Crooked River

11

Chief P. B. Perelman sat in the back of the meeting room, flanked by Towne and Morris, listening with growing impatience as the Coast Guard oceanographer, a fellow named McBean or McBoon or something, droned on while plowing through an endless PowerPoint presentation, his green laser pointer flashing about like a cat chasing a mouse. In image after image, chart after chart, Perelman was getting a grand tour of the southern gulf and the Caribbean, focusing on Cuba.

Commander Baugh stood next to the oceanographer, in work blues, arms crossed, listening with his head tilted and a serious furrow in his brow.

The images flashed along, finally ending in an animated video that showed the complex swirlings and windings of the Loop Current, the famous oceanographic phenomenon that came up from the south and carried water into the Atlantic, where it joined the Gulf Stream.

What Perelman gathered from the presentation was that it was essentially impossible for the feet to have been carried by any combination of currents, winds, and tides from the Cuban mainland to Captiva Island — except for one area. As the main Loop Current drove northward along the Yucatán coast and into the gulf, a stable eddy, called the Mariel Stream, separated from the current and brushed the northeastern shore of Cuba, from Mariel Bay to Playa Carenero. In this twenty-mile stretch of shoreline, a floating object placed in the water at a tidal low had the possibility of being carried north toward the Gulf Coast of Florida, where it would encounter the natural prominence of the Sanibel/Captiva island chain. And, he concluded, a backtracking simulation of the Mariel Stream and Loop Current indicated that under certain conditions, such an object would require a travel time of about three weeks, plus or minus, to reach Captiva — which he wished to point out fit with the twenty-five-day estimated time the feet were in the water.

At the end of the presentation, the man retreated from the podium and the commander came up, face dark and serious. Two knotted hands gripped the podium and he glowered at the group, turning his head from one side to the other, displaying a fresh whitewall haircut.

“Thank you, Lieutenant McBath,” he said in a gravelly voice.

He allowed a silence to gather in the hall.

“We all remember,” he began slowly, “the Mariel Boatlift, where over a hundred thousand Cubans, released from prisons and mental hospitals, crowded on boats and headed northward, flooding the United States. It was so called because they hailed from Mariel Harbor.”

He looked around.

“There’s a reason why they came from that place. At the mouth of Mariel Harbor, on the gulf side of the bay, is the infamous prison known as El Duende. El Duende is a grim institution, long infamous for the incarceration and torture of political prisoners. Many of the inmates from El Duende joined the boatlift, which almost emptied the prison.”

A satellite image, stamped SECRET, appeared on the screen, showing a vast prison complex surrounded by walls and fences, sprawling along the strand beyond the mouth of the harbor.

“But El Duende was soon refilled by the Communist regime in Cuba.”

The commander started a new PowerPoint presentation with an aerial image of a sprawling facility along a shoreline.

“Here is a recent Homeland Security image of El Duende. It is thriving, if that’s the word, home to an estimated twelve thousand prisoners.”

He went through a series of satellite images showing buses arriving and leaving, prisoners getting on and off, yards filling with prisoners during exercise time, and so forth. Perelman listened with interest as the commander outlined the rumored horrors of El Duende. “Our number one hypothesis,” he concluded, “is that these feet are the fruits of torture and large-scale executions at El Duende. Whether the feet were the product of an intentional or accidental mass dumping is an interesting but, for now, irrelevant question. One way or another, they ended up here — and it’s our job to find the answers.” He straightened up. “Any questions?”

There was a murmur of conversation and the questions came thick and fast. Towne leaned over to Perelman. “Not a bad theory, if you ask me.”

“Seems as likely as any.” Perelman had to admit it made sense, but he felt uneasy at how quickly the Coast Guard had settled on it to the exclusion of all other theories. He glanced around for Pendergast, curious whether he was going to make more provocative inquiries, but did not see him in the room.

As the questions trickled off, the commander resumed.

“So what is the next step in the investigation? We’ve asked Homeland Security to provide a detailed analysis of El Duende, covering the time frame when the feet would have entered the ocean, to see if there was any unusual activity. DHS will also comb through SIGINT intercepts from that time frame, and tap ONI and HUMINT sources as well.”

He looked around. “What I’m about to tell you is classified.”

At this the room went completely silent.

“Over the next few days, the Coast Guard is going to send a national security cutter, under my command, to the Mariel coast to perform surveillance operations. We have a Sentinel-class fast-response cutter of the right specifications hailing from the Port Charlotte Station. It has a sophisticated S/SCIF, SEI sensors, increased data-exchange bandwidth, AIS data sharing, and other enhanced capabilities. The flight deck accommodates a DoD HH-60 helicopter, and it is fully integrated with the National Distress and Response System Modernization Program...”

Perelman tuned this out. God, what was it with these military guys and their acronyms? He knew that the Cuban coastline was routinely surveilled by the U.S. fleet, so this wasn’t anything unusual. What did seem a bit unusual was that Baugh himself would command. But then again, he seemed just the kind of guy who would go for the glory. More power to him, if it advanced the case.

The briefing ended and the assemblage began to break up. Perelman rose along with Towne and Morris. “I wonder where Pendergast has gotten to?” he asked.

Towne chuckled. “He’s an odd duck. What the hell is he doing with that garbage he lugged away? God, I’d love to have seen the Flamingo View Motel manager’s face when he carried in those stinking bags.”

“He’s staying at the Flamingo View?” Morris asked. “You’d think the feds would have a bigger budget.”

“Maybe he’s combing through the garbage hoping to find Captain Kidd’s treasure map,” said Towne.

Perelman didn’t respond. He’d thought about it for quite a while after Pendergast and his ward drove away, and ultimately he’d arrived at what felt like a pretty fair guess as to what Pendergast was doing with that garbage. He wondered why Baugh hadn’t thought of doing the same — or why he himself hadn’t, for that matter. An odd duck, for sure — but a damned clever one.