Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

Spy at Sea by Edward D. Hoch

© 1993 by Edward D. Hoch

One of the things we can always depend on in a story from veteran Edward D. Hoch is careful research. Whether his tale concerns the history of the Old West or conditions on a freighter bound for Istanbul, he’s sure to have come up with interesting facts that we won’t soon forget...

“She sails at midnight on the Happy Moon,” the man in the striped robe told Rand. “It’s a small coastal freighter bound for Istanbul.”

They were seated in a dingy sailors’ café along the waterfront in Karachi, Pakistan, a city Rand had never dreamed of visiting even in his nightmares. He had come there on a mission for an old friend, a Turkish diplomat who had once done him a great favor. A few days earlier, the diplomat had phoned him at home in England and said simply, “My daughter is in trouble, somehow involving drugs.” Rand had known it was time to pay back his debt.

Even the slim guidebook he read on the plane could hardly prepare Rand for Karachi, a sprawling metropolitan area where finance and commerce mingled with an illegal trade in everything from women and drugs to weapons of war. More than five million people moved through its crowded streets, many of them Muslim refugees fleeing oppression and violence in India. Rand had not found Sishane Kemal, the young woman he sought, but after a day of tracking down leads he’d ended up at the sailors’ café, across the table from a man of indeterminate nationality known as Grantor.

“They say you know everyone in the city,” Rand told him, slipping a few British pound notes across the table.

“The Happy Moon,” the slender man in the robe repeated. “I do not know Sishane Kemal, but the ship carries a few passengers. Her name is on the list. Here along the waterfront we keep track of such things. I’ll give you the dock number.”

“What cargo does the Happy Moon carry?” Rand wanted to know.

Grantor shrugged. “Heavy equipment for oil drilling. Who knows what else? Russian weapons abandoned in Afghanistan?”

“Drugs?”

“They say with the new European free trade the borders are quite open. Heroin is already pouring in through Turkey.”

Rand nodded. “And the Happy Moon is bound for Istanbul.”

The bartender came over to see if they wanted another bottle of the cheap Malaysian beer they’d been drinking. “I have to be going,” Rand said, standing up. He offered Grantor a few more bills. “This is for the beer. I appreciate your help.”

The man nodded, closing his long fingers over the money. It was not until Rand had pushed his way out of the crowded café into the afternoon heat that he remembered Grantor had forgotten to give him the dock number. He went back inside and made for the dim comer where the man in the striped robe still sat over his beer.

“What’s the dock number?” he asked, and when the man didn’t respond Rand placed a hand on his shoulder.

It wasn’t until the head lolled to one side that he saw the blood and the deep gash where Grantor’s throat had been only minutes earlier.

The captain of the Happy Moon was a dark-skinned man named Rodriguez whose weathered face bore testimony to many years’ exposure to burning sun and wind-swept salt air. He stood at the bottom of the ship’s gangplank, hands on either railing as if barring the way to Rand and anyone else with the temerity to venture aboard. “We’re a small coastal freighter,” he said. “Don’t have much room for passengers.”

It was past sundown, only a few hours before sailing, and Rand had finally located the ship at an auxiliary dock down beyond the main loading area. The Happy Moon was a 200-foot freighter whose rusty hull shouted neglect. Captain Rodriguez seemed truly surprised that Rand or anyone else would want to sail with him on such a vessel.

“I want to go to Istanbul,” Rand explained.

“You can fly there in a few hours. You’ll be days aboard this tub.”

“I like the sea air, and I don’t need to be there for a week. Tell me, how much is a one-way passage?”

The captain sighed and told him the facts. “We’re a Panamanian-registered ship with a crew of nine. There are four spare cabins for passengers and two are presently occupied. You’ll find there are no frills on this vessel. You’ll take your meals with the crew and pretty much shift for yourself.” He mentioned a sum in British pounds for one-way passage. It seemed high but Rand wasn’t in a position to dicker.

“I’ll take it.”

“Cash. I don’t take credit cards.”

“I’ll cash some traveler’s checks and get my bag. I’ll be back in a half-hour.”

