Shell Game

by Jeff Buick

“That’s a lot of money.” Ricardo was very thoughtful. He sipped his drink, then waved at the waitress for another one. He waited until she had dropped off the rye and coke before continuing. “What is my share?” he finally asked.

  “Depends on what we get,” Kelly said. “But we’ll guarantee you one hundred thousand dollars, even if we don’t get a single peso. Paid up front.”

  “And if we get a peso, how much of that peso will I get?” he asked.

  Taylor could read the interest in his eyes. It was extremely high. “Ten percent,” she said. “Capped at five million, even if we take in more than fifty.”

  “Ten percent,” Ricardo repeated. “That seems low.”

  She shook her head. “Ninety-nine percent of this con is knowing who has the money and what kind of person he is. The final one percent is pulling it off. You’re well paid at ten percent.”

  Ricardo did the math for each increment up to fifty. If they were anywhere near the fifty million, the amount was staggering. “Is he dangerous?” he asked.

  “Extremely. He’s already had one of his men kill an FBI agent. You don’t want to blow your cover. The chances are good he’d kill you on the spot,” Kelly said.

  Ricardo arched one eyebrow. “Now that’s an honest answer.” He was silent, thoughtful. When he spoke his voice was distant. “I’ve had a good life. One filled with nice clothes, fast cars and lots of women. I’ve built a thriving business in a city where it is very difficult to succeed. Now is the time of my life to enjoy this success.” He paused to finish his drink. “But there has always been something missing. A piece of the puzzle that wasn’t there. I never knew what it was. Not until tonight. But now I know. Although Mexico City can be dangerous, I have never been in a life-or-death situation. I’ve never had to rely on my abilities to think fast and say the right things to stay alive. And that is what is missing.”

  “And . . .” Taylor said.

  “And tonight, you have presented me with a very unique opportunity. Perhaps one that could fill that void.”

  “You’ll help us?” she asked, then held her breath.

  He smiled, but his eyes were serious. “Yes, I’ll help you.”

  It was Taylor’s turn to smile. She reached over and shook his hand. “Then we’re a team of three.”

  “A team of three,” Ricardo said. “I like that. It’s got a—how do you say it in English?—a certain ring to it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  They met again the next day at La Jolla restaurant, the upscale dining room in the Marquis Reforma Hotel. The décor was understated elegance, an extension of the hotel, which consistently made the coveted Leading Hotels of the World list. Ricardo was dressed casually, in khakis and a soft beige shirt while Kelly and Taylor both had on jeans and T-shirts. They fit the image of tourists having a late breakfast with a Mexican friend.

  “Your English is impeccable,” Kelly said as they settled in. “Where did you learn?”

  “My parents are upper-middle class. My father is a lawyer, and my mother is an interior designer for commercial buildings. They sent me to an English-immersion school. All my studies, from grade one right through to graduation were in English. I was very fortunate.”

  “No kidding. I wish I had a second language.”

  The waiter came by and they ordered coffee and breakfast. They waited until he left the table before talking about Monte Alban.

  “I spent some time on the Internet going over the lay-out of Monte Alban, but I think we need to visit the site,” Ricardo said. “We have to be very informed on the area.”

  Kelly nodded. “That’s what we thought. We’ve already checked on flights. Aeroméxico has daily flights directly to Oaxaca City. Getting there is not a problem. Hotels are mostly basic, but there’s one that looks good. Camino Real Oaxaca. We had Miguel phone and check availability, and there are rooms available. It seems most people leave the city at Christmas time.”

  “Probably visiting relatives in Mexico City,” Ricardo said. “It can be tough to find a good hotel room here at this time of year.” He sipped his coffee and asked, “Do you have any sort of plan?”

  “A basic idea of how things could work,” Taylor said. “But setting anything in stone before we visit Monte Alban to see exactly what we’re up against is impossible. We need to visit and get a lay of the land.”

  “Can you get away?” Kelly asked Ricardo.

  “I’d like to stay in Mexico City for Christmas. That’s only three days from now. After that I can fly down and meet you there.”

