Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

“What are they afraid we’ll do, start commercial fishing?” I already knew about this imposition, but being reminded of it pissed me off.

“More to the point, what does Anna know about all this?”

“I’m not hiding anything. She knows what she needs to — or wants to.” I thought for a moment. “Actually, I don’t know what you mean? She knows we have to stay away from USA.”

“Does she know why she’s doing this nutso cruise? Does she know there’s nobody waiting for her on the other side? Her testimony or whatever is worthless unless you can sell it to someone. Come to think of it, sis, I don’t know why either of you are doing this.”

“Just got here, Gav. Feet haven’t touched land since Las Palmas. Think we could leave this ’til later? Maybe without having-it-out in front of Anna and Sandy.”

Gavin accelerated along the dock in front of me, stopped, spun to face me, his back to the clubhouse. “Well, the point is you’re here, you’re alive and your boat seems to be in one piece. There’ve been hurricanes out there. It’s lucky you didn’t get into one.”

“Who says we didn’t?” Out of the corner of my eye, an almost imperceptible movement in the water distracted me. A sickly looking gray stingray drifted out from under the dock, maybe half a meter below the surface. “Oh wow, check this out.” I crouched down. The only sign the thing was still alive in the fetid water was a weak pulsing of its gill slits and the occasional twitch of a wingtip.

Gavin had something on his mind and he wasn’t going to let it go. His interest was not in the stingray. “Look, you’ve made it this far. Maybe it’s time to call it quits on the crazy boat adventure. Find another way home.”

“Like how? Anna’s not even legal here . She gets caught, she gets deported to Russia. Without the boat it’s game over, probably life-over for her. Besides, do you know how much I paid for that thing?” I stood up.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Your mail’s been piling up with more than a few envelopes stamped ‘final notice.’”

I said nothing.

He finally looked down to contemplate the stingray. It hadn’t moved more than a few inches. “You know you’ve maxed out your line of credit.”

“Yeah? Well, I had a few unforeseen expenses in Las Palmas.” I made for the clubhouse, anxious to sit in a chair that wasn’t trying to buck me.

Gavin blocked my way again. “It’s half a million dollars! Do you really think you’ll get that back?”

“Certainly not if I try to sell the boat here.” I gestured toward the live-aboard shanties and abandoned yachts. “This is the tropics. Look around. It’s where the dream dies. Hell of a lot harder to climb north, to get back home. They get here, are disillusioned, try to sell the boat they came in to someone else who dreams of sunny days and cruising bliss. Let’s just say this isn’t a seller’s market.”

“Maybe, but you are planning to go north. In case you haven’t looked at the calendar lately, it’s the beginning of bloody November!” Gavin forced himself to relax, pushing his palms down in some Tai Chi move to battle frustration. “Okay, let’s just say for argument’s sake that you work something out with Panama, leave Anna and the yacht, fly back, swing some kind of deal with Ottawa, Washington, whoever might want her along with the film, evidence, whatever you shot in Kiev, and then they pick her up from here?”

“Won’t work. I’m not about to abandon her. If you and someone you loved had gone through something like this, I sure as hell hope you wouldn’t abandon her either! Jesus, who do you think I am? and the deal is I get her to Canada, they grant protection, she talks or whatever. Talk is secondary, getting there is primary and by there I mean Ca-na-da — not Panama!”

“Then stay here. Stay with the boat, try to work some kind of deal from Panama.”

“Don’t you get it? She’s not safe here.”

“Give me a break! You think she’ll be safe in the north Pacific in winter?”

I shoved my way past Gavin, “Besides, you don’t know what I’ve gone through to get this far. I’m sure as hell not giving up now!” I left Gavin fuming on the dock and stomped up to the clubhouse.

The veranda was bigger than it looked from the water, a concrete slab overlaid with years of heavy white enamel paint. Other than a Choco Nation mother and daughter sitting on a blanket silently weaving coiled baskets in front of the lounge, we seemed to be the only customers. “Glad to see you beat the rush and got a table.” I joined Anna and Sandy. Gavin slowly made his way toward us, arms crossed, examining his shoes.

“The well armed gentlemen at the gate say there are extreme tourists coming in from a cruise ship. I’m guessing it’ll pick up around here, knowing those extreme tourist types.” Sandy laughed. It was jarring to hear a human voice that wasn’t my own or Anna’s. “Apparently, it’s quite the thrill to have drinks at the world’s most dangerous yacht club.”

I asked our server for a list of their Irish whiskies and got a blank stare. Sandy piped up, ordering a round of Balboa beer in fluent Spanish. I raised an eyebrow at Gavin and he muttered, “Yup, until we got on the flight to Panama, I didn’t know either.”

Three sweating beer bottles and a Perrier — no glasses — showed up. Sandy held hers over the table, canted just slightly, waiting. I clued in when Gavin took his Perrier and clinked it against Sandy’s beer bottle, but kept it at arm’s length too. I joined them with a clink of my bottle and Anna followed suit.

Conversation drifted to Sandy and Gavin and their plans for some R&R — since they were here anyway. “Thought we’d check out Bocas del Toro and, get this, Coiba Island.” Gavin snatched at the opening to suggest, once more, that Anna and I come to our senses and join them in vacation paradise. Sandy nodded with a half smile as Gavin went on about how dangerous the north Pacific can be in winter. I wondered if they had rehearsed in the plane on the way down.

“The thing is, Jess, this guy with a heavy Russian accent showed up a couple of times at the house looking for you and Anna.” Sandy said, when Gavin’s lecture had lost traction.

“My house?” I turned to Gavin. “You know about this?”

“Of course I do.” Gavin said, then to Sandy, “Show em the pics.”

Sandy handed me several ink-jet on glossy snapshots of the man in question. My street in her photos looked hauntingly familiar and yet forbidden. I took a look and then passed them to Anna. The man didn’t look familiar, but the photos were taken from a distance and weren’t all that clear. Anna went through them, laying them on the table like tarot cards, before announcing that, “It is hard to tell, but it could be Sergei.”

Rationally I knew that was unlikely, but even so, the fact that someone, who might be Sergei, had been hanging around my house, had me excusing myself and hurrying back to the yacht to email Tom.

Early the following morning, Tom’s return email lit the message light on the sat-modem.

Leave Panama Canal Zone ASAP. Whoever’s hounding your Vancouver friend could have followed her. AND, the list of ships transiting the canal is easy to get hold of and you’re on it: Today, 10 am.

The canal contact and two other men showed up wearing crisp white shirts, ties, pressed trousers, polished shoes and hand-held radios. Radio calls resulted in the arrival of a couple of strapping young Panamanians with two dozen tape enshrouded car tires. A Nissan pickup towing a boat and trailer pulled up. Gavin and Sandy hopped out. Then the driver backed down the boat ramp and launched a skiff. It was filled with the provisions Gavin and Sandy had procured before our arrival. Gavin explained the fortuitous planning as a just-in-case deal. As in, just in case I couldn’t be persuaded to take a holiday and then fly home with them. A couple of drums of diesel were trundled down the dock and hand-pumped into the fuel tanks. Finally, two buckets of Colonel Sanders’ finest Kentucky fried with all the trimmings and several cases of Coke Classic were handed aboard for our Panamanian pilots and line handlers. With the four of us and our crew of five on board, we motored toward the infinite procession of slowly moving ships.