Fatal Decree

by H. Terrell Griffin

  “Then why do you deal with him?” Jock asked, “He’s never done anything to make me not trust him. Yet.”

  “What’s your leverage? Do you pay him?”

  “Sort of. I supply him with coke.”

  “That can get pretty expensive,” Jock said Cantreras smiled. “I get it wholesale.”

  “From the Guatemalans?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if your supply runs out? You can’t get the coke for him?”

  “Won’t matter. He knows if he screws up, I’ll kill him.”

  “Okay,” said Jock. “Sit tight.”

  Cantreras laughed. “Thought I would,” he said. And he moaned again.

  Jock walked off a few feet and activated his cell phone. After a short conversation, he returned to the car. “Pedro,” he said, “in a few minutes some men are going to come and take you away. They’ll want a lot more information than you’ve given me, and they won’t waste a lot of time getting it. If you value your skin even a little bit, you’ll cooperate.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  “What now?” I asked. We had walked away from the car and were talking quietly.

  “The agency guys will bleed him dry,” Jock said.

  “Then what?”

  “I think Mr. Cantreras will disappear.”

  “He seemed kind of resigned to it,” I said.

  “These guys go through life killing people, never thinking too much about what they’re doing, how the death of one effects so many others, family, friends, associates. But they also seem to have a fatalistic attitude. Death isn’t a big deal. They don’t expect to make it to retirement age, so they’re not really surprised when somebody comes along to take them out. If it wasn’t me, the gangbangers would get him sooner or later. As soon as he was a threat to them, or they didn’t need him anymore, somebody would put a bullet in his head.”

  “I guess that’s why he was talking so freely.”

  “Yeah. A few busted ribs let him know I was serious. He’s probably already dead in his own mind. When my guys pick him up, they’ll take him somewhere for a few days, give him plenty to eat, fix his ribs, and get every morsel of information he has. Then, sayonara, baby.”

  Jock had arranged for a retrieval team from his agency to be standing by just off the interstate ramp about five miles away. I saw headlights turn into the grove track and Jock and I pulled our pistols and took up positions that put the rental car between us and the oncoming vehicle. It stopped as soon as the headlights picked us up. A door opened and a man got out, standing beside what I could now make out as a black SUV. “Spooky place for a spook,” he said.

  The recognition code. “Beats Budapest,” said Jock, giving the agreed response. “Who’re you?”

  “Jim Austin, Jock,” the man said.

  “Damn,” said Jock, walking toward the man who was now standing in the headlights. “I told them to send me somebody competent.”

  “Screw you, Algren. I brought a rookie with me. I think he’s minimally competent.”

  Jock had reached the man and they embraced. “Damn, it’s good to see you, Jim,” Jock said. “Last I heard you were somewhere in North Africa.”

  “Just got back,” the man said. “I was enjoying a little down time in Tampa when the old man called and said I needed to pull your nuts out of the fire. Again.”

  Jock laughed. “Matt, this shadow of the man he once was, is Jim Austin. We went through training together. A long time ago. Jim, this is Matt Royal. He has clearance on everything. Directly from the old man.”

  I assumed the old man they were talking about was Dave Kendall, their agency director. I shook hands with Jim, and Jock went to get our prisoner. A young man, the minimally competent rookie I guessed, was standing by the passenger side of the SUV, pistol in his hand hanging down by his leg. Austin waved him over as Jock walked up with his left hand clamped around Cantreras’s bicep. “I want you to meet the legend,” said Austin. “Jock Algren. And this is Matt Royal.”

  “Glad to meet you, sir,” said the rookie. “I’ve been hearing about you since I started my training.”

  “I made a lot of that stuff up,” said Jock. “Looks good in the reports.”

  The rookie laughed and took control of Cantreras, leading him back to the SUV. Jock handed Austin the digital recorder on which he’d taped his interrogation of Cantreras.

  “This all of it?” Austin asked.

