“Definitely,” Evan agreed.
Jorge smiled. “You are honest. I like that.”
Evan nodded and spoke. “I don’t blow smoke. I have to hit the bathroom. Need some air too. Mind if I walk around the yacht? I admire its workmanship. I am guessing that the engine and hull were made in Germany and the finishing touches were done in Italy.”
Jorge nodded with approval. “You know your yachts. Modeled after a Russian billionaire’s. Mario did not want to be outdone.”
Evan smiled. “Need an antimissile system?”
“Ha! No, but we have antiaircraft capabilities.” Jorge laughed. The alcohol had loosened his lips, and for that Evan was thankful.
“Amazing!”
“Later I show you, huh?”
Evan stood up and gave Jorge the thumbs-up. People loved to brag about their toys, even if they belonged to someone else.
“Be right back.”
Evan made his way to the men’s room. The drinking part of the dinner was in full effect, and Evan knew that they were all buddies now.
He went into the one-room bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the light. He waited for the knock and let Tanya in. She was quite beautiful and did not look like such a bitch right now.
“What’s up?” Evan asked.
“Sebastian?”
“Huh? Don’t know.”
Her breath smelled like wine, and she drew close to him and whispered, “You hate Nathan?”
Evan could sense that she was scared, and even if she was just being nice for that reason, he still felt bad for her, crazy or not. “Of course.”
“Then I trust you,” she said.
“Huh?” Evan felt confused, if not concerned.
“I need a friend. I need an ally—really. Nathan is not what he seems. This mess here, it is not what it seems.” Tanya moved closer so that her lips were next to Evan’s chin.
“Go on,” Evan whispered.
“I think Jorge had someone killed today on the yacht, someone important. There was cleaning with bleach, and I overheard some maids talking. Carpets being removed, bloody towels.”
“OK.”
“Jorge is planning something. Me and you need to talk, but don’t share this with Nathan. I have looked at his e-mails; he is planning a coup or something. Don’t know how yet.”
“What else? Hobbies, girlfriends?” Evans asked, his mind was working to build a profile on him or anyone they could use.
Tanya thought for a long second. “Has a hot ex-cop-turned-real-estate-agent girlfriend in Boca del Rio. Penthouse, likes to travel. Been to a place called Virginia Beach a few times.”
Evan’s throat went dry. “How do you know?”
“I am a hacker, Ivan. He has a redhead in some place, a town where they dress like old colonial England. Saw pictures on his computer.”
“Williamsburg?” Evan asked.
“That’s it! I can’t get much else. They have turned off the Internet. I gave Sebastian some damning evidence! Now, I should have just kept it. I could have slipped it to you. If I could turn on and use my system, I could tell you everything.”
Tanya paused and took a deep breath. She seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Evan felt awkward but tried to be sweet. He felt bad for her. She was over her head. “I had no idea we would meet, babe.”
“I have to tell you something—promise not to deceive me,” she said.
Evan felt as if he were talking to an irrational high school girl; was she playing him, or was she coming unglued? “Promise. But I need to know about the ship’s weapons. We have to get you out of here tonight.”
“Can’t…Look, when I leave this boat I will have to go to Mexico City; we have one more job to do for Mario. Hook everything up to his servers—at that point everything goes live. After that, I get debriefed by Nathan. That’s what really scares me.”
“Why?” Evan was confused.
“You have to protect me from him!”
Evan gave her a hug and kissed the top of her head. “It’s going to be OK. Promise. I got your back. Call or text when you’re done. Nothing’s going to happen.”
She sniffed. “Sorry. I am crying like a bitch, Ivan.” She took a deep breath and then unloaded the burden that was troubling her. “I just stole a billion of the dollars that Nathan was going to steal. Hid it from him. The accounts are in my head. I moved it all. Nathan doesn’t give a shit about the police intel—it’s about the money.”
Evan sucked in his air and let it out slowly. “Wow.”
“I have to escape once I am done in Mexico City, before or soon after I debrief. He will figure it out eventually.”
