Titan Trilogy 3.5-Black Soul

by T. J. Brearton

  “Marshal hired us. Give him a call, if you like. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. He’ll vouch for us.”

  Penninger was nodding though his face betrayed conflict.

  While they were talking, Hanna had been poring over the log book. “Lots of dives,” she said.

  “Yes, we get in a lot of diving. Actually, that’s just for tauchsport.”

  “Tauchsport?” Hanna asked.

  “That is the German word for skin diving.”

  William’s request for a tour — and his statement about the missing girl — was still hanging in the air. He gazed out the open windows at the freshwater pools and the dock extending into the cove.

  “Okay,” Penninger said, “Let’s do it.” He grabbed the sunglasses William had picked up. “You want these?”

  “Please,” William said, pulling out his Euros. He had brass knuckles in his pocket, but sunglasses he hadn’t packed.

  * * *

  A group of four divers had gathered in one of the freshwater pools with an instructor giving them a lesson on using their breathing regulators. William watched as they submerged, bubbles popping on the surface.

  Jodi Penninger led them across a beautiful deck, with diagonal patterns that buzzed the eyes. Penninger had put on a white shirt and left it unbuttoned.

  “We have two fiberglass boats, one for twelve divers, another for eight. Each of them will do two to three dives a day, depending.”

  The boardwalk at the water’s edge was supported by a scree of rocks. Several boats were tied to the long docks spearing out from the boardwalk.

  William walked to one side of Penninger, Hanna on the other. “Depending . . .?” she asked.

  “Well, if we have the divers who want to go.” He took them down one of the docks towards a bobbing boat, smaller than the others. “This is the Zodiac.”

  The boat was an inflatable, with a rigid hull, thirty horsepower engine.

  “This was the boat that Rene Sterling was on for her last dive,” Penninger said.

  Speaking her name aloud seemed to create a darkness in the brilliant surroundings.

  “I’m not sure I understand the difference . . . she wasn’t doing a scuba dive?” William asked. He was thinking of the picture with Rene in the full gear — tank on her back, breathing apparatus in her hand, smiling for the camera.

  “Well, she was working on her diver certificate, yes. But we use the Zodiac primarily for tauchsport. Skin diving is just mask, snorkel and fins. Scuba uses tanks, so deeper dives, and we offer the Brevet’s school of training here, up to the professional level.”

  “So she was doing this while she was training for scuba,” William said.

  “That’s right.”

  “How many days was she here? At your facility?”

  “She was here for three days, I think. It takes the average person three days to complete diver certification. We do four open water dives, one, one and then two the last day. In the meantime, lots of them, like Rene, like to do tauchsport.”

  “And so where did the Zodiac take her the last day?”

  Penninger pointed toward the ocean’s horizon. “She dove Magdalena’s Paradise, and the Garden of Eden.”

  Hanna stared out from the end of the dock, asking, “What are those like?”

  Penninger grinned for the first time since greeting them. “You want to give it a try?”

  Hanna smiled and kept looking over the vast sea. Glittering and endless, it seemed. “Maybe.”

  “The Garden of Eden is our house reef. Channels start at six meters along untouched coral gardens towards the wall. You’ll see crawfish, moray eels, big groupers, barracudas and queen-angel fish.”

  “All the coral, huh? That’s their home.”

  “Totally.” Penninger stepped beside her. William thought the man was getting more of his surfer swagger back. “Just an absolute abundance of corals. They provide shelter for a huge variety of fish. The Eden dive is a treasure trove. Sometimes you might even see something bigger out there. Rene loved it.”

  William sidled a little closer on the dock. He didn’t like the way Penninger’s shoulder was rubbing against Hanna. “Anything unusual about Rene? Was she a fast learner? A risk-taker? Anything?”

  Penninger turned to William, both men’s eyes hidden behind their sunglasses. “She was very smart,” he said, losing the flirt in his tone. “I would say she had an adventurous spirit, but, most of our divers do. That’s why they come down here. That’s why they do it.”

