by Dan Kelly
Pete’s thinking that since so much time has elapsed he might have died during the kidnapping, an errant bullet, a heart attack or stroke, an accidental fall, any of these things or something else might have done him in and a dead man would have no value for the kidnappers. They’d just toss the body overboard and move on.
Despite his misgivings about the outcome of the search for Bob Trumball, he urged Millie to keep her hopes up and suggested that she consider hiring a private investigator to help in the search for her husband. He did this because he also has misgivings about how diligent the Barcelona police are being in their pursuit of the people behind the kidnapping and piracy attempt. Right or wrong, he is developing a very bad feeling about the integrity of some of the police departments in the Caribbean region.
Late that afternoon Pete and Abby started to make the rounds of the shops and restaurants in the marina, striking up conversations with employees and customers about what it is like to live and work in the area, asking them what they consider to be the good and bad things they have to contend with in the area. For the most part, people were willing to express their feelings about Santo Domingo, especially when they found out that what they had to say might wind up in a book. There were some though that preferred to keep their opinions to themselves, as though they might get into trouble if they shot their mouths off. One in particular, the harbor master, was noticeably taciturn and Pete sensed a little fear in his eyes during Abby’s attempts to get him to open up.
As evening set in, they started to make the rounds of the night spots Abby had targeted and hit the jackpot at their first stop. Some kind of celebration was going on and the liquor was flowing freely to anyone who wanted to imbibe and participate. Apparently, it was a bachelor party of sorts for the son of some big wig. As Pete and Abby squirmed their way to the bar, they wound up next to and slightly behind a brute of a man that would have given Manny a run for his money in any physical altercation who upon checking out Abby pushed people aside to make room for her at the bar.
“Thank you, senor. What’s going on?”
“We are celebrating the upcoming marriage of Juan over there. His father Senor Fuentes is pulling out all the stops because he never thought he would see the day when his favorite son would decide to settle down. He …” Before he could say another word, someone grabbed his arm and pulled him away to a boisterous group down at the end of the bar. The name Fuentes, although quite a common Hispanic name, kicked Abby’s brain into high gear searching her memory for every Fuentes she knew something about. A few seconds later a picture of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes came up on her internal screen.
“Well now, what have we here? Is Juan’s father the reputed leader of the Juarez cartel? The Juarez cartel is at war with the Sinaloa cartel and has been for some time now. Although the operations of the two groups are focused on Mexico and the United States, who’s to say the Juarez cartel doesn’t have growing pains? If the relationship is for real, Juan is making himself an easy target for someone from the Sinaloa cartel to take down.”
Looking around the room, she sees no one that appears to be watching out for the safety of the groom to be and is amazed at the arrogance of the bravado. From what she’s learned about the Sinaloa cartel, sticking your neck out like this is a very dumb move.
A few seconds later she was proven correct as shots were fired into a group of well-wishers surrounding the man of the hour. As bodies fell to the floor and guests scrambled to get out of the line of fire, Pete and Abby dove over the bar to get some cover. Looking into the mirror behind the bar, they could see two men standing in the doorway of the lounge firing automatic pistols non-stop at the spot where they last saw Juan.
As suddenly as the shooting started, it stopped. The ensuing silence was eerie, like waking up from a bad nightmare. Pete peeked over the bar at the doorway and saw that the shooters were gone. A few seconds later, bedlam took over as people began to clamor, wail, swear and scramble for the door. Pete walked out from behind the bar and over to where a lot of bodies lay on the floor, hoping he would find some of them alive. There was no movement. No one was writhing in pain. Everybody who was hit was dead. There was no sign of Juan. Somehow he had managed to escape the slaughter.
When Abby joined him, she spotted a doorway that led to a storeroom. She checked it out and found that it had another exit with a wide sliding door that opened onto a platform used for loading and unloading trucks. It was partially opened. “He wasn’t as foolhardy as I thought. He had an escape route set up if some uninvited guest decided to crash his party. He probably had a car parked at the platform.”
She returned to Pete, told him what she found and said, “Let’s split before the police show up.”
As they were driving back to the Vuelta de Lujo Pete said, “I wonder where Manny’s people were during all that shooting. I expected them to come to our rescue with guns blazing.”
“They did, but you nor anyone else saw them.”
“And how do you know this?”
Smiling, she handed him her cell phone. “Check messages.”
There was only one. “Party crashers neutralized and the trash was taken out.”
“I got that soon after the shooting stopped while you were checking for survivors. They were the ones who stopped it.”
