Operation Tropical Affair: A Poppy McVie Adventure (Poppy McVie Series Book 1)

by Kimberli Bindschatel

  He laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “Wow, you are feisty.”

  I had nothing to lose. “Yes, I am.” I ran my hands down his chest to the button on his jeans.

  He shoved the table out of the way. “Let’s wreck this place.”

  I lay in his arms. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “I had to. It’s my job. Even though, obviously,” I sighed, “I’m not very good at it.” I shifted so I could see his eyes. “But it was for the greater good.”

  “Most honorable.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “And you are good at it. I’m just really good at reading people.” He gently stroked my hair. “I used to swindle people for a living.”

  “What? I don’t believe that.”

  “Even if it was legal, that’s what I did.” He pushed himself up on the pillow. “But I wasn’t always like that.”

  I propped myself up on my elbow. “I bet I know one thing for sure; you’ve always liked insects.”

  His grin was laced with nostalgia. “When I was a kid, I loved bugs. My Uncle Frank got me this really cool ant farm for Christmas one year. I’d watch them for hours. Fascinating, you know, how industrious they are. My father hated it, of course. Said it was a waste of time.

  “One day, he was angry because I didn’t have my homework finished or something, I don’t remember. He was always mad at me for something. Anyway, I’ll never forget how he stomped around my room in a rage and knocked it off my dresser. I swear it hovered in mid air, you know that defining moment, and I was helpless to stop it.” He winced at the memory. “It was like time froze, just so I’d have to endure that agony. Then it smashed on the floor and shattered. Sand and dirt flew everywhere. The ants skittered around in circles. They didn’t know which way to go. Their entire world had been destroyed in an instant, shattered to bits. My father stomped his foot right in the center of it, smooshing them to death.”

  “He made it clear. Nothing else mattered but perfect grades. I was going to business school. It wasn’t an option. He didn’t care whether that’s what I wanted to do. My dream of being an entomologist was pointless to him. I couldn’t have hobbies, play sports. Nothing that wasn’t an approved extracurricular activity.” His eyes traveled down my chest. “Girls were most definitely off limits.”

  He paused as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me any more of the story. He turned to look me in the eyes. “Yes, I went to Yale. Got a job in the secondary mortgage market. I was exactly what my father wanted me to be.” He shook his head with disgust. “I was a selfish sonofabitch. I wanted to make money. Lots of it. And I did.”

  “What happened? What changed?”

  “One day, this guy Mark, asked me to go for a walk. We were friends, I guess. As good of friends as two guys in finance can be. He wanted to get out of the office, tell me about an opportunity he didn’t want overheard. Funny part about it was, I’d just bought this new suit, custom tailored. Three grand. Mark shows up in the same suit and gives me crap about finding my own style.

  “Anyway, we walked to the corner of the block. There was this tiny park there, you know, a patch of grass, one tree and a bench. He was telling me about this company that was over leveraged, how he could take over, liquidate, some mom and pop outfit that held a patent of which they didn’t realize the value. We got to the bench and there was a homeless man sitting there feeding the pigeons. Everything he owned in the world was in the bag on the ground next to him, but he was sharing what he had with the pigeons. I don’t know why. The joy of their companionship maybe, maybe to feel like he was helping.”

  His eyes turned glassy with the memory. I didn’t want to interrupt his story. So I waited.

  “Mark wanted to sit on the bench, but he wasn’t going to sit down next to some stinking homeless man—his words—so he walked up to him and told him to move along, get a job. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t acknowledge Mark.”

  He paused again. Closed his eyes.

  “What’d Mark do?” I asked.

  “He kicked a pigeon. Sent it flying into the tree trunk. It flopped around on the ground, its wing broken. The old man looked up at Mark. There was no fear in his eyes. Just pity. Pity for Mark.” He clenched his teeth together and I was sure it was to hold back a tear. “The old man got up. Mark thought it was because he’d intimidated him into leaving. Mark plopped down in the seat without a second thought and starting talking strategy, about a partnership.” He shook his head. “The old man shuffled over to the base of the tree and drove the heel of his boot down on the bird, putting it out of its misery. Then he poked around in his bag and pulled out a spoon and right next to where Mark sat, the old man dug a grave for that bird.”

