by M C Rowley
Jean reached Jairo and pulled the blindfold off him and went about cutting the ties on his arms behind the chair. Jairo got up as soon as the last bit of plastic tie came loose and walked to one of the figures.
“Luciana’s work,” he said. “How are they walking?”
Rose came back from checking the exterior, “There’s no sign of anyone else,” he said.
“They’re sedated but they must have some kind of adrenalin, too, or stimulant. Jesus,” Jean said, stepping back from one of the men. She had pulled away the cloth covering where his left arm used to be. There was a dried red circle of flesh, a perfect “O” shape, around the white of the bone where his arm should have been. It had been cauterized.
I felt like vomiting but held it down. Jairo grabbed the jaw of another of the men and we saw the reason for the gargling. The man had had his tongue removed. Blood and spit dribbled from his mouth. His eyes were small white slits, the pupils hidden under heavy eyelids.
I walked to the next man. He was the same as the others. All were missing one arm and their tongue. Then I looked at the last man and stopped still.
“You’d better see this.”
Chapter Four
Rose and Jean came to my side and looked at the last man. He was identical to the other four as regards his injuries and amputations, but there was one difference.
An eight-by-five-inch color photo was pinned to his chest.
“Don’t touch it,” said Rose, pulling a rubber glove and a transparent evidence bag from his jacket pocket. “Let me.”
Rose stepped to the man, and with the glove on his right hand, tugged at the photograph and slipped it into the plastic bag. He turned back to us and held the image up.
It was an old shot, faded colors and a low-quality lens, showing ten men posing on the porch of an old country-style house. The faces were distinguishable but one of the men in the photo wore a balaclava. All of them held drinks and smiled cheerily at the photographer. They were dressed casually, arms around each other’s shoulders.
Not a care in the world.
Rose turned to Jean. “You recognize them?”
Jean shook her head. “They’re Mexican, I think.”
“That’s obvious,” said Rose.
Jairo stayed quiet, looking at the swaying figure in front of them.
“It’s a message,” said Jean.
“No shit,” said Rose.
Jairo walked to one of the mutilated man and pulled the blindfold rag from his face, picking it off the blood-stained cheeks and revealing another drugged face and tongue-less mouth.
He walked to the third man and repeated the process, and then the fourth and the fifth, until all were unmasked.
Jean and Rose studied the photo.
“What does Reynolds want?” Rose’s voice shook with frustration.
“I don’t know,” said Jean.
“These cuts were recent. Like, this week recent. We need to get them back to Langley. Call the backup and tell them to bring a van.”
Jean nodded and pulled her phone out and made the call.
“They’ll be here in ten,” she said, putting her cell away again.
Jairo was walking back and forth, ignoring the agents.
“First thing we’ve got to do,” said Rose, “is ID the people in this photo.”
Jean nodded.
“Might take a while. Depends whether they’re in the database.”
Jean said, “Let’s start getting these guys rounded up.”
They began herding the men into a corner of the space, and then toward the main door. Outside, the wind had picked up and stank of fish.
Jairo pushed two, as did Jean. Rose pushed the last one. They walked forward like mobile rag dolls. It was easy to maneuver them. Eleanor and I kept behind them.
The water below the jetty was dark and dirty green, and the sky was gray. Jean looked at Jairo, who was deep in thought.
“Jairo,” she said. “We’ll find Reynolds. Okay? We just need to ID these guys in the photo and we’ll be good.”
Jairo shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
Rose and Jean exchanged glances.
“We already know,” said Jairo.
Rose looked at him. “Know what, Morales?”
Jairo stopped, grabbed the guy he was pushing, and spun him to face Rose and Jean. Then he grabbed the other man and did the same.
“Check yours. We already know five of them,” he said.
Rose grunted. “Huh?”
But Jean understood. She grabbed the photo from Rose’s hand and held it up so that the top was just below the men’s faces in front of her.
Despite the mutilation, the blood, and the bile, there was no mistake.
She was looking at five of the men from the photo.
Chapter Five
Luciana knew well that Mr. Reynolds appreciated punctuality above all else. It was critical to his mission. Her mission, too. So, if he said to meet him in the pharmacy of the Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, at 10 p.m., she did not ask questions.
Luciana left the safe house in the suburbs and took a taxi into town, arrived at 9:45, and walked into the stout brick building and asked for the pharmacy, and was told by the kind but impatient receptionist that it was closed. Luciana insisted on knowing where it was, and the receptionist told her. She walked through the generic hospital hallways, through the open wards to the west of the building, where a stairwell took her up to the top floor. There, an empty corridor led to a single door with “Pharmacy” written above it. It should have been locked, given the hour. But it wasn’t.
Before going in, she fingered the syringe in her pocket—her insurance. Just in case.
She pushed down the handle and the door opened inwards. She slipped inside and closed the door carefully behind her.
Reynolds had never revealed himself in person. Not to her. Not to anyone, as far she knew. But he had a package he needed to deliver to her this time. Luciana wondered whether tonight might be the night she met her mysterious employer.