  “Yeah. You going to do the follow-up?”

  “Probably. Somebody’s coming down from D.C. to help out.”

  “Let me know what you find out.”

  “No sweat,” said Austin. “Got to hit the road. Great seeing you, Jock.” He nodded in my direction. “Matt.”

  Austin backed the vehicle between some trees, made a three-point turn, and followed the track back to the highway. Jock and I got back in the rental, and he started the same maneuver that Austin had used. He backed up into a row between the trees, dropped the gear shift into drive, and an automatic rifle let go, bullets stitching the passenger side of the car. The shooter had fired low or I would have gotten a head full of lead. Adrenalin surged and took over. We both bailed, hitting the ground, pulling our pistols. I rolled under the car and came out on the driver’s side next to Jock. I thought if there were other shooters taking aim at the left side of the car, he’d have let go at the same time as the guy who fired.

  “What the hell?” asked Jock, his voice low, tense.

  “Got to be gangbangers,” I said.

  “How did they find us?”

  “They probably followed your buddies in the SUV. Those things might as well have ‘cops’ written all over them.”

  The shooter let go with another burst. We heard bullets hitting metal, but none came close to us. “I hope you got the extra insurance when you rented this car,” I said.

  “Maybe I can get Jim Austin back here,” he said, dialing his cell. He closed it. “No answer.”

  “Somebody’s going to be circling around behind us,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”

  “I’m open to any ideas.”

  “Let’s move back into the trees,” I said. “If someone’s trying to get behind us, we’ll have as good a chance of seeing them as they will of seeing us.”

  Jock nodded and we started moving backward, crouching, scanning all around us, trying to see the gangbangers before they saw us. Another burst of fire dinged off the rental. “They’re trying to keep us occupied,” said Jock. “Somebody’s got to be coming from the other side.”

  “Let’s separate,” I said. “Get some space between us. If they’re as stupid as I think they are, they’ll come straight in. Maybe we can get them in the middle.”

  We moved through the trees on our bellies. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, but my field of vision was very limited. The overcast sky still blocked any available light from stars and moon. The citrus trees loomed in the darkness, their trunks and low-hanging branches adding a sinister touch to the landscape. I heard another fusillade rip from the automatic rifle. No other sounds, the animals that lived in the grove scared silent by the sounds of gunfire and humans slithering through the dead leaves that covered the ground.

  The trees were heavy with green fruit that would ripen and be ready for picking in the next month or so. I reached up and twisted a hard orange from its limb and tossed it to my left, the side away from Jock. I wanted to see if the movement would draw fire. It didn’t. I waited a few minutes while making my way farther into the grove. I picked another orange and heaved it. The sound of the fruit hitting the limbs of the trees in the distance drew fire this time. Pistol fire. I saw the muzzle flash about twenty yards to my left.

  I crawled toward the sounds of a person thrashing around in the leaves. I was quiet, barely disturbing the ground cover. Jock was silent. If I was dead, a shout from him wouldn’t do any good, and if I was moving toward our shooters, any noise he made might serve as a warning to the bad guys.

  I heard the sounds of fo
otsteps on the leaves. They were close, maybe only a few feet away. I lay still, listening. More footsteps. Coming my way. I aimed my nine millimeter in front of me. Silence. A minute passed, two. Then the sound of footsteps, approaching closer. They stopped. Whoever he was, he was nervous, not sure of what awaited him. Another step, two, three. I saw a person, really just a black spot in my field of vision, a little darker than the surroundings. He moved again, took a couple of steps and stopped. He was still coming my way, slipping toward the rental. He’d have to step right over me to get there. I lay there in the leaves, stock-still, like a big cat crouched downwind of its intended prey, waiting for the moment to pounce.

  The man came closer. I could see him better now. He was a small man, a large pistol in his hand, pointing toward the ground. He was taking it slow, creeping up on what he thought were two unsuspecting gringos hiding behind the car.

