Rocky Island

by Jim Newell

  “You know anything about activity like that, Toby?” asked the officer.

  “Not of my own direct knowledge, but I know that that kind of activity was going on some years ago along the South Shore and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was still taking place from time to time.”

  “Neither we nor the Coast Guard has the manpower to patrol constantly all along the shore, but we try to make spot checks and haven’t been able to come up with anything since the time you mentioned. This old freighter would be an ideal vessel for just that kind of traffic if the smugglers decided it’s time to begin again. What it was missing on that trip back in October when it was towed into Halifax was some containers that would have held millions of bucks worth of cocaine, packaged in five kilo bags. The empty space was just right for that kind of cargo, according to customs, but the captain claimed he was carrying sugar and shovelled it overboard.”

  “You believe that, Jason, and I’ll sell you the western half of Rocky Island for a dollar.”

  “I know that and you know that, but how can we prove it?”

  “Who carries sugar in containers, and when is it refined before reaching port in Halifax or St. John?”

  “Exactly. Well, we’re keeping an eye out for the Helen of Troy to make a return visit and we’ll be waiting this time. Any help you can give us will be appreciated.”

  “Can’t help much unless he comes in close to shore, and smugglers usually keep well off around the two hundred mile limit, but I’ll keep my eyes open. Oh, by the way, where was that ship when the tug picked it up?”

  “Thanks for reminding me. She was about fifty miles east of Rocky Island. The Captain claimed to be surprised that he had drifted so far, but then again, with the strength of that storm, who can prove differently?”

  Toby and Allison discussed the conversation over their meal hour that evening after Toby had been down to light the beacon. He had fallen on the icy walk as he returned from the lighthouse and banged up his left leg somewhat but nothing more serious then some bruises. Allison was more concerned about him than she was with the Helen of Troy just then. Still she did take in what her husband and the police officer had discussed, and she was still puzzled as to why her father would have been that far from shore.

  “Dad wouldn’t have been in that location on a day when a storm was forecast. I don’t understand.”

  Neither did Toby.

  *

  Neither did Nicolai Antonelli.

  In an office on the thirty-second floor of an uptown New York business block, Nicolai sat at his massive desk. No papers marred the clean and shiny desktop, just a telephone. A computer and a fax machine with scrambler mechanism attached to it sat on a table off to one side. A comfortable sofa and a couple of comfortable chairs were strategically placed on the expensive carpet. Several paintings by an impressionist of international fame, equally expensive but not as comfortable, at least to the eye of many beholders, occupied the walls.

  Antonelli matched his office. His suit was expensive, well cut to hide the size of his body, which ran to about fifty pounds over the recommended weight for his five foot ten height. He wore expensive shoes, highly polished every morning, when there was no rain, by the shoeshine man who had a stand outside the office building. His Rolex was always on display when he waved his arms in conversation, which he did habitually. His gray hair, what there was of it, was neatly brushed, and his nails were always well manicured. He walked as little as possible, but when he did, his gate was stately, without rolling from side to side and thus betraying the extra weight that he carried.

  On the door to the suite, facing the express elevator that opened onto the vestibule outside the suit, was a brass plate that read simply, Antonelli Exports and Imports. Once a visitor got past the striking red-haired receptionist, there were corridors, a large open area where several clerks were busy at their desks, and finally the office of Nicolai Antonelli himself.

  There were not many visitors, but this morning, there was a visitor. Perhaps “visitor” was not the correct word. Manfred Koch was actually an employee, but few if any of the workers in the outer offices could have told you that. He appeared at the New York office infrequently. Probably only Manfred and Nicolai knew that when Manfred was ushered into the office, the occasion was important.

  On this January morning, Nicolai and Manfred were discussing a problem that had arisen the previous October. Nicolai was asking for an explanation.

  “I still don’t understand what that fool Greek was doing so close to shore in the middle of a monster storm. You have explained to me what happened, at least what the Captain told you happened, but you haven’t told me why it happened. How many times have we talked on the phone about this matter and I still do not understand. What am I missing here?”

  “Nicolai, you have asked me that fifty times, and fifty times I have told you that I have no more knowledge than I have already told you. The only conclusion I can come to is that the man was lying through his teeth. I think that he was in close to shore to transfer the goods to fishing boats working for somebody else, probably for more money than we were paying, and the boat that he hit showed up unexpectedly.”

  “So how did he get so far out that the boat drifted back to that island and the body of one of the fishermen washed ashore but the other two stayed put?”

  “You tell me and then we will both understand. I have investigated in every way that I could without arousing official suspicions and I don’t understand. So now what do we do?”

  “The Helen of Troy is due to leave the Orinoco day after tomorrow. Get rid of the captain and the two mates. When they stop at Kingston have replacements ready to take command. You have good contacts in Jamaica?”

  “No problem. I have a good captain all ready to go. I can have him fly to Jamaica in time to take command there. But there’s another problem.”

  “I need more problems? What now?”

