Caribbean Capers

by Dan Kelly

  She filled Pete in how Julio got this information and then made a bee line to Dave’s office to clue him in on the latest development.

  One of Julio Mendoza’s network of paid informants is a manicurist in a trendy beauty salon in Bogota and she had one of her regular customers come in for a manicure yesterday who is an incessant talker and she had an interesting story to tell. The woman told her about some big hush-hush to-do for importers and exporters that her husband was invited to attend next month out in the countryside at one of the huge farms outside of Bogota. Supposedly, it has something to do with the possible formation of a trade association of some kind.

  The manicurist asked her if it was to be a hush-hush affair how she knew about it and the answer was she eavesdropped on a telephone call her husband received. Apparently, she suspects her husband of having an affair with one of his employees and is trying to find out who the paramour is. When the manicurist suggested that if she knew the time and place of the meeting she could hire a private investigator to follow him to see if any female accompanies him and, if so, she might have the goods on him for a quick and hopefully financially beneficial divorce.

  The woman blurted out that that was a good idea and mentioned the time and place of the meeting. The manicurist had heard some stories about this guy being involved in some shady activities so she passed what the woman had told her on to Julio just minutes ago who quickly called Abby.

  Pete’s thinking, “It sure would be nice to ruin the day for these scum bags. I wonder how long it will take Phil and Dave to get the ball rolling on collecting all the data needed for a successful mission and how long it will take to collect it.”

  When Abby returned from Dave’s office, she had a quizzical look on her face. Pete asked her what Dave said after he heard the news and she replied with a question of her own, still with the quizzical look on her face. “Why wasn’t your brother’s friend, Damien Christensen, with Salazar and his crew when you took him down? The last time we saw him he was with Salazar getting into that sub.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t even thought of that. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

  “Don’t give me the credit. Dave hit me with the same question and I was as nonplussed as you are. There’s been so much going on that I forgot all about him.”

  “It’s a damn good question though. Maybe he was just lucky to be somewhere else when we came calling or somehow he got word to skedaddle. I’m still having trouble believing he went over to the dark side.”

  “Well, Phil and Dave are worried he might do something to screw up the works no matter whose side he’s on, inadvertently or not. Phil has gone ballistic trying to find out what his status is with respect to any of our government agencies. So far, he’s not getting any co-operation from any of them and the President is running into runarounds as well. When this is all over, heads are definitely going to roll.”

  “Well, there’s nothing that we can do about Damien right now. What’s Dave going to do with the information you just gave him?”

  “He will contact the appropriate personnel in the countries participating in Sea Wasp and let them know that we now have the place, time and date of the meeting and will begin to assemble an assault force as soon as we have a better idea of how many people will be attending. I’ve been charged with that responsibility.

  “I believe it’s safe to assume that there will be at least a hundred attendees and probably more when you consider that the leaders of the cartels will bring with them their body guards and a number of other attendants to impress their competition with their entourages and probably all of them will be armed. All of these lowlifes are going to want to eat, drink and be catered to and additional temporary help to assist the full time staff is going to be required to accommodate them. The temporary help will probably be brought on a few days to a week before the day of the meeting, depending on how all out the host is planning to go. I will arrange for a couple of our operatives in Bogota to try to get hired on so they can give us a better idea of how many guests will be there. We can then adjust the size of our assault team accordingly.”

  Pete asked, “Will you and I be part of the assault force?”

  “Phil wants us to be there, but we’ll be there primarily in a supporting role, helping with logistics, communications, prisoner identifications and interrogations, etc. Manny and the troops reporting to him will take care of the rough stuff.”

  “When will we be heading for Bogota? I’m assuming getting the lay of the land so to speak falls into our bailiwick as well as arranging for appropriate cover for the assault troops and their gear.”

  “Phil will be giving me some contact names and the address of the safe house we will be staying at while in Bogota. These people will help us set up taps on the voice communications at the farm and also help us get the transportation we’ll need to move the assault troops into position without them being noticed. We’ll also be the liaison between the operatives working the get together at the farm and Dave. I suspect we’ll be moving out no later than sometime tomorrow.”

  “How are we going to get there, commercial, military or private plane?”

  “Dave hasn’t told me yet.”

  The words were hardly out of her mouth when Dave put in an appearance and said, “Okay you two, get ready to roll. I have you on an American Airlines flight to Bogota under the names of Patricia and Donald Weaver, sister and brother. The flight departs from Miami International Airport at 10:30 tomorrow morning and you will stop by here at eight in the morning to pick up your ID, drivers’ licenses, credit cards, social security, passports, etc. Your flight time will be approximately three hours and you will be met at the airport in Bogota by a young woman using the name Senorita Aloncia Flores. She will take you to the safe house and get you settled in.”

