the Viking Funeral (2001)

by Stephen - Scully 02 Cannell

  He glowered at Jo-Jo Knight. "Your people maybe got rhythm, but you got no timing? I'm gettin' flat arches out here, waitin'." Rosario turned and led the way through the service area and down a narrow corridor that was filled with laundry hampers.

  They ran out the back door to where a car was parked. Jo-Jo got behind the wheel; the Cuban opened the back door and they piled in, then the car pulled out and headed across town.

  Shane held Alexa's hand, squeezing it hard, afraid to let go. He couldn't believe he was sitting next to her again, couldn't believe she was alive and back in his life.

  Her room was on the beach at the Divi-Divi Resort Hotel, on the outskirts of Oranjestad. Luis Rosario and Jo-Jo Knight took cover positions where they could watch the front and back of the hotel. Alexa opened her suite, then she and Shane entered.

  Once the door was closed, she turned and they kissed again. Finally she pulled away, reluctantly.

  "Fun as this is, we don't have much time," she said, still holding his hand. "I'm sorry for what we did to you, Shane. It wasn't fair. I didn't want to do it, but the DEA-SAC in L. A. insisted. Tony finally had to go along."

  "Good old Tony."

  "Don't blame him. He didn't want to. Sit down, I'll fill you in." She led him to the bed where they sat side by side.

  She looked into his eyes and began her story. "After you didn't report in, we went to your house. We saw blood on the kitchen floor, the broken screen and window in the bedroom. We knew you'd been kidnapped. Tony picked me up and we had a meeting in his office. Right about then, the Questioned Documents Division broke the number code on the logbook we found in Mark's safe. It was Medwick's account of how the Vikings were formed, how all five of them were removed from the city payroll records. You were right. The whole experiment was set up under Deputy Chief Mayweather."

  "There were six of them," Shane said. "Jody, Tremaine Lane, Victory Smith, Lester Wood, Hector Rodriquez, and some Hispanic cop they killed and buried up in Oxnard."

  "The records say only five. There's no mention of anybody named Tremaine Lane..."

  Shane thought about that for a minute, and a new idea started to form, but for the moment he filed it. "Okay... Go on."

  "The whole parallel-market thing was in Mark Shephard's logbook, including the Fortune Five Hundred companies, Aruba--everything. It was undoubtedly written before Jody decided to go bad and take over Leon Fine's business. Once Jody made that decision, like you suspected, he had no choice but to kill Medwick and Shephard because they knew what the Vikings were working on. Chief Filosiani notified Washington and brought in a Treasury SAC from the L. A. office. Once those guys were aboard, everything started to play like a James Bond movie."

  "Those two feds outside play more like a Cheech and Chong movie."

  "They were Chief Filosiani's picks. He worked some joint-ops cases with them when he was in New York. They're best friends, and good guys once you get past the constant ethnic ribbing."

  "I shot you with a Black Talon," Shane said. "How could you have survived that?"

  "Remember those paintings in Chief Brewer's office?"

  Shane nodded.

  "He sold them to get new equipment. Flack vests."

  "Yeah."

  "Well, they weren't just ordinary vests. It was brand-new body armor designed at the Pentagon. They're level-three tech vests, called Ultimas, capable of stopping anything, including Cop Killers, Teflon loads, armor-piercing stuff--the works. Tony was afraid that Jody would switch guns on you, so he had me fitted for one as a precaution. And then, to make it look real, he got a friend of his, a Hollywood special-effects man, to rig a blood squib and give me a bladder full of cow blood. I had a pump I could squeeze down on under my arm."

  "Why? Why would you do that? I was so fucked up, I almost--"

  "I know... I know... I guess that was sorta my fault. I told them you thought Jody could read your thoughts. Then the Treasury SAC began to wonder if you could pull it off. He felt if you believed you really killed me, your reaction to my death would be more authentic. Your life was at stake, so Tony and I finally agreed. But when we lost you after the shooting, our plan got totally scrambled. We didn't count on a helicopter being in that hangar. We didn't think we'd completely lose contact with you. When we didn't know where you were, the DEA decided we had to put on a full media funeral... Because that's what would have happened if I'd really died two days after winning the MOV. They were afraid that if Jody was in L. A. and it wasn't a big media deal, he would know it was all bullshit, and he might kill you. We didn't know where you were, so I sat home and watched my own funeral on TV."

