by Moulton, CD
Clint looked over to see Dave and Ben on Judi’s deck with her. He waved and they waved back. Dave held up a plant with a flower that, as much as Clint could see from the distance, was a dark violet color, unusual in orchids. Dave pointed to Clint’s left. He had one blooming right there on his deck. It had opened this morning, apparently. He waved and got his camera for a picture. It was different.
He then went into town to talk with Sergio. King, as Nikolo had labeled him, Ali the Less Than Magnificent and friends were staying at the Tropical Suites and making pains in the asses of themselves. True to form. Only Itumi seemed embarrassed by them. Yusef didn’t seem to be able to understand that he couldn’t give orders to people here.
Clint went on the half block to the police station and saw Doc, the ME for the island, was in Sergio’s office. It was a bit tense. Clint asked why.
“There was a knife fight or something out near the bombas at Saigon, past your place. Two men are dead. No one can tell why they would be involved in anything like that. They’re all very peaceful people. Pacho Roberto and Orlando Smith.”
“They’re friends!” Clint exclaimed. “They’re not violent in any way. They get drunk and fight each other, but that’s just for fun. The macho thing.”
“Exactly,” Doc replied. “I knew them both well. We had a beer or two together sometimes. The Indigenos here are not violent and would not be involved in any knife fights.”
“What’s the ... how do you figure?” Clint asked.
“That sheik or king or whatever the hell was out there earlier,” Sergio answered sourly. “His buddy, the Yusef character, got into a shoving match with several of the Indios, Pacho and Lando among them. The witnesses say it was because they wouldn’t get out of the way where king shithead wanted to go.”
“Check on the others involved in the shoving!” Clint cried.
“They weren’t from this island. They were from Solarte so they weren’t around last night or this morning,” Sergio said. “We can’t find any way to prove anything! I want those people out of here!”
“I think you have evidence enough to put the bunch of them in a cell for awhile – while you can get them deported as undesirables,” Clint suggested. Doc agreed wholeheartedly.
“I’d better take an army with me,” Sergio said. “It could turn into a little war.”
“That’s their own choice!” Doc snarled. “Do they have diplomatic immunity? He is a king.”
Sergio checked the passport records where he noted the visas. “No immunity. They came on business visas.”
“Stupid!” Clint said. Doc high-fived him.
“Want to come along?” Sergio asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it!” Clint returned.
There were four officers in the station. Sergio called for six more to come in, armed them all with automatic weapons, then they walked over to the Tropical Suites. Mikim and company were not there at the moment. The employees of the hotel said they would assist the police in any way to get rid of those slimeball bastard hijos de putas.
They checked around to find the bunch were at the airport. The police squad got in the truck and headed for there. They arrived just as the jet was taxiing down the runway for take-off. Sergio had the flight control officer demand they return to the terminal. They took off hurriedly – except Itumi and three others, who were trying to be inconspicuous. Clint pointed them out and Sergio had them arrested on the spot and taken to the station. They were thinking of resisting, but that would have been suicide and they knew it.
They were being taken to cells when Itumi demanded to know what charges they were being held on.
“Suspicion,” Sergio said.
“Of what?” he demanded.
“Being low-life trash. I don’t need anything more than the fact that every damned one of you were carrying unpermitted weapons. If any of those knives have blood from Orlando or Pacho you will be charged with murder as a group and will spend twenty years in carcel. I hope to have that evidence before King Fuckhead manages to leave. He and the pleasant and accommodating Yusef can join you.”
“He’s a king! You can’t put him in any jail! We know that much!” one of the hoods cried.
“He’s here on business visa. We can and will put his obnoxious ass in a cell!” Clint said. “Let’s see him try to order that bunch at the prison in Panamá City around. That should be a real hoot.”
“He’ll buy his way around them,” Itumi said confidently.
“The wardens? Probably. The other inmates? With his stupid attitude? Gimme a break! He won’t live a day!” Clint replied. “I don’t think any of you will last very long. Don’t start any long novels.”
They were led out and to the cells. Doc came rushing in and Sergio handed him the knives and guns in their plastic sealed containers.
“One drop of blood, O-positive!” Sergio said.
“One ADN chain,” Doc replied and rushed out. That he came for the evidence personally said a lot about how he felt about this bunch.
Clint talked a bit and went home as soon as they received word that the jet was in Panamá City and was being held. Mikim was making all sorts of demands and giving everyone around him orders. They had to have four large officers carry him bodily to a cell. He was screaming like a spoiled four-year-old. Clint shook his head and grinned. Mikim was about to learn exactly how far his royalty went in Panamá.
Clint thought about this all the way to his place. Something was a long way out of kilter with this whole idiotic thing. It was an almost logical progression, but there was a feeling that something much more sinister was behind it. There was something in that stuff that would ... what? What was Mikim so scared of?
