by Lincoln Matt
“Well, boys, I think it might be time to call it a day,” Diane called out to us, appearing from her office with a heavy sigh. Diane was the director of our MBLIS office in Miami, the youngest ever. She was fierce but determined. She still wasn’t all that happy with me for going rogue in New York to save the office, but I knew that deep down, she was glad I’d done it. She hadn’t punished me, after all.
“Really?” Robbie Holm, my partner, asked. “It’s only three in the afternoon.”
“I know,” Diane sighed. “But we haven’t had a case in a week, and there’s no use just sitting around here all day when you could be out doing something more interesting.”
“You are always complaining that you don’t have enough time for fishing, Holm,” I reminded him with a grin, but he just huffed in response. It seemed the slow days were getting to all of us.
“When do you think this will all blow over?” he finally asked Diane. “I’m going crazy stuck in here.”
“I know,” she said. “We all are. But we’ll get there. It just takes some time for the bureaucratic wheels to turn and get back on track, even though officially we’re in the clear. Something will turn up soon enough. But until then, it’s best to get out and clear your heads. I’ll stay back in case we get any calls. But there’s no use in us all sitting around doing nothing all day.”
Holm and I just sat and stared at her, not quite believing that she was really suggesting we leave work at three in the afternoon.
“Go!” she cried after neither of us responded, waving us both toward the door. “Get out and stretch your legs before I change my mind.”
Holm and I exchanged a bemused look and then headed out the door into the hot Miami sun. I immediately felt the humidity against my skin, but I didn’t mind. Florida was home, warts and all.
“Can you believe that?” Holm asked, gesturing back behind him at the MBLIS office building. “Three o'clock, and already off work.”
“You don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?” I laughed. As much as Holm complained about not having enough time to go fishing, I knew he was as dedicated to this job as I was. Now that I thought of it, we could both stand to find some hobbies.
“There’s just so many possibilities,” Holm said, spreading his arms wide at the day before us. “We could do anything!”
“Well, we could actually go fishing,” I suggested. “We could take the boat out, see what we can find.” Holm considered this for a moment.
“Nah,” he said finally, shaking his head. “Let’s just head down to Mike’s. I’m beat.”
“You’re beat?” I repeated with a chuckle. “After doing nothing all week?”
“Well, you know how sometimes doing nothing is more exhausting than a big case,” Holm explained, and I had to give him that. A real good case was exhilarating. And until this dry spell, we’d had more than our fair share of them lately.
“You’ve got me there, but it’s only three,” I told him. “I’m not going to Mike’s at three. That’s just depressing.” There was no way I was going to be one of those guys caught drinking in a bar in the middle of a weekday, no matter how slow things were at the office.
“Well, have you gained any ground on getting that journal?” Holm asked hopefully. “You could look through that.”
“If I had that journal, do you really think I would’ve been sitting there making paper airplanes all morning?” I asked him, and we both laughed. “The second I get that journal, I promise you’ll be the first to know. Well, the second, after Tessa.”
“Oh, I’d never want to edge Tessa out,” Holm said, giving me a mischievous grin, and I rolled my eyes. Holm and I went way back to the Navy SEALS. We’d been through it all together, and then some. As much as we teased each other, I didn’t know where I’d be without him, and I knew for a fact that he’d be dead ten times over without me.
Just then, my phone buzzed, and I pulled it out. I was surprised and elated to see who was calling.
“It’s Alejandra,” I said, turning back to Holm. “I haven’t heard from her in ages.”
After MBLIS had helped with her brother’s case, Alejandra and I had stayed in sporadic contact through email and the occasional text message. She was a good one, Alejandra, and just the thought of hearing from her again made my heart skip a beat.
“Well, what’re you waiting for, take it,” Holm urged, and I stepped away to answer the call.
“Alejandra?” I asked. “This is Ethan.”
“Ethan, hi,” she said, and I could hear the relief in her voice. “I’m so glad I caught you.”
“So am I,” I said honestly. “It’s really good to hear from you.”
“It’s good to hear from you, too,” she said. “Or rather, to talk to you.” Somehow, she sounded almost nervous. And not just because it had been a while since she’d spoken to me. Her voice was shaking a bit.
“Why do I get the sense that this isn’t just a social call?” I asked. “Has something happened?”
“Well, I was hoping that maybe you had some time on your hands and could help us with a case,” she said. Somehow, that almost sounded better than Alejandra herself, after the dry spell we’d had at MBLIS as of late.
“Um, yeah, we’ve had some things on the schedule clear up recently,” I said. “What’s happened?”
“Things have heated up with the Haitian drug cartel since we last spoke,” Alejandra explained. “It’s getting very bad, Ethan. They are funneling drugs into our country, getting young people hooked on this stuff, and causing all kinds of violence at the border. And now, it looks like they’ve killed an American.”
“An American?” I repeated, more intrigued than ever. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, he’s white, for one thing, and he had American money on him,” Alejandra said. “We haven’t found a name or anything, but we’re pretty sure he’s one of yours.”
