The Apparatus (Jason Trapp Book 5)

by Jack Slater

Grover flicked his fingers contemptuously. “You are not my enemy, Fernando,” he said. “Just an obstacle. Had things worked out differently perhaps it would be Señor Reyes in your place and not the other way round.”

  Carreon understood then that this was not an accident. Grover had planned all this, and now the pieces of the jigsaw were tumbling into place. But to what end?

  “Ramon wants your head,” he said. “Well, mine, he just doesn’t know who he’s really fighting.”

  And nor do I.

  “He was not supposed to survive,” Grover admitted. “But he escaped. It was a mistake.”

  “You tried cutting the head off the snake,” Carreon said. “Not a bad plan. As long as it works. Unfortunately for you, Reyes won’t stop now. He can’t, not without losing the respect of his men. And he won’t risk that. I wouldn’t.”

  “He’s rallying them to fight,” Grover snarled.

  Carreon closed his eyes. He understood now. Grover had entered his service almost two years before and turned the Federación Cartel’s security arm into a professional, deadly outfit. He’d sourced experts from Britain and Israel, guns from the United States and France, drones from Turkey, and a hundred other items from countries all around the world. For a time, his men had been the most feared in all of Mexico. None of the other cartels dared challenge their supremacy. And he had been a fool to believe Grover had ever truly worked for him. He was a parasite. Like one of those wasps who laid their eggs inside a live animal, feeding off its flesh before finally breaking free.

  But he had gambled big. And now his bet was hanging in the balance.

  “So what do you want from me?” Carreon asked, relaxing now that he better understood the lay of the land. “Don’t you have a war to fight?”

  Grover grimaced, radiating a volcanic energy.

  “Ramon has called his men to fight, and they’ve answered, haven’t they? But mine haven’t.”

  “I kept you for a reason,” Grover growled in response. “I need you to film a message. It’s in both of our interests. If – your – men don’t fight, then we’ll both lose everything. And what use would you be to me then?”

  Carreon paused before he spoke, and when he eventually did so, the words came quietly, with precise enunciation. The tone of a man who has accepted his fate. Or, perhaps, one who spies a way out. “Haven’t I already lost everything?”

  “You’re trying my patience,” Grover spat, a tic on his cheek twitching several times before becoming quiescent. “Do you want to find out how much more you have to lose?”

  “No recording will work,” Carreon said confidently. “No tape, no video. My people will expect me to fight by their side, not hide in a bunker while they risk their lives. What you want is impossible. Unless…”

  He fell silent.

  Grover grimaced. The twitch returned. “Unless what?”

  “Let me meet with them. Explain the stakes. Tell them you are to be trusted. To be followed. Without my blessing they will never be yours.” He shrugged, his offer made, and fell silent.

  The American dismissed the proposition with a curt nod. “Too risky.”

  “Then we are at an impasse.”

  “Perhaps we should rectify that. You don’t need fingers to film a recording. You don’t need kneecaps either. We won’t touch your pretty little face,” he said contemptuously. “But the rest of you is fair game.”

  “Look at me, Grover,” Carreon said, unmoved. “Look deep into my eyes and ask yourself how far I am willing to go. I won’t break. I won’t bend. Not for a man like you. If you want my assistance, this is my only offer.”

  Another rapidfire sequence of twitches erupted on Grover’s face, but the American stayed silent, his gaze probing Carreon’s face for any hint of a lie. At long last, the man spoke.

  “Two of my men will be your shadows. If you take a shit, they’ll be watching. If you attempt to pass a message, you will die. So will your unfortunate penpal. We clear?”

  Elated, Carreon battled not to show it. This was scarcely less forlorn a hope than his present predicament. But there was at least a glimmer of light. He could make it work. He had to.

  “How will you explain that?” he asked.

  Grover smiled, a cold, dead expression that didn’t reach his eyes. “This is war. Our enemies are everywhere.”

  “Then we have a deal.”

