Guardian of Lies

FORTY-EIGHT

Within minutes, three of Alim’s men were overcome by motion sickness. Swaying and twisting in the dimly lit container under the flapping rotor of the huge blades, Nitikin could hear them retching in alternate waves on the other side of the wooden crate.

Alim hollered at them, but it seemed to have little effect. The men could not control themselves. The air in the metal coffin was stifling, and the constant motion in the enclosed container disoriented the inner ear even with the Dramamine.

Yakov closed his eyes, propped his elbows on his knees, and steadied his head in his hands to control himself. In less than five minutes, he was unconscious.

Alim had had enough of the weaklings who followed him. The one he shot through the head the day of the dragon’s breath had tried twice to abandon his comrades and escape from the camp. He looked at the two on the floor by the crate as they soiled themselves. He jammed a fully loaded thirty-round banana clip into the receiver of his rifle. He would have shot them on the spot except he knew he would need them, at least for a few more days.

On the other side of the crate he could see shadowed faces in the dim light, the interpreter and two brothers, who struggled to their feet. The two young men looked almost ashen, and were breathing heavily. But at least they were trying. Alim grabbed one of the other rifles from the duffel, jammed a clip into the receiver, then tossed it to one of them. He grabbed one more weapon and a clip, and then glanced down at the Russian who by now had toppled over and was laid out flat on the floor. Alim kicked him with one foot to make sure he was out before stepping away from the unguarded weapons still in the duffel bag. He loaded the other rifle and handed the Kalashnikov to the other brother. He told them to sit and relax and to keep an eye on the Russian.

It would be a long ride. Alim knew that the extra fuel tanks on the Skycrane would extend the usual three-hundred-mile range of the helicopter out to nearly two thousand miles, almost all of it over the ocean. It would take them ten hours to rendezvous, and then from there just under four days to their destination. Before anyone knew what was happening, they would be there.

Afundi tapped the interpreter on the shoulder and the two men slipped between the wooden crate and the wall to where Nitikin was lying on the floor.

The interpreter lifted the Russian’s eyelids, first one and then the other. He checked the pupils in both eyes with the flashlight and checked Nitikin’s pulse.

“He’s okay,” said the interpreter.

The last thing they wanted was an overdose. The cartel’s doctor in Tijuana was very precise regarding the amount to use. They wanted to know the weight of the victim, the age, and whether the pills would be administered with alcohol.

The tablets were known in some circles as “Mexican Valium.” In the U.S. it fell under the rubric of one of the more popular date-rape drugs. In the right amount, it would knock the victim out for hours. Properly managed and administered it could keep them in a haze for days. And when they finally woke up, they would remember nothing.

This evening Maricela, Herman, and I go over Nitikin’s note line by line looking for any information we might glean. She had promised her father that she would maintain the note in confidence. But because Katia is now in trouble, she is certain that her father would want her to do everything in her power to help.

Goudaz is in the other room working at his computer with the door closed. We talk in hushed tones as we sit at the dining table.

“He doesn’t mention a ship by name,” says Herman. “But somehow he knows that he is going to be at the Port of Balboa in Panama in two days. He doesn’t give us a certain time, but he says he’s gonna call.”

Most of the message is personal. For Maricela this is painful. All indications are that Nitikin’s phone call from Panama is intended as a final good-bye. While he doesn’t say it in so many words, the message has an ominous tone. Reading the note carefully conveys the definite sense that whatever is happening, the Russian does not expect to survive.

“Why would he be working with these people?” she says. “He detested Alim. I could tell.”

“Maybe he has no choice,” I tell her.

“What I don’t get is this part right here,” says Herman. “Who is the contender?” He points to the word in Spanish on the note. The Russian’s handwriting is a scrawl. “He says, ‘The contender is ready.’ Do you know what that means?” He looks at Maricela.

She shakes her head.

“How is the word used in Spanish?” I ask. “What is a ‘contender’? Is it an enemy? It could be a reference to Alim.”

