by Lincoln Matt
“If that’s what I think it is, we’re going to need it,” I said. “Stay here and lie low.”
I pulled myself over the fence. It was higher and wirier than it looked, but it really was a joke as a means of keeping people from crossing the border. Then again, that was what the armed patrol officers were for, I supposed.
I kept low to the ground as I moved toward the obscured object, practically crawling across the dirt. If there was anyone staking out from a distance, they would be less likely to see me this way.
It took me a while to get there this way, especially since the object was quite a ways away from the fence. But eventually, I got there and clambered to grab it out from where it was hidden.
Just like I’d suspected, it was a leather wallet, buried beneath the dirt from what looked like the shootout that killed our victim. The ground was riddled with bullet holes, and I saw a few mangled bullets lying around, too.
I pulled open the flaps to reveal a Louisiana driver’s license with our victim’s face on it. So it looked like he was American. I wasn’t sure if I was glad about that because this made this solidly MBLIS’s case, or upset because that meant things were as bad, or even worse, than everyone suspected.
I quickly pocketed the wallet and started to make my way slowly back to the fence. But just as I turned to leave, a loud gunshot rang through the air, and dirt flew up in the air several centimeters from my feet.
Dammit. The cartel had been watching.
I kept myself low to the ground to make it harder for them to see me but reached down to pull out my own gun. I could hear Holm, Alejandra, and the border patrol officers all screaming from the other side of the fence.
“Hold off! Hold off!” I screamed at them. I didn’t want the officers shooting back and hitting me instead or, God forbid, for Holm or Alejandra to get caught up in the fray.
Another gunshot rang out, this one landing a bit further away, right where I had been a few seconds ago. Wherever they were shooting from, they couldn’t see me that well from this angle. I’d made the right choice to stay down low.
I continued crawling and waited for the third shot to ring out, this time listening intently to see if I could figure out where it came from. It landed behind me again. The left, it was coming from the left. And up at a sharp angle.
I whipped up my own gun and shot in that direction, right at the angle where it had come down from. I heard a man’s voice cry out in pain and knew I had a minute to run. It didn’t seem like there were any other shooters in the vicinity.
I jumped up on my feet while still crouching down low and ran as fast as I could at the fence. I aimed for a spot down the line, away from where Holm and Alejandra were crouched down, waiting for me.
I was home free for several yards, but then my unseen enemy regained his composure and started firing again.
As soon as I heard the shot, I launched myself back down to the ground. I could practically feel the bullet pass over the top of my head and hit the fence in front of me, but I didn’t get hit.
I could tell that the shot came from the same place, but not from the same angle. Almost the same, though. The guy hadn’t moved, but his aim was impaired. I must’ve hit him in the arm or the leg, so he couldn’t prop his gun up exactly the same way anymore. That was the best way to stop a sniper. Well, other than blowing him to oblivion, that is, and that wasn’t an option.
Slowly, I started crawling again with one arm while reaching back to shoot with the other. I squinted, trying to see where the sniper might be hiding.
There, on top of that low building in the distance. There weren’t any buildings right by the fence, but there were several at the edge of my field of vision. That was probably why it was so difficult for the sniper to see me. It was from a good distance, and there was a lot of flora and fauna in the way, not to mention the fence to complicate things.
Judging by the angle and sound of the shot, I figured he had to be on top of the furthest building to the left.
I shot but didn’t hear anything this time. So then I shot again, and again, and again.
I heard another cry after the fourth shot and bolted for the fence again, shooting as I ran.
Then I reached the fence and scrambled up and over it, relieved to have made it just as I was about to run out of ammo. Holm and Alejandra rushed to meet me.
“Go after him!” I screamed at the patrol officers. “He’s hurt, go grab him and see if he’s still alive. Arrest him!”
Some of them stared blankly back at me, probably because they didn’t understand what I was saying, but a couple of guys figured it out and started barking orders in Spanish to the rest of them.
One of them unlocked a section of the fence, and they all started bolting through, wielding their guns.
“Stay here. Hide in the outpost,” I instructed Alejandra, grabbing her by the arm and leading her in that direction. I gestured for Holm to follow us.
We escorted Alejandra to the outpost and left her to hide out in there. Then Holm and I made our way after the patrol officers.
It was a full-blown shootout now, though there was still only one sniper as far as I could tell. There were so many of us that it was easier for him to see our movements, and he had more targets to choose from.
I dropped my empty magazine, reloaded my gun, and crouched down low to the ground and motioned for Holm to do the same, pressing forward with our firearms at the ready.
A couple of the officers were already down. Some of them weren’t crouching down like they should be, though it may not have made any difference. But some of these guys were obviously well-trained, so they had great aim.
Eventually, the return fire stopped coming at us.
“He’s probably down,” Holm whispered, and he and I picked up our paces.
We were nearing the building by then, if it could be called that. It was more of a shack than anything else, a low building that looked like it might fold if a little wind hit it.
Sure enough, there was a Haitian man with a long rifle draped over the side of the building. He was dead.
“Case the area, see if there are any more,” I called out, and one of the officers translated into Spanish for me.
