by Kyle Mills
“And him …” Colombar looked down at Manuel, who was now breathing in shallow gasps from all the excitement. “Tie him to my luggage rack.”
The Jeeps were both overloaded, and he sure as hell didn’t want this filthy piece of shit stinking up the interior of his new truck.
“Doctor! So good of you to come on such short notice.” Colombar strolled across his living room and shook the soft, plump hand of the elderly man standing at the entrance. Dr. Santez, a tiny, white-haired man in his late sixties, had been Colombar’s personal physician for almost seven years. Santez came when beckoned, treating his wealthy patient mainly for hangovers. And for that, Colombar paid him five times his normal fee.
The doctor looked at him strangely. Usually when he arrived, Colombar was laid out on his couch, stinking of tequila. The man in front of him was the picture of health.
“You look well, Luis,” he observed suspiciously.
“Oh, I am, Doctor, I am. Actually, it’s one of my men who is seriously ill, and I want you to take a look at him.”
The doctor looked mildly relieved. Colombar’s violent mood swings had always made him nervous. Generally, if you were invited to Colombar’s home for unknown reasons, there was a good chance that you had done something to irritate him and that you were going to end up as plant food for his orchids.
“I’d be happy to, Luis,” he said, starting for the back of the house, where he knew that there was a wing for the employees who worked in the compound.
Colombar held his arm out, blocking the doctor’s path. “No, no. This way.” He pointed to the front door.
It was growing dark as they walked through Colombar’s gardens toward a detached three-car garage next to the main house. Black clouds swirled wildly, driven by the unpredictable Andean winds. The rain was light, a mist that was imperceptible until it built up enough to trickle from hairline to chin.
As they approached the garage, Colombar slipped his hand into his pocket and activated the garage door opener. One of the three doors began creeping up.
This section of the garage was used by the full-time gardener. The walls were neatly lined with various exotic lawn tools. Heavy-looking plastic sacks of fertilizer were stacked in discrete piles according to brand and type.
At the base of a riding lawnmower that verged on being a tractor, a figure in stained green fatigues raised his head weakly.
A gust of wind blew into the garage and was blasted back into the doctor’s face as he stood near the entrance. It carried with it an odor that he was very familiar with. Impending death.
Colombar motioned the doctor in. “Here is your patient.” He sat down on a stack of mulch bags, careful to wipe the dust off them first.
“What is his name?”
“Manuel.” Colombar replied impatiently.
Santez walked hesitantly to the side of the man and crouched. A weak smile of recognition crossed Manuel’s lips.
After pulling on a pair of thin rubber gloves fished from his black leather bag, Santez went about a quick examination of the man. He looked into his eyes and mouth, took his pulse and blood pressure, and carefully unbound his injured foot. Finally he stood, looking down at his patient’s chest. It was moving quickly as he took in short shallow breaths.
“Well?” Colombar hopped from his place on the mulch.
“I do not know, Luis—he is very ill. Do you know when he contracted this sickness?”
“I’m told that he was feeling fine until about two days ago and that he deteriorated rapidly.”
The doctor nodded thoughtfully. “Could he have come into contact with some toxic substance? Perhaps some pesticide you use in your garden?”
Colombar shook his head. “What I am about to tell you is highly confidential, Doctor. Do you understand?”
There was a clearly implied threat in Colombar’s words. Santez nodded. “I believe that Manuel may have been deliberately poisoned … like the Americans.”
“Are we speaking of the poison secreted in cocaine?”
“Yes.”
“But how …?”
Colombar cut him off. “You let me worry about that. All I need from you is to tell me whether or not I’m right.”
“I cannot tell you for certain, Luis, though the symptoms seem to be similar. We must get the patient back to Bogotá—to the hospital there. I will let you know what we discover tomorrow, though if it is a similar poison to the one in the U.S., I doubt those tests will be conclusive. We will have to examine the vital organs—it is my understanding that this particular toxin attacks the liver and kidneys. This could probably be done by next week.
Colombar stared at the doctor as if he were a retarded child. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.” Colombar’s politeness was well practiced, but lacked even a hint of sincerity. It was as though he was reading from a cue card. “I need to know tomorrow whether Manuel was poisoned. Please take him to Bogotá and do whatever is necessary.”
A confused expression crept across the doctor’s face. “I can’t perform those kinds of tests on his vital organs right away, Luis.”
Colombar was becoming visibly irritated. “Why not?”
“He’s, uh, using them, Luis.”
Colombar took a deep breath and expelled it loudly. Pushing past Santez, he reached up under the back of his thick Irish wool sweater and closed his fingers around the .45 resting in the small of his back. He aimed the pistol at Manuel’s chest, and then changed his mind. The concrete floor under him could cause a dangerous ricochet.
Looking around him, his eyes fell on a nearly empty bag of mulch at the base of the stack that he had just been sitting on. He brushed past the baffled physician again and grabbed the bottom of the bag. As he walked back over to Manuel, the upended bag spilled what was left of its contents, leaving a thick brown trail behind him.
