Crooked River(52)

Pendergast slipped a small penlight from his pocket and shone it around, then bent down and examined the foul matter. He removed a small evidence collection kit, along with some minuscule test tubes with stopper-swabs. He swabbed here and there, took some samples, and sealed them up.

“Let us go outside, Agent Coldmoon,” said Pendergast, sniffing again, his brow furrowed in displeasure. “You stay in the rear, Captain, until we’re out, and then you may emerge.”

They exited, the captain following, sweat pouring down his face. Coldmoon gulped the sultry air, feeling his nausea recede.

Pendergast was examining one of the test tubes. Suddenly, he turned to the captain with a pained expression on his face. “Captain, how could you? What a tragedy!”

The captain stared at Pendergast, uncomprehending.

“How many pounds were in here? Five hundred? A thousand? Good heavens! To think, to just think, of the waste!”

Pendergast swung toward Coldmoon, face stricken, dropping the evidence collection kit in his agitation. “Agent Coldmoon, what we had here were not human feet. Rather, this was the transportation of cargo in direct violation of U.S. sanctions.”

“What cargo?”

“If I’m not mistaken, this container was filled with tins of the finest Iranian imperial gold caviar, dumped into the sea in a moment of panic. My God, I could weep!”





30



GLADSTONE HAD BEEN surprised when Agent Pendergast dropped by the lab unannounced, with an official partner no less. At least this new guy looked like an FBI agent. Pendergast had introduced them with the sort of formality reserved for a duke and duchess, and now they had all crowded into her cramped lab, watching while Lam ran the latest simulation. They had already racked up close to nine grand in computing time on the Q machine, but Pendergast hadn’t batted an eye when he heard the figure.

When the simulation was finished, Gladstone explained its failure. “The only conclusion we can draw is that there’s a gap in our data.”

“What sort of gap?” Pendergast asked.

“I wish I knew. We’re missing an input. To figure out what it is, I’d like to do what we call a ‘rubber ducky’ test in the area where we have the thinnest data sets.”

“Which is?”

“The northern part of the Florida Gulf Coast. We drop about twenty-five floating buoys, each fitted with a small GPS transmitter and battery, in calculated locations, and then track them. I think with that data we could plug the gap.”

“Very good.” Pendergast seemed unfazed, but Agent Coldmoon was giving her the hairy eyeball.

“Rubber ducky?” he asked, his voice laden with skepticism.

Lam burst into a cackle of laughter, abruptly silenced by a glare from Gladstone.

“It’s just our term for floating sensor buoys. They’re yellow. The cost is a hundred dollars per buoy, plus fuel for the boat. We’ve already got the buoys—we keep a stock on hand—and I’d like to drop them tomorrow. Wallace has determined the locations necessary to maximize our data collection. Wallace? Please show Agent Pendergast what I’m talking about.”

Lam tapped away on a keyboard and a chart of the Gulf Coast popped up. “There are eddies and currents all through here,” he said, “especially at the mouths of rivers and inlets. That’s where we lack high-resolution data. So we drop them in a line here, another line here, and then here. Here, too. Oh…and here.” He smiled, immensely pleased with himself. “Five locations, five buoys.”

She glanced over at the agent named Coldmoon, who was peering at the dotted lines on the screen. “Any questions?”

Coldmoon shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“I really believe this will fill in the missing pieces,” said Gladstone, trying to muster as much confidence as she could. “Anyway,” she went on hastily, “we’ll be doing the buoy drop tomorrow. No reason to delay.”

“I should like to join you,” said Pendergast, “if it isn’t too much trouble.”

This brought Gladstone up short. She didn’t like having landlubbers on her boat. They were always underfoot, never knew what to do, and they tended to ask a lot of dumb questions and then puke everywhere. But she could hardly say no. “If you wish. We leave early—like at five AM. It’s going to be a long day. And the forecast is for a rough sea.”

The briefest of pauses before Pendergast answered. “That will not be a problem.”

“Well, okay. But wear foul weather gear. And bring Dramamine.”

She heard Pendergast’s phone vibrate. He extracted it from his pocket and, excusing himself, stepped outside. She could hear his low voice speaking beyond the door.

“Agent Coldmoon, will you be coming, too?” she asked.

He backed away, a look of horror on his face. “No, thanks. Boats, water, and me, we don’t get along. I grew up two thousand miles from the ocean.”

She felt relieved. The only thing worse than a guy puking off the starboard rail was another one puking off the port rail.



Pendergast returned to the lab after his call. Coldmoon was surprised at the transformation: his face was full of eagerness. He bowed to the oceanographer, saying he would see her at the dock at five the next morning, and they left.