by Steve Richer
“Can you control it? Can you have intelligent conversations most of the time?”
Hewitt’s face clouded with indignation.
“I was just on a bloody surfboard, wasn’t I? Last pleasure I have left after being retired, drunk, and divorced. Of course I can hold conversations. The intelligent part depends on the person I’m with.”
Now it was Preston’s turn to chuckle.
“Mercenary job in Africa. I need a right-hand man who knows the continent, the intelligence business, and a few old-school tricks. It pays a million dollars. Are you interested?”
For the first time, Hewitt looked at Preston seriously. That was some significant money and Preston hadn’t reached this figure lightly. He was prepared to pay that amount to the two people who would act as his assistants through this whole affair. It was the only way to ensure loyalty and efficiency.
“Who told you about me?” Hewitt asked soberly.
“I have contacts with private contractors.”
“This is genuine?”
“I know the military but I need someone knowledgeable in politics. Are you that guy?”
Hewitt looked away. He wasn’t primarily thinking about the money but about its implications. Someone who was willing to pay that much for his services had to be serious. Would he be up to the task? There was only one way to find out.
“I guess I can pencil you in between morning waves and afternoon tea,” he said with a smile.
“Wonderful. Now can you tell me where the toilets are?”
A newly rich man, Hewitt wondered if he should tell him the truth, let him know that the closest facilities were port-a-potties all the way at Emma Wood State Beach, about four miles away. Rich people could afford having fun.
Chapter 8
The tallest building in Long Beach was One World Trade Center, located on West Ocean Boulevard. The glass and granite affair rose 30 floors above ground and it served as federal building for all US government offices in the area. It was just a few blocks away from the Port of Long Beach and the Pacific Ocean. All in all, it wasn’t a bad place to work.
Up on the seventh floor was the Office of Investigations of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement which was normally abbreviated ICE. It was a mouthful and Jasmine Needham enjoyed using every one of those syllables. It made it seem more important than simply resorting to a breezy acronym.
She didn’t rate an office yet. She had a small cubicle but she treated it as an office. Every file and manual was aligned, all the pens were squared away, and there wasn’t one dust particle in sight. She was proud to have the most organized cubicle on the floor when it seemed like the other employees took pride in their own state of disarray.
For her part, she was a reflection of her work space. She was the best ICE special agent in Los Angeles. She was the first in the office in the morning and the last to leave at night. One day, she was convinced, she would get a proper office and hopefully one that said Special Agent in Charge on the door.
Jasmine was four months away from turning 30 and she’d been with ICE since graduating from Rutgers University eight years ago. Law enforcement had been deemed a peculiar career choice for someone as bright as she was.
One professor had told her she wouldn’t have a problem getting into Harvard Law, that he would write her a glowing recommendation.
There were two reasons she wasn’t interested in going down that path. First, she wasn’t as bookish as she appeared; she needed the challenge of fieldwork. Second, she didn’t trust herself to be the best student in law school and she refused to undertake anything at which she wouldn’t be the best.
This was also the reason why she wasn’t with the FBI. Anybody who wanted to become a federal agent applied with the FBI. The organization’s prestige and track record attracted the best and the most ambitious.
Working for the FBI would have been much more cutthroat and there was no guarantee she would come out on top. She had therefore deliberately joined ICE, the second-largest federal law enforcement agency. It was better to be a big fish in a small pond.
ICE had been formed following the September 11 attacks by grouping together the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Protective Service, and the investigative and intelligence resources of the United States Customs Service. With 17,000 employees, it was the largest component of the Department of Homeland Security.
Specifically, the Office of Investigations looked into all matters threatening national security from human trafficking to immigration crimes and narcotics violations.
At the moment, she was writing a report about a child pornographer who had smuggled underage prostitutes from Latin America. She was beefing up the section detailing how she had come into contact with the initial informant.
Her shoulder-length hair was blond and her preferred hairdo consisted of buns. She often toyed with the idea of changing colors but always decided not to at the last minute.
Combined with her thick Jersey accent, her hair color prompted the other guys to make assumptions and jokes behind her back. The only thing she hated more than a dumb blonde joke was a dumb blonde laughing at a dumb blonde joke.
She was the opposite of dumb and she strived to be taken seriously which was no small feat in this male-dominated business. She took great pains to make her mark.
She wore business suits which revealed very little skin and her blouses were always starched and properly buttoned up. She knew her fellow agents took it the wrong way. The more unimaginative called her the ICE Queen while the more direct referred to her as the ICE Bitch.
She didn’t mind. She didn’t come to work to fluff up her social life and she would go through anything to rise in the federal government ladder. Then again, maybe that was why she hadn’t had a steady boyfriend in two years.
It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. Eyes on the prize, never let office politics distract you.
