We got in the car and Conn turned it on.
“What do you feel like eating tonight?” Conn asked. “I think I owe you a nice dinner.”
“I don’t know, but I’m starved.”
We both just about jumped out of our skin. The answer had come from a voice in the back seat. We turned as one to look.
The dark figure who had been sitting there leaned forward. He was holding out a leather case with a badge and some identification. It was much too dark in the car to read. Conn reached up and punched the overhead light switch and the car was flooded with light. The man reached up and switched it back off.
“Wilcox,” he said. “I’m with the feds. Not to worry. Maybe you could give me a lift back to Augusta and Mr. Hacker and I can have a little conversation.”
“Are you FBI?” Conn asked, using his deep, impressive lawyer voice.
The man in the back seat leaned back into the shadows and sighed.
“Good Lord no,” he said. “Let’s just say I’m with one of the alphabet agencies and leave at that, shall we?”
“Is this an official inquiry?” Conn continued.
“Counselor,” the man said, “I’m hiding in your back seat. Of course this isn’t an official inquiry. I don’t have a warrant. If anyone asks, I’m not even here. I just want to talk a bit with Mr. Hacker here. Can we go?”
“This is highly unusual,” Conn said. “I’m within my rights to ask you for more information of the nature of this visit, or ask you to leave.”
“Yeah,” the man said, “You could. But I wouldn’t recommend it. As one of our former presidents liked to say, ‘Wouldn’t be prudent.’ Especially for Mr. Hacker, here.”
I put my hand on Conn’s arm.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Hear what the man has to say.”
Conn shrugged and put the car in gear and we headed out of the Palmetto Club.
“What did you say your name was?” Conn asked, glancing back in his rear view mirror.
“Warren,” he said.
“I thought you said Wilcox,” I said.
“Wilcox, Warren, Wilson…who gives a damn?” he said. “I think Enrico de la Paz knows you’ve been sniffing around and that could be dangerous.”
“How do you know that?” I said, astounded.
We were passing through downtown Aiken, and the streetlights cast their dim orange glimmer into the car. I turned around to look at Wilcox, or Wilson or whoever. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He was dressed in black slacks and a dark-colored long-sleeved shirt. His hair was dark and closely trimmed. I couldn’t see his eyes, lost in the shadows of his face. He grinned at me.
“Sonny boy,” he said, “I’ve been following Senor Enrico around for about a year now. I know everything about the man right down to what kind of underwear he likes. Boxer briefs, by the way. I think he likes the extra feeling of support in the …”
“Too much information!” Conn yelled.
Wilcox chuckled. “Anyway,” he continued, “We’ve got him under close surveillance. And let’s just say his world and yours appear to have collided. That’s not a good thing.”
“Did he kill the Judge kid?” I asked quietly.
“Is that what this is about?” Wilcox said, wonder in his voice. “What do you care about the Judge kid?”
“I promised his people I’d try to find out what happened to him,” I said.
“He got shot,” Wilcox said.
I turned, furious. “Don’t you dare be flip about it,” I said. “I don’t know who you are or what branch of our imperial federal government you work for, but you have no right to be flip about that young man. There are people who loved him and want to know what happened to him.”
There was silence from the back seat. “I apologize,” Wilcox said, quietly. “It’s pretty easy to get conditioned to death in my line of work. You’re right, the Judge kid is just as important as anyone else.”
“So who killed him?” I asked again. “De la Paz?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I thought you said you’ve been following him for a year,” I said.
“Well, yeah,” he said. “But not 24/7. There’ve been some budget cuts.”
“You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie,” I said, mostly under my breath.
“How’s that?”
“Nothing,” I said.
Conn spoke up.
“I believe my friend Hacker is expressing some sense of dismay that yet another institution of our fine federal government is—how shall I put this?” He was speaking in courtroom cadence now, “About as useful as a third leg. That about right, Hacker?”
I nodded.
“What about Maria?” I asked. “Is she in danger?”
“Naw,” Wilcox said. “We’ve had people watching her.”
I made a harrumph noise. “Hope they do a better job than they did with Rico,” I said.
“Well, now that we know Enrico is, umm, in active mode, we’ve added some resources,” he said.
“Was that Enrico’s active mode taking pot shots at Kitchen from the woods this morning?” I asked next.
“Very likely,” he said.
“Why?”
“I think Lt. Kitchen was getting a little too close,” Wilcox said. “Like you, he seemed somewhat adamant to find out who killed the Judge kid. We tried to dissuade him, but he kept on. Stubborn fellow.”
“I think he feels it is his job to discover who is killing people in his county and put them in jail,” Conn said from the driver’s seat.
“Laudable concept,” Wilcox said. “But his investigation was beginning to overlap a bit on our operations, so we had to close him down.”
“How’d you do that?” I wondered.
“Well, first we tried being nice, in a meeting with Kitchen and his boss. He told us to, I think the phrase was, ‘take a flying fuck from the fantail.’ Colorful language. So then we stopped asking and told him to halt the investigation. Or rather, had the sheriff order him. Confiscated his case records. So he up and quit.”
