by Jack Hardin
They were both coming now. He could hear them calling for him, wooing him back in that sarcastic way that they had.
More gunshots, more woods chips in his face.
His lungs were burning now, coated with liquid fire, but he didn’t notice so much because all of a sudden his feet sloshed into stagnant water, and with every step his boots stuck a little harder, a little longer. Water reflected the broken sunlight at the base of the trees and told him he was heading into moderate swampland.
The water was now above his ankles. There would be alligators in here. Lots of them, he knew, their hooded eyes protruding from the black water, waiting patiently for some unsuspecting creature to slip on by. And yet, strangely enough, this knowledge did not induce fear.
It didn’t even bother him.
He would rather take his chances with the alligators in front of him than the crocodiles behind him.
Chapter Three
Andrés Salamanca scrolled down the web page, browsing images of surfboards as they passed, musing to himself over color and size, wondering what beach on the eastern coast of the state he should choose and whether or not he might end up being any good. He had never surfed, and the internet said that a beginner board for a man his size should be at least six inches longer than a board for someone who actually knew what they were doing. He could rent one, but he preferred to purchase one instead. He had no hobbies of his 0wn. Ringo had his books, his boats, and his businesses. Chewy, his tall, hairy coworker, had his motivational talks and liked to go on long walks on nature trails.
There was another shipment coming in from Mexico this weekend. Now that their biggest competition was out of the way, business was really ramping up. Once things settled down and new systems and structures were put in place to accommodate the growth, Andrés would take a vacation and go surfing. Take one, Ringo had urged. You never take any time off. And that was when, for the first time since he was a teenager and Maria Ortiz kissed him underneath the mesquite tree in his uncle's backyard, Andrés felt a tingle of excitement.
He had grown up on the dirty, blood-stained streets of Ciudad Juárez, where the only wave to be ridden was a cocaine-induced high or the thick blood lust that hit you the first few times you entered a strip club. Andrés never had tried the stuff he sold. He, like Ringo, knew a good business when he saw one. But in Andrés’s estimation, trying your product while selling it seemed, to him, much like farming piranhas and deciding one day to take a swim in the pond.
He thought briefly of his former associate, Scotch. How he had broken one of Ringo’s rules, nominating himself to be a taste tester of their cocaine, and how he had subsequently met his fate with a twenty-foot python in a sealed room not fifty feet from where Andrés now sat.
Andrés’s phone was sitting on the desktop next to the mousepad. It rang. He scrolled past a few more surfboards and answered without looking at who was calling.
“Is he there?” the caller asked.
“Yes.” Andrés stood and walked to the end of the main hallway and into Ringo’s office. The room was lined with built-in bookcases fifteen feet high. The higher shelves had to be accessed via a rolling ladder. All the books were hardback, clothbound. Classics of history, philosophy, and fiction from the Romantic and Victorian era, all of them a gift to Ringo from Andrés’s former employer, Ángeles Negros, the Mexican cartel that was the single supplier of Ringo’s cocaine.
He walked across a thick Oriental area rug woven in a pattern of two dragons facing off. Two dark leather couches sat in the center of the room, a large mahogany desk near the far window that looked down on the perfectly manicured lawn that terminated at the Caloosahatchee River beyond. Ringo sat behind the desk, leaned over, examining satellite photos of the area.
Andrés stepped close and remained silent. Ringo finally looked up from the photos, took note of the phone in Andrés’s hand, and nodded. Ringo had a policy not to personally talk over the phone. He didn’t trust encryption and masking. The best way to keep a long-standing anonymity was to simply keep your voice off the airways. He paid others enough so that they were willing to do it themselves. Andrés punched the speaker button on the cell phone. “Okay,” he said, and handed it to his boss.
“We’re all set,” Aldrich said. “Five hundred is scheduled and will run into the Alcove and the Cave.” Ringo understood the code. He had conceived it himself. Alcove was Georgia; Cave, Virginia. “Now that Nunez is gone, we can fill his empty routes. Make sure you keep them stocked. I’ll do what I can to keep eyes elsewhere.” Silence, and then, “I heard that our newest associate is running guns now? I thought we had a mutual understanding?”
Ringo muted the phone and spoke to Andrés. “We do. I’ll be dealing with him soon enough. I may want your help with that.” Andrés took it off mute, put it on speaker, said, “We do. I’ll be dealing with him soon enough. I may want your help with that.”
“Fine.” A pause, and then, “We need to be very careful about the Manatee.”
Again, Ringo put the call on mute. “I’m fully aware of that. I never liked doing business with the Manatee from the beginning. That was your idea, if you recall. I suggest you’re the one who remains careful.” Andrés repeated the words into the phone.
“Yeah, I know. I’ll be in touch.” The call ended. Andrés slid the phone into his pocket. “What are those?” he asked, observing the photos.
“I’m scouting new delivery locations.” He chose two of the large photos and handed them to Andrés. “I’ve circled three areas on there. You and Chewy go check them out. I think they’ll be good. I want us more sure than ever on exit points, not just receiving.”
“Okay, Jefe.” He scanned the images. “These are south?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He looked up, looked like he had something on his mind.
