by Robert Lane
“Stay here until I come back for you,” I said as we reached the doors. I was anxious to get outside, help Garrett, and get the hell out of Dodge before the men in blue arrived. I pushed through the door and took two steps into a large and well-lit kitchen. Across the room was an enormous center island with an assortment of pots and pans hanging on hooks.
I heard a woman’s voice from behind me. “FBI. One move and you’re pushing up daisies.”
“Oh for Christ sake,” I said, staring at a brass frying pan and wondering who the hell really used brass frying pans, “is there anybody who’s not in this house tonight?”
CHAPTER 31
I spun around to face my assailant du jour. But it wasn’t her gun that locked my gaze.
Her left cheek looked like a rotten grapefruit, swollen and yellow and red. It was hard to ignore, which was a real shame as the rest of her was a considerable improvement.
Her milk chocolate hair swept over half her forehead, and her low-cut, light blue dress struggled to restrain her left breast. She held a standard issue Glock .22 with both hands in a posture that was right out of the agency’s training manual. Her figure and bedroom eyes were straight out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog. With a body like that, I felt sorry for her brain.
“Do you people really say that?”
“Back up,” she said.
“Take it easy.”
“Back it up, buster.”
“Buster? Where’d they recruit you from, Yale?” I took two steps back—no need to make her ask three times while she had a gun pointed at my pulsating head. Nothing new about that, although it was getting tiresome. Maria stood behind me and clutched my hand while Rosa sat straight and proud on my hip.
“Who are you? Where did you get those girls?”
“Slow down there, Annie Oakley. Let’s do one at a time.”
“Where did you get them from?”
“Found them in safe room upstairs.”
“Outside Escobar’s study?”
“You know about the study?”
“We have blueprints. What were you doing there?”
“Unbelievable. I was looking for Easter baskets and—”
“Don’t be smart with me.”
“Lady, I’d be hard pressed to produce any evidence that I’m even a distant cousin of smart.”
“What do you mean unbeliev—?”
“We’ll dance later. There are bad men with guns still loose on the property. I don’t like bad men with guns.”
She hesitated. She had certainly heard the shots when I dropped Victor, and I assumed she was waiting in the kitchen for someone, or something. In all likelihood she had heard the shots from outside as well. If there was more of her coming, I had to get Garrett, Morgan, and myself out of there.
“Back to the big theme. Who are you?” she asked, but this time slower with more curiosity and less demand in her voice.
“I’m one of the good guys,” I said.
“He’s Jacob,” Rosa said proudly. “He bit off the man with the ponytail’s nose.” She followed it with her nervous giggle. Maria stepped out from behind me, as if to protect me and challenge the lady in blue.
Maria said, “He shot a bad man with a gun.”
“From the mouth of babes,” I said. “I’m Jacob the good guy, who shoots bad people unless I’m hungry, and then I eat their nose. Now identify yourself, agent in blue.”
She relaxed her pose, but not the gun. “I’m Natalie Binelli, special agent, FBI. I’ve been working under cover as Escobar’s mistress, investigating Walter Mendis and Paulo Henriques. Mendis uses associates to smuggle illegal aliens into the country, and we believe that he may be using Escobar. We also believe that, on occasion, he smuggles in young girls. Some for sex and others for domestic help. Some have been kidnapped and others traded for loose change. We got word that four to six units might be coming in tonight, so I came back to the house. My job is to make the call when and if the boat comes in.”
“Why didn’t you go directly after Mendis?”
“I did. That fish didn’t bite.”
“You’re not afraid he won’t recognize you?”
“I make sure I don’t run into him. Besides, the bait was a blonde with glasses.”
I tried to picture her like that, but needed to focus on a greater issue. What if there were more feds in the neighborhood and her backup team heard the outside gunfire and decided to close in without her signal?
My job was to retrieve a letter for an agency that didn’t recognize me. I had no right to be in Escobar’s house. Then Rosa shifted her weight and my perspective. Returning them to their home was not an option, and I was positive that is exactly what the FBI would do. I was risking too much for my two young friends, and Morgan had laid out a nice life awaiting them. Freeing them from the house was no longer the sole objective. It would only serve as a moral victory.
“Moral victories do not count.” Tartakower.
“Your turn,” she said to me.
“I’m Jacob Travis, DEA. What’s unbelievable, to address your earlier concern, is that Uncle’s got two agencies here. We believed that Escobar was bringing in drugs. I heard these children through the wall and got them out. Is your backup team approaching due to the gunfire outside the property, or was that gunfire the result of your team?” If she wanted DEA identification she was flat fucking out of luck.
She lowered her gun. “It wasn’t us. My team isn’t even in the neighborhood. We weren’t certain anything would occur tonight, but on a hunch I dropped in on my own. They can be here within twenty minutes when they hear from me. We need the units on US soil to make an arrest. My team storming the house kills it for us. Without the units, our night’s a bust.
“But I don’t think we need the new units whether they arrive tonight or not. With those,” she waved the gun at my girls like they were hanging pots, “and the story they can tell, even if Escobar calls it off tonight, I’m going to call in and shut him down. We’ll offer him a generous reduction of his charges if he implicates Mendis and Henriques. Why didn’t DEA notify us that you were here?”
