by Jeff Buick
While dancing about and avoiding the ill-timed and lame punches, Pedro had noticed glaring flaws in the man’s style. Straight off, Sal was watching his eyes, and that in itself was a fatal flaw for a boxer. An opponent’s eyes tell you nothing; his chest, shoulders and feet tell you everything. A boxer who concentrates on his opponent’s eyes is not going to remain vertical for very long. In addition to this most crucial mistake, Sal’s left hook was a sweeping roundhouse with little to no power. He didn’t transfer any weight to his left side and left himself completely open every time he threw the punch; he could stun Sal every time the man threw a left hook. Sal’s footwork was non-existent and he was consistently off balance. The only question Pedro had when the bell rang to start the second round, was how long to toy with this guy before knocking him out.
Sal came at him again, jabbing ineffectively and trying a right-left-right power combination. Pedro blocked the rights and ducked the left, then started with his jabs. His left hand shot out from his chin in a lightning fast motion, smacked Sal in the face, and was back protecting his chin before Sal even saw the punch. Again, the jab, and again, no response. Again, and again, Pedro hammered the man in the face with jab after jab that inflicted minimal damage but angered his opponent. Sal countered back with a flat-footed straight right that earned him his first uppercut of the fight. He staggered back, stunned from the glancing blow to his chin. Then his eyes lit up and he charged in.
Pedro had one rule he lived by. Never charge your opponent in the ring when you’re mad and off balance. You’ll only get your ass kicked. And Sal was in for an ass- kicking. Pedro started his combinations, throwing a quick couple of jabs, then smashing into the man’s face with straight rights and left hooks before stunning him with a lightning-quick uppercut. When the bell rang to end the second round, Pedro had landed sixteen of twenty punches and had yet to take one. He returned to his corner, and José offered him some water.
“I get the feeling you’re going to kill this guy,” José said, squeezing water into Pedro’s mouth.
Pedro pulled out his mouth protector. “This Sal guy, he a regular around here? A friend of Señor Rastano’s?”
“Shit, no. He’s some punk from down in the barrio. Rastano doesn’t know him from a street turd. But then again, he doesn’t know you either.”
Pedro laughed. He liked José. “So should I take him down now, or just fuck with him for a bit?”
“Oh, fuck with him, boy. Give Javier a show. Go to the fifth then annihilate him. That’ll get Javier’s attention, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
“Wouldn’t mind. I hear he promotes good fighters.”
“Good ones, yeah. But you gotta show him.”
The bell rang, Pedro slipped his mouth protector back in place, smacked his gloves together and went back to work. He toyed with Sal, letting the man get close with a few jabs but always staying ahead of any of his power punches. What little footwork Sal had was easy to read; the cross-over right was his most dangerous punch, but it was always preceded by his right foot dropping back. Sal was so easy to read it was child’s play. By the start of the fifth, Sal’s breathing was labored and he was bleeding from above his right eye and from a cut on his left cheek. As Pedro entered the ring for the fifth and final round, he crossed himself and apologized to God for what he was about to do.
Round five was nothing short of a mugging. Pedro’s feet were everywhere, his body bobbing, weaving and bowing, then firing power punches that stunned Sal and sent him crashing into the ropes time and time again. Pedro lit into the man with combinations, holding back on the uppercut until there was about a minute left in the round. Then he danced over to where he could look directly into Rastano’s eyes, pointed down with his gloves, and shrugged. Rastano nodded. He wanted to see Pedro put the man to the canvas. And that was exactly what Pedro did. He let loose with everything he had, pummeling Sal’s head with a flurry of right-left combinations followed by a crushing uppercut that sent him sprawling to the canvas, unconscious before he hit the mat. Pedro stood over his downed opponent for a second, then retreated to his corner.
“Now that’s fighting,” his corner man said. “You fucking killed him.”
“Naw,” Pedro said. “I looked. He’s still breathing.”