  Handing a piece of paper to Abby he added, “Here is the contact info I told you about along with the address of the safe house. Both of you commit this information to memory and then burn the paper. Don’t take this piece of paper with you when you board the plane. Are there any questions?”

  Pete asked, “Where’s Phil? “

  “On his way to Washington. He wants to find out where this Damien Christensen is and what the hell he’s up to before he throws a monkey wrench into what we’re planning to do. He figures he can stir up a hornets nest a lot easier if he’s in people’s faces than if he tried to do it over the phone from here. Besides, the President asked him to get back there ASAP so they can swat the nest together. The President is about to launch a cleansing crusade of his intelligence staff because of the lack of cooperation he’s received from them regarding the whereabouts and mission of this guy.”

  Abby said, “Okay, we’ll see you here tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”

  As Dave headed back to his office Abby said, “I’m starving. Let’s go to Pasqual’s Pantry and devour something out of this world tasty and not think about whether or not it’s healthy.”

  “You’d never have to twist my arm to do that. Let’s take both of our cars and then we can drive home from there. We won’t have to come back here.”

  “That makes sense to me.”

  Chapter 30

  - Miami –

  After a fantastic lunch, they were sitting having a cup of coffee and talking about what probably lies ahead for them in Bogota when Abby stopped in mid-sentence and stared out the window at the parking lot.

  “Pete asked, “What are you looking at?”

  “See that dark blue van with Chuck’s Cleaners on the side?”

  Pete looked and said, “Yeah, what about it?”

  “That van was following us from Morrison’s to here and pulled into the parking lot behind us, but no one ever came inside to get something to eat. That’s odd don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps they brown bag it and pull into any parking lot available to chow down.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I’m just on hyper alert now that we’re about ready to make a move o
n the scum we’ve been flirting with all over the Caribbean and am imagining things.”

  Pausing then adding, “Then again, maybe whoever is in that van is up to no good.”

  “You mean maybe they’re casing the place for a robbery?”

  “There’s that or maybe they’re up to no good where we are concerned. A lot of the bad guys we’ve been messing with have our pictures and the word is out that there’s a nice reward for our demise. Is there a back door to this place?”

  “Yes, back by the restrooms.”

  “Let’s sneak out and quickly get into our cars and take off. Let’s head for the place we went to after the first time we ate here and see if they follow us.”

  “And if they do, what then?”

  “You stay close on my bumper, I’ll call Dave with our location and he’ll have us surrounded with cops before anyone in that van can make a move.”

  “Why not call Dave now and he can have some cops come and check the van out before we leave?”

  “I’d feel like a fool if I’m all wet about this. Besides, the cops don’t work for Dave. I overheard a conversation he had once with Phil during which he said he has an arrangement with them if he ever needs them in an emergency. He would be seriously pissed if I caused him to call for help and it turned out to be a false alarm based on a hunch of mine.”

  “Okay, I’ll follow your lead. If these people mean us harm, it would be best for us if we could pick the time and place.”

  Pete left enough money on the table to cover their bill and they headed for the back exit.

  They got to their cars and headed out of the parking lot at a fairly good clip. Whoever was in the van was caught with their pants down and had to move fast or lose them, so they quickly started the van and peeled rubber in the parking lot and on the street as they hurried to catch up with Abby and Pete.

  Now it was confirmed that the people in the van had an interest in them. Pete’s thinking, “Okay, Abby, call in the cavalry.”

  Along this stretch of road there was little to see but bungalows and the ocean and there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was starting to rain as is often the case in the summer months in Miami, although these daily showers didn’t last long and didn’t help with the humidity one iota. Abby reached for her cell phone to call Dave, but never laid her hand on it. Out of the blue a mangy mid-sized stray mutt came running out onto the roadway right in front of her car. Hitting her brakes and swerving to avoid hitting the dog, she lost control of her car on the wet pavement and wound up broadsiding a dumpster that was parked along the curb for trash from construction work that was being done on a new bungalow that was being built. The side of her car was severely damaged and the fenders were bent into the tires so she couldn’t move forward or backward.

