by M C Rowley
And I put the truck into gear and pulled out of Casas’s driveway, not knowing the road ahead, but knowing, at least, the goal.
After an hour of interrogation, Rose and Jean had extracted descriptions and some names of the other Founders. All of them had been banned from trading—some for illegal insider trading, others for illicit practices, but all of them had screwed people with hedge funds. And now they were feeling the pain they had inflicted upon innocent retirees and organizations for years. Jean had expected Rose to send the information straight over to their peers at the Bureau, but he didn’t. He wanted this to be credited to the CIA.
Now, Rose and Jean were back in the office in downtown DC. Eleanor was downstairs in a cell, guarded by a heavy. Jean and Rose sat on the sofas.
Rose said, “So, Reynolds is simultaneously destroying cartels and bringing down a bunch of corrupt bankers.”
Jean nodded. “I’m beginning to like the guy.”
Rose smiled. “I know. Almost worth letting him finish the job.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants.”
Rose considered the thought for a second, then shook his head. “No, Reynolds is just like Thomas and the other Founders. And the cartel. He smells money. A lot of it.”
“He has it,” said Jean.
“Right,” said Rose. “Which is why we need to locate Morales. He wants in too. He’ll lead us to Reynolds now for sure.”
“What about Dyce? And Mrs. Dyce? Their granddaughter is out there somewhere.”
“Not our problem,” he said. “And Dyce has a lot of explaining to do. We’re done helping that little family.”
Then the buzzer sounded from downstairs. Like it had before. Jean rushed to the laptop and opened the CCTV feed. They saw a man, in a black hoodie top and a cap—impossible to ID—pushing a note through the mailbox.
“Run,” said Rose.
Jean almost backflipped away from the screen and ran to the door, down the stairs, through the secure door, down to the lobby, and across to the front door. She fumbled for the key, unlocked it, and swung outside. There, in front of her, was a taxi pulling away.
“Shit,” she said, pulling out her phone and snapping a photo of the plates.
“Shit,” she said again.
By the time she turned and walked back to the main door, Rose had reached it, out of breath.
“Again,” he said. “Check the note.”
Jean went to the mailbox and pulled out a thick envelope.
They went back upstairs and opened it on one of the desks. Inside was a collection of papers, some typed and printed, others copied on a Xerox machine. Rose pored over them for a few minutes.
“What are they?”
Rose looked up, his mouth agape, his eyes wide open. “Distribution networks. For the cartel’s operations inside the US. Weed, coke, meth, and heroin. Damn. Código X control the lot.”
“How can you tell that?”
“Because,” said Rose, “these documents cover everything. From LA to New York to Chicago and through every crackhead dealer in the Midwest.”
“Sir,” said Jean, “we have to pass this over to the DEA.”
Rose breathed deeply, like a father dealing with an insubordinate kid. “No, Agent Santos. No, we will not.”
“This isn’t a game, sir. With all due respect. This is about catching bad guys.”
“You’re wrong,” said Rose. “This is very much a game. And Reynolds is winning it. I cannot let that happen. He wants us to share this information. Why would he feed it to us? What the fuck does he gain from that?”
Jean shook her head. “I don’t know. None of this makes sense anymore.”
They sat in silence for just under an hour. Jean ran through the current situation in her mind over and over.
Reynolds: ID unknown. Motive unknown.
Jairo Morales: Working with Reynolds. Motive unknown.
Código X: About to lose all their power.
The Founders: facing decades in jail.
The money.
That was the only element left. The money. Apparently billions of dollars. And Reynolds controlled it.
She sat up. “Sir,” she said.
Rose turned to face her. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. “What is it?”
“We need to chase the money.”
Rose stayed still.
“We need to track movements going in and out of the Americas. Panama, The Bahamas, the Caymans.”
“That’s hopeless,” said Rose. “Most of those accounts are ancient and run out of shell companies. You can’t set one up as an individual. Not since 2008. It’s impossible. Like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“We look for the name Reynolds,” said Jean.
Rose scoffed, “You think he’d be that stupid?”
“No,” said Jean. “I think he wants us to find it.”
The taxi stopped outside international departures at Dulles Airport three hours before Reynolds’ flight was due to take off. He had with him a single bag, the clothes he wore, and his old, original passport. So far, so good.
He paid and left a massive tip. The driver, a Croatian national by all accounts, thought it was a mistake and nodded like a dog with a bone when Reynolds told him the tip was all his to keep.
Reynolds disembarked feeling good. He felt calm. All this time, the planning, the execution—everything had gone almost perfectly. Now all that remained was to complete the last part.
He was stepping across the curb, staring forward at the sliding doors that led to the lines of people, when a shadow passed across his view, followed by the face of a man he knew.
“You must be Mr. Reynolds,” said the man, a tanned, mustached Mexican in his mid-forties, dressed smartly, like a phone salesman, except he had a gold Rolex and matching bracelet.
Reynolds stopped.
“I knew it was you,” said X04. “We met once face to face, years back.” He patted Reynolds where his arm had once been. “I remember this.” And he smiled.