“Why bother to remove the shooters’ bodies? Why not let the police identify them and handle their disposal?”
“This way provides an opportunity for us to spread misinformation to a lot of the cartels in the region as to what and who was behind the attack on Juan. The news media will have a field day with this kind of story and hopefully the seeds of revenge will take root and help to put all of these piranhas at each other’s throats. Don’t forget, that is our primary goal.”
Pete didn’t say anything, but he’s thinking, “This lady is out of my league in a lot more ways than dating. She was one cool customer when the lead was flying in that lounge. Her world is not even in my galaxy.”
“Pete, the players in the cartel world are continually changing and their structures are always in a state of flux. These cartels are made up of numerous cells that have specific responsibilities and unlike the old Mafia who only killed their own these cartels kill whole families to make a point and keep their people in line. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Medellin and Cali Columbian cartels were the big boys on the block, replacing the famous French Connection, and now they have been replaced by others just as ferocious, diabolical and greedy for money and power. We’ve managed to stay fairly well plugged into the drug scene, but it’s impossible to know who all the players are and I’m just talking about the drug lords. There are a lot of other kinds of smuggling going on as well, including human trafficking. On top of all this, we have piracy to contend with. The most effective way to deal with these threats is to instigate an atmosphere that will motivate them to take down each other.
“The need for the utmost secrecy where Sea Wasp and its mission is concerned is based on the fact that in more than a few cases members of governments and police departments in the region have been found to be working for these cartels. Great care has been exercised in selecting the participating members of Sea Wasp to avoid any chance of one of the bad guys slipping by and gaining access to our plans. The reason I wanted to get out of there before the police arrived was because I didn’t want any attention drawn to us and perhaps after some painful interrogation lead to the disclosure of Sea Wasp’s existence.”
“So, how can what happened in that lounge tonight be used to our advantage?”
“I believe Juan Fuentes might be the eldest son of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the reputed leader of the Juarez cartel. The Juarez and Sinaloa cartels have been at war for a while now, so in all likelihood the shooters were Sinaloa hit men. How did the shooters know that Juan would be in that lounge tonight? Someone had to tell them. That means there has to be a snitch in the Juarez organization. Vicente is no dummy. He’ll come to the same conclusion pretty damn quick and t
he tension in his organization is going to increase substantially as he searches for the traitor. His people are going to be afraid that if Vicente just thinks someone might be the leak that person will cease to exist. That kind of fear can be very disruptive to an organization.
“Vicente will probably assume that the shooters were Sinaloa men, but if we can give him reason to think that one or more of the cartels in this new consortium might also be involved in the attempt on his son’s life, we can really give him a headache he’ll remember. He’ll have to confront these other cartels, he’ll accuse and they’ll deny and then, hopefully, it will be party time and the confrontations will lead to open conflicts.”
“You know, Abby, gang wars have been known to hurt innocent people as well. They can get out of hand.”
“Drugs hurt innocent people too and they’re already out of hand.”
“You made your point. So, how will this misinformation be spread?”
“That will be up to Phil Desoto and his higher ups.”
“Well, what do you want to do now? The evening’s still young. Do you want to hit some more clubs?”
“No, I think any of the bad guys who might be out and running about will run for cover when they hear about what just happened and the rumor mill is very efficient when it comes to stuff like this. It won’t be long before the word hits the street.”
“Sometimes the rumor mill can be very educational. People will be talking about this shooting for days, everyone wanting to get in their two cents about what was behind it, people wanting to show off by impressing anyone who will listen that they are in the know by saying things they have heard or have first-hand knowledge of. Sometimes there’s more than a kernel of truth in what they’re saying.”
“Hmm. You might have something there. Okay, the next stop on my list is Lorenzo’s Latin Lounge. It’s supposed to have great entertainment, a huge dance floor and they’ll let you drink for free all evening if you can stump their bartenders on how to mix a drink. They have a bartender’s guide with the recipes for drinks from all over the world. The catch is the requested drink has to be in that book.”
“It sounds like my kind of lounge.”
Chapter 9
-Lorenzo’s Latin Lounge, Santo Domingo-
When they walked into Lorenzo’s they were blown away. Pete mumbled, “Wow, I’ve never been in a lounge like this.”
Abby mumbled, “Me either. Elegant and exquisite aren’t words that come to mind when I enter Sergio’s, my favorite haunt back in Miami. Homey, comfortable, affordable, yeah. Elegant, exquisite, no way. This place looks like a Hollywood movie set.”
