Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition Read online

  “Yes, Mr. Faraday? – and how did you get this number?”

  “He did. You gave it to me two years ago in the golf club.”

  Armakov laughed. “So you figured all along that I was trying to find the leak there. Eladio Camacho, my good loyal man.”

  “Yeah. You wouldn’t have to call me if you knew where they got what you said about me.”

  “You’re very sharp, Mr. Faraday. I am highly impressed. You had me believing I had you fooled about my true aim. I assure you, I also meant to warn you, even though I felt it would not be necessary to do so.

  “There will soon be another there to follow you.”

  “Not needed. I can take care of myself. Right about now they’re wondering what I found about the names on the internet. I made it look like a list several days old and put information about all of the people except those four on the list with some references to search engines I use. All I put by those names – and I spread them through the list – was a question mark.”

  “So they will wonder how you found the names and what you may have learned since the list was written. I am again impressed. They will spend inordinate time trying to find their own leaks. I hope you didn’t put any names that do not deserve the attentions of those people.

  “Call me Vasily. May I call you Clint?”

  “Of course. I’m surprised you didn’t from the first.”

  They talked for a couple more minutes about good restaurants, then Clint rung off.

  What now? Wait? Or actually see what he could learn about those names?

  He called Manny.

  Who Are These People?

  Manny said he could figure who Feinberg was, and maybe Ghenkof. He’d see if there was any information out that might tie them into anything other than the regular rackets. He called Judi, but there wasn’t anything new to report. It seemed that Nando was gone. Sergio had word out that he needed to have a heart-to-heart with the man. Besides which, Clint was gone off into the sunset somewhere.

  He borrowed Bob’s laptop and went on the wireless internet. He checked his e-mail and such, then started looking for the names.

  The trouble with that kind of search, where he only had part of the name, was that the comp came up with hundreds of Niklev, fifty or so Ghenkof and fifty or so Fandrev. It came up with more than a thousand Feinberg. Clint knew that search would be as much as hopeless. He could only read through to see if anything clicked.

  He spent about two hours on it, then went out to walk around town. Not much new was going on. David is a laid-back city that is more like a large town. People would stop to chat and trade gossip, seldom mean. While he was wandering he went to the bazaar strip and bought new underwear and supplies along with some light shirts and other clothing that was about a third of the price the same thing cost in Bocas Town.

  Manny called and said there wasn’t much about his people, but that Feinberg was getting very cozy with some big arms dealers in the Far East. He seemed very interested in guided missiles.

  Clint remembered what Vasily almost said. It connected, in a way. What the HELL did Panamá have to do with it? They sure as sunset didn’t ship any missiles from Chiriqui Grande or Bocas del Toro or anywhere else in Panamá! He didn’t even know where to begin.

  Okay. Financing was all it could be. They were smuggling something out of Panamá. What? It wasn’t drugs. That wouldn’t be handled in that area. It would more likely come from Colombia in bulk. What was in Panamá that would turn that kind of money?

  There were a few mines for silver and lead. There was some zinc. Not enough to finance anything vaguely like what was needed to buy a missile. Gold was 99% a scam. There just wasn’t that much on that order here. What oil was here couldn’t be smuggled anywhere. How do you smuggle ten million barrels of oil?

  If you had a ton of silver and John Doe had ten tons of lead and Mary Smith had fifty pounds of gold ... it still wasn’t anywhere close to what they needed. What could there be that would finance something like this?

  He decided to call his weird musician friend, Dave. Dave said the only thing it could be is money. Panamá is world-famous for laundering. It was something that would get Clint’s attention.

  “It wouldn’t get my attention if I didn’t know about it,” Clint pointed out.

  “Didn’t you just say they got your attention by accident?”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “Sort of intriguing. A few hundred million in cash put on a boat and shipped to somewhere else to be put on a boat. I could come up with a few stories with that as a background! The types it would involve would make it a great basic for a blood-and-guts, what they call ‘action’ book.”

  “There are enough types in this already. Thanks. I didn’t see the obvious again.”

  “As Merlin Tyana says, step back. You’re too close to it. You can’t see the whole picture from that close, only bits and pieces.”

  “Who the hell is ... never mind. A character in those books you write.”

  They chatted a bit, then Clint called Manny.

  “How much money is being shipped out of here by those people?”

  There was a pause. “That’s an angle I wouldn’t have considered. I’ll see if there’s anything to it – but whoever’s behind it seems to be very professional. Have you found out what it’s about?”

  “Buying missiles.”

  “Really? No shit? That would explain Feinberg. He might have the connections for it. They won’t be nuclear.”

  “That’s what has me worried. A few regular missiles wouldn’t change the balance.”

  “It would depend on where they’re aimed.”

  They talked for a bit, then Clint called Judi.

  “Hi. How’re things in Glock-amora?”

  “Same old same old. Hi, Clint.”

  “Jude, what have you heard lately about money laundering?”

  “Not a lot, but nobody mentioned anything to get me curious. I can check. There’s always a lot of that here.”

