“You certainly will not.”
He clutched her arms and gave her a little shake. “I’ll take your photograph.”
“Like hell you will. I will not have you hurt! They could spot you, track you. Don’t you see?”
“I’ll put my security man on the job.”
“What?” She shook her head.
“Grant is good. Excellent. We’ll use what we know, who we know. I have contacts in the town. Business men. Men who operate legally. You can’t stop me, Anna.”
She stared at him. How had she deserved him? How could she dissuade him?
“I’ll talk to Mona, too. She’ll help us.”
“Mona doesn’t operate illegally,” she said.
“But she knows people in Monterrey. Probably in Nuevo Laredo, too.”
Anna halted, exhausted arguing with him. Mona Travis seemed like no resource. But she could be wrong.
“I know where Mona lives, geographically and ethically. She’s a savvy business woman, Hard-working. I met her a decade ago and liked her and her business. She’s built a chain of resorts and fitness centers that are among the best in the country. In fact, when Cord and Sienna and I began to plan our own, we consulted with Mona to sound out our intentions in Mexico.”
Anna sighed. If she couldn’t beat him, she had to join him. “The biggest question is about this list of the members of this New Jersey crime organization. If it ever existed. If it does now, where is it and who has it? And if we can’t prove its existence or lack of it, can we ever hope to have a normal life, free of fear?”
“I have to try to learn, honey.” He opened his hands in surrender. His expression told her this was his last tactic, his last plea.
She considered his words. His dedication. She’d be such a coward not to meet him half way. Not to try to escape this nightmare.
She slipped off the robe, letting it fall to the floor. She stepped toward him and took his hand, then led him in to the bathroom and into the shower.
Inside the tiny compartment, he stood waiting for her to make the first move. She pressed up against his marvelous body and cupped his neck. Up on her toes, she kissed him. “To make you happy, I’ll do anything.”
He sucked in air.
She hooked her leg up and leaned back. As the spray rained down, she ran her hands over his wonderful sculpted body and delighted in his hard response. Shifting, she took him between her thighs and rubbed against him. She wanted him, not just for today, but forever after. And she had to do something to ensure there could be an ever after.
Even if she doubted it.
An hour later, Tate pulled on a tee shirt and khakis and left Anna sleeping. He had work to do. First was to put in a call to Grant Warwick.
He climbed upstairs to the bridge, picked up his phone and hit Grant’s number. Luckily, Grant picked up right away. Grant had worked in the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI so Tate hoped he could do some digging through back channels and shed some light on this puzzle.
“I have more work for you,” Tate told him.
“Don’t want me to get rusty, right?” Grant said with sarcasm.
“You got it. Any word on the trace of the license plate or the car I told you about last night?”
“It should be soon.”
“Good. I’m in a hurry,” Tate said. “Here’s the new line. I want you to look into the arrest and conviction of a crime boss in Bayonne New Jersey in late seventies, early eighties.”
“Name?”
“Hasn’t come out yet. Too much for her to tell in one sitting. But I’ll get it.”
“Okay, with the location and date, that’ll give me a start,” Grant provided.
“That’s what I thought,” Tate agreed then recounted Anna’s story about her father’s activities and arrest, her mother’s testimony and their subsequent submersion in the Witness Protection program. After he related the tale of Anna’s mother’s and sister’s deaths, he said, “I’d say someone leaked something here.”
“Hmm,” Grant mulled that over. “Does Anna have any ideas who that might be?”
“No. She was three years old when they left New Jersey for New Mexico and in the next twelve years, they had no problems, no threats. But something is wrong there.”
“I have an old Army buddy who’s in the Marshalls Service. I’ll give him a call, see if he can take a peak at any of those old WitPro records. But I gotta tell you, Tate, it’s not likely that he’ll be able to find or tell us much.”
“Yeah. I would expect the Service keeps a tight lid on all those cases.”
“Their entire mission is to sequester these people forever and deep six their real IDs. Any breech would be grounds for dismissal.”
“That’s why I cannot believe the feds were at fault here. But stranger things have happened. So maybe this is ridiculous to ask, but I have to,” Tate persisted. “Could the Service have been infiltrated by criminal networks up along the East Coast?”
“Phew,” Grant made noises of disbelief. “Tall order for a bunch of crooks. I’ll sniff around though and see what I find.”
“Go look at child protective services in Albuquerque, too. They failed Anna, big time.”
“Get me some names of staff from her,” Grant directed.
“I’ll ask. Then see what you can find out about forgers in Nuevo Laredo.”
Grant whistled.
“I know, I know. Needle in a haystack.”
““Nuevo has one of those on every street corner. Got a name for me on that?”
“I promise you one. Soon.”
Grant cursed. “Tell me why I’m going there.”
Tate told him about Anna’s fake driver’s license and passport. “One more thing, not a priority, but still someone to look at.”
“Well, hell. Hope you have a name for this one,” Grant complained.
“I do. Mona Travis. San Antonio.”
“The white-haired beauty who owns those fancy weight-loss spas?”
“One and the same.”
“What am I looking for in her background?”
“Anything that smells bad,” Tate replied.
“What did she do to Anna?”
