Текст книги "Piranha"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“And the second thing?” Juan prodded.

“Kensit didn’t hide his contempt for how America was wasting its opportunity to fix the planet and squandering its technological superiority, specifically its advantage in weaponry. He thought world leaders were too corrupt or weak or beholden to uneducated constituencies to solve the problems that he felt had simple solutions. Crime, war, famine, pollution, disease, energy and water shortages—all of those issues could be solved if one person with the right technology, intelligence, and ruthless vision unencumbered by sentimentality could focus on the big picture and force leaders to do what he thought was best for the planet. One guess who that person should be.”

Juan nodded slowly as the ramifications jelled in his mind. He now understood why the discovery that Kensit was the survivor alarmed Locke and Westfield. And while they knew he had killed three men to cover up his death, they didn’t know he was now employing Haitian death squads that had nearly wiped out Oregon’s entire crew by using an untraceable means of spying on them. Based on the assassin’s pronouncement that the world would change in less than four days, the physicist was either completely off his rocker or he was bringing to fruition a goal that was equally insane.

“Did Kensit have any friends at all? Anyone close that might have suspected his plans?”

“He had no family, and he didn’t hang out with anyone outside of work. One of his coworkers mentioned overhearing Kensit speaking to Pearson about a diary he’d received as an inheritance. Pearson spoke German and Kensit wanted him to do some translation. The coworker thought it unusual because it was the only time Kensit talked about a personal matter. And he remembered there were just a few snippets of the conversation before Kensit abruptly shut Pearson down and never spoke about it again: something about a German scientist, a ship called the Roraima, and a reference to Oz.”

“Oz as in The Wizard of Oz?” Eric asked.

“I asked the same thing,” Westfield said. “He said that’s what it sounded like.”

“Kensit could have been referring to Australia,” Juan said, meaning the nickname Aussies gave their own country.

Westfield shrugged. “It’s hard to know without more to go on. We looked up the Roraima. There are three that we know of. One is a small cargo ship currently sailing under a Brazilian flag. The second was a nineteenth-century steamship that ran aground, but the vessel was saved and the captain subsequently built a Victorian mansion named after the ship. It’s a bed-and-breakfast now.”

“And the third?” Juan asked.

“That’s the most interesting one,” Locke said. “It sunk in Saint-Pierre Harbor in 1902 when Mount Pelée erupted. I understand it’s a tourist attraction now. The question is why Kensit would be interested in any of those ships. We couldn’t come up with a reason.”

“I know someone who might be able to.” And it was just their luck, Juan thought, that St. Julien Perlmutter was only a short drive away in Washington, D.C.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The stench from the harbor made checking the cargo an odious task, but this equipment was too important for Lawrence Kensit to leave to the crew of Russian scientists and technicians he had hired from a defunct nuclear fusion weapons laboratory. The contents of this container were critical if testing for Sentinel Phase 2 was to finish on schedule. He had to know right away if anything was damaged or missing, which was a distinct possibility considering he was buying all of his hardware on the black market.

The physicist called out the checklist to the team unpacking the crates that were to be loaded onto trucks for the rough ride over cracked and potholed roads to their final destination. Despite his small stature and reedy voice, Kensit was confident that his team would follow his orders to ensure the fragile instruments would make the trip intact and be ready for testing.

The barely functional harbor, severely damaged by the 2010 earthquake that killed a quarter of a million people, served as a strong reminder of why the world needed Kensit to take drastic action to save it from itself. Garbage was piled everywhere. Buildings that had crumbled in the temblor remained unusable. A gantry crane teetered in the middle of the harbor like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, its base completely submerged. Gaunt children rooted around in the refuse for whatever useful scraps they could find and sell.

The scene was representative of the laziness, corruption, and lack of will rampant in every country. Kensit thought of himself as too intelligent to believe in fate or destiny, but he did know an opportunity when it presented itself and the inheritance he had received nearly three years before was just that. If it had gone to anyone else, it would have been wasted; in his hands, the radical theories could usher in a new direction for civilization, with Kensit as its guide.

Lawrence Kensit had been unlike anyone else as far back as he could remember, which he saw as their deficiency, not his. His parents constantly told him that he was special, a fact that he considered self-evident in his ability to master calculus by the age of ten. He didn’t connect with other children, and adults found him to be an oddity or an amusing diversion trotted out to perform tricks.

