“So AJ told me about your guy’s ordeal, that sounds crazy, glad you made it through okay, not many people can say they survived a plane crash,” Jackson began.
“Technically we didn’t crash,” Carlos quickly corrected, “I landed the plane, then we crashed. But no matter, let me show you what we have.”
AJ held the phone’s camera facing the computer screen and Carlos went through it all again with Jackson asking a few questions along the way. At the end, Jackson took a moment to think before asking, “Who actually owns these files? Meaning, who legally owns that hard drive containing them and I’m sure the maps all have some kind of disclaimer and legalese on them? Property of or something?”
Carlos despondently admitted, “Sure, of course, it all belongs to the Republic of Cuba, but we have to tell the world about this, show the people – surely if enough people see this we can stop it?”
“Hopefully,” Jackson responded, “but we have to be careful how we handle this. You’ve broken the law and are illegally in possession of all this, we can’t take these files from you or we’ll be accessories and if we get caught up in a legality issue then nothing will happen until that’s resolved, and by resolved I’m guessing Cuba would get their property back.”
Carlos was desperate. “So there’s nothing you can do?”
“I didn’t say that, but you can’t send me those files. I need you to take a screenshot of the key maps and that one email and send me those. AJ has my personal email. I’ll show the screenshots to my folks here and we’ll see what we can do, okay?”
Carlos was clearly hoping for something more. “Sure, we’ll send you the pictures right away. Please understand, it doesn’t matter what happens to me, if I go to prison then so be it, but the world has to know why if we have a chance of saving Jardines de la Reina. Jackson, you have to see these reefs, they are the most beautiful sight in the world, so much life, so healthy, when the world is losing coral so quickly. I don’t think most people know how the reefs influence life in the oceans and are a big part of filtering the air we breathe; saving the coral plays a big part in saving our planet.”
“Believe me, I hear you Carlos and agree completely, but if we get stopped by a court before we can ever tell people then all your efforts will be wasted. Let me get with my bosses here and see what we can do, okay? What I hope is that we can facilitate some kind of press release or conference for you to present what you have. But I think it’s important for you to know we can’t shelter you from the law – you stole a plane and government data, at some point that will be addressed and if we put on a press conference at a physical location you’ll likely be arrested.”
Carlos nodded sternly. “I understand. As long as I have told this story then what will be will be, but please, just give me the chance to show this to the world.”
Chapter 35
The two Cubans sat in the wheelhouse of the anchored trawler and chuckled at the Russian agent sunning himself on the forward deck. Clearly he hadn’t packed shorts so he was down to his underwear and the exposed parts of his milky white body were turning a crispy red in short order.
Julio dragged on a cigarette and smoke puffed from his nostrils in waves as he continued to snicker to himself. His skin, like Silvio’s, was deeply tanned from their Hispanic heritage and a life outdoors on the water. They spent their efforts sheltering and covering up from the sun rather than exposing themselves to it. The man frying himself to a painful few days ahead was nothing but comical to them.
“This will be fun watching that idiot tomorrow when it hurts to move,” Julio managed between laughs.
“Probably take it out on us is what he’ll do. They’re all a big enough pain in the arse as it is. When he can’t sit down to take a shit ‘cos his arse is burnt he’ll be mean as hell.” Silvio offered and the two laughed again.
“Damn Russians, bad enough we have to deal with our own authorities, let alone these bastards,” Julio mumbled after a few minutes.
Silvio shook his head. “True, but at least Russia puts some money into our economy, we’ll take all the help they want to give. They want some oil and they’re willing to pay, I say we give them oil.”
“Carlos must be crazy, stealing that plane and everything, don’t you think?” Julio asked, looking over at the older man.
“I think his carcass is at the bottom of the sea, that’s what this crazy shit did for him. Probably better off if he is dead, I don’t want to think what they’ll do to him if he’s still alive,” Silvio snapped back.
“You think he could have survived crashing the plane?” Julio took another long drag on his cigarette.
