Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1)

by James Garmisch

  “You like this Ivan guy, Tanya? He is, like, scary. Something in his crazy eyes.” Star stared out at the ocean and spoke slowly.

  “We have set up and rebuilt as much as we can. We really need to visit the Mexico City office and iron out any glitches,” Tanya said, ignoring Star. She figured Evan was one of the few men evil enough to handle these cartel members. She wanted her phone.

  No one spoke for a minute. The weight was still considerably heavy with the discovery of Sebastian’s death.

  Tanya looked at her half-eaten breakfast and felt sick. “We need a signal to finish up. Look, guys, Frank is right. We have to get off this boat. Swim, anyone?”

  “Tanya, can you swim?”

  “No.”

  “Like, um, someone has to, like, talk to them.” Star spoke with the rhythm of a teenager, which Tanya found annoying in a woman of her age. Tanya could do without Star speaking at all. “Like, the whole point of us being here is, like, for upgrades and, like, proper satellite uplink things.”

  Tanya pushed away from the table and stood up. She felt slightly light-headed and queasy still. Tanya wanted to scream or stab someone. She was suffocating. She hated the ocean. She hated people. Maybe she was having a panic attack or an allergic reaction to all of the above.

  “I have to get off this boat!” she said urgently and then changed the subject and her focus. “We have to make this seem urgent. We tell them there is a network problem.”

  “Fine.” Frank looked at Tanya and frowned. He was concerned about her mental health; she seemed more and more unglued at times. “Let’s act soon. You OK?”

  “No. I need to go lie down,” Tanya stated.

  “They seem to like you better than us, but we will ask. Go rest.”

  Tanya held her hand up in a mock wave and walked away from her coworkers.

  When Tanya was gone, Star rolled her eyes. “That girl may be brilliant, but she’s a freaking basket case!”

  Jorge Valdez took two Advil and drank his fresh-squeezed orange juice in a small, square glass. He was not as stressed today. Jorge sat in his cabin by himself and reflected on the events of the last two days.

  “Are things going according to plan, or are they falling apart?” he said to the empty room.

  In the last forty-eight hours, he had lost his temper and killed Mario Jr. His clean-up crew had successfully disposed of the body…and the helicopter. “No one can salvage and use old junk like Mexicans can.” Jorge smiled to himself with pride. Mario’s pilot had not even hesitated to join their cause.

  “Silver or lead,” Jorge muttered to the empty room.

  Jorge had successfully pitched the lie to Boss Mario that his son was in favor of the sub purchase and had vanished in a freak accident. Mario had not asked for too many details, for he had never had reason to doubt Jorge.

  “Betrayal for a greater cause. It still hurts, yet it is a burden paid for by many of the greatest world leaders throughout history. The ends justify the means.”

  Jorge was troubled by something else though. Did Mario Jr. know the details of Jorge’s secret campaign across Mexico to create a narco state? Did he know about the bomb-training facilities? Jorge wondered if someone had leaked information. Thousands were involved in his lobbying efforts, from the immigrant-rights groups that he funded from DC to Texas to the media members who looked the other way.

  “What does he know?” Jorge said to his cabin.

  Jorge opened his computer and reread all of his saved emails. The small, private island, just north of Cancun, would prove an excellent place to set his trap: no cell signal and sketchy radio contact.

  The real Mario had not been seen in public for weeks. He had been moving from safe house to safe house. Mario lived the life of a scared billionaire, in exile in his own country.

  Jorge shook his head. “That is not going to be my existence. No! I will be legitimate, change the laws so that what I do is merely seen as the leader of a unionized labor movement. A great leader, unafraid!”

  One of Mario’s doubles had been gunned down in Sinaloa at a hotel just a week ago by Mexican marines conducting a raid. The government’s disdain and tolerance of Mario had come to an end. Jorge hoped that his murder of Mario along with such a large number of politicians who had backed him, all in one event, would solidify a new deal with the government. An outright coup was, of course, impossible, but public opinion could be swayed so easily. The masses were stupid, and the politicians would prefer to keep their lives.