Kensit found the isolation strangely appealing. People were annoying and tedious, with their small talk and need to placate others’ feelings. Instead, he immersed himself in online worlds where he could take on the persona of a powerful dark knight or sorcerer, someone equal to the stature that he could not hope to achieve in the real world because of his small build and meek appearance. In the real world, his towering intellect provoked jealousy and discomfort from those around him that radiated from their pores, but online he could make them submit to his will whether they wanted to or not.

After graduating from Caltech at eighteen with Ph.D.s in both physics and computer science, he had been recruited by the top universities. Although the idea of shutting himself away to ponder the deepest questions of the universe was intriguing, weapons design was far more fascinating to him. Drone warfare was in its infancy, but he saw the potential for transforming his video game experiences into reality.

The end result was more frustrating than he’d imagined it would be. His elegant software designs were used inefficiently by politicians who were more concerned about limiting civilian casualties than killing the terrorists or winning the wars the drones were meant for. Kensit’s eyes were opened to all of the other problems that faced the planet. When he saw the answers in his mind, they seemed so simple to him, but when he explained them to others they seemed strangely repulsed by his solutions.

Then one day three years ago a lawyer called him up and told him that a great-aunt he’d never met had died. Because his parents had both succumbed to cancer at an early age, Kensit was his aunt’s last living relative and she had left him a small inheritance that included a diary from her uncle, a German scientist named Gunther Lutzen who had died in the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelée in 1902. Kensit nearly chucked the thing without reading it, but he casually flipped it open and found his uncle’s equations, one of the few times in his life that he’d been truly stunned academically.

Kensit at once recognized that his genius had been familial. The equations he understood, but Pearson’s prying when Kensit had asked him to translate some of the words made him realize he would need a professional translator to decipher the German text for him. When Kensit read the results, he knew he alone had to carry on his distant relative’s work. If he turned the radical concepts over to his employer, the U.S. government, they would just waste them like they wasted his drone technology.

That was the day he began plotting to fake his death. It took two years to accomplish, followed by another nine months of eighteen-hour days, but he was nearly finished with the next step toward attaining the power to remake the world however he saw fit.

When the final checks of equipment were finished and the trucks drove off, it was time for his phone call. He found a quiet section of the loading dock and dialed Admiral Dayana Ruiz.

“Yes,” she answered on the fourth ring.

“Admiral, didn’t you see who was calling?” His voice was transformed by a modulator so that NSA eavesdropping software wouldn’t recognize his voice.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Then you should answer faster next time. You waste our time when you play petty mind games.”

“I waste our time?” she said. “You were the one who didn’t sink the Ciudad Bolívar. I lost twelve men on the operation, and I’m having to answer questions about why Venezuelan Navy seaman were aboard her when she was discovered. And where are my drone subs?”

“I had to sink them.”

“You what?”

“They were about to fall into American hands. I couldn’t let that happen.”

Ruiz shouted so loudly that Kensit had to hold the phone away from his ear. “When I find you, whoever you are, I will destroy you!”

“Your focus is on the wrong person,” Kensit said. “You should be after Juan Cabrillo.”

“Who is that?”

“You know him as Buck Holland, captain of the Dolos. His ship is actually called the Oregon, and you didn’t really sink it. It was all an elaborate ruse.”

“What are you talking about? How do you know that we sank the Dolos?”

“As I said, you didn’t sink it. You sank a duplicate.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it? Then how can you explain Lieutenant Dominguez and the rest of his men getting ambushed aboard the Ciudad Bolívar?”

“You. You’re behind all of this.”

“Why would I do that? Now I don’t get the balance of the money you owe me. What would I have to gain? Admiral, this really isn’t that difficult.”

There was a pause. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

Kensit tapped on the phone’s screen, then said, “Look at the text I just sent.”

It was a photo of Juan Cabrillo and Franklin Lincoln aboard the Ciudad Bolívar after it had partially capsized, standing on the railing, with the Oregon in the background.

“Do you recognize them?” Kensit asked.

“The blond man, no. But the black man was at my warehouse in Puerto La Cruz.”

“The man you don’t recognize is Juan Cabrillo, aka Buck Holland. The ship you see is the Oregon.”

“It’s the same dimensions, but it looks nothing like the Dolos.”

