Crooked River

by Douglas Preston

  “Hmmm.”

  “The second issue is that while our oceanographer, Dr. Gladstone, hasn’t been able to pinpoint the place where the feet were dumped, she did analyze the commander’s own estimate of the location and found it has a very low probability of being accurate, at least according to her algorithms.” He put away the pictures. “And now, are you ready for a surprise boarding?”

  Coldmoon removed his Browning Hi-Power, checked the chamber. “Good to go.”

  The FBI chopper passed over the ship, and the pilot spoke through the headphones. “There’s a helipad on the stern where I can land.”

  “Excellent. Radio the ship and say we’re coming in with a warrant and expect the captain to be ready to receive us. Then land immediately, giving them no time to react.”

  The chopper pilot called the ship’s bridge, causing a storm of protests and threats.

  “Land,” said Pendergast.

  The pilot swooped around and came in for a landing, just as some crew members came rushing out, waving their arms and blocking the helipad.

  “Tell them to clear the pad or we’ll send the Coast Guard in and arrest the captain for obstructing law enforcement.”

  That worked and the men backed off. The chopper came down for a landing. Pendergast hopped out with Coldmoon following, keeping low as the rotors whipped the air above them. At the edge of the helipad, several sullen sailors in greasy overalls waited with a deck officer. The officer was small and plump, with long greasy hair combed back, and he was smoking.

  Pendergast presented the warrant with a flourish. “Take us to the captain.”

  The deck officer took the warrant and peered at it, turning it this way and that. He raised his head. “No English.”

  Pendergast scrutinized him. “Italiano? Français? Hóng bāo?”

  The man shook his head again.

  “Captain.” Pendergast pointed to the bridge. He made a series of gestures that were unmistakable in meaning.

  The man turned and in a shambling walk led them through a forest of stacked containers to the companionway up to the bridge. It was a hot climb. When they arrived at the long bridge, it was almost deserted. There was no A/C and it was sweltering. A man who was apparently the captain stood next to a person who seemed to be the helmsman, even if there wasn’t anything that looked to Coldmoon like a wheel—just some levers and joysticks, along with a row of flat-panel screens displaying charts and radar. The bridge was old and shabby, the Plexiglas windows streaked and faded. It smelled of diesel fuel and vomit.

  The entire bridge crew—maybe five—had ceased work and were staring with naked hostility on their faces. Coldmoon wondered how the hell this was going to turn out. Most of these people looked like criminals or thugs.

  “Captain Yaroslav Oliynyk?” Pendergast said, removing his shield, Coldmoon following his lead. “Special Agent Pendergast, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States of America. And Special Agent Coldmoon.”

  The deck officer handed the captain the warrant. He was a tall, lugubrious man, unshaven, with hollow cheeks and watery eyes. He took it and stared, flipping through the pages. Coldmoon got a whiff of alcohol breath. He also noted a sidearm in a holster at the captain’s waist.

  “Do you speak English?” Pendergast asked.

  The man hesitated and Coldmoon had the distinct impression he was thinking about lying. “Yes.”

  “This is a judicial warrant authorizing us to search the entire ship,” Pendergast said, “and requiring the assistance of such crew and officers necessary to facilitate that process, upon pain of arrest. I will remind you that the ship is in United States territorial waters and subject to our laws and regulations.”

  The captain took the warrant between his fingers, held it up with both hands as if to examine it more carefully, then slowly tore it in half, carefully layered the torn pieces together, tore those in half, did so a third time—and then let the pieces flutter to the ground. He looked back up at Pendergast with rheumy eyes and said: “Fuck you.”

  As if not having heard, Pendergast reached into his jacket and removed a small piece of paper on which a number was written. “We wish to examine this particular container. It is located at the bow of the ship.”

