Roger could not understand much once she started yelling. They just talked too fast, and Mexicans had a particular way of putting things.
“Roger, go into the bathroom and find the item. We got seconds, not minutes!”
Roger cursed and lunged through the small café and into the urine- and beer-smelling bathroom. He almost ripped the toilet from the wall until he remembered to lift the lid from the tank. He found the Chap Stick container and shoved it in his pocket.
Maria was still screaming hysterically about relatives, friends, pets, anyone she could think of who had been wronged by the cartels or police. To her they were one and the same.
“Roger, let’s go!”
Roger was about out of the café. He was breathing heavy and then paused. The girl was crying now with half a dozen people around her. The skinny boy with the loose jeans had fled, presumably to call the bad guys.
Joaquin honked the horn and beckoned him to hurry up.
Roger looked back at the girl and then grumbled, “Hold on!”
He took off his ski mask and then reached in his back pocket and pulled out two wads of bills, which every member of Dark Cloud had for emergencies, like bribes, transportation, or basic escape-and-evasion tactics.
“Get out of my way!” Roger parted the small, tanned people with his massive hands and put his hands on the girl’s shoulders.
She was sitting now, wet hair sticking to her face.
“Take this and disappear, sweetheart. It’s about two thousand. Vanish!” He spoke in English, not even thinking about it, and then turned to leave.
“Thanks. Thank you! You’re not the police?”
Roger got into the Suburban and fought with his seat belt as Joaquin floored it.
Tanya was finishing her last set of push-ups and pull-ups on the top deck of the Happy Mermaid when she noticed the small party boat unload its passengers. She felt a burn in the pit of her stomach. She should be ashore right now, free with her whole team. Veracruz was only a mile swim. She could make it, but if they discovered her, she and everyone else were dead. The Happy Mermaid had a well-stocked gym that was glassed-in and afforded a panoramic view of the ocean and Veracruz. She could watch who came and went and get in a workout. She never worked out during daylight for fear that the muscle heads, the Scorpions, would be grunting and farting and staring at her. Tanya grabbed her towel and wiped the sweat from her face.
Sebastian, I hope you make it. She felt a twinge of guilt at having sent him bogus information, but her deep distrust of Nathan and practically everyone had given her cause to be paranoid. Tanya had given Sebastian all of the detailed inner workings of Mario’s organization—names, accounting information, tax documents, business documents, legal documents—information that would make any law-enforcement officer or prosecutor. Over a hundred politicians, police, and other criminals would go away for life with such evidence.
Tanya started hitting the heavy bag now with some oversized gloves left by one of the muscle heads. Her shoulders were tense and her jaw set.
Nathan will be pissed, but he will have to rescue me, she thought, and negotiate.
Tanya had changed Mario’s passwords and account information on half a dozen different bank accounts and had the contact information rerouted to her. By the time Mario, or anyone, figured out that half a billion dollars was slowly being dribbled away, she was hoping to be long gone.
Tanya took off the gloves and thought about Dark Cloud. She had to figure out a way to make sure the workers got their share and that Nathan would be cut off and screwed, yet whom could she trust, and how much time did she have? Nathan had suggested that if anything happened to the real Ivan, her boyfriend, he could take over in the sexual department. “You killed him. I know it.”
“Hey!”
“Ahh, crap!” She spun around to face Gerard.
“Sorry to scare you. Jorge wants you to come join us for dinner. I have Susan here. She can loan you some decent clothes, a dress.”
Tanya crossed her arms over her chest and felt very self-conscious of his eyes. Why did men have to stare so much? It’s like they forget what boobs look like and are afraid they will never see them again! she thought. “No choice?”
“He would consider it rude. He wants you to meet a man.”
“OK. When is Sebastian coming back? He was getting shampoo and conditioner for me!”
“You can use mine,” Susan said with a Barbie smile. She was young, perhaps twenty, and appeared to be an American-born mix, probably from Trinidad or Haiti, and white. She was beautiful and dumb.
