Allies

by Wolf Riedel

  “Good all around I’d say. Things are pretty much coming together but there`re a lot of loose ends yet. The most important thing is that Tampa PD found Megan Lewis being held captive in a house in Tampa.”

  “We read abut that in the Times yesterday,” said Marie. “Tejeda had a big article on it.”

  “I bet it didn’t mention that after she was taken in Ocala she was brought to Tampa and kept in a house with her sister and several other young girls being groomed to be prostitutes for high-rolling pedophiles in town.”

  “No. That wasn’t in the article,” said Phil.

  “Nope. Nor was the fact that her parents were members of the Los Paras, a gang of mostly military folks located around the Gulf and Afghanistan who trafficked converted automatic rifles and heroin to a Mexican cartel in exchange for cocaine and marijuana that they sold here in Florida. Neither was the fact that the hit on the Lewises was by MQ-27, a rival gang here in Tampa which is allied with the Mexican Gulf cartel. That should all come out in tomorrow`s edition though.”

  “So Sage is still talking to Tejeda?”

  Kurt nodded.

  “Time to get our public affairs guys to earn their pay,” Phil said shaking his head.

  “Yeah. Well it’s hard to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” said Kurt. “Tampa PD wants this all out but they want to pace it while they’re still rounding up the prostitution operation and their Johns. Sage figures that one of the guys that did the Lewis hit was this guy Herrera who was then killed a couple of weeks ago by his own partner, a guy by the name of Antonio Fierro Juárez. They think Fierro was supposed to kill Megan but for some reason he kidnapped her and kept her at the house where he and his girlfriend lived.”

  “Jésus,” said Marie. “And they didn’t harm her further.”

  “That’s what Megan has told Sage.”

  “So what’s happening with her now? Megan, I mean.”

  “Tampa Family Services has got her and is giving her counseling. They’re trying to work out some placement with family. It’s going to take a while.”

  Marie shook her head.

  “Poor kid. So what happened to Fierro and the girlfriend?”

  “No idea. Tampa PD staked out the place since they found Megan but no one has shown up. They found information that the girlfriend was going to a community college in Tampa and when Sage went there she found out that a young man—presumably Fierro—came to call her out of class the same morning. She hasn’t been back since but they did get some surveillance video of the two of them. That’s the last anyone has seen of them.

  “Strange thing is that the house is deeded to Fierro’s girlfriend’s father and there’s no sign of him for at least a week either.” Kurt shrugged his shoulder. “On top of that there was another reserve Special Forces guy taken out last week in Wauchula who’s also been tied to the Los Paras. This time the shooter let the family live and by the description, everyone figures the Fierro kid is probably good for that one too. Did I mention this kid is seventeen? Busy for his age.”

  Phil shook his head and looked at the setting sun.

  “Lets grab a bite to eat and you can tell us about Afghanistan.”

  Marie had left to go down the street for take-out Sushi while Phil and Kurt sat down in two of the lounge chairs on the lanaii. The wind had started to pick up but being an off-shore breeze, they were sheltered by the house and the swaying palms and palmettos around the yard. Kurt had switched to a Sea Dog IPA that Phil had picked up at World of Beer.

  “You like that one?” asked Phil.

  “It’s hard to screw up an IPA but yeah, I like this one. The last time I had one of them was when I was at the company’s brew pub restaurant in Maine while sampling the competition.”

  “How are your plans for surging the Richter brand further into the US going?” asked Phil.

  “It’s coming. Which reminds me. I’ll need a few days off in the middle of next month. My North American staff are meeting with Willy’s and his people in Germany and bashing around some feasibility studies. Speaking of surge; Iraq still on schedule?”

  “Yup,” said Phil, “although Petraeus’s people have now figured out that they’ll need another forty-seven hundred more support troops as well. On top of that JSOC has been surging in extra door kickers. Kind of interesting how they’re doing things there now. McChrystal has really shook up how they do business.”

