Bloodline

by Jeff Buick

  “We were in a room in the basement,” Shiara said.

  “How did you escape?” Pedro asked, grinning at the teenager. He was overcome with happiness to see them alive and well.

  “Through an air-conditioning duct. It wasn’t easy.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” Pedro said. He steered them to the back of the shed and rigged up the tools and machines so they could hide behind them. Then he retrieved his guns. He checked the breach in the H & K and took off the safety. He tucked the pistol in his belt. “How are your hands?”

  “Okay. No infection,” Julie said. “Pedro, where is Eugene?”

  “Last time I spoke with him he was in Rochester, New York. He said he was close to finding Pablo.”

  “Well, maybe he won’t have to. We may be able to get out of here on our own.” Julie wiped her brow and asked, “Where are we, Pedro?”

  “At Rastano’s estate in San Salvador.”

  “We’re in the city? If we get over the walls we should be safe.”

  “Maybe,” Pedro said. “But he’s got cameras covering the entire fence line. If we go over someone will see us and they’ll know exactly where we are. I think we’re better to stay here for a while. Collect our thoughts. Let the guards finish their search.”

  Tears formed in Shiara’s eyes. “They were going to kill us tomorrow, Pedro,” she said.

  “Yes, I know. So does Eugene. He knows he’s on a tight schedule.”

  “Do you think he’ll find Pablo and get what they want?”

  Pedro nodded. “I think so. I know he’s close.”

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Roland Arnett.

  Eugene stared at the name and the address. If the truth were known about Mr. Arnett, it would make the front page of almost every newspaper in the world.

  Pablo Escobar. Alive.

  He studied the tourist map the taxi driver had given him. Pablo lived on a quiet cul-de-sac fronting onto Conesus Lake, a popular location for second homes for some of Rochester’s more elite families. According to the blurb on the map, Conesus Lake was an excellent place to spend a million dollars on a getaway house. Eugene was sure Pablo’s house would fit right in. He looked out into the blackness beyond the car window, and thought back to a couple of weeks ago when he’d lived simply on the shores of Margarita with Julie and Shiara, safe and happy. So much had happened, so many twists and turns. He shifted slightly and felt the cold metal of the Glock pushing into his back. And here was yet another twist. Now Eugene was hunting the killer.

  Cathy Maxwell’s involvement had come as complete surprise. A total shock. She had been Pablo’s eyes and ears inside the DEA for all these years. Pablo hadn’t killed her parents, Moncada and Galeano had. She had gone to La Catedral to enlist Pablo’s help in tracking down the killers and exacting justice. The date that she visited the prison confirmed it. He knew that she would be coming after him now. She had to. Her secret was compromised.

  How the evening would play out he had no idea. But one thing was certain: he had to secure the release of Julie and Shiara. Ultimately whether his women lived or died was up to Pablo. But he had done his part; he had set out to find Pablo and he had succeeded. He knew in his heart that Roland Arnett was the supposedly dead Colombian, and that soon they would meet face to face. The cab began to slow. The time had arrived. His driver pulled into a paved access road and crept up to the gate, which opened as he approached. The trees thinned, then opened up to reveal a single-story house with a steeply pitched roof and gables. The house was awash in light that flooded from the windows and exterior globes. His driver slowed to a gentle stop by the front door. Eugene paid him, got out, and watched the car disappear down the drive. He looked up and saw a man standing in the door. As he came to within a few feet, he recognized the face as one he knew from when he was young.

  “Hello, Miguel,” he said, extending his hand.

  The other man accepted the hand, and said, “You remember my name after all these years, Eugenio. I’m surprised.”

  “Same name as my son,” Eugene said. “And that afternoon we spent on the dirt bikes at Nápoles is still a vivid memory.”

  “You’re here to see Mr. Arnett.”

  “Please.”

  “Any weapons?”

  Eugene smiled. Some things never changed. He reached behind his back, and extracted the Glock from his belt. He handed it to Miguel, who slipped it under his coat. Miguel pointed to the interior of the house, then led him through a grand foyer to a massive room overlooking the lake. A fire crackled in the hearth. One other person was in the room. He sat on the couch, near the roaring fire.

