Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck (14 page)

-Chapter 27-

Galveston tried to quell his excitement, but he looked like a teenage girl waiting to hear the latest gossip.  “Well?  What is it?” he exclaimed.

“
I ran through the information, I, uh, borrowed, and that little office you guys broke into belongs to…” Alex paused for dramatic effect, like announcing a prize on a game show.  “The CIA.”

“
The CIA?” Galveston practically yelled, the sound resonating through the terminal.  He calmed himself and whispered, “The CIA?” 

“
Yup.  Those guys.  It’s clear as day.  Massive amounts of communication from that office in Singapore to none other than Langley, Virginia, headquarters for the CIA.  I’ve got emails, phone records, just tons of stuff.  All of it was heavily encrypted so I couldn’t see the nitty-gritty of what they were talking about, but the destination was the same.”

“
Now what the hell does the CIA want with this ship?”

“
That’s your job to find out, not mine.  I don’t know, maybe they’ve gone into shipping those plastic Chinese toys or something,” Alex guessed.

“
Maybe they hijacked it themselves,” Galveston added.

“
Could be, but I know one thing, this is big and getting dangerous.  You guys better watch your backs.  Those guys chasing you were probably CIA agents.”

“
That doesn’t make me feel particularly good, you know.  Ah, crap, why does it always have to be some government organization.  Why couldn’t it just be some random whacko with a dumb plan.”  Galveston sighed.  “Alright, Alex, good work, except I’ve got some more work for you to do.  Have Jane give you a hand with this.”

Galveston
explained about the captain and first mate and the need to find out any information about them.  Alex was not overjoyed at the prospect of more work but reluctantly agreed.

“
Do you have any idea how we can find this ship?”  Galveston asked, trying to get a handle on where we should look next.

Alex had
some ideas and Galveston listened intently as a call for our flight rang out over the public address system.

“
Do you think he would help us?”  I overheard Galveston ask.  “Okay, when we get into Los Angeles we’ll give him a try.”  Galveston ended the call.  “I’m assuming you two heard who our little friends in Singapore were.”

Maddie and I had heard, as did half the airport terminal. 
“Yeah,” I announced.  “That isn’t quite the information I was hoping for.  Who did you say might help us?”

“
There’s a guy in L.A., actually in Marina Del Ray, that I used for a previous case which involved boats scuttled at sea so the owners could get out of paying for them.  He’s an old sailor and knows the ships and port like the back of his hand.”

“
What’s his name?”  I asked, as if I really cared.

“
Sailor Pete is what we call him, but I don’t know his real name.  He has been a merchant marine forever and knows every captain and ship coming into or out of the ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles.”

“
His name is Sailor Pete?”

“
Yeah, that’s what he goes by.  Alex suggested we get in touch with him to find out what he might know about these guys and the ship.  He’s also got some experience in locating missing vessels.  He may be able to help.”

“
Sailor Pete,” I thought to myself.  Just another character on Galveston’s long list of questionable contacts, I bet.  “What the hell, let’s go see Sailor Pete.”

-Chapter 28-

The flight into LAX couldn’t have come soon enough.  The three of us were bumped awake by the landing gear hitting the runway.  Our internal clocks were off by a staggering degree, as the only sleep we had gotten had consisted of what we could get on each of the plane flights.  I wasn’t even fully aware of the present date. 

It had been
almost forty-eight hours since our initial departure, and two days lost due to the global time zones.  Back in California the afternoon sun shone brightly.  I staggered from the plane as I felt my immune system beginning to revolt, and my back ached from the airline seat and its half-hearted engineering design.  We had one last stop to make before heading back to the solitude of a comfy bed and a good day’s and night’s sleep. 

Sailor Pete lived on a small sailboat in Marina Del Ray.  We stumbled upon the shabby boat in amongst the more regal and well maintained yachts and sailboats of the harbor.  Maddie was clearly questioning herself by this point for coming with us, and
Galveston attempted to hold her interest to a maximum.  Somehow he was pulling it off.  Either the sleep deprivation was causing Maddie to lose her marbles, or she was generally interested in what Galveston had to say.

Sailor Pete
‘s shabby boat didn’t disappoint.  It was what I had pictured Sailor Pete living in; a broken down, dirty, and utterly disgusting excuse for a sailboat.  The only place it looked like it could sail would be to the bottom of the harbor.

Galveston
knew Sailor Pete fairly well and had given us a quick update on his personality.  Pete had been a merchant marine for years and continued to spend most of his day prowling about the docks and ports of the nearby Long Beach and L.A. harbors.  He was a popular guy, and he could easily get past the security guards at the gates.  They had seen him in the area for years and figured he was still working at the port.  Sailor Pete knew all the latest gossip and subtle secrets that lay on the multitude of ships that arrived and departed the ports every day.