  “The ship itself is not going to be worth keeping much longer. The old tub is in need of a lot of repairs. The engines quit in October and we put out too much money to repair them for the value we’re going to get from the ship. It was necessary to keep up the pretences at the time.”

  Antonelli swore. “Tell the Captain to sink it after he makes this delivery. Pick a place where there won’t be much of an investigation. Check on the insurance. Can you find another to replace it?”

  “No problem. I’ll take care of it.”

  “A drink to the success of the last trip of the Helen of Troy.” The big man reached into the liquor cabinet within arm’s length of the left side of his desk. Producing bottle and glasses, he poured expensive bourbon for both. Manfred Koch was not particularly a bourbon drinker, nor a drinker of anything alcoholic at that hour of the day, but he was not about to refuse Nicolai Antonelli. The two drank their toast and Manfred rose to leave. The two did not shake hands. That was not part of their ritual. In fact, after a brief nod and a light wave, Manfred was gone and Antonelli returned to thoughts of his various business ventures.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As the winter wore on, life assumed its winter routine on Rocky Island. The nights had reached their longest point weeks earlier, before Christmas, and Toby was noticing that he was turning on the big beacon light a few minutes later in the afternoon and off earlier in the morning as well. The seasons’ ebb and flow of darkness and light was very noticeable to somebody who had to keep track of the beginning of daylight and darkness. The rule was that the light went on half an hour before dark and stayed on until half an hour after sunrise.

  Allison kept up with her painting, finding delight in winter scenes from the island, as well as helping her husband with his bookwork, and sometimes accompanying him on his early morning walks. She also kept a diary of the day to day events, both the trivial and the important. She had vague ideas of turning her diary into a book someday, so ever since her arrival she had written down everything, even much that was personal. They enjoyed the fireplace on the w
inter evenings, sometimes making love in front of the dancing flames. They were a sensual couple, a man and woman who loved each other deeply and expressed their love physically as well as in many other ways, large and small.

  The winter storms that blew up during the cold months didn’t bother either of them very much, except for Toby’s fall on the icy pathway. The bruises on his leg healed quickly. He rigged a hand line from the back door of the house to the lighthouse so that he would have something to hang on to as he made the daily trips to and fro. That was something he had thought of during previous winters, but had never got around to doing. As so often happens, he discovered that procrastination frequently causes accidents.

  He no longer carried the loaded shotgun with him wherever he went, but he kept it handy in the house where he could get to it in a hurry. His fears, which had arisen from the triple murder of Allison’s father and his fishermen crew, had not totally faded.

  On the February trip of the regular helicopter run, a passenger jumped off the craft after it landed. Corporal Brock had dropped by to bring Toby up to date. They went into Toby’s first floor workshop in the lighthouse to talk while Ed unloaded the cargo for the month. He didn’t need Toby’s help with this load. He only needed Allison to tell him where to store the things he had brought for her.

  “Toby,” began Brock, “we have word that the Helen of Troy is on its way north again. This time we have a different plan of surveillance. The navy has agreed to use one of its new submarines as part of a work-up exercise. When the ship hits Canadian waters, or at least the two hundred mile limit, whether it enters Canadian waters or not, the sub is going to shadow the vessel and see just what its movements are.”

  “That’s a good plan, but why are you telling me?”

  “We have a theory that the ship was very close to Rocky Island last time and off-loaded containers of cocaine onto fishing boats from the local area. We think that Captain Smith happened to come upon the operation and that’s when the trouble started. Whether his boat was towed out to sea and then let loose and rammed is something we don’t know, but it’s a possibility. That would account for the fact that none of the three were wearing immersion suits, but not for the reason why one body washed ashore days later but the other two were found almost immediately. It would also account for the reason the Helen of Troy was so close in when its engines failed.”

  “Okay. But why are you telling me this?”

  “Because we want you to keep a sharp eye out for the ship if it gets close. The sub can only come in so close before it runs out of water deep enough to be submerged. We’ll keep you informed of developments.”

  “Well I’ll do what I can, but my vision is limited to the horizon and I don’t have radio contact with fishing boats.”

  “What I would like you and Allison both to do is monitor marine radio conversations on your radio with the scanner equipment. Concentrate on channels eighty-four to eighty-eight. Not just occasionally as you have been doing, but as close to twenty-four hours a day as possible. I’ve brought a voice activated tape recorder that I’ll hook up to your radio before I go. Here’s a box of two dozen tapes and before they’re used, we’ll have more for you. Our technicians will listen to them but if you have already picked up something that you think is important, then give us a call right away and we’ll have a listen to the tape.”

  The group proceeded en mass to the house for coffee once the unloading of the helicopter was complete. Corporal Brock explained to Allison what he wanted her to do, along with Toby, and she greeted the request enthusiastically.

  “I was always a curious little girl and now I can indulge myself,” she laughed as she poured coffee.

  “There’s one other thing,” said Toby. “If the Helen of Troy was transferring cocaine to local fishing boats, they weren’t getting three containers. The local in shore fishing boats aren’t big enough to handle a full-size container. Either they were getting small ones, or the ship’s crew was breaking open a regular container and off-loading whatever the fishing boat could carry.”

