The Enemy Inside

by Steve Martini

  I noticed, two days ago, a loaded pistol in the center drawer of Harry’s desk, a snub-nosed hammerless thirty-eight. I was looking for some Advil. Harry always keeps it there. His drugstore, and I stumbled over the thing. I hadn’t seen it for years. I thought he had sold it. But he hadn’t. Like Harry, the old brass bullets in the gun are probably corroded, but it gives him a sense of security. I am not leaving him here alone.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Who was it?” Alex came out of the room.

  “DHL. Delivery from the office.”

  “Open it,” said Alex.

  Herman grabbed a knife out of the drawer in the kitchen, laid the box on the counter, and used the knife to peel back the glued-down tab sealing the end of the box.

  The brilliant flash was blinding. The concussion threw both of them against the wall, where they lay dazed for several moments listening to the hissing sound as the gas filled the room.

  The choking sensation was finally what wakened them. Herman came to, crawling around on his hands and knees, coughing, sputtering up green slime, feeling his way through the billowing fog until he finally fell over Alex who was just beginning to move.

  Ives was in a panic. He couldn’t breathe. He struggled to his feet and tried to make it to the door. Herman had to restrain him.

  Ives was pumping so much adrenaline that it took almost the full reserve of strength left in Herman’s body to bring him down. Alex clawed at him with his fingers, trying to get away, scraping the skin from Herman’s arm as they fought. They fell somewhere near the island in the center of the room. Herman knew it because he hit his head on the corner of the counter as they went down.

  He felt around with his hand, found the open shelf and the weighty steel of the pistol, grabbed for it, and brought the gun down hard across the back of Ives’s head near the base of his skull. Even with this, the kid was still trying to get up. Herman knew he couldn’t fight him much longer. He was coughing trying to catch his breath. He was trying to yell at him to stop. But he couldn’t get the words out.

  He hit him again, a glancing blow off his shoulder. Then one more time. The gun caught Ives near the crown of his head. He went down onto the floor hard and didn’t move.

  Herman wondered if he’d killed him. But he didn’t have time to find out. The CS gas was overwhelming him. It burned his skin, scorched his lungs, and turned the sockets of his eyes into fiery liquid pools. He crawled on his hands and knees away from the front door toward the back of the unit, the ocean side.

  He found a chair and threw it with all of his strength toward the light. The crash of glass told him he found his mark. The large picture window facing out toward the Pacific shattered. Shards of glass fell from the window frame up near the ceiling.

  The pressure of conditioned air inside the unit forced enough of the gas out the opening that Herman could finally make out some details in the room. Through a veil of tears he could make out the lump on the floor, Ives’s motionless body lying there.

  Herman stumbled toward the front door. He reached with his thumb until he found the safety, clicked it off, and pulled the hammer back. He swung the safety bar, dropped to his knees, and threw the door open as he went down onto his stomach.

  The instant he did it, a volley of bullets ripped through the open door, the subsonic crackle of a silencer as the rounds slammed into cabinets in the kitchen somewhere behind him. A cloud of tear gas driven by the ocean breeze through the smashed window billowed out through the open front door. Another volley of shots, this time fired blindly, smashed into the doorframe above Herman’s head. Bits of concrete and drywall drifted down like flakes of snow.

  Herman could see red. He thought it was blood in his eyes from the tear gas until it moved. It seemed to float among the clouds of gas running out of the room. It was no use trying to line up the sights on the pistol, his vision was a blur. Instead he took aim with both eyes open along the top of the pistol’s return, adjusted to fire low so he wouldn’t fire over the top, and squeezed off three quick rounds at the bottom center of the moving red object. When he wiped his eyes and looked again it was gone.

  He crawled out through the open door along the balcony outside. A cross breeze cleared the cloud of gas enough for Herman to make out the lifeless body of the deliveryman lying on his back, still wearing his red shirt. A submachine gun was now strapped across his chest, the fat tube of a silencer protruding from the end of the barrel.

