Cardinal Felici replaced Sister Lúcia’s letter in its crimson folder and sealed it in the vault, where he was determined it would remain.
48
HAVANA
The Galapagos was due to sail in three hours and all but one of the crew had returned from shore leave. O’Connor surveyed the Havana docks from his position beneath the port wing of the bridge. The traffic on Primer Anillo del Puerto, the main road connecting the ports on the south side of the harbour, was heavy. Containers were piled up on the concrete docks serviced by railroad and trucking companies. Beyond them, huge forklifts charged to and from three giant warehouses. The Galapagos was taking on cargo, and O’Connor watched as the crane operator eased a big thirty-tonne container of machinery into position.
Fifteen minutes later the last crew member, one O’Connor had not seen before, reached the bottom of the gangplank. O’Connor wandered over to the rail where the ship’s steward was standing, dragging on a cigarette.
‘New crew member, Alfredo?’
Alfredo shrugged and smiled. ‘Sí. One of the crew – too much fucking, too much to drink. This one’s Sicilian. He’s probably no better, and I’ve got to share a cabin with him.’ Alfredo stubbed his cigarette out on the rail and disappeared through the nearest bulkhead, leaving O’Connor to watch the new arrival negotiate the gangplank.
The Sicilian was thickset and muscled, with black hair and a thick black moustache, his face pockmarked and scarred. O’Connor was immediately on high alert.
‘We’ve got company again,’ he told Aleta as he closed the cabin door behind him.
‘Who? Where?’
‘It may be coincidence, but I don’t think so. One of the crew supposedly had too much to drink and they’ve had to replace him. It’s plausible, but it’s also a classic move in CIA asset substitution.’ O’Connor opened his bag and took out the small compact CIA toolkit he carried, as well as a heavy door-hasp. ‘High-quality hair dye is not the only thing they sell in Hamburg.’
‘What do you need that for?
‘Our new friend, if he’s one of Wiley’s buddies, will pick the lock on this cabin in an instant, but this one will be tougher to crack,’ he said, marking the spots for the heavy-duty bolts. Ten minutes later he shouldered the cabin door from the companionway outside, but it held fast.
O’Connor waited until just before sailing time. He instructed Aleta to remain in the cabin and made his way to the port bridge-wing. The last container was being loaded and two tugs were standing by, one for’ard of the bow and one aft of the stern. The captain was on the starboard bridge wing, barking orders to the deck crew through the tannoy system. The Sicilian had been assigned duty on the for’ard hawser. O’Connor made his way off the bridge, down a series of steep narrow companionways, reaching the crew quarters in less than two minutes. The door to Alfredo’s cabin was unlocked, but the Sicilian had secured his gear in one of two lockers screwed to a bulkhead in the cramped quarters. The brass padlock was child’s play for O’Connor. He chose a diamond-shaped lock pick and a small tension wrench and had it open in an instant.
The Glock pistol, complete with silencer, was in a small worn leather pouch at the bottom of the Sicilian’s kit bag. O’Connor sat on one of the bunks, quickly extracted the magazine, checked the chamber was empty, pulled the slide back, released the lock lever and removed the slide from the Glock. The countless hours of arms training at Camp Peary in Virginia kicked in and seconds later O’Connor had taken out the recoil mechanism and the barrel and put them to one side. He took a small punch from his bag, placed it between the firing pin and the firing pin sleeve and pressed down to take the pressure from the spring, allowing the slide backing plate to be prised free.
Suddenly the deck vibrated as deep in the bowels of the ship the massive drive shaft began to turn. Above decks, the crew had stowed the mooring hawsers and the Sicilian was making his way aft along the companionway that housed a maze of pipes beneath the containers. O’Connor removed the firing pin from the slide mechanism and pocketed it. He quickly replaced the slide backing plate, reassembled the barrel and recoil mechanism, replaced the slide on the pistol, rammed the magazine full of nine-millimetre rounds back into the butt and returned the gun to where he’d found it.
‘What’s the situation?’ Howard Wiley demanded over the secure video that linked Langley with the US Embassy in Avenida Reforma.