“No,” she says. “‘Contender’ in Spanish is spelled the same as English. It means the same thing. It’s not an enemy. It’s like a competitor.” She squints and looks more closely at the note. “Ah. The word he uses is contenedor. How do you say?” She looks around as if her eyes are scanning the floor and the walls for the English translation, and then says, “Container. He is saying that the container is ready.”

“What kind of container?” says Herman.

“If he’s going by ship to Panama, it could be a cargo container,” I say.

“That would make sense,” says Herman. “When you were down there with your father, did you see any cargo containers? You know, a large metal box, about the size of a small truck trailer.”

She shakes her head. “My father would not permit me to move around the camp. He didn’t want me to see what was happening.”

“Assuming that’s what it is, then all we need to know is what’s in the container,” I say.

“That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” The voice comes from behind me. When I turn in the chair, the mayor is standing in the hallway holding some papers in one hand and a pen in the other. He seems to have been listening for some time.

“I couldn’t help but overhear. I know that the Port at Balboa, in Panama, is a major transshipment point. There is a large international container facility there. The reason I know this is one of my sidelines. I install electronic sound systems in small boutique hotels and my supplier runs the stuff across the border around customs for me from the port in Panama. I don’t know if you remember, but a few years ago there was a big flap because the Chinese government was in negotiations with Panama to purchase the container terminal. It became a very touchy subject because of the canal.”

“I remember,” says Herman. “Did the sale ever go through?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” said Goudaz. “I take it you’re trying to track a container?”

“It’s possible,” I tell him. “We’re not sure.”

“From Colombia to Balboa?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t want to butt in, but I know somebody who works at Puntarenas, the Pacific port facilities here in Costa Rica. If you want I’ll give him a call and see what I can find out.” Goudaz seems to know everybody everywhere. It’s the nature of his chosen line of work. I am hoping that he doesn’t trip over the news that there’s a warrant out for my arrest floating around Costa Rica.

“It could be a waste of time,” I say.

“That’s what I’m here for,” says Goudaz.

“You are so good,” says Maricela.

“Give me a few minutes.” He disappears back down the hall and into his study.

“How long do you think he was listening?” Maricela says it under her breath.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Long enough to know we were talking about a cargo container.” There are limits to the degree of trust Maricela places in Goudaz. It is one thing to seek shelter in his apartment in an emergency, another to tell him where her father is. Clearly they are both using each other to some degree. The price of friendship for Goudaz is information. The question is, what does he do with it all? The problem Herman and I have is that we cannot check into a hotel without being arrested. So all we can do is make the best of it, and thank Goudaz for his hospitality.

We look down the hall to make sure the door to his study is now closed.

“I don’t want to sound too optimistic,” Herman whispers, “but it is possible that your father’s part in whatever they’re doing down in Colombia is done. Maybe they’re just gonna let him go. It could be that’s the reason he’s going to Panama.”

“Why would they try to kill me and let my father go?” says Maricela.

“Yeah, well, you got a point,” says Herman.

“No. When my father is no longer necessary, they will kill him. If he is going to Panama it is because they are taking him there, and if they are taking him there, it is because they need him. It is how he forced them to let me go. He didn’t tell me, but I knew. If he finds out what they did to Katia and that they tried to kill me, I guarantee you he will no longer help them.”

“We can hold that in reserve,” says Herman. “In the meantime, what do you think it is?” He looks at me.

“What?”

“What it is that’s in the container.”

“All the pieces fit. The special National Security Court, a small group of no names from somewhere in the Middle East, a container that’s ready to move, the FBI throwing open the gate so they could track us through Central America; most of all, the look on Rhytag’s face when I mentioned the name Nitikin. I think we’ve known for a while, we just didn’t want to say it out loud.”

“Yes, but is it chemical, nuclear, or biological?” says Herman. “And is it for real or is it something some amateur cooked up in his kitchen last night?”

“It is painful,” says Maricela, “but still I am grateful, to both of you.”

“For what?” I ask.

“That finally someone else has said what I have been thinking for so long. What I have been afraid to say for so many years. It is like waking up from a nightmare. Do you understand?”

“So you knew?” I say.

