Warriors in Paradise

by Luis E. Gutiérrez-Poucel

  That is why I am probably more of a doer than a talker. That is why I like hard sciences such as mathematics and physics. Law and economics are too soft for my liking. I like to do what makes hard sense.

  Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I get along so well with Charlie and Santi—because they are so different from me. They are both talkers, natural extroverts, and both like law, sociology, and economics. We complement each other, and, of course, they make me laugh.

  I see life as a mirror: it reflects back what I do, not what I think I’ll do.

  What a puzzle

  We were driving quietly back to Jonathan’s place, each of us lost in his private thoughts. I was thinking that it was going to be extremely hard to get the girls back, given the money, the power, and the influence these people had. I was sure there was a way to liberate them, but I couldn’t see beyond the wall of high-level people Coombs had mentioned.

  We arrived at Jonathan’s house. As we entered, Miranda, Charlie’s mother, asked, “How did it go?”

  Jonathan said, “Charlie will tell you everything.” He turned around and said to us, “I have to make a few calls. We will reconvene in the kitchen in twenty minutes.” He went up the stairs to his studio.

  Santi said, “Miranda, I need to call Mexico and check my e-mail. What telephone and computer can I use?”

  She responded, “Use the cell phone I gave you and the laptop on the dining room table.” She turned to us and said, “I am all ears. Tell me everything that happened.”

  Charlie looked at me, and I nodded.

  I told her about most of what had happened from the time we arrived at Jack Taylor’s townhouse to the moment we left Coombs’s house. But I didn’t tell her about the people who had lost their lives.

  She said, “And how are you going to arrange to meet these powerful people? If you try to make an appointment with any of them, they probably would not give you one. And if they did, it would be in three to six months’ time.”

  “We don’t know,” I responded. “That is why we’re meeting back here in the kitchen—so we can discuss our next moves. However, what I do know is that we are not going to get to see them by making appointments. I suggest we each think about our options and meet back in the kitchen with Jonathan and Santi.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Miranda.

  Charlie and I went down to the basement. I lay down on my bed to think.

  What a puzzle, I thought. Fortunately, I love puzzles.

  Caleb’s flashback

  I was two and a half years old when I solved my first jigsaw puzzle.

  My mom was both my mother and father. I carry her surname, Jackson. I love her, and I am very proud of her achievements. My mother is a tough black woman.

  When she was my age, she met my father at a dance club where my father was singing and playing the blues. He was a guitar player. My father saw her and fell for her immediately. He was eighteen years her senior. As soon as he had a rest break, he came over to my mother’s table and charmed his way into her heart.

  Three months later, she was expecting me.

  My father had a gig in Chicago and promised to return. He never did.

  Every time I asked about him, my mother would tell me, “Son, Papa was a rolling stone; wherever he laid his hat was his home.’ I later realized that those words were lyrics from a song called “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” by the Temptations.

  She had me when she was nineteen years old and never married or dated formally since. She would tell me, “A person worth her beans has to face the consequences of her actions. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I do not want to make another mistake with another man.”

  I have good memories of growing up in Hartford. It is a unique city in Connecticut, since most of its population is black or brown. Caucasians are less than 30 percent of the population, blacks are close to 40 percent, and the rest are mostly of Hispanic descent. Thus, I never felt that I was a minority.

  My mother showed a little reverse discrimination when saying things like, “Whatever a white man can do, a black man can do better. The reason that they do not allow us to attend the top schools in the nation is because they know that we are better than they are.”

  Of course, she has always been color-blind where Charlie is concerned. And, of course, she stopped being racist as soon as Obama became president, saying, “A person is allowed to be dumb once in a while, but not every time, all of the time. Racism is for assholes! And I have been an asshole for too long!”

  She worked at the post office in our neighborhood in Hartford, Connecticut. She began as a clerk, then became a letter carrier, and now, she is the branch manager.

  Sometimes packages are damaged or the addresses are illegible. The post office keeps these packages for several months waiting for somebody to claim them. After six months, or when they run out of space, the packages are sent to a central storage depot. The more damaged packages are thrown into the garbage.

  My mother brought me a puzzle that had been destined for the garbage. I didn’t have many toys when I was growing up because we didn’t have a lot of money. That puzzle for me was the greatest gift I had ever received.

  I was very happy.

  When my mother explained to me what I had to do by joining two pieces of the jigsaw, I worked all day long for the next three days, until I had put together a puzzle made for children six to eight years old. Not bad for a two-and-half-year-old.

  I have loved puzzles ever since.

  I felt so pleased with myself, and I could see my mother was also feeling very proud of my achievement. Every birthday and Christmas from then on, I would get a puzzle. The harder the puzzle, the better.

  My mother framed my first puzzle, and it is still hanging on her living-room wall.

  Beginnings of a plan

  I stood up and walked up the stairs to the breakfast room.

  “We will solve this puzzle!” I promised myself. All we needed was a good strategy.

