by Gulvin, Jeff
‘Any ideas who might be behind that?’ Logan asked.
‘A few.’ Swann smiled at her. ‘The point is, Boese knew he would do a little remand time, but that on one of the occasions he was transferred to court for a hearing he would be broken out. He doesn’t care how many people he kills, we know that from Rome. The Hanwell Green shooting was a continuous burst of suppression fire from four different shooters, while others cut through the truck. We recovered in excess of five hundred cartridge casings; Russian most of them, some 9-millimetre, some 7.62, and we think the guns were Vikhrs. They used a 50-calibre machine gun to get rid of the escort helicopter.’
‘So why show up here?’ Fitzpatrick asked him.
‘I don’t know.’ Swann looked across at Kovalski. ‘Militia?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘The chap you had in Idaho?’
Harrison moved his shoulders, shifting the chew in his mouth. He held an empty Coke can in one hand and spat a trail of tobacco juice into it. ‘Salvesen’s one powerful motherfucker,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s still got friends on the fringes of Congress. If he wanted to do something from the inside, it wouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Boese will be planning something,’ Byrne stated flatly. ‘That we can count on. Mardi Gras.’ He sucked breath, then turned to Kovalski. ‘Tom, we could go public on him now. Smear his face across every newspaper, get him on America’s Most Wanted. See if John Walsh will devote a programme to him.’
‘You mean, put the pressure on right from the get-go.’
‘It’s worked with others before.’
Swann was shaking his head. ‘I know I’ve got no jurisdiction here,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think that’s a good idea. Boese walked in here and gave a feather to him.’ He poked a finger at Harrison. ‘He did the same at Scotland Yard. Tell the other law-enforcement agencies by all means, but going public won’t achieve anything. He’ll have his plans and no amount of publicity will change them.’
For a little while they sat in silence. Harrison sucked tobacco juice and watched Swann from half-closed eyes. What he had just said made sense. It was also his own opinion. Swann looked across the table at him and Harrison looked back. Logan shifted in her seat. Her legs were sticking to the fabric of the chair. Louisiana was much hotter than D.C. and she had removed her stockings. Swann sat next to her, trying not to look at the shine of her skin. He noticed the colour was lighter at the knees and elbows, and at the joints in her fingers: it gave her skin the impression of glowing.
‘Jack’s right, Louis,’ she said. ‘I think the policy the SAC’s adopted so far has gotta be the best one.’ They all looked at her, the only black face in the room, and a female black face at that. Logan had told Swann already, she would have her work cut out down here, even with some of her fellow agents.
Byrne sat back and folded his arms. ‘I’m thinking of Mardi Gras,’ he said quietly.
Mayer glanced from him to Swann and then back again. ‘I think we should sit on it for a few days at least, see if we can come up with anything. He’s been sighted in the quarter, so we should let the Vieux Carre Precinct in on it. Give them his picture and put it to them as an “unknown subject” at the moment. We could do that with the rest of the city and the parishes too.’
Kovalski rubbed a palm over his chin. ‘I guess we might luck out,’ he said.
Logan was given desk space in the squad room. The white-collar crime squad were in the process of relocating, so a number of desks were spare. Swann attached himself to her and Harrison went back to his drug-squad deals with Matt Penny. Byrne occupied part of the SAC’s office upstairs, and Kovalski had to fly back to D.C. Logan would remain as the representative from domestic terrorism.
Harrison sat at his own desk, with his foot resting against the leg of Penny’s chair, and watched Jack Swann. He watched the way Swann looked at Logan. She was pretty, really pretty, reminding him of Maria, the object of his own lustful desires in the quarter. He could already see the chemistry between Swann and Logan. In their own way, they were both outsiders down here. Swann must have felt the intensity of his stare because he suddenly looked up from his conversation and met Harrison’s eyes across the squad room. Cochrane walked up behind Harrison and laid a hand on his shoulder. Harrison looked up at him.
‘That the English guy?’
‘Yep.’ Harrison spat tobacco juice into his empty Coke can and set it on the desk.
‘You said anything to him?’
‘Nope.’
‘You gonna?’
‘When I’m good and ready, John Earl. When I’m good and ready.’
Boese sat in the Buick, watching the cab driver start his van. It was a green Ford, quite recent, with the name of the cab company emblazoned on the side. Next to Boese sat the girl with cropped blue-black hair, the butt of a Vikhr submachine gun sticking out of the canvas bag at her feet. That bag also contained a second Vikhr and various pistols and spare clips. Behind them sat two black-eyed Puerto Ricans, each with a similar bag across his lap. Boese glanced at their silent faces in the rearview mirror and shifted his position in the seat. God help any traffic cop who pulled them over.
Ahead, the cab driver pulled away from the kerb and threaded a path through the projects, north of the French Quarter. A girl on this corner, another on that, very young, all of them black or Hispanic. They wore short skirts and only a bra or bikini-type top. Legs up to their armpits. He collected six of them, before heading west out of the city.
He left 310 at the river road and Destrehan Plantation sign. The Buick pulled ahead of him, and passed a St Charles Parish sheriff’s cruiser coming the other way at the lights. Boese watched as it pulled on to 310 to cross the bridge for Hahnville, then he gunned the Buick forward and headed north-west, the levee on his left, taking the river road for the spillway.
