Cartel Fire

by Tom Riggs

  Munro looked at the guards again. Their eyes were dead, bloodshot and corrupt. Bribery wasn’t a word in their vocabulary. He pulled out the wad of cash that he had just taken out of the ATM. Five hundred dollars, in Venezuelan Bolivars.

  “I understand that a fee may be payable for a copy of the file.”

  Salinas looked at the cash and smiled. The guards too, stared at it. Munro guessed it was about two month’s salary for a Venezuelan beat cop, maybe more.

  “No, señor, our regulations do not permit copying police files. But for a fee, you may look at the file. For fifteen minutes.” He shouted something quickly in Spanish, too quickly for Munro to catch what he said. One of the guards left the room and Salinas stood up, taking all the money as he did so. Munro did not try to negotiate further.

  “My man will bring you the file and you will have fifteen minutes to look at it. Unfortunately the DNA evidence is all in Caracas, and will not be obtainable.” Salinas smiled thinly.

  “I hope this will convince Ms Stanfield that we can do our job, señor.”

  “That was never in doubt, Inspector.”

  Salinas looked at Munro again, long and hard to see if Munro was being sarcastic or not. Then he said “I will leave you now, my men will wait while you view the file and then escort you out. Be careful when you leave, señor. Porlamar at night is a dangerous place.”

  10

  Porlamar was at the other end of Isla Margarita from Playa Agua and the taxi journey back to his hotel would take Munro half an hour at least. That was fine with him. Munro needed time to think. Richard Lipakos’s murder had just got more complicated. The file had been thin, but the police had helpfully catalogued everything that had been found in his room and on his body. They had also given some information on the Colombian suspects. Once his thoughts were ordered he called Rudd.

  “For god’s sake Jack, it’s two in the morning.”

  “Sorry. Has the mountie come back with anything?”

  “I only spoke to him a few hours ago, so no, amazingly he has not.”

  “Keep the pressure up, I need to find that girl.”

  “I know Jack, I know.”

  “Also I need more information on Richard Lipakos.”

  “I gave you a file Jack.”

  “You gave me some press cuttings that told me nothing. I need to know everything about him, and fast. Friends, enemies, school days, drug history, bank details, the works.”

  “Ok, I’ll get onto it first thing.”

  “Thanks Rudd.”

  “No problem, happy to be of service ... what have you found out?”

  “A lot and a little. It’s hard to say. I think this might have been personal.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” said Munro. “I’ve spoken to the FO, the police and a man at the guesthouse where Lipakos was staying. A few things are clear. Have you got a pen and paper?”

  “My laptop is open. Go for it.”

  “Ok. One. Lipakos had a girlfriend. That no one has mentioned her before means she must have been recent. A girl he had met travelling through South America maybe.

  “Two. He had a girlfriend who left Playa Agua the night he was murdered. That opens up a number of possibilities. Maybe she was involved. But not by herself. The FO guy, who by the way is an honorary consul, not official FO at all, he saw the body and gave me some photos.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “Bad. It was almost impossible to tell that Lipakos had once had a head. These were heavy-duty injuries. No way one girl could have done that. Certainly not the small framed girl that the hippy at Lipakos’ posada described.”

  “So maybe she had an accomplice or two,” suggested Rudd. “Maybe she found out Lipakos was rich and set him up for a robbery.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes. All that was taken was his wallet. Receipts found in his room showed that he had taken out 200 dollars in local currency three days earlier. Even if he had spent hardly any of that, it’s not a huge haul if you know he’s the son of a billionaire. It wouldn’t have been difficult to force him to a cash machine and empty his account. They do that every day to rich kids in Caracas.”

  “Ok, so we can probably discount Anna Neuberg being involved. But if she wasn’t involved, then why did she leave town?”

  “I‘ve thought about that. Perhaps she was attacked as well, murdered and her body dumped.”

  “Possible, but unlikely,” said Rudd. “Why go to the trouble of hiding one body and not the other?”

