Coincidence - Alan May [10]
“No, mis instruciones son de tener en nueve meses.”
“I’ll sign a lease for six months at six thousand pesos a month up front plus six thousand pesos for you. What you say?”
The landlord made a quick calculation. He’d get to keep two thousand a month from the owner for looking after the property, plus the six thousand. Eighteen thousand pesos total, almost six months’ salary.
“Estamos de acuerdo!”
“Excelente. Now, I’ll have to ask you to leave us strictly alone once we move in. Our—our equipment is extremely sensitive and requires a high level of concentration to operate. We gotta have complete privacy. You understand.”
“No hay problema. If I have come over, I phone night before.”
“That sounds fine. We’ll move in within two weeks. There may be up to six technicians here at a time.”
A handwritten lease was prepared and signed, and cash and keys were exchanged.
Phillip had phoned the yacht broker, Jim Higgins, in Fort Lauderdale, who had faxed him all of the specs on the Real Ship. The boat looked ideal. Quite a bit bigger than what he was used to, but he was sure he could handle it. After an uneventful flight from Chicago, he was ready to take the boat out for sea trials.
The guy looked a bit like a wild card, Jim thought, what with his baseball cap with a long ponytail hanging out the back and rumpled bermudas, no socks. But the laid-back harbor-rat look was just the impression Phillip wanted to create. Whatever happened, nobody would be out looking for a balding businessman.
Phillip handled the boat with ease. She quickly got up to ten knots once they cleared the Intracoastal Waterway. At sea she did everything she was supposed to do, and in spades.
Back at the dock they got down to the nitty gritty. Real Ship boats are pretty standard, all of them loaded with all the bells and whistles. Philip felt sure the Two Wise would be pretty much the same as this boat.
The engine room, with standing headroom, housed two 510 hp Caterpillar diesel engines and two Westerbeke marine diesel generators, a 10kw and a 20kw. The master electrical control panel was in the engine room, too, as well as a store of batteries. Off to the side was a workshop that had spares for everything. It had a sizeable electronics package with everything they could possibly need, including radar, COMSAT telephone, chart plotter, weather fax—you name it, it was there.
Phillip made a mental note of the locking system on the entry doors, the keyed ignition switch, and the keyed lock on the instrument-panel door. All would provide easy access with the right tools.
Accommodations were adequate for six. The galley housed a large freezer and refrigerator, so food storage would be no problem. The cocaine could be stored on the covered aft deck. There was no question this boat could handle the trip they were planning.
Jim, meanwhile, could almost taste his commission after spending four hours on the boat with Phillip, watching his painstaking appraisal of the mechanical and electrical systems, answering his detailed questions, and trying not to think about lunch while Phillip reviewed the comprehensive owner’s manual. Didn’t matter that the guy looked like a beach bum. He’d seen his kind before, coming in deliberately dressed down to hide his affluence, hoping to negotiate a better deal. This guy knew boats, that was for sure.
Dropping Philip off at the airport for his return flight, Jim handed him his card with his phone numbers—office, home, cell, and fax—on it, and told him not to hesitate to call any time if he had any more questions. What other questions the man could possibly come up with, though, was beyond him.
Phillip promised to get back to him within the week, and, for a wonder, didn’t even quibble about the asking price of $1.2 million.
Philip knew the boat was perfect, but of course he had no intention of buying.
5
Spring and summer passed in a flurry of preparations. By her mid-August departure, Melissa had packed and repacked half a dozen