Red Ink (25 page)

30

L
ike an exhausted marathoner, the long freight wheezes, screeches, and finally grinds to a stop somewhere in the middle of the immense island terminus.

The sun is below the rooftops when Scotto and I heft our bags and slip from the stuffy boxcar. Warmer on this spring night than Moscow on the hottest summer day, Miami lolls beneath a magenta sky that silhouettes the booms of freighters and skeletons of bridge cranes straddling the lines of railcars.

We make our way through a maze of narrow corridors created by the hundreds of shipping containers on the wharf, then turn a corner and come upon a massive containerized freighter straining at its hawsers. In the distance, the white, military-style shirts of Customs agents catch the fading twilight. Armed and vigilant, they’re posted at the entrances and along the perimeter of this section of the terminus. Signs that proclaim RESTRICTED AREA OFF LIMITS TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL appear at intervals along a high fence that encloses it.

“The place is crawling with cops,” Scotto whispers.

“You think Customs or DEA somehow beat us to the container?”

“Sure as hell hope not; they could blow the whole business before we—”

“Hey! Hey, hold it right there,” a man’s voice calls out sharply.

We freeze and turn to see a Customs agent leveling his side-arm at us with one hand and a flashlight with the other. I expect Scotto to identify herself, but she raises her hands instead and, through clenched teeth, says, “Keep your mouth shut and follow my lead.”

The agent has us face one of the containers, hands raised, palms pressed against the gritty metal, feet spread wide apart; then he exchanges flashlight for radio and calls for assistance.

Moments later, I’m still trying to figure out what Scotto’s up to when headlights come across the pier at high speed. A gray van screeches to a stop nearby, and three more agents, one of them a sergeant, pile out and frisk us. One finds Scotto’s pistol and hands it to the sergeant with an incriminating smirk.

“I’ve got ID to go with that, Sergeant,” Scotto says in a taut whisper. “Inside right jacket pocket.”

The sergeant turns us around and shines his flashlight in Scotto’s face; then he cautiously removes and examines her identification. The badge shimmers in the light as he shifts the beam to the plastic laminated photo and back. “U.S. Treasury.”

Scotto nods imperceptibly. “I don’t want to advertise. Understand?”

“I’m listening,” he says, challengingly.

“We’re working a money-laundering op. Make like we’re a couple of vagrants in case the dry cleaners are watching, okay?”

“I doubt it. This place is buttoned up pretty damned tight.”

“Yeah, next time we’ll remember to knock. I’d rather be safe than sorry, okay?”

The sergeant reddens slightly and signals his men. They cuff us brusquely and shove us into the van. It heads for the Customs Building at the far end of the terminus. Once inside, the handcuffs come off and we’re ushered into a cramped office with furniture that makes FinCEN’s look like fine antiques. The sign on the door reads SHIFT SUPERVISOR.

The senior Customs inspector is a round-faced man with captain’s bars on his epaulets and a mustache as coarse as a hairbrush beneath his broad nose. His name tag reads AGUILAR. He’s cocked back in his chair, staring at us with a befuddled expression. “I want to make sure I have this right,” he says,
scrutinizing our ID. “He’s a Russian journalist, and you’re working with him?”

“It’s a long story,” Scotto replies. “He gave us some key data, and we’re reciprocating by—”

“A journalist?” Aguilar interrupts, flabbergasted. “A journalist gave you data?”

“I know. They’re different over there.”

“She means we take sides.”

“I mean you’re taking our side,” Scotto corrects. “That’s the difference.”

“No difference to me,” Aguilar growls. “I don’t want anything to do with journalists.”

I can’t hold my tongue any longer. “What’s your problem, Inspector?”

“Scar tissue. Every time I talk to you people, I get burned. You tell lies, call it the truth, stir up trouble and walk away from it.”

“Not me. I usually hop a freight.”

Scotto arches a brow in vindication. Then she gets back to business and briefs Aguilar on the saga of container 95824.

“Two billion in cash!” he exclaims when she finishes, his eyes glowing like chandeliers in the Moscow Metro. “That’s quite a haul, Scotto. We’d be happy to inspect, interdict, whatever you need.”

“Appreciate the offer, Inspector, but I can’t take you up on it,” she replies gently. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that your happiness isn’t high on my list, but we want to take down the creeps at the other end. So what I really need is a fix on where that container’s going. Switzerland? Liechtenstein? Caymans? Panama? Gotta be one of your friendly neighborhood laundromats.”

