by Paul Coggins
On route to Love Field Airport the next day, Cash woke Bettina Biddle with a 6:00 a.m. call. Her answer to Stewart Powell’s offer had hardened from a firm no to an emphatic hell no.
Her final decision left him with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it proved him right about her mettle.
On the other, it proved him wrong. Yesterday he believed he had maxed out on pain over the prospect of losing her. Today it turned out he could hurt more.
While Bettina’s mind hadn’t changed, Cash’s plans had. On what could be his last day in the office, he had intended to tie up loose ends and update Goldy and Eva on pending matters. Bid goodbye to both, without actually saying the word. Exit with a hug for his mentor and surrogate father. A farewell kiss for his girl Friday and best friend.
Instead, La Tigra diverted him to a private hangar at Love Field for wheels up at 6:30 a.m. No hint of the duration or destination of the flight, beyond her instruction to pack light. In Cash’s book, that meant a toothbrush, a change of socks and underwear, and the Michael Connelly paperback of the month.
The part about packing light sounded ominous. Might indicate he wouldn’t make the full flight. Perhaps not even enough time to finish the paperback.
Fine leather and polished wood gave the Gulfstream G-550 a new plane smell. The skeleton crew on board—only a pilot, a co-pilot, and a flight attendant—offered Cash the coldest of greetings.
With the passenger cabin to himself, Cash passed by eight seats and landed on the longer of two couches. The attendant ignored his attempts to flag her down, as she made her way to the cockpit with the seductive sway of a runway model.
As the plane lifted off, Cash stared out the window at what was likely his last look at Dallas. The ever-changing skyline reminded him why he had sunk roots here twenty years ago. Big D constantly reinvented itself, much like the strivers lured by the clarion call of cranes, concrete mixers, and construction crews, whose labors kept the city from sitting back and catching its breath.
The jet banked hard left, leaving Dallas behind. Cash grieved, as if he had lost a loved one.
More like, loved ones.
“Where are we going?” he shouted to the attendant, her back to him.
She stopped flirting with the pilot and turned toward Cash. “Would you like a drink?”
“Why not?” He ordered champagne. If this was to be his final flight, might as well go out with a buzz.
The Moët & Chandon Imperial Brut smoothed out the bumpy flight. Three hours and four flutes later, the plane touched down on a private landing strip. The flight attendant wouldn’t disclose the location, and the view from the window didn’t narrow the field much.
As far as Cash could see stretched a desert populated by cacti and tumbleweeds. A desolate scene in sunbaked shades of brown. A good place to bury a body, where it would stay buried.
La Tigra, her daughter Marisol, and six henchmen boarded the jet. It was the first time Cash had seen Marisol, but he didn’t need a formal introduction to make her as the prodigal daughter. The eyes gave her away. Black, bottomless pits that could suck the soul from an enemy.
Or a friend.
The daughter had a good four inches on the mother. She was lithe, lanky. A larger and possibly more lethal version of La Tigra.
Scary as the soldiers were, the daughter shook Cash more. Her frown could kill. He’d seen the look before. On jurors, right before they were about to return a death sentence.
He gave the girl a pass on the attitude. Must suck to be yanked from the bosom of NYU and forced into what could be permanent exile. Doomed to pay for the sins of the mother.
Marisol walked past Cash without a word, flashing a dismissive smirk that put him in his place. He was the help, no more than a glorified gofer. She staked out the entire back row for herself.
La Tigra sat next to Cash on the couch. The white leather pantsuit accentuated her mocha complexion. She looked relaxed, like a typical tourist. That is, if a typical tourist could afford a sixty-million-dollar jet.
“Where are we going?” he said.
La Tigra smiled, in no hurry to answer.
The attendant served a round of champagne to the passengers. La Tigra clinked Cash’s glass. “Enjoy the bubbly. We will be drinking rum tonight.”
Cash’s heart went into overdrive. Finally, he had something to celebrate and a shot to survive the flight. The feds must’ve come through on Cuba. God bless the good ole U-S-of-A.
