Alumni Association

by Michael Rudolph

  “He sends his regrets. He really wanted to come but had some unavoidable business to deal with.”

  “Please give him my regards and tell him your firm really accomplished a great victory for the Pendayan family.”

  “Thank you, Nikko,” she replied. “It was a good win.”

  “I’m sure you know that I lent Carlos half of his investment in the BMI deal,” he continued.

  “Yes, we knew that,” she replied.

  “And when Gartenberg stole it all, Carlos and I thought our chances of getting it back were slim.”

  “We developed some good leads.”

  “You are too modest,” Nikko said. “You traced the money down to the Caribbean while my people were busy looking everywhere else.”

  “I had a lot of personal motivation to keep me focused,” she replied with a flash of buried anger. “Gartenberg tried to destroy Max.”

  “And so that’s why you are down here to get him?” Luis asked.

  “You’re absolutely right. He may have sailed out of Nelson’s Dockyard last night, but we’ll find him. I’m sure he’s hiding somewhere in the middle of all those sailboats practicing outside English Harbour for race week.”

  “And Judge Masters,” Luis continued, “I suspect you’re here because of what Gartenberg did to your nephew.”

  “I’m here,” replied Tripp, “and my motivation is not really your concern.”

  “I take that as a yes,” Luis responded.

  “Take it any way you want.”

  “Of course, you’re right, and I apologize. It is none of my business.”

  “Then perhaps we should get down to the reason you requested this meeting.” Beth interposed herself to maintain civility.

  “We want to propose a joint venture, a cooperative effort to get Gartenberg,” Nikko answered.

  “That’s a little odd,” Tripp said. “I thought he was your business associate for many years.”

  “And that is not something we need to discuss. Let me just assure you that catching Gartenberg is a goal we both share.”

  “And after we catch him, Nikko, what then?” Beth asked.

  “You can deliver him to the FBI or anyone else you wish.”

  “What’s in this for you, then?”

  “We found out just last week that Gartenberg stole a hard drive from us, and it’s crucial to our business. We catch him, we get it back, and we’re finished with him. End of story.”

  “And the money we already recovered?”

  “It belongs to Carlos Pendayan.”

  “And the money you lent him?”

  “No need to worry. Carlos and I are family.”

  “But, Nikko, we do worry. We’re familiar with your reputation, and I’ve been all through the tunnels at BMI. That makes me concerned about having you as an ally.”

  “Beth, you have no need for concern. I encourage my bad-boy reputation because it’s good for business.”

  “And?”

  “And I guarantee you our full support.”

  “You mean ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”

  “It’s absolutely true!” Nikko said. “We can achieve our goal together, and you need not be concerned about our having any hidden agenda.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Luis added. “When it’s over, my father and I would like to discuss retaining your firm to handle our U.S. real estate business and to straighten out the mess Gartenberg has left for us.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Beth said.

  “Once our current attorneys finish settling the money-laundering problems that Gartenberg got us into with the FBI, we want a firm like yours to keep us on the straight and narrow in the U.S. There will be no questionable activities.”

  “I look forward to discussing that with you.”

  “Excellent. Now let’s work on our plans to catch Gartenberg.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And maybe we can also plan to do dinner tonight,” Luis directed this straight to Beth.

  “Excuse me?” she queried.

  “Luis?” scolded his father’s tone of voice.

  “Todos estan invitados! I mean all of you,” clarified Luis apologetically.

  “Better let me get back to you on that,” replied Beth with a warm smile.

  Chapter 70

  Andi took the microphone off its clip on the VHF radio, turned to channel 16, and pressed the transmit button. “This is Red Sky, Red Sky on the air from St. John’s Harbour looking for a radio check,” she said. “Any boat please respond. Over.” She released the button.

  “Read you, Captain, loud and clear from English Harbour. Over,” came the immediate response from some anonymous boat within range.

  “Thanks for the check, Captain, and have a good race week. Red Sky out.”

  Andi then checked all the electronic and navigation equipment on board, a responsibility Max had delegated to her because of her years as a registered nurse maintaining lifesaving equipment in hospital intensive care units.

  When she finished, she downloaded all the tracking information she had on Tanks Banks and Madre de Oro into the computer interface and programmed in the course from St. John’s over to English Harbour.

  As a matter of course, she then ran a weather report online and analyzed it. She was concerned about a low-pressure area that was forming between Barbados and Antigua, so she went topside and told Max about it. A storm “watch” was already in effect for the rest of the Antigua Sailing Week with an upgrade to a storm “warning” possible by the end of the week.

  Beth and Tripp were already working topside with Max checking every screw, bolt, and turnbuckle they could find to prepare Red Sky for sea. While they were doing that, Andi turned on all the instruments mounted on the console in front of the steering wheel to make sure they were alive and functioning.

  Finally, they inspected the sails and rigging until Max was satisfied they were ready to go. He wasn’t the least bit concerned that he had put them through exactly the same safety check when they arrived from New York only a few days ago.

  “Max, I told Luis I’d call him when we’re ready to sail,” Beth said. “When do you figure that’ll be?”

