The Devil on Chardonnay (22 page)

Constantine’s face grew red, he finished the second giraffe and ordered a third.  He fidgeted in his chair.

Boyd excused himself for the men’s room.  He noted an exit through the kitchen.  Returning, Mikki pulled away from a close conversation with Constantine and smiled at Boyd.

“So, you will work for Mikki?”  Constantine said to Boyd, leaning into the table as Mikki headed for the john.

“We’ve talked about that.  I don’t really know what she wants me to do.”

“You are a bodyguard?”

“No.  I’m a banker from Oklahoma,” Boyd lied.  It didn’t sound convincing even to him.

“Humph!  You are no banker.  With Carlos behind you,” he said, nodding to the Portuguese who came in later to sit behind Boyd, “you grew restless.  You moved your back to see him.  Who are you?”

“Who are you?”  Boyd asked, trying to be as belligerent as possible. 

Jealous lover was the only role here.  He couldn’t be seen as a threat to whatever it was they were planning.

“I am Mikki’s lover and business partner,” Constantine said, standing up.

This move was designed to strut his stuff and probably had stopped innumerable disagreements on this island.  He was a big, big, man.

Jose Azevedo was scurrying out the rear, for the police Boyd hoped.  Several locals made a hasty exit out the front.  Constantine’s men were still seated.

“Mikki has many lovers!”  Boyd said loudly, glancing toward the rear.  He wondered why Mikki had set this up and seemed to be riding it out in the pisser.

Constantine picked up his beer mug just as Mikki opened the door.  He stood there, eyes blazing, brandishing the mug. 

Boyd feinted with his left.  Constantine made a clumsy blocking move with the right arm that held the giraffe, and beer spilled out over the now empty tables.  Boyd came in with a full force right cross that hit Constantine square on the chin, and the big man went down backward  across a table laden with lunch for the group of fishermen who had just exited out the front.

Boyd paused over the dazed Portuguese, lying on the broken tabletop, surrounded by broken beer glasses and spilled plates of fried sardines.  Boyd rubbed his newly broken right hand, adrenalin high just now kicking in.  He swung around, grabbed his nearly full beer and hurled it at the two surprised Portuguese just rising from their seats.  They ducked and Boyd turned and headed for the back door.

Mikki’s eyes were wide and bright.

“I’m not stayin’ to see the inside of a Portuguese jail.  If you’re comin’, come on,” he said as he ran out the back into the alley, Mikki right behind.

“Why did you do that?”  She was yelling from behind, running as fast as she could in her calfskin boots, wobbling along a rough cobblestone alley. 

“He came for me,” Boyd said, already thinking of a way to explain it to the police.

They were all out full speed as they turned the corner at the end of the alley and sprinted down the center of the street, paved with larger, flat stones.  The harbor was a hundred yards away.  Whoever Constantine was, he’d just learned, painfully, the first lesson in bar fighting: Never bluff.

Someone was shouting up the street toward Peter’s Bar as they took the steps down to the Zodiac.   Boyd could hear several people running in his direction.  He fumbled with the lock on the line, looking up to see Constantine, very much awake at this moment, trailed by two of his Portuguese companions.  He had a pistol.

“Get in,” Boyd said, turning to see Mikki already in the back, as the engine sprang to life.

“Chica do calle!” Constantine cried out as the Zodiac churned the bay and began to plane.  He reached the bottom of the steps and ran along the bank, repeating his announcement, then stopped and brought up the gun.

Boyd took that statement, made several times, to be a sign of general disrespect, and lowered his profile.

The first shot was way high.  The second hit beyond them in the water, throwing up a tall, thin splash.  Chardonnay’s diesel started.  Boyd looked up to see Constantine running along the walk parallel to their course, gaining on them.  He stopped again and braced the pistol with both hands.  Boyd flattened again in the bottom of the Zodiac.

The burst of automatic weapon fire hit right in front of Constantine, and the half dozen pillars of spray caused him to drop to the ground, pistol forgotten.  The second burst ricocheted off the rocks beneath the walkway he stood on, and he rolled back to be further from it.  His companions jumped behind a dry-docked fishing boat. 

Boyd turned toward Chardonnay to see Wolf standing on the rear, an AK-47 resting in the crook of his casted right arm, a big smile on his face.  Neville was throwing off the mooring line.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Pirates

“Chardonnay!  Return to Horta immediately or Portuguese authorities will board your ship on the high seas and detain the criminals you are harboring.” 

