Ice Fire: A Jock Boucher Thriller (13 page)

“Keep him there,” Judge Boucher barked. “I’ll be there tomorrow on the first flight I can get.”

Palmetto could not sleep. Seated right outside his cell were three guards who stared at him without blinking, believing they had in custody an international terrorist probably out to destroy the Western world. He’d tried to explain that the contempt order had been expunged and was answered with a sneer, “Tell it to the judge.” He assumed he’d be arraigned, and could only hope it would happen soon. He turned over on his bunk with his back to the guards, feeling their eyes boring into him. Finally he fell asleep.

He woke with a spasm of terror. That which he had feared for decades had happened. He forced a sense of calm with slow, deep
breaths, while trying to convince himself that this was all a mistake. He’d be hauled before a judge or magistrate, they’d check computer records just as Judge Boucher had done, and he’d be sent on his way with a sincere apology. The thought calmed him down, but didn’t convince him. There was something unusual about his treatment—even though the guards who had sat with him through the night had left. There was no natural light in his cell and he had no idea what time of day it was. He was brought some food, mystery meat with watery rice, but he refused it, having no appetite and having discovered that the stainless steel toilet in his cell did not flush. After hours of being a model prisoner, anger began to take the place of fear. He was not a fugitive. This was a false arrest. He decided to stand up for his rights. Bob Palmetto hollered his demand . . . for a glass of water.

Boucher got the last seat on the early flight to Boston—coach class and at the rear of the plane. It felt like he was traveling incognito. The plane landed, and he rented a car, called the number he’d been given, and received directions to where Palmetto was being held. He was shown directly to the prisoner’s cell when he arrived. Obviously Boucher had been checked out; there were plenty of electronic files on a federal judge.

Palmetto was wild-eyed when he saw him. “What are you doing here?” he asked, which was quickly followed with, “What am
I
doing here?”

Boucher had the guard unlock the cell. “Leave us for a few minutes. I’ll be fine.”

The guard left as ordered. The judge walked in, did not offer a handshake.

“What do you know about the murder of Ruth Kalin?” he asked.

Palmetto’s mouth hung open. In this bizarre setting, it took seconds
for the name to register. “Ruth Kalin?” he said. “The lawyer in Dexter Jessup’s office?”

“Her body was found in her car . . . in my driveway.” Boucher stared, looking for the slightest tell, any indication the man was lying.

Palmetto sat back down on his bunk. “I never even met her. I disappeared, she disappeared. I reappeared, she . . . God, they’re going to kill me for sure.” He began to shake. There was no doubt his terror was real.

Boucher put a hand on his shoulder. “I decided to try and find you before that happened,” he said. “The detective working on Ruth Kalin’s murder pointed out to me that you were the only link we had between the two murders and suggested that perhaps you had lied to me. I had to find out, so I reinstated the contempt charge, hoping you’d be picked up. It worked pretty damn well, I think.” He looked around the cell. “How did they catch you?”

“I parked in a handicap spot.”

“What?”

“Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Boucher had Palmetto released into his custody with the stroke of a pen. He would rescind his most recent order when he returned to New Orleans. As they walked to his car he said, “Two months ago, I’m not sure I could have fixed a parking ticket. As a federal judge I can have a man thrown in jail across the country and get him out on my word alone. It amazes me.”

“It scares the shit out of the rest of us,” Palmetto said. “I owe some nice folks an apology. You can help. You owe me that.”

It was about a twenty-mile drive north from Boston to Marblehead, and the business day was done when they arrived. Palmetto was able to find the home of his friends, recognizing the supermarket where he’d gotten busted, using it as a reference point. At least they’d picked up their car, he noted. They parked in front and walked up the drive to the house. They were seen through the large bay window. Both Mark and Mae opened the front door, saying, “What happened to you? We were really worried.”

Palmetto looked sideways at Boucher and said, “You tell ’em.”

It was all ad lib. The judge spun a tale about a mix-up in the files, and when he had learned of an innocent man’s wrongful incarceration, he felt he had to set the matter straight. Personally. It was pure bullshit, but they bought it, in fact were given a heightened appreciation for the humanity and compassion of the federal judicial system.

