Assassin's Shadow

by Striker, Randy

  Fit they didn’t. I stood hunched in the cramped cabin and pulled them on. They were too tight around the waist and thighs, and came up well over my calves. I decided to wear them anyway. I’m no less modest than the next guy. The sag of cold and flaccid manhood is something only the sculptors can make look anatomically proper. Snoop that I am, I hesitated long enough to look around the cabin and make a sweeping evaluation of this woman. Everything nice and neat. One-burner stove on chrome pivots. Small rack for charts and sextant. Leaving Key West for a long trip? Maybe. Perhaps one of those driven people who want to sail the world alone? Probably not. No VHF radio. No self-steering device. Plenty of canned goods, though. And the right books in the mahogany rack: Dove, by Robin Lee Graham; Far Tortuga, by Peter Matthiessen; the southern edition of Waterway Guide; some others. Conjecture: The lady had recently begun a long cruise, but not around the world. She was either widowed or divorced or would meet her husband later. She knew how to sail, but didn’t know local waters.

  End of conjecture. If you read enough Conan Doyle when you’re a kid, personal deduction and induction become automatic when you meet someone you’re interested in.

  And she was a very interesting lady indeed.

  I hunched my way out of the cabin, ducked under the boom, and took the bench seat across from her. She was laughing. A nice laugh, but reserved—the way a person laughs in the company of a stranger.

  “You look like that guy in the monster movie who started growing into a giant. Clothes all got too small for him, and he finally busted out of them.”

  “Guess they don’t look any better than they feel, huh? But thanks for the loan anyway. I won’t be wearing them long.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Does that mean I’m taking you to wherever it is you live—or that you’re going to slip back into the water again?” She gave a snorting laugh, shaking the pretty head. “I swear to God, when you first came aboard I thought I was either dead or hallucinating. What are you doing out here, swimming stark naked in seas like this?”

  “Just getting my morning exercise, lady. And my name is Dusky. Dusky MacMorgan.”

  She held out her hand, and I took it. Firm businesslike handshake. The new wave of feminism has brought women into the old world of ridiculous and meaningless ceremony—hand shaking, holding doors, and picking up tabs. Next they’ll be wearing ties.

  “Marina Cole, Mr. Dusky MacMorgan. Before you even ask, I’ll tell you. My dear old dad was a boat nut. Dressed like a sailor, read all the books, pictures of the tall ships on his study wall, even had a little sloop that he could never use because his job on the New York Stock Exchange kept him too busy. I was the son he never had. I got all the sailing lessons and the yacht-club classes—and the name Marina.”

  “Pretty name.”

  She shrugged, holding the tiller hard, getting all she could out of the reefed sail and wind. “It’s better than Sloop, I guess. From what they told me, that was second choice. And it came all too close to being first choice, I gather.”

  “So now you’re the sailor in the family?”

  She nodded. “Captain Cole at your service, sir. Duly licensed by the United States Coast Guard.”

  “Anything on the test about not running aground in foul seas?”

  It was a chancy comment. She could have taken it as an affront. Women in a field historically male usually grab at the slightest hint of insult, then use it as a bunker to stand their ground. But Marina Cole didn’t hesitate. The tan face crinkled, complete with dimples. And she laughed. “Jesus, what happened was I just wasn’t paying attention. I was trying to find a little place up the coast called Cabbage Key on the Estero Bay to Lemon Bay chart, and before I knew it I had let her slip out of the channel. Just didn’t notice that the damn shoal water reaches out so far.”

  “Awful being human, isn’t it?”

  She raised her eyebrows, studying me. “Does that mean you’ve never gone aground, MacMorgan?”

  “It means that just when I think I know every inch of water around here, I reach for a beer and let my eyes wander, and I end up making a complete fool of myself. I charter out of Key West, and folks who pay a lot of money to fish don’t take kindly to waiting on a sandbar for the tide to come back in.”

  “Are you just telling me that to make me feel better, MacMorgan?”

  “Would I lie about such a thing?”

  She eyed me shrewdly, that same look of evaluation. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think you would. Maybe you are a guardian angel, MacMorgan. I never believed in such things before. I mean, you turn up out of nowhere at dawn and save my boat, and now you’re trying to save my pride.”

  “Just a real swell guy, that’s me, Captain Cole. And by the way, you see that shack with the tin roof standing in the water a few points to starboard? That’s my destination.”

  “Aye aye,” she said with a mock salute.

  We sailed on in silence. Not a particularly comfortable silence, either. People come and go so quickly in this world of interstates and moving vans and jumbo jets that the parting scene between strangers should be as comfortable and commonplace as saying hello. But not with this lady. There was an uneasiness—a tangible uneasiness. And for one very simple reason: I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her. There was the face, the hair, both striking enough to turn the heads of passersby. And while the foul-weather gear she wore didn’t show much, there was the narrowing of elastic around waist and a slimness of shoulders that promised an interesting and totally female body beneath. But there was something else: an air, an attitude, an ease of movement and voice that suggested she was one of the rare ones—a woman who really was self-reliant; a woman who really went out and did what she wanted to do rather than march around bitching about what she couldn’t do.

