( 2011) Cry For Justice

by Ralph Zeta

  She hugged me warmly and kissed my cheek. I could smell her delicate perfume and faint hints of fruit scents. Her bright smile told me she was glad for the unexpected encounter.

  “What a surprise seeing you here!” she murmured.

  I asked her to join me, and she asked for a moment to say good-bye to her party. She went back and spoke briefly to them, then rejoined me. She sat across from me, three feet of crisp linen-clad tabletop separating us. I thanked all the gods I had decided against calling Debbie from the beach bar. Seeing Mackenzie here was the last thing I could have expected. Fate what a wonderful and cunning force it could be.

  “So what brings you to Nassau?” I asked as she sat down.

  She was here to greet a group chartering her family’s yacht. They were set to arrive tomorrow from Amsterdam for a two-week Caribbean cruise aboard the Incognito, a 185-foot custom Berger yacht. Hermes Marina was its home port. The ship was regularly available for charter when not in use by her family which with her dad’s death and her mother’s advanced condition, was rare enough. She had just had dinner with the yacht’s skipper and members of its staff, and they were about to head back to the ship when she saw me enter the restaurant.

  The waiter arrived with our drinks, a glass of Bordeaux for Mackenzie, another margarita on the rocks for me. I ordered dinner, and we settled in for a pleasant chat. She asked me about the purpose of my visit. I told her I was on Baumann’s trail.

  “Really?” Her eyes widened a bit. “You found him?”

  I told her I was acting more on hunches and supposition than any real evidence that he was actually here, and that I believed Baumann may have hidden Mrs. Kelly’s sailboat somewhere on the island. And if the sailboat was here, my bet was he had to be nearby, waiting for the weather to clear. I also admitted I had little else to go on. Soon the conversation shifted from Baumann to how I had become involved in this line of work. This was a onetime deal, I explained. I had agreed to look into Amy’s affairs as a favor to a friend of Mrs. Kelly’s I saw no reason to add that the friend in question had also been my lover until three days ago.

  I finished my dinner and paid the bill, and we were soon outside, among the throng of tourists leisurely strolling about the waterfront. The breeze was now noticeably more pleasant. It was also filled with the vibrant excitement of eager visitors and carried the sweet hints of jasmine and gardenias. We continued with small talk as we strolled past the afterdecks of the floating palaces moored in the marina. I found myself wishing I were here under different circumstances. I couldn’t bring myself to relax enough to enjoy Mackenzie’s company as much as I wanted, because, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I felt uneasy, cagey, antennas on high alert, as if my senses detected an unfriendly presence lurking in the shadows.

  Something in me had changed. Even after the drinks, I recognized the change in mind-set. I had learned long ago to heed those subtle warnings, the little voice whispering gently, coercing me, guiding me, and urging me to switch all my senses into high alert. I felt my awareness level shift from carefree civilian to the familiar mind-set of operator on the prowl, one for whom keen senses and complete awareness of the surroundings often is the difference between staying alive and going home in a zippered bag. That thought made me think of Amy and Elizabeth. The fact that Baumann was still out there made me worry for their safety. Then there was Kellerman and the Agency. The danger that I might expose their secret relocation program and their need to keep it secret. Yes, I had ample cause to feel as I did.

  We sauntered past several enormous yachts, all moored stern to shore, and came to a stop in front of a cordoned-off gangplank leading up to an impressive-looking craft. I recognized the unmistakably elegant lines of a Berger Yacht. The name plate on its stern proclaimed it to be the Incognito III, home port, Nassau, Bahamas.

  Mackenzie’s family yacht had three generous afterdecks; include the flying bridge amidships high above, and it was at least four stories high. The expansive first-level deck was accessible via six built-in steps and a passerelle. She invited me onboard, and I gladly followed her up the rubber-and-teak-clad steps to the deck. The large space was covered by a fixed awning, and discreet lighting enhanced the image of understated luxury. To starboard were several padded chairs, arranged around a teak table. Near the back edge of the deck and abutting the rear bulkhead, a half-dozen padded chaise longues were arranged around the teak deck.

