by Liz Crowe
“So which is it?” Armando asked.
“Well, it’s too far to walk back to my truck, so hell, I’m in,” Fredo barked. “You gotta be so cryptic all the time? We’re halfway there and now you tell us what you have in mind?”
“I’m in, too. But I don’t like carrying,” Rory said.
“I’m not thinking you’ll have to use it.”
Rory shrugged and rolled his eyes. “That’s the point. We’re not supposed to.” Armando pulled out into traffic again and sped to the turnoff at the harbor.
“He said it was the Corazon, berth 29.”Fredo scanned the nearly abandoned parking lot. One lone light illuminated the asphalt. Ahead lay a sea of twinkle lights decorating the masts of the yachts in spacious rows. A party boat was in full swing out on the bay, but the music carried for miles.
“These guys use sentries, and they probably already know we’re here.”
Fredo got out the sensitive earphones and the radio kit while Armando inserted his earpiece. “Testing. Testing. Testing,” he whispered. Fredo gave him the thumbs up.
“For the record, we’re not taping, right?” Fredo asked.
“That’s right. The word is Huckleberry.”
Fredo gave another thumbs up.
“Rory, you wait a minute, then drop behind me and find some cover on the ledge of that little shop.”
Armando closed the driver door quietly, and climbed into his wetsuit. His night vision goggles were useless around all these lights, so he shoved them up above his forehead for now. Then he softly jogged down the pier without making a sound, counting down to berth 29 and stopping.
At least four guards with semis were alertly pacing back and forth on deck. The cabin was well lit, and when he squinted he could see Mia’s form sitting on a white leather couch. Good thing he was lurking in the shadows, out of sight of those sentries.
“We got four and packing heavy,” Armando whispered. “She doesn’t look in any distress.” He noticed Carlos had handed her a drink, and his sister actually smiled.
“I’m up at your two o’clock,” Armando heard Rory whisper.
“I’m going for a swim.” Armando slipped off his bag and removed his shoes, then slipped without a sound into the murky waters of the inlet behind the taller vessel where Rory was lookout.
He swam to the rear of the ship where no one was posted, grateful for the moonlight guiding him He mounted the rear stairs and again waited for the roll of the ship to camouflage his movements. “She actually looks good. My little saucy sister is in prime form and dressed to the nines,” he whispered, knowing Fredo would appreciate that comment.
He came upon the galley door behind the living room and turned the handle slowly. It was unlocked.
Stepping inside the dark kitchen, he spotted Carlos and Mia sitting on opposing couches. Armando advanced into the room quickly, unhooking his sidearm and aiming it at Carlos’s forehead. The red laser pointed right between the gangster’s eyes.
“Call them off. I want to hear four splashes, and then I want to see them right here,” he pointed to the floor, “on their bellies.”
Carlos gave a knowing smirk. “Very good, Armani. The element of surprise.”
“Shut the fuck up and tell them.”
Carlos began to move toward Mia.
“Don’t even think about it…unless you can live with a round between your eyebrows.”
“I like your style, Armani.” Carlos whistled and told the men to toss their AK-47s overboard.
Before Armando could demand it, Carlos added, “And the pistolas. Then get your asses here on the floor.”
One by one the four men entered the cabin and lay prone on the floor. Armando dropped some zip ties at Mia’s feet and she quickly secured their wrists. The red bead on Carlos’ forehead was beginning to look like a third eye, Armando thought. “My man,” Carlos said as he slowly walked forward, “so now we talk.”
“I’m not your man, and you know it,” Armando answered. “Stop! Right there.”
Carlos obeyed.
“Okay I understand. We don’t really like each other, but then, I don’t like most the people I work with either.”
“So where are your other minions?”
“Well, that’s partly why I wanted to meet. Are you aware of what’s going on around here this evening?”
Armando wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “Kids are going to football games, getting laid, taking drugs, people are working.”
