by Jay Begler
Two days later, as he walked out of customs in Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez, he saw a driver holding a sign, “Daniel Levy.” The only words the man said were “Senor Levy?” to which Daniel responded “Si.” When they arrived at an office building in the Zona Rosa, the driver said, “Hay Luis” and pointed to a man in front of the building.
Luis’ office was in a complete state of disarray, with papers scattered everywhere. Numerous photographs of Rebecca adorned his wall. After some very brief small talk, Daniel asked, “Why would he take her or why would she go with him? They had no contact that I know of except for that one evening and I joined them later on. He was very formal and gentlemanly.”
“I thought the same thing, but then I had my team of investigative reporters try to find out if there was any link between them, other than her father acting as a consultant for Morales on veterinary medicine. It turns out that when they were both teenagers; they spent the summer working at the hacienda and had some romantic involvement. Then, when Morales was in high school, he transferred to a school a few blocks from her dorm. I don’t know the reason for this, but they must have interacted somehow.”
“As I recall, when we had drinks before Rebecca came to the restaurant, Morales told me it was to visit Rebecca’s dying father in the hospital, a man who worked many years at the hacienda and to discuss some business deal with her relating to a molecule you were developing.”
Daniel turned white and fell into the chair. He seemed to gasp, alarming Luis, who said, “Are you ok? Want me to all a doctor?”
Daniel said scornfully, “I’m so fucking stupid. You don’t get it, Luis, but why would you? When we met with him in New York, she gave him all of our technical data on the Clarity molecule. She was an expert on the molecule, constantly manipulating it to get better results. But the problem was that it was only effective in three percent of patients, so it was not commercially viable.”
Luis knew exactly where Daniel was heading and continued for him, “So, in theory, he kidnaps her and forces her to manipulate the molecule so it works broadly and then somehow, miraculously, they are successful and develop Clarity.”
“On the surface that seems right. You know we tried for years along with Actalmar, one of the best pharmaceutical companies in the world, to make the drug work in a minimum of twenty percent of the patients and we were never successful. How could the Cartel accomplish what we couldn’t in under a year?”
“I don’t know. All I know is within a year of her abduction, the Cartel launches Clarity. It’s a hell of a coincidence, but if not a coincidence, it means Morales has a connection with the Cartel. What a fucking story. Jesus, I think he just may be El Fantasma, hiding in plain sight. His whole anti-drug stance could be a charade. And what pisses me off is he not only lied to me, he got me to write many stories about his courage regarding the war on drugs. Those alleged battles with drug lords I heard about never happened. My alleged oldest friend has been playing me all these years. I was his fucking enabler. And, let’s not forget how he framed you. Only an operation like the Cartel had the power and sophistication to pull that off. The story about her disappearance and your implication in her murder steers everyone away from investigating the other possibility for her disappearance, an abduction. We’ve got to expose him.”
“But what can we do? It’s too late. I read that the President’s veto was overcome, and they granted amnesty.”
“True, but I can still show the world that Morales is a total scumbag. He no longer can go to jail, but at least he will face public humiliation and scorn. Maybe a disgruntled person, say a relative of someone, will seek revenge. He will be a walking target, forever looking over his shoulder. Ever since I spoke to you, I had everyone on my staff, even those working obituaries investigating. All the pieces are fitting together. I’m convinced that Morales is El Fantasma.”
He called in his assistant, Alexia. “Tomorrow, I’m going up to confront Morales and have Mr. Levy reunite with his wife, assuming it’s her.” He was going to add, “and assuming she wants to reunite with you,” but out of a feeling of compassion for Daniel held back.
Alexia asked, “Isn’t that dangerous Luis? I mean, if he is who you think, he could kill just on a whim.”
“I don’t think so. The Amnesty applies to crimes committed up to its passage. Having taken the trouble to gain immunity, I don’t think Morales will risk violating the law just because I piss him off. And, all of his body guards are gone. The ranch hands won’t bother us. And here is a big plus to Daniel’s age, Morales won’t recognize him. When we get to the gate, I’ll tell the guard that the old man with me is my photographer who I want to get some shots of the exterior of the hacienda and the guest house. Nobody particularly cares about an old man taking some photos.”
