The Trojan Sea (40 page)

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. The MiG had lost sight of him when he doused his lights and ran into the smokestacks. His head came up. He had a kill! He dropped the Legend onto the deck and ran for the open sea. The Caymans were 150 nautical miles on his nose. When he was outside the ADIZ, he climbed into the bright night sky. He kept shaking his head and repeating, “I got a MiG.” But who would believe him? Hank laughed aloud.
He
would always know, and that was what counted. He reached out and patted the top of the instrument panel. “Thank you.”

Hank Langston had fought the good fight and won.

Rough hands dragged Stuart into the room and dropped him to the floor. A man shouted at him in Spanish.
“No habla español,”
Stuart said.

“I speak English,” a woman said. The man with the machete waved it at him and yelled in Spanish. “He says the planes were chasing you. Why?”

“They wanted to kill me,” Stuart said.

She translated, and there was more yelling and swearing in Spanish. “The planes killed many of our neighbors instead,” she told him. “Now he wants to kill you.” Someone produced his shoulder bag and dumped the contents on the floor. The woman picked up the first-aid kit. “We need this,” she said. “Now tell me why you are here before we cut you to pieces.”

Stuart gulped hard. The only thing that would save him was the truth. “Because I need to see the port captain.” Again she translated and another round of Spanish. But this time he heard something different.

Two men pulled him to his feet and tied his hands behind his back. The woman tied a blindfold over his eyes. “You are fortunate,” she told him. “The port captain is a good man. He is one of us.”

Who is “us”?
he wondered.

Cienfuegos, Cuba

Stuart was in misery when he felt the sun on his face and the dark of his blindfold fade to a lighter shade. He wiggled his fingers, but his hands were numb and his arms cramped with pain. He had been tied up too long. He forced his mind to work, anything to quit thinking about his pain.
It must be Monday morning,
he decided.
That means I’ve been tied up for thirty-six hours.
He heard thunder in the distance.
Rain should cool things off.
He came alert at the sound of someone opening the door. He recognized the footsteps. It was the woman. He felt her untie his blindfold. The light blinded him. “Thank you,” he murmured. She worked at his bindings, and his hands hurt as the flow of blood replaced numbness. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the light as he massaged his hands. The man with the machete was standing in the doorway.

“Thank you,” he said again. In the distance the thunder grew louder. “Is it going to rain?”

“Those are cannons,” the woman told him, “not thunder. They are fighting over the airport. We think the army is winning.”

“Is that good or bad?”

An expressive shrug. “Who knows? It’s happened before. The army comes, then it goes, while we survive.” She helped him stand up. “Come.”

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You said you wanted to see the port captain. I will take you there. But once you are finished, you must leave Cienfuegos immediately. If the army finds you, they will kill many of us.” She handed him his shoulder bag. “There is food, a water bottle, and your radio.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Your medical kit saved a child’s life.”

“My God. Are things that bad?” There was no answer.

The port captain sat behind his desk in full uniform as if he were expecting important visitors, which he was. “
Si, señor.
I remember
Temptress
and Señorita Ryan. She was most kind and gave me food and gifts for my family.”

“She never mentioned that,” Stuart said.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

“There was a ship that arrived with us. I need its name and any information you may have about it.”

“A simple thing,” he replied. He heaved his bulk out of his chair and opened a file. “Do you remember the date you arrived?”

“Early Wednesday morning, August twenty-one of last year.”

“That was during the hurricane. Most unusual.”

“Unusual? The hurricane?” Stuart could hear the sound of sporadic gunfire in the distance.

“No. The ship. Ah, here it is.” He handed Stuart a bundle of forms.

So easy,
Stuart thought. His hands trembled as he thumbed through the papers: a customs declaration he couldn’t read, a crew list with no names he recognized, more papers. Then he saw the ship’s name—
Laser Explorer.
“Who owned the ship?” he asked.

The port captain took the form and read it. “A company in the United States, Laser Explorations, New Orleans, Louisiana.” He sighed. “Have you ever been to Mardi Gras? I want to go before I die.” The sound of the gunfire grew louder.

Stuart couldn’t believe what was happening. He was trapped in a scene straight out of a film noir. “Aren’t you worried?” he asked, gesturing outside.

“Of course,” the port captain replied. “Regardless of who wins this time, I must perform the duties of my office. In other matters I am neutral. The army and the Guardians know this. In fact, I have relatives on both sides.”