Mikki translated the message that had been repeated in Portuguese over their radio for the past half hour.

Neville had persuaded her to leave her stateroom to listen to the message. 

She grabbed the microphone and answered with a question that included the name Ponta Delgada.

There was a pause of more than a minute.  No doubt her proposal was causing some discussion at the other end.  During this time, Mikki glared alternately at Boyd and Wolf.  They glared at each other.  The radio came back to life with a long message that included Ponta Delgada several times.

“They won’t send the navy after us if we stop at Ponta Delgada and drop these two off,” she said, looking at Neville. “When will we be there?”

“By dawn.”

Mikki turned back down the stairs and stalked toward her room.  As she passed Donn and Pamela, she paused.

“The American Consulate is on Ponta Delgada, at San Miguel.  Wolf can go to the German Consulate.  The consuls can make an apology and negotiate a fine.  Constantine is well known in these islands, his reputation has been damaged.  He fired the first shot, that will help.  I will pay for Wolf to fly back to Geneva.  You must leave, too.  We will find another crew in Ponta Delgada.” 

Pam looked stunned.  Donn was mute.  Mikki waited for an answer and, receiving none, continued to her room and slammed the door.

Disengagement was an important skill if you played games the way Mikki did, Boyd thought, listening from the top of the stairs near the radio.  That’s what consuls are for, to sort out who did what to whom and to figure out what it was going to cost. 

This was perfect.  Boyd was sure Ferguson would have notified the Portuguese by now, and their navy was his best chance to get this boat stopped and properly searched.  What better place to get his hands on Ebola that in a Portuguese port?  He could get the Portuguese to quarantine it there and get Joe Smith and his boys in to do the dirty work in their hazard suits.  That’d be job done, then back to Shaw and the Poinsett range … and that waitress.  He was tired of this chase.  He walked back toward the wheel and Neville.  Their eyes met, but nothing was said.

********

Boyd awoke when the engine went to idle and forward motion stopped.  Chardonnay rocked gently in a mild sea.  In the pitch dark of the guest stateroom, his watch showed 0336 hours.  Pamela, head at the other end of the same bed, was still asleep.  He sat up, head clearing.  He’d manned the helm from dark until after midnight so Neville, up since before dawn, could get some sleep.  Now Neville was at the helm with Donn as crew. 

There was a shout from the deck, and he quickly pulled on his jeans and felt for the door.  The saloon was well lighted, and his pulse quickened as he climbed the steps.  There was another diesel alongside, bigger, also idle.

A spotlight blinded Boyd as he stepped from the doghouse.  He shaded his eyes and saw the fishing boat from which it came.  It was large by Azorean standards, but no larger than a small tugboat, with the same high bow and deep draft.  Though much shorter than Chardonnay, the fishing boat’s bridge was higher, and the deep gurgling of its engine at idle indicated substantially more power and speed.  Shouts were coming from several crew members along its deck.  Donn was forward, adjusting fenders between the two ships, which were rising and falling in unison with the swells. 

“Is this the Portuguese Navy?”  Boyd asked Neville as he strode back to the wheel, curious that there was no flag or insignia.

“No,” Neville said simply, then nodded back toward the fishing boat where a crewman stood with an automatic assault rifle pointed at them.

Realizing the danger now, Boyd looked back along the deck to see the large figure of Constantine Coelho approaching with a boarding ramp.  He wore a leather pistol belt with a large revolver covered by a leather flap.  Crew from the fishing boat jumped across and attached lines to cleats on Chardonnay’s deck.  The ramp spanned the space between the two vessels, and Constantine came aboard, eyes locked on Boyd.

“So, you want to fight, but only for one blow?  We can finish now.”  He walked quickly up to Boyd as he spoke, and a roundhouse right caught Boyd on the chin.

Boyd went down easily and sat on the deck, dazedly rubbing his jaw.  Quickly he took in the scene, looking for an opening.  There was none.  One seaman stood forward of the doghouse with his weapon covering them all.  Another was on the starboard side, his back to the fishing boat, right behind Constantine.  A third manned the spotlight, keeping Chardonnay’s crew squinting and shading their eyes.

“What is this?”  Mikki demanded as she emerged from the doghouse, wearing jeans and a wool sweater.  Her rapid strides aft slowed as she squinted, shading her eyes, trying to see the ship alongside.  When she saw it wasn’t the Portuguese authorities, the pace slowed.  She stopped when she saw Constantine. 

