Barracuda (8 page)

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Dr. Collins
already knew the answer to that question. He was aware of James’
background in economics; if anyone could read an accountant’s
ledger, James could.

The two sat and looked at each other in stunned
silence. The last thing either of them wanted was an unsolicited
distraction from their work. The grant and the discoveries were the
most important things in their lives, but this new documentation
had moral implications that could not be ignored.

4

Hiroshi Machii was the director of the Majuro
Majestic Hotel and Casino. He ran the resort with an iron fist, a
common practice amongst Japanese businessmen. This trait often made
Japanese entrepreneurs appear to be aggressively rude.

Hiroshi staffed his hotel with a mixture of his
fellow countrymen, locals, and Russians, insisting that all workers
speak English at all times. He did not tolerate people speaking in
foreign tongues, even among themselves. The local Bikinians were
grateful to have the jobs but despised working for the Japanese.
This hatred came from Japanese atrocities committed during the
occupation in Word War II. While the rest of the world had a short
memory, the Bikinians had not forgotten.

Most of the locals preferred to work at the
Bikini resort, but since that hotel was so small, the overflow had
to work at the Majestic on Shark Alley Island. There was a band of
Bikini rebels responsible for organized vandalism at the Majestic
in an attempt to show their contempt for the Japanese, and Hiroshi
had flown in Russian enforcers to hunt down and deal with these
annoying vandals. But at the moment, he had other concerns.

The maitre d’, Genichi Matsuzaki, gave his boss
the ledger and bowed politely.

“Where did you find this?” Hiroshi
questioned.

“Satoshi, the waiter, found it under a table and
thought it belonged to a scientist who carries a similar
diary.”

“Did the scientist read it?”

“I don’t know, but he had it in his possession
for several minutes before I retrieved it,” Genichi stammered.

Hiroshi paced slowly, deep in thought, as a
frightened Genishi watched helplessly. “Send for Andrej. I wish to
see him immediately,” Hiroshi finally snapped.

***

Andrej Mordvinov was the Russian manager of the
Majestic. He answered only to Hiroshi but supervised the Bikinian
and Russian work force. He and Hiroshi had an endurable working
relationship, but they were not friendly. The clash of cultures was
just too great. Both men belonged to strong organizations that
required this tolerable alliance to coexist. They both knew that
they were expendable in the eyes of their respective
organizations.

Andrej surrounded himself with his accountant,
Alexander Basajev, a spy, and several enforcers who were the
bouncers for the bars and disco. They were large and mean, a
collective force not normally needed in this idyllic locale.

Andrej was annoyed by Hiroshi’s verbal summons.
The resort was not fully open yet and the Jap already had an urgent
matter. Andrej did not like to be summoned this way, but he knew
that he must hold his tongue lest his superiors cut it out of his
mouth.

“Alex, come with me. I’m ordered to appear
before his fish-eyed majesty,” Andrej said with a laugh.

Alex was in the study while his boss was
watching television in the lounge. They had a huge suite that
served as Andrej’s office and Alex’s work chamber. He nervously
exited his office and stood before Andrej, who shook his head.

“Alex, look at you. You look like you just saw a
ghost. Don’t let that Japanese bastard get you agitated. I’ll deal
with him.”

“Boss, I misplaced the Bible,” Alex stammered.
“Bible” was their cryptic word for the ledger.

“You
what
?” Andrej bellowed. “This is
what it’s all about then. Shit! Fishface has me over a barrel.
Where did you last have it?”

“I remember taking it with me when I had a late
snack last night in the restaurant. I was working late and had the
Bible with me until my food arrived. I think I placed the book on
the empty seat next to me so it wouldn’t get soiled. I must have
finished my meal and left without it. Hiroshi’s waiter or staff
must have found it.”

Andrej could see that his friend was unstrung.
Despite being an extremely competent worker, Alex was a close
comrade. Fatigue was the culprit here, not poor Alex. The
organization was multiplying its level of money transfers in
anticipation of the grand opening of the Majestic, and Alex was
inundated with extra work; tardiness was unacceptable. If the
transfer of huge sums of cash didn’t flow smoothly and in a timely
fashion, red flags might pop up and bring unwarranted attention to
their operation. If this happened, Alex knew he would become shark
bait.

