Lost(43)

We stood there in silence. Marie sensed the tension and, like a good partner, moved into position to take action if she had to. She was behind the men, neither of whom was paying any attention to her. I’d seen her in action and had no doubt she could stop these two idiots from doing anything stupid.

Sweat poured down the security officer’s face. He was nervous. This was way outside his experience.

Finally, the crewman said, “The captain’ll have something to say about this.”

He looked toward the bow. I stepped past him to the shipping container, avoiding the security guard like I was a hockey player skating past a defender. No one had touched me and I still had the crowbar in my hand.

I paused at the door for a moment. I thought I heard something move inside the container. Marie knocked on the side of the container, and I heard more movement. My heart started to race. I prayed that we weren’t too late to save everyone inside.

Then the security officer said, “What’s that noise?” It was like a light bulb went on over his head. He realized what was going on and what was at stake. When the crewman started to move toward me, it was the security officer who stopped him.

I nodded my thanks to the security officer, then set the crowbar against the lock. It broke off with the right leverage and my full weight against it.

I pulled one side of the door open. The smell that hit us was ferocious. It turned my stomach and made my eyes water.

Behind me, I heard Marie mumble, “Oh my God.”





CHAPTER 62





ASIDE FROM THE stench that was making my eyes water, the first thing I noticed was the strange light inside the container. There were two scratched Plexiglas panels across the top that allowed sunlight inside, but the light that came through the hazy plastic was yellow and gave the entire container a freaky look.

Something flashed out of the corner and made me duck my head to one side. Then a shriek tore the air. I was completely confused.

All at once, things came into focus, and I understood much more clearly. There were no people inside the container. It was filled with exotic parrots and macaws.

I stepped inside and saw feathers raining down from the birds in the top row of cages. A battery-operated light dangled from a cord. The man in the red T-shirt must have just been in to check on the birds.

I tried to get an idea of how many birds were crammed into the container. At first, I thought it was dozens, then I realized it was more than a hundred, all of them extravagant, with lavish colors and powerful vocal cords, or whatever birds use to make noise.

Marie stood just outside the door, which was wise. She said, “These are all African. A number of different species. I’d say they’re really, really valuable.”

Here I’d been thinking we were about to set twenty or so people free. I turned to ask the thin man in the Def Leppard T-shirt about the container and cargo, but he was already racing for the gangplank.

I looked at the security officer and said, “Can you call someone to stop him?”

The muscle-bound man raised his hands and said, “My job is to make sure no one gets on the boat.”

“Don’t you have the sheriff’s office or Customs on your radio somewhere?”

He shook his head. “They made me take their channel off my radio. They said I was too enthusiastic and made too many calls for assistance.”

I looked at Marie.

She said, “Isn’t this still a crime? I mean, he is a smuggler.”

I wasn’t happy about it, but I started to jog after the man. This day was not going the way I’d thought it would.





CHAPTER 63





BY THE TIME I was off the ship and on the dock, the thin man in the Def Leppard T-shirt was jogging west, away from the water. He headed toward the wide-open fields that housed the storage containers for gas and oil. This was not the kind of chase people saw on police shows or in the movies. Most criminals aren’t in particularly good shape, and most cops avoid running after suspects unless they’ve committed a serious crime.

I kept the man in sight easily enough, but this was not an impressive foot chase. We weren’t going terribly fast, and there were no obstacles or traffic. Just as real-life fistfights tend to be messy events, real-life foot chases generally aren’t that exciting either. I could have just let him run—the guy lived on the ship, and he’d be easy to find. But secretly, I didn’t want to disappoint Marie. This was the kind of story I’d have to embellish a few years down the road. Maybe I’d add a parrot sitting on his shoulder …

Then the chase got even less interesting. The man started to slow drastically, and by the time I was a dozen yards behind him, he was leaning over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.

Before I could say anything to him, he vomited onto the grass. That made me jump back. I can put up with a lot of unpleasant things; I’d seen more nastiness in my few years working in Miami than most people see in a lifetime. But vomit always made me gag and want to vomit myself.

I did a moonwalk away from the man. He was downwind so I didn’t smell it, but the second time he heaved, I almost lost my lunch.

Then the man looked up at me and said in a Dutch accent, “I can’t believe you guys figured out what I was doing.”

I just shrugged. “It’s my job.” I needed someone to see me as superior today.