“We’ll sail at midnight,” Rodriguez reminded him. “High tide. I don’t wait for stragglers.”

Rand returned in plenty of time and handed over his money to the captain. A young Pakistani crewman who spoke little English showed him to his cabin. Earlier in the evening, when he first arrived at dockside, Rand had observed a young woman boarding the ship. From what Grantor had told him, and what subsequently happened to the man, Rand was convinced he was telling the truth about Sishane Kemal’s whereabouts. Her motives for the voyage were another matter, but Rand wasn’t concerned with that at the moment. He was on the ship with her, and perhaps during the days of the cruise to Istanbul he’d gain her confidence enough to learn what trouble she was involved in. Certainly her father back in Istanbul hadn’t known.

He went out to the railing at midnight to watch the ship cast off its lines and move slowly away from the dock. There was no sign of Sishane Kemal or the other passenger. Presently, when the ship was in the open channel to the Arabian Sea, Rand went topside and found Captain Rodriguez relaxing with a foul-smelling cigar, talking with another of the crew members.

“Mr. Rand, this is my first mate, Gunther Sallis.”

The man was thin and pale, though his handshake was vigorous. “Pleased to have you aboard,” he said with an accent that might have been German. “It is a clear, starry night.”

Indeed the sky above them seemed clustered with stars, more than he’d ever remembered seeing back in England where the city lights often washed out the beauty of the heavens. “Are the seas calm this time of year?” Rand asked.

The cigar tip glowed as Rodriguez took a puff. “The rainy season comes later in the summer. Right now all is tranquil.”

Gunther Sallis excused himself and returned to the wheelhouse. “Your crew is a mixture of nationalities,” Rand observed.

“Gunther and I are the only Europeans. The other seven are all Pakistani or Afghan. Afghanistan is a landlocked country and virtually all of its trade passes through Karachi. Its people are drawn here to the sea.”

“When the sea is calm it must be a pleasant voyage.”

The captain shrugged. “There are always problems. The Gulf War was very close. We were stopped and boarded by the Americans many times. Now that the war is over I must think about getting a new first mate. Gunther has told me he is sick. He has the early stages of AIDS, and will not be with me on many more trips.”

“It’s a terrible illness,” Rand agreed. He was pleased that the captain was warming to him after their first encounter at the gangplank earlier in the evening. “Tell me about my fellow passengers. I haven’t seen either of them yet.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “I know nothing about them. A young Turkish woman and a Frenchman. You’ll probably see them at breakfast.” He tossed the butt of his cigar into the sea. “Passengers are a nuisance, but Gunther looks after their needs, sees that a crew member makes their beds and cleans their cabins. That’s all we can do, besides feed them.” He went back to the wheelhouse.

Rand was up early, unaccustomed to the motion of even a relatively calm sea voyage. The young Pakistani who’d shown him to his cabin the previous evening, Multan, was mopping the deck outside the cabins when he poked his head out.

“Is breakfast being served yet?”

The young man gave him a white-toothed grin. “Soon. Seven o’clock.”

“Hello, there,” someone said. “English, aren’t you?”

Rand turned to see a middle-aged man with graying hair carrying a pair of binoculars and a book. He introduced himself and the man responded, “Pierre Claquer. Is this your first voyage on the Happy Moon?”

“It is,” Rand acknowledged. “What do you see with the binoculars?”

“Shore birds.” He held up the book and Rand could see it was a guide to birds, printed in French. “The ship remains within sight of the coast during much of its journey, especially through the Red Sea. It’s a perfect opportunity to study the shore birds.”

He offered the glasses to Rand, who put them to his eyes and adjusted them to see the circling white birds off the distant shoreline. “What are those, gulls?”

“Terns. Gulls are rarely found in tropic areas like this. The two are related, however.” He slipped the binoculars into their leather case. “Are you going down to breakfast?”

“Multan said they served at seven.”

“It’s just about that now.”

The ship’s mess was a stateroom barely large enough to accommodate a long table with six chairs on each side. Captain Rodriguez was already there, along with a couple of the crewmen. An Afghan cook served them bacon and eggs with some unidentifiable side dish that Rand chose not to investigate. The coffee was a bit weak but passable.

