River of the Damned

by Aiden James

  The burden of worry reflected back to me, and the heavy weight from so many regrettable events in such a short span of time threatened to crush my spirit.

  “What in the hell have you done, Nick?” I whispered at my reflection.

  Of course, there was no reply. Just like there was no going back to happier times that now seemed like years ago, despite being a mere few weeks in the past. I bitterly recalled how my life seemed less than fortunate at the time. I would gladly trade running for our lives from Yassir Ali’s men any day over our current state… and if Marie was still alive.

  All I knew for certain at that profound moment was the end of our five year commitment to Project Golden Eye seemed like an eternity to look forward to. If only the beginning could be fast-forwarded to the final day.

  Chapter Two

  The trip to the office that would be Ishi’s and my ‘home away from home’ for the next five years took just seven minutes. The driver who picked us up also worked for the agency, and arrived at 7:38 a.m. Good thing Ishi and I were waiting for him outside the building’s entrance.

  Introducing ourselves to George Paradis, who stated he would be our assigned driver for the next several months, turned into an exercise in silence after he nodded and said he knew who we were and offered the information about his assignment as if he already relished reaching its conclusion. All other questions were ignored after an initial “That’s William’s job to inform you.”

  Meanwhile, the office was less than five blocks away from the Smithsonian complex, and the outside façade of the old brownstone looked nothing like what I had expected. Chipped concrete steps and graffiti-covered bricks made the building look more like an inner city crack house than anything else, along with boarded-up windows. But once inside, the décor was modern and spoke to an expensive renovation.

  “It’s not much to look at from the outside,” said Agent Jacobs, greeting us after Agent Paradis dropped us off at the reception desk in the lobby. Apparently Jacobs read my grimace as we entered the building. “We’re the only agency in town that operates like this, and even though new offices are being built for us in the suburbs, I prefer this place… it fits our personality and our purpose.”

  Not sure what in the hell he meant by that, but perhaps it was the casual atmosphere he was referring to. Jeans and a sweatshirt had replaced Jacob’s suit and tie from the previous two days. Other employees dipping in and out of the first floor offices were similarly attired. Despite wearing what looked like official U.S. government I.D. badges, this didn’t seem like a legit agency by any stretch.

  “Come on… William is waiting.”

  We followed him upstairs to the first landing, where he led us down a short hall and to the last office on the left. Jacobs knocked on the door’s frosted window and entered without waiting for a reply. Ishi and I peered through the open doorway.

  “Come in,” said an older man’s voice.

  The room was decorated in the fashion I had envisioned some government offices to look like… in the 1950s, that is. Although, the computer monitor on the desk was ultra-thin with a wireless keyboard—something from the modern age. And, at least the room looked somewhat legit. But the man rising from his high-back leather chair behind the desk looked more like a Mafia bodyguard. Or, perhaps he had once played sports on a serious level. Judging from the powerful chest and arms defined beneath a blue turtleneck sweater it was something full-contact, like football… as in rugby.

  “So you are the infamous Nicholas Caine and Ishima Cuyamel.” The man’s voice was rich and robust, with the timbre of an operatic baritone. He smiled warmly and extended his hand for both of us to shake. “I’m William Spence.”

  “Nice to meet you, Agent Spence,” said Ishi, followed by a ‘howdy’ from me. My response drew an amused chuckle from this handsome middle-ager. His green eyes, that would always be lighter than mine, twinkled in his lined face—a face that had either worshipped the sun or gained its character through harrowing adventures that rivaled my own. His blonde hair was tinged with gray along the temples and near the front of his full hairline.

  “So are you guys excited for your first assignment with us?” he asked, motioning for us to sit down in a pair of smaller leather chairs in front of his desk. “Brandon has brought me up to speed on some things, and I’ll get to your compensation packages in a moment. What do you think of your new pad? Pretty nice, huh?”

  Ishi and I exchanged bashful looks that were more on account of Agent Spence’s congeniality. We had expected a stodgy asshole. Not that Agent Jacobs was a bad guy either, but the way he had referred to his boss spoke of a rigidity we had yet to see, or sense. Then again, I haven’t had the greatest success in assessing people as of late.

  A large bookshelf dominated the wall behind Agent Spence, and I recognized some of the volumes from my college days. Only for me, the anthropological treatises and other works from famed pioneers like E.B. Tylor and James Frazer—as well as the archeology studies of Grahme Clarke, Louis Leaky, Lewis Binford, and others—had come in summarized textbooks. Some of the books here appeared to be leather-bound special editions, and I couldn’t help wondering if the famed scientists signed any of them.

  “I see your fascination with my little library, Nick,” said Spence, returning to his chair. “I almost headed down the anthropologist/archaeologist path thirty-eight years ago—not far from where you did your schooling. Back in the mid-seventies Berkley seemed a better choice for me than UCLA. After I finished my masters work, I ended up in law enforcement, eventually working for the FBI, CIA, and now… this.”

  “Impressive,” I said, hoping I didn’t come across as glib. In truth, I was more stuck on the law enforcement aspects than Spence’s impressive book collection and educational background. After all, Ishi’s and my near miss with going to prison had everything to do with this agent. “How did you end up pursuing black market antiquities purveyors?”

