by Jeff Abbott
Edwin showed him his mutilated hand. His ear.
“Oh God,” Galo said.
“I’ll give you three days to get your affairs cleaned up,” Edwin said. “Then I’m talking to the police. I’m telling them everything.”
“We can think of a different way…a way that doesn’t ruin the company,” Galo said.
“Eddie,” Cori said. “That could be very dangerous. These are dangerous people.” She looked at me. “My charity…it was a setup, Sam. I think it was a way to cycle money out and money back into this organization, cleaning it. I checked every financial trail I could. I think my dad set it up to help clean money for these people.”
“You see? We’re from a criminal family, Galo, we can’t pretend we’re not,” Edwin said.
“Wait,” Galo pleaded. “Papa is so sick, he can’t go on trial. He can’t bear the shame of all this. We can clean up FastFlex. Give me a chance to do it right. We can close down Cori’s charity, let her start a new one, a real one.”
“Make it all go away?” Cori said, her voice jagged.
Galo tried to nod.
“Stop worrying about Papa and worry about me,” Edwin said. “I can’t forgive him, or you. I can’t, Galo, I can’t.” And for the first time I saw Edwin cry. He hadn’t wept in the jungle, when we were rescued, when we got decent food and new clothes and a warm bed to sleep in, when we came home to Miami, when he saw Galo and Cori. Not a tear. He cried now because his brother stood before him, unwilling to accept the family’s responsibility.
“I’m trying to do what’s right for you, Eddie…” Galo stumbled toward his brother and Edwin let Galo embrace him, but he didn’t hug him back, not at first.
“Then prove it. Bring me Kent,” Edwin said. “Kent is the author of all this, I want him.”
“I will handle Kent,” I said.
“And do what with him?” Edwin asked.
“Make him talk. Force him to expose every player in this,” I said.
“Offer him a deal?” Edwin asked, his voice dripping with anger.
“If that’s what it takes,” Mila said coolly.
“No. He goes down,” Edwin said. “I want him dead for what he’s done.”
“Edwin,” Galo said. “I’ll fix this for you.”
“You can’t fix it, big brother,” Cori said. She turned to me. “Sam. It’s not like you’re safe either. Do you know who we’re up against? People that could do these things—they would think nothing of killing us all. Or your family in Canada. We have to know exactly, and the only person who will tell us is Kent.”
“He’s still here?” Mila said.
“Maybe Kent didn’t run yet because he didn’t want to look guilty with Zhanna’s death. Maybe he had to find help first, someone he could trust to help him run. Maybe he doesn’t know that the prison fell—maybe they didn’t warn him. He could be their fall guy. Maybe they’ve left him out to dry,” I said. “Call your father, Galo.”
He did. He spoke quietly to someone, then hung up. “That was one of the guards. He said a few hours ago Kent left with Papa. He drove them to the office.”
“Call the office.”
He did. He asked for them, listened, hung up. “They’ve not been there,” he said.
“The office is at the airport,” I said. “He’s taken your father.”
“Why?” Cori said.
“Bargaining chip,” I said. “I know where he’s gone. Call your office. Get me on a plane, right now, to San Juan.”
“I’m coming with you,” Edwin, Cori, and Galo said at once.
“No,” I said. “Cori, keep Edwin hidden, keep him out of sight. The two of you can stay here.”
“I’m going with you,” Galo said.
“You’re not. Too dangerous.” And I’m not sure you’re thinking straight about all of this, I thought, but didn’t say.
“You don’t get on a plane without me, Sam,” Galo said. “I’m going.”
I nodded.
Galo’s phone beeped. He looked at the screen then wordlessly handed it to me.
G: Your father’s with me. Don’t worry about him. I’ll let you know where he’s at soon enough. He’ll be fine.
“Insurance,” I said. “Rey’s his insurance.”
