Justice

by Blake, Russell

  He dumped the noodle packet into a bowl of water and popped it into the microwave. Hannah was very particular about which brand she ate and fortunately favored one that was sold all over Argentina and Uruguay. He entered the appropriate time and started the oven, marveling how much his life had changed in just a few short months. He’d gone from living in the wilds of Laos and Myanmar, with no electricity, running water, or food besides what he could catch or hunt, to a domesticated existence with the most remarkable woman he’d ever met.

  Jet had entered his life with the velocity of a meteor and, even after having to disappear following the attack in Ko Samui, he’d thought about her daily. When they’d reconnected in Washington, he’d correctly viewed that as a second chance he wasn’t going to let slip by, and he was glad he’d pursued the relationship. Sure, it was an odd pairing, but for whatever reason, it worked, and worked well. They were good together. He’d never felt as powerful an attraction for a woman before – and from what he could see, the feeling was mutual.

  Hannah was a stabilizing factor, grounding them both and normalizing their lives, which left to their own devices could have been a circular exercise in paranoia. The world was filled with Jet’s powerful enemies and Matt would never be completely safe from the narcotics cabal at the CIA, so they would always have something legitimate to worry about. But they’d settled into a routine in a place a million miles from their old lives, where their priority was Hannah. She’d already bonded completely with Matt and now adored him like the father she’d never known – a heavy responsibility for him, but one he gladly shouldered.

  The oven chime went off. He removed the bowl of noodles, setting it on the counter to cool.

  “Hannah? Go potty and wash your hands. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  Hannah nodded and padded off to attend to her necessities, having mastered potty training early, relieving Matt of at least one challenge that evening. He moved to the kitchen window and popped it open, then walked to the rear balcony and opened the sliding glass door. Below, at the pool area, one of the neighbors had half the city over for a parrilla – the obligatory weekend grilling of beef that was a badge of honor for Argentine males. Every home, every apartment complex, had a large outdoor wood-fired covered grill, where many evenings and every weekend a dizzying variety of steaks would be cooked while the admiring celebrants drank wine and quaffed beer.

  Matt watched the gathered crowd: a mixed bunch, easily thirty people, varying from old to young, a cross-section of the population, mostly working class judging by their clothes. It was too cool for the children to be swimming, so the pool was empty, but several were running along the perimeter of the large deck, laughing uproariously as the adults focused on grilling the long slabs of meat waiting in marinating trays. As the rich smell of wood smoke drifted up from the grill’s chimney, Matt reflected that things could have been much worse than finding the love of his life and living in the epicenter of the Argentine wine country.

  He looked up at a stippling of stars glinting in the night sky, more visible than almost anywhere he’d been due to the altitude. Things had certainly taken an interesting turn and, even though he’d just lost a hundred and eighty million dollars in diamonds, he felt strangely ambiguous about it. It wasn’t like he’d planned on spending the money anyway, so it was just a number, although the ramifications of his old CIA foes being back on his trail were somewhat alarming. Apparently he’d misjudged them – he’d believed that scrambling to salvage their global trafficking network from the ravages of a competitive market would keep Arthur’s subordinates busy until the scent had long grown cold.

  Now that they had the diamonds, he figured, most of their incentive to keep up the hunt would fade. True, they’d think he still had seventy million, but they made that in a few weeks, so he couldn’t see it keeping them in the game for long. Plus, he’d disappeared and there was nothing to lead anyone to him. He had a different passport with a different name, had dyed his hair darker brown, and was living in a relatively small town on the opposite side of the globe from Thailand. It was hard for him to imagine being any more removed from his old operational life, and he and Jet had agreed that while they’d be vigilant, there was no need to take immediate action.

  Feminine laughter rose from the party, and Matt waved at the assembly when his neighbor gazed up at him. The man and his wife waved back, but wouldn’t invite him over, he knew. Argentines tended to be a close-knit bunch and, even if he had been living there for years, from their standpoint he would still be an outsider.

  Which was fine by him.

  Last thing he needed was more beef, he thought, patting his stomach.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tara met Carl and Ken down the street from the building, where they’d parked the car for a quick getaway. The sidewalks were empty, ancient streetlights throwing faint illumination from opaque lamps. They huddled near the vehicle as Tara listened to Carl’s account of his pursuit and surveillance.

  “You’re sure it’s the fifth floor?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. They pulled into the garage, and a couple of minutes later the lights went on up there. It’s not a huge complex – looks to me like one apartment per floor. I’d bet a month’s wages that’s his.”

  “You’ve reconnoitered the building?”

  “Yes. There’s a doorman in the lobby. But I’ve been watching people go in – judging from the arrivals, there’s some kind of an event taking place. If someone were to show up who looked harmless, they’d easily be able to get in, I’d think. I’ve watched at least ten people enter since I’ve been here. Mostly couples, by the way.”

  Tara looked down the street. “I have the perfect solution. There’s a wine store on the next block. Carl, you stay in the car, engine running. Be ready to get out of here on a moment’s notice. Ken, come with me. We’re going to playact a little.”