“Why didn’t the FBI give us a courtesy call?”
“Not my concern.”
“Will you return them to their home?” I asked.
“We have no facilities. Our arrangement is that the units are returned to their home country as soon as possible.”
I didn’t think Special Agent Natalie Binelli was a bad person, but it would be a cold day in hell before the FBI got their hands on my little “units.”
“Do you know what the outside shots were about?” she asked.
“Escobar’s trigger-happy men scared away kids,” I lied. I assumed that Garrett was the noisemaker as his job was to cover the front. He must’ve run into the men who I saw in the white van the other night who drove away with the four girls.
“The shots I just heard in the house?”
“Guy called Victor. Know him?”
“No.”
“It’s too late now.”
She looked at my two girls as if she coveted them and said, “I need to contact my team and let them know you’re here. I assume you need to do the same.”
“Of course,” I said. I put Rosa down on the wood floor. “Girls, go sit at the table. Ms. Binelli and I need to make some calls.”
Maria took Rosa’s hand and led her to a large wood table surrounded with high chairs. I casually walked over to Binelli. She held her gun low on her right side. She was a few feet away from the wall behind the door where she had positioned herself before we entered the kitchen. The FBI could have Escobar, nothing else. I was four feet away from her.
“Call your team first,” I said, “then I’ll…”
I lurched forward and took both her arms with my hands and spread them back wide out to her sides. I lifted her off the ground, took one large step back against the wall and—politely, and I’d like to think with a sense of aristocratic courtesy—slammed my body into hers. The mov
e caught her off guard and she tried to bring a leg up to kick me in my groin, but there was no room between us. I saw surprise and anger in her eyes, but the anger seemed to stem more from self-disgust. Her breath blasted out on my face from the impact of my body. It was accompanied with a low grunt. I moved my left hand out to her right hand and pinned it, and her gun, on the wall. It was the Elvis move, but she was a hell of a lot prettier. Her eyes were level with mine as I suspended her a foot above the floor and flat against the wall. I felt her breasts on my chest and her breath in my face. Her eyelashes were thicker than thirty-pound fish line and her soft brown eyes gave no hint of panic. She gave a final grunt as she tried to break free her right arm. I felt her relax. I didn’t. I leaned my weight into her.
“Drop the gun, Natalie,” I said.
“No.”
“The last time I was in this position, I ate the guy’s nose. Now drop the gun.”
Natalie Binelli leaned her face even closer. Her body went limp and soft. She slowly blew her air, and the heat of her breath warmed my face. “Go ahead, cowboy,” she said in a husky voice, “take a bite.”
Good lord. She didn’t get that from the training manual.
I squeezed my left hand hard around her wrist and slowly bent it sideways. Binelli never took her eyes off me and showed no pain until a final wince of her face as she dropped the gun just before I broke her wrist, which I really didn’t want to do.
“You signed up for fuck pad duty for God and country?” I asked. Our faces were still inches apart.
“Whatever it takes. You’ve got dried blood on your face,” she shot back at me.
“Whatever it takes. I’m going to put you down now.”
“I’m going to kick your balls to Cancun.” She leaned in and kissed me hard. I had no doubt that her intention was to bite my tongue off. I broke away from her and dropped her to the floor. I spun her around and shoved her, gently, face first against the wall.
“Maria,” I said, “bring me Ms. Binelli’s purse. It’s on the counter behind you.” I heard Maria’s feet paddle on the wood floor and then she stood beside me holding the small black purse.
“Turn it upside down,” I said. Maria emptied the contents onto the floor and a cell phone tumbled out. I stepped on it and heard a heavy crack. I turned Binelli back around and leaned in on her body. Our faces again were only inches apart.
“Ms. Binelli, I don’t want to leave you tied and gagged for your male chauvinistic pig fellow agents to find. But if necessary, I will. We know what the next page of your career will look like. Do yourself a favor and relax. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes and Escobar, and whatever he brings in tonight, is all yours. But not these children. They are not going back to the parents who sold them. They will have a life worth the effort, and the risk, both you and I have put in stopping Escobar and Mendis. Their names are Maria and Rosa, Natalie. And don’t ever call them ‘units’ again. Do we understand each other?”
She didn’t say anything for a brief moment and then asked, as if we were chatting at a dinner party, “What happened to the side of your face?”
“It stopped Ramon’s fist.”
“Ramon Sanchez?”
“We were never formally introduced.”
“He’s wanted for murder in three states.”
“Nice to think the other forty-seven are so involved. What happened to your face?”
“Escobar. I started to defend myself, but couldn’t without giving myself away.”
“He attacked you?”
“And you didn’t?”
That one landed, but I didn’t have time to debate.
“You’re all in,” I said with admiration.
“The only way.”
I reached under her dress and felt up her legs. Even though her left arm was free, she didn’t budge. I found a small revolver strapped high on her left thigh just below her panties and added it to my gun collection. It was a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380. Nongovernment issued. The FBI sanctioned only the Glock .27 as a secondary smaller weapon. She never took her eyes off me.
