A Touch of Malice

by Gary Ponzo

  “Here’s the latest image,” Walt said. He played with the controls, trying to illuminate the picture as best he could. “It’s not even sunrise yet, so it’s hard to distinguish much.”

  “Distinguish?” Dutton said. “All I see are trees.”

  Walt kept trying to adjust the clarity, but the image kept getting grainier as he zoomed in and less detailed as he zoomed out.

  After a slight tap on the door, Sam Fisk came in with a McDonald’s bag. He was still wearing the suit he’d worn last night, minus the tie. He dropped the bag on the coffee table and poured himself a cup of coffee from the counter.

  “You look like crap,” Riggs said.

  “I feel worse,” Fisk said, stirring his coffee with a wooden stick.

  “How’s the president?” Walt asked.

  Fisk’s large hand practically covered the entire cup of coffee as he took a sip and faced the team. “Not good.”

  “What are his expectations?” Dutton asked.

  Fisk reached into the McDonald’s bag and unwrapped some sort of breakfast sandwich. He took a bite of the sandwich and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Once he swallowed, he said, “At the moment his expectations are unrealistic.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Fisk dropped the sandwich on the coffee table and began a slow pace. “Because we have no reliable assets down there. The jungle canopy is so thick our satellite images are useless. There’s no way we could send as much as a drone over that airspace without being detected. A team of soldiers would trigger an immediate response. As soon as the Camenos knew we were there, they’d kill Trent immediately.”

  Fisk gestured to Walt. “Did you have time to review that data I sent you?”

  Walt grimaced. “Yes.” He clicked the mouse a few times and began reciting the information. “We currently have thirty-five CIA operatives in Colombia. Ten in Bogota and twenty-five in Medellin. That’s it. The rainforest consumes the entire southeastern portion of the country. For obvious reasons we have no contacts down there. There’s never been a reason.”

  Riggs placed his tablet on the desk and folded his arms. “I’ve spent some time in the Amazon. Once these two men step foot into the jungle, they will instantly become prey. And I’m not even speaking about cartel thugs. I‘m talking about the deadly coral snakes, the piranha, the anaconda, the cyanide-squirting millipedes. They have parasitic worms which cause blindness, the phyllobates terribilis, a frog which contains enough toxins to kill a hundred men, red hairy chiggers that consume human tissue, ticks, poisonous spiders, do you want me to go on?”

  Fisk acknowledged the comment with a terse glare. He looked at Walt. “Do we have a guide prepared to assist them?”

  Walt kept his attention on the computer screen. “Nick is lining one up right now.” In the corner of his eye, Walt could tell Fisk was ready to challenge the answer, but then must’ve noticed the avoiding eye contact.

  “Okay,” Fisk said and wisely left it at that.

  They waited as Fisk pursed his lips and dropped down on one of the couches, his legs giving way like a boxer in the twelfth round of a championship fight. He leaned back and sighed. “What other options do we have?”

  There was a prolonged silence until Riggs said, “We can negotiate.”

  Fisk slowly moved his head from side to side. “I know the president of Colombia fairly well. He’s unstable. Maybe even bipolar. I doubt he’ll ever allow Trent to live.”

  “Have you told the president that?”

  “Yes.”

  Again silence as they grappled with their dilemma.

  Fisk bent forward, placed a hand on each knee and pushed off until he was standing again. He resumed a slow pace with his hands in his pockets. “How else can we reduce our risk?”

  Walt’s phone vibrated on the desk and he looked at the display. “It’s Mac,” he said. “Maybe he found something over at Trent’s house.”

  Walt picked up the phone and listened for almost a minute. He said thanks, then put his phone down and scrutinized the image on his computer screen. He clicked the mouse a couple of times and the longitude and latitude lines appeared.

  Walt pointed to a specific spot on the screen. “Here. Just east of that deforestation along the border of Brazil. That’s where Trent was headed just before he was captured. He left the exact coordinates in a text message to his wife the day before yesterday.”