  Taylor glanced at Kelly. “Works for me. How about you?”

  Kelly nodded and spoke directly to Ricardo. “Better than we could have hoped for. Twenty-four hours ago your life was normal. Then we drop in from nowhere and dump this on your lap. You’re being very accommodating.”

  Ricardo smiled, his olive skin crinkling into soft laugh lines around his mouth. “You enticed me with a lot of money. It’s not often a man gets an opportunity to earn anywhere between a hundred thousand and five million dollars. No, that’s not something that comes around every day. I can be most accommodating with that sort of incentive.”

  “Good,” Taylor said. “We may need a couple more people to help us. Who do you know that’s trustworthy?”

  “What would they be doing?” Ricardo asked.

  “We’ll need someone to play the part of a government official,” Taylor said. “Someone high-ranking in whatever department handles antiquities and treasure.”

  “Of course. They will be at Monte Alban to convince the person you are relieving of his money that the treasure is real.” Ricardo nodded at the logic.

  “I think so, but we’ll need to use the actual name of someone inside the department, because our man will check.”

  “I can get a name,” Ricardo said. “I know a man who could forge an ID badge.”

  “Good,” Kelly said. “Whoever you get should be light on his feet and able to think fast, because he might be in the line of fire if Brand realizes he’s been taken.”

  “Brand? That’s the man’s name?”

  “That’s not his real name, but it’s the one he’s been living under for some time now. The most recent seems the best to use,” Taylor replied.

  Ricardo leaned back in his chair, a serious look on his face. He crossed his arms over his chest, the first time his body language had taken a defensive stance. “You realize how dangerous this is. You’re trying to take money from a man who has grown very rich from doing exactly the same thing to other people. He’s going to be savvy to all the tricks, know all the angles. He’ll know something is wrong the second you make the smallest mistake. From what you’ve said, he can be violent. If you corner a man like this, he’ll strike back. You know all these things.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Edward Brand stole almost fourteen million dollars from me,” Taylor said. “He inserted a man into my life who became my husband. He humiliated me.”

  “I know this,” Ricardo said. “That wasn’t the point I was making.”

  “I know what your point is,” Taylor said. “Brand is all that and more. He’s dangerous. Extremely dangerous. And he’s smart. But we’ve got three things going for us that might give us what we need to pull this off. Straight off the top, Brand doesn’t know we’ve tracked him down and that we know where he is and who he is. He thinks I’m visiting a friend in Houston. To him, I’m a nonentity. That complacency works well for us. It makes me invisible, and if I’m invisible, so is Kelly.”

  “All right. He doesn’t know you’re setting him up. He’ll still be suspicious of any opportunity that’s dropped in his lap.”

  “True, but what happens if we don’t drop it directly in Brand’s lap?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before Alan went over the cliff at La Laguna, Brand made a phone call from a restaurant just down the road. We suspect he was calling someone to make sure the scuba divers were in place. We tracked the number to its owner. T
he man’s name is Carlos Valendez, and he lives in Cabo San Lucas. He’s our connection to Edward Brand.”

  “So that’s the person I’ll be approaching,” Ricardo said.

  “Yes.”

  Ricardo nodded and raised an eyebrow. “That’s good. Then once I’ve pitched the idea to Carlos, he goes to Brand and sells him on it. That’s very good.”

  “Thanks,” Taylor said.

  “Okay, you’ve removed us one layer from Brand and you know a lot more about him than he is aware of. That’s one thing. You said there were three things—what are the other two?”

  “Brand has an FBI agent on his payroll. Brent Hawkins is the guy. He’s based out of San Francisco, and he’s probably the resource Brand is using to watch me. But they have no idea we’ve managed to link the two.”

  “You know for sure this Hawkins fellow is dirty?” Ricardo asked.

  “Positive. Because they don’t know that we know, we can manipulate him.”

  Ricardo’s arms uncrossed, and he leaned forward. “How do you manipulate an FBI agent?”

