Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

Anna slammed a cabin door and I winced. “Just give it to me. I’ll install it myself.”

“ Oye, no es posible . It is not possible. I wait for my boss. He is very busy and he will be displeased you do not let me do my job.”

“Fine — wait.”

When the Spaniard, wearing several heavy gold chains, lumbered up wheezing, I offered to pay him for his time and take the autopilot off his hands. He insisted on installing it, though, saying he would settle with me while his girl put it in to save time. He ostentatiously opened his book of invoices and removed one, handing it to me.

“A thousand Euros!”

“Perdon, there has been an error.” He snatched back the invoice and with a flourish, modified it with a gold pen from his breast pocket.

I watched him cross out the one and replace it with a five. “Bull shit!”

“Bueno, I should think one in your — situation — would not wish to attract so much attention.”

I pulled two hundred Euros from my wallet.

The Spaniard fingered his gold chains and leaned back on his heels. “This will not work for me. It now will be ten thousand Euros or I bring the police. They can settle this.”

He had me. I had to get him off the boat and make a run for it. I told him I’d get the ten thousand by morning. He nodded slowly and turned to leave. “I’ll be watching. No funny business. I know what you are thinking, bitch.”

The message light on the sat-modem flashed. “What now?” I growled, then to Anna, “Put my jacket on, pull up the hood and get out there.”

“Excuse me?”

“No time for niceties. We need to fill the water tanks and get the hell out of here.”

“You think your jacket is going to fool anybody?”

“I don’t think the bastard or his lovely muse are very close. I haven’t seen the banana Hummer. He thinks we’re a couple of scared chicks.”

“Chicks? Two baby chickens.” Anna asked.

“Baby chickens, ducks, hummingbirds, condors… whatever. Thinks we’re scared into giving him the money. Besides, he knows you’re on board. Go, I’ll deal with this email — it’s gonna be Tom — and we’ll change places. You’ll work down here while I make ready outside. Just start filling the tanks for now.”

“Blyad, there is lightning. It is not looking good out here.” Anna said, halfway out the companionway.

“Just go!” I waved Anna away as her point about the weather was made more urgent by a peal of thunder. I flung the laptop open and jammed in the serial connection from the sat-modem. The email was indeed from Tom:

Subject: GET OUT! SAILMAKER INFORMS KEITEL EXPOSED!

Anna opened a hatch above deck and yelled through it. “Jess, this is not funny. We can’t sail in this.” She lost control of the hatch cover and the wind slammed it shut with a crash. I jumped for it before it got loose again. I was hoping her fingers weren’t crushed in it, but I didn’t hear any screaming.

She was right about the wind. My obsession with getting out from under the extortionist had kept me from noticing how dark and blustery it was.

I scanned Tom’s latest.

He’s going to move on your boat, Anna, and my Las Palmas contact — the guy that put his neck on the line for your week’s amnesty. GET OUT OF THERE NOW! Damn it all! You don’t want to listen to me, but IT ISN’T JUST ABOUT YOU! My goddamned ass is in the cooking pot now. GET OUT. E-MAIL FROM SEA.

The email left me shaking. Boy, he was steamed. Did he know a storm was brewing on top of us? By the time Anna had the water tanks full and was trying to shut the overstuffed cockpit lockers, lightning was lacing the sky and palm fronds were cha cha cha’ing in the wind like maraca players on speed. There just always has to be a storm on the loose at times like this! I thought.

The wind howling over the wide breakwater behind us was putting the flexibility of palm trees to the test. Twilight added to the darkness of the building storm. Soon sheets of rain and spray roaring above deck sounded like a prairie hailstorm down below. Shadow was ready to go, but wretchedly deteriorating conditions and one very upset Russian illegal had me paralyzed. I figured the storm had to let up eventually, but while it raged, the Spaniard would think me an unlikely flight risk. The storm gave us the advantage of cover, but its ferocity was increasing and until it started to show any sign of easing, waiting a bit couldn’t hurt. I cajoled Anna with comments like, “You know, it really is letting up. I remember storms like this as a kid on the farm and they never last.”

Four am rolled around. The storm was still full force and I was at the chart table, locked with indecision. Anna had long since burrowed into her cabin and fallen asleep. The harbor police boats were pinned down, the port was closed to small craft, and dawn lurked just a couple of hours away. Immediate action was called for. I hadn’t seen activity on shore since nightfall, and I didn’t imagine anyone was out watching the port in such a storm.

It was now or never and Anna getting caught wasn’t an option. “Come on, we’re going for it.” I shook Anna awake, and she pulled on her boots in silent resignation.

The dock and Shadow’s deck were littered with pieces of palm fronds. I swept bits of them off the helm and started the engine. Anna stood at the bow raising the anchor with the electric windlass, which pulled us away from the breakwater we’d been stern-tied to. Shadow eased into the fairway. The wind howled through the rigging, forcing us to shout to be heard. I turned the wheel to move us off the dock, and… nothing! It had jammed solid and locked. The wind was accelerating us across the fairway toward the opposite dock. “Don’t lift the anchor! Leave it down! STOP! LEAVE IT!” I screamed, hoping it would stop us before we blew clear across the fairway into a row of big motor yachts. I yanked the throttle into reverse trying to fight the wind and buy a few more seconds.

“We have NO STEERING! The son-of-a-bitch sabotaged the steering.” I waved frantically for Anna to leave the bow.

The propeller in full reverse swung Shadow to one side. The wind did the rest, swinging us perpendicular to the bows of the big motor yachts we were about to be skewered on. “Shit, shit, shit! Grab a fender! Get it between us and whatever!”

Anna froze, then pitched sideways toward the powerboats. A grinding shudder came up from below, and Shadow brought itself to a surrealistic leaning stop a couple of feet from the bow of the nearest powerboat. We’d hung up on their big anchor chains angling out into the fairway. “Damn lucky! We didn’t hit anything.”

I jumped down the companionway, wiped out on the wet floor, and scrambled for the electrical panel. I snatched at every glowing breaker I saw other than the Anchor Windlass and vaulted back to the cockpit.

Anna screamed, “It is him! The fat man is here!”

I lunged for the wheel and, with the hydraulics disabled, it turned. The scammer climbed aboard one of the dark powerboats close by. I thought I heard him rasping, “Stop! You are under arrest!”

“Raise the anchor. Go, go, go!” I shouted to Anna at the bow. Shadow lurched and shuddered in full reverse, straining against our own anchor at the bottom of the fairway while the windlass tried to reel it in. Glancing up, I saw police, several of them, on the Texaco fuel dock and on docks on either side of the fairway. Flashlight beams cut through the rain saturated air like light sabers. There might have been a bullhorn barking Spanish, I couldn’t tell in all the noise.

The crunching and grinding stopped. A meter from the chains, two, two and a half, and then Anna was shrieking from the bow. “Anchor off bottom!”