by Jack Hardin
“Marco is home,” Cooper repeated. “And Marco lives”—he lifted a finger over the steering wheel—“over there. On the edge of those mountains.”
“Who is Marco?” she asked.
“Marco is a friend. On the food chain, he’s a shrimp—nope, scratch that—he’s a krill. Is there something smaller than that? But he knows where all the predators are. And right now, I need to know where the predators are.”
The Suburban rode hard over the limestone hardpan, a thick trail of red dust billowing out from behind it as they cut a fresh path across the desert. Five minutes later, the Suburban jounced again as Cooper brought it onto another asphalt road leading straight to the mountains ahead. The naked ground on either side slowly became clothed with spreads of prickly pear and yucca, whose spindly arms probed outward into the sky and gave testament to its anglicized name: Joshua tree. Juniper and cypress stood proudly on the low and rising slopes of the mountains, their natural beauty interrupted by a scattering of rural slums that grew up its slopes like discarded trash.
“Okay,” Cooper said, “here’s the deal. My team is out in La Cajetilla scouting a drop point for a meth shipment coming in up from Jalisco. So I’m a little short-handed right now. If anyone is going to find Bear Petronovich, it’s going to be us.”
“You’re kidding,” Hailey said.
“If that shipment gets through La Cajetilla, it’ll disappear into the desert and work its way across the Texas border. So, no. I’m not kidding. Now, can I continue with what I was saying or do you want to run this show for me?” A tense silence from the back seat gave him his answer. “Marco makes a slimy rat look wholesome. There isn’t a damn thing he wouldn't do to get a few pesos to throw at his own meth habit. But he happens to have an ear to the ground about deals and persons of interest to the Drug Enforcement Administration. We’ve got his hut bugged, and it seems that he just arrived back home. So we’re going to stop in and see if he’s feeling extra hospitable today. Someone in this region knows where Petronovich is. We just need to find out who.”
By the time Cooper drove over the first low rise in the foothills, the sky had turned a fuzzy gray, night greedily gathering the final remnants of sunlight into its dark cloak until the morning dawned yet again. Cooper slowed as they passed the first scattering of shanties and turned onto a potholed dirt road that led the way up the side of the hill. Dilapidated huts lined the road, most of them pieced together from rusted steel siding, tarps, corrugated plastic, and cardboard boxes. A fire was burning in a barrel, and mounds of ragged garbage and detritus lined entire sections of the road.
“If you brought your sidearms, now would be the time to take them out,” Cooper said. He pulled into a copse of juniper just before the road hooked into another quarter of the slums that began further up the hill. Ellie removed her Glock from the backpack and did a quick press check, then stepped out into the night and tucked the weapon into the rear waistband of her jeans.
Off in the distance, dogs were barking, small children laughing, and a man yelling angrily at someone. Here they were in a foreign country, in a depressed slum that could make the ugliest trailer park in America look like Beverly Hills, and yet the familiar sounds of humanity were still present.
Cooper patted the hood of the SUV. “We’d better get on with it or this baby is going to be on blocks when we get back.” He looked to his guests. “Keep an eye on your six and follow me.” He and Arturo took the lead and continued up the side of the road as Ellie and Hailey followed. They entered a narrow lane inlaid with crude steps made of whatever must have been available as the neighborhood grew upwards: broken cinder blocks, bricks, and large wedges of limestone worn down from years of use. A grandmotherly woman stood in the doorway of a tiny cinder-block shack with a makeshift broom in hand. She watched the visitors pass on with a passive indifference before continuing with her domestic ritual.
Cooper turned left down an alley of sorts and finally stopped at a shanty made mostly of cardboard that was painted either a dark blue or black. A blanket pinned to a pole above their heads served as the door and a dim light shone from behind it. Arturo had a Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifle slung on his back. Instead of swinging it around and putting it in his grip, he stepped to the side and put his back to the hut, then dug a pack of cigarettes out his pocket and lit up. Cooper didn’t seem to care. He looked to Ellie and Hailey and indicated for them to follow his lead. Moving with quick and practiced ease, he swung the blanket back and stepped inside. The ceiling was low, forcing all three agents to duck.
