The Mark of Cain

by William J. Coughlin

  “How long will your friend be on this course?” Cain asked the prisoner.

  The prisoner shifted his position. “A half hour, maybe a bit longer.” He looked uncomfortable.

  “Describe the island again.”

  The prisoner’s dark eyes darted around the cabin before returning to gaze on Cain’s face. “Like I told you, it ain’t much, at least not from the sea. There’s no fresh water and outside of a few scrubby pine trees it is mostly just sand and rock. It has a high area, you couldn’t even call it a hill, but there is a natural harbor concealed at the base of the mound. You can’t see that the harbor is there, at least not from the sea. We’ve got the harbor entrance camouflaged so you can’t see it. Coming in from the sea, it just looks like a deserted hunk of rock.”

  “What kind of signal do you use to get by the entrance?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you bring a captured boat in, don’t you have to signal someone? After all, how do they know yours is the right boat?”

  “There’s no signal. Usually Patsy is back before us in the decoy boat, and he tells everybody we are coming. He’s there by then and can identify the boat.” The man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Cain wondered if the man was concealing amusement at his own cleverness.

  “Are you absolutely sure there is no signal?”

  The prisoner shook his head.

  “How many men are on that island?” Cain asked, watching for reaction in the prisoner’s face.

  “Counting Patsy, four.” The man’s eyes remained fixed on Cain.

  “So if we sail in there, what happens?”

  “There’s a gate at the entrance, a long aluminum thing with a net over it. They did a pretty good job of fixing it up. It looks like part of the rock, but it swings open. The entrance is about twenty feet across. To get in, you unhook the gate and sail through into the harbor. The harbor isn’t very big, just right for two or three boats. That’s all we ever have in there at one time anyway, just two or three.”

  “Do you always lure the boats with that fake distress routine?”

  “Works every time.” The man started to grin, then changed his mind.

  “Do you always kill the people on the boats?” Cain asked.

  The prisoner’s eyes shifted, darting around the cabin. “Listen, man, I never killed anybody. It was the other guys. When it came time to waste the people, I never went along. I told them not to do it, but nobody ever paid any attention to me.”

  “What did you propose doing with them?”

  “Huh?”

  “The people on the boats you took, if you weren’t in favor of killing them, what did you propose to do with them?”

  “I … well, we could have kept them like we did the others. Jesus, I don’t know. I was never even allowed to think about it.”

  “What others?” Cain’s voice was soft, friendly. “These people you kept, what about them?”

  The man looked away. “Sometimes we would keep a woman, sometimes more than one.”

  “What for?”

  He looked directly at Cain. “What the hell do you think for?” Again he averted his eyes. “We are men, and it can get lonely way out here.”

  “Do you have any women prisoners now?” Cain spoke evenly.

  The prisoner shook his head. His eyes were fixed on Cain, remaining steady as if in proof of his sincerity. “No, we don’t have any anymore. They … they don’t last long.” Again his voice dropped until it was barely audible.

  Cain studied him for a moment. “If we sail this boat into your harbor, where will your friends be?”

  He shifted his position before answering. “Well, most everybody will be working on the boats. We got a little dry dock fixed up there, and we use it to change the boats around a bit so that they won’t be recognized. Usually everybody is busy with the boats.”

  “No guards or sentries?”

  Again a wide reassuring smile split the young man’s face. “Hey, nobody ever comes by Ring Key, so we don’t need no guards.”

  Cain looked over at Soldier. The big man was slouched down in a chair, his eyes fixed on the prisoner. Slick seemed intent on paring his fingernails, but Cain knew he was as intent as Soldier on what the man had to say.

  “My friend, we don’t have a lie detector out here, so it’s a little difficult to determine if you are telling us the truth.”

  The prisoner started to protest, but Cain raised his hand to shut him off. “I think,” Cain continued, “that if we sail into your harbor without giving the proper recognition signal, we’ll get zapped by your people when we get in close. I think maybe that is what you are counting on.”

  The prisoner shook his head violently. “No, I’m telling the truth.”

  Cain again looked over at Soldier. “What do you think?”

  “He’s lying,” Soldier said.

  “Slick?”

  The black man looked up from his task with his nails. “He’s lying, Cain.”

  “That’s what I think too.”

  The prisoner’s smile flickered nervously. “Hey, why would I lie to you? I’m here with you. If you get hurt, I get hurt. I’m looking out for myself. I’m not going to play any tricks.” Again his eyes were steady, fixed on Cain.

  Cain returned the stare of the prisoner. He decided the man’s eyes only remained steady when he was lying. As a police officer he had questioned a number of people who gave themselves away with little motions, little affectations. This man’s eyes gave him away. It was a useful discovery. Cain decided a bit of terror might help too.

  He turned. “Where’s that other boat?” Cain asked Johnson.

  “Just going off the radar screen. I can’t keep up with him.”

  “Then it wouldn’t hurt if we stopped chasing him and maybe did a bit of fishing?”

  Johnson turned and peered at Cain as if trying to decide if he had heard him correctly. “If you mean that we are going to lose him off the screen anyway, you’re right. If we slow or stop now, it won’t make any difference. He’ll be off the screen in a minute anyway.”

