Caravan of Thieves

by David Rich

  As I crossed the quad, no general stood watch.

  Gladden’s paws rested on the arms of his chair so it looked like he was ready to spring forward, but it might have been that the suction cups were holding him in place. “Siddown, Waters.” That was it.

  A major sat across from him in the chair Shaw occupied the last time I was here. He was about fifty years old, dark, and puffy. He looked like he spent his days behind a desk and then went home to read books.

  “You’re cleared, Lieutenant. Charges dropped.”

  “Cleared of what, sir?”

  “You’re out of jail and back on active duty.”

  “I think I deserve to know more, sir. I mean, I’m not asking for any kind of commendation or recognition, but I did go to considerable lengths to do as you ordered, sir. And along the way I lost my father, scumbag though he might, or might not, have been.”

  He stared at me a while, his lizard eyes waiting for me to make a wrong move, and disguising the fine calculations he knew how to make. The man next to me watched me but did not say a word.

  “What do you want to know, Lieutenant?”

  For a vicious cop, he was a real softie. I was torn. I wanted to needle him, ask how it felt to kill a senior officer; I wanted to thank him for killing the senior officer. I decided to shut up.

  Gladden started in without warning. “I was a major…past the time I should have been. General Remington had a hand in that. Two weeks ago, he asked me to assign you to cooperate with Agent Shaw, and he, General Remington, hinted that if I played along with him on this, he would help me with the next step in my career. Knowing some of the history between you, I found that peculiar. That’s why I sent Patterson and Pruitt along with you. For your protection. So the answer to the question you want to ask is that I didn’t care whether he was a senior officer or not. That didn’t make me hesitate. I did not like killing a man who I had a gripe with, and more, I did not like killing a man who had insulted me and questioned my integrity. I tell you this so you can think about it while you’re wondering how you lived through it all.”

  I was quiet for a moment. His flat gaze never left me. “So you’re saying, sir, that my insubordinate attitude toward you might have helped save my life.”

  “So far.” He looked away before I did, but I was not going to last much longer.

  “Well, I’m glad you two have worked that out. We can get on with business,” said the major. His voice was soft, calm, and commanding.

  “This is Major Arthur Hensel. You’ll be working for him now. Any further questions you have should be addressed to him.”

  Pongo and Perdy were waiting outside the office. We all shook hands. I thanked them and one said, “Stay in touch, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re good guys. You’d have been within your rights…”

  “We knew we could have had you anytime, so…” the other one said.

  Major Hensel kept walking. I caught up to him outside.

  “We’ve identified a number of active-duty officers involved in the conspiracy to separate Kurdistan from Iraq. The computers gave us enough information to make arrests of six senior officers and a number of retired military. We think there are other cells out there, but we aren’t certain. It’s clear that some of the conspirators took the plan quite seriously. General Remington was not a central player in the conspiracy. They had approached him and he let them believe that he was sympathetic. He might have been planning to join; he might have been planning to bust them. When he saw that the conspirators wanted you, he was glad to up his cooperation. The ranch belonged to him. He let McColl use it as a way of keeping an eye on him. As for the money, we don’t know. It may be that he just saw it as a side benefit in getting rid of you. McColl was his connection to the conspiracy. With him dead, Remington probably thought that was over.” He paused while we walked toward the parking lot. “Everything I’ve told you is classified. We don’t want the conspirators to know how deep our knowledge goes. And we don’t want the public to know about a possible military revolt of this scale.”

  That was the first time an officer ever explained to me the reason for classifying information. And admitting a large problem was way out in the land of unusual, too.

  I had other information in mind. “What about Junior?”

  “You mean Captain Remington? He’s back on active duty. We have no evidence that he was part of the conspiracy. We have no evidence that he was involved in any crime. The few sentences he speaks on the recording don’t give us much. He claims he was acting under orders from the general. We can’t refute that. He’s an active-duty Marine officer, Lieutenant. Do not go after him.”

