by AJ Adams
The second I hung up the phone, I heard raised voices in the kitchen.
“Hijo de puta!” That was Quique.
“Vaya mamon!”
“You can both go fuck yourselves!” That was Chloe, her voice high and frightened.
I was there in a heartbeat.
Chloe was standing by the kitchen sink, a coffee cup in her hand. Quique was standing in front of her, facing down Pedro Rojo who was red-faced and furious.
“That bloody bitch spat in my coffee!” he yelled.
“Back off, you fucker, or I’ll have your balls!” Quique snarled back.
When they saw me, they all shut up instantly.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Pedro Rojo was glaring at Chloe, who was looking at me sideways, clearly worried about my reaction, but she was giving Pedro the stink eye.
“She’s spitting in the coffee,” Pedro snapped.
“In yours. Not in mine,” Quique retorted.
It took a few seconds to sort out. Apparently Chloe had made coffee for me, and Quique had asked if she could pour him one. When Pedro walked in, he told Chloe to pour him a coffee, too. She had, but he’d caught her spitting in it.
“What the fuck do you expect?” Quique asked him. “You’ve got the manners of a pig! You don’t order; you ask!”
“Why should I…”
I cut in before Pedro could say anything that meant I’d have to kill him. “What makes either of you think that it’s Chloe’s job to pour coffee?”
I spoke very quietly, but both of them went pale.
Pedro put his mug down at once, muttered an apology and cleared out. Quique is my second in command, so he couldn’t just vanish. He had to man up and face me.
“Sorry. I was out of line.”
“Yes.”
“I was polite, and asked,” he clarified carefully, “but I should have jumped on Pedro when he spoke disrespectfully.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry. It won’t happen again.” Then Quique showed me why I’d been right to promote him, even though he’s much younger than some of the others. He turned to Chloe and spoke in English, “I’m sorry. No offence. I had no right to ask for coffee.”
If she’d screamed at him, he would have taken it like a man, but Chloe did no such thing.
“You’re all right,” she said to Quique. “I’ll make you coffee anytime. But I can’t stand that maricón.”
Quique grinned. “Here we say hueco.”
It’s funny how friendships start.
I told Quique to finish his coffee and Chloe to go back to her notes. Then I went and took a look at those reports Arturo wanted feedback on. It didn’t take me long, and when I went back out to see Chloe, she was standing on the edge of the deck, looking out at the river. She was clearly a million miles away, so I called her name and snapped my fingers to get her attention.
She folded instantly, hitting the deck and ending up on her knees. For a crazy moment I thought she’d been shot. Then I realised what had happened. I’d read about this in the dream book. This was the fuckbot in action.
It took me just a few seconds to figure it out, but by that time Chloe was muttering furiously.
“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck! Of all the bloody awful sodding bastardly fucking fuckity fuck stupid…”
As I picked her up, I could see tears running down her face. She was angry, upset, and ashamed.
“I feel like he’s inside me,” she whispered. “I fight and fight, but I can’t get him out.”
What can you say? I’ve done some fucking awful things to people. Chloe thinks I’m a war hero because she came across my medals when she was cleaning cupboards, but the truth is that I got those because I have a talent for scaring the shit out of people.
I’m a military dirty secret. One of those people HQMC deny knowing anything about. Call it black ops, special ops, unconventional warfare, whatever. Basically, my mission was to penetrate the enemy and to “prepare the environment” for attacks by our people and allies.
In other words, I’m the one who sneaks into an Al-Qaeda camp in the dead of night and kills every third man. Why not every one of them? Because my way sends a message. Can you imagine wakening up and finding your buddy with his throat cut from ear to ear? It would take the heart right out of you, wouldn’t it? And you’d talk about it, spreading terror to anyone who happened to miss out. Mission accomplished.
After I ran into a bit of trouble one night, it took me a few months to get back into shape. I was certified unfit for combat duty, but they decided they needed my skills in Gitmo. I won’t tell you what I did there; you’d lose your lunch. I did it all, and with a song in my heart. I was a patriot, you see.
