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The Company
Time: Friday, August 27, 2010.
Place: North Pacific.
Last Event: Steaming for Canadian waters.
The journey to Canada takes a week, during which time the Agents aboard the Taluar have their hands full looking after rescued women, captured gangsters, and the vessel itself. Fortunately, the ship's crew is cooperative, so the team's main challenges are keeping their identities secret and the crewmen motivated. Qoqa uses the time to "clean" the Taluar as much as possible – and the sailors are happy to help out, as blood and gore aren't particularly pleasant to work around. The voyage also lets the wounded Agents recover somewhat; even Lev is up and around by week's end.
The morning of August 27, Jili rigs a communications relay capable of retransmitting a tight-beam signal sent from the Gaia Defender as a standard marine radio broadcast originating from the Taluar, chiefly for the benefit of the Canadian authorities. Qoqa makes a special point of "cleaning" this comms gear. At the same time, Vinnie disables the Taluar's engines to create a pretext for a distress call (and hopefully a rescue).
While her colleagues work, Anabel explains the situation to the crew: Her team of American soldiers and law-enforcers can't officially enter Canadian waters, so they'll be departing on their vessel and signaling the Canadian authorities indirectly via the radio relay. The artificial "engine problems" are simply an incentive for the Canadians to move quickly – a huge container ship adrift offshore isn't something they can ignore. Anabel promises the crew that they'll receive remuneration for their trouble from Uncle Sam, and then proceeds to solicit contact info from each and every crewman. All of this seems to go over well with the sailors.
As the Agents wait for the Gaia Defender to come alongside, Qoqa speaks with the women who have health issues. Using Anabel as a translator, she makes sure that each woman understands her diagnosis, at least in broad terms. She gets all of them to promise that they'll let the Canadians know about this, to ensure that they'll receive proper treatment.
Then the Gaia Defender pulls up next to the Taluar and the Agents depart. Wen and Zhang leave dramatically and acrobatically; the others simply use lines and nets. Once the whole team is aboard the Gaia Defender, JB steers away from the drifting Taluar and heads for the Canadian coast. Every bit of illegal equipment – including all the firearms – goes overboard, just in case. Qoqa then supervises a final "cleaning" of the ship, enlisting the aid of everybody but JB and Vinnie, who are busy on the bridge, and Anabel, who has more stories to spin.
As the Gaia Defender pulls away, Anabel prepares to e-mail the CBC a detailed report on the situation aboard the Taluar, attaching photos of its cargo – women, guns, drugs, the lot – for good measure. She pulls in Paul to review her communiqué for trigger words that might lead anybody who intercepts the transmission to review it in detail and show an interest in its source. With that done, she returns Paul to Qoqa and borrows Jili. Jili fires up the ship's satellite link and sends the message to a CBC address, one that she claims is perfect for leaks and rumors.
With that done, Anabel waits a while to give the media as much lead time as possible on the authorities. When the Gaia Defender is minutes from losing its mast-to-mast line of sight to the Taluar, she triggers the radio relay. Faking a Tagalog accent, she transmits a distress call to the Canadian authorities. She claims to be aboard the Taluar, hiding from "dangerous people" and taking advantage of the distraction of engine trouble to call for help. She mentions hearing shooting and seeing dead people, and says that the ship's cargo includes at least 150 women destined for the sex trade.
It's after dark when the Gaia Defender is in sight of land, just southwest of Vancouver Island. Vinnie steers for the small islands off the shipping lane, while JB pores over the charts and dictates constant course corrections. When the lights of a hamlet are visible through the trees on shore, Vinnie gives the order to drop anchor and lower the ship's boats. Leaving the Gaia Defender anchored and lit for the authorities to find, the Agents head for land.
As soon as the boats hit the beach, Qoqa "cleans" them as well as she's able, after which Wen professionally conceals them in the brush. Then the Agents head for the nearby hamlet on foot. Wen brings up the rear and hides the trail – she seems to have a lot of experience at hiding people and things in the bush. Before long, the Agents emerge from the woods near the edge of the settlement they spotted from the ship, where they encounter a group of teenagers sitting around drinking beer.
The locals are a little startled by the sudden appearance of a dozen strangers, but Anabel has a story ready. Realizing that her associates hail from a wide variety of visible ethnic groups, she takes the tack that they're tourists. She goes on to explain that they were hiking nearby and were supposed to be picked up by a tour service that failed to send a boat for them. She says that they saw the lights of the village through the trees, so they came seeking transportation to Victoria – or better, to Vancouver.
