Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  Baltasar’s car moved up and parked across the bumpers of the two sports cars, blocking them in. When Baltasar got out, all the vehicles emptied in unison. Anibal strode forward, barking orders and gesturing imperiously to his men, who fanned out, searching for the Americans. Quite a commanding figure the lieutenant cut, Fernando thought mockingly. With Anibal protecting him, his father had nothing to fear from the dirt and dog shit.

  The café proprietor stopped working and leaned on his mop in the doorway, watching the show with interest. Fernando hurried to keep up with his father. For a reformed reprobate with a pacemaker, the old man could still move. Hard to believe that his father had only months to live.

  Turning Dani Coelho had been a boon on many levels. His father’s organization relied heavily on encrypted e-mails. Control of the servers had given Fernando access to all of them. They made for fascinating reading. He probably had a more complete picture of the inner workings of the organization than anyone. His father’s health included.

  Baltasar hadn’t told anyone what the doctor had found on the CT scan in February. The language in his e-mails painted a hard picture: inoperable, degenerative, lymph nodes, spreading. His father had masked it so far, but in another month, it would be impossible to hide the truth. Then the question of who would succeed him would finally have to be addressed. Fernando knew that his father meant for things to go on as they had before—Luisa running the criminal arm, his only child fetching clean sheets for tourists.

  Baltasar had always had a soft spot for Luisa. Ever since she and Fernando were children. Knowing her as he did, Fernando though Luisa might make a good soldier, but she lacked the personal authority to keep the peace in the Algarve. Not without Baltasar Alves standing behind her. The peace endured because his father lived. When he died, it would die with him if Luisa were allowed to take over. Fernando had seen no choice but to act. The Algarve had been unified by an Alves man, and that’s how it would remain.

  He’d been laying the groundwork for two years. Forging ties to the Romanians had been an unsavory but necessary step to preparing for that eventuality. They weren’t the allies he would have chosen, but respect for your allies wasn’t always possible. The Baltasar Alves of twenty years ago had understood that. His arrangement with the Mexicans wasn’t born from respect but necessity. The younger Baltasar certainly wouldn’t have killed Silva and Peres but left Anibal alive. Sloppy and sentimental. The latest in a long list of missteps that his father had made since his heart attack had turned him philosophical. Fernando didn’t recognize the nostalgic shambles of a man his father had become.

  “We’re closed,” the proprietor said as Baltasar came up the steps.

  “Of course. I only need a brief word. My name is Baltasar Alves.”

  Recognition sparked in the proprietor’s face. Apologizing profusely, he put away the mop and arranged the chairs at his best table. Baltasar thanked him graciously, sitting on the warped metal chair like it was a throne. His father asked the proprietor to join him. He did not offer his son a seat, so Fernando stood there awkwardly like a simple waiter.

  Despite that, he was grateful not to be the center of attention. It gave him time to compose himself and suppress his anger and fear. If there was one thing he was good at, it was looking like he didn’t care. Most of the time he didn’t, but on those rare occasions when something mattered to him, he was practiced at the art of defiant neutrality.

  Baltasar said, “When I was a boy, my father conducted business from a small café like this one. I’ve always liked the smell and the noise. The talk. The regular faces. You know what I mean?”

  The proprietor nodded in agreement. “Community.”

  “Exactly,” Baltasar said, pointing at the proprietor as though he had said something profound.

  Fernando rolled his eyes at his father’s man-of-the-people act. He had seen it too many times before.

  “What’s your name?” Baltasar asked.

  “Hagen, senhor.”

  “Hagen, it’s good to meet you. I apologize for keeping you here late, but I need your help.”

  “Anything, Senhor Alves. I know what you have done for the Algarve,” Hagen said. “My sister’s daughter would not be alive today if it were not for you. Heroin. Today she has a husband, two children of her own.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.”

  “What can I do?”

  “The cars outside your shop. Did you see the drivers?”

  Hagen nodded, relieved to be asked a question he could answer. He described three men and a woman—one Asian, one black, two white—who had drunk coffee and argued. “But they left,” he said and pointed to an empty table on the patio as if to corroborate his story.

  “What did they argue about?”

  “They talked in English, Senhor Alves. I don’t know.”

  Baltasar smiled. “Of course, I understand. Did you see where they went?”

  “Into the church. They were there a long time. Then they came out, took bags from the trunk of their car, and walked south.”

  “When?” Baltasar asked.

  Hagen looked at his watch. “Perhaps fifteen minutes ago.”

  Fifteen minutes ago, Fernando would have been furious at the news, but now he felt only sweet relief. It didn’t save him, but it bought time to find a way out. He was now rooting for the Americans to stay one step ahead of his father.

  Baltasar asked for a cup of coffee.

  “Of course, Senhor Alves,” Hagen said, rising from the table.

  Baltasar’s phone rang. It was Luisa. Her men were in Quarteira.

  “How long?” Baltasar asked.

  Fernando didn’t hear her answer. Baltasar chewed at his lip thoughtfully. Planning his next five moves, unless Fernando missed the mark. Fernando hated the sallow, loose folds of excess skin that made his father look like an old, deflated balloon. Ironically, he’d looked far healthier when he’d been fat. Only the eyes were the same—bright and full of calculating intelligence.