“That’s good. My upbringing was something a little different than that, but that’s good. Well, some of those people who are working are interfering with my work.”
“And that’s news?”
“I mean, as we speak, members of my—you’d call them teammates—are being arrested, based on information a certain little lady friend of yours provided them.”
“She’s a cop, Armando,” Mia blurted out.
“Who?”
“Your little bitch. She’s an undercover cop.”
Armando felt the fire in his belly grow to a roar. He halfway wanted to kill Carlos just because he delivered the message. But he knew that was wrong. Besides, it wasn’t Carlos he was angry at.
So that began to explain things. Slowly it began to take shape.
“Gina is a cop?” he repeated in a monotone.
“Yessir, Mr. Armani. And her lover is one, too. That big Sam fella. They been doing the nasty for mostly a year or more now. They’re quite the team.”
Armando loved his sister, but she was enjoying this way too much. “You knew this?” he asked her.
“Armando, who do you think I am?” Mia’s horrified expression wiped away the smirk he hated. “If I knew that, you think I’d have hung around her? You think I’m completely nuts?”
So she’d lied to him. Lied to him all along. Well, he’d deal with that one later. Right now there was the problem of what to do about Carlos.
Carlos continued. “Imagine my surprise when I am out on my little boat, and I get this call, telling me the cops was all over my stuff, and they had a list of some ten names of people they was picking up. You know who else was on that list?”
No.
“That’s right, your little bitch was going to have Mia arrested, too, as accessory.”
That was the last straw. He’d been a fuckin’ idiot, buying her fears and helping her with her stuff. It was all a smokescreen. She’d betrayed him just like interpreters and shopkeepers in Afghanistan had betrayed them. She had a lot of nerve pretending to fall for him and all the while planning his own sister’s demise. Nobody got away with harming his family. Rage exploded in his veins.
“So what’s the plan?” He knew Fredo would cough at that one. He was grateful he still had the presence of mind to think straight. Fury was way more comfortable to him. Didn’t matter that he recognized it as a sign he needed help. It felt good to get angry, because it was some kind of solution he could effect. He was glad he hadn’t brought anything but a handgun to this meeting.
“She played you real good, Armando. I told you to be careful. But I didn’t know how bad it was.”
But then he found a shred of sanity and perspective. Gina had been good at her job. Sucked, but it was what she was supposed to do. He knew there was something off, just couldn’t pinpoint it, but now it all made sense. And weren’t the cops supposed to be the good guys? It still didn’t make him feel any better, knowing he’d been used in this manner.
What began to really eat a hole in his gut, though, was her relationship with Sam. Was that all a ruse as well?
“How’d you get this information, Carlos?” he asked.
“I got friends too.”
“Like Sam?”
Carlos reacted with a string of Spanish slang. “He’s a crazy man. No way you can trust a crazy man.”
“And yet Gina apparently does,” he said.
Mia stepped toward him. “Armando, I think she used him too. She doesn’t like the dude. Besides, he’s a little rough.”
/>
Finally something was familiar, some truth was beginning to come out.
“Sam’s on Sam’s team. He’d never be a player on mine,” Carlos said, his eyes forming slits. “Your bitch better be careful. She’s playing with some serious shit with that one.”
Carlos was right. If half of what they revealed to him was accurate, Gina herself might be in some danger. Danger perhaps she was trying to keep from him. Is that what she meant when she asked him not to get involved?
“So now what do we do?” Armando asked.
“I need safe passage to Mexico. You let me go this evening. I sail away to Mexico until all this blows over. Mia can go home with you. It’s like a favor for a favor. You get to deal with the bitch and her master when you get back.”
“But that would be breaking the law.”
“You’re breakin’ the law by packing.”
“Considering your line of work and where this meeting is taking place, I consider it an act of self-preservation.”
