by Moulton, CD
“No comment!” Carter said sharply.
“Let’s say he could send almost anyone into an uncontrollable rage. He must have done that with the wrong person.,” Lucia replied. “Jim, he knows all about it. He just wants to know what’s behind it. He doesn’t play games. Fifty people told us that. He’s also someone who’s pragmatic enough to know when to back off of something dangerous.
“Mr. Faraday, this is about something to do with four governments. None of them like the others. He was playing a stupid game that could have ended up in a little war that would go on and on for years and resolve nothing.”
“You represent different ones? This is a first cooperative operation?”
She got a sharp look and a head shake from Friendly. Clint still could see them in the mirror.
“It’s not on that order. We’re trying to see it doesn’t get to that stage.”
Carter nodded his approval. Also in the mirror. They apparently didn’t know about Clint’s wide peripheral vision. He wasn’t looking at the mirror at any time. He was looking at Lucia when she spoke. She was a bit to the side of where he could see the mirror directly with normal vision.
Clint chatted a bit more, then said he had a date and left. He had a bit of what he needed. Benton was a side trip. Killing him had to do with something other than their assignment. There was a lot of personal hatred in the way he was killed.
He went to the Golden Grill. The D’Angelo brothers were there and casually glanced as he passed. They seemed disinterested in him and everything else to the point of total boredom, but Clint saw the watchful look in Paco’s eyes.
They didn’t look like brothers. He doubted they were. They may be cousins, but the usual family features weren’t there. Tony looked Italian and Paco looked something else. There were features that reminded him of Machian Armachev, a Latvian man in Panamá City ... more like his Man Friday, from Turkey or ... Macedonia! The nose and eyes. The skin tone. It was all there. Possibly Slavic. That area of Europe.
He was going to have to find out a lot more about that group. It was going to take a lot of digging in the hardest places. He had to know what the connection was and with whom. If they’d level with him he’d probably forget it and go fishing. The way they were handling it he would go into them as deeply as he could.
He was not going to the states to find anything. He’d had enough of that. All he’d get was a stone wall with a titanium steel one behind it. He did think maybe he had a clue. It would start with Paco D’Angelo.
He had stopped by the counter. Celia brought him out of thought with, “Clint? What’s the matter? You look like you’re in some other world all of a sudden.”
“I was trying to remember something. It’s one of those things where you know the answer as well as you know your own name, you just can’t think of it. A senior moment!
“Café negro and some hojaldres.”
“No hojaldres. Empanada or tortillas.”
“Cheese empanadas. Two.”
He went to the table beside the D’Angelos and sat. They seemed very relaxed in a wary way. When he knew he could see the watchful signs. The foot around the chair leg. The occasional darting of the eyes when someone came in or passed very close.
He felt evil. When Celia brought his order he told her to bring two cold Balboas to the two gentlemen at the next table. They heard him and tensed, but seemed not to notice to anyone not aware of what they were. When Celia brought them the beers, they managed to look surprised and to hold them up and say, “Mil gracias!” Clint waved halfheartedly and looked away, using that peripheral vision. They slightly shrugged at each other. Tony took out a cell phone and sent some kind of text message. He held the phone under the table a bit where no one could see it – he thought. About a minute later the phone vibrated enough for Clint to hear the buzz. Tony looked at the return text message and grinned at Paco. He came over and said, “Well, Faraday! Having a little fun with us?”
Clint grinned at him and said, “To tell the truth ... yup!”
He laughed. “How did you tumble to us?” Clint waved at the other chair and for Paco to come over. He came and brought Tony his beer.
“Before I ever laid eyes on you people were telling me how there were five people here who were so blah you got bored if you were in the same room. One or two in five, maybe. All five? Huh-uh!”
He laughed. “That’s a good thing to know. I guess five people, all of us so damned dull we couldn’t cut hot butter would be beyond belief.”
“Too much of the same teacher,” Clint agreed. “Lucia’s sort of good-looking and could dress to show off a really good figure instead of hiding it. She should be more gregarious and just a bit sensitive and reserved. An attitude of ‘I’ve been hurt enough with a line!’ kind of thing. Paco should be more a brooder. You could do the strikeout gigolo bit. Carter and Friendly could be the bore-you-to-tears type. Benton played his act ... to ... perfection.” Clint saw something drop into place then. He looked over Paco’s shoulder toward the street to cover that. He was looking at a large dark well-dressed man who was passing. The two turned to look.
“Sorry,” Clint said. “Someone just went by who I didn’t ... it’s business.”
“You have business with Ahmad? He didn’t say he knew anyone here,” Paco said. Tony was wide-eyed. That was a slip that should NOT have been made! That Ahmad wasn’t supposed to know them was why he was passing and not coming in. Clint remembered the old country song, “Just walk on by, wait on the corner....” about knowing someone you weren’t supposed to know. How? Why?
He remembered they had met with someone with a yacht at Drago.
“Ahmad? I was looking at the heavy man over by the parque. Bill. He owes a lot of people a lot of money. He cons them. He’s taken it too far.
“So. Who’s Ahmad?”
