Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  Only a couple of stragglers lingered in the crew’s mess room when she brought the tray of dirty cups and glasses to the galley. She rinsed them off and loaded them onto the dishwasher belt. She was confused.

  Rassmussen was busy rolling out piecrusts for this evening’s dessert. He looked up, a sloppy grin on his broad Norwegian face. He always seemed to be in a jovial mood. “Son of a bitch, what’d the captain say about my borscht?” he boomed.

  Irina was startled. She spun around. “What?”

  “My borscht. What’d the captain say?”

  “He said thank you.”

  “Thank you!” Rassmussen shouted. His grin widened. “Son of a bitch, wait’ll he has my pumpkin pie tonight.”

  “Russians don’t eat pumpkin pie,” Irina said absently.

  “This one does, he asked for it. Son of a bitch.”

  Irina turned back to work, rinsing the rest of the lunch dishes, loading them onto the belt, and starting the dishwasher. The galley was clean, as were all but one table in the mess room. Alicia had tided up before going off duty.

  “I’m going to my cabin for a couple hours,” she told the cook.

  Rassmussen nodded. “Be back at four. I’m roasting turkeys with all the trimmings. You’ll serve the wardroom.”

  “Yes, sir,” Irina said tiredly. She dried her hands and went up one deck to her cabin in crew territory. She’d been up since four thirty to help with the morning meal for the change of watch standers, and she wanted to rest for an hour or so. Sleep. Shut her mind down. But she couldn’t stop from thinking about the captain. The man was pretending to be a Russian, and she could make no sense of it.

  Alicia had just gotten out of the shower, and she was in her robe in front of the mirror drying her spiky hair. She looked around when Irina came in. “Hi, sweetie,” she said, smiling. But then she lowered the hair-dryer. “You looked bushed. Are you okay?”

  Irina took off her jacket and tossed it on her bed. “I’m just a little tired, is all.”

  “Nope,” Alicia said. She put down the hair-dryer and came out to Irina. “What’s the matter?” she asked, concerned. “Is George hitting on you again?” The third officer had been trying for three months to have Vasquez talk Alicia into setting him up. He wanted the same arrangement with Irina that Vasquez had with Alicia.

  “No,” Irina said. “It’s the captain, he’s an imposter.”

  Alicia was surprised. She shook her head and laughed. “That’s rich,” she said. “Would you mind telling me how you came to such a brilliant conclusion?”

  “His name is Grigoriy Slavin. He comes from St. Petersburg.”

  Alicia laughed again. “Don’t Moscow girls get along with guys from St. Petersburg?”

  “He doesn’t speak Russian,” Irina blurted. “When I tried to talk to him yesterday, and just now when I brought his lunch tray to his cabin, he told me that we had to speak English.”

  “It’s a sensible rule,” Alicia said. “We must have ten different nationalities aboard.”

  “But I thanked him in Russian, and he said, ‘You’re welcome,’ in Russian.”

  “Okay, so he was being nice.”

  Irina shook her head. “But his accent was all wrong. Sounded like he was from Tajikistan or someplace like that. But that’s not right either. It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Come on, kiddo, you’re just tired and you’re imagining things.”

  “Just before I left his cabin, I said something else to him in Russian. If he’d understood he would have fired me on the spot.”

  Alicia shrugged. “What’d you say?”

  “Yob tvoyu mat …”

  “In English.”

  “I said, ‘Fuck your mother, but I think you’re a prick,’” Irina said.

  NINE

  MARACAIBO, VENEZUELA

  McGarvey, carrying only an overnight bag, emerged from the American Airlines jetway at La Chinita Airport a few minutes after four in the afternoon. Katy had driven him over to Miami’s International Airport, where she made him promise to take care of himself.

  “I’m not going to try to talk you out of this,” she’d said. “It’s what you do, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else with the guts to step up to the plate. They’re all hiding behind their bureaucracies, and whatever the politically correct flavor of the month happens to be.” She was bitter.

