Metro Girl

  “A year’s worth of work shot to hell,” Gimpy said from the backseat. “Shot to hell by a blond in a pink skirt.”

  Slick helped himself to some of my French fries. “Just for the record, you look great in the skirt.”

  “What’s the Salzar connection to Calflex?” I asked Slick.

  “Salzar is Calflex. It’s not widely known. The ownership goes through holding companies and filters back under his wife’s maiden name. If the deal goes through, Salzar will not only get land, he’ll also get significant behind-the-scenes political power. Maybe even a seat on the politburo.”

  “Scary.”

  “You bet. He’s a ruthless sociopath. And he’s not aging gracefully.”

  “The Maria connection?”

  “Maria arrived in Miami four years ago. Just another boat person washed ashore. Only it turns out she’s more than that, and she blipped onto Salzar’s radar screen a couple months ago. We had a man on the inside, and he said Salzar saw Raffles mentioned in a newspaper article. Salzar asked around Little Havana and found out Raffles came to Miami when her mother died. And then he found out she was a diver and that she had charts of Cuban waters.

  “I don’t think Salzar knew anything for sure until Maria took off in Hooker’s boat with her charts. Once she took off, his gut instincts told him she was going to the wreck. He had the helicopter working overtime looking for her. And somehow, he knew there was more than gold down there. Our man inside overheard Salzar talking about the canister. Salzar knew the canister went down with the gold. The gold is worth millions, but it’s the canister he really wants. With Russian help we were able to identify it. And it’s not good. It’s exactly what Salzar’s politburo friend needs.”

  “Why didn’t you go to Maria and get the canister first?”

  “We want to catch Salzar with his hands dirty. So far, Salzar’s been careful not to directly involve himself in anything illegal. And the few times when he has become involved, people who might have been helpful have disappeared. Forever. Probably encased in concrete two miles off Fisher Island. Persuading Maria to help us get the canister is only part of the problem. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad shit out there, and if we don’t nail Salzar, he’ll keep looking and eventually he’ll find something.”

  “Yeah, and anyway, we tried and she wouldn’t cooperate,” Gimpy said.

  Gee, let me help you out with some charges against Salzar, I thought. Kidnapping, murder, assault with a deadly weapon.

  “We had a man in place on the boat when Maria was brought on board. We could have gotten Salzar on a number of charges and recovered the canister if only Maria had stayed on board. They wouldn’t have killed her until after the wreck location was confirmed and the canister brought up. We had a team ready to move in before anything bad happened to her. Once your brother got involved things went downhill fast.”

  I was thinking Slick was pretty cavalier about risking a civilian life for his operation.

  “Unfortunately, we no longer have a man on the inside, and there’s something I don’t understand,” Slick said. “Maria and Bill brought the gold up. And they brought the canister up, too. I dove down to the wreck site after you left. It was picked clean. Salzar tracked Bill and Maria, shot Bill and took Maria. I got a police report. So here’s what I don’t understand. Why did they take Maria? Why not just take the gold and the canister? Why not kill Bill and Maria on the spot? The obvious answer is…because they didn’t get what they wanted. So they’ve got Maria. They encourage her to talk to them. Why don’t they go get what they’re after? Why do they grab Bill and Hooker?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why?”

  “Because as much as they encouraged Maria to talk she couldn’t tell them something she didn’t know.”

  I sent Slick my very best dumb blond look. I didn’t trust him. And I wasn’t going to tell him something he didn’t already know.

  “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about this?” Slick asked.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t on deck at the end when Bill and Maria took off. There was water in the fuel line, and I was in the engine room trying to get the Happy Hooker up and running. That’s why they transferred everything over to the Sunseeker. Or at least I thought they transferred everything.”

  Slick locked eyes with me for a couple beats. “You should work with us,” he said. “We can help you.”

  “What happened to the inside guy?”

  “Disappeared.”

  “Tell me about the canister,” I said.

  “You don’t want to know about the canister.”

