In Sheep's Clothing

by David Archer

  “Good thinking. Try to find out for me, will you?”

  They went over the security video from the other houses, but just seeing the outsides didn't help a lot. “I wonder if there's any kind of recorded blueprints for those houses,” Noah mused aloud. “I'd really like to have some idea of the interior layouts. I want to get these bombs in there, but I want to make sure they get the job done.”

  Neil cocked his head and grimaced. “I'll do what I can,” he said. “Maybe I can find out who built the houses. If it was a development company, they might have blueprints stored somewhere digitally that I can crack into. Don't get your hopes up, though.”

  “I understand, just do what you can,” Noah said. “What about the neighborhood? How close are the other houses?”

  “Gomez lives in what looks like a pretty expensive neighborhood,” Neil replied. “From what I can see from the security cameras, the Gomez house probably sits on a couple of acres, at least. It's at least a hundred yards to the nearest house on either side. Some of the others live not far away, but the Perez family is all the way across the city.”

  Moose had left a few minutes earlier, heading to Jefferson City in the van to begin buying up flowers, so Noah left Neil to his work as he and Sarah went to scout the area. He had programmed all of the addresses of the houses into the GPS in the dash, and it took them only a couple of hours to locate and drive by all of them. Sarah cut through alleys and changed the color of the car between each one, so no one would notice the same car driving by more than one of them.

  “If you're going to use the explosives,” she asked at one point, “why are you looking the houses over so hard?”

  “The explosives are good,” Noah said, “but in order to do their jobs, they need to be placed where they'll have the most devastating effect on the structure. If I set one off and it only takes out part of one room, then at least some of the targets are likely to survive. We got five locations to deal with, so I can't be everywhere at once. When the bombs go off, I need to be as sure as I possibly can that they get the job done.”

  “That sounds like you need more than one bomb in each house. How do you plan to accomplish that?”

  “Well, we can simply deliver a lot of flowers,” Noah said. “Or we can give them something that's big enough that when it goes off, there won’t be any part of the house left standing. That's what I've got to figure out. Then there’s the problem of giving them things they’ll accept. We can’t just deliver flowers without saying who they’re from or what they’re for.”

  Sarah drove in silence for a few minutes, then looked over at Noah. “When my dad did a one-year stint in the federal prison,” she said, “one of the things he told me was that almost all of the Mexican inmates were part of this cult, something called the Holy Death. From the way he made it sound, just about every drug dealer in the Hispanic world worships death. I wonder if these people do.”

  Noah looked over at her. “I've heard of that, it's called Santa Muerte. Some of the guys in my unit in the Army were into it.” He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. “Neil? See if you can find out if any of these people are into the Santa Muerte religion.”

  “Santa Muerte? If my Spanish is any good, and I know it is, that translates to holy death?”

  “Yeah, they actually worship Death, like it’s some kind of a saint. They pray to it, asking for favors, all kinds of stuff. Let me know what you find out.” He ended the call and turned to Sarah again. “Holy Death followers tend to keep an altar. The guys I knew in the Army, they kept theirs in their lockers. Some of them were pretty complicated.”

  Sarah nodded. “Yeah, that's what Dad said. They kept a statue, a skeleton in a long dress, and had all kinds of things around it.”

  “Right. We might be able to use that.” He glanced at his phone and checked the time. “It's almost lunchtime,” he said. “How about we pick up some tacos and head back?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sarah said. “I know we had breakfast, but I'm still kind of hungry. Look, there's a taco stand right up the street. One of the benefits of being in a Mexican neighborhood, I guess.”

  Moose was back by the time they arrived at the warehouse, but Noah had anticipated it. They had brought back plenty of tacos, nachos and burritos for everyone, and Neil told Noah what he had learned as they ate.

  “This Holy Death thing, it's really weird,” the skinny kid said. “From what I've been able to learn, a lot of people involved in the drug trade are into it. They pray to this skeletal figure in a long dress, kinda looks like a wedding dress, and they ask her to keep them safe from the police. The weird thing is, they'd rather get killed than arrested. I guess they believe that if they get killed while they’re working at the drug trade, it gets them some kind of special spot in Heaven.”

  “That sounds about right,” Noah said. “I've known guys in the Army who were into it, and that were convinced that if they died on patrol they'd go straight to paradise.”

  Neil nodded his head. “Yeah, exactly. Well, all of these people seem to be into it, according to the DEA. If their intel is correct, each of those houses has several small shrines in it.”

  Noah pursed his lips in thought. “Hmmm,” he said. “That might not be much help, after all. If they've already got shrines...”

  “Don't jump so fast,” Neil said. “I stumbled across one thing that you might find pretty interesting. About three months ago, one of Armando Rodriguez's brothers was killed. Guess what happened right after that.”

  Noah shook his head. “No guess, just tell me.”

  “The whole freaking bunch of them, I mean all of them, every aunt, uncle, cousin, brother, sister, the whole bunch, they all showed up at Alejandra's place. They gathered there to pray to Saint Holy Death for the dead guy to get a special place in Heaven, since he was killed in a drug robbery that went bad.”

