by Jim Newell
The rest of the crew were rounded up and also placed under armed guard. Brock and several officers removed the forward hatch cover and descended into the hold where it took them only a few minutes to discover the containers they wanted.
“Who’s in charge of the loading winch?” asked Kellerman. Nobody answered for a couple of minutes, then one of the Chinese engineers stepped forward. “Okay. Get those three containers on deck. Pick the men you want to help, and no funny business. Understand? The men nodded and in a little more than a half hour had the containers on deck.
The hovering helicopter lowered a large basket and the police broke open the first container and loaded the plastic-wrapped bags of powder into the basket, which was pulled up into the aircraft. After six basket loads, the chopper flew off to the island where it unloaded its cargo and returned for more. By that time the DOT chopper had arrived and left again with its five passengers. The doctor had given the wounded Mate morphine for his pain and declared that his legs would heal and that he would need only some hospital time after all the buckshot had been removed.
“You put it in,” he joked with Toby. “You ought to have to take it out.”
“I’d be glad to, so long as you don’t give the SOB an anesthetic while I do it.”
The doctor laughed.
The big helicopter had to quit after the second load and head off for Yarmouth for refuelling. While they were gone, Kellerman was on the phone to Inspector McLaughlin.
“Get the DEA on the move to raid Antonelli Importers. We got proof of their ownership of the Helen of Troy and we got three containers of cocaine, part of it to be unloaded when the chopper gets back and the rest on the ground on Rocky Island. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the stuff. Biggest haul we’ve ever made.”
Within two hours, two squads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency investigators burst into two offices in New York. Uptown, they hit the thirty-second floor of the building where Antonelli Imports and Exports had their office. In the Bronx, they invaded the warehouse and office of NA Transport. They missed Manfred Koch by ten minutes as he had just driven away, headed for Canada, New Brunswick in particular. But they found cocaine in locked storage rooms and in panel trucks being readied to go out on deliveries. With the cooperation of the NYPD, they arrested fifteen people and seized a truck load of records, both on paper and in computers. The expectation was that more arrests would be made.
In the Antonelli office, there was a great deal of shouting and confusion. Most of the shouting came from Nicolai. His secretary burst into his office calling, “Mr. Antonelli, the DEA is here.” Before he could reply, three armed men wearing DEA jackets and caps crowded into the room behind her.
“What the Hell’s going on? Who are you and what are you doing in my office?”
“John Thurston, Drug Enforcement Agency. You and your entire staff are under arrest and this warrant says we can search everywhere and everything for proof of drug trafficking.”
“Get out of my office. I don’t care about your warrant. I’ll call Senator Bonelli and get that quashed in five minutes. Auralie, call Corelli.”
Corelli and Associates was the law firm that handled legal matters for Antonelli Imports and Exports as well as NA Transport. They were about to be a very busy law firm.
“Sorry. No phone calls. Just stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
One of the agents moved behind the desk and unceremoniously dragged Nicolai to his feet, pulled his arms behind his back and handcuffed him. Then with a none too gentle push, headed him for the door. The entire office staff was being put through the same procedure, but only Antonelli was making any protest. He was cursing in both Italian and English and threatening lawsuits, mass firings of the agents and anything else he could think of—and he was thinking at the same time of what might lie ahead for him. Some of the women were in tears, others, like most of the men, were stoic as they were herded into the elevators and taken down to paddy wagons and driven off to jail. On the street a crowd of people watched the parade of handcuffed office workers loaded into the vans. Reporters and TV crews arrived in time to catch the last of the stream of people, but they got no answers to their shouted questions from any of the DEA officers or assisting members of the NYPD. The official word was “No comment.”
The material, again both on paper and on computer hard drives and disks, which the DEA agents confiscated, was immense in volume. When it was all assembled in a large room in DEA headquarters for New York, the chief of the bureau whistled as he looked at the sheer mass.
“This is going to take months to wade through,” was his only observation. Nobody disagreed with him. Even bail hearings and appeals of bail denials were going to be a lengthy process.
*
Back on Rocky Island, the last of the three containers of cocaine was piled on the shore of the island, waiting to be transported to the RCMP Nova Scotia office in Halifax. A second helicopter had been assigned so there could be a shuttle run. The first run was to take the crew of the Helen of Troy to jail in Halifax. When Captain Braun attempted to call Antonelli in New York from the jail, he was connected to the DEA officer in charge at the office. He then tried the Corelli law office and was told that they could not represent him in Canada. He was on his own.
It took all day to haul away the load of illegal drugs. In the meantime, the Navy had used Allison’s information and their radar to round up all three fishing boats. A Canadian Coast Guard vessel with a couple of RCMP officers aboard was on the way to take the boats in tow and place the nine men of the crews under arrest. Inspector McLaughlin who couldn’t stop smiling all that day or the next coordinated the entire operation. His wife claimed that he even smiled in his sleep.
The Department of Transport dispatched a deep-sea tugboat to see what could be done about getting the Helen of Troy off the reef. When it arrived, likely the next day, an investigation team would be flown to the island to assist.
