Tampa Burn df-11

by Randy Wayne White

  Beneath us, the flat water of the bay began to undulate in long, slow swells as if something huge lay below, breathing. Harris found the rhythm of the swells quickly and ran at maximum speed.

  I’d told him I’d crossed Repatriate ’s stern at around 7:15 P.M. near the channel’s intersection off Gibsonton. He broke the probabilities down for me. Told me how the process worked. He said an average freighter takes about two and a half hours to travel from the Gibsonton docks to the Skyway Bridge-with a Tampa pilot always in charge of the helm, of course.

  He said, “Where you saw them, they were only forty minutes or so away. That would put them beneath the bridge around eight P.M. Right at sunset.”

  I could picture it. Ironically-or maybe not-Prax Lourdes had probably watched Repatriate steam past. Because I was certain that’s how he had to work it. He’d been right there on the water in a smaller, faster boat, barking orders to Kong on the cell phone, working his extortion scheme, arranging the money drop. Probably chose that spot because he could visually confirm that his freighter was outward bound.

  Once he had the money and drugs, he would then run offshore, meet the freighter, and board her.

  But he couldn’t do that until the American pilot had left the vessel. Harris said that on a standard freighter run, a pilot disembarked a foreign vessel approximately an hour or so after passing beneath the Skyway-probably around nine P.M. in this case.

  “Our pilots disembark just past Palantine Shoals at sea buoys number nine and ten,” he said. “That’s six miles offshore.”

  Standard procedure, he explained, was for a freighter or tanker to slow to about ten knots as the pilot organization’s 60-foot aluminum Brocraft transport, Tampa, approached from astern. With neither vessel stopping, the pilot then climbed down the outside hull of the freighter via a rope ladder like the one I’d seen hanging off Repatriate. Once aboard the transport vessel, Tampa, he’d be taken to the pilot quarters on Egmont Key, where there was plenty of hot coffee, food, plus a shower and his bunk waiting.

  Harris pointed out that, because the transfer area is six miles offshore, there’s only another six miles to go to international waters. Most freighters run at between twelve and fifteen knots. So add another half-hour, he said. Total time to exit U.S. boundaries: four hours. Plus, add another fifteen to thirty minutes for Lourdes and the freighter to rendezvous, and for him to board.

  By our calculations, Repatriate may have crossed into international waters at around ten P.M.

  “We’re headed to the six-mile rendezvous point now,” Harris told me. “The sea buoys. Who knows? Maybe they got delayed. Maybe the perpetrator-Lourdes is his name?-maybe he had trouble finding the freighter. It’s a big ocean out here. Even if everything went perfectly for the asshole, we’re not far behind, Doc. We’ll find ’em.”

  I said, “What do you think the chances are that they left the pilot ladder hanging?”

  Mentally, I was already considering options, moving through the freighter, imagining what it would be like, seeing the ship’s layout, searching for my son.

  Harris said, “Lourdes had to get aboard somehow, didn’t he? If the ladder’s not there, we can throw your anchor over her stern like a grappling hook, and you can climb aboard that way. But, Doc?” He said it like a question, then waited, wanting my full attention.

  I could see only half of his face in the moonlight. His hair was combed back by the wind. “Yeah?”

  “You’re going to be dealing with a guy who just picked up a half-million in cash, and a shit-hole crew who’d cut a man’s throat for a hundred bucks. We pilots know that vessel, and it’s about as nasty as they come. Same with her female skipper. She’s about the size of a middle guard, and she’d probably enjoy cutting you herself. You need to watch your six.”

  Watch your six: Watch your tail.

  I said, “Did you say you were carrying a weapon?”

  “I’ve got a Glock nine millimeter,” he said. “But I won’t be carrying it once I give it to you.”

  We left the marker buoys 9 and 10 flashing astern, and continued planing hard west, straight out to sea, where stars seemed to be rising slowly out of the horizon as we left the mainland behind.

  We saw the lights of several commercial vessels. Had I been alone, I would have had to I.D. them visually, one by one. But not with Harris aboard. He knew the designs too well, even by silhouette. There was a late moon burning.