  Herman got to his feet. He moved like a drunk and started to stumble forward. The moment he did, another volley of shots stitched the outer wall of the building a few feet in front of him. He looked over the railing down into the parking lot. All he could see was a blur, a hazy figure in the distance, what looked like jeans and a white T-shirt. Then another flash of fire from the muzzle of the man’s gun. Rounds ricocheted off the steel railing in front of Herman. Some of them splintered, sending tiny pieces of copper shrapnel buzzing into his body like burning wasps.

  Herman wavered in a daze, standing there on the balcony, silhouetted against the building waiting for the inevitable. He watched the blue and white blur as it danced in the distance. He knew it was too far away for the pistol in his hand even if he could take aim, which he couldn’t.

  He waited for the muzzle flash when suddenly a large white object streaked into the parking lot. It obliterated everything in its path like an eraser on a blackboard. It took out a small light pole, caromed off another car, and rolled like a rocket sled into the man with the gun. When it finally came to a stop, Herman’s eyes fixed on the white van that was coming to pick them up. They were late.

  THIRTY

  For all we knew, our computers and cell phones had been hacked and our landlines tapped. Harry has called in a security company to run a sweep of our home and office phones. The rest of it might take longer. But it’s likely Harry still won’t trust any of it. It took him two years to finally start using the computer. Now he’s addicted to it.

  After Graves’s death we were compelled to disconnect everything from the server in our office and pull the plug on the Internet. Our computers are now little more than glorified typewriters. The only signals they emit are Bluetooth wireless to the printers, and even that Harry is talking about shutting down and reverting to cables.

  “Two coach seats. We can’t afford business class.” Harry has a notebook in his hand writing down the details.

  “How long’s the flight?” I ask him.

  “Fifteen hours here to Amsterdam. After that it’s a cakewalk.”

  “I get the aisle.”

  “You’re the one wanted to go,” says Harry.

  “OK, you can have the aisle.” Better that than having to listen to him complain for fifteen hours. “Try to get a decent hotel at least.”

  “Two nights, right?”

  “Right.”

  “In the meantime, you try to see if you can get some lead on this guy,” says Harry. “The banker. What’s his name?”

  “Korff. Simon Korff. I called the bank, the one on his business card.”

  Harry shoots me a look, arched eyebrows.

  “I used the phone at the bar in the Brigantine, paid for the call with my credit card,” I tell him.

  “Good. We don’t want the man dying of an accident, at least not before we talk to him.”

  “They say he doesn’t work there anymore, but they’ve seen him around town. They’re pretty sure he still lives there. I’ll check online to see if I can find a listing for White Pages in Lucerne. Do it at the library on my way home.”

  “Gimme the name again,” says Harry. He writes it down. “I’ll look and see what I can find when I’m over at the Del. Concierge is a sweetheart,” says Harry. “She’ll let me use the computer in the business center.”

  “Good. It would help if we could use LexisNexis. Better search engine.”

  “But we can’t. OK, I’m outta here. Back as quick as I can,” says Harry.

  He may be trudging back and forth across th
e street. Any questions or problems as to the reservations, Harry can’t call for clarification because of the phones. And the secretaries can’t do it because we’re trying to keep them out of the information loop. Nobody in the office knows where we’re going. Only that we’ll be back in four days. This includes travel time.

  Harry heads out the door.

  Herman was right about one thing. It didn’t take them long to get into the van and on the road once it arrived. With the help of his friends they grabbed Alex and the two suitcases and stuffed them into the back of the vehicle. Then hauled the two bodies in after them. With a few neighbors looking on, the van rocketed out of the parking lot and down the road. It looked the worse for wear, a broken windshield and a badly dented front panel on the left side in front of the driver.

  Herman figured the only reason the killers didn’t use a larger explosive device was they couldn’t be certain that Alex was in the condo. The only way to be sure of that was to flush them and kill them outside. They probably would have taken photos of Ives’s bullet-riddled body to prove the kill to whoever hired them.