  “And if he comes after me?”

  “I’ve given you my instructions.” He stopped walking and looked at me to make sure I understood.

  “Will I be going back to Afghanistan?”

  “The Defense Intelligence Agency, with whom I believe you have a gripe, a justified gripe, I might add, has asked me to form a unit drawing promising candidates from all services to deal with national security issues that involve the military.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “For now, it means I can stick my nose in where I want to and you work for me and do as I order you to do,” he said with a calm assurance that left no room for an answer, or a question. “We’re called Shared Defense Executive.”

  “Shared Defense Executive. What do we call it for short?”

  “What makes you think we call it anything for short?”

  “Because it’s the military, sir, and no one ever named anything without thinking of a shortened version.”

  “We’ve been calling it SHADE. Don’t like it much, but it seems to have caught on.” The part about not liking it was the first lie he told me. It made me more comfortable with him. “You have two weeks off before you start.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Where will you go? Arizona?” I didn’t answer. “The money left in the cave…Leave it there for now. Out of the system. We might need it later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But try to give me an accurate accounting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, one more thing…Her real name is Teresa Boyle. Shaw, apparently, used his real name. He was CIA. Met McColl in Iraq and hooked up with the gang from the start.”

  “How much money was missing?”

  “There was twenty million in the bag. You tell me.”

  “I never counted it.”

  39.

  I bought a gun in Hermosillo. I’m pretty sure it was older than me. The kid swore it worked and had not been used in any crimes to which it could traced. No murders. I took his picture with my cell phone and told him I would give it to the police if possession of the gun got me in trouble. “Chingate, cabrón! Dame la pistola si no la quieres,” he said, trying to show me how much he didn’t care.

  “Probablemente ni dispara.” But I took it anyway. Maybe because I never wanted to use it.

  My search criteria went like this: horses, Western riding, away from military bases, drivable because they would not want to board planes with all that cash. And believable—they would have to be able to sell their story to the locals and any other Americans they met. They had a two-week head start and likely would have new names and identification.

  For three days I searched for Steve Shaw, Teresa Boyle, Jessica McColl. I was able to access credit card transactions, so there were plenty of false leads. I threw out everybody who made purchases outside Arizona, Nevada, and California for the period of the chase. I knew Shaw had been in Tucson waiting for me, and Jessica/Teresa had been at the ranch, so anyone who made a purchase on that day was thrown out. I was left with nobody.

  Before I closed down the database, I checked on some other names: McColl, Remington, Pitt, and Stallworth, and I saved Peter Stenson, Blondie, for last. I found a Peter Stenson who received mail at the post office in Blythe. Two weeks earlier, he used his credit card at a Pemex station in
Nogales. That was two days after I had put five bullets into him and dumped him down a shaft with no bottom. I couldn’t figure how Shaw would have gotten the card. Teresa must have lifted it from Blondie.

  The rest fell into place. Guaymas is a seven-hour drive from Tucson and has a harbor busy enough with shrimpers and pleasure craft to allow for unnoticed arrivals and getaways. There is also a large American expat community in San Carlos, just north of Guaymas, in case someone felt the urgent need to scam. I called everyone I could find who had horses for sale. Pedro Nunez at the Ocampo Ranch apologized: the horses I was asking about had sold last week. Yes, it was a blond lady and her husband. “Que me hayan podido superar de nuevo,” I said.

  Before I left, I stopped by the depot. In spite of the air conditioning in the shed, Sergeant Comeau glistened with gooey beads of sweat.

  “I need a car, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.” He unstuck himself from his chair. “Haven’t seen you around.”

  “You, too.”

  “I’ve been here. Thought maybe those guys who were following you might have kidnapped you or something.” He wasn’t being coy or implying that he knew something. No one gave Sergeant Comeau information because everyone knew he was likely to repeat it. He was Head of the Office of Comings and Goings.

  “Give me something reliable. I’m going to Mexico.”