“OK, fine. Sebastian—where is he?”
Gerard shrugged. “Haven’t had the time to check on him. But I will.”
Evan and Mia made themselves comfortable at a large oak table set up in a circular dining room surrounded by glass and screens. The table was set for twelve with brilliant china and crystal that Evan guessed had cost thousands. Evan drank from his glass and had it filled instantly by one of the six waitstaff who stood encircling the table. There was a slight breeze in the air, which caused some of the wind chimes to tingle and the waiters to close the sliding glass doors. Evan was starting to feel hungry and wondered what was for dinner.
“Nice dinner cruise, huh?” he whispered to Mia.
“Yes. No doubt. Look at the pictures on the wall. Mexican presidents, American film stars, and a few senators.”
“From both sides of the border,” Evan commented.
Mia whispered. “Empty helicopter pad. Wonder if Mario is coming to this meeting?”
Evan shrugged and watched guests filter into the room, shake hands, nod, and look for their names. Jorge entered with his six bodyguards, and everyone stood.
Evan again sized up this new set of bodyguards and came to the same conclusion: these were the professional shooters. Evan never forgot a face, and he instantly recognized one of the slimmer-build henchmen. He seemed stressed enough that he must be in charge of something.
Frenchman, he thought.
Mia squeezed his hand and leaned close to whisper in his ear. She smiled as if she were saying something funny but was instead quite serious. “The guy whose jaw you broke, Gerard, he is there. The other man next to him is the man who organized Manuel’s kidnapping. His name is Yuri.”
“Guess they outsource their best psychos. Getting Europeans to do the jobs Mexicans won’t do,” Evan mused.
Mia rolled her eyes and pinched Evan in the arm like a sister. “You are such an ass,” she said through the clenched teeth of a fake smile.
Evan shrugged and watched her stick a thumbnail-sized piece of tape underneath the table. The transmitter was good up to two miles and could transmit for twenty-four hours. He wondered how many other devices she had already planted.
Roger and Joaquin had just finished doing a quick recon of the garage from across the street when Team Four arrived in a white Toyota Land Cruiser.
“One entrance on the side alley. There’s a fire door in the back that opens to an empty parking lot surrounded by the other buildings. Locked with a chain,” Roger whispered into his radio.
The leader of Team Four was named Munoz, and he had belonged to an elite team of the navy before jumping ship and joining Dark Cloud. “We can blow the door off the hinges, and you guys can toss a flash-bang in from the side door. We need about six seconds,” Munoz said quickly.
Roger looked sideways at Joaquin and nodded. The blinds were drawn on the garage, and the lights were out. Loud music could be heard inside the garage, undoubtedly to muffle whatever was going on inside.
The Turtle regarded his prisoner with a smile. He loved it when they screamed, yet this one was so scared, and he had not even done anything yet. He had Sebastian tied firmly to a wooden chair with duct tape over his mouth. Tears streamed down his face, and snot ran in rivers from his nose. He had his men hold the fat man’s hands as he secured them to the arms of the chair with a nail gun.
“Blowtorch next. Now, who the hell did you ca
ll on that man’s phone?” The Turtle ripped the tape from Sebastian’s mouth and waited for him to stop sobbing. “Stop it! Stop it! I have raped teenage girls that have cried less than you, ha!”
His friends laughed.
The Turtle put the muzzle of his .357 to the top of the man’s head and looked back at his three friends. Two of them were smoking joints and trying not to laugh. The other two looked bored and played with their guns. No one was watching the doors or the windows.
The Turtle suddenly saw a shadow cross by the bottom of the heavy wooden door into the garage.
“Hey, Paco? Did you lock the door?”
“Huh?”
That’s when the chaos began.
Boom! Boom!
The initial explosion behind the Turtle scared him so bad that he squeezed his trigger, blowing the top off Sebastian’s head.
He cursed and brought his gun up but could not see. Something was in his eyes.
