by Dan Kelly
Manny and his men boarded the ship, handcuffed the two men and searched the ship. The search turned up nothing, but after Manny scared the daylights out of the two by saying, “Shooting you two would be a waste of ammunition. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, we’ll toss you overboard.” They were very co-operative. They had just left Aruba and were cruising around looking for yachts that they could commandeer for booty, kidnap the passengers for ransom and if the ship was really nice steal it too.
“Nice guys. Who do you work for? You two aren’t clever enough to pull the needed cash together to own a boat like this.”
The one who had been using the megaphone, he said his name was Ricardo, answered with a shake of his head and a “No one, senor.”
“Bull shit! Lie to me again and overboard you go.”
“No, no, senor. I’m not lying.”
“Okay, you had your chance.” Manny picked the guy up with one hand and held him over the railing.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. Please don’t drop me.”
“You’d better hurry up and tell me. I’m losing my grip.”
“Juan Fuentes, but please don’t let him know I told you. He’d kill me.”
“If you lie to me again, I’ll kill you.”
“I won’t, Senor, I won’t.”
The cook was just a cook and knew nothing helpful to them, so Manny concentrated his interrogation on Ricardo. “So, where is this Juan Fuentes?”
He moves around a lot, doesn’t stay in one place very long. I’m supposed to meet one of his men in Barranquilla in a couple of days to take on a passenger, some Americano, and take him to Cozumel where another of Juan’s men will pick him up.”
“Does this Americano have a name?”
“I don’t know it. I was just told to do it and keep my mouth shut.”
Manny was unable to get anything else useful out of Ricardo, so the two men were brought below deck and handcuffed to some piping and their legs were tied up. They weren’t going anywhere.
When Manny came back on deck he said, “Okay, I’m passing the ball back to you, Pete. What’s our next step?”
Looking at Abby for confirmation Pete said, “First, we call Dave and let him know what has happened. Second, we change course to Barranquilla. Third, we try to devise a plan to get Bob Trumball away from Fuentes’s man.”
Chapter 20
- Barranquilla, Colombia –
Late in the afternoon two days later the Vuelta de Lujo arrived in port at Barranquilla with the pirate ship a couple hundred yards behind. Ricardo was at the helm of the pirate ship with two of Manny’s men standing close by to motivate him to behave and not try to warn the man he was to meet that something wasn’t right. The cook was tied up and gagged and locked in one of Vuelta de Lujo’s state rooms.
Ricardo told Manny that he had never talked to nor met the man he was to rendezvous with, but said a signal had been arranged for the man to know who he was. When he docked, he was supposed to throw a couple of Aztec blankets over the port side railing.
As eight o’clock rolls around, no one has approached the pirates’ boat and Pete is starting to think there’s been a change in Fuentes’s plans. The Vuelta de Lujo is berthed in a slip close by and Pete and Abby have a clear view of the other ship. No one can approach it without being seen and no one has.
Pete whispers to Abby as sound carries a fair distance over water, “Do you think Fuentes’s guy senses something’s not right?” He might even have been warned off because somehow Fuentes found out about Ricardo’s encounter with us.”
“Just about anything’s possible, but I still think we have a shot at rescuing Trumball. Let’s give it a few more hours and see what happens.”
Two hours later their patience pays off as a tall skinny guy appears on the dock and approaches the boat. He’s not being cool about it, not pretending to be taking a casual stroll along the dock enjoying the gentle evening breeze and the smells of the harbor riding it. He climbs on board, looks around and seeing no one on deck heads below.
The only one there is Ricardo lying on a bunk, at least out in the open. One of Manny’s men is in the head and another is hiding in a clothes closet. The skinny guy asks, “Are you Ricardo?”
“Yes. Where’s the passenger Fuentes wants me to take to Cozumel?”
“He’s close by. I want to make sure everything’s okay before I turn him over to you. Where are the rest of your men?”
“They went ashore to have some fun. I’m not planning on leaving until tomorrow.”
Looking around the cabin and then at Ricardo somewhat suspiciously he asks, “What’s up with you? Don’t you like to have some fun?”
“I do, but tonight my stomach is acting up. I must have eaten some bad food.”
Continuing to stare at Ricardo like he would a bug under a microscope, the skinny guy said, “I’ll be back with your passenger in about fifteen minutes. If you let anything happen to him, you’re going to have to deal with a lot more than a stomach ache.”
The man turned and went back up on deck. He took one last look around and then took off like he was shot out of a cannon. “What the hell?” Manny and one of his men were hiding in an equipment shed with the intent of following the guy to wherever he might head. Before they could react, the man had melted into the nighttime shadows. Despite their tracking skills, they picked up no signs as to the path the man had taken.
