Killing Juri Kasagan: A Novel

By William Scoales

The year is 1990. The U.S.S.R. is imploding and all sorts of things are crawling from the wreckage, dazed, lost, and lethal.
One is Juri Kasagan, model Russian prisoner. Others are those that mean to kill him. Another is his daughter who races to save him.
Into this out of control kill fest sails a Connecticut lawyer on an innocent voyage of remembrance, that along with the others, is magnetically drawn to the Spanish port city of Cadiz. And, along with most of the others soon wonders why Cadiz?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499074116

William Scoales

William Scoales is an almost native Californian who resides with wife Patricia in the coastal town of Pacific Palisades. They have lived in Australia and France and continue to travel. This is his second novel. Another is in progress. Both are alumni of U.C.L.A.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LOG OF THE MISTY STAR

Aug. 17 2200 hours Wind N/E 18 knots. Following sea, fuel low. Sails up close pass by n/b trawler, maybe Russian. On port approach. Things look same. One never knows.

The sloop passed to the right of the mid-channel marker as it entered the harbor of Cádiz. A drop in wind had brought it to this point late, forcing a landfall at night, something that Alex had wanted to avoid. His memory of the harbor was dimmed by time and events, but he recalled having a close-call with a submerged breakwater the last time around, almost three years now. It was inside the harbor at a right angle to the channel, meant to protect the marina from surges of tide and high water swept in by Easterlies.

Cross-cutting the heavy swells of the last few hours had worn him down. He was hot, tired, hungry, thirsty, and he wanted to get prone, but there was no-one to relieve him, he sailed alone and that was the price of solitude. After almost seven weeks, the solitude became a challenge, a ring you stepped into, not the philosophical watering-hole he’d hoped it might be. He’d been glad to come up on the band of yellow light seen from a few miles out, separated now into headlights of automobiles moving along the wharves and the yellow windows of terminal buildings and waterfront bars. He was even glad for the dark shapes calling to him from the channel heads, night fishermen, yelling greetings or warnings, he couldn’t make out which. And the odor of the city, the unclean smell of an old kitchen with food accumulated in its corners, the diesel fuel being pumped into cargo ships under banks of arc-lights; it came to him with the pleasure of a farmer smelling dung.

Fifty yards past the marker buoy, he reefed the mainsail and the genoa and turned on the inboard engine, a Mercedes diesel that could overcome a ten knot current and hold the sloop steady in heavy wind. He’d run into a Force-8 gale on the way down and the three ten-gallon fuel drums crowding the cockpit were empty. He put it out of his mind that he’d cut it this close and stretched in the cockpit, looking for signs of the breakwater that had almost gutted Misty Star when he’d sailed over it before, running with a high tide. The sloop’s steel hull have saved it, an inch thick alloy, showing a scar running her length when the underside was exposed.

This time the tide was low. The spine of the breakwater became visible ahead, about where he remembered it jutting out from the starboard side of the channel. They’d finally set out illuminated marker buoys allowing one to safely manoeuvre around it. As he did so, the blast of an air-horn startled him, coming from El Vapor, the hydrafoil running between Cádiz and Puerto de Santa Maria, a small fishing village on the north side of the bay. It de-accelerated as it passed on the port side, arriving, settling into the water like a hippo and generating a baby tsuanami that slopped over Misty’s gunwales, flooding the cockpit, Alex’s rubber boots, launching an empty fuel drum into the bay, launching a loud sonofabitch.

The boots were part of the foul-weather gear he was still wearing after doing battle with a squall off Chipiona, the wind jumping to twenty-eight knots and shifting to the northeast. When the storm hit land, it broke up and webbed the sky grey-on-black, traces of it still showing overhead.

He reached down and snared the empty half-pint of scotch floating in the remaining wash of the self-draining cockpit, a souvenir of the storm, the little friend that had seen him through. He’d screwed the top back on for some reason. He stuffed it into one of the huge pockets of the rubberized pants.

He began passing the length of a Spanish destroyer, close enough to hear the hum of its generators and ventilation fans. Crewmembers were draped over the rails, smoking, idly curious about the black-hulled sloop chugging by beneath them. A few of them waved. He finally waved back. An F-14 Tomcat skimmed the harbor, headed for the U.S. Naval base at Rota on the northern crescent of the bay. He’d hardly looked up, his mind on San Sebastian Castle, south of the harbor entrance. It was built right to the water. He and Val had taken a look before putting into the harbor and beginning their three weeks ashore, seeing it as Drake had and pirates not so official and not so famous. She’d been able to list a minute’s worth. He’d already forgotten them all.

