Diablo

by James Kent

  Even so, she did have some promising leads and threads worth following, one of which was the office secretary, Sally. She was definitely a deer in the headlights when Pearman had asked her what she knew about a big ex-military guy who allegedly worked freelance from Suite 1700. Pearman had no idea really if the guy actually was currently working out of the local federal offices, she just assumed it and threw it in there anyway to see what reaction it got from Sally. And it was like she had just been electrocuted. She definitely knows something! thought Pearman. Sally’s reaction more or less confirmed Pearman’s suspicions.

  Pearman decided to pull on this thread further to see what unravelled. But first, she typed up her reports to her bosses back in D.C. She was logged into the local FBI servers, which Agent Gifford had guaranteed were secure. She posted her report, copies of other files and recorded statements into the same encrypted folders she had set up earlier in D.C., followed by an encrypted email with a link to these folders.

  Then she sat back to think.

  And she thought about Nick. She thought about that night and wondered when and if she would get to see him again. Damn! Why is everything so complicated?

  PART II

  6

  Near Kingman, Arizona. Diablo’s ranch, one year ago.

  Disposing of a body is not a simple business for a civilized man. And that’s a damn shame. But the girl had become a problem. Vito Hernandez Silva didn’t like problems. He solved problems. Or, more correctly, he employed others to solve them for him, especially disagreeable ones. Why should he get his hands dirty when he had better things to do?

  He hadn’t liked this girl from the beginning. She was cute, he’d give her that, but she was shifty and hung around Eddie the “Ferret” a little too much for his liking; she distracted him and wandered around the place like she belonged. And then, just as he’d suspected, she was seen again by one of his boys hanging out with a cop in town, sitting in his Crown Vic police cruiser, in the passenger seat like she knew him. Maybe it was innocent, and maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t care. Either way, hanging out with cops without his prior knowledge was asking for trouble. And she’d been seen doing that twice! That was a sackable offence in Silva’s book. So he would have to let her go then, wouldn’t he? Or “disposed of” would be more precise, because no one really got sacked in this business. You got a bullet in the head instead and thrown in a dumpster someplace else. Or whatever.

  Silva had laughed at the idea of “sacking” the bitch because, firstly, she wasn’t even employed by him, and secondly, it reminded him of something funny. Well, maybe not so funny depending on which side of the sack you were on - the inside or the outside. Silva remembered reading once that the phrase came from the days when workers carried their tools in a bag made from sacking, and that when you “got the sack” for being an asshole at work, the boss would say, “Ok, here’s your damn sack . . . now shove your tools back in it and get lost!”. But he also read that the Romans took it to a whole new level. They had a charming means of dealing with someone who had transgressed. They “got the sack” big time! One of the punishments for patricide apparently, but let’s not quibble. Silva imagined the terror of being hogtied naked and sewn up into a large sack along with a mangy dog, a cock, a monkey and a viper and then thrown into the Tiber River for all to drown. Claws, beaks and teeth going everywhere. Mayhem and panic as the animals clawed and bit and savaged everything around them in desperation to escape. Meanwhile, the naked criminal with his ankles and wrists tied together behind his back didn’t stand a chance as he was clawed and bitten in a mad frenzy. Ripped to shreds as he also drowns. Quite a spectacle for the watchers on the river banks as they watched the thrashing madness. I must test that some time, on someone who “transgresses” thought Silva, or “Diablo” as he was called by those who feared and hated him. And with good reason.

  He was indeed like the Devil to those who knew him.

