by Evan Graver
“The cops still have it locked down,” Mango said.
“Emily, can you get the drone up?” Ryan asked. “Let’s see what they’re doing.”
It only took a few minutes for Emily to launch the quadcopter. She flew it along the coast, staying high to avoid being seen. The house looked much as it had after the assault. No one had covered the shattered doors, and the only cops they saw were sitting in a car, blocking the driveway. The same was happening at Rincone’s house.
According to the drone footage, the island’s shoreline was mostly rocky cliffs and a few sandy beaches. To get to the sniper’s house, Ryan would either need to swim, walk down the road, or beat through the brush. He continued to study the drone footage and the online satellite map before deciding to walk along the clifftops and go through the brush.
Pulling on his tactical gear, he worked the boots to loosen the leather that had shrunk from the seawater. He left his pistol at the villa and took only his tactical folding knife. As he was preparing, Mango asked if he wanted him to go with him. Ryan told him no and asked that he keep an eye on Oscar. He wiggled an earpiece into his right ear so he could talk to Emily, who would continue to fly the drone while he was inside the house.
Once he was kitted up, Ryan headed east along the beach, having to beat through the brush where the cliffs met the sea. It was easier going than he’d thought, and many of the empty lots had barren spots along the cliff or small trails through the underbrush.
There were only four houses between the villa and his target. Three of them were empty, but at one three-story home, he had to wait until the couple sitting by the pool were looking the other way before he raced across the opening to the next stand of mangroves and wild palms.
The sniper’s house had a pergola set off to the west with its own steps up from the water. A paver stone path led to the house, and Ryan followed it, staying close to the vegetation on the right side. He entered the house through the same door he’d helped to breach earlier that morning. Once inside, he paused and listened to the surrounding sounds. Besides the birds chirping outside, there didn’t seem to be anything stirring.
Ryan stayed on the balls of his feet as he crept along the wide ceramic tiles, then up the stairs. Again, he paused to listen before walking to the sniper’s room. He told Emily he was inside, and she reported that the police were still in their car by the gate.
In the room facing Rincone’s house, Ryan studied the shooter’s hide. There was a flat platform built four feet off the ground for the sniper to lie on as a perch. The height allowed for the downward angle of the muzzle and for the trajectory of the bullet to clear the ornamental concrete railing on the room’s balcony. That morning, there had been a Blaser R93 rifle resting on its bipod and buttplate on the bench. The police had impounded it as evidence and dusted the room for prints, leaving black powder all over the room.
He checked the closets, under the bed, and beneath the small sofa. A nightstand held only the most generic items. Looking around, Ryan thought through how he’d have done things. The sniper had set up the rifle and the shooting bench exactly how he would have positioned them. Next, he would have wanted to place his bug-out bag close at hand, so all he had to do was throw it over his shoulder and bolt from the scene once he’d taken the shot.
But bolt to where?
He stood by the door to the balcony and surveyed the surrounding property. Last night, the police had reported no vehicles passing through their roadblocks, and no boats had left from the shore because Amarillo, the Trident RIBs, and the RCIPS’s Marine Unit had spotted no one racing away. All this meant that the shooter had stayed near the house, hiding in the thick underbrush until he could make a clean getaway. Ryan reasoned the sniper had to know that as soon as he pulled the trigger, the police would fixate on him. He wouldn’t want to hide in the vacant lots between here and Rincone’s because the cops had both houses and the lots between them covered, so Ryan figured he’d headed west.
After spending an hour searching the house, Ryan found no link to the shooter’s identity and went outside to continue his investigation. At the northwest corner of the home, he made sure the police couldn’t see him before dashing along the pool and crossing to the four-car garage. He slipped inside after picking the door lock.
The interior was cool and dark. Light spilled through the windows of the garage doors, allowing him an unobstructed view of the SUV and the minivan parked inside. He checked both before he walked through the two empty bays. Nothing caught his attention, and he slipped out the door, locking it behind him.
Back at the pergola, he checked for broken branches or bent vegetation, which would indicate if someone had passed through in a hurry. He completed two circles around the area before he noticed a narrow break in the mangroves. As he squatted by the opening, he saw a footprint in the dirt. He immediately recognized the tread pattern as that of a combat boot, similar to those worn by American servicemen.
“Did any of our guys check out the pergola on this property?” he whispered to Emily. He heard her ask Mango, then she told him no.
He stepped off the concrete walkway into the brush, following the footprints along a faint trail. About ten feet from the road, he found an opening marked by narrow tire tracks, made by either a scooter or a motorcycle. He dropped to his hands and knees and looked up the trail. Through the narrow gap in the brush, he could see the elevated roadbed. Still in the down push-up position, he rotated his head to look both left and right beyond the clearing.
Something blue lay ten feet to his right. After marking the spot in his mind, he stood and pushed through the branches. The object he had seen was a plastic credit card, folded in half. He pocketed it and searched the area again before walking to the road. A barely visible mark of mud on the black pavement showed the sniper had turned right.
He probably headed for George Town so he could hop an airplane and get the hell outta Dodge, Ryan thought. That’s what we should do right now.