  “Hello, Eugenio,” Pablo said. He did not move from his place or offer his hand.

  “Pablo,” Eugene said, amazed by the change in the man whose pictures he had seen back in the early ‘90s. Here was a trim and clean-shaven man. His skin was pale, and he looked just like an American who lived in the northern states.

  “Come in, please, and sit down. Near the fire is good. It is so cold, even in the spring.” Pablo spoke unaccented English.

  Eugene sat on the end of the couch, opposite Pablo, and facing him. Miguel sat in a leather chair, a few yards away. Now that he was here, Eugene did not know what to do or say, and he spent a few moments looking around the room. It was very American with open-beam ceilings and cream-colored walls. The fireplace was river rock and burned real wood, not gas and fire logs like so many of the new ones. The furniture was all light beige leather and the tables were maple with glass tops.

  Pablo broke the silence. “So you were given an impossible task by Javier Rastano, yet you managed to succeed. I’m impressed, Eugenio. But I have to pay a price for your success.” Pablo motioned to Miguel, who poured two glasses of Crown Royal. “I won’t be safe here any longer. I will have to move.”

  Eugene didn’t care that this man was impressed, or whether Pablo had to move. He hadn’t arrived at this point in his journey to hear praise or to give sympathy.

  “Your success is unfortunate for me. You’ve found me and now others will find me. I will have to leave this place, Eugenio. I don’t like the climate, but I’ve had a satisfying life here for a lot of years. It’s not my choice to go into hiding, to make a whole new life for myself somewhere else. You’ve forced this on me.”

  Eugene was incensed by Pablo’s indifference to his plight. “I haven’t forced anything on you. You and the Rastanos have forced this on me. I’m just a pawn, Pablo. As are my wife and daughter in this terrible game you play with other people’s lives.”

  “You’re in my house now, Eugenio. You’re not in a position to get angry.”

  Eugene mellowed in his tone of voice, but not his choice of words. “I don’t know you, Pablo. But I do know that what happens to my family is entirely up to you. We live or die on what you decide. But I will not kiss your ass, Pablo. So let’s just finish this game. You’ve got a number Javier Rastano wants. I need that number.”

  “I know all this, Eugenio. And the game, as you call it, is almost finished. I’ve done what I had to do to stop the news of my survival from going any further. The team you were working with, they’re all dead. You and Cathy Maxwell are the only ones left.”

  “Dead? What are you talking about? What’s happened to them?”

  Miguel answered. “Senator Crandle killed them.”

  “How do you know this?” Eugene asked.

  Pablo waved his hand as if brushing off an inconsequential bug and said, “Crandle has been getting out of hand lately. The power he has in Washington has gone to his head. He was going to be caught sooner or later, and then he’d search out a deal to save his skin. Which wouldn’t have been good for the Rastano family or for me.” Pablo shook his head. “Miguel was at the hotel to remove Senator Crandle. He just didn’t get there quickly enough to save young Garcia. So Crandle’s dead. I was going to take care of him at some point anyway. This just happened to become an opportune time. The prick was Mario Rastano’s boy, nothing mor
e.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out. Crandle was feeding Mario Rastano information as far back as the early ‘80s. But it was the raid on the lab where Fernando Garcia was killed that really tied the two at the hip.”

  “You should go into the investigation business, Eugenio. You’ve figured it all out.”

  “Not the ending, Pablo. The ending is up to you.”

  Except for the crackling fire, the room was quiet.

  The doorbell rang. Miguel got up and left the room. They waited in silence, then Cathy Maxwell entered the room, Miguel right behind her. She saw Eugene. She stopped, reached her right hand inside her coat and came out with a pistol. She aimed it directly at Eugene.

  “You son-of-a-bitch,” she said. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  “Cathy. Put the gun away.” Pablo spoke calmly.

  She held the gun outstretched for another few seconds, then holstered it and sat down. No one disobeyed Pablo. “What are you going to do about him?” she asked Pablo.

