Final Bearing

by George Wallace

  Kincaid pushed through the heavy, rusted metal door and into a hazy blue-gray cloud of cigarette smoke. Nobody here would ever think of enforcing any sissy “no smoking” ordinance. Several mismatched tables were spread around the cramped room. A couple of booths sat against the back wall. A half dozen stools were lined up in front of a bar. A glowing ‘Budweiser” sign and a television set suspended over the end of the bar were the closest things the place had in the way of decoration.

  A group of men, most with their names stitched over the pockets of their denim work shirts, were clustered around a couple of the tables near the front, having a few beers. They were loudly arguing the merits of the Seahawks’ team this season, questioning the sanity of their so-called coach and the general manager who didn’t know his ass from his elbow. From the battalion of empty long necks standing at attention on the tables, the discussion had been going on for a while.

  In one of the booths, a blowsy middle-aged woman with poorly dyed blonde hair was climbing all over a beefy man, both of them oblivious to anything or anybody else in the bar. She looked like a housewife out for a little excitement while hubby worked the night shift somewhere.

  Through the smoke, he spied Ken Temple sitting alone on one of the stools at the bar, nursing a glass of some amber-colored poison. A mirror ran the full length behind the bar, giving an excellent view of the backside of bottles of cheap booze lined up on shelves there. A purple and gold University of Washington decal had been stuck below the flashing “Olympia Beer” light.

  Kincaid liked having the mirror there. It made it easier to watch his back.

  He pulled up a stool next to the detective and tapped him on one of his knees.

  "Hey, stranger. Once again, you have invited me to what is one of the best drinking establishments in the Pacific Northwest."

  "Well, damned if it ain’t God’s gift to the DEA!” The cop winked, then quickly looked around to see if anyone else might have heard him use those initials. The blue collars were still arguing football and the couple in the booth seemed determined to both try to occupy the same bit of space at the same time. Temple lowered his voice when he spoke again. “Save anybody from the evils of killer weed today?"

  "Nope. I only do that on Tuesdays and Fridays. Today was glue sniffers and cough medicine junkies. What’s that you’re drinking, flatfoot?"

  "Old Turkey, neat."

  Kincaid looked over at the bartender who was slouched down at the far end of the bar. He had a cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, watching through a continual curl of smoke the game show that was flickering on the TV. He also kept an eye on the amorous couple.

  Kincaid waved. He finally got the man’s attention. He pointed at Temple's drink and held up two fingers. The barkeep nodded and slowly ambled over to refill Temple’s glass and pour one for Kincaid.

  Temple watched Kincaid over the rim of his glass.

  "Reason I called, we found the Farragut woman, the best friend of all those dead people we been turning up."

  "Oh, where?"

  He half expected to hear, “Dead. Under a bridge. ODed. Where the hell you think, Dick Tracy?” But not so.

  "She had run to Las Vegas, looks like. She got spooked when her friends started showing up dead. She got stopped doing eighty-five in a forty-five zone, started acting skittish and the trooper ran her."

  Kincaid took a sip of his drink and made a face.

  "Damn! This stuff tastes like battery acid. How come you don't ever want to meet me some place that serves good booze? You got a thing for these dives, don’t you?"

  Temple squinted at his friend through the thickening smoke. The bar could be ablaze and no one would be able to tell. There was an amused twinkle in the policeman’s eye.

  "It's part of being an under-paid flatfoot. We search out these little-known locales. You overpaid glamour types only get to sip your brandies and liqueurs in your fern bars and gentlemen’s clubs. You miss the chance to explore some of the finer things in life down here where the real people live."

  “Like ‘Old Turkey-shit?’”

  “Goes straight to the liver. Passes right on by the gut and cuts out the middle man altogether.”

  Temple looked around the dive once again. The bartender had moved back to his leaning spot, still alternately watching the gyrations in the far booth and Regis Philbin trying to give away a million bucks on the television set. No one in the joint was paying attention to the two men talking with each other at the bar. Kincaid clung to his old habits, watching for any sign someone might recognize him, have a score to settle. He always would.

