Caine was about to argue when his phone rang. He recognized the number immediately. Rebecca’s new cell number.
“Hi,” he said, holding up a finger to silence Tyler.
“Hi Tom,” Rebecca answered.
“How are you this fine evening?” The pre-arranged code phrase indicated that someone was listening to his end of the conversation. If he was alone, he would have asked, ‘How are things today?’
“Right,” she said. She sounded distracted.
Caine sensed something in her tone. A distance he didn’t like. “What’s up?”
“Something’s come up. Work. I can’t make it tonight.”
Caine’s heart sank.
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Tom, I’m flying out in an hour. Last minute op.”
Caine tried to keep his face impassive. He didn’t want to give Tyler any idea of the emotions he was experiencing right now. For the first time in their long but casual relationship, he felt he and Rebecca were not growing closer. They were slipping apart. “I guess you can’t tell me where you're going?”
“No Tom, I can't. You know how it is. But when I get back, why don’t you and I grab a bagel, from that stand you like in Harborplace?”
“Sound’s good,” Caine said, masking his relief. She was off to Great Britain. The risk to her would be low in the democratic, stable and allied nation. He wouldn’t need to worry about her.
“Sorry, Tom. I hope you didn’t go to a lot of trouble with dinner?”
“No,” he replied. “Haven’t even started. We’ll take a rain check.”
“I’d like that,” she said with longing in her voice. Then, in a professional tone, she added, “We still need to finalize that other op. I’ll be back in two days. We can pick up then. You should take some time off until then. I think we both need it.”
“Sounds good. Keep safe.”
“You too, Tom.”
The call ended.
Tyler was up on his feet handing Caine a beer.
“You got limes, bud? Can’t drink Mexican beer without limes. Damn, whatever you’re cooking smells good. Is that Thai?
Before Caine could stop him, Tyler was in the kitchen. “Well all right! If I’d known the CIA offered cooking classes, I would’ve trained in that too.” He spooned out two bowls, one for him and one for Caine. “Look, I get it. A beautiful woman standing you up hurts as bad as a gut shot. Sorry to say, I've felt both more than once. But you get the consolation prize, kid. Me.”
Caine shook his head and gave up any thought of kicking Jack Tyler out of his apartment. He took a beer and didn’t bother with the lime. He popped off the cap, and drank down half the bottle without stopping for breath.
“Jack, would you stop calling me kid?” he muttered when he finished. “You’re what, two years older than me?”
Tyler took a swig of beer and sighed. “It’s not the years, kid. It’s the millage. So where's your girl off to? London?”
Caine stared down the former 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta soldier. Tyler had guessed correctly. “What makes you say that?”
Tyler swallowed some of his food “Hey, this is really good.” He washed it down with a long sip of beer. “Not much of a code. Grab a bagel. G.B. ISO alpha-2 country codes. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out.”
Caine stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and laughed. He spooned some curry into his mouth. He had to admit, Tyler’s skills of observation and lateral thinking served him well. He would make an excellent officer. “You didn’t just turn up here for no reason, did you Jack? Guys like us don’t operate like that.”
“Damn straight,” Tyler said between mouthfuls of curry. “Except in this case, I did. After the shit you pulled in Yemen, my interest in the SOG got to me. I figured, why should you get all the fun?"
Tyler took another sip of his beer and grinned. "Look, I know I can be a son-of-a-bitch sometimes. And I know there were plenty of times my attitude almost got me kicked out of the program." He pointed at Caine with the mouth of his beer bottle. "But you put in a good word for me when I needed one.”
Caine smiled. Jack Tyler had gone above and beyond the line of duty when he helped Caine during a dangerous operation in Yemen. Jack had shown initiative in the field and coolness under fire. The man had taken out dozens of armed terrorists without breaking a sweat. He had saved Caine’s life more than once on that op. Afterwards, they moved on to new missions within their respective groups, but Caine had kept an eye on the Delta Force operative. Later, Caine had approached Tyler and asked him to join the CIA’s Special Activities Division’s Special Operations Group, more commonly known as SAD/SOG. He was glad Tyler had made it through his SOG training. Not many candidates did.
