Part Five

"Chuck, what the Hell is going on?"

Charleston Travis groaned, propping his elbows on the desk and burying his head in his hands. After a gruelling half-hour interrogation over a telephone line that even Alexander Graham Bell would have considered lousy, he was in need of two things: another mug of coffee and an aspirin. What he did not need was the chief's voice, loud and angry, ringing through his head.

Chief Inspector Lex Coates was a big man, not so much fat as well built, with two hundred pounds of muscles softened by middle age. He filled the doorway, silhouetted against the brighter illumination of the corridor outside. He scanned the room with his eyes before stepping through, flicking the light switch as he did so. Travis groaned again at the spear the sudden brilliance sent through his optical nerve, barely aware of Mike Kearney slipping in behind their boss.

"Chief?"

"I spend all day running around after this storm business, and then when I get a call from some guy at NASA of all places, it's not because their satellites went haywire. It's him telling me you need backup because the C.I.A. are wringing you dry."

Kearney dropped into the chair behind his own desk, next to Travis's, leaning intently forward across its surface. "We were expecting to come busting in here to find you tied to a chair and a couple of spooks pulling out your fingernails."

"And if there isn't a good explanation for why I'm not at home getting ready to join my wife in bed," Coates added, shrugging out of his coat and leaning against another desk nearby, "that is still a workable option."

Travis sighed, too used to his boss's hyperbole to take the threat entirely seriously, but recognising the warning it carried nonetheless. "The Levan boys' John Doe? Turns out to be Jeff Tracy. Ex-astronaut, all-around, All-American hero Jeff Tracy."

"Whoa," Mike shook his head, leaning back in his chair and letting the breath whistle past his teeth. The chief appeared less impressed. Vacationing celebrities, each with their vastly oversized motor yacht and antisocial habits, were commonplace on Dominga. A lunar astronaut might represent more class and distinction than most of them, but he was still just another tourist as far as the chief was concerned. Coates tossed his coat towards the stand on one side of the room, already pulling a chair around to sit on as it settled onto its hook.

"He still alive?"

Travis nodded. "Not able to talk yet, but Mina Evans thinks he'll be fine. His kid Virgil too."

Coates frowned. "Okay, so the Levan boys rescued him, and you got him to a hospital. Good for you. What's with the midnight calls?"

"And I still want to know what that C.I.A. crack was all about," Mike Kearney added, twisting in his chair to reach for the coffee machine between him and his partner. He topped up Travis' mug without being asked, tipping the carafe towards his boss and getting a shake of the head before filling his own cup. Travis sighed, sipping the darkly aromatic liquid.

"I just got off the 'phone to the Americans," he admitted. "The agent I spoke to wanted to know whether this was an accident or whether Tracy ran into some rather more human sharks out there. He wanted to know in the baddest way."

"Why?" Kearney asked, confused. "If Tracy is back safe now?"

"Wouldn't say. From what Vaughan – that's the NASA security guy, he got through just before the C.I.A. traced my search on Virgil – told me, and what I've read in the papers, Tracy's been building up quite a successful consulting and construction firm since he 'retired'. I'm guessing they want to make sure that his defence contracts are secure."

"Wait," Kearney interrupted. "This Vaughan dude called before the C.I.A. tracked you down?"

"NASA security," Travis repeated, rolling his eyes and stressing the acronym. "Guess Tracy has some well-equipped friends in high places. And they all want to know what happened."

"Couldn't they just wait for the guy to wake up and ask him? A day or two's not going to be the end of the world."

Coates grunted at Kearney's question, turning a frown on his subordinate. "That depends on what Tracy Industries is building."

Travis was shaking his head grimly. "Two more of Tracy's kids are missing. The agent – damn guy kept me talking for half an hour and wouldn't give me his name – has got some idea that every island in the Confederation belongs to smugglers, thugs or criminal masterminds. He seems to think Tracy's sons would make great blackmail material, and that someone down here might just take advantage of them."

Coates and Kearney had both stilled, their expressions going from ones of professional interest to sombre concentration when the missing children were mentioned. Kearney laid his cup down, running a hand through his curly brown hair. Coates grimaced and massaged his face with the heels of both hands.

