Peace - A Navy SEALS Novel (DeLeo's Action Thriller Singles Book 3)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Oh, Poncho,” Julio intoned comically, shaking hands with Peace. “This is so nice.”

  “Oh, Cisco,” Peace played along. “It is all yours, plus a nice tidy amount in the bag on the passenger side floor. It has a defect in the trunk which needs attention; but other than that, it drove like a dream.”

  “No problems at the border?”

  “I would have only had trouble coming back. Want some help with the defect?”

  “No, Poncho, I have already prepared permanent guest quarters for the unfortunate recipient of yet another one of your improvisations,” Julio replied. “Should I know who, or what?”

  “He was selling drugs on campus, and running a blackmail porn business on the side. He drugged and filmed a young lady very close to a brother Seal of mine.”

  Julio whistled softly, shaking his head. “So, that is how you come to this dirty business, Poncho. I was hoping you had not decided to go into the body business on a full time basis, although I do have unlimited space for quiet visitors, especially when they drive such beautiful cars.”

  “His supplier was Benito Alvarez.”

  “Oh, Poncho,” Julio said, with obvious surprise. “If only we could get old Benito in the sights of our superiors. He is one of the men I had been contemplating a little side job for, with your help of course. I believe Senor Alvarez is down here right now.”

  “I’ll mention this deal to Chuck. He kind of hinted he was tired of seeing me. Maybe he found Benito’s name in the information we gave him from the Batiste operation. In any case, he shouldn’t be as perturbed about my extracurricular activities. What did you do with the girl, you rascal?”

  “She is a very interesting person, my friend,” Julio said, seriously. “I am exploring what she knows about the drug operation Batiste had going.”

  “Yea, I’ll bet. What, pray tell, have you learned so far?”

  “Do not make light of my interrogation tactics, Poncho,” Julio retorted, pointing his finger warningly at Peace.

  “Very well, Cisco,” Peace laughed. “What have you got for me to drive back?”

  Julio motioned for Peace to follow him around the side of the house. A beat up filthy brown Range Rover, with up to date California plates, was parked just out of sight from where they were. As Julio shined a small Maglite flashlight beam on it, Peace started laughing.

  “Oh, Cisco!”

  “Only the best for my little Norte Americano buddy,” Julio said proudly.

  “Will it make it to San Diego?”

  Julio nodded. “The keys are in it. Leave it at the address I have noted on a card taped to the dash. You’ll be on your own from there.”

  “I better get moving then,” Peace said, giving Julio a little wave as he opened the driver’s door. “Be seeing you, Cisco.”

  “Anytime you wish to drop a Porsche off with me, you will be most welcome, my little sidekick. How hot is it?”

  “Word will be circulated tomorrow about a guy with an alias of Ken Landry escaping justice across the border. By the time anyone starts looking, I figure you’ll have a week at the least,” Peace answered, starting the Rover. “Hey, this sounds pretty good.”

  Julio waved. “Drive carefully, Poncho.”

  Peace waved as he drove around the Porsche, and continued towards the road. Julio popped the trunk from inside, and walked back with his Maglite.

  “Let’s see what is fouling up by beautiful new Porsche,” Julio said to himself as he peeled back the cover over Landry’s body. “Wow, nice fold.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Alvarez Connection

  “You look like shit, Bull,” Dan commented as he met Jenkins in the parking lot.

  “No disrespect, Lieutenant, but you ain’t no lemon meringue pie this morning either. Did you get any sleep?”

  “Yea, I grabbed a couple, how about you?”

  Bull smiled. “I held Holly while she slept.”

  “Wipe that shit eating grin off your face and tell me what you guys did with Landry.”

  “The last I saw of Landry, was when I folded him into his Porsche trunk for the trip down South,” Bull replied. “Mobry really handled the whole deal with those yuppie flakes as smoothly as it could be handled.”

  “Never mind Mobry,” Dan chided Bull as he walked beside him. “Did you do Landry?”

