by Ty Patterson
‘Get it,’ he commanded and Grigory whispered in his mic.
‘Stop,’ an organizer shouted and rushed towards Correia and tapped him on his shoulder. ‘Stop, right now. He needs to live.’
‘That’s not in the rules,’ Correia replied balefully, not letting up.
‘We changed them,’ the organizer said and pointed in the direction of another organizer, the one who had slipped away earlier. He was leading something to the arena. The crowd which had gone silent, suddenly came alive when they realized what was going to happen.
The organizer came to the center of the arena and let the spectators admire what he was leading, an eleven foot alligator, its jaws fastened by restraining tape. Vroman made his move, when everyone’s attention was on the reptile. He grabbed Correia’s arms, wrestled free, and started crawling away as fast as he could.
He didn’t get far. Correia caught him and to a rising chant from the crowd, brought him back.
The alligator fed well that night.
Privalov stayed well after the spectators and the fighters had left. The arena had to be cleaned up, Vroman’s remains had to be buried, and all traces of their presence had to be erased.
There had been an ugly scene after the fight when the buyer and his reps had confronted Privalov’s organizers. The buyer was furious that the exchange hadn’t happened, that the courier hadn’t even turned up. One of the organizers explained to the buyer that it wasn’t in their control. The courier had been given directions and instructions and all they could do was wait for his arrival.
The buyer slapped the organizer and that sparked the stand-off. Privalov’s men were armed, but so were the buyer’s. The two parties stood glaring angrily until the buyer’s phone rang and he broke away to take it.
Voronoff had made the call after watching the incident on his screen. It wouldn’t do to have a shoot-out in the Everglades. Nothing would be achieved. ‘My man is right,’ he adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘None of us have any control over the courier. He was supposed to come to the fight. He didn’t.
‘I need the flasks. I am not interested in any excuses,’ the buyer grated harshly.
‘I’m not making excuses,’ Voronoff replied as smoothly as he could, trying to control the conversation.
‘Maybe you sold the package to someone else. You have done it before.’
‘No,’ Voronoff bit back a sigh. He had once diverted a consignment of arms when the buyer had been slow in completing his payment. ‘The flasks are only for you.’
‘WHERE ARE THEY, THEN?’ the buyer lost his control.
‘I’ll find out and get back to you.’
‘You had better. You know me. You know what I can do to you.’
Voronoff swallowed the bile in his throat and made another call to Mexico, to the Crescents’s head.
‘Where’s the package?’ he asked roughly when the man came on line. ‘Your man never turned up.’
The head of the Crescents, Kensel Vasquez, one of the most wanted men in Mexico, frowned at his phone and signaled an aide urgently. He cupped the phone and asked his man to call Pico.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted to Voronoff. ‘I will check and let you know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Voronoff yelled out loudly in his New York home. ‘I thought your organization was like a well-oiled machine. That’s what you told me. You don’t know where the courier is?’
He ranted for several minutes and threatened and hung up grumpily when Vasquez had no more information for him.
Vasquez got Pico on the phone and it was only then he found out that Miguel had dropped off the radar. Vasquez didn’t yell or rant. He gave Pico seventy-two hours to find the courier and the flasks. He didn’t need to say or else. His reputation was well known. Even as he spoke, a human head was being impaled on a stake, on his instructions.
‘Send the wife and daughter to me,’ he instructed Pico. ‘That will be his punishment. And yours. For now. Don’t contact Miguel. I will do that. You are out of this.’
He relayed the development to Voronoff and listened tight-lipped as the arms dealer vented his anger again.
‘Wait for further instructions,’ Voronoff told him curtly.
Voronoff got back to him after several hours. The package was to be delivered to New York. At the fight in that city, which was in ten days.
‘The exchange will happen at the New York fight?’ Privalov strained to hide his disbelief when he heard Voronoff.
‘That’s what the buyer says. That’s the only option since this courier never turned up.’