  Kelly answered. “By giving him classified information on the Monte Alban excavation that no one else is privy to. Details of the American government’s discovery of unrecorded ruins at the site—ruins that are still overgrown with dense jungle. Satellite information showing new formations, gravity and magnetic studies pinpointing exactly where these ruins are. Then a report by a clandestine CIA operation showing exactly where an undiscovered tomb is located and what is inside.”

  “And what is inside?” Ricardo asked. “A wonderful cache of gold and gems?”

  “Precisely.”

  Ricardo shook his head. “Is what you’re saying true? Is there such information on the American computers?”

  “No.”

  “Then this doesn’t work. It’s impossible.”

  “Not really,” Kelly said.

  “Why?”

  “Because of the third little trick up our sleeve. I work at the National Security Agency.”

  A slow smile spread across the handsome Mexican’s face. His gaze flickered back and forth between Taylor and Kelly. Finally he said, “You can make this data appear on the CIA database?”

  Kelly nodded.

  Again, the smile. He picked up his coffee cup and drained the last of the dark roast. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Then maybe what you are planning is possible.”

  “Maybe,” Taylor said. “Keep in mind one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” Ricardo asked.

  “Determination. Getting this guy is high on my list.”

  “Motivation is important.” Ricardo pursed his lips and tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. “Yes, motivation is very important.”

  Taylor stared straight into his eyes. “I won’t be denied, Ricardo. I’ll get this son of a bitch.”

  “Perhaps,” Ricardo said slowly. “That remains to be seen.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Taylor and Kelly flew Aeroméxico from Mexico City to Oaxaca City on Saturday, December 23. They found a taxi near the front door and gave the driver the name of the hotel, marveling at the drive through Oaxaca City. The pale green stone used in the construction of most buildings, including the cathedral, reflected the midday light, giving the street scenes a surreal feel. Colonnades lined zócalo, the main square, which was busy with locals shopping at the colorful kiosks, most set up under large acacia trees that provided shade from the hot sun. Mariachis played on the street corners. The people were dark skinned and mainly of Indian heritage—Zapotec and Mixtec the dominant ancestry. Tributes to Benito Juárez, the Oaxaca native who was the first full-blooded Indian to achieve the presidency of the republic, were everywhere. Restaurants were just gearing up for comida corrida, the traditional midday meal, and children excited by the prospect of Christ’s upcoming birthday skipped over the cobblestones. It was a series of scenes out of a glossy tourist brochure.

  Their driver deposited them at the Camino Real Oaxaca, which was at one time the Convento de Santa Catalina de Siena, and which still retained the original charm and simplicity of the convent. They checked in using Kelly’s credit card. The front desk clerk was a dapper man in his late sixties who spoke passable English. He had one of the warmest smiles Taylor had ever seen. When they requested separate rooms, he gave them a look that was easily interpreted as youth is wasted on young people. He had a young boy, no more than twelve, carry their bags to their rooms. After they washed up and finished lunch in the attached restaurant, they flagged down a passing taxi and told him they wished to visit Monte Alban.

  The road to the site of the ancient Zapotec ruins was narrow and winding, rising to a plateau overlooking the Oaxaca Valley, where Yagul and Mitla, two other archeological digs from the second century, were situated a few miles to the south. The view from atop the 5,000-plusfoot plateau was stunning, the arid valley floor snaking between the mountain ranges to the far horizon. They drove past the museum and into the parking lot at the north end of the excavation, and their driver parked in a spot reserved for taxis. Kelly asked the man to wait, and he simply nodded, switched off the ignition and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He was asleep before they were out of the parking lot.

