by Seb Kirby
Reyas did not look at Miles as he spoke. “This is a place of reckoning. Where the events of the past are spread out as if on the plain below us. Where you can touch them from the present. That’s why I’ve come here. One of the reasons I’ve brought you here.”
Miles was hesitant. “I don’t have time for the past. I have a problem in the here and now. My brother is missing. I need to find him.”
“Stay with me, Senor.” Reyas was still staring at the distant storm. “This place informs me of my goal. What has set me apart in this life. How I can find a way to do what I’ve been raised to achieve.”
They stood and watched the distant storm in silence.
After some minutes, Reyas spoke again. “I want you to know from the start, so there is no doubt, I am not a good man. It has been expected of me and I have killed.”
Miles was defensive. “You don’t have to tell me this.”
“You need to know if you are to understand.” Reyas was insistent. “The only way I remained true to the goal I was raised with was to get close to evil. To join a cartel. And to win their trust I have had to kill.”
Reyas rolled back his right shirtsleeve to reveal over a hundred tattoo stars. “Senor. One for each man.”
Miles tensed but tried not to show how much he was unprepared to be in the company of such a man. “You’ve had your reasons.”
“They were not good men, the ones I killed. But they had wives and children and families and they should not have been lost to them this way. Yet this is the life I lead and this is as it is. I leave you to make sense of it or not, as you wish. And if you can make sense of it, we may have a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“I share my world with you. You help me achieve my goal. A simple trade. One based on honor between two men who have a common cause.”
Miles agreed – something he hoped he would not come to regret. He stretched out his hand. “You have my word.”
Reyas took Miles’ hand and squeezed it tight. “We have an agreement, Senor.”
They went to the rooftop restaurant and ordered coffee. It was too early for alcohol yet the altitude still made Miles feel lightheaded. He knew he had to concentrate. “Ruiz, tell me why we’re here.”
The Mexican was preoccupied with his phone. “Excuse me, Senor. I must check to see if there is a signal.” He smiled as he was able to pick up the information he wanted here in the restaurant. “Something I need to keep in contact with.”
Miles repeated the question. “Why are we here?”
Reyas put the phone away. “I thought you would start, Senor. Tell me what happened in Florence. And why you have agreed to meet me after so long turning down my invitations to talk.”
Miles was unsure how much he should tell this man. How could he trust someone who had killed so many times? But the logic of recent events and the urgency of the need to find James meant he knew he had to forget these doubts. “I couldn’t see the value in letting you know what happened to Julia Blake.”
“It is good you are now being honest.”
Miles continued. “I was interested in what you could tell me about the drugs network in Mexico. Nothing else. As a good journalist, I discounted your interest in what happened to Julia as not relevant to the story I’m trying to break.”
Reyas smiled. “And now you do?”
“Maybe. Maybe, after all, what happened in Florence is more important than I thought.”
Miles told Reyas about what he and Julia had discovered in their investigation of the Pugot letter. He told him about the theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman and the copies made by Westland and he told him about the families who had received letters from Pugot’s lawyer on his death.
Reyas listened. He gave a broad smile at the mention of Weeping Woman. “What you’ve told me confirms my greatest expectations. That you have told me this here on the Sandia is proof this is indeed a magical place. I’ve taken a giant step closer to realizing my goal.”
Miles was intrigued. “You need to tell me why.”
The restaurant was empty. The party of Chinese tourists had long departed along one of the hiking trails yet Reyas still spoke so Miles could just hear. “Life in Mexico is not as it is here. The past is never absent. We live to right the wrongs of that past and this has been the purpose in my life.”
Reyas told Miles about that past, how his great grandfather had been a prosperous rancher in Mexico in the early years of the twentieth century. He made his money by raiding the cattle herds in Texas and smuggling the animals across the border where he passed them off as local Mexican cattle. This was illegal but not immoral since many of the cattle roamed free. He was a good man and was well-respected. He mixed with bad people when he needed to smuggle the herds across the border but they also respected him for being good at what he did. He remained untainted. He rose above all that and became wealthy. As his wealth increased, he was feted by Mexican society and he became well thought of when he began using some of his wealth to help the poor.
Reyas leaned forward. “Until he was offered Ui Giaconda.”
“The Mona Lisa?”
Reyas nodded. “He made this one great mistake and it ruined his life. He knew the painting had been stolen and when it was offered to him he was unable to resist. He wanted it that much. For him, it was the crowning achievement of his rise from humble origins to this peak of power and influence. To think he would be the owner of the most valuable painting in the world.”
Reyas told how his great grandfather couldn’t keep secret for long the fact that he owned the masterpiece. First he told his wife then his son, Reyas’ grandfather, then close associates and then the men who helped him smuggle the cattle across the border. The knowledge would be safe with them. He could bask in the admiration of all those he’d told and this was as it was for a few years. Then the news broke. The Mona Lisa had been found in Italy. Reyas’ great grandfather had been sold a worthless copy.
