“Is it worth my asking how you got the Triad to agree to help you? That means they’re coming to you. My sources tell me they don’t leave their home base. Like never. I have a dossier on them six inches thick.”
“Why not. All we had to do was promise them a mil each and buy them a new Gulfstream. Oh, yeah, and a trip to Disney World. That rogue agent is going to take them, along with her kids.”
“Ya know, Snowden, for a Brit, you’re okay. That’s all it took, eh?” Then Callahan laughed so hard the room shook.
Snowden didn’t know if he should be flattered or insulted. He decided to go with flattered and grinned, something he rarely did. Americans could be strange, but he liked Duke Callahan. Callahan was a man’s man.
“What’s your thinking on how best to take this guy? Yes, yes, he’s just an ordinary peasant when he’s in town. That doesn’t mean there isn’t security of some kind that’s not visible. People can blend in easily. And then there’s his cell phone,” Snowden said, his voice edged in worry.
“Give me fifteen minutes, and my team will have all the information you need. Hey, Mom!” he bellowed. “Can you come here a minute?” He explained what he needed, and her response brought another grin from Snowden.
“I’m on it!” the little lady with the bluish hair said happily.
Callahan shrugged. “She needs to be needed. I get that. You want the real truth?” Not bothering to wait for Snowden to respond, he said, “The truth is that this place would fall apart without her. I hate goddamn paperwork. At any given moment, she can lay her hands on whatever we need. She’s also a whizbang at coordinating all our stuff. She even knows how to hack,” he said proudly.
“I hope you pay her well,” Snowden quipped.
“See! That’s another thing. She won’t take any money. Not a red cent. She’s everyone’s mother around here. That’s why I understand what you mean about that agent going rogue. Motherhood will win out every time.”
“If you know about this guy, how is it you’ve never taken him out?”
“No one commissioned us to look into it. And the alphabet agencies hate me and my company. It’s a constant battle with them. What really gooses the agencies is that I hired all their employees when they left. And I pay a damn sight better than the government does. We don’t go looking for work. The long and short of it is that I turn down more cases than I take on. I have to. I do only high-quality work, and if you spread your team too far and wide, your results leave a lot to be desired. Any more questions?”
“That about covers it. Ah, excuse me, I have a call coming in that I’ve been waiting for. I’ll put him on speaker so you can hear.” Callahan nodded.
“What do you have for me, Tookus?”
Abner got right down to it. “The guy is rich as hell. He’s got it stashed all over hell and creation. What do you want me to do now?”
“Steal it, of course. Transfer it to someplace safe. Then obliterate the accounts. How much are we talking about here?”
“Right now I’m up to $93 million, and there are, if I’m right, six more accounts to go. Phil helped me out, or I wouldn’t be this far along.”
“I need you to do something else. I need your pal, the one with the magic fingers, to shut down the cell-phone towers that service Tijuana, Mexico, when I call to give you the okay to do it. That means open lines on those phones I provided. Check and get right back to me. Just out of curiosity, where are you going to . . . transfer those monies?”
“Do you have clearance for me to tell you that? Not to worry, it will be safe,” Tookus replied and then ended the call.
Callahan looked at Snowden. “Ninety-three million dollars! And he’s just going to make it disappear! Who is that guy? I could use someone like him.”
“Name’s Abner Tookus, and he’s good. Super good, but the guy you really want, who you are never gonna get, is a dude named Philonias Needlemeyer. Right now, I can guarantee he heard everything you and I have just spoken about.”
Callahan grimaced. “Yeah, right! This place is so bug tight, an ant couldn’t make its way in here. Besides, Mom sweeps for listening devices three times a day.”
Snowden’s phone rang. He picked it up and it was all he could do not to laugh out loud. “Gentlemen, I want to thank you for the kind compliments. And, Mr. Callahan, tell your mother I compliment her, but she needs to update her equipment.” The connection ended.
“What the holy hell!” Callahan exploded.