“And probably wasn’t going to stop investigating,” I guessed.
“Probably not,” Wilcox agreed. “Which is probably why Rico tried to take him out today.”
“How did Rico know where he was?” I asked.
Wilcox chuckled again. “Rico is pretty resourceful,” he said. “He is known as ‘L’Aguila Negron,’ the Black Eagle. He flies alone. He flies under the radar. He’s in and out before you even know he’s there at all. They give him the most important missions and he plans and executes them alone. He believes working with other people is just an opportunity for someone to screw the pooch. He’s fluent in several languages, he knows how to use disguises. He’s one of the better ones I’ve come across.”
“And now he’s after me?” I asked.
“Well, I’m not sure about that,” Wilcox said. “I think he knows that someone at Augusta National has asked someone to look into the Judge killing. Right now, I think he’s laying low and waiting to see what happens next.”
“And what is the connection between this international man of mystery and Augusta National?” I asked.
“Ah,” Wilcox said. “That my friend is an excellent question. But I’m still hungry. What say the U.S. government takes you gentlemen out for a steak? We can talk about all this over a nice T-bone.”
I looked at Conn and he looked at me. We both shrugged. Why not?
Chapter Sixteen
Conn pulled into the parking lot of a strip shopping center back in Augusta and parked outside one of those Australian steak joints you can now find on every franchise row. As usual, it was busy and people were lined up outside waiting to be summoned for the opportunity to drop a lot of money on some over-cooked meat.
Wilcox told us to wait and went inside. He came out in a minute or two and motioned for us to follow. The people waiting in line gave us looks of equal parts envy and hatred. We wa
lked inside and followed the hostess to a table at the back of the restaurant. Wilcox insisted on taking the seat with his back to the wall, where he could see the entire restaurant, especially the front door.
“How’d you do that?” I asked. “This place doesn’t take reservations. It’s part of its so-called charm.”
Wilcox winked at me. “I believe you called it the imperial federal government,” he said. “Works good at getting tables in busy restaurants and other things like that.”
“Too bad it’s not so good at foreign wars and hurricane relief,” I said.
“Not my department,” Wilcox said.
The waiter came with menus and started to go into his faux-Aussie shtick, with the throw another shrimp on the barbie stuff. Wilcox cut him off and said we’d have three steaks, medium rare, baked potatoes with everything, and a pitcher of cold beer. “And make it snappy,” he said. “We’re hungry.”
“Yessir,” the kid said, almost clicking his heels together. He must have been in the military once. He turned smartly and left.
“So what is this operation you’re running and how does Enrico and Augusta National fit into it?” I said.
“What?” Wilcox grinned at me, “No foreplay? Right to the main act? Hacker, you disappoint me. I thought you’d want to do-si-do around a little first.”
“Normally, I would,” I said. “But after watching someone get shot at today, I’d much rather find out what the hell is going on.”
He chuckled. “I guess I understand,” he said. “Everybody reacts differently under fire.”
“I’ve been under fire before,” I said. “I just want to know what’s going on and how it might affect my life.”
“Do you know what a Judas goat is?” Wilcox asked, buttering a roll casually.
“No,” I said.
“Isn’t that like a goat shepherds used to train to lead all the others into the slaughterhouse?” Conn piped up. He’d been strangely silent since Wilcox invaded his car.
“Very good, counselor,” Wilcox said, nodding in approval.
“By the way, how do you know I am a lawyer?” Conn asked.
Wilcox just looked at him across the table, expressionless.
“Oh,” Conn said. “That’s right, you’re working for an alphabet agency.”
Wilcox smiled at him as one would a child who suddenly grasped some obvious concept after a long struggle.
“These days, we think of a Judas goat as more of a decoy,” he said. “We put one out there and see who shoots at it. Tells us a lot about the shooters, like who they are and where they are coming from. Useful in our line of work.”
“And the relevance of this …?” I let the question trail off.
“You’re the decoy,” Wilcox said to me.
“How’s that?” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was pretty certain I didn’t like the part about being shot at.
“You’ve been asked to come down here and kick around a little, right? See what you could find out about the Judge kid?”
I was sure I didn’t like the fact that Wilcox and his alphabet friends seemed to know everything about my life. But I let him continue.
“I think they already know everything about what happened to the Judge kid,” he said. “They wanted to see what was coming next. So they trotted you out there to see who might come after you. Then they’d know exactly who was behind it and what to do about it. Cynical, perhaps, but effective.”
The waiter came with our steaks, which gave me a chance to sit there and think. While the food looked and smelled divine, I was suddenly without appetite. The implications of what Wilcox had just said were blasting through my head.
Wilcox was practically rubbing his hands together in glee as the food was laid out in front of him. He poured out three glasses of beer, snapped his napkin onto his lap and picked up his knife and fork.
“Yum,” he said.
Conn was looking at me strangely.
“Hacker?” he asked. “Are you OK? You’ve gone as white as a sheet.
I waved my hand weakly.
“You’d better start at the beginning,” I said to Wilcox.
He nodded, mouth full, chewing furiously. “Eat,” he mumbled. “Don’t let it get cold.”
