Havana Hustle (Coastal Fury Book 6)

by Matt Lincoln

  She kept her eyes forward, but I thought I heard a hint of bitterness in her voice. Her rigid shoulders suggested it was not a good time to ask about her feelings on the matter.

  Our driver touched his earpiece and then murmured something to Nuñez. She stiffened.

  “We have a tail,” she informed us. “They’ve been following the other car for about two kilos.”

  “Let the other driver take the lead,” I told our driver. “Our other two guys aren’t armed. We’ll be their buffer.”

  “Arturo is with them,” Nuñez pointed out.

  “No offense, ma’am, but we don’t know him.” I clenched my hand into a fist where she couldn’t see. “Have your driver let the other car pass and get clear.”

  Nuñez hesitated when our driver made eye contact with her. She nodded with a sharp sigh. The driver spoke into a hidden mic and then pulled over to a crumbling curb. Mike and Clyde’s car rocketed past, and our driver floored it to get in behind them. A Soviet Lada sedan swung into the oncoming lane where a handful of children were walking. They all jumped out of the way as the Lada barrelled forward. Our driver punched it and blocked the Lada from getting in front. The Lada was forced back into our lane when faced with a lumbering Bel-Air. I guess a couple of tons of steel was more of a deterrent than a bunch of kids.

  “How much you wanna bet they’re after Mike?” I growled.

  “I wouldn’t bet against it,” Holm agreed.

  Nuñez sputtered. “But how? Why? We brought you people in quietly.”

  “We’ll figure it out later.” I itched to be the one in the driver’s seat. “Let’s get this business into a clear area.”

  “In Havana?” Nuñez scoffed. “Not in the city. If we can run for the countryside—”

  That notion was cut short as bullets shattered the Hyundai’s back window. We all ducked, and Holm and I returned fire. The Lada swerved back into the other lane, and a man fired on the left side of the Hyundai. Holm emptied his rounds into their car, which dropped back to a reasonable distance.

  “Is—is it over?” Nuñez asked in a muffled voice. She remained hunched over with her arms over her head.

  “Not yet.” I kept low with Holm in case the men in the Lada tried anything again. “They’re gonna try again. Maybe bring in more guys.”

  Our car hurtled down streets so badly that the alignment likely wouldn’t be the same ever again. We bottomed out at least once, but that Hyundai pushed on like a little trooper.

  “¡Dios!”

  Our driver cranked the wheel and jammed on the brakes. We stopped parallel to the other Hyundai, where their driver and Clyde were trying to get low in their seats. Mike and Arturo were on the other side, which faced armed men outside their windows. The men in the Lada ganged up on us in short order. As far as I could tell, there were two men on each of our sides, four in total.

  “Cartwright!” one of the men yelled on Mike’s side. “Get out of the car, and nobody else gets hurt. The rest of your friends will throw their weapons out of the cars.”

  I swore a blue streak under my breath. Holm and I were the only two on the trip who knew Mike’s real name, the one he cast off at retirement. I intended to find out if his past was connected to the case more than through Talmage.

  If we survived.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Guns on the ground,” the grunts on our side ordered. “Everyone put their hands up.”

  I clenched my teeth and handed my Sig to Holm, and he dropped it out of the busted side window. He did the same with his Glock. From the other car, I heard Mike and Arturo exchange a few heated words before Arturo tossed his gun out of their car.

  “Cartwright doesn’t go anywhere without us,” I called out.

  “Ethan, shut up,” Mike barked. “They’ll let you go.”

  “I’m not—”

  “¡Cállense todos!” one of the men ordered. Another yelled, “Shut up!” As if we didn’t get the idea from the first goon.

  One of the men walked up to Mike’s car, just out of arm’s reach, and leaned over to see all the way through to us. A jagged scar ran across his pockmarked cheek from his nose to his ear. The guy would’ve been easy to recognize on a lineup.

  “We only want Cartwright. You get to leave if he comes with us without a fight.”

  “No can do,” I told him. There was no way they were letting us off, not after seeing that ugly mug. “We’re buddies, stuck like glue.” I shrugged without dropping my hands.