  “We’re ready now but I want to wait for high tide, so let’s have breakfast and then we’ll shove off, say in about an hour.”

  “I’ll tell him and I’ll also ask him to take the northern way around Antigua so we can sail the short way around to the south.”

  “Good idea. We can make sure Gartenberg doesn’t slip between us.”

  “I doubt he’ll even try. It’s too easy to just hide in the middle of a couple of hundred sailboats here for race week.”

  “Remind Luis to turn on his GPS tracker.”

  “I did, and, yes Max, ours is on already.”

  “Did you get any GPS signal at all from Tanks Banks yet?”

  “No, but they’re probably still out of range.”

  “So what good is the GPS?” he asked skeptically.

  “We’ll get them. Let me go check in with Benetez.”

  Beth went down below, turned on the radio, and contacted the Madre de Oro. When her captain answered, she asked for Luis Benetez. He came on in a minute with a cheerful “Good morning, Beth,” followed by regrets that they had nothing new at their end to report. One of his father’s men had interviewed Gartenberg’s young deckhand recovering in the hospital, but Roget really had no information to give them.

  Beth told Luis about their departure time and her plan to circle the island and meet up with Madre de Oro at the end of the day outside of English Harbour. Luis agreed and, before he signed off, casually mentioned that he was looking forward to dinner with her. When Beth, with tongue in cheek, threatened to tell his father if he didn’t behave, she was sure she could hear the eld
er Benetez laughing his head off in the background.

  Chapter 71

  On Wednesday of Sailing Week, St. John’s Harbour, on the Atlantic side of Antigua, jammed up with large cruising sailboats that had finished racing. They were anchored in every available mooring, and many were rafted up against one another. Partying started early and ended late. To avoid any fender benders, Max decided to maneuver Red Sky out of the crowded harbor using her diesel engine for power instead of her sails.

  After they cleared the harbor, Beth and Tripp winched up the sails, and Max turned off the diesel and put Red Sky on a northeasterly course toward Dickenson Bay. It was the first point on their one-day sail to meet up with Madre de Oro outside of English Harbour on the Caribbean side of the island. The freshening breeze from the northwest quickly had her zipping along at close to 8 knots, fast but still comfortable for passengers.

  The passenger comfort didn’t last long. In a very short time, the breeze ramped up to a stiff 22-knot wind plowing in from the west, bringing with it a skyful of nasty-looking clouds. Needles of spray began to blanket the boat every time her bow cut into a wave. It was the kind of white-knuckle sailing that Beth thrived on, so Max turned the wheel over to her and went down into the cabin to pour himself a cup of coffee. He then joined Andi and Tripp sitting topside, high and dry under the canvas awning.

  They received a text message from Luis Benetez letting them know that Madre de Oro had already completed her passage around the island from Jolly Harbour and was anchored in a sheltered cove outside of English Harbour waiting to join up with them later in the day.

  In less than an hour, they passed Dickenson Bay on their starboard side and continued around the island with an easterly turn toward Hodges Bay and North Sound. Andi went down into the cabin and came back up to tell Beth that the leading sailboats in the day’s race around Antigua from the opposite direction were already on the radar screen and would be coming straight at them in less than an hour.

  The rest of the racing fleet was close behind, tacking and frequently jibing with little concern for the nautical rules of the road. To top that off, a storm warning was now in effect for the entire area, so a number of the smaller sailboats were abandoning the race and heading back to the safety of English Harbour.

  Sailing conditions were deteriorating rapidly. Waves were cresting at close to four feet, and gale-force winds were now approaching 30 knots. Andi opened up the port-side locker she was sitting on and handed out safety harnesses and life preservers.

  It was turning into a rough sail, so Max asked Tripp to help him take a reef in the mainsail to shorten it and give Beth more control over their forward progress. They clipped the tethers on their harnesses to stanchions on the deck and crawled up on the cabin roof to the mast. Beth then headed Red Sky up into the wind, and Tripp helped Max shorten the main down to her first set of reefing points.

  They were now receiving several GPS signals, any one of which might be from the tracker Beth had placed on Tanks Banks. According to Andi, however, it was impossible to distinguish one signal from another because there was such a maze of blips on the radar screen. If one of the signals was actually from Tanks Banks, she was hiding right in the middle of the fleet, virtually invisible among the nearly hundred or so boats competing in the race.

  The collision alarm on the radar screen suddenly began beeping, so Andi went down into the cabin to check on the cause.

  A number of blips on the screen were flashing, a definite indication that boats turning around because of the rough weather were colliding with boats remaining in the race. Then, several Mayday calls came in on the radio requesting assistance for sailors overboard or because their owners feared they were in danger of sinking. When Andi heard a man-overboard call from Tanks Banks, she went back topside to tell Beth.

  At that point, the race sponsors canceled racing for the day due to the impending storm, and all of the remaining boats quickly furled their sails and turned on their auxiliary engines to head back to port. According to radio reports, three sailors had fallen overboard during the race. All of them had been pulled out of the water, but one of them, as yet unidentified, was dead. The other two were safe. The boats in danger of sinking either made temporary repairs or were being towed back to English Harbour.

