A nearby Italian eatery looked inviting, so they stopped and went in, and were pleasantly surprised by the rich odor of garlic and basil drifting through the dining room. They studied the menu and made their selections, and then the waiter brought bread and their drinks.
“Don’t forget we have a gun show tomorrow, too. What time is our first car viewing?” Jet asked.
“Eight A.M. The guy wanted us to stop by before he has to go to work.”
“Hopefully we can find something suitable. The gun show is about an hour drive from here.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it all done.”
“I know. But I don’t want to lose an entire day. I’d really like to start watching the building tomorrow afternoon. Once we get the car, we can split up. You take the building, and I’ll get weapons. I’m thinking a couple of Glocks or H&Ks. You have any preference?”
“Hard to go wrong with either. Any chance of finding silencers?”
“You know what? You never know. I was blown away by how many items at the last gun show I went to were pretty sketchy. I mean, one guy was selling full-auto conversion kits for AR-15s. So never say never.”
That night, when they drifted off to sleep in each others’ arms, Jet had a sensation of progress, now that they had their target within spitting distance. Her hope was that it would take only a day or two before she could get her hands on Sloan and find out why she’d had to fly halfway around the world. And when she did, it wouldn’t be pretty.
She hadn’t asked for this battle.
Or for any she’d been forced to fight since Trinidad, where her solitary safety had been shattered by the Russian’s hit team. No, she hadn’t invited any of this.
But she would definitely end it.
Once and for all.
Chapter 24
Montevideo, Uruguay
Water dripped down the gray walls from where a pipe seal had worked loose in the ceiling, the moisture leaching through the cement and blistered paint, gravity having exerted its powerful pull. A cockroach scuttled across the floor and paused at the small pool of dank fluid in the corner, then decided that it was too questionable for even its indiscriminate taste.
Hazy light filtered through a window nine feet above the floor, iron bars protecting the opaque glass from the inmates. The man lying on the steel bunk stirred, disturbed by a clank from the main jailhouse door at the end of the corridor. Unlike American jails, there was no rowdiness, no catcalls or hoots, just the desperate silence of the imprisoned awaiting whatever came their way.
The captive stood and moved to the steel toilet in the corner – no seat, no flushing mechanism, just a rank hole that led God knew where – and relieved himself, gagging at the noxious stink, his eyes watering as he struggled to hold his breath. One of the guards had told him that he was lucky to have even that – in the main jail, there was only a bucket, and when a drunk kicked it over in the middle of the night, the inmates got to swim in filth until someone came to hose down the cell the next day.
He felt his head with shaking fingers, the tips grazing over the scab from where he’d been struck, whether by his assailant or the guards during questioning he couldn’t be sure. Bruises covered his face and upper torso, and he was certain that he had some sort of internal injuries from the more spirited inquisitions the day before. One guard in particular seemed to enjoy using him as a punching bag, and he had heard a distinct crack at one point, a rib fracturing from a particularly well-landed blow.
At least he wasn’t peeing blood anymore. That had lasted twenty-four hours – several slams in the kidneys from a truncheon had gifted him with that bit of fun, but his body had apparently healed itself, at least to the point where he wasn’t dribbling his vital fluids down a rat hole.
His demands, and then requests, and then pleas to see his attorney again had gone unheeded, and seemed to amuse his captors no end. The way they grinned at one another and exchanged looks of genuine merriment when he had begged to talk to him was ominous, as was their refusal to get him a doctor. Apparently the rules in Uruguay were slightly different than in the U.S., and he was not only presumed guilty but viewed as a nuisance now that they knew he wasn’t going to tell them anything.
Not yet, anyway. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. The fat, tall guard on the night shift had threatened him with rape if he didn’t talk tomorrow, and by his demeanor it wasn’t an idle promise.
How the hell had he gotten to this point? He was just a lowly driver. He hadn’t killed anyone – well, outside of his tour of duty in the infantry, but that had been from a distance, with a rifle, almost surrealistic. Just a few squeezes of the trigger, a couple of pops, and then a fighter a thousand feet away had collapsed. It had been over before he’d even had time to process what had happened, and he’d told himself countless times, when the memory came in the dead of night, that it was almost like a video game. It had seemed impossible that life could be snuffed out so easily, with such casual randomness, a few thimbles of lead streaking invisibly through the air and a man was dead, and he’d almost convinced himself that it was more akin to a dream than reality. A different place, a different time; he’d been frightened, confused, dropped into a desert hell with other young boys barely old enough to shave.
The bravado that was their operating norm had faded after that first gun battle with hostiles during an ambush, and the medal he’d received had seemed odd – like it belonged to someone else. Mostly, he’d just kept his head down, other than shooting that one gunman, and when it was over he’d vomited at the sight of his three dead friends, lying twisted next to him where other bits of lead had found a home in their bodies.
