Pardners

by Roy F. Chandler

  Alpha was already spinning his Rolodex. "So, let's find out right now. He used his cell phone and punched in Charlie's work number.

  Lavender's phone rang a long time before it tripped to a recorded message announcing that the number was unattended at this time and suggesting return to an operator.

  Byrne hung up, and they sat looking at one another. Finally Alpha said, "Well, he isn't at his office, and judging by the message, he isn't expected back for some time—if at all."

  "Which means—almost nothing. He might be on leave, or on an assignment, or a changed job, or he might be dead." Bravo sounded annoyed.

  Alpha scratched at his forehead. "If he was gone permanently, the phone would have been disconnected, wouldn't it?"

  Bravo was explosive. "How in hell would I know? Nobody knows how the CIA works, anyway." He frowned, "You know, we don't really know if Charlie is CIA or something else nefarious. All we have is a number and he answers. Has he ever said who he works for, Alpha?"

  "Nope, he hasn't, and we don't have a physical on-the-job address for him."

  Alpha considered for a long moment. "But, I have his home phone number."

  Bravo's eyebrows rose. "How in hell did you get that?"

  Byrne was calm in his answer. "I have his home number unless he moved. Charlie had me call him there many years ago for some reason I don't remember, and my guess is that he has long forgotten giving it to me."

  Byrne again studied his Rolodex. He entered the old number, and a woman answered.

  Byrne said, "Mrs. Lavender? This is Dave Winthrop, an old friend of Dewey's. I couldn't get him at his office, and I thought he might be at home."

  The woman's voice was cold. She said, "You must be a very old friend of Dewey's. We are divorced, and he hasn't lived here for more than two years."

  Alpha rolled his eyes, and Bravo guessed the news wasn't good. Alpha held his phone away from his ear so that Bravo could also hear.

  He said, "Oh, I had no idea. I am so sorry to hear news like that. I am desperate to contact Dewey. It is a business matter. Do you have a new number where I might contact him?"

  Alpha crossed his fingers, and Bravo agreed with a slight nod.

  The woman said, "We did not part on friendly terms, Mister . . .?"

  Alpha said, "Winthrop, Dave Winthrop, Ma'am, and I would not ask except that it is very important that I speak with him."

  Byrne worked at secretive understanding that Dewey's ex-wife should find familiar. "You know how it can be in our profession, Mrs. Lavender, and no one at the uh . . . agency can help me out."

  There was hesitation. Mrs. Lavender was weighing her own doubts and duties. She conducted a checkup. "What number did you try for his office, Mister Winthrop?"

  Byrne gave her a B+ for effort, and spoke Dewey's office number.

  Mrs. Lavender's voice was bitter. "Well, he is still at his office out on 100th Street, and he should be there. I have no number for his condominium but he spends most of his spare time in his fancy new car, so his cell phone will be best anyway." She gave Byrne the number.

  Byrne dared to ask, "We don't have a building number for 100th Street, Mrs. Lavender. If I can't get him by phone, I'll go by his office. Could you help me out there as well?"

  Byrne held his breath, his eyes squinted and his nose wrinkled, but Mrs. Lavender came through. In for an ounce, in for a pound, Bravo supposed.

  "It's the gray brick building, number 4078."

  Byrne was about to thank her when she added, "Just look for a silver Mercedes sports car with a black convertible top. That will be him." Her voice was cold and bitter. Dewey Lavender was not much appreciated in his former household.

  Alpha thanked her, wished her well, and closed down.

  Byrne said, "He's divorced, has a condo, and a fancy new car."

  Bravo glowered. "You took a big chance getting those details Byrne. She might get to thinking it over and call Dewey's office, just in case—and wouldn't that raise warnings all over Washington.

  "Get real, Shepard. That lady is thoroughly soured. She wouldn't give Dewey a drink of water if his throat was afire. We've got a phone number. Now we will use it."

  "What are you going to say, anyway, Byrne? For God's sake don't tell him I am still alive."

  Alpha shrugged, "I'm going to play it by ear."

