Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2)

by Fernando Gamboa

“But I put in the lemon,” she said.

  “That I have to admit.”

  She smiled and nodded ever so slightly. Then she turned and said loudly as she went back down the aisle, “RAF planes don’t carry alcoholic drinks, Commander.”

  Fleming looked at his glass of lemon water, sighed, and consoled himself by lighting a cigarette.

  “Not allowed to smoke either,” the stewardess called, closing the curtain behind her.

  The commander cursed under his breath and, annoyed, dropped the cigarette in the glass of water as a silly gesture of protest. Then he put the glass on the table of the seat next to him and opened the third brief he’d taken with him.

  Strangely, this was the thickest of all, and its heading, Captain Alexander Riley and the Crew of the Pingarrón, seemed like the title of an adventure novel.

  The information in that extensive brief came from the most diverse sources: Donovan himself, MI6 archives, and the Spanish banker Juan March, who Riley and his crew sometimes had contact with. Though surprised to be asked, March had explained their relationship as businessman and maritime shipper, which in wartime tended to translate as trafficker and smuggler for hire.

  Juan March told him the murkiest parts of Captain Riley’s biography and about the bizarre and loyal crew that followed him everywhere. Some parts of the banker’s story were hardly believable given the level of bravery and honesty implied. Whatever the case, Fleming attributed the tale to an excess of imagination on the part of the narrator. But it was clear March was not an admirer of Riley and his men. Quite the contrary—what Fleming understood to be virtues were to the banker nothing more than a slew of vices and bad decisions that had made him lose lots of money.

  Whatever the case, the almost-legendary image of Alexander Riley that the testimonies built was nothing more than an exaggeration. The report even claimed Riley had killed one of Menzies’s best agents outside of Tangier last year.

  Fleming pursed his lips, turned to the window, and looked at the terrifying African jungle move twenty thousand feet below him. He thought that regardless of the virtues or vices of this Captain Riley, he seemed to be the common denominator in all that was happening and the man who had the answers he needed.

  16

  The fourteenth of January, when Operation Postmaster was set to begin, was incredibly hot. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, and even the perpetual Harmattan would have been a welcome relief for Santa Isabel, painting the dome of the sky the indigo blue that only appears near the Equator.

  The living/dining room of the Pingarrón bustled with activity. The whole crew ate around the central table replete with strips of bacon, fried eggs, sausage, and enough cups of coffee to wake the dead.

  “That governor’s wife,” Julie said in reference to the night before. “Boy, bring me that, boy, bring me that . . . I thought she was going to ask the butler to fill her spoon and put it in her mouth!”

  “I’m sure he puts something else—” César began.

  His wife turned to him with a scandalized look. “But what are you saying, mon chéri?!”

  “It’s true,” Jack said. “Didn’t you see the looks she gave him? I’m sure she tiptoes out of the marriage bed every night and”—he made the gesture of a slow-motion punch—“bang!”

  “Oh!” Julie, the youngest and by far the most innocent, looked back and forth between the second-in-command and her husband. “Really?”

  “Você pode ter certeza,” César said. “The only question is whether the husband puts up with it—or joins in.”

  “I’d bet the second one,” Riley offered as he stabbed a sausage with his fork. “What I want to know is with who. What do you think, Carmen?”

  Carmen was busy using her knife and fork on a slice of bacon, so she didn’t even look up to answer. “During dinner the governor barely looked at me and Julie. You, on the other hand”—she paused to glance at him—“he didn’t take his eyes off.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Well, that I have the impression that the governor and his wife share similar tastes and hobbies.” She smiled coyly. “For sausages, that is.”

  After seeing the malicious smiles appearing on the faces of his crew, Riley returned the stabbed sausage to his plate very slowly. “What’s happening,” he said, taking on an air a false pride, “is that you’re jealous because someone thinks I’m more attractive than you.”

  “Right. Must be that.”

  “Think so, Jack?” he asked, turning toward his second.

  “Of course,” he said with a wink. “Did you give him your number?”

  “What a shame,” Julie said. “I think you broke the poor governor’s heart.”

  “He’s going to miss you a lot,” Carmen said. “Promise me you’ll write him.”

  Marovic, on the other side of the table, sighed impatiently and threw his napkin on his plate. “What? You all had fun last night?” he growled. “Me too! Oh, wait, hold on. I was locked on the fucking ship. Like yesterday, like the day before, while you all went out partying.”

  “Part of the mission,” Riley said. “And it wouldn’t have been helpful for you or the commander to be very visible. You already know that. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “You didn’t even let me go to the bar right here to have a cold beer,” he grumbled. “What’s the risk in that?”

  “One I don’t want to take.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  Riley moved his index and thumb so close together they almost touched. “Not even this much.”

  The Yugoslav stood up quickly. “It’s insulting,” he barked, looking around. “After all I’ve done for you.”

  “I don’t want to risk you drinking too much and saying something or getting in a fight,” Riley said drily. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  The mercenary, still standing, put his hands on the table. “You’re the one with the drinking problem on this ship, not me.”

  Everyone looked at Riley, expecting him to explode.

  “I’m in charge,” he said as calmly as possible, “and those are my orders.”

