“That sounds about right.”
Ted looked back and forth between us, then put his hands over his face and took a deep breath, letting it out in a rush of air as he took his hands away from his face again.
“Am I hearing right? I mean, like, my ears are working Okay? You’re saying that you want to bring down Bernardo Dom Miguel, the Brazilian Minister of the Interior?”
I kept driving while Ronnie fielded his question. She tilted her head a little, hesitating before she answered, pursing her lips and making one of those ‘I’m really thinking about this one’ kind of faces. Hamming it up. She must have secret desires to be on the Silver Screen. She wasn’t bad at it either, come to think about it. She could probably give Michelle Pfeiffer a run for her money. Why I thought of Michelle Pfeiffer I couldn’t tell you. Although ever since I’d seen her in ‘Russia House’ with Sean Connery I’d been absolutely mad about her. I think she should have gotten the Academy Award for Best Actress for that year, no question.
After giving the moment enough focus and tension to captivate her audience, she answered.
“Umm. That’s about it, yes. I guess you’re right.”
“Okay, that’s it. I’ll give you a choice then. Shoot me now and be done with it, or stop the car and shoot me right out here by the road-side. Then you won’t mess up the car. You people are crazier than he is. Better yet, don’t even stop. The next time we pass anything that looks softer than a rock, I’ll just throw myself out the window. How about that, then? It will save me a lot of pain and agony, and I honestly can’t take any more. I’ve had it with this whole thing. I screwed up my life, and I, me and me alone, got my brother killed. My only family. You would be doing the world a favour, and me as well.”
“Shut up about you. Get it? I don’t care if you throw yourself into a meat grinder at a pet food plant when this is over, but you’re the one who’s going to help us get it done, and you ain’t goin’ nowhere bud. Not until this is over. The sooner you realize that the better. I give you this advice one time, and one time only: don’t screw around with us, or you’ll never see the sun with your naked eye until you’re a hundred years old. If you live that long. The Colonel that you’re being lippy with has the authority to make her own Disparu.
Think about it. If you co-operate fully with the Colonel, your chances of survival increase dramatically. The only reason you’re alive right now is because we pulled you out of the line of fire. You would never have made it out of that bank alive this morning without us.
Now get with the program or I will shoot you. In both kneecaps. Then we’ll put you in a wheelchair and carry on. This is for real, Ted. This guy you fear is nothing more than a plain old-fashioned bad-guy. He happens to be working from a power base that going to make it hard to get to him, but that’s the kind of job this team thrives on. If it wasn’t almost impossible to do in the first place, we wouldn’t have been put on the case. That’s what we do. The impossible. We, my friend, are the baddest of the bad. No one can touch us, because they can’t even dream of the level we operate at. Like I said, think about it. I’ll give you three seconds to make up your mind.”
The whole time I was dressing Ted down, Ronnie was casually going through her notebook, making an entry here and there, ignoring us completely. Ted lay curled up in the back, and I watched him in the rear-view mirror the whole time I spoke. I saw the fight in him, and my little talk only cracked the shell of it, it didn’t shatter. What the hell, why not go all the way?
I braked hard, and pulled the car onto the soft shoulder at about fifty miles an hour, and left a trail of skid ruts in the crushed gravel about a hundred yards long. The gravel chips flew everywhere, and what a racket. All of the underside of the car behind the front and rear wheels was peppered with gravel that sounded like machine gun fire. Ted was starting to crack now. He hadn’t expected that we were serious. Canadian Police didn’t just shoot you.
Ronnie looked at me with a questioning expression on her face. I threw her a wink as I turned around when we came to a stop.
“Colonel, would you mind letting Ted out on your side?”
“Why certainly, Major.”
She unbuckled her belt and opened the door, getting out to stand beside the open door. The Audi pulled in slowly behind us while this was going on. I pulled the keys, and got out of the car from Ronnie’s side, and then I folded the seat forward and motioned impatiently for Ted to get out. He started to see the light then.