  William was impressed that Penninger remembered so much about Rene Sterling, when he saw as many divers in a week as he did — hundreds of them. But the previous police visit might have stirred his memory. Or, something else had.

  Penninger spawned a fresh smile and turned to Hanna again. “What do you say, huh? I know this is a serious matter, but, hey, maybe this helps your investigation? You see what she saw? We can have you suited up, out there at the reef and diving and back here to the docks in two hours.”

  William squinted into the distance where the water was darker, more azure. “What’s that out there? It’s another wreck?”

  “Yeah. Wrecks are a big part of diving here. So there are two here, at Dixon’s Cove. That one ran aground in 1971, carrying lumber. Or, marble, depending on who you ask. Scavengers have picked off most of the metal. And then there are the planned wrecks.”

  “Planned wrecks?”

  “The Odyssey, the Prince Albert, El Aguila — they’re all over the island. Planned wrecks for scuba diving. You open the seacocks, the water fills in, down goes the ship.” Penninger turned towards the island. “You’ll get to see one if you’re still here this weekend. First one in more than ten years.”

  William glanced at Hanna, who seemed lost considering her potential sea adventure. He asked Penninger, “What does that entail? A planned wreck?”

  “Oh it’s a huge deal. I’m surprised you didn’t know about it.”

  William dismissed this little barb, and Penninger continued, “Big parade usually, big celebration. We’re really trying to open up the whole island to tourism, so this wreck will be the furthest east yet.”

  William scanned the horizon, then his eyes drifted to the moored boats. One at the far end was called the Banzai. Suddenly he’d had enough of boats and diving talk. “I’m going to sit it out,” he said. “I’ll look around Coxen Hole with Mateo, see what I can find.”

  Hanna nodded absently, like she was already exploring the coral in her mind.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Carol O. McNab Sr. Maritime Terminal was within walking distance. The ferry was boarding as William and Mateo headed over. Mateo blotted his perspiring skin with a handkerchief.

  “The ferry goes to La Ceiba, on the mainland,” Mateo said.

  William watched as the passengers boarded the two levels and an upper deck. Galaxy Cruiser was painted near the bow, and Safeway Travels emblazoned on the side. The windows surrounding the main deck were tinted. The thing looked sleek.

  “This is the only ferry?”

  They stopped at a railing overlooking the cove and the ferry. “Yes,” Mateo said. “It takes seventy-five minutes to get to the mainland. You can see Utila as you travel.”

  Before leaving the hotel, William had studied a map of the Bay Islands. “What about the little islands — Gayo Cochino Grande, Menor, and Cayo Chachahuate?” He hoped he was saying them correctly.

  “No, the ferry does not go there. You can only get to those islands by private boat.”

  “There’s something there, though?”

  “Cabaňas Laru Beya. It’s just a little grouping of bungalows, a small resort.”

  “Who owns it?”

  Mateo turned, scowling either at the question or in the bright sun. Mateo wasn’t wearing sunglasses. “Who owns it? Mr. Cohen owns it.”

  The ferry was closing its gates. Passengers on the deck were grinning and waving to people onshore. Most of them were white tourists. William thought h
e glimpsed one of the Rastafarians from the café. He searched for the woman who’d been talking to them. He didn’t see her in the crowd.

  “Alright.” He glanced at his watch. “Hanna is supposed to be done in two hours. Give me the grand tour. Show me the sights.”

  “If you say so,” Mateo chuckled.

  * * *

  They drove back west along the Carretera Principal road, passing by Jenny’s Lusty Lizard. Near the airport, they encountered a traffic jam. A man trying to sell a dead chicken came up to the car and Mateo shooed him away.

  Once the traffic cleared they came into Coxen Hole, passing a pharmacy — Farmacia International. Mateo talked as he drove. He seemed happy to have company, someone to share his knowledge with. In Honduras, he explained, like a lot of places in Central America, a person could buy far more drugs than were available over-the-counter in the States or Europe. You could buy valium. You could even buy antibiotics, a fact contributing to their growing ineffectiveness by overuse.