Daniel thought, “Nobody particularly cares about an old man under any circumstances.”
Awaiting the quick last visit from Luis, Morales sat on his terrace, drinking scotch and thinking, “Am I allowed to feel this happy?” Knowing that he could no longer be prosecuted made him euphoric; giddy. Life was perfect, however. While he could not travel to the United States or countries having extradition laws, he could travel throughout Mexico and other countries that had no extradition laws. He and Rebecca already purchased a luxurious penthouse in the Federal District and used the hacienda as a retreat. Morales also hired a business broker for the sale of his cattle business.
Now, he was packing for a trip through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, he and Rebecca would not take chances. Rebecca would use her usual disguise. Then he started laughing hysterically when a realization hit him. He shook his head and said, “I’m retired.”
With some degree of nostalgia, he thought about his final meeting earlier in the day with some of his men; those who guarded the Hacienda. Everyone else who worked at the hacienda, with the exception of some ranch hands had left. Like a general addressing his troops, he lined them up thanked them for their service and gave each of them bitcoins worth $250,000.
The supervisor of the men stepped up and handed Morales a long, flat, box. “Boss, this is from us. We’ll never forget you.”
In the box, there was a long dagger with a blade inscribed, “El Fantasma.”
It was dusk when Luis and Daniel arrived at a large parking lot on the outskirts of the hacienda. Usually, servants would drive guests from the lot to the hacienda after passing through a security gate in the lot. This night, there were no golf carts waiting for them, and Louis assumed none would be forthcoming. They had to walk about a half a mile up a road to reach the hacienda. In his prime, Daniel could run up a hill like this in under three minutes. Now, he had to stop every fifty yards to catch his breath.
Luis pointed to a building 200 yards in the distance. “The last time I saw Rebecca, she was in the guest house. I’m going to the hacienda to confront Morales. Good luck, Daniel. See you in a while, hopefully.”
As he walked towards the guest house, Daniel wondered what his encounter with Rebecca would be like. Given his appearance, would she believe it was really him? And, if she was not truly a captive, perhaps Morales’s lover, would she want to return to America with him? He felt his body tense as he came closer to the guest house.
In a raise voice, he said, “Hello? Hello? Anyone here?”
Moments later a woman leaning out of the terrace above the pool said, “Yes, can I help you?”
He didn’t recognize her at first. In anticipation of her trip, she had transformed her appearance. He said, “I’m looking for Rebecca Levy. It’s extremely important that I speak to her. In fact, it’s urgent; a matter of life and death.”
“I’m Rebecca Levy. I’ll be right down.” The old man seemed harmless enough, but she knew that she should never take chances with strangers. She holstered her Glock and walked to the pool with Chip.
Her answer surprised him. She looked nothing like Rebecca. Daniel gasped in fear when he saw the dog. “Please,” he stammered, “ta
ke him away.”
“Are you that afraid of dogs, sir?”
“Only Rottweilers, but I’m terrified of them. Please take him away.” The old man was shaking and had to sit down.
She had a curious look on her face and commanded, “Inside Chip.” The dog turned and ran into the house. “Funny” she said, “my husband, Daniel, was deathly afraid of Rottweilers.” It was the first time in over a year she mentioned his name.
It was her voice. He knew at that moment, despite the difference in her looks, that she was Rebecca and said softly with a bittersweet smile on his face, “Ever since Aleppo, Francis.”
She fell back for an instant as if pushed, “What did you say? What did you call me?”
“Francis, the girl who burnt her eyebrows.”
Upset and confused, she stammered in a loud voice, “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer, but took out his iPhone and played the video of his conversion as he exercised the Option. “Look at this and you’ll know everything.”