  "And Chooch?"

  "I told him. I forced them all to let him in on it. I couldn't let him think you'd killed me and gone bad. It wasn't fair. Buddy knows, too."

  "For whatever it's worth, they were right," Shane said. "Jody told me he probably would have suspected something if I hadn't been as screwed-up as I was."

  She nodded, then went on. "We knew that the Mantoors were part of this because it was all in the logbook. We hoped you would eventually show up in Aruba, so I came down here with Luis and Jo-Jo and we waited. This morning, when that jet pulled up at Mantoor Aviation and you got off, my heart broke, baby." She put her hand over his. "I could see how far down you'd gone. Sometimes I can see inside your head, too. Maybe I can do it even better than Jody. I knew you were close to the edge, so I begged them to let me contact you, and Tony agreed. He finally just overruled that tight-ass Treasury SAC in L. A. and did it without their approval."

  "You were almost too late."

  "I was waiting in your room, with Rosario watching Lisa, hoping she wouldn't come back before you did."

  "I'm sorry about Lisa, I--"

  "Shhh," she said softly. "You thought I was dead. You don't talk about Lisa St. Marie, I won't talk about Mark Shephard. We'll mark it down as history and move on. Fair enough?"

  "Fair enough."

  "I love you, sweetheart," she said softly. "I can't tell you how bad I feel about the way this went down."

  "It's okay... It's okay. It's over now. I have you back."

  "But you've got to go. You can't be missing for too long."

  "I need a gun," Shane said. "I had to lose mine."

  "Here..." She opened her purse and handed him a Spanish automatic. It was a 9-millimeter Astra with a short barrel and an eight-shot clip. Shane chambered it and stuck it into his ankle holster. "I've only got one spare clip," she said, handing it over to him. Shane stuck it in his back pocket.

  They stood up. "Hold it," she said. "I almost forgot something." She reached into her purse and handed him a bottle of pills.

  He looked at the label: "Blood pressure pills?" He said as he unscrewed the bottle top and rolled one little white tablet into his palm. "What's this for?"

  "It's not a pill. It's a satellite-tracking device; a satellite transmitter with microcircuitry. You take it as soon as you leave port. It lives inside you and broadcasts your position. I don't want to lose track of you again. It'll pass through you in twenty-four hours, but hopefully this whole thing should be over by then. That thing will tell us where you are within a yard."

  "You're kidding me."

  "Your tax dollars at work." She smiled. "The Frisbees have great toys. Now, get going. I don't want Jody looking for you, asking questions. We're less than twelve hours from the takedown. We'll save our reunion till then." She got him up off the bed and led him to the door.

  He turned to face her. "Alexa, wait... There's something I need to ask you first."

  "No time."

  "No, I need to ask you now."

  He pulled her closer.

  "When I thought you were gone, it seemed like my life was over. Now I can't let you go without asking." He took a deep breath. "I love you. Will you marry me?"

  She stood before him for a long moment, tears welling in her eyes. "Of course I'll marry you, you idiot. What took you so damned long to ask?" She kissed him. The kiss lasted almost
a minute, and when it was finally over, she pulled him back into the room and led him over to the bed where she pulled him down.

  "I thought there was no time." Shane teased.

  "Changed my mind... Female prerogative."

  She made slow love to him, and in that moment came Shane's redemption and resurrection.

  In that coupling, he was reborn.

  Chapter 38.

  MARACAIBO

  So, WHERE THE fuck is he if he's not in his room?" Jody asked angrily, looking at Tremaine Lane, Lester Wood, and Shane. But mostly he was glaring at Shane.

  It was ten past eight in the morning; the black Mercedes SUV was a few feet away in the porte cochere with the trunk lid up and their canvas bags already inside. Eric was standing nearby, watching.

  "You're asking me?" Shane said. "Since when am I in charge a'that steroid case? Like you advised, I'm giving that asshole all the room I can."

  "Victory knew the Subu Maru was set to leave at eight. We're already late."

  "We could split up and go lookin'," Sawdust drawled, not putting much energy into the statement.