  Miranda, Charlie, and Santi were sitting down having coffee. I walked over to the counter, grabbed a mug, and served myself some freshly made coffee. It wasn’t as good as Santi’s Veracruz coffee, but it was good enough. Jonathan came down and did the same. Then he sat down with us.

  I surprised everybody by starting the conversation, asking a rhetorical question, “How can we, lacking the sophistication, standing, history, and resources, enter the auction, find the girls, and bring them home safely?

  “We cannot go to the authorities, or the newspapers, or television. Nobody is going to believe us. And if they do, how long would it be before they are fired, meet an accidental death, or are exiled to a remote island?

  “We have really gotten ourselves into a terrible jam, and we are now the enemies of some of the most powerful people in the world. And none of it is because of our own doing. We cannot stop the auction. The auction will take place, and these people will probably go on with their lives scot-free. However, we might be able to find some key individual we could blackmail. Once we find him, following Jonathan’s teachings, we could threaten him with something that he would never allow to happen, and then we could make him release the girls.

  “So, we start by finding this key individual.”

  “That would be the auction manager,” said Charlie.

  “So what do we do?” asked Santi. “Do we try to expose him? And if we do, how do we to do that? The people in the Corporation control the media. We might find some willing reporters, but if push comes to shove, any stories they write are going to be killed by the editors, and the reporters will find themselves out of a job. What are we to do?”

  “We use guerrilla tactics,” said Charlie. “We find the object or person of his passion, the person or thing he loves most. We take that from him, and then we offer to trade it for the girls. If the auction manager feels that he cannot afford to reject our offer, he will return the girls to us.”

  “I think we were all thinking along
the same lines. That’s why I went upstairs to make a few discreet calls to some colleagues and friends,” said Jonathan.

  “This is what I have found out,” he said to us while opening a folder. “Rupert Pattinson, the auction manager, is sixty-one years old.” He showed us a photograph of a very distinguished white male with green eyes on a chiseled face, a strong mouth, and solid, regular features. “He married late. His daughter is twenty-three and his son twenty. Apparently, his son is gay and trouble prone. Rupert lives in a house next to the hotel with his wife, son, and daughter. His wife and daughter are currently on their annual shopping trip in Europe, which she regularly does during the same week of the DC Forum and auction.”

  Charlie said, “I like the way both of you are thinking. I propose we take Rupert Pattinson’s son and exchange him for the girls. However, if that doesn’t work, we can always try to use force to find and liberate the girls. I don’t see any other options. What do you think?”

  Santi said, “It would have been nice if his wife and daughter were here. His wife and two kids would have made a better bargaining package than just his son. However, we cannot wait for them to come back from Europe or cry over spilled milk. We only have today and tomorrow to act.

  “So I propose we go now in two vehicles and scout the hotel, the property, and the house. Let us disguise ourselves as much as possible in the little time that we have so that we don’t lead them back to us.

  “Jonathan and Miranda can act like a married couple and go into the hotel asking for the prices and availability of rooms. Meanwhile, the three of us will do some reconnaissance by driving around.

  “What do you think?” asked Santi.

  Miranda said, “It sounds like a plan. Let’s do it.”

  I had to admit that Santi was also an idiot savant where puzzles were concerned. I started solving the intractable jigsaw puzzle, and he finished it.

  Illusion and disguise

  I asked, “Jonathan, what do you have in terms of disguises?”

  “I don’t have anything, but there is a theatrical supply store in Tysons Corner. I think we should first go there and buy what we need.”

  “Well, I don’t think all of us should go. I will go and pick up a disguise for each of you,” Miranda said. She stood up, grabbed her purse and car keys, and started walking out.

  Charlie said, “Wait, Mom. Let me give you some cash. You shouldn’t pay with your credit cards.”

  Santi went down into the basement, got ten one-hundred-dollar bills from his backpack, and gave them to Miranda. She took them without a word and walked out of the house.

  It was 12:00 noon.

  She was back by 12:40 p.m. Jonathan and Santi had set up different kinds of breads, cold meats, cheeses, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, jalapeños, pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup, and potato chips on the breakfast table.

  We all sat around the table and made ourselves sandwiches. Charlie and Santi made themselves these huge Dagwood sandwiches. I am a good eater, but nothing compared to those two. Miranda was still making herself an open-face sandwich when Charlie and Santi started making seconds. I have to confess that I had also finished mine, which was smaller than their sandwiches—but being truthful, perhaps not by much. I also made myself a second sandwich.

  I am loyal like that.

  After we finished our lunch by eating jalapeños dipped in mayonnaise, Miranda said, “Jonathan, come with me. You will be my first guinea pig.”

  Fifteen minutes later, an old man with heavy glasses and an elegant Van Dyke mustache and goatee came down the stairs and asked Charlie to go up to his mother’s bathroom.

  We were surprised; we could not see Jonathan in this old man’s face.

  Miranda was good!

  By three o’clock, we all looked different. My eyebrows were thick, my mustache was lush, and my hair was bright yellow. I looked like a handsome and much younger version of Dennis Rodman.

