Owen Sands sat behind his desk, seemingly perplexed. In his hands was a set of instructions to a programmable police scanner. He was an older man with a weathered face and stout wrinkles about his eyes and mouth. His hair was a sandy blond and receded off his brow, still combed back, probably the way he did it in school. He appeared meticulous but near a level of frustration. He was obviously a man who enjoyed a challenge and was too stubborn to admit when he was outmatched.
“Why don’t you let West do that?” Jordan asked.
“If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself,” Owen answered.
“But you won’t do it right. You hate that kind of stuff. Hell, the waypoints on the Hatteras are still ten miles off,” Jordan said, becoming more irritated. “Owen, you need to delegate. It’s a concept I would like you to try.”
“Leave me alone, I’m almost finished,” he mumbled without raising his head.
“It’ll have to wait. I have a new recruit I want you to break in.”
“Wonderful,” Sands replied as he looked up to see Joel standing before his desk.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Jordan said as he backed out of the cubicle. Owen watched his boss with crossed eyes as he walked away.
“Joel, Joel Kenyon,” he said, extending his outstretched hand.
“Outstanding,” Owen replied, still staring at the scanner on his desk.
“Mind if I give it a try?”
Owen looked up. “You know anything about computers?”
“Minored in ‘em,” Kenyon answered.
Owen turned the digital display toward Joel who was now seated at the face of the desk.
“Impress me,” he said as he left the cubicle.
Owen made his way back up to Jordan’s office.
“What kind of bullshit is this?” he asked.
“It’s not bullshit, amigo. West’s got his hands full with a Blue Lightning Task Force detail this month and I need you to fill in as FTO for a while.”
“I don’t like it,” Owen barked.
“You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it.”
“I’m going out tonight then,” Owen replied, almost pouting.
“Great, take the Stinger. It hasn’t been run in a while,” Jordan answered.
“Nah, I think we’ll take the Whaler.”
“I really wish you’d use a real boat, something with some size. For the kid’s sake, you know?”
“Na, we’ll start out small and work our way up,” Owen said as he turned and headed toward his cube.
“As you wish.”
As Owen Sands approached his cube, he heard something that sounded like a phone conversation. A woman was talking to another. Apparently, one suspected the other of sleeping with her husband and was quite irate. As he entered the cube they were screaming.
“What in the hell are you listening to?” Sands asked.
“Cellular 880 megahertz. Interesting, huh,” Joel answered.
“Great, since you figured it out, program that list on my desk. Then we’ll go over your duty gear.”
Joel looked at the crudely etched list on Sands’s desk. It contained working frequencies for the local sheriff, highway patrol, Coast Guard, and a dozen other law enforcement agencies in the area. He looked up for a second to watch a frustrated Owen fumble with the office’s coffee machine across the room.
* * * * *
Structure
At 7:00 a.m., Marion County Florida was enjoying another of its many famous sunrises. In a community that revolved itself around the equestrian industry, many were awake to see the blades of sunlight glisten over dew covered green hills. The sky was a rich blue, and from one end of the horizon to the other, ribbons of white clouds lingered without posing a threat to the peacefulness of the morning.
From any of the main roads, Interstate 75 or U.S. Highway 27, simple white wooden fences divided property lines. All were constructed with the architecture of some of the great Kentucky horse parks in mind. This was truly a unique community, one that combined age-old professions with the modern advancements of the twentieth century.
For Ron Jeffries and his partner Hal Keller, the twenty-four-hour shift had begun like the many before it. They had enjoyed the forty-eight hours off and were anxious to get back to work. Both were seasoned firefighter-paramedics. Both had distinguished careers with the Ocala Fire Department. In the past fifteen years they had seen it all, from five-car pile-ups to warehouse fires involving killer hazardous materials. Both men had taken their share of risks.
The station they were in was smaller now. It provided enough room for the two men who occupied it to move around in comfort. Each had a private room with a bed, nightstand, vanity and desk. There was a small kitchen complete with a microwave oven, side-by-side refrigerator and a Jenn-Air range. The cable TV, necessary to combat the long, uneventful hours, included every basic and premium channel available. TV consumption was a required task.
The bay area housed two vehicles. One, a super-duty rescue unit with the latest in firefighting equipment and the other, a three-quarter-ton pickup with a small skid unit pump and two hundred gallon water tank capable of fighting small brush fires.
Their new employer was a very generous entity. The International Farms Corporation believed that their people were their best assets and taking care of them was a top priority. In keeping with that philosophy, IFC provided the best continuing education available. The men were adapted to the science of high-tech farming and the special needs that subsequently arose, besides the three years of standard firefighting and paramedical courses each had partaken. Unlike Florida’s state fire college, Central Florida Fire Academy conveniently located less than five miles away, this training was held at the University of Florida in Gainesville, thirty minutes to the north. Every day for four months, the six full time men commuted back and forth. They had been initially chosen under strict criteria, one that included the stipulation that each man would possess a natural love for animals.
