The plane’s descent towards Beef Island airport was rough, and Ava woke with a start, unaware that she had nodded off. She took a hurried glance at Seto. He was dead to the world.
The landing was smooth, the taxi longer than she would have thought necessary for a plane that size. When the engines were turned off, she looked out the window and saw that the terminal was still a hundred metres away. She reached over and unlocked Seto’s handcuffs.
The pilot opened the door to the cockpit and came into the cabin. “I called in and they were expecting us. But you can’t leave the plane until they get here and give you clearance.” He looked at Seto. “Is he okay?”
“He slept most of the way. I think he’s worn out.”
The pilot went to the exit door and pulled the security handle, then swung the door open and lowered the steps onto the tarmac. Ava felt the warm air rush in, the smell a curious mixture of oils and gases rising from the runway. She put her notebook in her bag, straightened her shirt, pulled back her hair, and reset the ivory chignon pin.
The pilot peered out into the darkness. Ava didn’t know what to expect from Customs; she just hoped Derek had acquired a wheelchair and that they’d let him bring it to the plane. She didn’t fancy carrying Seto to the terminal. She checked her watch. They had been on the ground for five minutes. What was causing the delay? The pilot must have been thinking the same thing, because he turned to look at her and gave a shrug.
Another couple of minutes passed, and Ava was about to join the pilot at the door when he said, “I see them. They’re coming.”
She stood and stretched. “Is there a wheelchair?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
They were still going to have to carry Seto to the stairs and down onto the tarmac. Ava said to the pilot, “My friend may need help to get him into it.” She reached into her bag, looked for her money stash, and counted out four hundred-dollar bills. “Here, this is for you and your co-pilot. Split it any way you think is fair,” she said, handing him the cash.
The pilot moved back into the doorway. Ava stood behind, looking around him into the darkness.
Three men were walking towards them. None of them was Derek.
Two of the men were in uniform, one of them pushing the wheelchair. The third man trailed behind, lumbering, the walk an effort. He was massive, a head taller than the others and twice as broad. Ava turned away from the door and leaned against the wall. Where the hell was Derek? Probably inside the terminal, she thought, fighting to suppress far more negative thoughts.
“Hello,” she heard a voice call. It had a distinct Bajan accent.
“We need some help with one of the passengers,” the pilot said. “You’ll have to carry him from the plane.”
“Not a problem,” the same voice boomed.
The pilot moved back and Ava found herself looking into a huge face that was all too familiar. The man had Captain Robbins’s bright blue eyes and large, fleshy lips. He lacked the Captain’s near-translucent skin, but his dark tan was accentuated by deep furrows that looked like white trenches etched into his brown scalp. The blue eyes flickered around the cabin before they rested on Ava. “You must be Ava Lee,” he said. “I’m Jack Robbins.”
“Hello,” she said.
“You’re right on time,” said Robbins, pulling himself up the stairs. His head just cleared the doorway, and when he stood inside, it skimmed the ceiling. His frame seemed to fill the front end of the plane. Maybe it was his proximity to her or the close quarters, but to Ava he seemed even more physically imposing than his brother. Maybe not quite as fit, not quite as agile, but certainly just as impressive. His plain white short-sleeved cotton shirt draped like a tent over his gargantuan belly and baggy blue jeans, and his feet were spilling out of unbuckled leather sandals. He glanced at Seto. “Is that the cargo?”
“Yes,” Ava said, her eyes now drawn to Robbins’s hands, which were covered by clear latex gloves drawn tight around his wrists.
Robbins had to turn sideways to get down the aisle. Ava stepped back, keeping out of his way. He reached down, grabbed Seto under the armpits, and lifted him in the air as if he were a small child. Ava half expected him to carry the man on his hip or over his shoulder. Instead he held him out at arm’s length, Seto’s head level with Robbins’s chest and his feet dangling just above the ground. “Let’s get him out of here,” he said, turning and walking towards the door.
Ava reached for her bags and for Seto’s. She didn’t know what else to do. She had no idea what to think. Her confusion was so obvious that the pilot said, “Is everything okay, Ms. Lee? Because if it isn’t …”
If it isn’t, then what? she thought. You’ll take me back to Guyana? “Just fine,” she said.
