Green Ice (44 page)

Wiley put the engine in neutral.

Lillian hurried to the bridge. “We’re past the ten-mile limit. They can’t do anything.”

Wiley took off his shoes and socks and removed the matched pair of emeralds. If he was searched there would be no acceptable explanation for having forty carats between his toes. He handed the emeralds to Lillian and told her to get rid of them.

The Colombian warship was closing in now, less than a half mile off and coming full speed. Wiley could see its bow splitting the water. It was a frigate. About three hundred feet long, not quite as fast or heavily armed as a destroyer. It continued to bear down, looked as though it intended to ram. But when it was about two hundred feet off it bore hard to port, reduced its engines, reversed them and held parallel with the trawler.

The power launch was lowered over the side of the frigate. Six crewmen and an officer in it. The launch came alongside the trawler. The officer and five of the men came aboard. The men had automatic rifles, the officer a sidearm.

Immediately two of the crewmen patted Wiley and Lillian’s bodies for weapons. They were quick and efficient about it.

The officer didn’t introduce himself. He was a two-striper. He demanded their passports.

Lillian got them, handed them over.

The officer put on a pair of glasses, was a little self-conscious about needing them. He studied first one passport and then the other, held them up to compare the photographs with the faces of Wiley and Lillian, whose expressions were now equally grim. He slid the passports into his jacket pocket.

He dropped his chin, shifted his glasses down his nose to look over them at Wiley. He looked hard at Wiley, a sort of diagnostic stare, and then at Lillian in the same manner. He stepped closer, shoved his glasses up into usable position and was face to face with Wiley. So close Wiley could feel the officer’s breath.

The officer cocked his head, seemed to be examining Wiley’s nostrils. He grunted rather approvingly and made the same close inspection of Lillian.

He asked to see the boat’s papers, ownership and registry. When he had looked those over he said, “You purchased this boat today.”

“This morning,” Wiley said.

The officer didn’t ask why. It seemed he knew. With a nearly imperceptible nod he ordered the boat searched.

The crewman went to it. Below decks first.

Wiley scratched at his underarm, which was wet. He imagined himself and Lillian naked, being lifted over that chain-link fence in Barbosa, being thrown, landing stomach down over the back of one of the hogs, the first sensation of the bristly hairs like needles. Flailing, falling between hogs to the ground, cloven hoofs slipping around, cutting into them. The five-hundred-pounders snorting, crushing, competing to get at them, over them, pinning them with their weight, their snouts wet and hot, and the first bite, like some part of his body being caught in the teeth of gears. The chewing into him, the crunching all the way to his bones. He would not feel it when they ate his heart, but the last thing he’d hear would be Lillian’s scream.

“Okay if I smoke?” he asked.

The officer gestured permission.

Wiley’s pores were spraying. Even his legs were wet. He felt trickles down the middle of his back. He reached for the pack of Camels on the ledge above the instrument panel. Fumbled the pack, dropped it on the deck. Cigarettes spilled out. Wiley hoped he appeared naturally clumsy, nervous.

Nothing to look forward to now but Barbosa. This time Argenti would have his pounds of flesh …

… but that was all he’d get.

As Wiley was picking up the cigarettes he located the switch with his eyes. It was in straight-out neutral position, a chrome flip-type switch labeled L. B. Well.

Should he flip it up or down? He braced himself with his right hand on the panel as he got up. In the same motion, hand over the switch, he flipped it down.

There was a click that sounded loud to Wiley, but the officer didn’t seem to hear it.

A short while later the crewmen returned to the bridge. They reported having found nothing except three pistols. The two Llamas and the Colt forty-five.

Had they searched thoroughly?

Stem to stern.

No secret compartments? No fake bottoms? Were they sure? How about in the engine area?

Nothing, the crewmen said.

The officer hated to hear it.

Wiley knew what would come next. The frigate would escort the boat back to Cartagena. The boat would be ripped apart, searched down to the bare hull.

