Philip Kerr - The Five Year Plan (1998)

Everything was just as he'd been told.

Dave still couldn't get over the last boat. Even back in Miami, when he'd been given the three names, he had thought Baby Doc was hardly a name to have on a boat you were likely to sail anywhere near Haiti. After years of dictatorship by the Duvalier family -- Papa Doc and then his son, Baby -- the locals would probably have torched it on the quayside.

None of the crewmen of the three boats looked particularly Russian. Not that Dave had expected them to. They did look very tough, of that there was no doubt. One guy sunbathing on the roof of the Beagle was built like a wrestler, while a black guy tying off a length of rope aboard the Claudia Cardinale had arms that were the size of Dave's legs. More than ever, Dave realized that the success of his plan depended on the element of surprise and not much else. Halfway across the Atlantic, he hoped the opposition would be less on its guard than they looked now. Even with the Customs and Coast Guard around he was pretty sure that one of the guys on the Baby Doc was carrying a gun underneath his shirt. Dave didn't much care for the idea of a firefight with these characters. Guns had never been his thing. He preferred to shoot with his mouth.

'Go to stations,' the voice on the tannoy ordered.

Dave thought that was probably a good idea, before any of them noticed him watching.

Back at the Juarista Dave could just about see Al through the smoked glass of the galley window. He stepped onto the flybridge and found himself almost face to face with a girl on the bridge of the ship to port of him. She looked around thirty, with shoulder-length brown hair that belonged in an expensive shampoo commercial, and eyes that made the sky look as gray as the aircraft carrier moored outside the port's main turning basin. Stretched out on a big white leather sofa on the back of the bridge, she was the kind of woman Dave had met many times lying on the bunk in his cell in Homestead, but had only ever seen in the glossy magazines.

'Hi there,' he said affably, expecting she'd be too snooty to reply.

'Hi.'

She didn't say any more than that, but her eyes stayed on him, as if they didn't mind what they saw.

Dave looked quickly up and down her boat and then nodded appreciatively. She was probably married to some company chief executive old enough to be her father.

He said, 'Nice-looking boat. Fast too, I'd say.'

'She rides as flat as a railroad car,' said Kate.

'The Carrera, huh?' he said, reading the name on the side of the bridge. 'I'll bet you've got the car to match.'

Kate smiled.

'I've never liked Porsche very much,' she said. 'I think they're too clinical. If it was up to me I'd have something British. Like a Jaguar XJS. I prefer something a little more luxurious for my money.'

'I never could tell.'

'You seem pretty comfortable there yourself,' said Kate. 'And I'll bet your boat's faster than mine. Looks like it has plenty of range for long-distance fishing expeditions too. Why don't you come aboard and have a beer and tell me about her?'

She knew cars. She knew boats. And she was friendly. Already Dave was impressed. 'I sure can't think of a reason not to,' he said.

As he climbed onto the Carrera he caught a brief glimpse of two men sitting inside the salon watching TV, then he stepped up onto the bridge. The woman got up from the leather sofa and smiled pleasantly.

She said, 'Kate Parmenter,' using her married name for what she hoped would be the very last time.

Dave shook her hand while noting that there was no ring on the other one. That was good. The kind of women who married older, rich guys usually made sure they got a good rock out of it. So maybe she wasn't married after all. He said, 'David Dulanotov.'

'Like in The X Files?

'No, that's David Duchovny.'

'Well, pleased to meet you anyway, David.' Kate wondered if he was crew. Mostly the guys who owned boats like the Juarista were pink, fat and balding, like her soon-to-be exhusband Howard. The sportiest thing about Howard had been his Rolex submariner. But this guy, David, with his hard body and easy smile looked too fit to be spending much time behind the kind of desk that made enough money to buy a two, maybe three million dollar sportfisher.

'And to meet you, Kate.'

'Your boat?'

'Yeah.'

'She said, 'The Juarista. An unusual name. What does it mean?'

'The Juaristas were Mexican revolutionaries,' explained Dave. 'They tried to free their country from the French-supported Emperor Maximilian.'

Kate looked sheepish. 'I didn't even know the French had been involved in Mexico.'

'Mexico, Algeria, Vietnam. Every lousy cause.'

She went forward to fetch a couple of cold Coronas from the flybridge refrigerator. 'I must say, you don't look like someone who'd be interested in revolution.'

'Me?' Dave shrugged. 'Well, I've got a lot of Russian blood. But actually I'm more interested in movies than commies. Most of what I know about the Juaristas comes from a movie called Vera Cruz. Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. 1954.'

'That's a little before my time.'

'Mine too. But it's still a good movie.' Dave took the bottle she offered and drank some cold beer. 'Is that your crew watching TV?'

'I'm the captain, not the owner. He's one of the guys watching the football game on TV. You're not a sports fan?'

'Oh sure, but I can watch a game any time. It's not every day you set sail on a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.' For a moment Dave stared off the port side and then added, 'I feel I'm about to suffer a sea change, into something rich and strange.'

Kate smiled. 'Is that poetry?'

Dave, who reckoned becoming something rich was at least a strong possibility, supplied the complete quotation and said, 'It's Shakespeare. The Tempest.'

Kate raised her bottle, 'Here's to one not finding us.'

'Is that at all likely?'

'Not really. Not at this time of year. But sailing in the tropics, you never can tell.'

They fell silent for a minute or two as if immediately comfortable with each other, enough just to sit there and watch the Grand Duke's crew make ready to leave the mooring. Occasionally, Kate would glance to the stern of the ship where Rocky Envigado's boat, the Britannia, was now loaded and lashed. She was feeling a little more relaxed. The Britannia had been the very last boat to float into the Duke and, for an hour or so, it had seemed that she and her two colleagues might have found themselves setting sail without the target of their surveillance.

A tugboat tooted to port, lines were thrown off the quayside, a klaxon sounded, and Kate and Dave felt a low rumble on the starboard side as bow and stern thrusters began to turn over. There were now only two lines connecting them to land and seeing these slacken, men on the wharf lifted the eye of each rope clear of the bit and then dropped it into the rainbow streaked water.

'All gone and all clear,' someone shouted.

Having checked the whereabouts of Rocky's boat, Kate watched David out of the corner of her eye as he watched the thrusters push the ship gently away. Maximum points for quoting Shakespeare. And he was right, there was something rich and strange about a voyage like this one. Maximum points too, for not being interested in football. What did a game matter when there was the leaving of America by ship to contemplate? She had begun to believe that men like David Dulanotov simply didn't exist. Romantic men, who were content to sit in silence instead of trying to talk their way into your pants. Looking at his big brown eyes fixed on the distant horizon, she wondered what other surprises the voyage might have in store for her and how many of them might include this handsome man.

Chapter FOURTEEN

Some of the crew and yacht-owners stayed aboard their own vessels for dinner. But mostly they went to the accommodations block in the forehouse, curious to see more of the ship and to meet the captain, his officers and their crew. Officers and crewmen on the Duke ate separately and in different messrooms. In the British Merchant Navy, it had always been done this way. Now Jellicoe gave orders that owners and their captains would be permitted to dine in the officers' saloon. Crewmen, however, would have to eat with the crew of the Duke in the crewmen's mess. So it was that Dave found himself sitting down to dinner with Jellicoe, those of his officers who were not on watch, and a couple of dozen assorted owners and captains, including Al Carnaro, Kate Parmenter and the captain of the Jade, the handsome Rachel Dana.