“Why?” Evan asked. “You just stirred up a hornets nest. Text me when you are done; I will see what I can do. I need time to think.”
“Ivan, I got my reasons. He was never going to split the money with Dark Cloud. I am going to! No time to explain but I need an ally.”
Suddenly, a knock at the door made them both jump.
CHAPTER 21
Safe House
Roger made it back to the safe house after midnight. He was tired and confused, and he had a headache. No one spoke on the ride home. Sebastian’s death was just the first in a long line of deaths that they knew were coming.
Roger, Joaquin, and now Francisco and others from Dark Cloud were assembled in the safe house’s living room.
“One of you has to take this to Nathan back at HQ,” Roger said and held up the micro SD card. “Any word from our surveillance teams?”
“Yes. Evan, Tommy, and Mia are being dropped off. Sounds like they had a good time—drunk as hell!”Francisco added.
Roger ignored the underhanded jab that someone had had a good time. “Crap. We have to access the fallout from this Sebastian thing. Make some calls, get connected with our contacts with local law enforcement, get the ears and eyes out.” Roger opened a bottle of water.
Joaquin spoke up.“Roger, we have to get the word out there that the whole Sebastian thing was some kinda gang hit, a fluke. They won’t likely make the leap that the sub sale or Sebastian or some conspiracy has any tie to them. We can call and have some of our crime bloggers put the word out there.”
Roger shrugged. “Do what you think is best. Something about all this just doesn’t sit right. Bring Evan in the morning. Have him and the crew stay in a hotel tonight. Can’t afford to have him be traced to us. We bug out in an hour, split up, and then reroute at the next safe house at zero six hundred.”
Roger looked at the Chap Stick with the computer data and shook his head.
Boca del Rio, Veracruz, 0200 Hours
Gerard and Yuri were having a hard time standing without swaying gently on their feet. Both men were exhausted and had ridden around for the past two and a half hours with various lookouts and police who were on their bankroll. Anyone who was connected knew that the city belonged to the Eastern Cartel and the Scorpions, though sometimes turf wars did come knocking.
Yuri sat on a brown desk in the middle of a warehouse that housed stolen merchandise, ranging from cars to microwaves and occasionally young El Salvadoran female migrants who acted as bonded sex slaves during their long, painful journey to the States.
“What’s the deal?” Yuri had taken his shirt off and lay his Glock 22 on the table. Two young, topless girls kneaded his shoulders.
“Poor thing, you are so tense,” one girl said.
“Yes, this life is stressful, my sweets.”
“Can you take us to Norteamérica soon?”
“Yes, soon. My back really hurts sooo much. Oh, that’s nice!” Yuri closed his eyes. He loved massages; he had chronic pain from a parachute accident years ago with the Russian army. He heard a loud noise, like a door sliding open, and then multiple footsteps. Yuri watched Gerard and three policemen walk past a brand-new forklift and into the center of the warehouse. Gerard had a badly beaten young man with him. His hands were tied behind his back, his shirt was gone, and his pants could hardly sta
y up.
Gerard pushed him so that he fell to his knees. He seemed to crumple into a ball of sweat, blood, and grime.
“Who’s this?” Yuri asked, too tired to care.
The police officers headed toward the large refrigerator and beer. “One of our little lookouts. He saw the whole thing and let Maria, the bitch who runs our café, run off. She cleaned out the cash register. Took one of my guns too,” Gerard said and kicked the boy. “Will this night ever end? Bring me a beer!”
Yuri sat, still enjoying his massage. He spoke pitifully to the teenage girls who were kneading his back. “See what I have to go through? The stress? Always dealing with these criminals!”
“Poor thing.”
“Awwww.”
They kissed him gently.
“I could not make it without you two.” Yuri sighed and snapped his fingers. “Sweetie Uno, get the man a cerveza!”
Gerard stood over the boy, looking tired and annoyed. Yuri smelled smoke, sweat, and body odor.
“You stink, Frenchy. You been in a fire?”