Once past the destroyer, the city began presenting itself, the golden dome of its Cathedral nesting in the rooftops like a Faberge Egg, as she’d put it. He followed the harborwall at a slow three knots until he came to a siding, so to speak, a thirty foot wide split to the right lined with white can-buoys leading into the restricted area for foreign small-craft. They’d had to moor there last time. They’d closed off a patch of the harbor with a floating fence and kept it floodlit and under guard by the Federal military police, the Guardia Frontiera. Their compound, housing Immigration and Customs, was at the end of the short pier jutting out. There was also a shed they used on the pier itself. As Alex brought the sloop to an open mooring, two of the guardia came out of the shed and watched as he tied up. Other than that, he saw no other signs of life, the other two dozen or so small boats dark at their moorings.

He went below and shed the uncomfortable foul weather gear, changing into linen slacks and a silk shirt and penny loafers, the Sunday lawn party costume he couldn’t seem to wear out. Back on deck, he spread out the foul weather gear, thought better of it and locked it up in the cabin, had to unlock the hatchway again because he’d forgotten the damned refrigerator. The morning’s log entry had begun with "August 17, 1992," when the heat and humidity crested in southern Spain. The electric refrigerator had been malfunctioning since Lisbon due to low batteries and what had once been lettuce, oranges, cheese, greek olives, had been decomposed into a disgusting colonized mess. He scooped it into a plastic bag and tied the top, he’d carry it on-shore. After he unplugged the refrigerator, he propped the door open with an unopened can of soup and went back on deck and set a stern anchor that didn’t want to bite into the silt bottom. The sloop would probably drag in the tide, but the mooring would hold Her fast. He looked up at the pier. The guardia were watching him fight to maintain his co-ordination, upon which lack of sleep was taking its toll; he couldn’t remember a stretch lasting more than three hours, not trusting to sea-anchors and tied helms in such variable waters. The usual three minutes it took to remove the fiberglass dinghy from where it was lashed to the top of the cabin took seven and he kept dropping it as he worked it over the side. He tossed in his flight bag. Passport and Ship’s Registration were in a waterproof bellybag, along with his cash and travelers checks. He pushed off, without much enthusiasm. What he cared for in Cádiz had already happened.

As the dinghy neared the pier, the two guardia pointed to where he was to tie up, at the gangway near the seaward end. Automatic weapons were slung over their shoulders, triggers two seconds away. They’d been Schmisser sub-machine guns last time around. These looked just as lethal. He tied to a cleat on the small landing platform and made his way up the slippery wooden rise, still missing cross-bars that would have provided traction on the algea covered planks. He slipped once and almost made the mistake of grabbing the rotted rope railings for support, going to his knees instead and then carefully pushing up to the half-erect position which he maintained until he’d reached the top. The guardia watched this trial by inconvenience and shoddy workmanship with an amusement which Alex couldn’t see in their shadowed faces but knew was there. They took a step back from the head of the gangway when he finally set foot on the pier and drew up in their comic-opera uniforms of dull green crossed with patent leather straps, patent leather boots, caps that resembled inverted casserole dishes, none of which were very wise to laugh at. Before they marched him into the shed, one of them circled him and the other one tapped the flight bag, listening for a tell-tale clink. Times had changed; when Val had been along, there had been a helping hand and in the shed, a glass of madeira.

Habla Espanol? the one with stomach rumbles asked him.

English, Alex said wearily, answered with a disappointed grunt.

They emptyied his flight bag onto a metal table and told him to dump his bellybag. Then they made him turn out his pockets. The one with the quiet stomach picked through the socks, shorts, toilet articles, culling out the coins and making a cluster on the table with them.

Paper money? It was odd, no paper money, and he didn’t believe in the tall, gangling, english speaking sailorman who, in sailing alone, fit their criminal profile of a terroist, drug runner, smuggler…. He was a little old to be challenging himself, to be enamored by the sea. Now for the coming lies.

Alex lifted up a block of plastic covered travelers checks to him, issued by Republic National Bank in Mystic, Connecticut. In case I go overboard, he explained. They can be replaced.

The guardia started to count them.

Five thousand, said Alex, the irritability showing through.

You have more?

How much do I need? He was running on empty, like the sloop, and he wanted to kick in the stupidly suspicious arrogant face, not placate it.

The guardia dropped the checks onto the table and the two of them began playing a game, probably birthed by the boredom of the night shift, arranging the coins in various sequences to plot his course, settling on the twenty dollar goldpiece to head the row, followed by the English pence, the French franc, the Portuguese escudo, the Spanish peseta.

America to Cádiz? Alone? the one with the noisy stomach asked skeptically, although the sloop’s thirty-five feet was adequate for the task under the hand of a blue-water sailor.

Hardly, said Alex.

From where then?

England to France. I was overnight in Arosa, then down to Portugal— Lisbon. From Lisbon to here. It’s laid out in my passport. He told them that the sloop was a charter, out of Portsmouth. The owner was a Robert Kerry. It had been chartered before. He’d sailed it to Cádiz before.

