by Gale Borger
The plane took off and we all breathed a little easier. We made plans to return to Sam's house, rest, clean up, and take the samples of the new Corys to Sam's lab in the Tambopata Reserve in Peru. Evo made a call to the owner of Site 151. President and CEO Ramon Enrique Maldonado-Nunez himself answered the phone.
We tried to listen in on the conversation, but couldn't understand much. I became bored and pulled out the digital camera to look at the pictures I'd taken at the mine. When I got to those of the entrance, I brought the camera to where Evo sat talking with his boss. He distractedly looked my way and I held up a finger. He asked Nunez to hold on and said, "Not now, Buzz, let me finish this conversation."
"But Evo, look at these men. Do you know any of them?"
"In a minute."
"No, now! Evo looked at the screen." He glanced at the camera and stopped talking. He hit the zoom and his eyes widened. If his quick indrawn breath wasn't a dead giveaway, when he snatched the camera out of my hand told me I'd hit the nail on the head.
He barked into the phone, "Mr. Nunez. The mine I told you about. According to the American federal agent, the coordinates put it on land you own. I have in my hand a picture taken of the entrance to the mine, and Hector Chavez is standing in a hard hat issuing orders. Yes, sir, I am sure. Yes, sir, I'll meet you when we touchdown in–" Evo looked up at Armand who held up two fingers and a fist. "In twenty minutes, sir." Yes, sir, I understand. You be careful as well. Good bye."
Evo dropped the phone and leaned his head back on the cushion, exhausted from his efforts. "Everyone, listen. I think I figured out part of the story here. Let me see if you agree. It looks as though my immediate boss, Hector Chavez is running an illegal mining operation on land owned by Nunez Oil. It would seem to me that if Nunez knows nothing of this mine, Chavez must have been pocketing the profits as well." He absently clicked through the pictures in the camera. "What I don't understand is why, and on what is he spending his money?"
Evo froze and stared at the screen on the camera. He held out a hand toward Sam and whispered, "Samón, look at this."
Sam took his hand. "Evo, what could possibly induce you to call me by my real name?" She smiled as she sat next to him.
Evo held up the camera, and in only a split second, Sam cried, "Oh, my God! Fred, look–what do you see?" Sam held out the camera to Fred.
"I see a bunch of guys in hard hats–holy cow, is that Hank?"
"Hank MacRone?" I knew the answer before I asked the question.
"Hank MacRone," Evo sighed.
Armand took the camera out of Sam's hands. "Who is Hank MacRone?"
"A fish expert from America," I said. "The kind of fish we just took out of the poisoned lagoon." I studied the picture. "Mines, fish, money, poison. How are they connected?"
Evo suddenly made a grab for the phone. He winced when his stitches pulled. "Oh my God! I have to call Tony. He might be in danger!
I picked up my phone and punched in the number to Fred's house. "Oh Lord, Alfredo and Luis might be in danger too. Wait! Oh my God, I think–they already are! Their car blew up at Great America, they were almost run over at the bank, and Lord knows what else has happened since we left. I have to call J.J."
Fred shook her head. "But, Buzz, those were accidents, weren't they?"
"I'm not so sure." I clicked off and punched in J.J.'s number.
"Sheriff Green."
"J.J. Buzz."
"Hey, how's my baby? Boy do I miss you."
"Yeah, I know, I miss you too, and I'm not your baby. Listen, Green, it's not going so well down here. Evo's shot and his boss is corrupt." I heard him moan, but I forged ahead. "Hank the fish guy is in cahoots with Evo's corrupt boss. We don't know the connection yet, but it sure looks fishy."
"I think this whole thing is totally fishy if you ask me. Come home, Buzz, let the Feds take care of them. Being an American down there in the middle of something like this is not a good idea. Think about Fred. Do you want her in the middle of everything?"
"Don't play that card, Green; you know I can't get out now. As to Fred, she's holding her own, and there's no way she'd come home now except kicking and screaming. Work with me here, pal."
"Okay, but tell me everything, and then I want to talk to Evo."
"Listen J.J., I'm putting you on speakerphone so we can all talk. You need to put one of your guys on Alfredo, Luis, and Tony. Just park Moe, or you, or FBI Bob in Fred's house and inform those guys they're probably in danger, and by all means, don't let those new friends Tom and Mark near them."