“Listen, man, don’t even go there, just roll with it. The two of them are on our side, and that’s all that’s important. Ah . . . I wouldn’t mention what just happened to your mother. Phil will be watching over you all from here on in.”
“Uh-huh,” Callahan said, rubbing at his whiskers. “Uh-huh.”
Snowden looked at his watch.
“They have three more minutes,” Callahan said, his eyes still dazed that someone had managed to infiltrate his organization. He was ticked off even though he knew it would never come to anything negative where his firm was concerned.
The door opened precisely at the fifteen-minute mark. Three men and one woman waited to be invited into the room.
Avery looked them over and liked what he was seeing. Three guys, all in their mid- to late fifties. Dressed in khaki pants, button-down white shirts rolled to the elbows, ties loosened, John Lobb shoes, military haircuts, clean shaven, papers and phones in hand. The woman was dressed almost identically, but her white blouse was silk. Her hair, the color of a sandy beach, was tied back in a bun. She wore little to no makeup because she didn’t need it. Her eyes were big and brown as saucers. No jewelry except for a strap wristwatch. She wore high-top sneakers that were bright red. The shoelaces were white with little red ladybugs crawling all over them. The lady had a sense of humor, Snowden decided.
Callahan made the introductions. “Drew Warner, Gary Jason, Roy Alabado, and this is Patty Molnar. Susy Jensen is out today taking her physical. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
Hands were shaken, guy shakes even from Patty Molnar. No one said anything, just nodding at the introduction.
“Whatta you got for us, and where did you get it?” Callahan asked.
“C’mon, boss, is that a joke?” Warner asked. “From the dark side, where else?”
“Give us the short version,” Callahan said.
Gary Jason waved the wad of papers in his hands. “Believe it or not, there was not a whole lot of info out there, even on the dark side. He’s married to a beautiful woman and has a child who is eight years old. The story is he was married two or three times prior to this marriage, and when the women couldn’t produce a child, they were . . . disposed of. He lives and breathes for this little girl. Just loves her to death. Not much of a husband. He whores around. If the wife minds, she doesn’t let it show. He travels a lot, at least once a month. We have his address and the shops that he patronizes. He lives at the end of a neighborhood street, the last house. We did a Google Earth search and have the printouts. Nothing out of the ordinary except he has a swimming pool. People in Tijuana do not have swimming pools, at least in the village where he lives.
“He’s a creature of habit, has a routine. Which is good for us if this is a snatch and grab. As far as we can tell, he gets no company. But he’s always on his cell phone. He leaves his house every day around eleven twenty. Goes to Mass at the only church in town. He pays the priest to say a Mass at that time of the day because he doesn’t want to go to an early morning Mass. He’s the only attendee. After Mass, he heads down the street to a little café, where he eats lunch. He eats the same thing every day, tamales. The rumor is he taught the woman who does the cooking how to make them. He has two glasses of sangria followed by a cup of strong black coffee. He sits at his private table under an umbrella and smokes a Cuban cigar. No one goes near him except the woman who serves him his food. He waves to people, says hello to others while he watches what’s going on on the busy street, which is usually nothing, just people going about
their daily lives. When he’s ready to leave, he hands out coins to any of the children who are around. Then he goes home and stays there. End of Beteo Mezaluma’s day.”
“He has a helicopter and a Learjet,” Roy Alabado said. “He can fly both of them, but he has a pilot on standby he prefers to use for his travels.”
Patty Molnar held up some pictures. “All of these are of the little girl, named Alicia. She’s dressed in different outfits, always dresses with ruffles and bows. In every picture, she’s wearing shiny black patent leather shoes, Mary Janes they’re called, and white socks with lace around the top. She has ribbons in her hair, which is quite long and curly, almost down to her waist. She looks like one of those angels you see on Christmas cards. And she wears a gold cross and chain around her neck. As you can see, she is a beautiful child. It’s easy to see why the father dotes on her. The mother, they say, is a real beauty, but there are no pictures. Her name is Elena.”
