The Long Gray Goodbye: A Seth Halliday Novel

by Bobby Underwood

  Lovato’s expression was unhappy but resigned. He was a pro and he’d gotten sloppy, fooled by Katarina’s sex-kitten aura into dismissing her. He said, sounding as pragmatic as Claude Raines in Casablanca, “I always knew a pretty woman would be the end of me. I just assumed it would be my wife.”

  I had to laugh, and when I did, I made a move just as risky as the one I’d been about to make: I handed Lovato his gun back, and then I handed him mine.

  “Look, Lovato, no one is trying to pull one over on you. This is your turf. But I need some leeway or someone I want to save if I can, is probably going to get killed. Just hear me out and then decide.”

  It was a dangerous move, but I was betting on Lovato being more concerned with justice than the law, or his turf. He looked at me squarely as he slipped the Glock into his pocket. I held his gaze and then he holstered his own weapon. He would listen.

  Sanchez behind me and Sonny ahead of me both looked at me skeptically as we came aboard. I shrugged. There weren’t a lot of options if Lovato had grown so weary waiting that he was going to follow us around. Marquez’s eyes became cold when he saw Lovato. He knew he’d return to the boat but the plan had not been for him to waltz back on board unimpeded. Two of Lovato’s men were tied up and gagged on the sofa. Marquez gave Sonny a hard look. Sonny shrugged and gave Marquez a “Hey, man, this ain’t my idea,” look.

  I said, “My call. Lovato needs to know what’s going on.”

  “Hello, Seth, Caroline. It’s nice to see you again.”

  We might have been visiting Anna Marquez and her husband for lunch, so undisturbed and unaffected by events was she. With her gorgeous daughter standing next to her, it could have been a time progression photograph of a beautiful girl in her twenties, then the same girl a couple of decades later; still beautiful, but in a more mature way. If Sanchez was able to stay with Anne, he had a lot to look forward to.

  “Hi, Mrs. Marquez,” replied Caroline. She hugged Anna and then hugged old Fernando. It caught him off guard, which was nearly impossible to do where old Fernando was concerned. Caroline said, “I’ve missed seeing you,” as though we were constant visitors to old Marquez’s lair in the Keys, from where he ran his empire.

  “I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he replied in an affectionate tone I suspected he reserved for those of his immediate family. The look he gave me over her shoulder, and Sanchez next to me, was not filled with affection.

  “Let us sit, and we’ll discuss things,” Anna said gently.

  Lovato sat next to his tied up men, glancing at them with disdain. Good help was hard to find nowadays. In fact, it always had been.

  I knew it was going to steam old Fernando, but if I was going to bring Lovato in, and ask him to do nothing, I had to bring him in all the way. I took a deep breath and leaned forward.

  “Marquez’s presence literally has nothing to do with my investigation. He came here because Sanchez and Anne were here. It’s really your fault, in a way. When you and Sanchez got into it, Anne got torqued because she loves Sanchez and knows he is an honest cop, as far as it goes. We all make concessions out of pragmatism. Even you, Lovato.”

  I could tell I’d struck a nerve. What concessions Lovato had made I had no idea. He said, “Go on.”

  “Anne knows, at least generally, the business he is in.” I was careful not to look at Marquez when I said it, but I could feel his eyes like daggers in my chest. Either that or I was having a heart attack. “So, Anne called her father and gave him an earful, at which point, without getting into particulars, he discovered that his wife was already aware of the relationship between Sanchez and their daughter. He came here as a father, worried about Anne.”

  Lovato looked at Anne. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Then he looked at Sanchez, also probably drop-dead gorgeous — at least if you were female. Finally he looked at Anna Marquez, who smiled, and Fernando, whose eyes were very still. Lovato cracked a smile, and then began to laugh. An almost carefree, jolly laugh. The room changed because he relaxed. When he finally stopped laughing, he spoke.

  “As a father whose daughter has not yet reached such an age, I suspect I would be just as concerned. Every good father would be.” He was making one of those concessions, admitting Marquez was more than what he did for a living, which was head the largest narcotics business in the United States. Marquez nodded at Lovato, almost imperceptibly.