  “Not that hard when you’re the Secretary of Defense’s favorite general and get unlimited funds and resources handed to you,” said Kurt cynically.

  “Former Secretary of Defense,” corrected Phil.

  “Whatever. The new guy’s not about to cut the money off now. The trouble is that JSOC’s operations are a knee jerk reaction to a badly conceived campaign that’s gone horribly off the rails. There are going to be millions of trees killed to create the paper for the thousands of reports that will be written at military staff colleges all around the world to say how fucked up Iraq was.”

  Kurt shook his head and took another pull of his beer.

  “Afghanistan was one thing, but with Iraq you’ve let the jihad genie out of the bottle. To paraphrase the Hebrew Bible: for they sow the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind. That’s one genie we’re not getting back in the bottle during our lifetime.”

  “Man, you’re being morose tonight.”

  “I think I have reason to be. We’re a predominantly Christian army in Muslim lands full of devout people who are easily convinced that we’re apostate conquerers while the real assholes are lauded as freedom fighters. The problem with blind faith, Phil, is that it’s blind. No offence.”

  “None taken.”

  “Meanwhile we have half of our force attempting to do nation building while the other half kicks in doors and blows up houses. Don’t get me wrong. We have to fight back against the shitheads but at the same time it’s easy to see why we’re not winning hearts and minds. Mark my words, surge or no surge, this thing may get better for a while but it will deteriorate in time like you won’t believe. There are just too many extreme factions at play in this area and we’ll never get them to kiss and make up nor can we kill them all, JSOC or no JSOC.”

  Marie walked in with several plastic bags.

  “Who’s ready for Sushi?”

  “What’s the final word on our Zabul situation,” asked Phil helping himself to a few more pieces of Tekka Maki.

  “There is no final word. CID in Kandahar has interviewed all of the friendly witnesses and has sent them back stateside. Commander USASOC has posted them to a position where they can be kept together and safeguarded because we don’t know yet what the full extent of McLean’s network is.”

  “So McLean was the real ringleader there? Not Lesperance?” asked Phil.

  “Oh yeah. Big time. And Roper is a lesser follower. As far as we can tell right now, McLean was the number two guy in the organization and Cabello the overall architect. 3rd CID Group is ramping up a task force to coordinate all the moving parts. There are a lot more i’s to dot and t’s to cross before they’re ready to recommend charges.”

  Phil nodded. “Commander USASOC is their boss and convening authority. He’ll need to work on a plan for them once they get back until the final CID Investigation report comes in.”

  “Right. And Cabello is CENTCOM’s problem while Silvera’s the Air Force’s. You on the other hand are coming out golden in this,” said Kurt with a smile.

  “Not really,” Phil said. “The Zabul part of this was going on under my and my predecessor’s noses. On the other hand, there are times where I thank God for the fact that I’m not a convening authority.”

  — § —

  Read on for an excerpt from

  ALLIES: THE Coast

  By WOLF RIEDEL

  PROLOGUE

  — § —

  The Wabasso Beach Resort, Wabasso Beach, Florida

  Tuesday 16 Oct 07 1950 hrs EST

  Jay had stopped moaning. He was going to die if
he wasn’t dead already; of that Priti was certain. She was certain as well that in all probability she’d be dead too before help came.

  A tear rolled down her cheek. The day had started so well.

  The morning had been bright and clear for the most part. It had never really gone below eighty during the night and today, like yesterday, would be in the mid eighties. Puffy white clouds were scuttling in from over the Atlantic. She’d been up at dawn watching the sun rise over the choppy waves as they’d rolled in onto the golden sand in front of their beachfront cottage.

  She’d felt lucky to get the place on such short notice even though October was not part of the peak season for vacationing on the shore. During the summer months and from Christmas to the end of the spring break season it would have been virtually impossible to get a cottage at the Wabasso Resort. Now that she was here, however, she could see that October didn’t have anywhere near the same crowds. Very few people had been gathered on the lounges that surrounded the resort’s expansive pool. Maybe fifteen couples—and no children—occupied the several hundred chairs that were available. The bustling staff outnumbered the guests by a significant ratio.

