Final Target

by John Gilstrap

  Jonathan held Emiliano’s gaze for a few seconds longer than was comfortable. The kid had voiced all the right words.

  But, of course, there was no way for him to gauge the man’s sincerity. “Have a good night,” he said.

  * * *

  “Well, isn’t that just friggin’ great,” Boxers said from the driver’s seat.

  The words startled Jonathan, who was surprised, and a little ashamed, that he’d fallen asleep. “Whatcha got, Big Guy?”

  As he drove, Boxers shifted his head from side to side to see the outboard rearview mirrors. “Take a look behind us.”

  Jonathan’s stomach tumbled. He pivoted in his seat to look down the length of the bus. Headlights were growing larger in the windows of the emergency exit. “They’re really close,” he said. “Are they trying to pass?”

  “Wait for it,” Boxers said.

  As if on cue, blue flashing lights joined the high beams of the headlights.

  “Oh, shit,” Dawkins said. For the first time since this adventure’s opening moments, his voice was squeaky and hurried, the sounds of real fear. “What are we going to do?”

  “The first thing we’re not going to do is panic,” Jonathan said. “Get the weapons out of sight.” He laid his M27 across the bench seat he was occupying and shrugged out of his vest. He put the MP7 on top of the stack but left his Colt on his hip. It was the cop’s call whether this would end peacefully or otherwise. If the cop chose poorly, Jonathan needed to be ready for a gunfight.

  “You know my rule, Boss,” Boxers said. He hadn’t yet pulled over. Or even slowed, for that matter, though it was impossible to speed on these roads with so large a vehicle.

  “We’re not being taken into custody tonight,” Jonathan assured. “One way or the other.” Steadying himself with his hands on the seat backs, he made his way up three rows to the driver’s seat. “I’m putting your four-seventeen on the floor behind you.”

  “I’m keeping my sidearm,” Big Guy said.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Mind if I ask you what your play is here? I’d love to hear what your bluff cover story might be.”

  “We can’t play a bluff,” Jonathan said. “We’re going to need to buy ourselves out.”

  “Jesus, how much cash do you guys carry?” Dawkins asked.

  “Enough,” Jonathan said.

  “Suppose the cop is not for sale?” Dawkins’s question triggered a chorus of bitter laughter.

  “You work for DEA, right?” Boxers said. “’Cause that sounds like a question a State Department puke would ask.” Big Guy had a long history of disrespecting those in government who valued peace and happy feelings over blunt reality.

  “So, am I pulling over, Boss?”

  “It’s our only shot,” Jonathan said. “I figure this guy is here for the money. Probably a friend of Emiliano’s.”

  “Where’s the logic in that conclusion?” Dawkins said. His feathers seemed a little singed from being the brunt of their laughter.

  “Because there’s only one cop,” Jonathan said. “The Mexican cops aren’t much on taking risks. If he was after us because he thought we were badasses who’d stolen a bus, and he was going to arrest us, he’d be with lots of friends. The fact that he’s alone tells me that he wants a slice of the pie.”

  “Suppose you’re wrong?” Dawkins pressed. “Suppose he really is here to arrest us?”

  “Then he should have brought lots of friends,” Boxers growled.

  Jonathan let Big Guy’s words settle in. “Like I said,” Jonathan explained, “we’re not going to jail tonight.”

  “So, if you are wrong, what are you going to do, shoot it out with the police?”

  Jonathan saw no need to answer such an obvious question. He turned back to face front and pointed through the windshield. “Find a safe place to pull over,” he said. “Let’s see just how exciting the night is going to be.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Venice sat in her command chair, trying her best to concentrate on the research challenge that Gail had just dumped in her lap, while struggling not to be distracted by Gail’s continuous pacing. She was like a slow slot car, walking a continuous oval around the rectangular conference table.

  “I just don’t know what the next step is,” Gail said. She paused at the window to look out over downtown Fisherman’s Cove, to the degree that such a thing existed, but Venice had the sense that she wasn’t seeing anything.

