White Cargo by Stuart Woods Page A

time of the day or night, awake or asleep, a voice he had given up hope of ever hearing again.
    â€œDaddy?” the voice said.
    Cat felt a great rush of adrenaline, a tightening of the chest and throat; he seemed unable to exhale.
    Before he could speak, there was a turbulent scraping at the other end of the line, followed by a loud thud, then a distant, electronic chirp as the connection was broken.
    He spoke repeatedly into the telephone, shouting, begging, until finally he was quieted by the persistent sound of a dial tone coming from the instrument.
    He was left alone again, bereft, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.

7
    â€œT HE SENATOR IS SORRY HE COULDN’T BE HERE TO SEE YOU, Mr. Catledge. He’s chairing an intelligence committee hearing right now. I’m counsel to the committee, and I should be there myself, but the senator is very grateful for your past support, and he wanted to know what we could do for you.”
    They were in the small conference room adjacent to the office of Senator Benjamin Carr, Democrat, the senior senator from Georgia. Carr’s chief administrative assistant sat across the table from Cat.
    â€œI understand, of course,” Cat said. “I’ve taken too much of his time already.”
    â€œNot at all,” the man replied. “He’s been very concerned about your situation.” The younger man, fortyish, Cat thought, placed his elbows on the table, folded his fingers together, and rested his chin on them. “I’ve been doing all the liaising with the State Department, though, so it’s just as well that you and I should talk. You’ve just come from Foggy Bottom, have you?”
    Cat nodded. “I saw the head of the Colombian desk.”
    â€œBarker?”
    â€œThat’s the one. He was very sympathetic.”
    â€œBut . . . ?”
    â€œBut he says he’s done all he can. The Colombian police are unwilling to open a new investigation on the basis of a single word spoken on the telephone from somebody who’s been confirmed dead.”
    â€œI was afraid of that,” the assistant replied. “After all, you saw her dead yourself, and the Coast Guard frogmen confirmed what you saw.”
    Cat shook his head. “What I saw was only for a fraction of a second, not long after I’d taken a shotgun blast in the chest. I wasn’t a very reliable witness. I know I saw Katie; she was lying on her back on the port settee, but Jinx . . . the girl I thought was Jinx . . . was facedown on the saloon table, naked. I haven’t seen Jinx naked since she was nine or ten, I guess, and as I said, I looked away immediately. Since we were the only three on the boat, I naturally assumed she was Jinx.”
    â€œWho was the girl you saw, then?”
    â€œThere was a girl on the boat with the Pirate, Denny’s accomplice. Maybe she was somehow substituted for Jinx—I don’t know, I know it doesn’t make any sense. I only got a glimpse of her—I think she was probably older than Jinx and that she was Latin, but in the state I was in when I came to—well, it’s the sort of mistake I could easily have made.”
    â€œI can understand that.”
    Cat leaned forward. “What I didn’t make a mistake about was the voice on the telephone. It was Jinx. She said, ‘Daddy.’ It was almost the first word she ever said to me, and I’ve heard her say it all her life, at least until she started to grow up and decided to call me Cat. I’d know Jinx’s voice anywhere, and I’d know it especially well saying that particular word. It was Jinx.”
    The assistant was staring down at his reflection in the table. “I believe you,” he said finally. “What are your plans now? Are you going back down there?”
    The mere thought of returning to Colombia filled Cat with panic. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Barker, at State,