  Finally, at a little less than twenty miles offshore, we spotted three separate ships, all steaming in a direction that looked to be southwest, but separated by miles. They weren’t running together.

  Looking at them, Harris said, “The one most outward bound is a container ship-probably one of Evergreen’s vessels. The next is a tanker, the kind that carries liquids. The closest one, though, that’s a fertilizer freighter. That could be our boat.”

  I had the Glock in my hands, trying to familiarize myself with the minor differences between it and my old Sig Sauer.

  I said, “Run me up close. If it’s the one we’re looking for, dump me. Then drop way back-way the hell out of small arms range. I’ll use a light to signal you when I get things secured. Or I’ll just turn the boat around.”

  He was looking at his Rolex: 11:35 P.M.

  “You’d better make it fast. Unless I miss my guess, Coast Guard choppers are going to be on station out here fairly soon. They’ll be making sweeps; shining big bright lights…”

  He let the sentence trail off, his mind suddenly on something else, before bellowing, “Holy shittin’ hell!”

  He turned the wheel of my skiff so sharply, the gun nearly flew out of my hands.

  Behind us, rocking in our wake, was the unmistakable profile of a Boston Whaler.

  It was abandoned and adrift, its running lights off.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Harris swept far astern of the freighter, then banked toward it so that we approached directly from behind. Our lights were switched off, and we were flying over low swells glazed in moonlight, running even faster than before.

  He’d jotted down some data on all four vessels that were transiting that night, and he’d already told me what he knew about the phosphate freighter. She was many decades old, a Panama Canal-friendly commercial boat built in the yards of Boizenburg, Germany, but had had many owners. She was 375 feet long, with a beam of 50 feet-a small boat by industry standards.

  As we neared the freighter, the big white letters on her stern grew larger and larger- Repatriate -and I could see her shape clearly.

  The forward three-quarters of her deck showed no superstructure, and her lines curved gracefully upward toward the pitched bow. Far toward the back of the ship, though, there was an industrial-looking multistory building-probably five levels, all of them showing lighted windows. It was the ship’s “house,” in maritime terms.

  The house was built so far back that the vessel looked out of balance. Looked as if it might tilt bow-upward and continue under way, headed for the stars. Because of the sweeping bow, with the house built as far aft as it was, it looked a little like the common depiction of an ark.

  “Did you see it?” Harris yelled at me when we’d settled in behind the freighter. He had to yell. We were plowing at exactly her slow, diesel speed, directly astern, and only a couple of boat lengths away because we wanted to be hidden in her lee. Our data said that she was driven by a 1,000-horsepower Bergin diesel. The noise of her engine and prop was deafening.

  I’d seen it. I knew what he was talking about. As we dolphined in over the ship’s wash, I’d seen a ribbon of white hanging from the port side: a pilot’s boarding ladder.

  I told him, “Jump her wake and run me alongside, Harris. I’m cutting you loose.”

  I checked my watch: nearly midnight. I checked to make certain that my glasses were tied securely around my neck with fishing line. I checked the weapon’s clip once again.

  I was ready.

  To have Harris at the wheel was such extraordinary good luck
that it caused me to think of the tiny blind man at the trailer park who’d said that I had years of good luck ahead of me. But then… he’d also said that I might lose a child.

  Hanging tight as Harris porpoised over the ship’s rolling wash, I reminded myself that I don’t believe in luck, good or bad, for the same reason that I don’t believe in fortune-tellers.

  The pilot’s ladder was portside. It was a heavy, commercial-weight ladder of rope and wood that hung down near the “27” on the ship’s draft markings.

  Running alongside the freighter in the moonlight, Harris put the bow of my skiff almost against the hull of Repatriate, matching her speed, nose right beneath the ladder, before he called to me, “Step up on the casting deck when you’re ready!”

  I was standing in front of the console, holding on to a mooring line for stability. I continued to hold the line as I reached high, took a ladder rung in my right hand, and then lifted myself free of the deck of the skiff. My feet found the rungs below, and I scampered halfway up the freighter’s hull before turning to see Harris peel away in my skiff: dark hull throwing a silver wake.

