The Gift of the Dragon

by Michael Murray

  “Ian. What is the news?”

  “We made it to Montana, Robert is drunk, and I'm on my way there.”

  Franklin said, “And?”

  “We’ll be going hunting in the morning. The guide has several likely bait piles where we should find a vicious bear or two.”

  “Good.”

  “Everything’s going fine, Dad. No probs.”

  Franklin winced. Drunk, his son’s butchery of the language was even worse than usual. “Good to hear. Things are going as planned here also.”

  “Great. Well, relax. The current CEO of Apple Creek’s in very good hands. Maybe I should say paws.”

  Franklin did not laugh. “I'll relax when you are back here, Ian.”

  “How’s my troublesome little brother doing?”

  “Holding up his end, so far.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Good luck, Ian.”

  “Luck? Hah! You know it’s not luck that I depend on.”

  “Right. Good hunting.”

  “Better.”

  Franklin McAlister settled back into his chair and gazed out the window at the setting sun. Another day closer to the goal. So much of doing great deeds was in the waiting. Someone had once said waiting was the hardest part.

  Chapter 8, A Hand in the Dark

  Callan

  She’s alive… Alice Ambrosine Sangerman is alive. She didn’t die when I shot her in the head on the banks of the Columbia, when I saw her standing with Sara. I should’ve shot her first! Used more bullets!

  He looked at the photo he had just received from Franklin McAlister, surveillance footage from Tampa Airport. He looked at the picture on the very tablet that McAlister asked Callan for again in the message. What is on this tablet?

  Callan recognized the attempt at a deal. McAlister had let him know that Alice was still alive as an offering.

  I’m not ready to make that deal yet.

  After leaving Oregon, he had returned to a former Quickie Mart he leased as part of his Gulf Coast gunrunning operation. From here, Callan’s men ran boats loaded with guns down to Mexico, trading them for drugs and bringing those back in, landing at different spots along the impoverished Louisiana coast. The market was in Venice, a town about an hour’s drive from New Orleans. The person who had named it that had either a very strong sense of irony or unbelievable optimism. The town’s other name was The End of the World, as it lay at the southern tip of the Great River Road, where the pavement ended at the Gulf of Mexico. This Venice had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and was just beginning to recover when oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill had begun washing ashore, sending the value of the rebuilt homes and buildings falling back down toward zero.

  The many empty buildings and the proximity to the water made it a good place for Callan’s arms dealing headquarters, and it also made a good place for him to gather his strength after the humiliating disaster in Klamath.

  The isolation also made him feel more comfortable. If Thorn’s men came for him here, he was at the end of long road watched by loyal soldiers. If they came by boat, only a few channels were navigable, and his people also watched those.

  In the relative security, Callan worked on two questions: What was on the tablet, and how had Thorn found his secret operation on Klamath Lake?

  He had a strong feeling that they were related and that if he found the answer for one, it would lead to the answer for the second.

  Faith

  Faith looked at the envelope sitting on her kitchen counter for the hundredth time. Two days before, she had been dropped off at her apartment building by the man who called himself Trevor Martel. In the envelope lay a check from Apple Creek Corporation for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Not wanting to pay her bank for bouncing a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollar check, she called the number on it and verified its validity, not stolen, not fake, one hundred percent real, and one hundred percent cashable. Satisfied, she cashed it with the banking app on her phone. Then she went to bed and stayed there for twelve hours.

  Upon waking, she fired up her laptop and searched for Laird Northwin. He looked older in the online photos than he had in person, and she could not find a very clear one. Being in the same industry, more or less, she knew of him, but Faith had never researched him the way she would a client or a target. “I know of him as a flea knows of a dog,” she said to herself aloud.

  After popping a frozen Indian meal in the microwave and eating it like a robot while her mind whirled, she plugged in her cell phone and began calling in favors from her friends from the Gulfwatch project. Though she had been gone several months and the team had suffered a bloodbath of firing, forced retiring, and transfers under Stoddard, these were people she had trained and mentored for the difficult and dangerous job of infiltrating the various drug gangs operating in the Gulf.