  She’d arrived two days earlier, flying into Orlando from Baltimore where she’d rented a car—a pewter-colored G Class Mercedes—and drove the Beachline Expressway and I-95 to Sebastian. From there she’d taken the mile-long bridge across the Indian River Lagoon—an intracoastal waterway—to the resort’s location on Orchid Island, one of a long string of Florida’s coastal barrier islands.

  Even though she’d arrived at the resort’s main lodge well before check-in time, the cottage was ready for her. That had been fortunate as it had been a near-run thing as she’d dashed from the lodge’s oceanside porch across the pristine lawn down the winding paths to their cottage. All the way she had to fight back her nausea. She’d made it through the cottage’s front door and into the master bedroom’s ensuite bath with barely a second to spare as the fast-food lunch she’d had in Orlando spewed forth into the toilet bowl. Priti considered the term morning sickness to be an ironic joke. For her the last six weeks had been a constant vomit lottery; she never knew whether she’d be a winner or not nor did she know when the next drawing would be. There had been a few, a very few, glorious days where everything had stayed down but, more often than not, there was at least one event of what Jay had termed calling Ralph on the porcelain telephone. She didn’t know where he’d learned some of the things he came up with but she’d considered this one quite apt.

  Priti flushed twice and sat back on her haunches and waited. She’d learned early on not to stand up too fast but to wait it out. A minute passed and finally she slowly got to her feet and gave her mouth a good rinse. She’d have to unpack the toiletries from her suitcase before she’d be able to brush her teeth. Instead, though, she’d decided to look the cottage over.

  The master bedroom formed the central, and by far the largest of the cottage’s three bedrooms. Each of the other two had its own private, but significantly smaller, bathroom located to the front side of the house. The design was obviously to leave the three bedrooms to have unobstructed views of the Atlantic. In the back, a large deck extended the entire width of the cottage and went from the three bedrooms’ windows and doors out some ten feet or so to rest against the leafy seagrape shrubs, saw palmettos and spindly sea oats that topped the beach’s dune. The plants here were just high enough so that she could see the ocean if she was standing but not if she sat down on one of the three chairs on the deck..

  Priti held onto the deck’s rail and took several deep breaths of the warm, salty air momentarily fighting back another—but this time much smaller—wave of nausea. She looked up over her shoulder to the deck above her that served the second storey of the cottage and decided that she’d give it a look as well before unpacking.

  The upper level of the cottage was reached by an open L-shaped stairway on the front side of the house set between the two smaller bathrooms. As she came to the top of the stairs she again faced the ocean which could be seen through two windows and another doorway that led to the upper deck. To her front was a couch, a love seat and an easy chair arranged in a U facing the cottage’s fourth and final television; to the right front sat a dining room table with eight chairs while the right rear was occupied by a full L-shaped kitchen with a two-seat breakfast bar, fridge, microwave and a four-burner range and oven.

  It was the kitchen which had determined that they would take the three-bedroom cottage—they didn’t need the extra two bedrooms—rather than one of the smaller rooms in the lodge or one of the outlying one or two-bedroom villas. The rooms and villas only had small bar-fridges and microwaves and Priti had decided she’d be doing some real cooking while they were here. Jay had been deployed for three months and his calls home had made it clear that he was getting tired of the food that was being served in the camp’s dining facilities. She would surprise him with some proper home cooking and, just as soon as she’d recovered from her nausea and unpacked her suitcase, she’d be visiting the international foods section of the Publix back on the mainland.

  The next day, Monday, she had spent poolside and cooking until early afternoon when she’d taken Florida’s Turnpike south to pick Jay up at Miami International.

