Once More to Die

by Jim Johnson

  Obfuscation, thought Suzie Q. This proved she was right about the AG US involvement. Or some other high political appointee or even elected official.

  “What was he doing federal time for?” asked Linda.

  “Ah, RICO.”

  Racketeering, thought Suzie Q. She spoke while she thought. “Why is it that a hitman and all those other nasty things he was, ends up in the slammer for RICO?”

  “We should be concentrating on what we’re going to do,” said Doctor Henderson, obviously trying to change the subject.

  Linda smiled openly. Suzie Q knew they had something.

  “If we had a visual on this guy,” said Eisenberg, “we could confirm the partial prints and know who and what we’re dealing with.”

  “We are not dealing with anything,” Suzie Q said with iron authority. “JTF 13 is working an ongoing operation; one, I might add, with a high national security priority.” She was sending a message that what these two clowns wanted wasn’t as important as her mission and that she is in charge and would accept no interference.

  “Ah,” said Dr. Henderson, “the Marshall Service has a Fugitive Joint Task Force in operation to recover this fugitive.”

  “You’re telling us,” Suzie Q said slowly, “that if Atkins is captured, you get first dibs?”

  “Ah, yes, so to speak.”

  “Look,” interrupted Eisenberg. “We just want to work together. We’re all in the same boat, working for the taxpayer.”

  Linda chortled.

  Suzie Q said, “Bull shit.”

  Eisenberg grinned. “Now that we understand each other, shall we proceed?”

  Suzie returned his smile, knowing the battle wasn’t over. “Yes,” she lied, “let us work together then when and if we catch this guy, we can fight over him.” If he lives, she thought. And we don’t even know if we want him—which we didn’t until now.

  Eisenberg held her eyes. “Yes, we seem to agree here.” That told Suzie, in the world of government bureaucrats that he had his own agenda and would do what it would take. Eisenberg glanced at Henderson then back to Suzie Q. Suzie guessed that meant that the political hacks would rather Atkins not come out of this alive. Unfortunately, this might be closer to what she wanted in the end, rather than recapturing Atkins for Eisenberg. Too many people were pissing in the same pot.

  “Proceed, Sandy.” Linda pointed at her attractive assistant and the lights dimmed.

  A security camera digital recording of an airport concourse leapt onto the large screen.

  “Orlando International,” said Sandy. “To one side are the departure gates, the other side, the arrival gates. And, see offset there are a bank of phones.” A laser pointer indicated the areas she was addressing. “This is five minutes before the phone call.” Sandy fast-forwarded the video. “Now, from the lobby, it’s crowded, but you’ll see a man and a woman. She’s pulling a suitcase on wheels after he gives it to her.”

  Suzie Q saw the laser indicate the couple. A big guy. And the girl, they already knew well. The big guy was wearing a hat and sunglasses. Smart, thought Suzie. Not to mention arriving while the crowds were the largest.

  On the screen, they stopped under the giant flight schedule board. The two talked for a moment, then the big guy patted her ass, left and the woman went over near the phones so she could be out of the way. She pulled out a cell phone.

  “That has to be our call,” said Sandy. “Times are exact.”

  “That’s it?” asked Henderson.

  “We just chased the next video down,” Sandy said. “Ms. Landover, shall I show it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Sandy was sharp; she didn’t want to give anything away unless Linda okayed it. Suzie prized loyalty. Suzie decided Sandy needed a great performance report.

  “The best we can see is this shot; we’ve a few of him weaving through crowds and using escalators, but we managed to follow him to the rental car area.” Sandy’s laser pointed to the big guy threading his way to the rental car counter. He usually kept his head down, seemingly aware of the possibility of cameras.

  Once, he looked backwards as if searching for someone, but apparently saw nothing worth his attention. Then he walked out, pocketing paperwork.

  “We just found this. Since we have an exact time, our team will soon determine who rented what car and under what circumstances, what driver’s license, and what credit card.”

  “Good work, Sandy,” said Linda.

  Eisenberg scribbled on his official tablet with his official government pen. He pushed the paper down to Sandy. “Can you call that up?”

