A Death in Geneva (30 page)

The
Partner
's slim superstructure and twin smokestacks rose behind the cargo housing, with the hull, seen from either side, continuing aft main-deck high for another one hundred twenty before chopping off in a clean perpendicular cut at the stern. Viewed from her churning wake, the tanker's stern revealed a raised barge-lift elevator recessed between the sides of her hull. A snub-nosed pusher tug was secured athwart-ship on the elevator. Barges loaded with machinery and supplies for the Campeche gas field and port-support facility rode forward of the tug. The
Partner
and the
Mayan
helped to produce the gas they hauled.

The
Partner
's second home port had been carved from the Campeche Banks, where the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula curves north from the State of Tabasco, along the Gulf of Campeche, before opening out onto the Gulf of Mexico. Inland from the banks, their lagoons and sand dunes, the peninsula bakes hot and dry. For centuries, only the Mayan pyramids at Uxmal and Chichen Itza had risen above the swamps and porous soil as the only heritage and visible reminder of a greater life. For generation after generation, the peons had scratched the poorest of existence from that land, harvesting the tough-fibered leaves for the manufacture of sisal rope, twine, and sacking.

In the 1970s, new pyramids of structural steel had sprung from the land and coastal waters of Mexico. To the north, in a belt running from Monterrey to Reynosa, lay the first major discoveries of gas. To the south, in Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Gulf of Campeche, production crews had driven the drilling bits of their towering rigs into the earth to tap the expanding oil and gas reserves.

Towerpoint International had stayed on the fringes. The exploration and production had continued, and the economics continued to turn, until Tommie Starring struck the deal he wanted, then presided in person at the laying of the
Partner
and
Mayan
keels. From the outset, the entire operation had been designed as self-sufficient.

The Campeche gas flowed from the off-shore wells to the liquefaction plant on the Yucatan coast, where it was transformed by refrigeration into liquid at minus 270 degrees and pumped through insulated pipes into the ships' insulated cylindrical tanks.

The
Partner
was steaming in ballast now, her first cargo already pumped ashore to expand more than five hundred times into gas again, and her tanks purged with inert nitrogen to reduce the risk of explosion. She moved without a tremor through the bay. The ship's master cocked an eye at the blue sky, and handed the message board back to his second officer. “We have a good day. Have the deck crew rig the bunting from the starboard catwalk. We'll want nothing adrift this afternoon. This young lady will be on camera. Make sure there's a good, full belly to each bunting loop. You've read the instructions on flags?”

“Yes sir—the national colors, Mexican flag, house flag—and the swallow-tailed ‘mission accomplished' pennant from the forward mast.”

The pilot stood beside them, smiling a sympathetic smile as he listened to the exchange. He had been briefed on the pass-in-review before boarding.

The
Partner
continued south past the long line of empty ore carriers riding high at anchor. Her great blue hull glistened with reflected sunlight from the surface of the bay. Figures appeared along the ships' railings to watch her pass. The master took the clipboard from its rack beside his chair, began to draft:

FOR TOWERPOINT OCTAGON, HONORABLE THOMAS STARRING, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, TOWERPOINT INTERNATIONAL.

            
1. TOWERPOINT PARTNER, ENROUTE GULF OF CAMPECHE, FIRST CARGO DELIVERED ON SCHEDULE, SALUTES TOWERPOINT OCTAGON ON COMMENCEMENT CHESAPEAKE . . .

            
He hesitated, searched for the page with the title, continued:

DIVERQUEST INTERNATIONAL EXPEDITION.

            
2. HONORED TO BE MEMBER, TOWERPOINT INTERNATIONAL TEAM. VERY RESPECTFULLY, J.A. WILHELMSTEAD, MASTER.

The
Partner
's radio officer received the master's instructions to transmit the message on first sighting of the Towerpoint flagship.

At the dawning of July 3, Starring thought back to the
Partner
's keel laying when he awoke aboard the
Octagon . . .
the shaping of the new venture, the bands, the bunting, the one-hundred-ton keel
sections being lowered into the graving docks. He had kept the pressure on, ignoring the squeaks of the timid. The LNG operation was now a fact, a new, black profit bar of projected revenue in the stockholders' report.

Martin Tambling had died the day before, heart attack on the street, a tough competitor, the news a shock. Starring's heart was steady. He could feel it as he tossed the sheet and blanket aside and sat for a moment on the edge of the bed. He didn't like Tambling's death, the reminder of mortality. So much to be done, so much—needs brains, guts, stamina. Tina worried about his health, the steady strain. She'll be dead long before me. He turned on his bed light, flipped through the advance copy of her new Playbill. It had been with his papers when he returned from New York the night before. Good photo; she was working hard, would have a success . . . the cover, a splash of paint, made no sense.

While he shaved and dressed, his mind was already twenty-four hours ahead, rehearsing his meeting with the president. With the development of Sea Star, he was reaching a generation into the future, in platforms, hulls, technology, the entire engine of ocean enterprise. He bathed his eyes with cool water, toweled his face and neck. He had to chart the route to the next higher peak from the summit on which he alone now stood. This he would share with the president and seek his guidance.