The twenty dollar goldpiece was sidelined, leaving the English 500 pence to head the row, the 100 franc, 100 peseta, 500 escudo following; they’d moved the peseta ahead of the escudo to account for the stop on the northwest coast of Spain.

That’s right, said Alex. The KLM flight bag was lifted off the floor and slammed onto the table telling him they didn’t think so. Where is Dutch money?

There isn’t any. Exhaustion had him wavering on his feet. There hadn’t been much bunk-time since Arosa. From Arosa he’d taken a bus to Santiago de Compostela. He and Val had stopped there, may have even taken the same bus to the Cathedral, where she’d made him lay his hand on the column in the vestibule, the Tree of Jesse. When he’d worked his fingers into the indentations in the marble this time, a somber looking man had told him he was now connected to Heaven. You are touching God, he said with unassailable belief and had touched his shoulder with the expectation of sharing lightning. Is this the end of your journey? He’d told him he didn’t know.

No Dutch money?

I flew to Amsterdam from the States and took a connecting flight to London. They didn’t have one direct. I never left Amsterdam airport. That’s where I picked up the flight bag.

They stared at him, leaving him to figure out if they were patient for the truth or stupid. It’s a Dutch airline, he pointed out. They sell them there in the duty-free shops.

They knew that, of course, it was just that silence following a lie sometimes produces an interesting show. This one, however, looked much too tired to dance.

Passport, the hungry one said. It was inches from his hand on the table. Alex picked it up and handed it to him, the smell of food from the waterfront tapa bars about to drive him crazy. He’d been ten days on english spam, stale vegetables, and bread he’d had to soften in hot water, making the aromas of seasoned fish and wine unbearable. The Guardia bounced his eyes from the passport photo to the face in front of him and back again, confirming a match-up. Alexander Hughes. Mystic, Connecticut. Born April 24, 1952. Occupation, Attorney. He’d read off the personal criteria, stumbling on Connecticut, ending up with a mouthful of marbles and looking as humiliated as Alex could wish him. His partner had turned away to swallow his smile. They considered his height, his weight. The 197 pounds didn’t look there, and it wasn’t, he’d dropped fifteen of them since the passport had been issued four years ago. Blue eyes, the one said and the other peered into them to confirm, and then at the hair, to see if it was also black at the roots. In the end, it was his long dirty fingernails that seemed to convince them that he was what he said he was. Even so, Alex depaired at seeing the passport disappear into a tunic pocket.

Long way to sail alone, the hungry one said.

Dangerous, the other one agreed.

They had him re-pack the flight bag and the bellybag. When he started for a trash can in a far corner, carrying the bag of garbage he’d brought off the boat, their automatic rifles dropped into firing position and one of them barked something at him in German.

Jesus, he blurted out, at the end of being able to play mouse to their cat. You want this on the table, too?

The rifles were shouldered. They told him to drop the bag in the can and follow them to the main compound at the landside of the pier, where they took him into a stark airless interview room and closed the door. The top windows, Alex noticed, were covered with metal grids, detention cells awaiting if you didn’t play the game.

Purpose of trip? Alex hadn’t answered right away. In Cádiz for pleasure? If I was, thought Alex, I’d fire my travel agent. The reasons are personal. They handed him his passport. He handed it back, they hadn’t stamped the clearance card for the boat, which he’d fitted between the cover of the passport and the first page. I’ll leave you the keys. You can inspect her tomorrow and I’ll come back for the card. I’m out on my feet. He dropped the cabin and ignition keys on the little rickety table they were gathered around, pushed back at him along with the orange clearance card, stamped hard enough to kill a bug. He hadn’t even entered the sloop’s name or identification number. This was a narcotics entrepôt for the entire Mediterranean, Misty could be running hollow masts stuffed with heroin, all gotten around with the help of a couple of bored contrarians.

The landside of the Restricted Area was secured by a thirty foot chainlink fence, sagging inward from its weight and fitted with a sliding gate paneled with more of the thin metal sheeting that had covered the table in the shed, left over from some project, better used than left laying about, although the same couldn’t be easily said for these two Federal Police. Now they were getting friendly, "Bienvenidos going along with the sliding open of the gate, Careful in the dark as he stepped past the fence and onto the road following the contours of the harbor. The Yacht Club, thank God, was only a Spanish block away. Auf Wiedersehen," he called back over his shoulder and made for it.