Gerard drained his beer and looked at his friend. He always got a kick out of how, no matter where Yuri went, he ended up having females do things for him.
“Yes. The Turtle and his four idiots, they were all shot, stripped of their phones and IDs, and burned. The man Sebastian, who they were torturing for some freaking reason, was dead too! Whole place torched.”
“Police?” Yuri asked.
The three police officers shrugged and laughed.
“Word is, they were raided, some rival gang, professional-military style though, flash-bangs, breaching charges. Boys never knew what hit them.”
Yuri pointed his gun at the sobbing boy. “Him?”
“He has a story you may be interested in.” Gerard sunk into a chair that was brought to him.
“Speak.” Yuri commanded.
The boy opened his mouth and began his tale, between sobs, of the two men who raided the restaurant. “And when they left, the big gringo…He was big, like a giant with a beard and long hair, funny accent, not norteamericano. I spent my summers in Texas. The white people up there no speak like that.”
“What did he say, look like?”
“I tell you, big like a giant! He gives Maria a pile of money before he leaves. The other man was dressed like a cop. They drove a nice Ford Explorer.”
Yuri raised his hand, and the boy stopped talking. “Got it. And then you let Maria empty the safe and steal my gun.”
“I could not stop her. Please understand, she had the crowd on her side!” the boy pleaded.
Yuri shook his head, raised his gun, and shot the teenager between the eyes.
Everyone jumped, and for a second it got real quiet.
“That really did not help my headache,” Yuri moaned. “But I could not handle the little thing’s whining!”
Gerard ran his hand over his sweaty, bald head. “That man, he is the Scotsman. I tell you, the same man involved in the Mexico City rescue of Manuel Rosa. Now tell me I am making stuff up! The man in Juárez at the airport, he is the one who beat me up. All this is connected, Yuri! Someone is playing us! That computer freak had something these people wanted, and he was on our yacht. You with me? Am I just imagining this?”
Yuri looked at the Boca del Rio police officers. “I want surveillance tapes. I want a picture of this man. No, Gerard, you are not mad.”
“I am going to bed.” Yuri stood up and snapped his fingers. “Ladies!”
CHAPTER 22
Lead Rules, Blood Pools
Veracruz, Mexico, Monday, 0600 Hours
Evan woke up the next morning on the floor. The members of Dark Cloud had splurged at a local sporting-goods store and bought folding chairs, a card table, sleeping bags, and mats. Evan had two things on his agenda: a call to his brother and a run.
He began walking up the narrow sidewalk toward the gulf. He felt a slight breeze and heard the distant, mournful cry of a ship.
Evan thought about the meeting with Jorge, who actually was a charming guy if you could get past the murder and mayhem.
The sub deal would go down on a private 550-square-acre island north of Cancun. The island boasted a deep-water dock and sturdy seawall. The island was owned by an Old World, politically connected family.
Nathan had arranged for military support with the Mexican government. Evan had his doubts that they would show up.
“That thing is going to be spotted,” he had informed the cartel members last night.
No one seemed to care. Throwing money away was just no big deal.
The sub was technically Mario’s at this point, and Evan just had to be on hand to deliver it tomorrow. Evan thought about the repairs, the service contract, and all the legitimate angles of the sub deal that could possibly delay the transaction. Evan had negotiated with Jorge to have a crew of his own men service and conduct the first run with the sub.
Jorge, however, was determined to hire a crew from Europe to handle the sub. “I am fine with that, but until they are vetted and hired, we will help protect your investment!”
From its new home, the sub could easily hide in the deep waters of the Caribbean. The sub could sneak behind Cuba and make its way to Florida. The trip would take about three days. The US Navy had made cutbacks on their detection capabilities but would still be looking.
Evan thought about the cover-up and denials from the Pentagon a few years ago when a Russian Akula-class nuclear-powered sub patrolled US waters for close to a month unnoticed. Some surmised that it was making a trial run to nuke American cities, which was part of the plan to cause a major catastrophe. The stealth submarine had caused serious waves among the elite bean counters. The American sheeple, of course, were too busy twerking and waving whatever flag was popular at the moment to notice that their walls were crumbling. “Idiots.” Evan spat on the sidewalk.