He was halfway through breakfast when the door opened to admit a handsome young woman of dark complexion and piercing blue eyes. She wore a long gossamer scarf, almost a sari, over more casual attire. “Miss Sishane Kemal,” the captain intoned, “these are our other passengers — Mr. Claquer from Marseilles, France, and Mr. Rand from Reading, England.”

Both of them stood and shook hands with her. “Please be seated,” she insisted, speaking good English. “I didn’t mean to disrupt breakfast with my appearance.”

Rand knew she was twenty-six years old, and she looked about that age. Though he hadn’t seen her father in years, he could make out some resemblance to the elder Kemal. Relieved at this confirmation, he allowed himself the luxury of wondering what he would have done if the woman on board the Happy Moon had been someone entirely different.

Her presence seemed to spark the conversation, and Pierre Claquer immediately asked what had brought her on board. “A sea voyage,” she said with a smile. “I’m returning home to Istanbul. I don’t like to fly and I didn’t wish to travel by train across Iran. This was the only alternative. But how about you?”

He smiled in return. “I am a magistrate on holiday. Birds are my hobby, and this voyage is the perfect way to observe unfamiliar shore birds. There are no cruise lines that travel on exactly this route.”

“And you, Mr. Rand?”

“I’m retired,” he said simply. “Cruising the world.”

“This is a slow way to do it,” Captain Rodriguez told them. “It’s about four thousand miles to Istanbul through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. With luck we can make about six hundred miles a day, so the journey will take us almost a week.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Sishane replied.

After breakfast he followed her out on deck, but there was no opportunity for conversation. The first mate, Sallis, appeared to chat with her and then she moved a deck chair into the sun and sat down, closing her eyes at once.

It was not until the following day, the second of the voyage, as they were passing close to the coast of Oman, that Rand found his opportunity. He came out on deck in the afternoon to find Sishane Kemal standing by the railing staring at the barren coastline. “Not much there except desert,” he remarked.

She turned to him. “Is it Oman?”

“Yes. Like many other Arab countries it exists primarily on oil money.”

“You know a great deal about the Middle East. What did you do before you retired?”

“I was a bureaucrat in London. Dull but necessary.”

Sishane was wearing a striped top and shorts in the balmy tropic air. She might have been any tourist on a Mediterranean cruise line. “My father was stationed in London for a time. Efes Kemal — perhaps you knew him.”

“I may have heard the name,” Rand murmured vaguely.

She sat down on a deck chair and picked up a book she’d brought along. It seemed to be a history of the impact of oil on Middle Eastern affairs. “Not exactly light reading,” he commented.

“When your father is a diplomat it forces you into a certain awareness of global affairs.”

That still didn’t explain what she was doing on board the Happy Moon. But she seemed immersed in her book and Rand could see the brief conversation had come to an end. He spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting with Pierre Claquer about his travels in search of exotic birds.

On the third day out, as the Happy Moon was rounding the Arabian peninsula in preparation for entering the Red Sea, a small fishing boat came out from the shore to meet them. Rand was at the railing watching every move, though he hardly expected any sort of drug transfer would be made in broad daylight. The crewman Multan climbed down the accommodation ladder to speak with the fisherman but returned empty-handed.

“What was that all about?” Rand asked the first mate.

“The fishermen come out to sell us their catches,” Sallis explained. “They had nothing good today, or their price was too high. Multan does well dealing with them.”

A bit later in the day another fishing boat appeared and the scene was repeated. This time Multan passed over some money and came back up the ladder holding a half-dozen good-sized fish. He wore a broad grin as he passed them to the waiting cook. “A good day! These are newly caught.”

They dined on the fish that evening. Rand had to admit they were good, but when told they were a member of the herring family he decided they must be red herring, hardly large enough to conceal a profitable cache of heroin.