  “Very true. She could have been kidnapped but they usually demand money fairly quickly.” Another, far darker possibility occurred to Munro. She was pretty and European-looking. Perhaps she was being held somewhere now in downtown Porlamar. The prospect did not bear thinking about. Munro hoped that Rudd’s man would say she was now home safe in Vancouver.

  “We need to get some information from the mountie ASAP on that one,” continued Munro. “It’s unlikely to be a coincidence that she left town the night her boyfriend was murdered, which leaves a third possibility. She witnessed at least part of the murder, and ran away in shock. You could hardly blame her if she did. It was a brutal killing and would have scared anyone half to death.”

  “But then why not go to the police?”

  “That would be your first instinct, I agree. But you should see the cops out here Charles, they’re more intimidating than the bad guys. Big guns, totally corrupt. If you’re a young Norte Americana on your own out here, your first instinct may well be to get out of the damn country as fast as possible.”

  “Go home to mummy and daddy and deal with it from the safety of Canada.”

  “Exactly. No real way of knowing. Not until the mountie comes back with some information.”

  “Understood, Jack. For the third time.”

  “Sorry. Lets’ go back to what we do know. The police don’t care.”

  Munro told Rudd about Kenny’s description of how the police normally dealt with a gringo murder and Inspector Salinas’s attitude.

  “Two days of investigation suddenly yields two suspects and DNA evidence? Very unlikely.” said Rudd.

  D-N-A. Munro recalled the slight smile that Salinas let slip when he spelled out the unfamiliar European acronym.

  “I agree, do they even have DNA technology over here?”

  “Unlikely. It’s commonly used by some European and US police forces, but it’s hardly widespread. Even in Europe, it’s not routinely used by many forces – countries like Greece and Portugal, for example, are only just starting to use the technology. Even if Venezuela does have forensic DNA facilities, it takes at least a week, and usually a lot longer, for the laboratory to come up with a match.”

  “So the idea that the Porlamar police force could have collected DNA, sent it to Caracas for testing and come up with a positive result - all in two days…”

  “Is preposterous,” said Rudd, “utterly ridiculous.”

  “Which just leaves us with the two suspects they do have.”

  “The two Colombians. What have you got on them?”

  “I saw their files at the police station. They’re both petty drug addicts and thieves. Neither looks like the kind of guy you would want to spend much time with. Both young and mean.” Looking at their pictures, Munro had no doubt that they were capable of robbing and killing a tourist. He also had no doubt that they had not robbed and killed Richard Lipakos.

  “But?”

  “But I don’t think it was them. Both their files listed knifes as their preferred weapons of choice. Lipakos had his skull crushed by some powerful force, a breezeblock maybe or someone big stamping on him. Probably the latter. There was a faint boot mark on part of what remained of his head. The report didn’t note it, but it was clearly visible to a trained eye.”

  “You have a trained eye these days Jack?”

  “Touché, Charlie. Not as trained as yours, I’m sure. But still, what does that tell you?”

  “Sounds like his skull must ha
ve been crushed by one or maybe more large men stamping on it repeatedly. How big were the Colombians?”

  “Neither weighed over ten stone. You could see their rib cages in their pictures. They also didn’t look like the kind of junkies who wore, or could afford, heavy boots. Most people wear flip-flops around here.”

  “Unlikely it was them then.”

  “Agreed. But the clincher is Lipakos’s watch. His wallet was taken, true. But his watch had been left.”

  “Smart watch?”

  “Not particularly for a billionaire’s son. It was a Seiko, costs maybe three hundred pounds?

  “But it would fetch a good few bucks in Porlamar.”

  “Exactly. No self-respecting street robber would have left it.”

  “Sounds like our little assignment just got a lot more complicated.”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Munro as his car pulled into the hotel forecourt, “See what you can find out on the boy and his girlfriend. I’m going to need everything we can get.”