  “I haven’t decided.” Pablo let his eyes wander from Eugene to where she sat. “What happened to Landry?”

  “I had to kill him. And that’s going to bring a lot of heat down on me. I’m going to have to leave the country.”

  “Landry’s dead. Reid, Garcia and Crandle are dead. There’s going to be a lot of heat, a lot of questions. And not just for you.”

  Maxwell looked hard at Pablo. “What happened to the others?”

  “Crandle killed Reid and Garcia, and Miguel killed Crandle. There are just too many people who know I’m alive and where I live. Christ, Eugenio, I wish you were a little dumber.” He paused and took a sip of whiskey. “Miguel, take care of our problem.”

  Miguel rose, a gun in his hand. He walked toward Eugene until he was midway between him and a smug looking Cathy Maxwell. “Sorry,” he said, then spun and fired one bullet into Cathy Maxwell’s brain. The back of her skull exploded and brain and skull fragments spattered against the chair and the wall.

  “What the hell…” Eugene’s breath was coming in short gasps. He thought he was going to faint.

  “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t ruin a perfectly good chair,” Pablo said to Eugene. “But we’re leaving tonight, so it doesn’t matter.” He walked over to where Cathy Maxwell’s body lay and stared at her dead eyes.

  “I had to make a decision, Eugenio,” Pablo said. “At first, I was going to kill you if you got close. But in the end, I suppose you can say that blood is thicker than water. But not in the way you think. I have no hold over Cathy Maxwell. Like the senator, she would have talked to save her skin. But you, Eugenio, you have a family. You won’t talk.” He paused and his face grew serious. “But you still have a problem, Eugenio.”

  “Julie and Shiara.”

  “Javier Rastano will kill them, you know that.”

  “Yes.”

  Pablo scratched the back of his neck. “What’s the value of a life, Eugenio? Is it a billion dollars? That seems a little steep.”

  “I suppose it depends on the life. I think Julie and Shiara are worth it.”

  Pablo managed a small smile. “Of course you do. But you’re being rather subjective here, Eugenio.”

  “This is a hell of an opportunity to get some serious karma on your side, Pablo. A billion dollars for two lives buys a lot of absolution.”

  Pablo was silent for the better part of a minute. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked. The sound was deafening. “All right, cousin. You played the game well. You deserve a chance to save your wife and daughter.” He picked up a pen from the desk and wrote something on a piece of paper. He handed it to Eugene. On the paper, in blue ink, were ten digits.

  The numbers swam in front of Eugene’s eyes. He couldn’t focus. He and his family had gone through hell. For this. For a number. Finally, he pocketed it and said, “Thanks, Pablo.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Eugene glanced about. “I need to use a telephone.”

  Pablo shook his head. “No way. Javier Rastano is a snake, Eugenio. He will take the code, verify it, then kill your family. You have to see him face-to-face and negotiate the release of Julie and Shiara.”

  Eugene stared at Pablo. “I’m in Rochester, for Christ’s sake. There’s no way to get to San Salvador in time. Crandle’s plane is the only way I could possibly get there, and it’ll be grounded once they find all the bodies at the hotel.”

  “But mine won’t,” Pablo said. “Okomono owns a corporate Gulfstream. It’s useless to me now. You may as well use it. I’ll call the airport and have the pilot file a flight plan for San Salvador. We have to leave tonight as well, but not by plane. That method leaves a trail.”

  “And now you disappear again?” Eugene asked.

  “Yes. In fact,” Pablo said, pouring another drink, “it will be nice to get back to some decent weather. But please, Eugenio, don’t come looking for me again.”

  “Not a chance,” he said, shaking Pablo’s hand. Miguel fished Eugene’s Glock from inside his suit jacket and handed it over, grip first.

  Eugene took one last look at Cathy Maxwell’s body, then left Pablo’s house with a set of car keys, directions to the executive hangar at the Rochester airport, and a ten-digit code in his pocket. It was almost three in the morning in Rochester, making it after midnight in San Salvador. Saturday morning.

  The deadline had arrived.

