by Ali Vali
After twenty minutes of evasive moves to ensure no one was following her, she drove into the airport and headed to the baggage area. She stopped in an empty parking space and kept the engine running. If she didn’t have any other surprises, she could complete the rest of the first phase of taking the Tarvers out of the line of fire.
Peter came out first, rolling two bags, Karen following him closely. They didn’t look too upset, considering what had happened to them that morning. The sight of them, though, made a piano drop to her shoulders and a headache bloom in the base of her skull. She’d spent her life trying to plan the next move, and this time would be no different. But with the group she’d collected in the last twenty-four hours it’d be like planning for every contingency while juggling a hundred tennis balls.
“Are you both okay?”
“My house got blown up,” Karen said as she climbed into the backseat.
“You should talk to your daughter-in-law about that. If you want, once we get to my place I’ll set up a séance and you can ask her why this happened. While you have her on the line you can ask her where the money is so we can ditch these guys.” She smiled when Karen laughed, but she never stopped scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary.
“Let’s get something straight.” Karen pushed over so she was in her line of sight in the rearview mirror once Peter joined her in the back. “Maria, the asshole, was not my daughter-in-law. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but that woman was a problem from the moment Aubrey met her. I said it then and no one listened to me except Peter, but all Aubrey had eyes for was Tanith. And you lost your right to be flip a long time ago, so cool it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a hard time. It’s been a long day so far.” When Peter closed the door she took off and headed back toward the city.
“Has anything else happened since we saw you last?” Peter put his arm around Karen and looked at her in the rearview mirror. His cologne, still the same, reminded her of her father. Both of them never changed the little things about themselves they were comfortable with. Seeing him again made her realize everything she’d missed when she’d lost Aubrey, including Peter.
“No, sir.” She had to concentrate to take her eyes off him and pay attention to the road ahead and behind them. “Aubrey and Tanith are fine.” She told them about the visit from Walter that morning, not wanting them to think she was keeping anything from them and to prepare them in case he showed up again.
“I thought you said you were retired?” Karen asked.
“I am, but Mr. Tarver will tell you, sometimes it’s easier to shake an octopus with a crush than the military when they don’t want to completely let you go.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
She glanced back at Karen again and laughed. “I have a feeling you’re going to ask even if I say no, so don’t let me stop you.”
“I know it was you who broke it off, and even though you made my daughter miserable, she tried to defend your decision by telling us she agreed with you because of the years you gave to your assigned unit. She would never come out on top in your life, so it was a good thing you beat her to the punch. Then and now I thought that was all bullshit.” Karen’s sigh sounded to Wiley like part exhaustion and part disgust. “I thought she should’ve put more thought into an excuse that sounded so lame, but you re-upped. Why didn’t you ever consider her and what she wanted? We could’ve avoided all this mess.”
“Because I didn’t have a choice.” It was all she could say to keep the truth from coming out.
“Everyone always has a choice, Wiley.” Karen didn’t sound as harsh as she had from the moment they’d come together again.
The traffic picked up as she got closer to her exit, and she was glad to be out from under Karen’s microscope. “If I’d become an accountant, then you’re right, I would’ve, but from the time I started my assignment the world became a different place. I tried, but I became a victim of my own success, as they say.”
“You gave them over ten years,” Karen said, and put her hand on her shoulder. “Other people can share the responsibility or wear the cape, superhero. I know exactly what your purpose was while you served. It’s like the SEALs, I guess. People think they’re invisible, cool, and totally badass, but there’s always a toll, and those you leave behind always pay it.”
The red light prolonged her agony, and Peter was choosing to stay quiet. “I volunteered for two years. Year three wasn’t my wish, and whether you believe me or not, it wasn’t a choice. In that time I saw what the waiting was doing to her, and I wanted to save her from the life I’d chosen.” She’d never forget the expression of delight on the commander’s face when she saved him the speech of why they needed her to stay. He couldn’t give a crap why she wanted back in the field. Her pain, her issues, her life didn’t matter as much as what she could do for them. “The other seven came as a bonus for the guys who wanted me in the field.”
“You had a death wish?” Peter finally said.
“I had a need to keep busy, and I still do. If we’re going to be spending time together until I can get you somewhere safe, we’ll have to leave it at that.” She turned onto her street and made the block twice before she felt it safe enough to turn in. As the garage door came down she called the phone she’d given Aubrey and told her not to worry.
She would take care of that for all of them.
*
Wiley disappeared into her office as the Tarvers had their family reunion. Once her computer came out of hibernation she started her search of Almoloya de Juárez prison. When the drug war had become the cluster fuck it had, the Mexican authorities had built it to house the worst of the drug lords. It was their version of a supermax facility, where all the cells were wired with closed-circuit television to reduce the number of guards that came in contact with the population. That in turn cut down the influence these guys had with the outside. This would be Pombo’s final home, if he lived to make it to trial and conviction.
“How high is the level of your stomach acid?” she asked Don when he answered his office phone on the first ring.