“That’s definitely MBLIS’s jurisdiction, then,” I said, running a hand through my hair. Another murder and more drugs. It had been a crazy year, all right. All in a day’s work at MBLIS. Usually, anyway.
“My father said he was contacting your office,” Alejandra said. “If you have the time, we would appreciate it if you would come here as soon as you can. My father will meet you in Santo Domingo, our capital, and then send a car for you to come to meet me at the border.”
“Wait, you’re involved in all this personally?” I asked, suddenly concerned. “How did that happen? You’re safe, aren’t you?”
“Well, I came down here on a diplomatic mission to meet with representatives from the border towns who are concerned about the recent gang and drug activity seeping onto the Dominican side of the island,” Alejandra explained. “Then border patrol officers showed up talking about this murder.”
“Okay, just make sure you stay somewhere safe, where there are other people around,” I pressed. “There’s no reason for you to get in the middle of all this. It’s important to stay safe. You can do your diplomatic work from afar.”
“You sound like my father,” Alejandra said with a laugh.
“Well, he’s a smart man,” I said, thinking about the conversations I’d had with the Dominican president while I was working on Miguel’s case. “He knows what he’s talking about.”
“All right, all right, I’ll stay in the hotel for now,” Alejandra said. “But I’m not going back to Santo Domingo, not yet. Not until I see this through. My people are counting on me, and so are the Haitians who have to deal with this violence every day, for that matter.”
“I can tell there’s no convincing you,” I said, secretly appreciating her dedication. “Just sit tight until Holm and I get there. We’ll be there as fast as we can. Don’t go doing anything rash.”
“I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Alejandra assured me.
“Good,” I said. “I’ll speak to you soon. Take care.”
I hung up the phone and turned back to Holm, who was still waitin
g a few paces away by the front door to the MBLIS office.
“It looks like we’ve caught a case,” I told him, and a wide grin instantly spread across his face.
“Man, I was hoping you would say that,” he said. “Should we head back up then?” I nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.
“It sounds like that fishing trip will have to wait,” I said.
“Who am I kidding, catching bad guys is way more interesting than catching fish,” Holm said. “Where are we headed this time? The Dominican Republic? Oh, please say the Dominican Republic, it’s so warm there.”
“Holm, we live in Florida,” I reminded him. “It’s warm here.”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean,” Holm scoffed. “There're resorts and stuff in the Dominican Republic. Miami’s great and all, but it’s Miami.”
“I don’t know, I love it here,” I said, and it was true. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. “But I know what you mean. Even so, I don’t think we’ll be lounging around on any resorts any time soon. We are going to the Dominican Republic, but we’ve got a murder case to solve.”
“A murder?” Holm repeated, arching an eyebrow at me. “Those are always fun. Why’s it our jurisdiction? Is the perp an American? Or is it the victim?”
“The victim, they think, but there’s not much information on it yet,” I said. “Seems like that Haitian drug cartel has been making trouble for them again.”
“Ah, why is it always drugs?” Holm asked, shaking his head. A disproportionate number of our cases were about drugs, it seemed. And human trafficking. I loved my job, but sometimes it was difficult seeing the worst side of humanity every day.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But at least it’s better than throwing paper airplanes at pencils.”
“That is true,” Holm chuckled. “Hey, speaking of which, do you think we’ll have to fly commercial again? That wasn’t any fun.”
“We get chased by thugs and human traffickers, and you’re worried about flying commercial,” I said, shaking my head. “You never cease to amaze me, Holm.”
“What would you do without me?” he asked with a grin.
“I honestly have no idea,” I said as I pulled open the door to head back into the office. It was a good day, and things were looking up. We had a case to work.
CHAPTER 3
Ethan
Diane was still standing propped against my desk when Holm and I barged back up the stairs and into the office, staring out the window and lost in thought.
“Forget something?” she asked us when we reappeared, a little startled.
“I just got a call from Alejandra García, that woman from the Dominican Republic we worked with a couple of missions ago,” I explained. “They’re in dire straits down there. That Haitian drug cartel’s been amping up their activity, and now it looks like they’ve killed an American.”
I conveniently left out that we didn’t know for sure it was an American yet. It could be a European, an expat, or even a Canadian or white Dominican. But anything to get back out in the field after this dry spell.
Diane arched an eyebrow, and I could tell she was intrigued. “Really?” she asked. “That would make it our jurisdiction… but I’ll have to clear it first.”
“Why?” I protested. “Things have been backed up for ages, Diane, and they’re taking forever to clear anything with all this bureaucratic red tape we’ve had to deal with lately. A man’s dead, and we’ve worked a case like this before. Besides, our friends need help.”
Diane cast a sharp look at Holm, as if asking him what was up with me.
“The girl’s gotten herself wrapped up in the whole thing,” Holm shrugged. “And she won’t stay put for long. They do need us.”
“Alejandra said her father was going to get in contact with you,” I added.
“He’s the President, right?” Diane confirmed, crossing over to her own desk and pulling out her laptop. “Is he still the President? I remember something about him wanting to step down…”
“He didn’t want to step down,” I corrected her. “He was having a rough time with the cartel and his son being kidnapped. They didn’t like that he was trying to bring more stability to Dominican-Haitian relations. That doesn’t help their business.”