“Police!” someone yelled.
Smoke, controlled fast pops, and another deafening explosion all seemed to blend together. The Turtle felt something powerful slam into his body as he spun and fell. He saw boots and his friends being shredded by bullets.
“Wha—”
Someone placed something hard into the back of his head and spoke calmly in a funny accent. “Lights out, shit fur brains.”
Pop.
Roger stepped over the kid who used to be the Turtle and looked at his watch. He dug his hearing protection out of his ears. “You were not kiddin’ about six seconds!”
“I never kid with time, amigo,” Munoz said flatly as he let his weapon dangle on its sling and put a piece of gum in his mouth.
“Roger, Sebastian is dead!” Joaquin yelled.
“Crap! OK, mates, strip these scum of their identities, cell phones. Leave the bodies as they are. Torch the place.”
Nathan got the phone call as he was just getting out of the shower. Sophia, a prominent Mexican socialite and activist handed him the phone as she walked past him, naked and smiling. “For you, sweetheart,” she whispered. She went into the shower and closed the door.
Nathan shook his head. He hated it when others answered his phone, but for her he would make an exception. Nathan put on his bathrobe and sat on the corner of the large bed. Sophia had been helping him work out his frustrations for the past few hours in the penthouse at the Hyatt Regency in Mexico City. She had also provided him with some dirt on Carletta.
“Hola?”
“Roger here.”
Nathan paused and felt the tension creep back into his neck. “Any word from Tanya?”
“No. Bad news though. Sebastian—”
“Who?”
“One of her computer-geek friends. He was taken ashore by the looks of things to do some shopping and return to the ship. He dropped off the computer data but got made in the process.”
“What?”
“He’s dead.”
“The computer info? Witnesses?”
“Taken care of. We lost a man, you prick!”
Nathan reached for the remote. The soccer game was on, and he wanted to catch the last half. “Terrible. Just terrible. Where is Tanya?”
“Still on board,” Roger said.
“Get the computer intel to me ASAP. Clean up the mess. Secure Tanya if possible,” Nathan said.
He could hear Roger’s pause.
“Can you make sure Ivan, or Evan—what’s his name—gets off the boat alive?” Nathan hung up and cursed out loud to the room. “I need my money!”
Carletta worried him. If he did not give her a little something soon, she would surely pull the plug on Dark Cloud, whatever that meant. Would she leak their identities to the cartels?
Andre Pena drank the last of his margarita and leaned against the rail of the top-floor balcony of Jorge’s penthouse. Jorge had given him instructions to keep out of sight and make himself at home. Andre looked out over the city of Veracruz, the busy streets, and the calm gulf, which stretched out to the horizon. He had a lot to think about and considered the path before him. “I will need a lot of supplies for this operation.”
He went to his computer and composed an e-mail to Jorge describing the materials he would need. In the last five months, Andre had set up six training camps around the most obscure parts of Mexico for Jorge’s private army of commandos. Most of these men had military training in explosives, yet he took them to an entirely new level: making a bomb without a massive budget and constructing and planting IEDs and VBIEDs. He had instructed the men on how to read the enemy, what their SOPs were, and how their love of laws bound them up to the point of paralysis. In a few days, he was going to construct his masterpiece.
Mario’s birthday party would be at a private beach house belonging to a prominent Mexican politician. The assassination of such a large group of politicians would launch Jorge into his new order, as he called it.
“To the new Mexico. Home of President Jorge and the Narco Party!” Andre Pena laughed out loud and walked back outside. He looked off in the distance and could see the flashing lights of fire trucks weaving through traffic, miles away.
“Should not play with matches!” He laughed.
Gerard took the small Zodiac ashore with Yuri, who mainly worked with his own crew in Mexico City. The Scorpion bosses called their groups cells, and they were dispersed throughout Mexico’s territories or plazas. The turf wars had heated up in the past few years, creating so many military groups that Gerard could not keep them straight.
