by Jeff Abbott
“We’ve been at the hotel the whole time.” Was he truly suspicious?
“She thinks I’m behind all this,” he said. “She thinks I’m the traitor.”
His words made me draw back. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Of course she does,” he said. “It’s a simple proposition of who benefits. I benefit the most from reaching peace with the clients and being in charge of both businesses. I take over everything. Z and Papa and Kent and Cori all know it. They’re all looking at me…” He closed his eyes. “I love them all and they think I could hurt them to get what I want.”
“Galo—”
“I could never hurt my own family.” He shrugged. “You can understand that. After we lost Edwin.”
“I lost a brother,” I said, suddenly. It was true of Sam Capra, not Sam Chevalier. But I knew what it was to be pushed away by the ones you love, to carry the burden of guilt. To be the one who tries to fix it all. I couldn’t believe I’d said it. The burnt man would have slapped me.
“Was your brother older or younger?” Galo asked. He looked at me with new eyes.
It was best to stick with the truth so I didn’t have to invent details or remember lies. “Older, three years.”
“Eddie’s three years younger than me. Did your older brother look out for you?”
I thought of Danny, under different skies—Africa, South America, Asia—standing up for me, dusting me off after I’d fought, punching a kid in the face who tried to best me by fighting dirty. “Yes. He did.”
“How did he die?”
A terrorist beheaded him with a huge knife and videotaped it for the world. But instead I lied. “Stabbed. In an argument over religion.” That was mostly true.
“Murdered,” he breathed. “Don’t you want to kill the guy who did it?”
“I could never find him,” I said, “but it wouldn’t bring Danny back.”
“What was Danny like?”
“Strong. Protective. Smart. Better at team sports than I was. The kind of kid who made friends easily; everyone liked him.”
“And you hung back. You were quieter. Maybe book smarter.”
I swallowed. “True.”
“You’re like Edwin, then. And I’m more like your brother.”
That might be more true than I wanted to admit.
“It’s a special thing, watching out for your kid brother. It’s like a test run for being a grown-up.” He paused. “Edwin was kidnapped after a family dinner.”
I stayed silent.
“I was supposed to drive him home and we were gonna go play basketball. He was a terrible player, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t guard. But we loved playing together.”
My eyes felt hot. I didn’t cry for Danny anymore. I hadn’t in a long time. Tears didn’t make people pay for their crimes.
“But Papa—who spent most of our childhoods flying other people’s stuff back and forth among the world’s hellholes—wanted me to work. So Eddie was by himself and those bastards took him, they took him when I should have been playing basketball with him.” He stopped and seemed to wait to breathe again.
“They would have taken him some other time.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they don’t take him that day and they give up or maybe they don’t take him and they get hit by a tractor-trailer on the highway ten minutes later and they never take him. I killed that man to save my papa yesterday, and you know what?”
“What?” I said.
“I slept okay. I used to think if I could find the bastard who took Eddie I’d kill him and it would change me; I’d be something awful. I don’t think so. I think I could kill whoever killed Eddie and I could sleep like a baby. But they cut off his finger, his ear, so I’d cut off their fingers first. All ten of them. I know that sounds sick. But to me that is justice.”
He stopped and I thought: He has said this to no one before. Not to Rey, to Zhanna, to Cordelia. He looked at me like he thought he’d said too much. We’re only supposed to show so much emotion. Not more. Never more. It’s so stupid. But a man has to be a man, especially around other men.
“My brother and I—I won’t bore you with the history, but we only had each other much of the time,” I said. I looked at my lap and then I looked at Galo. “My parents were—occupied. Busy, but not busy about us. I was a kid who got knocked around a lot. He was always there, to teach me how to fight, or to fight for me. He said that was the first rule of brotherhood.”
“Our family only had two rules: don’t ask Papa too many questions and don’t talk too much.”
“You’re talking to me,” I said.
“You bled for us. Like Papa’s made us all bleed.” And then he was quiet and I thought, All these secrets, all this family weight, it’s crushing him. Making him scared and desperate but he can’t appear to be afraid. And a scared man was capable of doing a lot of damage.
He saved your life, remember that, I told myself. He saved your life. Save him if you can.
“I’m glad you told me this,” I said.
“So these clients, if they were the ones who took Eddie, I would never make peace with them. I wouldn’t help them just to get what I want. You see that, right?”
“Of course,” I said. “But you don’t really know who took Eddie.”
He shook his head.
I raised an eyebrow. “Your father could stop all this danger to your family in a moment, and he won’t. Out of pride, or greed. You must convince him.”
He stood. He wouldn’t listen to anything against his father. “I won’t. Papa knows what he’s doing.”
“And you’re stuck doing what he wants.”
“I want to get back to Papa.” Discussion and honesty were apparently over. “We have to figure out a plan. You and Cori will fly out tonight on the jump seats?”
“Yes. What about you all?”
“Chartering a private jet tonight. You’ll get Cori someplace safe?”
“Yes,” I lied. I gestured at the casino. “The other owners of the Gran Fortuna. What do you know about them, Omega Investments?”