Fifteen minutes later, the Buick was parked in the seeping puddles of water on the eastern side of the spillway, out of sight of the road and the river. Boese lifted the hood and tied a white handkerchief to the strut that held it up, and then the four of them, each carrying a black canvas bag, made their way on foot round the lip of the spillway. No sound came from their rubber-soled boots. They passed the US Army Corps of Engineers’ building and stared across at the tanker, settled high in the river. Cloud had blown in from the south and it massed above their heads. There was no moon, no stars, and the smell of rain and cypress trees hung in the air. On the waste ground, which ran beyond the levee to the water’s edge, they halted. Boese listened, looking back over the lights of the petrochemical plants towards the road. Headlights washed in the distance. He glanced to his right, where the grey shadow seemed to squat, a silent hulk in the water. The bows were high; the superstructure, a tower block against the water-line. The cargo of crude oil had been unloaded and the fresh cargo of refined would not be loaded until tomorrow. No cargo, but a threat was a threat, and it was the location that suited him most. Far in the northern distance, the lights of Waterford 3 speckled the skyline.
They melted into the massed rubble and brush grass that topped the levee, as the van bumped off the tarmac on to the metalled part of the road. It ambled down to the waterline, with no headlights showing. The driver had clearly done this many times before. Boese moved first. Already he could hear the mosquito-like hum from the outboard motor, as the crew member from the tanker negotiated the six hundred yards of black river to get to them. He could hear the cackled laughter of the coke whores as they waited, with the first mists of rain beginning to sprinkle them from the clouds. Boese felt the sudden damp on his skin. He looked to each side of him, at the black-eyed Puerto Ricans and the girl with blue-black hair. They moved as one, silently, all holding weapons. The boat was nudging the gravel at the edge of the river. Boese waited till the crewman was ashore, then he stepped forward and turned on the flashlight he carried. The Kalashnikov was slung by its strap and aimed at the crewman’s belly. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘My name is Is
mael Boese. You may know me better as Storm Crow.’
Frans Thyssen, captain of the oil tanker Rotterdam, stared down the barrel of Boese’s gun. They stood on the bridge: Boese and one of the Puerto Ricans, the girl with the blue-black hair, seventeen crew members and six whores. The cab driver lay with his face in the rank, oiled water, hidden from view by the levee. The second Puerto Rican was placing magnetic signs over those of the cab company on the sides of the van. Boese smiled at the captain. They had not had to round up the rest of the crew, as he thought at first they might, because they were all gathered at the side of the ship, eager to assist the ladies of the night on board. Only the captain and first mate had remained on the bridge.
‘A little crowded, isn’t it.’ Boese thinned his eyes and moved the barrel of his gun slowly over the frightened faces before him. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Like all good shows, I need a volunteer. Nationalities, please.’ He aimed at the cook, clearly an Oriental. ‘You first,’ he said. One by one he went through them. Dutch and Indonesian. No Americans. His gun barrel came to rest on a stout little man in his fifties, with a well-spoken British accent.
‘Englishman,’ Boese said. ‘What do you do here?’
The man was red-faced, his long thin nose broken up with blue veins.
‘I’m the engineer,’ he said.
‘Good.’ Boese crooked his index finger at him. ‘Come along with me.’ The man’s face paled then and he seemed unsteady on his feet. Boese nodded to the girl and the Puerto Rican, then he moved the chubby Englishman before him and together they stepped out into the night.
When the girl left him alone, the Puerto Rican made them all sit down. He was vigilant, but easy. He knew there were no weapons on board this vessel, none of the tankers carried any. Their cargoes made the accessibility of firearms a risk the owners were not prepared to take. The only real danger of piracy was in the South China Sea and many of the larger vessels were now accompanied by a military escort through the more notorious waters. He watched the captain’s eyes for signs of heroics, but saw none.
The girl moved about the ship on the decks below the bridge, and smashed windows, choosing ones with curtains, in particular.
Further down the ship, Boese was laying charges, the wind in his face, the deck slippery now with rain. At the bows, he clipped himself into a sit harness and climbed over the side. Holding his flashlight in his teeth, he checked his watch—a little after two in the morning, five hours before dawn. From the pocket of his jacket he produced twin conically shaped charges, half a pound of Semtex in each. He fashioned them some more, then pressed the pliable material between the links in each anchor chain, and primed them with twin Iraco detonators. He climbed up on to the deck again and laid out the single timing and power unit—a black and grey plastic box with twin screw terminals and a light-emitting diode between them. His trademark, his own perfected creation: two integrated circuits, two transistors and a ten-position decade switch linked to a Spanish clock. Carefully, he set the decade switch to zero, then looked at the electronic digits displayed on the clock.
15
HARRISON AND PENNY LOOKED across the patio to where Rene Martinez was sitting with the Cuban, Manx. Harrison sucked on a bottle of Miller and wiped the froth from his lips.
‘What d’you reckon?’ Penny said.
Harrison pursed his lips. ‘I reckon it’s bullshit.’
