“The kind of people who have a lot of money at stake and who won’t hesitate to protect their investment. Even if it means maiming or killing someone.” He took another swig of the beer, then looked at her mischievously. “It’s just like your profession. Lots of money on the line, so people don’t think twice about stabbing each other in the back.”
“Well I’m really hoping nobody goes too far overboard with the final stage of this game we’re orchestrating for Zealot Jeans.”
“What’s the deal?”
“We have the finalists all coming to Salento. The winner will be determined by who can create the most publicity for the brand by using their favorite personal pair of Zealot Jeans.”
“And you’re worried that someone will set themselves on fire or jump off a building and then upload the video?”
“Actually I wasn’t worrying about those things. Until just now.”
Mitchell laughed and drained his beer. “What do you want to do about dinner?”
“I’m not really hungry.”
“If I ordered some moo goo gai pan, would you eat some?”
“Ohhh, from Shirley Wong’s? With the fresh mushrooms and her crackling spicy calamari salad rolls!?”
Her sudden enthusiasm made them both burst into laughter. “Yeah, that’s right,” Mitchell said. “Miss I’m-not-really-hungry, but if you get between me and the moo goo, I’ll chew through your arm.”
Mya got up from the sofa and padded over to where Mitchell was standing in the kitchen doorway. “Listen, copper,” she said with a smile. “You order the food. Then I’ll show you a little trick I can do with my favorite pair of Zealot Jeans.”
“I presume it involves removing them?”
“Make the call,” she said, walking toward her bedroom. “Then get your ass in here.”
Mitchell had just collapsed onto the carpet when the door buzzer rang. “Crap, I need something to throw on.”
He grabbed a pink silk robe off the back of the bathroom door, and ran for the control panel by Mya’s front door. “Very sexy!” Mya’s voice sang out from the floor behind him.
Mitchell buzzed the delivery man into the building, then waited by the door. Thanks to the high-speed elevator he heard a knock half a minute later. He opened the door. The delivery guy was on the debit side of twenty years old, a good-looking kid decked out in designer labels and flash shoes.
“Hey Mitchell, that’s really your color,” the kid said.
“I know it is, Perry. Brings out the veins in my eyes.” Mitchell took the bag of food and gave him a generous tip. Perry nodded his thanks sincerely.
“Say hi to your mum for us,” Mitchell said.
“I will. She says she’s glad Mya is eating so well.”
“Nothing about me?”
“Uh, yeah. She says you are out of your league.”
“Huh. Well you tell her I’m thinking maybe Indian food is more my style.”
He winked at Perry and closed the door. Mya came out of the bedroom in a cotton tank top and black underwear that would make a screener at airport security blush. “Oh, that smells so good!”
Mitchell carried the food to the coffee table in the living room and they sat on the area rug for their feast. “Why the hell does Shirley Wong like you more than me? I’d been going there five years before we met!”
“I dunno. Girl power?”
“Girl power my ass!”
They scarfed back the moo goo gai pan and salad rolls like they were death row inmates eating their last meal. When the containers held nothing but trace amounts of sauce, Mitchell put them back in the bag and took them into the kitchen. He returned with a couple more beers.
“So the captain says the dope-hijackers are still out there. And you’ve got the grand finale of your jeans thing coming up. This might be our last sit-down dinner in a while. I’m really motivated to solve this thing. If only because I’m tired of Ramsey’s vivid descriptions about how far up his ass the mayor is climbing.”
Mya paused to burp carefully, without opening her mouth. Impressed with her gentility, she gazed thoughtfully out the full-length windows at the city’s glittering skyline. “From up here it just looks so beautiful, doesn’t it. There’s no indication of the brutality. The cruelty. The suffering. Sometimes I wish I could just stay up here.”
Mitchell took her hand. “Now now. Give the good guys a chance to turn the tide. I may not wear a cape, but that doesn’t make me any less of a crusader.”
Mya looked at the amber liquid in her bottle. “You make me feel safe. And I know that most of the people out there are good. But promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Always.”
