Primary Valor

by Jack Mars

He moved up the backwoods dirt road now, walking silently. He had left his car about a quarter mile back, pulled into a turnaround. There were no houses on this road, just one rundown shack on a creek, at the end.

  But the road was not quiet, and that was good. Early morning birds called to each other. Somewhere, a woodpecker was hammering on a tree. Frogs called and insects buzzed in the swamps and in the overhead trees. In some trees there were so many insects, and they were so loud, it sounded like electricity was being generated.

  All of these things were good. The sounds covered his movements.

  The shack was just up ahead. He could see it now. It was an old wooden place with a rusted metal roof, no foundation, just raised up on stilts with a little space underneath. It looked like it didn’t know which way to fall. There was a car parked in front of it, some generic sedan, like a rental car.

  They had sent him there. Yes, he knew it was Darwin King who had sent him, but El Tigre never worked directly for Darwin. There was always a go-between, or more than one. They had flown him down from Washington, DC, landing just an hour ago. Private airstrip, no one around. An empty car waiting with a gun in the glove compartment.

  This gun.

  This silencer.

  These bullets.

  All just waiting for him.

  The girl might be here, the same girl he had stolen just last week. Someone had stolen her back. Now the job was different.

  “What would you like me to do?” he had said.

  “You know what to do,” the customer had said. Not Darwin King, because never Darwin King. The middleman. The arranger.

  He shook his head. “No. I like it to be clear. I like you to say it.”

  “Eliminate her.”

  “Eliminate?”

  The man nodded. “Yes.”

  “And then?” El Tigre said.

  “There are alligators there.”

  El Tigre nodded. “Ah.”

  “If she’s there, you might find a man with her.”

  “Okay,” El Tigre said.

  “Eliminate him too.”

  Now, in the dim light of morning, he moved toward the house. The gun was out, in his right hand, the silencer already mounted. He moved cautiously, taking careful steps, completely silent. He went up the stairs to the porch, stepping gingerly, testing each board first.

  The house was quiet. The car outside said someone was here. The silence said otherwise.

  Maybe they were asleep.

  He moved along the porch and came to the door. He glanced inside. The door opened to a threadbare kitchen. From here, he could see a small refrigerator, a table and a chair. He put his hand on the doorknob and very slowly, he turned it. It was unlocked.

  That was lucky. Very good fortune.

  He took a deep breath and pushed it slowly open. He went through the doorway, careful not to make the slightest sound. Even his breathing was silent. Now he was inside. He could see the rest of the kitchen now. It took a second to absorb the scene.

  There was a pot of water on the stove, and the water was boiling. There was a mug with some kind of tea bag, or coffee bag in it. There were a handful of sugar packets.

  Someone was definitely here, had in fact been in this kitchen only a…

  A gun was at his head, behind him.

  “Move at all and I’ll kill you,” a male voice said.

  El Tigre did not move.

  “Now drop that gun.”

  He did as he was told. The gun made a loud thunk when it hit the kitchen floor.

  Without warning, the man hit him in the back of the head. The impact was vicious, nauseating. Instantly, El Tigre knew what it was.

  He’d been hit with a gun. A pistol whipping was coming.

  The man hit him again.

  And again.

  Each blow was a blast of pain and blinding light. His legs became weak. He reached to grip something to hold himself up, but there was nothing.

  He was hit again. His vision went black.

  When he opened his eyes, he was on his back, looking up. His first thought was that he was dizzy and might vomit. His second thought was:

  My gun!

  He had dropped it here on the floor somewhere. It might still…

  The man appeared, standing over him. There was no sense looking for the gun because the man was holding it. The man was tall, and broad, and had short blond hair. His eyes said he was very, very tired. His eyes also said he had killed before, and wouldn’t mind doing it again.

  “That’s quite a scar on your face,” the man said. “Tell me something. Does anyone ever call you El Tigre?”

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  12:25 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

  The Long Trail Tavern

  Providence, Rhode Island

  “Don’t you guys have anything better to do?”

  Eddie Alvarez was putting up pint glasses above the bar. He had worked here so long, even he couldn’t remember when he started. Two regulars had just come in and sat down at the far end of the bar.

  The Long Trail didn’t serve food, other than little bags of potato chips, potato skins, and hot fries. There was no trail nearby. Technically, the place didn’t open until two o’clock. The owner, Steve, didn’t like people coming in much before then.

  Steve didn’t want to admit what everyone else already knew, which was that the Long Trail was a place where alcoholics came to drink cheap alcohol. That would make Steve complicit in people drinking themselves to death, and since he had gotten rich owning this dump, he wanted to be above reproach.

  Steve would say, “I don’t want a bunch of drunks coming in here at twelve-oh-one because they think that qualifies as waiting until lunch.”

  So Eddie didn’t let people in at 12:01. But that was as far as it went.

  He sighed. Customers were already here, so he turned on the TV behind the bar. He clicked around until he found a cable news station. In a little while, there would be a baseball game from somewhere. There always was.

