Blank Slate (A Kyle Jackle Thriller) (9 page)

Kyles head was throbbing as he tried to absorb everything. “OK, so, it sounds like I might be an informant or maybe work undercover with law enforcement-I’m guessing at this point. Why did Mercedes get killed?”

“She was a really sweet girl from a small village in the Urals who had a really tough time. She came into the country as a mail order bride about five years ago. It didn’t work out. The guy was an old pig who hardly ever let her out of the house alone. She finally ran away from him, couldn’t find a job anywhere, and ended up working at the club.”

“She had only been dancing for a few months and really wanted out of the business. She told me couldn’t stand all the sweaty perverts touching her. I don’t know what you guys had going on, but I knew you spent some time together. Friends, lovers, I really don’t know. I do know I heard from one of her friends a couple of days later that she was excited about going to dinner at some sushi place with you on Sunday night.”

The confusion was overwhelming-
who was I
? Tasha’s revelations had left me with more questions than answers. Was I working for some criminal enterprise or against it? If the knuckle draggers at the club hadn’t been lying, it appeared that I was somehow involved with law enforcement. Based on the reception I had the night before at the club, I suspected that Popov and company weren’t likely to invite me over for a friendly beer anytime soon. Too much to think about.

“Let’s go below-This boat seems to be the closest thing I have to any kind of permanent address. Maybe here’s something here that will give me a tie to my past and let me fill in some of the blanks. More than that, I really need to get familiar with my boat. It would be pretty damn embarrassing if we needed to leave in a hurry and I had no idea how to start the engine.”

Tasha stayed with me as we methodically opened and explored every compartment from bow to stern. There were a few surprises that turned up along the way. In the forward anchor compartment, there was a stainless steel shotgun strapped to the bulkhead. Under the v-berth, a variety of compartments full of spare sails and replacement stainless steel parts for the sail rigging. I couldn’t believe how many compartments there were jammed onto the boat. It seemed that there were spare parts for every system on board. Engine parts, plumbing parts, electrical stuff, even a rebuild kit for the head. Everything was designed for spending weeks offshore where the boat had to be completely self-sufficient.

Once I was confident that I could put my hands on every spare part I might need, I started to familiarize myself with the systems and electronics on the boat. It all seemed somehow very familiar-probably the same deep seated muscle memory that years before would have allowed me find controls and switches in the dark during the middle of a storm. My first impression that the boat had been rigged for serious blue water cruising was correct-state of the art chartplotters, weather radio, and radar along with the latest SSB Radio and satellite phone allowed communications at sea anywhere in the world.

On the far right side of the nav station hidden under a shelf was an unmarked toggle switch. I shrugged-nothing to lose…I flipped it back and forth a couple of times. There was a faint whirring sound as an electric motor engaged and the panel on the starboard side recessed into the settee. Tasha and I stepped around the nav station to inspect the results.

“Not exactly what I was expecting,” I said taking in the contents of the compartment in a long appraising glance. Hidden behind the polished teak panel were enough weapons to start a small war. There were a couple of Berretta .40 cal pistols, two H&K MP5s with suppressors, flash bang grenades, and finally one item that elicited a gasp of surprise from Tasha when she saw it-an XM-25 grenade launcher with a dozen laser-guided smart-rounds.

“I’m not sure what that is,” said Tasha pointing at the XM-25, but it’s probably not standard self-defense equipment on sailboats.”

“I agree. It goes against my nature, but I hope to hell there are some manuals aboard for that. And if we happen to run into any really, really big sharks I feel safer already,” I said mustering up a smile. My inner doubts were just about to overwhelm my outward show of confidence.
Who in the hell was I? No one had access to this class of weapons.

I learned a lot from the exploration-if this was my boat and these were actually my weapons, I must be working for a high-level international government agency. Also whatever it was I was working on, it was covert-no one went to the lengths I had just witnessed for something that was going through normal law enforcement channels.

