Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

If the height of the sun was any indication, Gibson would be down at Fisherman’s Beach in Albufeira. Hanging from a chin-up bar, if she had to bet. He’d found his discipline right about the time she’d misplaced hers.

  That had been part of his rehabilitation. He’d been a wreck when she’d found him in Virginia—talking to ghosts and crying in his sleep. But he was as tough as anyone she’d ever met and had come a hell of a long way in six months. Sometimes when you let the body heal, the mind followed. That approach hadn’t worked for her, and she’d taken refuge here instead.

  At this point, Gibson and she hadn’t run together in so long that he’d stopped asking her. That stung her pride. Not enough to motivate her, but enough that it bothered her that it hadn’t. One more way that Gibson Vaughn had been driving her crazy lately.

  He had also been arguing for some time that they needed to move on. That they weren’t safe here. At the root of it, Gibson didn’t trust Baltasar Alves and didn’t like being at the mercy of his whims. He was right to a point but, true to form, was taking it too far. Their circumstances might not be ideal, but they were the best that they could manage for now. She agreed that they would need to relocate eventually, but not now. They weren’t ready. More to the point, George wasn’t up to being moved. She didn’t know how many more ways she could say it, but once Gibson made up his mind, it was made. Every time she thought she’d won the argument, a week would pass, and he’d be right back in her ear, chewing it off.

  It had been two weeks since their last fight, and they were due to go another round. He had that disappointed look again, and Dan Hendricks had warned her that Gibson had been trying to recruit him to his side. She wasn’t looking forward to another argument, but the longer she put it off, the worse it would be. The thought of it made her want another cup of coffee and the whiskey that would sweeten it. But it had to be done, so once she was back in an upright and locked position, she’d see if Gibson wanted to have lunch. Or maybe dinner. She could use a night off from Planet Sebastião.

  Behind her, someone cleared his throat to announce his presence and said, “Senhorita?”

  Jenn jerked upright. A lot more quickly than she would have liked. She hadn’t heard anyone coming, and that startled her even more than the voice itself. Two men stood a polite distance from her. The older of the two she recognized. His name was Anibal Ferro. One-third of Baltasar Alves’s inner circle. A short, wide-hipped man, perhaps fifty years old. His hair was crankshaft black, but his thick mustache looked like freshly plowed snow. He held a flat-brimmed cañero sombrero in his hands like a shield.

  The other, barely more than a boy, she didn’t know. But the shotgun he held? She knew that well enough, though it puzzled her. In the six months since she’d arrived in Portugal, it was the first time she’d seen any of Alves’s people openly armed. The organization had no natural predators in the Algarve, and Alves preferred a low profile. The whole gentleman-gangster routine. A foolish pretense, as far as Jenn was concerned—it wasn’t a gentleman’s business, and to imagine otherwise was inviting trouble. Still, Baltasar liked the image it presented, so whatever had caused them to strap up, it couldn’t be good. Not so bad that the shotgun was pointed her way, but in her experience with armed men, that had a way of changing without much warning at all.

  There was also the matter of how they’d gotten in. Sebastião’s villa came equipped with walls, a gate, a security system, and its own private rent-a-cops who patrolled his neighborhood. Yet they had apparently waltzed in like they were invited guests. Perhaps they were. Baltasar had known Sebastião since he was a boy, and Jenn still didn’t understand the nature of their relationship.

  She glanced around, assessing possible escape routes. Something that she had once done as autonomically as drawing breath, wherever she went. If she had to flee, she could go for the pool. They would hesitate to follow her in, and she could cross faster than they could circle. Over the fence and down the hill. The empty champagne bottle would make a serviceable weapon if it came to that. She thought she’d try talking her way out first. George and Gibson would be so proud.

  “Something I can do for you fellas?”

  The boy said something in Portuguese to himself that Jenn didn’t catch, an odd look on his face. Anibal studied the hat in his hands, turning it over and over with great interest. Jenn remembered she was wearing nothing but a sports jacket. It had fallen open when she sat up. She ran her tongue across her front teeth but made no move to cover herself. It was too early and she was too hungover even to feign modesty.

  The boy kept on staring.

