One Minute Out

He was legendary, but still, he was human.

No, if Gentry came, it would be at the final destination of this trip, so that was where Verdoorn sent his men.

As Jaco fantasized about getting Courtland Gentry’s forehead on the other side of the front sight of his pistol, he heard footsteps behind him on the foredeck. Looking back over his shoulder, he recognized the small stature and gait of Kostas Kostopoulos.

He turned away and returned his gaze to the sea.

Verdoorn relied on the old Greek and his organization, but he didn’t much care for the man, personally. He felt Kostopoulos had delusions of his own importance, was pompous and superior acting, and talked back to Verdoorn more than any of the other regionals in the Consortium. Kostopoulos knew that Verdoorn took orders from the Director, so the Greek treated the South African as a glorified errand boy.

Verdoorn would have loved to slit the old bastard’s throat right then and toss him over the side of his own luxury yacht for the fish, but Kostopoulos was right about one thing: Jaco Verdoorn did not make decisions autonomously. While he ran this operation fully, he was beholden to the little American in California, the Director.

Kostopoulos said, “They tell me you are berthing in the equipment locker. Unacceptable! I’ll happily give you my stateroom and move some product out of one of the lower-deck cabins for myself.”

Verdoorn knew Kostopoulos wouldn’t “gladly” do anything of the sort. The foppish old man would be loath to give up his massive quarters on the upper deck. He’d do it, begrudgingly, but he’d martyr himself in the process, and the South African didn’t want to be tempted to toss the Consortium’s head of Balkan operations over the side because he was tired of hearing him talk.

And, anyway, Verdoorn had lived for weeks at a time in the Namibian bush, months at a time in un-air-conditioned sandbagged emplacements in Afghanistan, years at a time in one-room apartments in a poor neighborhood in Johannesburg.

Even though he now earned millions a year for his work, he enjoyed rigor and self-denial. He felt it gave him his edge.

Denying himself luxuries from time to time helped keep strict discipline and order in his mind.

And there was something else Jaco did that he thought kept him sharp. He never sampled the merchandise. Never. He saw his job as that of an enforcer, felt he needed to be detached from the emotions of sex. Depriving himself of his sexual needs, he felt, made him a beast, made him loathe the product paraded before him, and it helped him do what he needed to do to keep strict discipline and order.

Yes, the equipment locker wasn’t as posh as Verdoorn’s condo in Venice Beach or his ranch outside Pretoria. But it was a hell of a lot better than the shitty Jo’burg flat where he grew up.

He waved the Greek’s comment away, but the old man continued.

“If I had known before you boarded that you would be joining us, I would have made proper arrangements for you.”

“Last-minute change of plans, Kostas. Since your regional network couldn’t end the threat to the shipment, I’m forced to escort it to market personally.”

The Greek let out a laugh. “Everyone . . . the Serbs, the Hungarians, the Albanians . . . everyone has taken casualties from this.”

Verdoorn turned to him. “I don’t give two shits about your casualties. I care about this shipment, and I care about the security of the pipeline. If you can’t handle either responsibility, I can—”

“You know this man, don’t you?”

Verdoorn took a breath, then turned back out to sea. “I know of him.”

Another brief chortle from the Greek. “Yes, well, I am guessing you have a very healthy respect for his abilities, and that is why you are here now. You can insinuate that my people should have done better with him . . . but you know what they were up against.”

Verdoorn let it go. The Greek was absolutely right; it was absurd to insinuate that Serbian and Albanian gangsters who had been trained as simple street thugs and knew nothing of the Gray Man should have been ready to deal with him, but the South African wasn’t going to give the Greek the pleasure of admitting this.

Instead Verdoorn turned and leaned against the railing. Looking out over the lavish opulence around him, he found something new to complain about. “I never liked the idea of using this bladdy boat. Too fuckin’ showy for a smuggling operation.”

Kostopoulos was quick to counter him here, as well. “Showy? Certainly so. But not conspicuous. This vessel sails up and down the Adriatic all the time. Navies and coastal patrol craft know it, customs and immigration know it, the other traffic out here knows it. The ports we visit are used to seeing it, and no one gives it a second glance.

“But if we just threw the merchandise in a couple of low-profile, high-performance speedboats and ran them without lights, then they would be spotted and considered suspicious. The Italians or the Croatian navy would board them, and we’d lose our precious cargo.”

Verdoorn made no reply, but the Greek continued his explanation.

“Ever since the migration crisis in the area began, the coastal patrol and navies all over the European Mediterranean have stepped up their interdiction efforts. Boats are getting seized and captains are getting arrested for smuggling every day. But this method of ours is working, and it’s working well. We’ve been boarded a couple of times, but the compartments have never been thoroughly searched.”

The South African kept his gaze over the water. “I don’t like it. Toss the merchandise in a fuckin’ freighter and ship them off to their final destinations.”

“We do toss the items into freighters. All the time. But those items are destined to work as simple street whores in London or Germany or Holland. Lisbon, Stockholm, and Dublin. Class B or Class C material. But the products we transfer on La Primarosa, the Director has estimated, will generate roughly five million euros each through their life cycle. Twenty-three items on board now, another six boarding tomorrow night. That means we are transferring one hundred fifty million euros of product for ourselves and our clients. But this revenue will only be realized if they make it safely to market in good condition. The two days on the water now will improve the selling price of every single one of those items below. What we will do for them here on board, both physically and psychologically, cannot possibly be done in the hull of an ocean freighter.”

Verdoorn let it go. Instead he said, “Two of the items are not for sale. You’ve been told this, correct?”

“I’ve been told. One is on board now. The one called Maja, who we’ve stored in cabin four. We pick up the other nonrevenue item tomorrow up the coast. They are calling her Sofia, and she can share Maja’s cabin.”

The South African looked back out to the morning gloom, the Gray Man at the forefront of his thoughts. He’d have to call Cage soon, give him the bad news. The head of the Consortium was due to come in person to the market in Venice, and this worried Verdoorn even more.