Cooper spread his hands in a friendly greeting and said, “Marco! My man!”
Ellie stepped in behind him to see a skinny man in cutoff jean shorts and no shirt. His bronzed oily skin looked like it was overdue for a shower or even a good rinse. He was sitting on a mattress lying on the bare floor, and his head snapped toward his unexpected guests. His eyes were as wide and fearful as those of a feral cat, and before Cooper’s greeting had fully disseminated into the air, Marco was on his feet and had darted out a large hole in the aluminum sheeting at the rear of the shanty. Cooper cursed and started after him, pulling his pistol from a thigh holster in the process. “Marco!” he barked. He yelled over his shoulder, “Go around! Go high!”
They brought out their sidearms and darted back through the front. Arturo was still standing where they had left him moments earlier, nonchalantly blowing out a line of smoke. He casually lifted his chin to the Americans as they sped by. Ellie ran back to the steps and took them two-by-two. Hailey followed closely behind but quickly turned out when a narrow alley presented itself.
Up ahead, Ellie could hear the clatter of metal and the indignant cries of neighbors as Marco ostensibly tore through their makeshift homes in an effort to flee his visitors. He could have been more clandestine had he tied a string of aluminum cans to an ankle. Ellie continued her ascent and turned down the next alley when the clatter started moving away from her position.
Almost no light reached into the alley, and she nearly stumbled over a stray dog and a sheet of plywood. She slowed, picking her way around a pile of broken rocks before the alley brought her out into a small clearing littered with every sort of refuse: discarded furniture, massive piles of garbage, dirty diapers, empty and broken bottles, old clothes. Ellie paused and listened, peered up the slope and searched the line of shanties that sat up against the clearing. A figure suddenly shot out of the back, sending a sheet of cardboard flying into the air and rattling the aluminum siding tacked haphazardly to its pine supports.
She ran up the slope as fast as she was able, navigating an obstacle course made of filth left to ferment and rot under the heat of an unrelenting sun. A decrepit shed sat on the other side of the clearing. Marco disappeared behind it, and a moment later Ellie heard a muted thunk and then the thin rattle of metal. She circumvented the shed to see Marco lying dazed on the ground and Hailey standing over him with her weapon directed at him. From the red patch on his forehead and the cut just above his eye, it seemed that he had taken the butt of Hailey’s Glock right in the face. Cooper appeared from a stand of cypress looking winded. A fine sheen of sweat covered his forehead, and after holstering his weapon, he placed his hands on knees while his chest heaved for breath. “Damn you...Marco. You know I hate running. Especially uphill.”
Ellie turned to Cooper. “I thought you said you two were friends.”
“Well, not those kinds of friends.” He reached out, grabbed Marco, and brought him to his feet. “Come on, let’s get him back to his place.”
It took them the better part of five minutes to frog-march Marco back to his shanty, using the lights from their cell phones to light a path and all the while deflecting angry glares from neighbors who clearly blamed the intruders for the damage done to their humble homes.
They entered Marco’s shanty through the hole in the back, and Cooper shoved him forward. Marco struggled to keep his footing and skittered over to a dirty mattress in the corner. “Cooper, amig
o. What do you want?” His words came in English, albeit heavily accented. He raised his hands in defense. “I have done nothing.”
“El Oso,” was all Cooper said.
“What about him?”
“My associates and I need to find him. It’s a big deal that we do so. Who do I need to talk to?”
Marco’s bulbous and bloodshot eyes shifted around the room, and he licked at his lips, the clear signs of an addict. “El Oso? He works for Félix. You will need to talk to Félix’s people.” Rafael Félix was the region's dominant drug kingpin, Colonia Nueva Generacio’s de facto leader.
