Crude Carrier (2 page)

II

The following morning, while Raiford was going through the notes and documents once more, Julie tried to reach Bertram Herberling. He hadn't answered when she had tried earlier, and this time was no different: the line clicked to a recorded message asking that the caller leave a message. She finally dialed a different number, expecting a similar result. But she was surprised by a human voice, “Ahern Investigations. Percy Ahern speaking.”

“Percy—this is Julie Campbell in Denver.”

“Julie! The dream of my heart! When are you going to quit working for that slave-driving father of yours and join me in the most fabulous city in the world?”

“Business must be fabulously slow if you're in your office.”

“Naw—I'm catching up on accounts, is all. So much income, so little time to count it. This is, I hope, a social call?”

“No.” Julie told him about Rossi, Herberling, and the nonexistent Detective Sergeant Kirby. “We haven't been able to reach Herberling yet, and I'm not sure if you can do anything for us, Perse. But it's your turf and I thought I'd call. Any thoughts or suggestions? Is Herberling reliable?”

“Herberling's okay. I worked with him and his partner a couple years ago on a maritime insurance scam. What's his partner's name … ? Mack—that's it: Stanley Mack. And Herb gave a talk at an association meeting last year on security for port facilities. Your cop, I don't know about, but I agree it smells. It's pretty obvious somebody wants to know what Herberling told you.”

That was what Julie and Raiford thought, too. “Any idea why Herberling would be interested in Rossi's death?”

“Just what he told you: looking for any pattern of faulty maintenance or poor seamanship that would reduce the insurance award on that other boat. Let me see if I can locate him—I'll try to get back to you soon. Billable time or courtesy?”

“Billable, for a change.”

“Then I'll definitely get back to you soon.”

Raiford moved from computer to telephone. Rossi's first ship, the MV
Helena Georgiou
, had been listed in an online shipping directory as a combination break-bulk and containerized cargo liner with a rated speed of 18.2 knots and deadweight of 14,439 tons. Owned and operated by the Langerfield Lines of Baltimore, it was of Panamanian registry and made scheduled calls at ports between Rio de Janeiro and the east coast of the United States south of Cape Hatteras. It was due to berth in Savannah, Georgia, at 22:00 hours 2 October, pier 3. Communication was via radiotelephone and short wave. No telex, no e-mail.

The radiotelephone operator put Raiford through to a woman who answered, “Bridge,
Helena Georgiou
, First Officer Steinfurth speaking.”

He explained who he was and what he wanted.

“Rossi? Died at sea? Sorry to hear that.” The woman may have been more sincere than Captain Boggs, but she sounded equally unsurprised. Seafaring was one of the world's most dangerous occupations.

“Did he correspond with you or any friends aboard ship?”

“Not with me. I wouldn't know about any friends in the crew. Not likely, is my guess.”

“Why's that?”

“Hands sign on and off at every port. And most don't speak English.”

“He was a hand? Not an officer?”

“He was a rating. Made able seaman a few months before leaving ship. Came on as seaman apprentice—a deckhand—and moved up fast. He was a hard worker and a quick learner. But he was not an officer.”

“He was a third officer when he died.”

A long pause. “Well, he left ship over a year ago. In Jacksonville. Maybe he took the exam after leaving.”

“Is it usual for an able seaman to move to another ship as a third officer?”

“Hell no. Not on a union ship. Officers start out as cadets. Go to the maritime academy for four years like I did, or come in through the Naval Reserve. Even if he did pass the exam, he'd have had to serve as a cadet aboard a ship before he could make third. And he was not a cadet on the
Helena Georgiou
.”

“So his promotion was unusual?”

Officer Steinfurth hesitated. “Officers' certifications can be bought. But if the insurance underwriter finds out about it, you can kiss your coverage good-bye.”

“I'd appreciate your asking if anyone in the crew knew Rossi—and have that person call me collect. His ship owners won't provide any information about his death.”

“What company's that?”

“Hercules Maritime. Rossi was on one of their tankers—a VLCC.”

