Cooch

by Robert Cook

  Alberto smiled and said, “You have a contract, senor. We have a bit of time pressure, so when can you begin?”

  “I can begin when you give me the information I need, and twenty-five thousand dollars in clean cash. I will collect the remainder when I have completed the job.”

  Alberto reached into his desk and pulled a sealed, thick, white envelope from it. He handed it to Alex, who leaned up and stuffed it into the hip pocket of his faded jeans. Alberto reached for another single sheet of paper, with several photos attached.

  “This is your target, with his girlfriend. His home address, work address, automobile information, phone numbers, places frequented, and all of that are on the sheet,” he said, looking down at it. “He is expected to be in the bar noted at eleven o’clock tonight to meet with our distributor to make a purchase. I am led to be confident he will be there. Any questions?”

  Alex shrugged. “This girl, she is a customer?”

  “She led us to him and to his brother. We rewarded her, as is our custom, with several free samples of our product for this referral. She claims he is madly in love with her. Why?”

  Alex shrugged again. “Leverage. Exactly what do you want me to have this man say to his brother, and should I give him any other help with the message? A broken finger perhaps, or a broken nose?”

  Alberto smiled. “Nothing that would be visible, please, but you may be creative if you wish. No marks. The state of mind that your foreman, Comperte, exhibited after your encounter would probably be useful, but use your judgment. If he doesn’t perform, you don’t get paid. Do you speak English?”

  Alex looked coldly at him as he stood. “Of course. I will return for my money when I have finished. I may be gone for as much as thirty-six hours. It is more difficult to achieve the mental state you want me to achieve without demonstrating the pain of failure.”

  This time it was Alberto who shrugged. “Use the girl. We have no further need of her. As I mentioned, we are under time pressure. Move as quickly as possible.”

  Alex nodded as he walked out, holding his hand out to the guard for his knife. Slipping it into the sheath behind his neck, he walked to the elevator. He walked back to the rooming house, threw his few possessions into the worn gym bag, and left the building, stopping to tell his landlady he was leaving. Earlier Alex had broken the firing pin of the Sig Sauer and tossed it into a storm sewer.

  After several Big Macs, a large order of fries, and two large Cokes for dinner, Alex shaved and rinsed his hair in the men’s room of a McDonald’s. He changed into a pair of worn blue twill pants and a blue cotton shirt, clean, but wrinkled from being in his bag. He brushed the mud from his work shoes, and ignored the stares of the other patrons. Outside he boarded a bus that advertised “San Jose via Camino Real,” and walked to the back. He sat on the outside corner of the back bench seat, watching the traffic go by, on the alert for anyone who seemed too curious about the passengers on the bus. After ten minutes and several stops, no one had so much as looked up from a passing car, and he was the only passenger left. As the bus entered the northern border of Palo Alto, Alex pulled the call cord and got off at the next stop. He slowly walked a few blocks in the darkness to a mall. He walked around the mall for a while, checking the patrons, and then selected a pay phone in a nearly deserted passage leading to the restrooms. He dialed the number.

  “Mac.”

  “I’m out for now,” Alex said. “I’m going to the hotel. I’ll scan what he gave me and send it to you. I’m hired. Unless you tell me different, I’ll start tonight.”

  “Good,” Mac said. “We’re making progress. Epstein got Alberto’s office wired last night, and we’re getting good information on their operation. There’s nothing about our little problem, but I think they have that compartmentalized to Alberto and his boss, Francisco Peron. We’re getting a few cryptic remarks among them that imply we’re on the right track. It’s all encrypted now and ready for you to pick up. I’m getting optimistic. You need to meet with the DEA guy sometime soon, though. They can’t figure out who we are, and how we got enough pull to take over their playpen, even for a week or two. They’re pushing the national security advisor pretty hard.”

  Alex thought for a second. “Where’s the DEA jock?”

