“Do you, Jack?”
I tried to remember a James Bond movie where the hero pissed his pants.
Before I could fumble a reply, Crenshaw laughed. “We’re not sure quite yet. But I’m working on it. I haven’t been just sitting on my ass down here.”
Under different circumstances, I would have had to snicker at that. Gearheardt would have rolled on the floor.
Crenshaw went on. “The Cubans are involved. We know that. In fact I’m working with a Cuban group, the good Cubans, who tell me that the Russians are backing this whole thing. We’re not sure why as yet. But we’ll find out. This agent has worked with the Cubans, maybe for too long, if you get my drift.” Crenshaw paused and bit his lower lip. He appeared to be trying to make a decision. “Jack, I need you to do something for me. It won’t be easy. It could be risky. But I’m afraid we don’t have much time.”
“Yes, sir. I understand. Whatever I can do.”
“There is a group of devils here, Cuban devils that are tough as nails. Just absolute killers. We’re not sure if they are part of this plot. But it’s hard for us to believe that anything involving the Cubans could be going on without them being a part of it.”
“I’m still not sure why the Cubans would want the President of Mexico assassinated, sir.” And I genuinely wasn’t.
“We’re not sure either. That’s part of what I need you to do. We have a contact that we want you to use to get close, or at least as close as a few days will let you, to a guy named Victor Ramirez. They call him Lagarto, the Lizard.”
I gave myself one small point for coming up with that name on my own.
“I think I follow, Major, but walk me through it. Seems unlikely that Lagarto will just blurt out the name of a Cuban who is going to kill the President. Am I supposed to, like, torture him or …” “You’re supposed to hire him to kill the President.”
Mind racing. Pulse pounding. I think I feel chest pains. Calm down. Calm down.
“You see, we figure that if Lagarto knows anything, he’ll have to wonder what the hell is going on. He has one agent from the CIA already scheduled for the job, and now he’s asked by another agent to do the same job himself. He’ll start to doubt, to think maybe he’s being double crossed, and then we watch him react.”
“And then …” I paused, tilting my head forward to receive the answer.
“If everything goes to hell, and Victor shows up at the ceremony, you shoot him.”
“So we hire a guy to kill the President, but if he shows up, we shoot him.” I hoped that my insubordination was showing this time.
“What we hope happens, however, is that Victor flushes the other agent out into the open. Somehow, with the confusion of two CIA agents wanting the President shot, we find our man.”
“How?”
“We’re still working on that.” Crenshaw withdrew his wallet and signaled for the check. “One last thing, Jack. We have another agent coming into town tonight. He’s fully briefed and will be looking for our turncoat assassin full time. If we can take him out quietly, the game is off. I’ll let you know.” He stood to go. “We’ll leave separately. I have a ride to my next meeting waiting. Take care of Juanita, and I’ll see you tomorrow. There will be a packet on your desk with information about Victor Ramirez. You’ll take it from there. Good luck.”
“Wait a minute, Major Crenshaw,” I said, rising, “so there is another agent looking for the assassin agent to kill him? Will I meet this agent and compare notes?”
“I don’t think that’s wise, Jack. He likes to operate anonymously, do his job and get out of town. You understand.”
“So he will find this renegade agent and take him out? I just want to make sure I know what’s going on.”
“The renegade has hired someone local, a gringo we believe. That’s the guy our man will hit.”
Me, I assumed.
Back in the office, Juanita was busily finishing her nails. What does it say about a man who has just found out an assassin may be trailing him who immediately thereafter stands numbly watching a voluptuous Mexican woman rapidly move her upper body with a buffing motion that pulls one side and then the other of her blouse precariously close to nipple territory and forgets the assassin problem.
“Jack, the thing about breasts is a mystery. Women dress to almost expose them, but are insulted if you stare. On the other hand, they can expose up to a millionth of an inch close to the nipple, but if one billionth of a nipple pops up, hell breaks loose.”
“Gearheardt, you tried to lick that woman’s breast.”
“Only the non-nipple part, Jack. I’m no pervert.”
