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He motioned for the boat’s operator to pull alongside the shabby gangway lowered from the Dolos and turned to the man sitting behind him, a former Chinese Marine named Gao Wangshu. With a high-and-tight brush cut and a lean, sinewy frame, Gao could have still been in the military.
“Well?” Lozada said in English, the language common between them. The admiral had handpicked Lozada for this task and wanted a definitive answer.
“I do not know yet,” Gao replied.
“I can’t report back to the admiral until you are sure. Your payment depends on it.”
“I cannot be confident of my conclusion until I get on board.”
“Either way, you’d better be right.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A warning. Admiral Ruiz does not like to be made a fool.”
Gao eyed Lozada’s sidearm and nodded slowly. “I will share with you any doubts I have about its identity.”
“See that you do. Remember that you are playing a trainee, which means you will be silent.”
“I understand.”
Once the boat was tied to the Dolos, the two of them climbed the gangway and were met at the top by a slovenly crewman sporting a battered cowboy hat. Tendrils of stringy brown hair jutted out at odd angles around the edges, and bits of food were caught in a handlebar mustache draped under his bulbous nose. The man’s khaki shirt was dotted with coffee and sweat stains and strained to cover a generous gut.
“¿Habla Español?” Lozada asked.
“Nope,” the man replied with a twang Lozada couldn’t identify. “I sure hope you speak English.”
“My name is Manuel Lozada. I am the harbormaster for La Guanta. Please take me to your captain.”
A smile revealed the man’s nicotine-soaked teeth. “You got him. Buck Holland’s the name. Welcome aboard Dolos.” He stuck out a hand and shook Lozada’s vigorously.
Lozada could barely contain his surprise that this slob was the vessel’s master, but he recovered quickly and introduced Gao as his apprentice, Fernando Wang. He didn’t expect Gao’s ethnicity to raise any red flags since Venezuela has a sizable Chinese immigrant population.
“I need to review your crew and cargo manifests, as well as your registration and shipping orders.”
“You got it,” Holland said. “They’re up in the bridge. Follow me. Watch your step. We’ve got a few deck plates to repair.”
Lozada almost laughed at the understatement. Rust was so prevalent on the warped steel plates that it was a wonder the ship held together, regardless of the weather. Chains stretched across breaks in the railings, and the superstructure was even more of a horror close up. Rotting plywood sheets were screwed over gaps in the bulkheads, and a third of the windows around the bridge were cracked.
Despite his research into the captain, he hadn’t expected this degree of neglect, not only to his vessel but to himself as well. Although Holland’s age was forty, drinking and sun damage had added fifteen years to his face. According to his file, the captain was a recovering alcoholic who had run a containership aground near Singapore. The only command he could get after that was this rickety tramp steamer, and by the looks of it Holland had completely ceased to care about his reputation.
They entered a narrow corridor, and Lozada was struck by the foul stench, a mixture of cigarette smoke, diesel fumes, and sewage. He practically gagged.
“Yeah,” Holland said. “Sorry about the smell. The head’s backing up again, so I hope you don’t have to use it. I’ve got my boys working on it. You know, two weeks ago in the middle of the Atlantic we had to resort to using buckets.” Instead of being embarrassed, he laughed at the memory.
Lozada suppressed the temptation to hold his nose and followed the captain inside. Gao kept pace beside him, taking in the awful state of the interior. Chipped linoleum squeaked under Lozada’s rubber soles, and he took care not to rub his clean u
niform against the grimy bare-metal walls. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered enough to trigger epileptic seizures.
They arrived at the captain’s office, where the pungent aroma was even stronger. The rectangular room had a single porthole caked with salt, and creepy sad clowns painted in neon shades stared down at them from black-velvet paintings on the wall.
The office featured two other doors, both open. The first was to a captain’s cabin, furnished with little more than a dresser bolted to the wall, a mirror, crazed as if someone had put his fist in it, and an unmade metal bed topped with discolored sheets and a worn blanket.
The second door led to a cramped bathroom that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since the ship had been built. The odor emanating from the toilet was overpowering.
Holland went behind his desk and plunked himself into a chair that squealed in protest. Lozada was amazed to see him plug bare wires from a desk lamp into the wall, snatching his hand back and cursing when the inevitable sparks shot from the outlet. The lamp winked on anyway.
“Take a load off,” Holland said, and gestured to a couple of chairs on the other side. Lozada perched himself on the edge of the seat to avoid a glistening spot of some unknown substance. Gao mimicked his uncomfortable posture.