  We sat in comfortable chairs near the transom, and a man in a black polo shirt and khaki slacks appeared. His shirt had the name Incognito III embroidered in tasteful gold letters above the pocket. He welcomed us and asked us if we wished for anything to drink or perhaps something to eat. Mackenzie asked for mineral water; I went with a beer. My mind wasn’t really on the moment. She must have noticed, because in the middle of the conversation, she put down her tall water glass and said, “Is something the matter, Jason?”

  Before I could respond, my phone rang. The caller ID was blank.

  “Justice?” a man’s voice inquired.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “I believe you were expecting my call.”

  I came to my feet. “Kellerman?” It was his voice.

  “Harborside Resort Marina. Berth D-4. Thirty minutes.”

  I knew Harborside Marina was part of this resort. How the hell did he know where I was? I scanned the faces strolling on the boardwalk. There were just too many to consider. Anyone could easily hide among so many faces and shadows. I looked out over the neighboring yachts, checking the decks for anything unusual, though knowing I wouldn’t see the spooks even if they were there. I became aware of the cell phone pressed against my ear. I was squeezing it harder than was necessary.

  “Are you going to tell me where he is?” I demanded.

  Mackenzie was now standing beside me, her gaze following mine, searching, probing the same shadows, the blurring faces, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Be there,” Kellerman said, and the line went dead.

  Twenty-five

  I removed the battery from my cell phone no point in broadcasting my approach and left Mackenzie on the lower deck of Incognito III. Hitting the marina wharf at a trot, I weaved through the evening strollers, past the stores, headed away from the crowds before breaking into a dead run.

  After more than a mile of darting in and out of shadows, jumping hedges and bushes, doing all I could to stay out of sight, I stopped in a dark corner just behind a tall hedge designed to conceal one of the resort’s enormous water treatment plants. The strong scent of gardenias and other evening flowers almost masked that of gray water. A few years ago, the run would have been nothing, but I found myself breathing hard from the effort. According to my watch I had thirteen minutes left.

  Harborside Marina was located farther back in the basin, west of the main hotel towers and a good distance from the mega-yacht docks of the Hermes Marina. Walking fast would have taken at least twenty-five minutes to get here, but I had run most of the way I needed the extra time to check the lay of the land, spot any sentries, anticipate any potential surprises.

  Staying low, I continued my westward sprint, rounding the tall building before me while trying to keep to the darkest deepest shadows. My plan was to approach the meeting place from the far side, the unexpected side. If they knew I was here in Nassau, they also knew the direction I was coming from. Hell, they probably knew what I had for dinner.

  I really hated being in this situation and I really did not care much for my odds. I knew damned well this was potentially a hostile situation. If it was indeed a set up or a trap, I was at a distinct disadvantage. I was facing an unknown number of hostiles carrying unknown weaponry. To make matters worse, I was unarmed and completely alone and no one, except for Mackenzie, knew where I was headed. But, if I wanted Baumann, I had to show up and play along. This was one of those dreaded forks on the road, the kind that presents you with two very distinct options, and, as it often is, the right choice is the hard one. In my mind�
��s eye, I could just make out the dim image of the Grim Ripper lurking in the gloom beyond, waiting patiently for the precise moment to swing his scythe. I shook off the dim image and focused on what lay ahead.

  I peered past the corner of the building. The large marina was a forest of sailboat masts reaching up into the night sky. It was eerily quiet, and I couldn’t detect any movement. In the scant illumination provided by widely spaced mercury lamps of the marina, I spotted the pier with a wide white-on-red “D” sign, a hundred yards away and a little to my left. I trained my eyes on the darkest shadowed areas of the pier that would be where the bad guys, if present, lurked. I searched for anything out of place, any sign of life, and saw nothing. That concerned me even more. But these are the cards I’d been dealt. There was no other choice. If I wanted Baumann I had to make an appearance.