“Drug lords do thrive on poverty,” Diane said dryly. “It keeps us in business.” I winced, but I knew this was true.
“He stayed on after all that got cleared up,” I continued. “And now this has happened. They’re already waiting for us on the island.”
“Hold your horses, Agent Marston,” Diane said, and I did not miss her shift to a more formal form of address. “I’m looking through everything now,”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep my impatience at bay. It wasn’t just that I was anxious to get back out in the field after some downtime, though that was no doubt part of it. It was also that I was worried about Alejandra. I knew how much she cared about her country and her people, and she had a knack for getting herself in trouble. God knows she wouldn’t last long holed up in that hotel alone. Holm and I had to get down there before any more bodies turned up.
“Do we have any more information about this supposed body that turned up, or is it just the phone call?” Diane asked finally, but just as I opened my mouth to answer, her phone rang.
“Is it them?” Holm asked.
“Looks like it,” she said, peering at the caller ID. “Or it’s a Dominican number, at least. Hold on.”
She closed the door on us and disappeared in her own office to take the call.
“She’s gotta let us go, right?” Holm asked. “I mean, what else are we going to do around here?” He threw his arms up in the air to illustrate the emptiness of the office. It was just us now. Everyone else had been sent home already.
“Well, she’d better,” I said, thinking I had half a mind to up and go anyway if Diane said no, MBLIS’s strict policy against moonlighting be damned.
“Now, don’t go getting any ideas,” Holm warned. “We’re on thin ice after what happened in New York. You, especially.”
He wasn’t wrong. What some of us, myself included, had pulled recently to get our funding back wasn’t strictly legal, and it was definitely a breach of our contracts. Diane and whoever else had a say in the matter had let it slide, however, since the situation was so extraordinary. After all, we wouldn’t have jobs to come back to if we hadn’t done it. That being said, something told me that Diane wouldn’t see this scenario as quite so existential, at least not for MBLIS.
But it was for Alejandra, I reminded myself, and for her people.
So when Diane came storming back out of her office, I was primed for a fight, so much so that I launched into a monologue before she even got a chance to speak.
“Look, I get that things have been slow around here and that we need to do things by the books, but this is our case,” I argued, a little more harshly than I intended. “We’re well-acquainted with it and its players. We’ve hunted this cartel before, and if they’ve started killing Americans…”
“Agent Marston,” Diane said, holding up a hand to stop me. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with President García. I agree that the situation is grim.”
“Oh, right. Good,” I grunted, not having expected this.
“I also agree that we can’t let another agency take this one out from under us, given that we’ve worked this one before,” Diane said. “This is the perfect test case for our new funding, though I wish it wasn’t quite so time-sensitive. That could work to our advantage, though. Let me see what I can do.”
She pulled out her phone again and began to dial, holding out a hand to make sure that Holm and I stayed silent. Nonetheless, she put whoever it was on speakerphone so that we could listen in.
“Director Ramsey,” a man answered dryly. “As I told you earlier, as soon as I have any news for you, I will let you…”
“This isn’t about that, Warren,” she interrupted. “This is about a new case.
We had one not so long ago, Agents Marston and Holm, about a Haitian drug cartel. It should be toward the top of the file…”
There was the sound of rustling papers on the other line. As per usual, the government wasn’t quite up to date on modern technology, which was probably why the wheels were turning so slowly as of late. In all likelihood, there were probably some papers out there that still said we were being shut down.
“Uh, yes, I think I see the one,” the man said at long last. “The kidnapping and recovery of a Miguel García?”
“Yes, the Dominican President’s son,” Diane said. “At the hands of the Haitian cartel. Well, it would seem they’re at it again and have killed an American this time on Dominican soil. One of my agents just got a call from a representative of President García, and I just spoke with the President myself. They want Agents Holm and Marston to head down there straight away since they’re already familiar with the case.”
“Now, that could take some time to…” the man started.
“Don’t give me that, Warren!” Diane snapped, practically wagging her finger at the cell phone. “You’ve been holding us up for long enough, and I’ve let you string us along, but now we’ve got an urgent case that needs our attention, and I’m not going to let you hold us up anymore.”
“Now, Director Ramsey, you know full well that this isn’t because I don’t want you out in the field, it’s just taking some time…” the man began again, but Diane wasn’t having it.
“I don’t care whose fault it is. It’s done,” she snapped. “Why exactly is it that we got our funding back if you’re not going to use us? This is exactly why we’re here, and we’re good at what we do, so how about you let us do our jobs again, and you can get back to doing yours?”
There was a long pause before this Warren person relented.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and then clicked off the line. Diane rolled her eyes at the phone.
“Who the hell was that?” I asked.
“The pencil pusher the higher-ups have assigned to our case,” Diane said, waving away the question, “but he doesn’t matter. We’ll get it done. Just hold tight for a little while longer, and I’ll have you on a flight to the Dominican Republic in no time.”