‘The asset has confirmed he’s on board, but the satellite images are showing the Galapagos has only just left Havana harbour. I’ll let you know as soon as we have confirmation of success,’ Rodriguez replied evenly.
‘How long before the ship reaches Guatemala?’
‘Six to seven days, depending on the weather.’
‘What?’
‘It’s 2000 nautical miles from Havana to Puerto Quetzal.’
‘They’re not on a tramp steamer, Rodriguez, those things do twenty knots.’
Rodriguez sighed inwardly. ‘Their route will take them west out of Havana and into the Yucatán Channel between Cuba and Mexico, where a gale warning is still current, which will prevent them doing more than eight or nine knots. From there they’ll head south to the Panama Canal, and that’s over eighty kilometres long. Depending on traffic, it will take about ten hours to navigate.’
‘Ten hours for eighty kilometres gives them a speed of less than four fucking knots.’
Rodriguez told herself to remain calm. ‘From the Caribbean side, there are three sets of locks at Gatun which will raise them eighty-five feet up to Lake Gatun itself, and at the far end they have to negotiate another set of locks at Pedro Miguel and another two at Miraflores, which will lower them into the Pacific. It’s not a racetrack, sir. And in any case I fail to see what the speed of the ship has to do with the mission.’
‘That’s why you’re in bumblefuck-nowheresville and I’m in Langley, Rodriguez. Has it occurred to you that the mission on board the Galapagos may not succeed?’
‘Based on O’Connor’s performance to date, that’s entirely possible … sir.’
‘So what arrangements have you made for that eventuality?’
‘With respect, sir, we’ve only just managed to get an asset on board the Galapagos.’
‘What’ve we got in Puerto Quetzal?’ Wiley demanded of his chief of staff. Larry Davis shook his head. ‘Get someone there – now!’ Wiley glared back into the video camera.
‘The speed of the ship determines how much time we have to get another asset in position, Rodriguez.’
‘Might that not be better organised from here, sir – in country?’
‘No!’ With that, the video screen went blank.
Rodriguez leaned back in her chair. ‘Mierda!’ she swore, shaking her head.
‘These people don’t give up, do they?’ Aleta observed when O’Connor returned to the cabin.
‘Nope, but then, neither do we.’
Nine hours later, the Galapagos rounded Cape San Antonio, the westernmost tip of Cuba, and headed south into the Caribbean towards Panama. The gale warning was still in force, and the winds tore foaming white spume from the backs of angry, rolling waves, although the ship’s roll had abated. To the west the sun had set over the Mexican coast, and the bars and nightclubs were in full swing in Cancun and Playa del Carmen’s Fifth Avenue, the centre of the Mayan Riviera.
O’Connor wondered when the Sicilian might strike and he put himself in the hitman’s place. He would probably make his move some time after midnight, when the minimum number of crew would be awake and on duty. O’Connor resolved to turn the confrontation on its head, to provide the Sicilian an opportunity to strike, but on O’Connor’s terms. He looked at his watch. It had just gone 10 p.m. He turned to Aleta, who was sitting at the table beneath the porthole, working on her grandfather’s notes and the angles of deflection of the sun’s rays that a third figurine might produce. ‘I may be gone for some time,’ he said, ‘but don’t worry – unlike the British explorer, I will return.’
�
��Where are you going?’ Aleta asked.
‘Secret men’s business … a little something that has to be attended to. This is 101 stuff, but on no account open the door, even if a key turns the lock, okay? It may not be me.’
Aleta nodded fearfully. ‘Be careful.’
She watched the bow of the ship dipping and rising more gracefully now, with the occasional large wave exploding over the for’ard containers. The white caps were intermittently caught by the moon, illuminated through gaps in the clouds scudding across from the west. Silently Aleta wrestled with her thoughts, and the irony of finding herself caring for a man who had been sent to Vienna to kill her.
O’Connor took up a position near a stanchion at the stern of the ship, leaning against the rail but looking back towards the superstructure. The Sicilian would want a clear shot and to dispose of his target quickly. That would mean a close-quarters kill. Twenty minutes later, the asset walked through the aft bulkhead and onto the stern deck beneath the containers.