  “Having a good time?” she asked and sipped her coffee to mask her irritation.

  Anibal saw the boy ogling her and cuffed the back of his head, knocking off his cap. The boy protested, but when he knelt to retrieve it, Anibal slapped it out of his hand. All while lecturing the boy in Portuguese too fast for Jenn to follow.

  “Por favor, aceite minhas desculpas,” Anibal apologized for the boy, who stared sullenly out at the ocean.

  “Por que você está aquí?” she asked.

  “Senhor Alves asks that you come. He wishes to see you.”

  “Now?”

  “Sim,” Anibal said with a nod.

  She couldn’t imagine what Baltasar Alves wanted with her at this hour. Any hour, really. They had been his guests here in the Algarve for six months, and this was so far out of the norm she didn’t have a word for it. Something was obviously happening. What she couldn’t gauge was whether it was happening to her.

  “What’s this about?”

  Anibal glanced up questioningly and looked away in embarrassment. The boy smirked. Neither answered her question. She wasn’t even sure that he’d heard her. As if a glimpse of her body had muted her voice. A man could see a thousand naked women and still greet the next with the wonder and fascination of a blind virgin. But you saw one naked man, you’d seen them all.

  “I need to take a shower. Tomar banho de chuveiro,” she said, translating.

  They shook their heads in unison, as if the idea were madness. Anibal said, “I am sorry, senhorita. You must come now.”

  Either they were on a clock or they’d been ordered not to let her out of their sight. She didn’t see any option but to go with them and find out. She told the men to turn around. Anibal turned away gratefully. He had a reputation as a hard, serious man, so she found it almost endearing how flustered he’d become. The boy, on the other hand, was slower to react. She cocked her head and made a spinning gesture with her finger. His free show was over. Grudgingly, the boy turned and faced the other way while she found her clothes among the ruins of last night’s party.

  She might not retain much of her dignity this morning, but she drew the line at yesterday’s underwear. She slipped them into the pocket of her jeans. Damn, she really wanted that shower. Her hair felt starchy and tangled, but there was nothing to do about that now. When she finished dressing, the two men led her out to a car and held open the back door for her. Nothing like taking the proverbial walk of shame to see a gangster.

  She remembered the hairbrush in her purse, which she spotted poking out from under Sebastião’s pants. She’d probably lose half of her hair trying to get the knots out, but at least she wouldn’t walk into Baltasar Alves’s home looking like her head had been used to clean a nightclub bathroom. She’d have killed for a hair tie. The only saving grace was that Gibson wasn’t here to see. She could only imagine how amused he would be by all this.

  Thank God for small favors.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Baltasar Alves lived beyond Lagos, a town on the Atlantic Ocean forty-five minutes west along Portugal’s southern coast from Albufeira. Fernando made the drive in under thirty. Whether Fernando was a bad driver or simply didn’t care that someone had taken the time to paint lines on the road, Gibson couldn’t say. It made no difference. Fernando handled a car as if he’d learned to drive on a video game with a shoddy physics engine. He took blind turns at reckless spe
eds, drifting across the divider into the path of oncoming traffic. Fortunately, they hadn’t encountered any oncoming traffic.

  Miraculously, his driving didn’t attract the attention of the GNR—the Guarda Nacional Republicana. Not that it would have mattered. There wasn’t a cop in the Algarve foolish enough to ticket the son of Baltasar Alves. Top down, the red Porsche roared unimpeded down the N125, wind coursing in and around the vehicle. Portugal preferred roundabouts to stoplights. Most drivers slowed as they approached; Fernando accelerated gleefully, pulling g’s like an astronaut in a centrifuge. Fernando’s bowtie snapped at his neck. He took both hands off the wheel, steering with his knees while he removed it. There had been a time when that would have stressed Gibson out. Now it was just one more thing beyond his control. At least the wind was airing him out. Gibson had wanted to stop by the house for a shower and a change of clothes. The idea of turning up at the home of Baltasar Alves in sweat-soaked workout clothes didn’t appeal, but Fernando had vetoed any extra stops. If his father was in that much of a hurry, it must be serious. Gibson wondered if his fears had come true and one of their enemies had found them at last. If so, they would need to move quickly. This could very well be their last morning in Portugal.