  “Call me when you’re in position,” Baltasar said and disconnected the call.

  “How are things in Quarteira?” Fernando asked.

  “The Romanians are tough. But their numbers are small. Luisa will break their backs and send them scurrying into the ocean.”

  Fernando nodded, although he didn’t agree with his father’s assessment. His impression of the Romanians was that they might occasionally lose battles but rarely lost wars. They took the long view. Even if somehow Luisa beat them now, they would never concede defeat. They would regroup and return stronger, and when they did, they’d look to their longtime ally. It would play out in his favor so long as Gibson Vaughn could be contained. That was the only way he could lose.

  Baltasar said, “Tell Anibal to send a car after George. Perhaps we’ll finally have some luck.”

  “It’s strange that they would leave the Porsche here. Why do you think they did that?” Fernando knew that his father had been wondering the same thing, but the old man wasn’t ready to hear that George Abe had betrayed him. Fernando knew better than to be the one to suggest it openly.

  “That’s something we’ll have to ask when we find him.”

  “Yes, Pai.” Merely the thought of his father talking to George was enough to bring the taste of bile into his mouth.

  “And, Fernando?” His father turned his head to look his son in the eyes. “You did well to recognize what the Americans were doing. I won’t forget.”

  Baltasar patted his son’s arm affectionately. Fernando felt a spreading warmth at the praise. Was it pride? Love? It didn’t matter. Whatever the name of his misguided emotion, it made him feel like a child. He hated that his father could still affect him with a few words. After so many years. What a fool he was.

  “Of course, Pai. I’m glad I caught it in time. We have to put a stop to this.”

  Hagen returned with the coffee and a pastry. Baltasar held out money. Hagen refused it, and Baltasar managed to appear both humble and surprised
.

  Fernando switched to English. “Should Anibal search the place? Question him again? I don’t trust the owner.”

  His father looked Hagen up and down. “Do you have any reason?”

  “I just want to be thorough.”

  “No,” Baltasar said. “That’s no reason to make an enemy. Treat people like animals, they will become an animal. How many times do I have to tell you and Luisa? Force is a tool that feels good in our hands but bad in our memory. Be careful how you wield it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Pai.” Fernando excused himself to convey his father’s order to Anibal.

  What sanctimonious nonsense, he thought. Silva and Peres weren’t even cold, and his father was giving speeches about restraint. Perhaps if he’d been a little less restrained all along, no one would have dared to go after the shipment. Then they wouldn’t all be in this awful situation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fernando found Anibal on the steps of the church.

  “Quite a day,” Fernando said. “Peres. Silva. Who would have thought it?”

  Anibal stared out at the street from under the brim of his sombrero and spat into the dirt. “They should have been smarter.”

  “Would that have saved them?”

  Anibal grimaced but said nothing.

  “It’s unfortunate what happened at the cannery,” Fernando said, testing the knife to see how far it would twist. “Bad luck.”

  “What do you want?” Anibal asked.

  “We should talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About not joining Silva and Peres,” Fernando said. “To be honest, I’m surprised you aren’t with them now. The hijacking was in your territory, after all.”

  Anibal was grim-faced and silent.

  Fernando had a good grip on the knife now and hunted for a nerve. “And that’s not all that’s happened in your territory lately.”

  For the first time, Anibal turned to look at Fernando. “Are you threatening me?” A condescending smile played across his mouth. Fernando looked forward to wiping it off his smug face.

  “I just want us to understand each other,” Fernando said.

  Anibal straightened his hat resolutely. “I let you run whores. As a favor. What are you playing at?”

  “You still think I’m running a brothel?” Fernando made an exaggerated face to express his surprise. He had Anibal’s undivided attention now.

  “What have you done, boy?”

  Fernando laid out the entire operation to him in lurid Technicolor. At the mention of the Romanians, Anibal paled.

  “Baltasar forbade it.”

  When the Romanians had arrived two years ago and suggested a business arrangement, Baltasar had made it bluntly clear what he thought of human trafficking. If he found out that his only son had gone behind his back to go into business with the Romanians . . . Well, there would be no coming back from that.

  “Yes,” Fernando said patiently. “He did.”

  “If your father finds out, we’re both—”

  “Yes, my father. I imagine he will be very disappointed with me. Remind me what you are to him?”

  “What do you want?” Anibal asked for the second time.

  “Nothing for now. I only wish to point out that it is best for both of us if my father never knows,” Fernando said. “But especially you.”

  Anibal glared at him with loathing. This was how they always looked when Fernando gave them the stick. It was a necessary part of blackmail. Anibal would come around when it came time for the carrot.

  “Oh,” Fernando said. “My father wants you to send a car south after the Americans. They have a fifteen-minute head start.” Fernando glanced at his watch. “Twenty now.”

  Anibal cursed. “Why didn’t you tell me that immediately?”

  “We needed to understand each other first.”