  I was on my own.

  On my own-but not for long.

  As I pulled myself up over the midship’s railing, I could see a lifeboat stowed sideways against the railing, the ship’s aft derrick, a trash can, a couple of what looked to be empty 50-gallon drums that weren’t secured-odd. Or maybe not. Harris had said this was a dirty ship run by a nasty skipper.

  Something else I could see was a tall man hurrying toward me, arms waving up and down for balance, as if he were brachiating, traveling from one invisible limb to another, and he called to me in a heavy Jamaican accent, “What de fuck you doin’ climbin’ aboard this vessel without my permission, man? I supposed to be in charge a this watch, and nobody done told me nothin’.”

  He was close enough for me to speak without raising my voice, but I still couldn’t see him clearly because of the poor outboard lighting. He looked as if he might have tattoos on his face. Or unusually spaced birthmarks.

  I stood there relaxed, my right hand feeling the grip of the Glock that I’d wedged between the small of my back and belt. If the guy gave me a hard time or tried to sound an alarm, I’d either club him with the gun or use it to force him into one of those 50-gallon cans. They’d make a handy makeshift lock-up.

  I said, “I have permission. I’m with the guy who got aboard just a little while ago. My friend Jimmy. Didn’t the captain tell you? She was supposed to.”

  The Jamaican flapped his hands at me, disgusted. “She don’ tell me nothin,’ man, that fat woman don’t. She don’ tell nobody nothin’. Never does post a schedule, just the duty list, so everything just random around here, man. Fuckin’ random-you never know what she do next, man. This ain’t no squared-away vessel, that much I can say for certain!”

  In a ballooning gust of warm wind, I caught the heavy scent of marijuana that was on him. I said, “Where can I find Jimmy? Any idea?”

  He was already walking away; seemed to be headed for the ship’s house. It was brightly lighted, and towered five stories above us.

  “Is that the big man that wear the face bandage? I never knowed his name, but I reckon they on D deck. I know they got some business going on, ’cause she tell me to keep that deck secure. Nobody allowed up there.”

  He waved to me, telling me to follow. “Come on, man. I point you the right way. I ain’t standin’ out here in the darkness no more. I goin’ into the lounge with the resta the crew to spend my time. ’Cause if I ain’t in charge of this watch, then nobody in charge. So fuck ’em.”

  I followed the Jamaican up steel steps to the first level, where, through thick storm glass, I could see men inside an open room. They were watching a television screen-a fishing trawler was battling mountainous seas-playing cards and smoking, bottles of beer on the stainless table. The seamen’s lounge.

  “You go up two more flights, that be D deck,” the Jamaican said. “I’d take you myself, but that fat woman, she’ll find somethin’ new for me to do if she sees me. But if you don’ find them, man, you come back, and I’ll help.”

  I said, “I’ll do that.”

  I waited until he’d disappeared into the lounge before sprinting up the stairs.

  I entered D deck through a locking, watertight door, and stepped into a dimly lighted hall that smelled of paint and diesel. Almost every room on all commercial vessels is labeled, and I could see that D deck was the ship’s specialty area because of the names stenciled on the doors that I passed: ELECTRICAL. AIR CONDITIONING /

  HEATING. LAUNDRY. STORAGE.

  I moved from door to door, putting my ear against the cold metal, listening for voices inside.

  Twice I stopped because I thought I’d heard a muted scream. It was a distant, feral sound that I seemed to hear with my spine, not my ears. It had a cat-whining pitch, something you’d expect to hear from the limbs of trees, high above.

  I stood motionless, not breathing, my head moving experimentally for the best reception.

  Then I heard a third, muted crying scream, and I was running again, gun out now.

  The door was marked INFIRMARY. Someone inside the room was crying, and there was a second person talking, very angry, but keeping the volume down.

  I tested the handle to make sure it wasn’t locked, then kicked the door wide and stepped into the room, sweeping the Glock at the same pace that I swept the room with my eyes.

  I was disgusted by what I saw.