  Jorge, through his liaisons, had already reached a sort of loose deal. He read over an anonymous, encrypted message that had sealed and paved the way for his future success.

  With the target out of the way and the organization dismantled, you will be welcomed as a leader of the Union of Cartels. Laws pushing the legalization of your product will pass. The terms of our agreement are as such: you reduce drug-related violence by 45 percent, you have an agreement with the other members to reduce and eliminate human trafficking in accordance with our agreements with other countries, and you allow at least one substantial drug bust a year. All members of your union will be immune from extradition. (Compensation will follow, of course.) Final term is the protection and ceasing of the sacking of the state-owned oil supply. You will be given support of the law-enforcement and military branches of the administration to conduct such operations.

  Jorge reread the e-mail message. He felt like Napoleon for a moment, outsmarting the dimwitted bureaucrats of his day. The more arrogant, bold, and outright crazy an idea seemed, the more likely it was to work, especially in today’s world.

  Jorge glanced at his watch and shook his head. He sometimes wished he could be in several places at once. Later today he would have to leave the yacht and meet secretly with some of the top members of his rival cartels.

  “Yesterday’s enemies are today’s allies.”

  This final meeting would seal the deal and solidify the union and hopefully bring together an army.

  A knock at his door caused him to jump.

  Jorge cursed to himself and stood up. “Yes?”

  “Sorry, boss. I know you do not want to be disturbed. I have a request.”

  He recognized Gerard’s voice.

  “Let me get dressed. Hold on!”

  Once dressed he quickly opened the door.

  Gerard and Yuri stood in the hall. Both men looked as if a night of drinking had taken its toll.

  “Yuri, Gerard?”

  “Sir. You gave us orders to not follow you today,” Gerard said.

  “Yes,” Jorge said slowly.

  “Tanya and her team. They need to finish their work. They want to leave and go to Mexico City.”

  “Let them! I can spare no one to protect them. They are Mario’s concern.”

  Gerard looked disappointed and nodded. “Yes sir.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Mr. Franklin

  Mexico City, 0700 Hours

  Nathan and Reo stood quietly in a large sporting-goods warehouse owned my Manuel Rosa’s father. The orange glow of emergency lighting cast eerie, short shadows and created vast pockets of darkness throughout the facility. Rows of steel shelving reached to the ceiling of the massive warehouse. Forklifts and other equipment were parked in a straight line near a long, wooden table and lockers.

  Five people stood staring at each other.

  “This place is huge,” stated Carletta, who was clearly in an upbeat mood.

  Nathan did not reply. He watched the last stack of one-hundred-dollar bills zip through the electronic money counter. One of Carletta’s men put a rubber band around it and shoved it in a massive duffel bag.

  “How much you figure one million dollars weighs?” she asked smugly.

  “About forty pounds,” Nathan said without emotion.

  She nodded. “I guess the CIA has flown enough of its money around the world that you would know that, huh? Weight fuel cost and so forth.”

  “Costs money to prop up the turd world and pay
off dictators and petty midlevel bureaucrats,” Nathan replied coldly.

  Carletta’s demeanor changed. “This is only a drop in the bucket of what you guys have cost the money backers.”

  Nathan looked expressionless at the money machines and avoided Carletta’s eyes. “This is your first good-faith payment. You are forcing me to betray my men.”

  “Oh, bull, Nathan! You have been betraying your men all along. Don’t pretend like you care about them. The whole Dark Cloud war is a farce.”

  Nathan shrugged. “No, the war is real. They just do not need to know my true purpose. I want them to succeed.”

  “Whatever,” she said dismissively and finished. “Where is the rest of Mario’s money, the cash stores?” she asked.

  Nathan smiled without showing teeth. “Insurance, Carletta.”

  “No. Your option, Nathan, is to have the plug pulled altogether. I can have the Mexican navy say no to your operation with a phone call!”

  “So you say.”

  “You think I am lying, Nathan?”

