Cayman Crackdown (Coastal Fury Book 18)

by Matt Lincoln

  “We should speak to him,” I decided. “Either he’s lying, and we’ll be able to get that out of the way, or he’s telling the truth. In that case, we need to figure out exactly what he knows.”

  “I still think he’s full of crap,” Hills muttered in response as we followed Leeland down to the same interrogation room we’d used the day prior. As I stepped inside, I could see a man through the double-sided glass. He was sitting at the table calmly, a smug, almost-smile on his face as he stared up at the ceiling.

  “He doesn’t look tense at all,” I noted as we stepped inside.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Chapman agreed as he stepped close to the glass to peer through. “And it doesn’t look like he’s faking his calmness, either. You can tell by his body language that he really isn’t scared right now. That’s not a good sign. It means that, whatever his intentions are, he believes he has the upper hand right now.”

  “He can believe whatever he wants,” Hills grumbled derisively as he took a seat in one of the chairs in the viewing part of the room. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “Agent Marston and I will go inside,” Leeland declared as he turned to look at the man. “I want to see for myself what exactly his intentions are. Do you still have your tablet with you, Ashburne?”

  He turned to look at the officer who had followed us into the interrogation room.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied as he handed Leeland the tablet that was tucked under his arm. Leeland scrolled through it for a moment before handing it to me.

  “His name is Eric Reynolds,” he explained as I looked down at the file. It was pretty bare, with only one prior offense for possession a few years ago. “We ran his prints, but he really doesn’t have much of a record.”

  “Reynolds,” I muttered as I looked back at him through the glass. His arms were clean. “That’s not a name you’d typically find in Colombia, is it? No tattoos, either.”

  “What are you thinking?” Holm asked me from where he’d sat down.

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?” I posited as I handed the tablet back to Leeland. “I mean, I guess it makes sense that they had some locals working within their operation. It would be a lot easier for them to go unnoticed that way. But one of the only guys we’ve encountered that isn’t completely enmeshed within their gang, and he knows how to find Viper? Out of everyone else?”

  “Maybe that’s the key,” Chapman mused out loud. “The fact that he’s local, I mean. He’s not as loyal. All the other members will follow Viper without question and just accept things the way they are, but an outsider might not do the same. Maybe he’s been spying on him, somehow?”

  “The fact that he’s local would mean he has more resources as well,” Finch added. “If he grew up here, then he’ll know a lot more about the area than some of the others who just arrived or have only been here for a short while. He could have contacts the others don’t know about.”

  “So maybe his claims aren’t so baseless,” I concluded as I looked at Reynolds again. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, and I realized at that moment that we couldn’t go in assuming that he’d react the same way all the other smugglers had.

  “Okay, let’s go in,” Leeland said as he pushed the door open.

  Reynolds turned to look at us, but he didn’t look surprised or nervous at our arrival. In fact, he didn’t give much of a reaction at all.

  “Good morning,” I greeted him as I sat down in one of the two chairs on the other side of the table from him as Leeland did the same. “Eric Reynolds, correct?”

  “That’s right.” He smirked at me as he leaned forward in his chair to rest his elbows on the table in front of him. The annoying little smile on his face was grating, but I was careful not to show that on my face. “So, you gonna take me up on my deal, or what?”

  “Now, hold on just a moment,” Leeland replied, a frown on his face. He was, evidently, not doing as good a job of keeping his emotions in check since it was clear just from the look on his face how negatively he felt about Reynolds. “We have a few questions for you before we start talking about deals.”

  “Yeah, alright.” Reynolds shrugged. “What do you want to know?

  “First off,” I replied, forcefully drawing his attention back to me. Leeland seemed more emotionally charged than I was, and the fact that Reynolds might use that to dig under the sergeant’s skin worried me. “How is it that you know where to find Viper? We know he’s out on a boat right now, so if that’s the valuable information you have for us, then you can just forget it.”

  “Come on now.” Reynolds rolled his eyes. “Of course, the information I have is better than that. You don’t actually expect me to tell you my source, though, do you? What is it that they say about buying a cow and getting milk for free? Anyway, I’m not talking unless I have a deal.”

  “We’re not making a deal,” I retorted, “until we have some kind of guarantee that you actually have the ability to find him. If you can’t even tell us how you intend to do that, then you’re just wasting both of our time.”

  I pushed my chair back as if to stand up, but before I could, Reynolds slumped back in his seat.

  “Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you. But maybe consider getting that stick out of your butt. You’re going to give yourself an aneurism getting all worked up like that.”

  I clenched my jaw at his response. This little jerk was obnoxious, and it was killing me that we had to sit here and put up with his crap on the off chance that we might have something useful to tell us. If he didn’t start speaking up soon, I really was going to get up and leave.

  “I have a relative,” he explained as he reached his cuffed hands up to lean his chin on them. “My uncle. Well, he’s actually my uncle’s cousin four times removed or something like that. Married his cousin’s sister or something. Anyway, the guy’s an information broker. He can tell you anything you want to know, and I do mean anything.”