  Bravo groaned aloud. "Lavender is a trained agent, Don. He will see through you after about five words." Bravo groaned again. "We are doomed. I wonder if we could buy Brando's island out there in the Pacific?"

  Byrne was punching in the new cell number. The phone rang, and he waited patiently. Bravo got close with his head almost touching Byrne's. Hearing clearly for himself would be a lot better than being told what had been said.

  Dewey Lavender picked up, his voice light and confidant. "I don't recognize your number, but you had better not be trying to sell me something."

  Byrne made his voice cold. "What I am trying to do, Charlie is save your life."

  Lavender's voice lost its cool. "What? Alpha? I mean Byrne? How did you get this number? What . . . ?"

  Alpha's words bit hard. "Are you nuts, Lavender? Bravo is dead, and I am on the run. By now my house ruins are probably cold with the ashes scattering.

  "I'm running like a scared rabbit, and you are driving around Washington like you aren't next in line? How can that be, Charlie? Do you know something I don't?"

  Lavender fought to make his voice calm and organized. Byrne could hear the effort, and Bravo whooshed out a little air in equal understanding.

  Charlie said, "Nobody is coming after me, Byrne. I'm a government agent, for God's sake. I've taken the necessary steps, and I'm covered even if anybody was trying for me."

  He again wondered, "How did you get my cell number, anyway?"

  "You're not the only guy with contacts, Lavender." Listening in, Bravo's shoulders shook in silent laughter.

  Byrne pressed harder. "And your family, Charlie? Are they moved out and covered? Are they in a Witness Protection Program or something? Bad guys are looking for me, and I've got to tell you these are mean people who will torture and kill anybody they get interested in."

  Lavender was more ready now. "I take care of my own, Alpha. If bad people are after you it has nothing to do with me. You are reading tea leaves or something. All we did together twenty years ago was to look around. No one is interested in any of that—even if any of those bad guys had survived, which they didn't."

  "That's not what I heard, Charlie. A bunch of them went to prison. Who were they, innocent spectators?"

  Lavender clearly felt on safer ground. His voice grew stronger and more certain. "Those were body guards and distant relatives, Byrne.

  "The Santos crowd was wiped out, and the family has dropped off our radar. When all of the Santos men and their sons were killed by those guerillas, other cartels moved in and took over.

  "The Santos are gone, but even they knew nothing about our being in the neighborhood. Forget them, Alpha. If you've got trouble, it's from another source."

  Byrne ignored Bravo's thumbs down gesture. It was time to be conciliatory and apologetic for involving a former friend.

  Byrne heaved a resigned sigh and added, "I suppose you are right, Dewey. It's just that I can't figure out anything else."

  Lavender was immediately expansive. "Go deep, Byrne, go where no one can find you. Then take time to reason it out. Maybe none of it is connected to you. Whoever it was got Bravo. Now they are gone. Strange stuff happens.

  "If you haven't seen anyone yet, no one is coming. Hell, Don, if anybody wanted to do you harm they wouldn't have waited, would they? There is no one out there looking for you.

  "Shepard was involved in a million deals out there on the coast, and it could have been any of a dozen gangs that do those kinds of things. They kill just to make themselves feel important. It might have been something like that. Stay clear, is my advice.

  "If you don't like going deep, you don't have to run. You are
a medical doctor, Don. Go home where you are known. Talk to your local authorities. Find out what they think."

  The line was quiet for a long moment before Lavender added, "Look, Alpha, I can't get involved in stuff outside the agency. I'd help if I could, but I am a deskman. I don't know about fieldwork."

  Alpha had still offered nothing, and Lavender was forced to continue.

  "I'll tell you what, Don. Give it a couple of weeks. If things don't clear up by then, give me another call. Maybe I will hear something or think of some way I can help. Will you do that, Alpha?"

  Byrne's voice sounded a bit relieved, as if Lavender's ideas had settled him and given some practical advice.

  "You're right, Charlie. It must be something else. Hell, I feel stupid bugging you about it. I'll do what you suggest, and no one will hear from me for at least a month. Even then, I'll look around carefully before I get back to work."