“No. But I suspected. How do you share such thoughts with someone else, especially when they involve someone you love? As you have done, I went through all of the other possibilities. I thought maybe he stole a large amount of money. Maybe he killed someone. I thought about drugs. But none of them fit. When he started to work on this thing, when Alim and his men showed up, I think I knew. And to answer your question,” she looks at Herman, “I don’t think it is something, as you say, cooked up in a kitchen last night. I believe it is real, and that my father has had possession of it for many years. I believe it is the reason he has been hiding all this time.”

“What is it?” I say.

“I would only be guessing.”

“So give us your best guess,” says Herman.

“My mother has been dead for many years. She lived much of her life in Costa Rica. But she was born in Cuba. My father, as you know, is Russian.”

The second she says it, I realize that Harry and I had spent our time with Katia asking the wrong questions. We had concentrated our entire focus on her grandfather. We never asked about her grandmother, where she was from.

“When they were married he was already in trouble with his own government, hiding from them. That much I know,” she says.

“Where did they meet?” I ask.

“In Cuba.”

“Your father was with the Soviet military in Cuba?” I say.

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“The early 1960s.”

The look on Herman’s face says it all. “We can cross off chemical and biological,” he says.

“Did Katia know this?” I ask.

“She doesn’t even know her grandfather is alive. I told her many years ago that he was dead. He wanted it that way.”

We sit there for several seconds in silence. Herman is looking at me. “You’re thinking about calling Rhytag, aren’t you, filling him in? Let’s you and me step outside for a second.” Herman tells Maricela to excuse us for a moment and he and I step out of the apartment to talk in the stairwell outside.

“We’re out of our league,” I tell him. “We’re not equipped to deal with this.”

“Fact is, nothing’s changed,” says Herman. “I’m bettin’ this is the part Rhytag already knows about. It’s what he’s holding back from us, Maricela’s pictures of her father. Give you three guesses as to why.”

“Because the government probably has a history on Nitikin. And you can bet it’s classified. They want to keep it under wraps, find him, find whatever it is he has, and make it all disappear.”

“Right,” says Herman. “That way people never find out how close they came to gettin’ their asses flamed.”

“And you’re thinking that if I call Rhytag and tell him what it is we think we know, he’s only going to be bored. Because all he wants to know is where it is.”

“That’s my guess. And when he finds out you don’t know where it is, he’s gonna arrest your ass and turn you over to Templeton. And if you try and tell a jury about any of this, the Dwarf’s gonna tell the judge it’s a fairy tale, that without hard evidence you can’t be allowed to even mention it. And he’s gonna be right, because that’s the way the screwed-up rules of evidence work.” This is coming out of Herman’s mouth, but he has been in court enough times to know that this is how the system works.

“Still, I can’t ask you to get involved in this,” I tell him.

“I shoulda’ left you in the smokehouse yesterday,” says Herman. “I’m already involved. Hear me out. You try to call Rhytag until we know more, I’ll beat you to death with the phone.”

“Right now I’m charged with only two counts of murder. We get in the way and a mushroom cloud goes up and they could end up adding a few more counts.”

“Yeah, but right now we got nothing,” says Herman. “Think about this. If the feds bag Nitikin, Alim, and his followers, say they catch ’em with the goods, unless we’re standing right there to witness it all, we still have nothing. They’ll stamp ‘classified’ on the bomb and throw the national security blanket over everything they find. They’ll cart it all up in boxes and bury it in some vault.

“That means if you and Katia end up getting strapped to gurneys for a ride to the death house, I wouldn’t be holdin’ my breath waiting for somebody in the federal government to step up and raise his hand just ’cause they got a Dumpster full of evidence showing somebody else did it. As far as the government’s concerned, their only downside is one less sheep to shear come tax time. Katia’s a foreign national. The prisons are full of people who didn’t do the crimes. Every time they do a new DNA test, they empty another cell block. It’s the problem we got, the justice system has absolutely nothin’ to do with justice.”

Herman takes a deep breath.

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” I say. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Okay, I shot my wad.” He laughs.

“I thought African Americans were supposed to like government?”

“That’s why you never wanna get hooked on stereotypes,” he says. “We better get back inside.”