Still, the troubling thought persisted that the “trouble” which had concerned Efes Kemal had something to do with drugs. Either Sishane was smuggling them personally or she was accompanying a large shipment on the Happy Moon itself. Later that evening, by trying his stateroom key in the other locks, Rand made the interesting discovery that one key fit the locks on all four passenger compartments. Both Sishane and Claquer might return to their cabins at any time, so he did not attempt to enter either of their rooms just yet. That could come later, if it seemed necessary.

Awakening on the fourth morning, Rand saw that they had entered the Red Sea and were sailing now in a northwesterly direction. After breakfast a couple of the crew members decided to go for a swim and Sishane went along. Claquer got out his camera and joined them. “Don’t go in the water,” Rand cautioned her. “It may not be healthy.”

She smiled back at him as she went down the ladder to the boat they’d lowered. “Thank you for the advice, Mr. Rand. That sounds exactly like something my father would say.”

Her remark troubled him. Had he somehow given himself away? While she and the Frenchman were both off the ship he decided to risk looking through their cabins. The key worked easily in Sishane’s door and he entered to find the stateroom a duplicate of his own. Her bunk had already been made up by Multan, though his own remained undone. Most of her belongings were still in two suitcases, and he went through them quickly — a couple of books in Turkish, another in English, a leather pouch containing a makeup kit and perfume, another pouch with a dozen large brown bottles of assorted vitamin pills, a travel wallet containing her passport and visas. In the tiny closet were the dresses and sports clothes she’d been wearing on the trip. A few toilet articles were in the tiny bathroom.

There was no sign of drugs. Rand went back and unscrewed the top from one of the vitamin bottles, but the small white pills looked harmless enough. Finally he put everything back and carefully left the cabin, making certain he wasn’t seen by a crewman.

He glanced over the railing and saw that the swimmers were still down there, with Sishane and Pierre Claquer watching them from the little boat. Rand took out his key again and entered Claquer’s cabin. He found a half-dozen bird books, additional camera equipment, and nothing to cast doubt on the stated reason for the Frenchman’s presence aboard the Happy Moon.

Back on deck he decided the two searches had been a waste of time. If Efes Kemal’s daughter was in trouble involving drugs or anything else, it was far from apparent. He’d searched the passenger cabins and found nothing suspicious.

Two of the passenger cabins, anyway. He hadn’t bothered with the empty one.

He walked down to the aft cabin and tried his key in the lock. It worked, just like the others. He’d expected a bare bunk, without sheets or blankets, but instead there was a standard gray blanket wrapped around someone. He caught his breath, freezing in the doorway, conjuring up visions of a secret passenger whom no one had seen.

When no movement came from the bunk he went a step closer. Finally he was near enough to lift the blanket. It was the crewman, Multan, and he was dead. His throat had been slashed in the same manner as that man Grantor back at the Karachi café.

He could not admit to Captain Rodriguez that he’d been searching the cabins when he found the dead man, but neither did he feel he could simply walk away quickly as he’d done in Karachi. There, at least, he’d known one of the other cafe patrons would soon discover the victim. Here it could be days. The murderer had obviously put him in the empty cabin to delay discovery.

After a few moments’ thought Rand decided on a compromise. He went out of the cabin but left the door ajar. Surely one of the crew members would notice it and glance inside. Then he went up to the bridge and conversed with Captain Rodriguez about the progress of the voyage.

“We’re making good time,” he suggested, peering at a chart showing the ship’s present position.

“Very good,” Rodriguez agreed. “Here in the Red Sea it’s usually quite calm at this time of year.”

A few minutes later their conversation was interrupted by Sallis, the first mate. “Bad trouble, Captain. Multan’s been killed.”

“Killed?”

“Murdered. His throat was cut. Fandul just came on board from a swim and noticed the door to the empty passenger cabin was open. He looked in and found Multan on the bunk, dead.”

“Take the wheel,” he ordered Sallis. “I’ll go have a look.”

Rand drifted down after him, trying to stay out of the way. The others all seemed to be clustered around the cabin door. “What happened?” he asked Sishane innocently.

“It’s one of the crewmen, young Multan. He’s been killed.”

“That’s terrible!”

He moved away but she followed. In a low voice she told him, “The time for games is over, Mr. Rand. My father sent you, didn’t he?”

