Enemy Contact

by Mike Maden

  They tapped glasses and tossed back their whiskeys.

  “Next time you see him, tell him . . .” Sands’s eyes glassed over.

  “Tell him what?”

  “Nothin’. Not a goddamn thing.”

  Sands poured himself another one and downed it in one throw, slamming the shot glass back onto the bar, his mind lost in another time.

  The beer and whiskey were hitting Jack pretty good on his empty stomach. Maybe it was the booze that made him sorry as hell for the broken-down Ranger standing in front of him. Something was eating Sands alive besides the liquor he was using to try and drown it. Some kind of sleepless guilt, Jack suspected, judging by the rings around his large, sad eyes.

  A chill ran down Jack’s spine. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he was staring in a mirror at his future self.

  “Another whiskey,” Jack said.

  Sands snapped out of his stupor and poured him another one, then refilled his glass.

  “So, I told you my story. What’s yours?” Jack asked.

  “You didn’t tell me shit. Besides, the law of bartenders is sacrosanct. We listen, we don’t talk.” Sands tossed back his whiskey.

  Jack glanced around the bar. “So, if tourism business is bad, why are you still hanging around this place?”

  Sands shrugged. “Where else would I go? I ain’t got no people. Besides, one place is the same as another.”

  Which was another way of saying you can’t run away from yourself, Jack thought.

  Sands added, “Besides, I own the place, and a man’s place is his castle.”

  “What’d you pay for it?”

  “I won it in a poker game a while back.” Sands grinned. “Or maybe I lost.”

  “So, a tour guide. That’s what brought you here originally?” Jack asked, putting the glass to his mouth.

  Sands darkened for a moment, then gathered himself. “Something like that.”

  “If you were a tour guide, maybe you have a map I can look at? I need to find the trailhead for La Hermana.”

  “Sorry, pal. That mountain is closed. Rock slides and bad chemicals from the mining up there. Dangerous as hell.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “No, you won’t. There’s no way up. Trust me, your friend won’t know the difference if you scatter him on some other hill around here.”

  “He won’t, but I will.” Jack finished off his whiskey.

  Sands’s eyes flashed grudging approval. But then he said, “Farts are like promises. Everybody makes ’em but nobody can keep ’em.”

  Jack stiffened. “Not in my family.”

  “Look, Jack. I got an old four by four Jeep Willys out back that runs like a top. There’s a mountain about ten klicks from here that’ll knock your socks off and your friend will love it. I’ll run you up there tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “Seriously, kid. There’s evil shit up on Hermana that you don’t want any part of. I’m telling you, stay the hell away.”

  Jack stretched and yawned. He was stiff from sitting way too long on the bus ride up and now on a barstool. He needed to get up and move around a little. “What do I owe you for the beer and whiskey?”

  “That round was on the house. Otherwise, beer’s a buck and whiskey shots are two, American.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Give me thirty minutes and I’ll get that room ready for you. There’s a not-too-shitty place to eat around the corner if you’re hungry. The guinea pig is outstanding if you’re into grilled rodents. Me, I prefer the bisteca con huevos.”

  The drunk at the table suddenly roared a Spanish obscenity, rising up out of a nightmare, swinging his arms in an imaginary fight. His balled fist knocked the pisco bottle to the floor, shattering it, startling the hooker and her pimp husband.

  “Ah, fuck me,” Sands growled, marching out from behind the bar, towel in hand. He swore a blue streak in Spanish as he approached the man, who was protesting his drunken innocence.

  Jack took that as his cue to step outside for a breath of fresh air and to clear his head.

  72

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Gerry Hendley hadn’t served as a U.S. senator for nearly two decades, but he was still a legend on the Hill. His close friendship with President Ryan also gave him the kind of influence and respect that everyone in the swamp craved but seldom achieved.

  Hendley’s own impeccable credentials as an honest political broker and his legitimately acquired wealth in the cutthroat world of finance proved his judgment and worth as an ally, especially in a presidential race, which was why Senator Dixon readily agreed to meet with him in her office on short notice.

  “Gerry, it’s so good to see you,” Dixon said, coming out from behind her desk as her assistant shut the door behind him. She extended her hand and Gerry took it in both of his. He squeezed gently. His smile faded.

  “Something wrong?” Dixon asked.

  “Sandra Kyle. Tell me about her.”

  “An old friend. Ex–Capitol Police. She owns a gun range I frequent.”

  “Why is she having my people followed?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Because you’re the one who arranged it.” He released her. She stepped back, heading for the comfort of her desk.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “A man named Tyler works for her, and he was tailing Jack. Tyler told a friend of mine that he was under orders from Kyle, and that Kyle had suggested she was working with someone ‘very powerful’ in D.C.”

  “That could be a lot of people,” Dixon said, sitting behind her desk. “That could even be you.”

  “But it wasn’t me, was it? What’s going on?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. Sandra is someone I use every now and then to do a little opposition research. Showing a potential opponent pictures of him screwing his Jamaican au pair has an amazing effect on his campaign plans. C’mon, Gerry. You know how the game is played.”