‘You’re up late. Can’t sleep?’ The Sicilian spoke Spanish with a thick Italian accent. He approached slowly, his right hand in his trouser pocket. His dark eyes were focused and cold.
‘Potrei dire lo stesso per voi. I could say the same for you.’ O’Connor’s use of the Sicilian’s native Italian had the desired effect, momentarily unnerving the Sicilian. He drew the Glock from his pocket and pointed it at O’Connor, the long silencer barely a foot from O’Connor’s chest.
‘Forse questo vi aiuterà, bastardo. Perhaps this will help you.’ The Sicilian pulled the trigger but the mechanism went forward with a dull clunk. The assassin frantically reached to recock the slide but O’Connor’s reaction was lightning fast. In a movement perfected by the Israeli Defense Forces, he pivoted ninety degrees on his left leg, and with a sliding step, he rammed his right knee into the Sicilian’s groin. The assassin grunted in pain and made another attempt to load the Glock, his head lowered. O’Connor slammed his elbow behind the Sicilian’s ear, sidestepped, straightened his right leg, swept it behind the Sicilian’s knee and slammed the assassin’s head onto the steel deck. The Glock clattered against the aft bulkhead.
Dazed, the Sicilian got to his knees. O’Connor straddled his neck and with one hand under his chin and the other clamped to his hair, rolled his target sideways onto the deck. Ankles crossed, O’Connor held the Sicilian’s head in a vice-like grip while he choked him with his legs. The big man flailed helplessly, but gradually his protests grew weaker. O’Connor continued to crush his neck until he was sure the Sicilian was dead. He checked his pockets for identification, but they were empty. O’Connor took him in a fireman’s lift, pushed up and heaved him over the rail. Dispassionately he watched his would-be-killer’s body plunge into the Galapagos’ moonlit boiling wake, ten metres below.
O’Connor retrieved the Glock and stood at the stern rail, staring at the diminishing silvery turmoil of the wake until his heart rate dropped back to its normal sixty beats a minute. He hadn’t seen his assassin surface, and if a Caribbean reef shark didn’t get him, then the tigers or great whites certainly would. Satisfied that he and Aleta were safe again, at least until they got to Puerto Quetzal, he headed back to the cabin, wondering if she was still awake. It would be good to feel the softness of her skin against his.
The sun was setting across the Pacific when a week later O’Connor scanned the docks of the Guatemalan port of Puerto Quetzal. The ship had docked three hours earlier, but he had returned to the cabin after talking the captain into letting them stay on board for another night.
‘You’re in no hurry to get off?’ Aleta asked.
O’Connor shook his head and handed her his binoculars. ‘See the taxi parked at the end of the wharf?’ He pointed past the stacks of containers and warehouses to a yellow taxi parked beside the port administration buildings. ‘He’s already cruised up and down the wharf three times.’
‘Looking for us?’
‘The last knucklehead will have been ordered to report on the success of his mission. When Langley didn’t hear from him, they’ll have put in a back-up plan. That’s him at the end of the docks.’
‘A taxi driver?’
‘Probably. They did pretty well to get someone on board the Galapagos, but getting an asset into a place like Puerto Quetzal at short notice wouldn’t be easy. This guy’s a rank amateur, but I don’t want to start a shoot-out at the O. K. Corral. He’ll have already reported that we haven’t disembarked, which will have them in a quandary. They’ll be wondering if we’re still on board or if their man was successful but somehow came to grief in the process. For the moment they’ll be confused, and it’s a waiting game.’
‘A chicken bus leaves about 5 a.m. from Puerta de Hierro, about half a mile east of here.’
O’Connor raised an eyebrow.
‘Trust me; I’ve been here before, or at least not far from here, on a dig.’
‘Excellent. We’ll sneak off early tomorrow morning, and with a bit of luck, James Bond up there will be fast asleep in his cab.’
O’Connor scanned the taxi cab with his night-vision sight and grinned. ‘I can almost hear him snoring. Time to go.’
