Gardens of the Queen

by Nicholas Harvey

  Mikhail remained unflinching but he did pause before replying, buying time to straighten out the story in his mind. “We Russians are keen on our schedules, sir, besides, we are used to the Bering Sea, this crossing was not rough for us.” Mikhail managed to curl the edge of his mouth in what appeared to be an attempt at a smile.

  Watson chuckled for a moment and then turned to look at the seasick Russian. Pavlo looked bedraggled with a pasty complexion and sagging eyelids he could barely keep open.

  “You don’t look so good there, mister marine biologist?”

  Pavlo started to attempt a response but he clearly didn’t understand the question and decided to shut his mouth. Mikhail laughed to everyone’s surprise but it broke the tension, “Every group has a new guy, right? He’s ours.”

  Watson relented. “Okay, let’s take a look around the boat if you don’t mind. Mr. Gurov, perhaps you can give us a tour?”

  Mikhail didn’t hesitate. “This way, gentlemen.”

  Chapter 22

  Chief Pilot Kemar Robinson pointed the police Airbus EC135 helicopter north-west following the West Bay coastline at an altitude of 1000 feet. His co-pilot, Line Pilot Joseph Connell, scanned the water’s edge and beach for signs of storm damage. So far it was limited to palm fronds, washed-up seaweed and small debris. They idly chatted over the intercom about this weekend’s football game as Kemar cleared the north-west corner by Villas Pappagallo and left the island’s beaches to trace the outer reef across the North Sound, spanning to Rum Point. Barker’s National Park, the mangrove reserve, stretched away to their right as they flew over the shallow reef heading east. The seas remained rough but had settled down considerably from the prior two days’ storms, and visibility had returned, revealing the beautiful reef and sandy bottom of the sound.

  Both men leaned forward in their seats at the same time. Joseph mumbled, “What in God’s name is that?”

  What appeared to be a large, white, metallic-looking board stuck up from the ocean side of the reef at a strange angle as they neared Rum Point.

  “That a piece of a boat?” Kemar asked, nosing the helicopter down closer to the water.

  “Looks more like a billboard, or maybe something fallen off a freighter?” Joseph noted as they began circling at 200 feet over the mysterious object.

  “Oh shit!” Kemar swung the helicopter around and dipped the nose so they could both see from the front window. The wreckage of a small plane could be plainly seen in the clear water forty yards outside the reef, the fuselage easily identifiable.

  “That’s the wing of the plane stuck against the reef over there! I didn’t hear any reports of missing planes, did you?” Kemar asked.

  Joseph was already hitting the radio button. “AOU this is Victor Papa Charlie Papa Sierra, we have a downed aircraft outside the North Sound reef in shallow water, maybe… Half a click from Rum Point, over.”

  After a short delay the radio crackled back, “Joseph, did you say a downed aircraft? Over.”

  “Yes, Jacob, that’s what I said, now get Whittaker on the horn, he’s gonna want to know about this!”

  Detective Roy Whittaker was enjoying a cup of coffee, sitting outside the Greenhouse Café at the edge of George Town. The humorous owner, Jen, brought him a large pastry, placing it on his table with a grin. “Yesterday you told me to deny you if you ordered anything fattening.”

  Roy looked up from his newspaper with a smirk. “Looks like you may have ignored me?”

  Jen explained, “Nope, I made this special with low-fat butter, locally sourced skimmed milk cheese and lean meat.”

  Roy looked surprised. “Really?”

  Jen put her hands on her hips and shook her head at him. “No, not really, I make a living selling food not denying people food, I ain’t your diet police. Enjoy.” With that she left him with a smile on her face.

  Roy laughed as he reached for his mobile phone buzzing on the table. “Detective Whittaker.”

  He listened for a few moments to the excited voice on the line. “You don’t say?”

  More excited babbling before Roy could interrupt them. “Calm down a step Jacob. Listen, did the fellas see any signs of life or any bodies?”

  The reply appeared to be negative. “All right then, I’ll organise a boat and some divers. Tell Kemar to stay close until we get out there, we don’t need a bunch of fuss before we have a chance to take a look.”

  Whittaker picked up his coffee and pastry, waved in Jen’s direction inside the café and headed for his car.