"You think maybe those guys are involved in this?"
I explained my theory about the alleged "accidents" happening to Luis and Alfredo and how their new friends were always around when someone died.
"Wow."
"Yeah, not only that, what if they send the big guns to finish the job?"
"Yeah, okay I'll get Bob to cover the house and I'll get one of my other guys to cover Fred's pet shop. I'll personally drive them to and from the shop. Can any of you think of anything else I can do at this time?"
Evo leaned forward so he could be heard. "Yeah, J.J. would you see if Al can hack into some government records down here and check out a man named Hector Chavez? I would, except they blew up my computer." He gave J.J. Chavez's pertinent information.
Fred piped up. "She can use my computer in the den. That way she'll be right there at my house the next time we call."
I added, "Got all that J.J.?"
"Sure, Buzz, but I want you home soon. Now would be good, but I'll settle for as soon as you can."
My cheeks burned and a pool of warmth settled somewhere beneath my rib cage. Slow down, Miller, he didn't mean you as an individual, he meant all of us. "Deal. It seems pretty weird that Hank would be involved with a guy like Chavez, but if he is, and those Endlers have oddball plant material not endemic to that area, I want to know how we can pin-point the location. It looks as though Hank might have discovered a new species of Cory catfish and used the Endlers as a cover crop. We might have a case of 'The Fishy Fishologist Finagling the Find.'"
"Aside from the lousy alliteration, Buzz, are you saying Hank might have placed those fish in the lagoon? What the heck is he doing up by the illegal mine?"
"In all likelihood, the same thing as us, following the poison. Maybe Hank is pissed that Chavez killed off his fish. Maybe they're in cahoots over the ore from the mine. Maybe he just stumbled on the mine and got caught."
The plane. "Listen, J.J., we're approaching Lima's airport. I'll call you later."
"Is everyone still listening?"
I looked at Sam, Evo, Armand, and Fred gathered around the open mike all shaking their heads.
I folded my arms and said smugly, "Why? Did you have something else to say to me?"
"Yeah, Miller. Come home to me." At my sharp indrawn breath, he added, "And I, uh, I also wanted to tell you that…"
"Stop! I lied. Everyone is still listening." I grabbed for the phone, but before I could get my hands on it, Fred snatched it up and held it out of my reach.
"I was just going to tell you the dogs are doing fine, but Wes knocked over the clothes hamper and made mincemeat out of your potato shirt. What's up? What did you think I was going to say with all those people listening in?"
"How did you–?"
"I know you, remember?"
"I remember. See you later, Turkey Butt." I rang off.
I made a show of stuffing the phone in my pants and hooking my seatbelt. My face glowed red-hot and I could feel the gaze of Fred's beady little eyes boring into the back of my head. No one said a word as they buckled in, and landed with no mishaps. We gathered up the duffel and our equipment. Armand must have made another phone call, because another black SUV complete with silent men in black suits boarded the plane and off-loaded Evo, who complained about everything from his stitches to his empty belly. Sam shoved a pretzel rod in his mouth and told him to stop whining. His eyes bugged out of his head, but he shut his mouth long en
ough to be carried off the plane.
A limo pulled up and Armand dismissed the driver, who joined the Men in Black as they sped off to parts unknown. We stared at Armand as he dragged himself to the limo, but he shrugged his shoulders. "I might as well drive; we don't want any people we do not know added into our already complex equation. Who knows who they could be working for." Whistling, he proceeded to sling gear into the back.
The drive to Sam's house lulled all but Armand and me to sleep. When he pulled quietly to the curb, he signaled that I come with him to check out the house. "Want to help me make sure no uninvited guests are in there drinkin' our Kool-Aid? They left a light on for us."
"The lights were out when we left, Armand."
"I hear you, pal. We going in together, or do you want to take coverage on the rear of the house?"
"Together," I said. "That way if someone crashed our party, we'll run his ass out the back door. At this point, I don't care who it is, I just want them gone."
"Let's go then, Buzz."