  Captain Oliynyk seemed not to have heard and did not glance at the paper. He turned to the crew members standing by and spoke sharply in a language Coldmoon couldn’t identify. They suddenly surged forward as the captain stepped back and yanked out his sidearm. But before it could clear the holster, Pendergast flashed out as fast as a striking viper, jabbing the man in the face with his fist, and the captain’s head snapped back, the gun going off harmlessly. Simultaneously, two crewmembers rushed Coldmoon; he kicked one in the balls as he pulled his Browning, dodged an inept punch from the second, and slashed him across the face with the barrel of his gun. Both men went down and a sudden silence fell as the rest froze. Pendergast had the captain in a hammerlock, his Les Baer 1911 pressed into his ear.

  Coldmoon stepped over and picked up the captain’s firearm, which had been lying on the deck—a crappy old German Luger—and covered the stunned crew with both weapons. Nobody besides the captain seemed to be armed.

  “On the floor,” Coldmoon said. “All of you: facedown, arms extended.”

  They stood stupefied, doing nothing.

  Pendergast twisted the barrel of the gun in the captain’s ear. “Tell them.”

  The captain said something and they quickly complied. Now what? Coldmoon wondered. Call in backup? They were still outnumbered and God knew how many armed men there might be elsewhere on the ship.

  Pendergast spoke to the captain in a mild voice. “Are you ready to take us to that container now?”

  The captain nodded.

  “Good. Tell your crew to stay put. All of them. Anyone seen moving anywhere, at any time, will be considered a lethal threat and will therefore be shot. Make the announcement.”

  He released the man. The captain pulled down a mike from the console and made the announcement—at least, Coldmoon hoped it was the correct announcement.

  “And now, Captain Oliynyk, lead the way. Slow and easy. Agent Coldmoon, keep an eye out for snipers.”

  The captain shuffled through the door of the bridge and headed down the companionway, Pendergast and Coldmoon following. They came out on deck and the captain led them toward the bow of the ship, along the outside rail next to stacks of containers. At the bow, there was a large cleared area with some cranes. The bright blue container sat there, all by itself.

  Pendergast inspected the welded steel lockbox at the container’s door. “Open it, Captain, if you please.”

  “It is empty. Nothing in there.”

  “Open it.”

  “I don’t have key. I must call for key.”

  “Then call for the key. Make sure only one deckhand brings it, and that he comes unarmed—otherwise an unfortunate event might take place.”

  “Yeah,” added Coldmoon. “Like you getting shot.” He gestured with both the Browning and the Luger, wanting to make sure the captain understood.

  The captain removed a portable walkie-talkie and spoke into it. They waited. After five minutes a man arrived and handed the captain a key. He unlocked the padlock and pulled open the door of the reefer.

  “See?” the captain said. “Nothing.”

  The container was indeed empty. A terrible stench of rotten fish wafted out.

  Pendergast sniffed a few times, an expression of disgust on his face. He turned to the captain. “You go in first, Captain, and stand in the back. We will follow.”

  The captain stepped inside and moved to the rear. Pendergast and Coldmoon trailed behind, the latter gagging at the nasty, stifling atmosphere. The container was filthy, splattered with sticky brown stuff on the walls and floor. God, did it stink. Coldmoon, who wasn’t fond of fish to begin with, felt he was going to puke.

  Pendergast slipped a small penlight from his pocket and shone it around, then bent down and examin
ed the foul matter. He removed a small evidence collection kit, along with some minuscule test tubes with stopper-swabs. He swabbed here and there, took some samples, and sealed them up.

  “Let us go outside, Agent Coldmoon,” said Pendergast, sniffing again, his brow furrowed in displeasure. “You stay in the rear, Captain, until we’re out, and then you may emerge.”

  They exited, the captain following, sweat pouring down his face. Coldmoon gulped the sultry air, feeling his nausea recede.

  Pendergast was examining one of the test tubes. Suddenly, he turned to the captain with a pained expression on his face. “Captain, how could you? What a tragedy!”

  The captain stared at Pendergast, uncomprehending.

  “How many pounds were in here? Five hundred? A thousand? Good heavens! To think, to just think, of the waste!”