  Reg stood in the car park out the back of the yacht club and watched as his boat was pulled up the ramp on a large trailer towed by a rusty old tractor. His boats were his babies and all three of his Newtons were regularly serviced and any issues were taken care of swiftly. This one was to receive a new propeller.

  His phone rang in his pocket and checking the caller ID he was only mildly surprised to see Roy Whittaker was calling him. Curiously he answered, “Good morning Roy.”

  “Morning Reg, how’s that lovely wife of yours? She playing tonight?”

  Pearl had a regular gig on Friday nights at the Fox and Hare pub in West Bay where she played guitar and sang. Roy Whittaker and his wife would often stop by and enjoy the show.

  “She’s keeping me in line as usual so I reckon she’s alright – hasn’t kicked me out yet so I’m still the luckiest man alive. She’ll be there, starts at seven.”

  Roy allowed himself a chuckle. “You might be at that Reg, she’s a good one.” His tone shifted as he switched to business, the part Reg was waiting for. “What do you have going this morning, Reg?”

  “Got two boats out on west side now it’s laid down and I’m at the yacht club pulling the third to fix the prop. Why, need some help with something Roy?”

  Reg had often helped the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service – the RCIPS – over the years with search and rescue, recoveries and diving. The service had a whole marine division and several capable divers but no one with Reg’s experience, especially when it came to technical or difficult conditions.

  “Not sure quite yet, just heading out there myself, but we’ve got the wreckage of a small plane on North Sound reef. No sign of bodies and no reports on the plane going down so I’ll probably need some divers in the water to do a search and identify the plane. Guessing it’s still pretty rough out north so wouldn’t mind having you there, if you’re not too busy?”

  Reg was surprised the plane had been found so soon – it had only been daylight for an hour, but figured the best way to keep tabs on what was happening was to be there.

  “Let me grab my gear and some tanks off the boat before they pull it into the maintenance yard here. You got someone that can pick me up?”

  “I do, I’ll be at the yacht club in ten minutes. I have a marine unit picking me up, I’ll see you there in a bit.”

  Reg shouted to the tractor driver to hold up; he had ten minutes to get his dive gear together and figure out what he should find and not find at the plane. He was okay not telling his friend Roy a few details but he wasn’t prepared to lie to him so he needed to get his story straight before he arrived at the wreck of the Cuban seaplane for the second time.

  AJ had a scuba tank in each hand, heading from her van to her dive boat tied up alongside the dock she shared with Reg at the north end of Seven Mile Beach. She and Thomas were just about done loading the boat for the morning trip and customers were starting to arrive, ready to get some diving in now the weather had cleared. She enjoyed the physical work that came with running a dive business and her lean, muscular physique was proof of the effort.

  She felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket and hustled as best she could with a forty-pound tank in each hand to reach the boat. As she set them down the phone stopped ringing and she looked at the caller ID to see who she’d missed. It was Reg.

  Thomas joined her with the last two tanks and they loaded them into the racks in the stern of the boat. The dock was busy with two of Reg�
��s boats as well as AJ’s getting outfitted and customers milling around eager to get out on the water now the weather was back to the usual beautiful sun-filled day on Cayman.

  “Can you start getting everyone on board and signed in, Thomas? I need to call Reg back.”

  Thomas gave her the okay sign and began shepherding guests aboard and helping them organise their gear or get fitted for rental equipment. AJ stepped off the boat and found a quieter spot to talk on the phone. Noticing she had a voicemail she listened. ‘Hey, it’s Reg, they found the bloody thing already, Detective Whittaker has asked me to dive it for him, he’s picking me up in a few minutes. Not sure there’s much I can do but tell him what I find down there. Don’t want to make more trouble for ‘your lad’ but I’m not going to lie to the police either, we’d be in deep shit if he knew we’d already been out there and didn’t say anything. Friend or no friend you know Roy is by the book. Anyway, he’s pulling up so text me if you think of anything.”

  “Bugger.” AJ couldn’t help but swear out loud. She was hoping it would be a day or two before the north calmed down enough for dive boats to head back out there and someone stumble across the plane. It was one thing having the possibility of the Cubans and Russians hunting for Carlos and the seaplane, if indeed they were looking in Cayman, but a whole other problem if the police were also trying to find a Cuban pilot. Of course once the news broke a Cuban plane had crashed in Cayman, they’d know for sure.