  Venice pushed herself away from her computer—she wasn’t getting anything done, anyway—and crossed her arms and legs simultaneously. “You need to take a deep breath, Ms. Bonneville. I’ve never seen you this spun up before.”

  “I’m rarely this out of ideas,” Gail said. “So far, all I’ve managed to do is piss off an assassin who’s got my picture. Have you been able to tap into that network?”

  “Not yet,” Venice said. “You’re sure you didn’t see a ‘monitored by’ sign somewhere on the house?”

  “If I did, I don’t remember what it was,” Gail said.

  “Well, logically, I think you’re right that they’re not going to be seeking out help from the police,” Venice said. “So, prosecution is not an issue.”

  “As if breaking and entering would be my biggest worry,” Gail said with a dull, humorless laugh. “Now I just need to worry about a government-backed assassins’ network coming after me.”

  “All right. Let’s break it down to its components,” Venice said. “Let’s take a systems approach to this.” She went back to her keyboard and brought the big screen at the end of the room to life. She opened up a blank document. On it she typed, Senator Charles Clark. “What do we know about the good senator?”

  “We know that he is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

  Venice typed it. Then added, Oversight of DEA.

  “But I don’t think he’s the key player here,” Gail said. “The key player is Marlin Bills, his chief of staff.”

  As she added Bills to the list, Venice said, “Chiefs of staff don’t scratch an itch without express orders from their boss.”

  Gail wondered how everyone but her knew that chiefs of staff were toadies. “And we know that Harold Dawkins, our present precious cargo, believed that there was a mole within the DEA who was clueing in the bad guys. Assuming that Hector Nuñez is telling the truth—and I’m not sure why he wouldn’t—his father, Raúl, hired Security Solutions to rescue Dawkins.”

  Venice’s head came up. “Where would he come up with that kind of money?”

  Gail shrugged. “Maybe the money-laundering business is more lucrative than one would think. There’s also the weight of guilt. Raúl’s the one who got Dawkins kidnapped in the first place.”

  “And why did he do that?” Venice asked.

  “I’m not suggesting that Raúl Nuñez literally called for Dawkins’s kidnapping,” Gail retreated. “Just that Raúl was the one who made Alejandro Azul and the Jungle Tigers aware of Dawkins’s activities.”

  “Which are no different than the activities of any DEA agent. He tries to collect intelligence against bad guys so that he can arrest them.”

  Gail gave her a funny look. “A very fine definition of federal police work. Are you making a point?”

  “I’m trying to,” Venice said. “DEA agents are a dime a dozen. It seems to me that if I run a drug cartel, I understand the costs of doing business—among them the fact that cops of various stripes will try to take me down. It’s what they do. So, why kick the sleeping lion? Why kidnap a federal agent and risk all that backlash?”

  Gail stopped pacing and spun around. “Wait a second,” she said, her eyes wide. “What backlash?”

  “The backlash that comes from—”

  “No, I understand what the backlash should be, but where is it? We’ve heard nothing about this. Not on the news, not via any back channels. When I spoke with Wolverine, even she hadn’t heard of it.”

  Venice felt an idea building. She wa
sn’t sure what it was yet, or where it was going to take her, but it felt important. She went back to her computer screen. “Give me a few minutes,” she said. “Go get a couple of cups of coffee, and let me do what I do best.”

  * * *

  Gail returned to her desk in the Bull Pen—the overt side of Security Solutions—in hopes of getting some work done. Or at least pretending to. She wasn’t sure what Venice was going for, but she’d seen that look in her eyes before, and it almost always meant something important. Gail’s mind was churning a dozen thoughts and concerns all at the same time, and the mental whirlwind made it difficult—impossible, actually—to concentrate on the surveillance report submitted by one of the company’s junior investigators. Something about the comings and goings of a healthy-looking laborer who’d led his insurer to believe that he was disabled. Judging from the extension he got on his golf swing, the reports of infirmity felt overblown. Security Solutions didn’t do a lot of that traditional private investigative work, but it did serve as a good training ground for the younger investigators.

