by M C Rowley
Jean stepped up to Rose. “What now?”
Rose went to the keypad of Jairo’s cell and started punching in numbers.
“We have no choice,” he said. “We need to do what Reynolds asked of us. We need Jairo for that.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rose and Jean spent the rest of the morning explaining Reynolds’ demands. The four missing Sons of No One members. The photo. Eleanor and I stayed quiet. We knew better than to try to offer ideas when we truly had no clue. But we listened. The first Son was in FBI custody, and the CIA couldn’t just ask their friends at the Bureau to hand over a prisoner for their clandestine operation within home borders.
I wondered how well Jairo knew his old colleagues. He was twenty-two years old now. How long had he actually worked with them, in the cartel’s operations? Since he was fifteen? Surely he’d know more about the targets than any of us.
Rose had decided to leave Jairo in the cell until it was necessary to release him. Eleanor stayed down there with him. Jean and I sat on the sofas, exchanging looks when Rose got frustrated, as he seemed to do every ten minutes. I felt for Jean, having to put up with her boss.
When I heard the vibration coming from the cell phone Jean had given us, it didn’t register at first. Rose and Jean swung around to look at me like I’d interrupted their meeting.
“Answer it,” said Rose, and I fumbled for the flip top and opened it. The ID was blocked.
“Yes?”
Reynolds’ voice distorter came on. I glanced at Jean, who came over, grabbed the phone, and pressed a button to activate the loudspeaker.
“I’m glad everyone is back together,” said Reynolds. “We all make mistakes. I made one by trusting a person who pledged allegiance to me. You made one by following the information she gave to you. Do not try to find me. You will fail. As demonstrated in the attack in Texas, Código X bend to my will and my will alone. Make no mistake: fail in capturing the men I have targeted and more attacks will follow. Agent Rose, I don’t need to spell out why that would be disastrous for you at the CIA. But my promise stands. If you capture the Sons of No One, I will deliver the complete collapse of Código X and the founders who funded them through me.”
The room went silent for a moment. We all kept staring at the phone.
Reynolds continued, “I have left something at your door that will help with the capture of the first target, Miguel Angel Duran.”
The phone call ended.
Rose turned to Jean. “Go check the door.”
Jean disappeared, and I sat back on the sofas and puffed out the air we’d been holding during Reynolds’ surprise call.
After five minutes, Jean burst back into the room. She was holding a letter-sized envelope. She sat down opposite me and tore the top off. Slowly, she shook out onto the table a small pile of photographs, a single piece of A4 paper with something printed on it, and a yellow Post-it note.
“Wait,” said Rose, “Use these. Might have prints.”
He chucked a rolled-up pair of plastic forensics gloves at Jean, who put them on. “I doubt that.”
With the gloves on, she lifted a photograph up. It showed a well-dressed man at lunch in an outdoors part of a well-to-do restaurant, laughing and chatting with a young lady. She then laid all the photos out on the table. They showed a date that escalated into a brief sojourn to a grotty-looking hotel. The second photo showed the man ushering his young lover to a taxi. The third showed them entering the hotel, hand in hand. The fourth was a shot of a window through which the man was clearly visible, undressing the girl. The fifth was of them leaving separately again.
“That’s Senator George Conner,” said Rose. “And that sure as hell ain’t his wife.”
Jean picked up the A4 piece of paper and read, “Photos taken two weeks ago in Washington DC of Senator Conner, who once headed the management of prisoners at the FBI.”
Rose leaned forward to look at the sheet. “That’s all it says?”
Jean nodded and held up the Post-it note.
It read, Miguel Angel Duran, federal prisoner at DC Central Detention Facility, Washington DC, USA.
“That’s all of it,” said Jean, her face betraying that her mind was working away inside.
I exchanged looks with Eleanor.
Rose got up and walked to the pin board dedicated to the Sons.
Everything went quiet for a good few minutes. Everyone was thinking.
