I stop by the hospital Thursday night after my LAX shift. Her eye is still covered, but all the other visible bandages are off. There's a hole in her beautiful hair, and a fiery line of stitches across an inch of her scalp. She still seems to be in pain.
"Perez," I am sitting on the edge of her bed looking at her, "be honest. Tell me what's going on with you."
She refuses. "Don't forget our deal," is all she'll say. She tells me she talked to her FBI friend, Special Agent Rona Flaherty, and they have the informant who lied to them in custody, but he's refusing to talk. They have no leads, no information, nothing. I'm not surprised.
"Just like last time. It's up to you and me."
I spend Friday and Saturday sitting with Perez, then have dinner with her parents and my parents. Taylor Mankat cancelled on me, family obligation as well. Don't know if I'm happy or sad about that. Today is also 772 days left, minus whatever I used to cure Perez the first time, and minus whatever I am going to use to fix her again.
Sunday is Perez and family too, but Monday I get her all to myself for most of the day (I'm sure it's a secret parents deal, because she is going home tomorrow and we won't see each other for a while). We talk about what I should do for the next month, while she is back in San Francisco. She assures me that she will be back no later than early June (today is April 30).
She is also going to try to get Flaherty to send her the FBI investigation reports, so she can pass them on to me. I assure her that I have been researching the cartel and the gang, and I will be the Dumbass Avenger soon enough.
Monday night her tia caters dinner for me, my parents, Perez and her mom in the hospital.
Tuesday we have a big surprise for her. My dad picks Kiana and her mom up at the hospital, and brings them out to the airport. Perez is in a wheelchair, still not able to walk well enough even on crutches.
There are 200 LAPD officers in Terminal 7, and she has to wade through the mass of them to get to the gate. She's in tears long before she gets to the end of the line, and stays that way when I meet her at the gate.
"Come to see me off?" She gets it out between sobs. There is still enough pain medication in her to keep her more emotional than usual.
"Better. Dad and I got the FAA to approve something special."
"Dad and who?" It's dad.
"OK, dad got the FAA to approve something special, but it was my idea."
We wheel her down to the bottom of the jetway, and she stands up at the aircraft door. I put her arm over my shoulder, and she half walks, half lets me carry her into the plane. She tries to go right, but I bring her left.
She hops through the flight deck door, and I help her to take the left jump seat. There are two seats in the back of the cockpit, not as comfortable as those in the back, but more fun.
"No way."
"Yes way. I want to continue your flight training."
There's a laugh from the pilot's seat. Captain Amos is doing special duty today, we both are running the shuttle. She settles in as best she can with the cast on her leg, I fix her seatbelt, and put her headphones on, being careful not to hurt her. It's not easy, with her eye still covered, and her hair not grown back in.
Captain Amos tells the passengers that we are transporting one of the survivors of last month's bombing to San Francisco for rehab, and they should be honored to have her on board. It makes Perez start crying again.
The captain checks with the ground crew for permission to start an engine. I turn to Perez. "Kiana, what's the procedure to start number 2?"
"Start switch to ground, wait until we get oil pressure, turn fuel flow on, watch N1 and EGT for normal start, then switch to auto."
"I am impressed."
"So am I." It's Captain Amos.
We do exactly that. Then the ground crew detaches us, and pushes us out away from the gate, our nose pointed at the runway. We start number 1.
"LA ground," it's the captain on the radio, "Mountain 1102 ready for taxi."
"Mountain 1102, taxi via Bravo and Echo to 2-5 left, follow company departing gate 77."
The captain recites it back, then gives us a little gas, and we are off. We have to circumnavigate the airport, from the start of the giant U down, around, and to the other tip. Then ground hands us to the tower.
"Mountain 1102, position and hold, 2-5 left." We answer and move.
"Mountain 1102, cleared for takeoff, caution wake turbulence arriving heavy on the parallel."
And with that, we are rolling. Up to 3,000, then right to the Ventura navigational marker, climb to 28,000, then direct to a point 100 miles south of San Francisco where we start down. The landing pattern takes us north, out into the Bay, and around to a beautiful landing at SFO across the sparkling flashes off the water below. We taxi to the gate.
Normally, wheelchairs get off first, but we keep Kiana with us until the aircraft is empty, the flight attendants come get us when it's all clear. I help her hop out to the wheelchair at the bottom of the jetway, an attendant and her mom both waiting there.
Before she sits, we exchange a big hug, and I whisper in her ear. "Don't forget I am 15 minutes away, and that I will do anything you want, anytime."
Dumbass. I made her cry.
I get another big hug from her crying mother, who reminds me I promised to come to visit soon. I assure her I am already planning the trip.
Then they roll up the jetway, and are gone. Captain Amos and I get back on board, and get started on the return to LAX. We go back to LA, back to SFO, and then back to LA, a total of seven hours of work for the day, about the same as flying to Kona. The first seven hours of missing her.