  Cain stood up and stretched, keeping his balance against the roll of the speeding boat. “I think I’d like to do a bit of trolling,” he said. “Soldier, bring up one of those big fishing rods; one of those with the wire on the reel.”

  Soldier heaved himself out of his chair and lumbered below.

  “Tell me,” Cain asked the prisoner, “how many people have your … friends … killed?”

  The man’s eyes were as steady as rocks, displaying absolutely no movement. “Listen, your boat was only the third boat we hit. We got a couple of broads off one and a middle-aged couple off the other, that’s all.”

  “No children?”

  He shook his head, but his eyes remained steady. “No.”

  “The United States Coast Guard seems to think that someone has pirated over thirty boats and killed over two hundred people. Did you or your people have any part in that?”

  His eyes never moved. “No, man.”

  “Why do you take the boats?”

  “To fix them up and resell them.” The answer came too quickly, as if he had been waiting for the question.

  “You don’t use them to smuggle narcotics into the United States?”

  He shook his head again. “No, we just deal in boats.” His eyes were as steady as if they had been painted on his face.

  Soldier reappeared with the deep-sea fishing rod. He strung the wire through the big eyelets of the thick rod.

  “Where’s that fighting jacket, Johnson?” Cain asked. “That canvas contraption you use to put on fishermen and tie them to the chair?”

  The boatman pointed to a locker at the side of the cabin. Slick kneeled down and reached in, pulling out a canvas harness designed to fit around a man’s back and chest. A heavy socket had been built into the front, a site for the base of a heavy fishing rod. Large metal rings hung off the jacket, to be hooked into the fixed fighting chairs of the cockpit to insure t
hat a fisherman would not be pulled into the water by his catch.

  “Slow down, dead slow,” Cain commanded Johnson.

  Johnson brought the throttle lever back, slowing the big cruiser so suddenly that it seemed to settle into the sea. The boat’s hull rolled from the swell created by their own wake.

  “Put that harness on our friend,” Cain said.

  Slick quickly untied the prisoner. He slipped the canvas harness over his arms and shoulders, adjusted it tightly, and then retied the man’s wrists together, this time with his hands in front.

  “You like fishing?” Cain asked.

  The prisoner’s eyes widened in puzzlement mixed with fear.

  “I hope you do, because you are going to get a worm’s-eye view of fishing. Hook him up, Soldier.”

  The prisoner tried to squirm away, but Soldier’s big hand held him easily while he slipped the wire through the metal loop on the front of the harness. Slick took the wire and wound it around itself, twisting it to make a quick but tight connection with the metal ring. Both men stepped back.

  Cain’s tone was even, almost pleasant. “I want to know the recognition signal you use to gain entrance to your island.” He smiled coldly. “I want to know how many men are on your island and what kind of arms they have.”

  “I told you,” the prisoner protested.

  Cain took the fishing rod. “Bring him out here and throw him overboard, Soldier. I’d like to do a bit of trolling,” he said as he stepped outside to the open cockpit.

  “Wait a goddamned minute,” Johnson said, but the words died in his throat as he saw the look in Cain’s slate-colored eyes.

  “Please, don’t!” the prisoner screamed as Soldier pulled him toward the stern of the boat. The big man lifted the struggling form and dropped him almost gently into the water.

  The prisoner bobbed beneath the water, then surfaced, spitting out water, terror seizing his features. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded as he awkwardly trod water. “Get me out … the sharks!” He looked about him frantically.

  Cain played out some of the thin wire. “Johnson, start this boat slow, trolling speed.”

  Johnson’s face was chalk white. Eddy came up from below, took one look at what was happening, and ducked back the way he had come. Cain regretted that Eddy had seen what they were doing. Eddy was sensitive, retarded mentally but emotionally sensitive, and he had saved all their lives. Cain was sorry that the young deckhand had been exposed to any additional shock.

  The propellers bubbled beneath the surface, and the boat began to move. Cain played the man in the water like a fish so that he wouldn’t be tangled up in the spinning propellers. The boat began to move away from him.

  “Help!” The prisoner’s shriek was cut off as he bobbed beneath a wave.

  Cain let out a few more feet of the wire.

  Soldier touched Cain on the shoulder and pointed at an angle away from the stern.

  A large gray fin was cutting the surface of the water, traveling parallel to the direction of the boat.

  Cain signaled to Johnson to cut the motor. “Look over there,” he shouted to the man in the water. He gestured with the rod tip.

  The man turned and saw the big fin, only ten yards away from his position. The shark was moving very slowly.

  “How many men on that island?” Cain asked calmly.

  “Please … oh God, please get me out!”

  “How many men?”

  “Fifteen!” The answer was a terrified scream.

  “How are they armed?”

  “Please,” the man pleaded as he bobbed about in the water, his bound hands grasping the wire. “Get me out. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “How are they armed?”

  Although his eyes were glued on the fin, he replied quickly. “Rifles … rifles and machine guns.”

  The fin glided in closer. The man in the water shrieked with fear.

  “What’s the signal to approach the island?”