“From then on, he lost the respect of those around him.” Reyas was finding it hard to control his emotions. “They questioned his judgment. How could he have been cheated out of such a large sum of money? Many of those around him had risked their lives to make that money and he’d wasted it. The questioning turned to loathing and hatred. His authority was shot. Others moved in on the cattle smuggling business. Within a few years the family was ruined, the Estate sold off and he died a broken man.”
Miles had listened carefully. “What was his name?”
“Luiz Reyas.”
“The same name as you.”
“It is the tradition in my family. Each first son in each generation is called Luiz. That first son is raised to find a path to righting the wrongs visited on the family.”
“Revenge?”
“If you want to call it that, Senor. Righting the wrongs is what we prefer to call it.”
“Over so many years.”
“Just as with the Pueblo, time does not come into this. It is about justice and there is no statute of limitations on that. You need to understand my journey. How I arrive at this moment.”
Reyas spoke of his own life. About how he was raised as the eldest son in his generation to take up the goal of avenging the Reyas family and finding the ancestors of the perpetrators of the fraud that had ruined them. He spoke of the frustration of his father who’d been given the goal and who had taken it one step further in identifying an Argentinian, di Valfierno, as the perpetrator of the swindle. Yet the attempts to find the ancestors of di Valfierno had failed. He was traced to Buenos Aires but there the trail had remained cold. It had been a false name and the tracks had been well covered. As the next Luiz in the family, the youngster would have a fresh start. He might succeed where his father had failed. He immersed himself in the knowledge the Reyas family had on the Mona Lisa swindle. It wasn’t much for all the efforts down the years. And he was immersed in the need to remove the sense of shame at having been tricked so easily that had blighted the family over all thos
e years.
Reyas cleared his throat. “We had no wealth. There was nowhere for me to go but into the cartels. I am not proud of it. But it has brought me to where I am today.”
He told of how, at the point when he thought he might never be able to take up the challenge his father had set for him, a chance comment from a dying man had given him hope. The man told him one of the players in Europe they supplied with drugs was also involved in illegal art. It was a long shot, he knew, but before he killed the man he got him to tell him that the cartel headed by El Romero was where the story about the art scams was centered and that one of those scams involved a stolen Picasso. Luiz had a reputation and thirty stars on his forearm by then and joined El Romero.
“I had to be careful and I took my time to win their trust but I found out more about the links with the European players. And all the time I was sifting through in my mind which of those players might be also involved in illegal art. The trouble was, it wasn’t a short list. It seems that making money from drugs and having an interest in art is not mutually exclusive. I identified a dozen families spread throughout Russia, Germany, France and the UK who could have been involved. I needed more information and that’s when I risked making contact with a journalist like you, Senor.”
Miles interrupted. “I didn’t think I was the only one you were in touch with.”
“There are over ten like you who I hoped might help. I’d come a little way along the path but so much of it was on a single rumor from a dying man and I began to doubt if I was going to achieve anything more than my father. Now today you tell me about the theft of the Picasso and I understand.”
“You’re connecting the thefts of the Mona Lisa and Picasso’s Weeping Woman?”
Reyas nodded. “More than that, I can see that both swindles were committed by the same family. I understand, Senor Blake, that those who commit the greatest crimes do not need to be clever and seldom are. There are only so many ways you can be successful in doing evil to others and benefiting from it yourself. And once these people know what succeeds they use it again, and again. So, you see the importance of what you’ve just told me here on Sandia Mountain?”
Miles chose his words carefully. “I must tell you I have information that may prove you’re right. When Julia Blake was in Florence, she discovered an indication that Alessa Lando’s family could have been involved in both thefts.” Miles told Reyas about the copies of the paintings seen by Julia in Lucca.
Reyas gave a broad smile. “You understand now why I asked you here?”
“Yes, for the first time you know which family it was.”
“Yes, Senor. What you have told me confirms that it is the Lando family who brought disgrace and humiliation to my family.”
“It wouldn’t be enough to convince my editor, let alone a jury.”
“That doesn’t matter, Senor. I was raised in the knowledge that one day the truth would be put before me and I would recognize it for what it is. I have just heard that truth. I now have a means of achieving my goal. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Miles had one more question. “Why Albuquerque? The mountain is not the only reason we’re here, is it?”
Reyas smiled. “You are right, Senor. Everything I have said about this place is true. But there is another reason why I arranged for us to meet here. I follow a man. A devil.”
“What man?”
“He works with El Romero. A German no one trusts. So, I am charged to follow him and report back to El Romero where this man goes and what he does. A man who kills from a list.”
“Why do you call him a devil?”
“Because of what I have seen he can do.”
“You say he works with El Romero?”
