by Andrew Mayne
“Okay . . . but how do we find them?”
I roll my eyes like Jackie does when I say something stupid. “You are a caveman.” I scroll up on the photo of the girl. “She tagged herself in the image.” When I click on the photo, her Instagram page loads.
XCatalinaCarolinaX. Available for shoots, fashion & film. #MiamiNewStarsModeling
Miami New Stars Modeling has its own page with an email address.
“Is that her agency?” asks George.
“That’s her pimp.”
“Ugh. Let me guess who’ll have to contact them about hiring her for, um, a . . . session.”
“Relax,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
MAST
Cat, aka XCatalinaCarolinaX, is twenty minutes late to meet me at Rico’s Café on Lincoln Avenue. She greets me with a sincere smile and takes a seat across the booth in the back of the restaurant.
It’s a slow Wednesday afternoon, and we’re the only people here except for two German men sitting at a table near the street.
Cat’s wearing a pale-blue cotton dress under a wide floppy hat, probably intended to keep more freckles from appearing on her tan skin.
She’s pretty but a few years past the point where a modeling career’s likely to break for her. I’ve known a few other women who persist, despite the fact that culture has made us an expendable commodity with a tiny shelf life.
“It’s nice to meet you, Amanda,” she says, using the fake name I gave her via email.
I told her that I worked for a client who was looking to do a photo shoot on his yacht in Bermuda. After talking to one of Run’s friends, this seemed like the most innocuous way to go about meeting her.
Writing the email was easy—sitting across the table from a woman close to my age who is probably hoping that I’m going to help pay her rent is hard.
What somebody wants to do with their body is no business of mine. However, when I get the sense they’d rather be doing something else, I feel bad. I have friends who have married guys because of their paychecks—and guys that used money to attract women seeking stability. This game is the same; it’s only the terms that are different.
I don’t bullshit around about the photo shoot. “My friend is looking to hire some girls to spend two weeks on his yacht.”
“You’re to the point,” Cat replies. “I don’t do that kind of work. I’m a straight-up model.”
Okay. Then why did she meet with me?
She hastily adds, “But if he’s looking for someone to help him with his social media, I can do that. Some guys want photos with hot girls because it helps them meet others.”
Social media consulting? All right, this is the game. I suspect it’s designed to prop up her sense of self-worth as much as to make sure I’m not a cop.
Let’s see where this goes. “My client prefers to avoid the media. Social or otherwise.”
Cat thinks this over. “What can you tell me about him? Is he a banker? Middle Eastern?”
I notice a bit of apprehension about the last part. “He’s more the banker type. Actually, an internet guy. You may have used his technology.”
This gets her attention. I must have accidentally used the code word for ex-husband material.
“Oh really? What can you tell me?”
Hooked. “I can’t. He doesn’t actually know I’m here. He’s very, very shy. One of his investors asked me to set this up. Make it easy for him to have a little fun. He thinks we’re inviting a bunch of model friends.”
“You’ll be there?”
“Of course.”
Now she’s thinking this might be a fun cruise with some other young people and not a bunch of old rapey dudes. I feel worse than horrible.
“This could be cool.”
“Here’s the thing. His company is about to go public, and nobody can know what he’s doing or up to. Partying on a yacht could impact the stock.”
“I get discretion. Trust me.” She looks off to the side for a moment.
“Yeah, Jason said so.”
“Jason?” she asks.
“Jason Bonaventure. He mentioned you when I asked him about this sort of thing.”
“Really?” She seems surprised.
“Yeah. Is everything fine between you and him? I don’t know him that well. He’s a friend of a friend.”
“Yeah, he’s cool,” she says flatly. “I’ve hung out with him on his yacht a couple of times.”
“Which one?”
“Good Fortune. Does he have another?”
“I thought he did. I remember going aboard one in Bimini . . . the . . .” I fake searching my memory.
“The Morning Sun?” She shakes her head. “That’s Gustav’s. I’ve been on it a couple times. Nice. Actually, Jason was there both times. Weird, though. Gustav’s a control freak. We had to leave our phones in the safe. I guess he’s married, and he’s terrified his wife will find out.”
I resist the urge to text Morning Sun to George right now. The mysterious Gustav sounds exactly like a Bonaventure shill.
“Your friend? How well does he know Bonaventure?” There’s a bit of worry in her voice.
“I don’t think he does. Why?”
“Okay. It’s . . . it’s . . . I got a call a week ago about the Morning Sun. I couldn’t do it. They only needed one girl, and it sounded . . . well. I don’t do anything in Miami. Anyway, I haven’t heard from her.”
This could have been around the time the Kraken went missing. Damn. If the Mendezes were asking questions, I’m not sure Bonaventure would want a yacht girl back in Miami talking about a pleasure cruise that suddenly got canceled.
I lean in and lower my voice. “I’ve heard some scary things too. That’s why I had to check you out.”
She sits still for a moment and reads my face, then replies, “This is all bullshit. Isn’t it? There’s no fucking client. What are you, a cop?”
