Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (18 page)

Clint went over to introduce himself and ask
about the victims. They didn’t know much. The Germans didn’t seem
to know enough about surfing to be in the world tour part. They
were more like recent learners who had big delusions about being
great at the sport. They weren’t.

“
Did you
notice what’s been said about their accents?” Clint
asked.

“
Their
English or Spanish accents?” Harold asked.

“
English.”

“
They
didn’t seem to have much of an accent at all,” Millie answered. “We
complemented them on it. They said they’d spent some time in Hawaii
and in the Bahamas and had always tried to speak as much like the
natives as possible.”

They chatted a few minutes. Clint checked the
register and noted two other couples from Germany. He looked up the
Moltkes to ask if they knew their deceased countrymen. Did they
seem afraid of anyone?

“
We spoke
once,” Karl replied. “They were raised in Asia so didn’t have a
good command of German. Spoke more like an Englishman. Accent was
... odd. His was better than hers.”

“
They
weren’t related?”

“
I
couldn’t say,” he replied, then looked thoughtful. “Raised together
from a very early age. Very early. Then travel the world together?
Odd, I’d suggest.”

“
A bit
too,” Clint agreed.

The other couple didn’t know them. They did
note that the two seemed rather amateurish on the boards. Like
wannabes. Maybe on sand beaches or whatever. Definitely not reef
surfers. Wonder they hadn’t ended up in casts like so many of the
type here. The man seemed to have been a bartender or something at
some time. Told the hotel girl how to make several fancy
drinks.

Clint looked around the pool. The only way in
or out was the lobby except for the maintenance room with its gate
to the outside. He checked the area and went through the
maintenance room. He found some strange things – like a towel that
smelled like chloroform. Like damp lines where someone carried
something dripping through to the gate.

The hotel van was just outside. The floormat
was wet in the cargo compartment behind the seats.

Basilio said they’d checked his ATM account
and found he had more than six hundred thousand Euros in it, plus
another account with more than a million dollars. Also, their rooms
had been searched. Semi-professionally. Their gear was in the
storage and would be taken to the station. Just boards and some
snorkeling equipment and a little bit of scuba gear, though they
weren’t certified.

He told Basilio what he’d found, then took
the regular bus back to Bocas Town. Wil would be watched. He’d seen
Clint checking the van and would know he was as good as caught.
He’d run.

“
He’s
staying at the San Francisco in Almirante and is trying to blend,”
Basilio reported. “He’s dyed his hair dark and is wearing a phony
moustache and sideburns. He’s got some ID in the name of George
Williams from Puerto Armuelles. I had the locals check on him when
he used it to check in.

“
What’s
it about? The passports are being checked through the computers.
They’re pretty much in order.”

“
What
places besides Germany, Australia and here are stamped?” Clint
asked.

“
France,
the US – through Chicago – Australia, Holland, Japan, Hong Kong,
Costa Rica and here.”

“
They
have surfing in Holland and Chicago?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
So. Are
they from Australia or the states? They’re not from Germany. Their
German stinks.

“
What
were they into? Why were they on some kind of witness protection
plan?”

“
I see we
think much alike.”

“
I don’t
think ... not with the plastic surgery. You know something? I don’t
think they were on any protection plan. It’s something else. We
have to ... can you use the net to check on fingerprints in local
areas without going through the passport?”

“
Yes. We
can check all the major cities’ individual data-bases. What things
will be there that the passport offices wouldn’t check?”

“
Something was said about ... bar help has to be printed in
most states. Maybe try that area first, then things like various
misdemeanor charges when the information wouldn’t go on the larger
databases until conviction of felonies.”

Basilio agreed and went to contact Panamá
City to have the search done. It would take a day or two. Clint
said to find out just who Wil was and where he was from – and how
long he had worked at the hotel.

“
Only
about two and a half weeks – just after Graf made the reservations
and before he arrived.”

Clint went home and went fishing. He and Judi
went to Bastimentos to a party the next night. He lazed around most
of the next day.

“
Wil or
whatever is a hanger-on around those kinds of places for several
years. He’s from Brazil,” Basilio reported. “There’s a suspicion
he’s been tied up with the Ruskies in Panamá – but unconfirmed –
which means he is. If he wasn’t it would be he isn’t, not
unconfirmed. Gretta was Dana Burts from New York, six years in DC,
then a year in San Francisco, then disappeared, believed dead. Went
out on a boat that never came back. She was working in some kind of
CIA office as a general secretary or clerk. She’d worked in a bar
in DC until she landed the CIA job so her prints were on file in
the alcohol control bureau.

“
Hans
simply doesn’t exist before six months ago. His passport seems to
have a number code that it was issued then, but it could be a
renewal. Yeah, right.”

“
Russian.
Can you check anything in Russia? Maybe he was in Germany at some
time or other. His German was better than hers, according to the
Thomases. Maybe the odd flavor was because of a Russian accent
added to the German/English thing.”

“
I
thought of that. Wil being tied to Ruskies made me consider it.
It’s being checked through old KGB records. We can get some
information from them.”

Clint nodded and asked if Wil had been
arrested yet.

“
Not
unless he tries to leave Almirante, but he thinks we don’t know
about him being there. We want something solid.”

“
I think
we’ll have that soon,” Clint promised.

“
Hans is
Harklo Grudinev from Minsk. Born there and worked in a secret lab
of some sort,” Basilio reported next day. “The new government wants
to ask him a question or two about a thing or ten. I told them he’s
dead. They said it might have been the easy way out for
him.

“
What’s
your take on it now?”