“I've heard of Hercules Maritime. I wouldn't work for them.”

“Why?”

“Purser runs their vessels. They buy secondhand ships, hire at minimum wage or less. When the rust bucket starts to cost more than she can make, they have a fire in the hold.” A snort. “And I've heard they don't look too closely at certifications. Which could be the way Rossi did it.”

“They lost a ship a few months ago. The
Golden Dawn
.”

“Was she one of theirs? I'm not surprised. You ought to query the Seafarers International Union, then. If Rossi was a member, they'll have an investigation into his death. If he really was a third mate, he probably joined the MMP—the Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union.”

“Will you please call if you hear of anything else that might help? Collect, of course.”

“Sure.”

He was logging in the operator's statement of time and charges when the telephone rang again. But it wasn't First Officer Steinfurth calling back.

“Raiford—Ahern here. I was hoping your lovely Amazon of a daughter would answer. What have you two stepped in, my lad?”

“Your wife will tell you that you're too old for my lovely Amazon, Perse. And what do you mean ‘stepped in'?”

“Bert Herberling. I'm in the office of one of New York's finest who would very much like to become better acquainted with you.”

“A policeman? Why?”

“A homicide detective. Somebody killed Herberling.”

III

Raiford grunted as he pressed the bar of the weight machine. Beside him, her red Stanford sweat suit streaked dark, Julie bench-pressed her own weight—148 pounds—with a long, steady inhale. Across the gym, a woman in Lycra walked rapidly on a Nordic machine, electric blue legs and arms swinging with the quick rhythm of her bronze-colored ponytail. Friday afternoons were scheduled for heavy workouts, but this time Raiford's mind was only half concentrated on his reps. He let the weights thud heavily, his eyes resting on the electric blue movement. But his mind wasn't where his eyes gazed.

“What exercise are you contemplating now?”

Julie's voice brought his thoughts back to the present, and he grinned. “Aesthetic appreciation only.”

Patting a towel at her face and neck, she studied the woman. “Her hair's the same shade as mom's was.”

“Yeah.”

“I sometimes glimpse women who remind me of her in some way.”

He nodded and pushed hard at the weight machine.

There were times when they could talk of her mother, when they would share memories of her humor, her wisdom, and those family stories and quirks of character that defined her uniqueness. But there were also other times, Julie knew, when a sudden memory could become a sharp pang. Those moments were the isolating ones—the ones that defined loneliness.

“It's been a long time, Dad.”

Raiford understood his daughter's meaning and shook his head. “It would be hard to find what we lost, Julie.”

“Mom wouldn't want you to be lonely.”

“Being alone isn't being lonely, sweetheart. Perhaps in time …” He shrugged.

Which closed that topic almost before it was opened. Julie sighed and turned to the day's events. “There has to be some kind of tie, Dad.”

Between Herberling's death and Rossi's. His daughter's mind worked like his own. He nodded as much at that idea as at her comment. The only explanation for the telephone call from the phony cop—possibly Herberling's murderer himself—was that he was trying to discover what his victim might have told Julie. But though it was a mantra they had chanted over and over, it hadn't led to much enlightenment.

“Well, we know Rossi wasn't a member of any American seafarers' union.” His name had not been listed in the Masters, Mates, and Pilots roster, nor in that of the National Maritime Union. In fact, the representative of the NMU had very curtly told Raiford that a high rate of deaths and accidents was to be expected when owners refused to hire experienced union labor.

“When I talked to Mrs. Rossi this afternoon, she told me they had no idea he was studying to become a ship's officer. They had been very surprised when he moved to the
Aurora
,” she added. “In fact, they didn't even know he'd left the
Helena Georgiou
until he called and told them about his promotion and the new ship.”

