Well I want to know who this Gonzalez is and I want him taken out of the picture. Understand?”
“You want me to do it.”
“Whaddya think I’m talking about it? That kind of job is what I pay you to do and I’m not satisfied with the return on my money. Now get busy. Keep me informed about what’s going on.”
Antonelli slammed down the phone and continued to sit and fume. For his part, Manfred Koch poured himself a stiff drink from the bottle in his desk at the warehouse office of NA Transport and began to make some plans for travel.
*
Captain Braun had heard the shotgun blast but not the screaming of his First Mate. He mistook the gunshot for that of the rifle shot, never realizing that somebody on the island might have been lying in wait for his men. He grinned to himself with satisfaction. He didn’t hear the grumbling of his crew, either. Smuggling was one thing. Murder was another. They were not happy.
Within a few minutes, the Captain’s mood changed abruptly when he heard and then saw the Air Force helicopter. He couldn’t believe his ears and his eyes.
“Sie wußten! They knew! They knew all along! Get the drugs out of the hold and throw them ov
erboard,” he yelled. The crew was slow to react. They were as dumbfounded as he was by the chopper’s arrival. Their slowness caused the distraught captain to scream all the louder in a mixture of excited German and English, and the louder and more excited he got, the slower they were to understand and move. They were just beginning to remove the forward hatch cover when the helicopter suddenly flew over the ship and hovered about a hundred and fifty feet above the deck.
“Ahoy Helen of Troy,” came a voice on a loud hailer. “Your ship is under arrest. Prepare for a boarding party. Do not—I say again—do not attempt to jettison cargo.”
The message was repeated and the crew abruptly ceased work on the forward hatch cover. Captain Braun screamed at them in German and English to follow his orders. The crew ignored him. In a few minutes the two Zodiacs came into view and Kellerman was calling for a ladder to be lowered over the side. The helicopter had moved off to the starboard side so the wash from the rotors would not hamper the boarding party.
After the second time Kellerman gave his order for a ladder, a rope ladder came over the side of the ship and the police began climbing up to the deck after making the Zodiacs fast to the ladder. Finding the captain, Staff Sergeant Kellerman placed Braun under arrest, telling him that he was charged with smuggling illegal drugs into Canada, with endangering his ship without reporting the trouble and conspiring to commit murder of a Canadian citizen. The Captain was handcuffed to a section of the rail near the rope boarding ladder where an armed policeman stood guard. Braun continued to protest in his excited mixture of German and English until he finally got the message that nobody was listening to him. Dejectedly, he watched what was happening and simply waited for the inevitable.