"Whether they're alive or dead," he agreed tiredly. "Even if they're at the bottom of the ocean, someone could call Tracy and say he's got them. The man's trying to run a business, but he'd be a security risk for the rest of his life." He raised his head, fixing Travis with a piercing gaze. "So what was it? Accident or pirates?"

The detective sighed, scrubbing at his own eyes. He hadn't been given a moment to think, first by Vaughan and then the C.I.A. agent. Now though his mind was working at double speed, trying to make up for lost time. "First assumption? I would have said it was that damn storm we had last night, if it wasn't for the fact it doesn't jibe with where Tony and Cal Levan said they were found. Cal said there was wreckage, and it takes a lot to sink a high-end modern yacht like Tracy's – that miniature typhoon could have done it. I don't think it could have happened before the storm in any case. Tracy is ex-military. He'd have a radio on his yacht – the Santa Anna, by the way – and he'd have got word out if they were in trouble, or about to be boarded."

Coates pulled his own useless radio from a pocket and tossed it onto Travis' desk. "Not with this kind of static in the air."

"Exactly. And if it had been much longer ago, we'd have seen a report filed on the missing yacht too. Vaughan seemed to think Tracy was in daily contact with his wife. This last day or so, we've been missing bulletins through the interference, but we were pretty much on top of them before that. Now from what Mina told me, Tracy was knocked pretty hard and ended up in the water at least a day ago. That doesn't leave much time unaccounted for. If anyone had tried to question him, I'd have thought they'd hold on to him for a while, soften him up a bit, and that would leave its mark, even if there'd been time for it."

"They could have tossed him straight back and be planning to contact him to talk business later, with the kids as collateral," Kearney suggested.

"He and the kid we found were in the water for damn near a day, and picked up by a fishing rig that happened to be passing. What kind of blackmail plan starts by leaving the survival of its target to blind chance? And why give one boy back while keeping the other two? No, whether it was the storm or just freaky bad luck, I don't reckon there was a human hand behind this."

"You told the Americans that?"

Travis shrugged. "Just that there was no evidence of foul play that we'd seen," he admitted. "One thing the spook was right about is that it's one huge coincidence that the infallible weather system let loose just a couple of hundred miles from where Tracy was found."

Coates sighed heavily, hauling himself out of the chair and towards his own desk on the other side of the room.

"You know, we're going to have to find these kids before this will be over," he told his detectives. He paused, turning sombrely towards them. "And you know they're probably out there for the second night. If they were shipwrecked more than a day ago and have been adrift since, they might not be a pretty sight when we find them."

Travis nodded bleakly. Kearney just sighed, waving one hand in acknowledgement.

"Right. Mike, you get onto weather control. Find out just how long it's going to be before it's safe to send out search and rescue choppers in this induction charge-thing. Ask what the wind and ocean's been doing while you're at it. I want a map of the most likely drift path of wreckage – or anything else. Oh, and get me satellite photos too. I want to know where that yacht was when it sank. I'm going to take a look at the harbour records and the reports from some of the other islands, just in case Chuck's gut feeling is off on this one. If there are any new players, or big boats, in the area someone should have noticed. I'm going to send security to the hospital. Tracy's a big enough name that when word gets out, he's going to be a target for kooks and journalists whether or not we throw pirates and kidnappers into the equation."

"What about me?" Travis asked quietly. He was used to his boss taking control and respected him for his ability to get things done, but even so… "This is my case, Chief. You're not taking me off it now."

Coates snorted humourlessly. "When you're our liaison with NASA and the CIA? I wouldn't dare. I'm just counting my blessings that the boffins are still calling Dominga a no-fly zone otherwise we'd probably have been swarmed under by spooks and scientists already. Find out what happened, Chuck. I want detailed, formal statements from Tony and Cal Levan, and a written report from Dr Evans. Get back on with Vaughan and the wife, if you can. It's a damn big ocean out there. We need to know where that yacht was meant to be before photos do us much good. And see if you can talk to Tracy and the kid. We need to get definite information here."

Travis nodded, reaching for his coat and heading towards the door. Mina had ordered him out of the hospital for the moment, but he still had options. At this time of night, he had a pretty good idea where to find the Levan brothers. "I'll be at Bobbie's," he called over his shoulder. "Oh and, Mike?"