  He’d taken her in his arms outside the security check-in area. “It’s not all that bad, Katy. There are some good people doing the best they can under the laws they have to deal with.”

  “It never stopped you.”

  “No,” McGarvey said heavily. Following the letter of the law, and especially political correctness, had never exactly been one of his priorities. He’d always done whatever was needed to be done at the time it needed doing, and damn the consequences. Depending upon whatever administration was in charge he’d either been admired or reviled all his career.

  But no matter the administration, he’d always been called into action whenever his particular expertise was needed. He was an assassin; the means of last resort to reach a political goal, especially one in which a war could be avoided.

  Lawrence Danielle, an old friend in McGarvey’s early days with the CIA, had told him that had we known in the mid-thirties what we know today, we would have been more than justified in sending an assassin to kill Adolf Hitler. “Eliminating that one man might have spared us World War Two,” Danielle said.

  But there’d been some unintended consequences, what in the intel business were called blowbacks, to some of his missions. Instead of killing bin Laden he’d tried to negotiate with the man to give up a suitcase-size nuclear demolitions device. That al-Quaida mission to strike the United States failed, because of McGarvey’s intervention. But the ultimate consequence was 9/11.

  There’d been other smaller blowbacks, none as spectacular as the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but McGarvey remembered each of them in full detail; they were etched into his brain, like acid designs were etched into glass.

  “Take care of yourself, darling,” Kathleen told him. “I’ll be watching for you to come up the driveway.”

  Her words had stuck with him on the three-hour flight, but once they’d touched down, he’d put all of his thoughts about her into another, safe compartment in his mind, freeing his total concentration for the job at hand. Anything less could be fatal.

  McGarvey followed the other passengers down a long, filthy corridor and around the corner to passport control where two lines formed, one for Venezuelans and the other for everyone else. The afternoon was much hotter and more humid than in Florida.

  A slender, handsome man with long black hair, intense coal-black eyes, and a swarthy complexion that reminded McGarvey of the actor Antonio Banderas was waiting to one side. Like McGarvey he was dressed in an open-collar shirt and a light sport coat. He looked like a cop.

  “Mr. McGarvey,” he said in good English.

  “I am if you’re Juan Gallegos.”

  “At your service, señor,” Gallegos said. Otto had assured McGarvey that Gallegos was a friend of the CIA, and although what help he would be allowed to give was limited, he would not tie Mac’s hands. But he seemed a little nervous.

  “I sent a small package under diplomatic seal as checked baggage,” McGarvey said.

  “Sí,” Gallegos said. He eyed McGarvey’s single carry-on bag. “Do you have any other luggage?”

  “No.”

  “Then if you’ll come with me, we’ll retrieve your package and go to the hotel. We can talk on the way into town.”

  McGarvey followed the intelligence officer around passport control, a few of the passengers glancing at them curiously, then down another filthy corridor to a large hall where luggage from the Miami flight was already showing up on the carousel. An airport employee in dark coveralls came from the back and handed a small leather bag to Gallegos, who had to sign for it.

  When he was gone, Gallegos handed the b
ag to McGarvey and they headed toward the customs counters beyond which were the doors out to the Departing Passengers exit, where several buses and taxis were waiting.

  “I assume this contains your pistol,” Gallegos said. “If you fire it on Venezuelan soil, and especially if you injure or kill someone, there will be a very thorough investigation with possibly harsh consequences. Be very certain that your reasons are compelling and necessary.”

  “I don’t think it’ll come to that,” McGarvey said, which was a lie. If he found Graham and if he could tie the man to an al-Quaida mission, he was going to take him out.

  Gallegos stopped and gave McGarvey a harsh look. “Then why are you here?”

  “To find a man.”

  “And if you find him?”

  McGarvey shrugged. “We’ll have to see.”

  Gallegos nodded. “Yes, we’ll have to see.”