“A man who has too much money. We saw him in Boca del Drago and asked about him,” Tony covered. “It seems a lot of people are scared of him. You’re aware of a little of why we’re here. We want to know why he’s here. It seems an unlikely place.”
“It’s unlikely for the bunch of you,” Clint replied. “Panamá gets a hell of a lot more than its share of silly little intrigues. We’re not used to the bigger things, but we have some practice. A few of us. I’d think your CIA contacts would warn you about it.”
“We are NOT CIA! Very definitely!” Paco protested.
“Not all of you.”
“None of us,” Tony said. “We do have some contact with them, but it’s not a friendly type. They interfere with little things and they soon become big things heading in another direction.” Aumond, Friendly and Carter came in as they were saying this. They came up behind Tony as Clint said, “That’s the object.”
“Yes, except they’re so damned incompetent that it goes off in a direction nobody wanted,” Carter replied.
Clint nodded agreement. “Not a few of them are worse than what they’re supposed to be fighting.”
“It’s a fucked-up world!” Paco said sadly. “I think it would get better very fast if all of us would just go home and say, ‘Screw it!’ Things start out slow and calm, then get nasty, mostly because the wrong person is used for the wrong job.”
“Case in point. Benton.”
“Amen!” Friendly said.
They chatted for a little while. Clint didn’t learn a lot – but he knew he was looking in the wrong place for answers with that bunch. He should be concentrating on someone else.
He excused himself and went home to use the computer, thought better of it and went to Ben Longstreet’s house. Ben had been a friend since he moved to Bocas Town. No one would even consider checking his computer.
Clint asked some questions in several places.
About Benton.
Finding Hidden Things
Benton had a more complete record. He was actually born in Joplin, Missouri, 1963, and raised in Mississippi, 1971-73, and Missouri, 73-1981, with some stints in northern Louisiana, Texas a
nd Arkansas. His father was a trucker with the seniority to move to where the better jobs were. His mother was a seamstress. Both drank too much at times, but not often. Everything was normal enough for the type until he went to high school and was in ROTC. He got into some minor trouble, brawling and badass things, but went into the marines when he was eighteen. He was a normal type of recruit for the first year, then the records started getting spotty and things were deleted and changed. Clint noted the change in pattern. He went to the University of Arkansas, 1985-1987 where he was a good student the first year, then started getting into trouble with the redneck bit and dropped out the second year. There wasn’t much more. He’d worked in sketchy places at sketchy jobs. He’d moved to Panamá. Lots of information, then none.
Clint thought for a minute, then went to the university archives and started comparing what he found on the “official” sites to what was in things where people wouldn’t bother to look if they had contact with some redneck bigoted asshole even if they were working for the kinds of organizations this bunch were working for.
He was in all the yearbooks. 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988. He was a better than average student. He studied criminality and social science. He studied psychology. He got a general science degree in 1989. He had a passport since 1981 that was renewed in 1996 and was renewed this year. It was sent to the consulate at Albrook. Automatic renewal.
So. He was an educated man with a degree who had dropped out the second year because he was an extreme redneck. He then disappeared for twenty years, for all practical purposes, until he moved to Panamá in 2009. His passport was automatic renewal, which told Clint one hell of a lot more than anyone in those organizations he worked for wanted said. He died in Panamá in 2011.
Clint checked worldwide through secondary and less sites. Benton had been stationed in much of the world when he was in the marines. He had worked for the US Embassies in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Monrovia, Gibralter, France, Italy, Romania, et al – as a chauffeur or security guard. His passport was, naturally, always diplomatic. His newest wasn’t diplomatic – but was with automatic renewal?
It was stamped every year since he was in the marines except 1985 and 1986.
A redneck asshole brawler with an education who worked with the American Embassies all those years. Uh-huh, yeah and right! So. He was a CIA operative, a higher-up one, who was living in Bocas del Toro, Panamá, for two years as a retiree who couldn’t speak one sentence in passable English though he had a college degree.
Clint checked on the aunt who had died and left him the property through the registro. His aunt’s name was, apparently, Linda Peria Perlas, a Panamanian widow, 92 years old, living in Brunswick, New Jersey, since 1981 when her husband of thirty one years died..
She moved to the states in 1991 and kept the house, that had been lived in the whole time, in Bocas Town?
He checked the records. She had a permit to rent the place. The tenants were removed when she died.
So. The spinster aunt’s husband died ... this was a mess! Whatever precipitated it happened too fast for the records to be changed completely. Those records were for the general public’s use. This group obviously knew better.
So why bother at all?
Okay. Last year the group came for, apparently, the first time. It was thrown together to give Benton a little time to establish something. Clint knew all he had to know about him, now. All he needed and not of much importance was why he was used here.
Clint knew Benton spoke poor to fair Spanish. He worked in all those embassies from as little as two months to as much as nine. He probably spoke ... back to the school records.
He took Chinese, French, Spanish in college. His grades were excellent in those classes. In the 1989 yearbook he was noted as “The most versatile interpreter of the decade.” He had an ability with many languages. German, English, Chinese, French, Slavic, Arabian and Greek were listed. That was the only distinction he earned the whole four years.