  “I can find out for myself. I was there when they brought it up, and I know what it looks like. I can go on the Net and research the markings.”

  There was a silent exchange between Slick and Gimpy.

  “I’ll give you a history lesson first,” Slick said. “Because if I just tell you the contents of the canister you’re going to think I’ve been seeing too many doomsday movies.

  “Khrushchev launched Operation Anadry in June of ’62 and began sending troops and weapons to Cuba. The Soviet military deployment to Cuba by fall of ’62 included medium-and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, surface-to-air missile systems, coastal defense missiles, MiG fighter aircraft, medium-range bombers, and battlefield artillery. Plus there were forty-two thousand Soviet troops on the island, operating the equipment and training Cubans.

  “The warheads in place included nuclear, conventional HE, chemical, and cluster munitions that were capable of penetrating the United States and of defending Cuba.

  “Khrushchev decided more was needed. So the Soviet freighter Indigirka left the Soviet Union on September fifteenth, 1962, and arrived in the Cuban port of Mariel on October fourth. The Indigirka was carrying forty-five SS4 and SS5 warheads, thirty-six FKR warheads, which were approximately twelve kilotons each, and twenty-eight warheads containing a new-generation chemical agent, SovarK2.

  “Kennedy went nose to nose with Khrushchev on October twenty-second, and in November the Soviets started pulling their strategic weapons out of Cuba. To date, twenty-seven of the SovarK2 warheads have been accounted for and removed. The twenty-eighth SovarK2 warhead was smuggled out of the country, along with one hundred bars of gold from the bank of Cuba, hours after Kennedy enforced the blockade of Soviet ships en route to Cuban ports.

  “Intelligence indicates that this was a back door for Castro, should he need to leave the country. He’d have money, and he’d have a bargaining chip. The gold and the canister of SovarK2 were secretly given over to Maria’s grandfather for transport to possibly Grand Cayman, and from there it would go by plane to South America.

  “We’re not sure what happened, but the fishing boat never reached its scheduled destination.”

  “The story I heard was that Maria’s grandfather was bringing gold into Cuba,” I said to Slick.

  “When the gold and the canister of SovarK2 went missing Castro launched a search, and that was the cover story. It wouldn’t have done much for his image if it became known he was planning to flee in case of invasion. The part about Maria’s grandfather being a smuggler is probably true. There was money to be made off the Russians. In fact, the advance information Enrique Raffles had that night might have been the story circulated. It’s possible Raffles didn’t know until the very last moment, when the truck arrived on the dock with the gold and the SovarK2, what the true mission would be.”

  “And this canister of SovarK2?”

  “Is essentially a bomb. It contains somewhere between forty-six to fifty-three pounds of liquid SovarK2. SovarK2 is similar to the nerve agent Sarin used during the Gulf War, but SovarK2 is far more potent. It has an indefinite shelf life and is highly volatile. It’s colorless and odorless in both gas and liquid forms. Skin absorption can cause death in one to two minutes. Respiratory lethal doses kill in one to ten minutes. Liquid in the eye kills almost instantly. And you want to hope for a lethal dose of this stuff because the pain and suffering an
d permanent neurological damage will make you wish you were dead.

  “The agent in the canister in question is in relatively stable form unless the canister is accidentally pierced or intentionally combined with a device to disperse. On a modest estimate, the canister has the ability to deliver six million lethal doses. If disseminated over Miami there would be tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people killed. And under the right conditions, millions could be incapacitated beyond help.”

  “So, if Salzar got his hands on this and turned it over to his friend in Cuba, they could use it to persuade us to accept their government?”

  “Or possibly to persuade Castro to step down and allow them to take over.”

  “Would they actually use it? Are they that crazy?”

  Slick shrugged. “Hard to say. The original intent was that the canister would be the payload on a warhead, and it would be exploded over a target area. But it might be possible to put a dispersion mechanism on the cylinder that would allow dissemination of a small amount and hold the rest in reserve. It would cause a lot of damage, and Salzar and friend would still have cards to play.”