He killed the flute. “Great news about Cuba, but why am I on this flight?”
“If your government decides to shoot down my plane,” she said, “I want them to know a U.S. citizen dies with us.”
Cash couldn’t help smiling.
“What is so funny?” she said.
“Having me on board makes it more likely that my government will take us out.”
***
Three limos met La Tigra and her retinue at the José Martí International Airport in Havana, and headed east on the Via Blanca Highway. La Tigra, Marisol, and Cash rode in one limo, sandwiched between the vehicles loaded with soldiers.
No one spoke during the three-hour ride. Marisol retreated into her private hell, insulated by an iPad and ear buds. Amazing how long she could hold a scowl.
La Tigra stared out a window, giving Cash the chance to do the same. The highway narrowed to a single lane that connected the mainland to the tip of a peninsula.
He held his pent-up questions until a pristine beach came into view. Figured the scenery might settle any waves he was about to make. “Where’s Fine?”
“Sadly, he did not make it,” La Tigra said.
“Make it to the plane or….” Cash didn’t complete the sentence.
“Make it to today.”
“Who took him out? You or Los Lobos?”
“Does it matter?”
Cash thought for a moment. “It does to me. He was a client. Not a good client or even a paying one, but still….”
“Los Lobos made him the same offer they made you,” she said. “Deliver me or die.”
He didn’t call her on the non-answer and dropped the line of inquiry. Fine belonged to the past. Besides, the revelation that she knew Cash had received the same ultimatum from Los Lobos rattled him. Revived his fear that he would soon share Fine’s fate.
“Stop the car,” she shouted.
The driver braked and pulled onto the shoulder. She kicked off her sandals, shot from the limo, and ran across the whitest beach Cash had ever seen. Soldiers poured from their vehicles and secured the stretch of road. Marisol didn’t budge from the limo.
Cash followed La Tigra to the water’s edge. The turquoise tide licked her feet. The sun kissed her face. She looked radiant, like a golden goddess.
“I am home.” She sounded like a new woman. Younger and freer than before.
“Where are we?” he said.
“Varadero Beach.”
“Never heard of it.”
“The most beautiful beach in Cuba,” she said. “Your most famous gangster, Al Capone, stayed here almost one hundred years ago.”
“Then you should feel right at home.”
She turned to him. “It can be your home too.”
The offer blindsided Cash. Left him speechless.
No way could he live with her. It’d be like riding a tigress. On the other hand, it wasn’t clear he could live without her either. After all, he had ridden the tigress all the way to the tropics. How could he get off and survive?
“You should not go back to Dallas.” Sweat beads crowned her forehead. “Los Lobos will be waiting for you there.”
He nodded.
She took his hand. “Are you not better off with the devil you know?”
Her touch jolted him, stirring something deep and dangerous inside. He weighed her offer.
“I can protect you here,” she said. “If you leave, they will hunt you down wherever you go. There will be no place to hide.”
He regained his senses and his hand
. “Except in plain sight.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
La Tigra ordered the pilot to take Cash anywhere in the world, and he picked the most dangerous place on the planet. For him, anyway.
Dallas, Texas.
Then again, he had nowhere else to go and no time left on the clock. Los Lobos’ deadline had passed yesterday.
Back in Big D, he couldn’t decide on the next stop in his farewell tour, but it wouldn’t be his home or office. Those would be the first venues staked out by the cartel. If he had reached the end of the line, he’d exit alone and not risk the lives of old and new friends.
At Love Field Airport, he stewed in the parked Porsche, surrounded on three sides by SUVs. Too claustrophobic to stay still, he slowly backed up. An unmarked van pulled behind his Carrera, pinning it in.
Cash crouched into a smaller target and hit the horn. Its blare drowned out his cries for help. He went silent before the horn did.