  “You’re right there, and that’s something else we need to investigate if and when the time comes,” replied Brock.

  The conversation steered to other topics including the medical condition of Terry Jenkins, the former co-pilot who had broken his shoulder in the crash four months ago. Luke reported that he was making progress, was out of hospital and taking daily physiotherapy.

  The morning passed quickly, the visit ended and the helicopter departed for another month.

  *

  When the Helen of Troy arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, on the first week of February, Manfred was there and sent word to Georgio that he needed to see him and both mates at his hotel. He told the Captain that he had a problem with the cargo that was being loaded while the old vessel was tied up in the harbor. Georgio left the Filipino boatswain in charge and the ship’s three officers made their way ashore. As they passed a warehouse near the wharf, five men armed with clubs and knives jumped them. The carnage only took a few seconds, and within ten minutes, the bodies had been disposed of in the turgid waters of the harbor.

  An hour later, three new officers arrived to take charge of the Helen of Troy. The crew accepted the change without question. In their lives, change was frequent, and since Manfred came aboard with the new officers, they accepted things as they were about to be and went on with their work. The new Captain, Rolf Braun, was Austrian, and turned out to be a disciplinarian. His crew also accepted the new regime, but not without some grumbles.

  The loading was completed in a couple of days, and after making sure that his new command was as ready for sea as possible in its ancient condition, Captain Braun gave orders to set course for the north. Slowly, the old vessel chugged out of Kingston’s inner harbor into the more open waters of the outer harbor, past the New Road peninsula. After finally reaching the Atlantic, the helmsman turned the bow west until the ship cleared the island of Jamaica, and then northerly toward Canadian waters, being careful to remain clear of the territorial waters of the United States. The Captain didn’t want to meet the U.S. Coast Guard.

  By the third week in February, the Helen of Troy entered Canadian waters two hundred miles south west of Rocky Island. The Captain didn’t know his ship had picked up a tail at that point. A Canadian navy submarine followed the Helen of Troy as it slowly made its way through the rough waters of a rising February storm. The heading had changed once the vessel was in Canadian waters, and when the submarine commander worked out the course, he found that he was heading for the south coast of Newfoundland. This was reported to the Canadian Navy’s Atlantic Command and forwarded to the RCMP antidrug squad in Halifax.

  The storm had increased in size, considerably beyond the original meteorological forecast. Toby had to curtail his morning walks as the waves grew large enough to send spray well beyond the limits of his path. He was glad for the hand line, because the walkway to the lighthouse was not only slippery, but also even more dangerous from the high winds. He had once more turned the windmill gears into neutral so the huge sails turned at great speed but with no strain from the gusts that continuously rocked the island from the east. The diesel kept the turbine producing the necessary electricity for the lighthouse and as otherwise required, supplementing the solar panels on the house.

  The storm was one of those winter storms that passed fairly quickly, dangerous while it lasted but heading east after a couple of days. The weather frontal system that followed in its path was a cold front followed by a warm front with an associated low pressure area that hung around, bringing thick fog all along the southwestern shore of the province—typical Nova Scotia late winter weather.

  On the second fog-shrouded night, Toby and Allison were in bed, part way through what had begun as an evening of love making, when the signal sounded telling Toby that he was wanted on the satellite telephone.

  “Ignore it,” grunted Toby, his arms wound tight around his wife, his mouth on her breast. Alli
son pushed him away.

  “No, no. Answer it. At this time of night, it has to be important. We can get back to this later.” And she kissed him.

  The signal kept sounding and Toby, without bothering to put on any clothes, grumped his way to the office to answer the summons. Corporal Brock was on the other end.

  “Guess I caught you in bed. Sorry about that. Something’s up you need to know about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the Helen of Troy is about seven miles off the southeastern shore of Rocky Island, heading full steam, straight for you.”

  Toby chuckled. “What’s full steam for that old tub?”

  “About five knots.”

  “And it’s so foggy here that I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. I can’t even see the lighthouse from the window.”

  “The sub commander is on full alert because it doesn’t appear that the vessel’s captain is aware of the danger he’s heading for. There isn’t much we can do until the fog lifts. The helicopter’s grounded. Will you keep watch and let us know if and when the thing runs aground?”

  “You bet. Do you have any forecast on when this fog is due to start lifting? I won’t be able to see what’s happening as it is now.”

  “‘Tomorrow sometime is the best I can get from the met guy. How far off shore is she likely to hit rocks?”

  “Quarter mile or so. Depends on how far out the tide is, if and when she hits. Low tide will likely be about an hour and some from now.”

  “Just about the time she’s likely to run aground unless he changes course.”

  “Doesn’t he have a GPS for navigating?”

  “Don’t ask me. At the cost of one, you’d think even an old tub like that would have one, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yup. Well, I’ll get dressed and go down to the southwest shore and have a look-see. Be in touch.” He hung up, and although he longed to, did not return to bed and its pleasures.