  Fernando watched Anibal scurry across the street, his thoughts returning to Gibson Vaughn. Ditching the Porsche had been smart. How Gibson knew he was being tracked, Fernando had no idea. Clearly, he’d underestimated him. When Gibson had first arrived in Portugal, he’d seemed lost and broken. Fernando realized that his first impression had stuck, clouding his judgment about the man. He couldn’t afford for it to happen again. If even half of what the conspiracy blogs said about him was true, a long line of people had underestimated Gibson Vaughn and paid the price for it. Fernando did not intend to join their ranks. Hopefully, he had bought Gibson a little more time to get away.

  A thought occurred to him. Maybe he was looking at this whole thing the wrong way. Since the morning, he’d been playing defense. Trying to prevent his father from learning the truth. His intention had always been to wait until after his father’s funeral before moving against Luisa. But what if, instead of a threat, today was an opportunity? All of his plans these past two years were based on the reality that he was, at best, fifth in line to follow his father. The deaths of Silva and Peres had cleared the board of two rivals. That left only Luisa and Anibal.

  It was risky, but Fernando liked those odds.

  He slipped inside the dark church. Not to pray—he hoped never to be that desperate. He needed to make a call that required absolute privacy. What better place than a church? Fernando typed in a phone number that was not in his contacts. Constantin Funar picked up on the second ring. They had only met once and had not spoken directly in almost two years, until early this morning.

  “Fernando. Twice in one day,” he said in heavily accented English. Fernando didn’t speak Romanian, and Constantin didn’t speak Portuguese—English bridged the gap. “You’re not still having problems with your American friend? I told you we should have dealt with him more permanently.”

  “No, I have that under control.”

  “Good. That is good. So, what is it I can do for you?”

  “Luisa Mata is in Quarteira,” Fernando said.

  A silence followed. Fernando listened to Constantin breathe slowly.

  “Why is she here?”

  “For you. For all of you.”

  “I see.” Constantin sounded entirely disinterested in the news. “So why are you telling me this?”

  “Because we are friends, Constantin. A show of good faith.”

  “And what do you want?”

  “Only that she never leave.”

  Constantin said something in Romanian and hung up. If the Romanians were as tough as their reputation, that should be enough. Fernando crossed himself with exaggerated, ironic motions. In a few hours, he should have only one challenger remaining in the Algarve. Anibal would fall in line or be buried under it.

  From the doorway, Anibal called for Fernando to hurry. Baltasar had finally gotten his luck. The car he’d sent after the Americans had found them. They were in a blue Fiat heading west on N123. Fernando gritted his teeth. Why couldn’t anything go smoothly?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  There it was again. The same yellow car. Gibson had seen it a few miles ago, and it had stayed with them ever since.

  “We’re being followed,” he said.

  “We’re not being followed,” Hendricks said without looking back. He was still grumpy about dumping the Porsche and Audi in Alcantarilha. They’d hot-wired an old Fiat with a sun-damaged hood and the horsepower of a glorified golf cart. He was in no mood for Gibson’s amateur tradecraft.

  Gibson was notoriously awful at spotting a tail. He wasn’t much better at following someone, and it had bitten him in the ass on more than one occasion. Their exile in the Algarve had seemed like an ideal time to correct that weakness. Especially since a retired LAPD detective and tactical-driving instructor slept down the hall. It had taken two weeks of pestering before Hendricks relented and agreed to teach him the fundamentals. Gibson had expected Hendricks to give him a lot of stick about it, but to his surprise, Hendricks had proven to be an excellent instructor. Once the lesson started, his natural irritability was replaced by a very un-Hendricks-like equanimity.

  Even
so, the results had been mixed, Hendricks grading him out at a C-plus. Gibson had gone from not being able to pick up a tail to seeing them everywhere. Anyone behind him for more than a block became immediately suspect. If nothing else, it gave him plenty of opportunity to practice losing someone—even if they weren’t following him to begin with. Hendricks assured him that it was a natural overreaction and that once it became second nature, Gibson would relax. But in the meantime, he was like a faulty car alarm that went off if the wind changed direction.

  The yellow car dropped back behind a truck. Gibson slouched down in his seat and watched for it in his side mirror. Every minute or so, it peeked out from behind the truck, pulling onto the shoulder long enough to keep tabs on them.

  “Stop it,” Hendricks said. “We’re not being followed.”

  “I really think we’re being followed.”

  “We’re not . . .” Hendricks drifted off, reconsidering. “Which car?”

  “The yellow one.”

  Hendricks scanned the rearview mirror. “What yellow one?”

  “Behind the truck. It’ll stick its head out in a minute. On our right. There!”

  “Got it,” Hendricks said. He drove with his eyes on the rearview mirror and accelerated gradually, putting distance between them and the truck. Seconds later, the yellow car pulled out and passed the truck. Gradually, it closed the distance until it was fifty meters back and matched their speed.

  “Huh,” Hendricks said. He drew the gun he’d taken from the hotel and handed it and a spare magazine to Jenn in the seat behind him.

  “Are you sure?” Jenn asked, ejecting the magazine and counting the remaining rounds. She replaced it and handed the spare magazine to George next to her.