  Alpha's tone changed to irritation. "I've got patients needing me, and there I'll be hiding out in some cheap motel somewhere. What a hell of a mess. I'm too old for this, Charlie."

  Both Alpha and Bravo believed Charlie's chuckle held relief—genuine relief. His words matched his voice.

  "Don't hide out in a dive, Don. Go down to Key West or maybe on to Belize or somewhere. Sit in the sun, fish, meet some women and enjoy a vacation. The locals will catch the bastards that did Shepard. It'll probably all calm down and be gone by the time you feel ready to come home."

  After Byrne clicked off, they sat unspeaking for long moments. Bravo sighed. "He ratted us out, Alpha. It is in his voice and in his suggestions."

  Bravo nodded to himself before adding, "He sure didn't do much agonizing over me getting my throat cut, did he?"

  Byrne agreed. "Dewey Lavender gave us up. Until he got his mind in gear, he sounded ready to wet his pants. The question is why would he do it? And, the answer is, money. Somebody paid him big.

  "A Mercedes sports car and a nice condo in DC with a pissed off, divorced wife who wants everything he's got? Unless Lavender got a couple of big promotions, he came into outside money."

  "If he got promoted big, he wouldn't have the same work number, would he?"

  Byrne wondered, "Who, besides the Santos would pay Dewey Lavender for anything?" He answered his own query. "Nobody I can think of."

  Bravo added, "He sold us to the Santos, Don. He knows who is after us and that he is safe from them. Charlie never had any guts that I saw. I suppose he has an issue service pistol, but if he didn't feel protected from whoever is after us, he would be so deep into protection we'd never find him."

  Bravo's voice rose in anger. "We need to kill that bastard, and we've got to do it before he disappears into some CIA hidey-hole."

  Alpha's words were cynical. "I guess we will have to report him to his superiors, Bravo."

  Shepard snorted. "Yeah, that would stop the Santos cold, and we could forget about them. We've got to go to Washington, Don." Shepard was positive. "We have to speak close and personal with Charlie."

  As Bravo had expected, Byrne was nodding agreement.

  Bravo asked, "So what will we say to him, Don?"

  Byrne's words were clear. "Why, I guess we will have play it by ear, pardner."

  This time, Bravo liked the answer. He was very sure that Dewey Lavender would not.

  Chapter 15

  Alpha gazed contentedly at the pile of wallets, an address notebook, and five pistols laid out on the trailer's eating table.

  He had found the stash almost by accident. His third complete search of the sniper's trailer had uncovered nothing new, so he had relaxed on the camper's settee and thought about it.

  Byrne was the kind of man who noticed symmetry—or lack of it. That meant that when he sat in a room (any room) his eye judged the straightness of walls, doorways, and window jams. Without awareness, his eyes lined them up, and like it or not, he knew if everything he saw was square and vertical.

  Resting on the settee, Byrne's eyes had followed the lines of the cabinet moldings and doors. He had already examined the cabinets for hidden compartments. He had removed every drawer and measured their lengths. A short drawer could mean space behind. He had knocked on walls, and he had looked for secret spaces. There had been nothing. He had, of course, pulled the refrigerator and the stove forward, but there had been nothing behind either appliance.

  Still . . . the sniper team's personals had to be somewhere. Men did not travel without money and ID, and these men would have had handguns. Where were they? Hidden in the woods appeared increasingly probable.

  Byrne's eyes roamed, and something about the paneling below the small cabinet above the refrigerator winked at him. He had checked the bottom of the cabinet, and it was tight and solid. He had not examined the top of the refrigerator opening from the inside, however, and as his attention focused, the vertical paneling between cabinet and refrigerator appeared too tall. Perhaps it was an allowance for a taller appliance, but no space could be wasted in travel trailers and—Bryne needed to look.

  This time, Alpha pulled the refrigerator all the way into the camper's narrow hallway. He felt around in the space above the refrigerator's top, but detected nothing. With one hand in the overhead cabinet and the other against the top of the refrigerator space he judged the closeness of his hands. Sure enough, there was extra room there. He guessed the space as nearly five inches high. Allow a half-inch or so for the cabinet floor, and perhaps a separate ceiling in the refrigerator space, and that left four inches unaccounted for. Byrne went for his flashlight.