  So I struggled through the uneasiness and tried to open her up a little.

  “You said you were looking for Cabbage Key on the chart. Any particular reason, Captain Cole?”

  “Yes. And the name’s Marina.” She caught my eyes briefly, then turned away, embarrassed, perhaps, by the chemical attraction that was building between us. “I was looking for Cabbage Key on the chart because that’s where I’m headed.” She saw me nod. “You know the place?”

  “Very well.”

  “So tell me about it. I guess I ought to know something about it before I officially accept the job I have there. What I want to do is work my way clear to Oregon. Really learn the coastal areas of this country. So I figured working at Cabbage Key would be as good a place as any to start.”

  “Not a good place, Marina. A great place.” So I thought back to when my late wife, Janet, and I used to go there. I told her about that tiny island near Fort Myers of Indian mounds and palms where the only access is by boat. I told her about the old white house on the mound built by the son of the mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart, and about the bar of wood and brass, and the ceiling fans and the fireplaces in the inn where commercial fishermen and yachtsmen alike go to drink beer, eat seafood, and laugh.

  When I had finished, she smiled. “Sounds nice. Sounds like you wouldn’t mind working there for a while, MacMorgan.”

  “A fellow could do a lot worse.”

  There was something I wanted to ask her. But before I got a chance, she saw what I was looking at: the wedding ring. Her left hand moved involuntarily, as if to hide it, then—knowing that I had seen—she rested the hand again on the tiller in plain sight.

  “I guess this is your stop, huh, MacMorgan?” She I nodded toward the stilthouse now only fifty yards or so away. “Looks like a nice place to live.”

  “It is if you like solitude. And your own cooking.”

  “I do. The solitude, anyway.”

  “Why don’t you come in for some coffee? I’ll promise to wear clothes.”

  She chuckled, then hesitated. “I’d like to. I really would, but . . .”

  “Will your husband be joining you at Cabbage Key, Marina?”

  I caught her eyes and saw
something I couldn’t decipher. “Stranger things have happened, MacMorgan.” She held out her hand again. I took it, returned the extra squeeze, and more felt than saw that she didn’t turn away as I stripped off the foul-weather pants and dove into the water toward my stilthouse. When I came up there was that laugh again, a low alto chuckle. She yelled, “MacMorgan, I really do want to get the name of that tailor. Everyone should dress as well as you do.”

  Then with a wave of her hand, she was gone. The last time I saw her, she was putting up more sail, tiller lashed, pretty yellow sailboat and handsome blond lady going like hell through the green March sea. . . .

  3

  I had another surprise waiting for me when I pulled myself up the ladder and climbed the dock to the stilthouse.

  I wasn’t alone.

  There was an old mahogany cruiser in absolutely Bristol condition tied and well bumpered alongside my thirty-four-foot sportfisherman, Sniper. Even if I hadn’t known whose boat it was, I could have guessed. There aren’t many people around with the tenacity—or the discipline—to keep an old wooden hulk in such perfect shape.

  I grabbed a towel from the railing, wrapped it around me, and went inside.

  Sure enough, there was D. Harold Westervelt waiting for me. He had poured himself a mug of coffee and was going over a sheaf of papers from a briefcase placed neatly on the table. He looked up briefly when I came in, but did not stand.

  “You make a passable cup of coffee, Captain MacMorgan. Out trying to work off a little of that excess weight you’ve allowed to build up, I see.”

  “Don’t want to lose my boyish figure, colonel.”

  He looked out the window momentarily where Marina Cole and her sailboat were disappearing into the distance, but said nothing. I buffed my scraggily blond hair dry, took clean khaki pants and an old ragged L. L. Bean sweater out of my foot locker, pulled them on, added dry cotton socks, and treated myself to the new pair of Norm Thompson Razor Cut loafers with the glove-soft leather.

  “Another mug of coffee, colonel?”

  He shook his head. I should have known. D. Harold limits all of his vices—including caffeine. And if his physical appearance was any indication, it’s not all that bad an idea. He looked fifteen years younger than his fifty-odd years. He wore a white crew-neck jersey, with sleeves rolled which showed the corded forearms and the swell of biceps. His head was completely shaved, and the winter-blue eyes peered out from a ledge of frontal eminence that suggested—and correctly—a massive amount of brain matter within. Even with the age difference, D. Harold was not a man I would want to tangle with.

  “I got a message from the marina that you had stopped down to see me, Colonel Westervelt. I was surprised.”

  He flashed one of his rare smiles. “I do leave my home every now and then, captain. I’m not a hermit. Recreation—on a limited basis, of course—is as important to doing good work as the work itself.”

  “Of course,” I said. “So this is recreation?”

  He shook his head, the face stoic. “I’m afraid not, captain. This meeting is business. Desperately important business at that.” He leveled his gaze at me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel any plans you might have for the next ten days—that is, if you accept the mission.”

  I felt the old stirring deep inside the abdomen again; felt the nervousness that was the ever-present prelude to any mission I had ever had.

  “Nothing pressing, sir,” I said.