  A pretty, middle-aged woman with dark hair, some impossible to decipher mixed race, was reading the news. If Eddie looked closely, he felt that he would be able to spot the area under her chin where she’d had a bit of a tuck, or the way her skin seemed artificially smoothed out under her eyes, where there would normally be crow’s feet, or the area on either side of her mouth.

  He shook his head. What did it matter?

  “Today, multiple federal agencies, and the United States Army Special Forces, in partnership with the Honduran Air Force and Navy, staged an early morning raid on an island off the coast of Honduras owned by mysterious billionaire Darwin King. King was present on the island, and was arrested in connection with human trafficking allegations stemming from numerous abduction cases in Florida, North Carolina, and New York City. He was also wanted in connection with the murder of the lobbyist Miles Richmond, who was found shot and killed in the underground parking lot of his firm in Washington, DC. At least half a dozen minors were rescued from Darwin King’s island during the operation. Their names and genders are being protected for their safety.

  “The Honduran president, Salvador Ruiz-Campo, issued a statement denying any previous knowledge of King’s presence in Honduras. His spokesman said the government of Honduras was shocked to discover that an international criminal like King was living just off their coast, and the Honduran military was proud to play a role in his apprehension. He went on to say that all foreign nationals would now be subject to increased scrutiny, to determine if any other illegal activities were being carried out in Honduran territory. More as this case unfolds.”

  The woman stared directly into the TV screen. Eddie had seen that look before, about a million times. She was scanning the teleprompter, preparing herself for where the next story was going.

  “In other news, United States House of Representatives Minority Leader William Ryan was released from the hospital this morning after being admitted overnight for observation. Ryan was the victim of a violen
t mugging attempt last night near the Lincoln Memorial. Gun rights activists are holding Ryan up as an example of the benefits of carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense. Some have begun to refer to him as ‘Billy the Kid.’ Ryan fired warning shots at his attackers, which led them to flee the scene. Gun control proponents are calling for an investigation into whether Ryan has ever carried a gun into House chambers. Upon leaving the hospital, Ryan joked to reporters that he would be back at work in a couple of days, and ready to settle some scores.”

  Eddie Alvarez smiled at that. He carried a gun, on nights when he worked the late shift. He gazed out the window for a moment, at the early afternoon. There were a few old scores he wouldn’t mind settling himself.

  Of course, a big-time politician would have an easier time doing that than he would. Those people could get away with murder.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  April 7, 2006

  2:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  United States Federal Detention Center

  Atlanta, Georgia

  “Guard!” Darwin King shouted. “Guard!”

  It was late at night, and he was alone as always. They had put him in the most dismal dungeon, in the worst, oldest, most dysfunctional part of an aging decrepit prison left over from the nineteenth century.

  He had to get out of here. It was cold. Moisture formed on the walls from condensation. Sometimes late at night, like now, the condensation formed a thin sheen of ice. There was a problem with his toilet. Water leaked from under it, making a tiny river across the stone floor.

  He looked at it now. The metal toilet. It had a water faucet at the top of it, an odd combination. Everything else was made of stone, and in a fixed location. A narrow stone desk extended from the cinderblock wall, with a rounded stone stool like a small peg coming out of the floor in front of it.

  Like the desk, the bed was narrow and made of stone. A thin mattress covered it and there was one green blanket made of wool serge, or some equally itchy material. There was a narrow window in the far wall, framed in green, perhaps two feet tall and six inches wide. It was always dark outside that window, except for a sickly yellow light that streamed into the cell from a nearby sodium arc lamp mounted on the outside wall. There was no way to cover the window.

  They had put him here to punish him, to drive him insane. And it was working. There was no way a man accustomed to the finer things in life, not just to comfort but to opulence and splendor, should be forced to endure this.

  “Guard!” he screamed.

  Worst of all, he was the only one here. As far as he could tell, there were no other prisoners on this hall, and possibly none on this floor of the building. He might be the only prisoner in this entire falling down, disgrace of a wing. This place should be condemned. In a sense, it already was. Everybody was gone, except for him and the two guards that were always on duty.

  They were supposed to be responsive. They were supposed to come when he called. At the very least, they were supposed to check on him once in a while to see if he was still alive.

  He had to get out of here. He had to go anywhere but here. It was claustrophobic. It was terrifying.

  His lawyers had asked for $20 million bail. It seemed a reasonable request. Who would run away leaving that much money on the table? Denied. No bail. Darwin King was deemed too much of a flight risk.

  Privately, he had offered them everything he knew, if they would just get him out of here. Just put him in a modern facility where there were some people around. Was that so hard?

  He had offered them gold. Who had done what, where all the bodies were buried. He had been around a long time, and he had amassed a tremendous amount of dirt on a lot of powerful people. If he started to talk…

  And that was just it, wasn’t it?

  Powerful people didn’t want him to talk, did they?

  “GUARD!” he shrieked now.

  Where were the damn guards?

  * * *

  The man was a ghost.

  He wore the uniform of the federal prison system. He had a gun he didn’t need. He had a nightstick—not sure whether he would need that. Probably not. He had a flashlight, keys, and codes. He had pepper spray and a Taser. He wore big black shoes that were comfortable for walking, and that wouldn’t slip on hard surfaces.