“I know that, Marco. What I’m asking you is who in Félix’s lineup I need to pay a visit to, someone who can help me find El Oso.”
“Oh.” Marco looked down at the mattress and started rubbing his thin fingers together. “I don’t want to be involved with that, Cooper. If they find out it was me who helped you, they will...you know what they will do. You have already come to my home. Half of everyone here will tell Félix’s people that you came.”
Cooper offered up a tense smile. He was losing patience. “Marco, amigo. I need you to tell me what you know. I don’t plan on leaving here until you do.”
Marco looked away, his eyes still wide and full of a jittery fear. “I cannot help you.”
Cooper sighed. “That little sprint you just put me through has greatly reduced my feelings of generosity.” He reached down and rummaged through one of the side pockets in his cargo pants. “But, as you know, I can be a forgiving man when I want to be. And lucky for you, tonight I’m feeling like forgiveness is the way to grease that rusty hinge on your jaw. So...” He drew his hand from the pocket and tossed something toward Marco. It was a clear baggie. Filled with white powder.
Hailey shot Ellie a look, but Ellie kept her attention on the scene before her.
Cooper dangled the baggie in front of him, and Marco’s eyes popped like loose marbles and his mouth salivated like a dog in heat. “I’m willing to accidentally leave this behind, right here in your home,” Cooper said. “But in order for me to do that, I need just a little help. I need to know who might help me find El Oso. What do you think, Marco? Had a change of heart?”
Marco leaned forward like he was going to reach out and make a greedy swipe at the meth. But then he settled back into a squat on the mattress and looked away. Without moving his head, Ellie watched his eyes dart back to the drugs. He licked at his lips, and she could see the debate, the war, in his eyes. Thin tendrils of dark hair fell over his eyes as Marco fought a losing battle with the devil on his shoulder, all for a few grams of his precious meth.
“What do you say, Marco?” Cooper seemed to be enjoying the game, the cat offering the cheese to the mouse.
In a sudden, furious explosion, Marco leaped up and reached for the object of his affection. But he missed. Cooper moved it back out of Marco’s reach. “Nah-ah,” he said. “Información first, amigo. Then I can leave you alone with this.” He dangled it.
Marco was on his feet now. He rubbed at his mouth with shaking fingers. His eyes were glued to the drugs. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, I will tell you.”
“Marco, it’s decisions just like that one that make me proud to call you my friend. What do you have for me?”
Chapter Fifteen
Inside the bony shell of a sagging and abandoned barn at the back end of Desoto County, Florida, a slender man sat stoically on a wooden chair that leaned to one side because of a faulty repair job to one of its legs. The man’s eyes were closed, his posture perfectly erect, and his hands were open in his lap, one laid over the other as though he were the diligent student of an Eastern shaman skilled in meditation.
But Peter Petronovich was not meditating. He was thinking. Thinking deeply over the last several months and his well-laid plans for the next few days. He had carried out his father’s instructions perfectly, crossing every “t” and dotting every “i.” His father would be proud, and it was to Peter’s mild surprise he had not called yet, not since the bomb went off and made news around the world.
The phone sat silently in his pocket, not ringing at all for the last two days. But no matter, everything would come together soon enough, and Peter’s hopes for the last seven years would finally be realized.
Cody Weiland, the meek and agreeable elementary school teacher, was gone, and in his place stood a venal man who had spent the last seven years slowly blooming in the sodden darkness of an internal prison that had been deathly silent and utterly lonely.
But he had finally broken out. The bomb had not simply destroyed. It had created; that final smack of the hammer on the top of a chisel that served to liberate him from a shell that he had been forced to live inside. The Peter who had left Russia had hatched anew, and what appeared among the slimy pieces of broken and splintered shells was a man who had a fresh and clearly defined view of the world.
He hated America.