“I heard you didn’t know when to keep your mouth shut," Caine said through a grin.
Tyler grinned back. "Guilty as charged. Someone's got to show those pencil necks they don't know everything about the field. But I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I just came ‘round tonight to thank you, and celebrate. Mind if I grab seconds?” His held up his bowl. It was already empty.
Caine nodded towards the kitchen. “Help yourself.”
He did.
“So, what’s bothering you?” Tyler said, returning with his bowl piled with more food than the last serving. “I mean, besides your date blowing you off. You look like somebody just shot your dog."
“I’ve got an op I can’t make work.”
Tyler shrugged, nonplussed. “Alright. Let's spitball some ideas.”
Caine sipped his beer and thought about the confidentiality of the operation in La Paz. He really shouldn’t be discussing anything with Tyler. But he could do with some help, a fresh set of eyes. He could read Tyler in later if he had too. For now, so long as he didn’t give any specific details, it wouldn’t hurt to get another opinion. Hell, Caine needed one.
“I’ve got to bring in a double agent, one who is being closely watched by her masters. But I’ve got to make it look like she dies in the process.”
Tyler finished his beer and opened one more for each of them, even though Caine was still drinking his previous one. “Well shoot, that’s easy bud. Used to do that all the time with informants in Colombia. Drug lords down there will kill fifty men on a whim as soon as they hear the word ‘snitch’. We had to make a lot of people look like they were dead when they were singing to the DEA.”
Caine raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “How did you do it?”
“Three man team, a van, a highway, and a big payout to the local morgue and police. Worked every time. Classic rock and roll, partner, it never gets old.”
Caine took another sip of beer, then thought for a moment. “Sounds like a lot of balls to juggle all at once.”
“It can be. But once you get the hang of it, it’s like riding a bike." Jack finished his beer and slammed the empty bottle on the table. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Now, how about you tell me what this is all about?”
Chapter Nine
TUMACO, COLOMBIA
Tumaco was a shithole, but it was El Lobizon’s shithole. He owned this town.
When other men forgot this fact, El Lobizon ensured they never forgot a second time. He jogged their memories with blood and pain.
He didn’t understand why anyone would want to move in on his territory anyway. Geographically, Tumaco was unremarkable. It lay in the southwestern most corner of Colombia, near the Ecuadorian border. The peninsula city stretched out over the Pacific Ocean. Overcrowded, hot and oppressively humid, the town was a breeding ground for mosquitos and cockroaches. The drains smelled like sewers, and the sewers smelt worse.
In Tumaco, it rained almost every day. The frequent downpours flooded the gutters with a steady flow of garbage and refuse. The layers of festering debris built up over the decades. The refuse clogged the sewers, making them prone to overflowing. The pools of floating trash swirled beneath thousands of cheap homes, built on stilts covering the muck-cl
ogged waters.
Despite all this, sometimes fools sought to pry the town from El Lobizon's iron grip. He knew it was not the town itself that his enemies craved. It was the business Tumaco supported that was worth taking. El Lobizon controlled the most profitable enterprise in town… the cultivation, manufacture and distribution of cocaine. That was the prize his competitors desired to take from him. But whenever they tried, the legend of El Lobizon was always ready to put them back in their place.
On this particularly muggy, humid day, El Lobizon had arrived early at his warehouse. He needed to count his latest shipments of U.S. dollars, and inventory his supply of cocaine. Luckily for him, the old warehouse he used for such activities was not built over the stinking muck. Instead, it sat on the peninsula proper. Here, the streets were paved, the drains weren’t as clogged, and the garbage was removed by municipal services.
Inside, the warehouse wasn’t pretty. Fans suspended in the rafters did little more than push the hot, dank air around in circles. Soon El Lobizon felt beads of sweat trickling down his face. He ignored them, and continued counting his money. Sweat was a fact of life he had grudgingly grown to accept.