The owner's deck was shining with the earlier rain when he took his first deep breath of air rich with moisture and the sea-smells of the bay. Puffs of fast-moving gray clouds, the tail of the storm, were blowing to the east. As they thinned, wave tops shimmered silver in the emerging sunlight. From the far side of the bay, the faint engine coughings of boats still beneath the storm carried across to the catamaran. He took his binoculars from the bulkhead case. Commercial crab potters, three of them, were working separately in the quiet of the holiday Sunday, one waterman to each of the long, low white wooden hulls.

Their boats were stacked with wire crab pots, a yard to a side in size, already baited with menhaden, each pot rigged with a coil of line and a marker float for retrieval later in the day. Only the engines'
pock pock
reached his ears. The pots went silently over the side, leaving a lengthening line of white dots bobbing on the surface.

On the foredecks, the crew was readying the catamaran for the day's ceremonies. The string of signal flags was run up the dressing
line to the masthead. Starring followed the ascent of the uppermost flag. There was blue sky above the mast, fair weather. It would be Towerpoint International's day.

Filippo Tonasi prayed in the darkness of his cabin in the predawn of July 3. The words, their utterance, the ceremony had stayed with him from childhood. Neither religion nor fear brought the prayers. The words were spoken to honor the importance of the day. He rose from his knees, rolled a doped cigarette, and stuck it behind an ear, to smoke on deck before they dived. He rolled a second and leaned back on his bunk, sucking each drag of smoke deep into his lungs.

Paul Head was in the facing bunk, asleep, chest down, head to one side, one eye partly opened with only the white showing, the hand beside his face clenching, relaxing. He was at the railroad station in Geneva, on the platform, attempting to board his train. People, Swiss, were crushing against him, shaking their heads at his clothes: the coat, tie, and black wetsuit pants. The conductor was speaking French loudly at him, waving his hands in his face, barring his access to the steps of the waiting train. The faces on the train were African, silent, watching, pressed against every window.

Head had his ticket, his passport outstretched. The conductor hit them away. Steam hissed from the cars' undercarriages, exciting the crowd, driving him back. His voice—he was shouting. His father had pushed through the crowd and was glowering at him . . .

Tonasi sucked in smoke, watched the fluttering eyelid, the hand—“Paulo! Zulu!” He gave the blond head a shove. The lids opened, the eyeball rolled into place. Head jammed his face into the mattress, then pushed up from the bunk, struggling to awake.

“What were you up to, Zulu—at the castle, trouble with the queen?”

Head was sitting up, his face blankly absorbing the cabin. He stuck out a thumb and forefinger. Tonasi passed him the cigarette. He hunched forward, the smoke circling around his eyes, the coal glowing from his lips. “Fuck you.”

Leslie Renfro was ready when they knocked. She had slept until four o'clock, then arisen to prepare. She had rubbed lanolin deeply into her face, arms, legs, and body to fend against the hours of submergence. As her hands worked the heavy oil into her flesh, the fleeting happiness,
death, horror, awakening, and revenge of her lifetime drove her subconsciously. Her mind again rehearsed each minute of the coming day.

The three walked along the floodlit open decks to the galley. Theirs were familiar faces. The crew went about its business. They drew coffee from the urn and drank in silence.

“Big day today?” A cook slid a plate of glazed brown rolls before them with his greeting.

“Fucking right, mate,” Head answered across the lip of his mug. She waited while they smoked. When she rose, the two men followed. They shed their shoes and coveralls, returned them to their cabins. Most of the
Octagon
was still asleep, the bridge watch unaware. One by one, they climbed the center well ladder. Only the rubber fenders of the surface support float squeezing and complaining against the hull plating broke the still of the hour.

Above them, through the crane, Venus was at its brightest. They dove, each with a hand on the toggled intervals of the marker guideline, down to the faint circular glow of the habitat's access trunk.

“Stale!”

“Smells like bloody Italy.” Head ran a hand across the atmosphere exchange panel, purged the canned atmosphere with fresh air from the surface. Tonasi stood naked in the center of the deck. She had already shed her suit, accepting their eyes, then pulled on thermal long underwear. The sweet smell of talcum mixed with the fresh flow of air. They lubricated the inner lining of their wetsuit bottoms with the powder, pulled them on.

“Another day with your fat friend, eh Paulo?”

“Shut up!” Her command brought silence. She covered the length of the cylinder, checked the mikes to make sure they were in their hooks, that they would not be overhead. The second hand on the bulkhead chronometer ticked past 5:30. She spun on both of them, eyes flashing, voice controlled. “Break out the weapons. Check them, pack them in the transfer container. We will want to take them up with us to the ship when we return.”

Head and Tonasi wrestled with the fourth heavy cylinder, cracked its seals, laid out their arsenal on two of the bunks. They stripped and reassembled each piece, matching weapons with ammunition. With combat nearing, Head, without a word, took the first pistol, stuffed it into his nylon bag at the foot of the bunk. Bloody nuts to keep all the guns together. While they worked, she took them through the mission.

“Tooms is the one we have to watch out for. His routine has not varied when Starring has been aboard. He will sleep until six-thirty; be sent for at seven-thirty to hold Starring's hand, embroider on the lies they feed upon. He will find a note from me on his desk, which he will search for and find after Starring asks about our plans.