“They can disguise their ship.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I thought you might say that. Check your messages again.” He sent her a short time-lapse video of the Dolos being transformed into the Oregon.

After watching it, Ruiz growled, “I will hunt those spies down and vaporize them.”

“How? You have no idea where they are.”

“But you do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I can’t just leave Venezuelan territorial waters with a frigate. I need a reason.”

“I know. In three days there will be a combined fleet exercise called UNITAS in the Bahamas.”

“I’m aware of it. Venezuela was not invited to participate.”

“Neither was Cuba,” Kensit said. “But both of you can send your own ships to observe their operations. When you are near Haiti, you will divert your vessel and sink the Oregon.”

“Why are you so eager to help me? What will this cost?”

“You have political ambitions. I’ll make sure you achieve them.”

“Why?”

“You’re my type of leader. Direct, action-oriented, a little emotional for my tastes, but I can live with that. Once I help you sink the Oregon, I expect the rest of my payment.”

“You’re insane!”

“No, that’s only fair. And if you don’t sink the Oregon, I will reveal that her captain outwitted you. Your credibility in the Venezuelan Navy would be shattered. Then once your reputation is destroyed, you’ll go to prison when I release details about your smuggling operation. Be there in three days.” He didn’t wait for a response before he hung up. Ruiz would come. She didn’t have a choice.

He put the phone away and saw Hector Bazin walking toward him.

“Doctor, Brian Washburn arrived as you instructed. I’ve got him in the car. Shall I bring him?”

“Yes. Once we’re on the boat, I need you to go to the United States. Captain Cabrillo is causing us more problems.”

“Kill him?”

“If you can. But now that he’s found out about the Piranha subs, the U.S. military may suspect that someone on my old weapons development program was responsible for selling the plans, so your highest priority is to eliminate any remaining links between me and the Sentinel project. I’ll brief you about the target once you’re in the air.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get the governor.”

Bazin returned with Washburn, who looked as if he didn’t want his six-hundred-dollar shoes to be exposed to the air here, let alone touching the dock. When he got close to Kensit, he stuck out a hand and turned on the charm.

“You must be the Doctor,” Washburn said with a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, it’s not,” Kensit said, ignoring the hand. “I sent for you and you came. There is no power balance in this relationship. You’re used to being the one in charge. Not here. You work for me now.”

Washburn’s smile vanished, replaced by a sneer. “Who do you think you are, you little weasel?”

“I’ve been called every name possible during my life, so save the macho posturing. I have video of you murdering a man. You can leave now and face the death penalty or life in prison. You can try to kill me, and Bazin here will break your neck before you can reach me. Or you can do as I say and become president of the United States. Choose right now.”

Washburn looked at Bazin, then back at Kensit, and realized he was completely outmatched, both physically and mentally. The sneer dissolved.

“All right. But why have you brought me to this godforsaken place? It literally reeks.”

“That’s what happens when you have a city of three million people with no functional sewer system. You would not want to swim in the harbor. We’re going to take a ride on the Victoire over there.”

Kensit pointed at a white, hundred-foot-long Lürssen yacht with a satellite dish on the foredeck.

“We’re going on a cruise?” Washburn said.

“First, I’m going to show you my facility. A place called Oz.”

Washburn’s lip curled. “You’re joking.”

“Have you found me funny up to this point?”

Washburn put up his hands. “Okay. Oz. Where is it?”

“You won’t know that, but I will show you my operation because I need you to believe I can do everything I say I can do.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“I operate a revolutionary surveillance system. One that needs to be seen to be believed. It’s called Sentinel. I also want you with me when we complete our most important mission using Sentinel’s capabilities. You gave your company the excuse I told you?”

Washburn nodded. “I’m here to review our aid for the Haitian earthquake rebuilding efforts.”

“Good. That will survive scrutiny. Not that anyone will suspect you have anything to do with what’s about to happen.”

“Which is?”

Kensit ignored the question. “Who is standing in your way in the next presidential election?”

“No one’s declared yet, but James Sandecker has a head start as the incumbent vice president if he wants the presidency. Are you saying you have dirt on Sandecker, too?”

“No, he’s squeaky clean. But you’ll need an edge to win in the primary. That’s why we have to make you vice president.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to kill Sandecker.”