  “Oh, sir, I’m sorry, sir, no vehicles can leave the country.”

  “Did I say Mexico? I meant New Mexico.”

  He wiped drops of sweat above his eyebrow. “Please, Lieutenant. It’ll come back at me.”

  I hemmed and hawed a little to make sure he would know I really meant Mexico, and I mentioned Guaymas so he would have a good story to tell. Then I made him assign a private to drive me to the Avis in Oceanside.

  How many came to Dan pleading for a refund, a repeal, just plain mercy and left befuddled? How many brought threats and guns and just missed him around the corner? I was eleven, playing soccer at the schoolyard in Phoenix, when Dan pulled up in an old Mustang. “Hey, tough guy,” he yelled as if it would make me come running. I waited until the game stopped and walked over. Dan had been away for more than a week. He took me for ice cream, then to the sporting goods store for new shoes. He was filled with stories. He had been on a cruise, he said, and had caught a shark. He pulled out something and tossed it on the table. “Here’s one of his teeth. It was tough to get out, tough as it was to catch him. Don’t lose it.” We stopped at the bank next.

  “You wait here,” he said. “I have to go into the vault.”

  “Put this in there,” I said and held up the shark’s tooth, or whatever it was. “So I won’t lose it.” I waited on a couch in the lobby. Dan came out with a soft leather briefcase that looked like it was stuffed.

  The Mustang was parked in the grocery store lot. It didn’t start. Before we could get out, a man materialized next to each door. Dan put the window down. The man at his window did not say a word. He just put out his hand. Dan looked at the other man, the one at my window, then back at the first one. “The kid,” Dan said. The man shrugged. Dan handed him the briefcase. The man looked inside, nodded to the other man, and they started away. Dan said, “The distributor cap?” The man pointed to the car behind us. It was on the hood.

  I knew this was a big defeat for Dan. Worse than having to skulk away in the night or being kicked out by a screaming girlfriend. I had never seen him so low. I thought about it for a long time and the lesson I took was that to turn the tables on him, you had to reduce the whole thing to one move. If Dan could have convinced them that the money was in the bank, he would have gotten away. If he could have worked out any room to maneuver, he would have disappeared, probably leaving me as collateral. We never went back to that bank. I never saw the shark’s tooth again. Eventually, I decided that it was in the briefcase anyway.

  I had to reduce the moves Shaw could make or risk having him slip away again. I found him at a golf club, watched him tee off. That night, he and Jessica had dinner at a beachfront restaurant in San Carlos. He was using the name Steve Salter. I called Major Hensel and asked him to check the local banks for accounts opened in that name. Banco Nacional de México had the account with about 280,000 pesos in it, about $24,000. The millions were not in the bank and I discounted the idea of a safe-deposit box because it inhibited quick getaways.

  If ever there was a moment when I was thankful for my advanced degree from University of Dan, this was it. He was so eager and excited next to me that I found myself shushing him at times. I parked the Avis car in a secured lot at my hotel and walked to a local rental place so I could have a car with Mexican plates. Dressed in a suit and wearing five days’ worth of mustache, I inquired about the couple at the golf course and at the restaurant, and at the harbor, where I was certain Shaw had made some just-in-case arrangements. Without saying as much, I let everyone think I was with the PFM, which is the Mexican FBI. I spoke only Spanish. All this was just a distraction, something for Shaw to concentrate on. I wanted him debating how big a bribe would be required for the mysterious PFM agent. And then, when I came into the picture, he would discount the idea of killing me immediately because police were hovering around him.

  Done with my inquiries, I was on my way to the motel to shave and ditch the suit when I saw the shiny black Dodge with California plates for the second time that day. I crossed the street to a taco stand and waited in line and watched, even though I knew who was going to get out of that car. Junior looked like a guy who lost track of what planet he landed on. He stretched his legs and gazed all around and shook his head. He didn’t try to hide, so he had not spotted me. Two fishermen walked past him and Junior accosted them. One of them bothered to shrug his shoulders, but they never broke stride. Junior did not speak Spanish. I made a quick decision to let his arrogance go to work, set up barriers for him, and hope that gave me the time I needed to work out my plans for Shaw and Teresa.