I pictured
Sailor Pete as a burly man with an anchor tattoo on his forearm.  My stereotypical picture couldn’t have been further from the truth.  As Galveston led us onto the dock in front of the boat, a wily, thin, very well-tanned man with a long beard and no shirt appeared on the deck, moving boxes from inside the cabin.

“
Sailor Pete,” Galveston yelled with a wave.

Pete stood up as tall as his tiny frame
would allow, his scrawny muscles flexing under the weight from the heavy boxes.

“
Yup,” Pete announced.  “Help you?”

“
It’s me Pete, Dan Galveston.  I talked to you about a year ago, you know, the missing yachts?”

“
Oh, yeah, you find those?”  Pete asked, as if he had just seen Galveston the day before.

“
Yeah, a few.  Got a good payday out of it.”

“
That’s good.  What can I do you for?”

“
We just wanted to see if you could help us with a little maritime problem.  We won’t take up much of your time.”

“
I suppose, not sure how much of my time there is to take,” Pete replied with a southern drawl.  “Come aboard then, just don’t fall in the drink. I don’t feel like gettin’ wet today.”

We clamored to the edge of his dock
, and I understood what he meant.  I literally had to pull my groin to get a foothold on the deck.  Galveston offered a hand to Maddie, but instead of taking it, she leapt gracefully onto the deck in one swift, agile jump.  Galveston grinned with a goofy look of appreciation on his face. 

“
I got some warm pop there in the cooler if you feeling so obliged,” Pete offered.  “You can also have some of my fish I caught.”

Pete threw a large fish onto a small grill, skin and
all.  The fish began to crackle as Pete gave us a mostly toothless grin.  “Sure you don’t want some?”

“
Where’d ya catch that, Pete?”  Galveston asked, noting the freshness of the fish.

“
Right here off my boat.  Nature’s breadbasket ya know, the ocean.”

“
You don’t think that’s a little dangerous, catching a fish right here in the harbor?  The water here isn’t the cleanest,” I pointed out to Pete.

“
Water’s water,” he stated while staring at his catch.  “All connected with the ocean.  Sure you don’t want some?”

“
I think we’ll pass.  A little too fresh for our tastes,” Galveston remarked.  “We just need some information on a ship that was supposed to dock here a few days ago.”

“
Supposed to?  Where’d it go?”

“
Well, we think it was hijacked by pirates in the Pacific past Hawaii.”

“
You don’t say.  Pirates, huh?  Maybe it’s those Pirates of the Caribbean looking for work,” Pete said, chuckling to himself at his bad joke.

“
No, I guess just some of your run-of-the-mill pirates,” Galveston replied smiling.

“
Uh-huh.  And what ya got on this ship?”

“
It is called the
Trusian
, a container ship out of Hong Kong.  Have you heard anything about it?”

“
Nope.  I know of the ship, but haven’t seen it here in probably, oh, six months.  Good vessel; strong, big sucker, but pretty beat up.  Can’t believe anyone would be stupid enough to pirate in the Pacific this close to the U.S.”

“
And why is that?”

“
U.S. Navy of course, plus Coast Guard.  Real difficult to make a fast getaway in a boat that big.”

“
Do you think you might know the men that were on the ship?”  Maddie interjected, obviously tiring of the banter between Galveston and Pete.

“
Sure, always a chance.  Lot of sailors come through this port, and I know a right many of ‘em.”

“
How about these two men; Captain Olgary Svenson, and Chief Mate Dimitri Petsoro?” Maddie asked quickly.

“
Hmm.  Second guy, never heard of him, but that first guy, sailed with him many a times, good captain.”

“
These men were on the
Trusian
when it departed from Hong Kong and may have something to do with the hijacking.”

Sailor Pete looked thoughtfully for a second. 
“Well, like I said, don’t know nothin’ about that first mate, but the captain, probably a little tough for him to be on that boat.”

Maddie looked confused. 
“Why?”

“
Captain Svenson is dead, back in Sweden.  Had a sailor that just left here talking about how he had some type of massive heart attack or somethin’.  Just found him a few days ago in his house.  Damn shame, he was a hell of a sailor, real Viking stock.”

Galveston
, Maddie, and I could only stare at each other in disbelief. 

“
Are you sure about this, Pete?”  Galveston inquired.

“
As sure as I know there’s fish in the water,” Pete answered dryly.

We stood standing with our mouths agape.  This was huge.  We had thought we had two good suspects in this case with a good lead on where to go next, but this changed things.

“How would you find this ship, Pete?” Galveston asked, suspending his disbelief on the information we had just gathered.