  “Okay.” I chuckled in response as I rubbed at my temple with my free hand. “Let me get this straight. Your big plan to find Viper is to just, what, ask your uncle? Because he apparently has special ways to get that information, despite the fact that Viper is currently on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, and on the move as we speak?” I threw a disbelieving look at Leeland. “Seriously?”

  “I’m not lying,” Reynolds stated simply. Suddenly, the clownish, careless tone he’d been using before hardened into something completely serious. The change was drastic enough to actually get my attention. “This guy I’m talking about, he has connections everywhere, with everyone. I’d swear on my mother’s life that he can find Viper for you, for a price, of course.”

  I frowned at his crass language. Still, if he was actually that confident, then maybe this was worth looking into.

  “Okay.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Let’s say for a second that we believe you. This guy has the resources to find where Jorge Velasquez is. Why exactly would we make a deal with you then when he’s the one who has the information we want?”

  “Maybe because I’m the one who can tell you where to find him,” he retorted snarkily, the smug smile slipping back onto his face as he looked between Leeland and me. “Is that also information that you want? Sure, you could look for him yourself, but good luck finding him. You could turn the entire island upside down— Heck, you could speak to every single person living here. You’d have no idea it was him even if you were talking directly to him.”

  I took a long, calming breath. The guy knew what he was doing, I’d give him that. He was right. Even if we did go out to look for this mysterious man ourselves, we’d have no idea where to start or who we were even looking for. In the meantime, Viper would be slipping further and further out of our grasp.

  “What exactly would you want?” Leeland grumbled, his voice tense as he spoke.

  “Not much.” Reynolds shrugged, his eyes lighting up at just the hint that Leeland was considering accepting his proposal. “I know I’m not walk
ing away from this. I’m not stupid. But maybe some house arrest? Even one of those minimum-security local jails would be fine, as long as I had my own cell.”

  It was unsettling how calm he was right now, casually negotiating what kind of punishment he preferred to receive as though he was talking about the weather.

  “Is this some kind of joke to you?” Leeland growled, his fist clenching tightly on top of the table.

  “Not at all,” Reynolds replied calmly. “I’m just being realistic here. Like I said, I know I’m not going to get off scot-free. It wouldn’t look good for the cops to let someone like me just walk away, right? But I also know that you can influence what charges get brought against me. Maybe I get hit with some petty drug dealing charges, for example, instead of whatever everyone else is going to get slammed with.”

  The self-satisfied grin on his face grew even wider as Leeland’s frown deepened.

  “I’ll ensure that you’re only charged with misdemeanor offenses,” Leeland grumbled reluctantly, a small vein throbbing in his temple as he glared at Reynolds. “But that’s only if the information you give us ends up yielding positive results. If I find out that you’re lying, or if it turns out that this ‘source’ of yours is full of crap, the deal’s off. Understand?”

  “Hey, good enough for me,” Reynolds replied with a dispassionate shrug. “Not like I have any other choices, right? And I know what I’m talking about. The guy’s good. He’ll get you the information you want, so long as you pay the price.”

  “And what exactly would that be?” I asked. “What’s the going rate for that kind of information?”

  “Who knows?” Reynolds replied. There was an odd lilt in his voice that made me think that the little jerk had a very good idea of what kind of price this mysterious information broker would charge and was just refusing to tell us for the sake of being difficult. “Guess you’ll just have to find out when you get there. I tend to stay away from dear old Uncle Henry.”

  “And why is that?” I asked suspiciously as I made a mental note of the name.

  “Because he’s dangerous,” Reynolds replied, his voice suddenly turning serious. For just a moment, the smug smile slid off of his face, just a little, and there was a hollowness in his eyes as he stared off at something in the distance. It was a startling, genuine expression, and it was gone in the blink of an eye. “Don’t like getting involved with him, if I can help it.”

  “Tell us where we can find him,” I replied, an uneasy feeling settling into the pit of my stomach. For just a fraction of a second, Reynolds had seemed truly worried about something. Exactly who was this man that had caused him to drop the devil-may-care act for even a moment?

  I guessed we were just going to have to find out for ourselves.

  32

  Ethan

  “Are we sure this is the right place?” Hills grunted skeptically as we looked up at the tacky little souvenir shop set up on the edge of the beach. This was the address that Reynolds had given us for where we could find his apparently omniscient information broker uncle. Actually, it reminded me a bit of Mike’s bar. The exterior was decked out in plastic palm trees and fake, brightly colored flowers. It was the kind of shop that you could find in literally every tropical vacation destination, cheesy and filled with overpriced crap.

  There was nothing special about it, but maybe that was the point. It was normal-looking enough that most people wouldn’t give it a second glance, which, in a way, made it the perfect place to carry out some underhanded business.

  “This is it,” Officer Finch confirmed, though even she sounded a little surprised. “Henry Gray, owner of Grand Cayman Gifts and Treasures. Everyone, keep your guard up. We don’t know what we might find inside.”