  Emerging from the shadows, I quietly approached the pier. The only movement was a flag swaying in the faint breeze. I started down the length of the long, narrow pier, past boat sterns with fanciful names and home ports all over the hemisphere.

  The pier’s all-weather planks flexed ever so slightly under my feet. I kept going, my footfalls as quiet as I could make them. Berth D-4 was only a few yards away now. And then I saw it: the distinctive silhouette with its large dark hull, wide beam, and tall twin masts, the odd rigging.

  The Stella Maris!

  Although I immediately recognized the gulet, I wasn’t fully prepared for it. I got closer and saw that the name on the stern had been changed and it no longer flew the Stars and Stripes. This majestic sailboat now flew the colors of the tiny, landlocked European duchy of Luxembourg, while graceful gold lettering astern announced the sailboat’s name as the Carpe Diem “Seize the day.” The irony did not escape me.

  Kellerman had delivered.

  I now understood why I had failed to locate the boat: it had been stashed away at the back of the marina, surrounded by hundreds of sailboats a straw in a field of straws. A very shrewd move, indeed.

  I felt silent footfalls. Someone was approaching from the shadows between the Carpe Diem and the neighboring sailboat.

  “You don’t disappoint, do you, Jason?” a male voice said from somewhere in the gloom. “I bet your mother was very proud of you, wasn’t she?”

  Kellerman’s voice.

  He emerged from the shadows, alone and wearing what appeared to be the same suit he had on when we met. Only this time he also wore wire-rimmed glasses instead of sunglasses.

  “Where is he?” I asked, ignoring his remarks.

  The spook flashed a wide grin glanced in the direction of the Carpe Diem and said, “Closer than you think.”

  I felt a sharp stab on the left side of my neck, followed by an intense burning. I reached for the spot and felt it. A dart I had just been drugged!

  I whirled to my left and saw her.

  Slinking out from the shadows, the fit, curvaceous figure of Debbie, the woman from the beach bar. Clad in a form-fitting long sleeve black top and matching pants, she approached me as she reloaded what looked like an oddly shaped gun with a long muzzle.

  Kellerman came to a stop right before me. He seemed quite pleased with himself. His features began to fizzle. Whatever chemical was in the dart, I felt it first in my legs. They felt strangely weak.

  Then came the dizziness, the vanishing outlines. It was hard to tell up from down.

  I fell to my knees and hands. I heard more footsteps around me. My presence causing some sort of gathering.

  The planks of the dock felt hard and oddly forgiving at the same time. Now, that was a bit of good news, I told myself in my drug-induced haze. The dock was made of a synthetic material resembling wood, so at least I wouldn’t get any splinters. I liked that. I found myself admiring the planks more than was necessary given the circumstances.

  I heard more footsteps around me. I tried to fire a look at Kellerman, the treacherous bastard, but before I could, a soothing blackness enveloped me until there was nothing else.

  Twenty-six

  I was drowning... coughing and drowning.

  Water poured over me lots of water.

  I felt a familiar vibration under me: a rumbling, the soft sounds of a keel parting water, the sound of the wake. I was on a moving boat and I had a roaring headache.

  I cracked my eyes. Everything was hazy. I felt as though my head would break into small pieces if I moved too fast. I found myself lying in a fetal position in a corner near the stern of a boat, hands and feet bound with gray duct tape. The tall rigging of a sailboat rose improbably before me, reaching for the low dark clouds above. A man nearby was dealing with something or someone I could not see. There was another man at the helm, his back to us.

  “Welcome back, Jason.” I had a hard time figuring out the familiar voice Kellerman’s. He had been standing behind me. He had a bucket in his hand. “You must be loathing yourself right about now, aren’t you, son?”

  I said nothing.

  “You disappoint me immensely, Jason. I mean, with all that special military training and experience, a West Point degree, no less, and you willingly waltz like a little school girl into such an obvious trap? Tsk, tsk.”