Then Jean got up, a smile on her face. “I’ve got it. I know what Reynolds is suggesting.”
Rose turned. “And?”
“First,” said Jean, “you should meet Senator Conner. ASAP.”
“Okay,” said Rose. “That’ll be fun.”
“Second,” said Jean, ignoring him, “we need to phone the FBI.”
Rose scoffed. “Are you nuts?”
“It’s a good plan,” said Jean. “Get Jairo ready.”
Rose smiled, “It’s time to hand our prisoner over to the correct authorities.”
Chapter Eighteen
Two days had passed since Reynolds’ call and Rose was feeling the heat. He’d spent most of the time we were with him in the office on the phone—to his superiors, I guessed. I had gathered that my suspicions were right: the CIA weren’t allowed to operate inside the United States, but they were, and Rose and Jean’s bosses were asking for subtlety and allowing no margin for failure.
Now, we were in a Suburban, Jairo in the middle row with Jean, Rose up front next to a burly driver, and me and Eleanor at the back. We were on our way to a county jail facility. To meet the FBI.
It was mid-morning, but DC’s traffic had yet to relent. We crawled through the streets, turning here and there, until we made it out of the main city and were headed out of town on a freeway. Jairo kept his head forward the whole time. Eleanor looked downwards.
Rose’s phone went off and he tapped the screen and answered, “All good?…Yeah. About ten minutes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.”
And he hung up.
“Nearly there, Morales,” he said. “Miguel Angel Duran was transferred last night, thanks to our friend Senator Conner—who, by the way, wants to kill me now. But he did as he was told.”
I had worked out that Rose’s meeting with the senator had been in order to blackmail him, and that the demand had been that he get Miguel Angel Duran transferred to the same jail Jairo was headed to now. But that was it. Rose had also spent time alone with Jairo to go through the plan.
The SUV began to slow as we entered a long street with a few small buildings and one bigger one in the middle. As we drew up to the car park entrance, I read “WASHINGTON DC COUNTY JAIL” on the front of the building.
We parked and Rose got out, while Jean, Eleanor, and I stayed in the car with the driver. Jairo moved to the door and waited for Rose to open it for him. Once he stepped down, Rose put handcuffs on him.
“I want to say goodbye,” said Eleanor.
Rose turned back to the car. “Hell no, ma’am. Not now.”
“Yes now,” said Eleanor.
I pushed the passenger seat in front of us forward and jammed my hand onto the open door. “Yes, now,” I said.
Rose breathed deeply through his nose and held the breath, looking like he was going to shoot me. But he was holding Jairo’s cuffs with one hand and his other hung uselessly at his side. “Do it fast,” he said.
I watched Eleanor get down and Jairo frown. Hug her back, you bastard, I thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Eleanor went to our son and embraced him. His head stayed straight up for a moment and his eyes caught mine. Not for the first time, I felt a cold splint of ice go through my body. His hatred. Or not. And I saw it: he hated himself for feeling something towards us. I had not done enough to try to find him when he’d been abducted. But Eleanor had, and he knew it. He rested his chin on her shoulder for a split second and said something I couldn’t hear. And then Rose took him away.
To capture the Son of No One Miguel Angel Duran.
Chapter Nineteen
The county jail had been informed that Jairo Morales, wanted in the 33 states of Mexico and in the USA by the DEA and FBI, was being brought in. Rose walked to the desk.
The guard who greeted their entry looked up from his computer after a short while.
“All in order, sir. Ready to go.”
Rose nodded. “Thanks, son.”
“No problem at all, sir.”
Rose loved it when someone in a lower level of law enforcement kissed his ass. He couldn’t deny it, that feeling of superiority you got when you worked at the CIA. No uniform, foreign travel. Nothing like the mundane existence these suckers ground out on a daily basis.
“We’ll take it from here, sir,” said the guard, as two more colleagues joined Rose and took hold of Jairo’s cuffs.
Rose didn’t say anything to Jairo. He just walked back out into the sun.
