The Four Corners Of The Sky (57 page)

Annie looked at him for a moment. “No, sir.”

“If the statue is returned, quickly and intact, there would probably be very little reason—” he glanced with some disdain at the chunky
FBI
agent’s gnawing on the bun—“to call attention to its theft. Do you see my point, Lieutenant Goode?”

Annie twisted her neck side to side, trying to ease the stabs of pain. “Yes, sir, I do see it.”

“Good,” smiled Fierson. “We agree that such a treasure belongs either in a museum or…a church. Not to your father?”

“Yes, we agree.”

Dan blew a loud breath into the room but said nothing.

Fierson motioned to his aide, the young bone-thin woman, who checked through her clipboard and showed him a page of it. “All right then, to specifics. Access to the account at the branch of Banco Central in Havana depends upon a visual identification and knowledge of certain codes. Has your father confided these codes and the contents of a bank drawer to you?”

Annie scowled at Trevor. “Is there anything you didn’t tell them?” She turned to Fierson. “With respect, sir, what my father may have confided seems to me a personal matter.”

Fierson smoothed his tanned and manicured fingers across his lips. “I assure you it is not, or I wouldn’t be here. I would be fishing on Jupiter Island with my grandson.”

Flipping to the next page, the thin young woman placed her clipboard in his line of vision and pointed at something. He paused with a questioning look to her. She handed him a manila envelope.

Dan flung out his arms. “Are we ever going to say the name Feliz Diaz here today?”

There was puzzlement from the naval officers, a brief uncomfortable silence from the others.

Annie said, “I think Diaz tried to have my father killed for reneging on the sale of the Queen. I won’t do anything that will jeopardize my father’s safety.”

McAllister Fierson bent over to whisper something to Trevor and Willie. They spoke back and forth. Then the government official told Annie, “Assuming of course the
FBI
has access to Jack Peregrine, they will take any necessary steps to protect him. His best protection is to stay away from dangerous people.”

Annie looked up and down the row of solemn men. “I think he’s trying to do that.”

Embarrassed, Trevor still didn’t look at her as he asked, “Do you have this statue in your possession now?”

“No, I do not.” She smiled. “And I don’t think you’ve ever known me to lie.”

“No, I haven’t. Do you know where the statue is?”

She shook her head.

Dan glared at Trevor. “You skeeze. She trusted you.”

Annie grabbed Dan’s arm. “It’s okay.”

Fierson interrupted. “The minute your father’s in touch with you, you’re in touch with us and he’s brought into custody.”

Annie heard her father telling her to call the bluff. She took a deep breath, her hands flat on the desk, the gold buttons gleaming on the white cuffs of her naval jacket and looked steadily around the table, from one male face to another. “With respect, sir, I won’t bring my father into custody unless I have a written guarantee of his full immunity from prosecution.” She looked straight at Fierson. “That’s not a threat. The law’s position on my father is absolutely right.”

Dan leaned forward. “Bottom line, Mr. Fierson. Take it from the Miami police. She blew off every offer I made. She gave us total shit fits. And she
likes
me. She’ll go to jail but she won’t give him up.”

Fierson studied Annie.

She added, “I understand and accept what the repercussions for me could be. But this is my father. He’s dying. He has a horror of confinement. I won’t help you put him in jail. It’s just an absolute, sir.”

The room was quiet. The well-dressed, silver-haired man contemplated for so long a moment that Lt. Commander Bok wrote a note to Officer Sims, who abruptly left the room. Fierson gestured for Trevor and they had a short, whispered conversation.

Finally Fierson said, “All right. Full immunity.”

Willie spluttered his indignation but Fierson paid no attention, turning instead to his assistant. “Call Justice.” He nodded at Annie, who let out her breath. “If you find your father in Havana, get him on the plane and bring him back. I hope he won’t object to a brief conversation.”

Annie asked, “Sir, how am I supposed to get to Cuba?”

