Krokodil

by Dustin Stevens

  Chapter Thirteen

  The black sedan rolled to a stop six inches from the curb, an overhead light gleaming off the glossy paint job. It idled there a long moment before the ignition turned off, the engine ticking in the silent desert night.

  Carlos Juarez sat in the back seat staring out, his hands hanging down between his knees. He ran them once down the front of his khaki chinos, his palms sweaty despite the dry air. It was the first time he’d been back in six months, just the mere sight of the place bringing on a flood of bad memories. They played one after another in his mind on loop, every last image something he could do without ever seeing again.

  “She in there?” he asked, motioning towards the front door with his chin.

  “She is,” the driver said, a thick, bullish man with a head shaved clean. “She’s expecting you, and she’s none too happy about it.”

  Carlos nodded, already envisioning the hostile environment he was walking into. Returning wasn’t high on his to-do list either, but given what had arrived at his door, he didn’t have much choice.

  “Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual,” Carlos said, letting animosity hang from the words. He threw them out like a challenge, a dare, to see if the driver or his partner riding shotgun would take the bait.

  Neither one did. Aside from the few words the driver had just muttered, neither had said a thing since picking him up at the airport a half hour before.

  “It’s been real, fellas,” Carlos said, wrenching open the door and stepping into the night. Behind him he could hear both men smirk at his comment as the realization that he wouldn’t be staying long and they were his ride back to the plane set in.

  “So it’s like that,” he whispered under his breath, coming to a stop in front of the same building he’d voluntarily walked into a few years before. A single story tall, constructed entirely of red brick, it looked like a cross between a school and a DMV.

  For an agency trying their best not to be conspicuous, they could not have picked a worse location for their headquarters. The entire place, from the perfectly shaped shrubs to the neatly raked rock beds, screamed bureaucracy.

  A plume of stale frigid air passed over Carlos as he stepped through the glass double doors. He paused on the main foyer as they swung closed behind him, the seals clamping shut with an audible sucking sound.

  An open hallway extended out straight ahead of him, offices lining it on either side. A wooden receptionist’s desk sat off to the left, the seat behind it vacant and the light overhead dim, the person manning it long since having gone home for the night.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Carlos said, sauntering one foot at a time down the hallway, his unbuttoned dress shirt billowing open over the same ribbed tank top he’d been wearing that morning.

  The sound of heels clicking against tile echoed out into the hallway, preceding the arrival of Special-Agent-In-Charge Mia Diaz. She appeared out of an open office door halfway down the hall and stood with arms folded across her chest, frowning back at him.

  “So get your ass in here already,” she said. “You asked for this meeting, remember?”

  Just as fast she disappeared back into the doorway, bringing a smile to Carlos’s face. No matter how much they wanted to act like his being here was a pain in the ass, the simple truth was they needed him, and everybody in the building knew it. They could stomp around and piss and moan, but the fact that within hours of demanding the meeting he was on his way to the airport proved how invaluable he really was.

  Carlos drug out the walk as long as he could, pausing every few feet to glance at a poster on the wall, or peek into one of the darkened offices lining the corridor. Deep inside he was scared, or at the very least concerned, about what had arrived on his doorstep. Still, he couldn’t let them know that, couldn’t give off the impression that he was relying on them.

  If that happened, they took back control of the relationship, and that was something he could ill afford.

  Swinging through the open doorway, Carlos walked into a conference room almost twenty feet in length. A long, ovular table was stretched through the middle of it, high-backed burgundy leather chairs spaced about. Almost half of them contained a man in a suit staring back at him, none of them looking the least bit enthused to be there.

  Standing on the right side of the room was Diaz, her arms still folded. She too wore a black pantsuit with a white shirt beneath it, a mess of black curls spilling down onto her shoulders. She stood with her chin drawn back into her neck, accentuating the frown on her face.

  “Good evening, lady and gentlemen,” Carlos said, raising a hand to his brow and flicking a mock salute. “Trip was good, thanks for asking.”

  “What the hell do you want, Juarez?” Diaz said, her voice a decibel louder than necessary, no doubt meant to make a point.

  Carlos stepped forward and grabbed the back of the closest chair, sliding it out and depositing himself in it. He laced his fingers across his stomach and smiled up at her. “Nice to see you too, Agent Diaz.”

  Diaz blew a long breath out through her nose and glanced at the ceiling, letting her rage play out plainly across her face. “We all have families and lives to get home to Juarez. Either start talking or we’re out of here.”

  Carlos knew he was playing it a bit cavalier, but he couldn’t give off the vibe of desperation. If he did, he and his cousin were toast.

  He raised his hands by his sides as if to signal for a cease fire and reached into his pants pocket, extracting the single piece of paper he’d received the day before. He left it folded into eighths and tossed it onto the table, one side flat, the other sticking up at an angle.

  “What the hell is that?” Diaz asked, jutting her chin towards the paper.

  “Open it up and see,” Carlos replied. He watched as Diaz flicked her gaze to the closest agent and nodded upward, a quick, curt gesture telling him to take a look.

