An Absence of Light

by David Lindsey

  “Yeah, we’re running them down, too. It looks like they sell to a hell of a lot of importers. They’re probably scattering cocaine all over the nation.”

  “You think they’re ‘Reconstituting’ it all here, then shipping it out?”

  “Why would they? If the stuff ships safely, why not let it go on?”

  “Then the process can’t be that difficult.”

  “I imagine Strasser’s chemists have trained people… all over the place. Besides, the drug business, working with that shit, doesn’t take a big brain. You could almost train an orangutan to do it Sanitation and precise-ness are not exactly the hallmarks of a good drug processor.”

  Graver let his eyes fall to the steno pad. He wanted to ask her to run a computer check on Victor Last to see if her data banks had anything he couldn’t get from his own source agencies, but something made him hold off.

  “You’re cut off, aren’t you,” Arnette said, studying him. “Sheck would have been your next step. Failing that you could have hauled in Dean. That would have been a wild swing, but it would have been the only shot you had left if you wanted to stay hot” She smoked, studying him. “Now all you have is the prospect of a long, difficult investigation. No more sizzling fuse to follow to its source. You’re going to have to piece it together a fragment at a time, in the tried and true manner of intelligence work.”

  He looked at her. She bent over the library table and mashed out her cigarette in the ashtray. Her fingernails were immaculate, no polish, precisely and smoothly filed to oval ends with narrow, bone-white outer margins. He chose his words carefully.

  “I know it’s out of my territory,” he said, “and even out of my league, for that matter, but Kalatis is the only thing I can think about right now. For the present, he’s the only thing I care about, and a ‘long, difficult investigation’ is not going to get him.”

  He saw a look of sober fear set in behind Arnette’s eyes.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “I simply mean that this time patience and the long view have no appeal to me whatsoever. I’m not going crazy here. I know what the odds are that Kalatis will get away with this. I live with those odds every day, just like you do. Only this time I can’t be philosophical about it Sorry. The larger investigation is secondary.” He paused, and they stared at each other. “Arnette, I want that son of a bitch so bad that it’s become the only thing I want.”

  She didn’t even blink. She was standing behind her chair, her thin fingers gripping the back of it.

  “You’d better keep your head screwed on,” she said evenly. Her face had hardened, and she was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. If he hadn’t been so wired, so nearly out of control inside his mind, the look on her face would have had a dark and restraining effect on him. He tapped the table thoughtfully with the side of his thumb.

  “But I’m not cut off, Arnette. There’s a direct route to Kalatis… through Colin Faeber.”

  “If you pick him up, the time you have to find Kalatis will be reduced to hours, not days,” she warned. “The minute he’s picked up…” She snapped her fingers once.

  “If it looks like I’m going to lose Kalatis, I won’t hesitate to do it.”

  “That’s risky.”

  “That’s desperate.”

  After a pause she asked, “How much time do you think you’ve got?”

  Graver looked at the steno pad and pushed it back and forth on the table a few times.

  “I’ve probably already had a telephone call at home from Westrate,” he said. “Or from Ben Olmstead, my sergeant in our Houston Terrorist Task Force. I’ve got three men besides Olmstead in a joint effort with the FBI. They work out of the Federal Building, not even in our offices. I’ll be getting immediate briefs from them, so I’ll know what they’re coming up with out there at South Shore Harbor as soon as it happens. At some point I expect Ginette to report Dean missing. They’ll eventually guess Dean might have been one of the bodies, but won’t be able to prove it. But because of his disappearance and the deaths of Tisler and Besom, somebody—probably Ward Lukens—will push for an inquiry. And they’ll get it That’s when I’m going to have to cough up what I know.”

  “So… we’ve got…”

  “I’d guess… a few days… maybe. I think it’ll depend on how quickly Ginette panics.”

  The handset that had been sitting on the table at Graver’s elbow rang for the first time. He picked it up and answered it.

  “It’s Neuman. I’m on the Gulf Freeway, coming in. I’ve got something from Sheck’s.”

  “What is it?” Graver sat up in his chair, and Arnette froze, her eyes fixed on him. Graver flicked the conference switch on the handset so Arnette could hear.

  “I’m not sure,” Neuman said. “I’ve got some aviation navigating maps, but I also found a canister, a waterproof, military-style container a little over five inches long. I found it tied to a piece of fishing line hanging down inside the floor drain of one of the bedroom showers.”

  “Jesus, yes,” Arnette hissed, suddenly leaning forward and placing both hands flat on the table.

  The muscles in Graver’s neck began a steady tightening.

  “I didn’t open it.” Neuman said. “Afraid it might be undeveloped film.”

  “Have him bring it here, “Arnette said, repeatedly jabbing a forefinger downward in front of her.

  Graver looked at her.

  “If you say it’s okay… then it’s okay,” she said.

  Graver nodded.

  “Give him the address,” she said.

  “Neuman…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Listen, I’m going to give you an address. I want you to bring the canister to 4645 Rauer.”

  Neuman repeated the address.

  “That’s right. It’s a residence. Someone will be waiting for you at the front yard gate.”

  “Give me twenty minutes.”