  As it was, Herman very nearly did the job for them. Ives’s head was still bleeding from where Herman nailed him with the heavy barrel of the pistol. Herman held a compress to it as one of his friends poured water from a canteen over Ives’s face trying to wash the residue of tear gas from his eyes.

  “Hurts like hell,” said Alex.

  “Hurt a lot more if you’d gone out that door,” said Herman.

  “What you’re saying is you saved my life.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Next time could you do it a little more gently . . . OW! Watch the head.”

  “Sorry. If it don’t stop bleeding soon, we’re gonna have to get you some stitches.”

  “Jeez, do we have to ride with them?” Alex looked at the two dead bodies piled up in the back of the van as the vehicle bounced around on the highway.

  “How much farther?” Herman yelled to the driver.

  “Few miles.”

  “This would be a whole lot better if I had some milk.” Herman’s buddy with the canteen continued to dribble water down Alex’s forehead and over his eyes. Ives jerked a little, brought one arm up. “Don’t rub it with your hands, son. Only make it worse,” said the man. “Water is OK, but milk neutralizes the CS. Stops the burning faster.”

  “Let’s stop and get some milk,” said Alex.

  “Not ’til we get rid of our passengers.” Herman gestured with his head toward the two bodies in the back. The one hit by the van looked like a rag doll. Herman had already gone through their pockets looking for anything that could identify them. They were clean, not a thing. Even the labels on their clothes had been removed. They were ghosts, the sign of professionals.

  Even their weapons, MAC-10 machine pistols, bore no marks or serial numbers. They had been taken off by a grinder, probably in a machine shop, and the metal etched with acid. Even the FBI crime lab would have had a hard time lifting the serial numbers. The guns were cheap enough to be cartel pieces, but to Herman it was suspect. Still, the short barrel had saved his life. Designed for close-quarters combat in confined areas, the man shooting from the parking lot had missed Herman with several bursts because he couldn’t track him down with the short barrel. He was spraying and praying until he was turned into jelly by the front end of the van.

  “Rental agency’s gonna be pissed,” said Herman.

  “Take it your firm has insurance,” said the driver.

  “Not for this, they don’t. Probably not good in Mexico in any event.”

  They may have been Herman’s friends, but they were on the clock. The firm was paying them and the bills were mounting. Now they could add to it the cost of a new vehicle. Herman was hoping that Alex’s parents were good for it. After all, it had saved their son’s life.

  “We could just drive it off a cliff with the two bodies,” said the driver.

  “What do we do for wheels?” said Herman.

  “Good point. We’ll pick up another rental, sort it out later,” said the guy.

  Ten minutes later, both of the shooters were sleeping with the fish. Their bodies pitched off a cliff into the Pacific at the end of a dirt road just south of Zihuatanejo. They threw the machine pistols in after them. If they were stopped they didn’t want the cops finding them in their possession. Herman could always toss his small pistol into the brush at the last minute. Killing someone in Mexico was a venial sin. Packing a gun, especially if it originated in the States, carried a maximum load, heavy time in a Mexican hole that passed for a prison.

  As for the bodies, Herman’s folks could have propped them up on a bench at a city bus stop the way it was done a few years earlier when one of the cartels wanted to make a statement. But they decided this would not be good for tourism.

  Back on the road Herman struggled to change his clothes. He rifled through his suitcase for a clean pair of shorts, some underwear, and a fresh T-shirt. His skin burned from the gas that saturated his clothing.

  “We stop, get some baking soda,” he told the driver. “Lots of it.” Baking soda on the skin would neutralize the chemicals in the gas and stop the skin irritation until they could get to a shower, where cold water and soap could be used to wash it away.

  “And milk,” said Ives. “My eyes are still burning. Where are we gonna go?”