  Sandy began typing onto her keyboard and nodded. “Just a sec.”

  “It’s a couple of official photographs, booking photos,” said Eisenberg to the others.

  “So how’d Mister Atkins escape federal custody?” asked Suzie Q coyly.

  Eisenberg shrugged.

  Henderson cleared his throat. “Ah, um, we don’t know.”

  Linda shook her head. “You don’t know how somebody escaped from prison?”

  “Not exactly. One day he was there and the next roll call or head count or whatever they do in the slammer he was nowhere to be found.”

  A mystery indeed, thought Suzie. But not likely germane to this current effort.

  “Got it,” said Sandy.

  “Isolate the shot of him,” said Eisenberg, “looking back over his shoulder, then superimpose the booking photo or put ’em side by side.”

  Sandy clicked and dragged for a moment. “There.”

  “We can check dates later,” said Eisenberg, “but remember this photo is at least twenty years ago.”

  “Hard to tell,” said Linda. “I wish he hadn’t worn the sunglasses and hat.”

  “Look at the line of his jaw,” said Suzie. “The edge of his lips.”

  “Ms. Quantrell?” said Sandy.

  “Yes, Sandy.”

  “I’ll just run a subprogram of facial recognition.”

  “Oh. Good idea.”

  Sandy typed some more and clicked her mouse and scrolled.

  A small word flashed at the bottom of the screen. MATCH.

  “So,” said Suzie, thinking furiously. “Whom was Atkins a hitman for? Whom did he kill? How many did he kill? Why is he now involved? And who the fuck is this Vicar guy?”

  Eisenberg said, “I’ll put out an APB for our guys across the land.”

  Henderson said, “We better add Border Patrol to that APB. They’d be smart to head for the border and disappear.”

  Suzie Q said, “Fine. I trust you all will notify us should something come up?”

  “Yes, certainly,” said Henderson.

  Eisenberg nodded agreement.

  Somehow Suzie Q didn’t believe them.

  Henderson got up to leave.

  “Go ahead, Doctor, I’ll make it back later.” Eisenberg waved.

  Henderson nodded, seemingly distracted.

  Linda and Suzie Q were gathering their stuff when Eisenberg settled back. “Now maybe we can do some business?”

  Linda grimaced and sat back down.

  Suzie saw they’d not fooled the deputy marshal. “Go ahead, Sandy; let’s find out what flight our girl boarded.”

  Linda shook her head. “She didn’t. Go back to the rental counter, Sandy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The shot isolated with Atkins beginning to walk away.

  “She’s just barely in the shot,” Linda said, “over there behind that group of tall college kids.”

  “I see her.” Suzie Q hadn’t caught it, but Linda had. “Follow her,” she told Sandy.

  A few more clicks of the mouse and they watched María Elena walk toward the escalator, the exit for baggage pickup and the parking garage, and points near.

  “So they split up,” said Eisenberg.

  “I dunno,” Linda replied. “Could be a feint, making it look as such. Trying to throw off pursuit.”

  “Why’s she spying on him, then?” asked the marshal.

&n
bsp; Suzie Q said, “Something is going on we can’t understand, Linda. Otherwise he wouldn’t have dropped her at the phone bank.”

  Eisenberg shook his head. “Maybe he didn’t drop her. Maybe he dumped her.”

  Linda smiled. “All them U. S. Marshals ain’t all that stupid, are they?”

  “She’s following him,” said Suzie Q.

  “They went out different exits,” said Linda.

  “Shit,” said Suzie Q.

  “So why was it that he patted her ass?” asked Suzie.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: HER

  Sudden violence. Immediate and overwhelming force. Death and destruction.

  María Elena drove and wondered what tiger she had by the tail. She’d grown up in a paramilitary environment, shielded though she was. And she had gone through some of their training. But nothing she had ever encountered prepared her for this, this enigma that was Tommy Atkins. Big, quiet, lethal. And boy, did she feel good about it right now. Perhaps he was proof that God does in fact exist. Why else would she be here, alive and well, after two episodes of certain death?