He followed Aleta down the gangplank and together they crossed the dimly lit concrete dock to the safety of the closest warehouse. O’Connor checked the taxi again and then led the way between two warehouse buildings, and on past some oil storage-tanks. Even at four in the morning, the road tankers were lined up to refuel, so O’Connor and Aleta kept to the shadows, making their way along the dirt easement beside the oil pipes. Ten minutes later, they reached a back-road entrance and walked for another kilometre on a dirt road that ran past a housing estate.
‘Seems like quite a wealthy area,’ O’Connor observed, with a nod of his head towards the houses with pools, which had been built on the series of canals, most with their own jetty.
‘Puerta de Hierro’s eclectic and deceptive,’ Aleta replied, pulling the wheel of her bag out of a pothole in the dirt road. ‘Houses are a lot cheaper in Guatemala, and the big shipping companies subsidise their employees. This is all part of the María Linda River, and a little further down the coast is Iztapa, which means ‘river of salt’; there are lots of saltpans. But many of the Guatemalans on the other side of Highway 9 are dirt poor,’ she said, nodding towards the main road. To the east the sky was just beginning to lighten behind the jungle-clad mountains of the highlands.
The bus terminal was small by Guatemalan standards, and just four vehicles were loading – old retired US school buses reincarnated as part of the Guatemalan transport system.
O’Connor scanned the bus terminal while Aleta approached the ayudante, the ‘driver’s helper’ on the nearest bus. ‘Escuintla?’ Aleta asked, looking for the bus that would take them to the next big town.
‘No. That one over there,’ the ayudante said with a big smile, pointing to a brightly coloured bus with ‘Linda’ painted in vivid turquoise on the top of the windscreen, and on the back and sides. The rest of the bus was painted in bright reds and yellows, and the chrome on the old International reflected the lights of the bus terminal. Painted yellow flames issued from the below the big square hood.
The next ayudante offered to put their bags on the roof of the bus with the rest of the menagerie: baskets, tyres, chairs, tables, brightly coloured canvas bags, empty paint cans and assorted parcels of varying sizes wrapped in bright-blue plastic.
Aleta shook her head and slipped him a five-quetzale note, the equivalent of about sixty cents. The ayudante smiled and helped Aleta onto the bus with her bag. Not that she needed to have tipped him to ensure they could take their bags on. She had to ease her way down the aisle of the already crowded bus past two pigs, a large sack of carrots, three sacks of potatoes and a caged rooster. O’Connor stacked the backpacks containing the precious figurines in the luggage rack above them, and they took an empty bench seat in front of a woman in traje, the traditional dress of her village: a colourful handwoven huipil blous
e, and the long corte skirt secured with a woven belt – the whole a kaleidoscope of tangerines, purples, aquamarines, scarlets and mustard yellows.
Twenty minutes later, the chicken bus pulled out of Puerta de Hierro, leaving a cloud of black smoke in its wake.
49
VANDENBER AIR FORCE BASE, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
A gentle swell broke over a darkened Point Sal on the Californian coast, to the north of Santa Barbara. Two hours behind Guatemala City, the Point Sal beach was deserted. The security guards had cleared and secured the area just before dusk. Further south, a huge eighteen-metre-high LGM-30 Minuteman nuclear missile stood ready in test-launch silo Lima Foxtrot-26 at the northern end of Vandenberg Air Force Base. The heavy concrete slab on top of the silo was still closed; the gleaming missile beneath it weighing thirty tonnes. The missile’s range of 13 000 kilometres was more than enough to hit any target in Russia, China, Korea or the Middle East; and on the few occasions that a target might be out of reach, the US Navy’s Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarines were on continuous deployment, equipped with Trident nuclear missiles, which could be launched from beneath the surface of the ocean. America had the world well covered, and although this morning’s launch would not include a nuclear warhead, the experiment being directed out of Gakona would serve to boost America’s position as the dominant world power. A short distance away, in a heavily guarded hangar, technicians were already working on another Minuteman missile, the casing of which would act as a lens to deflect the high-powered ELF beam into Iran.
THE MAYA CODEX Page 29
