The Viking Funeral

Chapter 35

You LOOK LIKE Ricky Ricardo," Shane said to Jody, who was standing in the hall outside Shane's door, wearing a wild flowered island shirt. It was ten minutes to four in the afternoon.

"Just bought this in the gift shop. We're comped." Jody grinned. "Everything's on Sandy. Despite his greasy look, I'm beginning to really acquire a taste for that guy. This place a'his ain't bad, either. You should see all the A-caliber trim hanging by the pool." He smiled broadly, then added: "Let's go. Eric's waiting downstairs. We're supposed to be at the duty-free dock for a meeting with the Colombians in ten minutes."

"I thought we weren't invited."

"An hour ago we weren't; something musta changed."

They met the rest of the Vikings in the lobby and again found themselves packed into the black Mercedes SUV, Shane wedged in behind the driver's seat, staring at Eric's Teutonic wrinkles. Lisa wasn't with them, and Papa Joe had taken the seat up front.

"We got a little problem," he said to Jody as soon as the vehicle was in motion. "Unfortunately, it's not something I can fix."

"Unfixable problems are a Viking specialty" Jody said, smiling.

"Paco Brazos decided to cut one of the San Andresito families out of this deal. The man he left out is Santander Cortez. Santa is not a man you get rid of easily. He's something of an enigma out in the desert… A black marketeer with a political agenda. He will undoubtedly make trouble."

"Don't worry," Jody said. "We'll take care of it."

Jose shook his head. "Don't be so sure. There are frequent kidnappings and murders surrounding parallel-market transactions in Maicao. It's out in the desert. There is no law, no police or civil government. Worse still, there is only one road in and out. Once you go in, you are in a trap. Making things more complicated, the leftist guerrillas and the right-wing death squads hide in that desert preying on each other and the San Andresitos' shipments. As white Americans, you will be easily spotted. Everyone in Maicao will know you are there from the first minute you arrive. There are no Anglos in Maicao. You will have only Paco Brazos standing between you and all this, and Paco cannot easily be trusted."

When they arrived at the port, Eric drove the Mercedes to a fenced-off wharf with a guarded gate. Signs identified it as the MANTOOR SHIPPING COMPANY FREE-TRADE ZONE. NO TRESPASSING warnings were printed on the gate in four languages. A uniformed guard with an out-of-date carbine swung the bar arm up and allowed Eric to drive the German-made SUV down the bustling pier. There were several old three-hundred-foot freighters tied to the wharf. All the ships were registered to different countries. English, Japanese, Dutch, and Venezuelan flags tugged at their halyards, snapping energetically in the stiff breeze. Crane engines roared as loaded containers swung from cables over the dock and above rusting freighters, creating a deafening racket. Green John Deere forklifts, piled high with boxed merchandise, were zipping around, scooting loads of duty-free in and out of ten huge warehouses located on the pier.

The wharf was immense, almost fifty yards wide, and swarming with people and product.

"How come they don't warehouse onshore?" Shane asked. "Why store all this stuff out on the dock?"

"Because none of it is going to stay here more than a day or two," Jose answered. "It's all contraband. Parallel-market goods heading into Colombia."

"All of this is going to Maicao?" Shane asked as he watched a forklift with three crated washing machines whiz by in front of their vehicle.

"Maicao and Culcata, Panama," Jose said. "It is no wonder the Mantoors control so many businesses, no? They have much money to invest."

Shane nodded as he again remembered the maps he had found in Jody's airport house. Culcata was the other city that was circled.

Eric drove the Mercedes into the last warehouse on the pier and parked. "This building contains only cigarettes and liquor," Jose told them.

Shane was looking at billions of cigarettes from every U. S. manufacturer: Phillip Morris, Reynolds Tobacco, Liggett amp; Meyers, and Lorillard. On the other side of the warehouse were the liquor products: huge wooden pallets were stacked forty feet high with cases of Seagram's, J amp;B, Early Times, and Beefeater.

"Our cigarettes came from Norfolk, Virginia, yesterday, on that Dutch freighter tied up across the pier. They are now on those pallets over there." He pointed to more than three hundred large shipping containers stacked near the door, with the AAT logo stamped on every box. Each carton also sported a big red duty-free sticker. "They will soon be loaded on a Venezulean ship to cross the channel."

"How many cigarettes is that?" Shane asked.