Drawing my weapon, I moved in close behind him. He tried the front door, but it was locked. He used Sam's key and I heard a soft snick as the lock slid open. I stayed low and we entered quickly, checking the corners, and anything with a door. We got to the kitchen door and saw the light under the jamb. I jumped across to the other side of the doorway and waited for a signal from Armand.
He rose to his feet and I stayed low. He made eye contact with me and held up one finger. I began to sweat and my stomach tightened. He held up the second finger and we both took deep breaths and focused. My muscles bunched as I prepared to jump through the door. Armand began to raise the third finger and I couldn't believe what happened next.
26
The kitchen door flew open and smacked Armand full in the face. Blood spurted out of his nose and he howled in pain. I jumped up just as a tall figure rushed through the door right into my gun. I grabbed a fistful of shirt collar and jammed the barrel under his chin. Yanking his face down to about an inch from mine I growled, "Breathe wrong, asshole, and I'll blow your tongue through the top of your head." I twisted and the man flipped over my hip and landed with a whoosh face up with the muzzle of my weapon in his throat.
"Gawk, aaack–mumph." The intruder's eyes rolled back and his head slowly sunk to the floor. I followed him down, still holding his collar and pressing the gun against his lower jaw. He was either really, really scared or I held him a bit too tight, because he quietly passed out at my feet. I stuffed the gun into the back of my jeans and flipped him over. I tore the shoelace out of my left tennis shoe. I made a loop in one end and cranked his wrists together before wrapping the lace around both.
Sam must have heard the commotion and jumped through the front door holding one of the machine guns we'd taken from the bad guys in the jungle. Her eyes were like saucers and she bared her teeth.
She yelled in a voice about two octaves above middle-C, "Don't anybody move or I'll shoot!"
Standing with my foot between the shoulder blades of the passed out guy on the floor I asked, "Wasn't that a line from an old James Cagney movie?"
Sam lowered the weapon and shrugged. "It was the only thing I could think of at the time."
"Good job, Sam. Uh, would you mind giving me a hand here?"
She placed the gun on the floor and scraped the hair out of her eyes. "Sure, what do you need? Say, Buzz, who is that under your foot?"
I looked down and realized I still had my foot between the shoulder blades of the guy on the floor. "I don't know, but Armand needs an ice pack and I need rope or something so I can tie him up right." I gestured with my gun to the now moaning man on the floor.
"By doze isss broke," Armand wailed.
Sam sprang into action and hopped over my prisoner into the kitchen. I took that moment to pat down our new bad guy for weapons. I pulled him into a sitting position and dragged him out of the doorway by the collar. I propped him against the wall and held the gun on him.
I noticed he was at least a well-dressed bad guy. He had on and a nice yellow golf shirt tucked into a new pair of straight-legged jeans. His western boots were gator and his watch a Rolex. I began to get an uneasy feeling about the identity of our perpetrator when Sam rushed through the kitchen door with a bag of frozen peas, a towel, and an extension cord.
She tossed me the extension cord and tended to poor broken-nose Armand. Fred came staggering through the door under the arm of Evo. He leaned heavily on her and never said a word. Pain etched heavily on his face, my heart went out to him. Fred lowered him into a leather recliner and turned to face me. She stood there puffing like a racehorse.
I struggled to tie up our bad guy and yelled, "Hey, Fred, give me a hand with this guy, would you?"
She looked behind her hoping, I guess, that I was talking to someone else. Seeing no one, she stumbled over to the kitchen door. We lifted our prisoner onto a spindle-backed chair and I ripped off the shoelace and pulled his hands through the slats. I tied his hands off the best I could with the extension cord, and then ran it around the front of the chair and Fred tied his feet to the legs. He seemed to be coming around, but he took his sweet time doing it. What a pansy.
Fred rushed over to help Sam with Armand, so I checked on Evo. His eyes were still closed but his breathing was slowing to normal. I picked up throw pillows and tucked them around his bad side. Fred and Sam took Armand into the kitchen to clean him up, and I sat across from Evo and waited for him to get past the pain.
He finally opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. "Are we at Sam's? Where is everyone?"
"We're at Sam's, but uh, Armand had a slight mishap. Sam and Fred are patching him up in the kitchen. On the brighter side, we caught ourselves a bad guy." I pointed to the man in the chair.