  “The head guy for the area is in an office building up by the airport, but you don’t want to go there. He’s happy to come to you. We checked him out, and he’s okay. He’s one of their stars. Ex-marine too.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet him outside the bookstore at Stanford tomorrow morning at eight. No recorder. Have him reading a copy of the latest Foreign Affairs and wearing a Stanford Business School sweatshirt over a blue cotton dress shirt. I’ll be in green Nike warm-ups over a white T-shirt and wearing a Forty-Niners logo baseball hat. He’s Izzy and I’m Cameron.”

  “Done. Anything else?”

  “I’ll let you know after I go through the files and the transcripts. Make sure the cleaned-up originals of voice from the surveillance are appended to the file.”

  “They’re there. Talk to you later,” Mac said, hanging up.

  Alex walked quickly to the Stanford Court Hotel, then entered the lobby behind a small tour group. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and turned right, reaching into his pocket for the key he had hidden earlier in a compartment in the bottom of his gym bag. He hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door handle, then walked to the closet and picked up his suitcase. Sitting it on the bed, Alex checked each lock carefully for signs of tampering, but found nothing. He spun the combination dial on each, twice. He heard a comforting beep as the locks popped open from their special security niche.

  He pulled his NEC laptop PC from the bag and walked to the desk, connecting one end of a cable to the port for the modem on the PC and the other to the data port on the hotel wall. Sitting down, he accessed an Internet site from the PC that gave him a high-speed link into the computer in Washington. After entering his encryption code, he initiated the download from that computer to his laptop, then walked to the shower. The download was complete by the time he walked back into the bedroom ten minutes later. He read through it quickly, then again, more slowly.

  Cuchulain sat for several minutes, thinking. He then brought the voice segment of the file back to memory, and listened to the conversations in Colombian-accented Spanish played through the tinny speakers on the PC. He selected several to listen through a second time, then set a program to begin writing repeatedly over the record with a random combination of characters that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to recreate the files.

  Alex walked to his bag, selected a number of items, and stuck them into the now-empty gym bag. He put on a pair of clean boxer shorts, then slipped back into the narrow, flat, nylon harness that wrapped around his shoulders to hold his knife. He walked to the bathroom with a small black leather bag from the case. He stood in front of the mirror, extending a chrome arm from the wall and fastened his hair with hairpins. He then picked up a small jar, unscrewed the shiny black cap, and began to apply makeup to his face.

  When he had finished with the various jars and pencils, his face was gray and lined. Two small scars stood faded and pink, one over the left eye and the other running in a semicircle from his left ear to his jawbone. The bullet furrow beneath his right cheekbone had vanished in favor of a large, unsightly mole with a long black hair. Alex next dipped a small brush into another jar and then pulled it through his hair. In a matter of minutes, his hair was a dull gray, with random strands of black dispersed throughout; the battle against age clearly had been lost.

  Satisfied, he took a pair of black cotton trousers and a faded, dark-gray cotton dress shirt with a button-down collar from his bag. He put on a pair of black, ribbed socks and nicely shined, but worn, black wingtip shoes. A digital watch completed the picture. After locking the bag and returning it to the closet, he tied a loose knot in a faded striped tie to complete the image he wanted. Finally Alex picked up his small bag and left
the room, checking that the sign was in place. He double-locked the door with his room key.

  He concentrated on his walk, slowing, as he gingerly stepped down the stairs to exit the hotel. His shoulders were a little stooped, and he looked around at his surroundings hesitantly as he walked into the restaurant, then turned confusedly and walked out its door. Cuchulain had an image of who he was and was working to ingrain it in his behavior. Increasingly, he found these character changes enervating. He handed his parking ticket with a dollar bill to the attendant beside the hotel.

  After several minutes, the huge Lincoln Town Car from Hertz slid to a stop in front of him. The young attendant jumped from the car, holding the driver’s side door for him to enter.

  “Yes, thank you. You’re very kind,” Alex said, as he lowered himself into the car and slowly adjusted the seat. He put the car in gear and drove slowly away.

  The parking attendant grabbed another ticket from a restaurant patron, and dashed for the car. He hoped for a better tip this time.

  Alex drove through the lot of the nightclub, looking for the license plate of his target, or his target’s girlfriend. When he spotted it, there were no parking slots nearby. He drove around the lot, finally finding a spot where he could watch his target’s car while he sat. Because it was early, he walked slowly to the club and in the front door, as if looking for a public phone. A young, stylishly dressed hostess wearing a short shirt and a tight, nearly sheer, white silk top walked up to him.

