* * *
The light was shining through the fucking slats again. He’d taped that motherfucker yesterday, yet somehow a sliver of sun was now shining directly on him. The hateful sun was waking his ass up too soon. João felt as if he had just hit the covers. He tried to hide behind his bedmate, but it was no use. The fucking tape must have fallen off. He tried to open his eyes but they were sealed shut with sleep crud. He wiped them and tried to find moisture in his mouth, but there was none. He’d partied hard last night. He turned away from the faulty blinds and saw only half a beer on the nightstand. Although he’d actually wanted water, there was none there and beer was better than nothing, so he gulped the remaining warm flat brew in a large swig.
When the voice said, “That’s not good for you” he’d nearly jumped out of his skin. João turned to see who the dead man was and he could not have been more right. A corpse was sitting right in front of him, smiling that easy smile. He smiled too as he ripped the cover off Gringo, the one hundred and twenty pound Rottweiler who slept with him and yelled, “Help!” The dog was unresponsive. He yelled even louder, “Gringo, attack!” He kicked the dog, yet he remained unresponsive. His visitor held up a syringe and smiled. João’s face fell as he observed the obvious chloroform towel near the dog’s snout, “You killed my dog?”
“No, not killed, he’s just sleeping for a while.”
João observed that his uninvited guest was holding a pistol this time, showing him that his visitor was much less confident than the first time they’d met. The man pointed the pistol to the end of the bed and João saw a laptop sitting there.
“I brought you a movie to watch. Open the computer and it will start right away.” His captor watched his face throughout the whole video and as suspected, it never changed expression, although inside, Pablo was sure João was freaking out. When the movie was over his attitude had altered toward the man holding the gun. His question was simple, “How are you still alive? I watched you die with the whore.”
“Let’s just say that I had a gut feeling so I hired a double for the last part. As it turns out, it was a good thing because I would have been captured. Of course, I never would have tried for the button as I knew the gringo would have shot me.”
João looked at Pablo and the anger changed to something else, as they now had a common enemy. “He killed your Vera.”
“He killed your Felipe,” said Pablo.
Then he confirmed with him, “I just want to make sure that when I locate him I can count on you to fill Felipe’s role, as he had intended all the time.”
João said, “What do you mean?”
“He wanted you straight and focused because he wanted you to take his role with me as he was taking another.”
João knew Felipe would not have forgotten about him, they’d just never had a chance to have that talk and now thanks to the gringo, they never would. He looked at the man who was no longer holding the gun and said, “Of course, you can count on me.”
Pablo rose from his chair, “I’ll send for you when it’s time.”
As Pablo went out the bedroom door, João had an angry thought. He got up and looked out into the living room. The last time someone had gotten into his room, his security staff was all dead, each with a silenced bullet to the heart. He looked out and found all three guards asleep and Pablo long gone. He was going to have to start locking his room, that’s all there was to it.
* * *
The gravel crunched under his tires, making the sound that Matt had hated ever since he was eight. That was the day his tortoise got out of the yard and was in the driveway. He heard that sound then and ran out, only to see that his dad had crushed his pet under his two-ton work truck. It was more than his little mind could take so he ran and hid. To this day, though, that sound brought it all back; silly, but he hates gravel and always would.
He saw Chase’s BMW and his stomach lurched a little. He’d asked for this assignment and now he was going to get it. He had to wonder what role he would play in all of this, and like most of his thoughts, he reverted to the movies. Remo Williams came to mind. It seemed more than probable that this was his path here. I mean, they weren’t grooming him to play Bridge now, were they? There were only a finite number of things one could do with the skills he’d learned—and continued to learn.
He parked behind Chase’s Beemer and went in. Damn his movie references, he always had to connect someone to an actor and Chase was a Robert Wagner doppelganger if ever there was one. He had the same prose, gait, and mannerisms of the actor to boot. He obviously stayed fit. At five eleven and no more than one hundred and sixty pounds, Chase Viana was a physically fit sixty-something male. Matt doubted he dyed his full head of hair, parted on the left.
He chided himself for his constant movie mind, finally concluding the same as his mother had, that it was all his dad’s fault, as he had raised him on Westerns and movies of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. Chase rose to greet him, and there it was. Matt had noticed that Chase, Ray, and even his mentor Jim Jensen, always had an air of pride when they met with him, like he would feel if he ever met Steve Young or Joe Montana. “Matt, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Sir, actually doing much better.”
The conversation led all over the place, from family, to life on Lummi Island, to Jon Jon starting school soon. Of course, it steered to himself as well. After the small talk was out of the way, Chase started with, “Frederick says you’re doing good, but still not sleeping well.”
“I’ve learned to live on five hours a night, Sir, people adjust.”
“I hear your studies are going well, especially in the computer lab.”
Matt liked the computer lab, and the thought was, he was trainable as an IT person as he had the aptitude for it. “I particularly like that class, but this is all really too much, Chase. I feel so indebted in a way that I can never repay.”
“Then you know exactly how we feel, Matt.”