  “What are you doing?” Nuñez hissed.

  “Trust me,” I whispered back.

  A handful of young guys gathered around at the edges of buildings and others in windows. This was not a great way to stay unnoticed in Havana. Mike’s friends seemed to be thinking the same thing, and Ugly’s face darkened.

  “Fine. Americans out of the cars.”

  Before Holm cracked his door open, I nudged him. “Got your ankle special?”

  “Yeah. I’m thinking we take them down fast before anyone gets hurt.”

  “Great minds,” I said.

  The grunts who took us out of the car steered us to join Mike and Clyde with Ugly and his other goon. Poor Clyde’s pale face had gone white as snow, but Mike’s furrowed face would have made me think twice about trying anything on him. It was an expression I’d only seen on my brothers in battle.

  “Search them,” Ugly ordered.

  That was the predictability Holm and I counted on. Lucky for Clyde, he got it first. Once they got him clear, they stuffed him into the back of the Kia that helped pin in our Hyundai. A pair of the toughs began to search Mike next. Holm and I glanced at each other and nodded. I glanced over and saw Mike give a slight nod as well.

  Two of the goons stood guard over us while the other two checked Mike for weapons. Mike straightened and rammed the back of his head into the guy right behind him. Holm and I lurched backward at the same time. I put my guy off balance. Holm missed his guy, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Holm grab the startled grunt by the arm.

  My guy regained his footing, but not fast enough to stop me from driving my elbow into his ribs. He doubled over, and I helped him right along by slamming his head into the gritty pavement. I took the breather to pull my Beretta Pico from my ankle holster and used my other hand to scoop up the handgun my guard had dropped.

  Ugly sneered at me and raised his gun arm. I pointed both weapons at him, although my goon’s gun had such a terrible feel to it that I didn’t trust it not to jam, or worse. Ugly didn’t know that, of course. He backed up to the Kia as Holm clocked his guy. Ugly then looked at Mike, and his eyes widened. I think mine did, too.

  When I turned to look, Mike had one of his handlers in a neck hold with help from his emergency room sling, and he had his heel on the other guy’s neck. His left arm shook, but I doubted anyone else noticed.

  “On the ground,” I ordered.

  Ugly looked around and apparently saw no way out. He spat a string of words in Spanish that were saltier than the sea, but he complied as Arturo got out of the Hyundai and retrieved our guns for us. We had nothing to restrain the men, which left us to keep them at gunpoint until military officials and police arrived on the scene. Once they were cuffed and led away, Nuñez pulled me aside.

  “Less than an hour and you people attract trouble.” Her brow creased, and she pushed back a stray hair that had come loose at some point. “They called Mr. Birch by another name. I think, Cartwright?”

  “We’ll explain when we’re secure,” I said. “After that, we need to find out who these asshats are and why they knew to look for him.”

  I had a hunch they’d followed us from the airport. If that was true, that brought up other questions. Did Mike and Clyde’s driver truly not recognize that they were being tailed, or did the goons in the Lada hold back until their friends in the Kia were close enough to cut us off?

  Nuñez gathered our little group together.

  “We’re leaving. There are witnesses, and we wanted a low prof
ile.” She cast Mike something akin to an evil eye. “If Agents Holm and Marston are lucky, their hats and sunglasses will help keep them from having stood out too much.”

  Right. Fortunately, there weren’t as many witnesses as I would have expected in other places. Maybe that was because nobody wanted trouble for their families. In a country with severe repercussions for crossing the wrong people, I could see why people might steer clear. As it was, the young men who’d lingered were already scattering.

  Nuñez led us down the block just past the military vehicles, where a cream-and-salmon 1950s Bel-Air idled with a diesel growl. The tires had thin treads, and the bumper sat at an angle that did not inspire confidence. Arturo sat in the driver’s seat. Nuñez eyed the four of us and then the car.

  “Mr. Birch and Mr. Clyme in front,” she said. “Agents Holm and Marston, you’re in the back with me.”

