Dead Reckoning

by C. J. Snyder

  Why had he sent Magnum into this without training or backup? Major mistake. Where the hell was Calla? If her mother hadn’t kept her out of the office, then what? He shuffled buttons on the communicator in his hand, sending the automatically recorded conversation to Tron for analysis.

  Eyes on Mykael’s bowed head, he faced the worst question of all. One of the people he trusted intimately was a traitor. It was a very short list.

  He was so very screwed.

  *** Sean sat in Carlos Calera's office, pissed that he'd been all but dumped here and left to wait. He spotted the small camera's overhead, but could see the red light attached and it definitely was not glowing. Interesting that Caldera wanted him here, or maybe not, considering Los Cochillos had gotten to his brother in his restaurant. Maybe that's why he was here? Maybe Caldera thought he'd been in on it?

  Sean sat back in his chair, trying to appear nonchalant, even while his mind raced. Evidence. Black Fire needed evidence to reel in Caldera. From what Ghost had said, they were looking at other, maybe larger fish as well. He glanced at the wide expanse of mahogany that was Caldera's desk. Unlike his own office desk, this one had no papers on it. Sean shot a glance at the closed office door and then another at the seemingly dark camera. Worth the risk.

  He darted around to the file drawers directly behind the big man's desk. Walking his fingers through tabs, he wished he'd brought a camera, or at the least that they hadn't taken his cell phone. Here were drug records, major sales, deliveries, dates, and the mules who'd taken the drugs across the border to lucrative markets in the US.

  Sean committed as much as he could into memory, stopping only once to press his ear up against the office door when he heard voices.

  When they faded away, he resumed his file grazing. Until he reached the one marked in angry black letters: Los Cochillos. That one he pulled from the frame, setting it on the desk before he opened it. Even if Caldera came in now, he couldn't fault Sean wanting to know more about the man who'd killed in his own restaurant, could he?

  He flipped open the file and his heart threatened to stop. Maria's smiling face stared back at him, looking young and carefree. An old photo from the years when he still lived with her, under her care. He remembered the shirt she wore, one he'd given her for a birthday. He flipped the photo over and found more, from later, when she'd turned hard, after Melina's death. For three years, she'd seemed somewhat happy again, and then the cold, soul-deep pain had returned for good.

  Until this last time, in San Diego, when there'd been a vibrancy she hadn't shown for ages. Something was going on with her, but none of that mattered if her pictures in this file meant what he thought it meant.

  She'd been in San Diego the night before. But a Black Fire member had died too. She'd said—what had she said? Working on a project with Ghost. He'd assumed she worked for Black Fire, but that didn't go along with what Ghost had told him. He remembered back to their phone conversation before Ghost and Maria had arrived in San Diego. “Traveling with a woman…not sure I can trust her…see if she calls Caldera after you meet with her.” His eyes opened wide. Did Black Fire suspect as well?

  It wasn't possible, was it? Could his older sister be the famed Los Cochillos? Why? The next sheet in the file gave him the answer. One by one, over the past ten years, every male member of the Caldera file had been killed. Starting with Stephano. Stephano Caldera, his sister Melina's boyfriend before she died. She’d told him—what had she told him? She’d killed the man who’d murdered Melina. Sean flipped another page. “And his partner.” Her eyes, so cold and hard, so very sad.

  Sean shut the folder, slid it back into the filing cabinet, and sat down to rethink his future. He didn’t know why Caldera had brought him here. If Caldera knew Maria was his sister, his future was probably only minutes long. But there were no notes tying the siblings together. If Caldera didn’t know…if he could make Caldera completely convinced…he might, just might, be able to save Maria.

  *** Mykael knew the drill. Hell, she’d been on the other end of the deal, making the phone call to prompt a reaction that would not, ultimately, save anyone. The chances of finding Sean alive were slim to none. The Mexican monsters had destroyed her entire family. They wanted her now. They could have her. She’d take them with her to hell.

  “What did they say?” She forced the question out.

  “We’re to wait for a delivery. You okay?”