When he finished counting, El Lobizon wiped his hairy knuckles on his blue cotton pants and sighed. He scratched his fat, even hairier belly. He heard Cuban salsa music playing in another building he owned, a factory next door. He realized the salsa had been playing all morning. He had been so focused on his work he hadn’t noticed it before. The music entertained dozens of chica workers… girls who sewed clothes, purses and other goods. Products he sold to the growing number of Americano tourists frequenting Tumaco these days.
But the chicas, the factory and the cheap clothes were all just a front. Another business, through which El Lobizon could launder the drug money he had been counting.
Tuning out the muted salsa, El Lobizon listened instead to the other noises he had ignored all morning. Begging. Moans. Screams… Earlier, his men had dragged a traitorous underling into a dark, adjacent room. The traitor was stripped and tied to a chair, then beaten. 'Tenderized', as El Lobizon called it.
The cartel leader waited until the cries of pain faded to a quiet whimpering. Then he heaved his bulky frame into a standing position. He scratched his crotch and snorted a wad of black diesel-infused snot from his nostrils. His fingers caressed the gold-plated .357 Magnum revolver in his holster. The mother of pearl grip was decorated with a wolf motif. It matched the gold wolf's head that adorned his belt buckle. He didn’t expect to fire the weapon. It was all just part of the show.
Hernando Osorio… that was the name of the captive in the next room. Until yesterday, El Lobizon had considered the man one of his most valued operators. Osorio was responsible for eight cocaine laboratories, spread throughout the mangrove swamps. El Lobizon paused, and thought for a moment. He had to admit, Osorio ran a profitable operation. His facilities were rarely hit by the Colombian Army or DEA paramilitary teams. It would be a shame to lose him. But Osorio had fucked up. Big time.
El Lobizon paced into the dark, dingy room where Osorio was being held. Behind the bruised and sweating man, a dark figure stood in the shadows. He stepped forward into the light. El Lobizon nodded… it was Carlos Supay, his top sicario. Ironically, the cold-blooded killer who had sent so many to the grave was as gaunt and thin as a corpse. His skin had a grey pallor, like that of a dead man. But Supay’s frail appearance was deceptive… His body was all lean muscle. El Lobizon knew the killer was as nimble and vicious as a rabid monkey.
Formerly a member of AFEUR, Colombia’s Urban Counter-Terrorism Special Forces Group, Supay had jumped sides. Now, he worked for El Lobizon’s cartel. But before he was allowed to join the criminal organization, Supay had to prove his loyalty. For his initiation, he brutally murdered all the other members of his AFEUR unit. Then came their families. Wives, mothers, children… After that, the job was his.
El Lobizon's eyes traveled up and down the man whimpering in the death chair. Blood dripped like a leaky tap from Osorio’s nostrils. Supay’s knuckles were raw and bloody from the beating he had given the man.
“Jefe!” Osorio pleaded as he wriggled against his bindings. “Please, Jefe. What have I done to offend you?”
El Lobizon circled Osorio. He wanted the man to sweat, to dread whatever fate awaited him.
“El Lobizon? Por favor… Please, what have I done?”
El Lobizon placed a hand on Osorio’s shoulder. He squeezed until Osorio flinched in pain. “What did I say to you, Osorio? The last time we met.”
“What do you mean, Jefe? I’m making money, more this month than ever before. More than all your other operators!”
El Lobizon snorted. “Si, this is true. But we could be making more money than that. Much more, if you had listened to me.”
Osorio looked up at El Lobizon. He turned to Supay for guidance, but the two men kept their expressions impassive. Osorio had forgotten their last conversation, or was pretending not to have remembered. El Lobizon would make him remember.
“How much of our product do we lose, Osorio? Each time we ship into America?”
Osorio shrugged, confused where this question had come from. “Sixty, maybe seventy percent. But that's not my fault Jefe! We’ve always known that—”
“And how much do we pay the Mexicans?" El Lobizon continued, cutting the terrified man off. "How much for the so-called privilege of moving our produce over their borders?”
“Five, ten percent?”