65
GALO CHECKED AS we drove to the airport; Kent had flown out, with Rey, on a FastFlex jet three hours ago. Even before the family reunion. He must have known Edwin was back. Did he have someone watching the airport? Was the dark corner he worked for monitoring us? It was done. Mila used Round Table connections to make a more subtle check: Kent hadn’t looted any Varela or FastFlex bank accounts before he took off. He had touched nothing.
He would need money.
And I already knew how he was moving money. The casino chips. He’d paid Ricky that way. He’d paid the unidentified man Cori’s friend Magali said looked a bit like me that way. And he’d tried to bribe Steve Robles that way, sending him a casino chip to stop his digging into the company on Cori’s behalf.
So for money, he might need to go redeem a casino chip. He didn’t know we knew about his system. I’d assumed Ricky had gone to Steve’s at Galo’s command. I’d been wrong. He’d gone looking for the chip, but at Kent’s command.
So the chip money would pass to Kent, either in cash or in a form he could divert to a new account or name. I was thinking the Varelas’ ownership of the casino was simply a way to pass them funds for services rendered for shipping drugged, unconscious prisoners to Nanny’s warm embrace. Someone with their cash could come into the casino and promptly lose a bundle, and the money was instantly clean. But it was also used to pay whoever Kent needed to pay.
We had to wait an hour for Galo to explain he absolutely had to have a plane, for it to be partially unloaded from its cargo, readied, and flight plan filed, and then two hours later we landed in San Juan and hurried to the Gran Fortuna. Galo was a wreck, antsy, sweating, his mouth set.
“Why the casino?” he asked.
I told him about the chip payment system.
“You didn’t send Ricky to Steve Robles’s house,” I said, just to confirm what I already knew.
“No. I didn’t know who Steve was until Cori told me everything, after you were taken.”
I’d made a bad assumption. Ricky had gone to Steve’s, then to his uncle’s restaurant on Calle Ocho. And only then to the Or nightclub. “He was looking for that chip for Kent. Why did you meet with him and Zhanna at the nightclub?”
“Just hanging out; Kent was working late, she was bored.”
“It looked like you and Zhanna were fighting.”
“She said Kent told her Cori hired someone to dig into our business. I didn’t believe her. She wanted to come down hard on Cori and I said no. I told her I was done with her and she slapped me. That happened a lot.” He paused. “You were spying on us?”
“Yes.”
“Be honest with me,” he said. “Are you who you said you are? A guy from Canada who used to be a smuggler?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you were. Is your name really Sam?”
“Yes.”
“Did you come to tear us down?”
“I came to make my friend Steve’s killer pay.”
“That wasn’t me. That was Kent.”
“So you think Kent killed Zhanna, pregnant with his own child, because the clients wanted her dead.”
“Yes.”
I glanced at him. “I think you want to save this family, and I think you knew exactly what she was. She poisoned her own mother. And you knew about it.”
He said nothing, staring out the window.
“I mean, you couldn’t prove it. How could you? You were both teenagers when it happened. And then the clients didn’t want her to be the person they had to rely on for the smuggling. She’d killed her own mother—who wants to work with someone like that, not to mention her mom worked for the clients.”
“She told me once that if I ever married, she’d poiso
n my wife. She…I tried to tell Papa. I think he knew. But he thought she’d freed him from a wife who would spy on him.” He lowered the window and let the cool breeze wash over his face.
“She was pregnant, Galo…”
“I didn’t know that, Sam.” He sounded miserable. “I didn’t know.” Then he cleared his throat. “What are you saying I did, Sam? Say it. Say it out loud.”
“Nothing,” I said after a moment. It’s somehow worse when you realize a person who is decent at heart has done a terrible thing. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“I killed a man to save you and my dad. I killed…” His voice faded. “People said Ricky had done away with people. I never believed them. You don’t want to believe it.” He looked at me. “But I’ll kill Kent if I have to.”
“You let me handle Kent and any of his buddies,” I said.
“I’ve given everything to this family and I didn’t have anything else left to give…” He put his head against the window. “I just wanted her…gone. I wanted all the trouble gone. She’s as bad as Kent. Worse, because we tried to love her, we tried…”
I needed him focused, so I told him to be quiet as we pulled into the Gran Fortuna.