“Can you see me?” Ryan asked Emily as he shook a branch.
“I see a branch moving,” she replied.
“Can the cops see me if I step onto the road here?”
“It doesn’t look like it. Just stay on the shoulder as you walk this way.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a minute.” Ryan moved out of the dense underbrush and walked through the grass along the side of the road toward the villa.
He was halfway there when a police car stopped beside him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ryan’s heart jumped into his throat. Had the cops seen him come out of the brush? The car had come from the west, not out of the driveway behind him. Maybe they’d radioed for backup?
When the window slid down, Acting Superintendent Todd Whittaker smiled up at him. Ryan let out a long breath through puffed-up cheeks, feeling relieved that Whittaker hadn’t arrested him.
“You must have slept in your clothes,” Whittaker said.
Ryan looked down at his black outfit. A thin white line of dried salt marked where he had waded in the ocean. “Yeah, something like that.”
“I want to talk to you after I check on my officers.”
“Can you come by the villa?” Ryan asked.
“Certainly.”
“I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Ryan began walking while Whittaker drove on.
When he got to the house, he showered and changed clothes.
A few minutes later, Whittaker pulled into the driveway, and Ryan led him to the pool deck where the others were waiting.
“I’d offer you a beer, but you’re probably on duty,” Ryan said.
“Nothing for me, thanks. I wanted to come by and tell you the good news. The sniper rifle had a print on it belonging to a Randall Grasz.”
“That’s it? Just a name?” Mango asked.
“We caught him at the airport this morning,” Whittaker informed them.
Ryan felt his mouth fall open. “You caught him?”
“We proce
ssed the rifle immediately, and once we had a print, we got a name and then used facial recognition to spot him.”
“Can we talk to him?” Ryan asked.
“No. He’ll stand trial for murder.”
“What about giving us access to Rincone’s computer?” Carmen asked.
Whittaker shook his head. “This is a RCIPS investigation now.”
“Thanks for coming by, Superintendent,” Ryan said, sensing they had nothing further to discuss.
Whittaker stood. “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call. I believe you have my card.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Ryan said as he ushered the policeman through the house, then watched from the front door as Whittaker got into his car and drove away.
Back at the pool, he found everyone clustered around Carmen and her computer.
Mango looked up as Ryan approached. “Grasz is a former Army Ranger.”
“Shocker,” Ryan said. “Let me guess, he spent time in the sandbox and has sniper training.”
“Three tours in Iraq. Two in Afghanistan,” Carmen said.
“And he leaves a print on the rifle and gets caught at the airport?” Emily questioned. “Something doesn’t add up. I’ve been around you guys long enough to know how you’re trained and how you think.”
“You think someone set him up?” Jennifer asked.
“Maybe, or maybe he’s not that bright,” Ryan said.
“I’ll go with ‘not that bright,’” Carmen said. “The Army gave him a dishonorable discharge after they court-martialled him for trying to trade U.S. military weapons for a load of heroin that he wanted to ship back to the States.”
“He may be dumb, but he’s a decent shot,” Ryan said.
Mango scoffed. “A monkey could have made that shot. It was two hundred and ten yards. Plus, he had collateral damage.”
“At night, with a crosswind, and then he had to escape and evade. Speaking of which, I found this near the spot he kept his motorbike.” Ryan laid the blue card on the table.
“Okay,” Mango conceded. “He’s had training, but he still killed Kirshen, and that pisses me off just as much as it does you.”
Carmen picked up the card and unfolded it. “This is a prepaid access card.” She immediately began typing on her computer.
“What are you looking for?” Emily asked.
“They load these things with cash, and because it has the Visa logo on it, it will work at ATMs. I should be able to hack it and track the transactions.” She bent over her keyboard again and went back to work.
As they waited for Carmen to work her magic, Ryan got up and put on a pair of swim trunks. He waded out into the water with Emily beside him, and they pushed off the bottom, racing along the coast with quick freestyle strokes. She was a faster swimmer than Ryan and easily pulled away, but he kept at it, and when she was almost a full body length ahead, he grabbed her ankle and jerked backward. He stuck his tongue out at her as he swam past.
Emily pounced and pushed him underwater. She may have been a stronger swimmer on the surface, but underwater, he was in his element, and he could hold his breath for over five minutes. He pulled her under with him, and they tussled playfully before he let her go. She shot to the surface, and when he came up in front of her, she pushed his head back under.
When he surfaced again, he wiped the water from his face, and she splashed him. He tried to grab her, but she turned and raced back toward the steps to the villa. As she was wading through the shallows, he grabbed her around the waist and picked her up. Emily squealed and laughed as he threw her over his shoulder and walked up the steps.
She smacked him on the bottom. “Put me down, ya big galoot.”
“Okay.” He walked to the edge of the pool and leaned over, letting her fall into the water.
Coming up sputtering, she laughed, and Ryan glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Mango give him a push. He cartwheeled his arms as he fell in, making a big splash.
When he surfaced, he reached out to Mango. “Give me a hand, would you?”