  Not ever again. But she nodded. This was as good as it was gonna get. “Caldera?” “No. Tron’s analyzing now, but I—“

  Azisi. “Who is he? Why is he working with Caldera?” Why would Azisi care about Carlos Caldera’s personal vendetta? She spied a bottle of Advil next to the monitor on the desk and stood up. The queasiness had lessened somewhat and she made it across the room with only minor knee trembling.

  “The doctor gave me something stronger for you.”

  “Don’t want anything stronger.” She downed three pills and swiveled to face him. “Did you get a trace on that call?”

  “San Diego, a cell tower. Nothing we can use.” Azisi no doubt had twenty of the disposable phones that made tracking a nightmare. Tracing that specific phone could be done and would lead them to the precise spot where he’d tossed it out of the car. No help. “What’s next?”

  “I told you. We wait for –“

  She shook her head. “No more waiting. Ever wonder why we’re here, if he’s still in San Diego? Can you get Tron?”

  “We’re not going to abandon Magnum, Maria.” “Sean’s dead, Ghost. No way he voluntarily gives up my name, or your number. He wasn’t the target, and they’d have no more use for him once he cracked.” Ice flowed through her veins, leaving her a bit chilled, but very clear headed. “Connect the dots and let’s move on.”

  He stared at her a full ten seconds longer. She didn’t blink. Didn’t have to. He knew she was right. Ghost crossed to her side and flicked on a computer, then another and another. Data spilled onto the screens, twenty in all, multiple messages, containing reports, updates, photographs... Mykael shook her head. Too much data was almost as bad as not enough. Where would he start? It would take hours to sort through everything the screens offered.

  Ghost lived up to his reputation for Intel. Tron had issued a statewide BOLO for Calla, which meant she wasn’t at home. A second message from Tron confirmed Calla’s car was located in her assigned spot in the lot next to their office building.

  “What do we—“ Greg’s communicator flashed and he held up a finger as he flipped it open. “Yeah.”

  Tron’s agitation spurted through the phone, so loud Mykael had no trouble hearing him. “Grab the file I just sent.”

  Greg set the phone on speaker and clicked through messages. “Got it,” he announced two seconds later.

  “Play back. D sector. N band only. Full volume.” Fuzzy white noise crackled and spit throughout the room, so loud Mykael winced. As her ears adjusted, she stepped forward to correct Tron’s mistake. The speaker’s heavy accent was only just audible. Not N band at all. Greg caught her hand when she tried to adjust.

  “A package will arrive shortly. Wait—”

  “Don’t go, Ghost!” A thump and a scream interrupted the female speaker’s faint cry. Greg backed up the tape and listened again.

  “Calla?”

  “Yeah.” He shut off the tape, glanced up at her, then picked up his communicator. “Anything else?” he asked Tron.

  “Just this.” A new message popped into the foreground of the computer. Greg clicked it open and they both watched Calla, sitting in this room, in the chair Greg now occupied. On one screen, four camera angles fused in quick succession. A quick flash of black appeared by the door, then the cameras blinked out, one by one, within a span of ten seconds.

  “Son of a bitch,” Greg whispered. “When?”

  “Five o’clock this morning.”

  “Did you run a sweep?”

  “Equipment non-responsive. Bunker is clear.”

  �
�On our way.” He cut the connection, shut down the computers, stood and purposefully turned his back to the closest camera. He caught her hand, placed it palm up in his own and used their bodies to block prying eyes as he spelled. “D-O-N-T M-O-V-E.” She gave a quick nod as she watched him glide to the door and flick the light switch, plunging the room into darkness, except for the glow of lights on the wall of monitors behind her. A second later, that light was gone too.

  Greg brushed past her, she heard a third switch thrown and then he had her hand again, tugging her forward, while he pushed down on her head to get her on her hands and knees. Still silent, she didn’t get to her feet until she felt him do so next to her. She heard one last faint click, a gentle whir of gears moving, and another wall of equipment glowed to life, right in front of her.