In one swift motion, Colombar grabbed the front of Manuel’s fatigue shirt, jerking him upright, and pulled the bag over his head. Briefly, the dying guard came back to life. His pale hands clawed at the bag, legs kicking wildly. Concerned that Manuel would manage to rip a hole in the plastic, Colombar flipped his victim onto his stomach. Placing a knee firmly in his back, he pulled with all his might, arching Manuel’s back and neck into an unnaturally bowed position.
Santez had backed all of the way out of the garage by the time Manuel’s struggles had faded. Colombar kept the pressure on for another minute, just to be sure. “Doctor,” he exclaimed, looking behind him. “Why, you’re getting soaked! Come under the roof.”
Santez did as he was told.
Colombar released the bag, and Manuel’s lifeless body fell to the floor. There was a hollow smack when his head hit the concrete. “I will expect a complete report tomorrow afternoon, Doctor.”
18
Washington, D.C.,
February 14
Laura Vilechi climbed up on a chair and stretched to reach the Volume button on the television anchored to the wall of SIOC. As usual, the remote was nowhere to be found. Not surprising with no fewer than fifteen men coming and going at all hours of the day and night. What was it about men and remotes?
She pushed the UP button, repeatedly watching the word-fragment VOL appear in green at the bottom of the screen. The television responded obediently, and CNN went from background noise to a more conversational tone. She climbed down and took a seat at the conference table, shushing two agents talking loudly on the other side of the room.
The camera was panning what seemed like endless rows of dogs in small cages set into austere concrete walls. In the right-hand corner of the screen was the telltale syringe symbol that labeled this as a report on “The Drug Crisis.” The dramatic theme music that CNN had composed for the biggest story of the decade filled the room. Laura’s interest was piqued. The news media had splashed this unfortunate situation over every publication, radio broadcast, and television station in the country. They had covered it from every intelligent angle, finally slipping into the absu
rd. She was curious whether the casually dressed young man with the microphone was going to try to interview the house pet of a poisoning victim.
“This is the Seventeenth Street Animal Shelter in Chicago, Illinois,” he started, beginning to walk the length of the narrow corridor between the individual cages. The camera panned back and forth, focusing on some of the more adorable animals. He stopped next to a cage containing a small border collie. The cameraman gave each of them half the frame.
“Until yesterday, you might have seen a young family walking through this corridor, looking for a faithful companion for a small child.”
He turned and tapped the front of the cage behind him. The collie jumped excitedly at his hand, thankful for the attention. When the young reporter turned back to the camera, his face was grave. “This is Darby.” The dog yipped happily when he spoke its name. “Darby is scheduled to be destroyed in three days. Until yesterday, he had a chance. It’s easy to imagine a little girl coming in here with her family and falling in love with him.” Darby barked in agreement.
The reporter walked away from the cage, and the collie’s hopeful face slipped from the frame. It was replaced by the face of a tall, serious-looking woman.
“Yesterday,” the reporter continued, “this shelter, and all other shelters in the Chicago metropolitan area, suspended their animal adoption programs.” As he turned to the woman, a caption flashed identifying her as the director of the Chicago-area animal shelters.
“Ms. Kelly, may I ask you how you arrived at your decision to stop allowing animal adoptions?”
“Uh, yes.” She was clearly unaccustomed to the camera. “Over the past few weeks, we had just over a thirty percent increase in people wanting to adopt dogs—and my research indicates that most animal shelters have seen about the same jump. We didn’t know what was causing it at first, but later we started hearing rumors that people were using them to test their narcotics on.” Her voice wavered. “At first we didn’t think it was true. We couldn’t believe that anyone could do something so cruel. But when we thought back on it, we knew it was true. A lot of the people coming in didn’t seem to show as much interest in which dog they got. They just wanted a dog.” She paused for a moment, a sad expression crossing her face. “Then yesterday we found out for sure. A vet that we work with treated a dog for massive liver and kidney failure. He confirmed that the dog had been poisoned, and that it had traces of cocaine in its blood …”
Laura jumped back onto the chair and slapped the On/Off button. She’d bought a yellow Lab after her divorce a couple of years ago and she didn’t know what she would do if someone poisoned it.
“Pretty grim, huh?”
She hadn’t noticed Beamon standing directly behind her throughout the broadcast. She spun to face him.
“Are we sure we know what we’re doing? Working our butts off to save people like that?” She jerked her thumb at the now silent television. “What kind of scum gives poisoned coke to a dog?”
“They’re desperate, Laura,” he said, taking a chair at the conference table. “You and I will never have any idea what it’s like to be addicted to something like that.” Beamon’s voice didn’t have its usual dead-sure ring.
Laura nodded sadly. “I know you’re right. Seeing stuff like that makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it?” She pointed through the glass wall at the room next to them. “Looks like they’re all here. You ready for our first staff meeting?”
He grimaced.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Beamon admired Laura as she walked through the door ahead of him. “And lady.”
The small table was crowded. Dick Trevor, Laura’s counterpart at DEA, sat directly across from Beamon’s chair. Tom Sherman was on his right and Trace Fontain his left. There wasn’t a smiling face in the room. Laura’s mood seemed to be catching.
“So how goes the war?” Beamon asked hopefully.