“What is it?” Ringo asked.
“There remains the issue about César. Are you going to provide him a date you can meet again? His man called me again this morning.”
Ringo smiled. It was a crooked, sinister smile. He removed his white fedora, the one with the black band, and set it on the edge of the desk. He ran a hand over his buzzed and graying auburn hair. Then he sighed. “I believe it was Chaucer who said that patience is a conquering virtue. What do you think about that?”
Andrés typically demurred with questions like this. He wasn’t intelligent like Ringo. He wasn’t smart like Chewy. But it wasn’t his boss’s intention to shame him when he asked such things. It was Ringo’s way of communicating his philosophy, and it was his meticulous philosophy that helped him build a localized drug empire that almost no one knew existed.
It was how he lived two very different lives.
Andrés gazed through the window at a palm and considered the quote. “Jefe, I think that it might mean that it is good to be patient.” He thought some more. “That maybe the patient man is stronger than the man who is not?”
Ringo nodded, satisfied. “Yes. Precisely. César is too eager. His existing influence, given to him by the cartel, makes him feel powerful. I suppose it should. But the irony is that in his power he has become impatient and overzealous and because of that, less powerful. Impatient men make mistakes, Andrés. I don’t like working with people who make mistakes. That’s why I’m still here, and men like Mateo Nunez are not.”
“What would you like me to tell him? That you won’t meet with him?” Andrés had spent most of his life in Mexico working for César’s people, for Ángeles Negros, Mexico’s most ruthless and, arguably, most successful cartel. Only three years prior had César recommended that Andrés go and work for Ringo. And so he had. It was the best decision Andrés had ever made. Ringo had been good to him. Very good. And Andrés, no longer doing maritime runs across the Gulf, was able to keep a low profile and live somewhat of a normal life. But he knew that the leaders of the cartel were not the kind of men that you blew off or promised to get back to. Always genial on the surface, they turned you into minced mea
t—literally—if they sniffed you undermining them, taking your business elsewhere, or simply disrespecting them. They were of the most feared men in their industry, marble tombs spread over lavish Mexican acres a sober testament to it.
“No. Don’t tell him that I won’t meet with him,” Ringo replied. “I will meet with him. But I’m not ready yet. This will be the third time in a year. In the past he has respected my prudence in only meeting face to face once each year and no more. In addition, the last time we met in Cuba he once again pushed me to move into something other than cocaine. I’m done.”
“Done,” a surprised and intrigued Andrés repeated. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.
Ringo smiled and shuffled the remaining photos into a small stack. “You’ll see, my good man. In the meantime be...patient. I’m working on something. I’ll let you know soon. Send Chewy in, will you? I need him to run somewhere for me.”
“Of course, Jefe.”
Chapter Four
The parking lot had just gotten a fresh coat of paint, its deep black contrasting against bright white lines marking off each parking space. Ellie parked her Silverado in her usual spot at the far end of the lot and stepped out into the warm morning sun. Her appointment, five minutes from now, was with Garrett Cage, the Special Agent in Charge who headed up the DEA’s Fort Myers office and an old friend who went back to her high school days. Garrett had brought Ellie on with the agency three months ago, during which span Ellie had managed to bring down an elusive drug ring, doing so with brevity and style. Thereafter, Garrett had ordered her to take three weeks off, said it wasn’t a suggestion, and that between a couple bruised ribs and a successful bust she deserved it. Today they were meeting to discuss her next course of action. They had taken down Mateo Nunez’s organization, and that was something to be celebrated. But celebrations were hard to come by and quickly passed. They knew that, at a minimum, there remained at least one more local kingpin hovering unseen below the surface. Someone who they knew absolutely nothing about.
Ringo.
After scanning her badge on the front door’s card reader and getting through the metal detector, Ellie rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. She walked across a sea of cubicles and knocked on the glass door to Garrett's office. She didn’t see him behind his desk. Sandra, his receptionist, told her to go on in, that Garrett would return in a few minutes.
The glass door shut quietly behind her, and she walked in, stepping up to the wide window that overlooked Fort Myers. When Ellie left the CIA over nine months ago, she would never have imagined that she would end up back home working for a completely different agency. But these last three months with the DEA had been unexpectedly satisfying. Ellie was good at her directive and found, to her surprise, that she actually enjoyed it. She stepped away from the window and over to a wall filled with pictures, diplomas, and certifications. There was a picture of Garrett with several members of his FAST team on tour in Afghanistan five years ago. They were posing in their desert BDUs, eyes encased in sunglasses, helmets on, rifles in hand. Garrett had left FAST a year after the picture was taken and accepted a post at DEA headquarters in Springfield, Virginia, before being offered the helm at Fort Myers almost a year ago now. It was one of life’s ironies, she thought. During the four years that Ellie and Garrett had gone to high school together, the senior class had endowed Garrett with the unofficial title of being the most committed to smoking marijuana. As Garrett told it, a wake-up call had come soon after they graduated in the form of his favorite cousin dying of a heroin overdose, convincing Garrett to quit smoking posthaste, which he accomplished cold turkey. After being drug free for several years, his veins had been clean long enough for the Army to take him in, where he served four years before getting out and making a transition to the DEA. Still scanning the wall, Ellie took note of a framed photo of Garrett in a suit, standing next to the agency's Principal Deputy Administrator, Timothy Jackson. The men were looking into the camera, shaking hands.
