by Lincoln Matt
“So, what was this you said about a second shipment?” Holm asked them. “They already made one into the States?”
“I believe so, yes,” Junior confirmed. “Though I can’t say for sure. We’ve kind of been removed from the inner circle in recent weeks. They notice how much Papa hates what they are doing. I fear they intend to get rid of us soon anyway, but Papa refuses to leave the shop.”
“You haven’t heard anything about Wallace?” I pressed. “You haven’t heard that he’s dead?”
“The American is dead?” Junior asked with mild curiosity. “Interesting. But no, I’ve heard nothing of this.”
The old man started cackling wildly again, with such force that he rocked back and forth against the wall. We all looked at him questioningly.
“My grandfather is happy to hear this,” Junior explained, almost looking embarrassed. “He’s always said that abandoning the old ways will make these people eat each other alive, and now that turns out to be true.”
“What makes you think that the cartel killed him?” Holm asked, narrowing his eyes at the Haitian men.
“Who else would kill him?” Junior asked with a shrug. “No one else around here has guns, except the border patrol, and if they’d killed him, you wouldn’t be coming around here asking questions about his death now, would you?”
“All right, fair enough,” Holm relented. “Now, where’s this ship everyone keeps talking about?”
“It is off the southeastern coast of Haiti,” Junior said. “I am sorry, this is all that I know.”
“Good enough, thank you for your help again, Samuel, Junior,” I said, nodding to them each in turn. “We’ll leave you to your business now.”
The old man seemed content with this, but the younger one did not.
“No, wait!” he cried, hopping over the front counter to come after us. “You cannot leave us here. They’ll kill us the second they find out you were here, and they will find out. And even if they don’t, hell, they’ll kill us, anyway.”
I smiled to myself. I’d never had any intention of leaving them here, not with all the other information on this drug they were privy to, whether they were ready to share it or not. I just wanted them to think that it was their idea to come with us.
“Oh?” I asked, turning to face them again. “So, you want to come with us where, exactly?”
Samuel said something sharply in French to his grandson.
“No, Papa!” the young man exclaimed, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “I’ve told you many times. We cannot stay here. They’ll kill us. And this is our chance to get out easily. We won’t get another one.”
The old man argued back in French.
“So what if they throw us in prison?” Junior cried in response. “It’s better than ending up like that American man, or worse.”
They argued back and forth some more in French after this, but finally, Junior scoffed and threw his arms up again.
“Forget it, Papa, you do what you like,” he said. “I’m done arguing with you, and I’m done trying to convince you of reality. I’m going with these men whether you come after me or not. Your choice. I wash my hands of it.”
The young man clapped his hands together to illustrate his point. The older man just stood, his back against the wall, and crossed his arms.
“Alright, then,” I said, beckoning for Junior to follow us. “Come on.”
“Agent Marston, you’re not seriously going to…” Martínez started to argue, but I shook my head and shushed him.
I had no intention of leaving the old man behind, but I didn’t think he had any intention of letting his grandson go without him, either, though he was putting up a good fight. I had to give him that. But Junior was the heir to this man’s whole worldview. He wasn’t just going to stay here while the boy left.
And I was right. Just as we were opening the door to leave, I heard the clicking of the old man’s walking stick against the floor as he tried to make his way after us.
He called something out to us in French, and Junior breathed a sigh of relief, turning to help the old man through the cluttered shop and over the bodies of the cartel members.
“He said that if the boy insists on making a fool of himself, he isn’t going to stay behind and miss it,” Martínez grinned.
“I thought not,” I chuckled as I watched Junior help the old man along.
“You’ve made the right decision,” I assured the old man. “I can’t promise you anything, but your cooperation will mean something for your future.”
The old man cackled and responded to me in French.
“He wonders if you’ve taken a look at him in all this time we’ve been talking,” Junior grinned. “He says he doesn’t have much of a future to speak of.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I chuckled.
Together, we all walked back to where we had left the other Dominican police and military men. A sense of dread built within me as we drew closer. We had heard those screams and gunshots before the cartel members had busted into the shop, and I knew that if our own men had survived the fight, they never would have let the gangbangers get that far.
It was slow going, though we hadn’t left them very far away. Samuel moved very slowly, and he rejected all offers of help from Junior or from us.
We got there, though. I could see the blood in the sand on the edge of my vision as we approached, though, and that paired with the sun beating down and the sound of Samuel huffing away beside me made every step feel labored.
“Oh no,” Martínez breathed. “What’s happened?”
Alonso was standing there amidst the other Dominican men, several of whom appeared to be injured, though none were dead.
“The gangbangers got to them before they got to us,” Alonso explained, shaking his head in concern. “They’re going to need medical care. At least one of them quickly.”
He cast a glance at a man with a particularly nasty gunshot wound to his abdomen, which looked to have been the source of the blood I saw on the ground on our way over.
