Dark Path: A Ryan Weller Thriller

by Evan Graver

  Ryan glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his troops. “You coming, Mango?”

  “I’ll help get the rentals and meet you at the hotel.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Emily volunteered. “I’ve been on plenty of stakeouts.”

  Without another word, Ryan opened the door for her to get into the back seat of the Explorer and climbed into the passenger seat beside Scott. He buzzed the window up as Scott pulled away from the curb, merging with the airport traffic.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

  “We’ve been tailing your boy, Pops. He’s been all over the map.” Scott checked his mirrors before continuing. “He bought prepaids at two other stores, and he makes regular stops at a horse track and a strip club.”

  “Cash-heavy businesses that would be easy to launder money through,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah. I brought you a present. I figured you’d want it before you got back to the hotel. Check the glove box.”

  Ryan opened the glove box and found a pistol inside. It was in a Kydex holster and had a magazine in the mag well and two more in a magazine holster. He had expected one of his favored Walther PPQ M2s, but instead drew out a Springfield XD-M Elite Tactical in flat dark earth. He gripped it with both hands and aimed the sights at the footwell, keeping the gun below the window.

  “She’s got one in the pipe and twenty-two in the mag,” Scott said. “She’s my new go-to gun, and I figured you’d like it, too.”

  “It’s nice.” Ryan screwed the thread cap off the end of the barrel and inspected the threads. “You got a suppressor?”

  “It’s in a bag in the back.” Scott glanced in the mirror. “There’s a gun in there if you want it, Emily.”

  “No, thanks. I’m good for now,” she replied.

  Ryan slipped the holster inside his belt on his right hip, pulled his shirt down over the butt, and hooked the spare mags on his left side. “What’s Pops doing when he makes his stops?”

  “He meets with various individuals,” Scott said. “I’ve seen him hand off a paper bag to one of his contacts at the track, but I don’t know what was in it.”

  “Have you checked his car?” Emily asked.

  “Got a tracker on his old school Cadillac. That’s how we’re watching him. He has a regular route, so we’d be conspicuous tailing him even if we used multiple cars. We just don’t have that kind of manpower.”

  “How many guys do you have with you?” Ryan asked.

  “Me, Jinks, and Rick Hayes.”

  “I thought Rick was still in Nicaragua.”

  Scott shrugged. “You know how it is.”

  Ryan did know how it was. Once an operator, always an operator. Tracking down terrorists, cartel sicarios, serial killers, and sex traffickers was a righteous passion that every man at Trident shared, including Ryan and Mango. While Ryan loved diving both commercially and recreationally, he liked the thrill of the chase and he felt at home riding in the Explorer with Scott, strapped up and locked in on a suspect.

  Scott drove them through the suburbs of Miami. It was hard to tell where one town ended and another began, because there was hardly any difference in the buildings or the street names. Lining the streets were strip malls and office buildings. Jammed in between those were narrow apartment buildings. The Trident operator pulled the car into a grocery store parking lot and put the transmission into park.

  “See that bodega across the street with the cell phone sign in the window?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah,” Ryan said, looking across four lanes of traffic at a two-story building. Sandwiched between a Cuban restaurant and a hair salon on the first floor was the bodega in question. Above them were law offices and a massage parlor.

  “That’s where Barry’s surveillance footage came from. There’s nothing special inside. I’ve been in there and bought a six-pack and a burner phone. Speaking of which …” Scott rummaged in a bag, plucked out a phone, and handed it to Ryan, along with a pair of Bluetooth earbuds. “I programmed everyone’s number into there.”

  “Thanks.” Ryan scrolled through the numbers and checked their location on the map application. “Where’s Pops at now?”

  Scott consulted his phone and showed the screen to Ryan. “He’s making his drop at the horse track. He’ll go to the post office and then the strip club.”

  “Who does he meet with at each place?”

  Scott pulled up pictures of two people. The bookie was a Latino-looking male with dark hair, bronze skin, and brown eyes. He had acne scars and looked rough from running the streets. The strip club owner could have been Emily’s twin: tall and slender, with thick blonde hair and a winning smile.