As Palmetto retrieved his backpack, still in the hallway where he had left it the night before, he said, “Mark, I came here for a reason. I had hoped we might have discussed it over dinner”—he glared at Boucher—“but I, uh, got waylaid. Could I pass by the Institute in the morning? It’s important.”

“Of course, Bob. Anytime.”

They shook hands and departed. As they walked to the car, Palmetto said, “Judge, I might need your help tomorrow.”

“Mine? How can I help you?”

“I’m going to make a request to use a piece of their equipment. I need you to support me.”

“I don’t know that I—”

“Damn it, you’re a federal judge. You can help and I’ll tell you how.”

They got in the car, Boucher driving. Palmetto explained what he needed and why.

“This could be important,” Boucher said.

“I told you. Fasten your seat belt, Judge. I’d rather not have another run-in with the law.”

They found a quiet seafood restaurant and talked till closing time, then checked into a motel and continued their discussion late into the night. Boucher told Palmetto everything that had happened since last seeing him: his meeting with Ruth Kalin before her death; his conversations with Detective Fitch. Palmetto was puzzled.

“Dexter Jessup was shot because he was going to go to the Feds and rat on a crooked judge. But why Ruth Kalin, and why was she killed after the crooked judge was dead? If it was her hanging around your house that night, I think she was going to ask you to close the book on the whole Judge Epson matter so she could get her life back. Somebody saw her and drew a different conclusion.”

“Like what?”

“That she was working with me.”

“Working with you on what? Something to do with why you’re here?”

“Nobody knew I was coming here. I didn’t even know myself when I left New Orleans. Maybe someone was afraid I might try to sue them. Maybe they were afraid you’d be sympathetic.”

“No, I don’t think it was about you, not directly. She believed Judge Epson might have killed her fiancé, but—”

“Her fiancé?”

“She and Dexter Jessup were engaged.”

Palmetto was stunned. Boucher gave him a moment’s silence. “He never told me.”

“She also believed the assistant in the office was murdered. That’s why she went into hiding. Ruth Kalin was terrified. But she was also
a determined woman. She was out to get John Perry one way or another. The night before she was killed, she gave me a file. There was the report Dexter was going to deliver to the FBI and something else. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it has something to do with Perry and Rexcon Energy. That might have been what got her killed. I haven’t even told the police about it. Yet.”

Palmetto couldn’t stifle a yawn. He could barely sit up.

“You need to sleep,” the judge said. “I doubt you got much last night.”

“Very little.” He stood and walked to the door. “I think the answer is at the bottom of the ocean,” he said. Boucher attributed this confusing remark to the man’s exhaustion.

Mark was at his computer next morning when they arrived.

“That research vessel is gone,” he said.

“Good,” Palmetto said. He sat down next to Mark and his computer screen. “That will make it easier.”

“Make what easier?” Mark asked.

“Mark, we need to take the
Beagle
out. I need
Lucy,
” Palmetto said.

“
Lucy
? Why?”

“I think that the vessel whose communications you intercepted was conducting an illegal offshore geophysical exploration,” Palmetto said.

Boucher stepped forward and offered his first words in this conversation. “If the vessel you refer to did not have a permit for geological or geophysical exploration granted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement of the U.S. Department of the Interior, then it was operating in contravention of
Volume 30, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 251.5.” Both men looked at him with raised eyebrows. He stepped back and gave Palmetto a just-trying-to-help look.

“He’s a federal judge,” Palmetto said as explanation. “His knowledge of the law is encyclopedic. Seriously, Mark, I think I know who’s out there. If I’m right we’ve got to stop them. They could be about to do something on the seabed that could have cataclysmic consequences.”

“Voilà,”
Boucher said.

“He’s Cajun,” Palmetto added for the New Englander’s benefit. “They like to show off their French.” He turned to Boucher. “That’s why Perry is still interested in me after all these years. He’s afraid I could open the can of worms that Judge Epson kept a lid on. They’ve discovered a methane hydrate field and want to keep their discovery a secret.”