“
Just
speculation, but I’d say she worked at the CIA and got her hands on
some stuff for him – maybe just seeing how hot the water was
getting. It started getting really hot so they took off. He had a
lot of cash. Do the surf bum bit, get surgery and hope he could
survive to a ripe old age.

“
Now I
have to wonder what he knew or had that they wanted back REAALLLYYY
bad! I have to wonder if they got it.

“
Basilio!
Do you still have their surf gear? Wasn’t there something there
that didn’t quite seem to fit?”

“
It’s
here. We can go to property and check it out. What?”

“
Scuba
gear and no certification. What kind did they have?”

“
Two
oxygen tanks, some flippers, a speargun, masks, weights. There were
no mouth.... So!”

They headed for the property room.

“
There’s
nothing here!” Basilio declared after a search. “It’s just scuba
gear.”

“
What? No
regulator? No mouthpiece?” Clint argued. He turned the valve on a
tank and got the hiss of escaping gas. On the other he got
nothing.

He checked the tank carefully and shrugged.
It was just an empty tank.

“
So it’s
in the other,” Basilio agreed before Clint could say it. “Anyone
would logically look for the stuff in an empty tank.”

Clint grinned. “It’s just an oxygen tank.” He
picked up a weight band.

“
Little
heavy for lead, wouldn’t you say?”

Basilio hefted the band and shrugged.

Clint unsnapped the weights and hefted each
one. They were all the same. “Get a geiger counter in here. I think
we’ve found some pretty dangerous stuff!” he ordered.

They had to have one sent from Panamá City.
Clint said, “Crap!” and took the box of weights to the desk to
check them out. Basilio looked questioning at him, but didn’t say
anything. He said to get the weights to the doctor. His x-ray
equipment had detectors.

He didn’t have an x-ray machine there.
Neither did the hospital. Clint swore, then grinned and headed for
the dentist – who did have one in his Almirante office. They took
the water taxi to Almirante and to the office where there was some
excess radiation detected, but not too dangerously high.

Clint took his pocket knife and began to cut
into the lead. The detector got stronger and stronger as he peeled
the lead off a small spot until the dentist said to stop. It was
getting to dangerous levels. Clint had peeled only a little of the
lead.

“
God!
I’ll bet it’s plutonium!” Basilio cried.

“
I ain’t
taking THAT bet!” Clint returned. “Let’s get this stuff on the way
to Panamá City and go arrest friend Wil for murder most
foul.”

They did.

“
I don’t
understand this! I didn’t do anything!” Wil protested.

“
I see.
So you use a second false ID and change your appearance to hide
here in Almirante?” Basilio asked.

“
I knew
you would think I had something to do with it so I came
here!”

“
With
false ID and a disguise,” Clint pointed out. “Also, you were the
only one in the pool area at night. There was the towel with
chloroform on it and the van you used to carry the bodies with only
your prints on the steering wheel and the rear door. It will be
easier if you tell us who hired you to hit them.

“
By the
way, the radioactives were in the lead scuba weights. They would
have been detected anywhere else.”

Wil groaned and said they couldn’t do
anything half as bad to him as the ones who sent him could.

“
I’ll
make a deal,” Clint suggested. “Give me a name and I’ll get you off
the rap.”

“
You’ll
what?!” Basilio cried.

“
They
were foreign agents carrying deadly weapons of mass destruction
illegally into this country. I can make it seem he should get a
medal! Supposing something happened that broke one of those weights
and there were people around? Not to mention the contamination of
the close area. There was an inch of lead around the stuff and it
still got into the dangerous range!

“
Or I can
say you were in a conspiracy to get the stuff to threaten this and
other countries.”

“
They’ll
know!” Wil insisted.

“
We can
make it look like we’re going after you, no bars, because you knew
about it and were almost certainly going to sell it to terrorists,
but you are in bad shape and won’t break. After we know something
you’ll end up dying on us and we’ll dump your slimy ass somewhere
where it will sicken the crabs and fish. Somebody who looks like
you will move to San Jose, Costa Rica (he nodded at the shadow on
the blinds into the room). Somebody a lot like Pedro Gonzales from
Mexico. Your choice.”

He thought for a couple of minutes, then
said, “If ... I can ... if you ... okay. You give me your word.
Faraday, not the cop. Everybody says your word is your life.”

“
You got
it!” Clint promised.

“
Miklo
Sarnoff.”

“
WHO?!?”
Basilio cried.

“
I’d
figured about that. He’s the only one with the connections. He’s
got a good front with all the pawn shops and loan companies to
explain a few million here and there. I also have a friend or two
who keep tabs on that bunch.”

“
Ah!
Marko!” Basilio agreed.

“
He
mentioned that Sarnoff was into a lot more than the semi-legit crap
months ago. Okay. There ‘s a watcher here almost certainly (he
nodded at the window that didn’t have a shadow anymore). You’re
going out of here a bit worse for wear. Ham it up a bit, but not
too much.”

Wil nodded. Clint took some mascara pencil
and made a few bruises on his face and neck while Basilio knocked
some furniture around and swore. Wil screamed once and yelled a few
times. Clint thumped Wil’s nose with his thumb and made it bleed
enough to smear a bit around his face and onto his shirt. He and
Basilio drug him out and to a cell, swearing at him and threatening
to make today look like a beach party if he didn’t “cooperate” with
them. Think about it! They left him for awhile, then came back to
“transport” him to Bocas Town. They headed out in the police boat,
dropped him off on Isla San Cristóbal where Manny (Marko) would get
him away with phony ID to Medelin, Colombia, not San Jose, Costa
Rica. If the watcher heard anything they “accidentally” said about
San Jose they would wait for him there on the off-chance it was
what it was.

Now Clint had to go back to Panamá City to
talk with Sarnoff. Bummer!