The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  She pulled the folders from her bag and opened the top one. “Your crystal ball’s retained its sharpness, Peter. The times of increased financial activity you told me to look for correspond directly to the weeks immediately following their returns from those vacations in the Bahamas.”

  Wayman nodded, not surprised. He had felt that Drew Jordan had been right from the beginning. “Any links you could draw between the ladies and Trelana?”

  “Not directly, but that doesn’t mean a thing, not in the drug world.” She opened another manila folder. “Speaking of which, you seem to have stumbled on an entire distribution chain that is—or was—quite successful. The details are all in these. I’ll just give you the highlights. Lantos was one of Trelana’s couriers, all right, along with a very deadly—now very dead—woman named Sabrina. And those brothers you asked me about are the Riveros. The most feared pair of coke traffickers in Miami until someone knocked them off last week.” She closed the folder, her features stiffening. “Your interest in this is all very strange, unless you’re planning to seize the opportunity to move into a new line of work.”

  “No, just get back into my old one.”

  Jilly arched her eyebrows. “Did I hear that right?”

  Wayman just looked at her. “See, there was this kid, well, young man, who turned up on my doorstep with an incredible story, knowing all sorts of names he shouldn’t have, which could only mean he had stumbled onto something way out of his league. His grandmother was one of the ladies who got killed and I think I believed what he was saying and I still didn’t do anything to help. He was the kind of person I used to fight for, lay my life on the line for. Nobody special, just a poor bastard who’d had the living shit kicked out of him by society’s underlayers. Hell, I didn’t even know the people I fought for back then. They’d been hurt by the fuckers I hunted and that was enough for me.”

  “It was more than enough. It was too much.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I think it ate you up, burned you out. I think that’s why you quit. After Corsica—”

  “Forget Corsica.”

  “I can’t and neither can you,” she said accusingly. “It marked the end because all of a sudden you couldn’t live up to your own standards anymore. But it was impossible to start with because nobody could live up to those standards. They were too damn high, and as the years and the missions went on they got higher. You expected too much of the network, me, and most of all yourself.”

  “How can you expect too much? We were fighting for a cause, damnit!”

  “That’s the problem. You became the cause, Peter, and when you found out you couldn’t win by yourself, that you were prone to mistakes like the rest of humanity, you got out. It took Corbano to finally show you the truth.”

  “Fuck Corbano. All he showed me were the bodies of all those kids who died because I fucked up.”

  Jilly’s voice softened. “Nobody blamed you.”

  Wayman’s expression was placid to the point of being stonelike. “But the trouble was I blamed me. You knew me better than anyone back then and most of what you said is right on the mark. The only thing you left out was the fear. After Corsica, I got scared of making a mistake, of not being able to live up to my own legend. I quit because I figured I could run away from those standards you say I set for myself.” His features sharpened and with them his voice. “But I couldn’t. And a couple days ago when I turned that young man away, I violated every standard I’d ever set for myself. I tried to tell myself that the code didn’t matter anymore, that I’d lived without it so long what was the life of one more poor bastard anyway?” He paused. “Plenty, Jilly. Standard number one. And if I violate it, if I don’t help this guy and keep my back turned, then everything I thought I’d accomplished will be meaningless because I’ll be no better than those fuckers I spent all those years hunting.”

  For a while neither spoke but then, almost reluctantly, Jilly produced another manila folder from the bag. “This may be what you need, Peter. I ran those thirty addresses you gave me and came up with a direct link with the Riveros—their distribution points no doubt, and the periods of activity correspond directly to the return of those grandmothers from Nassau. But what does it mean?”

  “Plenty, Jilly,” the Timber Wolf said. “Plenty.”

  It was the ear-blasting whirl of the plant machinery that snapped Elliana all the way awake. It sounded even louder in the night with none of the workers to help absorb it. Her head pounded and throbbed. She forced herself to think, to plan.