  The little man was two steps from me when I heard the loud report of a shotgun blast coming from the direction of the rental. The man in front of me flinched and I shot him in the knee. He screamed and dropped his gun, falling to the ground, writhing in pain. I scratched around among the leaves until I touched his pistol. I threw it into the grove and stood over him, my pistol pointed at his head. I don’t think he was even aware of me. He squirmed and moaned and bled.

  “Jock, are you okay?” It was Jim Austin, his voice coming from near the car we’d abandoned.

  “I’m fine, Jim,” said Jock, shouting to be heard. “Matt?”

  “I’m here, Jock. I’ve got one of the little bastards.”

  “There were only two of them,” said Jim. “I’m coming toward you. Don’t shoot.”

  I saw a flashlight coming through the trees. “Over here, Jim,” I said.

  Jim came into view carrying a shotgun, Jock right behind him. “What’ve we got here?” Jim asked.

  “This one was trying to sneak up on us,” I said.

  Jim shined the flashlight on the little man on the ground. I recognized him. He was the one who had been driving the lowrider on Longboat Key earlier in the day. “I’ll be damned,” I said.

  Jock took a closer look. “We know this pissant, Jim. He was threatening Matt this morning on Longboat Key. What about the one you took out?”

  “My rookie’s over there with the body, or what’s left of it.” He patted his shotgun. “This baby does a lot of damage at close range.”

  “Where’s Cantreras?” I asked.

  “He’s parked out on the highway, locked up in our car.”

  “What brought you back here?” asked Jock.

  “We saw the lowrider parked on the berm of the highway when we were leaving. Looked like gangbangers, so we decided to sneak back for a look. When I saw Jock’s caller ID on my phone, I figured there must be trouble.”

  “Thanks for answering,” Jock said, sarcastically.

  “Didn’t want to get into a conversation,” said Jim. “By the time you called, we were parked just out on the highway and had heard the gunshots. I thought a little stealth might be in order.”

  Jock laughed. “Well, you pulled mine out of the fire this time for sure. The gesture is appreciated.”

  “Let’s get an ambulance out here for this little shit,” I said. “Can’t leave him here to die.”

  Jock moved a few feet away, made a call on his cell, talked quietly for a minute, hung up, dialed again. Two short conversations. He rejoined us and said, “Let’s load him into the SUV. We’ll get him to Manatee Memorial and our own doc will meet us there. I don’t want the law involved in this.”

  “How’re you going to do that?” I asked. “The hospital is going to call the cops as soon as a gunshot wound shows up.”

  “David Sims will meet us in the emergency room,” said Jock. “He’ll take care of that.”

  “What about the stiff?” asked Jim.

  “Cleanup crew’s on the way from Tampa.”

  Jim nodded. “I’ll get in touch, give them the exact location of the body. This is shaping up to be a long night.”

  The rookie backed the SUV down a row between the trees, and we loaded the one I’d shot into the back. He was screaming and moaning as we moved him. Cantreras sat quietly in his seat, one cuff on his right wrist and the other locked around a large U-bolt in the floorboard. Jock and I took seats next to him. He didn’t even turn to look at us or react to the wounded man’s screams. He was already dead, I thought, his mind closing down, oblivious to everything around him. He’d gone deep into his brain, shutting out the world, not unlike the gazelle caught in the big cat’s jaws.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Jock and I were on our way to Longboat Key. It was nearing midnight. The streets were quiet and almost deserted. Bradenton isn’t known for its vibrant nightlife. Jim Austin’s rookie had driven us to the airport where Jock had rented another car, using yet another alias. Jim had stayed at the hospital to take care of the man I’d shot. A doctor who was somehow on the payroll of the agency would take control, patch up the knee, and order the man to be transported by his friends to Tampa General Hospital for extensive knee surgery.

  “How did you pull that off at the hospital?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Jim took care of that end of things.”

  “What are they going to do with the gangbanger I shot?”