As she started down the stairs, Robbins was putting Seto none too gently into the wheelchair. The other two men, who were wearing uniforms with the insignia of Customs and Immigration, looked up at her without much interest. “I’m Ava Lee,” she said to them. “Is one of you Morris Thomas?”
“Thomas sent them to help. He’s in his office. That’s where we’re heading,” Robbins said.
They walked across the tarmac. One of the men pushed the wheelchair while the other chatted to him quietly. Ava was next to Robbins. His face was passive and he was completely silent.
When they neared the terminal, the wheelchair was swung to the left, away from the main entrance. About twenty metres along they came to double glass doors that read CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION. EMPLOYEES ONLY. Ava felt her spirits lift slightly.
They walked into a large open office that was deserted and then past a row of desks to the back. MORRIS THOMAS was stencilled on a grey steel door. “Leave the wheelchair outside. One of you stay with it,” Robbins said to the men. He reached for the handle, twisted, and swung the door open. “After you,” he said to Ava.
A thin black man in a blue shirt sat behind a desk that further diminished his size. He has to be sixty, Ava thought, taking in his wiry grey hair, a face lined with worry, and red-tinged eyes with pouches the size of tea bags. “This is Ava Lee,” Robbins said to him.
Thomas glanced up at her, his eyes filled with pity, or at best some form of weary resignation. Ava knew immediately that things would not go as planned. “A pleasure,” she said.
“Can I have your passport, please?” Thomas said.
There were two chairs in front of the desk. Robbins lowered himself slowly into one as Ava rooted through her bag. “Here you go,” she said.
She put her bags on the floor, took the chair next to Robbins, and watched Thomas make a show of turning the pages of her passport. It held forty pages, the largest the Canadian government issued; she’d already filled thirty-two pages and was going to need a new one before the expiry date. “A world traveller,” he said, closing it.
“It’s the nature of my business,” Ava said.
Thomas looked at Robbins, pursed his lips, and reached down to open a desk drawer. Ava watched him slip the passport into the drawer and close it. “You have a friend who arrived here earlier this evening, a Derek Liang,” he said.
“Yes,” Ava said, struggling to maintain her composure. “Captain Robbins told me he had made arrangements with you for Derek to land. I had expected to see him here.”
“There were some problems with his paperwork,” said Thomas slowly. His eyes avoided hers and Robbins’s.
“What kind of problems?” she asked.
Thomas rolled his head from side to side. “His papers weren’t in order. We couldn’t let him stay. We picked him up at the apartment he had rented and put him on a plane headed back to Puerto Rico.” He looked at his watch. “He left about fifteen minutes ago. And just so we’re clear, we notified the Puerto Rican authorities that he shouldn’t be allowed to stay there either. I believe they intend to put him on the first flight back to Canada, which should leave around midnight tonight. To Montreal, I think.”
Ava glanced at Robbins. His eyes were half closed, a slight grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “This wasn’t what was agreed upon,” she said.
Thomas raised his right hand and motioned to Robbins, his part in the proceedings done.
The big man checked his watch, a Patek Philippe that was lost in the folds of flesh around his wrist. Ava wondered if it was real. Then she saw the back of his hands for the first time: red splotches of skin interspersed with black and green scabs. She turned her head away quickly.
“There’s been a change in plans, Ms. Lee. My brother is scheduled to call here any minute now, so if you will be patient I’d appreciate it.”
“Do I have another option?” she asked.
“No.”
“Jack, you don’t need me anymore, do you? Because if you don’t mind I’ll take myself home,” Thomas said.
“Say hello to Betty for me.”
“I will,” Thomas said, rising from his chair.
“Leave one of the men, will you?”
“I’ll leave both.”
“Only need the one.”
“Okay. Just close the door when you go. It locks itself.”
When Thomas left, the room seemed suddenly empty. Ava shifted in her chair, and then to her shock Robbins’s gloved right hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm. He squeezed, his fingers digging through her flesh until they reached bone. She flinched, more from surprise than pain. “My brother warned me about you,” he said. “I’m just telling you it would be stupid to try anything with me.”