“Look, Armando, be reasonable,” Carlos took Mia by the shoulders and stood directly behind her. It wasn’t lost on Armando that Mia was his shield in every sense of the word. “I’m just looking for the opportunity to lay low for a while, recoup. Lick my wounds. You do me a favor, I do you a favor by giving your sister back. Nobody gets hurt.”
Mia wrinkled up her nose and tried to get away from him, but Carlos held her about the waist and put a gun to her temple.
“You starting to feel me?”
“Why you Huckleberry asshole. You’ll never make it out alive if you harm one hair on her—”
“Get your fuckin hands off her,” came Fredo’s voice. Carlos was staring into the barrel of an H&K MP5. The startle effect gave Armando enough time to nudge Mia’s knees, forcing her to fall forward and collapse out of the way. He grabbed Carlos’s gun. Rory was there in seconds securing Carlos’s wrists and ankles in zip ties.
Fredo laid his weapon down carefully as he ran over to Mia, who was rubbing her knees, which were slightly bloody. She glared at her brother.
Sirens and lights flashed. He’d have to stay and give statements. It was too late for him to get Mia away, but she was safe.
As the patrol cars began to descend on the pier, Armando wondered which vehicle Gina was in. Would she take point and come in first? Or wait and show up sheepishly at the end after all the arrests had been made?
As he watched the SDPD officers bathed in the blue and red flashing lights, he couldn’t make out Gina’s face anywhere in the crowd of uniforms. Nor Sam’s. He started getting a worried feeling in his gut. He didn’t think of her as a coward and was sure she’d be present for this crowning moment.
He saw the police sergeant in charge coming towards him and Armando decided to make a quick call to Riverton. He needed someone to help cut him loose, and fast.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kozinski swore and threw his cell on the couch in the living room, where he’d spent the night. Again. He was getting updates on their progress. So far, they’d arrested seventeen of Carlos’s gang, including some young teenagers who would be delivered to juvenile detention after they got a good look at the jail, where they’d most likely end up if they didn’t straighten themselves out. That was always Kozinski’s rule, get the younger ones scared so they’d keep to the straight and narrow. Less than 10% ever did, but still.
They’d found a cache of weapons loaded on a semi destined for Mexico. Used to be they would arrest people with vans or station wagons. Now it was semis full of guns and ammo.
Lord help us. He hoped this country lasted long enough that he could see his grandchildren get married and start to have a life of their own. Some days, it seemed as if the bad guys had more firepower and more informants than the S.D.P.D. did.
They’d also found two stashes of drugs and a packaging facility nearby. Was supposed to be a soap plant, making scented bath salts, which was smart, since it partly threw off the dogs, who’d been trained to be so scent sensitive.
He’d just learned that Carlos had slipped away. The man had shown himself at one gun cache, and then slipped into the night like a bat. So much for Tito’s intelligence, and Kozinski had a mind to arrest the sister, too, since he was fairly sure she might have been in on the smokescreen.
Nah, you’re being too negative, Koz. His therapist wanted him to stop doing the trash self-talk. The tapes weren’t working, either. A dumb decision was still a dumb decision, regardless of what you told yourself afterwards.
So there was someone who was feeding information to the gang. He’d been careful not to reveal anything to Sam, and thus he was pretty sure it wasn’t him. Sam had been one of his best cops before his steady deterioration into risky behavior. When Gina arrived on the force, it had all come to a head. She was something Sam wanted and could never really earn. He’d seen it happen before, but he thought Sam was stronger than that. Morally, Sam might not be a poster child for a faithful marriage, but Koz doubted he’d ever sell out his brothers in arms for money. The man was weak, but never seemed the type to be greedy, or to be working some angle for extra money.
And maybe that was the problem, he thought. If Sam had some kind of a life off the force, maybe he wouldn’t have put all his eggs into that one basket. It was a shame.
The next call was a surprise. He picked it up in one ring, even though it was one o’clock in the morning.
“Kozinski.” He sounded like a frog and cleared his throat.
