Against All Enemies

by John Gilstrap

  They parked the Jeep at Calle 23 Oeste—West 23rd Street—and Calle B—B Street—in front of a bar that was still churning at 11:30.

  “This is a lot of people, Boss,” Boxers said.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” Jonathan replied. “You stay put. I’ll buy us some security.”

  Without waiting for a response, Jonathan opened his door and stepped out into the thick, fetid air. Sometimes he wondered why the work he did was always and forever rooted in stinking hot environments. Sure, the Middle East provided that “dry heat” that desert dwellers loved to brag about, but a hundred degrees Fahrenheit was a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and that was, by any reasonable standard, really freaking hot. The only difference was soaked clothing versus dry clothing and crusty sinuses. At the end of the day, the difference didn’t matter.

  Four dark-skinned men in their twenties took immediate notice as Jonathan stepped out of the Jeep. It was an expensive car for this neighborhood, and he was five shades lighter than the dominant skin color. Unlike Los Estados Unidos, where such aberrations were deliberately ignored in deference to political correctness, here in Panama, differences were recognized as the warning signs they were. Jonathan understood the men’s concern every bit as much as he understood the danger he faced as he approached them.

  “Good morning,” he said in Spanish. They would recognize his dialect as more Colombian than Panamanian, but there was no downside in that. He still wore all black, but he’d shed the face covering and donned a New York Yankees baseball cap. The Yankees were America’s team, even in Central America. His shirt covered the Colt 1911 .45 that was nestled cocked and locked in a holster inside the waistband of his trousers.

  “Hello,” one of them said. The speaker was tall for a Panamanian, and his skin shimmered with sweat. He wore a threadbare once-white guayabera and khaki pants. “I don’t know you.”

  “Should I expect any trouble from you?” Jonathan asked. In this part of the world, a direct question was a statement of strength.

  “Why would we give you any trouble?” the young guy asked.

  “My name is Richard,” Jonathan said, extending his hand.

  The other guy looked at his hand for a solid ten seconds, but never returned the gesture. “My pleasure,” he said.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” Jonathan said.

  “I didn’t give it to you.”

  So this was how it was going to go. “That’s a question and a statement that have gone unanswered,” Jonathan said. What the hell? If there’s gonna be a fight, let’s get on with it. “What are your intentions?”

  “You’re not from here.” The other three men fanned out in to surround their American visitor.

  “No, I’m not. And I don’t want any trouble. I’m begging you not to start any.” He glanced over his right shoulder, and then his left, calculating the distance and postures of the men in his blind sides. He sensed defensive postures, not offensive ones.

  “I will start nothing,” the spokesman said. “You approached us, remember? This is your encounter to make violent or keep peaceful.”

  Jonathan narrowed his gaze as he evaluated the man on the other side of the conversation. He was not a thug, at least not in the typical sense of the word. Clearly, he was a resident of El Chorrillo, which meant he had to be tough, but there was a crispness to his diction and a brightness to his eyes that spoke of education.

  “You’re right,” Jonathan said. “I apologize for coming on so strong. Meaning no offense, this neighborhood has a reputation for violence, and I wanted to head it off.”

  “So, I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

  “Can you give me a name first?” Jonathan asked. “Please?” He’d learned decades ago that anonymity made violence easier. Once people knew each other’s names, things got more personal. It’s harder to hurt a person with a name than one without one.

  “Call me Miguel,” the man said, but he did not extend his hand. That, apparently, was a step too far.

  “Miguel, then.” Jonathan turned to the others. “Would you mind staying where I can see you? It’s troubling to have you behind me.”

  “I think you should get on with an explanation,” Miguel said. His teammates didn’t move.

  “I would like you to protect my vehicle for an hour or two,” Jonathan said.

  Miguel scowled and cocked his head. “Protect it? What do you mean?”

  “You are from El Chorrillo, are you not?”

  “I am. I was a little boy when people who looked much like you killed many of my neighbors and set many fires.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “You know that wasn’t done by people who looked like me,” he said. “That was done by people who looked like you. They set the fires and blamed the Americans. That’s one of the reasons why Noriega is still in prison. Either way, that was a long time ago.”

  Miguel didn’t argue.

  Jonathan scanned the other faces. “You are from El Chorrillo, too?”

  “Why does this matter?” Miguel asked.

  “It matters because you know people. You are connected. I want you to use your connections to make sure that my Jeep is not vandalized or stolen.”

  “Why don’t you watch it yourself?”

  “I won’t be able to,” Jonathan said. “I’ll be busy. But when I need the car, I will need it to be here.”

  “You’re making me think that you are going to bring trouble to my neighborhood,” Miguel said. “The kind of trouble that no one wants.”

  “If there’s trouble, I won’t be the one who starts it,” Jonathan said.

  “Then maybe I should just call the police.”

  That made Jonathan chuckle. Apparently, Miguel also saw the absurdity, because he chuckled as well.

  “So you know about our police,” Miguel said. “You look like you might be police yourself. American FBI, or perhaps CIA.”

  “I promise you that I am neither.”

  “Are you intending to break the law?” Miguel asked.