  Though the Cártel del Golfo, or CDG, gang dominated the Gulf region, with its main operation based in Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, there were splinter gangs, corrupt townships, and various ancillary operations all through eastern Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. Her people had their fingers on the pulses of most of the important players still. She had gone through firefights and hurricanes with these people. Many remained fiercely loyal to her.

  Having planted her seeds, she had stayed up late into the night, planning how she would spend the money, on advertising and networking, and get her almost-dead, fledgling company back on its feet and ready to soar. Then, after midnight, unable to shut off her mind, she had taken two Ambiens and fallen into a dreamless sleep that had lasted until her automatic coffee machine had woken her up with the aroma of Chinatown Coffee Company’s French roast. She thanked the great indifferent heavens that her phone hadn't rung until she had managed to slurp down the first cup.

  Soon, she had Miguel Osiel on the line. Osiel ran a boat out of Matamoros, mixing fishing with small-time smuggling of drugs and women to offshore oil rigs. Most of the rig operators performed random drug testing of the workers, so one of his current hot shipments consisted of bags of clean urine. In his mid-forties, Osiel dyed his hair gray and dressed to look like an old man. He had perfected the wavering voice and shaky hands of someone who had made a career testing various substances, both legal and illegal. Faith knew his hands were rock-steady whenever he needed them to be. He had an array of listening devices and sensors disguised as fishing equipment on his faded thirty-foot sport fisher, the Vision Doble.

  Faith had sent Osiel a few of the photos Trevor had given her on a thumb drive the day before, as well as the description of her target as Trevor had described Callan to her. “Your man sounds like the boss of a gang of gun runners operating out of New Orleans, out on the delta. They have been trading guns for drugs for several years out there, but lately their boss showed up from somewhere out west. They have been stepping up operations, also. Very good products. Automatics, good quality, not that Norinco shit.”

  Norinco, a Chinese arms manufacturer known for poor-quality guns, Faith thought. “Sounds like a possible lead, then. I’ve already talked to Florida and Alabama. They haven’t seen anyone like him.”

  “The boss of these men, Faith, he’s said to be a fachero. He goes to casinos in Alabama to look for ladies.”

  “Do you know which ones?”

  “I don’t, Faith, I’m sorry. He goes by boat is all I know. I heard it when some of his men were getting gas in Port Isabel. They were complaining that he took the better boat.”

  “Ah, that’s great info, Miguel. So I just need to look at casinos that are a reasonable boat ride from the delta. They probably don’t go in and out of the city itself. Too visible.”

  “That would be my bet. There are miles of empty buildings along Levee Road and the 23. Things still have not recovered from Katrina out there.”

  “Yeah. Lots of places to hide. Thank you, Miguel. How is Maria?”

  “Oh, Faith, she’s a sweet dream. I am in la casa chica all day long w
hen I’m with her. I will owe you forever for introducing us!”

  Faith had her first good laugh in what felt like months when he said that. Things were finally coming together after hours on the phone. I know how to find my target!

  “Hey, no problem, Miguel. Someday you do the same for me, okay?”

  “Ah, my cuate, I will someday.” His voice grew more serious.

  “Be careful on this one Faith. I got a bad feeling. His men were pissed he took the good boat, but they were saying his name like you say the devil’s name, you know?”

  “I will, Miguel. You take care also. Don’t haul in a bull shark thinking it is a tuna!”

  He laughed at that. “Ah, I will be careful, dear. Lately, I’ve been selling so much of this clean piss that I have to buy tuna to make it look like I’m really fishing.”

  “Miguel Osiel buys fish? What has the world come to?” Faith laughed.

  “Adios, friend.”

  Alice

  “So Ami, tell me about Miami.”

  “I will paraphrase online sources if that is okay?”

  “Sure, Ami, paraphrase yourself silly!”