Garrett had done well for himself over the years. For the time being he was at the helm of the Fort Myers district office, but Ellie expected him to continue climbing the ladder to the top. It wouldn't surprise her if he ended up in Virginia several years from now as a division chief.
The door whispered over the carpet as it opened. Garrett walked through. He was a handsome man with a strong forehead that didn’t detract from a well-defined face. He kept his jet black hair finger-combed to the side, and his blue eyes were bright and piercing, his eyebrows thick. Ellie saw him for a man who would age well, someone who would look distinguished well into his golden years.
She motioned to the picture of him in Afghanistan. “You ever miss being over there in the field?”
He glanced at the picture as he maneuvered around his desk. “I guess.” He gave a weak shrug as he sat down. “I haven’t told you much about my time over there. On one hand, yes, I loved it. Some of the best men and women I’ve ever had the opportunity of working with were over there. Some of them still are. But as you know, it’s all opium over there. Nearly a million acres in Afghanistan alone are seeded with the stuff, and it produces thousands of tons every year. We did good work over there, but it was especially difficult to make any sustainable progress. The DEA is trying to arrest the kingpins and destroy their stockpiles, the CIA is trying to buy them off so they can use them to rat others out, and other agencies have their own conflicting agendas. I got weary of all the competing objectives that tended to keep the wrong people high on the hog. Anyway,” he said. “Enough of that. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad. Still a little sore but nothing broken.” She took a seat.
“Good. That was a heck of a fight you were in.” He folded his hands on the desk and leaned into them. “So, are you ready to get back at it? Or do you want some more time?”
“I wouldn't be here if I wasn't ready to go.”
“And this is the same Ellie O’Conner that I couldn’t beg to join me at the first? Now you’re raring to get back out there?” He smiled.
“My father trained me to expect success. We’ve had some, and now I want more.”
“Well, your father was right.” He leaned back into his chair and flipped an ankle on top of a knee, clasped his hands. “So, this is your investigation. Since we got Nunez, I’ve been tied up with way more things than would interest you, so...what’s on your mind in terms of our next move?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I want to go after Ringo.”
Garrett frowned, nodded. “Ringo? You mean the Casper the Ghost? I don’t think we have anything substantial on him, do we?”
“No, we don’t. But that’s my job, isn’t it? We didn’t have anything substantial on Nunez until Mark and I started sniffing around. Ringo’s name keeps coming up. There must be something to it. On top of that, whoever called us and gave us the lead on the drug swap on Norman Hardy’s island—I think it was the competition trying to gain ground. I can’t help but think we made it easier for them to succeed.”
Garrett drummed a set of fingers over his knee. “All right,” he finally said. “But I want you to keep me up to speed every step of the way. Anything you find out, every jot and tittle, I want to know about it. I’ve already got my higher ups breathing down my neck about having you on board without their authorization. They like what you did with Nunez, but I’m still on thin ice now that everyone down in Miami knows what I have you doing. When asked, I need to be able to tell them in real time what you’re seeing out there. Also, if you don’t find anything quickly, then I want you to move on to something that might furnish results a little faster. I hate to push you that way, but, as you know, that’s the world we inhabit around here.”
Ellie nodded. “I got it. Did Mark ever get any interviews with the guys we arrested at the Ridgeside property?”
“No, he didn’t. None of their lawyers will let them talk until a decent plea bargain is reached with the DA’s office. So that option is weeks away, if not months.”
“I figured as much. Any further word on where Trigg Deneford and Eric Cardoza slipped off to?”
That got a huff out of Garrett. Three weeks ago, less than two days after they arrested a couple men working the local drug scene, the men had disappeared. They had been locked up, and then were set free. “No idea,” he said. “I’ve put in calls to my superiors, and they’ve said it’s way outside my pay grade. Theirs too.”
“Theirs too?” Ellie repeated, astounded.
“Yeah. Bizarre, isn’t it?”
“So two men who had a hand in bringing tons of cocaine into Lee County have been released from prison, and no one can tell us anything? Does that sound right to you?”
“Of course not.” He turned his palms up. “But what am I supposed to do? I’ve been told to stay out. I’ve even had Glitch dig around through the networks, and he’s saying it's like Deneford and Cardoza never even existed. All he could find was the arrest record written by our own office.”
“No way.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Whoever these guys were working for must be at the top of the food chain.”
“And you’re not getting any more support from Miami after our bust?” Ellie asked.
“You would think so, but no. No, I’m not.”
“Why? That just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Look, because of what you and Mark did, our office got a nod from the top, but they’re standing firm on their MO for the year, and that’s focusing on Miami-Dade. Budget talks begin at the end of the year. You know how it is. If there isn’t a thick line item in the budget for it, then it has no philosophical or operational weight.”