Clint didn’t want to have an armed squad go into Gordo’s house just yet, but he didn’t see any other way to handle it. He called Manny and asked if there was someone he could use here to get that safe box.
“Don’t go off half-cocked!” Manny said. “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. There has to be something there that King Fartface doesn’t dare let get out!”
“That you wouldn’t recognize if it was on the table right in front of you now?”
“I don’t know what to do, Manny!”
“Maybe you should study about the history of Mikim and Nikolo? Find out where their paths crossed? Find the real story behind this crap act they’re pulling? I’ve had some checks made on Mikim. He’s got a little sheikdom on a Mediterranean island and has declared himself king through right of progression. His father and grandfather were sheiks and owned the island. It’s about six miles by eight. There’s an oil transfer on one end. It’s deep enough that the big tankers can go in close. That’s what gave him the idea. His father and uncles built the transfer and it’s making about two million a day for him. I can send you the whole thing. It’s a lot of boring reading.”
They agreed to that. Maybe Clint could find a reason for what was happening now in the past. He left the computer on the scrambled receive program with Manny and went calling on the families of Pacho and Orlando. He promised them he would see the ones behind the murders caught and prosecuted. He had one idea about that now. It was based on the fact Mikim thought he could buy his way out of anything.
He would wait a few days. That would soften Mikim up about right. Clint didn’t doubt Doc would find some blood on one of those knives. It was as much as impossible to get all of it out of an iron-based metal. All they needed was one DNA chain and it was a solid conviction. Seeing it was done under orders by paid assassins they were all equally guilty here in one section of the law.
He got home to find 123MB of information waiting for him. He groaned and brought up the file. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. There were a lot of pictures, which increased the MBs tremendously. One high-resolution picture was as much as a hundred pages of print.
Pictures? Maybe a picture of something in that safe box? He brought them up. There were pictures of all the royal jewels with numbers. He
decided to read as much as he could about the history, then would go to the pictures when he knew what – if anything – they meant.
The only connection he could find was that the jewels were the basis of the progression of the sheik or king. The one possessing the jewels passed them on to the next ruler when he died. It wasn’t necessary that the one getting the rule was the eldest son, as in most cases of that kind of progression in that area. Clint had read about the progression, but hadn’t noted much about it at the time. He went back and checked. Mikim’s father was the second son of the former sheik, not the first. Mikim’s uncle had died only weeks after the progression, having been in poor health at the time of the progression – which was two months after the old sheik died. The old sheik died of some kind of suspicious wasting. Many believed he was poisoned. The eldest son died in like circumstances. Mikim’s father had the jewels because, according to him, his father knew his brother would be unable to rule and that the sheikdom was in trouble financially, but Mikim’s father had a lot of personal money he invested in building the port facility. He saved the whole mess. Mikim was always pampered and trained for rule. He was a despot the people despised, but couldn’t do anything about. All three of his wives had escaped to England and Australia to get away from him with their children. He had a son and daughter by one and a daughter by another. The third didn’t have any surviving children. She had a daughter who died at birth.
Where did Mikim’s father get enough money to bail the country out? It wasn’t that much by today’s standards, but a couple of million dollars was a lot of money eighty years ago. What did that have to do with it?
The history seemed to hint that Mikim’s father had killed his own father and brother to get the sheikdom. He already had plans to build that port. The oil companies would finance the port, no doubt. The family was as much as destitute – yet Mikim’s father had enough cash to bail out the country? He had the money when he took over?
This didn’t, as the old TV show kept saying, compute. Clint felt he knew why those jewels were so important. He called Manny and said he had enough to go on, now. He wanted that chest and he would want an expert on identifying old jewelry. They had the papers, pictures and identification specs on them.
“Okay. I read some of that stuff. I know how important that jewelry is. You think it will get Mikim out of the picture there, don’t you?”
“I sincerely and deeply hope so.”
“I’ll arrange something.”
Clint grinned to himself, then called Manny back to say to wait two days, then go for it.
Very Small Deal
Clint walked into the interrogation cell in Panamá City to find Mikim sitting there, a bit thinner in just a few days, and, “You look like hell warmed over. They don’t bow to you here, huh?”
“This is intolerable! I will bring an international incident against you! I will not live like this another day! I am royalty and have immunity!”
“Then you should make arrangements for you to die today. You aren’t going anywhere, probably for the next twenty years,” Clint replied. “You don’t seem to get it through your head that your money and position don’t mean shit here. Your visa has to be diplomatic for that crap. Yours isn’t. You can’t get out of it, but you might be able to make it easier. All you have to do is have the families of the men you ordered killed not demand full prosecution.”
He got a cunning look on his face. “Yusef told you I can buy my way out of this!”
“Not out, but not in so deep. Stay in the position you’re in now and you go to the worst facility. Get a little pressure off the court and you can make it one of the better places, perhaps. It’s the only concession they’ll even consider with you. If you’d come here with a little respect for others you wouldn’t be in the position you’re in now. It’s your own doing so stop whining like a three year old spoiled brat before it’s too late. Once the court declares conviction, you’re gone. There won’t be another chance.”