Toby went to bed and slept the afternoon through until Allison waked him to turn on the light for the night. Then she made supper and following that, they both collapsed in bed and slept the night through until the alarm clock woke Toby to shut off the light in the morning. He felt better, no longer sleepy, but certainly stiff and tired from his long vigil on the rocky shore. Allison slept the clock around.
Corporal Brock phoned in the middle of the afternoon to tell Toby that there would be no investigation of his having shot the First Mate of the vessel. It was pretty clear to him what had happened, but he would like to come down next day and take an official statement. Toby agreed.
When Brock arrived next morning, he was in a good mood. “How does it feel to be heroes? We are recommending both of you for medals of bravery, and official commendations for your help in the biggest drug bust ever in both Canada and the USA.”
Allison just smiled and poured more coffee.
He went on to explain what had happened in New York and how the entire operation fit together. Toby gave him a statement, which he had written out.
“You will both probably have to be witnesses when this thing comes to trial, but that will likely be at least a year away, maybe more. Just sorting out all the information we have is going to take almost that long and then the lawyers get time to prepare their cases. One thing we don’t know yet is how the three fishing boats Allison found for us fit in. They don’t seem to belong to the same organization. But we’re working on it.”
“Are they talking?”
“Not yet, except for one. They’re demanding lawyers, but they haven’t hired any yet, so they’re staying put in jail. Believe me, the jail is full with all the crew members from the vessel and the nine fishermen.”
“How’s the guy I shot doing?”
“Oh, he’s going to be okay, but he’s not going to be running any marathons for quite a while. I’m not sure they’ve got all that buckshot out of his legs yet. Must have been a full load that hit him.”
“Well,
at that distance, the pattern was pretty close, so I imagine he did get pretty near the full shot. Can’t say I’m sorry. What kind of rifle was that he had?”
“A Russian AK47 automatic. That tell you anything?”
“Yeah, some international connections. He was German, right?”
“Austrian. He and the Captain and the other Mate. The engineers were all Chinese and the rest of the crew was Filipino. That means lots of deportation hearings after the trials are over. By the way, the Second Mate is the one who’s talking and he’s singing a wonderful tune. He’s only a kid and scared to death.”
“Tough. Am I supposed to feel sorry?”
“Well of course. Shouldn’t you feel sorry for a navigator who runs his ship aground because his GPS broke and he didn’t know it, so he had no idea where he was?”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s what happened.”
“Looks good on him.”
“Lucky break for us. By the way, we also found a handgun, a thirty-eight pistol, in a desk drawer in the captain’s cabin. There was a box of ammunition with several bullets missing from the box.”
CHAPTER TEN
Manfred Koch heard about the drug busts at Antonelli Imports and at NA Transport on the car radio as he was driving through Maine en route to New Brunswick. For a few minutes, his brain didn’t register all the details. When the enormity of what had happened hit him, he was approaching Bangor, so he turned off the freeway and drove to the airport where he parked his Mercedes at the back of the long term lot, took off the licence plates and ditched them in a garbage dumpster. Then he took a taxi to a motel and checked in as Harold Connors of Philadelphia.
His first act was to call the Presque Isle office of NA Transport. The phone was answered by a DEA officer which made Manfred hang up quickly. Then he tried the Bar Harbor office with the same result. He left the motel before the calls could be traced and walked a couple of blocks down the street where he found another taxi back to the airport. He left it at the terminal and walked to the small hangar of Maine Air.
Inside, a middle-aged red-haired man wearing blue pilot’s coveralls greeted him. The man was obviously not a stranger to him. “Well hi, Mr. Koch. Haven’t seen you for quite a while. What’s new and what can I do for you—as if I couldn’t guess?
“Hi Red. How’s chances for a run across the border tonight?”
“No problem. Same place?”
“Same place, same routine, except no pickup this time, just a one way trip.”
“Well that’s different. How’re you going to get back?”
“Ask no questions and you won’t get in trouble for having no ready answer, if you get
asked.”
The red-haired man laughed. “That bad, eh? Okay. How about one a.m. take-off? The tower will be closed and we can go on our happy way. Got a thousand bucks?”
“Take a cheque?”
“Sure, if it’s good.”
“Solid gold.” Manfred took out a cheque book and wrote a thousand dollar cheque to Maine Air, drawn on a New York bank. He signed it with the name printed on the cheque, “J. Donald Hartley.”
Red looked at it. “That’s a name I ain’t seen before. But then, I do charter flights for a lot of people I ain’t seen before, either. See you after midnight.”
Koch took a taxi to a second motel and checked in where he lay on the bed and thought. He was definitely in a tight spot until he got across the border and then he had a plan all laid out. About a quarter to six, he used his cell phone to call a number in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The perky female voice answered, “Quality Rentals. How can I help you?”
“Get me Alfredo.”
“One moment please.”
Another voice came on the line, a deep voice with a hint of Latin American accent.
“Alfredo.”
“Gonzalez. Meet me at the usual place about two a.m.”
“Will do. Anybody with you?”
“No. Is the safe house available?”
“Always.”
“Okay, see you at two o’clock.”