The question surprised him. “Why?”
“I think they could be tied to the clients,” I said. “Has it occurred to you all that they could have spied on you for a long while, to ensure your loyalty? Maybe Omega Investments is just your father’s clients, hiding under a name.”
“Why do you think this?” His voice rose in a slight panic.
“From what you have said, they know too much. They knew when Rey tried to give Cori the ten million. They knew when Rey decided to split up the company, even before you did.” Maybe they gave casino chips to Steve, Nesterov, and Marianne to pay them off, but I couldn’t say that. “They’ve got a hand in your shipping company, why wouldn’t they have a hand in every Varela company, including the casino? How do you know they’re not spying on us right now?”
His face reddened.
“You’re wrong about Cori,” I said. “But you can’t trust anyone else. Not Z, not Ricky, not your own father. They’ve lied to you for too long, Galo.”
“I have to believe I can fix this and save the company.”
“Good luck.” I offered him my hand and after a moment he pushed it aside and embraced me. He didn’t know I was such a liar, he only remembered that he’d saved my life. He let me go and told me, “Take care of my sister.”
“I will.”
I watched him go and then I went back to the room.
“I feel like I’m in jail,” Cori said.
I carried all the plates and trays from lunch, set them outside. Cleaned up the table. Then I sat next to her on the bed.
“What did he want to talk to you about alone?” She sounded mad she hadn’t been included in the conversation.
“He’s trying to protect you by keeping you out of the loop,” I said.
“I think he has every reason to be behind that shooting,” she said.
Now they were accusing each other. “He was there.”
“And why is he th
ere when Papa says he mustn’t be close to the smuggling? Look at the past few days. The clients send a man to take Papa. Maybe to talk, or maybe to hurt him. Galo kills the man—so the man can tell us nothing. Papa freaks out and gives Galo the company. The clients send a messenger to say no to Zhanna. That messenger gets shot, and if one of us did it, then the clients have every reason to escalate against us. And this all works out perfectly for Galo. Now he’s Papa’s answer to shut out Zhanna and keep the company. Maybe he’s behind the clients not wanting her. Maybe he knows more than he says. He could have been in contact with them.” The words came out in a breathless rush.
“I thought he and Z got along.” I thought of them talking at the nightclub. At first I thought they were conspiring together, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe they were playing each other.
“They can’t live without each other and they can’t live with each other,” Cori said. “God, this is a nightmare. Before Papa showed me that money I thought we were just a normal dysfunctional family.”
I went to her and took her hands in mine. “We’re going to beat your family back home and we’re going to find the evidence we need to stop this war between your family and the clients. Maybe Galo will do as I asked: find out who the clients are. And I don’t want a war because I think the last time there was disagreement, your brother paid the price.”
“I didn’t think you cared what happened to the family.”
“Cori, I care about you. And I like your brother. And I frankly don’t want to see anyone else die.” I went back to the window, looked out over Old San Juan and the cruise ships. Hordes of passengers were drifting back to the docks, perhaps unsettled by the report of a shooting in the quarter. Families, mostly. Families, sticking together. “Shooting Marianne makes no sense to me. She’d delivered the message, they’d heard it. It put them all at risk.”
“Zhanna must have done it out of anger. Maybe that’s why the clients don’t want her. Too unpredictable. Too hot-headed.”
“Your father made reference to having protected her. I think he means took care of her, right?”
“I suppose.”
She lay down on the bed as I watched her over my shoulder. “Are you in pain?” she asked. “You haven’t had painkillers today. I thought the soreness would be worse the second day.”
I did feel like a giant bruise. “I’m okay.”
“You should rest. Let me check your bandages.”
“They’re okay.”
“Sam, please.”
I sloughed off my shirt and she took off the bandages from this morning and cleaned my wounds. Her touch was gentle. “You’re flinching.”
I was certainly not flinching, and I wondered: Does she want me on the painkillers? Maybe taking a nap? So she can go do something else? I hardly knew who I could trust anymore. I wanted to trust Cordelia so badly.
She changed the bandages—which weren’t so begrimed—and I lay down. The room only had the one bed. She sat on the edge, watching me, then she touched my shoulder. “Sam?” she said softly.
I turned my head toward her and her lips brushed mine. Gently. I raised my head and kissed her for real, the kiss deepening, her small hand sliding behind my head, fingers tangling in my hair. Her mouth was warm against mine, needy, comforting.
Is this a trick? I thought. Because she senses your suspicions, because she wants to know more about your conversation with Galo? Did she want pillow talk?
And then I thought, with shame: What, you sleep with her, you steal her family’s secrets to tear them down and you never let her know your own? She’s trying to escape from a criminal family and what are you? A guy who breaks plenty of laws in the service of good. Are you any better?
Pulling off her blouse, her fingers working the button at my pants.
“Mistake,” she said. “Big mistake.”
“Yes,” I said. We kept kissing. I imagined that we could have met under normal circumstances, through our mutual friend Steve. Like a regular couple. Drinks, dinner, dating, movies, laughter, lovemaking. Not lies and subterfuge and murder and theft. She didn’t even know my real name. I couldn’t use her this way.