  “Now to business,” Lovato said, his tone changing. “What was it about Cheryl which led you to Laura Garner and her sister’s disappearance, and the suicide of this singer, Holly Carmichael?”

  I told him.

  “Who has this tape now?”

  “Laura Garner. It was addressed to her.”

  “That begs the question…” He let it trail off, glancing at Sanchez. He nodded. “Ah yes, the Cisco Kid. You thought you could give her justice, whereas we lowly and simple police of Ecuador would not be capable of doing so.”

  “Capable, yes, willing and able? Would you have been given the resources to speak face to face with Laura, then travel to Paris?”

  “Since you know so much, tell me everything.”

  “You want to untie and untag your compadres first?”

  “Oh, heavens no! This should teach them a lesson.” He glanced at them disgustedly. They didn’t look any too happy. I almost felt a little sorry for them. Lovato obviously did not. “Please continue.”

  So I told him everything except the portions which dealt with Vlad and Katarina. If he was surprised by any of it, he didn’t show it. He’d be a formidable poker player, I thought.

  After I concluded, ten seconds passed, then he began nodding.

  “I did not have a name at first, but it was known to me that someone had set up shop in the jungles of Tena.” His gaze shifted to Marquez. “I thought perhaps it was you.”

  Marquez raised a cool eyebrow to indicate his surprise at such unwarranted speculation. But Lovato had his number.

  “Or at the very least, you had knowledge of an operation which you felt no need to shut down. I considered that possibility slim, but if true, that would mean the business did not conflict with your own. Which, of course, only leaves weapons.”

  Marquez didn’t like it. He was cool, but he didn’t like it. It was in his eyes. It was one thing for his wife and daughter to say they were aware in general terms of his business, but quite another to pin it down to drugs. That’s exactly what Lovato had just done. By deducing that Boon’s business running weapons out of the jungle was not in conflict with Marquez’s illegal enterprise, nothing else was left.

  Marquez squeezed his wife’s hand, who had been sitting on the arm of the sofa beside him. “Take Anna up on deck, please.” He turned to Caroline. “Perhaps you would like to join them, my dear?” I noticed he hadn’t included Katarina in the offer. He knew she had the .22 and knew how to use it. That’s how they’d taken the guards before we arrived. She was the only one armed other than Lovato. Marquez wanted her here in case things went south, the wily bastard.

  But Anna Marquez had been married to Fernando a long time, and knew she would never have more leverage than she did in that moment. She slid from the arm of the sofa where she’d positioned her breathtaking behind next to her husband. She was spectacular in a bright red dress.

  “On one condition, Fernando. We settle the other matter right here, right now, quickly.”

  He looked up for a second, annoyed. When I saw him break eye contact I knew he was acquiescing to his wife’s wishes. She said to Sanchez, “Fernando and I are very pleased that our daughter has found someone so decent who loves her. As part of the family, we hope you understand that we wish to release you from any prior obligations which might interfere with your sworn duties as an officer of the law. Fernando has decided Cozumel is not the right atmosphere for his business.”

  Anne was looking at her father and smiling. She leaned down and hugged him. His arms went around her. Her mother glanced at her husband and smiled, then she turned back to Sanch
ez. “If you ever hurt my daughter, Daniel, it is not Fernando you will need to worry about.” She was smiling, but something in her eyes said she wasn’t kidding. Sanchez barely had time to react because Anne threw herself into his arms. Sanchez slipped a ring on her finger, surprising her. “It was my mothers, and her mother’s before her.”

  Lovato and I took turns staring out the cabin windows at the waters off Manta. When I dared look, Anne was giving her answer with a kiss. Marquez’s head was turned completely in the opposite direction. He did not want to see his daughter being kissed. Sonny started whistling “We’ve Only Just Begun” and Katarina gave him an elbow.

  Caroline and Anna came forward to hug Sanchez and get a gander at the ring. Katrina came over to look, too, but when it broke up and they went up on deck she returned to sit next to Sonny and Marquez.

  “We have the same objective, Lovato,” I said, breaking the silence which ensued once Anna, her daughter and Caroline had gone topside. “But we’re also at cross-purposes. If you send a big contingent in there to take out Boon and bust up his operation, Holly might get killed, if she’s still alive. And there’s the kid to consider, Cheryl’s brother, Brian. He may still be alive, too.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Let me go in first, try to get Holly out, and the boy, if they’re alive. You and your people can be close behind us, waiting on a signal.”