“Gave her a job. A good one.”
“What else?” Grant asked. “No girlfriends I need to run? No old boyfriends lurking in the background?”
“I’ll ask. But I do doubt the boyfriend angle.” She’s been so careful of her life, even refraining from acting on her attraction to me.
“Yeah? Ask her anyway, Tate. I’ve seen how you look at her. I see how you’re reacting to this, but be clear. It’s better to cover all the territory initially or we’ll wind up with our dicks in our hands. Especially dealing with syndicates. Drugs, guns, slave labor, drone missiles, automatic assault weapons. They sell so well along the Rio. It’s the devil’s web.”
“Agreed. Which brings me to the last issue,” Tate said with trepidation.
“I’m listening.”
“The reason the mother and sister were murdered was because the mob in New Jersey was lead to believe by Anna’s father that he’d given his wife a list of names of all the members of the network. They came looking for the list.”
“Tate, Jesus. They killed the mother and sister to try to get it?”
“Right. And Anna knows nothing about any list. Her mother never said she had one. Anna has no idea if one even exists.”
“And the mother never gave Anna anything? A diary? A letter? Anything?”
“As far as I know right now, no, Grant. That’s all I’ve got. If there’s anything I’ve missed, I’ll call you back,” he said.
As he ended the call, he sat down in his captain’s chair and contemplated the rippling water. The sun was setting, casting brilliant scarlet and yellow rays over the water. He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. But he couldn’t get rid of one sad thought. He was painfully aware Anna hadn’t said she loved him.
And that was all right. Sure it was.
&nbs
p; He didn’t want her to say precious words she might not feel. He wanted her freely and for as long as she wanted him in her bed and in her life. Just because he was crazy for her didn’t mean she had to declare her undying love for him.
He ran his hands over his head. And spun around in his chair, angry with himself. He made it a rule not to lie to himself. And saying it didn’t matter that she might not want him permanently was a big fat lie.
He wouldn’t push her. If she cared, fine. If not, he’d deal with it.
But he would get to the bottom of this for her. He had to.
Because there was no way forward without resolution.
No way.
An angry red light blinked before him.
He shut his eyes. Opened them.
The red light blinked again.
His marine telecom system was sending out a signal.
He ran down the steps. The fax machine bleeped. He strode to it and read the message.
“Tried to call you back. Bad signal. Have lead on owner of Rodeo: Good news/Bad news. CALL ME! GW.”
Tate picked up his cell phone and hit the auto-dial for Grant’s personal line.
“Hey, you okay?” Grant asked first thing.
“Fine. We’re about three-four hours out of Tampico harbor. Guess the signal is sketchy.”
“Must be my service,” Grant said. “I’ll look into it.”
“What’s up with the owner of the car?”
“The tags are licensed to a man in Laredo, Texas. Thirty-two years old. Natural born American citizen. Eduardo Escobar was his name.”
“Was?” Tate said. “Tell me the rest.”
“He’s dead. Shot last year on his way to work. The sheriff’s homicide detective says they had little evidence and could not identify any suspect. No surprise there since law enforcement is so overworked along the border. But the detective speculates that Eduardo was in the pay of the Sinaloa gang.”
“Why’s that?”
“He worked at a used car dealership. A salesman. Since Escobar’s death, the detective says they have turned up other cars with false titles. Sinaloa’s head man in Laredo lived next door to Escobar when they were kids. The two were tight. So our detective concludes Escobar must have been running his own side game for Sinaloa, giving out fake titles for his buddies. Risky business, right? So the detective says one day, Escobar doesn’t do as his amigo tells him and it’s adios, Eduardo. ”
“Any record of this Jeep Rodeo sold at that dealership?” Tate asked, but figured he knew the answer.
“No.”
Tate cursed slowly. “No hint of the Rodeo for sale in any gang shops in Houston?”
“None yet. We’ll keep looking. He can’t drive around with a crushed plate without some Texas State trooper stopping him for a look-see.”
“True. We’ve got a good beginning, Grant.”
“But you’ve also got something else, too.”
“Yeah. What?”
“A bad case of loving Anna Stephens.”
Tate nodded. To hear someone else say them made it all real. Bigger than life. “Yeah, well. Just get me all that. I’ll work from here.”
“Meanwhile, stay safe.”
“I have protection,” Tate told him, eyed the deck compartment housing his harpoons and the mount for the spear gun, and on the other side lay his set of knives for gutting, dicing and filleting anything he caught. “Got my Smith & Wesson, too.”
“Carry the gun with you on shore if you think customs is lax there and wont confiscate it. In any case, do not let Anna out of your sight. You want her to live a long and happy life.”
“Goes without saying,” Tate said as they ended the call.
Tate sat watching the sun disappear. With a jolt, he realized how few people really ever had helped her. Everyone had failed her. Mother, father and governments.
He’d be the one to help her out of the mess others had made.
“Because I want her. ” I want her to be free. Free of danger. Free to come to me if she wants. For a life time. A long and prosperous six or seven decades. “At any cost to me.”
Chapter Six
“Getting through that checkpoint was certainly easier than I anticipated,” Tate told her the next morning as they drove from the huge stucco harbor customs and immigration bays out of Tampico.