  But at a short five feet six inches and slightly rotund, Silva looked more like a diminutive Oliver Hardy. Not at all imposing or threatening in appearance. He looked more like a comedian who was about to tell a huge joke that would have the listener laughing like a drain. But he was called El Diablo Gordo, “The Fat Devil”, by his enemies and sometimes by those close to him, although not within earshot. Clearly, he had some ground to make up for his comedic appearance. Therefore, in order to compensate for his small, unimpressive physical stature, Diablo emphasized his personality, his cruelty and his epic temper which, legend has it, he inherited from his deranged and violent grandpa who once killed a man for stealing his beer in a bar. His grandpa didn’t take kindly to such acts of disrespect, so he picked up an empty beer glass from the bar counter and smashed it into the guy’s face multiple times, breaking the glass. He continued on with the broken end until the guy’s face was so carved up and lacerated, he bled to death on the bar floor. Yet Silva had always admired the old boy for it. He respected his decisiveness and his sense of instant justice. Why pussyfoot around asking dumb questions when you could just cut to the chase with a beer glass in the face?

  But perhaps Silva over-compensated for his own lack of height and his friendly countenance because he had built up an impressive body count, accumulated over the years, that he was proud of. Hence his interest in experimenting with unusual methods of punishment for those who crossed him. Provided, of course, he didn’t have to do the dirty work himself. He saw merit in the methods and detachment of the Romans who didn’t get to the top of the food chain by being nice. The Roman emperors left all the nitty-gritty, nasty details to the Gladiators and the soldiers and, in the case of formal public executions, to the carnifex. The emperors watched from a distance and applauded like everyone else as they ate their grapes and drank their wine while blood was being spilt. They were insulated from the minutiae of dishing out the deaths that they themselves prescribed. Yet Silva had a thing about seeing death up close. He always felt nauseous at the sight of blood if there was too much of it to take in all at once; he would retch and reach for the bucket. He loved the idea of it, but not the sight of it.

  Silva had a charmingly pessimistic outlook, and a motto he swore by that he believed always kept him real: “Nobody dies. Everybody gets KILLED!” Whether by a weapon, a snake bite or by the Grim Reaper coming for you with his scythe. There are no exceptions. He always wanted it emblazoned in Latin and placed somewhere obvious, like above the gates to his property some day in the future where ignorant passers-by would see it and wonder what it meant. They would be impressed by the erudite sound of it and imagine it meant something charmingly profound. An in-joke all his own. Omnes Occisus! A phrase that sounds delightfully charming yet is anything but. Just like Diablo himself.

  So, this girl of Eddie’s had it coming. Trouble is, thought Silva, there ‘aint no nice, convenient river runnin’ through this here town. And that’s a damn shame! No river for a good Roman-style “sacking”! he laughed to himself. Too bad. He’d have to do it the modern way then. He had guys who knew what to do and how to do it, and how to clean up after themselves. That’s what he paid them for after all.

  And then I’ll deal with the Ferret! he thought. But Silva was torn because Eddie the Ferret was useful. He knew his way around computers like no one else. He had proven his usefulness on many occasions by hacking into military sites, aircraft and weapons manufacturers, banks and government servers and federal law enforcement agencies; web sites and databases and email accounts. Anything and everything that had a market value to those who dealt in mayhem. Very useful indeed. Silva wasn’t sure where the Ferret had learned the skills to do that because it was all black magic to him. And thanks to Eddie constantly sniffing the ether for trouble heading their way, he knew exactly when to up-sticks and get the hell ’outta Dodge, to the next place. He had plenty of bases he’d set up for that reason, mostly in smaller towns where no one knew him. Towns big enough that they’d have the necessary resources to run his kind of business: reliable, high speed inte
rnet and a convenient, out-of-the-way property where he could set up shop again - but small enough that he wasn’t known to the locals and where the Feds wouldn’t expect him to be kicking back his heels. Hence this place just a few miles off the Stockton Hill Road outside Kingman, Arizona and looking out to the dry, crusty Cerbat mountains to the west. It was the perfect spot in the desert to put down some roots, at least for a while until he had to bolt if the Feds got a sniff of his activities and decided to take a look. It was close enough to Kingman to hook into its services, yet far enough away to guarantee privacy. There were of course a few other buildings here and there, mostly storage and semi-industrial facilities, but no other residential properties nearer than ten miles or more. The ranch had been on the market for some time but hadn’t sold. Probably because of its remoteness. The owners probably had big ideas for expansion, like a cattle ranch, before running into reality and changing their minds. Too much dust. And then Silva got wind of it and made an offer the owners couldn’t refuse. He got it for a song. The place was run down and neglected. But who cares about that when you’re only there to buy and sell whores and drugs and bust into bank servers?