When José finished unlacing Pedro’s gloves and washing Sal’s blood off his arms, Rastano was gone. The fight had drawn a crowd, swelling to over a hundred people, many of them attractive female members of the club. And more than one of them was giving Pedro the eye. He swallowed back some water and asked his corner man, “You do this a lot? Work corners for fighters you don’t know?”
“Whenever they have a fight, they call me,” José said. “They like to keep these sparring matches as official looking as possible. It amuses them. I ran a gym down in El Centro for years and trained a lot of fighters, so I know the ropes, so to speak. In fact, you look a little familiar.”
Pedro patted the older man on the shoulder. “El Centro is more my turf than this place, my friend. I may have gone a few rounds in your gym at one time or another.” They finished unwrapping Pedro’s hands, and he thanked José for his help. It took a few minutes to get through the remnants of the crowd, as a few people wanted to pat him on the back and thank him for winning. Pedro couldn’t believe these assholes; they were betting on a sparring match. He finally managed to wade through the last of the spectators and out the front door into the parking lot. Javier Rastano was sitting behind the wheel of a red Ferrari F-50, and he waved Pedro over. Pedro jogged the hundred feet or so to Rastano’s sports car, and as he neared the million-dollar car he wondered how this man could kill a young boy over a paint scratch.
“That was impressive,” Javier said. His lean, tanned face and long, black hair fit the image of the car.
Pedro shrugged. “The guy wasn’t much of a fighter. He would do better in an alley fight than in a boxing ring.”
“Quite right, Pedro,” Javier said, taking a long slow drag off his cigarette. “If you’re up to it, I’ve got another opponent who may be a bit more of a challenge.”
“You’re not going to pull some Olympic gold medal contender out of nowhere are you?”
“No. He’s good, but not that good. In fact, you and he would be an even fight. Nothing like that blowout we all just watched.”
“When?” Pedro asked.
“In a week or two?”
Pedro shook his head. “I’m just visiting. I don’t know if I’ll be in San Salvador in a week.”
Javier looked thoughtful. “Tomorrow’s too soon and next week’s out. Too bad.”
“Tomorrow’s not too soon for me,” Pedro said. “That was just a warm-up.”
A smile crept over Javier’s face, but it made Pedro’s whole body chill. There was nothing warm about that smile. “Tomorrow, then. Same time.”
“Ten o’clock is fine. One thing, though. I’d like José in my corner again. He knows what he’s doing.”
“He’ll be there, amigo.” He gave Pedro a rippling of his fingers. “See you tomorrow.”
The Ferrari crept out of the parking lot and Pedro turned and headed back to the club to hail a cab. Tomorrow was the test. Javier Rastano now knew that Pedro could fight. He wouldn’t be bringing some punching bag this time. Pedro rolled his shoulders forward and back a few times, feeling the muscles beginning to stiffen. He’d been through this enough times to know he was going to be hurting tomorrow. Sal hadn’t penetrated his defenses even once, but blocking over two hundred punches with his gloves and arms had taken its toll. When he thought about it, Rastano was right, tomorrow was too soon. But he didn’t have the luxury of waiting. Tomorrow was Sunday and that was the start of week two in the hunt for Julie and Shiara. He had no choice.
A solitary cab was waiting in the taxi queue. He threw his bag in the back and climbed in the front seat with the driver. One thing he was not, and would never be, was above his fellow man. He patted the astonished driver on the shoulder and gave him the add
ress of his hotel. They chatted idly as the cabbie navigated the congested streets, but Pedro’s mind was elsewhere.
He was already in the ring facing his next opponent. And the man was kicking his ass.
Chapter Nineteen
Senator Irwin Crandle, grounded in Kentucky while entertaining the president for a couple of days, had little need of his Learjet and loaned it to the two intelligence experts, and Eduardo and Eugene, for their flight back to El Paso. It was almost noon on Saturday when they arrived at EPIC, having over-nighted in Frankfort. A second meeting with the senator, after his day with the president, had gone late into the night and produced tangible results. Each member of the team was re-focused on his or her individual task.
