The Galician Parallax (26 page)

‘I think you’ll find the whole programme detailed in there. If you’ll excuse me, I have an important board meeting…’ he pointed at his secretary. ‘Marisa can fill you in with whatever you need.’ He shook hands and went back into his large office. Stan walked out into the car park.

‘What the hell?’

Back at the shipping agency, and once settled down at his desk he began to prod through the “brief” for the upcoming exhibition in September.

‘Lots of big shots alright,’ he said to Yolanda who, seeing that he was back from his meeting in Chapela wanted to know how he had got on.

She was standing right behind him, gentling rubbing her protruding belly against the side of his arm. ‘It must bring back memories,
amor
.’

Stan looked up and smiled. ‘Maybe.’ He continued to revise the document.

‘This is a different ball game.’

Serene Maiden
arrived in the early morning after a leisurely voyage that took nearly six days. Lieutenant Commander Bentley-Smith had settled in from the very first moment and kept his two navigators amused with constant war stories when he was a young seaman himself. ‘I remember the time when…’ and would continue for hours reminiscing about the North Atlantic RN fleet during World War II. Joan had sent an e-mail to the agreed address in Vigo warning about the change in plans. Sr Perez confirmed arrival date but requested docking on the other side of the bay in Cangas. He took advantage to let Maiden Voyages know that from now on, a new location for fender swap on a rotation basis would take place on each voyage. “For safety reasons,” the message had ended.

It was Jerry’s turn to take the guests to Santiago, in this case, the lieutenant commander, whilst Donald remained to supervise the “other tasks”. The plan was to spend the night ashore and leave early in the morning to reenact the lieutenant commander’s dream at the exact times of the original submarine attack nearly sixty years ago. Donald looked at his watch; it was just gone 11.30 a.m. The other two had already departed north. He made the usual phone call to Sr Perez.

‘Morning, Don here.’ He listened. ‘OK, once they’ve finished I’ll be at the usual place; say about six.’ He hung up. Within a couple of hours, the truckload of fenders arrived and without any other hindrance two men in blue overalls carried out the usual swap.

At 6.30 a.m the following day,
Serene Maiden
was on her way.

‘You’ve even brought an old sextant with you,’ said Jerry as they rounded the north side of the Cíes Islands.

Pointing at the satellite navigation panels the lieutenant commander replied, ‘We didn’t have them in our days.’

Trying to find his balance on deck he made his way forehead. Once straddled across the bow, he began to fiddle with the instrument giving the impression that he hadn’t used it for years. He then pulled out of his breast pocket a scrappy piece of paper that looked like a section of an old navigation chart. The sea was relatively calm.
Serene Maiden
was navigating on her engine. Donald was at the wheel whilst Jerry was keeping an eye on the old man making sure he had everything he wanted. Donald looked at the GPS. They were within a mile of the supposed hunting ground. He slowed down, looked around and then checked the time. It was now eight-thirty. Apart from two fishing boats that were heading north about three miles away and a large container ship approaching the bay from the south, no other vessel was in sight. It was a bright day without a cloud in the sky. Facing east the sun had risen high enough to show the islands in their majestic splendour protecting the entrance to the Vigo Bay.

‘That’s it,’ shouted the lieutenant commander. ‘Stop, we’re here.’

The yachtsmen couldn’t believe it. The old man had managed to work out the bearings almost to the exact spot that the yacht’s modern electronic gadgetry had.

Still on the bow, the lieutenant commander was bellowing orders.

‘Steady. Bearing 125.’

Donald reduced speed. The lieutenant commander looked at his watch. It was nine thirty-five.

‘Fire one!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.

Jerry immediately flung a couple of rocks into the water; one on either side of the boat.
This is crazy
, thought Donald as he reduced the engine speed even further. A second order came from the bow.

‘Fire two.’

Again, Jerry obliged. Within seconds came the third and last instruction to complete the simulated attack.

‘We can’t throw any more debris over the side, sir. It’s against the law,’ said Donald.