Once inside, Jairo remained calm.
“You speak English?” said one of the cops.
Jairo nodded.
“You sure?”
Jairo looked at the cop—blue eyes, chubby cheeks, and a low-hanging brow. “I’m sure.”
The cop pulled Jairo backwards, hard. “Alright then, gangster. Welcome to jail.”
Jairo was taken into the back, where the cells were lined in fives, stacked on top of each other. Compared to jails in Mexico, where he’d spent a few nights over the years to say the least, this place was a palace. All the lights worked for a start, and the epoxy gray floor shone brightly up into his eyes. The walls were clean, and the cells, too. The cops took him up some steps to the second floor and put him into the first cell. Inside was a toilet and a bed with half-decent sheets and a pillow.
“Change,” said the fatter cop.
Jairo nodded and looked down at the orange suit lying ready for him. No body search, no questions. A prisoner brought in from the CIA was as good as gold as far as the local sheriff was concerned.
He changed, and the cops grabbed his t-shirt and jeans and locked the cell and left.
He lay down on the bed and did what he did best. He waited.
When he awoke, he had forgotten where he was. The banging on the cell bars came into sharp focus and he opened his eyes.
“Dinner,” said a voice.
He rolled over and saw a cop walking away, having left a tray of food through the secure drawer in the cell door. He walked over to it and inspected the grub. It looked passable. Better than passable. He remembered times in the jungle when he’d eaten squirrel. This was a gourmet main course in comparison. He took it to the bed and ate.
Hours passed before they switched off the lights. He thought about Miguel Angel Duran. How long had it been? Four years? Five?
Jairo had been the youngest capo in the cartel, which earned him paternal fondness from some and jealous resentment from others. “MA,” as he was known, had been firmly in the latter group. Jairo hadn’t liked him at all. And MA had proved worthless anyway, snitching on their goma supplier. Jairo couldn’t be sure, but he reckoned there was a good chance it was MA’s betrayal that had started the downfall of the Sons. Jairo missed the good old days. When they ruled the south of Mexico. They were feared. Respected. By all. Police, locals, rival gangs. He longed for a return of those days when things had been simpler. He’d never asked for a family. Even Vanessa had been a fling. The only one who seemed to get it, ironically enough, was his biological father, Scott. He could see the fear in Scott’s eyes when he looked at him. No, not fear. Understanding. That trying to get their little boy back to some sort of normality was futile.
He rolled on his back and closed his eyes. He was starting to fall asleep when he heard a tapping coming from outside the cell. Slow, methodical, and deliberate.
He shushed, but it didn’t stop.
A cop? Maybe that was when this place turned to hell. Nighttime. Maybe they beat the inmates for fun while the lights were off. He’d heard of worse.
The tapping didn’t stop.
Then he heard it, a voice coming from the adjacent cell.
“Lobito, Lobito. ¿Me escuchas?”
Jairo hadn’t been called that in years. His old Sons nickname.
The accent. The reference to the name.
MA was in the next cell.
Jairo said back in Spanish, “MA? Fancy meeting you here.”
He heard MA laugh, low and gravelly.
“Sure, son. Sure. A surprise. Why are you here?”
Jairo smiled in the dark. It felt good to speak with one of his own again, even if it was a guy he didn’t particularly care for.
“You can guess.”
“You seen what’s going on back home?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty heavy shit.”
“How d’you know it was me?”
“Saw you.”
“I’m here to get you out. It’s time, MA,” said Jairo.
MA stayed quiet. He knew what Jairo was talking about.
Jairo smiled again in the dark.
MA didn’t speak again. Jairo didn’t care if he did.
He knew what was coming.
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t believe Jean at first, that Rose wanted me to accompany him to get Miguel Angel Duran and Jairo out of the county jail. I questioned it with Jean, and she insisted that numbers on this mission were so low that we needed to chip in.
And it wasn’t like this was my first time busting out of a prison, though I hoped it wouldn’t be anything like escaping Topo Chico with X03.