For all the time Perez and I have spent talking in the past two weeks since the bombing, we have not decided on one thing: when and how I should reveal that I am still around. Doing so will certainly put lots of things into motion, from the Army to the Chinese, with unpredictable results. At the same time, I cannot do much about the cartel or the Guerrero if I do it in secret.
But I do have a plan for the month of May. Perez knows from her FBI contacts that there are no phone conversations or emails being exchanged between known members of the Rio Magdalena cartel and the Guerrero. That means a courier. The local police in Cartagena claim to know of no one. We suspect they are in the employ of the cartel.
I spend Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, and Wednesday night watching the house of Miguel Juarez, the head of the cartel. It is a nice home. Twenty acre compound surrounded by a 12 foot high stone fence, huge mansion (Spanish style of course) with a courtyard, big garden, horses and a riding track, lots of servants, kids, and dogs. It is nearing its date of demolition, but I have to make sure I have the entire pipeline nailed down first.
I watch a number of folks come and go, take pictures of all of them, follow each one until I am sure where they are going, then back to the compound. Boring. But I am the happy owner of a tablet, and I watch movies and episodes of TV shows while I wait. Slowly, I put together a list of legitimate, and illegal, business activities.
Then it's home, and a day patrolling LAX. Part of me thinks I'd be better served by not coming in any more, too many memories of happier days, but the reality is that I started this to serve, not to be served, and I somehow owe it to Perez that one of us is still here.
Officer Bradford seems to be my new permanent partner, not surprising really when you consider the number of regular officers who don't think much of their women counterparts, despite the fact they all know it was Perez who really ended Ali's plot, and 300 plus male officers missed what was going on under their noses.
She and I are working the international terminal today, which makes for more interesting times, given the mix of language and custom you encounter. Then Friday it's off to Kona, and a trip from there to Columbia. A gentleman leaves the compound at five a.m., and at seven is on a flight from Cartagena to Los Angeles. Since he's going to arrive after daylight, and I have to get back to Kona to fly home, I can't follow him. Opportunity lost.
Sunday and Monday are spent looking at every flight arriving from the US, which might sound like a lot, but actually is one from LA, one from Miami, and one from Fort Lauderdale. It's easy to watch, because the passengers have to walk down the stairs and across the tarmac to the terminal. My friend is on the Monday arrival from Miami.
The rest of my week in Columbia teaches me nothing except for how many bad television shows there are, and that people will apparently pay $3 to download crap if they are bored enough.
On duty at the airport Thursday, I use my access to look up the passenger list from the Columbia flight, there are 81 males on board. I search the same flight one week prior, and only three of the names are common. I search for the first of those names, and he went back to Cartagena three days after arrival. The second name left LAX on Saturday night for Houston, with a stop in Dallas. The third went back to Cartagena two days after arrival. Christian Garza. A lead.
Thursday late and Friday back down to Columbia, where Senor Garza is once again on the flight to LA. He has no checked baggage, just a brown leather carry on. He must be messages, not money or drugs.
I beat the aircraft he's on to LAX by a considerable margin, knowing he's coming in to Terminal 2. I am standing on top of the restaurant in the center of the airport as he emerges and is picked up by another one of those giant sized SUV's, black as they all seem to be, expensive chrome wheels with bigger than stock tires.
The light says I'm good to go, and I am quickly at 1,500 feet, camera in hand, following him. Over the course of the day, I have the license plate of that vehicle, an address of a very nice house in Beverly Hills where he stopped, a picture through a window of him and two men exchanging documents, pictures of him having lunch with three other men in the outdoor portion of a trendy Hollywood restaurant, and license plates of their cars. All four plates I have are California. I will know everything there is to know about them on Thursday.
He surprises me by heading back to LAX at one p.m., well before his flight, which is an eight p.m. departure from Terminal 4. He's dropped off at Terminal 7, and walks in. I hit the top of the terminal, risky in daylight, turn back into myself, and get my clothes out of my backpack. I manage to get down into the terminal and to the end of the security line before he makes it through.
Garza wanders down to the food court, not in any hurry, and orders some snooty mocha cappuccino grande latte foamy carmel chocolate with cookies. He sits alone for about 15 minutes until he is joined by an airport employee. I recognize the man, he works the tarmac in this terminal, not for any specific airline, but for LAX. He's big, overweight by 50 pounds, thinning light brown hair, late 30s. Butt ugly, dirt and oil on his uniform.
Documents change hands from Garza to the LAX man. A picture of the two of them at the table gets added to my collection. The airport man must be on break, 30 minutes, so the conversation does not last long after the paper moves. He picks himself up and walks toward the employee lounge just on the far side of the food court. I decide to follow him.
He walks into the lounge using his card key, and I wait 15 seconds and follow him in using mine. If they check the logs, I'll have some splainin' to do, but I have to know. There's a locker room in the back, and he's just opened one, number 210. I pretend to use the urinal until he leaves, then I wander to the lockers.