  Jonathan bobbled his head and continued to smile. “Probably,” he said. “But only in the strictest sense of the term.”

  “We shouldn’t be listening to him,” one of the others said. “He’s trouble. He’ll bring the police here.”

  “I’ll pay you for your efforts,” Jonathan said.

  Miguel’s eyes lit up. “How much?”

  “Five hundred dollars,” Jonathan said. An enormous sum in this part of the world—at least a week’s pay. “Half now, and half when I’m ready to drive away.” He heard involuntary gasps from the men in his blind spot.

  “That is a lot of money,” Miguel said. “This must be very important business. If it’s worth five hundred dollars, then it must be worth one thousand dollars.”

  “I can always park somewhere else,” Jonathan said. “Five hundred dollars is a lot of money for watching a car.”

  “If you have that kind of cash, we could just take it from you.”

  Jonathan winced. “No, that’s a bad idea. You’d die trying.”

  Miguel laughed. “It’s four against one.”

  “Four against two,” Boxers called from the car. He’d unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and puffed himself to his full girth.

  “He counts as three,” Jonathan said. He kept his tone light, his smile bright.

  “Suppose we are unable to protect the car?” Miguel asked. “This is a dangerous neighborhood. There is only so much we can do.”

  “That would make me think that you had stolen it,” Jonathan said. “You would never be safe again.” Still light, still bright.

  “One thousand dollars,” Miguel said. “All of it up front.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jonathan said. “Why would I consider paying it all up front? Then you just run off.”

  “We must trust each other,” Miguel said. “I sense that when the time comes for you to leave, you may be leaving in too much of a hurry to remember to pay.”

  Jonathan stewed o
n the words, and then he laughed. “I can’t argue that point,” he said. He dug into his pocket and withdrew a wad of greenbacks. He peeled off ten one-hundred-dollar bills and held them out in his left hand. As Miguel reached for them, Jonathan pulled them back out of range, and then extended his right hand. “We have to shake on it,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “A deal made on a handshake has the force of law,” Jonathan said. “I’ve done my part, and now you are bound to do yours.”

  Miguel hesitated, but in the end, he shook. When Jonathan had him in his grasp, he closed his hand tightly and pulled the other man closer. “Do not make this deal lightly, Miguel,” he said. “No windows broken, no tires flattened, nothing stolen from the inside. That’s the deal. You do not want to cross me.”

  Anger flashed in Miguel’s eyes, but then it faded. “If you do not believe I am a man of my word, then you may shove your money up your ass.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Exactly what I wanted to hear,” he said. He released the man’s hand and handed him the cash. “Have a good day.”

  He turned to walk back to the Jeep. Boxers had already begun to unload the rucks.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The cemetery in El Chorrillo sprawled for acres in all directions. One small step north of a potter’s field, tilted and crumbling gravestones mingled with newer models to create less a sense of peaceful repose than one of desolation. Devoid of shade—how was that possible in a country so perennially hot and wet?—most of the grass had died, leaving a crumbling tableau of yellow and beige gravel.

  Venice had found the perfect spot for the rendezvous, a mini-mausoleum more or less in the center of the cemetery that was marked with the name Velazquez. Made of black marble, the tomb rose six feet off the ground and glimmered in the sunshine. From the markings on the front wall, Jonathan determined that the monument held the remains of seven Velaz-quezes, their ages at death ranging from eighty-three years to four days. That last number made Jonathan feel momentarily sad. He felt some relief, however, when he noted that the date of the child’s death preceded any recent military action that had involved the United States.

  “Try to stay away from the north side of the tomb,” Boxers’ voice said in his ear. “You’re hard to see when you’re back there.”

  “Copy that,” Jonathan said softly. He had his radio set to VOX, meaning that everything he said would be transmitted without him having to touch a transmit button. “Are you there, too, Mother Hen?” he asked.

  “I’m here and I’m watching you.” The SkysEye satellite network happened to be doing its official job of searching for petroleum fields, and as luck would have it, the eyes in the sky happened to be focused on Venezuela. It hadn’t taken all that much coercion to convince Jonathan’s old buddy Lee Burns to reprogram the satellite for a peek at Panama for a few hours.

  Even though their radio channels were heavily encrypted, they avoided real names, lest the NSA got distracted from listening to Americans’ phone calls and actually got to the business of spying on others.

  The plan was straightforward. Jonathan would wait in plain sight, and Dylan Nasbe would or wouldn’t show. Boxers had taken up a position atop the tallest building in the area. At twelve stories, it provided him with a panoramic view of the cemetery and its surroundings. Jonathan knew he’d be scanning through the scope of his HK417, which was more than capable of snuffing any threat that may arise on feet or wheels.

  “Tell me what you see, Big Guy,” Jonathan mumbled. With the humidity so thick and the ground so flat, he worried that his voice would carry farther than he wanted.

  “A lot of nothing,” Boxers said. “To your eleven o’clock, call it seventy-five yards, there’s an old lady and a priest laying flowers at a gravesite. To your seven, seven-fifteen, a groundskeeper is working on what looks like a sprinkler system.”