  Pendergast swung toward Coldmoon, face stricken, dropping the evidence collection kit in his agitation. “Agent Coldmoon, what we had here were not human feet. Rather, this was the transportation of cargo in direct violation of U.S. sanctions.”

  “What cargo?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, this container was filled with tins of the finest Iranian imperial gold caviar, dumped into the sea in a moment of panic. My God, I could weep!”

  30

  GLADSTONE HAD BEEN surprised when Agent Pendergast dropped by the lab unannounced, with an official partner no less. At least this new guy looked like an FBI agent. Pendergast had introduced them with the sort of formality reserved for a duke and duchess, and now they had all crowded into her cramped lab, watching while Lam ran the latest simulation. They had already racked up close to nine grand in computing time on the Q machine, but Pendergast hadn’t batted an eye when he heard the figure.

  When the simulation was finished, Gladstone explained its failure. “The only conclusion we can draw is that there’s a gap in our data.”

  “What sort of gap?” Pendergast asked.

  “I wish I knew. We’re missing an input. To figure out what it is, I’d like to do what we call a ‘rubber ducky’ test in the area where we have the thinnest data sets.”

  “Which is?”

  “The northern part of the Florida Gulf Coast. We drop about twenty-five floating buoys, each fitted with a small GPS transmitter and battery, in calculated locations, and then track them. I think with that data we could plug the gap.”

  “Very good.” Pendergast seemed unfazed, but Agent Coldmoon was giving her the hairy eyeball.

  “Rubber ducky?” he asked, his voice laden with skepticism.

  Lam burst into a cackle of laughter, abruptly silenced by a glare from Gladstone.

  “It’s just our term for floating sensor buoys. They’re yellow. The cost is a hundred dollars per buoy, plus fuel for the boat. We’ve already got the buoys—we keep a stock on hand—and I’d like to drop them tomorrow. Wallace has determined the locations necessary to maximize our data collection. Wallace? Please show Agent Pendergast what I’m talking about.”

  Lam tapped away on a keyboard and a chart of the Gulf Coast popped up. “There are eddies and currents all through here,” he said, “especially at the mouths of rivers and inlets. That’s where we lack high-resolution data. So we drop them in a line here, another line here, and then here. Here, too. Oh…and here.” He smiled, immensely pleased with himself. “Five locations, five buoys.”

  She glanced over at the agent named Coldmoon, who was peering at the dotted lines on the screen. “Any questions?”

  Coldmoon shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “I really believe this will fill in the missing pieces,” said Gladstone, trying to muster as much confidence as she could. “Anyway,” she went on hastily, “we’ll be doing the buoy drop tomorrow. No reason to delay.”

  “I should like to join you,” said Pendergast, “if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  This brought Gladstone up short. She didn’t like having landlubbers on her boat. They were always underfoot, never knew what to do, and they tended to ask a lot of dumb questions and then puke everywhere. But she could hardly say no. “If you wish. We leave early—like at five AM. It’s going to be a long day. And the forecast is for a rough sea.”

  The briefest of pauses before Pendergast answered. “That will not be a problem.”

  “Well, okay. But wear foul weather gear. And bring Dramamine.”

  She heard Pendergast’s phone vibrate. He extracted it from his pocket and, excusing himself, stepped outside. She could hear his low voice speaking beyond the door.

  “Agent Coldmoon, will you be coming, too?” she asked.

  He backed away, a look of horror on his face. “No, thanks. Boats, water, and me, we don’t get along. I grew up two thousand miles from the ocean.”

  She felt relieved. The only thing worse than a guy puking off the starboard rail was another one puking off the port rail.

  Pendergast returned to the lab after his call. Coldmoon was surprised at the transformation: his face was full of eagerness. He bowed to the oceanographer, saying he would see her at the dock at five the next morning, and they left.

  Pendergast walked swiftly away, Coldmoon struggling to keep up. “The M.E. was able to identify one of the victims,” he said, “or at least narrow it down to two people.”

  “As in, identify by name?”