“Relax, my loyal friend. I’ll handle it as I
always do, and then we can drink some Leningrad Gold vodka,” said
Andrej as he ruffled Alex’s hair. The two men walked to Hiroshi’s
suite at the opposite side of the building. Andrej rang the
doorbell and announced himself. A young Japanese boy answered the
door and motioned the two men to come in.

“Come into my study,” Hiroshi ordered.

Andrej motioned for Alex to remain in the living
room area of the suite while he entered the study. Andrej
immediately noticed the Bible sitting on the desk in front of
Hiroshi. “You’d better have a word with your waiters,” he announced
instantly.

“My waiters?” Hiroshi questioned, taken
aback.

“Yes,
your
waiters. They treat my staff
like second-class citizens when they are in the restaurant. Just
last night, one of your waiters removed an important journal from
one of my staff while he was having dinner.”

“And how did my waiter do that?” asked Hiroshi
with sarcasm.

“My loyal accountant had dinner and then used
the restroom to wash up. His journal was missing when he returned
to his table, and he was unable to locate the waiter. This morning,
he called the lost and found desk. The staff were uncooperative to
my man, and he aired his grievance to me. I went off on a tangent
thanks to the home office, but now I’m here to complain.” Andrej
was playing a bluff, and being a gambling man, he knew that in this
situation it was a good strategy.

“It is very honorable to protect the ineptness
of your men, but do not try to do it at the expense of mine,”
Hiroshi fumed. He was a man of few words, but he always got his
point across and let people know who was boss. He picked up the
ledger and handed it to Andrej. “Never again,” he said.

Andrej also was furious. He hated Hiroshi’s
condescending attitude. The prick had seen right through his
deception, and as a result, he was humiliated. He wanted to storm
out of the office, but he knew that he must kowtow to the director
and show respect. Andrej put the Bible under his arm and began to
walk out with his tail between his legs.

“You are not dismissed,” an angry Hiroshi
shouted. “There is an additional problem now that your man has left
our crimes in plain sight.”

Andrej hesitated. “I don’t understand.”

“Those two shark doctors found the register, and
we cannot take a chance that they understood the contents. It’s
your mistake, so I leave it to you to correct. Use some initiative
and make sure the correction does not bring shame to the
Majestic.”

“I understand,” Andrej responded in a firm,
deliberate voice. His anger was thus replaced with a sense of
purpose. He knew that he had to hastily eliminate the two
scientists before they could report their accidental findings.

He and Alex walked back to their suite in
silence. Alex had overheard everything and knew that they were in a
pickle. If the situation wasn’t corrected immediately, it could
cost them their lives.

Andrej summoned Tanya, his spy, to his office
and together they concocted a scheme. They knew that James always
carried the scuba gear to the skiff, making three or four trips.
Once the boat was loaded he helped Dr. Collins carry on the camera
equipment and they went their merry way. Tanya would engage James
in conversation and learn their secret diving location, leaving
Andrej’s henchmen free to initiate a plan to eliminate the
scientists and make it look like an accident.

***

Dr. Collins found himself more bothered than he
had expected by the illegal activity that they had fortuitously
stumbled upon. He made a long distance telephone call to his niece
in New York to discuss the status of his research. Terry Collins
was his brother’s daughter, a noted marine biologist working on a
grant from Princeton University. She was examining the unexplained
red tides that were killing off shellfish in the Long Island Sound.
A multimillion-dollar industry had been brought to its knees
because the water was becoming deoxygenated. Most fish just swam
away to an area where the water had enough life-sustaining oxygen,
but shellfish could not do so and thus suffocated.

“Hello, T.C. Is that you?”

“Yes, Uncle Timmy. How are you?”

“Fine. How are you? How are you?”

“Okay, Uncle Two-Times, relax and take a big
breath,” she laughed.

