“Well, it’s a quite a tight world, we all know each other. Within half a mile, there’s Clarkson, Braemar Seascope, Galbraith or Gibson’s. They all do sales, purchases, charters. For a fee, of course.”
“Of course.” An encrypted message from Washington had told him of a new account opened in the British Channel island of Guernsey, a discreet tax haven that the European Union was trying to close down. He also had the name of the bank executive to contact and the code number required to release funds.
“On the other hand, a good broker will probably save a ship buyer more than the fee. I have a good friend at Parkside and Company. He would see you right. Shall I give him a call?”
“Please do.”
Agate was on the phone for five minutes.
“Simon Linley’s your man,” he said, and wrote an address on a scrap of paper. “It’s only five hundred yards. Out of here, turn left. At Aldgate, left again. Follow your nose for five minutes, and ask. Jupiter House. Anyone will tell you. Good luck.”
Dexter finished his coffee, shook hands and left. The directions were perfect. He was there in fifteen minutes. Jupiter House was the opposite of the Staplehurst office: ultra-modern, steel and glass. Silent elevators. Parkside was on the eleventh floor, with picture windows that showed the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral on its hill two miles to the west. Linley met him at the elevator doors and took him to a small conference room. Coffee and gingersnaps appeared.
“You wish to buy two bulk-carrier ships, probably grain carriers?” asked Linley.
“My patrons do,” corrected Dexter. “They are based in the Middle East. They wish for extreme discretion. Hence, a front company headed by me.”
“Of course.” Linley was not in the slightest fazed. Some Arab businessmen had skimmed the local sheikh and did not want to end up in a very unpleasant Gulf jail. It happened all the time.
“How big would your clients wish these ships to be?”
Dexter knew little of marine tonnages, but he knew a small helicopter would have to be stored, with rotors spread, in the main hold. He reeled off a list of dimensions.
“About twenty thousand tons gross, or twenty-eight thousand deadweight tons,” said Linley. He began to tap into a computer keyboard. The large screen was at the end of the conference table where both men could see it. A range of options began to appear. Fremantle, Australia. St. Lawrence Seaway, Canada. Singapore. Chesapeake Bay, USA.
“The biggest repertoire would seem to be with COSCO. China Ocean Shipping Company, based in Shanghai, but we use the Hong Kong office.”
“Communists?” asked Dexter, who had killed rather a lot of them in the Iron Triangle.
“Oh, we don’t bother about that anymore,” said Linley. “Nowadays they’re the world’s sharpest capitalists. But very meticulous. If they say they’ll deliver, they deliver. And here we have Eagle Bulk in New York. Closer to home for you. Not that it matters. Or does it matter?”
“My clients want discretion only as to true ownership,” said Dexter, “and both ships would be taken to a discreet yard for refit and renovation.”
Linley thought but did not say: A bunch of crooks who probably want to move some extremely
dodgy cargoes, so they will want the ships reconfigured, renamed with new paperwork and put to sea unrecognizable. So what? The Far East is full of them; times are hard, and money is money.
What he did say: “Of course. There are some very skilled and highly discreet shipyards in southern India. We have contacts there through our man in Mumbai. If we are to act for you, we shall have to have a memorandum of agreement, with an advance against commission. Once the ships are purchased, I suggest you put both on the books of a management company called Thame in Singapore. At that point, and with new names, they will disappear. Thame never talk to anyone about their clients. Where can I get hold of you, Mr. Dexter?”
The message from Devereaux had also included the address, phone number and e-mail of a newly acquired safe house in Fairfax, Virginia, which would act as mail drop and message taker. Being a Devereaux creation, it was untraceable and could close down in sixty seconds. Dexter gave it. Within forty-eight hours, the memorandum was signed and returned. Fairfax began their hunt. It would take two months, but before the end of the year two grain ships were handed over.
One came out of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, the other had been at anchor in Singapore Harbor. Devereaux had no intention of keeping on the crew of either vessel. Both crews were generously paid off.
The American purchase was easy, being so close to home. A new crew of U.S. Navy men, masquerading as merchant sailors, took over, accustomed themselves to the vessel and eased her out into the Atlantic.
A crew of British Royal Navy men flew out to Singapore, also posing as merchant marines, took command and sailed out into the Malacca Strait. Theirs was the shorter sea journey. Both vessels headed for a small and reeking yard on the Indian coast south of Goa, a place mainly used for the slow breakup of graveyard vessels and possessed of a criminal disregard for health, safety and the danger of constantly leaching toxic chemicals. The place stank, which was why no one ever went there to examine what was going on.
When the Cobra’s two ships entered the bay and dropped anchor, they virtually ceased to exist, but new names and new papers were discreetly logged with Lloyd’s International Shipping List. They were noted as “grain carriers” managed by Thame PLC of Singapore.
THE CEREMONY took place, in deference to the wishes of the donating nation, in the U.S. Embassy in Abílio Macedo Street, Praia, Santiago Island, Republic of Cape Verde. Presiding with her usual charm was Ambassador Marianne Myles. Also present was the Verdean Natural Resources Minister and the Defence Minister.
To add gravitas, a full U.S. admiral had flown in to sign the agreement on behalf of the Pentagon. He, at least, had not the faintest idea what he was doing there, but the two gleaming white tropical uniforms of he and his ensign ADC were impressive, as they were supposed to be.
Ambassador Myles offered refreshments, and the necessary documents were spread on the conference table. The embassy’s defense attaché was present and a civilian from the State Department whose identification was perfect and in the name of Calvin Dexter.
The Verdean ministers signed first, then the admiral and finally the ambassador. The seals of the Republic of Cape Verde and the United States were affixed to each copy, and the aid agreement was in place. Work could proceed on its implementation.
Duty done, flutes of sparking wine were decanted for the usual toasts, and the senior Verdean minister made in Portuguese the, for him, obligatory speech. To the weary admiral, it seemed to go on and on, and he understood not a word of it. So he just smiled his Navy smile and wondered why he had been hauled off a golf course outside Naples, Italy, and sent to a group of impoverished islands stuck three hundred miles into the Atlantic off the coast of West Africa.