  “Wow, that’s…” I didn’t know what to say.

  “And I sat there next to him. In the same damn suit.”

  I gave him a moment before I asked, “What’d you do?”

  “I went back to the office, packed up my things, and walked out. I’ve never been back.” He shifted and met my eyes. “I like it much better here. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yeah,” I said and as if he’d been cued, Clyde bounded up the side of the balcony. “You’re in good company.”

  Noah got up and tossed a biscuit to Clyde. While the little visitor crunched away at it, Noah adjusted the pillows we’d piled up on the floor beneath us and eased back into place, his arms around me. “What made you want to be a wildlife cop?”

  “Hold on. You don’t just volunteer at the butterfly garden, do you?”

  He grinned. “Don’t go changing the subject. I asked you a question.”

  “Fine.” I thought of my dad, but I couldn’t go there. Not right now. “I can’t stand to see animals being hurt. And I love being outdoors. I can’t imagine a job in a city, in a cubicle somewhere. It’d be the death of me.”

  “No kidding. Tell me about it.”

  “I just don’t understand how anyone can hurt an animal the way these criminals do and think nothing of it. The horror, the tragedy of it all. It’s mind-boggling. I always wondered how these people can be so heartless. I’m starting to see it’s more about the human capacity for denial. That combined with plain ignorance. I mean, anyone who’s ever had a dog ought to see that animals have feelings. They feel pain.” Clyde finished his biscuit and bounded across the room and jumped up and down at our feet.

  “Did you clean up the crumbs?” Noah said.

  Clyde scurried back and swept the floor with his tiny hand.

  “I’ll get it,” I said and got up for another biscuit. I held it in my hand, wanting Clyde to take it from me. He approached without hesitation, his high-pitched whine as cute as can be. “See, he knows. Instinctively or otherwise, he knows I’m a friend. He’s smarter than we are in some ways.” I clenched my jaw, anger stirring in me. “But humans have the immense capacity to be deceitful. We have better traps, better weapons, better cages.”

  Noah sat up. “So you’re a fed. What are you doing here in Costa Rica?”

  “Not nearly enough,” I said. “But you can help.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “Does Maria know you’re the one who has been targeting her operation?”

  “I don’t know how she would.”

  “Would she recognize you for any other reason? Does she know you’re an activist?”

  He kinda half shook his head. “She might. If she went out of her way to investigate.”

  I nodded. She certainly would have done that. “I have an idea.”

  “Will it save animals?”

  I smiled wide. “We could use the gang, too.”

  “Tell me when.”

  “Tomorrow morning, I’ll be back. We’ll plan our attack.”

  I had all day. After I’d assured Dalton that Maria couldn’t possibly know Noah, not to worry, he left for his morning five-mile run and after that he’d planned a day of sorting through snakes and frogs, then going to play cards again, so he’d probably be late.

  I stopped at the Coco-Cabana, dragge
d Chris out of his bed, and we headed for the tree house.

  “Noah, this is Chris. He’s a friend. Not a cop.”

  Noah shook Chris’s hand. “Coffee’s almost ready,” he said and tromped across the rope bridge.

  Chris raised an eyebrow at me and mouthed the word wow.

  “He’s straight,” I whispered.

  He raised the other eyebrow.

  I grinned. “Very straight.”

  Clyde bounded up the stairs, Isabella not far behind him. “Buenos días,” I said.

  “Buenos días,” she groaned, one eye open.

  “Noah’s coming with coffee,” I told her, which caused a slight uptick in her step.

  Chris and Clyde were making fast friends. Chris held his arm out and Clyde swung on it like a trapeze artist. “He’s so cute,” Chris cooed.

