Rope on Fire (John Crane Series Book 1)

by Mark Parragh

  But this morning an idea had come to him. He’d realized he did know something else about the stranger. He knew that the woman, Dr. Simon, had brought him back with her from the mainland. So he knew they’d come through Muñoz, and he knew roughly when. Maybe that would be enough.

  He drove through the security entrance with a wave at the airport officers manning the gates. Nobody gave him a second look. He headed for the cargo-handling section and parked outside the satellite security office. The place was an ant’s nest of activity with trucks, cargo lifts, and baggage trains going in all directions. To his right, a catering truck pulled out of a loading dock and headed for the main gate area. To his left, a scissor truck lifted a Unit Load Device up to the rear hatch of a FedEx jet. So much cargo moving so quickly from place to place. It had been so simple to slip a few packages of their own into the stream and make sure they made it out to the mainland or to Europe. It had seemed so simple when it started; easy money. How the hell had it turned into this?

  He walked into the security office and found Eric Montalvo right where he expected to find him—sipping coffee from their battered machine while he tried to talk up one of the secretaries. Montalvo was middle-aged, stocky, with a shaved head that somehow did more to emphasize his baldness than conceal it. His Airport Police shirt had a stain from yesterday’s lunch. The secretary looked grateful when Acevedo gave him a head check and they went outside.

  They walked over by a line of parked pushback tugs, trading the usual police gossip. When Acevedo was sure nobody was looking, he slipped a thick envelope of cash from his shirt and passed it over. Montalvo hefted it briefly and then slipped it into his pocket.

  “When is it this time?” Montalvo asked.

  “Tuesday night,” said Acevedo. “But I need something else.”

  “What’s that?” Montalvo’s tone was suddenly cautious. He liked the money well enough, but he never liked earning it.

  “I need to find somebody. A man who came through here a few days ago.”

  “This isn’t official, right? Or you’d just go through channels.”

  “I’d like to keep it quiet.”

  Montalvo shrugged. “There’s only so much I can do. But come on.”

  They went back inside, and Montalvo led the way behind the main counter and down a short hallway. The card on his belt opened the door to a cramped room with old, scarred filing cabinets on one side and racks of servers and Ethernet cable on the other. The place hummed with cooling fans.

  Montalvo powered up a terminal at the end. “What have you got?”

  Acevedo produced a photo of the woman, one he’d taken outside her place in Ocean Park. “He flew in from the mainland on the ninth. I don’t know what airline. He was travelling with a woman named Melissa Simon.”

  Montalvo laboriously moved from menu to menu, pulling up screens. At one point he mistyped something, swore, and had to spend two minutes backtracking and starting over. This was clearly not his area of expertise.

  “Are you sure about the day?” he asked at last.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Acevedo said. He looked away and let out an annoyed puff of breath.

  “Well, no Melissa Simon on any scheduled flight anytime between the eighth and the tenth. Could it have been a private plane?”

  She’d gone to talk to her rich donors. When she came back, she brought a troubleshooter, a man whose job was to solve rich men’s problems. Yes, he thought, that man might well have come in by private jet.

  “Could be,” he said. “That makes sense.”

  “Well, nothing I can do about that. If she came in that way, there’s no ID check, no security. Nothing. It’s just like she drove in her car.”

  “Damn it,” Acevedo snapped. He hadn’t realized how desperately he was clinging to this tiny thread. If he couldn’t find the man…

  “Don’t they keep a record of private planes that land here?”

  “Just that a plane landed,” Montalvo said. “Tail number, time of arrival. Anything else you’ll have to go to someone else, and they’ll want to know why.”

  He slapped the desktop hard. “Well, what the hell can you do?” Then he took a deep breath and gave Montalvo a conciliatory look. “I’m sorry.”

  “You have a picture? We can dig through camera footage, see if we get lucky. There’re a lot of cameras.”

  Acevedo nodded. “Of the woman. Nothing of the man. But he came in with her. Anglo. Dark hair. Maybe my height. Lean build. I need a clear shot of that man. It’s important, Eric.”