The morning after Jairo was taken into custody, Eleanor and I waited at the office for Rose and Jean, having slept on the sofas again, and got ready. Rose and Jean arrived at just after 7 a.m. and Rose briefed me—which essentially involved instructing me to shut up.
At 7:30 a.m. we got into a black Suburban with Rose’s driver and head off to the county jail. The ride was smooth for ten minutes before we hit DC traffic and slowed right down.
Rose turned to me. “If it was up to me, Dyce, your son would stay in that goddamn jail.”
I looked the CIA agent right in the eye. I had noted Rose’s way of doing things. He liked to provoke people. He provoked Jean all the time—and Eleanor, too, by locking Jairo up. I didn’t want to satisfy him now.
“That so,” I said.
“The boy’s a criminal.”
“He’s hardly a boy.”
“Well exactly. He’s a criminal and deserves to be locked up.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, trying to be cool, but on the inside feeling a bubble of confused panic expanding in my chest.
I agreed with Rose, to an extent. I had seen Jairo’s capacity for brutality. I had seen him chuck upwards of fifteen people out of an airplane flying at 20,000 feet without even a second thought. But losing him again would torture Eleanor. And failing to find Estrella would kill her. And me, too.
“But you need him,” I added.
Rose snorted and looked out of the window at the slow crawl of red and yellow lights.
“Not for much longer,” he said.
I let the silence settle for a few minutes, then said, “Why do you think Reynolds wants these men brought in? And why doesn’t he do it himself?”
Rose turned back to me. “Revenge, we think. Reynolds—or whatever his real name is—was involved with the Sons of No One cartel. A retard could work that out. We think he got burned by them and wants revenge. And why doesn’t he do this himself? Easy. Because these four men plus Jairo are in custody of sorts. He needs an agency like us. I have to give it to him: to some extent, he’s thought this through.”
I paused before asking my next question. “Do you think Jairo knows who Reynolds is?”
Rose didn’t answer at first. He just stared at me like he’d figured my question was rhetorical. I’d found the photo of Luciana and Jairo as children at the Sons’ ranch in the house Reynolds had rented and burned. I suppose I knew the answer to my question already.
�
��Yes,” said Rose. “Of course I fucking do.”
After an hour amid the DC morning commuters, we made it across town, down the freeway, and to the county jail facility.
Rose had gotten me a simple suit that, I supposed, came from a giant wardrobe of generic black suits at Langley. It fit pretty well considering suits usually ended up being baggy or too short due to my height. I gave it a brush-down with my hand before we got out of the truck and headed for the main entrance.
We walked in to find a guard behind the curved reception desk and a couple of other prison officers hanging around in the lobby shooting the shit. Rose bowled over to the desk, put the briefcase he was carrying on it, and greeted the seated man.
“David Rose,” he said. “CIA.”
He pulled out an ID from his back pocket and put it on the desk.
The guard stopped what he had been doing on the computer and looked up. I got the sense he was unsure whether to be impressed or unfazed. He checked the ID and stared back at Rose.
Rose said, “We had a little mix-up. Dropped a prisoner here last week for the Feds to take care of, but it’s a no-go. He’s going back to Mexico.”
The cop sniffed. “Fine by me. One less to worry about.”
I was confused. We had dropped Jairo the day before, not last week.
“Got the paperwork?”
Rose opened the briefcase and withdrew some sheets. “Sure have. We’re authorized to take the prisoner back to Langley with us. He’ll be on a red eye back to Shit Town, Shit County, Mexico, by tonight.”
“Good,” said the cop, taking the papers and giving them a once-over. He looked up at Rose. “Miguel Angel Duran?”
“That’s what the paper says,” said Rose.
“Can’t be right,” said the cop. “He transferred from the Feds directly. I was here when he came in.”
“I don’t know,” said Rose. “You know the Feds can be a bunch of dicks sometimes.”
“My sister-in-law is in the FBI, sir,” said the cop.