Juanita broke the spell by smiling up at me.
“So, Señor Jack, you are now my boss,” she said as the pull of gravity slowed and stopped the jiggling.
“Exactly how did you know, Juanita?”
“Señor Chavez, he telephone me with the news. You will be happy, Señor. Now I wear see-through, si?”
“No, Juanita, let’s not antagonize Major Crenshaw just yet.” I was mulling over the fact that a secretary in the embassy, in the CIA to be exact, knew of personnel changes from the bartender at the El Caballo. I needed to watch myself in the cantina, and also have a chat with Mr. Chavez.
I started into my office. “Did Pepe call, Juanita? Or Señor Rodrigo?”
“Only one call while you are gone, Señor.” She searched her desk covered with makeup and toiletries. Finding a pink message slip, she held it up and read. “Señorita Greta, she called. She says only,” she checked the slip again and moved her lips as she spelled it out to herself, “Señor Armstrong—that is you—es arschloch. That’s all she says, but she spell it for me.” Her bright face was eager to help her new boss. “I can get translate for you, si?”
“That won’t be necessary, Juanita. It means,” I was momentarily embarrassed, “something like a bad person. She is mad at me.”
Juanita began putting away her beauty equipment. “Eet mean asshole, Señor Jack.” So she could translate it.
“Thank you, Juanita. If I have no other messages, I need to work in my office. You can begin to transfer my files to your cabinet. I think you’re already familiar with them.”
I went in my office and shut the door. Without removing my jacket, I fell on the couch. Moving to Pago Pago was now near the top of my list of things to do. After living only twenty-nine years and doing nothing particularly significant, I had an assassin coming down to kill me. The depressing thing was that I had had so many opportunities to strangle Gearheardt and took none of them. I sighed and walked to my desk.
As promised, the sealed envelope regarding Victor Ramirez was lying in the center of my desk. I threw my coat back to the couch, sat down, and opened the thick package.
Normal identity stuff. Old crappy photo. Former addresses. Girlfriends (no Marta). Associations known (no surprises, mostly Cuban organizations and people). Military service record and postings (Where did we get this stuff?). Family (wife and two kids in Havana).
Wait a minute. Under military postings it listed Angola. Same time frame as Gearheardt. Was there a connection? I scrutinized the military information listed and quickly found something I had hoped wasn’t there. One of the contacts was noted as G. Norea. The odds were that was our old pal Gon Norea who Gearheardt and I knew in Vietnam and who Gearheardt had run into in Angola. Which then meant that there was a good chance that Gearheardt knew Victor Ramirez.
I tried to remember the conversation with Marta and Gearheardt. Had he said he didn’t know the guys that she was introducing me to? Or was that just my assumption? And one way or another, did it mean anything?
Nothing else in the file seemed significant. Ramirez had been kicked out of the Mexico City Rotary for slicing up a waiter who dropped his soup, and he was rumored to prefer Mexican prostitutes who could tap dance. (Where DID we get this stuff?). And, no surprise, the last entry was a possible address contact for Ramirez, the Club Tristiza.
“Gearheardt, you
piece of baboon dung, you’d better give me a call,” I said to the bug in the office. I didn’t want to give anything else away by asking questions through the bug. Someone else was probably monitoring the listening device.
Clearing my desk, I checked one more time with Juanita to see if I had missed any calls. I hadn’t. It was time for the Armstrong Yellow Tablet Concentrate. That was the name I gave the process of taking a yellow pad and writing down the events of the past week or so as people, places and facts/fiction. At one time I had only written down facts that I had verified. But I quickly realized that the lies people told were often better clues than facts.
Under places, I wrote Office, 203 Isbsen (my apartment), Club Tristiza, El Caballo, and El Diablo Motel. I considered the places I had been on other business, such as that with Rodrigo, but decided they couldn’t be connected.
Under people I wrote Gearheardt, Crenshaw, Marta, Juanita, Victor Ramirez, and Mr. Chavez.
Juanita buzzed me to say she was leaving for the day. “Señorita Greta called again, Señor Jack. I didn’t want to disturb you. She wanted to make sure you got the message she left.”
