A Five Year Plan

Chapter Eight

It was the Florida Department of Law Enforcement — the detective branch of the State Police — that had put Kate on the trail of the boat Rocky Envigado was probably planning to use for his next transatlantic shipment of cocaine. From its offices in Pompano Beach, the FDLE had been keeping two characters, Juan Grijalva and Whittaker McLennan, under surveillance on suspicion of involvement in an insurance fraud. They tracked one of these men to a meeting with an Irishman, Gerard Robinson, who was staying at the Breakers Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Checking through a list of Robinson’s telephone calls, the FDLE found an Isle of Man number. Since the Isle of Man is a British tax haven, the FDLE thought they were onto something and so they contacted the National Criminal Intelligence Service in London for assistance. NCIS told them that the number belonged to Keran Properties, a company in which New Scotland Yard had a long-standing interest. Keran was managed by a local firm of accountants, Pater, Hall, Green, who were themselves under surveillance following a tip-off that a notorious cannabis smuggler, now doing time in a Spanish jail, was a director of Keran. NCIS also informed the FDLE that Jeremy Pater, one of the partners in PHG, owned a house in the British Virgin Islands, as well as a share in a flourishing yacht management company, Azimuth Marine Associates. The managing director of Azimuth was Alonzo Avila. A photograph of Pater, Avila, and a third unidentified man was e-mailed to the FDLE, who contacted the FBI computer records department in Miami in an attempt to put a name to the face.

Pater, Avila, and Azimuth Marine were not known to the computer records department. But the third man was. He was Chico Diaz, Rocky Envigado’s most trusted sicario leader. As soon as Kate was up to speed with the FDLE’s inquiry, she went to speak to Kent Bowen.

‘Jesus Christ, Kate, you wanna run all that by me again?’ yawned the AS AC.

‘It is a little complicated, sir,’ admitted Kate.

‘Complicated? It sounds like an episode of Soap. Jesus Christ, Kate.’

‘Well sir, Azimuth Marine is one of the leading companies in the management and marketing of luxury yachts. Management, charter marketing, crew placement, you name it, they have representation in virtually every international yachting port of call from Fort Lauderdale to Hong Kong.’

Bowen adopted a pained expression. ‘Kate? Just the bottom line, if you don’t mind. I’ve got arteries hardening here.’

Kate felt herself coloring with irritation. Never before had she worked for an ASAC with a manner as casual as Kent Bowen. ‘Just the bottom line’ was not the way the Bureau worked. At the FBI Academy in Quantico, the emphasis had been on building up a complete investigative picture. An investigation was not a sheet of accounts to be summarized in a simple statement of profit or loss. And now this patronizing asshole...

‘We think we’ve found the boat, sir.’

‘You have? Well why didn’t you say so in the first place, Kate?’

‘Because I assumed you’d want to know exactly what makes me believe that we’ve found it, sir. The intellectual and reasoning processes—’

‘This is the FBI, Kate. Not MIT. Reasonable’s the standard we work to here. Reasonable doubt, reasonable suspicion, reasonable this n’that. Exactly and precisely are for some schmuck in a white coat with a slide rule sticking out of his ass. In the time it takes to climb from reasonable all the way up to exactly we could lose a collar.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘So you reckon that this Azimuth Marine outfit have supplied Rocky Envigado with a motor yacht, is that it?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Well how do you work that out?’

Biting her lip, Kate said, ‘There’s an offshore company called San Ferman that’s registered in Grand Cayman that we’ve long suspected is being controlled by Rocky. About three months ago, Azimuth sold a boat to this company. We were able to trace the boat, the Britannia, to a dry dock right here in Miami, sir. It’s on the river at Thirteenth Street. The boat is currently under surveillance. We have a stakeout at a room in the Harbor View Hospital from which we have an excellent view of the—’

‘The harbor, right.’

‘And the dry dock. But as yet we’ve been unable to ascertain if the drugs are already on board.’

Bowen nodded thoughtfully and asked, ‘Kind of work they havin’ done to the boat anyway?’

‘Well, sir, since she’s been in dock she’s had new fuel tanks, an extended cockpit, re-routed plumbing, new air-conditioning, Naiad stabilizers, and quite a lot of hull work.’ She smiled thinly and added, ‘It would be reasonable to suppose that the modified fuel tanks might be where they plan to hide the cocaine.’