  Charlie had a redneck cap, a ponytail, a flat nose, and a hillbilly beard. That was an improvement!

  Santi looked like a Latin playboy, with a pencil mustache, shadowed and black-outlined eyes, a five o’clock shadow, and a huge Cyrano de Bergerac nose.

  Miranda had a white Queen Elizabeth wig, elegant mother-of-pearl glasses, small diamond earrings, a string of pearls around her neck, and an elegant tea dress. She looked very British and upper class.

  Nobody could recognize us. Miranda had done a very thorough and professional job.

  We needed illusion to disguise our true intentions.

  The field before the battle

  Charlie, Santi, and I drove the Jeep to a series of high rises along Route 7. We parked and walked around the apartment buildings to the parking areas. We looked for cars that appeared to have been parked for a long time. There are always telltale signs, such as dust and dirt on and under the car. We selected four cars apart from one another. We switched the license plates around and took two sets with us. Back at the house, we exchanged the plates of the Cherokee and the Camry.

  We were ready to survey the battlefield.

  Miranda and Jonathan drove to the Mount Vernon Hotel in the Cherokee. The three of us followed behind in the Camry.

  We arrived at the hotel thirty-five minutes later. Miranda and Jonathan parked near the entrance and walked into the lobby at a leisurely pace. We drove around.

  The hotel sat majestically overlooking the Potomac River. It had a comfortable colonial statehouse atmosphere in the middle of an eighteen-hole golf course. The property extended for about six acres. A four-foot stone wall surrounded the property. It had six guarded entrances with hanging chains. We saw a nice two-story mansion in the same architectural style behind the hotel, Rupert Pattinson’s home. Most of the security was concentrated on the hotel front and sides. We didn’t see any motion detectors behind the exclusive resort.

  We did not want to be noticed, so we decided to pass only once. While Charlie drove, Santi and I studied the layout and took photographs. After twenty minutes, we drove back to Jonathan’s; ten minutes later, Miranda and Jonathan walked in. We sat around the breakfast table to compare notes and decide on the next phase of our action plan.

  The plan

  “There is always a key piece to every puzzle,” I said, surprising them again, given that I was the one who normally talked the least. “We need to break into Rupert’s home and kidnap Terry, his son. The best time would be after sunset, about seven p.m. However, we need to be there half an hour before, because we will have to make our approach on foot. I suggest Jonathan and I make the approach, break into the house, grab Terry, and bring him back to the waiting vehicle driven by Charlie and Santi.”

  Charlie said, “It is a fine plan, except you do not need two people waiting in the car. You need a third one going with you in case there are any difficulties with the hotel guards.”

  “The likelihood of a confrontation with the men guarding the grounds is fifty-fifty. Thus, the four of us should go,” said Santi.

  “So, what? We leave the car unattended?” asked Charlie.

  “No. Miranda will be waiting for us,” answered Jonathan.

  “No, my mother is not going to be involved in this,” countered Charlie.

  “I’m already involved, son. And this is not your decision, it’s mine. Santi is right; the four of you should go in together. The plan needs to include me. So I will drive you in and out.”

  I thought that Miranda was not so much a good soldier, but more like a worthy general.

  These mothers of ours—God broke the mold when he made them!

  We now had a plan, but reality often conspires against the best-laid out plans.

  It was 4:30 p.m.

  The meeting broke up. Santi went to the basement to call his mother and check up on Valentina. I went out into the backyard and called my mother in Hartford.

  By 5:45 p.m., we were dressed in our camouflage-black clothes and hoodies. Miranda didn’t need a hoodie. Her wig and glasses were all the disguise she ne
eded.

  Plan busted by reality

  Miranda dropped us on a back road about three quarters of a mile behind the hotel’s property line.

  She said, “Rather than parking here, I’ll drive by every fifteen minutes in order to be less noticeable.”

  We nodded. There were no other cars or people on the road. The four of us got out.

  Jonathan and I started first. Charlie and Santi walked toward the right and waited until we were forty yards ahead. We would not be arriving together. They would cover our rear to deal with any problems.

  We were walking quietly at a good pace. I could not hear Charlie and Santi, but I knew they were nearby.

  We arrived at the edge of the hotel property at 6:50 p.m. I could see the battle being fought between the last rays of sun and the approaching army of the night. There was a golden, steamy reflection ahead of us coming up from the lazy Potomac.

  It was a stunning September sunset.

  It was so beautiful that it hurt.

  We couldn’t see any guards stationed at the back of the hotel. The approach to Pattinson’s house was going to be tricky. The approach was through an open garden of lush bluegrass with a few large trees scattered around. We would have to go in zigzagging from tree to tree until we reached the back of the house.

  We waited under the shadow of the stone wall and watched.

  A guard appeared and then walked around the house from left to right. Five minutes later, another one appeared and strode around in the opposite direction. We waited for twenty minutes, and the same pattern was repeated.

  We waited until the point when darkness took the upper hand, that specific moment when you can no longer trust your eyes.