  Noah sat and looked at him for a long moment, then began chewing his lip again. “So, if something happens that they consider an emotional blow to the entire group, they all get together in one place?”

  “If it's something they need to pray to Little Miss Skeleton about, then that's a pretty safe bet. Now, the DEA says they have a bunch of these little altars, right? Well, from what I read online, they like to worship at the biggest shrine they can find. I bet you can figure out what's going through my mind, can't you?”

  Noah cocked his head to the side, and actually grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “You're thinking the same thing I am. We need to make a fair-sized shrine to this thing and give it as a gift to one of our targets, and then give them a reason to hold a prayer meeting.”

  Neil was smiling and nodding. “Exactly,” he said. “I'll get started on a design for the shrine right away, okay, Boss?”

  “That'll be perfect. All I've got to do now is come up with a good reason for delivering it to them.”

  FOUR

  It was Sarah who discovered a solution to Noah's dilemma that afternoon, as they worked at the warehouse. Intrigued by the entire concept of the Holy Death cult, she had begun googling it out of curiosity, and that led her to stumble across the Wikipedia page that was dedicated to it. On that page, she learned that one of the most famous shrines to Santa Muerte had been a gift, one that a man gave to his mother as a way of thanking the folk saint for the fact that he had been rapidly released from jail after an arrest.

  She pointed it out to Noah. “I was thinking about this, and it hit me that it might be the answer. What if you said it was sent by one of their people who had gotten arrested, like part of a prayer to keep them out of prison? They'd probably accept it without a problem, then, right?”

  “That's an excellent idea,” Noah said. He turned to Neil. “Can you get a list of their dealers that have been locked up? See if you can find one who's looking at a long sentence.”

  “I'm on it,” Neil replied. He tapped on the keys for a few moments, then held one finger pointed up toward the sky. “Bingo! Duane Harris, arrested about two mon
ths ago, prosecutors say he's looking at sixty years. And get this, local newspaper made a big issue over a Holy Death shrine in his living room when he was arrested. Apparently the local churches are throwing real fits about this cult coming into their city.”

  Noah nodded. “Sounds like our patsy,” he said. He turned and looked at Moose, who was repotting flowers into the new pots the printer was turning out. Neil had found several flowerpot designs already loaded into the printer's database, and Noah had shown Moose how to program the detonators. Noah watched him for a moment, then turned to Neil again. “Let's stop at about a dozen floral arrangements, then get busy on the shrine. I think a life-size one might be a bit too grandiose, and probably pretty expensive for your average drug dealer. Let's go for one about four or five feet tall, one that looks like it had some effort put into it, but isn't quite perfect.”

  “Making the skeleton isn't the problem,” Neil said. “I found a design in the 3-D image database that's built into the printer controller, and I can make it as big or small as we want. The real issue is going to be the way it's dressed. They dress them in different colors for different things they're praying for, but we have to make sure it looks realistic to one of the devoted followers of the cult.”

  “Right,” Sarah said. “The question is, what color would she be wearing for a family crisis? I mean, you want to get the whole family together to pray to this thing, right?”

  “Yes, but you're getting ahead of yourself,” Noah said. “We don't need to worry about how she would be dressed for that. We just need to think about how she would be dressed when she gets delivered. What would be the most common color for her to wear?”

  “White,” Moose said from where he was working. “I got curious about it, too, so I googled it. When they're asking for something, they usually put her in white.”

  “Okay, then the next question is where do we get something appropriate to dress it in. Any suggestions?”

  “That's easy,” Sarah said. “You want white? Get a wedding dress. You can probably find one small enough for what you want in a costume shop. Order it online and pay for overnight shipping, you'd have it tomorrow.”

  Neil opened another browser and started tapping on the keyboard. “She's right, there's plenty of them. White satin, complete with veil and everything.”

  Noah leaned forward and looked at the picture on the monitor. “If you think it'll work, go ahead and order it. Get it here by tomorrow if you can, so we can start getting this put together.”

  Neil put in the order while Sarah went to help Moose with the flowerpots. As soon as she was out of earshot, Noah leaned close to Neil again.

  “So, what have you learned about the nanny?”

  Neil turned to face him with a grimace. “Unfortunately, not a lot so far. I'm keeping an eye on the security cameras, trying to get an idea of when she might leave the house with the kids. No luck so far. You would have thought the DEA might have paid attention to little details like that, but no, they couldn't be bothered.”

  “Keep watching. We want to give them all something to get together about, and I can't think of anything more likely to do it than for those two kids to get snatched. We get them out of harm's way and force a gathering of the cartel members in town in a single shot. I think it's our best move.”

  “Yeah,” Neil said, nodding his head. “Just hope your girlfriend is up for it. She seemed pretty upset when the Dragon Lady mentioned those two little ones.”

  “That's because she wasn't sure whether I'd actually kill them or not,” Noah said. “She doesn't want them to get hurt, of course, so she knows this is the best way to handle it. Don't worry about her, she'll do what I need her to do.”