As she watched in astonishment, those compartments where she buried memories of Daniel and her daughters and kept her guilt in check, exploded open and she sank to the floor sobbing uncontrollably and moaned, “What have I done? Oh God, what have I done.” She stood and kissed him, and he kissed her tears, but all she could say was, “So sorry… so sorry.”
She turned to see Morales six feet away. He seemed remarkably calm. He knew that one way or the other Rebecca had to make a choice. If she chose him, he would kill Daniel. If she chose Daniel, he would kill both of them, despite his love for her. Amnesty be dammed. All he said was “Make a choice, Rebecca” and as he did so, he raised his right arm, the El Fantasma inscribed dagger in hand. He walked towards Daniel. Daniel took out the knife his troops had given him years earlier. When Morales was in range, he swung it towards him as hard as he could. His attempt, however, was fruitless. The speed at which he swung was consistent with his age and was so slow that Morales laughed as he leaned back out of range. Morales approached for the kill. In that instant, the totality of the life she had with Daniel and her daughters, the life she had with Morales, the unbelievable pain Morales caused Daniel, and Morales’ deceptions, passed through her consciousness, vivid and detailed; faster than the speed of light, but utterly comprehensible. She moaned again, “What have I done.” And then shouted, “You monster!”
Morales turned towards her, arm still raised, when she whipped out her gun and commanded “Hector don’t”
He faced her and said in a voice a little louder than a whisper, “No.”
In that instant, Rebecca shot him in the chest. He fell backwards close to the pool, rolled onto his back, and attempted to sit up, but couldn’t. Morales’ life was fading. He saw Rebecca comforting Daniel. She was holding his arm in the way she used to hold Morales. A nanosecond before he crossed the border to the end of his life, the last emotion he experienced was jealousy. With only seconds to live, the last thing that registered in his fading consciousness was not the mythical tunnel of light. It was a vivid recollection. They were walking hand in hand through the mist along the Skelton Coast. As they did so, he had a feeling of exuberance.
Rebecca kissed Daniel on his face, but before she could speak, Daniel said, “We need to find Luis and get out of here?” They reached Morales’ study. Luis, bloodied, was struggling to get to his feet.
“Are you ok, Luis?”
“Good enough. I confronted Morales, and he admitted he was El Fantasma and laughed because he had nothing to lose and would deny it if I made the claim. But when I told him I brought you Daniel to reunite with Rebecca, he lost it and knocked me unconscious. What happened? Did he confront you?”
“He tried to kill Daniel and I killed him.”
Daniel quickly interjected, “She had no choice.”
“We need to get out of here”
Rebecca said, “Take his laptop. It probably contains everything there is to know about the Cartel.
Flashing lights appeared in the distance. They heard a siren approaching. Apparently, the noise of the gunshot provoked a call to the police. No one in the police cars speeding towards the hacienda took notice of the car with three passengers, one an old man, heading in the other direction.
Courtesy of the Reforma, Luis arranged for an expedited passport for Rebecca, who already had removed her contact lenses, wig and the pin that gave her that slightly upturned nose. A private plane took them to JFK. Before leaving Daniel called Miriam. He sent her a video via email and said, “As you can see, she’s alive. You need to call the DA and arrange immediately to reverse the aging drug.”
En route, from Mexico, Daniel told of his life from the moment she disappeared, his trial and imprisonment and how he took the Option. All Rebecca did was cry hysterically and say repeatedly,” I’m so so sorry.”
He asked, “For what,” but she didn’t know how to explain and opted by saying, “It’s a long story. Later.” And then as if talking to her elderly father said “Now close your eyes and rest.”
With their daughters in tow, and once outside of JFK customs, throngs of reporters accosted them. Apparently the Reforma had written a preliminary news story which all the wire services had picked up. Rebecca and Daniel were about to say a few words, but before they could do so, Daniel fell to the ground unconscious. In the ambulance En route to Long Island General, the closest hospital, all Rebecca could say was “Please don’t die. Not now; not now.”
As she and their daughters waited in the emergency room, a woman approached. “Rebecca. My name is Miriam. I was- am- Daniel’s attorney.”