  The man, a thin, wiry guy with blonde hair shaved down into a flattop reached out and took up the paper, unfolding it to its full size. He glanced once down at the words on it before turning it to face the room, rotating it in a half circle so everybody could see it.

  THEY FOUND ME.

  For a long moment nobody said a word, Carlos panning his gaze around the room, gauging for responses. As best he could tell there were none, besides a couple men who seemed to grow a bit more frustrated.

  Not the effect he’d been hoping for.

  “Who found who?” Diaz said, annoyance in his voice.

  Carlos rotated himself in the chair to stare at her. “Mateo. That is the me in question there. As for the they, I’m pretty certain we all know who that is.”

  Diaz remained impassive as she stared at him. She didn’t outright dismiss what he was saying, but she gave no indication of buying it either.

  “And you know this how?”

  “Before we went our separate ways, the three of us – me, Mateo, Cuz – we all agreed that if something happened, we would let the others know. Yesterday, Mateo let me know.”

  The sound of Diaz’s heels clicking again filled the room as she turned away from him, circling the room. “How do you know it was Mateo?”

  “Well it damn sure wasn’t Cuz, now was it?” Carlos challenged.

  The remark earned him an angry glare from Diaz, who held the stare long enough to make her point before breaking eye contact, an unspoken concession that he was right.

  “How’d he make contact?”

  “That arrived yesterday from UPS,” Carlos said. “I was sitting around watching some Food Network, learning how to make a nice cheesecake using canned peaches, and this little Asian boy showed up with that letter. Hell of a job you guys did on that one, letting a damn ninja sneak by you.”

  The frown on Diaz’s face grew deeper as she stared at Carlos, her path taking her down around the far end of the table. She looked like she wanted to comment on the statement he’d just made, but to her credit she let it pass.

  “How’d he know wher
e to find you?” Diaz asked.

  Carlos raised his palms for a moment, letting them slap down loudly against his thighs. “How the hell should I know? Maybe it came from Cuz? Maybe it came from one of your people?”

  He knew there was no way his cousin had given Mateo the information. For one thing, he only knew the city Carlos was now located in. For another, despite the fact that Mateo had grown up with them, he still wasn’t a Juarez.

  There is no way his cousin would have put blood at risk, even for a close friend.

  “Okay,” Diaz said, her focus locked on him, “assuming this is real, which we’re not just yet, so you know, but assuming this is real, what’s your angle here? Why demand a meeting? Why not just call us and tell us you got a letter in the mail and it has you spooked?”

  Carlos made a face at her, an exaggerated expression that relayed his disbelief at her statement. “What do I want? Lady, are you serious?”

  There was no visible response at all from Diaz as she stopped her pacing and peered down at him. Both sides remained silent for a long moment before Carlos looked away, breaking into laughter. It started low and ironical, rising in both tenor and hilarity. He pushed out one hoot after another until his body shook, the sound reverberating off the walls.

  Throughout the entire outburst, the remainder of the room sat in silence, staring back at him with stony expressions.

  Carlos ignored every last one of them until the mirth within him faded.

  “I apologize,” he said, shaking his head. “I just have to laugh at you government assholes to keep from getting pissed off.”

  Upon the last two words he drew his voice short, letting them hear his anger, making them feel his burning hatred for the whole situation.

  “Look, I get that you guys have to sit here in your little black suits and stare down at me and pretend this is all a big pain in your ass, but this is how it’s going to go.

  “First, you’re getting my ass out of Texas. Actually, let me rephrase that, my ass is never going back to Texas.”

  More silent stares came back to him, nobody saying a word.

  “Second,” Carlos said, reaching out and jamming two fingers down into the table top, “you guys go find Mateo. Find out where he is, who’s chasing him, do whatever you have to. Figure it out.

  “And third, I want to see my Cuz. Within the next two days.”

  Carlos leaned back in his chair and placed his hands in the same place atop his stomach, his fingers laced. The air had been sucked out of the room as everybody present stared back at him, most of them stewing as if they might explode and hurtle themselves the length of the table at him any moment.

  He glanced over each of the men seated around him before settling his attention on Diaz. For all the bravado of having a room full of people so he felt outnumbered, her reaction was the only one that mattered.

  She stared at him for a full minute, her lips pursed in front of her. Carlos could almost see her mind working as she did so, coming to the same conclusions he had during the preceding hours.

  She didn’t like it, but she didn’t have a choice.

  “Is there anything else?” she asked, an edge in her voice.

  Carlos stared at her a long moment before nodding his head back against the chair behind him. “Yeah, the next place you send me better have a damn remote that works.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was no way for Pavel to know how much time had passed. Judging by the darkness creeping in through the single frosted pane of glass high on the wall above him he figured it to be sometime early in the evening, though that was just a guess. From where he sat in the holding cell of the West Yellowstone Police Department, there were no clocks of any kind. A deputy had been by midday to bring him a sandwich, three slices of ham and wilted lettuce on a hoagie roll, and some chips, but otherwise he had been left alone.