  Jack and Doug arrived, Jack with a bag of doughnuts and Doug carrying a watermelon. Noah came across the bridge with a pot of coffee and three mugs in his hands. “Grab some more mugs,” he said to Jack. “And let’s take this to the picnic table. This old tree house is pretty sturdy”—he winked at me—“but I’m not sure how many people it’ll hold.”

  Matt and Claudia walked up as we plopped everything on the picnic table. “Amanda and Colette will be here soon. Dan and Sierra have to work.”

  The morning sun felt warm on my back. I dug my bare toes into the sand.

  Their hands wrapped around warm mugs of coffee, the others sat down forming a circle around me. “This is going to be dangerous,” I said. “If you don’t want to be involved, I understand. Just say so now.” They each looked around at the others, none of them wanting to bow out. “All right.” I assessed my team, then turned to Chris, Jack, and Doug. “My plan is a bit, well, bold.” I grinned. “I think its time Maria had a little competition. Chris, meet Doug and Jack, your bodyguards.”

  “What do I need bodyguards for?”

  “You’re a wildlife smuggler. A very successful one. And you’re moving in on the competition.”

  Doug piped up. “I’m not trained for that sort of thing.”

  “You’re an actor, right? It’s all for show.” He nodded, the concept slowly settling in.

  “Your first task: go shopping.”

  Chris gave me his yeah-I’m-gay-but-c’mon look. “Seriously?”

  “You need to dress for success.” I turned to Doug and Jack. “You, too. Ex-military, green beret types. Can you do that?”

  They nodded, excited.

  I turned to the rest of the group. “They’ll need a car.”

  Noah jumped to his feet. “This way.” We all followed him into the trees to a structure built with corrugated tin panels. He lifted the latch on a sliding door and pushed it open. “This work?” Parked inside was a shiny new black SUV.

  “Perfect.”

  Doug slapped him on the back. “You’ve been holding out on us, man.”

  “Nice ride, dude,” said Jack.

  Noah turned to Doug. “You drive.”

  “We’ll need the VW, too,” I said.

  Noah shrugged. “Whatever.”

  As we walked back to the beach together, I explained that we’d be visiting some potential buyers. Chris asked, “How will we convince them to leave Maria and buy from me?”

  “Oh, we don’t have to convince them of anything. We go talk to them, about the weather, whatever. As long as we’re seen doing it.”

  “But what if she asks?”

  “She won’t. But if she does, even better. They’ll say we talked about the weather, because we did. Of course, she’ll think they’re lying.”

  “But I don’t see what that does if there isn’t a real threat,” said Jack.

  “The threat doesn’t have to be real. She only has to think that it’s real.”

  We sat back down in the sand. Noah said, “This whole plan depends on your judgement of Maria. That she has people watching, that she’ll act on this. You’re giving her a lot of credit.”

  “She didn't get to be a world-class wildlife trafficker by being stupid.” I looked him in the eye. “And she’s not going to let it go very easily either. That’s our advantage. We know her goal and we know what she’s afraid of. The key is to guide her in the direction we want her to go, without her realizing it. We do what fortunetellers do. We give her the right bits of information and let her connect the dots.”

  He shook his head. I wasn’t sure if he was skeptical or in awe of my great insight.

  I turned to Isabella. She likely had the best information I needed for the other part of my plan. “Have you ever seen Maria come to The Toucan to see Carlos? The woman from the fundraiser?”

  Isabella shook her head.

  “Okay, just tell me what you know about Carlos, everything you know.”

  She made a disgusted face. “I don like heem.”

  Noah answered. “He owns The Toucan, a hangout for tourists who get off the cruise ships, mostly a lunch crowd. All regular deliveries, the food, alcohol, come in the morning, like any other bar. But it’s a front for the smuggling. During the lunch rush, when the place is too busy for anyone to notice, locals show up, delivering boxes to the storeroom, a shed out back, behind the kitchen.”

  “Everyday, the same time?” I asked.

  “During lunch. We figure they’re the poachers. Carlos hangs out back with his right hand man. Whenever a poacher arrives with something to sell, he sends his man into the bar to get cash from the till.”