  11

  The private jet touched down at Porlamar International at ten pm. It had been delayed taking off. Even money could not buy you efficiency in this tin pot country, the man thought. He stepped out and breathed in the clean Caribbean air, it was a welcome break after the acrid smog of Caracas. The advantage of using the Gulfstream was that he could keep his gun on him. He was met straight off the plane by a waiting Jeep Cherokee. V8 sport. The driver briefed him as it sped off.

  “He went to the police station, spent a few hours in there, talking to Inspector Salinas” said the driver.

  “Salinas?”

  “He was the investigating officer.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “We don’t know jefe.”

  “Why not?”

  The driver said nothing and pretended to concentrate on his driving. The gringo boss was a puta cabron, no one could deny that. But he paid well and that was all that mattered in the end.

  “What is he doing now?” said the man as he took out his gun and checked the clip. He knew it was full but he wanted the driver to know he was armed. He did not trust subcontractors, never had.

  “Last time I checked, Pancho was following him from Porlamar back to Playa Agua.”

  “Well check again, and tell Pancho to keep his distance. Munro will spot him if he gets too close.”

  “Pancho knows what he is doing boss.”

  “Unfortunately, so does Munro.” The man put the gun back in its holster as the Jeep sped towards Playa Agua. He was happier than ever to have it.

  Back at his hotel, Munro climbed the outdoor stairs that led to his room. But he did not go in. Instead, he turned around, fast, and went down the stairs. Walked across the hotel garden and past the swimming pool. The garden wall was six feet high and Munro vaulted it easily. Whereas the hotel gardens were lush with tropical flowers and baby palms, the land immediately the other side was scrubby and litter strewn. It had been fenced off into a lot, no doubt waiting for a developer to come in and build another hotel or condominium block. But for now it was a wasteland of rubbish, dust and wire fencing.

  Munro kept close to the hotel wall, where it was darkest. He moved fast and barely made a sound. He followed the hotel wall along the side of the garden until it came to a corner. It then turned left to run below the rooms. There was a sandy track running along this side of the hotel and it was this that Munro jumped across. The trees on the other side afforded him more than enough cover. Munro picked up his pace now and zigzagged one hundred meters into the tree line. The ground was uneven and it was dark, but Munro still moved quickly and quietly. After one hundred meters he stopped; the hotel was just visible through the trees. He then turned ninety degrees left for twenty yards and stopped again. He heard nothing, but slowed his pace. He had now turned back on himself and was approaching the hotel. When he was thirty yards from the tree line, he jumped down onto his front. Into the stalk. What wind there was, was blowing against him. Which was good. Always be downwind from your prey.

  Munro took it very slowly now. His entire body was pressed to the ground and he was going forward on his elbows and toes.

  He came up on the man a few minutes later. He was sitting on a log two meters in from the lane. Smoking a cigarette. Directly below his room. At his feet were a pair of infrared binoculars and a bottle of water. Munro could see that a pistol was stuffed into the back of his trousers.

  Munro got to within a meter of him so that he could smell his body odour. The man needed a shower more than Munro did. Munro sprang up and smashed the base of his palm into the back of the man’s neck, straight into the occipital ridge where the skull meets the spine. The man collapsed immediately. Unconscious. The whole movement had taken less than two seconds.

  Munro took the gun from out of the man’s trousers. It was a cheap Chinese-made .45. But it was loaded and probably worked. It would do. He searched the man to check he had nothing more and then poured the bottle of water over him to bring him round.

  The man was large and Latin-looking, although probably not a local Munro guessed. He looked more Mexican to Munro. He woke up with a start and immediately made a lunge for Munro’s legs. He took a step back. The man was big, but slow. With his right foot he pinned the man’s right arm down and then came down with his left knee onto the man’s back. Munro then grabbed his left arm and began twisting it back. It was a school playground move, but it still really hurt.

  “Hola amigo, hablas ingles?”

  “Si… yes” the man managed through clenched teeth.

  “You’ve been following me since I arrived, my friend. Following me is one thing, but spying on me in my hotel is quite another.”