After he’d been discharged, one of his buddies had contacted him a month into his civilian life. His frustration with a job search that had yielded only minimum wage openings was palpable during their discussion, and the buddy had suggested he interview at the company where he was now working. He’d jumped at the chance, and when they’d told him the starting pay, it had floored him.
This was his third international assignment. The first two had been pieces of cake – surveillance gigs where he’d spent weeks doing nothing, the first in Iraq, the second in Colombia. This job was supposed to have been a simple one, too. Watch the condo; a team would go in and do whatever they were supposed to do; and then they’d all go home. They had their own vehicle, so all he had to do was keep his partner company and not fall asleep.
It hadn’t turned out quite the way it had been described to him.
And now he was being treated like public enemy number one by a group of malevolent cops who didn’t seem to have the faintest interest in due process or humane treatment.
The attorney the company had sent had told him that he’d be out in no time, that they were working on it, to be patient and brave and not say a word, but he didn’t know whether he could keep up the charade much longer. He wasn’t brave. He was just desperate for a decent job, and his only skills were the ones he’d learned, poorly, in the army. It actually surprised him that he’d held out as long as he had – the fear that the company wouldn’t get him out if he talked had driven his false courage more than anything. A future in misery like this – or worse, being passed around for brutal sex like a pack of cigarettes at a rock concert – was an impossibility. Things like that didn’t happen to people like him. He was basically decent. This was some sort of mistake. A nightmare from which he’d soon wake up, comfortable in his bed back in Virginia.
The main door at the end of the corridor groaned as it opened, and then two guards made their way down the long concrete passage until they came to his cell. They stopped, and he looked up fearfully, and then relaxed when one of them held up a food tray.
“Back away into the far corner,” the larger of the two guards ordered.
He did as instructed, then watched as the big man unlocked the door and moved into the cell, pausing to stare at him blankly before setting the tray down on the bunk.
The driver was starving, having not been fed since the previous day, and began salivating at the sight of the hard bread roll and the unidentifiable gruel in a plastic dish next to it.
“Eat. You have five minutes,” the guard said, and then retreated out of the cell and shut the door, locking it with a key from the ring he held. The second guard grunted as the big man sneered at the prisoner, and then they both had a chuckle before moving back down the hall.
He almost ran to the tray and tore into the food like a wild animal, stuffing huge pieces of bread dipped in the stew into his mouth, only hesitating to chew a few times before swallowing. The plate was empty in two minutes, and he finished by licking the bowl clean, disgusted by his desperation even as he sucked the last of the nourishment from the hard plastic surface.
When the spasms hit twenty minutes later he doubled over, racked by agony, his stomach muscles contracting spasmodically. He tried to get up from the bed and then collapsed on the floor, groaning, the pain unlike anything he’d ever felt.
Ten minutes later the large guard came back, alone, and stared down at the writhing prisoner with misery written across his face as his eyes begged for help. The guard unlocked the door and stepped into the cell, a look of concern on his face.
The first kick from the stiff black boot took the driver by surprise, knocking the wind out of him with an oof. He barely registered when the guard pulled a plastic bag over his head and cut off his air supply, and by the time he rallied what little strength he had left he was already blacking out.
The big man held the bag in place as the prisoner jerked, his arms and legs flailing, and then went limp, his pants soaking with the paltry contents of his bladder as life departed his tortured frame. Once the guard was sure the driver was dead, he removed the plastic from his face and carefully folded it, then slid the small square into his pants before reaching into his shirt pocket and retrieving a tennis ball-sized chunk of bread. After forcing the dead man’s mouth open, he stuffed the bread as far down his throat as he could, then wiped his hands off on his shirt. He stood and regarded the driver with disgust and, careful to avoid the spreading puddle of urine, stepped around the corpse and left the cell, taking care to lock it behind him.
When the body was found the next morning, the death was quickly blamed on the prisoner choking on his meal, no doubt as a result of injuries sustained while he was trying to escape arrest as he was taken into custody. No post mortem was performed – the system didn’t coddle prisoners and didn’t have the resources to waste on that sort of thing. What was done was done, and no investigation would bring the dead back to life.
It was just another in a string of mysteries in a land renowned for them. South America was a continent shrouded in a kind of magic, where nobody questioned anything too closely. There were better things to do than dwell on that which couldn’t be changed, and a weary pragmatism greeted the terse announcement that one of the suspects in the condo slayings had died in prison of natural causes.
Nobody cared, and the body was cremated as quickly as a fire could be stoked.
Chapter 25
The following morning, Alan and Jet drove to inspect the first candidate car and spent fifteen minutes going over the vehicle – a relatively recent model Dodge Stratus with the wrong side of eighty thousand on the speedometer.
“All highway miles,” the owner insisted proudly, an insurance salesman who had used it to travel his route on the northern seaboard. “I’ve got all the maintenance records. Had the oil changed every three thousand miles, and never had any problems with anything besides some minor bulbs burning out and stuff.”
His sensibly cut thinning blond hair bobbed in the sun as he recited his best sincerity pitch, his eagerness to close the deal palpable. Buyers for high mileage domestic sedans were few and far between, and he was clearly not going to let them slip past him if he could help it.