“I had no intention-” she began, only to be cut off by the sound of a cellphone ringing to the tune of the William Tell overture.
“It’s me,” Robbins said. He listened for a few seconds. “No, it went well. She’s sitting next to me.” He paused and then passed the phone to Ava.
Ava wiped the mouthpiece against her shirt. “This is Ava Lee.”
“Before anything else is said, let me immediately apologize for this untimely departure from our plans.”
She heard the clink of ice against glass. He was at home. Drinking. “Captain, what exactly is going on?”
He laughed, or coughed; she wasn’t sure which. “I felt it necessary to make some changes to our arrangement.”
“So your brother told me, though he was somewhat lacking in detail.”
“The thing is, Ms. Lee, you didn’t play fair with me.”
She sensed at once where this was headed, but she wasn’t going to go there first. “As I remember, Captain, I paid you $100,000 for services rendered, and then another $200,000 for services that so far have been unfulfilled. So in terms of being fair, I think I’m the one who should have be complaining.”
“You aren’t the least bit curious as to why I feel aggrieved?”
“We have an agreement, one that I’ve completely honoured. I don’t need to know any more than that.”
“The thing is,” he said again, slurring the s, “I’ve found out that you’ve been less than forthcoming with me.”
Ava closed her eyes. Had this been his plan all along? Had he arranged to get her and Seto to the British Virgin Islands just so he could squeeze her? Had the note with his daughters’ names and phone numbers just been theatre? “Captain, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ice clinked. “I stopped by Seto’s house on the way back from the airport tonight and had a chat with his woman,” he said slowly. “Don’t know why I did it, actually; it just came to me that it was the thing to do. Anyway, she was quite open with me after a little persuasion. It seems that our friend Seto had made quite a score for himself. According to her, he’s managed to turn a recent profit in the amount of about five million United States dollars.”
She didn’t know if she believed a word of it, but her position wasn’t going to change. “There was no profit. There was just theft,” she said.
“So you concede the amount?”
“Captain, I never misled you about how much money I was chasing. I don’t remember ever mentioning an amount.”
“And you know, I don’t think you did either, so that’s true enough. The fault is mine, of course. I couldn’t imagine Seto being that successful. But now, belatedly I admit, I find out that he is evidently more clever than I thought. And so here we are, Ms. Lee… Let me ask you, given this new information, do you really think it’s fair that I should have to settle for just $300,000?”
“Yes, I do,” Ava said.
“You disappoint me, Ms. Lee. I mean, really, without our very active and unique support, where would you be? I’ll tell you: you’d be sitting at the Phoenix Hotel with no hope of getting at Seto or his money. Yes, I think that’s exactly where you would be.”
“Possibly,” she said.
“And even if you had contrived to get your hands on him, where were you going to go with him? Nowhere, I tell you, although you might have ended up in Camp Street Prison for kidnapping, or worse.”
Robbins’s voice had risen an octave, his words coming faster. Ava waited for a few seconds, not jumping to respond. When she did, she said as softly and deliberately as she could, “I assume you want to make a proposition.”
“Of course I do. I think that we have to revisit our agreement, that we need to make it less one-sided.”
“You’re looking for more money?”
“It’s only fair.”
“It isn’t my money to give. It belongs to my client,” she said.
“That’s a quibble. All I know for certain is that the money is in a bank account belonging to Seto. How it got there is your word against his. In fact, the case could be made that you tried to bribe a Guyanese government official to help you fraudulently deprive a Guyanese resident of his hard-earned assets.”
Ava bit back the anger that was swelling up from her stomach. Seto had been an idiot to tell the woman. She had probably confessed everything the moment the Captain asked his first question. As for him, well, he was turning out to be exactly what she had feared he was. She just wished he could have been contained for another day or two. But there was nothing positive to be gained in getting angry about any of it. She tried to shift the conversation. “You know, Captain, all this talk about money is still completely hypothetical. There is no guarantee that the bank will release any funds at all to me.”