CHAPTER TWO

The Yacht Club was landside of the harbor road, not fifty feet from the water, fronted with a drive-thru portico and a terrace off the bar strung with pale yellow lights. Rooms were at the back, large, luxurious, expensive, and usually full of sea-weary crews happy to pay a hundred dollars a night for a deck that didn’t move and a shower that didn’t taste of salt. The pre-fab boxy architecture was cloned along all three coasts of Iberia and so was the open-ended Happy Hour getting its second wind as the hour neared eleven. The crews, most of them off the small-craft in the Restricted Area, traditionally began taking up their favorite places around four in the afternoon, when so much of moment begins in Spain, filing in from their boat decks and beaches like so many chickens turning for their roost with a change in the angle of the light. These were the envy of the working world, the inter-national boat-bums foot-loose and fancy-free, permanently in-transit, with everyone wanting to know how they did it. Cádiz loved their money, but the Yacht Club bar was as good a place as any to take it and the Guardia Civil had taken to encouraging the bartenders to set this sort of backfire every night to head off all that combustible material from wandering off and igniting somewhere else in their beloved city. Not even this crowd, which frequently began the day by introducing themselves to the person in bed with them and bloody-marys, could safely navigate eight hours of un-watered drinks and be expected to range further than the rooms at the back or the bunks in the craft confined by the floating fence.

When the young woman with the cool and expectant green eyes sauntered in from the lobby she was noticed because she was out of place, wearing a white pleated skirt and a silk blouse the color of her auburn hair, buttoned to the neck and at the wrists. The leather walking shoes looked expensive. No trashy jewellery, no loopy earrings, standing out amidst the golden young females in tank-tops and thong bikinis sometimes covered with serape skirts and sometimes not, feet up on the low wooden tables in the lounge, the remainder of them sprawled languorously back in the canvas deck chairs scattered about. What could have been a staff member from the business office was efficiently making an eye-count of customers, the leathery old boat owners wearing gold chains and jaunty caps, muscular young deckhands, the ever plentiful boat-babes. She was definitely looking for something, or someone, the guitar player surmised, tracking her as she headed for the message wall. It was covered with fishnet to which scraps of paper were clipped with fasteners available at the bar, messages sent but not often received by the crews to one another, from boats roaming out of the Caribbean, the Aegean, up from Capetown and now, with travel restrictions loosened by the break-up of the Soviet Union, out of the Black Sea. The clerk in the lobby must have directed her to it, the guitar player assumed, watching her read each and every note before attaching one of her own, then turning, seeking a place to sit down. Amused, he watched a tableful of Japanese grab at her as she passed by. They were gloriously drunk and had been for hours. The Japanese tipped the best, sometimes in triplicate, stuffing money into anyone’s pocket that looked even marginally employed.

She was twenty-five, give or take, maybe older and hiding from thirty, a nice body, maybe a little chubby, it was hard to tell under the loose fitting clothes, hard to pin-point her age. Everyone looked a little older in such heat, wilted down. The silk blouse stuck to her skin. The air-conditioning was out and the ceiling fans creaking overhead served little use except as merry-go-rounds for the insects dotting their blades.

As she crossed the carpet, best not inspected closely in the daylight, she brushed the guitar player with her eyes and, to his mind, dragged his attention along with her. He was playing a slow haunting folksong from the Andalucian countryside about the lonliness of a country village, into which he improvised a description of her as a floating dream. She arrived at the Frenchman’s table and was invited to take its empty seat. She didn’t acknowlege the musical tribute, which meant she wasn’t interested, or didn’t understand Spanish. He looked up from his guitar from time to time. He knew the Frenchman. He’d been in port a week and usually dropped a thousand peseta note in the brandy snifter used as a kitty. Not as generous as the Japanese, but at least he listened to the music he was paying for instead of his own, as most of the rest of the drunks in the room did. His Frenchman offered the floating dream his plate of tapas. She nibbled on a roasted snail. Thanks, he heard her solid American voice. "I’m starved," she hurried to say. The guitar player dropped his eyes and went back to his music. The night was young.

The Frenchman’s name was André Morasca. Perhaps a drink to wash that down, he suggested, laughing with her when she choked a bit trying to get down the snail. Yes, I think so, he said and left for the bar. The pretty young Italian woman that suddenly had competition said, with surprising friendliness, I got fish. She studied the newcomer’s face, until it risked a smile, and added: I also got this, holding out the diamond tennis bracelet pushed up on her forearm.

It’s beautiful, said the American.

Where did you get yours? the Italian asked, conspiratorially, meaning the gold charm bracelet the American was toying with, heavy with a dozen or so figures. The question had taken her off-guard. It’s not new, was all she’d answer.

You are an American, the Italian pronounced her.

Yes.

Italian, the pretty semi-abandoned girlfriend of Andre Morasca said. Terese, she introduced herself.

Anna, said the American. It would be left at first names both implied, that would do for now. Is it always like this? Anna asked her, not that either one of them cared, as an understood way of being polite.

In answer, Terese swiveled her enormous brown eyes toward the table of a bull-faced Greek entertaining his five man crew, all female, all Scandanavian, all wearing tee-shirts emblazoned with the name of his boat, the Aphrodite,