‘The tanks, huh?’

‘Well, yes. Except for one thing. You see, sir, I’ve done some calculations based on the size of the boat and the engines. The Britannia is 110 feet long and is equipped with twin Detroit engines each developing just over 2,000 horsepower. That would give the boat an effective cruising range of just about 2,500 miles. Which wouldn’t quite get her as far as the coast of North Africa, or even the Canary Islands, which are about 3,500 miles from the coast of Florida.’

‘But with the modified fuel tanks—’

‘You could stretch her cruising range to about that distance. Maybe even 4,000 miles. But that would leave you with another dilemma. Where to put the coke. Assuming that the purpose of extending her fuel tanks is to—’

‘Yes,’ snapped Bowen. ‘I take your point. She can’t make the distance and carry the dope in her tanks.’ Bowen picked up a paperweight from his desk top and began to toss it in his hands like a baseball. ‘You know, I’ve been giving this matter some considerable thought, Kate, and I’ve come up with an idea of my own.’

‘You have?’ Kate sounded a little more surprised than she could have wished.

‘Yeah. Wanna hear it?’

Kate shrugged. She hadn’t explained the rest of her theory to do with the Britannia’s fuel tanks. But at the same time she was aware of how little Kent Bowen knew about boats and reflected that she really couldn’t afford to antagonize him. She said, ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

‘Well, I was thinking.’

Good start.

‘We know they can compress cocaine, color it, mix it with cellulose, even combine it with glass fiber to create a hard material that can be molded into any shape you like.’

‘Ye-e-es.’

‘Well, d’you remember a few years ago? The dog kennels?’

Kate nodded patiently. Bowen was referring to a narcotics seizure made by federal agents back in 1992. A Colombian drug cartel had manufactured fifty dog kennels made from cocaine. Ground down and treated with chemicals, the dog kennels had had a street value of almost half a million dollars.

‘Suppose Rocky Envigado brain-celled a way to do the same with a boat hull. Polyurethane? Glass fiber?’ Bowen shrugged as he waited for Kate to step in with an exclamation at her ASAC boss’s genius. Instead she looked puzzled, as if she hadn’t quite grasped the ingenuity of what he was suggesting. ‘Well, you said yourself they were working on the hull in this dry dock of yours down on Thirteenth.’

Kate said, ‘You know something? I would never have thought of that. Not ever. That is an incredible idea.’

Impervious to Kate’s sarcasm, Bowen said, ‘It is kind of sneaky, isn’t it? I mean think about that.’ He uttered a little chuckle of appreciation. ‘Goddamn it Kate, when you think about it some more, it really begins to make sense.’

‘It does?’

‘For instance. Most yachts are white, aren’t they? It’s the perfect disguise for a ton or so of cocaine. Jesus Christ, a motor yacht made of pure cocaine. Now that’s what I call a goddamn sports boat.’

Kate smiled thinly and wondered how many more weak jokes he might yet wring out of his hare-brained theory.

‘Now if that isn’t the last word in custom-built motor yachts.’

She let him ramble on for a minute or two before deciding to bring him down to reality again.

She said, ‘Yes, it’s certainly an interesting possibility. Albeit a remote one. However. Suppose there was a way to make the transatlantic shipment without using any fuel at all. Of course you’d need enough diesel to cover the secret compartments for the cocaine. But taking into account the dimensions of the yacht and the position of the engine room, which is aft—’

‘Aft? Where’s aft?’

‘Nautical term. It means in or near the stern of the boat.’ She paused for a second and then added, ‘The back of the boat.’

‘Oh aft, yeah, I know.’

‘Taking that and the construction of the interior bulkheads into account — it’s just light aluminium plate coupled with honeycomb composites — well, I estimate you could store up to 1,000 keys of coke and still have as much diesel as the boat was originally designed to hold.’

Bowen grinned uncomfortably, certain now that he was out of his depth. He replaced the paperweight on his desk and said, ‘So what are you saying?’

‘Just this. Maybe this time, instead of trying to sail the boat across on its own, via Bermuda and the Azores, they’re planning to book the yacht on a transatlantic yacht transport. They are kind of oceangoing ferry boats. For expensive plastic. If you want to get your twenty-four-inch beam Broward over to the South of France for the Cannes Film Festival for instance, you’d probably have it ferried across the Atlantic. It would be perfect cover for someone like Rocky Envigado. His boat rubbing fenders with what passes for high society here in Florida.’