  But the Serb still wasn’t finished. “That’s a pity,” he muttered. “We already know what happens to people who follow orders.”

  Riley’s jaw tensed. “Out of my sight,” he hissed. “Now.”

  Marovic kept his icy stare on the captain for a few seconds, then angrily pushed the chair back and left, cursing in Serbian.

  For a few moments everyone was quiet, concentrating on their plates. The good mood had completely vanished.

  It was Riley who then stood up, his breakfast half eaten, and left without looking at anyone or saying a word.

  There was a knock on the door of the captain’s cabin, but before he could answer, it opened and Carmen entered, closing the door behind her.

  “I have to put a bolt on that door,” Riley, who sat at the desk, grumbled.

  “It’s my cabin too,” Carmen reminded him, crossing her arms. “What are you going to do?”

  A bottle of gin sat on the desk, and there was an empty glass in Riley’s right hand. “What do you think?” he said, looking away.

  “I think you’re an idiot.”

  Riley looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Don’t push it.”

  “You promised me you were going to quit.”

  Riley shrugged. “I promise a lot of things, beautiful,” he said, unscrewing the cap of the Gordon’s bottle.

  Carmen exhaled slowly. “If you open that bottle, you’re making Marco right.”

  Riley looked at her and defiantly finished unscrewing the cap. “Anything else?”

  “I thought you’d already gotten over that bullshit feeling of being guilty for what happened in Spain.”

  “Then you thought wrong.”

  “God damn it, Alex, it was five years ago. Don’t you think what you did last month makes up for it?”

  Riley looked at her as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Make up for i
t? The Lincoln Battalion soldiers are still dead.”

  “But you’ve saved millions,” she reminded him. “Your karma’s positive now.”

  “Karma? What the hell are you talking about? I ordered them to take that damn hill”—he pointed with his thumb—“and it’s my fault they almost all died. The hell with fucking karma.”

  Carmen took the bottle by the neck and held it in front of him. “And getting drunk on this is going to resurrect them?”

  Riley opened his mouth to answer but stopped. Finally he lowered his head and let it sway from side to side. “Leave me in peace, please.”

  Carmen sighed and put the bottle back on the table. Then she put her hand on the back of the chair and brought her face toward Alex’s until it was just a couple inches away. “I’m going,” she whispered threateningly, “but if you put my life or that of the others at risk, I swear I’ll never forgive you.”

  She turned and left the cabin, slamming the door violently.

  Riley was alone again, in front of the bottle. He took it in his hand and studied its yellow label, the big red letters, and the boar’s head below the brand name. The smell of alcohol and juniper coming off the transparent liquid flooded his senses, promising hours of absence and oblivion. Since that fateful afternoon in February 1937 at the bottom of Pingarrón Hill, the demons hadn’t stopped chasing him, and losing himself at the bottom of a bottle had been the only reliable method to keep them at bay.

  Nevertheless, using all his willpower, Riley took the cap he’d left on the table and carefully screwed it back on.

  “God damn it,” he muttered and reluctantly put the bottle back in the drawer he’d gotten it from.

  That morning, with the exception of Riley and Hudgens, who had decided to stay on the ship to finalize the last details of the operation, the rest of the crew attempted to beat the heat by walking on Carboneras Beach. Though it was only a mile or two from the port, they took the governor up on his offer to borrow his car, which was a cream 1940 Hudson convertible. Jack drove with Marovic as copilot, and César, Julie, and Carmen sat in the back, looking forward to spending the hottest part of the day in water up to their eyes.

  However, by midday they were back, complaining that no one had told them about the presence of sharks near the beaches. There had been so many of them close to shore that they were only in the water briefly and never deeper than their waists.

  But it wasn’t a wasted morning. A boy there told them the sharks came because of underground springs of sweet water, which you could see bubbling about ten yards offshore if you looked closely. The springs surrounded the whole island, he told them, and for some mysterious reason they seemed to attract sharks like honey did flies.

  Later the same boy, who said his name was Pablo, invited them to visit his village, which was nearby, and with the alternative being to go back to the Pingarrón, they all accepted immediately.

  Once they were there, the head of the village received them hospitably, and after offering them food and water, invited them to participate in a protection ceremony with the local witch.

  “Never hurts to have extra protection,” Carmen argued. In her old house in Tangier, she had accumulated statues of Buddha, Hindu gods, and dozens of saints.

  The witch turned out to be an old man brimming with energy who wore a wooden mask for the ceremony. After a litany of prayers in Bubi, he dipped the end of an okoumé branch in water and sprinkled it on them enthusiastically, one by one.

  The last to be splashed was Jack, who afterward asked the witch, “So . . . with this ceremony I’m protected, and how long does it last?”

  Pablo translated the question, and the witch answered, “Until the next moon, the gods of water and earth will protect you and fill you with strength and courage in the face of adversity.”

  “You’re saying I’ll be more brave now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And stronger?”

  “Yes.”

  “And can you make me have more success with women?” he asked a little jokingly.

  Pablo translated the question to the witch, who responded with a strange phrase and a toothless smile.