  “Yes. A foot was shown to belong to one of two sisters: either Ramona Osorio Ixquiac, thirty-five years old, or her sister, Martina, thirty-three. Both were born in San Miguel—the same Guatemalan town that toe ring came from.”

  “How in the world did they identify her?”

  “Through a commercial genealogy website. The Ixquiac extended family has several relatives in the U.S. whose DNA is on record at a genetic testing database. Using the same techniques used to identify murderers in cold cases, Crossley was able to match the foot as belonging to one of two sisters. A brilliant piece of work.”

  “The sisters—where are they now? Did they disappear?”

  Pendergast continued through the relentless heat at his breakneck pace. “All we know is they were born in San Miguel—and we have one of their feet. We know nothing in between those two facts. You’ll be able to find out a great deal more when you’re actually in San Miguel.”

  “Wait,” Coldmoon said, halting. “When I’m in San Miguel? What are you talking about?”

  “You leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Hold on here. I came to the Suncoast to work on this case with you. Not to go to Guatemala. No way—no way in hell!”

  “According to your FBI jacket, you’re the ideal choice. You speak Spanish fluently. You’ve been to Guatemala before, and you’ve traveled all over Central America. You’re Native American.”

  “Yeah. Lakota, not Mayan! Or do all Indians look alike to you?”

  “I must admit, you don’t look Mayan.”

  “No. Or like Pancho Villa.” Coldmoon paused. “Wait a minute. This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

  “I assure you, I—”

  “Now it makes sense. Sooner or later in this investigation, somebody was going to have to go undercover in Central America—and when you realized that, my name just popped into your head. Like magic.”

  “Agent Coldmoon, you wrong me! The feet we’re investigating are here, not in Guatemala. But the DNA evidence, the toe ring, and now the actual name—there are just too many commonalities for us to ignore.”

  Coldmoon didn’t answer.

  “I’d take your place if I could. But consider how I would stand out. You’re the logical one for this minor divagation.” He paused, and a faint smile appeared. “Or would you rather come out on the boat with me?”

  Coldmoon swallowed. Yesterday’s taste of the high seas had been enough—more than enough.

  Pendergast uncharacteristically placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “Thank you, partner. This is much appreciated.”

  31

  COLDMOON STOOD IN the mai
n room of the “servants’ quarters” of the Mortlach House—he had to smile again at the term—eyeing the open bag and articles of clothing spread across the bed. God, it seemed like he’d just unpacked—and now he was packing again. Not only that, but he was headed for Guatemala, of all places. He’d been there before. It was a beautiful country with wonderful people, but a hard place, and he wasn’t particularly eager to go back, especially undercover, trying to figure out how a woman got from the streets of San Miguel Acatán to the waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast—or at least how one of her feet did. There was no telling what kind of hmunga was waiting for him down there.

  He muttered a curse. And to think he could still be recuperating on Islamorada, drinking Coronas and watching the sun set over the rusting old fishery. But Pendergast had shown up, dangling precisely the kind of juicy case he knew Coldmoon couldn’t resist.

  He picked up a T-shirt from the bed and threw it into the bag with disgust. In looking back on their conversation, he had the sneaking suspicion that Pendergast had known from the start that he’d insist on being a full partner in the investigation. He’d been manipulated. In retrospect, he should have remembered what his grandfather Joe had once told him: Keep your mouth shut and let the paleface do all the talking—and then say no. In this case “paleface” was a description so accurate it could hardly be considered insulting.

  Then again, it was a juicy case—certainly the most inexplicable he’d ever handled. And high profile. Bagging this one successfully wouldn’t hurt his career…not at all.

  He wondered idly where the “paleface” was. It was almost midnight and Pendergast didn’t seem to be the type to hang out in a bar or restaurant. Come to think of it, he had no idea where Constance was, either. She hadn’t been in the library when he went down to the kitchen at ten o’clock for a root beer, and no light had shown from beneath her door as he was going back up the stairs to the servants’ quarters. Maybe they were out together.