“If he did I guarantee the Russian will find him. He’s not one I would mess with, he’s mean, but more than that he’s really smart. I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of him.” Silvio crossed himself for emphasis. “Don’t get me wrong,” Silvio continued, “I like Carlos, he’s a good kid and I hope somehow he’s okay but if they find him he’ll wish he died in that plane. And then his family…” Silvio looked over at Julio with dread. “They’ll go after his family too, even when they know nothing of what he’s done.”
Julio nodded in agreement. “Scary shit.” He thought a moment and took another long drag and exhaled slowly. “Well, you know me, I like Carlos and I like that reef and the fishes and all that, but what I like more is a simple, easy life, with no problems. Cold beer and a few nice girls, that’s good enough for me.”
Silvio finished the conversation, “Anyway, there ain’t nothing we can do for our boy Carlos, he’s either dead or as good as dead.”
Chapter 36
Jackson sat at a table next to the captain of the Sword of the Sentry with all eyes on a monitor on the wall in front of them. The man on the screen was in his sixties with white hair and goatee. He spoke energetically in a bold and confident tone.
“It’s all well and good this kid’s got some files but if we touch them we’re in deep shit.”
Jackson nodded and replied in his easy, unflustered voice, “I explained that, which is why we’re looking at screenshots only. I tell you, this guy’s all in, all we have to do is set up a time and place and have the right ears listening, he’ll deliver the message and show the world the files. He told me if that means he gets jailed in Cuba afterwards, then he’ll accept that.”
The captain spoke, “The evidence he has, if it’s correct, is pretty damning. Clearly they’ll destroy a good part of that whole reef structure, we’re talking the majority of a 150-kilometre reef system will be affected, a lot of it lost for good.”
“How sure are we that the info is legit?” came back the man on the screen.
Jackson was careful and precise in his reply. “We know the kid worked for the geology group which is a shell for oil exploration over there. Everything he showed me had government stamps and warnings on it. We know the Cubans are hopping mad and desperate to find him, along with the Russians. I have personally spoken with him and have seen him looking through a hard drive full of these files. The whole project is Russian backed and funded. The guy they’ve sent after him is Russian. They certainly appear very concerned about what he can reveal.”
“But can we trust him? He’s not just looking for his fifteen minutes, or seeking asylum and making a show of it is he?” The man was still cautious.
Jackson thought for a moment, “I’ve only spoken to him the one time, just a while ago, but he doesn’t strike me as a ‘limelighter’. The people that are helping him on Cayman, I know them a little better and I don’t believe they’d get involved in a sham, they’re as straight as they come and strong environmental advocates. I’d also add the clock is ticking pretty fast on this. Once the Russians find him he’ll disappear and we’ll never hear from him again.”
“How long from Limon to Cayman?” The white-haired man asked.
“Thirty hours give or take, a little under if we push it,” the captain replied.
The man on the screen contemplated a moment. “Alright
, next stop was Florida anyway, guess you’ll take a detour. Get there as soon as you can, I’ll get the press conference organised from here. I’ll look at flying down tomorrow. We’ll shoot for the day after tomorrow, early morning so we capture America and Europe. To be clear, we’ll facilitate this and stand by him but the boy is on his own to present; we can’t even set up the computer for him, understand?”
Both men nodded.
“And Jackson?”
He looked up at the man on the screen. “Sir?”
“Make sure your friends keep that kid and his evidence safe until we get there. I’ve dived Gardens of the Queen, it’s spectacular, the planet can’t afford to lose this reef.”
Chapter 37
AJ glanced at her watch as she hopped in her van outside Reg’s house. Five o’clock. She had an hour and a half before she needed to leave for the pub and help Pearl set up. Plenty of time to clean up, she thought, maybe I can actually catch up on customer emails and bookings. She swung the van around in the narrow lane and sped off towards her apartment. She didn’t notice the mid-sized rental car backed into a dirt access road a hundred yards from the house.