  “Peace did,” Bull replied almost in a whisper. “I would have popped the prick’s head like a cherry if he had been on his feet, but we couldn’t afford the mess. I’ve killed the enemy without a qualm; but doing the guy while he’s hogtied, with his mouth taped shut was… I don’t know… it’s just I…”

  “Forget it, Chief,” Dan cut him off. “We’ve been together too long for you to think you owe me that kind of explanation.”

  Bull nodded appreciatively. “I stood up, and backed away. Peace just walked over, and sealed off Landry’s nose and mouth. He held him a few minutes past when Landry quit bucking, and then grinned up at me. Peace asks me, ‘can you fold him into the Porsche for me, Chief?’ So, I did.”

  Dan smiled, picturing Landry’s demise in his mind with satisfaction. “Peace is just like Ed. Like they say, not everyone can be a sniper. Those two could waste a dozen people in their sleep if they thought they were a danger to anyone they cared about. Have you heard from the cold blooded little geek this morning?”

  “He told me not to expect a call unless he was in trouble. Otherwise, we should expect him around nine or ten. It was tempting last night to send Landry’s little gang with him, wasn’t it, Lieutenant?”

  “Yea, Chief,” Dan answered, with a quick wave of his hand. “That kind of justice can get real habit forming. We’ll have to make sure Vigilante Peacenik doesn’t get too carried away.”

  “But he’s so good at it,” Bull said, glancing over to meet Dan’s eyes.

  “He is at that, Chief,” Dan grinned. “We’ll have to proceed on a case by case basis, agreed?”

  “Hoo-ya,” Bull barked out.

  __

  Peace walked into the locker room, expecting the team to be out doing drills. Instead, Seal Team Six sat in front of their lockers while Dan lectured them from a clipboard he held in front of him. Bull gave him a nod and a grin, while Dan looked at him sternly as Peace sat down next to Bull.

  “Thank you for joining us this morning, Petty Officer Peacenik,” Dan said sarcastically as the others laughed. “I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.”

  “Hoo-ya,” Peace barked out, provoking the slightest of smiles from Dan, who returned to his lecture on revised urban warfare procedures.

  Dan finished up fifteen minutes later.

  “Chief, bring Petty Officer Peacenik into my office, will you?” Dan asked Bull.

  “Right away, Lieutenant,” Bull said, getting up. “The rest of you gold bricks go on out and start stretching. I feel the need for sand under my feet.”

  “Hoo-ya,” came the answering chorus, as the rest of the team filed out past Peace, giving him looks of compassion.

  Inside Dan’s office, Peace and Bull sat down together in front of Dan’s desk.

  “How’d it go, Peace?” Dan asked, sitting down behind his desk.

  “Without a hitch,” Peace answered. “How’d the interrogation go at the police station?”

  “Not too bad,” Bull answered. “They’re going to interview Connie today at the hospital. She’s doing a lot better. Those boys will be going away for a while.”

  “I’m glad she’s okay. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to hit the sack the moment we get out of here.”

  “You ain’t going to start whining, are you, Petty Officer Peacenik?” Dan joked.

  “I was thinking about it,” Peace laughed. “How do you two feel?”

  “I’m okay,” Dan answered. “You and Bull did all the running around.”

  “I’m wrung out,” Bull admitted. “I told Dan I did spend the night with Holly, watching her sleep. I may have dozed off for a few minutes sometim
e before I left for the base.”

  “Her and Connie won’t get over this little adventure any time soon,” Peace remarked.

  “A couple of more weeks under Landry’s thumb, and those two would have been in real trouble,” Dan added. “Well, I’m afraid you boys need to get moving.”

  “You won’t be joining us today, Lieutenant Dan?” Peace asked.

  “Dismissed, Petty Officer Peacenik,” Dan replied. As Peace began to answer, Dan cut him off. “Bull, if he says one more word, it will be ride ‘em cowboy time.”

  Bull laughed, standing up as he tugged on Peace’s shirt. “C’mon Wolvy, we better get out of here before you get in any deeper.”

  “Hoo-ya,” Peace muttered.

  “Did you get in touch with Ed?” Bull asked on the way outside.