  They were living in a hacienda on the bluff between Guaymas and San Carlos. Before dawn, I was in the woods behind the house, Dan chuckling on my shoulder: “This is going to be fun.” I agreed. It was fun already. The soft acacia scent mixed with something sweeter, a small red flower with yellow fruit and the dirt moist with dew. The sun drew up behind me, pierced through the trees, and tore the darkness to shreds.

  Shaw left with his golf clubs at seven. “Wait here,” I said to Dan.

  “You’re selfish.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  I did my cop act for the servants and gave them two thousand pesos each to take the rest of the day off. They pointed the way to the bedroom.

  “Coffee for you, and a mango.”

  Her eyes were still closed. The blanket pulled high. She mumbled, “I thought you were playing golf.”

  “Cream, no sugar. Right?”

  She didn’t need even one sip to be wide awake. I put a finger to her mouth and handed her a cup. As she straightened herself, the blanket fell forward. She was wearing a T-shirt. Her blond hair, tousled a bit, made my fingers itch to run through it. “He is playing golf. I waited until he left. It’s taken me two weeks to find you. Have you been here all the time?”

  “No. I mean yes. It took a few days…”

  “Don’t be afraid. Just the opposite. I…I…Well, I’ll just come out and say it. I got away with the money. All of it, except what Shaw took, but I realized immediately there was something missing. Not something, someone.”

  She had heard it all before, probably since she was ten. And she was a quick thinker. “I didn’t want to leave you there.”

  I sat next to her. “I know that. If I weren’t sure of that, I would not be here now. I have the money with me. Let him keep what he took. I don’t know if he’ll even look for you. I know he won’t look as hard as I did.”

  “You’re lovely,” she said, and stroked my cheek. “But this is a little sudden.”

  “As sudden as it is, that’s how strong my feelings are for yo
u.” I kissed her and she responded.

  “Give me until tomorrow.”

  “It’s hard to leave you right now.” I’m sure I’m the first guy to say this: I did not want to make love to her. But I had to. I did not want to do it, but that is not the same as saying I didn’t enjoy it, or that I regret doing it. And I admit that the delight went deeper than just the physical exploration of the delightful Teresa Boyle. She was Shaw’s woman.

  She quizzed me gently about how I got away with the money and moved on to where I was staying in Guaymas. I avoided answering that. She said, “It’s got to be dangerous traveling around Mexico with all that money.”

  “I have someplace for us to go where we’ll be safe and happy. What time tomorrow? Should I come up here to pick you up? You might have to dye your hair.”

  “You think of funny details. I thought that the first night we met at the ranch.” She kissed me. We talked about how to make the getaway, eventually settling on a dirt road that ran to a beach at San Carlos. She would tell Shaw she needed the car to go shopping, drop him at the golf course, then meet up with me.

  I did not want to go back to my hotel room on the chance that Junior might find it and did not want to check in to another room for the same reason, so I settled on a house for sale in San Carlos, not far from Shaw’s, and broke in to spend the night. It was partially furnished and the water was running, so I was comfortable. Though I had done this kind of thing plenty of times before, it had been many years, and it gave me a good feeling, probably because I knew I didn’t have to do it. I spent a little time sussing out how necessity negates pleasure and what that means, but I couldn’t reach any conclusions worth sticking with. It couldn’t be nostalgia: my days of homelessness were bad. I would be the worst kind of liar to romanticize them. The thing I liked, at least that night, was doing something I was not supposed to, something wrong and illegal. Doing something wrong and illegal should not have been a big deal to me, and should not have given me the sense of relief and release the way this did. I studied a lot of flickering lights before I admitted the cause: Major Hensel’s orders were weighing on me.