No one seemed to want to start. Fontain actually looked away, like a kid who didn’t know the answer to a question in class.
“Have you seen this, Mark?” Trevor pulled two copies of Newsweek out of his briefcase and slid one each to Beamon and Tom Sherman. “Just came out today.”
Beamon looked at the cover. It contained a graphic picture of a corpse lying on a sofa in a cluttered apartment. It looked like the man had been dead for a few days.
“Thirty-four, Mark.”
Beamon flipped through, finding the page. A slightly overexposed picture of him standing at a podium, flanked by the President and Director filled an entire page.
“Do you think this makes me look fat?” He held the picture up to Laura. She smiled and relaxed a little.
“Read the poll,” Trevor prompted.
Beamon looked at the facing page as Laura stood up and leaned over his shoulder A yellow box housed a Newsweek/Gallup poll. It asked whether the respondents were for or against the CDFS. Thirty-one percent were showing pro-CDFS, with another seventeen percent undecided.
Beamon closed the magazine and held it up over his head. Laura took it, returned to her seat, and began casually flipping the pages.
“What else you got, Dick?” Beamon asked pleasantly.
Trevor shrugged. “Not a whole lot to report, Mark. We’ve penetrated a few more layers since our last meeting, but nothing yet. Looks like these guys hit the shipment way up the line. We’re talking to some pretty high level distributors now. Sorry.”
Beamon knew that Trevor had a bad habit of taking every failure personally, spending nights second-guessing himself. Not a healthy trait in a DEA agent.
“I do have some interesting stats, but they’re a little off the subject,” Trevor added.
“Go ahead, I’m not in a hurry.”
“We’ve compiled data from our street agents all over the country and washed it through the computer. You’ll be interested to know that, as best we can tell, cocaine use is down about sixty percent.”
Laura looked up from her magazine, and an involuntary “Jesus!” escaped her lips before she could stifle it.
Sherman looked at her reproachfully and then turned back to Trevor. “Who told you to take that poll?”
“Uh, Director Calahan said he would be interested in any information we had on what effect the CDFS was having on drug use.”
“Well, stop,” Sherman said.
“Excuse me?”
“Stop. Under no circumstances are you to ever gather that kind of information again. You saw the poll,” he tapped his copy of Newsweek. “If your stats leak, well be fighting public opinion even more than we are now.”
Trevor obviously saw his point, but looked uncomfortable.
“I’ll talk to Calahan,” Sherman promised.
That seemed to satisfy Trevor, and he leaned back in his chair, indicating that his report was completed.
Sherman kept control of the meeting. “Laura, what’s happening in your world?”
“Hang on a second,” Beamon interjected. “I think Dick’s math bears a little conversation.”
“And what exactly would you like to discuss?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I think we could start with the observation that the CDFS, with a few guys and less money than the U.S. spends on studying the mating habits of the duck-billed platypus, has accomplished something that the entire law enforcement community will never get done.”
“So what’s your recommendation, Mark? Do we just stop looking for these guys? Let them kill off our problem citizens?”
Beamon looked at his shoes uncomfortably. He felt like a child being reprimanded by his teacher. “No.”
“Look, Mark, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve been hearing rumblings about the decline in drug use for a couple of days now, but our job is to catch these guys. Not to make moral judgments.”
Beamon turned back to Trevor. “How many people die from drug-related causes every year?”
“Dunno. Lots.”
“Stop right there, Mark,” Sherman cautioned. “I don’t want to h
ear it. It’s easy to punch numbers into a computer and come out with the quantitative benefits of poisoning our narcotics users, and ignore the qualitative issues. But what if it’s your kid dead?”
Beamon remained silent and let Sherman change the subject. “Okay, then. Laura, I believe that you were about to report on your end of the investigation.”
“Right. Well, we’re still groping for solid leads at this point. The check angle has really come to nothing. The suspect bought the checks with cash and then disappeared. We’re still doing some follow-up there, but I’m not hopeful.” She juggled the papers in front of her and started back in. “The hotline we set up has pretty much turned into a forum for public comment—mostly people applauding the CDFS and telling us to back off. At Mark’s suggestion, we’ve changed it from an 800 number to a toll call. Hopefully that’ll cut down on the traffic. As you know, we’ve publicized a five hundred thousand dollar reward for information.”
She stood and walked to the corner of the conference room. A large piece of posterboard leaned against the wall. She picked it up. “We’re up to roughly fifteen thousand eight hundred casualties.” She placed the edge of the posterboard on the table, giving the rest of the agents a closer look. It depicted a roughly bell-shaped graph. Next to it was a much smaller red bar.
“This blue curve charts the daily deaths from cocaine poisonings since the beginning of the outbreak.” Her finger traced the length of the graph. “As you can see, the first section, depicting the first week, is quite steep. That’s because of the unexpected delayed reaction in the drugs. Lots of people were using them thinking they were safe. It’s starting to level out now for a few reasons. One, because the poisoned coke seems to be getting used up. Two, as Dick pointed out, people are using less. And three, quite a few users are, well, dead. The last one doesn’t really have that much of a statistical impact, though.”