Blood Lies - 15

by Richard Marcinko

  My next stop was the men’s room at the far end of the hall. It was a hell of a lot fancier than the one downstairs. I thought of putting one of my bugs here—you can learn a lot through toilet talk—but with only three left, I decided to hold off. I rapped on the pipes a few times, then started to leave.

  “Something’s up,” said Mongoose over the radio. “Security just sent a bunch of people around from their little building in the front to the side entrance we used.”

  “Someone coming in?”

  “Could be. I don’t know.”

  “How are things going out there?”

  “Shotgun’s complaining about being hungry. Other than that, we’re looking all right. With all this activity, they’re paying less attention.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Can I hook up the hose?”

  “Give me another ten minutes if you can. Anybody ask about me?”

  “They’re staying pretty far away,” said Mongoose. “Not that I blame them. We smell worse than Shotgun after he does a chili run.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  “Now here we go,” added Mongoose. “Truck pulling up. Going right up to the house. Two of the security dudes are riding the boards.”

  “Delivery?”

  “Looks like it.”

  I went back into the hall, walking deliberately toward the back of the building. I was nearly to the end when a burly guard stepped out from a connecting passage to the right and blocked my path. He took one whiff and nearly fell over.

  “Back,” he told me, waving with his arm. A wire coiled up from beneath his jacket to his ear. “Whew—way back.”

  I shuffled backward to the wall, then watched a pair of guards come out of the passage. They were followed by two more men, who were pushing what turned out to be a safe.

  Talk about hitting the jackpot. Now if only they weren’t all holding shotguns.

  The safe was wheeled into the center of the hall, then in my direction. And what a buffoon I was—I got so close as they came that they actually ran over my foot.

  Almost. I certainly reacted as if they had, collapsing to the ground and muttering every Spanish curse I could think of. I struggled to get my balance—and managed to slip one of the bugs on the very bottom of the safe.

  The guards were not particularly nurturing. They pushed me out of the way with a few kicks. One of them gave me a good swat across the back of my head with the barrel of his shotgun. Fortunately, it caught my skull.

  “You idiot,” said the guard I’d encountered earlier, who ran down the hall from his station. “Get to the shit hole where you belong.”

  There were a few other choice phrases. Meanwhile, the men with the safe continued to an office a few doors away.

  I stumbled to the men’s room to tend to my wounds.

  And to tell Junior to activate the bugs.

  “Are you sure?” he said over the sat phone. “You’re still inside.”

  “We may get the combination, and in the meantime you’ll be tracking where it is, right?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a risk.”

  “Go for it.”

  I put the sat phone back in my pocket and waited. I didn’t have long—maybe three seconds after turning off the phone, an alarm began sounding through the building.

  The bug had been detected.

  VIII

  There’s a major advantage to being a peon, unworthy even of contempt. People don’t think you’re capable of pulling off a clever stunt like bugging the mansion of one of Mexico’s biggest criminals.

  I walked out of the restroom, hand in pocket, fist wrapped around my PK. I contemplated how many shots I would have to take until I reached the office suite at the back of the hall, where I could go out through one of the massive glass windows and join Mongoose and Shotgun. But I was completely ignored. Security had already decided who must have done the deed—the two men wheeling in the safe.

  Or more likely their boss, but he was unknown and inaccessible. They were there for the pummeling.

  Apparently the detection device was limited to the room the safe had just entered. Since the bug was turned on shortly after it went inside, the guard monitoring the system assumed that the bug had been transmitting all along, and was only detected once it went past the threshold. That made sense, given the capabilities of the bugs they were familiar with.

  As soon as they heard the alarm, the men bringing the safe went for their weapons: another natural reaction. This proved to be a mistake as well, since it incriminated them in the eyes of the others. The security people began screaming at them; they screamed back. A pair of shotguns went off in the little room.

  I didn’t catch the rest of the chaos—it seemed like a perfect time to walk calmly to the stairs and go up another flight, to the main floor of the mansion—the second floor, where Narco believed the cash was kept.

  If the building actually was the palace at Versailles, this would have been the level with the fabulous Hall of Mirrors, a supremely ornate room big enough to line three bowling alleys up and still have space for a sports bar or two. What de Sarcena’s version lacked in gold, it made up in silver. The metal twisted around the windows, topped off the molding, and held the massive mirrors at the side in place. The glare was so intense I wished I had sunglasses.

  De Sarcena had taken a few other liberties in creating his version—I’m guessing the chandeliers were from China, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he skimped on the floor tiles, which appeared ceramic rather than marble. But the place wasn’t going to be mistaken for the living room of a double-wide anytime soon.

  The discovery of the bugging device led to a full-scale alert and a lockdown of the estate. But as usual, everyone focused on the threat—the safe and its transporters. Everyone and everything else faded into the woodwork, or plumbing, as the case may be.

  The faux Hall of Mirrors was covered by four video cameras, which gave reasonably good coverage throughout the entire eight thousand or whatever square feet of space. I made note of them, but didn’t bother trying to hide where I was going. Instead, I put on an act, shambling and looking around with a pipe wrench in my hand: the errant sewer expert, lost in a jungle of riches. If anyone was watching, they were getting an Academy Award performance, and would see no reason to intervene.