A SWAT team in tactical gear poured from the van and stormed the convertible. Cash resisted the urge to reach for his phone, a move that might prove too threatening to trigger-happy troops. Instead, his hands clamped onto the steering wheel at eleven and one o’clock, held high enough to be visible.
His palms sweat. Knuckles turned white. Mind raced a million miles to nowhere.
Frozen in the seat and facing forward, Cash tracked the assault in the mirrors. D-E-A emblazoned in large, white letters on the team’s black vests comforted him a bit but not much. Cartels had a history of impersonating law enforcement. Plus, there was plenty of precedent for cops to play both sides of the drug wars.
A stocky agent, either real or counterfeit, opened the driver’s door. The plastic face shield of the helmet hid his eyes. His right hand held a Sig Sauer P220, the weapon of choice for both DEA and the bad guys.
With his left hand, the agent motioned for Cash to ease from the car. No words spoken meant no chance for Cash to detect a foreign accent.
“Am I under arrest?” Cash said.
The agent pulled him from the car. “Let’s call it protective custody.” He had an East Texas twang. “For now.”
***
“You should’ve stayed in Cuba,” Dani Tanaka said.
“I’m happy to see you too.” Cash sat across a pockmarked table from her and Agent Duane Leroy Lee. Dani seemed hyper this morning. A haggard Leroy binged on a box of donuts.
The interrogation room at DEA headquarters was windowless and ten degrees too hot. “You didn’t need to send a SWAT team to pick me up,” Cash said. “A simple invitation would’ve done the trick.”
Tanaka’s dark eyes narrowed. “There was concern on our part that we wouldn’t be the only ones at the airport to greet you. Even if you’ve ruled out Cuba, you shouldn’t have come back to Dallas. We can’t protect you here.”
He made a show of looking around the cramped room. “Not even in the bowels of your own building?”
“Don’t be a wiseass,” she said.
He couldn’t help it, not with no-nonsense Dani as a foil. “Protect me from what?”
“Don’t play dumb,” she said, “because you’re not very good at it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t.” She killed a cup of coffee, clearly not her first of the morning. “We know all about the threat from Los Lobos.”
Cash’s spine stiffened. “Who told you?”
Dani looked at Leroy, whose shrug gave her the green light to burn his source. She turned back to Cash. “Eva freaked out when she couldn’t reach you yesterday. She contacted Leroy, and he called me. She told us about the ultimatum.”
“She shouldn’t have done that,” Cash said.
Leroy shook off his stupor and mumbled through a mouthful of donut. “Eva has more sense than you do.”
“Seems to be the consensus,” Cash said.
Dani slapped the table. “Either you’re not taking the threat all that seriously, or you have a death wish.”
“Definitely no death wish,” Cash said.
“Well, we can’t protect you from a cartel,” she said, “not if you’re going to tool around town in a red Porsche that screams asshole attorney.”
“Asshole attorney is redundant.” Not the first time Leroy had used that line.
Her glare silenced the street agent. She shifted her sights to Cash. “You’ve got one chance to survive, and that’s to disappear into witness protection immediately.” She pushed a pile of papers toward him.
He thumbed through the two-inch stack. No need to waste time reading the fine print. He’d seen the forms before, not that any of his clients had been foolish enough to sign away their souls to Uncle Sam.
The contract would be ironclad and impossible to honor. Kiss his old life goodbye and embrace a fresh start as a greeter at Walmart in Bumfuck, Idaho. Or a bellboy at End-of-the-World, Indiana. A checkout clerk in Nowheresville, Nebraska.
“No thanks.” He pushed the pile back to her. “I’ll take my chances on my own.”
“Once you step outside the building, you become the next unsolved murder on some burnt-out cop’s desk.” She sounded almost sad.
Cash was touched. He didn’t know she had it in her to give a shit.
“Before you make the biggest mistake of your life,” she said, “you need to know that Fine was gunned down thirty-six hours ago.”
“Old news,” Cash said. Though he didn’t know which cartel claimed or deserved credit for the hit, he decided not to ask.
