Линкольн Чайлд - Crooked River

“Christ, it is the Coast Guard!” She pulled down the mike again. “Hey, Coast Guard patrol, this is Leucothea . What’s the matter — you guys deaf? Over.”

The vessel slowed about a hundred feet out and a loudspeaker blared. “ We are drawing alongside. We are drawing alongside. Bring your vessel to a halt and prepare for boarding .”

Gladstone yelled into the mike. “Coast Guard, in case you haven’t noticed, the sea is a little rough for coming alongside, over.”

Finally a voice came over the VHF. “ Leucothea , this is Coast Guard RB-M 5794. Move to channel nine, over.”

Gladstone furiously punched in the channel. “Hey, what the hell are you guys doing, picking up my buoys? I’m a research vessel! And this is no sea for a safe boarding!”

“Repeat: we are coming along your port side and will board, out.”

She clicked off the transmission. “Assholes. Wallace, toss out the fenders on the port side. This is messed up — we’ve got a six-foot swell running!” She turned to Pendergast. “You’re FBI. What are you going to do?”

Pendergast returned her look. “Cooperate.”

“Jeez, thanks a lot.”

She brought the boat to a halt. With no headway, it began getting pushed all over the place by the sea. The Coast Guard boat now came up alongside, and a crew member tossed over a couple of lines, which Lam cleated down before racing into the hold, apparently to hide. The two boats were now tethered, heaving up and down, the inflatable gunwale of the Coast Guard boat smacking hard on their hull with each swell. The man directing the operation came out of the wheelhouse dressed in foul-weather gear, but she could see the lieutenant’s bars on his sleeve. Two sailors helped him over the side and onto the deck of the Leucothea , then followed.

“Lieutenant Duran, United States Coast Guard,” he bellowed. He was a big man, not fat but broad and solid, with a brushy mustache and icy blue eyes. The two other men came up behind him. “This is a Coast Guard boarding. Please remain in place while the vessel is searched.”

“Hey, don’t you guys need a warrant?” Gladstone asked.

“Title fourteen, section eighty-nine of the United States Code authorizes the U.S. Coast Guard to board vessels subject to the jurisdiction of the United States anytime, anyplace upon the high seas and upon any waterway over which the United States has authority, to make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests,” said the lieutenant in a booming voice.

“Really? Jesus Christ.”

The two men began searching the boat, rummaging through the bin of undropped buoys, opening the hatches, shining lights into the bilges, flipping cushions, opening gear lockers, throwing stuff around.

“Be careful in there!” She looked at Pendergast. “Aren’t you going to show your badge?”

“They know very well who I am,” he said. His face seemed even paler than usual.

Duran came back. “Okay, let’s see your captain’s license and registration papers.”

Gladstone opened a compartment next to the helm and shoved them at him. He took them, examined them, and handed them back. “Research permits?”

She gave those to him as well. He flipped through them, not even bothering to make a show of reading. He tossed them back at her and turned to his men. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Just a moment,” said Pendergast quietly.

Duran turned and jutted his chin at Pendergast. “What?”

“May we know the reason for this search?”

Duran grinned. “Well, we saw shit tossed in the water, so we decided to check it out. Might have been garbage, drugs, sewage discharge — who knows? You got a problem with that, pal?”

Pendergast didn’t reply.

The man’s arrogant, smirking gaze rested a while longer on him; then he turned to Gladstone. “Looks like everything’s in order. We’ll leave your buoys on the deck. Uh, looks like one of them got a bit dinged up when we ran it over.” A bigger grin. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The man went out onto the deck with his two companions and they climbed back to their boat. Gladstone was sorry to see that none of them got thrown into the drink by the swell.

“Cast off!” Duran called.

Gladstone cast off and the Coast Guard boat revved its engine and swung away.

As Lam cautiously emerged from below, Gladstone turned to Pendergast. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Harassment,” said Pendergast.

“How come you didn’t pull rank on those assholes?”

“A wise man once said, ‘Engage the enemy on your terms, not on his.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They wanted to provoke me at sea, where they have almost unlimited power — and I have next to none.”

“So you’re going to, ah, wait to engage them on land?”

“That same wise man said, ‘Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.’” And with this, the pale agent smiled in a ghastly way and his eyes glittered like broken glass.

At the mountain pass above San Miguel Acatán, Agent Coldmoon looked through the grimy window of the bus down into the valley. It was, he had to admit, a spectacular view — the snowcapped peaks of mountain ranges all around, the valley blanketed in clouds, the patchwork fields on the hills above.

There were two ways for an FBI agent to conduct an investigation in a Central American country. One was to go through official channels, using the Central American Intelligence Program, the CAIP, run out of Quantico and the State Department, which would have taken days if not weeks to set up, involving official visits with partnering government officials in Guatemala, paperwork up the wazoo, visas, dinners, photo ops, and so on. The other was to do what he had done and just go on a tourist visa. He would find what he wanted and then, if necessary, on his return, retroactively jump through all the hoops.

Staring down into that mist-shrouded mountain valley, he felt he’d arrived at the end of the earth. Soon the bus crept down the switchbacks, grinding gears, and went below the level of the clouds into a misty dreamscape. It wasn’t long before they entered the town. Small pastel-colored farmhouses with tin roofs clung in clusters to the steep hills, among green patchwork fields and tattered strings of rising haze, above a roaring torrent in the ravine below. The bus came to a halt at the main square in town, fronted on one side with a whitewashed church and on the other with some tin-roofed government buildings and a small outdoor market where livestock and vegetables were being sold.

He stepped off with his backpack into the square and looked around. San Miguel Acatán was impoverished but still retained a sturdy dignity. It was easy to see why people might leave and head off to America. God, but what a journey that must be , he thought, looking at the endless sea of mountains stretching northward to the Mexican frontier.

He could see that everyone in the square and the little market had noted his presence and was watching him, not in an obvious way, but slyly, out of the corners of their eyes. There was a wariness here at the presence of a stranger. Although his skin was the same color as theirs, he was acutely aware of his towering height, lean physique, and craggy appearance, so different from the small stature and rounded physique of the local Maya population.

He had done what preparation he could. While there were no landline phones in San Miguel, there was, amazingly, cell phone service, and he had managed to get a list of phone numbers of twelve inhabitants in the town by the last name of Ixquiac. The name was pronounced “ Ish -kee-ack,” he reminded himself. According to the cell phone company’s records, they all paid through P.O. box addresses. So he would have to find them by asking around.