  31

  Trapp and Ikeda traveled both light and quiet, catching a commercial flight down to California and crossing the southern border by car under assumed names. There was no particular reason to suppose that anyone was even aware of their little off-books investigation, let alone had any reason to flag their arrival in-country, but why take the chance?

  Despite the day’s intense heat at their current elevation, the nearby volcano that towered over the city of Toluca still wore its snow cap.

  Trapp glanced up from a guidebook placed ostentatiously on the café table between them. “It used to be almost 3000 feet taller, you believe that?”

  Ikeda was reclined in her chair, rangy legs stretched out onto the sidewalk, forcing her to retract them on occasion to avoid overly obstructing the passing pedestrians. A pair of ridiculous sunglasses was perched on top of her head. They had a cheap, already scratched Gucci logo, but since they’d been purchased from a nearby street vendor, most assuredly did not command designer label prices.

  “What did, honey?”

  “The volcano,” Trapp said, gesturing down the street, toward where the hulking monolith rose from the earth. “Kinda hard to miss.”

  “I had other things on my mind,” Ikeda said pointedly. She stiffened, though had he not been quite so attuned to her, Trapp might never have noticed.

  “That him?” he murmured without visibly looking up from his coffee. The café’s glass window was suitably reflective and allowed him to observe the street with almost perfect clarity.

  “Think so.”

  “Real All-American, huh?”

  “Says you.” Ikeda grinned.

  Trapp gestured at the waiter, a diminutive man with strangely delicate features, and left a couple of banknotes underneath his now empty coffee cup. The man bustled over with a tray as they stood to leave.

  They were dressed like typical tourists. American tourists. Which, as the rest of the world understood, meant not very well. Trapp came complete with baggy khaki cargo shorts tucked over a white polo shirt and accented with a camera on a strap around his neck. Ikeda was somewhat better put together, with her dark black hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, but mainly carried off the look as a result of her superior beauty.

  DEA agent Raymond Burke was a tall man. Despite the heat, he was wearing a navy blazer and dark pants. He had no luggage and was not visibly armed, though his frame was sufficiently broad to allow for the possibility that a weapon could be concealed from sight somewhere on his body.

  They trailed behind him without making any attempt to disguise their presence, relying on their dress and appearance to soothe watching eyes. Overhead, a messy warren of telephone cables crisscrossed the street, swaying gently in the breeze. Gnarled, leafy trees studded the streets at regular intervals. The center of the city was a contradiction of beautiful Spanish colonial architecture and staid, functional sixties brutalism. Wide-open plazas disappeared into tangles of narrow alleyways without warning.

  “I think we’re clear,” Ikeda said after they paused for a few seconds not far from the cathedral, apparently to consult the guidebook. “No tail.”

  “I agree.”

  They resumed their own chase, walking casually through a covered market as hawkers offered them tacos and cold drinks with lazy insouciance. They turned around the corner which Burke’s dark head had passed a few seconds earlier – and ran directly into him.

  His eyes flashed with suppressed anger, and he spoke quietly yet with evident menace. “Why are you following me?”

  “I think we’re neighbors,” Trapp said, casually scanning the street before h
e extended his hand. “From Fairfax.”

  Burke shook it warily, evidently off-balance. “You got any ID you can show me?”

  “Don’t usually carry any.”

  “Then I hope you’ll understand,” Burke said, turning away, “but I don’t usually trust strangers.”

  Trapp glanced around the street and spotted a bar that was opening up for the morning. The proprietor was setting up an arrangement of white plastic tables and chairs on the street outside, but the interior was pleasingly gloomy. “Maybe we can take this somewhere private while we establish our bona fides.”

  “Don’t think so, buddy,” Burke grunted. He took a step back, and his hand drifted to his belt loop, where his fingers rested before inching backwards.

  He is armed, then, Trapp thought to himself. He opened his mouth to reply, but Ikeda got there first.

  “Easy, tiger.” She smiled disarmingly as she produced a business card from inside an astonishingly large purse, which Trapp knew contained almost nothing. She flashed it in front of the agent’s face. “Recognize the name?”

