by Marc Cameron
Also by Marc Cameron
Tom Clancy Power and Empire
Dead Drop
Field of Fire
Brute Force
Day Zero
Time of Attack
State of Emergency
Act of Terror
National Security
Triple Frontier
A Jericho Quinn novella
Marc Cameron
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by Marc Cameron
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Marc Cameron
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Pinnacle Books and the Pinnacle logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: May 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7860-4273-9
“Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers . . .”
—Learned Hand
Puerto Iguazú, Argentina
Monday
Nothing says “your prompt payment is appreciated” like the sight of another man’s severed toe.
Justino Medina stared down at the open ring box on his coffee table, teetered for a moment on unsteady feet, and then collapsed into the cool white leather of his expensive couch. Fernando Richter did not offer a grace period. Delinquent accounts served two very important purposes: they demonstrated Richter’s resolve to the other cartel bosses in La Triple Frontera, and they provided body parts to use as a billing notice for the next name in Richter’s ledger.
Smaller sums might cost the debtor a finger or, as in this case, a big toe. If more was owed, more digits would be taken. From there, Richter moved to the teeth. Justino thought he would rather lose a few teeth than his fingers and toes, but Fernando Richter did not let his victims have a say in these matters. And in any case, Justino and his wife owed such a large sum of money, they simply did not have enough parts to cut off.
Angelica Medina came out of the kitchen carrying a terracotta platter of baked cheese and sándwiches de miga—the trimmed whitebread finger sandwiches ubiquitous to Argentina. Two inches taller than her husband, she had high cheeks and the most exquisite of collarbones. She was absolutely breathtaking, well above Justino’s station, and he knew it. Justino was bald, with an odd little ring of fuzzy hair like some kind of botched monastic tonsure. Angelica refused to let him shave his head or cover with a toupee. She, on the other hand, had thick black hair that she wore around her splendid face like the helmet of a beautiful Amazon princess. He could not understand why such an attractive woman had married a toad like him, unless it was because he could never bring himself to tell her no—as he should have done when she’d suggested they go into business with Fernando Richter, the Paraguayan boss most people referred to simply as “The German.”
Angelica was a judge in the Misiones district court. As such, she was accustomed to order in her courtroom and the day to day activities of her life. Even a bloody toe on her coffee table could not dissuade her from afternoon tea and a subsequent two-hour siesta. She would certainly not be difficult to find if the time came for The German to start cutting.
Angelica gave her husband a peck on top of his bald head and then set the tray of food on the table, nodding at the bloody toe. “Cover that awful thing with a paper towel and have something to eat, my love.”
She folded long legs under her bottom and sat down cat-like on the couch, leaning forward to spear a piece of baked white cheese with a wooden skewer the size of a large flat toothpick. A copy of La Nación lay on the couch beside her and she picked it up, flipping through it while she ate.
Justino sat with his mouth hanging open. “How can you be so calm?”
Angelica looked up from the newspaper and gestured with the wooden skewer as she chewed a bite of cheese. “What do you wish me to do? Weep? Chew my nails? I am a judge and you are a well-respected lawyer. We are intelligent people.” She pursed her lips, the way she did when she was annoyed. “In any case, we have six days remaining.”
“Six days with no prospects,” Justino groaned. “My love, if we do not find the money to pay this monster . . .” He felt the overwhelming urge to chew his nails, but couldn’t now that his wife had made it sound so cowardly.
This plan was completely insane, but for some reason, Angelica, one of the smartest women he knew, could not see it.
Going into business with Fernando Richter was dealing with a viper. He could be trusted to lie about everything but the time he would come to kill you. Not even an Argentine, he lived instead across the river, two rivers actually—the Iguazú that separated Argentina and Brazil, and the Paraná that flowed between Brazil and Paraguay—in Ciudad del Este, thief among many other thieves.
The Medinas knew of Richter. Everyone in the Tri-Border region did. One of Justino’s clients had once said that The German had cut off his hand for nothing. Another man in the jail had overheard the conversation. “Liar!” the second man had said. “For nothing, The German only cuts off a few fingers.”
Until now, Justino had been able to steer clear of any entanglements with the cartel boss and his violent associates. Then Angelica had gotten it into her beautiful head that they simply had to build an addition to their home. Like the devil who came when one uttered his name, Fernando Richter had appeared from the other side of the river and offered to front them 1000 kilos of marijuana. The Medinas could, he said, take the drugs with a load of their soybeans bound for São Paulo, sell it there, and pay him after the fact. With Richter charging two hundred dollars per kilo they could double their money with buyers in São Paulo, easily paying him back his 200,000. It had seemed like easy money. The bulk of all the marijuana grown in Paraguay ended up in Brazil—and little of it was ever interdicted by authorities. Risks were minimal and the rewards were high.