Cathy Maxwell was still working on sorting through the DEA files from the early ’90s, but with a twist. The addition of Senator Irwin Crandle to the team opened a back door into the Department of Justice files that would have otherwise remained sealed. Members of Congress and their immediate staff could circumvent section 5 U.S.C 552 of the Privacy Act, and that added an entirely new angle to their investigation. Informants who had worked with the DOJ back when Pablo was all-powerful were identified, and a network link to the Witness Protection Plan allowed access to their files. Names and addresses were blacked out, but that information was available on a need- to-know basis. She started the arduous task of sorting through Pablo’s past contacts and deciding which ones were priorities.
Crandle had agreed that Alexander Landry and Eugene continue working together targeting family members and close friends who may have stayed in touch with Pablo after his “death” in Medellín. Narrowing down the number of names would make Eduardo Garcia’s job of monitoring phone calls a lot easier. The sheer volume of calls was astronomical; well into the hundreds of thousands, and every person Alexander and Eugene could eliminate reduced the volume substantially. Nonetheless, Garcia was attacking the problem with zeal. Phone logs were strewn all over his desk and he had developed a color-coded system to quickly identify calls from sources he knew were not Pablo. Alexander Landry watched for a few minutes and nodded his approval. Garcia’s stock in DEA had just risen appreciatively.
Bud Reid did not return to El Paso with the rest of the crew. He flew to Dulles from Louisville and caught a direct flight to Zurich. If the bank account at the Banque Suisse de Zurich was tied to Pablo Escobar, then they wanted to locate Pablo’s contact and speak with that person. Narrowing it down shouldn’t be too difficult. Bud Reid intended to find out which employee controlled the suspect account, and have a chat with him. Including time changes, flying time and layovers, he was due to arrive in Zurich at eight o’clock Sunday morning. Bad timing for visiting a bank, but it was the best he could do.
Despite his commitments to the president, Senator Crandle was busy opening doors for the team. He invoked senatorial right to bypass section 5 U.S.C 552 of the Privacy Act and left his personal phone number with the appropriate staff at the DOJ; when Cathy Maxwell needed access to a file she got clearance in minutes rather than hours. Their research room buzzed with activity, and the mood was upbeat, despite the staggering odds against their success. Especially given the tight time frame.
Eduardo Garcia leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The printouts were starting to blur, and he needed a break. “Crandle is a pretty visible figure these days,” he said to Alexander Landry. “What was he like when you guys were working together in Colombia?”
Landry smiled. “Are you asking whether he was the same then as now?” When Garcia nodded, he continued. “Nothing has changed with Irwin Crandle. Fifteen years ago, he was a self-righteous, arrogant, pig-headed son-of- a-bitch who had no idea what the word failure meant. And he still is. His idea of the subtle approach was to kick in the back door as opposed to breaking down the front door. Diplomacy was making sure there were no marks on the narcos after we interrogated them. I’m surprised it took him as long as it did to track down Pablo.”
“It sounds like the narcos weren’t the only ones operating outside the law,” Garcia said.
“Agent Garcia, you want to bring these guys down, you fight at their level,” Landry said sharply. “That was the way things were a decade and a half ago, and that’s the way things are now. You’ll do well with the DEA if you keep that in mind.”
“Yes, sir. Creative field work gets recognized.”
Landry cooled his jets. “Yeah, exactly, Eduardo. Creative field work. I like that.”
Garcia returned to his work, wondering just how creative Landry, Maxwell and Crandle had been while looking for Pablo. It had never occurred to him until now, but the three agents who had moved to the upper echelons of their chosen fields had probably taken out a few street- level dealers to achieve their goals. He knew rules were stretched, even broken, under arduous field conditions, and he was sure the woman and men he was working with were guilty of enough infractions to fill a two-inch binder. But working elbow to elbow with this level of agent was intimidating enough, and he kept his views of right and wrong mostly to himself. He just wondered if they would resurrect their previous field tactics to find Pablo. Murder and torture might have worked in Colombia, but this was America.
It was a chilling thought.