Now I have to do something else stupid. I strip to my underwear so as not to destroy anything, grab the light, say "paper" and am instantly much larger. My fingers go from normal to magic, and I am able to spin the lock and feel the tumblers. It is such a stupid ability I still can't believe I have it.
His work bag is in the locker, embossed with the initials PRT, I can try to match them up later. The paper is in his bag, a flight number and markings that identify the suitcases he needs to extract. I copy it all down, put the paper back into his bag, close and lock the locker. Fifteen minutes, tops.
I turn myself back into me and walk back out into the terminal. Garza is gone, but I have a pretty good idea where he is going. Using my card, I slip out of the terminal and down to the tarmac, then walk down to Terminal 4. I follow the first person up the stairs, and let them open the door for me. Then it's wander around looking for Garza. And he's there, exactly where he is supposed to be, in the gate for the flight to Dallas, three hours early.
I sit and watch for a boring hour until I'm pretty sure he's not meeting anyone else, then I exit the airport the normal way, going through baggage claim and out into the street. I get on Century, walk to one of the parking garages between hotels and find an uncameraed spot behind it. Then it's back to being him, followed by death to molecules and a couple hours flying to Dallas.
DFW is more of the same. I have to take a bigger risk landing because of the lights, but my light thinks it came out fine. I get pictures of Garza and two airport employees drinking coffee. Then it's off to Houston.
Landing on top of the airport, I find an unlocked door into a stairwell, and descend into the terminal. The stairwell opens into a secure area in one of the terminals, theoretically the one where Garza's flight from Dallas will park, based on the information from my flight tracking phone app. I manage to open the door and enter the public area of the terminal without being seen.
An hour until Garza lands, which gives me time to relax and eat some TexMex tacos at the taco truck near the gate I need, then I read until the flight arrives. Garza exits, and not surprisingly, joins an airport employee for a cup of coffee. I don't know how the man can take that much caffeine. I make some nice pictures from down at a nearby gate.
Once the conversation is over, Garza walks to the other side of the terminal and checks in for the flight to Miami departing in 90 minutes. I get the information from the monitors, check my phone to see which gate it will use at MIA, exit the terminal through baggage claim, find a nice hidden spot, and fly off.
This time, I bet myself and win. I don't bother to enter the airport, just hang outside, and sure enough, Mr. Garza exits, grabs a cab, and heads toward the beach. I follow and watch him check in to one of the nicer hotels. It's getting late, and I need to get home, so I leave him for now, and push back to Los Angeles. Then it's home, shower, and back to the airport to fly off to Kona, a visit with the beautiful Ms. Mankat at the desk included at no extra charge.
Wednesday it's dinner and an hour of making out on the beach with Taylor, she and I both still not talking about what I need to talk to her about if I am going to be something other than a convenient interruption, but I remain uncertain. It is possible that my clock is in the one year range now, given how many days I may have to give up to repair Perez, and the concept of starting and ending with Taylor in that short a period of time weighs on me.
She is also slightly put off, I think, by my unavailability over the weekend because I will be in San Francisco visiting Perez. I have told her that Perez plays for the other team, but I don't think she believes it.
Thursday I ride a bike through the parking lots of LAX with Emily Bradford, spending some time after shift running the plates I found. Without really looking at them, I print the registrations for each, and the driver's licenses and police records of the registered owners. On Kona the next day, I sit in my hotel room and run through them. These are not nice people.
Sunday I get up, grab my black carry on, head out to the airport, and sit in the jump seat (called dead heading) up to San Francisco, where Perez's dad is waiting for me at the curb.
We exchange a hug, well past the handshake phase, and we talk about his daughter as we drive out to the Perez estate, which is a simple two story middle class home in San Jose. It's one of those California situations where they bought it a long time ago, and could never afford it today. It will, however, provide for a nice retirement.
His biggest concern is that her eye is not responding very well. They remove the cast on her leg in a few days, so there is no way to know how much use of her knee she will regain until her rehab begins. I tell him not to worry, that both her eye
and her leg are going to be fine. "Yo tengo fe."
She's out in the backyard, sitting on a chaise when I get there, throwing a man made bone for two large black labradors. I get a nice hug from her mom, and I sit down on a second chaise next to Perez. Maria starts giving Roberto crap about forgetting to get mustard like she asked him. He makes an excuse and she hits him on the arm. Now I know.
Perez has a gauze bandage over the left eye, and her left leg is in the same plastic and metal cast she had when we flew her home. I want to see the scars on her stomach, but I don't ask. Her mom brings us lunch and leaves us alone with the dogs.
She says she's fine, that she's off the pain medication, and everything is healing. She doesn't remind me of our deal, but it's there, unspoken, hanging over the conversation. We talk about Garza and Juarez and the other bad men. She goes through the documents I brought. I can barely stand to watch her read with only the one eye. The question is, what do I need to do next, about them and about her.
"And what do you want me to do when I nail it down?"
Fog Bastards 2 Destination Page 16