  “Okay, man, okay. If he walked past a camera, we’ll find him. It might take a while, though.”

  Montalvo pulled the landing records, and they combed through them, eliminating commercial flights, cargo planes, charter airlines, and general aviation flights that were obviously domestic. If they came in by private plane, it would have been in a jet—a Lear or a Gulfstream. Only a handful of those had landed that day. They checked the arrival times and then went down the hall to another room where a pair of technicians helped pull up time-coded camera footage.

  Acevedo showed them photos of Dr. Simon on his phone and spun them some story about a dark-haired man using her to carry drugs through the airport. Then he waited.

  It took the better part of an hour before one of them suddenly called out. “Sir! I think I have her!”

  Acevedo hurried over and leaned over the technician’s shoulder. “Show me.”

  The tech hit some keys, and the screen image flashed. A couple passed under a camera. The man carried a duffel bag over his shoulder and what was probably the woman’s suitcase. The woman was clearly Dr. Simon. And the man fit the glimpse Acevedo had caught of the dark-haired man at the lab. But there wasn’t a good shot of his face. They walked out a pair of sliding glass doors and disappeared into a crowd on the sidewalk outside.

  “That’s her. What about him?” said Acevedo.

  “It looks like they’re heading for the cab line,” said the technician. “There’s another camera that should have them.”

  Now that they had an exact time, the technician was able to quickly pull up the footage. This camera was outside. At the far edge of the screen, Acevedo could see cars jostling for spots along the curb. The couple appeared out of the crowd, walking straight toward the camera.

  It was him. Acevedo was sure of it.

  “There!” he said. “That’s the man. Get me the best close-up of his face you can.”

  The tech hit more keys, and a nearby printer started to warm up. This changed everything, Acevedo thought. Everything.

  ###

  Branislav Skala sat on the terrace beneath a waxing moon, with the lights in his swimming pool casting rippling shadows on the wall. He sat at a white iron mesh table, with his laptop and a glass of last year’s Pinot Blanc, and read his customized newsfeeds. The news was not good.

  Ernst Shaller was selling his stake in Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company. Analysts said this was because he needed cash for a long-rumored takeover of a real estate development firm that came with huge holdings in London and Berlin. But Skala didn’t trust that. The muscles at the back of his skull were tense, the skin vaguely tingling. That was his subconscious trying to warn him, a feeling that had saved his life more times than he could remember. Skala knew enough to pay attention to it.

  Shaller sat on the board of Casse Biotech with Dorfmann and Sir William Scott, and Skala knew they were on the opposing team. Ramirez had said as much to his partners at that lawn party when he didn’t realize Skala could hear. If they’d been talking, perhaps Shaller was buying into their operation. That would be bad. That would be very bad. He needed to be in front of that.

  He dashed off a quick e-mail to the investigators from Paris he’d put on retainer. “Casse Biotech—look for large cash transfers.” It was the fifth message he’d sent them today. But this was a time of crisis. Significant events were coming fast. If he wanted to play in this game, he needed to be on top of them. So much was setting off
that tingling feeling for him these days. He could sense things moving in the shadows.

  A small window popped up in the corner of his screen. INCOMING MESSAGE, ZAJIC.

  “Ah,” he said out loud as he expanded it. “At last, perhaps some good news, Emil?”

  HAVE HIS PHOTO, Zajic typed. SENDING NOW.

  Another window popped up, and scan lines traced their way across the screen. Skala leaned forward and watched the picture take shape. He recognized the distinct angle and grainy look of a security camera shot. Gradually, a figure took shape. A man, tall and lean, well-muscled. A duffel bag over his shoulder, another suitcase in his other hand. A woman walked beside him. That one he recognized from his files. Doctor Simon of the gene bank project that had caused him so much trouble.

  SGT A GOT IT FROM CAMERAS AT AIRPT.