Washburn’s eyes bugged out. “You want me to be party to killing the vice president of the United States?”

“You’ve killed before. You’ll have to kill again if you’re president, you’ll just have drones and soldiers doing it for you. You’re all in, just like I am.”

“You think killing him will make me president?”

“You were the second choice for vice president in the election. You’re nearly certain to be selected as his replacement, making you the instant front-runner.”

“But it’s crazy! Even if I agreed to go along with this, you’d never be able to do it. The Secret Service protects him as well as they protect the president.”

“You leave that to me.”

Washburn eyed him with the implacable face of a career politician. “If I’m ‘all in,’ I think I deserve to know what you’re planning.”

Kensit sighed in annoyance, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt now to reveal the mission’s goal. All of Washburn’s electronics had been confiscated by Bazin, so there would be no way for him to convey any information until after the deed was done. By then it would be too late for him to chicken out.

“In three days the vice president will be returning from a summit in Rio de Janeiro,” Kensit said. “When he is over the Caribbean, I’m going to shoot down Air Force Two.”

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Juan had never met St. Julien Perlmutter in person, but he had consulted with him several times during past missions, most recently about a sunken Chinese junk called the Silent Sea. When Tyler Locke mentioned a potential link between Kensit and a ship called the Roraima, Juan’s first call after leaving Pax River was to Perlmutter. The maritime expert was delighted to hear that Juan was in the neighborhood. A noted gourmand as well, he insisted that Juan and Eric join him for a late lunch at his home.

Juan’s second call was to Langston Overholt, who told him that DNA analysis would take several days even if they could find original samples of Kensit and Pearson’s DNA to compare the tissue found at the crash site. In the meantime, they had to operate under the assumption that Locke’s forensic assessment correctly surmised that it was Kensit whose body wasn’t found and that he was still alive.

Other than the ship connection, the only other lead into Kensit’s motives was the German diary the coworker mentioned. After he brusquely ended his consultation with Pearson, Kensit would have had to find someone else to translate the document for him, a company or individual with expertise in scientific terminology. That narrowed down the list of possible translators considerably, and Overholt told Juan he’d get back to them when he had something.

When he reached Perlmutter’s estate on a brick road flanked by hundred-year-old oaks, Juan wheeled their rental car around the circular drive of the three-story manor and parked on the side in front of a carriage house that rivaled the main house in size. Perlmutter had remodeled this building that once housed ten horses and five carriages, as well as upstairs quarters for stable hands and drivers, to accommodate his vast library. He was renowned for owning the world’s most extensive collection of books, rare documents, and private letters about ships and shipwrecks. If there was any record of a German scientist aboard the Roraima when it sank, St. Julien Perlmutter would know of it.

With Eric at his side, Juan reached for the front door’s anchor-shaped knocker, but before he could use it the door flew open, revealing a man who could have been Saint Nick’s larger brother, dressed in a regal purple robe and matching paisley pajamas. His twinkling blue eyes were framed by shaggy gray hair, a full beard with a twisting mustache, and a tulip nose. Although he loomed at a gargantuan six foot four and four hundred pounds, Perlmutter was solid, without a jiggle of flab visible. A tiny dachshund gamboled around their feet, yapping happily.

“Juan Cabrillo!” he cried, grabbing Juan’s hand and giving it a vigorous shake. “What a true pleasure it is to finally meet you!”

“It’s an honor to be invited to your home, Mr. Perlmutter. I only wish I had brought something with me to share. I know you treasure regional delicacies.”

“Where is the Oregon now? Not docked nearby?” Perlmutter was one of the few privy to the Oregon’s true nature and his discretion was unquestioned.

“No, it’s currently in the Dominican Republic.”

“Well, then send me some fresh conch and plantain when you get back. I have a fricassee recipe I’ve been dying to try. And this must be Eric Stone making friends with Fritz.”

Eric was on his knees, rubbing the dog’s belly. He rose and offered a hand. “Sorry. That’s one thing I miss with shipboard life. We had a beagle when I was a child and he had just as much energy as your dog.”

“Not to worry, Mr. Stone.” With the attention gone, Fritz’s barking restarted. “Fritz, behave! Or I will get a cat to set you straight.”

“Please excuse our last-minute call,” Juan said.

