by Rob Jones
“Get the car.”
“Si.”
Hunter’s eyes drifted from the barrel of the Beretta up to the face of the man training it on Kirsten. “Where are we going? Somewhere nice, I hope.”
“As a matter of fact, yes. We’re going to see Señor Vazquez on his yacht. Now get moving.”
Armed men forced their captives out of the house and down some concrete steps into the drive-under garage. One of them pushed an oily red button on the wall and activated a double-width roller door. As it creaked slowly upwards, a strong warm breeze blew in from outside and the smell of exhaust fumes mingled with engine oil.
Davila walked down the steps and joined them in the garage. He had slipped a linen jacket on over the top of his black shirt, but the grip of his Beretta in the shoulder holster was still partially visible when the breeze blew the hem of his jacket back. On the drive out front, more armed men were milling around.
Davila spoke to Canosa. “The Oceanus is out in the Straits so we’ll need to use the tender. It’s in the Hemingway Marina.”
“Where’s that?” Kirsten asked Hunter, keeping her voice down.
“It’s out in Santa Fe,” he whispered. “It’s a massive marina made up of four separate canals. Many people who like to cruise spend the entire winter there.”
“Keep your mouths shut,” Davila said. “Unless I tell you to speak. You’re not on a little UNESCO field trip anymore. Canosa, tie their hands.”
“There’s no need for any of this,” Kirsten said. “We’re academics.”
“You maybe, but not him.” Davila looked at Hunter. “Everyone knows all about the famous archaeologist Max Hunter, and that includes the fact he was once a soldier. Their hands, Canosa. Bind them tightly.”
“Just the way I like it,” Hunter said with a wink, but Kirsten was too scared to indulge him.
Davila ordered them both into the car. It was now Hunter saw the dead body of their driver, Miguel, slumped over the wheel of his car with a gunshot in his temple. Rage was rapidly replaced by a sense of calm; this was a highly dangerous situation and he had to keep his wits about him.
They climbed inside the car and Davila slid in beside them. He pulled his gun a second time and pushed the muzzle of the Beretta into Kirsten’s midriff. “I am willing to bet good money that if I fire this gun it will go through you and end up burying itself in Dr Hunter’s stomach. My advice is, don’t do anything to make me squeeze the trigger.”
“Sounds like good advice to me,” Hunter said. “I promise to be a good lad until it’s a fair fight.”
Davila smirked. “Drive on, Canosa. Take us down to the marina.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gabriela Batista passed her binoculars to the man sitting next to her and thought about what she had just witnessed. Down under the dashboard, the AC unit rattled and hummed as the man raised the field glasses to his eyes and studied the people on the marina.
“Interesting,” he said.
“That’s what I thought. You were right, Gomez. They must be taking them out to the yacht. The man in the hat is holding the statue you told me about.”
“Yeah,” he said, chewing on a cocktail stick. “They’re taking everything over to that bastard Vazquez. You want to go out there and see what’s happening?”
“Are you kidding? Not even a storm could stop me going out there.”
Gomez winked at her. “But we wait till dark, right?”
“You think I’m crazy? Of course we wait till dark.”
“How long is that around here?”
The sun was low on the horizon “An hour.”
“Then we haven’t got long to get a boat.”
“Relax, I already told you I know someone.”
She threw the car into drive and cruised down a road running alongside one of the slipways. Parking up, they stepped out into the cool of the evening and took in the view. Sailing boats’ masts rattled in the breeze and seagulls cried and wheeled in the sky.
“Time for some reconnaissance,” said Gomez, scanning the horizon for any sign of Vazquez’s men. Behind him, Gabriela spoke with an old friend about hiring his boat for the night.
*
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” said Kirsten to Hunter as the tender cut across the turquoise Straits of Florida. Up ahead, on the horizon, the outline of the Oceanus appeared like a large white citadel. The American woman stared at the helipads, deck guns and towering smoke funnels with sad, blue eyes. “If I had known this was going to happen I would have advised Oskar not to send us here. He said Vazquez was dangerous, but I thought we would be safe. I guess I was wrong.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Hunter said, glancing back at the relative safety offered by the Hemingway Marina. “We’re not dead yet.”
The boat skipped over the waves. At the front, Davila and Canosa shared a laugh and smoked.
Hunter turned back to Kirsten. “I never told anyone outside of the regiment about this, but once when I was on patrol in Afghanistan one of my platoon stood on an IED. It blew his legs off. The smoke hadn’t even cleared when we came under sustained sniper fire so we had to drag him through the crossfire to get him to safety.”
“I’ve heard stories like this before.”
He nodded. “We lost him. Blood loss was just too great, but during the fire fight two more of my men were snatched by the enemy. We found their bodies the next day, hogtied in a ditch and…” he stopped talking. “Sorry, I’ve already said too much. We caught up with the men who had killed them and took them all out.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m saying I think I can handle these clowns, so take it easy. They only need to make one slip, and…” he drew his finger across his throat to indicate what was on his mind.
She was shocked by the casual way he had described killing these men, but before she could respond, Hunter stared up at the giant vessel in disbelief. “Bloody hell, that’s a cruise ship!”