I tried. It tasted like cardboard. I ate a few bites and mostly pushed my food around the plate while Wilcox and Conn shoveled it in like it was the Last Supper. Perhaps that’s not the best analogy, but it’s the one that came to mind as I watched them eat. I felt an itchy spot in my back, right between my shoulder blades, and kept looking back over my shoulder at the people in the restaurant, who were going about their business of dining and not paying me any attention. Wilcox must have seen me do this four or five times before he spoke up.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Hacker,” he said. “If Rico comes through that door with guns a-blazing, I’ll yell for you to duck.”
He must have thought that was pretty funny, because he started laughing uproariously. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to dump the remaining beer in our pitcher over his head. Conn smiled wanly, but looked like he’d like to bury his steak knife up to the hilt in the guy’s chest. We waited until he calmed down.
Eventually, the waiter came back and cleared the table. Wilcox ordered coffee all around, and when it arrived, he sat back and heaved a satisfied sigh.
“Damn that was good,” he said. “You can’t get a good dinner like that in the jungles of Colombia. Though if you can marinate one of those agoutis in tequila overnight, they’re not half bad roasted on a stick.”
“I don’t know what an agouti is,” Conn said, “And I don’t think I want to.”
“Right, then,” I said, “Let’s get back to the present problem. Tell me what the hell is going on.”
Wilcox held up a hand.
“I can’t tell you everything I know, because some of it involves either national security or an ongoing operation,” he said. “But we’ve had our friend Rico under surveillance for quite a while. He’s a busy man.”
“Who does he work for?” I asked.
“One of the major Colombian cartels,” Wilcox said. “But that too doesn’t really mean anything. The cartels themselves are not exactly independent organizations. There are alliances and relationships that extend in and out of Colombia like you wouldn’t believe. For instance, we know Rico’s group has some interesting connections with the government of Venezuela. That means they also have connections with Cuba, Nicaragua and probably Russia. Maybe Iran, but we haven’t proved that yet.”
“What kind of relationships are we talking about?” Conn asked.
“Basically, it boils down to safe haven to produce, store and transport narcotics in return for cash,” Wilcox said. “We’ve managed over the years to put a pretty good dent in the traffic between Colombia and both the United States and Europe. So the cartels have been trying to pull an end-around. They move their stuff across the border into Venezuela, or Brazil, or Ecuador and then ship it from there. Or they take it over to Cuba where they can ship it easily into Spain and on to East Europe and Russia. If you’ve been paying any attention to the news, you know that Venezuela is not exactly a friendly anymore. And Cuba…well, Cuba has always been a problem. With the political situation the way it is these days, once they get the goods into either of those countries, we can’t do much about it.”
“Things haven’t been going well with U.S.-Venezuelan relations, have they?” Conn said.
Wilcox shrugged. “We’ve got some people working on that problem,” he said. “But for now, it’s ‘Yankee Go Home.’”
“But what has any of this to do with Augusta National?” I asked. “And why is Enrico up here shooting at people?”
“Ah,” he said, “That gets a little trickier. And it involves some ancient history. Like back to the beginning of the last century. There was a little old company over in Atlanta just getting started up, called the Coca-Cola Company …”
“I know, they imported cocaine from Colombia to put in their drink,” I said. “I’ve heard that story.”
“Well, it’s more accurate to say that they imported the coca leaf,” Wilcox said. “They used some kind of extract in the formula, not the street drug we know today. But they bought lots of the stuff, and created a pipeline to get it up here. And a company down there to buy from the farmers and prepare it for shipment to the states. Time goes by, the government makes the stuff illegal in 1914, so Coca-Cola has to find another secret ingredient to put in their syrup. Which they do. But that company down in Bogata is still there, and it still has an excellent transportation and logistics network into the states. On the surface, it’s now a Coke bottling and distribution plant.”
“But they kept shipping coca north,” I said.
“Yeah,” Wilcox said. “Frankly, no one paid much attention back then. We weren’t really fighting a drug war, especially after they passed Prohibition. The feds were chasing bootleggers of booze and busting up speakeasies. So that little company in Colombia just kept loading and sending the stuff up. Nice little piece of business.”
“You still haven’t explained the Augusta connection,” I pointed out.
“Getting to that,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Okay, so now we get to the Nineteen Thirties. They repealed Prohibition in ’33, probably because with the Depression and everything, they figured most Americans needed a stiff drink every now and then just to get by. Once that happened, the feds needed a new target, and drugs were at the top of the list.
“One day, some of Hoover’s G-Men pay a little call on the head of Coca-Cola over in Atlanta and start asking him some questions about his little Colombian company. He sees the handwriting on the wall, and decides to offload what could become a problem for a squeaky clean, all-American franchise like Coke. And who do you think he sells it to?”
“Clifford Roberts and Bob Jones,” I said. “The RoJo Company.”
For once, Wilcox doesn’t have a smart rejoinder. He looked at me with an amazed expression.
“How the hell did you know that?” he asked.
“I’m a trained reporter,” I said. “Don’t try this at home.”
Death in a Green Jacket Page 12