Reynolds nodded. No point in trying to hide it now. “Yes,” he said.
“You have our money,” said X04.
“No,” said Reynolds.
“No?”
“But I know who does.”
X04 held Reynolds’ amputated stump tightly. It hurt. The man’s grip showed that he was much stronger than he appeared. Reynolds then felt the presence of other people behind him. Two large men came into view.
X04 asked, “Who has it?”
“Jairo Morales,” said Reynolds. “And I can take you straight to him.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jean looked at her watch. It was 12:20 a.m.
Rose was packing up his laptop. “Go home, Santos. Get some rest while we can.”
“Sure.”
Rose had sent a request to Langley for the full Panama Papers, plus whatever they had on the Caymans and The Bahamas. He looked tired and was moving like a man twenty years older than he was.
“I need to see my wife.”
Jean nodded. “Sir?”
Rose looked up.
“What about the little girl? She’s out there somewhere. The Dyce’s deserve to find her.”
Rose shook his head and rubbed his temples. “Not our problem, Santos. Dyce should’ve thought about that before stealing my gun and knocking me out.”
“I know. But she’s a little girl. Alone. We can’t just forget about her.”
“She isn’t even a US citizen. It’s not our problem. Trust me. We need to find Reynolds and that’s all that matters.”
“And you won’t share the info with the FBI or DEA?”
Jean knew of the inter-agency rivalry. The need to make each capture their own and no one else’s. Hell, Rose’s job probably depended on his catching Reynolds. She knew he’d have made promise to the bosses above.
“Look, Santos, I’ve been around the block, okay? I know how to play this. Follow me, or go back to Langley and working with trainees if you like.
I’m going to the men’s room and then I’m going home.”
Jean nodded and watched him leave the room and heard the bathroom door close. She took out her phone. She went to Rose’s laptop bag and found the papers Reynolds had delivered. There were around fifteen sheets. With sharp, methodical movements, she took photos of each, then stacked them back together in the file and replaced them in Rose’s bag just before he reappeared.
“Goodnight,” he said, grabbing his bag. “Big day tomorrow.”
Jean said goodnight and followed him out. They waited for cabs together, and Jean took the first and rode it to her apartment.
She couldn’t sleep. Instead, she sat on the sofa with a cup of green tea and looked over the photos of the documents on her phone.
This was gold for the DEA. With one call, they would have enough to bust the entire drug distribution network of North America. She mulled it over for a long while, drinking three cups of tea, before she pulled up her contacts and searched for her old friend Paul Simpson, who had trained with her at Langley and made the switch to the DEA two years in.
After two rings, he answered.
“Hello?”
“Paul, sorry for the hour. This is Jean Santos.”
A pause; he was waking up. “Jean? How the hell are you?”
She hadn’t spoken to Paul in years, but remembered his friendly tone now.
“I’ve got something for you. But it’s sensitive. And it didn’t come from me.”
Paul said nothing.
“We received info we can’t use. Info you can use.”
“The suspense is killing me,” said Paul.
“I’ll send it to you over message. But don’t call me back. Take it to your bosses. Say it was an anonymous drop. Whatever. Just don’t mention my name or the Agency.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll send it now.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Paul.”
“How are you?”
Jean closed her eyes and breathed out. Maybe a bit too loudly.
“I’m alright,” she said. “Check your messages in a few minutes.”
And she hung up. She had betrayed her boss. Too late to worry about that now. There was more to do.
She got up, grabbed her jacket, and left the apartment. Outside, the night air had chilled and she walked fast to warm up.
After thirty minutes, she made it to the office building. She used her key to open the faux entrance and moved through the lobby and down to the cells.
The guard was sitting with his head slumped down. Asleep. In a cell to the left, Eleanor Dyce lay on a single bed, facing away.
Jean tapped the guard. He stirred and looked up at Jean. “Huh?”
“Go home,” she said.
The guard looked confused. “But Agent Rose said —”
“I’m here. I need to talk to the prisoner.”
The guard nodded. “Alright then,” he said.
Jean waited as he got up and shuffled out of the room. Once he’d gone, she turned to Eleanor’s cell and banged on the bars.
Eleanor stirred and turned over, her eyes red and screwed-up.
“Mrs. Dyce, I’m releasing you.”
Eleanor sat up. “Have you found Scott?”
“No,” Jean said.
“Jairo? Estrella?”
“No,” said Jean. “We aren’t looking for her. We never were.”
Eleanor’s face dropped.
“Which is why I’m letting you out of here. Let us deal with Reynolds. And Jairo. You need to find your husband and your granddaughter.”
Eleanor understood.
Jean opened the cell with the code and led Eleanor back upstairs, through the lobby, and to the front door. She held out an old Nokia cell phone.
“Take this. It has my number programmed into it. And don’t come back here—got it?”
Eleanor nodded. “Thank you, Agent Santos.”