Trevor, with flushed cheeks, pulled folders from his briefcase and passed them out. Annie would go directly from here to Boca Chica Key. Her father’s Cessna Amphibian would be turned over to her. She would make a sea-landing off Puerto Esperanza in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. Accompanying her would be Sgt. Daniel Hart, who not only spoke fluent Spanish but also would be in charge of the State of Florida’s prisoner, Rafael Rook. Rook was a U.S. citizen of Cuban descent who was all too familiar with illegal ways to re-enter the island. Rook would be their intermediary; he had relatives working both in harbor security and in customs in Puerto Esperanza. He had another relative at the bank branch in Havana.

Dan muttered, “True. Rook’s related to half that island and a third of Miami.”

Walking around the table, Trevor dropped thick packets in front of Dan and Annie. “Passports, etc.,” he said. Annie kept staring at him, without effect. “We’ve given you both pretty deep covers. But if they get blown—” he blushed, two red circles spreading over his face “—Annie, you’re stuck with who you are. You’re illegal, you’re Navy, but they might buy that you’re desperate, you’re searching for your dad and he’s terminally ill. Stick to that. It’s personal.”

Annie’s eyes were icy. “Well, Trevor, it has the coincidental virtue of being true.” Finally he glanced back at her but quickly looked away.

Dan was leafing through his packet; he held up a Canadian passport. “You’re kidding? I teach moral philosophy at the University of Toronto?”

Willie laughed out loud.

Fierson took a photograph of a young, muscular nondescript man from his folder. “I understand you have a very good memory, Annie.” She nodded. “Can you remember this gentleman?” She glanced at the photo, nodded. “His name is Fred Owen. When you get the bank pouch, give it to him. Only to him.” He removed another photograph from his blue folder, sliding it over to Annie. “Her name,” Fierson checked the back of the picture, “is Helen Clark.”

Annie studied the photograph of the coppery-haired woman she’d seen at Golden Days. “She may be in Havana. Do not be conned into letting her take the bank pouch from you. Your friend Detective Hart—“ he gestured uninterested at Dan, “mentioned Feliz Diaz. This woman is his mistress.” Fierson stood, smoothing his suit. “I’ll leave the arrangements to Agents Smithwall and Greenberg.”

“Grunberg,” Willie muttered.

Fierson showed his handsome watch to the thin young woman who stood waiting at the door with her clipboard. He said to Annie, “Whether you succeed or not, you are in and out of Cuba within 24 hours. You fly back here to
NAS
with Sergeant Hart’s prisoner Rafael Rook, who will be remanded into custody to stand trial.”

Annie stood too. “In exchange for Rafael Rook’s cooperation, shouldn’t he be extended the same deal as my father?”

Willie burst out, “Absolutely not. Don’t push.” The agent said that considering the number and severity of the charges against Rook, an eighteen month deal was a gift. “Total gift.” Besides, Rook had already accepted the deal and pled guilty.

Fierson shrugged at Annie. “But I admire your tenacity.” He shook her hand. “Lieutenant. You’ve done a service to your country. Gentlemen, thank you.” He bowed his head briefly. “I hope we’ve kept it comfortable. Best of luck.” The assistant held open the door for him.

After the State Department official left, the other participants at the meeting quickly gathered their belongings to follow him out. Willie detoured to a sideboard of croissants. Dan moved over to talk to him.

As Trevor passed close to Annie, he leaned in to her and surprised her by whispering, “Trust Helen Clark. She’s with us. She’s got your back. Be careful, Annie.” He moved on as if he hadn’t spoken to her at all.

Lt. Commander Bok stopped Annie in the doorway. “Good luck.”

“Thank you, sir. With permission, sir, a question. If I can manage to get back to Key West in time, and make it to Patuxent River for the test flight, can I fly it?” She saluted him. “I would really like the opportunity, sir.”

A tiny smile escaped the edge of the lt. commander’s tightly compressed mouth. “Lieutenant Goode, if you can make it back to Sigsbee in time, the Navy will fly you to the test.”

“Thank you, sir!” Annie smiled so infectiously that even Officer Sims grinned back at her.

Dan fumed about McAllister Fierson as Annie and he followed a husky MP down a long corridor to the area where Raffy was being held. Fierson’s heading home to fish with his grandson on Jupiter Island struck Dan as “just right.” Jupiter Island, Florida, was the most expensive zip code in the United States; there were only about two hundred households there, most of them Duponts and Fords and Harrimans and the descendents of Prescott Bush and other Yale Bonesmen. “I guess he feels ‘comfortable.’”