  He got up and walked over to look at the floral arrangements that were coming together. Moose had been smart enough to buy extra accessories, like ribbons and little plastic sticks that hold a card, as well as a selection of cards themselves. Noah's plan was to deliver the Santa Muerte shrine as soon as possible, and then abduct Alejandra Gomez’s two toddlers the next day. The cartel members would almost certainly think it was related to their drug business, so it was a safe bet that they would not approach the police for help. They would be far more likely to try to find the perpetrators on their own so that they could deliver their own brand of justice. For that reason, they would gather both to talk about the problem and to pray for the children’s safe return. He was betting that they would gather at the new, bigger shrine.

  Once the abduction was accomplished, Neil would watch the security cameras in order to see when the members began to gather. If there was a delay, Moose would begin delivering flowers to them, expressions of sympathy from acquaintances. Noah even planned to order flowers from other local florists, just so that no one would get suspicious about the same van coming and going all the time.

  Noah and Sarah would handle the abduction, and they had already prepared a room in the warehouse as a temporary place to keep the nanny and children. They would go out sometime the next day to scour the thrift shops for cribs and a bed, then stock up on diapers, baby food and other necessities until a pair of specialists from another branch of E & E arrived to take charge of them. The children would be placed with an adoption agency in another state, and the nanny would be released unharmed in yet another after the mission was complete.

  Neil would be in charge of keeping them under guard until they were retrieved, with Moose to relieve him periodically. That would allow Noah and Sarah to keep moving, while staying close to the Gomez home. They would be waiting for word from Neil that the gathering had begun, and as soon as they were sure that at least a majority of the targets were inside, Sarah would bring Noah close enough for the detonator remote to work. All of the detonators were programmed to channel 7, so the shrine and flowerpots would all explode at once. There should be enough explosive within the house to level it completely and shred everyone inside.

  Sarah glanced at him, and for a split second Noah wondered if she was reading his mind. He knew she was worried about the children, about the unavoidable trauma they would suffer after being kidnapped and losing their families, but there was simply no way to completely protect them from it. These children were innocent, and would probably be raised by a new family without ever knowing their true history. It was the best Noah could do for them.

  “You okay?” Noah asked, and she shrugged her shoulders, but with a grin on her face.

  “I guess so,” she said. “You know, all those years when I was growing up, I didn't ever really think about the fact I was helping my dad steal cars. I always thought of myself as a pretty good kid, you know what I mean? If someone had told me even three years ago that I would one day be helping to make bombs to kill a bunch of drug dealers, I would've said they were crazy.” She rolled her eyes. “Now look at me. I'm so deeply entrenched into this, now, I'm not only part of an assassination team, I'm in love with a man who kills people for a living. It's not exactly the Cinderella, happily-ever-after kind of thing that most girls dream about, you know?”

  “I can imagine,” Noah said. “Let's face it, I'm not any kind of Prince Charming, anyway.” He looked at Moose. “How's it coming?”

  “Better, now that Sarah is helping me out. I can stuff potting soil in a pot, stick flowers in there all day long, but I just don't have the eye to make it look like something pretty. She does. With her helping, people might actually believe these came from a real flower shop.”

  “Good, we need this to look as realistic as possible.” Noah glanced at his phone to check the time. “It's almost five thirty,” he said. “Anybody hungry?”

  They all admitted that they could eat, so Noah sent Sarah out to pick up sandwiches, fries and drinks. She was back within half an hour, and they took a break to have dinner. By the time they were finished, the last flowerpot had been taken out of the printer. All four of them worked together to finish the last four floral arrangements, with Sarah advising them all.

  “Okay, let's make us a skeleto
n,” Neil said.

  The skeleton would have to be assembled, with each section printed out separately. The feet, shins, thighs, pelvis, spine, rib cage, shoulder blades, upper arms, forearms, hands, neck bones, skull and lower jaw were each individual designs. He called up the feet on the monitor, and set it to printing the right one first.

  Each section would require a separate detonator, so there were a total of twenty of them involved. As fast as the printer was, it still took over four hours to make all of the parts, including a rod to help it stand up, and then they had to be snapped together. Luckily, they had been designed for easy assembly, but it was still almost 11 o'clock before the entire four-foot skeleton was laid out on the table.

  They were as prepared as they could be up to that point. All that remained was to wait for the dress to arrive the next day and gather up a supply of jewelry with which to decorate the shrine.

  “All right, let's go get some rest,” Noah said. “Tomorrow morning, Sarah, you can run out and see what kind of jewelry you can find.”

  “From what I see online,” Neil said, “it doesn't have to be expensive stuff. Old costume jewelry would work just fine—the shinier and flashier, the better.”

  “That ought to be easy. I can hit some of the thrift stores, they usually have lots of that kind of stuff. Salvation Army, here I come!”

  When they got to the hotel, they said goodnight and went to their rooms. Sarah waited until they had gotten inside before she turned and put her arms around Noah's neck, pulling him down for a kiss.

  “Well,” Noah said, “what did I do to deserve that?”

  “Nothing yet,” Sarah said with a mischievous grin. “It's what you're about to do.” She peeled his shirt off over his head and reached for the buckle of his belt. “I'll explain the rest when we get in the shower.”