Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck

by Daniel Ganninger

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered. “Of course Galveston isn’t here yet, right?”

  “Shockingly, and hold on to your hat, but he’s been here for over an hour,” Alex announced while continuing to peck at his computer. “There’s a bee in his bonnet.”

  I walked into our small office and found Galveston hunched down in front of his computer. My shock was noticeable.

  “Why, aren’t we an eager beaver,” I said to him.

  “Yeah, someone has to be, you slacker. This whole case is just getting good. I had trouble getting sleep last night. Just too much on my mind about this damn ship. This is huge you know. I think beyond what we could comprehend.”

  “I think you’re right, and it scares the heck out of me. We could be in over our heads. And is it the best idea we’re here at the office? I mean, those guys looking for us, they have to know we’re here,” I said with concern.

  “They probably just have us on sight and not name quite yet. We shouldn’t hang around here too long, I agree with you on that. I have to show you what I’ve found.”

  “Before you do that, I think I need to talk to you about Maddie.”

  Galveston nodded his head as if he knew what I was about to say, and he was right. “I know I’m trying too hard. This isn’t a dating service, and we need to be professional, just like she is.”

  I stumbled for a response since he literally took the words right out of my mouth. “Uh, yeah, that’s right. Maybe just let it go.”

  “Way ahead of you, Roger, my friend. No more women for me, from now on, just the case.”

  “Good, I think it’s for the best.” I believed his words, but it wasn’t a hard decision for him. Galveston knew how to take a hint.

  “So, what you got?” I asked as I pulled up a chair next to him.

  “Well, I was thinking about everything Sailor Pete told us and attempting to arrange it together. I asked Alex to pull up all the ships across the Pacific Rim that left ports around the time of the Trusian. Here, check this out.”

  Galveston pushed a National Geographic map of the world toward me. It had red, blue, and black lines running across it from different port cities in Asia and Australia, as well as the east coast of Africa across the Pacific toward ports in North and South America.

  “I did a few calculations on the time the ships left and what route they would take. The black lines are the ships that have the least possibility in passing where the Trusian would be. The blue lines have a marginal chance of passing our ship, and the red lines have the highest probability that they passed near where the Trusian could be. I have a list of the names of the ships that were going in a general southeasterly direction. I think that’s the direction they took, as far away from the U.S. coast as possible. It only makes sense.”

  I stared at Galveston in disbelief as he showed me the highly intricate chart, amazed that he even sat down long enough to do it.

  “When did you do this?” I inquired with massive surprise.

  “This morning. So I got here a little earlier than I told you. I had to figure this out.”

  “I’m just amazed you made straight lines with different colored ink. And a chart? Now I’ve seen everything.”

  “I’ll have you know, I’m capable of some pretty extraordinary things and full of surprises. Just don’t expect this too often.”

  “No worries there. Now what is your conclusion?”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet. I was too busy finding the different colored ink pens,” Galveston laughed.

  “Great. Let’s figure this out then,” I sighed.

  “I do have a theory,” Galveston interjected.

  “Do tell.”

  “Sailor Pete was on to something when he said the pirates could change the name. I think they changed the name to another ship of the same name that met them somewhere along one of these red lines.” Galveston ran his fingers down the many lines crossing the paper.

  “Okay, but Sailor Pete doesn’t seem like he’s playing with a full deck, and he sure is a greasy gentleman.”

  “No arguments there, but it really does make sense. Hear me out. A ship leaves a port at a similar time as the Trusian on a path south of their position. The pirates have a standard point to meet and cross paths, but when they do they have the same name. The real ship runs to a different port while the pirated ship with the same name goes to another separate port. Any sightings of these ships would match up with where the ship was ultimately going. The difference is the Trusian would go to the final port of call.”

  “I think I follow. One ship goes, to say, Acapulco, which is on its schedule, but its next port would be, say, Lisbon. You’re saying the Trusian now goes to Lisbon but under the name of the ship that went to Acapulco. Is that about right?”

  My head swirled at the thought process and the confusion, but I had just explained it exactly as Galveston theorized. I had to admit that if it was the pirate’s plan, it was brilliant. And unfortunately, we owed it all to Sailor Pete.

  “I think that’s right. They’re going to take the Trusian to a final port while the ship of the same name sits in another port. By the time anyone figures this out the pirates will have made off with the cargo.”

  “My only problem with your theory is they can’t just waltz into a port and unload.” I thought for a second. “What if they try to offload at a site that isn’t a port, maybe an island, or at sea? Is that possible?”

  “Well, they stole this ship right out from under the noses of everybody, so I would assume they could do either one of those things.”

  “Let’s see if we can whittle down the possibilities of which ships could be moving in the pirate’s direction.”

  Galveston nodded, and we pored over the map he had made. Alex had acquired the times of departure of the ships out of Asia, and using a bit of math, we deduced the timing of when a ship might cross paths with the Trusian. We were able to scratch a few of the red marks of the list. They were too far ahead or behind the path of the Trusian when it was known to be hijacked.