  Skala zoomed in on the face, pushing the photo’s resolution as far as it would go. It was by no means high definition, but it would do. The man was identifiable. Skala studied his expression, the cast of his eyes. He zoomed back out and noted the efficient bearing of the body in motion. Yes, this man had the look of an operative. Team Kilo had sent him. It had to be them.

  He pulled up what he had on Team Kilo. It was very little. He’d had to assign them the code name himself. He had no idea what they called themselves. But he knew they had great wealth and influence at their disposal. They had clashed with the group he was trying to ingratiate himself with. They would watch their enemies closely, and they wouldn’t want to see someone with Skala’s connections, resources, and expertise join the opposing side. And what little he knew about them showed that they struck from the shadows, with speed and ruthlessness. He had to be careful. This was a critical time.

  THEY TOOK A CAB FROM AIRPT, Emil was typing. SGT. A RUNNING IT DOWN. PHOTO ALREADY OUT TO LOCAL COPS. THEY’LL FIND HIM.

  And when they did, Skala thought, it would be the police who dealt with him in their official capacity. Another layer of insulation to hide the trail from this man’s death back to himself. That was good.

  WHEN THEY DO, I WANT YOU THERE, he sent back. YOU QUESTION HIM. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HIS PEOPLE KNOW.

  UNDERSTOOD.

  What else could this man tell him? Skala had never had anyone from Team Kilo to question before, even if he was just a soldier.

  I NEED TO KNOW HIS CONNECTIONS, WHO HE REPORTS TO. AND FIND OUT ALL HE KNOWS ABOUT SHALLER AND CASSE BIOTECH.

  There was a momentary lull as Emil waited to see if he had any more to say. Then, SHALLER, CASSE BIOTECH. OK.

  HE DOESN’T LEAVE PR ALIVE, Skala typed. LET THE COPS DO IT. MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND THIS MAN HAS TO DIE.

  Chapter 19

  The next day, Crane stayed out of sight. He had tracers on their cars. It was enough for now. And every day spent following them around the Carolina region would slightly increase the chance of somebody noticing something, a little subconscious flash of recognition that would put his enemy on guard. On the other hand, every day he kept away would reduce those odds, make him safer.

  So he kept track of their movements on his tablet, and he returned the Hyundai with a vague complaint about the seats not adjusting quite the way he wanted, and traded it for a blue Toyota Corolla.

  He did have one rendezvous to make, though. Assuming Acevedo took his cruiser home again that night, Crane knew the route he would take. So when his shift was nearing its end, Crane drove south across town. He was getting a better mental map of the city now. He knew before the tablet confirmed it which route Acevedo would take to get across San Juan from Carolina. He merged onto Highway 17 and headed east, toward the university. Less than a minute later, Trace CR-1 turned onto the road a few miles up, headed west, straight toward him.

  Crane switched on the receiver sitting in the Corolla’s passenger seat. It lit up and began scanning for very high frequency, very short range burst transmissions. For a few minutes, it found nothing. Then, as the trace came closer, it started to blink and emit handshake tones. Crane kept his eyes on the road and the heavy rush-hour traffic. The receiver didn’t need anything from him.

  Then the receiver beeped and flashed a green light just as he saw the PR Police Taurus coming around a curve ahead. The transmitter under its front seat was obediently streaming everything it had recorded in the last twenty-four hours back to the receiver. Crane watched the Taurus sweep by, got the barest glimpse of the driver in his uniform paying no attention to one more car among the stream on the other side of the highway.

  “Hello again, Sergeant,” Crane muttered. “See you again soon.”

  The receiver gave a satisfied tone and went back to scanning. Crane switched it off. Then he took the next exit and headed north again, toward the sea and his hotel.

  When he got there, he took his gear back up to his room and spread it out on the newly made bed. The housekeeping staff had left a chocolate on his pillow, and Crane let it slowly melt on his tongue as he played back the audio snippets from his bug.

  Everything was time coded, so he could play it back alongside the tablet’s playback of the GPS tracers. Nothing was happening in the morning. Just the occasional police call. Codes and call signs, nothing that mattered.