  As he drove through the dark back roads toward Rochester, he had a final thought, an idea that might help his position when it came time to negotiate for the release of his family. He needed to make one more phone call, but he could do that from the plane.

  Then it would be time to meet Javier Rastano.

  Chapter Sixty-three

  The first rays of sun filtered through the eucalyptus and mango trees, quickly heating the air inside the gardener’s shed to an uncomfortable level. The night had been a series of close calls, with Javier’s men roaming the estate and popping in and out of the shed with no regularity. Sleep was impossible and the constant threat of being discovered was wearing on already frayed nerves. Pedro had gone out a few times during the night, scouting possible escape routes, but the cameras mounted atop the estate walls covered every inch, and scaling the wall would have simply resulted in their capture. They were now relying entirely on Eugene to arrive in time.

  Shiara was having trouble breathing, her asthma acting up in response to the heavy scent of cut grass and fertilizers that permeated the small shed. There was no water, and all three were quickly becoming dehydrated as the temperature inside and outside the building rose. Pedro recognized the signs of dehydration and scoured every corner of the shed for something to drink. He came up empty.

  “We can’t survive all day without water,” he said to Julie. Shiara’s head was in her mother’s lap and the teenager’s breathing was shallow.

  “What if Eugene doesn’t make it?” Julie asked quietly.

  Pedro shrugged. “We’re doing the best we can. Getting off the estate with all these armed guards is impossible. We’ve got to hope Eugene makes it in time.”

  Pedro heard a sound and glanced over the row of machinery. Inside the shed and only five feet from where they hid stood one of Rastano’s men, his gun pointed at Pedro’s head. Pedro ducked as a spray of automatic gunfire raked the air where he had been only a split second before. He leveled the pistol and pumped off four rounds through a gap between the ride-on mower and a fertilizer attachment. All four bullets hit the target and the man staggered backwards, hit the door and crashed into the garden, blood oozing from his mouth. Pedro ran forward to the shed door and pulled it closed, then smashed a small hole through the wood so he had a line of vision on anyone approaching. He took a breath and readied the automatic.

  Rastano’s men would be coming.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  The Gulfstream taxied to the executive terminal at San Salvador’s airport and came to a halt. Customs and immigration officials boarded the plane immediately, partially out of a des
ire to see the inside of the thirty-five million dollar aircraft, and partly to check the incoming traveler’s documentation. They gave Eugene a bit of a hard time, mostly because he was traveling with a Venezuelan passport on a jet registered in the United States, but after a few minutes they had seen the interior of the craft and they stamped his passport. Eugene hurried to the taxi queue, the Glock pressing against the small of his back.

  He gave the driver Javier Rastano’s address and sat back, impatient at the slow pace now that he was on the ground. The Gulfstream was a marvel, flying at forty-seven thousand feet at almost Mach 1. The jet had shaved two hours off the time a Boeing 757 would have required, plus the private jet had left the minute he arrived at the Rochester airport. Flying coach would be difficult after that.

  The taxi driver perked up and stepped on the gas when Eugene dropped two American one hundred dollar bills on the front seat and promised two more if he could make record time to Colonia Escalón. They flew past the shopping center and onto the smoothly paved streets of the ritzy neighborhood, barely slowing for a woman with a baby carriage. He checked his map and drove at breakneck speeds through the winding, hilly streets until he came to a wrought-iron gate with two serious looking guards.

  “We are here, señor,” he said. “Is good?”

  Eugene handed him another two hundreds and jumped from the cab. He ran to the gate, ignoring the guns which were pointed at him. In the background he could hear the distinct sound of gunfire.

  “Tell Javier Rastano that Eugene Escobar is here,” he yelled. “Now! Call him now!”

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Javier’s men had the shed surrounded and were ready for a full-out assault. The only reason they had yet to overrun the single defender was Rastano’s reluctance to have a barrage of gunfire on his estate during the middle of the morning. The boxer didn’t care about the noise, and fired indiscriminately at the guards when one of them came into view. Pedro had hit three and the remaining men were giving him a wide berth. Javier took the call from the front gate and waved at his men to back off.