Mikhail and Anatoly watched AJ’s van zip by and disappear around the corner. By their count this left the woman they presumed was Reg’s wife and Sydney in the house. They’d watched Sydney’s brother leave earlier, now the girl from the dive boat. Mikhail figured Reg was still out on the North Sound with the police. If there were other players in the equation they hadn’t come across them yet. Then, of course, there was Carlos. As the search continued with no sign of a body and the fact that Sydney seemed to be staying here rather than her own parents’ home suggested to Mikhail that Rojas was here too. He was sure Sydney had flown with Carlos so if she was unscathed then surely he was too. Time to find out.
Anatoly led his boss to the window at the side of the bungalow through which he’d seen Sydney. Anatoly warned him to watch for lizards. They carefully squeezed around the prickly bushes and peered through the same window. Across the living room sitting in an armchair making notes in a journal was Carlos Rojas. Apart from scratches on his cheek and legs, he appeared in perfect health. It dawned on Mikhail that Reg Moore was doing a pretty good job leading the Cayman police and the Cuban government around in circles looking for a ghost on the North Sound. Here, in the man’s own living room, sat the fugitive. Why on earth would he be harbouring and covering up for an international criminal? Helping out the local girl he understood but why would he, and the Bailey girl, get involved so deeply? Ultimately he didn’t care why but as a man that insisted on being in control of himself and all around him it bothered him to not know the answers.
They waited a few minutes to see who else was in the house; they could see Rojas was talking to someone although they couldn’t hear him. Finally Sydney came into view and sat on the arm of the chair, running her fingers through Carlos’s hair. Pearl walked over to the kitchen which completed the head count.
“I don’t think the door from the garage is locked, we can enter through there,” Anatoly whispered.
“No,” Mikhail halted him. “We are not in a position to take them.”
Anatoly pulled a handgun from under his shirt and showed Mikhail. “Sure we are.”
“You fool, I told you no guns.” Mikhail broke his deadpan demeanour for the first time, “We don’t need a gun to take two women and a boy.”
Anatoly tucked the gun away quickly. “Sorry sir, I am trained to always have my sidearm, didn’t feel right to leave it behind.”
“We are not in a position to take them because we don’t know for sure where the hard drive is.” Mikhail recovered his calm, condescending tone. “If it’s in the cases and we grab them we have three hostages we have to deal with until tomorrow. Someone will be looking for them before then. Carlos can’t go anywhere, he’s a fugitive. The police are looking for him, his picture has gone out now on the television this afternoon, and he must know we’re on the island. He’s stuck in that house. If it’s not in the cases we’ll come and grab him tomorrow and we’ll know the hard drive must be with him.”
“If the Reg guy is in on all this and helping Carlos, he will surely take the hard drive before the police get it?” Anatoly surmised.
“Correct, in which case they still end up here by tomorrow.” With that Mikhail took one more peek at Carlos Rojas through the window before leading Anatoly away and back to the car.
There were still too many loose ends bothering the Russian and he kept rolling them around in his mind. The longer this dragged on the more chance there was for things to escalate and become more complicated. Tomorrow, he told himself, tomorrow we wrap this job up and head home. Carlos may have miraculously survived a plane crash but tomorrow his run of luck would end.
Chapter 38
Reg pulled his van into the gravel car park of the Fox and Hare pub, taking a minute to find an open spot, a good indication it was a busy night. Striding across the car park he checked his watch and berated himself for being late. It was 7.10pm. He opened the door to a wave of sound in stark contrast to the quiet of twilight he had just left. The bar was bustling with customers chatting and laughing but the sweet sound he had come to hear was the strong, smoky voice of his beloved wife. Pearl caught his eye right away and smiled warmly at him as she strummed her guitar on the small stage, covering ‘I’m the Only One’ by Melissa Etheridge. The big man’s heart melted every time.
He found Thomas and AJ at the bar where they’d saved a stool for him. He gave AJ a quick hug and Thomas a slap on the back before taking a seat.
“How much did I miss?”
AJ shook her head. “Just a couple of songs. She’s brilliant as usual. How did it go up north?”
The barkeeper leaned over, greeted Reg and asked if he wanted his usual.
“Please,” Reg nodded.