  “For now that’s just what we’re gonna do, go,” said Herman. He wanted to put distance between them and the police back in Ixtapa, who he knew would be looking for them by now, taking descriptions of the van and the men in it. If they were lucky, none of the neighbors milling in the parking lot would have thought to take down the van’s license plate number. Hopefully too scared to think about it.

  Herman changed, then went to open Alex’s suitcase. As he did he noticed that one of the rounds from the machine guns had ripped a hole into the ballistic fiber of the luggage. He zipped it open and starting sorting through it to find a change of clothes for Ives. Between a pair of shorts and some denim jeans he found a spent bullet perfectly formed, as if it had been fired into a baffle by a ballistics expert trying to match up the lands and grooves. It was a .45-caliber ACP round. Not many people used them, not in silenced fully automatic pistols.

  “Coming up on the airport,” said the driver. “Let’s get rid of it.” He was talking about the van. “I’ll drop you off, close as I can to one of the rental agencies.” The guy with the canteen worked his way up and back into the passenger seat. “You may have to walk a bit. I don’t want to have to do the circle through the airport. Security’s too tight. Pick up a four-by-four if you can. Something big and we’ll meet up on the road, head out to the highway, and go south. Find a place, some quiet dirt road, where we can dump this thing into the ocean.”

  “No,” said Herman. “Better idea.” Herman was looking skyward through the back window of the van as he talked. “There’s a resort a few miles back on the highway. They got a parking garage, free parking, big sign on the road.”

  “Saw it,” said the driver.

  “Then you get the rental, let him drive.” Herman gestured toward the man in the passenger seat. “The two cars will meet up inside the garage under cover, not out on the road. We go in separately,” said Herman.

  “Got it.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  She saw him leave on foot and wondered where he was going. It was the middle of the afternoon. They had already gone to lunch and returned. So Ana followed him.

  Harry Hinds crossed over Orange Avenue and walked south along the front of the old hotel with its cone-shaped red roof and white siding. She wondered what her young niece and nephew would think if they saw this glittering place at night. When it was lit up, Ana thought it resembled an old-fashioned carousel.

  Hinds took the curving cement walkway toward the hotel’s main entrance. Ana followed, far enough behind so that he wouldn’t notice. He might have been going to a meeting, except he wasn’t carrying a briefcase
or wearing a coat.

  He walked under the portico leading to the entrance and disappeared inside. Ana followed.

  As she entered the lobby she lifted her sunglasses in order to see. Hinds was approaching an alcove off the main area, across from the reception counter. Under the alcove were two desks. One was empty, its plate-glass surface shimmering, not a scrap of paper on it. A woman sat at the other.

  The moment she saw Hinds she stood, smiled broadly, and greeted him, not formally, but by his first name. “Harry! How have you been?” Ana couldn’t hear her, but she could read the woman’s lips.

  She couldn’t make out what Hinds said. His back was to her. They chatted for a couple of seconds and the woman said, “How can I help you?”

  “Oh, sure. Have a seat.”

  They sat down at the desk.

  Ana had her book. She plunked herself down in one of the striped club chairs against the wall in the lobby. She opened her novel and peered over the top, sharpening her listening eye.

  Hinds handed the woman a folded piece of paper and they talked. “I see. I see.” The woman looked at the paper. “I see that. I can try. It’s short notice. But I’m sure we can find something. Let me take a . . .” The woman swiveled around toward the computer at the side of her desk. Ana lost the half of the conversation she was able to pick up. The screen was too far away to make out anything.

  The woman worked at the keyboard for two or three minutes as Hinds settled back into the chair. When she finally swung around toward him again she said, “Two coach seats. Last minute, they’re expensive.” She pulled a piece of paper from a printer under the desk, lined on it with a marker, and slid it across to him.

  He looked, said something. She shook her head. And finally Hinds nodded. “Hotel’s no problem.” She said something about reservations this afternoon.

  He said something else.

  “Oh, sure, no problem. Feel free.” She pointed to something across the lobby. “They ask you for a room number, just tell them you talked with me,” she said.