  William wondered if Rene Sterling had gotten any kind of OTC drugs. He’d asked for a list of her expenditures, but she had no credit card and her last debit transaction had been on the mainland three days before her disappearance, when she’d withdrawn a mere $200 US. William had got this information from her father — Sterling had access to his daughter’s bank account. William wanted to delve more into their relationship, and would tonight when they met him for dinner.

  “The supermarket can exchange US dollars for Lempira,” Mateo said as they passed the Plaza Mar, a three-story powder-blue building. “But US dollars can be used in most places around the Bay Islands. Also euros.”

  Rene might’ve stopped to change money anyway, William thought, and there would be a record of that. He made notes of the places he wanted to revisit after the tour.

  Coxen Hole was a sizeable city, a mixture of wealth and poverty. They drove through a section with shanty homes and narrow dirt roads.

  “Can you get guns here?”

  Mateo furrowed his brow. “You can get just about anything you want in Coxen Hole.”

  William understood. Even in paradise, darkness was around the corner. And that was the point; maybe Rene Sterling had found it. Or it had found her.

  “Crime is bad in the city?”

  Mateo shrugged. “It’s bad here, yes, can be. Can be bad east on the island, too. Many places, like here, are especially dangerous at night.”

  “I read about a Canadian murdered here last year.”

  “For a cell phone, yes.” Mateo shook his head mournfully. “That was at La Cueva. Bar back in through there.” He pointed a bony finger at the dirt streets.

  William made a few more notes. They were coming up on the Hospital Publico as they headed down Thicket Mouth Road. After it, they passed a small building with Church of God on the sign. The church was pure third-world, the chapel just a shack. The mission house behind it was no better, ensconced in the jungle. William realized this was the Honduran Mission Outreach. He was ostensibly affiliated with the non-Denominational Evangelical Church, on the island’s westernmost tip. Rene could have been a part of either, or none. He scribbled a note and decided to bring it up with Sterling.

  He also reconsidered the police. In Russia, Reznikov had alluded to the police protecting certain political and moneyed interests. Here, everyone from Mateo to Cohen and Sterling wrote the police off as inept, possibly corrupt, too. But this was still a missing person’s case, no evidence yet of trafficking. The police might know something of value.

  They reached the Welcome Center, a small compound of three buildings no bigger than the Church of God chapel. Across the street, the ocean stretched to the horizon. The coastline here was not groomed as beaches, but the surf lapped against containment walls and tangles of underbrush. Three massive cruise ships were anchored in the Port of Roatán, hulking in the misty distance.

  “Let’s stop at the police station,” he told Mateo.

  Mateo raised his eyebrows, but didn’t object.

  As soon as he’d said it, William felt the creep of anxiety. Local police were one thing, but law enforcement was a network. The US government had funded the enormous naval base on Guanaja, one of the neighboring Bay Islands. He was still a wanted man in the US. A fugitive.

  It was as if he’d just decided to enter the belly of the beast.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mateo found parking and they left the vehicle and entered the small police building. According to Mateo, there was only one other police headquarters on the island, just over the Coxen Hole hill on the north side of the island. The entire island was nearly forty miles long. It was over a hundred square miles for law enforcement to cover. William thought about how much ground he needed to cover himself — he’d been here for three hours and so far had only seen a fraction of the island.

  Rene could be anywhere. She could be on the island, she could be long gone. His gut tended to side with the latter. But her father was adamant she had no financial means other than her bank account. $200 US was not enough to buy a plane ticket anywhere. A ferry ride to the mainland, certainly. But beyond that, it was anybody’s guess.

  Mateo pushed open the door. “After you,” he said. Mateo let the door close, remaining outside.

  A middle-aged female officer was seated at a table. There was no front desk, just three other tables like hers, a small kitchenette with a coffee maker and a sink. William saw one computer in the rear, a boxy old Dell.

  The woman was wearing camouflage fatigues and the name embroidered on her pocket was Conchella.