  Walt made a red X pop up on the monitor, then zoomed in on the image. It was nothing but a green blur.

  “What if we can get them into that exact spot?” Fisk asked. “How close do you think they’d be?”

  “I’d guess inside of five or ten square miles,” Walt said, staring at the image, trying to evoke a clue with his glare.

  “Is that something we can pull off?” Fisk asked, obviously searching for a positive response.

  The men at the desk exchanged glances. Finally, FBI Director Louis Dutton pushed back on his chair and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “Let’s abort, Sam. Why kill off our best agents for an impossible rescue mission like this?”

  Fisk picked up his sandwich and shoved the final piece into his mouth as if he were in a competition. He quickly chewed, then washed it down with a sip of coffee. He placed the coffee back on the table and scrunched up the McDonald’s bag in his right hand.

  “The problem is,” Fisk said, moving in a tight circle now, “Nick and Matt have saved our skins so many times, John thinks they’re invincible.”

  “But why—”

  “Because it’s Trent, dammit!” Fisk snapped at Dutton. “That’s why.”

  There was silence while they collectively remembered the September eleventh disaster which took thousands of American lives, including the president’s brother, Paul Merrick, who was working at the Pentagon when the attack occurred. Now, Trent was the only sibling he had left.

  The testosterone level escalated, while the roomful of type-A personalities tried to find common ground. Walt looked down at his desk wanting to say something to protect his crew, but when the Commander-in-Chief gave an order, it was his job to follow.

  Fisk seemed to assess the department heads with a sense of empathy.

  Finally, Riggs broke the silence. “Sam, he’s no dummy. He must know this is a suicide mission.”

  “Oh, he knows,” Fisk said, squeezing the McDonald’s bag until it was a merely the size of a golf ball in the palm of his right hand. “He knows.”

  Chapter 8

  Manny Padilla found Trent Merrick lying behind a Brazil Nut tree. It was still a couple of hours before dawn broke, so he and a dozen men had to canvas the perimeter of the camp with their spotlights. The American prisoner was only thirty feet from his tent. His face was saturated from the jungle humidity even in the middle of the night. He had obviously crawled to his current location.

  Padilla ordered his men back to their quarters and told Garcia to stay. “Where did you think you might go?” Padilla asked Trent.

  The man huffed while rubbing his splinted leg. “Just out for a stroll.”

  “You do not appreciate your situation, do you? You are fifty miles from the closest village. Even if you managed to guess the correct direction, you couldn’t crawl there inside of a month. The beasts of the jungle would ingest you before you left the shadows of our camp.”

  Garcia snickered and Padilla squinted. “What is so funny, Carlos?”

  Garcia stood stone-faced.

  Padilla turned back to his prisoner. He could feel his blood pressure begin to escalate as he considered his options. Padilla could kill the American and be back in Medellin for dinner tomorrow night. His boots began to sink in the soggy jungle floor. As he pulled up on his boot, it made a sucking sound as it came free. He took two wide steps back, looking down at his muddied footwear. He let out a low growl, then readjusted his spotlight on the American. Once again Padilla was losing the battle with his temper.

  He shook his head and pulled his gun from his holster. The American
squirmed in the dark, his back up again the tree, nowhere to go.

  “I cannot wait any longer,” Padilla said. As he stretched out the pistol, his phone chirped. He looked down at the number and saw who it was. Pablo Moreno. The middle of the night and he is still at it. Does not the man ever stop?

  Padilla touched the screen and put the phone to his ear. “Yes, Patron.”

  “Amigo,” Moreno said in a loud voice. There was music playing and women’s voices cackling. “How are you?”

  “I am well,” Padilla said, flipping the gun in his hand like a cowboy, just wishing the American would try something. “You are up late.”

  It was clear Moreno was talking over the speakerphone, the entire party coming to life while Padilla slapped at mosquitoes. He could practically smell the cigar burning between Moreno’s fingers.