The casino was busy.
“He might have already come here,” Galo said. “Or had someone else cash in a chip. He must have a contact here who would help him. So, we wait for the blind man to come to the casino?”
“He won’t be alone. He’s had Ricky to protect him and be his eyes when he needed him and now Ricky’s gone. So either he’ll have hired help or the dark corners will protect him until he’s paid off.” I turned to face him. “Galo, you got me here, thank you. But you’re not trained for this.”
“It’s not your family he gutted, it’s mine. I’m going, Sam. Sam Whatever-Your-Name-Is.”
I spotted Magali at the casino cashiers’ cage. I went to the desk, Galo following me. “Magali. Hi. Sam. Remember me?”
She didn’t look too pleased to see me. “A blind man with one of those special casino chips? You see him today?” I asked.
She glanced at Galo. “I don’t know…”
“Magali, please,” Galo said. “It’s important. He’s a bad man. He hurt my brother Edwin, he’s hurt our whole family.” He took her hand. “Please.”
“He was here maybe an hour ago.” She checked the computer. “He checked into the hotel.”
“Did he redeem one of those chips we showed you?”
She lowered her voice. “There’s a note here for the supervisors…He tried to, but there wasn’t an amount attached yet to the number. I’m supposed to call him when the account is…filled.”
“And who can fill that? Omega Investments?” It was a payoff from his bosses, I thought. Money to go vanish.
She nodded.
“Can you see if the account tied to his chip has been funded yet?”
She did. “It has. Five minutes ago. I can lose my job for this, Galo…”
“You don’t want to keep working here. My family’s going to sell our shares, very soon. We’ll get you another job, Magali, a better one.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Call him and tell him the number’s funded. How much is it?”
“Ten million,” she said, tense. I suspected if it was the same ten million ransomed for Eddie, put into trust for such a rainy day as this one.
“Call him.”
Kent didn’t come to the casino cage and flash the chip. Five minutes later another man did. We stood behind a column on the other side of the casino, where we could see the cage. Magali glanced our way, stifled a cough. The man was thin and lanky and I thought of the tall man in big sunglasses at Ricky’s grandfather’s restaurant who had questioned me in his mediocre Russian.
I ran to the valet stand and waited.
The tall man left the casino cage and walked out into the lobby, heading for the valet’s. My car arrived and I got in, hat and sunglasses on. I drove out onto the street and told Galo on my cell phone to come out the back and get in the car.
He did, and two minutes later the tall man, driving a convertible, left the hotel. I followed.
“Where’s he going?” Galo said.
“Hopefully to Kent,” I said. “So we follow.”
66
THE TALL MAN drove into the countryside, along Highway 22, and at first I thought he was headed toward the Varela house. But he stayed farther south, down Highway 2, heading past the surf mecca of Rincón and into the city of Mayagüez.
I remembered I’d seen an address on Lavrenti Nesterov’s GPS in the rented Yukon he was going to use to move Rey. An address on the southwest side of the island. Maybe this was where the man was headed.
He stopped at a restaurant. It was a pretty day and he left the convertible’s top down.
“Give me your smartphone,” I told Galo as we parked the car. I downloaded an app onto it, a tracker, then muted the phone. Then I put Galo’s number on the same app on my phone. Then I got out of the car and strolled past the convertible, where I tucked the phone underneath its front seat and ambled back to our car.
“Now we don’t have to follow so close,” I told Galo.
The man returned to his car with a bag of to-go food for himself, munching on fries. He carried a bigger bag, which he put in the backseat. We followed, Galo driving, heading south along the coast, me watching the phone’s screen. Finally he stopped, a few miles ahead of us.
We drove along a private road toward what looked like a ruined lighthouse. A steel fence had been chained shut, but we parked the rental car and climbed over the fence.
“I’m leaving the keys under the mat,” I said. “In case we have to run back and leave fast.”