  Jane and Alex both joined us on our search because the number of ships in the Pacific about that time was staggering. We were going on the hunch that the Trusian was steaming to the south, toward South America. They could have gone back toward Asia, but it didn’t seem plausible, and there was nowhere to go to the north. The chances of being spotted going in that direction would have increased, plus all the ships coming from the U.S. had been accounted for and none had reported a sighting. I instructed Alex to call Maddie and find out if there were reports of any suspicious activity in the South Pacific.

  I looked up the coordinates where the Trusian had disappeared and on a pad of paper scribbled some rough calculations. Then, using a ruler, I made a circle that represented the greatest distance the Trusian could have traveled at maximum speed.

  The four of us sat in front of the map for over an hour, doing rough calculations in our heads and on the pad of paper. Slowly, we eliminated each ship beyond the Trusian‘s maximum possible position. The map around the South Pacific began to open up, revealing a large swath of ocean with very little shipping traffic. It was becoming apparent that the ship must have gone south.

  Maddie arrived to the office as we continued to pore over the multitude of lines. Galveston didn’t look up, or even say hello. I began to think that he was serious about not pursuing her further.

  “Hi Maddie,” I said as Galveston continued to study the map. “Did you get some sleep?”

  “Barely. I can’t believe you guys are so calm after all we just went through.”

  “Just another day at the office,” Galveston retorted, still not looking up from his work.

  “Do you have any new information?” I inquired, hoping she had something that would help our search.

  “A few interesting things; the Navy and Coast Guard are both involved in searching for the ship, and the FBI is also investigating. I haven’t told anyone about what we found in Hong Kong or Singapore,” she sai
d confidently, and we believed her statement.

  “Good,” I answered. “It’s better that we keep some of this quiet for a while, until we have a better handle on it.”

  “Okay. I also have some information on the captain and first mate.” Maddie pulled out a notepad and prepared herself before Galveston suddenly interrupted.

  “I think I have a good match,” he announced proudly. Galveston pointed to a red line from Tokyo leading all the way to Lima, Peru.

  Galveston picked up a black marker and drew a solid line from the circle I had made of the Trusian’s maximum distance to the red line representing the ship from Tokyo. The black line met up with one red line almost perfectly.

  We all huddled around it and stared. It looked like a great match and an excellent possibility that this was our ship.

  “Hold it,” Jane announced. “I’ve got one too.” She took the black marker and drew another black line to an adjacent red line. This particular ship was going to Cartagena, Columbia.

  “What are the names of these ships?” I asked.

  Galveston looked on his legend and ran his finger down the page to the names of the ships that corresponded with those particular red lines.

  “One is the Magnus II, the other is the Alterra. Do either have any reports?” Galveston asked Alex who perused his materials.

  “Interesting,” he started, holding us to our seats. “I have no report from the Alterra, but I do have a report from the Magnus II.” Alex paused for effect again.

  “Well?” I prodded.

  “The Magnus reported that it spotted the Alterra.” Alex ran his fingers across the map, pointed to a spot, and looked up. “About here.”

  The spot he pointed to was well away from where the Alterra could have possibly been, even if our calculations were extremely incorrect.

  I sat back in my chair. Could it be that the Trusian was now the Alterra? It seemed fantastic, but plausible.

  “We need to find out everything about this ship, the Alterra,” Galveston ordered. “It’s probably almost to Lima, and when it gets there we’ll be ready.”

  “I’ll find out about it,” Maddie told us. “There has to be a story.”

  “So where is the Alterra headed to after Lima?” I asked.

  Alex looked through his pages again. “This says Panama City then to Cape Town, South Africa. It’s scheduled to go through the Panama Canal.”

  “Do you think Cape Town is the final port for the Trusian? They couldn’t go through the Panama Canal. They would be captured in an instant,” Jane interjected.

  “You’re beautiful, and smart,” I told Jane. “I bet they’re going toward Cape Town, but I doubt the pirates plan to go into that port. We need to find out where else they could offload.”

  It was a daunting task, and I had no idea how we would find the answer. There were thousands of potential alternatives available for the pirates. Hopefully some other ships would spot the new Alterra as it tried to run around the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of South America. There were usually cruise ships and other merchant ships going through that treacherous pass of water.

  This part of the mystery would have to wait for a time, however. Maddie and Alex had more pressing gossip that we needed to know, and the information would prove not only interesting, but also dangerous.

  -Chapter 31-

  The pieces of the puzzle slowly unraveled before our eyes, at least the portions we could understand. When we were faced with an impasse, a new door opened. Our luck seemed to be right on track.

  I summarized our findings so we had a clear direction on where our theory was heading. We had a stolen ship with questionable cargo that had been hijacked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a dead captain who was supposed to be on the ship, and a chief mate who wasn’t supposed to be. Alex had informed us that the offices of Pacifica Shipping in Singapore were sending messages to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and our friendly escorts in Singapore and here in our own backyard were probably CIA agents.