The next two hours were spent going over a file. There was an industrialist in Mexico who was not being a good person. He owned one of the largest bakeries in the world but he also was poisoning the U.S. by sending in drugs. “The DEA doesn’t know about him, just us. He approached one of our board members, someone he thought he knew. The offer was a duel role and it was graciously declined, but not in a way as to cause suspicion. Our board member simply told him that she too had such a deal already, but they needed to talk again and hammer out some specifics of a future endeavor. They agreed to meet again in six months. This man is very well respected and no one has a clue about his double life.”
Matt was a little confused and asked Chase, “So we’re going after drug traffickers?”
“No, Matt, we’re going after anyone polluting our country, and this guy is the worst of the worst, he must be removed with extreme prejudice.” They went over it, settled on a game plan, and it was done. The troubling part to Matt was he knew he didn’t have even half the ability of Jim Jensen, so why would they be using him for this?
After looking at the bad guy’s file, though, Matt thought he would have little trouble shooting this fucker, and he certainly would not be losing any more sleep than he already was. But it just seemed odd. The one thing he liked about Chase Viana was he might have the chiseled good looks of any other pompous ass that seems to hold power and walk the halls of success, but once business was concluded one would never guess he was a billionaire. Chase Viana had the ability to talk to anyone on their level, whether it be a leader of a country or an over achieving ex-security guy who fell ass backwards into the world’s most terrifying domination plot since the Third Reich.
He never just said, “Okay, Matt, I’ll see you later.” After hours they would always hang out and have a few beers while Chase schooled Matt in billiards and darts. The pool games were getting closer, but the darts were ridiculous. The guy must throw every day, Matt thought, as he lost another game of rotation.
Chase had real concern for Matt’s fath
er, Don Hurst. Matt had previously told Chase that Don had cancer but was now in remission. The local paper back home had him dying over a year ago, although he was fine and dandy, watching the Giants on cable and enjoying the last couple of years as a treasure of a lifetime, both as a grandpa and a baseball fan. His Giants finally had done it, and all it took was for him to move away, at least that’s the barb Matt threw at him whenever he could, being an A’s fan himself.
Don and Sherry Hurst were distant memories in America’s past now that Matt was no longer the bad guy. The press gave up demonizing him when the President answered “the” question from a reporter during a press conference. The reporter worked for one of the TJAC board members, Jason Evans, whose communications group, Information Media Inc, had all the right connections—and all the right questions. That was why she was chosen and how the question was perfectly loaded.
The President spoke, pointing to Jason’s employee, “Diane Hubbard, what have you got?”
Diane was ready and smoothed out, “Is there any evidence linking Hurst to any of this?”
President Caulfield’s cooling reply was, “Well Diane, I’m glad you asked that. There has been no evidence in the investigation that shows Hurst was anything other than a victim throughout this situation. We’ve removed all warrants, both internationally and nationally, in hopes of bringing at least some peace to the Hurst family. Hopefully, for his family’s sake, he’s alive out there somewhere. Truthfully, his parents have always stood up to my administration and the press. They told us their son was a victim and not a traitor. Now this administration concurs.
“We reacted with prudence at the time and we apologize for the way the Hurst family and thousands of others were upended by this one group of people. I hate to use the term I’m about to use because it seems callous, and makes even a single life not worth saving, but in terms of protecting half a billion people, it’s understandable that there would be ‘collateral damage’ in situations like this. Now think of how many others were collateral damage in this mess other than the Hurst’s? Thousands, no doubt. Matt was just unlucky enough to be the highest profile. My heartfelt sympathies truly go out to everyone affected by this, even outside of our country.
“A lot of Ecuadorian soldiers died as well—let’s not forget that. I’m afraid that history will have to sort out Matt’s tale, but from our position, we reiterate our deepest sympathy to Don and Sherry Hurst and hopefully the press can find the decency to finally leave them alone.”
That was it. The President had spoken, and Matt Hurst became a footnote, just another in the thousands that died or were destroyed one way or another by that horrible ordeal.
Chase had shown how much he cared about Matt in the coming months. Together, the TJAC Board members owned several media groups and Matt had received some positive press as of late, but only in small doses. If it became overkill, it would lead to scrutiny and that wouldn’t do. Time passed and memories fade.
Several of the pieces were of the “What happened to Matt Hurst?” variety, one even mentioning the passing of his dad. Having never been found did give an air of “what if” to the whole thing, but it really looked like he was just a memory. America had a second Pearl Harbor to deal with now, and the man that was responsible for one of them was still alive, so it was easy to see how quickly the public had forgotten about Matt.
Pablo Manuel was alive and well as far as the American people were concerned and that gave them a new villain to hunt. But it was all smoke and mirrors. The U.S. Government did not want his followers to know they had killed him—they wanted no martyrs. So the search for Pablo had made the hunt for Osama bin Laden look miniscule. The U.S. had had to pretend to hunt for Manuel to make their ruse stick.
Unfortunately, that inadvertently led to the remaining Jesuit Sheep followers gaining a foothold of sorts, and it had to do with simple logic. Pablo still being hunted meant he was still alive, and if he was still alive, then there was hope. New websites, bumper stickers, and t-shirts seemed to spring up everywhere. There were even groups that had emerged in nearly every civilized country, groups that were waiting for their messiah’s return.