  Pete was lucky not to have rear ended her and he pulled over to the side of the road. Before either one of them could get out of their cars, bullets started to fly. The rear and street side windows of both cars were shattered with numerous rounds from guns being fired by people in the van. The rapidity and number of shots told them there were more than a couple of people using them for target practice. When they snuck a peek to see what they could see, they saw that the sliding side door of the van was open and two men with guns were firing at them from the doorway, one guy was firing from the passenger side window up front and another guy was firing at them from the rear of the van. If there were more people in the van they couldn’t see them.

  Fortunately, both Abby and Pete are still carrying because of their experiences in the Caribbean, so they hunkered down behind their driver’s side doors and returned fire. Pete’s comfortable with fire arms and can more often than not hit what he’s aiming at, but Abby’s the expert and quickly put a hole in a couple of the shooters, one of which fell out of the van and wasn’t moving. Pete winged the guy at the rear of the van and that seemed to put a damper on the shooters’ enthusiasm because the van quickly backed down the street a ways then did a U turn and sped away.

  “Pete, are you okay?”

  “I’m still all in one piece. I was too busy staying that way to get a plate number. How about you? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay. My forehead just got nicked from some flying glass, but I got the bastards’ plate number. I got a glimpse of it before they beat a retreat. I can’t find my damn cell phone though.

  Let me use yours to phone Dave.”

  While Abby was doing that, Pete checked out the shooter in the street and then the damage to the cars. The guy is still alive, but unconscious from the loss of blood and definitely needs an ambulance in a hurry. The only way the cars were going anywhere was by tow truck. They were filled with bullet holes, windows were shattered and tires were flat, to say nothing of the body damage done to Abby’s car when she slammed into the dumpster.

  When Abby ended her call to Dave, she said, “The local police are on their way and Dave will be right behind them. He said to say nothing to anybody until he gets here.”

  Pointing at the man on the ground Pete said, “Our playmate there is still breathing, but he’s losing a lot of blood. You’d better call 911 and get a paramedic here ASAP or his next stop will be the morgue.”

  Looking at Abby’s face up close, he was glad to see that the nicks on her forehead were minor and shouldn’t leave any scars, but there was one in her scalp that was fairly deep and was still bleeding. “You better have a doctor check out that cut on your scalp. It looks pretty deep and it’s still bleeding.”

  “Head wounds bleed a lot even if they’re not serious. I’ll be okay.”

  “Even so, it’s not a minor cut and could get infected. To be on the safe side you’d better have someone look at it.”

  “Okay, Mr. Worry Wart, I’ll have one of the paramedics check it out when they come to pick up that riffraff.” Inwardly smiling she’s thinking, “It’s kind of nice knowing that someone worries about you, but I’ve got to be nuts thinking like this. What’s happened to the ‘no attachments needed’ girl I used to know?”

  Abby called 911 and minutes later the street was cluttered with police cars, a paramedic truck, TV news vans and backed up traffic because the police had cordoned off the traffic going both ways. Where before the shooting nobody was around, now there were onlookers everywhere. Pete looked over at Abby and knew they were both thinking the same thing. How is Dave going to keep Sea Wasp out of the ensuing investigation? It’s going to take the influence of some very powerful people to pull that off and their involvement will definitely arouse suspicions.

  Chapter 31

  - Miami –

  It wasn’t until eight o’clock that night that the scene emptied out and returned to something resembling normal. The traffic was allowed to proceed, the paramedics had left the scene to take the wounded gunman to the hospital soon after they arrived, most of the looky loos had gone about their business and all but one patrol car and a news van remained. Pete and Abby were sitting in the back of Dave’s car waiting for a tow truck to come and haul away their cars. Dave was talking with a police captain while the captain’s driver was trying to keep a newswoman at bay.

  Abby said, “How in hell did these people know we could be found at Morrison’s?”

  “Abby, as you said earlier, our pictures and the offer of a reward for us, dead or alive, have probably been spread throughout all the cartel networks, both here in the States and throughout the Caribbean. Someone could have spotted us going in or coming out of the dive shop or anywhere else for that matter. It looks like their game plan was to follow us until they had a chance to take us out.”

  “Well, I didn’t think they’d be able to track us down so fast here in Miami. I hope the false IDs Dave got for us to use tomorrow will prevent any other goons from zeroing in on us. Perhaps we should don some sort of disguises before we get off the plane in Bogota just to be on the safe side. Besides being real bad asses, the people we’re up against are not stupid and have enormous resources they can tap to be on the lookout for u
s. They’ll probably have people on alert at the airport and who knows where else. It definitely appears that we’ve given the bad guys a major belly ache and they want to be rid of us.”