It was Raiford's turn to sigh: time to come clean with Julie. Despite her mental agility, she did not like surprises, especially any that held the odor of subterfuge. Neither, Raiford admitted to himself, did he. But the idea and opportunity had come too quickly to discuss it with her, and both had been busy on the telephones. “While you were talking with Mrs. Rossi, I had a call from Herberling's partner, Stanley Mack. He's taken over Herberling's investigation of Hercules Maritime. He told me that the electronics officer on the
Aurora
is due for leave, and that its insurance requires a replacement for him while the ship's under way.”

“So?”

“So electronics officers are hard to recruit because VLCCs spend so much time at sea. And a two-week replacement is harder because it doesn't pay much.”

“So?”

“So for short stints they often hire people who might not know much about seamanship but who know electronics.”

“So?”

“So … I told Mack about my background in electronics and computer science. He says he has a good chance to put me aboard the
Aurora
as a supernumerary.”

“You told me you hate ships!”

“It's only two weeks.”

“You said they're too cramped for a man your size. They make you claustrophobic.”

“Two weeks. And Mack's pretty upset about his partner's death, partner. He's sure Marine Carriers will go along with it. They want to pursue the
Golden Dawn
investigation.”

“But you would be alone, Dad—no backup, right? And no way off that ship if there's trouble, right?”

The cardinal rule of undercover work was to always have a backup and to always have a way out. “It's expenses and two thousand a week plus the supernumerary pay,” said Raiford, adding, “And Mack is also offering a five percent contingency fee on the
Golden Dawn
claim if I find anything that he can use in court. That claim, Julie? Remember? Five million dollars?”

She thought about five million dollars.

“Five percent is two hundred and fifty thousand.”

That was the sum her math had reached, too. “Two weeks?”

“Two weeks' paid vacation: adventure on the bounding main, the romance of the sea!”

“You want two weeks of romance on a boat with sailors bounding on the main?”

“Well, no, that's not what—”

“How do the New York cops feel about Mack poking his nose into a murder?”

Raiford shrugged. “They're going with the theory that Herberling was killed in the course of a robbery. His wallet and watch were missing; the petty cash box was empty; the desk drawers, safe, and files were rifled.”

“Mack doesn't buy that theory?”

“He says his partner would have handed over his wallet, watch, and anything else the gunman asked for, including the file on the
Golden Dawn
—which was pretty messed up, by the way. Herberling was a firm believer that things can be replaced but lives can't.”

“A messy file and a willing attitude don't add up to much. Why does he think the death has anything to do with the
Golden Dawn
?”

“He thinks the wallet and watch were taken to throw the cops off. Says Herberling liked to carry his cash in his side pocket—where it was found—and his credit cards haven't been used. A robber would have cleaned all his pockets and cashed out as many cards as fast as he could. Plus, the only case Herberling was on was the
Golden Dawn
. Finally, there was that call from the fake cop asking what Herberling told us.”

“Where's the
Aurora Victorious
now?”

“In the Gulf.”

“Well, Florida's not too far …” Something in his expression warned her. “Which gulf?”

“Persian.”

“Dad, that's halfway around the world!”

“I can bring you back some exotic gifts.”

“I can get exotic on East Colfax Avenue.”

“Two weeks, Julie. And it could mean a lot of money.”

IV

Including the layover in Frankfort, the Lufthansa flight from Denver to Qatar took twenty hours. Even in the business class seats that Raiford's long legs demanded, he was cramped and restless. Between meals and movies, his mind drifted in and out of sleep, back and forth from the meeting with Stanley Mack at JFK Airport to that last quiet evening with Julie.

Despite their attempts to be upbeat and businesslike, the farewell dinner at Barolo's had been subdued. Though they both accepted the dangers of investigating people who did not want to be noticed, their talk kept drifting from the items she would cover in his absence to silences that hinted at the risks Raiford could face. The appeal of danger, Raiford had once told his daughter, was one of the reasons for creating Touchstone Agency. It had brought him out of a dark period in his life.