Jean nodded and closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I had driven, in Casas’s old jalopy, for nearly twenty hours straight from Oklahoma City, thousands of kilometers. I arrived in DC at around 11 p.m. and headed straight for the office. It was a busy street with a fair amount of traffic, even at night, and I found a parking spot about a hundred yards from the door. Casas’s Ford truck had done a fine job and was now enjoying a rest. I sat down a little, and kept my eyes on the door.
Just after half past ten, I saw Rose and Jean leaving and jumping into taxis. First Jean, then Rose. So they were holding Eleanor inside.
I started to think I should have followed Rose or Jean to their homes. But I needed to be near Eleanor. So I stayed and waited. At midnight, my eyes began to feel like weights had been attached to the eyelids, so I wandered out for five minutes to get a jumbo-sized coffee from a 7-Eleven on the same block, and then returned to the truck and waited again.
For what, I didn’t know.
Until, at around 3 a.m., something happened.
I almost missed Jean walking hard and fast toward the door. I dipped down under the dash and stared. She opened the street door to the office and went in. Then, after five minutes, a large guy came out, scratching his head, and walked off to the south. I could make out figures at the door. One coming out onto the street.
Eleanor.
The door behind her closed again. She was alone.
I waited, not letting her slip from my view. She began walking toward me on the other side of the street. I watched her get closer, bracing herself against the cold night air, and once she was parallel to me, I started the truck, put it into gear, and swung out to do a U-turn and land right alongside my wife.
At first, she kept her head down, as if to avoid the weirdo trying to have a middle-of-the-night chat. I wound down the window.
“Hey, good-looking.”
She heard the accent, my voice, and her head whipped around.
“Scotty?”
Small trickles of tears came down her cheeks. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it wasn’t.
She jumped into the truck and hugged me hard.
“We need to lie low.”
She nodded into my chest.
I got the Ford into gear without moving Eleanor and we rolled on. I headed north, and after six kilometers found a place. It was called Motel 6 and offered rooms for fifty bucks. It even had a pool. Not that we would use it.
We checked in and paid cash. The guy at the desk seemed to think we would want an hourly rate, given the time. But we paid for the full night and smiled. We were both too scruffy to be on a night out.
Finally, we made it to the room, stripped down, had a shower together, and then lay on the bed. I told Eleanor about going to Casas’s house in the back of the truck. Then Luciana showing up. Casas getting killed. Seeing Luciana and Jairo colluding and leaving together. And the note I had found:
Reynolds has the girl.
Reynolds Shipping.
Or El Pac-
Eleanor listened without interrupting, letting it soak in.
“Bottom line: Jairo will lead us to Estrella.”
“Jairo can be saved.”
“El,” I said, “it’s not about whether he can be saved or not. What does that even mean? It’s about whether he wants to be saved.”
Eleanor looked at me, her eyes still watery.
“All I know is that he wants us to save Estrella.”
“Yes,” she said.
I went on, “But how do we find him? Where did he and Luciana go?”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“Wait,” she said, running across the room to the pile of her clothes on the little motel table. She rummaged through a pocket and came out with a crumpled piece of paper. Photo paper. She walked to me and flattened it out and showed it to me.
“Here,” she said.
I looked at the photo we had found in Reynolds’ abandoned and burned-out house. Jairo’s smile. The two older girls, one of them Luciana.
I said, “What di
d Luciana call the place?”
“The ranch.”
“That’s right.”
“What do we have here?”
I looked at the shot. Behind the three of them was the edge of a building. Concrete, faded paint, some exposed breeze block. The ground was dried and compacted dirt. To the right, in the background, was a slightly blurred structure. Too far away to make out in minute detail, but clearly the dome of a small church.
“There,” I said. “The church.”
Eleanor sat down. This was the place we had searched for, for twenty-two years. Now we had a picture, but still no goddamn idea of where it actually was.
“They might be there,” said Eleanor.
I looked at the photo. Jairo’s grin. Luciana’s smirk.
“It was the only place they had in common. Worth a shot.”
“We need a computer,” said Eleanor.
We went downstairs and found the meager business center the motel offered. There were three PCs, a scanner, and a printer. Eleanor paid the guy at the desk and returned. She scanned the photo of the church and opened it in a Word doc on the PC. She then cropped it to show only the church and converted the file to a JPEG image file.
“You’re good at this.”
She smiled. “Twenty-two years of researching teaches you something.”
I rubbed her shoulder. She opened the image file and then a Google Images search page. She was able to upload the image and base a search on that alone.
We waited for the results.
After no more than two seconds, a mosaic of similar images popped up on the screen. Churches, facades, walls with the same color scheme.
“Let’s get searching,” she said.
And we started going through them, one by one.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jean waited in the office for Rose. It got to 8 a.m. and the door rattled and her boss walked in. He looked more refreshed than the night before, but his eyes still had thick, dark bags, and he walked slowly. He didn’t mention Eleanor, so he hadn’t checked downstairs. Jean figured her DEA friend, Paul, would be arriving at work with the bombshell that was in her message last night. It would take time—meetings, decisions, then action plans. She had a few hours.