He laughed, phlegm catching in his throat and causing him to cough. “I have absolute confidence in the approach you described to me,” he said, catching his breath. “I found it entirely sensible, and when I factor in your persuasiveness and your appeal, well, I think the approach goes well past sensible all the way to irresistible. So humour me, please, and let’s talk about money, hypothetical or otherwise.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Half,” he said bluntly.
The figure took her aback. He was even greedier, even more aggressive than she’d imagined. “Captain — ”
“I want $2,500,000.”
Ava held the phone against her neck as she did two quick calculations. The first was how much negotiating leverage she had. The answer was short and brutal: absolutely none that she could think of at the moment, and the moment was all that mattered now. They had her passport and, more important, she was in a place where she had no connections, no support, no backup. All it would take was one quick phone call to the bank from some BVI crony of Robbins and the entire deal would be blown apart.
The second calculation was how much money she would have left if she drained Seto’s bank account and paid Robbins what he wanted. Not enough to make Tam whole, but he would get bandaged up. “Captain, that amount is way too high,” she said.
“Don’t be stupid. I think half is fair for all the trouble I’ve gone to. In fact, when I really think about it, half is generous on my part.”
He’d been under control until then, not pleasant but not harsh either, just confident and insistent. Now she detected the first real threat in his tone. He was drinking, and dollar signs were dancing in his head. This isn’t the time to aggravate him, Ava thought. It’s time to pull back. “I’ve already given you $300,000.”
“What?”
“I’ve paid you $300,000, and I think that needs to be factored into any agreement.”
He laughed again, and when he spoke he was back in control. “Always negotiating, aren’t you? But you are correct, of course. So where does that leave us?”
Both of them went quiet. Ava had no idea what he was thinking. All she knew was that she had to negotiate some kind of deal or she wasn’t going to leave the airport. And there was only one deal on the table. She needed to get into Road Town; she needed to get to the bank; she needed to buy time. “Discounting the $300,000 would mean we pay you $2,200,000,” said Ava.
“Are you saying you will pay or you might pay that amount?”
“Will.”
“Ah, I knew you were too clever to do anything else.”
“I still need to call Hong Kong — ”
“No,” he said. “No Hong Kong. No calls. You and I have made the deal and we’ll leave it that.”
“I’m not sure — ”
“I’m sure,” he snapped. “No Hong Kong. No calls. You go to the bank tomorrow and work your charm. Have them send the $2,200,000 to my account and then you can send whatever you want overseas and explain everything later to your people there. I’m sure they’ll understand why it was necessary to do things this way. I mean, a bird in the hand — ”
“You know, it isn’t going to be as simple as you think,” she said as calmly and softly as she could, and then waited for another eruption.
She heard him breathing, and then another clink of ice. “I think you need to explain exactly what you mean by that,” he said, the edge creeping back into his voice.
“Transferring the money directly from Seto’s account to your account could cause a problem,” Ava said.
“Why?”
“Well, I’ve already established the parameters for my meeting. The banker has been told — by Seto, he believes — that the money is being placed in an investment in China. He thinks Seto and I are going to show up at his office tomorrow morning to execute the paperwork. Instead, I’m the only one who’s going to be there. I think I can talk my way around Seto’s absence, but even if he thinks I’m credible, he still needs to see Seto’s identification and he still needs Seto’s signature on a whole bunch of documents. Will he accept the signatures without actually seeing Seto? That’s my hope, Captain, but it is by no means certain. He’s going to be suspicious enough when I show up without Seto, and even more suspicious when I deliver him signed documents but still without Seto. Now, by sending money to the Cayman Islands, what you want me to do is compound all that uncertainty by changing the terms of the arrangement Seto emailed to him.” Ava stopped to let the Captain absorb the information.
She felt Jack Robbins looking at her. He was obviously listening. “Given those circumstances, I can guarantee, Captain, that the moment I tell him we now want only half of the money to go to Asia, and the other half to be sent to a bank account in the Cayman Islands, alarm bells are going to ring in his head. And, Captain, we don’t want any alarm bells, because no capable banker can ignore them, and a bank as good as Barrett’s will have someone very capable running a branch as sensitive as this one. It’s all in the optics, Captain. Change the optics and you change the reaction. Change the reaction and you put the outcome at risk. The optics now are okay — not great, just okay. If we alter the plan now, it would only hurt us both.”