“So! Why would you do anything to help me?”
“I wouldn’t. I’m trying to help the families of two innocent and very good people that you had killed because you think you’re more than the fatuous pig you are. They have a hard enough time just surviving without your type killing off their means of support.”
He thought a moment. “I can make them drop the charges?”
“No way. The charges are by the nation. You can maybe lessen the charges a small bit.”
“And all I have to do is pay off the families and admit everything in court? Fuck off!”
“You don’t have to admit anything. They’ve got you cold. When your hired assassin’s knives had the blood of both victims on them you were as good as convicted. We don’t care if you admit anything or not. It wouldn’t make an iota’s difference.”
“You can’t intimidate me!” he yelled. “Warden! This man threatened me!”
“Oh, drop it! There’s a recorder sitting right there that says different. I take it you don’t want to ameliorate your charges. Your choice. Have a nice day!”
He stood and started toward the door. Mikim said, “How much? Five million apiece? That should be enough for these kinds of animals.”
“One million for both families – and the only animal here is you. Take it or leave it.”
“I forgot how cheaply they can be bought. It comes from having too much. I can have my lawyer, such as he is, make a draw on my account for that small change.”
Clint nodded. Mikim used his celular to call his lawyer, who would come with a withdrawal slip for Global Bank if he wanted to use that account. He shrugged. The lawyer would be there in a few minutes. They waited.
The lawyer came in, presented the slip, had it witnessed by the two guards and went with Clint to the bank to have the funds transferred directly to Clint’s account in Banco Nacional de Panamá. Then Clint went home and called Manny to say he could grab the safe box anytime. Manny said it would arrive by special carrier sometime before dawn in the morning. Dave’s apartment in David.
Clint said that suited him and called Dave, who was planning on going to David on the seven o’clock bus.
“We’ll take my car. I’ll probably need it in David,” Clint suggested. Dave had no problem with that! They could leave earlier and Dave could stop in one place in La Fortuna where an orchid he thought might be a new species would be in bloom.
Clint grinned and said that would be fine. They’d take his boat to Almirante. Half an hour.
“The chest wasn’t there. It had been moved earlier yesterday,” Manny reported at five ten the following morning “I don’t know how you’ll find it, but I can see that it doesn’t go far from there. Gordo and the two Canadians are still there.
Clint thought a minute, then said he’d go on to Veraguas. He was on the way, anyhow. He told Dave and got in his car. He would be in Veraguas before noon. He had an idea about that box.
“Hi! I’m back!” Clint greeted Sandros and Fredrico. “Did you see when Gordo took the box out?”
“Hi, Clint! Yes, we helped them put it on the truck. It took all five of us. What’s in it? Gold?” Sandros asked.
“Gold and jewels and silver and that kind of thing,” Clint answered.
“For truth?”
“Partly.”
“So you want to know where they took it?” Fredrico asked, a small grin on his face.
“You didn’t go with them to unload it?!”
“No, but I saw a map with a house marked.”
“Ah! So they didn’t figure you’d have the intelligence to know what it was. They make too many wrong assumptions.”
“It seems to have become a habit. The house is near Pocri. I don’t know where, but very close.”
“I never heard of Pocri. Where is it?”
“Inland from Las Tablas. On the other road.”
“Going toward the Pacific,” Clint mused. “They plan to get it out of Panamá. Thanks, guys. I’ll probably be back before too long.”
He got his car and took out his laptop to look up a map. Pocri was on a road to Las Tablas and to the main CPA (Pan American Highway). He could get there in about three hours. Nothing else to do!
The drive wasn’t so bad. It was an area Clint had never seen before so he went slowly enough that he could look the area over. He figured Dave would want to go there. It was different enough that there would be a lot of plant life of the type he was researching.
Pocri is a typical puebla (small town). People are friendly and helpful. Clint soon found he was going to have to drive around the surrounding roads to find the house he wanted. Gordo hadn’t come into town that they knew of.
Clint liked driving in new areas. He went along all the side roads toward the CPA. He found information in the small tiendas along the way. Four and a half hours later he found a woman running a little refrescos stand who said they stopped for sodas and galetas, then went down the rough rocky road nearby. He had a Coke and cookies, chatted for a few minutes with the woman about David, then went carefully along the road, which was mostly a rocky cowpath. The house was half a kilometer in. No one was around and it looked abandoned, though it did have some very secure locks and the windows and doors had steel bar grates across them. Clint wouldn’t be able to get in easily.
He thought for a minute, then called Manny to tell how to get to the place. Manny said there would be a man there within the hour who could get past any lock anywhere.
Clint waited for an hour and a quarter until a rickety old truck came up. Clint told the man driving he was waiting for a friend who said he had rented the place, but he didn’t think he was going to show.