“So, what do we do now?” Martínez asked, shaking his head to clear it. “We don’t have enough men to press on to this ship, or whatever it is, with so many injured. I suppose we could go back and regroup, try to send for some more…”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Holm and I will figure out what to do next. You and Alonso take the men, along with Samuel and Junior, back to Santo Domingo. You’ll have to take both cars, so Holm and I will regroup and figure out what to do. Before anything else, when you get to the city, make sure that the Haitian men have a long talk with Bonnie and Clyde, our lab techs at MBLIS. Alejandra García will know what we mean and where to direct you when you get there.”
“But, Agent Marston,” Martínez protested. “You’ll be walking right into the enemy’s den all alone. We can’t possibly condone…”
“And you don’t have to,” I interjected. “We haven’t decided exactly what we’re going to do yet, but whichever way we fall, this is our case, not yours. And this is what we need to do to solve this murder and get to the bottom of any American involvement in this whole thing. After that, how you choose to handle it is all up to you and your government.”
Martínez tried to protest again, but Alonso put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Agent Marston is right, Chief,” he said. “This is their case, and they’ve proved themselves more than capable of handling it on their own. Our place is to take these men back to Santo Domingo to face justice.”
“Very well,” Martínez relented. “Come, our car is this way.”
And with that, Martínez, Alonso, the rest of the Dominicans, and the Haitian men disappeared on the horizon.
CHAPTER 24
Alejandra
Alejandra, Ricardo, and their guards made it back to Santo Domingo without incident, though it was a tense journey, to say the least. The guards and policemen were constantly on edge, jumping to raise their weapons whenever the forme
r gangbanger so much as moved to scratch his nose.
Alejandra couldn’t blame them. She was still wary of Ricardo herself, though she agreed with the MBLIS agents that it was highly unlikely that he would choose to cross them now. He may be a self-interested agent, but it was squarely in his self-interest to cooperate with the Dominicans from here on out.
The guards had told Alejandra during their trip that they wanted to take Ricardo straight to prison upon their arrival, initially ignoring all of her protestations to the contrary.
“Do you want to see this cartel take over the entire island?” she finally said sharply as they were exiting their car and heading toward the hospital, where she’d convinced the driver to go, grabbing one of the guards’ arms and forcing him to give her his attention. “Is that what you want? Because that’s what we get if the Americans can’t talk to him.”
“I thought they already spoke with him last night,” the man sighed. “This is a highly dangerous prisoner, Ms. García. I simply cannot let you run off with him, giving him even more chances to get away from us.”
“Would you prefer he sit in prison while our country goes to the dogs, and our children all turn up dead with their brains eaten from the inside out?” Alejandra asked simply.
The policeman didn’t seem to have a response to this.
“That’s what I thought,” Alejandra said quietly, before grabbing Ricardo by the arm and marching him in the direction of the hospital where she had instructed the driver to drop them off.
Reluctantly, the guards and policemen followed her into the hospital.
There was another, far younger policeman waiting for them there.
“Alejandra García?” he asked, rushing over to her nervously. “I am Officer Díaz. I spoke with Agents Ethan Marston and Robbie Holm the other day. Agent Marston told me to meet you here.”
“Oh yes, I think I heard him talking about you,” Alejandra said, taking the young man’s hand. “You’re the officer who helped MBLIS interrogate those witnesses.”
“Uh, yeah, that was me,” the kid said, running a hand through his hair nervously as he cast a glance at Ricardo. “Is that him? The one they told me about?”
“Yes, that’s him,” Alejandra confirmed with a nod, knowing that Díaz had been forewarned about Ricardo’s arrival. “It would be best if we could talk to the MBLIS lab techs. Are they here?”
“Yeah, I’ll take you to them,” Officer Díaz said. “They’re in the lab.”
“I think we’ll be okay, boys,” Alejandra said, turning to face the guards who had come with her.
“Ms. García, I really don’t think--” one of them started to say, but she cut him off.
“Oh, I’ll be just fine, Officer,” Alejandra said, linking her arm with a flushed Díaz’s. “I have all the protection I need. Officer Díaz and I will be just fine, isn’t that right?” She looked at the young man.
“Um, yes, ma’am,” he stammered. “I mean, of course. I remember my training.”
He puffed out his chest a bit at this for emphasis and placed his free hand on the hilt of the gun hanging at his hip.
“You sure you got this, kid?” the guy asked, giving him a skeptical look.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ricardo muttered. The guards all looked at him with surprise. “Yes, I speak Spanish. You would know that if you bothered to ask.”
“We’re fine, boys,” Alejandra reiterated, staring daggers at them. “You can wait out here if you’d like.”
She just wanted these hawks off her back. She was sick of them following her around, and besides, the whole hospital was already crawling with officers. They were everywhere, which meant that there had just been more and more cases popping up in recent hours.
“Very well, we’ll wait out here,” the man relented, and he and his companions lined up near the doors.
“Thanks for that,” Alejandra muttered to Díaz as they walked away with Ricardo, their arms still linked. “I was beginning to think I would die of suffocation.”
“No problem,” he said with another nervous laugh. “Um, he isn’t going to try to run off, right?” He cast a wary glance at Ricardo again.
