Sohlberg and the White Death (34 page)

“We step out to the pier and realize that the two Asians and the old man have left the boat in a panic. They’re running down the beach . . . one of the psychopaths is running after them. He shoots them dead . . . he turns and sees us and starts running back to the fish shack.

“We’re about ten yards from the shack when the other psychopath walks around the corner . . . smoking a cigarette . . . he sees us and starts shouting and shooting. Cool Hand goes down. I empty out my gun on the thug and think I’ve killed him. By this time the other hood has arrived and started shooting at us. I take cover behind a rock and the bastard is walking up to me . . . firing away to kill me when Cool Hand rolls over and shoots him with the shotgun right between the legs. . . . I hear the hood’s submachine gun go off as he goes down . . . Cool Hand dies under the psychopath who traps him down with his deadweight.

“I grab my gaff and let the dying hood have it. I finish him off with my gutting knife. I go and check on his friend who’s down and bleeding but still breathing. Barely. But still alive. My gaff and gutting knife make sure he breathes his last.”

“So you’re the only survivor?”

“That’s how it is. I can’t change that. Sure . . . I wish that Cool Hand and the Asians and the old man had made it. But they didn’t.”

~ ~ ~

“Why cut off everyone’s hands?”

“I panicked. . . . I didn’t want their fingerprints pointing back to me.”

“Is that why you hacked off the faces of the Ingebrigtsen brothers? . . . So no one would recognize them?”

“I’m not proud about that. But I was terrified. I was sure that the Russians
and
the Columbians would send someone out here to finish me off.”

“Why didn’t you put all the bodies back in the boat . . . then toss them out in open sea . . . or leave them inside the boat when you scuttle it?”

“Are you hearing what you’re saying? . . . You can’t plan an ending to a thing like that with a clear head. Do you have any idea how much a dead person weighs? . . . I had a hell of a time dragging the Russian Boss out of my boat! . . . It was awful. All that blood all over my beautiful boat from him and the brothers.

“I thought that I could clean my boat and keep it . . . but I soon realized that I’d have to get rid of it.

“I wasn’t thinking straight. Luck and adrenaline got me through that nightmare. . . . I was mentally and physically exhausted. I’ve been so damn tired ever since. . . . I’m always thinking about what happened. . . .

“Blood everywhere. The two Asians . . . they had tears in their faces. The old man peed and pooped in his pants. You think it was all fun and games to bury them all? . . . Take off their clothes? . . . Shove them like garbage under the floor of the shack?”

“What did you do with their clothes and belongings?”

“Burned everything in a barrel on the deck before I sank the boat.”

“Where?” said Rasch.

“One mile out at sea. You’ll never recover her. She’s too deep.”

“How did you get back to shore?”

“The Zodiac . . . the raft they bought me for the ship-to-shore delivery in Scotland.”

~ ~ ~

“Alright,” said Chief Inspector Skrautvol. “We have enough for now. It’s time for all of us to go back to headquarters.”

Vikøren winced. “Am I under arrest?”

“Do you want to be? . . . It really doesn’t matter . . . does it?”

“No. But—”

“You’re only being brought in as a witness for now. You and your lawyer can haggle with the prosecutors over whether you will be charged with human trafficking or smuggling . . . and obstructing justice or destroying evidence.”

“But—”

“You’re alive . . . right? . . . You should be grateful for that. You should also be grateful that you won’t be charged with murder since you clearly acted in self-defense . . .
if
you told us the truth.”

Kjersti Tellefsen whined in her grating voice: “Do I also have to go in with him?”

“Yes,” replied Skrautvol. “But not in that skimpy outfit.”

Vikøren’s woman scoffed at Skrautvol and then said:

“Don’t you start judging me Missy!”

~ ~ ~

Back at headquarters Skrautvol did not have to think hard or long about whom she would call in British law enforcement to investigate Devin Archer—the “British guy” who hired Ervin Vikøren for the tragic charter. She remembered how quickly Chief Superintendent Job Pinkman of London’s Metropolitan Police had responded when Sohlberg had asked Pinkman to arrest the devious and murdering husband of a Norwegian billionaire heiress whose husband was best known for leaving puréed pieces of her inside the garbage disposal of their mansion’s kitchen.

Skrautvol called her assistant into her office and handed him a note. “I have a phone number for someone in London’s Met. Could you please call him and set up a phone conference?”

Jon Kirkvaag smiled. He had C.S. Pinkman on the phone in less than 15 minutes.

Skrautvol explained the situation to the Scotland Yard detective.

“Devin Archer? . . . Oh yes. I know him.”

“What can you tell me?” said Skrautvol while trying not to get her hopes up too high.

“For starters . . . Devin Archer is not British although he’s adopted the accent to hide his past. Devin Archer is nowadays a citizen of Ireland . . . but he’s really a Yank . . . born in Florida.”

“Tell me everything you can.”

~ ~ ~

“His father . . . James
Bam-Bam
Archer was a race car driver in the Sixties and Seventies . . . made a big name for himself in the Daytona Five Hundred race. The son joined the father’s racing team . . . it seems that the business then expanded into drug smuggling for the Columbian cartels in the seventies and eighties. It’s all rumors mind you. Nothing’s ever been proven. . . .

“
Bam-Bam
Archer was one of the original Cocaine Cowboys who made Miami the center of cocaine smuggling into the United States. The cowboys used very fast airplanes or boats or both to bring Columbian coke into Florida.