  “You were spotted in Buenos Aires,” Fernando said.

  Fernando had discovered the conspiracy website AmericanJudas and felt it his responsibility to keep Gibson up to date on the latest rumors and theories about him. AmericanJudas had been concocting theories about Gibson for some time, but hijacking a plane and making the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list had turbocharged Gibson’s infamy. And it wasn’t only AmericanJudas any longer: theories about Gibson’s presence in Atlanta two years ago had proliferated into the mainstream media. The suspicious nature of Vice President Benjamin Lombard’s suicide had garnered national attention, and Gibson’s name never trailed far behind. He’d become a boogeyman for a certain kind of politics that saw conspiracy in coincidence. Not that Gibson’s presence in Atlanta had been coincidental.

  Fernando found the whole thing hilarious, and his favorite quote was from an article that had dubbed Gibson a “digital-age Lee Harvey Oswald.” A label that only served to remind Gibson that he would probably never see home again.

  “Did I look good at least?” Gibson asked.

  “You were begging on a street corner and ran away when confronted.”

  “Sounds about right,” Gibson said.

  Baltasar Alves’s estate was surrounded by a high stone wall. Trees, planted in a tight row, overhung the wall to provide even more privacy and mask the barbed wire. The Porsche roared to a stop at a gate of dark, polished wood that gleamed in the morning sun. Fernando, unaccustomed to waiting, leaned on his horn and snapped his fingers at the security camera for them to open the gate. Security cameras were ubiquitous in the United States and in much of the European Union, but Portuguese courts had sided with privacy concerns over security, making surveillance cameras a rarity here. Another reason why lying low in Portugal had made sense.

  Off to the side, a door opened in the stone wall. Four armed men emerged and surrounded the car. Fernando protested in Portuguese, but the leader explained that he would have to radio up to the house to clear Fernando and his guest through. He said it would only take a moment, then disappeared back through the door. The remaining men kept their weapons trained on Gibson. From the beginning, none of Baltasar’s people had cared for the four Americans in their midst, tolerating them on the boss’s orders. So Gibson was accustomed to a degree of animosity. This was something else entirely. An edge that hadn’t been there before. Had Fernando and his easy smile led him into a trap?

  “This will only take a moment,” Fernando finished translating for Gibson, his eyes wide in mock seriousness. No one and nothing touched Fernando Alves. He was protected from on high and could afford to be cavalier. Gibson couldn’t imagine what it must be like not to have a care in the world. It was probably incredibly liberating, but Gibson didn’t think he’d want to live that way. Caring had given him a reason to choose sanity. Caring had kept him alive. Still, it seemed to work for Fernando. After all, he wasn’t the one who’d get shot.

  The call came back, and when the gate opened, Fernando didn’t stick around to say thank you. The Porsche darted off like a greyhound. Situated on fifty acres, the house remained a half mile distant. The Algarve was an arid region, and Gibson could only imagine how much it cost to water the lush, green lawns. The curving driveway was flanked on either side by neat rows of tall cypress like a mandible full of razor-sharp teeth. Through the gaps, Gibson saw men with rifles patrolling the grounds. The compound was on high alert. Up ahead, fronted on three sides by cliffs, the central black turret of Baltasar Alves’s home rose above the trees. A modern, medieval watchtower keeping vigil for invaders from land and from sea.

  Automobiles choked the driveway for fifty yards, jammed together every which way like vehicular Tetris. Fernando wedged his Porsche into a gap between an old Peugeot and a white panel van. It didn’t make the row disappear, though, and Gibson had to climb over the door and shimmy sideways between the two vehicles.

  A second car pulled up midshimmy, joining the scrum of vehicles. Two of Baltasar’s men got out. The younger of the two cradled a shotgun like he’d just found true love. The older man had no need to compensate. He ran one of the territories in the Algarve and had an easy, jaded confidence that couldn’t be faked. He appeared half asleep; a cigarette, more ash than tobacco, dangled from between his lips. But his lazy demeanor masked a taut alertness. Anibal Ferro saw everything from beneath his flat-brimmed sombrero, which he pushed back at the sight of Fernando and called out a greeting.

