Page 3 of Steinbeck
“So where is she?”Jack set a sandwich on a napkin in front of Stein.
“Thanks.Not sure.She might have escaped, but my gut says she was taken by the Russian mob.Maybe put on a ship.”
Silence, a whole beat, and he glanced at Jack as he picked up the sandwich.
“To Russia?”Jack said.“The mob?Really?”
“Mm-hmm.”Stein took a bite, let the video scroll.Grainy and black-and-white.Mostly forklifts moving crates down the long pier, another shot of cranes lifting shipping containers onto cargo ships.
Please, God, don’t let her be in one of those containers.
“We ran into mob-types in our escape from Cuba, and they even pirated Declan’s ship?—”
“Your life is like an action movie.”
He glanced at Jack.“You do see me in the kitchen, eating lunch, icing my knee, covered in sawdust?”He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a time-out.”
“My entire life reduced to waiting for a battery to charge.”He glanced at the screen.“She’s gone.Vanished into the cogs of the Russian Mafia and...I’m sitting here eating a ham sandwich.”
“Wow.You’re a head case.But I get it.You run into a dead end and you start circling the drain.The key is to keep trying leads, no matter how desperate.”
“I thought about trying to find her sister, but frankly, Phoenix isn’t even her real name, so...”He lifted a shoulder.
“Okay, let’s think.Where are those ships going?”Jack had opened a can of pop and now handed another to Stein, who held it against his other knee for a second before opening it.
It frothed out over his hand, and he sucked off the foam.“I don’t know.Anywhere.”
Jack sat across from him.“Probably an international port.And if it’s a Russian ship and they carry ‘illicit’ cargo”—he finger quoted the word—“they’d want a country friendly to Russian interests.”
“Like?”
“Well, Russia and Brazil are part of BRICS, so...”He lifted a shoulder, took a drink.Set it down.“And on the European side, you have the Baltic states.”
Stein studied the port video.“What about Portugal?”
“Why Portugal?”
Stein pointed to the screen.“I think that cargo ship is flying a Portuguese flag.”He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before.He turned the computer toward Jack, who peered at it.
“Yeah, maybe.Not a lot of countries have the coat of arms in the middle of their banner.Spain.Albania.But Spanish flags have horizontal stripes.And Albania has the two-headed eagle.This flag has two sections, with the coat of arms in the middle.You’re right.That’s definitely Portuguese.And Portugal has been pretty friendly with the Russians in past years.”
“I don’t know how you know these things.”Steinbeck turned his computer back.Paused the video and searched for the IMO number.
“Maybe your hacker friend could find the ship’s log, or a bill of landing.See where it ended up.”Jack finished his sandwich.
“How long does it take to cross the ocean?”
“In a cargo ship?I don’t know.Eight, ten, twelve days?Depends on how often it stops.”
Which meant she was probably long gone into the labyrinth of the Russian gulag system.
If she was even still alive.
“What did you say her name was?”Jack got up, pulling out his cell phone to retrieve a text.He threw his pop can into the recycling bin.
“Phoenix.But again, that’s not her real name?—”