  Forty-five minutes after she’d planted herself at her desk, her phone rang. It was the internal line, and it was Venice. Gail pressed the SPEAKER button. “Already?”

  “I’ve got some good stuff,” Venice said. She sounded delighted.

  Two minutes later, Gail was back in the War Room. She’d helped herself to a seat this time, because she anticipated a lengthy reveal.

  “I decided to follow the money,” Venice said. “It always works. Did you know that? One hundred percent of the time. Watch the screen.”

  Gail pivoted her chair, and the giant screen on the far wall displayed the official Senate photograph of Charles Clark, complete with the carefully draped American flag in the background.

  “Senator Clark makes one hundred seventy-four thousand dollars per year,” Venice said. “His wife makes fifty-one grand at her job, giving them a total of two-twenty-five before taxes. At twenty-eight percent, that leaves them with one-sixty-two after taxes. Not a bad income. Now look at this.”

  The screen changed to a Web site landing page, uncluttered and done in a patriotic red, white, and blue.

  “This is a watchdog site that tracks politicians’ financial disclosures. Take a look at Senator Clark’s reported net worth.”

  Gail leaned in to make sure she was reading the right thing.

  “That’s right,” Venice said before Gail could ask. “That shows the good senator’s net worth to be a negative one hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars.”

  “Well, he is from Nevada,” Gail quipped. “Maybe he should spend less time in Vegas.”

  “Yeah, well, look at this,” Venice said, and the screen turned to what looked to be official records, but Gail didn’t recognize them. “These are from property records from his hometown. He owns a one-point-eight-million-dollar house, he collects cars, and he’s got a forty-three-foot boat.”

  “Who needs a boat in the desert?” Gail asked.

  “Lakes,” Venice said. Apparently, she’d switched off her irony detector. “Anyway, it seems to me that the good senator is living well above his means.”

  “Wife’s money?”

  “Blue-collar background going back three generations. No dowry for her.”

  “There could always be an explanation,” Gail said.

  “I’m not done.” Banking records appeared on the screen. “This is Senator Clark’s account with Bernstein and Eddelston, his investment firm.”

  “How the hell did you get that?”

  Venice gave a coy smile. “Never ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but notice the significant deposits every other month or so. Ten grand here, forty grand there. They average out to twenty-seven-five and change.”

  “What is Essex Holdings?” Gail asked. Each of those large payments came from a company with that name.

  Venice’s smile widened. “Great question.”

  “But you’re not going to answer it, are you?”

  “Not yet.”

  The screen changed to another smiling middle-aged white guy in a dark suit.

  “This is Marlin Bills,” Venice explained. “He’s only slightly richer than God, and he came by his money the Old Country way. He inherited it. He does, however, own a few companies whose purpose in the world is hard to determine.”

  “Let me guess,” Gail tried. “One of them is Essex Holdings.”

  “No.”

  “Damn.”

  “Essex Holdings is owned by Amissville Partnership, which in turn is owned by BillyBob Investments.”

  Gail coughed out a laugh. “BillyBob? Really?”

  “Really. Now, guess who owns BillyBob.”

  Gail hesitated. She hated walking into baited questions. “Marlin Bills.”

  Venice pointed a finger at Gail’s nose. “Bingo.”

  Gail tried to stitch the parts together in her head. “So, when it all settles out through the various players, Marlin Bills is pushing cash to his boss through different cutouts.”

  “Exactly.”

  Gail felt her brain filling up. Perhaps it was the fact that it was nearly midnight on the second day without sleep. “So, where is BillyBob Investments getting the money in the first place?”

  The screen changed again to display the regal logo of a company called Harvard Enterprises.

  “Is that my answer?” Gail asked. “Harvard Enterprises?”

  “Yes. That’s where the money going to BillyBob comes from. So, who owns Harvard Enterprises, you might ask?”

  “Oh, please just tell me.”

