by Carmen Amato
“This is Cortez. I’m in jail.”
“What? Cortez?”
“Can you hear me? The cartel meet is going down now.”
“Now?”
“I saw my guy go into the marina and I recognized the man who met him.”
“Look,” Crispell said and then static cut him out. Just as Eddo was wondering if he’d lost the connection for good, the voice came back. “--the storm. I’m about two miles from shore.”
“You’re at sea?”
The connection buzzed and reestablished. “--search and rescue. Is Dowd there?”
A dozen Spanish words came to Eddo’s lips and none of them were good. “I’m in jail. Local cops picked me up as I was waiting for him.”
The guard walked over to the phone and broke the connection. “Three minutes are up.”
Eddo was escorted back to the cell and the bars clanged back into place. Eddo furiously paced the small space, and then flung himself on the cot.
He was just reflecting that he had to be the stupidest bastard alive when there was a commotion in the hall and three men charged into the holding area. Eddo recognized Dowd, his thinning hair plastered to his scalp and the shoulders of his navy windbreaker beaded with rain. The guard looked annoyed as he unlocked the cell.
“Nice to see you,” Eddo said.
“Crispell called. What the hell happened to you?” Dowd exclaimed. He looked more clear-eyed than when he’d been downing Cuba libres and Eddo hoped he stayed that way for the next few hours.
“Cops escorted me to their van and I landed on my face,” Eddo replied.
“Let me introduce Jack Stemmer,” Dowd said. “DEA. From Miami. Last flight in before the storm closed the airport.”
Stemmer looked like the stereotypical norteamericano cop: brush cut gray hair, granite jaw, sharp blue eyes. He was taller than Eddo and probably weighed 30 pounds more, all of it from serious weightlifting.
“Thanks for coming,” Eddo said and shook hands with Stemmer.
“And this is Ronald Tenpenny,” Dowd went on. “He’s your lawyer.”
Tenpenny was the portly Antiguan that Dowd had been dining with the night Eddo had approached him in the restaurant. They briefly shook hands as the group moved into the main part of the police station and Eddo collected his belongings. He checked the time and he strapped on his watch: 4:30 pm.
They emerged from the police station into a dark downpour. The palm trees around the building drooped as if they were made of cooked nopales and the parking lot was littered with debris. The station was on a coastal road and they could see waves spume against the seawall. The din of the rough surf competed with the rain and thunder. If Crispell was still at sea he was having a hell of a time.
Tenpenny led the way to a large SUV. He and Dowd got into the front and Eddo got in back with Stemmer. As Tenpenny drove out of the lot the wipers beat furiously and the rain drummed on the roof. “We got your pack from the restaurant,” Dowd said to Eddo.
“Thanks.” It was on the seat. Eddo reassured himself that the warrant and Fonseca’s letter were still there.
Stemmer looked at his own watch. “Dowd says you told the local coastie that the guy you’re tracking went into the marina a little before two.”
Eddo nodded. “Hugo de la Madrid Acosta.”
“I met him once,” Tenpenny said from the front seat. His British accent was smooth and educated.
“Ronald was Wibley’s predecessor,” Dowd supplied.
Eddo briefly outlined the months of investigation into Hugo’s land deal near Anahuac, the Banco Limitado accounts, the userid scheme, how they’d tracked the money and found the password used by some of the userids and set up the fake meeting.
“What about the original smuggling operation?” Stemmer asked.
The SUV took a turn at high speed and the tires squealed on wet pavement. Oncoming traffic moved considerably slower, headlights straining to pick out the road in the slashing rain.
“The army shut it down,” Eddo said, omitting details of how they’d found the location. “Hugo and El Toro were mostly using kids to mule across the border.”
“And the business with the boat?”
“We pieced it together,” Eddo said. “El Toro’s got a front company in Panama that cropped up when we looked at the money trail. On paper, Sheba’s owner is the company treasurer.”
“Shit,” Stemmer said. “This is big.”
“I’m hoping we can roll up both de la Madrid Acosta and Gomez Mazzo.” Eddo rubbed the side of his face. It was still swollen but he didn’t think that the cheekbone was broken after all. “Can you arrest Gomez Mazzo?” he asked. “Do you have that sort of authority here?”