  “Not nearly as cool as your pantry, I’m afraid, but welcome to the bunker.” They stood in a room the size of a small office. An army regulation cot was shoved against a filing cabinet. Glowing equipment covered every other inch of wall space, floor to ceiling. Twelve monitors, a server, two workstations. A Plexiglas work board, empty at the moment, on casters, was fitted over the cot. Floor to ceiling lockers completed the wall space of the 10x12 room.

  “Expensive little hideaway. Who’s your decorator?” she wondered, but didn’t wait for an answer. “How exactly is hiding in here going to help us find Calla?” “It won’t. But this will.” He stepped aside to reveal a small screen and she watched in fascination as screen after screen located relay towers, flashing between them, sometimes so quickly the procession was no more than a blur. Still, "not that fast,” she commented.

  “Not as fast as the latest TR line, no.” He agreed. “But a TR line doesn’t come connected to this.” He took a step to the right, revealing a satellite image shuffling through photos, consuming incoming data faster than a starving fire gulped oxygen. Within seconds, the data slowed, the satellite began to zoom, A house came into view. White stucco, red tile roof, and two men loading a large duffel bag into the trunk of a white Cadillac.

  Greg touched a button, framing first one man’s face, then the other, and with a click of his mouse had a third screen accessing a photo database.

  Mykael tore her gaze away from the rapid flash of faces, back to the small screen where the men returned to the small house. “Real time?”

  “Can be but it’s not yet. I wanted to see what happened in the interim.” “Mmmm,” she agreed. The image of the duffel bag stuck in her mind. Large enough to hold a body, and it had taken two of them to load it. Mykael wanted to scream, so she let Decoy take over. “Body in the trunk.”

  “Maybe.” Greg’s grim tone let her know he hadn’t missed the detail either. One of the men reappeared carrying a woman. Her face was buried against his back, but one arm bounced free over his shoulder. A mass of thick frizzled hair showed blond against the man’s black shirt, nearly obscuring the almost Celtic look of the woman’s tattoo.

  “Calla,” Greg confirmed and clicked with his mouse again. Now the images sped up. A small clock at the bottom of the picture portrayed the time the image was captured. The second man returned with luggage, climbed behind the wheel, and started the engine but didn’t move the car.

  “They’re waiting,” Decoy breathed, watching as the image time raced forward to collide with the real time clock ticking away hundredths of seconds right next to it. “Real time,” she whispered, unaware she’d spoken the words aloud.

  “Real time,” Ghost agreed. For thirteen full seconds the two clocks counted together before a third man appeared in the doorway of the small house, moving quickly to the car. He kept his head down, his hand shielding his face from above, until he reached the passenger side of the vehicle. For a fraction of a second, his head lifted, and he lowered his hand.

  “There!” Decoy called, as Ghost clicked.

  The screen to the left of the satellite image wasted no time in displaying first one, then another, then four pictures of Ibrajim Azisi. Ghost frowned at the man’s eyes, flashing back to Dallas Station.

  “Gotcha you son of a bitch,” Ghost exclaimed and sat back in the room’s only chair. He yanked his communicator from his belt and flipped it open. “You copy?” he asked. “Every fucking frame,” Tron confirmed. “Did you see the address?”

  Neither of them had, but Tron called it out.. “412 Mariposa. Tarrington.” The name of the city stirred a vague remembrance for Decoy. Ghost swore. “How far?”

  “Half a block. I’m twelve. Just don’t forget who they really want.”

  He shoved the communicator back on his belt. “Decoy.”

  She met his eyes, resignation in hers. “Go.”

  “The satellite will follow them—see if you can get—“

  She gave him a shove, extricating the communicator he’d given her for her own from her pocket and waggling it in front of him. “Go.” She punched 41 to connect to his, hit speaker and placed it on a small ledge, reaching for the mouse with her left hand. As he left, she heard the resounding thwunk of the heavy main entrance door through the phone.

  From outside, he didn’t waste time with preliminaries. “License plate.”

  “Done.”

  “Try and get the woman’s face.”

  “You don’t have a . . . car,” the comment ended in a murmur as she heard an engine roar to life.

  On the little screen the white Caddie joined a green Jeep waiting at a light. A silver Lexus SUV fell in behind. “They’re stopped for a light. Second of three.”