“Who is this Rhytag?” As soon as we sit down again, Maricela wants to know.

“Later,” says Herman.

So far we have avoided telling her anything about the FBI or the fact that I am charged as a codefendant in Pike’s murder. Herman and I haven’t talked about this, but we seem to have come to a mutual understanding. Neither of us can be sure whether her cooperation will continue once she realizes I’ve been charged along with her daughter.

“Problem is, we’re missing the same piece to the puzzle he is, the location, where it is. So where do we go from here?”

“It sounds to me like we’re going to Panama,” says Herman.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Goudaz comes in behind us holding a notepad in one hand, twirling a pen in the other. He’s picked up only the last bit of the conversation.

It turns out his friend at the docks at Puntarenas is a storehouse of information.

“He has a line on containerized shipping from all over the world,” says Goudaz. “According to him, any container cargo coming out of that area, southwest Colombia on the Pacific side, would ship from a place called Tumaco. His computer shows only one vessel leaving Tumaco bound for Balboa within the next four days, a ship called the Mariah. It left Tumaco this morning and is scheduled to make port in Balboa day after tomorrow.”

“Then that’s it,” says Herman. “That’s gotta be it.”

“There’s one problem,” says the mayor. “The Mariah left Tumaco empty. No cargo. It’s supposed to be taking on cargo in Balboa. It’s not showing any ports of call between Tumaco and Balboa. But here’s the interesting part. The records at the other end in Balboa show preliminary arrangements for transshipment of one cargo container from the Mariah to another vessel. So far, the other vessel is unidentified.”

Maricela is shaking her head, a perplexed look on her face. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re wondering how the Mariah could leave Tumaco empty and arrive in Panama with a container?” says Goudaz.

“Yes.”

“Colombian magic,” he says. “According to the man in Puntarenas, anything is possible in Colombia. A mystery container gets put on at sea, or they make an uncharted stop in some cove along the coast. He tells me it’s also possible the Mariah may never show up in Balboa at all.”

“How is that?” I say.

“He says smugglers often fog the shipping records. They’ll show one destination and sail to another, create false bills of lading for cargo. Sometimes they’ll even change the name of the ship en route. They identify a registered container ship, same size as the one they’re sailing. The other ship could be in dry dock somewhere or in another port halfway around the world. They borrow the ship’s name for a few days. If they plan ahead and create a paper trail and a new destination for the new ship, nobody is going to ask any questions when it arrives on time. And if the paperwork shows the port of origin as a place that’s not known for smuggling, officials at the port of destination probably won’t check the cargo that closely. Customs will collect any duty, and before you know it the container is on the back of a truck headed someplace else.”

“So what you’re tellin’ us,” says Herman, “is we don’t know where Nitikin is or the container?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say somewhere out on the big blue. That’s the bad news,” says Goudaz. “The good news is, we may know more by tomorrow. If by then the computer shows the name of the other ship, the one that’s supposed to receive the container, and the Mariah actually shows up at Balboa the next day, then the transfer is likely to take place, in which case we should get a final destination.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” says Herman.

“I’d sit tight, have another beer if I were you,” says Goudaz.

“A man after my own heart.” Herman laughs and gets up out of the chair, the whole hulking six foot four of him. He puts his arm around Goudaz’s shoulder, dwarfing the man.

“Just one more thing. I hate to even ask, but we don’t know who else to turn to. And you’re such a helpful guy.” This is Herman in full bullshit mode.

Goudaz laughs. “What do you want?”

“Paul and I are afraid the prosecutor in Katia’s case may have attached a couple of investigators to us when we traveled down here. If we’re going to find information we can use at trial, we need to lose them. We’re not going to be able to do that traveling under our own passports. I’m betting you might know someone in town who could produce a couple of good passports on short notice.”

“U.S. or foreign?” Goudaz doesn’t even miss a beat.

“Too many holograms and threads running through the paper on U.S.,” says Herman. “Let’s say Canadian.”

“When do you need them?”

“Yesterday,” says Herman.

“It’s gonna cost you.”

Herman looks my way for approval.

“Sounds like a business expense to me.”