  She tried to think it through. What would be the least intrusive in getting Carlos’s story out to the press? They needed time. Jackson was working on it from his end but who knew if or when they’d be ready to run with the story. Before that could happen Sydney had to get into the hard drive or there was no story. The other thing they didn’t know was how the Cuban government would react when asked about their missing plane. Didn’t seem like they’d reported it missing, which tied in with Carlos’s theory they’d send the Russians to clean up the mess quietly.

  They definitely needed time. Best thing would be for the police to stay tied up looking for a body on the north side; that would keep them busy, especially as she knew there wasn’t a body to be found.

  She texted Reg, ‘Best thing is a body search, keep them busy.’

  As AJ strode back down the pier towards her boat she smiled at Reg’s text back, ‘You’re in deep shit if I miss Pearl playing tonight.’

  Chapter 23

  The North Sound was a whole lot calmer than yesterday afternoon, Reg noted to himself, as the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Marine Unit boat completed the run across and coasted up to a sister boat anchored short of the shallow reef. The wing of the seaplane could be seen pointing to the sky, trapped against the reef on the ocean side.

  They tied alongside and two men approached the railing of the other boat to meet them. Reg knew the first man, George Grayson. He was a Marine Unit officer and diver and the two of them had dived together both on official business and recreational. He was a good man and a capable, dependable diver in Reg’s opinion. The second man introduced himself as a representative of the Cayman Islands Airports Authority. Cayman rarely had need of an aviation accident investigation team so when something did happen someone from the CIAA would be present to oversee the crash site before an expert could be brought in from the UK.

  After brief pleasantries Reg got things moving, “Alright George, let’s gear up here where it’s calmer then they can zip us around through the small cut and drop us on the site.” He turned to the boat captain, “You’ll have to pull off the site until we come back up and then come grab us. If we’re not marking a particular spot for any reason we’ll head away from the reef underwater so expect us to surface in deeper water, safer for everyone.”

  George threw his gear bag over and joined Reg and the two began getting prepared. Roy chatted to the CIAA inspector for a few minutes before briefing the two divers.

  “First thing will be to identify the plane, tail number should be enough, and then see if there’s a victim on site. Next would be a quick look to see if there’s identifiable cargo, illicit or otherwise and whether there’s any contaminant risks beyond the usual fuel leakage. If you suspect anything dangerous on board then abort and we’ll tackle the scene differently. If there are no victims on site and you have time to begin an area search please do what you can.”

  The two men nodded and waved to the captain to take them around to the ocean side.

  Reg and George splashed in right over the wreck site and descended quickly to get away from the choppy surface. The waters were quickly settling after the storm, visibility was coming back and although the surge worsened the closer they got to the shallow reef it was workable near the plane itself. The fuselage had clearly rolled shallower than where it had been last night; the high wing must have finally separated completely allowing it to tumble until wedging itself hard against a large coral head, where it now resided. Both doors were gone, both pontoons detached and the tail wings were badly twisted and mangled, but it lay upright with the right side against the coral head.

  Reg signalled to George to take a sweep around then let him know he would take a look in the plane itself. He then noted the tail number from the rear of the fuselage, writing the numbers on a slate he had clipped to his BCD. Finning between surges of current he eased closer and poked his head inside the door opening. A lot had gone on inside this little space in the past twenty-four hours, he mused to himself, picturing firstly Carlos and Sydney fighting their way out and then AJ getting herself trapped inside before rescuing some of the cargo. Sea life was already taking an interest in the new arrival: a few squirrelfish lurked in the back and a handful of tangs flitted out the other door. The seat was still folded down and the larger cases scattered about, one now all the way forward against the console.

  Reg scanned the console, noting the broken radar screen and one intercom headset up against the windshield, still tethered by its cord. The second headset was nowhere to be seen, probably thrown clear at some point he surmised. For no particular reason he slid the headset aside and something shiny caught his eye, wedged between the windshield and the top of the console. He reached forward and carefully picked up the metallic object, a wristwatch. Reg turned it over in his hand and examined it. It was clearly a woman’s watch with a smaller face and decorative strap. On the back he could just make out an inscription, ‘Todo mi amor, Carlos.’ Shit, Reg thought, this must be Sydney’s, a gift from Carlos. He slid the watch into a BCD pocket and zipped it tightly closed, looking around to make sure George wasn’t close by and thankful it was him who had found it. If there was any way to keep Sydney out of this mess the better it would be if it all went sideways… And Reg was pretty certain this was all going sideways before they were done.