  We didn’t have an entire cavalry of police officers with us this time. It was just Holm and me, the Vegas agents, and our liaison. We weren’t here looking for a fight, so it wasn’t really necessary to bring two dozen officers with us. It might have been counterproductive of us to do that, actually, since the man we were looking for might assume we were already on the offensive.

  A bell mounted above the door jingled cheerfully as we stepped into the small shop. The inside of the store looked exactly as I’d expected it to, narrow aisles lined with plastic shelves full of snow globes, t-shirts, and other little knick-knacks.

  The far end of the building was cut off from the rest by a long counter that spanned one end of the shop to the other. There was a cash register there and some more shelves on the other side of the counter that held rows of cigarettes and alcohol. There was also a dark pink curtain hung over a doorway on the other side of the counter that presumably led into the backroom of the shop. Overall, it looked like an ordinary store.

  There wasn’t anyone else inside, not even behind the counter.

  “Hello?” I called as we stepped further into the store. A shelf full of bright green parrot toys caught my eye as I passed by. The store was fully stocked with real products, which seemed like a lot of effort for someone to go through just to have a front. Either Reynolds had led us on a wild goose chase, or whoever was running this operation had gone through a lot of effort to hide his tracks.

  “Oh, is someone there?” a man’s voice answered from behind the curtain on the other side of the counter. A moment later, a hand emerged to push it open, and a thin, graying man stepped into the main area of the shop. As the curtain moved, I caught a glimpse of what looked like cardboard boxes back there, but that in itself wasn’t anything suspicious.

  “How can I help you?” the man asked as he moved to stand behind the counter. His eyes roved over the six of us as he spoke. He was smiling, and his voice was warm and friendly, but there was something analytical in his eyes as he looked at each one of us. I knew that I didn’t imagine the way that his gaze seemed to linger on us for just a second each. I also wasn’t imagining the peculiar lump on the side of his hip, obscured entirely by his shirt. The old man was packing, and I was instantly on guard.

  “We were hoping you could get us some information,” I replied vaguely. Normally, I would have introduced myself as a federal agent, but I still wasn’t sure just how much I should reveal.

  “Information?” the man parroted, his eyebrows knitting together in mock confusion. It was a decent act, and if I hadn’t been watching for it, I might have believed that he honestly didn’t know what I was talking about. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Are you tourists? Did you need help to find something?”

  “Someone, actually,” Hills replied gruffly, his expression serious. “We were told that you were the man to talk to about that.”

  “Me?” the man asked, his eyes widening in surprise. “I’m afraid there might have been some kind of misunderstanding. Who told you a thing like that?”

  “Eric Reynolds,” I replied, watching carefully to see what his reaction to that name would be. He froze, just for a second, but the easy-going smile remained steadfast. “He said that his uncle, Henry Gray, could get us the information that we needed. That is you, isn’t it?”

  Finally, the mask seemed to crack just a little. Though he was still smiling, it seemed much more forced now, the skin around his chin taught and his eyes slightly manic.

  “I see.” He chuckled as he put his hands on his hips. “So that little bastard’s off running his mouth, huh? Guess I’ll have to pay him a little visit after I’m done with you!”

  In a flash, he reached beneath his shirt and drew his weapon. I drew mine at the same time, as did Finch and the other agents. Before any of us could fire, though, there was a rush of movement from every direction.

  “Don’t move!” a low, threatening voice growled as someone stepped out from behind one of the shelves at the end of the store. At the exact same time that he revealed himself, another man stepped out from behind the curtain. Both of them had guns in their hands, pointed directly at us.

  I cursed internally as I assessed the situation. It was three against five. The odds were in our
favor, but only slightly. It really wouldn’t be ideal for us to get into a gunfight within such close proximity of each other. There was very little chance we’d be able to effectively dodge or find cover and a much higher chance that we might accidentally hit each other with friendly fire.

  “You want us to take them out, boss?” the goon standing behind the counter asked. He was a big guy, tall and muscular, with a mean frown on his face as he stared at us with disgust.

  “No…” Gray hummed as he slowly lowered his weapon. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I haven’t committed any crimes here, and these fine people said they only came here for some information. I don’t think there’s any need for bloodshed.”

  The two goons immediately lowered their weapons without protest, though they remained standing where they were.

  “Nothing illegal?” Officer Finch scoffed, her weapon still trained on the man. “You think brandishing a firearm against law enforcement isn’t illegal?”

  “I felt threatened.” Gray shrugged, a mocking smile playing at his lips. “A gang of people stormed into my little shop and started asking all of these strange questions. I had no idea what was going on. I was terrified for my life.” It was clear by the sarcastic way in which he was speaking that he was mocking us.

  “You always pull guns on people that wander into your store?” I asked. “Seems like a terrible way to run a business.”

  “Oh, come now,” Gray sighed. “We both know you lot didn’t just ‘wander in.’ How about we stop with the pretenses and get to why you came here? And why don’t you lower your guns while you’re at it? All of us have put our weapons down. You’re not going to shoot unarmed civilians, are you?”

  He pretended to gasp in shock, and I had to stifle the urge to punch him. I could see the family resemblance between him and Reynolds. They were both unbearably obnoxious.