What Elmase told me, I didn’t have to write down. Balserio, or his people, had discovered that Lourdes had some kind of connection with a tramp freighter that made regular runs from Nicaragua and Masagua to Havana, then on to Tampa and back. It often carried fertilizer, although the ship was such a wreck that the company was known to be willing to haul just about anything.
Balserio’s people had it from a reliable source that Lourdes had made a cash deal with the captain and crew of this phosphate freighter to give him safe passage out of Florida, and that the boat would be leaving for Central America soon.
Elmase told me, “Here’s the part you gotta write, dude, so you don’t forget. If you find this boat, you gonna find the crazy Man-Burner aboard her. Maybe your son, too.”
The name of the freighter was Repatriate, and it was registered out of Monrovia, Liberia.
It was the same decrepit ship, covered with rust and fertilizer dust, that I’d seen headed to sea, probably an hour or so outbound from the phosphate plant at Gibsonton as I was headed inbound.
I told Elmase, “I’m not going to forget.”
I dialed Harris immediately, but before I could speak, he said, “Hey, ol’ buddy, I just noticed there’s some old bastard in a cowboy hat tailing me in a white unmarked Ford. It’s a damn old cop! If he was driving a Jag and wearing a beret, I’d still know he’s a cop just because of the way he looks. What’s the deal? Do you know anything about this?”
I told Harris to calm down, there was something I needed to ask him before I answered. I said, “Did you call your dispatcher and get the list of ships that are transiting tonight?”
“I haven’t had time. When I figured out this was the third or fourth time I’ve seen Dick Tracy, I started a game of bumper tag just to make sure. The guy can drive for an old fart, I’ll give him that much.”
“Did you notify anyone that Dr. Santos, and my son, might be out here somewhere being held aboard a ship?”
“I told you I was. That’s the first thing I did. I called Port Authority Security, and I told them to alert Coast Guard and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. There should be an army of people scrambling right now.”
“O.K., good. In that case, how far are you from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge? I need your help again. If you’re willing. Or is there a better place to stop and pick you up?”
Harris said he was more than willing, and that he liked Blackthorn Park on the south end because of what it meant to him. But the little park on the St. Pete side of the Skyway was closer, so that would be better. Said he’d flash his car lights when he thought he saw me approaching.
I wrestled over the decision if I should tell him now or later about the tramp freighter, Repatriate. I finally decided to wait until he was aboard my skiff-but only after I’d asked him how long it took a freighter to steam from the bay into international waters.
I wanted to know because, if notified immediately, I wondered if it was possible for any of the state law enforcement agencies to intercept the Liberian freighter before it reached international waters. If not, they were powerless, because the ship would be out of their jurisdiction, and so the information would do them no good.
Only the U.S. Coast Guard, because of treaties with a variety of countries-usually related to anti-drug-trafficking agreements-has the legal right to stop and detain vessels on the high seas, and also to make arrests. No other law enforcement in the State of Florida does.
There wasn’t time to stop them before they made it out of territorial waters. Not a chance, by my calculations. And the idea of a Coast Guard helicopter trying to intercept the vessel gave me the chills.
So instead of telling him about my conversation with Elmase, I asked him to call his dispatcher and get information on all ships transiting Tampa Bay that night. Repatriate’ s data would be included.
I wanted a private, personal shot at the vessel before anyone in law enforcement did something stupid-like tip them off by contacting the Repatriate’ s skipper by radio and demanding that he turn back to port.
If the ship’s captain and crew were being paid by Lourdes, that would only put them on their guard and make it more dangerous for me, my son, and the surgeon-if they were both still alive.
Before hanging up, Harris asked me again, “But what about the old guy? The cop in the unmarked car. What should I do about him?”
I told my friend that once he got to our rendezvous point, pull over, stop, and introduce himself to Detective Merlin Starkey, who was probably now attached to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
“Let him know about Dr. Santos and my son. Tell him he’s probably the first cop to know, and ask him to help. As a personal favor to me.”
Harris said, “The way you’re talking, it’s like you’re old friends or something.”
I said, “He and my late uncle, they knew each other. But they weren’t exactly friends.”
I put the phone in my pocket, jumped the skiff onto plane, and concentrated on getting to the Sunshine Skyway as fast as I could. Because it was night, and because I didn’t know the water, that didn’t mean going as fast as my boat could go, unfortunately.
Not in the winding creek anyway.
I made myself take it easy. Run it safe.
There was a time when I seldom used the running lights required by law when boating at night. On a small boat, “running lights” consist of a red port light and green starboard light on the front of the vessel, and a white light on the back. All of the lights are bright enough to be seen one to two miles away.
On my Maverick, the bow lights are positioned so as not to be bothersome, but a white stern light can’t help but impair night vision slightly. Which is why I once often made a practice of operating my vessels (illegally) blacked out.
Not anymore, and not on this night. There are nearly a million boats registered in Florida. It’s starting to get busy, even after sunset. From what I witness daily around the marina, maybe a third of all boaters are competent during daylight, and the rest are a menace to themselves and everyone else day or night.
Which is why I now almost always use running lights. No telling what brand of idiot is out there, flying through the darkness.
So I had my lights on, running the serpentine river course as fast, but as safely, as I could. As my skiff’s stern pivoted, the moon swung behind me as if on a pendulum with a kind of easy, skiing rhythm, and so my wake seemed to partition away as ridges of ice might, in rolling, congealed waves of silver.
I had a spotlight out, too-2 million candlepower handheld with a pistol grip switch, the unit plugged to the console, and lying on the bow seat, ready when I needed it. Which wasn’t often. But when I did pick it up and touch the trigger, the little river seemed at once to explode with light but squeeze in closer, ablaze in a column of yellow-mangroves, roosting birds, oyster bars, and raccoons all frozen in the harsh beam.
At the mouth of the creek, I came around the final bend, and the horizon changed as if a curtain had dropped; changed from a black tree-wall to open sky, stars above, navigation markers flashing miles away, lights blinking as random as fireflies, and the night skylines of St. Pete and Tampa dimmed the moonlit clouds beyond.
The narrow creek seemed to hold less oxygen then the vast bay, and air came into my lungs easier. It seemed cooler, too, as I powered out onto the dark water, toward the four-second flashers that line the main channel.
When I was safely away from the creek’s shoals, I increased my speed to a little over forty, banking southwest toward the high, carnival-bright lights of the Skyway Bridge. As I did, the phone in my pocket began to vibrate. I’d never owned one before, and now I was suddenly besieged by calls.