  Skirt the border on Interstate 10. El Paso. Las Cruces, Deming, Lordsburg, New Mexico. Arizona. Tucson.

  She sensed he was becoming comfortable with her, trusting her to do most of the driving. She recalled fondly what he said as they drove away from the barrio house in Juan Pablo’s old van. “You done good, Pocahontas.” He’d briefed her on Juan Pablo, the Sonoran assassin, the famous retired gunman. When she asked how he knew all this, he merely shrugged her question off. But she had wondered aloud how he’d found her so quickly. He merely shrugged. “I know my way around,” he told her.

  Her cell phone, still on, was currently en route to Dallas and Chicago on a bus. One day soon, some cleaning guy would find it and put it to good use.

  Tommy would read real books or books on his laptop, occasionally checking traffic. “Highway patrol. It’s more difficult for him to check tags if you’re in traffic when he’s around. He’s gotta watch the traffic and other vehicles and run his radar. Too much for him to do. But if you’re alone and he’s tooling along, he might have nothing to do but run a tag, just for the hell of it. And if you’re in front of somebody else, it’s hard for him to read a tag when he drives by.”

  “Fine. Where are we going?”

  “First to Tucson.”

  “Why?”

  “See a guy.”

  “Why?” She settled in front of an eighteen-wheeler and the cop went around the pack which had built because nobody wanted to speed when a cop was around. Cops had to love that.

  He looked up from his book, now taking her seriously. “I don’t mean to not be forthcoming, I’m just feeling my way.”

  “Tommy, it’s not that I’m ungrateful, I sure am. But…”

  He gave her a shy smile. “We need to go underground for a while and regroup. We need new ID. We need a safe hiding place. We need to think.”

  Was he saying he wanted to be done with her? “You’ve done plenty, Tommy. I don’t want to get you hurt.” Her words were impulsive and she regretted the implication they made.

  “Shit, college girl. I got an investment in you now. A proprietary interest, if you will. I ain’t scheming to run off on your cute ass.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes roamed ahead and checked each of the three mirrors. “Yet my point remains. I’d be long dead without you. But I have no…um…”

  “Cards on the table, María Elena etcetera. I been out of sight for too long. I got my reasons and they’re good ones. I need a project to keep me busy and in the game. I pick you.”

  “Oh.”

  “While your womanly charms are many, it ain’t them neither. I am not one for introspection—in fact, fuck that shit. But, maybe I see something going on needs my attention for a while. And your situation kind of parallels mine: we both need to get under the radar and find out what’s going on. Then take whatever action we can to disengage cleanly.” Something flared in his eyes.

  She could tell he had not clearly articulated what he was thinking even to himself or he would’ve said it more plainly. Some trick of her mind saw and heard the call of distant drums to the warrior. She shook off the feeling. She saw he was uncomfortable and so, too, was she with the conversation. All she knew is she had to stay alive. “My goal is to expose Don Diego. I would see Don Diego dead.” She surprised herself.

  “I concur that he needs to die. It occurs to me that to get you back into society, he needs to be dead bad. But we can’t just get a rifle and pop him long distance. That won’t solve anything.”

  “Yes, Tommy.”

  “We get some ID, hide out for a while until the smoke clears and these feds and gunmen give up, then we surface and take care of business.”

  His “taking care of business” likely means sudden overwhelming violence. Death and destruction.

  “Yes, Tommy.”

  “And do you not forget that we’re married in this endeavor. Sort of like we have no choice. You need me for my, ah, abilities, and I need you to navigate us through this mess.” He colored slightly.

  “Yes, Tommy.” Was he embarrassed at the marriage line? Or the need each other line?

  “Lemme look at the map. Tucson is ahead and I don’t want to Google an address because that leaves an electronic footprint.” No telltale GPS for them.

  “Where did you get all those credit cards? Don’t they run at least a quick double check on you when you sign up?”