We surveyed the whole area, all the little huts lined up, but there was no one to be found.
Several officers searched the area and rounded up the body, and we headed back to the outlet.
“Those huts looked like residences,” Holm remarked when we all regrouped back on the Dominican side of the border. “But there was no one living in them.”
“I’m not surprised,” one of the patrol officers, the one who had translated for me, remarked. “There’s been so much violence in this area, that it wouldn’t shock me if the people who actually lived here abandoned it weeks ago, left it for the gangbangers to take over.”
“That one must’ve been a lookout,” I said. “There are probably others scattered all along the fence.”
“Was it worth it?” Holm asked. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, it was his wallet,” I said, pulling it out of my pocket and showing it to him.
“Jake Wallace,” Holm read off the ID. “I wonder if that’s his real name or an alias.”
“We’ll find out,” I said. “I need to call Diane, get back in touch with MBLIS. Figure out what’s really going on here.”
“We’ll have to report this,” the officer said. “The press will have it soon. It won’t be long.”
“We have bigger fish to fry than the press,” Holm said.
Just then, Alejandra came running out of the outpost at the sound of our voices.
“Thank God, you’re alright,” she said, rushing over to me and grabbing hold of my arm. “What happened? Was anyone hurt?”
“A few of our guys got hit,” the officer said. “One seriously. We’ll see how he turns out. We’ll take him into town to get admitted to the nearest hospital.”
“Let us know how he is,” I said.
“What about th
e shooters?” Alejandra asked.
“There was only one, and we killed him,” I said. Then, checking my watch, “It’s getting late. We should get you back to the hotel.”
She nodded, looking relieved at this idea.
“I’ll take you when we take in our wounded,” the officer offered.
“Thanks,” I said. “Lie low for now. We’ll be in touch about how to proceed, but I need to talk to my supervisor first. This is an MBLIS case now.”
CHAPTER 9
Ethan
The officer dropped us back off at the hotel, and Alejandra quickly disappeared into a conference room at the back, leaving Holm and me to sort this all out for ourselves.
“Anything from MBLIS?” Holm asked, and I realized that in all the chaos, I hadn’t thought to check my phone since the ride over to the border. The ride back was bloody and messy from the wounded officers, not to mention that my mind was running a mile a minute with theories and questions about what was going on down here.
I pulled out my phone to take a look.
“Nothing yet,” I said with disappointment. “But we need to talk to them. I’m calling Diane. Let’s go up to the rooms first, though. We don’t want anyone to overhear.”
“Good call,” Holm said, following me to the elevator.
We holed up in my room, and I went through the contents of Jake Wallace’s wallet. It was pretty empty, just the ID, a passport under the same name, and some more cash.
“No credit cards or anything,” I observed.
“Could mean that’s not his real name,” Holm said.
I nodded and called Diane, setting my cell on speakerphone so that Holm could talk, too.
“Ethan,” she answered on the first ring, and I was glad to hear we were back on a first name basis. “I was just about to message you. We received all your samples this morning and just got files from the Dominican border patrol agency. How are things going down there?”
“We’re making headway, but this is a strange case,” I said. “We just ran into a sniper from the Haitian cartel.”
“A sniper?” Diane repeated sharply. “Are you all right?”
“Holm and I are fine, but some Dominican guys got hurt,” I said. “We’re waiting to hear how they turn out. Sniper’s dead, we didn’t get a chance to interrogate him.”
“It was just the one?” Diane asked.
“Yeah, we think they have them set up at different intervals around the border,” I said. “Not because they suspect anything, though they’ll know something happened when they figure out their guy’s missing.”
“What else has happened?” Diane asked.
“Isn’t that enough?” Holm laughed.
We filled her in on everything we had learned since arriving in Santo Domingo.
“You weren’t kidding about this being a strange case,” she laughed once she was all caught up. “And it’s just as strange on our end, I’m afraid.”
“How do you mean?” I asked, leaning forward, intrigued.
“Well, we’ve run the blood samples from the kids at the hospital, the dead one and her three friends,” Diane said. “Bonnie and Clyde might be able to explain it better. I’ll have them message you. But they said the drug isn’t showing up in the bloodstream like a normal narcotic.”
“Is that even possible?” Holm asked.
“Apparently,” Diane said. “Something about it not going through the liver. I don’t know. I’ll have them explain it to you better.”
“So, how do they know it was there in the first place if it didn’t show up in the blood samples?” I asked.
“Well, they didn’t, with the three friends, since all we have is their blood,” Diane explained. “But with the dead girl, we have her full medical records. Bonnie and Clyde say it’s easy to see how the hospital missed it, but it’s there. Something about elevated levels of something or other that can’t be explained naturally, by any of her listed medications, or by any of the other drugs she took.”
“You have a list of her meds?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, they sent that over when they identified her. María Espínoza,” Diane said. “A sad case, she was so young. But aren’t they all, with these things?”
“It certainly seems that way,” I said. I hadn’t had a case quite this depressing since that sex trafficking one a few months back. That had been a doozy.