While doubtless not completely in line with what the locals know to be true about tourism in the region, the story is good enough to convince a few drunken teenagers. With bribes of cash – and vodka from Qoqa's stash – the teens ultimately agree to help. One of them goes to fetch an older brother who has a boat, while the others carry on and drink too much vodka, much to Qoqa's distaste: "No, no! You must enjoy! Not drink all at once!"
It isn't long before the boy who went for his brother returns with a man in his early twenties. He proves to be more cautious than a gang of inebriated teenagers, and is at first leery of a dozen strangers hanging around in the woods after dark. Anabel is both convincing and appealing, however, and the promise of $1,000 in cash seals the deal. The Agents are soon aboard his barge – one that looks as if it's often used to haul trash – and being towed to Victoria. Predictably, Anabel manages to talk her way into sitting next to the boatman instead of on his filthy barge.
In the wee hours of Saturday, August 28, the boat pulls up at a small dock on the outskirts of Victoria. A late-night party is in progress; it's fairly clear that a few extra people in the area won't be noticed. The Agents pay their ferryman the promised $1,000 – Qoqa throwing in some vodka as a bonus – and bid him adieu. Then they find an ATM, withdraw cash from a secure Company account, and call some cabs.
Eventually, everybody is in Victoria proper, grabbing coffee at an all-night Tim Horton's. The entire team agrees that the best plan would be to get to Vancouver and then head out from there. The morning's first ferry for Vancouver doesn't leave for several hours, though. Fortunately, the restaurant clerk knows of a nearby motel that rents out rooms day and night . . . as long as one isn't too choosy.
The group heads over to the motel in twos and threes. There, Anabel does the talking while the others lurk out of sight nearby. The man at the desk makes it very clear that he believes Anabel to be a hooker, and demands cash up front. Anabel pays, takes her key, and heads to her room. It isn't luxurious, or even especially nice, but it has a shower. Over the next couple of hours, the Agents take turns stealing into the rented room and cleaning up.
The Agents take advantage of the TV as well as the shower. By now, the story that they gave the CBC has spread to other networks. The Canadian authorities – clearly under pressure from the media – have confirmed that they intercepted a ship being used by organized criminals ". . . to smuggle nearly 200 women into Canada." The broadcast doesn't give all the details, probably at the urging of police, but the photos of firearms, drugs, etc. that Anabel sent are shown with comments that officials have so far remained silent on such matters. The circus has begun!
When it's Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen's turn to wash up, they get Chaturvedi on their Company phones for a conference call. They report in on everything that happened at sea, and confirm that the team is indeed behind the story that's all over the news. Chaturvedi says that he figured as much, which is why he's in Vancouver right now. He suggests that the Agents meet him there for a full debriefing, and then take a relaxing train ride to Toronto, where they can lie low for a while. His reasoning is that a break would be good for everybody's sanity and would give the trail a little time to cool down – and of course it might be useful for the group to become familiar with a large urban area relatively near the U.S. border.
Come daylight, the Agents head for the ferry terminus. The ride to Vancouver is uneventful. Everybody picks up some clean clothing, reaches the hotel where Chaturvedi has made reservations, and gets some rest. Mid afternoon, Chaturvedi calls and tells the team that he has reserved a private dining room at a large Chinese restaurant downtown. He asks that they meet him there in about an hour.
At the restaurant, everybody enjoys a pleasant meal while they fill in Chaturvedi on the operation from start to finish. Anabel makes a special point of noting that the team agreed to pay the sailors aboard the Taluar for their trouble, and passes along the relevant contact info to Chaturvedi, who promises to make sure that the agreed-upon funds reach the people on the list. The handler also says that he'll collect the sample of the drugs found aboard the ship and send it off for analysis – if only so that the Agents don't have to try to board a train with a kilo of suspicious white powder!
As for the future, Chaturvedi recommends heading for Toronto in the short term. He already has train reservations for the Agents, who will travel as tourists rather than pretend to be Canadians. He'll get to work at once on accommodations at the other end. While the next mission is ostensibly the investigation of Omni-Biotech Distribution Southwest, in Albuquerque, NM, Chaturvedi has misgivings about this. Specifically, he finds it bizarre that his superiors in the Company would want to risk poking around a possible CIA-backed pharmaceuticals lab on U.S. soil, however creepy its product. He says he'll look into this while the group is in transit and hiding out in Toronto.
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