“Clark Riverton S.D.P.D.” He’d never met the man, but knew him by reputation as a real bulldog of a detective.
“What can I do for you at this hour?”
“Yes, very impressive. Or are you not sleeping either?” Riverton asked him.
“Got a big sweep going on, so been getting updates all evening. Don’t expect I’ll get any rest tonight. What’s up? You working too?” If he was calling at this hour of the night, it was important.
“I’ve heard a little about an undercover operation going on involving the Scorpions.”
“You are correct.”
“I’m friendly with a SEAL who is personally related, not involved, mind you, but related to the gang.”
“You must mean Armando Guzman.”
“Exactly. I’ve met Mia a couple of times. She’s a real firecracker. And with Armando, her brother, a SEAL, I imagine he’s going to want to interfere.”
“That would be understating it.”
“I don’t want to interfere.”
“Yes. So, what’s your point?”
“I think he’s just helped you with your sweep.”
“Come again?” Kozinski didn’t think he had enough luck left for this.
“Carlos tried to make a deal and the SEALs took him down. You’ve got men down there at the harbor making the arrests now. ”
“They killed him?”
“Fuck, no. He’s sitting in the back seat of a patrol car with his wrists and ankles tied together like an animal ready for slaughter. I’d prefer that Guzman not get any grief for this.”
“He can have a tickertape parade, as far as I’m concerned. He’s still at the scene? We let the arresting officers make the determination.”
“Surely he’s not a target.”
“He will be if he doesn’t stop inserting himself.”
Kozinski took down the address of the boat just as his other phone began to ring. He knew that number to be the officers in charge.
Kozinski wondered where Gina was in all this. And he’d not heard that Sam was a part of any of the arrests, not that he was supposed to be. “Clark, I have a question for you. Is Gina Mancuso with them there?”
“Um, no. I don’t think so. I mean, Armando didn’t mention her. Why?”
“She’s my undercover. Just thought maybe she was there.” Kozinski wasn’t completely comfortable giving out this information, but with most of the gang rounded up, and Carlos under wraps, he needed to get word to her as soon as possible.
“If she
is, I’ll have her give you a call,” Riverton answered.
“No sir, I’ll call her myself. Thanks. And don’t tell Armando I’m delighted he got Carlos, or he’ll be thinking he can moonlight between deployments.”
“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing now, would it?” Riverton chuckled.
“I think he does just fine at his current job.”
Kozinski called his senior task force officer back and was briefed on the shipboard arrests. He hoped it wouldn’t get too messy for the SEALs, who had probably stopped a firefight from the sounds of it. He was actually starting to feel pretty good until he tried several times to get hold of Gina, who was normally very good about answering his calls.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gina awoke in a tiny, darkened room. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping, but her internal clock said she’d slept all night. And hard. She mentally checked herself out. She was lying on a bed with…how odd, with silk sheets. Nothing seemed to be hurt or missing. Her clothes were still intact, although she was barefoot. She was unbound, but her wrists and ankles hurt as if she had been tied up. She examined a red ring that was especially tender around her right wrist.
The bed she was sleeping on had dark silk sheets, which seemed very odd. She remembered hearing crying and then realized that’s what woke her up.
It’s the sounds of my own weeping!
Crossing to the doorway, she found herself in the duplex Tito led her to last night. In the daytime it didn’t look nearly as dangerous. She listened for signs of anyone else and heard shuffling. The echoes of her own voice had stopped. When she turned, she recognized Tito’s body, even though the head was missing.
Gina’s stomach began to lurch. She felt dizzy.
“Come here, baby.” Sam’s chest appeared from the shadows. It was streaked with sweat and dried, dark burgundy blood. A clump of what looked like brain matter stuck to one of the loops of his belt. His eyes had that vacant and hungry look he used to show her just before he trussed her all up like a chicken at a Chinese market.
She pitched forward and heaved contents of her stomach, nearly covering his boots.