  “You turned silly off when you found my irony setting. The land that became Miami was first settled one thousand years ago by a Native American tribe known as the Tequestas. The Spanish arrived in 1566 and built a mission there the next year. Things didn’t really start happening there for many years after that, however, and it was often known as a promising wilderness. Then a freeze in 1895 killed most of Florida’s orange crop, yet spared most of the trees in Miami. A prominent landowner named Julia Tuttle extended a railroad to the port of Miami, and the city began to grow. Wealthy people built a millionaire’s row of beautiful homes along Brickell Avenue, overlooking Biscayne Bay. Later, some of these properties were converted into condominium towers, restaurants, and even universities.”

  “What about this Harbor Tower?”

  “In one of the best spots on Brickell, where the road curves eastward, on a circle of land projecting into the bay, there are half a dozen seaward-oriented towers. The most northern one is the coral-swathed Harbor Tower, and at its foot is the Harbor Tower Restaurant with a sweeping view of Biscayne Bay.” Ami’s electronic voice paused. “By the way, turn left here and then we will arrive at the parking garage you selected.”

  Having left her car in the parking garage, Alice stood with the sea on her left and the tower on her right, in the shade of a roadside row of tamarind trees, and looked at the powder-black-framed revolving door to the first floor of the restaurant. Afraid that she would be searched, she also left her phone and most of her money in the car. She did still have Moore’s Centennial, and she had managed to find some .38 special rounds to fill its chambers at a store named Guns R Us in Fort Myers.

  She worried that Guzman might know her face, either from a meeting she could not remember or from a photo Sara might have shown him. Taking no chances, she had dyed her hair blond and darkened her skin with a fake tanning solution the night before. She had also made her brown eyes sea-green with some inexpensive contacts she had found at a beauty salon in Coconut Grove. When she had left the store, the woman reflected in the glass doors no longer looked familiar.

  “Here’s hoping Guzman doesn’t recognize me either,” she whispered and strode into the restaurant’s lobby. Gambling that Guzman did not know Sara was dead, yesterday she had texted the number from the Facesearch app with a short message: “Friend of Sara, have something for you. Meet at your restaurant tomorrow.” She was amazed to get a reply several hours later: “Seven PM, Deathanco Bar, above the restaurant.”

  She had Ami google the name of the bar then and had found it to be situated on the tenth floor of the Harbor Tower, below a rumored twenty-four-hour poker room on the eleventh floor. She asked the uniformed doorman where the elevators were, and he pointed toward them.

  Alice exited the elevator and realized the Deathanco Bar filled this floor. The elevator door put her right in the center of it. The mostly-occupied booths contained black onyx tables, and the low ceiling was rich, dark-veined wood. The inner walls were black also, with discreet, false candlelight fixtures every few feet. A circular smoked-glass window looking out over the sea formed the outer walls. She thought the designer must have been going for a mellow ambience where drinkers at every table could gaze out over the sea. Alice found it annoying as it made it harder to pick her target out from the crowd. She had made herself up to look older and stuffed her clothes to make herself look chubby. In this mostly thin and well-dressed crowd, it looked as though her work had achieved her goal because people looked through or around her.

  As she moved around the bar, she saw him. He appeared to be alone, on the last stool before the gray granite-topped bar disappeared into a deeply-grained wooden wall, looking out the window. He had a deeper tan than in the picture from Moore’s, and in the darkness of the bar his hair appeared lighter, as if he had spent a great deal of time in the sun. Loose strands of hair framed a face that looked sharper, more chiseled than in the photograph. He had a white sports jacket on over a mostly unbuttoned cream-colored shirt and tan chinos. He nodded to the beat of the music. She noticed his eyes darting from one person to the next as he rocked about. Alice recognized the tune playing as one she had liked on the car ride over; when she had asked Ami its name, she had said, “Brokenhearted.” The beat-rich song seemed to give her target many excuses for moving his head.