“I’ve never had any problems with this driver’s license or passport,” Anna replied, sighing with relief that once more she’d passed through such a barrier easily. She had wanted to stay on the yacht, but Tate had refused to leave her there alone.
“I’m capable of taking care of myself,” she had told him over breakfast. But her ability at krav maga had cut no mustard with him—and she wasn’t going to tell him about her Sig Sauer or her superb marksmanship. He’d want to know details about how she’d acquired both, and she wasn’t eager to frighten him for her safety any more than he was. To tell him how she’d practiced for years with the handgun at target ranges would mean he would lock her up and throw away the key to protect her. And she knew the only way to end this particular episode of someone chasing her was to either find out once and for all if her mother had ever possessed this infamous list—or disappear. Become someone else. Again.
Tate shifted into higher gear in his rented Toyota sedan and turned onto the highway north toward the site of the Ryders’ new resort construction. “This forger was certainly an expert. Do you remember his name?”
She smiled ruefully. “Men like these don’t have names. They don’t need them because they work for cash. But I do remember where he was located. A house in back of the main street of Nuevo Laredo. Near the central Mercado and the city square. The house was typical stucco, two-story emerald green with bright eggplant purple shutters. ”
“It’s easy to find a forger like this?” he asked, his eyes wide in incredulity but trained on the road that narrowed to two lanes.
“In Mexico? Of course. Since the gangs have taken over the border towns the last ten or more years, it’s even easier. You just go and ask around discreetly in the streets. As long as you have American dollars to pay the street boys who seem to know every type of vice you need, they’ll point the way to whatever. Cocaine. Meth. Handguns. Assault weapons. Women of every age and color.” She crossed her arms and starred out her side window at the palm trees lining the coast. “I was not proud of the fact that I had to stoop down to that criminal level. I became the equal of my father, but I had no choice.”
“I hear you, sweetheart,” Tate consoled her. “After we finish here with the builders, we’ll go back to the yacht. Do you think you can draw a map of where this forger might have lived?”
“I’ll try. But honestly, Tate, I doubt he’d still be there. People like this move around often. It’s a precaution against being arrested.”
“We have to try.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “And I need you to tell Grant and me a few more things. Tonight when we get back to the boat, we’ll call him.”
“Sure.” She tried to smile.
“One thing we need to know is your real name and all the others you’ve assumed.”
“Anna Marie,” she said, pronouncing the unused sounds with a reverence she had reserved for quiet moments alone with her happier memories. “Anna Marie Sellers was my second name. The one I had when we lived in New Mexico. The one I grew up with. I remember struggling to write that name. Marie didn’t seem correct to me. My mother told me later that in Witness Protection you keep your first name so that the transition to your new life seems easier. But I was only three and when I wrote my name right after we moved, I always put down my real name.”
“And your real name?” he asked, glancing at her quickly and back to the road.
“Anna Karina,” she pronounced with an accent she could not trace to anything but a hazy childhood memory. “Anna Karina Sukova.”
“Russian?” Tate said, under his breath. “Your parents were Russian immigrants to America?”
He was
startled. She couldn’t blame him. Russian and Eastern Bloc émigrés had acquired a nasty reputation in the U.S due to the minority who affiliated with criminal elements. “My father, yes. Not my mother. She was Irish-American. Her family had been in America for three generations. But she fell for the bad boy in the neighborhood and regretted it years afterward.” Anna faced Tate, a man so kind, so loving, so attentive, she knew she could stay with him and never suffer what her mother had for her poor choice. Proud of her own instinct to care so deeply for a good man like Tate, Anna was awash in shame of her own lineage. And regret. “A terrifying prospect, isn’t it, to think I come from Russian mafiya?”
“They’re ruthless.”
“Determined,” she added.
Tate turned into a smaller road, one lane, marked by a large sign pointing toward the resort’s construction site. “You’ve not had any help against them. And when push comes to shove, we’ve got Grant and his team with us plus the resources of the U.S. government.
She shook her head. “The U.S. government failed me before, Tate. I have no reason to believe in them now.”
“I understand. But we have to win, honey. We’re the good guys.”
She smiled at him, knowing he meant his words. But she turned away, admitting once more to herself that she cared for him as well. If she loved him, she would not permit herself to say. That was too much to bear, knowing it would bring her and him only sorrow at their separation. And separate they would. Must. His declaration of love had thrilled her, humbled her and made her promise herself she would not let him delude himself into thinking they might have a long-term relationship. She had come here with him too readily, too easily. A comforting choice for her at the time, it had been an act he insisted upon and one she agreed to.
Fool.
What had made her think she could change years of running? Desire for a charming man? Need for a few nights of passion with a lover whom she deeply cared for?
Yes, the hours in his arms had refreshed her, even inspired her for a few moments to live in a fantasy thinking she could have a normal life. But that was such a lie. Such an impossibility. All because she was in an insolvable dilemma. She had rejected looking for the list years ago, telling herself its discovery might help the government, but would only bring her more trouble. More threats. More thugs. And death. Worse, she had no ideas if it even existed.
Tall, Hard and Trouble Page 5