A fellow agent, a guy named Joe, appeared over the wall of the cubicle. He was stuffing a jelly doughnut into his mouth and was not especially mindful of the falling crumbs. As zealous as Jasmine was, Joe fell on the other end of the spectrum. He was a slob and she often wondered how he got to keep his job.
“You know,” Joe said. “Your report was probably perfect the first twelve times you wrote it.”
She looked up at the intruder. Just in time, she grabbed a paper tissue and caught a glob of raspberry jelly which was in the process of dripping onto her files.
“God, can you be careful for once, Joe?”
In response, he loudly slurped out excess jelly from the bottom of the doughnut. He then smiled brazenly at his prowess.
“I’m just saying, no one ever reads these things. It’s just a way to cover your ass. Besides, the guy is already in prison.”
“Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”
“There’s a difference between right and perfection.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you?” she fired back.
She watched him as he stuffed the last of the pastry into his mouth. Just then, another – older – face appeared over the cubicle wall.
He was Special Agent in Charge Lifto, the man responsible for all ICE investigations in the greater Los Angeles area. He was in his late 40s and had gotten to his position not with politics but by being an outstanding cop. He was the only one Jasmine admired.
Lifto turned to Joe and said, “Don’t you have national security to preserve or something, Joe?”
Joe nodded guiltily and walked away to his own adjacent cubicle.
“Thank you for that, Mr. Lifto.”
“Leave that report alone, Jasmine. It was perfect the first fifteen times.”
“Just rearranging commas, that’s all.”
“Enough rearranging. You’re already the best agent in this office, I don’t need a saint. Print it out and get your stuff together. I have a new investigation for you.”
She stood up and retrieved her Sig Sauer P229 pistol from a d
rawer, holstering it. Her boss filled her in on the situation and she couldn’t help thinking about acing the investigation, guaranteeing her a job in Washington.
Chapter 9
The crime scene was at the Bonaventure Hotel, in the parking garage. Jasmine had seen the place a dozen times in movies and TV shows but had never personally set foot inside.
The gigantic glass structure made of a cluster of tall cylinders was the largest hotel in LA. Still, she was unimpressed, which wasn’t much of a statement. She had never been impressed by anything in life.
The crime scene perimeter had been established among the parked cars. Yellow Police Line tape kept people at bay and two young LAPD officers were arguing with motorists who wanted to know when they’d be able to drive their car out. She heard a lot of standard lines like “procedure” and “you can take it up with the city”.
Several police officers were walking about and there were also people from the medical examiner’s office even though all that remained of the corpse was a chalk outline. Crime scene investigators were taking pictures and scanning the area for evidence.
Jasmine found an African-American LAPD detective in a beige suit and she could tell he found it edifying to fill in a federal agent on the events that had transpired during the night. She took notes as she listened.
“Subject’s name is Pablo Rodriguez, he had a fake Mexican passport but his fingerprints identify him as being from El Salvador.”
“I wouldn’t have expected the government of El Salvador to provide us with this information this quickly.”
“Actually, we found his prints through IAFIS,” he said, meaning the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the FBI’s database. “As it turns out, our corpse studied with the School of the Americas.”
“The what?”
“Well, to be technical about it, nowadays it’s known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.”
“What is that, a college?”
“It’s a US Army course at Fort Benning, Georgia. They train Latin America special forces, death squads, that sort of thing. Which is why we called you guys at Homeland Security.”
“All right, thank you.”
She took more notes and walked away. She introduced herself to a crime scene woman in white Tyvek coveralls who grudgingly told her about some of the evidence they had collected so far. She also entered that into her notepad.
Seconds later, she was joined by a rather handsome man in his early 40s. He had slightly graying temples but he was otherwise youthful in appearance. He was wearing a blue ATF windbreaker.
“Can I help you?”
“My name is Paul Gervasi, ATF.”
“Jasmine Needham, ICE.”
They shook hands and she forced herself to be nice even though she wasn’t too fond of the man interrupting her analysis of the situation.
“Nice to meet you. I don’t know how thoroughly you’ve been briefed but I wanted to bring to your attention the weapon we found on Rodriguez’s person.”
Jasmine flipped back two pages, checking her notes. She read, “Heckler and Koch MP-7 PDW.”
“That’s right. There were at least two sets of prints on the submachine gun and we’re checking that out as we speak. But more importantly, I was able to trace that weapon to a shipment stolen from the US Army two months ago.”
“I see how the ATF could be concerned.” And then something occurred to her. “Hey, I’m having a little brain flash.”
“About what?”
“It happens sometimes with us blondes. How did they get a hit already on the Rodriguez prints and they don’t have a match on the second set of prints? I mean, we quickly get prints from a guy who was at some secret super school for Central America killers and we don’t have an ID on the second guy yet?”
“First thing I asked,” Gervasi said, approaching his head to hers, making a show of not insulting the LAPD officers who could overhear them.