The two talked for over an hour, discussing
their respective projects and finally the money laundering. Terry
didn’t seem too concerned. She just thought her neurotic uncle was
exaggerating and that they’d probably found the ledger of a timid
bookkeeper who had brought his work on vacation with him. She was
more interested in her uncle’s tales of huge tube and barrel
sponges the size of bathtubs, as well as corals that populated the
formerly radioactive lagoon. Terry thought there might be something
in Bikini Atoll that could help in her research. For coral and
other organisms to grow larger than normal, they would need much
more oxygen and nutrients. Thus, there was a direct correlation to
her red tide research. She told her uncle that she would attempt to
get a grant to investigate the coral anomalies in Bikini Atoll, but
she didn’t think that she would be as lucky as he was.

While Dr. Collins spoke to his niece, James
walked along the deserted dock, which was still covered in a myriad
of fish scales that shone like a million tiny light bulbs when the
moon reflected off them. There was a first-quarter moon high in the
dark sky that splashed the dock in silvery shadows, and the lagoon
water gently splashed up against the pilings, sounding like an old
man walking in wet galoshes.

James suddenly felt a sense of dread. The
shimmering shadows coupled with the rhythmic sounds of the tide and
boats banging against their rubber tire bumpers filled him with
fear. He knew this apprehension was unwarranted, but he felt it
just the same.
This isn’t the Brooklyn docks
, he told
himself.
There is nothing to fear here in a pastel
paradise
.

Suddenly, a voice bellowed, “Can I help
you?”

James turned to see a giant of a man standing
behind him. He was paralyzed with fear. “Don’t hurt me please!” he
cried instinctively.

The giant laughed in a deep throaty voice that
was somehow soothing. “I’m Celestial, and I wouldn’t harm a
fly.”

“Jesus, man, you’re just the fellow I’m looking
for.”

“Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,” Celestial
warned.

“Sorry, it’s just that you startled me,” James
explained. “I work with Dr. Collins and we are doing shark research
in the atoll. I can assure you that we treat the marine animals
with respect and dignity, but our research is very important to
their ecological equilibrium.”

“Speak in layman’s language. I am not a
scientist,” Celestial said with a laugh.

“Sorry again.” James was also laughing.

The two walked to the
Hummingbird
and, in
simple terms, James explained why they needed his help. Celestial
listened patiently. Celestial understood the need for the
postmortem because he knew these reefers were different. He knew
that their anatomy might be different from other gray reef sharks.
But he clarified a few things for James. There was no need to
capture a live gray reefer and kill it to perform a necropsy.

“There is a shark graveyard that only I know
about,” Celestial said. “We can get the body of a gray reef shark
from there for your experiment—or whatever you call it.”

Celestial had been blown off course during a
gale one day and sought shelter on Bokbata Island located at the
far northwest corner of Bikini Atoll. When the weather cleared, he
noticed thousands of crabs in the shallows. This made him curious,
so he donned his mask and snorkel and dove down for a peek. What he
found was a huge graveyard for gray reef sharks. Unlike other
reefers, these sharks swam here to die, and the crabs and other
scavengers cleaned the skeletons.

James was ecstatic. If this information could be
documented, Dr. Collins would have his new breed of shark
confirmed. He would be the pride of the ichthyologic community and
justify the grant from the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Celestial invited James aboard the
Hummingbird
and liberally poured two glasses of rum. Inside
the wheelhouse, James could finally see the big man, whose
shoulders filled the wheelhouse and made James feel puny by
comparison. Celestial was a dark-skinned, middle-aged man with huge
hands. His head was bald, and a nasty scar ran from the corner of
his left lower lip to his ear. James had a quick thought that
Celestial resembled a large fish that had been hooked on a line and
tore the hook out his mouth rather than be caught.

The two new friends moved out to the rear of the
boat where they sat and enjoyed a warm glow courtesy of the rum.
They talked about the numerous aberrant behavior of the Bikini
Atoll fish, the gray reefer included. Celestial spoke of huge
groupers he had caught that weighed more than one hundred
pounds.