"Yeah, Chuck?" Mike asked distractedly, eyes already on his computer screen.

"Have the coffee on when I get back?"

Jeff Tracy's body was a throbbing, confused mass of pain. He was dimly aware of the cool sheets of a bed beneath him, but it seemed to be tossing and tumbling under him. Waves of nausea and dizziness assaulted him, making the world a noisy, chaotic place even before he opened his eyes or became aware of the sounds around him.

His eyes slid open a crack, outside his voluntary control. The blaze of light just added to his confusion. He gasped, and someone trickled a few drops of cold liquid between his lips, calling him by name.

"Jeff? Jeff, can you hear me?"

The water felt good for a moment as it hit his throat, but then his stomach revolted. He barely managed to roll onto his side before he lost control of the nausea. He'd choked up what felt like half the Pacific Ocean before the convulsions began to subside. Again a voice called him, and it was somehow wrong. Even in this hazy, distorted world, he had a strong feeling that something was missing. No… someone!

His eyes shot open and he tried to sit up, only for nausea and dizziness to overcome him again. Someone held his shoulders as he began to vomit helplessly again. There was no hint though of the voices Jeff needed to hear.

"V'g'l?" he gasped between heaves. He didn't understand his own urgency, his recent memories seemed to contain nothing but tumbling, roiling chaos and the intense need to find his sons, one of them in particular. "V'g'l?" he tried again, the word mumbled and distorted. "Sc'tty? Gord'n?"

There was noise, as if someone were trying to speak to him. Jeff couldn't make out words above the pounding of blood in his own head, but the voices were still wrong. He struggled to open his eyes again, and failed, tumbling back into the darkness long before he could make sense of the light.

Bobbie's place wasn't a bar in the strictest sense of the word. True, a stained wooden counter ran the length of the place, and true, drinks were served and money was taken. But this wasn't one of the bright, noisy tourist traps that littered the town. No one got through the door without a word and a nod from Bobbie herself. She didn't give that word easily. This was a place for serious drinkers and serious talk.

Of course, Chuck Travis thought as he stepped past the bouncer and into the dark, smoke-clouded interior, that didn't mean that the talk wasn't complete and utter crap sometimes.

He exchanged a nod with Bobbie, trying to remain outwardly cool in the face of her intent scrutiny. He hadn't been sure of his welcome here, although he'd been pretty sure that he'd be let in today, if only because there was a kid involved. The woman ruled the dockside with a fist of iron, and had done for as long as Travis had been savvy enough to see it. Bobbie was probably in her late forties, but in this light could easily pass for twenty years younger, her body kept lithe and fit by hard work and harsh times. She had character rather than the artificial beauty that could be found in bars where tourist women roamed in search of holiday adventure. As Bobbie leaned forward across the bar, her lips pursed thoughtfully, Travis admitted to himself that she terrified him for reasons that had nothing to do with the rumours about what happened to any smuggler in the port who crossed her. On the other hand, Bobbie was no more black or white than any of the semi-legal fishermen she served with drinks. Travis had walked past this bar in the afternoon and seen the place full of street kids tucking into their only hot meal of the day. He'd heard rumours, started by Bobbie herself no doubt, that she only did it to divert police attention from the bar. He didn't think her clientele believed it any more than he did, but it would take a braver man than him to tell her so.

He drifted across to sit opposite her, laying down a larger-than-strictly-necessary 'gift' on the bar as she served him a shot of gin. He downed it in one, eyes meeting hers. She nodded, and placed a beer on the dark wood in front of him.

"You here to cause trouble?" she demanded, not exactly loud but not hiding the question either. "The way I hear it, the boys are heroes."

"One kid in hospital, Bobbie." Travis dropped his voice to little more than a murmur, inaudible to anyone more than a few inches away. "Two more still to find."

"Find what you need to know and get out," she said softly, giving the bar a cursory wipe before turning away, not waiting for Travis's nod but simply assuming it would follow. He wasn't expecting the mutter she threw over her shoulder, lips barely moving. "Levan's been spending hard tonight, drinking hard too. Shouldn't give you trouble."