“And what was their answer?”
“Backlog.”
She rolled her eyes. That figured. Everybody wanted to eliminate crime, stop terrorists, and save the world, but they never had the proper resources to do their job.
“Look,” the man continued. “I don’t know how long you’ve been doing this job but I’ve been on the ATF payroll for 15 years and I know how messy it gets when we get into interagency pissing contests.”
“You want me to give up my investigation?”
She was appalled. How dare he steal the case from under her? She would never get promoted by playing second fiddle to other agents.
But he shook his head as if to clear a misunderstanding. “I was kind of hoping we could investigate this thing together. What do you think?”
“I need the credit,” she demanded.
Gervasi was taken aback by the feistiness in her voice and reacted with a chuckle, which infuriated her.
“We can share.”
She continued to look doubtful. Sharing wasn’t the same thing as stealing, she had to admit. Maybe they could pool resources. She would still get the highest billing as far as her organization was concerned and it could give her points in interagency collaboration. Works well with others, her annual report would read.
She hesitated for a few more seconds and then shook his hand for a second time.
That’s when they both turned to the far end of the parking lot where the LAPD detective was waving his left hand at them, his right clutching a phone to his ear.
“Yo, federal people! We got a match on the second prints.”
Chapter 10
After leaving the beach, Preston followed Hewitt’s Jeep Wrangler to his home in Oxnard where the older man showered, changed, and stored his surfboard. Then it was his turn to follow Preston to North Hollywood where they would spend the rest of the day together, making plans about the toppling of a foreign government.
Preston had not offered to drive the both of them. Obviously, the guy had been at the bottle and that was a gamble. There was a risk that guy would get pulled over and that he would lose his most important asset in this whole operation.
Then again, functional alcoholics were usually good drivers and he didn’t want to antagonize Hewitt by treating him like a baby. But the principal reason was that Preston didn’t want to drive all the way back to Oxnard at the end of the day.
Hewitt had seen the ambivalence in the young man’s eyes and had understood every aspect of his reasoning. He hadn’t climbed to MI6 senior targeting officer by being unobservant. His drinking was a problem, but mostly for his employers.
That was the main reason he had been encouraged to retire from British Intelligence four years ago. It was also the reason why he hadn’t been sought after by the private sector aside from a few inconsequential projects once in a while.
He had taken to drinking right after the first Gulf War when he’d been posted on a dead-end assignment in Kyrgyzstan. His wife blamed him for the unglamorous social scene and became overly friendly with a local shopkeeper.
It occurred to Hewitt that she was doing it to seek attention and he couldn’t even hold her responsible for what was fast becoming a genuine extramarital affair.
Drinking vodka was a way of life in this little corner of the world and he took to it wholeheartedly. At first, it was to blend in and later it was to dull the pain of being cuckolded, of being unable to make her happy.
Being British, he reasoned, unhappiness was almost mandatory and maintaining an even keel was the accepted method of dealing with adultery and misery.
Their marriage lasted another decade and his alcohol intake increased with each silence they uneasily shared. Divorce became inevitable even though his postings in the Middle East, and later Central Africa, somewhat improved his standing within MI6. Still, her leaving him made him even more miserable and his work suffered.
After his retirement, he invested his meager savings and pension into a small California condo. His intention was to brea
k off completely from his former life. He had had enough of cold and rain and was determined to take up surfing, something he’d seen in countless movies and had always wanted to try.
Preston opened the door to his trailer and dropped the bag containing two meatball subs on the dining table and Hewitt joined him seconds later. The young man went into his bedroom where he retrieved the Embry/Brown envelope from his personal safe. He then got two beers from the fridge and returned to sit with Hewitt.
The latter eyed his beer suspiciously and Preston picked up on it.
“Not your brand?”
He didn’t understand the disdain. It wasn’t as if he had offered him some unappetizing Old Milwaukee; this beer was high-quality Samuel Adams Boston Lager he had picked up the night before, judging he could now afford better beer.
“Beer is okay for breakfast, lad. But I suppose it will do in a pinch.”
He shrugged and drained half the bottle while Preston emptied the envelope on the table. He lined up the tourism brochure, the typewritten note, and the $5 million check.
“This is it, all I got from the lawyer,” Preston said as he unwrapped his sandwich and took a large bite.
Hewitt examined the check. “So this is what classy retirement looks like.”
“I’ll get another one just like it after the job is done. I’ll give you half your fee right away and the other half when the job is completed.”
“Obviously. First order of business is to cash that check.”
Hewitt finally put the document down and went after his sub.
“I can’t wait to see my bank clerk’s face when I show up with this.”
“That’s simply not going to happen. We cannot cash this locally.”
Preston’s forehead creased in puzzlement. “Why not?”
“Overthrowing countries is a big gray area in international relations. The first thing you have to do is make sure no one can trace the coup back to you.”