  She smiled at him. “Hello. Help you?”

  He took off his sunglasses. “Hi. My name is William Chase. I’m with a missionary program, Samaritan’s Purse.”

  She remained smiling, waiting for him to say what he wanted.

  “We’ve heard about a missing young woman, Rene Sterling. And we’re hoping that we can . . . help to augment the investigation.”

  The smile faded, but her eyes stayed fixed on him. “Was she part of your church?”

  “No, not that I know of. We just want to help. I’m here for a few days, and I thought I would make some inquiries. On behalf of the family.”

  Now her expression became grave. “Ah. Mr. Sterling. Yes, he calls every day.” She had a beautiful lilting accent, but she was clearly frustrated. “We’ve assured Mr. Sterling we’re doing everything we can.” Every-ting we can. She folded her hands in front of her. “But, Mr. . . .”

  “Chase.”

  “Mr. Chase. It’s been a long time since the girl went missing. People go missing here. We’ve contacted the Embajada Americana in Tegucigalpa on behalf of Mr. Sterling, and we’ve told him this. We’ve listed her with barriozona, and Interpol is aware of the situation.”

  Interpol has thousands of missing persons’ reports on file, William thought. Most of them had to do with the “migrant’s route,” the infamous trek thousands made every day from Central American into Southern Mexico. Criminal opportunists saw the migrant’s route as an endless supply of potential prostitutes, drug mules, and organ suppliers. It was a nightmare, and Interpol was up to their eyeballs in it.

  “I understand,” he said to Conchella. “But maybe if Sterling feels more comfortable that we’re looking into it, maybe his daily calls will stop.”

  She seemed to consider this. She glanced out the window, perhaps glimpsing Mateo, who remained by the car, smoking. Then she got up and walked to a closet at the back of the room.

  The cramped space was packed with paperwork. It looked disorganized, yet she was able to pull a file from a metal cabinet fairly quickly.

  She returned to the desk and invited William to sit.

  The file was thin, with a poor version of the scuba picture, as if faxed or printed from a black and white printer. He set this aside and looked at the chain of events the police had compiled, listing the dates of her arrival, and where she was registered as a guest. Arnold Sterling had his daughter’s bank statements, but
she’d been using cash to pay her way, so he’d had no record of where she’d stayed on the island. This was a step in the right direction: according to the police, Rene’s last lodging was in the French Harbor, at the Clarion Suites. She had checked out thirteen days ago.

  William pointed at the listing. “You’ve been here?”

  Conchella crossed her arms and leaned back. “Yes, Mr. Chase. The young woman was there for four days. After that, we don’t know.”

  “And you checked all the hotels on the island?”

  She only stared for a moment. “No, we did not check every hotel, or rental, or residence on this entire island.”

  William nodded, avoiding her sharp eyes. So for two days after the Clarion, Rene was MIA, but still on the island. She could have spent those nights anywhere. Could’ve gone against local advice and erected a tent on the beach with her friends. Or shacked up with someone. Like this Deon, maybe. Then she had disappeared.

  Sterling knew when his daughter had reached Roatán, and had a picture of her in La Ceiba, on the mainland, boarding the ferry. Now William had knowledge she’d been at the Clarion for four days.

  William flipped past the Clarion Suites receipt and found what he was looking for — a list of Rene’s kin, and the last people she was seen with. Sterling had a list of Rene’s friends, but William wanted to check it against the police file.

  “Can I make a copy of this?”

  Conchella was giving him a funny look. Her mouth had curled into a subtle smile. “You are a missionary, huh?”

  He blushed, but maintained his cover. “That’s right.”

  She gathered up the file and stood up, still looking at him with that bemused expression. She crossed to where the computer was, beside it the fax machine and a small printer/copier. She placed the documents on the glass surface, one at a time.

  “I don’t need the photos,” he said. “I have them already.”

  She stared at him, still half-smiling.

  Like everyone else, she was probably thinking about the cuts on his face. And surely she’d noticed his missing finger. The bane of his life, that hand.