“Not at all. You’re just in time to help me try my newest creation, a truffled lobster risotto and Precoce d’Argenteuil asparagus tips served with a bottle of Condrieu Viognier.”

Perlmutter led them through hallways and rooms stacked with books and papers on every available flat surface. Juan knew that administrators in libraries and museums the world over salivated at the thought of acquiring the incredible trove of marine history that made up his unparalleled collection.

Eric gaped at the ancient maps and weathered tomes that seemed to be haphazardly strewn about. “It must be quite a task to catalog all of this. I’d love to see your database.”

Perlmutter tapped his temple. “This is my database, young man. I don’t think in computer language. I don’t even have one.”

Juan was amused to see Stoney’s jaw drop even lower. “You keep track of all this in your head?”

“My boy, I can find any piece of information I want in sixty seconds. Like any good treasure hunter, you just have to know where to look.”

They were escorted into an elegant sandalwood-paneled dining room, which looked decidedly bare as it was the sole room without a single book. They sat down at a thick, round dining table carved from the rudder of the famed ghost ship Mary Celeste and enjoyed the early-afternoon repast while Juan and Eric regaled Perlmutter with sea stories from their adventures, leaving out details that would compromise any classified information. Fritz was kept happy and quiet with regular pieces of lobster fed to him by Perlmutter.

When they were finished, Juan swirled the last of his wine. “Your reputation as an epicure is well deserved. I couldn’t imagine a better lunch.”

Eric nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can convince Mr. Perlmutter to share the recipe with the Oregon’s chef.”

“Happy to! And perhaps he can send me one of his favorites in return.”

“Done,” Juan said.

“Excellent! Now, my cooking is not the only reason you came to see me, is it?”

Juan told Perlmutter about the missing physicist, the German diary he supposedly inherited, the mention of Oz and the Roraima. “Flimsy, I know,” Juan said, “but we were hoping you could point us in the right direction.”

Perlmutter patted his cheek with one finger for a few moments and then leaped up with startling agility and dashed into another room. He returned not thirty seconds later, thumbing through a thick book titled Cyclone of Fire: The Wreckage of St. Pierre.

“The eruption of Mount Pelée was the deadliest volcanic eruption of the twentieth century and it happened on May 8, 1902,” Perlmutter said. “It’s also unique in that we have such a rich historical record of the ships that were sunk in the disaster. I know of no other volcano that resulted in so many wrecked ships that can still be explored. Only one ship survived, the Roddam. Sixteen ships were sunk that day, including the Roraima. Many of them settled upright on the bottom and can still be dived on to this day.”

“Do you think that’s the Roraima we’re looking for?” Juan asked.

“I know it is. This is the only remaining copy of a book that went out of print a hundred years ago. Remember that this was the biggest catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere. All but two people in a town of thirty thousand perished. Scores of books were rushed out about the subject. To take a different angle from the dozens that recounted the horrors visited on the city of Saint-Pierre itself, this one focused on the ships that were in the harbor that day. It was written by a newspaper reporter who took great care in interviewing shipboard survivors and relatives of those who died. Unfortunately, his journalistic thoroughness resulted in a publishing delay, so by the time the book came out the market was saturated. Most of them were pulped.”

“Does it say something about Oz?” Eric asked, incredulous.

“Indeed it does,” Perlmutter said, tapping the page. He read the relevant passage to them.

“Ingrid Lutzen, a German émigré to the United States, lost her brother, Gunther, in the disaster. She sobbed as she recounted how excited he sounded in his final letter to her, sent from the ship’s previous stop in Guadeloupe. He was searching for evidence in the Caribbean to support his postdoctoral research in physics that he was carrying on from his work at Berlin University and had made a recent breakthrough in the new field of radioactivity. Gunther was an avid photographer, even going so far as to convert his stateroom into a makeshift darkroom, and was planning to show her the photos documenting his work. The only keepsake she received was a diary of his scientific research given to her by the Roraima’s first officer, Ellery Scott. He told Ms. Lutzen that her brother’s last words were ‘I found Oz,’ a reference to a favorite story of Gunther’s when she was teaching him English during his last visit with her. It gave her some peace knowing that he died thinking of their shared memory.”

Eric peered at Perlmutter as he processed the paragraph. “Didn’t The Wizard of Oz come out long after this in 1939?”