  We moved our bags from the Hyundais to the Bel-Air’s trunk. The liner had worn through, and the bottom was rusty but solid. I crossed my fingers and gently closed the trunk lid. Arturo warned us not to slam the doors, either. Like Nuñez had said earlier, this car looked like it was held together with string and gum.

  “Is this your car, Arturo?” Mike asked as the bodyguard drove us away from the scene.

  Arturo shook his head, and Nuñez answered for him.

  “This is his cousin’s car.” She glanced at Arturo. “We had to pay him a day’s rates to borrow it.”

  Up front, Mike and Arturo chatted in Spanish about cars as Arturo made careful progress to the safe house where the Cuban government had chosen to stash us. Legally, Americans could not pay to stay in state-owned properties, but since we were guests, well, I let all our bosses worry about that. Fortunately, we didn’t pick up another tail.

  Eventually, Arturo parked on a curb a few feet from the front door of a small house with a sagging roof and flaking blue paint. A handful of children gathered as we lugged our bags inside, and I could see where we might’ve been a bit of a spectacle since we were out of the way of the usual tourist locales. The kids lost interest and went back to playing and whatever else local kids did that time of day.

  There were three bedrooms upstairs, one for our liaison and two for the four of us. I didn’t care for sharing such, but I’d heard that there were homes where two to three families shared two-bedrooms apartments. Hell, we did worse in the Navy. We’d be fine.

  Holm and Clyde took one room, and Mike and I took the other. Both rooms had solid-looking wood bunk beds. At least we didn’t have to share mattresses. I was happy that Nuñez’s guards wouldn’t need to sleep over as well. What I didn’t understand was why her superiors assigned her to stay with us the entire time. Surely she had a life of her own, and the guards could keep an eye on us in her absence.

  Once I finished getting my things settled into the room, I went out of the room to check in with Nuñez. She emerged from her temporary quarters as I was about to knock and shot me an indecipherable look.

  “Meet downstairs in five minutes,” she ordered. “We will debrief what just happened and then go over the facts of your case. After that, we’ll decide how to proceed.”

  Holm came out of our room as Nuñez went down the narrow stairs. He raised a brow.

  “Cuban facts or actual evidence?” he asked.

  “We’ll see.” I crossed my arms. “It’s in everyone’s best interests to get this over with right away, and I’m sure the government wants to get its hands on the rest of those cars. We’ll play this by ear.”

  “How about Mike out there?” Holm whispered. “I knew he was a badass, but that was something.”

  “Yeah.” I stared at the door to Mike and Clyde’s room. “It makes a guy wonder what all he hasn’t told us about this case.”

  “You think he’s holding back?” Holm asked.

  “You better believe it, brother. We just need to find out what he’s not telling us before it bites us in our collective asses.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The family room had just enough space for the six of us to sit without crowding each other. Garlic, cumin, and other faint aromas made my mouth water, and I realized it was midday already, but the briefing came before food.

  “People tend to keep their cars and hand them down through their families,” Nuñez told us. “The cars found in your friend’s boat couldn’t have been driven all this time. Your people said the parts were original, and they didn’t show the kind of wear you’d see even on a fully restored version on the streets today.”

  “Why would anyone hide a car when it could make their family money?” Holm asked. “That Maserati would’ve been a gold mine for a driver to take tourists out.”

  “One by one,” I reminded him. “Before tourism opened up, who had the money for that?”

  “Fair enough.” Holm crossed his arms. “So, we’re thinking that someone is finding lost cars and cleaning them up?”

  “If it was that easy, they would’ve done it years ago,” Mike said. “This is something new. Howie was involved with smuggling in fresh car parts at one point. He told me he was over that, but I never knew for sure. He lived off the grid, and I couldn’t find him.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Given the kinds of contacts Mike had, it would’ve taken a lot for anyone to hide from him. Talmage either wasn’t as good a friend as Mike liked to think, or he was protecting Mike. Maybe both.

  “If we can get a bead on where he lived, we’ll have someone search the place.” I looked at Nuñez. “They told me you have the name of an informant who’ll help us.”

  She picked up a manila folder and paged through the contents until she landed on the sheet she wanted.