‘That will be dangerous. We don’t know what’s in those flasks. What he plans to do with them. As it is, a fight in New York–’
‘Don’t I know it?’ Voronoff snapped, his patience wearing out. ‘We don’t have a choice, however. You know what the buyer is capable of.’
‘The exchange will happen in New York. Make it happen,’ he hung up on Privalov.
Miguel’s conscience pricked him, thirty-six hours after he had dumped his phone. He had spent the first night of his freedom in a hostel, surrounded by tourists and had enjoyed listening to their stories of far off lands.
Reality set in the next day when he found he had time on his hands and nothing to do. Images of Maria and Juana being savaged by Hector, haunted him. He ran back to where he had thrown his phone away. Had it been in front of that diner? Or near that convenience store? Nope, it had been at the diner.
He rummaged desperately in the trashcan, almost crying in anger at himself. How could he have been so stupid? How easily he had been seduced? His fingers touched the bottom. No phone. He quelled the rising panic in him and searched again. No phone the second time either.
He sagged against a lamp post, fear swamping him. Hector would rape his wife and his daughter. Pico would join in. There was no hope left. He was alone in the world. His great crossing had been for nothing.
He beat his chest once as tears spilled down his face, uncaring about the looks he got from passers-by. His knuckles struck something hard, something metallic, and that reminded him. The flasks. They were still with him. Pico wanted the flasks. Maybe the gang boss wouldn’t have killed his family.
But how to make contact with Pico? He didn’t remember the phone number. He didn’t know anyone in the gang. He–. No, that wasn’t right. He did know a man in Tenosique who was rumored to have joined the Crescents. Lopez, his neighbor, would have his number.
Miguel wiped his face and fingered his bundle of notes in his pocket. He still had enough money with him. Seventy-five dollars left over from the money he had received from the gringo coyotes. Nearly two hundred of his own money, that he had kept secret from even Maria.
He hurried inside the convenience store, bought a candy to make change and searched for a payphone. He was tempted to eat the candy, the same brand that Juana liked, but admonished himself. He and Juana would have all the candy in the world when he was reunited with his family.
Hector came running to Pico as the plaza chief was cleaning his gun. ‘He’s on the phone.’
‘Who?’ Pico didn’t look up. He was in a savage mood and felt like plugging even Hector, his number two.
‘Miguel,’ Hector swallowed, recognizing Pico’s tone. It was his killing voice.
Pico hurled the gun away and stood upright. ‘Where?’
Hector led him to the terrace of their house in Tuxtla and pointed to a grocery store on the corner of the street. ‘Miguel called that store’s number. Asked for you. He’s still on the line.’
‘You’re sure it’s Miguel?’
‘Si. I spoke to him myself.’
‘Ask him to hang up and call my cell from another payphone.’
‘MIGUEL,’ his fury broke when the chollo called. ‘WHERE ARE YOU? DO YOU WANT ME TO KILL MARIA AND YOUR DAUGHTER? WHERE ARE THE FLASKS? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?’
Miguel babbled, something about losing his head, losing the phone, and spending the night in a dormitory.
Pico cut him short, ‘WHERE ARE THE FLASKS, CHOLLO? HECTOR WANTS MARIA BADLY. SHALL I LET HIM HAVE HER?’
Miguel still had the flasks. Pico gathered that from the man’s inconsolable sobbing. For a moment he was tempted to tell the chollo how he and Hector had tortured his wife. No, he needed the chollo to deliver the package to a new destination.
‘Buy a new cell. Call me twice a day. TWICE A DAY,’ Pico emphasized to Miguel. ‘Go to New York. Make the delivery in New York, in ten days. At another fight.’
‘Ten days?’ Miguel squeaked. ‘What will I do for so long? Can’t I give them to someone here? I don’t think I can carry them with me for so many days. What’s in them? I am scared.’
‘Be scared, chollo,’ Pico hissed. ‘Be very scared for your Maria and Juana.’