  “Olá, Anibal,” Fernando answered, then pointed to the house. “Why aren’t you in with Peres and Silva?”

  Baltasar Alves had three lieutenants: Carlito Peres, Branca Silva, and Anibal Ferro.

  Anibal puffed out his cheek in dismay. “I was. It is not good. All I can say is I am content to be driving errands.”

  “Out of harm’s way,” Fernando said with a wink.

  “I’m not sure such a place exists today,” Anibal said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” Fernando said with a tone that betrayed how much he enjoyed Anibal’s discomfort. On the surface, everyone was friends. All smiles and warm camaraderie, but beneath, Gibson saw the tension between the two men. There was no love lost between Fernando and any of Baltasar’s lieutenants. He didn’t belong in their world, but because he was Baltasar Alves’s son, they had to feign respect. Fernando rarely returned the favor.

  Gibson asked what was going on, but Anibal ignored the question. Not a surprise. He had been around Anibal perhaps a dozen times, and they’d never so much as made eye contact. Anibal’s young associate stood off to the side and sneered at Gibson. That feeling of being unwelcomed returned.

  An unsteady Jenn Charles emerged from the back seat like a movie star cornered by a horde of paparazzi. Much like Fernando, Jenn appeared to be dressed for entirely the wrong time of day: heels, jeans, and a short bolero jacket over a racerback tank top. But while Fernando still somehow looked ready for his close-up, Jenn’s eyes had all the luster of Times Square on New Year’s morning. She caught sight of Gibson and froze for half a second before looking away. He saw her jaw set.

  Good to see you too. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done to piss her off. Recently anyway.

  Fernando caught sight of Jenn and smiled broadly. Never a good sign. He took an unhealthy pleasure in poking any bear that crossed his path, and Jenn was one of his favorite targets. “Bom dia, Jenn. And don’t you just look a picture this morning.”

  Jenn said nothing but found her sunglasses and slipped them judiciously over her eyes. Gibson braced himself; the quieter she became, the larger the eventual blast radius. Fernando didn’t appear to notice, or noticed but didn’t care.

  “We were disappointed that we didn’t see you last night. You promised me a command performance. V
ery naughty.” It had been Fernando who introduced Sebastião Coval to Jenn. Sebastião and Fernando were childhood friends, and Baltasar Alves had sponsored Sebastião’s development early on, bringing him to the attention of professional team scouts when he was only eight years old.

  “We stayed in,” Jenn said.

  “Sebastião is a wise man to keep you all to himself. How is he? How is his knee?”

  At the mention of the knee, Anibal and the younger man gathered around, ears up. Sebastião Coval was a star midfielder for both the Portuguese national team and Benfica, a club based in Lisbon and one of the powerhouses of Portuguese football. Gibson knew this because it was a constant topic of conversation. He also knew that Sebastião had suffered a catastrophic knee injury last season, spawning endless speculation about when he would make his return. Would he still be the same box-to-box intimidator that he had been? He was hailed lovingly by the Portuguese media as Dom Sebastião, named for a sixteenth-century king killed in battle. His knee was often discussed in similar terms, but the media still held out hope of a resurrection.

  Sebastião was idolized in the Algarve and kept a home in Vale do Lobo, where he spent the off-season. The house where Jenn spent most of her nights. He had grown up in poverty, escaped it to become a wealthy superstar, but had never forgotten his roots. And they had never forgotten him. His charity work supported programs for children throughout the region. Fernando—who didn’t have a philanthropic bone in his body—oversaw the charities on Sebastião’s behalf, working his magic on them the same way he had his father’s business interests.

  “The knee is strong. He feels good,” Jenn said with all the conviction of a spokesperson reading from talking points. Sebastião was notoriously tight-lipped about his rehabilitation, so Jenn often found herself in the uncomfortable position of fielding questions about the knee. The men all nodded seriously at this unexpected bit of good news and lapsed into animated Portuguese as they threaded their way through the parked cars toward the house. No doubt debating the implications for the upcoming season. Jenn and Gibson trailed behind.