Now, looking at Chloe, I was looking it from the other side. She’d been tortured by an expert, and the scars went deep. I’m good at creating those, but fixing it? Looking at my girl, crying her eyes out, yet fighting angry, I decided that it was something I’d learn to do.
I picked her up and settled into the deck chair. “We’ll fix it. Give it time.”
“It’s been eight years!”
I gave that some thought. “You do that every time someone snaps their fingers?”
“No. Only with Rimjob.”
“And me.”
I didn’t like it, but it had to be said: Chloe recognises a monster when she sees one.
“You’re nothing like him!”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re not!”
Chloe was wiping away her tears, and punching my arm to prove her point. Which reminds me, I must teach her to do that properly. She should learn to protect herself.
“You’re good to me, Kyle.”
“Maybe, but I remind you of him.”
Chloe thought about it. “Maybe it’s because we’re fucking,” she ventured.
She was kidding herself but I didn’t have the heart to tell her so. I stroked her hair. “We’ll work this out, Chloe. Your books will have some ideas, right?”
“Yes. But it’s all about going to therapy and I don’t want to. I don’t want to go over it all again.”
“I’ll talk to some people and get some alternatives.” My Gitmo contacts would have something. Probably. “I’ll snap my fingers at you from time to time, get you used to the sound.”
“Just don’t do it when I’m bringing you a beer, or you’ll be licking the stuff up from the floor.”
Chloe was smiling again. Her eyes were all watery from crying, and she had a smudge of ink on her nose, but she looked beautiful to me. She was also determined to convince me that I’m one of the good guys.
“Thanks, Kyle. You’re the best.”
“I’m a prince,” I agreed with her.
“Dark prince, considering all the black shirts and jeans,” Chloe grinned. “You’re good to me, Kyle. I mean, you didn’t even yell at me for spitting in the coffee.”
“About that, pitufa, what were you thinking?”
“I hate them. I can’t fight them and win, so I spit in their coffee.” She looked at me and added, “Never in yours! Never!”
“Why in Pedro’s but not Quique’s?”
“Quique wasn’t with the pack.”
There must have been thirty people there when they’d stripped her and set her on that block of ice, and she’d been frightened, yet she remembered the faces. You’ll probably think me cold, but my first thought was that this was going to be very useful. Arturo and I have a state-of-the-art computer system that includes facial recognition software. I would cross-reference some of the names she was writing down with our files; maybe she could fill in some of the gaps.
You might wonder why I’m so interested in what Chloe knows. Call it changing times. In the past you could make a fortune with a suitcase of product and a gun, but these days information warfare is the most deadly weapon. Thanks to some careful work, Arturo and I can identify undercover agents from over a dozen agencies, as well as unknown friendlies. Sounds fucked up, right?
Not knowing who’s a friend and who’s not?
You’ve got to understand that we’re big business. My cartel, Los Zetas, controls 11 states in Mexico. We’ve got more than 10,000 soldiers, and that’s just enforcement. We have a drug import/export system, and we make and refine drugs, too. On top of that we have a lucrative business specialising in arms trading, people smuggling, money laundering, racketeering, and bootlegging. We operate in Mexico and the US, but our trading partners function worldwide. We’re so big that nobody knows how big we are. Our annual turnover is probably around US$40 billion.
Yeah, US$40 billion.
We’re rich, we’re armed, and we’re organised. A lot of us are Special Forces, so we’ve got the most advanced weapons and communications systems. We’ve also got some powerful enemies, and I’m not talking about the other cartels here. We’re fighting the Mexican government, including the navy, and those guys aren’t pussies.
In the last five years the death toll stands at about 75,000 – and that’s a conservative estimate. They’ve taken a lot of hits, but we’ve had our losses, too. Most recently they took down Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano, and his second- in-command, Miguel “Z-40” Angel Trevino Morales. One dead and one arrested. It took them every man they had and U.S. intelligence, and frankly, it’s made no difference. There’s always someone waiting to step up to the plate. We’re as powerful as we ever were.