“A private cruise ship,” she said quietly. “A superyacht.”
He leaned in closer to her and squinted at the stern of the boat. “What flag is that?”
“Liberian. It’s a flag of convenience,” Kirsten said. “All ships have to be registered to a country, so people like Vazquez use the countries with the weakest labor laws. They do it so they can pay the people they employ onboard as little as possible. Nearly half the ships in the world are registered to just three countries – Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands.”
Hunter had been vaguely aware of the arrangement. “But Vazquez can still be prosecuted for his crimes even though he’s in international waters, right?”
“In the end, sure. But by staying out here and moving around on the high seas in a Liberian vessel, he’s making it has hard as possible for the Cuban and American authorities to get hold of him. Meanwhile, he gets on with the serious business of intimidating jurors and bribing witnesses in the trial Oskar talked about.”
“Nice.”
She turned to him, lowering her voice. “What do you think Vazquez has planned for us?”
He looked off the port bow. They had fallen into the Oceanus’s massive shadow and Canosa was bringing the tender about. He steered the small boat up to the starboard side of the enormous ship and cut the engine. As some men up on the deck operated a davit crane to winch them on board, Hunter looked into Kirsten’s eyes. “I don’t know. What do you think he has in store for us?”
“Nothing good, I promise you that.”
Davila shouted at her in Spanish and grabbed hold of her by the collar, dragging her to her feet. “Shut up and get on board!”
Hunter got to his feet. “You leave her alone, you bastard.”
Canosa struck his neck with the grip of his pistol, knocking him down into the boat’s floor. The blow felt like someone had driven a metal spike into him. He fought to stay conscious, but dizzy and disoriented, a wave of nausea overtook him and he threw up in the boat.
Canosa kicked him in the ribs and swore in Spanish. “Get up out of that vomit, you dog.”
Davila was now on the private cruise ship’s deck with Kirsten. “Did he just throw up in the boss’s tender?”
“Yes.” Canosa pushed Hunter out of the boat and he crashed down on the Oceanus’s deck.
“Make sure it’s cleaned immediately.”
“Maybe this dog should lick it up?” Canosa said, snarling at Hunter.
“This dog has an appointment with Mr Vazquez, just like his bitch. You clean it up, Canosa, and pray I don’t tell the boss how you beat this man and made him throw up in his tender.”
“Yes, sir.” Canosa backed down and told one of his men to get a mop and bucket.
“This way,” Davila said.
They followed him into the yacht and down a long corridor before climbing a set of plush, carpeted steps.
Raul Vazquez received them like a renaissance king. He was sitting on a large velvet and gold seat at the head of a long polished table. The table was empty except for a single gold plate full of food and beside it, one gold candlestick. Vazquez reached over and lit the ivory-colored candle with a gold lighter and sat back in his chair. He wore an onyx black shirt of freshly pressed Sea Island cotton and his expensive aftershave radiated away from him like an aura.
Hunter lowered his voice and leaned closer to Kirsten. “You think this guy knows that all that glitters is not gold?”
“Ah, Mario!” Vazquez said. “I see you have brought my guests to me! Please, take a seat. You really must try this meal.”
“I’d rather stand,” Hunter said. “If it’s all the same to you.”
Vazquez made no movement. “You are missing something exquisite. It’s premium beef and rock lobster with winter black truffles and Umbrian porcini mushrooms. The entire dish is served beneath a beautiful pie crust delicately covered in Florentine gold leaf.”
Kirsten looked disgusted. “I think that’s what they eat in Regla.”
Hunter turned to her briefly, but held his tongue when Vazquez started laughing.
“Ah, the ghetto. Perhaps you should go there and tell them this pie costs ten thousand American dollars to make.”
“That’s nearly a quarter of a million pesos, you bastard.”
“A man who is a king, must live like one to prove it. Now, why is the Rorschach Foundation willing to pay such a ridiculous sum of money for a small silver statue and an old torn Nazi map?”
Hunter and Kirsten exchanged a lingering look.
“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”
“The Rorschach Foundation doesn’t discuss its business,” she said sharply.
Vazquez tutted and waved his gold knife at them. “Not good enough. Perhaps you need some time to think over my proposal.”
“What proposal?” Hunter asked.
“That you tell me the truth about the winged statue and the map or I will throw you to the sharks circling this ship. Mario, take them both to the brig. I wish to finish my meal in peace – just me and this strange, winged angel Oskar Rorschach seems to covet so much.”
*
Gomez sailed the boat out of the marina and headed north toward the straits. They ploughed onwards, seawater spraying up off the bow. “I should have known something like this was going to happen,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s all gone shit-shaped, Gabby.”
“It’s my fault, not yours,” she said.
Gomez gently pushed the tiller and steered the boat west of the yacht. “I told you he wouldn’t cause any trouble and that robbing Hunter and Anderson would be a walk in the park. Look at what happened.”
“It’s nothing. We just got unlucky. It happens to everyone.”