“This is about those girls?” she asked. Maria still stood next to me.
“Maria and Rosa.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You didn’t just ask that question, did you?”
She hesitated and broke eye contact for the first time. She came back at me. “I left her, Sophia, a signal. And if Maria and Rosa have to go back to their homes to save hundreds of others from being sold, I have no problem with that, cowboy. We believe that if we return girls, that we put a stop to it. All parties will know that it’s not going to work anymore. I wish it weren’t that way for them, but we do what we can. It’s not within my responsibilities.”
More gunfire. I was wasting time. Either I could trust her or I needed to tie and gag her, which would take even a few more precious minutes. The Elvis mistake. I had to commit to one path or the other. I had just taken her guns, and I now realized I was going to give them back. Probably screwed up smashing her phone too.
“It’s within mine,” I said. “I need you to watch these girls while I make sure my buddy’s OK. Then I’ll pick them up and be out of your life. Give me ten minutes and the rest of the night is yours. You can have the girls that come in on the boat tonight.”
“Where’s your buddy?”
“Not sure.”
“What if they call it off?”
“They won’t. Too much money and we won’t create any more issues for them. If they do, we’ll work something out.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked, and I doubted that she believed the crap I just threw out about them not calling it off.
“We all do.”
I was already on thin ice with her, but I wanted to ask her about the letter, just in case she knew something. I picked up her Glock.
“Listen, have you seen an old letter, or overheard Escobar discussing a document that he came to possess?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Jacob Travis. DEA, right.”
“My name is Jacob.” That was twice in one night. “You might need these. Take care of my girls.” I took her small revolver from my pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it and I placed her Glock on the table.
She pointed her small revolver at me and for a moment I wondered if I had misjudged her. We stared at each other as a few seconds of measurable time ticked away forever. What was she thinking?
“Fuck Yale,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m from Vassar.” She lowered her gun. “Theater major.”
You never know what you’re going to find in the kitchen.
CHAPTER 32
I left Vassar with guns and girls. I bet she could play off the grid. The way her unflinching eyes, partially hidden behind the ends of her bangs, locked on mine when I felt up her thigh, groping for her nongovernment-issued gun is what bought me.
I exited the side kitchen door and nearly tripped over the bound and gagged security guard. His wide eyes pleaded with mine, but I kept going. I moved around to the front corner of the house and stood flat against the wall. I sent Garrett a text telling him that the girls were in the kitchen, two men down in the house, and no letter. I heard voices from around the corner on the driveway.
It was Cruz. “What the hell happened, Ramon?”
“We drove into an ambush, but I think it’s just a guy unloading on us. Carlo’s minus a leg and Orlando half his head. Where’s your other guy?” Ramon’s voice was new to me.
“He’s covering some gringo that broke in the house and tried to break out the two you left behind,” Cruz said.
“You kept them in your house?” It was Ramon’s voice. “You are some sorry piece of shit, Escobar. Where’s Elvis?”
“Upstairs without his nose,” Cruz said. “Gringo ate it.”
I thought of slipping around the corner, but I didn’t know if their guns were drawn or not. The apron of the d
riveway was a good forty feet square, and once I revealed myself, there would be no place to hide. I texted Garrett and asked his position.
“Who shot us?” Ramon asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” Escobar answered. His voice was shaky. He was done.
“You don’t have a clue?” It was Ramon’s voice. “Someone was camped out like a Mexican bandit waiting to unload on me, and you don’t have a motherfuckin’ clue? Fuck you, Escobar. I’m not standing out here under these lights, and I can’t move the van before I change the tire.”
“What about Anthony and the shipment?” Escobar asked. He pushed the words out like he was trying to re-establish his ground.
“You don’t get it, do you, man?” Ramon said. “Something’s seriously wrong here. I’m getting out of here alive. You’re on your own.”
“Anybody tell Anthony?” Escobar again. “He’ll be waiting with the shipment.”
“Let’s take the boat,” Cruz said.
“Damn straight. You got the key?” Ramon asked.
“In the ignition,” Cruz said.
“Are you going to meet Anthony?” Escobar asked, and even I felt sorry for him. He was probably standing within a few feet of the others, but wasn’t even in the same universe anymore.
Cruz said, “You just don’t get it, man. It’s done. Let’s go.”
I had my gun drawn and hoped they came my way, but they must have gone in the house because I heard footsteps and then nothing. If they wanted a bullet omelet before their trip, Binelli was serving.
With the transfer off, my goal was to gather my girls, beat the letter out of Escobar, rendezvous with Garrett, and sneak out to Impulse. Binelli would be stuck with nothing, but I didn’t see any other play. I had to think that she at least entertained that possibility. What if they call it off? She certainly had to strongly believe that they would call it off. What would be her angle? Maybe she was planning to double-cross me and at first opportunity would herd Maria and Rosa into a government van.
I raced around to the backside of the house to be in position when the men came out, and felt my phone vibrate. But it wasn’t my phone. I reached in my pocket and took out Elvis’s phone.