  “I’m not talking about a few pitiful millions.”

  “Oh? Now I’m curious!”

  They talked about the weather and local news, then Clint sat back to, as Dave suggested, “Step back” to try to see the whole picture.

  It was still blurry – my god! Did I really come up with that?

  An hour later he had a new scenario figured, but it still didn’t make much sense. Cash would come from the offshore banks, not interior Panamá. It seemed less and less likely. Something was missing. Something major.

  The phone rang. It was Manny.

  “Clint? I got some word about one of your people. Fandrev. He’s a nuclear scientist. Help anything?”

  “Hell no! Shit fire! That brings up a very scary possibility.”

  “The missiles they’re going after are guided and accurate, but they deliver standard payloads – so maybe that’s what they’re doing. By the time they’ve set it up to where it’s operational the payload wouldn’t be standard anymore.”

  “But ... it still doesn’t make any sense! Why am I involved? What could I know that would make them try to keep me out, but would make them afraid ... because I could connect Fandrev to missiles.

  “Could they get the stuff to make them nuclear anywhere?”

  “I don’t know that much about it. Call Dave. He wrote some stuff about nuclears some years ago. Maybe he can add two and two and come up with something more than zero.”

  “You’re as bad as he is – or me.”

  “Judi told me about your Glock-amora remark. Lame!”

  “Hah! You don’t know lame! Try `looking at the picture, but it’s blurry’ for size!”

  “That’s downright sick!”

  Clint agreed and called Dave, who was out in the town. He left a message to call him back.

  He walked around the quieter parts of David to think, stopping in the Luz Rosa for a bit of the very good local food there.

  No matter how you added it, it was scary and pretty clo
se to impossible according to what he knew about nuclears – which approached zero. He was walking back toward the pension when Dave called and asked what he wanted.

  “Dave, is it possible to convert a standard-type guided missile to nuclear? Could a few powerful people who knew something about nuclears do it? Is it even possible?”

  “Oh, yeah! To make a really dirty type, it’s not only possible, it’s easy. All you need is enough fuel.”

  “Fuel? What...?

  “Uranium. Plutonium. Get two half-critical masses, set them far enough apart that they don’t initiate a reaction, slap them together and boom. Radioactive particles for miles and a big hole where it went off.”

  “Cripes!”

  “I sincerely hope you’re simply theorizing about some idiotic action book you read or something. I very sincerely hope that you’re letting your imagination roam out in left field.”

  “And Manny says I’m bad?”

  “Yeah. That one even gets a groan from me.”

  Why Panamá?

  It still didn’t make sense. What did Panamá have to do with anything? Why was he involved from any angle? What did he know – or what did they think he knew that brought him into it in the first place?

  It was time to stop wandering all over the place with this. It wasn’t a game. He had to organize his thought and stop doing the random facts bit. That wasn’t working.

  They would have to be able to connect him to something in the past to be worried about him in any way now. What had happened in the past that they would worry about?

  They weren’t shipping laundered cash out. That was stupid to have ever contemplated. That was done every day and easily. They weren’t ... the money was secondary or less.

  That left the, as Dave called it, fuel. There weren’t any reactors that produced plutonium in Panamá. Clint knew enough about nuclears to know that. Those breeder reactors always got international attention. That left, so far as Clint knew, uranium. Maybe radium?

  Clint didn’t know if there was any uranium in Panamá. He went to the internet to check it out. Not in sufficient quantity that had been located.

  While he was there he checked on where it was found and under what conditions. It was found in areas where there were other heavy metals. Gold, silver, lead, thallium, mercury, platinum.

  There was some mercury in Panamá and a little gold and more silver. Plenty of lead.

  Clint had one case where a lode of lead was found on the finca of a friend. There was a little silver there, too. And zinc. Was there uranium? Had anyone even checked?

  That was all he could think of that could tie him into it.

  Why would they believe he knew about it if they found uranium there? Because he had made a show of knowing how to read sonic mapping and mining procedures in that oil dome that was actually sulfur?

  That was just inside the line of a likely wrong assumption.

  How to bring them out?

  He called Armakov. “Do you know what it’s about? No more bullshit!”

  “Clint? I ... not really. They ... I don’t like the combination coming together. Feinberg, missiles and a scientist. I find it to be terribly disturbing that they reacted the way they did. I don’t know why.”

  “Okay. I know about Fandrev and Feinberg. What or who are the others?”

  “Ghenkof is a sort of shady fringe character in protection and security. He protects thugs, for the most part. He’s one himself. KGB. Gregor Ivan Niklev, I can’t figure, other than a possible money man. I don’t know his background.”

  “I can find it, I think. I have a source or two.”

  “What is it about?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s very scary.”

  “Let me know? Facts?”

  “Certainly.” He hung up. It was always abrupt with Armakov.

  Internet again. He knew enough to be able to find something, he hoped. Gregor Ivan Niklev.

  There were nine. Two were engineers, which might be the basic connection. The others were in different fields.