  "Anyhow, like I said, Nevada Highway Patrol ran her ID,” Temple went on. “Turned up our warrant. They called, God bless ‘em."

  Kincaid leaned back on the stool, finished. Kincaid bit.

  "Okay. She talking?"

  Temple stared into the mirror. A thousand-mile stare, Kincaid called it. It was the stare of a man who had seen more than his share of maimed people, broken lives, heartless bad guys.

  "Yeah, some. Scared bitch. Talks about some bastard named Ramirez. Carlos Ramirez. Ring any bells for you?"

  Kincaid searched his memory as he sipped at the drink.

  "Never heard of him. What did she say about the guy?"

  "This Ramirez has ties to some jerk down in Colombia named de Santiago.”

  “Him I may have heard of,” Kincaid offered but said no more, even when Temple waited for elaboration. When it was clear there would be none, the cop proceeded to leave his own hanging remark, thick as the cigarette haze in the barroom.

  “That's all we have on that tie-in except…"

  Kincaid waited, but only for a beat or two.

  "Okay, except what?"

  "Except this Ramirez bastard likes to brag to the ladies about ruling the whole U.S. drug trade market before it’s all over. Like he’s about to start printing up stock like one of them…what you call it? IOPs? IPOs? Whatever. He has his sights set real high. Miss Farragut is convinced from what all he told her that he has the ways and the means to do it."

  "Like what?"

  "For one thing, he has a bunch of real nasties that work for him. Real scum. Chief one is a big black guy named Rashad. Jason Rashad. Ever hear of him?” Kincaid nodded a “no” but filed away the name next to “Carlos Ramirez.” “From what she says, this new stuff they’ve started importing leaves you absolutely hooked from the first snort. You'll do anything for the next fix once you’ve had a taste. She picked up on something about how the first batch might have been even stronger than the scum thought it was. Hooked some of the lovely folks Miss Farragut sent to Ramirez’ parties so bad they couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Damned amateurs killed themselves.” Temple slurped the last of the drink. He looked at Kincaid, his big head cocked sideways. “Oh, and she said it was their usual practice for Rashad and the rest of his Sunday school class to take liberties with the female victims while they were higher than the Space Needle. That was before they knew they were gonna OD and turn up as flesh-and-blood evidence in an alley somewhere.” The detective’s eyes grew steely. “Tom, it’s up to us, you know. We've got to tear out this weed patch!"

  Kincaid set his half-empty glass down on the nicked and scratched bar top.

  "I hear you, Ken,” he said, too quietly to be heard above the professional football coaches solving all the Seahawks’ problems over at the tables.

  “Tommy, something else is going on now. It’s been too quiet. We had that spate of dead people a month ago. Then nothing. Not a peep. They couldn’t have wanted to kill those people. Stiffs can’t buy coke. I figured they must have wanted to get their recipe right and then they would be coming back and opening up shop again."

  “Been quiet? Something new happening I don’t know about?”

  Temple had a hard look in his eyes. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a brown envelope.

  “I figure Ramirez needed a little spending money. Maybe the car payment came due and he tapped t
he stock.” The big cop swallowed hard. “Or they’ve sent some more of the shit in already and it’s just now hitting the street.”

  The photos were eight-by-ten black-and-white crime scene prints. One showed a pretty, dark-haired girl, on her back in the rear seat of a car. Except for what looked like thick blood on her upper lip, she could easily have been peacefully sleeping. The others were of a man, in his mid-twenties, curled up on a rumpled bed, and an older woman, lying on her side in what appeared to be a bathroom floor.

  “What makes you think they’re our guys?”

  “All three were confirmed coke heads. They’ve been snorting for years. All three ODed all of a damn sudden. Lab says it was the same poison that was killing the amateurs before. They can’t figure what’s in it. What makes it so damned delicious. But even experienced users are getting hold of the stuff and snorting themselves to death.”

  “Jesus.”