One final item behind the bulkhead was a flat panel monitor and keyboard. When I moved the mouse, the screen lighted to reveal a blinking icon. I had Mail.

I glanced at Tasha. “What do you think?”

“We need answers-I think maybe we’ll find some in there,” she said pointing at the monitor.

I clicked through a couple of screens and opened the mail program. There were several new emails that arrived and were time stamped the previous Sunday within just a few minutes of each other. The dates on all the files started during the previous week and went as far back as the previous year. I started with the newest files and started quickly working my way backwards.

The last message received on Sunday afternoon had been forwarded from another computer and had one line- “KJ works for us-call me.” I checked the email address with Whois and was unpleasantly surprised to find the original email came from a government email account. I assumed ‘KJ’ referred to me. I still couldn’t tell you who my mother was, but after that email, I knew for damn sure that I worked for the government and that someone inside the government had betrayed me.

There was a pattern of sorts revealed in most of the other emails. It looked like a series of back and forth conversations in an open code between Popov and someone based out of South America. References to a project called “Nautilus”. A timeline that continued to be repeated. August 24-four weeks from today. On that same email, a series of numbers-00-82-23-21 followed by 83-30-03-38. The final email had a large file attached to it and a notation about final revisions being made to the electrical system. I opened the attached file and started reducing the blueprints until I could see the device displayed on the screen. It looked like a series of complex piping runs in a refinery operation. I reduced it further and could see a long tapered cylinder running vertically. Then I realized my mistake, rotated the image ninety degrees and reduced it one more time so that the entire object fit on the screen. I caught my breath as I realized that in front of me were the working blueprints for a hundred foot submarine being built somewhere in South America.

The final surprise behind the panel was a small drawer containing passports for three different nationalities and registration papers for the vessel.

Tasha and I stared silently at each other for a moment. I broke the silence first. “The good news, I suppose, is that apparently I’m not some drug dealing scumbag. The bad news is that every drug dealing scumbag on the planet is probably trying to find me and kill me. You sure you want to be around me? I can get you a plane ticket and get you out of here before it gets any more complicated.”

“Hey, what else would I do? I’m not sure, but I think I probably was fired from the Platinum Club last night,” Tasha said with an easy smile. This girl continued to be full of surprises. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected there was much more to her than met the eye.

“The other problem,” I mused, as I thought through a number of possibilities, “is that the guy who dropped the dime on me with Popov obviously also works for the feds-so we’re pretty much on our own until we can figure out who to trust.”

I returned my attention to reading the string of emails. “Some of this is fairly obvious. There’s a submarine being built somewhere in South America for some unknown purpose-drug smuggling would be my first guess. Also there’s a fairly clear link between Popov and the Columbian cartel. The only part that makes no sense to me is the number sequence - 00-82-23-21 and 83-30-03-38. Some kind of combination? Probably not-too many digits. A code of some kind? Maybe. Not nearly long enough to be a message…”

Tasha had seen enough. “Are you ready to give up yet? Would you like for me to tell you what it is?” she asked smiling sweetly.

“By all means,” I said with an exasperated shrug of my shoulders. “I’m going in circles on this one.”

She snatched the paper from my hands and began writing with a pen directly below the numbers-12.32.28.00 and 83.30.03.38. “Put those numbers as a waypoint in your chartplotter and see what you find.”

I stared blankly at the Garmin chartplotter for a second and fumbled with the keys a few times trying to remember how to use it, but within a couple of minutes had succeeded in inputting the coordinates Tasha had written on the paper. The chartplotter took a second to redraw the map and we found ourselves looking at a spot five miles up a winding river between Honduras and Nicarauga. I checked the satellite view, and it appeared to be located right in the heart of the jungle.

“And do you mind telling me exactly how you happen to know about GPS coordinates?” I asked.