“High enough, and when I get an ulcer I’m naming it after you.” She heard his door close and let her head drop to the back of her chair. The air-conditioning was set to the high sixties, and she took a deep breath through her nose, trying to relax. She wanted to check Roth Pombo off her to-do list. “What’s going on?”
“Walter was back today, and I ran into a few of his guys at the grocery. They came with their own pharmacy, so I’m sending you what was left for analysis. I want to know what these goons had in mind, especially since I had to disarm all three of them.”
“Where exactly are they?”
“Either they’re working off a bad hangover, or they’re still sleeping it off with the paper goods and cans.”
“Anything else you need?”
“I want the specs on Almoloya de Juárez prison, and a layout of the town.”
She waited for Don to gather his thoughts. “You’re doing this? You have to know Carl’s going to stonewall them as long as possible.”
“The general’s always been fair with me, but I’m going to Mexico to check out the viability of this operation. If I’m going to end up next to Pombo in a shitty cell eating beans for the rest of my life because this is impossible, I’ll just work on my tan.” She sealed the vial in a plastic box, then put it in a FedEx box with Don’s address on it. “Tell me when you get your hands on the information I asked for.”
“Anything new on the other front you were working on?”
“The painting you saw the first day you were here? I finished it that morning, but so far I haven’t started anything else.”
“Wiley, don’t fuck with me.”
“I’m not ready to talk about that yet, but you’re my first call when I am.” She picked up the brass block she used as a paperweight and pressed it to her lips as she waited to see if another lecture was coming. The
top of the heavy object had one of her father’s dog tags embedded in it, and her mom had the twin. When Buckston retired he gave them to the two people he credited for his success. No one went so far in the military without the help and support of his family.
“Make sure you do, and I’ll get that stuff for you by this afternoon. Depending on what we find we’ll set the plan and the assets you’ll need to finish.” He didn’t linger on the line and she pressed the disconnect button before she dialed another number.
“Are you calling to invite us to your new place? I can’t wait to see it.”
“I knew that talking you into caller ID was a bad idea.” She laughed and could mentally smell the cookies her mom was known for. While she’d spent a lot of time with her father learning the nuances of every weapon and their pros and cons, she’d spent as much time with her mother sitting on a stool talking about life in general as cinnamon cookies baked in the oven. All her life the smell of the spice had sent a wave of warmth through her.
“It was the best idea you ever had, since I haven’t had to talk to any of those loathsome telemarketers, but I’ll tell you all about it when I check out that awesome kitchen of yours in person.”
“Am I going to hurt your feelings if I tell Dad something before you?”
“Depends,” Danielle said, and Wiley knew the wheels in her mom’s head were spinning. “Is it work-related or personal?”
“For right now we’re sticking to work-related.”
“Does that mean something personal’s on the horizon?”
Even with the air-conditioner running she could hear someone outside the door. She couldn’t tell which of the Tarvers it was, but her tension went up. None of them was the enemy but they were out of place here, and because of the life she’d led, she didn’t know how to distinguish the difference. She couldn’t control her heightened sense of vigilance.
“It’s not what you think, but I promise to tell you about it once I’m done with Dad.”
Her mother had also learned not to ask too many questions, and Wiley heard her put the phone down and walk away. After her dad’s retirement they’d stayed outside Washington, her mom saying it’d be permanent only while she was still serving. Now that she’d settled, Danielle was ready to put up a For Sale sign and move south.
“Wiley, you there?” Her mom’s voice startled her from her daydreams.
“Is he not in?”
“Hang up and he’ll call you back as soon as he’s in his office.”
That took less than five minutes, and she picked up her landline in the middle of the first ring. “Hey, Dad.”
“You okay, kid?”
“Nothing that climbing out of this rabbit hole I’ve fallen in won’t fix.” She told him what Walter wanted, not concerned with sharing the information since her father still enjoyed top-secret security clearance despite his retirement. She wasn’t the only Gremillion the army was interested in keeping around. If the military and the country kept their secrets in a cemetery, her father not only had the key, but a mental map of who and what was in every plot.
“That’s all he shared with you?”
“He said that’s all I needed. I surmised that Roth Pombo has a secret and Walter wants him to die with it.”
“What do you need from me?”
“How’d you like to take a trip to Mexico with me under an assumed name?” Whoever was outside her door was frantically pacing, so she tried to tune them out. “It’ll be easier to do the recon together and get back before we become obvious. If I return I want to be in and out before the shit flies.”
“What’s your rush, and why not get it over with in one trip?”
She paused, not wanting to ignite another argument with him. The seven extra years she’d given Carl and Don weren’t only a problem for Peter and Karen Tarver. Her father had her flown to Washington when he’d received word she’d agreed to stay on. It was one of the only moments in her life she’d seen him truly angry and direct his fury at her. Peter had said “death wish.” That had been his starting point, and he’d piled on until he’d ended his rant by sharing his unvarnished opinion of what she was doing.
“I received a message from an old friend yesterday.” She stopped to shore up her defenses. “Before I say anything else, I promised Mom she could hear the rest.”
