Clear and Present Danger

Wegener looked around and saw the questions forming on the faces of the men around him. The skipper was pissed about something. They didn't know what it was, but knew that you don't want to be around the captain when he was mad about something. Then they saw his face change. The captain had just asked himself a question, they thought.

"Looks all right to me, people. Let's make sure we keep it that way." He nodded and walked forward to his stateroom. Once there he summoned Chief Oreza.

The quartermaster arrived within a minute. Panache wasn't big enough to allow a longer walk than that. "You called, Captain?"

"Close the door, Portagee, and grab a seat."

The master chief quartermaster was of Portuguese extraction, but his accent was New England. Like Bob Riley he was a consummate seaman, and like his captain he was also a gifted instructor. A whole generation of Coast Guard officers had learned the use of the sextant from this swarthy, overweight professional. It was men like Manuel Oreza who really ran the Coast Guard, and Wegener occasionally regretted leaving their ranks for officer status. But he hadn't left them entirely, and in private Wegener and Oreza still communicated on a first-name basis.

"I saw the tape of the boarding, Red," Oreza said, reading his captain's mind. "You shoulda let Riley snap the little fucker in half."

"That's not the way we're supposed to do things," Wegener said somewhat lamely.

"Piracy, murder, and rape - toss in the drugs for fun." The quartermaster shrugged his shoulders. "I know what we oughta do with people like that. Problem is, nobody ever does."

Wegener knew what he meant. Although there was a new federal death-penalty law to deal with drug-related murders, it had only rarely been invoked. The problem was simply that every drug dealer arrested knew someone bigger who was even more desirable a target - the really big ones never placed themselves in a position where the supposed long arm of the law could reach. Federal law-enforcement agencies might have been omnipotent within U.S. borders, and the Coast Guard might have plenipotentiary powers at sea - even to the point where they were allowed to board and search numerous foreign-flag ships at will - but there were always limits. There had to be. The enemy knew what those limits were, and it was really a simple thing to adapt to them. This was a game whose fixed rules applied only to one side; the other was free to redefine its own rules at will. It was simple for the big boys in the drug trade to keep clear, and there were always plenty of smaller fry to take their chances on the dangerous parts - especially since their pay exceeded that of any army in history. These foot soldiers were dangerous and clever enough to make the contest difficult - but even when you caught them, they were always able to trade their knowledge for partial immunity.

The result was that nobody ever seemed to pay in full. Except the victims, of course. Wegener's train of thought was interrupted by something even worse.

"You know, Red, these two might get off entirely."

"Hold it, Portagee, I can't -"

"My oldest girl is in law school, skipper. You want to know the really bad news?" the chief asked darkly.

"Go on."

"We get these characters to port - well, the helo brings them in tomorrow - and they ask for a lawyer, right? Anybody who watches American TV knows that much. Let's say that they keep their mouths shut till then. Then their lawyer says that his clients saw a drifting yacht yesterday morning and boarded it. The boat they were on headed back to wherever it came from, and they decide to take it to port to claim the salvage rights. They didn't use the radio because they didn't know how to work it - you see that on the tape? It was one of those gollywog computer-driven scanners with the hundred-page manual - and our friends don't reada da Eenglish so good. Somebody on the fishing boat will corroborate part of the story. It's all a horrible misunderstanding, see? So the U.S. Attorney in Mobile decides that he might not have a good-enough case, and our friends cop to a lesser charge. That's how it works." He paused.

"That's hard to believe."

"We got no bodies. We got no witnesses. We have weapons aboard, but who can say who fired them? It's all circumstantial evidence." Oreza smiled for a grim moment. "My daughter gave me a good brief last month on how all this stuff works. They whistle up someone to back up their version of how they got aboard - somebody clean, no criminal record - and all of a sudden the only real witnesses are on the other side, and we got shit, Red. They cop to some little piddly-ass charge, and that's it."

I_I

"But if they're innocent, why don't they -"