  The bartender sauntered over, bottle in hand. He refilled Temple’s glass, glared at Kincaid for not having finished his own drink already, then headed back to his corner. The couple in the booth was approaching an X rating. The dirty blonde was now astraddle the fat guy. The barkeep didn’t want to miss any of the free show.

  "I know,” Temple said. “What if there’s more of this killer dope out there? Or more headed this way? How we going to stop it, Kenny? What happens if it gets here and into the supply chain? You have any idea how many stiffs we’re gonna have piled up in the morgue? Especially if this stuff is as addictive as it looks. Everything’s been just peachy lately, but my gut is telling me the other shoe is about to drop. And it won’t be pretty when it does, Mr. DEA Man.”

  Kincaid abruptly stood and tossed a twenty on the bar.

  "My gut tells me the same thing, Lieutenant. The very same thing. We can’t afford to lose this war now. No way. Gotta run. Talk to you tomorrow maybe."

  He was off the stool and gone.

  Temple ruefully shook his head. That was one high-strung bastard right there. One intense son of a bitch. He was also glad Tom Kincaid was on his side.

  Damned glad.

  Juan de Santiago, the leader of the revolution, paced the length of the dining room. Seventeen paces in one direction. Turn. Seventeen steps in the other.

  "My dear friend, Sui, this is the plan,” he cooed into the telephone mouthpiece. “We are ready to make the first delivery with your product. My transport ship meets your ship in the mid-Pacific and transfers your powder to our boat. Your transport heads back home. Mine steams toward the United States and the world’s most lucrative market for what you produce."

  The cordless telephone was a real godsend to de Santiago. It freed him to pace, to allow his physical motion to keep pace with his mental gymnastics. Antonio de Fuka had assured him no one could get close enough to the compound to intercept the phone’s 900-megahertz signal.

  The tinny voice in the phone’s earpiece urged de Santiago to go on.

  "My people will process your heroin with the additive during the transit so it will be as addictive as our cocaine. The ship will rendezvous with the new transport sub outside U.S. territorial waters to make the transfer. Finally, beneath the surface and completely undetectable, the sub takes your shipment in for unloading and distribution."

  Sui Kia Shun sat on the stone terrace of his palace on the Thai-Chinese border. He looked out over his gardens, resplendent with vanda and paphiopedilum orchids growing amongst the teak and bamboo thickets. This palace had been constructed during the early Ming dynasty to cement Chinese dominance over the southern barbarians. It had been six hundred years since Emperor Ming Chen Zu dispatched Sui's ancestors here to rule this land. And from this palace, they watched kingdoms rise and fall, the Mongols, the Manchurians, Europeans, Japanese, and now the Communists.

  "Senor de Santiago, you have a most interesting operation. Please explain to me the need for the mid-Pacific transfer."

  "Mister Sui, it is a simple logistics problem. Because we made the special hull modifications to the mother transport, she can only steam at a maximum speed of fifteen knots." De Santiago stopped at the huge fireplace at one end of the room, turned and headed toward the other end again at a quick march. He did not breathe hard at all and the exertion had cleared his mind of his earlier frustrations. "If we steam that ship all the way to Thailand and back, the submarine would have to wait for over a month on the bottom of the sea. It doesn't have the endurance. It would also delay getting your product to your customers. And our distribution network is most anxious to go to work for us."

  Sui sipped from his cup of tea.

  "I see. Hmmm. Couldn't the transport bring the sub with it, then launch it once it was in position off the U.S. coast?"

  "That would be technically possible. However, we felt that would raise suspicions with the Americans, or with anyone else who might accidentally see the operation. A transport manifested for Thailand loitering off the Washington coast, doing something strange with a mini-submarine? No, it is better for us to steam out to the mid-Pacific and meet your transport halfway, make the transfer, then come back with the product. A little paint and it becomes another cargo ship, maybe heading toward South America from Siberia. Meanwhile, the mini-sub is delivering our cocaine first, then heading northward for the transfer of your product off the Pacific Northwest coast."

  Sui stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  "Yes, I see. Very well planned. Let us proceed. My ship is loaded already and prepared to depart this evening. There is one thing that I must insist on, my friend. With this significant portion of my whole year's production aboard one ship, prudence requires that some of my people accompany the delivery. I will have a team transfer to your transport and one will go with the mini-sub once the off-loading is done."

