by Dan Kelly
“I’ll be damned. Your cockamamie scheme just might work. Damien’s no fool and will check out this place before he makes a move, so he’ll learn all of the things you just pointed out and he might be tempted enough to give it a try. Now tell me the truth, this isn’t something you’ve been hatching all day. You were winging it weren’t you, making it up as you went along?”
With a big caught in the act smile on his face Frank said, “Would I be so reckless as to dream up something like this on the run without adequately weighing the consequences? Come on, give me a break.”
“Well, I should kick myself in the ass for considering going along with this brainstorm of yours, but your fancy thinking on the spur of the moment has a decent chance of taking Damien out of circulation, so I’m in. How are we going to know when Damien enters the building. I don’t want him in the building without us knowing about it. I want to be forewarned. I don’t want any surprises.”
“He probably won’t try to use the fire escape because it’s a little rusty and might make some noise and alert someone. The only other way in is through the front door which remains open until six o’clock in the evening and then a timer kicks in and the door automatically locks. After six, it takes a key card to open it from the outside. If we keep the door slightly ajar by putting a stone in the sash, he’ll be able to walk right in and take the stairs or an elevator up to our floor. It would look like one of those everyday occurrences that no one can anticipate and shouldn’t arouse his suspicion.”
“Okay, we can control how he enters the building, short of him breaking a window most of which aren’t easy to reach, but how do we get advance warning that he’s on the premises?”
“He won’t take the elevator because when the doors open a bell sounds. He’ll take the stairs. We could plant one of those wireless motion detectors we used on the Cervantes case at the top of the stairs on this floor. When the beam is broken it would activate a warning light which we could place in my office.”
“I forgot about those. Yeah, that would work. Okay, I’ll call Dave and have him call Julio Mendoza with our request for a little publicity.”
After Paul makes the call, there is nothing else they can do but bide their time until Damien gets the word about Fuentes and hope that he will immediately set out to do his reconnoitering and make his move on Paul.
Paul and Frank call it a night and during the drive home Paul starts wondering how his wife is going to react to his asking her to go into hiding while he uses himself as bait for a snake. “She isn’t going to be a happy camper that’s for sure.”
Chapter 50
- Maracaibo, Venezuela –
Pete and Manny have been keeping a continuous watch over Abby ever since she was admitted to the hospital to make sure nobody gets into her room to finish what was started in the beach house. There’s always one of them in her room. Abby’s doctor has arranged for them to stay in a semi-private room next to Abby’s private room so they wouldn’t have to keep going back and forth to and from the Crowne Plaza Maruma Hotel and Casino, so they checked out of the hotel. They’ve been sleeping, showering and eating in the hospital and the hospital has been very nice about letting them use the hospital laundry to keep their clothes clean. Pete would bet all he owned that Phil had pulled some strings to make that happen.
It’s a cloudy Saturday morning, but a strong wind is making headway in blowing the clouds away because periodically the sun peeks out from behind a cloud and shines through the window alongside Abby’s bed.
Pete said, “Maybe I should draw the drapes in case she wakes up and the first thing she sees is a bright light that blinds her. That would be a little scary.”
Manny said, “Just close them part way. The sun cheers up the room. I think she’d like that.”
As Pete closes the drapes with Manny supervising, they hear this scratchy voice say, “Boy, who would have thought you two were doters. My mom would be jealous.”
They were so taken back with surprise they were speechless. Finally, Pete yelled for the nurse. “Nurse, nurse, she’s awake and talking. Nurse! Where the hell is a nurse when you need one?” Laughing with relief so hard there were tears in his eyes he screams, “Is there a doctor in the house. A patient needs you in here stat!”
Manny began knocking loudly on the door, trying to get someone’s attention, but no one was at the nurses’ station and no one came running out of any of the other rooms. He tried knocking louder, but the only response he got was the pictures doing a jig on the wall. Then he really began to pound on the door and some of the pictures fell off the wall. Abby stared to laugh and said, “Calm down, guys. Waking up is not an emergency. Stop it will you? When I laugh it hurts with all these tubes in me.”
This got their attention and they settled down, but Pete was so ticked he left the room to find a nurse or a doctor he could haul back to Abby’s room to check her out. He found the charge nurse mixing some meds in a room next to the nurses’ station and she was more than a little pissed when Pete was finished chewing her out for not having anyone on the floor monitoring the patients. “Where the hell did everybody go?”
When Pete finally let her get a word in edgewise, he found out that there had been a horrific multiple car accident on one of the heavily traveled highways in the city and the nurses on the floor were called to the emergency room to help administer to the injured since no one on Abby’s floor was in any danger of a life threatening relapse.
