by Matt Rogers
‘Quite the opposite. They’re not comfortable that I’m risking my career and my life for them.’
She mulled it over. ‘Hide them where?’
‘I’ll smuggle them into El Salvador. You’ve got your finger on the country’s pulse. You know its back alleys, its dirty secrets, its blind spots. Hole them up somewhere they’ll never be found.’
‘And?’
‘That’s it.’
‘They don’t need babysitting?’
‘They can handle themselves. Right now, they need to vanish.’
She said, ‘I’ll be risking everything.’
‘I risked everything when I called you. My life is in your hands.’
She looked around the shitty apartment, eyes flickering with computation, then she made a decision.
She said, ‘You’d better be the man I think you are.’
‘I am.’
‘Then call me back,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a leave of absence.’
‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘You don’t have me yet,’ she said. ‘We’ll see what happens if I make it out of this career with a soul.’
35
Slater stepped out of the safe house as the sun plunged behind the distant mountains, sweeping pinks and mauves over the flat landscape like the stroke of a giant brush.
He had the energy of a new man.
Their rendezvous with the passport forger had been scheduled for late in the evening, so he’d spent the entire day shut up in the bedroom, the shades drawn, lying on his back with a pillow over his eyes. Of course there’d been the restlessness and the irritability that comes with doing nothing for eight hours straight, but thankfully he had the self-discipline to make it through. He knew he needed it. It gave his senses a chance to decompress. He’d hovered in a state of mindfulness for the entire duration — eight hours of focusing on his breath, in and out endlessly — and his delicate brain thanked him for it now. Lights weren’t as harsh and sounds weren’t as sharp. The lingering effects of the concussion had receded into the deepest recesses of his mind.
Alexis noticed. ‘You look good.’
He pointed to his swollen face. ‘You think?’
‘Your eyes,’ she said. ‘They’re clear.’
The four of them piled into their backup car. The Mercedes was crammed into the tiny single-car garage that connected to the weatherboard house, covered in a blue tarpaulin, its plates removed. Taking it out on the streets in full view of CCTV cameras would be akin to suicide, so they had a second-hand Ford Explorer at the safe house for precisely that reason. It sat idling in the driveway — King had taken it out when he’d hidden the Mercedes the previous evening. Now they got in, all four of them clad in lightweight bulletproof vests under their clothing.
They had no idea what the night had in store for them.
Precautions were paramount.
All four of them sported identical SIG Sauer P226 MK25s in holsters at their waists. The safe house was stocked with an arsenal of weapons, and they brought two Heckler & Koch submachine guns with them, storing them in the webbed mesh behind the front seats. The MP5s were a last resort they had no intention of using. They would go to the forger’s, and then straight to the airport. The sooner they were out of the country, the better.
Slater wondered if it was the last time he would see America.
As they peeled away from the safe house, leaving nothing of importance behind, he asked, ‘Are you sure you trust this woman, Violetta?’
‘No,’ Violetta admitted, her hands gripping the wheel as she navigated through darkening Mesquite. ‘But I don’t need to trust her. Leverage is more reassuring than baseless trust.’
‘What leverage?’
‘Jada’s a rogue like us.’
Silent in the passenger seat, King raised an eyebrow.
Violetta said, ‘Well, not quite. Forging isn’t quite like what you and Jason do. But she’s been running her own racket ever since she parted ways with the government, with neither their awareness or consent. My old colleagues wouldn’t be happy if they were informed one of their old employees was selling fake passports to anyone who had the necessary funds.’
‘If you were the one informing them,’ Slater said, ‘they wouldn’t listen to a word you’d say.’
‘Which is why I’d do it anonymously.’
Slater managed a sly smile. ‘You’re a dirtier player than I thought.’ Then he stiffened. ‘Is this what you told Jada?’
‘Of course not. Do you think I’m stupid? No need for unnecessary hostility. She understands how it works. It didn’t need to be said. And we have the money, so she doesn’t care one way or the other.’
King said, ‘But for how long?’
She looked over at him. ‘What?’
‘How long will we have money for?’
‘Years. Decades.’
‘I thought Slater gave it all away.’
‘Weren’t you listening back in The Bahamas?’ Slater said. ‘The four hundred million was in the other account. We’ve still got the rainy day fund.’
‘And just how rainy of a day are we prepared for?’
‘Three and a half million worth of water damage.’
King nodded slowly to avoid aggravating his splint-covered nose. ‘I think we’ll survive, then.’
Slater said, ‘This is a pointless conversation.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re going to El Salvador. We need money, I’ll just go rob a cartel.’
Alexis rolled her eyes, but said nothing. It looked like she was about to make a sly dig, but she reined it in. She was atypically reserved. He turned to her across the rear seats. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, but her face was a little drained of colour. She touched a hand to her ribs. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Slater had EMT-B level training as a combat medic — it was a requirement for his old career. High-value assets had to be kept alive at all costs, and the government couldn’t afford its elite soldiers fumbling around in the field without specialist knowledge. He still retained most of the knowledge, so he’d taken Alexis through a thorough examination earlier in the day. Through assessing pain levels, applying different levels of pressure to her mid-section, and diagnosing whether it was difficult to breathe in different positions, he’d been certain there were no broken bones. That didn’t change how crippling it felt, but they couldn’t exactly go to a hospital to determine which muscles she’d torn or bones she’d bruised.