  She sat on one of the dark, round stools at the bar and watched him for a few minutes. Several people came up and greeted him, and he appeared gracious in return, but no one stayed long. She couldn’t see anyone guarding him. She did see several hard men with restless eyes in her circuit of the room. She guessed they were undercover, watching for trouble.

  A large man in a shirt covered with bright-red and yellow flowers stopped and spoke jovially to Guzman. Alice couldn’t quite understand him over the noise of clinking glasses and the pulsing beat. The man touched glasses with Guzman and headed down the hall past him.

  Alice moved in and sat down on the stool next to Guzman. As the song wailed, “Baby,” she looked the man in the eyes and said, loudly, “Hello, Tomas. I’m the one Sara sent.” His smile lit up his face, and Alice noticed his even, white, teeth.

  “Ah, my mystery friend — how is our dear Sara?”

  “She’s doing well,” Alice lied, “and sorry she couldn’t make it.”

  Guzman grinned and looked left, then right, and pointed at his ears. “Well, we have much to discuss, my friend, but it is very loud here. I’ve a more private room. Would you mind if we went there to talk?” He motioned down the hall. “It’s just down this way.”

  That fit her plans well, and Alice nodded. She gripped the revolver in her pocket. If he is trying to get me into a vulnerable position, I am ready! Getting the information she needed would be best done out of the public eye, in any event.

  “Perfect!” He leaped from his stool and walked down the hall with Alice following. She did a quick visual sweep of the room, and no one seemed to notice the pudgy older woman following the handsome man down the hallway toward the restrooms.

  They passed the doors to the restrooms. She noticed that a somewhat abstract painting of a man in a white suit marked the men’s room door, and a similar painting of a woman in a puffy dress marked the women’s room. Cute, she thought.

  They arrived at the end of the hall at a final set of oaken double doors with brass handles. Tomas produced a key, unlocked and opened the doors, and motioned her to go in. She found herself in a large office with expensive furniture, looking out over the same expansive view of Biscayne Bay as the in the bar, except from this angle she could see the graceful span of the causeway to Key Biscayne and the islands behind it. A desk sat to one side of the office and, next to it, a leather couch and chairs with a rich look that promised a soft, buttery seating experience. A softly lit bar faced the couch, with burning candles giving off a coconut smell. Alice walked in and turn
ed to face Guzman, who closed the double doors behind him and then turned to her again with his dazzling smile.

  “Well, miss, you seem to know me, but I have not had the honor?”

  “Ah, call me Lilly, Lilly Valero.”

  The bag of goodies from Jenny had contained a driver's license with that name, so she could show him ID if he asked for it.

  “Well, Miss Lilly, I apologize for this, but I must ask you,” Guzman’s smiling face suddenly changed to a mask of anger, and in his hand appeared a long, shiny knife, “who the fuck are you?”

  Alice held her hands out and stepped back, not far, though, as the desk and the chairs limited her range of motion.

  “Hold on, Tomas. Sara sent me to talk to you. I’m a friend.”

  “Sara is dead! Murdered! Weeks ago! Now again, who are you?” Guzman jabbed the knife at her as he spoke.

  Alice had enough of the knife pointing. She grabbed Guzman’s knife hand and pulled him forward, simultaneously sweeping her right hand diagonally in front of her and hitting Guzman’s arm between his wrist and elbow, sending the knife flying. She then straightened out his arm and raised it, hearing, Control the threat, in her head. She gripped his wrist tightly while she drove her right elbow into his ribs under his arm once. Then she stepped closer to him, raising her arm above his shoulder, and drove her elbow into the back of his head, stunning him. She continued the swing, bending Guzman forward as she slid her arm around his forearm, and grabbed her left wrist. This left Guzman bent over, and she brought him down to the floor with his arm twisted behind him.

  Alice knelt beside him with his wrist locked solidly between her two hands and said, “Now, Mr. Guzman, from here I can just do more of this,” she twisted her lock a bit, “and break both your elbow and wrist. If you shout, you will be in excruciating pain, with broken bones.”