  They stopped in the museum and picked up a couple of glossy books, one of which gave an accurate plot plan of the known ruins. They followed a well-worn path to the north mound, close to where the sealed tomb of Tumba 7 was located. To their right was a series of four buildings called the north palaces, and stretching in front of them to the south was the central plaza. Sketchy grass eked out an existence on the hard, rocky ground, and a solitary tree grew opposite the Juego de Pelota, or Ball Court, where the ancient tribes had held a game in which the losers were sacrificed to the gods. The Zapotecs had built the complex following an orderly north-south axis. Remnants of the buildings, most of them pyramids of stone with inlaid stairs, covered a rectangular area about six hundred and fifty yards long and three hundred wide. Under the barren rock, almost devoid of topsoil, was a series of intricate tunnels, linking the different buildings and giving access to many of the subterranean tombs. The majority of the tunnels had yet to be excavated. The most celebrated building, the Galería de las Danzantes, or the Dancer’s Gallery, was two-thirds of the distance to the south, close to the massive south platform that dominated the excavation. The walls of the gallery were engraved with hundreds of figures, their faces twisted in grotesque agony—tortured captives of the Zapotecs. The ones used for the ritual human sacrifices.

  Taylor and Kelly walked the site, taking their time to get the lay of the land. Small stones crunched under their boots as they strolled across the same sacred grounds that had felt bare Zapotec and Mixtec feet some two thousand years ago. The complexity of the construction and its ability to weather the elements for so many centuries wasn’t lost on either of them. Monte Alban was an amazing testament to the ancient tribes who had cut the stones and painstakingly placed them atop each other.

  “What do you think?” Kelly asked as they finished touring the entire site and stood again at the north end. “Where’s the best place to put our newly discovered tomb?”

  “I don’t know. It’s so wide open. It’s going to be difficult to hide what we’re doing. The guards will see us.”

  “There are a couple of things we know for sure,” Kelly said, looking back over the complex. “Tumba Seven was the most prolific tomb discovered on the site, and it’s here, at the far north end. It would make sense to pick a location somewhere close to that. The only problem is that the north end of the complex is the busiest.” He pointed to the parking lot and the museum, which were a short distance from the closed tomb. “Lots of people about.”

  “True, but when we have Brand show up to remove the treasure, we’ll do it at night. So we don’t have to worry about tourists milling around. Just the guards.”

  “I wonder how well patrolled this place is at night,” Kelly said.

  “My gues
s would be one or two men. I mean, it’s not like they’re guarding a stack of gold. All that’s here is a bunch of ruins. Anything of value is inside the museum, and it’ll be locked up tight at night. There is no gold or jewels in the museum, just masks and stone artifacts.”

  Kelly nodded. “So it should be fairly easy to distract the guards. We arrange for some sort of commotion at the far south end of the complex. They hustle down there, which gives us at least ten minutes by the time they get to the far end and back.”

  “A fire?” Taylor offered. “There’s some sagebrush and dry twigs down at that end that could burn if we gave it a little incentive.”

  “That’s a good idea. So the guards are gone, down at the other end of the complex. Then what?”

  “We need to know exactly where we want the fake tomb to be. We need to have the electronic gear in place to track his account numbers when he makes the call to transfer the money to the Mexican official.”

  “Ricardo will supply the official,” Kelly said. At their meeting in Mexico City, Ricardo had indicated he had two men who could help work the scam. One would watch the Mary Dyer in its berth in Puerto Vallarta; another would pose as the Mexican official who needed to be bribed in order to get the treasure out of the tomb. Ricardo had dug into the personnel files of the Department of Antiquities in Mexico City and determined which name to use. It was Manuel Sanchez, Director of Antiquities for the Mexican government. Sanchez was out of the office for the first week of January, not uncommon as many employees were off on holidays over the Christmas break. That worked well for them. Ricardo had also begun the procedure of getting the false identity card in Sanchez’s name. In return for assuring these two men, Taylor and Kelly had bumped Ricardo’s guaranteed dollar amount to a quarter million. Ricardo himself would work the Cabo San Lucas angle and hook Carlos Valendez. Then, with Valendez vouching for him, Ricardo would meet Edward Brand in person. At that point, the success of the con rested entirely on Ricardo’s shoulders.

  Taylor pointed to the north edge of the plateau. “All the houses where the population lived and most of the tombs were dug into the sides of the mesa. Let’s have a look over there and see if that would work.” As they walked, she said, “What do you think of Ricardo? You think he’s trustworthy?”