“And La Tigra,” Dani said, “is also dead.”
The new news gut-punched Cash. For several beats, he couldn’t muster even an inner voice. He finally managed the faintest of whispers. “That can’t be true.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. Of course, it could. The reality of cartel life is that anyone can die at any time. Aloud, he added, “I saw her last night.”
Again, so what?
Dani poured him a glass of water. “She was killed while you were in the air.”
Cash bowed his head, lost not in prayer but in second-guessing the call on Cuba. “All the work we did to find her a safe place to land, and the fucking Cubans give her up just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“The Cubans didn’t do her in,” Dani said. “It was her daughter.”
The hits kept coming. Another pause while Cash collected his thoughts. “Why? How?”
“The ‘how’ part is easy,” Dani said. “The daughter stabbed her to death.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “The ‘why’ is more complicated, but start with the fact that Marisol never wanted to go with her mother. The girl had a life and a lover here in the States. She hated her mother for forcing her to flee to Cuba. After you left, they argued. La Tigra slapped Marisol, who grabbed a knife, took a swipe, and hit the jugular. The mother bled out in minutes.”
Cash fell silent. It wasn’t the first client he’d lost. Not even the first this week. It still hurt, as if the fates didn’t trust him to balance the scales of justice. Plus, he’d put together the deal of a lifetime, only for it to fall apart in twenty-four hours.
“What will happen to Marisol?” Cash said.
She shook her head. “That’s out of our hands. Just like you will be, if you turn down WITSEC.”
The offer tempted Cash, for a nanosecond. He came to his senses. “The program’s not for me.”
True that. Witness protection had a thousand picayune rules, and Cash had trouble following a few simple ones. In the end, he couldn’t close the door permanently on Eva, Goldy, and Bettina.
Dani looked to Leroy. “You’re his friend. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Cash expected Leroy to deny the friendship. Instead, he pushed the box of donuts toward Cash. “You look like you haven’t eaten for days. Take one, but not the chocolate-glazed.”
Famished as Cash was, he passed.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Leroy said.
Cash nodded. “Giv
e me my phone back and fifteen minutes alone in the room.”
Dani stood, followed by Leroy. They exited the room. She left behind the paperwork for WITSEC. Leroy took the box of donuts.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Where the hell have you been, son?” Goldy sounded older and crankier over the phone than he did face-to-face, if that was possible.
Alone in the DEA interrogation room, Cash stuck to the game plan for throwing Goldy off his trail, permanently. Resort to the big lie. Spring the whopper on the old man first. Fine tune the falsehood before laying it on Eva, who had a better ear for detecting his bullshit.
“I’m entering witness protection,” Cash said.
Goldy’s wheezing sounded perilously close to death rattles. Given the state of the old man’s ticker, this conversation could be their last. Both knew the rules of WITSEC, the chief one being no contact with anyone from a past life.
“Want me to look over the paperwork?” Goldy said.
Cash had expected the old man to trash the program and try to talk him out of vanishing into it. Goldy didn’t go there, which showed a healthy respect for the long, lethal tentacles of the cartel.
“Too late for that,” Cash said. “I’ve already signed up.”
Another pause. Labored breathing on both ends now.
“When do you go in?” Goldy said.
“After my next call…to Eva.”
Goldy groaned. “Much as I hate to lose that gal, she’ll want to go with you.”
Cash gripped the phone tighter. “We both know that can’t happen. She supports a mother and more relatives in Mexico than I can count. She can’t cut them off.”
Plus, she has to take care of you, old fella.
“Your call with Eva won’t go well,” Goldy said, “and things between you two will end badly. Want me to break the news to her?”
“Tempting,” Cash said, “but she needs to hear it from me.”
The next silence proved longer and more painful than the prior ones. It broke when both blurted out, “I’m sorry.”
Cash recovered from shock first. “Never heard you say that before.”
“I could say the same about you.” Goldy had developed a catch in his voice.