  He nodded. “Good.” He began going through his papers, settled on the one he needed, then began to talk. “So!” he said. “This will be your preliminary briefing. Feel free to ask any questions you may have—but please wait until I have finished.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Westervelt sighed, tugged at an earlobe absently. “Do you know anything at all about world trade organizations, captain?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  He made a waving motion with his left hand. “It doesn’t matter, really. I just want to give you a little background information. It is generally thought that governments gauge, control, and direct the political and economic growth or regression of the world. While that’s true to a point, the real political and economic clout comes from business. World business. In truth, world business—and the very few men who hold the reins on that level—are very much like countries unto themselves. When they shift directions, the nations of the world swing and sway behind like old wagons until they finally get in line.”

  “This has something to do with my mission?”

  D. Harold gave me a warning look. “If you can just wait until I’m finished, captain?”

  “Sorry.”

  “So! What I’ve told you, captain, is really nothing earth-shattering. It’s fairly well known there are upper-strata organizations of businessmen, investors, and manipulators that carry fully as much financial power as any one nation. And those men come from nations around the world. Unfortunately, their allegiances are not always to the nations from which they come. Their allegiances, in many cases, are dedicated purely and simply to profit; to profit and to the control of those governments which might serve them.”

  He stopped and glanced briefly at my Transoceanic radio with its fifty feet of copper wire strung out the window to the roof.

  “Captain, you have no doubt heard about increased terrorism around the world. Iran, Palestine, South America—the list goes on and on. While it might seem to occur capriciously and randomly to the average reader, we have known for some years that there had to be some single organization behind it. Their methods are too sophisticated for the work of a few loosely organized radicals. Yet their procedures are, in many cases, far too brutal, too singular in intent, to be the work of any government—not because there aren’t ruthless governments, for there are. But because, in these most brutal acts of terrorism, a government would stand to lose much more in world respect than it could ever gain economically or politically.”

  “If that government was caught in the act, you mean?”

  “Yes.” He studied the inside of his coffee mug. “About a year ago, we finally got a lead on this autonomous terrorist organization. It was the X-factor in our equation. We still don’t know much about it—just that it is somehow linked to one or more powerful world trade organizations. We assume that it is a weapon—a very effective weapon, I might add—that a trade organization could use to politically embarrass, harass, or temporarily weaken a country’s governmental process.”

  “I can see how it would be effective.”

  “Economically? Obviously. And that brings us to our proposed mission, captain. For the sake of clarity, we have been referring to this organization as FEAT—Freelance Extortion and Terrorism. It has no national base whatsoever. It seems to be the natural cancerous product of a world of nations that depend increasingly upon their neighbors for goods and foodstuffs. And that makes it all the more lethal. With no single nation or government to answer to, it stands only to profit from its deeds. This organization, FEAT, seeks to become the pimp in a world of befuddled governments, playing one against the other.”

  “And just how in the hell am I supposed to stop that?”

  Colonel Westervelt paused, looked at me for a moment, then chuckled. It was a rare display of emotion. “Captain, there’s no way one man could. As good as you are—and that is very good, indeed—there is no way that you alone could more than dent such an organization. I’m afraid the extermination of FEAT will take worldwide cooperation between governments.”

  “I didn’t know there was such a thing as worldwide cooperation between governments.”

  “Quite right, normally. But the world has never been threatened as one before. Let me give you an example. Have you ever heard the term ‘strategic metals’? No? Well, captain, there are certain rare ores absolutely essential to the manufacture of modern weaponry. And, unfortunately, the bulk of those metals comes from unstable countries in South Africa. Do you remember back in 1977 when a gang of rebels closed d
own the mines in Zaire where nearly ninety percent of the world’s cobalt is produced? Just before the rebels struck, the Soviet Union made an unusually large purchase. Superficially, it seemed to put the Russians in a very advantageous position. The price of cobalt quadrupled on the world market—and they had more than they could use. But on a deeper political level, the closing of the mines was damaging to the Soviets. Obviously, it looked as if they had masterminded the rebel attack. They not only lost some prestige, but Free World countries immediately funneled huge amounts of money into research, hoping to find a substitute for cobalt. World money manipulators smart enough or ‘lucky’ enough to acquire stock in the private-sector research centers around the world did far more than just quadruple their money during those months, I assure you. Say what you want about the Russians, but they are not a stupid people. Clearly, some other organization was behind the rebel takeover; an organization that had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Other countries, socialist and democratic, have been publicly embarrassed in much the same way—and, yes, that includes the United States. But so far, FEAT hasn’t had the courage—or, perhaps, a motive—for bringing its terrorism for profit to our nation’s soil. Until now.”

  “They’re planning a terrorist strike here?”

  Westervelt shook his head. “Planned, captain. Past tense. Planned. We got word of it from the Red Chinese, of all people—which illustrates how seriously the world’s governments are taking this organization. God knows how they found out. But they did. They’re planning an assassination here. And it’s due to take place within seven to ten days.”

  “Jesus—one of our political leaders?”

  “No, captain. That’s not FEAT’s style—not unless the assassination was on the very highest level. No, their modus operandi is to publicly embarrass or compromise a nation, then be there waiting and ready for the resulting economic swing.”

  “Pretty ingenious, you have to admit.”