  “Welcome!” she trilled. “Like, you know, we’re rilly full right now, but if you wanna wait, we’ll find a place for you. It might, like, be awhile, ya know?”

  Alex looked around uncertainly. “I think I should perhaps just use the men’s room and then move on to a place that is a little less busy. I can’t stand for a long while anymore.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “My granddad has, like, the same problem, Nice seeing you, though.”

  “Yes, quite,” Alex said, as he moved slowly toward the restrooms, spotting a phone near the men’s room door.

  He stood by the phone, puzzled and frail, as several patrons bumped by him to rid themselves of the remnants of cheap chardonnay. Finally, he picked it up and dialed.

  “Mac.”

  “I listened to the voice tape twice. I think they’re going to use a boat, like you guessed. That’s the only way they can get the heavy weapons scientists from both countries here on the sly. They’ll have to have computers to check the plans and chips, without going through customs and raising some flags. Get the names and alert customs anyhow, but I don’t think they’ll take the chance. The file shows a Bertram Forty-Eight named Snow White, and the head guy joked in one of the recordings about using a gringo fairy tale to finish shoving it up our ass. We gotta bet they will use it. I need Elliot here yesterday! And tell him to bring that titanium zinger I designed, and some more goodies. We might be able to do some serious Fourth of July here!”

  “Boy, you sure do move fast, but I hear you. This ain’t a business for the faint of heart. All that you want and more, sweetheart, will be on its way to arrive before the dawn. It’s gonna take one of Uncle’s expensive airplanes to get it there, but what the hell. We’re probably toast if this doesn’t work anyhow, maybe even literally. I’ll have the navy look around for a yacht that looks fishy.”

  Alex snorted quietly. “Yeah, yeah. I love you too, sweetheart. Duty calls.”

  He hung up and moved hesitantly toward the door, walking down the steps gingerly and making his way to his car. A few minutes later, a slot opened up beside his target’s car. Alex started the Lincoln and moved quickly into it, then settled back to wait.

  He put a jazz station on the radio and waited, thinking at one point that Earl Klugh’s Finger-painting performance was the perfect way to pass a quiet evening, but not with the speakers that came in a Lincoln. Thirty minutes—or maybe forty—passed before he saw his target, the girlfriend, and a large, dark-skinned man come out and walk through the first row of cars. There was a huddle, a fast moving of hands, and then the group separated. His target and the girlfriend moved toward the car, heads together and laughing.

  Alex opened his trunk, and looked inside. As his target moved to his car, Alex said, “Excuse me, young fellow, but could you give me a hand here?”

  As he moved toward Alex, he said, “Jesus Christ, Granddad. Can’t you old farts figure out anything?”

  His girlfriend giggled, and said. “Fuck ‘im. We gotta blow, baby.” She doubled over laughing at her double entendre.

  Alex grabbed his target’s neck as he came around the trunk, and pressed his fingertips into the carotid artery, shutting off the blood flow to the brain. A moment’s struggle, and then the young man faded into unconsciousness, slumping to the ground. Glancing around the lot, and then at the young lady already sitting in the seat fixing her face in the visor mirror, Cuchulain dumped the young man unceremoniously into the trunk and then said timorously, “Excuse me, young lady, but your friend appears to have fallen into my trunk.”

  “Jeeesus Christ!” She jumped from the seat and came around the car. Seeing her boyfriend slumped inside the trunk, she hurried over to look, an expression of faint concern on her face. As she approached the Lincoln, Alex reached up to her neck and repeated his earlier action. When she dropped, he picked her up and loaded her on top of her boyfriend. He reached into the corner of the trunk and pulled out his small bag. He took a small vial of clear liquid and a single hypodermic syringe from it.

  After scanning the lot, he held the vial up, tapped it several times with his fingernail, and then inserted the syringe needle into it. He pulled several ccs of the clear fluid into the syringe and then injected each of his captives. He pushed the trunk lid down until the self-closer engaged, then walked slowly to the open driver’s door. Alex drove off.