  The thought that this stuff even existed made my skin crawl. And the realization that we’d had it on board the Happy Hooker took my breath away.

  “Here’s the thing,” Slick said. “We need to get to the canister before Salzar. And don’t for a minute think that Hooker won’t talk. Salzar will make him talk.

  “And by the way, I don’t suppose you’d know anything about an explosion that sunk Flex?”

  And here’s my thing, I thought. I’m with two guys who impressed the police enough to get me released into their custody but won’t show me any identification. They could tell me anything. How would I know fact from fiction? Call me a cynic but I have no reason to trust them. And no reason to like them.

  “Wish I could help you,” I said. “But I don’t know anything.”

  We were back in Little Havana, and I wanted to put physical distance between me and Slick and Gimpy. I was going to move the canister. I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d do it, but I’d find a way. And I’d find it fast before Salzar beat me to it. I’d do what I could to check up on Slick and Gimpy. In the meantime, I’d work independently.

  “I’m feeling stressed,” I said to Slick. “I have a headache. Maybe you could drop me at a hotel.”

  “Do you have a preference?”

  “I remember one on Brickell. The Fandango. It looked nice.”

  “The Fandango’s expensive,” Slick said. “You sure you don’t have a gold bar hidden away?”

  “I have Hooker’s credit card.”

  I turned my back on Slick and Gimpy and entered the Fandango lobby. The floor was polished black marble. The vaulted ceiling was two stories above me, painted a soft blue and white to simulate sky and clouds. The support columns were cream-colored marble that had been carved into floor-to-ceiling palm trees. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers could have tap tap tapped their way through the lobby and looked perfectly at home. Registration counter at the far end. Concierge desk to one side. Couches and chairs and potted plants were scattered around, arranged in conversation areas.

  I thought I’d performed well in the car. I held it together, and I didn’t show a lot of emotion, but deep inside I was ruined. I’d left the car with Slick’s cell phone number and a promise that I’d call him if Salzar contacted me. I kept my head down and walked to an unused conversation area on the perimeter of the room.

  Hundreds of thousands of deaths from the disbursement of a vile liquid into the air over a city filled with kids and puppies. It was horrific and disgusting. I wasn’t on a career track to save the world, but I was going to move this one canister out of harm’s way.

  I gave a startled yelp when my cell phone rang.

  “Miss Barnaby?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re missing the party. Everyone else is here…your brother and your boyfriend. Wouldn’t you like to join them?”

  “Who is this?”

  “You know who I am. And you know I’m looking for something, don’t you?”

  “Mr. Salzar.”

  “I will make life very unpleasant for you and the people you care about if I don’t get what I want. Never in your worst nightmare could you imagine how unpleasant life will become. Do you understand?”

  I disconnected and searched through my purse for Chuck DeWolfe’s card. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t find the card. It was in there, somewhere. I dumped everything into my lap and fingered through it. I finally found the helicopter pilot’s card and punched his number into my cell.

  DeWolfe answered on the third ring. “Hey!” he said. “Chuck here.”

  “Hey,” I answered back. “It’s Barney. I need help.”

  THIRTEEN

  I chose to get dropped at the Fandango because I’d driven past a bunch of times since I’d been in Miami, and on a couple of those passes I’d noticed a helicopter coming and going off the roof. It was a huge, expensive, high-rise hotel, and it made sense that it would have a helipad. Chuck DeWolfe had confirmed my suspicions.

  My plan was basic. Get the canister before anyone else. Figure out what to do next when the canister was safely hidden. It wasn’t hard to come up with the plan. It was obvious. Everyone’s welfare hung on the canister…Bill’s, Maria’s, Hooker’s, the world’s.

  I got off the phone and crossed the lobby to the hotel gift shop. My heart was beating with a sickening thud, and I was doing my best to ignore it. I bought a pair of shorts and changed out of the pink skirt. I went back to the chair, and I called Rosa.