  “The witch says the gods are very powerful,” the boy translated. He smiled and added, “But not that powerful.”

  In any case, the little excursion calmed their spirits and prepared them for the following hours, which promised to be intense.

  Thus, with the bridge clock pointing at five in the afternoon, everyone got together again to synchronize their watches and review the strict script they’d have to follow.

  “Any questions?” Hudgens looked them over one at a time in search of indecisive faces. “None?”

  “None here, Commander,” Julie said when she realized no one was going to say anything. “César will start the engines and when Carmen and I get back onboard, we’ll unmoor and wait for you outside the bay, five miles out with our lights off.”

  “That’s right. Just be careful not to run into the English ships when you leave. Remember they’re going without lights too, and there’s no moon tonight.”

  “No problem,” the mechanic said. “We already talked about it and are going to put a light on the bow so they can see us. And we pushed all we could toward the starboard buoy.”

  “Good thinking. And you all?” He looked at the others. “All clear?”

  “My job is to go to the party and make sure the Germans and Italians don’t leave before us, right?” Carmen asked.

  “No more, no less. You have to make sure, by whatever means, that they don’t go back to their ships early. The success of the operation depends on it completely.”

  “I’ll be in one of the skiffs at the end of the pier,” Marovic said. “Waiting for you,” he added with a look at Riley and Jack.

  “We’ll be there,” Jack said. “When they cut the lights everyone should be too drunk to realize we left the party.”

  “Did you confirm the Germans are going?” Carmen asked.

  Riley nodded. “When you were out I spoke with Zorrilla,” he said for the benefit of all. “It seems Mrs. Lühr was able to convince them, although, from what he told me, we’ll have to try hard to keep them. It seems they’re the type who like to go to bed at nine. Anyway”—he waved vaguely in the air—“Germans.”

  “And to help convince them,” Jack added, “we had Zorrilla hire half a dozen miningas to liven up the evening.”

  “¿Miningas?” Carmen asked.

  “Local girls of . . . what’s the word . . .”—he glanced at the captain before answering himself—“loose morals.”

  “I understand, but . . . aren’t these Germans Nazis? They’re very racist,” she said with a frown. “I don’t think black girls are exactly what they like.”

  “We’re counting on it,” Riley said. “And that’s why we have our secret weapon.”

  “What secret weapon?”

  Riley smiled. “You.”

  17

  A little after nine at night, Julie, Jack, Carmen, and Riley closed the last of the distance between them and the casino’s main door. The owner was waiting for them with an exaggerated smile.

  “Good evening!” he called, opening his arms. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Sorry for the delay,” Riley said. Then glancing at Julie and Carmen, he added with a wink, “Women . . . you know.”

  Emilio Amilivia stole a look at them and couldn’t keep his pupils from dilating from sheer fright.

  The reason was Julie, who had decided to wear a long strapless red silk dress that hugged her voluptuous young body like a glove. The low neckline and a couple of Carmen’s beauty tricks accentuated Julie’s already generous breasts, which seemed about to overflow at the slightest pretext, and, as César pointed out, would attract the attention of all the men like steak at a gathering of hyenas.

  For her part, Carmen chose a style inspired by ancient Greece. Her hair was in an elaborate bun, and she wore a thin white chiffon dress, which, despite its m
odest neckline, left her whole back exposed. The dress was less striking than Julie’s, but had a notable peculiarity: under certain lighting it was almost translucent, and if you looked closely, you could see the details of the woman’s body beneath it, as well as the color of her underwear. And that night Carmen wasn’t wearing any.

  Earlier in the day, the women’s outfits had caused an uproar among the Pingarrón’s own crew.

  “You look like sluts,” Marco said with his usual diplomacy.

  Unexpectedly, Carmen’s response was not anger. “That’s exactly the point,” she said.

  “But looking like that at the party,” César said, clearly struggling to come to terms with his wife’s appearance, “aren’t you going to make all the women angry? As soon as their husbands start drooling at you they’ll take them by the collar and leave the party.”

  “Even better then,” Hudgens said. “Remember, we’re trying to get the sailors to stay, and they don’t have wives.”

  “Think about it,” Riley said. “If the good citizens of Santa Isabel leave the party, the sailors will feel less inhibited than if they’re being watched by some pious ladies taking notes.”

  César looked at his wife. “Are you sure about this, Julie?”

  “Of course, mon chéri,” she said with a smile as she touched his waist. “It’ll be fun, and these two will be there to protect me,” she said, motioning toward Riley and Jack. “Right?”

  “You can rest assured we won’t take our eyes off her,” Jack joked, looking at her cleavage.

  “Don’t forget she’s my wife,” César warned, crossing his arms.

  “Enough fooling around,” Hudgens ordered, more nervous than he wanted to let on. “Is everyone ready?”

  Carmen went up to Riley, who had decided to wear a three-piece tuxedo with a white jacket and a red carnation in the lapel.

  She helped him retie the bow tie, which hadn’t turned out so well.

  “I’ve never used one of these things,” Riley said, letting her do it.

  “Me neither,” she replied, and when she was satisfied with the result, she took a step back and looked at him admiringly. “You look very elegant.”