He paused until the man had turned to fix his drink before answering in a hushed tone all of them huddled to hear, “We brought everything up this afternoon, went fine, it’s laid down quite a bit so it wasn’t bad. Met this Russian bloke our lad’s been talking about, a real dickhead, says he’s a marine biologist representing the Cubans but he’s military, or at least ex-military. Maybe from the KGB or whatever they call themselves these days; he ain’t no biologist, though. He was mad as hell when Whittaker wouldn’t let him look in the cases.”
“He didn’t open them?” AJ asked, surprised.
“Nope, Whittaker played him like a violin, made me feel really bad not being straight with him. We dived twice more this afternoon along the outside of the reef, looking for the body. Surprisingly we didn’t find anything,” Reg grinned. “Roy sent the Russian packing, told him he’d have the cases ready to hand over tomorrow; no one’s opened them yet to my knowledge.”
Thomas nudged Reg. “I think that Russian guy went by my house this morning, scared the crap out of Ma, asking all kind of questions about Sydney. Ma said he told her he was from the Cuban government but she said no way was he Cuban. Had a weird accent she said.” Thomas was clearly concerned. “Think he’ll go back and bother Ma again? She was pretty upset.”
Reg mulled it over, “I doubt it unless he really thinks Sydney is there.”
“But it means they must think Sydney was with…” AJ stopped herself saying his name, “our lad… And if they’re looking for her they’ve figured out or guessed they survived the plane crash,” AJ reasoned.
“The Russky wasn’t too bothered about finding bodies it appeared to me, all he cared about was looking in those cases,” Reg added, pausing again as the barman handed him his bourbon. “Cheers mate.” He took a quick sip as the barkeeper moved on to the next customer. “My guess is you’re right and they’ve figured out they’re both alive and well and somewhere on the island. The way he’s getting itchy around the cases has to mean he knows they took the hard drive and maybe other stuff they’re worried about. Once he finds out it’s not in there tomorrow he’ll turn up the search a notch I reck
on.”
“Sure hope he doesn’t go scaring my Ma again. It’s a good job Ma doesn’t know Sydney is here or she’d really be in a panic. As it is she made me text her and I had to pretend she was answering from Florida and everything was okay. It ain’t right me lying to her.” Thomas shook his head despondently.
They sat and listened to Pearl who’d moved on to a Janis Joplin tune, each lost in their own thoughts for a minute. Reg finally spoke up, “We sure about all this? I mean, it feels like we’re in way over our heads this time. You know me, I’m not stepping away from a fight worth fighting, but we’re leading Whittaker astray, hiding a kid wanted by a foreign government and being chased by Russian agents? This is James Bond shit. We’re risking our livelihoods and maybe our lives here.”
Reg was never one to be dramatic and it was usually hard to get two sentences out of him so both Thomas and AJ could see he was really troubled.
Thomas was first to comment, “You’re right. About all of it, we’re out of our depth… well I am at least. The idea we have Russian agents on our little island is crazy.” The young Caymanian shook his head in disbelief. “Man, crazy. But I have to do right by my sister. If she’s sure about this kid then I have to be as well. Sydney has always been the smart one that makes good decisions; she’s never dated the wrong crowd or been in trouble, she’s always been focused on what was important. Like her sports, when she was running track, she worked hard at it but wouldn’t let it take away from her schooling, you know? And I like Car… I mean ‘our lad’, as well. He doesn’t seem foolish to me, he seems like a passionate guy on a mission to do something good. I gotta stick with this to the end.”
Reg gave the young man a respectful nod before turning to AJ. “What do you think?”
AJ chewed it over a moment. “We’ve come this far, Reg, what do we say to Roy at this point? Jackson is working on Sea Sentry to get involved on a press release. I think we should give him some time to work that out. If they don’t buy in I think we’ll have a hard time making a splash in the press – I mean, who are we? Can’t see the worldwide press will run with it ‘cos you, me and some Cuban kid with a story and some maps anyone could have made in Photoshop says it’s true. You’ll see Roy tomorrow right?”
Gardens of the Queen Page 12