  Light Hair was dragging her across the floor in the direction of the pressing machine that reduced fish parts to pulp. Since Dark Hair was maintaining an even pace behind them with gun drawn and free hand clutching his wounded shoulder, that meant Lefleur had to be the one who switched on the machines. So, it was three against one, not to mention the machines. Lousy odds.

  Ellie kept her eyes drooping and let her feet continue to drag. It was her only chance. The strike to her temple had opened a gash that looked much worse than it was. The blood would serve as a disguise. She could see the pressing machine, what Lefleur had called the grinder, now.

  It was a huge apparatus, its opening up a ramp perhaps eight feet off the floor. Feed the fish in and out come the pressed parts ready for freezing or shipment as is. To facilitate large loads, the opening was easily wide enough to handle a human body.

  Ellie tried not to think about what a body would look like when it emerged on the lower level conveyor belt en route to the freezing station. God …

  The grinder was humming loudly. She smelled grease. Footsteps hurried to catch up with them, no doubt belonging to Lefleur who would want to witness the grisly killing. They had reached the ramp. Light Hair began to drag her up, and she could hear him breathing loudly from the strain. To lift and dump her into the machine was a task she didn’t expect him to be able to handle alone.

  At least that was what she was counting on.

  They reached the top of the ramp and Ellie’s eyes were now staring straight down into the grinder’s teeth, huge steel bands actually, which formed the start of the pressing process. Her stomach fluttered.

  Light Hair started to lift her from the ramp.

  Wait! she urged herself. Be patient! React now and the other one will have a clear shot at you.

  Ellie felt her feet being raised just a bit off the ramp and she concentrated on making herself as heavy as possible.

  “Give me a hand with her, will ya?” Light Hair called to Dark, who started up the ramp.

  Ellie blessed her fortune. With both of them occupied with her, she would have a chance. She hoped. Surprise would be on her side. If successful, she would have only Lefleur to deal with.

  Patience …

  Dark Hair lowered his one good arm to her legs while Light Hair fumbled about her upper body, both searching for the best angle to drop her down into the grinder’s mouth. The teeth moved back and forth, back and forth, back and forth …

  “Now,” one of them said, and Ellie took that as her signal.

  At the instant they began their final heave, Ellie twisted from Light Hair’s grasp and launched a kick into Dark Hair’s face. Still twisting, she angled her body to the side and crashed an elbow into Light Hair’s midsection because he was closest to her. The blow sent him pitching backward down the ramp.

  Dark Hair came in for her fast and hard, reaching with both hands now, forgetting about his shoulder wound as blood gushed from his nose. As he reached out, however, Ellie entered into the force of his strength, joining it and grasping him with both hands. He was off balance, all his weight going in one direction. Ellie kept it going.

  Toward the grinder.

  He entered head first, a brief, horrible scream replaced swiftly by a mashing, grating sound like a garbage disposal with something wedged in its works. Blood coughed upward, splattered flesh and pulverized bone spraying against the nearest wall and almost reaching the ceiling.

&nbs
p; Light Hair was back on his feet, gun drawn, but the awful whining of the grinder unsettled him. He fired three shots, all errant, and by then Ellie was upon him. He kept his focus solely on the gun, struggling to use it. But in close his pistol was virtually useless, too easily jammed against his body, which was exactly what Elliana did. Her free hand rose up in a half fist and swished down into the flesh and cartilage of his throat. She felt it crack and knew he was dying even before he crumbled to the floor.

  Behind her, she heard a scrape and a whirling sound. Ellie ducked instinctively. Lefleur’s angry scream rose over even the roar of his machines, as he pulled the six-foot fish spear back for another attack. Ellie leaped over Light Hair’s corpse, as Lefleur came in with a thrust this time. But he aimed too high, for her throat instead of her midsection and she was able to avoid the blow easily. She might have finished him then, but she felt he was just out of her range and she lurched to her feet instead.

  They faced off against each other, Lefleur with the spear, Ellie with her hands. He was breathing wildly, his face contorted. Although he had pulled up the zipper of his trousers, they were still unsnapped and sagged low past his hips. He was still naked above the waist.