He was used because he had that talent. He probably could listen and know precisely what was being said almost anywhere while acting like he didn’t know more than “Hello” in any of the places.
What could be that big here? Was he here because he spoke Spanish or because he spoke one or more of the other languages – and which ones were the important ones?
There was still a lot Clint didn’t know. He had to find out about one other. Maybe he could get answers from that angle. He thought for a few minutes, then thanked Ben and Earl for the use of the computer. Ben would immediately erase the sites he checked from the registry and history.
Clint went home, ate a snack, noted that it was dark, sighed heavily and looked at the clock.
Good lord! 1:47! Eight hours on Ben’s comp!
He showered and went to bed.
In the morning at first light Clint took his boat out and went up and around Boca del Drago. The yacht wasn’t there. He swore, then reasoned Ahmad had been in Bocas Town last night so the yacht was probably there. He went on around and through the bay to find the yacht was moored out from the marina on Isla Carenero. He took the name and noted it was flying a Libyan flag.
He went on by and back to his place. This time he went to Judi’s to use the comp. Maybe they would think to check hers, but he figured they would know he would check out Ahmad from the instant they brought his name up. The fact he acted like he didn’t register, they would know better. They would have the information that showed he didn’t miss much along those lines. Ever.
His name was (most probably) Ahmad Abdul Museffa, from Syria, living in or near Libya, though the company the yacht was registered to, that he owned the controlling interest in, was international with its main offices in Cairo and Paris. Branches were listed in more than ten countries. He was an oil broker. He was sixty four years old and a very hard-nosed businessman.
Oil? Why Panamá?
Venezuela, of course. And the canal. And the pipeline. There was talk of making an overland route for carrying huge tankers of oil across Panamá because some of them were simply too big to use the present canal. The idea that they could carry those tankers across on an overland road was ludicrous to Clint – but it was supposedly a serious discussion. The fact that most proposed routes meant they would have to climb more than a thousand meters to cross mountains would mean use of more damned fuel than the tanker could carry! His nutty author/ musician friend, Dave, had said that there was a plan to use steam and an atomic boiler for motive power. “No atomic energy for power generation, but we’ll use a mini-reactor in every truck to haul the fossil fuel that’ll have to be used because of our ‘no nuclear’ rule. Shit for brains!”
Was that what this was about? It didn’t seem likely, but you never know. As Dave noted, “Shit for brains!” Clint wouldn’t argue that one.
How to connect? How to find what was really going on? Was this another case of money-mad people trying to con a country into something stupid?
Whatever. Clint was curious enough that he’d try to learn what was happening, who, where and why. He would enjoy this kind of thing because it would entail finding things that were purposely and professionally hidden. It was the kind of thing that the computer could make obsolete. If something was done in a panic, something was done in too much of a rush, things would be missed. If they’d had time the information about Benton wouldn’t have been there. Now it was out and there wasn’t much reason to try to hide anything more. There was a definite effort by the US to clamp down on computer use and access, but that would prove to be another idiotic project to attempt. The knowledge was already out there and too many places were already holding copies of all the information. Clint didn’t doubt that fifty sites had already downloaded the information, many of them in foreign and not-at-all friendly countries, that could be used for comparison with later information. Excising Benton from the records was a futile pursuit. Even if the college records and passport records could be expunged now, they had the old records that they would certainly ch
eck. The world was about to undergo some tremendous changes. It was occurring – far too late – that the old political tricks and schemes had zero chance of working anymore. All that stuff was recorded when it came out. Changing it later was more a way to call attention to it than to hide it.
Back to the case. Maybe he should get it off his mind for awhile. Maybe he could chat with the five a bit more and learn something.
Maybe he just did learn something! It occurred to him now, anyhow!
Why were they still here? It would seem getting rid of Benton was a way to stop whatever. They would then leave. The longer they stayed the more likely connections would be made.
Why the hell was Ahmed here at all, much less still here?
There was at least one more someone, someone more important than Benton, involved and here. Benton was killed because he could expose that someone, not because of what that someone was up to.
That was really scary. Clint could be in a very bad spot if he discovered who and/or what. His life wouldn’t be worth the old “two cents” the minute he had answers to those two questions.
That meant he’d go after answers a lot more intensely – and one hell of a lot more carefully.
Scientific Non-facts
The five were sitting at the Grand Muralla having breakfast so Clint went in to join them.
“Learn anything new?” Aumond asked.
“New? About what? Oh – your affairs,” Clint answered. “When I have the time. I’m not too interested unless someone else is killed. The one thing I’ll warn you about, something everyone around here knows about me, is not to involve any innocent people with this kind of silly crap. That goes triple for the Indios here, who aren’t involved in any way. They don’t know anything and they couldn’t care less about these idiotic intrigues.
“I suppose it’s about the oil. That’s beyond silly, anyhow. All anyone has to do is think about it for two minutes and they’ll know it’s stupid. I don’t think anyone can con Panamá into sinking a penny into that fantasy.”