  What kind of engineers?

  Structural and extraction.

  Extraction. Extract uranium.

  Another search engine came up with seven names, the extraction engineer not among them. The third and last one he checked came up with the same seven. The only reason the one he figured was on the first was his University of Moscow degree listing. 1974. He would be around 55 years old. He hadn’t excelled at anything to the point he was noted on the net.

  There had to be another unless they found out about the uranium by accident. Probably a lot of people went around the areas where heavy metal deposits were found to check the area with Geiger counters or something. If it was on private property there was a good chance only one had searched for it wherever it was found.

  How to find out where the lode was?

  Time to head for Puerto Armuelles. That would certainly get someone’s attention!

  So. Use a disguise.

  What?

  The older proper Spanish-looking man got off the bus and stretched his back, swore mildly and limped around for a few steps to get circulation going again in his legs. He asked, in very proper Spanish, where there might be an acceptable hotel and was directed to Central.

  Clint had stayed there many times. This guy had to be told where it was. A local man, Basilio, said it was the building across the square. The man pointed his thin black cane at the building and Basilio nodded. The man thanked him.

  He went to the station and requested that they hold his two large suitcases there until he found lodging. They said that was the custom.

  The man went into a local restaurant and sat at a back table to take his folding reading glasses from their leather case to read the menu in the card holder in the center of the table. He decided to have the pescado aguisada with yuca and lechuga. He snapped his fingers for the waitress, then apologized when she came over, explaining that was the custom in Madeira. Lana, who Clint knew well, said that it was no big deal. Different people had different customs. He asked what the custom was here. She said she looked around all the time. When she looked his way, put his hand up. He thanked her.

  The food here was good, as Clint knew. His disguise was good if Lana or Basilio didn’t see through it. He ate the meal, left a large propina, and went to the hotel to ask that they send someone for his luggage, then went to his room. He was liked for his proper pleasant manner and his obvious respect for other people and was given one of the best rooms with a balcony that looked over the parque to the Pacific.

  Clint laid on the bed for about an hour, then went to ask where he might find interest in the town. Jeraldo, at the desk, said it would depend on what he was looking for. The muelle was popular, there were the usual collection of bars, there was a brothel, El Critico, just out of town that was popular and higher class.

  Clint knew the place. As an unaccompanied Spaniard he would be expected to go to such places. A lot of information could be gathered there as he knew from former visits.

  He walked out to the pier and chatted with the very friendly people. He told them he was looking for a place in Panamá to retire. He found it was a better place than Europe. The people made the difference. Panamanians were, for the most part, the most amiable people he had met in his travels over much of the world. He wanted to live in a place where the people liked and respected one another. Where the people had time to chat and exchange experiences. He gave the name of Generoso Morales.

  He spent some time on the pier, talking to several people he knew well. One, Enrique Silva, an Indio from Bocas, seemed to be interested more than the others in him. When they were walking back toward the shore Clint asked why.

  “Because I’m very sure you are a friend I know,” he said in Ngoberé, the Indio language in Bocas del Toro.

  “I hope I am a friend. I am honored that you would say so.”

  “Then you are that friend.”

  Clint smiled and nodded.

  “I know
there is a reason for this so I will never let anyone know.”

  Clint nodded again. They were getting close to a group who were standing near the entrance. Enrique said he was pleased to have met Sr. Morales and hoped they would meet soon again and went up the road to the right. Clint nodded and said, “Buenos!” to the group and headed back toward the hotel.

  He strolled around town a bit more, went to his room and cleaned up and put on another suit, went to the brothel, El Critico, for a delicious meal and to talk to a number of the locals. The women there were mostly from Colombia and Clint paid the forty dollars to spend an hour with one beautiful girl in the cabins out back, as would be expected of anyone from the culture in Spain. He was able to learn there were a few Russian people in town a week or so ago. One of them stayed at a rented house near the beach. She had gone there once, but didn’t like the way the man, Ivan, treated her. She wasn’t a dog or cow to be ordered in and out as her master chose. The girls didn’t like him, but he paid well.

  He went back to the hotel and asked Jeraldo if he could have a taxi there in the morning early, say 8:30, to take him around the nearby countryside so he could learn more of the place. He liked Puerto Armuelles very much. Perhaps he would retire in the area. A man could do far worse.

  No Bluff

  The taxi driver said there wasn’t much along the road toward Costa Rica other than some fincas and a silver mine. No one was allowed on the silver mine. The Indio who owned the property was a very friendly sort who did a lot to help the locals with medical and education. Everyone called him “amigo.” The whole family were liked.

  Clint said he would like to meet such a person. Few were of such a nature as to garner praise from the local transportation suppliers!

  “Oh, they’re just very good people. Most of the Indios aren’t, but when you get a good one they’re easily the best people in the world!” Julio replied.

  Clint bit back a reply. That was better than the usual attitude of many of the Spanish toward the Indios. The blacks were always denigrating toward them, even when they shared close family connections.