When Pete heard this he felt like a real jack ass and apologized profusely, but his apologies fell on deaf ears. She just waved him and Manny out of the room and checked Abby’s vitals and the equipment she was hooked up to. As she left Abby’s room she said to Manny, “She’s fine. I’ll page her doctor so he can evaluate her condition. You may go back in now.” And pointing to Pete she added, “But keep him on a tight leash. He likes to bark at people.”
This got a laugh from Manny and a scowl from Pete. When they went back into Abby’s room, she had her eyes closed and they thought she had lapsed back into the coma, but she was just lying there trying to figure out what the hell had happened and how she wound up in a hospital.
When she heard them come in, she opened her eyes and asked them for some answers. “Why am I here? I don’t hurt anywhere although I have a bandage wrapped around my head. How long have I been in here and when can I go home?” What’s happened to me? The last thing I remember is Fuentes started firing at us and the bodyguards started to rush us and then there were guns being fired all around me and then nothing.”
They were both glad to hear that her memory was in good working order and were about to fill in the gaps for her when her doctor walked in and booted them out.
“You’ve had a nice long nap young lady. You took quite a blow to the skull which gave you a serious concussion. You’ve been in a coma for over a week now. Let me have a look at that head of yours.”
He removed the bandage and after examining her scalp closely said, “Boy you were a lucky gal. Another inch and we’d be burying you. As it turned out, you’ve got a new crease in your scalp and will have a thin scar where the bullet cut some skin as it made its way along the surface of the side of your head. When your hair grows back, you won’t be able to see it. You don’t need the bandage anymore. I’ll also have the nurse remove all of this paraphernalia because you don’t need it anymore either. Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving.”
“That’s a good sign. I’ll get the nurse in here and you can make your selection from our very extensive menu of very mediocre food. I’ll want to keep you here for a couple more days to run some tests to make sure you’re fit to travel and then we’ll turn you loose.”
“Can my friends come back in?”
“I couldn’t keep them out with an army.”
“Thanks for everything, doc.”
“You’re very welcome and thank you for your help in ridding my country of some very unsavory people.”
“You too are wel
come, doc.”
When Pete and Manny came back in, they filled in the missing pieces for her. “Did you find out who the old man and lovers were?”
Manny said, “From what we’ve learned so far from the bodyguard who was shot in the belly, the old man was Fuentes’s uncle and played a key role in the handling of the cartel’s money. As for the lovers, they come with the house. The lady cooks and cleans and the guy takes care of the grounds, the launch and anything that needs fixing or heavy lifting.”
“So Fuentes is still with us. What’s going to happen to him when he’s well enough to leave the hospital?”
Pete said, “Phil has big plans for him. He’s going to become the poster boy for the Caribbean community’s anti-crime programs.”
“Oh this sounds interesting. How is Phil going to get him to go along with that?”
“He’s going to appeal to Fuentes’s pusillanimous tendencies.”
“His what tendencies?”
Manny said, “For the past week he’s been reading a collection of William Buckley articles that some patient left in our room. Buckley introduced a new axiom to the world. ‘Why settle for a single, two or three syllable word when a five, six or seven syllable word will say it better.’ Pete’s become fascinated with big words now. Ignore him. I’m sure it’s just a phase he’s going through. What he means is, Phil is going to scare the shit out of him.”
Not one to take a jibe sitting down Pete came back with, “He’s just jealous because he can’t turn the pages with his flippers.”
“Now let’s play nice children. What’s Phil have in mind?”
Manny said, “He’s going to threaten Fuentes with exceedingly painful bodily harm followed by exceedingly permanent death at the hands of his people and/or competitors for sharing secrets with the authorities. If Fuentes doesn’t become co-operative and tell all to his interrogators and turn over a new leaf and speak out against all of the illegal activities taking place throughout the Caribbean, Phil’s going to tell him that word will get out anyway that he became a squealer to save his own ass from a death sentence and get a better incarceration deal or perhaps even a witness protection deal and the authorities will do nothing to protect him. Phil will in fact offer him protection, a shorter sentence under an assumed name and in a place of confinement that will be hidden from the news media and other public or private scrutiny if he takes the deal. It’s a ploy that’s been used before with a great deal of success.”
Abby said, “I don’t know about this, guys. Fuentes is one tough customer. Look what he did when faced with six people who had their weapons trained on him. He still came out of that cellar fighting. He’s not afraid to die.”