He glanced at Pierre Claquer, only a few feet away. “We can’t talk here. Meet me on the fantail after dinner.”

There was much debate over dinner about whether the ship should put in to the nearest port for a police investigation of the killing, but the captain argued it had occurred in international waters and was hardly within the jurisdiction of Ethiopia or Yemen, the countries on either side of them at the moment. No one had a desire to become involved with either country, and it seemed best to leave the decision and the responsibility in Captain Rodriguez’s hands. Orders were given that the body be kept on ice and delivered to the Turkish police when the ship reached its destination.

After dinner Rand strolled to the stem of the ship, to the rounded area that jutted out from the rest. Presently Sishane Kemal joined him. “Someone aboard this vessel is a killer,” she told him bluntly.

“I think that truth is in everyone’s mind,” he agreed. “There are only eight crew members left, plus the three of us. Not many suspects.”

“Why would someone kill him?”

“I thought you could tell me.”

“My father sent you, didn’t he?”

“What gave you that idea?”

She stepped close to him, her eyes almost level with his. “Oh, I remember the name Rand. My father used to tell stories about you, the darling of Britain’s Department of Concealed Communications, the man from Double-C.”

“That was a different person.”

“It was you. He even showed me a picture of you once. You’ve always been something of a hero to him.”

“I’ve been retired from Double-C for sixteen years.”

“But not retired from the world of foreign intrigue. I recognized you the moment we met, Mr. Rand. What are you doing here?”

There was no point in lying further. “Your father is very concerned about you. He believes you’re in some sort of trouble involving drugs.” She frowned at that but said nothing. He continued, “I was told you were in Karachi. I located a man named Grantor down by the waterfront who was familiar with the sailings. He told me you were on board this vessel. He was killed shortly after that—”

“What?”

“—possibly by the same person who killed Multan. The throat wounds were similar.”

“Why would anyone kill him?”

“Because he talked to me?” Rand speculated. “Because he mentioned your name? What are you involved in, Sishane?”

“Nothing. Not drugs, certainly.”

“These ships often carry heroin headed for Europe. With the end of trade restrictions—”

“I told you, I know nothing about heroin or anything like that. I never heard of this man Grantor who you claim was killed because of me.”

“What were you doing in Pakistan that so concerned your father?”

“If you must know, I’m writing a study of population problems in the twenty-first century. Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh seemed good places to begin.”

“You were in Bangladesh too?”

She nodded. “Just last week. It is a tiny country which, if projections are correct, will have more people than the United States by the year two thousand twenty-five.”

“How did you happen to choose this ship for your return home?”

“I’d heard my father mention it once. When I learned it was in port to pick up oil-drilling machinery from Afghanistan, I decided this would be a good route home.”

Rand couldn’t help feeling she was lying, but he had no evidence with which to confront her. Before he could say anything else, Gunther Sallis spotted them on the fantail and strolled over to join them.

“Nice night,” the first mate said. “This is the only time of day the heat is bearable.”

“What will happen when we dock in Istanbul?” Sishane wanted to know. “Will we all be held for questioning?”

“I suppose so. I’ve never had anything like this happen on one of my ships. However, Captain Rodriguez hopes to avoid the Istanbul bureaucracy by reporting the killing at Bodrum, our first stop.” For Rand’s benefit he added, “It’s a port on the Aegean Sea, just past the island of Rhodes. We’ll be off-loading some of our cargo there.”

“Well,” Sishane decided, “I’m going to my cabin. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

Rand followed soon after. No one seemed to linger on deck with a killer on board. He locked himself in his cabin and then, remembering the business with the keys, placed a chair against the door as an added precaution.

At breakfast on the fifth morning the captain announced that they were picking up speed, hoping to reach the Suez Canal that evening, several hours ahead of schedule. He was obviously nervous about the situation, anxious to reach the relative safety of port. They were sailing up the middle of the Red Sea, and Claquer was already grumbling that they were too far from either shore to observe any birds.

“All I can see are a few terns, and even they don’t come out this far,” the Frenchman complained.