Los Zetas are split up into groups, like subsidiary companies. Arturo is like the CEO of his outfit, and I’m his second-in-command. We’ve got about 5000 employees and dozens of regional trading partners, but now we’re looking to expand our business into Europe. The Middle East is also a good market: plenty of money and so many social restrictions that there’s nothing better to do than get good and high. I was thinking that Chloe might be a big help.
Chloe’s got contacts in every major city in Europe, North Africa and the Far East. What’s even better is that she had years of background on every one of them. She knows who gets along, who doesn’t, and where all the bodies are buried. With the help of her smart phone, it took her about five days to get the basics down. If you think that’s a long time, try and remember everyone you’ve met in the last eight years.
On the second day, convinced I was being gifted with a goldmine, I got a detailed description from her and put out the word that there would be a US$5000 reward for anyone who could locate two Caucasian girls recently arrested for trafficking: one standing at 160cm tall, 70kg, blonde, green-eyed and the other 170cm tall, 80kg, brunette or henna redhead, blue-eyed. Both girls travelling under aliases including but not limited to Jenny Winters, Joy Rogers, Jayne Richards, Tania Mercer, Tiffany Davis, or other names. To prevent us chasing all over the world, leads were to include photos.
Twenty four hours later, I had a hundred photos of girls sitting in jails all over the world. I discarded the black and Asian ones, and handed the rest to Chloe.
“Recognise any of these girls?”
Chloe shook her head. “Should I?”
“They’re all mules who’ve been arrested recently. I was hoping one of them was Pepper or Tania.”
Chloe stared at me in amazement. “How did you get these?”
“Put out some feelers.”
Chloe blinked. “You must have put out a reward.”
Told you she’s quick. “Sure. It’s the most efficient way to find someone.”
She hugged me, her body soft against mine. “You’re the best.”
“Show is better than tell. Let’s hit the rack and you can explain how grateful you are. In detail.”
Chloe had been with me for about a fortnight at this point, and we’d spent half of it in bed, but she kept surprising me. After Arturo’s party she began to relax and show me her real self. That’s when she went from hot to spectacular. The new Chloe used all the fuckbot tricks, but while she was licking, sucking and arching, she hummed, and even sang as she came for me. I couldn’t keep my hands off her.
She also made terrible puns. This time she went down on me, paused to kiss my balls, and giggled, “Australian kiss. Get it? Kissing down under.” Then she hummed ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as she finished the job. I’ve never had a girl like her before, and I don’t think I will ever get bored of her.
Once we got the bones of Chloe’s information together, I went to see Arturo. We had a couple of beers to celebrate our luck. Chloe’s contacts were going to make us a fortune. It’s not the money, though, as I’ve enough for a lifetime. Last time I checked my bank balance, I was a multi-millionaire, and that was like two years ago. I’m not interested in money; I just like to get into something new. Arturo’s the same. To boldly go, and all that jazz.
“Is this it?” Arturo asked after crowing over a bunch of stellar new contacts in Morocco.
“There’s always more background, but we can take our time over that.”
“So will Chloe be back at work soon?”
“No.” I didn’t even think about it. “Forget it. That’s not happening.”
“Forget it forever, or forget it until you’re done with her?” Arturo asked.
“Forever.”
“All right.” Arturo sounded very cheerful. “Let me know if you change your mind. From what I’m hearing, she’s the best.”
“Chloe’s retired.”
There was no way I was going to let her go back to a job where she risked her life every day.
“I hear you.” Arturo said. “Did you get the text? The Englishman flew out this morning. His coke is still here. He’s sending someone out next week to pick it up.”
“I heard.”
“Still certain that we can take over his network without his associates kicking back?”
“Yes. Rimjob is small-fry.”
“Is that the big head speaking or the little one?”
Arturo can really get under my skin sometimes.