She gets up to leave. I grab her wrist. “Sit the fuck down.”
Her demeanor changes, and she slides back into the booth. “I’m not what you think I am,” she says.
I ease my grip on her wrist. “I’m not here to arrest you. I’m not here to get you into trouble. Actually, the opposite. If I were you, I’d stay clear of South Florida. Hell, if some rich, horny asshole wants to take you around the Med and chase your ass around his yacht, I’d do that instead of sticking around here.”
I pat her wrist and let go. “Your friend is probably dead. Sooner or later, someone’s going to make the same connection that I did. Only they’re not going to give you a dumb lie. They’ll hurt you for everything you know, and then they’ll kill you.”
I recall the sensation of the hole in the back of Raul’s skull. “They’ll want you dead for what you know or what you can tell someone else.”
“Fuck.” She shakes her head. “Damn it. I knew something awful happened to Yvonne. Goddamn it. Okay. I got a friend in France. Am I safe there?”
“I don’t know. It’s better than here.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Sooner is better. Fly somewhere else in the US if you have to. Just make yourself hard to find.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if Wilmer did it.”
“Wilmer? Who’s he?”
“Some guy Jason knew. Met him on the boat. Scary as fuck. One of the girls said he worked for the cartels as a killer. Not a thug. A smooth guy. I stayed clear. Other girls dug it.”
“Was he on the Morning Sun?”
“Never. You know, Jason seemed even more worried about us mentioning that boat. He said he had a jealous girlfriend or something. But, no, Wilmer wasn’t on that ship. We met up with him in Bimini. He sailed with us all the way to Aruba.”
Aruba? Interesting. “Did you ever see anything weird on board?”
“Like messed-up sex stuff?” she asks.
“No. Just something that happened that didn’t on other boats,” I reply.
“No. They were super strict a
bout their crew drills, though. When they had one, you had to stay in your cabin. I got caught in the hallway one time, and Jason went ballistic. I couldn’t figure out why he was out. Anyway, that’s it.”
“Were these drills during the day or at night?”
“Night. Always night.” She starts to look around the place nervously.
“One more thing: Did Jason ever board the Morning Sun in Miami?”
“No. Never. He always caught up with us in Bimini or sometimes out at sea.”
“Did the night drills happen only after he boarded?”
“Uh, yeah. I think so.”
Now we know how and when the Kraken was loaded and unloaded. We just have to figure out where the Morning Sun was the night the Kraken went missing.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
HARBOR
I snap a photograph of a young, tanned, blond man wearing white shorts and a maroon polo shirt as he walks down the gangplank of the Morning Sun and onto the pier of Sea Isle Marina. According to the harbormaster, the boat is owned by Klein Holdings, an investment firm based in the Caymans.
The ship itself is a custom-built, 190-foot, sleek, black vessel with an extra-long rear deck. Below that deck is a “toy locker,” a recent development in yachts. Basically, a garagelike cavity that opens to the sea so you can store Zodiacs and Jet Skis.
The locker’s also the perfect size for the Kraken. Conceivably, you could use the submarine to take whatever contraband you wanted to and from the yacht by loading it inside the locker.
George and I have been staked out at the Miami Marriott in Biscayne Bay, overlooking the marina, watching who comes and goes from the vessel.
We count a total crew of eight, which feels light for a boat this size but still manageable. God knows Dad operated boats almost as large with child labor when hired help fled over wage disputes.
I tell George, “I think that’s Himmler.”
He makes a note on a large piece of white paper stuck to the television cabinet. We’ve given each of the crew made-up names, because we haven’t figured out their actual ones.
Since we started watching the boat last night, only crew have come and gone. Seven of them returned to the boat at eleven p.m. sharp, suggesting that they had a curfew.
They mostly have fair features, and all appear to be Northern European or Scandinavian. I offered to go chat one of them up in town, but George pointed out that they’ve likely been trained to smell anything suspicious. If you’re willing to pay, there are highly dedicated former Russian sailors for hire—ones with experience working on Russian oligarch yachts.
I set the camera down and drop on the twin bed closest to the window. “Now what? That’s got to be the boat? Right?”
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment. We need to know where it was when the Kraken missed its rendezvous. You know boats better than me; how can we find out?”
“The logs aren’t going to be much help. Lord knows we didn’t log places we anchored when we didn’t want anyone to know about it. Although . . .” I pick up the camera and zoom the telephoto onto the mast. It has radar and other communications equipment attached to it. “I’m sure there’s some kind of electronic record aboard. They might wipe their computers when they get to port, but even that could tell us something.”
“Are those systems networked?” asks George.
“Probably. Know anybody who could hack them?”
“No. You?”
“Hardly. I mean, I know how the systems work. Generally. But nothing about accessing it remotely. I could probably get the data if I could put my hands on their positioning system.”
“What if I could get you aboard?” asks George.
“Do you mean like inside a birthday cake?”
“No. Maybe we could create an excuse . . .” He takes a seat by the window. “How hard would it be to start a fire?”
“Don’t even go there. That’s two hundred million dollars of boat right there.”