Sishane Kemal came to breakfast late and seemed unusually distressed. Rand assumed she’d slept poorly because of the killing, but when he started to leave she tugged on his sleeve. “I have to speak with you,” she said quietly.

He waited for her on deck. She was dressed today in a gray sweatsuit she’d worn once before for jogging around the deck. “What is it?” Rand asked as she joined him, her face showing a certain urgency.

“I want to show you something in my cabin.”

He followed her in silence as she unlocked the door and entered. She went to the bunk and lifted the blanket and sheets from the mattress. There was a large brownish spot that he recognized at once as dried blood. “When did you find this?”

“When I awakened this morning. The sheet had pulled out and I saw it right away. I think Multan was killed in here.”

“It certainly looks like it,” Rand agreed. “Is anything missing from your cabin?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. I’d better go through everything.” She started to do that, but paused after a moment and sank to the bed, burying her face in her hands. “To think that I slept on it!”

“You are in trouble, aren’t you?” Rand asked, putting a hand on her shoulder as an uncle might. “Your father was right.”

“This ship — I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Rodriguez says we’ll be through the Suez tonight. Tomorrow it should be smooth sailing in the Mediterranean.”

It was a day when they all seemed to avoid one another, and Rand noticed that even Claquer had forsaken his bird watching to remain close to his cabin. Everyone was nervous, and when fishermen approached the ship in midaftemoon they were waved away.

Rand took the opportunity to slip below deck. Pretending he wanted to visit the engine room, he went instead to the cargo hold toward the bow. If he was expecting to find heavy burlap bales of morphine base or some other narcotic, he was disappointed. The sturdy wooden crates were obviously built for heavy machinery, and oil-drilling equipment seemed as likely as anything. Odd, though, that he’d never heard of Afghanistan as an oil-producing nation. Returning to the main deck, he asked Captain Rodriguez about this.

“You said you were carrying oil-drilling equipment from Afghanistan, but they have no oil.”

“Naturally not,” the captain answered logically. “That is why they have no need of the equipment. They are selling it to Turkey, which does have oil.”

Rand went back to his cabin and rested, thinking again about the trouble that involved Sishane Kemal.

They cleared the canal just at dawn. Rand and his two fellow passengers stood at the railing watching the Egyptian landscape give way at last to the broad reaches of the Mediterranean. The air felt a bit cooler here, and everyone seemed to revive. Perhaps their spirits were better only because they were nearing their destination ahead of schedule. The captain explained it over breakfast.

“We should dock at Bodrum around midnight, twelve hours ahead of schedule. If the tides are right we can dock at once and unload our cargo at dawn. Meanwhile, I will deal with the authorities regarding the unfortunate Multan. I expect they’ll want to question everyone, but we should be on our way without undue delay.”

Once out into the blustery sea, the voyage turned rough. Sishane was too ill to eat lunch and by dinnertime Pierre Claquer was looking pale too. Rand asked the first mate if the rough seas would continue.

“They should calm down after dark,” Sallis told him. “This is nothing.”

He was right in his prediction. As darkness descended, the winds abated. But something else took their place. Gazing off at the horizon, Rand thought he saw a warship about the size of a destroyer moving in on them. But he couldn’t be sure, and when the darkness was complete he saw no navigation lights.

At around ten o’clock Rand was standing on the fantail with Sishane. The calming seas had settled her stomach and she’d come out on deck for a few breaths of night air. “I feel better,” she admitted. “I’ve never been a good sailor.”

“And yet you wouldn’t fly or take the train back. How did you get to India and those other places to begin with?”

“I flew,” she admitted rather sheepishly, “but I didn’t like it. When I met Gunther Sallis and he mentioned the ship, I remembered my father recommending it to someone once.”

“Where did you meet Sallis?”

“At a research laboratory near Bombay. Indian scientists are among the best in the world in some fields.”

“This had to do with your population studies?”

She nodded. “Methods of birth control—”

She was interrupted by a sudden commotion from the ship’s bridge. Almost at once there were two explosions in the water about a mile ahead of them, lighting up the sea for a fiery instant. “What in hell was that?” Rand wanted to know.