  Ellie looked frighteningly calm. She moved with him step for step, waiting for him to strike again. She could take no chances. This weapon was deadly even when wielded by an amateur. Ellie’s right eye was filling with blood from the blow to her temple. She was vulnerable from that side, but Lefleur seemed unaware or unable to take advantage of it.

  Ellie squared her midsection to him and offered it as a target.

  Lefleur took the bait and lunged out with a vicious thrust, putting all his vast bulk behind it, his torn cheeks dripping with blood.

  Ellie grasped the spear palms down on the hilt as she stepped sideways to avoid it. Turning suddenly and twisting the spear they now both held forced Lefleur into an off-balance stagger backward. The floor was slippery with fish oils and he flew into the air when he tried to right himself.

  He landed hard on the conveyor belt leading from the grinder to the freezing machine, atop parts of Dark Hair that were still emerging. Dazed, he nonetheless realized what he was heading for and with a yard yet to go might have leaped off had not one of his feet been caught in the tread.

  His scream as he passed into the machine was not as loud as Dark Hair’s had been, but it rang in Ellie’s ears and she raised her hands to cover them as the remains of Lefleur passed through the various stations of the freezing machine.

  She did not wait to see what emerged on the other side. She headed for the first exit door she saw and, smelling the thick sea air, ran into the night.

  The white-haired man closed his eyes and turned his face back to the sun.

  “This whole business surrounding Jordan disturbs me,” he said to the giant hovering over him. “No sign of him you say?”

  Teeg grunted. “Not since he vanished from the jail.”

  “He vanished because someone wanted him to. But who? And why? The task could not have been easily accomplished, which means we may be facing a new enemy of dangerous potential.”

  Teeg grunted again and curled his hook inward. For as long as he could remember, he had been ugly. Before he even knew what the word meant, other kids teased him with it. He was bigger than they were, clumsy and awkward. For a time, they called him Frankenstein and then Lurch after the Adams Family butler.

  Then something happened. Teeg kept growing, but he was no longer clumsy and awkward. In seventh grade, a boy called him a name and Teeg calmly knocked all his front teeth out with a single punch he didn’t even throw hard. He became a feared force and could have ruled the school, but he chose instead to remain isolated and a loner. Teeg cared little for his appearance and did nothing to change it, not that he could have. Every adolescent pimple he ever received left a scar, and he gave up on acne creams after three tubes failed to help,

  What he later came to view as his greatest blessing occurred one dismal night when a jack gave way while he was changing a tire and the wheel crushed his hand. They cut it off at a local hospital, and a few days later a doctor arrived with a catalogue detailing Teeg’s choices for prosthetic devices.

  Teeg said he wanted a hook.

  He had used it many times since to good advantage. It had become his trademark in the select world of the hired assassin. Add to this a hugely muscled frame that towered just three inches under seven feet, and the result was what many referred to as a human monster. Teeg’s reputation spread and began to precede him. He was far too recognizable and not very subtle, the hook being his favorite means of dispatch. He had begun to fear that his services were no longer required by anyone when he first met up with the white-haired man.

  They had been together off and on ever since, seven years now, Teeg being summoned whenever his skills were required. That turned out to be frequent enough to suit both of them and Teeg was allowed to work any way he chose. The white-haired man knew Teeg better than anyone alive, but Teeg figured it cut the other way as well. The man’s white hair gave the illusion of age, but Teeg knew it was due to some sort of chromosomal deficiency, the same one that had made the man’s flesh retain its ghostly tint no matter how many hours he sat in the sun.

