“Leffis Key on Anna Maria Island,” J.D. said, her tone flat.
“Yes. That’s it.”
“Where’s Worthington now?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Perez. “I was trying to reach him yesterday when the DEA showed up at my office.”
“He wasn’t much of a lawyer,” I said.
“No, but it worked for a few days. I thought we might have to use him to get to some of our idiots if they got caught. I was pretty sure at least two or three of them would be arrested before we concluded our operation. I was just trying to cover all the bases and it worked. If we hadn’t set him up as a lawyer, he wouldn’t have been able to get the drugs into the jail to kill Bagby.”
“What happened to the real Ben Flagler?” I asked.
“Worthington killed him. Gave the body to a gator hunter who needed some bait.”
“Why the whale tail copycat?” asked J.D.
“Mariah followed through with Caleb’s wishes and copied what he’d done to the women in Miami. Caleb wanted you to know that the whale tail killer was back in business and you were about to be a victim. He wanted you to live in fear for a time before you died.”
“Well,” said J.D., “he didn’t scare me, but he managed to really piss me off.”
“That wasn’t the plan,” said Perez, “and I didn’t think the whale tail thing made a whole lot of sense. That’s the reason I put a stop to it after the first two.”
“Where were you going to get the two million to pay Worthington?” J.D. asked.
“I wasn’t. I’d be gone before he came to collect it. I used some of the druggers’ money to pay the early expenses. By the time they discovered it, I’d be long gone.”
Parrish said, “With you controlling all their money, I don’t understand why the cartel put a price on your head as soon as you were arrested.”
Perez shrugged. “I guess they just wrote me off,” he said. “They’d sacrifice the money in return for me being silenced. Purely a business decision.”
“Why didn’t you run before you were arrested?” asked Parrish. “You must have seen this coming.”
“I thought I still had a couple of days. I would have been gone by this morning if your people hadn’t arrested me yesterday.”
Jock spoke up finally. “Tell me more about this guy Fuentes.”
“What can I tell you?” asked Perez. “He’s known as the crazy don. He’s notorious for killing people in the most brutal ways. A lot of that was exaggeration.”
“I’ve heard of him,” said Jock. “Stories about the crazy don have been circulating for years. We’ve never had a name, just ‘the crazy don.’”
“Now you have a name,” said Perez. “See? I believe in living up to my end of a bargain.”
“He’s the one who kills his managers now and then as an object lesson,” said J.D. “We always thought he was an urban legend.”
“He’s real,” said Perez, “and he likes to torture his victims. But Mariah is the one who kills the managers. Does it for sport. Like I said, she’s crazy as hell and she pretty much runs things. Fuentes is seen as the big cheese, but Mariah pulls all the strings. She’s the puppeteer.”
“Was Fuentes’s name Escondido before he disappeared and came back from the dead?” asked Jock.
Perez looked surprised. “It was,” he said. “How did you know that?”
Jock ignored the question. “Tell me about the Guatemalans,” he said.
“What Guatemalans?” Perez asked.
“The ones trying to kill J.D. and Matt,” Jock said.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I heard a popping sound coming from the back of the house. My first thought was that someone was making popcorn, but then my brain woke up and identified the noise as gunfire. The door to our room swung open and banged against the wall. The deputy marshal named Bert was holding a pistol and beckoning us out. “Hurry,” he said. “We’re under assault. We need to get you out of here.”
“We need our weapons,” said Jock.
“They’re on the table in the hall,” said Bert, “help yourselves. These guys have automatic weapons.”
We grabbed our pistols and ran toward the sound of gunfire. Bert stayed with Perez, put handcuffs on him and secured him to a handrail in the hall that had apparently been installed just for this purpose.
There were two other young men at the back of the house, crouched below the windows in the family room. Most of the glass panes were gone, shards littering the faded carpet. One had an M-16 rifle and the other a more modern M-4. Bullets were still coming from the rear, ricocheting about the room, embedding themselves into the walls.
“They’ve got us pinned down,” said one of the men. “I’m Tom and this is Lloyd. We’re deputy marshals.”
“Anybody at the front of the house?” Jock asked.
“Bert has it,” said Tom. “What about the sides of the house?” Jock asked.
“We’re almost blind on the west side,” said Lloyd. “Only one bedroom with a window. I checked the east side and I didn’t see anybody in that house next door.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not there,” said Jock.
“I know,” said Lloyd. “How the hell did they find us?”
“I’m not real worried about that at the moment,” I said. “Any idea how many of them there are?”
“Not sure,” said Tom. “More than two. You can tell by the amount of fire.”
Jock looked at me. “What’s Special Forces doctrine for a situation like this?”
“When surrounded, attack,” I said.
Tom spoke up again. “Bert called this in. We’ve got law enforcement on the way, but they may take a while to get out here with enough force to make a difference. The Coast Guard is getting a helicopter in the air, so we’ll at least have some eyes on them soon.”
“Unless that Coastie chopper is armed, it’s not going to do us a whole lot of good,” I said. “I don’t think we can wait for a look-see from them. If we don’t do something quick, we’ll all going to be dead by the time the reinforcements arrive.”