The meeting on a private island near Cozumel was a better venue for conducting a military assault than the open ocean.
Evan looked over his shoulder and saw a man picking up cigarette butts off the ground and trying to smoke them. Evan fished for a five-dollar bill in his pocket and handed it to the man as he walked by. He thought about what Tanya had said for the hundredth time.
“Protect me from Nathan.”
Evan had a distrust of Nathan, but what Tanya had said was far deeper: she had a paranoid hatred. It did not take Evan long to figure Tanya out. She pretty much hated or feared everything. She was unstable, yet had warmed up to Evan, perhaps out of fear that she had no friends. Sebastian was the only one on her team whom she had trusted. Evan sensed that Tanya was perhaps drawn to him because he was the complete opposite of her.
“Or she knows I am a sucker and will protect her, even if she is crazy,” Evan muttered to himself.
Evan considered her statement about Jorge being in Williamsburg, Virginia. This disturbed Evan more than her stealing a billion dollars and then having the guts to admit it.
Evan thought about Camp Perry nestled on the York River. “Could there be a connection?” Evan muttered.
He felt his heart begin to pound and stuffed his paranoia. “No, can’t be. But why not? Manuel Noriega was recruited by the CIA while he was in school in Peru. A slew of our enemies had been our friends before they were our enemies again.”
Evan began to jog and now thought about fish bait. “I have to get her off that damn boat. She has the potential to collapse this whole house of cards if she is found out.”
He was not angry at Roger for sending the computer data to Nathan. He just would not have done it himself until he had examined it. Something deeper was going on; he just could not put his finger on it. “Trust, but verify.”
Evan decided he would not share her funneling of Mario’s money to herself with anyone. He decided he could get a migraine trying to figure her out.
Evan ran for about thirty minutes as the pink-and-orange glaze of morning began to spread across the gulf. A breeze picked up, and
he heard sea gulls and surf in the distance. He wondered what people on the other side of the ocean were doing at this exact moment. The truth was, the whole human race was pretty much equally jacked up.
“This world is a mess. Nothing new under the sun,” Evan spoke to the wind. “OK, time to make the call.” He looked at the phone in his hand and imagined what his brother would say. “Screw it.”
Evan dialed his brother, and started to feel a little nervous, like a child who was about to get a scolding or tell his dad that he had just wrecked the car.
His brother answered the phone half asleep. “Hello?”
“Hola, it’s me. How’s my dog?”
“Huh?”
Evan took a deep breath and stared at the ocean. Here goes everything, he thought. “We gotta talk. Listen carefully.”
Evan turned his back to the gulf.
Veracruz, 0600 Hours
Tanya ate breakfast with the remaining three members of her team. She did not like any of them. She tolerated them. Sebastian, she liked. He was dead.
Elian was a great programmer but had wandering weasel eyes and bad breath. Frank, the only one who defended everyone, seemed more like a girl. Star reminded Tanya of a dried-up old hippy on the lam who still had acid dreams of being a teenager. She had to rely on them if she wanted to ever make it off the yacht alive.
The Happy Mermaid sat motionless in the still waters of the early morning gulf. The sun was beginning to rise and chase away the last of the darkness. The ship’s crew began to stir.
“Where does one find a job as a crew member on a drug dealer’s yacht? I mean they can’t like advertising in the paper. Do they get benefits?” Tanya mused in an attempt to break the ice and curb her anxiety, which was beginning to manifest itself through obsessive napkin tearing. Tanya was scared.
“I just want my phone back!” Frank stated.
“How can we get work done if we are kept in this Internet and cell phone blackout?” Tanya said.
“We have done almost everything we can do here,” Frank continued.
Tanya tore napkins and cursed. “Would love to text Ivan, get an update.”
Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1) Page 22