  “What do you think?” Scott asked after Ryan and Emily had looked at both pictures.

  “We need to know who he’s passing the cards to before we move, but my guess is that it’s the club owner. I don’t think the bookie has access to the track’s accounts.”

  “I agree,” Scott said.

  “When do you think Pops will be back to get more cards?” Ryan asked.

  “If he sticks to his schedule, he’ll be back tomorrow,” Scott replied.

  “I wonder how we can track the cards?” Ryan mused.

  “What are the chances that Pops records the numbers for each card?” Emily asked.

  Neither man had an answer for her. Scott shrugged, and Ryan asked her what she was thinking.

  “What if we get a batch of cards and swapped them out? We could put a tracker in with them, and Barry could track the numbers.”

  “That might work,” Scott said. “Where do we get one hundred prepaid cards?”

  “We just have to buy them,” Emily said. “We know they’re blue, so we get lookalikes.”

  Ryan nodded. He liked the idea. Not only would they know where Pops handed the cards off and to whom, but they would also have access to the money. They could let the bad guys finance their counter-operation.

  Emily opened her door and climbed out. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She crossed the street at the light and walked into the bodega. A few minutes later, she reappeared with a plastic grocery sack. The two men in the Explorer watched her walk west along the street.

  “Where’s she going?” Scott asked.

  “She doesn’t want to retrace her steps in case someone is watching her. Drive down the street, and we’ll pick her up.”

  Scott put the Explorer in gear and pulled into traffic. Ryan saw his girlfriend turn south at the next cross street and told Scott to continue west and make the turn at the next light. When he did, they found themselves in a residential street lined with small apartment buildings. Scott hit the accelerator and exceeded the speed limit.

  Ryan suspected Scott had the same queasy feeling that he had about letting a beautiful blonde walk through the rough neighborhood. They caught up to her, and she hopped into the SUV before it came to a complete stop. She handed Ryan a cold Mountain Dew from her bag and gave Scott a Red Bull that matched the empty can in the center console.

  Scott navigated them back to the main thoroughfare and headed east.

  “Where are we staying?” Emily asked.

  “It’s an old local place on U.S. 1,” Scott said. “Wait, you’re from here, aren’t you?”

  “North. Hollywood.”

  Ryan hadn’t bothered to ask her how she felt about coming home. She hadn’t lived on the East Coast in over a decade, and she’d told Ryan that there were good reasons for her move. Chief among them was her ex-boyfriend, who was still a sheriff’s deputy for Broward County. Hopefully, they didn’t run into that asshole or Ryan would probably deck him. She hadn’t told him everything, but Ryan had heard enough to know that her ex had physically and verbally abused her, and Ryan wouldn’t stand for that shit. Cop or not, he might just kick her ex in the nuts, but that was a worry for another time. They had an errand man to track down.

  Scott made several stops at bodegas, convenience, and grocery stores, but they only came up with half the
cards they needed.

  Turning to Scott, Ryan asked, “Where are Jinks and Rick?”

  “They’re following Pops.”

  “Emily, send them a picture of the prepaid. Tell them to buy fifty more cards and meet us at the hotel.”

  When they arrived at the hotel, the group gathered in one room and Ryan told them their plan. Barry smiled and said he had just the thing they needed. He rummaged around in his computer case and pulled out a small clear package. He held it up in triumph for everyone else to see.

  “That’s a great idea, Barry,” Carmen said.

  “What is it?” Mango asked.

  “This is a tracker,” Barry said. “It looks just like the chip on a credit card, but we’ll put it in the blister pack. If we replaced a chip on a card, they would catch it, because the card wouldn’t load.”

  “What makes you think they won’t find it?” Scott asked.

  “We don’t know if they will or not, but hopefully they have someone opening the cards who isn’t paying attention. Anyway, we insert this into the cardboard of the blister pack and, voilà, we track them to their destination.”

  “Can that pinpoint the target or just give us a general building?” Scott asked.

