by Jack Hardin
“Just… help me.”
“Okay, but first I want to know what happened last night.”
I watched Navi’s lips lose their color and his nostrils flare. His petrified eyes didn’t leave the snake. “Alright!” He hissed softly through his teeth.
“What were you, Fry, and Burkes up to?”
“Noth...nothing.” I had to strain to hear him. “He said he needed to run somewhere else last night and asked me to hold on to something for him until he got—” The snake swayed higher. Navi swallowed hard. “Until he got back.”
“Why did you put a hit on me?”
He frowned. “What? I—I didn’t put a hit on you. Would you please shoot the damn snake!”
“You didn’t tell him to go down to Key Largo and take care of me?”
Navi answered slowly and quietly. “No! I swear.” The snake’s tongue was flicking faster now. “He only called me to have me hold something for him. That computer stuff. Would you kill the snake already!”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to kill it. Snakes are good for the ecosystem, and that creature hasn’t done anything to warrant me killing it. Take a slow step backward. And then do it again. If you move slow enough, he’ll leave you alone.”
“What?”
“Trust me. Just do it.”
Breathing more heavily now, Navi silently slid his left foot backward and then let his body follow. He did it again, and again, until he was a good five yards from the snake. I raised my gun and trained it on him.
“Now keep talking or I’ll make you walk right over that snake. You’ll have better odds dealing with it than with me.”
“You wouldn't do that. That camera is running.”
I glanced down at the body cam. “Oh, this?” I grinned. “It doesn’t work. I never use it and forgot to charge it.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was, but I wasn’t lying. “Now, tell me again what happened last night. Tony calls you… and then what?”
“He said he had some stuff he needed to tuck away for a day and could I take it off his hands. So I met him at the gas station and took the box.”
“And what was in the box?”
“I don’t know. Computer stuff. I didn’t ask. Tony just told me to be real careful with it and that he would be by sometime today to get it.” Navi was still watching the snake, who had settled down into a quiet coil. “He said he had something to do in the Keys and didn’t want to take that stuff with him.”
“That something he had to do in the Keys was to kill me.”
“Like I said, I don’t know anything about that. I owed Tony a favor from way back. He called it in. That’s it. Period.”
“So then why did you run and make me chase you into The Discovery Channel?”
He shrugged.
“You know what?” I said. “I don’t really care. But Navi Molina, you’re under arrest.”
I reached into my back pocket and brought out the handcuffs. I tossed them to him. “Put those on. Behind your back.”
He did so reluctantly. I stepped up to him and checked the cuffs before holstering my gun. I read him his rights as we retraced our path out of the swamp, through his backyard, and around the house to my truck.
“Where is the box Tony gave you?” I asked.
“I gave it to someone else.”
I stared at him blankly. “You’re kidding me—it’s not in your house?”
“Since Rico has that warrant up in Orlando, I didn’t want someone showing up and finding Tony’s stuff when they searched the place. I’ve been running clean, man.”
“Sure you have,” I said. “Your girlfriend looks clean as a whistle.”
“That’s all her, man. I don’t touch the stuff.”
I opened the truck’s passenger door and removed the cuff from Navi’s right wrist. “Get in.” He complied, and I attached the open cuff to the grab bar in front of him. Then I shut the door, went around the front, and got in behind the wheel.
“You’ve got a lot of jewelry upstairs,” I said.
“It’s all hers. She runs an online boutique.”
I put the truck in reverse and backed down the drive. “I guess smack isn’t cheap these days.” I pulled out onto the main road and headed back toward the highway. “Here's the deal,” I said. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I’m tired of running all over South Florida looking for the hardware Tony gave to you. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to call your buddy. You’re going to tell him that you need to get that box back from him. And if I find out that you had anything more to do with all this than simply taking some stolen property off Tony’s hands, then I promise you I’m going to pick and scratch at your entire life until I find something that will put you away for a very long time.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “Can I get my phone out of my pocket?”
“Be my guest.”
It took him a while: his phone was in his right pocket, and it required a fair bit of maneuvering to dig it out using only his left hand. He dialed a number and set the phone to his ear.
“Speakerphone,” I said.
The phone rang through the cab and kept ringing. After a dozen rings, it went to voicemail: “Yo, yo. This is Nacho. Leave a message and I’ll hit you back. If this is Kendra...girl, quit callin’ me.”
I looked at Navi. “You left everything with a guy named Nacho?”
“He’s cool.”
“Yeah. Sounds like it.”
After trying again and still failing to get an answer, then texting him with no reply, I told Navi we were driving over there. “Where does he live?”
“West Hialeah.”
“Lead the way.”
Chapter Seven
Twenty minutes later I turned onto West 32nd Avenue and headed north. West Hialeah consisted of nearly ninety-five percent Hispanics, making it one of the most ethnically homogeneous places in the nation. Street gangs were not as invasive as they had been a decade ago, but they still held influence over some areas of the community, peddling drugs, burglarizing storefronts, and intimidating those not willing to join their ranks. In my opinion, West Hialeah was the Hispanic version of Overtown, albeit not as downtrodden.