An hour down the coast, the Colonel and his men were driving one of their vans to a drop zone to meet their buyer. Because one of the grow houses had held an immature crop, they had phoned ahead to advise the buyer of the reduced size of the payload. A mile off the highway they pulled up to a small cabin, situated by a pasture where two horses could just barely be seen grazing in the fading light.
Barros pulled the van up in front of the cabin. He left the headlights on. They shone out into the pasture. The horses looked over, chewing contentedly. Barros and the Colonel got out of the vehicle. Luis opened the back door. He, Diego, and Hector prepared to unload the bags.
The cabin door opened and five men came out. Last to emerge was Aaron Carr, a major player in the coastal drug trade. Unlike Otis Gaverill, Aaron Carr didn’t restrict himself to the marijuana market. If it could get you high, he was into it. From crackhouses to penthouses, he had the market covered. Carr was waiting for Otis’s grip on Salento to weaken enough so he could move in without the expense of a major war.
The four men with him were all carrying HK MP5 submachine guns. Normally these meetings were conducted without any displays of aggression. The Colonel saw the weapons but walked forward fearlessly. “Mr. Carr. Have you made the wire transfer?”
Carr lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring into the still night air. “There will be no need for a wire transfer tonight. I think I’ve given you enough these past few weeks. Tell your men to unload and then be on your way.”
The Colonel shook his head. “I realize there is a cliché about there being no honor among thieves. But I thought you were above such clichés.”
Carr took another pull on his cigarette. “Do you know how many men I’ve buried in that field?” He motioned with his hand. “I will not hesitate to bury five more. Now do as I say.”
The Colonel spoke softly, almost imperceptibly. “Andre.”
One of Carr’s four men collapsed to the ground, a neat bullet wound in the geometric center of his forehead. The others brought their weapons to bear on the Colonel.
The Colonel put up a hand, then took a cigar from his coat and casually appraised the fine leaf wrapper. “It’s not the five of us you should be worried about. It’s the sixth.” He took the clipper from his pocket, neatly removed the end of the cigar and inspected his handiwork.
“Diego!”
Diego got out of the back of the van carrying a battered stainless steel laptop case. The Colonel motioned for him to come forward. “Diego will provide you with the means to make the transfer. If you do not agree to deposit the funds, I will have Andre put a bullet through the bridge of your nose.”
Carr’s eyes darted out into the blackness. There had been no muzzle flash. He and his men had assumed they had the drop on the Colonel and his men. But without knowing where the sniper was, he had no choice. “Martin. Make the transfer.”
One of the men came forward and took the laptop from Diego. Within two minutes he handed it back. Diego looked briefly at the screen, typed a string of characters, then nodded to the Colonel.
The Colonel lit his cigar. “I know you always carry a generous amount of cash Mr. Carr. Give it to me now.”
Another of Carr’s men went into the cabin and emerged with a khaki duffle. He threw it at the Colonel’s feet. The Colonel looked at the dust
the bag had stirred up, which was now settling on his spit-shined boots. He sighed as he picked up the bag.
“Look on the bright side, Mr. Carr” the Colonel said as he backed toward the van. “Now you only have to bury one man in the field instead of five.”
They drove quickly back toward the highway, stopping to pick up Andre on the way. The Colonel nodded to him appreciatively as he settled into the back with the others. Luis watched out the back window for any signs that Carr and his men were following them.
After twenty minutes of silence, Hector was the first to speak. “I believe it would be wise if that was our last transaction with Mr. Carr. I doubt he’s going to be caught off guard like that again. And he doesn’t seem to be the type to allow someone to get the better of him.”
The Colonel took a long draw on his cigar, savored the smoke in his mouth, then blew it out in a steady stream. “An excellent observation, Hector. I agree; we’ve seen the last of Mr. Carr.”
“Forgive me, Commandante,” said Luis. “But without a buyer, how will we raise the remaining eight million dollars?”