“That I’m an arschloch?”
“Si, Señor. An asshole.”
“Thanks, Juanita. I’ll see you tomorrow. Do I have a burn bag in my office?” I looked around where I usually kept them. “I don’t see one.”
“You have the burn bag in your desk drawer. Hasta luego, Señor Boss.”
I continued my yellow sheet.
Connections, known: Gearheardt—Marta, the Pygmy. Crenshaw—Chavez, Juanita. Marta—Ramirez, Gearheardt.
Possibles: Gearheardt—Crenshaw, Juanita, Chavez, Ramirez.
Nothing jumped out that was significant, yet. I tried then to outline the missions.
Gearheardt—Help the good Cubans gain a stronghold in Mexico by having me attempt to assassinate the President and defecting to Cuba and blaming it on the bad Cubans. How would that work?
Crenshaw—Help the good Cubans by stopping the bad Cubans from assassinating the President. Finding the assassin by pretending to be hiring our own assassin. How would that work?
Although there seemed to be a connection between Gearheardt and Crenshaw (in mission and in knowing Victor Ramirez) there was something missing in their missions, or what I knew of them. Which meant that both of them were holding back information from me. And Gearheardt didn’t want Crenshaw to know that I was working with him. And Crenshaw hinting the he knew an agent (Gearheardt?) was behind the whole thing.
I felt a headache coming on. After going over them one more time I dropped the sheets in the burn bag which was where Juanita said it would be. I realized that I had forgotten one of Gearheardt’s connections that could be connected to me—the Halcones. My friend at the Mexican Secret Police seemed to know Gearheardt and Gearheardt admitted that he had contacts there. I sealed the bag and dropped it in the secure receptacle so the security guys could dispose of it.
Gearheardt had maneuvered me into working for him. And I had to work for Crenshaw in order to work for Gearheardt. I owed loyalty to Crenshaw who after all was my boss and represented the U.S. Government. With Gearheardt, I just couldn’t believe that he would do anything to hurt me, or the country. On the other hand, Gearheardt was crazy. What I had to find out (and I had no clue yet as to how to do it) was if the missions were in conflict with one another, or if they were parts of the same mission. It was not at all unusual for the Agency to compartmentalize a mission so that the loss of one man wouldn’t blow the entire operation.
The headache arrived in spades.
It was a nice night and I decided to walk through the park back to my apartment, trying to clear my head before I hopefully met Gearheardt. My driver was skeptical, but I waved him off. “I’ll be fine, Jorge. And I’ll check in with you when I’m home so that you can sign out for the evening. Gracias.”
But Gearheardt wasn’t at the apartment. Nor was Marta. There were no signs that either of them had been in the apartment except for a wet towel that Marta must have dropped on the bathroom floor that morning.
I called the duty officer at the embassy and told him to tell Jorge that I was at my apartment and didn’t expect to go out again. Just as I hung up the phone, it rang.
“Ola.”
“Jack, is that you?”
“Who else would it be, Gearheardt? Didn’t you dial my apartment?”
“With the Mexican phone system, it could be Adolph Hitler. Anyway, I’m glad you’re home. Is Marta there?”
“I thought she might be with you. Did you talk to her today?”
Gearheardt didn’t answer. I heard him talking to someone with his hand over the phone.
“Gearheardt, I just asked if you had talked to her today. I need to meet you. Crenshaw and I talked today. I have a few questions. Where are you?”
“Afraid this isn’t a secure enough line to divulge that, Jack. Why don’t you—”
“Okay, I’ll meet you somewhere. How about—”
“Jack, hold up. We can’t be arranging a meeting on this line either.”
“You worthless bastard, Gearheardt. So we can’t talk on the phone and can’t set up a meeting. How in hell do we get together?”
“Go somewhere and I’ll meet you after you get there,” Gearheardt said.
“Go somewhere and you’ll … wait a minute, are you having me followed?”
“Not unless you go somewhere, Jack.”
I hung up, grabbed my jacket and headed out of my apartment. In five minutes, I was in the park, looking over my shoulder but not spotting a tail. Was he that good, or was I that bad?