“
Oh, I don’t know.  To hide a ship like that in the Pacific wouldn’t be too hard, I guess, if you knew where to sail her.  But then again, these are the busiest shipping lanes in the world, you know, all that Chinese crap coming over.  Someone would have to see something, if they were looking for the right thing.”

“
What do you mean?”  I asked him.

“
Well, I would probably try to change the ship in some way; the registry, the name, something.  All the ships make a log of who they pass within any reasonable distance, especially if there’s a call out for it.  This ship would have to pass a lot of other ships any direction they went.  It’s a big ocean, but these things ain’t speedboats.  You can’t just turn tail and run.”

“
Could they have put a new name on the ship, is that possible?” Galveston now probed.

“
Sure,” Pete answered after a second.  “A little marine paint and a change in flag and you got it.  Big job, but if they had the guts to steal the sucker, they could sure as heck paint over the name.”

“
But if they did that, wouldn’t the name just come up as fictional?”  Galveston wondered aloud.

“
Not if there was another ship with the same name somewhere,” Maddie interjected, a light bulb seemingly burning over her head.

I thought for a second and understood her point. 
“Maybe there is another ship with the same name and going to the same point as the
Trusian
.”

“
Yup,” Pete responded.  “That could be it, as long as a ship didn’t see them both in the same voyage.  You may want to check any ships along that route.  But I gotta warn you, these gotta be crazy pirates you dealin’ with.  You had all better be prepared if you find that ship.”

“
We will, Pete,” Galveston said without much confidence.

“
Hey, what’s the payout on such a thing, you know, a missing ship?” Pete asked.  “There will sure be a lot of companies pushing for some money.  Reminds me of the old Hyundai Fortune blaze, lot of money lost on that ship,” Pete added.

“
What was that about?” I inquired. 

“
The Hyundai Fortune was a container ship, caught a mean fire in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Aden.  I believe some of the cargo was fireworks.  They lost a heck of a lot of money, about $300 million dollars if I remember right.  That big insurance company, Lloyds something or other…”

“
Lloyds of London?” I interjected.

“
Yeah, that’s the one.  They had to pay.  Things get pretty dirty when you’re talking about that amount of cash.”

“
You don’t say,” was all I could muster, shocked at Pete’s knowledge of the shipping industry. 

“
Yeah, all those insurance suits don’t like paying out that kind of dough.  They get pretty upset and usually want some blood after a payout like that,” Pete philosophized.  “Y’all got anymore questions?”

“
I don’t think so.  You gave us a lot to think about,” Galveston told him.

“
I do have a question for you three, though.”  Pete turned his gaze to the shore of the harbor under his rough brimmed hat.  “Do you know them two fellers over yonder?  They’ve been watching us this whole time.”

Galveston
and I turned and spotted two men with sunglasses peering at us, one holding a pair of binoculars.  As I began to say something to Galveston, the men broke from their stance and began to run towards the pier entrance.

“
I think they’re here for us, but I don’t want to wait around to find out why,” Galveston yelped. 

The men were closing in fast and one was holding something
out of sight at his side.

“
Uh, Pete, you got an engine in this thing?  These aren’t friends of ours,” I fired back quickly.

“
Damn straight I do.  Best one in the harbor.  This thing may look like a tub, but I did a little overhaul on the engine,” Pete said proudly.

“
Do you think you can get us the hell out of here?” Galveston yelled as Maddie jumped to the middle of the vessel.

“
Hell, sure. Get those lines and we’ll be off.  I haven’t had this much excitement in years.”  Sailor Pete was clearly pumped about the prospect of a getaway.

Galveston
and I quickly got the lines off the dock as Pete fired up the engine.  He punched the throttle, and we heard a large roar come from the bottom of the boat as the propeller cut into the water.  Sailor Pete, with great skill, maneuvered past the boats near him, almost hitting a few, and left them bobbing violently in the wake of the small sailboat with the overly massive engine.

I peered back and saw the two men running
down the dock edge, looking as if they were ready to jump.  They stopped short, turned, and ran back down the deck.  I noticed they were stoned faced and expressionless.

“
Who are those guys?” I yelled to Galveston over the roar of the engine as we got out into the main channel. 

“
Looks like CIA to me.  No expressions, and they dress too neatly,” he responded.  “I think I have an idea how we can give them the slip.”

“
Whatever it is, I’m in agreement,” I bellowed as I spotted the men jumping into a white sedan.

The unknown agents moved
quickly and mirrored our position in the waterway with their position on land.

“
Pete, swing the boat near the dock and those other boats. I’m going to drop off the back side,” Galveston yelled at Pete.