Navi’s directions brought us into a neighborhood whose potholed and oil-slicked streets were lined with old cars and low income homes. Most of the postage sized front yards were well cared for, children playing in some of them and mothers sitting on their front porches.
We crossed a side street, and Navi indicated to a house on the left. “Right there. The one with the plastic flamingo on the porch.”
I tapped the brake and crawled by slowly. The exterior of the home was formed of cinder blocks painted dark green a very long time ago. The yard was in need of a cut, and the porch railing was leaning haphazardly into the yard. A late model Toyota Corolla sat in the driveway, two sad tires nearly deflated.
I passed by and turned around at the next stop sign, then circled back. The scene reminded me of Kathleen’s words to me earlier about not being a cowboy. I didn’t know a thing about this Nacho guy and didn’t feel like chasing someone again, especially not through a densely populated neighborhood with a detainee cuffed to my truck.
I grabbed my phone and was just about to call for backup when Navi mumbled something beside me.
“What’s that?” I said.
“The box.” I followed his gaze past as I rolled past the Toyota again. “The damn box,” he said. “It’s sitting right there by the garage door.”
I braked harder, coming to a complete stop. Sure enough, sitting against the garage door, was a cardboard box with the flaps unfolded, a wide black metal plate jutting out the top.
“That’s the box Tony gave you?”
“Yeah. For sure. See that label on the side?”
I rolled down my window and squinted. A round white sticker read, “Property of __” and in permanent marker, “M. R.” was written large ab
ove the line.
Michael Reddick.
“Yeah,” Navi said. “That was on the box Tony gave me. Why in the hell would Nacho just leave it out in the open like that?” The question was pointed more toward himself than it was to me.
“You tell me. But it would appear that he’s about as smart as his namesake.”
“He said he was going to put it in his attic!”
I turned off the truck and took the keys with me as I got out.
The front door was shut, and the window blinds along the front porch were pulled tight. I walked past the car and stood over the box. Peering inside, I saw several 2’ x 3’ server panels. A thin sticker on the top one read: ‘Intel Xeon Scalable Processor.’ Below them, at the bottom, were three smaller hard drives. I leaned down, picked up the box, and carried it back to my truck without incident. Opening the rear door, I set the box on the seat and slammed the door shut before getting back behind the wheel.
I turned to Navi and smiled. “Thank you for having a guy named after an indulgent food watch over your stuff,” I said. “It just made my day run a whole lot smoother.”
He huffed in disgust and turned to look out his window.
I started the truck and charted a course for downtown Miami.
Homeland’s principal field office for southern Florida was located on NW 20th Street, just north of Dolphin Mall. After being cleared by the guard at the entrance, I pulled into a parking space reserved for agents booking a detainee. I helped Navi out of the truck, recuffed him, and frogmarched him inside, where a receiving agent kept an eye on him while I quickly filled in the necessary paperwork. Before they shepherded him off to a holding cell, I made my way back to the front. “Anything you want to tell me?” I said. “If so, now’s your chance.”
“I don’t know about Tony going after you. Or anybody, for that matter. I swear. You killed my brother, yeah, but I had to put that behind me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then Agent Haskill here is going to take you back. You’ll spend tonight in county lockup. I’m sure they’ll find probable cause to search your place. If they find anything, you can say goodbye to fresh air for a while.”
He cursed me and looked away.
“Have a nice life, Navi. And hope you never have a reason to see me again.”
I returned to my truck and drove around to the back side of the building where the agent offices were held. I got out and grabbed the box. An agent working security opened the side door for me after briefly checking my credentials.
I walked down the hall and entered a dark control room. The far wall was filled with dozens of television monitors displaying satellite feeds, live news from around the world, and footage from prior or ongoing missions. I counted ten heads in the room, all of them studiously concentrated on their work. I headed for the last desk on the right, stepped in front of it, and dropped the box on the top, where it landed with a sufficient clatter.
The agent behind the desk nearly flew out of her chair. Her head whipped up, sending long dark locks of hair into her face. She cursed loudly, momentarily gaining the attention of everyone else in the room.
“Savage!” She shook her and caught her breath. “You nearly scared me to death.”
“They need to get you back into the field,” I said. “You didn’t use to be so skittish.”
“Screw you, Savage.” But beneath the hard look, her eyes were smiling.
When I joined Homeland two years ago, Amy Jensen was one of eight other agents in my training class. On completion, she was commissioned to the Orlando field office for six months before a spot opened up in this room. A self-admitted computer geek and a certified expert in the world of internet technology, the desk job suited her. Amy was slim, with bright blue eyes, a wide mouth, and a fiery personality.
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
She looked at the box. “What’s this?”
I quickly briefed her on last night’s events and the morning spent acquiring the stolen property.
“And you’re hoping that what’s on here might offer a clue as to who wants you dead?”
“It’s a long shot. But it’s the lowest hanging fruit. If nothing turns up in all this, then we’ll have to dial in harder on Fry’s and Burkes’ networks to try and find out who sent them to my marina.”