“This is a dangerous stretch of coast here, lots of old lighthouses,” Galo said. “Abandoned property. Kent could hide here for a while, not be noticed. Especially with this guy helping him.”
Mila had given me two guns to bring. I handed one to Galo. He nodded solemnly.
“Do not just start shooting,” I said. “You follow my lead. I will shoot anyone that needs shooting. And the idea is to not shoot anyone at all. You have that for defense, do you understand me?”
He nodded. I also had a pair of handcuffs, courtesy of Mila. I held them up before I put them in my pocket. “This is really what we need Kent in, not a body bag. All right?”
“Yes, Sam, I understand.”
We walked up an unpaved road to a small lighthouse. The convertible was parked next to another car, presumably the one that had brought Rey and Kent here. They hadn’t driven themselves. Which would mean at least one more person to confront.
Other than the cars out front, the lighthouse looked abandoned. It sat close to tall limestone cliffs and below us—far below us—I could hear the pounding of waves against the cliff.
I gestured Galo back from the door.
I kicked it in. The tall man and Kent Severin were in the room, at a long old wooden table, bent over a laptop. Kent’s laptop was speaking, announcing that the transfer of files was forty percent complete. Rey Varela sat, head bent, staring down at the table. He looked terrible. Another man stood on the opposite side of the room, short and stocky, and he went for his gun.
I shot him in the hand, and he fell, screaming, bloodied.
“Hands up,” I said. “Slowly, gently.”
“Sam,” Kent said. “You never disappoint.” He wore an immaculate suit and he had his hand across the lapel, as if posing for an old picture.
“Don’t make me repeat myself,” I said.
They raised their hands, except for Rey, who didn’t look at us.
“I’m not armed,” Kent said calmly. “Neither is my colleague.”
I wanted to confirm that, but I wanted Rey and Galo out of there. “Get your dad,” I told Galo.
“Papa, come here,” Galo said quietly. Rey ignored him, lost in his own world, humming.
“Move away from him,” I told the wounded man, who kicked
himself along the floor back into a corner.
“You’ve won, Sam,” Kent said.
I’d promised myself in the shipment crate that I’d make him pay, that the last sound on earth he’d hear was my voice. But I needed him alive. I needed him talking. “Galo. Get your dad.”
“Kent,” Galo said, “I have something to tell you.”
Kent said, “I hope it’s a confession.”
“We have Edwin back, you piece of—”
“Galo,” I said. “Remember why we’re here. Get your dad.”
Galo shut his mouth. He stepped forward and he took his father’s arm. Rey lifted his head but stayed seated.
“Eddie’s alive, Papa,” Galo said. “I’m going to take you to see him.”
“They’re lying, Rey. Galo and Sam killed Eddie. Just like they killed Zhanna,” Kent said, his voice sounding like a snake slithering through grass. Rey stood, pulled away from Galo, stumbling backward, and Rey was between us and Kent and his man.
“You don’t touch me,” Rey said.
“Here’s the deal,” Kent said “Leave. I’ll let Rey go in a while. And I don’t tell the world that Galo killed Zhanna.”
He knew it. Galo’s face crimsoned.
“Here’s the deal. Tell me who you work for and I don’t shoot you right this second,” I said.
Kent smiled. “For so long I worked for my dear old dad here. And then I worked for the people who owned dear old dad. And currently, I’m self-employed. Do you want a résumé?”
Dear old dad. A little shockwave moved through the room.
“That’s a lie!” Galo screamed.
“Don’t you think all the times he spent flying in distant ports of call he might have gotten bored?” Kent said, his voice like a knife. “Maybe Lord Caliber left more behind than weapons and contraband.”
“He would have told us…it’s a lie,” Galo said.
“How do you know he knew?” Kent said.
“He’s playing you,” I said to Galo. “Ignore him.”
Galo’s hand, holding the gun, trembled.
“Who do you work for?” I repeated. I looked at the tall man and the wounded man. “CIA? Black ops? Private firm? What?”