Usually.
For the first time since they’d started shipping soy, their barge had been stopped by bandits on the Iguazú River. The marijuana had been stolen, leaving the Medinas no drugs to sell in São Paulo and therefore no profit to pay Richter back for his advance. He’d graciously given them one month to recoup his investment. In hindsight, The German had most certainly stolen the drugs himself. Justino had no doubt that his men had merely continued down the river to sell the marijuana in Brazil. Any money he got from the Medinas would be a windfall. If they did not pay him, he would simply kill them to keep up appearances. It cost him nothing, and from all accounts, he would probably enjoy it.
Justino leaned back and stared at the ceiling. They’d been happy before all this, padding their regular salaries and shipping income as buscas panzas. Literally belly hunters, they
looked for pregnant women among the local population. Blue-eyed blondes of European heritage were preferable, but Guarani Indians were acceptable if that was all they could find. These indigenous women were so desperately poor that they could barely feed the children they had. It was usually a simple matter to convince them to sell one to a family who wanted to give it a better life. If the woman did not see the value of the transaction, Jelly or one of the other men who worked for Angelica would help them reach the right decision.
They had two such women now in the pipeline that were ready to pop, with couples from Buenos Aires prepared to pay ten thousand dollars for each baby. Any other time that would have been a great deal of money—but it was so far from what they needed that it might as well have been nothing at all.
“We could sell the house,” Justino offered, still unable to eat. “Perhaps we—”
“This is our home,” his wife scoffed. “And besides, no one would buy it in such a short time.”
Justino groaned. “Then what do you suggest, my love? I happened to be quite attached to my toes and my teeth.”
“Oh, Justo, you stupid, stupid man,” Angelica said, without looking up from her newspaper. “We owe The German a great deal of money. He will surely cut off something much more important than a few toes and teeth.”
“That does not help me feel better—”
Angelica held up her hand, judge-like, focusing now on something in the newspaper. “My love,” she said, her leg suddenly bouncing with energy. “I believe I have found the answer to our prayers. Do you have your mobile?”
Justino fished into his pocket, holding up the phone when he found it, and trying desperately to control his breathing.
“Good,” Angelica said. “Call Jelly and tell him to get the others together. We have a job for them among the porteños.”
“Buenos Aires?”
“Yes, Buenos Aires.” Angelica turned her copy of La Nación. At the top of the page was a photograph of what looked to be five handsome college students. Angelica tapped the face of the young man standing at the far left of the group. “I do not know about the others, but this one is worth a great deal of money.”
Justino smiled at his wife and gave a long sigh. She was either crazy or brilliant. These young people looked to be riding their motorbikes on some long journey, an adventure Justino himself had dreamed of before he’d met Angelica. They had done nothing to deserve what she had planned. Still, something had to be done about the issue of The German. If these poor youths could provide the money to pay him back, well, then that was just the way it had to be. Justino took the paper, bringing it closer for a better look at the people who were about to pay for his mistake.
Four of them—two men and two women—were smiling. The fifth man, perhaps ten years older than the others, with shaggy blonde hair and piercing eyes, did not look happy at all.
Buenos Aires
Tuesday, 7:35 a.m.
Bo Quinn finished a breakfast of ham and cheese empanada and strong coffee and stepped out the side door of the Urbanica Hotel in the upscale Belgrano neighborhood to give the bikes one final check before the morning got underway. He was charged with the safety of the riders—and that started with their motorcycles. The morning was cool, a welcome respite from the weeks of riding in the heat. It was March—autumn in Argentina—and the seedpods were falling like miniature helicopters from the tall rosewood trees outside the hotel.
Mussed straw-colored hair brushed the tab collar of Quinn’s Vanson jacket. His leather boots, once shiny black but now scuffed and a more respectable weather-worn brown, said he’d been at this riding business for some time. He bent at the waist and touched his palms to the gray paving stone, stretching his back and knees. Joints popped. Scar tissue complained. Old injuries—and there were many—ground bone on bone.
Bo looked after people. Some, he looked after by seeing that they got what they deserved. Others, that they did not.
Three of the riders under his stewardship who stumbled out of the hotel at that moment in varying stages of bleary-eyed stupor deserved to be protected. The fourth, a smarmy business school dropout with a perpetual case of bed-head, was another matter. The first three abided by Quinn’s mandate of anonymity, but Matt King never met a photo of himself he did not love—and he posted all of them on his various social media accounts.
South America was no place to advertise the fact that you were a rich North American. Matt King either didn’t understand, or he just plain didn’t care.