  Still, he tried. Every day when he was in a warm climate, the white-haired man would sit out in the sun, although the effects of its rays on his pallor were minimal at best. He was a big man compared to most and well muscled, although to Teeg, few others seemed either large or strong. He would never dare cross the white-haired man, though, for reasons other than his reputation. Teeg hated the way the man’s eyes digested him, analyzing his every motion and action as his mind deciphered whatever report Teeg had come to give. They were deep-set eyes, almost sunken, very light, and somewhat almond-shaped. Eyes, Teeg had often heard, formed the mirror of the soul. If that were the case, he tried not to imagine what lay within the white-haired man, although he was certain that whatever it was held the basis for their fond association.

  Today he blessed the fact that the white-haired man’s sunglasses were hiding his milky lenses.

  “Did Selinas have much time with Jordan?” he asked Teeg suddenly.

  “From what I’m told, no. And even if he did, he had uncovered nothing that could harm us.”

  The white-haired man smiled. “I’m glad I had you make sure the bastard died slow. He betrayed us. Death in itself was not sufficient punishment. He had to suffer.”

  Teeg flexed his hook. “He suffered.”

  A cloud rolled before the sun and the white-haired man stripped off his sunglasses. “So, between the time he escaped from the marina and the time he was arrested, we have no idea of Jordan’s whereabouts or who he might have spoken with.”

  “He could not possibly have hurt us.”

  “What was he doing in Bay Harbor when the police finally found him? That, too, disturbs me. But it is his escape we must concern ourselves with now and the parties behind it. We must proceed on the assumption that he has inherited a guardian angel and we—a fresh enemy.”

  “Have you informed Europe?” Teeg raised, hoping for the sun’s return so the white-haired man would put his glasses back on.

  “I will inform them when this Jordan matter is finished and not before. He must be dispatched with all due haste. Our mistakes must be rectified, even if that means the identity of his guardian angel remains a secret.” He paused. “Jordan will go to Nassau. He knows that’s where it began for his grandmother and thus where it must begin for him.” Milky eyes were boring into Teeg’s. “And end.”

  The sun peeked out from the corner of a cloud and shone off the giant’s hook. “Consider it done.”

  Corbano smiled.

  Chapter 18

  DREW ARRIVED IN NASSAU early Thursday afternoon. The rest of his stay in Colombia had been spent with Trelana’s people rehearsing the part he was going to play. As narcotrafficanté Adam Balazar seeking to continue a thought-to-be discontinued drug smugglin
g chain, there were things he could and could not do, say and not say.

  Drew’s cover required the use of commercial flights that seemed forever off schedule. He finally arrived more than six hours late and took a cab from Nassau Airport to the Cable Beach Hotel and Casino. The complex’s expanse amazed him. His grandmother’s postcards could not do justice to the twin wings containing almost 400 rooms each. Nor could they accurately display the ultramodern sports complex located across the street from the hotel whose facilities could be freely enjoyed by guests. A brief walk of barely fifty yards would place him on the beautiful white-sand beach bordering the hotel, and, of course, its casino was renowned the world over.

  It was the pool area, however, that held the greatest interest for Drew, and he planned to head down to it as soon as he had checked in and changed. His pocket held a gold coin that Trelana had instructed him to hand over to the pool attendant as a signal that would set the links in the chain back in place. It was the same signal used by his grandmother in her excursions here. He would be following many of the procedures she had, leading ultimately to the penetration in the line, Trelana’s prick in the bag of white powder, that had cost her life.

  Drew was given a room on the third floor with a spectacular view of the crisp blue ocean. The corridor was exceptionally long and he passed at least fifty other rooms en route to his own. He noted that such a length might be a problem if a quick exit from the hotel was mandated, but he would have to live with it. Twenty minutes later he stepped out into the pool area, which was only sparsely inhabited. This was not prime season in the Bahamas. Had it been, all chaise longues would have been taken hours earlier.

  A tall, thin pool attendant bearing an armful of towels approached with a smile.

  “May I pick you out a choice spot, sir?”

  Drew fished into the rear pocket of his bathing trunks for the gold coin. “Yes, thank you.” And he handed the coin over.

  The attendant’s eyes widened briefly, then regarded Drew. As fast as it had vanished, his smile returned.