by Jerold Last
Chapter 7.Back onboard the M/S Santa Cruz
Darwin: A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
There were still a few minutes to kill before dinner. I suggested returning to Bruce and Robert’s cabin for a Robert break, which Suzanne agreed to readily. When we got there Bruce was finishing feeding Robert and both were glad to see us. We had arranged with one of the ship stewards for “room service” so Bruce could eat dinner in his cabin while watching Robert. Breakfast and lunch, served buffet style, were “fast food”, so Robert’s limited attention span allowed for eating with the adults while not making a fuss. As usual, he was a ”babe magnet” for the over-50 matron set, so Bruce had plenty of volunteers to help him out during feeding time with his young charge.
While she played with Robert, I read the note from Eduardo aloud to Suzanne and Bruce. “Well played so far, amigo. Meet me in my cabin, B-24, at 11 tonight. Bring Suzanne with you to say hello. All will be explained then. Give my best regards to Bruce.”
We knocked on the door of B-24 precisely at 11. The middle-aged woman I’d seen on deck with Eduardo opened the door, checked whether the corridor was empty to our left and right, and hustled us into the cabin, locking the door behind us. “Buenos noches,” she greeted us.
Eduardo was busily waving a magic wand over the cabin walls, furniture, and bathroom, as he imitated a mad exterminator looking for traces of bugs. The magic wand was a small rectangle that fit into his hand. Green LED lights flashed on the device as he swept the area. “This is the newest and most sensitive device for electronic surveillance detection we have. It’ll pick up any kind of microphone or recorder that’s been planted here and uses any kind of electrical energy to transmit its data. I sweep the cabin every time we’ve been out. So far, nothing, but we can’t be too careful, can we?”
He put the bug detector down, put his arm around his companion’s shoulder, and introduced her to us. “Roger, Suzanne, I don’t think you’ve ever met my wife Sophia. Can we speak Spanish, please? Your Spanish needs practice a lot more than my wife’s English does. Sophia, these are my Norte Americano friends I’ve told you so much about.”
Sophia acknowledged us with a big abrazo and a kiss on each cheek. “Con mucho gusto!” I’ve heard a lot about you, all of it good, from Eduardo. It’s a real pleasure to finally meet you both.”
Eduardo also hugged us with the traditional abrazo, an impressive feat for this big bear of a man. He’s about my height at six feet, two inches, but almost 75 pounds heavier, all of it bone and muscle. We met him for the first time in Paraguay while we were chasing a killer who had murdered and dismembered a young woman from Paraguay in Montevideo, Uruguay. The victim came to be known as The Ambivalent Corpse in the local media. Eduardo is a high-ranking officer on the police force in Paraguay’s capital city, Asuncion. We quickly learned he is also an officer in the Paraguayan Federal Police, the equivalent of our FBI, and a spy for the Israeli Intelligence Service, The Mossad. Our paths had continued to cross in other adventures we had in South America, and we’d become very good friends, both personally and professionally. He’s also linked to us by being Robert’s godfather.
“Welcome aboard. I was very pleased to see your names on the passenger list for The Santa Cruz and took the liberty of assuming you’d be interested in helping me out here in my current case. It’s just the sort of confused mess that you both seem to love getting involved in. I’ll fill you in on the problem if you’re willing to help. Can I assume you are?”
Suzanne and I both nodded yes. Suzanne added a condition. “I’m always glad to help, but not if it puts Robert into any danger. I would interpret Sophia being here with you means you aren’t worried about collateral damage, but we did see your slightly paranoid electronic sweep of the room, so which is it?”
“If we’re careful I don’t see much risk for you and Robert, Suzanne. These elaborate precautions are just to make sure that nobody on board ship with us associates us as being together, which should make things even safer. OK?”
Suzanne nodded again. “You know I trust your judgment, Eduardo.”
Eduardo smiled at her. “OK, then. Let me tell you what’s going on here, at least as far as I know. First off, you know that Baltra is an Ecuadorian Air Force base, as well as the major entry point for international tourists into the Galapagos Islands. I assume you also know this base was built by the USA to protect The Panama Canal just before World War II, before it was given to Ecuador after the war. The Ecuadorian Air Force uses it to patrol the Pacific Coast to the west of their country, especially to protect it from becoming an airborne superhighway for the South American drug trade to Mexico and The United States. This surveillance has become even more important as a significant fraction of the cocaine production facilities have moved from Colombia to Ecuador under pressure from the United States and the Colombian Army. Add in some pretty intense satellite surveillance from the USA, which is nervous about terrorist groups like Al Quaida attacking the Panama Canal, and this particular stretch of the Pacific Ocean is very well watched even though it’s 600 miles offshore. Are you with me so far?”
Suzanne and I nodded we were.
Eduardo carefully sat down on the edge of the bed in the small cabin before continuing. “The satellites do a data dump to the computers in the USA every 24 hours or so. I don’t know exactly how often; that’s classified. When the hard drives were analyzed a week or so ago, the computer types found several episodes of an “extra” small boat cruising in the islands that couldn’t be accounted for by the computerized registration records at the Park site on Baltra. The resolution and the angles for the satellite images weren’t good enough to get a name or port of registration from the boat. An unauthorized boat like that is a big No-No, since a good-sized chunk of Ecuador’s foreign exchange income comes from the $100 per person fee international visitors have to pay to Ecuador as the price of entry into the Galapagos Islands Park.