Penny looked at his watch. It was almost one-thirty. ‘I’m crashing at your place.’
‘Whatever.’
Across the patio, Manx was drinking vodka, deep in conversation with Martinez. Every now and again Martinez would glance briefly in their direction, before looking away again. Harrison suddenly yawned. ‘I’m outta here,’ he said. ‘We’ll see the little fucker tomorrow.’
They left the bar and walked back up St Peter and across Bourbon, north towards Harrison’s apartment. The streets were empty, save the odd stumbling drunk.
‘You’re making it a mite obvious with Swann,’ Penny told him.
‘Yeah, well he’s in America now. He’s all growed up, Matt. He can handle it.’
‘He know why you hate him so much?’
‘Nope.’
‘That Cheyenne seems pretty tight with him.’
‘It’s the English accent, man. Works every time with American gals.’
They walked up the steps to Harrison’s apartment on Burgundy and Toulouse.
‘Do I get the bed or the couch?’ Penny asked him. ‘What do you think?’
Swann ate dinner with Logan in the Café Nu Nus on Decatur Street, down the road from the French Market and across from Governor Nicholls Wharf. Louis Byrne was eating at Charlie Mayer’s house.
‘So what d’you think of the Big Easy?’ Logan asked Swann.
Swann looked through the window to the café across the street, where a single trumpet player was climbing the scales. ‘It’s nothing like the film. I don’t hear too many Cajun accents.’
She smiled. ‘The New Orleans accent sounds almost New York, doesn’t it. Sorta Italian-sounding. The Cajun people are out in the bayous.’
Swann gazed across the table at her, hair loose and long to her shoulders, a hint of auburn dyed into it. ‘You ever been married, Cheyenne?’
She shook her head. ‘With my hours, I’m lucky if I keep a steady boyfriend.’
‘Domestic Terrorism’s getting busier over here, then.’
‘Militia types mostly; they’re moving away from their religious fundamentalism, Jack. Not so much of the anti-black, anti-Jew rhetoric any more. They know that turns the regular people off them. Most important thing, from our point of view, is that up until now they haven’t had any real groundswell of public support. A lot of people were pissed about Randy Weaver and Waco, but not enough to join in. Now these groups direct their focus on us, the federal government agencies, and the government itself. It’s getting worse and they’re popping up everywhere.’
‘So, no steady boyfriend, then?’ he said, changing the subject back again.
‘Not right now, honey.’ She looked at him with slanted eyes, her head slightly to one side. Swann felt the shiver in his loins and he shifted himself in his seat. The waiter came over and they ordered two more bottles of beer.
A little later, her brother, James, arrived, and had a final drink of the night with them. He was a big, heavy-set man, with lights in his eyes and a twinkle to his smile. He told Swann about his work with Kingsley House and the disaffected people of all ages and colours: black, white and Hispanic. He clearly enjoyed his work. He looked a little like Cheyenne, and Swann thought about the family, their two-job father, working all hours to keep them in school; the pleasure he must have got seeing how they turned out. Two cops, a Fed, and this gentle giant, the social worker. That night, Swann sat on the edge of his bed and gazed through the tall uncovered window at the grey snake of the river, spanned by the wrought-iron bridge that crossed to the west shore. Somewhere, a tanker’s horn sounded as fog settled against the onyx black of the water. Swann lay back, thought about Logan next door, and fell asleep with his clothes on.
Boese sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the tanker, holding the ship-to-shore telephone in his hand. The captain sat on the floor before him, trussed like a turkey for Christmas, a gag stuffed in his mouth. Boese considered him a moment longer, then gazed the length of the ship, beyond the oil holds, to where the bows jutted against the gathering dawn. He half closed his eyes and looked again at the captain, shifting the weight of the pistol that protruded from his belt. The rest of the hostages were locked in the television room, two floors below them. He could smell diesel fumes and oil, and, though the bridge was clean enough, he imagined the day-to-day grime and the soiled crew cabins where the coke whores rolled on top of their Johns. He went to the starboard window and looked out over the spillway. The van was parked there, freshly signed and waiting. The Buick would be parked a few miles back up the road. He returned to the ship-to-shore and dialled the Coastguard.<
br />
‘United States Coastguard, New Orleans.’ The voice was clipped in his ear.
Boese breathed into the receiver. ‘This is the Rotterdam. We’re moored up at the Bonnet Carre Spillway and we’ve been hijacked. There are twenty-three hostages on board, six of them women.’ He hung up, patted the captain on the head and stepped outside the bridge.
From his cellphone he called the TV stations, 4-WWL, 6-WDSU, 8-WVUE, then the radio stations, WWL, WCKW and WADU. He also called CNN in Atlanta, and told them all the same thing: a tanker had been hijacked on the Mississippi River, only a mile from Waterford 3 nuclear power facility.
At dawn, Kirk Fitzpatrick was at his desk, covering the early duty with a handful of agents downstairs. The phone rang on his desk.
‘Fitzpatrick.’
‘This is the Coastguard. We’ve just received a ship-to-shore communication from the tanker, Rotterdam. They’re moored up at the spillway and they claim they’ve been hijacked.’