  Sanchez laughed and said to Lovato, “By me, he means Sonny and I, and I presume Katarina. He likes to include us in his romantic delusions that he can save everyone. We try to humor him.”

  Lovato chuckled. He said, “So just four of you against however many people Boon has guarding all these weapons?”

  “Look where he’s at, Lovato. It’s the location that gives him his protection. He had at least two kids out there helping. Maybe more. He’s probably got some people around him, but I doubt it’s a significant number. It might be easier for a small group to creep in there and catch Boon unaware. Boon has always operated as a loner, from what I can gather. Even when was with Escobar.”

  “It might be easier?” said Sonny. “Glad you’re all certain, man.” I ignored him. Katrina was smiling.

  Lovato thought about it for several seconds. He looked at Marquez.

  “You know Boon’s location, and I mean the exact location?”

  Marquez almost smiled. Almost. He took a cigar out of his expensive suit pocket and lit it. “Will the exact coordinates suffice?” I imagined Patton having that same look when Ike questioned whether he could have the Third Army ready for a campaign on short notice.

  Forty-Two

  Tena is small enough that we were able to get around easily after checking into a hotel and making preparations. The town lies deep inland from Manta, where we’d been staying. Lying at the edge of the Andes, it is Ecuador’s door to the Amazon Rainforest. A thriving cinnamon industry marks and identifies Tena as much as the jungle surrounding the town, or the statue of Jumandi, who led an uprising against Spanish trying to colonize there in the late 1500s. The town to which missionaries gave birth is the capital of the Napo Province, and a major commercial center of Ecuador which has links to both Masahualli, and the Napo River, a tributary to the Amazon River which winds its way in a southerly direction until it finds Peru.

  Because of the rainforest lying between fifteen and twenty kilometers from the town, Tena has a thriving tourist industry as well as the lucrative cinnamon business. There is kayaking and whitewater river rafting, the natural caves in Jumandi whose tunnels extend for miles underground, and the Sumaco volcano which rises from the jungle at almost thirty-eight-hundred feet. The rainforest and jungle have been opened up for tourism by trails and tours. There is a lodge and the Jatun Sancha Biological Station that gives visitors a spectacular view of the jungle. The Ashin and the Fonakin tribes indigenous to the area are prominent, both in visibility and in political sway.

  Because Tena is a tourist town, it’s cheap. There are backpackers everywhere, most of them, but not all, young. Some are just eager to see the rainforest, others end up volunteering to work on the reforestation projects. The Canadians have a big oil field in the area, so there is a lot of contention between the ecotourism business and the more pragmatic use of land.

  Caroline had come with me to Tena but would remain with Anne and Harry in town. Harry had been eager to abandon his new girlfriend. She’d thought he lived alone on the boat — something he hadn’t discouraged her from believing — and had visions of cruising to exotic places — again, not discouraged by Harry — where she could lie on the beach and spend Harry’s money. Harry rarely had to play the women who fell all over themselves to cuddle and reform him while the sly old coot enjoyed their feminine charms, but this one was hotter than a chili pepper. Harry had not wished to discourage her affections in any way.

  It was still early enough in summer that we were catching the tail end of the rainy season in Tena. It wasn’t going to make the already dangerous and unpleasant task of trekking into the jungle after Eugene Boon any more agreeable. At least we had backup if things went south. Lovato had little trouble placing the military at his disposal after I spoke to Josselyn and explained the situation. She had worked swiftly, contacting her husband. An hour later, Lovato had the authority to command twenty-five crack Ecuadorian troops for the operation.

  Marquez had given us the exact coordinates before returning to the Florida Keys with Anna. Boon’s compound was deep in the jungle. Marquez swore it was accessible by vehicle in spots, but he didn’t know where they were because, like the compound, the rainforest concealed them from the air. It also concealed a small runway just big enough for a small plane to land, he informed us. I didn’t ask how Marquez knew about it if it was concealed. He just knew.