“I don’t know how or who, but the Israeli security services got wind of all this. The Mossad sent me here to investigate because of the possible connection with international terrorists. My assignment included bringing Sophia so we look like a tourist couple, and to take lots of pictures of boats at the proper angle to identify them, and of people to see if anything or anyone pops up that could be an unregistered ship or a known terrorist. I’m also supposed to screen all of the Santa Cruz’s passengers to see if any of their cover identities might be a little off, especially if they seem to be travelling with a false or suspicious background.”
Suzanne interrupted Eduardo’s narrative to ask the same question I’d been thinking about. “Why did you choose to travel on the Santa Cruz? Was it just because it’s the biggest ship to cruise on?”
Eduardo gave her a warm and friendly smile. “I see you’re still pretty sharp, Suzanne. No, there’s more to it than that. We got a tip from a usually reliable source. I have no idea who it is or why they gave an Israeli intelligence agency a tip like this, but they said that during this trip, on this ship, something would be going on that related to the unusual activity involving one or more unregistered boats in the Park.
“There’s more, of course. At least one of the Park guides was murdered last week on Santa Cruz Island, which is directly across the bay from Baltra. Santa Cruz is where the headquarters of the Galapagos National Park Service and The Charles Darwin Research Station are located. We don’t know whether or not that murder is connected to the unauthorized ship sightings, but it seems reasonable to make the connection.”
It was my turn to ask a question. “Where do you think we fit into all this? Did you have a particular job for us to do or are we just here for moral support and help if you need it?”
Eduardo gave me a particularly unpleasant smile, which seemed to be saying, “You may not like to hear this, but—“. He cleared his throat before continuing, “I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to notice it or not, but your group, the Frigate Birds, has all of
the late international reservations in it. Most of the people on a popular luxury ship like this one book these tours as much as a year in advance. The ship fills up quickly. People like you either lucked out and got a space because of a last-minute cancellation, or some travel agency booked the space on speculation last year and figured to sell it at the last minute to make a big profit. My employers hacked into the tourist agency computer when they arranged for me to get space on board, and found you’d been assigned to the late bookings group, the Frigate Birds. So have all the other recently made reservations. It’s likely that anybody who suddenly had to be here in the Galapagos legitimately rather than clandestinely after the park ranger’s murder is also in your group. Unless they had the clout and connections to hack into the travel agency computer to fudge which group they were assigned to, just like I did for Sophia and me.
“You may be in the perfect position to help me out. With Robert along, you have the perfect cover as a rich gringo family on an expensive vacation. Nobody would suspect you’re anything other than what you appear to be unless they already know who you are. And what are the odds of that occurring here? I’d say they’re slim to none. All I want you to do is talk to all the others in your group. See if their motivation to explain being here now on this cruise is reasonable, and whether their background history seems to be consistent with what they know and do while you’re island hopping.”
Suzanne leaned towards Eduardo to ask him, “Is there anyone in our group you’re especially suspicious of?”
Eduardo grinned his unpleasant smile again. This time he looked a little bit like a hungry shark. “I’m suspicious of everybody. That’s in my job description. But there’s a new travel agency employee named Raul Vonhorst who’s listed on the computer as rotating between two of the groups, yours and mine. There’s surprisingly little about his past work experience in the travel agency computer. Checking him out on our own intelligence agency databases hasn’t told us much about where he’s from or what he’s been doing in the last few years. To all intents and purposes he might have been invented last month. He’s certainly worth a good long look when you get a chance.”
Suzanne volunteered some information. “We actually spent our first day in Quito with Raul and a couple of tourists from California, the Kaufman sisters, who are also assigned to the Frigate Birds. He told Barbara Kaufman he’s a new manager in the tourist agency, assigned to take all the tour packages and check out the guides and the satisfaction levels to help the agency redesign their package tours. That might explain why the computer files are so vague.”
The shark-like smile was back on Eduardo’s face. “Or, it might be a good cover story. Keep digging there, Suzanne. But dig carefully and make sure Bruce knows everything I’ve told you, so he can keep Robert safe, just in case.”
Sophia, who’d been sitting quietly at the tiny table in the cabin sipping a soft drink, spoke up for the first time. “Why do you have a male nanny like Bruce looking after your son, Roger? A little boy like Robert needs a mother to grow up with in his early years.”
I sensed this had been a topic of discussion more than once in Asuncion, Paraguay, so thought a bit while I formulated my answer. “Bruce is a great nanny. He’s been to a school in California for special training in how to take care of infants and toddlers. He also looks after the house and cooks, so Suzanne can be a working mother. He used to be a Navy SEAL, a special type of commando, so is very well qualified to be a bodyguard for Robert and Suzanne. In my profession as a detective, it’s good to know my family is being protected even when I’m not there. He even helps out with detective work on some of our cases, and makes it easy for us to travel when we need to, like now. Bruce is also a good friend, who I’d trust with my family’s lives. And, he’s a great dog trainer.”