“That’s it?” Callahan asked.
“All we could dig up unless you want us to physically go across the border, but we all know no one is going to talk. No one, so what’s the point?” Warner said.
Callahan looked at Snowden and shrugged.
“Thanks, guys. Get back to what you were doing. Don’t leave the building, though, okay?”
Callahan said to Snowden, “If I might make a suggestion.”
“By all means.”
“Liechtenstein is superb followed by the Antilles to stash money. Stay as far away as you can from the Caymans.”
“I’ll pass it on, thanks.”
Snowden’s cell phone rang. It was Abner.
Both men leaned closer to the table, where Snowden’s cell phone was in speaker mode. “Phil says it’s a piece of cake. All he needs is ten minutes’ notice. Open lines all the way around. But he does want to know how long you want them to stay down. He said it’s tricky. It’s all about the satellites.”
“Until we do the snatch and grab and make a clean getaway. Could be anywhere from an hour to maybe five or six. I’d like us back at Pinewood before they become operable again. There’s no way I want him or his people getting in touch with the Karas brothers until we have Mezaluma under lock and key.”
“You’ve got it. Call me.” Snowden reached out, turned off his phone, and stuck it into one of the many pockets of his cargo pants.
Callahan dug at his beard. “From the sound of what I just heard, I’d say we’re good to go. All we need is a time now. Work on that while I go talk to my team. We do what we call a ready drill before we even attempt something like this.”
“I’ll be right here. Thanks, Callahan.”
“In the meantime if you need anything, call Mom. By the way, her name is Peg.”
“Will do.”
Chapter Sixteen
Charles looked around at the team assembled in his kitchen. Everything was neat and tidy, and the coffeepot was working at full speed as he watched the members of his disgruntled team mumble and mutter to one another about downtime, wasted time, the need for action, then let loose on the incredible rainfall of the past few days. “I’m just glad I don’t live out here,” Maggie complained. “No matter where you step, it’s ankle-deep mud. The good news is the weatherman said it’s going to stop raining by noon, and the sun will be out. It will take weeks for the ground to dry out.”
“Thank you, Maggie Spritzer, for the weather tutorial. If you’re done complaining, let’s hear what happened during the night. With the time difference between here and California, where Snowden is, and in China, where Harry’s friends are, there must be some kind of news. It’s nine o’clock here, so it’s six in the morning where Avery is. What do we know about him, and what’s going on?” Ted asked.
Dennis chirped up that he would like an update on Harry’s Triad friends.
“I can tell you what I know about Avery, but Harry will have to talk to you about the Triad. Right now, Avery and his new colleague, Duke Callahan, are inside a bodega in Tijuana. Attached to the bodega is a little café where Beteo Mezaluma goes for his daily meal of tamales. They broke into the bodega around four this morning and are waiting for the little lady who owns it and cooks the tamales.
“Their plan is to stay there until Mezaluma shows up for his daily lunch. They’ll add a few extra ingredients to his food and his sangria. Just enough to make him a little woozy but still able to walk on his own. Mr. Callahan’s team of five will be helping to move things along. His team consists of three men and two women who just came off an assignment and were on a five-day hiatus but agreed to help out. The men will be doing the surveillance outside, and the two women will head to his home to . . . ah . . . discuss things with his wife.
“As I told you earlier, Mezaluma has his own Learjet and a helicopter, which he knows how to fly but rarely does. He has a pilot on standby twenty-four/seven. Avery’s plan is to get him to the airfield where the plane and helicopter are in their hangars. Callahan can fly both. The plan is to . . . um . . . dispose of the pilot somehow. Avery didn’t go into detail on that. If they manage to actually get airborne, the plan is to fly here with Senor Mezaluma. Callahan thinks he can get clearance and get him through customs. I say he thinks he can do it. It is not a given. The landing will be at a private airport at which he has connections. Avery has made arrangements to be picked up by his people and will bring us a new guest for our chamber down below. Sometime late this evening.”
“Sounds like a lot of ifs,” Jack said.