Five years ago, Raiford had found his thoughts still dominated by memories of his dead wife as he stared at the snowy mountains beyond the window. The contract he was supposed to be drafting lay on his desk, and the feeling that he was deeply tired of practicing law, tired of paperwork, tired of doing what he had been doing while his wife gradually weakened and finally died in sedated numbness from pain, emanated from it. So tired, in fact, that he had been careless in drafting the contract and his client had suffered damages. Raiford had been given his choice of retiring from practice or being fired and embarrassing himself and, more importantly, the firm. He quit and spent a month immersing himself in search of some work that might take his mind off the past and focus his days and thoughts on the present. What he found took him back to his interest before law school: electronics and their use in industrial security. The Touchstone Agency was born and Raiford's new career brought him back to life. In time, it also offered focus for his daughter, whose marriage and newspaper job had both failed in the turbulent collapse of the economy.

This sea adventure, however, was a new and large step—isolating Raiford among potential enemies—and despite efforts at lightheartedness as Raiford and Julie dined, their conversation kept turning to the murder of Bert Herberling and to grim stories told by other detectives who had lost friends.

No such sentiment had pervaded Raiford's meeting with Herberling's partner, Stanley Mack. “I've told the chief executive of Marine Carriers what we want to do, Mr. Raiford. He does not want any ties between you and Marine.” Mack, a short, nondescript man with thinning mousy hair, asked, “You all right with that?”

Raiford assured Mack that was the case.

“Okay. There's nothing unusual in undercover work aboard ship. In fact, a lot of owners hire a spy among the officers to report back on how a captain runs their vessel. So don't be surprised if people are a bit suspicious of you. You'll be a fifteen-day replacement for the electronics officer, a third mate by the name of Reginald Pierce.” He laid out papers to be signed. “Here's your contract.”

Some paperwork that was only slightly shifty, a crimp—a recruiting agent—who, surprise, surprise, was willing to take an extra fee for a discreet service, and Raiford became the temporary employee of convenience. The first contract authorized a hefty percentage of Raiford's pay to be deducted from his first, and only, paycheck for something called Insurance and Personnel Investment Costs. The second was almost identical with the one signed by Rossi, except that none of the paragraphs had been lined out. Apparently, electronics personnel rated more TLC than the navigation ranks. Raiford was named supernumerary with a rank equivalent to third officer (Electronics), and appointed on a fifteen-day contract.

Mack explained that Raiford would not be required to sign the Ship's Articles; cadets and supernumeraries were excused from that ritual because of the special nature of their duties. The Ship's Articles, which superseded a seaman's general contract, only applied to regular hands. They spelled out what a crewman's workload would be, the watches he would stand, the deductions for clothing, special services, and commissary items to be drawn from his pay. The use of Ship's Articles was, Mack told Raiford, the standard way crews of convenience were hired, and was necessary because each ship had differing requirements and offered differing amenities. It also saved time in labor negotiations since a sailor could not sign the Articles until he was aboard ship—and usually under way and out of sight of land. The term “shanghai” wasn't used, Mack said, but the result could be the same.

“It all depends on how much freedom the owners give the shipmaster to deal with his personnel, and how willing the master is to give benefits to his crew.”

“What about the master of the
Aurora Victorious
?”

“Boggs? I haven't heard much about him. The directory lists his master's ticket as awarded by the Pacific and Orient line in 1990. He's generally qualified for any type and all sizes of vessels, with additional qualifications to command vessels that haul hazardous cargo.”

“That's good?”

“Oh, yeah. P&O's a well-established fleet. Old-time. They don't give anyone command unless they think he's thoroughly qualified.”

“But Boggs left them.”

“It may not have been his choice. In the nineties, a lot of companies reduced their fleets and cut back on their long-term charters. My guess is Boggs, being junior, lost his ship in that reduction.” He explained, “A big tanker's going to cost around thirty thousand dollars a day just sitting there, so you don't want them idle. Many oil companies own about sixty percent of what sea transport they might need at full capacity. When oil demand drops below that sixty percent, companies sell off part of their fleets—usually the older vessels—and lay off crews. When it picks up, they hire from independent fleets until they decide whether to build and crew their own new vessels. In really hard times like the last few years, even the independent fleets like P&O cut back on vessels.” Mack added, “If that's what happened, Boggs was probably damned happy to find any ship, even one owned by Hercules Maritime.”