The Colonel contemplated the glowing end of his cigar. “Our raids on the grow houses are over. Odds are that our luck would change if we maintained our tactics. They are bound to create some sort of booby-trap we would overlook in our haste to get in and out of the houses. The police are also looking for the type of vans we use. They have started pulling over random vehicles fitting the description. There’s also the unpredictable. A flat tire or mechanical problem could leave us stranded in suburban America. We all know how to disappear in the jungle. But seven heavily armed men would find it difficult to blend in among the shopping malls and coffee shops.
“So instead of the raids we have been executing, we will aim for one more mission. If it is successful, and I think with the right plan it will be, then we will have all the funds we need to return and reclaim our country.”
The men cheered at the prospect of going home, even though they knew a more dangerous mission awaited them there. The Colonel flicked his cigar butt out the window where it threw up sparks in the night each time it bounced on the asphalt. He closed his eyes and began to put the plan together for their final strike at Otis Gaverill’s organization.
He knew that any criminal enterprise that generated a lot of cash needed a way to launder the money. The Colonel smiled as he pondered their final mission: a visit to the laundromat.
43
With his visit to the US just one week away, Pyotr Ptushko was getting feedback from his people on the ground in Salento that did not fit in with his plans.
While he was amused at the thought of accepting a hero’s welcome from a country he frequently found himself at odds with, he was also determined to accomplish some key business objectives while in Salento. The most important was greasing the wheels with the port authority and the dockworkers’ union to expedite the movement of any cargo brought to America by his shipping company.
As of ten days ago, the port authority executives were on his payroll. His advance party had wined them, dined them, padded their bank accounts, and then for good measure, captured them on hidden cameras with a variety of exotic prostitutes. It was a typical, if tawdry, example of his business methods. Ptushko always built redundancy into his plans. If money wasn’t enough, blackmail usually did the trick. If someone he did business with was determined to be a martyr and come clean to the authorities, Ptushko would not hesitate to make them disappear.
Occasionally, he encountered an incorruptible official. Ted Macnamara, the head of the Salento Dockworkers’ Union, was such a man. Despite Ptushko’s lawyers’ overtures, the man could not be bought, threatened, or blackmailed. He was as upright and steadfast as a piece of rebar. Macnamara had done his part to eliminate corruption on the docks. In his younger days this had meant occasionally going toe to toe with a rival between stacks of shipping containers. But more recently he used logic and bargaining power to keep the dockworkers united. They had seen better collective bargaining agreements than ever under Macnamara’s sixteen-year leadership, which had been affirmed with a ninety-one percent vote at the last annual meeting.
In cases like these, Ptushko knew that he had to destabilize his adversary. He instructed Yasmine to delegate the job to a man in America they knew only as “K.”
K specialized in accidental death. And so it was that late one night, after leaving his favorite watering hole, Ted Macnamara was cut down by a stolen pickup truck as it fled the scene of a liquor store holdup. The store’s surveillance cameras were not operating. The driver of the vehicle disappeared. And ultimately a more morally flexible candidate ended up as the leader of the dockworkers’ union. He brought his own executive into power with him, and Ptushko’s grip on the docks tightened.
The word deadline originated in a South Carolina prison during the US Civil War. It was impossible to devote enough resources to build walls high enough to contain hundreds of prisoners of war, so a simple boundary line was established. If you went beyond the line, you were shot.
While Pyotr Ptushko often invoked the original spirit of the word, Mya’s team at Dunn, Burgess & Taylor worked toward figurative deadlines. Nonetheless, the pressure the agency’s deadlines exerted on the team felt just as intense.
Not that Dunn was as ruthless as Ptushko. The men had their similarities, but Dunn was a man of unquestionable integrity. Strangely, Mya and the others found that the intensity of their deadlines came from within themselves. They wanted to succeed. To beat their competitors. To make Dunn proud. To influence pop culture and win the highest awards in the advertising business. They also knew that Dunn would reward heroic efforts accordingly.