“Those were the golden days of the Cocaine Cowboys . . . the local economy in Miami grew like crazy . . . banks in Miami got into money laundering the drug profits . . . they helped the cartels ship their profits out of the U.S.A. into cozy tax havens like Cayman Islands and Switzerland.

“Archer and his three young sons got implicated by an informant . . . Barry Seal. He casually mentioned their names when he first started talking with agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Barry Seal said that the Archers were colleagues of his . . . working for the Ochoa Brothers . . . major figures of the Medellín Cartel. At first the D.E.A. paid little attention to Barry or the Archers because the local and regional D.E.A. agents were on the take . . . in the pocket of both the Cali and the Medellín Cartels.

“According to Barry Seal . . . the father and son team used fast boats to smuggle five tons of cocaine into the U.S.A. every
month
for the cartel. This interesting little nugget of information got lost priority-wise . . . then some bright bulb at D.E.A. headquarters in Washington D.C. finally woke up and got interested in Barry Seal and his interesting tidbits of information.

“Barry became a very valuable informant for the Americans because he had direct personal dealings with all the top people in the cartel. But . . . as usual . . . the Medellín and Cali cartels each had their own very high level moles deep inside the D.E.A. and the F.B.I. and the Justice Department. . . . Barry Seal met a timely death from the Columbians’ point of view . . . he was shot to death in his car before he could testify on everything that he knew.”

Skrautvol chuckled. “How convenient.” She looked out the window and marveled at the power and the dark glory of the Lords of Cocaine.

~ ~ ~

“The Archers,” said CS Pinkman, “must be very smart or very lucky or both.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because there have been
zero
rumors about them ever since Barry Seal’s demise in eighty-six. Here’s how I see it . . . it’s my opinion mind you . . . the Archers either have friends in very high places in the U.S.A. who are still covering up the Archers’ on-going criminal activities . . . or the Archers completely retired from smuggling coke.”

“What are the chances of one or the other?”

“Fifty-fifty. It could go either way . . . but I think the Archers are addicted to the money and lifestyle that cocaine smuggling brings them. The father . . .
Bam-Bam
retired from racing after his oldest son died in a car race. . . . The second son died from a heroin overdose.
Bam-Bam
took Devin . . . the youngest and smartest son out of university . . . put him under his wings . . . coached him . . . Devin became a top driver at the tender age of twenty. . . .

“Devin’s a smart one. No doubt about that. He returned to school and graduated while he was racing. He went on to California and got an M.B.A. from Stanford. He’s got brains and business savvy . . . that’s why he became more successful than this father.”

“How so?” Skrautvol said.

“Devin left the American NASCAR racing scene . . . he jumped into the big leagues with the international Formula One races . . . which are very profitable. Of course the team owners . . . and the car builders like Bernie Ecclestone . . . became billionaires thanks to the television and marketing rights . . . but the drivers themselves make out very well with endorsements and purse winnings.”

“Is he a wealthy man?”

“Has to be. Devin Archer’s substantial wealth made it necessary for him to renounce his American citizenship . . . he became an Irish citizen to avoid paying rather onerous U.S. taxes.”

“Could it be that he also wanted to avoid questions from the American tax authorities if he and his father are still in business with the Medellín Cartel?”

“Absolutely. I always suspected him although I have no evidence that he was or is in the trade . . . of course that’s all changed now that you told me that your suspect up in Norway imported a ton of cocaine for Devin. . . . Funny . . . I’ve always thought that he and his father were still in the trade.

“Think about it. His career as a Formula One race car driver lets him race in all of the Formula One grand prix races.”

“Where?”

“Monaco. Singapore. Abu Dhabi. Australia. . . . China. . . . Japan . . . India. . . .”

“Racing cars,” said Skrautvol. “The perfect cover for any illegal activity.”

“Indeed. Devin Archer also races in Latin America. He crisscrosses the globe with a large crew and his cars and huge containers of equipment and parts . . . that cover allows him to smuggle drugs in plain sight.

“His containers probably don’t get searched much because he’s such a media darling and all the politicians come out to greet him wherever he lands. He also travels throughout the world with his Archer Racing School . . . he and his father train and coach new drivers who want to learn the latest and best techniques and strategies.”

“Do you think that you can question him? . . . I need to find out who had him charter a boat in Norway to bring nine passengers over to Scotland.”

“I’d love to but I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been searching our databases and the Internet while we’ve been on the phone. Turns out that Devin Archer is in Paris France right now . . . attending a meeting of FIA.”

“What’s that?”

“The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . . . it started the grand prix races more than one hundred years ago . . . it promotes grand prix racing and it sets down car and race standards.”

“Chief Superintendent . . . you really know a lot about all of this.”

“I used to be a big fan. I always tell my son . . . ‘Listen matey . . . I would have been a professional race car driver if it hadn’t been for my father . . . a constable . . . pushing me into the force.”

“I appreciate your help,” said Skrautvol.

“Are you going to have the French pick up and interrogate Devin?”

“Even better. Sohlberg is down there at Interpol headquarters. I’m sure that he and his French buddies are going to love meeting Devin Archer.”

“Keep me posted. I’d love to see Devin the Smuggler’s career crash and burn.”

Chapter 22/Tjueto

LYON, FRANCE; JULY 31, OR

THREE MONTHS AND 19 DAYS

AFTER THE DAY

The construction crew had been removing paving stones on Place du Maréchal Lyautey ever since the project had begun in early April. Remodeling to the park had started on the northwest corner and a bevy of workers had moved their way counterclockwise at a snail’s pace. On that last day of July the workers had finally reached the corner of Rue Tronchet and Rue Malesherbes.