Chapter 18
Miguel’s call to Pico got sucked in by that same satellite. It relayed the call to the office in Virginia. Werner got it seconds later. Werner went hmm when it had unpacked the call and spotted the key words Miguel, Flasks, Fight.
It ran a voice analysis on both callers. One voice was the same. Pico’s. It traced the location of the calls using sophisticated algorithms and triangulating tools that not even the country’s telecoms companies used.
Miguel was still in Miami. At a downtown payphone. Pico was in Tuxtla. Where exactly in Tuxtla? Meghan would ask Werner that question. Better to be prepared. It brought up a map of Tuxtla and overlaid coordinates on it. Werner was one of the most advanced supercomputers in the world. It had access to fancy software. Even with all that, it couldn’t place Pico at a specific address.
Pico was in a Tuxtla neighborhood, bound by four crossing streets. That particular block had twenty residences, all individual homes, well-spaced out. Two of those residences were large, had compound walls, and had swimming pools.
That was the best Werner could do.
Zeb was at Portland International Airport when Werner sent the information to him. A tall, black, man came down the Gulfstream’s ladder, followed by a blond, and the two moved purposefully to the airport building. They used the VIP exit, bypassing the normal border control channels, and pounded Zeb on his back when they met him.
‘How many do we have to kill?’ Bwana asked him, hefting a large bag with ease.
Life was simple for Bwana. You were either a threat, or you weren’t. He was six-foot –four-inches tall, as wide as a barn door, all of it muscle. He could look mean if he wanted to, but usually sported a wide smile that transformed his face. Roger was a few inches shorter and looked as if he had stepped off a magazine cover. His blond hair was styled contemporarily and any fashion designer would have approved his taste in clothes. To the casual observer, the two didn’t have much in common. The casual observer would be wrong since the two men were what the twins called ‘macho BFFS.’
‘What’s in that?’ Zeb watched as Bwana placed his bag carefully in the rear of the SUV and secured it with belts to the side of the vehicle.
‘Rocket launchers, missiles, and some other toys that can penetrate three feet of concrete.’
Zeb stared at him, wondering if he was joking. ‘We’re going to Mexico to question this dude, Bwana. Not to raze the city down.’
‘You never know,’ Bwana replied darkly. ‘It might come to that.’
The SUV creaked in protest and rocked on its springs when Bwana climbed into the back, while Roger joined Zeb at the front.
‘What’s the plan?’ Roger drawled when Zeb drove out of the airport and headed to his hotel.
‘How much did Meghan tell you?’
‘Quite a bit, but why don’t you run it past us again?’ Bwana interjected.
‘Memory,’ Roger apologized. ‘It isn’t his strong point.’
Zeb laid it out for them, right from his finding Klattenbach, to the latest development of Gruzman on his back. Roger was silent when he finished, but Bwana was rubbing his hands in delight at the prospect of an elongated spell of action. Zeb caught his wink in the mirror and couldn’t help smiling at his friend’s enthusiasm.
Bwana’s blood-thirsty impression and Roger’s slow-witted Texan act, were just that. Bwana and Bear were Mensa members, while Roger read philosophy in his down time. Chloe was a science nut; she went to conferences and could speak on the subject as knowledgeably as any university Ph.D. The twins had run their own business before joining the Agency. Zeb’s crew was not a bunch of trigger-happy gunmen. It was a highly intelligent, tightly-knit team that could and would raze a city down to help a friend.
In that respect, Bwana wasn’t joking.
They spent the evening in Zeb’s room, going through their plans and reviewing all that Meghan and Werner had collated for them. There was an extensive dossier on Pico that Bwana read several times, and when he’d finished, he closed his screen and stood by the window.
‘We want him alive, Bwana,’ Zeb reminded him, knowing his friend well and also knowing what had riled him. Pico liked to torture women; the dossier had extensive witness and survivor accounts of such incidents.
Bwana unclenched his fists, but didn’t reply or turn around.