“I spent some time working as a cook on a private yacht while I was living in the Ukraine and Europe-somehow managed to learn a few essential skills along the way that my mother didn’t teach me.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had all day, but somehow I doubt you picked up your skills with a knife in any culinary school. According to the map, it’s about twelve hundred miles to there,” I said pointing my finger at the tiny mark on the chart, “and I really don’t think I could stomach the idea of surviving on my own cooking for two weeks.”

We went to work on provisioning the boat for four weeks at sea. A trip to the grocery was first task on our list. An hour later, we walked out with three baskets full of food to a waiting taxi-Tasha’s little BMW barely had the trunk space for a picnic basket, much less several weeks of food. I figured that for the first few days, we could count on using the refrigerator so we loaded up on steaks and fresh vegetables. I wasn’t sure how much diesel the generator would burn, but I figured a couple hours a day would be enough to keep the batteries charged and the freezer chilled.

The old man at the checkout stand didn’t even blink when we wheeled up the carts and started unloading everything onto the belt. This area of Fort Lauderdale was homeport to more megayachts than any other place in the world. Some of the big yachts in the marina with twenty crew and an equal number of guests would need a truck to bring in all the provisions for an extended trip. By the time he finished ringing up everything, I had spent almost six hundred dollars on the check card. Thank God, the Russian apparently had plenty of cash remaining in his account.

“Thank you for shopping with us today,” the old man intoned. “Planning a trip offshore are you?”

“Yes sir, just stocking up on a few things before we go east to Bermuda and then hop over to the Azores,” I said winking at Tasha as I loaded the last of the bulging bags back into the carts. No sense in giving the old man any information that could be used to track us down later.

The taxi driver dropped us at the head of G dock and we started the laborious process of loading a dock cart full of groceries, wheeling it two hundred yards down the dock, emptying it on the boat, moving it below into the refrigerator or storage compartment and then repeating the process. We had some assistance from one of the men working at the marina who was more than happy to give us some help in exchange for a twenty dollar tip. An hour later, after completing six round trips, we finally had everything stowed and onboard.

I pulled back the cover for the diesel motor, checked that the seacocks were open for the cooling system and completed my other last minute checks of the engine, fuel and water. “Tasha, would you get the bow line aboard,” I asked as I finished warming up the diesel.

“Got it,” she said as she pulled the lines off the pilings fore and aft and stowed them aboard.

I cranked the wheel hard to starboard, goosed the throttle to swing the bow around and motored smoothly out of the slip. We had no intention on wasting any time in getting offshore into International Waters. Within a couple of minutes, we were in the Intercoastal headed south at about six knots. In spite of sailing into a new set of dangers, we took a minute to savor the ride. I enjoyed seeing the look of amazement on Tasha’s face as we passed dozens of yachts that were over one hundred feet in length.

We waited a couple of minutes for the 17
^th
Street Bridge to open and motored through behind an enormous sailboat whose mast stretched at least fifty feet above the opened bridge. A half-mile after the bridge, I turned the helm to port and we carefully threaded our way through the heavy boat traffic in the Everglades Inlet.

“Eleven hundred ninety-eight miles to go,” I said smiling at Tasha.

“Great! As long as you don’t expect me to do all the cooking,” she said as we entered the smoothly rolling swells of the Atlantic.

“Not a problem,” I laughed. “Let me set the autopilot and I’ll hoist the main.”

I set the first waypoint on the chartplotter and the autopilot began steering the boat to a location twenty miles west of Fort Lauderdale. A little out of our way, but I wanted to become a small speck in a big ocean as soon as possible. I moved forward on the gently rolling deck, stripped off the sailcover and pushed the button on the electric halyard winch. With a smooth hum, the winch raised the heavy sail until it topped out and I secured the halyard to the cleat on the mast. Back in the cockpit, I pulled the sheet on the genoa and it quickly unrolled from the furler on the bow. I took a quick look up at the sails, trimmed the main and pushed the button on the electric primary winch to sheet in the genoa. You could feel the power transferred through the taught wire rigging as the sails filled and drove the sailboat away from Fort Lauderdale and toward the relative safety of the open Atlantic.