They studied the veterinary sciences. At the end of the course, the students were prepared to combat a wide variety of horticultural medical emergencies that involved livestock rather than human patients. The primary emphasis focused on emergency birthing procedures; however, basic tasks such as intravenous access, emergency airway management and bleeding control were also covered. It was a long four months, but well worth it. The International Farms staff played a big role in aiding the men with their studies. This was a new and experimental program, paid for by a grant from the farm. The emphasis, they said, was simple: Treat your patients as good as gold, because you see, they are.
At the front of the complex, Salvador Alcone drove his white Range Rover past the black wrought iron gate that separated the four hundred acre International Farms complex from the rest of Marion County. The ornate iron was mounted to two opposing pillars of carved slate rock imported from North Carolina and intricately rooted in place. Beaming from the structures were two cast monolithic bronze plates; one depicting a mighty bull, perching itself on its fore legs, tall, stout and strong; the other an Arabian, which lacked the strength of the bull but made up for it with its subtle sophistication. Both plates were mortared in place, set for life into the blued mountain rock. The driveway wound through towering oaks that created a canopy over the road. Suspended overhead were layers of gray Spanish moss, like clouds floating in a blue sky. Through the trees and in the distance, rolling hills of green grass absorbed the early morning sun as a light blanket of dew began to evaporate. Multicolored horses galloped through the fields, enticing one another in a morning dance. White fencing stretched for miles in each direction. This was not the typical cattle farm variety but expensive white fences, the type only seen in the finest stables, only with a twist. Polycarbonate plastic made up the posts that were driven three feet into the rich, black soil and vinyl planks made up the cross members, four slates to a length of fence ten feet long.
For Alcone, the drive was as mu
ch a stress reliever as a constant reminder of the years of hard work he had put into building a company that was dedicated to the science of raising healthy cattle. This was a science that benefited not only the United States but also the rest of the Western Hemisphere. In many countries poorer than his own, scores of men, women and children went to bed happier, healthier, and better nourished because of the developments made by Sal and his staff of eighty-five scientists, genealogists and assorted livestock experts. Business Week magazine rated IFC 3,178th among their list of the top five thousand U.S. companies, primarily because the company was debt free, did most of its business internationally and held gross amounts of cash reserves.
Alcone was hailed as the ultimate entrepreneur, but he shunned the media exposure as best he could, guarding his privacy at every turn. This would have been nearly impossible for other businesses since IFC was a privately held company with a net worth of over one hundred and twenty million U.S. dollars and a projected five year growth of almost three times that, but it was the sprawling landscape that was his plantation. A plantation was, after all, a farm with painted fences instead of the bare, pine type, or more crudely stretched barbed wire, God forbid. For Sal Alcone, the spread afforded him distance from the outside world, a barrier that insulated him like a cocoon.
“Mr. Alcone, sir?” came a voice from an opening door.
“Delgado,” Sal answered.
“Sir, it’s nice to meet you,” Del said.
“And here too,” Sal replied, holding out his hand, shaking Del’s.
“I understand you have just gotten out of Eglin. My associate, Gus Greico, speaks highly of you. He says you’re a man of many talents.”
“Gus is a good man. I’m glad all of that is over… for both of us,” Del said.
“You are a very loyal man Gus says.”
“Sal Alcone, that’s an interesting name. It sounds Italian, but you have a distinct Spanish accent,” Del inquired.
“Actually, my given name is Salvador Alcone, but I changed it when I came to the U.S. in ‘77.”
“Cuban?”
“Italian and Cuban.”
“Why do I have the feeling we’ve met somewhere before?”
“Maybe we have, Cuba is a small island,” Sal responded as he turned and walked back to his desk.
Del felt perplexed. He had been out of the Eglin work camp for less than a week and he was having a consuming conversation with a man who was undoubtedly one of the most powerful in his industry. And that’s when he saw it: the Diablo tattoo on Sal’s right hand.
“How did you get that?” Del asked, almost insisting.
“What, this?” he replied calmly, lifting his hand higher.
“Yes, that. How did you get that?” Del repeated, putting his hand next to Sal’s.
“Okay, I have a confession. When Greico told me that you had the mark of the Diablo on you, I got curious so I asked him to watch you for a while. That is how we confirmed it. You and I are from the same slums in Havana my friend.”
“But that was such a long time ago,” Del said.
“Yes it was Del, but I had a young friend named Peter, an orphan like me. I remember the night I held him down and the rest of our gang gave him a tattoo just like that.”
“That damned thing hurt more than anything I can remember…Sal?”
“It’s me my little brother. After all these years, who would have figured?” Sal said as the two hugged.
“You saved my life man…”
“Sal, you saved my fucking life. I thought you were dead. Those thugs, cops, whatever they were…I heard the shots,” Del reflected as tears formed at the base of his eyes.
“They shot towards me but not at me. I was lucky, but since I was older than the rest of you they locked me up. I escaped three years before Mariel and hitched a ride to Miami.”
“Now look at you,” Del said, pointing to the elaborate finishing in his office.
The two walked out onto the front lawn and boarded a golf cart. The whine of the electric motor kicked in as the two glided down a gravel path towards a group of stables housing rows of fierce bulls.