  But the main advantage of the place outside of Kingman was that you could see for miles in all directions; you could see if anyone uninvited approached the property. There’s absolutely no cover, which is good for security. Silva also liked the idea of being a moving target, not staying in one place for too long, maybe a year or two, tops, and then moving again. Yet it was how he had been forced to operate after they’d destroyed his neat little business down south of the Mexican border four years ago. Pity about that. He’d been onto a good thing.

  There had been money to be made in the trading of human flesh; kidnappings for foreign prostitution rings, “people smuggling” they call it now. How quaint. An endless supply of the “raw material” his end, and high demand at the other made for a very good business model. More money than dealing in dope and selling it to dope heads! All of the girls whom he sold on the so-called “meat markets” were destitute, vulnerable and emotionally disturbed. Easy prey for Diablo. They were severely damaged psychologically, but Silva didn’t care. When one of his men once asked him about the girls’ mental and emotional state, Silva replied, ‘Who cares if the software crashes all the time, provided the hardware is serviceable?’ In his view it was irrelevant how the girls felt because the business was all about how they looked and performed.

  Silva had a fine thing going for himself until the Feds threw a colossal spanner in the works and rounded up the entire network. But he still managed to slink off into the undergrowth, along with a handful of his gang, the more loyal members who were subsequently rewarded. After that disaster, he had to diversify to build his business back up again. He started off small by peddling counterfeit goods, including counterfeit US dollars for the overseas black market, and of course that hoary old staple: drugs on the side - everything from hard-core heroine to your run-of-the-mill meth. Playing the middle man in that game had its rewards; you were insulated from the exposed ends of the supply chain. But it was boring and predictable. Not really his thing. He had higher standards than that.

  Two years after that close call with the Feds, when he was getting bored and wondering about his retirement plan, Silva had, by sheer chance, come across the very person who could help him get ahead: Eddie the “Ferret”, known by the on-line alias “Putorius Furo” which meant “stinking thief”. It was also the Latin name for a weasel or a ferret, as in “Mustela Putorius Furo”. But he also looked like a ferret, so it fitted him well. Eddie liked the alias as much as Silva liked his disreputable past: he was running from the law for some minor misdemeanor; armed robbery or assault or something like that, which meant he had nothing to lose by working for him. Eddie needed a job and he had skills that could be put to use.

  It was Eddie who had given Silva the idea of hacking into the most secure government servers and selling all their dirty little secrets to hostile overseas powers. Like North Korea for instance. Foreign powers like North Korea could take advantage of having easy access to such secrets without having to leave their own digital fingerprints behind. They would be insulated and could claim ignorance if the hacking ring got busted by the Feds. Diablo could sell them passwords, credit card numbers, classified documents, military secrets; everything he could get his hands on. The dirty laundry market. Sounds mundane, but he knew that people will pay for other people’s dirty laundry if it means uncovering a nasty little secret that will bring them down. It would be fitting revenge for having destroyed his earlier enterprise. Well, if it was good enough for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, it was good enough for him! A ‘whistleblower.’ Life is full of irony, he thought. Maybe they should drop this “Diablo” thing and refer to him as “El Angel”, The Angel. No, let’s not.

