Philip Kerr - The Five Year Plan (1998)

'Or maybe they tried to radio us themselves and, when they got no answer, they figured something was wrong,' Kate continued.

Stanford wasn't listening. 'And it wasn't a real sub at all,' he said. 'Just something they mocked up on the lot at Paramount.'

'The silent service, eh?' remarked Jellicoe. 'Never fancied being in subs, myself. Banged up for all that length of time. A bit like being in prison, I'd have thought.'

'That's exactly where those two shit-heads are headed,' said Kate, and throttled back the Predator's engines. 'A sub will seem like the Plaza Hotel by comparison with where they're going. With twenty million dollars' worth of coke on board, they'll be lucky to get away with twenty years. A million bucks a year.'

Jellicoe and Stanford exchanged a what-a-bitch kind of glance.

'Don't fuck with the FBI,' whistled Stanford. 'I'll try and remember that, ma'am.'

'Absolutely fucking right,' snarled Kate. But even as she said it, she knew she was trying hard to convince herself that she wanted to see Dave locked away for the better part of his adult life. Whatever he had done she loved him and, what was more, she wanted to believe that he loved her. But all that was too late now. There was nothing she could do, except her duty. With Captain Jellicoe on the scene, not to mention the French Navy, she could hardly walk away from this. Her feelings in the matter were of little account here. Dave was going back to prison, and that was where her duty lay.

Even so, she half hoped that the captain of the French boat, whose men were already boarding the Britannia, would dispute her jurisdiction and lock Dave and Al in his submarine's brig -- or whatever it was they called their lock-up. More work for the DA's office when it came to getting them extradited, but a lot easier for her.

Kate steered Stanford's boat alongside the Britannia and Jellicoe threw a line to one of the sub's sailors, while Stanford put out fenders to protect his paintwork. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dave standing beside Al on the aft deck watching her, but she did not look back at him.

'You guys wait here,' she told Jellicoe and Stanford, and trying not to look triumphant, she climbed aboard the Britannia, curtly declining the helping hand that was offered to her by one of the sailors.

Dave and Al were covered by a sailor with a machine pistol and, in the absence of her FBI identity card and badge, Kate had brought Stanford's Glock automatic to help establish her authority. From what she had heard of Frenchmen they were notoriously sexist. She figured it would be a lot harder for them to patronize a woman with a gun in her hand. She looked around for someone who seemed like he was in charge. Then, in her halting French, and still avoiding Dave's twinkling eye, she identified herself and requested to speak to the officer in charge.

To her surprise and annoyance, one of the sailors laughed. A swarthy, handsome man, with a thick mustache, and wearing a blue boilersuit, he said, 'Please, there is no need for you to try to speak French. I speak excellent English. Agent Furey, did you say you were called?'

Kate nodded and tried to control her irritation. The French. Even when you tried to speak their language they treated you with contempt. It made you wonder why people bothered to learn it in the first place.

'I lived in New York for many years,' explained the man with the flourishing mustache. 'A dirty city, but also interesting.'

'And you are, sir?'

'I am Captain Lieutenant Eugene Luzhin, the executive officer on board,' he said smoothly, and took a packet of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his boilersuit. 'Do you mind if I smoke? Only it is forbidden when we're on board the missile boat, and most of us are now desperate to get some fresh nicotine into our lungs. It's been a week or two since we last surfaced.'

He did not wait for an answer, and nodded to his men, who took out their own cigarettes and began to light up. Even the man with the machine pistol. Luzhin did not offer Kate a cigarette, for which she was glad. Diplomacy might have meant she would have had to take it, and French cigarettes were too strong for her. These were as pungent as any she had ever encountered. It was small wonder that Frenchmen sounded so gravelly and sexy.

'Captain Luzhin,' she said.

'Captain Lieutenant,' he said. 'The captain is still on the missile boat.'

'Captain Lieutenant,' she said, acknowledging his grinning correction. Was he still amused by her attempt to speak French? 'I'm sorry sir, but is there something funny here? Something I'm missing?'

He exhaled a cloud of smoke as blue as a car exhaust and shrugged in that Gallic way they had.

'Is that a yes or a no?' she asked.

'It's just that I am not accustomed to a beautiful woman pointing a gun at me,' said the captain lieutenant.

'I'm sorry,' said Kate, glancing awkwardly at the Glock, and wondering where to put it.

'That's all right. As a matter of fact I was rather enjoying it.' Puffing stylishly, with one eye closed against his smoke, he added, 'It is like Humphrey Bogart in the film Casablanca, when this beautiful woman--' He snapped his fingers as he tried to remember the name of the actress who had played Use.

It was Dave who supplied the answer.

'Ingrid Bergman,' he said. Catching Kate's eye at last, he added, in a good imitation of Bogart, 'Go ahead and shoot. You'll be doing me a favor.'

Kate blushed with anger and pushed the Glock under the waistband of her shorts.

'Now then,' she said brusquely, addressing herself to the captain lieutenant. 'These two men are wanted in the United States for piracy and drug smuggling. Hidden on this boat are 100 kilos of cocaine with a street value of twenty million dollars.'

The captain lieutenant whistled.

Even as she was making her explanation, Kate was wondering what could be in all the bulky black sports bags that were piled inside the boat. 'But before we do anything else, I think we have to resolve the question of jurisdiction.'

'A difficult matter,' admitted the captain lieutenant. 'I believe the Grand Duke is a British-registered ship. And this boat we are standing on. The Britannia. It is registered in the British Virgin Islands. At least that is what is painted on her stern.'

'That's true,' said Kate. 'But both these men are American citizens, and as such they should be tried for their crimes by an American court.'

Dave said, 'You send me back to the States, and I'll be facing a long prison sentence. Like I said before, go ahead and shoot. You'll be doing me a favor.'

'Is this another joke?' she asked him angrily.

'No, it's no joke.'

'Then why in hell are you grinning?'

Dave shrugged and looked for his missing watch.

'We're a long way from American jurisdiction,' said the captain lieutenant. 'May I remind you that these are international waters.'

Kate hardly wanted the two men as her prisoners. But there was something in Luzhin's manner that made her want to win this particular argument. She said, 'Nevertheless I insist that these two men be handed over to my custody. They'll be held on board the Duke until we arrive in Mallorca, whereupon they'll be immediately extradited back to the United States.'

'Immediately?' The captain lieutenant laughed again. 'I hardly think so. These things take time.'

Dave said, 'You'd really do that to me, Kate? After all that happened between us?'

'Nothing happened between us. And just keep your mouth shut, unless you want to spend the rest of the voyage in handcuffs.'

'Kate. Be fair. I can hardly stay silent about it, now can I? After all, it's my ass that's maybe going back to jail.'

'You should have thought of that before you pulled this little stunt.'

'And that's your last word on the subject?'