  De Santiago stopped in front of the huge polished dark wood bar. The crystal decanters gleamed on their silver serving trays. The value of one of the trays roughly matched the annual wages of a banana plantation worker in his country.

  He smiled as he poured a healthy shot of cognac into a snifter and warmed it gently with his hand. There had been a time when he might well have exploded at such insolence as the Oriental had just displayed, at distrust from someone like Sui. Despite the setback with the destruction of the road to the coca fields, he was certain that his grandiose plan could still work. With Sui’s product and money, he could still manage to finance his operation until he could re-establish a crop in fields elsewhere. Before the landslide, they had hauled from the remote valley enough coca to comprise one lucrative shipment once it was processed. They had overcome the unfortunate problem with the additive. The mini-sub was ready to sail, the transport re-fitted and set to steam westward. Sui’s ship filled with quality product, prepared to head for the mid-ocean rendezvous. The plan was primed to succeed, despite all that the dogged Americans had thrown at him. There was no way they could stop him now. No way they could know of the clever delivery means he and his loyalists had devised. No way they could have gotten wind of his structured distribution team in Seattle. No way they could ever suspect that he would soon develop an insatiable clientele for his potent product.

  "I think we can accommodate that, my friend. They will only report to you how well the plan works and what the potential is for our joint venture. I propose a toast to the inevitable success of our first efforts together, mi amigo."

  De Santiago tipped his glass in the general direction of Asia, out there somewhere across the vast sea that already held the key to the lands they would soon, in tandem, conquer together.

  Ten thousand miles away, Sui chuckled softly into the telephone and raised his teacup.

  He still worried. Not for a moment did he trust this oily-haired despot. But the man had apparently assembled the men and the machines to give him a reasonable chance of pulling off this plan. He would risk a staggering quantity of his product because the reward seemed worth it. As he dipped his teacup to where the yellow sun rose each day, he was considering ways he wou
ld not have to be so dependent in the future on the ideas of such an irrational partner.

  "To our mutual success," he said.

  19

  Serge Novstad stared sullenly out from the bridge of the merchant ship Helena K. The yellow globes of the dock lights were haloed in the humid late-night mist. The light drizzle had one good effect; it washed out some of the stench of this squalid inner harbor. Enough of the smell reached his nostrils to remind him where he was, and to make him even more grateful he was leaving this godforsaken place behind.

  He lit a cigarette, tossing the match in the general direction of the dingy water below.

  Making the final preparations to leave port, Novstad's crew bustled around the cluttered main deck, thirty feet below his perch, working in the gray half-light. The dock was absent any of its normal activity. Even this far off the beaten path, even in this out-of-the-way port, there would be stevedores working, trucks coming and going, loading coffee and bananas, off-loading equipment. Not tonight. There was only the glow of an occasional cigarette in the shadows to show anyone was there.

  Give Juan de Santiago credit. Only he had the power to declare a longshoreman’s holiday anytime he wanted and on only a few hours’ notice.

  Novstad sucked on his smoke. A few more minutes and he could bid adieu to this pesthole. Philippe Zurko had insisted the Helena K be modified here in this backwater, that Novstad personally supervise every step of the revamping. The Swede hated the place from the start. He couldn't wait to feel the damp sea air on his face as they steamed out to the big water, as the clean salt breeze erased the stink of this hellhole.

  Novstad could understand secrecy and the need for operating in a port safely controlled by de Santiago’s rebels. There was no doubt that these primitives required supervision for the most menial task. But Novstad was a Master Mariner. He was the only person within a thousand miles with blonde hair, a sandy beard, and an odd lilt to his Spanish accent. Surely Zurko could have found someone else. The modifications he ordered were simple enough to accomplish. Any competent naval engineer could have supervised all the hull and structural work. Zurko was insistent. He kept saying over and over how there was no room for error and the project had to be completed on time and correctly. And with no questions asked about why.