  Nathan chewed on a toothpick and faced her. “The Mexican navy operation, it goes down without you exposing any of it or leaking any of it! Dark Cloud and the navy get to waste Mario, that’s it. You don’t care for him anyway, but”—Nathan pointed his finger at her—“your president, he wants results. He gets his results, I get my cash, you get yours, and I leave. Do you want your name attached to the operation’s failure?”

  Nathan felt anger rise in the pit of his stomach. He had always planned on stealing Mario’s money. He had never planned on leaving his men out to dry. Such an act would not look professional. Carletta had set him up this way on purpose, to deflect from her.

  “Nathan, it has long been rumored that Mario has, at any given time, about two to eight billion dollars in cash stashed around Mexico in certain warehouses. We have been looking for years, and now you have found them. I am a little skeptical and embarrassed.”

  “You’re the Mexican CIA. You just were not savvy enough, I guess. Maybe too busy trying to milk the United States out of chump change,” Nathan said smugly.

  “I beg to differ. You have done the work for us. You are like the second wave of conquistadors,” she said.

  “And you were the first?” he countered.

  “The cash is rightfully ours. You can have his online finances.”

  Nathan calmed himself.

  “We can work this out, and everyone can leave happy.”

  She wanted his prize. Nathan felt his blood pressure rise and fought the urge to shoot her on the spot.

  Carletta was correct about one thing: Dark Cloud was a false-flag operation. Mario had to be destroyed so he could never pursue Nathan.

  Reo and Nathan were the only two who knew where Mario’s thirteen warehouses were. From the beginning, the billions in cash had been his main prize. Most of it had already been flown out of the country. The logistics of moving such a large sum and keeping it quiet was not easy. Nathan preferred not to let anyone else in on the scheme.

  Nathan thought about the consequences of failing in his mission. The real purpose was to provide finances for his superiors’ global operations. He had not even let Reo in on all of the truth.

  “Failure is not an option,” he whispered to himself.

  “Carletta, you have ruined me, and you leave me with what?”

  She smiled and stared. “You are still leaving with millions!”

  “You can have what you are after, Carletta, but I must have what I came after. My mission must succeed.”

  “OK,” she said slowly. The corners of her lips rose in a smile.

  Nathan spoke quickly and firmly. “Only when the navy operation goes down. When Mario is dead and my contract with the Mexican government and backers is complete. As that happens, I have men who are staged to steal the treasure.”

  “How?” She looked at him suspiciously.

  “Logistics is my business, bitch!”

  “I see.” Carletta watched the last stack of one-hundred-dollar bills get stuffed into the duffel.

  “Carletta, this is how it has to go down.”

  “Fine!” She waved her hands with impatience.

  “Once Dark Cloud and the navy have completed the mission, I will give you what you want,” Nathan said quietly.

  Once Carletta and her entourage had left, Nathan turned to Reo. Nathan’s face was red with anger. His eyes were intense and distant, like a battlefield commander. “We need to bring in Tanya and her team. Kid gloves come off. I need to know everything she knows and if she has spoken with anyone. Use whatever means necessary. She could sink all of us.”

  “Yes, sir. So far the data that she has sent is quite damaging to many important people in Mexico and beyond.”

  “That, Reo, is why loose ends are dangerous. Data and intelligence are only as good as the chess player who uses it.”

  “On it,” Reo said.

  CHAPTER 24

  The House That Blood Built

  Veracruz, Mexico, 1200 Hours

  The tiny brick-and-wood house with bars and a scrap of yard seemed even more cramped than it had earlier. Thirty members of Dark Cloud had drifted into and out of the house over the course of the last three hours. The teams had been reduced to groups of two or three for the upcoming travel. One person from each group would check in with Joaquin or Miguel and get airline tickets, rental-car information, fake IDs, and hotel accommodations in Cozumel or on Isla Mujeres. The distance to Cozumel was about six hundred miles.

  The men were split up over different flights so as to not attract attention. Weapons and equipment were going by truck.