  “So what?” Burke shrugged. “Anyone could get one of those printed. It means nothing.”

  “I’m not asking you to take my word for it,” she said. “Dial the number. Or better yet, dial your own switchboard and ask them to put you through. We can wait. But you know, my colleague’s right. We might want to do this out of sight.”

  Burke’s indecision was written on his face. He snatched the card with two fingers and gestured at the bar across the street. “Go get a beer. If this checks out, I’ll join you.”

  “Sounds like a fair trade.” Eliza smiled. “See you in a sec.”

  She indicated for Trapp to join her, and he followed like a meek child. Once they were out of earshot, he grunted: “Colleague?”

  “Dos cervezas, por favor,” she drawled in deliberately broken Spanish tinged with a distinctive Valley twang as they entered the bar. The owner nodded and gestured to the outdoor seating. Ikeda mimed that she wanted to get out of the heat and selected the furthest table from the entrance.

  Once they were seated, both in chairs that offered them a good view of anyone approaching, she said, “If you want to tell him we’re screwing, be my guest. I just didn’t think it sounded pertinent.”

  “Pertinent,” Trapp grumbled. “You and your big words.”

  Burke joined them about ninety seconds later, his concerns obviously allayed. He slid Director Lawrence’s card back across the surface of the table, and Ikeda magicked it back into her purse.

  “So I guess you guys are big shots if you’ve got pull like that?” He glanced over his shoulder and stuck three fingers up. The bartender already had two bottles of beer on the counter and was in the process of removing their caps. He crouched down and procured a third.

  “That’s the problem with this line of work,” Trapp said. “The more people who know about a thing, the more chance it gets blown to hell. Unfortunately that leads to inefficiencies.”

  Burke gave a short laugh. “Like needing the director of the CIA to vouch that you’re on the up and up. I hear that. So how can I help my beloved cousins from Virginia?”

  “We were thinking that maybe we could help each other. Give a little, get a little. That kind of thing.”

  “Depends what you have for me,” Burke said bluntly.

  “How well do you know Leo Conway, Agent Burke?” Ikeda asked.

  Burke visibly stiffened. He glanced at them in turn, clearly measuring his words. “He’s Engel’s guy, right?” he said, buying time. “Was, anyway.”

  Ikeda nodded.

  She really could be cold, Trapp reflected. Not to him. Not usually, anyway. Though he would have to make up for the camping trip at some point, that much was clear. But she was good at this line of work. Alternatively reassuring then incisive. Placid then vicious.

  “He placed a call to you several days ago,” she said, revealing that they had been listening.

  “I thought you said you wanted to work together?” Burke growled. “Because this don’t feel too simpatico right now, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Trapp glanced at Ikeda, wondering whether to intervene. Burke wasn’t too dissimilar a man to him. Was this the correct way to handle him? Evidently sensing that he was wavering, she cut off his train of thought with an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  Okay then.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Ray,” she said. “Can I call you that?”

  “My friends do,” he replied without warmth.

  “Let’s see what we can do about that.” Ikeda smiled. “Like I said, we’re not coming after you.”

  Burke kinked his eyebrow with interest. “Then Conway?”

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  “I thought there was something weird about that phone call. The guy sounded spooked.”

  “We know.”

  His eyes widened. “You were listening?”

  Ikeda inclined her head. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m not sure I like that,” he grumbled to himself, shaking his head. “Big Brother listening in to my phone calls.”

  “Not yours,” she pointed out.

  “Still…”

  “You said you thought he sounded spooked. Why?”

  Burke looked suddenly uneasy. He clenched his jaw, then scanned the bar. The bartender had disappeared into the back, and there were no other customers. “Listen, I don’t know you guys from Adam. You’ve got important friends, I get that. But so did Conway. And now my boss is dead, and no one seems real interested in finding out why. Except you guys showing up out of the blue.”