  I’ve been in many infirmaries, aboard many ships, but I’d never seen one equipped like this. There was a surgical microscope on wheels positioned between two stainless-steel operating tables. Both were draped, ready to be used. Above both were also duplicate I.V. tubes, cages to hold bags of whole blood, and all the accompanying pumps, gauges, oxygen cylinders, and theater lights that any serious surgery requires.

  But this room was equipped to handle two patients, not one. It was specially laid out to facilitate taking parts off one human being, and sewing them onto another.

  Someone had paid to have this tramp freighter outfitted-Lourdes-and for his own sick purpose. Just as bad, in my mind, though, one or more people aboard the freighter had allowed him to do it.

  I was fairly certain I was looking at one of the people responsible right now.

  On the floor was a tiny woman with short black hair that was expensively styled. She was dressed as if ready to head out the door for a jog-shorts, knit shirt, running shoes. Instead, she was balled up in a corner of the room in a fetal position.

  It was a defensive posture because a much larger woman was crouched over her, with a right hand drawn back as if to slap. The big woman wore jeans and a grease-stained red T-shirt, and her shoulders looked as wide as mine. In her left hand, I noted, she held a ball-peen hammer. There was no blood that I could see, so she’d only used it to threaten. So far.

  Harris had said the master of the Repatriate was a nasty one. This woman looked about as nasty as any I’d ever seen.

  Pointing the 9 mm Glock at her face, I said, “Hold it right there, skipper. Step up against the wall; drop the hammer. I’ve just taken control of your ship.”

  The last thing I expected was for her to scream, “Kiss my ass, you son-of-a-bitch!” and charge me with the hammer.

  That’s what she did.

  I’d never touched or hit a woman in my life in anger, but I hit this one.

  I ducked under the hammer’s hatchetlike stroke and heard it whap against the bulkhead where my head had been. She whirled and tried to nail me a second time, but I caught her wrist just before she connected.

  Still screaming at me, her piggish-wide face throbbed a violet red as she tried over and over to knee me in the groin. Sick of it, I held her away momentarily at arm’s length, then let her lunge her chin toward me. That’s when I hit her with a short left that numbed my elbow, but also dropped her to the deck as if she’d been shot.

  The sound of her head hittin
g the steel floor didn’t bother me a bit.

  The tiny woman in the jogging shorts was on her feet now, breathing heavily and wiping at her face. Her eyes had a glazed look, as if she might be in shock.

  She said, “Are you the police? Thank God you’ve finally come.” Then, staring at the woman who lay groaning on the deck, she added, “She’s just awful. Maybe the cruelest human being I’ve ever met in my life. Do you have any idea what she was asking me to do? Awful… disgusting things. And she hit me!”

  The hysteria in her voice was the only clue I needed. I grabbed the lady before she could move toward the fallen woman, and then held her, hugging her as she began to cry, whispering into her left ear, “It’s O.K., Dr. Santos. You’re going to be all right. I’ll get you out of here. But get hold of yourself. I need you.”

  Which seemed to do it. Made her shift emotional gears. People who are used to shouldering huge responsibility are the most likely to come through when the stakes are highest. These stakes were high.

  I was almost afraid to ask. “Is there a boy aboard? A boy named Lake?”

  She was nodding, but she’d buried her face again in my shoulder.

  “Do you know where he is? Did they hurt him? The kidnappers?”

  “The last time I saw him, he was in the same room where they locked me. It’s the next floor down, and it says ‘Visitors Quarters’ on the door. He had a small third-degree burn on his arm when I examined him. But it was healing. You must be the police or you wouldn’t be asking these questions.”

  I said, “No, not the police. I’m the boy’s father. I’ve come to get my son.”

  Through the muscle tissue of my chest and shoulder, I heard her moan softly, “Oh dear God. And it’s my fault. All my fault…”

  I felt a sickening sense of helplessness. Sound communicates tragedy more powerfully than any combination of words. Yet, I continued to press on.

  “Is he with the man who abducted you? If he is, I need to get to my son right away. The guy he’s with is dangerous as hell. He’s insane. I’ve got to go to him now. ”