  “I love playacting. You want to do ‘prisoner and the warden’s wife’?”

  “Very funny. Come on. Let’s go get a bottle of vino and crash this party.”

  Chapter 13

  Dante’s Mercedes rolled to a stop at the end of the alley, the buildings on either side crumbling, the industrial façades deteriorated from decades of neglect, the docks of the old port a hundred yards away deserted. His driver unlocked the doors with the press of a button and Dante exited the car and walked unhurriedly toward the two men framing the metal warehouse door – both older, wearing pea coats and black knit caps pulled tight in spite of the warm weather. Clouds of aromatic smoke drifted slowly away from them in the dead air, the black tobacco of their Parisiennes cigarettes as distinctive as that of hand-rolled Cuban cigars.

  Dante nodded at the shorter of the pair, a muscular man with three days of salt-and-pepper stubble on his dark face. The man pulled the door open and Dante entered, his eyes requiring a few moments to acclimate to the gloom of the cavernous expanse. Water dripped from a leaky overhead pipe, one of many crisscrossing the ceiling. He moved across the empty floor of the abandoned warehouse until he reached another door. He knocked, and it opened as though by magic, pulled by a portly bald man in his fifties with the ugly white puckering of an old knife scar running down the left side of his paunchy neck.

  “Gilberto. Always good to see you,” Dante said, his voice soft.

  “Likewise, Jefe.”

  “Where are they?” Dante asked.

  “Over there, in the corner,” Gilberto said, pointing to where two small boys were chained.

  Dante walked over to their position and stared down at them. “So, you thought you could compete with me, snitch about my operations and live to tell about it?”

  The younger of the two, perhaps eleven, burst into tears. His older brother, more like thirteen, glared defiantly at Dante.

  Dante gave him a disgusted look. “You liked making money selling the Paco, huh? But you thought it would be a good idea to rat out my people to the police so you could have their territory? Not very smart. You�
��ve caused me a substantial headache. And you will pay the price.”

  Dante nodded at Gilberto, who approached carrying an axe handle. Dante took it from him and swung it at the older boy, cracking his arm with an audible snap. The child screamed in agony. Dante continued his assault, beating the boy until he was an unrecognizable pulp. He turned to Gilberto and wiped a fleck of blood from his chin, panting from the exertion, as the surviving sibling wailed in horror at the sight of his brother, now dead beside him. Dante held out the wooden staff and his expression changed. He slowly pivoted until he was facing the crying boy again.

  “You want to be a tough guy, eh, cabron? Make big-man money the easy way? Then you can expect to pay adult prices for your behavior.”

  Dante swung the axe handle at the child’s legs, shattering his left kneecap. The boy fainted from the pain. Dante tossed Gilberto the blood-smeared length of wood. “Toss him back onto the street. Find his family and tell them that they owe me double whatever we lost in that raid.”

  Gilberto nodded. “They live in Villa 31.” Villa 31 was the most notorious and dangerous slum in Buenos Aires, where the police refused to go and where the murder rate was astronomical – killings for over as little as the equivalent of a dollar, as well as for all the usual reasons: turf warfare, passion, revenge. “A big family. Two more boys and four daughters.”

  Dante smiled. “Good. Tell them that if they don’t pay up, we’ll sell their daughters to raise the money. Any idea how old they are?”

  “From seven to fifteen.”

  “We’ll start with the seven-year-old. Give them one day. If they try to run, we’ll take all the girls and kill everyone else. Make that clear.” Dante turned to the unconscious boy. “Now get this garbage out of my sight. What else do we have for me to deal with?”

  “We got in twenty new girls for the brothels.”

  “From where?”

  “Mostly Brazil. Four from Paraguay.”

  “What quality?”

  “Sixes and sevens. Two eights.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirteen to sixteen.”

  “Start them on heroin – that’ll make them compliant. We can put them to work this weekend. And wash the two eights up and have them brought to my house tonight. Might as well see what our associates to the north are supplying.”

  “Yes, Jefe.”

  These sorts of chores were a necessary part of the day-to-day operations of Dante’s empire. He was a big believer in setting a strong example for his men, so attended to many of the more unpleasant disciplinary tasks himself, as well as availing himself of the perks of dealing in underage human flesh for sex tourists who seemed to have an endless desire for youngsters. He didn’t understand the fascination with adolescents, but he didn’t have to. He was merely supplying a market. Now, when the girls began to mature, especially when they were in that coltish youth of puberty…that he understood, preferring to be the first to defile many of the girls who would be his slaves, burned out and used up within two years, infected with AIDS and hopelessly addicted to drugs by the time they were too broken to earn for him anymore.

  Again, not his problem. The world was an ugly place; if he wasn’t supplying what it demanded, somebody else would.

  He returned to his car, energized by the prospect of new talent for the evening, and sat back into the butter-soft leather seat as his driver negotiated his way out of the seedy district and back to his home in Palermo Chico, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, where his two-story French-inspired mansion was on the same block as several embassies.