Raffy sat crouched at the end of his cot in a neat, spare “confinement area.” His fingers laced around his knees and he was talking out loud to himself. He still wore the lime-green floppy trousers and yellow shirt with dancing alligators that he’d had on days ago and he looked dirty and tired. His voice was as soft and rhythmic as a rumba.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

So intent was the musician on Caliban’s poetry that he seemed not to hear their approach.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again…

The Cuban saw Annie and his face lightened, incandescent. “Annie! Can you believe what I just did?” He jumped to his feet, reached his manacled hands out to her. “I did a whole speech! Did you hear me do that whole speech?”

She took his hands. “I did.”

He was exuberant about his achievement. “It just all came into my mind! Just the way your papa would recite it for me in our cell. I could never do that before! I couldn’t retain the words. But now, just listen to me!

…And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

“A-plus, Raffy,” she told him.

“You look like shit, Rook,” growled Dan. “They haven’t messed with you, have they? Nothing nasty?”

Raffy pointed significantly at his ear, spun his finger at the ceiling of the room as if to suggest there were people up there listening. “Loneliness is the sum of my torture. As prisons go, it’s still America.”

Dan asked, “Then why’d you blab your guts? You gave it all up. I thought you were going to present that Jesus splinter to your mom in a big prodigal son number? But you gave it up to the Feds.”

The musician hunched his shoulders apologetically. “Annie, forgive me but I didn’t give up more than necessary to only serve eighteen months and I ask your pardon for what I did give up but if you’d done time in Dade County, well, all I can say is, if Hamlet thought Denmark was a prison, let him go to Dade County for eighteen months. I’d prefer no months at all, and losing
la espina de la corona de Jesús Cristo
to those
s.o.b.s
that was supposed to go to my mama, that is a deep, deep pain.” He sighed, his eyes large and sorrowful. “But
vivamos nuestras vidas cotidianas.
”

Annie explained to Raffy that he was about to be released into Dan’s custody. “And guess what? We are going to Cuba. You were right about that.” Annie told him of her deal with the government. How in exchange for her help, Jack Peregrine would be given protection and medical attention. She, Dan, and Raffy were going to fly her father’s Cessna to Havana today, using Raffy’s relatives to make their illegal water landing and their entry into Cuba possible. They would withdraw the contents from her father’s bank drawer in the Plaza de Armas, just as Raffy had discussed with her.

Raffy’s “no” was so vehement that his black ponytail bounced on his neck. “I was never in that water plane but the one time with Jack and that’s the time when we landed in a very stormy sea and we almost crashed to death and my relatives were not waiting in their little boat but the Cuban police were waiting in a big boat and they caught us! That’s when we went to jail together, your papa and me. The mice and rats are not so cheerful the way they are always singing and dancing in Walt Disney, let me tell you. So no, gracias, I am not flying with you to Cuba.”

Annie assured him they weren’t going to have bad weather and they weren’t going to jail; they would just fly in, fly out. Didn’t he want to go home, see his mother?

“‘I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.’ I don’t have the nerve for little planes, especially not on ocean waves. And Cuba? My memories are not so good. As my grandpapa Simon told my
abuela
, ‘
A broch tzu Columbus!
’”

Dan asked, “Is that Yiddish for fuck Christopher Columbus?”

“Pretty much,” admitted the small musician. He motioned Annie away from Dan, whispering, “Your papa is alive.”

“I know he is. So does the
FBI
.”

“Feliz Diaz is paying him a million dollars in cash for
La Reina
. In cash! A million dollars! Your papa is going to get that money to you. Don’t trust the government. Trust your family.”

Annie pulled back, ironic. “Ah, my family? When did
you
last see my ‘papa’?” She wasn’t sure whether they could be overheard, even whispering, so she hesitated to tell Rook any specifics about how she’d spotted her father last night at the hotel in Key West. “They don’t seem to have caught him.”

“Ah.” Rafael held the forefingers of both hands to his soft lips, blew away all questions. “Shhh. Flights of angels.”

“Flights of angels to where exactly? Has he left the country?”