  “Such as you guys?”

  I still wasn’t convinced everything was on the up and up here, but the words stung. I could feel Ishi bristling next to me, since we had always considered what we dabbled in as a step above that kind of thief—especially since we did give much of what we recovered to some of the better museums in the world… just not all of it. Admittedly, though, ‘looters with a conscience’ had always stood on shaky ground, and maintainable only when no one else questioned that status.

  Agent Spence was still smiling, and shared an amused glance with Agent Jacobs, who leaned back against a small table with his arms folded across his chest. He observed with smugness more palpable than the night before.

  “I’m just kidding with you, Nick,” said Agent Spence, relaxing in his chair. “You and Ishi haven’t been the most honest sorts we’ve worked with until now, but you have your good points. We’ve seen the list of donations to the museums in Los Angeles, Denver, and Boston up close and personal. And, I like to believe that a man can change his ways… as long as he is willing to alter his perspective about a few things.”

  Ishi glanced at me warily—surely worried our promised deal was a ruse to get us to Washington so we could be arrested formally.

  “The deal that Agent Jacobs related to you both the other day still stands,” said Jacobs’ boss. “In fact, as long as you guys work faithfully for us for the mere term of your contract, you’ll never go to jail anywhere in the world, and you’ll get to keep the sizeable bounty you have collected over the years—the artifacts in storage in Honduras and Switzerland, along with the money. All of it.”

  Ishi let out a sigh of relief while I waited for the other shoe to fall.

  “But, in return for our… kindness, for lack of a better term, you two will be working your butts off to help us curtail the less than noble activities of some of the world’s most dangerous criminals,” he continued, studying us both intently, and with a keenness that spoke to the more ruthless nature hinted at by Agent Jacobs on the plane ride across the Atlantic. “I’m not going
to sugar coat this, guys. The job comes with some risks, although we have streamlined our processes to where the chances of you two sustaining permanent and life-threatening injuries are remote.”

  Boy, that announcement made me feel a helluva lot better.

  “Just to clarify, you’re saying that you might not be able to protect us from the ‘marks’ you want us to investigate?” I asked, beginning to care less and less about the unsavory conditions of spending the next ten years locked inside an Egyptian prison cell. “And you expect us to willingly work under such duress for the next five years?”

  “You mean we could die?” Ishi chimed in.

  “Yes... I do expect your full cooperation,” said Spence, in response to my question while ignoring Ishi’s. His warm and engaging tone had taken on a slight edge, difficult to gauge if it was merely solemnity to make a point or coldness.

  “I don’t want to die,” said Ishi, turning his attention solely to me. “Maybe prison would be better.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  “We are planning for fifteen to twenty missions per year,” added Jacobs. “That’s seventy-five to one hundred over the span of your contract.”

  “And, some won’t be dangerous at all,” said Spence, his smile returning. Perhaps he picked up something subtle from my expression, since I was doing the math while calculating what could possibly be our fate in Cairo’s modern dungeons—or even what might await us in Latin America, since Jacobs had mentioned our activities in Honduras and elsewhere had not escaped local governmental notice as I had hoped. “Some of the assignments will be in the United States, along the lines of participating in a sting operation to catch crooked museum curators and the small time crooks fencing relics through the black market avenues you know quite well.”

  “So what’s up with Fiji?” I asked.

  “Well, for starters the small gang of thieves we have been tracking have managed to plunder a number of Buddhist monuments and temples, and have had a knack for finding remote locations in some Pacific nations that we didn’t even know about until after the fact,” Spence explained, his smile dissolving into a grimace. It was either heartburn or an incredible distaste for being two steps behind the gang he described.

  “You guys sound like you are chasing these bad dudes instead of anticipating where they’ll end up next,” I said, deciding to lay things out there as I saw them, instead of kissing up to my new employers by trying to guess what they wanted to hear from Ishi and me. “I’d bet our first month’s paycheck that you’ve been chasing them for years now, always a day late and a treasure trove short. How about it?”

  Agent Jacobs’ smug look faded, but Agent Spence smiled with admiration, nodding approvingly.

  “See, Brandon? I told you these were the right guys!” he enthused. “Yes, Nick, you are ‘dead on’ accurate—as I expected a successful antiquities thief to be in regard to a situation such as this, which we’re trying to bring to an end. The heists mean little to us personally, since golden Buddhas have been stolen and successfully fenced for decades, if not much longer…. Our problem is the thieves are converting the treasure to money to buy weapons and drugs. The resultant drug money, along with the weapons, is being used to fund terrorist activities in South America.”

  I nodded thoughtfully while Ishi looked on, listening intently to what he surely perceived as a death sentence descending upon our heads.

  “I thought we were going to be working for a North American government agency,” I said, suddenly lost as to why we were helping someone other than a United States institution. Was this penance for Ishi’s and my successful digs in the lower American continent?

  Agent Spence chuckled, shaking his head as if amused by my smartass comment while the sparkle in his eyes faded, surely meaning he wasn’t.