“Yes, but I know he doesn’t work for him. He works for someone else but El Romero has not taken me into this confidence.”
“And Albuquerque is a town on the German’s list?”
“I believe it to be so.”
“And where else has this man been?”
“San Diego. He drew a blank there and moved on to Austin. Before that I heard he was in Boston.”
It was Miles’ turn to be surprised by what he’d heard. The locations where the German had traveled matched the addresses to which the Pugot letters were sent. The conclusion was becoming inescapable. “I think I know what list this German is working to and who he’s working for.”
“Senor?”
“Those locations are the same as the addresses used by Pugot’s lawyer to let families know who’d swindled them over the Picasso theft. Montgomery in Boston, Ravitz in San Diego, Davidson in Albuquerque. He’s working for the Landos.”
Reyas smiled. “I follow him yet I do not know this. If you are right, Senor, the German has an importance in achieving my goal I had not suspected. It is an important day, indeed.”
“You now know who you’re looking for?”
“Yes, but with these people a name is never enough, as my family found out. We had the di Valfierno name but could never find them. Before she was Alessa Lando, she was called something else. Now, she’ll have changed her name again. But with the German, we have a link to her.”
“The German, he has a name?”
“Heller. Wolfgang Heller.”
Chapter 51
For DI Reid it was time to collect. He wanted the two million but knew he should be realistic. After he’d gone that far with the Westland woman, time was short.
So, he didn’t know where James Blake was. What did that matter? He knew where the wife was. The one million he could collect for turning her in would be a good enough place to start.
And he had the letter. It could be worth more than the missing million.
Sergeant Billy Smith would not do for this. This was in a different league. He needed to go to the source, to the one who, when Reid made those initial background checks, he was told he needed to contact to get the reward.
Reid called Retired Chief Superintendent Giles Cleary, once a powerful figure with a national profile, now what you would call a man with an influential presence, someone not used to giving attention to a mere DI like Reid. It was strange to think that anyone looking at this from the outside would conclude that what they were to talk about was corrupt – when looked at from the inside this was just normal business.
The call was answered and Cleary was defensive. “How did you get this number?”
Reid insisted. “I was told I could use this number if I got a result.”
“You have a result?”
“Yes, I’ve found one of the targets. I’m claiming the reward.”
“Let’s meet.”
Reid memorized the address. It was in the East End, far enough from Canary Wharf to be an unknown quantity. It was nearby. He could be there in ten minutes.
He should have taken more time to check it out. The address turned out to be a warehouse that couldn’t have been in use for fifty years or more. As he walked in he was captured by three men and held by two of them while their leader faced him.
The leader was a stocky Italian with piercing eyes. He was shouting in poor English. “The location. What is the location?”
Reid was finding it difficult to speak. Adrenalin was rushing through his blood. He couldn’t think straight.
Why were they not covering their faces? This did not look good.
He managed to get the first few words out before they hit him. “I’m police. You don’t want to be hunted for assaulting a British police officer.”
A giant ringed fist smashed into his face, breaking his teeth. “The location. We need the location.”
Reid was still playing it brave. “I need the reward.”
The fist crashed again into Reid’s face. “The location.”
They began to beat him with iron bars. The pain was so acute he was unable to tell them anything. His screams were the only sounds made.
Until they stopped.
The Italian approached him again. “One last time,
we need the location.”
Through broken teeth, Reid pleaded for his life. “I have something you need. A letter.”
“Give me the letter.”
“I don’t have it here. Let me go and I’ll take you to it.”
The Italian laughed. “Search him.”
It was another mistake. The letter was in his jacket pocket. They removed it and the iron bar treatment began again.
He only wanted the pain to stop. Reid blurted it out. “Allegro Hotel. Allegro Hotel.”
“How many?”
“The woman. Just her.”
“You don’t have the man?”
“I don’t have him.”
The Italian took a pace back and admired his handiwork. “Do you know who I am?”
Reid shook his bleeding head.
The Italian continued. “My name is Luigi Bandini. I work for Alessa Lando. A man like you should know these things.”
Reid knew there was only one reason why he would be told this.
It wasn’t right that his dreams should end like this. There was no justice in the world. He’d seen and tasted the life he thought was going to be his – the bright sunshine, the warm wash of wealth, the beautiful women, all that he’d been destined to possess.
Bandini gave a signal to one of his men. “Finish it.”
He pulled out a gun. It was pressed to Reid’s temple.
The gun fired.
Reid was gone.
Chapter 52
The tramway car was empty when Miles and Luiz Reyas boarded for the descent from Sandia Mountain. They were the only passengers since the party of Chinese had not returned from the nature trail.
The tramway car lurched and started the descent. Miles tried to think of something other than the time it would take to make it back down.
Since they were alone, they could talk without fear of being overheard. Miles concentrated his mind on the German. “You followed Heller here from Austin?”