“Hey, guys. Come on now, eh? This isn’t funny.”
“Get out.”
“I won’t. You can’t do this.”
I reached into the back, grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him yelling and struggling right out of the car and threw him face down on the gravel at my feet. Then I kicked him in the head, which bounced him off the rear wheel. The kick had been soft enough not to hurt him, but the effect was as planned. When his head bounced off the tire he was rocked to his boots. He tried to get up, first on his hands and knees, and then I put my foot on his neck and stomped him face down in the gravel and dirt. Then I carefully pulled out the Colt, which still had the silencer on it. When you look down the barrel of a gun, it chills your blood, but you think, ‘maybe I can talk my way out of this’. When the gun has a silencer on it, the reaction is totally different. Then, there’s an expectation of death.
It changes people quickly from whatever side they think they’re on, to the side you want them to be on. Your side. This only works on untrained people, it’s one drawback, but Ted wasn’t trained for this.
I rolled him over with my foot, keeping pressure on his neck. Then he was looking straight up into the silenced Colt .45, and everything changed. He started crying and mumbling something or other. I got his attention back when the slug hit the ground one inch from his left ear. Shards of small stone splashed against the side of his face, and a few drew blood. Not much, but enough so that he could feel the wetness dripping across his cheek. Then I put one into the ground on the right side of his head, this time closer. The look was one of pure fear now. Ted wouldn’t last five minutes in boot camp. I kept my eyes on him as I spoke one word to Ronnie.
“Colonel?”
She looked down at Ted, and then sighed.
“Well, it seems that he wants to be difficult. We don’t have time for that. Show him the light.”
She turned away and walked towards the Audi where Therese was sitting in the passenger seat with her jaw on the floor. But she didn’t try to intervene, or even say anything. It was either a show of trust for me, or she was shocked witless. I prefer to think the former.
“Well, Ted. Do you believe in God?”
“No, yes, I mean I do. I do. Please don’t kill me, please.”
The silent tears were running now, mixing with the blood from the small cuts on his cheeks.
“Why not?”
“What?”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said ‘Why not?’.
“I’ll help you. I will, I swear. Anything you say. Please, I don’t want to die.”
“Oh, stop your sniveling. I told you I wouldn’t kill you. I told you I’d knee-cap you, and we’d continue on with a wheelchair for you. But that’s only if you agree to switch sides.”
“I’m not on anybody’s side!”
“Yes, you are. You’re on your side. This is a turning point in your life Ted. Don’t trick yourself into anything less than the truth. If you had all of your money, you’d be gone in a flash, and you wouldn’t spare a thought for the men who killed your brother in cold blood until you were somewhere safe and sound.”
I leaned closer and lowered my voice to the point that he had to strain to hear me as I spoke.
“The catch, Ted, is that there-is–no–such–place.”
I straightened up again and resumed my former stance.
“Do you get it now? These guys have to be taken down, and I’m going to do it, one way or another. You. You’re either a help or a hindrance. If you’r
e a hindrance, I’d prefer to kill you and forget you, but the Colonel thinks that you got mixed up in this before you knew the extent of its darkness. If that’s true, then all you have to do is convince the Colonel that you believe in what she’s doing, and swear allegiance to her. To the Colonel, and the mission. Do you understand? All for one and one for all. That’s how we win. She also doesn’t like to kill needlessly.”
“Yes.”
It was getting pitiful, so I let him out of the trap.
“Okay, get up and try.”
I holstered the Colt, and leaned against the car with my arms folded. Then I waited.
Ted was hesitant to move, so I gave him a nudge in the butt with my foot.
“Do you not understand English, Mister Dawson?”