Evo looked over toward the man in the chair. If he could have paled further, he would have. He became agitated and is mouth dropped open. "Oh-oh-n-no! Noo…n-n-noon…noon, was all that came out.
I looked at my watch. "Boy, you have been out of it, Evo. It's way past noon. It's almost seven p.m.!"
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and I began to become alarmed as Evo began hyperventilating and struggled to get up. "No! No! Noon (pant, pant) noo…noo (pant) Nez!"
At this point I knew I needed help holding him down. A blood spot appeared on his bandage. "Sam, could you come out here please? Evo is ranting and I don't understand."
Sam walked into the room, followed by Fred and Armand sporting a bag of frozen peas on his nose. "Ranting?"
"What was he saying?"
"The last thing he said was no, no, noo, nez."
Evo struggled to pull the pillows from under his injured arm. The man in the chair began to come to. I tried to calm Evo, and Sam took his face into her hands. "Evo, what is no, no, noo-nez?"
She straightened and looked at the guy in the chair. "No, no, noo-nez. No no noonez Oh my God, Buzz! He's saying Nunez. The guy you almost killed over there must be Evo's boss, Ramon Enrique Maldonado Nunez."
Evo rolled his eyes and flopped back in the recliner. He winced as his wound sang.
Sam and I stared in silence as Mr. Nunez, owner of half of Peru or something equally big, opened his eyes. We scrambled over to the chair and clawed at the extension cord, untying the knots currently cutting off the circulation above Nunez's gold Rolex.
"Take anything you want, but please don't hurt me," he mumbled.
I had a great idea. "Sam," I whispered. "Maybe he won't remember that I was the one with the gun to his head. Maybe he'll think we saved him from burglars."
Sam looked skeptical as she used her teeth on a particularly obstinate knot. "I on't oh." She spit out the extension cord. "I don't know, Buzz. He probably saw you. We should just fess up and apologize. He'll understand. Right?"
I dropped the cord. "I think I just got Evo fired and I'm going to spend the rest of my short life in a dirt floor prison cell with tarantulas and an anaconda for company, that's what I think! I'll never see my dogs again. M
aybe if I hide, you can say you didn't know me. I ran in and ran out."
"Oh, just shut up and get the man untied," Fred said.
I looked up and Mr. Nunez's face was inches from mine. His eyes were wide open and he said, "Al Capone, I presume?"
I freed his wrists and he rubbed them vigorously. "Buzz Miller, sir. I would like to say that I am truly sorry for mistaking you for a burglar, but we've not had much luck with good will from our fellow man lately."
Maldonado-Nunez raised a brow. "I could see that when I caught a glimpse of Evo's office. I then went to his apartment and saw the same type of damage. I came here next. The back door wasn't locked so I made myself at home and brewed a pot of coffee. My decision to wait for Dr. Fernandini seems not to be one of my better ideas. Never once did I think I would cause so much mayhem. Please accept my apologies, Ms. Miller, Dr. Fernandini, and you as well, Dr. Castillo. I only wanted to help in any way I could."
Fred stood in the kitchen doorway and patted him on the shoulder. "You made coffee, Mr. Nunez. That helps a lot. Thank you." She brought out mugs for everyone and we settled on the sofas and chairs. Sam sat on the arm of Evo's recliner, fussing with his shoulder.
"Now, first things first. My name is Ramon, and that is what I expect to be called." He looked at Fred. "And the Angel of Mercy?"
"Fred Miller, sir. I'm pleased to meet you." She handed him a mug and his eyes followed her across the room.
As he caught himself, he jerked his eyes back to Sam. "Dr. Fernandini, or may I have the honor of calling you Samón?"
"I am just plain old Sam to my friends, sir." She clasped his hand warmly in hers.
"Never plain and certainly not old, my dear, but I will call you, Sam." He raised her hand and kissed it.
I thought Evo felt bad pain or something, as he made a sound like a steam engine bleeding its lines, and almost came up out of his recliner. Sam pulled him back down and sat on his hand. Oh. I thought. I get it now. Evo was jealous. He was marking his territory, and Sam somehow knew it.