  Of course Reg knew there were no bodies to find but he went about his work as though there could be and carefully examined the interior for signs of distress or in case they’d left any other evidence he needed to clear. George returned and by hand signal communicated he’d found the pontoons but no sign of victims. With plenty of air and bottom time remaining they began an area search using an expanding square pattern and other than debris from the plane coming apart they found nothing of interest. As he passed by a coral head that reached almost to the surface he noticed a fresh-looking gouge in the top and realised it was probably from his prop the day before. He felt awful killing coral, knowing how long it took to grow and how vital it was to the ecosystem of the oceans – but coral could at least grow again, AJ couldn’t.

  After an hour they headed due north staying at a depth of fifteen feet to give themselves a good safety stop, allowing the nitrogen in their blood to comfortably dissipate before surfacing and signalling the boat captain to retrieve them.

  Back on board the two divers gave Roy and the CIAA man a thorough debrief on the condition of the plane, the cases inside and the layout of the wreck site. Reg referenced his slate, “Tail number is CU-FDRY and it’s a Cessna, I saw badg
es on a few…”

  “CU prefix you say?” interrupted the inspector.

  Reg confirmed, “Correct, Charlie, Uniform, dash, Foxtrot, Delta, Romeo, Yankee.”

  “Hmmm.” The inspector looked concerned. “That’s a Cuban prefix, this plane came from Cuba.”

  “Someone seeking exile possibly? Doesn’t really explain the cases,” Roy suggested.

  Reg needed to keep this on track, “Well, whatever poor sod was in that plane is surely floating in the sound or washed up on the shore somewhere, so we better start looking before the critters get them.”

  “True enough.” Roy nodded. “I’ll call in what we know, they can ask the Cubans if they have a plane missing, might help us know who we’re looking for. But until we get some idea what’s in those cases we’d best stay out of the water.”

  The sound of a helicopter drowned out any further speech and they all looked to the skies.

  “Damn it,” Roy exclaimed in a rare show of anger, “it’s the news guys.”

  Chapter 24

  Sydney growled under her breath. After crashing out from exhaustion the night before, she’d awoken early and hadn’t moved from the computer since 5.30am. She was now on the Internet searching for help articles on accessing a hard drive and finding mainly sketchy ads for software that was ‘the only software you need to crack any hard drive’. Pearl brought her another cup of coffee and traded out mugs, giving her a supportive squeeze on the shoulder.

  “Thank you Pearl, you’re an angel,” Sydney mumbled.

  “I’ll fix some breakfast, I think I heard Carlos stirring back there,” Pearl replied over her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen.

  Sydney sighed and stared at the screen. She could build you a beautiful website, set up a mean Sharepoint site or program in Java, C++ and Matlab. But finding a way around the protection on this hard drive was stumping her. She thought about the classes she was currently missing in Miami, the school her parents were spending all the money they didn’t have to send her to. She won a scholarship in high school towards college tuition, she had student loans and still her parents had to scrape together what they could to make it work. Even her little brother Thomas was helping when he could. Her amazing little brother who had saved their lives based on a brief phone call for help two nights ago. Yet here she sat, back on Cayman, unbeknown to her loving family, missing classes. A wave of guilt raced through her and she felt a lump rising in her throat. Sydney believed wholeheartedly in what they were trying to achieve but what if she did end up in trouble? She could lose her scholarship or get kicked out of school. She could be arrested for being party to stealing a plane. If Carlos was right, the Russians could go to any lengths to hide their plans and recover the evidence. What did that mean, any lengths? Stuff from the movies with bad guys and guns and secret agents making people disappear? She was letting her imagination get away from her; none of that stuff really happens and especially on their sleepy little island in the middle of the Caribbean sea. The sound of the television coming on in the living room brought her back to the moment and she heard Pearl call her.