She knew none of that would have occurred to him. Now she hoped he wasn’t too drunk to think things through.
“If what you say is true…” he finally said.
“It is true.”
“Okay, assuming it is, and assuming you follow your plan, how do I get my money?”
“We’ll wire it to you from Hong Kong,” Ava said. “If tomorrow I can get the bank to send us the money, we’ll have it the day after. We’ll send you your share right away. So we’re talking, what with the time change, three days?”
“Three days,” he repeated.
“And I’ll be here, of course. I’m not going anywhere. My passport is in Morris Thomas’s drawer.”
“I know where your passport is.”
Now is the time, she thought. “So, Captain, as much as I hate to ask, do we have a deal?”
The Captain fell silent. He was making her wait. She knew he was going to say yes, but he had to remind her who was dominant. “I’d like you to give your cellphone to my brother,” he said.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She opened her bag, took out her phone, and handed it to Jack Robbins. “Done,” she said.
“What do you think of my brother?”
“You can certainly tell you had the same mother.”
“Actually, his personality is closer to hers than mine,” the Captain said. “In any event, you’ll get to know him better, because he’s going to be staying with you for the next three days, or for however long it takes us to conclude our business.”
“That’s completely unnecessary,” she said.
“It’s what I want.”
“Captain, you have my passport and you have my cellphone. Where exactly do you think I’ll go? What do you think I’ll do?”
“I don’t know what you could get up to. All I know is that you’re resourceful, and I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“If it has to be — ” she began.
He cut her off. “Good. Now put the phone on speaker mode.”
She pressed the speaker button and then held the phone out to his brother. It seemed to get swallowed up by the gloved hand. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Jack, Ms. Lee and I have reached an agreement that I think is fair. In fact, you could consider us business partners. Now, she has to run to the bank at least once tomorrow. You’re the chauffeur and the bodyguard. Make sure no harm comes to her. Make sure that she is well looked after otherwise.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“As we talked about earlier, you’ll stay at the apartment they rented. No phone calls. No computer. Nothing. She doesn’t communicate with anyone but you, me, and the bank… Now, Ms. Lee, please put the phone back on regular mode.”
“Okay, it’s just me,” she said, holding the phone away from her face and wondering what skin ailment forced Jack Robbins to wear latex gloves.
“It’s very simple: we have your passport and you’re not leaving the islands without it. And to be completely honest, you’re not leaving the islands even if you do have it, because Thomas has put your name on a watch list. If you try to leave you will be stopped and detained. I didn’t need to say that, but I thought you should know that we’re being careful.”
“I understand,” she said, not pleased to hear how thorough he had been. “What you said to your brother about the computer, though — that could be a problem. How do you expect me to send instructions about a wire transfer to your account?”
“Did you send instructions by computer for my $300,000?”
“I did.”
“Are they still in your system?”
“They are.”
“Well, when you’re ready to send new instructions, show the old ones to Jack and then follow the exact same routine. He’ll be watching, of course.”
“Of course. One other thing, Captain — something I do have to ask. What happens if, even with my best efforts, I can’t convince the bank manager to release Seto’s money?”
“That’s not the outcome I expect.”
“You have too much faith in me.”
“You’ll get it done.”
“But if I can’t?” she persisted.
“That’s a conversation for another day,” he said. Then he went quiet.
Has he gone? Ava wondered. “Captain?”
“I want you to behave for my brother,” he said, as if he were talking to a child.
“Of course.”
“And Ms. Lee — Ava, I want you to know that I have the greatest respect for you. This isn’t personal; this is just business. We — me and you — are professionals, so I know you’ll see the fairness in it.”
“I understand,” she said.
“As for my daughters,” he went on, “I meant what I said when you were leaving Guyana. When this is over and we each have our money and you’re back safely in Toronto, I’d like you to call them, I really would.”
“Captain, don’t worry about your daughters,” Ava said.