  “What does that have to do with Jack Junior? He’s not running for anything.”

  “Like I said, I’m not sure. Something must have led her in that direction.”

  Gerry glanced around the office. All of the typical photos, plaques, and honorifics hung on her walls, much like they had in his office years ago. “I love the game, Deb, just as much as you do. Sometimes I even miss it. It might shock you to know that I think you have the potential to be a very effective President.”

  Gerry came and sat on the corner of her desk and leaned over. “I can help you, Deb, or I can break you. And so help me God, if you do anything to hurt Jack Junior in any way, shape, or form, I will break you so badly you will wish you had never been born.”

  “Is that a threat from you or President Ryan?”

  Gerry stood. “He doesn’t know I’m here. But you sure as hell do. If you can find any dirt on President Ryan, go for it. All’s fair in politics. But you don’t touch a man’s family, especially his kids.”

  The pathos in Gerry’s voice struck a chord in her childless heart. The man had lost his entire family, and she knew he considered the Ryans as his own now.

  Dixon lifted her phone receiver. “I’ll call Kyle immediately and get her to stand down.”

  “You do that.”

  Gerry’s face suddenly took a pleasant turn, affecting the down-home smile of a country politician.

  “And good luck on your campaign, Senator. I’ll be watching.”

  CIELO SANTO, PERU

  Jack stood beneath the covered awning in front of La Vicuña Roja, his pack slung over his shoulders, listening to the rain pounding the sheet metal and watching the rivers of mud and human misery wash past. Sands’s cursing had ended when he hauled the drunk by the elbow out of the front door and pointed him down the street. T
he man thanked Sands in Spanish and wobbled away toward home on uneasy legs.

  “The mayor of our fair city,” Sands muttered as he headed back inside. “Poor bastard.”

  Jack decided to check out the town a little bit more, not bothering to dash between awnings to avoid the rain. He didn’t give a shit if he got wet. He was already battling a blinding depression from Liliana’s death, but Sands’s warnings to stay off the mountain had infuriated him.

  The rest of the street was a series of small shops, crowded tenements, and improvised housing. An endless stream of bedraggled miners and their women shuffled through the muddy street. Drunks and addicts clustered in knots in the alleyways, either standing in the rain or lying beneath plastic sheeting hung from ropes strung between buildings. The stench of human waste and burnt wood and old cooking grease dogged his steps. Whatever beauty or charm this place ever had was swallowed up by the hopeless desperation of grinding poverty. His already bad mood worsened. He decided to turn around.

  As he approached the front of Sands’s bar again, an unmarked bus rumbled to a stop at the gas station. The door clunked open and a bearded Hispanic male descended. He glanced up and down the street. He and Jack locked eyes for a moment, then the man turned away, heading for a fuel pump.

  Suddenly, a teenage Quechua boy leaped out of the bus door and sprinted toward Jack, his young face a mask of terror.

  The man at the pump shouted “¡Alto!” at the boy as he pulled a pistol from beneath his raincoat.

  Jack started to bolt toward the terrified kid, but a strong hand grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around—

  “Stay the hell out of this,” Sands growled.

  “But that kid—”

  A gunshot cracked behind them.

  Jack whipped around just in time to see the teenager skid to a halt in the mud, his trembling hands held high. The man who fired the pistol in the air grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back toward the bus.

  “This is bullshit—” Jack said, shaking Sands off.

  But Sands grabbed him again with both hands and pulled him close.

  “Getting yourself shot ain’t gonna help that kid or nobody else on that bus or your friend there hanging around your neck! You fuckin’ feel me?”

  Jack wanted to throw a punch at Sands to put him on his ass and go after the kid, but Clark’s voice in the back of his head told him to stand down.

  Another man with a short-barreled carbine stood in front of the bus now as the other man with the pistol dragged the kid up the stairs.

  Sands released his grip. Jack’s eyes raged at the former Ranger.

  “You want to tell me what that’s all about?”

  “Go get something to eat and bed down for the night, then head back home tomorrow. There’s nothing here for you except misery and maybe a bullet in the back of your skull.”

  73

  Jack begrudgingly took Sands’s advice to grab some grub and headed for the restaurant he’d recommended. It was in the best part of town, which wasn’t saying much. But the place was clean and the steak and eggs were good—better than he’d hoped for, actually—but he couldn’t take his mind off his troubles or the hellscape outside. Whatever was going on in that bus with that kid wasn’t good, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it at the moment.

  He thought about calling the American embassy on his cell phone, but besides the fact that he couldn’t get a cell signal up here, what could he say? “I saw a guy grab a kid and threaten him with a pistol?”

  He had nothing to offer by way of clues or evidence or even a license plate number. And what could the State Department do anyway? This place was clearly beyond the reach of the local authorities. Maybe when he got back to Lima he could figure something out.

  He felt like shit even thinking that, but he really was out of options. That poor kid was scared out of his mind, but for all Jack knew, he was a criminal being transported on a police bus.

  Maybe Sands was right after all.