  “Yea, I stopped by the house on the way to the base to change clothes. He and Nancy chewed my ass up like a couple of lawn mowers. I should have called, I didn’t write, I…”

  Bull started laughing, and Peace stopped intoning his imitation of Ed and Nancy’s mantra with a sigh. “Like I told Jill, when she asked me if I missed my folks, I have a set of doting parents. They let up on me when they heard Holly and her roommate were okay. Guess what Ed asked as soon as I finished talking.”

  “Where’s Landry buried?”

  It was Peace’s turn to laugh, nodding his head affirmatively.

  “That old geezer never misses anything,” Bull commented. “Why does he bother to ask questions? The prick already knows all the answers.”

  “It does seem like that sometimes,” Peace admitted. “I guess I better call Mobry sometime today.”

  “He thinks Landry took off for parts unknown before we reached his place to get Holly, tipped off by his conversation with Brian. That of course jibes with what his posse thinks too. They’ll be going over Landry’s place with a search warrant today. Mobry really turned up his attention when I handed him the fact sheets you made up in the folder to show Holly. He didn’t even ask where I got them.”

  “I’m kind of recruiting,” Peace offered, seeing Bull’s questioning look. “I had Lewiston on board, and he was to talk with his partner. I doubt either of them thought I’d be messing around with them this quickly.”

  “Whatever,” Bull shrugged. “I figured the way he acted, when I purposely kept you out of the discussion, you had him on the hook somehow.”

  “I don’t have him on the hook, Chief” Peace corrected. “I just pointed out to Lewiston how much he and Mobry could contribute to the safety of the country this close to the border.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t criticizing, Wolvy,” Bull replied. “All I can think of is getting back over to Holly. She’s meeting Mobry over at the hospital to help with the interview. She’s tough as nails.”

  “She’ll need to be. You going to help her out with her folks?”

  “Yep,” Bull nodded. “I told her the best thing to do would be to come clean. Parents can handle a hell of a lot more than kids think.”

  “It’s hard to be so cavalier with someone threatening to send out porno pictures of you to your Mom and Dad,” Peace pointed out, coming to a halt with Bull, just out of earshot of their teammates by the beach.

  “Agreed,” Bull acknowledged. “I’m going to marry her, and I’m telling her parents that the day after tomorrow. We’re going over to their house for dinner.”

  “You already asked her?”

  “We talked about it last night. She thinks she’s damaged goods now. I convinced her the only way she could get me to leave her alone in the future was to shoot me. I think she finally believed me.”

  “I hope you and Dan don’t have to get locked up with the law for anything. Jessup will not be happy if he has to hear anything more from the SDPD,” Peace said.

  “Man, I forgot about Jessup. If he gets wind of this, you, me, and the Lieutenant will be cleaning bilges on some tanker in the Gulf.”

  “No,” Peace smiled. “We’ll be cleaning bilges. Lieutenant Dan will be supervising.”

  Bull laughed, nodding in agreement, as he glanced back at the building. He put his arm around Peace’s shoulders. “You up to joining the girls on the beach for a little mid-morning constitutional, Wolvy?”

  “I guess so,” Peace replied reluctantly, “but when we get back, that slacker, Lieutenant Dan, better not be snoring in his office. We may have to wake him up in a rather alarming manner.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to handle that one on your own, Wolvy,” Bull said, comically distancing himself from Peace, with his hands up.

  “You’re not afraid of Lieutenant Dan, are you, Chief?” Peace asked in surprise.

  “Hell yea, I’m afraid of him,” Bull admitted.

  Peace’s shoulders slumped, and he shrugged in resignation. “Yea, me too.”

  __

  As Peace tended bar on Thursday night, he spotted Lewiston and Mobry walk into the restaurant. They spotted him immediately, and with Mobry pacing himself next to Lewiston’s limping walk, the pair entered the bar. Polasky came over to stand next to Peace, curiously watching the two approaching policemen. The two Detectives sat down in front of Peace, Mobry smiling amiably, and Lewiston scowling.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure of this surprise visit, gentlemen?” Peace asked, glancing around the barroom. Only one of the booths had occupants, and no one was sitting at the bar.