  The real Hall of Mirrors has two large rooms at either side, the Salon de la Paix and the Salon de la Guerre, aka Salon of Peace and Salon of War. De Sarcena’s house was laid out the same way, except that the room where the Salon de la Paix would have been was used as an office.

  That was my destination. I was mildly surprised but definitely pleased when I found the door unlocked.

  I shambled inside, ignoring the half-dozen safes in front of the bookcases on the far wall as I went to the bathroom, which was located on the wall right of the door. (Another de Sarcena alteration from the original, I might add.) I went to the commode, took off the top, then arranged the water feed hose so that it was just about to come loose; a stray vibration would do it. If I needed a diversion, I could simply stomp my foot and the hose would detach, sending a spray of water upward.

  The next order of business was to locate the video cameras, which surely were watching the room. That wasn’t particularly hard—they were stuffed into the chandelier, an obvious if utilitarian choice.

  The cameras focused on the desk—actually an ornate table—and the safes behind them. While that left plenty of blind spots, it almost meant the coverage on the safes was pretty good. We’d have to beat the video system to get at the safes.

  In the meantime, the video might help. The locks were digital; it would be easy to watch someone open them and get the combination.

  I was almost ready to pack up when I realized that getting into the safes was unnecessary: the bookcases that covered the wall behind the safes as well as most of the two flanking walls were stacked with money.

  The cash wasn’t right out in the open, but it might just as well have been.
Starting about the sixth shelf from the bottom, packets of cash were tucked behind the books. Three-quarters of the room was literally lined with hundred-dollar bills.

  I retreated to the bathroom to formulate a plan. We could, of course, take over the video system and make a second trip. But why take the risk when the money was crying out to be stolen? All I had to do was get around the video cameras.

  The table and a single, leather-upholstered chair were the only pieces of furniture, not counting the safes, in the room. I admire a man who has an uncluttered office. I also admire a man whose office has extremely high ceilings. Not only does this keep the circulating air fresh, but it makes it difficult for video cameras to capture the upper areas of the room. The cameras not only missed the side of the room where the bathroom was, but missed everything over roughly twelve feet high. Which meant they would miss me if I climbed up the bookcases.

  I arranged my toolbox so that it could be seen at the edge of the door, then fiddled with the toilet so the water would run without overflowing. After that, I de-shoed—easier to climb these walls barefoot. I got up on the sink, then with the help of a curtain on the high window, worked my way up the interior corner and around to the first bookcase. Once there, I had a difficult decision to make: euros or dollars.

  I went with the greenbacks. Much more solid currency, especially considering how much of it is owed to China—they’ll never let us default.

  The next big question was how much to take. It didn’t pay to be too greedy in a situation like this; on the other hand, money is money. I settled for five stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Five stacks = fifty thousand smackers.

  Being of a literary bent, naturally I couldn’t help but notice the titles of some of the works around me. A surprising number were in English. Most of these were classics: Gun Bible Digest, Best Shotguns of the Nineteenth Century, How to Rip-off People Without Even Trying.

  But wouldn’t you know, down on the shelf closest to the door, at eye level when you came in, was a familiar black-spined book with white and baby-blue type.

  Rogue Warrior: Domino Theory.

  And my publisher claims my demographics don’t include the world’s important people.

  There were a few other Rogue titles as well. It almost made me feel bad that I was ripping the poor guy off. Then again, the spines looked a little worn. He’d probably bought those suckers used.

  I filed the information away; maybe my editor could hit de Sarcena up for a blurb on the back of the next Mexican edition.

  Clinging carefully to the shelves, I worked my way back to the bathroom and shimmied to the floor. I got my sneakers on, fixed the toilet, and prepared to move out. I still had work to do: retrieve the first bug I’d planted so it wouldn’t be accidentally discovered, and tap into the video system, which I planned to do in the men’s restroom in the basement.

  I was maybe two steps from the door between the office and the hall when I nearly bowled over a tall, dark-haired woman. She flashed her eyelashes in my direction, wrinkled her nose, then took two steps back.

  Maybe three, actually. The last thing I was doing at the moment was counting.

  I’ve already told you how pretty Melissa Reynolds was. This woman was just as beautiful. And then some. Her hair was brown where Melissa’s was blond. Her neck was ever so slightly slimmer, and her hips just a smidgeon wider. She was taller and older, in the same way that a few years makes wine richer. She had an elegant but businesslike air, which is what happens when you wear a silk suit. Her skirt, not quite as short as those of the women I’d seen on the floor below, was tactfully draped in a way that magnified the gams below it.

  Gams—sometimes the old-fashioned words are best.

  “¿Por qué?” she asked. “Why are you up here?”

  “The pipes were clogged,” I told her, starting past.

  “Halt, you!” shouted someone from down at the other end of the Hall of Mirrors.

