“Are you here all week, Shecky?”
“Some college professor did a paper on the public’s lack of caring about the plight of whales. He cited Moby Dick, still to this day, as the main cause for the callousness over the fate of the cretaceous.”
“Stop being cute, just tell me the facts.”
“Fact: a percentage of the proceeds of the movie was going to a whale protection group. The first movie, it’s animated, and it bombs. The die-hard save-the-whale heads vow to try again, but this time with a live action film. You know with actors and some CGI…”
“Joey, I got it. Are you finished?”
“So they plan on making this mechanical whale for the film, you know, so no real whales were hurt in the making… Disney doesn’t build it because the chemicals are on a banned list they corporately signed an oath never to use. They shit-can the sequel. The plans sit until these bastards throw caution to the wind, environmentally speaking, steal the blue prints, and build the thing.”
“I still don’t follow, but even more important, I don’t care. Can you tell me who built it and how we can catch them? Or at least prove it’s a real entity to get Red Beard off the hook.” Bill pulled out the page that had the different fluid names.
“Hey, that’s funny too! Red Beard… Pirate… Hook?”
“You are in a rare mood, buddy boy. Did you get laid last night?”
“As a matter of fact…”
“Good, I am happy for you, and I feel for Phyllis. Now, stop giggling like a kid and be the cop I owed a job to.”
“Okay, but I already did all that.”
“You hard-on, when were you going to tell me?”
“Just before you shoved this report that I already read in my face.”
“Okay cut the crap; what do we got?”
“The propulsion bladders were of rubber, made by a subsidiary of Michelin out of Libya. The specs were right out of the WDI plans. The electro-reactive fluid came from a chemical tanker presumably pirated off the Somali coast. The ship’s owner, the Marnee Line, claimed the pirates let seawater into the hold and ruined the load of P784. It made a claim and received 1.2 million of the insured value of this very rare gunk. Of course, it’s possible the bad guys took all they needed first, then flooded it.”
“And the sixty-four thousand dollar question is — ” Bill announced in a game show host styled voice.
“Who are the bad guys? Hold on to your girdle, Mabel — UNESCO.”
“As in the United Nations?”
“The terrorists in Turtle Bay, that’s correct.”
“What the hell?”
“The rotating head of UNESCO was the Somali ambassador. During his reign, his half-brother, T.R. Maguambi, used the UN’s credit card to finance the whole op and opened accounts in Geneva that would endow their little terrorist Orca for years to come.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
“Near as we can tell, one hundred million in the various Swiss accounts.”
“How could this happen?”
“At the UN only the big things like global warming, nuclear proliferation and human rights are watched by the Security Council, which is us, France, Germany, Russia and China; the relatively good guys. The rest are all thugs and thieves trying to use the UN as a big bat to bash in the brains of century-old enemies.”
“That’s a rather cynical view, Joseph.”
“Bill, if they didn’t have metal detectors at the doors up there, these tribes and clans would be stabbing one another during every vote.”
“So Maguambi takes advantage of the chaos in the General Assembly and funds his personal pirate program.”
“Why not? The last Secretary General’s son hit the mother lode on “oil for food” right under everyone’s nose. They’re still trying to find the millions squirreled away around the world.”
“How do we shut him down?”
“Right outside is the guy who can help us build the case.”
“Case? That sounds like court, cops, plea-bargaining and years. I want these guys stopped, yesterday.”
“Ah, Billy boy, now, now, here’s where that nagging little crinkly piece of old yellowed paper pisses all over your righteous indignation. The Constitution says you can’t just wipe ’em out without proof.”
“Wrong! Maritime Law clearly says you find a pirate, you can hang a pirate.” Bill stuck out his tongue as the school yard decorum continued.
“Wanna take this to the judge? You are going to lose. That only covers at sea and in the act. Here you have a diplomatic figure from a sovereign nation who may or may not be implicated in an illegal conspiracy to commit piracy on the high seas.”
“I hate you…”
“Really off your game if it ain’t science, aren’t you Bill?”
Bill gave him the finger by holding up three and asking Joey to “Read between the lines! Now, who’s outside?”
“Percival Cutney, from Lloyds of London.”
“An insurance investigator?”
“From London!”
“Okay, bring him in.” Bill got up and moved over to the small conference table in the right corner of his office.
He remained standing until Joey entered with the insurance man.
“William Hiccock, this is Percival Cutney from Lloyds of London.”
“Nice to meet you; do you go by Percy?”
“No, I prefer Percival, Professor Hiccock.”
“Of course, Mr. Cutney. But while we are being so formal, it’s Doctor Hiccock, I am no longer a research professor at M.I.T.” Bill already felt like this guy had judged him a cardboard cutout bureaucrat. Percival was impeccably dressed in a Crombie topcoat and Savile Row bespoke grey suit, and sported a thin, tightly furled umbrella, fully coifed hair, and a tan that seemed air-brushed onto his skin. He had blue-green eyes and uncharacteristically perfect teeth, caps most likely. Bill noticed he wore a Notre Dame ring, which was a bit of an oddity — he’d expected to see an Oxford ring. He also sported an odd sort of wedding ring, seemingly made to resemble barbed wire. That’s one way to keep a marriage together, Bill mused to himself. “Mr. Palumbo tells me you have corroborating evidence in the piracy affair.”
“Yes. May I have a glass of water?”
“Er… sure.” Bill went back over to the credenza behind his desk and poured a glass of water from the pitcher. He placed it in front of Percival and sat.
Percival reached into his vest pocket and produced a vial of clear liquid, unstopped it and poured it into the glass, and then removed a double-A battery from the same pocket and dropped it into the glass. He then flicked the glass toward Bill.
Bill immediately reacted, pushing back from the expected mini-deluge, but instead the water with the battery in it clunked onto the table as a solid. Although shaped in the form of the tumbler as if it were ice, it was not cold at all. Bill gave a little smirk, then leaned in and touched the solid water with the end of his pen.
“It’s a solid as long as there is a voltage from the battery,” Percival said.
“Electro-reactive fluidics,” Joey added.
“Yes, except the pirates have stolen something even more rare — electro-expansive fluids.”
“So, in the presence of a voltage, the liquid expands.” Bill picked up the solid water and looked through it.
“Yes, and that’s the breakthrough that has Maguambi rolling in ill-gotten gains.” Percival opened his folio and placed a stack of papers on Bill’s table. “Here are some of the extortion letters our shipping clients have received in the past months. In every instance, the carrier is threatened with attack from an entity no ship can defend against.”
The whale! Bill thought.
“We think there is only one of these entities. It is our policy to pay the relatively small sum to the pirates, rather than to pay out on a loss of ship and life claim. But it has to stop. We are being bled dry.”