A beautiful long legged Latin lovely with a tight low cut dress slit all the way up to her hip approached them and said, “Good evening. My name is Reyna. I’m one of the hostesses at Lorenzo’s. I can see from your faces that this is your first visit to our lounge. Would you like to sit at the bar or one of the tables surrounding the dance floor?”
Pete looked at Abby for her preference and she responded with, “The bar please.”
Actually, there were three bars, one along each side wall and one along the wall where the entrance bisected it. It was a huge place and at the other end of the large room was the dance floor which was also quite large. There was a stage at the back of the dance floor where a combo was playing some salsa music and there were a few dozen couples out on the floor tripping the light fantastic.
The bars were made of some dark material which made Pete think of ebony or perhaps dark mahogany and their moldings were ornately carved with some kind of intricate motif. Beautiful crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and electric sconces decorated the walls, but the lighting was subdued. The dance floor was made of some kind of composite with floral and sundial designs and what appeared to be Aztec symbols imbedded in it. There were large gilded framed mirrors behind the bars and shelves stocked with all kinds of spirits in bottles of every size, shape and color one could imagine.
The lounge was about three quarters full and there was animated conversation and laughter taking place everywhere they looked. They had just been served their drinks, a margarita for Abby and a gin and tonic for Pete, when a voice behind them asked, “Pete? Pete Brody?”
As Pete turned to see who was behind him he said, “The last time I checked.”
He was dumbfounded to see an old friend of his brother Paul who was supposed to be dead. “Get away from me, Damien, I don’t talk with ghosts.”
Damien Christensen laughed and said, “I guess you haven’t heard, I was resurrected three months ago.”
“Abby, this is Damien Christensen a friend of my brother’s and he’s supposed to be at the bottom of the Atlantic somewhere. He always did have the habit of showing up unexpectedly in the damndest places and this is the damndest yet. How come you’re still walking around with us mortals?”
“It’s a long story, so I’ll give you the condensed version. As you know, I work for one of the famous lettered organizations and something I was working on made me a target for elimination because I was scheduled to testify against a very bad man and his cronies who were heavily engaged in corrupt union and political activities. The powers that be thought it would be good for my health if I disappeared, so they arranged for my plane to crash in the ocean off the coast of Delaware. When I showed up at the courthouse to testify, the bad man had a bad day. He had a stroke and succumbed and without his intimidation his buddies were more than willing to plea bargain for lighter sentences and their organization was toppled. I’m here on vacation for a week and then I have to report back to work in D.C.”
Abby said, “I remember seeing something about the crash on TV. It was supposed to be a small private plane that had engine trouble and had to ditch. An air search was conducted, but no sign of the plane or the pilot was found. Are you a pilot?”
Pete answered for him. “Ever since he was seventeen years old. His dad is a commercial airline pilot.”
Damien asked, “What brings you here to this den of iniquity?”
Feeling a little guilty, Pete lied to his brother’s friend and spouted off his cover story. “I’m chauffeuring Abby around the Caribbean. She’s doing research for a book she’s planning to write. Oh, I’m sorry. The shock of seeing you alive and well made me forget my manners. Abby Keenan meet Damien Christensen.”
“What kind of book are you planning to write, Abby?”
She told him and adroitly wove into her explanation the recent acts of piracy and smuggling she had come across and asked him if he knew anything about them. She didn’t mention anything about what they had witnessed earlier that evening.
It was like a switch had been thrown. One minute they were talking with his brother Paul’s friend and the next an agent of the U. S. government. Damien looked intently at Abby for a few seconds with what Pete thought was a suspicious look before responding. “Only what I’ve read in the papers or heard on TV.” Pausing for a brief moment he then added, “If I were you, I’d be careful about delving into those activities too deeply. If you talk to the wrong people, you could be putting yourself into a very precarious situation.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll be careful.”
“Good. Well, it’s been nice to see you again, Pete. Please let Paul know that I’m still alive and kicking and will try to touch base with him when I get back to D. C. I’ve got a late dinner date so I’ve got to split. Take care.”
After Damien left, Abby said, “Your brother’s friend is nobody’s fool. I don’t think he entirely bought our story.”
“I agree. I also don’t think he’s here on vacation. I think he’s here on assignment. He might very well be doing what we’re doing, but for different people. Damien wouldn’t come to the Caribbean on vacation. He hates warm, humid climates. He’d head for someplace like Western Canada or Aspen, Colorado. We’d better clue Dave in. If Damien is conducting an investigation for another government entity, he might inadvertently throw a monkey wrench into what Phil and h
is higher ups are planning.”