She stepped through the rows of over-the-shelf medicines in the dark, toward the empty counter.
No one.
She checked her watch. It read 9:55 p.m.
She looked left and saw a window that must have looked over the car park below. She looked right and saw another window, but not a window to the outside. It was one-way glass, with a small square hole cut into the bottom, used for dispensing more risk-carrying medication. Morphine and painkillers. It was to protect the employee who normally sat behind it. But she knew who sat behind it now. She walked to it.
She said in a soft voice, “Hello?”
Then the electric rasp of the voice distorter Mr. Reynolds always used crept from beneath the glass. “Let’s make this quick, Luciana.”
“Yes,” she said.
“The briefcase is behind the counter,” said Reynolds. “Take it to Código X as we discussed and make sure they are ready to fulfill their part of the plan.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Travel back via the usual route.”
“Yes,” she said.
She felt a burning urge to ask questions. She was getting frustrated with the charades and Reynolds’ refusal to show himself. They had the same goal, she thought, so why the secrecy? Maybe just one question? What would be the harm?
She was about to speak when two things happened.
The main door behind crashed open, spilling light into the space.
A figure, stooped, came running at her, fast.
She backed away and hit the window. The man grabbed at her. As she managed to get an arm free to defend herself, she felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressed into her temple. She froze.
For twenty seconds there was silence, and then, from behind the glass, which she now faced, Reynolds spoke.
“Killing her won’t get your money back,” he said.
Luciana felt the man shift on his feet. Whatever this was, it had been planned, but
not all that well.
Then the man said, “Is this how well you look after our investment, Reynolds? I followed her here. It took two days of tracking, for God’s sake. If I found you, who else could? You know the FBI, even the CIA, are hot onto you? We demand our funds back.”
There was silence. Luciana waited for her employer to respond, but he didn’t. She heard movement from behind the glass. And then the secure door to the right of the glass shuddered and the handle moved down and it opened.
And out Mr. Reynolds stepped.
The man holding a gun to Luciana’s head said, “You? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re Mr. Reynolds?”
Luciana looked at her boss in the shadows. The first time she’d ever seen him in the flesh. She knew him too, from many years ago. Then the gun pressed deeper into her temple.
The man who called himself Reynolds—Luciana didn’t know his real name even now—stepped forward and spoke in his regular voice for the first time in front of her. “Mr. Cassidy, you have received worthy dividends from your group’s investments already. Why this move now?”
The man called Cassidy moved back, pulling Luciana with him. Her right arm came free and dropped to her pocket. She kept her hand in the pocket and wiggled the protective cap from the needle and held it.
Reynolds kept talking. “But I understand investor discomfort. You can take another payment tonight, as a gesture of goodwill. Luciana and I were planning on sending it south to Mexico. But it’s yours. A briefcase. It’s behind the counter.”
Cassidy said, “How much?”
“Enough,” said Reynolds. “And you’ll have more.”
Luciana felt Cassidy’s grip loosen. Enough for her to operate for sure. Reynolds’ eyes shifted away from Cassidy for a split second and met hers.
“Do it,” said Reynolds. “Now.”
She pulled out her needle, spun, and plunged it deep into Cassidy’s neck. The shock pushed him backward, and by some kind of miracle his gun didn’t go off. He stumbled back into the aisle of foot treatment powders and creams and, now spewing foam from his mouth, fell sideways to the floor. Luciana was on top of him before he even settled. She grabbed the needle, still hanging from his neck, injected the last of the poison, and held his head to the floor as the life seeped from his body.
Once she was sure Cassidy was dead, she turned to Reynolds - the man who had promised the revenge she had sought since she was a little girl.
Mr. Reynolds looked at her and smiled. A real, genuine, fatherly smile.
“Well,” he said. “I guess I can save some money on one-way mirrors from now on.”
Luciana didn’t have the words to speak. She noted that instinctively her left hand had covered Cassidy’s gun, now on the floor.
Reynolds stepped toward her and Cassidy’s corpse. “You recognize me, right?”
“I remember you. From years ago. From the ranch.”
Reynolds smiled again. “Luciana, we’re almost done. Everything I promised you is happening. Go to Mexico. Deliver those funds and get back here. I need you to keep watch at the mansion.”
“The burned down one?”
“Yes,” said Reynolds. “Just sit tight there. Our risk of exposure has never been greater. I have Jairo Morales’ daughter with me. I will stay on the streets to avoid being tracked.”
“Why not move now?”
“My work in DC is almost done. I need to ensure the agents take my deal to find the other Sons.”
“You’ll sleep on the streets?”
Reynolds nodded, “Yes. It leaves no trace. I know how to blend in.”
Luciana moved her hand away from the gun. She stood up and, without taking her eyes off him, walked to the counter and around it. She picked up the thick black briefcase and walked past Reynolds. At the door, she paused.
“I still don’t know your real name. Or who you are, okay? I just remember you.”
Reynolds said nothing and she left.