Bowen said, ‘I had no idea—’

That much was true at any rate.

‘That you were so knowledgeable about boats, Kate.’

‘Before Howard, my husband — before he and I separated, we used to spend a lot of time together on his sport-fisher.’

Kate smiled as she recalled the fishing they had done together — marlin, tuna, even the odd shark — and the 78-foot Knight & Carver boat they had owned. Correction, he had owned. The Dice Man. With bait well, fish-freezer and professional tackle center, not to mention three large staterooms finished in rare Hawaiian koa wood, the Dice Man had been a really luxurious but true tournament fishing platform. She missed the boat more than she had realized. Certainly she missed it more than she missed Howard.

She said, ‘That’s where he’s been living since we split. On the boat.’

‘Well I’m from Kansas,’ said Bowen. ‘Reckon that’s as far away from one or t’other ocean as it is possible to be.’

She said, ‘I’ve never been in Kansas.’

‘It’s kind of a square-looking state when you see it on the map. A lot like a picture frame. You’d be hard pressed to recognize its outline if it came up as a question on Let’s Make a Deal. Now Florida — you’re from Florida, right?’

‘Titusville.’

‘Florida is the most recognizable state outline in the whole Union.’

‘Yes it is,’ said Kate. At least they could agree on something.

‘You know what I’m reminded of when I look at that outline, Kate?’

Kate shook her head.

‘A handgun. Short barrel, large grip. Kind of like that Ladysmith you carry. Every time I see that state outline on a road sign I’m reminded of why I’m here.’

‘And why is that, sir?’

‘To combat crime. This is the crime capital of the United States. Didn’t you know that?’

But Bowen wasn’t waiting for an answer.

‘Mostly on account of all the scum who’ve come to settle here from places like Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic’

‘I think that’s all a little—’

He said, ‘Titusville. That’s up the coast, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you always into boats?’

‘Ever since Gemini 8.’

‘Gemini 8? What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘When I was a kid we used to go out on the ocean aboard my daddy’s boat and watch the launches from the Kennedy Space Center. It was best view around for miles. Yes, I’ve been around boats nearly all my life.’

Bowen said, ‘Well, you know boats. But I know law enforcement. You probably heard I was deputy sheriff of Dodge City before I joined the Bureau.’

Kate nodded wearily.

‘Of course this was quite a few years ago. And Dodge was cleaned up before I ever got there.’ He uttered the familiar little chuckle that Kate had learned to detest. ‘Old Wyatt Earp saw to that. One of the reasons I joined the Bureau in the first place was to escape from there. But not before I learned the job the hard way. On the street. Only place you get to develop a nose for it. And right now my nose is telling me that we ought to at least check out this theory of mine. About the boat hull bein’ made of cocaine n’all. You say you know boats?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Then I want you to speak to some boat-builders and see if it can be done. I hear what you say about fuel tanks, Kate. But I think you’re down a gator hole. Those boys have got a lot more ingenuity than you give ’em credit for, Kate. Never underestimate your opponent.’

Kate smiled back at him as he tapped his temple with a forefinger. Underestimating her boss was beginning to look almost impossible.

He said, ‘Think big. That’s what they do. That’s what I do. These bastards don’t conform to the common order. Neither do we, Kate. Neither do we. And when you’ve seen if it can be done — and frankly I’d be very surprised if it couldn’t — well then maybe you can organize some kind of covert team to go into that dry dock and take a closer look at that hull. I’m willing to bet you’ll find some kind of an anomaly.’

‘Anomaly, yeah.’ Kate restrained herself on the edge of a remark she knew she would later regret. She wanted to tell him, yeah, there’s been some kind of an anomaly, all right. I normally get an ASAC for a boss with a brain in his fucking head.

Driving home that night, through the banyan-lined streets of North Miami, she was tuned to Magic 102.7, an oldies station, and there was an early Rolling Stones song she had always loved. And although she had heard the song a thousand times before and knew the words by heart she still found herself thinking of Kent Bowen and how she was going to prove him wrong as she sang along. Time was on her side.