  “I thought you’d want to fill us in on what we helped you with,” Lewiston said gruffly.

  One look at Peace’s face, and Mobry quickly put a placating hand up. “He didn’t mean it like that, Peace. We just thought you might have a few more details you’d like to fill us in about.”

  Polasky walked to the other end of the bar, shaking his head, giving Peace an, ‘I told you so’ look, as he passed by.

  Peace filled two mugs of beer, and placed them in front of the two detectives. He leaned down a little after setting the mugs down. “Instead of coming all the way down here, why not just post your question on a bulletin board at the San Diego Zoo? Do either of you gentlemen understand what the word covert means?”

  “Meaning what, Peacenik?” Lewiston fired back angrily.

  “Meaning we can’t help each other if the two of you act like we’re all joined at the hip,” Peace replied quietly, smiling and nodding his head as if he were carrying on a conversation more typical of a bar.

  “Don’t blame my partner,” Lewiston said after a moment’s silence. “I… I didn’t think. This shit takes some getting used to.”

  “We do appreciate your help busting that drug ring at the college,” Mobry added. “Were you able to get a lead on Landry?”

  “He’s in Mexico,” Peace answered, nodding his head and smiling as if he had heard a joke. “I doubt he’ll be back. His supplier, on the other hand, will be trying to establish a new connection at the college. You guys familiar with Benito Alvarez?”

  “Shit,” Lewiston exhaled sharply, while Mobry’s mouth tightened as he nodded.

  “I see you both know Landry’s supplier,” Peace continued, wiping down the bar as he spoke. “Alvarez has some other connections besides drugs and prostitution. You two enjoy your beer. I’ll get back to you if I have anything worthwhile. Please don’t come over here together again.”

  Mobry nodded his understanding, but Lewiston merely remained silent.

  “If I have anything come up for you, I’ll invite you and the family over here for dinner,” Peace told Lewiston. “Don’t force anything. If I don’t get a hold of you, it will be because I have nothing, or what I have, you won’t be able to do anything about. Enjoy your beers gentlemen.”

  After Mobry and Lewiston had finished their beers, they left without another word or look, other than a glance at Peace on the way out of the barroom. Polasky came over to where Peace was washing bar glasses.

  “I figured that dork would pull something like that,” Ed remarked.

  Peace shrugged. “They aren’t secret agents, Ed. I should have b
een more explicit in my directions to Lewiston. It sure helped having a guy on the inside the other night. Mobry really came through. I should have called on my buddy Lewiston before he decided to swagger on in here.”

  “It always helps to not do the sleep deprivation thing for too long,” Polasky observed. “Why don’t you cut out and catch up on your rest? How’d you sleep last night?”

  “Like the dead,” Peace admitted. “I feel a lot better tonight though.”

  “It’s slow. Go on and take off.”

  Peace nodded, taking off his bar apron. “Thanks Ed, I could go home and call Jill. She’s probably wondering what new trouble I’ve been burying myself in.”

  “She does seem to fit right in with your lifestyle, JB. How was Bull today at the base?”

  “Doing real well,” Peace said, smiling. “He’s been practically living with Holly since the Landry deal. Dan’s been cutting us all a little slack at the base, but that won’t last long. Bull told me he’d be staying close to her this weekend. He’s worried about those college boys trading info with Alvarez from jail.”

  “I doubt they’ll be very forthcoming,” Polasky countered. “Hell, if this Alvarez character is as bad as you’ve been told, none of those punks will want him to know anything. They’ll keep their mouths shut, and probably go for any kind of a deal they can get from the DA.”

  “Their folks have money, Ed. I doubt they’ll let their baby boys do time in prison if money can buy them off. You can bet they’ve been working their stories to jibe with Holly and her roommate as drug crazed sex fiends, coercing them into supplying them with drugs.

  Polasky paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “You may be right; but if that’s true, they better find another state. Bull ain’t going to like them getting away scot-free.”

  “He’s so happy having Holly back, I think she’s the only thing he’s thinking about.”