Manny exclaimed, Son of a bitch! What in hell spooked him?”
When they returned from their fruitless search, Pete and Abby joined them on the dock where the pirates’ boat was gently bobbing up and down as the winds had picked up and ruffled the surface of the water in the harbor.
Pete asked, “What could have alerted him?”
Manny said, “It had to be something he saw below deck. There was no way he could have caught sight of us in that shed.”
They all headed for Ricardo and Manny’s men who were still below deck. Manny clued in the seals babysitting Ricardo about what had happened and neither one had seen anything Ricardo might have done to warn Fuentes’s man about their trap. They assured Manny that they were well hidden and that there were no signs whatsoever of their presence in the cabin.
While Manny has been talking to his men, Abby has been studying Ricardo. She’s thinking, “He had to have warned Fuentes’s man somehow. That’s the only logical explanation for what has happened. He doesn’t seem to be as frightened as he was when Manny first interrogated him either. There’s a little smugness in his facial expression now.”
Abby walked over to where Ricardo was now sitting on the bunk and without any warning kicked him hard in the shin. “I don’t know how you did it, but I know you did. Somehow you alerted Juarez’s man to make a hasty retreat and you’re going to tell me how you managed that.”
He didn’t move, not even with a wince of pain. He didn’t say anything, not even a grunt or a moan from the kick in the shin. He just looked up and smiled. Pete’s thinking, “Perhaps this string bean is tougher than he looks.”
Abby pulled him up by a handful of his hair and got into his face. “You will tell me.” The chill in her voice and the look in her eyes quickly wiped the smile off of Ricardo’s face. Turning to one of Manny’s men she said, “Hold him.”
Abby reached for a spot on Ricardo’s neck and the next instant he was screaming in agony. Showing no emotion whatsoever Abby asked, “How’d you do it?”
Ricardo bellowed, “My arm! My arm!”
Abby took her finger off his neck and the seal holding him pulled up his sleeves and murmured, “I’ll be damned.” On the inside of his left forearm was written with what looked like blue ball point pen ink the word trap in large capital letters. Ricardo had managed to do that when the seals were hiding out of sight. They had left their doors opened a small crack so they would see any overt attempt to give a warning, but Ricardo was still able to write that warning on his arm unseen.
Pete was livid with frustration.
They had been so close to freeing Bob Trumball from his kidnappers only to have their plan blown out of the water by this piece of human garbage. “Manny, he’s all yours. Get him out of my sight.”
By the look on Ricardo’s face, it was clear he thought that he was about to become food for the sharks and Manny did or said nothing to alleviate his fear. In fact, Ricardo was going to be turned over to some of Dave’s people for further interrogation and ultimately wind up in prison where he’ll be dealing with sharks of a different kind, but just as deadly. The pirates’ boat would become the property of the Colombian government and would be sold at auction.
After Manny and his men left to go back to the Vuelta de Lujo and Pete managed to get his emotions under some modicum of control, although beneath the surface he was still a boiling cauldron of exasperation and rage over Trumball’s continued plight, he looked at Abby and said, “Woman, you’re full of more surprises than a Cracker Jack factory. I’ve never met a person to whom the term ‘pain in the neck’ could be applied to literally. That finger on the neck bit gives a new meaning to the term ‘power of persuasion’.”
Smiling coquettishly and wiggling her eye brows she came back with, “There are times when I like to keep my fingers on the pulse of things. It’s amazing what things can develop when I take the time to do it.” Quickly climbing the stairs to the deck, she too headed back to the Vuelta de Lujo, leaving Pete once again surprised and totally speechless.
Pete forgot all about his disappointment and anger over what had transpired, his thoughts now filled with the obvious double entendre that had just been tossed his way. “I don’t believe what I just heard. She’s got to be kidding. There’s no way she could be opening a door for me to walk through. No way! Then again, she could be. Walk the other way man before you make an ass of yourself.”
In this state of ambivalence, he too walked back to the Vuelta de Lujo trying to get his mind back on the task at hand, finding Bob Trumball before his kidnappers could move him elsewhere. “Whether or not they’ll stay with their plan to take him to Cozumel is anybody’s guess, but it’s a pretty sure bet that when Fuentes finds out what has happened here tonight he’ll get him out of Barranquilla. Damn! Maybe Dave will have some ideas. Whatever we do, it had better be quick or we’ll be back to square one.”
When Pete got back on board the Vuelta de Lujo, the first thing he did was tell Abby what he was concerned about and ask her if she thought Dave could get the local authorities to mobilize a citywide search for Bob Trumball. “Abby, do Phil and Dave have the connections to pull something like that off?”