“Bob, there are no offshore leases being let off the Atlantic Coast,” Mark said. “After the drilling disaster in the Gulf, everything’s on ice. And that research vessel was two hundred miles offshore. That’s the limit of the EEZ, the exclusive economic zone. Beyond that, whoever is out there is outside U.S. jurisdiction and in international waters. They wouldn’t need to worry about offshore leases—or regulatory oversight, for that matter.”

“Who assigns the missions for the
Beagle
?” Palmetto asked.

“Well, theoretically I could,” Mark answered. “But we don’t send research vessels out on a whim. These are priceless scientific tools. We have budget restraints. I need scientific justification. It costs real money to send a ship out.”

“Mark, these guys are rogues. If they’re going beyond U.S. jurisdiction, we’ve got to expose them. I don’t need to tell you the damage they could do out there. If that doesn’t fall within the Institute’s purview, I don’t know what does.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“You want more?”

“I need the strongest scientific justification you can get.”

“Well,” Palmetto said, “once upon a time, there were just three words that were enough to ensure funding for the entire space program. They should be enough to justify a single mission off our own Atlantic coast.”

“What three words?”

“Beat the Russians,” Palmetto said.

He typed search words on one of the computer’s keyboards and motioned the others to read the screen when his findings appeared. The report told of a Russian mini-sub successfully bringing up a sample of methane hydrate from the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia, the largest freshwater lake in the world. It was the world’s first extraction accomplished in this manner.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Mark said. “I didn’t know about that.”

Judge Boucher read the screen. “I’d order your vessel to conduct this mission for national security reasons, if this were my jurisdiction.”

“Okay, okay,” Mark said. “The
Beagle
goes out. Just bring me back something good. Beat the Russians.”

T
HE CREW OF THE
Beagle
were notified. They needed a day to make ready, take on fuel and supplies. That left the evening free. Palmetto was keen to accept his friends’ invitation for the dinner he’d been denied the night before. The judge politely declined. He would meet them in Norfolk.

Between Massachusetts and Virginia was New York City and an opportunity to see Malika. He called and asked her to meet him at the Plaza Hotel.

“Why don’t I meet you there for dinner?” she said. “I have a presentation to prepare for a client, and I’m really behind. How about seven?”

He had taken it for granted she would spend the night with him, but something in her voice said this was not a given. He waited for her in the lobby that evening. She seemed pleased to see him, but carried no overnight bag, not even a large purse.

First it was cocktails in the refurbished Oak Bar, where a hundred years’ worth of tobacco smoke had been cleaned off the Everett Shinn paintings of Central Park in winter. Their conversation was light, almost banter, with no questions, no mention of barroom
brawls or bodies in driveways. After drinks they moved to dinner in the Oak Room, where the original wood-paneled walls and barrel-vaulted ceiling created the century-old ambience of an elegant retreat for robber barons.

“I don’t know this city very well,” Jock said after dessert, “but I feel that all I really need to know about New York is the Plaza.”

“That’s like saying there’s nothing else in the French Quarter except the Royal Orleans,” Malika said. “I wish you could stay longer than one night. I mean, how often do you come to New York? I’d like to show you my place. I’d like for you to be able to picture me when we’re talking on the phone—since that seems to comprise such a large part of our relationship.”

“Ouch,” Boucher said. “Can you show me your apartment in the morning? I’d love to see it.”

She smiled, nodding her head.

It was a pleasant enough evening. After dinner, Malika took a taxi home.

He checked out of the Plaza next morning and took a cab to Beekman Place. Malika’s building had a doorman and a view of the Hudson from some apartments, but not her own. Hers was an alcove studio: a living room with a smaller area adjoining that served various purposes.

“Do you sleep on that?” He pointed to a Chinese opium bed in the alcove with decorative silk pillows.

“I do sometimes. But the sofa is also a convertible. Have a seat.”

“It’s nice,” he said, looking around the apartment. “And you’re right. Now I can picture you here.”