  “Well, they certainly could use it,” Jonathan said. “Are they paying attention to me?”

  “Don’t seem to be. Outside the cemetery, you’ve got people going about their business on the sidewalk. The dead seem to still be dead. But I’ll let you know if a zombie thing happens.”

  “Remember the head shot,” Jonathan said, smiling. “You need a head shot to kill a zombie.”

  “On the larger picture, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Venice said. She hated witty banter during a hot operation, and was known to interrupt it. Unless she was the one being snarky, in which case all sins were forgiven.

  “Copy that, Mother Hen.” The SkysEye satellite network was a true blessing to Jonathan and his team. Providing imagery that was sharper than state-of-the-art when Jonathan separated from the Army, it was limited only to stills, and had a refresh rate of four minutes. When searching for oil deposits, that was a fine renewal rate, but when monitoring a dynamic environment, it was frustratingly slow. But it was a lot better than nothing. Plus, Jonathan imagined that it helped Venice immensely to have some idea of what they were doing when they were out causing trouble.

  “Okay, Scorpion,” Boxers said. “I think I might have something. Someone has definitely noticed you. She’s coming at you.”

  “She?”

  “Affirmative. She. I’m guessing ten years old. Maybe twelve. Watch your two o’clock. If you can’t see her yet, you will in a few seconds.”

  Jonathan shifted his gaze a few degrees to the right. He saw her right away. The girl’s jet-black hair hung to her shoulders and looked as if it had not been washed in a while. Nor had it been combed. She wore a brightly patterned dress in red and white and green, and she wore sandals on her feet. Jonathan knew right away that she was Dylan’s messenger, just as he knew that she was inexperienced in the intelligence game. She made no pretense of looking elsewhere as she approached, instead staring directly at him.

  When she was still twenty feet away, Jonathan made a point of smiling as he said, “Hello, young lady. That’s a very pretty dress.”

  The girl suppressed a smile and folded her hands in front of her. “Many thanks,” she said. “Are you Mr. Scorpion?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you here to meet a man with a big beard?”

  Jonathan couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that depends on what the bearded man’s name is.”

  The girl looked confused, as if she’d forgotten her lines. “Mr. Boom-boom?”

  She had eyes the size of saucers, and prominent dimples in her cheeks that begged for a hug. “I guess that’s close enough,” Jonathan said. “Did Mr. Boom-boom send you to meet me?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, then, here I am,” Jonathan said. “Are you supposed to take me somewhere?”

  The girl pointed to a spot behind her. “There’s a car,” she said. “A red one. You’re supposed to go there.”

  Jonathan stood tall and strained to see into the distance. “I don’t see a red car,” he said.

  “It’s there,” the girl said, but she looked at the ground.

  “Little girl?” Jonathan said.

  She looked up.

  “Is there really a red car?”

  She looked down again and didn’t answer.

  Jonathan softened his tone. “Hey,” he said.

  She looked up again.

  “Did Mr. Boom-boom really send you?”

  “Yes, sir.” That came with eye contact. This kid should never play poker.

  “And is there really a car?”

  She looked away. Not to the ground this time, but definitely not in his eyes. “He said there was.”

  Jonathan thought about that. “But you didn’t see it, did you?”

  “No, sir.” Eye contact.

  “But did you see him? I mean really see him, eye -to eye?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was he nice to you?”

  She nodded emphatically. “He gave me money.” She pulled a twenty and some singles out of her pocket.

  “Just for you to come and speak to me?”

  She nodded. The
smile was sparkling.

  “And what are you going to do with all of that money?”

  “Mama and my brothers need it.”

  Jonathan felt something sag in his heart. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wad of bills and peeled off a twenty. “Tell you what,” he said. “You do exactly what you said you were going to do with the money from Mr. Boom-boom. Make sure your family gets it. But I want you to promise me that this twenty dollars goes just to you, okay? You can save it, or you can spend it, I don’t care. That’s none of my business. But it’s just for you.” He held it closer to her. “Will you promise me that?”

  The saucer eyes got even larger, as if that was even possible. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Okay, then,” Jonathan said. “Run along. Take the money to your family. You’ve done your job. I can take it from here.”

  She hesitated.

  Jonathan made sure to smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Margarita.”

  God, could you get any cuter? “Margarita, you are beautiful young lady, and you’ve been very, very helpful. Now, I need you to go home, okay?”

  The dimples became canyons. “Yes, sir.” And she was gone.

  “You are such a sap for dimples,” Boxers teased.

  “Who are you and what have you done with Scorpion?” Venice said.

  In a distant corner of his mind, Jonathan wished he had had kids. His deceased wife had had a son who was killed in an accident, but Jonathan had never had a chance to bond with him before he died. At one level, Resurrection House scratched that itch for him, but it wasn’t the same. Not by a long shot.

  “I’m walking toward the alleged car,” Jonathan said. “Do either of you see anything that looks like a red vehicle?”

  “Negative for me,” Boxers said.

  “I can’t say,” Venice said. “Red is not an uncommon color for a car, but I don’t see anything poised particularly near you. The image I’m looking at is only two minutes old.”