The officer’s expression changed. He made an indifferent mouth, took off his glasses and put them away. He placed the passports and other papers on the chart table. Without another word he and the crew boarded the launch and returned to the frigate.

Wiley quickly flipped the L. B. Well switch to neutral.

“They were looking for dope,” Lillian said. “Probably had a tip or something on that Englishman. A lot of coke comes out of Cartagena.”

Wiley was already off the bridge and rushing aft. He pulled away the cover to the live-bait well.

The switch Wiley had flipped in his spite controlled a pump attached to a two-inch pipe that ran from the well to just below the waterline at the stern. It served to draw fresh seawater into the well or expel what was in there.

The water and the emeralds had been sucked out.

The emeralds had fallen like underwater rain, a torrent of drops that tumbled and swirled as they sank, shot out glints and final verdant flashes until they were out of the sun’s reach.

Three hundred million dollars down the drain.

32

Kellerman watched Argenti’s hands.

He expected them to fist, but the fingers remained relaxed and the wrists didn’t go rigid. The hands lay lightly on the thigh of the crossed-over leg.

Argenti’s face revealed only little more reaction. The two vertical creases between the brows deepened and the lips pursed, as though tasting something bitter. The eyes remained steady, unreadable. Kellerman couldn’t see anything in them, and he was an expert at eyes, could detect and define an inner feeling from no more than a blink.

“Why would she want to do such a thing?” Argenti asked almost casually.

“Out of boredom, I’d say.”

Kellerman knew better. For two years he’d been compiling a dossier on Lillian. He’d known all along she, was a dabbling activist but had kept it to himself. When she’d gone poaching for the left and ended up in Barbosa, it was Kellerman who’d got her out of it. Without Argenti’s knowing, Kellerman had invented the excuses and convinced General Botero not to mention it. He’d made it seem he was doing the General a favor, since, as he said, the army had blundered and abused.

Kellerman couldn’t have cared less for Lillian really. And he wasn’t looking out for Argenti. He was protecting his own ambitions.

The way he saw it, Lillian was essential to getting Argenti’s exile lifted. Once Argenti was free to go, he’d go so gladly he’d rarely ever return to Bogotá. For a while Argenti might try to continue to run The Concession at an enjoyable distance. He’d find it difficult, soon impossible. The Concession was too complex. It required someone in charge on the spot. Kellerman was the obvious choice. From then on Kellerman would make changes, reposition loyalties, distribute his own patronage and, eventually, edge Argenti out. At the least, Kellerman would have the chance to skim as he wanted.

Thus it had been important to Kellerman that Lillian’s slate be kept clean. Now, however, to admit he’d withheld such information would be putting himself in the line of fire. He told Argenti: “Perhaps she’s one of those who can’t enjoy anything unless there’s risk in it.”

Argenti grunted.

“Often it gets to be a sexual thing, you know, a mix of stimulations.”

“That the best you can offer?”

“It seems to fit.”

“You’re wrong, Kellerman. Way off, except in one respect.”

“Her boredom.”

“Her crotch. He’s had her by the crotch all along.”

“You’re overestimating him.”

“No, that’s her
shortcoming.”
Argenti waited for Kellerman to appreciate his off-color play on words. “Wiley worked her up to it. Dangled the carrot, so to speak, in front of her nose.”

Kellerman smirked, nodded thoughtfully, although he didn’t agree. “Why would she go to such an extent for him?” His inflection said
of all people
.

“Common behavior for her type, the more common the better, as a matter of fact. I’m sure it’s a form of temporary insanity, lowering herself, using love as the excuse.”

“Anyway, he’s our man.”

“Balls for brains.”

“We’ll get him.”

It amazed Kellerman that Argenti could discuss Lillian and Wiley with such relative objectivity. Almost as though Lillian and Wiley were merely problem acquaintances, and there was nothing important at stake. Where, Kellerman wondered, was the indignation, the humiliation, the fury that should have erupted from having been manipulated like that? Incredible that Argenti had that much composure. Perhaps he hadn’t seen into the man as clearly as he’d thought.