  Doctors like good working lights, and Don Byrne's flashlight was a Surefire that exploded white light of outrageous power. Peering upward, Byrne's heart leaped. He was staring at a pair of twist catches that wedged the front paneling tightly in place.

  Even before he twisted the catches and slid the paneling forward, Alpha knew he had found the sniper's cache. The panel moved, and the ceiling of the appliance space went with it. Byrne found himself gazing into a four-inch deep drawer, two feet wide and at least that long. More or less tossed in, were wallets, pistols, a half-dozen extra magazines that would fit the pistols, two boxes of .45 ACP ammunition, and some unrecognized papers. There was a thick money bundle that Byrne judged would be worth counting. A notebook was beneath everything, and Byrne expected it might be the most important find.

  Byrne laid the treasures on the Formica-topped table and gently closed the secret drawer. He muscled the refrigerator back into position and re-anchored it with the supplied hold-downs. No one would want a loose refrigerator crashing about in a moving vehicle.

  The discovery was like buried treasure, and Byrne wished Bravo had been there to experience it. Bravo, unfortunately, was in California. Shepard's local law enforcement had gotten hard about his reluctance to return to make statements and help with the murder of his friend at his house during his absence.

  Shepard had departed. He would appear at the sheriff's office and do what he could to explain who the victim had been, to prove his own absence from the crime scene, and to beg the sheriff to keep his survival a secret, especially from the press, for as long as he could.

  Then, Bravo would return to Idaho, and Byrne guessed they would depart for Chicago and wherever else the trail pointed them. Washington D.C. seemed more than likely. Charlie needed to tell all that he knew, including more than the sniper's Chicago contact called Jocko.

  — — —

  Bravo returned with no guarantees. The sheriff was an elected official, and he had already begun campaigning for reelection. He could use a dramatic press release. Tom Shepard's surprising survival would soon be public knowledge, and the press would milk the mystery from the story. If bad guys were checking, the failure of the sniper team's first effort would initiate frantic investigation of where their team was and what it was now doing.

  Only for the moment could Byrne and Shepard believe themselves unsearched for. Soon, whoever had sent the killers would again have men on the hunt.

>   — — —

  Alpha said, "We've already stayed here too long. We should start east immediately."

  Bravo was weary from his travels, but he was in complete agreement. "So, let's get going. Produce some armament from your secret horde, and we will kill them all."

  Alpha ignored his partner's impatience.

  "We've got some good stuff right here, Bravo." Byrne chose a pistol from the assortment once owned by the sniper team.

  The weapon was a High Standard, semi-automatic .22 caliber. The long pistol appeared to be bull barreled, but Byrne recognized the over-barrel silencer that could reduce the gun's report to little more than a soft plop.

  Bravo's voice was grim. "That's an old CIA-style weapon. They loved the High Standards."

  Bravo examined the other pistols. "The rest are 1911 clones—all .45s, and you can't get anything better than that cartridge."

  Byrne agreed. The M3 sub-machine guns the sniper team had carried used that ammunition. A man hit by a big .45 caliber slug tended to go down and lose interest in most things around him.

  Alpha shook himself into action. "First we will shoot these guns. Assuming they function decently we can include them. As long as we wear gloves and avoid leaving fingerprints, we can abandon these weapons anywhere without them being traced back to us."

  Bravo chose a pair of pistols, and they stepped into Alpha's backyard to shoot. Bravo snickered to himself, and Alpha asked what was so funny.

  "What's funny, pardner, is that you worry about some super-sleuth finding our fingerprints on guns, but you don't wonder about those same people locating bullets from these weapons sunk into trees or ground all, over this place."

  Alpha remained unbothered. "We will shoot into the bank over there, and the bullets will join a million others that are buried deep all over this hollow.

  "If television's CSI shows up, and they match bullets to pistols with their yet-to-be-invented computer programs, we will simply claim that some bad guys, unknown to us, did the shooting and we know nothing about it."