  “How big is the shed? Big enough to house these animals?”

  He shook his head. “They load them right into the panel truck. Carlos just hangs out back there, smoking all day. At two-thirty, Paco drives away in the van and Carlos empties the till and leaves in his own car.”

  I turned to Isabella. “What about drugs? He running those through the bar?”

  “I don know,” she said. “I never seen no drugs.”

  “So it’s possible they are in one of these mystery boxes, then?”

  Noah said, “We didn’t know there were drugs until you and I—”

  “Right, got it,” I said. Everyone didn’t need to know about our escapade. “So if there are drugs, they’d be in the panel van, headed to wherever the animals are taken.”

  Jack piped up. “We rode the van once. To the shed at the old coffee plantation. That’s how we knew about it.”

  “All right, what about—wait, what do you mean you rode the van?”

  Jack grinned. “We roof surfed. You know, like hood surfing, only on the roof.” He put out his hands like he was balancing on a surf board.

  “You’re kidding right?”

  He stared at me, his brow knit. Like why wouldn’t that be possible?

  Amanda and Colette came walking down the beach, hand in hand. They filled coffee cups and joined us. “What’s going on?” Colette asked.

  Doug held up his mug. “We’re going to kick some wildlife smuggler ass!” he said.

  I thanked them for coming, but my head was still at The Toucan. “Does the van go to the shed at the plantation everyday? Or could there be multiple locations?”

  Noah shrugged. He looked to Jack and Doug. They shrugged. Noah said, “We do know that the van comes back in the evening. They drive down on the dock. Everyday by five. That’s when the shipments go out. Then the empty van gets parked behind The Toucan for the next day.”

  “All right.” To Amanda and Colette, I said. “You two can impersonate drunk college girls, right? You have bikinis?” They nodded. “And Amanda, I have a computer question. We can chat about that in a bit. What we need to know right away is details about the whereabouts of the drugs. We need to know what day they ship. I need surveillance on the shed at the plantation.” I looked at Noah. “It’s not a fun job, but I can’t be seen with you. Will you do it?”

  He nodded and turned to Matt and Claudia, the river guides. “I’ll need your help.”

  “Anything,” they said simultaneously.

  “Make sure you have enough
supplies to camp out up there for a couple days if need be,” I said. “Take your cell phones. Make sure they’re charged and keep them off until you need to contact me. There’s no cell coverage up there. You’ll need to hike out a ways to get service. So as soon as you see the van—wait a minute.” I turned to Isabella. “Did you say Paco? Is there more than one Paco?”

  “I don know.”

  Could it be? Could I be that lucky? Agent García had likely chosen Paco because it was such a common name but—“How long has Paco been with Carlos?”

  Isabella shook her head. Noah, too. Isabella said, “This Paco, I haf seen him around, but only a few month does he get dee money and drive dee ban.”

  “Do you work today?”

  “Sí, everyday at eleven.”

  To Chris, Jack, and Doug, I said, “Get shopping. Be dressed and in character and meet me at The Toucan at noon. Get a table close to an exit.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I had to change my clothes, grab a few things, and, this time, make sure Yipes followed me to where I was going for lunch. I popped into the bungalow and ran into Dalton.

  “There you are,” he said. “I thought you were going up to the cocina for some coffee and you’d be right back.”

  “I went for a walk. What are you doing here? I thought you had frogs to sort.”

  “I’m taking the day off. Gonna spend it with you like we had planned for yesterday. I was just going to call you.”

  Crap. I had to get back to The Toucan. This would blow everything. I had to think. Fast. I smirked. “Yeah, you don’t need to babysit me. I’m behaving.” I made sure he heard the sarcasm and disappointment in my voice. “It’s already getting hot out there. Thought I’d change and go shopping. Yay!” I snatched my khaki shorts and a tank top from my suitcase, waltzed into the bathroom, and shut the door.

  I quickly changed, trying to think of what else I might need so I could grab it and go. I opened the door and Dalton was standing right there, blocking my way.