“No,” Stemmer replied. “But I can make a hell of a stink until the coastie shows up.”
Tenpenny said something and the SUV slowed. The road ahead was flooded on one side. A barrier had been erected, creating a one lane road. A cop in an ankle-length yellow rain slicker was directing traffic. The SUV came to a halt as the cop motioned for the oncoming traffic to go ahead.
“That yacht’s not going anywhere in this storm,” Dowd said.
Chapter 84
After three hours Gomez Mazzo was out of patience.
“We are done,” he announced. “Unless you know something El Toro doesn’t.”
“I told you,” Hugo said. “I don’t know where Max went. I’ve had a detective looking for him.”
“Not even Lorena knows where he went?”
“I keep telling you.” Hugo narrowed his eyes. “The fucker ran off with her money. Do you think we’d be here if she knew where he’d gone?”
Gomez Mazzo leaned forward. “Why are we here, my friend?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is this man really coming? Or was this all just a trick? A trick to catch the great El Toro? Surely you didn’t come all this way just to convince me that Lorena can still be president.” Gomez Mazzo snapped his fingers. “Her campaign is gone, just like that, and Arturo Romero will take the nomination.”
Hugo’s face darkened. “Lorena will be president.”
Gomez Mazzo laughed. “She’s fucked your brain away.”
“We had an agreement,” Hugo said. “You owe me.”
“El Toro owes you?” Gomez Mazzo laughed harder.
The cabin door opened and Chino slipped in, shutting the door against the rain and wind before much came in. Gomez Mazzo went to him. “Anything out there?”
“Nothing,” Chino said. He slipped off the hood of his black rain jacket. “Everyone is inside.”
“This was a mistake.” Gomez Mazzo didn’t know what game had been played on him but El Toro hadn’t lasted this long by being tricked by others. Maybe the message from 1612colcol had been a fake, maybe the bag man had been killed before the meeting, or maybe Hugo was playing some sort of game. With so many questions, Sheba couldn’t stay. “Tell the crew to be ready to go as soon as the rain lets up,” he said to Chino.
“Listen.” Hugo made his way across the cabin to confront Gomez Mazzo. “There haven’t been any back room deals. Lorena will take her orders from me when she’s president. Do you want me telling her to leave El Toro alone?” He paused. “Or maybe you didn’t hear me say that maybe the army walks away from some other friends.”
“I heard that,” Gomez Mazzo blazed. “You think you can blackmail me?”
“I’m saying you’d better know who you’re dealing with.”
Gomez Mazzo suddenly shoved Hugo against the wood paneling hard enough to make the man’s head ring and the big yacht rock. Hugo’s eyes clouded with the impact and he started to slide down the wall. Chino caught him. The thin man nailed Hugo in the groin with a knee, then shifted his weight and snapped Hugo’s head around. Bones crunched noisily.
Chino let go and the body of Hugo de la Madrid Acosta slumped to the carpet.
Gomez Mazzo prodded the stomach with the toe of his shoe. Hugo had been just another estupido who thought he coul
d get what he wanted because he was criollo. He’d never really had a fire in his belly. Cortez would make a much better partner. “Do something with it fast,” he said. “Before it shits and stinks.”
Chino nodded. “We’ll dump it when we’re out to sea.”
“Stow it and then tell the crew to get us out of here.”
As Gomez Mazzo left the cabin Chino started taking rum coolers out of the refrigerator.
Chapter 85
Tenpenny skidded the SUV to a stop in front of the marina and they all spilled out into the driving rain. Cold needles of water glittered in the light of the marina gate. The uniformed security officer behind the desk held up his hands as they rushed into the guardhouse but put them down as Tenpenny stepped to the front.
“Ah, my good man,” Tenpenny said. “Tell me where a yacht called the Sheba is parked.”
“Mr. Tenpenny,” the guard protested. He was a dark-skinned man in a green uniform bearing the Falmouth Harbor Marina logo. “I’m not allowed to do that.”