  I heard the guy behind me snicker along. I remained silent; I had bigger problems than a bruised ego. There were three of them that I could see: Kellerman and at least one of the two meatheads I saw with him in Florida. I had yet to identify the man at the helm. Sweet Debbie from the bar, was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if she was even on board, too, but hat question would have to wait. There were far more important things to consider. I was tied and still under the influence of the narcotic in the dart and we were on the move, destination unknown. The only thing working on my favor was the fact that the sails had not been deployed yet, which meant the boat was probably making its way through a channel. If land was nearby, I still had a chance.

  “What?” Kellerman prodded again. “You have nothing to say? No clever riposte? I must say, I did not have you pegged as the silent type.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “We?” Kellerman circled around me and spoke to the man in the helm station who nodded, fumbled with something near the large steering wheel perhaps switching to autopilot-- before joining us on deck. It was indeed Kellerman’s second goon. The man handed him a knife.

  “Understand something, my dear friend.” Kellerman knelt and cut the tape around my ankles, then stood up. “My friends and I are bound for the Dominican Republic, and from there, who knows? Singapore, perhaps? I’ve heard they have the most comprehensive banking secrecy laws anywhere in the world, and no extradition treaty with the West. Splendid combination, don’t you think?”

  “Peachy,” I said.

  “You, on the other hand, will become barracuda bait, I’m afraid.”

  He gave a nod, and the man behind me lifted me up brusquely from the deck by my armpits. Water poured from my clothes, and I felt a trip-hammer pounding away on my head.

  “As soon as we reach deep water,” Kellerman went on, “you’ll go overboard while tied to one of these utilitarian beauties.” He nodded toward three shiny Danforth anchors lying on the deck. They were spotless, obviously new, the chain and shackles attached to each seemed to sparkle in the muted yellow light that came from the cabin below.

  “Tell me something, Kellerman,” I asked him as soon as the hammering in my head had subsided a bit. The goon standing behind me pushed the tip of a knife to my back, a warning. “What’s the going rate these days?”

  “This ought to be good,” Kellerman said to the man behind me. He seemed amused. “Please elaborate.”

  “For a scumbag like Baumann to buy off a dick-head like you? It can’t be as simple as money, can it?”

  Kellerman smiled and looked down for a moment as if trying to make a determination. A second later, he regarded me somberly and said, “I understand your disappointment, Jason. I really do.” He made a hand gesture, and the guy behind me spoke to him in a language that sounde
d like a mixture of Polish and Russian. It was a language I had heard before: Czech.

  “Prineste ji.”

  I absorbed this new knowledge: According to Lowell Pinkus Baumann is Czech, and Kellerman’s goons obviously shared the same nationality. But why would Kellerman surround himself with Czech muscle? Unless …

  Kellerman must have seen it, too. He said, “I’m disappointed you should have such a difficult time with this, Jason.”

  He turned away from me, and I followed his gaze. My head still throbbed, and images, especially those farther away, seemed out of focus. Coming toward me was Kellerman’s goon number two, pushing a wheelchair. There was someone slumped on it. As he came closer, the image became more focused and clear. The figure on the chair was human, with a small frame, head tilted back. It moved, and I instantly recognized the bruised features, the bloody bandages.

  Amy wore the hopeless expression of a condemned prisoner facing her executioner. Her swollen face searched mine, her one visible eye welling with tears. An IV bag hung precariously from a pole duct-taped to the chair. Her arms were taped to the armrests. I hated seeing her suffer this way. I felt a sudden rage, a need to strike.

  I took a doddering step toward Kellerman, but it was no use. My head was throbbing with the intensity of an African drumbeat festival and I felt unsteady and nauseated. The man behind me promptly hooked a muscular arm around my neck and held the knife near my left eye. I noticed Kellerman had not even flinched when I lunged toward him, as though I wasn’t a real treat at all.

  “What’s she doing here?” I asked. “This is between you and me!”

  “I’m afraid that is not entirely true,” Kellerman replied, the smile returning to his face. “It is precisely because she could not let go that we find ourselves in this situation. That being the case, I thought it appropriate that she should join us.” He produced a cigar from his breast pocket and took his time lighting it. He seemed to relish the moment.