He huffed out a sour laugh. “Tell me about it. Did I ever tell you about the time I was on a mission in the Gulf of Guinea?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“We were protecting a team of oil explorers from the pirates who operate in that area and we got real unlucky.”
“What happened?”
“I was on board a small ship shuttling employees and equipment out to an offshore drilling rig. We’d had a briefing in the HQ back in Accra and thought we could handle it, but when the pirates turned up, their force was three times bigger than we thought. We knew we had to call in for backup but we lost our satellite comms at the exact second the pirates came into view.”
“Maybe they cut the signal?” she said. “Seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“We lost a lot of good men that day, so there was an enquiry. It was a coincidence. In other words we just got unlucky.”
“And the pirates?”
“They didn’t make it home that night. Burial at sea.”
She fell silent, and the rest of the trip out to the ship went without a hitch. Gomez steered the small skiff around to the bow and pulled in tight. When he was close enough, he lashed a rope around the starboard anchor chain and stopped the boat from drifting.
In the black night, the boat bobbed about on the water while he tested the anchor chain. When he was satisfied it was safe, he put his bag over his shoulder and climbed up the chain toward the anchor well. Halfway up, he smelt cigarette smoke and heard men on the deck talking in Spanish. He gave Gabriela the signal to stay where she was and tucked his head down until he felt the cold carbon-manganese chain on his cheek.
His heart beat harder in his chest. He knew how vulnerable they both were, hanging from an anchor chain. One false step that gave them away and Vazquez’s men would take them out like fish in a barrel. He calmed down when he caught the amber flash of a cigarette butt sailing past him. It twisted down to the water and then the conversation on the deck above him fell silent.
How the hell did I wind up here? he thought.
He reached the anchor well and climbed inside and waited for Gabriela. He felt another ripple of relief when he saw her face appear at the top of the chain. He reached out and took her hand and helped her up. It felt like they had been out half the night, but when he checked his watch he saw the entire trip had only taken twelve minutes.
“I can’t believe I talked myself into this,” he said.
“You want the map and statue, don’t you?”
“More than anything, but I don’t want to die in the process.”
Safely inside the anchor well, she kissed his cheek. “No one’s going to die. Now, let’s get moving.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“So this is what a brig looks like.”
Hunter looked over to Kirsten as she paced up and down her cell. There were two cells, divided by a wall of bars, and he was in the other one. “You like it?”
“Trust a psycho like Vazquez to build a jail in his floating palace.”
“It’s standard for big vessels like this, even cruise ships. They always have somewhere on board where they can keep unruly passengers just in case things get out of hand. These things go out to sea for weeks sometimes. You get people making trouble and you need somewhere to put them.”
“I never really thought about it.”
“It’s usually like this – a couple of steel rooms below decks next to the security officer’s cabin. You wind up in one, you get escorted off the ship at the next port and that’s the end of your little cruise. On the high seas, the captain is judge and jury, believe me.”
“You sound like you know a lot about it. Don’t tell me you’ve been on one before.”
He laughed. “Nah, not me, but a good pal of mine worked the cruise liners for a long time.”
“And did your friend ever tell you how to escape from one of these places?”
“There’s no escape. We’re inside a room made of steel, and we’re sitting in here twiddling our thumbs until Vazquez orders our release.”
Kirsten checked her watch and continued pacing. “I can’t stand just sitting here waiting for the axe to fall.”
“Stop walking up and down, will you? You’re making me dizzy.”
“Sorry.”
Hunter’s eyes met hers through the bars dividing their cells. “How did you know about Regla?”
“Excuse me?”
“Back when Vazquez was stuffing his face with that pie and bragging about how much his dinner cost, you said something sarcastic. You said that’s what they eat in Regla.”
“Did I? I guess I was just angry. Why?”
“I thought you told me you’d never been to Cuba before , that’s all.”
She paused and furrowed her brow. “And I haven’t. What is this, the third degree?”
He raised his palms. “I didn’t mean anything by it, take it easy. It was just an observation.”
“If you must know, I read about it on the plane journey here.”
Hunter felt a ripple of guilt. “I’m sorry. I went to Regla when I was younger with my girlfriend and I just wondered how you knew about it.”
“Rorschach Foundation employees do not arrive at a meeting without being very well briefed, especially one as important as that one.”
“Of course.”
“Damn it, I just can’t get a break lately.”
He saw obvious signs of the offense he had caused, and decided to change the subject when the security office door was smashed wide open. He and Kirsten jumped up from their bunks as a large man with fists as chunky as boxing gloves stormed into the room. A woman in her thirties came in behind him. She was holding a pistol in her hand, but looked nervous.
“Who the hell are you?” Kirsten said.
“My name is Gomez,” the man said. “And this is Gabriela. We are thieves like you, here to take the statue and the map. If you tell me where they are I will get you out of here.”
Kirsten was staring at the man when Hunter reached his arm though the bars and tapped her on the shoulder. “What were you just saying about never getting a break?”
“So you will help us?” Gomez asked.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Kirsten said. “First, I’m not a thief. I’m here to buy the statue and the map for ten million dollars for a very powerful man. I can’t just let you steal them.”