Aguilar leans back in his chair and smiles to himself. I get the feeling he’s thinking “The joke’s on you,” and is deciding whether or not he’ll let us in on it. Then he nods, and, in a mischievous whisper, replies, “Havana.”

“No way,” Scotto’s fires back.

“Oh, yeah. Every container on that restricted section of pier is going to
Ha-ba-na.”

“But we don’t ship anything to Cuba,” Scotto argues, perplexed. “The way I hear it, the embargo was just extended. The screws are being tightened, not loosened.”

Aguilar nods smugly. “Yes, as a matter of fact, the screw-tighteners were good enough to send me a copy of the latest directive. Naturally, it makes this shipment all the more sensitive.”

“Shipment of what?” Scotto prompts, still a little flustered.

Aguilar pulls himself from the chair and fetches a thick binder. Then he perches on the corner of his desk and, with j cocky snaps of his wrist, flips through a sheaf of computer printouts and enumerates: “Dressers, side chairs, mirrors, beds, artwork, linen, drapery, carpet, glassware, china, desks, lamps, televisions—thousands and thousands of ’em.”

“Geezus,” Scotto groans. She’s shaking her head in dismay. Inspector Aguilar’s smiling beneath his mustache. I’m reflecting on that morning in Barkhin’s Mercedes, on his remarks about Cuba’s economy, about Castro getting back into tourism. “Sounds to me like furnishings for a hotel or something, no?”

“Close, but no cigar,” Aguilar quips, flipping more pages in his binder. “We also have containers chock-full of slot machines, blackjack and roulette tables, playing cards, chips—need I go on?”

Scotto holds up her hands in surrender and whistles. “Cuba’s back in the casino business?”

Aguilar nods and scowls disapprovingly.

“Who’s the consignee?”

“Company called Turistica Internacional.”

“Never heard of ’em.”

“Me neither, but there’ve been dozens of shipments over the last couple of years. All signed, sealed, and sanctioned by the USG.”

Scotto’s expression hardens, and she glances over at me. “Sounds to me like your buddy Rubineau’s mixed up in this.”

“Thought’s crossed my mind.”

“You ever run across that name?” she asks Aguilar, spelling it out for him.

“Rubineau?” He shrugs and shakes his head no.

“What about Rubinowitz?”

“I think one of the crane operators is a guy named Rubinowitz. Naw, naw, maybe it’s Liebowitz? I don’t know. Something like that.”

“This guy’s an operator, but cranes aren’t his thing. Any idea when that freighter sails?”

“Well, she berthed this morning,” Aguilar replies. “Full cargo, unload, load—it’ll be a while.”

“When?” Scotto demands.

Aguilar swivels to a computer, types a few keystrokes. “Let’s see . . .
Halifax
puts to sea—”

“Halifax?”
Scotto interrupts suspiciously. “Canadian registry?”

Aguilar nods.

Scotto’s eyes widen and dart to mine. The puzzle’s making a little more sense now. “You getting this, Katkov?”

“Canada has diplomatic ties to Cuba and the USA.”

“You’re getting it. The shipper of container nine-five-eight-two-four on that list, Inspector?”

Aguilar turns to his binder and runs a stubby finger down the columns of numbers. “Coppelia Paper Products Limited.”

Another look from Scotto. “Okay. Now, when does this sad excuse for the QE2 sail?”

Aguilar’s eyes shift to the computer screen. “She sails . . . Monday . . . eighteen-thirty hours.”

“Four days,” Scotto sighs, relieved. “Gives us some time to shower and catch our breaths.”

“Anything I can do to help?” he offers.

“Nothing. Please. Do absolutely nothing. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” he replies halfheartedly.

“And I need to use a phone.”

Aguilar shows us into an unoccupied office and leaves. Scotto punches out a number. “It’s Scotto. Is he there?” She holds briefly, then winces and pulls the phone from her ear. I can hear Banzer reading her the riot act. He vents his spleen, then peppers her with questions. “Miami. . . . Freighter. . . . Havana,” she replies evenly. As I expected, it’s the last one that quiets him. After she briefs him on the details, he offers to run FinCEN’s data bases for the owner of Turistica Internacional, then get back to us.

An hour later, Scotto and I are settled into adjoining rooms in the Best Western Hotel. It’s a wicker-filled extravaganza in a waterfront park at the foot of the terminus causeway.