“Abby, there’s dying quickly by a well-aimed bullet and then there’s dying slowly in excruciating, torturous and humiliating pain where you wind up begging to be killed. Fuentes’s playmates in the world he inhabits know how to kill like that and he knows that. There’s a very good chance that Fuentes will take the alternative offered over that kind of an end.”
Abby smiled and said, “Well then, it looks like the good guys won this round. What’s happening with Damien Christensen?”
Pete said, “Damien has been seen in Miami by a cop friend of Paul’s and Dave tells me he and his partner are scheming to lure him into a trap in their office. I don’t know the particulars, but Paul is really pissed at his old friend and is determined to take him down. Those two can be quite creative when the need arises. They’ve pulled some amazing stunts to put Case Closed on the files of more than a few of their cases when they were City of Miami detectives. I just hope they don’t let Paul’s anger at Damien lead them into taking some foolish chances and wind up getting taken down themselves.”
“Man, this wait and see crap can really spoil your day, can’t it?”
Looking at her smiling face and appreciating her attempt to ease his concern for his brother with a little humor, his worry receded to that part of his brain that stores ‘to be continued at a later date matters’ and he smiled and responded with, “Yeah, there are definitely better ways to spend one’s time.” The way he was looking at her when he said this elicited a chuckle, a shake of her head and, “You know, Brody, you’ve really got to do something about your timing.”
Witnessing this exchange Manny said, “I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got to get lost somewhere.”
They never knew he left the room.
Chapter 51
- Miami, FL –
Paul was so right about what Nicki’s reaction would be to what he and Frank were up to, but she eventually calmed down when she finally realized that he really didn’t have any other options to choose from. His mom’s life was in danger and he had to do whatever it took to keep her safe. Nicki adores Cassandra and wouldn’t be able to live with herself if anything happened to her because she stood in Paul’s way.
So, she packed a couple of suitcases because she had no idea how long she and Cassie were going to be away, bundled up Cassie and some of her collection of games and puzzles and without telling Paul stuffed his spare Glock which he kept in his night stand in her purse which could hide a watermelon with room to spare.
The thing was enormous and she took a lot of ribbing about it, but her response always was, “If I didn’t have to carry everybody else’s junk around, I could get by with one of those anemic hankie, wallet and key holders.” And everybody that knew her would come back with some version of “Yeah, and within a week it would be bursting at the seams.”
She took the Glock because even if Damien thought Cassandra was in South America, he might somehow find out that she never left Miami and come calling. Nicki wanted to have a fitting reception for him if he did. Paul had taught her how to use it and she was pretty good with it even though she had only shot at paper targets.
With his family now safely tucked away at his parents’ house, Paul can now fully concentrate on what they’re planning for Damien. Julio Mendoza has told Dave that his story will hit the wire services and the internet tomorrow morning and it will be all over the local news channels quicker than you can say Ted Turner. Paul and Frank are hoping Damien sees the story or hears about it somewhere. That’s the one part of their plan they have no control over.
They needn’t have worried. There was no way he could not have gotten wind of what was proving to be the biggest story since President Nixon’s resignation. It was everywhere one looked or congregated. Paul and Frank started putting in longer hours, Paul out in the open with his car visible in the parking lot, Frank clandestinely with his car parked several blocks away.
However, after five days and evenings came and went without a sign of Damien poking around, they were beginning to have some doubts about their plan working. They knew he would case the place before he made his move, but so far they haven’t seen anything, sensed anything, to encourage them.
Sitting in Frank’s office a little after nine o’clock at night Paul says to Frank, “Perhaps we’re giving Damien credit for having a bigger set of balls than he deserves. Julio made no mention of Damien in his story as we requested, so our figuring he’d feel safe enough to stick around and come after me appears to be a major miscalculation. It doesn’t look like that is going to happen.”
A few seconds after these words were out of his mouth, the red light on Frank’s desk began to blink. Looking at the flashing light Paul said, “Well, well, sometimes it feels great to be wrong.”
Frank put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Shush. We’re on. So far he’s following the script. Now it’s your turn. It’s Oscar time. Make him believe you’re talking on the phone to someone about one of our clients.”
The next ten minutes were like something out of a Brad Thor novel, action packed and full of surprises.
Paul started to ad lib a conversation with his make believe caller and hoped it didn’t sound phony and mess up their plans. “Thanks for getting back to me, Ray. Were you able to dig up anything on my client’s boss that will help us
build a case against him and get my client off the hook? Uh huh, uh huh and when can you get that to me? Okay, I appreciate your ....”