  Boon had probably built the runway for those looking to buy. Boon could fly both small planes and helicopters, according to Fernando. I had no doubt that the plane from which Cheryl had been thrown so cruelly would be sitting near that runway.

  To reach a spot where we could begin heading through the jungle up toward Boon’s lair, we had to travel a few miles upriver. We had three boats, wide, flat-bottomed jobs to traverse across any shallow spots in the imposing river we might encounter. Sonny, Sanchez, Katarina, Lovato and I took the lead boat. Lovato’s merry band of heavily armed military personnel divided the other two boats between them.

  Both Lovato and Colonel Molina, a tall rangy man in his mid-thirties knew the area well. I didn’t ask how Lovato knew these rivers or the jungle so deep into Ecuador, but I did notice a small scar on his neck which hadn’t been visible in his police uniform. Now he — and the rest of us — were dressed as the military personnel were, in camouflage colors to blend into the jungle.

  Katarina got more than a few stares from the Colonel Molina and his men when they’d arrived in Tena. The fatigues only made her look hotter, and more sex-kitten-e. They’d discovered quickly after joining us, however, that the kitten had claws. Katarina requested a Mauser 98 barreled action rifle which was made in Serbia. When it proved too difficult to get, she’d switched to a .30-06 Remington Model 798. When Molina, whom I’d been informed by Lovato was an expert in weapons, like Boon, asked her if she wanted the stock modified in any way because it was a lot of wood, she answered that in the jungle she might need the durability. That made him and the men under his command smile.

  When she’d requested a Leopold VX-1 2-7x33mm as her scope, again Molina asked her why, since she was Russian, she wanted an American scope. She sighted durability again, emphasizing the water submersion tests run on that particular scope as being of importance since we were going into the jungle during the rainy season, not to mention the rivers we’d be traversing.

  I remember being glad Sonny wasn’t around when she did all this, because by that time I was certain the smiles of the colonel and his men were accompanied by serious hard-ons. Naturally, they were cool to Sonny afterward, since he was the bastard who’d made Katarina off limits.
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  As we glided along the water, there was nothing but cliffs and rolling hills covered in green jungle on both sides of us. It felt like we’d left the known world and entered some strange land which belonged to a different, more primitive time. The sound of the river occasionally strengthened, and then would pound as we passed falls rushing down from the mountains to join the river as it had for centuries. Big forks in the river separated by huge rock masses were covered in brush and trees, and blocked out the sun as we chose a path — or rather Lovato and the colonel did. Tight bends in the river were taken slowly, and there existed an apprehension, almost eerie, as we’d round the corner.

  Once, we were close to the shore on one side and drifted by a native mother and her daughter. I did not know which tribe she belonged to, but her face and forehead had black paint, the forehead more than lines like on the face, but some design. Her little girl had the design too, and the streaks had been placed on their calves as well. Both wore blonde grass skirts and beads around their necks. The woman was topless and unashamed. They both had long black hair, and watched us as we passed with interest, but no fear. This was their world, not ours, and they knew it. I thought the woman was beautiful.

  Perhaps a mile later a pretty young girl — a native teenager — sitting on the bank at the edge of the river dressed exactly the same, and painted similarly, stood to watch. We were close as we went by and she made eye contact with me. She smiled brightly and played with the ends of her long black hair, her eyes never leaving me. I smiled back and she ducked her head a half second and was smiling even brighter when it came back up. Deep in the jungle, far from what man would call civilization, there was something pure and lovely in her innocent flirtation. I waved to her and she got very excited, waving back quickly. I kept waving until she was only a dot, and then I saw her run back into the jungle.

  Sanchez said, “I’m going to tell Caroline.” But he was laughing.

  There was something ancient and innocent here. This was nature as it was intended to be, before we’d ruined it with big cities, dirty politics and crime; before metrosexuals whose idea of roughing it was grabbing a coffee at 7-11 instead of Starbucks; before “liberated” and “enlightened” women made bestsellers of every installment in the Fifty Shades of Utter Crap series, daydreaming that they, too, one day would be whisked off their feet and subjected to degradation and abuse by someone very, very rich, and as narcissistic as they were self-respect challenged. But hey, as long as he was stinking rich, it was okay, right?