  "Okay, scout around; we'll meet back here in ten minutes," Jody said.

  While Tremaine, Lester, and Jody took off, looking for Victory, Shane went to the reception desk.

  "I gave the concierge a letter to mail for me last night," Shane said. "I changed my mind about sending it. Has it gone out yet?"

  "Yes, sir. The mail left an hour ago."

  Shane nodded and saw a Caribbean guidebook for sale. He picked it up, peeling off five U. S. dollars.

  "How come I get the feeling you're not telling me everything, Hot Sauce?"

  Shane spun around and found Jody standing right behind him.

  "I really love this..." Shane said as his mind suddenly filled with the vivid image of Victory lying dead in the surf, his dark brain contents washing around in the light surf.

  "You're thinking about some shit swirling around in the water," Jody said. "What's that all about?"

  It was frightening how he did it. Shane forced his thoughts away, forced them on nothing... A trick he had perfected when they were kids.

  Jody straightened up, and his expression changed. "It's gone," he said softly.

  "Victory Smith is your problem. You wanna know how I feel about him going missing? I feel great. The guy was an unguided missile. Somebody probably did us all a favor and pulled his drapes."

  "Papa Joe wasn't fooling about this Santa guy. He's an Argentine fugitive, a political terrorist, and he could be big trouble for us. We need Victory. He might be nuts, but he gives us a comfort zone."

  "We should forget him and get moving."

  Eventually, that's what they were forced to do.

  Jody talked to them on the dock just before they boarded the ship. "I don't know what kinda bullshit we could be facing, so I got Sandy to score us some better firepower." He handed each of them a brand-new Polish MP-63 9-millimeter machine pistol. The weapon was compact, with a flip-down grip and retracting stock. Then he handed each of them two forty-round clips. The machine pistols fit easily into their gym bags. "If we get jumped by the whole town, we're pretty much fucked, but at least we'll take some greasers with us."

  The Subu Maru pulled away from the Mantoor Duty-Free dock an hour past schedule. Its mostly Venezuelan crew gathered in heavy, oil-stained mooring lines as the gap widened between the freighter and the dock.

  The old Caterpillar engines clanged into reverse, and the ship creaked in protest as the stern made a slow journey back and to starboard, pulling the ship away from the wharf.

  Jody was on deck, somewhere aft as the bow of the Subu Maru swung slowly around and was now pointing toward the mouth of the harbor.

  The breeze was ten knots on the stern and the slow-moving ship just managed to make up the difference, leaving them engulfed in a tropical stench, fouled by its own diesel smoke.

  Then they cleared the jetty and were out of the harbor in a light following sea, the slow-turning propellers churning up a white wake, pushing them toward the southwestern horizon and Maracaibo, thirty miles away.

  Shane stood at the rail feeling so content that even the clogging heat and stink of the ship didn't bother him. He was grateful to whatever divine force had prevented him from pulling the trigger, until Victory saved him for Alexa, Chooch, and their future together. Only yesterday at this same time he had felt empty and used up; now Shane was overcome with excitement and expectation. All he had to do was stay alive for one or two more days.

  And that reminded him...

  Shane reached into his pocket and took out the bottle containing the white transmitter pill. He unscrewed the top, then looked at his watch: 10:15 A. M. He shook the pill into his hand and was about to pop it into his mouth when Lester Wood materialized at his side.

  "Got a cold, pard?"

  "High blood pressure," Shane said as he popped the pill into his mouth and dry-swallowed it. He showed Sawdust the prescription bottle.

  Woods looked at the label, then handed it back. Shane threw the bottle into the sea.

  "Guess what?" Sawdust said.

  Shane didn't answer but kept his eyes on the horizon.

  "While I was out lookin' for Victory, I heard that some soft-drink vendor found a body up on the beach real early this morning. The corpse was buried in the sand."

  "Why tell me?"

  "I hung out down there and listened to them bean-eaters shootin' the shit. Kinda got the gist of it. The way they were talking the stiff was a big, ugly guy, lotsa muscle, flowered shirt, tattoos, American. Sound like anybody we know?"

  "To these islanders all Americans look big and ugly."