This cocktail of fame and fortune was irresistible. It was driving Mya’s team toward the end of the Zealot Jeans Alternate Reality Game with a fervor that many church congregations would envy.
What made the agency team more anxious than normal was that they were depending on the independent actions of the game’s 14 finalists to create buzz-worthy brand statements. With the web following approaching one million viewers and the industry pundits elevating expectations with every day that passed, the climax would be largely out of the agency’s hands.
All they could do was wait.
The first finalist’s effort was not encouraging. Mya and Mitchell awoke to the usual inane banter of the morning show. Just before she hit the alarm’s off button, Mya heard, “…Pair of jeans flying from the flag pole at city hall.”
“Oh crap,” she said as she listened further.
“What?” Mitchell mumbled.
“Sounds like the first finalist in the game is out of the starting blocks, and it’s a cheesy stunt. Your favorite morning show duo even thought it was lame. Although they didn’t mention the brand name, so it could’ve been worse.”
Mya got on the phone to Arlo immediately. He picked up within half a ring.
“Hey, did you hear?” he asked her.
“Yes, that’s why I’m calling,” Mya said. “It’s my worst nightmare. Some sophomoric stunt that is right out of a bad teen frat movie.”
“What are you talking about?” Arlo said.
“The jeans that were run up the flagpole at city hall,” Mya replied. “Why, what are you talking about?”
“I just saw one of our finalists upload a link to a fantastic bit of sculpture on line. It was dropped off at three a.m. on the Founding Fathers’ Boardwalk. I’m sending you the link right now.”
Mya heard Arlo’s fingers racing over his keyboard. He could type at 160 words per minute. She ran to her laptop. Someone named DENIMANIAC had posted a webcam link called “Fabric of a Just Society.” The video feed showed a six-foot cube of Lucite sitting in the middle of the Salento Founding Fathers’ Boardwalk. Embedded in the clear plastic was a pair of Zealot Jeans, open and standing upright as if worn by a ghost. There was a caption on the video and an engraved plaque on the block of plastic. It read…
“Put money in my jeans, and we
’ll donate it to encourage proper wages for the sweatshops where many other jeans are made.”
It went on to describe how Zealot Jeans were among the very few to use organic cotton and fair-trade practices in production. The location of the sculpture was perfect, since the retail and trade area on the boardwalk was comprised of trendy, upscale merchants who all had an excellent track record within the community.
As Mya watched, almost half the people who walked by were throwing money into the top of the sculpture. On the phone, Arlo was giggling. “It’s awesome. A really cool statement.”
Mya had to admit it was true. “Light years ahead of the flagpole.”
“What radio station do you listen to that they have nothing better to talk about than that?” Arlo asked her in disgust.
“Never mind,” said Mya. “It’s a long story. I’m headed in to the office. See you there.”
By the time they arrived in the agency war room most of the team was already there. Sisha Wong had slept there on a couch. The flagpole jeans had already been removed. The word from other publicity channels was that the “jeans in plastic” sculpture was already full of donations and had been emptied by the Boardwalk Merchants Association. They had approved of the stunt. By noon on the first day the jeans had contained $3,400 in donations, and reports indicated that they were well on their way to filling up again. The webcam link was on one of four big-screen monitors in the agency war room. The team watched as the donations continued.
Two down. Twelve more to go.
44
The Colonel advised his men that they were going to “go dark” for five days. The men used this time as they always did: cleaning weapons, exercising, and competing with one another in everything from cards to video games.
Diego and the Colonel spent half their days hunched over the laptop computer, gathering intelligence on everything from the Salento PD’s progress on their whereabouts to Otis Gaverill’s possible channels of money laundering.
Like any criminal enterprise that generated large amounts of cash, Otis’s pot-growing operations required a legitimate front to cleanse the revenue. That was where Verdant Florists and Greenhouses came in. Many crime syndicates used smaller operations to disguise the source of their income. Any business that did a large amount of cash transactions was suitable. Records could be falsified and a stable income stream didn’t attract the attention of the authorities.
Grass Page 21