Two weeks since the robbery.

Less than twenty thousand carats had been recovered, despite a severe crackdown on street dealing. A federal law was pushed through, prohibiting emerald transactions without an official certificate. The proper government form might someday be printed.

The Concession needed every emerald it could get, but this legal measure accomplished little. A couple thousand carats was all. The street dealers had seen it coming. They deserted Calle 14, hid themselves and their goods elsewhere. The more enterprising conducted business during late-night hours in the
barrio
, buying up the stones that had been thrown there.

Five Conduct Section operatives were sent into the
barrio
during the first week, five more the second. They posed as street dealers or
campesinos
, poor fellows from the country.

Not one of the ten came out.

Sending the men in had been Argenti’s idea. He loathed the thought of those grimy
bastardos
of the
barrio
gaining from his loss. They sang while he suffered. He wanted every pocket and asshole turned inside out.

Tactfully, Kellerman made him realize how futile such efforts were.

For the most part during those days, Argenti tended to business with sober efficiency. He spent long regular hours in his offices at The Concession, meeting each crisis as it came.

The clients were putting the pressure on. What about orders? When could delivery be expected? Demand would soon be felt, backing up from the retail level.

Argenti took every call, even those from clients whose yearly handle was comparatively minimal. He smoothed them down, bought time with the excuse that The Concession was undergoing an audit, voluntary naturally, requested by its board of directors just to make double sure where it stood. Seemed business was too good to be believed, he said lightly.

On top of all that, he told clients, there had been a tremendous find about fifty miles northeast of Muzo. Stones such as the world had never seen. The finest quality ever to come out of Colombia. Practically every stone had kelly in it. Why, at that very moment before him on his desk was an emerald as big as his fist, and he swore he could see clearly halfway into it, there were that few flaws. The new find was so extensive it was certain to affect price. Supply would balance out with demand, of course, everyone would benefit, but especially those on the first level of distribution. Understandably, The Concession needed a while to get its breath, to integrate these new holdings. No one wanted to ruin the market, now did they?

There was a tone of confidentiality in the way Argenti told it. Implying future favoritism, while all he asked for was patience. Argenti knew the common ground was greed, and he worked it.

He was sorry now that when he had structured The Concession he hadn’t allowed for a bad time such as this. He could just as well have stipulated that a percentage be taken off the top and set aside. Instead it had always been only a matter of running the funds through—operational costs and profits. Not counting his private skim, of course.

He put it to his cohorts, Vega, Arias, Robayo and Botero. They would have to chip in to help keep The Concession going. Expenses ran a million a week. The largest chunk of that went to Conduct Section’s world-wide network and all the people bought by the week down the line along the various lines.

Senator Robayo said he wished he didn’t have his own financial problems.

General Botero said his investments were so complicated it would be impossible for him to put his hands on enough cash soon enough to be of help.

Ministers Arias and Vega thought it unfair that they should each have to bear a third rather than a fifth of the brunt.

Argenti walked out while they were still arguing that. It was evident that if there was to be any shoring up he would have to do it.

A million a week.

More than that.

Twelve million was due the government on its lease. The Concession also currently owed the government twenty million in royalties. So as not to jeopardize its lopsided agreement, The Concession had never been late in its payments to the government.

Argenti went it alone. Withdrew from his Swiss accounts.

Fifty million.

That would hold things for a while.

Practically every day Argenti went up to the vaults. The window had been replaced, the broken glass cleaned up. Everything appeared normal. Except the cabinets, all the empty drawers.

It hurt to look at them, but soon they’d be full again.

In the meantime orders were for the mines to put on extra shifts round the clock. Floodlight the hillside terraces so they could be worked at night. Triple the yield, if possible. Couldn’t offset the losses, but it was better to have something coming in.

Then, there were the
esmeralderos
.

All at once they wanted double compensation. Were they deliberately taking advantage of the situation?

Exactly.