Yesterday, Bo’s fears had been born out when someone tipped off a reporter from La Nación to a photograph of the entire tour group on Matt King’s Instagram account. They were all standing beside their bikes in front of the Urbanica Hotel like a bunch of carefree college students—as if one of their fathers didn’t own a company worth upwards of five hundred million American dollars. It was just the sort of information you didn’t want broadcast anywhere, let alone a country where quickly planned “express” kidnappings weren’t exactly unheard of.
There was little Bo could do but cajole. He couldn’t very well slap one of the kids he was supposed to be protecting. He did mention the incident in the nightly email to his employer the evening before, but so far, he’d received no reply.
Bo looked up and down the street at the morning traffic. It was normal, so far as he could tell. They’d make a run south to their next stop in Tandil to look at a few knife shops, and then end up in Bahia Blanca before dark. Hopefully, no one would be ballsy enough to try anything stupid against five American bikers in broad daylight. At least, the plan was to leave early and arrive before dark. Trying to get these guys going in the morning was trying to push a piece of wet spaghetti.
He checked each bike’s tires while the group stowed their gear and checked emails for the tenth time that morning. Rich people didn’t have to worry about pesky things like roaming charges and out-of-country cell data fees.
Two of the motorcycles were Harley Davidson Road Kings like Bo’s. One was one a Ducati and the other, a Honda Africa Twin. All were loaded like pack mules with luggage and camping gear—though they hardly ever camped—leaning on side stands along the uneven walk in the chilly shadows of the hotel.
A tall woman sidled up next to the Africa Twin, eyeing Bo with a beautifully arched dark brow as she secured her tank bag. She wore armored riding pants similar to Bo’s. Hers were black leather; his faded denim Tobacco jeans. A wide yellow headband swept back thick auburn hair, revealing a prominent widow’s peak. Somewhere in her early twenties, Alma Cortez had impeccable taste about virtually everything but men. Bo would have loved to show her the error of her thinking, but sleeping with the girlfriend of a client seemed like a bad idea.
Alma’s boyfriend moved in behind her to check the Ducati, textile riding pants drooping like he was carrying a load in the seat of his drawers. Matt King was the son of a real estate tycoon from Houston. The sultry Chilean girl had met him at a club in Dallas. His dark superman curl and quick wit had somehow concealed the more vaporous aspects of his nature, and for reasons Quinn could not fathom, she’d agreed to accompany King and his friends on this two-month motorcycle journey to the tip of South America. The young man seemed to realize the relationship was doomed and held on to it just a little too tight, never letting Alma get too far away for more than a few moments—especially around Bo.
“Alka-Seltzer,” King demanded, rubbing his eyes with one hand while holding out an open palm.
Bo eyed the outstretched hand, weighing his options. In the end, he chose the one that wouldn’t get him fired. “You borrowed the last from my kit yesterday.”
King groaned. “Somebody’s gonna have to go get me some more before we ride. My gut’s on fire.”
“I’ll go,” Alma said. “It won’t take long.”
Bo shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere except as a group. Not after that photo stunt.”
King rolled his eyes. “It’s the twenty first century,
genius. People post stuff. Get over it.”
“He’s trying to help us, Matt,” Alma said. “Cut him some slack.”
Bo shrugged it off. It was something like this every day. Privately, he vowed never again to allow the offer of a large chunk of money to lure him into such a thankless job.
“There’s a store a couple of miles away,” he said. “We’ll stop there on our way out of town so you can do the plop-plop fizz-fizz thing.”
The other two riders, an attractive blond woman who was on the smallish side and an athletic young man with a shaggy beard attended to their own bikes. Eva Turcott and Steven Grey weren’t quite engaged, but Bo was pretty sure it was going to happen any day now. The fact that Grey carried a diamond ring easily worth twenty grand in the pocket of his riding pants did nothing to help Quinn’s fears.
The two lovebirds chatted quietly, oblivious to everyone else on the trip, and frankly, most of the world around them. Steven’s father knew his son was in no mental state to ride to the tip of South America without a sheepdog to watch over him. Riley Grey was a biker himself, and had been friends with Bo Quinn since his dotcom company was barely a blip on the Internet. Few people even knew who Steven was, but he’d made the tabloids more than once and the elder Grey had decided it was a good idea to hire Bo to look after his heir. The state of the world made it an absolute necessity.
Bo threw a leg over his Road King and hit the ignition, letting the engine warm up while he slipped on his helmet and fastened the chin strap. For some reason, the others never seemed to realize it was time to get on their bikes until he started his.
When everyone was mounted and ready, Bo turned to look at the others before calling out over the Cardo Bluetooth on his helmet. Straddling their bikes, they looked like they did on most every other day of their journey—with Alma eyeing Bo in a flirtatious pout, Steven and Eva lost in a lovers’ fog, and Matt’s head up his ass.