“I’ve got a feeling I know where this is headed.” He didn’t sound angry, but she sensed his fury like an approaching tornado. “Go ahead.”
She could tell he’d engaged the speakerphone, even if her mother hadn’t said anything. “I got a message from Aubrey yesterday afternoon.”
“And you called her back?”
“Buck, let her finish.”
She smiled at hearing the true disciplinarian in the family. “This involves a little more than calling her back.” She tried to keep what she’d walked into at Aubrey’s house short and sweet.
“Wiley, I’m your mother, and I love you.” Her sigh was prominent. “But I’m fucking tired of being lied to, so it’s time to spill your guts. You said it was over, but not why, and you said you’d leave her to live her life. Though since you know she picked a deadbeat pushing dope, maybe you should’ve left her in the attic to rot. You do not under any goddamn circumstances put your life in danger for what is essentially trash.”
She laughed at the profanity. Danielle Gremillion had lived her entire life fussing at anyone who used bad language, as she put it, until she hit menopause. The hot flashes had in a way melted away her rigidity on the subject, and at fifty-eight she’d learned to use the word fuck in any sentence.
“You’re right, Mom, I didn’t tell you the truth. The truth affected all of us and was why I changed security regarding not only Dad but you.”
“Between the two of you and your secrets it’s a miracle I haven’t run naked into the night screaming from insanity. I’d swear you both think I’m a member of Al-Qaeda.”
“It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you, sweetheart,” Buckston said. “We didn’t want you to worry.” He told her in his customary straightforward way about what had happened when she’d returned from South America. “Since then only Wiley and two other members of that team are still alive, but one of the men had his wife and son killed. You might not have agreed with what Wiley did, but in essence, by giving Aubrey her freedom, she saved her life. I’m damn proud of that.”
“There’s more,” she said, after her dad’s great defense.
“Of course there is, but don’t think we’re done talking about this,” Danielle said.
“Her daughter Tanith was up there with her.”
“Tanith?” Judging by the creaking of leather, her father must’ve sat up. When she served he wasn’t only her father, but also the man Carl Greenwald answered to. Brigadier General Gremillion knew exactly who the Black Dragon was, what she was capable of, and what was tattooed on her arms. “She named the kid Tanith?”
“How old is she?” her mom asked.
“My math puts her conception about two months after we parted company, so don’t read too much into the kid’s name. They’re all here, and they’ll have to stay until I put Walter at ease with some movement.”
“Then what?”
“Mom, that’s a great question I have no answer for. Until I have a better idea who the players are, I don’t feel right about putting them out.”
“Hang tight and we’ll be there by tonight,” her mom said.
“Should I be afraid?”
“Not yet.” Her mom laughed and Wiley hung up, looking forward to seeing them.
The pacing outside had stopped so she opened the door, expecting to see someone nonetheless. The sight of Aubrey made her stomach clench with what she remembered was need. Touching Aubrey was the one thing she ever admitted to herself that she excelled at. Neither her art with the brush nor a gun came close.
Her sex didn’t care about the past, Maria, or the reasons she’d left. It was like a starving lion clutching a gazelle in its claws. Aubre
y was that instinctual thing in her life—her nature.
Chapter Ten
“The news better be good, Mitch, or you’re gonna be on the street. You feel me?” Emray Gillis sat at the table in his kitchen and stared at Mitch in a way that made him tense.
Mitch had met Emray when he stopped his car on his corner a year before. He’d been reluctant to get in until Emray put a stack of hundreds and a bag of pure Mexican white on the seat for him to see. For a kid who’d grown up in the worst housing project in New Orleans, working as a runner for the dealers that worked the city, he knew when life threw you not a bone, but a steak dinner.
He was always looking for the next big score that’d get him that much closer to putting the shit pile he’d grown up in another step behind him, but he hadn’t gotten his own crew by being a fucking idiot. He could make money, but every chance he got gave the cops an opportunity to take him down, and that was who he was afraid Emray was. Only the cops didn’t bait with as much product and weren’t as fucked up as Emray, who always seemed a second away from losing control. When he did there was always a pile of bodies after the coke haze cleared, and Mitch was smart enough to know no matter how good a job he did, he wasn’t indispensible to Emray. No one was.
“We lost Maria’s bitch, but we left a message at the first place she’s gonna run to.”
“So you don’t have my money?” Emray had a pile of blow in front of him and was putting it in dime bags, wearing a pair of thick rubber gloves. Mitch didn’t understand why he did such a menial task.
The house puzzled him too. Instead of some mansion, Emray lived in a small shotgun at the cusp of Uptown, with steel bars on every window and door. No one keeping him under surveillance would ever guess the size of Emray’s business if they concentrated on the peeling paint and weed-riddled yard. He was worth a fortune but sat at this old worn table and divided up his piles of blow because he didn’t trust anyone else to do it. He knew the exact amount of his inventory, each guy at the corners he had working, and how much money had to come in. Any deviation and Emray came down hard. No one got a second chance.