  He guided the Town Car down the ramp beneath the nearly finished apartment building. There was a small concrete building at the end of the parking pad. It was obviously designed to be a maintenance shack, but was unused so far, for lack of tenants. Alex parked the Lincoln and got out to check the building. The door was unlocked, and the light went on when he flipped the switch beside the door. Taped beside the door was a key. Alex tried it, then looked around the room. There were two sturdy wicker chairs bolted to the floor, and four steel eyebolts protruding from fresh concrete, each pair about twenty-four inches apart and thirty-six inches from the other set.

  An odd assortment of items sat on a table in the middle of the room: several rolls of duct tape, a tiny and modern piezo-lit blow torch, a wooden block holding a bunch of “never sharpen” knives, several pair of handcuffs, a small Maglite flashlight, several oranges and apples, a fresh can of tennis balls, a small chamber pot, a box of tissues, and a box of rubber surgical gloves. An electric soldering iron sat alone on the floor by an outlet, unplugged, with a bright orange extension cord coiled beside it.

  Cuchulain walked quickly out the door and opened the trunk of the Lincoln. He grasped the man by one arm and pulled him out of the trunk, draping him over his shoulder. Inside, he dumped him onto the floor. Turning, he walked outside again and got the woman. He then pulled the door of the room closed, checking to see that no light escaped, and got into the car, driving it deep into the corner of the covered parking lot.

  Alex got out and checked around the deserted lot, then walked briskly back to the small room. He walked to the table, pulled on a pair of the rubber gloves, and picked up the largest of the knives. He then turned to one chair and cut a ragged hole in the middle of its seat, trimming the sharp ends. He grabbed the man by the hair and belt, lifted his inert body onto the chair, then bent over and removed his shoes and socks. He threw them into one corner among the construction debris.

  Quickly he tore off his shirt and trousers and roughly pulled the jockey shorts from him. He picked up the flashlight and moved it over the arms and legs of his target, looking for the telltale track marks of heroin addiction. There were
none. Alex positioned the man onto the chair, then put his forearms along the arms of the chair and taped them down at the wrist with several wraps of duct tape. He bent the legs at the knee, brought the calves to the chair legs and taped them at the ankle.

  He moved quickly to the woman and tore her clothes off as well, binding her to another chair in a similar fashion. His inspection for track marks revealed a long line of punctures on the veins running down the inside of her thighs, along with several on the veins of her feet.

  Alex took a cotton balaclava from his bag and pulled it over his head, positioning the eye, nose, and mouth holes for comfort. Walking to the corner, he slumped down and waited, thinking about the problem he faced. His stomach was sour, as he reviewed the nauseating task in front of him. It was one thing to learn it in a classroom; it was another to actually implement it. Alex had taught it. He looked at his watch; it was nearly midnight.

  Within ten minutes the young man stirred. Alex pushed himself up from his slumped position and studied him, alert for signs of awareness. The young man was of medium height and slim, almost skinny. He looked to be in his early thirties, but was probably younger. There were small dark bags beneath his eyes, accented by a sallow, unhealthy complexion. He had long, tousled blond hair and an attractive, almost effeminate face. His chest was flabby, the pectorals hanging slightly down and compressing his tiny nipples to a frown. A roll of flesh sagged around his stomach, his penis and testicles hanging out of sight below the hole Alex had cut into the seat of the chair.

  He turned to look for the first time at the woman. She was slim, with surprisingly good muscle tone. Her auburn hair was stylishly cut and her makeup applied with careless excess. She had small, perfectly formed breasts, marred only by what appeared to be a love bite above the nipple of one. A small waist swelled into substantial hips, with long tanned legs. She had no tan lines. At one time she had probably been beautiful.

  The young man opened his eyes, dazed, and looked around the small room. He tried to move, found his bindings, and then sensed his nakedness. Fear began to blossom in his eyes when he saw Alex in the balaclava. He struggled futilely against the tape. Alex stood and walked over, gathering himself. “So, gringo, you are awake. Did you have a nice rest?”