  “I’ve got them.”

  Be careful, Mykael tried to scream the warning. Decoy didn’t let the words out.

  She saw him then, pulling up at the light, turning right to intercept. He slowed, abreast of the white prey. The Jeep and Lexus made sharp left turns, boxing in Ghost’s sedan. Like bees to pollen, four men with guns drawn surrounded Greg.

  “Shit.” Despite the curse, Ghost sounded calm.

  “Ram the Jeep.” The suggestion was out before she could stop it. “No! Bad idea.” “Not real bad.”

  “Your car isn’t bulletproofed, is it?” A flare of hope.

  “Not this one, no.” The man on the driver’s side, the only one of the four from the white car, closed in. “I—I”

  He beat her to it. “I love you, Maria Ylena Katarina Angelica Elyria Lucano.”

  “Greg,” she whispered, watching helplessly as the man with the glock yanked open the door. Her mind sailed back, to San Diego, to the night he’d forced the truth from them both. “It's not enough to say, ‘if we do this’. It's done. We're in. The question is where we're going to take it, what we're willing to give it back.”

  “I don't have anything left inside.”

  "Oh you're wrong, Maria. You're alive inside, buried behind a wall you built so you wouldn't hurt any more. But I won't hurt you. I promise you. I will not hurt you

  She remembered that as she watched them shove his body into the trunk of the silver Lexus. “You promised,” she wailed, not caring there was no one to hear, unable to stop the frantic cry. Then she hushed her mouth with both her hands. Two things were sure.

  This would kill her.

  She wouldn't die alone.

  Chapter Eleven

  With four clicks, she sent faces to the database, before Azisi’s partner had Greg’s door open. Breathing ragged, she watched Ghost surrender. At least the satellite would continue to track them.

  Except they put Greg in the Lexus. The man from the white car got back in. The two left behind got in the Jeep and Greg’s car and when the light turned green, the satellite faithfully followed the Cadillac as it turned right. The Lexus turned left and disappeared from the screen.

  “Tron!” she screamed, but he couldn’t hear her, was on his way to a now-deserted intersection. Decoy headed out and was stopped by a filing cabinet. How had he made the damn thing move?

  Precious seconds flew as she shoved and tugged at the wall of filing cabinets. Finally she forced herself to survey and rememb
er the sounds she’d heard. Even that didn’t give her the answers, but she caught a glimpse of herself in a very small screen at the far left of the monitors. Recordings. She touched a button and reversed to the beginning.

  Twenty seconds later she’d found the switch and crawled back into the dark main room. Somehow, she had to get the equipment back on line, whether Caldera and Azisi had someone watching or not. It was the only way she could save Ghost.

  She flicked monitor switches, most of which blinked at her with a silent cross bar, waiting for instructions. How did she bring them back to life?

  A frustrated growl escaped. She crawled back into the tiny room. At least she had working monitors there. Calla had been captured on the screen. If she could back up that image far enough, she could parrot the office manager’s movements and reset the machines.

  Further precious seconds were lost as she figured out how to toggle the live feed to the other room, and then back it up. Black gave way to two figures, then three as she, Ghost and Tron entered. More blackness whirred by, not as dark. Calla’s abduction by two men, no more than dark shadows on the screen, faces obscured by ski masks, the back of Calla’s head as she sat at her desk, wheeling between screens to monitor different items, then finally her entrance at one-thirty this morning. Precisely the time she’d met the waitress at Sean’s restaurant.

  Strange time to arrive at work, Mykael thought, but she ignored that and watched the Unit Secretary enter the building. Mykael caught her first glimpse of the woman’s face. She looked familiar, something in the eyes, but she didn’t have time to figure it out now. The woman touched nothing. Screens around the room sprang to life.

  Mykael’s heart sank. Some sort of hand scan outside the room? Just inside the door? Either way, a scanner wouldn’t respond to her. She hit rewind, ran the image backward and watched four more times.

  There! Calla’s head turning away from the camera, but not before Mykael saw her lips moving. She played the image again and began to mimic the movement of the woman’s lips. “Wake…” she whispered. “Wake up