“Do you know who chartered the
Laser Explorer
?”

Again the port captain thumbed through the pages until he found the form he wanted. “A company from Dallas, Texas. Ah, the name is, ah, I think you pronounce it RayTex.”

Stuart took a deep breath. He had what he needed. “Can you make a photocopy of these pages?” he asked.

The man gave him a condescending look. “Please. This is Cuba. But I can make a handwritten copy for you.” Stuart nodded, and the port captain pulled out blank forms. He uncapped his fountain pen and filled in the blanks, carefully copying the two other forms. Outside, the gunfire moved closer. But the man refused to be hurried. Finally he signed both forms with a flourish. He was done. “That will be ten pesos,
señor
. Five pesos for each form.” Stuart fished out his wallet, but he didn’t have any Cuban pesos. He handed the man a hundred-dollar bill. The port captain looked at it. “I don’t have change,” he said.

“It’s okay. You may have saved my life.” Stuart shoved the two forms into his shoulder bag and ran from the office, the woman’s warning fresh in his mind. Outside, he pulled up short and stepped back into the doorway. At the far end of the block a group of soldiers was dragging a man and woman into the street. Stuart watched in horror as the soldiers forced them to their knees. A big man pulled a pistol from his holster and shot each one in the back of the head. The port captain came out of his office at the sound of the gunfire and took in the scene. “The army is winning. I suggest you leave,
señor.
”

“Where to?”

The man shrugged and pointed to the east. “That way is Guantánamo Bay. Perhaps six hundred kilometers.” He pulled Stuart into his office and shoved him out the back door. “Tell the CIA that Fernando Batista was neutral and performed his office.” He shoved the hundred-dollar bill back into Stuart’s hand. “
Vaya con dios,
my friend.” He shrugged in resignation when Stuart disappeared. Had he done the right thing? He didn’t know. But survival in Cuba was always a chancy thing, and he had merely opened another door.

Dallas

L.J.’s house in Highland Park was alive with activity as RayTex’s corporate office returned to work Monday morning. Workers in the backyard were busy installing a fence around her swimming pool so no child from the day care center would take an unexpected dip in the cold water. Inside, L.J. assigned space for the various offices, while Shugy retrieved RayTex’s files from their offshore computer. After that it was business as usual.

Shortly before noon, one of the RayTex geologists brought L.J. the daily report from the drilling ships. He spread out the charts on her desk that compared the core samples from each of the three ships with a normal seismic scan. “We’re finding exactly what we expected,” the rock-tapper told her. “I don’t think there’s oil there. You might want to cut back to one ship.”

“Which of the three looks the most promising?” she asked.

“Take your pick.” L.J. thought for a moment before she punched a number into her satellite phone to call the captain of the ship that had drilled the deepest. She put his voice on the monitor for the geologist to hear. The captain confirmed what the geologist had told her. “Are you having any trouble with the Cuban navy?” she asked.

“Not a bit. But we are being flooded with refugees. Mostly former government workers and army officers. We’ve got over a hundred on board right now. We’re hearing some real horror stories of executions and that sort of thing.”

“See if the Coast Guard will take the refugees,” L.J. told him. “And keep drilling.”

“How deep do you want us to go?”

“Try for twelve thousand feet.”

“That’s gonna be expensive,” the captain said, telling her the obvious.

L.J. broke the connection as Shugy came in and handed her a sealed package. “This was just delivered by special courier from Felix Campbell at British Petroleum,” she said. “For your eyes only. The courier says he’s to wait and take it back today.”

L.J. knew what it was and thanked her employees for their help. She waited until she was alone before opening the big envelope. As expected, it was the paperwork transferring 60 percent of her stock in RayTex to British Petroleum in the event they failed to discover oil. It was a clever transaction, using offshore corporations as cutouts and the electronic transfer of funds into secret bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. A brief note from Campbell said that it had to be signed and delivered by midnight, London time, or the deal was off. She glanced at the carriage clock on the mantel. Midnight in London was 6:00
P.M.
her time. She paced the floor.

I can still cut and run,
she thought. It would cost her dearly in the informal world of contacts and deals that was at the heart of the oil business. Of course, she would still have control of RayTex. But the thought of how Felix Campbell would crucify her in the locker room at Wentworth Country Club, the golf mecca of international oil, was frightening.
What if Seismic Double Reflection doesn’t work?
Her dream was back, vivid and real. With the same sickening realization, she knew that Seismic Double Reflection was a con, and she had fallen for it. All she had to do was look at the evidence the drilling ships were supplying on a daily basis. She paced some more, her arms folded tightly. “Damn!” she swore to herself. She desperately needed to talk to Marsten.