The plan was thread-bare, but it was what Zeb had come up with in twenty-four hours. Werner had zero-ed in on Pico’s neighborhood, as closely as it could. They would seek Cordova’s help in identifying the plaza chief’s residence. They would then either grab the gang boss on the outside, or penetrate the house and question him.
Zeb had five questions to ask of Pico. Who was Miguel? What were the fights about? What was in the flasks? How was Klattenbach connected? Why was he killed?
They checked out their gear and added more equipment from a sealed container in a storage yard. As with the garages, several such containers existed all over the country and abroad. Neither Zeb nor his team had diplomatic immunity, but a call to Urbina ensured their gear wouldn’t be inspected by the Mexican authorities at the airport.
‘Oh and, Zeb?’ Urbina stopped Zeb from hanging up.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Don’t wipe out my city. Don’t give me headlines.’
‘No, sir.’
They flew to Mexico International Airport the next day, an uneventful flight, and transferred their gear to a chartered aircraft, a Lear. Their Gulfstream would stay back in Mexico, the Lear would take them to Tuxtla.
They landed in Tuxtla at three pm, where it was hot, humid, and noisy. Cordova greeted them outside the airport and at a snap of his fingers, four of his men rushed forward and loaded Zeb’s gear into a vehicle.
He gestured grandly at a large people carrier and ushered his visitors inside. ‘Welcome to Tuxtla, señors,’ he swiveled in his seat and addressed them once they were all seated.
Cordova, a Major in the Mexican Special Forces, was shorter than them by several inches, but bristled with energy, and had keen eyes that seemed to miss no detail. His black hair was styled short and the neat mustache moved whenever he smiled, which was often.
‘What’s your interest in the Crescents, señor?’ his eyes moved from Bwana, to Roger, before settling on Zeb.
‘Not in the Crescents, but in Pico,’ Zeb answered. ‘We think he’s planning something in our country.’
‘Pico, señor? He’s a thug. He deals in drugs and women. He’s not into terrorism.’
‘We don’t know what he’s planning. That’s what we want to ask him.’
‘Politely,’ deadpanned Bwana.
Cordova looked at them for several moments, before admitting, without any rancour. ‘I get it. You don’t trust us. The Crescents have snitches everywhere. You fear your plans will leak.’
He looked away as if embarrassed. ‘They have some informers in our ranks. We deal with those rats very quickly when we find them.’
His professional mask came on. ‘General Valdez said I should give you all the help I can. Within reason. What can I do for you?’
Zeb brought up the map Werner had honed in on. ‘Where does Pico stay?’
Cordova pointed at the two larges
t houses. ‘Those two are the gang’s houses. He stays in both. Some nights in one, some nights in another.’
‘Buddy, if you know where he is, why don’t you take him out?’ Roger’s chuckled to take the sting out of his words
‘He’s a businessman, señor. Big figure in the community. The Crescents are different to the other cartels. All their plaza chiefs are respected community members. Their thugs, those guys are different. They are criminals and we put them away. Permanently or in jail. But the heads are untouchable. Witnesses are scared. Or they disappear.’
He lifted his shoulders in a universal gesture of helplessness. ‘This is Mexico, señor. Things are different here.’
Werner and Meghan had said just that. All the evidence against Pico or the other gang bosses was anecdotal. Even the women who had survived his torture, had refused to give testimony in court.
Rain started beating their windows, lightly at first, and then harder, as water sluiced off the vehicle and reduced visibility. ‘This might complicate whatever you have planned, señors,’ Cordova gestured at the rain apologetically as if the weather had disobeyed him.
‘It won’t,’ Zeb replied, but didn’t explain when all eyes swung to him. ‘Can you arrange something for me, Major?’
He explained what he wanted when Cordova looked at him expectantly.
‘In this weather, señor? It’ll be like this tomorrow, too,’ Cordova’s voice rose in amazement when Zeb had finished.
‘Especially in this weather.’
Zeb, Bwana, and Roger mounted watch that night, from three black Fords. Such vehicles were aplenty in Tuxtla and were scattered around the city. No one paid them any attention.