  Graver clicked off the radio.

  “In a shower drain. “Arnette grinned with admiration. “Your boy’s pretty good.”

  Graver suddenly was hopeful again. His adrenaline had been so taxed in the last few days that he was surprised his glands could still produce anything.

  “Everybody has some rainy-day security,” he said, thinking of Sheck.

  “That’s the kind of business we’re in, baby,” Arnette said with satisfaction. “Spooks are as predictable as everybody else. They just think differently. Once you know how they think, the odds are good you can make some guesses about what they think.” She walked back to the other end of the table, tapped a knuckle on the wood surface, and returned to stand in front of Graver. “Kalatis may have cause to regret that marina bombing,” she said.

  “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that he does,” Graver said.

  The fact that they were addressing two entirely different matters was clear to both of them.

  Chapter 55

  He had four planes in the air at once. Two were flying back and forth along the Gulf Coast, each with a blindfolded client who thought he was en route to either Mexico or one of the many islands in the West Indies. All of the clients, the four he had flown in during the last two days and the four he would fly in during the next two days, thought they were going somewhere different All of them, however, believed they had left the United States. Right now one client was being flown “back to the States” and another was due to arrive at any moment A third plane had taken off from a point twenty miles out in the Gulf where twenty-two million dollars in cash had been loaded onto it from a cabin cruiser. This plane was headed for Grand Cayman. A fourth plane also had been loaded offshore, though at a different point than the third plane. It was carrying twenty-eight-million dollars and was headed for Panama City. This money was in the hands of capable accountants—as well as a generously paid security force—and would be scattered all over the Western Hemisphere in safe, legitimate accounts “within fifteen da
ys.

  Kalatis was standing on the veranda of his house above the beach. He was smoking a fresh Cohiba and was wearing dark trousers and a loose-fitting pastel salmon shirt of lightweight silk. He heard the distant soprano drone of the next plane, and looked at his watch. Right on time. He thought of Jael. She would be wrapping up her business soon, too. By three or four o’clock both of them would be through with their night’s work, and then they would crawl into a bed of fresh white Egyptian cotton sheets and stay there until noon. In the meantime, there were men he was paying to keep regular hours, and Kalatis’s biggest operation ever would continue rolling toward its finale with the inexorable and accelerating pace of a boulder tumbling down a mountainside.

  He watched as the plane dropped out of the night sky, its winking lights falling toward the Gulf waters until it banked sharply to make its approach, the sound coming straight at him though only the lights were visible, skimming over the top of the water, nothing but the lights until suddenly two tracks of white spray shot up out of the darkness as the pontoons touched and cut the water, and the engines pulled down to a grumble as the plane taxied toward the dock below.

  Throwing an appraising glance at the setting of the table on the veranda, Kalatis sucked in his stomach and jammed his flattened hand around his waistband to double-check his shirttail. This client was much more entertaining than the usual. A fitting way to conclude his evening. He turned back to the dock and waited for the telltale sounds as the plane cut its engines and drifted the last few yards to the dock, the sounds of mooring, the guards giving instructions to each other—people of this caliber often traveled with a companion or two of their own—and finally the footsteps on the dock as his men brought the blindfolded client up and across the lawn to the steps of the veranda where they removed the mask.

  “Greetings, Ms. Donata,” Kalatis said in his most pleasing accent “I am delighted to see you once again.”

  Ms. Patricia Donata was thirty-six years old. She had a law degree from Stanford; she was a certified public accountant Her occupation seemed to be… consultant She had small bosoms, but very long legs of which she allowed you to see an abundance. She also had cold water in her veins. Kalatis found her to be an astute and more than capable representative of her clients.

  They sat on the veranda, and as usual the representative was seated so that she saw rather more of the interior of the large spaces of the house than of the coastline. Kalatis took no chances. They had drinks. Kalatis put away his cigar. There was a quarter of an hour of small talk, no business, as Kalatis reacquainted himself with the pleasure of watching Ms. Donata. She had a lovely face with something of a hint of Asia about it, full lips with mandarin red lipstick. Her black hair was shoulder-length. She was a little nervous, he thought, but was handling herself very well in spite of it He thought her very sexy and did not try to hurry their meeting.

  Finally he said, “Well, I know you have been in Houston for several days. I apologize for causing you inconvenience, but since this transactión is considerably larger than those we have arranged before, it required some extra accommodation on everyone’s part I have had to talk to many people such as to yourself, and it has had to be done all in a short space of time.” He smiled at her. “Has everything been handled to your satisfaction?”

  She set her drink on the table in front of her and clasped her hands in her lap.

  “I have to say,” she said in her unadorned and familiar California manner, “you did it up right, Panos. The logistics were handled beautifully. It relieved the nervousness of a couple of my clients when you sent people out there to work with their own security groups. I don’t normally travel with thirty-two million in cash. Everybody liked the way your people in Houston handled it.”

  “I am delighted to hear it,” he said. “And I was also pleased that you were able to allay the fears of some members of your consortium.”

  “When you’re working with eight different personalities, businessmen with strong egos, it takes patience and savvy—and you have to put up with a lot of shit—to get them to agree on anything,” she said, providing herself with a nice, oblique compliment.