  “You loser,” he muttered to himself as he dropped the fork onto his plate. He’d failed Liliana, and he’d failed that kid.

  Nothing he could do about any of it. Yeah. He got that.

  But they were just as screwed.

  * * *

  —

  Jack headed back to the bar. The rain had slowed to a fine, watery mist. With any luck, it would stop soon.

  Self-flagellation worked up a thirst in any man, especially one who thought he had the blood of innocents on his hands. He shook off the rain and stepped inside.

  The same fat mestizo woman smiled at him again, her eyes hopeful and despairing all at once, but Jack ignored her. Her male companion was gone.

  Jack changed his mind.

  He approached her table. Her face brightened with surprise. Jack pulled out his wallet and tossed her a one-hundred-soles bill. She stood eagerly to service the big American in a room upstairs, but Jack waved her back down. “Take the night off, honey. On me.”

  She didn’t understand a word. Confused, she glanced over at Sands behind the bar, his nose in a paperback. He shook his head in disbelief and muttered something in Quechua. She snatched up the money with a frown and stormed past Jack and out into the cool, damp night, angry or grateful, he couldn’t be sure.

  Maybe both.

  Shit. He couldn’t do anything right.

  He ambled over to the bar and perched on a stool. He and Sands were the only two people in the joint.

  “Beer or whiskey?” Sands asked, setting the book down. Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. A poodle and a pickup truck.

  “Both.”

  Sands smiled. “Good choice.”

  Sands pulled bottles and glasses, and the two of them drank and talked about the finer points of football, landing on the Super Bowl prospects for Jack’s Redskins and Sands’s Chicago Bears. From football they turned to baseball, and as the booze kicked in, they took a sudden swerve into Steinbeck—the book was still on the bar—and then Hemingway, and somehow they landed on the Lake Poets, especially Wordsworth.

  Then the conversation died, and the two men sat in a silent, shared grief for sins neither man confessed, mirrored images of each other—the past on one side, the future on the other.

  A couple rounds later, two men pushed their way into the bar. They had the rolling gait and easy confidence of men who knew their way around trouble. One of them was the bearded man with the pistol from the bus. The other was taller, but Jack didn’t recognize him.

  As they took their stools on the other end of the bar, both men greeted Sands with a silent nod. Jack saw pistols in their OWB holsters.

  “¿Qué quieren beber?” Sands asked.

  “Cerveza,” the shorter man said.

  “Coming right up.”

  Sands opened two bottles of beer and set them in front of his armed customers. He didn’t move. The three men locked eyes. Finally, the taller man glanced over at Jack and gave him the once-over, then turned back to Sands. Sands leaned on the bar close to the two men and whispered something in Spanish Jack couldn’t hear.

  Sands stood erect again, then came back over to Jack.

  “Another round?”

  Jack lowered his voice. “That was the guy at the bus this afternoon.”

  Sands leaned on his elbows, his reddened nose inches from Jack’s face, stale alcohol on his breath.

  “You didn’t see shit, and you don’t know shit, and you’re not gonna try any shit. Understood?”

  Jack started to turn toward the other two men. Sands laid a firm hand on Jack’s forearm.

  “What would Midas tell you to do, right here, right now?”

  Jack stiffened, but Sands’s grip tightened. “Jack, listen. You got no weapon; they do. These are two rough hombres not to be fucked with. Trust me on this.”

  J
ack was drunk, but not so badly that he couldn’t read the writing on the wall. He nodded curtly, hot shame burning his neck.

  The two men stood. The shorter man tossed coins onto the bar and waved a hand over his head as if to say Adiós, and the two of them disappeared into the night.

  “What the hell was that all about?”

  “A friendly warning to get out of town. I suggest you take it.”

  Yeah, a friendly warning. But from them or you? Jack wondered.

  The three men obviously knew one another. For all Jack knew, Sands had called them in while he was at the restaurant.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.” Jack stood and reached for his wallet. His head spun. He wanted to puke, but not from the booze.

  “Forget it, kid. I’ll put it on your tab and we’ll settle up before you get on the bus. Better yet, let me run you down the hill in my Jeep. I’m heading that way for a resupply anyway.”

  “I’ll take the bus. Where’s my room?” Jack picked up his pack, woozy and exhausted.

  “Follow me.”

  74

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  Fung had accepted Dahm’s offer, of course. The chance to build his own empire proved irresistible.

  He stood framed in the large picture window of his condo overlooking the bay. Men younger and less talented than himself were billionaires already. Why couldn’t he achieve the same heights? Indeed, why shouldn’t he?

  Perhaps then his father would finally approve of him.

  His private cell phone broke the reverie. An unknown number. A call, not a text. His tingling spine told him who it was.

  “Yes?”

  An electronically altered voice answered, male and alien. “This is CHIBI. Lawrence, we have a problem.”

  Fung’s heart sank. “Oh, God.”

  It could be only one thing.

  “I have reason to believe you have been discovered. We need to take action immediately.”

  Fung trembled. He’d feared this day for months.

  He tried to calm himself and clear his mind. He’d made plans for just such an occasion, hadn’t he?