“I’ve got to say, Savage. I’m a little intrigued that you would bring this to me instead of Spam.”
Spam handled I.T. from my Key Largo office. He was a veritable genius at any and everything relating to computers. “Don’t get too excited,” I said. “He’s an hour-and-a-half away and I want answers ASAP. Any chance you could pause what you’re doing and look through all this?”
“For you? Of course.” She stood up and started digging through the contents, muttering to herself as she identified each piece. “I’ll have to get these connected into our system. That won’t take long. But since I don’t know how much is on here or what I’m looking for, it could take a while.”
“A while…?”
“Maybe a few hours? I don’t know. I’ll call you as soon as I have an idea what I’m dealing with.”
“Thanks, Amy.”
“You bet.” She slid the box toward herself and lifted it off the desk. “And if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll shoot you in the foot.”
“Fair enough.”
After leaving Amy to work her magic, I exited the Homeland complex and drove uptown. Figuring that I had some time to kill, I took the A1A into Miami Beach to get something to eat. It was nearing three o’clock, and I was famished. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I entered South Beach, merged onto Alton Road, and headed toward the pier. I parked near South Pointe Park and crossed the blazing hot parking lot to one of my favorite restaurants.
Chetly’s offered up American southern comfort with a Caribbean flair. The hostess escorted me through the main dining area and up the stairs to the rear deck. Fans were circling slowly over tables draped in white tablecloths and the wooden railing looked down on the beach below. When the waitress appeared, I ordered an iced mango tea, chicken BLT, and a side of smoked brisket.
While I waited for my food, I texted Kathleen with a quick update and then sipped my tea as I looked out over the water, watching container ships come and go out of the Port. It never ceased to intrigue me just how connected the work has become in my lifetime. Some of these massive ships had come all the way from places as far as Hong Kong, Mumbai, or Kuala Lumpur, bringing in freight that would be transferred to a truck or train and be sent upstate and into the country’s heartland.
When I was a young kid, most toys were still made of wood and manufactured right here in the good old United States. Video games were still in their infancy, and there were no smartphones or iPads. Now it seemed that nearly everything we consumed was made of plastic and came from abroad. The world becoming more connected and technology savvy was a good thing, but in my opinion, it has only come at a high cost. People are busier, lonelier, and more depressed than ever, and I’m still not convinced that the tradeoff was worth it. My wife, __, had been fond of calling me an old soul, and I guess in many ways I am.
My thoughts returned to last night’s events; to Darren showing up scared and confused, to me barely making it off my boat before I was turned to swiss cheese, to Tony Fry being a moment away from sending me to the afterlife.
I made a mental note to take Rich and Edith out for dinner. It was the least I could do for him saving my life.
Fry’s words echoed in my mind: “They don’t tell me nothin’… we just do what we’re told.” That sounded a lot like he was a third-tier—doing a job for someone else who was hired by the person who wanted me dead. Whatever the truth was, if nothing turned up on Mike Reddick’s stuff, then this was going to be a long and tedious investigation.
By the time I finished eating, Amy still hadn’t called, so I paid my tab and took a slow walk down Ocean Drive, touring the shops and deciding to buy a new pair of Oakleys, since
my previous set of sunglasses got shot to hell last night.
I finally returned to my truck and was deciding where to go next when my phone rang.
“Where are you?” Amy asked.
“South Beach.”
“I found something,” she said. “You’re going to want to see this.”
It took me thirty minutes to get back to the field office. I couldn't get Amy to tell me what she had found over the phone. She said it was too nuanced, and that she had to go so she could keep skimming for more details.
I found Amy at the back of the control room working at a high, flat table littered with monitors, cords, and keyboards.
“Hey,” she said. “Give me a second.” I watched her fingers dance expertly across a keyboard. “Okay. Here, have a look.”
I stepped up beside her and fixed my attention on the monitor holding her attention. The screen display was split, half of it showing a black background with red and green code sprawled across, the other half displaying a small icon of a file folder.
“What am I looking at?”
“Okay,” she said, “I accessed the information to everything you gave me. Some of it is Mike Reddick’s personal stuff: pictures, a smartphone app he was developing, and it looks like he did some freelance work for a gaming company in California, worldbuilding and such. But you said he and his brother hacked a digital file from Switzerland?”
“That’s what his brother told me.”
Amy set her hand on the mouse and clicked a file icon on the monitor. Hundreds of windows jumped onto the screen like popcorn, like the computer had just thrown up everything it had: emails, pictures, video files, documents.
“This is what we call a smear file,” she said. “Its existence would give vast leverage to its owner. There’s a lot here, Ryan. Secret recordings of European politicians, pictures of CEOs having lunch with the heads of environmental agencies, videos of high-level figures with their mistresses. It’s all blackmail material. Whoever created this file, whoever assimilated this information, is not only a very ruthless individual but incredibly well-connected. And powerful, too. Every one of these people will be at the beck and call of anyone who has this kind of dirt on them.”