  “Listen, Manny, I have a bet with Julio,” Moreno yelled. “I say the American prisoner is already dead. He says you have changed and are ready to accept responsible chores. Tell us, who wins the bet?”

  Padilla lowered his gun and frowned. “You have lost, Patron, because the American prisoner is still very alive.”

  There was a boisterous cheer on the other end of the line, while beer bottles rattled against each other.

  Finally after thirty seconds of roaring laughter and screams of delight, Moreno said, “You have made me proud, Manny. This is one bet I do not mind paying.”

  The flamboyant cartel leader of the Cameno Cartel hung up the phone and left Padilla in the stillness of the rainforest. He kicked the American in his bad leg and watched him double over in agony.

  “Get him back inside,” Padilla ordered Carlos. “And be sure to have him staked to the ground, so we don’t have to pull him from an anaconda’s belly.” Then he pointed the gun at the president’s brother. “You are dead. You just do not know it yet.”

  * * *

  Matt pulled over the SUV in the quiet neighborhood and snapped his gearshift into park as a pair of headlights slowed behind him.

  “Who is it?” Nick asked, twisting around in the passenger seat to see who was following them.

  Matt glanced at the dashboard. “It’s three thirty in the morning. I don’t think it’s the paperboy.”

  The headlights slowed even further until the driver of the vehicle stepped on the gas and swerved to the side of the road and slammed on his brakes, coming to a stop just inches behind Matt’s car.

  Matt unsnapped his holster. Nick already had his gun in his hand. Two figures jumped out of the car, both heading to Matt’s side of the car, immediately announcing their amateur status. They wore dark clothes and full-face ski masks to disguise themselves. Both of them held out pistols while the driver’s side guy barked for Matt and Nick to get out of the car.

  Matt shook his head and let out a breath. “Teenagers.”

  “Now don’t go and hurt them,” Nick said. “They’re too young to know what they’re—”

  “Stop,” Matt pointed to his partner. “You’re too easy on these punks.”

  “Get out,” barked the lead assailant in a high-pitched tone. Both of the kids were now waving their pistols just like they’d seen it done in the movies.

  Matt slowly got out of the car.

  “This is a hold up,” the boy said.

  Matt rolled his eyes. “No it isn’t.”

  “You don’t see these guns, mister?”

  Matt rubbed some residual sleep from his eyes. “You picked the wrong guys to pull over. We’re with the FBI.”

  “Shit,” the lead kid said, immediately lowering his gun. He looked at his fellow thief and said, “You told me he was a basketball player.”

  “I did not,” the second boy said, still holding out his gun, but without the enthusiasm. “I said he looked like a basketball player.”

  “Hey, that’s great,” Matt said, approaching the boys with his hands out. “Now give me the guns before someone gets hurt.”

  They both stood frozen, waiting for the other to move.

  “Guys,” Matt said, “this is Payson, not South LA. There hasn’t been a murder here in almost a year. You guys aren’t hardcore, so don’t go down with a hardcore sentence.” Matt pointed to the tattoo on the side of the lead kid’s leg and winced. “Besides, that’s the same lion tattoo everyone on the Payson High School Marching Band got last fall before the playoffs. How long before they find you? Two hours?”

  This got the kid fidgeting. He was almost there.

  Matt pointed over his shoulder. “My partner has already phoned the sheriff’s office and they’ve been listening in on this conversation.” Matt shrugged. “C’mon guys. You really going to shoot a federal officer and spend the rest of your life cuddling with bodybuilders?”

  The first kid handed over his gun, but the second kid still held his out, backing away as Matt approached. “Hey, wait a minute,” the boy said. “If we give you our guns, will you let us go?”

  “No,” Matt said, flicking his fingertips impatiently. “If you give me your gun I won’t shoot you.”

  “Crap,” the boy said, finally relinquishing his weapon over to Matt.

  “Great negotiating,” Matt said, while snapping a handcuff to the kid’s wrist, then motioning the first kid over. He snapped the other end of the handcuff to the first boy’s wrist, then handcuffed the first boy’s free hand to the door handle of their car. Matt snatched the keys from the ignition and threw them across the street. “Nice talking with you.”