  Crane fast-forwarded both systems, watched the red tracer pulses zip around the map at super speed. The next snatch of recorded voice blew past in a high-pitched squeak. Crane flashed back to the beginning.

  It was Acevedo reporting that he was going on his lunch break. Jump.

  His trace was stationary for a moment and then back on the move with another check in. Jump.

  Another radio call and his reply. Jump.

  Crane knew he had something even before the recording stopped, and he backed it up to play at normal speed. Even sped up, the voice sounded different. He wasn’t on the radio, Crane realized. This was an incoming cell call.

  “Yeah?” Acevedo’s recorded voice said. A beat of silence. “Nothing. No, nothing since yesterday.”

  Another pause. Then, “He doesn’t know shit. If he knew anything, he’d have hauled us in by now.”

  Crane wished he had a way to tap the phone itself. He really wanted to hear the other side of the conversation.

  “Is what? Tuesday? Of course it’s on…kind of question is that? Of course we go. Nothing stops that. I—No! No, it isn’t! Unless you don’t want the money anymore. Fucking right. And you can explain to the Colombians how you thought maybe we should lay low for a while.”

  Crane took that as confirmation of what he’d already guessed. As state police officers in the district that included Luis Muñoz International Airport, the easiest way for cops on the take to make money would be to receive incoming shipments of narcotics, transfer them to the airport, and get them onto outbound flights for the US or Europe. Not the most imaginative way, but probably the easiest.

  “No,” Acevedo was saying on the recording, “I know. No, we don’t need the van. We’ll use my truck.”

  Crane smiled to himself. That would presumably be the F-150, also known as Trace PV-1.

  “Yeah, I’ll call you before then. Yeah. Bye.”

  Then the call ended.

  Crane paused the machines and sat back against the headboard, enjoying the last hint of sweetness from the chocolate. He had them. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, and he’d want to know a lot more before moving. But something—something that very likely involved smuggled drugs—was happening next Tuesday. He knew that. And he knew the F-150 pickup would be in the middle of it. The pickup with his tracer secured inside the wheel well, beaming its location to him twenty-four seven. All he had to do was follow it.

  ###

  Crane took it easy the next day. It was Sunday. There was little to do until Tuesday, when Acevedo and his cops would set off on their criminal adventure, meeting what Crane assumed would be Colombian drug smugglers. He’d find out for certain when he got there.

  The only thing to do in the meantime was harvest the audio from the bug in Acevedo’s cruiser, just t
o make sure he wasn’t caught out by some change of plans. So while Acevedo worked his day shift, Crane sat out on the hotel’s rear deck, in one of a long line of chaise lounges that looked out over the ocean. He didn’t fit in with the other tourists scattered up and down the line. They were dressed to expose as much skin to the sun as possible, while Crane wore linen slacks and a vintage Hawaiian shirt. He was also the only one with a laptop. He was working the net, trying to sort out whom Acevedo might be working for, looking for any reason why drug smugglers would take an interest in Melissa’s ecological census project. It was a fairly half-hearted search, if he was honest. He hadn’t found anything even remotely useful. His plan was still to wreck the drug deal on Tuesday night and see what happened next. As he’d told Josh, shake the trees until something fell out.

  So Crane enjoyed the midday sun, ignored the pair of vacationing college girls checking him out from down the line of lounge chairs, and waited.

  A waiter came out with a tray of drinks for a table at the far end of the patio. On the way back, he asked if he could bring Crane anything, and Crane ordered a vodka martini. As the waiter went back inside, a hotel manager stepped out and looked over the deck. There was a nervous energy in the manager’s posture, in the way he moved his hands. His eyes landed on Crane and then very deliberately flicked away again. The manager walked down the row, and Crane could sense his tension, could practically feel the beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck.

  The manager glanced very quickly at Crane as he passed, and then carefully studied his shoes as he walked on. He stopped at a large deck umbrella, pretended to be dissatisfied with its positioning, and made some pointless adjustment. Then he walked down the rest of the deck and reentered the hotel through the far door.