He was up as fast as he could move, which was kind of slow, what with the shakes and all. As he rose to his feet I brushed of his jacket for him, and pulled a white hanky out of my pocket and wiped his face for him. The small drops of blood from the rock chips had already started to congeal, so I reached into the car and brought out a bottle of the new Perrier non-carbonated spring water, and soaked the edge of the hanky, giving it to him so he could present himself with a modicum of dignity. He was a pilot and an engineer, not a Spec-Ops trained player. If I pushed him any harder, I think he would have started having a nervous breakdown right there and then, so I eased up which did the trick. I took him square by the shoulders then, and pointed him in Ronnie’s direction.
“It’s going to be Okay Ted. This team has been authorized to pursue our quarry to the ends of the earth if need be, and to resolve it any manner deemed appropriate as we close in. We’re the good guys, Ted. Choose your side carefully, there’s a carrot, and there’s a stick. The carrot is a full pardon for any part you may have played in this internationally based mess. Your best interest is served by joining us in our hunt.
We’re dealing with terrorists, Ted. Capital ‘T’. They have access to sources of supply for data and materiel that most branches of the U.S. military can’t get to. We aren’t going back to Canada without resolving this dilemma. It’s as simple as that. Anything and everything you think you know and even information you may think you don’t know will be valuable to us at this stage. We ask the questions, and maybe you have some answers that don’t connect for you, but they will for us. Help, and you get back some of that lost pride of yours.
Don’t kid yourself, they want you, they get you, that’s the way it works. So far, they haven’t actively come looking for you. This morning you were coming to them. They were just waiting for you to walk into their line of fire. That will change now. Now they’ll start actively looking. You could last a week, tops. If you had all of your money, which you don’t.
If you let us down now, you’re finished. Whatever dreams you may have had for your life will be wiped out by Executive Order. That’s the stick. A six by ten cell in a maximum-security facility in Alberta. It’s run by the military. Do you know anything about a military prison Ted? Nothing is free. Not food, not a bed, not blankets, not yard time, nothing. You earn it, and you earn it the hard way. They have a ninety-nine percent rehabilitation rate. The other one percent never leave. Alive. It’s that fork in the road time, laddie. Do the right thing.”
Then I gave him a small shove to get his feet moving. He walked over to Ronnie and started talking. After about five minutes, she held up her hand to cut the talk short. The rest could be worked out en route. He’d signed onboard.
Ronnie walked over to the ‘Vette and filled me in. Ted still didn’t think he knew very much of anything, but he was willing to join the team in the capacity of ‘advisor’. That also kept him within protective distance of the team until this thing was brought to a conclusion. He had sworn allegiance though, and I believed him. For now.
We got back into the cars, this time Ronnie rode with Evie and Therese, while I got sole possession of Ted. As I pulled onto the pavement I held out until the back wheels were on the traction they needed, then I punched it, pushing us both back in our seats with a surprising force. It was like having a big soft hand pushing you into the seat. I had made sure that the comm link between Ronnie and I was live before we got underway again. Ted and I were going to talk some while I drove, and I wanted Ronnie in on it. She could do the look-ups that would verify what Ted gave us while we talked and drove.
The Audi still had Therese at the wheel, with Evie riding up front and Ronnie in the back. The first thing I knew, Ronnie was on the link.
“Switch to channel three on my mark.”
There was a short pause, then she came back.
“Mark.”
I had my right hand under my jacket, and I pressed the digital stud twice, bringing me from channel one to channel three. Channel three had a constantly cycling frequency, which was programmable according to four different algorithms, the same as the other channels. The added advantage of channel three was that the encryption chip was the real thing, the kind that was illegal for civilian use, and each set was custom coded. As long as we switched them from time to time, it would take even more sophisticated gear than ours to pick up anything meaningful. And of course, the power level was adjustable, and we were using the lowest of those settings right now, being close together and having line-of-sight as well.
Ted seemed to be more comfortable than before, not just because of the seat, but because he had finally believed us. That made us his friends. Maybe his only friends. I kicked off the talk. We had about forty-five minutes until we hit Geneva. Plenty of time to find out what he did know and didn’t know.