  “Probably the same thing they’ll do with Cantreras. I told Jim to make sure they asked him about the Guatemalans’ beef with you.”

  “Is he really going to the hospital?”

  “Probably. They’ll fix him up and keep him in isolation until he’s ready to be released.”

  “Why only probably?”

  “Somebody might want to use his bad knee in the interrogation. I don’t ask a lot of questions about those things.”

  “Probably a good idea. What’re you going to do about the rental out in that grove?”

  “I’ll call the rental company and tell them where to pick it up.”

  I laughed. “Just like that? No explanation?”

  “I’ll tell them it broke down.”

  “I take it you rented that car under a name that doesn’t exist.”

  “Right.”

  “So they’ll eat the damage.”

  “No. I bought the insurance.”

  “I didn’t think anybody ever bought that expensive crap.”

  “I always do. I lose more cars than I get to turn in. Fair’s fair.”

  “What about the lowrider the gangbangers brought to the fight?”

  “Our cleanup crew will load it on a flatbed, and nobody will ever see it again.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I’ll hear from somebody in the agency tomorrow. They’ll have sucked Cantreras dry by then, and be all over that bar and lockbox in New Orleans.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Finally.”

  When we turned into my street, I saw J.D.’s Camry parked in front of my house. That couldn’t be good news. We pulled in behind her car and stopped. The neighborhood was quiet, no lights in any of the houses but mine. I opened the front door and found J.D. asleep on my sofa. I turned and signaled Jock to be quiet. He nodded and tiptoed into his bedroom.

  I sat in the chair across from the sofa and stared at J.D. She was beautiful. It occurred to me that I’d never seen her asleep before. All that animation that made her so alive was missing. For a moment I could visualize what she must have looked like as a little girl curled up in her pajamas on her parents’ sofa. Sweet and innocent and unsullied by the world of the adult.

  I was staring like some dumbstruck kid when she opened her eyes. She didn’t move, just looked at me for a moment. “I’m glad you’re safe, Matt,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was worried about you.”

  I didn’t move. We were joined in some kind of magnetic field that kept us rooted in place, our eyes locked. “I’m glad that you worry about me,” I said.

  “I always do,” she said, and sat up, the spell broken. She rubbed her eyes an
d stood. “I need to brush my teeth,” she said, and walked toward the guest room.

  “That’s better,” she said when she returned. “Did you find your guy?” “We did.” I told her about the evening, leaving out the part where Jock roughed up Cantreras.

  “Will the agency share information with you?”

  “They will with Jock.”

  “When?”

  “We should know something tomorrow.”

  “What then?”

  “I’m not sure. A lot depends on whether the agency can connect Cantreras’s employer to the deaths of the agents. If not, we’ll probably be on our own.”

  “And if they tie it in, they’ll take the case away from us.”

  “Probably,” I said. “But if they can prove to their satisfaction that Cantreras was working for someone involved in the hits on the agents, I don’t think there’ll be a case. Cantreras and his boss will just disappear.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “You’re a cop. You’re not supposed to like stuff like that. But it takes some of the bad guys off the street, and you can concentrate on the whale tails.”

  She sighed, sat quietly for a few beats. “The hit man was on retainer to the Guatemalan gangbangers, so it follows that the attempts on your life are tied to the hit man.”

  “We’re not sure that the attempt at the police station downtown was aimed at me. It could have been you they were after.”

  “That’s not very comforting,” she said.

  “I know, but that probably makes more sense than me being their target.”

  “What about the guys in the lowrider this morning?”

  “Maybe they were just trying to scare me out of the babysitting business.”

  She made a face. “Don’t be difficult, Matt.”

  “Sorry. I don’t know what they were up to. The guy I shot was the driver this morning. Maybe Jock’s people will be able to find out something.”

  “I’ve got to get to bed,” she said. “Call me when you hear something tomorrow.”

  “Are you still working on Picket?”

  “Yes. Steve Carey is supposed to have me something in the morning.”