Chapter Twenty
The air had a slight chill despite the sun hanging almost directly overhead. That was something the man could never understand. How the sun could be out and shining, yet there was little to no heat. He touched the white railing that encircled the deck; it felt cool on his fingertips. Spread across the expanse of land between the house and the lake were thousands of deciduous trees, all barren of leaves like stark twigs rising from the ashes of a fire. It was depressing, the lack of lush green forests. But at least the snow was gone.
Pablo Escobar detested the snow.
He buttoned his coat against the cool spring air and sipped his coffee. Most of the warmth had dissipated and even the mug now felt cool. He left the mug on the railing and padded across the massive cedar deck and into the house. The river rock fireplace was at work, the fire licking at a few generous birch logs. An occasional crackle from the fireplace split the silence, but otherwise the house was quiet. Somewhere in another part of the house the muffled sound of a ringing phone came to him, but it was quickly answered. He sat in one of the chairs opposite the fireplace and stared alternately at the flames and through the picture window at the valley that lay far below the house. It was beautiful. But he missed his home.
A thin man, late thirties with pale skin and a bushy mustache, quietly entered the room. In his right hand was a cordless phone. He handed it to Pablo, closing the door behind him.
“Hello,” Pablo said, his English without an accent.
“We have a problem,” a distant voice said.
“It is safe to speak on this line. Please continue.”
“Your Zurich connection is in jeopardy.”
“How long do we have?”
“Monday morning, at the latest.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me,” the voice said, “I know exactly when your man in Zurich will be compromised. He’s working both sides. For you and for the Rastanos. Take care of him or our little team will be all over it. It’s inevitable.”
“So. Herr Shweisser is a man who likes to take risks. I’ve suspected for some time now that he was also in bed with Mario and Javier Rastano. Unfortunately for him, that was a fatal mistake. Do you have anything else for me right now?”
“No.”
“The team is still five members, plus Eugenio Escobar?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Pablo hung up, waited a minute, then dialed a number prefixed by an international area code. The phone rang a few times and a woman’s voice, soft and enticing, answered.
“I have a job for you. It must be handled immediately.” He spoke for a couple of minutes, giving the woman all the necessary details, then hung up. The fireplace was generating a great deal of warmth and he u
nbuttoned his coat, slipped it off and laid it on the arm of the chair. He stood and walked to the window, again looking out over the valley that stretched far to the south. A solitary cloud drifted toward the sun, and he watched the shadow move up the valley. It engulfed the house; the strong sunlight dissipated and the room instantly darkened. He could see the fire reflected in the window, the flames slowly and methodically devouring the wood.
And now with the sunlight just a ghost of its former brilliance, he could also see his own reflection. His face was somewhat oval, his eyes deep brown and watchful. His cheeks were full, but not yet drooping. He jowls and chin were firm, belying his age. He sported a full head of curly hair, parted in the middle and allowed to grow about halfway down his ears. His face was clean-shaven and well proportioned. Although he was not a handsome man, neither was he ugly. His shoulders were slightly rounded, but his chest was full and his waist narrowed to a respectable thirty-four inches. He looked younger than his fifty-six years, a fact he credited to the many hours he spent in his basement gym. He turned from the window at the sound of a door opening. The same man who had brought him the phone was standing in the doorway.
“Lunch is served, sir.”
“Thank you.”
The servant bowed his head a fraction and was gone.
Pablo Escobar took one last out the window and smoothed the lapels on his shirt before attending the midday meal.
Chapter Twenty-one
Pedro Parada was glistening with sweat, the skipping rope a blur as he warmed up for his second fight at Javier Rastano’s private club. His opponent was working the heavy bag and after watching him for a couple of minutes, Pedro knew he was in for a punch-fest. Luis, the man’s name, was in his mid-twenties and probably a few pounds over the welterweight division. He was in excellent condition, toned and very light on his feet. This guy was no street fighter; he was a boxer. He even had the typical boxer’s face; flat nose, cauliflower ears, and he kept his hair cropped close to his head. His skin was badly scarred with pock marks from a severe case of adolescent acne. Pedro continued skipping as Javier, surrounded by an entourage, entered the gym. Most of the club members were also there. News of the fight had traveled fast, and interest was high.