  “Once you’re close, it will give you the exact position inside the building or wherever else the cards go.”

  “I like it,” Mango said.

  “By watching the numbers on the cards you bought, we can see what account they’re using to load them and track them through the network,” Carmen said.

  “Exactly,” Ryan agreed. “Then we can round up the accomplices. By taking out the network, we might force The Armorer to come out of hiding.”

  “It’s as good a plan as any,” Scott agreed. “But I was looking forward to roughing up a few bad guys.”

  “Don’t lie,” Carmen said coyly. “You just want to do a stakeout in a strip club.”

  Scott grinned and shrugged. “The job comes with some perks.”

  Ryan glanced at Emily, who just shook her head. He had no plans to go into the club. He had all the woman he needed.

  He changed the subject by saying, “We need a game plan for the swap tomorrow.”

  “The first thing we need to do is separate Pops from the cards,” Jinks said.

  “This is how I think we should do it,” Ryan said, then outlined his plan.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  They knew the route that Pops normally drove because of the GPS tracker on his car, and they knew where he made stops besides those related to his business. It was at one of those places that Ryan wanted to exchange the cards. From the intel that Scott, Jinks, and Rick had collected, they knew Pops liked to stop at a Cuban restaurant for café con leche and he always left his batch of prepaids in the car.

  As Ryan, Scott, and Emily sat in the Explorer in a nearby shopping center parking lot, they watched Pops wheel his antique Cadillac into the lot, get out, and slap down the door lock. He swung the giant door closed and headed into the café. Scott had also observed that the old man had a penchant for younger women and often chatted them up if he saw one he fancied. Scott had never seen him leave with a woman, but Pops certainly thought he still had a few moves left in the tank.

  No sooner had their target swung his door shut than a car pulled in beside him and Jennifer and Carmen climbed out, dressed to make any man glance their way. And Pops did more than glance. The old black man put his hand over his heart and let out a long breath as the scantily clad women walked past him. Carman tossed her hair over her shoulder with a shake of her head and glanced back at him. She blew him a kiss, and he staggered backward, faking being blown away.

  “Think that will keep him occupied?” Scott asked.

  “That should keep any red-blooded male occupied,” Ryan said.

  “I hope you’re not occupied, sailor,” Emily said from the back seat.

  They continued to watch as Rick and Jinks pulled in beside the Cadillac. Rick slid out of their Chevy Tahoe and went to work opening the Cadillac’s locked passenger door. Ryan had given him the job because Rick had grown up with a pickpocket for a father who had done time for robbing a jewelry store. Before joining the Army, Rick had boosted cars to help pay for college until the cops had busted him with a hot Porsche. If his ROTC instructor at the University of New Orleans hadn’t helped him out of the jam with the owner and the cops, Rick might have gone to jail. As it was, the owner hadn’t pressed charges, instead he’d mentored Rick as he worked his way through school.

  Within a matter of seconds, Rick had the window pulled away from the door seal, allowing him to slide a carefully bent wire coat hanger around the lock knob and pull up, popping the lock. He quickly transferred the replacement cards into Pops’s old paper bag and took Pops’s cards with him. The entire process took less than two minutes, and Jinks drove away as soon as Rick was back in the Tahoe.

  Ryan sent a quick text to let Carmen know the deed was done, and the women disengaged from Pops and walked out of the café. He set his phone down, and a moment later, it dinged with a texted photo of an envelope. The addressee was Hotshots, Inc. Ryan showed the photo to Scott and Emily.

  The puzzle pieces were falling into place.

  The operators spread out through the city to cover the stops they knew Pops would make. Scott headed for the strip club while Ryan worked on finding more information about Victor Quintero and his defection to the United States. The only thing of note was a small article in the Miami Herald that said Quintero was cooperating with the U.S. government.

  “Do you suppose our case will poke holes in the story Quintero is telling the Feds?” Ryan wondered aloud.

  “If he’s got their protection, we might have to turn everything we have over to them,” Scott said.