Alan went through it carefully, being more mechanically inclined than Jet, and eventually gave the vehicle the nod after a perfunctory test drive. Jet handled the negotiation, and after a few minutes of haggling agreed to a cash price five hundred dollars less than the very reasonable asking price. The owner watched with hungry eyes as she counted out the hundred dollar bills, and was practically dancing back into the house to get the title as they stood in the driveway and waited.
“Seems pretty decent. We can have it checked over later, but there’s nothing obvious. And we’re not going to keep it forever, so it should do the trick,” Alan told her.
“It looks more comfortable than the Focus, that’s for sure, which is a good thing if you’re going to be using it to stake out the building.”
“My back still hasn’t forgotten the last two days of design issues with that seat,” Alan said as the owner returned with the pink slip and the second set of keys.
The man pumped Alan’s hand as Jet examined the title. “You won’t regret this. She’s been a real jewel for the last three years. I hate to see her go,” he enthused.
“Well, thanks. This is just what we were looking for. I’m sure it’ll be fine. And the dealer here knows the car?” Alan asked, disengaging and stepping away from the man.
“Absolutely. As you can see from the service records, I always had the dealer take care of her. You don’t want to be stranded in the rain or snow by the side of the road because you cheaped out on an independent mechanic,” the insurance salesman assured him.
Alan drove the Dodge and Jet the Ford, and he followed her back to the hotel, then met her in the lobby for a second cup of free coffee.
“It actually drives nicely. I think we got a deal,” he said to her as he came inside.
“Great. Let’s hope I get as lucky with the gun show. The good news is it’s a big one, so we should have no problems finding something interesting. Are you going to go over and start the surveillance now?” Jet asked, impatience obvious in her voice.
“Yes. Just let me use the bathroom and grab some more java and I’ll get over there.” They’d agreed that Jet would lead the way, and then he’d find somewhere discreet to park once they’d both eyeballed the property.
When they drove past the building, they saw a large, unremarkable two-story brick industrial building in a busy business park only five minutes from the hotel. From the outside it could have been anything; it gave no indication of being the headquarters of a killer-for-hire service. They pulled out of the area and stopped at a gas station. Jet slipped from behind the wheel of the Ford and walked to his driver’s side window.
“You know what he looks like, right?” she asked, anxious.
“I’ve only looked at the images you got off the web about a million times. He won’t get by me. When I see him, I’ll know him instantly. I’ve got my new cell phone. Go do what you need to do, and don’t worry. I’ve done this before,” he said with an easy grin.
“I’m sorry. I’m just…I want to get this over with, so I’m feeling impatient.”
“I know. So am I. But it’ll take as long as it takes. You know how this works.”
She did, and she appreciated his calm support.
“All right, then. I’m off to get us an arsenal.” She leaned down and kissed him, and then returned to her car as he rolled off.
The drive south to Richmond took longer than she had planned, but the gun show was just getting underway when she strode into the large hall. Vendors were set up on tables in long rows, and she took her time roaming, looking for pistols. Eventually she narrowed it down to two newer-looking CZ-USA 75 9mm semi-automatics. She haggled with the vendors and eventually bought both of them, each with two extra magazines, and then rounded out her purchases with a pair of shoulder holsters and a stun gun.
On her way out, she spotted an old man with a white beard selling combat knives, and got two folding Blackhawk CQD Mark 1 Type E knives with razor-sharp blades.
Silencers would be a problem. She’d need to buy some machine tools to make them, as well as create threads on the barrel
nubs of the pistols, as she’d had to do on her last trip to Washington. She recalled renting the storage space, and reconciled herself to running the same errands this time around. On the way out of the hall she asked a few of the vendors about ammo, and one of the men agreed to sell her two boxes of 9mm shells with no questions asked. They met at his car and he popped his trunk. He had easily twenty boxes of different caliber bullets, so it appeared that it was a popular sideline for him.
Fully outfitted, she quickly found a shop that had the requisite lathes and welders, and bought what she would need to fabricate the silencers. As she pulled away from the store, Jet checked the time and saw that the day was half over.
She called Alan after she’d rented a storage unit in an anonymous complex on the way back to the hotel and told him about her purchases and the silencers, and he assured her that he had everything under control. Sloan had appeared in a black sedan with a driver, and had stayed for two hours before leaving for lunch at an upscale restaurant near the river. He was now back at the building, and Alan was resolved to tail him and find out where he lived. He told her to get the silencers made and not to worry about him; he had things covered.
At seven that evening she was finishing cleaning up the stall when her cell phone vibrated, startling her. Alan’s voice was hushed when she answered.
“Bingo. I’m outside his place. The driver dropped him off. No signs of security other than electronics. Alarm, some lights on the roof. Possibly motion detectors in the back, but nothing I can see in the front from here. How are you doing?”
Jet 04: Reckoning Page 17