  “This group has attacked US Embassy employees in Venezuela, Argentina, and just last month in Brazil,” he said, the warmth dying in his tone. “You most certainly are working for a North American government agency, and these assholes need to be stopped before they gain any more confidence and head further north. Another of our nation’s employees barely escaped being kidnapped in Mexico City two days after the Brazil incident. These guys are likely planning a bolder move very soon. We finally have a tip that their artifact recovery and fencing operation is in Fiji right now, and have honed in on their next target. Based on our previous experiences with this group, we have until Friday, tops, to find them and interrupt their latest operation. After that it will be too late, and we will have to wait for them to turn up again….”

  The agent’s voice trailed off as he opened a bottom drawer on the right side of his desk.

  “Let’s go ahead and get the job paperwork out of the way, and once you boys have filled out everything for our Human Resources department and the IRS—and we’ve discussed how your compensation will work—we can go over the basic information in the files on the‎Bandidos de Fantasmas.”

  “Ghost bandits?” I whispered thoughtfully.

  “Yep, that’s what they call themselves,” he agreed, closing the drawer and then pushing two files toward Ishi and me. “Go ahead and look this over, and then I’ll answer any questions either of you might have.”

  I hadn’t filled out an application like this since working at a burger joint in college. It was worse for Ishi, since he had never officially worked for anyone other than me. But, together we muddled through everything… that is, until we reached the last page, which spoke specifically about our compensation.

  “Is this true?” Ishi’s eyes grew wide with excitement while he pointed to the dollar amount printed on the contract.

  “Ten thousand dollars plus expenses for each excursion?” I sought to confirm. Suddenly, I wasn’t nearly as worried about the drug lord/arms dealers plundering ancient Buddhist monuments.

  “Ten thousand bucks for each completed assignment,” said Agent Spence, while Agent Jacobs stepped over and pointed out the fine print for Ishi to see on his contract. “Make headway that eventually leads to a successful arrest and you’ll still get five thousand—even though you didn’t finish successfully. But… if you fuck up and fail to make a valiant effort on the part of the United States government, you won’t get jack shit, and the expenses will come out of your asses. Comprende?”

  The monster feared by Agent Jacobs had just come out from under the bed. I thought Agent Spence might be joking and paused to study his face…. Not even a trace of humor or goodwill existed there. It had been thoroughly vanquished, or exorcised, in a nanosecond.

  And just like that, the guy had become a certifiable sociopath in my book. But again, he and Jacobs held the keys to our redemption, so I smiled good-naturedly and encouraged Ishi to follow my lead in signing the damned contracts.

  Afterward, Spence presented a stack of files for us to briefly peruse with him, before packing them up in a briefcase to take home with us. Our immediate assignment was to study the documents and pictures in our condo thoroughly, so that by Monday morning’s briefing we would be ready for the latest information on Bandidos de Fantasmas, and then be ferried off to the airport by Agent Paradis in the afternoon.

  It sounded doable, despite our misgivings. Too late to start over, and for better or for worse, our first adventure working for Project Golden Eye was under way.

  Chapter Three

  Reviewing the files on Luiz and Felipe Ramos turned out to be more involved than either Ishi or I had anticipated. The brothers and three cousins were the principle players in the gang. At least they were the main ones handling the archaeological plunder assignments. Of course, the rap sheets for the brothers explained Agent Spence’s mention of packing serious heat. One would need that for armed robbery charges. Not to mention both brothers had been in and out of Brazil prisons in their youth for a litany of crimes ranging from robbery to extortion, to even more serious crimes such as kidnapping and murder.

  “How in the hell did these guys ever get out of jail?” asked Ishi, shaking his
head after reviewing photographs from an apparent assassination of a newspaper editor for O Estado de S. Paulo in Sao Paulo.

  The same way it works in every other country, I’m afraid,” I said, pulling out fresh pages to spread across the dining room table. “More often than not, the justice systems of the world protect the guilty…. These are definitely some hard core dudes.”

  “I’m not liking this arrangement,” he said. “Do you think we’re being bugged?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I looked up from the mug shots of the cousins included in the gang. All of them carried the last name of Perez, and at least these guys didn’t carry the pedigree of death that the Ramos brothers brought with them. Important information to keep handy in case our cover got blown and we were forced to exploit the weaker links in the familial chain of command. The rest of the gang’s members carried similar arrest records to the Perez boys.

  Ishi pointed to the lights and other electronic devices in our vicinity.

  “You’re not serious, Ishi… or are you?”

  “So you don’t think we’re being listened to?”

  “Nah, I don….”

  It seemed preposterous, but then again, everything was being paid for by our employers, who didn’t have to do much to drive home the fact we could end up in prison at the snap of Agent Spence’s or Agent Jacobs’ fingers. The leaders of Project Golden Eye might not see invading our privacy as a crime, based on our nefarious past activities.

  “Thanks a lot, Ishi,” I said, glaring at him in irritation. “I could’ve gone months—weeks at least—without thinking about that fun possibility.”

  “So, do you think we are being bugged, or not?”

  “Why, do you?”

  “Yes… I mean, maybe,” he replied, glancing nervously around the dining room and cautiously peering into the living room and then into the nearby kitchen. “I want to talk about a different plan.”