Tenpenny winked at him and reached for a set of keys on the counter next to the guard’s computer. “Then we will just wander about and find it ourselves.”
The guard looked sick as Tenpenny handled the keys. “Mr. Tenpenny, you don’t want to go out there in all this rain.”
Tenpenny nodded soothingly at the guard, full of sympathy but unspoken authority as well. “Now, you know I’ll take care of you.”
The guard sighed and flipped through a binder. “Slip 42, first row past the fire station.”
“Which is the key to the row?” Tenpenny pressed.
The guard took the keys from Tenpenny and led the way out the back door of the guardhouse, into the driving rain.
The marina was a vast city of maritime skyscrapers. The place was well lit by fancy wrought iron street lights and their wet shadows stretched as they approached each one, and then shrank as they passed out of the circle of light. Parked parallel to piers so wide and solid they looked like streets, the yachts loomed above the water, ghostly in the dirty sky, punished by the storm for their arrogance and opulence. From what Eddo could see, there had to be at least six street-like piers branching off from the boardwalk. Yachts were parked on either side of each street.
The entrance to the pier with the sign for slips 40-49 was opposite a small office with a firefighting symbol on it. The guard unlocked the gate and they all passed through, Eddo and Stemmer in the lead.
The first slip’s marker read “40,” meaning that the Sheba in slip 42 would be the third yacht in the row, a distance of more than a Mexico City block. A red light winked on in the distance and movement disrupted the straight lines of rain. The radar dish on top of Sheba’s cabin was revolving.
“Fuck,” Eddo and Stemmer said at the same time. Eddo broke into a run and felt, rather than saw, the DEA man keep pace.
Two men met them on the pier in front of Sheba as the yacht’s engines ground out a soft growl and the big boat began to vibrate out of the slip. Both were armed, but neither had a weapon in their hand and Eddo knew Gomez Mazzo wouldn’t want to bring that sort of attention to himself in Antigua.
Like Tomás, Stemmer was the best kind of brawler, the kind who liked a no-holds-barred kind of fight. A couple of punches and then Stemmer got a hand around each guard, clanked their heads together, and dumped them on the pier.
“Nice job,” Eddo said as he bent over the unconscious men and scrabbled for the still-holstered guns. He handed one to Stemmer. Dowd and Tenpenny, both puffing heavily, drew up just as the small drawbridge linking Sheba to the pier fell into the water.
“She’s going,” Dowd gasped.
Eddo sprinted hard for the edge of the pier, Stemmer moving nearly as fast. Both made a flying leap for the narrow break in Sheba’s railing where the drawbridge had been attached and fell heavily, half on the boat and half sliding down toward the water as the yacht vibrated from the labor of the engines at low throttle. Eddo grabbed desperately at the left side of the railing, and heard Stemmer grunt as the other man hooked an arm over the railing on the right and started pulling himself forward.
“Cortez!” Dowd called from the pier and Eddo looked up from the wet deck just in time to see another of Gomez Mazzo’s goons loom out of the yacht’s dark interior. Eddo rolled onto his side and raised the gun taken off the other guard but it was whipped away with a force that left his hand stinging as the weapon plopped into the water below. Two shots rang out, close enough to Eddo’s head that he nearly lost his tenuous purchase on the slick deck. The guard crumpled, dropping a crowbar as he fell. Blood pooled under him, quickly diluted by the rain.
“I guess they know we’re here now,” Stemmer said, gun in hand, as both he and Eddo got to their feet.
Sheba was still moving slowly away from the pier, the wet deck humming and the engines groaning, as if to unused to maneuvering in such a tight space. The boat was dark, however, except for a few small red running lights. Eddo picked up the crowbar. The metal was slick.
“Let’s go find your guy,” Stemmer said.
Eddo wiped cold rain from his face. “What do you think? Make our way up?”
“They’re not outside in this weather,” Stemmer said.