He sighed sipping his beer, eyes scanning Bobbie's 'guests', slipping past the clandestine huddles and faces that suddenly ducked away to hide from him. No one had ever hung a crime on Bobbie herself, and if felonies were planned in here, well, that had to happen somewhere, and for reasons he couldn't explain, he was pretty sure she kept a lid on the worst excesses. Another time, he might come here with the place's illicit activities in his sights, but on that day he'd come armed and not riding on the coattails of missing children.

A hearty laugh, followed by a quieter chuckle, drew his eyes towards the back of the bar. Lifting his drink, he sauntered in that direction, his gaze fixed on Tony Levan's broad shoulders. The man shrugged expansively, still turned away. From the sweeping gestures he made, it seemed that whatever overblown story he'd just told had reached a natural conclusion. By his side, Cal was taking orders for the next round, their drunken circle of cronies quick to volunteer their wants. Bobbie was right, Tony was well away, a noticeable slur in his voice as he waved a hand in mid-air.

"…pretty damn spectacular from San Fernando, he said," the drunken man declared loudly.

Travis's eyebrows rose to his eye-line. Cal staggered out of his seat and towards the bar, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw the detective. Travis shot the younger brother a glare and a threat both wrapped up in a 'stay there!' look, slipped past him and settled into his vacated seat all in one smooth gesture.

"What was, Tony?" he asked casually, putting his beer on the table in front of him.

Tony turned an unfocused look on him. "The storm, you not listening?"

"Gee that's weird, Tony." Travis leaned back in the chair. The other men around the table had grown quiet, a few of them confused, the rest wary as they recognised the cop.

Tony himself blinked hard. "Hey, you crashing my party?"

"Sounds like you've been having fun, Tone. And you know, that's kind of odd too, 'cause you only went out for the evening catch, and you must have turned round before you got out to the shoals. Your nets were empty, Tony. No catch, no cash. So why am I hearing you've been throwing money around tonight?"

Tony blinked at him, too drunk to process the question. Cal, on the other hand, was looking distinctly nervous, edging towards the door at the front of the bar. At a glance from Bobbie, the bouncer there stepped into the doorframe, blocking it completely. There was a stir, the bar's patrons looking from Travis to Bobbie, two authority figures in temporary alliance.

Travis raised his voice slightly. "Where'd the windfall come from, Cal?" he asked without looking in the younger man's direction. "Did you snatch the guy's wallet? It must have been loaded. Did he put up a fight? Is that why he got that goose-egg?"

"He was out cold!" Cal hurried back along the bar, his voice dropping into a hiss. "Unconscious, way before… we found him."

The hesitation was slight, but Travis had been listening for it. Before he'd walked into Bobbie's place, he'd been prepared to push these men hard for details because that was the only way to get past the façade that all these 'fishermen' showed to the law. Now, when he pushed it was because he was suddenly damn sure that the Levan brothers were hiding something.

He looked back at Tony, letting his more sober brother stew. "So, don't you want to know what's weird, Tony? You and your brother both insist you were off east when you found your castaways."

"That's right," Tony slurred, a little more focus in his eyes as he began to recognise his interrogator. "Hundred miles east, that's what he said."

"He said that, did he?" Travis asked, mildly entertained to see Cal's furious expression shooting daggers at his brother's back. "Must have said a lot of things. Like what the storm was like off 'Fernando. Pretty damn spectacular. Should have been, that close to where it was blowing hardest."

"Uh, yeah."

Travis slammed his half-empty mug back on the table with a loud bang, beer slopping over its sides. "No! 'Cause you were out east, and San Fernando is way down to the south, and you know as well as I do that the kook who lives there won't let any boat but his own and the weekly servants' launch land there. So, tell me, Tony. Where did you really find those people? Who did you meet off San Fernando today?"

Tony blinked at him, glancing at Cal before closing his mouth hard. Cal jerked his head and one of his drinking circle vacated a seat for him, looking glad to be out of the firing line.

"Look, Inspector, you're taking one egg and trying to make an omelette here. Tony and me, we have a regular thing with the cook over on 'Fernando. Make sure he gets the supplies he needs on the weekly boat, if you know what I mean. That's all. Tony here was chatting to him on the radio earlier."