A few minutes later, Gearheardt sat down beside me on the bench.
“Hey, Jack, I thought you told the embassy you weren’t going out again this evening.” He laughed and I wanted to punch him.
“So you’ve tapped all my lines, bugged my office and now you have a tail on me. What’s all this about, Gearheardt? I need the straight scoop or I’m going to Crenshaw.” And I meant it.
“So you’ve told Crenshaw about us working together?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“And you’ve told him about Marta and meeting Ramirez?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“I’m just saying that will be a pretty interesting conversation with Crenshaw then, Jack. Wouldn’t you think so? I’ve heard the major doesn’t like his boys jacking around on missions that he isn’t in on. Particularly when they might be, to a certain degree, in conflict with what he’s trying to do. Just a thought.”
I stared at his silly grin. “You’re an asshole, Gearheardt. I suppose you don’t realize that you’ve now put me in a situation where an Agency hitman is probably looking for me.”
Gearheardt didn’t seem as concerned at the news as I had been. “Tell me what Crenshaw told you.”
I told him exactly what had been said at the lunch with Crenshaw. Gearheardt only commented with an occasional ‘hmmmm’ or sometimes ‘ah ha’ as if he were finding pieces of the puzzle. When I finished, he smiled even broader.
“Perfect. You’ve done great, Jack. Couldn’t have done better myself.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Gearheardt. What is perfect and what did I do?”
“For one thing, you didn’t tell him about me. That’s the best thing. I appreciate it, Jack. I really do.”
“What about this so-called hitman?”
“That could be a problem. Let me think about it. Maybe the Pygmy can find out who it is and get to him before he takes you out. I’ll try to find him tomorrow.”
Gearheardt could be a little maddening sometimes. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Happy to do it, Jack. Happy to do it.” He patted my knee. “Let’s talk about what Crenshaw wants you to do. First, get this Ramirez guy on the hook. This is even better than using Marta. He may be confused by seeing you without Marta, but when he realizes an honest to goodness Agency man is seeking him for a job, he’ll
wet his pants to get back to you.”
“Do you know Ramirez, Gearheardt?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t lie to me.
“I’ve run into him a couple of times. We’re not pals, if that’s what you mean.”
“That isn’t what I mean. But we can come back to that. What you’re saying is that I should just do what Crenshaw asked me to do. Approach Ramirez about shooting the President of Mexico.”
“Correcto.”
“But that’s the job you said I needed to do, right?”
“Correcto again, Jack.
“Would you knock off the high school Spanish, Gearheardt? Just talk normally if that’s possible for you.” I was in no mood for his crap. I needed some real answers. “So who’s supposed to shoot the President, me or Ramirez?”
“You don’t need to get all insecure, Jack. You can shoot the President if you want to. We just want Ramirez to think we’re recruiting him to shoot el Presidente. Sorry, President. And remember, you don’t really get to shoot him. Just try to shoot him. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“I’m not complaining, you dope.” I paused. “Gearheardt, are you really that obtuse? We’ve got guys trying to assassinate this poor guy up the ass, and you act like everything’s hunky dory. You say the CIA, this pygmy guy, is behind your scheme and that seems okay with you even though Crenshaw says someone in the Agency is going to try to stop the assassin by shooting him and hiring another assassin. Are you completely insane?”
Gearheardt leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, cupping his chin. After a moment he straightened back up and looked at me. “Obtuse I guess. I think I’d rather be obtuse than insane.”
CIA Agents in Murder-Suicide near Chapultepec Park; Rumored to be Former Friends.
The thought of that headline stilled the hand that reactively moved toward my shoulder holster.
“I can see you’re pissed, Jack. Let me get serious. I’m an intelligence agent for the United States government. Not some Crap Island stooge for Casteroil. As such, I have the obligation to take some initiative when I see a situation that needs some … some initiative taken.”
He had almost had me believing he knew what he was doing until he stumbled on the description of whatever it was that needed to be done. He went on.
Goodbye Mexico Page 8