  His flight had been five hours from Djibouti to Qatar with a two-hour layover and then a sixteen-hour direct flight to Miami. What with the timezone changes, he’d left just after midnight and arrived by five in the afternoon of the same day. Jay had been thoroughly wiped out, slept all the way back to the resort and had opted for a salad and a sandwich for supper. By nine he was racked out for a full night’s sleep which was interrupted only twice for torrid lovemaking sessions.

  This morning, after watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee, Priti made her way back to Jay’s side in bed. They’d slept in for a few more hours and then took a day trip to the Blue Cypress Conservation Area for an airboat tour. Half way through she felt sure that she had learned about as much about alligators and the plant, fish and bird life of swamps as she’d ever need to know. The boredom left her reacting negatively to the motion of the boat as it sped amongst the reeds, cattails, lily-pads and seaweed that made up the bulk of the swamp. Mercifully, it was late in the season and the sun was high and hot thus keeping the chiggers and mosquitoes away. If she felt better tomorrow, they’d rent some kayaks to paddle along the Indian River with the hope of seeing a river otter or dolphin or, with luck, a manatee.

  She’d managed to finish the tour without embarrassing herself in front of the other tourists and so she and Jay decided to head back to the resort by way of Vero Beach with a stop for lunch at Mulligan’s, an oceanfront bar and grill. The usual lunch time crowd had come and gone leaving several open tables on the outdoor, covered patio. For Priti a light Cobb salad and Coke Zero; for Jay a lobster roll and a Yuengling draft.

  A leisurely fifteen minute drive up the A1A after lunch brought them back to the resort in the early afternoon with sufficient time to take a few hours of sunshine poolside. It was leisurely and relaxing. When the sun became too hot, a short dip in the almost empty pool refreshed Priti sufficiently for another quarter hour of sun. She’d worked out an hourly rhythm: sun; dip; sun; virgin strawberry daiquiri; repeat. By six the sun had settled low enough amongst the trees to have lost its heat and they’d decided to return to the cottage to have the traditional Maharashtrian meal she had prepared the day before: a Taambda Rassa—red curry with lamb—a lentil Amti, rice, a bowl of spiced vegetables, a mango chutney, chapati, rice and shrikhand as a dessert.

  Jay was overjoyed when she started pulling the Tupperware containers out of the fridge and started reheating all the hot courses, made the rice and heated the chapati one by one in a skillet; this was exactly what he’d been missing in Djibouti.

  Outside the sun had set fully and the muted—turtle friendly—lighting of the resort glowed a faint orange on the buildings, along the pathways and on the dune. The sound of the gently
rolling breakers could be heard through the open balcony door as they gently rearranged and ground up the fine shell and quartz fragments that made up the beach.

  And then everything went wrong fast.

  The queasiness had held Priti back during dinner while Jay ravenously had dug in with second helpings of everything.

  As dinner came close to an end she felt herself becoming even more nauseous and dizzy and left the table to make use of the downstairs bathroom. She’d left Jay sitting back in his chair, undoing the belt on his shorts and rubbing his neck.

  In the bathroom she tried to vomit but couldn’t. The nausea might still have been there but by now it was taking second place to the pain in her stomach, an increase of the dizziness and a tingling in her mouth. Confusion and fear started to grip her and she tried to call for Jay but couldn’t get the words out. She knew that she needed help and agonizingly, step by step she pulled herself back up the stairs.

  Jay no longer sat in the chair but lay next to it half way under the table. His breathing was labored. She faintly called to him but although he looked in her direction his mouth didn’t move and his eyes didn’t connect with hers.

  By now on her hands and knees, she crawled toward him. As she came closer, she saw a puddle of vomit next to his face and at that moment was struck by a new wave of nausea which caused her to spew all over her hands. Her sight was dimming but she continued to crawl to Jay whose breathing was labored. She touched his hands and felt that his skin was cold and clammy. He seemed to react to her touch but his eyes stared blankly ahead as before. There were shallow moans coming from him. In her mind it finally registered that there was no way that he would be able to help her and in fact was in more desperate need of help than she was.