  None of the three customs officers even looked up as McGarvey followed the CID agent out of the terminal to a waiting Toyota SUV with big off-road tires and splattered, mud-caked fenders and doors. A fair amount of traffic had built up from a couple of earlier flights.

  “I spent the last week in the north outside of Paraguaipoa, in the rain,” Gallegos explained. “It’s on the border with Colombia.”

  “Drugs?” McGarvey asked, tossing his bags in the back, and climbing up into the passenger seat.

  Gallegos gave him another less-than-friendly look. “The U.S. market is never-ending and the money is very good. It’s a powerful aphrodisiac for poor farmers and fishermen. They can make a year’s wages for one night of work.”

  “Maybe we should legalize drugs, and regulate them like we do alcohol,” McGarvey said.

  Gallegos laughed, and pulled away from the curb ahead of a bus heading into town. The day was very hot and humid, and the air stank of crude oil, natural gas, and other petrochemicals. Oil pumped out from beneath the lake was a major contributor to Venezuela’s economy, and the people along the lake paid for it with lousy air.

  “Otto sent me a file, which included a couple of decent photographs of the man you’re looking for,” Gallegos said. “If he came here within the past thirty days it had to be under a false passport, and possibly in disguise. The name Rupert Graham doesn’t show up on any list—immigration, customs, or hotel registrations. I had one of the photographs distributed to every port of entry official in the entire country, not just here in Maracaibo, but so far I’ve received no hits.”

  “Thanks for the effort, but I don’t think he’s traveling under his real name. He’s on Interpol’s most wanted list—”

  “Yes, we know this,” Gallegos said impatiently. “But what Otto failed to tell me was why he believes Graham came here. The man’s wanted for piracy. He couldn’t be planning on hijacking an oil tanker, unless he’s incredibly stupid. Vensport security is airtight.”

  The Autopista 1 highway from the airport was in reasonable condition, although traffic was heavy, and trash seemed to be everywhere; garbage, the rusted-out hulks of old cars, a dead horse; and halfway into the sprawling city of more than one million people, a weed-choked field was covered with abandoned cargo ship containers. Windows had been cut into the sides of most of them, and half-naked children played in the muddy lanes between the rows. People were living here.

  “Venezuela is in a depression,” McGarvey said. “The bolívar is down, oil exports are sagging, the World Bank is pressing for some of the hundred-billion-plus debt, and unemployment is right around thirty percent.”

  Gallegos scowled, but he nodded. “Which makes the drug trade all the more appealing.” He looked at McGarvey. “And not just to poor fishermen and farmers along the border. What does that have to do with Graham?”

  “Unemployment among sailors is just as high or higher than your national average. He might be here looking for crew.”

  Gallegos shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. Caracas would give him a medal if it were true.”

  “He works for bin Laden.”

  “That’s not our fight,” Gallegos said sharply.

  “It will be if al-Quaida uses a crew of Venezuelans for its next strike,” McGarvey said.

  They were set up in adjoining rooms at the Hotel Del Lago right on the lake with a fantastic view of the oil derricks, loading platforms, and heavy shipping traffic that never ceased 24/7. Gallegos was heading off to an old boy meeting at the Girasol Restaurant in the Hotel El Paseo with the chief of federal police for Stato Zulia, to see if a quiet APB could be issued. Graham had violated no Venezuelan laws, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for him, in case he did something wrong.

  “For the moment my government and yours are not on the most friendly terms,” Gallegos told McGarvey. They were in the hotel’s lobby bar. It was busy, but they were out of earshot of anyone. “I don’t suppose you’ll stay in the hotel until I get back later tonight.”

  “I thought I might poke around,” McGarvey said. He knew exactly what he wanted to find out, and exactly where to find it. Having a Venezuelan CID officer tagging along wouldn’t help.

  Gallegos nodded. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “But try to stay out of trouble, Mr. McGarvey. No gunfights, if you please.”

  “When will you be back?”

  It was already eight o’clock. “Not until late. We often don’t eat dinner out until midnight. So unless you need to speak to me tonight, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Fair enough,” McGarvey said.