“Can’t stand dress-up parties like that!” Yuri exclaimed. He had a thick Russian accent and was fluent in Spanish and French.
“It’s about time to get out of this freaking country, Yuri!”
The two men bounced along over the dark, oily waves, heading toward the shimmering city lights. The water smelled like fish, oil, and stale mud.
“Jorge’s going to get us killed with this taking-over-Mexico thing. We really need to pull in all of our troops. Mario’s loyalists will go berserk when he gets taken out.” Yuri spoke.
“I told him this. He says he has the three other cartels backing us. We will have to kill thousands over the next few weeks, quickly and quietly, after this whole thing goes down.”
“Sounds like the bloody Russian Revolution.” Yuri laughed.
“Or the French,” Gerard corrected.
The two men rode along in silence for a few moments, feeling the spray on their faces.
Evan listened to Tommy give the sales pitch as the dishes were cleared. Mia had gone to the bathroom and had even taken a tour of the yacht with one of the other girls at the dinner party. Mia played her part as if she were famous. She greeted people with smiles, shook hands, gave hugs, and listened with intensity to Mexico’s upper elite go on about their ungrateful children in schools in the States or their villas in Europe. Evan watched her with respect and amusement. He kept to himself and took advantage of the free wine and food that he would normally never touch. Evan watched the body language of Jorge and the politicians as they ate and talked. Evan had a feeling that Jorge was not a fan of the sub but was going along with it with enthusiasm. Too much enthusiasm.
“So, Ivan, where are you from?”
Evan looked at Tanya and smiled, pretending like he did not know her. “All over. Mostly grew up in Europe as a child.”
“Amazing. Ever been to Brazil?”
“Yes.”
Evan pretended to listen as she spoke to him about useless, empty bits of small talk. He wondered where Gerard and Russian had stolen off to. Evan really wanted to walk around the deck of the yacht.
Tanya moved close to him. She was clearly uncomfortable in a dress that fit too big in the chest and waist. She pressed a napkin into his hand and then stood up. “I need to get some air. Be right back.”
Jorge nodded and smiled. Jorge seemed to be her self-appointed protector and kept an eye on her like a father might watch his daughter among a group of young boys.
Evan r
ead the napkin under the table: “Meet me in five.”
“So, Ivan, can you agree to the terms that Tommy has set out here” Jorge asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Jorge stopped talking to a man who Evan swore was a news anchor on a local TV station. “Ivan, be honest. Will you be able to deliver, let’s say, the day after tomorrow?”
Evan drained his glass and paused as if he were really thinking about his answer. “Moving everything forward a day will be a stretch. This island you speak of, if it has a deep-water channel and a large-enough dock, mmm, we can make it work. You will need to build something to protect the sub from prying eyes from above.”
“Will do.”
“Well, I tell you what, Jorge, since the sub still needs some work, I will have my men bring it to your island, and they can just work on it there. I will give you a maintenance contract and crew for the first year, and they can train your men. I want you to be successful. I also want to train your men properly. I am very particular. There is an art to loading supplies from a submerged sub. Lots of details to work out.”
“Yes, yes. Mario has men who will be all ears when they meet you. Me? I am not an engineer, but I know they are here somewhere!” Jorge laughed and looked around the table. He even looked under the table. A woman in her midthirties jumped as if she had been touched.
“Jorge! You dirty old…”
People laughed.
Evan smiled on the outside and wished he had a flamethrower. He drank more wine and began to have sinister thoughts.
“I will knock a cool six million off the price since I am delivering something early and not in perfect order. I have my reputation,” Evan said across the ongoing conversations, as if he were doing friends a favor.
Tommy’s eyes got wide, but he nodded with approval.
Jorge sucked on his cigar and grinned. “If only Mario Jr. was here. Well, his father has given me the go-ahead. Our navy expert, whom you took to see the sub, has said it’s a good boat. Looks like this thing has undergone a ton of upgrades.”
Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1) Page 21