He hated its commitment to democracy and its materialism and the way in which it exalted decadence and pursued lives of ease over everything else. It made him want to spit. So when his father had finally reached out and promised not only a reunion but a chance for Peter to focus and express his newfound vitriol, Peter thought he had fallen into a delicious dream. Soon, he and his father would be together again, in Russia, and Peter would finally be home once again. Back in the nation of his birth and his forefathers, back in a country whose leadership hated the interference and hegemony of Western powers as much as he did.
A faint hum from down the road made its way into the barn, growing louder with each passing moment. Peter opened his eyes. Sunlight cut through slits in the barn’s walls and lanced bright golden spears onto the dirt floor. He stood up, walked past his Sebring, and went to the wide double doors at the front. He peered through a knothole in the tattered wood and watched as a silver Nissan Altima slalomed side to side as its driver tried to avoid the deep ruts in the primitive dirt road. It stopped near the barn and a tall, husky man unfolded himself from the front seat and stretched his arms as he let go of a long, slow yawn. He wore pale blue jeans and a sleeveless white T-shirt beneath an open sleeveless denim jacket. Peter grabbed the door’s cross-beam and lifted it. The ancient hinges groaned against his press. He slipped out of the barn and made his way to the car.
“Carl,” he said flatly.
Carl whipped around. “Jeeeez, you know how to scare someone.”
“Do you have it?”
“Of course I’ve got it. You think I came all the way out into the boonies to just say hi?” Peter followed him to the back of the car where Carl inserted a key into the lock and opened the trunk. Inside was littered with empty packs of Marlboro 100s, empty beer bottles, crushed styrofoam cups, and several brown and shriveled apple cores. In the center of all the gross was a large cardboard box to which Peter fixed his eyes much in the same way Marco had attached himself to the baggie of meth in Cooper’s hand.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. That there is the cat’s meow, as my mother used to say.” Carl stepped up to the bumper, got a solid handle on the box, and lifted it out. He walked a few paces away and set it down in the tall grass.
Peter joined him standing over it, pulled back the flaps, and peered inside. He reached down and brought out one of the tightly wrapped packages and examined it. “We should be settled up,” he said. “You got the payment?”
“I did. That’s why I’m here.”
“Okay.” Peter said it with a finality that Carl did not have the sense to pick up on. He returned the package to the box.
Carl set his hands on his hips and took in the barn and the virginal land around it. “So this is where you’re holing up, huh? You gonna be here long?”
“Why are you asking questions about me?”
Carl quickly raised his hands. “Meant nothing by it. It’s just nice out here is all. Quiet.”
Peter’s cold eyes were fixed onto Carl. Tucked in the small of Peter’s back was a
Makarov pistol. The Makarov had always been his father’s personal handgun of choice, and now it was Peter’s too. He liked it and over the last year had become quite adept at using it. Each Saturday he would spend an hour or so at a range in Riverview, shooting targets at five, ten, and twenty yards. Now, as Carl stood in front of him, his large shadow blocking out the sun, Peter began to consider the practicality of killing him. His business with Carl was done; the oaf would only be a loose string now, one that could possibly lead others back to him. Carl didn’t come across as the sharpest hook in the tackle box. Surely he was going to misstep somewhere and get arrested. Peter did not peg him for the kind of guy who would keep his mouth shut if he thought squealing someone out would work to his best interest.
Carl shifted uncomfortably beneath the younger man’s pensive and chilly gaze. “What?” he said nervously.
But if I killed you, your body would attract birds, and that would eventually attract people. Which means I would need to dig a grave. And I’m not sure I feel like getting my shoes dirty right now. In fact, I’m not sure if there is even a shovel around here. Still, Peter could almost hear the Makarov screaming at him, begging him to draw it out and fire off a few rounds into the man’s chest, and throat, and face.
“What?” Carl said again.
Peter blinked and smiled mechanically. “Sorry,” he said, almost too kindly. “You caught me daydreaming.”
“You, uh, you do that kind of thing a lot?”
“No.” He turned his face up to the sky. High above the tops of the tall pines, a lonely hawk was circling. “You should probably go now, Carl. Before I change my mind.”
“Change your—”