“Any big ideas?” asked J.D.
“Tom,” I said, “do you have anything flammable here?”
“There’s a five-gallon can of gasoline in the garage. We use it to fuel the lawn mower when the maintenance people come.”
“How much is in it?”
“I filled it up yesterday.”
“We haven’t had rain in days,” I said. “Those fields out there look dry as bones. The wind is blowing from the south right into the scrub. If we can set the stuff on fire, we can burn those bastards out.”
“How’re we going to get the gas out there?” asked J.D.
“Let me think,” I said. “How far back from the house do you think the first palmettos are?”
“Probably no more than thirty feet,” said J.D.
“About ten yards,” I said. “I can run that in less than five seconds. Can you guys give me enough covering fire to hold them down that long?”
“Carrying the gas can?” She looked a bit incredulous.
“Yeah,” I said. “Five gallons weighs less than thirty-five pounds. No big deal.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” said J.D.
“The suicide mission is staying put in this house,” I said. “How about it? Can y’all hold them for that long?”
Tom looked at J.D. “You know how to use that gun you’re holding, lady?”
“I’m a police detective,” J.D. said. “I was on the firing line when you were still in junior high.”
“Sorry, Detective. I didn’t know.”
J.D. smiled at him. “It’s okay, Marshal. What if we put Tom at the rear corner of the west side of the house. Think you can get there through the front door without drawing fire?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Jock and I’ll stay here and Lloyd can go to the back corner of the house on the east side. Is there a back door out of the garage?�
�
“Yes,” said Tom. “It opens to the backyard.”
“Okay,” said J.D. “Tom and Lloyd can take turns with short bursts into the palmettos. Jock and I’ll fire out pistols from here. That should give Matt some cover to make it to the edge of the scrub.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
But, as with many plans, we’d made a slight miscalculation. And that proved deadly.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
I was standing behind the door that led from the garage to the backyard. Gunshots were coming from the scrub, sporadically, but often. They sounded closer, as if the men had moved up, getting into position for a full-out assault on the house.
I’d found a screwdriver on what served as a workbench in the garage and had that in my right hand, holding the handle of the gas can with my left. I opened the door a crack and called as loud as I could, “Lloyd, count down from five.”
I heard him begin the count and I stabbed the bottom of the gas can with the screwdriver, making a hole large enough for the gas to pour out. Lloyd’s count ended and he fired a short burst into the scrub. As soon as he let up, I heard Tom firing from the other end of the house. Jock and J.D. also began firing.
I headed toward the palmettos at a dead run, or at least as fast as I could go while holding the can and bending over at a forty-five-degree angle. I reached the scrub and dove to a stop at the edge, the gas can beside me. I began to crawl along the edge of the scrub, emptying the can as I moved along. The firing from the house continued. Nothing was coming from the scrub. I guessed that maybe fifteen seconds had elapsed since I’d left the cover of the garage. The can was empty. It was time to go back.
I waved toward the house, signaling my intention to make my way back. The bursts of fire from the house started up again, and I began to run, full tilt this time, not worrying about being seen. I could make the house in under three seconds, and if one of the bad guys raised his head and took a shot, he’d have to be awfully good or very lucky to get me.
I made it to the door and fell into the garage. The firing stopped. It was quiet for a few moments and then I heard more gunshots coming from the palmettos. I pulled out a book of matches I’d found in the kitchen, lit one, and then set the whole book on fire. I threw it onto the gas trail I’d left as I ran for the scrub. It flared up immediately and began its run toward the palmetto thicket. When the flame reached the pools of gasoline I’d left, they exploded into a wall of fire. I could hear the crackle and pop of the dry palmetto bushes catching fire and adding to the growing conflagration. The wind was still blowing from the south hard enough to push the fire rapidly north as it gathered more and more fuel from the bushes. Smoke was beginning to rise, and I could hear scurrying out in the scrub, animals and, I hoped, men running from the inferno. Screams started drifting toward us, horrible screams of men who couldn’t move fast enough to outrun the flames. Somehow, I knew I’d hear those sounds in dark dreams for a long time.
I went back into the house in time to hear Perez scream. “No, Arturo, I’ve told them nothing.”
A loud cry in Spanish came from the hall. “Bastardo.” Then three gunshots. I rushed to the hall to find Jock ahead of me. A man was standing over Perez, a pistol in his hand. Perez had a hole in the middle of his forehead, two others in his chest. Jock grabbed the man’s arm and in a deft move twisted it making the man drop his weapon. Jock continued to bring the man’s arm around his back and pushed up until I heard a pop from the region of the man’s shoulder. He screamed and Jock pushed him to the floor, his knee on the man’s chest, his right forearm pressing down on the man’s throat.
The man struggled and Jock pushed harder on his throat, choking off the man’s breath. He was gasping for breath and Jock said, “Be still and I’ll let you breathe.” The man dropped his arms and lay quietly, his ragged breathing the only sound coming from him.
“Mr. Escondido, I presume,” said Jock. “Or do you prefer Fuentes?”
The man didn’t move, made no attempt to speak.