El Lobizon growled like a dog, causing the bound man to moan in fear. “I told you, Osorio, the last time we spoke face to face. I told you I had a way to get one-hundred percent of the product into Los Angeles. A way that would keep the filthy Mexicans out of the deal. But you didn’t listen. You fucked it up! You shipped the quota I required through our usual supply routes, after I told you not to.”
The blood drained from Osorio's face. His eyes grew wide.
El Lobizon smiled. “Now you remember. You piece of shit!”
Tears streamed from Osorio’s eyes. Finally, he understood how he had failed his Jefe.
“Did you know?” El Lobizon spoke softly, preparing for the brutal shock to come. “Did you know I am the seventh son of a seventh son?”
"No… I don't—"
It was a lie, of course. A lie he had told countless times. The first of many lies he was about to utter. But the words held power, and that’s why they were worth speaking, even to a dead man.
“And did you know that I was never baptized?”
“I had heard Jefe, but it matters not… to me.”
El Lobizon pulled off his shirt and hung it on a nail in the wall. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks. Osorio stared wide-eyed, wondering what was transpiring.
“I was born in Buenos Aries,” El Lobizon said. “Did you know that?”
He took off his gun and holster, pants and y-fronts, and hung them in turn on the hook. He was as naked as Osorio now. His hairy and fat, yet solid body, now on full display.
“Everyone has heard of me, Osorio. Everyone knows my legend. I am El Lobizon. The Argentinian Werewolf.”
“You…” Osorio could barely speak. “You…?”
El Lobizon twisted and tightened all his muscles. He bent over, contorting, as if he were experiencing excruciating pain. “Yes Osorio,” he hissed through forced, labored breaths. “I am the monster your madre told you about when you were just a ninito, a little boy. I am the monster that plagued your nightmares and kept you trembling in bed in the darkest nights.”
Supay took his cue and left the room. He had seen El Lobizon’s performance many times. He knew what was coming.
As he walked past, Osorio pissed himself. He wept like a girl.
El Lobizon said nothing more.
He stepped into an adjoining room. There was a small work-light clamped to a table within. It sat next to a cage where a Doberman pinscher paced back and forth behind the wire mesh. It was silent, but its eyes emanated a
wild, hungry look. The room had been built so that whoever was bound in the chair could not see what was happening in the shadows.
El Lobizon howled like a dog, then rattled the cage again. The dog had been nurtured its whole life on human flesh. His men had tormented it since it was a pup, making it aggressive and volatile. When its movements became twitchy and frantic, El Lobizon knew the beast was ready. Picking up a long sharp stick, he prodded the dog through the bars of the cage until it growled and snarled.
When the animal howled in fury, El Lobizon released the pinscher from his cage. The snarling hound stalked from the shadows into the light of the conference room. Osorio screamed when he laid eyes on the creature. “No El Lobizon!” he pleaded, convinced El Lobizon had become the beast.
The Doberman hadn’t eaten in days. It was hungry… Ravenous. The beast sized up the bound man. Recognizing that its prey was defenseless, it bounded across the dirty floor. The ferocious dog leapt straight at the man’s throat. Its thick, savage jaws clamped down on Osorio's windpipe.
Blood sprayed everywhere, spattering the walls and floor of the room. Osorio thrashed on his chair for several seconds, until the blood loss became too much. The oxygen levels in his brain slowly faded. A few seconds later, he no longer screamed… He had no throat left to scream with.
In the factory next door, the chicas turned up the salsa music louder. El Lobizon knew they did not wish to hear the things that transpired here in his warehouse. They all knew the stories. If the Argentinian Werewolf didn’t feed each week, it would come for one of them.
As the Doberman pinscher lapped at Osorio’s flesh, El Lobizon pulled his shirt back on, and grabbed his pants. There was no need for pretense now… Only Supay was left watching. The howls of the Argentinian Werewolf would have been heard again by his many neighbors. Stories of today’s killing would spread through his town, reinforcing his legend.
“We have another problem, Jefe,” Supay said. His voice was a low, raspy growl.
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