“Dave probably doesn’t, but Phil and his superiors most likely know the right people to approach. It’s worth a try. I agree with you. Time is of the essence. Fuentes is no dummy and will now realize he is under the spotlight where Trumball is concerned. His kind prefers the shadows and like cockroaches will always run for cover lickety-split when exposed. I also want to touch base with Julio Mendoza. Perhaps he could help in getting Bob Trumball’s picture in the local papers here.”
“Good idea and when you talk with Dave ask him to send someone to take the cook off our hands. Manny has probably already talked with him about Ricardo. The cook doesn’t seem to be anything but a cook, but I’m sure Dave will want his people to have a chat with him before they send him on his way."
Abby made the calls and 24 hours later Bob Trumball’s picture was in all of the local papers and on all of the news channels in the Barranquilla area accompanied by contact information if he was spotted.
Abby was watching one of the news programs when her phone rang. It was Dave with their first sighting, unfortunately the first of many that would prove to be false leads. About mid-morning of the second day the BOLO was flooding the airwaves, they finally got a sighting that looked like it might be a solid lead. An airplane mechanic who worked at a private airfield called in and said he saw a man that looked like the guy in the picture on TV getting into a plane he had just worked on, a Cessna 172S Skyhawk SP. He knew the pilot sometimes hired out to folks to earn extra money and figured that was what he was doing with the man and a tall skinny guy who was with him. The mechanic provided the tail number and the time it took off which was seven thirty that morning. A flight plan for San Jose, Costa Rica had been filed, but Dave’s not buying it.
“There’s a reason why Fuentes wants to take Trumball to Cozumel and I don’t think he’s going to change his mind. Taking him there by air is a bit more risky, but guys like Fuentes are clever and used to dealing with risky situations. I’m sure there are a lot of private airfields between Barranquilla and Cozumel and he probably has connections with some of them, probably uses them for his smuggling operations. Looking for that plane on the ground would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Our best chance of locating that plane is while it’s in flight. We’ll get Sea Wasp’s birds in the air searching the skies along the coastlines of Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, all the way to Cozumel.”
Pete said, “You’re talking a lot of planes and a lot of money to conduct a search like that for just one plane involved in a kidnapping.”
“Don’t forget, Pete, the guys involved in Trumball’s kidnapping are also big players in the smuggling operations in the Caribbean. Bringing these people down is worth the expense.”
“Where are all these planes coming from, the U. S.?”
“The countries I’ve mentioned are fully committed members of Sea Wasp and are just as determined to nail these bastards as we are. When they get the word, they won’t hesitate to scramble every available plane to the search.”
Abby said, “What about if the tail number is changed. Other than the type of plane, that’s the only means of identification we have. These people are loaded with money and most likely have other similar planes at their disposal. They could switch the tail number with one of those. Even if the plane Trumball is on is spotted, we wouldn’t know it under those circumstances.”
Dave said, “That’s a good point, Abby, but we’re going to have to play the odds here. Fuentes has no idea that we know what he’s up to. The mechanic spotting Trumball was strictly by chance and Fuentes knows nothing about it. He has no reason to think it necessary to do anything like that.”
Pete said, “Okay, Dave, it’s your show now. I sure hope it’s a hit.”
“Dave, Pete and I will go ahead with our original plan to visit the port of Cartagena then move on to Belize and Cozumel and then return to Miami. We’re hoping that Pete’s friends in these ports may know something or heard of something about the smuggling operations in their regions.”
“Okay, but watch yourselves. You’re nosing around could cause other noses to start smelling something they can’t stand, the odor of law and order. Their version of air freshener is definitely not people friendly.”
Dave broke the connection, leaving Pete and Abby with unpleasant thoughts of what might happen to them if the wrong people got wind of what they were doing.
Chapter 21
- Cartagena, Colombia –
They pulled into a slip at Cartagena about 3:30 the next afternoon and Pete and Abby started to track down Pete’s friends who worked in or near the harbor. Some of his friends were fishermen and would normally be out at sea, but there was a squall approaching and it was expected to hit shore in a couple of hours, so there was a good chance he would have a chance to talk with them as well.
By nine o’clock that night they managed to talk with a dozen or so people who Pete knew well and who trusted him, so they got a lot of inside dope that wouldn’t be shared with any outsider, some of it was bad news for them. One of the people they talked with, a customs official nick named “Pickles” because he was always getting himself into tight spots or “pickles”, was the bearer of the personal bad news.
“Pete, there’s a lot of bad stuff going on these days. The cartels are getting bigger, meaner, richer and more powerful every day and this is encouraging a lot of the small fry to try t
o get a piece of the action even though they’re running the risk of winding up dead for shitting in the big boys’ pond. If there’s enough money in it, these cartels will do anything to put it in their coffers.