  “Yeah, and that would be a shame, because they probably won’t do anything to him,” Ryan said.

  “Should you talk to Landis about it and see what Homeland has on him?” Scott asked.

  “Not yet,” Ryan stated. He wasn’t ready to hand over what he had because it was all circumstantial, and he knew for a fact that if Homeland or the FBI were working with Quintero, they would tell him to back off. “Let’s see where this card thing goes first.”

  Pops’s first stop was the horse track, and Jinks reported that he’d carried a paper sack into the casino.

  Ryan called Rick, who had gotten into his own chase car, and asked him if he knew what was in the sack. Rick said he hadn’t seen another bag in the Cadillac and, according to the GPS, their bag of cards hadn’t left the car.

  They didn’t need to wait much longer for the cards to move. Pops drove to a pink concrete block building and climbed the back stairs to what Scott told Ryan was an office. Above the building’s main entrance was a neon sign that read The Pink Flamingo Cabaret, and beside it was a neon bird of the same name. The club sat on the Little River across the street from a gas station.

  Ryan craned his neck around to take in the sites around them as they sat at a red light beside the club. He told Scott to circle the block. On the corner opposite them was an abandoned twelve-story building with its windows broken out and the demolished walls around the bottom two stories revealed its skeletal interior. On the west side of the strip club was a run-down apartment building with overflowing dumpsters.

  “The cards are moving,” Ryan said, watching the GPS tracker.

  “What do you want to do?” Scott asked.

  “Pull into the gas station and back into a spot where we can see the club’s parking lot.”

  Scott parked, and Emily went into the gas station. She came back with drinks for the three of them.

  “It seems a little ridiculous sitting across the street in a gas station,” Scott said. “Why don’t we go over there and avail ourselves of the amenities?”

  “How many bouncers are in there?” Ryan asked.

  “On a busy night, I counted six.”

  “Strapped?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Scott scoffed.

>   “So, how many times have you been in there?” Ryan asked.

  “A couple,” Scott said. Then quickly added, “I was trying to get the lay of the land.”

  “Do you mean ‘get the lay of the land’ or ‘get laid,’ because we both know there’s no sex in the Champagne Room,” Ryan said with a grin.

  “Don’t give me an assignment if you don’t want a thorough firsthand report.”

  Ryan continued to smile as he shook his head. “I’m sure your hand was the only thing you took home after spending time in there.”

  “Here’s my hand.” Scott held it up with his index, middle, and ring fingers extended. “Read between the lines.”

  “I hope you didn’t talk to the girls like that,” Emily said.

  Both men laughed, but their good-natured ribbing stopped when Ryan’s phone rang. He tapped the speaker and asked, “What’s going on, Barry?”

  “They’re loading the cards and using an account from a local bank. And get this. The name on the account is Hotshots, Inc. It receives a lot of cash deposits.”

  “All in one-dollar bills?” Scott asked.

  “There’s probably some. You know it’s superstitious for a stripper to leave the club with one-dollar bills, right?” Barry said.

  “Why am I not surprised you know that?” Ryan said.

  “I may have invested in a strip cub before,” the hacker said.

  Ryan laughed. “Putting ones in a G-string is not ‘investing.’ Tell me about the account.”

  “They routinely deposit at least one hundred grand a night,” Barry replied. “In one-dollar bills, that’s …. about two-hundred-and-twenty pounds, give or take. They’d need an armored truck to carry that.”

  Scott whistled. “I was in that place. There’s no way they’re pulling in a hundred G’s a night in cash.”

  “There are a lot of credit card receipts as well,” Barry said. “Millennials are using apps like Venmo to pay phone-to-phone.”

  “Great. So, we might never know where the money is coming from,” Scott lamented.

  “It’s true that there are a lot of individual transactions connected to the club,” Barry said. “Most of the workers are independent contractors who get paid either via cash or electronic transactions, but this is getting into the weeds. For now, I’m focusing on the money from the club, not the workers. If it’s as you say, and the club can’t show correct receipts for the big deposits, then something is definitely fishy.”