As soon as they were in El Salvador, they could bribe a local doctor.
Until then…
Slater’s nose was in bad shape but he’d reduced the pain to a manageable level by detaching himself from it, accepting it as something that was happening to him rather than something that consumed his entire being. He was sure King was implementing similar practices.
They drove to Jada’s in silence, continuing up I-15 to the border to Utah.
Slater said, ‘I was asleep when you organised this. Where exactly does this woman live?’
‘St. George,’ Violetta answered. ‘Just over the border. An hour’s drive.’
‘How convenient.’
Slater despised coincidence.
Violetta twisted in her seat. ‘Now you think I’m a double agent?’
‘Cool it,’ King said, his voice low.
Slater said, ‘Almost four million square miles of landmass in this country and the one resource we need right now is located forty miles from us? I’m just being cautious.’
‘You think she’s the only forger that’s ever worked for the government?’ Violetta said, her tone leeching disbelief. ‘There’s a reason I made the call to her without any hesitation. How do you think I got our original passport backups when we first moved out here? I’ve used her before. She’s the forger who lives closest to Vegas. There are others. But we don’t exactly have time to road trip to Delaware, or Alaska, or anyplace else that my old contacts have bunkered down in.’
‘Is she the best?’ Slater s
aid.
‘Yes,’ Violetta said. ‘That’s the only coincidence here.’
Ten minutes later, they were at Jada’s front door.
36
They took the Crosby Way exit off I-15, which dumped them in St. George, then Violetta navigated to the quiet suburban neighbourhood of Bloomington Hills North.
There were big lots with big sprawling houses, and the air shimmered in the early evening heat. There were tennis courts and a park and a church, all of which they drove past. They ended up in Vermillion Avenue, a curving expanse of asphalt whose homes overlooked the Virgin River. When they pulled up to a modern cookie-cutter two-storey dwelling with no soul, King raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘This is it?’
It had looked better in the satellite photos.
The front lawn was barren. The house itself was in decent shape, but that was only because it must have been constructed less than a year ago. The materials were cheap and plain, the paint-job tasteless.
Violetta said, ‘You were expecting an evil lair?’
King said, ‘Keep driving.’
‘What?’
‘Drive away. Now.’
Violetta didn’t ask a second time. She still had no idea what he might want, but questions could wait in case he knew something they didn’t. She pulled away from the house and continued down the avenue. The road looped all the way back round until it faced the way they’d come from, like a giant teardrop, with the land in the middle occupied by two rows of identical modern houses. Some roofs were ochre, some brown, some black. That was the only distinguishable difference between the properties.
When they reached the base of the teardrop, King said, ‘Let me out here.’
She glared at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Making sure we don’t get our heads blown apart when we knock on the door.’
Violetta said, ‘Could someone in this car just trust me for once?’
‘We do,’ Slater said. ‘But we’re not careless. You get careless, you get killed.’
King said, ‘Wait here. Keep the engine on. I’ll message if it’s clear.’
He slipped out and found himself at the start of a thin unpaved trail. The rocky path weaved between the two rows of houses in the middle of the teardrop, a detail he already knew from perusing satellite images. Jada’s house was on the left-hand side, halfway down the trail, facing away. He’d be at her back fence in seconds without needing to leap over fences.
He ghosted through the dark, implementing his training, barely making a sound. He knew which was Jada’s fence without having to look — he’d simply counted the number of houses they’d passed whilst driving away, and now he counted the same number of back lots and arrived at the rear of her property. He waited with bated breath in the gloom, anticipating anyone lying in the shadows to grow restless after such a prolonged period of silence. But no one came, so he gripped one of the rear fence posts and levered himself up until he could see a sliver of the backyard.
The rear of her house had glass sliding doors, and most of the lights were on inside.
Jada was at the dining room table, hunched over an array of instruments that King guessed comprised a forger’s arsenal. She was African-American, her skin darker than Slater’s. Maybe in her early fifties, so plump she was practically round. Even from this distance King could sense the motherly aura she exuded. There was a vacant half-smile on her face as she worked away at a document in her hands, running it under some kind of imprinter. He couldn’t tell from so far away, but he could imagine her humming to herself as she worked.
He lowered himself back down, slightly guilty that he’d invaded her privacy.
He was back at the car in seconds, keeping low as he ran at a jog, and he slipped back into the passenger seat. ‘We’re clear.’
Slater said, ‘That wasn’t long enough. You swept the whole area?’
‘I saw her,’ King said. ‘She’s just a normal woman.’
‘She forges passports for criminals.’
‘She was working at her dining room table. No tension. No stiffness. If she was colluding with anyone, planning an ambush, she would have shown it. I can read people.’
Slater said, ‘Thanks, Mr. Armchair Psychologist. If you don’t mind, I’ll do the real sweep.’