The lieutenant commander just smiled as he tried to wriggle out of his posture. He got tangled up with a set of ropes. Donald secured the wheel and together with Jerry they managed to “retrieve” a retired naval officer and settle him back in the cabin with a hot cup of coffee and a good tot of rum.

‘All part of the service, sir,’ said Jerry as all three raised their glasses.

An hour later Lieutenant Commander Bentley-Smith was lying stone cold on his bunk with a half-empty bottle of Appleton tucked under his arm. He’d suffered a severe heart attack.

‘Now what the hell are we going to do? Return to Cangas?’ asked Donald.

It was nearly midday,
Serene Maiden
’s engine had been switched off and the yacht was drifting aimlessly in mid-ocean. They were now about sixty miles offshore.

‘No. We can’t go back with this load; too many questions, unless we dump the stuff overboard first.’

‘Like hell. Just because of a dead old man? There’s over one million bucks worth, man.’

There was a fair amount of maritime traffic building up in the area. A cruise ship was just off their port bow, obviously en route back to somewhere in Europe. Their first wise move was to set up the sails allowing them time to think and take their minds off their deceased passenger.

‘We can’t sail back to Falmouth with a stiff on board. We’re what… about three days away?’ said Jerry.

Donald went down into the cabin to cover the lieutenant commander with a blanket.
Looks so peaceful
, he thought. He came back up with a couple of cans of beer.

‘Here. Cheers. I think I’ve got the answer.’

Galicia has three large penitentiaries, Texeiro in Corunna, Monterroso in Lugo and A Lama in Pontevedra. As with most prisons in Europe, the inmates are a mixture of nationals and foreigners and terms can vary from two or three years to a full-blown thirty-year jail sentence. Convictions are also widespread although the majority is either drug related or assault and battery. Domestic violence is the order of the day with rape often included in the criminal package. Julia Adamson was different as the case involved non-resident foreigners.

Stan had met with the parents of the convicted rapists on two separate occasions and both ended with a visit to the prison where the accused had been transferred. He’d given both men the list of lawyers that spoke English as per Foreign Office protocol as well as a complete dossier on the Spanish legal system and how it would affect them in their forthcoming trials. It was also Stan’s first prison visit. It would turn into regular six-monthlies to make sure that all British inmates were being treated fairly and that their needs were satisfied in accordance with the rules established by law and based on human rights.

After presenting their credentials at the entrance and the visitors given passes, their first meeting was with the prison director who briefed them on procedures. They were then accompanied at all times by a guard, except for the final phase of the face to face interview in a cubicle protected by bulletproof glass and equipped with intercom voice connection. Stan had seen many scenes of prisoner relationships on the movies but this was the first time he experienced it in person. Once the visit was completed, the relatives satisfied that their next of kin were not being abused in any way, it was up to the authorities, lawyers and judges to complete the gruesome circle of a criminal act ending with a prison sentence.

The parents returned to the United Kingdom broken-hearted whilst Stan picked up the threads of his workload after a hectic session of consular work.

Gloria was preparing coffee in the kitchen, whilst Sergio was busy on his laptop in the living room. It was near 11 a.m. Being a Saturday neither was on duty.

‘You’ve never shown me the inside of that devious mind of yours, have you?’

She laid the coffee tray and some biscuits on a small table alongside the large sofa. Sergio stopped dicing along the keyboard and for a moment just stared at the screen.
Why not
? he thought. He also sensed that what she was aiming at had been on her mind for months.

‘I know that our central intelligence gurus and their European counterparts are rich with experts dissecting all the information related to this drug and terrorism issue.’ He looked up at her. ‘I’m a small cog playing around with similar info. I’m not naive.’

He got up to serve himself a coffee. Gloria said nothing. She knew his moods. She also knew how to wait for his response.

With a smile on his face he said, ‘We’re Galician and trust no one, least of all our own people.’ He moved back to his laptop.