  He smiled at her. “Ah, if you have social security number, date and place of birth, stuff like that, it’s easy. I don’t do it myself, just to be safe. I trade info for credit cards and ID. Then, sometimes if I open accounts like you saw in Florida, I put my own money in them. Just to hide it and not use my own name. I traded a guy in Miami some social security numbers and birth dates, etc, for the ID or the credit cards. He does the work with legit info and I share with him.”

  “Where in the world do you get the info? Do you dumpster-dive for it?”

  He looked at her strangely. “I worked in the medical office in prison, college girl. I had access to all the records upon which appeared all the aforementioned information. I recorded it for my own benefit later. Lots of it. Especially the data from dead guys, guys who died in there. Makes it cleaner if they can’t object.”

  “Oh. I wasn’t prying.”

  “Sure you were. Now you know what a badass motherfucker I am.”

  She set her jaw. “Not to me.” But his point settled between them. He was quick with a gun and almost indiscriminate about shooting. Suddenly, she said, “I’m glad I’m on your side.” Unconsciously, she reached over and patted his hand.

  His quick smile told her she’d said the right thing. She thought about her training days in how to negotiate minefields. This was a bit trickier.

  “Sometimes you network,” Tommy said. “There’s a guy in Tucson who can come up with identity documents. I figure we might need a couple of passports, too.”

  “And am I to extrapolate correctly that I found you ensconced as an Everglades hermit because of?”

  “Yeah, that. I sort of failed to get their concurrence about my release from joint federal and state custody.”

  “I think it was preordained. Somebody in the Planning Department up in Heaven was doing their job.” She turned to him and batted her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

  “And, you found me?”

  “Sure I did, Tommy. It was fate.” Her smile was disarming and he shrugged. “An old Cuban proverb says ‘Even a leaf does not flutter on the tree without the will of God.’”

  “Jesus save me.”

  “I hope so; I will pray for it.”

  The guy in Tucson wasn’t happy to see them. He lived in middle class house in a middle class neighborhood quite near the mammoth Davis Monthan Air Force Base. There were children playing in the streets and rocks in the yards and some grass. And lots of flies. María Elena reflected that your basic Everglades mosquitoes could eat these flies al
ive.

  “You are not supposed to come to my house,” he told them.

  Tommy shrugged and handed him a package of money. The guy’s eyes lighted up. Tommy handed him a flash drive. “Money and on the flash drive you’ll find a lot of clean names, numbers, data. I want three full sets of ID for each of us, including electronic passports and those new passport cards you can use for nearby border travel.”

  The guy couldn’t keep his eyes off María Elena. She was wearing a tight tank top. She felt creepy. “Gimme a week. I’ll call you.”

  “We don’t have a phone. We’ll be back in a week.”

  María Elena changed into a more respectable top and he took proper passport photos and they left. She marveled at Tommy for he was always clean shaven, and he didn’t have to shave for the pictures.

  “See,” Tommy told her, “now he’s aware we know where he and his family live. That comes under the column titled ‘insurance’ for us. He’s less likely to give anyone info on us and, conversely, more likely to produce high quality documents.”

  “Good thing you know of people like him.”

  Tommy shrugged. “You can get excellent ID by ordering direct from Chinese websites. Good RFID chips, too. Problem is, in my line of, ah, work, you don’t want to leave an electronic trail. Doubtless the feds have somebody or program monitoring who can break secure transactions and email. If I were them, I’d keep a list and have a computer program to run the names periodically to see what comes up for current or future reference. I don’t want to be included, but I’m jealous all you gotta do is send ’em a credit card payment and picture, and you got new ID. Mail order.”

  Then they found a couple of used bookstores downtown and near the University of Arizona. Tommy bought a couple of hundred books, mostly paperbacks of classics. He simply shrugged at her questioning look.

  “Find me a mall,” María Elena told him. “My wardrobe sucks.”

  Tommy grinned. “To quote me: ‘Vanity, thy name is María Elena.’”

  She favored him with a thawed glare then stuck her tongue out at him.

  Then they went to a grocery store where they bought a great deal of food. “Get what you like and what you’re comfortable with,” he told her. At her further look, he said, “We don’t want to shop anyplace near where we’re going to hole up. No patterns, no trace, no nothing.”