He stepped toward her, impatient to close the gap she left when she stopped.  The blow was open palm but no less determined than the one that had floored Boyd.  The slap hit her face, and the follow-through lifted her off her feet as it propelled her forward toward the doghouse hatchway.  She landed flat and quickly rolled into a ball, whimpering, cowering.  She crawled, not toward the hatch and momentary escape, but toward Constantine, supplicating.

The tirade was in Portuguese, with Constantine pointing at Boyd and then himself.  In seconds, she transformed from the arrogant mistress of the sea to a little girl trying to avoid another spanking.  Constantine bent and grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to her feet.  The scolding continued.  She responded, beginning to regain composure and giving an explanation.  She pointed to Boyd, Neville and then below.

Wolf appeared in the hatchway door, one arm in a sling, the other a cast.  He was followed by Pam, just zipping a jacket over the T-shirt she’d slept in.

Constantine stopped, seeing Wolf and Palm, and asked a question.  Mikki shook her head.  He gave a command in Portuguese, and the seaman from the front went below, rifle at the ready.  He called out from below.  Constantine looked at Mikki, shook her arm.  She responded, and he repeated it loudly to the seaman below.  Five minutes passed before the seaman came up the steps, rifle slung over his back, carrying two aluminum cases, each about the size of a small suitcase.  They were padlocked. 

This was Ebola.  Boyd wondered at how its strategy seemed to find just what it needed at the right moment.  Greed had opened its cage.  Perversity had refined it.  Malevolence now reached for the lever of its power.  The seaman nimbly leaped across the gap between the vessels and disappeared into the wheelhouse of Constantine’s fishing boat.  He returned holding a case of dynamite.  Just as nimbly as before, he hopped back onto Chardonnay and descended the stair.

“Wait!  This is piracy,” Neville cried out. “You’ll all hang for this!” 

Constantine laughed.  He shoved Mikki toward the ramp joining the two vessels.  She tripped, falling to her knees.  With a grunt, Constantine’s boot lifted her thin butt waist high, and her high-pitched yelp of pain distracted the seaman behind Constantine.

Boyd leaped forward, covering the six feet between them before the man realized his mistake.  The gun barrel turned back in Boyd's direction just as he reached it with his hand.  He grabbed the gun and shoved it down, momentum carrying him into the seaman.  His left hand delivered a body blow with all he could muster. 

The muzzle of the big pistol in Constantine’s hand exploded, and flame shot across the deck toward Boyd.  In that instant, the flash illuminated Constantine’s face.  Beelzebub stood there, fire blazing in his eyes, death in his hand.

Boyd was hit in the right chest, the impact straightening him up and slamming him backward. His buttocks hit the safety railing.  Powerless against the force of the huge bullet that carried pieces of his sixth rib and scapula many yards behind him, Boyd’s body flattened backward and sailed out over the rail. 

Peace settled over Boyd as, silently, slowly, he dropped the eight feet to the water below.  He felt like an autumn leaf falling from the top of a great oak, languidly drifting down.  The impact with the water was like settling into a feather bed, and the Atlantic closed over him, warm and kind.

CHAPTER FORTY

Ponta Delgada, Portugal

ACORIANO ORIENTAL NEWSPAPER

September 18

(translation from Portuguese)

YACHT EXPLODES, ALL HANDS LOST!

Ponta Delgada, San Miguel, Azores, Portugal.
  The luxury yacht Chardonnay exploded and sank with all hands early this morning just hours after an armed confrontation in front of Peter’s Café Sport in Horta, Faial.  The vessel pulled out of Horta without Port Authority permission, and the Portuguese Navy frigate at Ponta Delgada was put on alert.  The captain of Chardonnay had agreed to stop at Ponta Delgada for a customs inspection and to release into custody those responsible for the exchange of gunfire.  In addition, communication with the government of the United States had warned that this vessel was smuggling contraband material and should be detained and searched.  The explosion, 25 miles off the southeastern corner of Sao George Island, came without warning or distress call at 3:45 AM and rattled windows as far away as Ponta Delgada.  Chardonnay, owned by the Meilland family of Luxembourg, has been a frequent visitor to the Azores for many years.  There is speculation that piracy might be involved. An investigation is pending.