“I want you to understand something, Mr. Fuentes,” Jock said. “You’re responsible for the death of a friend of mine. I haven’t got much time here and I don’t care how or when you die. But, I promise you, you’re going to die hard if you don’t start talking to me.”
The man swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips. “Who are you?” he asked.
“My name isn’t important. The man you had killed was named Gene Alexander. My friend. I want to know why.”
“I don’t know anything about this.”
Jock bore down with his forearm. “Don’t lie to me,” he said.
“I’m not,” the man squeezed out, barely able to talk.
Jock let off the pressure. “You’re lying.”
“No,” the man said. “I know my wife was trying to have the detective killed. I don’t know anything about this man named Alexander.”
“Your wife, Mariah,” Jock said.
Fuentes nodded.
Jock looked back at me and stood up, leaving Fuentes on the floor. By now J.D. and the deputy marshal named Bert had joined us, both holding their pistols down beside their legs, pointed at the floor, ready if needed, but not threatening. The other two deputy marshals had fanned out around the house making sure there were no more ambushes in the making.
“How did you get involved with the Guatemalans?” Jock asked.
“I’ve used them from time to time in my business,” he said, “but not lately.”
“What about a hit man named Pedro Cantreras?” Jock asked.
“I know him, but I haven’t had anything to do with him in many months.”
“You didn’t hire him to kill Gene Alexander?”
“No. I swear.”
“Did you have the Guatemalans try to kill Detective Duncan or Mr. Royal?”
“No. I haven’t had anything to do with the Guatemalans in months. They proved less than trustworthy. I had no plans to ever use them again.”
I was wondering how Fuentes had gotten into the house. Bert was at the front and would have seen him coming. Or should have. Unless he had moved to the back to help out there. And where the hell was the cavalry? Some sort of law enforcement should have been here by now.
“Where can we find your wife?” Jock asked.
Before he could answer, a gun roared in the narrow space of the hallway. In a split second that seemed to last an eternity I saw red blossom on Fuentes’s shirt, turned to see Bert holding his pistol and moving it away from Fuentes and toward the next closest person: me. I didn’t have time to react. I’d holstered my pistol during Jock’s interrogation of Fuentes. J.D. hadn’t. Another explosion of gunfire and Bert dropped his gun. Blood appeared on his chest, but he was still breathing as he hit the floor.
I used my foot to push the pistol away from Bert. I kneeled beside him. He looked at me with fear in his eyes, a fear that was quickly turning to resignation as he accepted the fact that he was dying.
“Why, Bert?” I asked.
His lips turned up in a grimace. “Money,” he said. “Lots of money.”
“Then why kill your boss?” I asked.
“He’s not my boss,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Mariah paid me.” He coughed once, twice, and then he slipped into oblivion.
The other deputies, Tom and Lloyd, came running into the narrow hallway, weapons drawn. “What the hell?” asked Tom. “Bert?”
“He’s dead,” I said.
David Parrish, who had stood quietly during the entire time we’d been in the hall, began to explain the situation to the stunned deputy U.S. marshals.
Jock looked at me and said, “Who the hell hired the Guatemalans?”
The answers would change our view of the world we thought we understood and make us question the dimensions of the good-evil dichotomy.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
“This thing won’t be over until we find Mariah,” J.D. said over a
drink at Tiny’s. It was late and we’d had a full day. Teams from the marshal’s office, the FBI, DEA, and Miami-Dade Police Department had swarmed over the little house full of death. They found five bodies burned in the scrub that had gone up with such speed and ferocity that the men hadn’t been able to escape. Their car was found on a street in the neighboring subdivision on the other side of the palmetto field.
We’d all given detailed statements to representatives of the various agencies, and the FBI plane flew us home. It was nearing ten in the evening and we were winding down at a corner high-top table in what the owner Susie Vaught called the best little bar in paradise.
“I’m sorry I had to shoot that young marshal. I know it was the right thing to do, but it’s going to stay with me for a while.”
“Probably forever,” said Jock. “And that’s what makes you one of the good guys.”
“I barbequed five guys this afternoon,” I said, “and I don’t feel any remorse whatsoever.”
“You will, podna,” said Jock. “I know you too well.”
“Yeah,” said J.D. “You still dream about enemy soldiers you killed.”
“How do we go about finding Mariah?” I asked.
“The same way we find any murderer,” said J.D. “We just keep on plugging.”
“Did you believe Fuentes when he said he didn’t know anything about the gangbangers?” I asked Jock.
“Yeah. I think he was telling the truth. Since Perez was the handler for the operation against J.D., and he didn’t know anything about the Guatemalans, I doubt that Fuentes did either.”
“Mariah must be the one behind the Guatemalans,” I said. “But I don’t get the connection to Gene.”
“Maybe,” J.D. said, “Mariah was protecting her mole in Jock’s agency.”
“I don’t think the Fuentes cartel is big enough to worry about that sort of thing,” Jock said.
“Suppose,” I said, “that Fuentes was moving in on some of the bigger guys. He’d sure have a leg up if he knew the inner workings of the big cartels. He could find out a lot from the agents who had infiltrated the major groups.”
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