“I’m just brainstorming,” he replies. “What if something malfunctioned? Like their radar up there? They’d need to call a repair crew.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. A rifle?” he says quietly.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m not sure sometimes.”
“Let’s put your grassy-knoll idea on hold,” I reply. “What’s the smarter way to do it?”
“Sometimes I just flash my badge and barge in.”
“Ever been shot at doing that?” I ask.
“Yep,” he sighs.
I immediately regret the question. “Okay, let’s use our limited brainpower. They’re a boat, so they’re used to inspections in port. Coast guard, customs, immigration. Maybe even DEA. It’s not that uncommon. The problem is they probably know who their local feds are. If we show up pretending to be some agency, they could call our bluff.”
“McPherson, you’re forgetting something.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re not pretending to be an agency. We are an agency—or at least a division.”
“Yeah, but not a federal one. Not one who can just show up and inspect a boat for no reason,” I reply. “I mean, we have laws.”
“Correct. But sometimes nobody knows what the law is until we push it. Give me a reason we could search the boat.”
“Like with a search warrant?” I ask.
“Of course not. We’ll never get one. I mean a good reason for us to show up and ask to search the boat and have them let us aboard.”
“It can’t be too accusatory. If we say we’re doing a drug search, they’ll call their attorneys. What if we said there was a runaway in the harbor and we’re looking for her?”
“No. They’ll insist on searching the boat themselves because they know it better. What else do you have?”
“Why is this on me?”
“Solar 101: don’t use your own brain if there’s a perfectly good fresh one to pick.”
What is a reason they’d voluntarily let us aboard? Who boarded us when I was a kid?
“I got it!” I blurt out. “Dad once talked Winston into installing a naval-grade sonar system we could use out at sea. This thing was a monster. We’d been in port maybe two hours in San Diego when two naval officers showed up at our dock with some fancy gear. It turns out their listening posts were picking us up all the way into the harbor and flagged us as a Russian spy trawler. I also saw the FCC show up once when someone was using an old Chinese transmitter that interfered with local radio stations.”
George raises his eyebrows and lets me go on.
“So, what if we tell them we want to check their radar because it might be interfering with government systems?”
“Make it more innocuous,” says George.
“Okay, hmm, how about we say there’s been some interference with weather radar? There’s a big radar ball visible from the harbor.”
He smiles. “And they do have the tallest mast.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
SEXTANT
A Finnish first mate named Irro greets us at the bottom of the gangplank after I press the button on the intercom built into the railing. He’s in his late twenties and has short, close-cropped hair on a round skull.
We waited until the captain and the rest of the crew left for their nightly adventure. It turns out Irro pulled the first watch.
“Alo?” he says when he greets George and me on the pier.
“Hello,” George replies in his least threatening tone—which is still pretty intimidating. “I’m Mr. George and this is Ms. Sloan.” He holds up a State of Florida employee ID card—but no badge. “We’re with UIU. We’re trying to track down a signal interfering with the long-range radar. It’s a bit of an emergency.”
I show the guard the radio scanner we picked up at a surveillance supply store and point the antenna at their communications mast. “We need to check out your array to make sure it’s not the source of the interference.”
“What’s your full name?” asks George as he pulls a clipboard from under his arm.
“My full name?” asks the confused man.
“You’re in charge of the ship right now? Correct?”
He looks back and forth between us, trying to understand how serious this matter is. “Yes. The captain is ashore.”
“Okay. Then the fine has to be made out to you. I’m sure the owners will reimburse you. I’ll make sure you have a copy.”
“Fine?”
“Yes, it’s a thousand dollars an hour as long as the antenna’s causing interference.”
Irro is getting nervous. Our goal is to get him to let us aboard without calling the captain. I’m fairly certain his response would be to call in their attorney or whoever Bonaventure uses to maintain security.
“We’ve had everything checked. I’m sure it’s not it,” he says.
George stabs a finger at the radar mast. “Do you see anything else here that tall? Whatever. We’ll write the fine, you have your electrician check the radar, and then you can show up in court in a week and get it cleared up.”
“It’s not our radar causing the problem,” Irro insists.
“It could be an echo from a building,” I say to George.
“Are you trying to tell me my job?” he snaps at me.
“I’m just saying that if we make a physical inspection and it’s not it, then we can move on.”
“Or I can just write this up now. What was your last name? Also, I’ll need to see your passport.”
I push his clipboard down and put the scanner to my ear. “I’m not sure that it’s coming from up there. I can’t tell from here, though.”
“Would getting closer help?” asks Irro.
“It’s only going to tell me what I already know,” George growls.
“Sorry, Irro. If I can check the signal strength from the bridge, that might settle this. Otherwise, we have to fine you and call the captain down.”
“Fine,” George acquiesces, as if the choice is his. “Lead the way.”
Irro undoes the chain blocking the gangway and takes us up to the boat, relieved to avoid involving the captain.
I make a show of checking my scanner, which is actually set to a channel that will blip if the radar antenna points in its direction. George studies the boat while trying not to look too interested.