  “I’ve been thinking about Salzar’s property,” I said to Rosa. “Some of his financial transactions go through holding companies and then filter back to his wife under her maiden name.”

  “Gotcha,” Rosa said. “I’m on it. I’ll dig around for the maiden name and I’ll check for more properties.”

  “I’m especially interested in property north of the Orange Bowl Stadium.” That was where I lost the Town Car.

  After an hour I went out to the pool and sat in the shade, waiting. Forty-five minutes later, I heard the wup, wup, wup of the approaching chopper. I quickly walked to the elevator and I took it to the rooftop. I stepped out just as the chopper was touching down.

  Chuck was at the controls. He smiled at me and gave me a sign that I shouldn’t approach. He had a guy in the seat next to him. The guy got out and ran over to me as the blades slowed.

  The guy was my age and reminded me a lot of Bill. Sandy hair and freckles. Ratty sneakers, baggy rumpled red-and-white shorts, washed out T-shirt. Lean and muscular.

  “I have a harness,” he yelled. “I’m going to strap you in.”

  I was holding my hat on my head with both hands. “Sure,” I said. “Whatever.”

  Minutes later I was buckled into something that looked like a full-body chastity belt. The guy tugged on the straps, and when he was satisfied everything was secure he threw an arm around me and moved me forward. “Show time,” he yelled. “Come with me.”

  We hunkered down and ran to the helicopter and climbed in. I was directed to the seat next to Chuck and given a headset with a microphone. The second guy took a seat behind me. Chuck revved the engine, and before I had a chance to throw up, the chopper lifted off. It’s amazing what you can force yourself to do when you’re saving the free world.

  I could hear Chuck talking in the headset.

  “This is Ryan behind you,” Chuck said. “He’s going to help us. We need a third person for this kind of a maneuver.”

  I nodded. I was disoriented, fighting panic, not wanting to look like an idiot in front of the two men. My lips were numb and there was a lot of clanging in my head. I leaned forward and put my head between my legs. I felt Chuck’s hand on my back.

  “Breathe,” he said. “You’ll be okay as soon as we get away from the city. I’ll be flying over water and you’ll lose the vertigo.”

&n
bsp; I kept my head down and concentrated. I thought about Bill as a kid. No help there. I thought about Hooker. Hooker thoughts were better. I got him naked. Okay, I was on to something. Here was an image that could compete with the panic of flight. I had the naked Hooker walking around in my head, and I realized we were over open water, and Chuck was right about the vertigo. It disappeared when we left Miami.

  I could see the reef below us as we skimmed along the Keys, passing over pleasure boats and schools of fish. And then we were over ocean, flying toward Cuba, heading west of Havana.

  My stomach rolled when the three islands appeared in front of us. The boot, and the bird in flight, and a third island that looked like a cupcake iced in bright green frosting.

  “There it is,” Chuck said over the headset. “The island is coming up. It’s the one shaped like a boot. I’m going to do a couple flyovers to make sure nothing is going on down there.”

  We took a straight route to the island and flew over high enough to get an overview.

  “No boats in sight,” Chuck said. “That’s good.”

  He circled the island at a lower altitude and then he followed the stream, buzzing the treetops.

  “Okay,” he said to me. “This is it, Barney. Tell me where you want me to drop you.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the plan, right? You want to go down to pick up the canister.”

  “Yeah, but not me!”

  “You’re all we got, honey,” Chuck said. “That’s why we’ve got you in the harness. I have to fly. And Ryan’s the drop-and-pull man. You can’t do either of those.”

  “Omigod.”

  “You said this was important. And that we had to get the canister up fast,” Chuck said to me. “Life or death?”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Then do it. Ryan’s going to hook you up to the cable. Don’t make a move until he tells you. He’ll drop you to the water. He’s a pro at this. He does search-and-rescue and adventure diving. I’m not flying my usual sightseeing mosquito. This helicopter is designed for this sort of thing. We’re going to give you a collar and an extra line for the canister. When you get into the water I’ll give you some slack. You said the canister was only about fifteen feet down?”