“We have a successful business here Del, representing many years of hard work and lots of money,” Sal boasted.
“What is it actually that you do?” Del asked.
“We harvest semen.”
“See what?” Del asked.
“Semen, Del. Bull sperm for cows so they can make bigger, stronger cows. We have the best here. It’s all in the genes,” Sal explained. “It’s an international commodity; some of our clients pay as much as twenty thousand dollars an ounce for the stuff. We also provide training in some of the latest artificial insemination techniques known in the world today…a world we are trying to help feed.”
“Incredible…” a wide-eyed Del said, thinking of the possibilities.
“What about the poor countries that can’t afford twenty thousand dollars an ounce?” Del asked.
“You always were the smart one. That’s where we make our largest profits. Think of it my friend: Columbia, Bolivia, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Many of the cattle farmers don’t have the money to compete on such a level, but what they do have we are willing to take on as a trade at a sizeable margin in our favor. The net effect is that we are paying under a grand a kilo for coke and just twice that for a kilo of heroin. Heroin is at eighty-nine thousand a kilo on the streets in New York,” Sal announced with a confident smile.
“I’m impressed,” Del said, still caught off-guard by the sheer magnitude of what he was seeing.
“I need help Del. We own so much product but we can’t get half of it into the U. S.”
“I won’t lie to you Sal. We are a grass shop…always have been. It’s going to be hard to convince my partners to change gears and start moving coke,” Del explained.
“I understand. Think of it this way: An owner pays you eighty to a hundred dollars a pound to get his huge bales into the country. The stuff is messy, it smells, and the dogs can detect it a mile away. It also practically takes a freighter to get a decent sized load across the Gulf Stream. My product, on the other hand, is paying eighteen hundred dollars a kilo, just 2.2 pounds, is smaller, comes with waterproof packaging, is a clean load, and comes with handles.”
“Handles?” Del asked.
“We use military type duffel bags made of a tough canvas, cheap and easy to handle. We import them to South America, directly from Taiwan.”
“Eighteen hundred?” Del asked.
“Eighteen hundred,” Sal said.
“Let me see what I can do.”
“Do me a favor Del. Take Gus Greico with you. Let him see your operation and then we can talk some more.”
“I can do that,” Del replied as the golf cart stopped in front of an old deserted brick warehouse.
“Hey, I have something special I want to show you,” Sal offered.
“Like I haven’t seen enough already,” Del said sarcastically.
“This will let you know how much I trust you.”
“Okay,” Del acknowledged.
Sal Alcone switched on the lights and simultaneously, a hundred fluorescent lights surged with energy, illuminating the acre-sized room and exposing the remnants of an old porcelain factory. Pallets of new sinks, toilets and other bathroom fixtures cluttered the large space. The two walked through the building to another door that led to a smaller warehouse, the building that housed his secret hobby. Parked neatly in rows, like a museum, were police cars from one end of the huge room to the other. Each one was different from the next. A state trooper car from Connecticut sat next to a patrol car from Chicago and next to that, a black and white LAPD cruiser.
“You collect police cars?” Del asked, perplexed by the idea.
“Yep,” Sal answered simply.
“Why? What do you do, buy them at auctions?”
“I don’t buy them Del. I steal them.”
“No…” Del said, understanding the genius in his friend’s hob
by.
“Look around. Most still have the keys in them, just like we took them. Hell, if you’re ever hungry, I’m sure you can find more than a few half-eaten donuts and plenty of cold coffee.”
“You’re insane,” Del added smiling.
“Insanity is a relative commodity my friend.”
* * * * *
Proceedings
From the street, Del’s home appeared humble. The house was dressed in southern style stucco, painted white, blending in with the other houses on this stretch of Hialeah’s Ninth Avenue where the rusty metal bars that covered the numerous windows were a common sight. In the driveway sat a Toyota Corolla, a Ford pickup, and an older green Ford Torino station wagon. Perched in the front yard was a molded plastic playhouse, the type seen erected in the middle of a Toys “R” Us store.
Inside, Alberto Mendez, one of the Cho Cho Brothers, sat alone on a mauve-colored leather couch. The occasional chirp of a caged exotic bird in the corner of the room and the constant moan of a water fountain echoed from the twelve-foot-high vaulted ceilings that housed a slow turning fan spinning over Mendez’s head. At 10:00 a.m., all was quiet in the house. He hadn’t been in Del’s house since its last redecoration. Del’s sister, Risa, spent almost a month planning the décor, causing her brother to spend more cash on this than he originally paid for the house three years earlier. Each of the bathrooms was gutted and everything down to the cabinets and fixtures were changed and updated. The carpets were torn out and replaced with handcrafted Mexican tiles in the halls and living room and oak hardwoods in the bedrooms. The home was completed just before Del was to start his sentence at Eglin. At that time, he was living with Marsha Bouie in the Redlands, close to his partners Roberto and Gordo. The house was a labor of love for his sister whose husband had left her four years prior with two small children, Raina, age five, and the baby, Petito, who was two. Besides making a nice place for her brother to come home to after prison, it was also important that Risa had a comfortable house for her two children.
Mid Ocean Page 8