Rodriguez came out of the pilot house and called down to them. “Stay calm! A Turkish destroyer has fired warning shots across our bow. We’re being boarded.”

“In the middle of the night?” Sishane asked. “What is this?”

The ship’s searchlights were turned on, and at once they saw a pair of rubber boats approaching off the starboard side, a half-dozen black-clad men in each. One of the crewmen, Fandul, saw them too, and appeared on deck with a rifle. As he raised it to his shoulder, Rand moved to stop him. But Pierre Claquer was faster.

He had appeared from somewhere holding a heavy Luger pistol. He yanked the rifle out of Fandul’s hands and threw it to the deck. “Put up your hands!” he ordered. “This vessel is in the hands of the Turkish Navy and the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

The joint force of Turkish and American investigators swarmed aboard, fanning out immediately to search the ship. Captain Rodriguez climbed down from the bridge and offered a mild protest. “You could have waited until we docked,” he grumbled.

The man who seemed in charge, an American named McNeil, answered simply, “You might have dumped your cargo. It happened with a ship last month.”

“We carry only oil-drilling equipment.”

McNeil turned to the erstwhile bird watcher. “What did you discover, Claquer?”

“Not much. One of their crew got his throat cut two days ago. The captain hasn’t reported it yet.”

“It happened in international waters,” the captain insisted. “I was waiting until our first port.”

McNeil, a slender man with graying hair, seemed more interested in his mission. “We’ll want to search the compartment where your anchor chains are stored. Found two tons of morphine base in one awhile ago.”

“Search all you want. You’ll find nothing.”

Rand followed the American when he moved away from the group to converse with Claquer. “Since when do Americans have authority to act in Turkish waters?” he asked.

McNeil studied him before responding. “The Drug Enforcement Administration has been working with the Turkish police for more than a year, trying to shut down the two major routes of the narcotics smugglers, across eastern Turkey and here in the Mediterranean. There have been some big seizures. A ship like this carries far more than a caravan of camels.” Almost as an afterthought he asked, “Might I ask what you’re doing on board, sir?”

Rand introduced himself. “I’m retired from British Intelligence.”

McNeil’s eyes took on a new interest. “I doubt if you people ever retire.”

Rand smiled slightly. “That’s what my wife says all the time.”

“I’ll want to speak with you later.”

He moved off with Claquer and Rand watched them take Sishane into one of the cabins for questioning. Rand could see it was going to be a long night, and he was right. It was nearly four in the morning before the search of the ship was completed. No drugs had been found.

Captain Rodriguez stood on the deck and lit a cigar. “I told you I was clean. You picked the wrong ship this time.”

Sishane had reappeared and she told Rand, “I think my father is behind this somehow. They’re taking me off the ship as soon as it’s daylight.”

“What for?”

“Further questioning. At least that’s the term they used. I have to pack my things.”

Rand suspected she was right about her father’s involvement. Claquer would have reported on the ship’s passengers, and Efes Kemal could have passed the word to keep her out of harm’s way. Perhaps he hadn’t trusted Rand to do the job.

“There were no drugs?” Rand asked the American, McNeil.

“Nothing. We opened every one of those crates in the hold. I suspected if we didn’t find morphine base or cannabis we might discover a shipment of Russian weapons coming from Afghanistan. No such luck.”

“Why are you taking Miss Kemal?”

“Her father is a high-ranking Turkish official,” he said, as if that explained everything.

As dawn came up over the Mediterranean, the last of the searchers prepared to leave the Happy Moon. Sishane came out of her cabin, following Fandul, who was carrying her suitcase. Rand saw Gunther Sallis coming down the steps from the upper deck to intercept her. Out in the water, a small motor launch had pulled alongside to carry her to the waiting destroyer.

“Goodbye,” she said, turning to the first mate to shake his hand. “I’m sorry—”

Sallis moved instantly. Before Rand fully realized what was happening he’d looped his arm around her throat and pulled her against him as a shield. His right hand held a razor-sharp knife against her throat. “All of you stand clear or she dies!” he warned. “We’re taking that launch!”