“Oh, Ricardo and I are good friends by now, isn’t that right, Ricardo?” Alejandra asked as they rounded a corner down a dull white hallway crawling with more officers and doctors and lab techs in white coats.
“I suppose so,” Ricardo said coolly.
“Don’t worry,” she assured Díaz. “He has no reason to run off. Getting a deal with us is his last shot at making it through this thing alive. Those guards were just paranoid.”
“I don’t blame them,” Díaz sighed. “Not after what I’ve seen in the last few days. I’ve barely left this hospital.”
“That bad, huh?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many police officers in one building before.”
“Yes, there are so many cases now,” Díaz said, his kind face suddenly dark and far older than his years. “A girl I went to school with even turned up dead this morning.”
“Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that,” Alejandra said. She hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad. Ethan and Robbie had better act quickly in Haiti.
“It’s alright, I didn’t know her very well,” Díaz said, though he still looked troubled.
Díaz led Alejandra and Ricardo all the way back to a small lab in the basement of the hospital. Inside, there were two Americans, a man and a woman, in lab coats.
“Ah, you must be Alejandra García,” the man said as he raised his eyes from a microscope, a cheerful smile on his face. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“And you must be the ones they call Bonnie and Clyde,” Alejandra said, reaching out and shaking the man’s hand. “I’m glad to meet you.”
He had a rumpled-up old t-shirt on under his lab coat, while the woman wore a floral print dress.
“Yes, we’re glad to have you here,” the woman said, rushing over and shaking Alejandra’s hand in turn. “And you are?” She turned to Ricardo questioningly.
“I am Ricardo,” he said simply.
“I think this is the guy Diane and Ethan were talking about,” Clyde not-so-subtly murmured to Bonnie.
“That would be me,” Ricardo sighed in assent.
“We’re hoping that Ricardo here can help you out,” Alejandra said, giving the former gangbanger a sly smile. “Isn’t that right, Ricardo?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Just so long as certain… what is the word… assurances are made.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Alejandra said. “I’ll have a talk with my father—erm, the President—and make sure that everyone holds up our deal.”
“Those policemen didn’t seem to want to do that,” Ricardo pointed out.
Alejandra noted that the Haitian man was all of a sudden a lot more talkative than he had been the whole ride to Santo Domingo. It seemed the guards had been a stifling presence for him. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad thing, but she was glad she got rid of them when she did. He needed to talk to these lab techs if they were going to get to the bottom of this drug situation.
“Well, they’re gone now,” Alejandra said simply, “and I’ll keep them gone for now.”
“It will be alright, Ricardo,” the woman, Bonnie, said, crossing over to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Why don’t you come and look at what we’ve been working on here?”
The woman winked over her shoulder at Alejandra, showing the other woman that she wasn’t nearly as naïve as she seemed. She just thought she knew how to get the guy to talk, so Alejandra felt more comfortable leaving them there together. Besides, Officer Díaz was there if the Haitian man were to try anything. Not that she thought he would.
“I should step out,” she told Clyde. “I need to make a call. But then, I want you to catch me up on everything that’s been going on over here.”
“Of course,” he said, already seeming to have forgotten Alejandra in his eagerness to hear w
hat Ricardo had to say. “We’ll talk to you soon.”
With one last look to make sure Díaz was hovering closely by the lab techs, Alejandra stepped out into the empty white hallway leading to the rest of the basement and dialed for her father. She’d only been able to exchange sparse messages with him since they last spoke, and they’d had no communication to speak of since Ricardo showed up. The MBLIS agents had let their boss, Diane, communicate with the Dominican government about him.
It was no surprise, then, to find that she had several missed calls and messages from him. She didn’t bother checking them before dialing. She already knew what he was going to say.
Sure enough, he picked up on the first ring.
“Alejandra, my daughter, how could you be so reckless?” he cried, and she could almost hear his arms waving in the air in his distress. “Please tell me that you are safe and away from all those dangerous men.”
“I’m back in Santo Domingo,” she assured him.
“You did not answer my question, not truly,” he scolded. “I am told that you escorted a known high-ranking member of this cartel into the city? I could hardly believe my ears.”
“Oh, Father, you act as if you’ve never met me,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I’m fine. And more than capable of taking care of myself. I even killed a couple of those cartel members myself.”
“After they cornered you and started shooting at you, from what my sources have told me!” he cried, and she rolled her eyes almost all the way into the back of her head.
“And yet here I am, Father,” she said. “Perfectly fine, all in one piece, and possibly holding the key to ending this thing. All after I managed to get the border towns to reach an agreement. Something you were unable to do yourself.”
“I never said that you weren’t excellent at your job,” he huffed, but she could hear a hint of pride in his voice, which made her feel a hint of pride in herself. All those fancy men in fancy suits with their fancy degrees, and she was the one to save the day. It was something to be proud of, she supposed.
“Oh, Father, you worry too much,” she said, shaking her head, but she was smiling.