  It was information that was particularly unsettling, and truthfully, it scared me to death. To be in the crosshairs of the CIA was not where I would have chosen to be. But why? Why would the CIA be involved in this situation, and better yet, was it the CIA who was involved in hijacking the ship? It seemed implausible, but after so many years of seeing the seedy underbelly of what went on in this world, I wasn’t ruling it out.

  Maddie stood quietly, and I knew she had been waiting to tell us some new information and was ready to burst.

  “Maddie, do you have something to say?” I asked, as she smiled at the opportunity.

  She paused before speaking, waiting to see if she would be interrupted again.

  “I have more information on the captain and first mate,” she started, excitedly. “Captain Svenson was rescheduled to command the Trusian. It was a last minute change when the previous captain was detained in Hong Kong, and it was thought that he was relieved of duty—but not true. No one has been able to locate him. It’s like he’s just disappeared. Captain Svenson, however, flew into Hong Kong the night before departure. I found out that his passport from Stockholm into Tokyo and Hong Kong was stamped for entry without a problem. The Regentex people never knew he was found dead inside his home in Sweden the day of the hijacking. Also, the first mate had only been on a few voyages with the company and was supposed to have debarked in Hong Kong. No one is sure when the change was made for him to remain on the ship.” Maddie stopped and caught her breath as we stayed glued to our seats.

  “I did a little checking on the correspondence that had occurred between Pacifica and Regentex. My colleagues and I found where the change was made. Pacifica made the request directly to Regentex, right before the Trusian left Hong Kong.”

  “Pacifica made the request and Regentex obliged? Do you think we have a little CIA involvement here?” Galveston asked.

  “It sure seems that way,” I answered. “They wanted one of their men on that ship to make sure the cargo was secured, I bet.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jane announced. “Why would this cargo be so important?”

  “I may be able to interject about that cargo,” Alex announced.

  I noticed Maddie acted surprised and a little nervous at his statement.

  “Do tell,” I told him.

  “I managed to decode a few messages about the cargo between the CIA office in Singapore and headquarters at Langley. The message spoke about Asian artifacts of museum quality. Jewelry, weapons, vases, pottery, statues, mostly Chinese, some Mongolian, and even items from the Persians and Byzantine era. Around 130 to 140 priceless items dating from 8000 B.C. to 2nd century A.D.”

  “What? Chinese artifacts? That’s what they’re shipping?” Galveston questioned.

  “Seems that way. The message was unusually clear, especially for the CIA.”

  “So the CIA is taking artifacts out of China without China’s knowledge. Seems like that could create a horrible political situation,” Jane observed smartly.

  “She is brilliant, isn’t she,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, will you stop, for God’s sake,” Galveston replied, rolling his eyes. “We know, you’re in love.”

  “She does have an excellent point,” Alex interrupted. “It seems awfully daring to try and steal artifacts from China. The Chinese don’t like that at all. They are very protective of those things, and it would be a political nightmare.”

  “What if it isn’t what we think, I mean, the CIA isn’t exactly in the business of telling the truth. Maybe it isn’t artifacts at all,” Galveston surmised.

  “Then what do you think they’re doing?” Maddie asked, scooting to the edge of her seat.

  “What if it’s something else? Political prisoners, papers, I don’t know. Something they can’t just fly out of there or put on a computer disc.”

  Maddie was clearly uncomfortable about this new line of thinking. I was finally beginning to realize we didn’t know what cargo Maddie had
in her company’s shipping containers either. I pushed the thought back as just being overly suspicious, but it continued to gnaw at me. What exactly, if anything, was she hiding.

  “I think we better not meet here anymore. The CIA will find our location quick enough,” Galveston said quietly as he pulled me aside.

  “I agree. It would be better if we left town. We have to find out where that ship is going and get there,” I responded with a whisper.

  We had a multitude of interesting questions and theories, but the answer still lay aboard the Trusian. We had to find that ship, and it was time to use some creative thinking on how to do it.

  -Chapter 32-

  Dimitri’s hour of thinking was up, and his heart pounded as he saw his two captors. He had no choice but to tell them the truth. The crew had no idea what was going on, and their lives were too important to put at risk, he thought. The same man who had previously brutalized his injured leg strolled in and gave Dimitri a sullen look.

  “Do jou have my answer?” he asked forcefully.

  Dimitri had no choice and put his head in his hands. “Yes. I will show you.”

  “Good,” the man answered without a smile. “Let us go now.”

  The armed guard walked over to Dimitri and grabbed him under one arm. The leg was still very tender, but Dimitri got to his feet and pushed the guard away.

  “I’ll do it under my own power,” Dimitri announced.

  The men led him into a small, narrow hallway, down the stairs, and out the port side of the ship onto the massive deck. The guard raised his gun and pointed at Dimitri’s back, before the trio began to move down the stacks of immense containers towering in the air.

  The first mate crossed between the stacks in the middle of the ship and stopped in front of a rusted container. The pirates stood motionless behind him as Dimitri lifted a metal plate from the door. Underneath the plate was a keypad, and he began to punch in a long line of numbers until he heard the sound of a metallic click. Dimitri lifted the large metal handle of the door and swung it open, revealing a bunch of boxes stacked to the top of the container.