Reynolds allowed himself a deep breath. This was a setback, in more ways than one. He grabbed his phone and began walking out. He would order the release of the pharmacy nightshift security guard’s family and inform him that it was safe to return to work. He locked up the pharmacy, and headed along the corridor, down the stairwell, and out the fire exit into the night.
The sharp, cold air scratching at his face made him feel low. He had made mistakes tonight, and he searched his mind as he walked for the source of them. His meticulousness had served as his greatest strength so far, but tonight it had let him down.
But enough of that, he thought. First, a new location was required. Now the CIA would have some idea of his demands, but it was time to make them clearer.
Chapter Six
On the way back from the docks, in the back of the Suburban, we had all been silent. The five mutilated men had been picked up by a CIA unmarked van and taken into custody inside Langley. Photos of them were being sent to Rose. We had our lead, but more questions than answers.
When we arrived at the six-story, gray office block, I wondered whether it had Wi-Fi and running water, let alone half-decent coffee-making facilities. We got out and thanked the driver, who went to grab a late dinner. Jean ordered pizzas for us, but I doubted whether anyone else felt much like eating. Rose led us to the metal framed glass doors, withdrew a key from his pocket, and rattled the lock.
“Real door’s inside. This is just to blend in,” he said, wrestling with the handle and wiggling the key. “CIA own the whole place. One floor is kitted out. The rest are empty rooms. Ah! Here it is.”
Once Rose had unlocked it, the scratched opaque-glass door swung inward. We followed Rose into a lobby designed in the 1980s and with all expenses very much spared. The tiled floor was cream with a mint-green splatter design—Jackson Pollock, the depression years. The walls were cream too, and the lighting was dim.
We walked through the lobby, past an empty reception desk, and up the stairs at the back, climbing three floors until we reached a mammoth steel door that framed the entire hallway. To the left of the door was a keypad.
“This,” said Rose, “is the real door.”
He punched in some numbers and the keypad bleeped and a large clunking sound came from within the door. Rose pushed the large handle down and the door opened.
Beyond was a hallway. The décor was much nicer—lino faux-wood paneling and clean white walls. We walked down the hallway toward a main room as Rose switched on the lights. A door to the left led into a simple but well-equipped kitchen. To the right were two smaller rooms with desks and armchairs.
We reached the main room. On one side, it contained an island of desks covered in LAN cables, with standalone pin boards, and on the other side, a suite of three couches. The room had large windows, three of which looked out onto the dark streets below.
Rose connected a laptop he’d been carrying and opened up screens that showed feeds from cameras at both doors and in each room and hallway.
Well, at least the internet works, I thought.
Rose and Jean set up the space over the next few hours, while Eleanor, Jairo and I sat around and watched. Eventually, the room was ready for their work: whiteboards, pin boards, a coffee machine.
I leant against the desk and watched Rose pinning the enlarged shots of the five men’s faces he had received via email from Langley onto the two-by-two-meter gray pin board.
I scanned the five men on the left of the board.
The first was in his thirties, and the name Angel Varela was written underneath.
The second was chubby and wearing a t-shirt that said “Billabong.” The photo had been taken in a dark, dank prison cell. His face was indifferent. His name was Franco Alcocer.
The third was handsome, in his forties, and dressed in a tight white shirt. His arms were being held back by Marines. His name was Umberto Ocampo.
The fourth was gaunt and devoid of expression, in a black-and-white mug shot with a plaque from Mexico City. His name was Hector Albarran.
>
The last was a tall man with slicked-back hair wearing a suit and an open-neck shirt. He had stubble and small black eyes. It was a high-res color photo taken recently at one of Mexico’s Federal Police criminal capture showoffs, and the man kept his chin up and stared at the photographers like he was planning to kill them and all of their families. His name was Adán Agramonte.
“These reprobates,” continued Rose, “are the five freaks we found at the warehouse.”
“Have any of them talked?”
Rose threw a scowl at Jean. “Talk?”
“Well,” she said. “You know what I mean—have they written anything down?”
Rose shook his head. “Only one of them. The last. Agramonte.”
“And?”
“We’ll get to that. They had to be sent to the hospital ward of the prison. It exposes us as regards this case, which is why we’re working from here, not at Langley.”
Rose walked to the center of the pin board, where he’d placed the original photo they had found on the chest of one of these guys. Then he moved to the right side of the board, which was empty.
“We’re waiting to officially ID these other sons of bitches.”
Jean turned back to her boss. “Why don’t we let this pass to the FBI? Why are we operating here?”
Rose sighed and walked to one of the office chairs and sat down. “Reynolds is operating some sort of money gambit. We don’t think it’s laundering either. To be honest, we have no idea.”
“So?”
“So, this started outside the USA and now it’s here. Reynolds has brought the entire country of Mexico to its knees. And coincidentally, the largest and most tooled-up cartel comes to absolute power at the exact same time.”
Jean nodded. Código X, she knew them well.
Rose continued, “The CIA believe that he’s funding the cartel and using them in return, while handling the money. If he’s sourcing those funds from this soil, we have ourselves a big fish to catch. And catching that fish would piss the Feds off, too, which is just a bonus.”