  Venice’s smile became a toothy grin. “Sunny Day Food Mart,” she said.

  Gail squinted as her brain jumped. “I know that name,” she said. “Oh! That’s the line of stores owned by Raúl Nuñez, isn’t it?”

  “The one and only.”

  Gail sat back heavily in her chair. “So, does this mean that the money Raúl Nuñez was laundering was making its way to Senator Charles Clark’s pockets?”

  “Smart money says yes.”

  “How do we prove it?”

  Venice’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know,” she said. “What we have couldn’t stand up in court, because of the way we got it.”

  “As always,” Gail agreed. “And I don’t see how this gets me out of the crazy assassins’ crosshairs.”

  With the momentum of the conversation stopped, they fell silent.

  “Mother Hen, Scorpion.” Jonathan’s voice filled the room from the speakers in the wall.

  * * *

  “Go ahead, Scorpion.”

  The school bus’s transmission screamed as Boxers pushed the vehicle to its limits, and a little beyond.

  Jonathan keyed his mike. “Yeah, we have a bit of a problem here. We need to move the schedule up a little.”

  “How far is a little?” Venice asked. The concern in her voice traveled thousands of miles without dilution.

  “As soon as possible,” Jonathan said. A long, aggressive left turn pressed him into the bus’s sheet-metal wall. “I need you to contact Caregiver One on channel three of the drop radio. Deliver the message that we need to trigger the contingency plan. They’ll know what that is.”

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” Venice said.

  “You won’t have to,” Jonathan assured. “Their English is pretty good.”

  “What’s happening, Scorpion?”

  “Not on the radio,” Jonathan said. “The details don’t matter.”

  Jonathan knew that curiosity was killing Venice, but it was too long and too complicated to go into over the air. “Advise Caregiver One that we will be in the position we discussed within an hour and will be waiting. The bad guys know what we’re driving, and they’ll be looking for us. After we wait for an hour, we’re gone. That gives them two hours to get their stuff together. Scorpion out.”

  “I don’t mean to second-guess—” Dawkins said.

  “Then
don’t,” Boxers snapped.

  “It just didn’t look like it went that badly,” Dawkins said.

  Jonathan understood where his PC was coming from, but he didn’t get a vote. Jonathan didn’t like the look in the cop’s face when he’d paid him off. Yes, he took the money, and yes, the bribe was the reason he’d stopped them in the first place. The problem was the look in the guy’s eyes when he took the money. Rather than being shy or grateful—the responses Jonathan had come to expect over the years from graft receivers—this guy had a predatory look about him. Jonathan could almost hear him thinking, I’ll see you again.

  That’s why Digger’s parting words to the cop were, “You don’t want to see me again. Not if you want to live to see tomorrow.” Maybe it was a step too far, but the guy had to know that the game Jonathan was playing could not have been more serious.

  Alejandro Azul would be a fool not to understand the basic underpinnings of their plan, even if the kids didn’t tell him about them. There were only so many roads through the mountains, and only so many routes out of the country. It made no sense to go south—which was why Jonathan would have gone that way if he could have figured out a second step. In fact, the only compass direction that made any sense at all was exactly the direction in which they were going. They still had darkness on their side, but if that cop rang somebody’s bell—and Jonathan had no doubt that he had—then their options were closing down fast.

  “You should have shot his ass,” Boxers said just loudly enough for Jonathan to hear. “That would have kept him quiet.”

  “He was a flatfoot doing his job,” Jonathan said. “He never threatened to draw down on me.”

  “He didn’t have to,” Big Guy said. “Not when he can kill you by proxy.”

  CHAPTER 29

  What was that?

  Tomás had finally drifted off to sleep, if that’s what you would call the weird, restless non-world he’d gone to in his head. Then he thought for sure he’d heard a raspy female voice saying something in English.

  “Caregiver One, this is Mother Hen. Come in, please.”

  That was it! The radio. And the tone of the caller’s voice sounded aggravated, as if she was tired of being ignored. Tomás sat up.