Rebecca recognized Miriam from the photo shown to her by Morales and was on the verge of saying, like a wife who caught her husband’s paramour, “I know who you are,” but she stopped herself. “And this is the District attorney who convicted him. I have a court order allowing the procedure to reverse the aging process, but you must sign your approval as next of kin.” She signed immediately.
Daniel awoke at 8am the following morning. Rebecca and his daughters kissed him. She asked, “How do you feel?”
“What happened?”
“Doctors think you had a minor stroke. No apparent damage.”
They were all smiling. “So, how do you feel?”
“Amazingly, I feel great. Terrific.”
“That’s because you are now back in your fifties.”
Rebecca held up a mirror, which provoked crying from everyone in the room, especially from Daniel. “When do we go home?”
“In about an hour.”
“Great. Then, I want to have a wonderful meal with you all and Francis, you can tell us about your Mexican adventure.”
She smiled and said, “Of course,” but had no idea what she was going to say.
Epilogue
•
The Aztec Cartel
The celebration at the hacienda was going to be a combination of a memorial service for Morales, one that celebrated his great leadership and vision, and a celebration of the Mexican government’s passage of the Narcotic Trade Amnesty Act, which gave all members of the Aztec Cartel complete amnesty. There were 300 in attendance at the event. These were the key players of the Cartel, the brains that ran the body of the organization. The only absentee was Isabella. When news of Morales’ death reached her, she was inconsolable and only brought back from the edge of clinical depression through a regimen of anti-depressants. Isabella was to be the first speaker at the memorial service, but like many other travelers in France that day stuck in Paris. Air France cancelled her flight as the result of a pilot strike and a simultaneous strike by flight controllers. She did the next best thing to being there by arranging for her presentation to be via Zoom.
At precisely 2:30 PM, all the attendees sat in chairs set up in front of the hacienda for the event. Isabella’s image appeared on a large screen and through her laptop she could see the audience she would address. She began quietly, “Today we are here to celebrate the life of a great man and t
o celebrate our freedom.”
As she continued a drone, as large as a 727, hovered thousands of feet overhead. A military technician located in Utah said into a radio, “Target is acquired.” The response was, “Fire when ready.” With that, the technician pushed a key on his desk top and the drone launched three missiles, each having a warhead of 10,000 pounds. Within minutes the hacienda was a fireball and everyone in the garden was incinerated beyond recognition. The entire management, the heart and soul of the Cartel, and the backbone of the Mexican drug trade was destroyed. Isabella only saw the screen go white and thought it was a technical glitch. She continued saying, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” until she shrugged her shoulders and gave up.
The President of the United States, who watched the entire event in real time from his Situation Room, summed up the payback for all the crime and misery caused by the Cartel and in particular the death of his son, said to those in attendance, “Revenge is sweet,” but reflecting on his son, he said somberly, “No, that’s not right. In this case, revenge is bittersweet.” Mexico’s President protested violently against the incursion into Mexico’s airspace and the United States vehemently denied any part in the explosion. It was all a charade, however. The fact was that it was a joint operation. The irony of the operation was that no one in the Cartel ever imagined that the governments of the United States and Mexico would engage in an illegal act; deliberately killing people before the governments charged them with a crime.
In the end, the Mexican government held what they called a “thorough investigation” and announced that somehow over the years methane gas produced by droppings of the hundreds of thousands heads of cattle had seeped into the ground, leached into a large area under and around the hacienda and exploded. No one particularly cared at that point.
Luis Escobedo
Morales’ computer was a trove of information about the Cartel, including the identities of every one of its members, the distributors of drugs in the United States, government officials in both countries paid to act as moles and importantly all those members of the Chamber and Senate who accepted bribes by the Cartel. The computers database contained the banks and bank account numbers of everyone that was on the take from the Cartel. The President of Mexico, in an unprecedented move, declared martial law, had all those who had taken bribes arrested and charged. Within months, Mexico held elections to replace the disgraced politicians.