She wandered outside and climbed the steps to the maid’s quarters above the garage, where she had placed the day care center. As always, the sight of happy, healthy children was a tonic, and her spirits soared. She was still there when the FBI arrived.

The lead FBI agent was waiting at the front entrance with his team as a light rain started to fall. “Miss Ellis,” the agent said, “we seem to have a misunderstanding.” He handed her a search warrant.

She unfolded it. “Really? What about?”

“Among the items we were searching for were your backup files.”

“You got them.”

“Then how are you conducting business?”

“I don’t hire fools,” she answered. “Or is that also illegal?” She handed him the search warrant and pointed to the garage. “The address on the search warrant is for that half of the property, not this side.”

The agent made the mistake of trying to bluff her. “Then you do not wish to cooperate?”

“I wish for you to act within the law,” she replied.

“Don’t go away,” the agent said. He punched at his cell phone and explained the problem. He listened for a moment, then said, “We’ll have a new search warrant here shortly.”

The rain was falling harder. “You can wait outside or in your cars,” she told him, closing the door in his face.

A U.S. Attorney from the local DOJ office delivered the new search warrant two hours later. “Please come in,” L.J. said, holding the door open. Fifteen wet FBI agents slogged inside.

“May we speak in private?” the attorney said, presenting his card.

“Certainly, Tom.” She led the way to her office. She sat down and fixed him with a steady gaze. “How may I help you?”

Tom Fine waited for her to call for her lawyer. He smiled to himself when she didn’t reach for the phone. How many times had he seen a person under investigation commit legal suicide by not calling in a lawyer? “I think it’s obvious that Lloyd Marsten is under investigation in the attempted assassination of the president of the United States, and we’re concerned there may be a connection to your company.”

“Are you here to arrest me?”

“No, ma’am. We’re here to gather evidence,” he said. “By not turning over your backup files during our first search, you withheld evidence.”

“I believe that search warrant applied only to our corporate offices in the Fountain Plaza building, as this search warrant applies only to my residence. Or am I confused?”

“You’re splitting hairs,” Tom replied, “and concealing evidence.”

“Oh. Then your search warrants also apply to our offices in other countries?”

“I didn’t say that. But what you’re doing is an obvious attempt to subvert the intention of a search warrant.”

“Which, in this case, is punitive in nature. Is that the intention of a search warrant?”

“I didn’t say that.” Suddenly Tom wished his immediate superior were there to advise him. At the outside there were maybe two lawyers in the United States able to argue the points she was hammering him with. And they probably worked for a major corporation. He decided to pull off the gloves and regain control of the interview. “What I’m saying, Miss Ellis, is, don’t play games with us by downloading backup files from an offshore computer site while this investigation is in progress.”

She smiled. “And you have a court order allowing our communications to be tapped?” From the stunned look on his face, she assumed they didn’t. She was deliberately patronizing. “Tom, you can have full access to our files anytime you produce a valid search warrant. But you do not have the authority to stop us from doing business through the mechanism of a search warrant and a vacuum-cleaner confiscation of evidence.”

“Don’t play legal games with me, Miss Ellis.”

“The legal games we will play, Tom, will be in a federal court, and my lawyers are more than capable of dealing with any prosecutor DOJ can bring forward. Count on it.”

“Miss Ellis, you don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what’s happening here. We have an outstanding arrest warrant for Lloyd Marsten.”

“And the charges?”

Tom gave her a smug look. “The charge sheet runs over fifteen pages long and includes conspiracy, attempted murder, possession of illegal explosives, smuggling, terrorism, wire fraud—do you want me to go on?”

“Oh, Tom, we at RayTex are as shocked as you and will do anything we can to help you in your investigation. But like so many others in matters like this, we are innocent victims.”

“It would be in his best interests if he surrendered voluntarily and, of course, any cooperation you give us would be to your benefit.”

“Can you explain how that works?” she asked. “Or are you making a proffer that we can’t refuse?”

That was when Tom lost it and his ego took over. “If I find one thing that implicates you or RayTex—”

She interrupted him. “Then I sincerely hope you’ll be as diligent in protecting our rights as you are the rights of other innocent people whose only mistake was standing too close to a crime.”