Matt thought some of these peripheral groups might gain enough steam to make a difference, that they could persevere, but without leadership and more specifically, the charisma and cocksure of Pablo Manuel, the movement eventually stalled.
Coupled with that the fact that the U.S. Government was not finding the man they had already killed, people just went back to their normal lives and forgot about all of it. Which explained how the Hurst family was able to disappear in plain sight—that and a little help from the plastic surgeon.
Chase sank a three-rail bank shot to beat him for the third straight game of billiards, and that was it for playtime. The word “sank” jarred something deep inside of Matt, as he was constantly reminding himself of his reticence to act in the face of danger. As far as he was concerned, August 15, 2013 would be remembered as “a day of infamy”—a day that he was culpable for. He failed to act, plain and simple, cowardice under fire. He failed to push the button that would have stopped it all because he was afraid of death. Of course, “was” afraid was the operative word. Matt no longer feared his own death and it had more to do with faith than bravery.
The big difference between his mistake and Pearl Harbor had more to do with the now, as he’d created a situation where there was a mass underwater grave of American sailors that no one could visit, no place to see where loved ones perished. The depth of the water and the remoteness of the location made it near impossible to have any kind of permanent memorial. The entire Bush Carrier Group had been lost and with it over a thousand American lives.
Matt felt the weight of every family on his consciousness, and the one thing that weighed on him more than all others was inequity. People like Chase here had been telling him that it was not his weight to carry, but Matt knew things that no one else knew—things he’d believed the Lord personally communicated to him.
He could tell that Chase wanted to gauge his reaction to the news of his activation. He had that look like, “Now is the time to bail if you don’t have the stones, Sonny.“ But truthfully it was a relief to Matt. He had been making a lot of money for doing something he loved and that was training to be TJAC’s Agent Provocateur. He certainly wouldn’t have made anywhere near this much as an analyst for the CIA. If this bad guy was really sticking it to the U.S., then fuck him. He looked through his packet—he was now going to be Norm Clausen from San Francisco, and Norman was headed to Mexico City.
* * *
Cecelia was stacking boxes of fans in the display window. They were the rotating kind and her father had gotten a good deal on them. Last time that happened she questioned why she even had to put them in the window at all, they had sold so fast. She was placing the last one into the display when she saw the gringa enter their small parking lot. She called her father, Mauricio, over and showed him. “Looks like Humberto’s friend is here.” She pointed at a woman who was talking to a man and showing him a picture. Cecelia gave her father that look of mischief that always got her into trouble, “Looks like she got sick of roasting in her van.”
Mauricio looked out and furrowed his brow, “Why won’t she give up?”
She looked at her father with that look again, “Maybe she needs a little encouragement.”
He looked at her with great admiration. With her incredible body and amazing looks she is the embodiment of her mother, “Yes, maybe she does, my dear.”
* * *
Lauren looked through her purse for all possible monies. She had thirty-eight dollars left on her person, with her bank account at a zero balance. She had checked out of her hotel two days before and her rental van was now overdue by three days. She’d changed her flight twice.
Although her mother was done with her endeavor and had dried up her financial well, her stepfather had been stellar, so she had tried working on his sympathy. She had begged for another month as th
is was a good lead, she was sure of it. The final answer was, “No more money.” Of course, Humberto offered to let her to live with him temporarily and she almost took him up on it, but wisely chose not to. She knew what that would turn into and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing if you weren’t chasing the story of a lifetime. She gracefully declined Humberto’s offer.
She looked at her plane ticket morosely—her flight was in six hours. In six hours she would go home a failure with a giant hole in her résumé right out of the gate. She could just hear her internal narrative voice—which could be very negative at times—the minute she stepped home off the plane proclaiming, “And now ladies and gentlemen, if you focus your attention on the gangway, Lauren Betton will be coming home as the girl who gave up and failed.” Yet it was also this critical internal voice that drove her.
She hated to lose and even worse, she hated giving up when she knew she was right. It was tough to continue to be upbeat and positive when the last nine months had yielded nothing other than a couple of worthy one night stands and more bouts of every type of stomach malady than one could name. That reminded her, as soon as she had money she was investing in whatever conglomerate that owned Pepto Bismol.
She started the van and pulled up outside the Mercado. She had thought about different tactics, but truthfully, she was out of time for anything other than an all-out blitz, one that she hoped would get some kind of reaction . . . anything that could extend her stay and keep her on the trail of the man she’d become obsessed with.
Although open for business now, the building looked like it could be converted into a fortress at a moment’s notice, as the whole place was surrounded by a crazy amount of razor wire. The fence was solid wood and there was a big rolling gate that completed the fence once it was closed. She saw the parking lot was small and held only twenty spots, which was why she was always observing a double-parking madhouse outside most of the time. She waited until she felt the moment was right and made her move. As she walked into the parking lot she saw a man she’d seen several times a day talking with another. She recognized the two men as regulars.
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 6