He left the car without another word, before any of the others could argue otherwise. King’s stomach was a dark knot, twisted in anticipation. He sat there like a statue until, ten minutes later, Slater returned, clambering back into the Ford. ‘Whole street’s clear. No snipers, no-one lying in wait.’ He reached forward and slapped King on the shoulder — the good one, without the patched-up bullet wound. ‘That’s a sweep.’
Violetta said, ‘Were you spotted?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
He said, ‘You used to handle me. What do you think?’
‘I think if you didn’t want to be seen, you weren’t seen.’
‘There you go.’
They looped around and came up on Jada’s house again. They kept their SIGs in their holsters but untucked their shirts and draped them over the weapons so as not to alarm Jada or her neighbours. If someone glanced out their window at the wrong moment and saw four armed strangers advancing toward a neighbouring property, there’d be sirens lighting up the street within minutes.
Violetta went first up the winding pathway to the front portico. King, Slater, and Alexis followed close behind.
A sign beside the door read: MI CASA ES SU CASA.
Violetta knocked.
There was shuffling from within, then the front door opened. Jada beamed a smile at them with one hand on the door and the other on her broad hip. She was even larger than the side-profile King had seen from the back fence. Warmer, too. Like a giant vortex of joy that sucked in everyone that came into contact with her.
‘Hello, baby,’ she said to Violetta, then turned to the others. ‘And how lovely to meet you three in the flesh. Violetta’s told me wonderful things about y’all.’
Violetta stepped over the front landing and hugged Jada. When she stepped back, she said, ‘No I haven’t.’
Jada smiled again, her eyes squeezed shut from the upward pressure of her bulging cheeks. ‘Sprung. Busted. But look at the four of y’all together. Gosh. Makes me want to hit that darn treadmill every now and then.’ She winked at them.
King smiled back at her. He couldn’t help himself. She radiated something their lives were missing. Innocent joy. It was doubly impressive given she lived and operated in the same murky underworld they inhabited.
As if reading his mind, Jada said, ‘Don’t worry, dear. I’d think the same if I were you. Wondering why I’m all lovey-dovey?’
King shrugged. ‘I couldn’t do it. I admire it.’
‘World is already fucked up enough, boo. No harm in adding a little light to it, especially if you’ve seen the dark places. The darker they are, the more of your own light you should let shine. It’s a counterbalancing act, you know?’
‘I like that. Pleasure to meet you, Jada.’
Jada cackled, slapping her enormous thigh. She looked at Violetta. ‘Your man’s a treasure. “Pleasure to meet you.” What is he, some nineteenth-century nobleman? Come on. Get in here and give me a hug, baby.’
King followed Violetta over the threshold and embraced Jada. She was warm, and smelled of good cooking. When he stepped aside, she hugged Slater and Alexis in turn, introducing herself to both.
Then she closed the front door and said, ‘Y’all are in some shit, huh?’
37
Slater hesitated. ‘Has anyone been asking questions? Putting out feelers?’
Jada scoffed. ‘Not to me. You think I’m that important, baby?’
Slater said, ‘Sorry. We’re a little tense.’
‘I understand, sugar.’
The corner of Slater’s mouth upturned at the colloquialism.
Jada said, ‘You think that’s funny? Sugar? Boy, you look sweet as hell. It�
��d be a crime not to say it.’ Then she turned to Alexis. ‘Sorry, honey. I’m a straight-shooter. But don’t worry, I won’t be stealin’ ya man.’
Alexis smiled. ‘Thank you, Jada.’
Jada shook her head. ‘Y’all too polite. Come on, I got what you need.’
She led them down the poorly lit entranceway and into the big dining/living space. The house suffered from the modern issue of being too large and plain. Jada had barely decorated the walls and there were no rugs on the living room floor, giving the place a barren feel. It suited King and Slater just fine, but an interior designer would cringe. Slater understood her a little better from assessing her living conditions. Her priority was her work, not the superficial life around it. He liked that.
Jada evidently had little concern with leaving her workstation undisguised. The surface of the dining room table was a mess of embossing devices and authentic passport stamps.
King said, ‘Thank you for helping us.’
She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Of course, baby. I know you’re good people.’
Violetta said, ‘You’re a gem.’
Jada beckoned them over to the dining room table, where four shiny new passports lay closed, side-by-side at the edge. Instead of following the pack, Slater drifted away through the kitchen, entering a plain carpeted hallway with cream walls and brown doors. He knew what came next would be rude, but his survival instincts told him to test the woman, see who she really was under that bubbly façade. He gripped the handle of the first door he came to. He was draped in shadow — there were no lights on in the hallway — but enough of the halo of light from the kitchen spilled through to illuminate what he was doing.
‘Whatchu doin’?’ Jada called out. ‘Don’t you go in there.’
He froze with his hand on the knob. ‘This isn’t the bathroom?’
‘Naw,’ she said. ‘That’s my room. Bathroom’s down the hall, second last door on the left.’
Not even the tiniest shred of hesitation. If it was a lie, it was a good one. A voice in his head told him he was being ridiculous. But would she have been so hasty if it really was her bedroom? She’d reacted fast.