  ~ ~ ~

  When Sofia returned to the hospital waiting area, she looked shaken. Jet approached her and they hugged, words unnecessary. Eventually the moment was over and they moved apart, Sofia tentative as she walked to the water cooler and dispensed a cup.

  “How did it go?” Jet asked, watching as Sofia gulped the water like she’d been lost in the desert for days.

  “So-so. I don’t think the inspector believed me about knowing nothing about why my husband was involved in a shootout in a casino. But what’s that old saying? The wife’s the last to know? I played dumb and it seemed to work well enough to get me through it.”

  “What kinds of questions were they asking?”

  “Why he had a gun when he doesn’t have a license. I told them, honestly, that I had no idea. Then they wanted to know why he was at the casino. Again, I don’t know why he went there. It was all along those lines.”

  “And you really still feel it’s best not to tell them the truth?”

  Sofia sat down on the shabby couch as though she’d run a marathon. “The police here are…they aren’t always trustworthy. Often, they’re part of the criminality they’re fighting against. It’s not unheard of for them to have been participating in robberies, kidnappings…even murder. Many are honest, but enough aren’t that I can’t risk it. I have no faith that if I told them, that information wouldn’t go straight back to the kidnappers, and then Catalina…”

  “I understand.”

  Sofia gathered herself and rose. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Sure. But we’ll need to take a taxi. Greg took Hannah home.” Matt used the name Greg in Argentina.

  “Ah, of course. Oh, Rebecca, I’m so sorry to have put you out like this. I know it’s an imposition.”

  They walked to the elevators and, as they were waiting for a car to arrive, Sofia leaned in close to Jet. “The detective said that there was another man with Tomás. His brother, Bruno. He’s a policeman, which I think complicates matters for everyone. He…he didn’t make it.”

  Jet feigned surprise. “Why would he have met up with Tomás and gone to a casino?”

  “That’s another thing I have no answer for. I’m guessing he wanted his brother along in case something went wrong. Maybe they were supposed to hand the money over at the casino and get Catalina and there was a double-cross. I’ll know more once he’s out of critical condition.”

  “That raises another question. A big one.”

  “What?”

  “Where’s the ransom money?”

  Sofia shook her head like it was no problem. “Oh, I know where it is. Tomás told me. It’s still in his car, which is parked a block away from the casino.”

  Jet eyed her. “Really?”

  “Yes. He said he didn’t have it with him when he went inside.”

  The elevator arrived. Jet pressed the lobby button before turning to regard Sofia. “Did he tell you why he was there?”

  “No. He was fading in and out of consciousness. But he made me promise I would get the money…in case the kidnappers called.”

  Jet’s eyebrows rose. “Those weren’t the kidnappers at the casino?”

  “He didn’t say. But I gathered they weren’t. At least not the ones actually holding my daughter. Might have been part of the same gang or something.”

  “Then I agree we need to get the money. Let’s take a taxi and get his car. Do you have a key?”

  Sofia nodded. “I have a spare.”

  The admission nurse called a cab for them, which arrived a few minutes later. The drive to the casino was mercifully short. When they arrived, there were still police cars everywhere, emergency lights blinking off the surrounding windows. The uniformed officers were mostly standing around while the crime scene technicians went about their business inside.

  “Take us around the block,” Jet instructed the driver. When they saw the white Mercedes, Jet had him stop and let them out.

  Sofia popped the trunk and they saw the briefcase. Jet opened it, confirming that it was filled with hundred-dollar bills. Sofia seemed uninterested in the money, having retreated back into her shell on the ride over, and merely handed Jet the keys after she closed the trunk.

  “Will you drive?” Sofia asked.

  “Of course.”

  Jet started the engine, a puzzled expression on her face. “I still don’t understand why Tomás would have agree
d to meet anyone in a casino unless it was to do the exchange. If we assume that’s what happened, then the question is why he didn’t go in with the money. That would be a huge risk, assuming the kidnappers were on the level. Which they apparently weren’t…” Jet’s voice trailed off, the situation not adding up, and then shook off her unease and put the car in gear.

  “Once he’s in better shape, I’m sure Tomás will tell us what happened. He was just so…so weak… I didn’t have the heart to tell him about Bruno. They were very close.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time to talk once this is over.”

  “I know it’s horrible, but all I can think about is Catalina. It’s not that I don’t love Tomás, it’s just that Catalina has got to be so scared, all alone… I can’t imagine what she must be going through…” Sofia began quietly crying again as Jet negotiated down the street and onto the larger boulevard. Jet wanted to say something comforting, but no words came to her. The truth was that this was every parent’s worst nightmare and anything she said would sound hollow. The most respectful thing she could do was to let Sofia grieve in peace while Jet tried to figure out what was really going on.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Matt, the car suddenly feeling claustrophobic with the two of them in it. When he answered, she almost gasped in relief.

  “So? How did it go?” he asked.

  “Good, I think. We’re on the way back to Sofia’s. How’s Hannah?”

  “Fine. I’m just finishing up the mac and cheese.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “No problem. When do you think you’ll be home?”

  “Probably not for a while. Will you put her to bed for me?”