Sophia pondered this endorsement for a while. She turned towards Eduardo. “I have an idea. I still think Robert needs more mothering. Why don’t I look after him part of every day so Bruce can go sightseeing on the islands and help you out on this case? That way Robert can get some special care from his honorary grandmother during this trip, and you can use me to communicate with Suzanne and Roger so you won’t have to risk being seen together. I don’t care how much Bruce thinks he knows or can do, he’s still not a woman. And it takes a woman’s touch to raise a child properly.”
Eduardo looked over towards Suzanne. “That’s not a bad idea. It kills two birds with one stone. Having watched her raise our four children, I can vouch for Sophia’s mothering skills. And I like the idea of having Bruce around just in case things start getting rough.”
Suzanne tactfully ignored the blatant sexism and thanked Sophia for her help. We had a little social chit-chat for a few minutes, then Eduardo checked the B corridor, declared it clear, and said goodnight. It was time to go back to our cabin and head for bed.
As we slowly walked back along the outside corridor on the deck to our cabin, thinking our separate thoughts, Suzanne broke the silence. “What did you think of that strange business when Eduardo monitored his cabin with an electronic bug zapper? Wasn’t it totally out of character for him to act so paranoid?”
I turned to look directly at Suzanne. “You noticed it too. Good, it wasn’t just me. What message do you think he might have been trying to send us?”
Suzanne thought for a moment before she answered with a chuckle. “When in doubt, go with the obvious. I think we can assume he was trying to tell us our cabin is bugged without leaving any audio footprints of his own, just in case his cabin was also being bugged.”
I led her further out on deck towards the stern of the ship, where we could stand by the railing of the ship and not be overheard. “I see we’re thinking along the same lines here. Keep going. How would he know this and who’s doing the bugging if we’re guessing correctly?”
Suzanne thought about this a little more. “He would know about this if all the cabins were being bugged by his employers, the Mossad. And that would have been one of the most logical responses to make for a national intelligence agency with the financial resources to reach halfway across the world picking up hints of something wrong here. They knew the cabin assignments for all the passengers. I’ll bet they bugged every cabin containing anybody whose reservation is recent, and maybe bugged every other cabin assigned to an international tourist as well. It’s logical they would try to get to the bottom of our little mystery regarding what’s going on here in the Galapagos Islands, and more specifically on board this cruise ship.”
I looked out over the blackness of the Pacific Ocean 600 miles west of Ecuador. We had a great view of absolutely nothing in the darkness. Only the lights of our ship broke the vast emptiness. “Let’s head back to the cabin, but we need to be careful what we say while we’re there. Let’s assume Big Brother is listening to everything!”
Chapter8.Tuesday-Bartholomew Island
Darwin: To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.
The public address system echoing through the ship’s staterooms and corridors woke us at 6:45 AM with an announcement to assemble at our Zodiac station for pickup at 7:15. “I thought we were on a luxury vacation here. It isn’t even light outside yet,” grumbled Suzanne as she staggered out of bed and into the shower. There was time to grab a quick breakfast of croissants, rolls, assorted cheeses and breakfast meats, and coffee to be ingested while we waited for our water taxi. We had the same core group as yesterday with two exceptions. Raul Vonhorst sat next to Gretchen Kaufman and the Australian retirees, Victor and Emily Weaver, had apparently opted to sleep in this morning.
Replacing the Weavers today were a newlywed couple in their early 40s who briefly introduced themselves as Linda and Michael Smart. The Smarts, from the United States Navy base on Diego Garcia, were currently on their honeymoon here in the Galapagos Islands. There were a lot of jokes flying around warning the honeymooners to be careful unless they wanted to be the couple like us jugg
ling an infant on their next trip. Robert gurgled at the better jokes, but tended to ignore the cruder ones. Bruce totally ignored the banter.
We’d covered a lot of mileage cruising overnight and were currently anchored a few hundred meters offshore from a very different looking island quite a distance from Baltra. Rather than the flat shape of Baltra, Bartholemew featured several hills and a large central plateau defining the shape of a much larger island. Further away than the large island we had anchored just to the eastern end of, several of the other islands of the Galapagos archipelago were visible in the early pre-dawn light. Our water taxi picked us up promptly at 7:15 and began our transfer to Bartholemew Island. En route, we found the body of one of our fellow tourists floating in the ocean, which set into motion a chain of events that greatly enriched our memories of this vacation while permanently changing the lives of several of our fellow passengers.
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The captain and first mate, plus two other sailors from the crew, were waiting for us when our little water taxi got back to the M/S Santa Cruz. Most of the passengers on board had already transferred to Bartholemew Island or were en route to the island when we arrived back at the ship with our grisly cargo. The remaining passengers still on the Santa Cruz stood on deck in small groups staring at the blanket-wrapped body and speculating about what was going on. The typical human reaction of fascination at horrible events kicked in and everybody wanted to participate in the drama, preferably from a safe distance. The dead body was transferred to a stretcher as the crew discretely removed what was left of the woman named Rita to wherever bodies were kept on board a ship while waiting for the police to arrive from several hundred miles away.