“The film did,” Perlmutter replied. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published in 1900 as a children’s book. It’s quite likely that foreign immigrants would have used the book to learn our language.”

“But he said, ‘I found Oz,’ as though he’d actually been there,” Juan said.

“Delusional perhaps? A hallucination in his final death throes?”

“Kensit seemed to think it was important. And the book references the diary that he inherited, so it definitely exists.”

“And Lutzen was a physicist,” Eric chimed in, “same as Kensit. But without knowing about the specific research Lutzen was conducting, we have no idea why Kensit would fake his own death to pursue it a hundred years later.”

Nothing about this was adding up for Juan. “What kind of evidence would Lutzen have been searching for? Why would a physicist be scouring the Caribbean for his research?”

“Your answer may lie inside the Roraima,” Perlmutter said. “Lutzen was an avid photographer.”

Eric shook his head. “That film has been bathing in warm salt water for over a hundred years. It’s probably mush by now.”

“Not necessarily,” Perlmutter said. “It’s possible that the glass plate negatives, which he would have used at that time, are still intact if the seals on the container haven’t been compromised. Frank Hurley, the photographer on the Shackleton expedition, saved photos that had been submerged in seawater because they had been stored in zinc-lined cases that had been soldered shut. If Dr. Lutzen was similarly prudent, the photos might have survived.”

“If they’re still there at all,” Juan said. “Martinique isn’t exactly off the beaten path. Divers have been picking over those Saint-Pierre wrecks for decades.”

“Maybe not so thoroughly as you think. The Roraima sits in one hundred and fifty feet of water, below the level of most recreational scuba divers. Bottom times will be limited for all but the most technically adept divers, and few will have fully explored the interior, which is dangerous because of the rusting hull.”

“It’ll take a while to search the ship since we don’t know where his cabin was,” Eric said.

Perlmutter gave him a crafty grin. “I believe I can help you out there as well.” He darted out of the room and came back with a roll of paper that he spread on the table. It was the deck plan for the Roraima.

“Okay, I’m convinced,” Eric said. “No computer needed here.”

Although he couldn’t know which particular cabin Lutzen had occupied, Perlmutter pointed out where the passenger staterooms were located, considerably narrowing the search grid.

“May I take a photo of this?” Eric asked.

“By all means,” Perlmutter said, waving at the plans. “And when I finally get a chance to see that fantastic ship of yours, I expect a guided tour from you.”

“Absolutely.”

When Eric was finished with the snapshots, Perlmutter ushered them to the door. “Do come back someday. And let me know if you find Oz as well.”

“I just hope we don’t run into any flying monkeys,” Juan said with a wink.

“Me neither,” Eric agreed. “They always freaked me out.” When he saw the looks from the other two men, he quickly added, “Back when I was a kid. Not now.”

Perlmutter bellowed a hearty laugh, and after Eric gave Fritz one last scratch, he closed the door behind them.

No sooner were they on the road than Langston Overholt called back.

“Juan, we’ve found the translation firm. Global Translation Services.”

“That was fast.”

“They remembered it because it was such an odd job. Kensit had the translator transcribe the notes by hand so there wouldn’t be a digital record.”

“I’d like to speak to the translator.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Overholt said ominously.

“Why?”

“He’s dead. Killed in a hit-and-run four months ago.”

Juan grimaced. “That’s not the kind of coincidence I like.”

“Neither do I.”

“Is there anyone else I can talk to there? They might remember something.”

“The translator worked for a man named Greg Horne. He’d be willing to speak with you.”

“Where are they located?”

“Manhattan. Midtown. They do a lot of work for the United Nations.”

Juan checked his watch. “We can be there in two hours.”

“I’ll set it up.”

After alerting Tiny Gunderson to fire up the jet for a New York flight, Juan made sure he had a secure encrypted phone connection before he called Max, who he’d left in charge of the Oregon.

“How are our guests?” Juan asked.

“Mr. Reed is being tended to at the rehab facility by some nurses that are so beautiful, I wish I was the one who had been shot. His fishing boat is fully repaired and ready to sail back to Jamaica when he’s feeling up to it.”

“What about Maria Sandoval?”

“She’s been given our finest guest cabin and has an escort with her at all times to the exercise facilities, the mess hall, and the deck. I think she’s still under the impression that we’re a high-tech smuggling operation.”