  The entire time he sat on the metal cot with his back pressed against the block wall behind him, letting the cool feel of it pass through his t-shirt. He kept his hands spread wide, fingers splayed across his thighs, and stared straight ahead, appearing as non-combative as possible. When he had to go to the restroom, he did so. When the food arrived, he ate it. There was little doubt he was being watched by somebody somewhere inside the building and he needed them to believe he was nothing more than a concerned brother that had taken things a bit too far.

  Pavel had considered playing that angle to the hilt, standing along the bars, pleading for anybody listening to let him see Lita. Three different reasons kept him from actually doing so, each one springing to his mind within seconds of him taking a seat inside the cell.

  First was the simple fact that his physical dimensions wouldn’t allow it. There was nothing to stop him from trying to work that approach, but he was fully aware of how he looked. A man his size, with his general demeanor, would never be believable in that role. He would only be making a mockery of himself, bringing the entire story into question.

  Second, there was nobody around to hear it anyway. Pleading only worked if there was a guard sitting at the end of the hall, trying to get work done, tired of hearing the incessant whining. Only then would he have a chance, the guard trading away whatever Pavel wanted for some silence.

  Third, and most importantly, he remembered with great clarity the complainers he’d been forced to endure while incarcerated in St. Petersburg. There was no way he’d lower himself to such a pathetic state.

  So instead he sat and waited, his head reclined against the wall, staring at nothing in particular, letting his mind work over what he knew.

  Sergey would be expecting a check-in soon, though he still had a day or two before his absence would be cause for alarm. Viktor had sent him as nothing more than a fool’s errand, so letting him know what had transpired wasn’t necessary.

  At some point he would need to check on Lita and Mateo’s deaths, to confirm what the paper told him. While there was no reason to believe the information was incorrect, he needed to be certain.

  That left only two ends to tie up before heading back to San Diego. The first was his car, which had almost certainly been impounded. Given the size of the town and the building he now sat in, his best guess was that it was sitting less than fifty yards away from him, keys inside, ready to take him home. There would be the issue of the gun inside, and despite it being registered in California, could pose a problem.

  The other was the guide, Hawk. He’d still yet to so much as see a picture of the man, the article in the paper not mentioning him at all. It didn’t appear he had been by his office in a few days either, the number of places he could be by now infinite.

  The sound of a door opening at the end of the hall drew Pavel from his thoughts, rotating against the wall towards the sound of it. He waited in silence until two men appeared before raising his head and sitting up straighter.

  The man on the right was the West Yellowstone Sheriff, the man that had booked Pavel earlier in the day. He had sandy brown hair and a matching moustache, the legs of his tan uniform rumpled from sitting for most of the day. He had his thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his trousers as he walked, his attention aimed at the cell.

  Beside him was a man in his late thirties to early forties Pavel had never seen before. He had blue-black hair parted severely to the side and a heavy five o’clock shadow, his tie loosened away from his neck. In his hand he carried a thin green folder.

  Both men stood in front of the cell for a long time before either spoke, the Sheriff deferring to the man by his side.

  “Good evening. I’m Special Agent Andrew Cofey, FBI, assigned to Yellowstone Park. I apologize for the delay in getting here, but I had business on the south end of the Park today that kept me away.

  “Mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  Pavel stared back at them without making a sound. His first impression when seeing the pair walk up was that they would try to play good-cop/bad-cop on him. It was now apparent they were eschewing the bad-cop
portion and going straight for the kindness approach. Offering condolences up front, not dragging him into an interrogation room, asking if they could talk to him, as if he had a choice in the matter.

  Their manner was clear enough. It was their motive he wasn’t so certain about.

  “FBI?” Pavel said, his voice thick and gruff from a day of going unused. He was more surprised than he let himself show, not expecting a federal presence over a simple break-in.

  Cofey glanced over at the Sheriff and said, “Because Yellowstone Park is federal lands, the FBI keeps a special agent on hand for all investigations within its boundaries. I understand you have a connection to one such investigation.”

  Pavel furled his brow tight and said, “A connection? You mean my sister?”

  Cofey opened the folder in his hand and extracted a single glossy photo from it, holding it up to the bars. “You mean this woman? A...” he paused a moment, consulting the file, “Lita Haney?”

  For the first time, Pavel stood, pushing himself up from the cot with great effort. He slowly put one foot at a time out in front of him, measuring his steps, keeping his gaze on the image. How he handled the next few minutes would determine the outcome of his plan, dictate if his ruse had any chance of succeeding.

  He walked to the bars and wrapped his massive hands around them, staring at the photo. He did his best to wear a morose look before glancing back to Cofey and nodding. “Yes. That is Lita. Was Lita.”

  Cofey stared at Pavel a moment before lowering the photo and putting it back in the folder.

  Where he stood was close enough Pavel could have reached out and grabbed him by the shirt, jerking his body forward into the bars, dropping him unconscious to the floor. For just a moment he entertained the idea, thinking of the sickening crack his skull would make, of the sight of his blood on the concrete floor, but just as fast he let the notion go. The Sheriff was beyond reach and despite any obvious physical advantages Pavel had on him, the bars separating them and the gun on the man’s hip more than compensated for it.