I’m standing beneath a steaming shower in another one of those bathrooms Muscovites would kill for. This one even has a telephone. The shower must be back-to-back with Scotto’s because I can hear it going. In my mind, I suddenly hear her
lusty admonition, “Only in your dreams, Katkov. Only in your dreams.” Well, she may not know it, but here we are next to each other stark naked, and I’m dreaming.

The wall that separates us dissolves in a cloud of steam. Now we’re face-to-face, the water running through her hair, swirling sensuously over her tawny Sicilian flesh that glistens like wet amber. She hands me a bar of soap and tosses her head back with abandon. I’m having visions of spreading the creamy lather over her generous swells when the soap suddenly shoots from my grasp and rockets over the top of the enclosure. I roll back the glass door in search of it. The bathroom is hazy with steam. The bar of soap is nowhere in sight, and now, to my utter dismay, neither is Special Agent Scotto.

I’ve just finished shaving when she knocks on the door that connects our rooms. “Katkov? Hey, Katkov, open up.” I pull on a pair of slacks and let her in. She’s barefoot; dressed in white jeans and starched blue denim shirt. Her hair hangs around her scrubbed face in a mass of wet tangles. “You have the boob tube on?” she asks, sounding refreshed.

“Please, after twelve hours on that train I was rather enjoying the quiet.”

“Well, there’s something coming up on CNN you might want to catch.” She saunters across the room, drying her hair with a towel, and uses the remote to turn on the television.

A commercial for flashlight batteries in which a pink mechanical rabbit propels itself into a police shoot-out is in progress. If this were Moscow, it would be an old woman on a street corner holding a packet of batteries in one hand and a jar of mayonnaise in the other. The rabbit keeps going and going. Then the anchorman appears and, in grave tones, says, “Recapping today’s top story: Less than a year after dissolving Parliament for refusing to endorse his policies and attempting to usurp his powers by force, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is, once again, threatening to declare emergency rule. Here with a live update from Moscow is CNN correspondent Jill Doherty.”

Though, as of late, such crises seem to be the rule rather than the exception in my country, this is still shocking news. I’m trying to comprehend its meaning when an attractive woman appears on the screen. Bundled against the cold, she stands in Red Square with the illuminated onion-shaped domes of St. Basil’s behind her and reports:

“Angrily denouncing the lethargic pace of the newly elected Congress, President Yeltsin said he will govern by decree, if necessary, to get the nation’s economy moving, and will ask for yet another vote of confidence in a national referendum in the fall. In an effort to rally his followers, he doubled the minimum wage and confirmed that large-scale private ownership of land and industry is still his top priority.

“Though some believe the country is, once again, teetering on the brink of chaos, others cite Russia’s privatization program as evidence to the contrary. Ninety-eight percent of the vouchers entitling citizens to buy shares in state-owned industries—GUM, the Moscow department store; Zil, the luxury auto maker; and the Volgograd tractor factory, among them—have been claimed, and enough citizens may have a financial stake in Yeltsin’s reforms to make them irreversible. But experts still insist private investment is the key to this experiment in democracy.”

“What do you think?” Scotto prompts as the correspondent drones on.

“This could be quite a disaster for Russia.”

“Why? You really think the Communists could take over again?”

“They never left.”

“Pardon me?”

“You’re simplifying a very complex matter, Scotto. Yeltsin was a Communist. An extremely accomplished one, I might add. All the reformers were. They joined the Party because they were ambitious, not patriotic. Since its main function was to grant or deny permission to do things, the free market made them obsolete, and they became capitalists. Except Zhirinovsky, of course.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Good. I hope you never do. He’s a nationalist lunatic, an ethnic cleanser in-waiting. But this isn’t about ideology. It’s about power. When Yeltsin dissolved Parliament and called for new elections, Zhirinovsky’s party won the most votes—twenty percent. The Communists got twelve. He makes them look like human rights activists. People have short memories, Scotto. Look what happened in Poland last year.”

“They dumped Walesa.”

I nod glumly. “Believe me, the hard-liners are never going to let go.”

“Yeah, but there’ll be other elections. And sooner or later, they’re going to get kicked out of office.”

“Maybe. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the quality of life in Russia—which is unimaginably rotten—and is getting worse daily. Massive unemployment, rampant inflation, homelessness, hunger, not to mention a resurgence of anti-Semitism.”