"There are twenty cigarettes in a pack," Jose began. "Ten packs to a carton, fifty cartons in each case, and nine hundred sixty cases in each of these containers. We have shipped three hundred fifty containers." He paused for effect. "That comes to ninety-six million cigarettes."

As soon as they got out of the SUV, Sandro Mantoor came out of a door a few yards away and headed toward them, his leather soles clacking on the shiny concrete. "This way, my Friends" he said, and led them through another door and up a flight of stairs, into a plush suite of offices. They walked down an air-conditioned corridor, then entered a small conference room. A plate-glass window dominated the far wall, overlooking the bustling warehouse operation below.

There were four men standing in different parts of the room, and despite their expensive tropical clothing, they all looked like extras from the movie Rio Lobo… Round, sweating men with crooked teeth turned brown by tobacco. Greasy smiles lurked menacingly under hungry eyes. If one of them had started cleaning his teeth with a knife, it wouldn't have surprised Shane. Tucked in their pants, under loose shirt-tails, he could see handguns bulging.

"Paco, mi amigo› " Sandro said expansively as he embraced Paco Brazos, who was only five foot four and bald on top but wore his fringe hair long and pulled back in a ponytail.

He had on tan slacks and a Mexican guayabera with two Snickers bars stuffed into the breast pocket.

"Buenos dias, mis companeros, " Paco said to all of them with something approaching two-faced warmth. Then Papa Joe introduced Jody, who introduced the rest of the Vikings.

"These are my dear friends and trusted business associates," Papa Joe said first in Spanish, then turned to Jody and translated it all into English.

"Bueno, bueno," Paco Brazos said, nodding and bowing all in the same motion, then introduced the three other men in rapid Spanish.

Spartacos Sococo was the tallest at around five-seven. He had the worst haircut Shane had ever seen. It looked as if he had attempted to cut it himself using garden shears. Emilio Hernandez was five-five, fat, and had a recent-looking red-welted scar that cut through his left cheek, running down his neck into his collar. Octavio Randhanie, the only skinny San Andresito, just smiled at them, never removing his straw hat or dark glasses.

The San Andresitos kept stretching their humorless grins over hard eyes that were expressionless as licked stones. Shane had done enough undercover gun and drug deals in Los Angeles to spot the deadly crosscurrents.

The six men began speaking rapid Spanish. Shane was struggling to keep up, but their Colombian accents sounded different from the Mexican Spanish he'd encountered on the streets of L. A. It appeared that the San Andresitos were arguing over how many containers of cigarettes each family would handle. At one point, Spartacos Sococo slammed his fat brown hand on the table. "Ay te huacho!" he said angrily as he got up and made an elaborate false exit.

"Tu no tengas miedo, vete," Paco replied sharply, calling Spartacos's bluff, challenging him to go ahead and leave.

Spartacos finally turned and went back to his chair. More shouted conversation was followed by more curses and posturing. Then, ten minutes later, the men stood quickly and glowered at one another. Nobody shook hands as Paco showed them out of the room.

"The deal's done." Jose sighed. "Paco got an additional ten percent of each of their profits, which they are all very unhappy about. He also got the most product-fifteen million dollars in cigarettes. Each of them got only five. They wanted an even split, but this is more than they would normally handle, so hopefully they will get over it."

They left the warehouse and drove to Sandro's bank to disburse the fifty million dollars.

The First Mantoor Bank of Aruba was magnificent. Brass and leaded-glass doors fronted the executive offices, which were done luxuriously. English antiques squatted on white plush pile.

Jody presented his wire-transfer confirmation slip from the West Valley Bank of Commerce, then accessed the fifty million in L. A. drug cash that Rusty Miller had wired to the bank to be held under the name of Lewis Foster. Jody showed the bank president his phony ID, took possession of the account, then wrote out the instructions to wire thirty million dollars to American Global, which was All-American's European company in Geneva. It was payment in full for the cigarettes. Five million was wired to Blackstone in Geneva, which covered their commission for brokering the deal. Fifteen million was put in escrow to be jointly held by Papa Joe until the Vikings had delivered the cigarettes to Maicao, Colombia. Once the product was safely there and the four families had taken delivery, the money would be released to the Vikings. The Bacca drug cartel would be repaid its original L. A. drug cash once the cigarettes were sold in their cartel-owned black-market malls, completing the laundry.