“Cori…we shouldn’t…”
“I know what I want,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I want you.” She kissed my hair, my temple, my ear.
But you don’t even know me.
My mouth went to her throat, her fingers to the back of my pants, pushing them down. This changes everything, I thought. It always changes everything. Please don’t let this be a lie.
41
WE WERE QUIET afterward and she didn’t ask me about her brother or her family’s problems. The only question she asked was: “So who do you think the clients are?”
“Your father denies to the public, despite all the rumors and the Lord Caliber talk, that he ran weapons or contraband. But we know he did. That very profitable trade started the business and then he went legit with his cargo. But he still had those old contacts, and they knew they could tear down his real business if they went public with what he’d done.” I went up on my elbow, traced a finger along her lovely throat. “Maybe they forced him to do them the infrequent favor. Some of those warlords and weapons dealers from the past are dead. Others are still in power. Others have ties to governments, to international crime syndicates, to terrorists.”
She shuddered. “Yet he tried to give that ten million to charity. There is still good in Papa.”
“Why would Kent have a list of names tied to your charity on his computer?” I remembered seeing the list.
Her eyes went wide. “He shouldn’t. The charity is separate from the business.”
“I saw it on his system when I broke into his office.”
“I don’t know why.”
“We need to know. They could be using you, Cori, the same way they’re using FastFlex. You could be a legit cover for what they’re doing.”
She shook her head, turned away from me. “Using me.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe there’s a legit reason he has the list. But I doubt.”
“I don’t know how much more I can take,” she said quietly.
“Did your dad ever give you money before? Directly for the charity?”
“No, I mean, he’d have the treasurer from FastFlex write a check and he’d say, ‘Here you go, sweetie.’”
“But he gave it to you,” I said. “He’d physically hand you the check.”
“Yes. Of course. He liked doing that.”
“We need to get back to Miami. If we can get Galo to find who the clients are, we can figure out how they’re using the charity. We’ll let the family think we’re out of town. We’re not.”
She got up and got dressed in silence. No pillow talk, no murmurings in the sleepy, delicious afterwards. It had not been very romantic, and I felt we’d made a mistake.
We were about to head down to the lobby to check out when Magali came back to our room. She looked nervous and scared. “In both cases the payment made after the chip was cashed was sent to two Swiss banks. The accounts are numbered. I wrote them down for you.” She passed me a slip of paper with the numbers. I studied them.
“Thank you.” I handed her the chip I’d taken from Marianne. “Redeem this one.”
“Are you serious?” Cori asked.
I shrugged, thanked Magali again, and she left.
“She wasn’t here to hurt your dad, she was here to talk with him and someone shot her,” I said. “She still gets paid. She won’t want to admit to the clients she got kidnapped by me. Makes her look bad. This might tip in our favor what she tells them.”
“You have an odd sense of honor,” she said.
“I don’t want her coming after me, or you, or anyone else.”
We took a cab to the airport and instead of the passenger terminal we went to the cargo area. Cordelia got us “jump seats” on the FastFlex jet that was flying from Puerto Rico to Miami. Miami was the main FastFlex hub for delivery, and Cori showed them an ID that enabl
ed us to hitch a ride. The equivalent of boarding passes were clipped to us; I felt like they were cargo labels. The plane was comfortable—a few seats, the rest of the fuselage given over to cargo. She sat next to me and leaned against my shoulder. I waited for pillow talk–style questions. But instead she just seemed tired, beaten down by the nightmare of the past two days.
The crew was closed off in the cockpit. The plane took off and arrowed out over the Atlantic. In the cargo netting I could see dozens of boxes with the FastFlex logo and its green-and-red corporate colors, with bar-coded delivery stickers.
“How does air cargo work? I mean, if you had to smuggle something in the system?”
“It’s pretty simple. Each package is scanned as it comes off and on the plane, then scanned and sorted at entry points like Miami. Incoming international cargo and packages have to clear customs—you can hire a customs clearance service to help expedite it; there’s always paperwork—and then they’re sorted for further delivery. Not everything is suited for air cargo. Not everything needs speed. And there are restrictions, of course, on agricultural and biological goods—human remains and so forth.” She looked at me. “But cargo moves fast. They don’t want businesses to be slowed down.”
“So how did they ship the ten million with no one noticing? One big package or several small ones?”
“A package would only be opened if there was strong suspicions about it. An anomaly shows up or something triggers a sensor: detecting a plastic explosive, traces of cocaine, radioactivity, something weird on the X-ray, et cetera.”
Yet somehow the Varelas had built a flaw into their own system. A secret window. They had to have a shipping system that passed government muster and yet allowed smuggling.
I leaned close to her. She continued: “Most of the time smugglers have to go to a lot of trouble, hiding their illicit goods under manifests that look legit or moving illicit goods mixed in with legit goods that are heading to a real address. But if the transporting courier is in on the deal, that makes everything simpler, doesn’t it? Much, much simpler. Hide inside a legit company’s shipment and then cruise it through with a helpful customs clearance agent.”