  Yes, Kalatis thought, but they finally agreed to cough up the cash, didn’t they. Ultimately greed, not Ms. Donata’s patience and savvy, got the best of them. The magnetism of the sexual appetite, Kalatis knew, was not even in the same league as the pull of greed. Offer a man a three hundred percent return on his investment, and he will follow you panting into hell for it If the percentage points are high enough, nothing is sacred, nothing is forbidden.

  Kalatis looked at her with an expression of commiserate understanding.

  “This kind of investment makes everyone… cautious… he said. “But you must remind your clients that this time we are buying in commodity volume. Metric tons. That is why their waiting time is shorter. They can check their accounts in sixty days.” He smiled. “I think they will be satisfied.”

  “Have all of your consortia come through as you anticipated?*’ she asked.

  It was a bit of a pushy question, but Kalatis wrote it off to her personality. She was, in short, a bitch.

  “Exactly as anticipated, I am glad to say.” He held up one hand and counted them off by fingers, beginning with his thumb. “Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Miami, Washington, D.C., and”—he held up the index finger of the other hand—”New York. Everything as planned. No surprises. It took the better part of a year to arrange this so that everyone who wished to participate could do so with as much assurance as possible.*’

  “Does all the product come from the same region in Afghanistan?”

  Ms. Donata was a curious woman, but he also thought she must find her role gratifying and rather found some adventure in using words like “product.” Well, she should be gratified. She had put together a collection of businessmen who twice before had trusted him with their millions. And now for the third time. She had been a very clever woman, the arrangements for this venture had been complex—by Kalatis’s design—but she had handled the negotiations astutely and creatively. Really an admirable achievement for such a young woman.

  But in sixty days, Ms. Donata*s life would become a living hell. Everything she saw now, all that she had schemed for and accomplished through the shadow ways of Panos Kalatis, would vanish overnight, and she would be ruined.

  So he did not mind indulging her sense of amusement at this time. It was like playing backgammon with a woman who, expecting to marry a prince in the morning, was unknowingly whiling away the last hours before her execution. There was a peculiar kind of stimulation that came from entertaining a woman whose imminent ruin was certain, but unknown to her. It gave her an air of fragility that he very much enjoyed. Yes, Ms. Donata had been a clever woman indeed, but she should have been a little cleverer still.

  He told her glib lies of the mujahideen and poppies, of pack trains out of the mountains of the Badakhshan and Hazarajat, of Deh Khavak and Kamdesh and Asmar. He told her enough for her to believe that she could believe what she heard. He often saw this sort of worldly naïveté in Americans who grew up in the United States and never left it, middle-class people who lived middle-class lives, and for whom an adventure was to move to a middle-class neighborhood in a different city. Having seen nothing of the world except the evening news, they were gullible and easily deceived. They might be well educated, as Ms. Donata surely was, but it was an education gotten among the homogeneity of people just like themselves. It was like being a well-educated sheep.

  After a while the conversation turned to more benign topics, as a maid—Kalatis had thought that under the circumstances a woman was wanted for this job—brought out some small finger sandwiches and replenished their drinks. They talked of places they had traveled. They were killing time. Below them on the dock—there was the audible shuffling of feet and an occasional dull, hollow thunk as someone bumped a hull or pontoon—as the last twelve million dollars of her thirty-two million dollars in cash was being loaded from th
e plane to the cruiser. The previous twenty million dollars had been transferred in smaller increments during the course of the last few days.

  Kalatis was suppressing a premature euphoria. He was very near to concluding a nine-year project True, he had not planned this particular venture until just the last twenty months—when he saw how incredibly eager American businessmen were to abandon legitimacy—but it had issued from the larger picture, an exercise that he was already looking back on as his American years. The money. My God, the money these men were willing to part with in a calculated gamble to triple what they already had astonished and delighted him. But cogs and wheels were still turning elsewhere, everything was synchronized to terminate simultaneously, and while so many diverse events were still pending he did not let his mind dwell too long on the sweet potential of his rewards.

  His thoughts returned to the task at hand as Ms. Donata was beginning an anecdote about Vail. And down below on the docks millions of dollars from the West Coast were about to depart from the South Coast, to points far removed and unknown… except to Kalatis.

  Chapter 56

  Gilbert Hormann pushed Panos Kalatis out of his mind. It was growing increasingly easy to do with every passing moment.

  He had been working late at the office, a regular occurrence especially when there was a shipment to Colombia in the offing. The door was open to his adjoining private apartment where he had been to pour himself a drink half an hour before. His personal line in his apartment rang, and he walked in and picked it up expecting to hear his wife ask how much later he was going to be.

  It was Kalatis. The Greek said he was rushed. He said he had just gotten the documents required for the Colombian shipment—these were counterfeited bills of lading and other forms that had to be filed with governmental agencies in order to be able to export significant quantities of sulfuric acid and acetic anhydride. Kalatis wanted Gilbert to have the documents tonight, and he was going to send over someone with them, just to drop them off. Gilbert knew there was no use arguing that he was just about to leave.