'This is the FBI, Kate. Not MIT. Reasonable's the standard we work to here. Reasonable doubt, reasonable suspicion, reasonable this n'that. Exactly and precisely are for some schmuck in a white coat with a slide rule sticking out of his ass. In the time it takes to climb from reasonable all the way up to exactly we could lose a collar.'
'Yes sir.'
'So you reckon that this Azimuth Marine outfit have supplied Rocky Envigado with a motor yacht, is that it?'
'Yes sir.'
'Well how do you work that out?'
Biting her lip, Kate said, 'There's an offshore company called San Ferman that's registered in Grand Cayman that we've long suspected is being controlled by Rocky. About three months ago, Azimuth sold a boat to this company. We were able to trace the boat, the Britannia, to a dry dock right here in Miami, sir. It's on the river at Thirteenth Street. The boat is currently under surveillance. We have a stakeout at a room in the Harbor View Hospital from which we have an excellent view of the--'
'The harbor, right.'
'And the dry dock. But as yet we've been unable to ascertain if the drugs are already on board.'
Bowen nodded thoughtfully and asked, 'Kind of work they havin' done to the boat anyway?'
'Well, sir, since she's been in dock she's had new fuel tanks, an extended cockpit, re-routed plumbing, new air-conditioning, Naiad stabilizers, and quite a lot of hull work.' She smiled thinly and added, 'It would be reasonable to suppose that the modified fuel tanks might be where they plan to hide the cocaine.'
'The tanks, huh?'
'Well, yes. Except for one thing. You see, sir, I've done some calculations based on the size of the boat and the engines. The Britannia is 110 feet long and is equipped with twin Detroit engines each developing just over 2,000 horsepower. That would give the boat an effective cruising range of just about 2,500 miles. Which wouldn't quite get her as far as the coast of North Africa, or even the Canary Islands, which are about 3,500 miles from the coast of Florida.'
'But with the modified fuel tanks--'
'You could stretch her cruising range to about that distance. Maybe even 4,000 miles. But that would leave you with another dilemma. Where to put the coke. Assuming that the purpose of extending her fuel tanks is to--'
'Yes,' snapped Bowen. 'I take your point. She can't make the distance and carry the dope in her tanks.' Bowen picked up a paperweight from his desk top and began to toss it in his hands like a baseball. 'You know, I've been giving this matter some considerable thought, Kate, and I've come up with an idea of my own.'
'You have?' Kate sounded a little more surprised than she could have wished.
'Yeah. Wanna hear it?'
Kate shrugged. She hadn't explained the rest of her theory to do with the Britannia'?, fuel tanks. But at the same time she was aware of how little Kent Bowen knew about boats and reflected that she really couldn't afford to antagonize him. She
said, 'Sure. Go ahead.'
'Well, I was thinking.'
Good start.
'We know they can compress cocaine, color it, mix it with cellulose, even combine it with glass fiber to create a hard material that can be molded into any shape you like.'
'Ye-e-es.'
'Well, d'you remember a few years ago? The dog kennels?'
Kate nodded patiently. Bowen was referring to a narcotics seizure made by federal agents back in 1992. A Colombian drug cartel had manufactured fifty dog kennels made from cocaine. Ground down and treated with chemicals, the dog kennels had had a street value of almost half a million dollars.
'Suppose Rocky Envigado brain-celled a way to do the same with a boat hull. Polyurethane? Glass fiber?' Bowen shrugged as he waited for Kate to step in with an exclamation at her ASAC boss's genius. Instead she looked puzzled, as if she hadn't quite grasped the ingenuity of what he was suggesting. 'Well, you said yourself they were working on the hull in this dry dock of yours down on Thirteenth.'
Kate said, 'You know something? I would never have thought of that. Not ever. That is an incredible idea.'
Impervious to Kate's sarcasm, Bowen said, 'It is kind of sneaky, isn't it? I mean think about that.' He uttered a little chuckle of appreciation. 'Goddamn it Kate, when you think about it some more, it really begins to make sense.'
'It does?'
'For instance. Most yachts are white, aren't they? It's the perfect disguise for a ton or so of cocaine. Jesus Christ, a motor yacht made of pure cocaine. Now that's what I call a goddamn sports boat.'
Kate smiled thinly and wondered how many more weak jokes he might yet wring out of his hare-brained theory.
'Now if that isn't the last word in custom-built motor yachts.'
She let him ramble on for a minute or two before deciding to bring him down to reality again.