“So, Ted. Let’s start from the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“Yeah. That’s the place where a story starts. You know, like ‘Once upon a time I had an airplane, and I flew it for the Brazilian Government.’ Like that.”
“Right.”
“Sound more enthusiastic when you say that.”
“Okay, Okay. Geez.”
“That’s ‘Okay, sir.”
“What?”
“You’ve joined our team. We let you do that for two reasons. One is for information, the other is to keep you alive. Nevertheless, you’re a member of the team now, and as such, you will address me as ‘sir’, or ‘Major’, unless we’re in public, in which case I’m just ‘Jeffry’. When I ask you to do something from now on, consider it an order unless it’s specified as otherwise. Get it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s better. See? We’re already making progress. Ted, I want you to understand something here. This mission will be completed, and anyone attached to the wrong end of the stick is going to get poked in the eye with it. Failure is not one of our options. So now, let’s get back to your story. Okay?”
“Okay, sir.”
“Fine. Let’s start with who you’ve actually met, that’s involved in this.”
“Alright, then. Uh… one person for sure is this banker from the Crassberg Group, Ms. Meir. She was the one that I met in Amsterdam. I handed the tape over to her personally. Enrico D’ Vasquez was there as well. I know that there are more significant players on the Brazilian front, because Enrico would never take orders from anyone weaker than himself. Power-wise, I mean. I figured this out only after the damage was done. This Meir woman was for real, don’t get me wrong. She was the one who set up the account for me, arranged the payment, all that. She was the one I handed the data over to, but I got the distinct impression that there were people behind her who knew her every move. She may or may not have known that. Which suggested to me that the real power behind the scenes was in Brazil. That leaves us with the two choices we discussed earlier. Sorry, I mean that you discussed earlier.
Your analysis was pretty much right on the money. Bernardo Don Miguel. The Ministry of the Interior covers a lot of functions, and Don Miguel has a power base that he’s built into the Ministry, and it extends out into the civilian sector. The ‘underground army’ is what it’s referred to as. He controls a lar
ge number of legally uniformed Security Forces, as well as people like Enrico. Although Enrico is more than just a soldier in his underground army. I think he’s a special guy who gets assignments that would bother the conscience of even the hardest death squads on his payroll.”
“That fits, but the number one question remains unresolved.”
“Which question is that?”
“You said that you made an extra pass with your geo-sensor gear, right on the edge of the field being mapped out for the steel-mill project. Then, when you analyzed the data, you found evidence that there might be something very special in that area. You went back. You ran a pass outside the field projections, and you found something worth more than the entire iron ore field, which seems to be the largest and richest strike of iron ore the world has ever seen. Potentially more valuable, anyway. The Kimberlite Pipes. How am I doing so far?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“You know what happens when you lie to a commanding officer, Ted?”
He hung his head down and rubbed both of his temples, using a slow circular motion. His resignation to the hand fate had dealt him was sinking in deeply right about now.
“You get shot at dawn?”
“That headache you have is one that I gave to you Ted. You’re going to have to get used to this new arrangement, or you’re not going to be in very good shape when we’re finished.”
He stopped massaging his temples, but left his hands where they were as he turned slightly to look at me. That’s when I hit him. I never took my eyes off of the road. My right lashed out and back-handed him across the side of his head, bouncing him off of the window this time.
The surprise and shock of the smack made as much of an impact as the hit itself, which wasn’t very hard.
“What was that for?”
His tone was actually showing his hurt was in his feelings, not his head.
“That’s just to make sure I have your attention. I’m going to keep you alive Ted. Make no mistake about that. When we return home, I want to be able to say that you were an actively co-operating member of the team. That’s what I want, and that’s what I‘ll get. You will do exactly that. When you swore allegiance to the Colonel you became a legally deputized member of the RCMP. As such, you are obliged to follow orders or suffer the consequences. I don’t want any more lies, understand?”
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 79