“Did Rossi sign a contract with his recruiter, too?”

“Probably. And from what you tell me, the crimp probably set him up with his mate's ticket, as well. For an additional wad of cash, of course.”

“Any way I can find out who Rossi's crimp was?”

“Without his recruiting contract, it'll be hard. Every port in the world has crimps.” Mack frowned. “Any idea where he boarded the
Aurora
?”

“His parents thought it was the Gulf of Mexico.”

“That might be something—VLCCs can't call at many ports. I'll see what I can find out.”

“I'd like you to send copies of everything Herberling had on Hercules Maritime to my daughter, Julie Campbell. She's covering the office for me while I'm gone: the
Golden Dawn
files, the
Aurora Victorious
—whatever. And the name of Herberling's contact at Marine Carriers.”

Making a note in a small black book, Mack said, “I'll FedEx it today.”

He then gave Raiford a list of the officers on the
Aurora Victorious
, as well as the ship's schedule, its primary means of communication—e-mail, fax, and Inmarsat—and the Ocean Region Codes and Ship ID number, promising to include the same information in the packet to Julie. “If you need to use the ship's radio, here's the frequency for Marine Carriers Worldwide. They monitor twenty-four/seven, but call only if necessary.”

“Cell phones don't work?”

“Depends on where you are. Close to shore, they may. Offshore, probably not.” After a pause, Mack added, “If you get in trouble, it could take as much as forty-eight hours to fly someone out to you.” He leaned back on the hard black plastic of the lobby seat and studied Raiford's face. “Don't forget what happened to Bert. He was a good man.”

Raiford nodded. “I'll try to find out if there's any connection.”

“You're going to be pretty much on your own.”

That had been his daughter's comment, too, and he answered it the same way. “I've been there before.”

If Raiford was going to be on his own, it would not be at busy Doha International Airport. Signs in English and Arabic advertised Marriott, Sheraton, Hertz, Alamo, and other familiar names and welcomed English-speaking travelers to the “Gateway to the Arabian Gulf.” Proof of a visa, crew status, and sufficient funds cleared him through immigration. A turbaned Sikh held a card with his name. With a “Welcome, sahib,” he carried Raiford's bags to a Mercedes-Benz taxi. The temperature, Raiford read, was 40°C and humidity was at 24.1 percent. But the abstract numbers did not prepare him for the impact of the heat. Blinking against the glare, he settled into the air-conditioned taxi as it swung through the busy streets and past the soaring modern office towers of Doha into a countryside of flat, almost treeless sand and rock. To the nasal wails of Middle East music from a CD, the taxi lurched down a strip of glaring, heat-shimmered concrete. Some 40 kilometers later, instead of following the highway toward the commercial port of Mesaieed, the vehicle angled onto a bumpy tarmac road. “Landing boat come here—closer to ship.” A cluster of flat-roofed, concrete block buildings huddled under the sun. Beyond them stretched the silver gleam of the Persian Gulf. The national flag, maroon with a serrated white band, drooped on a flagpole.

A guard wearing a checkered headdress and carrying an automatic weapon—it looked suspiciously like an Uzi—read over Raiford's letter of appointment and studied his passport photograph. Then, expressionless, he raised the gate, let the taxi pull to the front of one of the squat buildings, and disappeared back into his air-conditioned sentry box.

The driver lifted Raiford's two canvas suitcases from the trunk. “Please to wait here for boat,” he said and held out a chit to be signed and a hand to be filled. As the taxi's diesel engine pinged up mottled sand and wind-scoured rock, Raiford began to feel isolated.

The sun pressed on his head and shoulders, but the sense of real heat came from the close, woolly air. It withered his nose and throat into scratchy flesh, and he could feel sweat running like ants down his back and under his arms. From the sand, additional pulses of heat rose up through his shoes to make him shift from one burning foot to the other.