“You’ll get a full report soon, but the main fact is that he had one big asset: Chloe. Now he’s lost her, he’s just a bit player. Nobody likes him, either. We can put in our own people, run his operation, and nobody will care.”
“All right. I’ll get onto it.”
My phone beeped. It was yet another text from someone claiming to know where Chloe’s friends were. I’d had hundreds of leads, all of them false. This one was the real deal, but it wasn’t good news. Tania Mercer had been incarcerated in Thailand, in the notorious ‘Bangkok Hilton’ prison. She’d hanged herself rather than face a twenty-five year sentence.
I left Arturo’s, unhappy at the thought of breaking the news to Chloe. She hadn’t said much, but from what I’d gathered, Tania had been one of Rimjob’s girls, too. Chloe wasn’t going to take this well.
When I got back, Chloe wasn’t waiting at the kitchen door. She always comes to the door the second she hears the bike. I left the Blackbird in the lane and went in to see what was wrong.
Chloe was sitting at the kitchen table, a letter in her hand. Tears were streaming down her face. Helplessly she showed it to me. It was a newspaper clipping showing Tania’s body hanging from a makeshift noose. She was wearing just panties and a bra, and her face was swollen and blue. Thai newspapers are pretty graphic; the authorities use pictures like these to send a message to potential drug traffickers. Well, those that don’t work for them, that is.
The clipping came with a note from Rimjob. Tania doing her bit for society, it said. When I read it, I made myself a promise to make Rimjob suffer for this next time we met.
I hugged Chloe. “I’m so sorry, pitufa. I only just got the news myself. How did you get this?”
“Raj handed it to one of the pack.”
“Which one?”
I fully intended to kill him, too.
“Kyle, let it be.” Chloe put her arms around me. “He didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could have found her in time.”
“That could have been me,” Chloe said soberly.
“No chance of that anymore, pitufa.”
I kissed her gently. “You’re mine now, and I’m not letting you take risks like that anymore.”
That’s when Chloe really sobbed. It took me about five minutes to figure out she was happy, but when she kissed me, and said that was what she’d been hoping for, I felt like a million bucks.
Of course it didn’t last. I was about to fuck up big time.
Chapter 10: Chloe
When Kyle told me that I’d never have to go back to my old life, I was so happy that I hid myself in the bedroom and cried. Yeah, sappy me.
I never admitted it to myself but I’d known for years that I was on a sticky wicket. I’d been caught twice before, and although I skated on one and managed to wriggle my way out of trouble the second time, I knew the odds were that I’d be caught again. Up until then, I thought I’d die in prison somewhere. Or be executed. They shoot you in Indonesia, and they hang you in Malaysia. God knows what happens in India or Pakistan. I never dared to ask.
If it had been up to me, I would have quit, but it wasn’t an option. Even if Raj got run over by a bus (a favourite dream of mine), I would have had to work for whoever took his place. If I refused to do as I was told, they’d get rid of me, probably in a spectacularly painful fashion, just to encourage the others. I’d always known I was disposable and now, with Kyle, I felt like I was a person. Like I meant something.
After I got over the me-me-me bit, I felt bad about Tania and Pepper. Poor Tania. She killed herself because she couldn’t face being locked up again. Kyle said he might not have been able to get her out, but he was saying that to be kind. As if her death was inevitable, you know? I think Kyle can probably do anything he wants to. I mean, he found Tania with practically nothing to go on. OK, she was dead, but the authorities didn’t even know her real name. Tania was buried as Muriel Woods. Muriel, can you imagine?
I was hoping like hell that Kyle would find Pepper – and soon. I was hoping that I’d given Kyle enough for him and Arturo to take over his network. If they did that, they’d kill Raj, and maybe Kyle could first make him tell where Pepper was.
Anyways, I learned a long time ago that it’s no use fretting over things you can’t change, so after I had a good cry for Tania, I focused on all the good stuff that was happening to me. Living with Kyle was so wonderful that I couldn’t be sad for long.