Cal Levan thought fast, Travis had to give him credit for that. His story might even be true. Auguste Villacana was one of the weirder of the one-man island tyrants in the Confederation, and exotic contraband foodstuffs sounded more or less his speed, and about right for the Levan brothers too. On another day, Cal's story might have plausible enough to talk his way out of the situation, but not a mere day after the induction pulse hit the atmosphere slap bang on a line between San Fernando and Dominga. Travis pulled his radio out with a quick gesture that had an unnervingly high fraction of Bobbie's clientele twitching towards their pockets. He flicked the switch, and thumbed up the volume, letting the loud crackle and pops fill the now-silent bar.

"You had a nice chat on the radio, huh?" He dropped the light tone from his voice, and spoke in deadly earnest. "Not today, you didn't. Where'd you find the tourists, Levan?"

Tony was sobering quickly, his expression worried. He tried one last time.

"I don't get it, Inspector, we're heroes right? We did everyone a favour. We brought those folks in quick as we could, got them to hospital and all."

Travis sighed. It was near-midnight, he'd missed dinner, and was now functioning almost entirely on coffee. He was too tired for much more of this.

"Yeah, you got them to hospital, Tony. You might be a little bent, but I'm pretty sure both of you are still human enough not to let a man and boy die if you don't have to. And that's why I know that sooner or later you're going to tell me where you really found them." He took a deep breath. "And what happened to the other two kids in the water."

There was dead silence, not even the clink of glasses. It was as if everyone in the bar had frozen.

"Other kids?" Tony Levan was looking at his brother, either completely shocked or doing a good impression of it. "That bastard never said nothing about other kids!"

Cal pushed back from the table, his chair falling with a clatter as he stood. "Look, Inspector Travis, if we'd known there were others, we'd have brought them back too, okay?"

Travis stayed seated, catching Cal's eyes. "What bastard?" he asked softly.

Cal hesitated, swore, and rubbed a hand across his eyes.

"Villacana. That monster of a motor-yacht of his cuts across our bows, near swamps us. Says his people fished a couple strangers out not far off San Fernando. Boat battered to bits by the storm. Kid was holding his dad onto a boom, or a bit of broken mast or something, 'cording to the captain. But the yacht has engine trouble and the captain reckons that if they keep going all the way to Dominga, they're not going to make it home themselves, so can we bring them into port? Well, we're not monsters, Inspector, and hey, Villacana himself comes over all quiet like. He doesn't want investigators snooping around his home, he says, and with the folks getting help anyway, it can't do any good so why should he put up with it? He'll make it worth our while, "reimburse us for our lost catch" he says. We just have to agree to be a bit creative in where we 'found' them."

Cal paused, shaking his head. "No one mentioned any other kids, Inspector. I swear it."

Travis had listened intently. He kept the interest off his face as he spoke. C.I.A. conspiracy theories danced around his head. "Do you think they might have been taken back to San Fernando?"

A snort from Tony dragged everyone's attention back to the larger man. "Wouldn't put anything past that cold bastard Villacana or most of his people. But his captain's not a bad guy. Those folks were in a bad way. If there'd been more of them, he'd have seen they got help."

Rubbing his forehead tiredly, Travis sighed. He looked around the room, populated almost exclusively by Dominga's fishing and smuggling community. "We'll be planning an organised search leaving on the morning tide," he announced quietly, knowing that the news would travel quickly. "These boys need to be found and they need to be found fast. Anyone that can help…" He let his voice trail off, and turned back to the chagrined Levan brothers. "I need you both to come down to the station, give me a statement and coordinates."

Cal Levan grimaced in distaste, but he nodded, looking serious. Tony Levan's alcohol-dazed expression became rebellious. "Hey, we told you the truth. Don't see why - "

His voice cut off with a strangled scream. Hand still on his collar, Bobbie hauled the taller man to his feet, the ice-bucket she'd just emptied down the back of his shirt tucked under one arm.

"You're going down to that station, because otherwise you're never showing your face in here again, Levan. That reason enough for you?"

She gave him a shove, and Travis and Cal caught him between them, their grip half support and half restraint. Travis gave Bobbie a sombre nod and led his two prizes to the door.

He'd found what he needed to know. Now it was time to get out.