Rand took a careful step forward, trying to block their path to the gangway. Sishane, looking terrified, was stumbling as Sallis pushed her forward. The captain and McNeil seemed frozen to their spots. It was Pierre Claquer who acted, almost without a second thought. He raised his Luger and put a bullet through the side of Sallis’s head.

Efes Kemal had changed little over the years. A balding man in his fifties with a heavy black moustache, he still conveyed to Rand the appearance and demeanor of the quintessential diplomat. “How is your daughter?” Rand asked after they’d greeted one another at Kemal’s office in Istanbul.

“As well as could be expected after her ordeal. I’m pleased you were there, old friend.”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. Pierre Claquer, working with the American Drug Enforcement Administration, is the one who really saved Sishane’s life.”

“And I’m grateful for it. What’s that you have there?”

Rand lifted the leather pouch he carried and placed it on Kemal’s desk. “This, I fear, was the cause of it all.”

Kemal unzipped the pouch and stared at the dozen bottles of vitamin pills. “I don’t understand.”

“You told me your daughter was in trouble with drugs and I leaped to the wrong conclusion — that she was taking or dealing in illegal narcotics. The drugs you referred to were pharmaceuticals. I finally realized that when she told me she met Gunther Sallis, the ship’s first mate, while visiting a pharmaceutical house in India. It was then that he suggested she return here on board the Happy Moon. She’d heard you mention the ship, probably in connection with suspected narcotics trafficking, and it seemed like a good idea to her. She thought it would be easier to get through customs than on a plane, where searches can sometimes be very thorough.”

Kemal tapped one of the bottles with his pencil. “What do these contain?”

“I asked myself that, too. It had to be something that would drive Sallis to kill two men — I’ll get to that in a moment — and threaten your daughter’s life as well. Then I remembered the captain telling me that Sallis was in the early stages of AIDS. There are a number of medications being developed around the world to combat this scourge, though they haven’t yet been approved for use in America or most European countries. Sallis went to the Indian pharmaceutical house to obtain a supply of a new drug for himself, but Sishane got there first. Your daughter is an enterprising young woman. Somehow she obtained these pills, disguised as vitamins, and was transporting them for sale abroad. Each of these dozen bottles contains more than two hundred pills — some twenty-five hundred in all. I’m told there are AIDS sufferers in America and Europe who would pay two hundred dollars apiece for these pills, to be taken once a day. Perhaps even two hundred pounds apiece. You’re looking at a half-million dollars or more right here in this pouch.”

Efes Kemal nodded sadly. “A black market in AIDS medication. That’s what my daughter was involved in.”

“I’m afraid so. Sallis knew she’d gotten the medication he needed, and he was searching her cabin when Multan came in and caught him in the act. Sallis cut his throat, and then changed the blanket and sheets to dispose of the bloodstained ones. He carried the body to the empty cabin in hopes of delaying its discovery. All of this, the changed sheets, the transported body, pointed to a crew member rather than Sishane or Claquer.”

“Can you be so certain the sheets were changed after the murder?”

Rand nodded. “There was blood soaked into the mattress but the sheets were clean. Your daughter didn’t notice it till morning. Sallis was in charge of such things on board. He’d have known where to find new sheets and a blanket.”

“You told me on the telephone that another man was killed back in Karachi.”

“He’d just told me that Sishane was sailing on the Happy Moon. The wound in his throat was so similar that I’m certain Sallis was in the crowded café too. When he heard her name mentioned he walked by the table and slashed this man Grantor. Perhaps he feared Grantor could tell about the pills as well.”

Efes Kemal nodded and stood up. “Old friend, thank you. This will be a secret between us. Let the police have their own theories for Sallis’s actions and his assault upon my daughter. I will speak to her.” Rand reached out for the pouch but Kemal waved him away. “I will handle these.”

They shook hands one more time and Rand departed from the office. He would catch a plane back to England that evening. Thinking about it all on the way to the airport, he had only one regret. He may have made a mistake when he left that half-million dollars’ worth of pills sitting on his old friend’s desk.