Then Koch, obviously known in New Brunswick as Gonzalez, went out to eat. He found a reasonable restaurant and dawdled over his meal until he had killed as much time as he could. Bangor is a small city, and he didn’t want to be conspicuous, so he walked back to his motel and lay on the bed again, watching CNN. He learned that the entire Antonelli empire had been shut down in the biggest drug bust in recent memory. Nothing was said about the DEA or FBI looking for him, and the only Canadian connection made was the cargo carried by the Helen of Troy aground on Rocky Island. No mention was made of the Canadian Navy submarine tracking the vessel, something that would have interested Koch in his alter ego as Gonzalez very much.
“Damn fool Braun,” he thought. “How did that happen? Can’t the stupid bugger navigate? Even Georgio did better than that. Maybe I should have kept him and let Nicolai stew for a while. Poor old Nicolai. He’ll be in jail for the rest of his life. Dumb cluck letting himself get busted.”
Koch didn’t consider his own part in the problem, his duplicity that led the Helen of Troy to go off course and into dangerous waters.
About twelve-thirty, he left the motel without checking out and walked a block up the street to a bar that was still open and stood in the doorway, using his cell phone again to call a taxi to take him back to the airport.
“Terminal’s closed,” said the driver.
“That’s okay. I don’t want to stay at the terminal. Just let me off there.”
When he arrived at Maine Air, lugging his suitcase and a brief case, Red was making a last minute check of the little Cessna 140, a two-seater used mostly for pilot training.
He had a critical look at Manfred’s luggage. “How heavy are those two pieces?”
“Not heavy enough to make a difference. Don’t worry about it. Just find a place to stow them in this puddle jumper.”
“Sling the suitcase behind the seats—in the middle. The briefcase rides on your lap. Push your seat way back so the yoke doesn’t hit your briefcase. You ready to go?”
They climbed aboard, Red started the engine and without bothering to taxi to the runway, took off on the taxiway leading from the apron. He levelled off at five hundred feet and headed northwest. As they approached the Canadian border, Red descended to about two hundred feet and crossed the border flying over a heavily forested area where there were no houses, no lights showing for as far as Manfred could see in any direction. He kept flying at that altitude, skirting populated areas. There were a few low clouds, which he ignored and the little plane droned on through the night.
Soon, the small city of Fredericton was visible off to the right as the plane flew north for about ten minutes and then turned northeast, again flying over alternating areas of sleeping farmland and heavy forest. Finally, about an hour after take-off from Bangor, Manfred could make out a clearing in the forest ahead. As they drew closer, he made out a short landing strip that he knew would be the paved strip near the village of Renous. The landing strip was used in forest fire fighting season for water bombers and helicopters, but in late winter it was abandoned.
Red flew down along side the strip checking to make sure it was clear of snowdrifts. There was some snow on the runway, but nothing that looked particularly dangerous, so he turned into the wind as indicated by the somewhat tattered windsock and prepared to land. At the far-end of the strip a car flashed its headlights twice. The landing was bumpy as the plane went into and through small rifts of snow. At one point it slid to the left side, but Red hit the right rudder pedal and the little craft straightened out and finally came to a stop.
The pilot kept the engine turning over and the two sat and waited while a black sedan drove up from the end of the runway about five hundred feet away and pulled to a stop beside the passenger door. Manfred reached over and patted Red on the shoulder.
“Thank you, my friend. Until next time.”
Red said not
hing, just nodded. Manfred got out, taking his luggage with him and got into the passenger seat of the car. The driver had no greeting, but drove quickly back off the runway where he stopped, and the two waited until the Cessna had made a successful take-off and headed back toward the U.S.A.
As the car drove away on the dirt road back toward the highway, the driver said, “I’m sure glad to see you my friend. I’ve got more bad news to tell you than I even want to think about.”
Koch, or Gonzalez as he was known in New Brunswick, was silent for a few moments, obviously jolted by that statement. Then he heaved a huge sigh and asked, “What’s up, Francisco?”
“The cops raided us about ten minutes after you called. They were looking for drugs.”
“How the Hell did they know about us? Did they find anything? I guess not if you’re free.” Manfred was obviously rattled by the news. He pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket, offered one to Francisco who took it and pushed in the dash lighter.
“They found nothing, because the last shipment went out yesterday morning.”
“Thank God for that,” Koch interrupted.
“How they knew about us? The RCMP in Nova Scotia picked up Robichaud on the road to Round Bay and traced the truck to us.”
“What did they pick him up for? What were they doing out in that part of the country? What stupid thing was he doing?”
“He was driving out to meet the boats with the cargo from the Helen of Troy. I’ll get to the part about ‘how they knew why he was there’ in a minute. This is not a pretty story, my friend and we are in big trouble.”
“Gimme the whole story.”
“Well, they followed him out the road and caught up with him when he got stuck in a snow bank. How they knew about him? They found out about Plummer and Jones and Landers somehow, I dunno how, and they were waiting for them to leave for the rendezvous with the ship and then saw the cube van head off down the Round Point road. Nobody drives down there, especially in the middle of the night, so they followed him.”