“Yes, it is,” Charles said solemnly.
“What do the two women operatives hope to gain by going to the house where he lives?” Maggie asked.
“A woman-to-woman kind of thing, mother to mother possibly. Avery said the rumor is that it is not, by any means, a happy marriage. Mezaluma plucked her out from her family and said he was going to make her his bride so she could give him an heir. His other two or three wives were unable to do that. What that means is there is no love there. But we already discussed this. Their thinking is she will help and hand over whatever it is they want from her with the promise that her husband will never return. That’s assuming she has access to whatever it is the boys want. There have to be records somewhere. Timing is everything.”
At the word timing, everyone in the room looked at Abner.
Abner threw his hands in the air. “How many times do I have to tell you all that taking down a cell tower is not easy. You don’t just wave a magic wand, and poof it goes down. You have to wait for the satellite to be in the right position. Once it is overhead, it’s a piece of cake. Like I said, ten minutes.” He sighed. “That means that Phil, who is on this, has to wait for just the right moment. You want it to go down at noon. That might not be possible. It might have to go down . . . say . . . at ten o’clock. You have to prepare, or, I should say, Avery and that guy Callahan have to be ready. I have an open line with Phil right now. He’s thinking at the moment it might be one twenty-seven. Somebody needs to call Avery and apprise him of that. Like now would be a good time.”
Charles had his cell in his hand and was tapping out a code that would allow him to speak with Avery no matter where he was in the world. His first words were, “From here on in we need to keep this line open. Abner seems to think Phil can shut down the tower around one twenty-seven our time, ten twenty-seven your time. Possibly sooner. Are you following me here, Avery?”
“I am, Sir Charles. Callahan and I are in place. The little lady who owns this bodega is being very helpful. Very. It’s as we thought—there is no love here in this town for that bastard. Yes, he is the patrone, but he rules by fear. In public, they sing his praises, and in private, they curse him and his very existence. Even the priest is afraid of him. There is not a soul in this place who will be sorry to see him go and never come back.”
“Have you been able to find out if the man has any kind of security, given the way he walks out and about so freely?” Charles asked.
“Only locals, whom he pays a few pesos to b
e his eyes. There is no muscle there, if that’s what you’re asking. At least according to Senora Santos, who owns this bodega. She said if she puts the word out, no one will hassle us. She seems to be the real thing, Sir Charles. Callahan agrees. Everyone around here is related in some way. She has a helper who comes in around the middle of the morning, a young girl, someone’s third cousin of another cousin, that kind of thing. She will tell her to leave and spread the word. I didn’t want to take on that responsibility without checking with you first. Bear in mind that we will be parading this guy through town and out to the airfield.”
“Do it,” Charles said. “Keep this line open.”
Charles turned to the group. “You all heard that, so no sense in repeating it. Abner, inform your friend of these developments.”
“I wish I were out there with them,” Allison Bannon said wistfully. “I live for the day I can get my hands around that man’s neck, so I can personally choke the life out of him.”
There didn’t seem to be any answer to that declaration, so the room went as silent as a tomb.
Harry suddenly jumped up. “Sorry, folks, I gotta go! My guys will be arriving in a little over an hour.” Jack and Cyrus jumped up, ready to leave. “No! You stay here. These guys spook too easy. I work better alone. Remember, we don’t even know how they managed to get here. There’s going to be a lot of back-and-forth going on with the authorities. China . . . well, they’re the bad guys. I’ll bring them here the minute we clear customs. Be ready for us. I need your car keys, Jack. I came on the Ducati.” Jack tossed him the keys.
“Now what?” Maggie asked. “When do we send the personal note inviting the Karas brothers to the private luncheon? I’m thinking now would be a good time. Or as close to when the tower goes down, so they can’t contact Mezaluma. What that means is I have to go back to town, get the personal note I wrote that I left at the house, contact a messenger, and have him pick it up and take it to the hotel. Tell me what you want me to do.”
Truth or Dare Page 19