‘Come over here.’

He switched the screen back on and brought up his personally designed “search engine” that contained what looked like a simple questionnaire. All the inserts were non obligatory and unlimited that allowed maximum flexibility. Sergio began to fill in some of the blanks. He finished about four inserts and was about to press the entry key.

‘Now watch. The result will be selected from a massive matrix of cross-referencing, doesn’t matter whether it’s a date, a person or a location. Depending on what you’ve asked it, the program will mix it all together, find a series of common denominators and then come up with what looks like the most outrageous answers that only I can understand. It’s a bit like those scenes in a film when you see laser beams shooting across a room that houses an expensive gem in a glass cubicle. Think of following all lines that are connected and eventually “hit” the cubicle. Each line is an entry in my system.’

Gloria was still not quite with it. When he had finished Sergio pointed at the screen.

‘Look.’

He’d entered her name, followed by his 500cc motorbike, a date and a location. The answer was: “buy a car”.

Gloria couldn’t resist it. ‘You’re nuts.’

He erased the entries and re-entered fresh data. He took another sip of his coffee. This time round he continued to fill more and more spaces of information, varying from theme to place to date to people. Gloria was looking over his shoulder at the screen as he pressed the entry key once again. The result was frightening. An answer box said, “Islamic attack – Indonesia”. His final entry was “Australian tourists”.

‘We all know about the attack on Bali. It’s already happened.’

Sergio got up and for a moment just faced her without saying a word.

‘All the information I pumped into my system was there before the attack happened.’

A shiver ran down her spine. Although he’d told her that he’d dropped the Ordes case, Sergio continued to browse through his files and the press, introducing, updating and cross-checking his information as if he was playing a constant chess game against himself. He never told anybody of his obsession that had now turned into a continued pursuit of irrational drug or terrorist behaviour in his neck of the woods despite the routine nature of his present workload.

Duty officer Gerard Skip picked up the signal from
Serene Maiden
at 7.30 p.m. He immediately sent out a distress order to the Cornish RNLI rescue service at Fowey. ‘We’ve got an MOB, Lat 47º22’16” N – Long 6º35’10”.’ Within fifteen minutes the helicopter was on its way. The yacht’s position was approximately 200 miles south-west of the Scilly Isles. After three days, and over a hundred square miles of coverage no body was ever found.

Serene Maiden
made her way back to Falmouth.

After receiving word from Falmouth about the mishap of the first drug run of the season, Mr Billson called for an emergency meeting in his office of all Maiden Voyage members as soon as possible. As an old hand in the drug trade he had cleverly handled many cases of police raids and shipment interceptions throughout Europe and the UK. His network of confidants was well versed in protection rackets, payoff systems and the like to steer clear of any form of discovery of his illegal trade. Donald Simmons, Jerry Fulton, the Stantons, who had successfully returned on the
Gentle Maiden
run, and Joan Flashman were all present in his office. They were all aware of what had happened and knew the reason for the meeting.

Once they were all seated round the conference table, Mr Billson, a copy of the MOB report in his hand, opened the session with a simple statement. ‘We’ve been damn lucky.’ He waited for a reaction. There was none.

‘I thought so.’ Still, no one uttered a word.

He got up from the table and went over to the library shelf right behind him. He searched through the second shelf until he found a book. It was a copy of
Captains Courageous
by Rudyard Kipling, written in 1897. He placed the copy on the table.

‘Have any of you ever read this book?’ Still there was no reaction.

‘It’s the story of a young boy who falls off a liner off the coast of Newfoundland.’

‘Wasn’t there a film made way back in the 30s?’ asked Mavis Stanton.

Mr Billson picked the book up and replaced it in its shelf position.

‘Right, the boy was saved by a bunch of fishermen.’

Everyone sensed what was coming next.

‘I’ve been in this trade for years and have never had a human casualty. No one has ever been killed. This report of the old fart falling overboard stinks. I’ll phrase it another way; what the hell really happened out there?’