“Agreed,” I said. And hung up on him.
“Call them in,” I told Gem.
The next night, I went through the same routine, including the “receptionist,” and got him on the line. As soon as he started talking, I had to shut him down.
“Look,” I told him, allowing the impatience of the character I was playing to come through clearly, “just because I own a yacht doesn’t make me a damn sailor. You’re going to have to go slow; I need to write this all down.”
“Certainly,” he said, calmly. “Remember, we are meeting on your terms. That is, a place you can reach by boat. Your captain will know the Oregon coast …?”
I felt a bone-deep chill. How could he …? I rotated my head, slow and soft, like Max had shown me. Then reversed the direction. When I had control of my voice, I said: “What are you asking? Can he
“The former, sir.”
“Then of course!”
“All right. Please set sail for the coastline on the California-Oregon border. Once you are in that area, I will provide your captain with precise instructions.”
“I’m not pulling in to any—”
“No, sir. We will meet at sea. Fair enough?”
“I’ll be traveling a long way—”
“I understand that, sir.”
“—with a lot of money. I trust I won’t be disappointed.”
“You will not, I promise you. Until then.”
“By the time we get there, it will be right around the first of May,” Flacco said. “Even out where he wants to meet, the sea’ll be sweet and calm. Like glass, especially at first light. Anyway, as calm as it ever gets off Oregon; that is one
“That’s more than three weeks,” I said. “It’ll take that long?”
“I’m giving us a little margin, just in case of weather, but that’s about right. We looked his ship over, and she’s like new. Perfect. We can carry about thirty-five hundred gallons, cruise around twenty-two knots, and we’re working with a range of maybe four thousand miles. So figure Galveston to Progreso to Panama, maybe a week. Then we go through the Canal to Cabo San Lucas.…”
I gave him a “What?” look.
“That is the tip of Baja,
Gordo just smiled.
“Our next leg is into Dago, then up to San Francisco. Got to allow, oh, two weeks max for that one. Finally, we lay in once we get near the Oregon border. From there, we can hit any spot he picks in two, three hours max.”
“I thought the Panama Canal was only for commercial ships.”
“No way. You pay the freight, they let you ride. We lock it from port to port—Cristobal going in, and we exit at Balboa. Whole trip takes maybe nine, ten hours; nothing to it.”
“How much is the toll?”
“Depends on the size of the ship. The one we got, under five grand, my best guess.”
“And you just drive up and pay the toll, like going over a bridge?”
“No,” Gordo answered. “It is not like that at all, my friend.” He used his fingers to tick off requirements he’d obviously memorized. “We have to radio prior to arrival—ninety-six, seventy-two, forty-eight, and twenty-four hours in front. We make contact on VHF Channel 12, then they find us a working channel to finish up. Then everyone on board needs ID; it’s called a Landing Card. You get those when you hit the first pier.
“Damn.”
“Oh, there’s more,” he went on. “They’ll want a Quarantine Declaration and one for any cargo, too. A crew- and-passenger list. Lots of stuff. And they can inspect you at
“—pay for it,” I finished for him.
“You got it. And when it comes to paper, Gem …”
She nodded. “We have all gone through the Canal before,” she said. “It is no problem.”
It took a half-line in under eight hours.
“You still want to walk that path with me?” I asked him. “Yes.”
“Ever been on a boat?”
“I was a Marine,” he said, as if that answered the question.
I gave him the meet-point in Galveston. “Bring your tools,” I told him. “There’s something we’re going to need to fix.”
“Can you make one, Mole?”
“It would depend on whether the contact point is organic or inorganic.”
