Barracuda Page 6

  “You’re lucky he had waited on us before and recognized your journal,” James exclaimed.

  “Balderdash!” Dr. Collins cried. “Even if he hadn’t recognized the journal, he would have known it was mine once he opened it up. It obviously belongs to a scientist, and since we are the only scientists here, he need not be Sherlock Holmes to figure out to whom it belongs. Just look.” He flung open the book.

  James was laughing until he saw a look of concern on the doctor’s face.

  “This is a bookkeeper’s ledger, not my journal,” Dr. Collins said. “This must belong to the hotel accountant.”

  “Let me see it,” James replied.

  The professor was muttering incoherently about the incompetence of the little man while James perused the contents of the ledger. The doctor ceased his muddled mumbling when he saw James arch his eyebrows in astonishment.

  James tried to gain the attention of the waiter who had brought the ledger to them, but he was unsuccessful. Suddenly, the maitre d’ appeared and in a thick Japanese accent, asked, “Is everything all right, sir?”

  “Oh, yes,” James answered. “The waiter thought this was the professor’s journal, but he was mistaken.”

  “I’ll take it to the lost and found,” the maitre d’ offered.

  “How about some coffee while you’re at it?” barked the professor.

  The man looked disdainfully at the doctor and walked off in a huff. The rude scientist was about to protest when James growled, “Let’s go to our room. We can order room service if you’d like some coffee.”

  The doctor mumbled his disapproval and reluctantly followed James back to their rooms. When they arrived, he demanded of his assistant, “What was that all about?”

  “Where should I begin—with your rude behavior toward the maitre d’ or the money laundering ledger?”

  “I wasn’t rude to the…what did you say about the ledger?”

  “I was curious and looked it over. It shows a steady inventory of funds being transferred from New York City to San Francisco, then through to Honolulu and ending up in Tokyo. Then the same accounts go in reverse from Tokyo back to New York. Professor, I don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that this is a register of laundered money. The Majuro Majestic Hotel is the common source here. We questioned the unlikely alliance of Japanese and Russian hosts here at the Majestic. Well, it appears to me that the Russian Mafia is in bed with the Japanese Yakuza.”

  “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.”

  “A
nd 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.

  “The larger the fish, the stranger they act,” he stated. “Some have extra fins, eyes, and teeth. I saw some very strange angelfish. Usually, angelfish eat coral with their little beaks and don’t get much bigger than two feet. One day, a fisherman came running back to the dock with a n
asty wound to his hand. He had been out net fishing with his sons, and while he was removing all of his fish he was bitten by a giant angelfish. He said the beak was sharp and twisted, bigger than he had ever seen. It must have been, too, because the beast tore off two of the man’s fingers and half of his palm. His sons set out the fish on the pier for everyone to see.”

  “Had you ever seen anything like it?” James asked, fascinated.

  Celestial answered. “Things changed in Bikini Atoll from all those nuclear bombs so many years ago.”

  James couldn’t dispute this simple man’s deduction.

  “I can’t charter my boat for another day,” Celestial told him. “I’m changing a fuel pump in the morning and it will probably take all day. Besides, there has been news of a storm for early afternoon, and the shark graveyard is about twenty kilometers from the dock. We’ll have to wait.”

  The seafarers said goodnight, and James walked back to the hotel as Celestial drank rum on his boat. Halfway to the hotel, he ran into Tanya. It was an accidental meeting, but Tanya was always an opportunist.

  She was dressed in a pink, pastel dress that enhanced her sexy curves.

  “I guess our dark dock doesn’t scare you at night,” she said, in her most seductive voice.

  “It’s beautiful down there,” he countered.

  “Wait until the full moon. Then it lights up like a Christmas tree with all the fish scales sparkling and the moon beams reflecting off the water.”

  “I can’t wait.” He smiled. James was falling under her spell.

  “Mmmm…it’s getting chilly. How about buying a gal a drink?” she purred.

  “How about a rain check? We’re doing an early dive tomorrow to beat the inclement weather.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” she said with a wink.