Mango held up his hands and backed away from the pool. “No way, bro.” He laughed. “You can get yourself out.”
Ryan climbed up, sat on the edge, and watched his girlfriend float on her back. He enjoyed the joking and the comradery that came with working with his friends, and it was comforting to have people he could lean on when he felt like things were out of control. They understood him and the shit he’d been through.
He didn’t understand why certain things triggered the horrible memories he tried to suppress, but they always bubbled to the surface when he least expected them to. Mango was right; everyone had their cross to bear. How he dealt with his was up to him. He could crawl into a bottle or inject himself with a mind-numbing drug, or he could continue doing what he did best, pursuing the men who caused pain and destruction in the world and avenging those he had lost. He always felt at his best when he was on a mission.
Leaning back on his hands, he let the sun dry him as he thought about what a preacher had told him when he was in the Venezuelan prison. Learning to forgive oneself and allowing oneself to be forgiven was just the start, but the preacher had said only God could completely exonerate someone of his sins. God gave grace freely. One did not have to earn it. All he had to do was accept it.
Ryan closed his eyes, lifted his face to the sunshine, and told the universe to free him from his burdens. He imagined packing them into a garbage bag and hurling it off into space, never to come back again. He had to admit, he felt better.
Carmen interrupted his quiet meditation by saying, “I’ve got something.”
Chapter Thirty
Carmen’s words were like a magnet, drawing everyone back to the table, including Oscar, who had come out of the house.
“What is it?” the Venezuelan asked.
“This card is linked to a corporate account belonging to Hotshots, Inc. in Miami, Florida.”
“Who’s the signatory?” Mango asked. “Charlie Sheen?”
Carmen looked up, puzzled.
“Never mind,” Mango muttered, and Ryan chuckled at the reference to one of his favorite movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, a ridiculous parody of nineties action movies that made him laugh every time he watched it.
Carmen rolled her eyes. “Anyway … Hotshots put money on a whole bunch of prepaid cards. I hacked the issuing company because it was easier than cracking the username and password on this card.”
“That’s scary,” Emily said.
“When we’re done here, Barry and I will contact them and offer to fix their security issues, but that’s a story for another day.”
“What about the card?” Oscar asked, encouraging her to stay on topic.
“Hotshots, Inc is just a P.O. box number, but it traces back to another shell called Flamingo Services.”
Ryan pointed to the network map, littered with boxes bearing company names and account numbers and arrows marking the flow of cash or assets between them. “Do you think the cards are connected to this mess?”
“I don’t know,” Carmen said. “We’ll have to keep digging.”
“There has to be a way to figure out where the money came from,” Oscar insisted.
“That kind of money doesn’t just appear out of nowhere,” Ryan agreed.
“Unless you’re printing it at the Federal Reserve,” Emily said. “Remember those pallets of cash they sent to Iran?”
“It could have come from anywhere,” Ryan said. “Drugs, oil, guns … It stands to reason that The Armorer codeword is literal. The man we’re looking for probably deals in guns.”
“Why would an arms dealer want to kill Oscar’s team?” Mango inquired. “They were after drugs, not weapons.”
“Maybe we’ve been looking at this the wrong way,” Ryan said. “We’ve been chasing shadows when we should have been finding the head of the snake before it whips around and bites us again.”
“What do you mean?” Oscar asked.
; “Why didn’t you go after the guy you picked up in the delta? What was his name?”
“Armond Diego,” Oscar said. “He’s an assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense, and he is under the protection of the SEBIN.”
“So, he’s a high-ranking member of the government, and he was helping to traffic drugs,” Ryan said.
Oscar nodded.
At the mention of Diego’s name, Carmen had begun typing. When she stopped, she said, “Here’s what I can find with a basic search. Diego has a degree from the Central University of Venezuela and a master’s in social work from Columbia University. He’s served in various government positions for the last twenty years. According to this source, Canada, the U.S., and Colombia have sanctioned him for serving in Maduro’s cabinet.”
“Too bad they don’t have a network map for drug dealers,” Mango complained.
“Why was he out in the jungle coordinating a drug shipment?” Ryan asked. “What are we missing here? High-level players don’t muck about with the hired help.”
“When we intercepted the drug smugglers, they were on their way to the farm we’d found in the Orinoco River Delta,” Oscar said.
“I agree with Ryan,” Mango said. “Why was Diego there? Did your friend know? The one whose family you helped?”
Oscar shook his head. “He was just told to rescue him and the drugs.”
Ryan asked, “Do you still have any contacts in Venezuela?”
“A few,” Oscar replied.
“What about someone you trusted in your chain of command? Someone you can talk to about Diego?” Ryan asked.
Oscar rubbed his forehead as he thought. “Colonel Mario Estevez runs the Marine Special Operations Command. I could call him.”
“Are you sure he’s not corrupt?” Ryan asked.
Oscar nodded. “I have known him since he was a young captain.”
“Do you know him better than you knew your friend Mendoza?” Emily asked.
The Venezuelan’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at her, then he looked away. Softly, he said, “I hope so.”