The yacht was the size of a floating mansion, but Eddo had seen a picture of the interior layout, thanks to the maritime broker’s website that Vasco had found. He led Stemmer around the side of the yacht to the stairs leading to the main deck. They were thrown against the railing twice as the pitch of the engines changed and Sheba abruptly stopped then reversed. Whoever was at the controls was trying to maneuver the yacht like a car out of the tight space against the pier. Eddo wondered if a tug boat usually took the yachts out of their slips and towed them to the harbor entrance. He glanced at his watch, the dial luminous in the darkness. Only a few minutes had passed since Tenpenny had braked the SUV in front of the marina gate.
The main deck was painted white, a ghostly effect in the darkness. The swimming pool took up about a third of the deck area and was shuttered for the night by an aqua-colored fabric cover. The cabin roof extended over one end of the pool, a sleek slice of fiberglass. A door was centered under the roof and presumably led into the main cabin of the boat.
“I’ll take the lead,” Stemmer said, his voice low.
They edged around the side of the pool, rain drumming noisily on the part of the cover that wasn’t protected by the roof overhang, the rain puddling and weighing down the fabric. Standing under the overhang was a welcome relief from the slashing rain. Both men were soaked. Eddo wiped water out of his eyes again, feeling it trickle through his hair and down his back. His linen shirt felt like wet armor and his khaki pants were water-logged from the knees down. He hadn’t bothered to put his socks back on after getting his personal items back from the jail guard and his feet felt cold and small inside his loafers.
Stemmer reached out and turned the latch on the door. To their surprise the door swung inward. Stemmer used his free hand to gently open it all the way so that it rested against the inside wall. They could see an empty corridor. Holding himself sideways, Stemmer started to ease through the doorway.
A burst of gunfire cartwheeled him backwards. The bigger man slammed into Eddo and both of them went down.
The engines changed pitch again, settling to a throaty purr and Sheba picked up speed. The deck tilted. Eddo felt himself careen backwards, weighted down by Stemmer’s inert form. The deck railing stopped their slide.
The cabin door swung awkwardly on its hinges, the fiberglass shattered in a starburst pattern on the latch side. There was neither sound nor movement on the cabin side of the portal.
Stemmer was out but he wasn’t dead. Eddo hauled himself out from under the larger man. He felt around for Stemmer’s gun but only found the crowbar, sticky with blood.
Snatches of a Spanish language conversation competed with the rain drumming on the fabric pool cover. On his hands and knees and exposed as hell, eyes straining in the dark, Eddo
plastered himself against the wall by the shattered door just as a figure emerged.
It was the thin-faced Asian man who’d given Eddo and Tomás the cell phone with the Site 1 coordinates. He was armed with a long gun, an attached safety strap wrapped around his arm. The muzzle of the weapon nosed out of the doorway first, trained on Stemmer stretched out on the deck.
Eddo swung the crowbar in an arc, smashing into the stock. The Asian pulled the trigger as the force of the crowbar blow sent him off balance, and the weapon erupted on full automatic, spraying metal across the side of the yacht and ripping into the pool cover. Eddo struck again with the crowbar and the weapon flew out of the shooter’s hands. The brrrp of its firing was replaced by the skitter of metal and plastic as the long gun snaked across the deck, still tethered to the man by the safety strap.
Eddo threw himself after the weapon, managing to stay on top of the Asian’s arm as they fought for control of the long gun. The man was smaller than Eddo, but had the wiry build and gutter instincts of someone who knew how to fight against the odds. They rolled violently across the deck, each clawing for the upper position. Eddo managed to get the safety strap unwound from the Asian’s arm and forced the weapon against the other man. He pulled the trigger but got an empty click. Hands closed in on Eddo’s throat, coming together like an iron noose.
Eddo used both hands to ram the stock of the weapon into the man’s head. He felt himself choke and used the last of his strength to strike again and again, holding the weapon in both hands.
The fingers relaxed and Eddo sucked in rain and air and got to one knee. The Asian’s head was a bloody mess and his eyes were closed.
“Fuck.” Stemmer was coming around. His eyes fluttered and then registered surprise.
Eddo jerked to the side just as the crowbar sliced through the air, brushing his cheek.
He parried the next blow with the long gun and the crowbar clattered away. Eddo jumped to his feet and the Asian came upright with a long thin blade in his hand.