  Evan was feeling anxious again. There were so many what-ifs that he did not know where to begin. Murphy’s Law was what he was most concerned about. Evan knew he was a magnet for bad luck and had a special place in Murphy’s heart as a stepchild. He looked at his watch and wished that this whole thing would just be over.

  “OK, listen up,” Roger announced.

  Joaquin and Miguel were handing out assignments. They would be the last ones to fly out this evening. El Coyote had left the previous night with a team to set up the next meeting place.

  “OK, listen. So far today’s report is pretty uneventful. Tanya and her team were allowed off the boat this morning. They were escorted to the airport by a detail of Scorpions and then released. They are currently being debriefed in Mexico City. Questions?”

  “Yes.” Evan raised his hand.

  He surprised people by being serious and not making any off-the-wall comments. Perhaps that unsettled them more than if he had been bizarre.

  “I got a text from her before she got on the plane. They have work to do still. Can we get her pulled out?”

  Joaquin looked at Evan and shrugged. “That’s Nathan’s call.”

  Evan shook his head. “It’s getting too hot. She needs to be pulled in.”

  “She is still on the job, Evan. Has business to attend to in the city, that’s what I was told. Nathan said he would watch her and bring her in once it was safe.”

  “Fine.”

  “Nathan wants her first—that’s the direction I got. We can call later. Does that work?”

  If she is made at this point by the cartels, the whole mission will collapse, Evan thought.

  Mexico City, 1200 Hours

  Arcos Bosques stands out as a rather odd building. The two towers are thirty-six stories, making it one of the tallest in Mexico City. The massive office buildings are joined at the top by a bridge, almost giving it a look like a giant pair of pants. The buildings are situated in the upscale business district of Santa Fe.

  Tanya and her team had just finished with the computer systems at Mario’s nearby office. The office workers had been friendly and were a welcome change to the throat cutters they had been with for the last several days. She seriously doubted that any of them had a clue that their financial company was a front for a cartel. The team members had an early lunch and were now returning to thei
r hotel suite at Aqua Bosques, a few blocks away.

  “Anyone else jet lagged and just done with this whole thing?” Star asked and groaned.

  Tanya agreed. “This is almost like work. When is our linkup with Nathan? I am done with these cartel-empire thugs!”

  “We are done. We are getting paid! Let’s celebrate back at my room,” Elian said flatly in his creepy, monotone voice.

  Tanya’s phone rang, and she separated from the team. “You guys keep going; I’ll catch up. I gotta take this.”

  “You coming to drink, right?” Frank asked.

  “Sure, give me a minute. I have to take this,” she said and separated from her coworkers.

  Tanya paused outside the massive hotel. She watched her coworkers and shook her head. She hated it when people stood around in groups and texted.

  “Evan?”

  “Hey, just checking on you. On my way to the airport. You guys OK? You done?”

  “Yes, going to meet that prick Nathan later. My team is being nice to me. Going to go drink a little before meeting him for a debrief,” she said.

  “Call me after you talk to Nathan. Our team has been trying to call him all day,” Evan urged. He quickly explained to her how he believed things were going to heat up once their operation began. The Scorpions might add things up and send people for her. “Don’t have to tell you that the data you guys have gathered is damning to hundreds of people on all sides of the law and border. People get edgy when billions of dollars are at stake,” Evan said quickly, stating the obvious.

  She sensed something else in his voice, an anxiety or maybe a warning. Tanya spoke her mind without filtering, as was her style. “Hey, I believe you do have a human side. Won’t go as far as to say sweet, but not just a muscle head connected to a trigger finger. You are worried about me.”

  “OK. Interesting way to pay a compliment wrapped in an insult. Not the first time. Course I am concerned. You’re OK for a computer geek. Tanya, call me later.”

  “Will do. Gotta go. Bottle of wine with my name on it!”

  “Bye.”

  Tanya had hoped she could have met up with Evan before being whisked away to Mexico City, but it was not to be. Now she was on her own again and had to make some quick decisions.