  The man in the water was sobbing. His reply was unintelligible as his mouth filled with sea water.

  “I said, what’s the signal?”

  “Oh God,” the man moaned. “Get me out of here.”

  “The signal?”

  The shark dropped back a yard or two but took a position directly behind the man in the water.

  “A red flag … a rag, anything red. It has to be tied to the mast or radio antenna …” His voice faded as he turned to watch the shark. “There are guards posted on the high point of land. They have a machine gun. There’s another machine gun set up by the entrance to the …” His words died away as the big fin moved slowly toward him. “For the love of God, get me out of here!” His sobbing rose above the muted sound of the idling engines.

  Cain propped the base of the big rod against his stomach and began to work the crank on the large chrome reel. The wire became taut and the man began to be pulled toward the boat.

  “Should I shoot him?” Soldier asked quietly.

  “Not yet,” Cain said in a low voice. “We may be able to get some more information out of him.”

  “That shark is going to get him first.” Slick’s voice carried a hint of panic.

  “Back this thing up, Johnson,” Cain yelled, reeling as fast as he could.

  The engines thundered into life, and the big boat twisted slightly and then began moving in the direction of the man in the water.

  “Get him,” Cain commanded.

  Soldier climbed over the stern and stood on a metal grating that flared from the back of the boat at the water line. It was a device used to stabilize the boat at high speeds. Using the metal grate as a platform, he grabbed the canvas harness and lifted the prisoner from the water, pulling him aboard the narrow platform.

  The shark came up with purpose, its wide head out of the water, its huge mouth open, revealing row upon row of fanglike teeth. Its little eyes were fixed on the men on the platform. It was going to attack.

  The noise from Slick’s automatic pistol echoed across the water as he emptied the clip, firing the weapon only inches from Soldier’s head. As the large slugs tore into its leatherlike hide, the mammoth fish shuddered. It seemed to take one last look at the two men on the platform and then rolled over slowly, its huge tail lashing out in a dying agony. The dark creature sank from their sight.

  Soldier handed the inert form of the prisoner over the stern. “He’s fainted,” Soldier said as he climbed back into the safety of the cockpit.

  He looked at Slick. “You know, you almost busted my eardrum,” Soldier said. “Jesus, next time take a pace or two away before you unload that cannon. My head still rings.”

  Slick tried to smile but couldn’t, a result of the fear caused in him by the sight of the hungry shark. “Soldier, the only reason you are standing up is because of me. That damn thing was going to bite off one of your legs.”

  The man on the deck moaned.

  “Johnson, do we have any red flags or red rags aboard?” Cain called.

  ELEVEN

  The man sitting on the deck was a survivor type. Cain had seen many such men, both as a policeman and later in his more violent profession. The prisoner talked, telling them everything they wanted to know. But despite the intense terror that had caused him to faint rather than face the shark, he had recovered, his ferretlike eyes darting about, recording everything he saw, filing it away for possible future use.

  The prisoner cleared up the mystery of the shark school. It was the area where they dumped their victims and the primal fish stayed in the vicinity waiting for their next grisly meal. Although the man denied any actual participation, the “pirates” had killed over two hundred people in the short time that they had been operating. The Coast Guard had been right; the sharks had taken care of the human evidence. And while their prisoner tried to evade any direct guilt, he talked freely about the men he worked with and described their operation. He had obviously decided that it was in his best interests to cooperate to some degree w
ith his captors.

  As suspected, narcotics had provided the motive and incentive for the Caribbean operation. Their prisoner was particularly well informed on the background leading to the establishment of their business. When Turkey shut down the agricultural production of the opium poppy, the source of supply for the European heroin factories died. The flat, sun-drenched fields of Mexico and Central America offered fertile soil for the poppy. And although the governments concerned sent airplanes aloft to scout out the contraband fields, their efforts were not enough. Ample poppy crops provided the raw material for the small coastal heroin factories that churned out a powder known throughout the world as “Mexican Brown.” These one- and two-man factories dotted the coastal areas of Mexico, Central America, and the northern reaches of South America. They infested the areas like fleas, and as soon as one was identified and closed, two more sprang up to fill the void.

  So the product was there; a product more valuable than gold by actual weight. It was ready for market. And the demand was unlimited. Thousands upon thousands of American addicts whimpered and waited for delivery, willing to pay any price for the brown powder. The problem facing solution was how to deliver the product to the eager consumer.

  Only a relatively small amount leaked across the border between Mexico and the United States—law enforcement was too good and the risk of a border crossing was too high to make that a practical method of entry. Another way had to be found.

  The Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico had been the answer. Hundreds of cities lay along the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The long thrust of Florida adds hundreds of miles of coastline and even more places of entry are found along the string of Keys—small islands—that loop down from the tip of Florida into the warm Caribbean waters. The coastlines teem with marinas; safe harbors for millions of pleasure boats large and small. Those waters are alive with cruisers, houseboats, and sailing craft, filled with Americans of all shapes, colors, and sizes, all eagerly enjoying the free use of their sea. No detection machine exists which can tell whether the forty-foot sloop coming into the marina has just come back from a short sail or whether it is returning from a month-long voyage.