  Gallegos gave him a last look and then got up and left the bar.

  A couple of minutes later, McGarvey finished his beer, signed for the tab, and went back up to his room to change into jeans and a dark short-sleeved pullover. He stuffed his pistol in the quick-draw holster under his shirt at the small of his back, and outside took a cab down to the commercial waterfront district.

  If Graham had come to Maracaibo to raise a crew, he had a four-day head start, which meant he’d have made some waves, ripples in a pond into which a rock had been dropped. There’d be someone who had been interviewed but hadn’t been hired who’d be willing to talk to an American paying cash.

  The cabbie dropped him off at the head of a seedy-looking district that stretched for several blocks two streets up from the main drag along the commercial wharves. The area was ablaze with colored lights, bars or chinganas with open doors, and half-naked prostitutes sitting in the open second-floor windows of their burdeles. It was early on a Saturday night but the district was already crammed. It reminded McGarvey of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

  He bought a cold beer from a street vendor and headed into the district, trying to think like an ex–British naval officer looking for a crew. Unless Graham spoke gutter Spanish he wouldn’t get along with the average seaman down here; only the whores would listen to him because he would have money. Another possibility was finding an out-of-work, disgruntled Venezuelan merchant marine officer. If Graham had been able to make contact with such a man, hiring a crew would be taken care of in one stroke.

  McGarvey’s problem of picking up Graham’s trail was solved in the first chingana he walked into. The girls from the burdel upstairs worked the long marble bar and the tables in the tightly packed saloon for marks.

  The instant he sat down at a free table near the door, a small, narrow-hipped woman, with a tiny, round face, large dark eyes, and short hair came over with a big smile, and sat on his lap. She was wearing a nearly transparent white blouse that showed her large, dark nipples, and a black miniskirt so short that the fact she wore no panties was obvious.

  “Hey, gringo, what are you doing here?” she asked in English. “Do you want to fuck me?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” McGarvey said.

  “It’s your lucky day. Here I am!”

  A scantily clad, horse-faced waitress came over. McGarvey held up the beer from the street vendor. “A pink champagne cocktail for your friend?” she asked.

  McGarvey nodded and the waitress went back to the bar
to get another beer for him and the ten-dollar cocktail made of a few drops of Angostura bitters in a glass of seltzer water with a paper umbrella.

  “You a horny gringo?” the girl whispered in McGarvey’s ear. “Around the world, fifty dollars.” She parted her thighs a little wider.

  The going rate for an AB would be around ten or fifteen dollars. But all Americans and Western Europeans had plenty of money.

  “What would I get for a hundred dollars?” McGarvey asked.

  The girl pulled back to look into his eyes to see if he was kidding around. Her face lit up in a broad grin, two of her teeth missing. “Anything you want, baby!”

  McGarvey took out the picture of Graham and held it up so that she could see it in the dim light. For a moment or two she didn’t seem to comprehend what was going on, but suddenly her face contorted, and she snatched the photograph from McGarvey’s hand.

  “¡Qué hijo de puta!” she screeched. What a son of a bitch!

  The waitress with their drinks at the bar looked up.

  “You’ve seen this man?” McGarvey asked.

  The whore jumped off McGarvey’s lap and screeched something else in Spanish at the top of her lungs, while brandishing Graham’s photograph over her head.

  Some of the other customers were beginning to take notice, and the waitress was saying something to a very large, bald-headed man behind the bar.

  “Two days ago, puta!” the whore shouted in his face. “Are you his friend?”

  “I came here to kill him,” McGarvey said, just loudly enough for the girl to hear. He took a one-hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Where is he?”

  A crafty look came into the girl’s eyes, and she reached for the money, but McGarvey batted her hand away.

  “What was he doing here?” McGarvey said. “If you’re lying, I’ll know.”

  The bald-headed bouncer started across from the bar. He carried a baseball bat. Several of the patrons had gotten to their feet and blocked McGarvey’s path to the door.