  Eddie came with his own network of anonymous hackers, people even he only knew by their on-line pseudonyms. He convinced Silva that there was money to be made in selling high-grade secrets to foreign powers, especially to Kim Jong-un’s DPRK who were always on the backfoot and who therefore had a healthy appetite for every tidbit out of the United States, anything that would give them an advantage. After all, that’s what all the fuss was about during the Cold War. Secrets. Highly classified information, both political and military, but especially military, and the suicidal efforts spies went to on both sides of the Iron Curtain to steal them, and sometimes sell them. Many became wealthy until their luck ran out and they found themselves being strapped to Old Sparky awaiting the throw of the switch, or to a gurney awaiting the plunge of the needle. Not quite the outcome they’d hoped for. But ok, the Cold War is over now. Ancient history. No one cares anymore. But the market for classified information is bigger than it ever was. Who would have thought? Information IS money! Period. You can sell it or you can blackmail with it. In Silva’s estimation, Francis Bacon was only half right when he famously wrote Ipsa scientia potestas est! “Knowledge is power!” It’s also money. Diablo knew that more than anyone.

  The Ferret and his network of hackers would find a back-alley way into the most secure databases; government and military. They would download or copy the data onto their own secure servers, protected by aggressive firewalls to which Eddie had the keys of entry. Then Silva would give away a tempter, a few sample documents say, with crucial parts missing or redacted, and promise to hand over the rest after a fee was agreed. Once he was satisfied that the funds, in part or in whole, had been deposited into his off-shore bank account, the Ferret would release the codes and allow all the stolen documents and data to be accessed. Help yourself! Knock yourself out. There’s plenty more where that came from. And the money would percolate and trickle down to the lowest ranks of the hacking network, all laundered and anonymous. A win-win. Everyone happy. Except of course the target. But who the hell cares about that angle? Certainly not Diablo!

  The target of the theft would of course frantically plug the leak while the cyber-crime agencies would begin tracking down the culprit who had long since disappeared. Thanks to Eddie’s brilliant hacking skills, and those of his network, all trace of the activity was gone; it was like swishing over your footprints in the sand with a leafy branch as you backtracked away from the scene of the crime.

  So yes, it would be a pity to lose the Ferret because he would also lose the network that Eddie subscribed to. But he couldn’t take the risk now, could he? And there were others out there, other hacking cartels, who could do what Eddie did. Not a problem. Maybe not as well as Eddie admittedly, but good enough, while the rest would come with experience.

  All Silva had to do was recruit a replacement. No sweat. You can’t keep your cake and eat it!, he thought. Situations change. Eddie would be pissed about the loss of his girlfriend, that’s for sure, and he would probably want revenge. And that can’t happen!

  *

  Eddie’s girlfriend had been questioned to within an inch of her life. In a deserted warehouse in an ancient ghost t
own called Chloride, a few miles northwest of Kingman, off Route 93. No one ever went to Chloride because not much happened there, maybe nothing happened there. Period. The perfect place for a beating then. Or a murder. Who’s to know?

  She was a mess by then of course. Not a pretty sight anymore after Silva’s boys had had their fun persuading her to admit that she was working for the Feds or the cops or the government or someone else. Turns out she didn’t know a thing, so it must have been an “innocent dalliance”, to use the posh term, her messing about with that cop. Maybe she was just a cheap bitch and was cheating on the Ferret. Didn’t know which side her bread was buttered on. How ironic, thought Silva. Never mind, she could still have compromised the operation eventually if she’d learned something later and then spilled her guts to some other random cop.

  So they stuck her in a barrel, filled it with used engine oil, clamped the lid back on and then rolled it onto the back of an old rusted clunker, just another old barrel amongst other old barrels full of old oil, and then sent to Mexico for recycling. No great loss. No loss at all. Who needs mangy dogs and cocks and snakes in a sack?

  Now, what to do about Eddie the Ferret?

  7

  Chloride, Arizona.

  Revenge is a dish best served cold, or so the saying goes. Eddie the Ferret wasn’t sure who first coined that phrase, some French dude apparently, but it was an accurate description of how he wanted to serve it up to Silva and his guys after what they had done to his girlfriend. But for now, he would keep his head down and bide his time, make like he was over it pretty quickly. Easy come, easy go. Besides, he couldn’t allow Silva to think he was gunning for him because he would probably have him dealt to by his heavies and sealed up in barrel and shipped to Mexico just like his girl. That ‘aint gonna happen! he decided.