  A trickle of sweat ran down the back of Trapp’s neck, and he glanced up at the dark, dusty blades of a criminally underpowered ceiling fan ambling in gentle sweeps above his head with genuine disappointment. He dropped his gaze back down with resignation and said, “You knew Engel?”

  Burke took a swig of his beer before replying. “Not socially. He was a nice guy and good at what he did. But that’s not the point.”

  “I know,” Trapp replied. He silently measured his next steps and decided to take the plunge. “Conway’s a gambling addict. He was selling classified information to dig himself out.”

  “That’s why Engel died? For money?” His expression turned more thoughtful, and he leaned toward them, resting on his elbows. “Who knows this?”

  “For now just us three, and a few friends back in Washington. We’re keeping the circle tight.”

  “Why?” Burke frowned. “Can’t you just bring him in?”

  “We could,” Trapp agreed. “But there’s another player. His handler. Conway’s just a pawn. I’m guessing even he doesn’t know why he’s digging for what he’s selling. We want the guy above him in the chain. Because right now we don’t have a clue what’s really happening.”

  “Makes two of us,” Burke muttered. His expression cleared. “Fine, I’ll bite. You were listening in anyway, so I guess you know what he wanted. The call logs between Salazar and Abalos.”

  “That’s right.” Trapp nodded. “Look, this is your beat. Who the hell are these guys?”

  “Senator Josefina Salazar is a real piece of work,” Burke said, ostentatiously wrinkling his nose. “She’s running for the presidency here. Has a real shot at winning, too. You know the type: can’t just let a hot button issue pass her by without sticking her nose in for the headlines. It looks like she’s graduated to generating them, too.”

  Trapp squinted. “What do you mean?”

  Burke glanced around the bar again, confirming that it was still empty. A droplet of condensation on the side of his bottle of beer tumbled into another, creating a chain reaction that dripped onto the table. “You’re not listening to Conway, right? Not officially.”

  “I guess not,” Trapp agreed.

  “Well, we don’t listen to Mexican government types. Not officially.”

  “But it happens?” Trapp asked with a raised eyebrow.

&
nbsp; “The Mexicans let us fly surveillance planes from time to time. Just Cessna Citations fitted out with listening gear and high-resolution cameras. They don’t look like nothing from the outside, but they suck in all kinds of data. Mainly cell phone: who’s talking to who, and where from. We’re not really supposed to listen in to conversations. We’re sure as shit not supposed to record them.”

  “Not officially,” Trapp remarked dryly.

  “You got it.” Burke grinned. “So anyway, a couple days ago one of the surveillance techs called me up. Said he had something hot. Didn’t want any part of it. Well, it wasn’t just hot. It was dynamite. You guys heard the name Hector León?”

  They shook their heads.

  “He’s a Mexican. Captain in their Marines. Good guy. He was in command of the quick reaction force that went to that prison break last week. I was there. Well, Abalos wanted him to take the heat for the screw-up. Not just that – he wanted him out the picture, so there wouldn’t be any unpleasant questions. And Salazar was only too happy to oblige. This is her issue to ride all the way to the presidential mansion. But the thing is –”

  “Go on…” Trapp murmured.

  “Well, Abalos is on the cartel payroll. We know that. But from what I heard, it sounds like so is she.”

  Trapp leaned back in his chair. The plastic creaked underneath his weight. “Damn. Damn.”

  “You got that right,” Burke agreed. “Now you see why I didn’t want to say anything over the phone to Conway. It wasn’t just that I didn’t trust him. I didn’t, but that’s only half of it. It’s that if what we overheard got out, the military down here would be in a whole heap of shit. And that’s not the half of it: it could blow up the whole Mexican election.”

  “Sounds like that’s no bad thing,” Trapp said.

  “Look, I agree with you, all right?” Burke nodded. “But we ain’t got a good reputation down here. We’ve done some real janky things in these parts, and they won’t forget that anytime soon whatever happens. If we start messing with their elections, hell… I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be good.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Ikeda remarked, frowning. “It’s a heck of a story. But why would Conway’s handler care about any of that?”