  Munro bent his arm further back to make sure he got the point. The man half screamed in pain.

  “Who are you working for?” asked Munro as he bent the man’s arm even further back. One more bend and Munro knew it would break. The man knew that too.

  Just then a Jeep Cherokee with blacked out windows sped down the lane. It came to a sudden halt in a cloud of dust just to the right of where Munro was. Munro punched the man in the back of his neck, hard, at the same pressure point as before. As the man collapsed again he pulled out the handgun.

  Two men got out of the Jeep, one European and one Latin American, also likely Mexican Munro thought. They were both large men. The European had a gun drawn. The Mexican approached the tree line and called out quietly “Pancho… Pancho… donde tu?”

  Munro lowered his gun and stepped out into the lane. The intermittent lights from the Costa Linda hotel rooms above meant that it was reasonably well lit

  “I am afraid Pancho is otherwise engaged,” he said walking into one of the pools of light. The two men turned suddenly. “So you’ll just have to settle for me.” Munro put the gun into the front belt line of his trousers and smiled at the European man.

  “Hello, Adrian. It’s been a while.”

  12

  The Mexican was the first to react and went for a gun stuffed down the back of his trousers, but the man called Adrian stopped him.

  “No, Cesar. Tranquilo” he said as he put out a calming hand.

  “That’s right, Cesar, tranquilo,” agreed Munro, still smiling.

  “Jack. It certainly has been a while,” said the man, not returning the smile. He was not a healthy-looking man but after having seen Munro he looked like he was about to vomit.

  “Last time I saw you, Adrian, must have been in Yemen.” Munro’s smile was gone now.

  Adrian grimaced, the recollection seemed to pain him. Munro continued.

  “After that debacle, I can’t believe you’re still employed by the government. Have you gone freelance too?”

  “Fuck off, Munro, we’re not all mercenaries these days. Some of us still have a sense of duty to our country. I am here on government business.”

  “Is that what you call it? I thought you were just in it for the pension. Adrian Hudson, the most incompetent man ever to ha
ve come through SIS’s doors. Hey Cesar, has your boss told you about Yemen? I doubt it. But well done keeping a job, Adrian. I heard SIS was desperate for recruits, I didn’t know that extended to keeping on the dead wood.”

  “Fuck off, Munro” repeated Hudson, looking sicker than ever.

  “What do you want, Adrian? And why has that Mexican been following me for the last three days?”

  “Where is Pancho?” asked Cesar. He looked like Pancho, the two could have been brothers. Big, ugly, bull-like Mexicans. Just like Hudson to not even have been able to recruit local subcontractors.

  “He’s fine. He might have a sore arm for a few days, but he’ll live. Now back to you Adrian, what do you want?”

  Hudson had recovered somewhat and went on the offensive. He remembered he was still holding a gun and raised it slightly, only slightly, so that Munro could see it and said “You‘re very cocky for a man outnumbered two to one. We’re both armed you know.”

  Munro let out a short laugh. “I can see that Adrian. Since when do SIS case officers carry service weapons? Do you even know how to fire a gun?”

  Hudson squirmed. It was true, he had never fired a shot in anger in his life. He did not need to. That was for thugs like Munro. He holstered his gun. He knew Munro could take them both out with or without a gun. And he knew that Munro knew that too.

  “Look Jack, we‘ve been keeping tabs on you for your own protection. You can’t just rock up to a place like Venezuela and go kicking down doors. Sooner or later the DISIP will find out. And when they do, they will assume you’re still working for us. Even down here, they can find things out. And when they find out that someone with your background is going around asking questions, they’re going to come straight to us and ask us why. Especially after Afghanistan. It’s the kind of thing that causes a diplomatic incident. And we can’t afford one of those at the moment.”

  “I can’t believe Venezuelan internal intelligence are particularly interested in me or what I did in Afghanistan. You‘ll have to do better than that, Adrian.”