  “This man is said to be a reliable informant.” She handed me the page. “Felix Ortega is a former smuggler. He retired but keeps his fingers in the pie.”

  Even as I smiled a little at her word choice, I wondered how “retired” a guy like Ortega might be, or whether it was by choice. Either way, it was a start. I checked out his sheet. He had an impressive list of charges, ranging from petty theft in his early days to coercion and smuggling today.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t throw him in prison for good,” I said. “If I ran with his crowd, I wouldn’t trust a guy the police kept letting go.”

  Nuñez shrugged. “Money buys freedom.”

  That was true almost anywhere. I handed the sheet to Holm, and he passed it on to Mike after taking his own look.

  “Dollar Store gets intel for us on a regular basis,” Holm pointed out. “A good informant knows how to handle themselves.”

  “I know this guy,” Mike announced. “He’s the one who told me where to look for Howie’s boat.”

  I took the sheet back and studied the man’s face. His grizzled features made him look older than his fifty-three years.

  “Well, hot damn.” I gave the paper back to Nuñez. “I’ll take this kind of luck.”

  Nuñez tucked Ortega’s page into the folder which she then set on her lap. She kept her gaze down.

  “This will make your case go faster?” she asked.

  “Probably.” I cocked my head. “Is something wrong?”

  She looked up with a fake smile and shook her head. “Not at all. This is the first time I’ve seen a murder case. It may be the only one. I simply don’t have a reference for how long it will take.”

  There was more, I was sure, but I wasn’t about to pry. As long as it didn’t affect the investigation, it wasn’t my business.

  “Every case runs on its own timeline,” Holm told her. “There are no guarantees.”

  Her small nod had an air of sadness that made me want to comfort her, but it wasn’t my place. I knew nothing about her, other than she worked for the Cuban government and wasn’t married, given that she corrected me earlier to call her “señorita.”

  “What is your plan?” she asked us.

  I grinned at Holm, and he grinned back.

  “We’re going to buy a car,” I answered.

 
; “You’ll be undercover, then.” She looked at Clyde and then Mike. “And these two?”

  “You met Joe,” I said. “We call him ‘Clyde.’ He has our mobile lab and can examine any evidence we need. If he can’t analyze it here, we’ll send it back to Miami.”

  “We have labs,” Nuñez protested. “Evidence belongs here.”

  “Our lab has resources your, um, government couldn’t offer,” Clyde said. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and glanced at me before looking in Nuñez’s direction. “I was told this is how we’re handling it.”

  “I was too,” I lied. If Clyde said a thing, it was true. “Unless your superiors changed their minds.”

  “I’ll find out.” Nuñez frowned. “Miscommunication can happen sometimes.”

  “I’m sure we’ll figure it out to everyone’s best interests.” I offered a smile and was amused to see her light-brown cheeks pinken. “Both sides want convictions, and that requires evidence.” At least that was true in the States, but I didn’t feel the need to throw a barb.

  Nuñez turned to Mike, and her face took on a hawkish look that promised of trouble if anyone dared cross her.

  “Those men, they called you ‘Cartwright,’” she said as if no one had heard. “I spoke to my superior while you were unpacking. Very few Cartwrights from America have interacted with our country. Only one your age is in our records. John Cartwright.”

  Clyde straightened in his chair and gaped at Mike, then at Holm, then at me, and back to Mike.

  “The John Cartwright?” he bleated. “Only two people in the world have gone through SEAL and Ranger training, and you’re one of them?”

  Mike’s uncharacteristically sharp look shut Clyde up. If that hadn’t worked, I would have been more direct. We didn’t know how much the Cubans knew about Mike’s career. Hell, I wasn’t sure whether they considered him an enemy or not. We got Mike Birch cleared to enter Cuba, not John Cartwright.

  Nuñez shifted in her chair and fiddled with the corner of her folder.

  “Mr. Cartwright, you would’ve been denied entrance to Cuba had we known your true identity,” she informed him. “This situation is… delicate. For now, you may stay, but you must not leave this house. My office is posting a twenty-four-hour guard to ensure you cooperate.”