  The funniest part? The patch on his left breast said Brown.

  It was a name that was not a name, for someone who had long ago disappeared. He wore a flat top haircut. He was big and strong, and had sharp features. He kept himself very fit. Like a laser beam, he liked to think of it. Like a rocket ship.

  Once, he had a name. As time passed, his name had changed. At this point, he’d gone by enough names that he couldn’t remember them all. This latest was his favorite, and he planned to keep it for a while. Brown. He introduced himself that way, if such niceties were necessary. Mr. Brown. He liked it. It made him think of dead things. Dead leaves in wintertime, especially. Burned out buildings with the people still inside.

  They had let him right through security as if he worked here. They had waved as if they knew him. The real guards were gone. They had taken a powder. The man had no idea where they had gone, or what they knew. He had no idea what their cover story was going to be. It didn’t matter. For now, they weren’t here.

  The cameras down here were off. That was what was promised, and he believed it. When someone told him the cameras would be off, invariably they were. Just another mystery for the newspapers and the blue ribbon investigation panels to puzzle out. Why were the cameras off? For Brown, the important point was they said the cameras would be off, and so they were off.

  Who were they? Even he wasn’t sure anymore. At one time, he had been a Navy SEAL, highly trained, highly in demand. Later, he had been on loan to the Joint Special Operations Command, and even later, the CIA. Now? Who knew? He was working for them. And they were paying him.

  They were the people who contacted him, gave him his instructions, and gave him his money. The money, and it was good money, always came in cash. That’s how he wanted it, and that’s how it came. In this case, it was in a large canvas Adidas bag, like a professional basketball player might be seen entering the bowels of the stadium carrying over his shoulder. The bag had been in the trunk of a car parked in the lot of a busy suburban mall.

  Tricky, that. The key to the car had come in the mail, no return address. A real key that you put into a slot, not one of those fancy modern clickers. You never knew what might happen when you slipped a key into a lock and turned it.

  So he’d had Mr. Clean do that instead. And it worked like a charm. The car didn’t explode. The bag was in the trunk. The money was in the bag. And Mr. Clean was here with him now.

  Mr. Clean was also wearing the uniform of a federal corrections officer. Clean was a young guy from a similar background to Brown. Former SEAL, big, good worker, very tough, no fear. Also smart, and good with new technology.

  Right now, the technology Clean was carrying was a sheet from the prison laundry. Clean had that name because he suffered from early onset male pattern baldness. Not a good look, so he shaved his head instead. He resembled the cartoon muscle man from the old cleaning product TV commercials more or less perfectly.

  Brown glanced at Clean now. Clean was wearing black leather driving gloves. That was good. He looked at the name on Clean’s left breast. Jones. It would have been funnier if it said Clean.

  Footfalls echoed on the stone floor as the two men passed the closed, windowless steel doors of empty cells. Each cell door had a narrow opening near the bottom, like a mail slot, through which the guards could shove meals to the prisoners. But there were no prisoners. There didn’t seem to be anyone down here.

  “This place is the pits,” Mr. Clean said.

  Brown nodded. “Yeah.” It was like being in a tunnel deep beneath the surface of the Earth. There was an old joke that Brown liked.

  “Did they put him in jail? No. They put him under the jail.” This place was
that joke come to life.

  Somewhere on this hallway, just up ahead, a man was screaming. It sounded like agony. It went on and on, no sign of ending, becoming increasingly loud and desperate in tone as they approached it.

  “Guard! Guard! GUARD!”

  Brown and Clean walked a bit further and came to a stop in front of a door, one among many. Clean slid a large key into the lock. The tumblers echoed in the deep stillness. The door was on some kind of slider—rollers, in all likelihood. As the door slid away, a tiny, dismal cell was revealed.

  The prisoner stood in an orange jumpsuit, facing them. He was tall and had white hair, peppered with a bit of brown or black. He had a big jaw. A person would say he was very handsome, could have probably been a model in magazines when he was younger. Marlboro man, that kind of thing.

  He could use a shave, though, and his eyes seemed deep set and hollowed out. There were dark rings beneath them. The poor man hadn’t been sleeping well. In these surroundings, who could blame him?

  “Hello, Darwin,” Brown said. “How are you tonight? Are you ready?”

  “You’re not my normal guards,” Darwin King said.

  Brown shook his head. “No.”

  Darwin’s eyes flitted to the sheet in Mr. Clean’s hands. Those eyes then came back to Brown’s. Darwin looked like he was about to cry. His chest heaved as if he couldn’t get a full breath. Brown didn’t feel anything about this at all.

  “Who are you?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re the cleaning crew.”

  “I have money,” Darwin said. “A lot of money. I can get it to you.”

  Brown shook his head sadly. “We’ve already been paid. The people who paid us frown on double-dipping. I think you probably understand.”

  Clean moved into the cell with the sheet.

  Darwin King’s body tensed as if he was getting ready to resist.

  Brown nearly laughed.

  “You can make this hard or easy,” Clean said. “On yourself. Whatever you decide, you won’t move the needle for us an inch in either direction.”