  Beth continued to sail Red Sky on her course around to the harbor. Even with her shortened sails, she was doing over 9 knots in the gale-force winds. After almost two more hours behind the wheel, she turned it over to Tripp and went below to dry herself off. Andi was in the galley making sandwiches for lunch. The radar screen was nearly clear now that the race had been canceled.

  Beth sat down at the navigation station and turned on the computer. A pile of email began to download; most were spam but the most recent one was from Sean asking her to get in touch with him as soon as she could.

  She connected the satellite phone to the computer and sent him a text message. “Hi, Sean. Rough sailing today. It’s been great. How are you doing?”

  “I’m good,” came the reply, “but I got some email from our office in Barbados about a guy that fell overboard and drowned during the Round Antigua Race today.”

  “We heard on the radio that one of the sailors had drowned. What interested your FBI guys?”

  “Well, for starters, the guy didn’t drown. He was shot.”

  “Never a dull moment, huh?”

  “It gets better. His name was Richto Verdes, and Antigua immigration has him listed as the professional captain on board Tanks Banks.”

  “We heard their emergency call.”

  “I guess Gartenberg used the storm as an excuse to cut payroll expenses.”

  “He’s a real bad guy. Always has been.”

  “Okay, but here’s the important part. Antigua police found a computer printout in Verdes’s pocket charting the course from English Harbour to Barbados and a plane ticket from Barbados to Buenos Aires for next Thursday.”

  “Can they check the airline to see who else is flying in the party?”

  “Already done. It’s Gartenberg, his wife, and some guy named Lance Sturrman.”

  “I met Sturrman once. He works for Gartenberg, but Pam Gartenberg? No fucking way! She divorced him and moved back to Israel.”

  “Maybe so, but there’s definitely a ticket in her name.”

  “Absolutely unbelievable! I met her for drinks the day before she left for Israel.”

  “She may just be an innocent spouse who reconciled with her husband.”

  “Yeah, right. Okay, let me know if you get anything else.”

  “Be careful down there, and no heroics. Call our office on Barbados the minute you see Gartenberg or his boat.”

  “Miss you too, Sean. Wish you were here.”

  Beth unplugged the satellite phone and turned off the computer. She checked the radar screen and the GPS for Gartenberg’s boat, and then struggled up the ladder to get back topside. Even under power, each time Red Sky dug her nose into the turbulent sea, waves crashed over the bow and drenched all aboard before exiting over the stern. In between soakings, Beth told them what she had learned from Sean.

  Chapter 72

  Red Sky spent the rest of Wednesday challenging the seas on her way around Antigua, fighting the tropical storm, crashing wave by crashing wave. With Max at the wheel, she finally entered the calm, protected waters of English Harbour and dropped anchor just after a sunless sunset. Her crew of four, soaked and exhausted from the long day at sea, went happily below for their allotted two-minute hot showers and a grateful change into dry clothes.

  While Max helped Andi cook dinner, Tripp made a pitcher of margaritas and Beth texted with Luis Benetez to revise their plans to catch Gartenberg based upon what she had learned from Sean. The consensus was that Gartenberg would be sailing for Barbados the next morning at first light despite the continued storm alert.

 
Those on board Red Sky needed little encouragement for early to bed (or early to rise). Max and Andi barely made it past dinner and a margarita for desert before turning in. Tripp finished his second margarita before yawning and excusing himself. That left Beth with a sinkful of dinner dishes to wash and the last margarita in the pitcher to finish, two jobs to be accomplished simultaneously.

  Before starting either task, however, she needed the answers to what had been bothering her since texting with Sean earlier in the day. Why was Pam Gartenberg back on Tanks Banks after divorcing her abusive husband? Was she one of the bad guys or just an innocent victim?

  Beth turned on the computer, and by the time she finished accessing Pam’s online banking records from her bank in Tel Aviv, she knew some of the answers. Most important, she had identified a $150,000 deposit from Herb Gartenberg’s current bank account and was not surprised to see that his account was located on Barbados.

  It looked like he had paid Pam the $150,000 before she flew down to Antigua three days ago. His promise to pay her the balance he owed her was probably the carrot he had dangled to get her back on Tanks Banks, but her bank records showed no subsequent payment. Pam obviously had a slow learning curve when it came to distrusting Gartenberg’s promises, and now her life was at risk again.

  Beth texted the information about Gartenberg’s bank account to Sean and urged him to get the authorities on Barbados to attach the money in the account first thing tomorrow. Then she poured herself the last margarita to empty the pitcher and took it to her bunk in the forward cabin. An hour later, the sink was still full of dishes, her glass was still half full, and she was blissfully thinking about her future with Sean when she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Chapter 73

  In Thursday’s early morning light, Max carefully steered Red Sky through the maze of sleeping yachts up to the diesel pump on the fuel dock. The sun was just peeking above the fiery red horizon and the water in the harbor was still very choppy, both signaling the likelihood of another stormy day at sea.