  Nick pulled his cell down from his ear as Matt drove off to the hospital. “Denny’s on his way to take them in.”

  “You know what?” Matt said. “You’re an enabler.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re always defending these young hoodlums like they had no choice.”

  Matt turned onto the main road and hit the gas. His tires spit the remaining gravel from Nick’s driveway, pinging the undercarriage of his SUV.

  “Speaking of hoodlums,” Nick said, “I need to call Tommy.”

  “Tommy’s no hoodlum,” Matt said, defending Nick’s cousin from the calloused remark.

  “Listen to you, coming to his defense. Look how far you’ve come.”

  “Yeah, well, Tommy has done some good things for a lot of people.”

  “Sure,” Nick said. “Like when we were twelve and he stole a Playboy magazine each month to cut out all the promiscuous pictures and sell them to our friends for fifty cents apiece. He made like forty bucks an issue.”

  “Just providing a service to the community,” Matt said.

  “Exactly what he said at the time.”

  Matt approached the hospital and saw the helipad lit up and a helicopter’s blades beginning to turn. The sight made them both remember where they were going and why.

  Nick pulled out his phone and pushed the proper button for his cousin, hoping he was just waking up on the East Coast.

  Chapter 9

  Tommy Bracco sat at the table in the basement of Lloyd’s Poker House with a collection of cards he couldn’t believe. Four Aces and a King. They stared back at him, almost gleaming in the dull overhead lights. It was practically seven in the morning, but Lloyd’s didn’t have any clocks to alert anyone of the oncoming new day, so most of the diehards kept the meter running as long as their luck kept going.

  “Your bet, Tommy,” a gray-haired man said. He sat slumped over with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a long ash curling from the tip.

  The night before there were twenty tables full of lawyers, plumbers, electricians and a variety of business people all there to scratch their gambling itch. Now, there was only one table left. Six players who managed to navigate the pitfalls of card sharks and lady luck.

  Tommy bit on a purple toothpick and casually dropped three thousand in chips into the pile in the middle of the green felt table and said, “You’d better run for the hills.”

  “Very funny,” a small, round female said while feeding the pot. She was the owner of a very successful
chain of dry cleaners around the Baltimore metropolitan area.

  One other guy, Richard Olbert, yawned while placing his bet. Everyone else folded.

  “How’s your dad, Rich,” Tommy asked.

  “Bad,” Rich said, staring at his cards. “He fell and hit his head. He needs a procedure which will probably save his life, but he doesn’t have insurance.”

  “You serious?” Tommy asked, putting his cards down in front of him.

  “Yeah. His head swelled up and he needs a shunt to alleviate the symptoms. But we’re trying of find some way of financing the procedure.”

  Tommy jabbed his toothpick into a back molar and said, “How much is the procedure?”

  “Ten grand.”

  Tommy looked at the pile of chips in the center of the table. “This pot probably has twenty thousand in it right now.”

  Rich looked at Tommy under the glare of the fluorescents and through the cloud of drifting smoke. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m just making conversation, that’s all.”

  Tommy’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he smiled when he saw who was calling. “Hey,” Tommy said. “Isn’t it like three in the morning in Arizona?”

  “Yeah,” Nick Bracco said. “I wake you?”

  “Tommy,” the grump with the curled ash said. “Get off the phone and bet.”

  “Oh,” Nick said into the receiver, “you spent the night at Lloyd’s.”

  “Bingo.” Tommy matched the five thousand dollars that the dry cleaner lady had just dropped into the pot, then added another five thousand in chips.

  Rich frowned at the bet. He glanced at his cards, then back to the dwindling collection of chips in front of him. A pure sign of weakness.

  “I need some help,” Nick said.

  “I’m listening,” Tommy said.

  “Work-related help.”

  “Yeah?” Tommy said, watching Rich decide how much he should invest in his losing hand.