“Here, mate—come inside before you're toast.” A bony splinter of man wearing a brightly flowered shirt opened the door of a long, almost windowless building and leaned out into the glare. “You're the new man for the
Aurora Victorious
, right? I've called her for you. The launch'll be here in a bit.”

Raiford breathed with relief in the air-conditioned half-light of the large, barrackslike room.

“Bleedin' hot, 'specially if you ain't used to it. And this is the beginning of the cool season. This here's the landing lounge—welcome to use it whenever you come through. No whiskey, though. Arabs don't like it. Have to bring your own, and a lot of them likes that well enough. Been aboard the
Victorious
before?”

“No.” Raiford looked around the stark room with its low ceiling and gritty concrete floor spotted with old stains. A vacant bar held empty stools and a television set chattering in Arabic. Four men sat in beat-up lounge chairs reading or smoking and sipping coffee. They glanced at him without expression before turning back to their silence. Near a computer bearing a sign reading “2US$ per kilobyte,” a smeary chalkboard listed a dozen ships' names followed by dates. Among them was the
Aurora Victorious
, and the dates for yesterday and today. “They part of the
Victorious
's crew?” asked Raiford.

“No, a BP tanker. Contracts are up and they're being repatted. Waiting for their bus to Doha. Yank, are you? What's your rating?”

“Third mate. Electronics.”

“Ah—tech-o. Given how big you are, I'd've thought you were navigation. Alec's the name—everybody calls me Lexie. I'm the landing manager. Something cold to drink?” He limped toward the bar. “There's the list chalked up. Prices are in dollars and Qatari riyals. But we'll take any hard currency. Daily exchange rates are over there.” He pointed at a second television screen that scrolled silently through the world's currencies measured against the dollar, the yen, the pound, the euro, and the riyal.

The constantly moving numbers focused an odd feeling for Raiford: despite the solidity of the large and ugly room, it had a quality of impermanence. The barren sand and rock, the waiting men, and his own disorientation gave a sense of being in the aura of something just out of sight, something vast and fluid and continuously changing. It was a something that had created this mirage of installation and humanity. Served by the building, the armed guard, the gabbling manager, the men waiting in silence, that vague something became embodied in the numbers on the screen. And it did not distinguish between the humans and the buildings and the equipment that served it. They were equally interchangeable, equally replaceable. And Raiford was now one of those numbers.

Lexie talked as if he hadn't spoken to anyone for a month—and perhaps he hadn't. Not in English, anyway. “Not many come ashore at the landing here—mostly supernumerary arrivals and departures like yourself. Not a damn thing to do and even less to see. Tankers aren't tied up long enough for a proper shore leave, so mostly the crews stay aboard and work or sleep. This lot, they don't speak English—Pakistani, I think they are. Most of the bloody crews anymore are our little brown brothers. Can't speak English worth a damn. Rossi? Third mate? Never met him, as I know of. Tankers come and go, sometime two or three a day, and like I say, who in his right mind wants to set foot here? Though some of 'em get a little crazy being on ship all the time and they'll take even this place for a change of scenery. It's an okay place if you like sand—underfoot, in your clothes, in your teeth. Sand and wind, wind and sand, and mind you the heat never leaves even at night.
Golden Dawn
? Never heard of her, and if she's a small one she wouldn't come here anyway. What part of the States you from? Colorado? Never been there. Florida, once—Jacksonville. Norfolk, New Orleans, Baltimore. Ports of call, you know. I was in the black gang, back when ships had a black gang. The
Victorious
? Two or three times a year she ties up, which ain't bad for a tub as old as she is. Another drink? Right you are—can't get enough liquids, can you? Tell you, confidential-like, she ain't a happy ship. Tough on her crew. Hard work, long hours, and low pay. Every time I see a hand get repatted from her, they're glad to go. Don't mean you, of course. You'll get treated right as an officer and a white man should. Repatted? Repatriated—paid off and sent home. Works her hands hard, her master does, and the first mate's a regular bulldog, they say.”