  "Appears this guy got on the wrong end of a corpse-and-cartridge party. Course, I didn't see the body, but they say he was built like Schwarzenegger. Tell me this don't sound like our own anabol-slammin', iron-pumpin' steroid case."

  "Lotta big guys with muscles down here."

  "I ain't making no accusations, Hot Sauce, but all them anabolics was makin' Vic buck real close t'the ground. I think maybe he finally came after ya, forced ya to burn some powder. But like I say, I'm not losin' no sleep over it." He paused, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a tin of chewing tobacco. "Course, Jody might see it differently."

  "Is this a threat?" Shane said softly.

  "A negotiation." Sawdust took a pinch of Skoal and put it into his mouth. "With Victory dead... That means we only got us a four-way split now. I'm thinking this information might, could stay between just the two of us."

  "How much?"

  "With Victory outta the mix, that means the fifteen mil now only gets divided by four. That makes each share worth three point seven-five mil, give or take a pony. I'm thinking, you kick back a mil to me. With Victory's cut thrown back in the pot, you still walk away with almost three million."

  "You've got no proof," Shane said. "Your word against mine."

  "Yer right... But we ain't in court here, pard. This ain't about proof, it's about anger and paranoia. Jody's stressed. Takes one phone call to the Mantoors back in Aruba. Dandy Sandy checks the body, finds a Black Talon parked in Vic's head, and you're in a heap a'grease, pard."

  "Okay," Shane said softly.

  "Good goin'." Sawdust was smiling, swaying with the rolling deck, his Ray-Bans kicking moving spots of tropical sunlight up and down Shane's face. "Nice tradin' time with ya." Then he spit a line of tobacco juice over the rail into the ocean before ambling off.

  An hour later Shane could see the faint outline of the Peninsula de Guajira, which made up the western end of the Golfo de Venezuela.

  Ninety minutes later they were steaming into the Straits of Zapara, which narrowed until they were in the spacious Bay of Tablazo, passing anchored freighters flying hundreds of different flags, each one waiting for its turn to offload cargo at the main dock.

  Amazingly, the rusting Subu Maru steamed right past all of them, heading straight to the front of the line. Shane mused that drugs cert
ainly had their place in the Latin American scheme of things.

  The huge Venezuelan shipping port of Maracaibo loomed on all sides as the Subu Maru groaned and moaned, then jockeyed her ugly bow toward the dock, first in slow forward, then slow reverse, backing down on the port engine, straining to pull her canoe stern up to the concrete wharf. Commands were shouted angrily in Spanish over the loudspeaker from the bridge. Monkey-fist knots that gave weight to thin strands of nylon line were heaved overboard by sweating deckhands and hit the dock, where other men in blue overalls grabbed them and pulled hard, dragging the heavy oil-stained mooring lines they were attached to ashore. The heavy lines were then hooked to dock cleats, winched tight, and spring lines were set.

  The growling engines on the Subu Maru were finally shut down, but loud dock sounds immediately replaced them. Cranes hummed and men shouted in Spanish.

  They were in the Venezuelan portion of the Aruba duty-free zone. The Vikings were about to embark on an insane journey that none of them had bargained for.

  Chapter 39.

  TRUCKIN

  TREMAINE LANE AND Lester Wood stayed with the cigarettes while Shane and Jody found Paco Brazos in the shipping office on D Dock, where he was getting their cargo manifests logged in at the duty-free desk. A uniformed Venezuelan Customs inspector was banging his rubber stamp on countless egress forms without bothering to read them. Next to him was a uniformed Colombian colonel with shoulder patches that read EFECTIVOS DE COLOMBIA. Despite his nonresident status, the colonel seemed to be in charge of the trans-shipping of their cigarettes.

  "Son segurosy " he said sharply, indicating a stack of import invoices.

  The Venezuelan Customs official nodded and kept stamping the forms furiously.

  Paco finally glanced up at Jody and Shane. "You have nice the travel?" he said in his broken English.

  "If you don't mind choking on diesel fumes," Jody answered.

  "We go soon. Customs, she all fix, no?"

  "What about the other San Andresitos?" Jody asked. "Hernandez, Sococo, and Randhanie. Aren't they supposed to be here to take delivery?"