“So, do they know what the drug is?” Holm asked.
“Not yet, but they’re working on it,” Diane said. “We’re working on getting more samples directly from the hospital. They did tell me that whatever this is, it’s new.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I asked dryly. “All of this points to something bigger than a run-of-the-mill drug bust.”
“Agreed,” Diane said. “So, what do you have on our murder victim?”
I realized that in relating everything else that had happened since our arrival on the island, I’d completely forgotten to tell Diane about Jake Wallace.
“Yes, we’ve got a name,” I said. “Found a wallet at the crime scene. Jake Wallace, Louisiana ID.”
“That’s what got us shot at,” Holm added.
“Interesting, that’s not what we’re getting when we run his prints,” Diane said.
“So, you got a hit?” I asked, exchanging an excited look with Holm.
“Yes, for a Louis Henderson, from Tampa,” she said. “A whole list of drug offenses, in and out of jail since he was a juvenile. Nothing international that we can tell, though.”
“Tampa,” I repeated. “Interesting. Nothing about Louisiana?”
“Nope, but he did seem to disappear off the face of the earth a couple of years ago, so that could explain it,” Diane said. “Skipped parole and was never heard from again. There’s an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Florida, but the police didn’t pursue it much. He wasn’t high up the totem pole, a small-time dealer.”
“Any evidence that he used?” Holm asked.
“No, his blood tests were always negative for everything except alcohol, and occasionally weed,” Diane says. “Seems like he didn’t do the hard stuff.”
“He just took advantage of those who did,” I said. Somehow, those always struck me as the worst kind of drug offenders. People like Henderson couldn’t blame what they did on addiction.
“Can you run Jake Wallace?” Holm asked.
“Doing it now,” Diane said, and I could hear her typing away on her computer. “There’s about a million Jake Wallaces, Jacob Wallaces, and any variation thereof in the system. Over a dozen in Louisiana, but none matching his description.”
“It’s the perfect fake name,” I said. “So common he can hide easily. Have you run him through facial ID?”
“In Florida, but not Louisiana, let me check,” Diane said. “Nope, still nothing.”
“Damn,” Holm cursed.
“This is good though, we have something to go off of now,” Diane said. “And we know he’s American, so this is our case. I’ll talk to my contacts in Louisiana, see what I can find out.”
“What about the drugs?” I asked. “We asked the Dominicans to send you what they took off the guys at the airport bust.”
“Oh, yes, we have that, too,” Diane said. “But our lab techs got nothing from it, sorry. Just run-of-the-mill cocaine and heroin.”
“What a time to be alive,” Holm said. “When cocaine and heroin are ordinary.”
I chuckled. “They tested all of it?” I asked. “We were wondering if maybe it was a case of combined ingredients distributed across the bags.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Diane said thoughtfully. “I’ll check back in with them and have them update you on that as well.”
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll keep you updated on our end.”
“Stay out of too much trouble, boys,” Diane said before signing off.
“This is all so weird,” Holm said, slumping back in his seat.
“You could say that again,” I said, pinching the
bridge of my nose in frustration. “So let’s go over what we know so far. We know that this cartel has increased violence in Haiti and in Dominican border towns. We know that they’ve been smuggling more drugs into the rest of the Dominican Republic and tried to get drugs into Puerto Rico. We know that the perps at the airport wore Haitian voodoo masks. We know that strange overdoses have been happening that don’t show up on blood tests, just like the drug itself doesn’t show up in busts.”
“And we know that the Dominicans are not dealing with the situation well,” Holm added.
“Right,” I said.
“That’s a lot,” Holm said with a nervous laugh.
“We’re professionals, Holm,” I reminded him. “We sign up for a lot. But yeah, this one will be a case for the record books. I can already tell.”
We passed the rest of the morning waiting for Alejandra to get out of her meeting and lounging in the restaurant downstairs, where we settled across from each other at a corner table. I found myself drawn back to the website for the nautical museum in Virginia, obsessing over the Dragon’s Rogue and Grendel’s journal.
I searched the website for what felt like the millionth time for any sign of Grendel, or Lord Jonathan Finch-Hatton, my ancestor. As usual, nothing turned up except for a brief record of the Dragon’s Rogue being commissioned for Finch-Hatton in the first place. No mention of Grendel.
It was strange, though. There wasn’t much of a record of the Dragon’s Rogue anywhere, so why was there a mention of it on this random museum’s website in Virginia?
I resolved again to go up there as soon as I’d accumulated some more time off and had some space to breathe at work. But judging by how this case was going, that wasn’t going to be for a while. That’s what I got for wishing for a case, I supposed.
Just then, my phone buzzed again.
“It’s Bonnie and Clyde,” I told Holm, and he rushed over to my side of the table.
“Anything new?” he asked.
“No, it doesn’t seem like it,” I said, deflated, reading the text message. “They’re just confirming what Diane told us about the drug the girl OD’d on, something about it not going through her liver, which made it not show up on the blood test. But oh, wait. They said that because it doesn’t go through her liver, it shouldn’t be possible for her to OD on it.”