  I did what any self-respected septic worker would do at that point; I pretended he wasn’t speaking to me, and started down the hall. This neither fooled him nor impressed him. He put his hands on his hips and stretched out his elbows, a human roadblock. He spread his shoulders to make his unbuttoned coat splay open, revealing the gun in his belt.

  “Phew,” he said loudly. “You stink.”

  “Yes, senor,” I told him. “The sewers always stink.”

  “You are the sewer rat,” he said, as if he were Columbus discovering Cuba. “Why are you up here?”

  “The clog in the line,” I mumbled. “It was a big problem. I think I have it fixed now. The water, she needs to flow downward to push the crap out.”

  He scowled, eyeing me suspiciously. Then he glanced toward the office, no doubt aware that it was filled with money.

  The woman I’d nearly bumped into was standing there.

  “He does stink, doesn’t he?” she told him. “This sewer man—he’s ruining the whole house. It all stinks.”

  The guard nodded, then turned at me and made as if he were going to swat my head.

  “You—get out—go back to the sewage where you belong. Out!”

  I headed for the stairs. I was nearly there when the guard yelled at me again.

  “Wait!” he said. “I will inspect your toolbox.”

  I held it out.

  “Open it,” he demanded. “And show me what is inside.”

  I started pulling my tools out. The money was at the very bottom, and if the guard had been diligent—or interested in anything beyond showing off his power for the beautiful bystander—he would have been able to spot it. But he was only interested in flexing his authority, and after I removed two screwdrivers and a ballpeen hammer—which would have been convenient to hit him with—he waved his hand and told me to leave the tools be.

  But he wasn’t quite done.

  “What do you have in your pockets?” he demanded.

  I had a gun in one pocket, and the video bugging device in the other. Actually, they were the pockets beneath the overalls, but a good pat down would undoubtedly discover them.

  I put my hands inside the shallow exterior pockets and pulled them inside out.

  “Why are you bothering this poor man?” said the woman. “He is just a stupid sewer man. Get rid of him and his smell. Come help me here. I need to get something from the office.”

  The guard didn’t need to be asked twice.

  “Get out of here,” he told me. “Go back to your pit of shit.”

  * * *

  The rest of my op went by quickly and without complications. I recovered the bug, then with the help of a quick diversion in the men’s lavatory—something the idiot sewer man did caused the water to spurt wildly, temporarily blocking the camera’s view—I tapped into the security system. I fixed the water, dried off, and exited the building just as Shotgun and Mongoose were loading back up.

  As you may imagine, Shotgun had made quite a mess of the backyard. Not only had he driven the excavator back and forth over the wide, pebble-strewn walkway (see Versailles), but he’d messed up a good part of the sodded lawn. The security people were preoccupied, but his handiwork did not go completely unappreciated. As we were getting ready to leave, a short, red-faced man came running at our trucks from the back of the property, swinging a rake.

  It was the head gardener.

  “Doesn’t sound like he thinks you did a good job,” said Mongoose over the radio.

  “I can take the excavator off the truck and fix it,” he offered.

  “Maybe next time,” I said.

  I put the truck in gear and started out. As Mongoose followed with the honey wagon, the gardener began banging his rake on the back of the truck.

  Talk about living dangerously.

  About a half mile from the gate, Mongoose and Shotgun started laughing hysterically.

  “Pull over,” said Mongoose over the radio. “Pull over.”

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  I rolled down my window and stuck
my head out, looking back at the pumper. Mongoose pointed toward the estate.

  “Three-two-one,” he said, counting down.

  A second later, there was an explosion at the rear of the cartel leader’s estate. Mongoose had left a charge of plastic explosive in the middle of the septic tank.

  He had also pumped all the crap he’d collected back into the tank before sealing it.

  I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard since I got a look at the homemade porn SEAL Team 6 snatched from Osama’s lair.

  IX

  We were still laughing when we met with Doc and Melissa in Nuevo Casas Grande a few hours later. We’d gotten rid of the trucks, burned all our clothes, and taken about twenty showers apiece.

  We still smelled, judging from the reaction of the bartender when we walked into the bar.

  Doc and Melissa didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms either. We ordered some beers and moved over to a corner of the room. Our smell had one salutatory effect—it kept other patrons away. Not that there were more than a dozen people in the rest of the place. They were all foreigners, Americans, and a pair of men from Scotland, judging from their accents.

  Given the local tourist highlights, they must have all been there on business. And that meant they were doing something with the cartel.

  “I swept the place when I came in,” said Doc, turning over his hand to reveal a bug detector a little smaller than a smart phone. “We can talk.”

  We filled each other in. We were now getting live feeds from de Sarcena’s faux Versailles; Junior was in fact upstairs watching what was going on. De Sarcena was shooting hoops alone in his private gym, part of a massive suite on the north wing of the building that included a bedroom, den, and poolroom.

  “He needs to work on his jump shot,” said Doc.

  Our video surveillance had also picked up a more useful tidbit: de Sarcena was planning a party that evening.

  “Great,” I told Doc.

  “You can’t just walk in there and pretend you’re an invited guest,” said Doc, who knew me well enough to know immediately what I would do. “They’ll have all sorts of questions for you, starting with who the hell you are.”